We need cards.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
You have to “certify” in our HR system that you’ve gotten it with the stipulation that anyone found to be faking it will be fired. So, honor system but with a warning.

Just curious, but how would your employer determine you'd lied about getting the vaccine? They don't have access to your medical records unless you grant them that access, which you'd have to be insane to allow.

They could do to you what mayors did to businesses. Comply or we yank your business license.

In this case they found bump you off your health insurance.

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:
Are there still local ordinances in place about masking? If not, you might refer the employee to the Goodwill company policy here. Everything is spelled out in the first section.

https://www.amazinggoodwill.co...ng-donating-may-2020

Thanks for that. I think I'll head down there later this week, I'm feeling feisty. If there are local ordinances requiring it, then Safeway, Costco and Fred Meyer aren't in compliance, so I'm guessing not.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
... there’s talk that Victoria’s latest lockdown may be extended because…OMFG you’re up to 51 cases of Covid.

Yes, the 7 day snap lockdown has been extended for another ... week. And may even extend to include the Queen's Birthday weekend of June 12-14. Ain't that grand?

I'm not justifying this at all.
360 exposure sites listed. If you at a site on the dates listed, isolate and get tested.

The State has gone from 0 cases to ... 60 positive COVID cases. No, hospitals/ICU's are not overwhelmed. The positive cases are self-isolating.

The MSM are a joke, using key words to incite fear.

What has been a result of this latest development, is a 5x increase in testing; result 6 new positive cases just today.
And an increase in vaccine doses administered. Not aware of the Pfizer to AstraZeneca numbers.

Five reasons to leave home for Melbourne city residents, including shopping for food and supplies, authorised work and study, care and care giving, exercise and getting vaccinated.

This is the fastest moving outbreak seen to date - the Indian B.1.617 variant.

There is a rising element of 'why?'.

And a reminder to members, that Australia's constitution is based on the Westminster-style system (same system used in Britain) - a federation under a constitutional monarchy and outlines the structure and powers of the federal executive government, legislature, and judiciary.

"We The People", amendments and Bill of Rights are not present.

--chris

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
Fauci, Peter Daszak from EcoHealth, the CCP, and all their useful idiots in the MSM and Big Tech succeeded in their goal:

Deny the possibility of the lab leak long enough for the CCP to destroy all of the evidence, and for things to start to get back to normal. Now that they are "allowing" discussion of the lab leak possibility due to mounting circumstantial evidence, any actual inquiry will find zero proof. At least not enough to meet the burden of proof in court.

Now that everything has been "cleaned", people can speculate as much as they want and intelligence agencies can talk about likelihoods. But it's too late for much else.

There is no doubt this virus escaped from the sloppy lab in Wuhan. Daszak knew it.


Virologists started studying bat coronaviruses in earnest after these turned out to be the source of both the SARS1 and MERS epidemics. In particular, researchers wanted to understand what changes needed to occur in a bat virus’s spike proteins before it could infect people.

Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, led by China’s leading expert on bat viruses, Shi Zheng-li or “Bat Lady,” mounted frequent expeditions to the bat-infested caves of Yunnan in southern China and collected around a hundred different bat coronaviruses.

Shi then teamed up with Ralph S. Baric, an eminent coronavirus researcher at the University of North Carolina. Their work focused on enhancing the ability of bat viruses to attack humans so as to “examine the emergence potential (that is, the potential to infect humans) of circulating bat CoVs [coronaviruses].” In pursuit of this aim, in November 2015 they created a novel virus by taking the backbone of the SARS1 virus and replacing its spike protein with one from a bat virus (known as SHC014-CoV). This manufactured virus was able to infect the cells of the human airway, at least when tested against a lab culture of such cells.

The SHC014-CoV/SARS1 virus is known as a chimera because its genome contains genetic material from two strains of virus. If the SARS2 virus were to have been cooked up in Shi’s lab, then its direct prototype would have been the SHC014-CoV/SARS1 chimera, the potential danger of which concerned many observers and prompted intense discussion.

“If the virus escaped, nobody could predict the trajectory,” said Simon Wain-Hobson, a virologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.

Baric and Shi referred to the obvious risks in their paper but argued they should be weighed against the benefit of foreshadowing future spillovers. Scientific review panels, they wrote, “may deem similar studies building chimeric viruses based on circulating strains too risky to pursue.” Given various restrictions being placed on gain-of function (GOF) research, matters had arrived in their view at “a crossroads of GOF research concerns; the potential to prepare for and mitigate future outbreaks must be weighed against the risk of creating more dangerous pathogens. In developing policies moving forward, it is important to consider the value of the data generated by these studies and whether these types of chimeric virus studies warrant further investigation versus the inherent risks involved.”

That statement was made in 2015. From the hindsight of 2021, one can say that the value of gain-of-function studies in preventing the SARS2 epidemic was zero. The risk was catastrophic, if indeed the SARS2 virus was generated in a gain-of-function experiment.

Inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Baric had developed, and taught Shi, a general method for engineering bat coronaviruses to attack other species. The specific targets were human cells grown in cultures and humanized mice. These laboratory mice, a cheap and ethical stand-in for human subjects, are genetically engineered to carry the human version of a protein called ACE2 that studs the surface of cells that line the airways.

Shi returned to her lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and resumed the work she had started on genetically engineering coronaviruses to attack human cells. How can we be so sure?

Because, by a strange twist in the story, her work was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). And grant proposals that funded her work, which are a matter of public record, specify exactly what she planned to do with the money.

The grants were assigned to the prime contractor, Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance, who subcontracted them to Shi. Here are extracts from the grants for fiscal years 2018 and 2019. (“CoV” stands for coronavirus and “S protein” refers to the virus’s spike protein.)

“Test predictions of CoV inter-species transmission. Predictive models of host range (i.e. emergence potential) will be tested experimentally using reverse genetics, pseudovirus and receptor binding assays, and virus infection experiments across a range of cell cultures from different species and humanized mice.”

“We will use S protein sequence data, infectious clone technology, in vitro and in vivo infection experiments and analysis of receptor binding to test the hypothesis that % divergence thresholds in S protein sequences predict spillover potential.”

What this means, in non-technical language, is that Shi set out to create novel coronaviruses with the highest possible infectivity for human cells. Her plan was to take genes that coded for spike proteins possessing a variety of measured affinities for human cells, ranging from high to low. She would insert these spike genes one by one into the backbone of a number of viral genomes (“reverse genetics” and “infectious clone technology”), creating a series of chimeric viruses. These chimeric viruses would then be tested for their ability to attack human cell cultures (“in vitro”) and humanized mice (“in vivo”). And this information would help predict the likelihood of “spillover,” the jump of a coronavirus from bats to people.

The methodical approach was designed to find the best combination of coronavirus backbone and spike protein for infecting human cells. The approach could have generated SARS2-like viruses, and indeed may have created the SARS2 virus itself with the right combination of virus backbone and spike protein.

It cannot yet be stated that Shi did or did not generate SARS2 in her lab because her records have been sealed, but it seems she was certainly on the right track to have done so. “It is clear that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was systematically constructing novel chimeric coronaviruses and was assessing their ability to infect human cells and human-ACE2-expressing mice,” says Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University and leading expert on biosafety.

“It is also clear,” Ebright said, “that, depending on the constant genomic contexts chosen for analysis, this work could have produced SARS-CoV-2 or a proximal progenitor of SARS-CoV-2.” “Genomic context” refers to the particular viral backbone used as the testbed for the spike protein.

The lab escape scenario for the origin of the SARS2 virus, as should by now be evident, is not mere hand-waving in the direction of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It is a detailed proposal, based on the specific project being funded there by the NIAID.

Even if the grant required the work plan described above, how can we be sure that the plan was in fact carried out? For that we can rely on the word of Daszak, who has been much protesting for the last 15 months that lab escape was a ludicrous conspiracy theory invented by China-bashers.

On December 9, 2019, before the outbreak of the pandemic became generally known, Daszak gave an interview in which he talked in glowing terms of how researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been reprogramming the spike protein and generating chimeric coronaviruses capable of infecting humanized mice.

“And we have now found, you know, after 6 or 7 years of doing this, over 100 new SARS-related coronaviruses, very close to SARS,” Daszak says around minute 28 of the interview. “Some of them get into human cells in the lab, some of them can cause SARS disease in humanized mice models and are untreatable with therapeutic monoclonals and you can’t vaccinate against them with a vaccine.

“Interviewer: You say these are diverse coronaviruses and you can’t vaccinate against them, and no anti-virals — so what do we do?
“Daszak: Well I think…coronaviruses — you can manipulate them in the lab pretty easily. Spike protein drives a lot of what happen with coronavirus, in zoonotic risk. So you can get the sequence, you can build the protein, and we work a lot with Ralph Baric at UNC to do this. Insert into the backbone of another virus and do some work in the lab. So you can get more predictive when you find a sequence. You’ve got this diversity. Now the logical progression for vaccines is, if you are going to develop a vaccine for SARS, people are going to use pandemic SARS, but let’s insert some of these other things and get a better vaccine.” The insertions he referred to perhaps included an element called the furin cleavage site, discussed below, which greatly increases viral infectivity for human cells.

In disjointed style, Daszak is referring to the fact that once you have generated a novel coronavirus that can attack human cells, you can take the spike protein and make it the basis for a vaccine.

One can only imagine Daszak’s reaction when he heard of the outbreak of the epidemic in Wuhan a few days later. He would have known better than anyone the Wuhan Institute’s goal of making bat coronaviruses infectious to humans, as well as the weaknesses in the institute’s defense against their own researchers becoming infected.

But instead of providing public health authorities with the plentiful information at his disposal, he immediately launched a public relations campaign to persuade the world that the epidemic couldn’t possibly have been caused by one of the institute’s souped-up viruses. “The idea that this virus escaped from a lab is just pure baloney. It’s simply not true,” he declared in an April 2020 interview.

From <https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/>

So...who said this on February 5, 2020 to a colleague in an email that was recently released?

quote:

"Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection. The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through material. It might, however, provide some slight benefit in keep out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you."

"I do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly since you are going to a very low risk location."

The "book" is 70 pages long apparently.

A very good friend of mine just had a stroke. He's not even 40 years old and in great health. His doctors can't figure it out. Well, he recently got the the damned Pfizer vaccine, you assholes!

He's still military so was strong armed to get it. This shit is insane. People need to go to jail.

I'm not going to post a wall of text because I have a tendency not to read those. But this is worth the read. 18 reasons not to get the vaccine.

quote:

#1: VACCINE MAKERS ARE IMMUNE FROM LIABILITY


The only industry in the world that bears no liability for injuries or deaths resulting from their products, are vaccine makers.


First established in 1986 with the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, and reinforced by the PREP Act, vaccine makers cannot be sued, even if they are shown to be negligent.


The covid-vaccine makers are allowed to create a one-size-fits-all product, with no testing on sub-populations (i.e. people with specific health conditions), and yet they are unwilling to accept any responsibility for any adverse events or deaths their products cause.


If a company is not willing to stand behind their product as safe, especially one they rushed to market and skipped animal trials on, I am not willing to take a chance on their product.


No liability. No trust.

Link to the 17 other reasons.

Shouldn't we be hearing from Dr. Birx?

It looks like last night was Dr Fauci night on Fox News. Tucker Carlson, Hannity, McCallum, & Ingram all paid their respects to the great one.

It'd be nice to see the little twat go to jail, but I think what would absolutely destroy this self important little asshole would be if everybody just ignored him.

quote:

#1: VACCINE MAKERS ARE IMMUNE FROM LIABILITY


The only industry in the world that bears no liability for injuries or deaths resulting from their products, are vaccine makers.

Isn't the same true of firearms manufacturing

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:

quote:

#1: VACCINE MAKERS ARE IMMUNE FROM LIABILITY


The only industry in the world that bears no liability for injuries or deaths resulting from their products, are vaccine makers.

Isn't the same true of firearms manufacturing

No
When used as directed the manufacture of vaccines bears no liability for injuries or deaths resulting from their products.

When used as directed if a firearm were to be defective, causing injury to the shooter, the firearm manufacturer is not protected from liability.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
So today my defense contractor employer officially began the whole “vaxxed can remove masks” thing but it actually appears there’s FAR more people than I realized who aren’t getting Saint Fauci’s Holy Jab because there were way more masked people there today than I had expected.

Went to Costco yesterday, they changed the signs to masks required if not vaccinated. I didn't see one person without a mask, not a single one. I live in a liberal county, so much do that we've been on the national news a couple of times recently when parents fight back against Critical Race Theory. It's a virtue signal to wear a mask, don't want to be confused with a conservative accidentally, that's a good way to catch an ass beating. Besides the virtue signal, people are terrified after 15 months of being told that we are in the middle of the Bubonic plague and we are all going to die. We've literally given tens or hundreds of millions of people PTSD.

My mom didn't go out for her birthday just to be safe, even though she's been vaccinated for a couple of months.

Looks like you have legal open carry Skins. If you really wanna make their heads pop while you're maskless........

^^My area has a few places staying with 'mandatory masks,' but many are switching to 'recommended for non-vaccinated.' There's LOTS of people, ~2/3-ish, still wearing masks. There was a woman complaining to a store staff member about someone not wearing a mask, and I saw an older fellow at a 'hand sanitizing station' double masked. Perhaps he had pre-existing/unique condition(s).

I think by 4th of July, outside of the big 'lib' areas, mask wearing is going to largely old news for most.

The big thing for most parents is how is school going to look for kids, particularly younger kids, in the fall. My area seems to be trying to get back to full-time in-school, which is going to be critical to getting things back up and running. Parents of younger students have been really having to adapt to make this 'three weeks to flatten the curve' work for the past 16+ months.

$.02 worth,
Boss

I saw a guy driving in a car by himself double masked with what appeared to be a mask on underneath a respirator. All you could see was the respirator with the strap around the back of the neck and a harness up at the top of head, but there were these two straps coming out the side underneath, looped around his ear.... I’ve joked about wearing a gas mask out in public, but haven’t done it, so I don’t know if he was being serious or not, but I’m guessing it probably wasn’t a joke.

In a car, by himself, mind you.

It may be time to break out the gas mask, mud boots, buy heavy rubber gloves, a Tyvek suit, and go to Costco with a laminated “COVID” card hanging from a neck lanyard and walk around acting like I know something they don’t.

Amazon now has a wide variety of vaccine card holders that you can wear around your neck so you can display your card proudly!
Another opportunity to turn "crisis" into cash.

quote:

Originally posted by Boss1:
The big thing for most parents is how is school going to look for kids, particularly younger kids, in the fall. My area seems to be trying to get back to full-time in-school, which is going to be critical to getting things back up and running...
Boss

I've met a half dozen families this past year that moved to Florida because of this. School started late, but it was in person for those that chose it. We were out 2.5 months starting at spring break, which was bad enough. I can't fathom what people are doing with their kids out for an entire year.