COVID-19 News and Discussions

[wjfox]

Antivaxers threaten ‘radical action’ after boxing drills on beach

Saturday January 01 2022, 12.01am, The Times

Thousands of anti-vaccine activists have joined a group running combat training sessions and threatening “direct action” in a sign that conspiracists have become more radical.

In the past fortnight the group, Alpha Men Assemble, has hosted several meetings for “training and strategy tactics”, The Times can reveal.

At its most recent session, on a beach at Littlehampton, West Sussex, on Tuesday, up to 100 activists took part in boxing drills and a scrummaging exercise, in which two groups of dozens of people tried to push each other back.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/anti ... -h3rf9khkq

[Yuli Ban]

[wjfox]

The Covid-19 case surge is altering daily life across the US. Things will likely get worse, experts warn

Updated 1947 GMT (0347 HKT) January 1, 2022

(CNN) – The US is ringing in the new year amid a Covid-19 surge that experts warn is exploding at unprecedented speed and could alter daily life for many Americans during the first month of 2022.

"Omicron is truly everywhere," Dr. Megan Ranney, a professor of emergency medicine at Brown University's School of Public Health, told CNN on Friday night. "What I am so worried about over the next month or so is that our economy is going to shut down, not because of policies from the federal government or from the state governments, but rather because so many of us are ill."

The nation broke records at least four times this week for its seven-day average of new daily Covid-19 cases, reporting an all-time high of more than 386,000 new daily infections Friday, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. The high case count is already causing disruptions in the country.

In New York City, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is plagued with staffing issues and announced three subway lines -- the B, Z and W -- which service various parts of the boroughs, have been suspended.

"Like everyone in New York, we've been affected by the COVID surge. We're running as much train service as we can with the operators we have available," the MTA wrote on Twitter Thursday.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/01/heal ... index.html

[erowind]

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[Yuli Ban]

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[Yuli Ban]

The last and final CDC Covid case forecast was off by 300%

That’s not off by 300%

That’s off by 1,200%, an entire order of magnitude. It’s significantly off even on a logarithmic scale.

[Yuli Ban]

[Xyls]

Interesting follow up from an article I posted yesterday about the upper respiratory infections from Omicron. It is quite possible that the reason Omicron goes this route may be due to vaccination in general. I remember reading an article awhile ago that the antibodies given by vaccination are primarily directed at the lungs/blood and not the upper respiratory tract, which might explain the article on Omicron not getting to the lungs. This would be bad news for the unvaxxed if true as it would likely mean Omi = Delta for those folks.

[andmar74]

https://www.reuters.com/business/health ... 021-12-31/

Omicron hospitalisation risk around one third of Delta, UK analysis shows

[wjfox]

France cuts isolation times and plans crackdown on unvaccinated amid record surge in Covid cases

By Tara John and Sandrine Amiel, CNN
Updated 1249 GMT (2049 HKT) January 2, 2022

Paris (CNN) – The Omicron variant's rapid spread across France has prompted the government to slash Covid-19 isolation times for vaccinated people and move to further isolate the unvaccinated from public venues in a bid to ease the financial and social burdens of the outbreak.

Self-isolation times for fully vaccinated people who test positive will drop from 10 days to seven on Monday -- and can be cut down to five days with a negative test result, Health Minister Olivier Véran told the weekly Le Journal du Dimanche on Saturday.

"Unvaccinated people will have to isolate themselves for 10 days, with a possible exit after seven days under the same conditions," Véran said.

France reported 219,126 new infections on Saturday and became the sixth country in the world to surpass 10 million total recorded cases of Covid-19.

The rule change also means contacts of positive cases will not be required to self-isolate as long as they are fully vaccinated, but they will have to test regularly, Véran said.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/02/euro ... index.html

[Yuli Ban]

Remember this twatmaster supreme?

[Yuli Ban]

[weatheriscool]

GOP Texas governor asks for federal assistance to help with COVID-19 testing, treatment
Source: The Hill

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced on Friday that the state has requested federal assistance to help with COVID-19 testing and treatment amid a surge in cases. Abbott, who has been a leading opponent of COVID-19 vaccine mandates, said in a statement that Texas is “urging the federal government to step up in this fight and provide the resources necessary to help protect Texans.”

The Texas Division of Emergency Management and the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) asked for federal resources to support testing centers, medical personnel and more monoclonal antibody treatments. “Testing sites, additional medical staff, and continued shipments of therapeutics from the federal government will help us continue to save lives and mitigate the spread of COVID-19,” he said. “Detecting COVID-19 and preventing COVID-related hospitalizations are critical to our fight against this virus."

The state is specifically requesting testing sites in Bexar, Cameron, Dallas, Harris, Hidalgo and Tarrant counties ... Additionally, Texas requested three teams of medical personnel to help in hospitals in urban areas that do not have staff contracted with the DSHS and asked the federal government to continue supplying the Regeneron and bamlanivimab monoclonal antibody treatments.

The requests comes after the Texas Health and Human Services Commission revealed last week that the state had run out of its supply of sotrovimab, which has proved to be effective in combating the omicron variant. The omicron strain is driving a nationwide surge in COVID-19 cases. The state said infusion centers would not be able to provide the treatment until “federal authorities ship additional courses of sotrovimab to Texas in January.”

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watc ... h-covid-19

[Yuli Ban]

[wjfox]