Plagues
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Attention

Rapidly growing 120,000-member group on Facebook posting alleged adverse vaccine reactions gets deleted

Tom Parker
Reclaim the Net
Fri, 23 Apr 2021 22:28 UTC
Facebook has removed a popular, rapidly growing group where members would post stories about alleged negative COVID-19 vaccine side effects.

The group, "COVID19 VACCINE VICTIMS AND FAMILIES," had over 120,000 followers when it was shut down and had been gaining more than 10,000 followers per week.

Facebook Group
© Facebook
The shutdown of the page follows Facebook introducing a ban on a wide range of claims about the coronavirus vaccine in February. The list of prohibited claims includes claims that the vaccines cause blood clots and claims that the coronavirus vaccine change people's DNA (something that even Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Facebook staff during a July 2020 internal meeting).
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Attention

Covid19: Prior infection vs vaccination

Sebastian Rushworth M.D.
SebastianRushworth.com
Sat, 24 Apr 2021 18:59 UTC
Prior infection vs vaccination
© SebastianRushworth.com
Ever since the beginning of the covid pandemic, one of the big topics of discussion has been whether infection results in lasting immunity. Since the advent of the vaccines, that has expanded in to a discussion about whether prior infection or vaccination provides a higher degree of immunity.

Back in December, I wrote about a study that showed that 90% of people who get covid still have antibodies six months out from infection. This was encouraging news. However, all it really did was show that most people keep their antibodies for a decent period of time after infection. It didn't actually tell us anything about the probability of being re-infected.

Antibodies are a "surrogate" marker. We think they might tell us something useful, but we can't really be sure. It's kind of like looking at the share of a population that have high blood pressure instead of looking at the proportion that are having strokes. We really don't know whether the presence of antibodies after infection means that someone is immune, or whether the absence of antibodies means that someone has lost their immunity. In fact, we still don't really know whether antibodies play a meaningful role in fighting covid or not. Correlation isn't always causation. Antibodies appear to be a good marker for prior infection, but that doesn't mean that they have a causal role in preventing a re-infection.

So, what we really need is a study that looks at the degree to which people actually get re-infected, not more studies that look at antibodies. Once we have that, we can do a comparison with the results of the vaccine trials, and then we will finally have a reasonably good estimate of whether prior infection or vaccination provides a higher level of immunity, or if they are equivalent. That is now exactly what we have, thanks to a study that was recently published in The Lancet.
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Attention

Rare mass stranding of 'sea potato' shells at UK beach

Kathryn Wylie
The Post & Journal
Tue, 20 Apr 2021 13:23 UTC
Hundreds, if not thousands, of bizarre, hollow orbs which washed up on a north-east beach this week have been baffling locals.
Ryan and Elliot

The unusual grey heart-shaped shells drifting ashore at Fraserburgh have had many walkers scratching their heads over their unusual appearance and sheer amount.

The odd little orbs, covering much of the beach, are actually the ghosts of a species of sea urchin, Echinocardium cordatum, often fondly referred to as "sea potatoes".

In effect, the beach has become a graveyard for the urchins' hollow remains, whose Latin name translates literally to "spiny heart," in a fitting nod to their unusual shape.
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Syringe

Booster shots may be needed within 12 months, US officials say

Nicoletta Lanese
Live Science
Thu, 15 Apr 2021 19:37 UTC
COVID Jab
© Shutterstock

People vaccinated against COVID-19 may require booster shots within nine to 12 months of their initial vaccination, Reuters reported.

Evidence suggests that the coronavirus vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna offer at least six months of robust protection from COVID-19 infection. But even if this protection lasts for longer, several highly-transmissible viral variants are now circulating; that means people may need a regular booster shots to bolster immunity to the virus, Dr. David Kessler, chief science officer for President Joe Biden's COVID-19 response task force, said at a congressional committee meeting on Thursday (April 15).

"The current thinking is those who are more vulnerable will have to go first," in terms of getting their booster shots, Kessler said.

From early on in the pandemic, experts predicted that officials may need to roll out multiple generations of COVID-19 vaccines and that regular booster shots may be necessary, since experts couldn't know then how long vaccine-generated immunity would last, Live Science previously reported. And there's always the potential for new virus variants to emerge and thwart the current vaccines, raising the risk of so-called breakthrough infections, meaning infections among fully vaccinated people.

Breakthrough infections are completely expected, as none of the COVID-19 vaccines are 100% protective against the coronavirus. The CDC has been monitoring for such infections since the vaccine rollout began, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, told the House subcommittee hearing, according to Reuters.

Comment:
Barf Bag
© Sodahead


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Attention

DARPA working on COVID vaccine - Implantable microchip to detect virus

Steve Watson
Summit News
Mon, 12 Apr 2021 18:31 UTC
DARPA Vaccine
© Screenshot

The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is working on a COVID vaccine that will work on all variants and has developed an implantable microchip that it says will continuously monitor the human body for signs of the virus.

Retired Colonel Matt Hepburn, an army infectious disease physician heading up DARPA's response to the pandemic, appeared on 60 Minutes to demonstrate the technology.

Holding up a vial of green tissue-like gel, which contains the chip, Hepburn proclaimed "You put it underneath your skin and what that tells you is that there are chemical reactions going on inside the body, and that signal means you are going to have symptoms tomorrow."

"It's like a 'check engine' light," Hepburn added, noting that those with the chip "would get the signal, then self-administer a blood draw and test themselves on site."

"We can have that information in three to five minutes," Hepburn continued, adding "As you truncate that time, as you diagnose and treat, what you do is you stop the infection in its tracks."
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Info

Living fossil discovered below Earth's surface say researchers

Lauren Fuge
Cosmos Magazine
Mon, 12 Apr 2021 02:13 UTC
Death Valley Drilling
© Duane Moser, Desert Research InstituteEquipment for subsurface sampling of microbes in Death Valley, California. New research led by Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences has revealed that a group of microbes, Candidatus Desulforudis audaxviator, have been at an evolutionary standstill for millions of years.
A microbe that feeds on radioactivity has been at an evolutionary standstill for up to 175 million years, researchers say.

First discovered three kilometres down a South African gold mine, the microbe (Candidatus Desulforudis audaxviator) lives in water-filled pockets inside rocks far below the surface, feeding off the energy created in chemical reactions caused by natural radioactivity in minerals.

The research team, led by the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in the US, set out to understand how this microbe evolves in isolation. They discovered other populations in Siberia and California: two very different environments that the team expected would lead to clear differences between the populations as they adapted to their surroundings.

"We thought of the microbes as though they were inhabitants of isolated islands, like the finches that Darwin studied in the Galapagos," says co-author Ramunas Stepanauskas from Bigelow.

But when they examined the genomes of 126 microbes from three different continents, they were almost identical.

The researcher ruled out cross-contamination, and found no evidence that the microbes could have travelled long distances, seeing as they are unlikely to last in the presence of oxygen or survive on the surface.
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Attention

Covid madness: Can't board rescue vessels until vaccinated

Eric Worrall
WattsUpwithThat
Sun, 11 Apr 2021 13:04 UTC
St Vincent Volcano Eruption
© DW
The volcano on the Caribbean Island of St Vincent has erupted. Cruise liners and Ferries are rushing to the scene to evacuate people caught by the eruption - but people are not allowed to board the cruise liners until they receive a Covid vaccination.
Caribbean's St Vincent island volcano erupts after 16,000 people evacuated

Posted Yesterday at 1:37am, updated Yesterday at 2:03am

An explosive eruption of the La Soufriere volcano in the Caribbean has rocked the island of St Vincent following mandatory evacuation orders from the local government.

More than 16,000 residents had been evacuated as volcanic activity increased ahead of the eruption, which took place on Friday morning local time.

Evacuees have been given temporary homes on cruise ships and in safer parts of the island.

...

Evacuees told to get vaccinated

The new eruption followed mandatory evacuation orders issued on Thursday for people who lived near the volcano.

The pandemic could hamper evacuation efforts.

Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said in a press conference that people had to be vaccinated if they went aboard a cruise ship or were granted temporary refuge on another island.

He said two Royal Caribbean cruise ships were expected to arrive by Friday and a third one in the coming days, as well as two Carnival cruise ships by Friday.

Source: - Caribbean's St Vincent island volcano erupts after 16,000 people evacuated
I don't blame the rescuers - they are doing the right thing, putting their very expensive ships in danger to rescue people. Volcanic ash could easily cause millions of dollars worth of damage just by landing on the ships, or by getting sucked into the engine air intakes. So they deserve recognition for their courage and compassion.

What I blame is the world's obsession with Covid.
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Attention

Mental Prison - You can't win. Don't even try!

James Corbett
Corbett Report
Mon, 29 Mar 2021 01:29 UTC
Chained Elephant
© Corbett Report
Imagine you find a prisoner in an unlocked jail cell. Confused, you ask him why he's sitting there when the door to his cell isn't even locked.

"Oh, it's unlocked? I didn't check."

You assure him it's unlocked and ask again why he doesn't leave.

"Why bother? They'll probably catch me before I get out."

You look around in confusion. You explain to him that this isn't even a prison. That he's simply been told to wear an orange jumpsuit and stay in an unlocked room, but he doesn't have to comply. All he has to do is leave.

"Even if I get away, they'll just find me and bring me back here. Might as well just stay put."

Do you think this story is ridiculous? Of course it is. But the situation it details is all too true. In fact, researchers have known for half a century the mechanism by which people can be made to effectively lock themselves up inside their own mental prison . . . and it didn't take long for the intelligence agencies to put that research to use.

Today, let's explore the startling true story of how and how the public has been conditioned into a (false) sense of helplessness, and — more important by far — what you can do to break that conditioning.
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Attention

Fauci and The Variants

Eric Peters
EricPetersAuto
Sat, 20 Mar 2021 18:58 UTC
Corona
© Wochenblick.at
It sounds like an '80s synth band but the tune is more like the braying of a defective donkey.

Perhaps you saw the exchange between Pope Fauci and Senator Rand Paul over Mask Wearing Forever, which the Pope of Sickness insists on.

Paul inquired of his Holiness, why dost thou continue to wear thy vestment in view of the fact that thou hast been anointed with the Holy Water (i.e., the "vaccine" - which ostensibly renders the recipient immune from the 'Rona, else why bother taking it and with it, whatever risk of unknown problems it may cause)?

The Pope's reply was what one would expect of any religious leader: Just believe. For I saith so.

And, obey.

Rand - playing the part of a latter-day Martin Luther - questioned the Pope about this, demanding to know what evidence could be adduced to substantiate the Holy Assertion that wearing a vestment or two served other than a ritualistic purpose. None was forthcoming.
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Attention

Covid much less deadly says new study

Sebastian Rushworth, M.D.
SebastianRushworth.com
Thu, 18 Mar 2021 03:22 UTC
COVID Virus
© Sebastian Rushworth.com/
An article was recently published in the British Medical Journal that reported on a matched cohort study which compared the risk of dying for those infected with the new British variant (a.k.a. B.1.1.7) and those infected with the older covid variants.

A matched cohort study is a type of observational study where you take a group of people with some condition and then try to find a similar group without the condition to match against. Then you follow the two cohorts over time and see if they differ in some meaningful outcome (like death). Since it is an observational study, it can only show correlation. It can't prove the existence of a cause and effect relationship, but that doesn't stop many people acting like it does.

The article has resulted in fear-mongering headlines in news media around the world. Just to take the first example I could find, Al-Jazeera published an article with the headline: "UK variant up to 100% deadlier more deadly, study finds".

Those darn studies, they're always finding things. It's like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. You knock one down here, and another one pops up over there. Anyway, let's look in to the study some detail, and see if the claim is true.

There were two criteria that had to be fulfilled for a person to be included in the study. They had to have a PCR-test positive for covid at some point between the beginning of October 2020 and the end of January 2021. And they had to be over 30 years old. The authors don't provide any reason for the second criterion. The only reason I can see for removing people under the age of 30 is that they pretty much never die when they get covid, and including them would therefore have resulted in less impressive mortality numbers, which would have made it a little bit harder to use the results as part of public fear mongering campaigns.
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