AP: The super spreaders behind top COVID-19 conspiracy theories

Three Berries said:

Oh no. It's those reacting to my post that get offended. Seems I'm a troll magnet.

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Three Berries said:

Oh no. It's those reacting to my post that get offended. Seems I'm a troll magnet.

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hanimmal said:

I don't think it is a coincidence that anytime you log in a troll appears.

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Two years ago, ivermectin was an obscure drug consigned only to those who had the rare displeasure of contracting parasites like scabies or river blindness. American doctors wrote a mere 150,000 prescriptionsfor the drug in 2019 – roughly 0.1% of the prescriptions written for Lipitor, a widely used atorvastatin designed to lower cholesterol.

Last year, however, as the pandemic raged on and conservatives stood their ground against common sense public health measures like masks and vaccines, ivermectin became a household name. Despite lacking proper consensus from the scientific community, the drug has been widely touted by right-wing pundits, politicians, and entrepreneurs as the unofficial magic bullet for COVID-19.

In many ways, the right-wing frenzy around ivermectin can be traced back to that of hydroxychloroquine, which was last year baselessly extolled by Donald Trump and many of his supporters in media and congress. However, ivermectin appears to have taken a much stronger hold over Trump's following (and beyond), benefiting from a robust network of profit-seeking providers continuously selling it to thousands of Americans.

Over the last several months, much of the battle to normalize ivermectin as a legitimate COVID treatment has played out in courts, which have seen a sudden surge in lawsuits filed against hospitals unwilling to administer the drug. Such offensives have arisen in states like Louisiana, Illinois, California, Kentucky, Delaware, Texas, and more.

"I've never encountered this and I've been in practice over 40 years," Dr. Rodney Hood, who serves on the National Medical Association's COVID-19 Task Force on Vaccines and Therapeutics, toldFiveThirtyEight. "You don't get treated based upon what you feel or think," Hood said. "There are certain approved treatment regimens for certain diseases. If [what a patient is demanding] doesn't fit within that regimen, then you cannot treat them."

In one of the most widely publicized cases from August, Julie Smith, the wife of a 51-year-old coronavirus COVID patient in Ohio, sued a Cincinnati-based hospital network for not administering the ivermectin to her husband, demanding that the hospital deliver a three-week course of the drug. That month, Smith saw a favorable ruling from Butler County Judge Gregory Howard, who formally ordered the hospital to administer the drug to her husband despite warnings from the Centers for Diseases Control that its use could be unsafe. In September, the decision was reversed by a different Ohio judge, who noted that "medical and scientific communities do not support the use of ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19."

In May, Desareta Fype, the daughter of a 61-year-old woman with COVID-19, similarly sued an Illinois hospital after all of its affiliated doctors refused to administer ivermectin to her mother. A judge later told the hospital to "get out of the way" and allow any board-certified doctor to give Fype's mother the drug, according to The Daily Herald. The hospital's attorney, Daniel Monahan, said that 20 physicians and 19 other health care workers at the hospital all refused to deliver the medicine despite the ruling, ultimately prompting Fype to hire an outside doctor to administer the drug.

While many of the ivermectin suits have been filed by seemingly unconnected individuals throughout the country, there do appear to be several common threads.

One of these threads is Ralph Lorigo, who this year became the most "in-demand" attorney for plaintiffs looking to compel the use of ivermectin in hospital systems for their loved ones, according to The Daily Beast. Lorigo helms a general practice law firm in West Seneca, New York, and has reportedly worked on at least 60 ivermectin cases, per a Journal News report. The attorney, who represented both Julie Smith and Desareta Fype, claims to be "largely successful" in delivering wins, allowing patients to force ivermectin's use.

Citing an array of dubious studies, Lorigo told the Beast that his legal actions are aimed at delivering "last-ditch" treatment for patients that have exhausted every option. But many medical professionals argue that the suits put unnecessary strain on hospitals that are already buckling under the weight of a pandemic.

"Hospitals are dealing with the unvaccinated COVID-19 patients at a very high pace," Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told the Beast. "And then you're going to burden them by filing a lawsuit or creating legal problems over them trying to provide the best care for these people who chose not to be vaccinated and who are now crushing their hospitals?"

Timothy Brewer, an epidemiology professor at UCLA, added that Lorigo's "why not?" approach is far from justified, largely because the studies proffered by Lorigo are hardly conclusive, potentially adding complications to drugs patients are already being given. For instance, many of the studies use statistically insignificant sample sizes, deliver unsafe doses of the drug, or were written by doctors with clear conflicts of interest.

In recent months, Lorigo, the chairman of New York's Erie County Conservative Party, has said that his business has become effectively consumed by ivermectin suits, telling SpectrumNews1 that he receives "somewhere between 80 and 150 emails and requests for information and help" on a daily basis.

"We freely give the information. I've been here seven days a week for the last seven weeks without a day off, trying to get people the information that they so desperately need," he added.

It remains unclear how much the attorney profits from each suit – or how the suits are structured. Asked who fronts the money, Lorigo refused to answer. According to Bloomberg Law, he alleges that he offers his services at a "reduced rate."

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In April, a Miami private school made national headlines for barring teachers who got a coronavirus vaccine from interacting with students. Last week, the school made another startling declaration, but this time to the parents: If you vaccinate your child, they’ll have to stay home for 30 days after each shot.

The email from Centner Academy leadership, first reported by WSVN, repeated misleading and false claims that vaccinated people could pass on so-called harmful effects of the shot and have a “potential impact” on unvaccinated students and staff.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has debunked claims that the coronavirus vaccine can “shed or release any of their components” through the air or skin contact. The coronavirus vaccines do not contain a live virus, so their components can’t be transmitted to others.

David Centner, one of the school’s co-founders, repeated the debunked claims in a statement to The Washington Post, saying the policy is a “precautionary measure” based on “numerous anecdotal cases that have been in circulation.”

“The school is not opining as to whether unexplained phenomena have a basis in fact, however we prefer to err on the side of caution when making decisions that impact the health of the school community,” Centner said.

Despite the Food and Drug Administration’s evidence that coronavirus vaccines are safe and highly effective, vaccine misinformation online has been a top hurdle for the White House and public health experts when persuading people to get the shots. Almost 219 million Americans have received at least one vaccine dose, which is about 66 percent of the eligible population, according to The Post’s vaccination tracker.

In July, President Biden excoriated social media companies, accusing them of “killing people” by failing to regulate misinformation about the vaccines on their platforms. In August, Facebook released data that showed the most popular piece of content from January through March was a link to an article that cast doubt on the vaccine. Last Wednesday, attorneys generals from 14 states sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, inquiring if the company provided special treatment to those disseminating vaccine falsehoods on the platform.

Unfounded claims about masks and vaccines have trickled down to schools, where students under 12 years old remain at a higher risk of contracting the virus since they are ineligible for the vaccines.

Tensions between parents and school districts have also grown violent at times. In August, a parent at an Austin school ripped a mask off a teacher’s face. A week later, police said the father of a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., high-schooler assaulted another student after she confronted him about trying to bring his daughter onto campus without a mask. He was arrested and charged with child abuse without great bodily harm.

Centner Academy is in Miami’s ritzy Design District, and tuition ranges from about $15,000 to nearly $30,000 per year. The school has become a haven for anti-vaccine parents because it does not require any immunizations for enrollment, citing a parent’s “freedom of choice” and falsely claiming there are “unknown risks associated with vaccinations” that could harm children.

A similar sentiment was shared in an email to parents last week regarding the coronavirus vaccine. School leadership referred to the shots as “experimental,” WSVN reported, and encouraged parents considering vaccinations for their child to wait several more months until the school year ends.

“We ask that you hold off until the summer when there will be time for the potential transmission or shedding onto others to decrease,” Centner Academy leaders wrote.

The school has a history of spreading inaccurate information about the vaccine and penalizing those who choose to get the shots. In April, Centner Academy employees were told they had to notify Leila and David Centner, the married co-founders of the school, if they received a vaccine. Vaccinated school employees were told they would not be allowed any contact with students “until more information is known” about the vaccines. School leaders also told those wanting the vaccine to wait until the summer to get the shots.

About a week later, a math and science teacher told students they should not hug their vaccinated parents for more than five seconds, the New York Times reported, referencing the same falsehoods the school communicated in its email aboutvaccine components “shedding” onto others. Some parents threatened to pull their children out of the school over the comments.

Leila Centner has also spread anti-vaccine information during a meeting with parents and staff, and in a WhatsApp group with community members, according to the Times. In late January, Leila and David Centner invited outspoken anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to speak at the school.

The co-founders also discouraged teachers from wearing masks, the Times reported. When state health department officials visited for routine dining inspections, teachers were allegedly told in a WhatsApp group to put on masks. The school also allegedly provided parents with mask exemption forms for their children.

In his statement to The Post, David Centner said the school’s policies are made as a “prudent precautionary measure.”

“Our top priorities have always been our students’ well-being and their sense of safety within our educational environment,” he said.

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On Thursday the union representing 50,000 current and former New York City Police Dept. officers claimed Mayor de Blasio's vaccine mandate would force "10,000" officers off the streets. According to the NYPD Police Commissioner, that number is actually just 34.

"NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea noted that only 34 police officers have been placed on unpaid leave," AM NY reports, noting across all NYC employees, there are "12,000 unvaccinated city workers" who "have applied for medical or religious exemption, which will be worked on in the coming days."

That vaccine mandate required proof of just one shot, and provided in return a $500 bonus for getting vaccinated. "The total of New York City workers that have been vaccinated is currently at 91%."

In total, "9,000 city employees," including the 34 police officers and 40 civilian members of the NYPD, "have not yet been vaccinated and have been placed on leave without [pay] as of Nov. 1, which is less than 6% of the entire city workforce at 378,000."

The Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York in a statement had claimed the vaccine mandate was "arbitrary," its rollout "chaotic," and "the NYPD brass is completely unprepared for the staffing shortage that will result from the mandate's haphazard implementation."

The PBA concluded, "Now cops and New Yorkers are all wondering: what exactly will happen with the vaccine deadline strikes?"

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smokinrav said:

It was supposed to be one third of Chicago's cops and fire fighters off the job, and we don't even have a mandate besides more rigorous testing if you're not vaxxed.

It was a total of 22 people.

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For months, math and business teacher Kadence Koen of Springfield School District 186 had been fighting the Illinois state mandatedemanding that teachers provide proof of their vaccine or submit to weekly COVID testing. As it turns out, that whole time, she was actually vaccinated.

"Earlier, Koen uploaded a copy of the card to Gina McLaughlin-Schurman, the district's assistant superintendent of human resources," The State Journal-Register revealed Sunday. "The card showed she received her first dose of the vaccine on June 29, with the second dose coming on July 19, well before Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker came out with the mandate about school personnel.

Koen had until Wednesday to do a "remediation plan" the district outlined during an Oct. 27 meeting and would begin unpaid leave on Nov. 17. She then turned over her card showing that she'd actually been vaccinated the whole time she was fighting the district.

"I didn't want to have to produce a vaccination card because I don't think that's legal or appropriate, but if you ask me to choose between my personal beliefs and my students, my students will win," Koen said. "My mother said that I was a round peg in a round hole (at Southeast) and I do well with kids there and that's where I belong. I know I make a difference there. I can't imagine my life not teaching."

The district said that they can't discuss any details about employees of the schools.

Koen made news for weeks appearing on shows of local news personalities,

"It's my body, my choice and I'm in charge of making my own healthcare decisions," she told Greg Bishop in a radio interview.



Read the full report at TSJR.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A total of 92% of U.S. federal workers have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, in compliance with the administration's mandate, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said Wednesday.

Overall, 96.5% of the 3.5 million federal workers were considered to be in compliance with the administration's mandate because they either were vaccinated or had an exemption request either granted or under consideration.

"This sends the clear message to businesses to move forward with similar measures that will protect their workforce, customers, and communities," White House spokesman Kevin Munoz tweeted.

The Department of Agriculture and Social Security Administration lagged among U.S. federal agencies whose employees have received at least one COVID-19 shot, at 86.1% and 87.7, respectively, the White House OMB said.

The U.S. Agency for International Development led federal agencies among those tallied in reporting that its employees have had at least one COVID-19 shot at 97.8%, the OMB said.

The figures suggest relatively high vaccination rates for federal employees compared with the U.S. population as a whole, and underscore the Biden administration's effort to get every American inoculated in a drive to bring COVID-19 under control.

A total of 82.1% of Americans aged 18 or older have received at least one COVID-19 vaccination dose, according to the latest U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

At the Defense Department, 93.4% of employees, including civilians and active duty personnel, have received at least one shot of the vaccine, according to the OMB tally.

The Department of Health and Human Services said on Wednesday that 96.4% of its more than 88,000 employees are vaccinated and 95% are fully vaccinated, meaning they are at least two weeks past a two-dose or one-dose vaccine.

The White House has told agencies https://www.saferfederalworkforce.gov/faq/vaccinations that for federal employees not in compliance, agencies should begin "a brief period of education and counseling" to last five days. If employees do not "demonstrate progress toward becoming fully vaccinated," that "should be followed by a short suspension" of no more than 14 days. If an employee gets a first shot, agencies are directed to halt any disciplinary action.

The White House has said that if a federal employee has an exemption request pending and it is ultimately denied, they will get another two weeks from that point to get a first shot.

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CatHedral said:

I would have thought that the “my body, my choice” lie would be dead by now. I keep getting impressed by how stupid a large percentage of my fellow voters is.

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Hiddengems said:

My body is my choice. I will die before my bodily autonomy is violated. But alas, I live in America and have no levers of power for them to coerce me with. I don't need a job, I don't use banks, I own everything I have, live in a rural area. So I'm out of mandate reach.

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CatHedral said:

I consider that attitude to be, without exaggerating, treasonous. One thing you do not know, and there might be enough data to eventually find out, the names of the dead in your personal transmission chain.

“My body, my choice” in a public health setting is such an obvious violation of good practice, it marks you and those who have been **umped into thinking like you as a public enemy. It should fall under domestic terror law. Maybe not prison, but it should be a felony charge. I don’t need someone with your shocking level of bad judgment to be allowed to own a gun or use air travel.

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Hiddengems said:

I'm not responsible for others not protecting themselves. If they take measures and get vaxxed, they have nothing to worry about, right?

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Hiddengems said:

I'm not responsible for others not protecting themselves. If they take measures and get vaxxed, they have nothing to worry about, right?

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