Pandemic 2020

Fogdog said:

It's important to understand these people. But I don't see any attempt on their part to understand us.

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Hospitalized with COVID-19, once-hesitant Manitoba Mennonite woman urges others to get vaccines
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Katharina Giesbrecht didn't plan to get vaccinated. It took a terrifying brush with COVID-19 to convince the once-hesitant Mennonite woman to change her mind and book her jab.

"I was very against the vaccine for the longest time," she said. "I said, 'You know what, let's just let God deal with it.… He knows what the next step is, whether we die or we don't.'"

Giesbrecht is sharing her story in hopes of persuading vaccine-hesitant members of her faith community to reconsider — something that could be a challenge, given pockets of southern Manitoba, home to many Mennonites, have the lowest vaccination rates in the province.

As Giesbrecht grew ill in mid-May, for the first few days, she considered waiting it out alone at home. She didn't initially believe she had COVID-19, in part because she says she adhered to masking and public health guidelines.

Then, her condition deteriorated. She got tested in her home community of Altona, and her results came back positive a few days later.
Giesbrecht, 33, was hospitalized at Boundary Trails Health Centre, between Winkler and Morden, just over 100 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg.

She developed pneumonia and could barely breathe. "I was freaking out and panicking," Giesbrecht said. "Prayer has always been very powerful and that's what helped me get through my stay at the hospital due to COVID." Giesbrecht spent four days alone on oxygen before being discharged.

I would like to have God deal with my taxes also.

printer said:

Hospitalized with COVID-19, once-hesitant Manitoba Mennonite woman urges others to get vaccines
Social Sharing
Katharina Giesbrecht didn't plan to get vaccinated. It took a terrifying brush with COVID-19 to convince the once-hesitant Mennonite woman to change her mind and book her jab.

"I was very against the vaccine for the longest time," she said. "I said, 'You know what, let's just let God deal with it.… He knows what the next step is, whether we die or we don't.'"

Giesbrecht is sharing her story in hopes of persuading vaccine-hesitant members of her faith community to reconsider — something that could be a challenge, given pockets of southern Manitoba, home to many Mennonites, have the lowest vaccination rates in the province.

As Giesbrecht grew ill in mid-May, for the first few days, she considered waiting it out alone at home. She didn't initially believe she had COVID-19, in part because she says she adhered to masking and public health guidelines.

Then, her condition deteriorated. She got tested in her home community of Altona, and her results came back positive a few days later.
Giesbrecht, 33, was hospitalized at Boundary Trails Health Centre, between Winkler and Morden, just over 100 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg.

She developed pneumonia and could barely breathe. "I was freaking out and panicking," Giesbrecht said. "Prayer has always been very powerful and that's what helped me get through my stay at the hospital due to COVID." Giesbrecht spent four days alone on oxygen before being discharged.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/southern-manitoba-winkler-covid-vaccine-hesitancy-1.6049024

I would like to have God deal with my taxes also.

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"I got sick from Covid" isn't much of an attempt at building bridges. Maybe it will convince some of her fellow holy rollers to take the vaccine, so I guess it's not all bad.

Fogdog said:

It's important to understand these people. But I don't see any attempt on their part to understand us.

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I used to live out that way and I understand them just fine, they are religious lunatics (basically Baptists), largely ignorant of science (evolution) and somebody shit in their ear and it sank into their brain. They are Mennonites and so is the conservative premier of the province, who sucked their asses and because he did, he is partly responsible for their deaths. Enforcing public health laws would have saved many lives, most of these asshole don't believe in covid, much less masks and vaccines.

The ideal of freedom is nice, but some people need to be held down kicking and screaming for the jab, they don't have the mental/emotional capacity to call their own shots. As a citizen of Canada, I'm paying for their health care costs and one of the reasons we have seat belt and helmet laws is to reduce those costs. Yep I'm for mandatory vaccinations alright, just as soon as they come out of emergency use, if they could keep covid to themselves I'd say let Darwin deal with them, but they kill other people and cost me money.

DIY-HP-LED said:

I used to live out that way and I understand them just fine, they are religious lunatics (basically Baptists), largely ignorant of science (evolution) and somebody shit in their ear and it sank into their brain. They are Mennonites and so is the conservative premier of the province, who sucked their asses and because he did, he is partly responsible for their deaths. Enforcing public health laws would have saved many lives, most of these asshole don't believe in covid, much less masks and vaccines.

The ideal of freedom is nice, but some people need to be held down kicking and screaming for the jab, they don't have the mental/emotional capacity to call their own shots. As a citizen of Canada, I'm paying for their health care costs and one of the reasons we have seat belt and helmet laws is to reduce those costs. Yep I'm for mandatory vaccinations alright, just as soon as they come out of emergency use, if they could keep covid to themselves I'd say let Darwin deal with them, but they kill other people and cost me money.

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They are half the ICU cases we have. Our ICU capacity is all used up and we are over 50% of our capacity with them being treated in other provinces. The reason we have the restrictions we have is partly due to our hospitals are swamped. The rest of us are paying for their actions. Never thought them as baptists but it is not a bad comparison. They may learn though. When SARS hit the Native community also was not trusting of the government and medical community and they paid a heavy price in terms of deaths and people getting ill. This time around the vaccination effort was taken seriously with them and they have greater than 80% vaccination rate.

they just announced we're sending Canada more vaccine.

schuylaar said:

they just announced we're sending Canada more vaccine.

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Just let us fill our back orders! We already paid for them, we ordered 800 million doses of the top vaccine candidates and will be passing along well over a half billion doses ourselves, when our orders come through. We are also getting back into the vaccine manufacturing business and won't be caught short again.

Most Canadians are gonna have a "single shot" summer, we now have 58% vaccinated with a single dose.
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Canada now among top countries for 1st doses of COVID-19 vaccines. So how high can we go? | CBC News

Canada now among top countries for 1st doses of COVID-19 vaccines. So how high can we go?

58 per cent of Canadians have been vaccinated with at least one dose, but next steps could get harder

After lagging behind other countries in the early months of vaccination, Canada is now among the leaders when it comes to the percentage of the population vaccinated against COVID-19 with at least one dose.

So far, Canada has vaccinated 58 per cent of the total population with at least one dose, putting the country just behind Israel, which has plateaued at around 63 per cent of its population, and roughly neck-and-neck with the U.K.

That means Canada is among the highest ranks of other large countries, and not far behind the global front-runner for first dose — an island nation in the Indian Ocean.

Seychelles has already hit more than 70 per cent of the country being vaccinated — though it's worth noting that country only has a population of around 97,000. It primarily used the Sinopharm vaccine developed in China, which hasn't been approved for use in Canada.

The United States, which is also aiming for a 70 per cent vaccine coverage by July 4, is now seeing an increase in people willing to take the vaccine after several months of stagnant vaccination rates. This comes after states and communities put in place financial incentives or other types of rewards to encourage people to get the jab.

Still, the U.S. has only hit roughly half of the population being vaccinated with at least one dose so far, though the country does have a much higher rate of fully-vaccinated residents.

On this side of the border, some experts are now optimistic that we're headed for the benchmarks set by chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam for safely reopening before summer.

"If supply and vaccine hesitancy levels allow, we should be sitting at maybe 75 per cent with the first shot, and 20 per cent with the second shot, by end of June," said Dr. Dominik Mertz, an infectious diseases physician and McMaster University associate professor of medicine.

But there's a caution: while vaccine demand has been high, the next portion of the population could be harder to reach.

How high can we go?
According to federal officials, high vaccination rates and low infection rates are crucial for easing public health measures safely.

With vaccines approved in Canada for anyone aged 12 and up, the latest federal goal is having at least 66 per cent of the total population vaccinated with first doses — or 75 per cent of those eligible for shots.

That high target hasn't stopped multiple provinces from already rolling out reopening plans while more and more Canadians are getting their shots, and several experts say Canada could aim even higher.

Mertz said that when he first heard about the 75 per cent threshold, he was concerned about how long it would take and wondered if it was an unrealistic goal.

But the swift uptake in vaccination across the country over the past month made him change his mind, he said, pointing out that close to one per cent of the Canadian population was now getting vaccinated each day.

The oldest adults, who had first access, also show the highest uptake. On the West Coast in B.C., more than 90 per cent of those aged 85 and up have had at least one shot. On the East Coast in Nova Scotia, that high percentage has been reached for those aged 65 and up.

9-year-old lion dies after testing positive for COVID-19 at a zoo in southern India - Reuters

DIY-HP-LED said:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is on a collision course with one of the state's biggest industries over a law he signed banning businesses from asking customers whether they've been vaccinated against Covid-19.

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As far as I know, this law would not apply to cruise vessels as most of them if not all are flagged under other nations. Therefore are not subject to DeSantis' legislation.

Don't Bogart said:

As far as I know, this law would not apply to cruise vessels as most of them if not all are flagged under other nations. Therefore are not subject to DeSantis' legislation.

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Trains, planes, buses and boats are under federal jurisdiction anyway, anything that crosses state lines is federally regulated. The lawyers will sort it out, but the POV documentation in Florida is shit and they might require finger prick quick blood tests as proof of vaccination, if the documentation is not up to snuff. The last thing they want is to cut a cruise short because some asshole had fake vaccine documents and came down with covid on a cruise. Covid on board is bad for business and if they have to, they would move out of Florida, many want their business, so I imaging offers are pouring in.

China's COVID-19 vaccines don't appear to be effective at preventing outbreaks in the real world (yahoo.com)

China's COVID-19 vaccines don't appear to be effective at preventing outbreaks in the real world

The World Health Organization recently granted emergency use approval to China's Sinopharm and Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines, but the countries that have put the Chinese-made vaccines in the arms of their residents are reporting mixed results, at best.

"In the Seychelles, Chile, and Uruguay, all of whom have used Sinopharm or ... Sinovac in their mass vaccination efforts, cases have surged even as doses were given out," The Washington Post reports. And in Bahrain, one of the first countries to embrace the Sinopharm shot, The Wall Street Journal adds, "daily COVID-19 deaths have leapt to 12 per million people in recent weeks — an outbreak nearly five times more lethal than India's — prompting the island nation's government to shut down shopping malls and restaurants in an effort to limit the spread."

Dr. Waleed Khalifa al Manea, Bahrain's undersecretary of health, told the Journal that the recent upsurge in cases "came mainly from family gatherings — we had Ramadan, which is a very social event in Bahrain," but he also said the country is urging older people and those with chronic illness to get a six-month booster shot with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Bahrain and the neighboring United Arab Emirates started offering booster shots in late May "after studies showed that some of those vaccinated had not developed sufficient antibodies," the Post reports.

"In Dubai, the most populous of the seven members of the UAE, the emirate's health authorities have also quietly begun revaccinating with Pfizer-BioNTech those residents who had been fully inoculated with Sinopharm," the Journal reports.

"Despite the concern about Sinopharm's effectiveness, experts say the vaccine still works as intended in most cases and that it could play a significant role in shortages of vaccine doses around the world," the Post reports. The WHO says it has a low level of confidence in the vaccine's effectiveness in older people, due to a lack of data.

A peer-reviewed study published May 26 found the Sinopharm vaccine was 78 percent effective against symptomatic illness, but the trial participants were mostly healthy young men, the Journal reports. "In a separate, unpublished, real-world study of Sinopharm in Serbia, 29 percent of 150 participants were found to have zero antibodies against the virus three months after they received the first of two shots of the vaccine. The average age of the people who participated in the Serbian study was higher than 65."

Sweden makes COVID vaccines in powder form

Swedish scientists are making COVID-19 vaccines in powder form in an effort to overcome delivery and storage problems. They have developed an air-drying process that is far cheaper and easier than freeze-drying. It is hoped the process will help developing countries to produce their own vaccine stocks.

Here in NS they are now providing vaccine breakthrough data, this is demonstrating how effective the (mostly Pfizer) vaccines are in the real world. It also demonstrates the continued need for masks until most people are fully vaccinated. Over 90% of adults over 65 in NS have had one dose of vaccine.
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N.S. data on 'breakthrough cases' proves COVID-19 vaccines are working, expert says | CBC News

N.S. data on 'breakthrough cases' proves COVID-19 vaccines are working, expert says

People with 2 vaccine doses made up less than 1% of new cases during spring surge

Initial data on "breakthrough cases" proves that COVID-19 vaccines are working in Nova Scotia, according to a researcher at Dalhousie University.

People are considered a breakthrough case when they become infected with the virus more than 14 days after receiving one or two doses of the vaccine.

On Friday, Nova Scotia announced it will start reporting those case numbers each week.

Information provided on Friday shows that people who received one vaccine dose made up less than five per cent of the overall cases during Nova Scotia's third wave.

People who had received both doses made up less than one per cent.

"We're looking at real-time vaccine effectiveness," said Noni MacDonald, a professor of pediatric infectious diseases, who specializes in vaccine research.

"Overall, I was very impressed by what the numbers already showed us. These vaccines are really working."

Dr. Robert Strang, the province's chief medical officer of health, explained the breakthrough case data at the COVID-19 briefing on Friday.

Between March 15 and June 1, there have been 3,902 COVID-19 cases. Of those:

• 3,691 (94.6 per cent) were unvaccinated.
• 187 (4.8 per cent) were partially vaccinated.
• 24 (0.6 per cent) were fully vaccinated.

Of the 242 individuals who were hospitalized:

• 214 (88.4 per cent) were unvaccinated.
• 26 (10.7 per cent) were partially vaccinated.
• Two (0.8 per cent) were fully vaccinated.

Of the 19 individuals who died:

• 16 (84.2 per cent) were unvaccinated.
• Two (10.5 per cent) were partially vaccinated.
• One (5.3 per cent) was fully vaccinated.

Strang reminded Nova Scotians that breakthrough cases will happen because no vaccine is 100 per cent effective.

"The vast majority of people get good protection from the vaccine. But there are some who don't get as good protection, especially older people and people with underlying immune conditions," he said at the briefing.

"That's one of the key reasons why we have to have high levels of uptake in the overall population, to protect those around us who may not individually respond as well to the vaccine."

MacDonald said people are eager to understand the effectiveness of the vaccines, and it's important to inform the public about the breakthrough cases.

U.S. surpasses 300 million COVID vaccine shots administered - Axios

More than 300 million COVID vaccine shots administered in U.S.

More than 300 million COVID-19 vaccines doses have now been administered in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Sunday.

Why it matters: The latest CDC figures show that 41.9% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus and 51.5% has received at least one dose.

• The vaccination milestone comes as the U.S. has seen new infections fall to the lowest level since March 2020, when the pandemic began.

By the numbers: As of Sunday, 301,638,578 COVID-19 doses have been administered across the U.S., according to the CDC.

• The seven-day average of new daily infections reported has dropped from 65,053 on April 1 to 12,780 as of June 5, per the CDC reported.
• The seven-day average of new deaths from the coronavirus confirmed in a single day has fallen from 681 to 367 during the same period.

Yes, but: The vaccination rate has slowed down to just over 1 million COVID-19 doses per day after a high of 3.3 million a day in April, according to CDC statistics.

• That's despite anyone over the age of 12 being eligible for a dose since last month.

What to watch: NIAID director Anthony Fauci warned Friday that vaccine complacency could lead to another surge, "particularly with variants floating around," and "that could set us back to the time when we had to shut down things, CNN reports.

They are predicting a wave in the southern states because Qtards won't get vaccinated.

captainmorgan said:

They are predicting a wave in the southern states because Qtards won't get vaccinated.

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Having red state waves of infection will lead to a surge in vaccinations, as the local news and overwhelmed hospitals frighten many into getting the jab. Of course the feds will surge antibodies, personnel and equipment into those states, but if they won't impose mask mandates and lockdowns to protect themselves, the demand will be endless. Perhaps lockdowns and mask requirements should be a requirement for receiving extra federal help with personnel and supplies, in states with low vaccination rates. Mask mandates and lockdowns will be very unpopular in those states when the rest of the country is running round having fun this summer.

Chinese province locks down areas to stop spread of Indian variant of COVID-19
Officials in Guangdong have identified the highly transmissible Delta COVID-19 variant, which was first detected in India, as the main force behind the flare up since the end of May, according to CNBC.

Guangzhou, which has a population upward of 15 million people, has reported 96 of the more than 100 recent cases in Guangdong, CNBC reported.

Liwan, a city where the first case of the Delta variant was reported in the province in May, has imposed stringent lockdowns on certain streets, according to CNBC. In some areas, people are not allowed to enter or exit certain zones, and in others, residents are not permitted to leave their buildings.

According to CNBC, 24-hour checkpoints have been established to observe movement in and out of the zones.

Restaurants and entertainment venues have reportedly been forced to close amid the spike, and tight travel restrictions are in place.

In areas of the province where the flare up is of lesser concern, however, some restaurants and bars are offering takeout menus.

Hundreds of domestic flights from Guangzhou’s Baiyun International Airport have also been canceled, CNBC reported.
The province reportedly completed 16 million tests between May 26 and midnight on June 5.

Early in the pandemic I posted about Chinese scientists being banned from a Canadian level 4 lab they had been working in, no explanation was given for the ban. Turns out these scientists were affiliated with the Wuhan lab, I don't believe in coincidence.