#Coronavirus Vaccine Progress

[sophsweet]

Quotes from Coronavirus Vaccine Designers and Researchers since SARS-COV1

Coronavirus Vaccine History Back in 2004, SARS vaccine trial spotlights continued peril by Helen Pearson was published in the science press. But public-health experts remain concerned that a second wave of infections could erupt, either from human contact with infected animals or by the virus escaping from laboratory samples.Pearson, Helen SARS vaccine trial spotlights continued peril. Nature…

[dpiresearchofficial]

Influenza Vaccines Market Size to Surpass US$ 13.7 Billion by 2032 DPI Research

Influenza Vaccines Market to Garner $13.7 Billion, Globally, By 2032 at 7.2% CAGR: DPI Research

[wat3rm370n]

The Stigma of the Dark Ages.

What they’re talking about here is a society which has moved backwards, and is paying consequences already.

NPR - As the respiratory virus season approaches, where does the vaccination rate stand? November 27, 20244:47 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition By Rob Stein , Rob Schmitz Part of it is the lingering skepticism and outright hostility from the pandemic toward the COVID vaccine specifically and vaccines in general. Another factor is that people tend to underestimate how dangerous both viruses can be while overestimating vaccination risks. There's a lot of misinformation about how well the vaccines work and how safe they are. And finally, a lot of folks are just sick of vaccines because of all the shots they've gotten over the last few years. You know, put it all together and a lot of people are just feeling kind of done with vaccines. I talked about this with Dr. Gregory Poland. He's president of the Atria Academy of Science and Medicine in New York. GREGORY POLAND: “As a society right now, we're in a phase of rejecting expertise, of mistrust of any expert, whether it's science, meteorology, medicine, government - whatever it is.”

This is not unusual, there is no guarantee that society progresses forward. The Dark Ages happened, and that period was not the only time of regression on science.

MedPage Today - Nursing Homes Fell Behind on Vaccinating Patients for COVID — Billing complexities and patient skepticism partially to blame by Sarah Boden, KFF Health News December 5, 2024 Loveland has seen patients and coworkers at the nursing home where she works die from the viral disease. Now she has a new worry: bringing home the coronavirus and unwittingly infecting her infant daughter, Maya, born in May. Loveland's maternity leave ended in late June, when Maya wasn't yet 2 months old. Infants cannot be vaccinated against COVID until they are 6 months old. Children younger than that suffer the highest rates of hospitalization of any age group except people 75 or older. Between her patients' complex medical needs and their close proximity to one another, COVID continues to pose a grave threat to Loveland's nursing home -- and to the 15,000 other certified nursing homes in the U.S. where some 1.2 million people live. Despite this risk, a CDC report published in April found that just four in 10 nursing home residents in the U.S. received an updated COVID vaccine in the winter of 2023-24.

Going forward is a choice.

Public comment to CDC HICPAC committee November 2024 Infection control in healthcare. Chloe Humbert Nov 15, 2024 The Dark Ages was called that because society moved backwards from the technological advances that had come before. The fall of the Roman Empire was marked by elites who only cared about the status quo; they could’ve developed a steam engine as far back as Heron in 15 BC but didn’t bother. Going forward is a choice. In an article in the Journal of Infectious Diseases & Preventive Medicine there’s a description of what happened back then. “In medieval times, hospitals were hazardous places, Epidemic infections killed large numbers of hospital patients during this period. Hospital infection and death rates were high. When a sick person entered a hospital, his or her property was disposed of, and in some regions, a requiem mass was held, as if he or she had already died.” Going backward is a choice.

Stigma is part of a backward slide, and even if people don’t choose to go backward, we are all subject to community level leadership influences.

It’s called STIGMA. - wat3rm370n on tumblr - Oct 4th, 2024 When you hear that “people are tired of it” - that’s also part of stigma. And it’s not necessarily true that people are actually just sick of it - but they keep being told they should be. Informational learned helplessness can do that to us. Stigma is leveraged and reinforced on purpose by big money industry interests who think any reminder of danger at all is bad for business. So it’s to some degree manufactured stigma.

[covid-safer-hotties]

They develop a mask that lights up when it detects the Coronavirus. It would signify great progress in case detection - Published Aug 5, 2024

Scientists at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are trying to apply the technology that worked to fight other diseases to this pandemic.

This invention could help stop the spread of COVID-19. A team of scientists from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) develop a mask that glows when contaminated by the new coronavirus. It would greatly help in the fight against this global pandemic.

According to Business Insider, in 2014, the MIT bioengineering laboratory began to develop sensors to detect the Ebola virus when it underwent lyophilization (a dehydration process) on a piece of paper. This same technology was adapted to address the Zika virus outbreak.

Again, as part of their work on this subject, they’re conducting research to be able to help in the COVID-19 pandemic. In this case, they hope to create a mask that can produce a fluorescent color to identify the coronavirus. If successful, it would help complement current virus detection methods.

“As we open up our transit system, you could envision it being used in airports as we go through security, as we wait to get on a plane,” said Jim Collins, head of the MIT lab, in conversation with Business Insider.

“You or I could use it on the way to and from work. Hospitals could use it for patients as they come in or wait in the waiting room as a pre-screen of who’s infected” he added.

This could greatly facilitate the work of doctors in the midst of this pandemic. One of the peculiarities of this coronavirus, unlike previous outbreaks, is the lack of symptoms in patients that test positive, making contagion easier for those who think they’re healthy when in reality they’re just asymptomatic. Also, it would make the detection of cases much quicker.

For now, it’s just in the first phase – although expectations are very high. They hope to develop the detector’s design in a way in which the sensors can be embedded into any mask.

They hope to show in the coming weeks that this method works. “Once we’re in that stage, then it would be a matter setting up trials with individuals expected to be infected to see if it would work in a real-world setting,” Collins said.

It would just be a matter of adapting the sensors to this new coronavirus, since in 2018 this technology was able to detect the viruses that cause SARS, measles, influenza, hepatitis C, West Nile, in addition to other diseases.

“We initially did this on paper to create inexpensive paper-based diagnostics,” Collins said. “We’ve shown it can work on plastic, quartz, as well as cloth.”

The COVID-19 vaccine is expected to be part of a long process, which is still far from over. However, this mask could help lower the rate of contagion around the world.

[quasarkisses]

The world is a better place for humans than it's ever been. That is the evidence-based perspective.

Despite war, despite global warming, despite coronavirus. Despite hate and death and loss.

More humans are vaccinated and educated – with access to electricity, clean water, gas to cook food and a mattress to sleep on – than ever before in history. Leaps and bounds of progress have happened just in the last 30 years.

Do not give up hope. The world keeps becoming a better place where more humans have their basic needs met.

This is the evidence-based perspective. Through gritted teeth, we endure and improve for the betterment of all.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Oliver Darcy at CNN:

Vladimir Putin’s information war in U.S. media paid off this weekend with a key victory halfway around the world. [...] As a Republican, Johnson is in a tough spot, politically speaking. While the Republican Party was once vehemently hawkish toward Russia, viewing the post-Soviet country as its chief adversary on the international stage, it has softened considerably in recent years and much of the party actively opposes sending additional dollars to Ukraine to continue fighting Russia. It was little more than a decade ago when Mitt Romney, then the party’s standard-bearer, famously declared Russia to be “our number one geopolitical foe.” In the years since, the party has dramatically changed its tune on Russia. A CNN poll conducted last summer found that a staggering 71% of Republicans do not support additional aid to thwart Putin’s war on Ukraine.

Much of the GOP’s softening toward Russia is owed to a near-total reversal in rhetoric from right-wing media personalities and outlets, prompted in large part by Donald Trump’s ascension to power in GOP politics. While the biggest players in right-wing media once fervently championed the foreign policy doctrines of the neo-conservatives, they now follow in the footsteps of Trump and vehemently reject the views once held by the George W. Bush administration. This transition is perhaps best exemplified by Tucker Carlson. The former Fox News host was once sharply critical of Putin, characterizing him in no uncertain terms as a cruel “dictator.” But in recent years, Carlson has reversed his stance, flooding the right-wing information space — which he once reigned as king over — with pro-Putin rhetoric that effectively amounts to Russian propaganda. Carlson’s stance was put on display in stark fashion recently when he traveled to Moscow to conduct a widely denounced softball chat with Putin and then proceeded to record a series of propaganda videos touting Russia’s supposed greatness.

While figures like Carlson have promoted Russia and Putin, they have simultaneously trashed Ukraine and its leader Volodymyr Zelensky, promoting conspiracy theories that the country interfered in the 2016 election and was hiding biological weapons labs. Carlson, for example, has likened Zelensky to vermin and vigorously spoken out against U.S. support for Ukraine. Right-wing commentators like Carlson have questioned why taxpayer dollars are being spent to help Ukraine defend its borders when the U.S. struggles to secure its own southern border (though a recent bipartisan bill intended to tackle both issues was rejected by hardline Republicans.)

[...] “The GOP’s shift away from support for Ukraine shows how in the Republican Party, everything flows downstream from the obsessions and priorities of right-wing propagandists,” Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at the progressive watchdog Media Matters, told me Tuesday. “Tucker Carlson and his ilk wanted to back Putin’s invasion, their relentless lies won over the party’s base, and ultimately its elected officials have adopted their position.” “We’ve seen this same pattern time and again: Fox News and the like take basic concepts like ‘it’s a good idea to get vaccinated against the coronavirus’ and ‘the January 6 insurrection was bad’ and turn them on their heads — and Republican elites inevitably follow,” Gertz added. “Governing based on what gets ratings for B.S. artists is no way to run a country.”

CNN's Oliver Darcy wrote in the Reliable Sources newsletter that the right-wing media's anti-Ukraine/pro-Putin disinformation campaign has had fatal consequences in the fight against Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The Republican Party and much of the right-wing commentariat were once resolutely anti-Russia; however, beginning in the 2010s that began with Vladimir Putin's enactment of anti-LGBTQ+ laws and then Russian asset Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and eventual "Presidency", the GOP shifted from anti-Russia to pro-Russia (and consequently anti-Ukraine).

[toshootforthestars]

From the report by Beth Mole, posted 29 Feb 2024:

In a lengthy background document, the agency laid out its rationale for consolidating COVID-19 guidance into general guidance for respiratory viruses—including influenza, RSV, adenoviruses, rhinoviruses, enteroviruses, and others, though specifically not measles. The agency also noted the guidance does not apply to health care settings and outbreak scenarios. "COVID-19 remains an important public health threat, but it is no longer the emergency that it once was, and its health impacts increasingly resemble those of other respiratory viral illnesses, including influenza and RSV," the agency wrote. The most notable change in the new guidance is the previously reported decision to no longer recommend a minimum five-day isolation period for those infected with the pandemic coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Instead, the new isolation guidance is based on symptoms, which matches long-standing isolation guidance for other respiratory viruses, including influenza. "The updated Respiratory Virus Guidance recommends people with respiratory virus symptoms that are not better explained by another cause stay home and away from others until at least 24 hours after both resolution of fever AND overall symptom are getting better," the document states. "This recommendation addresses the period of greatest infectiousness and highest viral load for most people, which is typically in the first few days of illness and when symptoms, including fever, are worst." The CDC acknowledged that the eased isolation guidance will create "residual risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission," and that most people are no longer infectious only after 8 to 10 days. As such, the agency urged people to follow additional interventions—including masking, testing, distancing, hygiene, and improving air quality—for five additional days after their isolation period. "Today’s announcement reflects the progress we have made in protecting against severe illness from COVID-19," CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen said in a statement. "However, we still must use the commonsense solutions we know work to protect ourselves and others from serious illness from respiratory viruses—this includes vaccination, treatment, and staying home when we get sick." Overall, the agency argued that a shorter isolation period would be inconsequential. Other countries and states that have similarly abandoned fixed isolation times did not see jumps in COVID-19 emergency department visits or hospitalizations, the CDC pointed out. And most people who have COVID-19 don't know they have it anyway, making COVID-19-specific guidance moot, the agency argued. In a recent CDC survey, less than half of people said they would test for SARS-CoV-2 if they had a cough or cold symptoms, and less than 10 percent said they would go to a pharmacy or health care provider to get tested. Meanwhile, "The overall sensitivity of COVID-19 antigen tests is relatively low and even lower in individuals with only mild symptoms," the agency said. The CDC also raised practical concerns for isolation, including a lack of paid sick leave for many, social isolation, and "societal costs." The points are likely to land poorly with critics. “The CDC is again prioritizing short-term business interests over our health by caving to employer pressure on COVID guidelines. This is a pattern we’ve seen throughout the pandemic,” Lara Jirmanus, Clinical Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, said in a press release last month after the news first broke of the CDC's planned isolation update. Jirmanus is a member of the People's CDC, a group that advocates for more aggressive COVID-19 policies, which put out the press release. Another member of the group, Sam Friedman, a professor of population health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, also blasted the CDC's stance last month. The guidance will "make workplaces and public spaces even more unsafe for everyone, particularly for people who are high-risk for COVID complications," he said.

But, the CDC argues that the threat of COVID-19 is fading. Hospitalizations, deaths, prevalence of long COVID, and COVID-19 complications in children (MIS-C) are all down. COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective at preventing severe disease, death, and to some extent, long COVID—we just need more people to get them. Over 95% of adults hospitalized with COVID-19 in the 2023–2024 respiratory season had no record of receiving the seasonal booster dose, the agency noted. Only 22% of adults got the latest shot, including only 42% of people ages 65 and older. In contrast, 48% of adults got the latest flu shot, including 73% of people ages 65 and older. But even with the crummy vaccination rates for COVID-19, a mix of past infection and shots have led to a substantial protection in the overall population. The CDC even went as far as arguing that COVID-19 deaths have fallen to a level that is similar to what's seen with flu. "Reported deaths involving COVID-19 are several-fold greater than those reported to involve influenza and RSV. However, influenza and likely RSV are often underreported as causes of death," the CDC said. In the 2022–2023 respiratory virus season, there were nearly 90,000 reported COVID-19 deaths. For flu, there were 9,559 reported deaths, but the CDC estimates the true number to be between 18,000 and 97,000. In the current season, there have been 32,949 reported COVID-19 deaths to date and 5,854 reported flu deaths, but the agency estimates the real flu deaths are between 17,000 and 50,000. "Total COVID-19 deaths, accounting for underreporting, are likely to be higher than, but of the same order of magnitude as, total influenza deaths," the agency concluded.

(say no to raw dough: CDC)

[madanimalscientist]

CW: discussion of pet death (not mine, but a former friend's)

I am so happy for Belphie's health and success, the fact that we've managed to treat/cure FIP IS A GODDAMNED MIRACLE.

When I was in college in the early 2010s, FIP was a death sentence. I know this because we covered it in my classes and it was so scary to have it discussed as something that just happened sometimes there was no cure for, just palliative treatment, but it was a guaranteed death sentence. And I had a friend at the time whose kitten had gotten FIP and it was two weeks of hell, I was being as supportive as I could but it was traumatic for everyone involved. Because we were all hoping against hope that this cat would pull through and be okay, to defy the odds, and I was trying to be the strong one...it was hell. So this is a MIRACLE, that what was once a death sentence now can be treated and cured, and has an cure rate >80%! (>95% according to some sources). This is HUGE.

The other thing? FIP is a -coronavirus-. This is why when the news re COVID 19 broke, my department (animal science) went into lockdown a full month ahead of the rest of the university. Because people were shrugging off COVID as 'it's just a coronavirus, like a cold' and our dept went 'or like FIP'. We knew just how deadly coronaviruses can be. And interestingly enough, some drugs designed to treat COVID can now be used to treat FIP, further increasing the odds of survival and helping cats recover.

But back in July when Rogue had her health scare (right before I was due to go overseas for a month and a half, like literally 2 weeks before), one of the concerns was that it was FIP, and I had a full on panic attack in the vet exam room, because I knew there was treatment and that some cats had been cured but I didn't know the success rate was so high. And for a moment there mentally I was back in college for a moment with my friend's cat dying and there was nothing I could do about it, except it was my cat affected. But the vet (bless her, she is so awesome) explained that there is a cure now and that in Australia it's even on-label and that it's curable and it's no longer a death sentence and they'd had multiple successful patients be fine in a matter of weeks. And I was SO RELIEVED because I was so terrified and the fact that we've come so far re this in just over a decade, to me that is a miracle and it's amazing.

Rogue's health issues turned out to be something else, thank God, and something treatable even - she needs to get bloodwork to follow up in 6 months but she's fine and her usual loud self. Like yes the vet bills were $$$ and that was an incredibly stressful week of bloodwork and tests to figure out wtf was going on, but I am so so grateful that it turned out ok.

As someone who is not a vet but who is vet-adjacent for work, who took a lot of the same undergrad classes as people who went on to become vets....the only other time I heard that same level of sadness in my professor's voice when he discussed FIP was when he discussed Parvo (and he was a dog show judge when Parvo first hit the USA, this is a story that will Traumatize you and I will not share it on tumblr, GET YOUR PETS VACCINATED FOR PARVO) it was that bad. I'm in my early 30s, I graduated college in '13, but in some ways it doesn't feel that long ago, so progress like this is a miracle and I am so glad.

a lot of you probably knows Belphie's story, but I'll summarize just in case.

Devon Rex cats are better for people with allergies (less shed fur + less Fel d1 protein in their saliva), so on February 16, 2024, I went the breeder route and put down a deposit. before Belphie even opened his eyes, he was mine!

every Friday, the breeder sent me a new photo. I had a broken leg, and was basically rotting in bed at that point, so it was the best part of my week. then, at 12 weeks old, I BROUGHT HIM HOME!

at first, he was so alive! like a wind-up monkey that never shut off. he dangled from the wall-hangings, savaged my feet as I walked, and used my elderly cats as jumping poles to do cool acrobatics over. but all this gradually faded.

first, he stopped playing. then he stopped climbing. then he stopped moving much at all. my vet ran tests on him and found multiple pathogens (calcivrius + mycoplasma), but the medication didn't help - he kept declining.

on September 17th, I woke up to find him swollen like a balloon. we finally had an answer: he had Feline infectious Peritonitis, aka FIP. before 2017, this would've been a death sentence. he would've kept bloating until he drowned in his own fluids. and before 2024, I would've been forced to inject him with black market drugs. but thankfully, South Tower Animal Hospital in Fergus, Ontario was doing a study on the oral medication! we drove two hours, enrolled him, and left with the GS-441524 pills.

and he went from those photos above.....to this:

I thought Belphie would die as a kitten. I'd accepted that he would never grow up. but now he gets to LIVE!

and all for the low cost of $7,553.....ahhhahaha........god.

that + a recent home disaster has wiped out my savings, but I still need to pay for Belphie's medication. to remain in this study, I need to do bloodwork monthly until Feb 2025, and he'll need daily pills until March 2025.

I've put a risograph print + enamel pin set up at greerstothers.shop. I hate asking for help, but if you'd like to support Belphie's continued treatment, please consider checking them out!

[myfreedomjourney2025]

Repost of Covid Blog (2020) - Now discontinues

At the start of 2020, most of us believed it had to be better than 2019. Months later, I couldn’t even recall why we thought 2019 was so challenging.

Early in 2020, rumors began circulating about a fast-moving and deadly mystery virus—the Novel Coronavirus. We now know it as COVID-19. Whispers of a Spanish Flu-type outbreak began to spread as rising death tolls in Asia and Europe caught global attention.

It quickly became clear that the elderly and those with preexisting health conditions were especially vulnerable. Nursing homes were overwhelmed, and hospitals in major cities faced unprecedented strain, inundated with patients suffering severe respiratory issues. ICU beds and staff were pushed beyond capacity.

Emergency workers—on the streets, in hospitals, and nursing homes��became the front-line troops in this war against COVID-19. Governments at every level declared emergencies, shutting down schools, businesses, and public events. Words like “stay-at-home orders,” “social distancing,” and “mask mandates” became part of our daily vocabulary. For months, we stayed indoors, hoping to “slow the spread” and support healthcare workers stretched to their limits.

What began as two-week emergency declarations stretched into months. COVID-19 fatigue set in as the toll on front-line workers—illness, exhaustion, and even suicide—became evident. Even the prospect of a vaccine, which might have been universally celebrated, sparked controversy and division.

As if the pandemic weren’t enough, a tragic incident involving law enforcement in Minneapolis led to civil unrest. Protests erupted, adding another layer of strain on emergency services already grappling with the virus. Days of unrest turned into weeks and months, with cities burning, lives disrupted, and first responders injured or killed.

All of this unfolded against the backdrop of an intensely divisive national election, amplifying the tension and hostility.

For me, the year turned deeply personal when it became safe enough to fly, and I visited my parents in Maine, 1,500 miles away. My father, 75, and my mother, 73, revealed devastating news: my mom had been diagnosed with Progressive supranuclear palsy which can only be described as Parkinson’s on steroids

My mom, the strongest, most independent woman I’ve ever known, now faces a disease that will steal her strength and independence. My dad, her devoted partner, is grappling with the reality that her care may soon exceed what he can manage. Living so far away from them has always been difficult, but now it feels unbearable.

As a retired EMS professional, my instinct is always to help, to rescue, to save. The heartbreaking realization that I can’t do that for the two people who raised me and saved me countless times is crushing.

So, if I seem distant, restless, or irritable, it’s because helplessness doesn’t sit well with me. I’m struggling to navigate the “new normal” that 2020 has forced upon us.

It's safe to say now 5 years later we have a lot more freedom.

Editors Note: My mom passed away after a 5 year battle with Progressive supranuclear palsy. She was a great women and see is missed. You can find her Obituary here: https://www.mchoulfuneralhome.com/book-of-memories/5431176/Gedney-Nancy/index.php?FILogin=1

[arron2024]

Stay Ahead of Sickness: Prevent Diseases with These Simple Health Hacks!

Prevention is better than cure – a phrase we’ve all heard before, but how many of us truly embrace it? In a world where health is often overlooked until sickness strikes, taking proactive measures like regular medical check-ups, vaccinations, and adopting a balanced lifestyle can make all the difference. This guide will show you how to protect your sanatate, explore remedii naturiste, and understand the importance of teste medicale (medical tests) to stay one step ahead of illnesses.

1. Why Preventive Healthcare is Crucial

Preventive care helps identify and address potential health issues before they become serious. Regular check-ups, vaccinations, and early screenings reduce the risk of chronic conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Here's why prevention matters:

Saves money by reducing costly treatments.

Prolongs life expectancy.

Improves overall quality of life.

When paired with lifestyle changes, preventive healthcare is the ultimate solution for long-term well-being.

2. Prioritize Regular Medical Tests

Medical tests are the foundation of disease prevention. They help identify issues like high cholesterol, blood sugar imbalances, and other risk factors early. Some essential teste medicale include:

Blood pressure monitoring: Detects hypertension risks.

Blood tests: Measures cholesterol, glucose levels, and vitamin deficiencies.

Cancer screenings: Essential for early detection of breast, cervical, or colon cancers.

Regular screenings combined with advice from your doctor ensure your body remains in peak condition. Make these tests part of your health routine and track results in a dictionar sanatate for easy reference.

3. Adopt a Healthy Lifestyle

A healthy lifestyle is your first line of defense against illness. Here’s how to incorporate healthy habits into your daily life:

Balanced diet: Focus on fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins. Avoid processed foods and excess sugar.

Regular exercise: Engage in at least 30 minutes of moderate activity daily to boost immunity and cardiovascular health.

Adequate sleep: 7-9 hours of quality sleep helps the body recover and fight diseases.

Stress management: Practice meditation, yoga, or breathing exercises to maintain mental well-being.

Combining these steps creates a strong foundation for your sanatate and resilience against future illnesses.

4. Leverage Natural Remedies for Added Protection

In addition to modern medicine, remedii naturiste (natural remedies) can complement your health routine. These remedies often strengthen immunity and promote healing without side effects. Popular options include:

Herbal teas: Green tea and chamomile support digestion and relaxation.

Superfoods: Turmeric, ginger, and garlic possess anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.

Essential oils: Lavender and eucalyptus oils improve sleep and respiratory health.

Probiotics: Foods like yogurt and fermented vegetables boost gut health, which is closely linked to overall immunity.

When used alongside preventive measures, these natural solutions provide extra layers of protection for your health.

5. Stay Vaccinated to Protect Against Diseases

Vaccines are one of the most effective tools for disease prevention. They protect not just you but also your community by reducing the spread of infections. Key vaccines to consider include:

Influenza vaccine: Annual flu shots are essential, especially for vulnerable groups.

HPV vaccine: Prevents cervical cancer and other HPV-related conditions.

COVID-19 vaccine: Protects against severe complications of coronavirus.

Hepatitis vaccines: Safeguards liver health by preventing hepatitis A and B.

Talk to your doctor about the vaccines you may need based on your age, health history, and lifestyle.

6. Monitor Your Progress with a Health Dictionary

Tracking your health journey is easier than ever. Use a dictionar sanatate (health dictionary) or digital tools to log medical test results, vaccination records, and lifestyle changes. This allows you to:

Spot trends in your health over time.

Share accurate information with healthcare professionals.

Stay motivated to achieve long-term health goals.

Final Thoughts

Your health is your greatest asset, and taking preventive measures is the best way to protect it. Regular teste medicale, vaccinations, and adopting a healthy lifestyle form the backbone of effective disease prevention. Don’t wait for symptoms to appear – act now and embrace a proactive approach to wellness.

With the right mix of modern medicine, remedii naturiste, and health tracking, you can achieve a balanced and disease-free life. Start your journey today by scheduling a check-up, exploring natural remedies, and creating your personalized dictionar sanatate.

[unhonestlymirror]

My fellow medics, this is must-read for you:

"The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has completed its two-year investigation and released its final report.

The team prepared more than 100 investigative letters, conducted more than 30 transcripts of interviews and depositions, and held 25 hearings and meetings, reviewing more than a million pages of documents.

Key Points:

1. The virus has biological characteristics that are not found in nature. The first people to become ill were the lab workers themselves.

2. The publication “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” which has been repeatedly used by officials to discredit the lab leak theory, was called out by Dr. Fauci to promote the preferred theory that COVID-19 originated in nature.

3. EcoHealth, led by Dr. Peter Daszak, used U.S. taxpayer dollars to support dangerous research in China.

4. The NIH’s procedures for funding and overseeing potentially dangerous research are flawed, unreliable, and pose a serious threat to both public health and national security.

5. The Paycheck Protection Program, which offered Americans significant relief in the form of forgivable loans, was rife with fraud, resulting in at least $64 billion in lost taxpayer money.

6. Fraudsters cost American taxpayers more than $191 billion; at least half of the money lost in relief programs was stolen by international fraudsters.

7. The COVID-19 vaccine did not stop the spread or transmission of the virus as promised.

8. The FDA rushed to approve a COVID-19 vaccine. Two top FDA scientists have warned their colleagues about the dangers of rushing the vaccine approval process and the potential for side effects. They were ignored, and mandatory vaccinations were introduced within days. (Remember, these same scientists resigned from the FDA COVID-19 vaccine task force.)

9. Vaccine requirements were not supported by science and did more harm than good.

10. Public health officials made a concerted effort to ignore natural immunity from COVID-19 when developing vaccination recommendations and requirements, and they often spread misinformation through conflicting messages and lack of transparency.

11. Vaccine injury reporting systems have created confusion, failed to adequately inform the American public, and undermined public trust in vaccine safety during the covid-19 pandemic.

12. As a result of school closures, students have faced historic learning loss, higher rates of psychological distress, and worse physical well-being. Standardized test results show that children have lost decades of academic progress, and mental and physical health problems have also increased dramatically, with suicide attempts among girls aged 12-17 up 51%.

Full report here (520 pages): - https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/12.04.2024-SSCP-FINAL-REPORT.pdf

It's worth remembering how some of our so-called “Doctors” (Ukrainian) called in intensive care units (!) not to provide medical care to the unvaccinated... I’d better keep silent about the rest of the bacchanalia, the fruits of which we are still reaping, so as not to open the wounds.

"There have been previous reports of the long-term presence of s-protein in the body after immunization and large amounts of foreign DNA in the drug, since the end of 2022 this is a new study.

"We analyzed the contents of RNA and DNA in the vials and detected large amounts of DNA after RNAse treatment in all batches with concentrations ranging from 32.7 ng to 43.4 ng per clinical dose. This far exceeds the maximum permissible concentration of 10 ng per clinical dose established by international regulatory authorities.

Genetic analysis with selected pairs of PCR primers proved that the residual DNA is not only fragments of DNA templates encoding the s-protein, but also all genes from the plasmid, including the sv40 promoter/enhancer (unfortunately, highly oncogenic) and the antibiotic resistance gene."

https://publichealthpolicyjournal.com/biontech-rna-based-covid-19-injections-contain-large-amounts-of-residual-dna-including-an-sv40-promoter-enhancer-sequence/

In Germany, the Institute for Molecular Diagnostics (Inmodia GmbH) offers tests to determine the presence of vaccine proteins or DNA plasmids in the human body:

"We focus on detecting spike proteins in tissue samples (including tumor material), measuring the concentration of spike proteins in blood or cerebrospinal fluid (including immune cells), and detecting "vaccine mRNA" and residual DNA (plasmid DNA).

We focus on finding out whether the sample contains spike proteins and whether they come from a COVID-19 injection or from a natural infection."

https://inmodia.de/en/

[darkmaga-returns]

By Ethan Huff October 15, 2024

Another loudmouthed pro-vaccine politician died last year after he took the "vaccine" injections offered under Operation Warp Speed for the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19).

Former Florida House District 23 progressive Rep. Richard Rowe Jr. is the type who uploaded photos of his COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card from the CDC on social media. He also wished death on people who refused the injections, calling them the derogatory term "anti-vaxxers" while going on a profanity-laced Facebook tirade.

"Let me be real clear ... I do not give a **** what happens to anti-vaxxers. I don't," Rowe hatefully wrote in a Facebook post during the "pandemic."

"Let Darwin do his work. They helped to kill 700,000 Americans. I do not have the pity or tears to spare for any of them. It's all dried up now. Sorry. At this point, I'm just hoping they feel 1/10th of the pain theyve [sic] caused everyone. The kids will be fine. THEY'RE going to suffer. And I ******* well think they've earned it."

When he posted his signed "vaccination" card from the CDC, also to Facebook, Rowe admitted that he views his obedience to the medical police state as morally superior to the "anti-vaxxers" who protected their immune systems from Big Pharma's experimental poisons.

"Yeah, I'm mostly here for personal ego," Rowe narcissistically wrote. "Already had COVID last year, so not worried about catching it. But I want to maintain my smug sense of moral and intellectual superiority while making fun of Darwin'd [sic] anti-vaxxers. It's actually pretty noble, really."

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

By Tom Peters

Late last month the New Zealand government released a 700-page report from the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19, examining the country’s response to the pandemic from 2020 to 2023.

The commission was chaired by Tony Blakely, a University of Melbourne epidemiologist, assisted by John Whitehead, a former New Zealand treasury secretary, and Hekia Parata, a former National Party government minister of education.

These appointees were intended to produce a predetermined conclusion: that any public health measures to stop the spread of COVID and save lives must be “balanced” against the need to protect “the economy.” This is the dominant theme throughout the commission’s report, which is designed to ensure that in any future pandemic the response is subordinated entirely to the profit interests of the corporate and financial elite.

Blakely initially supported stringent lockdowns and border quarantine measures in Australia and New Zealand. Later, after the emergence of the highly-infectious Omicron variant of COVID-19, he minimised the severity of the virus. He advocated a “let it rip” policy, telling Radio NZ in February 2022 that the government was being “too cautious,” and should work faster at dismantling public health measures in order to “let Omicron wash through in a timely manner.”

The commissioners’ report seeks to justify the overall response of the former Labour Party-led government—above all, the decision announced by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in October 2021 to end the elimination strategy, which had kept the country almost entirely free from COVID-19 during the first two years of the pandemic.

This was followed by the progressive removal of all restrictions on the spread of the coronavirus and the adoption of a criminal policy of mass infection, which had already killed millions of people worldwide.

In 2022, lockdowns and border quarantine measures were overturned; schools and workplaces fully reopened without social distancing; mask and vaccine mandates were ended, and COVID testing was discouraged in order to keep sick people at work.

In August 2023, the last remaining requirements for people to self-isolate if they had COVID, and to wear masks in healthcare facilities, were scrapped by the Labour government.

These steps—all of which are tacitly or explicitly supported in the Royal Commission’s report—produced a public health disaster. Total deaths from COVID-19 sky-rocketed from around 30 in late 2021, to over 4,500 to date, with more people dying every week. More than 44,200 people have been hospitalised for COVID-19, placing an enormous burden on the healthcare system.

The Royal Commission noted the “clear and consistent pattern of higher hospitalisation rates for people living in higher deprivation areas” and greater fatalities among Māori and Pacific people, who are largely among the poorest. Hospitals in working class areas were frequently overwhelmed with COVID cases, a crisis exacerbated by the running down of public healthcare under successive governments.

Despite this, the report complacently states that the surge in deaths in 2022 was “not the best scenario we might have hoped for [but it] was a pretty good one,” because the initial elimination strategy and vaccination meant that there was “a much lesser cumulative mortality burden than we would have experienced had we allowed the virus in during 2020.”

In fact, while vaccination reduced the risk of severe illness it did not stop mass infection, illness and large numbers of deaths from the highly-infectious Omicron and subsequent variants of COVID-19. During July 2022, as the WSWS reported, New Zealand’s weekly rate of deaths from COVID was among the highest in the world. COVID remains the country’s deadliest infectious disease.

The Royal Commission highlighted the initial success of the elimination strategy, noting that from 2020 to early 2023, New Zealand “experienced ‘negative’ excess mortality, meaning there were fewer deaths in that time period than what would have been expected during a ‘normal’ year.”

The border quarantine measures and the closure of schools and businesses in March-April 2020 succeeded in stopping circulation of the virus, allowing daily life to proceed in a relatively normal way. As well as stamping out COVID-19, these measures eliminated influenza and RSV for approximately two years, a significant achievement that contributed to a fall in the country’s mortality rate.

The commissioners then justify the ending of the “zero COVID” policy by arguing that the lockdowns were no longer working. The report echoes the Labour government’s position that the “social licence” for such measures, especially support among business leaders, was eroding. In deciding to ease and then completely end a lockdown in Auckland in late 2021, while the Delta variant of the virus was still spreading, the report says, “Cabinet had to balance many different outcomes and impacts—health, social and economic—as well as equity considerations.”

The commissioners describe the decision as a “judgement call” and even suggest that the lockdown could have been ended sooner—as was done with the lifting of similar restrictions in the Australian states of Victoria and New South Wales. They also make the unsubstantiated claim that the Omicron variant that became dominant in 2022 was “probably impossible to manage with an elimination strategy.” In fact, China was able to suppress Omicron outbreaks, including in Shanghai.

Ardern’s announcement on October 4, 2021, that the government would move away from an elimination strategy was the outcome of a concerted pressure campaign by big business, both in New Zealand and internationally. It was immediately applauded by the New York Times and other mouthpieces for the financial elite, which insisted that the world had to “learn to live with” mass COVID infection.

The decision was made without consulting the government’s own public health experts, who warned against ending the Auckland lockdown and called for it to be strengthened to stamp out the virus.

The current Labour Party leader, Chris Hipkins, who served as COVID-19 response minister during the transition to the “let it rip” policy, responded to the Royal Commission’s report by stating: “I think we lost the room in Auckland… people stopped following some of the lockdown restrictions.” The lockdown lasted from August to early December 2021 but it was undermined, not by public non-compliance, but by the government’s decisions to ease restrictions.

Hipkins blamed Labour’s crushing election defeat in October 2023 on the supposed unpopularity of lockdowns. In fact, a New Zealand Herald poll published on September 2, 2021 found that 85 percent of respondents supported the elimination strategy, including 87 percent of people in Auckland. Only 13 percent said the country should “live with” COVID-19.

Labour won the 2020 election, with more than 50 percent of the votes, largely because of public support for the elimination strategy. Its support dropped precipitously in 2022, as thousands of people became sick and died from COVID-19, and amid escalating social inequality, poverty and homelessness.

Hipkins also told the media he accepted the Royal Commission’s finding that border restrictions should have been lifted sooner and that vaccine mandates, in Hipkins’ words, “went too far.” He pointed to anti-vaccination and anti-lockdown protests—including the occupation of parliament’s lawn in early 2022—as evidence that such measures became unpopular. In fact, the protests were supported by a small minority and organised by far-right groups such as Voices For Freedom and Destiny Church.

Members of the current National Party-led coalition government have attacked the Royal Commission report for failing to openly repudiate public health principles. The far-right NZ First and ACT Parties, which play a major role in the government, repeatedly minimised COVID and attacked lockdowns and vaccine mandates during last year’s election campaign.

NZ First leader Winston Peters, the deputy prime minister, who courted anti-vaccination groups during the election, said in June that the Royal Commission was “nothing more than a Labour Party political tool.” On NZ First’s insistence, a second phase of the inquiry will be held next year to investigate “vaccine efficacy and safety” and “the imposition and maintenance of lockdowns” especially in 2021. The aim is to further undermine and discredit these life-saving measures.

Meanwhile, the government is systematically attacking the public health system, including through the destruction of thousands of jobs, even as COVID-19 continues to spread and scientists are warning that bird flu threatens to become another pandemic.

This is part of an international process: the ruling class throughout the world is attacking science and dismantling public healthcare, which is seen as an unacceptable drain on the wealth of the billionaires who run society. Hundreds of billions of dollars must also be slashed from healthcare and other social programs to pay for imperialist wars against Russia, Iran and China.

Most notably, US president-elect Donald Trump has named anti-vaccination conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Junior to run the Department of Health and Human Services, and proponent of mass COVID infection Jay Bhattacharya as director of the National Institutes of Health. This is the equivalent of putting arsonists in charge of the fire department.

The scientific knowledge and resources exist that could eliminate COVID-19 and other preventable diseases, which are now resurging throughout the world. If the elimination strategy initially adopted in New Zealand and China had been implemented on a global scale, the COVID pandemic could have been ended within a matter of months.

Such an undertaking, however, is incompatible with the capitalist system, in which all of society’s resources are subordinated to the dictates of the financial elite and its insatiable drive for profits. The only way to put an end to the pandemic and prevent an even more catastrophic outbreak in future, is through the mobilisation of the international working class in the fight for the socialist reorganisation of society.

[lilysarafan]

Sarafan ChEM H Program Drives Collaborative Research at Stanford

Sarafan ChEM-H is a key research driver in Stanford University’s mission of forwarding molecular discoveries to benefit human health. Established in 2013, Standing for Chemistry, Engineering, and Medicine for Human Health, or Stanford ChEM-H, brings together around 200 postdoctoral students, faculty members, and undergraduates to explore how individual molecules interact within the body and how these behaviors alter with the presence of diseases. The information enables novel discoveries that transform the treatment of diseases in clinical settings.

The name ChEM-H reflects a significant gift in 2022 from Lily Sarafan, BS ’03, MS ’03. The university trustee and healthcare entrepreneur invested in research into the microbiome, immunology, vaccines, and cancer. Funded programs additionally seek to uncover the molecular mechanisms underpinning aging,

In addition, the investment plays an integral role in supporting the ChEM-H Knowledge Centers or shared laboratories focused on translational biomedical science research. The specialized equipment available at the centers goes beyond what individual labs and departments on campus offer and enables an interdisciplinary approach to graduate training.

The Knowledge Center for Medicinal Chemistry provides an environment for technical areas such as high-throughput screening, macromolecular structure, protein engineering, and metabolomics. It provides researchers with state-of-the-art instrumentation and knowledge resources critical in drug discovery and synthesizing new compounds. Leading pharmaceutical laboratories have this level of support, but academic settings do not. Therefore, it has become a unique experience for participants.

Another center focuses on macromolecular structure and provides researchers with advanced tools for examining proteins and nucleic acids and the biomolecules’ functions, shapes, and interactions. Advanced equipment includes cryo-EM instrumentation, which drives leading-edge virus particle and large-molecule imaging. Understanding coronavirus and its unique spike protein became essential during the pandemic.

The Knowledge Centers support around 100 research collaborations, which have generated eight filed patents and more than 50 published research papers. Several startups have launched as a result of the Knowledge Centers' research, resulting in entrepreneurial ventures well beyond the Stanford ecosystem.

The director of Sarafan ChEM-H described the funding gift as essential in accelerating progress by removing traditional barriers between chemistry, biology, medicine, and engineering. Students receive training in collaborative approaches that bridge disciplines and translate into novel treatment pathways. Stanford’s acting dean of research further characterized the future of science as “team science,” with shared platforms bringing together talented researchers who might otherwise not interact. Using open collaboration spaces, they share specialized expertise and meaningfully further each others’ projects.

Regarding her funding contribution, Lily Sarafan described herself as a “passionate supporter of the life sciences” who values the flexible research model embodied in next-generation ChEM-H activities. She also finds the program’s commitment to “diversity of all forms” encouraging, as Stanford reaches out to the most promising and highly qualified entrepreneurial researchers worldwide. The future is bright for young researchers looking to make their scientific and entrepreneurial mark in emerging biological and medical science areas.

[misfitwashere]

September 21, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Sep 22, 2024

On Thursday, September 19, the day after the Federal Reserve began to lower interest rates two and a half years after it began to raise them to get inflation under control, President Joe Biden spoke to the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., a nonprofit, nonpartisan forum where leaders from around the world can speak to larger questions about the global economy. 

Biden noted the interest rate cut and identified it as an important signal from the Federal Reserve to the nation that inflation, which at its post-pandemic peak was 9.1%, has come down close to the Fed’s target rate of 2%. He described it as “a declaration of progress…a signal we’ve entered a new phase of our economy and our recovery.”

But Biden told the audience he was “not here to take a victory lap.” Instead, he wanted to “speak about…how far we’ve come, how we got here, and, most importantly, the foundation that I believe [we’ve] built for a more prosperous and equitable future in America.” He wanted, he said, to make the country realize how much progress we’ve made, because if we don’t, the negative economic mindset he attributes to the pandemic will “dominate our economic outlook,” and we will miss “the immense opportunities in front of us right now.” 

Biden reminded the audience that when he and Vice President Kamala Harris took office in January 2021, having “inherited the worst pandemic in a century and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,” they found “there was no real plan in place—no plan to deal with the pandemic, no plan to get the economy back on its feet. Nothing—virtually nothing.” The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted the U.S. wouldn’t see a full economic recovery until at least 2025.

But, Biden said, he “came into office determined not only to deliver immediate economic relief for the American people but to transform the way our economy works over the long term; to write a new economic playbook,” investing in ordinary Americans and promoting fair competition.

Immediately, Biden and the Democrats passed the American Rescue Plan—without a single Republican vote���to launch “one of the most sophisticated logistical operations in American history” to get coronavirus vaccines into every person in America. Without addressing the pandemic, there could be no economic recovery, he said. The American Rescue Plan also “delivered immediate economic relief for those who needed it the most,” preventing “a wave of evictions, bankruptcies, and delinquencies and defaults” like those that had followed economic crises in the past and had “weakened the recovery and left working families permanently further behind,” a process Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called “economic scarring.”

The economic crash had tanked local and state tax revenues, so the administration funded state and local governments to keep teachers and first responders working, small businesses open, and more housing being built. It expanded the Child Tax Credit, which cut child poverty in half. The American Rescue Plan included the Butch Lewis Act, which protected the pensions of millions of union workers and retirees.

During the pandemic, factories shut down, and supply chains—from shipping to port operations to trucking networks—were tangled. The reopening of the global economy sent inflation skyrocketing, and then Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine sent food and oil prices even higher. 

Biden reminded the members of the Economic Club of the massive cargo ships stuck outside the Port of Los Angeles before the 2021 holidays, and the shortage of baby formula, and explained that his administration brought together business and labor to repair supply chains and “unclog our ports, trucking networks, and shipping lines.” (Although Biden didn’t note it, Republicans in 2021 suggested that the “reckless spending” of the American Rescue Plan meant that Christmas would be “ruined,” but the administration worked to smooth out the tangles and by July 2024 the Port of Los Angeles saw record-breaking volume passing through it, up 37% from July 2023.) Biden also released oil reserves to stabilize global markets and increased energy production to record highs. Together, these measures began to ease inflation. 

Nonetheless, Biden said, critics claimed that the economic supports of the American Rescue Plan would make people leave the labor market—remember “The Great Resignation”?—and that it would take significant unemployment to lower prices. But rather than backing off, Biden and Harris seized the moment to invest in the United States. They wrestled the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law through Congress to rebuild roads, bridges, ports, airports, trains, and buses; to remove lead pipes from schools and homes; and to provide affordable high-speed internet access to every American. 

The administration insisted that U.S. contracts must use U.S. workers and U.S. products. With the CHIPS and Science Act, it brought back semiconductor chip manufacturing to the U.S., and private companies from around the world are investing tens of billions of dollars in new chip factories in the U.S. that are already employing construction workers and will soon employ factory workers. Factory construction is at a record high now, and the Biden-Harris administration created more than 700,000 manufacturing jobs.

Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act that will help cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 and is creating hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs. That law also permits Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, saving taxpayers an estimated $160 billion over the next decade. 

With inflation under control and a record 16 million jobs created, the administration’s policies proved, Biden said, that it’s possible to bring down inflation while also safeguarding jobs and wages for American workers and promoting economic growth. A record nineteen million people have applied to start new businesses. More Americans have health insurance than ever before. The racial wealth gap is the smallest in 20 years. And rather than creating a recession, these measures kept economic growth above 3% last year. The stock market is at record highs.

Biden contrasted his economic policies, based in the idea that the economy grows from the middle out and the bottom up, with those of former president Trump, whose policies of tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations are based in the idea that the economy grows best when markets drive it and that concentrating wealth at the top of society permits individuals to invest more efficiently than the government can. Biden noted that, in contrast to his own approach, Trump’s policies killed manufacturing jobs and saw very little factory construction, while creating the largest budget deficit in American history. 

Biden listed these comparisons to make the point that, as he said, “[f]or the past 40 years, too many leaders have sworn by an economic theory that has not worked very well at all: trickle-down economics. Cut taxes for the very wealthy…and hope the benefits trickle down. Well, guess what?  Not a whole lot trickled down to my dad’s kitchen table. It’s clear, especially under my predecessor, that trickle-down economics failed.  And he’s promised it again—trickle-down economics—but it will fail again.” He noted, as former president Bill Clinton pointed out at the Democratic National Convention, that since 1989 the U.S. has created about 51 million jobs, and 50 million of them have come under Democratic presidents.

“I’m a capitalist,” Biden said, “[b]ut I believe capitalism is the greatest force to grow the economy for everybody.” He called for more affordable housing, affordable childcare, and lower healthcare costs, noting that those policies will increase economic growth. He called for higher taxes on the very wealthy to pay for those pro-growth policies and to cut the deficit.

And then Biden brought the economic discussion back to his argument before the State Department in 2021, just after he took office. He told the audience at the Economic Club that we have such a dynamic system, and foreign companies are willing to invest here, because of the stability provided in the U.S. by the rule of law. Indeed, it is the rule of law that protects investments and capital, as evidenced by the fact that autocrats stash their money not in their own countries or other dictatorships, but in liberal democracies where investments cannot be taken away or legal protections changed on a dictator’s whim.

After listing the extraordinary economic successes of the past three and a half years, Biden told the audience: “American business, our economic dynamism can’t succeed…without a stability and security that makes us the envy of the world.” 

–-

[justinspoliticalcorner]

WaPo's Philip Bump: State-endorsed violence is triumphing over left-aligned protests

Philip Bump at Washington Post:

I was in Florida in May 2021 when I saw a white Mini Cooper with two seemingly incongruous bumper stickers. One said, “I WILL NOT COMPLY” — a then-vogue sentiment as governments sought to mandate vaccines to fight the coronavirus pandemic. In a rear window, though, the car displayed a monochromatic American flag with one of the stripes rendered in blue. This, of course, is the graphical representation of the “Blue Lives Matter” mantra, an expression of support for the police that emerged as law enforcement began facing new criticism about the killing of Black civilians a decade ago. I will not comply … but I support our men and women in law enforcement.

It’s easy to carve out a realm where these sentiments are not at odds. The driver won’t comply with vaccine mandates but stands with the police as they do the hard work of subduing the real criminals. Or, to define the space where the sentiments are not at odds more simply: The driver adheres to a right-wing worldview in which state power is properly deployed against the left. For the driver, the law protects but doesn’t bind, as the saying has it. That was three years ago. In the period since, state power has gained a lot of ground against its long-standing adversaries’ criticism and protest. Last week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) took the unusual-for-him step of pardoning a man who was convicted of murder in a shooting death in Austin. The shooter, Daniel Perry, was driving in the city in July 2020 when he came across a protest criticizing the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis. Garrett Foster was part of the crowd and was carrying a rifle, which is legal in the state. Perry claimed that Foster aimed the weapon at him and that he fired in self-defense.

Others in the crowd denied that Foster raised his weapon. A jury determined that the killing was not justified and sentenced Perry to prison. They did so without even seeing some of the most striking evidence: text messages from Perry in which he expressed racist views and talked about shooting people who engaged in looting in the wake of the Floyd protests. (Foster, like Perry, was White.) But Abbott decided a pardon was in order, arguing that the state’s stand-your-ground law “cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive district attorney.” Foster’s killing was rebuked by Texans but sanctioned by the state. In the wake of the protests in 2020 — an underrecognized challenge to state power from the left — other states attempted to build laws specifically to increase the costs of those protests. In Florida and Oklahoma, for example, the state legislatures passed and governors signed laws absolving drivers of some penalties if they struck protesters blocking roads.

[...] One of the widest partisan divides, meanwhile, was on “disrupting public events.” That divide was about as wide as the one on “establishing encampments.” Since the protests that unfolded in the summer of 2020, the largest widespread protest movement seen in the United States has been centered on the establishment of encampments on college campuses to protest Israel’s military incursion in Gaza. Most Americans expressed skepticism of those protests in polling released this month. In recent Fox News polling, though, a majority of Democrats expressed support for the protests while Republicans opposed them by more than a 5-1 margin. [...]

At many colleges, including New York's Columbia University, administrators agreed with the Republicans. Law enforcement was brought in to disrupt and remove encampments. That was true at Columbia, where the New York Police Department swept the campus more than once. The second and final sweep resulted in several students being hospitalized. Over the weekend, the NYPD again violently disrupted a protest. Officers were seen striking protesters participating in a pro-Palestinian event in Brooklyn, with police arguing that the response was needed because protesters were blocking the streets. The neighborhood’s City Council member told the New York Times that “from my vantage point, the response appeared preemptive, retaliatory and cumulatively aggressive.” [...]

The violent crackdown on the protests were sanctioned by the state. It is possible that the bumper sticker on that car I saw in Florida in 2021 was harrumphing not about an unwillingness to comply with the coronavirus vaccine but, instead, with the advent of a Democratic president. After all, the weeks after the 2020 election were awash in right-wing refusal to comply with the state power manifested in recognizing Joe Biden’s electoral victory. On Jan. 6, 2021, rioters supporting Donald Trump overwhelmed law enforcement and overtook the Capitol in a failed effort to redirect power back to the sitting president.

The response from Trump’s allies and the broader right has been illuminating. There was an immediate effort to rationalize the violence by comparing it to the protests that unfolded the previous summer, like the one at which Garrett Foster was killed. Or like the one after which teenager Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two men. (“Those who help, protect, and defend are the good guys,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) wrote on social media once Rittenhouse was acquitted of murder. “Kyle is one of good ones.”) Over the longer term, though, the right’s Capitol riot narrative — led by people like Greene — focused more heavily on the purported injustices those rioters had faced. Those who are incarcerated have been presented as “political prisoners,” rather than as violent criminals and, often people who’ve pleaded guilty to their offenses. In the vernacular of that Mini Cooper, these were honorable people refusing to comply, not criminals engaged in an unacceptable denial of how much blue lives matter.

Washington Post’s Philp Bump wrote a solid article on why left-leaning protests (pro-Palestine, pro-Black Lives Matter, etc.) are more likely to face state-sanctioned violent crackdown responses than right-leaning protests (anti-COVID mitigation measures, etc.)