#UK Health Security Agency

[insidecroydon]

700 Londoners admitted to hospital as covid numbers soar

Doctors fear that New Year’s Eve parties and events could become super-spreader events, as the number of winter virus cases soars and the number of people testing positive for covid continues to rise in London. In the run-up to Christmas, London had the highest rate of covid in England, with data from the UK Health Security Agency estimating that around 6.1% of Londoners had the virus – more than…

[banglakhobor]

New COVID Variant: গলা ও মাথা ব্যথা, সঙ্গে হাঁচি? করোনার নতুন ভ্যারিয়েন্টে আক্রান্ত নন তো!

জি ২৪ ঘণ্টা ডিজিটাল ব্যুরো: করোনা এখন নিয়ন্ত্রণে বলেই জানা ছিল। কিন্তু এরই মধ্যে ছন্দপতন। ফের মিলল করোনার খবর। এবার আর এক নতুন ভ্যারিয়েন্ট। ২০২৩ সালের গোড়া থেকেই নিম্নমুখী করোনার গ্রাফ। সম্প্রতিই বিশ্ব স্বাস্থ্য সংস্থার (World Health Organization) প্রধান টেডরস অধানম ঘেব্রেয়াসুস জানিয়েছিলেন, করোনার শেষের শুরু হয়ে গিয়েছে। প্রাণঘাতী এই সংক্রমণ নিয়ে চিন্তা কমতেও তাই শুরু করেছিল। কিন্তু এরই মধ্যে…

[urbanchats]

First Human Case of H1N2 Strain Detected in the UK Sparks Global Health Concerns

[theloverstomb]

‘Fragile Microbiomes’ by bio-artist Anna Dumitriu

1. SYPHILIS DRESS- This dress is embroidered with images of the corkscrew-shaped bacterium which causes the sexually transmitted disease syphilis. These embroideries are impregnated with the sterilised DNA of the Nichols strain of the bacterium - Treponema pallidum subsp. pallidum - which Dumitriu extracted with her collaborators.

2. MICROBE MOUTH- The tooth at the centre of this necklace was grown in the lab using an extremophile bacterium which is part of the species called Serratia (Serratia N14) that can produce hydroxyapatite, the same substance that tooth enamel is made from.

The handmade porcelain teeth that make up this necklace have been coated with glazes derived from various bacterial species that live in our mouths and cause tooth decay and gum disease, including Porphyromonas gingivalis, which can introduce an iron-containing light brown stain to the glaze.

3. TEETH MARKS: THE MOST PROFOUND MYSTERY- In his 1845 essay “On Artificial Teeth”, W.H. Mortimer described false teeth as “the most profound mystery” because they were never discussed. Instead, people would hide the stigma of bad teeth and foul breath using fans.

This altered antique fan is made from animal bone and has been mended with gold wire, both materials historically used to construct false teeth (which would also sometimes incorporate human teeth). The silk of the fan and ribbon has been grown and patterned with two species of oral pathogens: Prevotella intermedia and Porphyromonas gingivalis. These bacteria cause gum disease and bad breath, and the latter has also recently been linked to Alzheimer’s disease.

4. PLAGUE DRESS- This 1665-style 'Plague Dress' is made from raw silk, hand-dyed with walnut husks in reference to the famous herbalist of the era Nicholas Culpeper, who recommended walnuts as a treatment for plague. It has been appliquéd with original 17th-century embroideries, impregnated with the DNA of Yersinia pestis bacteria (plague). The artist extracted this from killed bacteria in the laboratory of the National Collection of Type Cultures at the UK Health Security Agency.

The dress is stuffed and surrounded by lavender, which people carried during the Great Plague of London to cover the stench of infection and to prevent the disease, which was believed to be caused by 'bad air' or 'miasmas'. The silk of the dress references the Silk Road, a key vector for the spread of plague.

5. BACTERIAL BAPTISM- based on a vintage christening gown which has been altered by the artist to tell the story of research into how the microbiomes of babies develop, with a focus on the bacterium Clostridioides difficile, originally discovered by Hall and O’Toole in 1935 and presented in their paper “Intestinal flora in new-born infants”. It was named Bacillus difficilis because it was difficult to grow, and in the 1970s it was recognised as causing conditions from mild antibiotic-associated diarrhoea to life-threatening intestinal inflammation. The embroidery silk is dyed using stains used in the study of the gut microbiome and the gown is decorated with hand-crocheted linen lace grown in lab with (sterilised) C. difficile biofilms. The piece also considers how new-borns become colonised by bacteria during birth in what has been described as ‘bacterial baptism’.

6. ZENEXTON- Around 1570, Swiss physician and alchemist Theophrastus Paracelsus coined the term ‘Zenexton’, meaning an amulet worn around the neck to protect from the plague. Until then, amulets had a more general purpose of warding off (unspecified) disease, rather like the difference today between ‘broad spectrum’ antibiotics and antibiotics informed by genomics approaches which target a specific organism.

Over the next century, several ideas were put forward as to what this amulet might contain: a paste made of powdered toads, sapphires that would turn black when they leeched the pestilence from the body, or menstrual blood. Bizarre improvements were later made: “of course, the toad should be finely powdered”; “the menstrual blood from a virgin”; “collected on a full moon”.

This very modern Zenexton has been 3D printed and offers the wearer something that genuinely protects: the recently developed vaccine against Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

It's frustrating how this article admits that vaccination does not substantially stop spread, but it give the reader no further information. Mask up. Improve ventilation. Filter the air. Distance when you can. Those are actual, implementable advice that keeps covid from spreading, and it has to be done by the public at large to keep individuals safe. It's much less effective when the nebulous "high risk" are left to fend for themselves while everyone else pretends that it's 2019 forever.

By Kelly Ashmore

The XEC strain is 'just getting started' and is rapidly spreading throughout Europe and the rest of the world, experts have warned

Experts have issued a warning about a new, "stronger" Covid variant that is "just getting started" and spreading rapidly across Europe and the rest of the world. The XEC strain, first identified in Germany in June, has now been linked to 15 countries across three continents. As colder weather approaches, specialists anticipate this strain will become the dominant variant.

In California, Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said: "XEC is just getting started now around the world and here. And that's going to take many weeks, a couple of months, before it really takes hold and starts to cause a wave," according to the LA Times. He added, "XEC is definitely taking charge. That does appear to be the next variant. But it's months off from getting into high levels."

Experts have issued a warning about a new, "stronger" Covid variant that is "just getting started" and spreading rapidly across Europe and the rest of the world. The XEC strain, first identified in Germany in June, has now been linked to 15 countries across three continents. As colder weather approaches, specialists anticipate this strain will become the dominant variant.

In California, Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said: "XEC is just getting started now around the world and here. And that's going to take many weeks, a couple of months, before it really takes hold and starts to cause a wave," according to the LA Times. He added, "XEC is definitely taking charge. That does appear to be the next variant. But it's months off from getting into high levels."

What is Covid XEC? The Covid XEC is a recombinant variant of Covid-19, resulting from a combination of the BA. 1 and BA.

2 Omicron subvariants. While some Covid strains have proven more severe than others over the past years, it will take additional time for health professionals to determine the severity of symptoms associated with the XEC strain.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has not yet provided detailed information on the XEC variant.

However, recent statistics from the UKHSA have shown a 4.3 per cent increase in Covid-19 cases, but a decrease in virus-related deaths. The weekly figures revealed an increase of 1,587 Covid cases as of September 4.

Despite recording 102 deaths in the week ending August 30, this was a decrease of 20.9 per cent (27) from the previous week. Furthermore, hospital admissions due to the virus also fell by six per cent to 1,465, in the week up to August 29.

What are the symptoms of Covid XEC? The strain presents symptoms similar to those of a typical cold and flu. These include shortness of breath, high fever, persistent cough, loss of taste or smell, and feelings of fatigue or exhaustion.

Classic cold symptoms such as headache, sore throat, runny or blocked nose, loss of appetite, diarrhoea, and general malaise are also common. While most people will recover within a few weeks, some may require hospitalisation and others may need longer.

How to stay protected As with earlier Covid variants, the same precautions should be taken against the newest variant, including regular booster doses and vaccinations. Vaccines remain the best defence against serious illness, hospitalisation, and even death, even if they may not completely prevent infection.

If you're vulnerable to the virus or share a home with someone who is, donning a face mask can offer some protection, particularly in crowded or poorly ventilated indoor spaces. Boosting indoor ventilation where possible can further reduce the risk of falling ill.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

What I don't think I've said before is that my agency is a law enforcement agency and we do similar investigations to this

I work on the side of law firms coming in to do internal investigations - particularly in the UK. You obviously know what you’re talking about, but I just want to reaffirm for the anon and other readers that it’ll take months.

Organisations sometimes unknowingly open Pandoras box when they start an investigation like this, because all kinds of misconduct they had not known about must now also be dealt with. That makes the deadlines even more squishy.

Would love to have your take on the national security aspects to the PoW’s diagnosis and continued treatment. I bet H&M is going to want to find out more information too, which fits in nicely on your recent posts around him being a security risk (I’m the Pegasus anon and highly enjoyed them).

Very old ask from March 22nd.

So now knowing that Kate actually did have cancer, was seriously ill, and was also downplaying her diagnosis and condition, that changes my thinking a little.

I do think one of the reasons they've been very careful with Kate's diagnosis and treatment is because of the national security impact. For instance, if Kate's actual treatment was publicly known - she goes to chemo on these days, she's being treated at this hospital, her drugs are X, Y, Z - then a bad actor or a threat can absolutely do some damage. They can taint the medical supply, they can call paparazzi to the hospital, they can sneak cameras into the treatment center, they can stage an emergency that takes resources away from the oncology unit.

If the type of cancer Kate had or the chemo treatment she was undergoing meant she needed to be a on a specific diet and if that was known, then obviously someone could try to send her a tainted gift basket or they have a spoiled product that they give to a known Wales associate (like a Turnip Toff or a Middleton friend) and they pass it on to Kate (which is how Pippa used to merch sometimes, in early Cambridge days) who doesn't suspect anything because that person is cleared by RPOs. And this is something that the BRF is actually concerned about - I read somewhere once that they don't accept food products or food gifts and if any is given to them on walkabout or engagements, it's immediately tossed.

Now let's think about that hack/unauthorized access to Kate's medical files back in March. What could someone do with that information? Well, aside from her diagnosis, her symptoms, her treatment plan, they could learn who her doctors and care team are and go after them - stalk them, harass them, blackmail them, endanger their families, etc. They might also learn where Kate's pharmacy is or other private medical information like maybe if she had any miscarriages, what other medications she might be on, what her allergies are, her parents' medical history, etc. and all of that is something that a bad actor can exploit to their advantage, everything from exposing Kate to her allergen to killing her doctor and assuming their identity to treat her.

Not to mention the fact that anyone who goes through a major operation like Kate did in January and who goes through chemo becomes incredibly immunocompromised. All they have to do is get someone with COVID or a flu or shingles or some other kind of biotoxin or contagious illness next to Kate and her condition worsens.

(Just a quick aside her to remind everyone that someone who's immunocompromised from chemo the way Kate is isn't going to be frolicking in the woods with people who aren't in her bubble. Michael and Carole are in the video because they're in Kate's health bubble. Charles and Camilla aren't in the video because they aren't in Kate's bubble and they're not in Kate's bubble because Charles has his own bubble because he's also immunocompromised from his own cancer and his own treatment and no one wants to risk Charles or Kate getting worse because of something "crossing over" from one person's treatment into the other's.)

And what happens if you take Kate out of the picture? We're not killing her here - we're just saying she becomes incapacitated or sidelined in some way. But take Kate out of the picture, now all of a sudden you have the entire future of the monarchy at risk. William becomes vulnerable. George becomes vulnerable. Charlotte and Louis become vulnerable. We're not talking about their physical security or their physical well-being here; we're talking about their mental and emotional health and as we've seen in Harry, that -- in the hands of the wrong person -- becomes incredibly dangerous. And since William is the next king and George the future king, that 100% is a matter of national security.

It is all farfetched, it does sound Bondian, but that's what national security is. It's considering every single possibility that could happen, assessing how likely it could happen and what kind of impact would come from it happening, and mitigating as much of that as possible.

So how do you mitigate the threat to national security posed by Kate's health crisis? You don't tell anyone the specifics. You keep it private. You downplay it to the best of your abilities.

Now, specific to the Sussexes, and why William and Kate (or even the RPOs or even the BRF) wouldn't want them to know the whole truth of her condition and health, it's absolutely all the shadiness that the Sussexes are involved with. There's rumors of Russian support. We know they have microphones and Netflix cameras with them all the time. We know that the Sussexes are boundary-stomping privacy invaders who blab about every tiny morsel of information they get - or don't get. We know that the Sussexes want to be King and Queen of people's hearts, King and Queen of culture, and the actual King and Queen of the UK, the realms, and the Commonwealth.

If something happens to Kate, then Harry and Meghan aren't even waiting in the wings; they're already running on stage with their plastic crowns. And I think they know that, because without Kate, William's attention turns 100% to the children, which leaves an opening for Charles to bring Harry back and we know that Harry won't come back without Meghan. So if Harry and Meghan are both back, then they become even bigger red flags to the monarchy and the BRF because they're also bringing the damage of the last 5 years - grudges from 2018/2019, the alleged Russian supporters, Oprah, Netflix cameras, Sussex Squad, all their crony kiss-ass reporters, etc. Bad, bad, bad news all around. You might as well turn the Buckingham Palace throne room into a gift shop now because the second Harry and Meghan are back in, they're selling the monachy to the highest bidder - but will it be Oprah? Will it be Netflix? Will it be any Russians? Will it be Nacho? Will it be QVC and the Home Shopping Network? Will it be Penguin Random House?

So not telling Harry and Meghan anything about what Kate's doing isn't just national security best practices; it's complete and total self-preservation of the monarchy for George. Because if Meghan was able to do that to Harry, imagine what she and Harry can both do to William and George together when William and George's world has been totally rocked and shattered.

Edit: added some clarification. I mention COVID here as an example of someone with an illness who could seriously worsen an immunocompromised person's health. I'm not debating COVID vaccinations, protocols, or precautions and any more comments/replies about COVID will be removed.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How to design a tech regulation

TONIGHT (June 20) I'm live onstage in LOS ANGELES for a recording of the GO FACT YOURSELF podcast. TOMORROW (June 21) I'm doing an ONLINE READING for the LOCUS AWARDS at 16hPT. On SATURDAY (June 22) I'll be in OAKLAND, CA for a panel (13hPT) and a keynote (18hPT) at the LOCUS AWARDS.

It's not your imagination: tech really is underregulated. There are plenty of avoidable harms that tech visits upon the world, and while some of these harms are mere negligence, others are self-serving, creating shareholder value and widespread public destruction.

Making good tech policy is hard, but not because "tech moves too fast for regulation to keep up with," nor because "lawmakers are clueless about tech." There are plenty of fast-moving areas that lawmakers manage to stay abreast of (think of the rapid, global adoption of masking and social distancing rules in mid-2020). Likewise we generally manage to make good policy in areas that require highly specific technical knowledge (that's why it's noteworthy and awful when, say, people sicken from badly treated tapwater, even though water safety, toxicology and microbiology are highly technical areas outside the background of most elected officials).

That doesn't mean that technical rigor is irrelevant to making good policy. Well-run "expert agencies" include skilled practitioners on their payrolls – think here of large technical staff at the FTC, or the UK Competition and Markets Authority's best-in-the-world Digital Markets Unit:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/13/kitbashed/#app-store-tax

The job of government experts isn't just to research the correct answers. Even more important is experts' role in evaluating conflicting claims from interested parties. When administrative agencies make new rules, they have to collect public comments and counter-comments. The best agencies also hold hearings, and the very best go on "listening tours" where they invite the broad public to weigh in (the FTC has done an awful lot of these during Lina Khan's tenure, to its benefit, and it shows):

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/events/2022/04/ftc-justice-department-listening-forum-firsthand-effects-mergers-acquisitions-health-care

But when an industry dwindles to a handful of companies, the resulting cartel finds it easy to converge on a single talking point and to maintain strict message discipline. This means that the evidentiary record is starved for disconfirming evidence that would give the agencies contrasting perspectives and context for making good policy.

Tech industry shills have a favorite tactic: whenever there's any proposal that would erode the industry's profits, self-serving experts shout that the rule is technically impossible and deride the proposer as "clueless."

This tactic works so well because the proposers sometimes are clueless. Take Europe's on-again/off-again "chat control" proposal to mandate spyware on every digital device that will screen everything you upload for child sex abuse material (CSAM, better known as "child pornography"). This proposal is profoundly dangerous, as it will weaken end-to-end encryption, the key to all secure and private digital communication:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jun/18/encryption-is-deeply-threatening-to-power-meredith-whittaker-of-messaging-app-signal

It's also an impossible-to-administer mess that incorrectly assumes that killing working encryption in the two mobile app stores run by the mobile duopoly will actually prevent bad actors from accessing private tools:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/09/04/oh-for-fucks-sake-not-this-fucking-bullshit-again-cryptography-edition/

When technologists correctly point out the lack of rigor and catastrophic spillover effects from this kind of crackpot proposal, lawmakers stick their fingers in their ears and shout "NERD HARDER!"

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/01/12/nerd-harder-fbi-director-reiterates-faith-based-belief-in-working-crypto-that-he-can-break/

But this is only half the story. The other half is what happens when tech industry shills want to kill good policy proposals, which is the exact same thing that advocates say about bad ones. When lawmakers demand that tech companies respect our privacy rights – for example, by splitting social media or search off from commercial surveillance, the same people shout that this, too, is technologically impossible.

That's a lie, though. Facebook started out as the anti-surveillance alternative to Myspace. We know it's possible to operate Facebook without surveillance, because Facebook used to operate without surveillance:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3247362

Likewise, Brin and Page's original Pagerank paper, which described Google's architecture, insisted that search was incompatible with surveillance advertising, and Google established itself as a non-spying search tool:

http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf

Even weirder is what happens when there's a proposal to limit a tech company's power to invoke the government's powers to shut down competitors. Take Ethan Zuckerman's lawsuit to strip Facebook of the legal power to sue people who automate their browsers to uncheck the millions of boxes that Facebook requires you to click by hand in order to unfollow everyone:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/02/kaiju-v-kaiju/#cda-230-c-2-b

Facebook's apologists have lost their minds over this, insisting that no one can possibly understand the potential harms of taking away Facebook's legal right to decide how your browser works. They take the position that only Facebook can understand when it's safe and proportional to use Facebook in ways the company didn't explicitly design for, and that they should be able to ask the government to fine or even imprison people who fail to defer to Facebook's decisions about how its users configure their computers.

This is an incredibly convenient position, since it arrogates to Facebook the right to order the rest of us to use our computers in the ways that are most beneficial to its shareholders. But Facebook's apologists insist that they are not motivated by parochial concerns over the value of their stock portfolios; rather, they have objective, technical concerns, that no one except them is qualified to understand or comment on.

There's a great name for this: "scalesplaining." As in "well, actually the platforms are doing an amazing job, but you can't possibly understand that because you don't work for them." It's weird enough when scalesplaining is used to condemn sensible regulation of the platforms; it's even weirder when it's weaponized to defend a system of regulatory protection for the platforms against would-be competitors.

Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no libertarians in government-protected monopolies. Somehow, scalesplaining can be used to condemn governments as incapable of making any tech regulations and to insist that regulations that protect tech monopolies are just perfect and shouldn't ever be weakened. Truly, it's impossible to get someone to understand something when the value of their employee stock options depends on them not understanding it.

None of this is to say that every tech regulation is a good one. Governments often propose bad tech regulations (like chat control), or ones that are technologically impossible (like Article 17 of the EU's 2019 Digital Single Markets Directive, which requires tech companies to detect and block copyright infringements in their users' uploads).

But the fact that scalesplainers use the same argument to criticize both good and bad regulations makes the waters very muddy indeed. Policymakers are rightfully suspicious when they hear "that's not technically possible" because they hear that both for technically impossible proposals and for proposals that scalesplainers just don't like.

After decades of regulations aimed at making platforms behave better, we're finally moving into a new era, where we just make the platforms less important. That is, rather than simply ordering Facebook to block harassment and other bad conduct by its users, laws like the EU's Digital Markets Act will order Facebook and other VLOPs (Very Large Online Platforms, my favorite EU-ism ever) to operate gateways so that users can move to rival services and still communicate with the people who stay behind.

Think of this like number portability, but for digital platforms. Just as you can switch phone companies and keep your number and hear from all the people you spoke to on your old plan, the DMA will make it possible for you to change online services but still exchange messages and data with all the people you're already in touch with.

I love this idea, because it finally grapples with the question we should have been asking all along: why do people stay on platforms where they face harassment and bullying? The answer is simple: because the people – customers, family members, communities – we connect with on the platform are so important to us that we'll tolerate almost anything to avoid losing contact with them:

https://locusmag.com/2023/01/commentary-cory-doctorow-social-quitting/

Platforms deliberately rig the game so that we take each other hostage, locking each other into their badly moderated cesspits by using the love we have for one another as a weapon against us. Interoperability – making platforms connect to each other – shatters those locks and frees the hostages:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

But there's another reason to love interoperability (making moderation less important) over rules that require platforms to stamp out bad behavior (making moderation better). Interop rules are much easier to administer than content moderation rules, and when it comes to regulation, administratability is everything.

The DMA isn't the EU's only new rule. They've also passed the Digital Services Act, which is a decidedly mixed bag. Among its provisions are a suite of rules requiring companies to monitor their users for harmful behavior and to intervene to block it. Whether or not you think platforms should do this, there's a much more important question: how can we enforce this rule?

Enforcing a rule requiring platforms to prevent harassment is very "fact intensive." First, we have to agree on a definition of "harassment." Then we have to figure out whether something one user did to another satisfies that definition. Finally, we have to determine whether the platform took reasonable steps to detect and prevent the harassment.

Each step of this is a huge lift, especially that last one, since to a first approximation, everyone who understands a given VLOP's server infrastructure is a partisan, scalesplaining engineer on the VLOP's payroll. By the time we find out whether the company broke the rule, years will have gone by, and millions more users will be in line to get justice for themselves.

So allowing users to leave is a much more practical step than making it so that they've got no reason to want to leave. Figuring out whether a platform will continue to forward your messages to and from the people you left there is a much simpler technical matter than agreeing on what harassment is, whether something is harassment by that definition, and whether the company was negligent in permitting harassment.

But as much as I like the DMA's interop rule, I think it is badly incomplete. Given that the tech industry is so concentrated, it's going to be very hard for us to define standard interop interfaces that don't end up advantaging the tech companies. Standards bodies are extremely easy for big industry players to capture:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/30/weak-institutions/

If tech giants refuse to offer access to their gateways to certain rivals because they seem "suspicious," it will be hard to tell whether the companies are just engaged in self-serving smears against a credible rival, or legitimately trying to protect their users from a predator trying to plug into their infrastructure. These fact-intensive questions are the enemy of speedy, responsive, effective policy administration.

But there's more than one way to attain interoperability. Interop doesn't have to come from mandates, interfaces designed and overseen by government agencies. There's a whole other form of interop that's far nimbler than mandates: adversarial interoperability:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

"Adversarial interoperability" is a catch-all term for all the guerrilla warfare tactics deployed in service to unilaterally changing a technology: reverse engineering, bots, scraping and so on. These tactics have a long and honorable history, but they have been slowly choked out of existence with a thicket of IP rights, like the IP rights that allow Facebook to shut down browser automation tools, which Ethan Zuckerman is suing to nullify:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Adversarial interop is very flexible. No matter what technological moves a company makes to interfere with interop, there's always a countermove the guerrilla fighter can make – tweak the scraper, decompile the new binary, change the bot's behavior. That's why tech companies use IP rights and courts, not firewall rules, to block adversarial interoperators.

At the same time, adversarial interop is unreliable. The solution that works today can break tomorrow if the company changes its back-end, and it will stay broken until the adversarial interoperator can respond.

But when companies are faced with the prospect of extended asymmetrical war against adversarial interop in the technological trenches, they often surrender. If companies can't sue adversarial interoperators out of existence, they often sue for peace instead. That's because high-tech guerrilla warfare presents unquantifiable risks and resource demands, and, as the scalesplainers never tire of telling us, this can create real operational problems for tech giants.

In other words, if Facebook can't shut down Ethan Zuckerman's browser automation tool in the courts, and if they're sincerely worried that a browser automation tool will uncheck its user interface buttons so quickly that it crashes the server, all it has to do is offer an official "unsubscribe all" button and no one will use Zuckerman's browser automation tool.

We don't have to choose between adversarial interop and interop mandates. The two are better together than they are apart. If companies building and operating DMA-compliant, mandatory gateways know that a failure to make them useful to rivals seeking to help users escape their authority is getting mired in endless hand-to-hand combat with trench-fighting adversarial interoperators, they'll have good reason to cooperate.

And if lawmakers charged with administering the DMA notice that companies are engaging in adversarial interop rather than using the official, reliable gateway they're overseeing, that's a good indicator that the official gateways aren't suitable.

It would be very on-brand for the EU to create the DMA and tell tech companies how they must operate, and for the USA to simply withdraw the state's protection from the Big Tech companies and let smaller companies try their luck at hacking new features into the big companies' servers without the government getting involved.

Indeed, we're seeing some of that today. Oregon just passed the first ever Right to Repair law banning "parts pairing" – basically a way of using IP law to make it illegal to reverse-engineer a device so you can fix it.

https://www.opb.org/article/2024/03/28/oregon-governor-kotek-signs-strong-tech-right-to-repair-bill/

Taken together, the two approaches – mandates and reverse engineering – are stronger than either on their own. Mandates are sturdy and reliable, but slow-moving. Adversarial interop is flexible and nimble, but unreliable. Put 'em together and you get a two-part epoxy, strong and flexible.

Governments can regulate well, with well-funded expert agencies and smart, adminstratable remedies. It's for that reason that the administrative state is under such sustained attack from the GOP and right-wing Dems. The illegitimate Supreme Court is on the verge of gutting expert agencies' power:

https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2024/05/us-supreme-court-may-soon-discard-or-modify-chevron-deference

It's never been more important to craft regulations that go beyond mere good intentions and take account of adminsitratability. The easier we can make our rules to enforce, the less our beleaguered agencies will need to do to protect us from corporate predators.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/20/scalesplaining/#administratability

Image: Noah Wulf (modified) https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thunderbirds_at_Attention_Next_to_Thunderbird_1_-_Aviation_Nation_2019.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[melhindips]

American activist shot dead in occupied West Bank

A 26-year-old American woman has been shot dead in the occupied West Bank during a protest.

Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who is of Turkish descent, is reported to have been taking part in a protest against Jewish settlement expansion in the town of Beita near Nablus.

Ms Ezgi Eygi was allegedly shot by Israeli troops, according to local media reports. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) say they are aware of the incident and looking into it.

The American activist was rushed to a hospital in Nablus with a gunshot to the head and was later pronounced dead, AFP news agency reported.

According to reports by Palestinian media, the 26-year-old had been involved in a campaign to protect farmers from Israeli settler violence.

It comes after Israeli forces withdrew from Jenin city and its refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, following a major nine-day operation there.

During the operation, at least 36 Palestinians were killed - 21 from Jenin governorate - the Palestinian health ministry says. Most of the dead have been claimed by armed groups as members, but the ministry says children are also among those killed.

In the past 50 years, Israel has built settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where more than 700,000 Jews now live.

Settlements are held to be illegal under international law - that is the position of the UN Security Council and the UK government, among others - although Israel rejects this.

[liesmyteachertoldme]

A New Type of War

While many still have not realized it, we are at war. The aggressors are government intelligence and security agencies that have turned their weapon of choice — information — against their own citizens.

And, while the organizations doing the CIA's dirty work may have changed, the basic organizational structure is the same as it was in 1967. Taxpayer money gets funneled through various federal departments and agencies into the hands of nongovernmental agencies that carry out censorship activities as directed. As recently reported by investigative journalists Alex Gutentag and Michael Shellenberger:6

"The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) are nongovernmental organizations, their leaders say.

When they demand more censorship of online hate speech, as they are currently doing of X, formerly Twitter, those NGOs are doing it as free citizens and not, say, as government agents.

But the fact of the matter is that the US and other Western governments fund ISD, the UK government indirectly funds CCDH, and, for at least 40 years, ADL spied on its enemies and shared intelligence with the US, Israel and other governments.

The reason all of this matters is that ADL's advertiser boycott against X may be an effort by governments to regain the ability to censor users on X that they had under Twitter before Musk's takeover last November.

Internal Twitter and Facebook messages show that representatives of the US government, including the White House, FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as well as the UK government, successfully demanded Facebook and Twitter censorship of their users over the last several years."

What we have now is government censorship by proxy, a deeply anti-American activity that has become standard practice, not just by intelligence and national security agencies but federal agencies of all stripes, including our public health agencies.

September 8, 2023, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's injunction banning the White House, the surgeon general, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FBI from influencing social media companies to remove so-called "disinformation."7

According to the judges' decision,8 "CDC officials provided direct guidance to the platforms on the application of the platforms' internal policies and moderation activities" by telling them what was, and was not, misinformation, asking for changes to platforms' moderation policies and directing platforms to take specific actions.

"Ultimately, the CDC's guidance informed, if not directly affected, the platforms' moderation decisions," the judges said, so, "although not plainly coercive, the CDC officials likely significantly encouraged the platforms' moderation decisions, meaning they violated the First Amendment."

Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, the U.S. government is not acting alone. Governments around the world and international organizations like the World Health Organization are all engaged in censorship, and when it comes to medical information, most Big Tech platforms are taking their lead from the WHO. And, if the WHO's pandemic treaty9 is enacted, then the WHO will have sole authority to dictate truth. Everything else will be censored.

[darkmaga-retard]

The Invisible Danger: Electromagnetic Frequencies

By World Council for Health, 23 July 2024

On 10 July The Guardian reported on the tragic deaths of two young children at a special needs primary school in Liverpool, UK. The school had been dealing with an outbreak of giardia, which causes diarrhoea and stomach cramps, but the UK Health Security Agency (“HAS”) said it was unlikely the deaths were linked to the outbreak. Michelle Beard, the headteacher of Millstead primary said, “The entire Millstead school community is devastated to have learned of the sad recent passing of two of our younger children. We have sent our sincerest condolences to both of their families.”

To date, the deaths remain unexplained.

A Concerning Discovery

Following this tragedy, radiation experts Glynn Hughes of EMF Protection Ltd and Eileen O’Connor, Charity Director for the EM Radiation Research Trust, visited the school to investigate potential causes. What they found was deeply concerning.

At the school fence, Glynn recorded a radio frequency reading of 1,554,932 µW/m, the highest he’s seen in the UK, emanating from a nearby 4G LTE tower. These dangerously high readings were observed just meters away from children’s toys in the schoolyard. Liverpool has the largest 5G mesh network in the UK, the second biggest in the world.

While the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (“ICNIRP”) guidelines set a “safe” exposure limit of 4,500,000 μW/m2, a considerable body of evidence indicates this is absurdly high. Indeed, the Bio Initiative Report Recommendation for ‘No Observable Effects’ is just 3-6 μW/m2.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Britain’s lead public health body has a staggering lack of control over billions of pounds of spending, and there is no plan for stockpiling vaccines or personal protective equipment (PPE) for a future pandemic, a damning MPs’ report has found. The public accounts committee was highly critical of the repeated governance and financial failings at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), which was set up with great fanfare under Boris Johnson. Meg Hillier, the committee chair, said it would be “utterly inexcusable” for the government to have failed to make serious preparations for future health emergencies and warned the lack of a plan for stockpiling could leave health workers once again exposed to danger as they were in 2020. The committee lambasted the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), which oversees UKHSA, for lacking a strategy for reserves of PPE, vaccines and medicines despite its mandate to protect the country’s health security. The MPs were particularly critical of the decision for it to be led by Prof Dame Jenny Harries, a former deputy chief medical officer for England, saying she was “appointed into a role, as accounting officer and chief executive, of which she had no previous experience”.

[...]

Hillier said it was “completely staggering that an organisation envisaged as a foundation stone of our collective security was established with a leadership hamstrung by a lack of formal governance, and financial controls so poor that billions of pounds in NHS test and trace inventory can no longer be properly accounted for”.

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Allegedly and Pure Speculation from Benjamin Smallbook on Quora Tonight - Its Time We Turned Up The Heat in the Markle Kitchen. Is this plausible? Is our Saint angering British Media to the Brink? by u/daisybeach23

Allegedly and Pure Speculation from Benjamin Smallbook on Quora Tonight - “It’s Time We Turned Up The Heat in the Markle Kitchen.” Is this plausible? Is our Saint angering British Media to the Brink? From Quora:Journalists at one of the UK’s top news agencies are getting together with colleagues at France’s biggest agency, Agence France Press, to put pressure on Markle and her husband, to come clean about the kids that nobody can mention. I believe, but have no firm evidence of this, other than whispers, that the Anglo-French media operation is being supported by the Palace.Clearly the Palace feels that enough is enough. Maybe they think that now is the time to regroup, and introduce Eugenia and Beatrice as A-lister working Royals. The recent health scares in the Family seems to have focused the minds of the ‘men in grey suits’ at the Palace.The awful news is soon to be released that the Princess of Wales has been suffering from an undisclosed form of cancer. The new direction, with a new start, doesn’t need any distraction from the duplicitous actress and her husband.Press-releases have flown from Montecito, and they have angered those who have been gagged.One press-release told, “The Duchess of Sussex has instructed Jake Rosenberg, a New York-based photographer, to take pictures of Prince Archie and his sister Princess Lilibet. The photoshoot will coincide with the launch of the Duchess’s lifestyle and cookery brand, American Riviera Orchard.”But what angered people was the sentence, “The photos of the children will be for our own family, and not distributed for general use.”What game is this woman playing? And what stupidity is the public displaying by going along with this idiotic charade?No births have ever been officially medically verified, and her pregnancies were suspect, to say the least. Remember, Markle and her dipsy husband lied to us about the birth of the ‘Archie Doll’. Their announcement stated The Actress was in labour, when in reality, the ‘child’ had already been born! And when Harry was filmed holding a baby which was supposedly only two hours old, he said, “It’s surprising how babies change in the first two weeks.” What the hell was that all about?The late Queen would have been informed by her own security services, long before the immaculate birth took place! It would be naïve to think otherwise. At the same time, the media would have been issued with a gagging order. From that day on, none of the UK national publications mentioned ‘surrogacy, Markle and fake pregnancy’ in the same sentence. In fact, they couldn’t even announce that a gagging order was in place.Even the birth certificates were suspect, as was the non-naming of the Godparents. The paparazzi were out in force, but not one picture emerged of any cars leaving or driving back to Frogmore Cottage. This is one big scam that hopefully will be busted very soon.Rumours as to why the Royal Family is going along with this, are rife. Blackmail and ‘playing the race card’ are top of the list. The Royal Family is as white as white can be, and the despicable woman knows it. She also knows what she’s doing. post link: https://ift.tt/jBsziPG author: daisybeach23 submitted: March 23, 2024 at 06:09AM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.

[collapsedsquid]

That will take some doing. Covid vaccines could be developed so quickly because of years of research on the Mers and Sars viruses. To prepare for the next onslaught we must compile inventories of potentially dangerous strains and tighten global surveillance. We can try to predict which pathogens are most likely to provoke zoonotic mutation. Above all, we can start work now on the early stages of vaccine development for the dangerous diseases we already know. Of course, this will cost money. But compared with other major investments, scientific breakthroughs come cheap. To push at least one vaccine against the 11 epidemic infectious diseases to phase 2 trials has been costed at less than $8.5bn. In her book Disease X, the science writer Kate Kelland estimates that $50bn would pay for a comprehensive vaccine library. To expect that funding to come from the private sector is unrealistic. The work is too expensive and high risk and the returns too uncertain. Philanthropy and public-private partnerships may work. But ultimately it is governments that should foot the bill. Unfortunately, in public policy, pandemic preparedness is all too often relegated to the cash-starved budgets of development agencies or squeezed into strained health budgets. Where such spending properly belongs is under the flag of industrial policy and national security. Biotech is one of the most promising areas of future economic growth, combining research, high-tech manufacturing and service sector work. As the IMF declared: “vaccine policy is economic policy.” And pandemic preparedness belongs under national security because there is no more serious threat to a population. A far larger percentage of the UK died of Covid between 2020 and 2023 (225,000 out of 67mn) than were killed by German bombs in the second world war (70,000 out of 50mn).

Long been my crank opinion that if we want to "reindustrialize" to restore competitiveness with China that biotech would be a good way to do it, going to take China a while to lose the reputation for being the maker of knock-off products and adulterated food, you can deal with that if you want to sell cheap steel or solar panels but for pharma it's more of an issue.

[celticcrossanon]

Hello Celta, welcome back. May the good lord help keep you in balanced health. It sounds like you’ve made some progress., and we’re all very happy to see you again.

I won’t request a reading, just do what you feel drawn to spend your energy on and what sparks your interest. As for myself, I’m curious as to what shenanigans The Harkles will pull when William visits New York UN in September for Earthshot, and then Singapore in November. Harry wanted to insert himself in Singapore in November to directly compete with William but he was nixed I feel, by the powers that be. Instead he will be there in August, I’m sure stirring the pot. While Megsy will try to rally her troops on New York. William is aware and prepared. But he needn’t do that if Charles was decisive in dealing with these grifters. What a waste of energy.

Overall I feel it’s Charles dearest wish to bring back Harry alone to be the fly in William’s ointment, to pull some palace intrigues and shenanigans on William. . But, here’s the rub. Harry’s no longer Charles’s spoilt little sh** brat of a second son. He’s now Megsy’s creature. And he will do Megsy’s bidding not Charles’s. Even if Megsy’s and Charles’s goals align. Therefore Harry’s not as ‘easy’ to control as he once was.

Additionally there’s eyes upon Harry, MI5/MI6, US State Department, all manner international agencies, and there will be plenty of resistance. Charles will try, but this has moved beyond mere palace intrigue, it’s gone international. Why do you think Charles and Camilla have not gone on a Commonwealth tour? They put out some PR about it, but that’s all I’ve seen. He’s seen the traps they set for William in the Caribbean and he’s too chickens** to test it. No doubt he’ll want William and Catherine and their kids to take this on, all the while refusing to deal with his overseas bad seed.

Harry will resist Charles overtures and do his mother Megsy’s bidding. Harry wants to co- king with William and he won’t be satisfied with nothing less. As far as the overseas duo are concerned the half in half out deal is still on offer, and they’re gunning to be head the Commonwealth still. This won’t end well at all. It’s now a question of who will collapse first, Charles or harry? But it will make for some interesting viewership and commentary.

I look forward to hearing your views over time on these matters and more.

Welcome back Celta.

Hi Anonymous Retired,

Thank you for the welcome back and the good wishes for my health. :)

My goodness, talk about synchronicity. I've just done a number of private readings on if Charles is putting out articles against William in the press, and the answer was a resounding yes, with the subtext of Charles tearing William down so Harry would be welcome back in the UK. I need to read further on that subtext as it could turn out into something else, but when you say you think Charles wants Harry back in the royal fold, that resonates with what my cards have indicated.

I would hope that Charles was above playing one son off against the other to manipulate both sons, but my hopes are not high on the matter.

If Meghan and Harry divorce, then hopefully Harry would be free from Meghan's influence, but I don't know. I only know that I would not trust him an inch, regardless of whether he is married or divorced. He has proven that he will say anything to get what he sees as his revenge on people who have hurt hum (e.g. by saying No to him), and I don't see that changing any time soon, making him a huge security risk. I am very glad if agencies such as M15 have their eyes on Harry, as I feel it is needed.

As for the Commonwealth - Harry and Meghan are delusional in how they think of the Commonwealth of Nations. It is not an empire to be ruled, but an association of nations who work together to help each other. The Head of the Commonwealth of Nations is not a king by another name, but a ceremonial figurehead for the organisation. Charles is the current head. The position is his for life, and I don't see him giving the position up. If he does, the next Head of the Commonwealth is appointed by the leaders of the nations who make up the Commonwealth of Nations, and I can't see them electing Harry over e.g. one of themselves.

Link for the Commonwealth of Nations just in case anyone is interested in reading up on who they are and what they do, simply because the way the press mis-represents the Commonwealth is a pet peeve of mine:

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

As a new stronger covid strain spreading across Europe is identified, Zoe Beaty looks at the symptoms and how we’re still living with the virus four years after the world went into lockdown

Her morning coffee was the first clue. Earlier in the summer, Rebecca Jones made her usual pot at 8am, and took the much-awaited first sip. Only, it tasted off. “It was just horrible,” says Jones. She’d tasted it once before, back in 2020. “That’s when I knew it was Covid.”

During this year’s unsettled summer, Covid has been quietly lurking in the background of many people’s lives. Four years ago, the sense of urgency was still in its infancy – we would still experience two more nationwide lockdowns and UK death figures would reach 227,000 by May of 2023. Worldwide, that toll stretched to more than 7 million. We wore masks, we distanced ourselves, isolated – and worried.

The road back to normality was long and arduous, but very sweet for the majority. Our simplest pleasures – hugging, holidaying, not worrying about where a surgical mask is – for a while were consistently vocalised. It made sense that much of the thrill of being able to nip for a pint after work or do a food shop without queuing wore off relatively quickly.

For a while, it was almost a surprise when someone told you they’d tested positive. Isolation seemed silly again. But now, that confidence is steadily being chipped away at. A morsel of fear is back – but this time with little to no solid advice. And with a wider perspective of the new threat that long Covid poses.

Reports earlier this year found that up to two million people are living with long Covid in the UK, or one in 20 people who have contracted the disease. And according to experts a new ‘stronger’ variant is now spreading across Europe. First identified as the XEC strain in Germany in June, global health experts believe that it could be the dominant variant within months and cause a new spike when the weather turns colder.

Symptoms include tiredness, difficulty sleeping, shortness of breath and chest pain, among many others. The latest UK figures show there has been a 4.30 per cent rise in Covid cases week-on-week and England reported 1.465 hospital admissions up until August 30. Detailed data is still being collected on the new variant.

Most people will get better within a few weeks, but for others it could take longer to recover. People who smoke or who are overweight, who have been admitted to hospital due to the severity of their Covid symptoms in the past . or who live in deprived areas are most at risk. Age is also linked to “persistent symptoms”.

“Over the last few years, Covid-19 has become an illness that we have learnt to live with. But that does not mean it’s not still a deadly disease,” says Professor Mark Wass, head of the University of Kent’s School of Bioscience. “Data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) shows that over the last few months there have been 100-200 deaths related to Covid-19 per week.

“While Covid-19 is still deadly, for many symptoms are now similar to a cold – but there is always the risk of long Covid,” Wass adds.

This year’s “summer Covid wave” – a rise in cases – is difficult to prove. “The surveillance of Covid cases in the UK is far less intensive than it once was, so it is more difficult to track the rise and fall of waves of infection, or to assess the severity of different variants, or to know how effective the vaccines are against them,” Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, told the British Medical Journal (BMJ) recently.

In our homes, the trend has followed suit. Most of us now only test as an afterthought. None of us are sure if old Covid tests are out of date. And we’re reluctant to spend £29.99 for one.

While it is hard to track infections, there has been an increase in the number of cases where Covid is recorded on death certificates in the UK in the past months. After a spike in January and February, numbers fell sharply until May when the lowest number of deaths in a week stood at 93, before climbing again above 200 on several weeks in July and August.

Being vaccinated reduces the risk of contracting long Covid by four times, some studies suggest – but, right now, only the most vulnerable are able to access a booster vaccination. Government vaccine advisers, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and the JCVI (Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation) closed the spring campaign offering boosters to the over-75s, people in care homes or those who are immunosuppressed – on 30 June.

Wass says that vaccine programmes are now seasonal, no autumn vaccine programme has been announced – those who wish to be vaccinated must now pay £45 to £99 for a booster. “If you are eligible, then the advice is to get vaccinated. We know that the immunity offered by vaccines reduces over time, so getting vaccinated offers the best protection.”

Anecdotally at least, those unable to get boosters who catch the virus appear to be feeling the after-effects. And since knowledge of long Covid will only increase as the years go by, we’re learning of more cases or more severe cases.

One friend was diagnosed with Parsonage-Turner syndrome – a neurological condition that causes sudden, severe pain in the shoulder and upper arm – after contracting Covid in June. Despite being a healthy 39-year-old who regularly works out, he’s now living with consistent pain and weakness, which can last for months.

“At first I thought it was arthritis,” he tells me. About a week before he felt “unbelievably sharp pains” across his shoulder and he’d begun to experience brain fog and feeling faint. “The next day I was bedridden and by the end of day three I had a rash across my body.” The initial symptoms went away relatively quickly – but since then he’s been left with an incurable condition.

“The doctors said it was probably the virus attacking my joints,” he explains. “It means I can’t lift anything remotely heavy with my left arm. It’s been incredibly debilitating – especially as weight lifting is how I stave off depression.”

Others express the same difficulties and frustrations – at GPs who “treat it just like another germ”, or being “horrified and upset that no one tests these days, and expects you to be okay after a couple of days”. Olivia, 35, whose name has been changed, has been dealing with long Covid for almost a year. “It’s crazy being someone whose life has been so affected by Covid, and having these conversations with friends who are going around knowing they’ve got Covid, going to work, all those things.

“Because there’s no acknowledgement by society that it’s a bad thing if you catch it, or it can be. It’s way higher than you think.” Next week Olivia will move in with her boyfriend who contracted long Covid this summer. “We’re partly moving in so I can help look after him. A lot of the symptoms are the same as I’ve had.

“It seems mad that both of us could have it. But that seems to be the situation.”

Olivia had to take three months off her role as a programme director to try and recover – greatly affecting her work – an experience that millions of others share, some of them in extremes. This week the Wall Street Journal reported that “long Covid knocked a million Americans off their career paths”. “Years after infection, even answering email remains arduous for some,” they found.

BBC Breakfast recently ran a 15-minute segment on those who have contracted ME, or chronic fatigue syndrome, as a result of contracting Covid. They reported on cases such as young newlyweds James and Karen Hargrave.

While Karen, who has launched a campaign – There for ME, to raise awareness of their experiences – recovered from the virus and ME enough to go back to work part-time, her husband, previously a keen runner, can no longer function. He is now unable to speak – she hasn’t heard his voice in a year – and he struggles to swallow.

Rebecca Jones, from Holton-le-Clay in Lincolnshire, also contracted long Covid the first time she caught the virus. It left her with alopecia and fatigue and even caused her to fail a memory test for dementia, which she says was “terrifying”.

This time she’s been left with “ghost smells”, and disruption to her senses. Now, she’s unable to get vaccinated, despite previously being on the vulnerable list and can’t afford to pay for a private vaccine. Her menopausal hot flushes, which had been dormant for two years before she contracted Covid, have come back and have not stopped since, she says.

“I’ve even emailed my MP,” she says. “But I was just sent the same advice word for word as is on the NHS website. I can’t get vaccinated, even though I want to. In our group of friends, I’ve seen people get Covid and just ignore it and go down to the local. I just thought, how can you be so irresponsible?”

“If you have Covid-19, then the advice is the same as for other contagious respiratory diseases,” says Wass. “We should try to reduce their spread by trying to stay at home and avoiding contact with people.”

Still, many aren’t – or can’t – adhere to that advice. The disruption to work and personal lives has already been great and, while hybrid working continues to help stop the spread of infection of any kind, workers rely on the discretion of their employers to support those experiencing chronic conditions like long Covid. In the US, the condition has been registered as a disability, though it’s yet to be determined in the UK.

In the coming months and years, experts say we’ll be subject to more “waves” as the disease is “driven by a combination of new variants and a partial waning immunity to infection”, Woolhouse told the BMJ.

Will we begin to see a more conscientious approach to dealing with the virus? Those suffering the long-term effects warn that we should.

[theculturedmarxist]

There have been many scandals associated with covid in the last nearly 4 years.

I want to tell you about another one that has got zero media coverage.

The top-line is this: the UK government gave more than 2.3 million vulnerable and older people a covid vaccine that isn’t matched to the currently dominant covid strains. And they did it to save money.

The dominant covid strains right now are known as the XBBs. They have been dominant since late summer in most places, when they took over from the BA strains of omicron.

But rather than give people the new more effective XBB vaccine, the British government decided to use up their stockpile of the older BA vaccines first.

The worst thing is, those who got the outdated vaccine were those first in line for vaccines, such as older people and people with health conditions.

But they won’t know this.

So 2.3 million vulnerable people in the UK are walking around thinking they are well-protected this winter against covid when they’re not.

The British government didn’t hide why it did this. On the official government webpage it spells it out. In bold are the clues hiding in plain sight.

“The choice of vaccine products for autumn 2023 has been determined based on available data on vaccine safety, effectiveness and immunogenicity, logistical factors, programmatic deliverability and a bespoke cost effective assessment. Other vaccines which may offer similar protection, but which would incur additional costs, are expected to be less cost effective within the bespoke cost-effectiveness assessment compared to pre-procured Omicron-variant mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.”

What they are saying, under the cover of the gross language of ‘bespoke cost effectiveness assessment,’ is that they’d already bought the older vaccines and it was cheaper to use them than buy extra new ones.

They used people’s bodies as asset dumps for old medical stock.

In the UK the booster roll-out began on September 11th. We know that in Scotland they switched over to XBB on September 25th and in England and Wales they switched to the new ones on October 2nd, as confirmed that day by Meaghan Kall, an epidemiologist at the UK’s health security agency responsible for covid.

But by September 29th the British government reported 2.35 million people had been covid boosted. So we know this was largely with the old vaccine (save 4 days in Scotland). In response to my thread on Twitter, many reported receiving the old vaccine. Even now, people are saying they’re still only being offered the old vaccine.

Boosting people with a vaccine not matched to the dominant strains will certainly lead to worse outcomes as an average than if these people had received the updated vaccine. People will die for this penny pinching.

But then the British government has for some time now been relaxed about killing people for austerity.

The Brits are also tightly restricting access to covid vaccines, in contrast to almost every other country. And in a final twist, the Brits are now stockpiling the new XBB vaccines and are almost certainly going to take the same approach to deploying an outdated vaccine next time round.

When I tweeted about this, the Guardian journalist George Monbiot responded and we subsequently exchanged emails. Monbiot did then write a very good column about the ongoing burden of covid in the UK and the various public health failures.

But the article omitted any mention of the millions who were given the older vaccine.

I can’t criticise Monbiot. I wouldn’t be surprised if he included this and it was cut by his editors. And his article stands head and shoulders above almost any other reporting of covid in the mass media, a mass media that has played a key part in normalising the transmission of a virus that has become the leading cause of infectious disease death in the world today.

These lies and misinformation about covid in the mass media continue. Last week was no exception.

The BBC’s health editor Nick Triggle wrote a truly noxious covid story full of half-truths, lies by omission and propaganda. He said covid was less deadly than the flu, that it is becoming a seasonal ‘bug’, that people who were concerned about rising hospitalisations were just anxious. (Nick Triggle’s sister-in-law is a Tory member of parliament, which might explain some things).

In the US, the New York Times interviewed the epidemiologist and long-time covid downplayer Michael Mina who said rates of long covid are drastically falling - without citing a shred of evidence - and said repeated exposure to covid for most people will not be harmful and will build immunity. In the comments below the piece, one person said the “excellent story begs the question as to whether healthy people should take any precautions against covid.” Job done.

Then there was the ‘long cold’ research paper which was amplified across global media.

If you missed it, the thrust was that long colds might be as common as long covid. So far, so fine.

But the findings were stripped of critical context in relation to covid.

It failed to acknowledge that even if long colds do exist, and almost certainly they do, Sars-Cov-2 is a different beast, behaving in a completely different way to other common cold-causing coronaviruses.

And rather than the conclusion here being ‘ok, so if long colds are this common, long covid might be very common too and maybe we should do something about it,’ the stories led us towards the conclusion that long covid itself is nothing to worry about because post-viral illness is nothing new.

All of this would have been bad enough without mentioning the methodology.

The study was conducted in 2020-2021 and relied on people self reporting a respiratory illness that they said wasn’t covid. We know for a fact that far fewer people got a respiratory illness that wasn’t covid in these years, so I expect a good number of these ‘not covids’ leading to ‘long colds’ were, in fact, covids leading to long covid. But again, the media stories failed to provide any of this context. Nick Triggle was one of those who wrote a story.

Triggled twice in two weeks.

Over and over, it seems that those who are concerned about covid come armed with data, and those who aren’t come armed with gut feeling in order to keep business-as-usual ticking over.

It’s 2019 again! Stop worrying!

Normalisation is the most powerful sociological force in the world today. Through a captured media, the ruling class can make us absorb a pandemic, accept climate collapse and shrug at apartheid. Change is unnecessary because nothing is wrong. It is just the natural order, flowing.

We also found out this week that just 2% of Americans have stepped up for the new covid jab, a rate of uptake that can be traced back to the early over-hyping of vaccines and the manufacturing of a narrative that says covid is mild and we’ve all achieved immunity now anyway.

I didn’t know where we’d be nearly four years on from the start of the pandemic, but I didn’t think we’d be here. New waves, millions being infected, thousands dying every week. And a media and public knowledge blackout of Novavax, the most effective vaccine. A vaccine we’ve known is the most effective for over two years.

It is tiring to keep up, to keep bearing witness to these fuck-ups, to this cruelty.

But we have to.

Because to believe in change means documenting the incompetence, the failure, the lies and the indifference that eventually compels that change to come.