#UK coronavirus deaths

[tomorrowusa]

I'm not sure if there is a cure for Trumpnesia, but there are treatments.

This is what Trump was saying at CNBC the day after the first case of COVID-19 appeared in the US.

Trump dawdled while the virus spread throughout the US. He continued to claim it wasn't a big deal.

The spectacle of the Dow Jones plummeting on March 12th could jar a memory or two. It signaled the start of the Trump recession.

On the following day, Friday the 13th, Trump belatedly declared a state of emergency.

In April he held daily media events where he gave out bad medical advice. If he had been a doctor, that would have gotten him charged with malpractice. He first told viewers to take malaria medicine for COVID. [Malaria is a parasitic disease while COVID is a virus.] He then suggested that people stick UV lights up their butts. And he famously told people to drink bleach. This t-shirt was a reaction to that...

All that year he downplayed COVID-19 as the US death toll and infection rate skyrocketed.

Timeline: How Trump Has Downplayed The Coronavirus Pandemic

It's true that the virus spread everywhere. But the United States had the highest death rate per million of any G7 country. Only Boris "Partygate" Johnson's UK came close.

Reminders of Trump's disastrous last year in office can temporarily keep Trumpnesia at bay. But frequent boosters are a necessity.

[feminist-space]

"“It’s not your fault,” I told 16-year-old Cara, whose mother died of a SARS-CoV-2 infection [Cara] gave her. To be clear, the doctor confirmed Cara (not her real name) had passed on the virus and Covid was entered on the death certificate as the cause of death.

Cara’s mother had not been outside their home in the weeks preceding her death.

When masks were dropped in the “Omicron’s mild” phase of the pandemic, Cara continued as the lone masker at school to protect her immunocompromised mother, who was undergoing chemotherapy. It was tolerable until a child psychotherapist said on the national airwaves that some girls would continue to mask anyway “to hide their acne”.

His words were used to bully her. Cara left, but without support from teachers she strugg­led. Her parents pleaded with the school to use the Hepa filter they bought. The school refused.

Cara eventually returned to school unmasked, caught Covid and infected her mam. It killed her. Cara self-harms because she blames herself. She hasn’t been to school since.

Research shows that more than 70pc of Sars-CoV-2 transmission in households started with a child.

The incidence was highest during unmitigat­ed in-person schooling. In a recent paper, Dr Pantea Javidan, of Stanford’s Centre for Human Rights, described the ways children’s rights to life, health and safety during the ongoing pandemic have been falsely rendered oppositional to education and development.

Methods used to manufacture consent to forcibly, repeatedly infect children, according to Dr Javidan, include minimising harms to children (“kids don’t get it or spread it”, “it’s mild”) and moral panic around mental health and educational attainment.

Regarding mental health, in August a study looking at paediatric psychiatric emergencies found school openings – not lockdowns – were associated with an increase in the number of emergency psychiatric visits.

In May, a study found that children with and without congenital heart defects showed increased risks for a variety of cardiovascular outcomes (including cardiac arrest, clots, palpitations) after Sars-CoV-2 infection.

In July, a study found that children and teenagers experienced cognitive impairment 12 months post-Covid infection, consistently correlated with poorer sleep and behavioural and emotional functioning.

Last month alone, several studies were published documenting Covid paediatric harms.

One found that children and adolescents experience prolonged symptoms post-Sars-CoV-2 infection in almost every organ system.

Study co-author Professor Lawrence C Kleinman said: “We have convincing evidence that Covid is not just a mild, benign illness for children. This is a new chronic illness in children. We need to be prepared to deal with it for a generation.”

Another study analysing paediatric and adult hospitalisations found teenagers were at greatest risk of severe disease among all children. Yet another study showed compelling connections between viral infection and subsequent autoimmune disease. Early in the pandemic, some children showed negligible Covid symptoms, only to later develop organ failure.

Researchers found the children’s immune systems had latched on to a part of the coronavirus that closely resembles a protein found in the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes and GI tract and launched a catastrophic attack on their own tissues. “Experts” who claimed asymptomatic paediatric Sars2 infections equals mild were catastrophically wrong.

Covid is consistently a leading cause of US child mortality. Paediatric mortality has increased markedly with each year of the pandemic in the US, UK and elsewhere. In 2022, over six times as many children died from Covid than from flu in the US."

[covid-safer-hotties]

Tess Finch-Lees: If parents don’t fight to protect children from Covid in schools, nobody else will - Published Sept 5, 2024

By: Tess Finch-Lees

“It’s not your fault,” I told 16-year-old Cara, whose mother died of a SARS-CoV-2 infection she gave her. To be clear, the doctor confirmed Cara (not her real name) had passed on the virus and Covid was entered on the death certificate as the cause of death.

Cara’s mother had not been outside their home in the weeks preceding her death.

When masks were dropped in the “Omicron’s mild” phase of the pandemic, Cara continued as the lone masker at school to protect her immunocompromised mother, who was undergoing chemotherapy. It was tolerable until a child psychotherapist said on the national airwaves that some girls would continue to mask anyway “to hide their acne”.

His words were used to bully her. Cara left, but without support from teachers she strugg­led. Her parents pleaded with the school to use the Hepa filter they bought. The school refused.

Cara eventually returned to school unmasked, caught Covid and infected her mam. It killed her. Cara self-harms because she blames herself. She hasn’t been to school since.

Research shows that more than 70pc of Sars-CoV-2 transmission in households started with a child.

The incidence was highest during unmitigat­ed in-person schooling. In a recent paper, Dr Pantea Javidan, of Stanford’s Centre for Human Rights, described the ways children’s rights to life, health and safety during the ongoing pandemic have been falsely rendered oppositional to education and development.

Methods used to manufacture consent to forcibly, repeatedly infect children, according to Dr Javidan, include minimising harms to children (“kids don’t get it or spread it”, “it’s mild”) and moral panic around mental health and educational attainment.

Regarding mental health, in August a study looking at paediatric psychiatric emergencies found school openings – not lockdowns – were associated with an increase in the number of emergency psychiatric visits.

In May, a study found that children with and without congenital heart defects showed increased risks for a variety of cardiovascular outcomes (including cardiac arrest, clots, palpitations) after Sars-CoV-2 infection.

In July, a study found that children and teenagers experienced cognitive impairment 12 months post-Covid infection, consistently correlated with poorer sleep and behavioural and emotional functioning.

Last month alone, several studies were published documenting Covid paediatric harms. One found that children and adolescents experience prolonged symptoms post-Sars-CoV-2 infection in almost every organ system.

Study co-author Professor Lawrence C Kleinman said: “We have convincing evidence that Covid is not just a mild, benign illness for children. This is a new chronic illness in children. We need to be prepared to deal with it for a generation.”

Another study analysing paediatric and adult hospitalisations found teenagers were at greatest risk of severe disease among all children. Yet another study showed compelling connections between viral infection and subsequent autoimmune disease. Early in the pandemic, some children showed negligible Covid symptoms, only to later develop organ failure.

Researchers found the children’s immune systems had latched on to a part of the coronavirus that closely resembles a protein found in the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes and GI tract and launched a catastrophic attack on their own tissues. “Experts” who claimed asymptomatic paediatric Sars2 infections equals mild were catastrophically wrong.

Covid is consistently a leading cause of US child mortality. Paediatric mortality has increased markedly with each year of the pandemic in the US, UK and elsewhere. In 2022, over six times as many children died from Covid than from flu in the US.

The UN Convention on the Rights of a Child requires states to “recognise the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health” and to fully implement this right. Children’s rights to education include a safe environment not harmful to their health.

Cara and her parents fought for these rights. They were denied, with devastating consequences. Irish schools are legally obliged to clean indoor air and prevent the spread of airborne diseases. Prevention plan? Three Hail Marys.

In year five of an airborne pandemic, parents, Dr Ciara Steele and Sinéad O’Brien set up Clean Air Advocacy Ireland.

Dr Steele said: “Children are vulnerable, they rely on adults to advocate on their behalf. They have a fundamental right to breathe clean, pathogen-free air in schools. That means CO2 monitors, Hepa filters and ventilation in every classroom.”

A recent study in Finland found air purifiers in day-cares led to a 30pc reduction in children’s illnesses. In March 2022, Italy’s Marche region installed mechanical ventilation in some schools, reducing Covid infections in classrooms by 82pc.

Education Minister Norma Foley previously committed €62m for Hepa filters in Irish schools. Where are they?

WHO advice is clear – protect yourself and loved ones from Covid. Stay home if sick, test, get boosted, ventilate, wear a mask when around others. Unless parents are prepared to say “We do not consent to repeatedly exposing our children to biohazardous Sars2 in schools”, our consent will be presumed tacit.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

At-Large Marge. http://Newsday.com/matt :: Matt Davies

* * * *

The lesson of Covid

June 4, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

The United States suffered more deaths from Covid than any other nation in the world (1.13 million) and the highest death rate (341 per 100,000) of any large, high-income country. Those shocking facts suggest that a congressional inquiry is urgently needed to understand why the US fared so poorly compared to other industrialized nations.

On Monday, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic held a hearing ostensibly designed to understand why the US response to Covid paled in comparison to the responses and outcomes by countries like the UK, Spain, Italy, France, Sweden, Australia, Canada, and Netherlands.

You will not be surprised to learn that the hearing did not devote time to understanding what the US could do better in response to the next pandemic. Instead, Republicans converted the hearing into an evidence-free attack on Dr. Fauci’s selfless, expert guidance through a pandemic that killed approximately 1 out of every 300 Americans. See, e.g., Newsweek, Dr. Fauci Testifies: Unvaccinated Americans Caused Additional "200-300k Deaths".

Led by Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan, Republicans peddled baseless conspiracy theories that will kill tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans in the next pandemic—just as vaccine hesitancy and disinformation killed hundreds of thousands of Americans in the last epidemic.

Convicted Felon Donald Trump broke the Republican Party when he elevated loyalty to him above belief in the truth. The disgraceful conduct by Republicans in today’s Select Committee hearing is the direct product of Trump's assault on the truth.

A nation cannot govern itself if it creates policy and passes legislation based on fever dreams and mass delusion. Truth matters. Lies matter. That may be the most important lesson of the coronavirus pandemic. It came at a dear cost: The deaths of 1.1 million Americans. We should never forget that lesson or the losses suffered by tens of millions of family members—or we may be condemned to repeat the tragedy in the next pandemic.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

whenever you have time and energy, please let us hear more of your thoughts on violence under capitalism

Oh, I have the time and the energy, I just didn't want to make the previous ask/answer excessively long!

I think another basic point about both anarchism and communism is that there is violence inherent in capitalism. Capitalism requires the exploitation of the workers by the bosses in order to make profit.

If we take this on a global scale, I think we're all aware of the concept of "sweat shops" in the general, but often we don't consider how unsafe these places are to work. These are factories with no, or very limited regulation- we hear about factory collapses in Bangladesh, where people die in their hundreds. We don't hear about the individuals who are injured or killed every day globally due to unsafe working practices.

Even in the UK, a country that has reasonably good health and safety legislation (of course, legislation is not always followed), in 2018-2019, 147 workers were killed by "accidents at work", as well as 92 members of the public. That's more than 4 people each week. In 2020-21, bearing in mind there were mass lockdowns and many industries stopped working for a period of time, 123 workers, and 80 members of the public were killed. (figures from HSE). These figures do not include deaths from covid-19.

In fact, part of the reason I started this blog during the coronavirus pandemic was because I was aware people were being put in dangerous situations, and covid was being spread more widely because capitalism and profit were being prioritised above people's lives.

The way we are forced to work is killing many people, and injuring huge numbers. In 2021-22, about 150,000 people in the UK sustained an injury at work which meant they were absent for more than 7 days (so potentially quite a serious injury).

Injuries can be caused by unsafe working practices or environments, but equally things like rushing because you are under pressure can lead to a trip or a fall, or people trying to carry things that are too heavy or awkward on their own, and sustaining an injury. The nature of capitalism is that time is money, so we are encourage to work fast, to work when tired, and this can cause people to get hurt.

So that's a little bit about the violence inherent in "work", but what about the violence inherent in the system?

Capitalism kills people- capitalism has always killed people. The nature of the system is that some of us have money and access to all the things we need (food, housing, medication and so on) and some of us don't. People die, or are injured or get ill all the time due to homelessness, even in so-called developed countries. People die due to lack of food, even when there might be food available. People die due to lack of medicine all the time, even in countries where this ought to be freely available, because they cannot afford it.

Whenever people criticise communism, they like to bring up the famine under Stalin. I'm not going to launch into a defense of Stalin, but when we criticise capitalism, we should therefore look at famines caused by it, or contributed to by it. Historically, the potato famine in Ireland, or the Bengal Famine in India (when it was under British rule) are just two examples. We can also look at the ongoing famine in Yemen, and increasing problems in Sudan and the surrounding area.

Many people consider these famines to be solely due to natural causes, "acts of god" if you will. But that's not the case.

If we look at the potato famine, sometimes called an Drochshaol in Gaelic, solely because that's the one I'm most familiar with, we can see that it was caused largely by a capitalist, colonialist system, and the impacts of it were made far more extreme due to capitalism.

People will tell you the potato famine was caused by the potato blight, but it's not as simple as that. There was potato blight across Europe, in the 1840s, leading to about 100,000 deaths across the whole of Europe. In Ireland, more than 1 million people died, and many more emigrated, causing a 20-25% fall in the total population.

Part of the reason for this was the reliance on a single crop. This wasn't a situation chosen by the Irish people. Instead, English landlordism pushed the poorest Irish people into a situation where they had very little land, and the only crop that could sustain them on their land was the potato. Meanwhile, much of the agricultural land was used to grow wheat or other grains, or farm meat, which was solely used for the profit of the landlords.

Arguably the greatest tragedy of the Irish famine was that there was plenty of food in Ireland. It was just all being exported, so that people could make money. And during the famine, people continued to do this, and continued to make money, even whilst people were literally starving in the streets.

And during all of this, the English landlords continued to charge rent. Even before the famine, many families in Ireland could not fully afford their rents, and were supported through relatives working abroad (usually seasonal work in Britain). During the famine, there were a huge number of evictions.

I recently watched a BBC TV show about evictions (because English landlords haven't changed at all) and one of the tenants facing eviction said something along the lines of "eviction is a really violent act"- which I believe is true. And it is even more violent in a situation where your family is starving and everyone around you is starving.

Anyway, my point is that the landlords were able to evict their tenants, in order to make more money, causing even more deaths. And all of this is was fuelled by a capitalist, colonialist system.

And in the last 170 or so years, we can see that on a surface level, things have improved somewhat in some countries. But equally, in England, we still live in a country where someone can evict you for no reason and make you street homeless if *you* can't find another house in time- yes, in some circumstances, "the council" will help house people, but the housing offered is often inadequate or limited for families- and it often doesn't exist for young, single people- so they end up sofa surfing or sleeping on the streets.

In the USA, people still die or end up in extremely difficult situations because they can't afford the medical treatment they need.

I'm sure anyone who lives in a capitalist country can point to some key injustice which leads to death or serious ill health, and is driven solely by profit and the property owning class. This is the violence inherent in the system, and it kills far more people than interpersonal violence ever could.

Again, this has become very long, and there's still more in it that I want to explore, so do keep sending me asks on these themes if you are interested.

[stillmasking]

July 12, 2024

[eaglesnick]

“They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition” - Paul the Apostle

“This government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level. Trust is earned. And I will earn yours." 

These were the words of Rishi Sunak to the nation when he entered Downing Street October 2022. What we were unaware of then was that multi-millionaire Sunak had already forfeited that trust by valuing money more than  human life.

At the Covid Inquiry yesterday, Patrick Vallance revealed the moral bankruptcy of Sunak. Trust Mr Sunak requires people to tell the truth and it seems you have been as guilty as Johnson in trying to hide your role in the thousands of unnecessary deaths caused by Covid.

“Patrick Vallance contradicts Rishi Sunak’s evidence to Covid inquiry.” (Guardian: 20/11/23)

Writing to the inquiry, Sunak had claimed  he did “not recall any concerns about the scheme” Eat Out To Help Out, being raised at any meetings despite the fear that his scheme would boost the spread of the deadly virus.

According to Vallance, Sunak would have almost certainly have known of the scientific objections to his scheme, and was “very surprised” Sunak was in denial of this fact.

We already knew that Boris Johnson was prepared to “let the bodies pile high”, and now it seems so was Sunak.

“Rishi Sunak 'thought it was OK to just let people die' instead of imposing an economy-crippling second lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic, the UK Covid-19 inquiry has heard.” (itvX: 20/11/23)

Sunak’s ‘Eat Out To Help Out ‘ scheme was NOT run past scientists for approval and no scientific advisors knew about the scheme until AFTER it had been announced. More concerned with the financial cost of the pandemic than human life:

“Rishi Sunak was overheard saying the Government should focus on handling its scientific advisers rather than the spread of Covid-19…"  (The Irish News: 20/11/23) 

Patrick Vallance has stated that the Eat Out To Help Out scheme is “highly likely" to have led to increased Covid deaths in the UK.

So much for trust! We have an unelected Prime Minister who actively and deliberately introduced a scheme that he knew would lead to an increase in Covid fatalities. For rich-boy Sunak it was “OK to just let people die" because to multi-millionaire Sunak money is more important than the lives of ordinary people.

[scotianostra]

Birthday, singer and actress Lorraine McIntosh born 13th May 1964 in Glasgow.

Lorraine was brought up in Cumnock, Ayrshire from about the age of three. She has been a member of one of Scotland’s favourite bands Deacon Blue since they formed in Glasgow in 1985.

Lorraine didn’t have an easy upbringing, she lost her mother and she said her Dad coped for a while then fell apart, hitting the bottle he started missing rent payments which led to them being evicted, she said the council waited until she had turned 18, a week after that the were out. In an interview for The Big Issue Lorraine poured her heart out saying………..

“I got a phone call from a social worker saying I wasn’t to go home, as dad had been evicted. I was at the bus stop with my friend, but couldn’t get on the bus. She phoned her mum and I ended up staying with them at first. No clothes, no nothing. We lost everything. It just got put in the street. And the saddest thing was I lost all my mum’s things, her clothes, wee bits of jewellery, all put on the street. Gone.”

I empathise with this entirely except I actually got home from school and found all our belongings on the street after we got evicted, I was 13 at the time………..

Lorraine was a regular on the Scottish soap, River City, she has also appeared in three episodes of Taggart playing different roles, more recently she turned up on Outlander last year as Mrs. Sylvie, the owner of a popular brothel in the town of Cross Creek. Also last year Deacon Blue’s 10th album, City Of Love, shot to No 4 in the UK album rankings the week before lockdown, giving the Glasgow outfit their biggest chart success since 1994.

During the pandemic, as well as coping with the strain of lockdown, Lorraine, who lives with Ricky in Glasgow, was taken ill with coronavirus in the early stages of the outbreak.

She said: “It has taken quite a while to get over it completely. I was in bed for three weeks, and then recovered.”

In 2020 Lorraine joined up with the Simon Community’s Nightstop campaign, to encourage people to open their homes to vulnerable young people. The Nightstop service offers young people aged 16 to 25 a safe place to stay when they find themselves in a crisis. All the volunteer hosts are fully vetted and trained. Since starting in Glasgow last year, eight families have provided 96 nights of emergency accommodation. She and her husband, Deacon Blue frontman Ricky Ross, are considering signing up as hosts – but only if the Simon Community think that their high profile won’t get in the way.

I really like Lorraine, and Ricky’s humanity, specifically Lorraine visited Rwanda two years ago to raise awareness of sexual violence against women when she was moved to tears by the testimony of victims. She has recently spoken out against the plan to send refugees coming to the UK to the country and said the country was still recovering from a genocide inflicted during the civil war in 1994 and for ministers to consider sending asylum seekers there is deplorable.

On her trip, she heard of shocking conditions, including child slavery, youngsters being burned to death, and rape being used as a weapon of war to destroy communities.

On her final day in Rwanda, she made a pilgrimage to one of the most infamous genocide sites in the country called Nyamata where thousands were slaughtered in and around a church.

She said: “I was unprepared for the sight of thousands of items of clothing from the fallen folded and piled up on the church pews. The ceiling pockmarked with bullets and a line around the bottom of the wall which our guide tells us is the blood line from the carnage. A river of blood. In the gardens outside 50,000 people lie buried.

Hubbie Ricky made a simple tweet yesterday, the post read "33 years today ❤️" with the photo

Lorraine is set to appear in the new season of Shetland.

The song is my favourite where she sings a strong vocal.

[monriatitans]

Autism Speaks is the most popular autism research organization in the U.S. They have support from loads of autism moms and people who work with autistic kids. But they’ve had a very controversial past with attempts to raise awareness like the infamous “I Am Autism” and “Autism Every Day” videos. But they’ve also been criticized for using the puzzle piece logo, promoting applied behavioral analysis (ABA) and searching for the cure to “the autism epidemic.” Today we’re going over the many reasons (past & present) that Autism Speaks is trash. ___________________________________________________________________________________ 

I made a couple mistakes in the most recent video. 

I criticized Universal Healthcare + some people thought I meant I don’t support it at all. I am a socialist at minimum and in full support of universal healthcare. I left out the context of UK Do Not Resuscitate Orders on disabled people. I for some reason assumed everyone would know what I was talking about, and because of that I said it in a very misleading way. Firstly, the UK was accused of putting several disabled (autistic/learning disabilities) people on DNRs specifically in 2020/2021 during covid. Leaving that out made it seem like a current thing, I apologize for that. Secondly, this only allegedly happened. According to this report https://www.inclusionlondon.org.uk/wp... several disabled people responded to a survey saying they were put on DNRs or asked to sign them (when they shouldn’t have been). But we only have their word. It is not an objective fact that this happened, it’s just what disabled people say they experienced. The English NHS clarifies that this is not supposed to happen in this statement,https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronaviru... and says any of those questionable DNRs from 2020/21 were put under review. I apologize for not making that clear. I said Autism Speaks worked with Sesame St on creating Julia, which they didn’t. Autistic Self-Advocacy Network worked with them to create Julia, then left when Autism Speaks got involved later. The only mother in the video I was calling a bad parent was the one who talked about wanting to k*ll her daughter. The rest was a criticism of how autism speaks, framed the video, edited it, and what prompts they gave the moms to talk about. I should have made that more clear. 

Thank you for all of the support on the video, and especially thanks to the commenters who pointed out these flaws. This correction will appear as a pinned comment on the original video, a community tab post, and in the description of the video. ________________________________________________ 

BETTER ORGANIZATIONS: Autistic Women & Non-binary Network Self-Advocates Becoming Empowered Autistic People of Color Fund Autistic Self-Advocacy Network https://communicationfirst.org/ _________________________________________________________________ 

SUPPORT ME: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/foster.the.... Cash App: https://www.cash.app/$fosterthefrog _________________________________________________________________ 

SOURCES: Autism Speaks Founders: https://www.autismspeaks.org/our-founder Autism Speaks Mission: https://the-art-of-autism.com/autism-... Autism Speaks Q&A: https://www.autismspeaks.org/autism-s... Daughter’s Death Puts focus on toll of Autism: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c...   Autism Speaks Budget: https://autisticadvocacy.org/wp-content/ Autism Genome Project: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16078... Forced Sterilization in the US: https://lawblogs.uc.edu/ihrlr/2021/05... Ivar Lovaas Feminine Boy Project: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article Non-Speaking Autistics on ABA Therapy: https://autisticstrategies.net/nonspe... Autism Speaks Interventions: https://www.autismspeaks.org/interven... Cure Autism Now: https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/fea Autism Speaks & AGRE: https://www.autismspeaks.org/about-agre Autism Genetic Research: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti... Autism Speaks Research: https://www.autismspeaks.org/research Videos: Autism Every Day:   • Autism Every Day   I Am Autism:   • I Am Autism comme...   I Am Autism Transcript: https://autisticadvocacy.org/2009/09/...

[beardedmrbean]

EU nations on Wednesday were finalizing a joint response to China's COVID-19 crisis.

Over the past week, member states have been implementing their own restrictions on travelers arriving from China.

Reactions to restrictions on visitors from China

Beijing has slammed the new rules, such as testing requirements in Italy and France, as "discriminatory" and vowed to impose countermeasures. As the EU was fine-tuning its approach, Chinese government spokesperson Mao Ning said: "We sincerely hope that all parties will focus on fighting the epidemic itself, avoid the politicization of COVID.''

Medical groups and airlines have also complained that the disjointed approach is untenable. International Air Transport Association Director General Willie Walsh said that it was "extremely disappointing to see this knee-jerk reinstatement of measures that have proven ineffective over the last three years."

"Research undertaken around the arrival of the omicron variant concluded that putting barriers in the way of travel made no difference to the peak spread of infections. At most, restrictions delayed that peak by a few days," he said.

Some EU health officials have also noted that the variants now heavily affecting China have already been present in Europe for sometime.

Despite this, the European Union appeared determined to impose some sort of restriction. Sweden, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, issued a statement saying that "travelers from China need to be prepared for decisions being taken at short notice.''

On a trip to Portugal, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said it was essential for the EU to have a united response to China's unprecendented wave of infections.

What is the current COVID-19 situation in China?

In December, China became one of the last countries on Earth to drop its "zero-COVID" policy, which had been in place since the pandemic began in 2020. The policy became known for its extremely strict quarantines, often of entire neighborhoods or cities. The administration of Premier Xi Jinping finally dropped the plan after nationwide protests throughout the fall, resulting in soaring numbers of infections and deaths.

After the initial wave began, China announced that it would be counting cases and fatalities differently, resulting in data that international health officials have criticized as opaque.

Dr. Deepti Gurdasani, a UK-based expert on epidemiology and global health, told DW that "in a global crisis, we need rapid sharing of information. And, without that, it's very hard for us to sort of respond globally in a coordinated manner."

She said she didn't think that the European Union's current patchwork approach would do much good. "I think while it's really important to surveil the variants that might be emerging or growing within China, this sort of patchy pre-departure testing is unlikely to make a difference in terms of slowing the import of any new variant unless there are also domestic measures in place," he said. 

Gurdasani also said that, with Lunar New Year approaching, the spread of COVID-19 across China and the emergence of new variants is highly likely.

WHO calls for transparency from Beijing

Also on Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) criticized Beijing's "very narrow" definition of COVID deaths, which does not include people who die of COVID alongside another underlying condition. It also only allows for a death to be listed as caused by the coronavirus if the person died of respiratory failure, despite scientists know that COVID-19 has many other symptoms. Therefore, only 22 deaths have been registered since early December.

"We believe that the current numbers being published from China under-represent the true impact of the disease in terms of hospital admissions, in terms of ICU admissions, and particularly in terms of deaths," WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan told reporters.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that his team was conducting talks with their counterparts in Beijing

"We continue to ask China for more rapid, regular, reliable data on hospitalization and deaths, as well as more comprehensive, real-time viral sequencing," he said.

[abigailspinach]

Covid-19 could be a powerful risk factor for heart attacks and strokes for as long as three years after an infection, a large new study suggests.

The study was published Wednesday in the medical journal Atherosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. It relied on medical records from roughly a quarter of a million people who were enrolled in a large database called the UK Biobank.

Within this dataset, researchers identified more than 11,000 people who had a positive lab test for Covid-19 documented in their medical records in 2020; nearly 3,000 of them had been hospitalized for their infections. They compared these groups with more than 222,000 others in the same database who didn’t have a history of Covid-19 over the same time frame.

People who caught Covid in 2020, before there were vaccines to blunt the infection, had twice the risk of a major cardiac event like a heart attack or stroke or death for almost three years after their illness, compared with the people who didn’t test positive, the study found.

If a person had been hospitalized for their infection, pointing to a more severe case, the risk of a major heart event in was even greater – more than three times higher – than for people without Covid in their medical records.

What’s more, for people who needed to be hospitalized, Covid appeared to be as potent a risk factor for future heart attacks and strokes as diabetes or peripheral artery disease, or PAD.

One study estimated that more than 3.5 million Americans were hospitalized for Covid between May 2020 and April 2021.

A finding unique to Covid-19

The elevated heart risks from infection did not appear to diminish over time, the study found.

“There’s no sign of attenuation of that risk,” said study author Dr. Stanley Hazen, who chairs the department of Cardiovascular & Metabolic Sciences at the Cleveland Clinic. “That’s actually one of the more interesting, I think, surprising findings.”

The researchers involved in the study say they don’t know exactly why Covid has such apparently long-lasting effects on the cardiovascular system.

Earlier studies have shown that the coronavirus can infect the cells that line the walls of blood vessels. The virus has also been found in sticky plaques that form in arteries that can rupture and cause heart attacks and strokes.

“There might just be something that Covid does to the artery walls and the vascular system that is sustained damage and just continues to manifest over time,” said study author Dr. Hooman Allayee, a professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California.

Their working theory, Allayee said, is that Covid may be destabilizing plaques that are building within the walls of arteries and may make them more prone to rupturing and causing a clot.

Some protective factors

Allayee and his graduate student James Hilser took a closer look to see how Covid might be causing this long-term trouble in the body.

They looked to see whether people with known genetic risk factors for heart disease, or gene changes linked to being susceptible to Covid infection, were more likely than others to have a heart attack or stroke or to die after being hospitalized for Covid. But they weren’t.

What did show up, the researchers say, was a distinction by blood type.

Researchers have known that people with certain non-O blood types – A, B or AB – are at higher risk of cardiovascular diseases.

Blood type also appears to play a role in how likely a person is to get Covid. People with O-type blood seem to be a bit protected there, too.

In the new study, people with O-type blood who were hospitalized for Covid didn’t have quite as high of a risk of heart attack or stroke as those with A, B or AB blood types. But that doesn’t mean they were in the clear, Hazen said: They were still at higher risk of heart attacks and strokes, but their blood type was just another variable to consider.

The researchers believe that the gene that codes for blood type may be playing a role in the increased risk in heart attacks and strokes after Covid, but they aren’t sure exactly how.

There was some hopeful news in the study, too. People who were hospitalized for Covid but who were also taking low-dose aspirin had no increase in the likelihood of a subsequent heart attack or stroke. That means the risk can be mitigated, Hazen said.

“Cardiac disease and cardiovascular events are still the number one killer around the world,” he said.

When he sees patients, Hazen said, he now makes sure to ask about their Covid history.

“If you’ve had Covid, we have to be especially attentive to making sure that we’re doing everything possible to lower your cardiovascular risk,” Hazen said.

That includes controlling blood pressure and cholesterol and perhaps taking a daily aspirin.

The study didn’t look at the effects of Covid-19 vaccination on a person’s cardiovascular risk, but Hazen suspects that it would be protective, because vaccines usually keep Covid infections from becoming severe.

The study also didn’t dig into whether repeated Covid infections might be tied to even greater health risks, as some research has found.

Still, Hazen said, anyone who was hospitalized for Covid – whether vaccinated or not – should be attentive to their heart risks.

[covid-safer-hotties]

False divisions and dubious equivalencies Children’s rights during the COVID-19 pandemic - Published June 18, 2024

Introduction In January 2022, nearly two years after the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), millions of students, educators, and parents around the world, including in the United States (US) protested that no student should have to risk their health for education (Pinsker 2022) However, many Western governments—led by Sweden, the United Kingdom (UK), and the US—have chosen to ignore calls for public health and safety. As Sweden adopted the least protective approach to community transmission, contrarian physicians in the US and UK advanced the anomalous Swedish example for in-person schooling without mitigations, particularly as soon as pediatric COVID-19 vaccines were in sight. Despite proving false for previously-vaccinated age groups, the most controversial and oft-mistaken contrarians—inexpert in social or behavioral sciences—claimed that ending school masking requirements would incentivize parents to vaccinate younger children, whose vaccine uptake never reached adequate levels despite the implementation of this advice (MSNBC 2022). Public admissions of such mistakes have never led to correcting the policies based on them. Instead, the lack of health and safety in schools resulting from zero-mitigation policies continues to cause great physical and psychosocial harms to children and families.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic—the worst global health crisis in over a century—at least 10.5 million children in the world have lost a parent or caregiver to COVID-19, tens of thousands of children have died, and millions have suffered disability (Bellandi 2022; UNICEF 2022). The pathway of SARS 2 infection is through the respiratory system, but COVID-19 (or COVID) is a multisystemic, vascular, and neurotropic disease with immunological effects that often renders survivors vulnerable to other infections and morbidities (Smadja et al. 2021; Temgoua et al. 2020; Zhou et al. 2020). Although the vast majority of those infected live past the initial, acute phase of infection, survivors of COVID-19 are at substantial and cumulative risk for Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC), also known as Long COVID, regardless of age, vaccination, or health status (Iacurci 2022).

Life expectancy has fallen in four out of five OECD nations during the pandemic, and dramatically in the US, reversing decades-long gains (British Medical Journal 2022). Long COVID is a chronic manifestation of COVID-19 after the acute phase of infection with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, or SARS 2), with prolonged effects and substantial global prevalence (Chen et al. 2022). Each COVID infection carries between a one-in-five and a one-in-eight chance of progressing to Long COVID within about a month or more of infection, with recent studies reporting as high as nearly one-in-two prevalence (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2022d; Van Beusekom 2022). Long COVID commonly causes chronic fatigue, neurological damage, psychological disorders, memory impairment, confusion, and numerous other serious and lasting sequelae in healthy people across age groups, such as blood clots, heart attacks, and a three-fold increased risk of death within a year of a non-severe infection (Al-Aly, Bowe, and Xie 2022; Salari et al. 2022; Uusküla et al. 2022; Xu, Xie, and Al-Aly 2022). Long COVID experts admonish against current policies of mass infection, asserting the need to create awareness of this “urgent problem with a mounting human toll” (Ballering et al. 2022; Kikkenborg Berg et al. 2022; Lopez-Leon et al. 2022).

Princeton historian Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor describes the US toll of death and disability as “surreal,” which official estimates undercount (Taylor 2022). More than one million Americans died in fewer than two-and-a-half years, exceeding four thousand deaths per day several times (Taylor 2022). More than 7 percent of the US population (twenty-three million people) suffer from disabling Long COVID, causing more than half a million Americans to become unemployed (Iacurci 2022; British Medical Journal 2022). While comprising only 4 percent of the global population, the US has the highest COVID-19 death toll in the world, has fared worse than peer countries, and has accounted for approximately one-quarter of global COVID infections and one-sixth of deaths (Bennett and Cuevas 2022; World Health Organization 2022b).

COVID-19 is the leading infectious cause of death in US children, and among the top five causes of pediatric death overall, even after vaccination (White House 2022a). US COVID mortality has exceeded four decades of AIDS mortality (Thrasher 2022, 9–10). However, in the third year of the pandemic, 4,100 COVID deaths per week—more than a weekly September 11 mass casualty event—has been treated as unremarkable by US media and politicians (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2022a; British Medical Journal 2022). Public health scientists, physicians, economists, and other experts representing the consensus view of the pandemic warn that “Leaders and policymakers must not accept or normalise our dangerous current status quo,” including through minimization of hazards, which lead to widespread dissemination of false beliefs (British Medical Journal 2022). Yet, leading the way, after Sweden and the UK, the US government has ended effective COVID public health mitigations, despite ongoing and escalating need for public safety measures. Other nations, such as New Zealand and Singapore, loosened otherwise stringent national safety protocols only after achieving significantly lower per-capita death rates and making considerable public health investments to secure their populations during upcoming surges (British Medical Journal 2022).

In the US and UK, poverty, gender, and race are the strongest determinants of disease burden, encompassing public-facing workers in health, service, and retail sectors (Sustainable Development Solutions 2022; Taylor 2022). Those with fewest resources carry the greatest burdens. COVID fatality rates, and therefore COVID health concerns, are consistently far higher among Black, Latinx, and other US racial minority groups (Pew Research 2021b). Counties experiencing the highest death rates are those with average poverty rates of 45 percent (Taylor 2022).

Nations that consistently implement public health measures and/or have better infrastructure for health, safety, and education see more equitable outcomes across various socio-economic metrics. The zero COVID policies of New Zealand, Australia, China, and Pacific Island nations experienced relatively rare mortality and low morbidity overall in proportion to their populations than laissez-faire nations, translating to roughly eight to ten times lower case fatality rates (Our World in Data 2020–2022; World Health Organization 2022a). Nations in which mitigations are normalized, such as the Republic of Korea and Japan, have experienced remarkably lower mortality and morbidity (Our World in Data 2020–2022). Cuba took the approach of closing in-person schools indefinitely and used the widely accessible medium of state television to broadcast national curricula during school days so that schoolchildren could continue engaging educational material from home or settings outside of school (Goodman 2021a). Cuban leadership explained that they based this decision on epidemiological and experiential understanding that viruses transmit most efficiently among children in school settings, and as a result, focused on developing a COVID vaccine for children first.

Depending on the state and timing, US pandemic response has fallen along a continuum ranging from aiming to eradicate or contain the virus (most protective) to laissez-faire (least protective), the latter of which became the dominant national approach (Bai et al. 2022; Gretchen 2020; Long et al. 2022; Normile 2021; Yang et al. 2022). Laissez-faire refers to minimal regulations in the public interest by the state, and prioritization of “free market” activity and individual “choice” (Scott and Marshall 2009, 405). Laissez-faire nations deprioritized children’s vaccination, focusing instead on protecting the elderly, who, in the US, enjoy far greater wealth, political power, and governmental spending and benefits than children (Corsaro 2015, 308–314).

Research on children’s rights during the pandemic inadequately addresses the ways children’s rights to life, health, and safety have been falsely rendered oppositional to education and child development under the guise of championing children, uncritically accepting dominant narratives underwriting laissez-faire policies (e.g., Adami and Dineen 2021). This chapter reviews scientific studies, news articles, surveys, and statistical data involving experts and policymakers, and finds that the dominant narrative of school reopenings manufactured a “debate” that created false divisions and dubious equivalencies between different sets of children’s rights. Despite scientific and international-legal consensus on children’s rights to life, health, and safety as fundamental, the protection of these rights during the pandemic was rendered adversarial to child development, psychosocial well-being, and children’s economic, educational, and social welfare rights. Dominant discourse also ignored socio-economic disparities or leveraged them in ways to promote in-person schooling without mitigations.

How and why this occurred is analyzed from an intersectional perspective, meaning that inequities and injustices resulting from harmful policies are understood as having systemic and historical roots along the lines of race, class, gender, and generational disparities, which are reproduced in and through law, politics, and policy (Crenshaw 1998). An intersectional approach shows that violations of children’s rights to life, health, and safety are occurring through the exploitation and reinforcement of longstanding structural inequities, while creating new ones. Laissez-faire policy regarding childhood education has been driven by politics and power, against scientific consensus and public opinion. Coordinated inauthentic actions, disinformation campaigns, and political violence are considered within the scope of politics and power disfiguring public policy in violation of children’s rights.

The adoption of laissez-faire pandemic policies has occurred through at least three primary means, including (1) minimization or denialism and mythologizing regarding the harms of COVID-19 to children and their network effects; (2) a moral panic of pediatric mental health and academic attrition blamed on mitigation measures; and (3) political prioritization of narrow, short-sighted economic aims that insist upon labor and schooling in unsafe spaces despite the availability of effective mitigations. A policy of no policy during a global public health emergency has created a crisis of children’s rights in which life, health, safety, and education are routinely undermined, with poorer socio-economic outcomes. This requires corrective reframing of pandemic policy to combat disinformation, normalize mitigation of communicable disease, and prioritize children’s rights, needs, and perspectives. This chapter aims to expose violations of human rights through laissez-faire pandemic policy within the larger goals of generating critical awareness of their modus operandi and prevention of further systemic harms.

[head-post]

UK’s population increases by 1%, driven by migration

The UK’s population grew by 1 per cent over the last year, mainly due to net international migration, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Tuesday.

The population of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland rose from 67.6 million in mid-2022 to 68.3 million in mid-2023.

The main driver of the population increase was net international migration. Between June 2022 and June 2023, immigration to the UK was 1.185 million and emigration from the UK was 508,000. Thus, taking into account natural attrition, net migration increased the population by 662,400 people.

This is the largest annual numerical and percentage increase since the beginning of such calculations in 1971.

On October 7 media reported that the largest number of irregular migrants in Europe is in the UK.

Despite the overall increase in population, the natural change – the difference between births and deaths – showed a decline.

According to the ONS, the natural change in population fell by 16,300 over the same period.

This is only the second time since 1976, not counting the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, that the UK has seen negative natural population growth. Previous projections did not anticipate such a trend until the mid-2030s.

Read more HERE

[prolife-home-care]

XEC Covid Variant: Symptoms, Spread, and How to Stay Protected This Winter

A new coronavirus variant, XEC, is rapidly spreading and could soon become the dominant strain this winter, according to scientists. First identified in Germany in June, XEC has since been reported in the UK, the US, Denmark, and other countries. Experts are now monitoring its growth closely, anticipating its potential impact during the colder months.

What Is the XEC Covid Variant?

XEC is a recombinant variant that combines characteristics of two previous Omicron subvariants: KS.1.1 and KP.3.3. These parent strains have contributed to recent Covid waves across the globe. KS.1.1, known as one of the "FLiRT variants," and KP.3.3, a part of the "FLuQE" family, exhibit unique mutations in the spike protein, giving XEC an edge in transmission.

Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at UCSF, notes that XEC possesses "tighter binding cells," potentially making it more transmissible and possibly more immune-evasive than earlier variants. While XEC may not cause a significant spike in hospitalizations or deaths, its enhanced ability to spread has scientists on alert.

How Does XEC Differ from Previous Variants?

XEC has unusual mutations, such as the T22N mutation and additional changes in the spike protein. These differences could provide it with a slight transmission advantage over other Covid variants circulating this fall. However, because XEC belongs to the Omicron lineage, its symptoms and overall severity are expected to be similar to those of previous Omicron strains.

Current Statistics on XEC and Covid-19 Spread

While specific case numbers for the XEC variant are limited, global health authorities continue to monitor its spread along with other Covid-19 variants. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that globally, during the four-week period from June 24 to July 21, 2024, new Covid-19 cases increased by 30% and deaths by 26% compared to the previous 28-day period, with over 186,000 new cases reported across 96 countries​(World Health Organization (WHO). This surge indicates that new variants like XEC may be contributing to the recent increase in cases.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States provides regular updates on Covid-19 trends, including hospitalizations, emergency department visits, and test positivity rates. However, specific data on the XEC variant's prevalence in the U.S. is not yet available​(CDC COVID-19 Data Tracker). Monitoring the overall Covid-19 trends is crucial as new variants emerge, especially as the XEC variant is believed to have a transmission advantage.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) actively tracks and classifies SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and interest. Detailed data on the spread of various variants, including XEC, across the EU/EEA, is regularly published, although specific numbers on XEC’s prevalence are still being analyzed​.

Symptoms of XEC Covid

The symptoms of the XEC variant are similar to those of previous Omicron variants. These include:

High temperature or fever

Cough and sore throat

Fatigue and body aches

Loss of smell and appetite

Congestion and runny nose

Nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea in some cases

Most people recover within a few weeks, but those who are at higher risk, such as older adults or immunocompromised individuals, may experience more severe illness.

How Is XEC Spreading?

XEC has shown strong growth in Europe, especially in Denmark and Germany. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, has suggested that XEC could become the next dominant variant over the winter. However, this process may take several weeks or even a couple of months.

Monitoring the spread of XEC is more challenging now due to less routine Covid testing compared to previous years. Health agencies, such as the CDC, are using alternative methods like wastewater surveillance to keep track of the virus's spread. Despite these limitations, early indications show that XEC is on the rise in various countries.

How Effective Are Current Vaccines Against XEC?

Since XEC is an offshoot of the Omicron lineage, existing vaccines are expected to provide protection against severe illness caused by this variant. Dr. Chin-Hong has expressed confidence in the updated vaccines, especially for those at higher risk, including older adults and individuals with weakened immune systems.

The vaccines, updated to target recent Covid variants, may not be specifically designed for XEC but should still offer a buffer of protection. Health experts recommend getting the updated booster shots to reduce the chance of infection and lower the risk of developing long Covid.

Who Should Get the Booster Shot?

Health authorities recommend that the following groups receive the updated booster:

Adults aged 65 years and over

Residents of care homes

Individuals over six months old in clinical risk groups

Front-line healthcare and social-care workers

The main vaccination drive for both flu and Covid-19 is set to start in October. However, those at higher risk or planning to travel in the fall should consider getting their booster shot earlier.

Expert opinion

Getting vaccinated is super important, especially for older adults. As we age, our immune systems just don’t work as well, which makes seniors more vulnerable to serious illnesses like COVID-19. During the pandemic, older adults were hit the hardest. In fact, according to the CDC, over 80% of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. were among those 65 and older. This really shows why getting vaccinated is a must – it significantly reduces the risk of severe illness and death in older adults. Plus, it helps take some of the strain off our healthcare system and keeps our communities healthier overall.

Best regards, Anna Klyauzova LinkedIn Profile Prolife Home Care

Protect Yourself This Winter

As the XEC variant continues to spread, it's important to follow public health guidelines to stay protected. In addition to getting vaccinated, wearing masks in crowded places, practicing good hand hygiene, and maintaining social distancing can help reduce the risk of infection.

FAQs About the XEC Covid Variant

Q: What are the symptoms of the XEC variant? A: The symptoms are similar to previous Omicron variants and include fever, cough, sore throat, fatigue, body aches, congestion, and gastrointestinal issues.

Q: How is XEC different from other Covid variants? A: XEC is a recombinant variant from two Omicron subvariants, KS.1.1 and KP.3.3, with unique mutations that could make it more transmissible.

Q: Are current vaccines effective against the XEC variant? A: Yes, existing vaccines are expected to provide protection against severe illness caused by XEC, though they may not completely prevent infection.

Q: Who should get the updated Covid booster? A: Adults over 65, care home residents, people in clinical risk groups, and front-line healthcare workers are recommended to get the booster.

Conclusion

The XEC variant serves as a reminder that the Covid-19 virus continues to evolve. While vaccines may not be a complete shield against infection, they remain the best defense against severe illness and hospitalization. Global trends indicate a rise in Covid-19 cases, highlighting the importance of staying informed and following health recommendations. By getting vaccinated and adhering to public health guidelines, you can protect yourself and those around you as the winter season approaches.