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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 years ago

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BY ANITA SIRCARAUG. 17, 2021 9:28 AM PT

My patient sat at the edge of his bed gasping for air while he tried to tell me his story, pausing to catch his breath after each word. The plastic tubes delivering oxygen through his nose hardly seemed adequate to stop his chest from heaving. He looked exhausted.

He had tested positive for the coronavirus 10 days ago. He was under 50, mildly hypertensive but otherwise in good health. Eight days earlier he started coughing and having severe fatigue. His doctor started him on antibiotics. It did not work.

Fearing his symptoms were worsening, he started taking some hydroxychloroquine he had found on the internet. It did not work.

He was now experiencing shortness of breath while doing routine daily activities such as walking from his bedroom to the bathroom or putting on his shoes. He was a shell of his former self. He eventually made his way to a facility where he could receive monoclonal antibodies, a lab-produced transfusion that substitutes for the body’s own antibodies. It did not work.

He finally ended up in the ER with dangerously low oxygen levels, exceedingly high inflammatory markers and patchy areas of infection all over his lungs. Nothing had helped. He was getting worse. He could not breathe. His wife and two young children were at home, all infected with COVID. He and his wife had decided not to get vaccinated.

Last year, a case like this would have flattened me. I would have wrestled with the sadness and how unfair life was. Battled with the angst of how unlucky he was. This year, I struggled to find sympathy. It was August 2021, not 2020. The vaccine had been widely available for months in the U.S., free to anyone who wanted it, even offered in drugstores and supermarkets. Cutting-edge, revolutionary, mind-blowing, lifesaving vaccines were available where people shopped for groceries, and they still didn’t want them.

Outside his hospital door, I took a deep breath — battening down my anger and frustration — and went in. I had been working the COVID units for 17 months straight, all day, every day. I had cared for hundreds of COVID patients. We all had, without being able to take breaks long enough to help us recover from this unending ordeal. Compassion fatigue was setting in. For those of us who hadn’t left after the hardest year of our professional lives, even hope was now in short supply.

Shouting through my N95 mask and the noise of the HEPA filter, I introduced myself. I calmly asked him why he decided not to get vaccinated.

“Well, I’m not an anti-vaxxer or anything. I was just waiting for the FDA to approve the vaccine first. I didn’t want to take anything experimental. I didn’t want to be the government’s guinea pig, and I don’t trust that it’s safe,” he said.

“Well,” I said, “I can pretty much guarantee we would have never met had you gotten vaccinated because you would have never been hospitalized. All of our COVID units are full and every single patient in them is unvaccinated. Numbers don’t lie. The vaccines work.”

This was a common excuse people gave for not getting vaccinated, fearing the vaccine because the Food and Drug Administration had only granted it emergency-use authorization so far, not permanent approval. Yet the treatments he had turned to, antibiotics, monoclonal antibodies and hydroxychloroquine were considered experimental, with mixed evidence to support their use.

The only proven lifesaver we’ve had in this pandemic is a vaccine that many people don’t want. A vaccine we give away to other countries because supply overwhelms demand in the U.S. A vaccine people in other countries stand in line for hours to receive, if they can get it at all.

“Well,” I said, “I am going to treat you with, remdesivir, which only recently received FDA approval.” I explained that it had been under an EUA for most of last year and had not been studied or administered as widely as COVID-19 vaccines. That more than 353 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine had been administered in the U.S. along with more than 4.7 billion doses worldwide without any overwhelming, catastrophic side effects. “Not nearly as many doses of remdesivir have been given or studied in people and its long-term side effects are still unknown,” I said. “Do you still want me to give it to you?”

“Yes” he responded, “Whatever it takes to save my life.”

It did not work.

My patient died nine days later from a fatal stroke. We, the care team, reconciled this loss by telling ourselves: He made a personal choice not to get vaccinated, not to protect himself or his family. We did everything we could with what we had to save him. This year, this tragedy, this unnecessary, entirely preventable loss, was on him.

The burden of this pandemic now rests on the shoulders of the unvaccinated. On those who are eligible to get vaccinated, but choose not to, a decision they defend by declaring, “vaccination is a deeply personal choice.” But perhaps never in history has anyone’s personal choice impacted the world as a whole as it does right now. When hundreds and thousands of people continue to die, when the most vulnerable members of society, our children, cannot be vaccinated — the luxury of choice ceases to exist.

If you believe the pandemic is almost over and you can ride it out, without getting vaccinated, you could not be more wrong. This virus will find you.

If you believe I’ll just wait until the FDA approves the vaccine first, you may not live to see the day.

If you believe if I get infected I’ll just go to the hospital and get treated, there is no guarantee we can save your life, nor even a promise we’ll have a bed for you.

If you believe I’m pregnant and I don’t want the vaccine to affect me, my baby or my future fertility, it matters little if you’re not alive to see your newborn.

If you believe I won’t get my children vaccinated because I don’t know what the long-term effects will be, it matters little if they don’t live long enough for you to find out.

If you believe I’ll just let everyone else get vaccinated around me so I don’t have to, there are 93 million eligible, unvaccinated people in the “herd” who think the same way you do and are getting in the way of ending this pandemic.

If you believe vaccinated people are getting infected anyway so what’s the point?, the vaccine was built to prevent hospitalizations and deaths from severe illness. Instead of fatal pneumonia, those with breakthrough infections have a short, bad cold, so the vaccine has already proved itself. The vaccinated are not dying from COVID-19.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has mutated countless times during this pandemic, adapting to survive. Stacked up against a human race that has resisted change every step of the way — including wearing masks, social distancing, quarantining and now refusing lifesaving vaccines — it is easy to see who will win this war if human behavior fails to change quickly.

The most effective thing you can do to protect yourself, your loved ones and the world, is to GET VACCINATED.

And it will work.

Anita Sircar is an infectious disease physician and clinical instructor of health sciences at the UCLA School of Medicine.

#op-ed #Anita Sircar #vaccination #global pandemic #COVID-19 #LA Times #the plague #get vaccinated #science #medicine

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toshootforthestars · 3 years ago

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It was August 2021, not 2020. The vaccine had been widely available for months in the U.S., free to anyone who wanted it, even offered in drugstores and supermarkets. Cutting-edge, revolutionary, mind-blowing, lifesaving vaccines were available where people shopped for groceries, and they still didn’t want them.

Shouting through my N95 mask and the noise of the HEPA filter, I introduced myself. I calmly asked him why he decided not to get vaccinated.

“Not nearly as many doses of remdesivir have been given or studied in people and its long-term side effects are still unknown,” I said. “Do you still want me to give it to you?”

“Yes” he responded, “Whatever it takes to save my life.”

It did not work.

This year, this tragedy, this unnecessary, entirely preventable loss, was on him.

When hundreds and thousands of people continue to die, when the most vulnerable members of society, our children, cannot be vaccinated — the luxury of choice ceases to exist.

If you believe the pandemic is almost over and you can ride it out, without getting vaccinated, you could not be more wrong. This virus will find you.

If you believe I’ll just wait until the FDA approves the vaccine first, you may not live to see the day.

If you believe if I get infected I’ll just go to the hospital and get treated, there is no guarantee we can save your life, nor even a promise we’ll have a bed for you.

If you believe I’m pregnant and I don’t want the vaccine to affect me, my baby or my future fertility, it matters little if you’re not alive to see your newborn. (No, it does NOT affect your fertility.)

If you believe I won’t get my children vaccinated because I don’t know what the long-term effects will be, it matters little if they don’t live long enough for you to find out. (The risk of complications in children from infection with the virus is presently considered be much higher than any risk of long-term complications in children from vaccination.)

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has mutated countless times during this pandemic, adapting to survive.

Stacked up against a human race that has resisted change every step of the way — including wearing masks, social distancing, quarantining and now refusing lifesaving vaccines — it is easy to see who will win this war if human behavior fails to change quickly.

Op-Ed by Dr Anita Sircar, UCLA School of Health Medicine: As a doctor in a COVID unit, I’m running out of compassion for the unvaccinated. Get the shot.

Los Angeles Times / Aug 2021

#we live in a society #news #science #coronavirus #please get vaccinated #please wear a mask #please look out for each other #please stay safe #america 2021 #delta variant #booster shot #third covid shot

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dointoomuchsworld · 3 years ago

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URT amidst the Pharma war

WUpon selecting a communication theory for this blog entry, I decided, why not- let’s just Google search: “what communication theory can be related to the anti-vax crowd”? The top six search results and their links that pop up spew these headlines and additional phrases:

1. “The anti-vaccination infodemic on social media: A behavioral…: However, the anti-vaccination movement is currently on the rise, spreading online misinformation about vaccine safety and causing a worrying…” (www.journals.plos.org)

2. “How to respond to vocal vaccine deniers in public- WHO: a vocal vaccine denier is defined in this document as a person who is not only denying scientific consensus but also actively advocating against vaccination…” (World Health Organization 2017 Regional Office for Europe).

3. “Vaccine hesitancy is a problem attracting growing attention and concern.” (www.sciencedirect.com)

4. “The online competition between pro- and anti-vaccination… Distrust in scientific expertise is dangerous… Results show that even if anti-vaccine narratives have a small persuasiveness, a large part of the population will be rapidly exposed to them. ” (www.nature.com)

5. “Conspiracy Beliefs, Rejection of Vaccination, and…: Many conspiracy theories appeared along with the Covid-19 pandemic. Since it is documented that conspiracy theories negatively affect…” (www.frontiersin.org)

6. “Combating Vaccine Hesitancy: Teaching the Next Generation… In 1999, the anti-vaxxer movement, an organized body of people who refuse to vaccinate and blaming vaccines for health problems” (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

Well, this didn’t answer my question. It was surely a lot to read as we dive into my entry here, and it slapped someone with my way of thinking with some shut-down labels: dangerous, misinformed, science-denier, nonconsensual, behaviorally problematic, conspiracist, rejecter.

Do you know what these Google search results say to me? Censorship.

I am selecting the communication theory of Uncertainty Reduction Theory to apply towards my discussion of the pro-vaccine/anti-vaccine war.

Uncertainty Reduction Theory (URT) asserts that “people have a need to reduce uncertainty about others by gaining information about them” (Berger, C.R., & Bradac, J.J.) The information gained can be used to predict the others’ behavior. Reducing uncertainty can be particularly beneficial in relationship development, so it is more typical amongst people when they expect or want to develop a relationship than among people who expect or know they will not develop a relationship.

We have a few basic ways people seek information about another person:

1. Passive strategies: we observe the person, either in situations where the individual is likely to be self-monitoring (in a classroom; in the stands of a public event)

2. Active strategies: we ask others about the person we’re interested in, or set up a way to observe that person (sign up for the same class; sitting at a different table in the same restaurant)

3. Interactive strategies: we communicate directly with the person.

I believe this theory can be used to my topic of discussion because if we are in one of the hottest moments of the ongoing anti- and pro- vaccine movement and pharmaceutical war with COVID-19 at the forefront of it all, no matter which side we put our beliefs, followings, trust, or knowledge in, we seek out others with the same data, statistics, views, and agreeability. We strive to reduce uncertainty with others by gaining their information to benefit one another, and either develop ongoing relationships, or not. If we observe or interact with others to discover where their loyalties lay, we either discuss, debate--or worst of all, we fight like cats and dogs to what seems like the death--or come to an understanding and continue or discontinue the developed relationship.

Let’s begin how I feel within the war on vaccines. I, if you will, an introvert who isn’t so fond of putting my opinions out there, am publicly posting this in hopes of finding others and reducing my uncertainty about how others may feel, or find if they may feel similarly so that I may stand with them or offer them strength in opinions and studies. Or maybe, just to prompt an open discussion.

1. Pro-vaccine

2. Anti-vaccine

Unnecessary and divisive labels meant to categorize people into black and white thinking.

Where is the label for: I think it’s perfectly logical to want the ability to make decisions about each vaccine available on an individual basis for each of my children and myself?

Pfizer is going for full FDA approval and might have it by the end of this month, emergency approval has already been granted for 12-15 year-olds, and in September emergency approval will be requested for 2-11 year-olds.

How can you get granted EAU for an experimental drug in an age group that isn’t having an emergency? To protect vaccinated adults? Sacrificing your healthy child for an illness that doesn’t affect them so that vaccinated adults may think you’re a good person and may give you permission to move freely about your lives?

Nothing says I don’t believe in science more than vaccinating a 2-year-old for COVID.

Imagine being excited to experiment on your own child.

Children don’t stand a chance in this pharmaceutical industry that for decades have put profit ahead of doing what is right. Additionally but important to note, the pharmaceutical industry has not prioritized the research and development of cancer drugs for children. They rely on treating children with adult cancer drugs, which are far more dangerous, toxic, and aggressive on a child’s developing body, because adult cancer drugs are some of the best-selling pharmaceuticals for companies such as Merck & Co., Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and J&J.

Here is an incomplete current list of places making the COVID vaccine mandatory, either for employment or for on site services: Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Officer; WPAFB (when it is FDA approved); Atria Senior Living; Rocky River Senior Center; Continuing Healthcare Solutions; Newburgh Heights city employees; Supers Landscape; Cleveland State University; Kenyon College; Cleveland Clinic fertility center: spouses required to have two doses of vaccine before being able to be present for embryo transfers. Kroger grocery stores now mandate proof of vaccination of its employees in order for employees to de-mask. This is marking the unclean versus clean. Here we are, segregating healthy people and in many circumstances being told to show our private healthcare papers.

There is no place for this behavior in a free society. This is discrimination based on vaccine status.

A business in Preble County is allowing employees who have taken the coronavirus vaccine to use the fitness room while those who have not, or are naturally immune, are not allowed access. They can work there but they cannot work out there... is this about health?

What changes have you made for yourself as an individual this pandemic to benefit your health and wellness?

The NFL continues to separate their unvaccinated athletes from their fellow vaccinated athletes. Separate practice areas, separate eating areas, and de-masking only those who have been vaccinated. Discontinuing COVID testing twice a week only for the vaccinated. Not allowing the unvaccinated to leave the hotel while traveling with the teams. As if either party is not safe to be around.

As a writer considering her reader, I’m wondering if you’re celebrating right now in regards to these advances, or raising some eyebrows. As for me, it fills me with a primitive rage that I feel only when someone endangers my children.

But let’s keep going.

Vaccines are necessarily risky, as recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court and by Congress.

The risk: benefit ratio varies with the frequency and severity of disease, vaccine safety, and individual patient factors. These must be evaluated by patient and physician, not imposed government, corporations, or other bureaucrats.

The smallpox vaccine is so dangerous that you can’t get it now, despite the weaponization of smallpox. Rabies vaccine is given only after a suspected exposure or to high-risk persons such as veterinarians. The whole-cell pertussis vaccine was withdrawn from the U.S. market, a decade later than from the Japanese market, because of reports of severe permanent brain damage. The acellular vaccine that replaced it is evidently safer, though somewhat less effective.

After being fully informed of the risks and benefits of a medical procedure, patients have the right to reject or accept that procedure. Preemption of patients’ or parents’ decisions about accepting drugs or other medical interventions is a serious intrusion into individual liberty, autonomy, and parental decisions about child-rearing.

Forcing Ohioans or anyone into receiving an experimental medical intervention in exchange for freedom to go to work or participate in society is contrary to fundamental human rights.

How does one feel about the persuasion to vote YES on Ohio HB 248? How’s this for propaganda: Vote YES, join the movement, on the Vaccine Choice and Anti-Discrimination Act.

This Ohio House Bill was introduced on April 6, 2021, and is in 25% progression (LegiScan). Per this Republican Partisan Bill, OH HB248 is to enact section 3792.02 of the Revised Code to authorize an individual to decline a vaccination and to name this act the Vaccine Choice and Anti-Discrimination Act.

Why should we do this? This is a stand for health freedom, for medical freedom; a vital legislation to protect vaccine choice for Ohioans now and into the future. If this legislation isn't passed, you can expect that vaccine mandates and vaccine passports will become a reality of our future. And even if you're fine with the traditional vaccines, even if you have always gotten the flu vaccine, and even if you decided to get the COVID vaccine... Ohioans will be faced with the reality that any future vaccine can be mandated by the state, retailers, employers, schools etc., and we'll have zero to say about it. This legislation will protect all Ohioans from the dystopia that we're currently facing.

Do I sound like one who denies the expertise of science now? I stand with science. I stand with informed consent. I stand with freedom. I stand with healthcare professionals. I stand with Ohio workers. I stand with parents. I stand with students. I stand with this bill for the people, by the people.

In the year 1983, the total doses of vaccines for children from birth to age 18 consisted of 24 doses and 7 injections. As of 2020, we now administer 69 doses with 50 injections. The CDC child vaccination schedule is bloated, and I will say it from the mountaintops, no matter the reaches for justification.

Advanced Pediatric, a Cleveland area pediatric practice, is embracing the idea that unvaccinated children are not safe, and must stay masked and distanced, including from others on the playground (advancedped.com). How badly will we damage our children’s social and emotional health with this kind of discriminatory action propagated by adults that are supposed to be protecting them?

Prior to COVID, measles was the much-publicized threat used to push for mandates, and is probably the worst threat among the vaccine-preventable illnesses because it is so highly contagious. There are occasional outbreaks, generally starting with an infected individual coming from somewhere outside the U.S. The majority, but by no means all the people who catch the measles have not been vaccinated. Almost all make a full recovery, with robust, life-long immunity.

The last measles death in the U.S. occurred in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Is it justified to revoke the rights of all Americans because of the hypothetical risk that a person who cannot be vaccinated due to immune deficiency might catch measles from an unvaccinated American, rather than from a visitor or a person whose artificial vaccine-based immunity has waned? Such mandates establish a precedent for ever-greater restrictions on our right to give—or withhold—consent to medical interventions?

So as I continue, and back to the focus on the COVID fiasco that I am pondering… Per the CDC website in the association with the COVID vaccine, VAERS reports that in the last four months we have recorded more deaths from the COVID vaccine than from all vaccines combined from mid 1997 through the end of 2013. As of April 30, there are 3,837 cases where the COVID-vaccinated patient has died within days to weeks after their intervention. 384 pages of patients age, sex, location, date of vax, date of onset, who administered it, who the manufacturer is, whether they were taken to the ER, and the symptoms or prior health conditions if any.

Adverse events from drugs and vaccines are common, but underreported. Although 25% of ambulatory patients experience an adverse drug event, less than 0.3% of all adverse drug events and 1-13% of serious events are reported to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) (Lazarus, Klompas). Low reporting rates preclude or slow the identification of “problem” drugs or vaccines that endanger public health. Barriers to reporting include a lack of clinician awareness, uncertainty about when and what to report, as well as the burdens of reporting. Reporting is not usually part of a clinicians’ workflow, takes time, and is duplicative (Lazarus, Klompas).

VAERS is a passive reporting system. Healthcare workers are not required to submit reports of deaths or injuries. VAERS only reports 1% of actual injuries according to a report prepared under contract with The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Lazarus, Klompas).

To recap those last several paragraphs, we are constantly told those who decline vaccines for illnesses they themselves are at very little risk for developing complications from, are putting the immunocompromised at risk. What we don’t often hear is that the procedure itself comes with risk and what that risk level is exactly is unknown.

What we do know is that only somewhere between 1-10% of adverse events are ever reported largely due to medical professionals' lack of awareness on the subject matter. We cannot force healthy people to undergo a medical procedure for which the administrator of and manufacturer have no liability when we know there is innate risk. We can’t trade one group's theoretical risk for another group's known risk.

We never hear any other side of this argument, it’s censored from us and never presented to us.

Many of these VAERS reports were from assisted living facilities, and we can determine this by scrolling through the log of reports. Do you trust many assisted living facilities, or do you think many of them had a choice?

As of June 18, VAERS reports for myocarditis or pericarditis in people age 6 to 29 for all non-COVID shots in the entire history as VAERS as: 394. The total number of VAERS reports for myocarditis or pericarditis in people ages 6 to 29 in the last six months for COVID shots: 590.

Without voluntary informed consent, medicine becomes violence.

How many billions of dollars do you think has been handed out to mainstream media outlets, such as your favorite radio stations, to propagate the COVID vaccine and to have your favorite channel’s or station’s host, or celebrity, holler into your car or household: to go out and get it now, because all the cool people are doing it; to save our communities. Because you’re a selfish expanse of existence if you don’t. Although they who preach to go get the intervention likely have little to no experience in any of the information I have provided thus far.

The Dayton RTA public transit system has banners plastered onto the sides of their buses in all caps that say, “I’m not afraid of the vaccine!” or “Help Save Lives. Get Vaccinated.”

When their passengers board the bus, they may show their hand gesture of the peace sign, to indicate they’ve been vaccinated. And at that, you’ll get a thirty-dollar credit in adult passenger fare upon proof of being fully vaccinated. A whole month of free rides and a promotional “Vaccinated” button to wear.

Promotions for vaccinated people are a flawed tactic for both brand-building and public health. Brands across industries are skipping beyond vaccine education and awareness to take a more active role in coronavirus vaccine acceleration.

One size does not fit all. All humans are not the same and have different risk factors for both the disease and the intervention. There is no greater danger to all of us than the dehumanization of others. Not trusting a vaccine, or any given doctor for that matter, does not make me a science denier.

Where there is risk there must be choice. Not ostracism. Vaccine choice and anti-discrimination.

People who are labeled as vaccine hesitant should really be called people who are hesitant to be coerced in the largest drug trial in history. Because it’s the right thing to do... It’s patriotic... to protect our community and, again, “although I am young and healthy, it’s the right thing to do” (Ohio Dept. of Health).

Mandate advocates often assert a need for a 95% immunization rate to achieve herd immunity. However, Mary Holland and Chase Zachary of NYU School of Law argue, in the Oregon Law Review, that because complete herd immunity and measles eradication are unachievable, the better goal is for herd effect and disease control. The best outcome would result, they argue, from informed consent, more open communication, and market-based approaches.

The safest place for an immunocompromised person who is unable to be vaccinated (there are very few unable to be vaccinated for COVID) is around someone who has had COVID naturally and is actually immune. Vaccinated people still contract and likely transmit COVID unlike the naturally immune. Similar to the pertussis portion of the DTAP vaccine, most often it’s a vaccinated sibling or parent who unknowingly spreads it to an infant too young to be vaccinated.

Let’s think about our Governor DeWine’s Vax-a-Million. His raffle is a disturbing act of child coercion and misuse of money that we could be putting back into our communities. A predatory bribe to bait those who easily succumb to a gambling incentive. I wish we had this kind of monetary dedication to our homeless, to our schools, to our mental health hospitals, to our trash clean-up organizations for our cities, to students already accepted into colleges. To the small businesses who have had to close their doors for good. What are my incentives for not getting the shot? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Public health should not seek to manipulate. To manipulate in the name of public health is to undermine public health.

This is a marketing scheme. You are not required to take a liability free experimental medical intervention in order to be considered a good person. Those who say you are, are either indoctrinated into a cult-like way of thinking and lack the ability to see anything beyond that, uninformed, or evil.

It's one of many elite U.S. institutions to be completely decimated and humiliated by Pharma. It was gradual, then inexorable, and now it's their identity.

An article printed on May 31 states that a Miami Valley Hospital doctor says strokes are occurring in younger people, ages 18-45 years old. Dr. Bryan Ludwig, the chair of the Clinical Neuroscience Institute of Premier Health, is seeing this increase, including the 36-year-old stroke patient he treated upon being air-lifted to the main hospital campus (WHIO). This article does not yet state what leading causes we can look toward for the increase in strokes and clots in the youth, and does not even state a possibility of what it might be, though I’m sure we can make quite a valid assumption. It would seem that the press is trying to normalize things that are not in the least bit normal, as more articles arise in similarity.

Was it responsible for our Governor Mike DeWine to send out the tweet: “FACT: The COVID vaccine is safe and effective” upon immediate availability of the vaccine?

It is incredible that vaccine reactions used to only exist in the minds of conspirators, and now we pray for the recipients that they may make it through and only have to miss a few days of work. We don’t know anything about long-term effects but that doesn’t matter, because what about long-term effects from the actual disease? Everyone needs to do it anyway, even those at very little risk, because someone said so. Even those who have had COVID, and likely hold a great deal of immunity.

Those who came out in droves in opposition of HB248 stated things such as, “up to 30% of our college students are immunocompromised, and this justifies mandating those who aren’t to be vaccinated.”

What are we doing that is causing up to 30% of young college students to be immunocompromised?

Nonetheless, I find that statistic entirely skeptical. The industry recommends for all who they call immunocompromised, such as cancer patients to get these vaccines, and patients on immune suppressive drugs to get them. They want transplant patients to get them. They don’t actually acknowledge any contradictions outside of anaphylaxis. The “we must protect the herd” sentiment seems entirely feigned and disingenuous. It seems manipulative, dismissive.

Surely, there are immunocompromised people out there who are unable to receive the vaccine or others, but I do think it is rare.

A doctor who believe that everyone should be vaccinated, when questioned, acknowledged vaccine injury and death. She was asked what she would say to those people. Her response, in paraphrase, was, “Thank you for your contribution.” She views the injured as expendable.

The amount of doctors who opposed the house bill of vaccine choice was frightening. And who will politicians follow? Those who have personal attestations who are most oftentimes unheard or underrepresented, or clinicians pushing a pharmaceutical curriculum that acquires compensation based on how many patients are vaccinated?

In a statement made by ACIP member, Grace M. Lee, M.D., M.P.H., associate chief medical officer for practice innovation at Stanford Children’s Health, she goes on to say: “I think the childhood experience our kids have gone through will have long-lasting consequences that may extend across generations. We don’t really fully yet understand the total... physical health, mental health, and educational impact of the pandemic on our kids.”

Kids are durable. They can endure the worst of things, and they persevere. However, now, to grow up in a world that is censoring and erasing valuable information is chillingly monumental.

Considering that 23 million Americans suffer from some type of autoimmune disease, with the rates increasing 4-7% each year, and that environmental toxins are well known to trigger autoimmunity, it would seem prudent to implicate the distended childhood vaccination schedule as a possible culprit to this rise.

We are not smarter or more virtuous than someone because we draw a different conclusion after looking at the same information. Only one side of this charade wants to enforce their will on the other.

In summary, patients and parents currently have the right to refuse vaccination, although potentially contagious persons can be restricted in their movements (e.g. as with Ebola), as needed to protect others against a clear and present danger. Unvaccinated persons with no exposure to a disease and no evidence of a disease are not a clear or present danger. Making the COVID, and other vaccines, optional is the only way to protect the medical and individual rights of our citizens, consistent with good medical ethics.

Unvaccinated people are variant factories, says expert Dr. William Schaffner, from the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center on June 2.

My use of Uncertainty Reduction Theory in Communication Studies applied to my stance I’ve taken on medical freedom enables me to seek and find reassurance with others, to find camaraderie with those who will continue to fight.

The way that I have questioned the pharmaceutical intervention so many times in so many ways throughout this discussion and at the very least find the timeline of events that have transpired to be odd, and furthermore advocate for the freedom of guilt-free choice instead of a blind acceptance to take whatever is fed to me via our government oversight, it may very well blacklist me from an exceeding amount of peoples’ interest.

BUT, no matter what one may think, or if one should ask me why I don’t find something better to do with my time -

What is more important than protecting my children’s freedom and health through social and ethical communication processes?

Works Cited:

Berger, C.R., & Bradac, J.J. (1982). Language and social knowledge: Uncertainty in interpersonal relations. London: Arnold.

Clanton, Nancy. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 16 April 2021. www.ajc.com

Holland, Mary and Zachary, Chase. Oregon Law Review. Children’s Health Defense Team. 23 January 2019. www.childrenshealthdefense.org

Lavin, Dr. Arthur A. “The End of the Pandemic Begins, for the Vaccinated.” 14 May 2021. www.advancedped.com

Lazarus, R, Klompas M, Hou X, Campion FX, Dunn J, Platt R. Automated Electronic Detection & Reporting of Adverse Events Following Vaccination: ESP:VAERS. The CDC Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) Annual Meeting. Atlanta, GA; April, 2008. www.digital.ahrq.gov

Shimabukuro, Tom T. MD., Cole, Matthew MPH, Su, John R. MD, PhD. JAMA. 12 February 2021. www.jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2776557

LegiScan Bringing People to the Process. www.legiscan.com 2021.

National Vaccine Information Center. 2021. 21525 Ridgetop Circle, Suite 100, Sterling, VA 20166.

www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?TABLE=ON&GROUP1=AGE&EVENTS=ON&VAX=COVID19

WHIO Staff. “Miami Valley doctor says strokes are increasing in younger people, shares warning signs.” 31 May 2021. www.whio.com/news/local

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alexsfictionaddiction · 4 years ago

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Review: The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird

A deadly virus that only affects and kills men? Women finally being given the chance to save the world? Speculative fiction tends to be very hit and miss for me but the concept of this one spoke to me and I’m so glad I got the chance to read it.

It’s 2025 and a mysterious virus only affecting men has broken out in a Glasgow hospital. Dr Amanda MacLean is the whistleblower but her higher-ups dismiss her claims as hysterical ravings. This leads to the virus evolving into a global pandemic that is killing men of all ages and backgrounds at an alarming rate. It’s down to women to keep the world running and find a vaccine while dealing with intense fear and grief for their husbands, sons, fathers and brothers.

The End of Men is told through the perspectives of women all over the world. Of course, one of these is Amanda who treated Patient Zero and discovered the nature and severity of the virus. Her bosses and the government believe that she is simply blowing things out of proportion and so delay doing anything that could stop the spread beyond Glasgow. It’s highly believable that had Amanda been male, she would have been taken a lot more seriously and the pandemic could have been avoided. The catastrophic consequences of institutional misogyny are touched on several times in the novel and naturally, the uncontrollable spiraling of the virus is strong evidence that women need to be listened to and believed.

There are a lot of parallels to real life, especially real life in the midst of a pandemic. Namely the conspiracy theorists. Of course, in the case of the Male Plague, all of the conspiracists are men, adamant that the virus was created by militant feminists to eliminate them. I couldn’t help but laugh and shake my head while reading this fantastically dramatic but realistic blog post. These men definitely exist!

Catherine is an anthropologist, whose life has been dogged with fertility issues. She has a wonderful marriage to Anthony and they have a lovely little boy called Theodore. Naturally, when the virus explodes, Catherine’s life revolves around shielding both of them from it. Her thread is truly heartbreaking and leads her to want to document the human stories from the pandemic, interviewing the widow of Patient Zero and trying to find some kind of positive outcome from it. I cried several times during Catherine’s story, so beware of that!

We also hear from Elizabeth, an American virologist who travels to London to help with the vaccine and amazingly finds love. The increased racism is another parallel to our recent reality. Of course, nothing is the fault of white people. These reflections give the book a degree of credibility. Yes, it’s fiction but it often felt like I was reading snippets of COVID-19 memoirs.

When international travel and trade stops, the UK is forced to adapt. For example, there is a tea shortage which to a Brit seems horrific. Dawn is one of the only Black women working in British Intelligence. She has a fantastic sense of humour and her thread gives us a lot of information about the political upheaval caused by the Plague. The book is set in 2025 (only four years away) and yet Scotland is independent and China has been broken into individual states, following the fall of the Communists. These fascinating insights into a world that isn’t too far away almost act as a warning that humans need to be kinder -to each other, to ourselves and to the planet.

Other characters include; Helen, a mother of daughters whose husband leaves her in search of a ‘better life’ in what he thinks are his final days, Rosamie, a Filipina nanny working in Singapore for a wealthy family who are blighted by Plague tragedy and Toby, a man in his 60s, stranded on a boat off the coast of Iceland, desperately writing letters to his wife in the UK. There is also Maria Ferreira, a Latina journalist, Lisa, a Canadian Virology professor whose team develops the first effective vaccine and Morven, a Scottish hostel owner, who is forced to take in a group of orphaned boys with nowhere else to go. So, there are a LOT of characters to keep up with, which can get confusing at times because not of all of them have particularly distinctive voices. They do each provide an individual view on the devastation but I’m not sure we needed all of them!

Of course with 90% of men gone, women have had to adapt in a plethora of ways. Female sexuality is openly much more fluid with women dating women having risen significantly. There is also a chapter from a transgender nurse who talks about the effects of a virus that only kills biologically male bodies. I would have loved to have had this expanded on because I think it could have been a very thought-provoking discussion on gender and what that really means.

There are some benefits from the Plague and of course, it’s women that are enjoying them. Better health care, better fitting clothes, more stock put into their words and emotions. This illustrates how much better the world could be for women when their issues are forced to be society’s focus.

The End of Men is a unique dystopian that reads like a warning of a world that isn’t very far away. The writing is very sharp and factual, so if you love beautifully written books, this may not be for you. There is a lot of heart in it though and ultimately, it deals with a world forever changed but with a permanent trail of grief and heartache in its wake. An incredibly timely novel.

The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird will be published by Borough Press, an imprint of HarperCollins, on 29th April 2021.

#the end of men #christina sweeney-baird #dystopian #sci-fi #book review #review #books #bookworm

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justinplotkin87 · 3 years ago

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to have searched for less expensive approach of retaining cool

With the continued hurdles that come with the summer time heat, purchasers are sure to have searched for less expensive approach of retaining cool. That stated, one emblem that redefined what it means to keep cool in 2020 seems to have released but every other answer. This emblem is none other than Sion Air Cooler.

The Sion Air Cooler team first brought their tackle transportable ACs, defying what society perceived changed into the great and fee-powerful way to maintain cool. Soon after, they came up with the Sion Air Cooler Wearable AC, which stored individuals cool on every occasion, anywhere so long as they had been hung around the neck. Recently, the group supplied their tackle a computer AC called the Sion Air Cooler.

Although the original transportable AC was appropriate for computing device uses as nicely, this new adaption grants improved effects in a miles more compact design. The cause of this review is to shed mild on elements that make the Sion Air Cooler particular, and potentially, nicely beyond powerful compared to its previous models.

What is the Sion Air Cooler?

The Sion Air Cooler is a compact, portable and lightweight device that produces cool air at the same time as including moisture to 1’s surroundings. Its compact design is reasoned as being impeccable in terms of placing it on the desk, at the nightstand, or maybe inside the storage. Aside from its ability to store energy fees, it calls for little to no time or equipment for set up. Furthermore, the crew affirms that the simplicity and convenience offered with the aid of the Sion Air Cooler is not feasible with out the usage of evaporative cooling generation.

How does the Sion Air Cooler work?

As cited above, the Sion Air Cooler is based on evaporative cooling era, which reduces and offsets air temperature by means of gaining dormant warmness. Ultimately, the inclusion of water is expected to soak up lots of the heat, which then receives evaporated. In doing so, the temperature drops low enough to create cool air with out even using an excessive amount of energy.

In extraordinarily dry weather situations, a device just like the Sion Air Cooler offers the added gain of releasing moisture, which usually tends to dry skin, nose, throat and lips, not to overlook some signs and symptoms related to the flu. With that during mind, an excessive amount of moisture can cause mould formation and can without problems deteriorate a building. Luckily, this isn’t the case with the Sion Air Cooler, as it's far too small to release a big amount of moisture.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS)

The new Sion Air Cooler may additionally supply users ice-cold air drift on every occasion you need it, but it does prompt many questions that could ensure patron self assurance while purchasing for the these days-released mini computer air conditioner.

What capabilities does the Sion Air Cooler have?

Each Sion Air Cooler is praised because of the severa features it homes. In unique, the group made certain to consist of:

Easy-slide ice trays to maximize cool air

Power-saving additives to keep cash usually spent on power bills

3 enthusiasts speeds (low, medium and high) with an adjustable louver to direct airflow

A blue light to be used as a nightlight

Is it feasible to buy new water curtains?

Yes, for the reason that embedded water curtains have a lifespan of six months, consumers are advised to preserve extras available. The present day going charge for one replaceable filter out is $19.Ninety nine.

How to apply the Sion Air Cooler?

The Sion Air Cooler is so pressure-loose because people are surely required to insert the replaceable water curtain in the AC, upload water to the water reservoir and ice to the ice tray found behind the device. Then it's miles a count number of putting the fan pace to 1’s liking. For most cooling, one could select to soak the water curtain in advance.

What forms of battery does it take?

Given that Sion Air Cooler has the tendency to depend on 3000mAh rechargeable lithium battery for all of its gadgets, the equal can be assumed for the Classic Desktop AC. Hence, instead of battery replacements, this AC would possibly require a trendy USB cable to function.

Is the Sion Air Cooler backed through a return coverage?

Yes, the Sion Air Cooler has been subsidized through a 30-day go back coverage, which takes effect from the time the product has been received.

How to get in contact with customer support?

For product and/or order assist, customer service’s assist can be looked for by means of emailing at support@Sion Air Cooler.Com.

Why is the Sion Air Cooler on pre-order?

The Classic Desktop AC is currently in pre-order due to the fact it's miles in its very last ranges of producing and packaging. Once it is ready, it'll be shipped.

How long will it take to acquire the Sion Air Cooler?

Due to the fact that the Sion Air Cooler is in its final levels tied with the affects of COVID-19, the team anticipates a minor delay in delivery. To be more specific, one’s order will either be acquired as early as August 26,2020 or as overdue as September 10, 2020. Each order will be supported by way of a tracking quantity the moment the entirety has been shipped.

How a whole lot does the Sion Air Cooler cost?

The Sion Air Cooler is presently priced at $ninety nine.99, which can be bought the usage of either AMEX, Mastercard, Visa card or PayPal.

Final Thoughts

The Sion Air Cooler comes after the brand witnessed famous call for for both its transportable and wearable ACs. Clearly, the crew at Sion Air Cooler did now not rest at some point of the summer, as they continued to increase their original blueprint, which led this respective AC.

Like most of the high-quality transportable air conditioners that have been introduced to the marketplace, the Sion Air Cooler is small, lightweight and portable. It even includes nightlight for the ones struggling to sleep on time. The primary difference from its in advance variations is the inclusion of both a water reservoir and an ice tray, which supposedly will increase the charge at which cool air is brought. In addition, they’ve rectified the difficulty of not being capable of buy separate water curtains, which indicates that they're paying attention to client issues!

As for its expenses, it's miles still highly inexpensive, as these newly designed transportable ACs all fall properly underneath $100. While shopping a water curtain for $19.Ninety nine might appear daunting before everything, individuals have to realize that each one can last as long as six months. In fact, its lifespan can be in addition extended if one most effective taken into consideration distilled water in order that trace minerals don’t get stuck.

On that note, it's far critical to say that each Sion Air Cooler best covers one’s personal space and in view that it is lots smaller than the original Sion Air Cooler, it is irrational to assume that it is able to cowl a large location. Overall, the aforementioned elements should be taken into consideration prior to making an funding. To examine extra approximately the Sion Air Cooler, click right here.

https://signalscv.com/2021/12/sion-cooler-canada-and-american-customer-honest-reviews-2021/ https://signalscv.com/2021/12/sion-air-cooler-reviews-scam-alert-2021-does-sion-portable-cooler-work/

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yeonchi · 3 years ago

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2021 Mid-Year Report

A lot of things can change in a year, but even more things can change in six months than you think. This is going to be a special post styled like my end-of-year reviews that focuses on the events of the past six months. I don’t know if I’ll be doing this again next year because I felt like making this post; in fact, I don’t know when I’ll stop posting my end-of-year reviews either.

Looking back at Sea Princesses

This time last year, I was in the midst of the second coronavirus lockdown in Melbourne, unemployed on double benefits without needing to look for work. At the same time, I was working on translating and reviewing the Princesas do Mar books, which I had brought from Amazon the month before. My original intention was to buy the books once I had saved up enough money from putting aside part of my paycheck, but looking back, I knew I made a better decision buying the books when I did.

At the same time, Fabio Yabu had also released the main series books as ebooks on Amazon Kindle and would begin releasing translated versions of the first four literacy series books on there as well. A year on, the last two literacy series books have still not been published as yet, though Ubook would publish them as audiobooks in Brazil (with the exception of Turtles in Danger for some reason). In our communications, Yabu had expressed interest in publishing translated versions of the main series books (based on my translations), but the last time we spoke in May, he stated that he had a lot going on, so that has been put on hold for the time being.

From time to time, I go on the wiki and make edits wherever I feel like. This isn’t something that I really needed to express, but I wanted to do so because I am planning on putting the translated episode names on their respective pages eventually. That information was originally posted on the International Entertainment Project Wiki before they planned to move the episode lists to Miraheze but never ended up doing so. Though the episode lists with the translated episode names have been taken down from the IEP Wiki, I have managed to save them and I will put them up on the Sea Princesses Wiki gradually and eventually. Keep in note that the only languages I have all the translated titles for are Brazilian Portuguese, Castilian Spanish and German; sources for other languages are always appreciated.

I’ve been thinking about this question time and time again over the years, but I’ve never brought myself to bring it up on Tumblr until now - Would I like to see a reboot, revival or continuation of Sea Princesses? My answer is both yes and no. I say yes because there is so much unexplored potential and unanswered questions in both the books and animated series with things like the Barracuda Kingdom saga, Marcello and Marcela, more interactions with other characters, more focus on other characters and so forth. However, I also say no because usual reboot criticism aside (character designs are shit, story is shit etc), I fear that the character designs of the Sea Princesses may not sit right with certain people and that they may be misconstrued as jailbait or something like that. While it would be nice to see something new in regards to Sea Princesses someday, that all depends on whether Fabio Yabu is interested in revisiting it like he did the Combo Rangers nearly a decade ago. And besides, if Yabu isn’t interested, then who needs him when I’ve made so much Sea Princesses content over the past few years, including my takes on the continuation of the series in Kisekae Insights? Which brings us to our next topic...

Kisekae Insights and my transition into adult life

In case you haven’t heard, I started at a new job at the end of May and it’s been quite full-on. Amidst all the distractions around me and my commitment to finish up my personal project by the end of this year, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make two instalments of Kisekae Insights per month as I promised in #21, but as I made clear from the very start, there is no set schedule for the series, so this isn’t necessarily the end of the second run. I decided to just take the rest of my personal project at my own pace and I will possibly do likewise with Kisekae Insights.

Coronavirus and vaccines

At the start of June, Melbourne went into a week-long circuit breaker lockdown that later became two weeks long. This was our fourth lockdown after a short third lockdown in February that lasted five days. And it just so happened that I had to start working from home because of it. It’s not that bad, I’m currently doing a mix of WFH and onsite working so I don’t have to wake up at 6 AM (play on my phone and wake up at like 6:30) and take two hours of public transport just to get to work five days a week.

Numerous variants of the coronavirus have been discovered in the past year. We have variants originating in the UK (Alpha/B.1.1.7), South Africa (Beta/B.1.351), Brazil (Gamma/P.1) and India (Delta/B.1.617.2) among others. The Indian (Delta) variant in particular has been the reason for the recent lockdowns in Australia.

In regards to the naming of the coronavirus and its variants, it’s absolutely funny how their timing came about. When the original coronavirus started in Wuhan, China and was declared to the WHO on 31 December 2019, the WHO named the resulting disease COVID-19 on 11 February 2020, keeping in mind that Asian crybabies were crying about “China Virus”, “Wuhan Virus” or “Kung Flu” back then and are probably still crying about it now. At the start of June, the WHO announced that they would use Greek letters to refer to the variants when the media have used “UK variant”, “Indian variant” etc for months, which is longer than it took mainstream media and society to adopt the name COVID-19. Though their motivation to do this is to prevent stigmatisation like with the original coronavirus, I have heard nothing about British, South African, Brazilian or even Indian people being discriminated over the variants. It’s almost like people have more problems with “China Virus” than “UK variant”, “Indian variant” etc because they somehow have a need to please China and make people realise that all Asians aren’t the same. On top of that, obscuring the variants will eventually lead to people being confused over their origins when more of them inevitably emerge.

Recently, investigations into the origin of the coronavirus have been ongoing, much to China’s ongoing outrage and condemnation. When the coronavirus started, there was a theory that it somehow leaked from a lab in Wuhan; back then, people were laughed for believing it (because Trump was the one who was talking about it), but now, the mainstream media is going with that story while covering the investigations (because Biden’s the one who is talking about it now). It’s almost like a big “I told you so” from the people who knew better.

I’ve said this in my Red Pill Year post and I’ll say it again; all this fuss over naming the coronavirus and its variants to prevent stigmatisation is just an act of political correctness for China’s sake. While I have started to warm to the term COVID-19 (in a humourous and ironic sense), I still stand by my current positions so far; while I don’t entirely agree with “China virus”, I still refer to it as the “Wuhan coronavirus” because it started in Wuhan until proven otherwise beyond all reasonable doubt, whether it leaked from the lab or whatever. I’ll admit, I wouldn’t have much of a problem with this if the virus didn’t start in China. I’m a person who doesn’t really mind or care about political correctness if it’s just a little bit here and there, but given the events of the past decade, I draw the line when it comes to China.

Let’s talk about vaccines now. Vaccines have been a big topic over the past six months - in Hong Kong, Sinovac Biotech’s CoronaVac vaccine has become a meme in the pro-democracy population because to May, there were 24 deaths recorded as a result of side effects compared to the alternate BioNTech vaccine with 6 deaths. Granted, the deaths were in people aged 50 and over (possibly with underlying health conditions), but it has given people a reason to hold off or even refrain from getting the vaccine. On a side note, the “you’re going to Brazil” meme has never felt realer because CoronaVac is one of the vaccines being offered in Brazil along with Argentina, Colombia and Peru. My thoughts and prayers go to them at this point in time.

Now, I am by no means an anti-vaxxer, but I stand by the belief that coronavirus vaccines should be voluntary and not mandatory (I wish I could say the same for other vaccines, but I’d be perpetuating a double standard because adults are in control of our lives before we reach the age of majority). There are some countries and places that are providing incentives to people who get vaccinated, with quite a few of them being offered in the form of prize draws. In all honesty, given the nature of these vaccines, I don’t see the point of prize draws as incentives because there is no other benefit for those who don’t win except for protection against coronavirus, its associated symptoms, or even a release from our agonising and pitiful existences.

My main fear is that vaccine stigmatisation and discrimination might become mainstream with the existence of things like vaccine passports, where people who haven’t taken the vaccine are disallowed from accessing basic services. I can live with wearing masks indoors and on public transport and without leaving the country or even the state, but if the slippery slope gets to a point where people aren’t allowed to shop at supermarkets, eat at restaurants, take public transport or even hold a job without getting vaccinated, that’s the point where I start to become an anti-vaxxer.

There are some industries where getting vaccinated is not only highly recommended, but essential, such as health and aged care. I (luckily) don’t work in those industries so my opinion probably won’t matter, but if you work around vulnerable people regularly, then you as an individual should be responsible for taking the necessary precautions to prevent coronavirus infections and deaths.

So here’s my personal stance on this whole vaccination debacle; I will personally not be getting vaccinated for the foreseeable future, but I am not against people getting vaccinated if they so choose. This is not only because of the potential side effects or even my fear of needles (anyone who points this out to me is missing the point because my reasoning would be the same regardless of it), but because of the potential for the stigmatisation and discrimination of people who choose not to get vaccinated, the erosion of human rights for said people and most of all, the way that China has been involved in all of this; the vaccines were made to combat a virus that originated in China and I am particularly wary of some things coming from China, whether the vaccine is Chinese-made or otherwise.

Hong Kong pessimism

Things in Hong Kong have gotten worse over the past six months and they’re only about to get worser, but in spite of this, I believe that it will be all for the greater good.

Of significance, Apple Daily published their last issue on Thursday 24 June, taking down their website, social media and YouTube accounts on the same day. I used to make shitposts on a separate Facebook page by sharing their posts with satirical captions, sometimes with slurs (particularly the n-word on articles relating to mainland China) until some bitch I was having a feud with kept reporting my posts and got my page unpublished (he would have nearly taken my account with it if I hadn’t called him out and told him to kill himself, at which point we agreed to end the feud). Now that the Apple Daily Facebook page is gone, a lot of the shitposts on my personal page have gone as well; if I hadn’t deleted my separate page following the feud, chances are that I would be making plans to delete it by now because posts from that page made up a majority of my shitposts.

Since its founding in 1995, Apple Daily has been part of the mainstream media in Hong Kong, but due to its pro-democracy (and pro-Hong Kong) stance, it has been pushed to the fringe while other mainstream media outlets (like TVB) expressed pro-government/pro-police/pro-Beijing stances. While other pro-democracy news pages have popped up, there is a chance that the government may crack down on them following the enactment of the National Security Law one year ago; in short, Apple Daily was just in their way and the government will come for them eventually.

RTHK isn’t faring any better; while they are still running as a public radio and television service, they’ve been reined in by the government after their coverage of the 21 July 2019 attacks in Yuen Long. You know, the one where KKK members (in white clothes) lynched black(-clothed) people publicly in a train station and two police were seen walking away as emergency calls were being rejected? Earlier this year, some of RTHK’s programs were removed from their YouTube channel, claiming that their policy was to make content available for one year only, which is obviously not an excuse to fix their apparent pro-democracy bias.

Just last week on 25 June, there was a government reshuffling that led to a former police officer becoming chief secretary, the current police chief being the secretary for security and the deputy police commissioner becoming the chief commissioner. This just reaffirms my belief that all cops are bastards and that from 1 July, my bios on Facebook and Tumblr will be changing to highlight this and the plight of Hongkongers under these turbulent times. I’ve been wary of the Hong Kong police since their actions in the 2014 Occupy Central protests, but I officially became an ACABer sometime in 2020.

Here’s the thing. The government has outright ignored or rejected our requests for change over the years, so pro-democracy supporters are calling for a revolution, which the Chinese government somehow sees as advocating for independence, so the supporters have no hope of achieving their demands unless Hong Kong becomes independent from China, but the Chinese government is obviously not going to allow it, so they naturally turn to the international community for help. While sanctions did have an effect on the officials looming over Hongkongers, we are at an impasse right now because the next eventual step would be war, but no country wants to be responsible for firing the first shot, so the international community resorts to diplomacy while the Chinese government turns to condemning international interference in their internal affairs time and time again.

If, someday, the revolution were somehow successful and Hong Kong were to be liberated the way the protesters wanted, you know the first thing I would like to see? A fucking holocaust. I’d like to see a fucking holocaust of all the government officials who caused us suffering, the police officers who were “just following orders” and all the braindead boomers, Mainland Chinese n-words and other n-word lovers who have nothing but hatred for real Hongkongers. But hey, we all know that’s not going to happen because anyone who advocates for it is no worse than Hitler. Oh wait, that means I’m worse than Hitler because I said all that. Well, I guess that’s what I get for being pissed off at everything that’s happened and venting about it on the internet lol.

After Apple Daily’s shutdown, I have essentially doubled down on all of my beliefs. I have no sympathy for anyone who won’t stand with Hongkongers, and by that I mean anyone who actively stands against Hongkongers or turns traitor by questioning our motives and standing against them (I don’t really have an opinion on anyone who decides to stay silent because I don’t know what their true motivations would be). In short, anyone who doesn’t support Hongkongers is an n-word or n-word lover.

I’m really sorry for sounding toxic or harsh in anything I said about Hong Kong in the past couple of years. I only say these things because I really fucking love Hong Kong and I only hope that I won’t have to fear being confronted by the police or saying anything wrong the next time I visit Hong Kong with my family. Until things get really better, I’ve decided that Hong Kong is off-limits for me, but for now, let the government keep accelerating and laam chauing Hong Kong by themselves. It shows just how scared of us they are when they blame us for its eventual destruction, because in the end, it’s for the greater good.

UPDATE - 3 July 2021: I heard about the guy who stabbed a police officer then killed himself on 1 July. To be honest, I don’t feel sorry for the cop nor do I condemn what the guy did, particularly now that I’m fully into ACAB. People should be thinking about what motivated the guy to martyr himself in a lone wolf attack, namely the actions of the government over the past 24 years and the police over the last 7 years. Yet another reminder that all cops are bastards.

The US and Palestine

I have to say, Joe Biden has subverted my expectations when it came to Hong Kong and China. A lot of us feared that his administration would undo the hard work Trump’s administration did, but at the very least, they are still wary of the current situation and things have stayed pretty much the same.

As for Palestine, I would like to state that I stand with the oppressed peoples of the world and that goes for the Palestinians (and on a side note, Myanmar) as well. Jewish people have become a meme with their stereotypes and while I am not antisemitic, I apply the ACAB logic to them because it’s the system (or Jewish beliefs and Israeli governance) that is the problem here (haha AJAB lol). Ironically, it’s like Eric Cartman’s Mel Gibson fan club in real life.

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Anyway, I think I’ve said enough. Despite all the harsh things I’ve said, I only hope that the world will become a better place one day, but until then, I wish you peace in these turbulent times.

沿途在　修理著熄了的曙光祝你在亂流下平安

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livinginlandmarketing · 4 years ago

Link

In March 2020, as the nascent pandemic was gaining a foothold in the United States, a friend kept nudging Michelle Bernier to make masks.

A reluctant Bernier — owner of an apron-making business — finally gave in, making a few and showing her friend how to do it. She posted the results on social media, and within days demand skyrocketed.

For Bernier, and many who mobilized in those early days of unprecedented shut downs, it was a 9/11 moment. Unity. Together. A common enemy. It was a chance for American Baby Boomers, Generations X, Y, Z, to have their own “Greatest Generation” — just substitute World War II for a virus and Bernier for Rosie the Riveter.

Except it wasn’t.

“That’s not what it feels like this time,” Bernier said, reflecting on the year since California shut down orders began. “After 9/11, everybody was friendlier to each other,” said Bernier, who in those early days of March 2020 got the help of her family as her La Habra-based production of aprons turned to masks. “They were actually talking to each other. It’s not like that now … It’s really built a wedge between everybody.”

Michelle Bernier poses for a photograph, holding the masks she made, at La Habra City Hall on Friday, March 5, 2021. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

A year after Bernier started making her masks, Americans are as divided as ever – fractured over a love for liberty, which has become tangled in steps to assure the health of the larger community.

The very pieces of cloth that Bernier was making would soon become flashpoint symbols. They would both hobble the battle against the virus and fuel a poltical fight that made its way to a fatal riot at the Capitol.

You could see the fractures play out in real time over the last year in ways large, small, subtle and noisy.

In Orange County, in the pandemic’s early days of shutdown, the county’s top public health official Nichole Quick recommended mandatory face masks for all residents, only to be met with fierce public outcry and personal attacks. She would ultimately leave her role.

In Los Angeles County, Grace Community Church, in the San Fernando Valley, defied public health orders, standing steadfast on the right to worship indoors — a right bolstered after a string of U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

In Riverside County, back in October, with case rates threatening to regress, defiant supervisors voted in favor of a revised COVID-19 reopening plan to put the county on a faster track to reopening its economy than the state recommends.

Supporters of Riverside County defying state coronavirus guidelines and reopening businesses along a faster timeline wave signs during the Board of Supervisors’ Sept. 22 meeting (File photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG).

Anti-mask tirades erupted in grocery stores, an anti-vaccination rally briefly closed down Dodger Stadium’s massive vaccination site, massive gatherings stormed Orange County beaches.

And then, worst of all, there were the elevated hate incidents against Asian-Americans. A year later, such incidents continue. The pandemic didn’t unite the nation; it simply became a reflection of the politically divided nation, on a mammoth scale.

Liberty, Trump and mixed messages

Rex Parris has no regrets about the bash his city held for the Fourth of July 2020.

Parris — the mayor of Lancaster and an outspoken critic of the county’s public health response — was not going to let the city’s annual celebration just not happen.

L.A. County had required the cancellation of all displays — including the giant ones. And everyone from Gov. Gavin Newsom to the county’s public health chief Barbara Ferrer were urging local cities to refrain.

Parris remained defiant all the way to the moment he himself flipped the switch for the show at the city’s giant soccer facility, despite the state’s fire marshal telling him the show was being shut down.

“For more than 200 years, every Fourth of July we have celebrated our independence, and we have done this with fireworks,” Parris said at the time. “What the (expletive) is the matter with these people? If I thought that one more person was going to get sick because of us doing this, I wouldn’t do it.”

Others were even more blunt.

“I was being forced and told, and in America that’s not the way it’s supposed to be,” Councilman Darrell Dorris, a pastor, told the Southern California News Group at the time. “Anything that feels like tyranny, we have the right to rebel against it.”

A year later, Parris, who was the first local dignitary among a crowd of Republicans to meet then President Donald Trump on the LAX tarmac on his February 2020 trip to L.A., is very much for masks and physical distancing. But he defends his July 4 display.

“The Fourth of July was not in any way foregoing safety,” he said. “We weren’t bringing people into an assembly of any kind. They were in their cars. They were told to wear their masks.”

But even Parris took note of the politicalization of the pandemic.

Masks — or the lack of wearing them — became a “macho thing,” he said, bolstered by an American president who rarely wore one.

“He used it as a unifying symbol for his base,” Parris said.

The narrative became “they can’t take your freedom away. We have to fight these liberals on the coasts. Then that became a political symbol.”

But the fractured response from a polarized nation is not all on Trump, say leaders and officials who’ve been on the frontline of the response.

President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus, accompanied by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Thursday, April 16, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

A series of mixed messages from leaders to an audience of Americans already skeptical didn’t help.

Even Dr. Paul Simon, L.A. County’s chief science officer, acknowledged that initial public messaging was not ideal.

“I remember back in February and March, I was not very receptive to face masks,” he said. “But over time, with more … and with evidence from other countries, and it became very quickly apparent that masks could be very effective.”

“We were learning as we were going, so some of the messaging had to be fine-tuned and altered over time, and then that fed some of the doubt among some segments of our soceity,” Simon said, adding that even under the best of circumstances, a fully unified response may not have even been possible.

But for a nation already divided, that doubt was a huge catalyst.

Frantic business owners’ livelihoods were on the line. Theme parks were closing. Sports: Done. Schools: Closing. The economy was cratering.

And by May, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors was fed up with state mandates. Eager for businesses to re-open, they voted to rescind a mandate for residents to cover their faces and practice social distancing while in public.

At the time, Supervisor Jeff Hewitt put an exclamation point on it: “We have a moral authority to save our dead and they’re dying out there … (Gov. Gavin Newsom) is destroying so many lives … There are times when people have to say enough is enough … I will not be complicit in following any of the governor’s orders.”

‘The sweet spot of controversy’

By the time the supervisors took their vote, COVID-19 had effectively “hit a sweet spot of controversy,” said Dr. Robert Kim-Farley, a professor of epidemiology and community health sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

“Had that number been 10 times less 0.1%, back down to like influenza, we would have been saying ‘oh, this is interesting. We have a new virus and we don’t have to close down society,” Kim-Farley said.

A number 10 times higher, closer to SARS, and people would have more fully embraced the public health measures, maybe even offered to do more, Kim-Farley surmised.

“However at this 1% level you have legitimately arising two different camps,” he said. “One saying yes it is 1% every life is precious but there are other things that are important too.”

Meanwhile, scientists were stuck trying to explain it all between the two bitterly divided sides.

“But it’s really hard to explain, when you’re dealing with shades of gray,” said Andrew Noymer, professor of public health at UC Irvine. “We’re stuck painting the shades of grey and it’s difficult to explain.”

Elected leaders tried, but in a now politically charged climate it was an uphill climb.

L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti appeared on CNN, lamenting the division that was hindering the response and fueling the spread.

“This virus preys on our division,” he said.

Not sold

Still, a year after local and state Safe-at-Home orders first took effect, Orange County Supervisor Donald Wagner isn’t sold on the World War II analogy.

“The war analogy, it doesn’t track,” he said. “During a war, you know who the enemy is. You know the capacity you have to go after it. In this case, we were inventing stuff on the fly. No. 2: The burdens didn’t seem to be all shared. You could go to a Target, buy you can’t go to the mom-and-pop down the street. It’s like if during World War II, you know where bad guys are and you’re attacking the bad guys three beaches over.”

FILE – In this June 30, 2020, file photo, Gov. Gavin Newsom removes his face mask before giving an update during a visit to Pittsburg, Calif. Newsom said in a statement Friday, Nov. 13, that he should not have attended a birthday dinner with a dozen people at the posh French Laundry restaurant last week, saying that he should have set a better example for a virus-fatigued state that is seeing steep increases in coronavirus cases. Newsom’s decision to attend was made as he’s been telling others to not mingle with others outside their households. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, Pool, File)

Wagner — roiled by inconsistences in the state response and still simmering over Newsom’s French Laundry dinner — is leading the push to recall the governor.

“I am one who does believe that the government has a responsibility for public heath,” he said. “When you get to the liberty question, I believe they have overstepped that authority.”

Newsom acknowledged mistakes in his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, but insists the recall effort against him has more to do with politics than the public health crisis.

“It’s about immigration. It’s about our health care policies. It’s about our criminal justice reform. It’s about the diversity of the state. It’s about our clean air, clean water programs, meeting our environmental strategies,” he told radio station KQED in San Francisco.

Recall organizers are Republicans and say they have collected nearly 2 million signatures, well above the 1.5 million needed by March 17 to force an election. The GOP has only 24% of registered California voters, but organizers say they are attracting Democrats and independents.

Newsom, meanwhile, said “of course” he regrets attending that infamous unmasked dinner.

“That’s those things you can never get back,” he said. “And, you know, I owned up to that. And no one hid from that. And that was a mistake. Crystal clear.”

‘I’m right. You’re evil’

Kambiz “Kamy” Akhavan, executive director at USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future, said the nation is facing a waning of “centripedal” forces that bring us together, and a troubling jump in the “centrifugal” forces pulling us apart.

“People have always disagreed on issues. That’s not new. That’s not even bad,” Akhaven said. “We welcome it. What’s different, he said that now the tone is: ‘I’m right. You’re evil.”

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco says he knows that kind of demonization.

He says because he’s been branded a “denier” who believes the outbreak is make-believe. He countered: “It’s so far from the truth. I lost two employees in one day. And people are saying I don’t take this seriously?”

L.A. County Public Health Chief Ferrer can relate, herself the object of scorn — even death threats — via emails, letters and social media posts.

“It is deeply worrisome to imagine that our hard-working infectious-disease physicians, nurses, epidemiologists and environmental health specialists or any of our other team members would have to face this level of hatred,” she said in a statement in June.

“And it’s happening at a time when it’s harder to distinguish good information from bad information,” Akhavan said. “It’s harder to have honest, vulnerable conversions with people… they often break down and become nasty.”

Akhavan laments that the nation squandered the opportunity to embrace its own Greatest Generation moment. But he has hope.

He aspires to a future where education systems re-focus on civics, critical thinking, and media literacy and where political incentives shift to non-partisan forms of gerrymanding and social media algorythms that reward thoughtful points of view.

Debt collectors can seize the new stimulus checks. Lawmakers are trying to fix that

Few in Southern California prosecuted for refusing to comply with coronavirus laws

As COVID-19 vaccine eligibility expands, Riverside County reports no issues

Coronavirus tracker: California’s cases of virus down 90% from previous high as of Sunday

230 coronavirus deaths reported by San Bernardino County

Akhavan and others say it’s not about disagreeing less but “disagreeing bettter.”

Akhavan used a sports analogy: “You like the Angels, I like the Dodgers, we both like baseball; you like baseball, I like football, we both like sports; you like sports, I like politics, we both like competition.”

Meanwhile, Bernier moves on with what is now a mask-making business — her aprons set aside for now.

Some friends have unfriended her on Facebook because of her masks.

Her mom, Irene, died in January — from COVID-19. Her father recovered from the virus.

She believes we’ll learn to talk to one another with civility again.

“I think there’s more good people than we think,” she said.

Staff writer David Rosenfeld contributed to this report.

-on March 15, 2021 at 11:00PM by Ryan Carter

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

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Vaccinated Americans, Let the Unmasked Gatherings Begin (but Start Small) Federal health officials on Monday told millions of Americans now vaccinated against the coronavirus that they could again embrace a few long-denied freedoms, like gathering in small groups at home without masks or social distancing, offering a hopeful glimpse at the next phase of the pandemic. The recommendations, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, arrived almost exactly a year after the virus began strangling the country and Americans were warned against gatherings for fear of spreading the new pathogen. Now the agency has good news for long-separated families and individuals struggling with pandemic isolation: Vaccinated grandparents can once again visit adult children and grandchildren under certain circumstances, even if they remain unvaccinated. Vaccinated adults may begin to plan mask-free dinners with vaccinated friends. As cases and deaths decline nationwide, some state officials are rushing to reopen businesses and schools; governors in Texas and Mississippi have lifted statewide mask mandates. Federal health officials have repeatedly warned against loosening restrictions too quickly, fearing that the moves may set the stage for a fourth surge of infections and deaths. The new recommendations are intended to nudge Americans onto a more cautious path with clear boundaries for safe behavior, while acknowledging that most of the country remains vulnerable and many scientific questions remain unanswered. “As more Americans are vaccinated, a growing body of evidence now tells us that there are some activities that fully vaccinated people can resume at low risk to themselves,” Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the C.D.C., said at a White House news conference on Monday. On Thursday, President Biden will make his first prime-time television address, noting the first anniversary of the pandemic’s onset and highlighting “the role that Americans will play” in getting the country “back to normal,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Monday. As of Monday, 60 million Americans had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, and about 31.3 million had been fully vaccinated, according to a database maintained by The New York Times. Providers are administering about 2.17 million doses per day on average. Mr. Biden has promised that there will be enough doses for every American adult by the end of May. C.D.C. officials on Monday encouraged people to be inoculated with the first vaccine available to them, emphasizing that the vaccines are highly effective at preventing “serious Covid-19 illness, hospitalization and death.” Despite the rapidly accelerating pace of vaccination, the pandemic will not recede overnight, said experts who praised the detail and scientific grounding of the C.D.C. recommendations. “This is not turning a switch on and off,” said Dr. Carlos del Rio, vice president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. “This is more like turning a faucet — you slowly start turning the faucet off.” Even so, “it’s welcome news,” he added. “It’s the first time they are saying you can do something, as opposed to saying everything you can’t do. It’s huge.” The new guidelines provide much-needed advice to individuals who are still reluctant to resume in-person, face-to-face interactions even after being vaccinated, said Vaile Wright, senior director for health care innovation at the American Psychological Association. About half of all adults are anxious about re-entering normal life, including 44 percent of those who have been fully vaccinated, Dr. Wright said, citing soon-to-be published research from the American Psychological Association. “What drives that discomfort is the level of uncertainty,” she said. Updated March 8, 2021, 6:13 p.m. ET “It’s really hard to know what’s safe and what’s not safe. When we can get some science-informed information out to people — ‘Here’s what you can do, but we still recommend doing this’ — that gives people what they need to make informed decisions about keeping them and their families safe.” In the new guidance, federal health officials advised that fully vaccinated Americans can gather indoors in private homes in small groups with other fully vaccinated people, without masks or distancing. They can gather with unvaccinated people in a private home without masks or distancing so long as the unvaccinated occupy a single household and all members are at low risk for developing severe disease should they contract the virus. For example, vaccinated grandparents may visit unvaccinated healthy adult children and healthy grandchildren without masks or physical distancing. Asked whether family members who are vaccinated should kiss and hug children and grandchildren who are not vaccinated, Dr. del Rio said yes but advised caution: “I wouldn’t overdo it.” In public areas and in places like restaurants or gyms, vaccinated people should continue to wear masks, maintain social distance and take other precautions, such as avoiding poorly ventilated spaces, covering coughs and sneezes, and often washing their hands, C.D.C. officials said. The C.D.C.’s advice is aimed at Americans who are fully vaccinated, meaning those for whom at least two weeks have passed since they received the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines or a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. What You Need to Know About the Vaccine Rollout What is safe for newly vaccinated Americans and their unvaccinated neighbors and family members has been uncertain in large part because scientists do not yet understand whether and how often immunized people may still transmit the virus. If they can, then masking and other precautions are still needed in certain settings to contain the virus, researchers have said. The C.D.C. said on Monday that research indicated that people who are fully vaccinated are less likely to have asymptomatic infections and “potentially less likely to transmit the virus that causes Covid-19 to other people.” Still, the agency did not rule out the possibility that they may inadvertently transmit the virus. There is also uncertainty about how well vaccines protect against new variants of the virus that are more transmissible and possibly more virulent, as well as about how long the vaccine protection lasts. Some of the variants carry mutations that seem to blunt the body’s immune response. The C.D.C. advised that vaccinated Americans do not need to quarantine or get tested if they are exposed to the virus, unless they develop symptoms of infection. If they do so, they should isolate themselves, get tested if possible and speak with their doctors. Vaccinated Americans should not gather with unvaccinated people from more than one household, and should continue avoiding large and medium-size gatherings. (The agency did not specify what size constitutes a large or medium-size gathering.) The guidance is slightly different for fully vaccinated residents of group homes and incarcerated individuals, who should continue to quarantine for 14 days and be tested if they are exposed to the virus, because of the higher risk of transmission in such settings. Vaccinated workers in high-density settings like meatpacking plants do not need to quarantine after an exposure to the coronavirus, but testing is still recommended. The C.D.C. did not revise its travel recommendations, continuing to advise that all Americans stay home unless necessary. Dr. Walensky noted that virus cases had surged every time there had been an increase in travel. “We are really trying to restrain travel,” she said. “And we’re hopeful that our next set of guidance will have more science around what vaccinated people can do, perhaps travel being among them.” The new guidelines clearly detail the rewards of vaccination and are likely to motivate even more Americans to seek immunizations and curb lingering vaccine hesitancy, said Dr. Rebecca Weintraub, an assistant professor of global health and social medicine at the Harvard Medical School. “You can resume an activity that many people are yearning for — to be in proximity with those they love, in small gatherings where you can see each other smile and give each other a hug,” Dr. Weintraub said. “It’s been well studied that anticipation is a significant component of joy,” she added. “These guidelines help each person coming in for a vaccine anticipate future joy. As a physician and vaccinator, I’m thrilled.” Noah Weiland contributed reporting. Source link Orbem News #Americans #gatherings #Small #Start #unmasked #vaccinated

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Best PC Games to Play in 2021

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We’re entering a golden age for PC gaming. The next generation of graphics cards are capable of pumping out 4K graphics and high FPS on almost any big name release, and real-time raytracing is taking graphics to new heights that weren’t possible just a couple years ago.

Add in Sony bringing more PlayStation ports to the PC and nearly every Xbox exclusive making its way to PCs as well, and a high-end gaming computer looks to be the definitive way to play almost anything over the next few years.

The following is a list of the most anticipated games coming to home computers this year. While release dates are always flexible, these are only titles that have already been released or officially confirmed for 2021.

Back 4 Blood

June 22 | Turtle Rock Studios

Despite persistent rumors of a third Left 4 Dead game entering development, it’s been more than a decade since Valve has released a new entry in the beloved co-op zombie series. Enter Turtle Rock Studios, the studio behind the original Left 4 Dead game, with a spiritual successor, Back 4 Blood.

By all accounts, Back 4 Blood plays a lot like Left 4 Dead. There are safe rooms, tons of melee weapons, an AI director who constantly changes things up, and zombies. Lots and lots of zombies. But there will also be perk cards that add interesting perks and buffs to the experience, making each playthrough unique. If Back 4 Blood can capture the spirit of the original Left 4 Dead, it should be fantastic.

Chivalry 2

June 8 | Torn Banner Studios

Chivalry was once considered one of the PC’s premier multiplayer titles. Could the sequel follow in its footsteps? We’ll find out pretty soon when Chivalry 2 launches exclusively on the Epic Games Store. According to Torn Banner Studios, the sequel aims to deliver combat that’s deep enough to keep players interested for awhile, yet easy for newcomers to pick up for the first time.

The latest gameplay videos show off lots of brutal medieval melee combat, with battlefields absolutely drenched in blood after a few minutes of 64 players hacking away at each other. This should be on your must-buy list in June!

Deathloop

May 21 | Arkane Studios

The best way to describe Deathloop is Hitman meets Groundhog Day. You play as Colt, an assassin stuck on a mysterious island, who must take out eight targets before midnight. If you die or fail to eliminate all targets, the day resets, and you’ll have to start all over again. And all the while you’re also being hunted by Julianna Blake, a rival assassin who doesn’t want you breaking the time loop. She can be controlled by either the AI or another player.

Arkane has a great track record when it comes to unique first-person games like Prey and the Dishonored series. If Deathloop’s heady concept can hold up, it could be another home run for the developer.

Diablo 2: Resurrected

TBA | Vicarious Visions

While Diablo III’s reputation has improved substantially since its controversial 2012 launch, there’s still a vocal group of gamers who prefer the second game in Blizzard’s genre-defining action RPG series. Knowing how much this game means to a lot of people, Vicarious Visions has said it’s not out to reinvent the wheel for Resurrected. The updated 3D graphics will display in 4K, but you can switch back to the original graphics at any point with the press of a button.

And while there will be some quality of life improvements like a shared item stash and automatic gold pickup, don’t expect any revolutionary changes that will spoil the original experience. This should be exactly what we need to tide us over until Diablo IV hits.

Evil Genius 2: World Domination

March 30 | Rebellion Developments

It’s taken 17 years to get a sequel to the criminally underrated Evil Genius, but it’s finally here. If you never had the pleasure of playing the original, imagine being a James Bond villain and managing your own secret lair to build a weapon of mass destruction and eventually take over the world. Yeah, it’s pretty awesome.

World Domination promises to be a bigger and better sequel. You’ll be able to pick from four different evil geniuses at the start of the game and one of three islands. Each minion in your lair now has their own personality and traits, so you’ll have to use them more strategically than ever to prevent the Forces of Justice from foiling your evil plans.

Far Cry 6

TBA | Ubisoft

Far Cry 6 was originally supposed to be out by now, but development has slowed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s still expected to be out in 2021, though. According to Ubisoft, the theme of the game is revolution against an oppressive government, with substantial research going into how and why revolutions are fought to better develop the game’s setting and story.

Ubisoft certainly picked the right actor to lead an oppressive government, with Breaking Bad and Mandalorian villain Giancarlo Esposito portraying the nefarious “El Presidente” who we’ll be looking to topple later this year.

Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker

TBA | Square Enix

After one of the worst MMORPG launches ever, it’s a miracle that Final Fantasy XIV is still around a decade later. Not only did Square Enix turn things around, this game is now regarded as one of the very best in the genre.

Endwalker, the game’s fourth major expansion pack will conclude the story of the warring gods Hydaelyn and Zodiark, which has been running since the game’s 2013 relaunch. This won’t be the end of the MMO, though. Square still says it has several years worth of stories to tell.

Along with the obligatory new zones and quests, Square has promised two new classes. The first one shown so far, the sage, is a healer who battles with floating swords.

Guilty Gear Strive

April 9 | Arc System Works

The Guilty Gear series has never quite received the same attention as fighting games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, but the franchise has quietly earned a reputation as a technically sound alternative for the competitive fighting game community.

The footage of Guilty Gear Strive released so far looks stunning. Arc has perfected the 3D polygonal character on a 2D plane, and the gameplay promises to be more accessible than ever, with the addition of a new dash button and a “wall-stick hit-state” which allows characters knocked into walls to slide down and continue fighting back.

Halo Infinite

TBA | 343 Industries

Halo may be Microsoft’s flagship franchise, but it’s always had a complicated relationship with the PC, with entries only being ported years after their initial release on Xbox (if at all). Halo Infinite will be the first mainline entry in the series to show up on both console and PC at launch, and it’s currently expected some time in the fall.

Halo Infinite’s public unveiling last year didn’t quite go as planned, with footage receiving a rather frosty reception from most fans. There are a lot of rumors of development troubles online, but Microsoft has a good track record of pulling its Halo games together in time for release, so hopefully we’ll end up with another classic game in the series later this year.

Hitman 3

January 20 | IO Interactive

Hitman 3 makes murder fun. Yes, there’s a lot of murder in video games, but true to its namesake, Hitman is more about the setup than the execution. No other franchise has perfected the thrill of expertly sneaking into an area, tracking down a target, and setting up an unfortunate “accident” to get away unscathed. Or just go in guns blazing like a maniac if that’s your kind of thing.

With Hitman 3, you can even import levels from the previous two games to get the full “World of Assassination” experience, but expect further updates throughout the year, including ray tracing.

Humankind

April 22 | Amplitude Studios

As popular as the Civilization series has become over the last three decades, it’s surprising that few developers have been up to the challenge of developing a competitor to Sid Meier’s classic creation. Humankind could be up to the task, though. You’ll lead your civilization across six different eras of human history, selecting one of 10 different civilizations in each era. You can handle relations with other societies diplomatically, but if that goes south, combat is handled as a tactical RPG.

Developer Amplitude Studios has been dipping its toes into the 4X genre over the last decade with the well-received Endless Space and Endless Legend, and now the team are looking to apply everything they’ve learned from those games into Humankind.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition

May 14 | BioWare

Gamers have been clamoring for a re-release of the Mass Effect trilogy for years, and the Legendary Edition looks to exceed expectations. All three games will support 4K resolution, higher frame rates, and new graphical effects. The original Mass Effect in particular has seen a number of improvements akin to a partial remake, with improved combat, re-tooled enemy AI, and a faster Mako vehicle for traversing the Milky Way’s many planets.

While the Legendary Edition will include almost all of the DLC from the original trilogy (including some rather awesome add-ons like Lair of the Shadow Broker and Omega), BioWare has also announced a few omissions. Mass Effect 3’s lauded multiplayer mode isn’t going to make the cut, and Pinnacle Station, a much-maligned arena style add-on for the first game won’t be included either due to the loss of its source code.

New World

August 31 | Amazon Games

Amazon has had its sights set on the gaming world for quite some time, quietly pumping money into a number of projects, and New World could be its breakthrough hit. In this MMORPG set on an unnamed land in the Atlantic Ocean in the 1600s, you’ll wield bows, hammers, hatchets, magical staffs, musket rifles, spears, and swords against a variety of fantastical creatures. There will also be plenty of opportunities to gather resources, craft and build settlements. Best of all, there’s no monthly fee to play.

Launching a new IP is always difficult, and MMOs are a particularly difficult genre to break into, but if any company has the resources to succeed, it’s Amazon.

Resident Evil Village

May 7 | Capcom

There was already a ton of hype for the eighth main installment in the Resident Evil franchise following its initial reveal last year, but the introduction of antagonist Lady Dimitrescu aka “Tall Vampire Lady” has put the hype train in overdrive. We still don’t know a lot about the story, but we do expect there will be plenty of run-ins with the 9-foot tall lady and her vampiric daughters.

Village’s first demo gave us our first glimpse of stunning European manor rendered in 4K with ray tracing. The RE Engine was already a looker on last-gen hardware, but Village should be even more stunning when running on a newer graphics card.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2

TBA | GSC Game World

We still know remarkably little about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, a game that’s scheduled to release by the end of the year. In December, GSC Game World released an in-engine teaser trailer that looked impressive, with a first-person view of someone running down a hallway in a dilapidated building around Chernobyl.

If the previous games in the series are any indication, we should be in for some truly terrifying encounters and harrowing firefights with twisted irradiated mutants. Here’s hoping we get more info soon.

Total War: Warhammer III

TBA | Creative Assembly

The trailer for the final entry in Creative Assembly’s Total War: Warhammer trilogy looks very cool, with humans mounted on horses and polar bears facing down chaos demons on a frozen battlefield.

The campaign is said to be twice the size of the one in Total War: Warhammer II, and those who own the DLC for all three games will have access to a combined map that will combine patches from maps from all three games for an absolutely massive strategy experience.

Valheim

February 2 | Iron Gate AB

Valheim came out of nowhere to become one of the big success stories of 2021, selling more than a million copies less than three weeks after its early access release. If you aren’t caught up on the latest Steam phenomenon, think of it as Minecraft mixed with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. You and up to nine other friends are dropped off in the middle of a Viking afterlife to survive, craft, and battle mythical creatures.

Iron Gate AB has been vague about what exactly to expect from future updates, but the studio has teased future customization options for homes and ships, and eventually even a new biome to explore.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide

TBA | Fatshark

There have been dozens of Warhammer video games over the years, but few have found the success and crossover appeal of Fatshark’s Vermintide games. It turns out that mowing down waves of enemies with three of your friends is just plain fun, no matter the setting.

Darktide features the same Left 4 Dead-inspired gameplay, but moves the battle to the futuristic Warhammer 40,000 setting, incorporating more gunplay along the way. If you liked the Vermintide games, this is pretty much a must-have.

Wrath: Aeon of Ruin

TBA | KillPixel

First-person shooters have come a long way in the last couple of decades, but some times you just want to run and gun in a dark fantasy setting as quickly as possible. And remarkably few modern games provide that experience. Enter Wrath: Aeon of Ruin, a spiritual successor to Quake, Doom, and Hexen, built on the 25-year-old Quake Engine.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Wrath has been in Early Access since November 2019, and what’s been released so far is very promising, looking and sounding like a lost PC shooter from the late ‘90s. The full game should be out later this year.

The post Best PC Games to Play in 2021 appeared first on Den of Geek.

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multipleservicelisting · 4 years ago

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New Virus Variant May Be Somewhat Deadlier, U.K. Warns

LONDON — Prime Minister Boris Johnson had been expected to trumpet a rare success in the campaign against the coronavirus on Friday: news that Britain had vaccinated 5.4 million people. By the end of the day, it was overtaken by a tentative finding that a new variant of the virus may be deadlier than the original.

That possibility, raised by preliminary studies relying on small numbers of deaths in hard-hit hospitals, remains far from conclusive. But the prospect that the fast-spreading new variant, already known to be more contagious, could also be more lethal compounded fears that even with the arrival of vaccines, the pandemic will remain a severe threat for some time.

Government scientists said the early evidence suggests that the new variant, first detected late last year in Britain, could raise the risk of death by some 30 percent. But even with such an increase, the great majority of cases are not fatal, and the government estimates included a broad range of possible effects.

“In addition to spreading more quickly,” Mr. Johnson said at a Downing Street news conference, “it also now appears that there is some evidence that the new variant — the variant that was first identified in London and the southeast — may be associated with a higher degree of mortality.”

The underlying evidence, outlined in a report published on Friday by a government scientific committee, was less emphatic than the prime minister, saying only that there was a “realistic possibility” that the new variant was deadlier and outlining a number of inescapable limitations in the data.

“I want to stress that there’s a lot of uncertainty around these numbers and we need more work to get a precise handle on it, but it obviously is a concern that this has an increase in mortality as well as an increase in transmissibility,” said the government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance.

For Mr. Johnson, who has struggled to find a silver lining in Britain’s response to the virus, it was not the first time that good news and bad went hand in hand. On Dec. 30, the government announced the authorization of a homegrown vaccine, developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, only to put much of the country into a stricter lockdown hours later because of a surge in infections.

Britain’s struggle with the pandemic has increasingly become a race between vaccinating the public and confronting mutations in the virus, like the new variant that now accounts for a significant percentage of new cases around the country. It is a pitched battle that scientists say evokes hope as well as anxiety.

“2021 is going to be a cat-and-mouse game to see if we can vaccinate people quickly enough to stay ahead of the variants,” said Devi Sridhar, director of the global public health program at the University of Edinburgh.

Outside experts said that the early claims of higher mortality were far from resolved.

For one, the studies were based on a small subset — roughly 8 percent — of total deaths in Britain, raising the possibility that the results “may therefore not be representative of the total population,” the report said.

For another, less than 3 percent of known infections in Britain have been fatal, so the new variant’s effect on mortality would have been measured in relatively small numbers, making it harder to pinpoint with certainty.

Moreover, the signs of higher mortality rates were at odds with evidence suggesting that people with the new variant were no more likely to be hospitalized than those infected with better-established ones.

Covid-19 Vaccines ›

Answers to Your Vaccine Questions

If I live in the U.S., when can I get the vaccine?

While the exact order of vaccine recipients may vary by state, most will likely put medical workers and residents of long-term care facilities first. If you want to understand how this decision is getting made, this article will help.

When can I return to normal life after being vaccinated?

Life will return to normal only when society as a whole gains enough protection against the coronavirus. Once countries authorize a vaccine, they’ll only be able to vaccinate a few percent of their citizens at most in the first couple months. The unvaccinated majority will still remain vulnerable to getting infected. A growing number of coronavirus vaccines are showing robust protection against becoming sick. But it’s also possible for people to spread the virus without even knowing they’re infected because they experience only mild symptoms or none at all. Scientists don’t yet know if the vaccines also block the transmission of the coronavirus. So for the time being, even vaccinated people will need to wear masks, avoid indoor crowds, and so on. Once enough people get vaccinated, it will become very difficult for the coronavirus to find vulnerable people to infect. Depending on how quickly we as a society achieve that goal, life might start approaching something like normal by the fall 2021.

If I’ve been vaccinated, do I still need to wear a mask?

Yes, but not forever. The two vaccines that will potentially get authorized this month clearly protect people from getting sick with Covid-19. But the clinical trials that delivered these results were not designed to determine whether vaccinated people could still spread the coronavirus without developing symptoms. That remains a possibility. We know that people who are naturally infected by the coronavirus can spread it while they’re not experiencing any cough or other symptoms. Researchers will be intensely studying this question as the vaccines roll out. In the meantime, even vaccinated people will need to think of themselves as possible spreaders.

Will it hurt? What are the side effects?

The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is delivered as a shot in the arm, like other typical vaccines. The injection won’t be any different from ones you’ve gotten before. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccines, and none of them have reported any serious health problems. But some of them have felt short-lived discomfort, including aches and flu-like symptoms that typically last a day. It’s possible that people may need to plan to take a day off work or school after the second shot. While these experiences aren’t pleasant, they are a good sign: they are the result of your own immune system encountering the vaccine and mounting a potent response that will provide long-lasting immunity.

Will mRNA vaccines change my genes?

No. The vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer use a genetic molecule to prime the immune system. That molecule, known as mRNA, is eventually destroyed by the body. The mRNA is packaged in an oily bubble that can fuse to a cell, allowing the molecule to slip in. The cell uses the mRNA to make proteins from the coronavirus, which can stimulate the immune system. At any moment, each of our cells may contain hundreds of thousands of mRNA molecules, which they produce in order to make proteins of their own. Once those proteins are made, our cells then shred the mRNA with special enzymes. The mRNA molecules our cells make can only survive a matter of minutes. The mRNA in vaccines is engineered to withstand the cell’s enzymes a bit longer, so that the cells can make extra virus proteins and prompt a stronger immune response. But the mRNA can only last for a few days at most before they are destroyed.

Beyond that, scientists said that any number of confounding factors — like hospitals being overrun or the variant potentially spreading more aggressively in settings like nursing homes — made it difficult to know for certain whether it was, in fact, any deadlier.

“We need more information before jumping to firm conclusions,” said Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick Medical School.

Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading, noted that the report was “at pains to stress that the data is limited and the conclusions preliminary.” But, he added, “an increased case fatality rate is certainly possible with a virus that has upped its game in transmission.”

The scientific studies that the government relied on have not been published in full, and they described a broad range of possible effects of the new variant on mortality rates.

The report stressed that “the absolute risk of death per infection remains low.” And whatever the fatality rate, scientists said the best answer to the new variant had not changed: lockdowns, face coverings and vaccines.

Britain had injected more than 400,000 people in the previous 24 hours, keeping it on track to achieve Mr. Johnson’s goal of inoculating 15 million vulnerable people, almost a quarter of the population, by mid-February. On a per-capita basis, only Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have done more. The United States and China have delivered more doses than Britain but to a smaller percentage of their populations.

Mr. Vallance said there was no evidence that the vaccines being deployed were not effective against the variant first identified in Britain. But he expressed less certainty about whether they offered similar protection against variants that originated in South Africa and Brazil.

The warnings about the variant captured the political crosswinds that Mr. Johnson has faced in responding to the pandemic. The rapid vaccine rollout will likely embolden members of his Conservative Party to renew their calls on him to begin easing the lockdown. But scientists warn that a full-scale easing of restrictions, even after widespread vaccinations, could ignite a fresh surge of infections.

The opposition Labour Party, meanwhile, criticized Mr. Johnson for springing yet another unwelcome surprise on the British public.

“This is deeply alarming news, not least because Boris Johnson assured the nation back in December there was no evidence the variant was more dangerous,” Jonathan Ashworth, the Labour Party’s shadow health secretary, said in statement.

Mr. Johnson presented the news as evidence of his commitment to present changing scientific evidence to the public. He also pleaded for people to stick to social distancing rules even as the vaccines promised a brighter future.

The warnings about the variant — first disclosed by a prominent epidemiologist, Neil Ferguson, in a statement on Friday to a well-connected television correspondent, Robert Peston — gave the prime minister grist for that cautionary message.

“We really can’t begin considering unlocking until we’re confident the vaccination program is working,” Mr. Johnson said. “We’ve got to get those rates of infection down.”

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jobsearchtips02 · 4 years ago

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Coronavirus vaccine: problems that might hamper rollout prior to 2021

A subject receives a shot in the first-stage safety research study medical trial of a potential vaccine by Moderna for the coronavirus.

Ted S. Warren/AP.

Drugmakers, researchers, and federal governments are racing to establish a coronavirus vaccine at unmatched speeds.

It appears possible, or perhaps most likely, that a vaccine could be readily available by early 2021.

But there are countless barriers to producing an effective vaccine and making sure people take it, including public hesitation about a vaccine’s security and the fair and fair distribution of shots.

Check out Company Expert’s homepage for more stories

If a fire breaks out in a school or a movie theater, everybody knows what to do: head for the exits.

The exit plan for this pandemic, on the other hand, is uncharted territory.

What’s certain is that a vaccine is important. That’s why scientists and federal governments are operating at unprecedented speeds to create one. Since the start of the break out, leading health authorities have said it’ll take about 12-18 months for a vaccine to be ready. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Contagious Diseases, has actually stated he’s “positive” that we’ll have at least one vaccine all set by the end of this year or the start of 2021.

However even that timeline is unknown.

Plus, even once we develop a promising vaccine, big challenges to mankind’s exit strategy come after that: in testing, mass-manufacturing, and dispersing these vaccines fairly and cost effectively.

Where things stand now

Development to date looks great: More than 150 coronavirus vaccine programs are underway

The frontrunners, from Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca, are on the verge of kicking off medical trials that will enlist 10s of thousands of volunteers to assist figure out whether the shots prevent coronavirus infections or make it possible for individuals to combat off the virus if they do get sick.

Pharmaceutical huge Merck is likewise working on a coronavirus shot however hasn’t offered details on when it may be ready.

” I believe when people inform the public that there’s going to be a vaccine by the end of 2020, for example, I believe they do a severe injustice,” Kenneth Frazier, Merck’s CEO, said in a current interview with Harvard professor Tsedal Neeley

Here are the 7 significant questions that need to be addressed before a coronavirus shot is within reach.

Is the vaccine safe?

A staff member tests samples of a possible COVID-19 vaccine at a production plant of SinoPharm.

Zhang Yuwei/Xinhua via AP.

Since vaccines are developed to prevent disease in people who aren’t sick, regulators, physicians, and the public have little tolerance for side effects, particularly enduring or harmful ones.

Early coronavirus vaccine safety tests, done in small groups of young, healthy people, so far reveal that most of vaccinated volunteers experience some moderate negative effects, such as fevers, fatigue, and pain at the injection site.

Learn More: The very first look at human data from the coronavirus-vaccine front-runners is in. Here’s how Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca accumulate as they race to have their shots ready this fall.

That raises questions about whether people who are older or who have preexisting health conditions– those who require security from COVID-19 the most– will tolerate these shots as well as the test groups. Additional trials are underway in bigger groups of individuals, consisting of the senior and people with comorbidities.

Never lose out on healthcare news. Sign Up For Given, Organisation Expert’s daily newsletter on pharma, biotech, and health care.

When vaccine candidates get checked in tens of countless individuals, it’s possible we’ll learn about additional issues, consisting of ultra-rare but major side effects that have hindered some previous vaccine programs. There’s also a theoretical threat that a vaccine could make the illness worse in some individuals, a phenomenon called antibody-dependent enhancement

Does the vaccine work?

The response to this concern is most likely more complex than a basic yes or no.

A best vaccine would be 100?ficient at avoiding viral infections. However no vaccine designer expects this to be the case with COVID-19 The US Food and Drug Administration has stated it wants to see at least 50?ficiency before it approves a shot.

Moderna workplaces in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe by means of Getty Images.

A coronavirus vaccine might end up being partially effective, like the influenza shot, indicating it decreases the likelihood that people who get the shot develop severe signs.

Moderna, for instance, has actually developed its big human trial to identify whether its coronavirus vaccine can accomplish at least a 60%reduction in symptomatic disease.

So even with a vaccine, it’s most likely that there will be some coronavirus that continues to circulate in society.

Will protection from a vaccine fade gradually?

A test tube consisting of coronavirus antibodies.

Thomas Peter/Reuters.

Vaccines are developed to trigger your body to create antibodies that protect you from future infection.

Companies like Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca have compared their vaccines to a sampling of recovered COVID-19 clients in early studies.

However some research study suggests coronavirus antibodies don’t last very long– one study recommended antibodies may last only three to 5 weeks in some clients If antibodies are actually that short lived, a vaccine’s security could be brief, too.

Still, experts say that’s no cause for panic, because our body’s resistance isn’t simply connected to antibodies. Leukocyte have a remarkable immunological memory that can help the body recognize and attack the getting into virus should it ever return. T cells can ruin infected cells, and B cells work to produce new antibodies. A vaccine might help produce both.

” There’s no proof that immunity is short lived and no extensive price quotes yet of for how long it will last,” Marm Kilpatrick, a disease ecologist at University of California Santa Cruz, told Organisation Expert.

Dr. Rhonda Flores looks at protein samples at Novavax laboratories, among the laboratories developing a vaccine for the coronavirus, in Gaithersburg, Maryland on March 20,2020

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP.

And even if antibodies wane with time, that’s not an offer breaker for a vaccine, according to Florian Krammer, a vaccinologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

” This happens for a lot of vaccines,” he previously told Company Insider “It’s not a problem. You can get revaccinated.”

Lots of vaccines have to be provided consistently, or improved, at some time in an individual’s life.

” To be rather truthful, the least of our issues is, ‘Do we have a vaccine that is going to last us for several years?'” Maria Elena Bottazzi, a vaccine designer at Baylor College of Medication, informed Business Expert.

Can we mass-produce it?

Say a vaccine is discovered to be safe and efficient for extensive usage. Comes another huge challenge: developers will have to make huge amounts of it.

The leading vaccines use a number of various innovations– such as mRNA, recombinant protein, and adenoviruses– each of which has its own complex manufacturing procedure. While all the leading vaccine designers have been scaling up their production capabilities, none will have the ability to satisfy worldwide need anytime quickly.

Researcher Xinhua Yan operates in the laboratory at Moderna in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on February 28,2020

David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe/Getty Images.

What’s more, when vaccine vials come off the factory line, the last mile of their journey might be the hardest.

That will position a formidable infrastructure concern for the developing world, especially in locations where electrical power or established health systems are not prevalent.

Still, world governments have actually currently dedicated billions to scale up vaccine production.

When will we really have a vaccine?

Having a vaccine is a mushy concept: Do we “have a vaccine” when one prospers in clinical trials? Or when it’s approved by regulators? Or just when there are enough dosages available to inoculate the world?

It’s possible that a vaccine could secure emergency situation usage authorization from the FDA in the United States as soon as this fall, but that doesn’t indicate it would be extensively available.

According to David Heymann, an epidemiologist and advisor to the World Health Organization, it’s likely that those first limited dosages will go to the swaths of the population at greatest risk of infection.

The Trump administration has actually set an objective of having 300 million doses of a vaccine by January.

A Seattle pharmacist gives Jennifer Haller the first shot in the first-stage security study scientific trial of a possible vaccine for coronavirus on March 16,2020

Ted S. Warren/AP.

There’s no detailed schedule for how to inoculate the world, however getting any vaccine to the whole world will take a minimum of numerous years, if not longer. Groups like Gavi and the World Health Organization are creating a structure to guarantee the establishing world is not left behind.

Once we have a vaccine, will individuals wish to get it?

Even if the United States end up all set to begin vaccinating great deals of people in early 2021, it’s unclear how many individuals would rely on the shots. Scientists and some politicians have struggled for months to encourage chunks of the American public that masks deserve wearing.

Winning over vaccine skeptics will likely be a lot more difficult. Doing so needs the general public to trust the drug companies that established the shot, the research system that vetted it in trials, and the Trump administration regulators that authorized it– all of which would have occurred in record time.

In a current survey, about one in five Americans said they don’t prepare to get a coronavirus vaccine, while half said they would. The rest were uncertain.

An anti-vaxxer protest in the UK.

AP Picture/ Sang Tan.

Another barrier could be the cost.

What about booster shots?

Given that people will likely require to get two shots of a coronavirus vaccine a few weeks apart for it to be efficient, health care systems in all nations will have to ensure that individuals come back for the second dose– which is sure to be an obstacle.

” The more complex the schedule, the harder it is to get individuals to come in,” Walt Orenstein, a vaccinologist and previous director of the US National Immunization Program, informed Business Insider.

Two required shots also indicates we’ll need twice as numerous vials, syringes, clinic gos to, and so on.

Those obstacles would only snowball if it ends up that people require to get revaccinated routinely.

Vaccines aren’t the only video game in the area

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Transmittable Illness, places on a Washington Nationals deal with mask when he arrives to affirm before your home Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, June 23,2020

Kevin Dietsch/Pool via REUTERS.

Despite the vitality we have actually seen around many vaccine programs’ promising early outcomes, specialists have been quite clear that even a coronavirus vaccine will not return bring pre-pandemic life back overnight.

” Offered public-health infrastructure, I question anyone is reasonably expecting we can eliminate the virus worldwide with vaccine,” Kilpatrick said. “It likely will be with us long term.”

Still, physicians are learning how to better look after coronavirus clients. Drugmakers have already identified treatments that can help people recuperate faster and decrease deaths in badly ill COVID-19 patients.

New, experimental therapies might improve patient results much more significantly. In particular, antibody drugs are now being checked in humans to see if they can deal with COVID-19 as well as avoid infections amongst high-risk people. If they work, some could be ready this fall– prior to a vaccine.

Find Out More: An antibody treatment may be our finest shot at stopping the coronavirus if a vaccine does not exercise. Here are the 9 leading programs, including 2 that are intending to be all set this fall.

In a July 14 livestream hosted by Stanford University, Fauci stated as much.

” What we really require, and we’re on the track of getting, are interventions that can be given early in the course of illness to avoid individuals who are vulnerable from progressing to the requirement for hospitalization,” he stated, adding, “I think we are on an excellent track to get there fairly quickly.”

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livinginlandmarketing · 4 years ago

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There’s a certain kind of guest coveted by many of Southern California’s casinos, one who gets special access to the gaming floor, first dibs at a new restaurant or complimentary spa treatments and hotel stays.

But these perks aren’t being showered on just high rollers anymore; they’re increasingly being provided to social media influencers, whose currency is measured in views and followers rather than credit lines or stacks of cash.

As the role of social media continues to increase in society, casinos have increasingly embraced influencers — people who promote products or experiences for their niche but relatively large audiences on social media — hoping that their posts and videos will translate to more visitors walking through the casino doors.

Casinos such as San Manuel Casino near Highland, Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa near Cabazon and Harrah’s Resort Southern California in Northern San Diego County have brought influencers in for visits to expand their marketing reach, sometimes sharing new amenities or promotions at the properties and other times capitalizing on an idea from the influencer.

This shouldn’t be a surprise: Influencers have come into their own as marketing forces in the last few years in a range of industries, and so it’s unsurprising that casinos would want in on the action.

It’s a marked change from the early 2000s when people were often bothered by the idea that a blogger was being paid or doing product placement in their writing, said Heather Honea, chair of the marketing department at the Fowler College of Business at San Diego State University. However, with today’s social media influencers, people accept that the job is basically product placement — as long as the products endorsed fit the influencer’s brand.

According to guidelines issued by the Federal Trade Commission, influencers have to disclose when they’ve been paid or received something of significant value in exchange for their endorsement. However, if they receive a product for free with the expectation that they’ll promote or discuss the product, they don’t have to disclose that.

Sign up for our Casino Insider newsletter and get the week’s best bets for food, entertainment and fun at Southern California’s casinos. Subscribe here.

To attract influencers, casinos might promise lavish experiences or grant the influencer early access to a new amenity.

At Harrah’s Resort Southern California, time is spent getting to know influencers and what it is they’re looking to promote before they’re brought on the property so that a specialized itinerary can be put together to capitalize on the partnership, said Amber Lussier, Harrah’s director of resort marketing.

At Harrah’s, part of the marketing is telling the story of its own city, “Funner,” which has included honorary celebrity mayors such as David Hasselhoff and Rob Riggle. The swearing-in of the new mayor of Funner is one of the biggest influencer events at the resort.

“We really roll out the red the carpet and we customize everything that we do for them so when they show up, they’re going to walk out to a cabana that’s fully decked out with maybe a foot bath and their favorite beer in a bucket of ice and some balloons and decorations,” Lussier said.

San Manuel Casino has worked with influencers for almost five years, said General Manager Peter Arceo, and they have become an important part of the casino’s marketing strategy, particularly when the complex opens a new venue or amenity.