Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #101

[LadyL]

COVID job losses begin: Hundreds fired, suspended for refusing jab

 

[ilovewings]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/09/30/inadequate-us-data-pandemic-response/

Messy, Incomplete US Data Hobbles Pandemic response

An epidemiologist says " we are flying blind" because " we don't have the data. We don't have the good surveillance system to keep us informed"

Remember when you read this that , we are THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
and what is described in this article puts us at shame and embarrassment. Right from the get-go the United States has been a mess and don't even ask about the CDC- a nightmare!!!

 

[Cool Cats]

COVID-19 Relief Scams: 3 Cases to be Wary of News
September 30, 2021

We’ve reported on COVID-related scams before, including fake stimulus checks, bogus job opportunities, and phishing vaccination passport applications. Recently, a lot of new phishing text messages about COVID-19 relief plans have appeared. Have you received any of them?

How COVID Relief Scams Work
Posing as government agencies, scammers send you text messages (complete with a phishing link) and falsely claim that you can apply for COVID-19 relief or a stimulus payment.

They direct you to phishing sites with those links so they can collect your sensitive data and use it for their own good. The links may lead you to:

• Fake login pages of the agencies’ websites
• Fake online application forms

Scammers prompt you to submit sensitive data to claim your payment. In fact, they can record all the data you enter and use it to steal your money and identity!

1. American Rescue Plan

Content: congratulations, we are pleased to inform you that your information was randomly picked up for covid-19 stimulus payment from the american rescue plan under the treasury department. kindly follow the link to complete the form <URL> when you’ve submitted your details smith lopez for the employment department will contact you for more details on how you will receive your money asap. thanks

2. California EDD

Content: congrats, we are pleased to inform you that your information was pick up for covid-19 stimulus payment from the federal government by joe biden. you are eligible to the payment. kindly follow the link to complete <URL> the form when you’ve submitted your details micheal redford for the employment department will contact you for more details on how you will receive your money. thanks

3. Federal Assistance Program

Content: congrats, we are pleased to inform you that your information was pick up for covid-19 stimulus payment from the federal government by joe biden. you are eligible to the payment. kindly follow the link to complete <URL> the form when you’ve submitted your details micheal redford for the employment department will contact you for more details on how you will receive your money. Thanks

How to Protect Yourself

• Double-check the sender’s mobile number.
• Remember that government agencies will never contact you or request your personal information. Some plans (like the payment of American Rescue Plan) will be delivered to families in need automatically.
• Go to the government’s official web page for the updated and legitimate information about COVID-19 relief plans.
• NEVER click links or attachments from unknown sources.

 

[Cool Cats]

Is this fair to the professor?

U.S. Judge upholds COVID-19 vaccine requirement for those with 'natural immunity'

(Reuters) - A U.S. judge upheld the University of California's COVID-19 vaccine requirement against a challenge by a professor who alleged he had immunity due to a prior coronavirus infection, in what appears to be the first ruling on the issue.

U.S. District Court Judge James Selna in Santa Ana, California, said the university system acted rationally to protect public health by mandating the vaccine and not exempting individuals with some level of immunity from an infection.

More than 43 million Americans have had confirmed cases of COVID-19 and some opponents of vaccinations have argued that immunity from an infection negates the need for an inoculation.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Aug. 6 that a study showed vaccines offer better protection than natural immunity gained from prior infection, which wanes over time.

On Wednesday, a group of physicians who are Republican members of Congress wrote to the CDC to urge the agency to acknowledge natural immunity.

The lawmakers said if the growing number of vaccine mandates ignore natural immunity it could lead to labor shortages as people are fired for failing to get a shot. Their letter said such mandates could even trigger a security crisis because up to 20% of the military faces "separation" and many of them "likely have natural immunity."

 

[MimosaMornings]

“She admits that she’s been feeling "run down" enough to worry that she may have COVID-19. While she admits she’s scared to get the results, she notes to her followers that she is vaccinated, thus making her case one of the many breakthrough casesbeing seen in the U.S.”

'Dancing with the Stars' pro Cheryl Burke reveals she has coronavirus, must quarantine in an emotional video

I’m guessing she got tested because of her run down symptoms (she sounded congested in the video) she had been experiencing. Probably impossible to contact trace with being around so many people. (Are all the dancers vaccinated?)

Cody Rigsby Tests Positive for Breakthrough COVID After DWTS Partner Cheryl Burke Contracts Virus — People

 

[KALI]

These break through cases are really being alarming to me. I have to remind myself that most don't end up hospitalized. Maybe Israel was right about requiring the boosters for it's citizens

Cody Rigsby Tests Positive for Breakthrough COVID After DWTS Partner Cheryl Burke Contracts Virus — People

 

[ilovewings]

These break through cases are really being alarming to me. I have to remind myself that most don't end up hospitalized. Maybe Israel was right about requiring the boosters for it's citizens

I think lifestyle has a lot to do with vaccinated people contracting the virus. Because Delta is so highly transmissible, it seems to me that if vaccinated people are socializing with others, maybe unmasked, they are more vulnerable to contracting Covid. There are lots of vaccinated people who seem to live their lives like there is no pandemic. I am not among those people. I am vaccinated but I do not live my life much different than I did before I got vaccinated. If you look around at what people are doing you will see football and baseball stadiums packed as are bars and restaurants. It is not surprising these people are contracting the virus. The vaccination prevents most of them (not all of them) from severe illness requiring hospitalization and /or resulting in death.

 

[155etta]

Yup, we're back to that "cutting the line thingy" again.

• 4 reasons ineligible Americans shouldn't sneak a COVID booster — yet
• Booster Bandits Are Walking a Fine Line

Americans who have gotten a third (or, for people who got the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, second) shot before they’re eligible—let’s call them booster bandits—have considered the risks to their body and their conscience and concluded, Hey, it couldn’t hurt.

Like the people who crossed state lines or lied about their job to get a first shot in the winter and early spring, they are blurring the truth and fudging the rules. The careful dance of morals and personal peril involved in booster banditry is far more complicated than the obvious ethical dumpster fire of taking a first dose from an essential worker or a cancer patient. But, even though the line-jumpers are loud and proud this time, the illegitimate third doses aren’t always quite as innocuous as they seem to think.

1. The risk of getting really sick is still very low — and it may be getting lower.
2. The risk of getting someone else sick is low, too.

3. To get more bang for your buck, consider waiting a bit.

Timing is an underappreciated element of the booster equation. Even now, older and more vulnerable Americans aren’t supposed to get a third dose until six months after their second — roughly the point at which Israel observed some waning.

Why? Because “if you get all three shots at the same time, or really close to each other, you may not be doing what you set out to do, i.e., train the immune system to remember (how to fight a virus) for many years,” Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco, recently explained. “The immune system generally does better in terms of ‘remembering’ if you wait a few months before the last shot.”

Dr. Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington, told the Atlantic that overstimulating the immune system can even have a negative effect (as opposed to just a neutral one) by making your body less adept at fighting off certain infections — something Dr. Pepper often observes in her work on malaria. "Your immune system needs some time and space to calm down in between seeing one infection and the next one so that it can hone its pathogen-detection skills."

4. The more people who fake their way into a booster, the harder it is to understand when the rest of us really need them.

That’s because every time someone lies about being unvaccinated or immunocompromised or “high risk” in order to get a bonus shot, the more it skews government data on who’s been vaccinated and how well the vaccines are performing. Without a clear picture of that, it’s hard to know for sure when effectiveness is really waning and when universal boosters should finally roll out.

We'll be 8 months out in November and will not show up for boosters until November.

 

[ilovewings]

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/coronavirus-deaths-u-s-map-shows-number-fatalities-compar

700,000 souls have lost their lives in the United States from Covid with over 43 million being infected. Most o f those souls would still be on this earth but for this hideous horrible monstrous virus. it is so sad. All those families grieving.

 

[LadyL]

U.S. Judge upholds COVID-19 vaccine requirement for those with 'natural immunity'

 

[KALI]

Well. That's the facts. Our restaurant is bankrupt.
There is no way that we can possibly pay back our landlord about 50k in rent.
That is a fact.
I don't like this fact. My husband will probably seriously reel over this. He lives in the world of people coming in the door and thanking him for being open and feeding them great food.

I, live in the world of payroll, taxes, utilities, rent, insurance and food and beverage costs (to name just a few).
4 restaurants later, Covid did us in.

 

[Lilibet]

Well. That's the facts. Our restaurant is bankrupt.
There is no way that we can possibly pay back our landlord about 50k in rent.
That is a fact.
I don't like this fact. My husband will probably seriously reel over this. He lives in the world of people coming in the door and thanking him for being open and feeding them great food.

I, live in the world of payroll, taxes, utilities, rent, insurance and food and beverage costs (to name just a few).
4 restaurants later, Covid did us in.

I’m so very sorry @KALI. You’ve worked really hard to stay afloat since Covid hit. It’s a personal loss and a loss to your community. And your story has been repeated all over the country. I wish you and your husband as soft a landing as possible.

 

[musicaljoke]

These break through cases are really being alarming to me. I have to remind myself that most don't end up hospitalized. Maybe Israel was right about requiring the boosters for it's citizens

Here's a really good visual about the number of breakthrough cases in unvaccinated, partially vaccinated and fully vaccinated people, prepared by the First Nations Health Authority in BC. I think it will help raise your confidence. The little green guys represent vaccinated breakthrough cases, and the orange represents unvaccinated.

https://www.fnha.ca/Documents/FNHA-COVID-19-On-The-Fence-Infographic.pdf

 

[weepingangel]

Alaska
Covid is spreading faster in Alaska than any other state in the U.S.
more at link
In the past two weeks, Alaska’s case count increased by 72 percent, the highest in the country, as it tops state case and death records.

 

[dmac55]

Well. That's the facts. Our restaurant is bankrupt.
There is no way that we can possibly pay back our landlord about 50k in rent.
That is a fact.
I don't like this fact. My husband will probably seriously reel over this. He lives in the world of people coming in the door and thanking him for being open and feeding them great food.

I, live in the world of payroll, taxes, utilities, rent, insurance and food and beverage costs (to name just a few).
4 restaurants later, Covid did us in.

From the beginning you sharing your experience as a business owner opened my eyes and let me see how devastating Covid-19, and the restrictions were and are on businesses
It changed my view and thinking and I am grateful to you for that

The end result is heartbreaking

 

[SouthAussie]

Well, we are getting poised for somewhat-regular international travel ... hoped to resume 20 months after our border slammed closed.

By the end of October the govt expects to have a digital passport ready, which all Australians can apply for to prove their vaccination status.

"The VDS technology is internationally recognised and was developed by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, and uses cryptographic technology already in place for ePassport authentication used by more than 145 countries."

Then from mid-November, states that are 80% fully vaccinated will commence having return flights out of the country (bringing Aussies home and allowing vaccinated Aussies outbound travel).

Qantas plans to start with return flights Sydney/London, and Sydney/LA.

Note: A couple of states (Qld and WA) have already said they won't be participating in this so soon. Likely NSW and Vic will particpate. Others states have not weighed in yet.

Of course, quarantine in Australia will still be required upon arrival back in Australia.

Australian ‘digital seal’ to prove Covid vaccine status for travel ‘ready in weeks’

 

[ilovewings]

Juggling Act: We thought we were safe at a concert that required COVID vaccines. We were wrong.

This proves my point I made in another post : lifestyle choices- even if you are vaccinated but attend crowded activities during this Delta surge, and especially without masks, you are asking for trouble. Fortunately, these people who attended the concert, because they were vaccinated were not severely ill. They still felt ill and lost sense of taste and smell ( that must be awful).

 

[mickey2942]

@KALI I am so sorry about your restaurant. Four independent restaurants closed in our town. Others, are probably just hanging on.

I think that the United States is on a precipice. Teetering on the edge of a cliff. What has kept our economy going has been low interest rates, which keep edging up. If you have a good job now, keep it, and save your money.

Look at the price of goods...Christmas is going to be a sticker shock. And price of fuel.

I don't like to be a "Doomsayer", but I think that Covid-19 boomerang is starting. Businesses going bankrupt is just the beginning.

 

[ilovewings]

Here's a really good visual about the number of breakthrough cases in unvaccinated, partially vaccinated and fully vaccinated people, prepared by the First Nations Health Authority in BC. I think it will help raise your confidence. The little green guys represent vaccinated breakthrough cases, and the orange represents unvaccinated.

https://www.fnha.ca/Documents/FNHA-COVID-19-On-The-Fence-Infographic.pdf

That is a great graphic that makes the point to GET VACCINATED!!!

 

[Deleted member 158085]

I'm in Illinois where we have more restrictions than surrounding states. But the little town I work in is doing well. We actually have 4 new businesses in the last few months - restaurant, pizza place, pharmacy, and chiropractor. Plus, the coffee shop and gift shop that had just opened when the pandemic began have both done well. I don’t think it's doom and gloom everywhere.