Wuhan virus 2020

[Jimbuna]

[mapuc]

A Elderly woman from the Netherland who is my friend, have lost her Mom and an elder brother to Covid19.

Markus

[Jimbuna]

[Rockstar]

“2020, the year the world went mad with fear, greed, and power.”

[Rockstar]

How the six foot social distance rule came into being. starts @ 5:45

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

President Biden to end COVID-19 emergencies on May 11

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden informed Congress on Monday that he will end the twin national emergencies for addressing COVID-19 on May 11, as most of the world has returned closer to normalcy nearly three years after they were first declared.

The move to end the national emergency and public health emergency declarations would formally restructure the federal coronavirus response to treat the virus as an endemic threat to public health that can be managed through agencies' normal authorities.

It comes as lawmakers have already ended elements of the emergencies that kept millions of Americans insured during the pandemic. Combined with the drawdown of most federal COVID-19 relief money, it would also shift the development of vaccines and treatments away from the direct management of the federal government.

Biden’s announcement comes in a statement opposing resolutions being brought to the floor this week by House Republicans to bring the emergency to an immediate end. House Republicans are also gearing up to launch investigations on the federal government’s response to COVID-19.

Then-President Donald Trump's Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar first declared a public health emergency on Jan. 31, 2020, and Trump later declared the COVID-19 pandemic a national emergenc y that March. The emergencies have been repeatedly extended by Biden since he took office in January 2021, and are set to expire in the coming months. The White House said Biden plans to extend them both briefly to end on May 11.

“An abrupt end to the emergency declarations would create wide-ranging chaos and uncertainty throughout the health care system — for states, for hospitals and doctors’ offices, and, most importantly, for tens of millions of Americans,” the Office of Management and Budget wrote in a Statement of Administration Policy.

More than 1.1 million people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19 since 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including about 3,700 last week.

Congress has already blunted the reach of the public health emergency that had the most direct impact on Americans, as political calls to end the declaration intensified. Lawmakers have refused for months to fulfill the Biden administration’s request for billions more dollars to extend free COVID vaccines and testing. And the $1.7 trillion spending package passed last year and signed into law by Biden put an end to a rule that barred states from kicking people off Medicaid, a move that is expected to see millions of people lose their coverage after April 1.

"In some respects, the Biden administration is catching up to what a lot of people in the country have been experiencing," said Larry Levitt, the executive vice president for health policy at Kaiser Family Foundation. “That said, hundreds of people a day are still dying from COVID.”

The costs of COVID-19 vaccines are also expected to skyrocket once the government stops buying them, with Pfizer saying it will charge as much as $130 per dose. Only 15% of Americans have received the recommended, updated booster that has been offered since last fall.

People with private insurance could have some out-of-pocket costs for vaccines, especially if they go to an out-of-network provider, Levitt said. Free at-home COVID tests will also come to an end. And hospitals will not get extra payments for treating COVID patients.

Legislators did extend for another two years telehealth flexibilities that were introduced as COVID-19 hit, leading health care systems around the country to regularly deliver care by smartphone or computer.

The Biden administration had previously considered ending the emergency last year, but held off amid concerns about a potential “winter surge” in cases and to provide adequate time for providers, insurers and patients to prepare for its end.

Officials said the administration would use the next three months to transition the response to conventional methods, warning that an immediate end to the emergency authorities “would sow confusion and chaos into this critical wind-down.”

“To be clear, continuation of these emergency declarations until May 11 does not impose any restriction at all on individual conduct with regard to COVID-19," the administration said. “They do not impose mask mandates or vaccine mandates. They do not restrict school or business operations. They do not require the use of any medicines or tests in response to cases of COVID-19.”

Case counts have trended downward after a slight bump over the winter holidays, and are significantly below levels seen over the last two winters — though the number of tests performed for the virus and reported to public health officials has sharply decreased.

On Monday, the World Health Organization said the coronavirus remains a global health emergency, even as a key advisory panel for the group found the pandemic may be nearing an “inflexion point” where higher levels of immunity can lower virus-related deaths. China, for example, reported an unprecedented surge in December after lifting most of its COVID-19 restrictions.

Moments before the White House’s announcement, Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., accused the president of unnecessarily extending the public health emergency to take action on issues like forgiving some federal student loan debts.

“The country has largely returned to normal,” Cole said Monday, introducing a Republican-backed bill calling for an end to the health emergency. “Everyday Americans have returned to work and to school with no restrictions on their activities. It is time that the government acknowledges this reality: the pandemic is over.”

The House was scheduled to vote Tuesday on legislation that would terminate the public health emergency.

The bill’s author, Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., said he still hopes the House will proceed with a vote. He said he was surprised by the White House move, but thinks the legislation may have played a role in prompting the administration to act.

“I think we should go forward,” he said late Monday as lawmakers returned to the Capitol. “If for some reason they don’t do it on May the 11th, the vehicle is still there for Congress to take back its authority.”
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/oth...6f0a69821ef5e6

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

Covid cases up 50 per cent in 10 days as new highly contagious Kraken subvariant sweeps UK

Covid cases have shot up nearly 50 per cent in 10 days as the new, highly contagious, Kraken subvariant sweeps the country.

This Omicron subvariant doubled its share of Covid cases in the UK in the first two weeks of January, accounting for 11 per cent of new infections on January 16, according to data from GISAID.

And, if it follows the same trajectory as the US, its country of origin, its share will jump to around 40 per cent by Sunday, the data suggests.

In the US, Kraken – officially known as XBB.1.5 – grew from 12 to 42 per cent of cases in just three weeks.

The faster a new variant increases its share of infections the more contagious it is – and the more likely it is to fuel a new wave of the virus.

The rapid increase in infections in the past week or so in the UK comes just as cases had fallen by well over half in the first three weeks of January.

Hopes had been raised that the UK could be in for a spell of lower infection levels and that XBB.1.5 may not be spreading as fast as had initially been feared.

At that point, nine days ago, daily symptomatic cases had fallen below 100,000 for the first time in more than a year to stand at just over 85,000.

However, since then they have risen by 45 per cent to 123,265 on Saturday, according to the latest figures from the ZOE Health Study.

Professor Danny Altmann, of Imperial College London, is concerned that XBB.1.5, which is thought to have originated in New York, is behind the recent surge.

It is not just more contagious than previous variants, it is better at evading immunity built up from vaccines and previous infections because of differences in its makeup.

“I’m concerned that with XBB.1.5 we have another increment in transmissibility and immune evasiveness and our complacent reliance on established immunity may be misplaced,” he said. “We continue to be in uncharted territory.”

He is worried the public may not appreciate the threat Covid still poses and would like to see greater actions taken to prevent the spread of the virus.

“We have a country where uptake of the latest booster round in the over 50s has been poor, so we have a nation of rapidly waning defences. The situation in China reminds us that infection by Omicron subvariants is far from intrinsically mild in a poorly immunised population,” he said.

Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University, adds: “We can expect fluctuations in covid infections from the circulation of more infectious variants such as XBB.1.5.

“There is also the impact of waning immunity, particularly as only 64.5 per cent of those aged 50 and over have received the autumn booster.”

However, although cases are going up quickly they are not expected to go anything like as high as they did in the two peaks of last year, when daily infections reach 350,000, leaving about 5.5 per cent of the population at one point.

Professor Karl Friston, a virus modeller at University College London, meanwhile, believes “we have just reached the nadir of the current wave and cases will start going up again”.

He said: “These fluctuations, with a peak every few months, are what we can expect for the next year or so.”

Professor Friston’s modelling forecasts the next peak will be in late March. At that point, about 3.5 per cent of the UK population would have Covid.

Steve Griffin, a virologist at Leeds University, believes the return to school and work after Christmas may also be playing a role – an effect which can sometimes take a few weeks to filter through the system.

“I would be surprised if there hasn’t been an increase in prevalence caused by a return to schools and workplaces, especially given the current lack of mitigations,” he said.

Cases are also being kept high by a lack of general lack of awareness that Covid rates remain so high.

A study last week from Swansea and Cardiff Metropolitan Universities found that most people with Covid symptoms are behaving much as they normally do, taking few precautions to prevent passing the virus on to others.

Only one in six adults with respiratory symptoms took a test to determine whether it was Covid, a cold or the flu – all of which have similar symptoms – according to the survey taken in December and January.

This found that just one in 10 wore a mask and the same proportion isolated – while only one in 20 sought help from a doctor.

Confusion about symptoms, together with high levels of colds and flu over the winter, meant many people with respiratory illness assumed it wasn’t Covid – while the end of free testing, in a cost of living crisis, meant few people took tests to find out, researchers said.

According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, Covid infections continued to decrease in England, Wales and Scotland in the week ending 17 January 2023, and in Northern Ireland in the week ending 14 January 2023.

These tally with ZOE numbers which also recorded decreases for that period – but which are more up to date than the ONS numbers and show cases are now rising again.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/med...ecdfdce0d5d1d5

[Jimbuna]

Covid in China: Officials say current wave is 'coming to an end'

Chinese health officials say the country's current wave of Covid-19 infections is "coming to an end".

The number of severe Covid cases and deaths is trending downward, the country's Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a report.

It also said there had been "no obvious rebound" during Lunar New Year holidays last week, where millions reunited for family gatherings.

There have long been questions raised about China's Covid reporting.

But experts say the decline reported now corresponds with the expected timing of an end to this major wave.

The virus tore through Chinese cities and towns after authorities lifted zero-Covid restrictions in December. However fever clinic visit rates have dropped over 90% through January and hospitalisation rates are down over 85%.

Separately, the World Health Organization (WHO) said the pandemic remained a global emergency, saying it was too early to lift the highest level of alert which it declared three years ago.

It said the weekly Covid death rate had been rising in recent weeks and that more than 170,000 Covid-19-related deaths had been reported globally within the last eight weeks, adding that a lack of surveillance now made it more difficult to track down variants.

But the WHO acknowledged that the world was in a better position than during the peak of the Omicron wave a year ago.

Fears that the virus could surge again during the festive period have also not yet been realised.

The CDC said: "There has not been an obvious rebound in Covid cases during the Lunar New Year holidays.

"In this time, no new variant has been discovered, and the country's current wave is coming to an end."

It also reported a sharp decline in the daily Covid death toll reported by hospitals - from a peak of 4,300 deaths on 4 January to 896 deaths on 23 January.

Infectious diseases expert Hsu Li Yang told BBC News: "This drop in deaths follows the decline in the first huge wave of cases after China relaxed its restrictions, which is understandable and has been seen in virtually every country experiencing a large Covid wave.

"We will know soon if the Lunar New Year celebrations will trigger another surge in China cases, but it is unlikely to match what was experienced in December and the earlier part of January 2023."

One of China's leading epidemiologists - and former head of the CDC - Zeng Guang had earlier this month warned that cases would surge in rural areas during the new year.

BBC News has also found evidence of a considerable number of Covid-related deaths in China's rural regions, as the virus spread from big cities to more remote areas with older populations.

However, the CDC said there had been no immediate spike following the festive period.

It's estimated that 226 million passenger trips were taken during the Lunar New Year festive season from 22-27 January - a 70% increase from last year when pandemic restrictions were still in place across many parts of China.

According to CDC data, Covid deaths halved in consecutive weeks in January. A total of 12,658 deaths were recorded between 13-19 January, while 6,364 deaths were recorded the following week.

In December, Beijing abruptly ended draconian Covid curbs that had seen millions of its citizens locked down over the past three years.

That led to a severe spike in Covid infections and deaths, with some experts estimating a majority of the population contracted Covid in the weeks following.

A Peking University study said that as of 11 January, some 900 million people in China had been infected with the coronavirus, amid multiple reports of overcrowded hospitals and crematoria.

However, Chinese authorities initially maintained that there had only been seven deaths since the end of zero-Covid on 7 December, after narrowing its definition of what counts as a Covid death.

The National Health Commission later reported almost 60,000 Covid-related deaths between 8 December and 12 January, after it began including deaths from underlying conditions as well as respiratory failure caused by Covid.

China's official Covid data is believed to be vastly underreported, and authorities stopped releasing daily caseload reports last month.

Beijing has said it has been sharing Covid data in "a timely, open and transparent manner in accordance with the law."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-64449226

[Sean C]

I still haven't been vaccinated.

... And I knew this was coming:

It's Time for the Scientific Community to Admit We Were Wrong About COVID and It Cost Lives

...the scientific community from the CDC to the WHO to the FDA and their representatives, repeatedly overstated the evidence and misled the public about its own views and policies, including on natural vs. artificial immunity, school closures and disease transmission, aerosol spread, mask mandates, and vaccine effectiveness and safety, especially among the young. All of these were scientific mistakes at the time, not in hindsight. Amazingly, some of these obfuscations continue to the present day.

[Skybird]

In the end it mostly was about a handful of dollars. And sitll is. And is so in apparently most of the academic business now.

Academic business. Already the terminology gives it away.

[Jimbuna]

[tonschk]

Me too I avoid vaccines at all costs, I refuse experimental medical treatment for a illness I dont have, if is not brocken dont fix it,

Since the beginning of the Scamdemic or Plandemic I became suspicious about all that 24hours a day and seven days a week government propaganda to scare the naive people and push naive people to take experimental medical treatment for a illness they dont have,

There is a youtube video in which billgates own words stating " If we can do a really good job with vaccines we can reduce World`s population by 10% or 15% and do you think I am going to take vaccine made by billgates who want to reduce population?,

Originally Posted by Sean C

I still haven't been vaccinated.

... And I knew this was coming:

It's Time for the Scientific Community to Admit We Were Wrong About COVID and It Cost Lives

[tonschk]

Finally the truth is coming out!! Vaccine dangers, Mr. Andrew Bridgen MP expresses his views UK Parliament debate