The U.S. military on Wednesday began delivering shots at coronavirus vaccination centers in Texas and New York and announced that service members will start staffing four centers in Florida and one in Philadelphia next week.
The expanded vaccination effort came as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with military commanders overseeing the COVID-19 response effort. He also visited the vaccination center in Los Angeles, the first staffed by the new active-duty military teams that are being developed.
The Biden administration has said that delivering the vaccine to Americans is a top priority. The Pentagon is ramping up the deployment of what federal authorities say could be up to 100 vaccination teams around the country.
Texas deploys Nat'l Guard To go door-to-door to vaccinate homebound elderly; Texans & Oregonians need help recovering from disasters, and more.
Quarantined travelers formed an angry mob in the lobby of a Toronto hotel after it allegedly ran out of food and bottled water, leaving guests waiting hours to be fed during their mandatory stay.
Canada's system of mandatory quarantine hotels for those entering the country from abroad are now in question, after a series of endless, chaotic setbacks including food shortages and even alleged sexual assaults.
Some of those experiencing the quarantines, which are mandatory for all incoming travelers for a minimum of three days and at a cost of up to Can$2,000, have documented the problems on social media
Joanne Santini, professor of microbiology at University College London, told Insider anal swabs are not nice way of testing, but it makes sense. “It’s the obvious thing to do,” Santini said.
Santini explained that the virus attaches to the human body using a receptor called ACE2, and there are many ACE2 receptors in the gut. The viral load — the amount of virus shedded — can also be higher in the faeces, especially if someone is suffering with gastrointestinal problems caused by coronavirus. And viral shedding can last for longer in the faeces than in sputum.
“Even though a common way of being infected is through respiration, I think there must be some infection happening through the gut via the mouth,” she said. “There is evidence that SARS-CoV-2 in faeces is infectious, just like other viruses, such as norovirus and other coronaviruses.”
... citing lack of sufficient data to prove effectiveness
The main medical regulator of Switzerland has rejected the Oxford-AstraZeneca Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine. According to the regulator, there is a lack of available trial data to prove that the vaccine is safe to use.
“With regard to the AstraZeneca vaccine, the data submitted and analyzed so far are not yet sufficient to permit authorization,” said the Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products (SwissMedic) in a statement released on Wednesday, Feb. 3.
“To obtain more information about safety, efficacy and quality, additional data from new studies are needed.”
The Human Medicines Expert Committee, an external and independent advisory panel that double-checks SwissMedic’s findings on medicines for human use, arrived at the same conclusion during a meeting on Tuesday.
“The data currently available do not point to a positive decision regarding benefits and risks,” said the panel. SwissMedic concluded its statement by demanding more data.
“To obtain a conclusive assessment, the applicant will, among other things, have to submit additional efficacy data from a Phase III trial underway in North and South America, and these will have to be analyzed. As soon as the results have been received, a temporary authorization according to the rolling procedure could be issued at very short notice.”
AstraZeneca responded by saying it will continue to share new data with SwissMedic “as it becomes available,” and will comply with every requirement to make sure its vaccine is approved.
“AstraZeneca has now been granted a conditional marketing authorization or emergency use in close to 50 countries, spanning four continents, including most recently in the European Union,” said the company in a statement. “We are confident that our vaccine is effective, well-tolerated and can have a real impact on the pandemic.”
Many in Switzerland expected the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to be approved, especially since it has already been given authorization for use in the United Kingdom where it was developed, and in the European Union. But health officials in several European countries have advised against its use, especially for older people. These countries include Poland, Sweden, Italy, Germany and France.
Meanwhile, other countries have set cut-off ages for people who wish to take the vaccine. For example, Ireland has set its cut-off age at 70, while Belgium has it at 55.
The European Medicines Agency said there is not enough data to provide a faithful estimate of the vaccine’s efficacy for people over the age of 55. Therefore, it cannot reliably justify its use for people over 55.
Switzerland far behind its European neighbors in immunization
Despite Switzerland spending more on healthcare than any other country in Europe, Swiss officials are still concerned over the slow pace of their coronavirus vaccine rollout.
According to a guidance released in December 2020, the Swiss government plans to vaccinate at least six million people – or nearly three-quarters of the entire Swiss population – by summer of 2021. As of Jan. 31, the country has only administered around 315,000 doses (3.7 percent of the population) of the vaccines it has approved (BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna).
While this is marginally higher than the average for all 27 member-nations of the EU, it is only a fraction of the U.K.’s 15 percent. It is also far less than Serbia’s, which has inoculated 6.8 percent of its population. Serbia is not a member of the EU and has less than a tenth of Switzerland’s gross domestic product per capita.
The Swiss government’s vaccine rollout plan is drastically behind schedule. Authorities will have to administer over 70,000 doses per day to meet its target. It is unlikely that the country will reach its goal, as it is dealing with a shortage of coronavirus vaccines. Authorities in the capital of Bern had to shut down immunization appointments over the weekend due to a lack of doses.
“The government’s vaccination plan has failed,” said Marco Chiesa, leader of the country’s largest conservative party, the Swiss People’s Party. “We are not used to such unreliability.”
According to Interior Minister Alain Berset, whose department oversees the procurement of vaccines, shortfalls in delivery are expected to be fixed by March. Berset added that the country will most likely miss its target of inoculating everybody over the age of 75 by the end of the month. However, Berset remains optimistic and said all adults will be vaccinated by the end of June.
Government officials are pinning the blame for this slow rollout on a lack of infrastructure. The country is not set up for the kind of swift decision-making required for vaccine procurement. Furthermore, the country did not provide any funding for vaccine development, which would have given it a bigger priority in terms of vaccine acquisition.
“The EU supported the financing of production facilities and we didn’t do that,” said former health ministry official Andreas Faller.
A spokeswoman for the Swiss public health office said the country has no legal basis for investing in virus research or domestic vaccine production. “The federal government doesn’t do investment policy,” she said.
Even if the country procures enough vaccines, it has to deal with a skeptical population. According to a survey conducted by the University of Zurich at the beginning of January, only around 50 percent of the population said they were willing to receive the coronavirus vaccine. A full one-third of the populace said they would refuse to take the vaccine.
According to the research data analyzed and published by Comprar Acciones, imports from China to the EA increased by 5.6% while exports surged by 2.2% during the year. The same period saw a drop of 13.2% in EA imports from the US as well as an 8.2% decline in exports.
This Gates / Gavi Agenda ID2020 has already been approved by the German Parliament, without any public debate whatsoever. In Switzerland too, the government wanted to ram this infamous Agenda ID2020 through without any public debate. However, the swiss still have the constitutional right to a referendum
In his first publicly acknowledged military act as commander-in-chief, President Joe Biden orders an assault on Syria, and proves that when it comes to solving the many problems of the region, he’s no better than Trump, or Obama.
The mainstream media have inaccurately reported that Pfizer’s and Moderna’s new COVID-19 vaccine trials found no potential risk of Bell’s palsy, a condition that causes the faces of patients to be paralyzed and droop on one side.
The CDC has done another data dump today into the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a U.S. Government funded database that tracks injuries and deaths caused by vaccines.
The scary red numbers are all going down. Check any newspaper or covid tracking website you want. Cases. Deaths. Hospitalisations. They’re all going down, sharply, and have been for weeks, especially in the US and UK. So, why would that be?
It is India, not Pakistan with the oldest and fastest growing nuclear program. India enjoys the leverage over Pakistan regarding fissile material estimates because it started its fissile material production more than two decades earlier than that of Pakistan.
For the Romans, the month of March (Martius) marked “the time to start new military campaigns.” As in the heyday of the Roman Empire, the Pentagon has a mandate to plan and implement a precise “timeline” of military operations.
We’re seeing a surge of patients come to the hospital from the nursing homes after getting vaxed. These poor folks, in their 80s and 90s with chronic heart and lung disease, can’t handle the metabolic stimulation caused by the COVID vax.
Via a Monday Twitter post, President Joe Biden made an unqualified assertion that the experimental coronavirus vaccines, which are not even vaccines under the normal meaning of vaccines, the United States government is encouraging Americans to take are “safe” for everyone.
Forget Al-Qaeda, Washington has a new domestic enemy in town and they are called the White Supremacists. But the reality is that the new enemy is basically anyone who disagrees with the US government will be considered a terrorist.
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