Author: Blazingcatfur

Most provinces off to a painfully slow start giving third doses of the vaccine, and one expert warns that new variant will make things ‘pretty ugly’

Dr. Andrew Morris isn’t surprised by the surge in COVID cases across the country, up from an average of 2,500 a day a month ago to 4,100 on Dec. 13. “I’ve been saying for a long, long time that we would be getting into this situation,” says the Toronto-based infectious disease specialist, “and there is no plausible situation where we will not have the same experience as Europe.”

Morris, who is medical director of the Sinai Health System-University Health Network Antimicrobial Stewardship Program, is referring to soaring case counts on the continent a few months ago. In Canada, he says, “we’ve been fooling ourselves to think we could avoid this, and it’s been put on steroids because of Omicron.”

Police in Germany’s eastern state of Saxony have launched a series of raids after death threats were made against Premier Michael Kretschmer for backing coronavirus measures.

Far-right anti-vaccination activists are suspected of plotting violence with crossbows or other “piercing weapons”.

Saxony has the lowest Covid vaccine take-up in Germany.

Last year Mr Kretschmer warned of Covid “hysteria” but he later apologised and has since backed strict measures.

OTTAWA — The Federal Court is scheduled to hear arguments today from four Canadian Armed Forces members facing disciplinary action for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Chief of the defence Gen. Wayne Eyre ordered all Armed Forces members to be vaccinated by the end of November or face remedial measures, including possible dismissal from the military. That deadline has since been extended to Dec. 18.

Ministers may claim that ever-tightening Covid rules are proportionate and reasonable, but if enough members of the public disagree, then the government could have a real problem on its hands. Non-compliance to another lockdown wouldn’t need to be rampant: if even 10 per cent decide not to adhere it could blow a hole in lockdown’s effectiveness.

Last month, Professor Chris Whitty expressed concern over ‘behavioural fatigue’. At the weekend, senior behavioural experts questioned the government’s prospects of successfully imposing new measures after ‘party-gate’. One told The Observer that ‘trust has been eroded to a very significant level… If you don’t trust the government, why would you do what [it] asked you to do?’

The attacks on free speech and science are unrelenting. Academic publisher Elsevier’s suppression of an article documenting the myocarditis risk of the COVID-19 vaccines, with no excuse or pretext offered, is incredible enough. Viewed alongside Twitter’s censorship of the American Heart Association, YouTube’s suppression of a panel discussion of vaccine mandates on Capitol Hill, and the Orwellian call by National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins for critics of the government’s COVID-19 policies to be “brought to justice,” the trend is positively chilling.