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.
Ontario reports 1,808 new COVID-19 cases; 9 new deaths
Ontario reported its highest COVID-19 case count in more than six months on Wednesday, with active cases now up about 50 per cent in one week.
Ontario reported 1,429 new cases on Tuesday and 1,536 on Monday.
Canada to advise citizens against non-essential international travel due to Omicron variant
The federal government will advise Canadians against non-essential travel to foreign countries, as Canada attempts to limit the spread of the Omicron variant, according to two government sources.
The sources, who CTV News are not identifying because they were not authorized to speak about the new restrictions, say the non-essential travel recommendation will likely be announced Wednesday.
… Another measures being considered by the federal government is banning foreign nationals from entering Canada outright, but sources tell CTV News the federal government is unlikely implement it at this point.
Omicron driving up Canada’s R value at ‘unprecedented’ rate.
The transmissibility of the Omicron COVID-19 variant in Canada — where it may soon become the dominant strain — is seen as potentially problematic by infectious disease specialists.
In Ontario, the only province that has tracked its reproductive rate (R value), the variant is infecting almost four times as many people as the Delta variant.
There seems to be an underlying presumption here that the unvaccinated are unclean (regardless of natural immunity) and their presence will spread disease. What if, however, existing studies reveal that there is little to no difference between the COVID vaccinated and unvaccinated in terms of becoming infected, harboring the virus (viral load in the oral and nasopharynx), and transmitting it?
Despite the Canadian government having awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to North American manufacturers, Parliament Hill has been giving out masks made in China to MPs, their executive assistants and other employees.
As some people have now been vaccinated for more than half a year, evidence is pouring in about Covid vaccine efficacy. When evaluating vaccine efficacy, it is important to distinguish between efficacy against infection, symptomatic disease, and transmission versus efficacy against hospitalization and death. For infection and symptomatic disease, the COVID-19 vaccines are not as efficacious as hoped, with immunity gradually waning after a few months. For hospitalization and death, immunity is stronger, lasting for at least six months.
The gestalt of the findings implies that the infection explosion globally that we have been experiencing– post double vaccination in e.g. Israel, UK, US etc. –may be due to the vaccinated spreading Covid as much or more than the unvaccinated.
The head of the Ontario Hospital Association says hospitals in the province are moving to urgently reactivate mass vaccination programs as the Omicron variant – the most contagious COVID-19 variant discovered so far – quickly moves to become the dominant variant in the province.
Preliminary data indicate that the new omicron COVID-19 variant is apparently highly contagious, doubling infections every two days or so. In addition, early U.S. data find that the virus variant can cause breakthrough infections in people who have received two and even a third booster dose of current COVID-19 vaccines. The good news from a new South African study is that while two shots of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine provide 33 percent protection against infection from the omicron variant, the inoculation offers 70 percent protection against being hospitalized from it.
After all, what’s the worst that could happen?
The Covid-19 pandemic has sparked “chaos” and “turmoil” stemming not only from the “lacking knowledge” about the transmissibility and danger of the virus itself, but from the will of the super-rich to “snatch an opportunity to bring people in line,” Gerhard Ludwig Mueller said in an interview with Austria’s St. Boniface Institute last week. He is a high-ranking judge at the Vatican court.
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.
Renaldo Agostino has gotten used to the roller coaster ride that is the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Windsor entrepreneur, owner of Turbo Espresso Bar and events company Element Entertainment, is familiar with the negative impacts lockdowns have on his businesses, and the benefits loosened restrictions bring.
But with the Omicron variant spreading in Canada, and with some jurisdictions moving to impose restrictions to limit its impact, Agostino is readying to ride another wave.
Not sure the Government has the stomach to impose another lockdown but you never know…
Top health official says that province may need ‘consistent’ approach to public health measures amid threat posed by Omicron
Speaking with reporters, Moore said that Omicron is likely to account for 100 per cent of Ontario’s new COVID-19 cases by the end of the month and that there will need to be “a discussion in the coming days about what additional measures we may need” to protect Ontarians.
“It does appear to be much more transmissible than Delta and much quicker spread, almost with a doubling time of two to three days. I’m sure you’re hearing that from many of the science table analysts and scientists and it is a threat and we need to urgently understand its severity and potential impact on the health system,” he said of the new variant. “But we do want a consistent approach if measures are put in play across Ontario.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci sat down with “Meta” CEO Mark Zuckerberg and finally said out loud what many people have been warning for over a year about the rushed mRNA vaccines: They may actually make the Covid pandemic worse.
Atlantic opinion columnist David Frum is sick and tired of this pandemic and all of the disruptions it’s causing for everyone. That’s a position that most sensible people could agree with, I’m sure. He just wants things to get back to normal. But with these new variants cropping up and government mandates still being issued, how do we go about that? Frum offered up what he clearly saw as a “reasonable” list of options this weekend, leading to some rather swift blowback on social media.
Merry white coat supremacy Christmas, everybody.
“Anyone on your team conducting gain of function studies, recombination studies or any other studies that may have resulted in the creation of the nCoV?” That was James LeDuc, director of the Galveston National Laboratory (GNL) in a February 9, 2020 email to Juan Zhiming at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China. LeDuc, who earned a PhD in epidemiology from UCLA, had trained staff at the WIV, yet the GNL boss had little clue what was going on there.
“Where is coronavirus research conducted?” LeDuc wanted to know. “What level of biocontainment? How many different laboratories actually handle live virus? Where are coronavirus stocks stored?” In addition, “When was the nCoV first handled in your laboratory? What was the source of that virus?” and “what are the coronaviruses in your possession that are most closely related to nCoV based on genetic sequences and are able to replicate in culture?”
