A viral video shows a Candian teacher named Marlene Brod, who has been teaching students for almost 35 years, leaving her school after allegedly being fired for refusing to get a COVID-19 rapid test as required by the district.
Brod tearfully broke down when asked why she was leaving the school early on Thursday.
Fewer than 6% of people in Africa are vaccinated. For months, the WHO has described Africa as “one of the least affected regions in the world” in its weekly pandemic reports.
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — At a busy market in a poor township outside Harare this week, Nyasha Ndou kept his mask in his pocket, as hundreds of other people, mostly unmasked, jostled to buy and sell fruit and vegetables displayed on wooden tables and plastic sheets. As in much of Zimbabwe, here the coronavirus is quickly being relegated to the past, as political rallies, concerts and home gatherings have returned.
“COVID-19 is gone, when did you last hear of anyone who has died of COVID-19?” Ndou said. “The mask is to protect my pocket,” he said. “The police demand bribes so I lose money if I don’t move around with a mask.” Earlier this week, Zimbabwe recorded just 33 new COVID-19 cases and zero deaths, in line with a recent fall in the disease across the continent, where World Health Organization data show that infections have been dropping since July.
Ontario reports 793 new COVID-19 cases, 4 more deaths
Ontario is reporting nearly 800 new COVID-19 cases and four more deaths on Friday as Health Canada approved a vaccine for children aged five and up.
Provincial health officials logged 793 new infections today, up from 711 on Thursday and a notable rise from 598 a week ago.
Canada authorizes first COVID-19 vaccine for kids
OTTAWA — Health Canada has authorized the first COVID-19 vaccine for children, giving the regulatory green light to Pfizer-BioNTech’s two-dose vaccine.
Children ages five to 11 are now eligible to receive this vaccine, with officials expected to outline later Friday morning more about prioritization and the logistics of immunizing this younger age demographic.
And Austria goes full lockdown – makes the Jab mandatory
Things are not so great in Germany either … Bavaria cancels Christmas markets and will impose local lockdowns
The service says it’s been inundated with complaints from a group of teachers that argue the requirement to prove vaccination at the Toronto District School Board and the Toronto Catholic District School Board is tantamount to extortion — and asking that the reports stop.
BREAKING: Pfizer says the Biden Administration will buy 10 Million COVID pills for $5 Billion pic.twitter.com/g8vfLwsptu
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) November 18, 2021
Maff plz, and let’s see how well this ages:
Pfizer’s pill, which will be sold under the brand name Paxlovid, cut the risk of hospitalization or death by 89 percent when given within three days after the start of symptoms.
Cities imposing vaccine requirements on public employees are making their police-retention problems worse—and endangering public safety.
In recent weeks, police unions, in step with thousands of police officers in major American cities, have vigorously resisted and protested vaccine mandates, leading to the possibility that many departments will soon face crippling labor shortages. While providing questionable public-health benefits, mandates thus threaten to make the problem of rising violent crime even worse.
Germany is planning to impose a lockdown on the unvaccinated. The move, if implemented, follows Austria’s lockdown measures that exclusively apply to those who have not taken the COVID-19 vaccine.
Coming soon to a Canada near you.
h/t Marvin
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asked a federal judge on Nov. 15 to give it until the year 2076 to fully release the documents in its possession tied to the approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
The FDA’s request was made in a filing as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit by a medical transparency group. The government told the court it has 329,000 pages of documents responsive to the FOIA request and proposed releasing 500 pages per month to allow for redactions of exempt material. At that rate, the FDA would fully release the records in question in just under 55 years.
h/t SDMatt, Ingenui
Ont. reports more than 700 new COVID-19 cases, highest single-day total since late Sept.
Ontario is reporting more than 700 new COVID-19 infections today, the highest daily case count recorded in the province in nearly two months.
Provincial health officials logged 711 new COVID-19 cases today, up from 512 on Wednesday and 642 one week ago.
Canada to drop negative PCR test requirement for shorter cross-border trips
The federal government is expected to announce later this week it is dropping the negative PCR test requirement for Canadians returning from the U.S. for any trip less than 72 hours.
The policy change will cover both citizens and permanent residents. It is expected the new rules will come into effect at the end of November or early December.
COVID-19: Germany considers re+strictions for unvaccinated people amid warning of ‘really terrible Christmas’ as cases surge
“The current pandemic situation in Germany is dramatic, I can’t say it any other way,” Mrs Merkel said on Wednesday.
“The fourth wave is hitting our country with full force.”
Authorities are considering bringing in added curbs to halt the virus, particularly as Germany is lagging behind on jab rates, with nearly 68% of the population fully vaccinated – lower than the average in Western Europe.
According to the Justice Centre For Constitutional Freedoms, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has passed Bill 10, titled the Alberta Public Health(Emergency Powers) Amendment Act.
Incredibly, the bill provides unprecedented powers to any government minister at the stroke of a pen. The passing of the bill means that under the Alberta Public Health Act, MLA’s can create, implement and enforce news laws–without the law being approved by the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.
Germany on Wednesday reported record levels of COVID-19 cases as the country faces a virulent fourth wave of the pandemic that has taken hold since late October.
The country’s public health agency, the Robert Koch Institute, reported 52,826 new cases of coronavirus infection in the past 24 hours, the highest rate registered since the pandemic began in early 2020. That represents an increase of 13,150 cases compared with the same day a week ago.
The seven-day incidence rate measuring cases per 100,000 people also reached a record high of 319.5, up from 312.4 the day before. The death toll from COVID-related causes rose in 24 hours by 294 to 98,274.
Despite the high infection rate, the death toll still remains below that at the peak of the pandemic in December 2020 owing largely to the fact that around two-thirds of the population is vaccinated.
On top of this, the Parliamentary Press Gallery has made no attempt to fight this ruling. The secretary of the Press Gallery said that “we’re not the ones making it impossible.”
h/t Marvin
“Those pupils who were exempt from wearing a mask last academic year will once again be exempt and should wear a yellow badge,” states the email.
Early in the pandemic, I had been furiously writing articles about lockdowns. My phone rang with a call from a man named Dr. Rajeev Venkayya. He is the head of a vaccine company but introduced himself as former head of pandemic policy for the Gates Foundation.
Now I was listening.
I did not know it then, but I’ve since learned from Michael Lewis’s (mostly terrible) book The Premonition that Venkayya was, in fact, the founding father of lockdowns. While working for George W. Bush’s White House in 2005, he headed a bioterrorism study group. From his perch of influence – serving an apocalyptic president — he was the driving force for a dramatic change in U.S. policy during pandemics.
Ont. reports 512 new COVID-19 cases, 12 more deaths
Ontario is reporting more than 500 new COVID-19 infections today as daily case counts continue to rise week-over-week.
Provincial health officials logged 512 new cases today, up from 481 on Tuesday and 454 last Wednesday.
‘Breakthrough’ infections complicate COVID-19 response, disrupt workforce
COVID-19 breakthrough infections are increasing as vaccine effectiveness rates drop below 50% and the winter virus season fast approaches, threatening the vulnerable and promising more workforce disruption amid a nationwide labor shortage.
The surge is forcing President Biden and governors to fight the pandemic on two fronts ahead of the holidays, trying to persuade skeptics to get vaccinated while using booster shots to backfill immunity in those who came forward early in the rollout but now have waning antibodies.
