Tag: coronavirus

3 more Alaska health workers have adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccine, bringing total to 5

A Fairbanks health care worker was treated for a “probable” serious allergic reaction on Thursday after she received the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Foundation Health Partners care system.

Additionally, on Friday evening, Providence Alaska reported that two caregivers who received the COVID-19 vaccine experienced non-life-threatening, mild reactions.

In total, five Alaskans have experienced adverse reactions this week after receiving the vaccine. Two Bartlett Regional Hospital employees in Juneau experienced reactions after the vaccine, one serious and one mild.

Providence Alaska spokesman Mikal Canfield said that due to privacy laws, they could not provide additional information. Butthe three other health workers who experienced reactions to the vaccine all are doing well. None are still hospitalized, and the three workers have recommended that others continue to receive the vaccination — which is expected to be one of the most important tools in ending the pandemic, officials say.

The Fairbanks worker started to show what hospital officials described as “traditional anaphylactic symptoms,” including tongue swelling, voice hoarseness and difficulty breathing, roughly 10 minutes after getting vaccinated, Foundation Health Partners spokeswoman Kelly Atlee wrote in an emailed statement Friday morning.

She was taken to the Fairbanks Memorial Hospital emergency department and treated with epinephrine before being discharged six hours later. The worker does not have a history of allergies, but did have a reaction to a bee sting that was not confirmed as an allergic reaction, Atlee said. Thursday was the first anaphylactic event that the worker experienced.

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Anti-lockdown gym owner to ‘petty tyrant’ NJ governor: ‘The only way you’ll ever close these doors is when you close my casket’

“We have been open against unconstitutional shut down orders since May,” Smith wrote in a now-viral Instagram post over the weekend. “Not once have we flinched, and the petty tyrant of New Jersey governor Murphy has tried everything he could possibly think of to ruin us. Over seven months later we will open our doors every single day.”

He added: “No government official will ever tell me that I am not able to provide for my family. I do not answer to public servants – no matter what threats or punishments they impose. I am a free man. I do not ask for permission. I do not ask for forgiveness. You work for us. The only way you’ll ever close these doors is when you close my casket.”

The post comes with video in which Smith is seen holding up pieces of paper — which he presents to the camera and then discards one by one, “Subterranean Homesick Blues“-style — that send the same overall message.

“We have had our business license stripped,” the messages Smith holds aloft say. “We have had our doors locked and barricaded. We have been arrested and have over 60 citations.”

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WHO (finally) admits PCR tests create false positives

The World Health Organization released a guidance memo on December 14th, warning that high cycle thresholds on PCR tests will result in false positives.

While this information is accurate, it has also been available for months, so we must ask: why are they reporting it now? Is it to make it appear the vaccine works?

The “gold standard” Sars-Cov-2 tests are based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR). PCR works by taking nucleotides – tiny fragments of DNA or RNA – and replicating them until they become something large enough to identify. The replication is done in cycles, with each cycle doubling the amount of genetic material. The number of cycles it takes to produce something identifiable is known as the “cycle threshold” or “CT value”. The higher the CT value, the less likely you are to be detecting anything significant.

This new WHO memo states that using a high CT value to test for the presence of Sars-Cov-2 will result in false-positive results.

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Warned FDA About Ingredient in Pfizer COVID Vaccine that Likely Caused Life-Threatening Reaction in Two UK Healthcare Workers

On Dec. 2, Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) became the first in the world to approve a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Germany’s BioNTech and Pfizer.

A mass vaccination campaign that targeted frontline workers to receive the vaccine began on Dec. 8. Within 24 hours of launching the campaign, MHRA acknowledged two reports of anaphylaxis and one report of a possible allergic reaction.

Reuters reported late yesterday afternoon that an investigation into the anaphylactic reactions by MHRA has identified polyethylene glycol, or PEG, as the likely culprit.

Imperial College London’s Paul Turner, an expert in allergy and immunology who has been advising the MHRA on its revised guidance, told Reuters: “The ingredients like PEG which we think might be responsible for the reactions are not related to things which can cause food allergy. Likewise, people with a known allergy to just one medicine should not be at risk.”

It was also reported that PEG, which helps to stabilize the shot, is not in other types of vaccines.

The statements by Turner that “PEG is not in other types of vaccines” and that people with allergies to “just one medicine should not be at risk” are a failed attempt to provide false assurances and are patently untrue.

Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech and Arcturus Therapeutics COVID vaccines all utilize a never-before-approved messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, an experimental approach designed to turn the body’s cells into viral protein-making factories. This technology involves the use of lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) that encapsulate the mRNA to protect them from degradation and promote cellular uptake.

The LNP formulations in the three COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are “PEGylated,” meaning that the vaccine nanoparticles are coated with a synthetic, non-degradable and increasingly controversial PEG.

COVID mRNA vaccines are not the only vehicle for PEG involvement in COVID-19 vaccine production. Researchers at Germany’s Max Planck Institute report developing a process for COVID-19 vaccine production to purify virus particles at “high yield.” The process involves adding PEG to a virus-containing liquid and passing the liquid through membranes.

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Chicago-area hospital halts COVID vaccinations after 4 workers have adverse reactions

A north suburban hospital is temporarily pausing coronavirus vaccinations after four workers reported feeling adverse reactions.

Since Thursday, four team members at Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville experienced reactions shortly after receiving the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination. Their symptoms included tingling and elevated heartrates, the hospital said in a statement.

The hospital also noted that the four team members represent fewer than 0.15% of the approximately 3,000 who have so far received vaccinations across Advocate Aurora Health.

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Pandemic Lockdown Battles Offer Glimpses of Political Conflicts to Come

Across the country, government officials are tightening and reimposing curfews, stay-at-home orders, mask mandates, and other restrictions as COVID-19 numbers climb. But with public patience over lockdowns wearing thin, many individuals and local authorities openly reject rules that drive people to poverty and despair. County sheriffs in California, New York, North Dakota, Oregon and elsewhere say they’ll have nothing to do with enforcement efforts and spar with governors who resent such independence.

It’s the rebellious spirit of the earlier sanctuary city and Second Amendment sanctuary movements, amplified by the pressures of the pandemic into an eruption of what some legal scholars call “punitive federalism.” Get used to it, because our politically polarized era offers fresh soil for such dictates and defiance.

California’s revolt is especially widespread. “All told, over a third of Californians live in a county with a sheriff promising not to enforce the governor’s stay-at-home order,” Reason‘s Christian Britschgi pointed out this week. Ironically, when Gov. Gavin Newsom threatened to withhold funds from jurisdictions that ignore his dictates, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco snapped back that the governor was behaving just like President Trump, who California’s elected officials have criticized for using money in an effort to extract compliance.

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Andrew Yang Calls For Bar Codes to Identify People Who Have Been Vaccinated

Yang suggested that people could also be given bracelets before they’re allowed to “interact more freely,” while also suggesting those who don’t take the vaccine be denied entry to sports games and other events.

“Tough to have mass gatherings like concerts or ballgames without either mass adoption of the vaccine or a means of signaling,” said Yang.

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American Teenagers Jailed For 4 Months For Violating COVID-19 Quarantine Rules In Cayman Islands

Skylar Mack, 18, of Georgia, broke her two-week quarantine after two days because she wanted to watch her boyfriend, Vanjae Ramgeet — a 24-year-old jet ski racer from the Cayman Islands — compete in a local race on Nov. 29, People reported.

Under Cayman’s coronavirus guidelines, travelers are required to undergo a 14-day quarantine-in-residence upon arriving on the island.

Mack pled guilty to removing her geo-fencing bracelet and breaking quarantine for seven hours in order to watch her boyfriend compete in a local jet-ski race. He pled guilty to aiding and abetting her.

The couple was initially sentenced to a fine and community service by Magistrate Angelyn Hernandez.

However, Patrick Moran, the Director of Public Prosecutions for the Cayman Islands, appealed the sentence. He claimed it was too lenient and therefore, unlikely to deter others from breaching COVID guidelines.

Moran then sought prison terms for Mack and Ramgeet for the nonviolent transgression. Neither were infected with COVID-19 when Mack breached quarantine.

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