Tag: covid-19

Yelp Removes Reviews Critical of Vaccine Mandates

Yelp is removing negative reviews of businesses that support vaccine mandates and passports.

In a press release, Yelp said it was monitoring business that are “requiring vaccinations for employees and/or customers” and are removing reviews critical of that policy.

“For businesses that activate ‘Proof of vaccination required’ and ‘All staff fully vaccinated’ on their Yelp page, we are putting protective measures in place to proactively safeguard them from reviews that primarily criticize the COVID health and safety measures they enforce,” Yelp stated.

Interestingly, in the very next sentence, Yelp equated its policy to fighting racism.

“We put a similar system in place when we launched our Black-owned attribute in June 2020, and followed the same process for our other identity attributes, such as Latinx-owned, Asian-owned, and LGBTQ-owned,” Yelp continued. “By proactively monitoring business pages that activated these identity attributes for any hateful, racist or other harmful content that violates our Content Guidelines, we thwarted and removed nearly 400 reviews for containing harmful content.”

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Moderna Wants to Transform the Body Into a Vaccine-Making Machine

Almost every antiviral vaccine ever sold works in a similar way: A dead or weakened virus, or a piece of one, is introduced into a healthy person. The weakened virus stimulates the immune system to generate antibodies, protecting the person when the real pathogen threatens to infect them.

Over the decades, this tried-and-true approach has vanquished polio, eradicated smallpox, and reined in chicken pox, measles, and mumps. But vaccine production has never been simple or fast. Many flu vaccines are still grown in chicken eggs. Newer approaches draw on genetic engineering to eliminate the need for whole viruses, but their viral proteins are still grown inside live cells.

The coronavirus vaccines from Moderna Inc., in Cambridge, Mass., and its German rival BioNTech SE propose to immunize people in a radically different way: by harnessing human cells to become miniature vaccine factories in their own right. Instead of virus proteins, the vaccines contain genetic instructions that prompt the body to produce them. Those instructions are carried via messenger RNA, or mRNA.

Moderna’s mRNA-1273 consists of a strand of mRNA that tells the body to produce the spike protein the coronavirus uses to latch onto human cells. The strand is like one side of a zipper; the “teeth” are a sequence of chemical letters that cells read to produce the 1,273 amino acids that make up the spike protein. If the vaccine works as intended, the body will start producing the proteins soon after injection, prompting the immune system to react and build up protective antibodies against them.

The great advantages of mRNA vaccines are speed and flexibility. No finicky live cells or hard-to-handle viruses are needed, and the basic chemistry is straightforward. Moderna’s vaccine reached Phase I human trials on March 16, only 63 days after the company began developing it. And at 6:43 a.m. on July 27, the first volunteer in Moderna’s 30,000-person, final-stage efficacy trial in the U.S. received an injection. Less than 12 hours later, BioNTech and its partner, Pfizer Inc., said they, too, were beginning a late-stage trial, a study that will be conducted in the U.S., Brazil, and several other countries. They took advantage of mRNA’s rapid-response capability to create four slightly different vaccines, which they compared in initial trials before selecting the best one for large-scale testing.

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Guests forced to delete photos and videos of maskless Obama at boozy birthday party

Despite COVID-19 cases soaring in recent weeks, due much in part to the highly contagious delta variant that has the U.S. averaging over 100,000 new cases per day, former President Barack Obama went forward with his celebrity-laden birthday party in Massachusetts on Saturday. A few photos and videos were leaked out to the public from the swanky soirée, which show a maskless Obama dancing with his guests, who also did not wear face coverings.

Obama’s birthday bash was held in massive tents on his spacious estate in Martha’s Vineyard in Dukes County, which was designated as a “high transmission” area for COVID-19 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. High transmission communities fall under the CDC’s updated guidance recommending that masks be worn indoors, even by people who are fully vaccinated.

Singer Erykah Badu was performing at the former president’s 60th birthday party, but managed to record a video of maskless Obama dancing with a woman and other attendees who were not wearing face coverings. Badu uploaded the video to Instagram, but then quickly deleted it. But she didn’t manage to delete it quick enough and the footage was shared online.

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Obama’s ‘Superspreader’ Party STILL Hasn’t Ended

Despite claims that the event would be ‘scaled back’, Barack Obama’s massive party has continued for three days straight, prompting more accusations of hypocrisy and ‘one rule for thee and another for me’ from everyday Americans who are not allowed to hold gatherings with their own friends and families.

As noted at the weekend, Obama was seen partying with hundreds of people, the vast majority ignoring any kind of restrictions as the Secret Service set up a no-fly zone over his mansion.

Photos and videos leaked from the event, despite a ban on them.

The Daily Mail reports that the party at Martha’s Vineyard with hundreds of guests and scores of servants continued throughout the weekend, and wasn’t just restricted to one night.

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Fact check: Hospitals get paid more if patients listed as COVID-19, on ventilators

Sen. Scott Jensen, R-Minn., a physician in Minnesota, was interviewed by “The Ingraham Angle” host Laura Ingraham on April 8 on Fox News and claimed hospitals get paid more if Medicare patients are listed as having COVID-19 and get three times as much money if they need a ventilator.

The claim was published April 9 by The Spectator, a conservative publication. WorldNetDaily shared it April 10 and, according to Snopes, a related meme was shared on social media in mid-April.

Jensen took it to his own Facebook page April 15, saying, in part:

“How can anyone not believe that increasing the number of COVID-19 deaths may create an avenue for states to receive a larger portion of federal dollars. Already some states are complaining that they are not getting enough of the CARES Act dollars because they are having significantly more proportional COVID-19 deaths.”

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Bill Gates Smiles When Suggesting the Nonvaccinated Should Be Withheld Their Social Security Benefits

Wow was this weird.  Bill Gates acts like he is some sort of COVID king and smiles when it’s suggested that the elderly should be withheld their social security checks if they refuse to get vaccinated.  

In a recent tweet of an interview, Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, acts like he is President and king of COVID.  He smiles when it’s suggested that the elderly should be withheld their social security checks until they get vaccinated with the COVID vaccine.

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Chinese City Offers $15,000 Reward For Snitching On Gatherings

Officials in Tai’an city, in China’s coastal Shandong Province, paid a resident $15,000 on Aug. 3. The individual reported a company group training in a hotel on July 30, according to local state media.

Authorities said organizers didn’t report the 12-day training to the local government, and its attendees came from several cities across China. After the attendees’ tests came back negative, they were ordered back to their homes.

It is the latest of a number of regions to introduce cash incentives as part of a recent campaign to battle the new outbreak. Authorities in cities, counties, districts, and even the lowest government level—neighborhood committees— from at least eight provinces announced financial rewards to members of the public for providing tip-offs about the CCP virus. The latest outbreak started in Nanjing city, with nine airport cleaners infected on July 20.

A neighborhood committee in Yangzhou city announced residents could receive a $310 reward if they reported others who had traveled from infected areas or had close contact with confirmed cases. A district office in the city offered to pay people $775 for providing information, and would double the reward if the case is confirmed, according to state news outlet ThePaper.cn.

Yangzhou, about one and a half hours drive from Nanjing, has become the latest hotspot, reporting 32 cases on Wednesday. Although this figure likely does not reflect the actual total, given that the Chinese regime is known for grossly underreporting its virus numbers, it accounted for almost half of the 73 confirmed across the country on Wednesday.

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Australian Officials Issue Soviet-Style COVID Broadcasts: Begin Turning in Your Neighbors Now

In the Australian state of New South Wales, residents are dealing with an outbreak of the COVID-19 delta variant so serious that the top elected state official is urging citizens to rat on one another. Things are so dire that its top public health official wants you to stop having conversations with other people.

And who could blame them? After all, the state — Australia’s most populous and home to Sydney — reported 321 new cases on Saturday.

No, I’m not missing a zero or three there. On Aug. 6, 321 people tested positive for coronavirus. According to government data, 81 lives have been lost in NSW so far during the pandemic.

And yet, parts of the state are currently in nearly total lockdown, with stay-at-home orders for the Greater Sydney area and people only able to leave their home if they “have a reasonable excuse” — including obtaining food, going to work, getting medical treatment and exercising, according to the state government website.

No visitors to your residence unless you live alone — in which case, you can have a “nominated visitor,” provided they aren’t a nominated visitor for someone else. Places of worship aren’t open to the public. Outdoor gatherings are limited to two people. Most retail outlets are closed.

And for rule-breakers, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is encouraging citizens to turn them in.

“Can I also stress that people should expect a greater police presence, a greater focus on compliance because we know the recurring incidents where the disease is transferring — it’s in workplaces and it’s within households,” she said on July 27, after the lockdown was extended another month.

“We really need people to do the right thing at all times.”

“Do not let your guard down. If you see somebody not doing the right thing, please, report it,” she said. “When any of us see anything which is not according to the health rules, or you see even in your own workplace, report it.

“We can’t put up with people continuing to do the wrong thing because it’s setting us all back.”

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