Tag: covid-19

In Heavily Locked Down San Francisco, 360% More People Died from Overdoses Than COVID-19

Stay home, save lives. This is the mantra many Californians have repeated and lived by for the last 10 months as their governor instituted some of the most draconian measures in the country. Watching their economy turn to shambles as thousands of businesses close their doors forever is making some folks grow weary of the COVID-19 lockdowns, and rightfully so.

Earlier this month, the city of San Francisco issued an order shutting down outside play for kids at playgrounds. Seriously. Even dating is banned unless it’s done masked, outside, and kiss free.

According to the order, residents can “meet with 1 other person who doesn’t live with you” to take a walk, “hang out at the park,” and play low-contact sports, such as golf, tennis, pickleball and bocce ball. However, couples cannot share equipment.

It’s utterly ridiculous.

Countless San Franciscan businesses have closed their doors forever and the city, whose population is nearly 900,000 has seen less than 200 coronavirus deaths since the beginning of the pandemic — 173 to be exact.

While folks aren’t dying from COVID-19 very often in the area, there is definitely a spike in deaths, and it is staggering. A record 621 people as of December 19 have died of drug overdoses in San Francisco. That is 360% more deaths than COVID-19.

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A “Slap in the Face:” Anger at Pelosi, Democrats Over Paltry $600 Stimulus Check

Lawmakers in Washington agreed to a new $900 billion coronavirus stimulus package yesterday. The bill, like the previous CARES Act, appears to include huge new tax breaks for corporations and the very wealthy. However, of most note to average Americans is the means-tested check of up to $600 plus $600 per child that Republicans and Democrats decided on.

Although far less than the $1,200 checks mailed out to Americans in the spring, Democratic lawmakers are presenting the deal as a triumph. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York described it as “a strong, strong shot in the arm to get things going.” Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi agreed, although she blamed the GOP for holding the agreement up. “What took so long is because we could not get our Republican colleagues to crush the virus…Why would they not want to invest in the science?” she said at a press conference on Sunday.

The bill also includes a $300 boost to federal unemployment benefits (half of what it was six months ago) and a pause on evictions for an unspecified length of time.

Despite senior Democrats’ spin, it appeared that the primary public reaction to the deal was one of anger, judging by comments on social media. “Congress just decided you get $600. Add that to the $1,200 from March, and it totals $6.69 a day since the country shut down in March. Both parties don’t care if we live or die or sleep in a box on a sidewalk in January,” said Professor Anthony Zenkus of the Columbia School of Social Work. “This country sucks,” and “Congress is laughing at the $600. They don’t give a shit about you,” were also popular refrains. Others described the $600 as “a slap in the face” rather than a shot in the arm.

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COVID-19 Study of Almost Ten Million Finds No Evidence of Asymptomatic Spread, Media Quiet

An interesting article from the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) is gaining increased attention as questions about asymptomatic spread of COVID-19, the baseline for all COVID mitigation, is being reconciled with the latest tracing data.

In essence, the larger question being asked is: can people without coronavirus symptoms spread the COVID-19 virus?  This question is at the heart of all current COVID mitigation efforts.  If there is no asymptomatic spread then what is all of this mask wearing nonsense and shut-down mandates all about?

A research paper published on November 20th highlights a case study of almost 10 million people in China.  What the study found was there were 300 cases of Coronavirus in the population being carried without any symptoms at all.  So the scientists then tracked the asymptomatic carriers.  The contact tracing of 1,174 “close contacts” with the asymptomatic carriers showed ZERO transmission.  Not a few, not a couple, but zero -none-  not a single transmission of Coronavirus from a person without symptoms.

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Ten of the world’s richest people increase wealth by more than $450 billion during coronavirus pandemic

Ten of the richest people in the world have increased their vast wealth by more than $400bn during the coronavirus pandemic, new figures show.

The extra wealth accumulated by the 10 men – around $450bn – since the coronavirus pandemic began, has come as a result of social restrictions as people were trapped at home, and governments turned their attention towards more environmental power supplies.

As the public have been forced to order Christmas presents online after non-essential retailers closed for months, Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, has watched his wealth rocket by $70bn since March, according to the Guardian.

He is now worth a reported $185bn as hundreds of millions of people stuck at home turned to the online delivery giant to keep themselves fed and entertained.

Other members of the super-rich elite who have seen huge financial benefits during the crisis include: Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla; Bernard Arnault, the French billionaire who owns most of luxury brand portfolio LVMH; Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg; and Google’s Larry Page.

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Birx travels, family visits highlight pandemic safety perils

As COVID-19 cases skyrocketed before the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus response, warned Americans to “be vigilant” and limit celebrations to “your immediate household.”

For many Americans that guidance has been difficult to abide, including for Birx herself.

The day after Thanksgiving, she traveled to one of her vacation properties on Fenwick Island in Delaware. She was accompanied by three generations of her family from two households. Birx, her husband Paige Reffe, a daughter, son-in-law and two young grandchildren were present.

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CDC Issues New Guidelines, Launches Probe After 1000s Negatively-Affected Following COVID-19 Vaccination

As of Dec. 18, 3,150 people reported what the agency terms “Health Impact Events” after getting vaccinated.

The definition of the term is: “unable to perform normal daily activities, unable to work, required care from doctor or health care professional.”

As The Epoch Times’ Zachary Stieber reports, the people reporting the negative effects reported them through V-safe, a smartphone application. The tool uses text messages and web surveys to provide personalized health check-ins and allows users to quickly tell the CDC if they are experiencing side effects.

The CDC and Pfizer, which produces the vaccine with BioNTech, didn’t respond to request for comments.

The information was presented by Dr. Thomas Clark, a CDC epidemiologist, to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, an independent panel that provides recommendations to the agency, on Saturday.

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Russian scientist working on COVID-19 vaccine plummets to death in St. Petersburg

A prominent Russian scientist who was working on a COVID-19 vaccine was found dead with a stab wound after plummeting out his window in St. Petersburg, according to news reports.

Alexander “Sasha” Kagansky, 45, was in his underwear when he fell to his death from his 14th-floor apartment, according to the Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets.

The scientist also suffered a stab wound, police said.

Police believe there was a scuffle before Kagansky fell from the building, reports said.

Russian police say they are investigating Kagansky’s death as a possible homicide and questioning a 45-year-old man as a potential suspect, e2news.com said.

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DHS Works to Improve Biometric Scanning of Masked Faces

Perhaps the most-worn accessories of 2020, face masks mark an unexpected new constant in people’s lives providing necessary protection against COVID-19—but they’re also known to pose some trouble for contemporary facial recognition systems. 

The Homeland Security Department, one of the government’s biggest biometrics systems users, is now steering research to confront the complexities limiting existing technology and help push forward tools to safely verify people’s identities at security checkpoints in a pandemic.    

Initial results from one recent effort “are actually quite promising,” according to Arun Vemury, director of DHS’ Biometric and Identity Technology Center. 

“We’re getting to the point with this technology, where at least from the preliminary results, it looks like there’s some combinations of biometric acquisition systems, the camera systems and the matching algorithms—when you combine them together, you could match eight or nine out of 10 people without asking them to remove their masks,” Vemury told Nextgov during a recent interview. “This means that for the vast majority of people in airports, they might not have to remove their masks anymore to even go through the security checks, and we could do a really good job of still matching them. So, I think it’s very promising from that perspective. Is it 100%? Is it perfect? No. But it reduces the number of people who potentially have to take their masks off.”

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