Tag: pandemic

Contrary to What the Media is Telling You, Freedom Does Not Come from a Vaccine

“It’s science based. It’s sensible. You can hug your grandkids again. If you’ve been waiting to get a haircut, see the dentist, you can do that,” former CDC Director Tom Frieden told CNN.

The idea that people have refused to hug their children and grandchildren over the fear of contracting the COVID-19 virus is heartbreaking. But even more worrisome is the fact that the CDC thinks it can grant or revoke that “freedom” to folks based on whether or not they take the shot.

“We know that people want to get vaccinated so they can get back to doing the things they enjoy with the people they love,” said CDC Director Rochelle P. Walensky, in a statement last week. “There are some activities that fully vaccinated people can begin to resume now in the privacy of their own homes.”

Aside from the obvious problems of people thinking the government can tell them when and where they can see and hug their children and grandchildren, there is the underlying principle of freedom. Requiring a vaccine for “freedom” is exactly the opposite of “freedom.”

Whether or not you agree with an individual’s choice to vaccinate themselves is irrelevant. While there will likely be many folks cheering on the state in these situations of forced medication and the silencing of critics, how you feel personally about vaccines should never lead to a loss of freedom — for anyone. No person should be forced by government regulation or societal pressure to receive any medication or treatment, including vaccines, against his or her will. This is the very foundation of freedom.

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Italy opens manslaughter case after teacher dies hours after getting AstraZeneca vaccine

Prosecutors in Italy have launched a manslaughter investigation after a music teacher there died hours after getting the controversial AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.

Sandro Tognatti, 57, got jabbed in his hometown of Biella on Saturday afternoon and went to bed that night with a high fever, his wife, Simona Riussi, told Italian media.

She called an ambulance the next morning but the clarinetist could not be saved, she said.

Prosecutors in the northern Italian region of Piedmont opened the probe into his death later that day, according to the Italian wire service Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA).

They also seized nearly 400,000 shots of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the same batch.

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US “COVID Relief” Was Enough To Give Every Taxpayer $41,870 But We Got Peanuts Instead

President Biden just signed his sweeping $1.9 trillion spending package into law. Once this bill hits the books, total taxpayer expenditure on (ostensibly) COVID relief will hit $6 trillion—which, roughly estimated, comes out to $41,870 in spending per federal taxpayer.

Did you see anywhere near that much in benefit?

The sheer immensity of this spending is hard to grasp. For context, $6 trillion is more than one-fourth of what the US economy produces in an entire year, according to Fox Business. The COVID spending blowout is at least eight times bigger than the (inflation-adjusted) price tag of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “New Deal.”

Moreover, the COVID spending bills have all lost huge sums of money to unrelated carve-outs, politician pet projects, corporate bailouts, fraud, waste, and worse.

In the latest $1.9 trillion package, more than 90 percent of the spending is not directly related to containing COVID-19. Only 1 percent of the money, about $15 to $20 billion, is spent on vaccines. Meanwhile, hundreds of billions go to bailing out poorly managed state governments’ budget holes that predate the pandemic and $86 billion rescues failing pension plans. Meanwhile, billions more go to Obamacare expansion and subsidizing public schools long after the pandemic.

And that’s just scratching the surface.

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Internal memos show Calif. teachers contemplating using COVID funds for staff bonuses, trips to Hawaii

An activist group pushing to get schools reopened in California has obtained internal memos indicating several districts contemplated using state and federal COVID-19 relief money to fund bonuses and, in one case, a Hawaiian trip.

In one instance, memos which were shared online by “Reopen California Schools,” a Facebook group founded early on during the pandemic by Jonathan Zachreson, show that the Clovis Unified School District in Fresno County discussed using COVID funds for a “one-time payment to employees…given the extraordinary effort required of every employee over the course of the pandemic.”

“The $6K proposed teacher and staff bonus to be voted by the board this Wed. It was shared with us by someone part of the negotiations. This person is outraged they are offering $6k in bonuses, money which is supposed to go towards programs for students,” the group noted in a tweet.

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Ireland Suspends AstraZeneca Vaccine Amid Blood Clot Reports

Irish health officials on Sunday recommended the temporary suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine after reports of serious blood clotting after inoculations in Norway.

Dr. Ronan Glynn, Ireland’s deputy chief medical officer, said the recommendation was made after Norway’s medicines agency reported four cases of blood clotting in adults after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine.

He said that while there was no conclusive link between the vaccine and the cases, Irish health officials are recommending the suspension of the vaccine’s rollout as a precaution.

Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic authorities have taken similar precautionary steps. The World Health Organization and the European Union’s medicines regulator said earlier in the week that there was no link between the jab and an increased risk of developing a clot.

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