Tag: pandemic

Operation Warp Speed Is Using A CIA-Linked Contractor To Keep Covid-19 Vaccine Contracts Secret

$6 billion in Covid-19 vaccine contracts awarded by Operation Warp Speed have been doled out by a secretive government contractor with deep ties to the CIA and DHS, escaping regulatory scrutiny and beyond the reach of FOIA requests.

Last Tuesday, while most Americans were distracted by the first US presidential debate, NPR quietly reported that the US government’s Operation Warp Speed, a public-private partnership launched by the Trump administration to rapidly develop and distribute a Covid-19 vaccine, had taken the unusual step of awarding contracts to vaccine companies, not directly, but through a secretive defense contractor.

Though NPR named thedefense contractor—South Carolina–based Advanced Technology International—they declined to explore the company’s deep ties to the CIA, Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense and how ATI is helping to lead those agencies’ efforts to militarize health care and create a surveillance panopticon that not only monitors the world around us but our physiology as well.

The “secret” vaccine contracts awarded through ATI as part of Warp Speed total approximately $6 billion, accounting for the majority of Operation Warp Speed’s $10 billion budget. Both Paul Mango, Health and Human Services’ deputy chief of staff for policy, and Robert Kadlec, HHS assistant secretary for preparedness and response (ASPR), personally signed off on the contracts.

Operation Warp Speed, which officially involves the combined efforts of HHS and the military to deliver over 300 million Covid-19 vaccines to Americans by next January, is a highly secretive program dominated by military personnel, most of whom have no experience in health care or vaccine production. The Trump administration has often compared Warp Speed to the Manhattan Project, which produced the atomic bomb.

Several very unsettling revelations about the true nature and scope of Warp Speed, including the out-sized role of ATI, began to emerge starting last Monday. Yet, most of this new information was not covered by US news outlets due to the media frenzy surrounding the first presidential debate and the subsequent news that President Trump and several other politicians and White House officials had tested positive for Covid-19.

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COVID-19 vaccine trial participants report aches, fevers and chills

Some participants for leading COVID-19 vaccine trials have reported experiencing grueling side effects after receiving the shot — such as high fever, body aches, headaches and exhaustion.

Five participants — three in Moderna’s study and two in Pfizer’s late-stage trials — said the uncomfortable side effects usually went away within a day, but some were surprised by how severe they were, CNBC reported.

“If this proves to work, people are going to have to toughen up,” one of the Moderna participants, a North Carolina woman in her 50s who declined to be identified, told the outlet.

“The first dose is no big deal. And then the second dose will definitely put you down for the day for sure. … You will need to take a day off after the second dose.”

She said she didn’t experience a fever but had a bad migraine that left her exhausted and struggling to focus, the outlet reported. But the next day, she woke up feeling better after taking Excedrin.

While she was uncomfortable, the side effects outweigh the risks of becoming infected with the virus, she said.

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Will the Pandemic Panic Card Win in 2020?

“People want to be safe,” Joe Biden repeatedly declared in Tuesday night’s debate. The 2020 presidential race could turn into a referendum on whether vastly increasing government power can provide “freedom from fear.” This has been a recurring theme in recent American history that consistently brings out the worst in both politicians and voters. 

The 2020 presidential campaign thus far has plenty of unpleasant parallels to 9/11 and the 2004 election. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 were the biggest intelligence failure by U.S. government agencies since Pearl Harbor. The Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation ignored bushels of evidence of an international conspiracy and a bucket of warnings that Arabs with terrorist connections were receiving pilot training inside the U.S. Yet, after the attacks terrified the nation, polls speedily showed a doubling in the percentage of Americans who trusted government to “do the right thing.” The media fanned this blind faith as if it was the high road to public safety. President George W. Bush exploited that credulity to seize far more power and to deceive the nation into war against Iraq. 

While Bush is now being lionized by the establishment media (thanks to his criticisms of Trump), few people recall that he ran the most fear-mongering presidential reelection campaign in modern American history. Bush 2004 campaign ads showed firemen carrying a flag-draped corpse from the rubble at Ground Zero in New York and a pack of wolves coming to attack home viewers as an announcer warned that “weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm.” One commentator suggested that the ad hinted that voters would be eaten by wolves if John Kerry won.

Just before 2004 Election Day a senior GOP strategist told the New York Daily News that “anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush.” People who saw terrorism as the biggest issue in the 2004 election voted for Bush by a 6 to 1 margin. Moises Naim, editor of Foreign Policy, observed that the Bush campaign was “using the fear factor almost exclusively. This is a highly researched decision with all the tools of public opinion management. It’s nothing but a reflection that it works.” 

Like the federal failures preceding the 9/11 attacks, the Covid pandemic was far more damaging because of testing and other blunders by the Centers for Disease Control and Food and Drug Administration. The World Health Organization spurred disastrous policies by forecasting a mortality that was 50 times higher than the rate the U.S. experienced. The pointless, punitive lockdowns imposed by governors and mayors disrupted hundreds of millions of American lives while doing little or nothing to curb the spread of the virus to seven million Americans. In the same way that Bush lionized federal agencies after 9/11 despite their failures to prevent the attacks, Biden and his media allies are pushing for blind faith in “data and science” – regardless of the debacles we have seen this year. 

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Yale Prof Calls Trump’s COVID Plan, “A Lazy Man’s Ethnic Cleansing”

Timothy Snyder, a Yale history professor, took to Twitter in early September to claim that COVID-19 is a “lazy man’s” ethnic cleansing.

In the Twitter thread, Snyder first tweeted, “Coronavirus in America: A lazy man’s ethnic cleansing #OurMalady #TrumpGenocide #TrumpLiedPeopleDied #TrumpKilledAmericans Kushner’s team: “because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically.”

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Mayor Bill de Blasio Announces Mask Patrols to Fine Offenders: ‘That Will Happen Aggressively’

Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) announced on Tuesday that the city will “aggressively” move to enforce mask mandates and fine those who refuse to wear a face covering.

The mayor spoke about the continued actions in the city to combat the Chinese coronavirus, citing hundreds of additional city agency personnel handing out masks, encouraging testing, and “pushing back against misinformation.”

De Blasio also announced an additional enforcement measure: mask patrols.

“Anyone who is not wearing a face covering will be offered one, will be reminded it is required, and anyone who refuses to wear a face covering will be told that if they don’t put one on they will be fined, and anyone who still refuses will be fined,” he explained, noting that it will “happen aggressively.”

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