“I think people feel like if you’re not going to the brick and mortar school then you don’t need to have the immunizations but that’s incorrect,” Fairfax County Health Department worker Shauna Severo told NBC 4 in Washington.
Health officials claim that in Virginia students need to have their shots to attend class whether virtual or not.
We detailed earlier that a number of US universities will enforce mandatory COVID-19 tests for all students wishing to return to campus through the Fall semester — with some lately announcing that this will be at a rate of two nasal swabs per week — which is a policy, no doubt uncomfortable for those having to endure such “routine” swabs, also appearing among companies for on-site personnel.
And in many parts of the country, cities and counties currently have mask laws requiring them in all public spaces. Given that over the past months the race has been on to develop and fast-track a coronavirus vaccine, the logical next step will be that students and employees provide proof they’ve received the vaccine before returning to work or school. Naturally, the idea of fast-tracking this process also amid a deeply politically charged climate has people concerned. And they should be, if Bill Gates’ latest appearance on CBS is any indicator of where things stand.
British veteran journalist Neil Clark had this reaction to the Bill Gates interview, which came days ago: When anyone tries to gaslight you by calling you a ‘crank’ , a ‘tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist’ or ‘Flat Earther’ for having perfectly legitimate & sensible concerns over a rushed through ‘Coronavirus’ vaccine & its side effects, just send them this.
Even the mainstream media correspondent giving the interview appeared momentarily exasperated and incredulous that Bill Gates shrugged off credible reports of side effects as ultimately no big deal. When the anchor pressed him again on the safety of the vaccine, his answer appeared to be simply, trust us. Gates was asked:
Side effects from the Moderna vaccine sound concerning… we looked. After the second dose at least 80% of participants experienced a systemic side effect, ranging from severe chills to fevers. So are these vaccines safe?
“The FDA, not being pressured, will look hard at that,” Gates said, addressing the issue of possible side effects. “The FDA is the gold standard of regulators, and their current guidance on this — if they stick with that — is very very appropriate.”
Gates even goes on to candidly acknowledge the likelihood of side effects from the vaccine, which he admitted would “improve” over time. Does this sound comforting? Add to this that as part of his explanation he argues that for a vaccine to be effective it would have to be administered to the population on a mass scale, and globally:
“If what you’re trying to do is block all the transmission, then you need to get 70-80% coverage on a global basis. So it’s unbelievably big numbers,” he said.
Gates, who has been warning about the threat of a global pandemic since 2015, admitted that “there will be a lot of uncertainty” about the efficacy of any vaccine, but stressed that it’s a solution “that will improve over time.”
White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Monday he is “not particularly concerned” about the safety risk of a potential coronavirus vaccine by Moderna, despite the fact that it uses new technology to fight the virus.
The vaccine, which entered a large phase-three human trial Monday, uses messenger ribonucleic acid, or mRNA molecules, to provoke an immune response to fight the virus. Scientists hope mRNA, which relays genetic instructions from DNA, can be used to train the immune system to recognize and destroy the virus. While early studies show promise, mRNA technology has never been used to make a successful vaccine before.
“It’s a novel technology. We are certainly aware of the fact that there’s not as much experience with this type of platform as there are with other standards,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told reporters on a conference call alongside National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins.
With the race to find a vaccine for COVID-19 in full effect, biotech executives and other insiders from at least 11 companies have made hand over fist – raking in over $1 billion in stock sales after announcing positive developments, according to the New York Times.
In some cases, company insiders are profiting from regularly scheduled compensation or automatic stock trades. But in other situations, senior officials appear to be pouncing on opportunities to cash out while their stock prices are sky high. And some companies have awarded stock options to executives shortly before market-moving announcements about their vaccine progress. -NYT
On Monday, vaccine researchers from Oxford University and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca announced results from a “Phase 1/2 trial,” suggesting their product might be able to generate immunity without causing serious harm. Similar, but smaller-scale results, were posted just last week for another candidate vaccine produced by the biotech firm Moderna, in collaboration with the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
As both these groups and others push ahead into the final phase of testing, it’s vital that the public has a clear and balanced understanding of this work—one that cuts through all the marketing and hype. But we’re not off to a good start. The evidence so far suggests that we’re getting blinkered by these groups’ PR, and so seduced by stories of their amazing speed that we’re losing track of everything else. In particular, neither the mainstream media nor the medical press has given much attention to the two vaccines’ potential downsides—in particular, their risk of nasty adverse effects, even if they’re not life-threatening. This sort of puffery doesn’t only help to build a false impression; it may also dry the tinder for the future spread of vaccine fear-mongering.
Hellbound and Down 
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