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Singapore probes unusual surge in COVID-19 cases after record
2021-10-28, Reuters
Posted: 2021-11-14 16:34:33
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/singapore-reports-highest-single-d...

Singapore is looking into an "unusual surge" of 5,324 new infections of COVID-19, the city-state's health ministry said, its highest such figure since the beginning of the pandemic, as beds in intensive care units fill up. Ten new deaths on Wednesday carried the toll to 349, after 3,277 infections the previous day, while the ICU utilisation rate is nearing 80%, despite a population that is 84% fully vaccinated, with 14% receiving booster doses. While nearly 98.7% of the past month's 90,203 cases had no symptoms, or only mild ones, about 0.2% of those had died, and 0.1% each were being monitored closely in intensive care units (ICU) or were critically ill and intubated there.

Note: If the vaccines are effective and Singapore is 84% vaccinated, why are they experiencing the highest surge ever of cases and why are their ICU’s 80% full? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.


How Fauci Fooled America
2021-11-01, Newsweek
Posted: 2021-11-07 15:33:46
https://www.newsweek.com/how-fauci-fooled-america-opinion-1643839

When the pandemic hit, America needed someone to turn to for advice. The media and public naturally looked to Dr. Anthony Fauci - the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Unfortunately, Dr. Fauci got major epidemiology and public health questions wrong. Reality and scientific studies have now caught up with him. By pushing vaccine mandates, Dr. Fauci ignores naturally acquired immunity among the COVID-recovered, of which there are more than 45 million in the United States. Mounting evidence indicates that natural immunity is stronger and longer lasting than vaccine-induced immunity. Under Fauci's mandates, hospitals are firing heroic nurses who recovered from COVID they contracted while caring for patients. While anyone can get infected, there is more than a thousand-fold difference in mortality risk between the old and the young. When confronted with the idea of focused protection of the vulnerable, Dr. Fauci admitted he had no idea how to accomplish it, arguing that it would be impossible. Instead, Dr. Fauci has pushed vaccine mandates for children, students and working-age adults who are already immune - all low-risk populations - causing tremendous disruption to labor markets and hampering the operation of many hospitals. Schools are major transmission points for influenza, but not for COVID. Considering the devastating effects of school closures on children, Dr. Fauci's advocacy for school closures may be the single biggest mistake of his career.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.


How Much Herd Immunity Is Enough?
2020-12-24, New York Times
Posted: 2021-11-07 15:31:47
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/health/herd-immunity-covid-coronavirus.html

At what point does a country achieve herd immunity? What portion of the population must acquire resistance to the coronavirus, either through infection or vaccination, in order for the disease to fade away and life to return to normal? Since the start of the pandemic, the figure that many epidemiologists have offered has been 60 to 70 percent. That range is still cited by the World Health Organization and is often repeated during discussions of the future course of the disease. Recently, a figure to whom millions of Americans look for guidance – Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, an adviser to both the Trump administration and the incoming Biden administration – has begun incrementally raising his herd-immunity estimate. In the pandemic's early days, Dr. Fauci tended to cite the same 60 to 70 percent estimate that most experts did. About a month ago, he began saying "70, 75 percent" in television interviews. And last week, in an interview with CNBC News, he said "75, 80, 85 percent" and "75 to 80-plus percent." In a telephone interview the next day, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts. He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks. Hard as it may be to hear, he said, he believes that it may take close to 90 percent immunity to bring the virus to a halt – almost as much as is needed to stop a measles outbreak. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers no herd immunity estimate, saying on its website that "experts do not know."

Note: Dr. Fauci here is admitting he deceived the public by stating lower numbers in order to manipulate the public into taking the vaccines. So how much can we trust him? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.


ERs are now swamped with seriously ill patients — but many don't even have COVID
2021-10-26, NPR
Posted: 2021-11-07 15:30:00
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/10/26/1046432435/ers-are-now-s...

Except for initial hot spots like New York City, many ERs across the U.S. were often eerily empty in the spring of 2020. Terrified of contracting COVID-19, people who were sick with other things did their best to stay away from hospitals. Visits to emergency departments dropped to half their normal levels, according to the Epic Health Research Network, and didn't fully rebound until the summer of 2021. But now, they're too full. Even in parts of the country where COVID-19 isn't overwhelming the health system, patients are showing up to the ER sicker than they were before the pandemic, their diseases more advanced and in need of more complicated care. Months of treatment delays have exacerbated chronic conditions and worsened symptoms. Doctors and nurses say the severity of illness ranges widely and includes abdominal pain, respiratory problems, blood clots, heart conditions and suicide attempts, among others. But there's nowhere to put them all. Although the number of ER visits returned to pre-coronavirus levels this past summer, admission rates, from the ER to the hospital's inpatient floors, are still almost 20% higher. Less acute cases, such as people suffering from health issues like rashes or conjunctivitis, still aren't going to the ER as much as they used to. Instead, they may be opting for an urgent care center or their primary care doctor. Meanwhile, there has been an increase in people coming to the ER with more serious conditions, like strokes and heart attacks.

Note: Could it be that part of the reason for this flood of ER patients is side effects of the COVID injections? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health from reliable major media sources.


Amish put faith in God’s will and herd immunity over vaccine
2021-06-28, Associated Press
Posted: 2021-10-31 18:34:12
https://apnews.com/article/religion-amish-coronavirus-pandemic-health-463b17f...

The vaccination drive is lagging far behind in many Amish communities. In Ohio’s Holmes County, home to the nation’s largest concentration of Amish, just 14% of the county’s overall population is fully vaccinated. While their religious beliefs don’t forbid them to get vaccines, the Amish are generally less likely to be vaccinated for preventable diseases such as measles and whooping cough. Though vaccine acceptance varies by church district, the Amish often rely on family tradition and advice from church leaders, and a core part of their Christian faith is accepting God’s will in times of illness or death. Many think they don’t need the COVID-19 vaccine now because they’ve already gotten sick and believe their communities have reached herd immunity, according to health care providers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana, home to nearly two-thirds of the estimated 345,000 Amish in the U.S.. “That’s the No. 1 reason we hear,” said Alice Yoder, executive director of community health at Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, a network of hospitals and clinics. Experts say the low vaccination rates are a reflection of both the nature of the Amish and the general vaccine hesitancy found in many rural parts of the country. Some health clinics that serve the Amish are hesitant to push the issue for fear of driving them away from getting blood pressure checks and routine exams.

Note: This NPR affiliate article states, “Holmes County in northeastern Ohio has the worst vaccination rate in the state — just 17% — and yet, the county has the state’s lowest rate of COVID spread.” As of Oct. 1, Holmes County had the second lowest COVID case rate in Ohio. Despite having one of the lowest vaccination rates in the US and not observing the lockdown, the number of total per capita deaths in Holmes county is only about 27% more than that of the U.S.. This five-minute video explains why the Amish don’t want vaccines.


The medications that change who we are
2020-01-08, BBC News
Posted: 2021-10-31 18:26:50
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200108-the-medications-that-change-who-w...

Many ordinary medications don’t just affect our bodies – they affect our brains. Over the years, [researcher Beatrice] Golomb has collected reports from patients across the United States – tales of broken marriages, destroyed careers, and a surprising number of men who have come unnervingly close to murdering their wives. In almost every case, the symptoms began when they started taking statins, then promptly returned to normal when they stopped; one man repeated this cycle five times. From paracetamol (known as acetaminophen in the US) to antihistamines, statins, asthma medications and antidepressants, there’s emerging evidence that they can make us impulsive, angry, or restless, diminish our empathy for strangers, and even manipulate fundamental aspects of our personalities, such as how neurotic we are. But Golomb’s most unsettling discovery isn’t so much the impact that ordinary drugs can have on who we are – it’s the lack of interest in uncovering it. “There’s much more of an emphasis on things that doctors can easily measure,” she says, explaining that, for a long time, research into the side-effects of statins was all focused on the muscles and liver, because any problems in these organs can be detected using standard blood tests. This is something that Dominik Mischkowski, a pain researcher from Ohio University, has also noticed. “There is a remarkable gap in the research actually, when it comes to the effects of medication on personality and behaviour,” he says.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Pharma profiteering and health from reliable major media sources.


Study finds that fear can travel quickly through generations of mice DNA
2013-12-07, Washington Post
Posted: 2021-10-31 18:25:12
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/study-finds-that-fear-...

Researchers taught male mice to fear the smell of cherry blossoms by associating the scent with mild foot shocks. Two weeks later, they bred with females. The resulting pups were raised to adulthood having never been exposed to the smell. Yet when the critters caught a whiff of it for the first time, they suddenly became anxious and fearful. They were even born with more cherry-blossom-detecting neurons in their noses and more brain space devoted to cherry-blossom-smelling. The memory transmission extended out another generation when these male mice bred. Neuroscientists at Emory University found that genetic markers, thought to be wiped clean before birth, were used to transmit a single traumatic experience across generations, leaving behind traces in the behavior and anatomy of future pups. The study, published ... in the journal Nature Neuroscience, adds to a growing pile of evidence suggesting that characteristics outside of the strict genetic code may also be acquired from our parents through epigenetic inheritance. Epigenetics studies how molecules act as DNA markers that influence how the genome is read. We pick up these epigenetic markers during our lives and in various locations on our body as we develop and interact with our environment. The researchers also artificially inseminated females using the sperm from the original fear-conditioned mice. The results were the same, suggesting epigenetic inheritance rather than environment.

Note: The emerging field of epigenetics implies that lifestyle and environment influence the expression of DNA. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health from reliable major media sources.


Portugal has nearly run out of people to vaccinate. What comes next?
2021-09-30, Washington Post
Posted: 2021-10-24 18:24:21
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/30/portugal-vaccination-covid/

Some 85 percent of Portugal’s population is fully vaccinated. Portugal’s feat has turned the country into a cutting-edge pandemic laboratory — a place where otherwise-hypothetical questions about the coronavirus endgame can begin to play out. Chief among them is how fully a nation can bring the virus under control when vaccination rates are about as high as they can go. Portugal’s experience is ... providing a note of caution: a reminder that 1½ years into this pandemic, the current tools of science still might not be enough. Herd immunity remains elusive. “We have achieved a good result, but it’s not the solution or miracle one would think,” Portugal’s health minister, Marta Temido, said in an interview. In Portugal, seniors are vaccinated at a level verging on the statistically impossible: Official data puts the rate at 100 percent. But many were also vaccinated more than half a year ago — and studies from around the world, from the United States to Israel, have warned of a drop in protection by that point. One of the biggest warnings of all has come from a science institute in Lisbon, where researchers have been measuring antibody levels in several thousand people — including about 500 in Portuguese nursing homes. Shortly after those nursing home residents were vaccinated, all with the vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech, 95 percent developed antibodies, the researchers found. But this summer ... more than one-third of the residents had lost antibodies entirely.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.


The fiasco of the 1976 'swine flu affair'
2020-09-27, BBC News
Posted: 2021-10-24 18:22:53
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200918-the-fiasco-of-the-us-swine-flu-af...

[During] the "swine flu affair of 1976" ... a US president decided to rush a vaccine to the entire American population based on ill-founded science and political imprudence. The mistakes that followed hold lessons for today. Lawsuits, side-effects and negative media coverage followed, and the events dented confidence in public health for years to come. It began at a US Army training base. In February 1976, several soldiers at Fort Dix fell ill with a previously unrecognised swine flu. In March, President Ford announced a $137m (67.5m in 1976) effort to produce a vaccine by the autumn. Its goal was to immunise every man, woman and child in the US. The president himself was vaccinated on television on 14 October, further heightening perceptions that this was a politicised event. As has happened throughout the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, the scientists could only give the best advice they could based on incomplete knowledge. As the months continued – still with no outbreak – new problems arose. Millions of vaccinations meant dozens of cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare problem where the body's immune system attacks the nerves. The swine flu strain spotted at Fort Dix was not dangerous, and there would be no pandemic. When politicians in the present day talk of "the science" as if it is a complete body of knowledge, a manual for what to do, it neglects the uncertainty of evidence and ignores that science is a human endeavour. The swine flu affair, the New York Times concluded, had been a "sorry debacle" and "fiasco" marked by political expediency and unwarranted confidence.

Note: Watch an incrediby revealing "60 Minutes" video clip on this tragic story of greed and corruption at the highest levels. Read also a Los Angeles Times article on this 1976 "debacle" where only one died from the flu while at least 25 died from the vaccine. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and vaccines from reliable major media sources.


Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States
2021-09-30, European Journal of Epidemiology
Posted: 2021-10-18 01:24:56
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00808-7

We used COVID-19 data provided by the Our World in Data for cross-country analysis, available as of September 3, 2021. We included 68 countries that met the following criteria: had second dose vaccine data available; had COVID-19 case data available; had population data available; and the last update of data was within 3 days prior to or on September 3, 2021. For the 7 days preceding September 3, 2021 we computed the COVID-19 cases per 1 million people for each country as well as the percentage of population that is fully vaccinated. At the country-level, there appears to be no discernable relationship between percentage of population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases in the last 7 days. In fact, the trend line suggests a marginally positive association such that countries with higher percentage of population fully vaccinated have higher COVID-19 cases per 1 million people. Notably, Israel with over 60% of their population fully vaccinated had the highest COVID-19 cases per 1 million people in the last 7 days. The lack of a meaningful association between percentage population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases is further exemplified, for instance, by comparison of Iceland and Portugal. Both countries have over 75% of their population fully vaccinated and have more COVID-19 cases per 1 million people than countries such as Vietnam and South Africa that have around 10% of their population fully vaccinated.

Note: Learn more about these eye-opening findings on this webpage. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.


Trying to Make Sense of COVID's Mysterious 2-Month Cycle
2021-10-04, Seattle Times
Posted: 2021-10-18 01:15:29
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/trying-to-make-sense-of-covids-myst...

COVID-19 is once again in retreat. The reasons remain somewhat unclear. “This is as good as the world has looked in many months,” Dr. Eric Topol of Scripps Research wrote. The most encouraging news is that the most serious forms of COVID are also declining. The number of Americans hospitalized with COVID has fallen about 25% since Sept. 1. Daily deaths ... have fallen 10% since Sept. 20. It is the first sustained decline in deaths since early summer. These declines are consistent with a pattern that readers will recognize: COVID’s mysterious two-month cycle. Since the COVID virus began spreading in late 2019, cases have often surged for about two months — sometimes because of a variant, such as delta — and then declined for about two months. Public health researchers do not understand why. Many popular explanations — such as seasonality or the ebbs and flows of mask wearing and social distancing — are clearly insufficient, if not wrong. The two-month cycle has occurred during different seasons of the year and occurred even when human behavior was not changing in obvious ways. The most-plausible explanations involve some combination of virus biology and social networks. Human behavior does play a role, with people often becoming more careful once caseloads begin to rise. But social distancing is not as important as public discussion of the virus often imagines. “We’ve ascribed far too much human authority over the virus,” as Michael Osterholm, an infectious-disease expert ... has said.

Note: Isn’t it interesting that both masks and vaccines have had no clear impact on these cycles? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.


San Francisco should be like Europe when it comes to COVID, kids, masks and schools
2021-10-13, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
Posted: 2021-10-18 01:13:30
https://www.sfgate.com/politics-op-eds/article/San-Francisco-school-mask-mand...

This week, San Francisco is expected to once again ease certain indoor mask mandates for portions of the adult population. Noticeably lacking in the new guidance is any update for school and child care mask mandates or even any acknowledgment that kids might also need more normal routines and interactions. Considering they are in peak development years, children need these things even more than adults. There also hasn’t been a single COVID-19-related death under the age of 20 in San Francisco. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 risk assessments by age estimate that simply being a child aged five to 17 is 99.9994% protective against the risk of death and 98% protective against hospitalization. Even with this established good news, San Francisco remains an outlier on child mask mandates compared to the vast majority of Europe. The CDC’s European counterpart the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control only recommends masking for children ages 12 and up. England ... has never masked children in school. Similarly, Sweden has continued to run school as normal, even during their peak COVID-19 wave. Norway has also never recommended face masks for any age of schooling, while Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Switzerland have either never recommended masks on elementary age students or have shifted to no masks for the current school year.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.


Mass. reports 4,378 new breakthrough COVID-19 cases, raising total to 0.8% of fully vaccinated people
2021-09-29, Boston Globe
Posted: 2021-10-11 15:53:23
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/09/29/nation/mass-reports-4378-new-breakthro...

Massachusetts on Tuesday reported 4,378 more COVID-19 cases among fully vaccinated people since last week, bringing the total since the beginning of the vaccination campaign to 36,723 cases, or 0.8 percent of all fully vaccinated people. The Department of Public Health also reported 37 more COVID-19 deaths among fully vaccinated people, bringing the total to 254 deaths among those fully vaccinated. The department also reported 154 more hospitalizations among fully vaccinated people, for a total of 1,155 hospitalizations. State officials and public health experts have repeatedly stressed that vaccination greatly reduces hospitalization, severe illness, and death as a result of COVID-19. As of Tuesday, 4,619,950 people in Massachusetts have been fully vaccinated, according to the department.

Note: Massachusetts has a population of nearly 7 million, or 1/50th of the U.S. So if it is representative of the entire country, 254 X 50 = 12,200 deaths among fully vaccinated people in the U.S. Indiana, also with a population of about 7 million, reports 229 fully vaccinated citizens have died, again suggesting well over 10,000 fully vaccinated COVID deaths in the U.S. Why isn’t this being reported? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.


33,851 Breakthrough COVID-19 Cases Recorded In Indiana, 229 Have Died
2021-09-29, International Business Times
Posted: 2021-10-11 15:51:48
https://www.ibtimes.com/33851-breakthrough-covid-19-cases-recorded-indiana-22...

More than 30,000 residents in Indiana have contracted COVID-19 and over 200 have died of the novel coronavirus despite being fully vaccinated against the disease. Indiana health officials have recorded 33,851 breakthrough COVID-19 cases among the state’s fully vaccinated individuals since the beginning of the pandemic. The health department’s data also showed that 229 fully vaccinated residents have died of COVID-19. Of the 229 deaths, 92% or 210 occurred in patients aged 65 or older. As of Thursday, health officials have also reported 735 breakthrough COVID-19 hospitalizations. Overall, the state has recorded 959,409 COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic. Indiana also reported 65 new deaths that occurred between Aug. 25 and Sept. 28, bringing Indiana’s total number of COVID-19 deaths to 15,132. Indiana health officials have fully vaccinated 56% of eligible residents, including more than 70% of people aged 60 and older. However, only 3.7% of children between the ages of 12 to 15 have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and only 4.3% of people from the same age group have received their first doses.

Note: Is it just a coincidence that shortly after this became news, the Indiana Department of Health suspended daily COVID-19 case reports? Massachusetts has a population of 6.7 million, or about 1/50th of the U.S. So if it is representative of the entire country, 229 X 50 = 11,450 deaths among fully vaccinated people in the U.S. Massachusetts, also with about 7 million, reports 254 fully vaccinated citizens have died, again suggesting over 10,000 vaccinated COVID deaths. Why isn’t this being reported? For more, see summaries of revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines.


Ontario now recommending against Moderna vaccine for men 18-24 years old
2021-09-29, Toronto Sun
Posted: 2021-10-11 15:48:26
https://torontosun.com/news/provincial/ontario-now-recommending-against-moder...

The Ontario government is now recommending males aged 18 to 24 take Pfizer over Moderna as their COVID-19 vaccination due to the number of young men who have experienced myocarditis after getting the vaccine. This comes after public health officials determined there is a 1 in 5,000 risk of myocarditis — a form of heart inflammation — following a second dose of the Moderna vaccine. For any young men in that age bracket who received Moderna as their first dose and have not yet received a second dose, the government recommends they go with Pfizer. The risk of myocarditis for this demographic in Pfizer is 1 in 28,000, according to government officials. “The majority of reported cases have been mild with individuals recovering quickly, normally with anti-inflammatory medication,” explains a guidance document released by the government. “Symptoms have typically been reported to start within one week after vaccination, more commonly after the second dose.” While there are reports of myocarditis in Ontario among both males and females in all age brackets, the incidence rate among young males receiving their second Moderna shot was substantially higher than other categories. This development comes after a Public Health Ontario report released last month showed over half of the province’s approximately 200 cases of hospitalizations for myocarditis following mRNA vaccination were in people under the age of 25.

Note: Sweden, Norway, and Finland are also restricting use of the Moderna vaccine for safety reasons. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.


China declared officially malaria-free by WHO
2021-06-30, BBC News
Posted: 2021-10-04 21:45:22
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57670189

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared China malaria-free, after a 70-year effort to wipe it out. China used to report 30 million cases a year during the 1940s. Since then, eradication efforts have driven down case numbers. The country used various methods to break the cycle of transmission of the parasite via mosquitos. The WHO said the country had now gone four years without registering a case, giving it malaria-free certification. China's success was hard-earned, said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and came only after decades of targeted and sustained action. Although preventable and mostly curable if diagnosed and treated promptly, the World Health Organization estimates there were 229 million cases of malaria worldwide in 2019 and 409,000 deaths. Around 94% of all infections were reported in Africa. China's government has brought malaria cases down by using anti-malarial drugs, spraying mosquito breeding grounds, and distributing insecticide-treated nets. Countries can apply to the WHO for certification as malaria-free after they report four consecutive years of no indigenous cases. They must then present evidence of this, and demonstration their ability to prevent any future outbreak. According to the WHO, China has become the 40th country to be declared malaria-free.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


A hospital stopped delivering babies after staffers resigned over coronavirus vaccine mandate
2021-09-12, Washington Post
Posted: 2021-09-20 00:52:09
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/09/12/ny-hospital-babies-vaccine-m...

An Upstate New York hospital announced that it will stop delivering babies this month after several staffers in the maternity department resigned over the hospital system’s coronavirus vaccine mandate. At least six unvaccinated maternity staffers at Lewis County General Hospital have resigned in recent days, and seven others remain undecided on whether to get vaccinated, Gerald Cayer, chief executive officer of the Lewis County Health System, said. The staff shortage will result in the hospital being “unable to safely staff” the maternity department beginning Sept. 25, he said. Cayer said 165 hospital staffers, about 27 percent of the workforce, remain unvaccinated. Seventy-three percent of those unvaccinated staffers provide clinical services at the hospital. As hospitals have implemented vaccination mandates, some staffers have chosen to resign or be fired instead of getting the shots. More than 150 health-care workers who did not comply with the vaccine mandate at Houston Methodist — one of the first health systems to require the coronavirus shots — resigned or were fired in June. A lawsuit brought by one of those employees — which alleged that the policy was forcing staffers to be “guinea pigs” for vaccines that had not gone through the full Food and Drug Administration approval process — was dismissed by a federal judge. Other instances of pushback have popped up in recent months. In Winchester, Va., some unvaccinated nurses are choosing to be fired in protest of their hospital system’s mandate.

Note: One year ago these health workers were heroes for risking their lives on the front line with COVID patients. Now they are being ridiculed for not wanting to be vaccinated. Listen to their own moving words in this important video. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.


The pandemic has pushed children's mental health and access to care to a 'crisis point'
2021-07-22, CNN News
Posted: 2021-09-20 00:50:18
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/health/covid-19-pandemic-mental-health-childre...

Many adults report that the pandemic has been hard on their mental health. For kids, some experts say, it has become a crisis. Children's hospitals around the country say they have seen a meteoric rise in the number of children who need mental health help. Access to care, which was a problem before the pandemic, particularly for kids of color, has gotten much worse. Several children's hospitals said the supply of inpatient psychiatric beds has been so short, they've had to board kids in their emergency departments - sometimes for weeks. "We really have never seen anything like this rapid growth in kids presenting with mental health problems," said Jenna Glover ... at Children's Hospital Colorado. It got so bad, Children's Hospital Colorado declared a "state of emergency" in May. The number of kids they treated for anxiety doubled - and depression numbers tripled - compared to pre-pandemic levels. In January through April of this year, behavioral health emergency department visits were up 72% over the same time period two years ago,  the hospital said. Other hospitals saw even bigger increases. In January, Wolfson Children's Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida, for example, said it saw a 300% increase in the number of behavioral health emergency admissions since April 2020. Nationally, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found emergency department visits for suspected suicide attempts during February and March of 2021 were more than 50% higher for teen girls, compared to 2019.

Note: See more in this Washington Post article and this even deeper article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.


The Sounds of Healing
2021-08-02, Next City
Posted: 2021-09-13 20:40:33
https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/the-sounds-of-healing

What Washington musician Yoko Sen describes as the “soundtrack of her life” is not one of the songs she wrote for the band Dust Galaxy, but the alarm of the heart monitor at her hospital bedside. When the U.S.-based Japanese artist fell ill in 2012 and had to spend weeks in hospitals, she found the jarring sounds there detrimental to her healing. “I thought it was torture, the cacophony of alarms, beeps, doors slamming, the squeaking of carts, people screaming.” At the time, it wasn’t clear if Sen would make a full recovery. She was connected to four different machines, and each emitted a different sound. Her sensitive ears were especially bothered by the constant beeping of her heart monitor. “Sound is largely ignored in healthcare even though the aesthetics of it could have a great impact on our sense of wellbeing and dignity,” Sen realized. When Sen recovered, she was determined to follow her new mission: to “humanize” hospital sounds. How does healing sound? Or love? Are there tunes that foster recovery? She founded SenSound in 2015, a social enterprise to reimagine the acoustic environment in hospitals. [The] 41-year-old Sen is addressing a massive, often overlooked problem. On average, a patient endures 135 different alarms each day, hospitals are often louder than a highway during rush hour and sleep deprivation is a common complaint. Many wish for the sounds of nature, the laughter of children, or the voice of a loved one.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Israel, Once the Model for Beating Covid, Faces New Surge of Infections
2021-08-18, New York Times
Posted: 2021-09-06 02:29:29
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/world/middleeast/israel-virus-infections-b...

Last spring, Israel's remarkably swift vaccination campaign was seen as a global model. Coronavirus infections plummeted, an electronic pass allowed the vaccinated to attend indoor concerts and sporting events, and distancing rules and mask mandates were eventually scrapped. Israel offered the world a hopeful glimpse of the way out of the pandemic. No longer. A fourth wave of infections is rapidly approaching the levels of Israel's worst days of the pandemic last winter. The daily rate of confirmed new virus cases has more than doubled in the last two weeks, making Israel a rising hot spot. Restrictions on gatherings and commercial and entertainment venues were reinstated this week, and the government is considering a new lockdown. Some experts fear that Israel's high rate of infections among early vaccine recipients may indicate a waning of the vaccine's protections over time. The vaccine may be less effective at preventing infection with the highly contagious Delta variant. The vast majority of Israel's older population had received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by the end of February, and by now about 78 percent of the population 12 and older are fully vaccinated. Data published by Israel's Ministry of Health in late July suggested that the Pfizer shot was just 39 percent effective against preventing infection in the country in late June and early July, compared with 95 percent from January to early April.

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