World News
UK bars, cinemas may require proof of COVID-19 vaccination to visit
U.K. restaurants, bars, cinemas and sports venues may require proof that people received COVID-19 vaccinations in order for them to visit, Britain’s vaccine minister said Monday.
Nadhim Zahawi, the U.K.’s vaccine minister, said getting vaccinated should be voluntary, but a phone app used for contact tracing may include a person’s vaccine status, which businesses could use.
“But also I think you’d probably find that restaurants and bars and cinemas and other venues, sports venues, will probably also use that system as they’ve done with the app,” Zahawi told the BBC.
“The sort of pressure will come both ways: from service providers – who will say ‘look, demonstrate to us that you have been vaccinated’ – but also we will make the technology as easy and accessible as possible,” he added, according to Reuters.
When Zahawi was asked whether it would be almost impossible to do anything without the vaccine, he said: “I think people have to make a decision but I think you’ll probably find many service providers will want to engage in this in the way they did with the app.”
Several COVID-19 vaccines are getting close to being distributed across the U.S. and U.K. in recent weeks, as the worldwide death toll has reached 1.4 million people. The coronavirus pandemic has negatively impacted businesses around the world, as shutdowns interrupted business.
China’s mishandling of the early stages of Covid-19 pandemic revealed by leaked documents
London — A group of frontline medical workers, likely exhausted, stand huddled together on a video-conference call as China’s most powerful man raises his hand in greeting. It is February 10 in Beijing and President Xi Jinping, who for weeks has been absent from public view, is addressing hospital staff in the city of Wuhan as they battle to contain the spread of a still officially unnamed novel coronavirus.
From a secure room about 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) from the epicenter, Xi expressed his condolences to those who have died in the outbreak. He urged greater public communication, as around the world concerns mounted about the potential threat posed by the new disease.
That same day, Chinese authorities reported 2,478 new confirmed cases — raising the total global number to more than 40,000, with fewer than 400 cases occurring outside of mainland China. Yet CNN can now reveal how official documents circulated internally show that this was only part of the picture.
In a report marked “internal document, please keep confidential,” local health authorities in the province of Hubei, where the virus was first detected, list a total of 5,918 newly detected cases on February 10, more than double the official public number of confirmed cases, breaking down the total into a variety of subcategories. This larger figure was never fully revealed at that time, as China’s accounting system seemed, in the tumult of the early weeks of the pandemic, to downplay the severity of the outbreak.
The previously undisclosed figure is among a string of revelations contained within 117 pages of leaked documents from the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, shared with and verified by CNN.
Taken together, the documents amount to the most significant leak from inside China since the beginning of the pandemic and provide the first clear window into what local authorities knew internally and when.
UK Minister: You Might Be Banned from Venues Without Vaccine Passport
Breitbart – The UK’s new vaccine minister Nadim Zahawi has said that while coronavirus vaccinations will not be mandatory, Britons may be barred from going to the cinema or getting on an aeroplane without it if service providers demand proof of inoculation.
Mr Zahawi said that of the three vaccines currently being developed in the UK — by Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer/BioNTech, and Moderna — the Pfizer product is the most far along and likely to be widely rolled out first.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s World at One on Monday, Mr Zahawi confirmed that the vaccine would not be compulsory and would remain voluntary.
However, the demand for “immunity passports” to secure service — such as by Australian airline Qantas — may make the jabs effectively compulsory by any other definition.
When host Sarah Montague asked if could follow that British businesses could demand an immunity passport before a person can go to a stadium to watch a football match, the COVID vaccination minister did not deny such an outcome, rather adding that the government was looking for a system comparable to the NHS’s ‘Test and Trace’ app, which tracks the spread of coronavirus.
Mr Zahawi said: “We are looking at the technology and of course a way of people informing their GP that they’ve been vaccinated.
“But also I think you’ll probably find that restaurants, bars, and cinemas and other venues — sports venues — will probably also use that system as they’ve done with the app.”
U.S. News, Politics & Government
Louisville police ‘no-knock’ warrants mostly targeted Black residents
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Police disproportionately targeted Black residents for “no-knock” search warrants like the one that led officers to Breonna Taylor’s door the night they fatally shot her, an analysis shows.
The findings by the Louisville Courier Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, echo the concerns of civil rights advocates and experts who say no-knock warrants are used more frequently against Black and brown Americans.
“The common factors are the poor and people of color – in a highly disproportionate way,” said Peter Kraska, a professor at Eastern Kentucky University who has testified before the U.S. Senate on law enforcement’s use of military tactics and equipment.
In the past two years, before the city banned them in June, Louisville Metro Police Department officers received court approval for at least 27 no-knock warrants – allowing police to legally break in to homes without first knocking, announcing themselves and waiting for residents to respond,usually about 30 seconds.
ISIS Task Force Director Resigns in Continued Pentagon Purge
The Defeat-ISIS Task Force director resigned on Monday in the latest resignation or firing of Defense Department leadership following the Nov. 3 presidential election.
Christopher Maier’s resignation was accepted by acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, The Hill reported.
According to a statement from the Defense Department, his responsibilities “will be absorbed” by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict and staff from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.
“These changes recognize the success of the military fight to destroy the so-called physical caliphate of ISIS and reflect DoD’s commitment to institutionalize efforts to counter ISIS and integrate efforts with allies and partners within our counterterrorism and regional policy offices,” the statement read.
Trump Raises $170 Million as He Denies His Loss and Eyes the Future
DNYUZ – President Trump has raised about $170 million since Election Day as his campaign operation has continued to aggressively solicit donations with hyped-up appeals that have funded his fruitless attempts to overturn the election and that have seeded his post-presidential political ambitions, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The money, much of which was raised in the first week after the election, according to the person, has arrived as Mr. Trump has made false claims about fraud and sought to undermine public confidence in the legitimacy of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.
Instead of slowing down after the election, Mr. Trump’s campaign has ratcheted up its volume of email solicitations for cash, telling supporters that money was needed for an “Election Defense Fund.”
In reality, the fine print shows that the first 75 percent of every contribution currently goes to a new political action committee that Mr. Trump set up in mid-November, Save America, which can be used to fund his political activities going forward, including staff and travel. The other 25 percent of each donation is directed to the Republican National Committee.
A donor has to give $5,000 to Mr. Trump’s new PAC before any funds go to his recount account.
Still, the Trump campaign continues to urgently ask for cash. On Monday, Mr. Trump signed a campaign email that breathlessly told supporters that the end of November — nearly four weeks after Election Day — represented “our most IMPORTANT deadline EVER.”
The Washington Post reported earlier on Monday that Mr. Trump’s postelection efforts had raised more than $150 million. Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s campaign, declined to comment on the fund-raising.
America’s New Normal – Silent, Obedient Consent
Zerohedge – Yesterday we took advantage of another beautiful Fall day in Cape May. We decided to check out the Cape May Lighthouse State Park. It is at the very end of Cape May. It is an example of what the government can do right – Preserve a natural habitat without glitz or commercialization. It is just miles of wetlands and walking trails. The lighthouse, built in 1859 by the U.S. Army is still functioning today. Two previous lighthouses succumbed to the sea. It is a majestic structure, reaching 157 feet into the sky
On the beach, not far from the lighthouse, is Battery 223. It is a crumbling concrete structure from World War II which was designed to protect against invasion by German forces. The structure was built with six-foot thick reinforced concrete walls and a thick blast proof roof; the entire building was covered with earth. The 6-inch guns had a nine-mile range. It is an interesting relic from our past. The dilapidated condition struck me as symbolic of our crumbling empire.
Once you walked into the nature preserve, a feeling of calm and peacefulness overwhelms you. Swans and ducks glide across the salt water ponds enjoying a feast of minnows. It’s nature at its most pristine. Just quiet and beauty.
As we were driving to the park, I noticed a few bike riders on the side of the road wearing masks while biking. I thought to myself – WTF. That is completely idiotic. Then we began walking along the miles of trails. The park was moderately busy, but you passed someone every few minutes.
Sadly, I would estimate that 80% of the people we passed on the trails were masked and fearful of us unmasked hooligans. I can only imagine their thoughts as they wondered why we were risking their lives by being so careless.
I was disgusted by the lack of critical thought exhibited by these people. I might have understood if it was only people over 70 years old wearing the masks, but most of these people were young. They have virtually a zero risk of dying from this flu. They have virtually a zero risk of catching it on a walking trail at a State park. But, they obediently and silently do as they are told by their overlords.
I am saddened by how easily the totalitarians have been able to use fear, propaganda, lies and misinformation to turn the vast majority of Americans into compliant sheep. It is so clear to me that this engineered flu panic is nothing more than another chapter in the scheme to enslave global populations under the thumb of global elitist billionaires who want to control us and enrich themselves.
Jonathan Turley: CNN’s Oliver Darcy a ‘Vocal Advocate of Censorship and Speech Controls’
CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy is a “vocal advocate of censorship and speech controls,” according to George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley, who wrote Monday that Darcy’s campaign to urge Twitter to label accounts as “disinformation” is part of a broader threat to free speech.
We previously discussed the unrelenting drumbeat of censorship on the Internet from Democratic leaders, including President-elect Joe Biden. Those calls are growing as anti-free speech advocates see an opportunity in the Biden Administration to crackdown [sic] on opposing views. One vocal advocate of censorship and speech controls has been CNN media analyst Oliver Darcy who just ratcheted up his call for de-platforming opposing views. Like many anti-free speech advocates, Darcy simply labels those with opposing views as spreading “disinformation” and demands that they be labeled or barred from social media. In a recent newsletter, Darcy calls for every tweet by Trump to be labeled as disinformation while asking “and why stop there?” Precisely. Once you cross the Rubicon of speech regulation, there is little reason or inclination to stop. Just look at Europe.
Darcy wrote:
Nearly every tweet from the president at this point is labeled for misinfo. Which had me thinking. Why doesn’t Twitter just take the step of labeling his entire account as a known source of election disinfo? And why stop there? Why not label accounts that repeatedly spread claims the platform has to fact-check?
There was a time from the very touchstone of American journalism was the rejection of such calls for censorship, including at CNN.
Turley added: “What is chilling about Darcy’s writings is that they reflect the view of many now in Congress and in the Democratic Party. Indeed, they reflect many in the Biden campaign.”Trump
Lawsuit: Wisconsin Absentee Ballot Abuses Affected 220K Votes
Newsmax – Election officials count absentee ballots at a polling place located in the Town of Beloit fire station on November 3, 2020 near Beloit, Wisconsin.
President Donald Trump’s campaign will file a lawsuit in the Wisconsin Supreme Court Tuesday morning claiming the absentee voting process was abused in the state and affected approximately 220,000 ballots.
The lawsuit comes after the state completed its partial recount and after Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers on Monday night formally certified Joe Biden as the state’s winner, reports Fox News.
The legal team in Wisconsin, led by former Wisconsin Circuit Court Judge Jim Troupis, said the recount gave the campaign a “unique ability” to examine ballots.
Troupis said the state’s electoral votes “likely won’t change the overall outcome,” but “exposing exactly how the election processes were abused in Wisconsin holds enormous value for this election beyond a victory for President Trump. Regardless, we’re demonstrating that the results of this election unequivocally ought to be questioned.”
In the lawsuit, the campaign complains that officials on the Wisconsin Elections Commission and the city clerks of Milwaukee and Madison “willfully disregarded the current statute and made conscious efforts to circumvent Wisconsin election law.”
L.A. Supervisor Sheila Kuehl Dines at Outdoor Restaurant After Voting to Ban Outdoor Dining
Breitbart – Los Angeles County Suprevisor Sheila Kuehl reportedly dined at an outdoor restaurant in Santa Monica, hours after casting a decisive vote to ban outdoor dining in the county.
Bill Melugin of local Fox affiliate KTTV-11 reported Monday:
During Tuesday’s L.A. County Board of Supervisors meeting, Kuehl referred to outside dining as “a most dangerous situation” over what she described as a risk of tables of unmasked patrons potentially exposing their servers to the coronavirus.
“This is a serious health emergency and we must take it seriously,” Kuehl said.
“The servers are not protected from us, and they’re not protected from their other tables that they’re serving at that particular time, plus all the hours in which they’re working.”
Kuehl went on to vote in support of restricting outdoor dining in Los Angeles County, which passed by a 3-2 margin of the Board of Supervisors.
Kuehl’s meal was apparently taken before the ban went into effect.
Economy & Business
Firm That Owns Dominion Voting Systems Received $400 Million From Swiss Bank With Connection to Chinese Government Before Election
Infowars – An investigation into SEC filings has revealed that the firm which owns Dominion Voting Systems received $400 million dollars from a Swiss bank with close links to the Chinese government less than a month before the election.
The investigation, conducted by Austin Security and Investigation Solutions, centers on Staple Street Capital, which acquired Dominion Voting Systems in 2018.
Dominion Voting Systems operates voting machines in 28 states and has been accused by President Trump and his supporters of being involved in deleting millions of votes for Trump in addition to switching votes to Biden on election night.
“On Oct 8, 2020, Staple Street Capital filed SEC Form D offerings and sales amount of $400,000,000 with the Sales Compensation Recipient identified as UBS Securities,” states the investigation, which also notes that another payment of $200,000,000 was received in December 2014.
“UBS Securities is a swiss investment bank which owns 24.99% of UBS Securities Co LTD, a Chinese Investment Bank. The remaining 75% of UBS Securities CO LTD is owned by the Chinese government,” states the report.
The overall owners of UBS Securities Co LTD are;
– Beijing Guoxiang (33%)
– UBS (24.99%)
– Guangdong Comm. Group [zh] (14.01%)
– China Guodian (14%)
– COFCO Group (14%)
Aside from UBS, the other four owners of UBS Securities are all Communist Chinese front groups.
Energy & Environment
Indonesia: Thousands evacuated amid rising activity in volcanoes
Al Jazera – Indonesian authorities are closely monitoring several volcanoes after sensors picked up increased activity in recent weeks, prompting the evacuation of thousands of people.
Hot ash tumbled as far as 3,000 metres (9,800 feet) down the slopes of Mount Semeru early on Tuesday, triggering panic among villagers, said Raditya Jati, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman. Falling ash and sulphur blanketed several villages around its slopes.
How a lockdown saved Hanauma Bay, one of Hawaii’s natural treasures
SFGate – For the first time in more than two centuries, the people were gone.
Hanauma Bay, a stunning body of water that formed within a volcanic crater, is approximately 15 minutes from Waikiki. Its natural glory makes it one of Hawaii’s top tourist attractions. Busloads of island visitors converged on the bay to glimpse its wonders.
Before the COVID-19 closure, Hanauma Bay saw approximately one million visitors per year, or between 3,000 and 6,000 daily. It has a long history as a destination. Protected from the ocean’s power by a shallow inner reef and slightly deeper outer reef, ancient residents and Hawaiian royalty would convene at this calm, crystalline bay to fish, camp, celebrate and discern weather conditions before traversing tumultuous waters to nearby islands.
During Hawaii’s tourism heyday in the 1980s, visitors to Hanauma Bay numbered in the tens of thousands daily. Public access regulations were enacted by the city and county of Honolulu to limit these numbers in 1990.
Even then, it wasn’t enough. The wildlife in the bay had taken notice of all of the new visitors. Fish became accustomed to feedings of bread and other human foods, swarming people entering the bay in hopes of a meal. Exhilarated visitors beamed at the up-close experience with marine life in the bay’s lagoons. They told their friends and family, encouraging more visitors.
Science & Technology
China says it has successfully put another probe on the Moon.
BBC – Its robotic Chang’e-5 mission touched down a short while ago with the aim of collecting samples of rock and dust to bring back to Earth.
The venture has targeted Mons Rümker, a high volcanic complex in a nearside region known as Oceanus Procellarum.
The lander is expected to spend the next couple of days examining its surroundings and gathering up surface materials.
It has a number of instruments to facilitate this, including a camera, spectrometer, radar, a scoop and a drill.
The intention is to package about 2kg of “soil”, or regolith, to send up to an orbiting vehicle that can then transport the samples to Earth.
It’s 44 years since this was last achieved. That was the Soviet Luna 24 mission, which picked up just under 200g.
Drones Have Raised the Odds and Risks of Small Wars
Bloomberg – A major hero of two recent conflicts — in Libya and in Nagorno-Karabakh — isn’t even human. It’s an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), or drone, called the Bayraktar TB2 and made by Baykar, a Turkish company in which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s son-in-law, Selcuk Bayraktar, serves as the chief technical officer.
In Libya last year, the TB2 scored some successes against a vaunted Russian anti-aircraft system, Pantsir, helping the United Nations-recognized government of Fayez al-Sarraj hold Tripoli against the onslaught of General Khalifa Haftar, who had armed himself with the Pantsirs.
In Nagorno-Karabakh this fall, the same drone was instrumental in unleashing hell on Armenian tanks, artillery and, again, some Russian-made anti-aircraft equipment. It helped bring about Azerbaijan’s decisive victory and a Moscow-brokered peace deal that returned to Azerbaijan most of the territory it lost in a previous war in the 1990s.
That UAVs can play such a visible part in modern wars is a big part of their appeal. As Ulrike Franke of the European Council on Foreign Relations, whose area of expertise includes drone warfare, pointed out in a Twitter thread, “using drones is like having a film crew with you.” The footage filmed by the unmanned aircraft as they attack is often used by governments for propaganda purposes, and it’s far more convincing than the usual conflicting claims by belligerents; independent observers use it to verify the reports.
An even bigger advantage, however, comes from how Turkey and its allies — the al-Sarraj government and the Azerbaijani regime of President Ilham Aliyev — have used drones to upset the offense-defense balance. Whether or not you subscribe to the theory that wars will be fought when the cost of attacking is much lower than the cost of defending, it is both intuitively clear and experimentally proven that losing a drone, or two or three, is less painful, and carries a lower cost, than losing a tank or a manned aircraft. Sending drones into battle is a lot like playing a computer game — and indeed, gamers may make better UAV operators than trained pilots. In both the Libyan and Karabakh wars, the drone operators apparently took a lot of risks to figure out the opposing side’s vulnerabilities, caring relatively little if they lost a UAV or two along the way.
Health
Covid scientist who ‘infected himself with virus TWICE’ warns of ‘wave of mass reinfections’ as antibodies vanish
CNN – A SCIENTIST who says he infected himself with coronavirus TWICE has warned of a “wave of mass reinfections” and claimed vaccines might not stop people falling ill.
Prof Alexander Chepurnov, 69, caught Covid-19 for the first time in February – then claimed he deliberately got it again to test if he still had antibodies.
Now the senior virologist has demanded an urgent study of people catching it twice and accused Russian authorities of not taking the risk seriously.
He hit back at medical chief Anna Popova for “closing her eyes” to the issue of reinfections in the country amid rising anecdotal reports of such cases.
“This is an incredibly important issue, and we must investigate it,” said Prof Chepurnov, senior researcher at the Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine in Novosibirsk.
“I might be completely wrong, and these were indeed just (a few) individual cases.
“Or possibly I am right, and we are about to face a wave of mass reinfections.”
He hit back at Dr Popova’s insistence there were no second infections in Russia and that his claims to have caught it twice were fake.
“Alexander Chepurnov is an elderly man, and I can only pass him my wishes for good health,” she said.
“To expose himself to patients while not wearing a mask is anyway nonsense for a doctor, regardless of whether he was sick in the past or not.
“We have investigated this situation and were unable to find evidence that this was actually a reinfection.”
Israeli research: People with asthma 30% less likely to contract COVID-19
JPost – People with asthma could be as much as 30% less likely to contract the coronavirus, according to Israeli research that was accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
“COVID-19 susceptibility in bronchial asthma,” which is slated to be published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology this month and which The Jerusalem Post reviewed, shows that contrary to what has been assumed by many medical professionals up until now, people with bronchial asthma are less likely to get COVID-19.
The findings were not dependent on age, gender or socioeconomic status.
There are three hypotheses for why asthma patients might not catch COVID, explained Dr. Eugene Merzon, head of the Department of Managed Care in Leumit Health Services, who helped lead the study.
The first is physical: Respiratory allergy is associated with significant reductions in angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors in the lungs, the protein that provides the entry point for COVID-19 to hook into and infect human cells.
The second is sociological: People with asthma are more likely to suffer from severe cases of COVID-19. As such, said Merzon, they are more likely to adhere to Health Ministry instructions, including wearing masks, social distancing and maintaining good hygiene.
The study recommended that further studies be done to better define how chronic comorbidity might modify compliance with public health measures to limit the effects of pandemics.
Working remotely is literally a pain the backside for nearly a quarter of Americans
Study Finds – As the coronavirus pandemic continues, social isolation has turned many people into couch potatoes. Unfortunately, it turns out being a couch potato can be a painful job. A survey finds three in five Americans have experienced new aches and pains due to how inactive they’ve become since the quarantine began.
With four in five Americans spending more time at home now, the resulting lifestyle changes are creating some unforeseen effects on their overall health. Since March of 2020, the OnePoll survey finds 74 percent find themselves sitting for longer periods of time compared to pre-pandemic. Americans now spend an additional four hours a day sitting down.
The study, commissioned by Preparation H, aimed to uncover the at-home habits of 2,000 Americans and discovered the pandemic has had a major impact on Americans’ health, particularly on their backsides.
Americans now spend a shocking six hours a day sitting down, on average. Thirty-nine percent find themselves in physical pain at the end of the day when sitting so much at home and more than half have developed more backside aches and pains.
Sadly, after a day of working from home, 22 percent find themselves with backside pain or discomfort. Spending more time at home means sitting in a variety of different places within the home. Often, some of these spots may not bode well for work productivity.
This is where the next pandemic is likely to emerge
Fast Company – Roughly a year ago, it’s likely that the new coronavirus made the jump from a wild animal to the first infected human in Wuhan, China, before spreading throughout the city, and then leaping quickly to the rest of the world. If 2020 seemed like an anomaly, it isn’t: Scientists say that another pandemic will follow at some point in the future. A new study tries to identify where it might emerge.
“Essentially, this work is trying to identify the biggest gaps in the modern, globalized world where pathogens may be most likely to slip through and lead to extensive global dissemination,” says Michael Walsh, the lead author of the new study and an epidemiologist at the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health.
Three factors are key. In areas where the most wildlife habitat is disappearing, there’s more stress on wild animals, making disease spread more easily, and more contact between humans and animals. All of the worst infectious viruses to emerge in recent decades, including HIV, the first SARS, and Ebola, are “zoonotic,” meaning they spread from animals. (In some cases, viruses spread first to livestock, and then to humans.) Poor health systems are a second risk factor. The cities that are most at risk of being the next to launch a pandemic are also well connected globally through airports.
“Our goal was to identify those areas where the greatest amount of wildlife are sharing space with the greatest amount of people,” Walsh says. “In these spaces, humans are simultaneously putting a high degree of pressure on wildlife species and their environment and increasing their own [human] exposure to new pathogens because of the greater contact with wildlife. The result is an increase in the risk of these new pathogens ‘spilling over’ into human populations
Study: Germ-Killing UV Lights Caused Eye Injuries
Newsmax – Amid a pandemic, some people are buying so-called germicidal ultraviolet lamps to protect against the new coronavirus.
But new research finds that decision could backfire when it comes to eye health.
Doctors are reporting on several patients who used such devices to eliminate the virus from homes and offices and developed painful inflammation of the cornea, a condition called photokeratitis.
“During the height of the pandemic, we noticed an increased number of patients coming in with irritation, pain, and sensitivity to light,” said study author Dr. Jesse Sengillo, a resident at the University of Miami’s Bascom Palmer Eye Institute.
“We realized this was after direct exposure to germicidal lamps that emit UV light in the C range to kill bacteria and viruses,” Sengillo said in a university news release. “This can be quite a painful experience for the patient, but with prompt topical lubrication and antibiotics to prevent infection, patients often do very well.”
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