“China eats weird animals disease”

The bureaucratic mind has no idea of the interconnectedness of things.

Over 100,000 died of drug overdoses in the U.S. during this last 12-month period measured by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s a 30 percent jump from the year before, and, as the Irish Times (of all papers) notes, that is “more than the toll of car crashes and gun fatalities combined.”

Across the media, note is made that this dramatic rise took place in this Year of the Plague. Yet we are left to wonder whether the possibility of such a dreadful effect was considered at all by those who planned the COVID shutdowns.

Self-described anti-vaccine groups are calling for a boycott of a family-run Canadian ice cream company after it offered a pay rise to staff vaccinated against COVID-19.

Management at Chapman’s, Canada’s largest independent ice-cream manufacturer, say they’re trying to reward staff who have “done the right thing” by getting vaccinated with a $1 per hour pay rise, rather than enforcing a hardline vaccine policy.

A viral video shows a Candian teacher named Marlene Brod, who has been teaching students for almost 35 years, leaving her school after allegedly being fired for refusing to get a COVID-19 rapid test as required by the district.

Brod tearfully broke down when asked why she was leaving the school early on Thursday.

Fewer than 6% of people in Africa are vaccinated. For months, the WHO has described Africa as “one of the least affected regions in the world” in its weekly pandemic reports.

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — At a busy market in a poor township outside Harare this week, Nyasha Ndou kept his mask in his pocket, as hundreds of other people, mostly unmasked, jostled to buy and sell fruit and vegetables displayed on wooden tables and plastic sheets. As in much of Zimbabwe, here the coronavirus is quickly being relegated to the past, as political rallies, concerts and home gatherings have returned.

“COVID-19 is gone, when did you last hear of anyone who has died of COVID-19?” Ndou said. “The mask is to protect my pocket,” he said. “The police demand bribes so I lose money if I don’t move around with a mask.” Earlier this week, Zimbabwe recorded just 33 new COVID-19 cases and zero deaths, in line with a recent fall in the disease across the continent, where World Health Organization data show that infections have been dropping since July.

Cities imposing vaccine requirements on public employees are making their police-retention problems worse—and endangering public safety.

In recent weeks, police unions, in step with thousands of police officers in major American cities, have vigorously resisted and protested vaccine mandates, leading to the possibility that many departments will soon face crippling labor shortages. While providing questionable public-health benefits, mandates thus threaten to make the problem of rising violent crime even worse.