Uneven vaccine coverage and a relaxation of preventive measures have brought Europe to a “critical point” in the pandemic, the World Health Organization has said, with cases again at near-record levels and 500,000 more deaths forecast by February.
Hans Kluge, the WHO’s Europe director, said all 53 countries in the region were facing “a real threat of Covid-19 resurgence or already fighting it” and urged governments to reimpose or continue with social and public health measures.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been arguably “the most disruptive event” since 9/11 for Canadian national security agencies, according to one of the country’s top intelligence officials.
Tricia Geddes, a deputy director with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said Wednesday the pandemic has both accelerated particular national security threats and made the work of Canadian intelligence agencies more complicated.
Geddes said CSIS “saw new threat vectors emerging immediately” at the start of the pandemic: domestic extremists harnessing COVID-19 conspiracy theories for recruitment, an increase in cyber espionage targeting Canadian research and development, and locked-down Canadians conducting sensitive corporate work from unsecured home computers.
BARRIE — The top reasons Canadians unvaccinated against COVID-19 say they have avoided getting the jab are “personal freedom” and “health concerns,” a new poll has found.
The survey, conducted by the Angus Reid Institute (ARI) and published on Wednesday, found that 58 per cent of unvaccinated Canadians said their main reason for skipping the shot was due to “personal freedom,” while an equal number of respondents cited “health concerns” as their reasoning.
Ontario reports 438 new COVID-19 cases, 5 more deaths
Ontario reported a notable day-over-day jump in COVID-19 cases on Thursday, a day after the province announced its plan for administering booster shots.
Provincial health officials logged 438 new coronavirus infections today, up from 378 on Wednesday, and from 409 a week ago.
Doctors outraged as Ontario, Quebec deny COVID-19 vaccine mandates for health workers
The decision by Quebec and Ontario to not make COVID-19 vaccines mandatory for health-care workers has drawn sharp criticism from doctors in those provinces, who say the move is not backed by science.
Both provincial governments announced Wednesday that they will not require health-care staff — hospital workers in Ontario and current health-care employees in Quebec — to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, pointing to the negative impact of such a mandate on the health-care system.
Canadian employers are firing or putting on unpaid leave thousands of workers who refused to get COVID-19 shots, squeezing an already tight labor market and raising prospects of potentially disruptive legal challenges.
The origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19 remains unclear, but recent revelations reinforce the likelihood that the true source was a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
A letter from Lawrence Tabak, the National Institutes of Health’s principal deputy director, to Kentucky congressman James Comer confirms that the NIH funded research at the WIV during 2018–2019 that manipulated a bat coronavirus called WIV1. Researchers at the institute grafted spike proteins from other coronaviruses onto WIV1 to see if the modified virus was capable of binding in a mouse that possessed the ACE2 receptors found in humans—the same receptor to which SARS-CoV-2 binds. The modified virus reproduced more rapidly and made infected humanized mice sicker than the unmodified virus.
The CDC caused an uproar in early September 2021, after it changed its definitions of “vaccination” and “vaccine.” For years, the CDC had set definitions for vaccination/vaccine that discussed immunity. This all changed on September 1, 2021.
h/t Mauser98
Opposition parties plan to resume their parliamentary battle for the disclosure of documents on the firing of two scientists from Canada’s highest-security laboratory, a dispute that has pitted the Trudeau government against the House of Commons.
In June, the federal government took House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota to court in an unprecedented move to prevent the release of documents to MPs that could offer insight into why Ottawa expelled and then fired Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, from Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.
“… Staff who conducted quality control checks were overwhelmed by the volume of problems they were finding. After repeatedly notifying Ventavia of these problems, the regional director, Brook Jackson, emailed a complaint to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Ventavia fired her later the same day. Jackson has provided The BMJ with dozens of internal company documents, photos, audio recordings, and emails.”
COVID-19: Quebec drops vaccination mandate for health-care workers
Quebec is dropping its enforced COVID-19 vaccination mandate among health-care workers, government officials announced Wednesday.
After pushing back its deadline multiple times, Health Minister Christian Dubé said the province will abandon the measure altogether, as the health-care network can’t afford to lose the thousands of non-vaccinated workers.
Well this certainly makes a joke of it all.
Ontario won’t mandate COVID-19 vaccines for hospital workers, despite advice from science table
Premier Doug Ford says that his government will not make vaccination mandatory for hospital workers amid concerns about staffing shortages in the sector.
Ford made the announcement in a statement issued on Wednesday afternoon, effectively going against the advice of a number of experts, including members of the province’s own science table who had pushed for the mandate as an “evidence-based policy that protects Ontarians.”
Ontario reports 378 new COVID-19 cases today, 5 more deaths
Ontario is reporting nearly 400 new COVID-19 cases today as the seven-day rolling average of daily infections once again increases week-over-week.
Provincial health officials logged 378 new cases today, up from 331 on Tuesday and 321 last Wednesday.
Ontario will unveil its plan for COVID-19 booster shots on Wednesday
Ontario will unveil its plan for more COVID-19 booster shots Wednesday, clearing the way for AstraZeneca recipients and others to get top-ups as the province continues efforts to get more first and second doses into arms.
The blueprint follows guidance to the provinces last week from the National Advisory Committee on Immunization, which recommended additional injections for groups of people “at increased risk of severe illness and highest risk of waning protection.”
Last week the Centers for Disease Control published a study claiming vaccination for Wuhan coronvirus was superior to immunity obtained through natural infection.
A media company in India are ramping up criticism of COIVD-19 vaccine suppliers following the nation’s success at treating the virus with Ivermectin. In a recent report, Indian television channel WION claimed Pfizer is maximizing revenues by selling COVID-19 vaccines to developing nations on often predatory terms.
The Big Apple’s COVID vaccine mandate is in effect—and there will be gaps with regards to some services. The New York City Police Department and the Fire Department of New York are making moves to fill the gaps. The overall vaccination rate is quite high at over 90 percent. There were more than a few first responders who opted to get the shot prior to the mandate taking effect, but 26 fire companies were reportedly shuttered. Yesterday, in some parts of the city, the garbage has not been picked up due to around 20 percent of the sanitation force not being vaccinated.
The authors of the study are recommending “that those policy decisions be revisited” by lawmakers based on the evidence they have found showing the mRNA vaccines can cause miscarriages within pregnant women.
They found that the Big Pharma-backed studies were misrepresented in order to push the vaccines out to more people.
