“China eats weird animals disease”

Canada to make COVID vaccines mandatory for all federal employees, airline, rail and cruise ship passengers

Vaccinations will now be mandatory for all federal public service workers and the government expects to see this extend to employees of other crown corporations as well, Minister for Intergovernmental Affairs Dominic LeBlanc announced at a press conference Friday afternoon.

Passengers wishing to travel on commercial planes, interprovincial trains and cruise ships will also be required to vaccinate in order to board, Minister of Transport Omar Alghabra said. The announcements come amid rising cases of COVID-19 across Canada, fuelled by the virus’s highly transmissible Delta variant.

Former president Barack Obama shrugged off the concerns of scientific experts by throwing himself a massive 60th birthday party at his $17.5 million estate on Martha’s Vineyard this past weekend.

As usual, the scientific experts were correct: The star-studded affair was a confirmed “super spreader” event, putting countless lives at risk and further cementing Obama’s reputation as a narcissistic war criminal.

The world’s first Covid-19 patient may have been infected by a bat while working for a Wuhan lab in China, a World Health Organization chief has admitted.

Dr Peter Embarek, who led the WHO probe into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic in China, made the shocking claim despite initially dismissing the notion that the virus escaped from a lab as extremely unlikely.

This theory assumes the release of the China flu was an accident.

h/t TB

French police have been urged to step up security around Covid vaccination and testing centres after a spate of attacks and vandalism in the last month.

As France prepares for a fifth weekend of demonstrations against the health pass, the interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, has written to police chiefs calling for greater vigilance. French media reported that the request had come directly from Emmanuel Macron.

It came after the ministry reported that 22 health sites had been vandalised, including five test centres, 15 vaccination centres, a medical laboratory and a health centre, since 12 July.

Over at City Journal, Jeffrey Anderson has written a very interesting article that dives into many of the studies our public health officials have used to justify mask-wearing. Now that the mask debate is back in full swing as several cities and states reimplement mask mandates, it’s worth asking, as Anderson does: How effective are masks really?

The answer: It depends on the study.

Protests are erupting in cities across Europe in response to government efforts to impose so-called Covid passports, documents that show proof of immunization against Covid-19. The passports, which effectively reward the vaccinated and punish the unvaccinated, have sparked a heated debate over the constitutionality of government attempts to force people to get vaccinated.

In the last two weeks alone, hundreds of thousands of people of all political persuasions have gathered in at least 300 European cities to protest government overreach and to defend civil liberties. So far, the protests have not had the intended effect of reversing government policies, but they have highlighted that Europeans are thoroughly divided on the issue of Covid vaccines.

Ontario reports 513 new COVID-19 cases; highest single-day tally in 2 months

Ontario is reporting 513 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, surpassing 500 daily infections for the first time since mid-June.

Thursday’s case count marks a significant day-over-day rise from Wednesday when 324 infections were logged, and is more than two times the 213 cases reported a week ago.

Ottawa promises vaccine passport for international travel this fall

The federal government says it plans to create proof-of-vaccination documentation for international travel by early fall.

Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said this afternoon that Ottawa is working with the provinces — which hold the data on vaccinations — to develop consistent credentials. The minister said the government is also working with other countries to recognize the credentials issued in Canada.

The federal certification would include data on the type of vaccines received, dates and location.

The world is always coming to an end, for someone. “Never morning wore to evening but some heart did break,” as Lord Tennyson elegantly put it. People die every day, from illnesses and accidents. Ambulances and fire engines are forever on their way to some life-shattering emergency; the police are eternally ringing someone’s doorbell to give bad news. The news websites’ pandemic death toll tickers have made it impossible to forget, but the fact is not new.