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Pro-Vaxxer Trump IS Lining Up to Be The Vaccine "Colt Seavers"

Permalink 03/11/24 19:58, by OGRE / (Jeff), Categories: Welcome, News, Background, On the web, History, Politics, Health Care, Elections

The Beginning

When reading this article, keep in mind that the influenza pandemic documents, and Executive Order 13887 of September 19, 2019 I'm referencing -- appear long before there was any talk of COVID-19 anywhere. However, the groundwork was being set to ramp up the mass production of vaccines "just in case of a pandemic."

From what I've seen and been able to find recently, things are not looking good for those who assumed that Trump was going to sweep in to DC and "fix" things.

There are documents from 2019, detailing the need for a new vaccine, "just in case" of a flu pandemic. Dr. Fauci warned about this in 2017.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease specialist, warned in early 2017 that a “surprise outbreak” would occur during the Trump administration, and he said that more needed to be done to prepare for a pandemic.

“There is no question that there will be a challenge to the coming administration in the arena of infectious diseases,” he said in a speech titled “Pandemic Preparedness in the Next Administration” at Georgetown University Medical Center. He delivered it just days before Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2017.

How could Dr. Anthony Fauci possibly "know" that there, to quote him, "will be" a pandemic during the next administration.

Enough people were worried about infectious diseases to convince the The Council of Economic Advisors to generate a report on the subject.

The document titled "Mitigating the Impact of Pandemic Influenza through Vaccine Innovation" which outlines the need for mRNA and other new vaccine technology can be found here (on the official ".gov" website). It lists mRNA as one of the emerging technologies that might be used to drastically decrease the time required to produce a new vaccine.

Here are a few excerpts from the document "Mitigating the Impact of Pandemic Influenza through Vaccine Innovation" from The Council of Economic Advisors September 2019.

Executive Summary
September 2019

This report estimates the potentially large health and economic losses in the United States associated with influenza pandemics and discusses why the most commonly used vaccine production technologies are unlikely to mitigate these losses. We estimate the value of new vaccine technologies that would make vaccines available more quickly and likely improve their effectiveness in moderating the risks of pandemics. We discuss why private market incentives may be insufficient to develop new vaccine technologies or promote the uptake of existing, faster but more expensive technologies, despite their large expected value to society. And we argue that increased utilization of, and investment in, these new technologies—along with public-private partnerships, to spur innovation—may be valuable to decrease the impact of both pandemic and seasonal influenza.
...
The Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) finds that in a pandemic year, depending on the transmission efficiency and virulence of the particular pandemic virus, the economic damage would range from $413 billion to $3.79 trillion. Fatalities in the most serious scenario would exceed half a million people in the United States. Millions more would be sick, with between approximately 670,000 to 4.3 million requiring hospitalization. In a severe pandemic, healthy people might avoid work and normal social interactions in an attempt to avert illness by limiting contact with sick persons. By incapacitating a large fraction of the population, including individuals who work in critical infrastructure and defense sectors, pandemic influenza could threaten U.S. national security.

Large-scale, immediate immunization is the most effective way to control the spread of influenza, but the predominant, currently licensed, vaccine manufacturing technology would not provide sufficient doses rapidly enough to mitigate a pandemic. Current influenza vaccine production focuses on providing vaccines for the seasonal flu and primarily relies on growing viruses in chicken eggs. Egg-based production can take six months or more to deliver substantial amounts of vaccines after a pathogenic, influenza virus is identified—too slowly to stave off the rapid spread of infections if an unexpected and highly contagious pandemic virus emerges.

To summarize the push for this new vaccine technology is that; in the event of a pandemic, it will help to minimize death and illness, minimize the economic impact, but most importantly illness within the general population is now considered a matter of national security. All existing "currently licensed" vaccine manufacturing tech is too slow. We need something new that can be produced faster.

This next part truly amazed me, but is illustrative of exactly what we saw during the "pandemic."

Improving the speed of vaccine production and vaccine efficacy are both important goals to mitigate pandemic risks and may also decrease the costs of seasonal influenza. Our analysis shows that innovation to increase the speed of vaccine production is key. Improving vaccine efficacy alone will be of little value in a pandemic if, as is the case with current egg-based production, the vaccine only becomes available after a large number of infections have occurred. Improving efficacy only yields value after greater speed has been achieved.

Their analysis shows that getting the vaccine manufactured, distributed and injected into as many people as quickly as possible -- is more important than vaccine effectiveness? Effectiveness is of little concern. While testing for effectiveness, the process also determines if there are unwanted side effects. Unverified effectiveness will result in unverified/unknown safety issues as well. In other words, if vaccine effectiveness is not a priority -- neither can vaccine safety be a priority. "Safe and effective" goes hand-in-hand with any injectable. You can't have one without the other.

And yet, someone, within the Trump administration, looked at this and thought, "Yeah, this is what we need here. More injectables that 'might probably' work."

Another production process, self-amplifying mRNA (SAM) vaccine manufacturing, which is patented but does not yet have an FDA-approved product, could shorten the vaccine manufacturing timeline even further. The SAM [mRNA] vaccine has been shown to be effective in mice (Hekele et al. 2013). Per interviews with government experts on influenza vaccines, both recombinant and SAM vaccines hold great promise for substantially shortening the vaccine manufacturing timeline and may provide the flexibility to engineer what would be a significant advance in the fight against influenza—a “universal” influenza vaccine.
...
Given the underprovision of pandemic risk mitigation by the private sector, the public sector [government] has a role in stimulating the development of, and demand for, newer vaccine technologies that are better able to provide pandemic preparedness. Public-private partnerships that stimulate such innovation may enhance welfare.

This publication by The Council of Economic Advisors concludes that the government, "has a role in, stimulating the development and demand for," newer vaccine technologies. What that means is that the government is going to pay private industry to develop "newer vaccine technologies" under the direction of the the government.

However, there is one component never mentioned in this document. There is no mention of liability. The reason that the private sector hasn't tried to drastically expand newer vaccine technology is because they have hit many dead ends. The mRNA technology mentioned in this publication has a very bad, and very well documented track record which is detailed in this NIH document from April 24, 2019.

I'll go so far as to say that it mRNA was/is not promising. This is not my opinion, this is well documented. Nobody has made it work, without serious complications to the test subjects. With these types of setbacks, private industry has been understandably reluctant to move forward with these newer vaccine technologies.

2019 and Beyond

Amazingly an executive order was drawn up -- and signed into law by September 19, 2019? Assuming that the first publication I cited was delivered on September 1st, 2019, the Trump administration had a whole (19) days to review the report, approve action on based on the report, draft an executive order, have it reviewed -- and signed by the 19th! Does anyone really believe that our government is this efficient? Or, was it more likely that these measures were drafted ahead of time?

Here's a link to Executive Order 13887 of September 19, 2019. You can also download a PDF version from there as well.

The entire beginning of the executive order (EO) is nearly a copy and paste of the document above. I'm going to list the parts that seem the most relevant.

Executive Order 13887 of September 19, 2019

Modernizing Influenza Vaccines in the United States to Promote National Security and Public Health

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 301 of title 3, United States Code, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Findings. a) Influenza viruses are constantly changing as they circulate globally in humans and animals. Relatively minor changes in these viruses cause annual seasonal influenza outbreaks, which result in millions of illnesses, hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations, and tens of thousands of deaths each year in the United States. Periodically, new influenza A viruses emerge from animals, including birds and pigs, that can spread efficiently and have sustained transmission among humans. This situation is called an influenza pandemic (pandemic). Unlike seasonal influenza, a pandemic has the potential to spread rapidly around the globe, infect higher numbers of people, and cause high rates of illness and death in populations that lack prior immunity. While it is not possible to predict when or how frequently a pandemic may occur, there have been 4 pandemics in the last 100 years. The most devastating pandemic occurred in 1918–1919 and is estimated to have killed more than 50 million people worldwide, including 675,000 Americans.
...
(e) The seasonal influenza vaccine market rewards manufacturers that deliver vaccines in time for the influenza season, without consideration of the speed or scale of these manufacturers’ production processes. This approach is insufficient to meet the response needs in the event of a pandemic, which can emerge rapidly and with little warning. Because the market does not sufficiently reward speed, and because a pandemic has the potential to overwhelm or compromise essential government functions, including defense and homeland security, the Government must take action to promote faster and more scalable manufacturing platforms.

What part (e) means is that the Government must take over the vaccine industry.

Sec. 2. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to modernize the domestic influenza vaccine enterprise to be highly responsive, flexible, scalable, and more effective at preventing the spread of influenza viruses. This is a public health and national security priority, as influenza has the potential to significantly harm the United States and our interests, including through largescale illness and death, disruption to military operations, and damage to the economy. This order directs actions to reduce the United States’ reliance on egg-based influenza vaccine production; to expand domestic capacity of alternative methods that allow more agile and rapid responses to emerging influenza viruses; to advance the development of new, broadly protective vaccine candidates that provide more effective and longer lasting immunities; and to support the promotion of increased influenza vaccine immunization across recommended populations.

Sec. 3. National Influenza Vaccine Task Force.

(a) There is hereby established a National Influenza Vaccine Task Force (Task Force). The Task Force shall identify actions to achieve the objectives identified in section 2 of this order and monitor and report on the implementation and results of those actions. The Task Force shall be co-chaired by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, or their designees.

(b) In addition to the Co-Chairs, the Task Force shall consist of a senior official from the following executive branch departments, agencies, and offices:

(i) the Department of Defense (DOD);

(ii) the Department of Justice; [DOJ]

(iii) the Department of Agriculture; [USDA]

(iv) the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA);

(v) the Department of Homeland Security; [DHS]

(vi) the United States Food and Drug Administration; [FDA]

(vii) the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; [CDC]

(viii) the National Institutes of Health (NIH);

(ix) the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS); and

(x) the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).

(c) The Co-Chairs may jointly invite additional Federal Government representatives, with the consent of the applicable executive department, agency, or office head, to attend meetings of the Task Force or to become members of the Task Force, as appropriate.

(d) The staffs of the Department of State, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the National Security Council, the Council of Economic Advisers, the Domestic Policy Council, the National Economic Council, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) may attend and participate in any Task Force meetings or discussions.

(e) The Task Force may consult with State, local, tribal, and territorial government officials and private sector representatives, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law.

(f) Within 120 days of the date of this order, the Task Force shall submit a report to the President, through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. The report shall include:

(i) a 5-year national plan (Plan) to promote the use of more agile and scalable vaccine manufacturing technologies and to accelerate development of vaccines that protect against many or all influenza viruses;

(ii) recommendations for encouraging non-profit, academic, and private sector influenza vaccine innovation; and

(iii) recommendations for increasing influenza vaccination among the populations recommended by the CDC and for improving public understanding of influenza risk and informed influenza vaccine decision-making.

(g) Not later than June 1 of each of the 5 years following submission of the report described in subsection (f) of this section, the Task Force shall submit an update on implementation of the Plan and, as appropriate, new recommendations for achieving the policy objectives set forth in section 2 of this order.

I know this is a long article, but bear with me here. There are few more important dates to cover.

The EO states that there's supposed to be a report generated within 120 days of its issuance.

September 19, 2019 + (120 days) = Friday, January 17, 2020.

Keep this in mind when you see these pandemic response timeline straight from BARDA's website. Everything lines up precisely. Are the people involved in pandemic preparedness literal fortune tellers?

On Friday, January 10, 2020 the Chinese government publicly shares the gene sequence of the novel coronavirus. The following Friday, January 17, 2020 is the deadline for delivery of the report from the National Influenza Vaccine Task Force. And on the following Monday January 20, 2020, (just 10-days later) the US has it's first confirmed case of COVID-19.

The response to COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 was initiated before there was an actual pandemic declaration. Which might seem like a good thing, we were prepared right?

That is, until you realize that this series of documented events lines up precisely -- within days, to make all of these agencies and public-private partnerships come together.

The White House didn't form their Coronavirus Task Force until January 29, 2019. It's possible to assume that Trump was unaware of the steps leading up to these events. While Trump's ignorance is possible, it's not very probable.

At this point -- there is absolutely no way that Trump isn't aware of the pandemic response outcome.

In any event, everybody needs to start preparing for things going forward.

I have no reason to assume that the pandemic racket is going away under Trump. The pandemic racket was formed while Trump was in office -- and signed off on by Trump himself.

Then Trump said this during the State of The Union Show on March 7, 2024.

Keep in mind that BARDA is the medical counterpart to DARPA. Hence Medical Countermeasures.

What do you think?

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Is A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) Coming for Your Job?

Permalink 03/03/24 12:17, by OGRE / (Jeff), Categories: Welcome, News, Background, In real life, History, Politics, Strange_News, U.S. Economy

A Little History

I'll start with a little backstory. I grew up in Jacksonville Florida. Here in Jacksonville during the 90s and into the early 2000s, Jacksonville had a large population of people with face tattoos. These people would frequent places like CLUB 5. CLUB 5 would feature any number of Hardcore and Industrial Metal bands, also some big names like Cake, Genitorturers, and even Dream Theater.

I frequented CLUB 5 as well -- because it was crazy. You never knew what you were going to see, or who you might meet. Everyone there was really friendly. It was just people hanging out, drinking, dancing, and sometimes chicks with only electric tape covering their nipples. For a while I wondered, "Where do all these people with face tattoos work?" You can't have an office, or customer facing job with Mike Tyson-style face tattoos.

I later found out that the face tattoo people worked as call center representatives at AOL (America Online). AOL had a huge call center in Jacksonville Florida for a number of years, from around 1996 - 2006. In late 2006, AOL started downsizing. Open Internet access was rendering services like AOL and CompuServe unnecessary. When the AOL jobs went away, many of the tech workers ended up at other businesses in Jacksonville, mostly in the financial industry.

Meanwhile, the trend to move call center jobs overseas had already begun. There were many advantages to moving a call center overseas, most importantly tax benefits, and reduced labor costs.

I'm Sorry, We Seem to Have Been Disconnected

But the current trend is moving towards a total elimination of call centers.

The History of Call Centers

Call centers date back to the 1960s, when Private Automated Business Exchange (PABX) was installed in the UK-based Birmingham Press and Mail to have rows of agents receiving customer calls. In the early 1970s, telephone booking systems were patented, and telephone headsets became popular based on televised NASA events.

Key Highlights of Call Center History

Call centers have continually evolved across the decades:

  • 1970s: Call center technology used for telephone sales, reservations, and banking services
  • 1980s: Toll-free numbers increased agent efficiency and call volumes
  • 1990s: Call centers became contact centers using multiple methods of communication
  • 2000s: The internet brought more computerization and automation
  • 2010s: The cloud developed along with mobile wireless technology modernizing call centers
  • 2020s: Artificial intelligence (AI) tools and virtual agents assist agents and provide expanded customer support

Outsourcing became the "corporate" thing to do. In the tech/programming realm, you would often hear, "I'll have to get with my team in India" or somewhere, but not here.

This video is very well done, I recommend watching until the end. You won't be disappointed.

The managerial control structure has broken what was at least a mostly working call center system. For example, in the early 2000s, if you were able to get ahold of someone in a call center, they could usually help you. But that's no longer the case. The managerial system has obfuscated the process to the point where nobody does anything.

John Carter who writes Postcards from Barsoom covered this quite eloquently in a piece entitled "Cyrptocracy."

The entire system seems to be designed around maximization of the system’s ability to wield power, whilst diffusing responsibility such that identifying the actual source of power is nigh impossible, thereby shielding those wielding power on behalf of the system from any negative consequences of their decisions.

People used to recommend, "Take down the name of the person you were talking with, in case you have to call back." But that no longer applies. The layers are too deep, nobody is accountable. The person you were speaking with -- their boss doesn't even know their name. You have to face it, you'll never get ahold of the man named "Mike," who has a really heavy foreign accent.

Everything is a matter of policy. Policy is referenced constantly as an excuse for why people can't help you. "Sir, I can't do that, I'll have to escalate the matter." These systems are not designed to provide a service anymore. They are designed to make people give up, go away, and just accept that they are being taken advantage of. The modern call center is a demoralization masterpiece, carefully crafted to make sure that you feel helpless and quite literally as, just a number.

Looking Forward

Understanding that "customer NO service" is the target design going forward, there is also no more need for people in call centers.

If the call center people couldn't help you, are they needed? A machine can just as easily repeat corporate policy and not help you -- and do it much more cheaply.

Newer corporate systems are designed such that nobody is helped. The caller is supposed to reference their user agreement, because all of the corporate policy is contained within. If you can comprehend the legalese, you will understand that you have agreed to be taken advantage of, and your only option is to stop using the service. Stopping the service might not be simple either. Even without contract, they can continue to bill you, if you don't jump through the proper hoops to meet cancelation requirements. After all, you agreed to it right?

The requirement of "autopay services" coincided with the entire push towards policy-based "customer NO service." This is something to consider whenever you are looking at using, or paying for any service. Autopay is the very first sign that you're entering an agreement -- that is not in your best interest.

As for call center workers, now might be a good time to freshen up your resume.

What do you think?

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Forget COVID-19, "Disease X" is The New Virus in Town

Permalink 03/02/24 14:30, by OGRE / (Jeff), Categories: Welcome, News, Background, In real life, On the web, History, Politics, Strange_News, U.S. Economy, Elections

What is Disease X

For comparison, I will reference the most recently declared pandemic, COVID-19.Sure COVID-19 didn't turn out to be the world's most deadly virus (COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 = same survivability as the flu).

But this next virus, well... you'd better be scared! I mean really scared, because it's coming, and we know it's coming because they have already half-way named it.

"Disease X" is the half-name of this coming viral outbreak. But how do we know there will be another outbreak soon?

Published February 15, 2024

In this Q&A, Amesh Adalja, MD, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, breaks down the specifics of Disease X, when and where the next potential pathogenic threat could arise, and how conceptual preparedness events could help forge new paths in pandemic prevention—and avoid repeating past mistakes.

Tell us about Disease X. How does it prepare us for future pandemics?

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once said, there are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. With Disease X, we're preparing for an unknown unknown.

Disease X is a placeholder concept that refers to a pandemic pathogen that has not yet been characterized. Its purpose is to encourage proactive thinking about pathogens that could cause a pandemic. It represents a way to push people's thinking forward so that they're not wedded to lists of prior pandemic pathogens, like influenza.

A few things stand out right from the start. Who is quoted at the beginning of the Q&A? A former secretary of defense -- not a medical doctor. The idea is to make people more scared, by framing this new "upcoming" pandemic as different (more scary) than all past pandemics. Pandemics are declared, they are not necessarily determined by metrics. Pandemics have been declared for illnesses that killed anywhere from 18,000 people to millions of people. There are no agreed upon metrics by which a pandemic should be declared.

I thought this next question was rather strange.

How do we convince people that Disease X is hypothetical?

The concept of Disease X has been around since at least 2018; it's not something new. This concept has already had some achievements under its belt. BioNTech and Moderna had a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate ready within hours to days because of work that was done in response to the MERS epidemic in the Arabian Peninsula, like understanding how to stabilize the spike protein in order to engender the appropriate type of antibodies. Even though we didn't know SARS-CoV-2 would be a pandemic pathogen, people started to think that the coronavirus family was an important viral family to work in because of its ability to cause severe respiratory disease. All of that sped the vaccine up considerably.

The faster a vaccine, antivirals, monoclonal antibodies, and diagnostic tests are available, that trend during an infectious disease emergency translates into life saved.

Why would there be a need to convince people that Disease X is hypothetical? If governments are planning and directing resources for Disease X as a definite, wouldn't it make sense to have people prepare on an individual level as well?

Who is involved in the preparedness planning for a Disease X pandemic?

I would say the bulk of the preparedness is happening with the WHO and other public health agencies like CDC, the European CDC, the UK Health Security Agency, as well as the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority [BARDA] at the NIH. It involves the United Nations, and essentially all levels of government, plus business organizations like the World Economic Forum. It trickles all the way down to the state and local health department levels as well as even individual hospitals and health care facilities. It also includes pharmaceutical companies that are thinking about vaccine platform technologies and how quickly they can ramp up as necessary.

This is really multisectoral because preparedness is not just medical countermeasures, it's also societal responses and business continuity.

The response to Disease X is going to require the assistance of just about every government organization, and government/private partnership on the planet according to Amesh Adalja, MD. BARDA was mentioned in the article, BARDA is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Take note, vaccines and therapeutics mentioned here are referred to as "medical countermeasures." The FDA doesn't regulate medical countermeasures, that's why the vaccines under EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) were not FDA approved. People were lied to and told that they were, but they weren't. The FDA doesn't have the jurisdiction to regulate military countermeasures, any more than the FDA has jurisdiction to regulate the explosive charge of grenades. Many word games were played.

How prepared do you think we are now?

Are we more prepared than we were for COVID? Yes, probably. But are we fully prepared? No. Have we solved hospital capacity problems? No. Do we have domestic manufacturers of masks? No, most of them have stopped manufacturing after COVID-19 [began to subside]. Do we have a population that wants to embrace new technologies like vaccines and antivirals? No.

You can see what happened with the mpox [Monkeypox] outbreak—how many mistakes were made and how difficult it was to get testing or antivirals. All of that played a major role in how difficult it was for clinicians to actually handle people during the mpox epidemic.

The public isn't lining up for vaccines and antivirals? Those involved in the COVID-19 response blame vaccine hesitancy on messaging. Just as they did in "The SPARS Pandemic Scenario." Public hesitancy was warranted, the vaccines, and antivirals didn't work as advertised. This was witnessed by many people, and the information was censored when someone attempted to speak out about it. Censoring people who are trying to warn others of danger, warrants hesitation and a lack of trust.

Weren't there people tasked with preparing for diseases all along? Isn't that what the CDC does? The CDC isn't new, so what have they been doing for all these years? Or, perhaps the NIH was preparing? Apparently that's not what the NIH or CDC do -- that's what the WHO does. At least, that's what the CDC told me.

The entire COVID-19 response -- globally, was a massive failure. Nothing went as expected, and many people died as a result of government interventions, always keep in mind that COVID-19 has a survivability rate equal to seasonal flu. Are we really to believe that an illness that has the same survivability rate as the flu -- somehow killed (5) times as many people as the flu, or was the government response to blame?

At what point does it make sense to award the same people, who screwed things up -- even more power and control the next time around? Double down on what didn't work in the very recent past. Not only that, let's centralize control of the response to guarantee that any bad decisions are spread and executed on a global scale. You have to ask yourself, "Is 'public health' really the goal here?"

The WHO, Meet The New Boss, Same as The Old Boss

The WHO is busy with its "International Treaty on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response." I'm sure that everyone has learned from their mistakes, these being the same people who think that a bad clinical outcomes are the result of messaging.

When looking at the details of any treaty, policy, or proposed change in agreement, one must first determine precisely why the proposed problem is now an issue.

For that I'll reference the WHO website to examine what the proposed problem, and solution(s) might look like.

Why did WHO’s Member States decide to create an accord for pandemic preparedness and response?

In light of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, WHO’s 194 Member States established a process to draft and negotiate a new convention, agreement, or other international instrument (referred to in the rest of this FAQ, generally, as an “accord”) on pandemic preparedness and response. This was driven by the need to ensure communities, governments, and all sectors of society – within countries and globally – are better prepared and protected, in order to prevent and respond to future pandemics. The great loss of human life, disruption to households and societies at large, and impact on development are among the factors cited by governments to support the need for lasting action to prevent a repeat of such crises.

At the heart of the proposed accord is the need to ensure equity in both access to the tools needed to prevent pandemics (including technologies like vaccines, personal protective equipment, information and expertise) and access to health care for all people.

The word "equity" does not mean what most people assume it means. People often assume it means equal distribution, or equal treatment, it does not. It means equal outcomes, with an absolute disregard as to methods required to achieve those outcomes. In short, "Make it equal, however you have to. We'll figure the rest out later."

Does anyone believe that we can provide access to health care for "all people?"

What is the process underway to draft and negotiate the accord?

In December 2021, at a special session of the World Health Assembly – WHO’s highest decision-making body, comprising of all of its 194 sovereign member countries – WHO’s Member States decided to establish an intergovernmental negotiating body (INB), representing all regions of the world, to draft and negotiate a WHO convention, agreement, or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, with a view to adoption under Article 19 of the WHO Constitution, other provisions of the Constitution as may be deemed appropriate by the INB.

Article 19 gives the 194 Member States forming the Health Assembly the authority to adopt conventions or agreements on any matter within WHO’s competence. The sole instrument established under Article 19 to date is the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which has made a significant and rapid contribution to protecting people from tobacco since its entry into force in 2005.

On the website they reference "the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control." Apparently it went into effect 27 February 2005. Considering that most people have likely never heard of this framework on tobacco control, it's easy to see where the WHO's real concern is. Pandemics are much more flashy than, "Stop smoking."

Let's take a look at the actual text of the Constitution of The World Health Organization.

Article 19

The Health Assembly shall have authority to adopt conventions or agreements with respect to any matter within the competence of the Organization. A two-thirds vote of the Health Assembly shall be required for the adoption of such conventions or agreements, which shall come into force for each Member when accepted by it in accordance with its constitutional processes.

The WHO determines their own level of "competency." I'm sure there's little chance for abuse there.

What this pandemic accord will do is give the WHO unprecedented power over the response to whatever the next declared pandemic will be. Most importantly -- the ability to declare a pandemic.

All of the member nations who agreed to the accord will then instate whatever pandemic response protocols they have in place. One of those protocols is vaccine passports. Vaccine passports are definitely going to be required for international travel.

We know this because the G20 nations have already agreed to this at the 2022 G20 summit.

The leaders from 20 countries at the recent G20 Summit signed a declaration which states they agree to adopt vaccine passports to “facilitate” all international travel.

The current membership of the G20 accounts for more than 66 percent of the world’s population and includes Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, India, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, and European Union.

The two-day summit concluded in Bali, Indonesia yesterday and consisted of talks between the G20 member countries. Klaus Schwab, World Economic Forum (WEF) Chair, also attended.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Technology Review states, This new social order will seem unthinkable to most people in so-called free countries. But any change can quickly become normal if people accept it. The new normal will be that we are used to the idea that in some cases being able to move around freely is dependent on us being able to show that we're healthy. There will be a greater acceptance, I think, of that kind of public health monitoring.”

Whenever Disease X gets here, it's the response I'm worried about, not the pathogen.

What do you think?

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Solar Power, Wind Power, and Population Reduction, Can it Work?

Permalink 02/09/24 00:21, by OGRE / (Jeff), Categories: Welcome, News, Background, In real life, On the web, Politics, Strange_News

Power generation is not a favorite subject of many people, so I'll try to keep this part short, while still touching on some of the most important points.

First of all let's take a look at how much power is produced, on average, in the US. Then we can brake it down by production type to get a better idea of where we stand with varying types of technologies.

What are considered "fossil fuels" (petroleum, natural gas, and coal) make up 79% of the total energy production. Renewable energy sources make up 13% of the total.

Solar only makes up 14.2% of the total for renewable energy, that's around 1.85% of the total energy production of the country.

Wind makes up 29% of the total for renewable energy, that's around 3.78% of the total energy production of the country.

Wood makes up 16% of the total renewable energy, around 2.08% of the total energy production of the country.

Considering that the Biden regime wants to push for net-zero emissions by 2050, we've got a long way to go.

The only possible way to catch up, based on current technology, is nuclear power.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In support of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, today the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued a request for proposals (RFP) for uranium enrichment services to help establish a reliable domestic supply of fuels using high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU)—a crucial material needed to deploy advanced nuclear reactors, which will help reach President Biden’s goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, increase energy security, create good-paying jobs, and strengthen U.S. economic competitiveness. Currently, HALEU is not commercially available from U.S.-based suppliers, and boosting domestic supply could spur the development and deployment of advanced reactors in the United States.

If US suppliers can't produce HALEU, then who can?

The current fleet of nuclear reactors runs primarily on uranium fuel enriched up to 5% uranium-235 (U-235). High-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) is defined as uranium enriched to greater than 5% and less than 20% of the U-235 isotope. Applications for HALEU are today limited to research reactors and medical isotope production. However, HALEU will be needed for many advanced power reactor fuels, and more than half of the small modular reactor (SMR) designs in development. HALEU is not yet widely available commercially. At present only Russia and China have the infrastructure to produce HALEU at scale. Centrus Energy, in the United States, began producing HALEU from a demonstration-scale cascade in October 2023.

This is why energy policy is vitally important and should be handled by serious people. Russia and China have the fuel that we might need for new advanced commercial nuclear reactors -- but we can't yet produce it at scale. This illustrates the lack of seriousness as it relates to energy policy. If any of these people pushing for net-zero energy production were serious, they would have been pushing for the production of HALEU domestically decades ago.

Solar Power

Here's my personal experience with solar power.

They are trying to sell solar panels everywhere in Florida right now. So, I decided to do some research. I found out there are two kinds of systems. Ones where you have your own batteries, and you basically go "off-the-grid." Or, you can have a system that runs the house on solar when there's enough sunlight, and you get to sell the "leftover" power back to the power company. They use a Net Meter to do that. After calling around, and talking with the people at our power company, I found out that they don't even have any of the Net Meters available. They are made by Landis and Gyr (Siemens), and there's a supply issue. They don't even know when they are going to get more.

To make a long story a little shorter. The engineer from the power company said that solar started out in Florida at about $10 per kW [this was many years ago]. It went down at one point to $3 per kW, and now it's back up to $5 per kW. When you do Net Metering, you do still draw from the grid at night, so the power that you sell them during the day is supposed to offset what you use at night. But, he pointed out that there's an issue with that, because unless the cost of the solar system is less than $2.56 per kW, you're going to end up spending more money with the solar system, and the utility bill than you would if you just stayed with the utility. In other words, it's a scam. But man are they trying hard to sell it.

A system big enough to power my house would run us about $86,000. So we would have a payment of around $286 per month for the solar loan, and we would still have a utility bill. Making things worse, we can't do Net Metering, because they don't even have the meters. LOL It's crazy, the reason I was looking into it is because we had a power bill that was $335. Which is the highest we've had in this house, and I don' think that the cost of fuel is going to go down any time soon. But alas, it's a wash. We're just going to stay on-grid, and use our generator if we have to. But at least we know what we're looking at now.

After all, we can always cut back on our power usage.

Most residential solar power is to offset peak usage during the day, the majority of houses are not self sufficient, they don't have enough energy storage capacity. In order to go "off-grid" the systems require large battery storage systems. They're warrantied for many years, but if there's a supply issue, you're going to be out of power, with no quick option to switch back to utility power.

Smart Grid Technology

I'm sure you've heard of smart grid technology by now. The basic concept is that electrical meters and switching devices controlled by the power company can have two-way communication. They can also be controlled remotely. What advantage does this afford the home owner, or end user? There's very little benefit to either. What smart grid technology does is put more control in the hands of the utility company.

Smart grid technology allows them to balance loads more easily, and control the overall system capacity. Most importantly, it allows them to do this remotely -- and with greatly reduced manpower.

If we're to be serious about renewable energy replacing fossil fuel energy sources, a few things have to happen. Large scale manufacturing would have to stop world-wide, because that's where the majority of energy is expended. I've written about this before. Some of the world's most efficient manufacturing facilities can't run 5-days a week, because the cost of energy is too high.

Supply will not be able to keep up with demand, with cutbacks to large-scale manufacturing. People will just have to make due without those products. There is no aspect of large scale manufacturing that doesn't require fossil fuels along the production and supply chain.

In order for wind and solar power to be sufficient, many things would have to happen. Manufacturing would have to be localized, pretty much everywhere. You would have to produce most of the things you need -- where you are. Think "Little House on The Prairie." Everyday life would change drastically.

While that might not sound too bad, there are many things to be considered. Producing goods closer to where they are needed is not always possible. There are many goods produced where they are, because location is a requirement of production. Not all crops grow in all places. You can't grow oranges outside of greenhouses if you go too far north. Some plants won't reproduce, or bloom, without being exposed to sunlight and/or darkness for the correct amount of time. The latitude at which these plants are grown determines this.

Where does depopulation fit in?

This professor at Stanford University, Paul Ehrlich, seems to think there are too many people in the world. And he's been vocal about it for (56) years as of this writing. A quick internet search will reveal that this is not some “fringe” belief either.

The world's most renowned population analyst has called for a massive reduction in the number of humans and for natural resources to be redistributed from the rich to the poor.

Paul Ehrlich, Bing professor of population studies at Stanford University in California and author of the best-selling Population Bomb book in 1968, goes much further than the Royal Society in London which this morning said that physical numbers were as important as the amount of natural resources consumed.

The optimum population of Earth – enough to guarantee the minimal physical ingredients of a decent life to everyone – was 1.5 to 2 billion people rather than the 7 billion who are alive today or the 9 billion expected in 2050, said Ehrlich in an interview with the Guardian.

William Rees from the University of British Columbia in Canada, also thinks that there are too many people on earth, and that something is going to happen to "correct" this problem.

Today, there are around 8 billion people on the planet.

That sort of growth is unsustainable for our ecosphere, risking a 'population correction' that according to a new study could occur before the century is out.

The prediction is the work of population ecologist William Rees from the University of British Columbia in Canada. He argues that we're using up Earth's resources at an unsustainable rate, and that our natural tendencies as humans make it difficult for us to correct this "advanced ecological overshoot".

The result could be some kind of civilizational collapse that 'corrects' the world's population, Rees says – one that could happen before the end of the century in a worst-case scenario.

...

The question is whether improvements in technology – in everything from combating climate change to increasing food production – are capable of keeping pace with the growing demands our consumption places on the planet.

If innovation can't provide solutions, food shortages, habitat instability, war, and disease may well start to make an impact in population numbers, this study predicts.

If the global population is drastically decreased, many things can become a lot easier to manage.

Consider, all of the heavy labor will have already been completed by people -- while the population was still high. There will be an excess of manufactured materials at the ready. All of those smart grid houses will still be producing power through their solar cells, regardless of whether or not someone is living in them.

The truth is that the proposed energy and food solutions won't support the current population, much less a larger population in the future. Combine that with all of those people at the highest levels of government and the scientific community, repeating year after year, "The global population is too large. If we don't reduce it we'll destroy the planet."

Why would anyone not consider that population reduction would be part of the "Master Plan for Humanity" as the Chinese Communist Party put it?

The Chinese Communist Party boasted that it played a “crucial role” in the SDG plan, which UN leaders said represents a “master plan for humanity” that will “transform our world.”

Remember the UN SDGs?

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also referred to as UN Agenda 2030, represent a comprehensive global effort to reform governance and the economy to be more in line with what the UN considers to be sustainable.

I would guess that most people would think that all of these initiatives are "conspiracy theories." But that doesn't fly anymore. You can go straight to the UN website, and read all about it.

What do you think?

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Perspective Means Everything COVID-19 Vaccines

Permalink 01/09/24 17:22, by OGRE / (Jeff), Categories: Welcome, News, Background, In real life, On the web, History, Politics, Health Care

As it relates to COVID-19 vaccines, I would like people to look at these things in a much different context.

Consider what we now know. We know the COVID-19 vaccines didn't work, or at least they didn't work in the way they were marketed to work.

Also keep in mind that masks and lockdowns did absolutely nothing to flatten the curve, or reduce reported COVID-19 cases, this is well documented.

I've been watching a lot of Korean shows on Netflix lately, which made me wonder, how did things shake out in Korea during the COVID-19 scare? After a little research I found this article. As you read the following excerpts, keep in mind what we now know about the COVID-19 vaccines.

SEOUL — Less than three weeks after South Korea relaxed pandemic restrictions under a new living-with-covid policy, the country is experiencing a surge in coronavirus cases.

On Wednesday, the country reported a record 522 coronavirus patients hospitalized with moderate to serious symptoms requiring intensive care, intubation or oxygen to help with breathing. It tallied 3,187 new infections the same day, the second-highest daily figure since the start of the pandemic.

South Korea’s government began relaxing pandemic restrictions on Nov. 1 [2021], deeming that a sufficient proportion of the population had been vaccinated. South Korea has fully immunized close to 80 percent of its 52 million people, despite a later start than many other wealthy countries. Fewer than 10 countries have higher vaccination rates, Washington Post figures show.

Let's take a look at this, 80% of the Korean population have been fully vaccinated, and the vaccinations started later than they did in most wealthy countries. However, they are experiencing a surge in coronavirus cases?

The article is dated Nov 17, 2021 so it was 16-days after COVID restrictions were eased. That isn’t “less than three weeks,” that’s just over 2-weeks.

If 80% of the population is fully vaccinated, where did the surge come from? The vaccines were supposed to stop the spread.

Let's see how they try to explain this away. You'll see the glaring logical fallacy in this.

An Israeli study published in the New England Journal of Medicine last month showed that six months after receiving the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, people’s immune response to the coronavirus “substantially decreased,” especially among men, those age 65 or older and those with immunosuppressed conditions.

More than half of the vaccine doses administered in South Korea so far were of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, although the country has also given out doses of the Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccines.

Though daily deaths are rising, South Korea’s covid fatality rate is low — and has fallen from 2.4 percent in May 2020 to less than 0.8 percent now, according to Our World in Data. This, experts say, is partly due to its high vaccination rate.

“This does show that vaccines work,” said Kim, the infectious-disease doctor. “But this isn’t a cause for celebration. The whole point of vaccines is preventing deaths. The number of deaths is rising.”

These are all conflicting statements. After receiving a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine people's immune response was "substantially decreased?" Decreased in relation to what, below the baseline? Notice they don't say.

Daily deaths are rising, but it's not do to COVID-19, and this shows that vaccines work? Work how exactly?

If the daily death rate is rising, and it's not COVID-19 -- then what is causing the increase? Of course, they're not going to say vaccines. However, the only nation-wide event coinciding with increased deaths temporally -- was mass vaccination.

Knowing what we know now, it's easier to see how people who were skeptical early on, were correct in their assumptions -- something isn't right with all of this.

After a mass vaccination campaign in South Korea, coronavirus cases, and deaths are at record levels.

The entire COVID-19 vaccine operation was at best a scam, and at worst an intentional culling.

What do you think?

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