UPDATE...The Agony of Misinformation...Anti-Vaxxers Continue to Spread Propaganda as Scientists Labor,

 

UPDATE: CNN Medical Analyst...

“I’d say that he’s [Sen. Ron Johnson] so misguided that it makes me wonder whether this is all just an act. And if it is an act, what does that say about what he thinks his constituents want to hear?”

“And if this is not an act, then he is just the most ignorant man in the United States Senate. And that says a lot.”

The noxious Republican Senator from Wisconsin is still at it with a new hit for the Covid stage. Ron Johnson says if you gargle with mouthwash every morning, you're safe from the coronavirus. Johnson is a long-term spreader of coronavirus misinformation...

"YouTube this year suspended his account for violating the company’s medical misinformation policies. He has also expressed skepticism about the efficacy of coronavirus vaccine mandates and doses, which have undergone vigorous health testing."

While this wingnut spouted his crap, other anti-vaxxers challenged the credibility of the newly announced Omicron variant back in November of 2021, first noticed in the U.K. They questioned the virus' validity by releasing a bogus schedule of new variant disclosure dates exclaiming the whole pandemic was orchestrated...

"Other false claims about the new variant have leaped across the Internet in the two weeks since it was first identified. One post in a group with more than a million members on the Telegram messaging app claimed the vaccines had caused the omicron variant, according to First Draft, a nonprofit that investigates misinformation. Another conspiracy theory posits that the variant is being pushed by governments and pharmaceutical companies to undermine ivermectin, an anti-parasite drug that vaccine skeptics have said treats covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. (There is no scientific evidence supporting that claim.)

A Kaiser Family Foundation Study says most parents still are skeptical of the

vaccine for their children with one in ten saying. "they will "definitely not" vaccinate their children against Covid-19. This, no doubt accounts for the surge in children's cases across the U.S. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) reports 226,000 child COVID-19 cases from Sep 9 to 16. They represent 25.7% of weekly reported cases.

Here's more from the KFF study...

"Vaccine uptake has slowed among adolescents ages 12 to 17 in recent months. Only about half of parents say that their child in this age group has received at least one dose of vaccine, a share that has changed little since the fall, KFF found.

"And among parents of younger children ages 5 to 11, about 29% say that their child has already been vaccinated or will be "right away." But another third of parents of children in this age group say that they want to "wait and see" before vaccinating their child against Covid-19."

Finally, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr... how could he have gone so wrong? Along with other politicians and celebrities, this medical lowlife is the worst. Not even going to get into his father, who must be throwing up in his grave. Here's an example of what this moron spews, in this case a far right conference, branded as standing for “health and freedom,” at a Southern California church...

“It is criminal medical malpractice to give a child one of these vaccines,” Kennedy contended, according to a video of the event, one of his many assertions that ignored or went against legal, scientific and public health consensus.

More...

Then, Kennedy hawked his book. If just 300 attendees preordered it on Amazon that night, he told the crowd, it would land on the bestseller list and they could “stick it to Amazon and Jeff Bezos.”

READ MORE... 

The Agony of Stupidity...39 Million Unvaccinated Idiots on the Street Worse Than 390 million Guns

Misinformation was Conceived and Launched by Republicans

Anti-Vaxxers a Steel-Trap of Misinformation

Anti-vaxxers will not be "coddled"

 

Charles M. Blow is a well-known columnist with the New York Times and he has finally had enough. With anti-vaxxers. Like many of us in the U.S., Blow says, "I am furious at the unvaccinated." The understatement of the year. A personal incident fueled his reaction against a friend who, unvaccinated, could have endangered himself and others around him...like his buddy, Charles Blow. What happened next was typical of a group well defined as anti-science...

"I recently found out that a friend of mine — a smart guy — was not vaccinated, and I confronted him about it.

"How could he have not gotten his vaccination? And how had he not seen fit to tell me and our other mutual friends? Wasn’t he worried about the risk he was posing not just to himself, but to the rest of us?

"He tried to laugh it off, offering up a bunch of concerns rooted in conspiracy theories. But I told him that he had to get vaccinated, period."

Blow also commented, "I will not coddle willful ignorance of the unvaccinated anymore." Well said! Don't you love the word, "coddle?" It means, "to treat tenderly; nurse or tend indulgently; pamper." Not that I think we have had an overabundance of coddling of the anti-science bunch, but there has been more than enough of mutual concession and compromise between those of us who believe that the scientific community knows what it is doing and "those" who don't.

The Story Behind The Anti-Vaxx Movement In America | Rise And Fall...

Charles Blow has more...

"The next time I saw him, he was worried about the omicron variant and asked if I would go with him to get the jab. I texted him a site where he could register and told him to let me know once he had. That was Saturday. He still hasn’t signed up.

"I am disappointed, and I am angry, not just with my friend but with all the people who are choosing not to get vaccinated."

And yes, most of us have tried our best to be "tolerant" with those who sometime challenge the IQ system to its limits. I remember when I was in school, all the way through college, not only in science classes, but any curriculum where you can arrive at a solution by establishing facts that substantiate your problem. The teacher decided we had solved the issue, and we accepted this, not just because the teacher said so, but because we had scientifically determined our results.

I don't like concluding a post by calling names, unfortunately anti-vaxxers have forced this ploy repeatedly in the last two-plus years, and once again I must say it with enthusiasm... the anti-science bunch are IDIOTS.

 

The agony of stupidity...Anti-vaxxer on Hollywood Blvd

 

I lived in Hollywood for a while several years ago and spent many hours on Hollywood Blvd. in restaurants and bars. It was much cleaner then and fewer homeless, although there were several would-be actors that would accost you displaying their talents hoping you might be a producer or director. I wasn't, but they didn't know that so the street-play went on as if I was. My favorite eatery was Musso & Frank Grill where they seemed to congregate in front.

Those were fun days for me but this post is about today, and it is a completely different Hollywood Blvd. Musso & Frank is still there but homeless people have now replaced the would-be actors. Added too are the anti-vaxxing idiots who display their stupid philosophy as if it was an ongoing TV series of morons. It was just this week that one of those deniers of science observed one of these displaced

folk and screamed...

“Do you see all of these homeless people around. Are they dead in the street from Covid? Hell no. Why?”

And here was this retort from the homeless person in question...

A man pushing a trolley walked by and quipped: “Because I’m vaccinated you dumb f***.”

As usual, the anti-vaxxer ignored the reply as the man proceeded down the street. Even on the boulevard of the stars, the bumbling deniers of science are ridiculed. 

Covid-19 Mandates targeting Anti-Vaxxers are Coming...And Fast

 

There are gun nuts, and then there are anti-vax nuts. Right now it is the latter who are killing innocent American citizens. I feel sure all the fair-minded and lucid thinkers of the U.S. wholeheartedly welcome this headline from Daily Beast: "America’s Finally Telling the Anti-Vax Nuts Where They Can Go." Many of us bloggers have ideas of their potential destination and just today I have come up with, outer space, a location befitting their far-out beliefs. 

It is perhaps a coincidence that as I began to construct this post, a friend of mine received a phone call from an anti-vaxxer, anti-masker, anti-distancer and anti-anything else that is based in scientific fact. It was a long and frequently confrontational conversation because he is just as sure of his position in intelligence as the anti-everything on the other end. This person is a confirmed know-it-all with a perspective intensified by the defense of her position.

Here's a gaffe made by this person during the debate that throws the whole anti-bunch movement out of kilter. The talker doesn't believe in the science of vaccines but does believe in the fact that, by having had coronavirus, antibodies are created that protect her in the future. Isn't that science? My friend didn't press the point because the opposition throws up a shield for anything fact-based, saying the

people we follow are afraid to tell us the truth.

This individual is living with a built-in obstinance of logic. Science Daily says...

infants are capable of deductive problem solving as early as 10 months of age, a new study by psychologists at Emory University and Bucknell finds.

Is it possible there is a wire loose in the brains of the anti-science group and, if reconnected, it could solve the Covid-19 pandemic? If only it could be this simple, but, no doubt, there would be thousands of excuses to deny surgery. Sometimes I wonder if they enjoy this kind of independent beligerantism. Did I just coin a word? Here's another headline from The Daily Beast...

"One Thing Will Save Us From These Suicidal Lunatics—Mandates"

Here are some examples from New York city, which is supposed to be somewhat sophisticated,,,

 

One of the points this anti-science person made on the phone was that Covid-19 is no worse than the annual flu. I did some research and re. this she was so far off it is laughable. In the 2019-2020 flu season, according to the CDC, there were 20,000 flu-related deaths. Johns Hopkins Univ. reports there were 352,000 coronavirus deaths in 2020. And already in 2021 353,000 deaths from the virus. Logic would indicate it is downright foolish to compare the two.

The 1918 flu pandemic which killed 50 million was a wake-up call for the treatment of viruses. Covid is brand new with scientists facing a virus so far they aren't even sure where or what it came from. But did you know that misinformation spread during 1918, like in 2020, but at that time they didn't have platforms of social media that are available today. In my wife's discussion, the other side listed the hospital where she worked as her source. Today, misinformation is a business.

And the word is also being spread by politicians questioning the validity of the virus making it near impossible for the uneducated to know what to do. Here is a classic example...

GOP lawmaker says COVID deaths are a Vatican plot — and vaccines contain 'living organisms with tentacles'

This blithering idiot is from New Hampshire and is typical of what some GOP lawmakers in Congress come up with regularly.

Science will prevail, must prevail, if we are to survive this pandemic. One can only wonder if these lunatics will ever realize the truth.

NEWS FLASH: Facebook down globally...Anti-vaxxer misinformation a cause?

 

Recently I googled "facebook anti vaxxer posts," and got almost 13 million hits. Considering it is specific to anti-vaxxers, it shows the activity on Facebook that is centered around the people who spread misinformation on Covid-19. Everything from pushing the drug Ivermectin, a medication for animals, to literally entering

ICU wards and attempting to talk the coronavirus sick into leaving the hospital. Not just misguided advocates, doctors have also joined this gang of imbeciles.

The big news, Facebook and its several apps are down globally.

Now you have to wonder at this point if some poor, fed-up family member who lost a loved one due to this stupid misinformation has somehow hacked into Facebook's internal workings and plunged the whole system into chaos. They are saying it is one of the longest outages for this social media site. All of its apps went down simultaneously provoking the possibility, if by design, it certainly was well planned. No one as yet has taken credit. 

Some experts are blaming it on DNS and BGP. Don't want to be responsible for a conspiracy theory, but the "haters" are just as vociferous on both sides of this issue. Some are exclaiming it is a "massive hack." And, Mark Zuckerberg, along with the Facebook properties, have been repeatedly under investigation by the feds, alluding to the fact that maybe some of the accusations could be correct. Could the recent 1.5 billion theft of FB files be connected? No one knows yet.

Well, Facebook is back up but its own engineers are still leery whether The DNS and BGP connection are solid. If this was a hack job, well, no one is talking about it yet. If the mishap wasn't malicious, then, does that mean FB's team of supposed technical pros were out to lunch when this happened. Or, has the company simply strung together too many apps, and this is what happens when they can't talk to each other anymore. Whatever, bet Zuckerberg won't sleep tonight.

The Agony of Stupidity...Covid-19 Weekly Digest of Ignorance

 

Harold Blackwell, a father of two girls, was not vaccinated. He died from pneumonia brought on by COVID-19. 48 years old and previously healthy, he changed his tune and just before death began advocation for vaccine.

Unvaccinated family of three passes around coronavirus until 74-year-old mom with a masters degree passed away. Family says don't criticize her; sane individuals would say she is pathetic.

Two who lived thousands of miles apart and should 

have known better resisted getting vaccinated against COVID-19 for months. Then they realized their stupidity, but it was too late. Too late, the3y already has the virus and after a severe illness, they died. Tsk Tsk.

You gotta see this must-see video, "Infected by Stupid"...

Just be thankful you aren't among the Covid-19 stupid. Or...are you???

The Agony of Stupidity...If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population

 

The above statement is from A Christmas Carol, said by Ebenezer Scrooge, talking about the poor people of his village. The comment also reflects the latest feelings by a vaccinated public fed up with the anti-vaxxing population. If you are a Cat Stevens fan, here is what he had to say in one of his songs that also applies...

“If you want to leave, take good care, hope you make a lot of nice friends out there.”

If we are to assume "out there" could be death, then the singer would appear to be in agreement with Scrooge. Here's another quote from Leonard Pitts Jr. in an opinion piece from the Tampa Bay Times...

"Your quitting your jobs goes a long way toward purging us of the gullible, the conspiracy-addled, the logic-impaired and the stubbornly ignorant."

This is, of course, Florida, where one of the country's preeminent Killing Machines rules, Gov. Ron [demented] DeSantis. Pitts directs his ultimatum to those who have quit their jobs rather than get vaccinated. If you care, here's why people are refusing the vaccines...

Pitts' deniers include...

"a nearly-30-year veteran of the San Jose Police Department surrendered his badge rather than comply with the city’s requirement that all employees be inoculated against COVID-19. He joins an Army lieutenant colonel, some airline employees, a Major League Baseball executive, the choral director of the San Francisco Symphony, workers at the tax collector’s office in Orange County, Florida, and, incredibly, dozens of health care professionals." 

The Daily Beast just published an article under this glaring headline, "Mocking Unvaxxed COVID Victims Is the New Pandemic Blood Sport." They deserve it and that is precisely what this blog post is meant to do, "mock" the looney bins that think they know more than the scientific experts.

I am encouraged by the fact the mock site, Sorryantivaxxer.com, uses my favorite term to describe anti-vaxxers, "They are all idiots.” DB explains...

"The website is indeed likely the most comprehensive repository of one type of now-familiar COVID story: the one where someone who criticized the vaccine ends up dead or hospitalized due to the virus..."

Okay, I live in Arizona, a state that was red when we moved here over twenty years ago. Although it is slowly turning from purple to blue, there are still a number of mentally depraved Republicans. Like Gov. Doug [dufus] Ducey, a sworn Donald Trump mentor, Pres. of the Senate legislature and proprietor of the sham 2020 election audit, Karen Fann, and Kari Lake, former television novice and current political hack who wants to be the next governor. 

They, and others like them, are the ones who have perpetuated misinformation like the current craving for Ivermectin, a deworming drug for animals, that these right-wing morons are taking to treat coronavirus. It can sicken you and can cause death. Feed stores in Phoenix have been complaining for some time now they don't have enough of the medication to supply their animal customers. Podcaster Joe Rogan was a big promoter of Ivermectin, as was Tucker Carlson on Fox News.

But returning to Scrooge's proclamation, "If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population," I have said for months now, corral all these anti-vaxxers/maskers in a gulag where they can ply their beliefs between a    population of like morons and kill each other. It would save us zillions on healthcare and eliminate having to hear about the latest idiot that refused to get his or her coronavirus vaccine.

Covid-19 and climate change both destroying the U.S

 

The coronavirus snuck up on us and established its unchallenging position that required the immediate actions of the healthcare community. There has been considerable success, even though Republicans, especially, governors like Florida's Ron DeSantis and Texas' Greg Abbott who oppose any precaution recommended by the CDC. These heads of states are responsible for horrific numbers of death and suffering in their states, yet they refuse to back down.

Climate change has also been creeping along at a slow yet enduring pace that has produced calamities of excessive rainfall and heat hardships like we are experiencing this summer. And then there are the dry areas that have spawned wildfires like those recently in California, particularly the one in Lake Tahoe currently threatening thousands of people and homes and the resort areas hotels. Republicans swear that climate change is a myth, refusing to address the problem.

Just recently there was the New York times headline: "Governors DeSantis and Abbott, ‘Undermining Public Health’" Now this is a mandate that should unravel the residents of Texas and Florida, but so far, very little from the ranks. School districts are defying DeSantis regularly on his ban of mask mandates, and Abbott has taken a few hits on his regulations from the courts. But new Covid-19 cases and deaths just keep piling up. Texas, as an example, had 257 deaths today.

This country has other problems like gun violence and immigration reform, both with figures like immigrant encounters are at a 21 year high, and 29,759 deaths using guns since the first of the year. There are more and with all the dilemma facing us, one might think we are approaching apocalypse. Study after study proves that masks prevent the spread of the virus, and environmental groups have shown the value of clean energy to stave of atmospheric nightmares. Go figure.

And then the NYT opinion page asks, "What if the Coronavirus Crisis Is Just a Trial Run?" After all, this country is wallowing in a good life that has recently lost sight of the future and what could happen to our children if we don't put the brakes on excesses of all kinds. But the children themselves are being taught they can have whatever they want with no consequences for their destiny. There is a certain amount of innocence here but there is also willful participation. 

In summation, if we are in as bad a shape as the media reports in fighting future viruses as well as stopping changing weather patterns that kill, as an example the recent Ida hurricane that hit Louisiana, are we, in fact, heading for an apocalypse?

Doctors' battle cry: “We can’t let COVID win.”

 

That was almost 18 months ago expressing a commitment to take "care of the infected and the critically ill when no one else would." And they did, when at times it looked as if everything was against them. This is the story of Thanh Neville, M.D., M.S.H.S., is an ICU physician and researcher at UCLA Health. She is also the medical director of the UCLA 3 Wishes Program so she understands dying patients. What she doesn't understand is the refusal of the unvaccinated. 

Dr. Neville recounts how it was and is on the frontlines...

"We reused N95 masks, carefully placing them in labeled brown paper bags in between shifts. We witnessed lonely deaths and held up iPads for families to say their heartbreaking goodbyes. We created elaborate backup schedules and neglected our personal lives. We stepped up during surges and when our colleagues fell ill."

But she and her fellow physicians stuck together to fight an enemy not seen since the flu epidemic of 2018. And there were deficiencies like personal protective equipment for the staff where some got sick, then some died, "more than 3,600 from COVID-19 in the first year." And during this period, most of the emphasis was on patient deaths, but the health care industry plodded along doing what they knew must be done to save Americans from this new deadly virus.

And because of the severity of the situation, it was necessary to quarantine ourselves in order to protect our loved ones...

"We counted the risk factors of our children, our elderly parents, our spouses, and came up with our own formulas to decide whether to come home at the end of the shift or hole up in a hotel room."

Vaccines were finally introduced across the U.S. and there was hope. Cases did take a sharp turn down giving workers a brief respite. But the Delta variant snuck in the back door with a sizable transmissibility that knocked the health care folks and their patients right out of their socks. The unvaccinated, led on by anti-vaxxers and a hoard of misinformation, had turned a large portion of the population against the vaccines to add to the problem. Dr. Neville became angry.

She's mad at those who refuse to get vaccinations. Most all of the vaccination

population is, and we are fast becoming tired of the anti-vaxxer excuses and whining about their freedom and how they are being persecuted. The doc is most angry over the misinformation with specifics on the virus that misleads people and jeopardizes their health. She attacks those not considered anti-vaxxers but resist the decision to get vaccinated...

"Although such individuals do not consider themselves anti-vaxxers, their inaction itself is a decision — a decision to not protect themselves or their families, to fill a precious ICU bed, to let new variants flourish, and to endanger the health care workers and immunosuppressed people around them. Their inaction is a decision to let this pandemic continue to rage."

Dr. Neville finishes with the following...

"I am at a loss to understand how anyone can look at these past months of the pandemic — more than 600,000 lives lost in the U.S. and more than 4 million worldwide — and not believe it’s real or take it seriously."

There is no doubt there is maximum agreement between all of us who are and have been vaccinated for months. In case you haven't checked recently, here are the latest USA figures on the coronavirus...

Coronavirus Cases: 36,951,577

Deaths: 634,998

Amen! 

Read Dr. Neville's article in full, here.

Private health insurers/Medicare should deny anti-vaxxers coverage

 

And why not? The anti-vaxxers are the primary reason the Covid-19 pandemic is enjoying new vigor with the recent addition of the Delta variant. CNN's Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and former Baltimore health commissioner, says, 'We can’t trust the unvaccinated.' I can attest to that having a family member traveling between two states after just learning her whole family was infected with the virus, including two children under the age of ten.

If you think that is insane, I wholeheartedly agree. This attitude has endured in the entire family since day one of inception of the coronavirus in this country. An early comment was, "It's only a virus," as if that was something you could easily just sweep under the rug. Today a Washington Post article, "When will the summer coronavirus surge peak? It will get worse before it gets better, experts predict." Like "140,000 to 300,000 cases a day in the United States come August."

Okay, it's not just a virus anymore, yet, 30% don't have the shot with most saying they won't get it. We're back to 70,000 cases a day, but the Florida health department recently announced that state alone was forecasting some 83,000 cases a day by early August. David W. Dowdy, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said...

“It is getting worse, and at least as of right now, it is not really slowing down in the U.S.,”

It is getting worse because 1 in 4 Americans are refusing to get the vaccine. In addition to vaccine denial, "Relaxing precautions, such as no longer wearing masks or engaging in social distancing," a major contributor according to leading epidemiologists. One statement did indicate, however, right now masks are only protecting the unvaccinated. The Washington Post opinion piece said...

"Those of us who have behaved responsibly — wearing masks and, since the vaccines became available, getting our shots — cannot be held hostage by those who can’t be bothered to do the same, or who are too deluded by misinformation to understand what is so clearly in their own interest."

Here's a comment from the Washington Post's Ruth Marcus I totally agree with: "The more inconvenient we make life for the unvaccinated, the better our own lives will be." That is the gist of this post, except that losing your health insurance is not just an inconvenience, it is a major economic blow. Hit 'em where it hurts then see how fast their position changes and they rush to get their vaccination.

Just look at the figures across the country. They are on the increase almost everywhere, with Florida reporting just this past week 21,000 new Covid cases in one day. Following that state is Texas, #2 in total cases, #3 in total deaths. They each have Republican morons for governors, Ron DeSantis, Florida, Greg Abbott in Texas. State governors like these two bottom feeders are what encourage the anti-vaxxers along with the voluminous social media misinformation.

It was actually Piers Morgan that came up with this concept of denying health coverage to those who will deny the vaccination. His headline:  "Piers Morgan: If you refuse COVID-19 vaccine and catch the virus, you should be denied state-funded health care and pay for it yourself." I added the idea of including the private insurance carriers. The U.S. currently stands at 49.9% fully vaccinated, with most of the summer still ahead of us.

Just last Saturday, fans packed a Florida stadium following a record one-day of 21,000 new cases, a week of 110,000 new cases. Florida has just been named the new coronavirus epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic, and it all can be traced back to the reckless handling of the virus spread by its Republican governor, Ron DeSantis. So, the anti-vaxxers aren't all to blame after the Republican Party spewing its misinformation. 

We're experiencing the biggest outbreak of idiots the United States has ever known. And it all really started with the election of Donald Trump.

Coronavirus pandemic bad enough but Robt. F. Kennedy Jr. just makes it worse

 

Would John F. Kennedy turn over in his grave, or would he agree with his nephew, Robt. F. Kennedy, Jr. in the denial of vaccines to prevent COVID-19? I believe the former, and it is tragic to see this once politically famous family go down in flames. For repeatedly making false claims about coronavirus vaccines, Robt. F has been banned from Instagram. This is significant since much of anti- vaxxer misinformation is passed along through social media.

However, "His Facebook account remains active despite similar claims posted there." Yet Instagram is a part of Facebook. Go figure. And here is one of his bizarre lies...connecting the death of legendary baseball player Hank Aaron to the Covid-19 vaccine. Kennedy is a lawyer and should know better; anyone this educated should understand science making it clear since the COVID-19 pandemic started that vaccinations are the precursor to protection from the virus.

Kennedy's advocacy is not acceptable as two variants of the pandemic are raging across the U.S., one from Great Britain and one from So. Africa. At the same time we have our homegrown variant from California which is spreading in 12 states and a few countries. Being highly transmissible, and the UK B117 has been judged more contagious, plus the fact that even the current vaccines aren't guaranteed against these variants, anti-vaxxers are doing great harm to other Americans.

And if this wasn't bad enough, Dr. Rishi Desai, chief medical officer at Osmosis and former CDC epidemic intelligence officer reports...

"As the medical community warns about highly transmissible mutations of COVID-19, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Illinois and Massachusetts are among states rolling back pandemic-related restrictions."

But if you're still not convinced, this recent headline from National Public Radio should rattle your cage: "Why The Pandemic Is 10 Times Worse Than You Think." There is reasoning behind this statement and it comes from a research team at Columbia University which has built a mathematical model giving a much more complete picture of how much virus is circulating in our communities. And it's much more scary...

"It estimates how many people are never counted because they never get tested. And it answers a second question that is arguably even more crucial — but that until now has not been reliably estimated: On any given day, what is the total number of people who are actively infectious? This includes those who may have been infected on previous days but are still shedding virus and capable of spreading disease."

Here's the model's conclusion...

"On any given day, the actual number of active cases — people who are newly infected or still infectious — is likely 10 times that day's official number of reported cases."

We've been warned about asymptomatics, and, of course, there are deniers squirming everywhere, so there is every reason to believe these numbers, especially when you consider the U.S. has racked up 28,093,867 cases and 492,119 deaths from COVID-19. But why are people still protesting the very science that will save their lives? Aljazeera has this answer...

"Lockdowns have been financially devastating for millions of people who have been unable to work and lost their incomes. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), unemployment has soared across major economies since the beginning of the pandemic."

I will accept that conclusion but must add that in the U.S. there is a group that

erroneously believe they are fighting for their rights against a government that is attempting to curb their rights.  This gang of misfits, led by Donald Trump, is the major factor that is interfering with pandemic control in the U.S. And, until we rid the country of this faction, COVID-19 and several other problems before the current new President, Joe Biden, will haunt our progress as a free nation.

About time anti-vaxxers put in their place

A mother from Colorado had four children with the flu, took them to the doctor, he prescribed Tamiflu, which she did not give them. Instead, she went to Facebook for an answer and the group, Stop Mandatory Vaccination, which advised her against using the medication, instead, recommending a bunch of snake oil preparations to use. One of her children, a four-year-old boy. died. Undaunted, she asked for more advice from the organization and this time they suggested...

"breastmilk, thyme and elderberry, none of which are medically recommended treatments for the flu."

I did a post on this earlier today, "Anti-vaxxers responsible for death of 4-year-old Colorado boy," but felt impelled to do this follow-up to illustrate what an imbecile this mother is, and apparently continues to be. Here's the scenario...

"A search by NBC News uncovered the mother’s engagement with an online group called Stop Mandatory Vaccination. The group of nearly 140,000 members, also called anti-vaxxers, is known for peddling false health information and discouraging parents from vaccinating their children."

"The boy’s mother, Geneva Montoya, admitted in a Facebook post that she refused to fill the doctor’s prescription for Tamiflu, the most common antiviral medication prescribed to treat the flu."

Maybe the Colorado authorities will look into this particular incident as a flagrant violation of law and prosecute this mother and the group, Stop Mandatory Vaccination, to help discourage future tragedies like this one. 
READ MORE... 

Do anti-vaxxers belong in the gulag?

August 20, 2019: PROGRESSIVE STREET NEWS BYTES...Where Liberals Walk

Measles still on rise in United States  

Anti-vaxxers prefer snake oil

The measles epidemic has now grown to over 1,200 cases in 30 states in the U.S. This, all due to a gang of mentally challenged parents who believed social media info over scientific fact. It is all so pathetic since the highly contagious virus had been declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000. But these poor souls decided their neighborhoods needed some excitement, so they refused to vaccinate their children, then sent them off to school to infect other innocent children.

And these 1,200 cases are just since January 1, of this year, an average 150 per month. This is the greatest number of measles cases in the United States since 1992, according to Newsweek. Here's the scenario...

"experts recommend a 95 percent vaccination rate for "herd immunity"—or, in other words, the amount of people who need to be vaccinated to keep those who cannot be vaccinated, due to allergies or other health concerns, safe—the CDC says only 91.1 percent of children aged 19-35 months have received the measles vaccine."

One teen with more brains than his mother...

The United Kingdom is also having its problems with more than 230 cases of measles reported during the first quarter of 2019. Once again, the UK blames misinformation from social media for causing the outbreak. The government has even gone online itself to counter what the radical anti-vaxxers are saying. In the U.S....

"Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressing concern that Instagram and Facebook were “surfacing and recommending messages that discourage parents from vaccinating their children.” Schiff cited a Guardian report that suggested searches on Facebook and YouTube often led users to pages that displayed vaccine misinformation."

Zuckerberg made his usual paltry response to something that might jeopardize FB's advertising or collection of personal data. So, the con goes on resulting in the new 1,200 measles cases in the U.S., 230 in the U.K. Here's the rub...

"Measles is 'almost entirely preventable' with two doses of the vaccine, according to WHO."

The Guardian says it isn't necessarily social media causing the problem in the United Kingdom, but rather the “3Cs” – confidence, complacency and convenience. This is all explained at length in the Guardian article, which, by the way, really has little to do with the American problem. Pure and simple, U.S. anti-vaxxers have a ring in their nose and are listening to social media, then passing it around among themselves. Still say, they belong in concentration camps.

READ MORE: My collection of anti-vaxxer posts

Wealthy New Yorkers' donations fuel anti-vax fire

PROGRESSIVE STREET...Where Liberals Walk

Facebook was used by the anti-vax losers to perpetuate their fraud, those who were responsible for thousands making the decision to vaccinate their children. Here are the results:

152,763 preventable illnesses
9,028 preventable deaths
0 Number of autism diagnosis scientifically linked to vaccines

Well, now these misinformed crackpots have a sugar daddy and mama, "a wealthy New York family who has bankrolled a massive campaign to spread misinformation about vaccinations to the tune of millions of dollars." The Washington Post names them...

"hedge fund manager and philanthropist Bernard Selz and his wife Lisa Selz have donated at least $3 million to organizations that stoke fears about vaccinations causing autism, while also downplaying the threat that measles poses to young children.

These unconscionable lunatics are part responsible for the figures above, and the anguish to be experienced by negligent parents in the future. I have posted a number of times on this issue, all of which you can see here. In my latest, I reported...

"Most of the new cases were in New York City and its suburbs, where hundreds of cases have been reported this year. The area is home to Orthodox Jewish communities where many parents refuse to allow vaccinations for their children. Authorities mandated vaccinations in some ZIP codes."

 Interesting, New York is where the Selz family resides and does its dirty work. In another, Robert Reich warned that Anti-vaxxers should be required to read the history of measles and then decide if they want to go through the pain of having to expunge the disease again. Across the pond comes this declaration...

"The UK's health secretary Matt Hancock said anti-vaccination campaigners were 'morally reprehensible, deeply irresponsible' and had 'blood on their hands.'"

Excellent debunking of the anti-vaxxing movement...

At one point I suggested making anti-vaxxers face isolation, fines and arrests. I even advocated rounding them all up and placing them in a concentration camp where they could spread around their diseases all they want to. Sound fascist? Well, my approach is prompted by the fact there are 1,077 cases of measles in the U.S. as of June 20, 2019, after being completely eradicated resulting from the antics of the anti-vaxxers. I don't want it. Do you?

Latest on anti-vaxxers and the measles outbreak

Doctors being attacked by anti vaxxers

As the anti-vaxxers continue to do their thing, the country is reeling over new measles cases with 75 more this week. "This year's total marks the most U.S. cases since 1994 – and since measles was declared eliminated in the USA in 2000," reports USA Today. The paper added...

"Most of the new cases were in New York City and its suburbs, where hundreds of cases have been reported this year. The area is home to Orthodox Jewish communities where many parents refuse to allow vaccinations for their children. Authorities mandated vaccinations in some ZIP codes."

"Outbreaks are linked to travelers who brought measles back from countries such as Israel, Ukraine and the Philippines, where large measles outbreaks are occurring, the CDC said. The travelers spread the disease to unvaccinated people in the USA, the agency said."

The CDC is begging parents to get vaccinations and, "in Washington state, Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill Friday ending personal or philosophical measles vaccine exemptions for most parents whose kids will attend day care centers or schools. Dozens of parents protested outside the signing." Total reported cases now are 839, but the uninformed anti-vaxxers surge on doing their damage by resisting vaccinations and sending their kids out to mingle with the unexpecting public.

And it's not bad enough that the anti-vaxxers make it impossible for others, especially those who cannot get vaccinations due to valid medical reasons, now doctors are being attacked online for recommending vaccines to patients, according to the Boston Globe. Here's the story...

"Dr. Monique Tello found that she had been peppered with 100 negative reviews and derogatory comments on a number of physician ratings sites for speaking out in favor of vaccines. None of the people who posted reviews were her patients, and only after she threatened a lawsuit did the websites take down the reviews."

 I keep saying this and I will continue to keep saying it...Round up all of the anti-vaxxers, find a remote location, perhaps in the middle of the Sonoran desert, build a compound they can't escape from, and let them infect each other as much as their warped heart's desire.

Although this is the largest measles outbreak since 1900, "The outbreak from 1989 through 1991 was much larger than today's, with more than 27,000 cases in 1990 alone. But the conditions that lead to that outbreak, where children were dying, and what it took to end it are dramatically different from the ones the U.S. is seeing today." Here's why...

"As of Monday, New York City alone reports 498 cases, with 34 people hospitalized. New York state, public health authorities attribute the outbreak to anti-vaccination sentiments among a small subgroup of religious Orthodox Jewish residents among whom the virus has spread."

"The outbreak in the early 1990s hit poor black and Latino communities the hardest, in Central Brooklyn, upper Manhattan and the South Bronx."

The big difference is once the public health officials got involved in the 1900s, and the parents were cooperating, not working against the system by resisting vaccinations. So, the big question today is how many children will die this time around before anti-vaxxers realize that science is right.

And finally, here's a study that illustrates measles outbreaks where you live and ranks places in the U.S. where the risk is highest. This is worth a read to see how your area stacks up.

Please give me your comments on this issue.

Anti-vaxxer family gets what it deserves

Jerome/Bill Kunkel

THE CHICKENPOX. Kentucky teen, Jerome Kunkel, was banned from his school, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Assumption Academy, for refusing a chickenpox vaccination due to religious beliefs. Well, his religion has just resulted in a case of the chickenpox. This proves that school officials were right in keeping him out of school, and just another example of the stupidity of these anti-vaxxers. He could have passed around the disease all over his school.

But Bill Kunkel, the kid's father, "says it’s the 'best thing to do' to become immune." Sure, and during the "becoming immune" phase, usually an unknown period, other children in school catch the chickenpox. These people are dangerous and that is why I feel they should all be corralled together and catch whatever they want from each other. The Washington Post piece shows a picture of father, son with the Christ statue in the background.

They filed a lawsuit through their attorney, Chris Wiest, with some 24 other students who joined in the lawsuit since it was filed, many of whom now infected with chickenpox in the past two months and have religious exemptions against vaccinations. And apparently Jerome caught the measles from his unvaccinated cousins, which clearly shows their friends and the whole family is nuts. Attorney Wiest commented...

“This is a stupid ban that’s never going to work, and absolutely ridiculous in this context where they go to church upstairs every day together,” Wiest said. “We are not at all surprised. This is exactly what we told the court would happen. Over half my clients contracted chickenpox and had no complications, and now they have a lifetime immunity.”

Sounds like the church should be investigated by the health department. Here's what the Northern Kentucky Health Department had to say...

"In a Wednesday statement, the Northern Kentucky Health Department said Wiest’s encouragement for his clients to 'actively' contract the disease to achieve immunity is 'deeply concerning' and bad medical advice."

This kind of fight is probably raging all around the country and it is time for someone to establish parameters. If it is determined that vaccinations outweigh the individual's right to deny them, then laws should be passed. We are currently experiencing an epidemic of the measles and we certainly don't want a pandemic. 

Dreaded anti-vaxxers still resist the truth

They did and social media lied

Robert Reich doesn't didn't think it was much fun. Oh sure, we got to stay home from school and mom gave you pretty much anything you wanted, within reason. But it was a disease that none of your friends wanted so they stayed away from you like the plague; as they should have. And then along came measles vaccinations in 1963 and soon after the same for mumps (1967) and rubella (1969). By 2000, all were basically eradicated.

Anti-vaxxers should be required to read the history of measles (a short version here) and then decide if they want to go through the pain of having to expunge the disease again. There was a resurgence of measles in the United States between 1989 and 1991, then it quietly went away in the early 1990s. At that point we worked hard on ridding the country of the illness, which became official in 2,000.

But wait, along came the dreaded anti-vaxxers, resisting vaccinations for their children, when many of these same parents had been vaccinated as a child, and turned the infected kids loose on society. Others came down with the disease and passed it around the country to over 23 states with the outbreak now totaling at least 764. There is also an outbreak in Europe where they have 34,000 cases. All because a gang of mentally depraved parents made some very bad decisions.

With New York's new law they have cited 84 individuals for not getting their kids vaccinated, resulting in a fine of $1,000. The NIH says Anti-vaxxers threaten U.S. workplace, economy, The UK's health secretary Matt Hancock claims anti-vaxxers have blood on their hands. And one of my latest posts, Vaccine exemption bills on rise despite measles outbreak. Popular Science says
"This is already the worst year for measles since 1994."

Based on the unvaccinated given us by anti-vaxxers, PS provides the following stats...

"we're still accumulating new outbreaks, some of them in places that researchers predicted were at risk due to low vaccination rates. Portland, Houston, and Kansas City all had small outbreaks and were identified as risky areas in a 2018 PLoS Medicine study. The outbreak in Clark County, Washington, just across the state border from Portland, Oregon, has been the most widely covered. Now the Detroit area is also experiencing a substantial one in precisely the county the paper predicted.

Predicted because these are the areas in which the dreaded anti-vaxxers work their madness. 

Vaccine exemption bills on rise despite measles outbreak

It is hard to believe the number of lawmakers, federal, state and local, that have the mentality of a goose egg. In spite of the fact that we now have 764 cases of measles in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Washington, legislation to exempt is on the rise. However, bills that fine people who fail to vaccinate are gaining attention

It is hard to comprehend this stupid reasoning of exemptions when these people should be working together to pass bills that would require parents to vaccinate their children. This is not a matter of free choice when parents send their unvaccinated kid to school to infect fellow students and teachers, who then go out and infect the rest of the population. The actual "rights" that exist here are those of the individuals who do not want to be exposed to the disease.

The Business Insider reports...

"On Sunday, Germany's health minister proposed fining parents of school-age children who haven't received a measles inoculation up to $2,790."

"On the heels of a historic outbreak of measles in New York City last month, officials ordered people in four affected zip codes to get vaccines, with anyone failing to do so facing fines of up to $1,000."

I would think fines actually imposed and not just promised would be an excellent means of telling these halfwit anti-vaxxers that a sane public means business. 72% of the public says that parents should be required to vaccinate their children. The NBC/WSJ poll also found that, "There is also variation between different age groups, with Americans ages 35-49 least likely to support required vaccinations." This is interesting in that this is the group most likely to have children.

The Washington Post has actually mapped out measles cases showing where the current outbreaks are with comparisons of years in the past. The report also includes documentation of exemptions...

"Parents in 17 states can opt out of vaccinating their children if they cite personal or philosophical objections. All states have medical exemption laws since some people cannot be vaccinated because of health issues, such as weakened immune systems. Almost all states grant religious exemptions for people who have religious beliefs against immunization."

An epidemic is defined as a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time. Not only is the measles outbreak widespread within communities (like New York state) it is widespread across the country, as illustrated on the Washington Post map. I know the Mueller Report is important but at least people aren't dying from it, at least not yet and as far as I know. 

Here's the latest you MUST KNOW about measles outbreak

ANTI-VAXXERS TOP NRA IN THEIR STUPIDITY

Measles fly into LAX and infect...Anti-vaxxers objections so ill-advised compounded by a senseless Congress...Brit did, now German minister proposes steep fines for anti-vaxxers...electronic medical records being used to identify unvaccinated patients and potentially infected individuals...Robert Reich says Getting a measles vaccination isn't a personal choice – it's a social responsibility...Here's an updated report from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the measles outbreak

Brit convinced anti-vaxxers have blood on their hands

Rather harsh but pointed

"The UK's health secretary Matt Hancock said anti-vaccination campaigners were 'morally reprehensible, deeply irresponsible' and had 'blood on their hands,'" according to CNN. His comments are based on a UNICEF study that amplifies the measles outbreak issue...

"It takes two doses of measles vaccine to protect children from the disease. A troubling new report from UNICEF finds that 2.5 million children in the United States and 169 million children worldwide missed out on their first dose between 2010 and 2017. That's roughly 20 million children a year, on average."

And it has become sufficiently confirmed now that the measles epidemic that is sweeping the U.S. is solely the fault of parents so stupid they believe the only way to become immune from the disease is to let your children catch it and build immunity. As an example, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, exposed his children to chickenpox so they would get the disease and become immune. Different disease, same stupidity.

But here's the shocker, UNICEF also found...

"that measles deaths were up globally by 22% in 2017, and complacency and fear of vaccines were among the factors leading to less vaccinations."

Many of the uninformed have been influenced by fraudulent social media that has aggressively promoted the anti-vaxxer movement, much of which has been removed by these sites. And here's another excellent point by Hancock...

"If you don't vaccinate your child, it's not only your child that is at risk. It's also other children, including those children who, for medical reasons, can't be vaccinated."

Some have even suggested that anti-vaxxers should be prosecuted for this very reason. Why not? They have intentionally not taken advantage of something that is guaranteed to protect their child's health, and then have sent them off to school to infect other children. So here's something for you anti-vaxxers to think about and act on today...

"Vaccination is good for you, good for your child, and good for your neighbor and your community, said Matt Hancock."

Please give me your comments on this issue.