Covid, “Sense” from the Left? By Brian Simpson

I get all sorts of material in my ever-hungry feed on Covid to keep readers up to date. Also, stuff from the Left. Here is a bit from someone on the Left, who attacks the West, capitalism, the usual, but still has a few good points against the corporates, and Bill Gates. Just keep for reference in case someone says; nay, Right wing conspiracy. No, Left too! Take that, wham!

https://eand.co/this-is-why-the-world-is-facing-a-covid-apocalypse-b7e9d6935b7d

“Why are poor countries unable to vaccinate their populations? The Western myth — propounded by media, power figures, and lobbyists, is that they’re incompetent, they don’t care, they lack institutions, they’re lazy, and so on. In some cases, that’s partially true, like India, where Modi’s nationalism — “We won’t get Covid!!” — resulted in disaster. But there’s a deeper truth.

The world doesn’t have nearly enough vaccines to inoculate humanity against Covid. Our approach to vaccination has failed catastrophically, because it has produced massive shortages.

Why is that? The way the story goes is this. Vaccines were produced by a number of research labs. One at Oxford. BionTech was spun off from a university in Germany. And so on. Vaccines were developed with public money, as public investments. They were public goods. Like a park or a library, because they were had with public investment and development, they explicitly deserved to be used by everyone.

How big is “everyone”? The whole world, in fact — I’ll come back to that point.

So Covid vaccines were developed as public goods. But then something happened. Covid vaccines were privatized. All of them. Mysteriously. Snap — just like that — in the blink of an eye. They were eaten up by mega capitalism, like sharks feeding in a frenzy. Poof — gone. In a matter of weeks. And now the obvious is happening: gains are being internalized, while costs are being externalized. Only in this case, “gains” are profits, while “costs” are “death on the scale of a world war.” Because the side effect of all that — letting the market feast exclusively on the most important public good the world has needed in modern history, Covid vaccines, while nobody else is allowed to have even a morsel — is artificial scarcity. Which is now killing people, in a tidal wave of death.

Licenses were given to big pharma, exclusively. In Oxford’s case, AstraZeneca. In Biontech’s case, Pfizer. That’s despite, for example, the Oxford researchers saying they wanted to open-source vaccines, so they could be made anywhere, by any lab or manufacturer. That, in a sinister and strange turn of events, was apparently on the urging of the Gates Foundation. Aren’t they supposed to be the good guys?

What happened after that? Rich nations — Canada, America, Europe — got together at the WTO to block open access to vaccines. They demanded strict patent protection.

The obvious result was what anyone half-educated in the ways of capitalism could have predicted: a situation of massive artificial scarcity. What keeps profits up? Artificial scarcity.

Pharma companies will argue that Covid vaccine shortages are natural — not artificial. There are critical stages of the supply chain that are simply missing enough ingredients. Should we believe them? In reality, there are labs and manufacturers crying out to make vaccines. Teva, in Israel, a major biotech firm, says it has plenty of spare capacity but other Pharma companies may be reluctant to work with them at risk of sharing trade secrets and diminishing competition in the industry.

Let me say summarise all that as concisely as I can, because any educated person with a functioning moral soul needs to understand this. Capitalism is doing what it was always going to do. Profiteering. By creating artificial scarcities. And so the result is that the world faces a dire, dire shortage of Covid vaccines.

How dire are we talking? The only manufacturer that struck a deal with AstraZeneca — before it was granted exclusive rights to the Oxford vaccines — was the Serum Institute of India. That one company now has the task of supplying most of the world with Covid vaccines. Obviously, it can’t be done. And so when India’s second wave hit with a vengeance, thanks to Modi’s nationalism, the doses that were to be sent abroad, to other poor countries, were diverted to be kept in India.’”

As far as I am concerned, the Third World can have all the vaccines they want. Here is what has happened so far in Biden country:

theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/at-least-9245-americans-tested-positive-for-covid-19-after-vaccination-132-dead_3798410.html

 

“The number of documented so-called breakthrough COVID-19 cases has climbed above 9,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

As of April 16, 9,245 people had tested positive for COVID-19 at least two weeks after getting their final COVID-19 vaccine, the health agency reported. About 9 percent, or 835, required hospitalization, and 132 died.

Of the hospitalized patients, 241 were said to be asymptomatic or having an illness not related to COVID-19, and 20 of the deaths were reported as asymptomatic or not related to the disease, caused by the CCP virus.

The numbers are from 46 U.S. states and territories. It’s not clear which four states aren’t submitting breakthrough case figures to the CDC.

The numbers are likely an undercount because the CDC’s surveillance system is passive and relies on voluntary reporting from state health departments. Additionally, not all breakthrough cases will be identified, because of a lack of testing.

“These surveillance data are a snapshot and help identify patterns and look for signals among vaccine breakthrough cases. As CDC and state health departments shift to focus only on investigating vaccine breakthrough cases that result in hospitalization or death, those data will be regularly updated and posted every Friday,” the agency said in a statement.

A breakthrough case means a person gets COVID-19 despite being vaccinated and having two or more weeks elapse since his or her final dose. Two of the three vaccines authorized for use in the United States require two doses.

The CDC says the vaccines are still effective, noting that the breakthrough cases represent a small percentage of those who have been vaccinated.

Clinical trials reviewed by drug regulators showed Pfizer’s vaccine to be 95 percent effective in preventing infection by the CCP virus, Moderna’s to be 94 percent effective, and Johnson & Johnson’s to be 66.9 percent effective.

The Johnson & Johnson shot was tested after variants began circulating, unlike the others.

As of April 30, over 100 million Americans have been fully vaccinated against the CCP virus. Fully vaccinated means getting two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Also on April 30, the number of adverse events reported to the passive Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) was updated, reaching over 133,000.

The system, which federal authorities encourage people to submit reports to, now has reports of 3,607 post-vaccination deaths.

There were also 2,527 recorded life-threatening cases, over 1,600 cases of permanent disability, and nearly 8,500 cases where patients required hospitalization.

The CDC says on its website that “VAERS has not detected patterns in cause of death that would indicate a safety problem with COVID-19 vaccines.”

Agency physicians, along with regulators from the Food and Drug Administration, review each case report of death.

“A review of available clinical information including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records revealed no evidence that vaccination contributed to patient deaths,” the CDC said in an April 27 statement.”

 

https://www.naturalnews.com/2021-05-02-legs-turn-giant-blisters-after-covid-vaccination.html

“Sarah Beuckmann of Glasgow, Scotland, felt a tingling sensation in her legs and noticed a rash flaring up around her ankles a week after getting her first dose of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine on March 18.

She also had flu-like symptoms right after the vaccination.

Beuckmann called her doctor to arrange an appointment the morning she noticed the rash, but by the afternoon her skin was already breaking out into blood-filled blisters. Blisters also appeared on her legs, hands, face, arms and bottom.

“I ended up asking my husband to take me to A&E,” said Beuckmann, referring to “accident and emergency,” the equivalent of an emergency room (ER). “When I got there, my heart rate was sitting at 160bpm, which they were very concerned about. I got put on an ECG machine.”

Doctors determine AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine triggers the rash.

Medics carried out tests for HIV, herpes and other skin conditions to work out what triggered the rash, but all results came back negative. Doctors finally determined that the vaccine caused her rare reaction after carrying out two biopsies.

“Once they found that it was a reaction to the vaccine, they put me on steroids and that really seems to be helping my progress,” said Beuckmann. She had been advised by her doctor not to get the second dose of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine because of her reaction.

Beuckmann spent 16 days at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital. She was discharged to recover at home. The 34-year-old mother of one is currently wheelchair-bound due to the bandages on her legs and blisters on the soles of her feet. She may need physiotherapy to help strengthen her leg muscles.

“They are starting to heal and they’re looking a lot better than they were but as the blisters started to get worse, they all sort of merged together,” she said. “I didn’t know what was going on.”

With the blisters merging, her legs have looked like a pair of “giant blisters.” Beuckmann admitted that at one point she feared her legs might have to be amputated.

Dermatologist agrees COVID-19 vaccine causes the blisters.

Dr. Emma Wedgeworth, a consultant dermatologist and spokeswoman at the British Skin Foundation, agreed that Beuckmann had likely suffered a reaction to the vaccine.

“Vaccines are designed to activate the immune system. Occasionally people will have quite dramatic activation of their immune systems which, as happened in this case, can manifest in their skin,” Wedgeworth told MailOnline. “This poor lady had a very severe reaction, which thankfully is extremely rare.”

It is not clear why Beuckmann, who works in retail, was invited for a vaccine. Scotland’s vaccine rollout was focused on people over the age of 50 when she got vaccinated, although vaccines are available to those who are considered at risk from the virus, or live with someone considered vulnerable.

At least 20 million Briton have had AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, which drug regulators say causes a rash in one percent of cases. They say rashes caused by the jab tend to go away within a week.

Woman suffers from severe rash after first dose of AstraZeneca vaccine.

Unfortunately, some rashes stick around a little longer. Leigh King of Wishaw in North Lanarkshire got her first dose of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine on March 12. She began to feel the alarming reaction almost immediately after receiving the shot.

As the calendar turned to April, she was still suffering from the severe rash that has covered her face, chest and arms.

“My skin was so sore and constantly hot. I have never felt pain like this – it has been a horrible experience,” King told Scottish newspaper Wishaw Press. “I am a very healthy person and am not on any medication or anything like that. I am not even in a vulnerable category.”

She had been invited to get the vaccine because she’s an unpaid carer for his 13-year-old son Aidan, who has autism and mobility issues.

King said she received a letter the day of her inoculation instructing her to seek medical help if side effects persisted after 48 hours.

“I went to Wishaw A&E but was turned away,” she said. “I went back twice more and the last time I was in such pain I could barely walk out the hospital.”

She said the condition has seriously affected her ability to care for her child. “Aidan has also found this whole thing difficult. He is scared to come near me because of how my skin looks and he struggles to understand what is going on,” King said.

King thought there has been a lack of follow-up care in her case and that there are many unanswered questions about potential side effects. “I feel so let down on every level. I wish there was more support for people if this happens to them,” she said.”

If the vaccine becomes compulsory, with the army going door to door, injecting at the point of a gun, a scenario only conspiratorial fringe dwellers are considering (e.g. James Reed, Alan Jones etc.), I hope I die outright rather than go through what these people have, as rare as the conditions may be, and improbable. It would just be my luck to have the Mother of All reactions, and suffer until the end. That is just my personal raving, not medical advice of course.