Category: Biden Pandemic

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America's Heartland Biden Pandemic Corruption COVID Faked news

The Amish Died of COVID at a Rate 90 Times LOWER Than the Rest of America

 

FROM THE VIGILANT FOX

“I did the calculation,” testified Steve Kirsch in front of the Pennsylvania State Senate.

Given that five Amish people died in Lancaster County, PA, “the Amish died at a rate 90 times lower than the infection fatality rate of the United States of America.”

“Now, how is that possible?” Steve Kirsch asked. “It’s possible because the Amish aren’t vaccinated. And because the Amish didn’t follow a single guideline of the CDC,” he answered.

“They did not lock down. They did not mask. They did not social distance. They did not vaccinate, and there were no mandates in the Amish community to get vaccinated. They basically ignored every single guideline that the CDC gave us. Ignoring those guidelines meant a death rate 90 times lower than the rest of America.”

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1674128384442486811?s=20

 

Here’s the video transcript for those who want to read more:

Let’s talk about the Amish. Yesterday, I drove to Lancaster County (Pennsylvania). I drove to Amish country. I drove from house to house to house. I actually went to the house of a relative of Gideon King. He’s the one person, the only known person in the Amish community who supposedly died from COVID — that I’m aware of.

Now, they say there may be up to five people in Lancaster County who died from COVID, but I was unable to get the names of five people. I offered a $2,500 reward on Twitter. Hey, give me the names of more than five people in Lancaster County who died from COVID. Not a single person was able to name more than one person. They all named Gideon King. One guy.

So, I actually went to the house of Sam King, who’s a relative of Gideon King. And I talked to Sam. He doesn’t know if Gideon actually died from COVID or not. He died in the hospital. They think it was COVID, but maybe he died from the COVID hospital protocols. Okay.

So, you look at the Amish. I did the calculation. Let’s say there were five Amish people — because people say, I think there were maybe a few, or maybe there were five Amish people. And then I asked them, okay, can you name them? And nobody can name them.

But let’s say that we could name them — and there were five Amish people who died. That means the Amish died at a rate 90 times lower than the infection fatality rate of the United States of America. The Amish died at 90 times lower rate from COVID than America — than the rest of America.

Now, how is that possible? It’s possible because the Amish aren’t vaccinated. And because the Amish didn’t follow a single guideline of the CDC. They did not lock down. They did not mask. They did not social distance, They did not vaccinate, and there were no mandates in the Amish community to get vaccinated. They basically ignored every single guideline that the CDC gave us. Ignoring those guidelines meant a death rate 90 times lower than the rest of America.

So you talk about taking guidance from the WHO? Why don’t we copy what works? In fact, wouldn’t it be great to say in the next pandemic that Pennsylvania will take guidance from the Amish instead of the WHO? And you will be much, much better off.

Steve Kirsch breaks down the numbers in more detail on his Substack page:
Steve Kirsch’s newsletter
BREAKING: The US COVID mitigation measures resulted in 90X higher COVID deaths
Executive summary On May 22, 2023, I offered a $2,500 reward for anyone to give me the names of more than 5 Amish people in Lancaster, PA (which is the world’s largest single community of Amish people with over 45,000 people) who died from COVID. Nobody could do that. I got a few names. And nobody could name anyone under 50 years old who was suspected of…
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Back Door Power Grab Biden Pandemic Corruption COVID Drugs Government Overreach Reprints from others.

Words Matter! Deliberately shifting definitions

Words do matter.

By Jenna McCarthy    for The FLCCC Alliance Community

When I was growing up, “I’m sorry,” was the requisite response to “you apologize to your sister right this minute” after you yanked out a handful of her hair or accidentally (on purpose) broke her favorite Barbie. There was no genuine remorse or promise of reform required. “I’m sorry” bought you half-hearted forgiveness, got you out of major trouble, or both.

It was basically BS.

As a mother and a career linguist, “I’m sorry” wasn’t an option if my daughters injured, outraged, or offended each other — whether carelessly or intentionally. The phrase was trite, I explained; meaningless. Instead, because I believe that words matter deeply, I chose to encourage this alternative: “I feel bad about what I did, and I’ll try not to do it again.” (Without the trying part, it would be almost as platitudinous as “I’m sorry.”)

It must suck to have a mom who’s a writer.

Like just about everything else in the world, words have gotten wonky since COVID came to town. Almost out of the gate, we were told to shelter in place, a phrase once employed only in life-or-death, bombs-are-falling, get-under-your-desks emergencies. Suddenly it meant, “You know, you should really probably stay at home unless you’re out of Pantene, your dog swallowed a sock, or someone in your circle needs a margarita to go.”

Some words saw their actual, official definitions altered to fit the emerging narrative. Merriam-Webster quietly decided that an “anti-vaxxer” was no longer simply a person who opposes the use of some or all vaccines, but henceforth would also describe those who oppose regulations mandating them. So basically, you can be quadruple-juiced and pro-medical freedom, and you might as well start making homemade granola and get yourself some nice bell-bottom jeans and a tie-dyed top, you dirty hippy.

It’s right there on the website!

Similarly, the CDC changed its definition of “vaccine” mid-pandemic from “a product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease” to “a preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.” Convenient, right? They never said it protected you from anything. It’s right there on the website!

When I asked ChatGPT to tell me what a breakthrough case of COVID was, it described this unicorn-level occurrence as “when a person who has been fully vaccinated against the virus later becomes infected with the virus.” The AI chat platform nearly tripped over itself to add: “It is important to note, however, that breakthrough cases are still relatively rare. Vaccines have been shown to be highly effective in preventing severe illness, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19, even against new variants of the virus.” Never mind the countless analyses that have found that your risk of severe illness, hospitalization, and death increases with each booster. It’s just those pesky breakthrough cases. (Oh, and you’re a domestic terrorist if you say or even think otherwise.)

By literal definition, disinformation is “false information deliberately and often covertly spread in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth.” And yet the Center for Countering Digital Hate (the irony!) boldly baptized 12 individuals the “Disinformation Dozen” for promoting proven therapeutics, acknowledging natural immunity, pointing out the abysmal failure of the so-called vaccines, and encouraging natural remedies. A proper logophile (or domestic terrorist) might dub them the “Inconvenient to Pharma Dozen.” But semantics.

There was no vaccine law.

Curiously, the definition of a mandate is “an authoritative command.” A law, on the other hand, is “any written or positive rule prescribed under the authority of [a] state or nation.” It’s essentially the difference between, “Hey, kid, get off my lawn,” and, “You’re under arrest for criminal trespassing.” There was no vaccine law, I’ll remind you. And yet students, pilots, travelers, teachers, frontline medical workers, and millions of employees from countless fields lined up for an experimental gene therapy injection because they were commanded authoritatively to do so.

Is anyone else as angry about this as I am?

At least 1,553,187 people: the current number of COVID vaccine injuries reported to VAERS.

Last but certainly not least, we have our two best pandemic friends, “safe” and “effective”. Synonyms for safe include harmless, risk-free, trustworthy, sound, and reliable; some recommended substitutes for effective are powerful, useful, successful, valuable, and potent. If it was a known, documented fact that at least 1,553,187 people — the current number of COVID vaccine injuries reported to VAERS — lost life or limb visiting a certain theme park, would you rush to purchase an annual pass? (And also, might you briefly question why it was still open to the public?) If you discovered that a specific type of birth control actually increased your odds of becoming pregnant, would you make it your go-to contraceptive or recommend it to your child-phobic friends? These are comical things to consider — and yet you can’t drive down the highway, scroll through social media, or peruse a single mainstream news site without encountering at least a handful of helpful reminders to get your safe and effective COVID booster.

If we hear something often enough, it becomes accepted as fact. To wit: If you swallow your gum, it takes seven years to digest. (Altogether untrue.) Sugar makes you hyper. (Zero studies support this.) Lightning never strikes twice. (Ask this guy who’s been zapped seven times.) Iraq was teeming with weapons of mass destruction. (Whoops.)

Rudyard Kipling said, “Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”

Indeed, words and drugs can radically impact our emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. Let’s choose both wisely.

 

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Biden Pandemic Corruption Links from other news sources. Reprints from others.

Mark Zuckerberg Admits Scientific Establishment’s Frequent Errors Undermined Public Trust in COVID Misinformation Censorship

Screenshot: Lex Fridman/Youtube

Mark Zuckerberg Admits Scientific Establishment’s Frequent Errors Undermined Public Trust in COVID Misinformation Censorship.

Meta (Facebook) CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed recently that the scientific “establishment” asked his platform to “censor” posts about COVID-19 that ended up being “debatable or true.”

In his comments during Thursday’s episode of the “Lex Fridman Podcast,” Zuckerberg discussed the “issues and challenges” of executing his platform’s policies on removing “misinformation.”

He said it can be “really tricky” when some content is false, “but may not be harmful, so it’s like, alright, are you going to censor someone for just being wrong, if there’s no kind of harm implication of what they’re doing?’

https://twitter.com/i/status/1667011470406860803

Zuckerberg noted the “establishment” encouraged him to enforce these shaky facts, saying they “asked for a bunch of things to be censored that, in retrospect, ended up being more debatable or true.”

He admitted to Fridman that he believes the requests made to him by the scientific community hurt their credibility with the public. “It really undermines trust,” he added.

Thanks to FOX and Gateway Pundit.

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Biden Pandemic COVID Medicine Politics Reprints from others.

Pres Candidate Ramaswamy pitched governments to install universal covid patient surveillance database

A RINO with money.

Thanks to

Jordan Schachtel

Before rebranding as a warrior for free speech and a passionate crusader for privacy rights, newly announced presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy was pitching the U.S. and world governments on his efforts to install a broad, centralized database of private medical records.

All without the consent of the actual patients

In a pursuit forged through one of his subsidiary companies, a “health information” data mining outfit called Datavant, Ramaswamy’s outfit pursued the establishment of a single national and global database for all covid-related patient health records.

Through a partnership with Snowflake, a San Francisco-based cloud computing company, Ramaswamy wanted to “fight covid-19” by manufacturing a “single repository of all the real-world medical data” thanks to the production of a “national data infrastructure” of private and public patient records, all without the consent of the actual patients.

Datavant claimed the records would be anonymized through their internal systems and that the broad database would only be available to researchers and government officials. However, some weren’t buying the sales pitch, citing gross violations of medical privacy. Moreover, none of the methods to supposedly anonymize records were made open source for review.

Nonetheless Ramaswamy’s Datavant sought to profit off of the hysteria and violate basic ethical standards in the process. They succeeded in establishing a partnership with the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

While some companies were happy to contribute to the Datavant endeavor, citing the “national emergency” as the ultimate precedent for violating patient consent standards, many others balked at the idea, citing privacy issues.

Anthem Inc (now known as Elevance Health), the second largest health insurance company in the U.S., rejected the appeal to deliver customer records into a national and global database. When reached by the Wall Street Journal, an Anthem spokesperson said that “Anthem takes the security of its data and the personal information of health plan members very seriously.”

“Datavant’s proposed registry would be free for government and academic researchers to access, and would aim to include every patient who has been tested for Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus,” The WSJ story reported. “The consortium is aiming to have data covering 80% of U.S. medical claims, including those submitted to private insurers as well as Medicaid and Medicare Advantage.”

A fierce privacy advocate and “free speech absolutist”?

Harlan Krumholz, a cardiologist at Yale University, expressed concern about Ramaswamy’s data mining effort, telling Endpoints News: “This is highly sensitive information and the effort is important, but it is important to know the details.”

Datavant later helped to establish a global Covid-19 research database. However, like most of Ramaswamy’s previous business ventures, the end product was not remotely successful. The database is linked to a handful of incredibly shoddy covid-19 studies.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Ramaswamy has presented himself as a fierce privacy advocate and “free speech absolutist.” Nonetheless, his blunder-heavy business record shows a man who has long been invested in financing and developing tools to invade sovereignty and personal privacy.

For more on Ramaswamy’s paradoxical advocacy and his continually changing political posturing, read Vetting Vivek Ramaswamy in The Dossier.

https://www.dossier.today/p/vetting-vivek-ramaswamy

He’s running as a “R(ino)EPUBLICAN?” Just from this alone, if I had to choose between this yahoo and Pence, I’d be forced to vote for Pence — whom I can’t stand. –TPR

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Biden Pandemic COVID Drugs Medicine Reprints from others.

Australian Garlic Can Eliminate 99.9 Percent of COVID-19, Flu Cells: Garlic Shortage coming?

Garlic has been known as a mild antibiotic for centuries — hence why vampires avoid it.

By: Daniel Y. Teng for The Epoch Times – Australia

Scientists in a “world first” study now say Australian garlic could be key to fighting COVID-19 infections and the flu.

In a study by the Melbourne-based Peter Doherty Institute, researchers extracted a specific ingredient, the Proprietary Ingredient SupaG, from Australian-grown garlic varieties.

“The results came as a world first, with the findings from specific garlic varieties proving to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza type A viruses,” said the Victorian Chamber of Commerce in a statement.

Dr. Julie McAuley, manager of the high containment facility COVID-19 research lab at the Doherty Institute, said the team had assessed a variety of garlic products over the last 18 months—finding that a strain from Iraq was effective against COVID-19.

“We performed several blinded experiments and found one of [Australian Garlic Producers (AGP)] products could reduce the infectious titre of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza by 3-log-fold (99.9 percent). We could barely detect any remaining virus genome, indicating nearly complete virucidal activity.”

While Dr. Martin Elhay, business development director at the institute, said Doherty was committed to “the global effort to combat the spread” of COVID-19. The Doherty Institute was a prominent voice during the pandemic years on issues such as COVID-19 vaccination and public health orders.

Plans to Retail the Product

The AGP, who commissioned the study, will patent and commercialize the extraction process with plans to start retailing in supermarkets.

“Over the past 25 years, we have collected over 309 garlic cultivars from around the globe,” said Nick Diamantopoulos, CEO of the AGP.

“Our extensive R&D over many years with leading Australian universities and institutions has shown that garlic varieties not only vary in their agronomic and physiological properties but also in their biochemical properties.”

Diamantopoulos said the extensive research work is what led to the identification of “superior properties” in Australian garlic types.

The AGP harvests 100 percent of its garlic from the Australian jurisdictions of the Northern Territory, South Australia, New South Wales, and Victoria. The next study will look at the potential benefits of garlic in lowering cholesterol levels.

Paul Guerra, CEO of the Victorian Chamber of Commerce, said the partnership between the Doherty and AGP was a perfect example of how businesses and scientists could work together to deliver a “global game changer.”

https://twitter.com/vicchamber/status/1663790303088906240?s=20

 

Meanwhile, former federal MP Craig Kelly accused governments of spending billions on vaccines when a vegetable could have achieved the same effect.

“How stupid must the world feel today, having wasted hundreds of billions of dollars on useless vaccines and destroyed trillions of dollars of wealth with panicked lockdowns—when it’s now discovered that garlic kills COVID?” he wrote on Twitter.

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Biden Pandemic Economy Links from other news sources.

Here’s what you get with Wind and Solar. 2/3 of the country may suffer blackouts.

A newly released report says that two-thirds of the United States are at a higher risk this summer for rolling blackouts if there are heat waves. (Getty Images)

Here’s what you get with Wind and Solar. 2/3 of the country may suffer blackouts. Large swathes of the U.S. could suffer blackouts this summer, according to the annual assessment from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC).

So as we continue to shut down coal and Natural Gas plants the threat gets greater for summer black outs. Wind and Solar just aren’t reliable. They say wind and solar are less expensive but you see the cost rising nation wide.

Those regions include the entire continental U.S. from Texas to the West Coast, along with large portions of the Midwest and New England.

(Courtesy: NERC)Have we so soon forgotten what happened in California and Texas? Now with more electric vehicles, the strain will be greater.

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Biden Pandemic Corruption Reprints from others.

Biden Falsely Claims GOP’s Debt Ceiling Bill Would Cut Veterans’ Healthcare

Joe making stuff up. AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File

President Joe Biden falsely claimed again on Tuesday that Republicans’ legislation to raise the debt ceiling and curb spending cuts “$22 billion in veterans’ healthcare.”

Speaking at SUNY Westchester Community College in Valhalla, New York, Biden falsely asserted that the Limit, Save, Grow Act takes aim at veterans’ benefits.

“Now, they want to go back to the levels where we cut those folks that now provide that kind of help. This amounts to a $22 billion cut in veterans’ health care,” he said. It appears that Biden meant to say “22 percent,” the figure he has falsely used in other recent claims about the legislation.

However, the Limit, Save, and Grow Act makes no mention of veterans or their health benefits but caps discretionary spending at $1.47 trillion with one percent annual increases, as Breitbart News reported when he tweeted the claim earlier this month:

The bill would also take back all unobligated COVID relief money, rescind nearly $71 billion to the IRS to hire new workers and upgrade technology, block Biden from waiving $10,000 to $20,000 in student loan debts and reduce monthly payments for undergraduate loans, repeal most of the tax breaks Democrats passed to promote their clean energy agenda, and impose work requirements for federal cash and food assistance.

Republicans said that veteran health benefits would not be touched ahead of the vote a few weeks back, and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) reiterated this while speaking with CNN in Israel last week, as Just the News noted:

Can you tell me where in the bill it cuts the V.A.? It doesn’t. See this is the damage that when people do not tell the truth about the bill. It actually goes to the funding where we were four months ago. If you look back to the Obama-Biden budget that they passed for the next ten years, this actually spends more than what they proposed at this time, and the work of Congress gets to decide where spending and it’s just like every family household. I’m very sad that the Democrats would think about cutting the veterans because we would not. 

The “22 percent” cut that Biden has seized onto comes from an estimate provided by his director of the Office of Management and Budget, Shalanda Young. The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler detailed how the Biden administration sewed the narrative by seizing on the lack of detail surrounding discretionary spending in the Limit, Save, Grow, and Act. Young’s estimate assumes that Republicans would make no cuts to 050-funded programs – which the House Budget Committee notes “includes the military activities of the Department of Defense (DoD), the nuclear weapons-related activities of the Department of Energy (DOE), the national security activities of several other agencies” –  meaning that steep savings would need to come from other programs to cap the figure at $1.47 trillion. Per Kessler, the administration used the Department of Veterans Affairs and the help of Democrat-leaning veterans’ groups to create the narrative:

The administration carefully laid the groundwork for the attack. On April 21, the Department of Veterans Affairs issued a news release warning of the bill’s impact, with specific numbers — “30 million fewer Veteran outpatient visits, and 81,000 jobs lost across the Veterans Health Administration.” Then, more than 20 veterans groups allied with Democrats, such as VoteVets, sent lawmakers a letter requesting that VA funding be protected in the bill. The president of Veterans of Foreign Wars also wrote McCarthy, seeking “explicit assurances” that funding for veterans care would not be disrupted.

VoteVets even launched an advertisement claiming that veterans could die as a result of the legislation, a claim Kessler said warranted four Pinocchio’s.

“The VoteVets ad, using the White House numbers as a source, takes the spin to a Four-Pinocchio extreme, suggesting veterans may die when in fact no vote on the fiscal 2024 Veterans Affairs budget has yet been cast,” he wrote.

Biden pointed to the veterans’ groups while speaking Wednesday as evidence that the bill would cut veterans’ benefits:

Nowhere in their actual proposal, are there exclusive protection for veterans. But they say I’m – it’s unusual language we use with presidents these days – they say I’m lying when I say that. Well, the truth is, why have so many veteran groups spoken out in opposition the Republican proposal. They’re not all Democrats.

The Limit, Save, and Grow Act is the only legislation to raise the debt ceiling in Washington, DC. However, Senate Democrats refuse to take up the bill while simultaneously failing to offer any alternative measures on how to offset runaway debt.

Following congressional leadership’s meeting with Biden at the White House Tuesday, McCarthy stated, “I didn’t see any new movement,” but added their staff would continue talks.

“What we have here is we’re running out of time,” said Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). “It’s time for the president to get serious and to sit down with the speaker and get a solution.”

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Biden Pandemic Links from other news sources. Politics

Yes Virginia there is a Conservative God. Biden running in 2024.

Where am I? What day is it? Who's the President?
Yes Virginia there is a Conservative God. Biden running in 2024. Republicans get a Christmas present early. Straight from the horses’ mouth.

Every generation has a moment where they have had to stand up for democracy. To stand up for their fundamental freedoms. I believe this is ours.

That’s why I’m running for reelection as President of the United States.

https://youtu.be/ChjibtX0UzU
Joe has no choice but to run. The Democrats know that their hold is slipping and even with Joe’s bad poll numbers, no other Progressive even comes close to his horid numbers.

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Biden Pandemic COVID Links from other news sources.

What an Ass. Biden loon claims the Pandemic was a good thing.

Someone who lost touch with reality. Breitbart-ABC News

 

What an Ass. Biden loon claims the Pandemic was a good thing. Outgoing Assistant Secretary for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs at the Department of State Monica Medina saw the Biden-Obama Pandemic as being beneficial.

So millions of people dying, the thousand upon thousands who suffered side effects was good? What a sicko. Sat what? “people really appreciated how much they enjoyed getting to be in the environment more days than they would” if they had been at work and that “we saw pollution levels go down and people went, huh, my quality of life is a little bit better now” because they didn’t have to worry as much about air pollution as they did before.

One sick person.

 

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Biden Pandemic COVID Drugs Life Science Stupid things people say or do.

White House to invest $5 billion in next-generation COVID vaccines. Here’s why we [don’t] need new ones.

The old vaxes haven't killed/injured a high enough percentage of the people.

Story by Karen Weintraub, USA TODAY

Bracketed comments by Phoenix

The Biden Administration Monday announced a $5 billion program to accelerate the development of next-generation COVID-19 vaccines and treatments.

[Of course, the elephant in the room is: “Why? We already have effective treatments, ones that don’t kill people.” Oh, wait: they’re cheap, and Big Pharma can’t make more Billion$ from them. Carry on…..]

Like Operation Warp Speed, which developed and distributed vaccines in the early days of the pandemic, Project NextGen will cut across government agencies and involve public-private collaborations, a senior Biden official told USA TODAY.

Current vaccines, developed rapidly in the heat of the emergency, are “really good, but they’re not great,” said Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist who worked with the administration to develop the new program. “There is a substantial amount of work (to be done) to take these good vaccines and hopefully achieve better vaccines.”

Project NextGen has three primary goals, which Osterholm and colleagues laid out in a “roadmap” issued in February: Develop a nasal vaccine that will hopefully prevent infection as well as severe disease; develop longer-lasting vaccines; and create “broader” vaccines that protect against all variants and several different coronaviruses

[ Why do they need a “new” nasal vax when two already exist? Oh, wait. Same answer.]

It will also include funding to develop more durable monoclonal antibodies resistant to new variants, according to the administration. Antibodies were highly effective treatments earlier in the pandemic but have not been able to keep up with the virus as it evolved and are no longer available.

The Biden administration Monday announced a $5 billion program to accelerate the development of next-generation COVID-19 vaccines and treatments.

Like Operation Warp Speed, which developed and distributed vaccines in the early days of the pandemic, Project NextGen will cut across government agencies and involve public-private collaborations, a senior Biden official told USA TODAY.

Current vaccines, developed rapidly in the heat of the emergency, are “really good, but they’re not great,” said Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist who worked with the administration to develop the new program. “There is a substantial amount of work (to be done) to take these good vaccines and hopefully achieve better vaccines.”

Project NextGen has three primary goals, which Osterholm and colleagues laid out in a “roadmap” issued in February: Develop a nasal vaccine that will hopefully prevent infection as well as severe disease; develop longer-lasting vaccines; and create “broader” vaccines that protect against all variants and several different coronaviruses

It will also include funding to develop more durable monoclonal antibodies resistant to new variants, according to the administration. Antibodies were highly effective treatments earlier in the pandemic but have not been able to keep up with the virus as it evolved and are no longer available.

The administration said the initial allocation of $5 billion for Project NextGen would be financed through money saved from contracts costing less than originally estimated. The investment was first reported Monday by the Washington Post.

Dr. Gregory Poland, director of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group who was also involved in the earlier roadmap, said he and others have been advising the White House since last summer to launch something like Project NextGen.

The funding is a start, he said, “but much more will be needed to accomplish all three goals,” he said. “The need though is urgent and now – something government generally doesn’t do well, hence the key will be prioritization and implementation.”

The Biden administration Monday announced a $5 billion program to accelerate the development of next-generation COVID-19 vaccines and treatments.

Like Operation Warp Speed, which developed and distributed vaccines in the early days of the pandemic, Project NextGen will cut across government agencies and involve public-private collaborations, a senior Biden official told USA TODAY.

Current vaccines, developed rapidly in the heat of the emergency, are “really good, but they’re not great,” said Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist who worked with the administration to develop the new program. “There is a substantial amount of work (to be done) to take these good vaccines and hopefully achieve better vaccines.”

Project NextGen has three primary goals, which Osterholm and colleagues laid out in a “roadmap” issued in February: Develop a nasal vaccine that will hopefully prevent infection as well as severe disease; develop longer-lasting vaccines; and create “broader” vaccines that protect against all variants and several different coronaviruses

It will also include funding to develop more durable monoclonal antibodies resistant to new variants, according to the administration. Antibodies were highly effective treatments earlier in the pandemic but have not been able to keep up with the virus as it evolved and are no longer available.

The administration said the initial allocation of $5 billion for Project NextGen will be financed through money saved from contracts costing less than originally estimated. The investment was first reported Monday by the Washington Post.

Dr. Gregory Poland, director of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group who was also involved in the earlier roadmap, said he and others have been advising the White House since last summer to launch something like Project NextGen.

The funding is a start he said, “but much more will be needed to accomplish all three goals,” he said. “The need though is urgent and now – something government generally doesn’t do well, hence the key will be prioritization and implementation.”

Why do we need new coronavirus vaccines?

When the current vaccines were developed, speed was a priority along with safety and effectiveness. They were 95% effective at preventing all disease when first released in late 2020. But their effectiveness against mild disease, in particular, wanes over just a handful of months.

Protection may also not be as good as the virus continues to evolve. The current bivalent booster is aimed at both the original virus and the BA.5 variant.

But SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, is the third new coronavirus to pop up in the last two decades, following Middle-Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory (SARS). If and when a fourth turns up, it would be great to already have a vaccine that could protect against” it,’ said Osterholm, who directs the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

[ “…when a fourth turns up, it would be great TO ALREADY HAVE a vaccine that could protect against it…”  Hmm, Bill Gates & friends have already told us there’s another pandemic coming, is there something they know that we don’t?]

A nasal vaccine is the third item on the wish list. The idea is that by delivering a vaccine directly to the area where the virus enters the body, scientists could set up a barrier of protection to prevent even mild infections and transmission from one person to the next.

[But didn’t they tell us initially that surface contact would spread it? DISINFECT EVERYTHING! And what about people who breathe more through their mouths — like people with allergies such as Hay Fever?]

“I think an initiative like this is much needed and should have been put in place much sooner,” said John Moore, an immunologist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York.

What happens next?

Reaching these goals will likely be more difficult than it sounds, Moore said. 

“Anyone familiar with vaccine development knows that translation into a practical product is a much harder and more expensive process” than simply creating a basic vaccine, he said. “A lot of designs that look good in the early stages fizzle out because they cannot be manufactured efficiently under the conditions required for human trials.”

[And when did they have time for human testing under Warp Speed?]

Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician who directs the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, is skeptical that any of these goals are realistic.

Researchers have been trying for more than 40 years to develop vaccines against multiple strains of flu and against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Both have proven elusive, he said, because the viruses mutate so much, as does SARS-CoV-2.

Meanwhile, nasal vaccines are still being tested in clinical trials, so it’s not yet clear how effective they’ll be against COVID. A nasal vaccine for the flu doesn’t provide any more protection than a shot, Offit said, and it’s most effective in young children who have never been exposed to the flu virus before. At this point, nearly every American has already been exposed to the virus that causes COVID.

Moore agrees that developing a nasal vaccine should be a high priority, but “it’s seriously naive to believe that it will be easy to make one.”

Offit worries that the emphasis on making COVID vaccines better will undermine public trust in the ones we already have. He said the current vaccines have been “amazing,” but that vaccines can only do so much.

What did Operation Warp Speed do?

Under the Trump administration, Operation Warp Speed spent about $30 billion beginning in March 2020 to develop, manufacture and distribute COVID-19 vaccines.

The federal government essentially placed bets on six different drug companies hoping at least a few of them would prove successful. Each received over $1 billion (although Pfizer/BioNTech developed its vaccine without government support) with a promise of a guaranteed market if they succeeded. 

►Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech both developed, tested, passed regulatory hurdles and produced millions of doses of their mRNA vaccines in under a year. Previously, the fastest vaccine had taken four years to bring to market.

►Johnson and Johnson also developed a vaccine based on a different technology. While effective, the vaccine led to a rare side effect and is no longer widely available in the United States.

►Novavax pursued a third type of vaccine technology and has also won emergency regulatory approval, though it is not widely available.

►The other two efforts, one by Sanofi and another by AstraZeneca, fell behind early and were not advanced beyond preliminary testing.

[It’s obvious I’m skeptical of the claims here. If the previous record for developing a vaccine was FOUR YEARS, how did they manage to develop –AND TEST– them so quickly (less than a third of that time)? Why weren’t these vaccines pulled after the deadly side effects became apparent? It only took a ‘mere’ 50 deaths to yank the swine flu vaccine; how many THOUSANDS have died/been seriously affected by the clot shots?]