Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic two years ago, hundreds of studies have examined the efficacy of dozens of drugs and other compounds in treating the disease. While the research is still ongoing, a sizable number of treatments have shown promise. A growing number of them have been authorized by the U.S. government, though virtually all of those approved sport hefty price tags.
Doctor Eva Raunig vaccinates a person with a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine inside a special container to use for general practitioners, called “vaccination box” in Vienna, Austria, on April 26, 2021. (Lisi Niesner/Reuters)Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen on Friday signed a controversial law introducing a national COVID-19 vaccine mandate for adults that includes fines.
Those without proof of vaccination or exemption face an initial fine of 600 euros ($680) and additional fines up to 3,600 euros ($4,100). Individuals can be fined up to four times per year, and the law will last until January 2024.
Van der Bellen signed the law after parliament approved it on Thursday, according to his office in a statement to media outlets. The law will come into force on Saturday, his office said.
Pregnant women and those who can’t be inoculated because it could harm their health are exempt from the mandate. People who recently recovered from COVID-19, caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, within 180 days are also exempt, according to details of the law.
According to the law, anyone aged 18 and older has to get the vaccine. They also have to receive boosters when eligible.
“The vaccine mandate won’t immediately help us break the Omicron wave, but that wasn’t the goal of this law,” Austrian Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckstein said Thursday before Parliament’s upper chamber approved the plan. “The vaccine mandate should help protect us from the next waves, and above all from the next variants.”
In March, Austrian police will start checking people’s vaccination status during traffic stops and checks on COVID-19 restrictions, according to the law. People who can’t produce proof of vaccination will be asked in writing to do so and will face fines.
Opposition politicians, including Freedom Party of Austria leader Herbert Kickl, said the rule represents “an inglorious era for the rule of law and the fundamental rights and freedoms of Austrians,” according to Die Presse.
“I don’t really see the added value of the vaccine mandate at this point,” said Gerald Gartlehner, an epidemiologist at the Danube University Krems. The Omicron variant’s highly infectious nature and milder symptoms have proven to be a pandemic game-changer, he said, adding that much of the population already has immunity via a previous infection or vaccination.
Meanwhile, in Germany, members of Parliament are debating on whether to also consider a compulsory vaccine for all adults.
But elsewhere in Europe, some countries have started to drop COVID-19 rules, including vaccine mandates. Denmark, for example, lifted all its COVID-19 restrictions on Tuesday and Sweden will follow on Feb. 9.
“At the same time as infections are skyrocketing, [the number of] patients admitted to intensive care [is] actually going down,” Soren Brostrom, director-general of Denmark’s Health Authority, said in a CNN interview. “It’s around 30 people in ICU beds right now with a COVID-19 diagnosis, out of a population of 6 million.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Tracy Compton, a mother of two in Fairfax, Virginia, had voted for Democrats for as long as she can remember, until the COVID-related school closures. “I tried and went to apply to work with the Democratic Party. I was told I was not allowed to become a member of the Democratic Party [in Fairfax].”
A recording of a reorganization meeting showed fellow Democrats deeming Compton too ‘anti-school’ to be part of their political efforts.
What made Compton anti-school? She wanted the public schools to fully reopen.
When Compton worked to collect signatures for a recall petition for the local school board, she was welcomed out of the rain by a Republican party tent, even after telling them she was a Biden voter.
In contrast, when Compton offered the petition to those inside the Democrat party tent, she was yelled at.
Now? Given a hypothetical matchup between Kamala Harris or President Joe Biden vs. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, she said she’d vote for the Republican in a heartbeat.
Compton lamented how she got here, now supporting a political party with whom she felt very little in common with until COVID hit.
She told me, “All the things that Biden and Kamala believe in; and what the Democratic Party believe in… I still believe in it. But I have to look at what’s happening in my family and with my children right now.”
Bethany Wagner (above with family) said the ‘schools issue’ proved to be a gateway into seeing the world through another set of eyes.
Wagner (above with children) went from a casual viewer of CNN and MSNBC to seeking out Fox News clips about the ‘schools issue’ on YouTube because they were the only ones covering it.
“They’re being hurt by not being able to be in school, and not in school normally. My focus has to be on making sure that they’re going to grow up and prosper and be the good citizens that they need to be.
“So that they can protect the environment. And they can go on to do all the things that are important to me… I’ve got to put my attention on the thing that’s yelling at me the most.”
She went on, describing how she’ll vote in the future, “Until [Democrats] can present someone that’s logical, I’m going to have to make choices. Right now, my choices are very much based on my children and my children getting an education.”
“If that can be solved, then I can worry about other things that are important to me, like gun control, the environment, and universal healthcare. I can’t do that until I know my kids are good.’
Compton isn’t alone, she’s part of an army of Virginia parents who swung the gubernatorial election towards the Republican Glenn Youngkin, who just took office this week.
Compton was active in her community’s efforts to open schools, as was her friend Bethany Wagner, a mother of two, also living in Fairfax.
For Wagner, the ‘schools issue’ proved to be a gateway into seeing the world through another set of eyes.
She went from a casual viewer of CNN and MSNBC to seeking out Fox News clips about the ‘schools issue’ on YouTube because they were the only ones covering it. Soon, she did the unthinkable: She just turned on Fox News itself. And she realized, “It’s not what CNN claims it to be.”
Neither women see themselves as Republicans, but for the time being, they will be voting for them. Compton and Wagner are just two names behind a widespread shift towards Republicans over the course of the last year.
Ashley (a pseudonym), a mother of three from Central New Jersey, fumed, “I hate when Democrats like Biden get all defensive and say that 95% of schools are open right now. They are being willfully ignorant and not paying attention that even though schools are ‘open’ they are NOT NORMAL.”
Gallup reported a remarkable shift in the way Americans identify themselves politically. Strikingly, the most pronounced shift away from Democratic party identification came in the third and fourth quarter of the year, coinciding with the fall as children returned to school.
Why might parents have snapped in the fall when their kids finally went back to school? Ashley (a pseudonym), a mother of three from Central New Jersey, fumed, “I hate when Democrats like Biden get all defensive and say that 95% of schools are open right now. They are being willfully ignorant and not paying attention that even though schools are ‘open’ they are NOT NORMAL.”
It’s a line that President Biden repeated at his two-hour White House press conference on January 19.
“It’s always going to be the top of the news,” Biden said of the ‘schools issue.’
“But let’s put it in perspective: 95 — as high as 98 percent of the schools in America are open, functioning, and capable doing the job.”
He’s not fooling parents like Ashley.
Kids are masked, have no field trips, no extracurriculars, no sports (our town canceled winter recreation sports just for kids but kept adult recreation programming). Not to mention the constant threat of closures when cases rise. School might be mostly ‘open’ but it is not normal. Democrats should be paying attention instead of gaslighting me and telling me everything is fine.’
Now we’re learning that Biden wants to increase masking for children – not reduce it.
President of the American Mask Manufacturer’s Association (AMMA) told Reuters that the White House is interested in creating a U.S. manufacturing base for protective masks for kids.
“We are ready to provide protective children’s masks for American families,'”said President Lloyd Armbrus. I’m sure they are. But do parents want them, and do kids really need them anymore?
It’s not only in K-12 schools where the situation is critical.
On parenting boards across the country parents of young children in daycares and preschools are at a breaking point.
After a huge spike in cases around the holidays, and with holidays and then weather-related closures, many of these centers have been closed more than they’ve been open so far in 2022.
A single case can lead to a closure of 10-14 days, and several of those means no routine or steady childcare for parents of small children.
On supply chain issues, Biden asserted much of the same. Everything is fine, don’t believe your lying eyes.
Biden claimed, “The share of goods in stock in stores is 89% now, which is barely below the 91% that prevailed pre-pandemic.”
It’s a fascinating strategy, telling Americans that everything is fine when they are keenly aware of the reality.
It’s a strategy that isn’t exactly paying off for the President, with his approval numbers sinking faster than the Titanic.
According to new poll numbers from Gallup, Biden’s approval rating is at just 40%, with 56% of respondents disapproving.
Alongside a shift away from the Democratic Party, there was a similar shift away from the President, with his support dipping in the fall of 2021.
Gallup explains, “In the latest survey, 40% of Americans approve and 56% disapprove of the job he is doing, as the U.S. is plagued by the highest inflation in four decades and another surge of COVID-19 cases, this time fueled by the omicron variant of the coronavirus.”
But it’s not just that.
Read the President’s meandering answer when he was asked if school closures would become a potent midterm issue for Republicans.
To get the full-flavor of this alternatively dismissive, halting, and incoherent answer – you really have to watch.
(Problems with sound)
Here’s some of it from the official White House transcript:
Reporter question: Could school reopenings or closures become a potent midterm issue for Republicans to win back the suburbs?
Biden: Oh, I think it could be, but I hope to God that they’re — that — look, maybe I’m kidding myself, but as time goes on, the voter who is just trying to figure out, as I said, how to take care of their family, put three squares on the table, stay safe, able to pay their mortgage or their rent… You know, every — every president, not necessarily in the first 12 months, but every president in the first couple of years — almost every president, excuse me, of the last presidents — at least four of them — have had polling numbers that are 44 percent favorable… I mean, the idea that — the American public are trying to sift their way through what’s real and what’s fake.’
You can see why struggling Democratic parents have snapped.
In contrast, Republicans in Congress are vocally advocating for children. “Children are paying one of the greatest costs of this pandemic, despite being the least at risk to COVID-19. It’s time for the Biden administration to prioritize children’s well-being above junk CDC science, political donors and teachers unions,” tweeted Washington Congressman Cathy McMorris Rodgers on January 20.
Ashley warned, ‘I’m about as lefty as they come. I campaigned for Elizabeth Warren in 2020, Bernie Sanders in 2016, and Ralph Nader in 2000. Most of my views on specific issues haven’t changed… Now I don’t know if I can vote for any of them unless they reckon with what they did, and continue to do, to kids during this pandemic.’
‘I would even accept an apology, a mea culpa, a reflection on what they failed to do, and an effort to make it right. But I’m not holding my breath.’
Judging from Biden’s performance at the White House an apology or more importantly a change of course – is not coming.
Commentary by Jeffrey A. Tucker
The resistance reveals itself always in unexpected ways. As I type, thousands of truckers (numbers are in flux and are in dispute) are part of a 50-mile-long convoy in Canada, headed to the capital city of Ottawa in protest against an egregious vaccine mandate imposed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. They will be joined upon arrival by vast numbers of protestors who are defying the restrictions, closures, and mandates of the last nearly two years.
The triple-vaccinated Trudeau, meanwhile, has decided that he has to go into deep hiding because he was exposed to Covid. A clean, ruling-class, fit, and fashionable lefty like him cannot be expected to face such a pathogen directly. As a member of the vanguard of the lockdown elite, he must never take risks (however small) and must keep himself safe. It is merely a matter of coincidence that he will be locked away in hiding as the truckers arrive together with hundreds of thousands of citizens who are fed up with being treated like lab rats.
Previously, Trudeau had said nearly two years ago that the truckers were heroes. On March 31, 2020, he tweeted: “While many of us are working from home, there are others who aren’t able to do that—like the truck drivers who are working day and night to make sure our shelves are stocked. So when you can, please #ThankATrucker for everything they’re doing and help them however you can.”
It’s true. Like many “essential workers” in the United States, these truckers bravely faced the virus and many already gained natural immunity, which Canadian law does not recognize. Trudeau decided that they needed to be forced to get the vaccine anyway. Keep in mind: these are the people who get food to the stores, packages to homes, and all products that keep life moving. If they don’t drive, the people don’t eat. It’s that simple. Now Trudeau must deal with #FreedomConvoy2020.
Few events in modern times have revealed the vast chasm that exists between the ruled and rulers, especially as it pertains to class. For nearly two years, the professional class has experienced a completely different reality than the working class. In the United States, this only began to change once the highly vaccinated Zoom class got Covid anyway. Only then did we start seeing articles about how there is no shame in getting sick. It appears that in many countries, the working class that was forced into early confrontation with the virus are saying that they aren’t going to take it anymore (and many are playing that song to make the point).
It’s a massive workers’ strike but not the kind of communist dreams. This is a “working class” movement that stands squarely for freedom against all the impositions of the last two years, which were imposed by an overclass with almost no consultation from legislatures. Canada has had some of the worst, much to the shock of its citizens. The convoy is an enormous show of power concerning who really keeps the country running.
The convoy is being joined by truckers from all over the United States too, rising up in solidarity. This is easily the most meaningful and impactful protest to emerge in North America. It is being joined by as many as half a million Canadian citizens, who overwhelmingly support this protest, as one can observe from the cheers on the highway along the way. Indeed, it’s likely to break the record for the largest trucker convoy in history, as well as the most loved.
Trudeau, meanwhile, has dismissed the whole thing as a “small fringe” of extremists and says it means nothing to him and will change nothing. This is because, he says, these truckers hold “unacceptable views.”
This is setting up to be one of the most significant clashes in the world in the great battle between freedom and those governments have set out to crush it.
Meanwhile, I’m looking now for information on this in the mainstream media. It is almost nonexistent outside social media. Fox is covering some of it but that’s about it. The Epoch Times is a wonderful exception, as we’ve come to expect in recent months. It’s not being covered in any depth in Canadian papers and TV. All the usual subjects in the United States have completely ignored this mighty movement. It’s almost like these venues have created an alternate version of reality, one that denies the astonishing reality that anyone can see outside the window.
Yes, I know that we have all come to expect that the corporate media will not cover what actually matters, and much of what it does cover it does only with a strong bias toward narratives crafted by ruling elites. Even so, it seems to stretch credulity beyond any plausible extent for the major media to pretend that this isn’t happening. It is and it has massive implications for the present and the future.
This is not really or just about vaccine mandates. It’s about what they represent: government taking possession of our lives. If they can force you to get an injection in your arm over which you have doubts, all bets for freedom are off. There must be evidence that you complied. The phone app is next, which gets tied to your bank account and your job and your access to communications and your ability to pay your rent or mortgage. It means eventually 100 percent government control over the whole of life. The technology already exists. Everything going on now with these passports is driving to this point.
This is why the truckers are striking this way. It is an act of bravery but also of desperation. Once the tyranny of health passports arrives, there will be no escape. The window of opportunity to do something about this will have closed. So this is the moment. There might not be another one. Something needs to be done to fight for human rights and freedom, and put in place systems that make lockdowns and mandates impossible in the future.
This is the largest and latest example of the revolt and one that could make the biggest difference yet. But it is only one sign among many that the ruling elites in most countries have overplayed their hand. They have arrogantly imposed their plans for everyone else based on the opinions of only a few and without real consultation with experts with differences of opinion or with the people whose lives have been profoundly affected by the pandemic response.
In the US the revolt is taking many forms. There was the rally in D.C. this past weekend. It was impressive. Also the latest polls on political alliances show that the Democrats have lost a major part of their base. Virginia right now points to where this is headed. The party lost vast amounts of its political power in elections last year and now Republicans rule the state with great popularity.
Meanwhile, I’m looking at Biden’s latest poll numbers. I almost cannot believe my eyes. We are talking about an overall 14-point split between approve and disapprove. If this is an indication of what happens to the pro-lockdown political elite, it stands to reason that Trudeau should be worried.
In the Vietnam War, many Americans fled the draft by going to the safe haven on the northern border. That’s one way that Canada had earned its long reputation for being delightfully normal, peaceful, and mercifully boring. Pandemic policies in Canada changed that, with some of the longest-lasting stringencies in the world.
No one asked the workers. Now they are rising up. Nor does it matter that 90 percent of the Canadian public is vaccinated. Possessing that status alone does not mean that people no longer feel resentment for being forced to accept what they do not believe they needed and did not want in the first place. The vaccinated do not automatically give up their longing to be free and to have their human rights recognized.
The resistance to tyranny in our times is taking many unexpected forms. There will be many confrontations on the way, and there is still a very long way to go. At some point, and no one knows when or how, something has to give.
From the Brownstone Institute
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
The fauch and I have one thing in common. We both haven’t practiced medicine for decades ( Actually I never have ). I admit it. He does not. He’s been a administrator since 1984. Famous for the finger in the air to see which way the political wind’s blowing.
What’s being ignored by the fauch and his loyalists is that Omicron so far isn’t the deadly one. Testing healthy people makes no sense. Why not test folks to every disease and virus known to man?
Now as we look into the future, ( 2022 ) what other nonsense will he hit us with? Spoke with my family doctor on anti bodies and T cells. Both for me are way up there I have what’s called CD8+ T cells. They directly kill infected cells. His medical opinion is that the Johnson booster will put me through the roof. He feels that since I started with Johnson, stay with it since my counts are so high. Will test again in March. And yes it’s still free. Thanks Medicare Advantage.
Full FOX article is here.
I was surprised to see that Biden was willing to admit that President Trump was responsible for the saving the lives of millions and even Harris said that the jihad on the unvaccinated must stop.
EXCLUSIVE: Former President Trump said Tuesday that he is “very appreciative” and “surprised” that President Biden thanked him and his administration for their success in making COVID-19 vaccines available to the public, telling Fox News that “tone” and “trust” are critical in getting Americans vaccinated.
“Thanks to the prior administration and our scientific community, America is one of the first countries to get the vaccine,” Biden said Tuesday. “Thanks to my administration, the hard work of Americans, we let, our roll-out, made America among the world leaders in getting shots in arms.”
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Tuesday evening, Trump reacted to Biden acknowledging his administration’s efforts.
“I’m very appreciative of that — I was surprised to hear it,” Trump told Fox News. “I think it was a terrific thing, and I think it makes a lot of people happy.”
Trump then repeated that he was “a little bit surprised.”
“I think he did something very good,” Trump said. “You know, it has to be a process of healing in this country, and that will help a lot.”
The Trump administration created Operation Warp Speed, a public-private partnership to create vaccines against the novel coronavirus, as the pandemic raged in 2020. Under his administration, the Food and Drug Administration approved emergency use authorizations (EUAs) for the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.
Trump in December 2020 signed an executive order that would ensure all Americans had access to coronavirus vaccines before the U.S. government could begin aiding nations around the world.
“This is a great thing that we all did,” Trump said, referring to the roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccines. “I may have been the vehicle, but we all did this together.”
“When we came up with these incredible vaccines — three of them — and therapeutics, we did a tremendous job, and we should never disparage them,” Trump said. “We should be really happy about it because we’ve all saved millions and millions of lives all over the world.”
For those still hesitant to receive a COVID vaccine, Trump said: “You have to embrace it. You don’t have to do it, and there can’t be mandates and all those things, but you have to embrace it.”
Trump said getting Americans vaccinated is “really a matter of tone” instead of mandates.
“It’s a matter of getting people out to, ideally, get the vaccine,” Trump said. “If you have the mandate, the mandate will destroy people’s lives — it destroys people’s lives.
Two of the most disgusting members of the Senate found out that getting the booster sure didn’t do it for them. Yes as we are finding out, more and more vaccinated folks are getting COVID. But not to worry my friends, Moderna is here to save the day.
Moderna says that preliminary data from lab testing found the version of its booster currently in use in the United States and elsewhere provided increased antibody levels to neutralize the virus. But it also found that a double dose of the booster shot provided a much greater increase in those levels. But there’s more.
Moderna is working on a new super duper booster that will be coming out next year.
Joe’s having one hell of a week. So what comes next? Joe keeps on saying crazy things the media and thewhite house says what Joe said is not what Joe meant. Joe’s met by Let’s go Brandon howls, Joe petting and hugging kids, and Joe Manchin says let’s put on the brakes to this madness.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1470915056783216646
https://twitter.com/i/status/1470949824837136386
https://twitter.com/i/status/1320107186241048579
Joe’s passed 400,000 and counting.
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1322971669355483139?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1322971669355483139%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegatewaypundit.com%2F2021%2F12%2Fjoe-biden-smiles-walks-away-asked-responsibility-covid-deaths-video%2F
https://twitter.com/i/status/1471222581646839808
https://twitter.com/i/status/1470846201138405384
THIS IS SO SICK — And the fake news media says NOTHING!
He’s just so perfect.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1471165757480439817
Well, the loons after lockdown after lockdown, strict restrictions, are still dropping like flys. COVID running rampant, and what is the solution? Masks.
Yes, same masks that the fauch at first said didn’t work, then did work, then said wear two, then said not needed, is needed again. What a bunch of loons.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration announced the new mandate will start Wednesday and last until Jan. 15. The order comes as the per capita rate of new coronavirus cases in California has jumped 47% in the past two weeks. So when do the SS start their door to door and business to business searches?
Whole article can be found here.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki claimed Monday that Walt Disney World halting its employee vaccine mandate showed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has taken “steps backward” fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
“They’re based in Florida, and obviously, the governor there has consistently taken steps backward as it relates to fighting the pandemic, not forward,” Psaki told reporters, Fox News reported.
Psaki’s comments come after DeSantis signed four bills last week empowering private businesses to allow more vaccine exemptions in the wake of President Joe Biden’s employer vaccine mandate earlier in November.
“Nobody should lose their job due to heavy-handed COVID mandates, and we had a responsibility to protect the livelihoods of the people of Florida,” DeSantis said of the legislation.
