Categories
Corruption How sick is this? Progressive Racism

WOKE: NYC’s “Chief Medical Officer” :Mocking Designation for White Moms

By Samantha Chang for Western Journal  March 25, 2022 at 8:05am

The left’s rhetorical war on women and white people has infested the “objective” field of medicine and is escalating to absurd lengths.

In the latest salvo, the clownish chief medical officer of New York City referred to pregnant women as “birthing people” and specifically marginalized white moms with this dehumanizing designation.

Dr. Michelle Morse is New York’s first “chief medical officer,” and she was specifically chosen for this new post because of her focus on pushing “racial equity.”

That’s PC speak for “whatever helps black people.”

“Dr. Morse’s experience has combined the best of public health, social medicine, anti-racism education, and activism,” Health Commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi said in a February 2021 news release announcing her appointment.

“Health equity requires leaders who propel change and I am grateful that she has joined the Department to help us create a healthier, more equitable, city,” Chokshi said.

On Wednesday, Morse made the case for taxpayer-funded doulas (that’s like a midwife without the health care training) targeting pregnant black and brown women.

The far-left activist claimed minority women need free doulas because the mortality rate of black mothers in New York is higher than for white moms.

Naturally, Morse blamed this alleged disparity on sham systemic racism and not on the post- and pre-birth health habits of white vs. black mothers.

In her bizarre tweets, she specifically referenced “Black and Puerto Rican mothers” while dismissing white moms as “non-Hispanic White birthing people.”

“Mortality rates of birthing people are too high, and babies born to Black and Puerto Rican mothers in this city are three times more likely to die in their first year of life than babies born to non-Hispanic White birthing people,” Morse said.

Numerous Twitter users slammed Morse for her degrading categorization of pregnant women as “birthing people.”

Many also called Morse out for her shady dig at white moms.

Morse’s racist tweets promoted New York Mayor Eric Adams’ multimillion-dollar, taxpayer-funded program to provide free doulas in 33 minority neighborhoods.

In a news release Wednesday, Adams — who once mocked white cops using the racial slur “crackers” — said the program was part of an effort to help black and Hispanic mothers.

“All three initiatives are part of Mayor Adams’ mission to reduce health inequities in New York City, particularly amongst marginalized Black and Latino/a families and pregnant people,” the release said.

“Maternal and infant health inequities are rooted in generations of structural racism and disinvestment,” it said.

“In New York City, Black women are nine times more likely to die of a pregnancy-related cause than white women, and their rate of infant mortality is more than three times higher. For Puerto Ricans, the infant mortality rate is twice that of white New Yorkers.”

While many Americans are struggling with soaring grocery and gas prices, some of our tax dollars are being used to help only certain groups under racist Democratic leadership.

A birth doula remains with the mother during birth, offering relaxation and breathing technique support, as well as comforting services like massage, and assistance with labor positions; however, doulas are not medically trained, and cannot deliver babies. A doula is not a substitute for having a woman’s partner at the birth. Doulas encourage participation from the partner, and offer support and reassurance to the partner as well.

https://www.medicinenet.com/doula_vs_midwife/article.htm

Comment: so these non-medically trained people are going to lower mortality rates how?

Categories
Biden Pandemic COVID

What Could Explain the Lower COVID-19 Burden in Africa despite Considerable Circulation of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus? No Tony the Fauch.

Authors.

Richard G. Wamai

1,*,

Jason L. Hirsch

1,

Wim Van Damme

2,

David Alnwick

3,

Robert C. Bailey

4,

Stephen Hodgins

5,

Uzma Alam

6 and

Mamka Anyona

7

1
Department of Cultures, Societies, and Global Studies, Northeastern University, 201 Renaissance Park, 360 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02115, USA
2
Department of Public Health, Institute of Tropical Medicine, B-2000 Antwerp, Belgium
3
DUNDEX (Deployable U.N.-Experienced Development Experts), FX68 Belturbet, Ireland
4
School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607, USA
5
School of Public Health, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 1C9, Canada
6
Researcher Africa Institute for Health Policy Foundation, Nairobi 020, Kenya
7
T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02115, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editors: Anthony R. Mawson and Paul B. Tchounwou
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(16), 8638; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18168638
Received: 7 July 2021 / Revised: 13 August 2021 / Accepted: 13 August 2021 / Published: 16 August 2021
(This article belongs to the Collection Outbreak of a Novel Coronavirus: A Global Health Threat)

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Abstract

The differential spread and impact of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), causing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), across regions is a major focus for researchers and policy makers. Africa has attracted tremendous attention, due to predictions of catastrophic impacts that have not yet materialized. Early in the pandemic, the seemingly low African case count was largely attributed to low testing and case reporting. However, there is reason to consider that many African countries attenuated the spread and impacts early on. Factors explaining low spread include early government community-wide actions, population distribution, social contacts, and ecology of human habitation. While recent data from seroprevalence studies posit more extensive circulation of the virus, continuing low COVID-19 burden may be explained by the demographic pyramid, prevalence of pre-existing conditions, trained immunity, genetics, and broader sociocultural dynamics. Though all these prongs contribute to the observed profile of COVID-19 in Africa, some provide stronger evidence than others. This review is important to expand what is known about the differential impacts of pandemics, enhancing scientific understanding and gearing appropriate public health responses. Furthermore, it highlights potential lessons to draw from Africa for global health on assumptions regarding deadly viral pandemics, given its long experience with infectious diseases.
Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; Africa; SARS-CoV-2 virus spread; lower COVID-19 disease burden; African populations; demographic pyramid; trained immunity; government measures

1. Background

As of 11 August 2021, approximately 7.1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases were reported in Africa continentwide [1]. Now, a year and a half since the first infection was reported in Egypt on 14 February 2020, Africa has accounted for just 3.5% of 204.2 million lab-confirmed cases [2], despite containing 12.5% of the global population [3]. Africa’s share of deaths is just 4.1% of the 4.3 million reported globally [2]. These numbers significantly defy early predictions of mass COVID-19 catastrophe [4,5,6,7]. The doom and gloom predictions were based on what was known about how the disease is transmitted, and how socially deprived settings, unsanitary living conditions, and weak health systems, which are common throughout the continent, could exacerbate spread and subsequent disease burden [6,8,9]. To date, mass infection spread, high rates of severe disease, and excess mortality due to COVID-19 on the continent have not been reported [10]. One important exception is South Africa, which carries a substantial 35% of the confirmed cases and 42% of total deaths among the 55 countries on the continent [1]. This leads to questioning the differences in reporting between African countries, as South Africa makes up only 4.8% of the 1.2 billion people living in Africa and has conducted a disproportionate 24% of the 50.6 million tests administered, as of 17 June 2021 [1].
Because of low testing capacities, Africa has conducted the least number of tests of all global regions given its population size [1,11], but has exceeded the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) targets of 8000 tests per million [1]. This should be seriously considered as having contributed to an underestimation of cases [12]. Several seroprevalence studies offer insights on the extent of spread in the continent. For example, a cross-sectional household study in Zambia reported much higher infections than reported via the limited normative testing, which showed only one confirmed case reported for every 92 community infections [13]. Small antibody studies among healthcare workers in hospitals have reported up to a 36% prevalence in Kinshasa, DRC [14], 45.1% in Ibadan, Nigeria [15], and 12.3% in Blantyre, Malawi [16], during the period of May to June 2020. Studies among blood donors in Kenya and South Africa from April to June 2020 report anti-SARS-CoV-2-IgG seroprevalence of, respectively, 4.5% nationally [17] and 60% among South African black populations, seven times that of in-country white populations [18]. Two studies reported SARS-CoV-2-IgG positivity of 23.7% in workers of low socio-economic status in Cape Town, South Africa [19], and 25.1% in gold mine workers and administrative staff in Ivory Coast [20]. These studies collected blood samples between April and October 2020 during the first wave of the COVID-19 spread throughout the continent, with the second wave largely peaking around December 2020 [21]. While these studies offer insights, the results are variable. A true picture requires more and larger antibody studies in other geographies and populations over time [22]. Additionally, these data should be interpreted with caution, as none of these tests have been validated in African-specific contexts where it is possible that cross-reactivity with other prevalent viruses, micro-organisms, and hypergammaglobulinemia due to malaria exposure may influence the sensitivity and/or specificity of these tests, potentially leading to either an underestimation or overestimation of seroprevalence [14,23,24,25,26,27].
The integrity of reporting case and death data in Africa has been repeatedly called into question. For instance, in January 2021, The New York Times published an article titled “A Continent Where the Dead Are Not Counted” [28]. However, while only 34.6% of countries globally have complete death registration data in the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS), most African countries have a system in place [29], and there is no evidence that COVID-19 mortality data is less accurately reported in Africa than elsewhere. Only Tanzania ceased reporting COVID-19 cases or deaths since May 2020 [1]. The World Mortality Dataset reports the undercounting of COVID-19 deaths from many of the 77 countries included in the dataset, such as the U.S., U.K., and Russia, with South Africa, Egypt, and Mauritius being the only African countries listed [30]. While there are some reports of excess deaths from the continent [30,31], these may well be more due to the adverse indirect effects of pandemic prevention measures, such as lockdowns, causing a wide range of difficulties such as food shortages, and a near unilateral focus on COVID-19, diverting resources from treating other diseases and health conditions [32]. Despite having several limitations [33], data from an autopsy study in a small sample of deaths from a teaching hospital in Zambia indicated the underestimation of COVID-19 mortality is a problem in Africa [34]. Nevertheless, rapid mortality assessments for COVID-19 that is underway in some countries [35,36,37,38] could reveal a more complete picture. Expectedly, due to weak health systems, recent data show that Africa has a higher mortality in those with critical COVID-19 illness than elsewhere, with a mortality rate of 48.2% compared with a global average of 31.5% [39].
While various studies have postulated that demographic profile, early actions such as lockdowns, community factors, and possibly population-specific innate immune factors that are yet undetermined [9,12,40] have played a role in the apparently lower COVID-19 burden, the data and speculation still leave many questions unanswered [41,42]. Several articles in the popular media [43,44] postulate hypotheses, but to our knowledge there has not yet been a complete scholarly review. We are beginning to understand that context and history matter a great deal [45,46,47]. The first modelling of the pandemic for nearly all countries in Africa, based on multiple context-specific covariates, has more closely predicted what has been observed [48]. Here, a set of hypotheses to explore observations regarding SARS-CoV-2 spread and a comparatively low COVID-19 disease burden in the African region are examined. An analysis of factors underlying the spread and burden is important because of the potential for valuable global public health lessons, expanding on what is known regarding deadly viral pandemics, population and systems-level preparedness, and subsequent response.

2. On SARS-CoV-2 Spread

To understand the full picture of COVID-19 in Africa, we must first examine how spread patterns emerged, and what variables could have influenced these patterns. While recent data have shown extensive SARS-CoV-2 spread in the continent, this was not always thought to be the case, and the extent of the spread compared with other global regions is still somewhat debated. Below, we present three main areas of interest regarding viral propagation in an Africa-specific context.

2.1. Early Government Measures and Messaging

Many governments in Africa enacted early response measures to the pandemic [49,50,51,52]. On 5 February 2020, even before there was a single case reported in the continent, the Africa CDC had established the Africa Taskforce for Coronavirus (AFCOR), and on 22 April 2020, the WHO highlighted examples of how Africa was leading the global response. By 15 April 2020, 96% of the 50 African countries examined had in place at least five ‘stringent public health and social measures’ to prepare for the emerging pandemic [21]. Less international connectivity, early border closures, and lockdowns to prevent viral importation from international flight arrivals, especially from China [8], were associated with a lower case load [53]. Modelling studies also found reduced connectivity/travel at regional, national, and international levels as having an important early impact on slowing the spread [48,54].
Destructive epidemics are not new phenomena for Africa. The continent is constantly dealing with abundant infectious disease (e.g., malaria, yellow fever, tuberculosis, Ebola, polio) [55]. Due to their familiarity with these epidemics, many governments have developed effective public health programs with messaging aimed at unifying the community and highlighting the need for preventative action among individuals [56,57]; for example, the case of the response to Ebola in Western Africa [58,59,60] and to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Uganda [61]. A similar unity around public health messaging has emerged around COVID-19 in many countries, including outside Africa in Vietnam (e.g., “Fighting the epidemic is like fighting against the enemy”) [12]. It is very possible that a certain baseline individual and community preparedness, awareness, and adherence to government public health recommendations on non-pharmaceutical interventions, and a readiness to adapt to a new epidemic had significant implications in stunting disease spread in the community.
Recent studies point to cultural adherence to government recommendations as being important for mitigating SARS-CoV-2 spread [62,63]. But are Africans, on average, more willing than other populations to respect in-country public health guidelines? Several surveys on adherence to masking, social distancing, and hand hygiene have been conducted in multiple countries, some of which are nationally representative [64]. Studies from Nigeria, Malawi, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, and the DRC showed that although most participants had a good knowledge about COVID-19 transmission modes and prevention mechanisms that were consistent over place and time, there were gaps in the practices that prevent COVID-19 [65,66,67,68,69]. Studies further determined that individuals’ age, sex, educational status, occupation, and income level were associated with COVID-19 related practices [65,67,70,71]. From these studies, it can be concluded that awareness and (non)adherence to NPIs does not explain low reported cases.

2.2. Population Distribution and Structure of Social Networks

Population structure and spatial distribution strongly predict the patterns of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in communities [72,73]. Analysis of spatial and temporal clustering of populations shows a correlation between density/crowding and viral reproduction number [72]. Africa is the least urbanized global region, with 55% of the continent’s population living in rural areas with wide variations across countries [74,75]. Modelling shows greater reproduction rates in urban areas [48,76], and epidemiological data are skewed towards higher cases in urban areas across all countries [54,77]. A similar pattern was observed for Ebola [78]. South Africa, clearly the COVID-19 exception in the continent, is a rapidly urbanizing outlier, as only 30% of its population live in rural areas [75]. Nigeria, on the other hand, models the trends seen in the continent as a whole, with approximately a 50% rural population [75] and a low COVID-19 burden [1]. Limited research in Africa also shows significantly more intergenerational contacts in rural as compared to urban areas [79]. Researchers posit this distribution, household size, and patterns of age-structured social contacts modify the spread of epidemics [48,76,79,80]. Furthermore, a recent study depicts the effect that the nature of social networks and mobility have on COVID-19 transmission [81]. Communities with increased social capital tend to see worse disease outbreaks overall [81,82], although this is not always the case [83]. An increased feeling of integration and connection to society is beneficial in terms of social support, which could potentially benefit individual health outcomes, but may generally have negative consequences for containing infectious disease spread due to increased human contact [80].
The limited research conducted on social contact in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) shows that enhancing social distance mitigation strategies, particularly for elderly populations, would result in mortality decreases, but not to the extent that these changes would have in higher income settings, which tend to have increased proportions of elderly cohorts in the population [9]. The small slice of the African population who are older (only 3% of the African population is 65+) [3] live overwhelmingly at home, often with extended families spanning multiple generations. This alone explains a huge discrepancy in cases, as roughly one third to one half of deaths in wealthy countries, such as the U.S., have resulted from superspreading events in elderly nursing homes and assisted living facilities, providing the rationale for prioritizing the inoculation of these older individuals [84,85]. While multiple family homes generally have more people in a shared space than the typical single-family homes of Western countries, this slightly increased risk of within-household spread is offset by the significantly decreased risk of large-scale superspreading events in the community, often caused by congregate nursing home settings [86]. Despite an increasing trend of elders being cared for in long-term care facilities in Africa [87], especially in South Africa [88], this is still far less commonly practiced than in Western countries, Asia [89], or Latin America [90,91].

2.3. A Largely Outdoor Existence

Because infected persons transmit the virus through coughing, sneezing, talking, singing, and breathing [92], living environments matter. Further, viability and infectivity are influenced by environmental conditions [46,93]. Studies show that coronavirus transmission, while also possible outdoors [94], is concentrated in indoor settings where it is estimated to be about 19 times higher [95]. While most likely only minimally contributing to viral spread, built environments requiring ventilation, air-conditioning/heating, wastewater, and sewer systems have been shown to carry the virus that may escape through aerosolization [96,97,98]. These systems are generally in urban areas and are almost entirely lacking in rural Africa where most people live. In contrast, respondents in the U.S. National Human Activity Pattern Survey reported spending over 90% of time in enclosed environments, either in buildings or in their cars [96,99].
African livelihoods that are largely dependent on agriculture and pastoralism favor dawn-to-dusk outdoor lifestyles, with shelters used mostly for sleeping. Research shows people in rural areas spend far more time outdoors as compared to urban areas [100]. Even in the case of sleeping, these homes are often well ventilated with outside air, significantly reducing the chance of viral transmission when compared to tightly enclosed indoor spaces in developed countries. Additionally, higher temperatures and UV light intensity have been shown to predict SARS-CoV-2 spread [101,102], although the evidence is inconsistent [103]. Prolonged, year-round outdoor living with direct exposure to UV light in mostly warm and tropical climates could partially explain reduced transmission [46], perhaps due to endogenously produced vitamin D, which is suggested in some studies, including a systematic review and meta-analysis, to attenuate COVID-19 symptom severity [104,105]. Vitamin D supplements are under several ongoing clinical investigations [106].
As a final note regarding the extent of transmission, even if the SARS-CoV-2 virus is more widespread than reported as seroprevalence data suggest, there still has been much less morbidity and mortality observed. The proposed factors reviewed above provide some insight into how African-specific transmission patterns have emerged and evolved over time.

3. Factors Mitigating COVID-19 Burden in Africa

Even though case and death reporting has certainly been less reliable in Africa, there has been very little evidence of increased overall mortality or widespread COVID-19 disease, with the exceptions of South Africa and northern African countries. We now examine what could possibly explain this somewhat perplexing situation.

3.1. Demographic Pyramid

It is beyond doubt that the demographic pyramid is significantly related to decreased COVID-19 burden. It is well documented that COVID-19 burden is heavily skewed towards older populations [107,108], as demonstrated by a study of 17 million COVID-19 cases [109]. Compared with a reference demographic group of 5–17 years, the demographic of 65–74 years is 35 times more likely to become hospitalized from SARS-CoV-2 infection, and 1100 times more likely to die from COVID-19, with these risks increasing significantly in even higher age groups [108,109]. Africa has the youngest population among all global regions, with a median age of 19.7 years [25,51]. Conversely, the median ages among the hardest hit countries are much higher: 26.8 years in India [110], 31.4 years in Brazil [111], 38.5 years in the U.S. [112], and 40.5 years in the U.K. [113]. Modelling clearly shows that the COVID-19 mortality for Africa tracks this similar age pattern [48,54], and this is confirmed by actual current mortality data [114]. Through conducting a simple linear regression to show between-region differences, regressing cumulative mortality per 1 million population on the ratio of population aged 65+ vs. aged 15–64, the R2 = 0.283 is found, meaning that the variance in mortality accounted for by age structure is 28.3% (Figure 1) [2,75,115]; the cumulative mortality figures used here are for the period since the beginning of the pandemic through 17 June 2021, as reported on oneworldindata.org (accessed on 17 June 2021), which utilizes Johns Hopkins University Centers for Systems Science and Engineering COVID-19 data [2]. These data provide evidence that despite the considerable spread of infection, COVID-19 disease and mortality burden in younger African populations is comparatively absent. However, South Africa shows a much higher mortality than many countries with a similar age structure, including India and Egypt, meaning that other factors are also at play.
Ijerph 18 08638 g001 550
Figure 1. This analysis is based on data extracted from ourworldindata.org accessed on 17 June 2021, retaining data on countries with populations of at least 1 million, for which complete data were available for the analyses done. Among these countries, as one would expect, COVID-19 mortality is strongly correlated with age structure. Note the concentration of purple dots in the bottom left, indicating comparatively low COVID-19 mortality and young age structure among most African countries. The Pearson’s R2 for cumulative COVID-19 mortality and the ratio of persons aged 65+ to those aged 15–64 is 0.283; for example, 28.3% of the between-country variance in cumulative COVID-19 mortality can be accounted for by age structure alone.

3.2. Pre-Existing Conditions

It is well known that people with pre-existing conditions, such as diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases, obesity, and hypertension have a greatly increased risk of moderate to severe complications from COVID-19 infection [53,116,117]. Broadly, these conditions are considerably less prevalent in low income and lower middle income countries (LICs and LMICs) when compared to higher income countries (HICs) [9,118], providing an additional possible explanation for why COVID-19 burden is more reduced in the African continent. Indeed, African countries have a low prevalence of NCDs (only accounting for 29.8% of total burden of disease in SSA, with the majority of burden coming from infectious disease) [119], compared to 88% in the US and 74% in Brazil [120], which align with the impact of pre-existing conditions on increasingly severe complications and death from COVID-19 [9,116]. South Africa, which accounts for nearly 40% of all reported COVID-19 cases and deaths in the continent [2], reports an exceptionally high burden of NCDs [119,121]. However, some research suggests that the prevalence of infectious disease can similarly exacerbate COVID-19 burden and may actually indicate that regions with high infectious disease and low NCD prevalence (such as in Africa) are not advantaged [9,25]. For instance, a recent cohort study in South Africa suggested that HIV was associated with a doubling of mortality risk of COVID-19 [122]. This is potentially significant to consider in explaining why South Africa has a disproportionate COVID-19 burden in the continent, given that it also has the greatest number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world [123]. More studies are needed, however, before this potential association can be determined.

3.3. Trained Immunity

The phenomenon of trained immunity may be tempering the COVID-19 burden in the continent. Here, we focus on four elements underlying this hypothesis: (i) BCG vaccinations, (ii) exposure to varied commensal microorganisms, or the “hygiene hypothesis”, (iii) prevalence of infectious diseases, and (iv) historical use of herbal plants and remedies.
(i) Live vaccines activate innate immune systems, conferring protection against future infections from other pathogens [124,125,126,127,128,129], which researchers believe may have the potential to also attenuate consequences of infection with SARS-CoV-2 [130]. Recent data suggest that regions with mandated BCG vaccinations have had lower COVID-19 disease burden [131], which may speak to an association between BCG vaccination rate and population COVID-19 burden. Children vaccinated with BCG could have a lower infection risk with SARS-CoV-2 [132], continuing well into adulthood. Interestingly, and applicable to COVID-19, BCG vaccination was shown to be especially protective against complications of other respiratory viral infections, supported by studies in Guinea-Bissau and South Africa [133,134]. Additionally, in rodent models, BCG reduces viral load from infection by influenza A and herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV2) [135,136], with a mediation by a boosted innate, nonspecific immune defense via increased cytokine production and macrophage action. It is not known if BCG immunity confers such protection in older populations [132], but this has been suggested by some research [137]. This is hypothesized in part from observations in countries that lagged behind other efforts to disseminate BCG, such as Iran and Somalia, which have incurred a significant death toll from COVID-19. Still, it is possible that countries with earlier BCG administration campaigns have contributed to the protection of older populations from heavy COVID-19 burden, through childhood inoculation for tuberculosis [137]. Because COVID-19 complications are often a result of significant systemic inflammation [138,139], the fact that inoculation with BCG boosts an innate immunity that subsequently lowers the extent of inflammation [132] indicates that it could be a pathway by which BCG attenuates infection of SARS-CoV-2. Of course, controlled clinical trials are needed to verify this hypothesis. While this varies, most African countries have high BCG coverage [140], with the notable exception of Somalia, due to the long-standing civil wars interfering with child vaccination programs. As noted in one study, countries without universal policies for BCG vaccination (such as Italy, the U.K., Spain, and the U.S.) have experienced much more severe disease burden compared to countries with universal programs (including most African countries and Japan, for example) [137]. However, this association may be primarily due to other factors; for example, countries that have a BCG vaccine mandate may tend to have stricter public health measures in place that could indirectly affect population COVID-19 burden, instead of the effect being driven primarily by BCG vaccination. Furthermore, if this BCG hypothesis turns out to have some merit, countries in Africa with similar levels of BCG coverage and population structure should show comparable COVID-19 burden.
(ii) The so-called “hygiene hypothesis” posits that some environments advantage populations against certain forms of infection and disease, due to chronic exposure to a multi-microbial environment, potentially producing protective immune effects when encountering new pathogens [130,141]. There has been some concern regarding regions that use ultra-hygienic practices, exemplified by the overuse of hand sanitizer and other disinfection practices in many countries, as inadvertently creating a disadvantage for confronting new immune challenges such as SARS-CoV-2 [130]. Accordingly, non-specific immunity would be weakened and may have implications for disrupting the adaptive composition of commensal organisms on the skin, gastrointestinal tract, and other organ systems [130]. Because COVID-19 is a relatively new viral problem, it may take a while before conclusive statements can be made about the role of the microbial environment on infection susceptibility, but researchers agree that this hypothesis is plausible [130], in part indicated by the aforementioned dichotomy of burden between richer and poorer countries [142,143]. Higher income countries (with a few exceptions) have suffered much greater COVID-19 burdens (specifically, hospitalization and death rates) than the poorest countries, on average [2]. Such data raise the consideration that richer countries could be maladaptively over-sanitizing.
(iii) Given that 22 of the 25 most vulnerable countries to infectious disease epidemics are in Africa (the other three being Afghanistan, Haiti, and Yemen) [144], the continent carries the heaviest burden of infectious diseases, including the impoverishing neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) [145,146]. During 2018 alone, SSA faced 96 disease outbreaks in 36 of 47 countries [55]. This pathogenic environment precipitates the wide use of antibiotics, antimalarials, and other drugs to treat NTDs, such as azithromycin and ivermectin often distributed through mass drug administrations [147,148,149,150,151], which might counteract to mitigate COVID-19 morbidity. In particular, used widely over several decades in SSA, ivermectin has been spotlighted as a potential treatment for COVID-19 [152,153], including by the NIH [154,155]. Researchers have postulated that “circulating viruses or parasites in the African subcontinent” could explain high SARS-CoV-2 antibody seropositivity [14]. For instance, of 228 million cases of malaria worldwide in 2018, 93% were in SSA [156]. Notably, South Africa is not generally endemic for malaria and other NTDs [157]. Intense malaria exposure (which is frequent in many rural areas in SSA and much less so in urban areas, and not at all in South Africa or in northern Africa countries) has a strong influence on the immune system and could contribute to a better trained immunity [158,159]. It is possible that infection by malaria alone may overstimulate the immune system and confer an immune advantage when compared to nonexposed populations. To further investigate this potential role, as very few to no communities outside of Africa are holo-endemic for the disease [160], mechanistic studies would be needed to determine if there is cross-immunity between malaria and SARS-CoV-2 exposure.
(iv) Yet to be measured, the historical use of natural medicine for primary care [161,162,163] and widespread belief of self-medication with these for COVID-19 in Africa has triggered a WHO-AFRO expert panel in September 2020 to endorse a protocol for the clinical investigation of herbal medicine for COVID-19 [164]. During 30 March–1 April 2021, the Third Regional Consultation with Experts and Researchers on the Contribution of Traditional Medicine to COVID-19 Response in the African Region was held, with contributions from scores of scientists and countries. The case for exploring natural medicine in the fight against COVID-19 is justified [165]. Although African countries such as Madagascar have endorsed the wide use of a traditional therapeutic agent to fight COVID-19, there are no published scientific data that would lend support to this claim. Clinicaltrials.gov (accessed on 7 July 2021) reports that several studies are underway, including Chinese traditional herbal medicines [166]. The establishment in Africa of a Regional Expert Advisory Committee on Traditional Medicine for COVID-19 compromising 25 members speaks to the widespread use of and belief in herbal medicine as possible means of prevention or cure of COVID-19.

3.4. Genetics

Recent work suggests that there is a role for genetics in COVID-19 trajectory, and in differentially affecting separate populations [167,168]. Some genetic immunological factors could possibly be playing a role in shielding Africa from the brunt of the pandemic [41]. For example, SARS-CoV-2 infects human cells largely through its interactions with the ACE2 receptor, involved in regulating blood pressure dynamics [6,117,169]. Populations varying in the expression of the ACE2 protein may have different baseline ‘openness’ for infection. African people have been shown to respond less effectively to ACE inhibitors for treatment of blood pressure, and have less expression of ACE2; therefore, there is potential for a more difficult route that the virus must maneuver to infect cells in this population [6,169]. There also may be genetic susceptibility via the 3p21.31 gene cluster, as one GWAS study showed ABO blood group A as having the highest risk of COVID-19-associated respiratory failure, with group O having the lowest risk [170]. Studies have shown that African populations have a particularly high proportion of O-positivity at nearly 50%, which is higher than in White and Asian populations [171,172,173]. It is possible that this increased O prevalence could be conferring a greater protective effect in African populations compared with other groups with less O prevalence; however, no studies have concluded this. While this hypothesis is somewhat challenged by the particularly heavy COVID-19 burden facing African Americans in the U.S. [174], who would likely share some or most of these genetic advantages [175,176], elevated levels of NCDs are observed more in African Americans than in continental African populations [119,177,178], which could help explain this discrepancy along with other adverse socioeconomic and cultural factors.

3.5. Broader Sociocultural Implications

Importantly, inequality of distribution of income (standardized by the GINI co-efficient) appears to be at least partially correlated with increasing disease burden of COVID-19, as South Africa (with a value of 63.1, among the highest in the world) and Brazil (54.7) [179] have been hit hard by COVID-19. One study of the top 50 countries with the highest numbers of cases suggests that increased income inequality was associated with increased severe cases and mortality [53]. Across the US, Brazil, South Africa, and Europe, increased mortality has been reported among minority groups such as Africans and Asians [180,181]. Three countries (South Africa, Brazil, the U.S.) seem to have similar risk profiles: long historical cleavages of institutional racism and inequality [182,183] that exacerbate COVID-19 vulnerabilities among large Black populations. The role in which inequality and poverty play totally depends on the behavior and the biological/immunological factors that they influence. For example, in New York and in other U.S. cities, poor people have difficulty isolating themselves, as they commonly utilize public transportation, share living spaces with more people, work in crowded environments, and overall, have lower social mobility [184]. In contrast, in many African cities, the social and political elites are the ones who can afford to live and work in airconditioned closed spaces, increasing susceptibility to infection through close, indoor contact with others [185]. However, this should not be generalized as the case in every African country, as work has also pointed to the similar theme of poorer populations facing a higher burden, such as in South Africa, with the elites largely shielded from the virus [186].

4. Conclusions

Relatively low severity and death due to COVID-19 in Africa presents somewhat of a paradox [41,42,187]. Despite early ‘doomsday’ predictions for Africa, the continent succeeded in stemming the first wave of SARS-CoV-2 spread [188], although the second wave was more severe [21]. On the whole, the factors discussed here have contributed to modulating disease spread and severity; however, the strength of evidence of each varies. A third wave that is currently underway in many countries appears to bring more consequential morbidity and mortality concerns, and possible impacts [189], especially as early government measures have been relaxed in many countries [21]. Driven by more virulent and potentially lethal variants, such as Delta, this third wave may prove far more challenging for weaker health systems to cope with, leading to increased hospitalizations and deaths [190]. Future waves are also likely. Alongside facing the lowest quality of health systems [9,191], the continent will be significantly challenged if it faces an excessive COVID-19 disease burden [192]. Estimates already show that many excess deaths, especially in the SSA region, will result not from COVID-19 but from disruptions in programs addressing malnutrition [193], HIV/AIDS [194], malaria [195], and maternal and child health deaths [32], along with interruptions in the implementation of immunization programs [196]. Therefore, a range of policy options taking this into account, as well as considering economic and socio-cultural characteristics including the expected benefits and harms of control measures (e.g., adverse effects on education and livelihoods) [7,42], need to be implemented.
It is likely that SARS-CoV-2 has already been widely disseminated through Africa, yet evidently without having had the severe consequences of COVID-19 burden, such as the significant uptick in hospitalizations and deaths that many other regions have experienced [25]. If so, widespread infection is likely to also result in widespread natural immunity [197]. While the true picture of infections and mortality in the continent has yet to fully emerge, the quality of data for other diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, indicates that Africa has the capacity to collect and report valid disease surveillance data [198], which should give a degree of confidence in the existing COVID-19 data and the ability for the continent to do better. Nevertheless, improving completeness of data collection and reporting is an ongoing mission for Africa and elsewhere [30,199]. Strengthening lab capacities, validating current rapid tests in the context of other infectious diseases, and standardizing data and survey reporting will also expand the true picture [42]. Additionally, before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, researchers and policy makers from Africa called for a new model of public health in the 21st Century, precisely to prepare for this kind of pandemic [200]. Now, as the pandemic evolves, the vaccine rollout needs to be especially accelerated to reach more people, as the continent lags with less than 5% of its population having received at least one shot as of August 2021 [201]. We also urge the continuation of measures for which there is clear evidence of effectiveness [202]. While what has been observed is a comparatively low morbidity and mortality from COVID-19 in Africa, the continent faces a significant threat with the current progression of the pandemic that may change what has been seen thus far [203]. Still, as our assessment here shows, the unique experience of African countries may offer salient lessons for the rest of the world, given their long experience with infectious diseases and outbreak readiness [56,57

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, W.V.D., D.A., R.C.B., S.H. and R.G.W.; writing—original draft preparation, R.G.W. and J.L.H.; writing—review and editing, R.G.W., J.L.H., W.V.D., D.A., R.C.B., S.H., U.A. and M.A.; visualization, S.H. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

Not applicable.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Daniel Halperin, Mead Over, Norman Hearst, and Alan Whiteside for their contributions to the development of this paper.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Categories
Corruption Crime Politics The Courts

City Under Siege: Staggering New York Crime Wave Roils Politics, Challenges Left

March 23, 2022 | Judicial Watch

The NYPD’s new anti-gun units hit the streets last week and not a moment too soon. New York City is in the midst of a staggering crime wave.

Over the past weekend, 29 people were shot in 24 separate incidents, the Daily News reported. According to the latest NYPD statistics, major felonies in the city increased 58% in February 2022, in year over year comparisons to February 2021. Murders rose 10%. Felony assaults rose 22%. Rapes increased 35%. Robberies increased 56%. Hate crimes—largely against Jews and Asian-Americans—surged 189%. Crimes in the transit systems—mainly the subways—were up 73%.

New York is a city under siege. Every day brings a new horror story. A child is assaulted in Times Square. A young woman is stabbed to death in her Chinatown apartment. A senior citizen is hacked to death by a wheelchair-bound transgender two-time convicted murderer. A madman smears feces on a woman’s face in a subway station, is released on bail, and arrested again after hurling a dumbbell through a window. A woman is shoved in front of a subway train and killed. Another woman is attacked with a hammer. A teen is shot to death in front of a Brooklyn high school. A baby is shot in the face in the Bronx. A teenage cashier at a Burger King in Manhattan is shot and killed during a robbery. Two police officers are killed by gunfire in Harlem.

At Judicial Watch, we warned for years that New York was slipping toward a crisis of crime and disorder. The reasons were not difficult to discern. Progressive policy makers were denigrating and defunding the police at every opportunity, dismantling successful policing units, decriminalizing quality-of-life crimes, emptying  jails, and launching a disastrous program of bail reform.

Under Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York abandoned the successful policing strategy of enforcing quality-of-life laws. This was the “Broken Windows” theory of policing, a key factor in crime reduction during the mayoral tenure of Rudy Giuliani.

“Broken Windows” is a metaphor for urban decline. The building with an unrepaired broken window soon leads to the other windows being broken and more disorderly conduct. “A neighborhood where minor offenses go unchallenged soon becomes a breeding ground for more serious criminal activity and, ultimately, violence,” write Giuliani police commissioner William Bratton and George Kelling, the father of Broken Windows theory.

New York decriminalized quality-of-life crimes under de Blasio. Public urination, public drinking, littering, and subway turnstile jumping were no longer illegal. Incidents of harassment, menacing, petty theft, public urination and public intoxication began to increase. That distant tremor in the urban air was the sound of windows breaking.

Meanwhile, progressives rammed through the state legislature in Albany a reform package that eliminated bail for a wide range of offenses—from assault, arson and child abuse to manslaughter, robbery and riot—and removed judicial discretion in holding suspects. The reform legislation took effect January 2020. Many more offenders walked. Some of them were poor first-time offenders on minor crimes who simply could not afford bail and deserved to walk; others were violent personalities or career criminals who did not. Crime rates jumped.

The public backlash was swift. In November 2021, New York elected a new mayor, a former police officer who had campaigned on a platform of public safety, Eric Adams. The new mayor’s plans include a refreshed version of the successful but controversial NYPD anti-crime unit, which was disbanded in 2020 in the midst of social justice protests. The new six-person anti-gun units, launched last week, will aggressively tackle gun crime in New York. About 170 police officers have been deployed so far, focusing on high crime areas, with 300 more to follow.

Adams also is advocating for reform of radical bail laws, tougher gun possession charges for youthful offenders, and a crackdown on transit crime with an increased police presence in the subways .

Initially stunned by the Adams electoral victory, New York’s powerful progressive factions have begun to push back hard on the new mayor. Adams’ appeal to Democratic leaders in Albany for bail reform—largely focused on giving judges more discretion to hold potentially violent offenders—was quickly shot down. Progressive politicians in New York argue that there is not a proven connection between the new bail laws and increased crime; conservatives disagree.

Adams, meanwhile, gained an important ally in the bail reform fight: New York Governor Kathy Hochul. The former lieutenant governor took over after Andrew Cuomo resigned. Last week, she sent the state legislature a “confidential” ten-point public safety plan that backed the Adams proposal to give judges more discretion in setting bail. The plan quickly leaked, infuriating the Left. Perhaps not coincidentally, Hochul will be asking the voters for a full term as governor in November.

Back in New York City, the new NYPD anti-gun teams acted quickly, making a first arrest just two hours into the first patrol—an alleged member of the Bloods crime gang with a loaded 9mm handgun. By the end of the first week, the anti-gun units had arrested thirty more suspects and taken ten illegal guns off the streets.

Categories
COVID Drugs Politics

N.H. House Approves Bill for Ivermectin ‘Standing Order’ in Pharmacies

Credit Pixabay

 

The New Hampshire’s state House approved a bill making ivermectin available by a medical prescribers’ “standing order,” meaning pharmacists will be able to dispense the medication without individual prescriptions.

Narrowly approved

The Republican dominated House in Concord voted 183-159 to approve the bill.

Republicans had argued that the drug is already over the counter in several countries and had been used specifically for COVID-19.

Supporters of the bill claimed the legislation would allow the medication to be safely dispensed by health care providers rather than patients buying and using the drug in its veterinary formula.

Democrats had criticized the legislation in the past.

“The committee’s endorsement of boosting access to ivermectin came over the criticism of Democrats on the committee. ‘I don’t think the legislature should be practicing medicine, which is basically what this is,’ said Rep. Gary Woods of Bow, a retired doctor and former president of the New Hampshire Medical Society.”

TrialSite has followed ivermectin research and intrigue since April 2020 when an Australian lab found that the drug attacks SARS-CoV-2 in a cell culture.

While a few key studies didn’t show any results many more have which makes the matter just more confusing for many.

According to a website that tracks 81 ivermectin studies worldwide the vast majority show promising results.

Fifty-three of these studies from 48 independent teams in 22 countries show statistically significant improvements in isolation (39 primary outcome and 36 most serious outcome) while meta-analysis using the most serious outcomes reveal 63% and 83% improvements for early treatment and prophylaxis with similar results post exclusion based sensitivity analysis for primary outcomes in peer-reviewed studies and for randomized controlled studies.

Yet the medical establishment in not only the United States but also most other developed places ignore much of this data declaring it afflicted with one problem or another, from design flow to too small a sample size.

The controversial bill made it to the floor of the New Hampshire House on Wednesday with the Republicans majority voting yay. In a 183 to 159 vote the House approved the proposal allowing pharmacists to make ivermectin available via standing order reports Adam Sexton of local WMUR.

State Representative Leah Cushman, a key Republican proponent declared for the local press:

“A standing order is a prescriptive protocol written by a physician or nurse practitioner that allows a pharmacist to dispense medication without an individual prescription.”

Reporting for WMUR Sexton wrote Advocates for the standing order legislation said any benefits of ivermectin might have been obscured by the political debate over the drug.

Cushman followed “Because of this politicization, doctors are afraid to prescribe, and pharmacies are afraid to dispense,” Cushman said.

Dr. Paul Marik has been actively involved with the proposed legislation. An ivermectin and early treatment advocate, Marik is a co-founder of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance or “FLCCC.”

Marik has been recognized in New Hampshire and elsewhere for his commitment to the effort. Marik’s accomplishments, awards and credentials can be found here.

 

Categories
COVID Drugs Politics The Courts

Federal judge blocks DC law allowing kids to get vaccinated without parental consent

Federal judge blocks DC law allowing kids to get vaccinated without parental consent
© The Associated Press
By Nathaniel Weixel – 03/21/22

A federal judge temporarily blocked the District of Columbia from enforcing a law that would have allowed children to get vaccinated without the knowledge of their parents, ruling the law violated parents’ religious liberties.

The law in question, the Minor Consent for Vaccinations Amendment Act of 2020, allows children as young as 11 years old to be vaccinated so long as a provider deems them capable of informed consent.

The decision, issued Friday, comes as health officials debate the merits of recommending additional COVID-19 booster shots, and as regulators and drug companies continue to analyze clinical evidence for COVID-19 vaccines for children under 5 years old.

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Under the law, children whose parents objected to vaccines on religious grounds would have access to their own medical records, and providers would be allowed to seek reimbursement directly from the insurer without parental knowledge or consent.

The law was initially aimed at allowing teenagers to have access to the HPV vaccine and the meningitis vaccine, as it was passed prior to COVID-19 vaccines becoming available. The law applies only to vaccines that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Parents brought two separate lawsuits in July that challenged the law.

One lawsuit, brought by the father of a teenager at a public charter school, alleged that the District created a “pressure-cooker environment, enticing and psychologically manipulating” their child to “defy their parents and take vaccinations against their parents’ wills.”

The father alleged that his child was “medically frail” and developed autoimmunity, alopecia (severe hair loss), asthma, and eczema after receiving vaccines. As a result, he said he is of the sincere religious belief that “he should not inject a foreign substance into his son’s body that may harm him,” and objects to the COVID-19 vaccine as well as all standard childhood vaccines.

The lawsuit did not identify the father’s religion. It was filed by Children’s Health Defense, an organization run by anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

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A second lawsuit was filed by a Maryland resident who said his 16-year-old daughter sought a vaccine in D.C. in order to attend a summer camp, without his knowledge and despite his religious objections.

Judge Trevor McFadden, appointed by former President Trump, ruled that the parents in both cases have standing and showed a likelihood of success on the merits for those claims, because the law requires providers to hide children’s vaccination status from parents who invoke their religious exemption rights but not from other parents.

McFadden ruled the law “targets religious parents” by withholding information available to secular parents who file a medical exemption for their children and said it was preempted by the federal National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

McFadden said he doesn’t anticipate a wide ranging impact from the injunction.

The ruling “will not prevent children from being vaccinated. Nor will it prevent the District from continuing to advertise the importance of vaccines, incentivizing vaccinations, and setting up vaccine clinics in schools. The only impact will be that children will be unable to decide to get vaccinations without their parents’ consent,” he wrote.

This article comes from The sHILL and their support of the narrative can be seen both in the article (passages highlighted)and in their tags: Donald Trump Coronavirus COVID-19 vaccines anti-vaccination

Categories
Biden Pandemic Opinion Politics

DNC and Joe make asses out of themselves. Again.

Where am I? What day is it? Who's the President?

Not so long ago Joey boy met with the Democrats at their winter meeting and said some assinine comments on how the Republicans stand for nothing and only get in the way. well his comments hit twitter and he was just destroyed.

Republicans stand for secure borders, strong families, lower taxes, less crime, school choice, the Constitution, capitalism, fraud-proof elections, protecting the unborn, and energy independence.

Now the Republicans have one impressive list. What do Democrats stand for? Just the opposite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
COVID Drugs How sick is this?

Woman Died of Rare Brain Bleed After Getting COVID-19 Vaccine: Coroner

File photo dCOVID-19 vaccine maker AstraZeneca has revealed it made four billion dollars in sales from its coronavirus jab last year (PA)

A coroner in the United Kingdom has determined that a woman died from a side effect caused by the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.

The woman was identified as 34-year-old Kim Lockwood, who had complained of a headache eight days after taking the shot in March of 2021, South Yorkshire Coroner Nicola Mundy told the BBC in a statement on March 16.

The coroner said her condition quickly deteriorated, and she was pronounced dead 17 hours after being admitted to the hospital, eight days after getting the shot.

Mundy said Lockwood was “extremely unlucky” in developing a “sudden and catastrophic” bleed on her brain. Her death was recorded at the Doncaster Coroner’s court as Vaccine-Induced Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia (VITT), officials told the broadcaster.

An article published by the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information says VITT is “defined as a clinical syndrome” that entails the “development of thrombosis at uncommon sites” that include cerebral venous sinus thrombosis or splanchnic venous thrombosis. Thrombosis occurs when blood clots block veins or arteries.

The American Society of Hematology in January 2022 stated that VITT is marked by low platelet count, known as thrombocytopenia, and blood clots that usually occur in the splanchnic veins located in the abdomen and stomach or the cerebral veins located in the brain.

Lockwood’s husband, Damian, told news outlets that his wife, a mother of two, had complained that “her head felt like it was going to explode,” while her father, Wayne Merrill, recalled her last words, which he said were that her headache was “actually killing her.”

“Kim’s pain wasn’t appropriately managed, and the family should have been listened to,” Mundy said.

The UK government says there have been 438 reported cases of thromboembolic events (blood clotting) and 79 deaths to date after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Last year, officials in Edmonton, Canada, said a woman in her 50s died of VITT after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine, which entails two doses and uses adenovirus technology. AstraZeneca’s vaccine, while common across Europe, hasn’t been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for usage.

“I am sad to report … that we have confirmed Alberta’s first death from VITT following vaccination from the AstraZeneca [COVID-19] vaccine,” Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw wrote on Twitter on May 4, 2021. “My sincere condolences go out to those grieving this loss.”

U.S. and UK government officials have repeatedly said that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks for most people.

COVID-19 is the illness caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

AstraZeneca officials didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

Original here:

Categories
Corruption Crime Drugs How sick is this? Opinion Politics

Deadliest U.S. cities. And you can guess what political color 18 out of 20 are. Not red.

Here are murder rates in 20 major U.S. cities (cities with greater than 100,000 residents) for 2019. These rates are calculated using the latest statistics available — the FBI's 2019 Crime in the United States data, as well as data culled directly from city police officials and the U.S. Census Bureau.-Getty images

20. Columbus, Georgia

Hospital shootings
Shannon Szwarc/Columbus Ledger-Enquirer/Tribune News Service/Getty Images

The murder rate in Columbus is 20.94 per 100,000.

19. Cincinnati, Ohio

Nightclub Shooting Cincinnati
AP

The murder rate in Cincinnati is 21.1 per 100,000. The murder rate increased in the city by 2.2 per 100,000 from 2018 to 2019.

18. San Bernardino, California

Murder Suicide Shooting At Elementary School In San Bernardino Kills Three And Injures Others
Getty

The murder rate in San Bernardino is 21.23 per 100,000.

17. Columbia, South Carolina

USC shooting
Getty Images

The murder rate in Columbia is 21.68 per 100,000.

16. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

National Guard Patrols In Philadelphia After Police Killing Of Walter Wallace, Jr. Sparks Nightly Protests
Mark Makela/Getty Images

The murder rate in Philadelphia is 22.47 per 100,000.

15. Peoria, Illinois

Federal jury finds man guilty of kidnapping, slaying Chinese scholar
Getty Images

The murder rate in Peoria is 22.53 per 100,000.

14. North Charleston, South Carolina

northcharlestonstuckey.jpg
CBS affiliate WLTX-TV

The murder rate in North Charleston is 22.55 per 100,000.

13. Washington, D.C.

Police Set Up Vehicle Checkpoints After Surge In Violence
Getty Images

The murder rate in Washington, D.C., is 23.52 per 100,000.

12. Miami Gardens, Florida

Worshippers Attend Church Services in Miami After Zimmerman Verdict
Angel Valentin/Getty Images

In Miami Gardens, the murder rate is 23.64 per 100,000.

11. Richmond, Virginia

Shooting At Richmond Bus Station
Getty Images

The murder rate in Richmond is 23.84 per 100,000.

10. Cleveland, Ohio

A police car is parked before the reside
Stefan Hlabse/AFP/Getty Images

The murder rate in Cleveland is 24.09 per 100,000.

9. Memphis, Tennessee

ap-080304018551.jpg
AP

The murder rate in Memphis is 29.21 per 100,000.

8. Kansas City, Missouri

Missouri attorney shot dead on his porch as man he recently defeated in court is tied to case
Kansas City Star/Getty

The murder rate in Kansas City is 29.88 per 100,000.

7. New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans Violent Crime Claims Three Young Brothers
Getty Images

The murder rate in New Orleans is 30.67 per 100,000.

6. Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Sadie Roberts-Joseph murder - Baton Rouge, LA
Getty Images

The murder rate in Baton Rouge is 31.72 per 100,000.

5. Dayton, Ohio

Funerals Held For Victims Of Dayton, Ohio Mass Shooting
Getty Images

The murder rate in Dayton is 34.18 per 100,000. That number spiked nearly 7.8 per 100,000 residents from 2018 to 2019.

4. Detroit, Michigan

Three Killed, Multiple Wounded In Shooting In Detroit
Getty Images

The murder rate in Detroit is 41.45 per 100,000 residents.

In 2019, 275 people were murdered in that city.

3. Birmingham, Alabama

Eric Rudolph Pleads Not Guilty To 1998 Birmingham Bombing
Brian Schoenhals/Getty Images

In 2019, the murder rate in Birmingham was 50.62 per 100,000.

2. Baltimore, Maryland

US-POLICE-DRUGS-CRIME-RACISM
Getty Images

The murder rate in Baltimore is 58.27 per 100,000.

1. St. Louis, Missouri

Victor Whittier Sentancing Hearing
Getty Images

With 64.54 murders per 100,000 residents, St. Louis had the highest murder rate for any major American city in 2019.

Categories
COVID How funny is this? Opinion Politics Reprints from others.

Emerald Robinson kicking Psaki’s Ass.

Emerald Robinson Giving us the facts.

 

Who can forget The Circle Back Girl running from the podium?

Comment

1) Who was the only reporter to ask Biden regime spokesperson Jen Psaki why Biden had invited China to interfere in our power grid within days of taking power?

That was me. Psaki’s still checking on that one.

2) Who was the only reporter to ask Biden regime spokesperson Jen Psaki why Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was on extended family leave in the midst of the worst supply chain crisis in the history of the United States?

That was me. (That one actually became a funny skit.)

3) Who was the first reporter in the White House briefing room to ask the Biden Administration about its terrible poll numbers?

That was me.

 

4) Who was the only reporter in the White House briefing room to question the science surrounding kids wearing masks for COVID?

That was me.

Twitter avatar for @atruparAaron Rupar @atrupar

Lord, grant me the patience that Jen Psaki has with Newsmax staffer Emerald Robinson

Image

 

5) Who was the only reporter in the White House briefing room to ask why the Biden Administration forced the DOD to work on “domestic extremism” while Afghanistan collapsed?

That was me.

6) Who was the only reporter to ask the Biden Administration when NSC Advisor Jake Sullivan would step down because of the Durham investigation into the Russia Hoax?

That was me.

Twitter avatar for @TheFirstonTVThe First @TheFirstonTV

Psaki hurries away and WH cuts livestream as reporter tries to ask a question.

Image

 

7) In September, I asked White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki why the Biden Administration wanted to get involved in the distribution of monoclonal antibody treatments for various states. It was all about attacking Florida Gov. DeSantis of course —and everybody knew it.

8) Who can forget when Jen Psaki ran away from the White House podium when I asked why Dr. Fauci had been lying to the American people about his role in funding the creation of the COVID-19 virus?

Twitter avatar for @RushieMahaMaha Rushie @RushieMaha

“Newsmax reporter Emerald Robinson asked Psaki about the documents recently published by The Intercept on financing the improvement of the functionality of the coronavirus in the laboratories of Wuhan. Psaki chose to run away.” @worldawakening

Image

 

9) Who can forget the time in October when I asked White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki whether Hunter Biden had finally sold his interest in various Chinese business assets that he had no business owning in the first place? First, Psaki tells me that I need to go ask somebody else. Then she complains that I’m yelling at her because she can’t answer the question honestly.

Twitter avatar for @TPostMillennialThe Post Millennial @TPostMillennial

Emerald Robinson challenges Psaki over Hunter Biden’s potential divestment from China

Image

 

 

10) Finally, do you remember when I asked Jen Psaki about the origins of COVID-19 and the Wuhan Lab of Virology, and I was branded a “conspiracy theorist” for asking the question?

Remember that? I do.

Here’s the video.

Twitter avatar for @atruparAaron Rupar @atrupar

“I’m sorry, Emerald, I think you’ve had plenty of time today” — Psaki ran out of patience with a Newsmax staffer’s conspiracy theories

Image

 

Who held the Biden Administration to account for its corruption ever day like me?

Independent and fearless journalists need your support like never before.

The corporate media is completely corrupt. They just got exposed for taking the Biden regime’s money to push the deadly vaccines on your family without disclosing it! There’s a word for that — and the word is: propaganda.

If we are going to survive the current regime then we must stand together.

I’ve got your back.

Do you have mine?

Categories
Biden Pandemic COVID Drugs Science

45,500 Rapid COVID Tests Recalled – “High Number Of False Positive Reports”

Rapid COVID tests have proven to be a complete disaster.

The FDA announced that the pharmaceutical company Celltrion USA has recalled 45,500 COVID-19 rapid tests.

The reason cited is that the tests were giving out a “high number of false positive reports.”

Fox News reported:

The Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday that a healthcare company has recalled 45,500 COVID-19 rapid tests due to a “high number of false positive reports.”

Pharmaceutical company Celltrion USA announced on Feb. 28 it is recalling specific lots of the DiaTrust COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test due to the high number of false-positive reports, an FDA recall webpage read on Wednesday.

The FDA says that a false-positive test result can lead to a delay in “the correct diagnosis and treatment for the actual cause of a person’s illness.”

The COVID-19 rapid tests also displayed a shelf life of 18 months, but the FDA’s emergency use authorization states that the tests can only be used for 12 months.

Rapid tests are not the only thing giving out false positives.

Massachusetts was forced to lower its pandemic death count after a change in COVID reporting rules.

Nicolas Menzies, Associate Professor of Global Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health admitted that COVID deaths can not be identified with 100% certainty.

How many other COVID tests are giving out false positives?