All About Vaccines

[JB]

Federal Court Issues Nationwide Pause on Biden's Federal Employee Vaccine Mandate
https://www.govexec.com/workforce/20...andate/361010/

“It is instead about whether the president can, with the stroke of a pen and without the input of Congress, require millions of federal employees to undergo a medical procedure as a condition of their employment,” Brown wrote. “That, under the current state of the law as just recently expressed by the Supreme Court, is a bridge too far.”

The Supreme Court last week struck down a Biden order that would have required private sector employers with more than 100 workers, and the U.S. Postal Service, to test or vaccinate their employees. The federal employee case was brought by Feds for Medical Freedom, which filed three different lawsuits against the mandate.

[JB]

Ireland to drop almost all COVID restrictions
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...d-restrictions

Ireland is set to emerge from what has been one of the longest and strictest set of coronavirus restrictions in Europe, with virtually all to be lifted in the coming weeks.

The taoiseach, Micheál Martin, will set out the precise details in a national address on Friday evening and it is expected that an 8pm curfew on hospitality imposed in December to combat the spread of the Omicron variant will be lifted as early as next Wednesday.

[JB]

They will now be focusing on testing players with symptoms only.

NFL halts daily COVID-19 testing for unvaccinated players, memo says
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/...yers-memo-says

The NFL and NFL Players Association have agreed to halt daily COVID-19 testing for unvaccinated players, aligning them with protocols developed last month for vaccinated players and coaches.

In a memo sent Friday afternoon to teams, the league said it would add unvaccinated players to its existing symptom screening and testing surveillance programs. Anyone who reports symptoms will be tested.

In the memo, the NFL wrote: "This comprehensive, symptom-based approach to testing reflects our recent experience with the omicron variant and conforms to current public health recommendations and best practices employed in healthcare, and offers the best opportunity for identifying and treating cases promptly and avoiding spread within the facility."

[Tami]

How to Order the Four Free Rapid Covid-19 Tests Announced by the White House

Americans can now order free at-home rapid Covid-19 tests through a new government website.

The website rollout is part of a larger effort by the Biden administration to increase access to testing, including more over-the-counter tests at pharmacies and in-person testing at local health centers. The administration is also expected to make available 400 million N95 masks free at pharmacies and community health centers across the country.

Here is what to know about how to place an order, how many tests you can get, when they will arrive and more.
What is the address of the testing site?

The address is COVIDTests.gov.

Once a user clicks on “order free at-home tests,” the URL redirects to special.usps.com/testkits. The tests are available to order now.

I just placed an order for a test kit. When I receive it I will let everyone know.

[JackDaw]

How to Order the Four Free Rapid Covid-19 Tests Announced by the White House



I just placed an order for a test kit. When I receive it I will let everyone know.

Lateral flow test kits have been free in UK for a few months now.

I test myself a couple of times a week usually. Assuming your kits are similar to ours, they are pretty easy to use (swab both nostrils, swirl swab stick round test tube full of fluid, pour fluid onto test strip, wait for result.)

It takes about 2 to 3 minutes to do test, then another 20 minutes for result to be confirmed. (That 20 minute wait is important, the test strip will not show proper result immediately.)

[Tami]

Lateral flow test kits have been free in UK for a few months now.

I test myself a couple of times a week usually. Assuming your kits are similar to ours, they are pretty easy to use (swab both nostrils, swirl swab stick round test tube full of fluid, pour fluid onto test strip, wait for result.)

It takes about 2 to 3 minutes to do test, then another 20 minutes for result to be confirmed. (That 20 minute wait is important, the test strip will not show proper result immediately.)

Right now it looks like this is a One Time offer. Only one test kit per family/address and each kit contains only four tests. If you are a single person, then you can use it to test yourself secveral times, but a larger family will need to supplement this with other options.

It's better than nothing, but it could be better.

[JB]

How to Order the Four Free Rapid Covid-19 Tests Announced by the White House



I just placed an order for a test kit. When I receive it I will let everyone know.

Thank you for posting.

[anyajenkins]

The firm is pretty easy, but FYI, I have heard that if you live in a apartment, you have to enter your address in a specific way or it won’t work. I don’t know the exact way, but I imagine you can google it. And the tests aren’t supposed to arrive for like another two weeks. Omicron will probably be on the advice down sing by then, lol, but I’m sure they’ll still be useful.

[Kieran_Frost]

Lateral flow test kits have been free in UK for a few months now.

I test myself a couple of times a week usually. Assuming your kits are similar to ours, they are pretty easy to use (swab both nostrils, swirl swab stick round test tube full of fluid, pour fluid onto test strip, wait for result.)

It takes about 2 to 3 minutes to do test, then another 20 minutes for result to be confirmed. (That 20 minute wait is important, the test strip will not show proper result immediately.)

I got a little stock pile of 4 packs. I have to test for any filming, or auditions; so need a good supply going. But I get my groceries delivered, so only go out for work. And I second your assessment, test is really easy to do, and you get used to it very, very quickly.

[JB]

Amid Omicron, Israel must move beyond COVID-19 Green Pass
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-694342

The voraciousness of the Omicron variant during the battle against the coronavirus pandemic has required a new way of thinking to tackle the disease. We now know that while Omicron is much more infectious than Delta, leading to a huge rise in numbers of cases, it is less deadly and carries lower risks, particularly for those who are fully vaccinated.

The time has come, then, to reassess the Green Pass (Tav Yarok) that has been used until now. The Green Pass was effective both in reducing the numbers of potential carriers gathering in public places and as a means of encouraging people to get vaccinated. Omicron has, however, made it less effective, particularly as the vaccination rate is relatively high anyway.

The government is now discussing the next steps, given that the Green Pass expires at the end of the month. Even some public health experts, including Prof. Ran Balicer, now say that the Green Pass is no longer necessary or effective in its current form.

New ways must be found to create environments that are as safe as possible.

[JB]

New York State Supreme Court judge rules against state mask mandate
https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/he...b-5dd229a94ef6

State Supreme Court Judge Rademaker in Nassau County declares the statewide mandate void and unenforceable.

"To be clear, this Court does not intend this decision in any way to question or otherwise opine on the efficacy, need, or requirement of masks as a means or tool in dealing with the COVID-19 virus. This Court decides only the issues of whether the subject rule was properly enacted and if so whether same can be enforced," Rademaker wrote in the ruling.

Rademaker continued to say the order is a law that was unlawfully enacted by an Executive branch state agency, "and therefore void and unenforceable as a matter of law."

Hopefully people continue to do the right thing. Most of my family is in NY.

[TheKryptonMan]

New York State Supreme Court judge rules against state mask mandate
https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/he...b-5dd229a94ef6



Hopefully people continue to do the right thing. Most of my family is in NY.

Yes hopefully people will do the right thing.
Looking up Rademaker , he's a Conservative , which is not surprising hence his decision.
Also he went to a 4th Tier Law School , but he was Elected .
So once again Elections have Consequences. Wish the Majority of Americans realized that, and hopefully turn out and Vote .
What some of these Judges forget or don't care, is that the Governor whether it was Cuomo or Hochul , have a responsibility to protect the people from themselves during an Epidemic, in this case a Pandemic.

[JB]

COVID-19 no longer a ‘socially critical disease’ in Denmark, health minister says
https://www.politico.eu/article/covi...minister-says/

Denmark will no longer categorize COVID-19 as a "socially critical disease" as of February 1, Health Minister Magnus Heunicke wrote in a letter to the parliament's epidemiology committee.

Based on the recommendations of the parliament's epidemiology committee, the government is ready to scrap almost all social restrictions by the end of the month. The "rules will lapse when the illness will no longer be categorized as ‘socially critical’ on 1 February 2022," Heunicke wrote in the letter.

This echoes a wider trend in EU countries to treat Omicron as an endemic disease, circulating freely but posing less of a threat to societies. Although Omicron is less dangerous than the earlier Delta strain, some health experts adopt a more cautious line, arguing that the focus should be on suppressing the virus, rather than living with it.

[Tami]

Why the White House said DeSantis' new Covid position is 'crazy'

Gov. Ron DeSantis slammed the Biden administration Tuesday for dropping two antibody treatments for COVID-19 that he has championed, even though the drugmakers themselves concede they are ineffective against omicron.

Even by contemporary standards, this one's a doozy.

The FDA announced this week that the monoclonal antibody treatments from Regeneron and Eli Lilly should no longer be used. The drugs had received emergency-use authorizations, but because they don't work against the omicron variant, federal health regulators decided revoking the authorization was the obvious move.

Both drugmakers endorsed the policy change, agreeing that the infusion treatments aren't effective against omicron.

In theory, that should effectively end the conversation. In practice, Florida's Republican governor responded to the news by throwing a fit and accusing the Biden administration of "pulling the rug out from under people."

At a press conference yesterday, DeSantis went on to tell reporters "Early this morning, thousands of Floridians woke up to news that their appointments to get treatment for Covid-19 infection were canceled by the administration, which revoked, outright revoked authorization for two very popular monoclonal antibody treatments."

Of course, the treatments were "popular" when they worked. They'd likely remain "popular" if they still worked. But for grown-ups, what's supposed to matter is not whether medicines are well liked, but rather, whether they're effective at treating patients.

And yet, there's Florida's furious GOP governor, threatening to file a lawsuit that would, if successful, force the Biden administration to re-endorse treatments that won't help people during the pandemic.

[Scott Taylor]

Any of you ever read Anathem? Over the past could of years the interplay, if you want to call it that, between science and politics has made a really good argument for the book's central point - mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers need to be sequestered and protected from the corrupting influences of the outside world.