CDC says just 2% of Americans received new COVID vaccine. Pfizer undergoes $3.5 billion in cost-cutting measures as sales for COVID-19 products plummet.



Only 2% of Americans have gotten the updated COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The updated COVID vaccine created to provide more protection against current coronavirus variants circulating was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Sept. 11, 2023.

"The approval of Comirnaty (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) (2023-2024 Formula) was granted to BioNTech Manufacturing GmbH. The EUA amendment for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine (2023-2024 Formula) was issued to Pfizer Inc," the FDA stated. "The approval of Spikevax (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) (2023-2024 Formula) was granted to ModernaTX Inc. and the EUA amendment for the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine (2023-2024 Formula) was issued to ModernaTX Inc."

The next day, the CDC recommended that every U.S. citizen over the age of six months get the updated COVID vaccine manufactured by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech.

President Joe Biden added the same day, "I encourage all Americans to stay up-to-date on their vaccines."

The CDC urged, "If you have not received a COVID-19 vaccine in the past 2 months, get an updated COVID-19 vaccine to protect yourself this fall and winter."

Despite the push by the government to get the new shots in the arms of Americans, just about 2% of U.S. citizens have opted to get the new booster vaccine.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services revealed that 7 million Americans received the latest updated COVID vaccine – roughly 2% of the United States population.

CNN reported, "In comparison, when last year’s bivalent COVID-19 booster was available, more than 18 million people had received a dose by October 12, 2022, about six weeks after the CDC signed off on it, according to CDC data. By May, about 56.5 million people had received that booster, representing about 17% of the U.S. population."

The vaccination rates for the booster shots are severely lagging compared to previous iterations of the mRNA vaccine aimed at targeting COVID.

According to CDC data, over 92% of U.S. adults received the first COVID vaccine that rolled out in December 2020. Those who got the second mRNA vaccine dropped to 79%, and a mere 20% of Americans received the bivalent COVID booster.

An HHS spokesperson said, "COVID-19 vaccine distribution, which has shifted to the private market, is a lot different than it was last year when the government was distributing them. The Biden-Harris Administration, through HHS, has been working directly with manufacturers and distributors to ensure that the vaccines are getting to pharmacies, hospitals, clinics, pediatricians, and other vaccination sites, including long-term care facilities."

Despite the switch to private distribution, the HHS boasted that pharmacies and other locations have already received nearly 14 million vaccines, and that "91% of Americans 12 years and older can access the vaccine within 5 miles of where they live."

Most Americans can receive a free COVID-19 vaccine through health insurance, local health centers, and pharmacies participating in the CDC's Bridge Access Program.

On Friday, Pfizer announced that the pharmaceutical behemoth would have to cut $3.5 billion in costs due to rapidly deteriorating profits from COVID-19 products.

"Pfizer also announced that it now anticipates full-year 2023 revenues to be in the range of $58.0 to $61.0 billion, versus its previous guidance range of $67.0 to $70.0 billion solely due to its COVID products," the statement read. "Full-year 2023 revenues for Paxlovid and Comirnaty are expected to be approximately $12.5 billion, a decline of $9.0 billion versus original expectations."

Pfizer revealed that has already launched a "multi-year, enterprise-wide cost realignment program that will realign its costs with its longer-term revenue expectations." Pfizer said the cost-cutting measures will save the pharmaceutical company at least $3.5 billion – $1 billion in 2023 and $2.5 billion in 2024.

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Military watchdog says officials were too quick to reject religious exemptions for COVID-19 vaccination



The military may have acted too speedily to deny religious exemptions for COVID-19 vaccination requested by service members, a Defense Department watchdog concluded in a report.

Pentagon Inspector General Sean O'Donnell wrote there was a "concerning" trend in the number of exemptions and the rate at which they were rejected, according to a June 2 memo reported by Military.com.

"We found a trend of generalized assessments rather than the individualized assessment that is required by Federal law and DoD and Military Service policies," O'Donnell wrote to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. "Some of the appellate decisions included documentation that demonstrated a greater consideration of facts and circumstances involved in a request."

Austin ordered a vaccine mandate for troops on August 24, 2021, the day after the Food and Drug Administration granted full approval to the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Service members were required to either get the shots or be ultimately discharged.

The Army, the largest branch of the military, has received 8,514 religious exemption requests of which 1,602 were rejected. Only 24 have been approved and the rest are pending as of Aug. 12.

The inspector general estimated there were about 50 denials per day in a 90-day period across all branches of the military. O'Donnell indicated military officials spent just minutes reviewing each exemption instead of thoroughly reviewing each case, making the military vulnerable to lawsuits from service members who were forced to resign after refusing to take a COVID-19 vaccine.

"The volume and rate at which decisions were made to deny requests is concerning," the memo reportedly said. "Assuming a 10-hour work day with no breaks or attention to other matters, the average review period was about 12 minutes for each package. Such a review period seems insufficient to process each request in an individualized manner and still perform the duties required of their position."

Several legal challenges have already been filed alleging unvaccinated service members were discriminated against by the military. In late March, a Texas judge blocked the Navy from discharging sailors with pending exemption requests, Military.com reported. Last week, the U.S. Marine Corps announced a pause on administrative actions against unvaccinated Marines after a federal judge in Florida in August blocked the Corps from discharging religious exemption applicants.

Many service members remain in limbo as the Biden administration navigates these legal challenges. The Army National Guard has about 40,000 unvaccinated soldiers that it has no plan for, according to Military.com. Another 1,200 Coast Guardsmen are seeking to qualify for a class-action lawsuit against the military for their religious exemptions being denied, the outlet reported.

Former WH COVID-19 coordinator says officials never promised vaccines would prevent infection



Former White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said Wednesday that although more than half of Americans have been infected with the COVID-19 virus or vaccinated, the U.S. has still not met a herd immunity threshold to end the pandemic.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data on Tuesday showing that nearly 60% of Americans have coronavirus antibodies in their blood. The number of children with COVID-19 antibodies is even higher — almost 75% of children 11 and younger have antibodies, providing at least some protection from the virus.

Even so, CDC officials are still encouraging people to get vaccinated to increase protection against severe disease, and Birx echoed their concerns, adding that the U.S. is still far from herd immunity against the virus.

"The issue with herd immunity, we know natural infection and we know now vaccination doesn't lead to long-term protection against infection," Birx said on "America's Newsroom."

"So this isn't like measles, mumps, and rubella, where you get [the vaccine] and you're protected for a long time. We know now with this virus that natural infection and the immunity that you develop does not lead to durable long-term protection."

"The only time you could talk about herd immunity is when you know that you have durable protection," she added.

Her comments come just a day after White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said that the U.S. is "out of the pandemic phase," but that the U.S. will never "eradicate this virus."

Fauci told PBS NewsHour that people may need to get vaccine boosters yearly and for "longer" than they expect in order to keep virus infections low.

"That might be every year, that might be longer, in order to keep that level low. But, right now, we are not in the pandemic phase in this country," said.

Watch:

Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer suggested that the messaging from public health officials on the vaccines has been "confusing." He asked Birx if the government's messaging about the vaccines failed, noting that breakthrough infections among those who are fully vaccinated and even boosted against COVID-19 have caused people to question the efficacy of the vaccines.

Birx, who is on a media tour this week to promote her new tell-all book about her time with the Trump administration, answered that the government has failed to be fully transparent with the American people, which she says has led to distrust in public health officials and misinformation about COVID-19 and the vaccines.

"In everybody's head was, 'this is like measles, mumps, and rubella,' because that's what we know. So they thought that they were superhuman and invincible once they were vaccinated," but that wasn't the case, Birx said.

"I made it very clear to the president and vice president that this vaccine was never studied to create what we call sterilizing immunity, the invincibility to never be infected again," she said. "And I think the White House understood that, and frankly we made it very clear it was never studied to do anything but protect against severe disease and hospitalization, which it's done a pretty good job about."

The record is not as clear as Birx suggests. It is true that in late 2020, before the COVID-19 vaccines were released widely, both Fauci and BIrx warned that scientists were unsure that the vaccines would prevent infection, even though they appeared to be effective against severe disease.

But at times, Fauci favorably compared the COVID-19 vaccines to other vaccinations such as the polio vaccine, which eradicated that disease. And once the vaccine rollout ramped up in February and March 2021, he touted studies that suggested vaccination slowed the spread of infections, before backtracking months later once the Delta surge demonstrated that fully vaccinated people could still have breakthrough infections.

Horowitz: Moderna CEO promises triple combo corona/flu/RSV mRNA vaccine by 2023



One shot, two shot; red shot, blue shot. The vaccines might not have been successful in slowing the spread of SARS-CoV-2 one iota, but they were successful in earning profits for the manufacturers. Logically, they would like to repeat this pleasurable experience with other viruses — safety, past failures, and common sense be damned.

If you like the success of the mRNA vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 in stopping the virus, you will love the slate of new mRNA vaccines coming to a neighborhood near you, according to Moderna’s CEO. Once upon a time, we could rely on our government and even the pharmaceutical companies to abort efforts to pursue failed vaccines when they proved to be dangerous during clinical trials, such as with the attempted dengue fever and RSV vaccines. Now that they plan to develop more vaccines by 2023, do you really have the confidence that they will still act upon dangerous safety signals?

During a World Economic Forum panel discussion last week titled, “COVID-19: What’s Next?” Moderna CEOStéphane Bancel revealed (at 7:20) the next step of the vaccine wars:

And the other piece we’re working on is for 2023 is how do we make it possible from a societal standpoint that people want to be vaccinated. And we’re trying to do this by preparing combinations, we’re working on the flu vaccine, we’re working on an RSV vaccine, and our goal is to be able to have a single annual booster, so that we don’t have compliance issues, where people don’t want to get two to three shots a winter, but they get one dose, where they get a booster for corona, and a booster for flu and RSV, to make sure that people get their vaccine.

When moderator Francine Lacqua asked Bancel how close the company is to achieving this goal, here was his response:

“So the RSV program is now in Phase 3, the flu program is in Phase 2 and soon in Phase 3, I hope as soon as second quarter of this year. So the best-case scenario would be the fall of 2023, as a best-case scenario, I don’t think it would be in every country, but we believe it’s possible to operate in some countries next year.”

Judging by the past two years, this means that no number of negative safety signals will stop this shot. After all, they want to make sure there are no “compliance issues.”

The public needs to be aware of the fact that there is no effective vaccine against respiratory viruses. We now see that the COVID vaccines never stopped transmission and likely turned negative after a few months, which is why they pushed the boosters and Fauci is now floating a second booster. Flu shots as well are spotty at best. One could not possibly conjure up a worse collection of illnesses for which to pursue vaccines. Respiratory virus vaccines have always failed in the past, and now we know why. Both the RSV and dengue fever vaccines have failed because they created antibody-dependent disease enhancement (ADE), where they made the vaccinated sicker from the pathogen.

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) has a page on its website about ADE and its history with the failed RSV and dengue fever vaccines. “ADE occurs when the antibodies generated during an immune response recognize and bind to a pathogen, but they are unable to prevent infection,” writes CHOP. “Instead, these antibodies act as a ‘Trojan horse,’ allowing the pathogen to get into cells and exacerbate the immune response.”

Sound familiar? What recent vaccine do we know failed to stop transmission and in fact, in later months, caused the vaccinated to get infected at higher rates? Oh, that’s right, a coronavirus vaccine.

CHOP explains that this is exactly what happened with the failed RSV vaccine in 1967:

“In clinical trials, children who were given the vaccine were more likely to develop or die from pneumonia after infection with RSV. As a result of this finding, the vaccine trials stopped, and the vaccine was never submitted for approval or released to the public.”

Indeed, the RSV vaccine was an utter disaster, resulting in the hospitalization of 80% of the infants and toddlers in the clinical trial. There has not been a successful RSV vaccine since then.

This was back when we actually nixed dangerous vaccines. Do you have any confidence that the company would respond in kind and be transparent about it today were the trials to pick up inchoate signs of injuries, ADE, or leaky vaccine hypothesis?

More recently, in 2016, hundreds of thousands of children in the Philippines were injected with a vaccine that made some of them very sick. Fourteen children reportedly died. The concern at the time was that those without prior infection wound up getting more seriously ill from the pathogen after having had the vaccine, which is why the shot is only available today for those who, ironically, already had the disease.

In other words, ADE is a real concern with respiratory virus vaccines, especially one of them mentioned by Bancel. Let’s not forget that on page 52 of the FDA's "Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for an Unapproved Product Review Memorandum," it states that there appears to be no concern of ADE in the short run (during the original strain), but "risk of vaccine-enhanced disease over time, potentially associated with waning immunity, remains unknown and needs to be evaluated further in ongoing clinical trials and in observational studies that could be conducted following authorization and/or licensure."

Well, why is this not revisited a year later, now that everyone agrees there is waning immunity?! We see record infections across the board, a higher rate of infection among the vaccinated, waning immunity, and a need for endless boosters, and we know they never ruled out ADE, by their own admission. Yet now they want to tether this vaccine to yet another respiratory virus that already had a proven manifestation of ADE in a failed vaccine candidate!

The other candidate for the mRNA deluxe triple combo is an annual influenza vaccine. But we already know that the flu vaccine is clearly non-sterilizing, and furthermore, there is already evidence of instances of negative efficacy. A Canadian study published in Euro Surveillance just days before the start of the coronavirus pandemic found a -346% vaccine efficacy rate of the flu shot for those ages 35-54 during the 2018-19 late-season influenza A(H3N2) epidemic. H3N2 is the predominant flu circulating this season. “Clade 3C.3a VE showed a pronounced negative dip among 35–54-year-olds in whom the odds of medically attended illness were>4-fold increased for vaccinated vs unvaccinated participants (p<0.005),” concluded the authors.

Shouldn’t we have an independent audit of consumer advocates studying these vaccines before we allow the government and the people who stand to make billions of dollars foist them upon us with liability protection?

Fauci himself was also a speaker at this forum with Bancel. Let’s not forget that at the beginning of the pandemic, he warned that part of the safety concern of a rushed vaccine is that it might make the pathogen worse. “There’s another element to safety, and that is: If you vaccinate someone and they make an antibody response, and then they get exposed and infected, does the response that you induced actually enhance the infection and make it worse?” warned Fauci in an interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in March 2020. In cautioning why you can’t just produce a vaccine out of thin air, Fauci explained, “The only way you’ll know that [if the vaccine makes the pathogen worse] is if you do an extended study, not in a normal volunteer who has no risk of infection, but in people who are out there in a risk situation. This would not be the first time, if it happened, that a vaccine that looked good in initial safety actually made people worse.”

Which example did he give? The very virus for which Moderna is now working on an mRNA vaccine. “There was a history of the respiratory syncytial virus vaccine in children which, paradoxically, made the children worse,” continued Fauci. “One of the HIV vaccines that we tested several years ago actually made individuals more likely to get infected. So, you can’t just go out there and give it unless you feel that, in the field, when someone is getting infected and exposed, being vaccinated doesn’t make them worse.”

During the forum with Fauci, the Moderna CEO said he is collaborating with “Dr. Fauci’s team” on this proposed triple combo vaccine. He also said (at 44:01) that he would be working on targeting 20 other pathogens, including Nipah and Zika. All of these vaccines for respiratory viruses run the risk of causing some form of ADE and original antigenic sin, especially if the new modus operandi is to release them to the public before conducting studies that rule out these pernicious unintended consequences of imperfect vaccines.

At some point you can’t blame them for wanting to make billions of dollars when they’ve so successfully gotten away with their first heist. If we allow more untransparent, rushed vaccines without any liability or proper third-party vetting to continue, then the fault is on us. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Study suggests breakthrough COVID-19 infections build 'super immunity' against Delta variant



A study released by researchers in Oregon finds that breakthrough infections of COVID-19 can cause the body to develop a "super immunity" against the virus after recovery.

The study's authors stressed that vaccination is crucial to preventing severe disease and death from COVID-19. But the available vaccines have demonstrated less than effective at preventing transmissions of the Delta variant of the virus, which has led to breakthrough infections among those who have been fully vaccinated with two doses of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, or one shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Public health officials have encouraged Americans who are able to get booster shots to do so in order to strengthen their protection against coronavirus variants. But lab results from the Oregon study suggest that a breakthrough COVID-19 infection creates a robust immune response against the Delta variant that is even stronger than the protection offered by the vaccine alone.

“You can’t get a better immune response than this,” said Dr. Fikadu Tafesse, assistant professor of molecular microbiology and immunology in the OHSU School of Medicine and the senior author of the study. “These vaccines are very effective against severe disease. Our study suggests that individuals who are vaccinated and then exposed to a breakthrough infection have super immunity.”

An OHSU news release about the study described how researchers measured blood samples and found that antibodies in samples from people with breakthrough cases were both more abundant and as much as 1,000% more effective than antibodies from people who only had the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine.

These results suggest that a breakthrough infection following full vaccination can actually strengthen a person's immune response against subsequent exposure to COVID-19, potentially even against new variants of the virus.

“I think this speaks to an eventual end game,” said co-author Dr. Marcel Curlin. "It doesn’t mean we’re at the end of the pandemic, but it points to where we’re likely to land: Once you’re vaccinated and then exposed to the virus, you’re probably going to be reasonably well-protected from future variants.

“Our study implies that the long-term outcome is going to be a tapering-off of the severity of the worldwide epidemic,” he added.

The study examined blood samples collected from a total of 52 people, all of whom were employees of OHSU who were fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine before enrolling in the study.

Researchers identified a total of 26 people who tested positive for having a mild breakthrough infection after vaccination. Among those sequence-confirmed breakthrough cases, 10 had the Delta variant, nine had non-Delta, and seven had unknown variants.

In experiments conducted in a Biosafety Level 3 lab, researchers then exposed the blood samples from people with breakthrough cases to a live SARS-CoV-2 virus and measured their immune response against blood samples from a control group. They found that the breakthrough cases generated more antibodies at baseline, and that those antibodies were substantially better at fighting off the live virus.

The study's authors are optimistic that their results show vaccination will be effective against the Omicron variant.

“We have not examined the omicron variant specifically, but based on the results of this study we would anticipate that breakthrough infections from the omicron variant will generate a similarly strong immune response among vaccinated people,” Tafesse said.

Long lasting protection against severe disease and death, which would keep people from overwhelming hospitals and end the justification for lockdowns, mask mandates, and other coronavirus restrictions, could hail the end of the pandemic.

“The key is to get vaccinated,” Curlin said. “You’ve got to have a foundation of protection.”

Horowitz: Indiana Gov. Holcomb sounds like Biden, blames unvaccinated for spike in vaccinated infections



Conservatives were appalled when Biden erroneously and absurdly blamed the unvaccinated for failing to protect the vaccinated by not getting the protection that failed to protect the protected. Yet nearly every Republican governor not named DeSantis — even those opposing mandates — privately believes in the same disproven “pandemic of the unvaccinated” trope. Indiana’s Eric Holcomb was at least honest about his flat-earth feelings.

“We deal with the absurd and we deal with facts and there’s a lot in between there for people to form their own opinions,” Holcomb told the Associated Press on Tuesday. “What I have to do is try to be persuasive enough so that folks understand that they’re going to learn it the easy way or the hard way, unfortunately, by being vaccinated or not.”

“It is, though, largely a pandemic of the unvaccinated and at some point, and we’re there, individuals need to take responsibility for their lives,” Holcomb added. “Unfortunately, their inactions have adverse consequences to others.”

How can their inaction affect others who have the “protection”? Moreover, this comes a month after Holcomb himself received a “booster.” But if it’s all the unvaccinated who are getting clinically ill, then why would he need a booster? And if the first one didn’t work, then is it the “unboosted” who are now as evil as the “unvaccinated”? In fact, Fauci himself just indicated that anyone who doesn’t have three shots (and likely four in another month or so) will be considered “unvaccinated.”

And why would the booster of the same failed mechanism work better this time, as the virus has changed even more?

It is Holcomb who is ignorant of the facts. The reality is that 8.2 billion doses of shots have been administered globally this year, 460 million in the U.S., yet there is more COVID and all-cause mortality this year than last year, with no shots and much less built-up immunity. How is this not the "pandemic of the vaccinated" because of the leaky, viral immune escape-inducing shots?

Researchers from the University of Michigan just posted a first-of-its-kind study confirming that it is the vaccinated who are making the virus more virulent. After tracking “the evolutionary trajectories of vaccine-resistant mutations in more than 2.2 million SARS-CoV-2 genomes,” they found “the occurrence and frequency of vaccine-resistant mutations correlate strongly with the vaccination rates in Europe and America.” That is the hallmark of a failed vaccine, which creates antibody dependent disease enhancement, which likely made Delta much worse.

Also, it is simply criminal to utterly ignore the reams of data and safety signals hinting at major short-term and long-term side effects from these shots. It is utterly disgusting that nearly every Republican governor is on the wrong side of the issue of our time – and it is costing lives.

The reality is that the shots work the least for the elderly and immune-compromised. To this day, Holcomb is giving them a false sense of security by promoting a shot that is risky to them but does not confer enough protection to keep them out of the hospital. Unlike the Florida governor, he has failed to invest in the monoclonal antibodies and publicize them to those who need them the most. Ultimately, someone who has the monoclonals doesn’t need the shots, but someone who has the shots and inevitably gets COVID still needs the monoclonals. But because of Holcomb’s misinformation, too many of these people are convinced they can’t fall seriously ill with the shots and often wait until they already suffer significant pulmonary inflammation before treating the virus. At that point, it’s already passed the viral stage and is often too late for the monoclonals. And God forbid Holcomb should promote any other proven, safe treatment for inflammation and blood clots, lest he anger his Big Pharma puppet masters.

There is zero information about monoclonal antibodies on the Indiana COVID dashboard, even though it promotes the boosters, in itself a refutation of vaccine efficacy and the narrative of the “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” The monoclonals are severely rationed, often forcing people to delay until it’s too late. A Hoosier listener of my podcast with a husband who is severely immunocompromised spent over an hour on the phone with someone who could barely speak English at a 211 Crush Covid call center staffed in a foreign country just to find out if she needs a doctor’s prescription. Each facility sets its criteria for infusion, and most centers are at hospitals. In Florida, on the other hand, anyone who catches COVID can rest easy knowing they can easily walk into an outpatient clinic within 100 miles and access the lifesaving treatment.

Sickeningly, the Indiana Department of Health is even promoting the shots for young kids!

Have you scheduled your kid's #COVID19 shot?\n\nVisit http://ourshot.in.gov\u00a0 to find a location near you.\n\nSupplies are limited, patience is appreciated.pic.twitter.com/b9DsgADSGo
— Indiana Department of Health (@Indiana Department of Health) 1638399666
Gifts \nUgly sweater \nVaccine booster \n\nEveryone age 18+ should get a booster shot as soon as possible.\n\nFind free vaccines near you at http://ourshot.in.gov\u00a0pic.twitter.com/IyduGdc1Jg
— Indiana Department of Health (@Indiana Department of Health) 1638918030

Think about it, Holcomb. You are promoting unsafe and ineffective shots for people who don’t die from COVID, but you will not promote the monoclonals for seniors who already got the shots but got severely ill from the virus. Your despicable inaction is what’s costing lives.

Austria is on the cusp of putting the unvaccinated into lockdown



The head of Austria's government warned Thursday that unvaccinated people in the country could be put into lockdown as COVID-19 cases continue to rise.

The central European country has in recent weeks implemented new coronavirus restrictions intended to slow the spread of the virus and encourage more people to get vaccinated. On Monday, a new rule took effect that requires all persons, including travelers, to show valid proof of vaccination or recovery from the virus in order to enter indoor places including restaurants, hotels, hairdressing salons, and large public events.

The new rules stipulate that COVID-19 tests, both PCR and antigen, are no longer valid for entry into certain indoor locations. All persons, including tourists, must have a valid vaccine passport or proof of recovery from COVID-19 to frequent indoor establishments.

Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg announced last month that unvaccinated persons could face additional restrictions if coronavirus case numbers continue to rise. According to the Associated Press, cases have risen. The government reported 710.8 new cases per 100,000 residents over the last week on Wednesday, a higher case positivity rate than in neighboring Germany, where coronavirus cases are soaring.

In September, the government put forward a plan to place unvaccinated people in lockdown once 30% of intensive care beds were occupied by COVID-19 patients, Reuters reports. The current level is 20%, and with cases and hospitalizations rising, the country is on track to trigger the lockdown measures.

On Thursday, while visiting Bregenz in the western part of the country, Schallenberg said that a lockdown for the unvaccinated is "probably unavoidable" and that unvaccinated people will face an "uncomfortable" winter and Christmas.

"According to the incremental plan we actually have just days until we have to introduce the lockdown for unvaccinated people," Schallenberg said. He explained that a lockdown for the unvaccinated would mean anyone without valid proof of vaccination would be forced to stay home except to go to work, shop for essential goods, or take a walk to stretch their legs.

He added that the country's vaccination rate is "shamefully low."

In Austria, 65% of the population are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, the lowest vaccination rate of any Western European country, with the exception of Liechtenstein, according to European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control data.

"I don't see why two-thirds should lose their freedom because one-third is dithering," Schallenberg said. "For me, it is clear that there should be no lockdown for the vaccinated out of solidarity for the unvaccinated."

The chancellor said authorities would consider a vaccine mandate for some professional groups.

"We can break this wave together," Schallenberg said.

Horowitz: As vaccinated COVID hospitalizations soar, government blocks the one option that works



Any thinking person should be asking why our government is not doing more to make the monoclonal antibodies more available as people get sick with this virus at record levels. Over the past few weeks, I've been inundated with emails from people who say the testing requirements and limited hours of operations made them lose critical days in the battle against the illness. When you know the answer to this riddle, you will then comprehend why the same players are vociferously against any form of preventive and early outpatient treatment.

Until now, any discussion of treatment methods was dismissed by the trite argument, "Just get vaccinated and you will be fine." That canard never properly addressed those who can't get the vaccine, nor did it explain why there was a complete blackout on treatment even before the vaccines were widely available in January. However, now, with surging hospitalization rates among the vaccinated population, especially those most at risk of dying from this virus, the entire argument — and indeed strategy behind a vaccine-centric focus — is obsolete and needlessly killing thousands of people.

To begin with, the vaccine never stopped transmission — indeed, the virus is spreading more than ever in highly vaccinated areas. However, we were promised it would protect from serious illness. Well, a friend of my wife in Houston — a cancer survivor — was mugged by reality last week when she came down with the virus after receiving the Pfizer shots in March. She was getting sicker, and thankfully I got her connected with one of the few competent doctors who treats the virus outpatient. She also got the monoclonal antibodies (after being forced to get a prescription for it in Texas), which she never heard of until I told her about the treatment. She was able to avoid the hospital, but thousands of vaccinated and unvaccinated — who do not have access to the amazing doctors I've come to know — aren't so lucky.

On July 7, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan accused the unvaccinated of spreading the virus, announced an unverifiable statistic that 100% of the COVID deaths were among the unvaccinated, and then proceeded to offer people false hope. "If you have not gotten your vaccine, the virus and its variants are a dangerous threat to you," Hogan said. Well, fast-forward two months, and now the truth comes out that already in June, vaccinated people were getting seriously ill from the virus. According to WBAL, "Illness and hospitalizations are increasing rapidly among fully vaccinated people." Over the past few months, about 30% of hospitalized patients in Anne Arundel County were fully vaccinated, and the numbers have been running between 30% and 40% in neighboring Howard County.

The critical point here is not the exact number, but the trend. Every day this goes on, more of the earlier-vaccinated people experience a complete waning of the injection-induced antibodies. A volunteer ambulance service in the northwest Baltimore area said that "the number of requests for monoclonal antibodies … has skyrocketed" and that "the majority of patients who have come for monoclonal antibody infusions have been fully vaccinated" (emphasis added).

Now, suddenly Gov. Hogan is pushing booster shots for the elderly and immunocompromised. But those were the people for whom the vaccine was needed most. And nobody will answer the simple question as to how a booster of a vaccine for an already-evolved virus will work for even a few months this time.

West Virginia's liberal Republican governor, Jim Justice, who spent the past few months shaming people for not getting vaccinated, has now conceded that vaccinated hospitalizations are increasing much quicker over the past eight weeks.

We are already seeing this in other countries as well, following in Israel's path, where the majority of those hospitalized with COVID are fully vaccinated. In Ireland, a total of 54% are fully vaccinated.

Worst of all, COVID deaths are beginning to seep back into nursing homes, despite nearly all the residents being vaccinated. They are being misled with a false sense of security and no proactive treatment or preventives to protect them.

Now that the vaccines are no longer working and the mass vaccination appears to have made the virus worse through a leaky vaccine syndrome known as "the imperfect vaccine hypothesis," why are we all not uniting behind early treatment? Notice how no other governor aside from Ron DeSantis is even promoting the monoclonal antibodies, much less making them more accessible and telling everyone to get treated on day one. I can't tell you how many emails I get from my show listeners who complain they can't access the monoclonal treatments for various reasons in some states. Why would our government not make sure every American is as inundated with information about the monoclonals as they are with information about the vaccines that are already obsolete?

There are no good answers to this question that do not reveal a very dark and sinister motivation. But the answer is likely related to why the government-medical establishment has declared war on all early treatments and has refused to approve outpatient antibiotics and steroids for treatment, much less ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, and several dozen other promising therapeutics. By ensuring that there is zero approved outpatient treatment, our government has trapped nearly every American who has not been infected – vaccinated and unvaccinated – into a death trap in the overrun hospitals. And that seems to be exactly where they want us.

Horowitz: CDC now admits 23% of hospitalizations in June — pre-leakage — were vaccinated



"Nearly everyone dying of the virus now is unvaccinated."

That has been the trope of anyone who has a platform or a modicum of power in America the past few months. And indeed, that is what we would expect from a vaccine that is as effective as the ones our government has traditionally endorsed. The problem is that a new CDC analysis, when coupled with Israel's experience of waning immunity, demonstrates that this statement is already untrue and will only become more obvious in the coming weeks.

"Population-based hospitalization rates show that unvaccinated adults aged ≥18 years are 17 times more likely to be hospitalized compared with vaccinated adults," concluded CDC researchers in a new analysis of COVID hospitalizations from Jan. 1 to June 30. That sounds very compelling, but when you look at their chart on page 23, it offers a very different perspective and is an ominous sign for the coming weeks.

Throughout the past two months, politicians have repeated the line ad nauseum that 97% of the people in the hospital are unvaccinated. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who oversees one of the 13 states studied by CDC, claimed that 100% of all deaths in June were among the unvaccinated. But this analysis from the CDC states that instead, 76.6% of hospitalizations were unvaccinated, and that was in June before this wave got really bad. Given the rapid acceleration of waning immunity, inquiring minds would like to know what that number will look like heading into September.

As a stagnant percent of efficacy against critical illness (they've already given up on stopping transmission), this would not be a bad record for the vaccines. But given what we already know from Israel, our government needs to be honest with us about where things stand now.

Israel has already concluded that there is a "significant increase of the risk of infection in individuals who received their last vaccine dose since at least 146 days ago, particularly among patients older than 60." The CDC in this study also recognized that older people — who are both more vulnerable and were vaccinated earlier — composed a greater share of the vaccinated hospitalizations. So again, what is the true percentage of hospitalizations that are from vaccinated individuals, especially among seniors, as it stands now? Unlike in Israel and the U.K., our government refuses to publish that data, other than exaggerate with anecdotal numbers that are already contradicted by their own data from June.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, as of earlier this week, "the percentage who have been fully vaccinated ranges between 7% and 40%, doctors say, depending on the time period measured." If I were a betting man, I'd say the time period means the more recent it is, the higher the percentage of vaccinated.

Another important point to keep in mind is that the CDC has instructed vaccinated people not to get tested in most circumstances. As such, there is a massive differential between the number of mild cases that are picked up incidentally in the hospitals among those who are unvaccinated (but automatically tested when they come in for surgeries or other ailments) and those who are vaccinated. Keep in mind that during a period of prolific spread, it is very likely that people coming to the hospital for non-COVID issues will either pick up the virus there or have just gotten over it but can still test positive.

It's also important to note that although the CDC found a much higher hospitalization rate among the unvaccinated, once they were hospitalized, the number and proportion of fully vaccinated persons admitted to the ICU or who died were similar to unvaccinated persons. Furthermore, "Median length of stay was significantly longer in fully vaccinated persons (median 5 days (IQR 3–8) v. 4 days (IQR 2–9), respectively." That might be due to the vaccinated cohort being more weighted toward older people, but again, these are the people who needed the vaccine the most.

If it is the position of our government, like in Israel, that everyone will need a booster, then it raises the obvious question: Who says that it will even work as well for the next five months as the first one did, and what is the cost-benefit analysis, given the widespread side effects of the shots and the fact that there are other early treatments available that are being suppressed? Meaning, now that vaccines do not stop symptomatic illness and their protection against critical illness wears off over time, we need to revisit the four most important questions:

1) What is the true extent of the side effects from the vaccine? Just in the VAERS system alone, there is a 98-fold greater risk of dying from the COVID vaccine than from the flu vaccine, and the FDA admits in its approval letter (p. 6) that VAERS "will not be sufficient to assess known serious risks" like myocarditis and pericarditis.

2) Once we know the vaccine wears off, why is there no concern about the leaky vaccine creating viral immune escape and allowing the virus to become stronger and more durable, inducing a vicious cycle of mass vaccination and antibody dependent disease enhancement reinforcing each other with each subsequent booster? This is what happened with the leaky chicken vaccine that induced Marek's disease, in which the vaccinated chickens were temporarily spared from serious symptoms but carried a much greater viral load, compared to those who weren't vaccinated. With Israel having vaccinated 80% of its adults, 25% of whom have been given boosters, they now have the highest case per capita rate in the world. How is this not a concern about some form of vaccine-induced viral immune escape?

Israel now has the highest current case rate in the entire world.Oddly, Israel was also the first country to vacc… https://t.co/DLxUkgABUR

— PLC (@Humble_Analysis) 1630437327.0

3) We are already seeing people hospitalized for COVID in Israel after the third shot, and data suggests that, just like with the first shot, people are actually more vulnerable to the virus in the week or so after getting the booster before it kicks in. Why are we not concerned about boosting during a period when the virus is circulating prolifically?

4) Given the censorship of dozens of potentially lifesaving preventive and early treatments with a much better safety record – from monoclonal antibodies on down – isn't that a better route to pursue?

On that last point, it's important to keep in mind that the "vaccine" is the one form of preventive that is being sanctioned. So, by definition, those who don't have it will be hospitalized more because they have zero options outside the hospital. Were we to even up the score with safer and more effective treatments, we'd be seeing a very different split in the hospital numbers. Then again, those who are vaccinated also need early treatment.

Those who say that nearly every COVID death at this point is avoidable are 100% correct. If we would allow and even guide all primary care doctors into prescribing early and often for their patients, the virus would have been done a long time ago.

Fauci says vaccine-hesitant Americans should 'put aside' their 'concern about liberties and personal liberties' to fight 'common enemy' in COVID-19



Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday that vaccine-hesitant Americans ought to "put aside" concerns and personal liberties to help fight against COVID-19.

In a lengthy interview with CBS correspondent Nancy Cordes, the infectious diseases expert said that unvaccinated people are spreading the highly contagious Delta variant and are becoming more ill than those people who have been vaccinated against the virus.

What are the details?

During Sunday's broadcast of "Face the Nation," Fauci, chief White House medical adviser, called on Americans who are reluctant to receive the COVID-19 vaccines, saying they should recognize COVID-19 as a "common enemy."

Pointing to rising numbers purportedly spurred on by the Delta variant, Fauci said that it's imperative for the "overwhelming proportion of people" to get vaccinated against coronavirus.

"[W]hat's coming next is that we are going to have to continue to get people vaccinated so that right now, even in states in which you have a good relative proportion of people vaccinated, you have to get the overwhelming proportion of people vaccinated, but you also have to do mitigation, and that gets to the controversial issue of mask-wearing," he explained, "and the mandating of things."

He added, "Mandating of vaccines, for example, for teachers and people in the personnel in the school, but also in situations — as uncomfortable as we know and controversial as we know it is with regard to masks wearing, particularly in the situation in schools — we've just got to realize that we're dealing with a public health crisis."

Fauci added that he believes unvaccinated people are not only driving many current infections, but are also becoming more ill and dying more often when compared with those people who have been fully vaccinated against the deadly disease.

"We certainly are getting what are called breakthrough infections, which means a person who was vaccinated might get infected and actually may even spread the virus," he explained. "But in general, those people are not the ones who are getting seriously ill and dying. It's the unvaccinated that are doing that."

What else?

Fauci insisted that the country has a "lot of tasks" to complete in order to tamp down the spread of COVID-19 including putting aside "concern about liberties and personal liberties."

"We've got to do mitigation, put aside all of these issues of concern about liberties and personal liberties and realize we have a common enemy and that common enemy is the virus," he insisted. "And we really have to all pull together to get on top of this. Otherwise, we're going to continue to suffer as we're seeing right now."

Fauci says COVID-19 surges "entirely preventable," urges vaccinations www.youtube.com