Coronavirus Morning News Brief – Oct. 30: Debunking the Bill Gates ‘Air Vax’ Myth, Pediatric Health Emergencies Increased During Each Pandemic Wave

Der schöne Franz – Handsome Franz – playing fetch with his new ball

Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 1,328th day of the pandemic.

OP-ED ON MONDAY

Meet Franz the Abandoned Dog, The Reason Why I Couldn’t Prepare Saturday’s Briefing

I’ve been writing the Coronavirus Morning News Brief since the earliest days of Covid, several months before we used the word “pandemic” or even “epidemic.”  Since then, I’ve only missed two issues, both because of vaccine side-effects. That is, until this past weekend.

Yesterday, I missed a third and I sincerely apologize.  But I do have a good reason.  I rescued a dog who had been abandoned by his owners on the streets of Forest Hills in New York City, with only a blanket and a sealed bag of dog food on hand or on paw.  To be brutally honest, I’m surprised the not-quite-humans didn’t leave him a brass cup so he could beg for change or treats as well.

The dog had no collar, refused to disclose his name, but was extremely friendly and affectionate.  He appeared malnourished and seemed dehydrated and had apparently only been left on the street on Thursday.  I immediately named him Franz, after my Großonkel, or great uncle, Franz and he seemed to like and respond to the name.

Franz was one of the most strikingly handsome puppies I had ever seen.  He was clearly a mixed breed but which breeds were involved here I am unable to say.  As I walked him – using Snickers the Wonderdog’s leash and collar – around the grounds of my condo, he was attracting a lot of attention due to his good looks.  His steel blue eyes were striking and almost everyone he met commented on them.

You may wonder why I am telling you about Franz.

Franz – an abandoned perhaps one-year-old male dog, malnourished, dehydrated, possibly abused and definitely a canine who had likely never seen the inside of a veterinarian’s office – was not home free just because I took him back with me.  When nighttime came, the poor guy had panic attacks all night.  I stayed up with him, comforted him, tried to get him to sleep a bit, and I repeated this all night long.  I somehow managed to stumble through Friday and Franz went off to the veterinary hospital Friday and he will require a lot of care but his prognosis is positive, but the lack of sleep and the stress from the entire episode hit me Friday night and lingered into Saturday.

As a result, Saturday became the third day in over three years that I was not able to prepare the Morning News Brief.  I wanted to share this not just because I missed the issue but I wanted to bring attention to the thousands of abandoned dogs who need our help.  No-kill animal shelters – a no-kill shelter is a shelter that does not kill healthy or treatable animals based on time limits or capacity, reserving euthanasia for terminally ill animals – such as the North Shore Animal League rescue dogs who are at shelters around the country who face euthanasia simply because there’s no room at the inn.

Snickers the Wonderdog was rescued by North Shore and brought to New York from Kentucky in 2015.  Had that not happened, he would not have become my beloved and trusted companion.  If you can, please consider helping a no-kill shelter by either volunteering or making a modest donation.

Unfortunately, I cannot offer Franz a forever home as I – as a Long Covid patient – simply do not have the energy to give a puppy like Franz the amount of activity he needs, plus Snickers the Wonderdog, who adopted me when he was already a senior, made me promise that, were I to allow myself to be adopted by another dog, it would only be by a senior dog because senior dogs are in greater need of adoption than puppies.

In other news we report today, we debunk the rumor of the Bill Gates-sponsored air vax and learn how pediatric mental health emergencies increased over each of five waves of the first two years of the pandemic.

DEPARTMENT OF MYTHS, RUMORS, AND REDUNDANCIES DEBUNKING DEPARTMENT

No, Virginia, there is no Bill Gates-sponsored “air vax.”

The non-vaccinated who – despite the sheer stupidity of doing so – wish to remain unvaccinated need not fear that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates funded an “air vaccine” to inoculate “non-consenting” humans.  A story by the People’s Voice said that the supposed air vaccine “has been given the green-light by multiple governments,” adding that it will deliver “the toxic chemicals straight into a person’s lungs.”  The story was accompanied by a person outfitted in a hazmat suit and mask who was standing on the steps of a helicopter.

The origins of the unfounded rumor can be traced back to a nasal vaccine formulation that has been tested on mice in a Yale University study.  That vaccine is not designed to be used as an aerosol, has received no funding from Bill Gates and has not been cleared to vaccinate “non-consenting humans.”

The nasal vaccine and underlying techniques have not been approved for any use or testing in humans, according to the study’s senior author.

UNITED STATES

Pediatric mental health emergencies increased with each coronavirus wave in New York City, a new study shows.

The research, undertaken by Deborah A. Levine, an associate professor of clinical emergency medicine and clinical pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine’s Komansky Children’s Hospital, was drawn from data from the Insight Clinical Research Network, a database encompassing five major medical centers across the five boroughs. These medical centers comprise a large number of the hospital visits in the Big Apple.

The team of researchers conducted a cross-sectional time series analysis, examining the data from children aged 5 to 17 years, beginning in 2016, and following them through five COVID-19 waves based on dominant variants through June 2022.

The data suggests that the pandemic exacerbated existing issues and the number of pediatric emergencies, which by the end of the fifth wave were higher than what earlier data suggests that would have been had there been no public-health emergency.

The death of actor Matthew Perry, the star of the “Friends” television show who was found dead on Friday in a hot tub in his home is being blamed on the coronavirus vaccine by anti-vaxxers.

When the news of Perry’s passing broke the day after he died, a number of accounts on social media were quick to blame the actor’s death on the fact that he was inoculated against SARS-CoV-2,  although his cause of death remains under investigation at press time.

Perry’s comedic talent made him a star along with other members of the ensemble cast of “Friends,” but his personal life was much darker and serious.

For years, the actor was vocal about his health problems stemming from drug addiction, including 15 rehab stints, 14 surgeries, and a two-week coma that he said he had had a 2% chance of recovery from.

GLOBAL

A new study by researchers at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden found that SARS-CoV-2 omicron wave infections were more common and linked to more severe outcomes than those from influenza or RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus.  The findings, which used data on emergency room patients in Sweden, were published last week in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

The scientists studied rates of 30-day all-cause death, hospitalization, and intensive care unit admission of adults in six emergency room departments in Stockholm County for omicron, flu, or RSV, comparing the periods 2021 through 2022 and 2015 through 2019, the latter prior to the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Of 6,385 patients in the 2021-2022 period, 76% were infected with SARS-CoV-2, 17% had flu, and 7% had RSV. In total, 22.1% of SARS-CoV-2 patients were not vaccinated against the coronavirus before their hospital visit, while 75% had received at least two doses.

The thirty-day death rates were 7.9% in the SARS-CoV-2 group, versus 2.5% in influenza patients and 6% in the RSV group. Meanwhile, the ninety-day mortality rate was 11% among SARS-CoV-2 patients, 3.7% in 2021-2022 flu patients, 8.7% in 2021-2022 RSV patients, 5.1% in the pre-pandemic flu group, and 9.6% in pre-pandemic RSV patients.

GLOBAL STATISTICS

Now here are the daily statistics for Monday, October 30.

As of Monday morning, the world has recorded 697.1 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.01 million in the past, and 6.93 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 668.99 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.06 million.

The reader should note that infrequent reporting from some sources may appear as spikes in new case figures or death tolls.

Worldwide, the number of active coronavirus cases as of Monday at press time is 21,215,349, a decrease of 6,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, 21,177,311, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 38,036, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past ten months.

Since the start of the pandemic, the United States has, as of Monday, recorded 109.07 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of 1.18 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, 45 million, and a reported death toll of 533,293.

The newest data from Russia’s Rosstat state statistics service showed that, at the end of July 2022, the number of Covid or Covid-related deaths since the start of the pandemic there in April 2020 is now 823,623, giving the country the world’s second highest pandemic-related death toll, behind the United States.  Rosstat last reported that 3,284 people died from the coronavirus or related causes in July 2022, down from 5,023 in June, 7,008 in May and 11,583 in April.

Meanwhile, France is the country with the third highest number of cases, with 40.14 million, and Germany is in the number four slot, with 38.54 million total cases.

Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 706,531, has recorded 37.9 million cases, placing it in the number five slot.

The other five countries with total case figures over the 20 million mark are South Korea, with 34.57 million cases, as number six; Japan, with 33.8 million cases placing it in the number seven slot; and Italy, with 26.23 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with 24.8 million, and Russia, with 23.1 million, as nine and ten respectively.

CURRENT U.S. COVID STATISTICS AT A GLANCE

In the United States, in the week ending October 21, 2023, the test positivity rate was – based on data released on October 26 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – 8.7%, a figure that is down 0.7% from the previous 7-day period, while the percentage of emergency department visits that were diagnosed as SARS-CoV-2 was 1.3%, a figure that unchanged.

The number of people admitted to hospital in the United States due to SARS-CoV-2 in the same 7-day period was 16,186, a figure that is down 0.02%. Meanwhile, the percentage of deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 was 2.7%, a figure that is up 12.5% over the same period.

VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT

Some 70.6% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Monday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information.  So far, 13.53 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 10,681 doses are now administered each day.

Meanwhile, only 32.8% of people in low-income countries have received one dose, while in countries such as Canada, China, Denmark, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States, at least 75% of the population has received at least one dose of vaccine.

Only a handful of the world’s poorest countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia and Nepal – have reached the 70% mark in vaccinations. Many countries, however, are under 20% and, in countries such as Haiti, Senegal, and Tanzania, for example, vaccination rates remain at or below 10%.

In addition, with the beginning of vaccinations in North Korea in late September, Eritrea remains the only country in the world that has not administered vaccines in any significant number.

Paul Riegler contributed reporting to this story.

(Photo: Accura Media Group)