Covid Reality

The reality we live in.

Singapore Ministry of Health - No Vaccine? You Pay.

Source article SINGAPORE β€” From Dec 8, Singapore will start charging Covid-19 patients who are not vaccinated against the disease by choice. This will apply to all unvaccinated coronavirus patients admitted on or after Dec 8 to hospitals and Covid-19 treatment facilities, the Ministry of Health (MOH) announced in a statement on Monday (Nov 8). For patients who are partially vaccinated, they will not be charged until Dec 31 to allow them to receive the full course of their coronavirus vaccination. Read more β†’

1 in 500 Americans have died of COVID-19

As Guardian reports - One in 500 Americans have died of Covid – and some hospitals reach capacity. Not much more needs to be said, but read on if you need to. Almost 664,000 people had died of the virus in the US by Tuesday evening, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, following a surge of cases and hospitalizations, particularly in southern states, caused by a combination of the Delta variant and low vaccination rates. Read more β†’

No-jab, no-entry is not discrimination

A well-written article by Liam Elphick, a Discrimination law lecturer for The Age lays it out for people calling a vaccine requirement “discrimination”. It is true that distinctions are being made about access to certain venues on the basis of vaccination status. But not every distinction is β€œdiscrimination”. We make legitimate distinctions between people daily, especially based on individual choices and actions. An employee with a good work ethic may get promoted over a person who does not have a good work ethic. Read more β†’

Delta more deadly than national plan assumes

In news that should surprise no-one, the Australian government is finally waking up to the fact that Delta is significantly more deadly than Alpha. … both the Doherty and the Burnet institutes adopting the findings of a Canadian study showing unvaccinated people infected with Delta are nearly twice as likely to end up in intensive care and one-and-a-half times more likely to die as people who caught the Alpha variant. Read more β†’

Hospital staff must swear off Tylenol, Tums to get religious vaccine exemption

Definitely a case of “understand the implications of your lies” A hospital system in Arkansas is making it a bit more difficult for staff to receive a religious exemption from its COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The hospital is now requiring staff to also swear off extremely common medicines, such as Tylenol, Tums, and even Preparation H, to get the exemption. The move was prompted when Conway Regional Health System noted an unusual uptick in vaccine exemption requests that cited the use of fetal cell lines in the development and testing of the vaccines. Read more β†’

Dying in the Name of Vaccine Freedom | NYT Opinion

In the video above, Alexander Stockton, a producer on the Opinion Video team, explores two of the main reasons the number of Covid cases is soaring once again in the United States: vaccine hesitancy and refusal. β€œIt’s hard to watch the pandemic drag on as Americans refuse the vaccine in the name of freedom,” he says. Seeking understanding, Mr. Stockton travels to Mountain Home, Ark., in the Ozarks, a region with galloping contagion and β€” not unrelated β€” abysmal vaccination rates. Read more β†’

FDA Approves Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine - 23rd August 2021

Official link: FDA Approves First COVID-19 Vaccine Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine has been known as the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, and will now be marketed as Comirnaty (koe-mir’-na-tee), for the prevention of COVID-19 disease in individuals 16 years of age and older. The vaccine also continues to be available under emergency use authorization (EUA), including for individuals 12 through 15 years of age and for the administration of a third dose in certain immunocompromised individuals. Read more β†’

Limited long COVID symptoms in children does not mean no vaccinations

How sick does the COVID-19 Delta strain make children? Answers from The Royal Children’s Hospital - ABC Radio Melbourne Dr Sarah McNab, Director of General Medicine at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, has spent the pandemic observing the impacts of COVID-19 in children. Looking at 170 children infected with the virus last year, Dr McNab came to a surprisingly promising conclusion β€” there were no signs of ongoing health issues, sometimes described as “long-COVID”, despite the infection. Read more β†’

Exercising ethics to avoid Moral Fatigue

ABC: Moral fatigue can weigh on your mental health but there are ways to strengthen your ’ethics muscle' Dan Andrews, the Victorian Premier - telling it like it is. “Every time even a small number of people make really bad choices, selfish choices, it takes away from the hard work that so many millions more are doing,” Mr Andrews said. Daily decisions like whether you pick up a takeaway coffee, visit your elderly relatives, or go to your local hardware store β€” decisions people previously wouldn’t have given a second thought β€” now take a lot more consideration. Read more β†’

The Atlantic: Parents Are Losing Their Minds Over Masks in Schools

Original article: Parents Are Losing Their Minds Over Masks in Schools Public-school students in her Florida county, Hillsborough, are technically required to wear masks to school. But in an attempt to please everyone, parents may opt their kids out of mask wearing by signing a form. Masks also remain optional for teachers. According to Carothers, some of the parents in her kids’ classes have signed the mask waiver, and their kids roam around blissfully mask-free. Read more β†’

U.S. to Advise Boosters for Most Americans 8 Months After Vaccination

NY Times: U.S. to Advise Boosters for Most Americans 8 Months After Vaccination The Biden administration has decided that most Americans should get a coronavirus booster vaccination eight months after they received their second shot, and could begin offering third shots as early as mid-September, according to administration officials familiar with the discussions. Unfortunately, they’re going to have trouble tracking cases: Israel can in some ways be viewed as a template for the United States because it vaccinated more of its population faster and has almost exclusively used the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine that made up much of the U. Read more β†’

Herd immunity impossible with Delta - vaccination the only way forward

Excerpts from this excellent round-up of information from ABC News today In what experts say is already playing out in small numbers in the New South Wales outbreak, unvaccinated people are being disproportionately represented in the intensive care wards across the world as the infectious Delta strain takes hold. If you’re fully vaccinated, you’re statistically less likely to require extreme medical intervention: Current numbers from NSW show of the 66 people in ICU, 59 are not vaccinated and seven have had one dose. Read more β†’

Australian Information Sources

Australian Capital Territory COVID-19 Exposure Locations Queensland Queensland Health Contact Tracing Locations New South Wales NSW Health Exposure Locations Northern Territory Northern Territory Coronavirus Disease site South Australia South Australia Coronavirus Disease site South Australia Coronavirus Dashboard - Stats Tasmania TAS Health Coronavirus Disease site TAS Health Exposure Locations Victoria Victoria Health Exposure Locations Western Australia Western Australia COVID-19 Site Western Australia COVID-19 Latest Updates Read more β†’