Friday, October 8, 2021

Global – 236,600,000/4,800,000; USA – 44,100,000/708,800 Hatred on twitter!! I have not been commenting on this in my daily notes . However, the vitriol and outright hatred towards me by the far right on Twitter is accelerating and is really extraordinary. Greg Folkers describes it as a cesspool of hate against me. This is amplified by the Fox News network who uses every opportunity particularly with Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham who almost every night say something about me that is a total lie and would under other circumstances be extremely libelous. This is part of the total movement of the “big lie”. CNN with Don Lemon last night showed clips of former Vice President Pence, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Lindsey Graham condemning former president trump for being the instigating force behind the January 6th insurrection and insisting that he be held responsible for this. Then Don Lemon fast-forwarded to their statements recently in which they acted like January 6th never occurred. For example, former vice president Pence said that January 6th was a creation and fabrication of the media . This is astounding that these lies can be said without blinking an eye. I am concerned in some respects about myself and my safety even though I have security. However, I am even more concerned about whether our democracy will survive. There had been some talk that countries such as the UK, EU, and Israel we're allowing people who have recovered from COVID infection to be considered as equivalent to being vaccinated and hence would be allowed to have a “green pass “. As it turns out that certainly is not the case for the UK (see above – Chris Whitty) and recently Israel has also denied that that is the case for them. However, post-infection people will need 1 dose of vaccine for a green pass. The new measure will be introduced on the same date that anyone who has not received a booster shot six months after getting a second vaccine dose will have their Green Pass revoked. There has been considerable disagreement and discussion about whether the delta variant is more severe in children compared to other variants. Certain studies showed that delta variant appears to be more serious in adults compared to other variants; however, there is disagreement about children. A recent study came out from the UK showing that severity of illness was similar in children who were infected with the alpha variant compared to the delta variant . See link below: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.06.21264467v1.full.pdf As booster discussions and disagreements continue, the Israeli data more and moire show that my stance on boosters is correct. For example, it is becoming clear that boosters protect against the waning immunity for infection and severe disease for individuals as young as 40 years old and not just for individuals who are 65 years of age and older . See recent paper in preprint server: Protection Across Age Groups of BNT162b2 Vaccine Booster against Covid-19 Yinon M. Bar-On*, M.Sc., Yair Goldberg*, Ph.D., Micha Mandel, Ph.D., Omri Bodenheimer, M.Sc., Laurence Freedman, Ph.D., Sharon Alroy-Preis, M.D., Nachman Ash, M.D., Amit Huppert*, Ph.D. and Ron Milo*, Ph.D. *Contributed equally Had very successful leadership forum today. Somewhat sentimental since it is Francis Collins’s last leadership forum