Austria’s Salzburg And Upper Austria Expand Lockdown To Include Entire Population

Source: https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/austrias-salzburg-and-upper-austria-expand-lockdown-include-entire-population

It’s no longer just the unvaccinated who are subject to Austria’s draconian lockdowns: following the record surge in covid cases  in Austria which we discussed earlier,

… the regions of Salzburg and Upper Austria will introduce a lockdown for the entire population starting on Monday, which regional leaders said would last for “several weeks” but would hopefully be over by Christmas.

There is no longer any alternative than to order a full lockdown in the region, Salzburg’s governor Wilfried Haslauer told a press conference on Thursday afternoon: “We have considered a lockdown to be a significant infringement on the public, but now we are left with no other choice,” he said according to The Local.

The length of the lockdown is not yet confirmed, but Haslauer said it would last at least three weeks, and most likely four. As in previous lockdowns, it would be possible to leave home only for essential purposes including food shopping, exercise, and accessing medical care including vaccinations. Hotels, restaurants and retail stores will close.

He urged everyone in the region who is eligible to get their first vaccine doses as well as boosters, “so that we can get out of this lockdown as soon as possible, before Christmas if at all possible”. Salzburg this week followed Vienna in making booster doses possible from four months after the second dose.

Haslauer also said that all municipalities in Salzburg would be offering vaccination seven days a week. He noted that as of Monday, Salzburg already has the strictest measures in Austria, but said: “The time it takes for these to take effect is time that our hospitals do not have.”

All Of A Sudden The CDC Has Stopped Talking About Herd Immunity

Source: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/all-sudden-cdc-has-stopped-talking-about-herd-immunity

In case you haven’t noticed, the CDC no longer looks as concerned with herd immunity as it once did. 

In what should come as no surprise to anyone watching the Covid related narrative closely (or those who have been watching the herd immunity narrative from the get-go), the CDC has “set aside herd immunity as a national goal,” according to a new report from the LA Times.

What used to be a relatively simple concept has now turned into something “very complicated”, according to Dr. Jefferson Jones, a medical officer on the CDC’s COVID-19 Epidemiology Task Force.

“Thinking that we’ll be able to achieve some kind of threshold where there’ll be no more transmission of infections may not be possible,” he said to a panel that advises the CDC last week.

While Jones says vaccines are effective against Covid, “even if vaccination were universal, the coronavirus would probably continue to spread,” the report says. 

Ergo, herd immunity seems to now be off the table. “We would discourage” thinking in terms of “a strict goal,” Jones said. 

Dr. Oliver Brooks, a member of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices told the L.A. Times that “we do need to increase” the uptake of Covid shots. 

Brooks admitted that the focus moving away from herd immunity “almost makes you less motivated to get more people vaccinated.”

Absolute ZERO carbon policy UK FI RES

Source: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p3j_pUNgDNLOJuGeaiPoxt94-WAK1UOy/view

Delivering the UK’s climate change commitment with incremental changes to today’s technologies

Absolute Zero

UK demand for energy-intensive materials is growing, driving increased emissions in the UK and abroad. UK FIRES is a
research programme sponsored by the UK Government, aiming to support a 20% cut in the UK’s true emissions by 2050 by
placing Resource E ciency at the heart of the UK’s Future Industrial Strategy.
Industry is the most challenging sector for climate mitigation – it’s energy e cient and there are no substitutes available
at scale for the energy-intensive bulk materials – steel, cement, plastic, paper and aluminium. UK FIRES is therefore working
towards an industrial renaissance in the UK, with high-value climate-safe UK businesses delivering goods and services
compatible with the UK’s legal commitment to zero emissions and with much less new material production.

Swedish Study: Covid Jabs Provide No Lasting Protection – Immunity Plunges To ZERO In Mere Months

The Lancet – Effectiveness of Covid-19 Vaccination Against Risk of Symptomatic Infection, Hospitalization, and Death Up to 9 Months: A Swedish Total-Population Cohort Study

Source: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3949410

New research out of Sweden has found that post-vaccination “immunity” – if you can even call it that – from Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) injections is temporary at best, and completely gone within months.

Abstract

Background: Whether vaccine effectiveness against Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) lasts longer than 6 months is unclear.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted using Swedish nationwide registries. The cohort comprised 842,974 pairs (N=1,684,958), including individuals vaccinated with 2 doses of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, mRNA-1273, or BNT162b2, and matched unvaccinated individuals. Cases of symptomatic infection and severe Covid-19 (hospitalization or 30-day mortality after confirmed infection) were collected from 12 January to 4 October 2021. 

Findings: Vaccine effectiveness of BNT162b2 against infection waned progressively from 92% (95% CI, 92-93, P<0·001) at day 15-30 to 47% (95% CI, 39-55, P<0·001) at day 121-180, and from day 211 and onwards no effectiveness could be detected (23%; 95% CI, -2-41, P=0·07). The effectiveness waned slightly slower for mRNA-1273, being estimated to 59% (95% CI, 18-79) from day 181 and onwards. In contrast, effectiveness of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 was generally lower and waned faster, with no effectiveness detected from day 121 and onwards (-19%, 95% CI, -97-28), whereas effectiveness from heterologous ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 / mRNA was maintained from 121 days and onwards (66%; 95% CI, 41-80). Overall, vaccine effectiveness was lower and waned faster among men and older individuals. For the outcome severe Covid-19, effectiveness waned from 89% (95% CI, 82-93, P<0·001) at day 15-30 to 42% (95% CI, -35-75, P=0·21) from day 181 and onwards, with sensitivity analyses showing notable waning among men, older frail individuals, and individuals with comorbidities.

Interpretation: Vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic Covid-19 infection wanes progressively over time across all subgroups, but at different rate according to type of vaccine, and faster for men and older frail individuals. The effectiveness against severe illness seems to remain high through 9 months, although not for men, older frail individuals, and individuals with comorbidities. This strengthens the evidence-based rationale for administration of a third booster dose.

Lithuania, on the other hand, which currently has the world’s strictest “vaccine passport” scheme, is seeing an all-time high of new “cases” per capita within its population.

Just six weeks after the mandatory jab protocol was put into place in Lithuania, infection rates skyrocketed like never before – far outpacing that of Sweden, which is pretty much covid-free at this point (see the image below for a comparison):

Just News – Zero Hedge – James Montier: This Is A “Greater Fool Bubble” And I’m Getting Out

Zero Hedge – James Montier: This Is A “Greater Fool Bubble” And I’m Getting Out
How does one explain the existence of this particular “greedy bear”? To Montier the cognitive dissonance noted above is a function of the Fed-reflated bubble the US finds itself in: the near rational – or cynical – bubble, also known as the greater fool bubble. Here’s Montier:
I am not a great fan of this nomenclature as it suggests a veneer of respectability that I find undeserved. To me these are really better described as greater fool markets. They are cynical bubbles in that those buying the asset in question don’t really believe they are buying at fair price (or intrinsic value), but rather are buying because they want to sell to someone else at an even higher price before the bubble bursts. Chuck Prince, the former CEO of Citibank, aptly demonstrated the typical cynical bubble mentality when in July of 2007 he uttered those fateful words, “As long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance. We are still dancing.”
If the presence of the proposed buyer of last resort rings a bell, it’s because that’s precisely the market environment the Fed has created: there is no longer any risk not because fundamentals are strong or the economy is improving, but because the Fed will always step in and rescue the market when things turn south. Montier agrees:
I would suggest that this is exactly the sort of market we are observing at the current juncture. Fund managers for the most part all agree that the US market is expensive but still they choose to own equities – a cynical career-risk-driven position if ever there was one. I have been amazed by the number of meetings I’ve had recently where investors have said they simply “have to own US equities.”
While such a bubble can make speculators extremely wealthy if only for a period of time – because putting money into what everyone knows is a ridiculous valuation is not investing, it’s speculation, and as Montier admits “that the US equity market is obscenely overvalued can hardly be news to anyone” – it only works as long as there is at least one more greater fool to sell to.