seems mandatory vaccine is the go for the work place ....

[rogespeed]

The vaccine for covid , seems now being mandated for those currently employed

Seems like a violation of the existing conditions of employment for many , particularly whereby there is no mandate for  influenza vaccine requirement

Of course a harmless vaccine proven to mitigate against deadly covid-19 is desirable however some may object for whatever reason - and as are currently employed , one wonders the moral efficacy of coerced inoculation, as is clearly a workplace agreement item 

There is talk of dismissing currently employed workers for non-compliance

This to me would violate existing workplace agreements and a violation - fully paid leave would be the only  ethical way of excluding current employees ( unless all are retrenched then re-employed under covid safe clauses ) 

If there was no alternate to vaccination a strong case could be argued

But there are alternatives - periodic pcr tests,  daily check-in fast antigen tests , 1 minute on the treadmill 

The vaccines are released under emergency use meaning are experimental , so clearly fall under international law regarding strictly no forcing of experimental treatments

All that i am saying is that while inoculation is the most convenient , controllable and cost effective procedure , there should be an alternate process that meets workplace requirements

[4channel]

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@the_great_she_elephantwrote:

Then perhaps you would like to go through his actual statements one by one , as I did, and tell us what inference you drew from each of  them

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                                                   ---------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry the_great_she_elephant but I have already commented in collective form or rather in summary of what chameleon54 has said. What I drew from them was a quick, from-the-hip kid-gloves off type of reply.  In context it is indeed understandable.

                                                   ---------------------------------------------------------------

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@the_great_she_elephant wrote:

Really? So when have you ever heard a health expert use blatant sarcasm to denigrate those  who work in offices (they go to their " safe " work, pushing a computer mouse all  day,")  those who live in towns and suburbs ( " safe " little house ( made of ticky tacky )") or enrol their kids in organised sport (the kids play a "safe" sport).") Or maybe you think all tose inveted commas were only typos.

---

                                 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Health experts have been saying since the late 1960s that the sedentary  life that city dwellers live will eventually be the death of them. I recall as a young lad being told in class that in the future, humans will lose their legs and become jellyfish like creatures, reliant on machinery such as hovercrafts to get them around. There were a few futuristic type of books in schools in the 60s, 70s and even 80s. Anyway the teacher obviously believed in macro evolution.

At first glance there may be a slight element of abruptness in chameleon54's post. However, taking into account that this was a response to things said to him, his reply was a sensible and understandable one but with emphasis on certain things to get a point across. He may have, as I have detected, noticed a minimization on  what it takes to keep a farm running. Our farmers are among the most unappreciated suppliers of what keeps us nourished.  Hang on, they are THE suppliers of what keeps us nourished!

As I have said previously, I have done extremely hard, heavy physical work, worked long hours, done stuff that most people couldn't handle. With farming, it's not a job for the faint heated and mental endurance besides physical is a must. Even in my prime, I don't think I'd be up to it.

                                                   ---------------------------------------------------------------

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@the_great_she_elephant wrote:

And I respectfully have to tell you that, whatever message Chameleon may have meant to convey with his post my interpretation was both logical and rational based on what he actually wrote.  

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Please look at the broader picture here and the context his reply was in, dialogue from other parties leading up to it and I'm sure you'll evaluate it differently.

While on the subject of farming. I have watched a couple of YouTube clips about some rural religious farming communities in the USA and how they are dealing with the Corona Virus crisis. I must say I found it very interesting.

                                                   ---------------------------------------------------------------

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The Philadelphia Inquirer

For Pennsylvania’s Amish, the coronavirus and the call for social distancing are a challenge

Lancaster County is home to more than 26,000 Amish.

https://www.inquirer.com/news/amish-coronavirus-religion-covid-pennsylvania-masks-20200327.html

&

Pennsylvania Amish community has reached herd immunity from COVID-19, medical center says
13,013 views
Mar 30, 2021

FOX 29 Philadelphia
41.5K subscribers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWiuzHNH9D4

                                                   ---------------------------------------------------------------

Now with respect to the second link, a Fox 29 news clip on YouTube, the next to no effect on the Amish and Mennonite could be due to how they tackle the virus, deal with it etc., or it could be down to resilience, good old fashioned hard work, eating wholesome, nutritious food etc.. There's no doubt that they have got something.

BTW: There are two members, one male, one female of an online group that I won't mention, nor will I name them. I would like to just mention that I have them both on ignore and I have found the best approach is not to interact with them.

[domino-710]

How do you explain the ' excess death rates ' .

Sunday church service in Amish country is more than just belting out hymns, reading Bible passages and returning home an hour later to catch a football game or nap. 

It’s an all-day affair: A host family welcomes church members - between 20 to 40 families - into their home to worship and have fellowship with one another from morning to night. Church is a biweekly activity; each gathering takes place in a member’s home and is a key ritual in the Amish community which values in-person communication. 

New research from West Virginia University sociologists suggests this face-to-face interaction, coupled with a distrust in preventative medicine, led to “excess deaths” among the Amish population in 2020. 

The death rate for that year soared above the baseline average from 2015 to 2019, with the largest spike – 125% - occurring in November.

Researchers, led by Rachel Stein, associate professor of sociology, analyzed obituary information published in an Amish/Mennonite newspaper to examine excess death among this segment of the population in 2020. Their results are published in the Journal of Religion and Health. 

“By taking multiple years of historical data, we can create an average rate of death,” explained co-author Katie Corcoran, associate professor of sociology. “For 2020, when the pandemic started, we identified how much extra deaths occurred on top of that average. We call that excess deaths.”

The team emphasized that these deaths may or may not be directly related to COVID-19; however, the excess death rates among the Amish/Mennonites mirrored the general COVID-19 infection waves in the United States. Researchers did not access official death certificates (which do not indicate religion/faith) and obituaries usually lacked the cause of death. 

Information was taken from The Budget, a weekly correspondence newspaper published in Ohio geared toward the Amish and Mennonite communities. 

BTW: I do agree farming is not for the faint heated. 

Oh - there is one member - a male - who is not a member of a certain group - whose name I will not mention - who seems to be the only one with an ' ignore ' feature. How I wish I had said feature. 🤣🤣🤣

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

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@domino-710 wrote:

BTW: I do agree farming is not for the faint heated. 

Oh - there is one member - a male - who is not a member of a certain group - whose name I will not mention - who seems to be the only one with an ' ignore ' feature. How I wish I had said feature. 🤣🤣🤣

---

I’ve checked it out using another of my IDs and the ignore feature does not stop a member from seeing the posts of a member on their ignore list.  It stops messages from getting through.

I will declare that I am the male that is on 4channel’s ignore list.  What it means is that when I raise issues about a 4channel post, like I did recently with him quoting of Bronwyn Bishop, he has chosen to not be accountable.  That won’t stop me from replying to his posts as I believe I do so respectfully.  His ignorance (if that is the right word) of my posts doesn’t faze me as I believe it reflects poorly upon him.  Ho hum.

[springyzone]

New research from West Virginia University sociologists suggests this face-to-face interaction, coupled with a distrust in preventative medicine, led to “excess deaths” among the Amish population in 2020. 

The death rate for that year soared above the baseline average from 2015 to 2019, with the largest spike – 125% - occurring in November.

Researchers, led by Rachel Stein, associate professor of sociology, analyzed obituary information published in an Amish/Mennonite newspaper to examine excess death among this segment of the population in 2020. Their results are published in the Journal of Religion and Health. 

“By taking multiple years of historical data, we can create an average rate of death,” explained co-author Katie Corcoran, associate professor of sociology. “For 2020, when the pandemic started, we identified how much extra deaths occurred on top of that average. We call that excess deaths.”

-------------------------

That was a very interesting read.

What it suggests is that amongst people who live a simple lifestyle and who probably have a less processed diet etc, covid still caused a spike in death numbers.

I have no doubt that things such as lifestyle, exercise, diet and so on have a huge impact on our health but what worries me a bit is when people put too much trust in their immunity alone.

I've mentioned it before but my mother in law had polio when she was about 11. She missed a year of schooling. Now, she was a farm girl and this was during the 1930s, the Depression era, so I'd be pretty sure she wasn't eating a lot of processed food. I did hear they all ate well because they were able to grow a lot of their own food, they had chooks etc.

She walked a long way to school, so I'd say she was a normal, young, healthy child.

None of those things saved her from polio.

And I doubt if they alone will protect from covid either and that's the worry as I have seen Americans with signs that say "I trust my immune system". To me, it's always good to have a back up system.

[4channel]

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I don't know how much credence I would give to Rachel Stein's hypothesis based on newspaper obits. With out any actual physical testing, it can only be a possibility to consider. One of several possibilities! Any elderly or infirm Amish or Mennonites that may have succumbed to the virus may not have had any early-stage oral drug treatment ,  oral vitamin-D  supplement or an aspirin course.  Of course, high-dose vitamin-C  and dandelion leaf  are said to give protection as well as expedite recovery. I would say that they would be taking  the latter two.

OK, 125% spike on the month of November supposedly but what's the actual count amount?

It seems that Rachel Stein's work is at best presents a useful possibility that awaits confirmation in the physical realm rather than the imaginary or astral.

[domino-710]

So you would rather rely on YouTube.

Wait - are you addressing moi. 😃

[domino-710]

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@4channel wrote:

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I don't know how much credence I would give to Rachel Stein's Dr Peter McCullough's hypothesis based on newspaper obits no clinical trials. With out any actual physical testing, it can only be a possibility to consider. One of several possibilities! Any elderly or infirm Amish or Mennonites that may have succumbed to the virus may not have had any early-stage oral drug treatment ,  oral vitamin-D  supplement or an aspirin course.  Of course, high-dose vitamin-C  and dandelion leaf  are said to give protection as well as expedite recovery. I would say that they would be taking  the latter two.

OK, 125% spike on the month of November supposedly but what's the actual count amount?

It seems that Rachel Stein's work is at best presents a useful possibility that awaits confirmation in the physical realm rather than the imaginary or astral.

---

Your knowledge of the Amish/Mennonite Community- is nothing short of astounding.

Have you even been to Pennsylvania - approx 81,000 Amish reside - their condiments are fabulous. lol

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated a relentless flood of information, which often seems to evolve minute by minute. Imagine navigating this historic public health crisis without the benefit of online news reports, social media or even a television.

Lack of information – —and the rampant spread of misinformation — is just one challenge confronting the 39,000 members of Lancaster County’s Amish community during the pandemic. Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health is working to ensure that accurate, culturally sensitive health information reaches the local Amish community in order to slow the spread of COVID-19.

LG Health has a long history of partnering with the Amish community on farm safety, vaccinations and other health initiatives. Michael Reihart, DO, an emergency physician at Lancaster General Hospital, said the open lines of communication and mutual trust forged through those efforts proved invaluable to the success of LG Health’s COVID-19 outreach to the Amish.

“By working together over the past 10 years, LG Health gained the trust of the Amish community,” said Reihart, who has been closely involved in those efforts, which include personal visits to Amish farms and 24-7 availability for questions. “We’ve also gained a deeper understanding and respect for Amish beliefs, attitudes and behaviors, which helps us to make our education efforts more effective.”

In addition to limited information, the Amish community has some unique concerns about seeking medical care. Generally known as family-oriented and stoic, the Amish — who tend to favor more natural treatments and pay their own medical bills — prefer to care for their own whenever possible.

The pandemic exacerbated existing impediments to seeking medical care, such as arranging transportation, and brought about some added challenges, including the logistics of quarantining at home with a large family and visitation restrictions initially in place at most medical facilities.

For these reasons, LG Health focused its COVID-19 outreach efforts on the areas with the greatest potential impact: preventing the spread of the virus and encouraging the Amish to seek care in the event of an infection. To reach the Amish community, LG Health relied on communication methods that may be considered old-fashioned by today’s standards, including newspaper ads, printed educational materials and in-person meetings.

Few official statistics are available on COVID-19’s prevalence in the Amish community. However, one Amish man, who asked that his name not be used out of respect for his traditions, said the pandemic has profoundly impacted his friends and neighbors.

“I’ve lost count of how many people it’s affected in our community,” he said. “I lost one of my very good friends.”

The man is an Amish community leader who has worked with LG Health to address a number of safety issues in recent years, such as designing hay-hole covers to prevent falls and installing back-up cameras on farm machinery to improve visibility.

In general, the Amish man said, his community tends to be somewhat suspicious of the medical field, which extends to some data publicized about COVID-19. The established partnership with the LG Health team helps to diminish some of the overall skepticism, he said, and proved particularly valuable at dispelling rumors that swirled as the pandemic progressed.

For many years, Rosemary Search, RN, BSN, a health promotion specialist at LG Health, has met with groups of Amish women in their homes, sharing information on health topics including heart disease, stroke and menopause, and providing health screenings, such as cholesterol, glucose and BMI. She relied on those long-standing connections to disseminate accurate information during the pandemic.

“Many of our Amish contacts reached out directly to me with questions or seeking more information about COVID-19,” she said. “Because of the relationships we built, they understood that we wanted to keep them as safe as possible.”

Through years of partnership with the Amish, LG Health has learned how to effectively approach health-related topics with the community. Search and her colleagues understand, for example, that being a good neighbor is central to the Amish way of life.

During the pandemic, LG Health placed fact sheets in the “Busy Beaver,” a weekly print publication that reaches thousands of Amish homes. Each fact sheet, which covered hand-washing, mask-wearing, symptoms and caring for someone with COVID-19, included the tagline: “Help keep you and your neighbor healthy. Together, we’ll get through this.”

“From working with the Amish, we know that the Busy Beaver is one of the best ways to reach them with information,” Search said. “They all read it from front to back.”

LG Health also relied on key contacts within the community, including church bishops and Amish EMTs and firefighters, to serve as additional trusted conduits for educational materials and rumor control.

In March, just as the pandemic hit locally, Reihart and others met with organizers of the Gordonville Mud Sale, a major community fundraiser that draws up to 1,000 people. While the event went on as planned, organizers agreed to allow LG Health to provide crowd announcements and written educational materials about hand-washing and other risk-mitigation strategies.

Like their non-Amish neighbors, the Amish initially restricted large gatherings during the pandemic. However, the community planned to resume church services in time for Easter. The Amish especially love to sing, Reihart said, which brings a heightened danger of transmitting COVID-19. He and other LG Health representatives met with Amish bishops to discuss the dangers of holding large gatherings.

“After hearing our recommendation, they reversed their initial decision,” Reihart said. “They decided not to have church services for Easter, which is unheard of in the Amish community.”

Much like the non-Amish, he said, there is growing weariness in the Amish community with the pandemic and its associated restrictions, and a widespread desire for life to return to “normal.” Church services and other large gatherings have since resumed.

Even so, the Amish continue to live out their beliefs by contributing to local COVID-19 relief efforts. At sewing parties held across the county and the state, they’ve made thousands of face masks for health-care providers, first responders and their neighbors, Amish and non-Amish alike.

[countessalmirena]

Your early-stage oral drug treatment references lack credible evidence. Any medical intervention of that sort must go through double blind randomised placebo controlled clinical trials. This holds true even if the medication in question has been used safely and effectively for another purpose. That is because safety and efficacy data against a different disease require a new scene. It is not enough to rely on pre-clinical trial data (in vitro).

I refer you to the following reading:

Deng J, Zhou F, Ali S, et al. Efficacy and safety of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis [published online ahead of print, 2021 Sep 27]. QJM. 2021;hcab247. doi:10.1093/qjmed/hcab247

Popp M, Stegemann M, Metzendorf MI, et al. Ivermectin for preventing and treating COVID-19. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2021;7(7):CD015017. Published 2021 Jul 28. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD015017.pub2

Buffet G, Mendoza-Sassi R, Fysekidis M. Inaccurate Real-World Data Does Not Provide Real-World Answers. Am J Ther. 2021;28(5):e596-e598. Published 2021 Jun 29. doi:10.1097/MJT.0000000000001415

Roman YM, Burela PA, Pasupuleti V, Piscoya A, Vidal JE, Hernandez AV. Ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials [published online ahead of print, 2021 Jun 28]. Clin Infect Dis. 2021;ciab591. doi:10.1093/cid/ciab591

Your oral vitamin-D supplement references have no definitive late-trial-stage data upon which to draw a solid conclusion. It is certainly true that depleted vitamin D levels have been observed in seriously ill COVID-19 patients, but this begs the question of whether COVID-19 causes such depletion, results in worse symptoms where such depletion exists, or whether there were other factors at play. After all, patients with underlying conditions tend to do much worse against COVID-19 than those without underlying conditions. Many of the observed underlying conditions are associated with lower levels of vitamin D. Hence, it is impossible to provide a causative relationship between COVID-19, morbid outcomes, underlying health conditions and low levels of vitamin D.

Vitamin D supplements are only of use where there is a deficiency of vitamin D. However, certainly in winter most of us in Australia receive less than the required amount. Your GP can advise whether you should be taking vitamin D supplements. This meta-analysis is worth reading:

Martineau AR, Jolliffe DA, Greenberg L, et al. Vitamin D supplementation to prevent acute respiratory infections: individual participant data meta-analysis. Southampton (UK): NIHR Journals Library; 2019 Jan. (Health Technology Assessment, No. 23.2.) Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK536320/ doi: 10.3310/hta23020

There could be some verifiable interventions with vitamin D. However, bear in mind the UK Biobank results that showed no link:

Hastie CE, Mackay DF, Ho F, et al. Vitamin D concentrations and COVID-19 infection in UK Biobank [published correction appears in Diabetes Metab Syndr. 2020 Sep - Oct;14(5):1315-1316]. Diabetes Metab Syndr. 2020;14(4):561-565. doi:10.1016/j.dsx.2020.04.050

It's early days yet with such studies, and there may yet be some promising lines of research.

As for your suggestion of aspirin, you refer to a clinical trial which has as yet not posted any results. Thus far, you may want to look at this trial:

RECOVERY Collaborative Group. Colchicine in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): a randomised, controlled, open-label, platform trial. Lancet Respir Med. 2021; (published online Oct 18.)
https://doi.org/10.1016/S2213-2600(21)00435-5

Your reference to the Vitamin C study (you linked only to the abstract, not to the whole article) gives food for thought. ❝Although 0.1 g/day of vitamin C can maintain ordinary plasma levels in healthy persons, critically ill patients need much higher doses (2–3 g/day) to increase the plasma vitamin C levels to the ordinary range. It would therefore seem reasonable to screen plasma vitamin C levels in ICU patients and administer vitamin C to those with low levels. Unfortunately, vitamin C assay with HPLC is quite expensive and therefore not usually available in daily practice, and the cheaper tests are less accurate.❞

The authors make the point that ❝Although there is as yet no direct evidence indicating that vitamin C is beneficial specifically against COVID-19, the reported benefits of vitamin C in the ICU context suggest that it could be considered for patients. Based on the dose vs. plasma level analyses, it is unlikely that a healthy person would benefit from daily vitamin C doses over 0.5 g/day. However, for patients suffering from a respiratory virus infection, 6–8 g/day of oral vitamin C was significantly more effective than 3–4 g/day.❞

The paper also points out that large clinical trial information will be needed going forward, but that in the meantime clinical application of vitamin C may prove beneficial in COVID-19 patients with depleted levels.

Hemilä H, de Man AME. Vitamin C and COVID-19. Front Med (2021)
7:559811. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2020.559811.

Your reference to the pre-print on the in-vitro action of the common dandelion upon the mutation (re spike protein of SARS-CoV-2) is far too early to do more than be considered one of many promising leads at the pre-clinical trial level. It has yet to be peer-approved, and after that, there is the long journey of further development and testing. It hasn't progressed to animal trials yet, let alone human trials. It may take a year if it receives massive funding, it may take longer.

Tran H, Le N, Gigl M, Dawid C, Lamy E. Common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) efficiently blocks the interaction between ACE2 cell surface receptor and SARS-CoV-2 spike protein D614, mutants D614G, N501Y, K417N and E484K in vitro. bioRxiv 2021.03.19.435959; doi:10.1101/2021.03.19.435959

Your dismissal of the work by Stein, Corcoran, Colyer, et al is unwarranted. Within its scope the study is measured and aware of its limitations. The methodology used is not unusual in sociology. It at the very least provides information that can springboard to further studies. If the reason for this disdain towards it as "imaginary" and "astral" is based upon a reluctance to admit that there were roughly the same proportion of deaths due to COVID-19 within the Amish community as there was outside it, that reflects only a personal view, not a sound methodological criticism.

Stein, R.E., Corcoran, K.E., Colyer, C.J. et al. Closed but Not Protected: Excess Deaths Among the Amish and Mennonites During the COVID-19 Pandemic. J Relig Health 60, 3230–3244 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-021-01307-5

[chameleon54]

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@domino-710 wrote:

@4channel

You have been asked on more than several occasions - to stop.

Stop with WW1 - stop with WW2 - stop with Nazis - stop with Fascists - stop with Iraq - stop with Ivermectin - stop with misleading misinformation - I could go on.

The fact that you refuse/haven't - is indicative of an abusive personality.

When asked to cease - one usually does - because it has become offensive to others.

Your perspective on - morality - your continual sexual references on the morality of others - your continual references to corruption -  is very telling.

The conversations are Covid.

You are way out of line. 

I'll leave it at that.

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Definition of fascism

1often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

Dan Andrews -

A Government that has decreed that if the vast majority of its individual citizens to not agree to a certain medical procedure they will lose their livelihoods and cival liberties, even though fully vaccinated workers will be catching and spreading the virus within work places.

A Government that has implemented highly restrictive policies such as night time curfews on its citizens WITHOUT CONSULTATION or concensus of its health advisers.

A government that has locked its citizens up for a longer period of time than any of the other 10,000 cities in the world when prudent, timely COVID management would have prevented any need for this. Every other state seems to have managed similar outbreaks without the need for locking up its citizens for vastly extended periods of time.

A Government that allowed thousands of BLM supporters ( his team ) to gather together unrestricted to protest in the city at a particularly sensitive time in COVID outbreak management, but used over 1000 police armed with capsican spray and rubber bullets to suppress  protests against his failed management of COVID

If this is not clear indications of a dictatorial, fascist regime I dont know what is. 

[chameleon54]

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@the_great_she_elephant wrote:

 Amazing that you would even write that. I'm in total disagreement there. What I got from chameleon54's post was that along the way, some of us folk have lost a little bit of ourselves by being caught up in the distractions and aspects of city life.

Then perhaps you would like to go through his actual statements one by one , as I did, and tell us what inference you drew from each of  them

Actually, what he has said is also being said by the health experts as well,.

Really? So when have you ever heard a health expert use blatant sarcasm to denigrate those  who work in offices (they go to their " safe " work, pushing a computer mouse all  day,")  those who live in towns and suburbs ( " safe " little house ( made of ticky tacky )") or enrol their kids in organised sport (the kids play a "safe" sport).") Or maybe you think all tose inveted commas were only typos.

I respectfully have to tell you that your interpretation is grossly inaccurate!

And I respectfully have to tell you that, whatever message Chameleon may have meant to convey with his post my interpretation was both logical and rational based on what he actually wrote.  

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Twisted and distorted is how you attempt to present my comments. You read what you want to read. While we rarely agree on things she el, I used to have a bit of respect for you as one of the more insightful posters here, but I,m afraid these days you have completely lost your touch.