(October 8, 2021)
Officials with the FDA have issued an emergency use authorization for PerkinElmer’s PKamp Respiratory SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR Panel 1 assay, a single test that can detect and differentiate between SARS-CoV-2, influenza A, influenza B, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
(15.12.2021)
In January 2020, the C.D.C. developed a polymerase chain reaction, or P.C.R., test for the virus. (…)
Problems emerged soon after the C.D.C. had begun shipping its test kits out to public health laboratories in early February. (…)
In mid-February, the agency acknowledged that the kits were flawed, and in April, officials at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said that poor manufacturing practices had resulted in contamination of the test kits.
The new paper presents the results of the C.D.C.’s own internal investigation into the problems with the tests.
(…)
The investigation also confirmed that the test kits had been contaminated with synthetic fragments of the virus’s genetic material.
(16.12.2021)
«After December 31, 2021, CDC will withdraw the request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of the CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel, the assay first introduced in February 2020 for detection of SARS-CoV-2 only. CDC is providing this advance notice for clinical laboratories to have adequate time to select and implement one of the many FDA-authorized alternatives»
(July 25, 2021)
The CDC quietly announced last week that it was withdrawing its request to the FDA for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of the 2019-Novel Coronavirus PCR Diagnostic Panel for detection of SARS-CoV-2 (the name for the COVID-19 virus). It now recommends laboratories adopt a method that can detect and differentiate SARS-CoV-2 from influenza viruses. The US has used the PCR test to report more than 34.4-million cases of the COVID-19 since the pandemic began and more than 610,000 deaths.
Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children‘s Hospital of Philadelphia, concurred, adding that he is also „not sure we‘re ever going to really eliminate this virus. … It‘s not like measles, where you get life-long sterilizing immunity.“
But even if the virus sticks around, new vaccines and new drugs to fight the virus mean it‘s unlikely to cause severe illness in the future. Offit predicts „that eventually, it will cause fewer deaths than influenza.“
Trademark symptoms of seasonal flu could be mistaken for symptoms of Covid-19 if the individual tests positive for the virus, it is claimed.
More than eight in ten people who test positive for coronavirus show none of the main symptoms at the time they are tested, a major study by UCL previously revealed.
However, those who test positive when they have cold symptoms may mistake them as being a part of the virus – adding to fears that it is taking a new guise as fresh strains emerge.
The data and concepts have been manipulated with a view to sustaining the fear campaign.
The estimates are meaningless. The figures have been hyped to justify the lockdown and the closure of the national economy, with devastating economic and social consequences. The Virus is held responsible for poverty and mass unemployment.
Confirmed by prominent scientists as well as by official public health bodies including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Covid-19 is a public health concern but it is NOT a dangerous virus.
The COVID-19 crisis is marked by a public health “emergency” under WHO auspices which is being used as a pretext and a justification to trigger a Worldwide process of economic, social and political restructuring. Social engineering is being applied. Governments are pressured into extending the lockdown, despite its devastating economic and social consequences.
There is no scientific basis for implementing the closing down of the global economy as a means to resolving a public health crisis.
Both the media and the governments are involved in spreading disinformation.
±400,000 patients had symptomatic influenza in the period between the beginning of October until the end of May.
±11,000 hospitalisations Many people were admitted to hospital with flu complications, such as pneumonia.
FLU VACCINE About half of the people who were eligible to receive a flu vaccination were vaccinated against flu.
2,900 more people than expected died during the epidemic period. These extra deaths were associated with the flu epidemic.
9. CNN assertion: Sanjay, I’ve watched your video assuring the public that getting the flu shot cannot increase one’s chances of getting the flu.
Fact: While that assertion has some meager support from a very small number of studies, the overwhelming weight of published science suggests that getting an annual flu shot can actually increase your risk of both flu and flu-like illnesses.
Only about 7 percent to 15 percent of what are called “influenza-like illnesses” are actually caused by influenza viruses. Many studies suggest the flu vaccine increases vulnerability to both flu infections and the remaining 85% -93% of non-flu respiratory infections.
A 2011 study of healthy Australian children published in the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal found that seasonal flu shots increase the risk of flu by 73% and doubled the risk of non-flu respiratory infections.
Similarly, another 2012 randomized controlled trial published in Clinical Infectious Diseases found that influenza-vaccinated children had no significantly lessened risk from influenza and also a higher risk of infection from non-influenza viruses.
Furthermore, the flu vaccine depletes capacity to fight off future flu infections. In April 2010, a study (by Skowronek, et al) published in the journal PLoS Medicine reported the “unexpected” finding from four epidemiologic studies in Canada that receipt of the influenza vaccine for the 2008 – 2009 season, while apparently effective in reducing the risk of illness due to the seasonal flu, was associated with an increased risk of illness due to the pandemic influenza A (H1N1) “swine flu” virus during the spring and summer of 2009. The scientists suggested that this finding could be due to the difference in the way the vaccine affects the immune system compared with natural infection.
It is not over yet, but this is much less than what our hysterical media and politicians have led us to believe. In the beginning of this historic, media-fueled panic, it sounded like millions would die in the US alone and tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, globally.
(21.04.2020)
“There’s a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through,” CDC Director Robert Redfield said in an interview with The Washington Post. “And when I’ve said this to others, they kind of put their head back, they don’t understand what I mean.”
“We’re going to have the flu epidemic and the coronavirus epidemic at the same time,” he said.
(August 7, 2014)
Favipiravir is in the final stages of human studies in the U.S. as a treatment for flu. A Phase II study in the U.S. using 10 grams of the drug showed the medicine reduced flu symptoms against a placebo. The U.S. phase III study of the treatment for flu is scheduled to be completed around March 2015, the company said last month.
The U.S. Department of Defense funded the trials to improve the country’s response capability and protect the military from flu pandemics, its BioDefense Therapeutics unit said in an October statement.
(14.12.2017)
Up to 650 000 deaths annually are associated with respiratory diseases from seasonal influenza, according to new estimates by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US-CDC), the World Health Organization and global health partners.
This marks an increase on the previous global estimate of 250 000 – 500 000, which dates from over ten years ago and covered all influenza-related deaths, including cardiovascular disease or diabetes. The new figures of 290 000 – 650 000 deaths are based on more recent data from a larger, more diverse group of countries, including lower middle income countries, and exclude deaths from non-respiratory diseases.
Trump appeared to argue that the alternative of letting the country sink to a major recession or depression is worse.
Table 7. Number of deaths associated with influenza observed through the FluMOMO algorithm with confidence intervals, England, 2014 to 2015 season to 2018 to 2019 (up to week 15):
All ages:
2014/15: 28,330 (27,462 to 29,208)
2015/16: 11,875 (11,237 to 12,524)
2016/17: 18,009 (17,260 to 18,768)
2017/18: 26,408 (17,260 to 18,768)
flu hospitalizations: 390,000 – 710,000
flu deaths: 23,000 – 59,000
CDC estimates that the burden of illness during the 2018–2019 season included an estimated 35.5 million people getting sick with influenza, 16.5 million people going to a health care provider for their illness, 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths from influenza (Table 1).
(05.03.2020)
So far, there have been 310,000 flu-related hospitalizations and 18,000 associated deaths this season.
CDC estimates that the burden of illness during the 2018–2019 season included an estimated 35.5 million people getting sick with influenza, 16.5 million people going to a health care provider for their illness, 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths from influenza (Table 1).
That scenario, code-named “Crimson Contagion” and imagining an influenza pandemic, was simulated by the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services in a series of exercises that ran from last January to August.
The simulation’s sobering results — contained in a draft report dated October 2019 that has not previously been reported — drove home just how underfunded, underprepared and uncoordinated the federal government would be for a life-or-death battle with a virus for which no treatment existed.
(November 2019)
In the winter seasons from 2013/14 to 2016/17, an estimated average of 5,290,000 ILI cases occurred in Italy, corresponding to an incidence of 9%.
More than 68,000 deaths attributable to flu epidemics were estimated in the study period.
Italy showed a higher influenza attributable excess mortality compared to other European countries. especially in the elderly.