(2022-02-20). UK's Queen Elizabeth has tested positive for Covid-19. rt.com 
The 95-year-old monarch is experiencing "mild cold-like symptoms," Buckingham Palace has announced | UK's Queen Elizabeth II has contracted Covid, with a recent test yielding a positive result, Buckingham Palace said in a statement released on Sunday. The 95-year-old monarch is said to be experiencing only "mild cold-like symptoms," and is expected to continue performing "light duties" in the coming days. | Last Thursday, the Queen's eldest son, Charles, Prince of Wales, tested positive for Covid, too. According to the BBC, he had met his mother two days prior. However, the Queen reportedly did not show any sy…
(2022-02-20). High Rate of Ticks Infected With Rare Virus Potentially Lethal for Humans Found Lurking in US Park. sputniknews.com The recent discovery was made during routine testing carried out by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) as part its five-year pilot active tick surveillance program, launched in 2018.
(2022-02-19). Hedges: Democrats, the More Effective Evil. orinocotribune.com By Chris Hedges — Feb 14, 2022 | The US is a de facto one-party state where the ideology of national security is sacrosanct, unsustainable debt props up the empire and the primary business is war. | When all else fails, when you are clueless about how to halt a 7.5% inflation rate, when your Build Back Better bill is gutted, when you renege on your promise to raise the minimum wage or forgive student debt, when you can't halt the Republican suppression of voting rights, when you have no idea how to handle the pandemic which has claimed 900,000 lives — 16% of the world's total deaths although we are les…
(2022-02-19). European Union prefers corporate profits over the health of people across the world. peoplesdispatch.org By showing reluctance on the patent waiver on COVID-19-related products even after the majority of its population is vaccinated, the EU leadership has once again taken the side of Big Pharma and perpetuated vaccine apartheid…
(2022-02-19). Vaccine shedding spreads disaster to unvaccinated pregnant women? globalresearch.ca Since the COVID vaccines were authorized, MANY women have posted reports of disrupted and unusual menstrual cycles, heavy bleeding, and miscarriages. | What's more, some of these women state they haven't received the COVID vaccine, but they've been in close contact …
(2022-02-19). More than 3.06b COVID-19 vaccine doses administered on Chinese mainland. ecns.cn The number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered on the Chinese mainland has reached over 3.06 billion on Wednesday, data from the National Health Commission showed Tuesday.
(2022-02-19). Ethical Considerations and Experimental Vaccines. dissidentvoice.org 
(2022-02-19). China kicks off mixed doses of booster vaccination. ecns.cn China will provide heterologous booster shots to people who have been fully vaccinated for at least six months amid the rapid spread of highly transmissible Omicron, officials said at a press conference on Saturday.
(2022-02-19). China approves sequential booster vaccinations. ecns.cn China's health authorities are rolling out sequential COVID-19 booster vaccinations following the approval of the State Council inter-agency task force for COVID-19 response, a health official said on Saturday.
(2022-02-19). [Perspectives] A public health manifesto. thelancet.com The way that societies divide and manage our resources and treat our planet is not working. This failure is the starting point of a number of books that have been published during the COVID-19 pandemic, including GO BIG: 20 Bold Solutions to Fix Our World by Ed Miliband. This book, partly based on Miliband and Geoff Lloyd's podcast Reasons to Be Cheerful, identifies what is wrong with our political and multilateral systems and sets out solutions to fix our world. "In saying we need to 'go big' I am advocating not just the consideration of ideas that promise significant change but for politics to rediscover its se…
(2022-02-19). Biden Extends State of Emergency in US Amid Ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic. sputniknews.com MOSCOW (Sputnik) – US President Joe Biden has announced his decision to extend the state of emergency, which was declared in the country almost two years ago, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that has been causing significant risk to the public health.
(2022-02-19). Minneapolis, St. Paul teachers vote to authorize strike. wsws.org Teachers in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, have voted to authorize a strike, part of growing opposition among teachers and workers in the US to inequality and deadly pandemic conditions.
(2022-02-19). WHO chief calls for cooperation, financing to end COVID-19 pandemic. ecns.cn The World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Friday called for cooperation and collaboration in the face of common threats from the COVID-19 pandemic.
(2022-02-19). UK teacher Kathleen Munro speaks of "devastating" effects of Long COVID. wsws.org In her testimony to the Global Workers Inquest into the COVID-19 Pandemic, Kathleen bears witness to the devastating effects of Long COVID on her own health and livelihood, and that of her 13-year-old niece, Ellie, who caught COVID-19 on her first day at school last September.
(2022-02-19). News on China | No. 87. dissidentvoice.org How a COVID outbreak in Hong Kong is being managed; a shift in Germany's position toward China, as it classifies China as a "systemic rival"; a look at relationships in China; Red Star over China author Edgar Snow passed away 50 years ago.
(2022-02-19). The Maoist 'Exceptionalism' at the Heart of China's COVID Strategy. mronline.org 
Arguably the best known contemporary proponent of Chinese exceptionalism in the English-language is Martin Jacques, best known for his 2009 bestseller 'When China Rules the World', a tour-de-force in the repackaging of orientalist tropes for the 21st-century.
(2022-02-19). Australia Accuses Chinese Guided-Missile Destroyer of Aiming Laser at Its Surveillance Aircraft. sputniknews.com The incident comes amid strained ties between Australia and China over Prime Minister Scott Morrison demanding an international enquiry into the origins of COVID-19 and an ongoing trade war between the two nations. China, Australia's largest trading partner, is also unhappy about Canberra's membership of US-led alliances such as Quad and AUKUS.
(2022-02-19). Ecuador y Perú reabren paso fronterizo cerrado por la Covid-19. telesurtv.net La Cancillería ecuatoriana precisó que esta acción permitirá la recuperación y reactivación económica.
(2022-02-19). California's "endemic plan" sets the stage for unending COVID-19 infections and deaths. wsws.org The propaganda campaign is driven not by science, but by the demands of the corporations and financial elite. The aim is to fabricate a narrative that COVID-19 is harmless in order to maximize profits under the guise of a "return to normalcy."
(2022-02-19). The Truth About Ivermectin. dissidentvoice.org 
A very recent article on The Defender began: "A peer-reviewed study published last month found the prophylactic use of ivermectin reduced COVID mortality by 90 percent among more than 223,000 study participants in a town in Southern Brazil. The study, published in the Cureus Journal of Medical Science, also found a 44 percent reduction in COVID cases among those …
(2022-02-19). COVID-19 disaster intensifies across the Pacific. wsws.org COVID-19 numbers are escalating as Pacific island governments adopt the "living with the virus" policies put forward by capitalist elites globally.
(2022-02-19). [Comment] Offline: A lie at the heart of public health. thelancet.com The John Snow Society describes their illustrious namesake as "the pioneer of epidemiological method". His identification of the source of cholera in Soho, London, and the removal of the handle of a water pump in Broad Street in 1854 is celebrated annually with the Pumphandle Lecture. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine named a lecture theatre after Snow. Indeed, the epidemiology community has deified Snow as a founding father of public health. But, as Jim Downs argues in his searching reappraisal of the origins of epidemiology, Maladies of Empire, western epidemiologists have invented a comforting…
(2022-02-19). Mainland experts attend meeting on Hong Kong's epidemic prevention, control work. ecns.cn The mainland experts attended a meeting of the epidemiologists task force and received an in-depth introduction to the epidemiological investigations and analyses in Hong Kong.
(2022-02-19). [Correspondence] Steroid use in non-pneumococcal and non-Haemophilus bacterial meningitis — Authors' reply. thelancet.com We thank Dominic Heining and Aiden Plant for their comments on our Seminar,1 whereby they raised the question on whether adjunctive dexamethasone therapy should be continued for 4 days in patients with community-acquired bacterial meningitis caused by pathogens other than Streptococcus pneumoniae.
(2022-02-19). [Perspectives] Samuel K Roberts: illuminating history, racial bias, and public health. thelancet.com In 2009, Samuel Kelton Roberts, Jr's first book, Infectious Fear: Politics, Disease, and the Health Effects of Segregation, was published. "The book itself is about how racialism is baked into the kernel of modern public health practice here in the USA. Some of the most foundational moments in public health sit adjacent to or are ones that play a role in our history of race and racialisation. Even the way we collected data in the 19th and early 20th century was not just racially biased, but often racialised in their methods.
(2022-02-19). China Frustrated With Pakistan As Terrorism Threatens To Delay CPEC's Second Phase. southfront.org 
Click to see full-size imageTerrorism continues to plague Pakistan and its economy. | Written by Paul Antonopoulos, independent geopolitical analyst | Despite only one Pakistani athlete participating in the Beijing Winter Olympics 2022, Prime Minister Imran Khan, with an entourage of six ministers, arrived in the Chinese capital just as a series of terror attacks ripped through Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, key provinces in the $60+ billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Following Khan's meeting with Ch…
(2022-02-19). China highlights metaverse risks. rt.com 
The virtual space network is the primary target of scammers and fraudsters, regulator warns | The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission warned on Friday about the associated risks the emerging metaverse technology could bring as the virtual space fever sweeps the world. | The watchdog said in a statement published on its website that some companies were engaging in illegal fund-raising, fraud, and virtual real estate speculation. | "Beware of being duped, and if you find clues of suspected illegal crimes, please actively report this to the relevant local departments," it said. | The official warnin…
(2022-02-19). Deadly BA.2 subvariant of Omicron spreading in more than 74 countries. wsws.org As the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron accounts for a growing proportion of new cases globally, recent evidence points to its increased infectivity, higher virulence and greater immune-evading capacity.