Chief Stipe

The epidemic of the vaccinated ByNeville Hodgkinson - January 10, 2022 AT FIRST I thought it might be a watershed moment. Steve James, a consultant anaesthetist treating Covid patients since the start of the pandemic, coolly challenged Sajid Javid last week over compulsory Covid jabs for NHS staff. ‘I’m not happy about that’, James said in a widely viewed video of the encounter reported by TCW yesterday. ‘I had Covid at some point, I’ve got antibodies . . . the vaccines are reducing transmission only for about eight weeks for Delta, with Omicron it’s probably less. And for that, I would be dismissed if I don’t have a vaccine? The science isn’t strong enough . . . If you want to provide protection with a booster, you’d have to inject everybody every month. It’s not going to achieve a practical benefit.’ The Health Secretary, clearly discomfited, said he respected Dr James’s views but insisted the government takes the ‘very best advice’ from vaccine experts. Sky News showed the video, but just in case we might get rebellious ideas, they offered a link to an earlier interview – first shown on December 22 – headlined ‘Doctor dismantles typical vaccine hesitancy arguments’. And King’s College Hospital in south London, where the encounter took place, issued a pusillanimous statement distancing themselves from the consultant’s remarks. Thus, the drive to inflict on everyone this experimental gene product, which persuades our bodies to produce millions of copies of a toxic blood-clotting protein, and which has broken all records for adverse event reports including thousands of deaths and injuries, continues. It is deeply depressing. All the more so given that the latest UK data show the jab’s effectiveness to be plummeting across all age groups, and even to have become negative in most recipients in the month to January 2 this year. The only group in which it remained positive were those aged 18 and under, and even in them there was a sharp drop. ‘Negative effectiveness’, as the analyst Dr Will Jones explains, means the vaccinated are becoming infected at higher rates than the unvaccinated. A vaccine effectiveness of minus 100 per cent means the vaccinated are twice as likely to be infected as the unjabbed. ‘Booster’ doses brought temporary improvement in infection rates but those are now almost completely cancelled out by the arrival and rapid spread of the Omicron variant. The same phenomenon is being seen across several highly vaccinated countries, as this report by science writer Alex Berenson shows. So, contrary to what ministers such as Javid are being told by their advisers, some of whom are compromised by their Big Pharma links, this is rapidly becoming an epidemic of the vaccinated. Independent scientists have long predicted such an outcome, pointing out that as the vaccine is very specific in the antibodies it stimulates, it prepares the immune system to respond to just one feature of the genetically-engineered Covid virus. Mass vaccination, as opposed to targeted protection of vulnerable people, drives the virus into producing variants which readily by-pass the immunity produced. This is why the vaccinated are so vulnerable to Omicron, a variant with very high transmissibility. However, people exposed to the naturally circulating virus – especially chronically exposed NHS staff such as Steve James – are more likely to mount a full and lasting defence against all its key components, and therefore to be more resistant to variants such as Omicron. Javid seemed from his comments to be unaware of this fact. Also, as described here when Omicron appeared, scientists were able to show from the start that it had mutated in ways that gave it less chance of causing serious illness in humans. That was why Dr Angelique Coetzee, the South African doctor who identified it, agreed that far from being a cause for renewed panic, exposure to the variant with its much milder symptoms could help build natural immunity across the population. Asked by Nigel Farage on GB News if the British were over-reacting, she said: ‘It doesn’t matter how many times we are saying it’s a mild disease, some people or some scientists don’t really want to believe us.’ We can thank our lucky stars that the Prime Minister overruled his advisers on that one, saving Christmas. Summarising, Alex Berenson says: ‘All we really know is that the vaccines don’t prevent infection for very long and for many healthy people have side effects that are significantly worse than coronavirus infection. Both those facts were true before Omicron. Both are doubly true now.’ I keep being reminded of a poem learned in my schooldays, which went: ‘Twould ring the bells of Heaven The wildest peal for years, If Parson lost his senses And people came to theirs For ‘Parson’, substitute ‘Sage and the mass media who so blindly and uncritically pass on their doctrines’, and you’ll get my meaning.

Omicron Makes Biden’s Vaccine Mandates Obsolete There is no evidence so far that vaccines are reducing infections from the fast-spreading variant. By Luc Montagnier and Jed Rubenfeld Jan. 9, 2022 5:20 pm ET SAVE PRINT TEXT 2,120 ILLUSTRATION: DAVID GOTHARD Federal courts considering the Biden administration’s vaccination mandates—including the Supreme Court at Friday’s oral argument—have focused on administrative-law issues. The decrees raise constitutional issues as well. But there’s a simpler reason the justices should stay these mandates: the rise of the Omicron variant. It would be irrational, legally indefensible and contrary to the public interest for government to mandate vaccines absent any evidence that the vaccines are effective in stopping the spread of the pathogen they target. Yet that’s exactly what’s happening here. OPINION: POTOMAC WATCH The Supreme Court Hears Vaccine Mandate Arguments 00:00 1x SUBSCRIBE Both mandates—from the Health and Human Services Department for healthcare workers and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for large employers in many other industries—were issued Nov. 5. At that time, the Delta variant represented almost all U.S. Covid-19 cases, and both agencies appropriately considered Delta at length and in detail, finding that the vaccines remained effective against it. Those findings are now obsolete. As of Jan. 1, Omicron represented more than 95% of U.S. Covid cases, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Because some of Omicron’s 50 mutations are known to evade antibody protection, because more than 30 of those mutations are to the spike protein used as an immunogen by the existing vaccines, and because there have been mass Omicron outbreaks in heavily vaccinated populations, scientists are highly uncertain the existing vaccines can stop it from spreading. As the CDC put it on Dec. 20, “we don’t yet know . . . how well available vaccines and medications work against it.” The Supreme Court held in Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905) that the right to refuse medical treatment could be overcome when society needs to curb the spread of a contagious epidemic. At Friday’s oral argument, all the justices acknowledged that the federal mandates rest on this rationale. But mandating a vaccine to stop the spread of a disease requires evidence that the vaccines will prevent infection or transmission (rather than efficacy against severe outcomes like hospitalization or death). As the World Health Organization puts it, “if mandatory vaccination is considered necessary to interrupt transmission chains and prevent harm to others, there should be sufficient evidence that the vaccine is efficacious in preventing serious infection and/or transmission.” For Omicron, there is as yet no such evidence. The little data we have suggest the opposite. One preprint study found that after 30 days the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines no longer had any statistically significant positive effect against Omicron infection, and after 90 days, their effect went negative—i.e., vaccinated people were more susceptible to Omicron infection. Confirming this negative efficacy finding, data from Denmark and the Canadian province of Ontario indicate that vaccinated people have higher rates of Omicron infection than unvaccinated people. Meantime, it has long been known that vaccinated people with breakthrough infections are highly contagious, and preliminary data from all over the world indicate that this is true of Omicron as well. As CDC Director Rochelle Walensky put it last summer, the viral load in the noses and throats of vaccinated people infected with Delta is “indistinguishable” from that of unvaccinated people, and “what [the vaccines] can’t do anymore is prevent transmission.” There is some early evidence that boosters may reduce Omicron infections, but the effect appears to wane quickly, and we don’t know if repeated boosters would be an effective response to the surge of Omicron. That depends among other things on the severity of disease Omicron causes, another great unknown. According to the CDC, the overwhelming majority of symptomatic U.S. Omicron cases have been mild. The best policy might be to let Omicron run its course while protecting the most vulnerable, naturally immunizing the vast majority against Covid through infection by a relatively benign strain. As Sir Andrew Pollard, head of the U.K.’s Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said in a recent interview, “We can’t vaccinate the planet every four or six months. It’s not sustainable or affordable.” In any event, the vaccine mandates before the court don’t require boosters. They define “fully vaccinated” as two doses of Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech or one dose of Johnson & Johnson. Even if boosters would help, the mandates would leave tens or hundreds of thousands of unboosted employees on the job, who have zero or negative protection against Omicron infection, and who would be highly contagious if they become infected. In other words, there is no scientific basis for believing these mandates will curb the spread of the disease. Omicron was mentioned sparsely at Friday’s oral argument, but the justices—particularly those most favorable to the mandates—appeared to labor under drastically false assumptions. Justice Stephen Breyer suggested that if mandatory vaccination went forward, that would prevent all new Covid infections—750,000 new cases every day, he said. This is wildly false. So is Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s assertion that “we have over 100,000 children . . . in serious condition, many on ventilators.” According to Health and Human Services Department data, there are currently fewer than 3,500 confirmed pediatric Covid hospitalizations, and that includes patients who tested positive and were hospitalized for other reasons. It is axiomatic in U.S. law that courts don’t uphold agency directives when the agency has entirely failed to consider facts crucial to the problem. In many contexts courts send regulations back to the agency for reconsideration in light of dramatically changed circumstances. If the agency’s action “is not sustainable on the record itself, the proper judicial approach has been to vacate the action and to remand the matter back to the agency for further consideration,” as the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia put it. Neither HHS nor OSHA ever considered Omicron or said a word about vaccine efficacy against it, for the simple reason that it hadn’t yet been discovered. In these circumstances, longstanding legal principles require the justices to stay the mandates and send them back to the agencies for a fresh look. Dr. Montagnier was a winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the human immunodeficiency virus. Mr. Rubenfeld is a constitutional scholar. WSJ Opinion: Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Two Covid Mandates YOU MAY ALSO LIKE UP NEXT 0:00 / 5:55 0:00 WSJ Opinion: Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Two Covid Mandates

Well that's all easily fixed - just change what is in the fridge for Curious and his missus. Oh except the aircon.....did you watch the races inside? As for the queues well my fix would that would be to have a few mobile hostesses showing all the old stale males how to use their smart phones. BTW did many miss out on getting their bet on? Perhaps a Bookie and a bag man would have helped!

Not sure I agree with the "far too early" comment. Made it impossible for anything to come from behind her. As for his other rides on Levante she didn't help herself much by getting back too far early. A classic example of that is Entriviere today. Have no idea why they decided to ride who back today. Levante is starting better this season.

1:06.18 for 1200m. 1385843228_Race8JRNBERKETTTELEGRAPHatWELLINGTONRCon15JAN2022LOVERACINGNZ.mp4

Um who forgot to connect the power cable to the outside gates?

Geez....didn't realise they had run a World Record in the Telegraph!! 1:06.18.

On another tack.....just comparing the camera angles from Rosehill with Trentham. The camera at Rosehill is obviously placed really high but the Trentham one is lower down. In my opinion the view at Rosehill is better you get to see the gaps that horses can or do run through whereas Trentham is more side on and you get no idea if a horse has a clear run or not.

Too small. If you were going to sell Trentham you'd put Awapuni on the market as well and can the AWT. But all that aside I think horse training in the CD is terminal and you can't sustain racing without a good pool of horses trained locally.

Is it an earthquake risk? Or weren't there enough mirrors in the bathroom?

No point unless it provides another source of revenue. In that regard Trentham cannot compete with Central Wellington. Need to invest in renovating the track. The members stand is more than sufficient to cater for the crowds they get now.

Which meeting will win today's wagering turnover race? Wingatui or Trentham? Going on the comments on BOAY in recent days it would have to be Wingatui by 6 lengths!

Cameron George you can't do both the Warrior's and the NZTR jobs. Resign from one or end your career in ignominy. Peter V’landys you are definitely NOT. I suggest you hang up the cartel suit and stick to wearing the Rugby League jersey. Costs are out of control at NZTR, the number of employees are increasing at rate the industry can't afford and you have an IT Project out of control.

Some could do it with colour as well. How they could be accurate and paint a picture I could never fathom. Jack O'Donnell was a classic especially with Harness - "they're a grand sight in sunshine as they race down the back straight.....as they straighten up for the run home Jack Smolenski gives the dust sheet a tap or two and his charge is out by a length or two...." Keith Haub the same when he wasn't distracted by his horse or his bet!

I meant wake up in the morning as in a sudden closure of NZ racing. Arguably that nearly occurred in 2020 when the Creditors were knocking and before Winston bailed the industry out.

WRC used to subsidise travel for those attending from afar. Don't they do that anymore?

Then we all agree that the current system in NZ is FUCKED. I guess we all agree that recent changes are still more of the same. It is clearly evident that there is still a great deal of passion and support for the industry in NZ. I believe that the biggest impediment to change is that stakeholders are not willing to collaborate and work together on their common interests. The industry is at a point where it is all about self-interest. Be it the small time owner and or trainer that just wants to focus on trying to get a win with their horse or the big time owner and or trainer buying the best and wanting to get more of the top end cake. End result - you're all getting fucked over. One day you'll wake up and it will be gone. Greyhounds will be gone before the next election, Harness is sleep walking to oblivion and Thoroughbreds are smugly thinking that they will benefit from the other codes demise.

I don't buy the "we tried that in 1984" argument. A good idea and the right idea needs to keep being pushed - their time comes eventually. If it isn't then all stakeholders abdicate any right to criticise.

Charming (not) but a poor attempt at humour. Getting back to the issues confronting the industry - what are you suggestions to fix the issues? Or is that beyond you? What would YOU do to fix the programming issues? Seems it has been established in the discussion so far that the Programming Committees have no influence nor do the leading trainers that are on them. Not that I believe that.

Really? You are splitting hairs or rather splitting the training partnership? So it is "basically a rubber stamping exercise" - the why bother with the committees or being on them if you have no influence over the programming mess? So Tim Mills is the problem even though he isn't on the committee? FFS.

So what are the key metrics that relate to high punter turnover? If Ellerslie had raced on Saturday and Kumara on Sunday would the outcome have been different?

Hard to lift your energy when you have to commentate endless poor quality races. Damn sight easier if you are in Sydney, Melbourne or even Brisbane.

Not so sure - potentially looks good for the K1 but I would say the NZ domestic market is considerably weaker than the OZ market. If I had a K2 yearling that was a good type and knocking on the door of K1 breeding wise I'd be rolling the dice and trying my luck with an Ozzie sale.

Super sale still holding up. 94% clearance rate!!! Heading towards a quarter of a billion dollars in gross sales.

So all Jockey's don't ride trackwork and all trackwork riders are not Jockey's? Jockey's don't start out riding trackwork?