Chomper Higgot

Your attempt to make this personal is noted but let’s stick with examining your claims against the available knowable facts regarding the definition of ‘African American’ and the process by which ‘ethnicity’ is assigned on US Birth Certificates. Perhaps your coworker wasn’t being entirely truthful with his yarn.

The term ‘African American’ is defined within the ethnic classifications applied by the US Census, refer link I provided above, it’s got nothing at all to do with ‘woke’.

I made no such claim. I provided the US Census definition of African American, which is the exact same definition applied in the allocation of ethnicity during the issuance of US birth certificates. If you are making claims or assertions that run contrary to those definitions it’s for you to justify those, not me.

Thailand’s Central Department Store Group has joined with an Austrian property investor to buy Selfridges for £4billion. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/24/selfridges-sold-as-part-of-4bn-deal

I’ve posted the evidence that exposes both these claims for what they are.

TT, reading your OP and posts in this thread it is clear you understand the major issues and are more than capable of self managing your investments. Certainly stay away from anyone offshore offering to help with your pension(s). The rest is quite straight forward though may require a lot of reading through online advice. The one issue you should absolutely take professional advice on is your will, UK solicitors will provide that service regardless of your residence provided the assets are based in the UK.

wrt to the question the OP asks, the answer may be found here: https://www.census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html But of course the OP didn’t simply ask a question for which the answer is easily found, he also added the following claim: “A white co-worker of mine had his child's birth certificate show baby is African American because the white mother was born in Africa. He told the story of the resistance of personnel to do so. He did it so when baby applied for college someday she could get the preference for being African American. “ Members reading that claim have two options, one of which is to believe it to be true. Anyone struggling to decide whether or not to believe the OP’s claim can review the US Standard Certificate of Live Birth to determine if it provides any means by which a parent can request to select what ethnicity is recorded for their child (Clue - it does not). The ethnicity of a child is determined during the process of issuing the birth certificate and only on the basis of the answers to parent ethnicity in the Live Birth Registration Form. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/birth11-03final-acc.pdf The nonsense claims made by the OP are blatantly transparent.

Your accusation of fear mongering has no basis. Yes, we got that.

Encouraging news of lower risk of hospitalization in UK data, tempered with the impact of higher infection rates: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/22/risk-of-hospital-stay-40-lower-with-omicron-than-delta-uk-data-suggests

Relying on Stalin to back up your arguments is a bit if a tell.

From the article you have linked: “It is obvious we are far from 95 per cent effectiveness that we obtained against the initial virus," Ugur Sahin told the French daily Le Monde in an interview published on Monday.” I don’t know about you but I took my Pfizer vaccination to guard against that initial virus, I suspect every expat in Thailand who had the Pfizer jab did likewise - 95% effectiveness CV confirms why that was a good decision. From the article you have linked: “The latest research from South Africa, where Omicron was first reported, suggested that two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine offered 70 per cent effectiveness in reducing the risk of hospitalisation.” Well I’m happy with that as a bonus given the shots I had already did their job with the virus for which I took them. From the article you have linked: “The German company is already designing a coronavirus vaccine adapted to the new variant, using Omicron’s spike protein and its 32 mutations as an antigen. Sahin announced this should be ready by March.” More good news. I’ll get the new vaccine when it’s made available. Thanks for posting your linked article.

There’s a big difference between possible and probable. What you think is ‘possible’ is not the basis for any rational arguments against the approved, safe and effective vaccines.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/covid-19-booster-vaccines-are-they-safe-and-effective and https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673621027173

I sincerely hope Omicron does not cause high numbers of hospitalizations, but there is currently insufficient data to say whether or not it does. What we do know is highly contagious and those infected are unable to work during their illness, this alone is cause for concern.

I hope you are correct on both points but observe the following: Your links all relate to SA and has as been discussed the data from that country may for numerous significant reasons not translate to the experiences of other nations. My common sense says get vaccinated, get a booster and the science based public health advice. Others have a completely different idea of what constitutes common sense in these matters.

The lethality of the variant is only part of the equation. How fast is it filling hospital beds and how does a person infected with Omicron know they don’t have delta (and therefore require to follow Delta protocols)? But yes if it’s killing fewer, that is very good news.

Pinned.

Here’s some truth, millions of people live with chronic underlying health conditions, many for years or decades. Here’s another truth, Doctors (who are trained in matters of health) determine the cause of death and sign the death certificates.

Right now the infection rate is rising rapidly, hospitalizations are following the curve.

It’s an opinion that is not supported by the article you linked, AKA an unsubstantiated opinion, ok.

Let’s see if you grasp this: COVID deaths and illnesses are in addition to all other causes of deaths and illness. The existence of these other causes has no bearing on the risks COVID presents.

The report does not say Omicron is not a variant of concern.

Nobody is arguing COVID is the only virus and I don’t recall anyone stating that upon getting a vaccine ‘everything will become nice’. People live with ‘underlying’ health conditions for years, decades even. COVID has killed people with no underlying health conditions. Including people who are not overweight, exercise regularly and follow a healthy diet. The current critical public health treat is COVID.

When a patient is admitted to hospital their medical record is marked with the cause of their admission. ie COVID infection requiring admission. If they are lucky or they get better, if they are unlucky they die (unvaccinated people are dramatically more likely to die). The causes of death are usually various forms of lung failure, heart failure, kidney failure, stroke, blood clots. The cause of death might be lung failure but the underlying cause is COVID. So someone does of lung failure, blood clot, stroke the cause of death is (cause with COVID). Not difficult to understand but far too easy, for some, to misrepresent.

You should start a thread on the causes of obesity.