TallGuyJohninBKK

... A new study being presented at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting in Anaheim, Calif. determined that both a low- and high-dose saline regimen appeared to be associated with lower hospitalization rates compared to controls in SARS-CoV-2 infections. ... "The low- and high-saline solutions consisted of 2.13 grams and 6 grams of salt dissolved in 8 ounces of warm water, respectively. Gargling and nasal rinsing was done four times a day for 14 days. ... During the study period, 9,398 individuals with positive SARS-CoV-2 infection were evaluated and were the reference population. The hospitalization rates in the low- (18.5%) and high- (21.4%) saline regimens were significantly lower than in the reference population (58.8%.) (more) https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-11-gargling-salt-covid-hospitalization.html

I'm not a scientist, and I certainly don't know what did or didn't go on in China with the research there, or the pertinent federal rules involved... But one thing I do know is, even in recent months, there doesn't seem to be much credible, public evidence of meaningful wrongdoing on the so-called "gain of function" front involving Fauci. For example: --The Office of the Inspector General for the federal Department of Health and Human Services issued its report in January, finding there were problems with the federal oversight of the grant in question, but making absolutely no findings or statements about whether any prohibited "gain of function" research involving viruses has occurred. Federal watchdog finds problems with NIH oversight of grant funding bat virus research in China 25 Jan 2023 ... "the audit refrains from commenting on whether the results of the WIV hybrid virus experiments constituted “enhanced growth” that should have potentially triggered the special HHS review. OIG “did not assess scientific results for any of the experiments or make any determination regarding the accuracy of NIH’s or EcoHealth’s interpretations of … research results,” the report says." https://www.science.org/content/article/federal-watchdog-finds-problems-nih-oversight-grant-funding-bat-virus-research-china And then more recently in July, the HHS barred federal funding for the Wuhan lab for non-compliance with federal rules involving failures to produce requested documents. And once again, nothing to substantiate Paul's claims involving Fauci and gain of function research. US suspends federal funding to Wuhan lab over non-compliance July 20, 2023 ... "U.S. Republicans released a report in 2021 citing "ample evidence" that WIV scientists were working to modify coronaviruses to infect humans and such manipulation could be hidden. In June 2023, U.S. intelligence agencies found no direct evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic stemmed from an incident at the WIV." https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-suspends-federal-funding-wuhan-lab-over-non-compliance-2023-07-19/ And Paul's notion of trying to get the federal Department of Justice and/or the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia to investigate and prosecute Fauci for supposed perjury likewise seems to have drawn crickets..... Lastly, do a Google search for "Fauci" and "gain of function" for say the past year, and look for any reporting from any major U.S. news media outlet confirming Paul's claims, and you'll find nothing except right-wing partisan stuff. Nothing that I could find in recent times from Associated Press, Reuters, Bloomberg, the major television new networks (except for the widely discredited Fox News), or any of the major U.S. newspapers like NYT, WAPO, USAToday, etc etc... If Paul really has some kind of legitimate "bombshell," it's got to be the most ignored and unreported bombshell around. (Queue the resident conspiracy theorists...)

In public health circles, it's referred to as the seasonal "tripledemic" -- the confluence of COVID, seasonal flu, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections: US CDC expects 'tripledemic' hospitalizations to remain high this year vs pre-pandemic levels "Sept 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Thursday it expects the total number of hospitalizations from COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus infections and flu this year to be similar to last year, higher than pre-pandemic levels. The government health agency also said it expects flu and RSV infections to increase over the fall and winter seasons. ... A surge in cases of RSV infections coinciding with an increase in COVID transmission and an earlier-than-normal flu season has raised the specter of a so-called 'tripledemic' of respiratory illness across the United States." https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-cdc-expects-tripledemic-hospitalizations-remain-high-this-year-vs-pre-2023-09-14/ Hence the reason some hospitals are upping their face masking policies.

And what Fauci has said in reply:

This topic in the OP also wouldn't be the first time Rand Paul has gone down the false / unproven "bombshell" road on these matters, for example: No ‘Bombshell’ On COVID-19 Origins June 29, 2023 ... "...on June 13, a Substack post, citing anonymous government sources, claimed to know with “100%” certainty the identity of three [COVID] “patients zero” who manipulated viruses in the lab. ... In a June 18 interview on Fox News, clips of which were shared on Facebook, Republican Sen. Rand Paul repeated the supposed findings of the Substack post, calling them a “big deal.” ... Paul ... then suggested the information might be confirmed the next day, when the Director of National Intelligence was expected to release additional declassified information.... But in its report, which arrived belatedly on June 23, the U.S. Intelligence Community, or IC, does not substantiate any of these details." https://www.factcheck.org/2023/06/scicheck-no-bombshell-on-covid-19-origins-u-s-intelligence-rebuts-claims-about-sick-lab-workers/ Ooooppsss.... No "bombshell" there! :-) Rand Paul, Fox News and Substack... What a trio!

I believe, in the UK cases discussed above, the onset of blood clots -- when that actually occurred -- was relatively soon after vaccination, from days to a few weeks, and occurred more often after the first shot. "The clots that are linked to this vaccine have very specific characteristics: They occur in less common areas of the body, like the abdomen or brain. People affected also have low platelet levels." https://www.healthline.com/health/adult-vaccines/astrazeneca-vaccine "The cases typically occur within weeks of vaccination." https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/20/health/doctor-death-astrazeneca-covid-vaccine.html The UK man discussed in the OP article here fell ill about 10 days after his first shot.

Indeed. The article says he was age 44 back in 2021... Unvaccinated people that age back in that period of time got no free pass from COVID disease/illness.

The following isn't limited just to the AZ vaccine, but is referring to the impact of COVID vaccines in general in England: "Work by the UK Health Security Agency and the University of Cambridge Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit suggests that roughly 127,500 deaths were prevented by the Covid vaccination programme in England, up to 24 September 2021. Every death is a terrible event for the people involved, but the number caused by the Covid vaccines is much smaller in comparison." ... Overall, the vaccines have therefore saved vastly more lives than they have cost." https://fullfact.org/health/covid-vaccines-saved-many-lives/

Nov. 8, 2023 "Most San Francisco Bay Area counties are reinstituting mask requirements among workers in healthcare settings, timed to coincide with the arrival of the annual respiratory illness season and an expected late-year resurgence of COVID-19. ... Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Sonoma and Napa counties have issued health orders requiring employees in patient care areas to wear masks through the winter respiratory viral season — defined as Nov. 1 through April 30. Santa Cruz County, just to the south, has issued a similar order. Santa Clara and Marin counties have gone a step further, requiring both healthcare workers and patients to wear masks during a shorter designated period: Nov. 1 through March 31." https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-11-08/bay-area-reinstates-mask-requirements-in-healthcare-settings-will-l-a-follow

There's a certain irony here also, given that for years, many of the most vocal anti-vaxers have been railing against the supposedly unproven mRNA vaccines, and often saying if they had to be vaccinated at all, they'd instead choose the older, more traditional vaccine formulation like that used in the UK-developed AZ vaccine. No mRNA vaccines for them. Well, as it turned out, the more traditional vaccine method used in the UK AZ vaccine and a similar type used in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in the U.S. (AZ was never approved for use in the U.S.) ended up having far more (though still rare) serious side effects than either the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccines have had. Right now in the U.S. and the UK, the Pfizer and the Moderna mRNA COVID vaccines are the ones still being mainly used three years later. And the AZ vaccine in the U.K. and the J&J vaccine in the U.S. basically have been discontinued because of their rare side effect issues and that other, safer alternatives (mRNA) are available. J&J Covid-19 vaccine no longer available in the US May 15, 2023 "Last year, the CDC limited the emergency use authorization of the vaccine to adults for whom other vaccines aren’t appropriate or accessible due to risk of a rare and dangerous clotting condition called thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) after receiving the vaccine. Only about 7% of people who are vaccinated in the US got the J&J vaccine as their first shot." https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/15/health/johnson-johnson-covid-vaccine-end/index.html AND No plans for UK to order more supplies of AstraZeneca Covid vaccine JCVI says mRNA vaccines such as the Pfizer and Moderna jabs are the most effective for UK booster programme 16 Aug 2022 "Deemed a British success story, and estimated to have saved millions of lives worldwide, the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid jab played a key role early in the UK’s vaccination programme. But Prof Anthony Harnden, the deputy chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), has suggested it is unlikely to be used in the future. ... He said an abundance of caution over the issue of blood clots in younger people was one reason the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab was not deemed suitable for the booster programme, along with public perception of the vaccine." https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/aug/16/no-plans-for-uk-to-order-more-supplies-of-astrazeneca-covid-vaccine

Injuries and some deaths from very rare blood clotting were recognized several years ago as a very rare side effect of the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine shortly after its rollout in the United Kingdom, which led to its use in the UK first being restricted and later being removed entirely. But the issue needs to be considered in context, given that the use of the AZ vaccine ended up saving far more lives from COVID than the very rare instances of serious vaccine side effects. How rare? A UK government report says at least 20 million doses of the AZ vaccine were given in the UK up thru spring 2021, when it first became restricted. In the years since then, according to a NY Times report earlier this year, there have been perhaps 200 cases of AZ vaccine blood clotting reported and perhaps 40 related deaths in the UK... That would work out to about 1 related death per 500,000 doses of the vaccine. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/20/health/doctor-death-astrazeneca-covid-vaccine.html https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/oxford-astrazeneca-vaccine-where-are-we-now/ During the period of the pandemic, meanwhile, the UK has recorded more than 232,000 deaths due to COVID. And in fact, many experts maintain the risks of getting blood clots from COVID disease far outweigh the risks associated with the AZ vaccine. "The researchers estimate that for every 10 million people who are vaccinated with AstraZeneca, there are 66 extra cases of blood clots in the veins and seven extra cases of a rare type of blood clot in the brain. Infection with Covid-19 is estimated to cause 12,614 extra cases of blood clots in the veins and 20 cases of rare blood clots in the brain. This research is more evidence that the benefits of the vaccine far outweigh the risks for most people." https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/news/coronavirus-and-your-health/astrazeneca-covid-vaccine AND "Over 20 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have been given in the United Kingdom. The risk of a serious blood clot is about 1 in 250,000 people or 4 in 1 million. COVID-19 carries a much higher risk of blood clots: 7.8 percent of people who have had COVID-19 also had a pulmonary embolism, and 11.2 percent experience deep vein thrombosis." https://www.healthline.com/health/adult-vaccines/astrazeneca-vaccine#how-it-works AND "Independent studies have shown AstraZeneca's vaccine was highly effective in tackling the pandemic, and saved up to six million lives globally in the first year of its rollout alone." https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1832962/Oxford-AstraZeneca-covid-vaccine-legal-efficiency All of the above said, for those AZ vaccine recipients who suffered legitimate vaccine related injuries, they (or the families of those who died) certainly deserve to be fairly compensated by the UK government.

Dr. Anthony Fauci Would Like to Set the Record Straight Mar 21, 2023 "...Wuhan Institute of Virology.” But a cache of NIH documents published by The Intercept revealed that it was involved in “gain-of-function research of concern,” or making viruses more transmissible to study their patterns." Fauci: "The bat viruses that were studied have never been shown to infect humans, so by definition, for goodness’ sakes, it doesn’t fit into the definition of gain-of-function! That’s the reason why I said, when asked if we were funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan, if you look at the design of the experiments, it did not fit into the P3CO guidelines..." "So, people who keep saying that are not looking at what the experiments were nor were they looking at what the current definition was of gain-of-function." https://www.unmc.edu/healthsecurity/transmission/2023/03/21/dr-anthony-fauci-would-like-to-set-the-record-straight/

Stand corrected! Thanks!

Maybe the good senator needs do a bit better job in keeping up with the news, in his quest to have Fauci "taken down", since Fauci already left his federal job at the end of 2022: Dr. Fauci on retiring "Dr. Anthony Fauci sits down with his wife, Dr. Christine Grady, to discuss retiring from his positions as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical advisor to the president." https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/dr-fauci-retiring-mdpzhj/26661/ Fauci Bids NIH Farewell After Half Century of Service January 20, 2023 "How do you thank someone who has devoted more than 54 years to pursuing medical science, combating infectious disease and promoting public health—particularly when the honoree has declined all bells, whistles and elaborate celebrations of any kind? That was NIH’s challenge on Dec. 16, when an extremely modest assembly gathered in Wilson Hall—one of the campus’s smallest venues—to pay tribute to an agency icon." https://nihrecord.nih.gov/2023/01/20/fauci-bids-nih-farewell-after-half-century-service

And, the Paul family's credibility on such matters isn't so great: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/list/?category=&ruling=false&speaker=ron-paul

Re Rand Paul's claims: Fauci and Paul, Round 2 Updated on August 19, 2021 "There’s no evidence that Fauci lied to Congress, as Paul asserted in the July 20 hearing, given that the NIH unequivocally backs up Fauci’s statement that the grant-backed research “was judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not being gain-of-function.” AND "The NIH, EcoHealth Alliance and the lead researcher in Wuhan all say the experiments weren’t gain-of-function — a type of research the U.S. government generally defined in 2014 as aiming to “increase the ability of infectious agents to cause disease by enhancing its pathogenicity or by increasing its transmissibility.” https://www.factcheck.org/2021/07/scicheck-fauci-and-paul-round-2/

You'll know that the ATM is asking you to agree to DCC (which you always can and should decline) when the screen offers/shows you the withdrawal amount in your home country currency... JUST SAY NO! And opt for regular old Thai baht.

And then there's these kinds of complications, particularly in some segments of the Thai plastic surgery industry: "A campaigning Thai lawyer, on Tuesday, shone a light on the dark recesses of cheap and dangerous plastic surgery in Bangkok, known to be a world-beating centre for cosmetic procedures at low prices but which, in the last decade, has faced disturbing questions about the regulation of smaller clinics where several fatal cases have been reported in respect of relatively minor procedures. The case in question is one of a doctor previously jailed for the death of a patient who has reopened up and is the subject of harrowing and substantiated claims from two Thai women who brought their story before reporters on Tuesday."

False claims recirculate on harmful DNA in Covid-19 vaccines 04 October 2023 "Scientists have repeatedly refuted the claim that Covid-19 vaccines can alter a person's genome, but social media posts suggest DNA contamination in the injections could lead to harmful effects such as cancer. This is false; there is no evidence of significant amounts of genetic material in the shots -- and even if there were, experts say they could not alter cells." https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.33WW3U6

Nov. 9, 2023 "Judges on a federal appeals court panel wrestled with whether management at a Texas pharmacy created a hostile work environment by berating and insulting a worker with asthma who asked to wear a mask to protect against Covid-19. ... The dispute centers on a recorded exchange at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 between pharmacy technician trainee David Calzada, who had asked for and been denied permission to wear a mask, and two managers. One supervisor repeatedly threatened to fire Calzada, calling him a “disrespectful, stupid little kid” and saying he was acting in a way that gets kids “locked in their rooms for a while or even spanked.” https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/nature-of-covid-mask-request-response-is-focus-of-court-debate Texas... yeesh! As the article recounts, the case is being brought by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. And the article noted that the agency is seeking to revive its disability discrimination lawsuit against the pharmacy company after it prevailed in the lower court. At issue is whether a single incident, such as the one above that led to the subject employee quitting, as opposed to a pattern of discriminating behavior, can trigger a valid finding of having created a hostile work environment.

Artificial intelligence can forecast the behavior of viruses and quickly make vaccines to thwart them. "COVID was the first global, society-altering pandemic in more than a century. It disrupted economies, reshaped politics, changed behaviors, and claimed around seven million lives. But now, artificial intelligence (AI) breakthroughs are raising hopes that humanity may never be brought to its knees by an infectious disease ever again. ... To showcase EVEscape’s potential, scientists provided it with the original genome sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which was available months before the pathogen officially launched the COVID pandemic. Lo and behold, EVEscape predicted nearly all the mutations that would come to dominate during the pandemic, including many of the variants that became household names (Omicron, Beta, etc.)." ... As EVEscape stands guard watching for future pandemics, AI is also increasingly being utilized to drastically speed up the vaccine discovery process." https://bigthink.com/health/harvard-ai-model-covid-last-pandemic/

I think the part that a fair-minded opening post would/should have included were the details about "anonymous" and "voluntary." But somehow, those details managed to be ignored.

A Google or Bing web search would be your friend on this... Reuters, CNN, The Hill, ABC, CBS, News Nation, Becker's Hospital Review, and more.

What has it got to do with health? Try reading the CDC's own announcement as linked above: "TGS has proven to be a nimble and scalable resource for public health officials in the United States–quickly adapting to a changing pandemic in real time and addressing gaps in global surveillance; especially, when testing and sequencing information are limited. For example, TGS provided early detection of the SARS-CoV-2 variant BA.2.86 entering the United States within days of its global identification. As the infected traveler had originated travel in Japan, this finding also informed the public health community that the new variant had also spread to Asia."

That applies only to direct quoting, and not to the summarizing of details in your own words, which you liberally did above, and often do, choosing what to include and what to omit. Also, worth noting, I'm not sure how the CDC, in Red Phoenix's conspiratorial tones, "quietly" released a statement on this, considering that they issued a public news release on the program and posted it to their website, leading to dozens of news reports on the topic in the past few days. That's hardly "quiet."