COVID-19

Let's fact check what the anti-vaxxers are saying about life insurance.

Fact check: COVID-19 vaccine won't jeopardize your life insurance coverage
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...eopardize-life-insurance-coverage/5203188001/

The claim: Insurance companies deny life insurance payouts after people received COVID-19 vaccine
More than 163 million people in the USA have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine as of May 23, and that doesn’t jeopardize their life insurance policies.

Claims that life insurance companies deny life insurance coverage to people who received a vaccine popped up again in May, two months after an industry trade group sought toquash similar rumors that circulated on social media.

An Instagram post that generated more than 1,200 likes as of May 23 claims that a “friends aunt” died and "was denied her life insurance because ... she willingly took an EXPERIMENTAL vaccine.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the COVID-19 vaccines authorized for emergency use are safe and effective.

About 54% of Americans are covered under a life insurance policy, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Applications ticked up during the pandemic, mostly among younger people, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The account that shared the post declined to provide USA TODAY with additional details, including the name and contact information for the person who it said was denied or the insurance company responsible for the denial.

Industry groups, state regulators and individual insurers have said vaccine is not a factor in life insurance.

Insurance industry dispels vaccine myth
The insurance industry and regulators have pushed back against misinformation surrounding life insurance coverage and claims about payouts related to people who get COVID-19 vaccines.

In March, the American Council of Life Insurers responded to a social media post that said payouts were denied to beneficiaries when the insured received a vaccine.

“Life insurance policy contracts are very clear on how policies work, and what cause, if any, might lead to the denial of a benefit,” said Paul Graham, the organization’s senior vice president, in a statement March 12.

Whether someone received COVID-19 vaccine is not a consideration for life insurers deciding whether to pay a claim, he said.

“The COVID vaccine does not impact life insurance costs for coverage already in place," Jan Graeber, ACLI's senior health actuary, told USA TODAY. "For new coverage, and not just related to COVID, companies consider health factors as information is available and in accordance with regulations that govern the industry. As experience with COVID grows, there may be near-term impacts to consider, including with the vaccine and new virus strains and consumer behavior to mitigate risk. There may also be long-term impacts to consider as more information is gathered about COVID."

A Canadian trade group also responded in March to misinformation about the effect of a COVID-19 vaccine on life insurance.

States, where insurance companies are regulated, issued similar statements calming fears about coverage and payment denials.

Regulators in Maryland, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Washington state all said the same thing: Whether someone is vaccinated against COVID-19 is irrelevant to whether a life insurance claim would be paid. Industry groups in those states joined regulators in their statements.

“Pennsylvanians should be wary of social media posts and conversations claiming the vaccine will prevent them from obtaining life insurance policies or adversely impact their life insurance benefits; this is simply not true,” Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Jessica Altman said in a statement March 25.

Some individual life insurers said COVID-19 vaccine is not a factor in decisions about coverage or payment.

John Hancock’s application for life insurance doesn’t ask whether an individual has been vaccinated against COVID-19, the company posted March 15 on its website, and vaccination would not be factored into “the risk classification process.” Prudential’s website says COVID-19 vaccine does not affect eligibility determination in paying claims.

"We do not ask about immunizations (for any virus/disease) through the application process and have no plans to ask about the COVID-19 vaccine," according to Lincoln Financial Group's website. "Therefore, the COVID-19 vaccine is not a factor in the underwriting process."

Our rating: False
Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that life insurance companies deny policy payouts because insured people received a COVID-19 vaccine. The American Council of Life Insurers, individual insurance companies and regulators in several states released statements saying COVID-19 vaccine is not a factor in determining whether an insurer will pay out on a life insurance policy.

Our fact check sources:

• The Associated Press, March 15, Getting COVID-19 vaccine does not affect life insurance death payments
• American Council of Life Insurers, March 12, AMERICAN COUNCIL OF LIFE INSURERS (ACLI) RESPONDS TO SOCIAL MEDIA MISINFORMATION ABOUT COVID-19 VACCINE
• Money.com, April 8, True or False: You Can Be Denied Life Insurance if You Haven't Gotten a COVID-19 Vaccine
• The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 1, Covid-19 Pandemic Motivates Younger People to Buy Life Insurance
• Maryland Insurance Administration, March 30, Consumer Alert – Receiving a COVID-19 vaccination does not imperil life insurance benefits
• John Hancock, March 15, John Hancock Underwriting and COVID-19
• New York Department of Financial Services, accessed May 23, Life Insurance and the COVID-19 Vaccine
• Lincoln Financial Group, accessed May 23, Applying for and managing your policy during the COVID-19 pandemic
• Texas Department of Insurance, March 17, COVID-19 vaccinations don’t affect life insurance benefits
• Prudential, accessed May 23, COVID-19 FAQ
• Pennsylvania, March 25, Insurance Department, Insurance Industry Reassure Pennsylvanians COVID-19 Vaccine Does Not Impact Life Insurance
• FT Adviser, May 5, Warning issued over scam claiming Covid vaccine voids insurance
• Reuters, March 19, Fact Check-Canadian company is not changing life insurance policies to negatively affect those who get vaccinated against COVID-19
• Manulife, accessed May 23, The truth about COVID-19 vaccination and insurance coverage
• National Association of Insurance Commissioners, accessed May 23, State Insurance Regulation
• Britannica.com, May 11, The Top COVID-19 Vaccine Myths Spreading Online
• Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association, March 8, Know the facts: Getting the vaccine will not affect your insurance coverage
• Insurance Information Institute, accessed May 23, Facts + Statistics: Life insurance
• Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner, March 18, Kreidler sets record straight on vaccines and life insurance
• Wisconsin Office of the Commissioner of Insurance, March 15, Wisconsin Insurance Commissioner Confirms Getting Vaccinated Will Not Impact Life Insurance Policies
• Pennsylvania Insurance Department, March 25, Insurance Department, Insurance Industry Reassure Pennsylvanians COVID-19 Vaccine Does Not Impact Life Insurance
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, accessed May 23, COVID-19 Vaccinations in the United States
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, May 11, Safety of COVID-19 Vaccines
• American Council of Life Insurers senior health actuary Jan Graeber, May 21, response to USA TODAY

 

Yeah, so nothing I said had anything at all to do with coverage. Just how many people had been claiming life insurance policies due to COVID.

 

Well this is a new twist...

Parts of Russia vaccinating animals against COVID-19
https://www.wral.com/coronavirus/parts-of-russia-vaccinating-animals-against-covid-19/19698803/

Several parts of Russia are vaccinating animals at vet clinics to protect them against COVID-19.

In March, Russia said it had developed the first COVID-19 vaccine for animals after tests showed the vaccine generated antibodies against the coronavirus in dogs, cats and foxes.

The World Health Organization has voiced concern over the risk of transmission of the virus between humans and animals. Veterinarians with the North Carolina Zoo have created a strategy to reduce the risk of infection.

NC Zoo head veterinarian JB Minter said some animals are at more risk than others to viruses like COVID-19, especially man’s closest relatives.

"Chimpanzees, gorillas and some of the smaller primate species – we share 98% of the same DNA, so most diseases that we can contract, they also contract," explained Minter.

Russia's agricultural safety watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor said the vaccine would be able to protect vulnerable species and thwart viral mutations.

 

This should not surprise anyone...

County-level support for Trump linked to COVID-19 death rates
https://www.psypost.org/2021/05/county-level-support-for-trump-linked-to-covid-19-death-rates-60884

New research provides evidence that counties with higher levels of Trump support in 2016 fared worse than their non-Trump-supporting counterparts after implementing public health policies meant to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The study, which examined the early stages of the novel coronavirus pandemic, appears in the journal World Medical & Health Policy.

“This pandemic happened at a very special time in the United States with the presidential election going on,” said study author Jingjing Gao, a PhD candidate at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “The then president’s health policy preferences were different from health experts. We wanted to see whether political ideology played a role in the death outcomes at the beginning of this pandemic.”

The study utilized data from Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 Tracking Project and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. The researchers also used smartphone tracking data provided by SAFEGRAPH to estimate the effectiveness of stay-at-home policies from April 6 to May 25.

As expected, counties with a large population and a high percentage of elderly people tended to have greater death rates. County-level support for Trump by itself was not associated with COVID-19 death rates. However, the researcher found that “predicted rates of COVID-19-related deaths in counties with high levels Trump support increase along with the duration of implementation of several COVID-19 policies” such as stay-at-home orders.

In other words, after COVID-19 policies were put into place, the number of deaths per county increased more rapidly in counties with higher levels of Trump support than in counties with lower levels of Trump support.

“Sometimes people have to make personal choices about responding to a health crisis when they face mixed voices from politicians and health experts,” Gao told PsyPost. “Political polarization not only alienates Americans but it can also cause them to make decisions that kill them.”

The researchers found that individuals in counties with high levels of Trump support showed less compliance with stay-at-home policies, which suggests that “the positive interaction effects found between policy implementation duration and level of Trump support are likely the result of poor compliance with public health guidance,” the researchers said.

However, the link between Trump support and COVID-19 death rates did not appear to be related to noncompliance with stay-at-home policies in particular. Counties with a higher proportion the population staying completely at home tended to have greater COVID-19 death rates. “We suspect this may be due to reverse causality: compliance is higher in areas with greater coronavirus risk,” the researchers explained.

Instead, the link between Trump support and COVID-19 death rates might be a result of other types of noncompliance not captured by the study, such as “improper mask usage or failure to social distance in nonprofessional settings (e.g., parties or social gatherings),” the researchers added.

The findings are in line with another study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, which found that per-capita rates of new COVID-19 cases and COVID-19 deaths were higher in states with Democrat governors in the first months of the pandemic in 2020, but became higher in states with Republican governors by mid-summer and through the rest of the year.

But the new study “only focuses on the first several months of this pandemic,” Gao noted. The findings may not generalize well beyond this timeframe. “We will have further research on the following period.”

The study, “Death by political party: The relationship between COVID-19 deaths and political party affiliation in the United States“, was authored by Jingjing Gao and Benjamin J. Radford.

 

B1617 Covid-19 variant spreading worldwide at ‘frightening speed’
https://www.techgenyz.com/2021/05/3...ading-worldwide-at-frightening-speed-experts/

The B1617 Covid-19 variant is spreading worldwide at a ‘frightening speed’ and could aggravate the pandemic — particularly in countries with low vaccination rates, according to the latest assessment of the virus by experts here.

The B1617 strain is becoming increasingly dominant worldwide and this will not be the last time that the virus mutates, the Strait Times reported on Sunday.

What is frightening is the speed at which this variant is able to spread and circulate widely within the community, often surpassing the capability of contact-tracing units to track and isolate exposed contacts to break the transmission chains, – a Professor Teo Yik Ying, Dean of the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, was quoted as saying.

“It has the potential to unleash a bigger pandemic storm than the world has previously seen,” Ying added.

B1617 has mutated to spread more easily from person to person, and may dampen the protection conferred by vaccines as well as natural infection, though only slightly, experts say.

The variant, which was first detected in India in October 2020, is now present in more than 50 countries and is surpassing other strains causing infections, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Earlier this month, the global health body declared it as a “variant of global concern”.

The strain is 1.5 times to two times more transmissible than the strain that first appeared in Wuhan 18 months ago. There are three versions of B1617 — B16171, B16172 and B16173. The second version is the most relevant as it has appeared to overtake B16171 in local cases as well as those reported globally. The third version, B16173, is rare, the report said.

While it remains unclear if B1617 causes more serious illness or deaths, the best weapon remains widespread vaccination. Vaccinated individuals have a reduced chance of being infected, and a much lower likelihood of developing severe symptoms even if they are infected, Teo said.

Various researches have shown that the Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines are effective against B1617.

However, most countries, unfortunately, are lagging far behind in vaccinating their people as global inequity in vaccine supplies and distribution persists.

This means a higher chance of B1617 creeping into countries previously minimally affected by Covid-19, Professor Dale Fisher, chair of the WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, was quoted as saying.

“These countries, such as Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, are more vulnerable due to the low vaccination rates, leaving them more susceptible to severe disease,” Fisher said.

 

Shortly Twitter will start labeling the Tweets you promote based on how wrong they are. What will you do then.

Twitter May Start Labeling Your Tweets Based on How Wrong You Are
https://gizmodo.com/twitter-may-roll-out-tiered-misinformation-warning-labe-1847004671

 

Covid-19 variants to be given Greek alphabet names to avoid stigma
WHO unveils new names for variants of concern to replace ones linked to where they were discovered
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...be-given-greek-alphabet-names-to-avoid-stigma

 

The variant from India is 30% to 100% more transmissible than even the U.K. variant (which is 70% more transmissible than the original COVID strain).

Delta variant 30-100% more transmissible, says UK Covid expert
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...transmissible-uk-covid-lockdown-neil-ferguson

The Delta variant of coronavirus, first discovered in India, is anywhere between 30% to 100% more transmissible than the previously dominant Alpha (or Kent) variant, according to Prof Neil Ferguson, whose Covid modelling was key to the UK’s first lockdown.

Ferguson is a leading epidemiologist at Imperial College London who advised the government at the beginning of the pandemic.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We’re certainly getting more data. Unfortunately, the news is not as positive as I would like in any respect about the Delta variant. The best estimate at the moment is this variant maybe 60% more transmissible than the Alpha [Kent] variant.

“There’s some uncertainty around that depending on assumption and how you analyse the data, between about 30% and maybe even up to 100% more transmissible.”

It comes as the date of lifting lockdown approaches, with 21 June the proposed time when the government will remove “all legal limits on social contact”, although some social distancing and mask-wearing rules will remain.

The communities secretary, Robert Jenrick, said there was still “nothing at the moment that suggests that we won’t be able to move forward” with the next stage of lifting restrictions.

He told Radio 4’s Today programme: “We’ve got a further 10 days until we are going to make that decision on or around June 14, so during that period we’ll see where are we with hospitalisations, with deaths, where are we with the vaccine rollout – we’re doing everything we possibly can to expedite that – and then at that point, we’ll make our final decision.”

Dr Mike Tildesley, a member of the scientific pandemic influenza modelling group government advisory panel, said the June 21 proposed reopening in England will be a “really difficult decision”.

He told BBC Breakfast: “I think the question the government needs to answer, and I can’t answer this, is: if we show that cases may rise, and of course, hospital admissions and deaths may rise over the coming months, what kind of rise in those the government can cope with to allow society to reopen?

“Of course, if you delay that date then those rises will not be as severe. So, that’s the trade-off the government are going to have to have in terms of if they are willing to open up knowing there may be a rise if they delay that may lessen the rise, but of course then that impacts businesses all around the country, so I think it’s a really difficult decision.”

He said his “hope and belief” was that hospital admissions would not rise on the same scale as they did in January.

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said there were encouraging signs vaccines were breaking the link between infections and hospital admissions, as Public Health England announced zero daily reported Covid deaths for the first time since last summer.

Boris Johnson is understood to be optimistic about the current data but a No 10 source said the next few days would be crucial to assess the impact of the unlocking that took place from 17 May – though early data did not show significant cause for alarm.

 

Remember this toll is directly attributable to the Trump administration...

Covid has claimed more than 600,000 lives in United States
Even though cases and deaths from the disease are down as more people are vaccinated, hundreds of deaths are reported daily.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/covid-has-claimed-more-600-000-lives-united-states-n1269580

 

The attacks on Fauci are nothing more than the usual OBJECT, DEFLECT, AND PROJECT tactics of DJT and his band of Cultists.

DJT was the leader. The fish rots from the head. Tone at the Top. Why he is not going to be charged with negligent homicide is a mystery to many.The cult has been trying to blame Faucci for Trump's failure since it was evident Trump was not going to put an ounce of effort into stopping covid