Thousands march against government in Cuba

Thousands march against government in Cuba | CBC News - Associated Press: 

July 11, 2021 - "Thousands of Cubans marched on Havana's Malecon promenade and elsewhere on the island Sunday to protest food shortages and high prices amid the coronavirus crisis, in one of the biggest anti-government demonstrations in memory. Many young people took part in the afternoon protest in the capital, which disrupted traffic until police moved in after several hours and broke up the march when a few protesters threw rocks.... Cuba is going through its worst economic crisis in decades, along with a resurgence of coronavirus cases, as it suffers the consequences of U.S. sanctions imposed by the Trump administration....

"The demonstration grew to a few thousand in the vicinity of Galeano Avenue and the marchers pressed on despite a few charges by police officers and tear gas barrages. People standing on many balconies along the central artery in the Centro Habana neighbourhood applauded the protesters passing by. Others joined in the march. Although many people tried to take out their cellphones and broadcast the protest live, Cuban authorities shut down internet service throughout the afternoon.

"About two-and-a-half hours into the march, some protesters pulled up cobblestones and threw them at police, at which point officers began arresting people and the marchers dispersed. A group of government supporters also arrived in the area shouting slogans in favour of the late president Fidel Castro and the revolution. Some of them assaulted a cameraman and an AP photographer.

"Demonstrations were also held elsewhere on the island, including the small town of San Antonio de los Banos, where people protested power outages and were visited by President Miguel Díaz-Canel. He entered a few homes, where he took questions from residents. Afterward, though, he accused Cuban Americans of stirring up trouble."
Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/anti-government-protests-cuba-food-shortages-high-prices-1.6098704

Cuba protests: Arrests after thousands rally against government | BBC News:

July 13, 2021 - "Dozens of people have been arrested in Cuba after thousands joined the biggest protests for decades against the island's Communist government, media and opposition sources say. Unauthorised public gatherings are illegal in Cuba and protests are rare. Images on social media showed what appeared to be security forces detaining, beating and pepper-spraying some of the protesters.

"Cuba's president labelled those protesting 'mercenaries'. In a four-hour-long televised address President Miguel Díaz-Canel slammed protestors as 'counter-revolutionaries' while his foreign minister alleged the demonstrations had been financed and instigated by the United States.... Figures compiled by legal help centre Cubalex suggest around 100 people were arrested on Sunday.... 

"There were reports of internet blackouts across the island. Access to mobile internet was rolled out in December 2018 in Cuba but is controlled by the state-owned telecommunications company Etecsa. Internet monitoring site Netblocks said access to WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Telegram had been restricted by Etecsa's servers. Mobile internet is the main way for Cubans to access independent news and many said the blackouts had increased the sense of ominous unease following the protests. 

"There also appeared to be a heightened presence of security forces with one Havana resident reporting that 'the streets are full of police....There are police at every corner and practically all you see going past is police patrols.'"
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57813704

ZeroCovid groups launch international network

Left-wing 'zero covid' scientists plot bid for endless lockdowns | Sunday Express - David Maddox: 

July 4, 2021 - "The Sunday Express has learnt that members of Independent Sage are to be part of the launch of an international group called the World Health Network which will push for a 'zero covid' strategy of maintaining lockdowns. The revelation came at an online meeting of the Zero Covid campaign group last week where trade union officials told attendees about how covid is a means of recruiting members and how the ultimate goal has to be 'to bring down capitalism.'

"The news about the new international network was announced at the end of the meeting [by] Yaneer Bar-Yam,* an American physicist who is a member of the Covid Action Group which includes the members of Independent Sage including controversial behavioural scientist Professor Susan Michie,* who is a member of the Communist Party. It follows MPs last month questioning why three Independent Sage members including Professor Michie, her husband Professor Robert West,* and Professor Stephen Reicher,* all behavioural scientists, are also official government advisors.

"Dr Bar-Yam, a leading member of the Covid Action Group, told the meeting of leftwing Zero Covid activists that a closed conference not open to the public will be held on 14 and 15 July to launch the World Health Network. He said: 'We have a globalised team primarily of scientists called the Covid Action Group. [This is] morphing into the World Health Network [with] very enthusiastic participation from Indy Sage, ISAG (Independent Scientific Advocacy Group), Covid Germany, and reaching out to parents groups and others. The purpose of the network is to facilitate the interaction of the teams. Give it some global infrastructure thinking about opportunities'.... 

"Earlier in the meeting Kathy Jenkins from Scottish Hazards, which was set up to provide free and confidential information, advice, support and training to workers on workplace health and safety issues, discussed how she was being funded with taxpayers’ money from the Scottish government to go to non-union members and using covid to encourage them to join trade unions.... Tracy Edwards from the Public and Commercial Services Union also discussed how they were using air quality, long covid and other issues to restructure the workplace and add regulation.

"Near the end of the meeting ... Zero Covid activist Steve Ballard said that work on health and safety needed to be 'combined with transforming the nature of work.' He said: 'The rich have always said you have got to work to make us rich. That’s got to stop. Otherwise we are all going to fry'.... At a previous meeting he suggested that the Soviet Union style of Communism needed to be brought into Britain.

"Responding to his comments, Ms Edwards said: 'I agree with Steve there. Capitalism makes its own. The people who are in charge cannot be trusted to protect our health and safety. What we have got to do as a movement is not just control our working lives but society as a whole'.... Ms Jenkins added: '[Covid] hasn’t created problems, it has exposed them. Not only health and safety ones. Loads of smaller things need changing, not just capitalism [but] I completely agree we have got to get rid of it."

Read more: https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1457950/lockdown-labour-scientists-plot-bit-more-restrictions 

* signatories of the John Snow Memorandum

UK rocker boycotts Covid-experiment festival

Rock legend Richard Ashcroft pulls out of vaccine-restricted festival, says he won’t take part in ‘government experiment’ | RT: 

July 6, 2020 - "Singer Richard Ashcroft has pulled out of an upcoming festival in Sheffield, due to its vaccination requirement and participation in government coronavirus research. Ashcroft is one of several Covid-skeptic Britpop icons. The former Verve frontman announced on Monday that he was pulling out of the Tramlines festival in Sheffield later this month, telling fans on Instagram that he 'wouldn’t be playing concerts with restrictions.' Ashcroft said that he made the decision once he learned that Tramlines would be 'part of a government testing programme.'

"Under its Events Research Programme, the British government will allow a full capacity audience to attend the festival without masks and social distancing, and will study any transmission of Covid-19 that occurs over the weekend. Attendees will still need to show either proof of full vaccination or a negative lateral flow test to gain entry....

"Stone Roses singer Ian Brown congratulated Ashcroft on pulling out of the festival, calling it a 'solid decision.' Brown stepped down in March from performing at this September’s Neighbourhood Weekender festival in Warrington, due to the likelihood that it would require proof of vaccination. Brown ... railed on Twitter ... last month that 'every singer and musician who plays an event requiring ‘vaccination’ with a gmo concoction still in experimental trials… is a wretch and a collaborator who deserves to be tarred and feathered.'"

Read more: https://www.rt.com/uk/528506-richard-ashcroft-cancels-festival-vaccine/

Invasive ventilation

'First Choice': How China and the WHO created mass ventilator hysteria | The Dossier - Jordan Shachtel:

September 30, 2020 - "Mechanical ventilators have long been considered a last resort solution for treating patients with respiratory illness.... In treating respiratory ailments, the highly invasive, high-risk maneuver that is mechanical ventilation is usually prefaced by less invasive measures, such as positive airway pressure machines like CPAP or BiPAP devices, or simple oxygen delivering nose prongs. But when COVID-19 hit, the long established scientific guidance on proper patient care was tossed out the window, along with other established norms....

"In early March, when COVID-19 was ravaging western Europe and sounding alarm bells in the United States, the WHO [World Health Organization] released COVID-19 provider guidance documents to healthcare workers. Citing experience 'based on current knowledge of the situation in China,' the WHO recommended mechanical ventilators as an early intervention for treating COVID-19 patients. The guidance recommended escalating quickly, if not immediately, to mechanical ventilation. In doing so, they cited the guidance being presented by Chinese medical journals, which published papers in January and February claiming that 'Chinese expert consensus' called for 'invasive mechanical ventilation' as the 'first choice' for people with moderate to severe respiratory distress.

"The WHO further justified this approach by claiming that the less invasive positive air pressure machines could result in the spread of aerosols, potentially infecting healthcare workers with the virus. The aerosol spread problem, however, is more or less a very  loose hypothesis. There remains questionable evidence that COVID-19 spreads through aerosols from airway pressure or oxygen devices. And there are established protocols for protecting medical workers from potential aerosol infection when using these devices....

"Seeing the situation in Wuhan unfold, and evaluating the guidance passed on from China and the WHO, U.S. 'public health experts' became convinced that ventilators were an absolute necessity, and that we needed tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands more of these devices, to stave off the disease. Hysterical epidemiological modelers, the same ones that had just claimed millions of people were about to die from COVID-19 in the United States, took to claiming that there was a mass ventilator shortage in the United States. Governors across the country were now demanding ventilators by the boatload.

"After much bipartisan insistence from Congress, the president ordered U.S. manufacturers to build ventilators under the Defense Production Act. Based on the Wuhan experience, the United States was taking China and the WHO at its word, and reorienting some of our private industry economic engines towards building medical devices. Meanwhile, ... China was now exporting ventilators in incredible quantities. Under the guise of humanitarian behavior, China was making a fortune off of manufacturing and exporting ventilators (many of which did not work correctly and even killed patients) around the world.

"Meanwhile, as COVID-19 case growth exploded in New York City, some doctors began to notice that something was horribly wrong with the way patients were being treated for the disease. The COVID-19 guidance coming out of China, and being distributed in English by the World Health Organization, wasn’t working. In New York City, early and often ventilator use became a common theme, and it had devastating consequences for infected patients caught in the middle of the hysteria.

"On March 31, Dr. Cameron Kyle-Sidell, who had been caring for ICU patients at one of the hardest-hit hospitals in the city, sounded the alarm about the ventilator issue. He took to YouTube and became something of a ventilator whistleblower.... An April Reuters interview with dozens  of medical specialists made it clear that mechanical ventilator overuse had become a global issue.... By May, it was common knowledge in the medical community that early ventilator use was hurting, not helping COVID-19 patients, and that less invasive measures were in fact very effective in assisting recoveries. However, by then, the damage had already been done....

"The 'early action' ventilator guidance from China, which was distributed to the world by the WHO, very likely resulted in many lives taken from us far too soon. To my knowledge, neither WHO nor the Chinese government (which controls its medical associations) has acknowledged this catastrophic misstep."

Read more: https://dossier.substack.com/p/first-choice-how-china-and-the-who

RSV in NZ: virus running rampant in Kiwi kids

New Zealand children falling ill in high numbers due to Covid ‘immunity debt’ | The Guardian - Tess McClure:

July 8, 2021 - "New Zealand hospitals are experiencing the payoff of 'immunity debt' created by Covid-19 lockdowns, with wards flooded by babies with a potentially-deadly respiratory virus, doctors have warned. Wellington has 46 children currently hospitalised for respiratory illnesses including respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. A number are infants, and many are on oxygen. Other hospitals are also experiencing a rise in cases that are straining their resources – with some delaying surgeries or converting playrooms into clinical space.

"RSV is a common respiratory illness. In adults, it generally only produces very mild symptoms – but it can make young children extremely ill, or even be fatal. The size and seriousness of New Zealand’s outbreak is likely being fed by what some paediatric doctors have called an 'immunity debt' – where people don’t develop immunity to other viruses suppressed by Covid lockdowns, causing cases to explode down the line....

"The 'immunity debt' phenomenon occurs because measures like lockdowns, hand-washing, social distancing and masks... also suppress the spread of other illnesses that transmit in a similar way, including the flu, common cold, and lesser-known respiratory illnesses.... In New Zealand, lockdowns last winter led to a 99.9% reduction in flu cases and a 98% reduction in RSV - and near-eliminated the spike of excess deaths New Zealand usually experiences during winter.

"'This positive collateral effect in the short term is welcome, as it prevents additional overload of the healthcare system,' a collective of French doctors wrote in a May 2021 study of immunity debt. But in the long term, it can create problems of its own: if bacterial and viral infections aren’t circulating among children, they don’t develop immunity, which leads to larger outbreaks down the line ... 'The lack of immune stimulation … induced an “immunity debt” which could have negative consequences when the pandemic is under control and [public health intervientions] are lifted,' the doctors wrote. 'The longer these periods of "viral or bacterial low-exposure" are, the greater the likelihood of future epidemics.'

"New Zealand has reported nearly 1,000 RSV cases in the past five weeks, according to the Institute of Environmental Science and Research. The usual average is 1,743 over the full 29-week winter season. Australia is also experiencing a surge, with overcrowded Victoria hospitals also hit by unusually high rates of RSV'....

"The current outbreak is already stretching New Zealand’s hospitals. At Middlemore hospital in Auckland, a playroom has been converted into a clinical space with 11 special care baby cots. Health boards in Auckland and Canterbury have postponed surgeries to divert resources into children’s wards. A number of hospitals have asked children under 12 not to visit, to try to avoid spreading the virus. John Tait, chief medical officer for the Wellington area’s district health boards said the region had 46 children hospitalised, including two in intensive care....

"Usually, people experience near-universal exposure to RSV as children, Baker said, with most exposed in their first year of life.... While RSV is a common cause of winter hospitalisation of children, elderly people and people with suppressed immune systems are also vulnerable."

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/08/new-zealand-children-falling-ill-in-high-numbers-due-to-covid-immunity-debt

Unethical to open UK July 19, say Snow scientists

Unlocking on July 19 is a 'dangerous and unethical experiment', warn 122 scientists and doctors including high profile SAGE members — as NHS already starts cancelling operations to cope with Covid surge | Mail Online - Connor Boyd:

July 8, 2021 - "More than 100 top scientists and doctors have accused Boris Johnson of conducting a 'dangerous and unethical experiment' by pressing on with July 19's unlocking. In a letter in The Lancet, the experts have demanded the Government reconsider its plan to abandon all restrictions in England this month, describing it as 'premature'.

"They warned that going ahead with Freedom Day despite accepting there could be hundreds of thousands of infections each day is both 'unethical and illogical'. Allowing Covid to rip through the country will leave 'hundreds of thousands with long-term illness and disability' due to the effects of the virus itself, as well as long Covid, they said.

"Among the 122 signatories are Dr Richard Horton,* editor of The Lancet, Sir David King,* a former chief scientific adviser under David Cameron's Government, and Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chairman of the British Medical Association (BMA) Council. 

"The letter has also been signed by several of No10's own expert advisers, including Professor Susan Michie* and Professor Stephen Reicher,* highlighting the rift within SAGE over the July 19 unlocking. Many within SAGE - including Professor Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance - are in favour of opening this month because they fear delaying any longer will only trigger a worse peak in winter.

"It comes as a small number of hospitals have had to cancel operations because of a growing number of Covid patients on wards and high numbers of staff off isolating. Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS trust scrapped non-urgent procedures this week - including cancer surgery - to cope with the influx of Covid and staffing shortages.

"No10 is pressing on with Freedom Day on July 19 despite the fact cases are doubling every nine days and are expected to soar past 100,000 by August. Ministers insist vaccines will keep the disease at bay and are hopeful cases will start to fade naturally next month....

"There is roughly one death per every 1,000 cases in Britain at the moment, down from one in 100 in previous waves, but officials expect this gap to get even wider as more people get vaccinated. Hospital admissions, on the other hand, are rising again with latest figures showing there were 386 on July 3, an increase of about 45 per cent on the previous week. That's double the number in early June but officials say the vast majority of admissions are among unvaccinated people or those who've only had one jab."

Read more: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/08/premature-freedom-day-dangerous-unethical-experiment-doctors/

* - signatories of the John Snow Memorandum

Twitter and LinkedIn blocking criticism of China

Make Them Pay | Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) - Edward Lucas: 

July 6, 2021 - "My friend Anne-Marie Brady is one of the world’s top China-watchers. Twitter has just made her invisible. Anyone trying to visit @anne_mariebrady this weekend was stopped by a warning screen. Some recent tweets, mocking the Chinese Communist Party’s centenary, are 'unavailable'. Searches for her draw a blank. She is also locked out of her account. She can no longer post any further tweets, message people — or complain to Twitter.

"This probably results from a concerted campaign by the Chinese Communist Party’s online agents. Enough complaints usually trigger an automated block. The user is left fuming and powerless. In effect, the Chinese Communist Party is extending its control into the heart of a free society.

"A few days earlier, I changed my profile on LinkedIn. It recently warned some prominent critics of the Beijing regime that their user profiles will not be visible in mainland China because they breach local laws.

"I decided to test this. I added some details about my weekly newsletter, the China Influence Monitor. This highlights, I explained, attempts 'to marginalize Taiwan (Republic of China)..,[and]..to erase Tibetan and East Turkestan identity'. I added crisp mentions of the underground church and Tiananmen Square: all the taboo terms I could think of, in fact.

"This worked beautifully. Within hours LinkedIn sent a polite, opaque email. I too was blocked....

"I want to know why LinkedIn, or its owners at Microsoft, started snooping on its users’ choice of language about China. Was it preemptive? Or was the company instructed to do it? If so, who gave the order, when, and in what terms?

"LinkedIn will not say. I passed the story to the London Times. Colleagues there could not get an answer either. Nor could British MPs who happened to be quizzing a Microsoft executive at a parliamentary committee hearing last week....

"These companies enjoy the advantages of a free political and legal system when they express their views and defend their interests. Their intellectual property and contracts are protected by laws made not by bureaucratic fiat but by elected legislators, and enforced by impartial courts. Good luck trying any of that in China or Russia. But these behemoths do not exert themselves to protect the system that enables their success. They prefer convenience, growth, and profit.

"This spells doom for democracy. We rely on emails, websites, search engines, mobile phones, and social media at all levels, from national campaigns to private messaging. But these systems are wide open to attack, be it disruption, fakery, or snooping.... Mischievous and malevolent outsiders can spy on us, distort our perception of reality, and shape our decision-making."

Read more: https://cepa.org/make-them-pay/