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Reformulated booster shots from Pfizer and Moderna should be lining pharmacy shelves by September, a Biden administration official told NBC News, meaning a campaign to release second boosters to a broader swath of the population this summer is being scrapped. These retooled shots are intended to provide better protection against the BA5 and BA4 subvariants, which accounted for more than 90% of new cases in the US last week.

In lighter COVID/economic news, if our bullshit economy couldn’t get any weirder, an American man used $57,000 of COVID relief money to buy a holographic Charizard (that’s a Pokémon card, for you old folks). Because he wasn’t actually entitled to the relief money, the government confiscated the ultra-rare card. In more serious COVID news, on Friday, China locked down Changchun, a city of 9M people. China is facing the highest number of new cases since February 2020. Their zero-COVID strategy may be coming to an end. Denmark is experiencing record COVID deaths not long after restrictions ended. South Korea is grappling with all-time case/deaths, and Japan is coming off its all-time peak case/death count, while Vietnam’s new case count is setting records every day. Let’s not forget that the height of the Black Plague lasted 7 years—and it took more than 500 years to vanish. We are not done with COVID, no matter what the TV people say. In more COVID news, Long-Covid is really bad for your brain. And the global death count for this pandemic may be 3x higher than the official reported number. That would make 18M+ deaths in two years. On March 11, 2020, just over two years ago, the WHO declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic, and it ain’t over yet. But all around the world, all COVID restrictions are being lifted. The people apparently found a better distraction—War.

After 12 years of marriage, pregnancy was a surprise. Friends and family have helped in the midst of the pandemic. Hadassah and Tabitha were born at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle on June 24. They arrived three weeks early, delivered by cesarean, both weighing 5 pounds, 13 ounces. Today, the Flores home in the Lowell neighborhood is filled with all the joys and coos, hungry cries and wakeful nights that not one but two babies bring. Flores, 35, said that in sharing their story she hopes to let others know what helped them through fears of the virus, a higher-than-average-risk pregnancy and economic uncertainty. Both she and her husband are Jehovah’s Witnesses, and members of a Spanish-speaking congregation that meets at the Kingdom Hall on Everett’s Madison Street. Before coronavirus restrictions, they met every Sunday and Wednesday. Together, they also shared their faith through door-to-door visits, going out weekly. All that had stopped by late February 2020, after the governing body of Jehovah’s Witnesses closed assembly halls and halted in-contact preaching. “We quickly understood this was very serious,” she wrote. And by the time she was 6 months pregnant, she had also stopped in-person visits with friends and family. Hector Flores, now back on the job with a window and door company, was furloughed for three months starting last March. And Marisol, who had worked cleaning apartments in Seattle, was no longer able to do that. Savings they had for their growing family dwindled. With money tight and their spiritual routine interrupted, they turned even more to faith. Soon, they were joining weekly meetings of their congregation online via Zoom. Rather than going door to door, they preached biblical messages through letter writing and by phone. “Although our situation seemed dire, I was happy to have my husband at home keeping me company and helping me with the many, many things I could no longer do,” she said. “I was happy to see our friends from the Kingdom Hall online and felt their support.” Reading and sharing Scripture “made me feel uplifted and courageous,” said Flores, whose family came to the United States from Mexico when she was 6. In these worrisome times, she believes others may find comfort where she finds it, in the Bible — especially the Book of James, 4:8. It says, “Draw close to God, and he will draw close to you.” Read full article: https://www.heraldnet.com/news/faith-overcame-fear-for-these-grateful-new-parents-of-twins/

For the twenty countries currently most affected by COVID-19 worldwide, the bars in the chart below show the number of deaths either per 100 confirmed cases (observed case-fatality ratio) or per 100,000 population (this represents a country’s general population, with both confirmed cases and healthy people). Countries at the top of this figure have the most deaths proportionally to their COVID-19 cases or population, not necessarily the most deaths overall. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

Would it be fair to surmise your post as a “conspiracy theory?” I am working on a post on that topic now, a few separate items having gelled together over the last few weeks. Maybe, depending on the action here, I will even put it on this thread—not as a competing idea, nor dovetailing—just the same topic as seen from another angle—with focus on how it relates to our people. When push comes to shove, all is a manifestation of the whole world lying in the power of the you-know-who of 1 Jn 5:19. It is odd that Tom Irregardless’s remark (quoted from Willie Whitepebble’s recollection) comes across as so stupid on the surface and so spot-on overall: “And to think that Tom Irregardless, when confronted with some news report he didn’t understand, which was almost anything, would dismiss it all with ‘it just goes to show we need the Kingdom!’ How long had he been saying that?” I’ve known plenty of people apt to use that quick retort. I becomes exasperating. Still, that does not mean that it is wrong.

I have never posted a Twitter video before. (Hope this works)

https://www.zerohedge.com/health/perpetual-crisis-now-who-telling-us-covid-19-may-never-go-away The truth is that this pandemic could still potentially be in the early chapters. The Spanish Flu pandemic lasted for three full years, and we could possibly be facing a similar scenario. And this week WHO official Mike Ryan warned that this virus could even become “endemic”, and if that happens it “may never go away”… In other words, Ryan is saying that this virus could become like a flu that keeps reappearing year after year. So what are we going to do if that happens? Are we supposed to have shutdowns every year whenever a new wave of COVID-19 infections starts happening?