Coronavirus

University of Cambridge researchers found in an online survey that about 15% of UK respondents thought it was more reliable than not that “the coronavirus is part of a global effort to enforce mandatory vaccination”, while 9% supported “the new 5G network may be making us more susceptible to the virus”. They found the most important factor linked to resilience to misinformation was numeracy. While we are fully aware that correlation is not causation, it encourages the idea that greater “data literacy” in the population could help bring some critical awareness of the dubious claims circulating on social media. In the meantime, research has shown that an effective strategy is to vigorously “pre-bunk” misinformation – essentially inoculating people against fake news by getting in the warnings first.

US surgeon general warns unvaccinated people are at risk
from a potentially more dangerous Covid-19 variant

As a renewed sense of optimism sweeps the US this summer with lower reported Covid-19 cases,
the US Surgeon General has issued a warning for those not vaccinated: don't let your guard down
quite yet.

"For those who are unvaccinated, they are increasingly at risk as more and more variants develop,"
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told CNN's Chris Cuomo on Wednesday, specifically citing the
B.1.617.2, or Delta variant, first identified in India...

Mark Grenon says in interview from prison he gave Trump the product and was the source of Trump’s fixation with disinfectant

The leader of a spurious church which peddled industrial bleach as a “miracle cure” for Covid-19 is claiming that he provided Donald Trump with the product in the White House shortly before the former president made his notorious remarks about using “disinfectant” to treat the disease.

Mark Grenon, the self-styled “archbishop” of the Genesis II “church”, has given an interview from his prison cell in Colombia as he awaits extradition to the US to face criminal charges that he fraudulently sold bleach as a Covid cure. In the 90-minute interview he effectively presents himself as the source of Trump’s fixation with the healing powers of disinfectant.

“We were able to give through a contact with Trump’s family – a family member – the bottles in my book,” Grenon says. “And he mentioned it on TV: ‘I found this disinfectant’.”
[...]
Grenon made his claim that he supplied Trump with bleach solution to Zakariya Adeel, a London-based astrologer and psychic. The interview was conducted apparently over a prison telephone line.

More than 150 employees at a Houston hospital system who refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine have been fired or resigned after a judge dismissed an employee lawsuit over the vaccine requirement.

A spokesperson for Houston Methodist hospital system said 153 employees either resigned in the two-week suspension period or were terminated on Tuesday.

New research on third dose of COVID-19 vaccine offers hope
to immunocompromised people

“It may just be that their immune system just needs to see the proteins one more time
in order to get to a level of immunity that people with more intact immune systems can
accomplish with two doses,” said Dr. Dorry Segev, a professor at Johns Hopkins University
School of Medicine.