COVID Bits - Opinions to go Online

The Brazilian Senate has recommended crimes against humanity and other charges against President Jair Bolsonaro for allegedly bungling the country’s pandemic response. To date, more than 600,000 Brazilians have died from COVID.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the national debt of major countries will increase next year by as much as 25 percentage of their GDP because of pandemic-related effects.
The virologist Trevor Bedford, known for issuing the first warning of community COVID spread in the U.S., recently speculated that the U.S. could see 40,000 to 100,000 deaths annually from endemic COVID. That would be moderately higher than the seasonal flu.
New York City is requiring its entire municipal workforce (some 40,000 public employees) to be vaccinated—or be placed on unpaid leave.
“All J&J recipients should plan to receive a second shot because protection against symptomatic illness appears to be waning at an alarming rate.”—CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana S. Wen, former health commissioner of Baltimore.
Despite all the controversy about vaccination mandates, a study published in Scientific Reports shows that such mandates appear to “encourage” more people to get the shots.