Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine is now not only approved for everyone over 16 years old, it’s recommended.
On Monday, an independent advisory committee to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted unanimously to support recommending the vaccine.
The decision of those 14 experts was based on overwhelming evidence that Pfizer’s 2-shot immunization, named Comirnaty, which was fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration last week, is not only safe but also works very well at preventing disease.
The independent experts on the CDC panel cheered on the creation of the COVID-19 vaccines in the midst of a pandemic, calling it a “miraculous accomplishment” and “a moment of incredible scientific innovation.”
Here are eight charts and graphs that lay out why Pfizer’s vaccine was given a big thumbs up:
COVID-19 vaccines are doing a great job keeping people healthy, alive, and out of the hospital.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ACIP meeting Aug. 30, 2021 https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/slides-2021-08-30.html
The CDC committee looked at data from across the US showing unvaccinated adults are being hospitalized for COVID-19 at rates roughly 16 times higher than the vaccinated.
As of August 23, 0.006% of vaccinated Americans (fewer than 9,000 people) have had a severe enough case of COVID-19 to be hospitalized, according to CDC data.
The number of vaccinated people who’ve died from COVID-19 is even smaller. Of the 636,015 American COVID-19 deaths, just 2,063, or 0.3% have been in vaccinated people, a tiny fraction when you consider that more than 174 million people are fully vaccinated in the US.
Unvaccinated people under age 50 are getting hospitalized at especially high rates this year.
The CDC tracks these rates of COVID-19 hospitalizations through COVID-NET, a system which collects data from 250 hospitals across 14 states (located in different areas of the country) every week.
It’s true that more vaccinated people are now catching COVID-19, due to the Delta variant. But their cases are generally mild and the vaccines are still preventing severe disease well.
Docker will restrict use of the free version of its Docker Desktop utility to individuals or small businesses, and has introduced a new more expensive subscription, as it searches for a sustainable business model.
The company has renamed its Free plan to “Personal” and now requires that businesses with 250 or more employees, or higher than $10m in annual revenue, must use a paid subscription if they require Docker Desktop. There are no changes to the command-line Docker Engine. The $5/month Pro and $7/month Teams subscriptions continue as before, but a new $21/month Business subscription adds features including centralized management, single sign-on, and enhanced security.
The new Docker plans
The Docker platform has a number of components, of which Docker Desktop is just one part. Docker images define the contents of containers. Docker containers are runnable instances of images. The Docker daemon is a background application that manages and runs Docker images and containers. The Docker client is a command-line utility that calls the API of the Docker daemon. Docker registries contain images, and the Docker Hub is a widely used public registry. Much of Docker (but not Desktop) is open source under the Apache v2 licence.
Over 135 subreddits have gone dark this week in protest of Reddit’s refusal to ban communities that spread misinformation about the COVID pandemic and vaccines.
Subreddits that went private include two with 10 million or more subscribers, namely r/Futurology and r/TIFU. The PokemonGo community is one of 15 other subreddits with at least 1 million subscribers that went private; another 15 subreddits with at least 500,000 subscribers also went private. They’re all listed in a post on r/VaxxHappened which has been coordinating opposition to Reddit management’s stance on pandemic misinformation. More subreddits are being added as they join the protest.
“Futurology has gone private to protest Reddit’s inaction on COVID-19 misinformation,” a message on that subreddit says. “Reddit won’t enforce their policies against misinformation, brigading, and spamming. Misinformation subreddits such as NoNewNormal and r/conspiracy must be shut down. People are dying from misinformation.”
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Last week, the moderators of over 450 subreddits joined an open letter urging Reddit to “take action against the rampant Coronavirus misinformation on their website,” saying that subreddits existing “solely to spread medical disinformation and undermine efforts to combat the global pandemic should be banned.”
Reddit published a response defending its stance, saying it will continue to allow “debate” and “dissent” on vaccines and other COVID-related matters, even when it “challenge[s] consensus views.”
“We appreciate that not everyone agrees with the current approach to getting us all through the pandemic, and some are still wary of vaccinations. Dissent is a part of Reddit and the foundation of democracy,” the company said.
Reddit does draw a line somewhere, as it said it will continue to take action against communities “dedicated to fraud (e.g. fake vaccine cards) or encouraging harm (e.g. consuming bleach).” But in general, Reddit said, “we believe it is best to enable communities to engage in debate and dissent, and for us to link to the CDC wherever appropriate.”
The Australian government has been moving towards a surveillance state for some years already. Now they are putting the nail in the coffin with an unprecedented surveillance bill that allows the police to hack your device, collect or delete your data, and take over your social media accounts; without sufficient safeguards to prevent abuse of these new powers.
This month the Australian government has passed a sweeping surveillance bill, worse than any similar legislation in any other five eye country.
The Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2020 gives the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) three new powers for dealing with online crime:
Data disruption warrant: gives the police the ability to “disrupt data” by modifying, copying, adding, or deleting it.
Network activity warrant: allows the police to collect intelligence from devices or networks that are used, or likely to be used, by those subject to the warrant
Account takeover warrant: allows the police to take control of an online account (e.g. social media) for the purposes of gathering information for an investigation.
The two Australian law enforcement bodies AFP and ACIC will soon have the power to modify, add, copy, or delete your data should you become a suspect in the investigation of a serious crime.
What makes this legislation even worse is that there is no judicial oversight. A data disruption or network activity warrant could be issued by a member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, a judge’s warrant is not needed.
Australian companies obliged to comply
When presented with such warrant from the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Australian companies, system administrators etc. must comply, and actively help the police to modify, add, copy, or delete the data of a person under investigation. Refusing to comply could have one end up in jail for up to ten years, according to the new bill.
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Politicians justify the need for the bill by stating that it is intended to fight child exploitation (CSAM) and terrorism. However, the bill itself enables law enforcement to investigate any “serious Commonwealth offence” or “serious State offence that has a federal aspect”.
As soon as it says a law is against Child Porn you know it’s going to be used for a whole load of other things that wouldn’t stand up to public inspection. But who can be against anti-Child Porn stuff, right?
