CDC: 34 out of 43 Omicron cases in the U.S. are "fully vaccinated"

 Research, editing : Gan Yung Chyan, KUCINTA SETIA

News on disease control, CCP, Taiwan

News (1)

CDC: 34 out of 43 Omicron cases in the U.S. are "fully vaccinated"

Reporter : Andrew White, National File

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), only 20% of covid cases caused by the Omicron variant (Covi29) identified in the U.S. were in people who are unvaccinated. Out of the 43 cases attributed to the Omicron variant, 34 people infected with the virus had been “fully vaccinated.”

Out of the 34 vaccinated individuals who had contracted Covi29, one third of them had received a booster injection.

 

CDC said that of the 43 cases attributed to Covi29, 34 people had been fully vaccinated. Fourteen of them had also received a booster, although five of those cases occurred less than 14 days after the additional shot before full protection kicks in.

 

While the numbers are very small, they add to growing concerns that current covid vaccines may offer less protection against the highly transmissible new variant.

 

British scientists from the University of Oxford have indicated that “increased infections” in vaccinated people “may be likely” after their study found that the two-dose covid vaccine regimens induce lower antibodies against Covi2.

Refs: https://nationalfile.com/vaccinated-variant-20-omicron-cases-found-unvaccinated-people-cdc-says/, https://thenationalpulse.com/news/a-pandemic-of-the-vaccinated/

News (2)

People's Daily touted "reform and opening up" 4,000-word long article without mentioning Xi Jinping

Reporter : Zheng Gusheng / Editor : Xu Gengwen / https://www.ntdtv.com/gb/2021/12/13/a103292566.html

The communique of the Sixth Plenary Session of the Communist Party of China emphasized ten "persistence", but did not mention "persistence in reform and opening up." Recently, the central-level party media published a long article touting "reform and opening up", affirming Deng, Jiang, and Hu, and not mentioning Xi Jinping at all, which aroused concern.

On 9 December, the People's Daily published a commentary titled "Reform and opening up is a great awakening of the party" on the ninth page of the theoretical page, signed by Qu Qingshan. Qu is currently a member of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the dean of the Central Party History and Documentation Research Institute.

The article mentions Deng Xiaoping nine times, and mentions Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao each. They all affirmed their so-called "contributions" to "reform and opening up," but did not mention Xi Jinping.

In recent years, the party media has strongly emphasized "Xi's core", but this 4,000-word long article avoids Xi Jinping, and discusses the sensitive "reform and opening" topic, which has attracted public attention.

Radio Free Asia quoted Hong Kong current affairs commentator Lin Heli’s analysis as saying that this article does not mention that Xi Jinping is relatively rare. There are two possibilities. One is that the article only focuses on the history of "reform and opening up", and the other is that it hopes to imply Xi Jinping. Did not contribute to "reform and opening up" and expressed dissatisfaction with Xi Jinping's departure from "Deng Xiaoping's line."

Lin Heli also mentioned that this article only quoted the CCP’s “third historical resolution” at the beginning. He said that according to his observations, the top CCP leaders did not support the "third historical resolution" with "high profile and enthusiasm" as they did in the past, which violated the CCP's internal traditions.

In recent years, Xi Jinping has repeatedly quoted Mao Zedong’s statement and has continuously strengthened his overall control over society. In the communique of the Sixth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in November this year, ten "persistences" were put forward, but there was no "persistence to reform and opening up", which caused heated discussions.

In the so-called "third historical resolution" adopted by the Sixth Plenary Session, although it talked about "fully deepening reform and opening up," it also mentioned "newly emerging" contradictions and problems after "reform and opening up", including "negative corruption within the party." "spread" and so on, have caused the Chinese Communist Party to "face a major test."

The alleged CCP’s external propaganda media’s Duowei.com posted an article saying that the above statement was tantamount to an “unnamed” criticism of the “accumulative drawbacks of reform and opening up,” which involved “the CCP’s own leadership issues at the time”.

Yuan Hongbing, a jurist in Australia, told The Epoch Times that there was internal information that Xi Jinping originally wanted to criticize Jiang Zemin by name in the "third historical resolution," but he gave up because of opposition from the party. He believes that the promulgation of this resolution will be the beginning of a new round of intense struggle within the party.

In addition to the long article in the "People's Daily" that does not mention Xi Jinping, overseas democracy activist Wang Dan also pointed out on Facebook that there have been many unusual signs in Beijing in recent days.

He mentioned that the official report of the Central Economic Work Conference of the Communist Party of China rarely tied Xi and Li and used the expression "Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang delivered a speech."

In addition, 13 December was the "National Memorial Day" of the Nanjing Massacre. On such a grand occasion of commemoration, Xi Jinping did not show up or speak.

Wang Dan also said that the recent official discourse on economic issues basically contradicts "Xi Jinping Economics."

He said that these may be just accidents, but he does feel that "the political atmosphere in China these days is a bit weird."

See also: https://staygate.blogspot.com/2021/12/omicron-has-claimed-at-least-one-death.html

News (3) to (4) / Editor : Chen Beichen / https://www.ntdtv.com/gb/2021/12/13/a103292454.html

News (3)

US ambassador responds to Solomon riots for the first time: The choice is obvious

Image : On 24 April 2019, after the Solomon Islands elected a new prime minister, protesters were dissatisfied. (Robert Taupongi/AFP/Getty Images)

The riots in the Solomon Islands in November 2021 were partly blamed on the corruption of the Chinese government's "aid", which caused dissatisfaction among the local people. The U.S. ambassador to the Solomon Islands warned the Pacific Islands not to accept "assistance that only benefits individual people, individual political parties, and individual bank accounts."

The U.S. Ambassador to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, Erin McKee, said in a statement on Monday (13 December) that “Honiara’s tragic loss of life and property damage” should not occur again.

Protesters from Solomon's Malaita Province caused riots in the capital Honiara in November 2021. People there are dissatisfied with the failure of Chinese companies to provide local employment opportunities. Large areas of Chinatown were burnt down.

Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said that foreign forces who opposed his severance of diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 2019 and the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Chinese Communist Party were behind the anti-government demonstrators in Malaita Province.

"Do you want assistance that benefits individual people, individual parties, and individual bank accounts, or assistance that can strengthen the overall family capacity, strengthen the entire community, and make the entire country rich?" the US ambassador said in a statement.

Sogavare was accused by opposition leaders in Parliament last week of using the CCP’s National Development Fund to strengthen his political power but Sogavare denied allegations of corruption against him.

"As a democratic and independent country, you can choose whom to cooperate with. And I believe that this choice is obvious." The US ambassador reminded in the statement.

News (4)

Polls: 80% of Solomon's people oppose the establishment of diplomatic relations with the CCP

The Solomon Islands was one of the few countries that had diplomatic relations with Taiwan rather than with China. Sogavare became Prime Minister of Solomon in April 2019. On 16 September 2019, the cabinet decided to rush to recognize the CCP before 1 October 2019. In the morning of the next day, the people of Malaita Province, the most populous province of the country, marched peacefully in the capital to protest in support of Taiwan and questioned the authorities' disregard for the public opinion for money.

It is reported that the Chinese Communist Party spent 500 million US dollars to win Taiwan’s friendly Solomon Islands in the South Pacific through the One Belt One Road project. A poll conducted by the Prime Minister's Office of the Souk State on the social website shows that 80% of the people in Souk support the diplomatic relationship between Taiwan and Solomon. This is especially the case in Malaita Province, which not only bans the CCP’s construction and Chinese-funded enterprises there, but also accepts a US$25 million US aid program in 2020.

Ambassador McGee said in the statement that the U.S. aid project originated from the correspondence between Sogavare and the then-U.S. Vice President Mike Pence. The U.S. sent defense officials and aid contracts in August 2019 to the Solomon Islands.

The statement said that US aid contractors work with communities so that the latter can build and maintain local infrastructure, such as roads, "without external assistance."

However, the Solomon Islands severed relations with Taiwan in September 2019 and switched to establishing diplomatic relations with the Chinese Communist Party. As a result, US projects were delayed in the process.

During the riots, more than 200 police and soldiers from Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Fiji responded to Sogavare’s request to maintain order in Honiara.

The Solomon Islands has an important strategic position and is a country with strategic value located in the north of Australia.

News (5)

Beijing still hasn't approved Pfizer vaccine, Guo Guangchang bets on defeat

Reporter : Chen Beichen  / Editor: Xu Gengwen / https://www.ntdtv.com/gb/2021/12/13/a103292515.html

Shanghai Fosun Group, owned by the Chinese billionaire Guo Guangchang, and BioNTech of Germany have collaborated to import the covid vaccine, which has not yet been approved in China. Recently, Beijing has strongly supported domestic vaccines. This is not optimistic about whether the Pfizer vaccine produced by Fosun Group can be approved for use in China.

Last year, when the epidemic broke out, Guo Guangchang was supposed to bet the right thing-to cooperate with Germany's BioNTech to produce virus vaccines with Pfizer. However, in the past year, Pfizer’s BNT vaccine has not been approved in China. Instead, the authorities have allowed the mRNA vaccine developed by China’s Yunnan Walvax, which is still in clinical trials, as a third booster shot in recent weeks.

The third dose of the booster vaccine recently approved by the Chinese Communist Party was jointly developed by the Academy of Military Medicine of the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, Suzhou Aibo Biotechnology and Watson Biotechnology. The results are expected to be released as soon as the end of this year.

According to Bloomberg analysis, signs of the CCP’s delay in approving Pfizer vaccines indicate that the political decision of the CCP highlights the vulnerability of Chinese corporate tycoons and foreign partners, as well as the uncertain prospects facing global drugmakers in China.

In China, more than 1 billion people have been vaccinated with Kexing or Sinopharm vaccines, although scientific research has found that they are not as effective as mRNA injections.

Analysts said that it is difficult to say when Pfizer and BNT vaccines will be approved in China because the Chinese regulators have not publicly stated why they were rejected.

Zhao Bing, a senior analyst at Huaxing Securities, pointed out that if the approval of vaccines and drugs becomes a political rather than an economic issue, international pharmaceutical companies will not be able to enter the relevant market at all. Even if Pfizer vaccine finally enters the Chinese mainland market, it will be because of China. The relationship between vaccine competition and restrictions on the use of vaccines.

At present, the "Fubitai" Pfizer vaccine can only be used in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau.

"How much market share can Fosun capture?" Zhao said, "I don't know, but it certainly doesn't look optimistic."

Fosun Pharma’s current share price has fallen more than 40% from its August peak. Guo Guangchang's worth has also shrunk from a peak of US$4.6 billion last year to US$3.5 billion.

Fosun Pharma said that its cooperation with BNT has always been supported by relevant regulatory authorities, and that the clinical trials and approval process are carried out in accordance with the regulations of the Chinese Communist Party.

A BNT spokesperson stated that the application for the vaccine in mainland China is still ongoing.

The CCP’s regulatory agency, the State Administration of Pharmaceutical Products, and the State Council Information Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

News (6) to (9) / Reporter : Zhang Ting / Editor : Li Yuan / https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/12/13/n13435058.htm

News (6)

Analysis: Why did the CCP delay the approval of Western vaccines for domestic sales

When the highly contagious covi variant Covi72 (for Delta variant, B.1.1.572)  hit China in the summer, some public health experts hoped that China would soon use new German biotechnology The company's (BioNTech) high-efficiency mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) COVID-19 vaccine to enhance the Chinese people's ability to fight the epidemic. However, the vaccine has not been approved by Beijing for a long time after passing the review by experts of the Chinese Communist Party's regulatory agency.

Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. has obtained the authorization of German BioNTech to produce and sell mRNA vaccines in Greater China. Fosun Pharma revealed that in July this year, the vaccine has passed the expert review of the Chinese Communist Party's regulatory agency and is in the administrative review stage. Fosun Pharma even plans to start domestic trial production before the end of August.

However, five months later, Covi72 has evolved into a more contagious variant of Omicron (Covi29), thus challenging the CCP’s covid clearing strategy. In addition, the effectiveness of domestic vaccines is relatively low. Under these circumstances, CCP officials still did not announce BioNTech. When the mRNA vaccine will be approved, or whether it will be approved.

CNN pointed out that although experts and official media have expressed confidence in containing this new variant, the CCP has not yet released a study on the degree of resistance of its domestic vaccine to Omicron.

News (7)

CCP Chinese inactivated vaccines are far less effective than Western mRNA vaccines

Nearly 80% of China's population has been fully vaccinated, most of which are vaccinated with inactivated vaccines developed by China National Pharmaceutical Group and Kexing Biological. According to CNN, the efficacy of these vaccines has been found to be far lower than that of mRNA vaccines, and studies have also shown that the immunity provided by Chinese vaccines will rapidly weaken.

According to the data of the World Health Organization, the effective rate of Sinovac vaccine CoronaVac in preventing symptomatic diseases of the original variant is 51%; the effective rate of Sinopharm Group is 79%. In contrast, the foreign-made Pfizer/BioNTech and Modena mRNA vaccines are as effective as 95%.

A Hong Kong study published in The Lancet in June found that health workers who were fully vaccinated with BioNTech's mRNA vaccine had about 10 times the amount of antibodies that were vaccinated by Kexing's inactivated vaccine.

CNN pointed out that the limited protection provided by Chinese vaccines is far from sufficient to meet the CCP's COVID clearing goal. In the past few months, the Chinese authorities have adopted increasingly stringent measures to contain the local epidemic-usually at a huge economic cost and disrupting people's daily lives.

In order to improve the weakening public immunity, the Chinese Communist Party has begun to introduce booster shots-but once again use inactivated vaccines. Some studies have found that the third booster uses mRNA the best.

Some studies have found that mRNA vaccines can produce better immune responses as boosters. For example, a recent study in the United Kingdom found that 10 to 12 weeks after the second vaccination, vaccinations with Pfizer/BioNTech or Modena-produced mRNA vaccine booster shots have the greatest increase in antibody levels.

The article stated that CCP officials are not unaware of the advantages of using mRNA vaccines. Last month, Zeng Guang, the former chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, admitted, “Real-world data shows that using mRNA vaccines or recombinant protein vaccines as booster doses of inactivated vaccines will achieve better results. Effect."

Zeng Guang cited data from countries such as Turkey, Thailand, and Lebanon, but at the same time said that the use of the same technology for enhanced needles would be more acceptable to the public.

News (8)

Why the Beijing government is reluctant to approve western mRNA vaccines

In response to this issue, CNN quoted Yanzhong Huang, a senior researcher on global health issues at the Council on Foreign Relations, saying that politics seems to be the main consideration.

Since the outbreak of the epidemic, the CCP has launched vaccine diplomacy on a global scale, exporting hundreds of millions of domestic vaccines to help Beijing enhance its soft power and project international influence.

"When China develops its own vaccine, it uses it to showcase China's technological progress. Now switching to foreign vaccines is tantamount to admitting that its technological capabilities are not as good as other countries." Huang Yanzhong said.

In addition, Huang Yanzhong believes that the Beijing government may also be in order to protect the interests of the domestic vaccine industry.

"I believe that they (the existing Chinese vaccine manufacturers) will be very resistant to introducing external vaccine providers into this huge market." He said.

While the Chinese Communist Party's regulatory agencies postponed the approval of the BioNTech vaccine, domestic companies received the green light to continue developing their own mRNA vaccines.

Huang Yanzhong said that Beijing may hope to approve domestic mRNA vaccines before approving any foreign vaccines.

But there are signs that Chinese experts hope to cooperate more with their Western counterparts.

Last weekend, Zhong Nanshan, China's top respiratory disease expert and government consultant, urged China to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with other countries in vaccine research and development.

"We need to understand the good things of other countries, such as mRNA (vaccine)." Zhong Nanshan said at a forum in Guangzhou last Saturday (December 11).

"They spent several years researching and successfully developed the world's first mRNA (vaccine) in just a few months... We need to learn their technology in this regard," he said.

News (9)

The uncertain outlook for global drugmakers in China

According to Bloomberg, with Beijing’s vigorous support for the development of domestically produced mRNA vaccines in recent weeks, whether Fosun Pharma can distribute BioNTech’s mRNA vaccines in China has aroused concern. This also highlights the uncertain prospects of global drugmakers in China. China is the world's second largest pharmaceutical market and an important market for COVID-19 products.

Bloomberg quoted Zhao Bing, a senior analyst in charge of healthcare research at Huaxing Securities Hong Kong Co., Ltd., as saying that if the approval of COVID vaccines and drugs is treated as a “political issue, not an economic or biological issue,” then International Pharmaceutical The company may not be able to reach the Chinese market. He said that, given the domestic competition, even if the BioNTech vaccine that Fosun represents is finally approved for use in the mainland, its prospects in China may be limited.

"How much market share can Fosun capture?" Zhao said, "I don't know, but it certainly doesn't look optimistic."

Fosun Pharma’s share price is now more than 40% below its August high.

News (10)

The most terrifying opponent of the Green Camp! Two years ago, the prediction came true and "he" became the strongest man in the Blue Camp

Editor : Zhang Zhiqian 

Image : Hou Youyi Facebook

The referendum case entered the final countdown, and the New Taipei Mayor Hou Youyi, named by the KMT grassroots, finally made a statement at night of 13 December 2021. He believes that the true meaning of the referendum is the display of the people’s autonomous will and should be passed through inwardly. After debating the pros and cons of thinking, use free will to decide your answer.

In response to this, lawyer Lin Zhiqun said on 14 December 2021, “I said two and a half years ago that Hou Youyi is the most terrifying person in the KMT. I did not look at it. Time will prove Hou Youyi is correct.” 

Hou Youyi stated on Facebook yesterday that it was originally a referendum that started from professionalism, rationality, and science, and everyone could argue, calmly consider and judge, and respect the choices of the majority of the people. He questioned why there cannot be other arguments. It was supposed to be a matter of discussing the matter one by one, but how did it turn into a conflict between the people and the enemies? The conflicts and conflicts are like elections. Isn’t everyone tired? "I believe the people are bored and tired." 

Hou Youyi believes that the responsibility of opinion leaders is to clarify all the pros and cons for the people, whether they are in the opposition or in power. The problem is not just telling us to circle or cross. 

Although this is the first time Hou Youyi has expressed his stance on the referendum, he still does not clearly support the KMT’s "4 consents" "In this regard, Lin Zhiqun said on Facebook today that he had said two and a half years ago that Hou Youyi is the most terrifying person in the KMT. He did not look away. So far, Hou Youyi is the person who made the least mistakes in the KMT, even "Keeping a distance from the Kuomintang" is also the correct strategy, because the Kuomintang is now taking a slanted front, taking a slanted line, and it will not win the support of most people! 

Lin Zhiqun said that if you want to compete for the top position, you must never get too close to the KMT. The KMT chairman Zhu Lilun chose another path and he will definitely fail. Time will prove Hou Youyi is correct.

Ref: news.tvbs.com.tw/politics/1659651

Video Screenshots on Taiwan National Day