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Jan. 23, 2022 - Epoch Times
20:50
New Study Finds "Fully Vaccinated and Boosted" Individuals Experience Faster Omicron Spread
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Good evening.
Six days ago, researchers over in Denmark, they published this preprint study right here, which discovered that the Omicron variant spreads faster than the Delta variant within vaccinated people, specifically when you compare them to unvaccinated people.
Meanwhile, over in Minnesota, the Mayo Clinic has just fired over 700 of their unvaccinated employees.
This, by the way, came right on the heels of the Biden administration reimposing their vaccine mandate on healthcare workers.
However, this might actually not last, because right now, there is a case in front of the Supreme Court which is arguing that this vaccine mandate is illegal, and it's beyond the scope of what the government can actually do.
And so, in order to get an inside look into this lawsuit, we here at Facts Matter with the Epoch Times, we got the opportunity to speak with Mr.
Jeff Landry.
He's the Attorney General of Louisiana, and tomorrow, he will be delivering oral arguments in front of the Supreme Court.
But today, he'll be giving us a preview of what those arguments actually are.
Let's go through it all together.
This is your daily Facts Matter update, and I'm your host, Roman, from the Epoch Times.
And now let's begin today's discussion by talking about the Omicron variant.
According to a new study, which just came out of Denmark, the Omicron variant of the virus, it spreads a lot faster than the Delta variant among vaccinated individuals.
Now, this particular study was conducted by a joint team of researchers at the University of Copenhagen, an organization called Statistics Denmark, as well as the Statens Serum Institute.
And what these researchers did was that they closely examined nearly 12,000 Danish households, and they discovered that the Omicron variant, it spreads faster than the Delta variant, specifically among those who are fully vaccinated.
And even more surprising is that they found that it spreads even faster among those who have received booster shots.
Here's specifically what the study states in regard to their findings.
Quote, Now, that sounds a little bit technical, so let's dig into it a little bit deeper.
To be specific, this was how the study was actually conducted.
Altogether, there were 11,937 households involved in the study, out of which 2,225 of them already had Omicron.
Then, within the time frame of about a week, the researchers followed up with these households, and they found 6,397 secondary infections, with them finding a 31% reinfection rate with Omicron compared to a 21% rate with Delta.
Meaning, in plain language, that the Omicron variant proved to be more evasive and was able to get through whatever defense the body had and infect that individual more easily.
However, what's interesting to note, and this is something that we mentioned in that quote that we read earlier, well, when you compare the unvaccinated group to the vaccinated individuals, well, the numbers are quite different.
Specifically, when they were comparing reinfection rates between the Omicron and Delta variants, they found that unvaccinated people had a 1.17 times higher secondary attack rate, Fully vaccinated people had a 2.61 times higher rate, and those who had gotten three shots, meaning they also got the booster, had a 3.66 times higher rate.
And just to clarify what this exactly means, because I had to read it over and over and over again myself just to wrap my head around it, What this means is that, let's say you are an unvaccinated individual who has already had COVID, and then you enter a laboratory, and before you there are two doors.
Behind one door is the Delta variant, and behind the second door is the Omicron variant.
And what this study says is that your chance for getting reinfected with Omicron is 1.17 times higher than getting reinfected with Delta.
So if, let's say, your chance of getting reinfected with the Delta strain is 2%, then your chance of getting reinfected with the Omicron variant would be 2.3%.
Because that is 1.17 times higher.
However, what the study also says is that if instead of being naturally immune to the virus, meaning that you've already had it, if instead you are a person who has received three doses of the vaccine, meaning the two initial doses as well as the booster shot, well then you would be 3.66 times more likely to be infected with the Omicron variant.
And so if we use the same example as before, if you are a boosted individual standing before those two different doors, well, then your chance of getting reinfected with a Delta strain would be 2%, but for the Omicron strain, that likelihood jumps all the way up to 7.3%.
And then furthermore, the researchers also concluded that the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine from preventing infection with the Omicron variant altogether is It's only 35%, leading the researchers to ultimately write this.
The advantage of the Omicron variant of concern seems to be a combination of high transmissibility and increased immune-evading abilities.
We therefore suggest that adapted or improved vaccines may be necessary to mitigate the spread of the Omicron variant of concern.
However, it is interesting to note that while everything that we've discussed so far has to do with infections, the researchers also said that in terms of transmissibility, they discovered that people who are unvaccinated spread the virus more easily than those who are fully vaccinated.
And they also wrote that the booster shots helped to further reduce the transmissibility of the virus.
Here's essentially how they summed up their findings in their summary.
Our results confirm that booster vaccination has the potential to reduce Omicron variant transmission in households, although vaccination as a strategy for epidemic control is increasingly challenged by the immune evasiveness of the Omicron variant.
Now, it is worth noting that while this study has already been published as a preprint, it has yet to be peer-reviewed.
So take it for what it's worth.
Regardless, though, if you'd like to dig through this data for yourself, I'll throw a link to the study.
It'll be down there in the description box below this video.
And all I ask in return is that you take a super quick moment to smash, smash, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
And before we move on over and talk about how over 700 unvaccinated healthcare workers have just been fired from the Mayo Clinic due to the Biden administration's vaccine mandate, I'd like to take a super quick moment and introduce our sponsor for today's episode, and I will do so from the sound booth.
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And now let's move on over to Minnesota, where just two days ago, the Mayo Clinic fired 700 of their healthcare workers because they were unvaccinated.
And this is, by the way, despite the fact that several weeks ago, nurses at the Mayo Clinic They voiced very strong concerns over the fact that they had staffing shortages.
Regardless, though, here's what the Mayo Clinic released as a part of their statement on Tuesday after they fired these people.
While Mayo Clinic is saddened to lose valuable employees, we need to take all steps necessary to keep our patients, workforce, visitors, and communities safe.
If individuals released from employment choose to get vaccinated at a later date, the opportunity exists for them to apply and return to Mayo Clinic for future job openings.
The officials then further noted that the 700 workers who were fired represent only about 1% of the Mayo Clinic's total workforce, which is about 70,000 employees.
And after this purge, the clinic touted the fact that they have now near total compliance.
Here's specifically what they said.
While final numbers are still not available, nearly 99% of staff across all Mayo Clinic locations have complied with the required vaccination program, meaning they have been vaccinated or have received medical or religious exemptions.
However, as we just mentioned earlier, this mass termination came just a few weeks after the Minnesota Nurses Association, which is a large labor union representing the nurses in the state, after they held a press conference at the end of December asking hospital CEOs to address staffing shortages.
Here's specifically what the union president said back then on December the 20th.
To our patients, I want to say this.
Nurses will be here when you need us.
To our hospital CEOs and elected officials, please hear us.
Nurses need more than words.
We need action to address the crisis of staffing and retention in Minnesota hospitals.
Now, thus far, it's not exactly clear how firing a full 1% of their already allegedly stretched workforce will affect patient care.
However, given the political climate at this moment, many of the terminated employees are not really willing to speak.
In fact, a local publication over in Minnesota reached out to some of these fired healthcare workers but only responded by saying they wouldn't comment on the firings because they fear "community retaliation against either themselves or their families." Now what's really worth noting here is that this mass termination of unvaccinated healthcare employees stems from the Biden administration's vaccine mandate.
Specifically, several months ago, Joe Biden announced that any healthcare facility in the entire country that accepts either Medicare or Medicaid funding, they will have one of two options.
Either impose a vaccine mandate on all of their employees or risk losing federal dollars.
And even though it's currently being litigated at the Supreme Court right now, just a few weeks ago, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, otherwise known as the CMS, they announced that they will begin enforcing this policy.
And here's specifically what their new policy directive said when they issued it in the form of a memo.
In order to receive funding, the facility also must show that 100% of staff have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine or have a pending request for or have been granted a qualifying exemption.
If fewer than 100% of staff are compliant with the mandate, the facility is non-compliant under the rule.
And wouldn't you know it, just a few days after this new policy was announced, the Mayo Clinic, they decided to fire 700 of their staff members in order to be in compliance.
However, this rule might not actually stand.
That's because it is, right now, right at this very moment, being fought at the U.S. Supreme Court.
In fact, tomorrow, which is Friday, the Attorney General of Louisiana, Mr.
Jeff Landry, he will be presenting oral arguments in his case against this vaccine mandate at the nation's highest court.
And lucky for us, we were actually able to speak with him today in order to discuss...
Attorney General Landry, thank you so much for joining us.
So a lot of our viewers have actually definitely been following this case.
They're very interested, but maybe to some of the people who don't know about it, can you introduce why you decided to sue the federal government?
If you remember correctly, the president issued a number of vaccine mandates that basically affected people depending upon their particular position.
I used to call them like buckets.
There was a OSHA bucket, right?
So for those employees who In companies of 400 employees, right?
They would be mandated to be vaccinated.
And then CMS issued So that covered healthcare workers.
Anyone who participated in Medicare or Medicaid programs would have to be vaccinated as well.
So this covers doctors, nurses, healthcare providers, you know, a broad range, almost everyone inside the healthcare sphere.
And so that's the case.
Both of those cases are the cases that we are going or set to argue on tomorrow.
in front of the United States Supreme Court in trying to enforce the injunctions that were put at the district level against the government basically pausing those mandates until we're able to litigate this case and find out once and all whether the government can actually do this.
We don't think they can and that's why we believe the rules should be paused.
Yeah, so I was reading some of the facts that you put out regarding this case, and I guess this will tie into your oral arguments that you'll be giving tomorrow.
I'd like to actually go through a few of them.
So you said here that the Biden's mandate exceeds CMS's statutory authority and violates numerous federal laws, including the Administrative Procedures Act, the Social Security Act, as well as the Congressional Review Act.
Could you explain a little bit more about that?
Well, I think what you've seen in the executive orders that the president has put out in a way that his agencies have Embarked upon executing those orders.
They've done so by basically skirting the normal process of rulemaking.
Because again, remember, agencies can't make a rule without some sort of statutory authority.
And even when they make that rule, there's another statute that spells out how they go about what we call promulgating or drafting that rule and then implementing it.
And that's what we believe.
Just on its face, they violate it.
So you believe that the CMS, which by the way, if anybody's watching, the CMS stands for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in case you're not aware.
You believe that it's outside of their statutory authority to issue this blanket vaccine mandate in any institution that accepts Medicare and Medicaid.
That's correct.
We think that they're stepping outside of the authority that was delegated to them by Congress under the acts that created CMS. And so, theoretically, if they wanted to do it in a way that you would say would be more constitutional, would it have to be a separate law that Congress would have to pass?
Well, look, we believe that even Congress may not have the ability to institute vaccine mandates on American citizens.
That's why this case is so important.
If the court allows these mandates to continue, then basically the question becomes, what kind of nation do we now have?
Can the federal government continue to mandate medical procedures on American citizens against their will?
And where do we draw the line on that?
And the troubling part about this is if we take a step back and think about where we were almost two years ago in this pandemic, Okay, think about that.
That basically we got here because we said we needed to implement all these draconian measures in order to flatten the curve and increase healthcare capacity around the country.
These mandates do the opposite.
They actually diminish the capacity by causing people to just leave the healthcare workforce.
And so again, this is a basic liberty question.
I mean, and then think about it.
We're talking about health care workers.
Don't you think health care workers know better how to take care of themselves than the government?
And actually, regarding the health care shortages, you know, one thing that I was considering over the weekend was that a lot of the news you hear, for instance, in New York City, they issued a similar mandate across the entire city.
And it didn't affect too much.
But New York City is a place where most people are vaccinated, even outside of the healthcare field.
But then if you go into rural America, I mean, I've read reports that hospitals are sometimes only 70% vaccinated.
So, you know, these kind of healthcare shortages can really overwhelmingly affect rural communities.
At least from what I'm seeing.
Is that something you're seeing as well?
Yeah.
It's part of what we're going to argue that basically even if the secretary has the discretion and authority under the law, he simply did not take that into account.
You know, what was it that made him use this broad, big brush in order to paint this type of regulation and rule in place?
And yes, we believe it will absolutely affect rural America, maybe disproportionately than it affects the urban areas.
And so tomorrow, when you're going to be presenting your oral arguments, how does it exactly work?
Can you explain to someone who doesn't necessarily understand?
Because it seemed like there was the OSHA case that also went up to the Supreme Court.
So are they all bundled together and different litigants are going to be arguing different parts of the case?
Yes, they're basically taking both the cases and placing it on the docket.
The OSHA case is going to go first and then the CMS case is going to go next.
And both cases have been allotted an hour each.
So what do you think the best case scenario would be for tomorrow?
So the oral arguments are done.
You know, you've completed them.
You go back to your hotel or wherever you're at.
And what would you say the best case scenario would be?
Well, I think the best case for the American people, irrespective of what they believe, is for the court to pause these mandates.
Again, it's not telling people they can't get vaccinated.
It's just telling people and it's not telling people they shouldn't get vaccinated.
It's just telling people that it is their decision and a decision that they should make between them and their primary care physician.
So the best case scenario in your opinion would be that the Supreme Court decides to enforce the injunction nationwide.
That's correct.
They would pause both of the regulations and allow us to litigate whether or not the agencies actually have that particular authority, send it back to the district courts where we can argue that case there, but basically not allow the federal government to enforce the rule.
Okay, last question.
If, let's say, somebody's watching this interview and they're seeing this case play out and they might say to themselves, well, You know, let's say I don't support mandates generally.
But for healthcare workers, I think it might be a good idea because it's within a healthcare setting and we want to keep people more safe there.
And even if, you know, with the new variants, let's say the infection rates might be going up, but let's say the transmission rates are still pretty low among the vaccinated individuals compared to the unvaccinated individuals.
And we want to protect people in the hospitals.
What would you tell those people?
I would tell those people that, again, I would echo one of the founders' great phrases is that Those who will give up liberty for security will find that at some point in time, you will have neither liberty nor security.
If you'd like to read more about this case over at the Supreme Court, about the CMS's new rule, or about the firing of the 700 employees over in the Mayo Clinic, all those links will be down there in the description box below this video for you to check out.
And I'll ask in return is that if you haven't already, take a quick moment to smash, smash, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
And now, since you've completed this episode of Facts Matter, head on over to Epic TV and check out our new program called Over the Target, where Lee Smith examines the question of whether Joe Biden is actually giving Iran a nuclear bomb.
Here's a trailer for that awesome episode.
The Joe Biden administration is keen to reenter the Iran nuclear deal that Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018.
That's bad news for Americans, since it promises to destabilize the already volatile Middle East.
And that will add to already skyrocketing energy prices.
The point of the Iran nuclear deal has never been to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
Rather, it's to legalize the Iranian bomb.
So why does the President of the United States want to give the world's leading state sponsor of terror the most destructive weapon known to man?
It's to complete his former boss, Barack Obama's most important foreign policy objective, to overturn the US-backed Order of the Middle East by downgrading relations with traditional US allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia, and by realigning American interests with those of the Iranian terrorist state.
If you want to check out our great episode, as well as all the other phenomenal content over on Epic TV, I'll throw a link to it.
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