The vaccines don't work.
Growing share of Covid-19 deaths are among vaccinated people, but booster shots substantially lower the risk
By Deidre McPhillips, CNN
Updated 7:58 AM ET, Wed May 11, 2022
(CNN)Since Covid-19 vaccines became widely available, there has been a wide gap in deaths between the vaccinated and unvaccinated. But recent Covid deaths are much more evenly split as highly transmissible variants take hold, vaccine protection wanes and booster uptake stagnates.
Breakthrough infections have become more common in recent months, putting vulnerable populations at increased risk of severe disease or death as more and more transmissible variants continue to spread. This seems to be especially true for seniors in the United States, who were among the first to get their initial vaccine series.
In the second half of September -- the height of the Delta wave -- less than a quarter of all Covid-19 deaths were among vaccinated people, federal data shows. But in January and February, amid the Omicron surge, more than 40% of Covid-19 deaths were among vaccinated people.
+++++
Regarding foreign policy.....Biden, the "foreign policy expert" mangled the Afghan withdrawal. Russia felt emboldened to go into Ukraine.
and now...
bloomberg.com
China Alarms US With Private Warnings to Avoid Taiwan Strait
China officials dispute strait is international waters: person
Defense chiefs clashed over Taiwan at Singapore security forum
Current Time 0:24
/
Duration 2:30
Shangri-La Defense Talks Focus on Taiwan
Shangri-La Defense Talks Focus on Taiwan
By
Peter Martin
June 12, 2022, 1:01 AM HSTUpdated onJune 12, 2022, 5:26 PM HST
Share this article
Follow the authors
@PeterMartin_PCM
+ Get alerts for
1?????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Chinese military officials in recent months have repeatedly asserted that the Taiwan Strait isn’t international waters during meetings with US counterparts, according to a person familiar with the situation, generating concern within the Biden administration.
The statement disputing the US view of international law has been delivered to the American government by Chinese officials on multiple occasions and at multiple levels, the person said. The US and key allies say much of the strait constitutes international waters, and they routinely send naval vessels through the waterway as part of freedom of navigation exercises.
China has long asserted that the Taiwan Strait is part of its exclusive economic zone, and takes the view there are limits to the activities of foreign military vessels in those waters. While China regularly protests US military moves in the Taiwan Strait, the legal status of the waters previously wasn’t a regular talking point in meetings with American officials.
It’s not clear whether the recent assertions indicate that China will take more steps to confront naval vessels that enter transit the Taiwan Strait. The US also conducts freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea to challenge Chinese territorial claims around disputed land features.
“The United States will continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows, and that includes transiting through the Taiwan Strait,” Lieutenant Colonel Martin Meiners, a Pentagon spokesperson, said by email. China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment outside normal business hours.
Read more on US-China ties:During a speech on Saturday at the IISS Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin warned that China was unilaterally attempting to change the status quo when it comes to Taiwan. “Our policy hasn’t changed,” he said. “But unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be true for the PRC.”
“We’re seeing growing coercion from Beijing,” Austin told delegates at the security forum. “We’ve witnessed a steady increase in provocative and destabilizing military activity near Taiwan. That includes PLA aircraft flying near Taiwan in record numbers in recent months — and on a nearly daily basis.”
Wei Fenghe
Photographer: Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images
Austin’s speech was followed on Sunday by China’s Minister of National Defense Wei Fenghe, who repeatedly expressed Beijing’s willingness to fight to prevent a formal split by the democratically elected government in Taipei. Wei didn’t explicitly refer to the legal status of the Taiwan Strait in his remarks.
“If anyone dares to secede Taiwan from China, we will not hesitate to fight,” Wei said, reaffirming Beijing’s longstanding position on the dispute. “We will fight at all costs. And we will fight to the very end. This is the only choice for China.”
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement Sunday that Wei’s public threatening of the island at an international event proved Beijing was the real source of regional disturbance, calling his comments “tantamount to a declaration of war.”
— With assistance by Colum Murphy, and Cindy Wang
(Updates with Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council statement in final paragraph.) |
