Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 531 ｜ Oh NOmicron, Here We Go Again

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week. So

00:00:15.760 today we are going to talk COVID. We're going to talk about a couple of the latest news stories

00:00:21.280 as it pertains to COVID. And it'll be a big episode. We're going to look at the data and

00:00:26.100 all of that. But before we start on that, I do want to talk about this abortion case that is being

00:00:32.940 argued before the Supreme Court today. That is Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health Center. And

00:00:41.660 this is about a Mississippi abortion law that would restrict abortion. It actually went into

00:00:46.900 place three years ago that would restrict abortion after 15 weeks with limited exceptions. There are

00:00:54.960 exceptions for medical emergencies, but there are no exceptions for rape and incest. And this case

00:01:02.380 is monumental because if this Missouri or Mississippi law is upheld, then it essentially overturns

00:01:11.360 Roe v. Wade. Now, if Roe v. Wade is overturned, that's the case that, of course, legalized abortion 0.97

00:01:16.880 in the 1970s and under which tens of millions of babies have been murdered in the last several

00:01:23.180 decades. If that is overturned, that does not ban abortion outright. Abortion doesn't suddenly become

00:01:29.340 illegal, unfortunately. What that means is that the states will be able to decide how much they want

00:01:35.740 to restrict abortion. Right now, it's very difficult, if not impossible altogether, to very strictly

00:01:42.840 restrict abortion in a state. But the overturning of Roe v. Wade would allow a state whose voters want

00:01:52.660 abortion to be banned in their state to be able to then ban abortion. And so this is a big deal. This

00:02:01.280 could possibly get us one step closer to making abortion illegal in many states. You will always

00:02:11.320 probably still be able to get an abortion in liberal states, but it will become even harder to do 1.00

00:02:18.040 in Republican states where the majority of voters don't want abortion to be legal. So this is a very

00:02:26.680 historic day. No matter what the outcome is, we won't know the outcome for a while, but Christians

00:02:32.400 should be praying. We should be praying today, every hour on the hour if you can. Maybe put alarms in your

00:02:39.620 phone to pray, to pray for the attorney. I think his name is Scott G. Stewart, who is arguing in favor

00:02:48.780 of the Mississippi law. Pray for the justices. Of course, we know that Sotomayor and Breyer are going

00:02:57.540 to be, they're the liberal justices that are going to, they're definitely going to want to strike down

00:03:05.020 the Mississippi abortion ban. And then we've got some swing votes, if you will. We've got Kavanaugh

00:03:10.500 and Roberts. Roberts is often considered a conservative, but he's really not. He's the chief

00:03:15.680 justice and he very often either just, he kind of obfuscates in some way and he decides not to take

00:03:24.880 decisions that, or take cases that the Supreme Court very well could take, or he sides with the

00:03:30.660 liberal justices very often. And Kavanaugh, like I said, it's kind of the swing. We know how Alito,

00:03:36.180 we know how Thomas are going to decide, and we probably know how justices Barrett and Gorsuch are

00:03:45.280 going to decide as well. But pray for justice to prevail, for truth to prevail, for godly wisdom to

00:03:53.440 reign and just pray. Pray for a decision that would recognize the inherent human rights of babies. And

00:04:04.260 it's incredible that the Supreme Court is even hearing this case. The legislation that has made

00:04:11.020 its way to the Supreme Court is the product of a lot of work of pro-life advocates and activists

00:04:20.500 and politicians who have been pushing for this change for decades. I mean, this is such a great

00:04:28.500 example of effective torch passing from the 1970s to today. There are, this is a generational effort

00:04:38.860 that hopefully will accomplish a generational win. And I absolutely believe that our sovereign and

00:04:45.820 omnipotent God can do it. And so let's pray for that today. Let's pray for God's will to be done.

00:04:53.160 Let's pray that no matter the outcome, that we keep on loving moms, that we keep on loving their babies,

00:04:58.740 that we work towards not just making abortion illegal, which is important to recognize the inherent

00:05:05.320 dignity of unborn children, but also to make abortion unthinkable, that we would love and support

00:05:11.700 moms and their babies so much that abortion wouldn't be the first option that women think of in times of 1.00

00:05:20.080 crisis. All right. I just wanted to mention that today. We'll talk more about it, I'm sure,

00:05:25.000 in the coming weeks and in the coming months. But like I said, today, we're going to talk about COVID.

00:05:30.620 There's some big news involving COVID. Omicron variant, y'all. Omicron, Alpha Delta Omicron,

00:05:39.360 the sorority that no one wants to be in. Yeah, everyone is being forced to join with like the

00:05:43.420 worst initiation period ever. Also, Biden's mandate for health care workers has been put on

00:05:49.380 hold by a federal judge in Louisiana. So praise God. Remember, his mandate for corporations has

00:05:54.880 already been put on hold by the Fifth Circuit of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. We'll talk about

00:06:01.120 why your corporation may still be trying to mandate it at the end of the episode and what to do about

00:06:06.700 that. But we're going to talk about these things today. We're also going to look at the numbers,

00:06:10.620 how the vaccines are holding up, the restrictions that are put in place, where we think this whole

00:06:15.320 thing is headed. So let us first talk about Omicron. And I did read that apparently, so if you know

00:06:21.860 anything about the Greek alphabet, I think that I had to know and memorize this in middle school,

00:06:26.300 I believe. But I know I had to learn and memorize it when I was joining a sorority in college.

00:06:31.580 You literally had to do like this quiz. I don't really remember very much. I know Alpha and Omega

00:06:37.540 from my Christian school church upbringing. But I don't remember all of the order of all of the

00:06:46.020 Greek alphabet. But apparently, they skipped over. Do you pronounce it Xi Xi? I know that it's when

00:06:54.200 you're talking about the head of the Communist Party in China, it's Xi Jinping, which is spelled Xi.

00:07:00.240 But apparently, scientists skipped over Xi in the Greek alphabet in order to avoid stigmatizing

00:07:09.540 the head of the Chinese Communist Party in China because his name is spelled Xi. So we skipped over

00:07:17.860 Xi and we named this particular variant Omicron. If that is true, that is what a global embarrassment

00:07:28.680 our continual capitulation to a most brutal communist regime. Okay, let's talk about this

00:07:36.900 variant, though. This is according to DW.com. B11529 is the scientific name of the new coronavirus

00:07:44.280 variant discovered last week in South Africa. It has since been detected in several other countries

00:07:51.240 with Germany, Portugal, Great Britain, Israel, and Canada, for instance, all reporting Omicron

00:07:55.900 infections. The variant has been has also been found, like I said, in the UK, Israel, Belgium,

00:08:02.440 the Netherlands, Italy, Australia, Hong Kong has not yet been found in the United States. It's

00:08:08.200 probably here. It probably just hasn't been detected yet. Biden said this quote, sooner or later,

00:08:13.220 we are going to see new cases of this variant here in the United States. And we're going to have

00:08:17.580 to face this new threat, just as we have faced the ones that came before it. Biden said one thing that

00:08:22.060 he did say that I actually appreciated. He said that the variant is cause for concern,

00:08:26.360 but it's not cause for panic. That's good. Let's put action behind those words, because a lot of

00:08:32.900 what this administration, I think, has done in the way of draconian mandates has looked a lot like

00:08:38.660 unscientific panic. But I am glad that he is at least saying people don't need to panic. The Biden

00:08:44.920 administration, though, has blocked travel from several southern African countries where the

00:08:51.460 Omicron variant is said to be spreading. And people are pointing out in light of this, that last year,

00:08:57.540 President Biden tweeted that tweeted calling Trump xenophobic after Trump restricted travel from

00:09:04.820 China. He also tweeted in March of 2020 that banning travel from any part of the world will not stop the

00:09:10.900 coronavirus. Kamala Harris tweeted that Trump's extended un-American travel ban undermines our

00:09:16.400 nation's core values. And now they are restricting travel from several countries in Africa. And the

00:09:24.660 funny thing about Biden's restriction is that the variant isn't actually isolated in Africa. It was

00:09:30.640 just identified and warned about by South African scientists. So we don't know that it originated there

00:09:36.300 or that it's even more pervasive there. It's in lots of countries. And yet we've only restricted

00:09:41.720 so far travel from these African nations. Interesting. Interesting. At least when Donald

00:09:48.140 Trump talked about restricting travel from China, we thought it we thought at the time that it was only

00:09:52.800 in China. So it made sense for him to try to impose that travel ban. This doesn't make any sense.

00:09:58.520 And while I personally don't buy accusations of xenophobia, I think that's silly. It does look more like

00:10:05.700 xenophobia in light of the facts than Donald Trump's more logical restrictions. Biden tweeted

00:10:12.260 this yesterday. He said, quote, we're going to fight the Omicron variant the way we've been fighting

00:10:17.960 COVID-19 since the beginning with scientific and knowledgeable actions and speed, not chaos and

00:10:24.260 confusion. Except that this is totally chaotic and confusing, and it's not very scientific. Very little

00:10:30.960 about Biden's approach to mitigating the spread and severity of this virus has been rooted in science,

00:10:36.840 as we will see when we talk about the vaccine mandates in just a few minutes. And now even

00:10:41.780 Trevor Noah, who is, I think, I think he's supposed to be a comedian. And I'm not even I'm not trying to

00:10:48.300 be snarky, but I never know because I don't watch him if he's supposed to be a comedian or if he's just

00:10:52.360 supposed to be like a talk show host. I don't know. But he is a leftist. He's from South Africa.

00:10:57.360 And he is even criticizing Biden over the travel ban. According to Yahoo Entertainment,

00:11:03.140 he says, quote, as a South African, Trevor Noah said, I think this travel ban is total BS. Noah

00:11:10.500 spoke with Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's

00:11:15.880 Hospital. And he is opposed. Dr. Hotez apparently is opposed to travel bans of any sort. He says,

00:11:23.420 quote, that is always my first talking point when leaders are wringing their hands about the

00:11:27.340 Omicron variant. Dr. Hotez said they are saying, oh, my gosh, but it's in multiple European countries,

00:11:33.820 Australia and Canada, maybe in the U.S. And I say that is true of every variant. By the time we

00:11:38.940 identify it, it is almost always all over the world. According to Yahoo Entertainment, Noah also

00:11:45.440 warned that issuing travel restrictions towards countries that report new variances could have

00:11:51.140 negative repercussions. He said, quote, you do realize that other countries are paying attention

00:11:55.960 and they realize if they are going to get punished for telling the world about new variants, they're

00:12:01.460 going to stop telling the world whenever their scientists discover new variants. And I think that

00:12:06.720 that is a very fair point. Southern Africa is basically being punished for sounding the alarm about

00:12:12.180 this. And apparently the alarm doesn't even need to be that loud because apparently this variant

00:12:17.840 isn't any more serious or isn't any more deadly than the other variants. And I'll get to that in

00:12:22.480 just one second. So this is according to the New York Post, quote, the South African doctor who first

00:12:29.560 sounded the alarm on the Omicron variant of the coronavirus said that its symptoms are unusual but

00:12:35.580 mild in healthy patients. But she's worried the strain could cause complications in elderly and

00:12:41.400 unvaccinated. Dr. Angelique Coetzee, a practicing doctor for 30 years who chairs the South African

00:12:48.660 Medical Association, said she believed she had found a new strain of the virus after COVID-19 patients at

00:12:53.920 her private practice in Pretoria, I don't know if that's how you pronounce that, exhibited strange

00:12:58.960 symptoms. So far, she's had two dozen patients who tested positive and showed symptoms of the new

00:13:04.840 variant, mostly young men. About half of the patients were unvaccinated, she said. None of those

00:13:10.360 infected lost their sense of smell or taste. She said it presents mild disease with symptoms being

00:13:16.820 sore muscles and tiredness for a day or two, not feeling well. So far, we have detected that those

00:13:23.900 infected do not suffer the loss of taste or smell. They might have a slight cough. There are no prominent

00:13:29.040 symptoms of those infected. Some are currently being treated at home. So you'll notice that no one,

00:13:37.460 not even the fear mongers here. No one is actually saying that the science shows this to be deadlier

00:13:42.820 or more serious than other variants. I don't even know if it's more transmissible. They might be saying

00:13:47.120 that. I haven't seen that. Maybe they're saying that it's more contagious. We're just hearing that

00:13:51.520 it exists. And the word variant sounds really scary. You know, there are different variants. There are

00:13:57.880 different strains of the flu. But when we are in this COVID hysteric world, the word variant seems to

00:14:05.480 carry with it this implicit sense of increased severity when the science isn't actually showing

00:14:11.260 that. But you hear this word variant and people think that freaking out is justified. And if you

00:14:16.960 just watch or read much of the mainstream news, at least in the United States, you would think that

00:14:22.640 you have every reason to go back inside and hide for fear that you are going to die imminently by

00:14:28.700 Omicron. On CNN, former Planned Parenthood CEO Leanna Nguyen says that every state and local

00:14:34.420 government needs to re-implement mask mandates. On ABC, Dr. Fauci said lockdowns are not out of the

00:14:40.620 question. But the truth is, neither of those things are going to happen in firmly Republican

00:14:48.160 states like Texas and Florida. States like that are not going to go back. They're just not. You know

00:14:53.240 why? Because these things aren't proven to work. They're not only unpopular, but they haven't been

00:14:57.240 proven to be effective. Now, you might remember, because we've talked about the unscientific nature

00:15:02.600 of mask mandates so much on this episode, we've looked at so much of the data and compared so many

00:15:09.680 of the charts of different states that have implemented mask mandates versus those who don't.

00:15:14.820 You might remember the Federalist article, excuse me, from October of 2020 that showed the lack of effect

00:15:22.260 of mask mandates that mask mandates had on states and countries rise in numbers. And so I'll pull up

00:15:30.080 some of those charts from that article. We'll put the link in the description to this episode.

00:15:34.900 The source for these numbers are some of them are our world and data. Some of these are the New York

00:15:39.720 Times. Some of these are Johns Hopkins. Some of these are the COVID tracking project. If you look at the

00:15:45.160 state of California, you will see the trajectory of the virus since March of 2020. And like I said,

00:15:53.760 this article is October of 2020. You'll see where they required the mask mandates in June or required

00:16:01.260 the masks in June of 2020. And you'll see that the cases spiked directly after that. And then if you look

00:16:08.580 at Hawaii, the same thing happened, they mandated indoor masks in April of 2020, they mandated outdoor

00:16:15.820 masks in July of 2020. When did the biggest spike in COVID cases happen? It happened after both of those

00:16:23.040 mask mandates went into place. Then if you look at this comparison of Texas versus Georgia, Texas

00:16:28.220 required masks in June of 2020. Georgia never required masks, at least at the time that this particular

00:16:35.800 article came out in October of 2020. And you will see that the trajectory of both states of their COVID

00:16:42.180 cases, it was almost identical, except that Texas actually had higher spikes than Georgia did with 0.99

00:16:49.140 their mask mandate. And then if you look at this comparison that the author of this article put

00:16:55.700 together between New York, Sweden, Texas, Georgia, Sweden has about the population size of Michigan.

00:17:03.660 You will see New York, they have a mask mandate. Texas had a mask mandate started in June. Georgia

00:17:10.000 never had a mask mandate. If you look at the trajectory, you do not see really any difference

00:17:16.180 between Sweden, between New York, between Texas and between Georgia, who all had varying mask mandates.

00:17:24.640 The trajectory is the same. If you look at the UK last year, you'll see that they required masks

00:17:31.060 starting in about July of 2020. Their spike still came, just like everywhere else, in about January

00:17:37.420 of 2020, when that mask mandate was in place. There seems to be no effect whatsoever on the case rate

00:17:43.900 when there are mask mandates in place. I do think that there are studies showing that certain kinds of

00:17:49.220 masks, there was a University of Waterloo study, for example, that showed that certain kinds of masks are proven

00:17:54.560 to be effective in stopping virus particles that might come out of your mouth and land on someone

00:18:00.620 else, that certain kinds of masks, KN95, N95, when they are properly fitted, when they're worn for a

00:18:08.000 specific amount of time, that they can be effective in stopping virus or viral droplets from landing on

00:18:16.960 someone else and then possibly infecting them. The problem is most people don't have access to those

00:18:22.580 kinds of masks. They're not wearing those kinds of masks. Most people are wearing cloth masks or maybe

00:18:27.180 those flimsy blue masks that say on the box that they're not intended to stop any kind of spread of

00:18:33.380 the virus. They're not effective in that. They have all kinds of gaps. Plus, you wear it for a while,

00:18:37.820 it gets wet. Once a mask gets wet, it's almost completely ineffective. And so I'm not saying that

00:18:45.380 no mask is effective. Maybe if every single person were wearing a KN95 mask perfectly fitted to their

00:18:53.680 face with no gaps whatsoever and were changing it about every 25 minutes, then maybe mask mandates,

00:19:00.880 if they were followed to a T, would actually be effective. But mask mandates implemented the way

00:19:06.220 that they are. With the mask wearing that we have, they're not proven to be effective at all.

00:19:11.620 So anyone that's saying, you know, wearing your cloth mask is loving your neighbor. Well,

00:19:16.160 actually, it's not because it's not actually proven to be effective. Some of the places that

00:19:20.840 are seeing some of the lowest case in hospitalization rates right now are the states that have had the

00:19:26.740 least restrictions throughout the pandemic, like Texas and Florida. This is according to Fox Business,

00:19:31.860 quote, as of Monday, Michigan has the highest daily rate of new cases per 100,000 residents with 85,

00:19:38.200 according to the New York Times, followed by New Hampshire with 73, New Mexico with 67 and Vermont

00:19:43.580 and Minnesota, both with 61. All the states in the top five voted for President Biden in the 2020

00:19:49.220 election. Now, typically, that correlates to more restrictions surrounding coronavirus. Michigan,

00:19:54.500 however, does not have a mask mandate in place right now. They did for a long time. But apparently,

00:19:59.000 Governor Whitmer said that she's not going to put it back in place, which is interesting.

00:20:01.940 So Michigan did have some of the strictest lockdowns this year, according to Fox Business.

00:20:08.540 Vermont has the highest vaccination rate, with nearly 72 percent of its residents being fully

00:20:12.900 vaccinated. New Mexico, Governor Grisham extended the state's indoor mask mandate twice this fall,

00:20:18.780 and yet, again, has some of the highest cases in the country. When looking at that statistic over a

00:20:24.600 week-long period ending this past Sunday, Fox Business says Minnesota leads the nation with 426

00:20:30.060 cases per 100,000 residents, followed by Michigan with 388.6, Wisconsin with 387.7, North Dakota with

00:20:41.480 361.5, and New Hampshire with 360.2. Data from the CDC shows all the states in the top five voted for

00:20:48.700 President Biden in the 2020 election. Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Hawaii, and Florida round out the

00:20:53.420 states with the lowest daily rate of new cases per 100,000 residents, with numbers ranging from 8 to 3.

00:20:58.100 The New York Times reports all but one of the states in the bottom five voted for Donald Trump in the

00:21:03.340 2020 election. Florida hospitalizations are down by over 92 percent since August, with no restrictions

00:21:10.120 put in place. You'll remember in August when the cases were really high in DeSantis. He was being

00:21:16.280 called Death Santis on Twitter because he advocated for individual freedom and for parents to be able to

00:21:24.360 make the right decision for their kids. And he was against, you know, shutting down businesses and

00:21:31.240 requiring businesses to require vaccine verification in order to enter the business. And so because he

00:21:41.720 advocated for freedom, people were saying that he wanted people to die, that he was so terrible. Of

00:21:47.080 course, they said the same thing about every Republican governor. You're not hearing the same

00:21:51.700 thing about Democratic governor, Governor Whitmer, who is not putting a mask mandate in place, even

00:21:56.140 though Michigan's numbers are really high right now. So that's interesting. It's because viruses are

00:22:02.140 seasonal, as we've talked about. They spread based on human behavior, how much time we're spending

00:22:06.120 together indoors. Lots of people are soaking in the vitamin D in Florida right now outside. Remember the big

00:22:13.820 piece in New York Magazine as well that dissected the CDC study that showed that mask mandates in

00:22:18.680 schools had no effect on case or mortality rate. And in light of all of this, England is still

00:22:25.340 re-implementing their mask mandate, according to Reuters. Just a reminder, your unvaccinated kids 1.00

00:22:33.380 chance of dying from COVID is far less than 1%. There's no reason for you to be more scared of

00:22:39.120 COVID for your kid than the flu or pneumonia or RSV. Non-RSV is still very serious. It was very serious for a lot

00:22:46.420 of kids over the summer, which was very strange. That was probably enabled and exacerbated by a lot

00:22:52.080 of the policies that were put in place for kids over the past year and a half. If you look at this

00:22:56.640 chart, and this should comfort you as a parent, no matter what side of the aisle you're on, look at

00:23:00.740 this chart by the New York Times of the hospital admissions over time by age group. If you're watching

00:23:06.540 on YouTube, you will see this flat yellow line. You'll see this flat yellow line that represents

00:23:14.140 kids under the age of 18 and their hospitalization rate. It's low. It's flatlined pretty much the

00:23:22.360 entire time. Maybe there was a tiny bump in about August to October that there were more hospitalizations,

00:23:30.700 but that represents about one child per 100,000 people. And so it has remained at one per 100,000 or zero

00:23:41.720 per 100,000 for kids this entire pandemic. So you don't need to be afraid. We have no scientific indication

00:23:49.140 whatsoever that this Omicron variant is going to be more serious for children. So if you remember all of those

00:23:54.400 headlines a few months ago about how kids are dying in droves and hospitals, it literally just wasn't true.

00:24:00.840 Like I said, there were a lot of kids who had RSV. There were not a lot of kids going to the hospital and dying

00:24:05.200 of COVID. It was not true. Your kid is wearing a cloth mask to school every day for political reasons, not

00:24:10.740 scientific reasons. I know that you are doing it because you feel like it's the more compassionate thing.

00:24:15.440 It's the safer thing to do. But there's no science proving that your kid's damp cloth mask is doing anything

00:24:20.660 positive for anyone. And it might actually be doing a lot of negative things. Possibly there was a study that came

00:24:27.300 out a few months ago and that is now recirculating online saying that there are developmental and

00:24:32.400 speech delays that are being demonstrated, that are being found in kids largely because of these

00:24:39.120 masks, of course, because God made us to be able to express ourselves and to be able to speak and

00:24:46.740 listen and understand by using our faces and seeing faces. And now as for the vaccine for your kids,

00:24:52.920 of course, that's your choice as a parent. Just know the numbers. Know that most children are simply

00:24:57.620 not at risk of any kind of serious illness when it comes to COVID and then do your cost-benefit

00:25:02.520 analysis using that. Don't do it based on fear-based propaganda that in a few months might not even

00:25:08.520 prove to be true, as we saw with the scare that the media was trying to fan into flames over the

00:25:15.480 summer. What's also amazing is that many states and countries are seeing higher case and hospitalization

00:25:21.120 rates right now than they did last year, despite the vaccines. And that's crazy. So we'll get into

00:25:26.080 that. So here's an interesting tweet from the Wall Street Journal. Quote, U.S. COVID-19 deaths this

00:25:33.620 year surpassed the known toll from 2020 with the Delta variant and low vaccination rates, important

00:25:39.320 factors in the higher count, infectious disease experts say. Now let's think about that. Let's think

00:25:45.920 about that for a second. How is that possible? 70% of the country, the United States right now,

00:25:52.180 has had at least one dose of these vaccines that we have been told work really well. We were

00:25:58.000 originally told they work well in keeping people from getting it and spreading it. Joe Biden said

00:26:02.580 that you're not going to get it and you're not going to spread it if you have the vaccine. We now know

00:26:05.620 that that's not true. Now it may slightly reduce transmission, but people are still getting sick and

00:26:10.940 spreading the virus regularly who are vaccinated. That's a fact. We just heard that LeBron,

00:26:15.620 LeCovid, so LeCovid was trending on Twitter last night. And it was because LeBron James, who

00:26:21.080 is reportedly vaccinated, he tested positive for COVID. And we know the press secretary several

00:26:29.160 weeks ago tested positive for COVID. Of course, what you hear is that, you know, these are just rare

00:26:34.460 breakthrough cases and that the reason they don't have severe symptoms is because of their vaccine.

00:26:40.020 Maybe, maybe so. It may reduce severity and the likelihood of death, but this is still,

00:26:45.360 for most people, a mild sickness. Yes, people have died from it. Absolutely. It may absolutely be

00:26:51.260 serious. But for most people who are under the age of 50, it's going to present mild cold symptoms.

00:26:57.760 The New York Times data, I mean, they have done a lot of work in tracking all of this stuff.

00:27:02.140 The New York Times data says that the vaccine does dramatically reduce the possibility of

00:27:10.560 hospitalization and death. But it's just hard, to be honest, it's just hard to understand

00:27:18.120 how we can be calling these shots effective if the death toll is higher this year than last year

00:27:25.840 when we had zero vaccines. I mean, look at this map from the CDC's COVID tracker. And we've talked

00:27:32.120 about this map before. You will see the darker the color, that deep purple color and the dark red,

00:27:39.480 that that represents the counties that have the highest vaccination rates and the highest case

00:27:44.620 rates. That's all the Northeast and other parts of the North and even in the Southwest. And so that's

00:27:52.320 interesting. And Newsweek is also reiterating this interesting fact. The headline is COVID cases are

00:28:01.600 surging in the five most vaccinated states. The five most vaccinated states in the United States,

00:28:06.340 Vermont, Rhode Island, Maine, Connecticut, and Massachusetts are all experiencing surges in

00:28:10.380 new COVID-19 cases. As the Biden administration urges people over 50 to get their booster jabs,

00:28:15.720 Vermont, which is the most vaccinated state with 73% of its population fully jabbed, saw an 18% rise in

00:28:21.800 new daily COVID cases over the past 14 days before November 24th. According to the New York Times,

00:28:27.540 Rhode Island, Rhode Island, which is 72% vaccinated, saw a 69% rise in new cases during that same 14-day

00:28:33.880 period. Maine, also 72% vaccinated, saw a 35% rise, while Connecticut, which is 72% vaccinated,

00:28:41.900 saw a 120% spike in daily COVID cases. Massachusetts, which is 71% vaccinated, saw a rise of 81% during the

00:28:51.220 last 14 days before November 4th. And so these are the biggest spikes in cases. Like it would be one

00:28:57.620 thing if, okay, yeah, they're getting some breakthrough cases. That's normal. That's going to happen. But we're

00:29:02.880 talking about the biggest spikes in case rates throughout the country are also happening in the

00:29:08.600 states that are most highly vaccinated. So that's just a little bit odd, right? That's a little bit

00:29:15.160 odd. This is according to Ian MSC on Twitter, and he compiles all this data. We've talked about his

00:29:22.660 page before. He is a good follow if you want to know what's going on with COVID. He decides that

00:29:29.080 hospitalizations in Michigan are the highest they've ever been despite 93% of seniors having had at least

00:29:35.340 one vaccination dose while exceeding Fauci's 50% target. But the good news is that it's not the

00:29:40.780 governor's fault because she isn't Ron DeSantis. Of course, that sarcasm, if you're watching on YouTube,

00:29:45.080 you can see that chart that he puts up. And his sourcing is from, it says it in really small

00:29:53.100 letters at the bottom. It's from healthdata.gov plus the CDC. He also tweets about Germany. He says,

00:30:00.240 somehow, despite Germany's endless media praise for their commitment to the science TM with mask

00:30:06.360 mandates, N95s, and vaccine passports, they just reported the equivalent of over 300,000 cases

00:30:11.980 in the US. The more the science fails, the more we need it. More sarcasm there. And so you see that

00:30:18.220 huge spike in cases in Germany in the chart that he tweeted out. He also recently tweeted on November

00:30:26.420 29th, with about 80% of the entire population fully vaccinated in a mask mandate with 99% compliance,

00:30:32.760 cases in South Korea are the highest they've ever been. But the good news is that experts and

00:30:37.760 politicians are bringing back mask mandates and vaccine passports to stop COVID. And so in the

00:30:43.640 highly vaccinated, highly mask compliant South Korea, they are seeing an unprecedented rise in 1.00

00:30:50.740 cases. France, also 91% fully vaccinated, is seeing a very high spike. They've got vaccine passports that

00:30:59.840 were put into place in the summer, July 23rd of 2021. And now they are seeing yet another spike in

00:31:09.260 cases. Singapore, almost 90% fully vaccinated. Not only the biggest surge in cases they've ever seen,

00:31:16.340 this is according to Johns Hopkins, but also the biggest surge in deaths that they've seen.

00:31:22.500 And we're already hearing that vaccines may not be effective against Omicron. Meg Terrell,

00:31:28.160 who is a senior science reporter at CNBC, she tweeted, the vaccine makers are talking about

00:31:33.080 tweaking their vaccines to combat Omicron. So Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson are all talking

00:31:38.220 about tweaking a booster shot that would be tailored specifically to Omicron. That's convenient.

00:31:43.120 So here's the question. With so much we don't know, and everything we do know about these mandates

00:31:50.480 really being largely, or about these vaccines really being seemingly ineffective in stopping

00:31:58.580 transmission and maybe even in reducing the death count, does it really make sense to mandate them

00:32:06.040 to the point of people, even people who have natural immunity, losing their jobs because they

00:32:11.400 don't want to take it? Does it make sense that nurses who sacrificed everything over the past

00:32:16.360 two years almost would be fired or that servicemen and women who put their lives on the line for this

00:32:21.980 country would be, would be fired? The working class moms and dads who have already worked so hard just 0.99

00:32:28.400 to make ends meet over the past 20 months that they should be at risk of losing their jobs if they

00:32:32.760 refuse to get a shot that they don't want or in need, that whether we want to acknowledge it or not,

00:32:37.640 they do come with at least some risk of side effects? Like, does that sound just or moral or

00:32:44.000 scientific or health-centric to you? If it does, then I would argue that your compass is severely

00:32:49.900 off. Yeah, we're seeing some leaders double down. Western Australia, for example, is implementing

00:32:57.120 vaccine mandates for virtually all occupations. You need a vaccine passport to enter pubs, cafes,

00:33:03.620 and shops in Victoria. New Zealand has mandated vaccines for at least 40% of their workforce.

00:33:08.480 Germany is seeking to make vaccines mandatory by early next year. But here in the United States,

00:33:15.380 we have seen some successful pushback to vaccine mandates, and that's good news.

00:33:20.520 All right, so as we talked about a couple weeks ago, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals halted

00:33:24.740 Biden's vaccine mandate. The court said that the mandate goes way beyond OSHA's intended function and

00:33:30.660 has a lot of constitutional problems. I will link the interview that I did with Ben Shapiro about this

00:33:36.140 a few weeks ago. That'll kind of give you a background on all of this and what's really been

00:33:41.380 going on. And his predictions, really, in that interview have come true. He predicted that this

00:33:46.300 wouldn't actually be implemented in January, as the Biden administration said that it was going to be

00:33:51.500 because of the legal issues with it. A federal judge, like I said, halted his mandate for health

00:33:57.860 care workers. This is according to the New York Post. U.S. District Judge Matthew Shelp issued a

00:34:03.940 preliminary injunction on Monday in a scathing 32-page order in which he called the requirement

00:34:08.420 a politically and economically vast federalism-altering and boundary-pushing mandate. It's

00:34:13.140 the latest blow to the federal vaccine requirements under President Joe Biden, while more legal

00:34:17.700 challenges pile up. Shelp, a Donald Trump appointee, said in his ruling that the states who sued the

00:34:22.800 administration were likely to succeed in the argument that Congress hadn't given the federal

00:34:27.040 Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services the authority to create the mandate. He also said the

00:34:32.180 mandate could put facilities in a bind without adequate staff to provide services, particularly

00:34:36.800 in rural areas. The injunction affects the states behind the lawsuit. Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas,

00:34:44.300 Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. All of the states either

00:34:49.060 have Republican attorneys general or governors. So good job, good job. But that's not it. That's not

00:34:55.180 it. It's not only about those 10 states. CNBC reported this, quote, U.S. District Judge Terry

00:35:01.820 Doughty in Monroe, Louisiana, temporarily blocked the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services from

00:35:08.340 enforcing its vaccine mandate for health care workers until the court can resolve legal challenges.

00:35:13.360 Doughty's ruling applied nationwide, except in 10 states where the CMS was already prevented from

00:35:17.900 enforcing the rule due to a prior order from a federal judge in St. Louis. Doughty said that the CMS

00:35:22.840 lacked the authority to issue a vaccine mandate that would require more than 2 million unvaccinated

00:35:27.480 health care workers to get a coronavirus shot. There is no question that mandating a vaccine to

00:35:32.520 10.3 million health care workers is something that should be done by Congress, not a government

00:35:36.780 agency, wrote Doughty. Separately, U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove in Frankfurt, Kentucky,

00:35:43.440 blocked the administration from enforcing a regulation that new government contracts must include clauses

00:35:48.440 requiring that contractors' employees get vaccinated. More good news. The contractor ruling applied in three

00:35:56.340 states that had filed the lawsuit, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee, one of at least 13 legal challenges

00:36:01.600 nationwide against the regulation. It appears to be the first ruling against the contractor vaccine

00:36:07.400 mandate. The White House declined to comment. And so, and we already know, as we mentioned, that the mandate

00:36:16.860 for private employers with 100 employees or more has already been halted. And this legal battle, there are many

00:36:27.480 legal battles that are unresolved right now. It is likely to reach the Supreme Court. And that's good news.

00:36:34.480 It's probably not going to go into place. And this means that your voice matters. Like you writing to your

00:36:41.060 representative, writing to your state representatives, trying to get in touch with your governor, trying to get in touch

00:36:45.920 with your local and state leadership, you pushing back, you peacefully protesting, you posting online,

00:36:51.220 you trying to inform your friends and the public about this, that all matters. Like your voice,

00:36:58.000 our cumulative collective voice absolutely matters. Politics matter because policy matters because people

00:37:03.940 matter. How do we affect policy? How do we affect politics? By raising a respectful ruckus. You guys have

00:37:11.460 done that. You guys have been equipped, you've been informed, and you have been bold and speaking up

00:37:16.720 for what is good and right and true. And so we are seeing the effects of that. And praise God,

00:37:21.580 let's continue to push forward peacefully, respectfully, but ruckusfully and prayerfully as we push for

00:37:29.380 people's right to be able to live and work and move without being forced to have a medical procedure

00:37:38.720 and make a medical choice that they don't want or that they don't need. Here's what I will tell you.

00:37:44.300 Here's a piece of advice. So your company may still be trying to mandate vaccines and they may be able to

00:37:52.420 do that in your particular state. Do not make that easy for them. Don't make it easy for them. The

00:37:58.300 reality is, is that they are not required right now by the federal government to do so, but they may be

00:38:04.040 using the fact that there was a mandate that Biden announced that is kind of in limbo right now.

00:38:10.680 They may be using that as cover to say, well, we don't really know what's going to happen here. So

00:38:15.320 we're just going to start requiring you anyway. So just go ahead and get the vaccine. Of course,

00:38:19.600 that is a ploy to simply try to get people to get the shots who may not want to get the shots. And

00:38:24.980 they are going to try to threaten you with your job or with the ability to go into the office or

00:38:31.560 whatever. And they're going to try to threaten to take that away in order that you will get the

00:38:38.560 shot. Don't make it easy for them. Do not quit. That is the one piece of advice. I talked to a

00:38:46.560 very prominent attorney about this. The advice that he said to give you guys is don't quit. Don't quit

00:38:53.040 in protestation. That's just making it easier for your employer. Do not quit. If they are going to fire

00:38:58.940 you, force them to force them to fire you, but don't give them the option of just not worrying

00:39:05.300 about you anymore because you quit because they're probably not going to think about it. Don't quit.

00:39:09.660 Make them fire you if they're going to fire you. If you want to try to apply for a religious exemption,

00:39:14.380 then I encourage you to do so. You do not have to lie. You should not lie. You should not lie on the

00:39:21.440 religious exemption. So if you are not someone who has a problem with the use of aborted fetal cells

00:39:30.100 in the research for the development of the vaccines, then you shouldn't put that on there

00:39:34.480 because the religious exemption form might tell you that parts of these cell lines from an aborted

00:39:44.220 baby are used in the development for lots of common medications that we use. So if it is not true

00:39:50.560 for you that you have a sincere objection to that, then don't put that as your reason. You can simply

00:39:57.120 put that you have prayed about this and you feel convicted that this is not the right choice for

00:40:02.600 you. And the person that is reading your exemption is not really allowed to theologically contend with

00:40:09.340 you. They do not have to believe it to be rational. It just has to be a sincere religious

00:40:15.060 objection to getting this vaccine. And they pretty much, and I know a lot of corporations aren't

00:40:22.280 following this, but they pretty much have to accept your religious objection, your religious

00:40:28.220 exemption. You can also file a complaint with the EEOC. The EEOC is the Equal Employment Opportunity

00:40:36.340 Commission. You can file a complaint if your religious exemption is not granted or if they threaten to fire

00:40:42.840 you or they do fire you. That is a form of religious discrimination. If you have a sincere

00:40:47.360 religious or a medical objection and they fire you because of that, then that is a form of

00:40:52.600 discrimination. You might be successful in filing a complaint with the EEOC. And when I've said that in

00:40:57.860 the past, people ask me, what's the EEOC? How do I do that? All you got to do is type it into

00:41:03.360 DuckDuckGo and they will show that to you very easily. Most people don't have the resources to be able to

00:41:10.080 sue their company. That obviously takes a lot of money. You might be able to band together with

00:41:14.640 other people in your company and get good representation and sue your company. That might

00:41:20.520 absolutely be a possibility. File a complaint with the EEOC. Don't make it easy for them. Try to rally

00:41:26.440 other people who have the same beliefs that you do and try to push back against your employer who is

00:41:32.280 mandating this. And that's my advice to you. All right, that's all we have time for today.

00:41:37.800 Tomorrow, like I said, I think we're going to talk about the Julius Jones case and we're probably

00:41:43.980 going to talk about Waukesha and what happened there and the media coverage of it. And so it'll

00:41:50.780 be a big episode. We'll be back here tomorrow. See you guys then.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - December 01, 2021

Ep 531 ｜ Oh NOmicron, Here We Go Again

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