Death
‘Even excluding Covid deaths they were almost 20% above normal for the most recent week, and the trend is rising.
20 straight weeks of excess deaths.
Nothing to see here, folks. (Though even the BBC is now asking questions.)
Freedom in Australia is dead and buried all over the Wuhan virus.
‘Sydney is divided with “one rule for me; and one for thee.”
The residents of 12 local government areas (LGA) feel unheard by the New South Wales government. Astonishingly, when the mayors of these 12 LGA’s first requested a hearing with Premier Gladys Berejiklian, she declined.
Even though the state of NSW is under strict stay-at-home orders, every weekend thousands of people flock to the eastern coastline to enjoy world-famous beaches.
While only 30-minutes inland, residents are subjected to constant police helicopter surveillance, patrols, questioning, and heavy-handedness that seems to go unchecked.
So, I went to Bass Hill to speak with the locals.
One thing became clear, they observed a two-rule system being implemented, with them receiving the shorter end of the stick.’https://www.rebelnews.com/its_scary_police_swarm_shopping_centre_with_helicopters_drones_and_horses?utm_campaign=rb_9_24_21&utm_medium=email&utm_source=therebel
My wife and I live in Australia and since the CCP virus immigrated here Australia has rapidly become a Marxist Police State! The following article is somewhat negative on what the Australian government did to stop the “boats” a few years back now, but personally, keeping uninvited “immigrants” from arriving via boats for hire from Indonesia was a good thing! But, today with this CCP virus even Australian citizens are being kept out. Anyway, having said that the following is worth a read.
‘Americans have the wrong idea about Australia.
Thanks to some brilliant tourism branding and Crocodile Dundee, we think of it as rough-n-ready frontier country, Montana with bigger beer cans. The dingo ate my baby!
In reality it’s Canada with a mean streak. The Karens are in charge and they are mad.
(This is Daniel Andrews, Premier of Victoria. Imagine the owner of the hippest coffee shop in town crossbred with a minor Central American despot – a Somoza, maybe – and you get the idea.)
Anyhow, Covid was perfect for Australia, which has a long and ugly history of trying to protect its borders at all costs. For most of its national existence it viewed itself pretty much explicitly as a white outpost against the Asian hordes.
Not all that much has changed. A few years ago the Australian government reopened offshore detention camps to discourage asylum seekers from floating on over. Conditions in the camps are… less than ideal.
So when Covid rolled in, the Australian government (and lots of Aussies) saw it as just another ugly export from China that needed to be beaten back at all costs. To its credit, Australia pushed hard for an independent investigation of the origins of Sars-Cov-2 last year (the Chinese pushed back, going so far as to call for a boycott of Australia’s delicious wine).
But Australia also went cray-cray – the technical term – for the fantasy of zero Covid. It effectively closed its borders not just to other countries but to its own citizens. For most of the last two years, they have had a hard time coming home – and an even harder time leaving.
But the insanity doesn’t stop at the border. Internally, Australia has repeatedly imposed harsh lockdowns. If even a single Covid case is found, cities and in some cases entire provinces effectively shut. Businesses and schools close and residents are required to stay inside except to buy food and exercise (though most exercise is prohibited):
The restrictions are police-enforced, and the Australians aren’t funning around.
This is not a pretend lockdown like the ones that even the bluest American states went with last year (you better stay home unless you really don’t want to!). This is the real deal. Note the use of license plate readers – and maybe even more tellingly, the word “fleeing” – in the headline below:
And don’t forget the internal travel restrictions or detention camps (oops, I mean Centres for National Resilence).
Australians – used to living in a free and democratic society – couldn’t possibly have accepted these rules, right?
Well. About that.
Until the last couple of months, the frogs were not just luxuriating in the pot but asking for a little more heat! Australians were so pleased to be Covid-free – for the entire first half of 2021, they had only one Covid death – that the majority happily tolerated these restrictions.
Yes, a few rabble-rousers complained, but even videos of police arresting people inside their homes or attacking (truly) peaceful protestors didn’t dent support for the creeping police state.
But in the last couple of months, and especially the last few days, the equilibrium has shifted. And – inevitably – the response of Australia’s fearless leaders has been to try even harder to stamp down unrest. As a result, the situation is increasingly unstable.
More on that in part two…’https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/aussie-aussie-aussie-oi-oi-oi
‘My critics will declare my title wrong since America is a democracy (more accurately, a republic) and not an Empire. An Empire is “a major political unit having a territory of great extent or a number of territories or peoples under a single sovereign authority.” I suggest America qualifies as an Empire with Biden acting like our “single sovereign authority.”
America can’t be a democracy since I did not vote (nor did my representatives) vote to pull out of Afghanistan or to open our southern border to decent, hard-working people looking for a better life and for sure, not for terrorists, deadbeats, child molesters, thieves, muggers, and other lowlifes. I did not vote to pretend two men or two women living together can make up a family; nor that children have a right to decide their gender; nor that a man can pretend to be a woman by changing his plumbing; nor to permit males to compete with females in athletic events; nor to permit boys to declare themselves female and gain rightful entrance into female restrooms and locker rooms.
Nor did I vote to permit our Empire to be run by egotistical health officials who have never treated anyone for anything at any time. Nor did I vote to force toddlers to wear a face mask; nor for businesses to be closed and church services to be shut down.
No, the American Empire, like Rome, is crumbling as I write.
I’ve even heard that some big-city mayors, all Democrats, will give a guaranteed weekly wage, but that can’t be true. Even Democrats can’t be that stupid.
The world has been fighting the Communist Chinese coronavirus for many months, and with “new variants” appearing, we may be losing the battle. Businesses are closing, hospitals are full, people are angry, experts are vacillating, politicians are lying as they take control, the innocent are dying, and vaccine makers are crying all the way to the bank carrying buckets full of money.
However, it has happened before with more tragic results.
Bubonic Plague lashed the face of Europe in the Middle Ages, killing half the population in some cities, more in others. Now the World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that bubonic plague (Black Death) is spreading in many parts of Madagascar (island nation just east of southern Africa), and a “weak health care system means it may spread farther.” WHO reported that there have been 40 deaths from the plague, with 119 people infected. Plague is spread by fleas carried by rats.
WHO also ominously reported, “There is now a risk of a rapid spread of the disease due to the city’s high population density and the weakness of the healthcare system.”
Well, add one more threat to life from all the exotic diseases (pestilences) from Africa and China—earthquakes, famines, wars, and rumors of war to warn world citizens of the end of the world as we know it. No, I’m not a pessimist; that thought was Matthew, chapter 24. We have experienced all this before, but not with such frequency and intensity. Nations could be destroyed as in the past.
American physician, bacteriologist, and prolific author Hans Zinsser, among others, believe that the Plague of Justinian was partly responsible for the demise of the Roman Empire. He declared the plague was “perhaps the most potent single influence” which gave the coup de grâce to the ancient Empire. Bugs, not bullets, knocked off an empire! This pandemic lasted about seventy years and caused havoc in the Roman Empire, already bruised, broken, and bleeding. Justinian was desperately trying to restore the ancient Empire to its former glory–like trying to breathe life into a corpse.
Seventy years of pandemic!
During Emperor Justinian’s reign, the worldwide plague began in A.D. 541 at Pelusium, Egypt (at the mouth of the Nile). He was known as “the emperor that never sleeps.” In sixty years, the plague spread to all parts of the known world. The dead lay unburied in the streets, and ten thousand persons died each day at Constantinople. The people of Constantinople became desperate with all the deaths as they placed bodies anywhere they could. Some bodies were left in houses to rot. It got worse as the black horse of famine galloped through the city because mills stopped grinding corn due to workers’ deaths.
They experienced a major food shortage because of many business failures. And those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
V. Seibel tells us that the plague was preceded by many earthquakes, volcanic eruptions—Vesuvius, in 513, was one—and famines that dropped a blanket of terror and death over Europe, the Near East, and Asia. The worst natural occurrence was the earthquake and fire that destroyed Antioch in A.D. 526, killing almost 300,000 people.
The Roman Empire was in a state of confusion because of the added pressure, problems, and panic produced by the plague. Gibbon wrote, “No facts have been preserved to sustain an account or even a conjecture of the numbers that perished in this extraordinary mortality. I only find that, during three months, five and at length ten thousand persons died each day at Constantinople; and many cities of the East were left vacant, and that in several districts of Italy the harvest and the vintage withered on the ground.”
When the plague snuck into Constantinople in A.D. 542, it stayed for four months, killing so many people that it was impossible for the living to bury the dead. By A.D. 565, half of the citizens of the Byzantine Empire had died! Gibbon suggested that perhaps 100 million people in Europe alone died of this plague!
Well, we aren’t there yet.
Justinian’s armies were fighting with Persia, Africa, and the Goths in Italy, but those crude, unsophisticated barbarians had learned the art of making war from former warlords. Barbarians had learned how to organize, analyze, and cooperate. It was ever more difficult for the emperor to sustain armies on far-flung battlefields, especially when there were threats at home and treachery and thievery in his palace. Justinian needed, least of all, a major epidemic to compound his problems.
This Plague of Justinian emptied the cities, turned the country into a desert, and made the habitations of men the haunts of wild beasts. The snakes slithered and hissed, the hyenas crouched and laughed, and wild beasts pawed and growled where proud, pompous, and productive men once walked.
However, when men face the inscrutable, they tend to lose their arrogance, sinking into a hapless and helpless, and hopeless life.
Gibbon recorded: “The triple scourges of war, pestilence, and famine afflicted the subjects of Justinian, and his reign is disgraced by a visible decrease of the human species which has never been regained in some of the fairest countries of the globe.” Can anyone read that statement and doubt that disease has changed our world far more than wars? Furthermore, will irresponsible Muslim terrorists or the Communist Chinese coronavirus change our present world forever? Or maybe it will be the bubonic plague.
The plague of Justinian ended about 590, but most of Italy was controlled by the Lombards by that time. The barbarians were no longer at the gates of Rome but inside the gates. The mighty Empire had crumbled, and when the Muslim zealots swarmed out of Arabia in 634, the Roman and Persian forces gave only token resistance.
As uncultured, uncivilized, uneducated, and uncontrolled Muslim zealots swarm into America carrying hostile plans and harmful pestilences, will the once-great American Empire fall like Rome?
Even Emperor Justinian contracted the plague but survived; however, his Empire did not. The question: how will ancient plagues and other pestilences impact and change America?
Some of us will live long enough to see that answer.’https://donboys.cstnews.com/will-the-american-empire-fall-like-rome-because-of-a-virus
Worth a listen.
‘Data released Sept. 17 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that between Dec. 14, 2020 and Sept. 10, 2021, a total of 701,561 adverse events following COVID vaccines were reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). The data included a total of 14,925 reports of deaths — an increase of 419 over the previous week.
There were 91,523 reports of serious injuries, including the reports of deaths, during the same time period — up 3,352 compared with the previous week.
Excluding “foreign reports” filed in VAERS, 559,462 adverse events, including 6,756 deaths and 43,073 serious injuries, were reported in the U.S. between Dec. 14, 2020 and Sept. 10, 2021.
Of the 6,756 U.S. deaths reported as of Sept. 10, 12% occurred within 24 hours of vaccination, 17% occurred within 48 hours of vaccination and 31% occurred in people who experienced an onset of symptoms within 48 hours of being vaccinated.
In the U.S., 378.2 million COVID vaccine doses had been administered as of Sept. 10. This includes: 216 million doses of Pfizer, 148 million doses of Moderna and 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson (J&J).
The data come directly from reports submitted to VAERS, the primary government-funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S.
Every Friday, VAERS makes public all vaccine injury reports received as of a specified date, usually about a week prior to the release date. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before a causal relationship can be confirmed.
This week’s U.S. data for 12- to 17-year-olds show:
- 19,827 total adverse events, including 1,169 rated as serious and 19 reported deaths. Two of the 19 deaths were suicides.
The most recent deaths involve one report of two patients [VAERS I.D. 1655100] who died after their second dose of Pfizer, including a 13-year-old female.
Other recent reported deaths include a 15-year-old boy (VAERS I.D. 1498080) who previously had COVID, was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy in May 2021 and died four days after receiving his second dose of Pfizer’s vaccine on June 18, when he collapsed on the soccer field and went into ventricular tachycardia; and a 13-year-old girl (VAERS I.D. 1505250) who died after suffering a heart condition after receiving her first dose of Pfizer.
- 2,972 reports of anaphylaxis among 12- to 17-year-olds with 99% of cases
attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine. - 488 reports of myocarditis and pericarditis (heart inflammation) with 481 cases attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine.
- 106 reports of blood clotting disorders, with all cases attributed to Pfizer.
This week’s U.S. VAERS data, from Dec. 14, 2020 to Sept. 10, 2021, for all age groups combined, show:
- 20% of deaths were related to cardiac disorders.
- 54% of those who died were male, 42% were female and the remaining death reports did not include gender of the deceased.
- The average age of death was 72.9.
- As of Sept. 10, 3,650 pregnant women reported adverse events related to COVID vaccines, including 1076 reports of miscarriage or premature birth.
- Of the 2,783 cases of Bell’s Palsy reported, 50% were attributed to Pfizer vaccinations, 42% to Moderna and 8% to J&J.
- 593 reports of Guillain-Barré syndrome, with 39% of cases attributed to Pfizer, 33% to Moderna and 27% to J&J.
- 149,681 reports of anaphylaxis with 42% of cases attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine, 51% to Moderna and 7% to J&J.
- 9,260 reports of blood clotting disorders. Of those, 3,968 reports were attributed to Pfizer, 3,376 reports to Moderna and 1,866 reports to J&J.
- 2,452 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis with 1,545 cases attributed to Pfizer, 806 cases to Moderna and 93 cases to J&J’s COVID vaccine.
FDA panel overwhelmingly rejects Pfizer boosters for healthy people 16 to 65 years old
On Sept. 17, a panel of scientific advisors to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted 16 to 2 against recommending a third shot of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine for healthy people 16 and older, but voted unanimously in favor of recommending the booster shot for the immunocompromised and all people 65 or older.
The vote came after a sharp debate in which many of the panel’s independent experts, including infectious disease doctors and statisticians, challenged whether the data justified a broad rollout of extra shots when the vaccines appear to still offer robust protection against severe COVID-19 disease and hospitalization, at least in the U.S.
Officials at the FDA previously had expressed skepticism about the need for Pfizer COVID vaccine booster shots in a 23-page document released Sept. 16, prior to the meeting, on the agency’s website.
The report analyzed data submitted by Pfizer and BioNTech as part of the drugmakers’ request for authorization for their vaccine to be given as a booster shot in people 16 years and older. FDA officials said, based on their analysis of data submitted by Pfizer and BioNTech, they could not yet take a stance on whether to recommend COVID boosters for the general public.
16-year-old Sara Green “wants life back” after developing neurological problems following Pfizer vaccine
Sarah Green was a healthy 16-year-old until she developed neurological problems after receiving her second dose of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine. In an exclusive interview with The Defender, Sarah (VAERS I.D. 1354500) and her mother, Marie Green, said they feel helpless because nobody will acknowledge Sarah’s vaccine injury and “nobody can help them.”
Sarah received her second dose of Pfizer on May 4, and immediately began experiencing headaches. She then developed facial twitches and tremors, lost the ability to write, cannot drive and had to drop two college classes, Green said.
Sarah has seen numerous doctors who refuse to acknowledge the vaccine caused her condition. One doctor said Sarah had functional movement disorder and it was not related to the vaccine — although she said she has seen more cases since COVID vaccines were approved because people “stress themselves out over the vaccine and it’s psychosomatic.”
Green said she and Sarah are not anti-vaxxers, but there are too many people having problems for them not to know there’s a problem with mRNA vaccines.
Champion show jumper, 22, develops blood clots after Moderna COVID Vaccine
Imogen Allen, 22, developed two blood clots in her lungs after receiving Moderna’s COVID vaccine and will be on blood thinners for the rest of her life, the Daily Mail reported. Allen was diagnosed with a bilateral pulmonary thromboembolism after collapsing while on a family vacation two weeks after being vaccinated.
Allen was told by doctors the clots could have been triggered by the vaccine alongside five years on the contraceptive pill. Allen, a champion show jumper, may never be able to ride a horse again and her dreams of becoming a police detective were dashed after she was left bedbound.
“I was always wary of something happening, and it just shows that I had every right to be, because look at me now,” Allen said.
Babies could be given COVID vaccines in U.S. this winter
Pfizer’s COVID vaccine could be rolled out to babies as young as 6 months in the U.S. this winter — under plans being drawn up by the pharmaceutical giant.
According to the Daily Mail, Pfizer plans to apply for authorization to immunize American infants within the next two months, although the timeline will depend on findings of in-house trials that assess safety and efficacy of children aged six months to 5 years.
Frank D’Amelio, CFO and executive vice president of global supply at Pfizer, said in an industry conference last week the firm plans to “go file” by November, the Financial Times reported.
“We would expect to have … data for children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years old that we would file with the FDA,” D’Amelio said at the Morgan Stanley Global Healthcare Conference. “I’ll call it in the weeks shortly thereafter the filing of the data for the 5- to 11-year-olds.”
Pfizer plans to seek approval from the FDA for the shots to be given in children aged 5 to 11 by October.
Young boys at higher risk of hospitalization from Pfizer vaccine than from COVID
According to a new pre-print study, healthy boys between the ages of 12 and 15, with no underlying medical conditions, were four to six times more likely to be diagnosed with vaccine-related myocarditis than they were to be hospitalized with COVID.
To identify children with evidence of cardiac injury, researchers reviewed reports submitted to VAERS of adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 who received an mRNA COVID vaccine.
The researchers identified a total of 257 cardiac adverse events (CAE) using the CDC’s working case definition of myocarditis, and found the post-vaccination CAE rate was highest in 12- to 15-year-old boys following their second dose of Pfizer. About 86% of the boys affected required hospital care, the authors said.
Dr. Tracy Høeg, physician, epidemiologist and associate researcher at UC Davis, found the rate of myocarditis after two doses of Pfizer’s vaccine to be 162.2 cases per million for healthy 12- to 15-year-old boys, and 94 cases per million for healthy 16- to 17-year-old boys. The equivalent rates for girls were 13.4 and 13 cases per million, respectively.
At current U.S. infection rates, the risk of a healthy adolescent being taken to the hospital with COVID in the next 120 days is about 44 per million, they said.
Experts accuse CDC of ‘cherry-picking’ data on natural immunity
There is a growing body of literature that shows natural immunity not only confers robust, durable and high-level protection against COVID, but also provides better protection than vaccine-induced immunity.
Yet, the CDC is ignoring the science of natural immunity when it comes to COVID, while acknowledging it for other diseases, said Dr. Marty Makary, professor of surgery and health policy at Johns Hopkins University. On Sept. 14, Makary said on the “Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show,” the agency is providing contradictory, “illogical” COVID messaging. He accused the CDC of “cherry-picking” data and manipulating public health guidance surrounding vaccines and natural immunity to support a political narrative.
Makary explained how the CDC’s current guidance for chickenpox, for example, does not encourage those who have contracted it to vaccinate themselves against the virus. The CDC only recommends two doses of chickenpox vaccine for children, adolescents and adults who have never had chickenpox.
Makary called the conflicting guidance “absolutely illogical,” and accused the agency of “ignoring natural immunity.” He added the CDC is engaging in a statistical technique called “fishing,” where “you look for a tiny sliver of data that supports what you already believe.”
194 days and counting, CDC ignores The Defender’s inquiries
According to the CDC website, “the CDC follows up on any report of death to request additional information and learn more about what occurred and to determine whether the death was a result of the vaccine or unrelated.”
On March 8, The Defender contacted the CDC with a written list of questions about reported deaths and injuries related to COVID vaccines. We have made repeated attempts, by phone and email, to obtain a response to our questions.
Despite multiple phone and email communications with many people at the CDC, and despite being told that our request was in the system and that someone would respond, we have not yet received answers to any of the questions we submitted. It has been 194 days since we sent our first email to the CDC requesting information.
Children’s Health Defense asks anyone who has experienced an adverse reaction, to any vaccine, to file a report following these three steps.’https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/vaers-cdc-covid-deaths-vaccine-injuries/?utm_source=salsa&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=b2ca23f2-4384-4ca8-bcd8-3c1596bc38c9
If you don’t agree with lockdowns and mandatory vaccination you are according to the LEFT associated with ‘Far right nationalists, anti-vaxxers, libertarians and conspiracy theorists‘! That’s what Leftist’s think of freedom loving people! So, I wasn’t surprised to read a Leftist say ‘Scenes of protesters clad in hi-vis jackets and shouting anti-vaccination slogans have dominated the news this week. As the ABC reported:
Some of those gathered held a banner reading ‘freedom’, while others sang the national anthem and chanted ‘f*** the jab’.
Some attacked union offices, drawing criticism from officials such as ACTU chief Sally McManus, who described the protests as being orchestrated “by violent right-wing extremists and anti-vaccination activists.”
These images may shock some but for researchers like me — who research far-right nationalist and conspiracy movements, and explore the online spaces where these people organise — these scenes came as no real surprise.
Far right nationalists, anti-vaxxers, libertarians and conspiracy theorists have come together over COVID, and capitalised on the anger and uncertainty simmering in some sections of the community.
They appear to have found fertile ground particularly among men who feel alienated, fearful about their employment and who spend a lot of time at home scrolling social media and encrypted messaging apps.’https://theconversation.com/its-almost-like-grooming-how-anti-vaxxers-conspiracy-theorists-and-the-far-right-came-together-over-covid-168383?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20September%2022%202021%20-%202066620386&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20September%2022%202021%20-%202066620386+CID_052856edb1cc559c37eef8a519b3a25a&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Its%20almost%20like%20grooming%20how%20anti-vaxxers%20conspiracy%20theorists%20and%20the%20far-right%20came%20together%20over%20COVID
Just another reason to be an independent Baptist.
‘COVID-19 vaccine refusal rates may be high among white evangelical Christians, but the International Mission Board (IMB) — which deploys thousands of missionaries — is not hesitant about the shot.
The global agency of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest evangelical Protestant denomination in the U.S., announced this month it is requiring vaccinations for missionaries they’re sending into the field amid the pandemic.
The IMB may be the first U.S. missionary agency known to have such a mandate, according to leaders in the field, as other faith groups approach the issue in a variety of ways including limiting where people can serve and making considerations for uneven global access to the vaccines.
“This is a very common-sense decision,” said Ed Stetzer, a Southern Baptist who is dean of Mission, Ministry and Leadership at Wheaton College. “Mission-sending agencies from the United States have the real opportunity to be vaccinated, and they’re going to places around the world that don’t.”
The IMB policy applies to both current and future missionaries as well as some staff members. Among the reasons it cited for the measure are health concerns and the fact that increasing numbers of countries are implementing their own vaccine requirements — some field personnel have reported needing to show proof to board airplanes and subways or enter restaurants and malls.
In a statement announcing the policy, IMB leaders acknowledged that it could be a deal-breaker for some people considering missionary work or currently serving with the organization.
The Rev. Allen Nelson IV, a pastor who leads a Southern Baptist congregation in Arkansas, said he is not against vaccines but is completely opposed to mandates for missionaries.
“This is something that must be left up to a person’s own conscience, research and discussions with a doctor, as well as their particular ministry context,” said Nelson.
The United Methodist Church, for its part, strongly encourages missionaries to get vaccinated but does not require it. That is partly because availability is not consistent around the world, according to Judy Chung, executive director of missionary services for the denomination’s Global Ministries.
“We have discussed how to promote vaccination without making a mandatory requirement,” Chung said, “because some may not have access to that yet.”
The denomination currently has about 240 full-time missionaries serving in 70 countries, and the most recently deployed cohort of about 40 has a vaccination rate around 80%.
“We want to make sure that our missionary population are safe so that they can focus on the mission work that has been assigned to them,” Chung said. “We want to make sure that we are not causing harm as we engage in mission.”
A key question for U.S.-based mission groups is whether they will fall under the Biden administration’s recently announced rule that companies with more than 100 employees must require workers be vaccinated for the coronavirus or undergo weekly testing.
If they do, Ted Esler, the president of Missio Nexus, an association that includes hundreds of missionary agencies in the U.S. and Canada, said about 30% of those agencies could be affected. He thinks they would comply with the federal mandate but said the issue is not currently stirring much discussion.
Ultimately, he noted, organizations’ internal rules may be rendered moot by vaccine entry requirements that many countries have instituted for visitors.
“Whether you have a policy or not,” Esler said, “if you’re going to serve cross-culturally in another country, you’re going to be faced with the government regulation.”
A June survey by the Public Religion Research Institute showed COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy decreasing and acceptance growing, but refusal rates holding steady. It also found significant variance of opinion between people from different faith traditions.
White evangelical Protestants had the highest vaccine refusal rate at 24% and among the lowest acceptance rates at 56%. By comparison, acceptance rates stood at 56% for Hispanic Protestants, 65% for Latter-day Saints, 66% for Black Protestants, 69% for other Protestants of color and 74% for white mainline Protestants.
The IMB has had vaccine requirements for other diseases in place since the 1980s, and it says some have chosen to skip international service because of it.
Esler, who served as a missionary in Bosnia in the 1990s with the Pioneers organization, said he had to be inoculated against diseases like diphtheria, polio, tetanus and typhoid before he could go.
Esler wasn’t eager to get a COVID-19 vaccine and is hesitant to advise others to roll up their sleeves. But he got vaccinated because he is continuing to travel.
“From my perspective, this is an issue more because of the fact that it’s COVID-related than it is vaccine-related,” Esler said.
“It’s unfortunate that the COVID vaccine here is controversial and rejected by some,” he added, “when in other places it would be coveted and highly sought-after and they cannot get it.”’https://julieroys.com/southern-baptist-imb-missions-covid-vaccine/?mc_cid=41ef5de5ed&mc_eid=b13d34ad49
