COVID Crashes D.C.’s Elite Gridiron Dinner

COVID Crashes D.C.’s Elite Gridiron Dinner

Remember a few short months ago when the Biden administration, Democrats, and media derided Americans who did not choose to get vaccinated or a booster shot, shaming and smearing a group of people skeptical of the vaccine’s effectiveness?

Karma visited Washington. At least a half-dozen senior officials, including members of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet and lawmakers, have just tested positive for covid.

Several cases cropped up among those who attended the elite Gridiron dinner.
Attorney General Merrick Garland and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo announced their positive diagnoses after having attended the elite Gridiron Club Dinner in Washington on Saturday. Other attendees, including Vice President Kamala Harris’ communication director Jamal Simmons and Democratic Reps. Joaquin Castro and Adam Schiff, have also announced positive tests.

The string of positive cases has turned attention in Washington to the Gridiron dinner, an event that brings together some of the city’s most prominent journalists, including from CNN, and the government officials they cover. Attendees had their vaccination status checked, but negative Covid-19 tests were not required to enter.

Tom DeFrank, the president of the Gridiron Club, said 14 guests at Saturday’s dinner have tested positive and that other cases could be expected.

“As of 4 p.m. Wednesday, we know of 14 guests at Saturday’s dinner who have tested positive for Covid. There is no way of being certain about when they first contracted Covid,” DeFrank said.

“But they did interact with other guests during the night and we have to be realistic and expect some more cases,” he continued. “Except in cases of public officials who have on their own disclosed their status, we will protect the privacy of guests who test positive.”

It’s probably wise not to virtue signal with a virus, especially airborne, easily transmitted, and uncontainable.

Meanwhile, Biden is tossing more money at Big Pharma. He issued a presidential memorandum to accelerate research efforts by the federal government into the causes and treatment of “long Covid.”

Biden’s memorandum will direct Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to coordinate a new research effort across the federal government focused on prevention, diagnosis, treatment and support for those experiencing prolonged Covid symptoms, as well as mental health and substance abuse issues related to the pandemic and Covid-related losses, the White House said.

“Long Covid is real and there is still so much we don’t know about it,” Becerra told reporters Tuesday. “Millions of Americans may be struggling with lingering health effects, ranging from things that are easier to notice like trouble breathing or irregular heartbeats to less apparent but potentially serious conditions related to the brain or mental health.”

Color me skeptical that anything meaningful will come out of the vast sums tossed at this problem. After all, an Israeli study shows that a fourth dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine lowered rates of COVID-19 among the elderly, but the protection against infection…waned after four weeks.

A fourth dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine lowered rates of COVID-19 among the elderly but the protection against infection appeared short-lived, a large study in Israel has found.

The second booster’s protection against infection dwindled after four weeks, Israeli researchers showed in their study published on Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Protection against severe illness did not wane during the six weeks after the dose but more follow-up study was needed to evaluate its longer-term protection, the researchers said.

The study on 1.3 million people aged 60 and older looked at data from the Israeli Ministry of Health database between Jan. 10 and March 2, when the Omicron variant was predominant.

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