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[0] The CDC has released data that show that 60 % of Americans and 75 % of children show evidence of previous COVID infection.
[1] The findings have nearly everyone declaring we've reached the end of the pandemic.
[2] We are certainly right now in this country out of the pandemic phase.
[3] I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor -in -Chief John Bickley.
[4] It's April 30th, and this is your Saturday edition of Morning Wire.
[5] China is testing nearly all of Beijing's 22 million residents as they continue to pursue their goal of zero COVID.
[6] How many cases is China reporting?
[7] And are more lockdowns on the horizon?
[8] And after being banned from major tournaments for months for being unvaccinated, Novak Djokovic, the world's number one tennis player, is back.
[9] We'll discuss why the outspoken player is getting back on the court.
[10] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[11] Stay tuned.
[12] We have the news you need to know.
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[21] A new CDC study says that a majority of American adults and children have been infected with COVID -19, though many may not even know they had the virus.
[22] The news comes as Dr. Anthony Fauci gave conflicting statements about whether the pandemic is over.
[23] Here to discuss the latest COVID developments is Daily Wire Senior Editor Ash Short.
[24] So, Ash, let's talk about this CDC study.
[25] What did it find?
[26] The study found that some 60 % of American adults and 75 % of children have, coronavirus antibodies, meaning they were likely infected with the virus at some point recently.
[27] In December 2021, just four months ago, only 34 % of Americans had the antibodies.
[28] Morning Wire this week spoke to Dr. Human Hamadi, a board -certified ophthalmologists and biomedical research scientists about those percentages.
[29] You know, these numbers are not surprising.
[30] They're based on studies of blood that show levels of antibodies against COVID.
[31] In fact, what we know is, the antibodies don't tell the entire story.
[32] When you have an immune response against a virus, the antibodies are present for some time and then they wane, but you still have cells in the body, in the bloodstream floating around that retain that immunity for life, or at least for a very, very long time.
[33] And so I think if the CDC's numbers are showing these very high percentages, in reality, the true immunity rate is dramatically higher than that, probably closer to 90, 95, even 100%.
[34] When you look at those numbers, what it tells us is that, A, we have a lot of immunity out there, vaccines or not, and B, we've probably already met the threshold ford immunity, which means it's going to become very difficult for this virus to cause meaningful infections in the vast majority of Americans, whether they're vaccinated or not.
[35] Right, and Dr. Hamadi isn't the first person to question the official numbers coming out of the CDC.
[36] A few weeks ago, you actually reported that the CDC is launching an internal review to address some of those credibility issues.
[37] Right.
[38] The CDC has been pretty open about the fact that trust in the organization is plummeting.
[39] And like you said, they're attempting to address it.
[40] Here's what Dr. Hamadi had to say about how they could do that.
[41] Well, what they needed to regain the public's trust is to be.
[42] become much more transparent, remove all political influence from their decision -making and policies, and to really become responsive to feedback.
[43] What the CDC did was censor data that didn't play into its narrative, was to censor its critics, send people in the media to try to attack anyone who questioned their decision -making, and really kept a closed door to any sort of dissenting voices within or outside the agency.
[44] And I think for a public health agency like the CDC to become more credible again, as they really must be in order to become effective and save lives down the line, pandemic or not, they need to demonstrate that they're completely objective, that they follow the actual science, not their version of the science or a curated version of the science that fits, again, a political narrative, and that they listen to the people.
[45] Public health decisions are based in a couple of different things.
[46] One is in the medical data and the science and two is in its impact of the impact of their decisions on the population.
[47] And if those decisions that they make negatively impact the population in other ways, perhaps they're not the right thing to do.
[48] Now, we haven't brought up Dr. Anthony Fauci yet.
[49] This week, he seemed to say that the pandemic is over.
[50] That was a surprise for some of us.
[51] Right.
[52] Fauci told PBS on Tuesday that the U .S. was out of the pandemic phase, and he told the Washington Post that the country was out of the full -blown explosive pandemic phase.
[53] But on Wednesday, he said that we are merely in a different moment of the pandemic and that by no means does that mean the pandemic is over.
[54] So it sounds like he's not quite ready to say the pandemic is over.
[55] Not yet.
[56] We also just recently learned that Vice President Kamala Harris tested positive for COVID -19.
[57] Her case is reportedly asymptomatic.
[58] But White House press secretary Jen Saki said the VP is taking Pfizer's new antiviral pill known as pexlovid.
[59] Now, Paxlovid has been available for a few months now, and it's been shown to be very effective.
[60] Is this pill standard for all cases at this point?
[61] Not really.
[62] The Department of Health and Human Services said it was making 175 ,000 doses of the pill available every week.
[63] And those doses are supposed to be used for severe cases and high -risk individuals.
[64] Well, it looks like the odds for the vice president are pretty good at this point.
[65] They are.
[66] All right.
[67] Well, Ash, thanks so much for reporting.
[68] That's Daily Wire Senior Editor, Ash Short.
[69] Coming up, China restricts the movements of millions of Beijing residents.
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[74] Some of Beijing's nearly 22 million residents are under movement restrictions, even as the country records its lowest COVID case rate in three weeks.
[75] Here with the latest on the outbreak in China is Daily Wire's Ian Howarth.
[76] So, Ian, last time you reported, China had implemented extremely strict lockdowns in Shanghai, and economists were warning about how those lockdowns could affect supply chains.
[77] What are the updates?
[78] Yeah, since we last spoke about the COVID outbreak in China's financial capital, Shanghai and the severe lockdown that was imposed, things appear to have gotten worse in China.
[79] Now, the capital city, Beijing is experiencing its own outbreak, and officials there are rushing to try and reduce the growing rate of infections in the city of 22 million people.
[80] At its root, the strategy there is similar to that of Shanghai, test almost everyone to supposedly avoid a citywide lockdown.
[81] So there have been massive lines of people waiting to get tested, with the city government ordering around three and every four people, to go through three mandatory rounds of testing across five days.
[82] Now, how many positive tests would trigger a lockdown?
[83] You had reported that Shanghai lockdown for a very small number.
[84] It might not take very many at all because China is still pursuing a zero COVID policy.
[85] As of now, millions of citizens in Beijing are being forced to get tested, and a lockdown is likely to follow if recent events are anything to go by, or because of a few dozen new infections in the last few days, and 92 since the outbreak was recorded a few days ago.
[86] Wow, so just 92.
[87] Yeah.
[88] Now, the Shanghai measures were extremely draconian.
[89] Can we expect to see the same in Beijing?
[90] Possibly, but this time it looks like their front -loading testing.
[91] In Shanghai, officials waited weeks before imposing testing on this kind of level after more than 1 ,000 cases were recorded.
[92] But like Shanghai, testing isn't the only change city residents are now facing.
[93] Fencing has been put up in the city, and police are stopping people from leaving certain lockdown areas.
[94] According to current reports, public transport is, is still running and a lot of roads remain open.
[95] But again, these are the first few days of an outbreak.
[96] And given the Chinese government's refusal to change tactics, and if Shanghai is of any indication, the people of Beijing might be in for a rough ride in the coming weeks.
[97] Right.
[98] And Dr. Hamadi, who we heard earlier in this episode, argue that China will have to change strategy if they don't want to cause a collapse of society.
[99] The virus has come out surging again, because this is how viruses behave.
[100] And there's no way around it in terms of lockdowns or other major restrictions.
[101] And so at some point, they're going to have to accept the fact that they're going to have to manage this through medications and vaccinations and achieving herd immunity.
[102] But they're reluctant to accept that.
[103] And the longer it takes for them to accept that, the more damage they're going to cause to their own people.
[104] And there's one more battle going on in China in the midst of this COVID -related lockdown involving the fight against censorship.
[105] A lot of people might remember recent videos that went viral of residents in Shanghai being mistreated.
[106] Another six -minute video titled The Voice of April recently went viral too, sharing residents' complaints about lack of supplies and violent treatment.
[107] Well, all direct references to this particular video have been scrubbed from the Chinese social media platform Webo.
[108] People are pushing back, though, by doing things like embedding the original video in other clips, but all of this will be bringing back memories of early in the pandemic when people who spoke out against the CCP back narrative were censored or even worse.
[109] Well, Ian, thanks for reporting.
[110] Of course, thanks, Georgia.
[111] That's DailyWire's Ian Hauer.
[112] Months after being banned from playing in the Australian Open due to his vaccination status, the world's number one tennis player will be allowed to compete in this summer's Wimbledon tournament.
[113] Here to tell us more as Daily Wire Sports Reporter, Joe Morgan.
[114] All right, Joe, it's been quite the year for Novak Djokovic.
[115] What's the latest?
[116] Yeah, thanks for having me on, John.
[117] So as we've discussed on this show multiple times, Djokovic is unvaccinated against COVID -19.
[118] His decision to remain unvaccinated has been really the tennis story of the year.
[119] Yeah, it really has.
[120] In January, Novak was not allowed to compete in the 2022 Australian Open due to his vaccination status and was actually deported from Australia due to the risk that his, quote, vaccine skepticism posed a risk to public health and good order of Australian society.
[121] That was actually from an Australian politician.
[122] So it was truly a wild situation with Djokovic first winning an appeal to remain in the country to defend his Australian Open, then having his visa campaign.
[123] canceled the second time and eventually deport it.
[124] Yeah, it's quite the saga.
[125] And there's been concerned that his vaccine status could prevent him from playing in tennis's other majors, correct?
[126] Yeah, absolutely.
[127] But fortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case.
[128] So on Tuesday, the chief executive of the All -England Club, which manages the Wimbledon, her name is Sally Bolton, said that the United Kingdom does not require the COVID -19 vaccine in order to enter the country, meaning the Djokovic will be allowed to compete at Wimbledon.
[129] Okay.
[130] According to Bolton, Wimbledon will also be lifting its COVID -19.
[131] restrictions that were in place at last year's tournament, meaning full crowds are expected.
[132] And there's a major before Wimbledon that's been up in the air due to his vaccination status?
[133] Yeah, that's right.
[134] So that's the French Open at Roland Garros, and it's scheduled for late May. Okay.
[135] There were certainly concerns that Djokovic would be unable to compete in France because they have a strict vaccine mandate in place for many months.
[136] But in March, France lifted most of his COVID -19 restrictions, clearing the way for Djokovic to play in the French Open at the end of May. though it should be noted that the president of the French Tennis Federation said that things could change before the start of the tournament.
[137] Now, there's been some controversy surrounding the Wimbledon tournament over the past week that does not focus on Djokovic, right?
[138] Correct, though Novak, you know, is at least part of the story.
[139] So last week, the All -England Club announced that they will ban Russian and Belarusian players from the upcoming 2022 tournament following Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
[140] There has been a decent amount of pushback on the decision as the tennis world has allowed Russian and Belarusian tennis players.
[141] players to compete just not under their respective country's flags.
[142] Steve Simon, the head of the Women's Tennis Association, said that the tennis professionals from Russia and Belarus should not be banned from competing, quote, as the result of political positions their leadership may take.
[143] Novak also weighed in, saying that he cannot support the decision of Wimbledon and calling it, quote, crazy.
[144] The ban means that five Russian women in the WTA's top 40 will not be allowed to compete, as well as the men's number two overall player, Daniel Medvedev.
[145] So significant exclusions there.
[146] Yeah, absolutely.
[147] This is a big deal, and I will say that a lot of people have pushed back, but they're going to push through with this.
[148] Good stuff.
[149] Thanks, Joe.
[150] Yeah, anytime.
[151] Daily Wire sports reporter, Joe Morgan.
[152] Other stories were tracking this week.
[153] After former U .S. Marine Trevor Reed was released from a Russian jail in a prisoner exchange this week, a U .S. State Department spokesman said that WNBA player Brittany Griner's situation is a top priority.
[154] and that they are in regular contact with her team.
[155] Griner has been detained in Russia since February for allegedly having hashish oil.
[156] And measles cases around the world have increased 79 % this year.
[157] More than 17 ,000 cases were reported in January and February alone.
[158] The likely cause is that millions of children did not receive measles vaccinations during COVID.
[159] The U .S. has recorded only two cases of measles in 2022.
[160] Thanks for listening to Morning Wire.
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