Scammers and the Omicron Vaccine
The latest scam against seniors appears to have started the very day the new Covid omicron vaccine was announced as being approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
The call I received promised to help me get to the front of the line ... ahead of all the people who were going to be eligible at the same time. All I had to do was provide my banking information or Medicare card number so they could “hold a place” for me in the appointments.
After all, the scammer said, millions of people were going to be rushing to get the vaccine. I didn’t want to be left out, did I?
I had a few minutes, so I decided to test the scammer’s actual knowledge about the vaccine. He was fuzzy on the information and stumbled to answer, sometimes making it up as he went.
Here are some facts to remember should you get one of these vaccine scam calls:
The truth is that not everyone is going to be eligible. Those who haven’t had any previous Covid vaccines cannot get the omicron vaccine until they take the other ones. Then you have to wait two months before getting the new one.
The Pfizer booster will be for those age 12 and over, with the Moderna for those 18 and up. They don’t know yet about children younger than those ages.
No, at this point there haven’t been any clinical trials about how well the omicron version works. Mice, yes, but people, no. (Moderna and Pfizer both did mini-tests of 600 people each.)
The omicron vaccine will cover not only the omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, but also the original Covid as well. It’s called a “bivalent” vaccine because it covers both.
But the big thing to remember: These scammers don’t want to help you get the new omicron booster. They only want your personal information.
HOLLYWOOD -- William Friedkin ( Oscar- winning director of “The French Connection,” “The Exorcist” and “Killer Joe,” starring Matthew McConaughey) has finally chosen Kiefer Sutherland to star in his remake of Humphrey Bogart’s 1954 classic “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial” as Lt. Commander Queeg. Friedkin’s updated the screenplay to a timelier schedule. Friedkin chose Sutherland to play Queeg because he feels that Sutherland is “one of the best actors in America, one of the very best!” He was a huge fan of Sutherland’s series “24.”
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“Boy Meets World’s” Danielle Fishel and former NSYNC boybander Lance Bass are working on a movie about ... their love story! Fishel confessed, “I dated Lance for a year while on ‘Boy Meets World,’ and Lance was my date to my senior prom.” Bass confessed he was too shy to get her phone number and asked bandmate Justin Timberlake to get it for him. Fishel recalled, “I thought I was going to marry Lance, and envisioned our future together. It turned out I wasn’t Lance’s type!”
Bass admitted going to the prom with her was a big turning point for him. “It was the catalyst that made me start to accept myself, which still took a long time after that!” Bass came out as a gay man in 2006. Today, he’s part owner of “Rocco’s,” a hamburger joint across the street from a gay dance bar that he also owns in Boystown, Chicago.
Fishel eventually got over him and, within three years, wed Tim Belusko (a classmate at California State University, Fullerton), which ended in 2016. In 2018, she married film producer Jensen Karp, and they have two sons. ***
I met 17-year-old Lori Loughlin when she starred as Jody Travis in “The Edge Of Night” in 1980. She then starred in “Full House” (19881995) and “Fuller House” (2016-2018), and was also a Hallmark series star in “When Calls the Heart,” from 2014-2019. But, her career came crashing down in 2019, when she and husband Mossimo Giannulli were arrested for their part in the 2019 “entrance exam cheating scandal.” She was immediately removed from filmed episodes of “When Calls the Heart” and became untouchable work-wise.
After Loughlin served two months in prison, paying a $150,000 fine and completing 100 hours of community service, Hallmark quietly brought back her series “Garage Sale Mystery.” Hallmark’s decision to reinstate her (perhaps for next season’s “When Calls the Heart” as well?) followed after an overwhelmingly positive reaction from loyal, dedicated Hallmark fans, who feel Loughlin deserves a second chance. Anyone who disagrees with that, we “Call the Heart-less!”