# Covid 19/Coronavirus



## Ralyks

Wasn't sure if this was for this section or the health section. Either way, think we should address it.

Well, what are you thoughts on how this will play out? Normally I'd hope this would be contained, but now here in the US, we have the guy in CA who was diagnosed with no previous contact and mysterious origins. Meanwhile, I have family whole live in the woods telling me my son and I should prepare to move in with them if it gets to NY. And everyone else in my immediate family works in health care.
Oh, plus the tumbling stock market. Plus Trump put Pence in charge, which previously basically let AIDS spread in his own area in 2015.

Anyway, thoughts?


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## Randy

I *think* there was a version of this thread that existed that was either conspiracy ridden or racism ridden, I don't remember but I went into it once before it got totally nuked. Without knowing the context of that, I dunno what the shelf life of this one will be but we'll see.

Anyway, this seems to be how pandemics work. There's almost no scenario where this wasn't going to spread across the globe, and the case that appears to be community spread indicates we'll be dealing with it coast-to-coast shortly.

At this point, obviously you do containment as much as you can to slow the progression but considering the spread is now inevitable, I think the hope is some breakthroughs in treatment. Don't know what the numbers look like now but I was seeing a 2% mortality rate in the first few weeks of it vs. the usual, say, .05% from the flu.


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## KnightBrolaire

Ralyks said:


> Wasn't sure if this was for this section or the health section. Either way, think we should address it.
> 
> Well, what are you thoughts on how this will play out? Normally I'd hope this would be contained, but now here in the US, we have the guy in CA who was diagnosed with no previous contact and mysterious origins. Meanwhile, I have family whole live in the woods telling me my son and I should prepare to move in with them if it gets to NY. And everyone else in my immediate family works in health care.
> Oh, plus the tumbling stock market. Plus Trump put Pence in charge, which previously basically let AIDS spread in his own area in 2015.
> 
> Anyway, thoughts?


meh. I work in healthcare and everybody is taking precautions, but there's no reason to panic yet imo. CDC has it classified as low risk. 
The number of confirmed deaths vs infected people is pretty low currently. Also it's just killing vulnerable populations at the moment eg elderly population and immmunocompromised (who also die from basically every infectious disease including the flu). I'd be more worried if healthy young 20yr olds start dropping dead from it like the Spanish Flu back in the 1920s. If you''re really paranoid then wear a face mask, avoid crowded public places as much as possible and don't fly.. Also for the love of god, actually wash your hands regularly (per CDC guidelines. It's the easiest way to break the chain of infection. Also just avoid traveling to Hubei province or china in general lol 

overall mortality rate is about 3% currently worldwide according to John Hopkins, versus the flu which is 4-10% depending on strain/year.


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## sleewell

the death and black metal songs are virtually writing themselves.


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## diagrammatiks

It could be really fucked. Not really in terms of personal health but just in terms of general panic and societal breakdown.

like currently in china all schools are shutdown.
Japan just shut down all public schools. 

but my office had the option of going back to work on Monday. but, I'm letting everyone work from home until next next week. we're still on health lockdown which means mandatory face masks in public places and temperature checks when you into any public building and wearing a face mask at work all day sucks.


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## sleewell

there was a news story yesterday that said the masks basically do nothing to protect you from it.

true or false?

dow is down like 2400+ in only 3 days which is pretty significant. supply chains are def getting messed up.


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## Randy

KnightBrolaire said:


> overall mortality rate is about 3% currently worldwide according to John Hopkins, versus the flu which is 4-10% depending on strain/year.



I'd assume that varies greatly based on where it happens, as well? I'd imagine you'd see a swing (both with corona and flu) depending on overall health, quality of care, environmental factors, etc?


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## wankerness

sleewell said:


> there was a news story yesterday that said the masks basically do nothing to protect you from it.
> 
> true or false?
> 
> dow is down like 2400+ in only 3 days which is pretty significant. supply chains are def getting messed up.



Masks are well known to not protect you from pretty much anything, it's more so YOU don't send YOUR snot and phlegm flying everywhere. That's why they wear them in Japan, it's often the sick people doing it, since they care about not infecting people over there, unlike here/China. 

I've seen businesses pushing around the idea of working remotely for two weeks and cancelling classes (at schools) for two weeks or whatever if there's an outbreak here. I think this is idiocy of the highest order. What, will they just reset the two weeks timer every time someone in the state gets sick? They'd have to cancel classes for a year or more!

There's been one person that was 29 that died recently from it. But, I dunno. Flu kills young people sometimes, too. I really think the threat of this is overblown and the bulk of harm that's going to come from it is going to be as a result of irrational panic as a result of the media hyping it up as being equivalent to the black plague or Ebola (which is how most people I interact with in real life think it is). We're going to all get exposed to it eventually, and trying to quarantine entire populations for a couple weeks isn't going to do jack in the long run since it's not like it's a hurricane that will only last for a short period and then be gone. It's going to stick around until no one has it anywhere.


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## vilk

sleewell said:


> there was a news story yesterday that said the masks basically do nothing to protect you from it.
> 
> true or false?
> 
> dow is down like 2400+ in only 3 days which is pretty significant. supply chains are def getting messed up.



I heard that the virus is, as far as virus go, extraordinarily large--too large to pass through certain qualities of mask. I don't even know if the super duper cheap ones are held to any kind of standard, but I have a couple Pitta masks which are alleged to stop it with their super fine mesh. But also they are just way more comfortable. My wife brought them back from Japan before the coronavirus thing was even happening, I've been using it all winter because it keeps my face warm and doesn't fog my glasses like paper masks do, then you can fold it up and put it in your pocket when you're walking with the wind to your back, pull it back out when the wind's to your face. I imagine it as less threatening looking than a balaklava  though these days maybe it's even more frightening. 

-------

My wife is Japanese and we go there every year (maybe some of you remember, when I joined this forum I was living there). She goes back for about 6 weeks, I go back for the final 2 of her 6 and then we come back together. Right now we are just hoping that they'll keep travel open long enough for her to get in. If I don't get in it's not the end of the world for me, but for her it's her only time of the year to see her friends and family. I'm kinda hoping that once I get there, then they turn on the return ban and I can't come back to America, and I get like an extra month of vacation or something. No, not really, that would fuck up my life, but it's the joke I've been telling my wife to make her feel better.

But then again, who says that coronavirus & travel bans for it will end? I joke that I'll get an extra month vacation, but what if it's longer than that? So basically crossing my fingers that they don't eventually put any full stop bans between Japan and USA. 

TBH, I'm not concerned with catching the virus. Maybe that's foolish. But I've got my mask and my sanitizer, and I've never gotten any kind of flu in my whole life. Really, I heard that no one is going outside, so I'm thinking that it'll be great for shopping and sightseeing. But it would be a real bummer if all my favorite restaurants and bars and temples are closed down. Fuck it, who cares, as long as there's convenience stores. I think I'm hungry. I'm ready to murder a convenience store bento box right about now.


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## wankerness

Japan has had some publicized cases of refusing to allow foreigners in their businesses thanks to Coronavirus panic, too. I dunno if they only mean asian-looking foreigners, or blanket "all Gaijin," though.


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## Exchanger

wankerness said:


> Masks are well known to not protect you from pretty much anything, it's more so YOU don't send YOUR snot and phlegm flying everywhere. That's why they wear them in Japan, it's often the sick people doing it, since they care about not infecting people over there, unlike here/China.
> 
> I've seen businesses pushing around the idea of working remotely for two weeks and cancelling classes (at schools) for two weeks or whatever if there's an outbreak here. I think this is idiocy of the highest order. What, will they just reset the two weeks timer every time someone in the state gets sick? They'd have to cancel classes for a year or more!
> 
> There's been one person that was 29 that died recently from it. But, I dunno. Flu kills young people sometimes, too. I really think the threat of this is overblown and the bulk of harm that's going to come from it is going to be as a result of irrational panic as a result of the media hyping it up as being equivalent to the black plague or Ebola (which is how most people I interact with in real life think it is). We're going to all get exposed to it eventually, and trying to quarantine entire populations for a couple weeks isn't going to do jack in the long run since it's not like it's a hurricane that will only last for a short period and then be gone. It's going to stick around until no one has it anywhere.



I think since it's still fairly new, some institutions didn't want to take the risk of a quick spread. And even if the mortality is low, it makes sense to try to contain it and kill it in the egg as early as possible. This way it can be eradicated and problem solved. 3% is still a whole lot if millions get infected.
Of course now that it's pretty much all around the world it makes less sense, and the focus should indeed be on a cure and making sure there's enough beds / medical personnel ready to deal with vulnerable patients.


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## KnightBrolaire

sleewell said:


> there was a news story yesterday that said the masks basically do nothing to protect you from it.
> 
> true or false?
> 
> dow is down like 2400+ in only 3 days which is pretty significant. supply chains are def getting messed up.


Mask do have a prophylactic effect but honestly washing your hands is far more critical. same with regular use of hand sanitizer and avoiding public places if you're in a vulnerable population or live with someone in that group (eg elderly, young kids under 4, immunocompromised people). As wankerness said, the mask helps keep sick people from spreading the disease.
Coronavirus is droplet borne, so it can travel up to 6+ ft from a sneeze. Particles are large enough that they don't linger in the air the way say something like tuberculosis does.


Randy said:


> I'd assume that varies greatly based on where it happens, as well? I'd imagine you'd see a swing (both with corona and flu) depending on overall health, quality of care, environmental factors, etc?


Yeah mortality varies wildly with quality of care, age, overall health. There is a pretty strong direct correlation where the older someone is, the greater their risk of being killed by even minor infections. I''vs seen old people literally die from Urinary tract infection or relatively minor wounds because they progressed into sepsis. 
As I said nearly all infectious diseases wreak havoc on vulnerable populations since they're already weaker compared to the average person.
As far as environmental factors, urban areas are more heavily affected by droplet/airborne infections due to the higher density of people. Same thing within a hospital. Hospital acquired infections go up dramatically if hospitals are overflowing with patients.
Quality of care for most viral diseases is more about dealing with symptoms and preventing dehydration/electrolyte imbalances (which kills a ton of small children/old ppl annually)


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## wankerness

Exchanger said:


> I think since it's still fairly new, some institutions didn't want to take the risk of a quick spread. And even if the mortality is low, it makes sense to try to contain it and kill it in the egg as early as possible. This way it can be eradicated and problem solved. 3% is still a whole lot if millions get infected.
> Of course now that it's pretty much all around the world it makes less sense, and the focus should indeed be on a cure and making sure there's enough beds / medical personnel ready to deal with vulnerable patients.



If there was even a tiny chance that they were going to come up with a cure/vaccine for it that would be available to millions and millions of people for free, I would agree with you. But there isn't. I think sending everyone home for two weeks will do absolutely nothing other than maybe delay the time before people inevitably end up getting it. The only way you won't be exposed to it once it goes full pandemic is to just basically not go out in public ever until there are no more cases of it anywhere. Which, as we all know, is virtually impossible. Like, there have been two different illnesses going around my small campus here for about 3 months now. Practically everyone's been exposed to it at some point, but it just keeps spreading no matter whether people who are currently sick quarantine themselves to their room or not. There will ALWAYS be people that won't, and every time one does, the thing basically regenerates across campus and hits a whole new series of people. It's slowing down finally, but it's been months with the same strain of flu. I see no reason why two weeks would stop anything unless somehow they manage to fly in a vaccine for every single person in the town at the same time a case is identified that can be given to everyone in two weeks. Which of course wouldn't happen, thanks to all the anti-vaccination nutballs that are out there now, as it's quite trendy to be anti-science.

Speaking of, [email protected] firing the entire pandemic response team in 2018 so we don't have one now. He'll probably blame someone else if that becomes widely publicized.


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## MASS DEFECT

We got the first case of community spread in NorCal. Patient was infected locally just by going thru his normal daily routine. So, the spreader is out there. But yeah, no need to panic. But it does spread fast. So just clean your hands. My city is in state of emergency mode, and city workers like me are now designated as reserve disaster zone workers, and we are getting covid training tomorrow.


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## Drew

sleewell said:


> dow is down like 2400+ in only 3 days which is pretty significant. supply chains are def getting messed up.


I wouldn't want to downplay the human cost, and this IS a highly infectious virus. It's thankfully one with a very low mortality rate, maybe only modestly worse than the common flu, though we probably don't have the greatest handle on that as there's a lot of regional variation (it seems awfully high in Iran, for instance). 

But, thankfully, it looks like the _economic_ impact is going to be far more significant than the human one, largely due to containment measures. China, South Korea, and Italy are both engaged in significant more-or-less lockdown containment measures to stop the spread of the virus, which is great, except they also represent something like 30% of total global economic output. With their economies temporarily running at something like 50-60% of capacity, that's lopping nearly 15% off global output already. A couple weeks isn't insurmountable, but do that for an entire quarter and that's a GDP contraction of nearly -3.75%. There should be some spring-back effect as production and pent up demand resumes, but services spending is lost, which is increasingly important to modern economies, notably ours. If this drags on for the rest of the quarter and we're still aggressively fighting to contain in April or May, outright global recession is a very real possibility. 

Which, I don't want to give the wrong impression, is 100% worth it if it saves any significant number of human lives. It's just the market this week belatedly woke up to the fact that yeah, supply chains are in tatters right now.


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## wankerness

Yep, I work in IT and we're getting warned by vendors that replacing computer equipment is going to have a huge leadtime (already 6-8 weeks more than usual).


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## Exchanger

wankerness said:


> If there was even a tiny chance that they were going to come up with a cure/vaccine for it that would be available to millions and millions of people for free, I would agree with you. But there isn't. I think sending everyone home for two weeks will do absolutely nothing other than maybe delay the time before people inevitably end up getting it. The only way you won't be exposed to it once it goes full pandemic is to just basically not go out in public ever until there are no more cases of it anywhere. Which, as we all know, is virtually impossible.



That's what I meant, it made sense to initially try to contain it, but less so every day with every new region affected. We apparently got a case today here in Amsterdam. So I think now focus should go toward alleviating the symptoms / having proper care for those who need it, I never said it would be for free.



wankerness said:


> Speaking of, [email protected] firing the entire pandemic response team in 2018 so we don't have one now. He'll probably blame someone else if that becomes widely publicized.



Urrgghhh every time you think this twat can't be more indecent he proves you wrong.



Drew said:


> But, thankfully, it looks like the _economic_ impact is going to be far more significant than the human one, largely due to containment measures. China, South Korea, and Italy are both engaged in significant more-or-less lockdown containment measures to stop the spread of the virus, which is great, except they also represent something like 30% of total global economic output. With their economies temporarily running at something like 50-60% of capacity, that's lopping nearly 15% off global output already. A couple weeks isn't insurmountable, but do that for an entire quarter and that's a GDP contraction of nearly -3.75%.



The flipside is that it seems to also decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Proponents of de-growth for environmental reasons rejoice !


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## Adieu

2% is roughly your lifetime chance of dying in a traffic accident in a developed country

And that's among diagnosed people...IF you get infected. AND diagnosed. And then try REALLY hard to die of it.

Whole lotta noise about nothing much.

Sh!t happens. Life has a 100% fatality rate anyway. Guaranteed.


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## narad

wankerness said:


> Japan has had some publicized cases of refusing to allow foreigners in their businesses thanks to Coronavirus panic, too. I dunno if they only mean asian-looking foreigners, or blanket "all Gaijin," though.



Some are blanket "all gaijin". They're loving my tourism dollars out in Kansai right now though.


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## MASS DEFECT

Korea has 4000+ cases because of very effective diagnosis techniques and tech. Im just here wondering how much is being unreported in China. Sort of like the Chernobyl meme.


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## TheTrooper

Here in Italy, it's HILARIOUS.
When I go out, I can smell FEAR and TERROR in the air. 
Amazing.

Supermarkets have no hand sanitizer available (know with the "brand" name Amuchina) and vendors on Amazon jacked up their prices for that and masks too.

If you are in a store/supermarket/public place and you cough, you get the looks from other people (mainly old people).

As I said: HILARIOUS


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## High Plains Drifter

I think I contracted a virus after reading through the Gibson/ Kiesel thread.


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## Seabeast2000

High Plains Drifter said:


> I think I contracted a virus after reading through the Gibson/ Kiesel thread.


Please sequester yourself in highly public places for 14 days.


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## KnightBrolaire

sleewell said:


> the death and black metal songs are virtually writing themselves.


ask and ye shall receive


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## Demiurge

SDCOVID19BM, checks out


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## ramses

Ralyks said:


> Well, what are you thoughts on how this will play out?



The mortality rate is low, and it is reported that going through it is not that too bad. Moreover, at least one research institute and two pharmaceuticals have vaccines in trials.

Just wash your hands frequently and relax.



Ralyks said:


> Oh, plus the tumbling stock market.



Great buying opportunity!


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## ramses

[dup]


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## blacai

this is more an economic issue than anything else...the impact it's being bigger than expected.
Here in Germany, people are buying like it is the end of the world("hamsterkauf"--> hamster shopping)
Just crazy 

https://www.ibtimes.sg/north-koreas...virus-covid-19-patient-shot-dead-report-40042

I mean, I am sure 90% of the news regarding north corea are fake, but "funny" anyways.


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## sleewell

honestly what am i missing here? i watched the news this morning for a bit. seemed heavy on the ramping up the fear bit but light on the actual need to be worried. basically like a bad flu bug. seems concerning for the very young and very old but that the media is taking this a bit too far. 


i think the stock market just needed an excuse to correct so that those pulling all of the strings could add few more unnecessary zeros to their next offshore acct.


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## Hollowway

I think the scary thing here is that 1) it can be contagious 14 days before symptoms appear, and 2) there are carriers who have the virus, and can spread it, but never show symptoms. Those two things mean it'll spread way more than the flu. There will be a lot of deaths, just like a really bad flu season, and there will be loads of people missing work from getting it. The vaccine is about a year away, apparently. And the only masks that have any chance of blocking the virus are properly fitting N95 respirator masks. And, according to most sources, they're sold out everywhere. I read on Cnet that those regular masks everyone is wearing don't do anything other than prevent someone's saliva and snot from getting on you if they sneeze on you. Which helps, but it's not going to do anything to block an actual virus in the air. 
As has been said, the best thing is to just get rest, drink water, and other things to keep your immune system up, and wash your hands before putting them near your mouth. 

On the other hand, Trump could be right, and this could be a huge hoax orchestrated by the democrats, the world's media, the 81 countries in the world that have patients with the disease, and all of the health care professionals working with those patients, and the CDC, all done just to piss him off.


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## Ralyks

Hollowway said:


> On the other hand, Trump could be right, and this could be a huge hoax orchestrated by the democrats, the world's media, the 81 countries in the world that have patients with the disease, and all of the health care professionals working with those patients, and the CDC, all done just to piss him off.



Do they not realize it’s not THAT hard to piss him off?


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## blacai




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## Ralyks

Welp, someone died in ‘Murcia.


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## MaxOfMetal

sleewell said:


> honestly what am i missing here? i watched the news this morning for a bit. seemed heavy on the ramping up the fear bit but light on the actual need to be worried. basically like a bad flu bug. seems concerning for the very young and very old but that the media is taking this a bit too far.
> 
> 
> i think the stock market just needed an excuse to correct so that those pulling all of the strings could add few more unnecessary zeros to their next offshore acct.



At least 10 million Americans are immunocompromised, with an additional 40 million at risk due to age (under 6 months, over 65 years).

What makes it even worse is that almost 40% of the workforce doesn't have paid sick leave, and nearly 28 million without medical insurance.

When you put that all together, there's a huge risk of having a serious crisis. Again, the word is risk, so it very well might be nothing, but there are systemic issues at play that could make this very bad.


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## spudmunkey

MaxOfMetal said:


> At least 10 million Americans are immunocompromised, with an additional 40 million at risk due to age (under 6 months, over 65 years).
> 
> What makes it even worse is that almost 40% of the workforce doesn't have paid sick leave, and nearly 28 million without medical insurance.
> 
> When you put that all together, there's a huge risk of having a serious crisis. Again, the word is risk, so it very well might be nothing, but there are systemic issues at play that could make this very bad.


Combine that with a VERY extended incubation period (often 14 days) before people show symptoms, while being contagious for much of that time, and combined with just how easily it is to transmit (even just being very close to someone can be enough without come into contact with anything they've touched...much easier than most flu bugs)...when you find a person with symptoms, they've had 2 weeks to have spread it out with very minimal contact.


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## MaxOfMetal

spudmunkey said:


> Combine that with a VERY extended incubation period (often 14 days) before people show symptoms, while being contagious for much of that time, and combined with just how easily it is to transmit (even just being very close to someone can be enough without come into contact with anything they've touched...much easier than most flu bugs)...when you find a person with symptoms, they've had 2 weeks to have spread it out with very minimal contact.



It seems like you can be reinfected as well, so if it doesn't kill you or make you go broke the first time, it'll have another shot.


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## Hollowway

MaxOfMetal said:


> It seems like you can be reinfected as well, so if it doesn't kill you or make you go broke the first time, it'll have another shot.


Holy cow, really? Damn, I figured once we all got it we'd have immunity. If this is like the common cold, and I can look forward to a bout of covid every winter that's gonna suck.


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## spudmunkey

MaxOfMetal said:


> It seems like you can be reinfected as well, so if it doesn't kill you or make you go broke the first time, it'll have another shot.



It's at least a possibility.


Hollowway said:


> Holy cow, really? Damn, I figured once we all got it we'd have immunity. If this is like the common cold, and I can look forward to a bout of covid every winter that's gonna suck.



Possibly. There are some who doubt that it was two distinct infections and not just the same one bouncing back after not completely going away after the first infection.


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## KnightBrolaire

TLDR: Interview with a vaccine scientist/subject matter expert on coronavirus/SARS
Vaccines are at least a year out due to how long clinical testing takes.
overall infectivity is about 4 people per 1 infected (measles is about 18 per 1 infected, flu is about 1-2 people per infected).


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## narad

MaxOfMetal said:


> It seems like you can be reinfected as well, so if it doesn't kill you or make you go broke the first time, it'll have another shot.



Sure, but as the old saying goes, "Flu me once, shame on you. Flu me twice, shame on me."


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## Charlie Foxtrot 3rd

KnightBrolaire said:


> overall mortality rate is about 3% currently worldwide according to John Hopkins, versus the flu which is 4-10% depending on strain/year.



I smoked weed with Johnny Hopkins, also with the global population as large as it is now we kind of need a “reset”


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## USMarine75

Demiurge said:


> *SDCOVID19BM*, checks out



Is that a new Ibanez model?


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## USMarine75

Adieu said:


> 2% is roughly your lifetime chance of dying in a traffic accident in a developed country
> 
> And that's among diagnosed people...IF you get infected. AND diagnosed. And then try REALLY hard to die of it.
> 
> Whole lotta noise about nothing much.
> 
> Sh!t happens. Life has a 100% fatality rate anyway. Guaranteed.



Yes, but that is a 2% chance of dying by a specific cause (iterated) out of the 100% (cumulative probability) chance of dying in your lifetime.

This is 2% chance of dying during this pandemic if you contract the disease.

Very different.

Look at it this way... 1918 H1N1 "Spanish" Influenza:

Infected 500M+ people (30% world population)
Had a 2.5% mortality rate
Killed 20-50M people (*including secondary post-flu infections, prob as high as 100M) which was 2% of the world population at the time.
This was 20-100M deaths, not lifetime, but in one year (1918-1919).
To further explore the data:

In 1900, likely 30-40M people died of ALL causes. In 1918 the same or more died from just ONE illness. So, the 1918 H1N1 killed as many people in one year as ALL other causes.
Historical Diseases Lifetime Mortality:
35M people have died of AIDS worldwide since 1983
75M people have died of smoking related illnesses in developed countries since 1930's.

WWI total military deaths - 10M
So, 1918 H1N1 killed more people than total military deaths in WWI.

WWII total military deaths - 25M
WWII total civilian deaths - 40M
Holocaust - 6M Jews, 11M total deaths
So, WWII total deaths of 75M killed 3% of world population from all causes (war, famine, Holocaust, etc) while the 1918 H1N1 killed 2%.


So yeah... about that 2%.


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## KnightBrolaire

USMarine75 said:


> Yes, but that is a 2% chance of dying by a specific cause (iterated) out of the 100% (cumulative probability) chance of dying in your lifetime.
> 
> This is 2% chance of dying during this pandemic if you contract the disease.
> 
> Very different.
> 
> Look at it this way... 1918 H1N1 "Spanish" Influenza:
> 
> Infected 500M+ people (30% world population)
> Had a 2.5% mortality rate
> Killed 20-50M people (*including secondary post-flu infections, prob as high as 100M) which was 2% of the world population at the time.
> This was 20-100M deaths, not lifetime, but in one year (1918-1919).
> To further explore the data:
> 
> In 1900, likely 30-40M people died of ALL causes. In 1918 the same or more died from just ONE illness. So, the 1918 H1N1 killed as many people in one year as ALL other causes.
> Historical Diseases Lifetime Mortality:
> 35M people have died of AIDS worldwide since 1983
> 75M people have died of smoking related illnesses in developed countries since 1930's.
> 
> WWI total military deaths - 10M
> So, 1918 H1N1 killed more people than total military deaths in WWI.
> 
> WWII total military deaths - 25M
> WWII total civilian deaths - 40M
> Holocaust - 6M Jews, 11M total deaths
> So, WWII total deaths of 75M killed 3% of world population from all causes (war, famine, Holocaust, etc) while the 1918 H1N1 killed 2%.
> 
> 
> So yeah... about that 2%.


I was talking about mortality directly attributed to the disease, which is ballpark anyways. 
I used John Hopkins' real time tracker of the infection. 2979 reported dead worldwide/86,986 infected= 3.4% mortality as of 0534 today. 
China is overwhelmingly skewing the data currently with nearly all reported deaths coming from China.
Italy is at about 2.6% currently (29 deaths/1128 cases), USA is at 1.4% (1 death/71 cases), South Korea is at 0.48% (17 deaths/3526 cases).
Whether the coronavirus will hold at that rate or move is unknown from the papers I've read. They only just discovered covid19 back in december. 
Until it starts killing healthy young people like the Spanish flu, there's no real reason for the general public to freak out and cause panic. All panic does is stress medical facilities and waste their time/resources on patients that THINK they're infected when they could be treating actually ill patients. Same shit that happens with the flu each year.

If you want to go in and break down specific mortality rates by country, here's the realtime data:
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6


Measles used to kill 2.6 million people each year before vaccination, and measles is far more contagious (18:1 infection ratio vs about 3:1 for coronavirus and 2:1 for the flu). Over 100,000 kids die each year from measles worldwide still (mostly in 3rd world countries where vaccination is less prevalent).
16000 people have died from the current influenza strain. 
32,000+ people die each year from car accidents in the USA. 
Estimated mortality from hospital acquired infections run anywhere from 250,000+ deaths every year in the USA alone.


----------



## USMarine75

KnightBrolaire said:


> I was talking about mortality directly attributed to the disease, which is ballpark anyways.
> I used John Hopkins' real time tracker of the infection. 2979 reported dead worldwide/86,986 infected= 3.4% mortality as of 0534 today.
> China is overwhelmingly skewing the data currently with nearly all reported deaths coming from China.
> Italy is at about 2.6% currently (29 deaths/1128 cases), USA is at 1.4% (1 death/71 cases), South Korea is at 0.48% (17 deaths/3526 cases).
> Whether the coronavirus will hold at that rate or move is unknown from the papers I've read. They only just discovered covid19 back in december.
> Until it starts killing healthy young people like the Spanish flu, there's no real reason for the general public to freak out and cause panic. All panic does is stress medical facilities and waste their time/resources on patients that THINK they're infected when they could be treating actually ill patients. Same shit that happens with the flu each year.
> 
> If you want to go in and break down specific mortality rates by country, here's the realtime data:
> https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
> 
> 
> Measles used to kill 2.6 million people each year before vaccination, and measles is far more contagious (18:1 infection ratio vs about 3:1 for coronavirus and 2:1 for the flu). Over 100,000 kids die each year from measles worldwide still (mostly in 3rd world countries where vaccination is less prevalent).
> 16000 people have died from the current influenza strain.
> 32,000+ people die each year from car accidents in the USA.
> Estimated mortality from hospital acquired infections run anywhere from 250,000+ deaths every year in the USA alone.



You don't have to tell me lol. 

Was this reply meant for me? I was answering why @Adieu 's understanding of statistics was (funny IMO, but) not correct.


----------



## USMarine75




----------



## narad

I was under the impression that transmission was via inhaling droplets, but a recent podcast said they think it's more fomites-based (surface contact). I heard this while working out at the gym...eeek. Does anyone know how long the virus can live on such surfaces? The thought of skipping the gym and getting fat for the next month is not great.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

narad said:


> I was under the impression that transmission was via inhaling droplets, but a recent podcast said they think it's more fomites-based (surface contact). I heard this while working out at the gym...eeek. Does anyone know how long the virus can live on such surfaces? The thought of skipping the gym and getting fat for the next month is not great.


Most research I've seen suggests droplet based, with said droplets being inhaled or the victim touching contaminated surfaces and then touching mucus membranes like the mouth/eyes/nose.
edit: time on inanimate surfaces seems to be less than 9 days based off of research on previous coronaviruses. Hard to say though, since they're still learning about the virus. 
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00430-004-0219-0
https://www.journalofhospitalinfection.com/article/S0195-6701(20)30046-3/fulltext


----------



## cwhitey2

narad said:


> I was under the impression that transmission was via inhaling droplets, but a recent podcast said they think it's more fomites-based (surface contact). I heard this while working out at the gym...eeek. Does anyone know how long the virus can live on such surfaces? The thought of skipping the gym and getting fat for the next month is not great.


I wanna say I heard around 9-12 days, but I could be totally incorrect.


----------



## Drew

MaxOfMetal said:


> It seems like you can be reinfected as well, so if it doesn't kill you or make you go broke the first time, it'll have another shot.


Yeah, that was the thing that surprised me the most, that this one doesn't seem likely to burn out. I saw some comments on the disease from a former head of the CDC under Obama, and his base case right now was it hitting the US in force in mid-March and April, slowing down over the summer, and picking up again in the fall. Based on overall higher level of medical care the expected mortality rate here is around 0.2-0.5%, much lower than China, but also probably double that of the seasonal flu. Vaccines are in testing, but even optimistically it'll be a year before we have a proven vaccine. School closures by April are pretty likely. 

On one hand, this isn't hugely worse than the seasonal flu... but on the other, that kills betwen 12,000-61,000 people a year. Assuming we fail to contain this, and at present we're doing an abysmally bad job, then somewhere in the ballpark of 30,000-100,000 fatalities is a pretty reasonable projection, and while that will be hitting the very young and very old the hardest, that's still a lot of people. 

Put another way, if we have a couple thousand _active _users, say, 3,000 people who post at least once a week, a 0.2% mortality rate implies that a global pandemic would result in six of us dying. That's worth thinking about. 

BTW, I'd say the chance of recession, especially given that weak core PCE delator and final sales to private domestic consumer numbers below the 2.1% headline suggest consumption was already weak in Q4, is reasonably high due to the supply chain and demand, especially services demand, numbers.


----------



## Ralyks

Well, at least right now the Dow is attempting to bounce back.


----------



## Drew

Ralyks said:


> Well, at least right now the Dow is attempting to bounce back.


After a 14% drop.  

The market is super volatile and emotion-driven in the short run. I'd look at thinks like the record-low Chinese PMIs that came out over the weekend, the fact that large chunks of global GDP are running well below capacity due to containment measures, and demand slackening as people avoid public places. This has been a pretty ugly, rapid correction, but I think a lot of the uncertainty that brought us here is still in place.


----------



## Lemonbaby

Hollowway said:


> Holy cow, really? Damn, I figured once we all got it we'd have immunity. If this is like the common cold, and I can look forward to a bout of covid every winter that's gonna suck.


Oh crud! Don't tell me it's the same with a cold...


----------



## Ralyks

4 more dead in Washington. Trump's looking for like an asshole for the way he's been handling it each day.

Meanwhile, I read there was a case inNYC last night... While I was in NYC for Cult of Luna. So if it looks like I stop posting abruptly, it's been really dudes.


----------



## Drew

Yeah, confirmed case in NYC. One in MA too though I don't remember where. 

Trump is talking a big game about shutting down flights from China... but planes are still flying from South Korea and Italy, and I believe the NYC case was someone who had contracted it in Iran. Meanwhile, the CDC simply doesn't have enough tests available to adequately screen - word is at the major local hospitals around here they're running ten a day, and doctors basically have to make the case that it's life or death before they can get one of the test kits because they're in such short supply. We're going to need tens of thousands inside the month. 

Meanwhile, his administration slashed CDC funding for foreign nations by 80% in prior budgets over Obama levels, and stopped funding outright something like 34 of 38 countries we provide assistance to, China being one of those countries.


----------



## Randy

I'm in NY and my mom is an ER nurse manager of 40 years, and they still haven't gotten any formal training on this. Said it's standard protocol for the flu etc until they get formal notice and training from either county board of health or CDC. Woefully unprepared.


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> I'm in NY and my mom is an ER nurse manager of 40 years, and they still haven't gotten any formal training on this. Said it's standard protocol for the flu etc until they get formal notice and training from either county board of health or CDC. Woefully unprepared.


Yeah, it's mind blowing.


----------



## jaxadam

Apparently we have “single digit” exposure of the kung flu here in Jacksonville.


----------



## narad

In regard to previous mentions of Chinese virus factories...

https://www.thebeaverton.com/2020/0...preading-10000-times-faster-than-coronavirus/

_TORONTO – Public health officials in Toronto have confirmed its first 50,000 cases of being a misinformed fuckwit as xenophobic conspiracy theories and tales of false cures continue to spread across social media._


----------



## ESPImperium

As far as Im concerned, we are at war or on a war footing.

As someone who works in a supermarket, i can say that some sub cats and specific lines are low or depleted. However the range of things that could happen on is eye-watering and understandable at the same time.

The worst case scenario would be some of the following; A suspension of cash and to operate cashless for a period of time to prevent infection of till workers, vegans and ethical warriors having their 'rights' ended as the factory used for their niche being made would be needed for the needs of the majority, limits on amounts per customer - meaning two of a specific line or from a specific category. Working in conjunction with people who work in other chains, the terminology and process may differ, however the end goal doesn't.

My mindset at the moment is of a war footing, not with another nation, but a virus and its pandemic. Im sure many other folk like me will be be prepared to do our part and feed the nation, we will mostly all pull together. Im sure that if there is panic, like Hong Kong and Singapore, it will last for a couple of weeks and then return to a close to normal. However, its Italy Im monitoring as it isn't going that way after 10 or so days of panic buying in some areas.

The UK is about 2 away i think form quarantine and full on Christmas on steroids if we play it wrong, so far, the government and most of the leadership across all the devolved administrations are doing their best and have a clear plan and unlike the past 3-4 years, are all playing together.

If most folk play it cool, and act calm the country will be okay. Churchill quote here... Bulldog Spirit and all that jazz.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

Randy said:


> I'm in NY and my mom is an ER nurse manager of 40 years, and they still haven't gotten any formal training on this. Said it's standard protocol for the flu etc until they get formal notice and training from either county board of health or CDC. Woefully unprepared.


Multiple hospitals in my area have already done N95 training and airborne/droplet precaution refreshers. Some of the smaller ones are setting up dedicated negative pressure isolation rooms like the bigger hospitals have. The hospital I work at already has all that, and we have dedicated pappers/full sealed suits leftover from Ebola prepping. The majority of these hospitals will likely never see a case but I'm glad they're at least somewhat ready if one does show up.


----------



## jaxadam

Thank god.

https://www.news4jax.com/news/weird...e5s5LHNo7l8-q5zb-nO8-VkgujgYDC3TpvVFPu5DFF1Jg


----------



## Seabeast2000

jaxadam said:


> Thank god.
> 
> https://www.news4jax.com/news/weird...e5s5LHNo7l8-q5zb-nO8-VkgujgYDC3TpvVFPu5DFF1Jg



haha, you know that's causing a lot of confusion.


----------



## Charlie Foxtrot 3rd

jaxadam said:


> Thank god.
> 
> https://www.news4jax.com/news/weird...e5s5LHNo7l8-q5zb-nO8-VkgujgYDC3TpvVFPu5DFF1Jg



You can’t blame them for trying, in fact they’ll probably make a few arrests from it.


----------



## tedtan

Charlie Foxtrot 3rd said:


> You can’t blame them for trying, in fact they’ll probably make a few arrests from it.



Anyone dumb enough to fall for that deserves to be arrested.


----------



## efiltsohg

Canada has learned absolutely nothing after being (relatively speaking) ravaged by SARS - which was far easier to contain than batflu. The non-response is embarrassing. Anybody with their head screwed on right should be prepared to handle crisis situations on their own anyway, in this day and age


----------



## efiltsohg

https://www.academia.edu/41743064/Systemic_Risk_of_Pandemic_via_Novel_Pathogens_-_Coronavirus_A_Note

Precautionary principle VS conventional risk management


----------



## sleewell

just heard they may have the first case in the county where i live.

I work in east lansing which has a huge college population with lots of students from overseas. if they went back home for winter break it could get dicey since they arent really screening at customs.


----------



## SpaceDock

jaxadam said:


> Thank god.
> 
> https://www.news4jax.com/news/weird...e5s5LHNo7l8-q5zb-nO8-VkgujgYDC3TpvVFPu5DFF1Jg



I actually find this sad. In the late 90s before rave culture was outlawed, I remember going to parties where Police would actually test your ecstasy or cocaine as a way to help people not get poisoned without arresting people for possession. This kind of entrapment exemplifies why cops are just wanting to bust for numbers, not really help. 


In corona news, I heard a disturbing story about how low the ship count is at the port authority in LA. Only a matter of time until that lack of goods is felt on the market. Trump wanted us to not have cheap Chinese crap, he might get his wish.


----------



## Ralyks

SpaceDock said:


> Trump wanted us to not have cheap Chinese crap, he might get his wish.



And the economy will get worse once every sees how fucking expensive everything is when it's American made.


----------



## spudmunkey

SpaceDock said:


> I actually find this sad. In the late 90s before rave culture was outlawed, I remember going to parties where Police would actually test your ecstasy or cocaine as a way to help people not get poisoned without arresting people for possession. This kind of entrapment exemplifies why cops are just wanting to bust for numbers, not really help.



OK, i took that social media post to be a joke. But i suppose someone with...er...a compromised mindset...might not have discerned any satire/sarcasm. They *do* use fake contest awards to draw in people with out-standing warrants, so...


----------



## High Plains Drifter

In my neck of the woods- between Austin and Houston, shelves last night in several stores were void of hand sanitizer and spray disinfectant ( like Lysol aerosol). Hand soap was running very low ( liquid soap was gone) but water, toilet paper, etc seemed to still be decently stocked. When I was out today I did see a lot of people loading water into their cars so not sure how much will be left soon. Heard today that SXSW ( big annual music fest in ATX) has been cancelled. My wife and I aren't panicked but we are tuning into news more these days and trying to be as smart and proactive as we can regarding what may be coming. 

My rant here ( which I should probably just post in the "mad" thread)... How damned difficult is it for people to NOT be ignorant and dirty??? I actually heard a woman remark today: "So is this virus thing in the water? That must be why everyone is buying bottled water". Judas... turn on the news or get your google on! How in the world do people not at the very least, want to be educated??? Also... Everyone that indiscriminately coughs/ sneezes into the atmosphere can just slide quickly right into Hell. Regardless of what germs/ viruses are making their rounds... clean up after yourself and stop spreading your damned fluids around! I guess that if you're used to being an unhygienic pig, then you just can't change that... sigh. Shame that you're obviously not teaching your kids any better either. Just... ugh.


----------



## Charlie Foxtrot 3rd

tedtan said:


> Anyone dumb enough to fall for that deserves to be arrested.



Agreed. There are some dumb cunts out there though, you know, in the way people as Bill Burr puts it.


----------



## Adieu

KnightBrolaire said:


> Multiple hospitals in my area have already done N95 training and airborne/droplet precaution refreshers. Some of the smaller ones are setting up dedicated negative pressure isolation rooms like the bigger hospitals have. The hospital I work at already has all that, and we have dedicated pappers/full sealed suits leftover from Ebola prepping. The majority of these hospitals will likely never see a case but I'm glad they're at least somewhat ready if one does show up.



Ebola prep leftovers, en masse... in Minnesota. Lol.

For what possible logical reason? And why choose Ebola of all things????

Gotta love the classic American pattern of self-hyping panic going, well, viral. And then the anthill musters a fierce, terrifying response to something that was never coming to begin with.


But only ever one or two Bogeymen at a time.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Adieu said:


> Ebola prep leftovers, en masse... in Minnesota. Lol.
> 
> For what possible logical reason? And why choose Ebola of all things????
> 
> Gotta love the classic American pattern of self-hyping panic going, well, viral. And then the anthill musters a fierce, terrifying response to something that was never coming to begin with.
> 
> 
> But only ever one or two Bogeymen at a time.



The United States was taking care of evacuated citizens and was entered into an international agreement to help take care of evacuees from other NATO countries if needed. In preparation, certain hospitals deemed capable of handling an ebola case were selected. 

This was only five or six years ago. 

Luckily, there were only half a dozen or so evacuated to the United States.


----------



## r33per

Hey! Scotland's confirmed cases has gone all the way up to 11!

Rockin'.


----------



## Adieu

MaxOfMetal said:


> The United States was taking care of evacuated citizens and was entered into an international agreement to help take care of evacuees from other NATO countries if needed. In preparation, certain hospitals deemed capable of handling an ebola case were selected.
> 
> This was only five or six years ago.
> 
> Luckily, there were only half a dozen or so evacuated to the United States.




...oh, great.

What ARE we doing, feeding like a million mostly oversees military personnel, paying for their colonial throwback protectorate bases, and giving them aircraft carriers and shit to play with.... that when there's something like Ebola, we INTENTIONALLY bring it over. To Minne-friggin-sota????


Prepared or not, that's bullshit. If you absolutely need to take in people you wanna quarantine, stick em on a carrier a few hundred miles out at sea. If shit hits fan, sink the damn carrier, reimburse a few widows and orphans, and no problemo. Done...


Daaaamn. Minnesota lol.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Adieu said:


> ...oh, great.
> 
> What ARE we doing, feeding like a million mostly oversees military personnel, paying for their colonial throwback protectorate bases, and giving them aircraft carriers and shit to play with.... that when there's something like Ebola, we INTENTIONALLY bring it over. To Minne-friggin-sota????
> 
> 
> Prepared or not, that's bullshit. If you absolutely need to take in people you wanna quarantine, stick em on a carrier a few hundred miles out at sea. If shit hits fan, sink the damn carrier, reimburse a few widows and orphans, and no problemo. Done...
> 
> 
> Daaaamn. Minnesota lol.



It's only ebola. 

I know that sounds crazy, but we've pretty much figured that one out. As long as proper precautions are taken, it's not nearly as scary. The reason it's so devastating is that it tends to strike developing regions that don't have the ability to handle it, like much of Sub-Saharan Africa. 

None of those infected in the United States died from it, and that's partly to do with how it was handled from day one. Hospitals, even those not entirely likely to see an ebola case, were prepped, tests were widely distributed, and the situation as a whole was taken very seriously by the Obama administration. 

That's why folks are being critical of the Trump administration and its handling of the COVID19 outbreak. It just seems like they're not taking it seriously and are thus just winging it.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

Adieu said:


> Ebola prep leftovers, en masse... in Minnesota. Lol.
> 
> For what possible logical reason? And why choose Ebola of all things????
> 
> Gotta love the classic American pattern of self-hyping panic going, well, viral. And then the anthill musters a fierce, terrifying response to something that was never coming to begin with.
> 
> 
> But only ever one or two Bogeymen at a time.


We have some of the best hospitals in the country in Minnesota (Regions/Mayo Clinic) and it's typical for higher profile/bigger budget hospitals to get cases that a county hospital isn't prepared to deal with. Better to be prepared and trained for how to deal with infections rather than winging it and endangering people. That was the gist of my point, my hospital has great education/infection control staff that are constantly updating/training hospital workers on best practices.


----------



## SpaceDock

MaxOfMetal said:


> It's only ebola.



this should be a band name...


----------



## Drew

KnightBrolaire said:


> We have some of the best hospitals in the country in Minnesota (Regions/Mayo Clinic) and it's typical for higher profile/bigger budget hospitals to get cases that a county hospital isn't prepared to deal with. Better to be prepared and trained for how to deal with infections rather than winging it and endangering people. That was the gist of my point, my hospital has great education/infection control staff that are constantly updating/training hospital workers on best practices.


It's also, and I'm not trying to be snide here, a fairly geographically isolated area. There's a LOT of empty space in the middle of this country, it's not like they're bringing it to New York City where you have fairly fluid connections across the entire eastern seaboard.


----------



## SD83

About 700 here in Germany, and as of yet, exactly 0 deaths. About 20 or 30 in my area. Hand sanitizer has been sold out pretty much everywhere as far as I know for well over a week now (although I didn't bother looking anywhere to be honest), some stores apparently are short on noodles and toilet paper. What's that all about? I get the hand sanitizer (although what I don't get is stealing that stuff from the local hospital, which is exactly what happened) and stocking up on food that doesn't expire that fast, bottled water, but... toilet paper, really? I was just making fun of that news the other day when I heard on the radio that it was sold out in basically all of Australia and then went shopping today and boom, no toilet paper, at all. People are weird. 
As it looks right now, I am much more worried about the economic effects & aftermaths than about the disease itself (although I admit I'm somewhat worried for my dad, who is in his late 60s and in rather bad health overall). But on the upside, apparently washing your hands every once in a while and other basic stuff was news to some people, so we might in the long run see less fatalities from the flu and all that stuff, who konws.


----------



## efiltsohg

I'd rather stock up on looter pills tbh


----------



## possumkiller




----------



## Charlie Foxtrot 3rd

There’s footage of some slappers fighting over poo tickets here in Australia, was in Sydney I think, pretty funny to watch. I don’t get it either but striking paper is limited to one pack per transaction where I live in south east Queensland. If it does morph into a full blown pandemic and society descends into chaos, toilet paper will not be the saviour


----------



## gunch

Covid 19 be like _fuck ohio_


----------



## Ralyks

https://apple.news/AaQKWX89FSG61dwgrqUZDzQ

"Even popular brands like Purell and Germ-X sometimes use benzalkonium chloride instead of alcohol, which is less effective at killing human coronaviruses than alcohol, according to a recent study on the best ways to disinfect amid the new outbreak."

Boy, some people are going to be pissed about paying 500 bucks for a 12 pack of Purrell on Amazon.


----------



## Hollowway

What I’d like to know is how many cases are undiagnosed due to the patients not having symptoms severe enough to bother getting tested. If there are loads of cases out there that haven’t been identified then maybe it’s more easily transmissible, but less fatal.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Hollowway said:


> What I’d like to know is how many cases are undiagnosed due to the patients not having symptoms severe enough to bother getting tested. If there are loads of cases out there that haven’t been identified then maybe it’s more easily transmissible, but less fatal.



That and how many haven't been tested because we just don't have the kits? 

That unknown is what makes this the most frightening.


----------



## USMarine75

MaxOfMetal said:


> That and how many haven't been tested because we just don't have the kits?
> 
> That unknown is what makes this the most frightening.



Remember the good ol' days when the worst thing that happened to you was wasting your time arguing about Stairway to Heaven?


----------



## Exchanger

USMarine75 said:


> Remember the good ol' days when the worst thing that happened to you was wasting your time arguing about Stairway to Heaven?


Yeah I miss AIDS, measles and the Black Plague too !


----------



## sleewell

The world needs a good plague. Too bad it's target is the weak and elderly and not the dumb and ignorant. But I just hope everyone who thinks this is the work of the deep state and mainstream media get wiped out first.


----------



## ThePIGI King

gunch said:


> Covid 19 be like _fuck ohio_


Thats most everybody else's attitude towards Ohio too.


----------



## Kaura

I hope we all die.


----------



## efiltsohg

Charlie Foxtrot 3rd said:


> There’s footage of some slappers fighting over poo tickets here in Australia, was in Sydney I think, pretty funny to watch. I don’t get it either but striking paper is limited to one pack per transaction where I live in south east Queensland. If it does morph into a full blown pandemic and society descends into chaos, toilet paper will not be the saviour



for when the respiratory illness got you coughing out your ass


----------



## sleewell

Kaura said:


> I hope we all die.




unless i missed something we all still will at some point.


----------



## Drew

Hollowway said:


> What I’d like to know is how many cases are undiagnosed due to the patients not having symptoms severe enough to bother getting tested. If there are loads of cases out there that haven’t been identified then maybe it’s more easily transmissible, but less fatal.





MaxOfMetal said:


> That and how many haven't been tested because we just don't have the kits?
> 
> That unknown is what makes this the most frightening.


For the former, in China the estimation was about 20% of cases are asymptomatic, though of course since it's harder to find cases where no symptoms are displayed, there's some significant guesswork there. 

As far as domestic testing, we've done close enough to "none" that I wouldn't bother putting an exact number on it. Through February we'd only tested 2-300 patients, and as recently as last week here in Boston we were testing 10 patients a day. That should change now that the CDC test is more available and Quest Diagnostics' test is rolled out today, but all that will do is confirm that a LOT more cases exist than we previously knew. 

The GF is a doctor and knows people at various infectious disease centers in the area, and their take is that, since we've had known cases for a couple of weeks now, in a dense urban area, where we've essentially done no testing or containment, it's a reasonably good bet that a significant portion of the city has already been exposed. The best case scenario now is that it's just not as infectious as we think, but we'll know inside two weeks once testing becomes much more widespread and people have time to develop symptoms. The worst case is it is, and US hospitals don't operate with much spare capacity for inpatient stays (60-65% capacity is typical) and we have relatively little spare ventilator capacity, so there's a real risk our health care system gets overloaded inside a few weeks. Italy is struggling with this now.

I will say that, even accounting for my own personal political biases, Trump's handling of this risk has been completely _ludicrous_. Claiming the virus was "totally contained" and pointing enthusiastically to the relatively low number of infections is going to blow up in his face once we begin to test in earnest, publicly expressing displeasure that the cruise ship in San Francisco was being included in American cases because they caught it elsewhere and "shouldn't count" doesn't give much confidence that he's owning the situation, and his advice that people with mild cases should consider going to work anyway directly contradicts the CDC officials he was holding a conference with. Having his Health and Human Services head on TV today talking about how strong our economy is also really suggests he's focused on the wrong things. He's setting himself up to fail, and arguably his response is making it likely that even more people will get sick. It's remarkably bone-headed.


----------



## sleewell

he's handling it like someone who thinks its a ginned up plot to get him vs someone who is trying to put the country in the best position to deal with it. 

he rightfully has the confidence of someone who has numerous times convinced a large group of people something that isn't true and that he can do it one more time. 

"don't believe what you hear on the tv and newspapers, only believe what you hear from me"


----------



## gunch

I want to believe that this will put a good dent in his agenda but like a purell-greased little penguin he’s slipped out of everything thus far so I’m not getting my hopes up


----------



## Drew

sleewell said:


> he's handling it like someone who thinks its a ginned up plot to get him vs someone who is trying to put the country in the best position to deal with it.
> 
> he rightfully has the confidence of someone who has numerous times convinced a large group of people something that isn't true and that he can do it one more time.
> 
> "don't believe what you hear on the tv and newspapers, only believe what you hear from me"


It's sort of dumbfounding, ebcause as I think @JSanta quipped above, you can't tweet your way out of a virus outbreak. Deny, deny, deny, and counter-attack works well enough for allegations like collusion with Russia or Ukraine, where they don't impact voters' day to day lives, or for things like the economy never being better or the TCJA putting more money in people's paychecks, where a lot of the impacts are muted in the short run and even over time evidence to the contrary can be written off by core believers as it's just working better for _other people_ and they're just unlikely... But a viral pandemic where your friends, family, and coworkers are all getting sick, that's awfully immediate and awfully hard to pin on a "Democratic hoax." 

The Democrats being responsible somehow, say "because they're for open borders," for the huge increase in reported cases we're about to get in 3... 2... 1...


----------



## wankerness

When the Trumpers start dying, I'm sure they'll just say the virus was hatched in a DNC laboratory.


----------



## sleewell

wankerness said:


> When the Trumpers start dying, I'm sure they'll just say the virus was hatched in a DNC laboratory.




doug collins and ted cruz are in quarantine after talking to someone with it at CPAC.


----------



## Drew

Only thing I'll add is while Trump's handling of this is just BEGGING for it to blow up in his face, there's risks to Democrats too for overplaying his lack of preparedness, if it ends up being relatively mild. 



sleewell said:


> doug collins and ted cruz are in quarantine after talking to someone with it at CPAC.


Fun fact - there are pictures out there of Trump shaking hands with Collins not long after CPAC.


----------



## SD83

Drew said:


> I will say that, even accounting for my own personal political biases, Trump's handling of this risk has been completely _ludicrous_.


I remember another US president who claimed the situation was completely under control (or, in his words, "mission accomplished") and it kinda came back to haunt him. We might see a "totally contained" meme soon  
German politicians are hardly any better though. Our health minister doesn't tire of telling everyone how well prepared we are even though hospitals have been running out of disinfectants and face masks for over a week now. He also insists we should remain calm and treat it just like we would treat an outbreak of the flu (which would basically mean just move on and don't bother) while at the same time suggesting that it would be a good idea to cancel any even with more than 1,000 visitors. And I don't remember ever getting a day off of school due to the flu unless I had it but that is exactly what's happening, as soon as ONE student, child or teacher is suspected to be infected the entire school/kindergarten is shut down for days. The official numbers, here at least, say "if you're young and healthy, all is good, if you aren't, well, remember the flu? Pretty much like that." About 1,200 official cases, 2 deaths. One in sixhundred. Again, that is a tragedy for those who die and their friends and relatives (well, largely for the later, if you're dead you probably don't care anymore), but that's probably less bad than the flu. Which kills upwards of 10,000 people each winter. Which is a bit more than 2. I do understand that for the politicians it is a matter of "better safe than sorry", but the actions taken sometimes make it seem like they think it is probably as bad as the Black Death, maybe Ebola, maybe worse. It just doesn't add up, and that is apparently confusing a lot of people. 
Shortage of some goods aside, trade fairs get canceled, all kinds of business gets canceled, traffic around here was significantly less than it would be on a normal monday... that is the stuff that scares me. Well, that, and the fact that the government might decide to cancel the Impericon festival and the Lamb of God/Kreator show I intended to visit in April  how about everyone regularly washes their hands, doesn't cough or sneeze in anyones general direction and calms the fuck down?


----------



## ThePIGI King

Correct me if I'm wrong, the fatality rate of this isn't all that bad. And it's mostly only killing off unhealthy and super old/super young. Isn't it something tiny like 3% of cases?

Everything about the virus is blown out of proportion. As of the statistics I can tell, I'm more likely to die driving to and from work every day.


----------



## jaxadam

ThePIGI King said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong, the fatality rate of this isn't all that bad. And it's mostly only killing off unhealthy and super old/super young. Isn't it something tiny like 3% of cases?
> 
> Everything about the virus is blown out of proportion. As of the statistics I can tell, I'm more likely to die driving to and from work every day.



I heard on the news this morning the average fatality age is 80.


----------



## Randy

I'd like to point out the insistence of Republicans to leak the name of the whistleblower every chance they could get but haven't mentioned the COVID dude at CPAC by name yet.


----------



## efiltsohg

ThePIGI King said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong, the fatality rate of this isn't all that bad. And it's mostly only killing off unhealthy and super old/super young. Isn't it something tiny like 3% of cases?
> 
> Everything about the virus is blown out of proportion. As of the statistics I can tell, I'm more likely to die driving to and from work every day.



3% is very high for something like that, and more to the point, that's the percentage of fatalities given ICU health care. Italy reports something like 20% of cases need artificial respiration. They are literally burning piles of bodies in Iran and China. When this gets big here in Canada in the next 2 weeks, where hospitals are at like 110% capacity normally, things don't look good.


----------



## gunch

gunch said:


> Covid 19 be like _fuck ohio_



3 cases confirmed today, RIP


----------



## ArtDecade

All of Italy is now in lockdown - not just the north.


----------



## Drew

ThePIGI King said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong, the fatality rate of this isn't all that bad. And it's mostly only killing off unhealthy and super old/super young. Isn't it something tiny like 3% of cases?
> 
> Everything about the virus is blown out of proportion. As of the statistics I can tell, I'm more likely to die driving to and from work every day.


Well, one, the mortality rate alone doesn't tell the full story, and two, the mortality rate average appears low, maybe 2%... but it's VERY skewed. 

First - the problem with interpreting mortality rates is it's only half the picture. Ebola had a mortality rate of more than 50%... But, needed direct bodily fluid exchange, showed sympoms quickly, and was fatal within days. The actual transmission risk was pretty low, partly because it required contact with bodily fluids, and partly because it set in quickly, generally killed people before they could spread it very much, and thherefor the disease tended to "burn out" quickly, running out of victims. 

COVID-19 is different - infected individuals are contagious for several days before symptoms set in, carriers don't always display symptoms, and in many cases symptoms are mild enough that patients don't break their daily routines. Transmission is extremely easy - it's viral, if you're sick simply coughing on your hand, touching a handrail, and having someone else come through hours later and touch their face or mouth after touching that same handrail is enough to spread. The confirmed cases is growing exponentially, doubling at a rate of about once a week. 

In 2019, there were about 3,000 cases of ebola, and 2,000 deaths. To date, we have about 113,000 confirmed cases (and we know we're not even close to identifying them all in the US), and just shy of 4,000 deaths. This time next week, we should be around 250,000 cases. 500,000 by the end of the week after, a million by month end. A 2% fatality rate would mean 20,000 deaths, assuming it spread no further than that. 

Second - the mortality rate scales up WAY more aggressively with age than it does for the seasonal flu. 

https://twitter.com/larrybrilliant/status/1235581778695294977

If there are 12.68 million Americans 80 and over, then if we assume half of them get sick and a ~15% mortality rate holds, that's nearly a million dead. That's pretty crazy. Even if a quarter of them get sick, you're still talking a half a million dead.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

Drew said:


> Well, one, the mortality rate alone doesn't tell the full story, and two, the mortality rate average appears low, maybe 2%... but it's VERY skewed.
> 
> First - the problem with interpreting mortality rates is it's only half the picture. Ebola had a mortality rate of more than 50%... But, needed direct bodily fluid exchange, showed sympoms quickly, and was fatal within days. The actual transmission risk was pretty low, partly because it required contact with bodily fluids, and partly because it set in quickly, generally killed people before they could spread it very much, and thherefor the disease tended to "burn out" quickly, running out of victims.
> 
> COVID-19 is different - infected individuals are contagious for several days before symptoms set in, carriers don't always display symptoms, and in many cases symptoms are mild enough that patients don't break their daily routines. Transmission is extremely easy - it's viral, if you're sick simply coughing on your hand, touching a handrail, and having someone else come through hours later and touch their face or mouth after touching that same handrail is enough to spread. The confirmed cases is growing exponentially, doubling at a rate of about once a week.
> 
> In 2019, there were about 3,000 cases of ebola, and 2,000 deaths. To date, we have about 113,000 confirmed cases (and we know we're not even close to identifying them all in the US), and just shy of 4,000 deaths. This time next week, we should be around 250,000 cases. 500,000 by the end of the week after, a million by month end. A 2% fatality rate would mean 20,000 deaths, assuming it spread no further than that.
> 
> Second - the mortality rate scales up WAY more aggressively with age than it does for the seasonal flu.
> 
> https://twitter.com/larrybrilliant/status/1235581778695294977
> 
> If there are 12.68 million Americans 80 and over, then if we assume half of them get sick and a ~15% mortality rate holds, that's nearly a million dead. That's pretty crazy. Even if a quarter of them get sick, you're still talking a half a million dead.



Where are you getting those extrapolations from? I haven't seen any models predicting that kind of exponential rate of infection so far.
I mentioned this a few pages back but the Measles and Varicella are far more infectious than COVID-19. Dr. Peter Hotez, MD (vaccine scientist/pediatrician/Dean of the Tropical School of Medicine at Baylor) says that Measles is a 18:1 infection ratio, COVID is about 4:1 max. Granted that's more infectious than the flu, but current mortality rates are still under what we see with typical seasonal flu infections. Newest reports of the flu season have estimated over 46000 deaths worldwide, with over 16000 here in the USA alone.







The infection rate within the last week went from 86,986 infected/2979 reported dead on March 1st to 113,584 infected/3,996 reported dead. That's a 30% increase in reported infections but the overall global mortality rate for covid19 is still holding steady at around 3%. If you break it down country by country then Italy is severely skewing the mortality rate at almost 5% due to their very large >80 yr old population. Meanwhile South Korea is still under 1% mortality rate even with nearly 7500 reported infections. Most other countries are holding steady at around 3% mortality rate or lower (Iran, USA, France, Germany, Spain, etc).
Granted this doesn't account for unreported cases/asymptomatic patients.

People over 80 are an extremely vulnerable population (due to extreme age and the overall decline in overall health that generally corresponds with it) so they always have a skewed mortality rate compared to other age groups FYI.


People need to chill out, wash their damn hands per CDC guidelines and use bleach wipes to clean common surfaces.


----------



## lurè

Italy doesn't have enough ICU beds to accomodate all the people requiring breathing machines and we were reaching the point where doctors were giving priority based on age.

The biggest concern about the virus is that requires drastic decisions such as lockdowns of entire cities or states despite the mortality rate being relatively low.

You cant permit to have all hospitals and medical staff dedicated entirely on the virus without space for people needing care for other diseases.


----------



## Exchanger

SD83 said:


> I remember another US president who claimed the situation was completely under control (or, in his words, "mission accomplished") and it kinda came back to haunt him. We might see a "totally contained" meme soon
> German politicians are hardly any better though. Our health minister doesn't tire of telling everyone how well prepared we are even though hospitals have been running out of disinfectants and face masks for over a week now. He also insists we should remain calm and treat it just like we would treat an outbreak of the flu (which would basically mean just move on and don't bother) while at the same time suggesting that it would be a good idea to cancel any even with more than 1,000 visitors. And I don't remember ever getting a day off of school due to the flu unless I had it but that is exactly what's happening, as soon as ONE student, child or teacher is suspected to be infected the entire school/kindergarten is shut down for days. The official numbers, here at least, say "if you're young and healthy, all is good, if you aren't, well, remember the flu? Pretty much like that." About 1,200 official cases, 2 deaths. One in sixhundred. Again, that is a tragedy for those who die and their friends and relatives (well, largely for the later, if you're dead you probably don't care anymore), but that's probably less bad than the flu. Which kills upwards of 10,000 people each winter. Which is a bit more than 2. I do understand that for the politicians it is a matter of "better safe than sorry", but the actions taken sometimes make it seem like they think it is probably as bad as the Black Death, maybe Ebola, maybe worse. It just doesn't add up, and that is apparently confusing a lot of people.
> Shortage of some goods aside, trade fairs get canceled, all kinds of business gets canceled, traffic around here was significantly less than it would be on a normal monday... that is the stuff that scares me. Well, that, and the fact that the government might decide to cancel the Impericon festival and the Lamb of God/Kreator show I intended to visit in April  how about everyone regularly washes their hands, doesn't cough or sneeze in anyones general direction and calms the fuck down?



I'm also annoyed at all the panicking too, and poeple following the worldly cases and death live on the Internet, and talking about aaaaaaaaaaaall day long (and yet here I am, but the nice thing about this thread is that there are few people who know a thing or two about healthcare).
But as far as I understand, all these containment and sanitary measures that you see as excessive are not so much about completely preventing the spread but more to spread out over time so that hospital capacities are not exceeded. I hope they make a bit more sense to you now. Let's just remain level-headed about this, follow the recommendations of professionals and chill.


----------



## lurè

Yes, the main goal is to dilute the spreading for the larger period of time possible. In this way hospitals can take care of the more severe cases and at the same time guarantee basic healthcare for others.

Unfortunately the strategy to contain the virus has failed so we moved to plan B.


----------



## Drew

KnightBrolaire said:


> Where are you getting those extrapolations from? I haven't seen any models predicting that kind of exponential rate of infection so far.


About a year and a half ago I dated a data science fellow at Harvard, whose specialty is population dynamics. She works closely with their bio and infectious disease experts as part of her job, and this is the framework they're working under. She reached out to me over the weekend, out of the blue, to make sure I'm taking this seriously. They're taking this VERY seriously, and are concerned it seems no one else is. Their belief at this point is the fact we only have 700 confirmed cases is largely due to the fact we have only tested 5,000 individuals and that the number of undiagnosed cases is likely in the tens of thousands, and since at least through the weekend hospitals were turning away people who didn't have a confirmed connection to an existing case, the fact that hit rate is as high as it is should be pretty worrying. 

The fact that the COVID 19 spread _has_ loosely followed an exponential growth rate once present inside a country thus far isn't really debatable - the bigger question is how it will continue to grow going forward. Bloomberg coverage: 

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/a...ew-coronavirus-spread-two-sides-of-the-debate

Slowing would require significant containment measures, which have been conspicuously absent in the US, although there's some evidence that's starting to change (anecdotally, in the last several days I've seen a number of companies that I either work with, or have friends who work with or for, institude mandatory work from home policies). China's statistics are iffy, but they claim to have stopped the spread, by shutting down huge areas of the country. South Korea's data is better, and they're now exhibiting the same pattern, though with similar containment measures. 

She and I have a friendly bet going that my office is closed by Wednesday the 18th, which local authorities have told us they will do for at least two weeks if a confirmed case occurs with an employee working in the building. I'm reasonably sure she's going to win. 



Exchanger said:


> But as far as I understand, all these containment and sanitary measures that you see as excessive are not so much about completely preventing the spread but more to spread out over time so that hospital capacities are not exceeded. I hope they make a bit more sense to you now. Let's just remain level-headed about this, follow the recommendations of professionals and chill.



This is the problem in Italy, and why the entire country was placed on lock down yesterday. Their hospitals are at capaciity and struggling to keep up, so they're trying to stop the spread by any means possible just to buy their hospitals more time. 

Italy has MORE excess intensive care capacity, per capita, than we do. That's worth thinking about.


----------



## SD83

Exchanger said:


> But as far as I understand, all these containment and sanitary measures that you see as excessive are not so much about completely preventing the spread but more to spread out over time so that hospital capacities are not exceeded. I hope they make a bit more sense to you now. Let's just remain level-headed about this, follow the recommendations of professionals and chill.


I am aware of that, and I am very much in favor of the sanitary measures. And as a politician, I'd much rather be blaimed afterwards for overreacting than claim it is totally contained when it clearly isn't. What I actually find a bit unsettling is that with all the technology and media coverage and all we have, at least I have no clue at all as to how bad this virus actually is in terms of being a threat to ones health. The symptoms seem to range from literally none to death, and the fatality rate varies widely. 4% in China, almost 7% in Italy, 0.2% in Germany... while I don't necessarily trust the official figures from China, Italy and Germany don't seem that different to me. I don't know if it's the methods of counting/testing, maybe mild cases aren't even reported in Italy (although that would seem weird given the country is basically in lockdown) while they are here, the outbreak in Italy predates the one in Germany by a couple of days and there are about ten times as many reported cases... time will tell, I guess.


----------



## USMarine75

https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.s...ghting-covid-19-outbreak-is-like-war-11954229


----------



## SpaceDock

At my work they are mandating that anyone with a laptop take it home every night in case of full shutdown. We are sending home anyone with cold/flu symptoms. “No entry if symptomatic or have traveled” warnings posted on all doors. No business trips allowed. I have never seen anything like this in the 15 years I have worked there. We have about 1000 person facility. Not sure if they are overreacting or not.


----------



## MFB

@Drew, just a heads up for you, someone in the next building over from mine in Somerville tested positive, so it's definitely making the rounds in Boston


----------



## spudmunkey

My one client with 700 people in Portland just asked us to cancel all scheduled work, since the first case in Multnomah county was confirmed a few hours ago. We had a job scheduled for tomorrow morning, and that was supposed to allow us to close the books on a $300,000 project to allow us to invoice. This is now a finance/legal issue with getting the client to pay for an invoice, for incomplete work...

Google is in the news today saying everyone should work from home.

My other clent with two buildings in SF with over 900 people in each has also cancelled all of our work until next month. We've noticed that our contacts, who usually video-conference in from one room together, are now all joining from their homes.

My girlfriend was just saying that one of her clients is about to announce that they will be closing their office completely for a full month.

My office just sent out a notification that they are cutting off approvals for travel, except when absolutely necessary, as determined by HR, not by the sales/business/exec teams. If you are symptomatic, we will be sent home for 2 weeks.

Thankfully, we've got a fairly robust remote-access system in place already, with people frequently working on the road. Our office is in a different Bay Area city than our HQ, plus we have a London office and 3 more in the US.


----------



## narad

It truly is a shitty time for me to decide to sell like half my guitars :-/


----------



## wankerness

Yeah, I’ve come around in this. I was being a cavalier idiot. We’re screwed in the us and are probably going to see considerably higher than 3.4% fatality rate. I saw stats that were roughly that we have 600k ventilators in the US, while something like 10% of people that get this disease need to be on them for over a week straight to survive. They’re apparently just turning away severely sick people over age 65 in some places in Italy cause there’s nothing that can be done to keep them alive. And they have roughly 4x the beds in hospitals per capita as the US! Good times!!

I hope they cancel all schools for the rest of the semester and start locking things down. This is going to get baddddddd. I’m going to stock up on a couple weeks worth of food just so I can deliver it to my 64/69 year old parents so they can avoid the grocery store if things really go south. I’m hoping they don’t, but jeez.


----------



## Merrekof

I'm usually the rational thinker and I rarely worry about this stuff. Having a toddler and pregnant wife certainly brings a lot more worries.

I read claims that this isn't much worse than the seasonal flu or not nearly as bad as the Spanish flu or SARS..but with everything that happens right now I'm wondering, are we overly cautious or is this thing a lot worse than we are being told/know?

Here in Belgium there are big events being cancelled the coming weeks, my wife works at a community center for elderly that is being closed until mid april, same with old folks' homes, people getting quarantained, tourism is getting beat up everywhere, businesses are starting to feel it too, people are stocking up on stuff... I've never seen this before, not even with SARS, MERS, bird flu,..

And yeah..if this virus spreads further, we'll see a lot of casualties in the 65+ population.


----------



## Winspear

Merrekof said:


> are we overly cautious or is this thing a lot worse than we are being told/know?


https://informationisbeautiful.net/...xAiSoE9zdV2VO36lEA-vBFyd0WXBFh3ploqpJ7scEpxxo


----------



## Merrekof

Winspear said:


> https://informationisbeautiful.net/...xAiSoE9zdV2VO36lEA-vBFyd0WXBFh3ploqpJ7scEpxxo


Thanks but they need an update. The first Corona death occured in Belgium yesterday. As to be expected, it was an elderly man.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Obviously the elderly are very vulnerable, especially in countries that don't have the infrastructure to take care of them, but anyone immunocompromised is equally, and possibly more so, at risk. There is an entire spectrum of drug treatments for fairly commonplace illnesses (arthritis comes to mind) that reduce the body's ability to fight illness and infection.


----------



## USMarine75

End of the world boys...

So who’s got gear to sell?

I’ll trade a 16 oz Purell bottle for a Blackmachine.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

USMarine75 said:


> End of the world boys...
> 
> So who’s got gear to sell?
> 
> I’ll trade a 16 oz Purell bottle for a Blackmachine.


I'll give you 3 cases of toilet paper for your Mayones


----------



## sleewell

is it really the end of the world tho? 80% of people who get it will be fine and will only experience mild symptoms at home. 

will the world end if the oldest and weakest pass away a few months before they normally would have?


----------



## USMarine75

sleewell said:


> is it really the end of the world tho? 80% of people who get it will be fine and will only experience mild symptoms at home.
> 
> will the world end if the oldest and weakest pass away a few months before they normally would have?



Someone else please unpack this. I just can’t.


----------



## sleewell

snarky reply aside it was an honest question, maybe phrased too bluntly but i am genuinely curious. i am not an expert on anything pandemic related, obviously, and i wonder how many people in this thread really are or if we are just repeating what others from their preferred media outlet have said.

what happens to the world if old people die? is it that people are scared of hospitals not having room for everyone and the panic that would ensue? will the virus morph into something that affects everyone?


----------



## efiltsohg

MFB said:


> @Drew, just a heads up for you, someone in the next building over from mine in Somerville tested positive, so it's definitely making the rounds in Boston



70+ people were infected at a biogen conference in Boston


----------



## TedEH

We got our first confirmed case in this area. Panic mode engage, I guess.


----------



## Metropolis

32 cases in area where I live, don't know about this city though. Thanks China. My grandmother is 81 years old and has arthritis, which puts her in high risk category. And we are not probably doing a trip to Czech Republic this month because airports are totally fucked up because of cancelled flights.


----------



## thraxil

sleewell said:


> what happens to the world if old people die? is it that people are scared of hospitals not having room for everyone and the panic that would ensue? will the virus morph into something that affects everyone?



The current data is that about 12% of people infected require 3-6 weeks of hospitalization. That number skews towards elderly (but even in the 50+ range, it's like 4% fatality rate and a much higher hospitalization rate) and people with other conditions (which include cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure which aren't exactly uncommon in the west) but it won't just be them. If you don't think that will affect you or anyone close to you, or you can't understand why other people are concerned, I don't really know what to say.


----------



## sleewell

thraxil said:


> The current data is that about 12% of people infected require 3-6 weeks of hospitalization. That number skews towards elderly (but even in the 50+ range, it's like 4% fatality rate and a much higher hospitalization rate) and people with other conditions (which include cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure which aren't exactly uncommon in the west) but it won't just be them. If you don't think that will affect you or anyone close to you, or you can't understand why other people are concerned, I don't really know what to say.




hey i appreciate the post. like i said i clearly don't know all the facts so it was an honest question that was probably phrased wrong. 

it is very confusing here to say the very least. one channel is in complete denial mode comparing this to impeachment, others are in full blown panic mode.


----------



## lurè

You don't need to panic but you shouldn't take it too easy either: just follow WHO basic rules and do not go out unless it's vital reason ( buying food, medicines, work…).

Governments need to take it more seriously and start locking down cities before reaching the point to put the entire state on lockdown ( see Italy).
The virus isn't extremely dangerous if you are relatively healthy but can bring an entire healthcare system close to collapse for its long hospitalization times.


----------



## wankerness

sleewell said:


> one channel is in complete denial mode comparing this to impeachment, others are in full blown panic mode.



That's because Trump is a complete moron and to fall in line behind him, the only possible thing that can be done by his propaganda outlets is to echo his denial of all facts and science. I would expect a pivot soon to "this is terrible, we never said it wasn't, and it's all the fault of immigrants and foreigners, only Trump can keep you safe from them." They're already starting to do that, even though it runs counter to Trump's continued refusal to admit the seriousness.



sleewell said:


> what happens to the world if old people die?
> 
> is it that people are scared of hospitals not having room for everyone and the panic that would ensue?
> 
> will the virus morph into something that affects everyone?



1) Are you serious? Do you think no one over 60 does anything useful? Do you think that if they all die out painfully over the course of several months that society will be fine?

2) That's a big part of it. Many ICUs are already full in this country even WITHOUT the massive number of beds that will be required, as people who come down with a serious case of this need to be hooked up to a ventilator for 1-2 weeks straight just to survive. The 3.4% fatality rate is assuming that they can receive proper medical care - that absolutely WILL NOT be the case as soon as we start hitting capacity at hospitals, which as we saw in Italy can happen practically overnight. It will almost definitely be worse here. Plus, it will result in far more fatalities from other conditions since there will be no care available for people that would have required hospitalization in the meantime since all resources will be tied up.

3) It's mutated a couple times already. It has mutated into a form that is far more dangerous to young people somewhere in Asia, but it has thankfully been quite isolated there. It also has morphed into a lower-impact version in Washington that resulted in so many people getting it before it being properly identified. Basically, we don't know if it will get worse or better. Plus, we don't know what will happen when it comes back around the second time. What happened with the Spanish Flu was that the first wave, all kinds of young people got only somewhat sick from it, but then when it came around again several months later, the young people who had gotten it the first time died like crazy cause of the way their immune system reacted to the second variant.


----------



## TedEH

It's something to see people's reactions to our one case be so vastly different. We have a sort of community slack, and in one channel they're talking about how they're shutting their offices down and forcing everyone to work from home... but in the next channel they're organizing an entirely optional/social coffee meetup thing.


----------



## Drew

MFB said:


> @Drew, just a heads up for you, someone in the next building over from mine in Somerville tested positive, so it's definitely making the rounds in Boston





efiltsohg said:


> 70+ people were infected at a biogen conference in Boston


Hadn't yet heard of a confirmed case in Somerville, but the Biogen conference was responsible for it spreading pretty widely in the area - we had nearly 100 confirmed cases thru yesterday, and at that point we'd gotten fewer than 500 test results back. Cambridge is currently one of the hotspots in this country.

Honestly, I'm glad to see more people here are taking this seriously - it's a highly contagious disease and one that is contagious for days before patients begin to show symptoms. The mortality rate is low enough, and incubation period before it gets truly serious long enough, that it's not going to burn out like a more lethal disease. It's already in major urban centers, and we're well behind in containment efforts. There's a very real chance that this hits all in a wave, and we overwhelm our hospital systems. Tens to hundreds of thousands of Americans may die. Working in downtown Boston, I figure odds are better than a coinflip I've already been exposed.

I mean, one of the things that the Trump administration, naysayers, and even a few members here keep harping on is "this isn't much worse than the flu!" Well, the flu kills 30-60 thousand people a year, and has always been the yardstick we use to measure other diseases. "SARS wasn't a big deal, it killed way less than the flu does every year." "Ebola wasn't a big deal, it killed way less than the seasonal flu!" "Swine flu wasn't a big deal, it killed way less than the flu!" Well, we're facing an unchecked, uncontrolled pandemic that we're WAY behind the curve on, that looks like it's on track to kill quite a few more than the seasonal flu. If that's our yardstick, then yeah, I'd say it's a very big deal indeed.


----------



## JSanta

COVID-19 is now officially a pandemic according to WHO:

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsa...ovid-19-is-now-officially-a-pandemic-who-says


----------



## Merrekof

Drew said:


> this isn't much worse than the flu!


Maybe it isn't. But the fact that if it gets spread, a lot of people will need intensive care at the same time for weeks and that means that you are going to have to let some people die at some point because there is no way you can help them all. From an economic perspective, this is a bigger disaster.


----------



## Drew

Yup. Projections are 30-50% of the US will catch it, and Germany, who did NOT try containment, is expecting 60-70% of the country will be diagnosed. 

I mean, we've lived in a gradually more interconnected world for a long time now, but the barriers for even middle class people to visit foreign countries have never been lower. This is probably a new normal for us.


----------



## Nicki

JSanta said:


> COVID-19 is now officially a pandemic according to WHO:
> 
> https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsa...ovid-19-is-now-officially-a-pandemic-who-says


Here is the official briefing. It does note that 90% of confirmed cases are in China and South Korea. The numbers in other countries with confirmed cases are very low.

Personally, I think they jumped the gun on calling it a pandemic. This seems more like epidemic status with some outliers in the statistics.


----------



## Drew

Merrekof said:


> Maybe it isn't. But the fact that if it gets spread, a lot of people will need intensive care at the same time for weeks and that means that you are going to have to let some people die at some point because there is no way you can help them all. From an economic perspective, this is a bigger disaster.


 

Did you read the rest of my post? Here's the conclusion:


Drew said:


> If that's our yardstick, then yeah, I'd say it's a very big deal indeed.


----------



## Nicki

Merrekof said:


> a lot of people will need intensive care


That really depends on the measures taken to prevent those who are at risk of developing health complications as a result of infection. Given that the people who are at the highest risk of developing complications are those ages 65 years and up, as well as those with prior medical conditions (in particular, a respiratory illness or immunocompromised), the vast majority of healthy adults ages 25 - 64 will emerge relatively unscathed. If those in the highest risk category take precautionary measures to prevent themselves from being infected (ie. no travelling, avoiding large crowds, hygiene), then they should be fine.

I'll tell you that as someone who is in the "high risk" category of people, being asthmatic, I'm really not that concerned.


----------



## Drew

Nicki said:


> That really depends on the measures taken to prevent those who are at risk of developing health complications as a result of infection. Given that the people who are at the highest risk of developing complications are those ages 65 years and up, as well as those with prior medical conditions (in particular, a respiratory illness or immunocompromised), the vast majority of healthy adults ages 25 - 64 will emerge relatively unscathed. If those in the highest risk category take precautionary measures to prevent themselves from being infected (ie. no travelling, avoiding large crowds, hygiene), then they should be fine.
> 
> I'll tell you that as someone who is in the "high risk" category of people, being asthmatic, I'm really not that concerned.


Can't speak for what you're doing in Canada, but down here in America, we're not doing a god damned thing and our Tweeter-In-Cheif is telling people it's no big deal, and we need to focus on how strong our economy is. 

And, with an expected 30-50% infection rate, the "vast minority" of Americans is a fucking lot of people.


----------



## sleewell

getting worse not better. the wh is now classifying reports from the experts. 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ronavirus-deliberations-sources-idUSKBN20Y2LM


----------



## Merrekof

Drew said:


> Can't speak for what you're doing in Canada, but down here in America, we're not doing a god damned thing and our Tweeter-In-Cheif is telling people it's no big deal, and we need to focus on how strong our economy is.
> 
> And, with an expected 30-50% infection rate, the "vast minority" of Americans is a fucking lot of people.


Only 0,002% of the Italian population is infected and the economy is already taking a beating. If you expect that kind of infection rate in the US without a safety catch like universal healthcare..well, new financial crisis incoming..


----------



## Surveyor 777

There's an individual (I believe confirmed via the CDC) w/the virus in the city about 15 miles SW of where I live, so it's in my county. Just got an email a few minutes ago that they're extending Spring Break for the college my son goes to (U of Minn.), then after that they're doing online classes. However, don't know how that will affect his labs. Not sure if we'll be going to his dorm & cleaning out his stuff. A lot of wait and see.


----------



## efiltsohg

SD83 said:


> I am aware of that, and I am very much in favor of the sanitary measures. And as a politician, I'd much rather be blaimed afterwards for overreacting than claim it is totally contained when it clearly isn't. What I actually find a bit unsettling is that with all the technology and media coverage and all we have, at least I have no clue at all as to how bad this virus actually is in terms of being a threat to ones health. The symptoms seem to range from literally none to death, and the fatality rate varies widely. 4% in China, almost 7% in Italy, 0.2% in Germany... while I don't necessarily trust the official figures from China, Italy and Germany don't seem that different to me. I don't know if it's the methods of counting/testing, maybe mild cases aren't even reported in Italy (although that would seem weird given the country is basically in lockdown) while they are here, the outbreak in Italy predates the one in Germany by a couple of days and there are about ten times as many reported cases... time will tell, I guess.



Germany is 9-10 days behind Italy, it should be about to explode there



Drew said:


> Can't speak for what you're doing in Canada,



Very little. No travel restrictions, no quarantines. Health Services refusing to test people unless they were abroad in an affected country, regardless of symptoms.


----------



## lurgar

Neat. New case seems to be someone who is about 5 miles from me. This is apparently a community spread case and not a travel related one. Can't wait to watch the numbers of infected rapidly rise and lots of people with little health care coverage and bosses telling them to come to work even if they're sick. It's going to be absolutely fucked.


----------



## wankerness

Surveyor 777 said:


> There's an individual (I believe confirmed via the CDC) w/the virus in the city about 15 miles SW of where I live, so it's in my county. Just got an email a few minutes ago that they're extending Spring Break for the college my son goes to (U of Minn.), then after that they're doing online classes. However, don't know how that will affect his labs. Not sure if we'll be going to his dorm & cleaning out his stuff. A lot of wait and see.



I work at a college, and all day we've been prepping for the inevitable "closure of campus, transition to online" mode as we see college after college close in the area/conference. We've NEVER had online classes before and a lot of the professors are completely resistant. Woo!


----------



## Drew

Merrekof said:


> Only 0,002% of the Italian population is infected and the economy is already taking a beating. If you expect that kind of infection rate in the US without a safety catch like universal healthcare..well, new financial crisis incoming..


I mean, the economy is taking a beating because the whole country is shut down. We won't do that... but that's why we have to plan on a much higher infection rate.


----------



## efiltsohg

An attendee at the PDAC mining conference in Toronto March 2-3 (25000 attendees) just tested positive, oh boy here we go


----------



## Drew

Two cases in Somerville now, but honestly if I caught it anywhere it's going to be downtown.


----------



## Demiurge

There was a run on toilet paper at the grocery store closest to me. Of course, I notice this while shopping this afternoon and what do I do: buy extra myself. My reasoning at the moment is that if the hysteria makes TP scarce then I, a calm person, won't be able to get it later. Then I realize that's probably what everyone else thinks, too.


----------



## wankerness

Drew said:


> I mean, the economy is taking a beating because the whole country is shut down. We won't do that... but that's why we have to plan on a much higher infection rate.



I don't know what people are thinking with saying things like "oh, we can't afford to close down the economy." I mean, China didn't do it because they can afford to shut down the economy, they did it because it would be even WORSE for their economy if they didn't desperately try and stop everyone from getting it. The ramifications of trying to conduct business as usual while not doing a thing to halt the spread of it or anything to beef up medical capacity would result in millions of deaths. I guess everyone just has to hope for their state governments to do what's right, since the federal government sure isn't going to.


----------



## spudmunkey

A case was just confirmed of someone who works in the 25-story office building across the street, in the building where I park. My client in that building just cancelled all of our projects for March, and they are working remote until further notice. Good times.


----------



## JSanta

Local private universities and the entire SUNY/CUNY system are moving classes online. I've been asked by faculty leadership to prepare for teaching my classes online; nothing official from my university yet.

Funny enough, I have been shit on for doing my doctoral work at Capella, and now my experience in online, asynchronous education delivery is being relied upon. 

The fact that the administration seems to care more about the economy than actually addressing this problem is terrifying.


----------



## Element0s

Just going to drop this article here. Very thorough look at the numbers in the various corners of the globe and discusses practical counter measures.

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

Please read and share.


----------



## Ralyks

I'm wondering how this is going to work for me, because one of my classes, everything is on a specific accounting program, and it's only on the computers at campus because our college was too cheap to get licenses so we could get the program at home. So if We can't physically attend the class, we cannot do the class. And I heard Cuomo said some lab class could remain open.


----------



## wankerness

Ralyks said:


> I'm wondering how this is going to work for me, because one of my classes, everything is on a specific accounting program, and it's only on the computers at campus because our college was too cheap to get licenses so we could get the program at home. So if We can't physically attend the class, we cannot do the class. And I heard Cuomo said some lab class could remain open.



some software companies are temporarily changing licensing models to avoid being the reason for deaths. Adobe for example. I think we’re going to just have to do something with Remote Desktop setups for the handful of other software that is necessary and won’t make exceptions.


----------



## SpaceDock

Travel banned to and from Europe now. Shits getting real....


----------



## Drew

wankerness said:


> I don't know what people are thinking with saying things like "oh, we can't afford to close down the economy." I mean, China didn't do it because they can afford to shut down the economy, they did it because it would be even WORSE for their economy if they didn't desperately try and stop everyone from getting it. The ramifications of trying to conduct business as usual while not doing a thing to halt the spread of it or anything to beef up medical capacity would result in millions of deaths. I guess everyone just has to hope for their state governments to do what's right, since the federal government sure isn't going to.


I'm not saying we SHOULDN'T. I'm saying Trump won't, because he's an insecure man-child who won't want to publicly admit when he said it was "totally contained" he didn't know what the fuck he was talking about. 

State of emergency here in MA. Anecdotally, a lot of them aren't making a big deal publicly about this, but a lot of the financial firms in downtown Boston are instituting mandatory work from home policies. While people have been continuing to go out as normal - still anecdotally - after the surge in confirmed cases yesterday the awesome local mexican place that my girlfriend and I hit for their taco tuesday bar special that's normally slammed was completely empty, we were one of three parties at the bar. Colleagues who commute in on the T or commuter rail (I bike this time of year) are telling me that's emptying out, too.


----------



## JSanta

Every University is doing things differently. I just received word that we are extending spring break an additional week, and that all classes would be delivered via alternative methods. The two classes I teach can fairly easily be taught online, either synchronously or asynchronously. We are working with our central IT departments to make accommodations as necessary. For those students in labs and research areas, we are making adjustments, though I don't directly know what that means just yet. 

In higher education, we knew this was going to happen. Students disappear for spring break and interact with so many people that it could very easily create new highly infected pockets of people. I am also staff at the university, so I still go to work. I did pitch to my boss that we only have one or two people from each team in the office each day to limit exposure. Thankfully, I can do my work wherever there is an internet connection. My nurse practitioner wife does not have that luxury. 

Be smart everyone. Even the shithead-in-chief is starting to realize this isn't a joke.


----------



## Ralyks

Damn, it even got Tom Hanks.


----------



## PuriPuriPrisoner

Demiurge said:


> There was a run on toilet paper at the grocery store closest to me. Of course, I notice this while shopping this afternoon and what do I do: buy extra myself. My reasoning at the moment is that if the hysteria makes TP scarce then I, a calm person, won't be able to get it later. Then I realize that's probably what everyone else thinks, too.


Same thing happened to me today. Only one pack of the kind I usually buy was left so I said fuck it, even though I don't need it. I'd rather not resort to waffle stomping shit down my shower drain if there's an actual outage lol.


----------



## PuriPuriPrisoner

Ralyks said:


> Damn, it even got Tom Hanks.


He's 63 and has diabetes too. Big yikes.


----------



## USMarine75

PuriPuriPrisoner said:


> He's 63 and has diabetes too. Big yikes.



He's a national treasure. Fuck you coronavirus.

Somebody get Betty White in a bubble, stat!


----------



## Manurack

It's gotten so bad that it's now affecting major sports. 

It was announced today that the NBA has cancelled the rest of the regular season due to one player being tested positive for the virus and now the NHL will be making an announcement tomorrow whether or not to cancel the rest of the hockey season. 

The goddamn Stanley Cup Playoffs are not far away and my team the Oilers are currently in the Playoff race.

https://www.traderumours.com/index....BFCwPnkJYwTQf5rNuej9USOJFfFtweWZt_PMq6DQG-YSU


----------



## Manurack

A few NHL teams have already said they would play regular season games in arenas with NO FANS IN THE STANDS and only allow the games to be broadcasted on national TV. It's fucked up, fuck the coronavirus.


----------



## blacai

Around 23000 flights from luthansa in europe will be canceled until end of April...
Mine is one of them :/ It seems I will have no Easter holidays


----------



## USMarine75




----------



## Merrekof

blacai said:


> Around 23000 flights from luthansa in europe will be canceled until end of April...
> Mine is one of them :/ It seems I will have no Easter holidays


We have a trip to Turkey planned next month.. There's a good chance that will be cancellef too.


----------



## USMarine75

sleewell said:


> snarky reply aside it was an honest question, maybe phrased too bluntly but i am genuinely curious.



My apologies... I didn't mean to come across as snarky.

I meant to come across that I think you're a fucking shitty human being.

I apologize for not being more clear.



sleewell said:


> what happens to the world if old people die?



Fuck old people. Euthanize anyone over 60... maybe 50. How old are your mom and dad? Your grandparents?

Higher-risk groups:

Older adults - 115M >age 50
People who have serious chronic medical conditions like:
Heart disease - 121.5M
Diabetes - 30M
Lung disease - 35M




sleewell said:


> is it that people are scared of hospitals not having room for everyone and the panic that would ensue?



https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/11/up-...he-coronavirus-congressional-doctor-says.html

150M Americans affected with just a 1% mortality rate = 1.5M deaths (Fuck 'em)
150M Americans affected with just a 0.1% mortality rate = 150,000 deaths (Fuck 'em, too!)

https://www.thedailybeast.com/on-th...ed-down-italy-deciding-who-lives-and-who-dies
^ panic and no room. "It is a fact that we will have to choose [whom to treat], and this choice will be entrusted to individual operators on the ground who may find themselves having ethical problems."

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30060-6/fulltext
^ "a shortness of ECMO devices could occur and might impose choices that come with important ethical questions. Without predefined criteria to guide the decision on who will get the treatment and in what order, this will lead unavoidably to a first-come-first-serve approach."




sleewell said:


> will the virus morph into something that affects everyone?



Translation - "I only care if it affects me. Fuck everyone else not me."

tl;dr shitty human gets a snarky response


----------



## lurè

For the people thinking " … but he was old and had this, this and that…": imagine one of your parents/ relatives around 50 years old needing ICU being kicked out just because older than a 40yo person.

Even chemotherapies have been suspended.


----------



## diagrammatiks

I'm supposed to go to Seattle for a work conference in April....ehhhhhh


----------



## MaxOfMetal

diagrammatiks said:


> I'm supposed to go to Seattle for a work conference in April....ehhhhhh


----------



## narad

diagrammatiks said:


> I'm supposed to go to Seattle for a work conference in April....ehhhhhh



Whelp, sounds like you could add "Capitol Hill" to that list of yours.


----------



## diagrammatiks

narad said:


> Whelp, sounds like you could add "Capitol Hill" to that list of yours.



ehh. well I told ya'll it was gonna get fucked.

I'm just sitting here being like well is April gonna be enough time to get everything sorted or not. it's 2 months away.

whoops I meant may.


----------



## KnightBrolaire




----------



## narad

I honestly don't understand these memes that act like people are overreacting. Like diarrhea might have a higher mortality rate historically and worldwide than whatever the current quote is for covid, but it doesn't have a higher mortality rate *in civilized countries while providing patient care*.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

narad said:


> I honestly don't understand these memes that act like people are overreacting. Like diarrhea might have a higher mortality rate historically and worldwide than whatever the current quote is for covid, but it doesn't have a higher mortality rate *in civilized countries while providing patient care*.


 People in general are severely overreacting since this is a new and unchecked virus.
For the majority of people this virus shouldn't be something to be scared of, and it shouldn't be a life threatening virus. It's not adversely affecting pregnant women, their fetuses (no documented fetal transference yet) or young children in large numbers like diarrhea and influenza do every year. The flu strain this year has been particularly nasty for pregnant women with a large number hospitalized from it.

Italy is severely skewing the mortality rate worldwide due to their very large elderly population, with an almost 7% mortality rate now. South Korea is at under 1% mortality and most other 1st world countries are hovering at or below 3%.


For people that are ACTUALLY at risk, then yes, this is a big deal, but so is literally every other virus/infectious disease. Vulnerable populations are still vulnerable populations (elderly, immunocompromised, very young children ). That demographic is consistently targeted and affected by common viruses like influenza/the common cold. Upper respiratory infection related pneumonia is one of the biggest killers of vulnerable populations next to diarrhea/electrolyte related imbalances (often caused by diarrhea or vomiting).

I mentioned it pages ago but unchecked panic just puts extra stress on hospitals and EMS, which in turns affects overall patient care.
Patient education and primary prevention is hugely important in healthcare, and especially in times like this where the media is more than content to fearmonger.
I mean I just watched a video of an inner city middle school where parents were spraying their children with aerosolized disinfectant and wearing makeshift clean suits made out of garbage bags/plastic bags. That kind of shit wouldn't be happening if people actually understood basic infection control/prevention.
edit :here's the video I mentioned.
https://mobile.twitter.com/_SJPeace_/status/1237512275109408768?s=20


----------



## MaxOfMetal

KnightBrolaire said:


> People in general are severely overreacting since this is a new and unchecked virus.
> For the majority of people this virus shouldn't be something to be scared of, and it shouldn't be a life threatening virus. It's not adversely affecting pregnant women, their fetuses (no documented fetal transference yet) or young children in large numbers like diarrhea and influenza do every year. The flu strain this year has been particularly nasty for pregnant women with a large number hospitalized from it.
> 
> Italy is severely skewing the mortality rate worldwide due to their very large elderly population, with an almost 7% mortality rate now. South Korea is at under 1% mortality and most other 1st world countries are hovering at or below 3%.
> 
> 
> For people that are ACTUALLY at risk, then yes, this is a big deal, but so is literally every other virus/infectious disease. Vulnerable populations are still vulnerable populations (elderly, immunocompromised, very young children ). That demographic is consistently targeted and affected by common viruses like influenza/the common cold. Upper respiratory infection related pneumonia is one of the biggest killers of vulnerable populations next to diarrhea/electrolyte related imbalances (often caused by diarrhea or vomiting).
> 
> I mentioned it pages ago but unchecked panic just puts extra stress on hospitals and EMS, which in turns affects overall patient care.
> Patient education and primary prevention is hugely important in healthcare, and especially in times like this where the media is more than content to fearmonger.
> I mean I just watched a video of an inner city middle school where parents were spraying their children with aerosolized disinfectant and wearing makeshift clean suits made out of garbage bags/plastic bags. That kind of shit wouldn't be happening if people actually understood basic infection control/prevention.



Dying isn't the only thing to worry about in America. 

Almost 45 million Americans lack health insurance, and as many as 70 million are under insured to the point that even a short hospital stay or doctor visit, or even a test for COVID19, can lead to significant financial hardship. 

Furthermore, less than 20% of the workforce has between 11 and 15 sick days, another 25% has less than one week, and more than 10% (over 30 million people) don't have any paid time off, regardless of reason. 

That's all a recipe for economic disaster, which can also take lives. 

Writing this off as an "old people problem" is short sighted and over compartmentalizes a legitimate risk.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

MaxOfMetal said:


> Dying isn't the only thing to worry about in America.
> 
> Almost 45 million Americans lack health insurance, and as many as 70 million are under insured to the point that even a short hospital stay or doctor visit, or even a test for COVID19, can lead to significant financial hardship.
> 
> Furthermore, less than 20% of the workforce has between 11 and 15 sick days, another 25% has less than one week, and more than 10% (over 30 million people) don't have any paid time off, regardless of reason.
> 
> That's all a recipe for economic disaster, which can also take lives.
> 
> Writing this off as an "old people problem" is short sighted and over compartmentalizes a legitimate risk.


The majority of people aren't going to require hospital visits and shouldn't go to the hospital. The majority of people being hospitalized are those with underlying respiratory issues ( which COVID exacerbates) and elderly patients (who tend to have a laundry list of comorbidities).
Triage nurses and ER docs are always going to turn people away unless they're at risk of immediate death without intervention. That's literally what triaging is. It's allocation of finite resources to people that have the best chance of survival.

There's nothing we can do short term to alleviate healthcare costs barring the govt or private groups offering subsidies to offset what a patient pays, which are already in place for actual emergency situations ( also it's federal law that everyone can get emergency treatment regardless of if they can pay). The main issue is going to be controlling panic and preventing hospitals from getting completely slammed by anyone with vaguely flu like symptoms. MASCAL situations are already extremely resource intensive ( just look at Italy) so I'm more worried about that atm.


----------



## Nicki

Drew said:


> Can't speak for what you're doing in Canada, but down here in America, we're not doing a god damned thing and our Tweeter-In-Cheif is telling people it's no big deal, and we need to focus on how strong our economy is.
> 
> And, with an expected 30-50% infection rate, the "vast minority" of Americans is a fucking lot of people.


The Canadian Government isn't doing much either. It's mostly been left up to the citizens to take the preventative measures. The company I work for has put a blanket ban on any corporate travel to the A-PAC region, as well as put in place a limited visitor policy. They've also advised that any external meetings be booked with virtual meeting rooms when possible and we've also put a containment plan in place to have up to half our office work from home if the infection rate in Toronto rises.

I will tell you that one of the neighboring office towers to mine had a confirmed case of corona virus yesterday. The floor where the infected individual worked was quarantined and a sanitation crew was called in to sanitize the floor of the tower and all shared spaces.

What I meant by 


Nicki said:


> the vast majority of healthy adults ages 25 - 64 will emerge relatively unscathed


is that the vast majority of healthy adults who do become infected will come out relatively unscathed. The virus causes mild flu and pneumonia-like symptoms. Some people can be infected with the virus and be completely asymptomatic. The body of a healthy adult can fight it off, although the corona virus is more persistent than that of even the H1N1 influenza virus so it takes longer than 3-5 days to recover and an infected individual can still transmit the virus both before symptoms start and after symptoms have gone away (due to being contagious while being asymptomatic) and it takes about 7-10 days after symptoms subside for the individual to no longer be contagious. A lot of the fear that comes from this virus is its level of contagiousness.


----------



## lurè

There's a percentage of individuals among 30/40 yo without any chronic diseases that still require 1/2 weeks of ICU to fully recover.

For example patient 1 in Italy was a 38 healthy person who had ran 2 half marathons before contracing the virus.

Doctors still don't know why certain people (children) seems to be almost immune, while others manifestnmore severe symptoms and require hospitalization to recover.


----------



## wankerness

KnightBrolaire said:


> The majority of people aren't going to require hospital visits and shouldn't go to the hospital. The majority of people being hospitalized are those with underlying respiratory issues ( which COVID exacerbates) and elderly patients (who tend to have a laundry list of comorbidities).
> Triage nurses and ER docs are always going to turn people away unless they're at risk of immediate death without intervention. That's literally what triaging is. It's allocation of finite resources to people that have the best chance of survival.
> 
> There's nothing we can do short term to alleviate healthcare costs barring the govt or private groups offering subsidies to offset what a patient pays, which are already in place for actual emergency situations ( also it's federal law that everyone can get emergency treatment regardless of if they can pay). The main issue is going to be controlling panic and preventing hospitals from getting completely slammed by anyone with vaguely flu like symptoms. MASCAL situations are already extremely resource intensive ( just look at Italy) so I'm more worried about that atm.



The thing is that more people WILL need life-saving care than the hospitals have capacity for. In Italy, they have far more hospital capacity than here, and they're already having to just let tons of patients die cause there's just not enough equipment/meds/care to go around. If you have to be hospitalized, you have to be hooked up to a ventilator for 1-2 weeks straight to survive. 

In the meantime, anyone that has any other medical emergency will not be able to get medical care either thanks to the hospital being full. 

This is not some minor old person problem. This is not hospitals filling up with people who don't need help. This is a real disaster and we're going to see thousands and thousands of deaths in this country, especially with people treating it in such a cavalier fashion and just causing it to spread that much more.


----------



## efiltsohg

Enough evidence shows that it can cause permanent lung damage too


----------



## wankerness

efiltsohg said:


> Enough evidence shows that it can cause permanent lung damage too



Yeah. The second go-round of it has the potential to be vastly more deadly to younger people thanks to that.


----------



## ExileMetal

I work in the greater Seattle area and it’s something for sure.

My company and many big companies like Amazon / Microsoft have mandated or strongly encouraged working from home until the end of March. I’ve personally been doing so since last Thursday, though it was just announced someone in my building has it!

Anyway, some people are overreacting on certain ways. Like, overbuying sanitizer or toilet paper or food. The real danger is too many people getting sick at once and overloading hospitals, and also people getting sick who don’t have health care. It’s an important reminder that health is a public good; I don’t just need myself to be healthy, but also everyone around me, in order for our society to function. Because of this, the most effective thing we can do is reduce the rate of transmission. I’m also quite astonished at the rates of comparison to the flu, as it seems quite a few people online have recently become experts in infectious disease. I don’t blame them though, our atrocious and incompetent access to testing means they need to fill the hole in real data with their imagination.

I’m almost positive I’ll get it at some point, probably after losing my mind and leaving the house for a Starbucks. I’ve been trying to find any data in reinfection, to see what reintroduction to society is like. If you were curious, Trump and his anti-science zealots have been lying about the situation from day 0, to even changing the demographic of the first death and saying soon we’ll have 0 cases and it’s fine to go to work. That, combined with cancellation of flights and events, being trapped in the house, and Biden winning the nomination has made things feel quite dystopian.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

wankerness said:


> The thing is that more people WILL need life-saving care than the hospitals have capacity for. In Italy, they have far more hospital capacity than here, and they're already having to just let tons of patients die cause there's just not enough equipment/meds/care to go around. If you have to be hospitalized, you have to be hooked up to a ventilator for 1-2 weeks straight to survive.
> 
> In the meantime, anyone that has any other medical emergency will not be able to get medical care either thanks to the hospital being full.
> 
> This is not some minor old person problem. This is not hospitals filling up with people who don't need help. This is a real disaster and we're going to see thousands and thousands of deaths in this country, especially with people treating it in such a cavalier fashion and just causing it to spread that much more.


Where are you getting that info? The majority of patients both in china and worldwide have not needed ventilators. The ones that did already had underlying respiratory based or cardiac based illnesses. Long term Ventilator requirements were only around 2% of all patients from studies I've found. If you're talking about ARDS related ventilation then that's different. Those are usually short term intubations because the patient's airway is no longer patent and has to be maintained. Not the same as long term/complete mechanically assisted ventilation. In that case it's like 20% of critical cases, but again, those are typically people that are already pretty ill. 

Per CDC/ a recent Lancet analysis/Brigham Young Hospital:


----------



## Ralyks

Well, I guess my company will cover us pay/absence wise if either my son or I get infected, or my son's school is closed due to risk measures. Probably good, since my company doesn't need more bad publicity (all I'll say is I work for a bank who's been in the new lately for bad reasons. You can probably figure out what company based off of that. And no, I did not work here when that nonsense went down).


----------



## spudmunkey

San Francisco just cut the max headcount allowed at events. They previously put a limit at 1000, but now it's cut to 250.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

No groups over 100 allowed inside in Ireland here. With Paddy's day parades cancelled and now the limits on pubs we are going to see major problems for pubs and tourism. 

I'm seeing bands forced to cancel shows and even entire tours. I don't how smaller acts will recover from having to abandon the rest of a tour they are on.


----------



## StevenC

Lorcan Ward said:


> No groups over 100 allowed inside in Ireland here. With Paddy's day parades cancelled and now the limits on pubs we are going to see major problems for pubs and tourism.
> 
> I'm seeing bands forced to cancel shows and even entire tours. I don't how smaller acts will recover from having to abandon the rest of a tour they are on.


Simply come up North to drink!


----------



## Drew

NPR piece today on the growth rate within different countries. 

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsa...=npr&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_term=nprnews

This is why looking at the overall growth rate isn't really a good indicator - we have different countries all at different points of infection and with wildly different responses. The ones that have responded aggressively early - Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong - have done a very good job containing the spread and keeping the growth rate down. The ones wose initial responses were lax - Italy, Iran - have seen exponential growth curves. The US is, of the countries with material numbers of cases, by far on the laxer side. I'm hearing estimates that the growth rate in the states is likely to be around 4x, and my friend the data scientist with a background in population modeling thinks that's a bit low if anything. 

If we follow Italy's trajectory, we should break 10,000 cases in the next two weeks. That's probably a low estimate, considering even Italy's initial response was stronger than ours. 

Stock market is puking today, incidentally.


----------



## efiltsohg

livecam stream of Wuhan China

if you think this is what a city of 12 million that only had a few tens of thousands infected looks like, I have bad news for you


----------



## Lorcan Ward

StevenC said:


> Simply come up North to drink!



It is common practice to buy over the border and then bring it home!


----------



## wankerness

KnightBrolaire said:


> Where are you getting that info? The majority of patients both in china and worldwide have not needed ventilators. The ones that did already had underlying respiratory based or cardiac based illnesses. Long term Ventilator requirements were only around 2% of all patients from studies I've found. If you're talking about ARDS related ventilation then that's different. Those are usually short term intubations because the patient's airway is no longer patent and has to be maintained. Not the same as long term/complete mechanically assisted ventilation. In that case it's like 20% of critical cases, but again, those are typically people that are already pretty ill.



I never said a majority of patients needed ventilators, I said a majority of those that get a severe case and get hospitalized do. That first thing you posted seems to be giving the even more alarming stat that 20% of people who get this disease at all (not just "serious cases") require hospitalization! From a later one, it "only" suggests ~2.3% of them need mechanical ventilation. Considering we're expecting 30%-60% of the population to get this disease eventually, even a better-case scenario of .5% of 300 million people requiring one to two weeks of ventilation would be disastrous if we don't immediately start quarantining to offload this over the course of months. Italy doesn't have millions of sick people, but just the hundreds of severe cases are enough to have completely overwhelmed the hospital system and cause these decisions. As I said, if you're over 65, you're basically just given a death sentence at some hospitals cause they have to choose who gets the couple of ventilators based on age ("probable years left"), comorbidity risks, etc.

This particular info I've read is mainly coming from firsthand reports from doctors working in Northern Italy. I see no reason why they would lie about something as serious as that, it's not like it gains them anything.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

wankerness said:


> I never said a majority of patients needed ventilators, I said a majority of those that get a severe case and get hospitalized do. That first thing you posted seems to be giving the even more alarming stat that 20% of people who get this disease at all (not just "serious cases") require hospitalization! From a later one, it "only" suggests ~2.3% of them need mechanical ventilation. Considering we're expecting 30%-60% of the population to get this disease eventually, even a better-case scenario of .5% of 300 million people requiring one to two weeks of ventilation would be disastrous if we don't immediately start quarantining to offload this over the course of months. Italy doesn't have millions of sick people, but just the hundreds of severe cases are enough to have completely overwhelmed the hospital system and cause these decisions. As I said, if you're over 65, you're basically just given a death sentence at some hospitals cause they have to choose who gets the couple of ventilators based on age ("probable years left"), comorbidity risks, etc.
> 
> This particular info I've read is mainly coming from firsthand reports from doctors working in Northern Italy. I see no reason why they would lie about something as serious as that, it's not like it gains them anything.


Fair enough about the firsthand reports. I haven't seen any other reliable information about mechanical ventilation rates besides the study I posted previously and some stats on CDC. 
The 20% stat is 20% of already critical cases, not 20% of all infected. I guess I should have clarified. The overwhelming majority of patients shouldn't need to be ventilated.

As I mentioned in previous posts, MASCAL scenarios where the hospital is overwhelmed with patients is my biggest concern right now. If it happened to Italy then it'll likely happen here if COVID really explodes here in the states. I don't think the patient overload will be as critical at say, Mayo (which has hundreds of ICU beds) versus a rural Level IV County hospital. That's where I'm expecting the system strain, especially since a lot of smaller hospitals have very limited resources/training comparatively.


I'm surprised how many people act like triaging patients is a new thing. This has literally been SOP in the medical field for over a century. Hospitals have finite resources and during a MASCAL can only afford to use resources on patients most likely to survive. It's just figuring out with cold hard logic which patients need attention first. That priority almost always goes to people with airway obstruction/ respiratory failure (these are the people that truly need intubation/ full ventilation) , extreme bleeding/trauma (except for exposed brain matter) or serious heart issues. Past those issues, then yes, they'll probably have to account for remaining quality of life, comorbidities, and other factors to prioritize.


----------



## wankerness

KnightBrolaire said:


> I'm surprised how many people act like triaging patients is a new thing. This has literally been SOP in the medical field for over a century. Hospitals have finite resources and during a MASCAL can only afford to use resources on patients most likely to survive. It's just figuring out with cold hard logic which patients need attention first. That priority almost always goes to people with airway obstruction/ respiratory failure (these are the people that truly need intubation/ full ventilation) , extreme bleeding/trauma (except for exposed brain matter) or serious heart issues. Past those issues, then yes, they'll probably have to account for remaining quality of life, comorbidities, and other factors to prioritize.



I don't think any of us are acting like it's a new thing, we're acting like it's looking that it will be necessary on a level that none of us have ever had to live through before. I saw several descriptions of this as the biggest event in these countries since WWII when it comes to disruptions, resources running thin, loss of life, etc. That is a big deal and people are right to be concerned.

I think "PANIC" is definitely not something we want, but on the other hand it's infinitely more helpful for people to be terrified and holed up inside than it is for a bunch of people walking around spreading it cause they personally aren't that sick. Or having a frickin 3500 person Smurf meetup near a hotzone.


----------



## Drew

wankerness said:


> I think "PANIC" is definitely not something we want, but on the other hand it's infinitely more helpful for people to be terrified and holed up inside than it is for a bunch of people walking around spreading it cause they personally aren't that sick. Or having a frickin 3500 person Smurf meetup near a hotzone.


It's a fine line, because the last thing you want is tens of thousands of people with runny noses lined up outside major hospitals demanding to be tested all over the country (note: runny noses are not currently a symptom of COVID-19) and misdirecting resources/creating potential larger pockets for contagion, but on the other hand, this is a legitimate public health crisis, and when you have the President giving a prime time address saying "this isn't a big deal at all if you're under 65" and "this will all blow over on its own in April," well, that's an attitude that will get a lot more people killed than would be otherwise. 

Local schools reporting they'll be closed for the next two weeks, as I'm typing this.


----------



## Merrekof

Shit is getting real in Belgium. Little news on the actual virus or patients but all events and gatherings have been cancelled, people that can work from home are staying at home, people hoarding like a zombie apocalypse. Potatoes, onions, toilet paper, all sorts of canned food is literally sold out, supermarkets are overrun with people right now.. 

Oh and btw..Docters saying we should close schools right now! 
- govts response: "nah we're good!"


----------



## Kaura

Merrekof said:


> Shit is getting real in Belgium. Little news on the actual virus or patients but all events and gatherings have been cancelled, people that can work from home are staying at home, people hoarding like a zombie apocalypse. Potatoes, onions, toilet paper, all sorts of canned food is literally sold out, supermarkets are overrun with people right now..
> 
> Oh and btw..Docters saying we should close schools right now!
> - govts response: "nah we're good!"



Same in Finland. The government is having an emergency meeting about shutting down the whole country as we speak. People have also started hoarding all the food and supplies. I'm not too worried yet because I work for a major logistics company that handles food products so as long as my company doesn't get shut down, there's going to be food in stores.


----------



## wankerness

These two week closures in the us with expectation of reopening are silly since it’s in two weeks that things will probably just start getting bad. I don’t anticipate any improvement for months. China’s been under severe lockdown for weeks and the damn thing would probably just explode again as soon as they lifted it.


----------



## Ralyks

My county just had its first confirmed case. Joy.


----------



## wankerness

We had two confirmed already in my podunk county, but there are so many reports across the country of people being refused tests despite almost definitely having it that you know there's plenty more. I saw an estimate a little while ago that there are over a thousand cases in Ohio alone. But, they aren't tested, so the numbers Trump can report are still close to 0.


----------



## lurè

Meanwhile in Italy we reached 1k deaths on 15k cases confirmed...


----------



## Possessed

blacai said:


> Around 23000 flights from luthansa in europe will be canceled until end of April...
> Mine is one of them :/ It seems I will have no Easter holidays


Even if the flight is not banned, go abroad for holiday at this very moment is not a wise move


----------



## KnightBrolaire

lurè said:


> Meanwhile in Italy we reached 1k deaths on 15k cases confirmed...


Source? 
John Hopkins is saying around 12500 infected, 830 dead.
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6


----------



## ThePIGI King

Everybody I know does not care. I hardly think it'll be that bad. It seems like a ton of people just going full freakout mode.

Also, why did it take a "pandemic" to make people wash their hands? Isn't that just commonplace?


----------



## thraxil

KnightBrolaire said:


> Source?
> John Hopkins is saying around 12500 infected, 830 dead.
> https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6



https://github.com/pcm-dpc/COVID-19...onale/dpc-covid19-ita-andamento-nazionale.csv

The Johns Hopkins site is a few hours behind.


----------



## lurè

KnightBrolaire said:


> Source?
> John Hopkins is saying around 12500 infected, 830 dead.
> https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6



Government official website: http://www.salute.gov.it/portale/nu...=italiano&menu=notizie&p=dalministero&id=4219

Probably in these 2 weeks we'll reach peak of the spreading, then we expect a slow decline in positive cases.


----------



## Ralyks

ThePIGI King said:


> Also, why did it take a "pandemic" to make people wash their hands? Isn't that just commonplace?



You'd think so, wouldn't you...


----------



## TedEH

Ontario just decided to close all public schools for the two weeks after March break. The office I'm at is now prepping for remote work should that become the official recommendation.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Maybe not appropriate to rant here... apologies but FUCK the US govt, politics, and those that for some insane reason, seem to need to see people dying around them to actually take logical steps in the way that they conduct themselves... socially, hygienically, morally. We've been BEGGING for something like this to happen.


----------



## spudmunkey

My own office (about 40 people) and our HQ (about 180) are officially on "don't come into the office unless you need to" mode. All social/networking events are "postponned" including our own "grand opening" for our new office/showroom.

We're also going to close off all but 3 meeting rooms, so that janitorial doesn't have to sanitize the whole place all the time.


----------



## natedog_approved

I work for a major ocean shipping line and can say that supply chains are impacted. 

Pretty much globally all of our offices are transitioning to working remotely.


----------



## Boofchuck

Well, my school may not return to session after spring break, so I'll have plenty of time for guitar.


----------



## c7spheres

- I'm sick of bullshit companies like Amazon. Out here in Arizona they are starting to let certain workers work from home to protect them. On the surface that sounds great right?
- But ponder this a second. My friend works in the grunt labor section filling orders and they aren't letting them go home for "safety". They also work him more than full time hours with mandatory over time, but consider him a part time employee AND don't offer him any health insurance benefits either. 
- To make it worse, the people they are sending home to work are full time employees with health insurance. They don't come in contact with nearly as many people AND they never even touch the products that my friend does which, to a large extent, are made in China. But, you know, they are really concerned about their employees "safety" (sarcasm intended). 
- They don't care about anything except their personal bottom line. This is who they see as expendable or not. 
- Logically, if safety was an actual concern then they'd be sending the grunt labor home, but then they'd lose a lot of money. So they know who's really making them the money. The grunts that actually do all the work of couse.
- I told my friend to go to the news stations about it and try to organize a company wide strike. He's about to quit anyways. Might as well go out with a bang! I hope he does it.


----------



## odibrom

... a bit of acid humor....


----------



## jaxadam

Shit just got real. This is a disaster.

https://motorsports.nbcsports.com/2...le-coronavirus-canceled-washington-crowd-ban/

https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/28891268/atp-suspends-men-tennis-tournaments-six-weeks


----------



## odibrom

jaxadam said:


> Shit just got real. This is a disaster.



wait, you didn't noticed it yet?


----------



## wankerness

I don’t understand how we’re going to continue stocking stores or keeping most businesses running over the next few months. I feel like there’s little hope of keeping my job/health insurance for the duration of this thing - private schools are so screwed. I’m not very worried about my own health, but I sure am about my elderly relatives and parents. I should have stocked an underground bunker with a year of food in the remote Montana wilderness!

/freak out 

When our current government is only concerned with profits for the wealthy and is going to be in control till next year at least, there’s so little hope for any of us other than the rich or the young with no older relatives they care about. What a disaster. I feel for the U.K., you’re kind of in the same boat (though at least you all have healthcare - here we have to pay for pandemic treatment under some insurance plans, and if we get laid off during the economic shock, coverage goes bye bye).


----------



## odibrom

let the tide pass by... then make a revolution!


----------



## broj15

Boss told us today that we all need to plan for the worst by "tightening our belts". He said that if other restaurants in the city start closing due to the virus that he'd have no choice but to follow suit. Meanwhile every major sporting event or concert in the city has been cancelled or postponed and all the college's have extended spring break for 2 more weeks, and will be keeping the campuses closed, possibly until May.

I'm not so much concerned about my own health, but I'm still being cautious ie. Don't hang out with sick ppl, wash my hands more than normal, etc.., but I'm really concerned about the financial/economic impact, not just for myself, but on the larger scale as well. Didn't think it would get this far so quick, but I guess no one ever does.

Edit: and if I put my tinfoil haton for a moment, this seems like a great opportunity for the feds to shove anyone even suspected of having the virus into a "fema camp" where you'll have to fight each other for rations.

Alternatively, I wouldn't be surprised if this was some kind of very low key bio weapon developed by China to destabilize America and the rest of the world, both economically & morally. Not to mention that they've had a head start on "finding a vaccine", which I'm sure won't be cheap for anyone outside of China and thier allies.

Edit 2: yes I also think that fentanyl/the opiod epidemic is a Chinese psyop, but that's a different discussion entirely.


----------



## SpaceDock

This is really wrecking our economy and society so fast and hard I can’t believe it. This will be a historic no matter where it goes, I just can’t tell if it is a huge over reaction, a required action, or the start of something horrifying.

edit: As I post this Colbert is running through an empty room. WTF is going on!


----------



## Adieu

...well, on the bright side, maybe THIS will fix the housing market and underfunded pensions.


----------



## ThePIGI King

SpaceDock said:


> huge over reaction


It's this one. The World Health Organization states "Most people (about 80%) recover from the disease without needing special treatment." (https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses#:~:text=sympt)

So really, the idea of people swarming hospitals shouldn't be happening. People buying so much soap/hand sanitizer and other cleaning products to deplete supply is dumbfounding.

Imagine, a world where everybody washed their hands after taking a piss. Where everyone covered their entire face whenever they sneezed or coughed. And a wonderful world where people actually cleaned up after themselves and didn't put others at risk just because.

If that world existed we wouldn't be in super panic mode. I understand worrying for the elderly, or for those with pre-existing conditions that could make this fatal. But for the average joe to lose their mind? Ludicrous.

This is just a big over dramatization to distract from the Hong Kong riots. Then when it got spread the U.S. media on both sides is trying to use it to their advantage since it's an election year.

If everybody would use some not-so common sense and did some reading on it (or if everyone was a clean person from the start) I wouldn't have to be limited on purchasing toilet paper simply because I was out.


----------



## USMarine75

broj15 said:


> nonsense



After all that’s why DHS ordered all those extra bullets. And I heard the FEMA camps are being organized from the pizza place where Hillary had children sold into sex slavery. Hurry before Obama’s brown shirts take your guns.

tl;dr those who believe in everything believe in nothing. 



ThePIGI King said:


> It's this one. The World Health Organization states "Most people (about 80%) recover from the disease without needing special treatment." (https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses#:~:text=sympt)
> 
> So really, the idea of people swarming hospitals shouldn't be happening. People buying so much soap/hand sanitizer and other cleaning products to deplete supply is dumbfounding.
> 
> Imagine, a world where everybody washed their hands after taking a piss. Where everyone covered their entire face whenever they sneezed or coughed. And a wonderful world where people actually cleaned up after themselves and didn't put others at risk just because.
> 
> If that world existed we wouldn't be in super panic mode. I understand worrying for the elderly, or for those with pre-existing conditions that could make this fatal. But for the average joe to lose their mind? Ludicrous.
> 
> This is just a big over dramatization to distract from the Hong Kong riots. Then when it got spread the U.S. media on both sides is trying to use it to their advantage since it's an election year.
> 
> If everybody would use some not-so common sense and did some reading on it (or if everyone was a clean person from the start) I wouldn't have to be limited on purchasing toilet paper simply because I was out.



Sweet Jesus... This post gave me AIDS.


----------



## narad

I wish toilet paper was more readily available, given all the utter shit that know-it-all conspiracy people are dumping here.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Rugged individualists be like:


----------



## diagrammatiks

broj15 said:


> Boss told us today that we all need to plan for the worst by "tightening our belts". He said that if other restaurants in the city start closing due to the virus that he'd have no choice but to follow suit. Meanwhile every major sporting event or concert in the city has been cancelled or postponed and all the college's have extended spring break for 2 more weeks, and will be keeping the campuses closed, possibly until May.
> 
> I'm not so much concerned about my own health, but I'm still being cautious ie. Don't hang out with sick ppl, wash my hands more than normal, etc.., but I'm really concerned about the financial/economic impact, not just for myself, but on the larger scale as well. Didn't think it would get this far so quick, but I guess no one ever does.
> 
> Edit: and if I put my tinfoil haton for a moment, this seems like a great opportunity for the feds to shove anyone even suspected of having the virus into a "fema camp" where you'll have to fight each other for rations.
> 
> Alternatively, I wouldn't be surprised if this was some kind of very low key bio weapon developed by China to destabilize America and the rest of the world, both economically & morally. Not to mention that they've had a head start on "finding a vaccine", which I'm sure won't be cheap for anyone outside of China and thier allies.
> 
> Edit 2: yes I also think that fentanyl/the opiod epidemic is a Chinese psyop, but that's a different discussion entirely.



yes that's what happened. China woke up one day and decided today I'm going to try and kill all my customers.


----------



## Edika

From Tuesday to Wednesday there was a massive difference in the supermarkets. People are overreacting and honestly I went and l bought a few things myself. I don't want to contribute or participate in this idiocy but I also don't want to go shopping and find empty shelves. We do consume mostly fresh products with limited fridge life anyway but I'm worried what will happen if I can't find those products too.


----------



## Merrekof

Edika said:


> I don't want to contribute or participate in this idiocy but I also don't want to go shopping and find empty shelves.


Exactly this..


----------



## broj15

USMarine75 said:


> After all that’s why DHS ordered all those extra bullets. And I heard the FEMA camps are being organized from the pizza place where Hillary had children sold into sex slavery. Hurry before Obama’s brown shirts take your guns.
> 
> tl;dr those who believe in everything believe in nothing.
> 
> 
> 
> Sweet Jesus... This post gave me AIDS.



Edit: original comment was unnecessarily inflamitory & confrontational. All "apologies"


----------



## USMarine75

broj15 said:


> I know who's water rations I'll be taking first.



Right.



broj15 said:


> Edit: original comment was unnecessarily inflamitory & confrontational. All "apologies"



“apologies”


----------



## blacai

Possessed said:


> Even if the flight is not banned, go abroad for holiday at this very moment is not a wise move


You're right, I know. It would have been a visit to my parents but I would not take the risk of going to the frankfurt airport with all the chaos and get infected before being with two 65yo ... it would be all but responsible.


----------



## thraxil

c7spheres said:


> - Logically, if safety was an actual concern then they'd be sending the grunt labor home, but then they'd lose a lot of money. So they know who's really making them the money. The grunts that actually do all the work of couse.



Yeah, I see how that's frustrating to watch.

It's not really why things are done the way they are though. The general strategy is to send home anyone who *can* do their work from home without too much of an impact on the output. That tends to be more "white collar" jobs, but the intent isn't to just save those people from exposure. It's to get as many people as practical to avoid circulating unnecessarily. The overall rate of spread depends very directly on population density and contact. Having the people who can work from home do that helps protect those who can't as well (not just "grunt" workers, but health care professionals, emergency workers, and the people that keep essential services like electricity and water working).

We're at a point on the exponential growth curve where making even small improvements to the spread rate could make a huge difference on whether our entire health care system is overwhelmed or not and could mean thousands or millions of lives. The challenge is to maximize that without just shutting every business down. Shutting everything down and sending everyone home would basically put most companies out of business permanently, so they're trying to avoid that.

Honestly, if you are continuing to be employed throughout this whole situation, you are probably in a better position than a large segment of people who are just sent home to not work and won't be making any income at all or who lose their job because the company they work for goes out of business.


----------



## SD83

thraxil said:


> It's not really why things are done the way they are though. The general strategy is to send home anyone who *can* do their work from home without too much of an impact on the output. .



Actually, that might be one of the positive effects of this entire thing, if it catches on. There are, at least over here, tons of people who could just as well work from home who have to go to their office every day to work at their desk without ever actually talking to anyone in person, and for years I've been wondering what's the point in that? 
Same goes for business and politics. Why do they have to meet in person? We're not living in the 1950s, most of us anyways. The future is here, and it has been for a while, real time video conference with dozens of participants should be no problem at all. If you have to talk to someone, there is no need to fly thousands of miles just to do that. If you have to fix someones car, you gotta go where the car is, but if it's just talking and exchanging data and stuff like that... also, trade fairs, I know people like to touch stuff, but we got virtual reality, there is (in many cases) no need to carry tons of stuff around, thousands of people, just to have them look at some new things. 
And just imagine the next G20 summit taking place at a thousand places because it just takes place at the homes of every one who attends. Thousands of people would have trouble finding places to set random cars on fire...
There are a lot of jobs involved in that kind of stuff, I am very much aware of that. Mine is to some degree one of them. But I find this "meeting someone far away just to talk to them" thing downright archaic, earlier this year I drove 600 km to southern Germany to do just that, and then 600 km back, for about an hour of conversation... why? Because people still expect you to. If the Coronavirus makes some people rethink that approach, that might be a good thing, I think.


----------



## Demiurge

We just received advisement to start working from home indefinitely. I really can't complain about that.


----------



## Randy

Randy said:


> I'm in NY and my mom is an ER nurse manager of 40 years, and they still haven't gotten any formal training on this. Said it's standard protocol for the flu etc until they get formal notice and training from either county board of health or CDC. Woefully unprepared.



Update on this:

Hasn't changed much. There was some formal training on the specifics of the virus, the transmission, what it does and how to treat it but they're not doing any treatment or testing at the hospital or anywhere in the country AFAIK. If someone calls or comes in with symptoms, they send them home and tell them to self quarantine and follow typical flu procedure. If someone asks specifically about a COVID-19 test, they're told to call the country Department of Health, and as of yesterday at least, DoH says they have no tests and usually tells them to call the hospital, in a loop. 

Both are currently operating at the direction (or lackthereof) of the CDC, and it sounds like they're likely not up to speed on test supply, so they're just trying to tell people to keep isolated and HOPE they do as advised, and basically run out the clock until things either settle down, the test supply catches up or everyone has it. Seemingly.

Cuomo very aggressive about this though, so I wouldn't be surprised if you see things change before the end of the weekend.


----------



## sleewell

iran is digging mass graves.

did anyone see that vid where their health minister was saying everything was fine while the guy behind him obviously had it? that dude died like a day or two later.


----------



## diagrammatiks

SD83 said:


> Actually, that might be one of the positive effects of this entire thing, if it catches on. There are, at least over here, tons of people who could just as well work from home who have to go to their office every day to work at their desk without ever actually talking to anyone in person, and for years I've been wondering what's the point in that?
> Same goes for business and politics. Why do they have to meet in person? We're not living in the 1950s, most of us anyways. The future is here, and it has been for a while, real time video conference with dozens of participants should be no problem at all. If you have to talk to someone, there is no need to fly thousands of miles just to do that. If you have to fix someones car, you gotta go where the car is, but if it's just talking and exchanging data and stuff like that... also, trade fairs, I know people like to touch stuff, but we got virtual reality, there is (in many cases) no need to carry tons of stuff around, thousands of people, just to have them look at some new things.
> And just imagine the next G20 summit taking place at a thousand places because it just takes place at the homes of every one who attends. Thousands of people would have trouble finding places to set random cars on fire...
> There are a lot of jobs involved in that kind of stuff, I am very much aware of that. Mine is to some degree one of them. But I find this "meeting someone far away just to talk to them" thing downright archaic, earlier this year I drove 600 km to southern Germany to do just that, and then 600 km back, for about an hour of conversation... why? Because people still expect you to. If the Coronavirus makes some people rethink that approach, that might be a good thing, I think.



you know that the point of conferences and going to busy meetings is to drink beer and look at strippers right. 

it's just an excuse.


----------



## Adieu

sleewell said:


> iran is digging mass graves.
> 
> did anyone see that vid where their health minister was saying everything was fine while the guy behind him obviously had it? that dude died like a day or two later.



Maybe they're just using the cover of viral hysteria to quietly bury their political undesirables?

This IS iran we're talking about here...


----------



## thraxil

SD83 said:


> Actually, that might be one of the positive effects of this entire thing, if it catches on. There are, at least over here, tons of people who could just as well work from home who have to go to their office every day to work at their desk without ever actually talking to anyone in person, and for years I've been wondering what's the point in that?



I've been working remotely for almost six years now, so I'm inclined to agree. Offices, especially with the open plan layout that so many companies seem to favour are incredibly inefficient for a lot of work. But I'm also an introvert so I'm comfortable being home by myself for long periods of time (many people don't handle it well) and am very experienced at my job so I don't need to interact with others.


----------



## ThePIGI King

Adieu said:


> Maybe they're just using the cover of viral hysteria to quietly bury their political undesirables?
> 
> This IS iran we're talking about here...


Not to mention being a 3rd world country. Its not surprising they can't keep up with it. I wonder how the disease will impact the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hell, depending on how hard people get hit with this over there, the U.S. may actually be able to bring our troops home 

In all seriousness I am interested to see how it impacts the middle east and our involvement there. I doubt it'll change much to be honest.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

Edika said:


> From Tuesday to Wednesday there was a massive difference in the supermarkets. People are overreacting and honestly I went and l bought a few things myself. I don't want to contribute or participate in this idiocy but I also don't want to go shopping and find empty shelves. We do consume mostly fresh products with limited fridge life anyway but I'm worried what will happen if I can't find those products too.


Sounds like you and I eat similar. We’re going to out and buy some extra just in case. If things are shut down we can at least limit our need to go out in public. Things like canned foods. Get somes meats to freeze etc. Oh and 1 extra container of TP. Nothing crazy.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

ThePIGI King said:


> Not to mention being a 3rd world country. Its not surprising they can't keep up with it. I wonder how the disease will impact the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hell, depending on how hard people get hit with this over there, the U.S. may actually be able to bring our troops home
> 
> In all seriousness I am interested to see how it impacts the middle east and our involvement there. I doubt it'll change much to be honest.


if anything I feel like the US is going to use the virus as an excuse to go into Iran and offer "humanitarian aid"


----------



## Metropolis

People started hoarding toilet paper, potatoes, rice, pasta, bottled water and soda, ground meat, all sorts of stuff. And we didn't hoard nothing...


----------



## thraxil

Metropolis said:


> People started hoarding toilet paper, potatoes, rice, pasta, bottled water and soda, ground meat, all sorts of stuff. And we didn't hoard nothing...



I'm just hoarding whisky and guitars. Of course, I started doing that *way* before this whole coronavirus thing....


----------



## Metropolis

thraxil said:


> I'm just hoarding whisky and guitars. Of course, I started doing that *way* before this whole coronavirus thing....



That's totally normal compared to this kind of hoarding


----------



## Merrekof

ThePIGI King said:


> Not to mention being a 3rd world country. Its not surprising they can't keep up with it. I wonder how the disease will impact the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hell, depending on how hard people get hit with this over there, the U.S. may actually be able to bring our troops home
> 
> In all seriousness I am interested to see how it impacts the middle east and our involvement there. I doubt it'll change much to be honest.


Serious response: Turkey and Russia agreed to a cease fire in Syria. It takes a pandemic to get a cease fire in Syria, appareantly..


----------



## Demiurge

TP at the local supermarket is cleaned-out. Even Amazon is sold-out of most brands. Yeesh.


----------



## Merrekof

Demiurge said:


> TP at the local supermarket is cleaned-out. Even Amazon is sold-out of most brands. Yeesh.


I've seen a lot of apocalypse/zombie/pandemic/disaster movies but NONE of them showed people hoarding TP. Is this really the biggest fear, running out of toilet paper?


----------



## spudmunkey

it's a secrutity blanket. People feel helpless, and they are doing the only thing they know how to do: stock up on necessities. Toilet paper is just the most visible, because a single 24-pack of "double rolls" or "mega rolls" takes up 2 cubic feet of display/shelf space, where you might fit almost 100 cans of soup. So there's a smaller quantity of customers that can be served by a typical display (even when over-sized) and it's a dramatic scene when an aisle is empty, making everyone think they won't be able to get it, and they buy it (and extra) when they find some. Real estate is also expensive, and toilet paper takes up a lot of room, so stores don't normally have enormous caches of it on-hand.

I was at a grocery store last night, and there was a guy grabbing armloads of bags of rice and canned beans, telling everyone around him that he was a marine and knows he can get by without toilet paper, but "a man's gotta eat!" The checkout line at the grocery store was about 35 minutes, the there was no toilet paper to buy even if you wanted it.


----------



## Ordacleaphobia

diagrammatiks said:


> yes that's what happened. China woke up one day and decided today I'm going to try and kill all my customers.



It's crazy enough, it just might work!


----------



## Demiurge

Merrekof said:


> I've seen a lot of apocalypse/zombie/pandemic/disaster movies but NONE of them showed people hoarding TP. Is this really the biggest fear, running out of toilet paper?



People in those types of movies never poop. Which is probably the least-realistic part because for many the body's stress-reaction includes, uh, unloading all unnecessary cargo.


----------



## ThePIGI King

Merrekof said:


> Serious response: Turkey and Russia agreed to a cease fire in Syria. It takes a pandemic to get a cease fire in Syria, appareantly..


Yea but we signed a treaty or agreement or what have you with Afghanistan and I think it was 2 days later we got attacked  the problem with who we are fighting is that there are so many small tribes and groups with little communication between them that even if we sign something, some other group could say screw that and then nothing changes.

@KnightBrolaire that'd be the worst  I know I wouldn't want to be doing anything like that in Iran. Unless we trade them toilet paper and water and bleach for their nuclear program!


----------



## Cyanide_Anima

My idiot cousin thinks this is all part of the UN's agenda 21 plan to lower the population. She is constantly yammering and warning everyone to stockpile weapons and food because "they" are coming for us now with this virus. "They" plan on killing all of us who don't get sick with the coming vaccine after that. Blah blah blah. Stupid narcissistic bullshit. I think she spends all day on FB posting stupid bullshit and txting my mom and aunty this crazy shit and scaring the shit out of the elderly. Drives me crazy.


----------



## Ralyks

Cyanide_Anima said:


> My idiot cousin thinks this is all part of the UN's agenda 21 plan to lower the population. She is constantly yammering and warning everyone to stockpile weapons and food because "they" are coming for us now with this virus. "They" plan on killing all of us who don't get sick with the coming vaccine after that. Blah blah blah. Stupid narcissistic bullshit. I think she spends all day on FB posting stupid bullshit and txting my mom and aunty this crazy shit and scaring the shit out of the elderly. Drives me crazy.



I had a client yesterday who thinks North Korea sent the virus through China to put the blame on them and inact germ warfare. You'll hear some crazy shit.


----------



## Kaura

Priorities straight, I got my guitar out of the pawn shop today in case they would close down. <33

Also, I bought shit ton of instant noodles. Actually, I do that every week. I love instant noodles.


----------



## c7spheres

thraxil said:


> Yeah, I see how that's frustrating to watch.
> 
> It's not really why things are done the way they are though. The general strategy is to send home anyone who *can* do their work from home without too much of an impact on the output. That tends to be more "white collar" jobs, but the intent isn't to just save those people from exposure. It's to get as many people as practical to avoid circulating unnecessarily. The overall rate of spread depends very directly on population density and contact. Having the people who can work from home do that helps protect those who can't as well (not just "grunt" workers, but health care professionals, emergency workers, and the people that keep essential services like electricity and water working).
> 
> We're at a point on the exponential growth curve where making even small improvements to the spread rate could make a huge difference on whether our entire health care system is overwhelmed or not and could mean thousands or millions of lives. The challenge is to maximize that without just shutting every business down. Shutting everything down and sending everyone home would basically put most companies out of business permanently, so they're trying to avoid that.
> 
> Honestly, if you are continuing to be employed throughout this whole situation, you are probably in a better position than a large segment of people who are just sent home to not work and won't be making any income at all or who lose their job because the company they work for goes out of business.



- I see what you're saying. My point was basically what you're saying. The entire point is under the guise of being safe etc, but that's really not what it is. It's really about how can they keep operations and money flowing while cutting as many people back as possible to try to prevent the spread. So they want to look like they're doing something while still making money, not actually do the most safe thing. That's why they're not cutting back people from the most obvious spots, because those people literally move the products. Sending them home would basically hault operations and now they'd lose millions of dollars. So money is still the goal, not human safety. I see why they're doing it this way though. It's because they want the best of all worlds. 
- I see the NY Mayor banned all gatherings of 500 people or more, but yet again, they're not haulting that money train. Yes, people and business are losing money, but that's not their big money. They're not saying gatherings of thousands of people in the skyscrapers, that all walk through the same doors every day can't gather. That's thousands of people. It's a crowd because they are contained and walk through the same doors. They are enclosed. They're not shutting down that stock market. That's a gathering of over 500 people. So really it's just affecting smaller businesses and "regular" people and "regular" big business. Smaller meaning anything not in their immediate interest. Otherwise, shut it down if you mean it. Not this pick and choose who gets to do and not do a gathering. Since we're talking about a contagious virus, money shouldn't be a factor if they really mean it when they talk safety, but it is about money and control, otherwise you'd have to actually shut it all down and take the losses. I get why they're doin it though. They don't want chaos, so they control who they can which is "regular people"


----------



## Drew

c7spheres said:


> They're not shutting down that stock market. That's a gathering of over 500 people. So really it's just affecting smaller businesses and "regular" people and "regular" big business. Smaller meaning anything not in their immediate interest. Otherwise, shut it down if you mean it. Not this pick and choose who gets to do and not do a gathering. Since we're talking about a contagious virus, money shouldn't be a factor if they really mean it when they talk safety, but it is about money and control, otherwise you'd have to actually shut it all down and take the losses. I get why they're doin it though. They don't want chaos, so they control who they can which is "regular people"


I think it's more complicated than you're making it out to be. 

First, they ARE considering shutting down the physical trading floor and going remote - they were discussing plans this morning, and I would bet inside a week the trading floor is closed. 

Second... What we're seeing is a divide between jobs that CAN be done remote, and jobs that can't. If you work for Amazon and your job is to model demand for a particular sort of product and maintain that supply chain, then you can do that relatively easily from home. There's no business impact from moving you off-site and it reduces the risk to the firm of contagion, so it's a pretty costless move. So, as a business, of course you do that. The problem is the guys you're talking about, the "guys who literally move the products," CAN'T do that from home. So, telling them to work from home is not an option, and telling them not to come in has an immediate severe business impact. So, that's probably not yoru first course of action. 

Think of it this way - there MAY be a point where Amazon does tell their manual labor factory warehouse employees to stay home. When that happens, millions of people who have been depending on their ability to order necessities from Amazon during a quarantine are going to be fucked. That's a pretty ugly outcome, and if it comes tot hat, then things have gotten REALLY bad.


----------



## efiltsohg

Cyanide_Anima said:


> My idiot cousin thinks this is all part of the UN's agenda 21 plan to lower the population. She is constantly yammering and warning everyone to stockpile weapons and food because "they" are coming for us now with this virus. "They" plan on killing all of us who don't get sick with the coming vaccine after that. Blah blah blah. Stupid narcissistic bullshit. I think she spends all day on FB posting stupid bullshit and txting my mom and aunty this crazy shit and scaring the shit out of the elderly. Drives me crazy.



a woman after my own heart...


----------



## thraxil

c7spheres said:


> They're not shutting down that stock market. That's a gathering of over 500 people.



If all the traders on Wall Street die of coronavirus, I wouldn't consider that the *worst* outcome.


----------



## wankerness

Cool, since my county is the only one doing tests, we're getting labelled the "hotspot" for the virus in the state. I mean, I'm glad someone in the county is actually following proper protocol, but ugh.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

wankerness said:


> Cool, since my county is the only one doing tests, we're getting labelled the "hotspot" for the virus in the state. I mean, I'm glad someone in the county is actually following proper protocol, but ugh.



First confirmed case down here.


----------



## c7spheres

Drew said:


> I think it's more complicated than you're making it out to be.
> 
> First, they ARE considering shutting down the physical trading floor and going remote - they were discussing plans this morning, and I would bet inside a week the trading floor is closed.
> 
> Second... What we're seeing is a divide between jobs that CAN be done remote, and jobs that can't. If you work for Amazon and your job is to model demand for a particular sort of product and maintain that supply chain, then you can do that relatively easily from home. There's no business impact from moving you off-site and it reduces the risk to the firm of contagion, so it's a pretty costless move. So, as a business, of course you do that. The problem is the guys you're talking about, the "guys who literally move the products," CAN'T do that from home. So, telling them to work from home is not an option, and telling them not to come in has an immediate severe business impact. So, that's probably not yoru first course of action.
> 
> Think of it this way - there MAY be a point where Amazon does tell their manual labor factory warehouse employees to stay home. When that happens, millions of people who have been depending on their ability to order necessities from Amazon during a quarantine are going to be fucked. That's a pretty ugly outcome, and if it comes tot hat, then things have gotten REALLY bad.



- That makes sense.

- Trump has declared a national emergency now. They're talking about it on tv right now. They are on the case and say everything is going to be ok. I feel better already.


----------



## Dayviewer

Our whole company (game dev studio) started working completely remotely from today for at least the coming 2 weeks.
We’ll do at least 2 video calls a day with the teams but I know I’m not gonna like sitting home alone, the job doesn’t require it but I just function better in the office, we’ll see where it goes though!

And yea, bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, disinfectant handgels and TP practically all sold out here as well.
Still managed to get food for about 6 days, hope to see the supermarket situations a bit more stabilized by then.
Interesting times for sure.


----------



## Drew

c7spheres said:


> - That makes sense.
> 
> - Trump has declared a national emergency now. They're talking about it on tv right now. They are on the case and say everything is going to be ok. I feel better already.


Trump is an idiot and is so far behind the ball I think the market reaction from his speech was painfully optimistic. He was bragging bout the low number of deaths and low case count, but again we're where Italy was 10 days ago, and the main reason our case count isn't higher than it is is we've barely done any testing. 

The one good thing I caught, however, was waiving student loan payments for the duration of the emergency. 

On my end, my firm made the decision to go mostly remote here, the office will be physically open but we're asking only people with low riisk of getting infected come in. As a guy dating a doctor who spends her days at the hospital, I'm high risk, so I'm staying remote. Feels weird to be saying goodbye to my coworkers for the foreseeable future.


----------



## Element0s

My girlfriend lives in Seattle and while she's been OK so far, the company she works for has been a zoo lately with regards to customers and management. I was supposed to go down for a visit this weekend but we've decided that I shouldn't--I'm expecting the border situation in Canada to tighten up pretty soon

Here in Vancouver they've canned all events over 250 people and are asking for anyone re-entering the country to voluntarily self-isolate for 2 weeks upon their return. Most workplaces and businesses are running with the current risk assessment of B.C. being "low" but I'm expecting things to blow up here over the next week.

Went to a Canadian equivalent to Wal-Mart last night to pick up a few things and it was pretty nutty. Lineups around the inside perimeter of the huge store, frozen food section and cleaning section 98% cleaned out. Never seen anything like it.


----------



## wannabguitarist

I hope everyone still searching for TP realizes you can order a variety of cheap and functional bidets off Amazon. Save the environment, keep your ass clean, and avoid the lines


----------



## BlackSG91

That is something to hear that actor Tom Hanks has the Coronavirus or Covid-19. I think they tested John Travolta for the virus but they found out he only had Saturday night fever. The good news so far is that he's stayin' alive.


;>)/


----------



## MrBouleDeBowling

All schools, colleges and universities are now closed for the next 2 weeks in Quebec province. All gathering over 250 people are banned untill futher notice. People are panic buying everywhere in my city. I live in a very remote region 8hrs from Montreal and we don't have a single confirmed case here and everybody think it's the apocalypse. I wanna punch everyone.


----------



## broj15

$1.5 trillion for wall street
$50 billion for Google, Wal Mart, Wal greens, quest diagnostics, etc.
Absolutely ZERO talk about emergency eviction protection or some kind of govt. subsidized paid sick leave. Tight.


----------



## possumkiller

wannabguitarist said:


> I hope everyone still searching for TP realizes you can order a variety of cheap and functional bidets off Amazon. Save the environment, keep your ass clean, and avoid the lines


No way. Everyone is looting all the TP and I'm stocking up on all the adult diapers they are leaving on the shelves.


----------



## Merrekof

For the non Dutch speakers around here:

The battle at Wal-mart
around 2020 AD


----------



## Wuuthrad

I’m not currently Vegan, but I’m pretty sure none of this would be happening if we all didn’t eat meat!


----------



## Wuuthrad

Also the US Federal response to this a fuking joke!


----------



## Merrekof

Wuuthrad said:


> I’m not currently Vegan, but I’m pretty sure none of this would be happening if we all didn’t eat meat!


Shit, you might have a point. Many diseases originate from Chinese markets where live animals are killed, cut up and sold. Dense markets with lots of people, animals and carcasses. I believe SARS, MERS and the bird flu mutated in those places.


----------



## thraxil

Wuuthrad said:


> I’m not currently Vegan, but I’m pretty sure none of this would be happening if we all didn’t eat meat!



I am vegan and yeah, we've been saying that since SARS.


----------



## Vostre Roy

AlexCorriveau said:


> All schools, colleges and universities are now closed for the next 2 weeks in Quebec province. All gathering over 250 people are banned untill futher notice. People are panic buying everywhere in my city. I live in a very remote region 8hrs from Montreal and we don't have a single confirmed case here and everybody think it's the apocalypse. I wanna punch everyone.



I know right, my girlfriend (in Val-d'Or) told me that doing groceries yesterday was awful, everybody is panicking. I understand the need to take this issue seriously, but its still a bit soon to go in full panic mode.

Right now I'm at my work place, a remote mining camp in Nunavut. We've been briefed on how the company will handle the issue, one of the first step will be to deny some people to fly-in if they traveled outside the country recently. I hope that we don't end up putting the full camp in quarantine should someone is tested positive here.


----------



## StevenC

thraxil said:


> I am vegan and yeah, we've been saying that since SARS.


More important than that is that you end up using way less toilet paper.


----------



## TedEH

Element0s said:


> Went to a Canadian equivalent to Wal-Mart


What is a "Canadian equivalent to Walmart"? We have Walmart. 



Wuuthrad said:


> I’m pretty sure none of this would be happening if we all didn’t eat meat!


This isn't really a fair or useful statement to make. Even if nobody ever ate meat, there would still be staple food production of some kind that would act as a vector for spreading illness. And beside that, at the risk of turning this into a meat argument, it's not even close to reasonable to expect everyone to take meat of their diets. People are bad at diets. Really bad at diets. Even with all the options in the world available to them. You might as well say "we wouldn't have this problem if nobody breathed". Or "if everyone was just good at hygiene."


----------



## MaxOfMetal

TedEH said:


> This isn't really a fair or useful statement to make. Even if nobody ever ate meat, there would still be staple food production of some kind that would act as a vector for spreading illness. And beside that, at the risk of turning this into a meat argument, it's not even close to reasonable to expect everyone to take meat of their diets. People are bad at diets. Really bad at diets. Even with all the options in the world available to them. You might as well say "we wouldn't have this problem if nobody breathed". Or "if everyone was just good at hygiene."



He's not wrong. 

I say that as someone with literally half a cow in the deep freezer.

Some of the worst viruses in modern history can be traced back to butchering/eating a critter, including HIV/AIDS which was likely spread to humans that were processing primate carcasses.

But, it's moot because there's no way in Hell folks are going to stop eating meat.

As a species we've mastered food production, but we don't like to share, so people are forced to hunt for bush meat and process it in unsanitary conditions.


----------



## ramses

MaxOfMetal said:


> As a species we've mastered food production, but we don't like to share, so people are forced to hunt for bush meat and process it in unsanitary conditions.



Correct. We currently produce enough food to turn obese twice the current human population.

Eating meat is not an issue. Having people hunt rats and selling in unregulated markets is.


----------



## wankerness

The panic buying is actually better to happen now than when the shit really hits the fan, cause at least at this point if you're at the grocery store you're probably not going to get infected. I think it's smart to stock up now.

All these people announcing two week closures are wildly optimistic. I think two months is on the low end for societal shutdown if we want to even do as well as Italy.

Anyone else have older parents that refuse to take this seriously? My stress is compounded exponentially when I have to worry about my parents who are in the age range where it's very, VERY fatal refuse to stop going out in public like nothing's happening. "We're pretty healthy for our age! If we get it I'm sure it will be fine!"


----------



## MaxOfMetal

wankerness said:


> The panic buying is actually better to happen now than when the shit really hits the fan, cause at least at this point if you're at the grocery store you're probably not going to get infected. I think it's smart to stock up now.
> 
> All these people announcing two week closures are wildly optimistic. I think two months is on the low end for societal shutdown if we want to even do as well as Italy.
> 
> Anyone else have older parents that refuse to take this seriously? My stress is compounded exponentially when I have to worry about my parents who are in the age range where it's very, VERY fatal refuse to stop going out in public like nothing's happening. "We're pretty healthy for our age! If we get it I'm sure it will be fine!"



For real. My dad does Uber/Lyft on the side as he's retired but loves to talk to (at) people and driving, and he's "dropping down to just doing it on the weekends, and maybe a day during the week".


----------



## SD83

wankerness said:


> The panic buying is actually better to happen now than when the shit really hits the fan, cause at least at this point if you're at the grocery store you're probably not going to get infected. I think it's smart to stock up now.
> 
> All these people announcing two week closures are wildly optimistic. I think two months is on the low end for societal shutdown if we want to even do as well as Italy.
> 
> Anyone else have older parents that refuse to take this seriously? My stress is compounded exponentially when I have to worry about my parents who are in the age range where it's very, VERY fatal refuse to stop going out in public like nothing's happening. "We're pretty healthy for our age! If we get it I'm sure it will be fine!"



Kind of agree with the shopping stuff, though I still wonder if shit is going the hit the fan at all...

"do as well as Italy" Right now, to me at least, it looks like if there is one thing we can learn from Italy it is "don't do what they did". They went into lockdown pretty quickly apparently, and it just kept getting worse. If the Italians were too slow, we're REALLY fucked, because most other countries here are reacting significantly slower.



efiltsohg said:


> Germany is 9-10 days behind Italy, it should be about to explode there


As of today, no explosion yet. Infections more than trippled, fatality rate so far seems stable at ~0.2%. How is that possible? They have 4 times as many infected, and 100 times more dead... that is scary. 
Still, doing my best to stay healthy and not catch it and I have somewhat changed a thing or two, if only to make sure that I don't infect my parents or employees.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

I hope everyone's woodshedding their chops now that they are isolating themselves. One plus is we could see tons of music, books, comics, films etc as a result of writers being stuck inside.



MaxOfMetal said:


> Some of the worst viruses in modern history can be traced back to butchering/eating a critter,



Its mad. We have entire religions with beliefs not to eat certain kinds of meat because of it being unsuitable to process and store in their climates.

Then again we are also prone to various illnesses and parasites from eating vegetables and grains that haven't been processed and stored correctly. 



wankerness said:


> All these people announcing two week closures are wildly optimistic. I think two months is on the low end for societal shutdown if we want to even do as well as Italy.



An expert on the radio here said the 2 weeks is just to get everyone used to the idea along with thinking it will go back to normal in 14 days time. In reality it will just keep getting extended as it gets worse in the coming weeks.


----------



## Merrekof

Italy had a few infected but doctors thought it was "just a bad flu" so they sent them home. It took about two weeks to realize it was Corona. In those two weeks the virus spread out very rapidly. And with a fair amount of old people, things got bad very fast. Hospitals couldn't handle everyone so now they have this situation where they only help the healthier people with COVID19. The people over 70 or with previous health issues..well, they are literally letting them die. The lockdowns you see across Europe are meant to slow down the spreading so the hospitals won't get overrun. 
If the US govt isn't going to take further precautions..well chances are high you are gonna lose parents or grandparents over this.


----------



## Demiurge

Went back to the grocery store this morning for some incidentals. People really don't know how to panic-shop: produce, white-meat chicken, and most ground meats were cleaned-out. The most perishable stuff. Canned/dry/frozen goods bountiful. TP remains rare and paper towels are starting to get low- I really hope that people aren't going to start using & flushing paper towels if they run out of TP.


----------



## wankerness

I was really interested by this commentary (the guy, not Rachel Maddow) 
https://t.co/67pId4kC4i

the jist of it is that the self-quarantine doesn’t work and that what everyone’s missing about what China is doing is they are testing everyone that goes anywhere and immediately putting them in with other coronavirus patients if they test positive, since they found that the self-quarantine thing was causing most of the transmission since people were making their whole family sick.


----------



## TedEH

MaxOfMetal said:


> He's not wrong.


Sure, in the same way that "we'd have a less vulnerable population if we just let the weak and old die" isn't technically wrong. The phrasing matters - "if we didn't eat meat" comes with a dietary/lifestyle judgement when "if we produced our food in a cleaner way" does not.

Edit: To be fair, I didn't say he was wrong, I said it was a useless statement. 

I was entirely not surprised to get a message from parents saying I should visit to make sure everything is ok - which is exactly the opposite of what they should be doing. They have someone with COPD in the house, they should be _distancing_ themselves from everyone who gets out more, all the grandkids, etc., not _turning it into an excuse to get people over more. _


----------



## BuckarooBanzai

Demiurge said:


> Went back to the grocery store this morning for some incidentals. People really don't know how to panic-shop: produce, white-meat chicken, and most ground meats were cleaned-out. The most perishable stuff. Canned/dry/frozen goods bountiful. TP remains rare and paper towels are starting to get low- I really hope that people aren't going to start using & flushing paper towels if they run out of TP.



I don't get this either... I got off of a plane Tuesday and went straight to the grocery store on my way home in anticipation for this scenario. I've been on a health kick for the past few months so my house is stocked with quinoa, rice, and whey isolate so all I needed was a few weeks' worth of chicken and some canned beans since my supply was running low. Even if the electricity goes out I still have a months' worth of dry goods that can nutritionally sustain me. I also order everything in bulk from Amazon so I have four months' worth of toiletries.

I don't, however, expect things to come to that. I plan on working from home for the next few weeks while things stabilize then going about my business. I am very fortunate in that I have a good-paying job that I can do remotely, a good financial safety net and no wife or kids to worry about. I'm also in my 20s and in good health so I'll likely end up catching it in a few months and working remotely again for a few weeks while it dies off. The economic impact will, however, be dire. My 401k is down 23% and restaurants/bars are going to be decimated... one of my relatives in the foodservice industry just chose not to renew the lease on their establishment and are closing in two months; they definitely have crackerjack timing.


----------



## spudmunkey

Lorcan Ward said:


> I hope everyone's woodshedding their chops now that they are isolating themselves. One plus is we could see tons of music, books, comics, films etc as a result of writers being stuck inside.



And babies in 9 to 11 months.


----------



## Kaura

It's weird how (apart from the ridiculous TP hoarding) everyone goes for pasta and porridge. Like Jesus. I know nothing about nutrition but with that shit all you're gonna get is carbs and that shit ain't keeping you alive. Get some protein. Funnily enough all the canned stuff shelves (like with tuna and such) were still pretty much fully loaded in every store I've been to in past few days.


----------



## Ralyks

Pasta is cheap and takes a while to go bad. I'm not shocked at all that people aimed for that.


----------



## Vostre Roy

Quebec government just declared "State of Sanitary Emergency" (Etat d'urgence sanitaire).

I expect people to freak out even more, but at least the government is doing something


----------



## ramses

Kaura said:


> It's weird how (apart from the ridiculous TP hoarding) everyone goes for pasta and porridge. Like Jesus. I know nothing about nutrition but with that shit all you're gonna get is carbs and that shit ain't keeping you alive.



... and people with metabolic disease, pre-diabetes, and diabetes type 2 are the ones getting the worst symptoms from the virus.


----------



## Kaura

Ralyks said:


> Pasta is cheap and takes a while to go bad. I'm not shocked at all that people aimed for that.



Same goes for tuna.


----------



## Edika

In my work place they divided us in two teams while part of one team is in the same room as the other team with a row of cubicles between us empty. Yes like so none of us will get infected. Most of us can do our job remotely from home but they still think their I'll thought plan will keep us safe. Yeah right!


----------



## Kaura

Edika said:


> In my work place they divided us in two teams while part of one team is in the same room as the other team with a row of cubicles between us empty. Yes like so none of us will get infected. Most of us can do our job remotely from home but they still think their I'll thought plan will keep us safe. Yeah right!



At least they're doing something. I can't believe my workplace haven't been able to dispense even one bottle of hand sanitizer. I mean, 2-3 years ago we had a bad case of norovirus outbreak at my workplace and there was hand sanitizer available everywhere. It doesn't help that 20-30 people share the same computers and other tools everyday.


----------



## Ralyks

Kaura said:


> Same goes for tuna.



Vegetarians and vegans will eat pasta.


----------



## Brutal08

Vostre Roy said:


> Quebec government just declared "State of Sanitary Emergency" (Etat d'urgence sanitaire).
> 
> I expect people to freak out even more, but at least the government is doing something



People freak out even more! My wife is working in heath related job.... The kindergardens are closed i have to go back to work tomorow for 5 shifts and there no sing of those special 'service de garde' for health workers.... Im on night shift so i guess we will both be doing overtime and take care of the kids at home while sleeping 2/3 hours a day....


----------



## lurè

MaxOfMetal said:


> As a species we've mastered food production, but we don't like to share, so people are forced to hunt for bush meat and process it in unsanitary conditions.



The Wuhan market is atrocious. There are practically no rules regarding food manipulation or conservation.



MaxOfMetal said:


> But, it's moot because there's no way in Hell folks are going to stop eating meat.



There's no need to stop eating meat if you like it.
If we all go vegan we won't have some problems but we'll create others; I think a middle ground is the best solution.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

3 Confirmed in my city as of today. Good luck finding TP.


----------



## Wuuthrad

Merrekof said:


> Shit, you might have a point. Many diseases originate from Chinese markets where live animals are killed, cut up and sold. Dense markets with lots of people, animals and carcasses. I believe SARS, MERS and the bird flu mutated in those places.



I was reading this article about zoonotic spillover, where viruses are transmitted from other animals like what seems to have happened in Wuhan.

“The Man Who Saw the Pandemic Coming”

http://m.nautil.us/issue/83/intelligence/the-man-who-saw-the-pandemic-coming

Interesting discussion. My initial post wasn’t meant as any form of judgment on anyone, but more a sort of theory based on what I’ve been reading about recently.


----------



## spudmunkey

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> 3 Confirmed in my city as of today. Good luck finding TP.



Thankfully, just about every retailer is limiting purchases per visit. Since there's been zero disruption in distribution, that helps a lot. I was at a Target at 4:45PM on Saturday, and even though they had 120 people waiting outside 30 minutes before they opened, I could still get a pack if I needed.


----------



## odibrom

Kaura said:


> It's weird how (apart from the ridiculous TP hoarding) everyone goes for pasta and porridge. Like Jesus. I know nothing about nutrition but with that shit all you're gonna get is carbs and that shit ain't keeping you alive. Get some protein. Funnily enough all the canned stuff shelves (like with tuna and such) were still pretty much fully loaded in every store I've been to in past few days.



So you assume you know nothing about nutrition, but you still "sell" the "get some protein" slogan?


----------



## Element0s

TedEH said:


> What is a "Canadian equivalent to Walmart"? We have Walmart. .


 I was going to write a snarky retort but had the presence of mind to look it up. Apparently you don't have these in Quebec:

https://www.supermarketnews.com/online-retail/real-canadian-superstore-expands-grocery-home-delivery


----------



## Kaura

odibrom said:


> So you assume you know nothing about nutrition, but you still "sell" the "get some protein" slogan?



I don't know much but I know enough.


----------



## narad

odibrom said:


> So you assume you know nothing about nutrition, but you still "sell" the "get some protein" slogan?



Can't let coronavirus mess up my gainz.


----------



## Wuuthrad

Kaura said:


> It's weird how (apart from the ridiculous TP hoarding) everyone goes for pasta and porridge. Like Jesus. I know nothing about nutrition but with that shit all you're gonna get is carbs and that shit ain't keeping you alive. Get some protein. Funnily enough all the canned stuff shelves (like with tuna and such) were still pretty much fully loaded in every store I've been to in past few days.



You can live off Barley Water and fasting forever. Monks have been doing it for ages!
(Urine too)

Here’s what they’re doing in India to prevent Coronavirus:

Drinking Sacred Cow Urine Parties:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.dw...king-party-to-ward-off-coronavirus/a-52773262


Also all you need for nutrition is contained here:





Anything beyond this is either part of a dietary plan due to restriction or exercise, or someone is selling you some BS.


----------



## USMarine75

Wuuthrad said:


> You can live off Barley Water and fasting forever. Monks have been doing it for ages!
> (Urine too)
> 
> Here’s what they’re doing in India to prevent Coronavirus:
> 
> Drinking Sacred Cow Urine Parties:
> 
> https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.dw...king-party-to-ward-off-coronavirus/a-52773262
> 
> 
> Also all you need for nutrition is contained here:
> 
> 
> View attachment 78473
> 
> 
> Anything beyond this is either part of a dietary plan due to restriction or exercise, or someone is selling you some BS.



This pretty much covers 'merica!

South:






North:





West Coast:





East Coast:


----------



## efiltsohg

anybody saying you need to limit red meat, butter, and salt can be safely ignored

picture of sunflower oil under "healthy fats?" gtfo with that

tofu and beans and whole grains  this is straight from the "how to feel like shit all the time diet"


----------



## Wuuthrad

efiltsohg said:


> anybody saying you need to limit red meat, butter, and salt can be safely ignored



Hypertension and heart disease cannot be ignored however. Be healthy!


----------



## USMarine75

efiltsohg said:


> anybody saying you need to limit red meat, butter, and salt can be safely ignored





Wuuthrad said:


> Hypertension and heart disease cannot be ignored however. Be healthy!



When Coronavirus hears you have cardiopulmonary issues...


----------



## lurè

Fats are fats. It doesn't matter if they come from an angry pedo cow or from a fresh coconut oil taken from the garden of Eden.

Too much fat and you are at risk of a lot of disease.

Proteins are proteins. Your body doesn't give a crap if you take them from chicken or from a shaolin tofu recipe.

You can eat healty without the need to drink urine.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

USMarine75 said:


> North:



This checks out.


----------



## TedEH

Element0s said:


> I was going to write a snarky retort but had the presence of mind to look it up. Apparently you don't have these in Quebec:


For the record, I spend probably > 80% of my time in Ontario. I've seen those places before... but I've never been somewhere that doesn't have a Walmart. The Canadian equivalent of Walmart is.... also Walmart, but with French labels on things.



Wuuthrad said:


> all you need for nutrition is contained here


I get what this chart is going for, but this isn't even close to "all you need". "Exercise" is not nutrition. And "weight control" tells you nothing. What does that mean? Portion size control? Is that just another way to say exercise again? There's nothing here about what the scale of each segment represents. What if you had lots of fruit but no veg? What about the other way around? What about the amounts of sugar that are in some fruit? What about how much fiber you're supposed to get? What about the different kinds of fiber? Why isn't water included in this? Why is alcohol mentioned at all? Don't you actually need a reasonable amount of iodine that comes from all the things the chart tells you not to eat? What about all that gut flora stuff people like to talk about? Why are eggs in the same category as poultry when they don't have much nutritionally to do with eachother? I get the grouping with fish, but eggs are not meat.

What about the distrust people have for charts like this after the stories that went around about food industries paying to have certain products up front? Wasn't that the whole basis of the Canadian version of this a while back - it was sponsored by dairy, to make sure that milk was right up front. Really important to have a big ol' glass o' milk every day to be healthy! Except now, milk isn't considered healthy anymore, tons of people are lactose intolerant etc.

Why do so many guides count protein as a category (which makes sense, as a macronutrient, right?), but then count "fruits and vegetables" as a category when the nutrition makeup of any fruit or vegetable is going to vary pretty drastically. Clearly, the point has been made that protein is important, but there's protein _in all the other categories already_. Why not just call it "meat or alternative?" OR - why not break down the charts by the targeted nutritional value, and provide examples of what fits? Rather than assume that people aren't going to be able to figure that out, I guess.

Nutrition is a big complicated subject (that I admit I don't know much about), and given how poorly people handle their own nutrition, I think it's safe to say that it _can't_ be boiled down to a vague infographic.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

TedEH said:


> For the record, I spend probably > 80% of my time in Ontario. I've seen those places before... but I've never been somewhere that doesn't have a Walmart. The Canadian equivalent of Walmart is.... also Walmart, but with French labels on things.
> 
> 
> I get what this chart is going for, but this isn't even close to "all you need". "Exercise" is not nutrition. And "weight control" tells you nothing. What does that mean? Portion size control? Is that just another way to say exercise again? There's nothing here about what the scale of each segment represents. What if you had lots of fruit but no veg? What about the other way around? What about the amounts of sugar that are in some fruit? What about how much fiber you're supposed to get? What about the different kinds of fiber? Why isn't water included in this? Why is alcohol mentioned at all? Don't you actually need a reasonable amount of iodine that comes from all the things the chart tells you not to eat? What about all that gut flora stuff people like to talk about? Why are eggs in the same category as poultry when they don't have much nutritionally to do with eachother? I get the grouping with fish, but eggs are not meat.
> 
> What about the distrust people have for charts like this after the stories that went around about food industries paying to have certain products up front? Wasn't that the whole basis of the Canadian version of this a while back - it was sponsored by dairy, to make sure that milk was right up front. Really important to have a big ol' glass o' milk every day to be healthy! Except now, milk isn't considered healthy anymore, tons of people are lactose intolerant etc.
> 
> Why do so many guides count protein as a category (which makes sense, as a macronutrient, right?), but then count "fruits and vegetables" as a category when the nutrition makeup of any fruit or vegetable is going to vary pretty drastically. Clearly, the point has been made that protein is important, but there's protein _in all the other categories already_. Why not just call it "meat or alternative?" OR - why not break down the charts by the targeted nutritional value, and provide examples of what fits? Rather than assume that people aren't going to be able to figure that out, I guess.
> 
> Nutrition is a big complicated subject (that I admit I don't know much about), and given how poorly people handle their own nutrition, I think it's safe to say that it _can't_ be boiled down to a vague infographic.



You're way over thinking this. 

That said, here's more information on that graphic: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-pyramid/

I hate to appeal to authority, but I have a feeling Harvard University might know what they're doing to some extent.


----------



## bostjan

lurè said:


> Fats are fats. It doesn't matter if they come from an angry pedo cow or from a fresh coconut oil taken from the garden of Eden.
> 
> Too much fat and you are at risk of a lot of disease.
> 
> Proteins are proteins. Your body doesn't give a crap if you take them from chicken or from a shaolin tofu recipe.
> 
> You can eat healty without the need to drink urine.



I agree with your first claim that fats are fats. I disagree 100% with everything else you said. The human body cannot manufacture essential amino acids out of other amino acids.

Anyway, even here in BFE, people are panicking. Grocery shopping yesterday was a bust, but I'm going to try again today.

My boss just asked me to book an international trip, but HR blocked it. Had mandatory coronavirus prevention training for the entire company after that.


----------



## Kaura

Only 50 new cases here in Finland today. It's over, boys. Time to go home. Or I guess in this case, leave the home.


----------



## Demiurge

Local grocery store almost entirely restocked today save for bread & TP. Enjoy the toilet paper sandwiches, rubes.


----------



## lurè

bostjan said:


> agree with your first claim that fats are fats. I disagree 100% with everything else you said. The human body cannot manufacture essential amino acids out of other amino acids.



I've explained myself badly. I meant that it's not important that those essential aminoacids come from animals or vegetables.

Anyway what's the deal with toilet paper?
Internet Is full of TP memes


----------



## efiltsohg

Wuuthrad said:


> Hypertension and heart disease cannot be ignored however. Be healthy!



The magnitude of association between red and processed meat consumption and all-cause mortality and adverse cardiometabolic outcomes is very small, and the evidence is of low certainty.



lurè said:


> Fats are fats. It doesn't matter if they come from an angry pedo cow or from a fresh coconut oil taken from the garden of Eden.
> 
> Too much fat and you are at risk of a lot of disease.
> 
> Proteins are proteins. Your body doesn't give a crap if you take them from chicken or from a shaolin tofu recipe.
> 
> You can eat healty without the need to drink urine.



Cholesterol and saturated fat are healthy & essential (without them you will die), frankenstein vegetable oils are extremely unhealthy

red meat and fatty fish are SUBSTANTIALLY more nutrient dense then poultry. Non-meat sources of protein are much less bioavailable (eggs and dairy are good too)

but we're so far off topic now, if you're talking about hoarding food you aren't going to get great nutrition from nonperishables no matter what


----------



## SD83

Kaura said:


> Only 50 new cases here in Finland today. It's over, boys. Time to go home. Or I guess in this case, leave the home.



New cases in Germany have been at ~1,000 for 3 days in a row now, death rate still at 0.2%, as it has been for a full week now. Death rate in Italy seems to be somewhat dropping, and the rate of new infections seems to be somewhat stable. I'm not saying "we got this", I don't think we have and if I was amongst those who are most likely to die from this (as far as I know, everyone who died of this in Germany so far was in their sixties or older, most with pre existing health problems) I'd stay put and tell everyone to stay the fuck away from me, which is exactly what I will do with those people as I'm not part of that group but some people I really love are.
That said, "leave the home" is probably a good idea anyways, lack of physical activity and sunlight are not exactly helping anyones physical and mental (which does in turn negatively effect the physical) health.

I don't know how reliable this source
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
is, but the numbers for Germany and Italy check out with every other source I read so far, so it may be somewhat credible, if anyone knows better, tell me, I hate to be wrong without knowing it  
Anyways, what I find particularily interesting is that it gives you statistics for the number of mild and critical cases. THAT is the kind of stuff that I've been looking for for weeks now. 
And, this:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/
That, and all the other sources I've checked so far in the last two months or so (mostly German media and the Roland-Koch-Institut, the "German federal government agency and research institute responsible for disease control and prevention", and some international media) just kinda reinforce the assumption that it is bad, but not exactly "the end of the world as we know it" bad. And I feel fine


----------



## Merrekof

There are confirmed cases everywhere around here, not that much infected but the ones that are, are very close to home. 
There is this uneasy tension around here, I have never felt before. Every sunday morning, my kid and me go out for fresh bread and meat at the local artisanal stores. There's a lot less people around than usual. Like me, some other guys didn't bring their kids either. I guess it's for the same reason. Everyone is still friendly, but stays at least 1 meter away, no one dares to cough, no one pays with cash anymore (wich is weird since Belgium is far behind on electronic payments)

There is this thought that we will hit a major spike in infections, one week from now. Everyone is bracing for that and you can feel it all around.

I don't know how this is in other nations but I don't like it..


----------



## odibrom

I was watching TV and local channels were passing catastrophe movies like the 2012... cool...


----------



## TedEH

MaxOfMetal said:


> You're way over thinking this.


Absolutely, that's what I do. 

But it's also coming from a place of having made some really bad nutritional choices in the last few years and realizing how easy it is to _think_ you're doing the right thing.

I suppose that applies to just about anything though.

Edit: Also, thanks for the full link. IMO the image really needs the rest to give it context.


----------



## Demiurge

In Massachusetts, no gatherings of >25 people, restaurants take-out only. No open bars/clubs/theaters- no shows, no live music. This is going to kill musicians and the service industry.
https://www.telegram.com/news/20200...ders-school-closure-restaurants-take-out-only


----------



## spudmunkey

I feel like this could actually kill some venues, too.


----------



## wankerness

Demiurge said:


> In Massachusetts, no gatherings of >25 people, restaurants take-out only. No open bars/clubs/theaters- no shows, no live music. This is going to kill musicians and the service industry.
> https://www.telegram.com/news/20200...ders-school-closure-restaurants-take-out-only



But, they'll still be literally alive. I wish my state was taking things that seriously.


----------



## spudmunkey

wankerness said:


> But, they'll still be literally alive. I wish my state was taking things that seriously.



That is going to be the most annoying thing if/when things calm down: all the people sharing "isnt it funny how people are buying hand sanitizer and bleach, and ignoring lavender and sage?" or that it's a government conspiracy to destroy the middle classtsmall businesses/mind control, will all say, "See? What was all the panic about. It never got that bad" even though that's like saying, "why so we feed our kids? They clearly aren't starving, so it mist not be needed."


----------



## c7spheres

- If we're in the apocalyse then what you eat doesn't matter. Just that you eat. Healthier is better obviously. Focus on how to catch dogs, cats, and rats. Stock up on BBQ sauce.
- Make something postive out of it! We can eliminate the stray animals, help our evironment, and eat some good BBQ at the same time! You can even throw the occasional human in there. Ok.., now you go first.


----------



## narad

c7spheres said:


> - If we're in the apocalyse then what you eat doesn't matter. Just that you eat. Healthier is better obviously. Focus on how to catch dogs, cats, and rats. Stock up on BBQ sauce.



C'mon man, eating dogs, cats, and rats may have been what got us into this mess!


----------



## c7spheres

narad said:


> C'mon man, eating dogs, cats, and rats may have been what got us into this mess!


- Good point. 
- I'm pretty certain I've unknowingly ate stray animals before. There was a Chinese restaraunt/buffet out here like 20+ years ago that got shut down because they were caught serving animals from the shelters. I loved their food and went there a lot. If I ate any of them I couldn't tell if it was pork or beef or something else. It was really good stuff. same thing also happened with a couple Mexican restaraunts too. Good stuff though.  Out here some places also serve rattlesnake. It's basically like eating a rubbery, boney chicken. It's good tasting but needs sauce and a lot of deboning first. Totally not worth the effort or money unless in the apocalypse.


----------



## TedEH

I don't really understand people talking about this like the world is almost literally ending. My facebook feed is full of people talking about society crumbling and having to go back to thinks like hunting and subsistence farming, etc. I get that there's a big economic impact, but this isn't permanent. The impact isn't going to be _that_ drastic. Grocery stores aren't going extinct. The world is eventually going to go back to normal.

We were given an update from the city asking people to avoid leaving their homes if it's not absolutely necessary. People at work are mad that not all of us can remote in, and we're not going to be paid if we choose not to come in. I suppose it's not much of a surprise that panic is getting worse with this kind of messaging.


----------



## Adieu

Merrekof said:


> I've seen a lot of apocalypse/zombie/pandemic/disaster movies but NONE of them showed people hoarding TP. Is this really the biggest fear, running out of toilet paper?



For some reason it's a product indicative of shortages and social stress

Near the collapse of the Soviet Union, everybody hoarded TP too


----------



## Webmaestro

Why are people buying so much toilet paper?


----------



## Ralyks

Webmaestro said:


> Why are people buying so much toilet paper?



They're full of shit? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


----------



## Adieu

efiltsohg said:


> anybody saying you need to limit red meat, butter, and salt can be safely ignored
> 
> picture of sunflower oil under "healthy fats?" gtfo with that
> 
> tofu and beans and whole grains  this is straight from the "how to feel like shit all the time diet"



I lost like 60 lbs blubber and gained about 20 lbs muscle in a year on a "2 lbs mostly red meats / day" diet. 

Moderate exercise, no weights, no gym, no machinery, no meds, no trainers, no nothing.

Grains? The only halfway decent grain is buckwheat


----------



## Adieu

Webmaestro said:


> Why are people buying so much toilet paper?



It's for all the beans they're stockpiling for judgment day


----------



## Adieu

efiltsohg said:


> but we're so far off topic now, if you're talking about hoarding food you aren't going to get great nutrition from nonperishables no matter what



Freeze a cow


----------



## ThePIGI King

Ohio apparently just made all restuarants and bars close tonight, or so I was told. Honestly not mad about no gatherings or anything as I hate crowds and most social gatherings  also glad that I live in a fairly rural area 50% the time. I'm more worried about the panic mode people currently than the actual disease. Per usual stupidity is the biggest issue.


----------



## SpaceDock

US doing 0% Fed Rates and the market is still in free fall. Our economy falls in to the lexicon of every other Trump venture?


----------



## Wuuthrad

Wet Markets- Probable Source of Coranvirus:

https://www.project-syndicate.org/c...s-by-peter-singer-and-paola-cavalieri-2020-03


----------



## wankerness

TedEH said:


> I don't really understand people talking about this like the world is almost literally ending. My facebook feed is full of people talking about society crumbling and having to go back to thinks like hunting and subsistence farming, etc. I get that there's a big economic impact, but this isn't permanent. The impact isn't going to be _that_ drastic. Grocery stores aren't going extinct. The world is eventually going to go back to normal.
> 
> We were given an update from the city asking people to avoid leaving their homes if it's not absolutely necessary. People at work are mad that not all of us can remote in, and we're not going to be paid if we choose not to come in. I suppose it's not much of a surprise that panic is getting worse with this kind of messaging.



society could crumble for sure. Not to THAT extent, but I could see people getting desperate and murdering neighbors for food, etc when they get laid off and can’t afford food. Or especially once the hospitals are full and they want to ensure their family member gets into the hospital. This could get UGLY here especially with our gun fetish lining up with the people who aren’t taking it seriously and thus are more likely to get sick/not have supplies. I don’t anticipate that kind of thing happening everywhere unless the government continues failing spectacularly, but I think it’s a risk. The CDC just said they want to block all 50 person gatherings for the next 8 weeks. So yeah, they need to start some wide scale social welfare programs right now to head off all the unemployment and poor kids not getting fed at school.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

My wife and I both work directly with the public. She's younger/ healthy but I'm older/ not so healthy. This thing has been scaring us pretty bad lately but we're stocked up on the essentials and had already been planning to limit or avoid grocery shopping for at least a month or more. I work a lot less than she does per week but we have both been concerned that one of us will bring it home and spread it to the other. And obviously we are much more worried about me recovering from this than her. 

But I received some encouraging news today from my employer that I'll be able to call in through the end of April without it counting against me ( attendance-wise). I won't get paid but that's okay short term. Unfortunately her employer still hasn't done anything like this. She gets 10 sick days/ call in's then she's fired ( exemplary work history/ model employee in mgmt fwiw). We're hoping that they implement a covid-19 policy revision soon so that she can leave for a while if she needs to ( BEFORE it would come down to her actually testing positive) but as of now... heartless corporation dominates against employees... assholes). 

Fortunately though at least I can temporarily breath a bit easier.. knowing that starting tomorrow, I can opt to be out for a few weeks.


----------



## _MonSTeR_

Aaaaand I’ve got a dry cough and a headache, no fever yet though luckily. My employer says its isolation time.


----------



## broj15

Welp as of today there's 5 confirmed cases in my area. Also in related news:
- Illinois has ordered all restaurants and bars to close for the next 2 weeks (at least)
- mayor of my city has just banned all public gatherings of 50 people or more for the next 8 weeks (band mate had to cancel 2 shows he was booking and I'm playing the waiting game to see if I should cancel one I'm booking in late May)
- restaurants and bars in the city have already started announcing closures "until further notice"

My boss hasn't made a decision about what we're gonna do yet. Today he said that there's just enough money in the bank for us to all get paid time off for the next 6 weeks. Unfortunately that only covers our hourly pay, when in reality a good 40% of our paycheck comes from tips. Now I know that he means well, and the fact that he's willing to do his best to take care of us is amazing, but I know he can't feasibly make up for our lost tips, nor would I expect him to, and having my paycheck gutted like that means I likely won't be able to afford rent... If anyone on here is in the service industry I truly feel your pain. All we can do at this point is do our best to buckle down financially and hope we can outlast this shit.

And (to my knowledge) still no word on eviction protection or even talks of deferred rent. I'm not even trying to get out of paying. I'd prefer they just not collect for the next month and then split up equally across the remainder of my lease. If not then I know some ppl are already talking rent strikes, cuz either way landlords aren't getting our money now cuz we won't have it. They can either be okay with getting it later or evict and not get any money at all.

Edit: on a lighter note my friend made a Facebook post remarking that all this toilet paper business has left the wet wipes untouched and that now is the perfect time to treat ourselves. So amongst all this bullshit atleast I got a laugh out of that.


----------



## bostjan

My fear is that this outbreak is indicative of what world human overpopulation will look like on the regular.


----------



## TedEH

wankerness said:


> society could crumble for sure





wankerness said:


> murdering neighbors for food, etc



That's exactly what I mean - this is all blown waaaay out of proportion. This is no food shortage. Supply chain to grocery stores is still working just fine. Why would you murder your neighbour when you can just go to (or rob) the grocery store? The worst case scenario is that we'll fail miserably to contain the spread, a lot of people will have flu-like symptoms for a while, a not insignificant number of people will die, the healthy majority will recover, and society will move on.

If society crumbles, it won't be the fault of the virus. It'll be peoples inability to handle a crisis with a level head.


----------



## TedEH

This whole time I keep thinking-

Virus: Aha! I will make society crumble!
Society: Nah, we're good, we'll just avoid socializing.
Gamers and Various Nerds: We're way ahead of you.


----------



## nikt

Poland's capital city - Warsaw


----------



## TedEH

^ You could just as easily swap the music out for something upbeat and swing it as a view of the "power of people united towards the greater good/protecting eachother" or something for everyone staying home.

Creepy music over otherwise-non-threatening aerial shots of empty streets is how you make people panic.


----------



## nikt

I'm not the author, but yeah. Great shoots, and music to escalate panic.


----------



## odibrom

... ghost towns...


----------



## High Plains Drifter

I'm not advocating panicking but at THIS point, if panic is what it takes to temporarily clear the American streets then I'm all for it. The spring-breakers are out in force down here and potentially carrying/ spreading this shit around big time! So are the local trashy pigs that scour this city day to day. I speculate that some of what ppl are eluding to regarding "Gimme your ramen or else" is if production, transport, food, medicine, etc became scarce. Combine that with the very real concern of how the US medical system will be able to handle a massive number of patients. Down here in good ol' Texas, I see WAY more ppl not taking this seriously at the moment than I see anyone being seemingly proactive and I don't think that many ppl ( citizens and employers alike) have any kind of game-plan. Not that I necessarily think that we are destined for a worse-case scenario but... Americans have a VERY short attention span and there is a tendency to blow things off if people aren't actually experiencing something first hand.


----------



## Demiurge

^The world can laugh all they want until it's discovered that good old 'murican GUMPTION kills the coronavirus.


----------



## USMarine75

https://us.cnn.com/2020/03/16/us/cities-suspend-evictions-coronavirus-trnd/index.html


----------



## JoshuaVonFlash

Got an email today that my union interview is pushed back to July because of the virus.


----------



## Kaura

Finland just got shut down completely. Borders closed, schools closed.


----------



## SD83

Just watched the latest episode of Last Week Tonight... sounds like the situation in some parts of the US has escalated really quickly and well beyond what we currently have. 
As for the virus ruining the economy, I'm by no means a fan of our current government, but they did decide to make it easier to extend your payments for taxes etc., there will be no late payment fees, and they will apparently support small and big businesses alike with billions in loans. 

The Warsaw video is disturbing, especially since if I set off now, I might be there slightly after midnight... and situation over here looks largely normal. Streets are empty as if this was the midst of the holidays, cities are somewhat less crowded, but far from empty, and in the village (~10,000) I live, if you didn't know it, you wouldn't guess. The upside is probably that the air has probably not been that clean in decades, maybe almost centuries in some places. And since the weather here is spectacularly good right now, I guess I'll just spent as much of the day out in the sun, avoiding people just as much as I always do (it's a bit easier now though  )


----------



## wankerness

TedEH said:


> That's exactly what I mean - this is all blown waaaay out of proportion. This is no food shortage. Supply chain to grocery stores is still working just fine. Why would you murder your neighbour when you can just go to (or rob) the grocery store? The worst case scenario is that we'll fail miserably to contain the spread, a lot of people will have flu-like symptoms for a while, a not insignificant number of people will die, the healthy majority will recover, and society will move on.
> 
> If society crumbles, it won't be the fault of the virus. *It'll be peoples inability to handle a crisis with a level head.*



Umm, it will be the fault of the virus that the situations are created that will lead to peoples' inability to handle a crisis with a level head. If they have to lock down buildings or grocery stores/food stocking companies/etc do what they're currently doing and dont' raise salaries/give hazard pay/etc there are definitely going to be supply shortages because of this. It's imperative that we start targeting help for low level employees ASAP.

And I think a lot of people absolutely will resort to desperate measures if/when our hospitals get overrun and it's a case of "to admit a new patient, an existing patient has to die" like they have in Italy. If your kid needed a ventilator to live, and you had a gun, would you really just walk away and let them die instead of doing something drastic?

Yes, there are cases of younger people getting this here and there. Fortunately it's rare. But, in Seattle for example, everyone in the ICU for COVID19 at one point the other day was a male between 26 and 40.


----------



## TedEH

wankerness said:


> the situations are created that will lead to peoples' inability to handle a crisis


I maintain that it's not the virus's fault that we can't handle a crisis. It's not like panic is, in itself, a symptom of the virus or something.



wankerness said:


> there are definitely going to be supply shortages


I won't claim to be an expert in any of this, but I'd imagine we'd need to be shut down for a significant chunk of time before we ran out of food. I don't doubt we're risking shortages of some things, but we're talking about inconveniences. Nobody is starving. On top of that, if it came down to it, I assume that we would keep whatever needs to keep going open and risk some workers/consumers getting sick if the alternative was that literally nobody had food. Again, this is a virus that the majority of people will be just fine if they get it. It's not worth starving people over it.



wankerness said:


> and you had a gun


No, I would not threaten gun violence to try to get medical attention before someone else. Again, it's the whole level-head thing. It's not reasonable to bring guns into this situation at all. At best, the same number of people die, at worst, I've shot someone who didn't need to be a victim. The whole "what if it's someone you know?!" is an appeal to emotion that doesn't help anyone. I do know people who are personally at risk of needing something like this, and no, I wouldn't shoot (or threaten to shoot) anyone to get them a ventilator. All I would be doing is subjecting someone else to the same thing I'm trying to avoid.


----------



## Kaura

Just read that a healthcare center just 3 miles from here was shut down because someone from the staff was tested positive.


----------



## Metropolis




----------



## wankerness

TedEH said:


> I maintain that it's not the virus's fault that we can't handle a crisis. It's not like panic is, in itself, a symptom of the virus or something.
> 
> 
> I won't claim to be an expert in any of this, but I'd imagine we'd need to be shut down for a significant chunk of time before we ran out of food. I don't doubt we're risking shortages of some things, but we're talking about inconveniences. Nobody is starving. On top of that, if it came down to it, I assume that we would keep whatever needs to keep going open and risk some workers/consumers getting sick if the alternative was that literally nobody had food. Again, this is a virus that the majority of people will be just fine if they get it. It's not worth starving people over it.
> 
> 
> No, I would not threaten gun violence to try to get medical attention before someone else. Again, it's the whole level-head thing. It's not reasonable to bring guns into this situation at all. At best, the same number of people die, at worst, I've shot someone who didn't need to be a victim. The whole "what if it's someone you know?!" is an appeal to emotion that doesn't help anyone. I do know people who are personally at risk of needing something like this, and no, I wouldn't shoot (or threaten to shoot) anyone to get them a ventilator. All I would be doing is subjecting someone else to the same thing I'm trying to avoid.



I wouldn’t either, I’m just saying that if it comes down to that kind of triage it’s very unrealistic to think there won’t be violence from people with guns who are either sick themselves or have sick family. The national guard is going to need to start protecting hospitals if they aren’t already.

I am trying to convince you that this is a serious problem and that people are not going to keep a level head when things start getting bad. Your optimism about people keeping a clear head seems very misplaced here in the US. I wish I was Japanese or South Korean right now. 

on a more optimistic note, here’s an article outlining some theories about how this will play out:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/four-ways-experts-say-coronavirus-nightmare-could-end


----------



## TedEH

Maybe Canadians and Americans are much more different than I would have imagined. 

I'm not denying that what's going on is very serious, but I'm not convinced that it's gun-violence serious. Or "everyone needs to learn subsistence farming again" serious. I have no reason to believe currently that things are going to look drastically different in say a year from now.


----------



## wankerness

I don't know what gun culture is like there, but the stereotype is certainly that we are remarkably different when it comes to propensity for shooting people when you don't get your way.


----------



## Thaeon

TedEH said:


> Maybe Canadians and Americans are much more different than I would have imagined.
> 
> I'm not denying that what's going on is very serious, but I'm not convinced that it's gun-violence serious. Or "everyone needs to learn subsistence farming again" serious. I have no reason to believe currently that things are going to look drastically different in say a year from now.



Dude, people are panic buying in the guns stores as much as they are the grocery stores. Its bonkers.


----------



## Merrekof

wankerness said:


> people are not going to keep a level head when things start getting bad. Your optimism about people keeping a clear head seems very misplaced here in the US.


Just got reports that people here have been breaking into nurses cars for mouth masks an anti-bacteria or alcohol gel. People are going insane!


----------



## tedtan

Yeah, I was going to go to the range this weekend and stopped by a store to pick up some ammo and was surprised to see the handgun ammo shelves were as empty as the toilet paper isle at the grocery stores. There was some handgun ammo, but only "oddball" calibers like 32ACP and 45 long Colt.

Apparently some people here in Texas are either preparing for a zombie apocalypse or preparing to come steal your toilet paper when theirs runs out.

On a positive note, my company has implemented a remote work policy, so we are all working from our homes rather than going in to the office and contaminating one another.


----------



## Thaeon

tedtan said:


> Yeah, I was going to go to the range this weekend and stopped by a store to pick up some ammo and was surprised to see the handgun ammo shelves were as empty as the toilet paper isle at the grocery stores. There was some handgun ammo, but only "oddball" calibers like 32ACP and 45 long Colt.
> 
> Apparently some people here in Texas are either preparing for a zombie apocalypse or preparing to come steal your toilet paper when theirs runs out.
> 
> On a positive note, my company has implemented a remote work policy, so we are all working from our homes rather than going in to the office and contaminating one another.



Unfortunately we have not. Though there is a lot less face to face interaction happening. All the people buying the guns, ammo, and panicking does not make me feel safer.


----------



## TedEH

That _IS_ bonkers.

I've seen a single report of a place looted in Canada so far. Some food stolen. I feel like most people are being reasonable though. Lots of "social distancing". The work needed to allow work from home here is being accelerated. ETA of working from home went from 20 days to 40 days, to probably 2-3 days.


----------



## SD83

TedEH said:


> That _IS_ bonkers.
> 
> I've seen a single report of a place looted in Canada so far. Some food stolen. I feel like most people are being reasonable though. Lots of "social distancing".



Mostly, yes, but two weeks ago someone broke into storage of the local hospital to steal some disinfectant. And some guy got into a fight in a supermarket when he tried to buy 50kg of flour and they wouldn't let him... hysteria has died down a bit, and I guess since this is Germany after all, if the government says "You have to do zis, it is ze law." people will just do it.


----------



## Cyanide_Anima

Things are escalating. My employer will now begin screening for fever and symptoms before being allowed to enter the premises. We work closely with Boeing, and there are rumors that layoffs will begin soon there, if not outright closure for a couple of weeks. Buckle up. People are going to reallllly begin panicking soon.


----------



## spudmunkey

San francisco:
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/san...o-stay-inside-except-for-essential-needs.html

"The city “will require people to stay home except for essential needs,” she [the mayor] said over Twitter, adding that essential stores and necessary government functions will remain open."


----------



## sleewell

pretty quick turn from this is an impeachment hoax to no gatherings of 10 or more.


----------



## wankerness

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ammunition-soar-amid-coronavirus-panic-buying

Yeahhhhh, this is going to go well. I hate this country.


----------



## spudmunkey

wankerness said:


> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ammunition-soar-amid-coronavirus-panic-buying
> 
> Yeahhhhh, this is going to go well. I hate this country.



My neighborhood gun store has had lines every day since last week. I have family members posting, "If you spent the last week hording supplies but not ammunition, thanks for shopping for me."


----------



## wankerness

spudmunkey said:


> My neighborhood gun store has had lines every day since last week. I have family members posting, "If you spent the last week hording supplies but not ammunition, thanks for shopping for me."



Wow. We live in hell. I wish I'd been serious about moving out of the country before this all happened. My girlfriend is out in a rural area about 90 minutes from me and I'm quite worried about her.


----------



## AwakenTheSkies

spudmunkey said:


> "If you spent the last week hording supplies but not ammunition, thanks for shopping for me."



Dangerous words.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

TedEH said:


> Maybe Canadians and Americans are much more different than I would have imagined.
> 
> I'm not denying that what's going on is very serious, but I'm not convinced that it's gun-violence serious. Or "everyone needs to learn subsistence farming again" serious. I have no reason to believe currently that things are going to look drastically different in say a year from now.



It's easy to say that as a younger healthy single dude who lives in an apartment in a country that somewhat cares about the wellbeing of its people with the option to work from home.

You're pretty much in the best case scenario. Life for you will probably be fine even if the shit really hits the fan.

Throw some kids or a disabled family member and a job that's less flexible in the mix and things get much less optimistic.

To be clear, I'm very happy for you to be in your situation. It's a good thing. I'm just saying, maybe put yourself in someone else's shoes for a minute.


----------



## zappatton2

Maybe this whole mess might finally sell some people on the benefits of a publicly-funded social safety net? I'd certainly take that over buying weapons and preparing for combat with my neighbours.


----------



## SD83

Just read a report from someone who caught the disease, living in Texas, who initially thought it was the flu... as someone who has never been to the USA and has all his information about it... well, from the media, and maybe this place, what is the usual procedure if you feel really sick? Like, bad-case-of-the-flu-sick. High fever, exzessive sweating, body aches, all that kind of stuff. Or corona-sick. Because... the normal situation over here would be you maybe work if you feel kinda sick, but if it gets worse, you call in sick, go to the doctor, get your sick certificate, send it to your employer, and that's it. Right now, people will probably call in sick and see a doctor at the slightest sign of a cold. I mean, you pay for your health insurance one way or the other, so all the rest is more or less for free, right? And as an employer, even if someone is constantly sick, you can't just fire them for that. You gonna pay full wages for six weeks, until their health insurance takes over. So... I'd really like to know, because the guy I just read of lay in bed for days with high fever and all, almost drowning in his own sweat, until he finally crawled to the emergency room, and if that is the usual approach to that... you're probably better off hoarding ammunition. 
I just found out that because of the current crisis, you don't even have to visit the doctor to get your mandatory sick certificate, calling your doctor is totally sufficient. This crisis almost makes me believe our goverment actually cares for us


----------



## JSanta

zappatton2 said:


> Maybe this whole mess might finally sell some people on the benefits of a publicly-funded social safety net? I'd certainly take that over buying weapons and preparing for combat with my neighbours.



My father posted on FB a meme about empty grocery store shelves saying that now we know how he felt in 2008 about ammo and gun shops. I honestly don't think people like that care. It's sad and disgusting all at the same time.


----------



## Walter W.

Metropolis said:


>


----------



## Demiurge

It must be really tough for people to temporarily shelve their violent insurrection fantasies in favor of murdering neighbors for TP fantasies.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

SD83 said:


> I mean, you pay for your health insurance one way or the other, so all the rest is more or less for free, right?



Oh gosh no! 

In the United States insurance for the greater majority of people means that instead paying absolutely unbelievable amount of money you're left with a bill that you can maybe throw on a couple high interest credit cards, though many let it go to collections (because they can't pay thousands of dollars) and destroy their credit which keeps them from getting homes, cars, etc.

The average hospital stay is roughly $4000 a day, so a week in the hospital is about $28,000. Most insured people have what's called a "high deductible" plan, with maximum out of pocket around $7000.

As for employment, they can't fire you for being sick...which is why they'll fire you for some nebulous, almost impossible to prove/disprove reason like "job performance" or, depending on your state, "just because".


----------



## SD83

MaxOfMetal said:


> Oh gosh no!


I think you may have gotten that one wrong, what I meant is that is how it works where I live, I am aware that it is different in the states, and that was basically my question... though I didn't know it was THAT expensive. I don't mean to start any discussion on the benefits of each system and whatnot, I was just being curious how people in the USA would usually act when they're sick as it is apparently rather different to what I'm used to. (public health insurance here is about 15% of your income, half of which your employer pays. Which is annoying if you're healthy, but than again, average hospital stay is €10 a day. And while $1400 per month and €1500 per month feel basically the same, 28,000 and 70 don't...)
EDIT: I also don't mean to derail the thread, it's just that if people are reluctant to see a doctor because of the cost involved, the result might make the current situation in Italy seem rather mild


----------



## MaxOfMetal

SD83 said:


> I think you may have gotten that one wrong, what I meant is that is how it works where I live, I am aware that it is different in the states, and that was basically my question... though I didn't know it was THAT expensive. I don't mean to start any discussion on the benefits of each system and whatnot, I was just being curious how people in the USA would usually act when they're sick as it is apparently rather different to what I'm used to. (public health insurance here is about 15% of your income, half of which your employer pays. Which is annoying if you're healthy, but than again, average hospital stay is €10 a day. And while $1400 per month and €1500 per month feel basically the same, 28,000 and 700 don't...)
> EDIT: I also don't mean to derail the thread, it's just that if people are reluctant to see a doctor because of the cost involved, the result might make the current situation in Italy seem rather mild



Folks sew together their injuries with homemade stitches and whiskey as both anesthetic and sanitizer to avoid our ridiculous healthcare costs. 

So yeah, it's definitely an issue over here as far as folks getting treatment, and even getting testing, which isn't free for everyone.


----------



## lurè

No offense but people stocking up on guns and ammos for a virus is probably the dumbest thing I've ever seen.


----------



## Kaura

lurè said:


> No offense but people stocking up on guns and ammos for a virus is probably the dumbest thing I've ever seen.



They probably think it's a zombie outbreak.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

lurè said:


> No offense but people stocking up on guns and ammos for a virus is probably the dumbest thing I've ever seen.



Welcome to America.


----------



## TedEH

MaxOfMetal said:


> Throw some kids or a disabled family member and a job that's less flexible in the mix and things get much less optimistic.


For the record, I have 7 nephews/nieces - at least one parent lost their job (kitchen), and another works for a long term care facility taking care of high risk people (read: elderly). My father has COPD and is being cut off from everyone else for now. I'm not seeing zero impact. But we're not at war. The majority of us are going to recover from this. Yeah, there's panic, but we're not threatening violence against each other.

I feel like that's the difference in attitude. We go "oh shit, things are bad, how do we help each other here?" instead of going "oh shit, things are bad, where are my weapons?"

Will I admit I might be choosing to be optimistic? Sure. But if I'm wrong, we're long past screwed anyway.


----------



## zappatton2

TedEH said:


> For the record, I have 7 nephews/nieces - at least one parent lost their job (kitchen), and another works for a long term care facility taking care of high risk people (read: elderly). My father has COPD and is being cut off from everyone else for now. I'm not seeing zero impact. But we're not at war. The majority of us are going to recover from this. Yeah, there's panic, but we're not threatening violence against each other.
> 
> I feel like that's the difference in attitude. We go "oh shit, things are bad, how do we help each other here?" instead of going "oh shit, things are bad, where are my weapons?"
> 
> Will I admit I might be choosing to be optimistic? Sure. But if I'm wrong, we're long past screwed anyway.


Oh, we've got a few quote-unquote "rugged individualists" up here too, just not enough to set the tone.


----------



## gunch

I tried to file for unemployment and couldn't remember my pin from when I last tried and I got shut down and any attempts to call or change the pin amounted to "sorry we can't help you" 

Great system OHIO


----------



## ThePIGI King

lurè said:


> No offense but people stocking up on guns and ammos for a virus is probably the dumbest thing I've ever seen.


I'll take any excuse to buy more. Can't ever have enough. The idea behind it is because society as a whole anymore doesn't really have an ethical code. People are downright terrible and evil. So stocking up on ammo is simply for personal protection.

I love my 2nd amendment, I've got it wood burned in cursive and hung on the wall, but I pray that I never have to pull a gun for the safety of myself or my family. But if I have to I would. I think most people forget that a gun is like a kitchen knife. It's a tool. When used by someone responsible and educated and properly, it's a great tool. But when idiots and criminals get ahold of it, it becomes something else entirely.

OT - Ohio did close gyms and movies as well. Doesn't effect me still but really sucks. I heard today that the UK (IIRC) has pretty much only limited what those at higher risk should be doing and letting everyone else kinda carry on. Not sure if true but I heard it's working well for them over there. I also heard that they started vaccine testing here in the states. Hopefully they figure it out.


----------



## odibrom

The problem with tools is that EVERYONE is an IDIOT from time to time and specially in times of crises... wrong tool in hands and a smart person becomes a criminal.


----------



## Kobalt

I’m a UPS driver, I make between 140 and 180 deliveries a day, probably half of those I will come in contact with the customer (either a business or residential).... and it’s making me more and more anxious as days go.

I don’t care for me, but my gf is immunodeficient and that could really screw her up if I ended up contaminating her.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

I drove 3 hours for a business trip today and literally right after I checked into my hotel, got told that the conference was canceled. Yay for wasting 6hrs of my life driving 

I've been hoarding ammo and dried goods/bottled water for years, all these other people are way behind the curve lol


----------



## efiltsohg

I swear I don't hoard ammo, it's not my fault 7.62x39 comes in 1500 round cans


----------



## Flappydoodle

lurè said:


> No offense but people stocking up on guns and ammos for a virus is probably the dumbest thing I've ever seen.



Depends how bad things get.

If you can bunker down in your house, you have a low risk of catching the virus. As long as you have enough food, you can just stay at home.

But... if the hospitals are overwhelmed and full, people are going to go nuts. Your main threat is other people looting etc.


----------



## Flappydoodle

TedEH said:


> For the record, I have 7 nephews/nieces - at least one parent lost their job (kitchen), and another works for a long term care facility taking care of high risk people (read: elderly). My father has COPD and is being cut off from everyone else for now. I'm not seeing zero impact. But we're not at war. The majority of us are going to recover from this. Yeah, there's panic, but we're not threatening violence against each other.
> 
> I feel like that's the difference in attitude. We go "oh shit, things are bad, how do we help each other here?" instead of going "oh shit, things are bad, where are my weapons?"
> 
> Will I admit I might be choosing to be optimistic? Sure. But if I'm wrong, we're long past screwed anyway.



Most people just can't understand how exponential growth works. It's mind-boggling.

Also, the testing is woefully inadequate, and actually pointless at this stage. Even in the best case, it's 5-7 days to get symptoms, and 3-4 days for the test. So whatever the number is today, that's (at best) the number of cases 11 days ago. And in those 11 days, the infected number has doubled, twice.

The big scare right now is that there's a lag period and in 2 weeks every single hospital will be at more than 100% capacity. THAT's when civil breakdown could happen. Hospitals are usually operating at 80% capacity anyway with all the regular diseases and accidents of daily life.



KnightBrolaire said:


> I drove 3 hours for a business trip today and literally right after I checked into my hotel, got told that the conference was canceled. Yay for wasting 6hrs of my life driving
> 
> I've been hoarding ammo and dried goods/bottled water for years, all these other people are way behind the curve lol



Can't believe you were still going to stay in a hotel and attend a conference, haha


----------



## Randy

Flappydoodle said:


> Depends how bad things get.
> 
> If you can bunker down in your house, you have a low risk of catching the virus. As long as you have enough food, you can just stay at home.
> 
> But... if the hospitals are overwhelmed and full, people are going to go nuts. Your main threat is other people looting etc.



Most simulations of a post-apocalyptic world indicate being community oriented contributes better to survival than a loner/prepper mentality. Looting as a "main threat" requires a very, very narrow set of circumstances. I'd be more concerned with a cave in locking me in my bunker and suffocating inside or being an asshole and the community not sharing their fresh water with me when they get the water plant turned on again. Nothing (including observing the current situation) leads me to believe 51% of people turn into a lawless mob I need to shoot to protect my cans of Chef Boyardee.


----------



## Randy

Two observations I've made throughout this.

1.) Toilet paper and paper towels sold out yes, but I've seen minimal hoarding. Visiting the supermarket throughout the day, I'll see stuff fly off the shelves at first and go very slow the rest of the day. You can see and hear people opting to cut back or not buy something, wanting to leave some there incase someone else needs it more. Most shopping carts I see have maybe one 4 pack of tissues in it. People who hoard or act panicked stick out like a sore thumb and people are constantly rolling their eyes and scoffing at them.

2.) One store in particular loaded all their cleaning supplies to the front of the store. Masks, gloves, wet wipes and hand sanitizer can't stay on the shelves. Actual hand soap, dish soap, cleaning supplies, etc are almost entirely untouched. People are fucking lazy. Also, I use gloves and sometimes masks as a regular daily function and never have an issue with supply on a normal basis, and the number of shelves I've seen empty indicate probably ~500+ boxes of gloves sold in the immediate area and I've seen approximately 4 people actually wearing gloves.


----------



## JoshuaVonFlash

Doomer paranoia led to some really unsavory events during Katrina. Wouldn't be surprised if something similar happened during this whole thing.


----------



## possumkiller

My cousin says he hasn't seen any actual proof anywhere that there is a new virus threat. He says all the truck stops he stops by have all been fully stocked with nobody panic buying. Everyone acts like nothing is going on. He says this is the biggest hoax in recent history and it's probably the gay liberal media democrats trying to find another way to get at Trump since they couldn't impeach him. 

He doesn't even like Trump he just hates liberals that much.


----------



## possumkiller

Also .45LC and .32ACP are pretty far from oddball. If you don't have an Italian copy of a Colt 1873 .45 revolver, I doubt you are actually pure American...

Oddball is something like .500 Linebaugh or 7.62x25 Tokarev.


----------



## Merrekof

possumkiller said:


> My cousin says he hasn't seen any actual proof anywhere that there is a new virus threat. He says all the truck stops he stops by have all been fully stocked with nobody panic buying. Everyone acts like nothing is going on. He says this is the biggest hoax in recent history and it's probably the gay liberal media democrats trying to find another way to get at Trump since they couldn't impeach him.
> 
> He doesn't even like Trump he just hates liberals that much.


Oh sure..half of Europe is in lockdown, army in the streets patrolling, hospitals are letting people die, stock markets are a disaster..but it is all to get at Trump..
Shit is hitting the fan here.


----------



## USMarine75

Randy said:


> Most simulations of a post-apocalyptic world indicate being community oriented contributes better to survival than a loner/prepper mentality. Looting as a "main threat" requires a very, very narrow set of circumstances. I'd be more concerned with a cave in locking me in my bunker and suffocating inside or being an asshole and the community not sharing their fresh water with me when they get the water plant turned on again. Nothing (including observing the current situation) leads me to believe 51% of people turn into a lawless mob I need to shoot to protect my cans of Chef Boyardee.



That's why I love The Walking Dead. Literally every time the main characters come across others, 98% of the time they're terrible humans lol. It's fiction but it sets a bad precedent, because it reinforces in the minds of these preppers and 2nd amendment nuts this whole idea of "defensive" armed dominance. Meanwhile research shows most humans are more likely to be (reciprocally) altruistic when faced with crises (i.e. shitty people will still be shitty).


----------



## USMarine75

Randy said:


> Two observations I've made throughout this.
> 
> 1.) Toilet paper and paper towels sold out yes, but I've seen minimal hoarding. Visiting the supermarket throughout the day, I'll see stuff fly off the shelves at first and go very slow the rest of the day. You can see and hear people opting to cut back or not buy something, wanting to leave some there incase someone else needs it more. Most shopping carts I see have maybe one 4 pack of tissues in it. People who hoard or act panicked stick out like a sore thumb and people are constantly rolling their eyes and scoffing at them.
> 
> 2.) One store in particular loaded all their cleaning supplies to the front of the store. Masks, gloves, wet wipes and hand sanitizer can't stay on the shelves. Actual hand soap, dish soap, cleaning supplies, etc are almost entirely untouched. People are fucking lazy. Also, I use gloves and sometimes masks as a regular daily function and never have an issue with supply on a normal basis, and the number of shelves I've seen empty indicate probably ~500+ boxes of gloves sold in the immediate area and I've seen approximately 4 people actually wearing gloves.


----------



## Andromalia

I'm set up for remote working, taking a new job as director of operations in a small company at that exact moment (started last week...) is hell but at the same time it gives a lot of sense and meaning to my work.
I'm good on food, can go for a week without going out, point isn't necessarily to stock for WWIII but to be able to leave my place as little as possible.

Pretty sure people won't respect the contingency measures at first, the french being...french. At this point I wouldn't be adverse to the virus culling out a few of the idiots running rampant outside.
I still don't get what the point is in storing 10 years worth of toilet paper consumption.



> But if I have to I would. I think most people forget that a gun is like a kitchen knife. It's a tool. When used by someone responsible and educated and properly, it's a great tool. But when idiots and criminals get ahold of it, it becomes something else entirely.


Idiots and criminals get weapons thanks to your 2nd amendment: they're easy to steal, you just have to break into a house.
Plus, no offense, but gun accidents being the primary cause of child mortality in the USA is stupid.


----------



## Adieu

SD83 said:


> Just read a report from someone who caught the disease, living in Texas, who initially thought it was the flu... as someone who has never been to the USA and has all his information about it... well, from the media, and maybe this place, what is the usual procedure if you feel really sick? Like, bad-case-of-the-flu-sick. High fever, exzessive sweating, body aches, all that kind of stuff. Or corona-sick. Because... the normal situation over here would be you maybe work if you feel kinda sick, but if it gets worse, you call in sick, go to the doctor, get your sick certificate, send it to your employer, and that's it. Right now, people will probably call in sick and see a doctor at the slightest sign of a cold. I mean, you pay for your health insurance one way or the other, so all the rest is more or less for free, right? And as an employer, even if someone is constantly sick, you can't just fire them for that. You gonna pay full wages for six weeks, until their health insurance takes over. So... I'd really like to know, because the guy I just read of lay in bed for days with high fever and all, almost drowning in his own sweat, until he finally crawled to the emergency room, and if that is the usual approach to that... you're probably better off hoarding ammunition.
> I just found out that because of the current crisis, you don't even have to visit the doctor to get your mandatory sick certificate, calling your doctor is totally sufficient. This crisis almost makes me believe our goverment actually cares for us



No procedure, pop dayquil watch tv unless you get pneumonia or odd rashes that make you figure this ain't cold/flu after all and hey maybe you need to get a blood test

NOBODY uses the medical services unless actively bleeding profusely, suffering from something chronic, building paper trail for legal purposes (lawsuits, disability, etc) in America... unless deliriously feverish

Unless they absolutely must for paper proof, like employer/school/parole officer/whatever refuses to believe they're sick otherwise, you don't see a doc for anything that's assumed will go away on its own

Seem like people either have (limited) automatically paid sick days, no proof necessary, or don't get sick pay at all no matter what they can or cannot prove anyway


----------



## lurè

Andromalia said:


> I still don't get what the point is in storing 10 years worth of toilet paper consumption



See, I don't get It either. Here in Italy we're forced to stay at home and go out just to buy food or going to work, while in USA people are stocking guns and TP.

It's like in America Covid19 breaks in your house with an ak-47 and forces you to eat a box of laxative.

No offense.


----------



## Flappydoodle

Randy said:


> Most simulations of a post-apocalyptic world indicate being community oriented contributes better to survival than a loner/prepper mentality. Looting as a "main threat" requires a very, very narrow set of circumstances. I'd be more concerned with a cave in locking me in my bunker and suffocating inside or being an asshole and the community not sharing their fresh water with me when they get the water plant turned on again. Nothing (including observing the current situation) leads me to believe 51% of people turn into a lawless mob I need to shoot to protect my cans of Chef Boyardee.



Sure. Community-minded is great. But will people actually DO it when they're hungry, stressed etc? Or you at least need time for that trust to build. 

Also, "prepper" doesn't automatically mean "loner". It can be families, relatives, close neighbours etc. Of course you're better as a team, but it would be unwise to underestimate how sneaky and selfish other people can be.


----------



## Flappydoodle

USMarine75 said:


> That's why I love The Walking Dead. Literally every time the main characters come across others, 98% of the time they're terrible humans lol. It's fiction but it sets a bad precedent, because it reinforces in the minds of these preppers and 2nd amendment nuts this whole idea of "defensive" armed dominance. Meanwhile research shows most humans are more likely to be (reciprocally) altruistic when faced with crises (i.e. shitty people will still be shitty).



Maybe it's the terribly, shitty people who survive - by being ruthless, selfish etc? Who really knows!

I suppose, if things got REALLY bad, it will be survival of the fittest, and the nice people will be taken advantage of etc. That's just speculation though.


----------



## thraxil

MaxOfMetal said:


> Folks sew together their injuries with homemade stitches and whiskey as both anesthetic and sanitizer to avoid our ridiculous healthcare costs.



People outside the US might think he's exaggerating. Once, my girlfriend was between jobs so she had no insurance and not much money. She got a massive (like 2-inch) splinter in her foot from the shitty floors in her Brooklyn apartment. Rather than go to the ER, she had me get some isopropyl alcohol and razor blades and cut her foot open to take it out. That was actually Valentine's day. She got the splinter while getting ready to go out. We had reservations at a nice restaurant and everything. Instead, we spent it performing home surgery because getting proper treatment would have bankrupted her. Luckily, while the splinter was huge, it turned out to not be that deep and I did a decent enough job sterilizing things that it didn't get infected so everything turned out OK.


----------



## TedEH

^ That's insane.


----------



## TedEH

What's going to be _reaally_ fun is when the snow here starts melting and we add a flood on top of all of this. We've had really bad flooding for the past few years (as in parts of the city underwater, homes lost, roadways closed because they're underwater, etc) - a bunch of people are in denial that it will happen again for some reason - but it's absolutely coming. Maybe the source of my current optimism now is realizing that we haven't approached the shit-hits-the-fan point of virus+floods at the same time, but I know it's coming. I'm saving all that panic for when we really need it. Just not yet.

Except for the guns part. You guys with your guns are insane. Help people in crisis, don't shoot them.


----------



## sleewell

and the rain will kill us all...


----------



## budda

Ontario declares state of emergency.


----------



## TedEH

More like.... a province of emergency. Get it? Because we have provinces instead of states.


----------



## Randy

thraxil said:


> People outside the US might think he's exaggerating. Once, my girlfriend was between jobs so she had no insurance and not much money. She got a massive (like 2-inch) splinter in her foot from the shitty floors in her Brooklyn apartment. Rather than go to the ER, she had me get some isopropyl alcohol and razor blades and cut her foot open to take it out. That was actually Valentine's day. She got the splinter while getting ready to go out. We had reservations at a nice restaurant and everything. Instead, we spent it performing home surgery because getting proper treatment would have bankrupted her. Luckily, while the splinter was huge, it turned out to not be that deep and I did a decent enough job sterilizing things that it didn't get infected so everything turned out OK.



Have you considered a career as a Civil War era battlefield medic?


----------



## KnightBrolaire

Andromalia said:


> I'm set up for remote working, taking a new job as director of operations in a small company at that exact moment (started last week...) is hell but at the same time it gives a lot of sense and meaning to my work.
> I'm good on food, can go for a week without going out, point isn't necessarily to stock for WWIII but to be able to leave my place as little as possible.
> 
> Pretty sure people won't respect the contingency measures at first, the french being...french. At this point I wouldn't be adverse to the virus culling out a few of the idiots running rampant outside.
> I still don't get what the point is in storing 10 years worth of toilet paper consumption.
> 
> 
> Idiots and criminals get weapons thanks to your 2nd amendment: they're easy to steal, you just have to break into a house.
> Plus, no offense, but gun accidents being the primary cause of child mortality in the USA is stupid.


actually #1 cause of death for kids is car accidents, #2 is poisoning. Gun accidents aren't even close to those in terms of sheer number of deaths.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

KnightBrolaire said:


> actually #1 cause of death for kids is car accidents, #2 is poisoning. Gun accidents aren't even close to those in terms of sheer number of deaths.



Have a source? 

https://www.medpagetoday.com/pediatrics/generalpediatrics/77034

https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2018/12/21/child-death

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsr1804754


----------



## Thaeon

spudmunkey said:


> My neighborhood gun store has had lines every day since last week. I have family members posting, "If you spent the last week hording supplies but not ammunition, thanks for shopping for me."



Interestingly enough, people who post, and even say shit like that, historically have been the last people to make good on it.



ThePIGI King said:


> I'll take any excuse to buy more. Can't ever have enough. The idea behind it is because society as a whole anymore doesn't really have an ethical code. People are downright terrible and evil. So stocking up on ammo is simply for personal protection.
> 
> I love my 2nd amendment, I've got it wood burned in cursive and hung on the wall, but I pray that I never have to pull a gun for the safety of myself or my family. But if I have to I would. I think most people forget that a gun is like a kitchen knife. It's a tool. When used by someone responsible and educated and properly, it's a great tool. But when idiots and criminals get ahold of it, it becomes something else entirely.
> 
> OT - Ohio did close gyms and movies as well. Doesn't effect me still but really sucks. I heard today that the UK (IIRC) has pretty much only limited what those at higher risk should be doing and letting everyone else kinda carry on. Not sure if true but I heard it's working well for them over there. I also heard that they started vaccine testing here in the states. Hopefully they figure it out.



People who don't think others have a moral code are generally projecting in my experience. You may not be able to observe it, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. As stated before, crisis tends to make people more altruistic. We're a social species and because of natural selection, instinct tells us to bind together in a community in order to survive. The instances where people are resorting to threatening behavior are outliers.



lurè said:


> See, I don't get It either. Here in Italy we're forced to stay at home and go out just to buy food or going to work, while in USA people are stocking guns and TP.
> 
> It's like in America Covid19 breaks in your house with an ak-47 and forces you to eat a box of laxative.
> 
> No offense.



None taken. Its ridiculous, paranoid behavior.


----------



## TedEH

I have trouble believing that society has lost all sense of morals when the whole purpose of this self-isolation thing is to protect the weak and old. It's very literally an act of sacrifice for the benefit of others. If it was entirely a self preservation thing, people just wouldn't bother, we'd all just go on as usual, given that the majority of healthy individuals aren't actually at any personal risk.

People are acting on anything from altruism to ignorance to panic to self-preservation and everything in between. But on a larger scale, the whole preservation thing is very morally driven, IMO.


----------



## sleewell

tax cuts for the rich do not trickle down.

having a president with no morals or sense of decency certainly trickles down. if you have someone in the highest position who is morally bankrupt there is an even bigger incentive to be what you see as like that person. he succeeded in their minds right? why cant they if they act in the same ways?


----------



## KnightBrolaire

MaxOfMetal said:


> Have a source?
> 
> https://www.medpagetoday.com/pediatrics/generalpediatrics/77034
> 
> https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2018/12/21/child-death
> 
> https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsr1804754


That NEJM journal you cited shows that accidental discharges with firearms is not significant compared to other causes.

There are plenty of sources that corroborate what I'm saying:




https://www.cdc.gov/safechild/child_injury_data.html
https://www.aafp.org/afp/2006/1001/p1151.html
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/adolescents-health-risks-and-solutions
https://www.chop.edu/news/journals-causes-childhood-deaths-us-2016

https://www.cdc.gov/injury/images/lc-charts/leading_causes_of_death_by_age_group_2018_1100w850h.jpg
https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001915.htm


----------



## MaxOfMetal

KnightBrolaire said:


> Gun accidents aren't even in the top 5
> 
> Yeah, multiple sources:
> https://www.cdc.gov/safechild/child_injury_data.html



This is over a decade old and before the CDC was ordered to track firearm deaths.



> https://www.aafp.org/afp/2006/1001/p1151.html



This is almost 15 years old and doesn't report on firearms. 



> https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/adolescents-health-risks-and-solutions



This is global data. The United States is the one with the gun problem.



> https://www.chop.edu/news/journals-causes-childhood-deaths-us-2016



This source says that MVAs cause ~20% of death, while firearms are listed at ~15%. That's not a huge difference.



> https://www.cdc.gov/injury/images/lc-charts/leading_causes_of_death_by_age_group_2018_1100w850h.jpg



This chart doesn't break down direct cause.



> https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001915.htm



Again, the source doesn't indicate direct cause. So it lumps together causes and doesn't separate firearm injury or death.



>



This literally has firearms as the 3rd and very close to MVA.

Did you read any of these?


----------



## KnightBrolaire

MaxOfMetal said:


> This is over a decade old and before the CDC was ordered to track firearm deaths.
> 
> 
> 
> This is almost 15 years old and doesn't report on firearms.
> 
> 
> 
> This is global data. The United States is the one with the gun problem.
> 
> 
> 
> This source says that MVAs cause ~20% of death, while firearms are listed at ~15%. That's not a huge difference.
> 
> 
> 
> This chart doesn't break down direct cause.
> 
> 
> 
> Again, the source doesn't indicate direct cause. So it lumps together causes and doesn't separate firearm injury or death.
> 
> 
> 
> This literally has firearms as the 3rd and very close to MVA.
> 
> Did you read any of these?



Look the argument was that firearms are the leading cause of death in kids. They're not, and that was the point of the sources. I'm not arguing that firearm related deaths aren't a big issue for children, just showing that MVAs and Poisoning have consistently been the #1 and #2 killers across nearly every age group for the last 20 years.
The problem with firearm statistics is that suicides and homicides are typically lumped in with accidental discharges under the whole category of firearm related deaths.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6637963/figure/F3/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6637963/figure/F1/


----------



## sleewell

swing and a miss lol


----------



## MaxOfMetal

KnightBrolaire said:


> Look the argument was that firearms are the leading cause of death in kids. They're not, and that was the point of the sources. I'm not arguing that firearm related deaths aren't a big issue for children, just showing that MVAs and Poisoning have consistently been the #1 and #2 killers across nearly every age group for the last 20 years.
> The problem with firearm statistics is that suicides and homicides are typically lumped in with accidental discharges under the whole category of firearm related deaths.



Yeah, it would definitely suck to help solve the second or third leading cause of the death of children.


----------



## sleewell

pls explain why deaths from school shootings should not be included in the firearm statistics?


----------



## Zado

lurè said:


> See, I don't get It either. Here in Italy we're forced to stay at home and go out just to buy food or going to work, while in USA people are stocking guns and TP.
> 
> It's like in America Covid19 breaks in your house with an ak-47 and forces you to eat a box of laxative.
> 
> No offense.


You know what's funny? Recently Italy got mocked by half of the world for having loads of COVID cases, but we just tested a gazillion of people, unlike many. If tests were made properly and extensively the scenario would be much scarier everywhere. Sort of what happened between north and south of the country itself.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

sleewell said:


> pls explain why deaths from school shootings should not be included in the firearm statistics?


My point was that more kids die every year from poisoning and motor vehicle accidents than firearm related incidents. I never once brought up school shootings...
Accidental discharges should not be lumped in with suicides or homicides. It severely skews the data by lumping gun related suicides/homicides into the statistics .


----------



## vilk

KnightBrolaire said:


> Accidental discharges should not be lumped in with suicides or homicides.


"_Gun deaths should not be lumped in with gun deaths"
_
lol sorry I just thought it was funny. IDC about talking about guns in this thread, need not reply!


----------



## USMarine75

Someone mentions guns...

50% in here be like...


----------



## MaxOfMetal

KnightBrolaire said:


> My point was that more kids die every year from poisoning and motor vehicle accidents than firearm related incidents. I never once brought up school shootings...
> Accidental discharges should not be lumped in with suicides or homicides. It severely skews the data by lumping gun related suicides/homicides into the statistics .



The statics you're using are so old and out of date (some as old as 20 years) that they don't even track necessary firearms data. Back then most agencies weren't tracking firearm data because of heavy lobbying by the manufacturers. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickey_Amendment

https://www.npr.org/2018/04/05/599773911/how-the-nra-worked-to-stifle-gun-violence-research

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/health/gun-violence-research-cdc.amp.html

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/25/596805354/cdc-now-has-authority-to-research-gun-violence-whats-next

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/553430/

Anything published prior to 2016 is functionally useless in this matter.


----------



## Randy

KnightBrolaire said:


> The problem with firearm statistics is that suicides and homicides are typically lumped in with accidental discharges under the whole category of firearm related deaths.



You and I have different definitions of "problem".

Anyway, we've litigated and the re-litigated the blanket gun thing a million times over again, and it's really only ancillarily related to the COVID discussion. More about this below.



Flappydoodle said:


> Also, "prepper" doesn't automatically mean "loner". It can be families, relatives, close neighbours etc. Of course you're better as a team, but it would be unwise to underestimate how sneaky and selfish other people can be.



Nope, family-centric still fits in the "loner" mentality. "Community-minded" refers to a mindset that believes in the value of the group, focusing on "family" still comes from a place of selfish self-preservation. The only thing being "family focused" does versus exclusively focused on yourself individually is tempering sociopathy, and even that is debatable.

Besides, how useful is a standard family unit post apocalypse? Say it's a standard, you know, husband and wife and two kids. You and your kids can't build a nuclear reactor or engineer a vaccine in your basement bunker. Your kids can't fuck to procreate to continue the human race. 

Almost all species of evolved mammal (and even fish... and bugs) gravitate toward community for survival, pooling resources etc. Early man obviously eventually formed communities through evolution, and for good reason.

As far as guns, I think they absolutely have a place in a reasonable survival preparation scenario. The fact some of you guys gravitated straight toward shooting looters is a hilarious Rorchach test outcome. Considering you'd have no grocery stores, and maybe no electricity for refrigeration, hunting for survival becomes a reality within days/weeks. Even if you're using guns for protection, it's less about likely you need it to shoot looters, and more likely needed because there's either NO police or even if society reestablishes itself, scant service.


----------



## USMarine75

MaxOfMetal said:


> Yeah, it would definitely suck to help solve the second or third leading cause of the death of children.





vilk said:


> "_Gun deaths should not be lumped in with gun deaths"
> _
> lol sorry I just thought it was funny. IDC about talking about guns in this thread, need not reply!





MaxOfMetal said:


> The statics you're using are so old and out of date (some as old as 20 years) that they don't even track necessary firearms data. Back then most agencies weren't tracking firearm data because of heavy lobbying by the manufacturers.
> 
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickey_Amendment
> 
> https://www.npr.org/2018/04/05/599773911/how-the-nra-worked-to-stifle-gun-violence-research
> 
> https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/health/gun-violence-research-cdc.amp.html
> 
> https://www.npr.org/2018/03/25/596805354/cdc-now-has-authority-to-research-gun-violence-whats-next
> 
> https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/553430/
> 
> Anything published prior to 2016 is functionally useless in this matter.



To paraphrase Wayne LaPierre, the only thing that stops a kid with a gun is another kid with a gun. 











And guess who stops that kid?











A river.










Because he drowned, duh.


----------



## Ralyks

Supposedly only one new case reported in Wuhan yesterday.


----------



## TedEH

Getting a little back on topic - finally got the go-ahead to work from home. Home workstation is not nearly as good as the office one but oh well.


----------



## Randy

Yeah, most my friends that are even potentially capable of telecommuting are doing it 100% of the time now. It's gonna be hard to get them back to coming into work after this


----------



## ThePIGI King

MaxOfMetal said:


> Yeah, it would definitely suck to help solve the second or third leading cause of the death of children.


Parents educating and monitoring children and being responsible enough to not leave loaded guns around children is the answer for that. Parents are to blame. Maybe if our adults were more responsible and less stupid, children wouldn't have the issue.


----------



## lurè

Zado said:


> You know what's funny? Recently Italy got mocked by half of the world for having loads of COVID cases, but we just tested a gazillion of people, unlike many. If tests were made properly and extensively the scenario would be much scarier everywhere. Sort of what happened between north and south of the country itself.



Just an excuse for a siesta.


----------



## TedEH

Randy said:


> It's gonna be hard to get them back to coming into work after this


I think it's going to be hard to get any work done, and I'll be glad to be back in the office when this is all over.


----------



## possumkiller

ThePIGI King said:


> Parents educating and monitoring children and being responsible enough to not leave loaded guns around children is the answer for that. Parents are to blame. Maybe if our adults were more responsible and less stupid, children wouldn't have the issue.


Exactly. People that aren't responsible enough to own a gun shouldn't have one. They should have a way to sort these people out through some sort of test and if you pass the test you get a government issued document that says you can have a gun. It works pretty good in Europe and the UK.


----------



## spudmunkey

TedEH said:


> I think it's going to be hard to get any work done, and I'll be glad to be back in the office when this is all over.



Same. I've worked from home a few times before, for extended periods. I'm just not as productive. Some people find the office distracting: I find too many distractions at home. Plus, I need access to a plotter for floorplans, two monitors, the faster internet and no-lag access to the network/servers, material samples.


----------



## Werecow

I was supposed to have a dentist appointment tomorrow. They just rang and said they're cancelling all of their appointments for the foreseable future due to Corona. Luckily it was just a checkup and i'm not in pain.


----------



## Ralyks

I'm wondering if companies start seeing work from home as more beneficial and yes, that meeting could have been an email.

... Yeah, I doubt it.


----------



## efiltsohg

Ralyks said:


> Supposedly only one new case reported in Wuhan yesterday.


----------



## sleewell

just sat through a 1.5 hour training session. 99% was material we have learned many times. the entire point of calling the meeting was sped through at the very end almost as an afterthought. i have a feeling if either one of my bosses had been in the meeting like a normal day he or she would have shortened the nonsense part and had them get to the point. oh well, still got paid i guess but virtual isnt always better.


----------



## StevenC

possumkiller said:


> Exactly. People that aren't responsible enough to own a gun shouldn't have one. They should have a way to sort these people out through some sort of test and if you pass the test you get a government issued document that says you can have a gun. It works pretty good in Europe and the UK.


And maybe if you use your gun irresponsibly that license could be taken away, or they could force you to take a classes on responsible use. But a system like that could never work for something as essential to everyday life as a gun, right?


----------



## Empryrean

Not contributing much to the overall talk track of the thread but I work retail and our place is shut down for a month minimum, things have changed a lot in the last 3 days. Hope everyone here stays safe and smart.


----------



## DiezelMonster

Empryrean said:


> Not contributing much to the overall talk track of the thread but I work retail and our place is shut down for a month minimum, things have changed a lot in the last 3 days. Hope everyone here stays safe and smart.



Where do you work retail? I'm in Ontario Canada and right now its business as usual.


----------



## sleewell

man that is scary. how many people have a months worth of money in savings?

hope everyone is ok. we are all on the same team.


----------



## spudmunkey

Most stores that sell necessities like food, etc are running limited hours. Even pet food stores. However, the Banana Repiblic and Sephora in the building i work in are both closed until 4/7. The parking garage under the building is closed, and the staff are applying for unemployment. The wallgreen's across the street is open, and the only restaurants that are open are ones doing delivery/take-out.


----------



## Ralyks

I work for a bank, and all that's changed so far is as on today, were only allowing 5 customers in at a time. I Said we should do old school bank hours, Monday to Friday 9 to 3, or at least be closed Saturday so we can have the weekend to stay home.
But nope. Banks are greedy.


----------



## Empryrean

DiezelMonster said:


> Where do you work retail? I'm in Ontario Canada and right now its business as usual.



I'm in Central Valley California. We had our first confirmed cases (2 of them) just a few days ago


----------



## TedEH

DiezelMonster said:


> I'm in Ontario Canada and right now its business as usual.


Seems like it's different everywhere you go, even within the province. In the area around my office (Ottawa) everything is closed.


----------



## Cynicanal

sleewell said:


> hope everyone is ok. we are all on the same team.


The fact is.... we're not. Social mobility restrictions are Boomers once again screwing the rest of the world to protect themselves. The economic damage that "OMG, SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING!!!" is going to do will end up killing more people than the virus will, but Boomers are forcing it because, as always, the motto of that generation is "screw everyone else, only my wants matter!" and the people the economic damage is going to hurt are all young.


----------



## jaxadam




----------



## lurè

The first person that got the virus in Italy got re-infected and he's positive again but isn't showing any symptoms.


----------



## sleewell

Cynicanal said:


> The fact is.... we're not. Social mobility restrictions are Boomers once again screwing the rest of the world to protect themselves. The economic damage that "OMG, SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING!!!" is going to do will end up killing more people than the virus will, but Boomers are forcing it because, as always, the motto of that generation is "screw everyone else, only my wants matter!" and the people the economic damage is going to hurt are all young.




interesting take. you think we should carry on as normal with no closures?


----------



## Cynicanal

I don't see what choice we have. Current estimates in the UK are that, in order to meaningfully 'slow the curve', we'd have to continue all social distancing for 18 months (https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-report-us-uk-strategies-e45bc5d4-d2f1-40e2-825e-429b2b7c1b50.html). Do you think society can survive 18 months of being shut down?

Oh, and that number is assuming we can make a vaccine, which we probably can't given that people are getting reinfected. Shut down the world forever?


----------



## wankerness

So what are you advocating exactly? Let all the hospitals get overwhelmed and cause millions to die instead of maybe trying to get the government to do something like UBI?


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Cynicanal said:


> The fact is.... we're not. Social mobility restrictions are Boomers once again screwing the rest of the world to protect themselves. The economic damage that "OMG, SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING!!!" is going to do will end up killing more people than the virus will, but Boomers are forcing it because, as always, the motto of that generation is "screw everyone else, only my wants matter!" and the people the economic damage is going to hurt are all young.



I felt agitated when I first read this reply although I'm able to clearly see both sides. For some people that are maybe older and/ or have health issues yet have some savings and have plenty of food, supplies, etc... they want to see things shut down for the short term to allow this thing to run it's course... without being potentially exposed. But from a different perspective... If you're younger and healthier... yet are living paycheck to paycheck... or own/ work for a small business... shutting things down for weeks or more is very alarming.... knowing that your business may not survive, or that you won't be able to pay for necessities... maybe lose your home.

For me personally... my already compromised health could easily turn me into a statistic. So obviously that's my main concern and I think that should be understandable no matter what. I know that large companies can rebound from this though... as will the stock market, etc. But that does little to comfort those that are in situations where so much of what they've worked for may be gone after this thing stabilizes. I just don't think that there is a positive solution coming anytime soon... and for many, it may be quite a bit longer to recover from all the collateral damage. I just don't want to die and that's a harsh reality that I face now every time my wife comes through that door after work.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Things shutting down wouldn't be a big deal if we had governments for the people who are concerned with the health and well-being of those people and not monied business interests. 

Treat the illness and not just the symptoms. 

The illness being the dependency of the people to work through a pandemic.


----------



## wankerness

Yeah. Younger people are dying from this. It’s not like you’re immune if you’re under 30, let alone 40. Especially once hospitals are full, you’re going to be dead if you have any complications, especially here in America where you’re liable to get turned away if you don’t have health insurance, yet over 80s are filling up all the hospitals since they have Medicare.

We have to pray the government goes full socialist and cuts off rent payments, evictions, starts giving out money or requires ALL companies to give PTO, and most importantly starts doing emergency universal healthcare coverage for anything related to COVID, or people losing their jobs is going to be the LEAST of our concerns.

I’m frequently seeing comments in news articles/Facebook expressing horror at the concept of universal healthcare measures for this because “illegals will overwhelm our system!!” These racist fucking morons care more about punishing the immigrants than they do about staying alive. We’re not gonna make it, are we?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

wankerness said:


> Yeah. Younger people are dying from this. It’s not like you’re immune if you’re under 30, let alone 40. Especially once hospitals are full, you’re going to be dead if you have any complications, especially here in America where you’re liable to get turned away if you don’t have health insurance, yet over 80s are filling up all the hospitals since they have Medicare.
> 
> We have to pray the government goes full socialist and cuts off rent payments, evictions, starts giving out money or requires ALL companies to give PTO, and most importantly starts doing emergency universal healthcare coverage for anything related to COVID, or people losing their jobs is going to be the LEAST of our concerns.
> 
> I’m frequently seeing comments in news articles/Facebook expressing horror at the concept of universal healthcare measures for this because “illegals will overwhelm our system!!” These racist fucking morons care more about punishing the immigrants than they do about staying alive. We’re not gonna make it, are we?



We'll make it. Barley. Learning absolutely nothing. 

It's the American way.


----------



## Cynicanal

wankerness said:


> So what are you advocating exactly? Let all the hospitals get overwhelmed and cause millions to die instead of maybe trying to get the government to do something like UBI?


Yes.

Socializing health care won't increase the capacity of hospitals. No matter what we do (other than "social distancing forever", which is a non-starter), that's going to happen. Might as well get it over with now rather than cutting off our own noses THEN having having to go through it anyways.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Cynicanal said:


> Yes.
> 
> Socializing health care won't increase the capacity of hospitals. No matter what we do (other than "social distancing forever", which is a non-starter), that's going to happen. Might as well get it over with now rather than cutting off our own noses THEN having having to go through it anyways.



Wrong boogeyman. He's talking about Universal Basic Income, not Universal Healthcare.


----------



## Cynicanal

MaxOfMetal said:


> Wrong boogeyman. He's talking about Universal Basic Income, not Universal Healthcare.


And where exactly is the "income" for people to keep paying rent and getting food going to come from if the entire economy stops? And do we really want to live with "social distancing" forever? Because that's exactly what it would take to avoid the hospital overflow situation.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Cynicanal said:


> And where exactly is the "income" for people to keep paying rent and getting food going to come from if the entire economy stops? And do we really want to live with "social distancing" forever? Because that's exactly what it would take to avoid the hospital overflow situation.



The economy won't stop if people can still spend money on goods and services.


----------



## Cynicanal

How will anyone spend money on goods and services if there's no goods and services available because people aren't working to create the goods, working to run the stores, and working to provide the services? You can't buy something that doesn't exist, no matter how much money you're given.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Cynicanal said:


> How will anyone spend money on goods and services if there's no goods and services available because people aren't working to create the goods, working to run the stores, and working to provide the services? You can't buy something that doesn't exist, no matter how much money you're given.



Things, at least here in the US, have not ground to a halt. I work in a fucking brewery and there's no plans to stop. 

But if everyone stops buying beer, we probably will stop. Then I won't be able to buy hotdogs, and then the hotdog-ery has to stop. Then the hotdog makers can't buy beer and around and around we go.


----------



## Cynicanal

And, thus my point. Many sectors are shutting down completely, because of terrified Boomers, which is going to take a ton of other sectors down with them. We need to screw the shutdowns and continue life as normal, and accept that hospital overflows and millions of deaths are coming.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Cynicanal said:


> And, thus my point. Many sectors are shutting down completely, because of terrified Boomers, which is going to take a ton of other sectors down with them. We need to screw the shutdowns and continue life as normal, and accept that hospital overflows and millions of deaths are coming.



Or the government steps in and helps support people.


----------



## wankerness

"Millions of lives are less important than me getting to go to work, and any government measures that would make it so I didn't have to go to work are bad" This is exactly what is so f'd about this country and the UK compared to Asia.


----------



## Thaeon

Cynicanal said:


> And where exactly is the "income" for people to keep paying rent and getting food going to come from if the entire economy stops? And do we really want to live with "social distancing" forever? Because that's exactly what it would take to avoid the hospital overflow situation.



A loan to the Government from the Federal Reserve, where all of the money comes from in the first place. Same thing they did for the Stock Market. But rather than propping up Wall Street, its money for the people who aren't making any money to spend on the things they would normally spend their money on in the interim. The market is tanking because they're afraid commerce will stop from businesses closing. If people can still make purchases, of necessary supplies, and pay their bills, there's less potential for the markets to tank. Its the movement of money that keeps the whole system going.


----------



## Cynicanal

MaxOfMetal said:


> Or the government steps in and helps support people.


Which is a measure supported by both sides of the aisle right now: https://www.wsj.com/articles/giving...ns-bipartisan-support-in-congress-11584446801

But I don't know how long it's sustainable for. Are we going to shut down every bar, restaurant, school, venue, etc. forever? Because, again, that's what it would take to actually "flatten the curve". At a certain point, we're going to be forced to say "fuck it" and accept what's coming. The question is how much self-inflicted pain do we take first? Or, do we transition to permanent martial law (which is what Boomers want to happen, because it serves their interests)?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Cynicanal said:


> Which is a measure supported by both sides of the aisle right now: https://www.wsj.com/articles/giving...ns-bipartisan-support-in-congress-11584446801
> 
> But I don't know how long it's sustainable for. Are we going to shut down every bar, restaurant, school, venue, etc. forever? Because, again, that's what it would take to actually "flatten the curve". At a certain point, we're going to be forced to say "fuck it" and accept what's coming. The question is how much self-inflicted pain do we take first? Or, do we transition to permanent martial law (which is what Boomers want to happen, because it serves their interests)?



I guess it depends on how long before we get a vaccine, but in the now, UBI in some form would be a significant stop gap. 

The goal is to get infection and treatment rates manageable, not to completely stop everything, which will never happen.


----------



## Thaeon

Cynicanal said:


> Which is a measure supported by both sides of the aisle right now: https://www.wsj.com/articles/giving...ns-bipartisan-support-in-congress-11584446801
> 
> But I don't know how long it's sustainable for. Are we going to shut down every bar, restaurant, school, venue, etc. forever? Because, again, that's what it would take to actually "flatten the curve". At a certain point, we're going to be forced to say "fuck it" and accept what's coming. The question is how much self-inflicted pain do we take first? Or, do we transition to permanent martial law (which is what Boomers want to happen, because it serves their interests)?



Cutting the chain of infection is priority one in managing this sort of thing. The virus can't survive as an organism if it can't infect new hosts. Period. If we can slow it long enough to understand it enough to find medicines that it is weak against, then we can flatten the curve that way. Minimizing new infections and reinfections, and making the symptoms less harmful to the individuals suffering from it. Until we have a vaccine. Which is already being tested.


----------



## broj15

2 things I wanna say in this post:

1. Those of you who are saying "business as usual. Let everyone get infected and let the boomers fucking die!" Can eat literal shit. If someone doesn't come through with some kind of financial relief - be it my employer, the landlords, or the government - im possibly facing the very real threat of eviction because of this shutdown/social distancing. I'm still all in favor for it. Why? Because I have "filthy Boomer" parents who raised me, one of which has a pre-existing condition that could very likely result in thier death. But if it makes you feel like thier lives are worth more I will confirm that neither of them voted for Trump.

2. I'm having a hard time taking anyone's opinion or input seriously as far as how bad things are/how bad they will get economically if you're still drawing a paycheck. Those of us with jobs that can't be done from home and are ENTIRELY based on face to face interaction with the public are staring down the barrel of VERY limited options. If you're fortunate and privileged enough to not be in that position then congratulations. I remember not thinking the recession of 2008 was a big deal, because neither of my parent's jobs were adversely affected by it. That was naive, but I was also still in highschool and barely old enough to have a job. So if you're not financially impacted by this then maybe count your blessings and lend an ear to those who are.


----------



## Cynicanal

The problem is the virus has already been shown to be able to re-infect recovered patients. Based on that, I don't see how a vaccine for this is any more possible than a vaccine for the common cold (which is also a Coronavirus). 

"Understand it enough to find medicines it's weak against" and "have a vaccine" are things that aren't going to ever happen (otherwise, we'd have a cure for the common cold). This is here to stay, it's every bit a part of our future as colds, strep throat, and the flu are.


----------



## wankerness

Cynicanal said:


> The problem is the virus has already been shown to be able to re-infect recovered patients. Based on that, I don't see how a vaccine for this is any more possible than a vaccine for the common cold (which is also a Coronavirus).
> 
> "Understand it enough to find medicines it's weak against" and "have a vaccine" are things that aren't going to ever happen (otherwise, we'd have a cure for the common cold). This is here to stay, it's every bit a part of our future as colds, strep throat, and the flu are.



Jesus, dude. It's like you WANT as many people to die as possible and are reading news digest put out by the CEO of Whole Foods justifying why he won't give anyone PTO.

They ARE finding that antivirals are effective against it (two that are commonly used for malaria in developing countries and can be prescribed for other purposes in the US), they're working on one that's already seeming to be even more effective (Remdesivir) and they anticipate massively ramping up production of them in the US as soon as tests are completed. This has a ~3 MONTH timeline. Maybe we should try and at least minimize casualties for 3 months? Or no, we should cause millions to die as fast as possible cause everything sucks.


----------



## Cynicanal

Do you have sources for this? The stuff I've been reading from the UK NHS has been saying "we might have something to help this a little bit in 18 months, but even that's not promising, we're probably going to have to do social distancing for years and years to come."


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Cynicanal said:


> The problem is the virus has already been shown to be able to re-infect recovered patients. Based on that, I don't see how a vaccine for this is any more possible than a vaccine for the common cold (which is also a Coronavirus).
> 
> "Understand it enough to find medicines it's weak against" and "have a vaccine" are things that aren't going to ever happen (otherwise, we'd have a cure for the common cold). This is here to stay, it's every bit a part of our future as colds, strep throat, and the flu are.



None of the confirmed re-infected have shown symptoms though, which points to the body developing it's own antibodies, similar to Chickenpox. 

Though the number of cases of reinfected that are lab confirmed are too few to really say much definitively at this point.


----------



## lurè

looks like they're experimenting a potential vaccine: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/corona...ed-with-covid-19-shot-in-clinical-trial-cure/


----------



## Necris

Scientists in the Netherlands announced that they've discovered an antibody against Coronavirus a few days ago. https://www.erasmusmagazine.nl/en/2...-mc-antibody-against-corona/?noredirect=en_US

Testing on humans has yet to happen, but the time frame appears to be by the end of summer.

Regeneron has also found treatment that they said should be ready for mass production by the end of summer. 
https://www.thestreet.com/investing/regeneron-surges-after-identifying-coronavirus-antibodies


----------



## Thaeon

broj15 said:


> 2 things I wanna say in this post:
> 
> 1. Those of you who are saying "business as usual. Let everyone get infected and let the boomers fucking die!" Can eat literal shit. If someone doesn't come through with some kind of financial relief - be it my employer, the landlords, or the government - im possibly facing the very real threat of eviction because of this shutdown/social distancing. I'm still all in favor for it. Why? Because I have "filthy Boomer" parents who raised me, one of which has a pre-existing condition that could very likely result in thier death. But if it makes you feel like thier lives are worth more I will confirm that neither of them voted for Trump.
> 
> 2. I'm having a hard time taking anyone's opinion or input seriously as far as how bad things are/how bad they will get economically if you're still drawing a paycheck. Those of us with jobs that can't be done from home and are ENTIRELY based on face to face interaction with the public are staring down the barrel of VERY limited options. If you're fortunate and privileged enough to not be in that position then congratulations. I remember not thinking the recession of 2008 was a big deal, because neither of my parent's jobs were adversely affected by it. That was naive, but I was also still in highschool and barely old enough to have a job. So if you're not financially impacted by this then maybe count your blessings and lend an ear to those who are.



Those who aren't financially impacted by it now will feel a moderate impact later. Either due to increased taxation to compensate for additional government output or through people's inability to have any extra money to purchase goods and services, affecting business in general. The economic impact is far reaching. However, the economic impact of mass death would be FAR worse. Britain is actually talking about not doing the social distancing thing at all and just letting it happen. Which is utter insanity. If its anywhere near as bad as predictions, that entire country will be struggling for years to come.


----------



## Thaeon

Cynicanal said:


> The problem is the virus has already been shown to be able to re-infect recovered patients. Based on that, I don't see how a vaccine for this is any more possible than a vaccine for the common cold (which is also a Coronavirus).
> 
> "Understand it enough to find medicines it's weak against" and "have a vaccine" are things that aren't going to ever happen (otherwise, we'd have a cure for the common cold). This is here to stay, it's every bit a part of our future as colds, strep throat, and the flu are.



Up to this point, with few exceptions, viruses don't have cures. However, we're able to cushion the effects of things like HIV/AIDS with antivirals and immunoboosters to keep them alive for LONG after infection. We have two cases where we've cured it. CURED. The technology exists, we just have to develop it. And as those who posted before me, there are things that slow COVID-19 down and weaken its effect. So a reaction such as "Let it spread, doom and gloom, hopelessness for everyone" is unfounded. Science is going to work this thing out. We just need to buy the scientists some time. Looks like just a couple months to suppress it. A year for the vaccine in the article I read.


----------



## ThePIGI King

Great news from @lurè and @Necris 

This has some potentially good stuff in it as well.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tr...s-in-next-two-weeks-amid-coronavirus-outbreak


----------



## MFB

ThePIGI King said:


> Great news from @lurè and @Necris
> 
> This has some potentially good stuff in it as well.
> https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tr...s-in-next-two-weeks-amid-coronavirus-outbreak



Any true MAGA Hatter will see through this ruse and now it's a trap, because this is America, we're supposed to pull ourselves up by our bootstrap, not accept handouts from some Nazi Fasicst Socialist Libtard


----------



## ThePIGI King

MFB said:


> Any true MAGA Hatter will see through this ruse and now it's a trap, because this is America, we're supposed to pull ourselves up by our bootstrap, not accept handouts from some Nazi Fasicst Socialist Libtard


I understand you're being sarcastic but I wasn't necessarily saying free money to people was a good thing. I was trying to leave my political opinion out of it a tiny bit.

The big points I liked from the article were the back taxes being pushed back 90 days and all the stuff Pence has quoted from him. The check idea could go either way depending on how they do it. I could be for or against it, I need more info prior to deciding. However, being an election year, by doing something like free money handouts, Trump could potentially grab a lot of people in the middle ground and even those who only sway slighty left.


----------



## MFB

I was being tongue in cheek, but it's very much a double standard. 

Up until this point, anyone who used the word "handout" was some cartoon villain coming to bring socialism to the United States and totally uproot our way of life; but suddenly, now that those same people who were so scared of the socialism boogeyman need those very same handouts, of course it's the right thing to do! With all this virus news, it just seems like there's been no prioritization of whom to help (prior to this the last one was how tragic it is that the airlines are losing money, what will they do without more profits this year if they used that money to pay their employees while this affects them), and it's going to fuck us if we're trying to bail everyone out by giving them money instead of just letting corporations eat whatever couldn't be paid by out of work human beings.


----------



## Andromalia

> To paraphrase Wayne LaPierre, the only thing that stops a kid with a gun is another kid with a gun.


The only thing that will stop him is if the gun doesn't have ammo. I'll stop there as it wasn't my intention to derail the topic into this.

Back into COVID-19, since Trump tried to buy EU chemical companies to deprive Europe of a vaccine, expect some... delivery delays if we come up with a cure. That episode went really, really badly with Merkel in particular and I expect repercussions to be coming as Trump potentially tried to kill hundreds of thousands of european people.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Andromalia said:


> The only thing that will stop him is if the gun doesn't have ammo. I'll stop there as it wasn't my intention to derail the topic into this.
> 
> Back into COVID-19, since Trump tried to buy EU chemical companies to deprive Europe of a vaccine, expect some... delivery delays if we come up with a cure. That episode went really, really badly with Merkel in particular and I expect repercussions to be coming as Trump potentially tried to kill hundreds of thousands of european people.



I'd hope that the EU wouldn't hold up a vaccine from proliferation because our leader is a dimwit.


----------



## Ralyks

Geez, at this point I wouldn't be shocked if everyone BESIDES Russian messing with the election to get Trump OUT if he's pulling shit like that.


----------



## StevenC

MaxOfMetal said:


> I'd hope that the EU wouldn't hold up a vaccine from proliferation because our leader is a dimwit.


If anything could convince me over to the Brexit side.


----------



## narad

Okay, fine if the EU won't give us the vaccine, I'm willing to play "tough guy" too. How many TP rolls for one shot? Everything has a price.


----------



## jaxadam

This one is my favorite so far... and stop me if you've heard it, but... the coronavirus was created by the Democrats to kill off all the old people because they tend to vote Republican, all but securing them a victory in November.


----------



## SpaceDock

^ damn, I thought we’d get away with it too!


----------



## Walter W.




----------



## ThePIGI King

Walter W. said:


> View attachment 78572


Ya almost got a like. Almost. But Hotel is wrong.


----------



## Walter W.

ThePIGI King said:


> Ya almost got a like. Almost. But Hotel is wrong.



Dammit


----------



## MFB

ThePIGI King said:


> Ya almost got a like. Almost. But Hotel is wrong.



Do you know how many times I reread that meme after this thinking "But hotel isn't even IN there!"


----------



## SpaceDock

I’m beginning to think we are fucked for a long while and this is the start of a recession.

Direct service industry jobs are closing; bars, restaurants, local government, any showroom. These are the last parts of main street America. When we close them lots of people are losing their jobs, here in Colorado unemployment claims just jumped 10 fold. These people can’t pay their bills and $1000 from the government is like one paycheck. This is going to crash the over inflated real estate and rent markets we have.

When do we think “normal” life can resume? You think we will be back to normal in 2 weeks, 2 months? The Trump admin just wrote up 18 months! Will we ever go back to brick and mortar local establishments or will be just do amazon for all good/groceries.

Also, like stated earlier, Coronavirus is from the same family as the common cold but also SARS and MERS. This means that vaccine can give you resistance but not immunity. You can get it repeatedly. Does this mean we can’t get rid of it unless we get really lucky? Maybe this is the start of some fucked up police state under Trump, sorry maybe too far! Just got carried away!


Edit, just realized this means universal basic income is the only answer, #YangGang4Life


----------



## spudmunkey

...aaaand now come the "everybody who said 'Trump's not my president' better send their $1000 checks back!" memes...


----------



## SpaceDock

Or Trump just became the most socialist presidential candidate.


----------



## Boofchuck

jaxadam said:


> the coronavirus was created by the Democrats to kill off all the old people because they tend to vote Republican, all but securing them a victory in November.


That doesn't even begin to touch the time traveling deep state q+ solar flair Hilary bullshit I've been hearing from an acquaintance of mine.


----------



## Merrekof

MFB said:


> it's going to fuck us if we're trying to bail everyone out by giving them money instead of just letting corporations eat whatever couldn't be paid by out of work human beings.


The problem is that lots of corporations are going bankrupt if this last longer, than workers get paid bij the government anyway. By paying the workers early on, they hope to salvage as much of the economy as possible.
This is already happening btw, airlines are already crashing. (  ) Many other companies are having a hard time, especially luxury stores. Here in Belgium, all non essential stores are being closed, in a few hours.


----------



## Cynicanal

SpaceDock said:


> Also, like stated earlier, Coronavirus is from the same family as the common cold but also SARS and MERS. This means that vaccine can give you resistance but not immunity. You can get it repeatedly. Does this mean we can’t get rid of it unless we get really lucky?


I'm glad someone other than me has finally noticed this.

This is correct, either we're going to give up all gatherings and social events forever, or we're going to have mass deaths as soon as we start having them. I don't know why more people aren't understanding this. Social distancing is just cutting ourselves before the firing squad shoots us in the face.

EDIT: A useful article. Folks, this isn't "wait a few months for things to die down a bit". This is "accept massdeath, because there's no alternative; this is _forever_": https://www.technologyreview.com/s/...e0217a8ff9d63031e7d096686458&regi_id=90791928


----------



## narad

I heard a podcast with someone from the CDC saying that, although we do not know for sure, we expect the body to have some immunity for at least a period of time after a first exposure. Like, immunity was the word used, though it was not phrased like it was necessarily a permanent, lasting immunity (I mean, what virus is, really).


----------



## Cynicanal

If it's for any period of time at all, we know it's really short. Like "a couple of weeks short". Lots of cases of people catching it a second time quickly after recovering from it once.

There will be no immunity. There will be no vaccine. There will be no treatment beyond what we have now. Look at the common cold for your cues, folks; this is a common cold that's 35x more deadly than the flu (real death rate is 3.5%). Do you think we can get rid of the common cold? Of course not.

Get used to it, folks; the old days of wildly infectious diseases killing tons of people are back, for good.


----------



## sleewell

So the govt is teaming up w cell phone carriers to track us during these lock downs. Hello police state.


----------



## narad

Cynicanal said:


> If it's for any period of time at all, we know it's really short. Like "a couple of weeks short". Lots of cases of people catching it a second time quickly after recovering from it once.



They mentioned the couple of known cases too and said it may have been on the end of a different disease / that the data to support really short immunity times was not well-verified. Any kind of official trustworthy source saying otherwise?


----------



## Thaeon

MFB said:


> Do you know how many times I reread that meme after this thinking "But hotel isn't even IN there!"



Dude, I read it, then saw that someone said hotel was wrong, and had to go back and reread it because I unconsciously corrected it. 



Cynicanal said:


> If it's for any period of time at all, we know it's really short. Like "a couple of weeks short". Lots of cases of people catching it a second time quickly after recovering from it once.
> 
> There will be no immunity. There will be no vaccine. There will be no treatment beyond what we have now. Look at the common cold for your cues, folks; this is a common cold that's 35x more deadly than the flu (real death rate is 3.5%). Do you think we can get rid of the common cold? Of course not.
> 
> Get used to it, folks; the old days of wildly infectious diseases killing tons of people are back, for good.



No immunity. This will always be a virulent disease until we learn how to kill viruses. Which we're working on and having great success with, with HIV/AIDS like I mentioned before. SARS was worse. We contained it and managed to not have any more outbreaks yes? We have a bad situation with this one because it incubates for so long in your system. You're spreading it before you even know you have symptoms. The mortality rate of SARS was around 15%. Ebola (also an uncurable disease) the death rate is around 50%. We contained both. Humanity will survive this, and we'll use it as a lesson to advance medicine if nothing else. We may not get universal, single payer health care out of it (I think this is the biggest lesson we should be learning here), and maybe we'll get better strategies for deal with pandemics, but we'll increase the efficacy of modern medicine.


----------



## thraxil

SpaceDock said:


> Also, like stated earlier, Coronavirus is from the same family as the common cold but also SARS and MERS. This means that vaccine can give you resistance but not immunity. You can get it repeatedly. Does this mean we can’t get rid of it unless we get really lucky?



Kind of true, but also kind of an oversimplification.

There are many, many strains of influenza, rhinovirus, and coronavirus that go around. When you get a vaccine, eg, for influenza, you are getting it for the set of strains that are known and common. Once you have gotten that vaccine, you will be effectively immune to those strains. Influenza (and the others) don't go away because they are constantly evolving new strains, which we aren't already immune to. There are strains of influenza that are more or less deadly than others (eg, H1N1 was a particularly nasty strain of influenza). We mostly focus on influenza for vaccine development because in general, it's worse than rhinovirus or coronavirus (with previous notable exceptions like SARS and MERS).

So, yes, since coronavirus keeps evolving, we will probably never get rid of it. But developing a resistance to nCoV-2 either through a vaccine or the herd immunity that will eventually form *will* effectively end Covid 19. There will be other strains of coronavirus that evolve, but most of them will just be "common cold" severity.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Wife was just offered time off ( no pto currently accrued for her) for a month or more but that seems abrupt and open ended which isn't comforting. Or she can stay there and work... but then she's at serious risk of bringing it home ( heavily traveled area... tons of foot traffic). So if she leaves, it's no income with both of us being out... indefinitely? idk. Mortgage to pay.. I just dunno what to tell her... just got off the phone with her and she's crying. Lots of their staff is already gone... said it's surreal.


----------



## TedEH

I start working remotely today. It's really strange to not go to work but still be working.


----------



## MFB

TedEH said:


> I start working remotely today. It's really strange to not go to work but still be working.



My office did our "stress test" yesterday for the VPN/remote connections, it went fine but definitely felt more like a punishment than anything else. Can't easily talk with coworkers, everything has to be done via Skype, work does go nearly as fast because you're going through a connection, connection freezes mean rebooting that portion and losing work time, and an overall feeling of unproductiveness because I'm just at home working and tempted by all my toys.

I live in a single 14x12 room, if I were to work from home, I'd need a dedicated office space, and that definitely ain't it.


----------



## Vostre Roy

Canada - USA border set to be closed to non-essential traffic


----------



## diagrammatiks

Cynicanal said:


> If it's for any period of time at all, we know it's really short. Like "a couple of weeks short". Lots of cases of people catching it a second time quickly after recovering from it once.
> 
> There will be no immunity. There will be no vaccine. There will be no treatment beyond what we have now. Look at the common cold for your cues, folks; this is a common cold that's 35x more deadly than the flu (real death rate is 3.5%). Do you think we can get rid of the common cold? Of course not.
> 
> Get used to it, folks; the old days of wildly infectious diseases killing tons of people are back, for good.



I think you've got your hyperbole button got mashed into freak the fuck out mode.

There's no cure for the cold because the cold is caused by over a hundred different things. You're body can fight it on it's own and it's much easier to just treat the symptoms.

Right now all that's necessary is containment. The virus isn't flying around in the air on it's own. It has to be transmitted. If it's contained then everything is fine.

Taiwan got clamped down early and they've basically had no negative effects from the virus. Their total cases is a little over 100.

China was shut down around January 20th which everyone agrees was way too late. However, the good thing is that the worst of the lockdown occurred during 2 weeks of national holiday...so paid vacation.

The office building where my office is opened on the 4th. We worked remotely for 2 weeks. Everyone was back in the office by February 24th. By March 1st malls and and restaurants were opened. This week cinemas, bars, and nightclubs will be reopened.

Wuhan is still a clusterfuck because there's just too many cases. But if everything is locked down and people behave correctly you're looking at 3-4 weeks of lock down and then everything can slowly open again.

The other big thing is idiots trying to come back into the country. I'd close the borders immediately. But that's probably not going to happen.

The virus isn't that bad but people need to do the right thing.

Now during this period the government and employees also need to do the right thing. But, that has nothing to do with the type of disaster. IF the government is a shitshow it's going to be a shitshow regardless of whether it's a hurricane, earthquake, or disease.


----------



## Cynicanal

diagrammatiks said:


> Wuhan is still a clusterfuck because there's just too many cases. But if everything is locked down and people behave correctly you're looking at 3-4 weeks of lock down and then everything can slowly open again..


Incorrect. There _will_ be another outbreak in Wuhan, which will necessitate shutting everything down again. Read the article I linked upthread: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/...e0217a8ff9d63031e7d096686458&regi_id=90791928

There's a reason the NHS keeps saying "18 months".


----------



## jaxadam

It's a shame this fine, upstanding, scandal free gentleman who everyone begged to be governor of the State of Florida and the next president isn't currently handling our situation.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/15/andrew-gillum-to-enter-rehab-after-episode-in-miami-hotel-room/


----------



## diagrammatiks

Cynicanal said:


> Incorrect. There _will_ be another outbreak in Wuhan, which will necessitate shutting everything down again. Read the article I linked upthread: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/...e0217a8ff9d63031e7d096686458&regi_id=90791928
> 
> There's a reason the NHS keeps saying "18 months".



ya ok technology review.


----------



## sleewell

jaxadam said:


> It's a shame this fine, upstanding, scandal free gentleman who everyone begged to be governor of the State of Florida and the next president isn't currently handling our situation.
> 
> https://nypost.com/2020/03/15/andrew-gillum-to-enter-rehab-after-episode-in-miami-hotel-room/




same can be said for duncan hunter who is about to do 11 months in prison but those kinds of posts are pretty dumb and pointless arent they?


----------



## USMarine75

sleewell said:


> So the govt is teaming up w cell phone carriers to track us during these lock downs. Hello police state.



FFS...


----------



## jaxadam

sleewell said:


> same can be said for duncan hunter who is about to do 11 months in prison but those kinds of posts are pretty dumb and pointless arent they?



Maybe to you but not to me. This guy was nearly a shoe in to run this state, and with a considerable tourist and elderly population, I’m glad he’s not calling the shots right now on a meth fueled bender.


----------



## Ralyks

Just got a BBC notice that deaths in Italy spiked to 475 in one day. Yikes.


----------



## TedEH

Just hear the US / Canada border is closing for anything not essential.

Also one death in Quebec now.


----------



## diagrammatiks

yesss. close all the borders.


----------



## Cynicanal

diagrammatiks said:


> ya ok technology review.


Do you prefer hearing it from the LA Times? https://www.latimes.com/politics/st...-wreck-your-economy-or-lose-millions-of-lives

The Guardian also ran this yesterday, if you prefer them.

This isn't something that's going away quickly, folks. This isn't "a few weeks of isolation, then back to normal". This is sticking around for _years_. This is normal from now on.


----------



## diagrammatiks

Cynicanal said:


> Do you prefer hearing it from the LA Times? https://www.latimes.com/politics/st...-wreck-your-economy-or-lose-millions-of-lives
> 
> The Guardian also ran this yesterday, if you prefer them.
> 
> This isn't something that's going away quickly, folks. This isn't "a few weeks of isolation, then back to normal". This is sticking around for _years_. This is normal from now on.



well alright. I guess I'll just go to work everyday and wait to die.


----------



## MFB

Ralyks said:


> Just got a BBC notice that deaths in Italy spiked to 475 in one day. Yikes.



So you're telling me some property has become available?


----------



## KnightBrolaire

Went to two local grocery stores- both were cleaned out of basically any meat or dried goods
Went to Sam's Club- bread, meats and prepared foods, eggs, TP and paper towels were completely wiped out barring seafood, chicken breasts and fruit. Good thing I only went there for chicken and fruit lol

Cracks me up to see people buying up perishable goods like they're going to die tomorrow


----------



## Thaeon

Cynicanal said:


> Do you prefer hearing it from the LA Times? https://www.latimes.com/politics/st...-wreck-your-economy-or-lose-millions-of-lives
> 
> The Guardian also ran this yesterday, if you prefer them.
> 
> This isn't something that's going away quickly, folks. This isn't "a few weeks of isolation, then back to normal". This is sticking around for _years_. This is normal from now on.



Read them both. Literally nothing in those articles indicates anything I didn't already know from observation of the situation. Drugs that suppress symptoms exist. We just need them manufactured in large enough quantities. It's not going to take a year to get the drugs ready. Cut the chain of infection, suppress the symptoms, and you'll have people surviving and life going back to normal with developing herd immunity. The statement at the end of that article, 'It is “not at all certain that suppression will succeed long term,” the authors of the Imperial College study wrote. “No public health intervention with such disruptive effects on society has been previously attempted for such a long duration of time. How populations and societies will respond remains unclear.”' We don't need suppression to succeed long term. We need it to work just long enough for the vaccine to be ready. There is plenty of uncertainty in the situation. But that doesn't warrant the sort of "We're all fucked!" paranoia that seems to be troubling you. We have SOME reinfections happening. We need to see how those develop. But this is something that can happen with any virus. Not just COVID-19. Just cause a couple people have been reinfected, does not mean that there's going to be wave after wave of virus isolating everyone to their homes and bedrooms. You're gonna pop a vein in your head stressing yourself out like that.


----------



## Randy

MFB said:


> So you're telling me some property has become available?


----------



## Thaeon

KnightBrolaire said:


> Went to two local grocery stores- both were cleaned out of basically any meat or dried goods
> Went to Sam's Club- bread, meats and prepared foods, eggs, TP and paper towels were completely wiped out barring seafood, chicken breasts and fruit. Good thing I only went there for chicken and fruit lol
> 
> Cracks me up to see people buying up perishable goods like they're going to die tomorrow



I'm going back to being a vegetarian any way. They can have all of it.


----------



## Cynicanal

Thaeon said:


> We don't need suppression to succeed long term. We need it to work just long enough for the vaccine to be ready.


That's a minimum of 18 months away when you consider both safety and efficacy tests. And that's assuming the vaccine works; the company that's claiming to have one ready for testing has literally never created a successful vaccine (and have had multiple reach trial; their approach simply hasn't worked in the past, and there's no reason to believe it'll work now).

Your optimism is unfounded. Science isn't going to magically come to our rescue; this is here for the long haul.


----------



## diagrammatiks

Thaeon said:


> Read them both. Literally nothing in those articles indicates anything I didn't already know from observation of the situation. Drugs that suppress symptoms exist. We just need them manufactured in large enough quantities. It's not going to take a year to get the drugs ready. Cut the chain of infection, suppress the symptoms, and you'll have people surviving and life going back to normal with developing herd immunity. The statement at the end of that article, 'It is “not at all certain that suppression will succeed long term,” the authors of the Imperial College study wrote. “No public health intervention with such disruptive effects on society has been previously attempted for such a long duration of time. How populations and societies will respond remains unclear.”' We don't need suppression to succeed long term. We need it to work just long enough for the vaccine to be ready. There is plenty of uncertainty in the situation. But that doesn't warrant the sort of "We're all fucked!" paranoia that seems to be troubling you. We have SOME reinfections happening. We need to see how those develop. But this is something that can happen with any virus. Not just COVID-19. Just cause a couple people have been reinfected, does not mean that there's going to be wave after wave of virus isolating everyone to their homes and bedrooms. You're gonna pop a vein in your head stressing yourself out like that.



ya except for this tidbit 

“No public health intervention with such disruptive effects on society has been previously attempted for such a long duration of time. How populations and societies will respond remains unclear.”

like really. because I know. I just did this. Like I'm super confused. The rest of the world had 2.5 whole months to prepare for this. 

Granted different societies are going to do things differently. 

I was in the office every single day as soon as I could be on February 4th. That was only 2 weeks after lockdown. This is because I'm an American and I'm not scared of anything. 

My wife made me change my entire outfit, wash my hands, and shower as soon as I got home. Actually come to think of it she makes me do this anyway. why are women convinced here's such a thing as outside clothes and inside clothes...anyhow...

I could not make my employees come to work. I had to set up an entire remote access infrastructure in 3 days because they would not come to the office. 

But this stuff works. My region hasn't had a new case in 2 weeks. The only thing we're scared of now is idiots frantically returning from overseas and refusing to quarantine. 

So ya close all the borders.


----------



## Thaeon

Cynicanal said:


> That's a minimum of 18 months away when you consider both safety and efficacy tests. And that's assuming the vaccine works; the company that's claiming to have one ready for testing has literally never created a successful vaccine (and have had multiple reach trial; their approach simply hasn't worked in the past, and there's no reason to believe it'll work now).
> 
> Your optimism is unfounded. Science isn't going to magically come to our rescue; this is here for the long haul.



The history of how the world has dealt with stuff just does not support what you're saying. Its a wild assumption. Yes the virus will continue to be around. You don't eradicate them. You suppress and cut the chain of infection. Isolate the virus to places it can't infect hosts. 18 months is not the estimate I've seen. Maybe 18 months until its completely under control. That'd doesn't mean 18 months of isolation. The virus has a half life anyway. Sorry to be grim. But its mostly only extremely harmful to those that are immuno compromised and the elderly. There is a finite number of those people. However, dealing with that many people affected at that level would compromise our ability to deal with people who have other medical issues. We can't take a path that doesn't include suppression. We have to trust that allowances are going to be made. People who own property are going to have to allow that some can't pay rent. Who are they going to find to replace those tenants if they kick them out? Someone else who doesn't have a job? Think critically about the entire situation here. They have to go through the court systems to legally evict you in most cases. Is this an arguable case when the Government has basically ordered people to stay home from the places these people make their money? Its not irresponsibility here. Its quite extenuating circumstances, and I think there isn't going to be a court that isn't going to find in your favor for undue hardship is this situation. We survive this as a community. Not by screwing each other over. There is literally no situation where it will benefit a landlord to evict someone for furlough in this situation since 30-50% of the US population is going to be affected by it. Seriously. Get a grip.


----------



## Cynicanal

History completely supports what I'm saying. The flu pandemic that Marcus Aurelis dealt with lasted years. So did the black plague. The 1918 flu had a second and third wave months after the first, with the second being far deadlier than the first. 

Dunno where you're getting the rent stuff from, I never mentioned that at all. I also have no idea where you're seeing that we'll have a vaccine ready to go soon, every single figure I've seen says 18 months to two years, minimum (more sources: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/u...pandemic-and-widespread-shortages/ar-BB11ktjA https://nationalinterest.org/feature/next-coronavirus-nightmare-theres-drug-shortage-horizon-134147 ). Folks, this is just warming up, nothing we do to try to "contain" it is going to stop it unless we shut down society forever (which I think we can agree is a non-option).


----------



## budda

We still have the black plague. But it's not wiping out Europe is it?


----------



## sleewell

im not dead yet!! i went for a walk this morning i swear!


----------



## Sumsar

diagrammatiks said:


> well alright. I guess I'll just go to work everyday and wait to die.



Isn't that how life usually goes, even without virus?

Anyway here in Denmark life continues even though everyone is basically working from home or is sent home. All goverment jobs have been sent on paid leave. Many business have been told by law to close for the time being. Grocery shops are still open - the idea is just to spread the shopping over the day so that there is not very many people in those stores at the time. I went shopping today and everything was in stock and I didn't stock up on anything, just brought what I needed plus a bit for eating lunch since I don't have a canteen at home. People are generally very calm about the whole thing. I guess the whole american inspired fear mongering media that has been going on for years has made most of the population immune (to the media craze that is). 
There has been 4 deaths (out of 5.6 million people) but still it seems to be somewhat under control.
The goverment along with all parties in the parliament has ignored the existence of capitalism and made huge investments into keeping companies alive, helping to pay up to 80% of saleries of workers that would otherwise be laid off, under the condition that companies don't lay of any workforce. These benefits have already cost more than the financial crisis did, but money is not really a problem so it is fine and make sense I guess.
All in all I am glad that I live in a country where I don't have to worry about health insurance (is free) or loosing my job for that matter, and where people don't go crazy and go and buy guns, ammo and toilet paper as a first instinct.


----------



## Necris

jaxadam said:


> Maybe to you but not to me. This guy was nearly a shoe in to run this state, and with a considerable tourist and elderly population, I’m glad he’s not calling the shots right now on a meth fueled bender.


It would be a boon to Florida Man memes, though.


----------



## Cynicanal

Oh, hey, further testing shows the first anti-virals "that are totes gonna make things go back to almost normal in a few weeks, for realz!" are ineffective, exactly as I predicted!
https://news.trust.org/item/20200318231107-sqloz

Curb your optimism, guys. Normalcy isn't coming back.


----------



## narad

Cynicanal said:


> Oh, hey, further testing shows the first anti-virals "that are totes gonna make things go back to almost normal in a few weeks, for realz!" are ineffective, exactly as I predicted!
> https://news.trust.org/item/20200318231107-sqloz
> 
> Curb your optimism, guys. Normalcy isn't coming back.



This is like the 5th post in a row you ended with a doomy, "Welcome to the new reality" like it's a signature.


----------



## Cynicanal

I'll keep beating that drum until people finally figure it out.


----------



## SpaceDock

I don’t want to agree with the doom and gloom but I think he is right. The WH referring to this as a war is the next step. First it was war on drugs, then war on terror, now we enter a new phase of war on disease. Close down everything until we are in a police state. No right to gather means no right to protest. Enacting defense act allows them to take over businesses for governmental uses. Trump loves dictators and this will be an excuse for stopping the election, we can’t have people standing in lines and absentee ballots are too dangerous because of saliva and mail transport. WH is already sayin 18 months of repeated waves of infection, reinfection. Oh, your sick, we need to quarantine you into one of the hotels we are taking over. All of this will be just as profitable for those involved as the war on terror has been for those involved. This is the new reality.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/17/coronavirus-looks-different-kids-than-adults
TLDR: COVID-19 is affecting infants and young children, but generally not as severely as elderly populations. Some other interesting tidbits in there as well


----------



## ThePIGI King

Anybody who thinks we will stop the war on terror in favor of war on disease is delusional. We will never leave the middle east


----------



## SpaceDock

We don’t need to stop the war on terror to start a war on disease just like we never stopped the war on drugs. We just keep piling up unending wars because people profit from them.


----------



## narad

Cynicanal said:


> I'll keep beating that drum until people finally figure it out.



I just think in a time of uncertainty, it's better to act conservatively in case it is worst-case, but be objective in discussing the matter. Your readings are not well-supported by what we currently know, and are basically based on reading the worst possible outcome of every piece of information as it comes in.

So I think your closing statements for each post on this page:

1. This is sticking around for years. This is normal from now on.

2. Your optimism is unfounded. Science isn't going to magically come to our rescue; this is here for the long haul.

3. Folks, this is just warming up, nothing we do to try to "contain" it is going to stop it.

4. Normalcy isn't coming back.

This is unfounded. Doesn't mean you're wrong, but just as bad as people saying it'll blow over, IMO. So much we don't know...this is no time for statements of certain doom.


----------



## SpaceDock

^ I hear you and I hope you are right. I feel we are sacrificing rights, jobs, prosperity for trying to protect some in our society. This is the same bait n switch we get fed all too often. I don’t want people to die, but I want to live.


----------



## Hollowway

Sumsar said:


> Isn't that how life usually goes, even without virus?
> 
> Anyway here in Denmark life continues even though everyone is basically working from home or is sent home. All goverment jobs have been sent on paid leave. Many business have been told by law to close for the time being. Grocery shops are still open - the idea is just to spread the shopping over the day so that there is not very many people in those stores at the time. I went shopping today and everything was in stock and I didn't stock up on anything, just brought what I needed plus a bit for eating lunch since I don't have a canteen at home. People are generally very calm about the whole thing. I guess the whole american inspired fear mongering media that has been going on for years has made most of the population immune (to the media craze that is).
> There has been 4 deaths (out of 5.6 million people) but still it seems to be somewhat under control.
> The goverment along with all parties in the parliament has ignored the existence of capitalism and made huge investments into keeping companies alive, helping to pay up to 80% of saleries of workers that would otherwise be laid off, under the condition that companies don't lay of any workforce. These benefits have already cost more than the financial crisis did, but money is not really a problem so it is fine and make sense I guess.
> All in all I am glad that I live in a country where I don't have to worry about health insurance (is free) or loosing my job for that matter, and where people don't go crazy and go and buy guns, ammo and toilet paper as a first instinct.


I would love it if my country was like this. We just can’t get our shit together, though. Good ol’ ‘Murica.


----------



## broj15

Cynicanal said:


> Oh, hey, further testing shows the first anti-virals "that are totes gonna make things go back to almost normal in a few weeks, for realz!" are ineffective, exactly as I predicted!
> https://news.trust.org/item/20200318231107-sqloz
> 
> Curb your optimism, guys. Normalcy isn't coming back.



Damn, you almost sound happy about that. It's good that being right about potentially millions of people dieing makes you feel validated.

Hot take:

Never thought I'd say this, but at this point even I would advocate for federally enforced quarantine for all people, healthy or otherwise. I know that that's extremely radical, and that people will be upset, but I also feel like it's the most effective thing we could do at this point. And this is coming from someone who is very Hardline anti authoritarian.


----------



## Merrekof

broj15 said:


> Damn, you almost sound happy about that. It's good that being right about potentially millions of people dieing makes you feel validated.
> 
> Hot take:
> 
> Never thought I'd say this, but at this point even I would advocate for federally enforced quarantine for all people, healthy or otherwise. I know that that's extremely radical, and that people will be upset, but I also feel like it's the most effective thing we could do at this point. And this is coming from someone who is very Hardline anti authoritarian.


Same here.. having a pregnant wife and toddler running around at home also makes me a lot more worried.


----------



## spudmunkey

I feel like if there were more testing, things would feel more under control, even if the numbers of cases were higher.


----------



## Edika

UK government advises social distancing, schools closed down for this week and seems will be closed for a couple more weeks.
Children in my neighborhood out playing like there's nothing wrong...


----------



## thraxil

Edika said:


> UK government advises social distancing, schools closed down for this week and seems will be closed for a couple more weeks.
> Children in my neighborhood out playing like there's nothing wrong...



Queue around the block to get into my local supermarket at 9am today. I don't understand it. How are people panic buying for an entire week straight?


----------



## zappatton2

I tend to think there's a big difference between a political government, with vested military and corporate interests, curbing civil rights through ramped up anti-drug or anti-terrorist hysteria, and directives from apolitical public institutions that are meant to address a pandemic.

Public services are owned by and work for the taxpayer, not the elected government (for the most part, developed nations maintain this divide), even though political governments have tried their best to interfere, and can certainly slash budgets. Either way, I trust the expertise at Health Canada up here, or the CDC in the States, more than any elected official.


----------



## USMarine75

Cynicanal said:


> If it's for any period of time at all, we know it's really short. Like "a couple of weeks short". Lots of cases of people catching it a second time quickly after recovering from it once.
> 
> There will be no immunity. There will be no vaccine. There will be no treatment beyond what we have now. Look at the common cold for your cues, folks; this is a common cold that's 35x more deadly than the flu (real death rate is 3.5%). Do you think we can get rid of the common cold? Of course not.
> 
> Get used to it, folks; the old days of wildly infectious diseases killing tons of people are back, for good.




Why are you suggesting there can't be a vaccine?
Why are you suggesting COVID-19 can't be otherwise mitigated?
Why are you suggesting there are no treatments?
Where did you get your "real death rate"?
Did you suggest earlier we should just accept this since it doesn't affect your age group?
When did you get your degree in Medicine or research? (My guess is Internet class of 2020?)


----------



## blacai

Here in Germany, I will be working from home for at least two weeks(I am software engineer) . Actually I work far more hours are usuarl, as some co-workers are on holidays and the business go on...

"worst" thing at the moment is all these "hamsterkäufer" as they call it in Germany (hamster buyers), people collecting huge amounts of food. I am lucky and live alone, so my larder is full and don't have to worry about it unless it takes more than 3 months without goods, but people with some kind of disease or allergic(celiacs for example...) have it really hard right now to find any kind of food.


----------



## Thaeon

Cynicanal said:


> History completely supports what I'm saying. The flu pandemic that Marcus Aurelis dealt with lasted years. So did the black plague. The 1918 flu had a second and third wave months after the first, with the second being far deadlier than the first.
> 
> Dunno where you're getting the rent stuff from, I never mentioned that at all. I also have no idea where you're seeing that we'll have a vaccine ready to go soon, every single figure I've seen says 18 months to two years, minimum (more sources: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/u...pandemic-and-widespread-shortages/ar-BB11ktjA https://nationalinterest.org/feature/next-coronavirus-nightmare-theres-drug-shortage-horizon-134147 ). Folks, this is just warming up, nothing we do to try to "contain" it is going to stop it unless we shut down society forever (which I think we can agree is a non-option).



Dude, how far has medicine come since the Black Plague? Which still kills people every year BTW. Sure, we've never faced something like this before. But I have no doubt that we're going to get on top of it. You're talking like it's going to be social isolation forever. Its not. There is reinfection happening in China. Yes. And that happens with any virus. That needs to be observed to see the severity of it, and if the infection rate in those that had it already mirrors the infection rate of those who have not. I suspect that that is not the case. Again, forgive me for being grim, but we have a finite number of severe infection vectors in the elderly and the immuno-compromised. Everyone else should have no trouble. The main issue here is specifically the fact that this is a new virus and we don't have a real defense against it naturally. People are saying that its going to be 18 months or more until the virus is not actively infecting people. Not until we start seeing a reduction in the speed and quantity of the infected. Which appears to be the case in China.


----------



## wankerness

Cynicanal said:


> Oh, hey, further testing shows the first anti-virals "that are totes gonna make things go back to almost normal in a few weeks, for realz!" are ineffective, exactly as I predicted!
> https://news.trust.org/item/20200318231107-sqloz
> 
> Curb your optimism, guys. Normalcy isn't coming back.



Hey Chicken Little, those AREN'T the drugs that everyone was referring to - there are different antivirals. Chloroquine/HydroxyChloroquine is the one that is being used effectively on massive scales in other countries, and the one that people are hopeful about is something else entirely (i mentioned it a few pages back, can't remember the name). Chloroquine is also vastly more effective if used EARLY, while this is referring to results on people that were already in the hospital with a severe case (aka much later than suggested, where often the immune system reaction becomes the danger). Finally, what you linked even says "there was a positive effect but it may have been chance." 

They just started using Hydroxychloroquine as a standard treatment in the University of Washington hospital after seeing its effectiveness in other countries (it's part of the standard response in Japan, China, Belgium and France). If successful, I'm sure the US will finally get the hint and ramp up production and start doing it more broadly.

But, don't let me distract you from your campaign to convince everyone that we're going to die no matter what and thus we should pray to get back to work as fast as possible and not receive any bailouts.


----------



## Randy

There's one in every crowd.


----------



## TedEH

I think we've found my opposite.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

This is a picture of Dublin in Paddy's Day this year versus last year. Closing all the pubs in Ireland shows just how serious we are taking it here.


----------



## sleewell

spudmunkey said:


> I feel like if there were more testing, things would feel more under control, even if the numbers of cases were higher.



bingo.

it is unfortunate that this happened during an election year. but it still didn't stop him from golfing and claiming it was a hoax during the weeks when they should have been organizing test kits and medical supplies instead of doing the opposite. 

times like this you need data in order to make massive life changing decisions. we are flying blind and look like fools.


----------



## gunch

Will gunch use this isolation time to finally learn how to play guitar? 
(probably not)


----------



## Randy

The restrictions here in NY are getting ridiculous. My office is in a local mall and the governor announced closure of all shopping malls tonight at 8p, which is basically like the government coming in and padlocking the door to my business even though I've taken every precaution possible and done nothing wrong.

You already had no 'dining in' at restaurants, and stores shrinking hours while seemingly unable to keep up with demand on an also shrinking stock of supplies. Governor is pushing an almost universal 50% workforce rule as of today.

Also, testing is still abysmal. Almost impossible to get a test upstate or in Western NY. New Rochelle has had drive thru testing for a week plus, here you have no idea who has it, how contained it is, etc. So if you live in a rural community like me, you have no supplies on shelves, no access to testing and nobody delivering food or anything else to you. All of the restrictions with none of the support.

This is the kinda shit that's driving panic and unrest. I'm personally not panicked because I have a huge supply of everything I might need and I can work from home for the next several months if I had to (even though there might not be any actual business to go along with it) but forced isolation with no ETA on a vaccine or even testing or even having access to essentials, and no idea what the next restriction is going to be feels claustrophobic as fuck.


----------



## Randy

broj15 said:


> Never thought I'd say this, but at this point even I would advocate for federally enforced quarantine for all people, healthy or otherwise. I know that that's extremely radical, and that people will be upset, but I also feel like it's the most effective thing we could do at this point. And this is coming from someone who is very Hardline anti authoritarian.



If the government showed they were capable of take care of you while you're sheltered at home, sure.

Like I said earlier, my mother is an ER nurse and my friend works for the County Board of Health. They're still pressing only testing IF you had direct contact with a confirmed case or came from Italy or China. In a hospital that services ~70,000 people, they've done 6 tests so far.

As I said in the previous post, super markets are shrinking their hours to ~8 hours now, while panic is on the rise and supplies are shrinking, which means more nervous people jammed into a space in a shorter period of time.

We're talking about a wall street/business bailout, we're talking about $1000 checks to people. How about talking about how people living 20 minutes from the nearest supermarket and an hour from the nearest city are getting food, water, toilet paper, etc without leaving the house? The lack of information and the fact everything is a reactive restriction and never an actually HELPFUL move to the individual doesn't inspire much confidence.


----------



## Cynicanal

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/02/covid-vaccine/607000/

More info for those of you who still think that this is going to be solved by a vaccine. Key quote:


> “If we’re putting all our hopes in a vaccine as being the answer, we’re in trouble,” Jason Schwartz, an assistant professor at Yale School of Public Health who studies vaccine policy, told me. The best-case scenario, as Schwartz sees it, is the one in which this vaccine development happens far too late to make a difference for the current outbreak. The real problem is that preparedness for this outbreak should have been happening for the past decade, ever since SARS. “Had we not set the SARS-vaccine-research program aside, we would have had a lot more of this foundational work that we could apply to this new, closely related virus, ” he said. But, as with Ebola, government funding and pharmaceutical-industry development evaporated once the sense of emergency lifted. “Some very early research ended up sitting on a shelf because that outbreak ended before a vaccine needed to be aggressively developed.”


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Cynicanal said:


> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/02/covid-vaccine/607000/
> 
> More info for those of you who still think that this is going to be solved by a vaccine. Key quote:



I can't find the full interview transcripts, but based on Jason L. Schwartz's Twitter feed, what he means by that quote is likely that a vaccine isn't a panacea for the situation and part of a multi-pronged effort that includes social distancing and isolation. He seems especially, and rightfully so, angry how tepid SARS research has been in the intervening years.

You can read through it here:
https://mobile.twitter.com/jasonlschwartz?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author

For the record, he is not an epidemiologist, virologist, or medical doctor. His education is in history, ethics, and policy.


----------



## Randy

Cynicanal said:


> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/02/covid-vaccine/607000/
> 
> More info for those of you who still think that this is going to be solved by a vaccine. Key quote:



Right. I think expecting a silver bullet was foolish, especially considering we're seen estimates on a vaccine range from 6 months away to, say, 18 months away. I don't think you can expect a quarantine to hole up that long, so either everyone's gonna get it by then anyway or we're going to have bigger issues regarding access to resources with 6 months to a year+ of little to nobody working.

I think the biggest issue (regarding the virus specifically) was the virus spreading complete uncontrolled, out in the open and only getting treatment after the symptoms had become severe enough to warrant it. I don't know what the US capacity is for scaling up to handle this but the discussion about testing, hospital beds, ventilators, etc. is crucial. 

I don't know if I said it in this thread or not but you look at WWII, and Ford or locomotive factories becoming Jeep and Sherman tank factories. That's the scale of adapting we need to be looking at to handle this, and it's just not happened, and Trump's crew seem completely clueless. Short sellers are basically using the stock market as their personal sandbox and most of Trump's people are working on how to bail out business instead of things that, you know, actually save lives.

I think the story of this virus in the history books is going to be the three or so weeks this virus was allowed to run unencumbered through this country because the President and his yes-men were telling everyone it wasn't a big deal until it suddenly was. People have died and will die entirely because of the ego and the cult.


----------



## Thaeon

Cynicanal said:


> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/02/covid-vaccine/607000/
> 
> More info for those of you who still think that this is going to be solved by a vaccine. Key quote:



No virus is solved with a vaccine. There will still be cases of it. Cutting off the chain of infection is what stops a virus in its tracks. No available hosts, means the virus dies off, or evolves to affect a different population of organisms based on available hosts. Viruses are parsitic and can't survive without a host to infect. That's how they replicate. By taking over DNA production of a host cell hijacking the Ribosomes. Those RNA sequences get read by the ribosomes coding for specific types of protein production which combine to create more Virions. It goes on other cells and attempts to infect them. If it has nothing to infect it dies. This is why breaking the chain of infection is so important, and why you claims of "This is forever" are absolutely inaccurate. If you stop people from being infected, the virus can't survive beyond a certain time frame. That time frame is 72 hours with COVID-19.


----------



## wankerness

Jesus, it's just strawman after strawman with this guy, anything to desperately shriek doom, gloom, despair, and surrendering to just overloading the hospital systems all so we can work right now with no safety precautions.

Every estimate I've seen for a vaccine from scientific sources says 18 months IF the first tests are successful - I've never seen anyone say 6 months other than politicians and the hopeful non-scientists. No one other than people that don't know anything is advocating that we all hunker down until there's a vaccine. We figure out what effective treatments we have to combat it, get production on those ramped up, we get the situation with huge medical supply shortages under some kind of control (these two actions ideally could be completed in a couple months), and if necessary after that we'll probably still have to keep some kind of quarantine on at-risk people for a lot longer but can basically send people back to work otherwise. Once there's a vaccine, then we can rest easier and this basically starts being more like a flu.


BTW, apparently in this country so far, a much greater percentage of the hospitalized are in the 20-40 age range than in the other countries. So, you're not safe just because you're young.


----------



## Randy

wankerness said:


> No one other than people that don't know anything is advocating that we all hunker down until there's a vaccine. We figure out what effective treatments we have to combat it, get production on those ramped up, we get the situation with huge medical supply shortages under some kind of control (these two actions ideally could be completed in a couple months), and if necessary after that we'll probably still have to keep some kind of quarantine on at-risk people for a lot longer but can basically send people back to work otherwise.



Right. I think the friction point here is increasing restrictions with still hazy to no timeframes on even the medical supply or treatment end of things. I started this COVID scare thing by saying the only reason I was worried about getting it is because I don't want to infect anyone else who's less healthy. NOW I'm worried about getting the virus and being admitted to a hospital and dying from infected bed sores or something else because they're ill prepared to treat me and the other 5,000 people that come in all at once.


----------



## wankerness

Randy said:


> Right. I think the friction point here is increasing restrictions with still hazy to no timeframes on even the medical supply or treatment end of things. I started this COVID scare thing by saying the only reason I was worried about getting it is because I don't want to infect anyone else who's less healthy. NOW I'm worried about getting the virus and being admitted to a hospital and dying from infected bed sores or something else because they're ill prepared to treat me and the other 5,000 people that come in all at once.



Yep, that's definitely a valid concern. Or you might get anything else that would require hospitalization and be faced with the same outcome, since the hospital would already have all the space taken up with people who desperately need treatment for COVID. And to reiterate why this is such a huge problem with this disease specifically, people have to be on a ventilator for 2-3 weeks straight! Infections have to slow drastically since even a trickle would rapidly overwhelm resources considering how slow the recovery rate is. That's something that these early antiviral treatments could help with - the trick is that they need to give them to people early in diagnosis instead of waiting for them to come into the hospital needing a ventilator, at which point it's too late.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

Dunno if you guys have read the report by Imperial College of London, but here's the gist of it in meme format.


----------



## broj15

Welp, they confirmed the first case via community spread in my city last night. Wanna know what's really cool about that? It was a fucking doctor in the largest hospital in the city. It's here y'all. If you're not stocking up and preparing to be inside for no less then 30 days then I really do pity you.

Edit: if I was a betting man (kind of a funny thought in times like this) I'd say expect to see boots on the ground by the end of next week if not sooner.


----------



## wankerness

KnightBrolaire said:


> Dunno if you guys have read the report by Imperial College of London, but here's the gist of it in meme format.


Yeah, letting that happen sounds like a better idea than closing down businesses for a couple months.


----------



## sleewell

does anyone else think part of the stock market sell off is due to how dumb trump sounds when he talks? investors at the highest levels are serious people. hearing someone talk at 4th grade level


KnightBrolaire said:


> Dunno if you guys have read the report by Imperial College of London, but here's the gist of it in meme format.





i believe this is the report that changed trump from its a dem impeachment hoax to taking it seriously with overt hints of racism. 

pretty fucking horrible.


----------



## TedEH

broj15 said:


> It was a fucking doctor in the largest hospital in the city.


That sounds to me like it might be a relatively good thing maybe? As in, if you're in a hospital, I imagine it's more an inevitability than someone being stupid. If it was just some random person who traveled, was unhygienic, and didn't give two craps about his neighbors, I'd be more worried. I like to think doctors/hospitals will have at least a reasonable amount of common sense regarding preventing what's already here from going farther than it needs to.


----------



## Randy

sleewell said:


> i believe this is the report that changed trump from its a dem impeachment hoax to taking it seriously with overt hints of racism.
> 
> pretty fucking horrible.



I think the guys got it, that's what changed. He sounds fucking awful and looks awful.


----------



## jaxadam

wankerness said:


> BTW, apparently in this country so far, a much greater percentage of the hospitalized are in the 20-40 age range than in the other countries. So, you're not safe just because you're young.



I am. I have my mask, essential oils, and Facebook feed.


----------



## broj15

sleewell said:


> does anyone else think part of the stock market sell off is due to how dumb trump sounds when he talks? investors at the highest levels are serious people. hearing someone talk at 4th grade level
> 
> 
> 
> 
> i believe this is the report that changed trump from its a dem impeachment hoax to taking it seriously with overt hints of racism.
> 
> pretty fucking horrible.




Lol I watched his press conference yesterday and when he talked about "how absolutely terrible the test was" I had to laugh. Like dude you're fucking over 70 and you've never had your throat swabbed for strep throat before? Dude needs to man up. 



TedEH said:


> That sounds to me like it might be a relatively good thing maybe? As in, if you're in a hospital, I imagine it's more an inevitability than someone being stupid. If it was just some random person who traveled, was unhygienic, and didn't give two craps about his neighbors, I'd be more worried. I like to think doctors/hospitals will have at least a reasonable amount of common sense regarding preventing what's already here from going farther than it needs to.



See I just think about all the surfaces and patients he was in contact with before he was tested. How many of those patients are still in the hospital right now vs. how many have already left and are spreading it without even knowing. It's the fact that it can be spread by asymptomatic people that makes this spread like wild fire.


----------



## Drew

So, we transitioned to work from home at the start of this week, and as the market's been blowing the fuck up this is my first time online since Friday. 

I've only got a few minutes before I have to get back in front of my laptop logged into my work computer, but the economic impact of this is going to be staggeringly bad, and anyone hoping this is going to be over in a few weeks time is deluding themselves. I'm mentally preparing for social distancing/shelter in place/quarantine to stretch through at least into the summer. Possibly longer. 

Even if you're young and healthy, stay in. Don't mingle with large groups of people. This is a disease that's significantly more infectious than the seasonal flu, and significantly more deadly, ands yet everyone keeps saying "oh, the flu kills 15-20,000 every year, this is nothing!" We're up to about 10,000 deaths globally, and on track to break 10,000 confirmed cases in the States, and a week and a half ago we were at like a thousand. We're still so far behind on testing that the "true" caseload is probably still far above that, and our doubling rate is the fastest in the world right now, even ahead of Italy. 

Stay safe.


----------



## Kaura

Oh shit, the experts are saying the epidemic is going to peak in May, to be more specific during the 2nd week of May. I don't know if that means just Finland or the whole world, I assume just Finland because China is pretty much back to normal now. But still, that's almost 1,5 months away. Shit's gonna get crazy.


----------



## wankerness

broj15 said:


> Lol I watched his press conference yesterday and when he talked about "how absolutely terrible the test was" I had to laugh. Like dude you're fucking over 70 and you've never had your throat swabbed for strep throat before? Dude needs to man up.



Look, I think Trump's an idiot too, but it is NOT a throat swab to test for this. They have to stick a swab way up your nose (I heard it described by people who'd had it done as "almost into your brain") and it's extremely painful. I heard a lot of people say it caused them to involuntarily scream.


----------



## Choop

wankerness said:


> Look, I think Trump's an idiot too, but it is NOT a throat swab to test for this. They have to stick a swab way up your nose (I heard it described by people who'd had it done as "almost into your brain") and it's extremely painful. I heard a lot of people say it caused them to involuntarily scream.




I've had this done before with no real warning beforehand. Feels like you're getting embalmed alive (cool metal album/song title?), not to deter anyone from getting tested...hah.


----------



## broj15

Oh damn. Didn't know it was quite that involved. Definitely sounds unpleasant for sure. Hopefully these self administered swabs are actually a real thing.


----------



## jco5055

wankerness said:


> BTW, apparently in this country so far, a much greater percentage of the hospitalized are in the 20-40 age range than in the other countries. So, you're not safe just because you're young.



I do wonder though who's to say these "young" people don't have issues ranging from obesity to vaping/smoking etc?


----------



## wankerness

No one, that data was not available along with the ages. As America's a particularly fat country it very well could have something to do with diabetes or obesity. But, it's still unusual compared to patterns in other countries and should have you a little bit less dismissive of danger to yourself if you're in that age range.


----------



## Merrekof

Kaura said:


> Oh shit, the experts are saying the epidemic is going to peak in May, to be more specific during the 2nd week of May. I don't know if that means just Finland or the whole world, I assume just Finland because China is pretty much back to normal now. But still, that's almost 1,5 months away. Shit's gonna get crazy.


I read the same here in Belgium. So either we're following the same path, or the peak is worldwide. Wich is worrying either way


----------



## wankerness

Yeah, it's worrying since everyone in the world uses the same manufacturing sources so the more countries affected the fewer will be able to get anything. I'm glad politicians actually seem to be acting on getting manufacturers to switch up to essentials, and some are doing it by themselves. I just read Razer, for example, is going to start manufacturing masks effective immediately.


----------



## SpaceDock

So... you think cases are really down in China or do you think that is just their propaganda? Their markets were tanking hard and they are not known for being honest about things like this. Also, I wonder if they just imposed a brutal crackdown when quarantine was set up to stop the spread. You think stuff like the collapsed hospital were just ways to off sick people? Just spewing crazy conspiracies I am making up ha ha!


----------



## Merrekof

SpaceDock said:


> So... you think cases are really down in China or do you think that is just their propaganda? Their markets were tanking hard and they are not known for being honest about things like this. Also, I wonder if they just imposed a brutal crackdown when quarantine was set up to stop the spread. You think stuff like the collapsed hospital were just ways to off sick people? Just spewing crazy conspiracies I am making up ha ha!


Conspiracies aside, idk about China. But they're govt is not known to be honest towards their people or the rest of the world. I wouldn't be surprised if the real deathtoll was a lot higher.


----------



## Drew

wankerness said:


> No one, that data was not available along with the ages. As America's a particularly fat country it very well could have something to do with diabetes or obesity. But, it's still unusual compared to patterns in other countries and should have you a little bit less dismissive of danger to yourself if you're in that age range.


I think another factor is a broad American tendency to say, "fuck it, I'm young, I'm healthy, who cares if I get coronavirus?!" See: all of spring break in Florida. 



Merrekof said:


> I read the same here in Belgium. So either we're following the same path, or the peak is worldwide. Wich is worrying either way


China ultimately failed at containment, but they did ultimately manage to buy the rest of the world a month or two. The first reported cases in China were mid-late December, but when it did leave the country, it hit a lot of the rest of the world in pretty short order. Italy was one of the first hard-hit areas outside of China, and we're probably 9-10 days behind them right now. What I'm saying in a round about way is that, for much of the rest of the world, we're all likely going to hit peak within a couple weeks of each other, assuming similar containment measures (bad assumption). 

The data scientist I've been getting updates from has a best case to realistic worst case range of containment measures here in New England lasting 3-6 weeks, to 3-4 months. Most of the 18 month scenarios assume basically no adaptation, no change in behavior, no treatment options, and that we're only saved by the introduction of a vaccine. That's not a very likely outcome - we've already seen a lot of behavioral change in certain cities and states, at a minimum. 

But remember, a week ago, this was all a Democratic hoax.


----------



## Randy

NYS enforcing 25% workforce cap. It's fucking unreal.


----------



## ThePIGI King

So Mon- Thurs I live in a fairly large city due to work, and Fri- Sun I live in a rural area, where I'm actually from. My GF still lives down home and she says besides TP, most things are fairly in stock.

Now here in a larger city (Canton OH area for those who know it), things seem to be a bit better today than in a week or so. I went to the walmart thats pretty much the central one for this side of town tonight and they had tons of TP, bread, canned fruits/vegies/beans, ground beef, milk, and more. Granted, compared to two months ago stock looked low, but compared to last week and even when I was there Monday it looked well stocked.

So to me this means:
A) distribution has picked up to meet demand
B) people are starting to panic purchase less (due to either being well stocked or less panic-y, either or)
Or C) things are "getting better"

In my mind no matter which if the three things is happeneing (or a combo) it's good. Dunno about where y'all live though. But both here and down home things seem to be normalizing a touch. Hopefully y'alls home towns start to as well.


----------



## Demiurge

^Distribution is improving here. Went to the nearby grocery at mid-day. It was pretty much replenished save for TP, pasta, and frozen veggies. It seems like people are chilling-out regarding supplies. 

I did, however, overhear someone complaining that the dispensary had to start capping orders because people were panic-buying weed products.


----------



## Ralyks

My branch is now Closed, and now I'm being sent to another branch FURTHER away, and I'm now alternating weeks working and being on call. The bright side is I still get paid no matter what, but no more extra hours that I've been relying on.
I shouldn't complain since I could have been furloughed I suppose...

Edit: Also.... Do we really need Florida?


----------



## Ralyks

Demiurge said:


> I did, however, overhear someone complaining that the dispensary had to start capping orders because people were panic-buying weed products



I mean... I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't currently waiting for my guy, even though I'm pretty well stocked already...


----------



## Cynicanal

wankerness said:


> No one other than people that don't know anything is advocating that we all hunker down until there's a vaccine.


Health experts are actually saying that's exactly what we have to do, because if so much as one person has the disease, the outbreak resumes: https://www.vox.com/science-and-hea...-covid-19-lockdowns-end-how-long-months-years


> Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, agrees that the social distancing measures might need to be in place for at least months. “I don’t think people are prepared for that and I am not certain we can bear it,” she writes in an email. “I have no idea what political leaders will decide to do. To me, even if this is needed, it seems unsustainable.”



This idea of "we can get through this with social distancing!" is just a pipe dream. It doesn't flatten the curve; it just moves the spike to the right and makes us suffer a bunch in the meanwhile.


----------



## Cynicanal

Past the edit window, but for those of y'all who want a doctor saying that this is here to stay, here you go:
https://komonews.com/news/coronavirus/will-warmer-weather-impact-the-spread-of-the-coronavirus


> University of Washington professor and physician Dr. Ann Marie Kimball said she believes coronavirus is here to stay.
> 
> "I don’t think you’ll ever eradicate it," she said. "It’s probably not eradicable like smallpox or something like that." .


----------



## narad

Cynicanal said:


> Past the edit window, but for those of y'all who want a doctor saying that this is here to stay, here you go:
> https://komonews.com/news/coronavirus/will-warmer-weather-impact-the-spread-of-the-coronavirus



Saying it's not "like smallpox or something like that" is not saying it's "the new normal".

Just to quote also from the same article:

_"We are going to get through this," she said. "It’s just the uncertainty of how long this is going to last and what the next couple weeks are going to look like."_


----------



## StevenC

The latest Health Care Triage video is pretty good at answering some of what Cynical is saying without all the apocalypse talk. Things are likely going to get better before getting worse again in the Autumn, SARS not making it very very into the west means very little of the relevant infrastructure was put in place, etc. Worth a watch from a fairly reliable and level headed source.


----------



## Adieu

Governor of California just ordered everyone non-essential to stay home and non-essential businesses to shut down a couple hours ago

Dayum


----------



## spudmunkey

Adieu said:


> Governor of California just ordered everyone non-essential to stay home and non-essential businesses to shut down a couple hours ago
> 
> Dayum



For context, if California were a country, it would be the 37th most populous (just under 40 million) and would be the world's 5th largest economy, ahead of the UK, France and India.


----------



## Xaios

Adieu said:


> Governor of California just ordered everyone non-essential to stay home and non-essential businesses to shut down a couple hours ago
> 
> Dayum


Gamestop over there trying to disprove Hanlon's Razor by showing that malice and stupidity have no problem cohabitating.


----------



## narad

Xaios said:


> Gamestop over there trying to disprove Hanlon's Razor by showing that malice and stupidity have no problem cohabitating.



I'd love to see them sued into oblivion once this thing blows over.


----------



## Cynicanal

My job -- a completely non-essential large engineering firm -- has managed to get themselves classified as "essential" so that we all have to go into the office.

Oh, did I mention that we've had people travelling to both Taiwan and Italy in the last two weeks? Who are both still coming to work?

Oh, and did I mention we also have shared keyboards and mice, but no alcohol wipes/cleaning supplies?

Then again, given that the wing of the building I work in _literally doesn't have working fire alarms_ (and hasn't for years), I guess it's in keeping with their traditional care of worker safety.


----------



## budda

If you guys arent raging against the senators who put stock sales over public safety, you're doing quarantine wrong.


----------



## narad

budda said:


> If you guys arent raging against the senators who put stock sales over public safety, you're doing quarantine wrong.



Yea, that's upsetting. Can anyone comment if this is for-sure illegal? I always thought the notion of insider trading was based on information leaking from within a company, not from "insider" information about global events.


----------



## vilk

My office wont close. I guess manufacturing isn't slowing down, even though I don't work at a factory, just a vendor for machine tools, they're keeping a normal schedule and even making me come in on Saturday (FML).

Makes sense, since I doubt that any lenders who financed machine purchases are going to waive payments on them, the factories have to continue doing new jobs to not have their machines repossessed.

Frankly I've been far more busy this week than I am around the holidays. There are only 15 people that work in the whole building, and I even get to sit far across the room from everyone. We don't really have customers walking in. But I still have to feel paranoid about it, every day. 

Is it sad that I'm disappointed? TBH, I wouldn't really mind a couple weeks vacation, even if it weren't paid. My wife and I are naturally frugal and homebodies anyway. It's not that I _hate _hate my job; I just have absolutely zero passion for it. 

File this under First World Problems, because really I should be super thankful that I'm not financially fucked by this situation. And they'll even pay me time+.5 on Saturday. 

Honestly I'm surprised restaurant workers aren't rioting in the streets. Don't they make up a _really_ significant portion of all employed Americans? I wouldn't be surprised to find out it's over 20% of all people living here. I just tried to find a stat but failed to find one that wasn't a decade old.


----------



## sleewell

lots of restaurant workers are here illegally which is just a hunch but i am guessing why that industry is not being mentioned for bailouts. our singer works at pf changs, his hours got cut in half. its way worse for a many more people in that industry unfortunately. most small restaurants will not be able to close for weeks without closing permanently. 

the airlines who used 95% of their money on stock buy backs will get a bail out.

the cruise lines who pay no taxes and are based offshore will get one too.


----------



## Thaeon

vilk said:


> My office wont close. I guess manufacturing isn't slowing down, even though I don't work at a factory, just a vendor for machine tools, they're keeping a normal schedule and even making me come in on Saturday (FML).
> 
> Makes sense, since I doubt that any lenders who financed machine purchases are going to waive payments on them, the factories have to continue doing new jobs to not have their machines repossessed.
> 
> Frankly I've been far more busy this week than I am around the holidays. There are only 15 people that work in the whole building, and I even get to sit far across the room from everyone. We don't really have customers walking in. But I still have to feel paranoid about it, every day.
> 
> Is it sad that I'm disappointed? TBH, I wouldn't really mind a couple weeks vacation, even if it weren't paid. My wife and I are naturally frugal and homebodies anyway. It's not that I _hate _hate my job; I just have absolutely zero passion for it.
> 
> File this under First World Problems, because really I should be super thankful that I'm not financially fucked by this situation. And they'll even pay me time+.5 on Saturday.
> 
> Honestly I'm surprised restaurant workers aren't rioting in the streets. Don't they make up a _really_ significant portion of all employed Americans? I wouldn't be surprised to find out it's over 20% of all people living here. I just tried to find a stat but failed to find one that wasn't a decade old.



I'm still working as well. Though I'm IT. Most of my time is in my unshared office. I'm actually thankful that I'm not going to have to be sans income. If the stimulus happens the way it looks like, I'm gaining financial ground. I'll take it. Seriously. I need the windfall. It'll have me reinvesting in my skill set and making myself a lot more valuable in the IT market.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Everyone is hoarding beer apparently, so it's busier here than it was prior to the pandemic. 

No signs of closing the brewery, though non-essential corporate (ain't they all? ) employees can work from home.

To their credit the company has offered 80 hours of pay to those who get the coronavirus or have a family member with it. The option is there to use vacation and will not fight VBI claims. 

Though, I work pretty much independently and wear a supplied air mask and gloves/coveralls for a lot of my work, so I feel that I'm somewhat safe at work.


----------



## possumkiller

MaxOfMetal said:


> Everyone is hoarding beer apparently, so it's busier here than it was prior to the pandemic.
> 
> No signs of closing the brewery, though non-essential corporate (ain't they all? ) employees can work from home.
> 
> To their credit the company has offered 80 hours of pay to those who get the coronavirus or have a family member with it. The option is there to use vacation and will not fight VBI claims.
> 
> Though, I work pretty much independently and wear a supplied air mask and gloves/coveralls for a lot of my work, so I feel that I'm somewhat safe at work.


I know it's cliche but working at a brewery has to kick ass. I've done pickups and deliveries to breweries when I was a truck driver and they always smell so good. The loads are always heavy as fuck though. Well apart from the time I had a load of empty aluminum cans going to a brewery.


----------



## USMarine75

for the lolz


----------



## Lorcan Ward

There’s been next to no change in my life right now, work 12-15 hours, go home, eat, sleep and repeat. When things easy up in 4-5 weeks time I’ll be happy to continue to be isolated so I can finally work on my music again. It would be nice to go out for a pint with my mates but I’m excited for all the guitar I will get to play soon.


----------



## Ralyks

100% of non-essential workers sent home in NY.

Welp, I'm in banking and the rest of my family in health care, soooo....


----------



## MaxOfMetal

possumkiller said:


> I know it's cliche but working at a brewery has to kick ass. I've done pickups and deliveries to breweries when I was a truck driver and they always smell so good. The loads are always heavy as fuck though. Well apart from the time I had a load of empty aluminum cans going to a brewery.



I've been here 10 years, and I honestly have no complaints. I'm very lucky to be where I am.



USMarine75 said:


> for the lolz




Okay, MetalHex.


----------



## sleewell

Ralyks said:


> 100% of non-essential workers sent home in NY.
> 
> Welp, I'm in banking and the rest of my family in health care, soooo....




has your bank changed their lending guidelines at all? im a mortgage underwriter. yesterday we drastically changed ours.


----------



## Ralyks

sleewell said:


> has your bank changed their lending guidelines at all? im a mortgage underwriter. yesterday we drastically changed ours.



I'm not sure yet but I also wouldn't be shocked.


----------



## Kaura

MaxOfMetal said:


> Everyone is hoarding beer apparently, so it's busier here than it was prior to the pandemic.



All the TP hoarding I don't get, hoarding beer I would get but no one is doing it here, surprisingly. Although, I personally bought 36 cans today just in case something major happens during the weekend but higly unlikely. I think even Italy the shops have kept their doors open all this time despite the fact the situtation is now more severe there than it ever was in China, at least when you look at the death toll.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Kaura said:


> All the TP hoarding I don't get, hoarding beer I would get but no one is doing it here, surprisingly. Although, I personally bought 36 cans today just in case something major happens during the weekend but higly unlikely. I think even Italy the shops have kept their doors open all this time despite the fact the situtation is now more severe there than it ever was in China, at least when you look at the death toll.



I was being facetious, folks are just picking up more beer to drink at home because bars are either closed or no one wants to go to them and they have more time on their hands in general. 

For instance, while we've upped package product production (bottles and cans) we've pretty much stopped all keg production.

I'm not for conspiracy theories, but I don't really trust the Chinese numbers.


----------



## Kaura

MaxOfMetal said:


> I was being facetious, folks are just picking up more beer to drink at home because bars are either closed or no one wants to go to them and they have more time on their hands in general.
> 
> For instance, while we've upped package product production (bottles and cans) we've pretty much stopped all keg production.
> 
> I'm not for conspiracy theories, but I don't really trust the Chinese numbers.



I see, I did hear people hoarding boxed wines here last week but man, I'd rather drink hand sanitizer than boxed wine.


----------



## spudmunkey

Maybe *I'm* misunderstanding what "essential" is supposed to mean.

I took it as only essential services can still be up and running. I see lots of mention that it's more like...any business can stay in operation if what you are doing is essential _to your business. _So, like...of all you do is make and ship non-essential widgets, that you can continue since it's essential to your business...even if the widget you make is flavored vibrating earplugs for wombats.


----------



## sleewell

im hearing monday Michigan will be locked down, possibly many other states too.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

spudmunkey said:


> Maybe *I'm* misunderstanding what "essential" is supposed to mean.
> 
> I took it as only essential services can still be up and running. I see lots of mention that it's more like...any business can stay in operation if what you are doing is essential _to your business. _So, like...of all you do is make and ship non-essential widgets, that you can continue since it's essential to your business...even if the widget you make is flavored vibrating earplugs for wombats.



What it looks like to me is that many businesses are not complying with the orders to shutdown without being formally told to by the authorities.


----------



## Demiurge

I'm sure that half the battle coming up will be companies disputing the definition of "essential".

I work for a property & casualty insurance company. Everybody who can work from home is working from home, but there are some roles that can't, including IT and the those overseeing check-printing & mail. If they can't work, nothing else we can do from home matters if we can't pay people.


----------



## Metropolis

sleewell said:


> im hearing monday Michigan will be locked down, possibly many other states too.



This whole country has been locked down about two days now, Finland is under half of the size of Texas. It can be recommended at this point, stay safe.


----------



## vilk

_ask and ye shall receive
_
State of IL is getting 2 weeks off.


----------



## c7spheres

USMarine75 said:


> for the lolz




- I don't think the corona virus was caused by 5g, but I do think life was better without smart phones. 
- It could be better with them, but most people don't have that level of self disipline or control. They let their devices control them, rather than use the devices as tools.


----------



## TedEH

Demiurge said:


> I'm sure that half the battle coming up will be companies disputing the definition of "essential".



I would wonder how worth it is really is to enforce these lockdown rules everywhere - assuming it's feasible. Strikes me as a case where the best you can hope for is to the enforce the cases that matter: large gatherings, restaurants, malls, etc. If a place is resisting the 'self quarantine' thing, but their work doesn't amount to interacting with very many people, maybe there's a balance to be struck between limiting the health impact vs. limiting the economic impact. I don't see any harm in someone sticking to themselves in their own office if they don't have much other choice.


----------



## spudmunkey

TedEH said:


> I would wonder how worth it is really is to enforce these lockdown rules everywhere - assuming it's feasible. Strikes me as a case where the best you can hope for is to the enforce the cases that matter: large gatherings, restaurants, malls, etc. If a place is resisting the 'self quarantine' thing, but their work doesn't amount to interacting with very many people, maybe there's a balance to be struck between limiting the health impact vs. limiting the economic impact. I don't see any harm in someone sticking to themselves in their own office if they don't have much other choice.



This is my thought, too. The more people are willing to cooperate, there's simply that many fewer out there potentially exposing others. Every little bit helps...but a lot more helps more.

Until the official decree came down on Monday, I was ready to go in to the office still every day. Our company was already recommending people work from home, but I am more productive in the office anyway and tt was just usually me and 3 other people in a maybe 5,000 square foot office, far apart from each other, and none of us took mass transit to get there.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

TedEH said:


> I would wonder how worth it is really is to enforce these lockdown rules everywhere - assuming it's feasible. Strikes me as a case where the best you can hope for is to the enforce the cases that matter: large gatherings, restaurants, malls, etc. If a place is resisting the 'self quarantine' thing, but their work doesn't amount to interacting with very many people, maybe there's a balance to be struck between limiting the health impact vs. limiting the economic impact. I don't see any harm in someone sticking to themselves in their own office if they don't have much other choice.



I think that's the idea. It's easier to make a blanket statement and hope most go along with it, leaving the more egregious examples of not following the mandate to be dealt with.


----------



## jaxadam

Metropolis said:


> This whole country has been locked down about two days now, Finland is under half of the size of Texas. It can be recommended at this point, stay safe.



That’s what I’ve heard. No one is allowed across the Finnish line.


----------



## Metropolis

jaxadam said:


> That’s what I’ve heard. No one is allowed across the Finnish line.



Most European countries are right now, and it's only getting worse in Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Great Britain etc. where density of population is much higher.


----------



## broj15

Best friend is effectively unemployed. He lives in Missouri, but works across the river in Illinois, and if you hadn't heard already, they just issued a shelter in place order & the closure of all non-essential business. He's a welder that builds modular shit for buildings (I think I'm getting that right. Basically he welds metal stairwells & what not all day). They have 1 more shift tomorrow, and then they're closed until April 7th (for now). When they asked if they needed to file for unemployment thier bosses simply said "we're not sure. We don't have an answer for that".
I personally think that's a good thing and should be adopted by all 50 states. I feel like them doing that is like trying to call for a full lockdown without using those words exactly, because if they did use those words or anything similar it would cause waaaaay to much panic. Personally it makes sense and I hope it works. Make people self isolate/stay home by taking away any reason they'd have to go out.
As someone who has always been very anti authoritarian, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I personally feel that the federal govt. should take charge & take similar action Nationwide. Let me reiterate, I've never thought I would advocate for placing so much power with the federal govt., especially considering who's currently at the helm, but I feel like it's the best decision in regards to public health and safety. Of course this would put even more people out of work, but as governor pritzker said “I fully recognize, in some cases, I am choosing between saving people’s lives and saving people’s livelihoods, but ultimately you can’t have a livelihood if you don’t have your life.”

In other news, still waiting to see what shakes out with this bailout/stimulus check situation. The big man in charge promised that they all wanted to go "very big. We all wanna go big with it for the American people." But over the past 2 days I've seen the figures drop from two rounds of $1000 to just two rounds of $600 for most of us that live at or below the poverty level already. I've even read that even if your hours/ wages have been drastically cut because of all this, that unless you are currently out of work don't expect to receive kind of financial support from the govt. I guess only time will tell...

One thing I do know is that a stimulus check without a suspension on rent/mortgages isn't a stimulus check for the people to help jumpstart the economy. It's a bailout for the banks and landlords and nothing more.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Checks ain't coming. 

If they are, they'll be too little too late for 90% of folks who genuinely need them.

Mitch McConnell, the current architect of this "stimulus" doesn't give a shit. It's all for optics. 

But don't worry, the airlines will get their billions.


----------



## sleewell

New reports indicate our intel agencies were sending dire warnings to trump about how deadly this will be for months while he did nothing and called it a dem impeachment hoax. 


Criminal negligence?


----------



## budda

Canada is going to bail out oil and gas.

They don't need it, but we arent the best with our money either.


----------



## ramses

Multiple immediate family members are small business owners. It is unlikely they will survive this. The young (enough) ones will be able to rebuild. I'm thinking how to help those that will have to close permanently.


----------



## Boofchuck

Looks like my wife and I are going to move into a yurt and farm for the summer. We feel very fortunate to have a place to go. We won't have electricity so I'm going to lose my studio space until things stabilize. Time to work on my acoustic chops.

I'm actually really glad to be a college student right now. I have a little bit of savings from work/scholarships so I'm not as fucked from losing my job.


----------



## USMarine75

MaxOfMetal said:


> Checks ain't coming.
> 
> If they are, they'll be too little too late for 90% of folks who genuinely need them.
> 
> Mitch McConnell, the current architect of this "stimulus" doesn't give a shit. It's all for optics.
> 
> But don't worry, the airlines will get their billions.



You'll know the airlines aren't getting a bailout if Mitch sells his stock tomorrow.


----------



## viifox

sleewell said:


> im hearing monday Michigan will be locked down, possibly many other states too.


I'm pretty sure it will be every state that gets locked down. This will become a "follow the leader" game, and state governments won't want to look apathetic to the situation.


----------



## JoshuaVonFlash

Now that I think about it, none of this Corona stuff started until they announced Khabib vs Ferguson for the 1,000th time. That fight is never meant to happen.


----------



## drgamble

I feel really bad for all of the small businesses throughout the entire United States. I live in New Orleans and the hospitality industry is taking a major hit and a lot of the people affected by all of this are the ones that don't have the means to ride through 2-3 months of this. Unemployment will pay them $247/week, but that is really nothing. I don't know how most will recover after getting 2 or 3 months behind on bills. I will be fine as I'm a blue collar utility worker, but I have a lot of friends that work in hospitality and they have all pretty much been laid off of work for the foreseeable future. I have been ordering takeout from local establishments all through the week to try and help the small business guys, but my $10 lunches aren't going to replace what they had before.


----------



## viifox

broj15 said:


> I'd say expect to see boots on the ground by the end of next week if not sooner.



I'm not worried about catching the virus, but I'm terrified of the day I open my living room window to see soldiers and tanks pacing the roads. 

At the rate we're going, it doesn't seem too far fetched.


----------



## Randy

There's definitely a balance between mitigating unnecessary exposures and 'boot on the neck' shit.

It's funny that in NY they phased in $15/hr. minimum wage down in NYC faster than upstate because the dynamics are so different down there, but then they phase in restrictions somewhere that's 27,000 people per square mile the same as places that are <500 people per square mile. And again, we're worried about spreading the virus in a lawyer's office or a barber shop, but 200 people waiting in line, arguing and coughing all over eachother in the grocery store can go on unabated.


----------



## TedEH

I had to go out for some things, and saw so many people going about their business like nothing was any different. It's really odd. One minute you're talking about everyone self-quarantining themselves, then 5 minutes later you see people just out getting a haircut or whatever they normally do. Is that haircut essential? I needed things to keep my apartment in a decent state of repair, and I don't need to be in contact with anyone thanks to those self-serve machines.

I dunno if it makes me a bit hypocritical but I'm sad that the cafe I would normally go to is closed now. They had kept open as long as possible, had hand sanitizer stations at the beginning and end of the line, didn't take any cash, etc - but I guess it was inevitable that they were going to close.


----------



## Drew

MaxOfMetal said:


> I was being facetious, folks are just picking up more beer to drink at home because bars are either closed or no one wants to go to them and they have more time on their hands in general.
> 
> For instance, while we've upped package product production (bottles and cans) we've pretty much stopped all keg production.
> 
> I'm not for conspiracy theories, but I don't really trust the Chinese numbers.


Didn't know you worked for a brewery - is it cool if I ask which? 

And yeah, Chinese economic stats are generally taken with a giant sized grain of salt, their infection stats are very likely political propaganda meant to show how much better "the Chinese way" is than the West.


----------



## Descent

Went out in Houston yesterday - very low crowd in the grocery store in Houston, but bunch of idiots were unnecessarily crowding and trying to bump into me.
One older guy was openly licking a take out plastic container of Starbucks at the cash register. The cashier (with nylon gloves) to protect herself also had to run her fingers all over my cilantro, no thank you, told her that it's hers 

Did some walking in the neighborhood and this idiot jogger stuck herself behind us trying to pass on the sidewalk we were walking on, shouting "scuse me, scuse me".

Thought of punching or knifing the bitch, but that meant more exposure. She had miles of space to pass us on both sides but had to stick herself right by us.

The burger joint now doing only takeout - people still wayyyy too close, I could see them thru the window. 

I am thinking that the boot needs to be applied, majority of people are absolute idiots.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Drew said:


> Didn't know you worked for a brewery - is it cool if I ask which?
> 
> And yeah, Chinese economic stats are generally taken with a giant sized grain of salt, their infection stats are very likely political propaganda meant to show how much better "the Chinese way" is than the West.



PM'd


----------



## shadowlife

viifox said:


> I'm not worried about catching the virus, but I'm terrified of the day I open my living room window to see soldiers and tanks pacing the roads.
> 
> At the rate we're going, it doesn't seem too far fetched.



That's what I'm afraid of as well.
We don't want "lockdown" to become the new normal.
Because the next time they say they need to implement it, it won't be for a virus.

I also wonder about the logic that says I can't go to work in my cubicle because I might catch something from the guy in the next one over, but I can go to the grocery store and deal with the cashier standing in front of me who's been interacting with 100 people before me.

It seems there really are no easy answers here.


----------



## narad

shadowlife said:


> That's what I'm afraid of as well.
> We don't want "lockdown" to become the new normal.
> Because the next time they say they need to implement it, it won't be for a virus.



If you don't lockdown in a virus, when do you lockdown? If you have a highly contagious virus, how do you slow the spread without lockdown? This is exactly the right move for exactly this type of situation.

But sure, let's treat it like it's a slippery slope to a 1984 style of life...


----------



## shadowlife

narad said:


> If you don't lockdown in a virus, when do you lockdown? If you have a highly contagious virus, how do you slow the spread without lockdown? This is exactly the right move for exactly this type of situation.
> 
> But sure, let's treat it like it's a slippery slope to a 1984 style of life...



We can agree to disagree.
Since just about everyone is locked down, the future will show us whether this was the right move or not.

Stay safe.


----------



## ramses

MaxOfMetal said:


> PM'd



Send me one too, so that I buy your IPA next


----------



## viifox

narad said:


> If you don't lockdown in a virus, when do you lockdown? If you have a highly contagious virus, how do you slow the spread without lockdown? This is exactly the right move for exactly this type of situation.
> 
> But sure, let's treat it like it's a slippery slope to a 1984 style of life...


The problem that nobody seems to acknowledge is what may happen AFTER we slow the spread.

This virus is not going anywhere. Sure, we may be successful with coming up with a vaccine 18 months down the road, but even then, a vaccine will probably be a hit or miss solution. A vaccine exists for the common flu, and just look how many people (especially children) die from it every year.

So again, what do we do when we've successfully flattened the curve? The virus will still exist, people will go out in public, and the virus will probably begin to spread like crazy again. So unless we find a cure, or we somehow become immune to this virus, flattening the curve is only a temporary, and partial solution. It's the equivalent of scooping water out of a sinking ship. 

We can't imprison ourselves in our homes for too long. We are sacrificing our way of life for the "greater good" right now. I certainly hope it pays off, but this way of life is not sustainable. 

And if you really think these bans are only going to last for a couple months, you're in for a rude awakening. 2 weeks turned into 8 weeks overnight, and we're headed towards an indefinite "every state on lockdown" path. 

This is one of those times in life where I hope I'm dead wrong.


----------



## shadowlife

viifox said:


> The problem that nobody seems to acknowledge is what may happen AFTER we slow the spread.
> 
> This virus is not going anywhere. Sure, we may be successful with coming up with a vaccine 18 months down the road, but even then, a vaccine will probably be a hit or miss solution. A vaccine exists for the common flu, and just look how many people (especially children) die from it every year.
> 
> So again, what do we do when we've successfully flattened the curve? The virus will still exist, people will go out in public, and the virus will probably begin to spread like crazy again. So unless we find a cure, or we somehow become immune to this virus, flattening the curve is only a temporary, and partial solution. It's the equivalent of scooping water out of a sinking ship.
> 
> We can't imprison ourselves in our homes for too long. We are sacrificing our way of life for the "greater good" right now. I certainly hope it pays off, but this way of life is not sustainable.
> 
> And if you really think these bans are only going to last for a couple months, you're in for a rude awakening. 2 weeks turned into 8 weeks overnight, and we're headed towards an indefinite "every state on lockdown" path.
> 
> This is one of those times in life where I hope I'm dead wrong.



That's pretty much exactly how I feel.

I fear the "cure" may be worse than the illness.

I hope I'm wrong as well.


----------



## ramses

viifox said:


> This virus is not going anywhere. Sure, we may be successful with coming up with a vaccine 18 months down the road, but even then, a vaccine will probably be a hit or miss solution.



Dude, relax. Once we have a vaccine, it will be business-as-usual to develop vaccines for variants. The important thing is that once we have the first vaccine ready, in addition to a couple of treatments, there will be no danger of overflowing ICU's, so there will be no more need for new lockdowns. It will indeed become "just another seasonal flu."


----------



## MaxOfMetal

The problem in the US is that leadership is so terrible and disparate that nothing has been decisive or unilateral in regards to response. 

So it's been 50+ different levels of response and since everything is interconnected the slower states (and counties and cities) to handle this the more ineffective the whole process.


----------



## viifox

ramses said:


> Dude, relax. Once we have a vaccine, it will be business-as-usual to develop vaccines for variants. The important thing is that once we have the first vaccine ready, in addition to a couple of treatments, there will be no danger of overflowing ICU's, so there will be no more need for new lockdowns. It will indeed become "just another seasonal flu."


Fingers crossed, mate.


----------



## viifox

MaxOfMetal said:


> The problem in the US is that leadership is so terrible and disparate that nothing has been decisive or unilateral in regards to response.
> 
> So it's been 50+ different levels of response and since everything is interconnected the slower states (and counties and cities) to handle this the more ineffective the whole process.


Bingo.


----------



## narad

viifox said:


> And if you really think these bans are only going to last for a couple months, you're in for a rude awakening. 2 weeks turned into 8 weeks overnight, and we're headed towards an indefinite "every state on lockdown" path.
> 
> This is one of those times in life where I hope I'm dead wrong.



In Japan we did social distancing and widespread WFH in like early Feb, and pretty much succeeded. So yea, 2 weeks turned into 8 weeks, then we are now moving more towards going back to work, 1-2 days a week in the office. (Though now the stubborn conservative government is a little too eager to play it all down so they don't have to cancel the Olympics)

Meanwhile I see pics of "Corona Party" bars with huge queues, crowded beaches, etc., from the US. If you can't be responsible about things, you get lockdown.


----------



## StevenC

viifox said:


> The problem that nobody seems to acknowledge is what may happen AFTER we slow the spread.
> 
> This virus is not going anywhere. Sure, we may be successful with coming up with a vaccine 18 months down the road, but even then, a vaccine will probably be a hit or miss solution. A vaccine exists for the common flu, and just look how many people (especially children) die from it every year.
> 
> So again, what do we do when we've successfully flattened the curve? The virus will still exist, people will go out in public, and the virus will probably begin to spread like crazy again. So unless we find a cure, or we somehow become immune to this virus, flattening the curve is only a temporary, and partial solution. It's the equivalent of scooping water out of a sinking ship.
> 
> We can't imprison ourselves in our homes for too long. We are sacrificing our way of life for the "greater good" right now. I certainly hope it pays off, but this way of life is not sustainable.
> 
> And if you really think these bans are only going to last for a couple months, you're in for a rude awakening. 2 weeks turned into 8 weeks overnight, and we're headed towards an indefinite "every state on lockdown" path.
> 
> This is one of those times in life where I hope I'm dead wrong.


The problem with the flu and the flu vaccine is that the flu mutates really quickly relative to every other disease on the planet. As a result, we've become really good a developing a new vaccine for the new strain every year. Because SARS didn't get very far in the west we are not very good at developing coronavirus vaccines. In 2018 flu killed between 34,000 people in the USA and about 330 people in the UK. For comparison, there are about 66 million people in the UK and 330 million people in the USA. These numbers do not correlate. For what it's worth, in the USA tends not to kill more than 200 kids a year from the CDC sources I'm finding, so not "especially children". Vaccines aren't free and you won't get together to pay for them for the vulnerable.

Flattening the curve means reaching herd immunity with the fewest number of deaths. Herd immunity is possible when a disease mutates slowly. A steady course of people recovering because the medical system isn't overburdened and vaccination when that becomes available will allow herd immunity to happen in the safest way.

I'm more than expecting two weeks to turn into 2 months, possibly a relief in the summer, and then 2 to 4 months over the winter. That's just the science of it.

Read this please: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/

And while we're all terrified of the government locking us into out houses over the head of this, can some explain to me why that has any value to anyone? Collapsing economy seems pretty shit if you're a capitalism conspiracist, people literally doing nothing seems pretty shit if you're an authoritarian conspiracist? What does anyone get out of an eternal lockdown?


----------



## narad

StevenC said:


> And while we're all terrified of the government locking us into out houses over the head of this, can some explain to me why that has any value to anyone? Collapsing economy seems pretty shit if you're a capitalism conspiracist, people literally doing nothing seems pretty shit if you're an authoritarian conspiracist? What does anyone get out of an eternal lockdown?



Jeez, it's like you've never even watched "V for Vendetta" and then applied it haphazardly to how you view the world.


----------



## jaxadam

No one's laughing at the doomsday preppers now.


----------



## StevenC

jaxadam said:


> No one's laughing at the doomsday preppers now.


I guess we should all start looking for knots in our guitars if that's the case


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> No one's laughing at the doomsday preppers now.



I guess that depends on if your definition of doomsday prepper is someone with a decent amount of non-perishable foods in their home, or a guy with a diverse collection of rifles and military surplus in a bunker.


----------



## viifox

StevenC said:


> The problem with the flu and the flu vaccine is that the flu mutates really quickly relative to every other disease on the planet. As a result, we've become really good a developing a new vaccine for the new strain every year. Because SARS didn't get very far in the west we are not very good at developing coronavirus vaccines. In 2018 flu killed between 34,000 people in the USA and about 330 people in the UK. For comparison, there are about 66 million people in the UK and 330 million people in the USA. These numbers do not correlate. For what it's worth, in the USA tends not to kill more than 200 kids a year from the CDC sources I'm finding, so not "especially children". Vaccines aren't free and you won't get together to pay for them for the vulnerable.
> 
> Flattening the curve means reaching herd immunity with the fewest number of deaths. Herd immunity is possible when a disease mutates slowly. A steady course of people recovering because the medical system isn't overburdened and vaccination when that becomes available will allow herd immunity to happen in the safest way.
> 
> I'm more than expecting two weeks to turn into 2 months, possibly a relief in the summer, and then 2 to 4 months over the winter. That's just the science of it.
> 
> Read this please: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/
> 
> And while we're all terrified of the government locking us into out houses over the head of this, can some explain to me why that has any value to anyone? Collapsing economy seems pretty shit if you're a capitalism conspiracist, people literally doing nothing seems pretty shit if you're an authoritarian conspiracist? What does anyone get out of an eternal lockdown?


Scientists are legitimately worried that the coronavirus will mutate. They're saying that we could be facing a new strain every year. I mean, that's what viruses do: mutate. 

By comparison to the coronavirus, the common flu wipes out far more children. I belive was the point i was trying to convey.

Regardless, this isn't about conspiracy theories. This is about an indefinite lockdown with no clear time frame in sight. You can toss those 8 weeks out the window, because as long as that virus continues to spread and kill people, the government will keep us confined to our homes. I have no reason to believe otherwise. 

Like i said, i hope I'm wrong. I want to be wrong. I'm genuinely hoping that we come up with a kickass vaccine that destroys this fucker, and that we do it in much less than 18 months.

Best of luck to us all.

Cheers.


----------



## Demiurge

jaxadam said:


> No one's laughing at the doomsday preppers now.



Yeah but now they're going to have to rebuy all the Beefaroni they eat now for the _real _apocalypse.


----------



## lurè

Worth to mention that the virus can mutate and become less harmful in order to maximize its spreading.

I'm not 100% sure but common flu was probably originally more severe but it mutated and became less dangerous in order to hit a larger number of people.

This is pure speculation and couldn't happen but it's a possibility that can be taken into account.


----------



## Randy

narad said:


> I guess that depends on if your definition of doomsday prepper is someone with a decent amount of non-perishable foods in their home, or a guy with a diverse collection of rifles and military surplus in a bunker.


----------



## Drew

viifox said:


> We can't imprison ourselves in our homes for too long. We are sacrificing our way of life for the "greater good" right now. I certainly hope it pays off, but this way of life is not sustainable.


I'm pretty sure when Ben Franklin said "those who would sacrifice freedom for safety deserve neither," he wasn't thinking of a viral pandemic.


----------



## narad

Randy said:


> View attachment 78705



They're better food than they are toilet paper.


----------



## StevenC

viifox said:


> Scientists are legitimately worried that the coronavirus will mutate. They're saying that we could be facing a new strain every year. I mean, that's what viruses do: mutate.
> 
> By comparison to the coronavirus, the common flu wipes out far more children. I belive was the point i was trying to convey.
> 
> Regardless, this isn't about conspiracy theories. This is about an indefinite lockdown with no clear time frame in sight. You can toss those 8 weeks out the window, because as long as that virus continues to spread and kill people, the government will keep us confined to our homes. I have no reason to believe otherwise.
> 
> Like i said, i hope I'm wrong. I want to be wrong. I'm genuinely hoping that we come up with a kickass vaccine that destroys this fucker, and that we do it in much less than 18 months.
> 
> Best of luck to us all.
> 
> Cheers.


Except we know coronaviruses mutate slower than influenza viruses. Something major would have to happen fairly soon for this to be a significant worry.

To be honest, I don't know why you brought up kids dying from the flu because it's not a large number for either. Almost 0 and almost 0.

To answer your original point directly, because you didn't seem to read the link, when we slow the spread of the virus we out the herd immunity through vaccinations. Then worst case is it's like one of those super deadly diseases that kills one or two people every year that used to kill millions before we did modern medicine to them.



lurè said:


> Worth to mention that the virus can mutate and become less harmful in order to maximize its spreading.
> 
> I'm not 100% sure but common flu was probably originally more severe but it mutated and became less dangerous in order to hit a larger number of people.
> 
> This is pure speculation and couldn't happen but it's a possibility that can be taken into account.



This is it right here. See SARS, a coronavirus, being way deadlier than covid 19, but way more difficult to transmit.

Unless this stays as dangerous and becomes as spreadable as measles, it should hopefully be a matter of waiting this out for a season or two.


----------



## Randy

Drew said:


> I'm pretty sure when Ben Franklin said "those who would sacrifice freedom for safety deserve neither," he wasn't thinking of a viral pandemic.



I think the concerns are valid. A lockdown is the right thing to do now, but the lack of coordination or planning means an overall sloppy response. If you have an issue with someone complaining about the lack of oversight in enforcement, perhaps you should consider the same lack of foresight is also why people were getting away with partying on the beach, at Disneyworld and in the streets as late as yesterday (maybe still today?).


----------



## MaxOfMetal

narad said:


> They're better food than they are toilet paper.



"Semi-automatic Bidet" is my next album. Calling it.


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> I think the concerns are valid. A lockdown is the right thing to do now, but the lack of coordination or planning means an overall sloppy response. If you have an issue with someone complaining about the lack of oversight in enforcement, perhaps you should consider the same lack of foresight is also why people were getting away with partying on the beach, at Disneyworld and in the streets as late as yesterday (maybe still today?).


The sense I was getting wasn't concern over a lack of coordination or planning, so much as the "slippery slope" argument, first they institute a lockdown for COVID-19, next they lock down because of a few reckless drivers, and next I hope you enjoy your robot overlords. 

Believe me, Trump is the LAST guy I'd want in the White House when there's any possibility of martial law being enacted... but that doesn't mean I don't think we need nation-wide shelter in place to stop this pandemic. You can not like something and simultaneously think it needs to happen.


----------



## Randy

Drew said:


> The sense I was getting wasn't concern over a lack of coordination or planning, so much as the "slippery slope" argument, first they institute a lockdown for COVID-19, next they lock down because of a few reckless drivers, and next I hope you enjoy your robot overlords.
> 
> Believe me, Trump is the LAST guy I'd want in the White House when there's any possibility of martial law being enacted... but that doesn't mean I don't think we need nation-wide shelter in place to stop this pandemic. You can not like something and simultaneously think it needs to happen.



My point was that it would be a little silly to assume 100% of the miscalculations by the government all tacked on the side of being to lax with no possibility of being too stringent in one place or the other as well.


----------



## ThePIGI King

Drew said:


> The sense I was getting wasn't concern over a lack of coordination or planning, so much as the "slippery slope" argument, first they institute a lockdown for COVID-19, next they lock down because of a few reckless drivers, and next I hope you enjoy your robot overlords.
> 
> Believe me, Trump is the LAST guy I'd want in the White House when there's any possibility of martial law being enacted... but that doesn't mean I don't think we need nation-wide shelter in place to stop this pandemic. You can not like something and simultaneously think it needs to happen.


I feel like you think this is the plague by the way you talk when it isn't. Either you're always super dramatic or you really are in panic mode. Literally everybody I know or have talked to at gas stations, restaurants, stores, banks, etc. do not notice anything being different in life. Both between the small town I live in and the city I work in.

You all need to be rational really. The biggest danger to freedom and ourselves is ourselves.


----------



## ThePIGI King

Drew said:


> The sense I was getting wasn't concern over a lack of coordination or planning, so much as the "slippery slope" argument, first they institute a lockdown for COVID-19, next they lock down because of a few reckless drivers, and next I hope you enjoy your robot overlords.
> 
> Believe me, Trump is the LAST guy I'd want in the White House when there's any possibility of martial law being enacted... but that doesn't mean I don't think we need nation-wide shelter in place to stop this pandemic. You can not like something and simultaneously think it needs to happen.


I feel like you think this is the plague by the way you talk when it isn't. Either you're always super dramatic or you really are in panic mode. Literally everybody I know or have talked to at gas stations, restaurants, stores, banks, etc. do not notice anything being different in life. Both between the small town I live in and the city I work in.

You all need to be rational really. The biggest danger to freedom and ourselves is ourselves. Panicing and spreading panic is probably the worse thing to do. Because stupid people will make things worse.

Martial law isn't going to happen unless the public makes it happen by overreacting and freaking out. Literally all it takes is to stay calm, be smart, and be clean and this will be behind us. Maybe not 100% happy fairy tale ending but it'll be over easier and quicker.


----------



## ThePIGI King

Drew said:


> The sense I was getting wasn't concern over a lack of coordination or planning, so much as the "slippery slope" argument, first they institute a lockdown for COVID-19, next they lock down because of a few reckless drivers, and next I hope you enjoy your robot overlords.
> 
> Believe me, Trump is the LAST guy I'd want in the White House when there's any possibility of martial law being enacted... but that doesn't mean I don't think we need nation-wide shelter in place to stop this pandemic. You can not like something and simultaneously think it needs to happen.


I feel like you think this is the plague by the way you talk when it isn't. Either you're always super dramatic or you really are in panic mode. Literally everybody I know or have talked to at gas stations, restaurants, stores, banks, etc. do not notice anything being different in life. Both between the small town I live in and the city I work in.

You all need to be rational really. The biggest danger to freedom and ourselves is ourselves. Panicing and spreading panic is probably the worse thing to do. Because stupid people will make things worse.

Martial law isn't going to happen unless the public makes it happen by overreacting and freaking out. Literally all it takes is to stay calm, be smart, and be clean and this will be behind us. Maybe not 100% happy fairy tale ending but it'll be over easier and quicker.


----------



## ThePIGI King

Drew said:


> The sense I was getting wasn't concern over a lack of coordination or planning, so much as the "slippery slope" argument, first they institute a lockdown for COVID-19, next they lock down because of a few reckless drivers, and next I hope you enjoy your robot overlords.
> 
> Believe me, Trump is the LAST guy I'd want in the White House when there's any possibility of martial law being enacted... but that doesn't mean I don't think we need nation-wide shelter in place to stop this pandemic. You can not like something and simultaneously think it needs to happen.


I feel like you think this is the plague by the way you talk when it isn't. Either you're always super dramatic or you really are in panic mode. Literally everybody I know or have talked to at gas stations, restaurants, stores, banks, etc. do not notice anything being different in life. Both between the small town I live in and the city I work in.

You all need to be rational really. The biggest danger to freedom and ourselves is ourselves. Panicing and spreading panic is probably the worse thing to do. Because stupid people will make things worse.

Martial law isn't going to happen unless the public makes it happen by overreacting and freaking out. Literally all it takes is to stay calm, be smart, and be clean and this will be behind us. Maybe not 100% happy fairy tale ending but it'll be over easier and quicker.


----------



## JoshuaVonFlash

Holy smokes, @ThePIGI King just short-circuited


----------



## narad

JoshuaVonFlash said:


> Holy smokes, @ThePIGI King just short-circuited



It's got him!!! PANNNICCCC!!!!!


----------



## lurè

Dude try alt+F4


----------



## ThePIGI King

EDIT: Uh, so it like quintuple posted I guess? Sorry, I only clicked post one time...not sure what happened.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

https://www.propublica.org/article/...EYTFyi_7_mSjsBKqWPuOmP31gpj4iJnWdNRT_SWgmw1XU


----------



## Kobalt

Québec slowly going into a lockdown, meanwhile residential deliveries are going up dramatically. Spending 10-12 hours a day on the road yet no more public establishments are allowing us to shit or piss anymore. I’mma finna start pissing in your fucking driveways for making me deliver your fucking toilet paper.

#pissedoffupsdriver


----------



## StevenC

KnightBrolaire said:


> https://www.propublica.org/article/...EYTFyi_7_mSjsBKqWPuOmP31gpj4iJnWdNRT_SWgmw1XU


I read this earlier and it's a scary article.


----------



## wankerness

KnightBrolaire said:


> https://www.propublica.org/article/...EYTFyi_7_mSjsBKqWPuOmP31gpj4iJnWdNRT_SWgmw1XU



well I don’t know anyone personally who has the disease so everything must be fine 

/s


----------



## narad

KnightBrolaire said:


> https://www.propublica.org/article/...EYTFyi_7_mSjsBKqWPuOmP31gpj4iJnWdNRT_SWgmw1XU



Yikes. Honestly haven't heard it described as this scary. Which is weird at this point because I've probably logged 10 hours of podcasts on it.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

narad said:


> Yikes. Honestly haven't heard it described as this scary. Which is weird at this point because I've probably logged 10 hours of podcasts on it.


This is a specific subset of the cases, but yeah, it's pretty horrible.


----------



## stockwell

Drew said:


> I'm pretty sure when Ben Franklin said "those who would sacrifice freedom for safety deserve neither," he wasn't thinking of a viral pandemic.



The only viral pandemic Ben Franklin worried about was the viral pandemic he was unleashing on the genitals of French hookers. 

Odd seeing a few people in the thread downplay this. Industries are flailing and jobs are vanishing. The virus could vanish today and this could still be much worse than 2008 for a lot of people. 

And now I feel worse for ordering trivial packages. The idea of 12 hour delivery days is depressing. That sounds brutal.


----------



## broj15

This might be dangerously treading the line of "conspiracy theory", but after talking to some people the past few days, and doing some back tracking over the past couple months I feel like it's safe to say that this shit has been floating around in the states (at least my city, St. Louis, MO) waaaaaay longer than any official report is willing to admit. Here we go:

- news paper in the metro east had a story where a doctor spoke about how 3 WEEKS AGO (well before the "first confirmed case" in my area) she had two otherwise healthy patients complain of respiratory issues after returning from traveling abroad. She requested that they both be tested for covid 19 and both requests were denied. Less than a week later both patients were dead. Then she started experiencing the symptoms and requested that she be tested as well, which was also denied.

- spoke with a friend last night who believes that they had it approximately 2 weeks ago, back when the number of confirmed cases in the entire metro area was less than 5 (1 in the city, the rest outside of the city). They had been going to the gym regularly, as well as one of the universities, which is now believed by many to be a "hot spot". They experienced all the known symptoms except the fever for a week, all culminating in a 24 hour period where they couldn't get out of bed, and experienced what they described as "very unique chest pains that they'd never felt before". 

- I've known of several people, myself included, who as early as January and on into February came down with an EXTREMELY bad case of "the flu". I'm talking fevers reaching 103-104. Obviously that's serious enough to warrant a hospital visit, but this is a pretty low income part of the city, and none of us have any kind of healthcare coverage so we all just "sucked it up" and treated ourselves at home like it was any old respiratory infection. I personally remember feeling like absolute shit for a week, including a couple days where I literally did not get out of bed except to use the bathroom. 

So yeah, at this point I think it's safe to say that it's here and has been for quite sometime, but because of the lack of testing, the govt. trying to maintain the status quo, and our poor healthcare system it's flown under the radar/been swept under the rug, until it became too big of a problem or the "right people" started getting sick.


----------



## USMarine75

allheavymusic said:


> The only viral pandemic Ben Franklin worried about was the viral pandemic he was unleashing on the genitals of French hookers.



Someone needs to edit the Ben Franklin wikipedia page stat.


----------



## fantom

ThePIGI King said:


> I feel like you think this is the plague by the way you talk when it isn't. Either you're always super dramatic or you really are in panic mode. Literally everybody I know or have talked to at gas stations, restaurants, stores, banks, etc. do not notice anything being different in life. Both between the small town I live in and the city I work in.
> 
> You all need to be rational really. The biggest danger to freedom and ourselves is ourselves.



Sorry... But this is kind of triggering me... Wake up!!

People are getting fired. Stocks are going crazy. Jobs dependent on tourism or service are literally disappearing. Every musician, bartender, server, hotel employee, etc. you know likely has no income. Sports are cancelled. Any major conference or event is canceled. Even Disney closed! People who have a job cannot physically go to work. Schools are shutdown probably for the rest of the school year. Daycares closed. If you are lucky enough to work from home, you also have to school or watch your children now.

If you aren't effected by this, maybe think out of your bubble and show some sympathy?

As far as panic mode, this is a serious issue. A lockdown is the only way we can prevent the healthcare system from completely collapsing. Do you realize that you cannot go to a hospital for common checkups right now? Even if we tested like crazy similar to Korea, projections show the health system running of beds and workers. And that's if we didn't botch the testing... Before this week Korea was testing more people every 2 days than USA tested all year. Experts think 10 people are infected for each person tested (not tested positive, tested at all).

Look at any first hand accounts. We are literally triaging people like it is a war and leaving people that are unsaveable to die... alone. Can you imagine how much emotional and mental stress that puts on healthcare workers? I've even seen healthcare workers getting airbnbs because they are afraid to go home and infect their families.


----------



## USMarine75

fantom said:


> Sorry... But this is kind of triggering me... Wake up!!
> 
> People are getting fired. Stocks are going crazy. Jobs dependent on tourism or service are literally disappearing. Every musician, bartender, server, hotel employee, etc. you know likely has no income. Sports are cancelled. Any major conference or event is canceled. Even Disney closed! People who have a job cannot physically go to work. Schools are shutdown probably for the rest of the school year. Daycares closed. If you are lucky enough to work from home, you also have to school or watch your children now.
> 
> If you aren't effected by this, maybe think out of your bubble show some sympathy?
> 
> As far as panic mode, this is a serious issue. A lockdown is the only way we can prevent the healthcare system from completely collapsing. Do you realize that you cannot go to a a hospital for common checkups right now? Even if we tested like crazy similar to Korea, projections show the health system running of of beds and workers. And that's if we didn't botch the testing... Before this week Korea was testing more people every 2 days than USA tested all year.
> 
> Look at any first hand accounts. We are literally triaging people like it is a ear and leaving people that are unsaveable to die. Can you imagine how much emotional and mental stress that puts on healthcare workers? I've even seen healthcare workers getting airbnbs because they are afraid to go home and infect their families.



Why bother.

This is the worst affect from Trump, albeit this started years before him, culminating with him.

We are living in a post-facts world. We have gone from healthy skepticism to:

iliberalism
science denial
belief in every conspiracy theories, false flag claim, etc
lack of civility
We have nearly every public health expert globally warning of this threat, yet people like this jackoff think they know better.

Read back a few posts and you'll find an anal-swab that said we should let it ravage the elderly and sick, because it doesn't affect his age/health group, and he didn't like how concern for other people's well-being was affecting his social and economic state.


----------



## blacai

Two weeks and we will se America collapse. Their health system is just an insult to the human being.
The go at the moment around ~27k infections while most of the people don't get tested as they have no resources, they continue working and they spread it all over their social circles.

UK is trying now to fix their erratic first approach and I hope it is not too late.

It's not about being a panic-b***, it's about seeing what's happening and knowing just a simple nurse/doctor...whoever is working close to hospitals. They are on the limits and this ist just at the start point.


----------



## Flappydoodle

TedEH said:


> I have trouble believing that society has lost all sense of morals when the whole purpose of this self-isolation thing is to protect the weak and old. It's very literally an act of sacrifice for the benefit of others. If it was entirely a self preservation thing, people just wouldn't bother, we'd all just go on as usual, given that the majority of healthy individuals aren't actually at any personal risk.
> 
> People are acting on anything from altruism to ignorance to panic to self-preservation and everything in between. But on a larger scale, the whole preservation thing is very morally driven, IMO.



I don't think society ever had a sense of morals really. It's held back by the presence of law enforcement and consequences for bad actions.

I know several people living in nice areas which are close to shitty areas. Once the shit kicks off, I reckon all those drug addicts are going to get desperate. If I was at risk like that, I'd be taking preparatory steps to protect myself.


----------



## Merrekof

broj15 said:


> This might be dangerously treading the line of "conspiracy theory", but after talking to some people the past few days, and doing some back tracking over the past couple months I feel like it's safe to say that this shit has been floating around in the states (at least my city, St. Louis, MO) waaaaaay longer than any official report is willing to admit. Here we go:
> 
> - news paper in the metro east had a story where a doctor spoke about how 3 WEEKS AGO (well before the "first confirmed case" in my area) she had two otherwise healthy patients complain of respiratory issues after returning from traveling abroad. She requested that they both be tested for covid 19 and both requests were denied. Less than a week later both patients were dead. Then she started experiencing the symptoms and requested that she be tested as well, which was also denied.
> 
> - spoke with a friend last night who believes that they had it approximately 2 weeks ago, back when the number of confirmed cases in the entire metro area was less than 5 (1 in the city, the rest outside of the city). They had been going to the gym regularly, as well as one of the universities, which is now believed by many to be a "hot spot". They experienced all the known symptoms except the fever for a week, all culminating in a 24 hour period where they couldn't get out of bed, and experienced what they described as "very unique chest pains that they'd never felt before".
> 
> - I've known of several people, myself included, who as early as January and on into February came down with an EXTREMELY bad case of "the flu". I'm talking fevers reaching 103-104. Obviously that's serious enough to warrant a hospital visit, but this is a pretty low income part of the city, and none of us have any kind of healthcare coverage so we all just "sucked it up" and treated ourselves at home like it was any old respiratory infection. I personally remember feeling like absolute shit for a week, including a couple days where I literally did not get out of bed except to use the bathroom.
> 
> So yeah, at this point I think it's safe to say that it's here and has been for quite sometime, but because of the lack of testing, the govt. trying to maintain the status quo, and our poor healthcare system it's flown under the radar/been swept under the rug, until it became too big of a problem or the "right people" started getting sick.


I know next to nothing about what you posted here. But in Italy, for example, the first few cases had no contact with anyone that lived or came from an infected area. So they just caught it out of nowhere? 

No, I believe the virus was already spreading around the world a couple of days or weeks before anyone knew or noticed. The first COVID19 cases in Italy were sent back home because they were told they had a bad case of the flu. The docters, I believe, weren't conspiring. They just didn't know what was happening yet.

Governments didn't act in our best interest. China should've been honest about what was going on. Trump should've taken it more seriously and the EU should've been locked down immediately when Italy had it's first case. It took Belgium 9 days to lock down after Italy, in those 9 days many people came back from a vacation in Italy and they infected others here.


----------



## possumkiller

I keep seeing people write Covid-19. Is it not Corvid-19 anymore?


----------



## broj15

Merrekof said:


> I know next to nothing about what you posted here. But in Italy, for example, the first few cases had no contact with anyone that lived or came from an infected area. So they just caught it out of nowhere?
> 
> No, I believe the virus was already spreading around the world a couple of days or weeks before anyone knew or noticed. The first COVID19 cases in Italy were sent back home because they were told they had a bad case of the flu. The docters, I believe, weren't conspiring. They just didn't know what was happening yet.
> 
> Governments didn't act in our best interest. China should've been honest about what was going on. Trump should've taken it more seriously and the EU should've been locked down immediately when Italy had it's first case. It took Belgium 9 days to lock down after Italy, in those 9 days many people came back from a vacation in Italy and they infected others here.


Honestly it's hard to say how long it's been around. Shit, there were people just in my city way back in December that were experiencing severe flu like symptoms, but when the test results came back negative for the flu doctors chalked it up to being a "new mutation of h1n1" and they were told just to treat it at home like the normal flu. Someone I know posted on thier Facebook that they'd been experiencing respiratory problems/ "a flu" that they just couldn't kick that's caused them to miss more work since January than they ever have before.

Edit: me and a former coworker caught up over dinner almost a month ago and the topic of the coronavirus got brought up back before it was ever a concern here in the states. We even talked about how everyone we knew had come down with "a bad case of the flu" and joked about how it had probably made its way over here. Starting to think we weren't to far off...


----------



## Lorcan Ward

Merrekof said:


> rump should've taken it more seriously and the EU should've been locked down immediately when Italy had it's first case. It took Belgium 9 days to lock down after Italy, in those 9 days many people came back from a vacation in Italy and they infected others here.



This is going to be one of the biggest lessons once this is over(however long that will be). Cases were rising in Italy and countries were been warned. Instead of closing borders and containing it hundreds and maybe thousands of people came back from Italy with the virus and then affected people around them. Even then governments just sat on their hands instead of ordering a complete lockdown. Italy had nearly 800 deaths yesterday and the UK is matching them where they were 2 weeks ago. I shudder to think what things are going to be like in 2 weeks time.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

broj15 said:


> This might be dangerously treading the line of "conspiracy theory", but after talking to some people the past few days, and doing some back tracking over the past couple months I feel like it's safe to say that this shit has been floating around in the states (at least my city, St. Louis, MO) waaaaaay longer than any official report is willing to admit. Here we go:
> 
> - news paper in the metro east had a story where a doctor spoke about how 3 WEEKS AGO (well before the "first confirmed case" in my area) she had two otherwise healthy patients complain of respiratory issues after returning from traveling abroad. She requested that they both be tested for covid 19 and both requests were denied. Less than a week later both patients were dead. Then she started experiencing the symptoms and requested that she be tested as well, which was also denied.
> 
> - spoke with a friend last night who believes that they had it approximately 2 weeks ago, back when the number of confirmed cases in the entire metro area was less than 5 (1 in the city, the rest outside of the city). They had been going to the gym regularly, as well as one of the universities, which is now believed by many to be a "hot spot". They experienced all the known symptoms except the fever for a week, all culminating in a 24 hour period where they couldn't get out of bed, and experienced what they described as "very unique chest pains that they'd never felt before".
> 
> - I've known of several people, myself included, who as early as January and on into February came down with an EXTREMELY bad case of "the flu". I'm talking fevers reaching 103-104. Obviously that's serious enough to warrant a hospital visit, but this is a pretty low income part of the city, and none of us have any kind of healthcare coverage so we all just "sucked it up" and treated ourselves at home like it was any old respiratory infection. I personally remember feeling like absolute shit for a week, including a couple days where I literally did not get out of bed except to use the bathroom.
> 
> So yeah, at this point I think it's safe to say that it's here and has been for quite sometime, but because of the lack of testing, the govt. trying to maintain the status quo, and our poor healthcare system it's flown under the radar/been swept under the rug, until it became too big of a problem or the "right people" started getting sick.



Well yeah, that's sort of how it works.

Look at HIV. In the years since it was discovered it's been traced back further decades in origin.

It's not some sort of government plot, it’s just how these situations evolve. I'm sure, when the dust settles, we'll find evidence of this particular strain much much earlier.


----------



## Kobalt

broj15 said:


> This might be dangerously treading the line of "conspiracy theory", but after talking to some people the past few days, and doing some back tracking over the past couple months I feel like it's safe to say that this shit has been floating around in the states (at least my city, St. Louis, MO) waaaaaay longer than any official report is willing to admit. Here we go:
> 
> - news paper in the metro east had a story where a doctor spoke about how 3 WEEKS AGO (well before the "first confirmed case" in my area) she had two otherwise healthy patients complain of respiratory issues after returning from traveling abroad. She requested that they both be tested for covid 19 and both requests were denied. Less than a week later both patients were dead. Then she started experiencing the symptoms and requested that she be tested as well, which was also denied.
> 
> - spoke with a friend last night who believes that they had it approximately 2 weeks ago, back when the number of confirmed cases in the entire metro area was less than 5 (1 in the city, the rest outside of the city). They had been going to the gym regularly, as well as one of the universities, which is now believed by many to be a "hot spot". They experienced all the known symptoms except the fever for a week, all culminating in a 24 hour period where they couldn't get out of bed, and experienced what they described as "very unique chest pains that they'd never felt before".
> 
> - I've known of several people, myself included, who as early as January and on into February came down with an EXTREMELY bad case of "the flu". I'm talking fevers reaching 103-104. Obviously that's serious enough to warrant a hospital visit, but this is a pretty low income part of the city, and none of us have any kind of healthcare coverage so we all just "sucked it up" and treated ourselves at home like it was any old respiratory infection. I personally remember feeling like absolute shit for a week, including a couple days where I literally did not get out of bed except to use the bathroom.
> 
> So yeah, at this point I think it's safe to say that it's here and has been for quite sometime, but because of the lack of testing, the govt. trying to maintain the status quo, and our poor healthcare system it's flown under the radar/been swept under the rug, until it became too big of a problem or the "right people" started getting sick.


I’m with you, honestly. My gf and I both think she may have gotten it as early as late December/early January. It was a very rough flu that rapidly developed into a pneumonia, which obviously warranted a visit to ER. She had all of the specific symptoms.

I think the virus has been around much longer, but it may just have been acknowledged when people started dying in masses in China.


----------



## lurè

Italy is in total lockdown. All factories closed and only supermarket, banks and pharmacies are open with no possibility to go out except for buying food or meds.

We're probably facing the biggest crisis after WWII.


----------



## Vostre Roy

Kobalt said:


> Québec slowly going into a lockdown, meanwhile residential deliveries are going up dramatically. Spending 10-12 hours a day on the road yet no more public establishments are allowing us to shit or piss anymore. I’mma finna start pissing in your fucking driveways for making me deliver your fucking toilet paper.
> 
> #pissedoffupsdriver



Really sucks about the public establishment thing but I just want to say, you guys don't get enough credit for the risks that you are taking right now and all the extra work that you're doing. I really hope that people will be cautious when ordering anything and limit themselves for real necessities.

I'm supposed to get back home from Nunavut this Tuesday. This run has felt like the longest ever so far, really hope that I'll make it home to be with my girlfriend in this dire times.


----------



## Kobalt

lurè said:


> Italy is in total lockdown. All factories closed and only supermarket, banks and pharmacies are open with no possibility to go out except for buying food or meds.
> 
> We're probably facing the biggest crisis after WWII.


You guys have it REALLY bad, and it just boggles my mind as to why... If the thing really "originated" from China, how the hell is Italy affected so badly... It just doesn't make sense to me.



Vostre Roy said:


> Really sucks about the public establishment thing but I just want to say, you guys don't get enough credit for the risks that you are taking right now and all the extra work that you're doing. I really hope that people will be cautious when ordering anything and limit themselves for real necessities.
> 
> I'm supposed to get back home from Nunavut this Tuesday. This run has felt like the longest ever so far, really hope that I'll make it home to be with my girlfriend in this dire times.


It's a thankless job, and we endlessly get shit on by customers and people on the streets, but thanks for your kind words.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

@ Kobalt- Best wishes for your gf's speedy and full recovery. Stay safe/ stay healthy, man.


----------



## Kobalt

High Plains Drifter said:


> @ Kobalt- Best wishes for your gf's speedy and full recovery. Stay safe/ stay healthy, man.


Oh, she has fully recovered since then. Should've written had, not has, stupid autocorrect.


----------



## gnoll

Kobalt said:


> I’m with you, honestly. My gf and I both think she may have gotten it as early as late December/early January. It was a very rough day that rapidly developed into a pneumonia, which obviously warranted a visit to ER. She has all of the specific symptoms.
> 
> I think the virus has been around much longer, but it may just have been acknowledged when people started dying in masses in China.



I guess it's possible that the virus has had some presence in areas before cases started being confirmed, but I think reasons like "This person had symptoms back in January!" are maybe not the most reliable pieces of evidence.

I'm thinking that even if the virus was around in that area back then, its presence should have been small enough that for individual people presenting similar symptoms, those symptoms should still be statistically unlikely to have been caused by this virus.

I also think that due to the quick growth of confirmed cases we see now, that if the virus had a considerable presence in different areas months back, then we would have seen the numbers of cases that we do now sooner, and would have become aware of the presence of the virus sooner.

Anyway, that's just my thinking, and I'm not a health professional or anything...


----------



## Kobalt

gnoll said:


> I guess it's possible that the virus has had some presence in areas before cases started being confirmed, but I think reasons like "This person had symptoms back in January!" are maybe not the most reliable pieces of evidence.
> 
> I'm thinking that even if the virus was around in that area back then, its presence should have been small enough that for individual people presenting similar symptoms, those symptoms should still be statistically unlikely to have been caused by this virus.
> 
> I also think that due to the quick growth of confirmed cases we see now, that if the virus had a considerable presence in different areas months back, then we would have seen the numbers of cases that we do now sooner, and would have become aware of the presence of the virus sooner.
> 
> Anyway, that's just my thinking, and I'm not a health professional or anything...


Oh, I'm not saying it's 100% the case, but I think it's definitely a possibility.

It wouldn't be surprising that because it is in essence a cold/flu, nobody ever cared to actually test patients that may have had it prior to the whole situation escalating into a pandemic. Right? A lot of people with weaker immune systems and elders die from complications due to the seasonal flu, so before ever acknowledging there was a viral problem it cannot be 100% unlikely that certain patients may have gotten it and it was just signed off as a seasonal flu. "Go home, take your vitamins, you'll be fine in a week" kind of scenario.

We're all quick to shrug something off until it actually becomes a problem, I don't see the health industry as being any different in that matter.

If not, regardless, it still is pretty scary to see how quickly this thing spread out, a couple extra months isn't gonna make it any less scary.


----------



## gnoll

Kobalt said:


> Oh, I'm not saying it's 100% the case, but I think it's definitely a possibility.
> 
> It wouldn't be surprising that because it is in essence a cold/flu, nobody ever cared to actually test patients that may have had it prior to the whole situation escalating into a pandemic. Right? A lot of people with weaker immune systems and elders die from complications due to the seasonal flu, so before ever acknowledging there was a viral problem it cannot be 100% unlikely that certain patients may have gotten it and it was just signed off as a seasonal flu. "Go home, take your vitamins, you'll be fine in a week" kind of scenario.



I agree that this could happen, but I think that if it had (months back), then we would have seen implications sooner. Look at how quickly this thing is spreading now. For the virus to have been around and completely unmanaged that far back in time, it just seems to me like we would have seen a bigger impact from it sooner.


----------



## budda

gnoll said:


> I agree that this could happen, but I think that if it had (months back), then we would have seen implications sooner. Look at how quickly this thing is spreading now. For the virus to have been around and completely unmanaged that far back in time, it just seems to me like we would have seen a bigger impact from it sooner.



But we did? People knew about it in at least january. Many people cant get tested (not enough symptoms, didnt travel, not enough tests etc). Everything about this has been a a slow reaction, in part because there wasnt enough info. We still dont know how many actual cases exist right now.


----------



## gnoll

budda said:


> But we did? People knew about it in at least january. Many people cant get tested (not enough symptoms, didnt travel, not enough tests etc). Everything about this has been a a slow reaction, in part because there wasnt enough info. We still dont know how many actual cases exist right now.



Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to say the virus wasn't outside China in January, my point was rather that so few people would have had it back then that it seems like connecting the dots a little bit too quickly looking back at symptoms in Dec/Jan and saying "that might have been COVID-19".

I think my last post was worded poorly. I said "For the virus to have been around" when I should probably have said something like "For the virus to have had such a presence that people presenting similar symptoms likely had it".

And I didn't mean all this as a comment on reactions to the issue. I'm not saying that I thought it was good that people weren't tested or anything like that. It's like you said, there wasn't enough info.


----------



## budda

It seems to be mostly new territory with this.

Wild times.


----------



## jaxadam

possumkiller said:


> I keep seeing people write Covid-19. Is it not Corvid-19 anymore?



It never was.


----------



## diagrammatiks

gnoll said:


> Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to say the virus wasn't outside China in January, my point was rather that so few people would have had it back then that it seems like connecting the dots a little bit too quickly looking back at symptoms in Dec/Jan and saying "that might have been COVID-19".
> 
> I think my last post was worded poorly. I said "For the virus to have been around" when I should probably have said something like "For the virus to have had such a presence that people presenting similar symptoms likely had it".
> 
> And I didn't mean all this as a comment on reactions to the issue. I'm not saying that I thought it was good that people weren't tested or anything like that. It's like you said, there wasn't enough info.



Geographically wuhan is kinda similar to where Chicago is situated in the states. 
The airlines have been transitioning it to a major transportation hub for the last year or so. although that is probably not going to happen anymore.

at any rate, all the big tech companies send tons of people back and forth each day. 

Also around 4-6 weeks ago since most of the school's are closed and most foreigners in china are teachers a lot of them were not working a lot of them left china to go back to Europe and the states. Whoops


----------



## stockwell

We don't need any conspiracy theories. For the past century the country has been setting itself up to suffer. Our healthcare system, our social safety net, and our economy are all structured around the market. Something like corona is a stress test that amplifies how weak and callous our system is, all in service to squeezing out a few dollars here and there. 

I am concerned about conspiracy theories surrounding China. For the record, it's entirely possible, maybe even probable, that corona doesn't originate in China, and China was simply the first to notice and respond at a national level. But the US administration wholeheartedly believes in a theory of civilizational conflict, and we haven't had a viable manufactured enemy since the USSR fell. Trump and his ilk have spent 4 years blustering about economic war with China. Covid could be an excuse to escalate that tension. It wouldn't even be that hard, given how quick Americans are to believe anything about China. If someone in the government says Corona was a Chinese bioweapon, what happens? It seems unlikely, but again, we have the president openly calling it the "Chinese flu".


----------



## broj15

MaxOfMetal said:


> Well yeah, that's sort of how it works.
> 
> Look at HIV. In the years since it was discovered it's been traced back further decades in origin.
> 
> It's not some sort of government plot, it’s just how these situations evolve. I'm sure, when the dust settles, we'll find evidence of this particular strain much much earlier.



Eh I wasn't necessarily alluding to a govt. conspiracy But just a mass dropping of the ball that is public health and safety.


----------



## Merrekof

allheavymusic said:


> We don't need any conspiracy theories. For the past century the country has been setting itself up to suffer. Our healthcare system, our social safety net, and our economy are all structured around the market. Something like corona is a stress test that amplifies how weak and callous our system is, all in service to squeezing out a few dollars here and there.
> 
> I am concerned about conspiracy theories surrounding China. For the record, it's entirely possible, maybe even probable, that corona doesn't originate in China, and China was simply the first to notice and respond at a national level. But the US administration wholeheartedly believes in a theory of civilizational conflict, and we haven't had a viable manufactured enemy since the USSR fell. Trump and his ilk have spent 4 years blustering about economic war with China. Covid could be an excuse to escalate that tension. It wouldn't even be that hard, given how quick Americans are to believe anything about China. If someone in the government says Corona was a Chinese bioweapon, what happens? It seems unlikely, but again, we have the president openly calling it the "Chinese flu".


Idk, but China really is the birthplace for many flu's. The Asian flu, Hong Kong flu, Russian flu, bird flu, swine fever, SARS, MERS,.. almost every decade there is an outbreak over there and it is probably due to their culture. They have markets where live animals are stacked and where they are butchered and sold as meat on the spot. The lack of hygiene in an uncontrolled environment makes it a breeding ground for mutating viruses. I think it was just a matter of time for something like this to happen. We're unlucky this time because the virus can spread for a week before making the host sick.

The situation in Africa is also similar with Africans eating bushmeat. IIRC, Ebola and HIV were "born" this way.

PS, I hope Trump ain't as stupid as the Scots in the 14th century. They saw that the English were weak and suffering from the bubonic plague so they sent warriors who brought the plague into Scotland.


----------



## sleewell

Rand Paul has it.


----------



## budda

Swine flu started in kansas...


----------



## Merrekof

budda said:


> Swine flu started in kansas...


Okay, googled it. You are right about the swine flu.


----------



## budda

Google the rest.


----------



## viifox

Kobalt said:


> You guys have it REALLY bad, and it just boggles my mind as to why... If the thing really "originated" from China, how the hell is Italy affected so badly... It just doesn't make sense to me



The "experts" are saying Italy has been hit so hard due to a few reasons...

- the coronavirus primarily targets the elderly, and Italy has the second oldest population in the world. 

- Italy consists of 60 million people. 11.6 million of which are smokers (not exactly the best defense against a respiratory disease)

- the younger generation mingles more often with their elderly loved ones.


----------



## jaxadam

budda said:


> Swine flu started in kansas...



We're not sure where this one started but in making the jump from animal to human, it is only logical to predict that it will jump from human to computer next. I'm wondering if ss.org will be ground zero for that one.


----------



## Merrekof

budda said:


> Google the rest.


Shit, I got stuff mixed up. 
You can take a couple of pandemics out of my initial comment.


----------



## Ralyks

Harvey Weinstein got it too.
.... ok, that one I don’t feel bad about.


----------



## budda

Merrekof said:


> Shit, I got stuff mixed up.
> You can take a couple of pandemics out of my initial comment.



Well, you can. I cant edit your posts .


----------



## jaxadam

Merrekof said:


> Shit, I got stuff mixed up.
> You can take a couple of pandemics out of my initial comment.



Don’t worry, at some point all countries will have the Coronavirus, but China got it right off the bat.


----------



## mongey

we just starting lock down here in OZ and they reckon 6 months.

that's 6 months of me and the wife working form home with 1 or both our kids there cause school and childcare are both canned 

hope I get it and end up in hospital


----------



## Flappydoodle

narad said:


> Yikes. Honestly haven't heard it described as this scary. Which is weird at this point because I've probably logged 10 hours of podcasts on it.



It's far from the typical case. If you're working in the respiratory ward of a hospital, of course you're going to see the absolute worst cases. The media doesn't cover the 100,000's of people just sitting at home with a mild cough.



broj15 said:


> This might be dangerously treading the line of "conspiracy theory", but after talking to some people the past few days, and doing some back tracking over the past couple months I feel like it's safe to say that this shit has been floating around in the states (at least my city, St. Louis, MO) waaaaaay longer than any official report is willing to admit. Here we go:
> 
> - news paper in the metro east had a story where a doctor spoke about how 3 WEEKS AGO (well before the "first confirmed case" in my area) she had two otherwise healthy patients complain of respiratory issues after returning from traveling abroad. She requested that they both be tested for covid 19 and both requests were denied. Less than a week later both patients were dead. Then she started experiencing the symptoms and requested that she be tested as well, which was also denied.
> 
> - spoke with a friend last night who believes that they had it approximately 2 weeks ago, back when the number of confirmed cases in the entire metro area was less than 5 (1 in the city, the rest outside of the city). They had been going to the gym regularly, as well as one of the universities, which is now believed by many to be a "hot spot". They experienced all the known symptoms except the fever for a week, all culminating in a 24 hour period where they couldn't get out of bed, and experienced what they described as "very unique chest pains that they'd never felt before".
> 
> - I've known of several people, myself included, who as early as January and on into February came down with an EXTREMELY bad case of "the flu". I'm talking fevers reaching 103-104. Obviously that's serious enough to warrant a hospital visit, but this is a pretty low income part of the city, and none of us have any kind of healthcare coverage so we all just "sucked it up" and treated ourselves at home like it was any old respiratory infection. I personally remember feeling like absolute shit for a week, including a couple days where I literally did not get out of bed except to use the bathroom.
> 
> So yeah, at this point I think it's safe to say that it's here and has been for quite sometime, but because of the lack of testing, the govt. trying to maintain the status quo, and our poor healthcare system it's flown under the radar/been swept under the rug, until it became too big of a problem or the "right people" started getting sick.



Not conspiracy at all. First case in China was likely in October, according to the latest phylogenetic tracing. China knew about it since November. Meanwhile, as recently as mid-January, WHO was saying it didn't pass human to human etc. WHO was also recommending against travel restrictions. So it's far from a US-specific problem.

There are news articles from the UK last November about an uptick in hospital visits from respiratory infections and pneumonia. This has definitely been out for longer than people think.


----------



## viifox

mongey said:


> we just starting lock down here in OZ and they reckon 6 months.
> 
> that's 6 months of me and the wife working form home with 1 or both our kids there cause school and childcare are both canned
> 
> hope I get it and end up in hospital


How's they come up with that number? Do you have a link?


----------



## viifox

2 weeks? 8 weeks? 6 months?

Try 12 to 18 months.

https://time.com/5804555/coronavirus-lockdown-uk/


----------



## mongey

viifox said:


> How's they come up with that number? Do you have a link?


they are saying at least 6 months


----------



## ThePIGI King

jaxadam said:


> Don’t worry, at some point all countries will have the Coronavirus, but China got it right off the _*bat*_.


I dunno if you meant to but I see what you did there


----------



## Flappydoodle

USMarine75 said:


> Read back a few posts and you'll find an anal-swab that said we should let it ravage the elderly and sick, because it doesn't affect his age/health group, and he didn't like how concern for other people's well-being was affecting his social and economic state.



Make no mistake, this is the inevitable outcome of this. Some governments are just reaching the conclusion faster than others. Some are taking highly aggressive actions. Others are doing almost nothing.

This shutdown is costing governments and people billions and billions every day. And it's true that this virus takes out the oldest and weakest among us. Someone is running the calculations to see whether saving X amount of people is worth Y cost. And let's be brutally honest, it isn't worth crashing the entire economy, having 20% unemployment etc (all the things that come with it, like crime, looting etc), just to save the 70+ age group who are a net drain by the ends of their lives. If this virus affected children, that would be different.

It's easy for you to say "affecting his social and economic state" in a dismissive way, but that's extremely important for society and civilisation. Most people do not have savings, and so closing businesses means no money, means rent and bills can't be paid. And that passes up the chain, so the landlord can't afford the mortgage, and the banks run out of money etc etc. If banks go down, this becomes worse than 2008.

And what's the long-term strategy? Vaccine is ~12 months way to develop and test, and probably 2 years before it's widely administered, even to the at-risk groups. Are we supposed to stay locked down until then? Even if that works for some countries and they reduce their cases, are they supposed to keep closed borders forever? Otherwise, people bring in the virus again and it starts again.

The ONLY long-term viable strategy is to let it infect everybody and accept the consequences. Way too late to put the genie back into the bottle at this point.


----------



## Flappydoodle

viifox said:


> 2 weeks? 8 weeks? 6 months?
> 
> Try 12 to 18 months.
> 
> https://time.com/5804555/coronavirus-lockdown-uk/



Impossible. The economy, nor peoples' sanity, can't take it.

They'll have to let this go at some point.


----------



## viifox

Flappydoodle said:


> Impossible. The economy, nor peoples' sanity, can't take it.
> 
> They'll have to let this go at some point.


My thoughts exactly.


----------



## viifox

Flappydoodle said:


> Make no mistake, this is the inevitable outcome of this. Some governments are just reaching the conclusion faster than others. Some are taking highly aggressive actions. Others are doing almost nothing.
> 
> This shutdown is costing governments and people billions and billions every day. And it's true that this virus takes out the oldest and weakest among us. Someone is running the calculations to see whether saving X amount of people is worth Y cost. And let's be brutally honest, it isn't worth crashing the entire economy, having 20% unemployment etc (all the things that come with it, like crime, looting etc), just to save the 70+ age group who are a net drain by the ends of their lives. If this virus affected children, that would be different.
> 
> It's easy for you to say "affecting his social and economic state" in a dismissive way, but that's extremely important for society and civilisation. Most people do not have savings, and so closing businesses means no money, means rent and bills can't be paid. And that passes up the chain, so the landlord can't afford the mortgage, and the banks run out of money etc etc. If banks go down, this becomes worse than 2008.
> 
> And what's the long-term strategy? Vaccine is ~12 months way to develop and test, and probably 2 years before it's widely administered, even to the at-risk groups. Are we supposed to stay locked down until then? Even if that works for some countries and they reduce their cases, are they supposed to keep closed borders forever? Otherwise, people bring in the virus again and it starts again.
> 
> The ONLY long-term viable strategy is to let it infect everybody and accept the consequences. Way too late to put the genie back into the bottle at this point.


That's not going to resonate too well with politicians, who are vastly the target age group for this fucker. They'll be making decisions to protect them, not the other way around. Even if they are just scooping water out of a sinking ship, they'll delay the inevitable for as long as possible, even if it means locking us young pups down with no release date in sight.


----------



## Walter W.

Cynicanal said:


> My job -- a completely non-essential large engineering firm -- has managed to get themselves classified as "essential" so that we all have to go into the office.
> 
> Oh, did I mention that we've had people travelling to both Taiwan and Italy in the last two weeks? Who are both still coming to work?
> 
> Oh, and did I mention we also have shared keyboards and mice, but no alcohol wipes/cleaning supplies?
> 
> Then again, given that the wing of the building I work in _literally doesn't have working fire alarms_ (and hasn't for years), I guess it's in keeping with their traditional care of worker safety.



Call OSHA


----------



## c7spheres

- AI and computers are the answer! It seems to be the answer for everything else lately, so let's continue that trend. They could put a mark on everyone's hand or forehead and it will fix everything! Life will be so great after we all get the mark. 
- Seriously though, I'm just waiting for the next round of whatever rights they want to take and whatever forced violation to our bodys they want to perform. I'm guessing forced vaccines and other forms of belt tightening and monitoring. Probably to do with how we travel and interact.


----------



## Necris

I've seen people saying "just let it happen" but one consideration is that at this point we don't have a lot of information on whether or not infection by the virus confers immunity and, if it does, for how long. Some cases in Japan and China have tested positive again after recovering from the virus and while there are potential explanations for these cases other than re-infection at the moment there's simply not enough information to draw a conclusion.

Just letting it happen is, at this point at least, adding a potentially significant body count in the short term based largely on the hope that those who survive will develop immunity and life can return to normal afterward, and it's weird to see that pointed to as the most sensible or pragmatic solution.


----------



## Flappydoodle

viifox said:


> That's not going to resonate too well with politicians, who are vastly the target age group for this fucker. They'll be making decisions to protect them, not the other way around. Even if they are just scooping water out of a sinking ship, they'll delay the inevitable for as long as possible, even if it means locking us young pups down with no release date in sight.



Maybe. But they'll also be feeling the economic pressure.

I think all governments do realise this already, but they can't just come out and say it that they're going to let the old and vulnerable die en masse. Mind you, even then, the death rate in confirmed cases in >80yrs is around 15%, which is still far from a guaranteed death sentence.

There's also a geopolitical pressure. If this cripples the West, and China bounces out of it early, that's a huge worry. Our governments will be wanting things to be back to normal as soon as possible. We don't want China to get the upper hand after unleashing this on the rest of us.


----------



## viifox

Flappydoodle said:


> Maybe. But they'll also be feeling the economic pressure.
> 
> I think all governments do realise this already, but they can't just come out and say it that they're going to let the old and vulnerable die en masse. Mind you, even then, the death rate in confirmed cases in >80yrs is around 15%, which is still far from a guaranteed death sentence.
> 
> There's also a geopolitical pressure. If this cripples the West, and China bounces out of it early, that's a huge worry. Our governments will be wanting things to be back to normal as soon as possible. We don't want China to get the upper hand after unleashing this on the rest of us.


So many scenarios. So little time.


----------



## viifox

Here's some scary shit. People are already being compliant, yet they're discussing martial law. Of, course they aren't calling it that, but if it looks like a duck...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ne...navirus-pandemic-something-they-1493485?amp=1


----------



## USMarine75

USMarine75 said:


> Read back a few posts and you'll find an anal-swab that said we should let it ravage the elderly and sick, because it doesn't affect his age/health group, and he didn't like how concern for other people's well-being was affecting his social and economic state.





Flappydoodle said:


> Make no mistake, this is the inevitable outcome of this. Some governments are just reaching the conclusion faster than others. Some are taking highly aggressive actions. Others are doing almost nothing.
> 
> This shutdown is costing governments and people billions and billions every day. And it's true that this virus takes out the oldest and weakest among us. Someone is running the calculations to see whether saving X amount of people is worth Y cost. And let's be brutally honest, it isn't worth crashing the entire economy, having 20% unemployment etc (all the things that come with it, like crime, looting etc), just to save the 70+ age group who are a net drain by the ends of their lives. If this virus affected children, that would be different.
> 
> It's easy for you to say "affecting his social and economic state" in a dismissive way, but that's extremely important for society and civilisation. Most people do not have savings, and so closing businesses means no money, means rent and bills can't be paid. And that passes up the chain, so the landlord can't afford the mortgage, and the banks run out of money etc etc. If banks go down, this becomes worse than 2008.
> 
> And what's the long-term strategy? Vaccine is ~12 months way to develop and test, and probably 2 years before it's widely administered, even to the at-risk groups. Are we supposed to stay locked down until then? Even if that works for some countries and they reduce their cases, are they supposed to keep closed borders forever? Otherwise, people bring in the virus again and it starts again.
> 
> The ONLY long-term viable strategy is to let it infect everybody and accept the consequences. Way too late to put the genie back into the bottle at this point.



Pleasure to meet you, Mr Swab.


----------



## Cynicanal

Walter W. said:


> Call OSHA


Won't do any good; our office can't be inspected by anyone else for security reasons. They've managed to get the cops, the fire marshalls, and everyone else to go away when reports of shady/bad practices have reached those offices. The life of working for a defense contractor!



Necris said:


> I've seen people saying "just let it happen" but one consideration is that at this point we don't have a lot of information on whether or not infection by the virus confers immunity and, if it does, for how long. Some cases in Japan and China have tested positive again after recovering from the virus and while there are potential explanations for these cases other than re-infection at the moment there's simply not enough information to draw a conclusion.
> 
> Just letting it happen is, at this point at least, adding a potentially significant body count in the short term based largely on the hope that those who survive will develop immunity and life can return to normal afterward, and it's weird to see that pointed to as the most sensible or pragmatic solution.


If there's no immunity, there's no reason to _not_ just let it happen. If there's no immunity, it's never going away, so the lockdown won't do any good unless we lock down permanently, which I can't imagine anyone being willing to do.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Cynicanal said:


> If there's no immunity, there's no reason to _not_ just let it happen. If there's no immunity, it's never going away, so the lockdown won't do any good unless we lock down permanently, which I can't imagine anyone being willing to do.



The thing is, it's not like this is a die/don't die scenario. Plenty of people who get COVID19 will need medical care and survive because the administration of that care.

The goal of "flattening the curve" is to keep the flow of sick who need medical attention from overwhelming our hospitals to the point of breakdown.

Everyone will get this, if they don't already have it. It's about managing care post infection.

I know this survival of the fittest wet dream is hard to kick for libertarians.


----------



## Cynicanal

It's not a "survival of the fittest wet dream" -- I have asthma, I've already accepted the fact that I'm probably dying in the next few months. Flattening the curve won't work, as long as there's one person out there who is contagious then we're going to get a spike as soon as any restrictions are lifted. It's lockdown forever or let everyone with complications die; those are the options.


----------



## USMarine75

Cynicanal said:


> It's not a "survival of the fittest wet dream" -- I have asthma, I've already accepted the fact that I'm probably dying in the next few months. Flattening the curve won't work, as long as there's one person out there who is contagious then we're going to get a spike as soon as any restrictions are lifted. It's lockdown forever or let everyone with complications die; those are the options.



You have a deep understanding of medicine.

Why are we listening to knobs like Dr Fauci or Dr Frieden when we have experts like you?


----------



## Cynicanal

The London Royal College (which is what the efforts have been based on) has been saying that unless we keep a constant lockdown until a vaccine is developed (impossible) that there will be a spike. They're advocating for "18 months of lockdown", which is so hilariously unfeasible as to make one wonder if they were really trying to say "fuck it everyone, just get it and hope for the best".


----------



## narad

Cynicanal said:


> The London Royal College (which is what the efforts have been based on) has been saying that unless we keep a constant lockdown until a vaccine is developed (impossible) that there will be a spike. They're advocating for "18 months of lockdown", which is so hilariously unfeasible as to make one wonder if they were really trying to say "fuck it everyone, just get it and hope for the best".



Well, that's an art school, so maybe you shouldn't trust them.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Cynicanal said:


> It's not a "survival of the fittest wet dream" -- I have asthma, I've already accepted the fact that I'm probably dying in the next few months. Flattening the curve won't work, as long as there's one person out there who is contagious then we're going to get a spike as soon as any restrictions are lifted. It's lockdown forever or let everyone with complications die; those are the options.



You're still not getting it.

The problem isn't that COVID19 is incredibly deadly. The issue is that it spread faster than we can test, treat, and isolate. We just didn't have either the assets or leadership to make those three things happen on this scale.

The goal isn't to make it so no one gets Coronavirus. That ship has long since sailed. 

The goal is to reduce the stream of people who need significant medical intervention. Right now, the system is overloaded, which is leading to negative outcomes. Once some of the pressure is relieved, there will be more time and resources to take care of the more critical patients, and even stop some of the worse cases from getting to that point. 

The fact is, it's just as difficult from a logistics standpoint to "just let folks die" as it is to take care and flatten the curve.


----------



## Cynicanal

Read this:https://www.technologyreview.com/s/...e0217a8ff9d63031e7d096686458&regi_id=90791928

As soon as you release controls, you'll have the same spike, unless you have a vaccine. It doesn't matter that you locked down for a month; as soon as you leave lockdown, you'll get the exact spike in cases you tried to prevent. There is no "flatten the curve"; there's just "push the spike out at huge cost".


----------



## narad

We don't currently understand much about how likely / how easily it will be for covid-19 to reinfect people. The whole flattening the curve push assumes some improved defense against acquiring the virus a second time -- which would be completely inline with what we know about existing coronaviruses:


_"We don't know very much," says Matt Frieman, a coronavirus researcher at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. "I think there's a very likely scenario where the virus comes through this year, and everyone gets some level of immunity to it, and if it comes back again, we will be protected from it — either completely or if you do get reinfected later, a year from now, then you have much less disease."

"That is the hope," he adds. "But there is no way to know that."

Researchers do know that reinfection is an issue with the four seasonal coronaviruses that cause about 10 to 30% of common colds. These coronaviruses seem to be able to sicken people again and again, even though people have been exposed to them since childhood.

"Almost everybody walking around, if you were to test their blood right now, they would have some levels of antibody to the four different coronaviruses that are known," says Ann Falsey of the University of Rochester Medical Center.

After infection with one of these viruses, she says, antibodies are produced but then the levels slowly decline and people become susceptible again.

"Most respiratory viruses only give you a period of relative protection. I'm talking about a year or two. That's what we know about the seasonal coronaviruses," says Falsey._

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsa...y-after-recovering-from-a-case-of-coronavirus


----------



## c7spheres

Trump has a good feeling that this malaria treatment could be a game changer. Hopefully they're onto something. Apparently it shows promise once you've got it, but no indication of being preventative or of any long term effects.


----------



## fantom

Flappydoodle said:


> Make no mistake, this is the inevitable outcome of this. Some governments are just reaching the conclusion faster than others. Some are taking highly aggressive actions. Others are doing almost nothing.
> 
> This shutdown is costing governments and people billions and billions every day. And it's true that this virus takes out the oldest and weakest among us. Someone is running the calculations to see whether saving X amount of people is worth Y cost. And let's be brutally honest, it isn't worth crashing the entire economy, having 20% unemployment etc (all the things that come with it, like crime, looting etc), just to save the 70+ age group who are a net drain by the ends of their lives. If this virus affected children, that would be different.
> 
> It's easy for you to say "affecting his social and economic state" in a dismissive way, but that's extremely important for society and civilisation. Most people do not have savings, and so closing businesses means no money, means rent and bills can't be paid. And that passes up the chain, so the landlord can't afford the mortgage, and the banks run out of money etc etc. If banks go down, this becomes worse than 2008.
> 
> And what's the long-term strategy? Vaccine is ~12 months way to develop and test, and probably 2 years before it's widely administered, even to the at-risk groups. Are we supposed to stay locked down until then? Even if that works for some countries and they reduce their cases, are they supposed to keep closed borders forever? Otherwise, people bring in the virus again and it starts again.
> 
> The ONLY long-term viable strategy is to let it infect everybody and accept the consequences. Way too late to put the genie back into the bottle at this point.



For the sake of discussion... who are you judge who is weak and who deserves to live? I'll be a bit brutally honest here, people who don't have emergency savings and can't find work for a few months are just as weak in society as elderly people. I would rather hospitals start taking money from the highest bidder and let uninsured people with no money die.

Am I being sarcastic or as apathetic as you? I'll let you decide.


----------



## lurè

I'm leaving this article about the trend of spreading of the virus: https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest

Basically the trend is the same for every country. 
Death percentage doesn't mean much since is calculated on the number of confirmed cases but there's a large number of people who get the virus but are not tested simply because shows no symptoms or very mild symptoms.
Some studies speculate that for every confirmed case there could be up to 10 positive non confirmed; if you take that into consideration the percentage remains constant for almost every country.


----------



## sleewell

c7spheres said:


> Trump has a good feeling that this malaria treatment could be a game changer. Hopefully they're onto something. Apparently it shows promise once you've got it, but no indication of being preventative or of any long term effects.



Except the doctor who was standing right behind him got up after and said the opposite.


----------



## Adieu

Cynicanal said:


> The London Royal College (which is what the efforts have been based on) has been saying that unless we keep a constant lockdown until a vaccine is developed (impossible) that there will be a spike. They're advocating for "18 months of lockdown", which is so hilariously unfeasible as to make one wonder if they were really trying to say "fuck it everyone, just get it and hope for the best".



After 18 months of "lockdown", developed countries with their service&finance-based economies will have devolved back to the stone age... minus the edible mammoths or mastodons or whatnot.

And once you start eating the neighbors, more new fun diseases will begin to circulate


----------



## Viginez

as always, we only seem to worry about the consequences and little about the cause and future prevention.
eventually there will be some meds against this virus, but what stops countries like china from producing another one and hide it?


----------



## Adieu

Viginez said:


> as always, we only seem to worry about the consequences and little about the cause and future prevention.
> eventually there will be some meds against this virus, but what stops countries like china from producing another one and hide it?



China? Hardly.

If it's anyone's bid to take over the world, I'd nominate Amazon as the likelier candidate


----------



## lurè

Viginez said:


> as always, we only seem to worry about the consequences and little about the cause and future prevention.
> eventually there will be some meds against this virus, but what stops countries like china from producing another one and hide it?



The fact that there are better ways to create from scratch a virus that kills people. If this covid19 was just a bioweapon (which clearly isn't) would be very a very poor attempt.


----------



## Adieu

lurè said:


> The fact that there are better ways to create from scratch a virus that kills people. If this covid19 was just a bioweapon (which clearly isn't) would be very a very poor attempt.



Body count is so 20th century, though... a quality 21st century bioweapon might well aim to cause economic disruption, political upheaval, and social unrest instead.


----------



## Viginez

lurè said:


> The fact that there are better ways to create from scratch a virus that kills people. If this covid19 was just a bioweapon (which clearly isn't) would be very a very poor attempt.


poor attempt? yeah, we are doing just fine...
i didn't say it was intentional from china, but you can't expect transparency from them in such cases, which is enough to deliver a fatal blow to you economy


----------



## lurè

Viginez said:


> poor attempt? yeah, we are doing just fine...
> i didn't say it was intentional from china, but you can't expect transparency from them in such cases, which is enough to deliver a fatal blow to you economy


https://www.nature.com/articles/s41...1EHONk35Kbo5dxVepJmFzx32vXKvvMdjJ9Ruo#ref-CR8

If you expect transparency from a dictatorial country, well ….
I believe China has its guilts but not in actually producing the virus.




Adieu said:


> Body count is so 20th century, though... a quality 21st century bioweapon might well aim to cause economic disruption, political upheaval, and social unrest instead.



That's why USA and Russia have the last 2 samples of smallpox available on earth.


----------



## broj15

Adieu said:


> China? Hardly.
> 
> If it's anyone's bid to take over the world, I'd nominate Amazon as the likelier candidate



Funny that you mention Amazon... But my friend who was told he wouldn't be working until April 7th was told that his job was actually deemed "essential" because they currently have an order bound for a new Amazon warehouse in thier queue right now. Once again, profits before people.


----------



## ramses

Beautiful visualization of the spread by the NY Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage


----------



## efiltsohg

budda said:


> Canada is going to bail out oil and gas.
> 
> They don't need it, but we arent the best with our money either.


Western Canadian Select was $7 a barrel the other day. Nobody is working in oil and gas right now.



allheavymusic said:


> The virus could vanish today and this could still be much worse than 2008 for a lot of people.



^


----------



## efiltsohg

diagrammatiks said:


> Geographically wuhan is kinda similar to where Chicago is situated in the states.
> The airlines have been transitioning it to a major transportation hub for the last year or so. although that is probably not going to happen anymore.
> 
> at any rate, all the big tech companies send tons of people back and forth each day.
> 
> Also around 4-6 weeks ago since most of the school's are closed and most foreigners in china are teachers a lot of them were not working a lot of them left china to go back to Europe and the states. Whoops



not to mention thousands of Chinese international students returning to universities after visiting their families over Christmas break


----------



## efiltsohg

lurè said:


> I'm leaving this article about the trend of spreading of the virus: https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest
> 
> Basically the trend is the same for every country.
> Death percentage doesn't mean much since is calculated on the number of confirmed cases but there's a large number of people who get the virus but are not tested simply because shows no symptoms or very mild symptoms.
> Some studies speculate that for every confirmed case there could be up to 10 positive non confirmed; if you take that into consideration the percentage remains constant for almost every country.



the death percentage discrepancies also line up with the demographics infected in different countries (e.g. South Korea cases trend younger than average, Italy cases trend older than average)


----------



## KnightBrolaire

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/wh...lv3GCR1vhOY2Bns8jp5sNGl0Dzs9QWkRkzkcjBChn_CSY


----------



## D-Nasty

KnightBrolaire said:


> https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/wh...lv3GCR1vhOY2Bns8jp5sNGl0Dzs9QWkRkzkcjBChn_CSY



He says, "stay at home". I'm being forced to work in a place with over 100 people. The funny thing is the county where I work declared a state of emergency & prohibited more than 50 people to gather together but they didn't close businesses. How does that work?


----------



## spudmunkey

I keep going back,


Shredi Knight 777 said:


> He says, "stay at home". I'm being forced to work in a place with over 100 people. The funny thing is the county where I work declared a state of emergency & prohibited more than 50 people to gather together but they didn't close businesses. How does that work?



The thinking it: even if you can't do everything, cutting down the risk as much as is practical still helps everyone. You've still got a large group, but once you leave, if you've limited your outside exposure, it's spread is slowed (if not contained) outside of that group.


----------



## shadowlife

We've been hearing the same "next week will be bad" rhetoric since January.
When do you stop listening to people crying WOLF?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Shredi Knight 777 said:


> He says, "stay at home". I'm being forced to work in a place with over 100 people. The funny thing is the county where I work declared a state of emergency & prohibited more than 50 people to gather together but they didn't close businesses. How does that work?



Because, as a society, we've cast aside the structures that would genuinely help and instead propped up the ultra-wealthy. 

Our needs are quantifiable and incredibly basic (shelter, food, water, etc.) but there is no drive from above to make that available in the short-term directly. So instead, we fall back on huge corporations and slave labor and, unsurprisingly, it's not for the best. 

We can press a button and send a $4 million drone to drop a $500k bomb on a non-distinct group of brown people thousands of miles away, but getting some poor Americans some food and water is fucking impossible.


----------



## D-Nasty

MaxOfMetal said:


> Because, as a society, we've cast aside the structures that would genuinely help and instead propped up the ultra-wealthy.
> 
> Our needs are quantifiable and incredibly basic (shelter, food, water, etc.) but there is no drive from above to make that available in the short-term directly. So instead, we fall back on huge corporations and slave labor and, unsurprisingly, it's not for the best.
> 
> We can press a button and send a $4 million drone to drop a $500k bomb on a non-distinct group of brown people thousands of miles away, but getting some poor Americans some food and water is fucking impossible.



You're exactly right man. It's a goddamn abomination.


----------



## sighval

MaxOfMetal said:


> We can press a button and send a $4 million drone to drop a $500k bomb on a non-distinct group of brown people thousands of miles away, but getting some poor Americans some food and water is fucking impossible.



Easy there, someone is going to call you a commie for such unreasonable remarks.

Here in Poland it's still kinda slow, people try to stay at homes for the most part (aside from those who can't due to work), as of this moment we have ~700 confirmed cases (~22k were tested) and 8 deaths. I'm not overly optimistic though, as our health service is severely underfunded... and we kinda don't have enough doctors and nurses either, having most of the younger ones flee Poland soon after getting their diplomas for quite some time now.


----------



## efiltsohg

Shredi Knight 777 said:


> He says, "stay at home". I'm being forced to work in a place with over 100 people. The funny thing is the county where I work declared a state of emergency & prohibited more than 50 people to gather together but they didn't close businesses. How does that work?



my local govt says you can have over 50 people working in the same building but couldn't e.g. schedule a staff meeting with all of them


----------



## spudmunkey

shadowlife said:


> We've been hearing the same "next week will be bad" rhetoric since January.
> When do you stop listening to people crying WOLF?



I've not heard anyone reputable saying "next week". Definitely "it's likely coming" but haven't heard anything like "next week".


----------



## D-Nasty

spudmunkey said:


> I've not heard anyone reputable saying "next week". Definitely "it's likely coming" but haven't heard anything like "next week".



Then you haven't been looking. The Surgeon General of the United States said it! https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/23/health/us-coronavirus-updates-monday/index.html


----------



## spudmunkey

Shredi Knight 777 said:


> Then you haven't been looking. The Surgeon General of the United States said it! https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/23/health/us-coronavirus-updates-monday/index.html



OK, so literally today then. No wonder I haven't seen it since January.


----------



## shadowlife

spudmunkey said:


> OK, so literally today then. No wonder I haven't seen it since January.



Lol.

My post earlier was more of a general statement about the predictions of doom and gloom that people have been predicting since January, whether it's "next week", "the next two weeks", or "soon" etc

Meanwhile, we already know that it's spreading all over, and that the more people you test, the higher the numbers will be. No need to overreact, just like if you only tested 10 people and they all came back negative, you wouldn't declare that the crisis is over.

Stay safe and stay sane everyone.


----------



## sleewell

shadowlife said:


> We've been hearing the same "next week will be bad" rhetoric since January.
> When do you stop listening to people crying WOLF?




ummmmm the hospitals in Italy are overrun and they are just letting anyone over 60 die because they don't have the resources to treat them. 

what exactly is your definition of crying wolf???


----------



## Adieu

Shredi Knight 777 said:


> Then you haven't been looking. The Surgeon General of the United States said it! https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/23/health/us-coronavirus-updates-monday/index.html



Reputable?

Would Trump's SG even BELIEVE in such bizarre and novel biological theories like evolution, DNA, and these so-called 'viruses' ?


----------



## shadowlife

sleewell said:


> ummmmm the hospitals in Italy are overrun and they are just letting anyone over 60 die because they don't have the resources to treat them.
> 
> what exactly is your definition of crying wolf???



First, Italy is not the rest of the world.
It would serve people well to remember that.

Second, crying wolf is continually saying that "the worst is yet to come", with whatever words you want to use.
I'm here in the US epicenter of this thing, NYC, and I can tell you to stop believing what the media are feeding you.
The hospitals are not overrun, most people are doing as we are asked, by staying inside, keeping distance if we are out, and looking out for our elderly and other high-risk neighbors.

Your own particular reality may be different, I don't know your situation.
Stay safe.


----------



## thraxil

shadowlife said:


> The hospitals are not overrun, most people are doing as we are asked, by staying inside, keeping distance if we are out, and looking out for our elderly and other high-risk neighbors.



Good to hear that NYC is still doing OK. In London, they might not be "overrun", but it's already uncomfortably close. Hospitals here are seeing "new years' eve" level of activity 24/7 for the last week and still getting busier. One hospital has already run out of ICU beds: https://www.ft.com/content/2b5dc5fa-6ac9-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75

An aquaintance of mine (partner's ex-coworker) is headed to a hospital right now. No positive test result yet, but high fever, severe cough, and is starting to have trouble breathing. He's a generally healthy 40 year old (though he does smoke).


----------



## shadowlife

thraxil said:


> Good to hear that NYC is still doing OK. In London, they might not be "overrun", but it's already uncomfortably close. Hospitals here are seeing "new years' eve" level of activity 24/7 for the last week and still getting busier. One hospital has already run out of ICU beds: https://www.ft.com/content/2b5dc5fa-6ac9-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75
> 
> An aquaintance of mine (partner's ex-coworker) is headed to a hospital right now. No positive test result yet, but high fever, severe cough, and is starting to have trouble breathing. He's a generally healthy 40 year old (though he does smoke).



Wishing the best for your acquaintance.
We are in a similar situation with our hospitals- uncomfortably close. They are setting up makeshift treatment centers in preparation, hopefully those are completed and functional if the hospitals do start to reach maximum capacity.


----------



## spudmunkey

lo_wang said:


> You guys are acting like covid-19 is the number one killer in the world. What about all the other medical conditions people have and the help they will need when the hospitals are overrun with covid-19 cases.



Won't reducing the impact of a fast-moving illness go on help everyone else who needs the services of an otherwise-overburdoned health care system?


----------



## viifox

I went to a hospital just up the street from me 2 nights ago. Couldn't believe how quiet it was.

The media certainly likes to take the worst of the worst in attempt to make you think it's the standard. I'm sure it's hell in some places, but in others you'd never think a pandemic was in existence.

Side note, I'm seriously hoping that as it warms up, the virus will begin to die off. Viruses don't like the heat as much as i do.


----------



## viifox

lo_wang said:


> Are you willing to be locked down for months on end with no definitive end in sight? Anyway just something to think about.


Precisely. Being imprisoned in your own home for months on end isn't exactly living either.


----------



## IbanezDaemon

That's UK basically in lockdown now! I have to say I agree. People were still carrying on as normal to some extent. Seen lots of guys playing football and gathering in parks recently. It's the only way to get on top of this thing.


----------



## Ralyks

viifox said:


> Side note, I'm seriously hoping that as it warms up, the virus will begin to die off. Viruses don't like the heat as much as i do.



See, I was one of those people that believed it would change I’m with the weather. Then quickly realized, wait, this is in areas where it’s already hot as hell, too.


----------



## spudmunkey

lo_wang said:


> Why are they treating this virus different than any other flu season? Haven’t more people died from the common flu than this?



Because this virus is effectively "new". Unlike the typical seasonal flu, where you might already have at least some immunity to it, or where you can just get a flu shot and even if it's a different flu, you'll still have a reduced severity, generally...this type of RNA virus isn't like that. It spreads just as easily or easier than a typical flu, but nobody has any immunity to it. And it hasn't even really mutated yet, which this sort of virus often does. The challenge is that unlike typical yearly influenza, where we have years of models and predictions about how it acts, and know how to make vaccines for it, very little is known about this one. We just don't know.

Yes, more people have died from the flu. The point is that this, like SARS and MERS (which were both corona-type viruses), the reason they didn't spread further is that action was taken. People are trying to take action, but also...reazlize that there's no silver bullet. If you take action, it hurts people. If you don't, it'll also hurt people, but differently. Keep in mind that Swine Flu killed more people world-wide on its own than an entire typical flu season. And that was a virus that did fall in line quite a bit with normal flu patterns and vaccines.



lo_wang said:


> Are we going to isolate everyone every time there is a new flu virus that comes around? This isn’t looking good folks.



As the world polulation continues to increase, and as resources dwindle, I'm sure you're right. No doubt, a few decades from now, things are going to change big-time. The world population has almost doubled in just my time on it, and doubled the 40 years before that. There's surely a tipping point.


----------



## spudmunkey

So was lo_wang a previously-blocked member? I noticed he signed up just yesterday, and had his first three posts in the politics section, the first two of them being "You guys..." and "Don't you guys..." chest-poking posts.


----------



## Ralyks

spudmunkey said:


> So was lo_wang a previously-blocked member? I noticed he signed up just yesterday, and had his first three posts in the politics section, the first two of them being "You guys..." and "Don't you guys..." chest-poking posts.



You should see how often that happens in the other thread


----------



## viifox

Ralyks said:


> See, I was one of those people that believed it would change I’m with the weather. Then quickly realized, wait, this is in areas where it’s already hot as hell, too.


https://www.nbc4i.com/news/u-s-world/myth-busted-does-heat-kill-the-coronavirus/

I personally doubt that the heat is going to kill the virus right away. Give it some time. There's a reason flu season occurs during the coldest months.

The article also mentions that heat doesn't prevent viruses from spreading.


----------



## spudmunkey

That was something I was never clear on...when they say that heat slows down the flu/viruses, is it simply that higher temperatures mean that moisture evaporates more quickly, causing the virus to "dry out" and "die" more quickly in the air on and surfaces making it less likely to spread, or is there something else going on?


----------



## Aso

Is it only me that finds it odd that during nightly briefings, everyone makes sure to thank the president and VP before speaking? It just seems odd like they are showing fealty to them every time they get to speak. I don't remember this behavior being common in other administrations.


----------



## c7spheres

Aso said:


> Is it only me that finds it odd that during nightly briefings, everyone makes sure to thank the president and VP before speaking? It just seems odd like they are showing fealty to them every time they get to speak. I don't remember this behavior being common in other administrations.


 Honestly, I'm not noticing anything strange with that even though their doing it. I think it's been pretty normal in other administrations too. I don't even notice any subtle kowtow's or anything. Maybe I am missing something.


----------



## wankerness

6/7 of trumps hotels closed, so now he’s talking about cancelling all the health guidelines after only 15 days and killing millions so he can get the economy back on track. That chicken little guy in this thread who says millions will die anyway so we shouldn’t be trying to contain it is probably getting very turned on right now.

Italy is now letting anyone over 60 die in the bad areas, and EU countries are stealing medical shipments from each other. Things are great!

Oh, and Florida and Brazil are pretty definitively proving that heat isn’t going to save us.

we have to keep this shut down going until the medical supplies catch up to the outbreak. It’s too bad Trump’s now going back on everything thanks to his disgusting GOP slimeballs going all-out with the “we need to get back to work! Bad economy kills more than coronavirus!,” realizing that the only way to minimize lives lost would be with a complete refutation of their entire political manifesto. Payments to families, bailouts of people instead of corporations, universal healthcare, etc.

I would love to see stats on people killed by the Great Depression and the last recessions.


----------



## spudmunkey

As it stands, NYC (a city of 8,000,000) now has more confirmed cases than South korea did (a country of 50,000,000). South Korea also had large-scale testing to get to their number. In fact more tests were run in South Kora than any other nation, in cluding the US.


----------



## Walter W.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-vote-coronavirus-economic-stimulus-package-bill-2020-03-23


----------



## narad

wankerness said:


> 6/7 of trumps hotels closed



And now with this whole coronavirus thing going on, I'm frankly worried about the last one


----------



## Cynicanal

wankerness said:


> 6/7 of trumps hotels closed, so now he’s talking about cancelling all the health guidelines after only 15 days and killing millions so he can get the economy back on track. That chicken little guy in this thread who says millions will die anyway so we shouldn’t be trying to contain it is probably getting very turned on right now.
> 
> Italy is now letting anyone over 60 die in the bad areas, and EU countries are stealing medical shipments from each other. Things are great!
> 
> Oh, and Florida and Brazil are pretty definitively proving that heat isn’t going to save us.
> 
> we have to keep this shut down going until the medical supplies catch up to the outbreak. It’s too bad Trump’s now going back on everything thanks to his disgusting GOP slimeballs going all-out with the “we need to get back to work! Bad economy kills more than coronavirus!,” realizing that the only way to minimize lives lost would be with a complete refutation of their entire political manifesto. Payments to families, bailouts of people instead of corporations, universal healthcare, etc.
> 
> I would love to see stats on people killed by the Great Depression and the last recessions.


The fact that Italy is letting anyone over 60 die should tell you that the measures aren't working. No human action will help; this is bigger than us. It's time for those who are likely to have complications to accept their lot and start writing their wills.

Medical supplies will never catch up to the outbreak. We literally can't stay shutdown until that point; that point is never coming. The sooner everyone faces the music, the better off society will be.


----------



## Walter W.

Cynicanal said:


> It's time for those who are likely to have complications to accept their lot and start writing their wills.



Give us all a fucking break with this weak minded bullshit. I'll fight to the the death!


----------



## wankerness

Seriously. Can we ban that one man death cult already? He’s exhausting. I guess that’s what ignore is for.


----------



## shadowlife

A much as I'm not advocating "let them die", he is making a valid point.

At what moment do you say "the measures we are taking to fight this thing aren't working, and will end up causing more harm than good", and move to Plan B.
Is there even a Plan B?

That's what worries me most of all.

There are no easy answers here. This is really a test of the human race, in many ways.


----------



## narad

shadowlife said:


> A much as I'm not advocating "let them die", he is making a valid point.
> 
> At what moment do you say "the measures we are taking to fight this thing aren't working, and will end up causing more harm than good", and move to Plan B.
> Is there even a Plan B?
> 
> That's what worries me most of all.
> 
> There are no easy answers here. This is really a test of the human race, in many ways.



He is not making a valid point. Hospitals in Italy are overrun because they did not take any measures until it was too late. It is not in any way a reflection on the effectiveness of social distancing, especially in areas that enacted it prior to 2 weeks of people walking around spreading it unnoticed.


----------



## c7spheres

I knew they'd try something. They always do.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...end-constitutional-rights-coronavirus-970935/


----------



## StevenC

viifox said:


> I went to a hospital just up the street from me 2 nights ago. Couldn't believe how quiet it was.
> 
> The media certainly likes to take the worst of the worst in attempt to make you think it's the standard. I'm sure it's hell in some places, but in others you'd never think a pandemic was in existence.
> 
> Side note, I'm seriously hoping that as it warms up, the virus will begin to die off. Viruses don't like the heat as much as i do.


Hi yes, hospitals are way quieter all over right now because people are being told not to go out. People who don't go out of their houses have away lower chance of ending up in an emergency room. The other thing is hospitals are now rushing patients out the door as fast as they can to make beds for covid patients and keep vulnerable recoverees away from covid.

The likelihood is that the summer will have some respite from the virus and then it'll be back over the autumn and winter. How many seasons this takes is the real question right now.


----------



## fantom

Just to silence any of the "man-made" and "weaponized" gibberish I saw from conspiracy spewing 2 pages back... This took less than 5 minutes to find and skim through. It definitely was not a man-made virus.


https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9



> Thus, the high-affinity binding of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to human ACE2 is most likely the result of natural selection on a human or human-like ACE2 that permits another optimal binding solution to arise. This is strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is not the product of purposeful manipulation.


----------



## USMarine75

Cynicanal said:


> The fact that Italy is letting anyone over 60 die should tell you that the measures aren't working. No human action will help; this is bigger than us. It's time for those who are likely to have complications to accept their lot and start writing their wills.
> 
> Medical supplies will never catch up to the outbreak. We literally can't stay shutdown until that point; that point is never coming. The sooner everyone faces the music, the better off society will be.





Walter W. said:


> Give us all a fucking break with this weak minded bullshit. I'll fight to the the death!





wankerness said:


> Seriously. Can we ban that one man death cult already? He’s exhausting. I guess that’s what ignore is for.


----------



## wankerness

shadowlife said:


> A much as I'm not advocating "let them die", he is making a valid point.
> 
> At what moment do you say "the measures we are taking to fight this thing aren't working, and will end up causing more harm than good", and move to Plan B.
> Is there even a Plan B?
> 
> That's what worries me most of all.
> 
> There are no easy answers here. This is really a test of the human race, in many ways.



quantify “more harm than millions of death.” Do you think money is more important than lives? This sentiment makes me nauseous. The republicans are out in force with it. There’s not historical evidence that a depression leads to an increase in mortality.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scie...on-had-little-effect-on-death-rates-46713514/

plus, do you people really think the economy is going to recover if hospitals collapse and people are being dumped in mass graves like they’re doing in Iran? If we go back to work on Monday we will be vastly worse off than Italy.


----------



## blacai

So scary and sad reading people spreading the "let old people die" ...
The value of a society is defined by how you treat the weaker. It is clear what's the value of some societies.


----------



## USMarine75

wankerness said:


> quantify “more harm than millions of death.” Do you think money is more important than lives? This sentiment makes me nauseous. The republicans are out in force with it. There’s not historical evidence that a depression leads to an increase in mortality.
> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scie...on-had-little-effect-on-death-rates-46713514/
> 
> plus, do you people really think the economy is going to recover if hospitals collapse and people are being dumped in mass graves like they’re doing in Iran? If we go back to work on Monday we will be vastly worse off than Italy.



Right? The economy of Europe was fantastic in 1347.



blacai said:


> So scary and sad reading people spreading the "let old people die" ...
> The value of a society is defined by how you treat the weaker. It is clear what's the value of some _assholes_.



*fixed


----------



## penguin_316

I don’t think people realize that this has the potential to remain with us for years if we go the route of social distancing etc.

You can’t fight something invisible for an indeterminate amount of time. Everyone is going to eventually get the virus, there is a good chance we will be back in the stone ages after the long quarantines.

Getting the economy started isn’t about money, it’s about quality of life. The funniest thing is, the people saying “he’s letting people die” are going to be the first ones to complain when they don’t have cable tv, restaurants, public entertainment events.


----------



## penguin_316

Flattening the curve is great and all, until you find out it extends the crisis into infinity. A virus can’t slow down and die off if there are active carriers across the country.

let’s not even talk about repeat infections.

Ben Shapiro recently had a show about all of this and it was really interesting.


----------



## blacai

Well, actually the first ones to complain about losing all those things are the people asking for the "let them die" 
I am sorry, but I would not accept health advice from a country that let people go bankrupt because of cancer treatment, diabetes ...


----------



## broj15

Ayyy first death in my city today. She was only 31... Still y'all, we should proceed with business as usual, cuz its only gonna pose a serious threat to the elderly right? I mean we're all gonna die any ways so fuck it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


----------



## penguin_316

So $25 for a vial of insulin from Walmart makes people bankrupt (no prescription needed)?

American medicine is expensive because we have the best trained professionals. If you want free health care then you can go to Canada and wait in line for that heart transplant. I don’t think you’re going to live that long though.

There are always ups and downs to any argument regarding healthcare and it’s cost. If I have cancer for example, I’m going to MD Anderson or Mayo Clinic whatever the cost, not a third world country where the care is cheap. I want to live.


----------



## narad

penguin_316 said:


> I don’t think people realize that this has the potential to remain with us for years if we go the route of social distancing etc.
> 
> You can’t fight something invisible for an indeterminate amount of time.



That's why we develop fast and mass-produced test kits. There's already tests with less than an hour turnaround in the emergency approval process. If everyone had access to a covid test with the same accessibility that we do to a pregnancy test, it would be easy to identify and quarantine infected people, and generally get back to life as usual, with hospitals continually treating people below their capacity.



penguin_316 said:


> Ben Shapiro recently had a show about all of this and it was really interesting.



Ben Shapiro's taking time from his dayjob as shitty political commentator to moonlight as a shitty doctor now?


----------



## penguin_316

I keep hearing reports of middle aged people passing away from it as well. I just want to ask you though, how long do you think we all have to stay at home until it’s safe again? Think months and years, not days or weeks.


----------



## penguin_316

Test kits for all, huh? That’s a pipe dream. Forget the expense associated with testing 7+ billion people, there an several logistical constraints as well.

I didn’t say Ben Shapiro is the greatest or always relevant. However, the recent show he did regarding the quarantine efforts and the effects was quite interesting.


----------



## narad

penguin_316 said:


> Test kits for all, huh? That’s a pipe dream. Forget the expense associated with testing 7+ billion people, there an several logistical constraints as well.



If you took what I said and thought it implied testing 7 billion people, then, what can I say? That's not acceptable logic.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

penguin_316 said:


> So $25 for a vial of insulin from Walmart makes people bankrupt (no prescription needed)?



The "$25 Walmart insulin" is an older form of insulin (human, not analog) that not all diabetics can take. 

Not going to bother with the rest. It's so absurd it's not even worth quoting.


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

"I'm a nasty moths fucker!" Nah, you're an arrested mother fucker, you brainless twit. Enjoy jail.







(EDIT: Since this might be too vague, a video of someone -- I know the name, but I'm not sharing it; you can find it if so inclined -- licking a bunch of deodorant. It went viral, they contacted the police, and the police in a couple jurisdictions worked to getting this shitbag arrested. Hope they lock this clown up for at least a couple months and maybe he learns his lesson. Crime doesn't pay, and neither does being a gross disgusting slime ball.)


----------



## penguin_316

MaxOfMetal said:


> The "$25 Walmart insulin" is an older form of insulin (human, not analog) that not all diabetics can take.
> 
> Not going to bother with the rest. It's so absurd it's not even worth quoting.


Ok, it’s not a fix for everyone but it does help the majority. Way to pick and choose.



narad said:


> If you took what I said and thought it implied testing 7 billion people, then, what can I say? That's not acceptable logic.


So we’re only testing the privileged? Ok, which humans are “good enough” to deserve testing? If you meant Americans there are over 330+ million approximately. Darn, those pesky logistics are rearing their head again.

The social distancing narrative is to stall for time. It is in no way a cure or a fix all. Who’s going to be first in line for the rush job vaccine they will roll out next year? Show of hands?


----------



## blacai

Yes, there are nice people everywhere

https://www.dw.com/en/german-man-licks-ticket-machine-to-spread-coronavirus/a-52887069


----------



## c7spheres

All these idiot spring breakers and beach people out there should be allowed to do it. Just bring a human cannon ball cannon and tell them it's a ride/attraction and just start shooting them off into the ocean. They'll be so drunk anyways they won't notice what happened until the next morning when they wake up in their hotel all hungover and are like "hey, what happened to Johnny?" By that time Johnny will have been fish food.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

penguin_316 said:


> Ok, it’s not a fix for everyone but it does help the majority. Way to pick and choose.



You're the one picking and choosing. Folks die and wind up in the hospital because of either relying on and self administering human insulin or not being able to afford the drug they actually need. Full stop.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vo...lth/2019/4/10/18302238/insulin-walmart-relion

https://diabetesvoice.org/en/diabetes-views/relion-insulin-dangerous-for-type-1-diabetes/

Not being able to pay for healthcare is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States.

https://www.apexedi.com/medical-bills-the-leading-cause-of-bankruptcy-in-the-united-states/

But back to insulin. Your $25 miracle drug, can take 6 vials a month, or $150. That's without test strips, meter, etc.

When folks barely have $400 in the bank, that's still a significant expenditure.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/US/10-americans-struggle-cover-400-emergency-expense-federal/story?id=63253846

I guess what I'm saying, is that there's more going on than the dull, unsourced, emotionally appealing conservative talking points meant to prop up entrenched healthcare industry actors who are looking to make a buck off of human suffering.

Is $25 prescription-free insulin a good thing? The jury is out on that, as it just came out February of last year, and didn't reach widespread availability till that summer.


----------



## thraxil

penguin_316 said:


> American medicine is expensive because we have the best trained professionals. If you want free health care then you can go to Canada and wait in line for that heart transplant. I don’t think you’re going to live that long though.



Have you had any experience with health care in Canada or Europe or anywhere outside the US?

I'm an American and have lived in the Netherlands and now live in the UK and have a lot of experience with all three of those systems. I watched my aunt die in the US after incompetent doctors ("the best trained professionals") treated her like a number rather than a human and ignored her complaints until it was too late to save her because they hadn't bothered writing the symptoms down in her chart. In the process, she accumulated about $80k of medical costs, which pretty much wiped out her estate. I've seen ER waiting times in New York in the 8 hour range with people in excruciating pain. My sister went through bankruptcy after medical bills from a MRSA infection that she picked up in a hospital (I don't know the exact total because she was pretty embarassed about the whole situation and she wasn't in great financial shape anyway). My English friend back in NYC would occasionally book plane tickets and fly home to see NHS doctors for free because even though she had insurance in the US, trans-atlantic flights were cheaper and faster for her to get decent care than seeing a doctor in the US. My Dutch dentist *laughed* at the dental work I'd had done in the US and then charged about a tenth of what dental work in the US cost me. A UK doctor diagnosed in one visit my partner's chronic condition that US doctors ("the best trained professionals") had passed over for her entire life and allowed her to see actual improvement instead of temporary relief from symptoms. It cost her basically nothing. It took her a couple weeks to get an appointment with a specialist, but that's pretty much on par with how long it takes in the US. In fairness, our British friends tell us that the NHS *used* to be much better, but has suffered from decades of the Tories stripping funding.

I'm sorry, but I keep seeing Americans defending the health care system there and painting socialized systems like in Canada and Northern Europe as poor quality and slow, without any direct experience. Everything I've *seen* with my own eyes contradicts that view. I'm sure you can find counterexamples and there are some top tier specialists in the US. Nothing in the European system prevents anyone from paying out of pocket to go see those specialists. None of my European friends (and espeically those who've had any encounters at all with US health care) would trade places.


----------



## sleewell

AZ man dies after taking the malaria drug trump said would treat covid. Even though a Dr immediately after trump said that it was a bad idea they did it anyway bc trump said it. 

#maga


----------



## MaxOfMetal

sleewell said:


> AZ man dies after taking the malaria drug trump said would treat covid. Even though a Dr immediately after trump said that it was a bad idea they did it anyway bc trump said it.
> 
> #maga



Surely to own the libs.


----------



## narad

sleewell said:


> AZ man dies after taking the malaria drug trump said would treat covid. Even though a Dr immediately after trump said that it was a bad idea they did it anyway bc trump said it.
> 
> #maga








Man needs COVID injections to live!


----------



## lurè

penguin_316 said:


> American medicine is expensive because we have the best trained professionals. If you want free health care then you can go to Canada and wait in line for that heart transplant. I don’t think you’re going to live that long though.



One of the most important points in determining how good an healthcare system is, is not how well trained are doctors but the ease and equality of access to cures for patients.
If you look at the best healthcare system charts, all top positions are taken by countries with free healthcare.


----------



## narad

penguin_316 said:


> So we’re only testing the privileged? Ok, which humans are “good enough” to deserve testing? If you meant Americans there are over 330+ million approximately. Darn, those pesky logistics are rearing their head again.



No, I'm not advocating all Americans get tested either. I'm advocating high-risk people have convenient access to testing. 

This is more-or-less how Korea managed to get things under control. By frequent testing you can identify clusters, and order self quarantines of those who have close contact with those people even without testing them. This is more-or-less how Japan managed to get things under control. You don't need a huge number of tests to understand the movements of the virus, just some basic math, graph theory, probability theory, etc.


----------



## diagrammatiks

if there's one take away from this thread...
some people are fucking. 
or like 14 years old.


----------



## sleewell

diagrammatiks said:


> some people are fucking.



+1

some people are fucking. yes, that is true.

i would guess its prolly not many in this thread but there are def some people out there who are fucking.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

sleewell said:


> i would guess its prolly not many in this thread



Burrrrrrrrnnnnnnn.


----------



## diagrammatiks

sleewell said:


> +1
> 
> some people are fucking. yes, that is true.
> 
> i would guess its prolly not many in this thread but there are def some people out there who are fucking.



damn clumsy fingers.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

sleewell said:


> AZ man dies after taking the malaria drug trump said would treat covid. Even though a Dr immediately after trump said that it was a bad idea they did it anyway bc trump said it.
> 
> #maga


He didn't even take the right drug. He ate fucking chloroquine phosphate, which is used for treating parasites in fish. Hydroxychloroquine is the correct drug lol


----------



## MaxOfMetal

A symptomatic Rand Paul, a medical doctor, while awaiting a Coronavirus test, did not inform his staff/aides that he might be infected, nor did he take any precautions to minimize spreading the virus. 

What a dipshit.


----------



## USMarine75

MaxOfMetal said:


> A symptomatic Rand Paul, a medical doctor, while awaiting a Coronavirus test, did not inform his staff/aides that he might be infected, nor did he take any precautions to minimize spreading the virus.
> 
> What a dipshit.



A selfish and terrible human being... and a worse “doctor”.

Then again, this is the party of Michelle Bachmann, Jim Inhoff, and Steve King we’re talking about. Legendary anti-intellectualism, dumbassery, and douchebaggery.

I dislike and disagree with many Democrats, but I loathe these people.


----------



## USMarine75

We got a COVID-19 meme thread going yet or what?


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

sleewell said:


> +1
> 
> some people are fucking. yes, that is true.
> 
> i would guess its prolly not many in this thread but there are def some people out there who are fucking.


Well you got me there.


----------



## vilk

MaxOfMetal said:


> A symptomatic Rand Paul, a medical doctor, while awaiting a Coronavirus test, did not inform his staff/aides that he might be infected, nor did he take any precautions to minimize spreading the virus.
> 
> What a dipshit.


Is that not some violation of the Hippocratic Oath? I wonder if he could lose his medical license.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

Meanwhile here in Washington state. The Guv’ner placed us on a “stay at home” order. Meaning essential business can stay open and non-essentials are closed. Says it’s for a minimum of two weeks. It’s going to affect my girlfriend, who is a florist. However myself I work in the health and wellness industry, which is deemed essential. So we have reduced our hours and taken measures to try and reduce contact. I am still getting people come right smack dab in my face, to which I take a step back (sometimes more than a couple). Which has offended a couple people so far, but at this point it’s like whatever fuck them.


----------



## possumkiller

blacai said:


> So scary and sad reading people spreading the "let old people die" ...
> The value of a society is defined by how you treat the weaker. It is clear what's the value of some societies.


It's not going to be as easy as just "let them die". They're going to have to start hunting down and killing the weakest people if they want to keep this stuff from spreading everywhere and protect the economy.

Besides, they just said in the US that old people would rather die than hurt the economy anyway. You'd be doing them a favor by sparing them suffering.

The problem would be disposing of all the bodies. We would have to figure out a way to cremate bodies on an industrial scale. 


/s


----------



## broj15

So we're under a stay at home order now as of 6pm yesterday, but restaurants and bars are still aloud to do carryout for some reason? So to me it sounds like they're saying "yeah there's a stay at home order in effect, but nothing else has really changed, but still you should stay at home unless you really don't want to. In which case just keep doing whatever the fuck you wanna do." 

The vast majority of Americans are so fucking dumb and self obsessed that they probably won't realize the gravity of the situation until thier favorite actor, pop star, or rapper dies. Maybe then they'll start taking this seriously.


----------



## TedEH

We got a an official list of what's allowed to stay open today -> basically a list of what Ontario and Quebec have deemed essential.

This inevitably led to a bunch of arguments about what does or doesn't count based on the phrasing on the lists.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

TedEH said:


> We got a an official list of what's allowed to stay open today -> basically a list of what Ontario and Quebec have deemed essential.
> 
> This inevitably led to a bunch of arguments about what does or doesn't count based on the phrasing on the lists.


Weed stores are open here in Washington. Have you ever experienced a pandemic, on weeed?


----------



## spudmunkey

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> Weed stores are open here in Washington. Have you ever experienced a pandemic, on weeed?



I don't imbibe, but that sounds like a terrible idea.


----------



## blacai

possumkiller said:


> It's not going to be as easy as just "let them die". They're going to have to start hunting down and killing the weakest people if they want to keep this stuff from spreading everywhere and protect the economy.
> 
> Besides, they just said in the US that old people would rather die than hurt the economy anyway. You'd be doing them a favor by sparing them suffering.
> 
> The problem would be disposing of all the bodies. We would have to figure out a way to cremate bodies on an industrial scale.
> 
> 
> /s


This is already happening in "third world countries" with "free" healthcare system. Doctors already have to choose when they don't have resources between saving a 30 yo man and a 75 yo grandma.

A friend of mine is working in a Hospital in Madrid and he has to triage everyday around 50/100 people and decice which one would survive or not. I would not be able to do that. He works almost 14 hours every day since this began.

What the covfefe and co. are talking about is about continue as nothing happens and let the rich and young with enough money to survive. I will not buy that.
I am happy I live in a country where my 45% monthly taxes help people to survive even when I am a 34 yo fit guy with a good job and who didn't need to go to the doctor in the last two years....


----------



## spudmunkey

broj15 said:


> So we're under a stay at home order now as of 6pm yesterday, but restaurants and bars are still aloud to do carryout for some reason? So to me it sounds like they're saying "yeah there's a stay at home order in effect, but nothing else has really changed, but still you should stay at home unless you really don't want to. In which case just keep doing whatever the fuck you wanna do.



A shit ton of people depend on restaurants/places that provide prepared meals. By still allowing take-out, you've got, what...3-6 people standing outside for a minue while the meal is brought out, standing apart from each other while they wait, then they leave...rather than a room full of people together touching everything near them, for an hour or more. 

Bars, though? That, i don't get. I mean....*technically* you can die from alchohol withdrawl...

But every business at which i've done a pick-up (except target) has not allowed me to come inside: they bring the order out to you (no, I'm not doing restaurants).


----------



## shadowlife

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> Meanwhile here in Washington state. The Guv’ner placed us on a “stay at home” order. Meaning essential business can stay open and non-essentials are closed. Says it’s for a minimum of two weeks. It’s going to affect my girlfriend, who is a florist. However myself I work in the health and wellness industry, which is deemed essential. So we have reduced our hours and taken measures to try and reduce contact. I am still getting people come right smack dab in my face, to which I take a step back (sometimes more than a couple). Which has offended a couple people so far, but at this point it’s like whatever fuck them.



Damn man, stay safe! I'd be giving them a few choice words after I stepped away.


----------



## Cyanide_Anima

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> Meanwhile here in Washington state. The Guv’ner placed us on a “stay at home” order. Meaning essential business can stay open and non-essentials are closed. Says it’s for a minimum of two weeks. It’s going to affect my girlfriend, who is a florist. However myself I work in the health and wellness industry, which is deemed essential. So we have reduced our hours and taken measures to try and reduce contact. I am still getting people come right smack dab in my face, to which I take a step back (sometimes more than a couple). Which has offended a couple people so far, but at this point it’s like whatever fuck them.



I'm in WA as well. In the defense sector, also considered essential. There are hundreds of people in one building here. But if you look at the industry types on the list it seems there are more deemed essential than not in WA. This order is not going to help much in reducing the spread here.


----------



## diagrammatiks

spudmunkey said:


> A shit ton of people depend on restaurants/places that provide prepared meals. By still allowing take-out, you've got, what...3-6 people standing outside for a minue while the meal is brought out, standing apart from each other while they wait, then they leave...rather than a room full of people together touching everything near them, for an hour or more.
> 
> Bars, though? That, i don't get. I mean....*technically* you can die from alchohol withdrawl...
> 
> But every business at which i've done a pick-up (except target) has not allowed me to come inside: they bring the order out to you (no, I'm not doing restaurants).



I know some places like Philly always had take out drinks at bars. I thought it was weird.


----------



## spudmunkey

diagrammatiks said:


> I know some places like Philly always had take out drinks at bars. I thought it was weird.




I know in CA they loosened the restrictions and temporarily are allowing alchohol deliveries (with food, i think...but I might be mistaken)


----------



## ThePIGI King

broj15 said:


> So we're under a stay at home order now as of 6pm yesterday, but restaurants and bars are still aloud to do carryout for some reason? So to me it sounds like they're saying "yeah there's a stay at home order in effect, but nothing else has really changed, but still you should stay at home unless you really don't want to. In which case just keep doing whatever the fuck you wanna do."
> 
> The vast majority of Americans are so fucking dumb and self obsessed that they probably won't realize the gravity of the situation until thier favorite actor, pop star, or rapper dies. Maybe then they'll start taking this seriously.


Not sure how many know this, but a stay at home "order" does not mean the police or government can prosecute or do anything punitive towards people that don't stay home. It's still a free country here in USA. #FourMoreYears

Like in Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine has us on a stay at home. But to me that means very little. I'm only staying at home because I hate people anyways and most my hobbies are isolated anyways.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> Not sure how many know this, but a stay at home "order" does not mean the police or government can prosecute or do anything punitive towards people that don't stay home. It's still a free country here in USA. #FourMoreYears
> 
> Like in Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine has us on a stay at home. But to me that means very little. I'm only staying at home because I hate people anyways and most my hobbies are isolated anyways.



Yeah, it's more of a directive aimed at businesses to allow their employees to not show up to work.

What we're seeing is, in pure crony capitalistic fashion, that just about any business/sector that throws some money around at election time can be classified as "essential" and thus not willingly let employees not show up.

In Wisconsin (and much of the US) liquor stores are being classified similarly to "grocery stores", even though they're plainly not. It's just that folks are drinking a ton right now as travel is restricted and they can stay home, so liquor stores, distilleries, breweries, etc. have a vested interest in staying open and flow cash to politicians to grease the wheels.

Off topic, but by "four more years" and "free country", do you mean four more years of trying to strip _actual constitutional rights_ away from people?

https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...end-constitutional-rights-coronavirus-970935/


----------



## TedEH

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> Weed stores are open here in Washington. Have you ever experienced a pandemic, on weeed?


They're on the list of essentials in Ontario and Quebec. While I'd like to disagree on some level that these are essential, I think this would be a really terrible time to take people's vices away from them. The whole isolation thing is hard enough on people as it is.


----------



## tedtan

ThePIGI King said:


> Not sure how many know this, but a stay at home "order" does not mean the police or government can prosecute or do anything punitive towards people that don't stay home.



Here in Galveston County, TX, the the order provides for criminal penalties and up to $1,000 fine for going outside other than for essentials, thought the definition of essentials is pretty loose.




TedEH said:


> They're on the list of essentials in Ontario and Quebec. While I'd like to disagree on some level that these are essential, I think this would be a really terrible time to take people's vices away from them. The whole isolation thing is hard enough on people as it is.



For vices, sure, but for people using for legit medical purposes, it could be considered an legitimate essential.


----------



## TedEH

In either case, taking it away would be a negative.


----------



## sleewell

do we really want people less high right now? shit i would think part of the 2 trillion stimulus package should include a pound of sticky for each tax paying family.


----------



## Demiurge

The dispensary in town is closed for "adult use" and will be medical use only until April. Of course, their website has links for services which will get you a card, for those who can't wait until 4/20 for 420.


----------



## broj15

I just feel like alot of people are defining "essential" business pretty loosely. When I think essential business I think grocery stores, gas stations (though I wouldn't set foot in one right now), pharmacies & other medical care facilities, banks, post offices, and any truly essential interstate trade. 
Social distancing is a cool buzzword and all, but really the solution is for people to STAY AT HOME. Even if you didn't have "close contact" with anyone it's well established that the virus can live on surfaces for long periods of time. Try your best, but you're gonna touch something everytime you go out in public. Do you know who's touched it before you? Do you know the last time it was disinfected? Or alternatively, ask yourself this: if you tested positive for covid 19 today and the doctor asked you to list off everywhere you'd been in the past 2-5 days how would you feel then?


----------



## spudmunkey

broj15 said:


> I just feel like alot of people are defining "essential" business pretty loosely. When I think essential business I think grocery stores, gas stations (though I wouldn't set foot in one right now), pharmacies & other medical care facilities, banks, post offices, and any truly essential interstate trade.



That's how most states have defined it, too, but most people are somehow interpreting it differently.


----------



## TedEH

sleewell said:


> do we really want people less high right now?


That's not a yes or no question. I tend to be of the opinion that a crisis is better handled sober. At the same time, if that it's the way to keep people happy and indoors, then that's fine.


----------



## ThePIGI King

MaxOfMetal said:


> Yeah, it's more of a directive aimed at businesses to allow their employees to not show up to work.
> 
> What we're seeing is, in pure crony capitalistic fashion, that just about any business/sector that throws some money around at election time can be classified as "essential" and thus not willingly let employees not show up.
> 
> In Wisconsin (and much of the US) liquor stores are being classified similarly to "grocery stores", even though they're plainly not. It's just that folks are drinking a ton right now as travel is restricted and they can stay home, so liquor stores, distilleries, breweries, etc. have a vested interest in staying open and flow cash to politicians to grease the wheels.
> 
> Off topic, but by "four more years" and "free country", do you mean four more years of trying to strip _actual constitutional rights_ away from people?
> 
> https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...end-constitutional-rights-coronavirus-970935/


Off topic - Hadn't seen that and that's pretty appalling. I voted for Trump and I likely will again. That said, I don't always agree with the man. And innocent until proven guilty is something I strongly believe in.


----------



## Cynicanal

spudmunkey said:


> That's how most states have defined it, too, but most people are somehow interpreting it differently.


As someone who works as an engineer for a large corporation, I can tell you for fact that's wrong; the government has declared us "essential", and we're not in any of those categories.


----------



## Thaeon

spudmunkey said:


> I know in CA they loosened the restrictions and temporarily are allowing alchohol deliveries (with food, i think...but I might be mistaken)



San Antonio has allowed this too.



sleewell said:


> do we really want people less high right now? shit i would think part of the 2 trillion stimulus package should include a pound of sticky for each tax paying family.



Not my family. Causes me acute paranoia. I already have high anxiety. Issue this and some other family can have my lb.


----------



## viifox

If i didn't have kids, I'd probably drink my through this shit.

Or smoke weed like i was Snoop Dogg for that matter.


----------



## budda

Ever made all the alcohics in your state/province unable to get drunk? Want to know how to overwhelm your hospitals?


----------



## shadowlife

MaxOfMetal said:


> Off topic, but by "four more years" and "free country", do you mean four more years of trying to strip _actual constitutional rights_ away from people?
> 
> https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...end-constitutional-rights-coronavirus-970935/



They got away with it after 9/11 because everyone was so terrified, it shouldn't be a surprise that they're trying again.


----------



## possumkiller

shadowlife said:


> They got away with it after 9/11 because everyone was so terrified, it shouldn't be a surprise that they're trying again.


9/11 changed everything.


----------



## shadowlife

possumkiller said:


> 9/11 changed everything.



And not everything that changed was for the better.


----------



## c7spheres

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> Meanwhile here in Washington state. The Guv’ner placed us on a “stay at home” order. Meaning essential business can stay open and non-essentials are closed. Says it’s for a minimum of two weeks. It’s going to affect my girlfriend, who is a florist. However myself I work in the health and wellness industry, which is deemed essential. So we have reduced our hours and taken measures to try and reduce contact. I am still getting people come right smack dab in my face, to which I take a step back (sometimes more than a couple). Which has offended a couple people so far, but at this point it’s like whatever fuck them.



People are getting pissed at our gov'ner because it's the same thing here in AZ. Only essential businesses, but somehow GOLF courses are on the essential businesses list. Then there's the money they're trying to extract too. His name is Governor Douchey, I mean Ducey. 



Dumple Stilzkin said:


> Weed stores are open here in Washington. Have you ever experienced a pandemic, on weed?


 Weed is the cure for everything! It's Better to feel good while feeling bad, than feel bad while feeling bad.


----------



## possumkiller

The thing is that we will never be able to go back to normal after this. The old normal was the problem. Just like 9/11 changed everything.


----------



## jaxadam

c7spheres said:


> People are getting pissed at our gov'ner because it's the same thing here in AZ. Only essential businesses, but somehow GOLF courses are on the essential businesses list. Then there's the money they're trying to extract too. His name is Governor Douchey, I mean Ducey.
> 
> 
> Weed is the cure for everything! It's Better to feel good while feeling bad, than feel bad while feeling bad.




I wanna talk to SAMPSON!


----------



## c7spheres

possumkiller said:


> 9/11 changed everything.





shadowlife said:


> And not everything that changed was for the better.



100% 9-11 was the turning point when it just started getting worse and worse. The world was never the same since, for those of us old enough to remember.


----------



## Ralyks

sleewell said:


> do we really want people less high right now? shit i would think part of the 2 trillion stimulus package should include a pound of sticky for each tax paying family.



I like the way you think, sir.

But seriously, I stocked up on probably the equivalent of an ounce over a week as more new came out, but goddammit I need something to take the edge off in the evening, and it helps my anxiety.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

Revocation are offering a shirt to help nurses get facemasks. 
https://metalinjection.net/metal-me...100-of-profits-to-help-get-nurses-face-masks?
Also Harbor Freight volunteered to donate n-95s/gloves nationwide to hospitals.


----------



## shadowlife

c7spheres said:


> People are getting pissed at our gov'ner because it's the same thing here in AZ. Only essential businesses, but somehow GOLF courses are on the essential businesses list.



All "non-essential" workers are supposed to stay home from work, yet every morning when I go for my run, I see landscaping crews out.
I guess keeping your manicured lawn in top shape is considered essential.


----------



## Flappydoodle

USMarine75 said:


> Pleasure to meet you, Mr Swab.



You're just denying reality if you think we actually stop a virus

And no, looking at all the latest figures, the economic damage is not worth it. Not even close.

Most up to date calculated IFR is around 0.3%. Not worth 20% of GDP.

We make decisions to let people die for economic gain ALL THE TIME. Car accidents kill a lot of healthy young people. So we should ban cars, right? If we don't ban cars today, more kids will die - fact. Yet we don't ban cars, because society places freedom and convenience as more important than those childrens' lives. We already decide a threshold at which economic benefit and societal enjoyment outweighs lives. This virus is just forcing that to happen in a more direct way.



Cynicanal said:


> It's not a "survival of the fittest wet dream" -- I have asthma, I've already accepted the fact that I'm probably dying in the next few months. Flattening the curve won't work, as long as there's one person out there who is contagious then we're going to get a spike as soon as any restrictions are lifted. It's lockdown forever or let everyone with complications die; those are the options.



Don't be ridiculous.

Your chance of death is extremely close to zero, even if you actually get the virus. I assume you are not an >80yo with cancer posting on SSO.

And it's not "everyone with complications" - it's likely less than 1%, and even that tilted towards the very old and with serious complications. Controlled asthma is not a serious complication.

Flattening the curve works because it's about the medical system being able to cope. Systems need to time scale up and create extra capacity. Even for the very vulnerable, being treated in a hospital makes a world of different. ICU doesn't treat you - but it keeps you alive while your body fights off the virus. That's why they're urgently scaling up ICU spaces.



fantom said:


> For the sake of discussion... who are you judge who is weak and who deserves to live? I'll be a bit brutally honest here, people who don't have emergency savings and can't find work for a few months are just as weak in society as elderly people. I would rather hospitals start taking money from the highest bidder and let uninsured people with no money die.
> 
> Am I being sarcastic or as apathetic as you? I'll let you decide.



See my example of cars up above.

Furthermore, doctors directly make those decisions all the time. Sometimes it's unethical to continue treatment. Sometimes they have to prioritise people who have the best chance of survival.


----------



## Flappydoodle

thraxil said:


> Good to hear that NYC is still doing OK. In London, they might not be "overrun", but it's already uncomfortably close. Hospitals here are seeing "new years' eve" level of activity 24/7 for the last week and still getting busier. One hospital has already run out of ICU beds: https://www.ft.com/content/2b5dc5fa-6ac9-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75
> 
> An aquaintance of mine (partner's ex-coworker) is headed to a hospital right now. No positive test result yet, but high fever, severe cough, and is starting to have trouble breathing. He's a generally healthy 40 year old (though he does smoke).



Did she get turned away? Usually a healthy 40yo would not need to go to the hospital.



Cynicanal said:


> The fact that Italy is letting anyone over 60 die should tell you that the measures aren't working. No human action will help; this is bigger than us. It's time for those who are likely to have complications to accept their lot and start writing their wills.
> 
> Medical supplies will never catch up to the outbreak. We literally can't stay shutdown until that point; that point is never coming. The sooner everyone faces the music, the better off society will be.



Your first point is simply incorrect. Italy are not "letting anyone over 60 die".

The median age of death in Lombardy is 79.5. Their median life expectancy is 81. The average age of a person confirmed with Covid in the region is 61, but the average age of a citizen is 44. So they have a very strong bias towards testing elderly, sick people.

The death rate in the >80yo population is around 12%, so it's not a guaranteed death sentence.

What's happening is, you can not save an 80yo with underlying health conditions, no matter what you do. You can put them on ventilation but it's still up to their body to fight off the virus. At that advanced age you are keeping them alive, and nothing more.



wankerness said:


> quantify “more harm than millions of death.” Do you think money is more important than lives? This sentiment makes me nauseous. The republicans are out in force with it. There’s not historical evidence that a depression leads to an increase in mortality.
> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scie...on-had-little-effect-on-death-rates-46713514/
> 
> plus, do you people really think the economy is going to recover if hospitals collapse and people are being dumped in mass graves like they’re doing in Iran? If we go back to work on Monday we will be vastly worse off than Italy.



Money certainly can be more important than peoples lives. We place monetary value on lives all the time. For example, we don't ban cars even though they cause lots of deaths, because we value the freedom and convenience more than saving lives. Fossil fuel power plants cause deaths by air pollution, but we choose to have electricity rather than save lives. Doctors ration care all the time. Insurance companies place literal monetary values on life (typically $1-4M for a young, healthy person).

Economic depression might not cause loss of life, but it sure as hell will make people miserable and set them back. If we really have 20% unemployment, 20% GDP shrinkage, that will cause enormous societal problems. People have lost businesses, life savings and decades of progress in the game of life. It's especially bad for younger and middle aged people whose jobs and savings have evaporated. Death isn't the only bad consequence.



blacai said:


> So scary and sad reading people spreading the "let old people die" ...
> The value of a society is defined by how you treat the weaker. It is clear what's the value of some societies.



What is the "value of society" worth? What does that even mean?

And nobody is saying "let old people die", but rather they're saying that trying to save people with 6-12 months left anyway is not worth sinking the entire economy, massive job losses, destroying the future of younger generations.



narad said:


> That's why we develop fast and mass-produced test kits. There's already tests with less than an hour turnaround in the emergency approval process. If everyone had access to a covid test with the same accessibility that we do to a pregnancy test, it would be easy to identify and quarantine infected people, and generally get back to life as usual, with hospitals continually treating people below their capacity.



Practically speaking, that's impossible for a country like the US. Virus is already highly widespread and testing can not hope to keep up with the spread. The true number of infected is estimated to be 10-25x the official number of tested positive cases. You'll never be able to catch up with that. In the future, it will be interesting to know how people were infected by using antibody tests. But at this point, only option is temporary restrictions to flatten the curve, let the medical system prepare and scale up, and eventually herd immunity and vaccinations prevent future outbreaks. Luckily, there are a huge % of asymptomatic carriers who will contribute to herd immunity.




sleewell said:


> AZ man dies after taking the malaria drug trump said would treat covid. Even though a Dr immediately after trump said that it was a bad idea they did it anyway bc trump said it.
> 
> #maga



Fake news.

The guy did not take the malaria drug. He drank a liquid which is used for cleaning fish tanks because it had the word "quinine" in it.

You *could* die from overdose of HCQ, but the lethal dose requires you to take an unreasonable amount of tablets.


----------



## narad

Ugh... this cars analogy is like a viral meme at this point. If I have to hear another cars analogy in another youtube video comment section, FB article comments section, or random-guy-who-understands-whole-economy giving the low-down on his podcast...

What? You gonna ban CARS too!? Betcha didn't think about THAT ::mic drop::


----------



## Flappydoodle

narad said:


> Ugh... this cars analogy is like a viral meme at this point. If I have to hear another cars analogy in another youtube video comment section, FB article comments section, or random-guy-who-understands-whole-economy giving the low-down on his podcast...
> 
> What? You gonna ban CARS too!? Betcha didn't think about THAT ::mic drop::



Nice strawman. It's not what I said at all.

People are protesting against ANY form of placing economy as more important than life.

I'm simply pointing out that we have always done that in various forms, and always will. The virus just forces us to do it more directly.


----------



## narad

Flappydoodle said:


> Nice strawman. It's not what I said at all.
> 
> People are protesting against ANY form of placing economy as more important than life.
> 
> I'm simply pointing out that we have always done that in various forms, and always will. The virus just forces us to do it more directly.



I think everyone understands that. It's pretty condescending to think you have to point to people out that life is full of compromises and hard decisions (I mean, "Sophie's Choice" was a pretty big movie at the time...). It's not an astute observation.

The question is WHO makes those decisions, and are those decisions reflective of the people. I'm sure many rich 40-yr-old guys with tons of stock place a much lower price on the "life" side of the equation than the grandma who just enjoys the company of her family. The fact that we (the US, I guess) are in the first week of doing any sort of real response to it, and we're already talking about possible schedules for reopening things has me concerned that we're going to have a very big-business-directed timetable that may not reflect the values of the general population.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

narad said:


> Ugh... this cars analogy is like a viral meme at this point. If I have to hear another cars analogy in another youtube video comment section, FB article comments section, or random-guy-who-understands-whole-economy giving the low-down on his podcast...
> 
> What? You gonna ban CARS too!? Betcha didn't think about THAT ::mic drop::



The one that really grinds my gears is the conflating the mortality rate with the actual threat, which is the overwhelming of our healthcare infrastructure, which makes the impact of the virus far greater.

Like if all it did was make folks instantly drop dead at the same ~3% rate it wouldn't be nearly as straining on our system as the long, drawn out days, weeks, months, of fighting and recovery.

You shouldn't be afraid of dying of COVID as much as you should be afraid of being treated for it or needing treatment for anything else while our hospitals are drained of resources.


----------



## narad

MaxOfMetal said:


> The one that really grinds my gears



You're treading awfully close to another car analogy...


----------



## broj15

Barring the fact that all this gps data is aggregated by a company that I've never heard of and definitely don't remember giving consent to, this is actually really interesting

https://www.unacast.com/covid19/social-distancing-scoreboard

Given some time, I'd like to compare data from this vs. the spread of the virus to see just how much effect social distancing has, be it on either a statewide or county level


----------



## MaxOfMetal

narad said:


> You're treading awfully close to another car analogy...



Just trying to drive the point.



broj15 said:


> Barring the fact that all this gps data is aggregated by a company that I've never heard of and definitely don't remember giving consent to, this is actually really interesting
> 
> https://www.unacast.com/covid19/social-distancing-scoreboard
> 
> Given some time, I'd like to compare data from this vs. the spread of the virus to see just how much effect social distancing has, be it on either a statewide or county level



Digging through their methodology and data collection (which looks fairly good at first blush), the data was gathered by stuff like mobile devices, with permission being granted somewhere in a website or apps terms and services. You know, that thing you check the box on but never read.


----------



## USMarine75

Flappydoodle said:


> You're just denying reality if you think we actually stop a virus
> 
> And no, looking at all the latest figures, the economic damage is not worth it. Not even close.
> 
> Most up to date calculated IFR is around 0.3%. Not worth 20% of GDP.



So you don't think we're capable of mitigating a virus?



Flappydoodle said:


> We make decisions to let people die for economic gain ALL THE TIME. Car accidents kill a lot of healthy young people. So we should ban cars, right? If we don't ban cars today, more kids will die - fact. Yet we don't ban cars, because society places freedom and convenience as more important than those childrens' lives. We already decide a threshold at which economic benefit and societal enjoyment outweighs lives. This virus is just forcing that to happen in a more direct way.
> 
> 
> 
> Don't be ridiculous.
> 
> Your chance of death is extremely close to zero, even if you actually get the virus. I assume you are not an >80yo with cancer posting on SSO.
> 
> And it's not "everyone with complications" - it's likely less than 1%, and even that tilted towards the very old and with serious complications. Controlled asthma is not a serious complication.
> 
> Flattening the curve works because it's about the medical system being able to cope. Systems need to time scale up and create extra capacity. Even for the very vulnerable, being treated in a hospital makes a world of different. ICU doesn't treat you - but it keeps you alive while your body fights off the virus. That's why they're urgently scaling up ICU spaces.
> 
> 
> 
> See my example of cars up above.
> 
> Furthermore, doctors directly make those decisions all the time. Sometimes it's unethical to continue treatment. Sometimes they have to prioritise people who have the best chance of survival.



Glad to see you know more than all the infectious disease experts.

You also don't understand research and statistical analyses. Saying we should ban cars because of their linkage to car accidents is like saying we should ban water due to drowning deaths.

Where else do we make these conciliatory prioritizations regarding infectious disease?


----------



## Flappydoodle

narad said:


> I think everyone understands that. It's pretty condescending to think you have to point to people out that life is full of compromises and hard decisions (I mean, "Sophie's Choice" was a pretty big movie at the time...). It's not an astute observation.
> 
> The question is WHO makes those decisions, and are those decisions reflective of the people. I'm sure many rich 40-yr-old guys with tons of stock place a much lower price on the "life" side of the equation than the grandma who just enjoys the company of her family. The fact that we (the US, I guess) are in the first week of doing any sort of real response to it, and we're already talking about possible schedules for reopening things has me concerned that we're going to have a very big-business-directed timetable that may not reflect the values of the general population.



Well, I'm only going by comments in this threads with people saying it's disgusting to ever place priority on the economy over lives/deaths, and other similar blanket statements.

At no point am I suggesting we willingly sacrifice a bunch of people. But rather, politicians have the difficult job of trying to predict the future and balancing the two.



MaxOfMetal said:


> The one that really grinds my gears is the conflating the mortality rate with the actual threat, which is the overwhelming of our healthcare infrastructure, which makes the impact of the virus far greater.
> 
> Like if all it did was make folks instantly drop dead at the same ~3% rate it wouldn't be nearly as straining on our system as the long, drawn out days, weeks, months, of fighting and recovery.
> 
> You shouldn't be afraid of dying of COVID as much as you should be afraid of being treated for it or needing treatment for anything else while our hospitals are drained of resources.



That too.

Though funnily enough, many hospital departments are empty right now. So if you need a hip replacement, go for it now. Lots of free beds and doctors right now. With all the enhanced screening, cleaning etc, you'd be safe.

Of course that might change in the future, but to my understanding, priority will still be given to cases such as pregnant women, accidents (car crashes etc) where they have excellent chance of survival with interventions. To my knowledge, hospitals that I know of are keeping capacity for those - it's not 100% of effort into Covid at the expense of everything else.

Source: I am scientist (MBBS PhD) working in a group which is trying to make a rapid kit for convalescent plasma, so working closely with local blood banks and hospitals. 

However, I am quite optimistic about everything now. The evidence is really pointing to a VERY widespread infection. New paper from epidemiologists at Oxford Uni reckons around 50% of the UK population already infected with the virus, and this has been going since at least Nov/Dec, but the vast majority are asymptomatic. So we'll actually hit herd immunity much sooner than we think. The next step is doing antibody testing of the randomly sampled general population to figure out the % of exposure. If it's high, that's the best possible news and we'll be back to normal soon. UK is rolling out testing for this exact experiment by next week.


----------



## blacai

When the american healthcare system collapses(it will collapse ... you just need to see the numbers) I don't think your worst problem will be economy but the chaos.

It is not that hard to understand a strong healthcare system is way more important than economy(at least than stockmarket and what liberals think economy is) just because your population, the people who actually keep a country moving forward, needs to be alive and in good shape.

Car analogies are even funnier than landlords crying and blaming Airbnb because the modern liberal business model ist just s*** and the "leader" doesn't care about the people who gave him the revenues.


----------



## USMarine75

MaxOfMetal said:


> The one that really grinds my gears is the conflating the mortality rate with the actual threat, which is the overwhelming of our healthcare infrastructure, which makes the impact of the virus far greater.



Exactly. 

All these knobs with their degrees in googling that don't understand basic public health concepts, yet want to speak in absolutisms. 

Hemorrhagic Fevers such as EVD have a much higher mortality rate (25-100%). Rabies has a nearly 100% mortality rate (once symptomatic). Yet, these aren't as deadly with respect to public health as this strain of coronavirus. I remember my professor quoting Spock - The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. Diseases like EVD, albeit deadly, kill the few. The public health concern lies in containing the spread (especially nosocomial with EVD example) and prevention of substrains that are more virulent. or have higher transmissibility rates.

In the end, idiots like these point to MERS, SARS, Swine Flu, Avian Flu, etc as false alarms. We consider them successes.


----------



## Flappydoodle

USMarine75 said:


> So you don't think we're capable of mitigating a virus?



Not this virus, and not right now, no. It's already highly, highly widespread. Nobody seriously believes the "official" case number because unless you're super sick and in hospital, you aren't being tested. It's impossible to "catch up" with the spread by testing, since it is spreading much faster than we could ever hope to test.

This has been out since November, spreading silently and mostly asymptomatically. The social distancing is to prevent a surge of cases overwhelming the healthcare system. It isn't a feasible long-term method for preventing the spread. It's inevitable that around 80% of the population will eventually be exposed. Hell, a recent estimate from a Prof at Oxford University reckons that around 50% have already been exposed.

The spread is rapid and efficient, but lethality seems very low (somewhere around 0.3% IFR). What we're seeing now is a delayed peak in cases which have been brewing for months and are only now peaking into a number of patients which is unusually high. Temporary shutdown is fine to buy time for healthcare systems to gear up but trying to keep things closed until there's no more virus is 100% futile.



> Glad to see you know more than all the infectious disease experts.
> 
> You also don't understand research and statistical analyses. Saying we should ban cars because of their linkage to car accidents is like saying we should ban water due to drowning deaths.
> 
> Where else do we make these conciliatory prioritizations regarding infectious disease?



Fucking lol. I'm only part of a team working on treatments for the virus. But yeah, guess I know nothing. I've probably read more than 100 papers about this now, and while I'm not a virologist, I do think I've learned something during the last couple months.

And I didn't say we should ban cars. I'm saying that we DON'T ban cars because we DO value convenience, economic benefits and freedom more than lives. That's just fact, even though it's unpleasant to put it like that. People here are making it sound like it's totally inhuman to ever "sacrifice" people to limit economic damage.

It's the same for this virus. It's insane to sacrifice 20% GDP and 10 years of economic growth to save a fraction of the population. You are asking for precedent, but of course there isn't any because this is the only major pandemic during modern times of a global economy.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Flappydoodle said:


> Though funnily enough, many hospital departments are empty right now. So if you need a hip replacement, go for it now. Lots of free beds and doctors right now. With all the enhanced screening, cleaning etc, you'd be safe.
> 
> Of course that might change in the future, but to my understanding, priority will still be given to cases such as pregnant women, accidents (car crashes etc) where they have excellent chance of survival with interventions. To my knowledge, hospitals that I know of are keeping capacity for those - it's not 100% of effort into Covid at the expense of everything else.



I'm not sure how well that translates over here in the US. 

For instance, and I realize this is anecdotal, but three coworkers of mine, through different hospitals, have had elective procedures (two hips and a knee) indefinitely postponed. The reasons given? No nursing staff or other supplies. 

We're running out of necessary support staff and basic BSI. 

As for room, multiple cities are leasing space off-site for more beds.


----------



## USMarine75

Flappydoodle said:


> No. It's already highly, highly widespread. Nobody seriously believes the "official" case number because unless you're super sick and in hospital, you aren't being tested. It's impossible to "catch up" with the spread by testing, since it is spreading much faster than we could ever hope to test.
> 
> This has been out since November, spreading silently and mostly asymptomatically. The social distancing is to prevent a surge of cases overwhelming the healthcare system. It isn't a feasible long-term method for preventing the spread. It's inevitable that around 80% of the population will eventually be exposed. Hell, a recent estimate from a Prof at Oxford University reckons that around 50% have already been exposed.
> 
> The spread is rapid and efficient, but lethality seems very low (somewhere around 0.3% IFR). What we're seeing now is a delayed peak in cases which have been brewing for months and are only now peaking into a number of patients which is unusually high.



Obfuscation... none of this answered my question. You have a MBBS/PHD, yet you aren't optimistic we can mitigate a virus with a vaccine? Something we've done successfully before many times?



Flappydoodle said:


> Temporary shutdown is fine to buy time for healthcare systems to gear up but trying to keep things closed until there's no more virus is 100% futile.



Is anyone arguing shelter-in-place and lockdown until 100% eradication? Everyone that I know, work with, or have read about including on here, is arguing this as a throttle to flatten the curve.



Flappydoodle said:


> And I didn't say we should ban cars. I'm saying that we DON'T ban cars because we DO value convenience, economic benefits and freedom more than lives. That's just fact, even though it's unpleasant to put it like that. People here are making it sound like it's totally inhuman to ever "sacrifice" people to limit economic damage.
> 
> It's the same for this virus. It's insane to sacrifice 20% GDP and 10 years of economic growth to save a fraction of the population.



A "fraction of the population"? Again... you have a degree... in science right? An unmitigated pandemic - which is what you are arguing for - could cause 500k deaths in the UK and 2M deaths in the US alone. So... rather than people facing tough economic times, I should potentially sacrifice my mother and oldest child?

Your exact quote was "We make decisions to let people die for economic gain ALL THE TIME. Car accidents kill a lot of healthy young people. So we should ban cars, right? If we don't ban cars today, more kids will die - fact. Yet we don't ban cars, because society places freedom and convenience as more important than those childrens' lives. We already decide a threshold at which economic benefit and societal enjoyment outweighs lives. This virus is just forcing that to happen in a more direct way."

That is such a flawed analogy. I still find t difficult to believe you're a scientist with this kind of logic.

Example of your logic: About 2,000 children under 16 die every year in traffic collisions. Therefore, cars kills kids. But we don't ban cars because they kill kids, do we? "I'm saying that we DON'T ban cars because we DO value convenience, economic benefits and freedom more than lives. That's just fact, even though it's unpleasant to put it like that. People here are making it sound like it's totally inhuman to ever "sacrifice" people to limit economic damage."

This is an unsound argument and it's exactly what you're saying.

Back to my point...



Flappydoodle said:


> You are asking for precedent, but of course there isn't any because this is the only major pandemic during modern times of a global economy.



Exactly. We don't ever make the kinds of conciliation like your fallacious argument above about banning cars. Polio, which only killed around 6k people per year max, caused the need for social distancing outside of your regular/close interactions. And that was a "scourge" that at it's peak only killed 6k and paralyzed 4x that. Imagine if it had worldwide pandemic potential threat levels?[/QUOTE]


----------



## diagrammatiks

just sitting here. at work. after four successful weeks of social distancing.
wuhan lockdown is being lifted on the 8th.
cinemas, bars, and nightclubs are open this weekend.

gonna go get some tacos tomorrow.


----------



## diagrammatiks

USMarine75 said:


> Obfuscation... none of this answered my question. You have a MBBS/PHD, yet you aren't optimistic we can mitigate a virus with a vaccine? Something we've done successfully before many times?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A "fraction of the population"? Again... you have a degree... in science right? An unmitigated pandemic - which is what you are arguing for - could cause 500k deaths in the UK and 2M deaths in the US alone. So... rather than people facing tough economic times, I should potentially sacrifice my mother and oldest child?
> 
> Your exact quote was "We make decisions to let people die for economic gain ALL THE TIME. Car accidents kill a lot of healthy young people. So we should ban cars, right? If we don't ban cars today, more kids will die - fact. Yet we don't ban cars, because society places freedom and convenience as more important than those childrens' lives. We already decide a threshold at which economic benefit and societal enjoyment outweighs lives. This virus is just forcing that to happen in a more direct way."
> 
> That is such a flawed analogy. I still find t difficult to believe you're a scientist with this kind of logic.
> 
> Example of your logic: About 2,000 children under 16 die every year in traffic collisions. Therefore, cars kills kids. But we don't ban cars becuase the kill kids, do we? "I'm saying that we DON'T ban cars because we DO value convenience, economic benefits and freedom more than lives. That's just fact, even though it's unpleasant to put it like that. People here are making it sound like it's totally inhuman to ever "sacrifice" people to limit economic damage."
> 
> This is an unsound argument and it's exactly what you're saying.
> 
> Back to my point...
> 
> 
> 
> Exactly. We don't ever make the kinds of conciliation like your fallacious argument above about banning cars. Polio, which only killed around 6k people per year max, caused the need for social distancing outside of your regular/close interactions. And that was a "scourge" that at it's peak only killed 6k and paralyzed 4x that. Imagine if it had worldwide pandemic potential threat levels?



every team needs someone to get covefe


----------



## USMarine75

diagrammatiks said:


> every team needs someone to get covefe



I _literally_ LOL'd


----------



## thraxil

Flappydoodle said:


> Did she get turned away? Usually a healthy 40yo would not need to go to the hospital.



Last I heard, he was taken to the hospital and is on oxygen (not a ventilator yet, but it's bad enough that they're keeping him there until things change). "Usually" a healthy 40yo wouldn't need to go to the hospital, but this disease is not usual.


----------



## narad

diagrammatiks said:


> every team needs someone to get covefe



That's some grade A punnin'


----------



## possumkiller




----------



## possumkiller

I seem to remember something about the right wing conservative politicians in Germany during the 30s were convincing their people that killing off millions of burdensome people would boost their economy as well.


----------



## Adieu

sleewell said:


> +1
> 
> some people are fucking. yes, that is true.
> 
> i would guess its prolly not many in this thread but there are def some people out there who are fucking.



...or at least WERE, some 15 - 50 years ago.

Unless y'all Jesus and/or IVF babies, that's a damn certainty.


----------



## USMarine75

possumkiller said:


> I seem to remember something about the right wing conservative politicians in Germany during the 30s were convincing their people that killing off millions of burdensome people would boost their economy as well.


----------



## Xaios

MaxOfMetal said:


> Just trying to drive the point.





Flappydoodle said:


> I'm only part of a team working on treatments for the virus.


I, too, run [email protected] on my computer.

On a semi-related note, my sister has been informed that she was exposed to someone who tested positive and is quarantining. Fingers crossed that things come back negative.


----------



## broj15

MaxOfMetal said:


> Digging through their methodology and data collection (which looks fairly good at first blush), the data was gathered by stuff like mobile devices, with permission being granted somewhere in a website or apps terms and services. You know, that thing you check the box on but never read.


Oh no, I'm well aware of how they get away with it. Shit I know I consent to stuff like this every time I log into Facebook . Still doesn't sit right with me, but in this day and age what are ya gonna do? Completely opt out of having a smart phone? Capitalism won't allow that.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/a...92fx4ndjwQK1D7BSrRvEEEqH4ksP-6XBaTzQhYClvWjEo


----------



## possumkiller

KnightBrolaire said:


> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/a...92fx4ndjwQK1D7BSrRvEEEqH4ksP-6XBaTzQhYClvWjEo


But it's only going to be 8 million old people right? Not me.


----------



## thraxil

Prince Charles has tested positive. This is going to be interesting.


----------



## sleewell

thraxil said:


> Prince Charles has tested positive. This is going to be interesting.




i'm sure he was one of the senior citizens who have volunteered to sacrifice themselves for the good of the economy


----------



## sleewell




----------



## shadowlife

A better "cars" analogy would be to say "since so many young people die in car accidents, maybe the minimum age to drive should be 21? or 25? or 30?"
So why don't they raise the minimum age? 
Where do you draw the line between trying to save lives, and doing what's best for the majority of people?


----------



## possumkiller

shadowlife said:


> A better "cars" analogy would be to say "since so many young people die in car accidents, maybe the minimum age to drive should be 21? or 25? or 30?"
> So why don't they raise the minimum age?
> Where do you draw the line between trying to save lives, and doing what's best for the majority of people?


It's just like guns. Guns kill so many people every year but nobody does anything about it. Why don't people have to take a course and be tested before becoming licensed to own a firearm? Why is it not illegal to operate a firearm while under the influence or without a license or with a suspended license?


----------



## spudmunkey

People kill many people. People should have to take classes and be certified before making more people.


----------



## ThePIGI King

possumkiller said:


> It's just like guns. Guns kill so many people every year but nobody does anything about it. Why don't people have to take a course and be tested before becoming licensed to own a firearm? Why is it not illegal to operate a firearm while under the influence or without a license or with a suspended license?


Off topic I know but it is illegal to shoot while under the influence.


----------



## Adieu

spudmunkey said:


> People kill many people. People should have to take classes and be certified before making more people.



They call it high school.

A significant percentage fails and/or makes new people in the process.


----------



## possumkiller

ThePIGI King said:


> Off topic I know but it is illegal to shoot while under the influence.


Is it really though? I used to go to Rampart Range in Colorado Springs when I was at Fort Carson. There was always some drunk or high dumbasses screwing around up there. A guy in my unit went up there and rolled a grenade down the side of the mountain.


----------



## fantom

For the few people spewing "let them die". Can you do one thing for us?

Can you type: "If I get sick, I will not go to the hospital. I will not expect help from my local community. I am ok with never seeing family or friends again. It is ok if I die."

I had an ex that preached about how the government was terrible and insisted to cancel any programs like welfare and Medicaid. In her infinite wisdom, she got pregnant during a 1 night stand, and because pro life agenda decided to be a single mom... And now she uses the very programs she was preaching were terrible. I told her this and all she could say is, "it's better if I take the money than them". Btw, this is someone with very well off parents who never paid taxes in her life.

Why am I sharing this? I have a feeling you are the types of people that preach a bunch of bs to act tough, but as soon as your right to healthcare is at risk when you need it, you will start complaining about how the hospitals are overrun and you can't get an appointment. If and when that happens, you will be in the group of people you are preaching should just die. Even if you are just having something stupid like appendicitis or getting hit by a drunk driver.


----------



## fantom

And to be super clear here. There is no way that USA is going to just create covid-19 concentration camps and let millions just die. All of this arguing and terrible analogies really serves no purpose but trolling and inciting.

Btw, car accidents and drunk drivers don't infect bystanders. If you want to make a comparison, try second hand smoking, which most people agree is bad at this point. And since we banned smoking in most public places, it hasn't been an issue.


----------



## sleewell

huh? drunk drivers kill innocent people all the time.


----------



## fantom

Not by causing them to be drunk.


----------



## diagrammatiks

I mean it's not like because cars kill people anyway...we should let people drive however they want and makers shouldn't try to make them any safer ever. because people gonna die anyway right.


----------



## fantom

Let's try this a different way. If we ever get to a point that I can't go to my annual physical exam, dentist, or eye doctor, because hospitals are overrun by victims of drunk accidents, I'll buy this stupid analogy. Otherwise, it makes no fricking sense.


----------



## StevenC

Can we just all agree to stay inside and not be assholes?


----------



## MFB

StevenC said:


> Can we just all agree to stay inside and not be assholes?



It's been one day of working at home, and I've got construction across the street while they re-side a house, and someone just set off the building fire alarm; I'm dying to be anywhere but here right now.


----------



## ThePIGI King

possumkiller said:


> Is it really though? I used to go to Rampart Range in Colorado Springs when I was at Fort Carson. There was always some drunk or high dumbasses screwing around up there. A guy in my unit went up there and rolled a grenade down the side of the mountain.


By law yea it is. But some ranges don't enforce anything or care. It's pretty sad to be honest.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

As someone without the luxury of being able to work from home, I find folks who complain about it to be insufferable.


----------



## penguin_316

So many qualitative arguments in this thread, let’s talk quantitative.

Don’t respond, do the math for yourself. We will crunch the numbers for the USA only, but you could easily do it for the world population as well.

The rate of infection is doubling roughly every 4-5 days, it fits a logarithmic regression curve. If nothing changes here is what to expect, social distancing will stall these numbers not prevent them.

US:
March 25 presently- 54,453 infected
March 30- 108,906
April 4- 217,812
April 9- 435,624
April 14- 871,248
April 19- 1,742,496
April 24- 3,484,992
April 29- 6,969,984
May 4- 13,939,968
May 9- 27,879,936
May 14- 55,759,872
May 19- 111,519,744
May 24- 223,039,488
May 29- 446,078,976

Oh wait, there are only about 330 million in the US. Let’s talk about car analogies some more to be edgy. We don’t need to worry though, Narads’ test kits are going to flatten the shit outta this curve.


----------



## JSanta

MaxOfMetal said:


> As someone without the luxury of being able to work from home, I find folks who complain about it to be insufferable.



It was so hard deciding which pair of pants not to put on today...

In all seriousness, my wife is a nurse practitioner, and her clinic is effectively on lockdown. Only going in twice a week, and telemedice the rest of the week. The University system she works for has asked retired or license-lapsed personnel to consider coming back to work. Unfortunately, I think it's just a matter of time before they start bringing people like her out of their clinics and into triage. I've basically accepted that I will eventually get the virus. I'm just hoping that by staying away from our aging parents (they finally shut off foxnews and started listening to my wife), we can keep them safe. It's amazing. A few months ago, our parents were constitutional scholars, and now they're medical professionals.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

penguin_316 said:


> social distancing will stall these numbers not prevent them



That's the entire point. Slow down, not stop. Stopping would be impossible.

Speaking to your numbers specifically they are imaginary as they're based on the assumption that the test numbers correlate to actual infection rate. As of now there's no data to support that position in the United States.


----------



## blacai

MaxOfMetal said:


> As someone without the luxury of being able to work from home, I find folks who complain about it to be insufferable.


Actually I am happy I can continue working from home without any problem at all(Software dev.) I've noticed I am more productive as I don't get interrupted by people rumbling around my desk or any kind of smalltalk.
On the other hand...it's boring af . I miss seeing my teammates and even my boss :| having those unproductive smalltalks.
I see the benefits of working remote 1 day per week, but I do need going to the office.


----------



## penguin_316

MaxOfMetal said:


> That's the entire point. Slow down, not stop. Stopping would be impossible.
> 
> Speaking to your numbers specifically they are imaginary as they're based on the assumption that the test numbers correlate to actual infection rate. As of now there's no data to support that position in the United States.



You’re absolutely correct, the numbers are much higher as the testing has been extremely limited in the US. Hey, they got a few crates of test kits to New York the other day...we’re winning!
Those numbers are posted by the CDC. Try again, Max.


----------



## diagrammatiks

penguin_316 said:


> So many qualitative arguments in this thread, let’s talk quantitative.
> 
> Don’t respond, do the math for yourself. We will crunch the numbers for the USA only, but you could easily do it for the world population as well.
> 
> The rate of infection is doubling roughly every 4-5 days, it fits a logarithmic regression curve. If nothing changes here is what to expect, social distancing will stall these numbers not prevent them.
> 
> US:
> March 25 presently- 54,453 infected
> March 30- 108,906
> April 4- 217,812
> April 9- 435,624
> April 14- 871,248
> April 19- 1,742,496
> April 24- 3,484,992
> April 29- 6,969,984
> May 4- 13,939,968
> May 9- 27,879,936
> May 14- 55,759,872
> May 19- 111,519,744
> May 24- 223,039,488
> May 29- 446,078,976
> 
> Oh wait, there are only about 330 million in the US. Let’s talk about car analogies some more to be edgy. We don’t need to worry though, Narads’ test kits are going to flatten the shit outta this curve.[/QUOTE]
> 
> do you actually understand the point of flattening the curve?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

penguin_316 said:


> You’re absolutely correct, the numbers are much higher as the testing has been extremely limited in the US. Hey, they got a few crates of test kits to New York the other day...we’re winning!
> Those numbers are posted by the CDC. Try again, Max.



Try what exactly? 

We're actually in agreement for the most part, drop the attitude and maybe you'll see it. Maybe. 

You made a big deal about your numbers and, as you yourself admit, they're fairly meaningless since there hasn't been a uniform testing guideline for the country.


----------



## aesthyrian

possumkiller said:


> Is it really though? I used to go to Rampart Range in Colorado Springs when I was at Fort Carson. There was always some drunk or high dumbasses screwing around up there. A guy in my unit went up there and rolled a grenade down the side of the mountain.



Oh yeah, some thing never change.


----------



## spudmunkey

penguin_316 said:


> The rate of infection is doubling roughly every 4-5 days, it fits a logarithmic regression curve.



That's not the rate of infection. That's the rate of test-confirmed cases. We don't know the rate of infection, and won't for *quite* some time. We're confirming about 8-11,000 cases per day, since about the 21st. That's not an acceleration. That's actually quite linear. There is slight acceleraton, just as more and more tests can be administered, but it's still it's just the confirmation of cases. They all might have had it for 2 weeks.


Some statistics i found interesting:
US deaths per 1m population is currently at 3-ish. China is at 2-sh. Italy is at 124, and Spain is at 73.
Italy, China and Spain all have more recoveries than deaths...but the US has more deaths than recoveries.


----------



## penguin_316

We can pick another country with extensive testing if you like? The numbers are shockingly similar. 

You can’t just dismiss my point when the numbers are underreported. Feds doing a 6 trillion dollar bailout. Everything’s working out great....we’re “saving lives” and destroying the global economy.


----------



## StevenC

penguin_316 said:


> So many qualitative arguments in this thread, let’s talk quantitative.
> 
> Don’t respond, do the math for yourself. We will crunch the numbers for the USA only, but you could easily do it for the world population as well.
> 
> The rate of infection is doubling roughly every 4-5 days, it fits a logarithmic regression curve. If nothing changes here is what to expect, social distancing will stall these numbers not prevent them.
> 
> US:
> March 25 presently- 54,453 infected
> March 30- 108,906
> April 4- 217,812
> April 9- 435,624
> April 14- 871,248
> April 19- 1,742,496
> April 24- 3,484,992
> April 29- 6,969,984
> May 4- 13,939,968
> May 9- 27,879,936
> May 14- 55,759,872
> May 19- 111,519,744
> May 24- 223,039,488
> May 29- 446,078,976
> 
> Oh wait, there are only about 330 million in the US. Let’s talk about car analogies some more to be edgy. We don’t need to worry though, Narads’ test kits are going to flatten the shit outta this curve.


You, most of all, should stay inside.


----------



## penguin_316

spudmunkey said:


> That's not the rate of infection. That's the rate of test-confirmed cases. We don't know the rate of infection, and won't for *quite* some time. We're confirming about 8-11,000 cases per day, since about the 21st. That's not an acceleration. That's actually quite linear. There is slight acceleraton, just as more and more tests can be administered, but it's still it's just the confirmation of cases. They all might have had it for 2 weeks.



Easy solution, see you back in here in 10 days. We’ll see if it’s added 11,000*10 or magnitudes greater. If I was a betting man, I would side with the exponential growth that has been dead on so far.


----------



## spudmunkey

penguin_316 said:


> Easy solution, see you back in here in 10 days. We’ll see if it’s added 11,000*10 or magnitudes greater. If I was a betting man, I would side with the exponential growth that has been dead on so far.



I mean, maybe. That was the case from about the 14th to the 21st. But not since then. It hasn't doubled every two days. It did 3 times. Every other time it's been less than that. And again, it's been +9,000, +10,000, +11,000 the last 3 days. Yes: that is increasing. Is it an indication of exponential growth? No.

It's also worth noting that the average incubation period is 5 days. Yes, it CAN be longer, but the average is 5. 5 days ago, on the 20th, we were at 19K. Now we're at 63K 5 days later. Again, that's not doubling every day, as that put us at, what...114k?

note: I'm not arguing against shelter in place, social distancing, etc etc. I'm for it. I'm lucky enough that i can work from home. I'm just trying to refine the discussion around the numbers, trying to make our understanding more along the lines of the reality. Hyperbole has become my least-favorite thing as of late.


----------



## Merrekof

Guys,.. I don't know but the US isn't doing any better then Italy. You guys realize you are two weeks behind Italy? Spain was too slow and they're getting beat up right now. And I thought European countries were slow to respond..
I sincerely hope you'll all be okay but this is gonna hit hard, I think. Both on health and economy..


----------



## InHiding

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-03-22/coronavirus-outbreak-nobel-laureate


----------



## shadowlife

spudmunkey said:


> Hyperbole has become my least-favorite thing as of late.



That's one thing I think just about all of us can agree on.

@InHiding - thanks for the link.


----------



## TedEH

No way- Hyperbole is only second to sarcasm.


----------



## soliloquy

why cant people just stay at home? 
i get it, that the numbers we see today were first hit by it a few days/weeks ago. 
being locked up at home is driving me nuts


----------



## penguin_316

There is no hyperbole in stating the virus is spreading exponentially. It is a fact based on the numbers provided. Each infected person has been shown to infect 2-4 others, a one to one rate would be linear. I’m sorry that the testing data is skewed to make it seem a lot more trivial than it is...

Be realistic. The reported numbers are significantly lower than the actual number of infected persons. We don’t need to promote positivity or doom/gloom. We can look at the data and make an informed decision.

No virus has ever grown exponentially forever so of course it will taper off, but we are not at that phase yet.


----------



## lurè

Well, the house in front of mine has a covid-positive man that has been transported to the hospital today...



penguin_316 said:


> Be realistic. The reported numbers are significantly lower than the actual number of infected persons. We don’t need to promote positivity or doom/gloom. We can look at the data and make an informed decision



The informed decision is that looking at numbers is almost useless. We just know that the total amount of infected is far superior to the numbers we have. 
We can't stop the spreading but just slow it down to make it manageable by the healthcare system so knowing the numbers now would just be useful for the sake of statistics.

It would have made sense at the beginning (december/january) for a preventive plan like south korea did.


----------



## narad

penguin_316 said:


> The rate of infection is doubling roughly every 4-5 days, it fits a logarithmic regression curve.



You fell victim to one of the classic blunders (of Intro-to-Math)!

So you're making this really big deal about exponential growth. You do realize that most infectious diseases we talk about -- anything that has a seasonal outbreak, anything we don't have effective preventative care for -- has exponential growth? That's the point of classifying diseases with an R-nought, i.e., just tell me the exponent.



penguin_316 said:


> Oh wait, there are only about 330 million in the US. Let’s talk about car analogies some more to be edgy. We don’t need to worry though, Narads’ test kits are going to flatten the shit outta this curve.



Again, while I think this is mostly obvious to the people reading the thread, testing is most effective in scenarios where you assume most of the people are not sick. It will not do anything for people who decide to go on spring break right now. But, I posted it in response to fears of a "second wave" and talk of the inevitability of everyone being infected even if you do country-wide shelter in place. If you do shelter, and you greatly reduce the current number of infected people, widespread random testing and isolation would be an effective strategy for minimizing subsequent outbreaks. This applies equally well for fear-mongering about people not developing immunities.

If you think it's ridiculous, check out Korea's numbers.


----------



## bostjan

I've got some fairly shaky mathematical models of this. They're noisy, but have been consistent.

It's nothing special, just an exponentially skewed gaussian curve. Anyone could do the same model in MS Excel or whatever.

The outlook is grim.

This thing isn't going to peak for at least a couple weeks, probably not until the first half of May in the USA, and by then, there will be no hospital beds for people in most cities. People are talking about not wanting ventilators from private sources, due to possible contamination, but, honestly, if there are no hospital beds and no ventilators, why not open up schools and hotels to house the latecomers and give them the "sterilized as best we can" ventilators? At that point, a few people might be saved versus everyone reaching that point dying. Seems like not that much or a moral dilemma to me...

Anyway, there are two strains of SARS-CoV-2 (L and S - so far, there could be more). One seems significantly more aggressive. Diagnostics aren't equipped to differentiate them. For a while, it was believed that immunity to one would work for the other, but now it's unclear, as one of the Diamond Princess patients seems to have contracted it twice. If this tears through the population twice, we will be in for much longer of a battle...


----------



## SpaceDock

Locked down now in Colorado. I have been working from home for a week and grateful to have a job I can do from home. I think we will pass China’s numbers by Friday. 

Watching Trump say we will be back to normal by Easter is just a joke. Good job republicans! This is what not having a strong well regulated federal government looks like. No one at the helm when we need it. Really glad we have a balanced budget to bail ourselves out with. I mean who would cut taxes and interest rates when the markets were booming, that wouldn’t be very conservative. 

I think we screwed ourselves with trash leadership because of idiots, laid off our government because we like to have thoughts and prayers on our side instead of experts, doomed ourselves to a plague that we can’t catch up to because we would rather bankrupt our country instead of collect modest corporate taxes, and might see the end of society as we know it, yes literally. 

That last part might draw criticism, but I want you to think about people doing a 180 on going back to any local business and resuming normal life after weeks to months of bizarre isolation and quarantine during the summer where we will all be tied to the Facebook portal that stews our worst fears. If we are on lockdown in the heat of the summer and this really last, I see mass deaths from power failure. 

I don’t want to be a doom sayer, but I can’t imagine resuming normal.


----------



## wankerness

Trump is getting more and more unhinged, now saying the only reason anyone wants to stay on lockdown is specifically to make HIM look bad by keeping the economy down, politicizing a public health disaster, and the fact he’s allowed to spew such dangerous lies on TV every night while insisting everything must reopen by Easter is fucking terrifying. He’s Martin Sheen in the Dead Zone. He’s functionally going to nuke our country, killing what almost experts (health and epidemiologists, not idiot economists) agree is going to be numbers of Americans that could easily be far higher than the civil war, wwi, wwii, and Vietnam combined if we end this lockdown too early.

Where is Christopher Walken when you need him?!


----------



## jaxadam




----------



## spudmunkey

jaxadam said:


>



I'll bring the drinks! I've only got one straw, though, so you'll have to pass it around. Also, make sure to stop at "Drippy Craig's Kissing Booth". He's raising money for Coronavirus awareness, since it seems like nobody's talking about it!


----------



## ThePIGI King

wankerness said:


> far higher than the civil war, wwi, wwii, and Vietnam combined


Care to elaborate? Because this sounds like pure BS blown out of proportion.


----------



## narad

ThePIGI King said:


> Care to elaborate? Because this sounds like pure BS blown out of proportion.



Well I mean, how many Americans do you think died in all those wars combined? I guess I'd eyeball it at like... 1.5 million? I've already heard a speculative 2 million covid deaths in some projections.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

narad said:


> Well I mean, how many Americans do you think died in all those wars combined? I guess I'd eyeball it at like... 1.5 million? I've already heard a speculative 2 million covid deaths in some projections.



Here's a handy chart: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war#Overview

The interesting number is the percent of population to the far right.

If COVID has a ~2% (conservative) mortality rate, compare it to WWI and WWII with 0.11% and 0.39% respectively. It's important to remember that the US population was significantly smaller at those times as well (~100 million and ~140 million).

Big picture, this has the potential to kill more people globally than all of those wars listed, and that's still going with a conservative 2% mortality rate.

Percentages makes numbers seem small and easy to digest. It's good to bring out comparisons and raw numbers for scale.


----------



## Hollowway

MaxOfMetal said:


> Here's a handy chart: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war#Overview
> 
> The interesting number is the percent of population to the far right.
> 
> If COVID has a ~2% (conservative) mortality rate, compare it to WWI and WWII with 0.11% and 0.39% respectively. It's important to remember that the US population was significantly smaller at those times as well (~100 million and ~140 million).
> 
> Big picture, this has the potential to kill more people globally than all of those wars listed, and that's still going with a conservative 2% mortality rate.
> 
> Percentages makes numbers seem small and easy to digest. It's good to bring out comparisons and raw numbers for scale.



Another one that blew my mind was the comparison between this and the flu. The flu infects people at about 1.3 to 1.4 per one person infected. So if you have the one person, and then they infect another 1.3, and then they infect another 1.3, then after 10 iterations you have 14 people being infected all coming from that first person. 
COVID-19, which infects, on average, 3 people for every one person, after 10 iterations results in 59,049 people infected. So one person in the flu leads to 14 other infections after 10 iterations, but in this virus you get over 59,000 people all coming from one person. Those numbers hit way harder home, and is way easier to combat the, "COVID-19 is only a little more contagious than the flu. What's the big deal" argument.

Still, when we have senators saying that old people are costly to maintain and aren't as productive, and should therefore die so that rich people can make a little more money, I'm not sure how much logic and comparison can do. They pretty much cut right to the chase - "let people die so we can make more money."


----------



## ThePIGI King

MaxOfMetal said:


> Here's a handy chart: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war#Overview
> 
> The interesting number is the percent of population to the far right.
> 
> If COVID has a ~2% (conservative) mortality rate, compare it to WWI and WWII with 0.11% and 0.39% respectively. It's important to remember that the US population was significantly smaller at those times as well (~100 million and ~140 million).
> 
> Big picture, this has the potential to kill more people globally than all of those wars listed, and that's still going with a conservative 2% mortality rate.
> 
> Percentages makes numbers seem small and easy to digest. It's good to bring out comparisons and raw numbers for scale.


Yes but is that the percentage of total Americans that died during the war or percentage of people seriving that died?

If it's total population, it's kind of skewed because of course the vast majority of people that didn't serve wouldn't die. However if you compare percentages of those serving and their death rate to the death rate of everyone with corona you get a different number.

Not sure if I'm explaining this right, if I'm not let me know and I'll see if I can make the words.


----------



## c7spheres

Hollowway said:


> Another one that blew my mind was the comparison between this and the flu. The flu infects people at about 1.3 to 1.4 per one person infected. So if you have the one person, and then they infect another 1.3, and then they infect another 1.3, then after 10 iterations you have 14 people being infected all coming from that first person.
> COVID-19, which infects, on average, 3 people for every one person, after 10 iterations results in 59,049 people infected. So one person in the flu leads to 14 other infections after 10 iterations, but in this virus you get over 59,000 people all coming from one person. Those numbers hit way harder home, and is way easier to combat the, "COVID-19 is only a little more contagious than the flu. What's the big deal" argument.
> 
> Still, when we have senators saying that old people are costly to maintain and aren't as productive, and should therefore die so that rich people can make a little more money, I'm not sure how much logic and comparison can do. They pretty much cut right to the chase - "let people die so we can make more money."


 This means it's already to late and every human on earth will end up getting it based on the estimated number of cases world wide so far, so let's just go back to work and let the chips fall where they may. Obviously the numbers can't be accurate if that's the case. I seriously doubt every single person will get it. Then again, maybe they're accurate so we should just go about as normal since there's nothing we can do anyways.


----------



## Metropolis

Estimated fatality rate is taken from people who got the disease. Real number of cases is estimated to be much higher, which also decreases percentage of deaths. Some studies say that real number can be low as 1%. Others say it's two or three percent, who knows.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> Yes but is that the percentage of total Americans that died during the war or percentage of people seriving that died?
> 
> If it's total population, it's kind of skewed because of course the vast majority of people that didn't serve wouldn't die. However if you compare percentages of those serving and their death rate to the death rate of everyone with corona you get a different number.
> 
> Not sure if I'm explaining this right, if I'm not let me know and I'll see if I can make the words.



I think I understand what you're saying. 

The numbers expressed are of total population. 

Assuming that we'll eventually see close to 100% infection at some point is the basis for comparison. 

Even if we hit an infection rate in the 70% to 80% range by the end of this, the potential to kill more Americans than foreign wars is very possible. 

This is why it's important to try and flatten the curve and keep infection levels somewhat in check vs just opening up the economy and letting the cards land.


----------



## narad

MaxOfMetal said:


> It's important to remember that the US population was significantly smaller at those times as well (~100 million and ~140 million).



Yea, honestly I roll my eyes at those kinds of comparisons. It's like a movie setting a box office record -- well, duh, you can probably get more people to show up for the next Mall Cop sequel today than originally went to Star Wars. But I'm sure it strikes a chord with some demographic of people who would otherwise go about their day like it's "just the flu".


----------



## narad

ThePIGI King said:


> Yes but is that the percentage of total Americans that died during the war or percentage of people seriving that died?
> 
> If it's total population, it's kind of skewed because of course the vast majority of people that didn't serve wouldn't die. However if you compare percentages of those serving and their death rate to the death rate of everyone with corona you get a different number.
> 
> Not sure if I'm explaining this right, if I'm not let me know and I'll see if I can make the words.



Yea, I mean, no one is saying that covid is more dangerous than fighting in a war. These are just random figures designed to make people reconsider the severity of the epidemic. But they aren't exaggerated BS -- they're reasonably true statements given current projections.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Metropolis said:


> Estimated fatality rate is taken from people who got the disease. Real number of cases is estimated to be much higher, which also decreases percentage of deaths. Some studies say that real number can be low as 1%. Others say it's two or three percent, who knows.



We won't know the actually numbers for months, maybe longer. Recovery times can be very long (weeks, even months) and can still end in mortality.


----------



## Hollowway

c7spheres said:


> This means it's already to late and every human on earth will end up getting it based on the estimated number of cases world wide so far, so let's just go back to work and let the chips fall where they may. Obviously the numbers can't be accurate if that's the case. I seriously doubt every single person will get it. Then again, maybe they're accurate so we should just go about as normal since there's nothing we can do anyways.


Yeah, I don't think anyone thinks we can stop it. What they're trying to do is have not everyone get it at once, so we can save as many lives as possible. If everyone gets it at once there's nowhere near enough hospital beds or doctors for the severe cases. That's what the mean by flattening the curve. There's no way we can stop the virus entirely. It's all about managing it. Once we get to the so called herd immunity, which they say is likely around 70-80%, then it'll stop. So not literally everyone will get it. The problem is, huge swaths of people just don't get the flattening of the curve argument. The whole business of letting old people die makes no sense, because A) it doesn't just kill old people, and B) even if everyone get's it at the same time, that's basically a shut down of the economy anyway, because everything will be overwhelmed.


----------



## wankerness

narad said:


> Yea, I mean, no one is saying that covid is more dangerous than fighting in a war. These are just random figures designed to make people reconsider the severity of the epidemic. But they aren't exaggerated BS -- they're reasonably true statements given current projections.



exactly. It’s not a comparable situation. It’s that it’s a huge, huge deal for over a million people to die over a few months and tons of idiots (including most Republicans now, thanks to Fox News and trump’s ghouls forcing this “losing money is worse than lives” narrative) are looking at the percentage and thinking it’s nothing. While a much smaller number of people dying in those massive wars over a much more elongated spread of time was considered a VERY BIG DEAL (and still is, even by some of the same people). The cognitive dissonance is mind boggling.


----------



## c7spheres

jaxadam said:


>



This is the crowd outside the supermarket. It makes no sense to make everyone go in a smaller amount of time, imo. Everywhere is closed after like 6pm-8pm instead of 24 hours places. How does that make it less likely to spread? This forces everyone to gather in larger groups.
- They also moved a bunch of prisoners to the farms out here. WFT!? The idea is so they don't bring it back to the prisons. But they were already just there at the prisons. They say only 6 inmates have been tested so far. Why the hell are you camping on top our food now? It seems like a lot of the stuff "they" are doing is counter intuitive and actually spreading the virus. What's next? having them all go swimming in the water supply? Shit, now I gotta make sure I'm not eating any of that food.


----------



## Cynicanal

No one is saying that many people dying isn't a big deal. We're saying it's better to lose some to Scylla than all to Charybdis. There are _no_ good answers, but the World Wars caused a lot less misery than the Great Depression (the second one was basically the way the world chose to get out of the depression).


----------



## Hollowway

wankerness said:


> exactly. It’s not a comparable situation. It’s that it’s a huge, huge deal for over a million people to die over a few months and tons of idiots (including most Republicans now, thanks to Fox News and trump’s ghouls forcing this “losing money is worse than lives” narrative) are looking at the percentage and thinking it’s nothing. While a much smaller number of people dying in those massive wars over a much more elongated spread of time was considered a VERY BIG DEAL (and still is, even by some of the same people). The cognitive dissonance is mind boggling.


Yeah, that's what I can't understand. I mean, short of Logan's Run, I never thought I'd hear someone with a straight face we should kill off the older people in the population. We rail against homicide, genocide, abortion, even euthanasia. The GOP is the one that says we cannot kill a fetus, and cannot pull the plug on an old person that wants to die, and who is terminally ill. But, throw a little money in there? Ok, sure, kill the old people. WTF has happened that people are actually falling in line behind these lunatics? I honestly have no clue how rabid Trump supporters think that this is OK. I say, if you're old, and you want to be a patriot, go to a hospital and volunteer. Don't take one for the team so the CEO of a hedge fund gets 0.000001% richer.


----------



## narad

Cynicanal said:


> but the World Wars caused a lot less misery than the Great Depression



[citation needed]


----------



## Hollowway

Cynicanal said:


> but the World Wars caused a lot less misery than the Great Depression (the second one was basically the way the world chose to get out of the depression).



Ah, I'm gonna need to see some serious source material for this. There's no way I believe that to be the case, and I've read nothing to suggest it to be true, but loads of stuff to support the opposite.

EDIT.  by @narad


----------



## narad

Hollowway said:


> Ah, I'm gonna need to see some serious source material for this. There's no way I believe that to be the case, and I've read nothing to suggest it to be true, but loads of stuff to support the opposite.
> 
> EDIT.  by @narad



For real. If someone was throwing me in a time machine to some destination unbeknownst to me, I might request, please, anything but the Somme. I couldn't handle that, in any sense.


----------



## Hollowway

The other thing is that this doesn't have to be a zero sum game. Keep things on lockdown, but give the average American something more than a paltry fucking $1200. You want to avoid a depression? Start by stopping the people that get depressed. I promise you J.D Rockefeller wasn't feeling the bite of the Great Depression the way John Q. Public was. Right now the GOP is all about giving an ass load of money to whoever they want, with few restrictions (hence the slush fund comparisons), but is also saying that we shouldn't give money via unemployment to the average worker, because it incentivizes them to stay home and do nothing. What the fuck is that about? The people that do nothing are the wealthy trust fund types. The average worker isn't going to be jazzed to sit at home making a fraction of his normal worth.


----------



## Cynicanal

narad said:


> [citation needed]


Read up on the rise of the Nazi party, and the reasons for the initial military actions they took in Europe. It was entirely economic, as a desperate attempt to escape a depression so bad people were using money for firewood.

@Hollowway -- giving money to John Q. Public won't prevent a depression that's caused by every single industry dying at once. People having money without anything being produced doesn't do anything but create hyperinflation.


----------



## c7spheres

narad said:


> For real. If someone was throwing me in a time machine to some destination unbeknownst to me, I might request, please, anything but the Somme. I couldn't handle that, in any sense.


 I hope nobody ever has to deal with anything like any of the wars or this virus/plague stuff ever again. I would probably last about 2 seconds before I broke down.


----------



## narad

Cynicanal said:


> Read up on the rise of the Nazi party, and the reasons for the initial military actions they took in Europe. It was entirely economic, as a desperate attempt to escape a depression so bad people were using money for firewood.



Lol This is no justification for claiming the WWs caused less misery than the great depression! Of course the depression was bad, and of course the post-WWI condition in Germany was dire, but the fact that people chose to unite doesn't somehow validate everything afterwards as better. It gave them *hope* for something better, but it hardly seems like they came out of it for the better. I doubt if given a crystal ball glimpse of what would become of themselves and their country, that m(any) Germans would have marched to war.


----------



## spudmunkey

US has passed 1000 deaths.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

It's kinda funny how folks who were all about those "Obamacare Death Panels" have no problem sentencing thousands if not millions of people to death so rich people can horde more money in offshore tax shelters.


----------



## blacai

I still don't know who is going to work while the health care system is overrun and collapsed. 
Will the military forces close the access to hospitals when people try to get there because they are sick,not only because of covid,but also another illnesses?
It will get far worse than it is now and we shouldn't forget the amount of people that have access to guns there...

I might be stupid.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

blacai said:


> I still don't know who is going to work while the health care system is overrun and collapsed.
> Will the military forces close the access to hospitals when people try to get there because they are sick,not only because of covid,but also another illnesses?
> It will get far worse than it is now and we shouldn't forget the amount of people that have access to guns there...
> 
> I might be stupid.



This is definitely showing some glaring cracks in our healthcare infrastructure. 

But, while I definitely think it's going to get worse before it gets better, I know we have the resources to make it through this. The only barrier right now is poor leadership, though as things get harder to sweep under the rug we'll hopefully see a change there. 

We have the manufacturing and training capabilities we just need to dust them off as it's gotten quite rusty.


----------



## Hollowway

Cynicanal said:


> Read up on the rise of the Nazi party, and the reasons for the initial military actions they took in Europe. It was entirely economic, as a desperate attempt to escape a depression so bad people were using money for firewood.
> 
> @Hollowway -- giving money to John Q. Public won't prevent a depression that's caused by every single industry dying at once. People having money without anything being produced doesn't do anything but create hyperinflation.



Regarding the rise of Hitler, what you’re saying is partially true, but it absolutely was not entirely economic. Hitler’s rise was a result of the heavy penalty placed in Germany by the Treaty of Versailles. It wasn’t the depression per se, but the heavy sanctions put upon Germany after the end of WWI that pissed off the Germans. So it was partly economic, but only in as much as that economic hardship was placed by the countries who won the war. There have been oodles of depressed economies, and with rare exception, they don’t lead to world wars. I think we can agree that Hitler’s rise to power is not a template that we can apply to the current situation. 

For your second statement, I think it’s a huge stretch to say that every industry is going to die at once, and that nothing will be produced. That’s a huge exaggeration, and makes it difficult to have a debate with you, because there’s a zero percent chance that’s going to happen. But giving a few thousand dollars is not going to cause measurable inflation. What it WILL do is allow John Q. to pay his rent, or mortgage, or auto loan. You want to end a recession? Give people the money they would have had anyway. I mean, I know jack all about economy, but that’s what I’ve read.

Are you of the opinion that no one should get the money? I know that some economists believe that we should, for instance, let the airlines file for Chapter 11. Or are you for giving money to the corporations? For me, I would much prefer not to give the money directly to the corporations, because what we saw in the last bailout is a lot of companies just gave the money to their shareholders via stock buybacks or via executive bonuses. I’d prefer, personally, that we give money to people who are going to spend it, since that’s what makes the economy run. Giving the money to a multimillionaire or billionaire doesn’t put it in circulation. If I’m a restaurant owner, I’d prefer that my customers have money to eat in my restaurant in the month of April or May.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/...action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

Heck of a read.


----------



## fantom

For the people who seem to care about the economy more than our health system. Maybe this is worth your time.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-will-coronavirus-end/608719/


----------



## Cynicanal

fantom said:


> For the people who seem to care about the economy more than our health system. Maybe this is worth your time.
> 
> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-will-coronavirus-end/608719/


Yeah, go ahead, read that article. It points out that we'd have to maintain lockdown until there's a vaccine -- _minimum of 18 months_ -- for it to be effective. That's simply not an option, for a huge variety of reasons.

It's not a question of "our economy or lives". Untold millions are dying no matter what at this point; the cow has left the barn. The question is "untold millions of lives, or untold millions of lives _and_ the worst economic depression ever, the kind that makes the Roman empire falling and Europe entering the dark ages look like a tiny recession".


----------



## possumkiller

For real though. I warned you guys about not taking those die hard Trump/Republican fanatics seriously. It's not that they are so in love with Trump. They just eat up all the propaganda and would die to make life worse for you evil brainwashed libtards. Well they act like it and talk like it right up until the moment it's actually time to die. These politicians have had decades to study leaders like Hitler and how they controlled people. When I see Trump talking about stopping the quarantine no matter the cost, I see Hitler refusing to let his armies surrender and ordering them to fight to the last man. I'm just hoping there will be people in high places that have enough sense like some of Hitler's generals to just ignore him and do the right thing anyway.


----------



## c7spheres

I hope that something good comes out of all this when it hopefully ends or settles down. Like people really getting serious about revamping how we live, how we treat each other, our health care system etc, wages etc. If this doesn't do it I'd hate to see what it will take. I hope it doesn't lead to just more control, loss of freedoms and an even worse situation. I hope people don't get even more selfish and brazen with each other. The time for people really doing what's right is centurys overdo.


----------



## bostjan

Health > Wealth

In other words, if you have your life, you can still earn money to get back on track.


----------



## narad

c7spheres said:


> I hope that something good comes out of all this when it hopefully ends or settles down. Like people really getting serious about revamping how we live, how we treat each other, our health care system etc, wages etc. If this doesn't do it I'd hate to see what it will take. I hope it doesn't lead to just more control, loss of freedoms and an even worse situation. I hope people don't get even more selfish and brazen with each other. The time for people really doing what's right is centurys overdo.



In some ways I hope that it does become bad in the US because I feel the prevailing attitude amongst all looming dangers is, "Okay, I'm just one person, I'll continue to live normally and it won't affect me, and someone else will fix it." You see this with so many things where scientists agree there is a threat, declare the need for action with some limited time to address it, but it never seems to come to pass. Obviously climate change is the obvious one.

It's an unfortunate "tough love" event, but sometimes I feel like people need a wake-up call to realize that sometimes the worst case outcome really does happen, and there's no one to bail you out. Going to the beach during a shelter-in-place order really wasn't a harmless thing, etc. Kind of a "The Watchmen" type scenario where a bad event may be required to point people towards ultimately avoiding a world/civilization-ending one.


----------



## StevenC

Cynicanal said:


> Yeah, go ahead, read that article. It points out that we'd have to maintain lockdown until there's a vaccine -- _minimum of 18 months_ -- for it to be effective. That's simply not an option, for a huge variety of reasons.
> 
> It's not a question of "our economy or lives". Untold millions are dying no matter what at this point; the cow has left the barn. The question is "untold millions of lives, or untold millions of lives _and_ the worst economic depression ever, the kind that makes the Roman empire falling and Europe entering the dark ages look like a tiny recession".


What kind of reductive attitude is this? "We could have people die and be slightly inconvenienced, or we could not be inconvenienced and have way more people die". It's worth noting that if a huge chunk of population dies that'll result in a huge recession too.


----------



## chopeth

France doesn't count coronavirus deceased out of hospitals and there are mistakes in the total sum of affected in Germany. This is not the news, everybody around knows they are doing funeral engineering in the count of the dead bodies. 

If anybody believes China figures, he/she is mad as a hatter

But anyway, those are white lies comparing with what we are going to get when the EEUU start to present their figures. A country with 30 million without health insurance, the test is 3000€ and worth nothing knowing you're infected if you can't pay the treatment. 20 million without documentation that won't go to the doctor even feeling they are at death's door or else localization and expulsion of the entire family will be done. The insurance policies don't cover the total amount for the treatment nor to be on sick leave. 

With the presidential elections so close, most passings will be due to who knows what? No presidency can bear dozens or (who knows again) hundred of thousands of deaths. Imagine the poor African countries... where they say the "aren't even counted"

Capitalism out of control: The American Way of Death sadly many other countries are buying, subsidiary to that mad fool in your white house... Bolsonaro, Johnson, Orban, Salvini... even in my near-third world country there's a branch of this new wave of fascist politics. 

Gods have mercy (not actually)


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Unfortunately, the number of Americans who don't now and likely never will acknowledge dire reality is staggering. Americans want to tout "we the people" yet so many only care about themselves as individuals. The inconvenience of social distancing combined with short attention spans means that no matter what... they'll keep their heads buried in the sand until it's far too late. I mean... there's never been anything close to the severity of this in most of our lifetimes yet there is still defiance throughout so much of the US population. 

Even my best friend won't change his habits and considers anything outside of his normal routine ( washing hands frequently, staying away from crowds, limiting food consumption, listening to news broadcasts, etc) "freaking out" and vows that he won't do any of that. It's begun putting a very awkward and noticeable strain on our friendship and I'm not sure that he and I will ever have the same fondness for one another that we used to. It's absolutely sad and unfortunate but he and scores of other Americans will never even TRY to respect the factual information or sound opinions outside of their comfort zone. It's almost like covid-19 is the new "politics and religion" that you don't dare talk about.


----------



## possumkiller

High Plains Drifter said:


> Unfortunately, the number of Americans who don't now and likely never will acknowledge dire reality is staggering. Americans want to tout "we the people" yet so many only care about themselves as individuals. The inconvenience of social distancing combined with short attention spans means that no matter what... they'll keep their heads buried in the sand until it's far too late. I mean... there's never been anything close to the severity of this in most of our lifetimes yet there is still defiance throughout so much of the US population.
> 
> Even my best friend won't change his habits and considers anything outside of his normal routine ( washing hands frequently, staying away from crowds, limiting food consumption, listening to news broadcasts, etc) "freaking out" and vows that he won't do any of that. It's begun putting a very awkward and noticeable strain on our friendship and I'm not sure that he and I will ever have the same fondness for one another that we used to. It's absolutely sad and unfortunate but he and scores of other Americans will never even TRY to respect the factual information or sound opinions outside of their comfort zone. It's almost like covid-19 is the new "politics and religion" that you don't dare talk about.


Religious fanatics don't care about facts. They believe in magic and love leaders with big personalities. That's why they make great Republican cannon fodder.


----------



## Demiurge

narad said:


> It's an unfortunate "tough love" event, but sometimes I feel like people need a wake-up call to realize that sometimes the worst case outcome really does happen, and there's no one to bail you out. Going to the beach during a shelter-in-place order really wasn't a harmless thing, etc. Kind of a "The Watchmen" type scenario where a bad event may be required to point people towards ultimately avoiding a world/civilization-ending one.



Pin this post. We're definitely getting a large galactic squid monster dropped on us next year at this rate.


----------



## sleewell

seems like the governors of FL, MS and LA are really dropping the ball. MS in particular.


----------



## jaxadam

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/25/who...demic-response-trump-is-doing-all-he-can.html


----------



## sleewell

MaxOfMetal said:


> It's kinda funny how folks who were all about those "Obamacare Death Panels" have no problem sentencing thousands if not millions of people to death so rich people can horde more money in offshore tax shelters.




quoted for absolute truth. this cannot be stated enough times.


----------



## blacai

https://summit.news/2020/03/26/form...s-for-global-government-to-fight-coronavirus/
Boy...


----------



## Flappydoodle

USMarine75 said:


> Obfuscation... none of this answered my question. You have a MBBS/PHD, yet you aren't optimistic we can mitigate a virus with a vaccine? Something we've done successfully before many times?



Well, maybe we *can*, but not any time soon. People with optimistic viewpoints think we can vaccinate people in 18 months. But the number of successfully developed coronavirus vaccines is very small. Right now, the best hope is from adapting a SARS vaccine which came about in 2005, after SARS had been and gone. Nobody wanted that vaccine now, but they are using the platform and hoping to update it for this new coronavirus. It was tricky to make, because the first vaccine was essentially too strong and caused immune hypersensitivity which actually made you WORSE if you encountered the real virus. So they have to intentionally make a weaker vaccine, but still enough to give you protection. Even when they have a successful vaccine tested in animals, it would need widespread production and distribution which is a massive undertaking.

In short, don't count on a vaccine any time soon. 18 months is still optimistic. If anybody says the vaccine will be soon, they are flat out lying.



> Is anyone arguing shelter-in-place and lockdown until 100% eradication? Everyone that I know, work with, or have read about including on here, is arguing this as a throttle to flatten the curve.



Ok... so you're accepting that there IS a threshold of deaths than we will accept in exchange for normalcy. 

The only way to protect every possible life is 100% lockdown until there are 0 cases. If you want to end the lockdown before every single individual is vaccinated, then you're saying it's ok to sacrifice some people..?



> A "fraction of the population"? Again... you have a degree... in science right? An unmitigated pandemic - which is what you are arguing for - could cause 500k deaths in the UK and 2M deaths in the US alone. So... rather than people facing tough economic times, I should potentially sacrifice my mother and oldest child?



See my point above. 

And also, those dying from this coronavirus could also have died from other causes - influenza, heart attacks etc. There are a million heart attacks and ~875,000 deaths from CVD per year in the USA alone. 

And no, I'm not arguing for unmitigated pandemic if the death toll would be that high. But right now, we're totally guessing about death rates because we don't know the true number of infected with any certainty.

Secondly, at no point have I said that flattening the curve is a bad idea. It's clear that healthcare systems need to buy time to prepare for any peak of hospitalisations. I'm not against the restrictions entirely. I'm just pointing out the inevitability that we will have to let the virus run through the population at some time in the nearish future. It's the only viable option.



> Your exact quote was "We make decisions to let people die for economic gain ALL THE TIME. Car accidents kill a lot of healthy young people. So we should ban cars, right? If we don't ban cars today, more kids will die - fact. Yet we don't ban cars, because society places freedom and convenience as more important than those childrens' lives. We already decide a threshold at which economic benefit and societal enjoyment outweighs lives. This virus is just forcing that to happen in a more direct way."
> 
> That is such a flawed analogy. I still find t difficult to believe you're a scientist with this kind of logic.
> 
> Example of your logic: About 2,000 children under 16 die every year in traffic collisions. Therefore, cars kills kids. But we don't ban cars because they kill kids, do we? "I'm saying that we DON'T ban cars because we DO value convenience, economic benefits and freedom more than lives. That's just fact, even though it's unpleasant to put it like that. People here are making it sound like it's totally inhuman to ever "sacrifice" people to limit economic damage."
> 
> This is an unsound argument and it's exactly what you're saying.
> 
> Back to my point...



There's nothing wrong with the logic at all. Maybe you're reading the first part wrong. The questions are supposed to be facetious. 

I'll make it simple: We choose economy, freedom and convenience over the value of life all the time. 

There are lots of things we could do to save lives (such as banning cars, banning all fossil fuel etc), but we don't, because we believe that the benefits (economy, freedom, convenience etc) outweigh the costs (unnecessary deaths). Thus, we already accept that it's ok for some people to die for our convenience and economic success. 

This virus is just the same. Is it worth X percent of GDP to save Y number of lives? Someone has to make that call.



> Exactly. We don't ever make the kinds of conciliation like your fallacious argument above about banning cars. Polio, which only killed around 6k people per year max, caused the need for social distancing outside of your regular/close interactions. And that was a "scourge" that at it's peak only killed 6k and paralyzed 4x that. Imagine if it had worldwide pandemic potential threat levels?


[/QUOTE]

I don't know much about polio, but I know it had many other harms, such as lifelong disability. And it primarily affected children, which is a different equation to a respiratory condition which mostly kills the very elderly. I have to assume that if this coronavirus killed children rather than elderly, the actions would be stronger because we place more value on the lives of children.


----------



## sleewell

just talked to the guy who works next to me. he has been working remotely for 2 weeks now. his wife is a nurse. they are dangerously low on supplies. she has said she is going to stop going to work if they run out. not worth it when they have 2 kids and he still has income. 

if you think trump is doing a good job in this respect you are insane. this is exactly what the federal govt is supposed to be doing right now and they are not.


----------



## Flappydoodle

thraxil said:


> Last I heard, he was taken to the hospital and is on oxygen (not a ventilator yet, but it's bad enough that they're keeping him there until things change). "Usually" a healthy 40yo wouldn't need to go to the hospital, but this disease is not usual.



Sorry to hear. Hope she recovers quickly.



Xaios said:


> I, too, run [email protected] on my computer.




Funny.



thraxil said:


> Prince Charles has tested positive. This is going to be interesting.



It will be interesting, but statistically he has a very good chance. 71, in otherwise fairly good health. The Queen would be the really scary one if she caught it!



shadowlife said:


> A better "cars" analogy would be to say "since so many young people die in car accidents, maybe the minimum age to drive should be 21? or 25? or 30?"
> So why don't they raise the minimum age?
> Where do you draw the line between trying to save lives, and doing what's best for the majority of people?



Children mostly die as passengers, not drivers.

But I feel like everyone is taking this analogy out of context and then strawmanning the shit out of it.

Point is that choosing convenience/economic benefit etc over lives is pretty normal. 



fantom said:


> And to be super clear here. There is no way that USA is going to just create covid-19 concentration camps and let millions just die. All of this arguing and terrible analogies really serves no purpose but trolling and inciting.
> 
> Btw, car accidents and drunk drivers don't infect bystanders. If you want to make a comparison, try second hand smoking, which most people agree is bad at this point. And since we banned smoking in most public places, it hasn't been an issue.



I don't think anybody has proposed a concentration camp or letting millions just die.

My view is that it's impossible to prevent this virus spreading. What we are doing now is slowing it down to a hopefully more manageable level. 

But our two extreme decisions are:
1. 100% lockdown until virus cases are 0 worldwide, maximum amount of lives saved
2. Let it rip and maybe a lot of people die, or maybe not, but it will cause a lot of chaos

I don't see anybody seriously proposing either one, but this forum seems to learn more towards 1 than 2. 

So our governments need to make a choice somewhere in that grey area of balancing death toll vs. letting people live their lives.

And car accidents kill innocent bystanders all the time.



diagrammatiks said:


> I mean it's not like because cars kill people anyway...we should let people drive however they want and makers shouldn't try to make them any safer ever. because people gonna die anyway right.



Nobody has proposed that we take zero steps to address the coronavirus.



penguin_316 said:


> So many qualitative arguments in this thread, let’s talk quantitative.
> 
> Don’t respond, do the math for yourself. We will crunch the numbers for the USA only, but you could easily do it for the world population as well.
> 
> The rate of infection is doubling roughly every 4-5 days, it fits a logarithmic regression curve. If nothing changes here is what to expect, social distancing will stall these numbers not prevent them.
> 
> US:
> March 25 presently- 54,453 infected
> March 30- 108,906
> April 4- 217,812
> April 9- 435,624
> April 14- 871,248
> April 19- 1,742,496
> April 24- 3,484,992
> April 29- 6,969,984
> May 4- 13,939,968
> May 9- 27,879,936
> May 14- 55,759,872
> May 19- 111,519,744
> May 24- 223,039,488
> May 29- 446,078,976
> 
> Oh wait, there are only about 330 million in the US. Let’s talk about car analogies some more to be edgy. We don’t need to worry though, Narads’ test kits are going to flatten the shit outta this curve.



Well done, you can plot a log graph. Your PhD in Epidemiology is in the post.

Though your thesis defence committee might question some of your assumptions. If you honestly believe that there are presently 54,453 infected in the US, you're completely insane. That's 0.016% of the population. You think that's enough infection to fill up hospitals?

The "rate of infection" is also completely unknown. The doubling of 4-5 days is because of a massive ramping up of TESTING. It isn't necessarily reflecting an increase in infections at the same rate. 

You also have to bear in mind that the testing methodology (RT-PCR) detects viral RNA fragments, so it can only pick up current infections. It would not detect someone who has recovered. We won't know until we do serological tests for antibodies in the future. Then we'll know how many were truly exposed.


----------



## Flappydoodle

What do people think of this paper, which is doing the rounds?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/oxmu2rwsnhi9j9c/Draft-COVID-19-Model (13).pdf?dl=0

Basically,

"Our simulations are in agreement with other studies that the current epidemic wave in the UK and Italy in the absence of interventions should have an approximate duration of 2-3 months, with numbers of deaths lagging behind in time relative to overall infections. Importantly, the results we present here suggest the ongoing epidemics in the UK and Italy started at least a month before the first reported death and have already led to the accumulation of significant levels of herd immunity in both countries."

Written by Sunetra Gupta. Professor at Oxford, PhD from Imperial and BS from Princeton. She makes mathematical models looking at the spread of malaria, HIV, influenza etc. So she's not just some random person.

https://www.zoo.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-sunetra-gupta#tab-1868326

Personally, I'd be extremely happy if her prediction is correct. It means that we are very close to the worst time right now, and things will improve very quickly.


----------



## Winspear

^ I'm pretty certain my family in the UK had it early Feb


----------



## Flappydoodle

Hollowway said:


> Yeah, that's what I can't understand. I mean, short of Logan's Run, I never thought I'd hear someone with a straight face we should kill off the older people in the population. We rail against homicide, genocide, abortion, even euthanasia. The GOP is the one that says we cannot kill a fetus, and cannot pull the plug on an old person that wants to die, and who is terminally ill. But, throw a little money in there? Ok, sure, kill the old people. WTF has happened that people are actually falling in line behind these lunatics? I honestly have no clue how rabid Trump supporters think that this is OK. I say, if you're old, and you want to be a patriot, go to a hospital and volunteer. Don't take one for the team so the CEO of a hedge fund gets 0.000001% richer.



I'm curious, where are you seeing these lunatics that you're passionately railing against?

Who has said kill all the old people?

But FWIW, the government certainly has an interest in preventing catastrophic economic meltdown which happens if lockdown continues for too long. They have to re-open the country at some point - the question is when, and how many people will be sacrificed.



possumkiller said:


> For real though. I warned you guys about not taking those die hard Trump/Republican fanatics seriously. It's not that they are so in love with Trump. They just eat up all the propaganda and would die to make life worse for you evil brainwashed libtards. Well they act like it and talk like it right up until the moment it's actually time to die. These politicians have had decades to study leaders like Hitler and how they controlled people. When I see Trump talking about stopping the quarantine no matter the cost, I see Hitler refusing to let his armies surrender and ordering them to fight to the last man. I'm just hoping there will be people in high places that have enough sense like some of Hitler's generals to just ignore him and do the right thing anyway.



Where are these fanatics that have upset you so much? I've mostly skim-read this thread but I don't think I've seen a Trump supporter anywhere in the last 10 pages.


----------



## Flappydoodle

Winspear said:


> ^ I'm pretty certain my family in the UK had it early Feb



Same. Early Jan both my parents (UK) had mild fever for a couple days. Another friend of mine had a cough for almost two weeks.

I also know from two GP friends that there was an unusually high number of respiratory infections around the start of the year. At the time it was just assumed to be part of peak flu season, but I now wonder how many were Covid-19. It's pretty rare that patients are actually tested for influenza A or B. They just get told to go home and wait it out with a cup of tea unless they're serious enough for a referral.


----------



## Chokey Chicken

There's a real possibility I had it at the start of the year. I never took my temperature, but I had the other symptoms for a while. (A cough so bad my ribs hurt and it was hard to breath without discomfort.) I had whatever it was for about 2-3 weeks. It felt kind of like the flu but not. Right when I started contemplating going to the hospital I got better. Would've been nice to test, but people weren't super concerned at the time. The best I remember was that a few edgelord friends on FB were making jokes about it and it being largely in just China.


----------



## possumkiller

Flappydoodle said:


> Where are these fanatics that have upset you so much? I've mostly skim-read this thread but I don't think I've seen a Trump supporter anywhere in the last 10 pages.



Don't look in pages. Look around in real life. Go outside the city limits. They make up quite a lot of the rural US. My father is a rabid Trump/Republican/NRA/Christian automaton. My cousin couldn't care less about Trump or religion but will support him just because he swallows all the propaganda and sees anyone left of right to be subhuman and the enemy. I have very many friends and family members that are brainwashed into this shit. I have to listen to them regurgitate whatever their talking heads tell them to. It isn't just my family, it's a lot of people's families.


----------



## ThePIGI King

@Flappydoodle Hi, Trump supporter here 

As for the saying waves could have came through already I heard that down home the majority of the tri-county area had a flu for almost a month straight and 2 of the 3 school districts closed for a little bit to help everyone beat this. My mom said that was back in January. So it could have very well happened. Or they had a horrible flu season and have terrible immune systems


----------



## jaxadam

possumkiller said:


> Don't look in pages. Look around in real life. Go outside the city limits. They make up quite a lot of the rural US. My father is a rabid Trump/Republican/NRA/Christian automaton. My cousin couldn't care less about Trump or religion but will support him just because he swallows all the propaganda and sees anyone left of right to be subhuman and the enemy. I have very many friends and family members that are brainwashed into this shit. I have to listen to them regurgitate whatever their talking heads tell them to. It isn't just my family, it's a lot of people's families.



Is that only a symptom of the other "team", or is it a symptom of both "teams"? See, I feel like, depending on who you ask, you can replace all of your right leaning adjectives there with left leaning adjectives.


----------



## jaxadam

Chokey Chicken said:


> There's a real possibility I had it at the start of the year. I never took my temperature, but I had the other symptoms for a while. (A cough so bad my ribs hurt and it was hard to breath without discomfort.) I had whatever it was for about 2-3 weeks. It felt kind of like the flu but not. Right when I started contemplating going to the hospital I got better. Would've been nice to test, but people weren't super concerned at the time. The best I remember was that a few edgelord friends on FB were making jokes about it and it being largely in just China.



I wouldn't be surprised if me, my wife, kids, and another guy we work with had it, too. My older son had a high fever for a few days. They both seemed to have colds/the flu. Our co-worker felt like total shit for a week and swears he had it. Both my wife and I got sore throats then a cough and some other shit that lasted about a week, but who knows.


----------



## spudmunkey

possumkiller said:


> Don't look in pages. Look around in real life. Go outside the city limits. They make up quite a lot of the rural US. My father is a rabid Trump/Republican/NRA/Christian automaton. My cousin couldn't care less about Trump or religion but will support him just because he swallows all the propaganda and sees anyone left of right to be subhuman and the enemy. I have very many friends and family members that are brainwashed into this shit. I have to listen to them regurgitate whatever their talking heads tell them to. It isn't just my family, it's a lot of people's families.



Two prime examples:
exmple one: On Tuesday, one of my aunts shared a photo of that "President Trump's Corona Virus Advisory" (or whatever it was called) postcard proudly on facebook, tagging me specifically, claiming that it's proof the Trump's the best man in america to lead the fight, and that he's been on it from the start. *sigh*.
Example two: One of my cousins from the other side of my family added a comment to that post, with something along the lines of "I didn't get one from obama!" (might not be a direct quote, as I finally un-friended both on FB that afternoon.


----------



## jaxadam

spudmunkey said:


> Two prime examples:
> exmple one: On Tuesday, one of my aunts shared a photo of that "President Trump's Corona Virus Advisory" (or whatever it was called) postcard proudly on facebook, tagging me specifically, claiming that it's proof the Trump's the best man in america to lead the fight, and that he's been on it from the start. *sigh*.
> Example two: One of my cousins from the other side of my family added a comment to that post, with something along the lines of "I didn't get one from obama!" (might not be a direct quote, as I finally un-friended both on FB that afternoon.



I'm sorry to hear that politics is tearing your family apart.


----------



## possumkiller

jaxadam said:


> Is that only a symptom of the other "team", or is it a symptom of both "teams"? See, I feel like, depending on who you ask, you can replace all of your right leaning adjectives there with left leaning adjectives.


It is a problem for both. You can find a lot of the left side extremists here sometimes. People that care only for themselves and have swallowed so much propaganda that they only care about inflicting damage to their enemies on the right. It's all part of the game with political brainwashing. It doesn't matter which team you are on as long as you pick a team and fight the other team. That is modern democracy in the US. All of the idiots on the bottom are divided into groups that want to kill the other group off while all the assholes at the top doing the brainwashing are filling their pockets.


----------



## Choop

jaxadam said:


> Is that only a symptom of the other "team", or is it a symptom of both "teams"? See, I feel like, depending on who you ask, you can replace all of your right leaning adjectives there with left leaning adjectives.



Which adjectives?

Just replying, because I really don't think that applies as much regarding the current administration. There's an air of anti-intellectualism and misinformation that is so pervasive and toxic, especially on social media outlets (I live in Kentucky). But it's just like, a weird baseline aggressive allegiance despite all of the obvious BS. Trump even said that Covid-19 was a democratic hoax just a week prior to the government actually sort of trying to take it seriously, and that was even propagated via Fox News. That's just one example, but the situation that we find ourselves in now just proves how dangerous Trump's behavior is for the rest of the country. It's hard to hide the facts once people start dying.


----------



## spudmunkey

I assume he meant something like:
"Don't look in pages. Look around in real life. Go outside the *rural areas and suburbs*. They make up quite a lot of the *urban* US. My *nephew* is a rabid *Bernie Bro*. My cousin couldn't care less about *Bernie* or *LGBT rights *but will support him just because he swallows all the *demicratic socialism* propaganda and sees anyone *right* of *left* to be subhuman and the enemy. I have very many friends and family members that are brainwashed into this shit. I have to listen to them regurgitate whatever their talking heads tell them to. It isn't just my family, it's a lot of people's families."


----------



## USMarine75

I just can’t anymore with the stupidity in this thread... between supposed scientists that can’t frame a sound and cogent argument to chicken little.

I’m gonna hit the mute and stick to the FS threads. 

Tl;dr everyone that prefers we sacrifice my mother and oldest son, so the economy isn’t impacted... I hope you get anal cancer. And recover. I’m not a monster. But I hope you have anal leakage for the rest of your life.


----------



## possumkiller

spudmunkey said:


> I assume he meant something like:
> "Don't look in pages. Look around in real life. Go outside the *rural areas and suburbs*. They make up quite a lot of the *urban* US. My *nephew* is a rabid *Bernie Bro*. My cousin couldn't care less about *Bernie* or *LGBT rights *but will support him just because he swallows all the *demicratic socialism* propaganda and sees anyone *right* of *left* to be subhuman and the enemy. I have very many friends and family members that are brainwashed into this shit. I have to listen to them regurgitate whatever their talking heads tell them to. It isn't just my family, it's a lot of people's families."


And I am sure that can be a very true statement as well. I despise the polarization where people think you have to be on one side or the other and if you are on one side you must hate the other side. I just wish people would finally wake up and realize it is all just a few assholes playing with their emotions.


----------



## jaxadam

USMarine75 said:


> between supposed scientists that can’t frame a sound and cogent argument to chicken little.



You know, I may not be a scientist, but my neighbor is an ER doc at a major hospital here and he says the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.


----------



## wankerness

Flappydoodle said:


> I'm curious, where are you seeing these lunatics that you're passionately railing against?
> 
> Who has said kill all the old people?
> 
> But FWIW, the government certainly has an interest in preventing catastrophic economic meltdown which happens if lockdown continues for too long. They have to re-open the country at some point - the question is when, and how many people will be sacrificed.
> 
> 
> 
> Where are these fanatics that have upset you so much? I've mostly skim-read this thread but I don't think I've seen a Trump supporter anywhere in the last 10 pages.



that cynicanical or whatever freak is blatantly saying we should let it rip with max fatalities. Others have said social distancing is terrible and that they don’t know anyone who has the virus so it must not be a big deal. Anyone who talks about economic shutdown being worse than letting her rip is only slightly indirectly advocating the death of millions over the death of thousands just to appease the mighty stock market god.


----------



## soliloquy

more than the virus impacting peoples health, i'm more worried about the economical impact this will have on people. wont be surprised if this bankrupts more people than it infects.

though that is not to say i am in favor of the mass deaths this will cause


----------



## wankerness

soliloquy said:


> more than the virus impacting peoples health, i'm more worried about the economical impact this will have on people. wont be surprised if this bankrupts more people than it infects.
> 
> though that is not to say i am in favor of the mass deaths this will cause



So what you're saying is that you think people having to go on unemployment and go bankrupt for a few months is more worrying than them literally drowning from Covid19?


----------



## sleewell

you can declare BK 6 times and still be president.

hard to do much of anything if you are dead.


----------



## soliloquy

wankerness said:


> So what you're saying is that you think people having to go on unemployment and go bankrupt for a few months is more worrying than them literally drowning from Covid19?



no, not at all. but that this may cause a new world order as the CEOs and giant corporations that are employing everyone else may have to close doors. meaning once this whole thing is sorted out, tons of people may have to start from scratch.


----------



## sleewell

it seems like the states with the lowest education rates and most reliance on govt assistance are the ones advocating to keep business running as normal. 

its also telling that these decisions are being made by people most likely working from home who have great healthcare coverage and they are instructing their front line pawns with no healthcare coverage to take the brunt of the damage.


----------



## Drew

The economy is getting impacted one way or another, let's stop pretending that this is some sort of "choice," either we have a recession, or a bunch of people die. We either have a recession, and slow the growth rate enough that we stretch this out over a longer period of time but keep the peak low enough so our hospitals aren't overwhelmed and the mortality rate improves, or we do nothing, a whole fuckload of people die who we otherwise could have saved, and we have a recession anyway because we're killing off whole swathes of consumers, people are directing disposable income that otherwise would go to goods and services to hospital bills,a and tons of people are staying home anyway regardless fo what their government says. 

So, let's bite the bullet, accept that a fair amount of shareholder profit is going to go up and smoke, and maybe see if we self-isolate for another month or two, we can get this back to the point where we can still go about trying to track, treat, and isolate individual cases rather than going to full community spread. 

Signed, the token Capitalist in the Politics & Current Events sub-forum.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

Download UK festival cancelled. The knock on effect of this is going to cause so many other festivals to cancel now(wether they could even go ahead by then anyway). Bands who had to cancel their spring tours and are now looking at the festival circuits being cancelled are in a bad position.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

It's nice seeing all the republicans and Trump supporters adopting socialism, maybe Bernie has a chance now.


----------



## Drew

MaxOfMetal said:


> It's nice seeing all the republicans and Trump supporters adopting socialism, maybe Bernie has a chance now.


 

I've been joking that, with the Fed buying pretty much everything these days, it's ironic that just as Sanders' campaign fails, we may get socialism after all.


----------



## sleewell

Drew makes some great points. its not really the A vs B choice they are making it out to be and even if we resumed business as normal we would still be in a recession with potentially much worse economic repercussions. 

the part of the argument they are leaving out is the spending by all the people they are willing to let die which could be way worse for the economy. 

bottom line is we can't fix the economy while the healthcare system is on the brink of failing. we should have been organizing medical supplies during the months this was called a dem impeachment hoax.


----------



## possumkiller

MaxOfMetal said:


> It's nice seeing all the republicans and Trump supporters adopting socialism, maybe Bernie has a chance now.


It will be like a magnetic pole reversal. All of a sudden because the Republicans become socialists, the Democrats will become fascists out of spite. Kind of like it was in the days of the Civil War when Republicans were progressive and Democrats were the racist conservatives.


----------



## Drew

sleewell said:


> bottom line is we can't fix the economy while the healthcare system is on the brink of failing. we should have been organizing medical supplies during the months this was called a dem impeachment hoax.


This is a CRITICAL point here. We knew it was inevitably going to come to America. Had we used that time to prepare, to validate our test and produce it in quantities to guarantee that we could do massive, systemic testing around each of the early cases to quarantine it's spread, and as a plan B begun the production and stockpiling of enough face masks and other protective gear, ventilators, and started laying the ground game for additional hospital beds in case we DID fail at containment, we would be in a much, much, much better position than we are today. 

Instead, we're playing catch up, we still can't tst at levels that South Korea has been doing on a daily basis, there are likely tens to hundreds of thousands of unidentified carriers, and we're having a discussion about whether the massive containment measures we now need to stop the spread are "worth" the economic costs they'll impose, because instead of preparing we spent two months with Trump calling it a "hoax" and saying he didn't want to test because he didn't want to see the "numbers" go up. So here we are.


----------



## spudmunkey

spudmunkey said:


> Some statistics i found interesting:
> US deaths per 1m population is currently at 3-ish. China is at 2-sh. Italy is at 124, and Spain is at 73.
> Italy, China and Spain all have more recoveries than deaths...but the US has more deaths than recoveries.



Since then, the US's recoveries have out-paced deaths, which I don't think anyone wouldn't expect...I just thought it was interesting/notable that, up until yesterday or the day before (whenever I posted that), it actually wasn't the case. 

Italy's and Spain's deaths-per-million increased to 135 and 89.

San Marino has their own listing, and they are at 609 deaths/1million and their cases/1million is 5x that of Italy...but they only have 33k people, so it's just an "interesting" data point, rather than a very useful one.


----------



## Adieu

wankerness said:


> So what you're saying is that you think people having to go on unemployment and go bankrupt for a few months is more worrying than them literally drowning from Covid19?



You forgot runaway inflation, the entire service sector going out of business, as well as most of the rest of the "not-too-big-to-fail" crowd

Pensions and savings, bye bye

Compton CA and Flint MI, coming to ALL neighborhoods near you!

PS ...and btw, life expectancy will go down by ~20y per capita, as alcoholism drug addiction depression homicide and suicide become a fact of everyday life rather than shocking outliers

I was born in the good ol CCCP, so I've seen this before.


----------



## wankerness

Adieu said:


> You forgot runaway inflation, the entire service sector going out of business, as well as most of the rest of the "not-too-big-to-fail" crowd
> 
> Pensions and savings, bye bye
> 
> Compton CA and Flint MI, coming to ALL neighborhoods near you!
> 
> PS ...and btw, life expectancy will go down by ~20y per capita, as alcoholism drug addiction depression homicide and suicide become a fact of everyday life rather than shocking outliers



Businesses stopping for a few months will decrease life expectancy by 20 years??? This is blatant fearmongering and has no basis whatsoever in reality. It's just a collection of talking-points made by rich people trying to get the poors to sacrifice their lives for their stock portfolios.

Do you think the service industry is going to do great business if there are bodies piling up outside of hospitals and the healthcare system collapses, as it would in the "let-er-rip" scenario you're clearly advocating?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

spudmunkey said:


> Since then, the US's recoveries have out-paced deaths, which I don't think anyone wouldn't expect...I just thought it was interesting/notable that, up until yesterday or the day before (whenever I posted that), it actually wasn't the case.
> 
> Italy's and Spain's deaths-per-million increased to 135 and 89.
> 
> San Marino has their own listing, and they are at 609 deaths/1million and their cases/1million is 5x that of Italy...but they only have 33k people, so it's just an "interesting" data point, rather than a very useful one.



The thing is, this isn't a fast killer. While most are through with it in about a week, some cases last weeks and even months, so depending on how they base the data someone might not be considered "recovered" until much much later.


----------



## Cynicanal

wankerness said:


> Businesses stopping for a few months will decrease life expectancy by 20 years??? This is blatant fearmongering and has no basis whatsoever in reality. It's just a collection of talking-points made by rich people trying to get the poors to sacrifice their lives for their stock portfolios.
> 
> Do you think the service industry is going to do great business if there are bodies piling up outside of hospitals and the healthcare system collapses, as it would in the "let-er-rip" scenario you're clearly advocating?


Better than the service industry can do if they're completely shut down for 18 months. That sort of thing isn't temporary; if that happens, not only do we lose the businesses in the short-term, but we also lack the infrastructure to rebuild them. They'll be gone for good. And the bodies are going to pile up, and the healthcare system is going to collapse anyways. This isn't a "if we kill the economy, the virus will just magically go away"; it isn't going to, we're too late for that.


----------



## Adieu

wankerness said:


> This is blatant fearmongering and has no basis whatsoever in reality. It's just a collection of talking-points made by rich people trying to get the poors to sacrifice their lives for their stock portfolios.



When EVERYTHING hits the pause button for who-knows-how-long, don't think that you can just unpause however many months later

Forget the doom and gloom of urban decay for a sec, let's focus on companies that are asked to hit pause. Most ain't gonna be able to unpause.

Educated young urban professional renters will run out of money, pack up and go back to wherever, I'm already hearing families everywhere telling their kids to move back in. 

Most will never come back.

And if you print money to prop them up, you wipe out their parent's retirement savings and investments instead.... so that won't happen, because older people vote.

So... the hipsters are pissing off back to the midwest or wherever they spawned. That's pretty much guaranteed. And once they marry high school sweethearts or decide the family farm needs their help now that mom's gotten old, they stay, and the companies they worked at back in the coastal cities mostly never reopen at all or fall apart after trying.

Whoops.


----------



## wankerness

Great, I'd rather have that happen than have millions die. Now explain exactly how life expectancy in this country will decline by 20 years thanks to many businesses being closed for a few months.


----------



## Adieu

wankerness said:


> Great, I'd rather have that happen than have millions die. Now explain exactly how life expectancy in this country will decline by 20 years thanks to many businesses being closed for a few months.



Read up on what happened in the 90s after the Soviet Union dissolved. Not the politics, the socioeconomics.

That's what happens when a large number of employers go bust and/or stop paying salaries for a few months. Despair sets in, substance abuse skyrockets, domestic violence and petty disputes turning nasty becomes the norm, the unemployed turn to crime, etc.

A whole generation becomes Comptonized.


----------



## viifox

Experts are saying the peak of this thing should be around May.

I honestly think the best approach at this point is to continue to try and flatten the curve for maybe another month, and then uplift the lockdowns and get people back to work. But this time, we'll be taking sanitary precautions like no one has ever seen in the workplace, especially sending people home if they exhibit any kind of flu like symptoms (yes, i know that you can have the virus and not show any symptoms). Forbidding contact in the working environment alone will probably do wonders. They can also even hire people to constantly sanitize the workplace.

By taking these steps, and enforcing them, i think this might be a win-win scenerio. We get the economy back on its feet, while lowering the spread rate.

But an 18 month (or long term) lockdown is completely insane, and people who are recommending this probably haven't even thought of the severe consquences it will have. If you think the coronavirus is scary, wait till you see what happens to people who succumb to cabin fever, while the US deteriorates to the point of no return.


----------



## JoshuaVonFlash

Jon Jones just goofed again, think things are back to normal guys!


----------



## KnightBrolaire

Some hospitals are talking about not resuscitating COVID-19 patients due to the risk to docs/nurses/hospital staff and other patients/ lack of supplies and a few other major reasons. Sounds callous but losing healthcare workers means the entire system will go to shit and chaos will ensue. I posted an atlantic article earlier in the thread talking about that particular subject.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/heal...XvexeeZvNb-HJ6T17Ywhw_nO7fZadknb6ACnOg37DmFaQ


----------



## tedtan

Flappydoodle said:


> My view is that it's impossible to prevent this virus spreading. What we are doing now is slowing it down to a hopefully more manageable level.
> 
> But our two extreme decisions are:
> 1. 100% lockdown until virus cases are 0 worldwide, maximum amount of lives saved
> 2. Let it rip and maybe a lot of people die, or maybe not, but it will cause a lot of chaos
> 
> I don't see anybody seriously proposing either one, but this forum seems to learn more towards 1 than 2.
> 
> So our governments need to make a choice somewhere in that grey area of balancing death toll vs. letting people live their lives.



First off, your option 1 is impossible. We cannot fully lock down everyone or we would all die of dehydration within a week or so (depending on how much water an individual has stockpiled).

Second, a handful of people in this very thread have argued for your option 2 under the guise that exposure is inevitable (e.g., cynicanal), so we might as well not bother trying to "flatten the curve" so that our healthcare systems can better handle the surge in demand.




Flappydoodle said:


> I'm curious, where are you seeing these lunatics that you're passionately railing against?
> 
> Who has said kill all the old people?



Dan Patrick, Lt. Governor of Texas (republican) has suggested it in an interview on Fox News; here a link:
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics...px.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics...px.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/


----------



## GoldDragon

tedtan said:


> First off, your option 1 is impossible. We cannot fully lock down everyone or we would all die of dehydration within a week or so (depending on how much water an individual has stockpiled).
> 
> Second, a handful of people in this very thread have argued for your option 2 under the guise that exposure is inevitable (e.g., cynicanal), so we might as well not bother trying to "flatten the curve" so that our healthcare systems can better handle the surge in demand.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dan Patrick, Lt. Governor of Texas (republican) has suggested it in an interview on Fox News; here a link:
> https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics...px.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/



The other problem with option #2 is if the virus mutates and can reinfect. Or if it gets more virulent. 

There are alot of good reasons (unknowns) to not let this spread unchecked.

If it runs rampant in society, it could greatly decrease life expectancy, killing asthmatics and picking off the elderly when they get vulnerable. The flu that we have now is dangerous, imagine a flu with 10x the mortality rate.

I'm not saying that things won't eventually get to #2, but we should try our hardest to stop it.


----------



## bostjan

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/26/politics/trump-governors-guidlines/index.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coron...Covid-19-curves-graphic2-stopthespread-v3.gif

EDIT: To reiterate: Health > Wealth.

Priority has to be on saving hundreds of thousands of lives, even if it risks hundreds of billions of dollars in additional losses.


----------



## Cynicanal

Wealth _is_ health, unless you think that living in a third-world country is super-healthy.


----------



## Choop

tedtan said:


> Dan Patrick, Lt. Governor of Texas (republican) has suggested it in an interview on Fox News; here a link:
> https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics...px.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/



I was initially going to reference this guy in my previous post. Like sure, way to speak for all old people. What makes me irate is seeing younger people on social media comments offering that their parents or grandparents "don't mind dying for the economy" as a means to validate ending lockdown measures quickly. It's the most pathetic cowardice, America hasn't even seen the worst of it. Giving up and allowing the virus to run rampant and unchecked just to return to the status quo sets a hugely terrible precedent for the future. I know that a lockdown can't go on for way too long, but there has to be a strategic timeline for managing the response, too.


----------



## jaxadam

I just hope this shit gets cleared up before tick season or else we're gonna have Corona with Lyme.


----------



## Adieu

Just looked into some staple grains online to stock up some reserves before stimulus checks arrive and everybody makes a run on essentials


Are we STILL acting like hyperinflation isn't a guaranteed fact????


Fucking rice is $5 - 8 / lb where in stock. Buckwheat has soared to $10 - 30 / lb. Oats $5 - 30 / lb. Everywhere else is "maybe in stock in one month". And still marked up anyway.

Welcome to the new reality kids.


----------



## sleewell

“I would rather have my children stay home and all of us who are over 50 go in and keep this economy going and working,” he said in comments posted online by Media Matters. “Even if we all get sick, I’d rather die than kill the country.”


- glenn beck saying more dumb shit from the safety of his mansion.


----------



## bostjan

Cynicanal said:


> Wealth _is_ health, unless you think that living in a third-world country is super-healthy.



How wealthy was Steve Jobs when he died of cancer?!


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> How wealthy was Steve Jobs when he died of cancer?!



When Georges St. Pierre tore his ACL at the prime of his career, he basically said you can have all the money in the world, but if you don't have your health, you don't have anything. He's right.


----------



## thraxil

USA has now passed China on known Covid 19 cases. Number 1!


----------



## viifox

thraxil said:


> USA has now passed China on known Covid 19 cases. Number 1!


The mortality difference between US and Italy is really interesting: 1,177 vs 8,215. 

They may have been onto something with that older death rate stat.


----------



## spudmunkey

thraxil said:


> USA has now passed China on known Covid 19 cases. Number 1!



Our deaths/1m population has also climbed to 4. It was 3 at least since yesterday, and this morning.


----------



## blacai

Mortality rate comes with the time...
You don't die the second day you get a diagnosis. 
USA is now the top 1 in infections while it should be two/three weeks behind Italy and Spain(IIRC)


----------



## gnoll

Hmm, the US statistics look a bit scary. That's a pretty steep curve of confirmed cases...


----------



## spudmunkey

gnoll said:


> Hmm, the US statistics look a bit scary. That's a pretty steep curve of confirmed cases...



Sort of. Like I mentioned earlier in the thread, the new cases are still only increasing by a fairly fixed amount...the last 5 days or so are a pretty straight line. Yeah, it's curving a *little*...but without knowing how many actual tests are being administrered, there's no way to know what that means for sure, but it's basically been +8k, +9K, +10K, +11K, +13k for the most recent days. But we also know that every day, more and more tests are being performed, so it would make sense that the confirmed cases would also go up.


In completely unrelated news, my company just finished a call about 30 mins ago where they annoinced that about 5-7% of the staff was either laid off or on furloh (or however that's spelled), and that our main supplier out of NY as of this morning is officially ceasing operations until 4/20. They were trying to stay open, but after negotiating with the state, it was determined that not enough of their business i for the healthcare, infrastructure or security sectors, and had to at least close their factory. With no factory, they decided it wasn't sustainable to keep the office running.


----------



## SpaceDock

^ that is terrible


----------



## Ralyks

Out of curiosity, do you consider a local pharmacy charging 20 bucks for a N95 mask price gouging?


----------



## spudmunkey

Ralyks said:


> Out of curiosity, do you consider a local pharmacy charging 20 bucks for a N95 mask price gouging?



It depends. How much did they pay for it? If they bought some on ebay and paid a high price because they wanted to have some for their customers, and are passing on their cost (like a store near me), then the pharmacy isn't price gouging.


----------



## Ralyks

spudmunkey said:


> It depends. How much did they pay for it? If they bought some on ebay and paid a high price because they wanted to have some for their customers, and are passing on their cost (like a store near me), then the pharmacy isn't price gouging.



The local pharmacy here did that. And basically everyone I know in the medical field (that includes immediate family, one directly in a hospital, one who is an OT dealing with the elderly and just had a COVID 19 Scare herself) seemed pretty damn furious with them.


----------



## wankerness

viifox said:


> The mortality difference between US and Italy is really interesting: 1,177 vs 8,215.
> 
> They may have been onto something with that older death rate stat.



No. The average time from infection to death in Italy was (before severe hospital overloading, decreasing the time) somewhere between 2 and 4 weeks after showing symptoms (which usually took 5 days to start from infection). Tons of these people are going to die, they just haven't yet. It's looking like, assuming non-collapse of the healthcare system (which is very, very likely in this country given there are horrendous shortages of PPE causing doctors/nurses to be exposed to huge risks that they weren't in Asia), the death rate of diagnosed cases has been pretty steady in the 1-2% range.

There are a couple fringe people out there like the super sunshiney Oxford report that suggested 50% of the UK already has it and therefore it must have like a .05% fatality rate, but until we have antibody tests that's pie in the sky at best. It would sure be nice, though.


----------



## shadowlife

spudmunkey said:


> In completely unrelated news, my company just finished a call about 30 mins ago where they annoinced that about 5-7% of the staff was either laid off or on furloh (or however that's spelled), and that our main supplier out of NY as of this morning is officially ceasing operations until 4/20. They were trying to stay open, but after negotiating with the state, it was determined that not enough of their business i for the healthcare, infrastructure or security sectors, and had to at least close their factory. With no factory, they decided it wasn't sustainable to keep the office running.



Sorry to hear that- I hope you're not in that 5-7%

I donate to a company called 4ocean- I go t an email from them yesterday saying they had no choice but to lay of 70% of their US staff.
*
70%!!!
*
They did say they hope to start hiring people back when they can resume normal operations, but damn, how many companies will be laying off everyone with no hope of reopening?


----------



## Drew

Adieu said:


> Just looked into some staple grains online to stock up some reserves before stimulus checks arrive and everybody makes a run on essentials
> 
> 
> Are we STILL acting like hyperinflation isn't a guaranteed fact????
> 
> 
> Fucking rice is $5 - 8 / lb where in stock. Buckwheat has soared to $10 - 30 / lb. Oats $5 - 30 / lb. Everywhere else is "maybe in stock in one month". And still marked up anyway.
> 
> Welcome to the new reality kids.


Based on the treasury curve and TIPS breakevens, it's not. 

I know that sounds crazy, but 

1) we're expected to go from a $1 trillion deficit in 2020, to a $2 trillion deficit. That's unprecedented... But it's also the difference between the national debt increasing from $22 trillion to $23 trillion, and $22 trillion to $24 trillion. If we could go through the former without shocking inflation expectations, we can probably weather the latter. This is the TIPS breakeven, btw - we've seen inflation expectations plummet, based on market based metrics. 

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10YIE


2) What you're seeing is short term supply/demand imbalances. Th cost of other gods - cars, for example, or clothing, or leisure/travel spending, or for that matter the price of gasoline - should plummet as demand evaporates. That'll mitigate the impact in inflation measures since they're part of the same basket of goods. In the medium to long run, "staple" food prices will recover as we figure out how to get food to people. The problem here isn't there isn't enough food in the world to go around - the problem here is there isn't enough food to meet localized demand at this moment in time, thanks to fear-based stockpiling. In the long run, fear will fal as this becomes a new normal, and we'll do a better job of restocking supermarket shelves. 

I promise you, if anything, inflation should FALL in coming months, as demand continues to evaporate. Also, try your local Asian market. As it turns out, Americans are racist as fuck, so they're still pretty well stocked generaly.


----------



## wankerness

Yeah, I wish I had an asian store in my town. They're way too far away to be worth traveling to in the current lockdown situation.

I'm lucky in that I live in a very small town with a pretty big grocery store that's been on top of things and that does home delivery. At this point it takes a couple days for you to get an order, but that's nothing. I haven't actually been in the store for a couple weeks so I don't know the stock situation, I just know others who've been doing large normal grocery orders and still getting pretty much everything they normally would at the same prices as normal.


----------



## jaxadam

Word on the street is around here the hospitals are super slow because everyone’s afraid to go to them.


----------



## Drew

wankerness said:


> Yeah, I wish I had an asian store in my town. They're way too far away to be worth traveling to in the current lockdown situation.
> 
> I'm lucky in that I live in a very small town with a pretty big grocery store that's been on top of things and that does home delivery. At this point it takes a couple days for you to get an order, but that's nothing. I haven't actually been in the store for a couple weeks so I don't know the stock situation, I just know others who've been doing large normal grocery orders and still getting pretty much everything they normally would at the same prices as normal.


I'm lucky. The son of the two women who own it (who are absolute sweethearts) is around my age, cool guy, and a SERIOUS beer nut. It's a Korean mart with a pretty good selection, AND a killer selection of microbrews and a halfway decent wine section, too.



jaxadam said:


> Word on the street is around here the hospitals are super slow because everyone’s afraid to go to them.



Here in Boston they're encouraging people who believe they'v e been infected NOT to go, unless their symptoms are becoming severe, because they don't think they can handle the volume and they want to focus on the cases most likely to save lives.


----------



## viifox

wankerness said:


> No. The average time from infection to death in Italy was (before severe hospital overloading, decreasing the time) somewhere between 2 and 4 weeks after showing symptoms (which usually took 5 days to start from infection). Tons of these people are going to die, they just haven't yet. It's looking like, assuming non-collapse of the healthcare system (which is very, very likely in this country given there are horrendous shortages of PPE causing doctors/nurses to be exposed to huge risks that they weren't in Asia), the death rate of diagnosed cases has been pretty steady in the 1-2% range.
> 
> There are a couple fringe people out there like the super sunshiney Oxford report that suggested 50% of the UK already has it and therefore it must have like a .05% fatality rate, but until we have antibody tests that's pie in the sky at best. It would sure be nice, though.



"About 65 percent of the dead whose ages are known were older than 70 and nearly 40 percent were over 80, demonstrating that risk rises along with age."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...a-9923-57073adce27c_story.html?outputType=amp


----------



## narad

Drew said:


> I promise you, if anything, inflation should FALL in coming months, as demand continues to evaporate.



So tell me what this means for the USD/JPY exchange rate.


----------



## spudmunkey

shadowlife said:


> Sorry to hear that- I hope you're not in that 5-7%



Thank you, no I'm not. But the hottest women who works there is. Damnit...


----------



## wankerness

viifox said:


> "About 65 percent of the dead whose ages are known were older than 70 and nearly 40 percent were over 80, demonstrating that risk rises along with age."
> 
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...a-9923-57073adce27c_story.html?outputType=amp



Right, I know that there's higher mortality if you're older. I'm saying that the mortality rate as it is in the US is about 2 weeks behind Italy's and is going to vastly increase. The "no" was simply in response to the primary explanation for the huge difference is not that they're older, the explanation is that they haven't died yet here. We might very well end up with a lower rate and then the air pollution, age, smoking thing might come in. It might end up higher, and then we'll probably say health care and obesity/diabetes.


----------



## jaxadam

https://apple.news/ARa_nUJZFQJa2QlmbCBcyFA


----------



## ThePIGI King

^I could've told you that. So could a 10 year old. Anyone who actually thought that was a smart move is off their rocker.

That's the kind of move that panic-y people make when their brain gets bypassed due to being overwhelmed by fear.


----------



## narad

ThePIGI King said:


> ^I could've told you that. So could a 10 year old. Anyone who actually thought that was a smart move is off their rocker.
> 
> That's the kind of move that panic-y people make when their brain gets bypassed due to being overwhelmed by fear.



What would you have recommended?

My only reservation about a NYC lockdown is that a huge amount of people are completely ignoring it. From both the health and economic points of view, it's the worst of of both worlds.


----------



## penguin_316

How’s that 11,000 cases a day going?

May 25- 54k 
May 26- 81k

Remember the numbers are much greater. You still need that rnaught value? 2.2

You’re still wrong, the growth is exponential and show no signs of trailing off in the US.


----------



## penguin_316

In the next 2-3 years you’re going to see the dollar become more powerful than it’s ever been.

Following that, a dramatic decline of the value of the dollar. Plan accordingly. Ask AUS how the USD has been treating them in this liquidity crisis.


----------



## narad

penguin_316 said:


> How’s that 11,000 cases a day going?
> 
> May 25- 54k
> May 26- 81k
> 
> Remember the numbers are much greater. You still need that rnaught value? 2.2
> 
> You’re still wrong, the growth is exponential and show no signs of trailing off in the US.



Are you talking to me? If so, please use the quote function so I know what point you're trying to make.


----------



## wankerness

So. Trump just blew up a deal to pay GE to manufacture life-saving ventilators, cause he didn't believe hospitals actually needed them. It would have cost a billion dollars - a pittance compared to the hundreds of billions he just bailed out businesses with. All those thousands of lives just weren't worth it to this utter fuckhead. Or he's just bearing down saying coronavirus is not real and no big deal, cause reality means nothing to him, only the reality he constructs.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/us/politics/coronavirus-ventilators-trump.html

He's also holding onto disaster unemployment funds and refusing to release them, meaning thousands and thousands of people in the three states who have a disaster declared can't receive them until he has a change of heart (or dies and someone with some semblance of humanity takes office and releases it)
.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/24/trump-disaster-unemployment-funds-147404

We are utterly FUCKED in this country. Trump is sub-Bolsonaro level at this point. He will kill millions of us to try and get his shitty businesses back open. 

https://1100pennsylvania.substack.com/p/trump-wants-us-resurrected-in-time

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...02de14-6df6-11ea-aa80-c2470c6b2034_story.html

I am in utter despair over this country. It is hard to imagine how leadership could be any worse.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

wankerness said:


> So. Trump just blew up a deal to pay GE to manufacture life-saving ventilators, cause he didn't believe hospitals actually needed them. It would have cost a billion dollars - a pittance compared to the hundreds of billions he just bailed out businesses with. All those thousands of lives just weren't worth it to this utter fuckhead. Or he's just bearing down saying coronavirus is not real and no big deal, cause reality means nothing to him, only the reality he constructs.
> 
> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/us/politics/coronavirus-ventilators-trump.html
> 
> He's also holding onto disaster unemployment funds and refusing to release them, meaning thousands and thousands of people in the three states who have a disaster declared can't receive them until he has a change of heart (or dies and someone with some semblance of humanity takes office and releases it)
> .
> https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/24/trump-disaster-unemployment-funds-147404
> 
> We are utterly FUCKED in this country. Trump is sub-Bolsonaro level at this point. He will kill millions of us to try and get his shitty businesses back open.
> 
> https://1100pennsylvania.substack.com/p/trump-wants-us-resurrected-in-time
> 
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...02de14-6df6-11ea-aa80-c2470c6b2034_story.html
> 
> I am in utter despair over this country. It is hard to imagine how leadership could be any worse.



If only Lockheed Martin or Raytheon made ventilators. They'd get a check for hundreds of billions by this afternoon.


----------



## possumkiller

MaxOfMetal said:


> If only Lockheed Martin or Raytheon made ventilators. They'd get a check for hundreds of billions by this afternoon.


LOL it's funny because it's true!


----------



## Millul

wankerness said:


> So. Trump just blew up a deal to pay GE to manufacture life-saving ventilators, cause he didn't believe hospitals actually needed them. It would have cost a billion dollars - a pittance compared to the hundreds of billions he just bailed out businesses with. All those thousands of lives just weren't worth it to this utter fuckhead. Or he's just bearing down saying coronavirus is not real and no big deal, cause reality means nothing to him, only the reality he constructs.
> 
> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/us/politics/coronavirus-ventilators-trump.html
> 
> He's also holding onto disaster unemployment funds and refusing to release them, meaning thousands and thousands of people in the three states who have a disaster declared can't receive them until he has a change of heart (or dies and someone with some semblance of humanity takes office and releases it)
> .
> https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/24/trump-disaster-unemployment-funds-147404
> 
> We are utterly FUCKED in this country. Trump is sub-Bolsonaro level at this point. He will kill millions of us to try and get his shitty businesses back open.
> 
> https://1100pennsylvania.substack.com/p/trump-wants-us-resurrected-in-time
> 
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...02de14-6df6-11ea-aa80-c2470c6b2034_story.html
> 
> I am in utter despair over this country. It is hard to imagine how leadership could be any worse.



Just a small correction - the deal would've been with GM, not GE (ex-GE here).
GE is already producing parts for respirators in their Helathcare business.

Now, if I were in GM...I'd say "you know what, Trump? F&&& it, we're building them anyway" and go ahead.
1 billion is a fuckton of money, but it won't make or break them, and they'd be able to live off the PR for a while once things go back to normal.
And, most important, it's the right thing to do anyway.


----------



## chopeth

It seems like Trump finally noticed something about a Chinese virus who's gonna cause some trouble in his domains. To try to divert the attention of those who swore allegiance (and who didn't) he accuse Venezuela's Maduro of drug trafficking and offers a reward of $15 million for his head.

Lame counterattack is this smoke screen like a Far West prosecution, you got more from seizing Jesse James. New excuse for a coup d'etat from the biggest terrorist nation that represents the US, but for how long?


----------



## jaxadam

wankerness said:


> So. Trump just blew up a deal to pay GE to manufacture life-saving ventilators, cause he didn't believe hospitals actually needed them. It would have cost a billion dollars - a pittance compared to the hundreds of billions he just bailed out businesses with. All those thousands of lives just weren't worth it to this utter fuckhead. Or he's just bearing down saying coronavirus is not real and no big deal, cause reality means nothing to him, only the reality he constructs.
> 
> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/us/politics/coronavirus-ventilators-trump.html
> 
> He's also holding onto disaster unemployment funds and refusing to release them, meaning thousands and thousands of people in the three states who have a disaster declared can't receive them until he has a change of heart (or dies and someone with some semblance of humanity takes office and releases it)
> .
> https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/24/trump-disaster-unemployment-funds-147404
> 
> We are utterly FUCKED in this country. Trump is sub-Bolsonaro level at this point. He will kill millions of us to try and get his shitty businesses back open.
> 
> https://1100pennsylvania.substack.com/p/trump-wants-us-resurrected-in-time
> 
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...02de14-6df6-11ea-aa80-c2470c6b2034_story.html
> 
> I am in utter despair over this country. It is hard to imagine how leadership could be any worse.



Did you read this part from the Politico article you posted? How is this utter despair?

“A senior administration official said the administration is holding off on approving requests for disaster unemployment assistance because it anticipates Congress will provide similar protections in the coronavirus stimulus package under negotiation.

Under the GOP’s proposed version of the package, workers ineligible for traditional state-funded unemployment benefits, including self-employed workers, could receive aid from a newly created temporary Pandemic Unemployment Assistance fund.”


----------



## Ralyks

So Boris Johnson got it.


----------



## sleewell

so i guess a ventilator costs as much a car so that's a good reason why a dying person shouldn't get one.


the campaign ads are writing themselves every time that piece of shit talks.


----------



## Kaura

Just heard Till Lindemann (the singer of Rammstein) catched it and is in intensive care because of it.


----------



## Ralyks

https://apple.news/ABMWeV46rTpGWZP-z2E56jw

Seems to have changed his mind on China pretty quickly.

Also, Spain looks to possibly be stabilizing in deaths.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Ralyks said:


> Also, Spain looks to possibly be stabilizing in deaths.



That's probably due to the worst cases reaching their conclusion, but it's still probably not something to hang your hat on as this kills so slowly it's hard to plot out over just a few weeks.



sleewell said:


> so i guess a ventilator costs as much a car so that's a good reason why a dying person shouldn't get one.
> 
> 
> the campaign ads are writing themselves every time that piece of shit talks.



It's a systemic issue: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wa...tage-hospital-icu-coronavirus/?outputType=amp

Obviously the government could step in and subsidize the cost for hospitals, but I thought this was an interesting article.


----------



## blacai

Ralyks said:


> https://apple.news/ABMWeV46rTpGWZP-z2E56jw
> 
> Seems to have changed his mind on China pretty quickly.
> 
> Also, Spain looks to possibly be stabilizing in deaths.


My family and most of friends live in Spain, some of them working in Madrid and Galician Hospitals. The situation is critical but they expect the wave of infections would start to slow after the 1st April.
There were two big events/points that lead Spain to this situation.
-The celebration of the 8th March(Women day) with millions of people marching on the streets pretty close each others. So after the 10-15 incubation, you go to the 18-23rd...(this week with thousands and thousands of confirmed cases) + the week from the 23rd to the 31st, because the virus seems to be more active/viral the first week. 
-They continued to celebrate football and other massive events while people started to run away for "holidays" to different parts of Spain and to their parents' houses to spend the quarantine... This also spread the virus creating more focuses

About deaths...worst is still to come as the peak is reached the second week of April and the hospitals with less resources will be overrun. People may be with assistance for 5-10 days in intensive care, so the 2nd/3rd week of April would through the worst numbers.


----------



## Drew

narad said:


> So tell me what this means for the USD/JPY exchange rate.


Inflation should be a non factor, honestly. It's falling in the states, already low in Japan, so while there could be a modest strengthening of the dollar relative to the yen, it's going to be eclipsed by a flight to quality trade as firms that do business internationally - in other words, primarily in USD - continue to horde dollars and dollar-denominated Treasury bills/notes. The dollar should remain pretty strong, even with two trillion in new issuance.

The wildcard would be if whats-her-name's plan to start paying all Americans $1,000 a month for the duration of this crisis, plus a year, and pay for it by having the treasury mint a few $1-trillion-dollar coins, actually gathers some steam.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

A chinese biotech firm sold hundreds of thousands of faulty rapid tests to spain and the Czech Republic.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...sDrc5kIPiCLhRy3VtM85d1f_EGEs4JCbL7xUk4iHvCDAI


----------



## possumkiller

KnightBrolaire said:


> A chinese biotech firm sold hundreds of thousands of faulty rapid tests to spain and the Czech Republic.
> https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...sDrc5kIPiCLhRy3VtM85d1f_EGEs4JCbL7xUk4iHvCDAI


So does that mean that tons of people that were not actually infected were put into contact with people that were infected and actually got infected or does it mean there are people out there that tested negative but really were infected that they released back into the wild to infect others?


----------



## diagrammatiks

Drew said:


> Inflation should be a non factor, honestly. It's falling in the states, already low in Japan, so while there could be a modest strengthening of the dollar relative to the yen, it's going to be eclipsed by a flight to quality trade as firms that do business internationally - in other words, primarily in USD - continue to horde dollars and dollar-denominated Treasury bills/notes. The dollar should remain pretty strong, even with two trillion in new issuance.
> 
> The wildcard would be if whats-her-name's plan to start paying all Americans $1,000 a month for the duration of this crisis, plus a year, and pay for it by having the treasury mint a few $1-trillion-dollar coins, actually gathers some steam.



Man I just want to know when I can buy some Aristides cheaper. not happening? sad boi.



KnightBrolaire said:


> A chinese biotech firm sold hundreds of thousands of faulty rapid tests to spain and the Czech Republic.
> https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...sDrc5kIPiCLhRy3VtM85d1f_EGEs4JCbL7xUk4iHvCDAI



not surprised. Chinese biotech firms sell fake vaccines for babies. fucking ridiculous.


----------



## tedtan

"Trump has never been worse — but his approval is surging. Why?"

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-never-worse-approval-surging-095500857.html


----------



## spudmunkey

possumkiller said:


> So does that mean that tons of people that were not actually infected were put into contact with people that were infected and actually got infected or does it mean there are people out there that tested negative but really were infected that they released back into the wild to infect others?



....


----------



## wankerness

I read some more about some of these reported faulty tests. The problem wasn't that they were faulty, it's that they were antibody tests. Basically, they were ~100% accurate, IF the person wasn't in the earliest stages of infection where the antibodies couldn't yet be detected. Meaning it was more like 85% accurate with that 15% being people who had just recently been infected. Basically the only way to be sure testing is working is to give everyone who tests negative and hasn't had symptoms yet the other kind of test as well.


----------



## tedtan

I wish I had an antibody test.

My wife is a nurse and I work in an engineering company with colleagues who travel around the world for various projects. About six or eight weeks ago, my wife came down with a respiratory infection that lasted for two or three weeks. At the same time, I had a sore throat, dry cough, and mild headache and noticed that I would breathe a bit harder after walking up the stairs. Neither of us had any serious symptoms; I would put our cases somewhere between a cold and "typical" flu in terms of severity. But the symptoms we experienced line up with the Covid 19 symptoms in hindsight, so it would be interesting to see if that's what it was. I suspect that we're only identifying the people showing severe symptoms and that there are quite a lot of cases out there that have not been diagnosed due to exhibiting only mild symptoms so they didn't seek treatment.


----------



## spudmunkey

As of a few minutes ago, the US is officially the first country with over 100,000 confirmed cases. But while it's a notable number, it's sort of an arbitrary total since testing varies greatly all over the map. The US is a .2% of the population, while Norway's at 1.5%, for example.


----------



## IbanezDaemon

spudmunkey said:


> As of a few minutes ago, the US is officially the first country with over 100,000 confirmed cases. But while it's a notable number, it's sort of an arbitrary total since testing varies greatly all over the map. The US is a .2% of the population, while Norway's at 1.5%, for example.



That death toll in the US along with Italy and Spain has gotten shocking!! What an absolute clusterfuck! Uk's death toll is picking up too...gonna hit 1,000 in the next few days for sure. How do we react to this thing...are fingers going to be pointed demanding more stringent hygiene measures or are we going to write this off as a 'Force Majeuer'?


----------



## Ralyks

IbanezDaemon said:


> are fingers going to be pointed demanding more stringent hygiene measures or are we going to write this off as a 'Force Majeuer'?



Knowing society today, it will start as the first and eventually become the second.


----------



## Flappydoodle

ThePIGI King said:


> @Flappydoodle Hi, Trump supporter here
> 
> As for the saying waves could have came through already I heard that down home the majority of the tri-county area had a flu for almost a month straight and 2 of the 3 school districts closed for a little bit to help everyone beat this. My mom said that was back in January. So it could have very well happened. Or they had a horrible flu season and have terrible immune systems



Yeah, maybe it's possible. But there *was* also a flu going around. But most of the time, someone goes to the doctor with an obvious viral infection, cough and fever, they just say "go home and rest". Not so common that they would actually bother testing for flu.



USMarine75 said:


> I just can’t anymore with the stupidity in this thread... between supposed scientists that can’t frame a sound and cogent argument to chicken little.
> 
> I’m gonna hit the mute and stick to the FS threads.
> 
> Tl;dr everyone that prefers we sacrifice my mother and oldest son, so the economy isn’t impacted... I hope you get anal cancer. And recover. I’m not a monster. But I hope you have anal leakage for the rest of your life.



My argument seemed to defeat you, since you ended up admitting that there IS a threshold of where money > life

And again with the strawman. Literally nobody has said sacrifice your mother.




Adieu said:


> You forgot runaway inflation, the entire service sector going out of business, as well as most of the rest of the "not-too-big-to-fail" crowd
> 
> Pensions and savings, bye bye
> 
> Compton CA and Flint MI, coming to ALL neighborhoods near you!
> 
> PS ...and btw, life expectancy will go down by ~20y per capita, as alcoholism drug addiction depression homicide and suicide become a fact of everyday life rather than shocking outliers
> 
> I was born in the good ol CCCP, so I've seen this before.



This is the worry. I don't think people fully appreciate what a total meltdown would look like.

The total evaporation of savings is terrifying. And young people have the most to fear, because it's setting back their progress clock by decades. They'll be delayed saving enough for a house, delayed before they can afford having kids, may hit their peak lifetime earnings much closer to retirement and therefore retire much poorer than they would have otherwise. 

"Thankfully", most of the world is in the same boat and hopefully everybody bounces back together.



tedtan said:


> First off, your option 1 is impossible. We cannot fully lock down everyone or we would all die of dehydration within a week or so (depending on how much water an individual has stockpiled).
> 
> Second, a handful of people in this very thread have argued for your option 2 under the guise that exposure is inevitable (e.g., cynicanal), so we might as well not bother trying to "flatten the curve" so that our healthcare systems can better handle the surge in demand.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dan Patrick, Lt. Governor of Texas (republican) has suggested it in an interview on Fox News; here a link:
> https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics...px.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/



Both options are impossible. But we need to somehow guess the best course of action and the data is still very messy. We still have NO idea how many people have been infected so far and we have NO idea what the actual death rate is. Next couple of weeks should guide us, I think.

Sorry, I'd never heard of Dan Patrick. Shame there is anybody saying 1 or 2 as if they are reasonable.



GoldDragon said:


> The other problem with option #2 is if the virus mutates and can reinfect. Or if it gets more virulent.
> 
> There are alot of good reasons (unknowns) to not let this spread unchecked.
> 
> If it runs rampant in society, it could greatly decrease life expectancy, killing asthmatics and picking off the elderly when they get vulnerable. The flu that we have now is dangerous, imagine a flu with 10x the mortality rate.
> 
> I'm not saying that things won't eventually get to #2, but we should try our hardest to stop it.



Luckily, it's fairly uncommon for a virus to become more deadly. The optimal situation for a virus is that it can pass easily and get on with it's business. So the most successful viruses are the ones we don't even notice. Deadly viruses kill their host, and people take measures such as isolating themselves, protecting themselves, using antiviral medications - all of that drives selective pressure towards becoming less deadly.



thraxil said:


> USA has now passed China on known Covid 19 cases. Number 1!



The Chinese numbers are worthless. There's not a chance in the world that they're telling the truth.



viifox said:


> The mortality difference between US and Italy is really interesting: 1,177 vs 8,215.
> 
> They may have been onto something with that older death rate stat.



US is behind Italy by a couple of weeks. You don't die instantly when you get the virus.

But yes, one of the most solid pieces of data we have is that old people are much worse affected by this. However, diabetes and hypertension also seem to be risk factors, although less so than age. So yeah... America might have problems coming down the line.


----------



## Cynicanal

Flappydoodle said:


> This is the worry. I don't think people fully appreciate what a total meltdown would look like.
> 
> The total evaporation of savings is terrifying. And young people have the most to fear, because it's setting back their progress clock by decades. They'll be delayed saving enough for a house, delayed before they can afford having kids, may hit their peak lifetime earnings much closer to retirement and therefore retire much poorer than they would have otherwise.
> 
> "Thankfully", most of the world is in the same boat and hopefully everybody bounces back together.


You're far more optimistic than I am. Everyone being in the same boat won't help anything; if a crises disproportionately affects young people, boomers will make sure that the young continue bearing the entire burden, just like they've been doing for the last 20 years, because they're complete pieces of shit and they're the largest generation ever so they're going to get whatever they want always and forever.


----------



## Flappydoodle

KnightBrolaire said:


> A chinese biotech firm sold hundreds of thousands of faulty rapid tests to spain and the Czech Republic.
> https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...sDrc5kIPiCLhRy3VtM85d1f_EGEs4JCbL7xUk4iHvCDAI



"Made In China"

Also, don't buy "N95" masks on eBay... they're coming from Alibaba and they're also mostly fake



tedtan said:


> "Trump has never been worse — but his approval is surging. Why?"
> 
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-never-worse-approval-surging-095500857.html



People rally behind wartime leaders. Same has happened in the UK, I think. I know several people who hate Boris, but now they're supporting him, watching the daily briefings etc. 



IbanezDaemon said:


> That death toll in the US along with Italy and Spain has gotten shocking!! What an absolute clusterfuck! Uk's death toll is picking up too...gonna hit 1,000 in the next few days for sure. How do we react to this thing...are fingers going to be pointed demanding more stringent hygiene measures or are we going to write this off as a 'Force Majeuer'?



Not to downplay, but you have to bear in mind that in a country of 65M people, there are 615,000 deaths per year anyway. That means 1,700 deaths per any normal day. 

Coronavirus has killed 1,000 over about 3 weeks, so around 50 deaths per day, which is totally unnoticeable in the total number of deaths.

You also have to consider that many of those people (particularly the elderly, heart conditions etc) may have died this year due to other causes - influenza, heart attack, hospital acquired infections, falls etc. So those are likely not 50 additional total deaths, but rather a different cause of death.

You can see death rates of countries here:

https://www.euromomo.eu

Notice that even Italy is barely a blip.


----------



## possumkiller

That's what my dad is spreading around his contact list.


----------



## narad

So are we banning cars or what?


----------



## chopeth

We have a huge problem in Europe. Germany, Holland, Finland and Austria are stubborn against the Covid help to the other countries in the South. This "Union" doesn't work, Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, Greece, we are but a bunch of countries to

- sell their goods
- buy our cheap apartments
- hire our young and qualified workers
- spend their holidays in our beaches

No solidarity in a union that left behind the Greek who had to sell their country in the 2008 crisis. The German investors made huge profit from the South indebtment. Great Britain already left, how long will it take to collapse? We are not but old farts between the Chinese and American fangs that will devour us.


----------



## Demiurge

possumkiller said:


> View attachment 78918
> 
> That's what my dad is spreading around his contact list.



There's a lot to take issue with in that post, but I think that longing for the return of parades as a #3 priority is the worst.


----------



## Ralyks

Looks like Trump wants to quarentine the tri-state.
Great...


----------



## possumkiller

Ralyks said:


> Looks like Trump wants to quarentine the tri-state.
> Great...


Which tri-state?


----------



## blacai

chopeth said:


> We have a huge problem in Europe. Germany, Holland, Finland and Austria are stubborn against the Covid help to the other countries in the South. This "Union" doesn't work, Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, Greece, we are but a bunch of countries to
> 
> - sell their goods
> - buy our cheap apartments
> - hire our young and qualified workers
> - spend their holidays in our beaches
> 
> No solidarity in a union that left behind the Greek who had to sell their country in the 2008 crisis. The German investors made huge profit from the South indebtment. Great Britain already left, how long will it take to collapse? We are not but old farts between the Chinese and American fangs that will devour us.


As a Spaniar who moved to Germany during the financial crisis I cannot agree more. Antonio Gala said in an interview years ago... "the problem with europe is that Germany is still Germany"...
I know what my germans colleagues at work think about Spain/Greece/Italy and about my situation here. Even when we have the same work, for these people I am kind of refugee without future and I should be grateful for being working for them.


----------



## Ralyks

possumkiller said:


> Which tri-state?



New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
How he can enforce this, I don't know, and Cuomo seems to be telling Trump to fuck himself.


----------



## blacai

^ this up


----------



## budda

Flappydoodle said:


> The total evaporation of savings is terrifying. And young people have the most to fear, because it's setting back their progress clock by decades. They'll be delayed saving enough for a house, delayed before they can afford having kids, may hit their peak lifetime earnings much closer to retirement and therefore retire much poorer than they would have otherwise.



You know that's already been happening for years, right?


----------



## Ralyks

budda said:


> You know that's already been happening for years, right?



Soo much this.


----------



## ramses

blacai said:


> As a Spaniar who moved to Germany during the financial crisis I cannot agree more. Antonio Gala said in an interview years ago... "the problem with europe is that Germany is still Germany"...
> I know what my germans colleagues at work think about Spain/Greece/Italy and about my situation here. Even when we have the same work, for these people I am kind of refugee without future and I should be grateful for being working for them.



I'm not going to defend this German attitude. However, you cannot deny Spain's and Greece's self-inflicted wounds.

I'm not European, but I can relate. I ran away from latin-america many years ago, to never go back, due to all the self-inflicted wounds that latin-america still happily continues to inflict on itself.


----------



## blacai

ramses said:


> I'm not going to defend this German attitude. However, you cannot deny Spain's and Greece's self-inflicted wounds.
> 
> I'm not European, but I can relate. I ran away from latin-america many years ago, to never go back, due to all the self-inflicted wounds that latin-america still happily continues to inflict on itself.



I am not denying Spain/Italy/Greece had a very wrong economic strategy for years...for many years,but that strategy was also promoted by the same First-Level economies of Europe like Germany,France, that invested huge amount of money on the housing market and tourism.
Germans and whole Europa cannot pretend and promote the existing of two types of countries in the union.
When this pandemic finishes, the whole world will be less globalised and Germany is a seller country. They need a strong European market. China and USA are not going to pay for German manufacturers,do better if Germany understand they cannot let the rest of the union go bankrupt,because they will follow...
This crisis will be far worse than the 2008-2010 one


----------



## Adieu

MaxOfMetal said:


> If only Lockheed Martin or Raytheon made ventilators. They'd get a check for hundreds of billions by this afternoon.



Im confused

Isnt a ventilator like 1950s tech? Wth could possibly cost a billion or more?

Or were they planning to manufacture like 2-3 million of em?


----------



## Señor Voorhees

Adieu said:


> Im confused
> 
> Isnt a ventilator like 1950s tech? Wth could possibly cost a billion or more?
> 
> Or were they planning to manufacture like 2-3 million of em?



2-3 million SOUNDS like a lot, but when you realize they're one use things, having more means a lot. Not sure if 2-3 million of them might be needed, and they MIGHT be, but people do need a lot of them if they want to keep new ones on over time all over the country.


----------



## Hollowway

Flappydoodle said:


> I'm curious, where are you seeing these lunatics that you're passionately railing against?
> 
> Who has said kill all the old people?
> 
> But FWIW, the government certainly has an interest in preventing catastrophic economic meltdown which happens if lockdown continues for too long. They have to re-open the country at some point - the question is when, and how many people will be sacrificed.



Sorry, I’ve been off SSO for a few days. But I’m surprised you haven’t seen it. After Trump said he wanted to reopen the economy by Easter, a lot of people pushed back and said that it’s going to kill a lot of people - especially old people. And then a number of others said they think that’s ok, since it will protect the economy. I am just really shocked that they’re so blunt about it. There are more people offering up their lives and those of others to get the everyone back to work in 2 weeks, but here are a few:

Lt Gov Dan Patrick:
“You know, Tucker, no one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’” Patrick said. “And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in.”
“That doesn’t make me noble or brave or anything like that,” he added. “I just think there are lots of grandparents out there in this country like me.”

Fox News’ Brit Hume said it is “entirely reasonable” that elderly Americans could be fine with dying amid the coronavirus outbreak to save the U.S. economy.

Glenn Beck says older Americans should return to work: “Even if we all get sick, I would rather die than kill the country”


----------



## Merrekof

possumkiller said:


> View attachment 78918
> 
> That's what my dad is spreading around his contact list.


Maybe your dad should visit one of European hospitals then. At this point, anyone over 60 or with a health problem is left for dead at a lot of hospitals. Homes for the elderly don't even bother calĺng the doctor anymore when they need medical attention.


----------



## Hollowway

fantom said:


> For the people who seem to care about the economy more than our health system. Maybe this is worth your time.
> 
> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-will-coronavirus-end/608719/



Wow, that’s a really well written article. The one thing it brings up, and I feel they should go more into detail, is how isolated we are if we just watch our favorite news channel and let the i one algorithms push information our way. It’s crazy how different the data is when polls ask republicans vs Democrats whether they’re worried about the virus, whether they think it can harm them, etc. The differences are stark, but the actual info is super easy to find, and is well known. But how it’s filtered to us colorized our impression more than the actual facts should permit. We all should be approaching this stuff with an open mind, and seeking experts to get our information, rather than whatever is spoon fed to us by talking heads with ulterior motives or conflicts of interest.


----------



## Adieu

Señor Voorhees said:


> 2-3 million SOUNDS like a lot, but when you realize they're one use things, having more means a lot. Not sure if 2-3 million of them might be needed, and they MIGHT be, but people do need a lot of them if they want to keep new ones on over time all over the country.



Eh? One use?

Don't you mean single-user-at-a-time???

The tubing tip that goes in the victim is disposable (but little more than a glorified garden hose, and costs accordingly when mass-produced). The actual hardware it is attached to is most definitely not.


----------



## Adieu

Hollowway said:


> Sorry, I’ve been off SSO for a few days. But I’m surprised you haven’t seen it. After Trump said he wanted to reopen the economy by Easter, a lot of people pushed back and said that it’s going to kill a lot of people - especially old people. And then a number of others said they think that’s ok, since it will protect the economy. I am just really shocked that they’re so blunt about it. There are more people offering up their lives and those of others to get the everyone back to work in 2 weeks, but here are a few:
> 
> Lt Gov Dan Patrick:
> “You know, Tucker, no one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’” Patrick said. “And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in.”
> “That doesn’t make me noble or brave or anything like that,” he added. “I just think there are lots of grandparents out there in this country like me.”
> 
> Fox News’ Brit Hume said it is “entirely reasonable” that elderly Americans could be fine with dying amid the coronavirus outbreak to save the U.S. economy.
> 
> Glenn Beck says older Americans should return to work: “Even if we all get sick, I would rather die than kill the country”



There might be deeper reasons behind the noble sacrifice bravado

Such as cold hard self-interest logic: guy would rather take what he believes is a % risk of catching a POSSIBLY deadly disease vs. what he believes is a near-certainty of his retirement nest egg imploding if lockdown quarantine tanks the economy.... rather be maybe-dead than definitely-old-and-destitute and all that

Also, if he survives, it makes him look noble (maybe), helping his chances for reelection (maybe)


----------



## Cynicanal

So, Italy still hasn't peaked. Given the virus's incubation period, this means that lockdown measures don't work.

Will society finally pull its head out of the sand and accept that 10% of us won't be here in a few months, or it will it insist on destroying everything for the 90% that remain? Tune in to the next episode to find out!


----------



## blacai

Cynicanal said:


> So, Italy still hasn't peaked. Given the virus's incubation period, this means that lockdown measures don't work.
> 
> Will society finally pull its head out of the sand and accept that 10% of us won't be here in a few months, or it will it insist on destroying everything for the 90% that remain? Tune in to the next episode to find out!


So you think incubation period finished means you either live or die... It just means you are infected or not.
After you get diagnosed you may require medical assistance or not and you may die or survive. 
It is not like you get diagnosed and you simply die in 1-2 days. Some require one-two weeks in the hospital and they might die after 10 days.

So, well, Lockdown measures work, but some people seem to not understand what an infection means.


----------



## Cynicanal

Italy's infection numbers are still going up, not just their death numbers. If lockdown worked, their infection numbers would have peaked (and, as you note, the death numbers would still be rising).


----------



## blacai

Cynicanal said:


> Italy's infection numbers are still going up, not just their death numbers. If lockdown worked, their infection numbers would have peaked (and, as you note, the death numbers would still be rising).


It means they also test more than before, what's logical.
For example in Germany they don't test people who died without being diagnosed, so that's one of the explanations why the number of deaths in Germany is that "low".


----------



## chopeth

blacai said:


> I am not denying Spain/Italy/Greece had a very wrong economic strategy for years...for many years,but that strategy was also promoted by the same First-Level economies of Europe like Germany,France, that invested huge amount of money on the housing market and tourism.
> Germans and whole Europa cannot pretend and promote the existing of two types of countries in the union.
> When this pandemic finishes, the whole world will be less globalised and Germany is a seller country. They need a strong European market. China and USA are not going to pay for German manufacturers,do better if Germany understand they cannot let the rest of the union go bankrupt,because they will follow...
> This crisis will be far worse than the 2008-2010 one



The UE is long ago showing huge insolidarity towards inmigrants. Now some countries don't even display solidarity towards their fellow countries in their own continent. I stand up for the UE, but not this one. The point is that Italy, so as Spain, didn't have the health support from the UE, only China, Russia and Cuba helped here. (NATO looking other way too). Having into account the ineffectiveness of this union when the ones in need are beaten by a health crisis (something they proved again with the refugees crisis), it's not surprising for me that they are against coronabonuses. In the Italian press, Matarella said to Merkel "you cannot be looking at Europe with yesterday's eyes"

Germany and Holland should explain why instead of letting their banks fall after high-risk business until 2008, they preferred forcing the south countries to cut back in their health system and welfare state to pay the debt to their banks. they ruined the South to save their banks. If a small company is wrongly managed and sinks, no one rescue it. If that is a German bank or a Dutch giant who acted terribly wrong, then the UE will step on the neck of Greek, Spanish or Italians before accepting their own fault.

Holland neither explains why they inflict tax dumping to the rest of the european countries and allow big transnational companies pay ridiculous taxes in Holland instead of paying what is legitimate in each country. By the way, with the climate change we'll see the Dutch with their land below water and moving somewhere else... migrating.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Adieu said:


> Im confused
> 
> Isnt a ventilator like 1950s tech? Wth could possibly cost a billion or more?
> 
> Or were they planning to manufacture like 2-3 million of em?



That's sort of like saying "aren't cars 1880's tech". The concept isn't new, but modern features and manufacturing standards makes them cost, on average $30k. 

The deal was for something like 65,000 at $18k each.


----------



## narad

Cynicanal said:


> Italy's infection numbers are still going up, not just their death numbers. If lockdown worked, their infection numbers would have peaked (and, as you note, the death numbers would still be rising).



Obviously in the limit case, lockdown and social distancing work. Whether anyone follows them enough for them to be effective is another matter. Certainly having a bunch of people running around trying to convince people that it doesn't work is a great way to get them to hang out together at the park and damage the whole effort.


----------



## budda

MaxOfMetal said:


> That's sort of like saying "aren't cars 1880's tech". The concept isn't new, but modern features and manufacturing standards makes them cost, on average $30k.



That's $30K to the public though, not wholesale. You'd think wholesale pricing would be in effect for a crisis, but people need to get paid .

Also, I hope the Americans on here are fired up about this:

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-e...cement-of-environmental-laws-amid-coronavirus


----------



## MaxOfMetal

budda said:


> That's $30K to the public though, not wholesale. You'd think wholesale pricing would be in effect for a crisis, but people need to get paid .



That's probably why they're putting the unit cost at $18k. Though I can see there being significant costs to go from making automobile transmissions to medical ventilators, which is most likely the biggest pricing factor. 

For folks not in manufacturing it's hard to grasp what goes into making a slightly different product on production lines, making something completely different pretty much means rebuilding the factory, supply chain, and workforce. That takes significant time and money, the less time the more money.


----------



## thraxil

Cynicanal said:


> Italy's infection numbers are still going up, not just their death numbers. If lockdown worked, their infection numbers would have peaked (and, as you note, the death numbers would still be rising).



Italy's infection rate is slowing down significantly though, which is a good indicator that the lockdown is doing what it's supposed to.

Look at the first two graphs on: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/

Starting around Mar 21st, the daily new cases has flattened off and possibly even started declining. A characteristic of exponential growth is that the daily new cases will be proportional to the total cases. That ratio dropping is exactly what you look for to see if it's hitting the inflection point and changing from exponential growth to a logistic curve.

Mar 21: 6557/53578 (0.12) - it was roughly in this 10-15% growth rate for most of the curve up to that point.
Mar 22: 5560/59137 (0.09)
Mar 23: 4789/63927 (0.07)
Mar 24: 5249/69176 (0.07)
Mar 25: 5210/74386 (0.07)
Mar 26: 6203/80589 (0.07)
Mar 27: 5909/86498 (0.06)
Mar 28: 5974/92472 (0.06)

It's still only a small amount of data, but those are encouraging numbers. The peak comes a while after that decline starts. Eg, South Korea's ratio started to decline like that around Feb 27-29th but their active cases didn't peak until around Mar 11.

Death rates should lag a few weeks behind that.


----------



## Señor Voorhees

Adieu said:


> Eh? One use?
> 
> Don't you mean single-user-at-a-time???
> 
> The tubing tip that goes in the victim is disposable (but little more than a glorified garden hose, and costs accordingly when mass-produced). The actual hardware it is attached to is most definitely not.



Not gonna lie, I was VERY inebriated last night and was thinking "respirators" and not "ventilators" despite the fact that nobody was talking about respirators ever, really. I just need to not post when I've had some drinks.


----------



## gunch

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/...or-shortage.html?referringSource=articleShare

dude I'm really tired of shit like this


----------



## wankerness

blacai said:


> It means they also test more than before, what's logical.
> For example in Germany they don't test people who died without being diagnosed, so that's one of the explanations why the number of deaths in Germany is that "low".



theyre not doing that in the US or in Italy most of the time, either. Germany’s infection and death rates are lower cause their country takes government orders seriously and their leaders aren’t incompetent douchenozzles and their medical infrastructure is a lot stronger than many other countries’. It’s certainly higher than reported, but so is everyone’s.


----------



## lurè

The number of positive cases in Italy has been decreasing since a couple of days but it's still early to make predictions due to the ridicolous low number of tests.


----------



## blacai

wankerness said:


> theyre not doing that in the US or in Italy most of the time, either. Germany’s infection and death rates are lower cause their country takes government orders seriously and their leaders aren’t incompetent douchenozzles and their medical infrastructure is a lot stronger than many other countries’. It’s certainly higher than reported, but so is everyone’s.


Don't know if you have been here during the quarantine, but this weekend parks, streets and common places were kind of crowed for a country that prohibited groups of 2+ people.
I go to the groceries around 7 a.m. before starting my work at home and there are already people waiting there with pretty long queues...

https://www.bild.de/regional/frankf...d-die-parks-wieder-so-voll-69709818.bild.html (OK...Bild is not the most accurate media, but I can confirm this  )

I do agree with the medical infrastructure. There are more beds and ICU than in other countries, but numbers are still quite confusing to me. In any case I feel safe here and happy things are relative under control.


----------



## jaxadam

Current quarantine situation:


----------



## Cynicanal

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/some-megachurches-are-still-packing-in-crowds/ar-BB11SBxU

Why even bother? If everyone is going to go get sick at church, we might as well open up the economy.


----------



## narad

Cynicanal said:


> https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/some-megachurches-are-still-packing-in-crowds/ar-BB11SBxU
> 
> Why even bother? If everyone is going to go get sick at church, we might as well open up the economy.



Those people aren't going to get sick though because God's going to protect them. It's the heathens that are still out there, mingling about, touching things with their idle, virus-packed hands that you have to worry about.


----------



## Señor Voorhees

That's the thing to be most worried about. People who think they're immune/don't care. The weakest link. They're the most likely to kill you or your family. The strangest thing is that they don't acknowledge that this is an "act of god." You know, the all knowing guy they're going to worship. You can't pray away the divine plan. Even if you believe in god, this virus and everyone it kills is exactly what he planned for/wants. 

Which saying that out loud kind of lends credence to the "well, if he demands it, it's gonna happen... Might as well TRY to get on his good side... (even though he has already planned out who's dying and who isn't.)"

I've just seen so many people saying "pray that this ends blah blah blah... God will listen." It's like, no... He won't... He's all knowing and he planned for/expected this. God isn't going to change his grand plan for one, or even 10 million, ants. It'd be laughable if it weren't a danger to people all of us, and even THEY, care about.


----------



## sleewell

Mega church pastors be like: not gonna let this deadly pandemic stall my plans for another jet or yacht


----------



## narad

sleewell said:


> Mega church pastors be like: not gonna let this deadly pandemic stall my plans for another jet or yacht



I mean, I'd love one of these guys to do it with conviction -- go touch the faces of 500 strangers during a pandemic. But they'll probably revert to throwing those waves of healing from a distance.


----------



## Ralyks

Social distancing guidelines in the states extended through April 30th. No surprise.


----------



## BlackSG91

;>)/


----------



## fantom

Cynicanal said:


> https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/some-megachurches-are-still-packing-in-crowds/ar-BB11SBxU
> 
> Why even bother? If everyone is going to go get sick at church, we might as well open up the economy.



Do you understand that older people dying will still kill the economy?! I have no idea how old you are, but people who are 50+ own a lot more of the wealth in this country than people 18-35. Who the hell do you think is going on cruises, dining out, taking tons of weekend getaways, buying stupid crap they don't need, popping 10+ medications, and stockpiling their lives' savings instead of paying college kids decent tips? Letting 10-15% of the 50+ population just die will wreck the demand for most of the silly junk that drives the economy.


----------



## Merrekof

sleewell said:


> Mega church pastors be like: not gonna let this deadly pandemic stall my plans for another jet or yacht


I see something similar out here. The Protestant Christian community, the Jewish and Muslim community al gather to pray. They think praying will prevent them from getting sick.. suuuuuure..

Edit: it's not just the elderly. We have seen 16 year olds and people in their 20'ies with no health problems whatsoever suddenly get Covid19, suffer for a week and then die.


----------



## lurè

Merrekof said:


> They think praying will prevent them from getting sick.. suuuuuure..



That's how the virus got to South Korea


----------



## USMarine75

Flappydoodle said:


> My argument seemed to defeat you, since you ended up admitting that there IS a threshold of where money > life
> 
> And again with the strawman. Literally nobody has said sacrifice your mother.



Came back in just to say no, you didn't defeat me... your unfounded and ill-informed opinions are just too shit for me to waste my time arguing with. But I figured it was worth popping in for a bit just to entertain myself with your idiocy. You didn't disappoint, thanks! 

You literally don't understand what a strawman argument is either. Unless you think it means every example that points out your utterly flawed opinions? Then yes, strawman it is.

Dr Birx just announced that _without_ preventative measures, this will likely kill 2M Americans... _with_ the current restrictions more likely 100-200K. So you somehow think a pandemic that kills 2M won't destroy the US economy? You think if millions die and 100M get sick businesses won't collapse? People will just continue shopping at the mall, going to the movies, grabbing dinner at Applebees?

And this is all a best-case scenario... what if there's a high rate of re-infection, if a substrain becomes more virulent with a higher attack rate, etc?

Shelter-in-place isn't indefinite. Trump already had to be forced to back off from the Easter ultimatum he gave to Covid-19. The idea is to flatten the curve, which just seems to be a concept you don't understand (which is okay btw... you're prob good at guitar right? Maybe you have a huge dick? I don't know, I'm sure you're good at something! This just isn't it.).

You're trying to slow the infection rate, prevent mutations (new strains or sub-strains), and mitigate the attack rate, not cut new infections to zero (which would be nice, but not the purpose). Sorry, I do apologize if I'm stating concepts you know here... I can't remember if you're the fraudulent MD/PhD pretending to be pipette deep in developing a cure or not (I sure hope you're a fraud for your sake... because wow you're a disgrace if not. I mean, dude, you work in public health sector but value the economy more than 2M lives in the US alone? Nah. I prefer you're a fraud that might at least get you laid like people that pretend "they were there, bro" during 911).

Anywho, popping back out I can only wade in stupid waters so deep... toodles!


----------



## blacai

An interesting study: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3561560

What are the economic consequences of an influenza pandemic? And given the pandemic, what are the economic costs and benefits of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI)? Using geographic variation in mortality during the 1918 Flu Pandemic in the U.S., we find that more exposed areas experience a sharp and persistent decline in economic activity. The estimates imply that the pandemic reduced manufacturing output by 18%. The downturn is driven by both supply and demand-side channels. Further, building on findings from the epidemiology literature establishing that NPIs decrease influenza mortality, we use variation in the timing and intensity of NPIs across U.S. cities to study their economic effects. *We find that cities that intervened earlier and more aggressively do not perform worse and, if anything, grow faster after the pandemic is over. Our findings thus indicate that NPIs not only lower mortality; they also mitigate the adverse economic consequences of a pandemic.*
*
NPI = Social distancing, self-quarantine, isolation...*


----------



## USMarine75

I’ll just leave this here.


----------



## TedEH

I hate how those videos don't play in Canada.


----------



## Drew

Flappydoodle said:


> Not to downplay, but you have to bear in mind that in a country of 65M people, there are 615,000 deaths per year anyway. That means 1,700 deaths per any normal day.
> 
> Coronavirus has killed 1,000 over about 3 weeks, so around 50 deaths per day, which is totally unnoticeable in the total number of deaths.
> 
> You also have to consider that many of those people (particularly the elderly, heart conditions etc) may have died this year due to other causes - influenza, heart attack, hospital acquired infections, falls etc. So those are likely not 50 additional total deaths, but rather a different cause of death.
> 
> You can see death rates of countries here:
> 
> https://www.euromomo.eu
> 
> Notice that even Italy is barely a blip.


I'm sorry, but this IS downplaying what we're dealing with, and there're a few pretty big math/stats issues with how you're framing this.

Italy has a population of around 60mm, so I assume that's the number you're referring to here, nd I'll take your estimate of daily mortality rate at face value, and assume that on a normal day, 1,700 Italians die, on average.

The problem, is 50 Italians a day HAVEN'T been dying. It's a growing number,f ollowing a roughly exponential path, and while it can't grow exponentially forever, we're now at a point where 800 italians a day are dying of COVID-19.

So, if you want to try to normalize this by how many Italians we should EXPECT to die on any given day, we should expect around 1,700, and we're getting around 2,500. That's nearly 50% higher than it "should" be, and while Italy has belatedly gotten pretty aggressive with containment, they're awfully far behind the curve.

Here in America, tyhe Trump administration is now calling 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 a "win" and a good outcome, because it's less than 200,000, which is what they expect if we don't respond aggressively. Now, again, annualizing that into a daily rate probably isn't fair because that's going to predominately happen in about two months... but for the hell of it, that's roughly 300 people a day over the full year, in a country where roughly 7,500 people die a day. We're expecting to see a 4% uptick in our 2020 mortality rate, and we're calling that a GOOD outcome. During April and May, if we assume 70% of those deaths happen in the next couple months, thats more like an extra 1,200 deaths a day, or a 16% uptick. These are some pretty big numbers... ad again, that's a "successful" outcome.

These people may have died from something else this year anyway... but a lot of them wouldn't have, and these are all _preventable_ deaths. Trying to average out past deaths from a rapidly-spreading pandemic over a full year ignores the growth trajectory and is a statistical way of trying to brush the problem under the rug. At the end of the year, this won't be ab "unnoticable" number of deaths, this is going to be a pretty damned noticeable bodycount.


----------



## USMarine75

> Came back in just to say no, you didn't defeat me... your unfounded and ill-informed opinions are just too shit for me to waste my time arguing with. But I figured it was worth popping in for a bit just to entertain myself with your idiocy. You didn't disappoint, thanks!
> 
> You literally don't understand what a strawman argument is either. Unless you think it means every example that points out your utterly flawed opinions? Then yes, strawman it is.
> 
> Dr Birx just announced that _without_ preventative measures, this will likely kill 2M Americans... _with_ the current restrictions more likely 100-200K. So you somehow think a pandemic that kills 2M won't destroy the US economy? You think if millions die and 100M get sick businesses won't collapse? People will just continue shopping at the mall, going to the movies, grabbing dinner at Applebees?
> 
> And this is all a best-case scenario... what if there's a high rate of re-infection, if a substrain becomes more virulent with a higher attack rate, etc?
> 
> Shelter-in-place isn't indefinite. Trump already had to be forced to back off from the Easter ultimatum he gave to Covid-19. The idea is to flatten the curve, which just seems to be a concept you don't understand (which is okay btw... you're prob good at guitar right? Maybe you have a huge dick? I don't know, I'm sure you're good at something! This just isn't it.).
> 
> You're trying to slow the infection rate, prevent mutations (new strains or sub-strains), and mitigate the attack rate, not cut new infections to zero (which would be nice, but not the purpose). Sorry, I do apologize if I'm stating concepts you know here... I can't remember if you're the fraudulent MD/PhD pretending to be pipette deep in developing a cure or not (I sure hope you're a fraud for your sake... because wow you're a disgrace if not. I mean, dude, you work in public health sector but value the economy more than 2M lives in the US alone? Nah. I prefer you're a fraud that might at least get you laid like people that pretend "they were there, bro" during 911).
> 
> Anywho, popping back out I can only wade in stupid waters so deep... toodles!



I'd like to apologize to @Flappydoodle et al for this post. I got carried away. You see, It's difficult for me to express myself politely sometimes, which I need to work on. You understand, right?

It's just that I really despise you, which is my problem and not yours. It's the same hatred and disdain I have for someone that has Measles, refuses to get vaccinated, and goes to Disney while I'm there with my children, and then tries to justify their actions by tossing stupid anti-vaxxer crap my way. Is that a strawman? I don't know. But, I hope we can just agree to disagree.


----------



## fantom

blacai said:


> An interesting study: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3561560
> 
> What are the economic consequences of an influenza pandemic? And given the pandemic, what are the economic costs and benefits of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI)? Using geographic variation in mortality during the 1918 Flu Pandemic in the U.S., we find that more exposed areas experience a sharp and persistent decline in economic activity. The estimates imply that the pandemic reduced manufacturing output by 18%. The downturn is driven by both supply and demand-side channels. Further, building on findings from the epidemiology literature establishing that NPIs decrease influenza mortality, we use variation in the timing and intensity of NPIs across U.S. cities to study their economic effects. *We find that cities that intervened earlier and more aggressively do not perform worse and, if anything, grow faster after the pandemic is over. Our findings thus indicate that NPIs not only lower mortality; they also mitigate the adverse economic consequences of a pandemic.
> 
> NPI = Social distancing, self-quarantine, isolation...*



This. Although I still think our trolling contributors will argue against it like it is the plague... No pun intended.

And anyone not paying attention, a healthy 17 year old died in LA die not being able to get treatment from a hospital. This virus doesn't seem to care if younger people should be more immune. If the hospitals can't deal with patients, everyone is at serious risk.


----------



## USMarine75

fantom said:


> This. Although I still think our trolling contributors will argue against it like it is the plague... No pun intended.
> 
> And anyone not paying attention, a healthy 17 year old died in LA die not being able to get treatment from a hospital. This virus doesn't seem to care if younger people should be more immune. If the hospitals can't deal with patients, everyone is at serious risk.



Not only that, the other major tripwire we worry about in public health is when infectious disease overwhelms medical facility's ability to treat other health related issues. You think this is bad in NY or CA. Imagine when it hits rural clinics that only have a few doctors on staff. They rely on outside assistance such as CDC or from larger (urban) medical centers, which won't be able to rescue them.

e.g. 

Patients not being able to get proper care for MI, cancer, dialysis, etc. 
Nosocomial infections adversely affecting such care


----------



## Cynicanal

fantom said:


> And anyone not paying attention, a healthy 17 year old died in LA die not being able to get treatment from a hospital. This virus doesn't seem to care if younger people should be more immune. If the hospitals can't deal with patients, everyone is at serious risk.


So, the "worst case scenario" is happening anyways... why are we continuing the "public health theater"? It would be a lot easier, cheaper, and more fun in both the short and long term to just accept our mortality based on this!


----------



## USMarine75

Cynicanal said:


> So, the "worst case scenario" is happening anyways... why are we continuing the "public health theater"? It would be a lot easier, cheaper, and more fun in both the short and long term to just accept our mortality based on this!



Are you like, totally, this stupid in real life?

No offense.

I'll accept a ban-hammer because it's worth telling you to get fucked for this...



Cynicanal said:


> *It would be a lot... more fun* in both the short and long term to just accept our mortality based on this!



You're like, you know, a terrible human being for thinking 1-2M deaths in the US would be... "more fun".

tl;dr trolls be trollin'


----------



## Cynicanal

1-2M deaths (probably a lot more than that, really, but let's use these conservative numbers) are coming anyways, no matter what we do. If we're already turning away the _relatively healthy_ at hospitals, then flattening the curve failed _miserably_, and none of the self-imposed economic sanctions did a single thing for us. 

We're _already in_ the worst-case scenario, no reason to add self-inflicted wounds.


----------



## USMarine75

Cynicanal said:


> stupidity



Drive fast. Take chances.


----------



## Cynicanal

Let me put it this way -- we're already turning away people at hospitals. Last I saw, roughly 20% of people who get this have symptoms bad enough to be hospitalized. That means, despite having tried quarantines, we're about to have a virus hitting 80% of the population that kills 20% of them, for a death count of a bit over _50 million_, not counting secondary effects of people not being able to get treated for heart attacks, accidents, or similar. 

That's our lowest-possible bodycount as of now with our social distancing measures. Given that, why on Earth are we bothering? Do you think we're going to somehow go meaningfully above 50 million without social distancing?


----------



## blacai

At this point this is the only thing that comes into my mind...


----------



## TedEH

Cynicanal said:


> We're _already in_ the worst-case scenario, no reason to add self-inflicted wounds.


I recognize that I'm an idiot in some cases, but even I understand that there's a middle ground between "this accomplished nothing" and "this worked perfectly".

We are not in the worst case scenario. What you're suggesting people do -> that very well might be the worst case scenario.


----------



## Cynicanal

TedEH said:


> I recognize that I'm an idiot in some cases, but even I understand that there's a middle ground between "this accomplished nothing" and "this worked perfectly".


Maybe there's something I'm not seeing here, but "hospitals got overloaded and had to turn everyone away" and "hospitals didn't get overloaded" seems about as binary as it gets.


----------



## spudmunkey

Cynicanal said:


> Maybe there's something I'm not seeing here, but "hospitals got overloaded and had to turn everyone away" and "hospitals didn't get overloaded" seems about as binary as it gets.



_How_ overloaded is quantifiable.


----------



## TedEH

I mean... there's a pretty big difference between turning a lot of people away, and turning a few people away.


----------



## Drew

Cynicanal said:


> Maybe there's something I'm not seeing here, but "hospitals got overloaded and had to turn everyone away" and "hospitals didn't get overloaded" seems about as binary as it gets.


With all due respect, Ted's right, and you don't seem to really get the distinction here. 

Right now, we're telling _healthy_ people to stay home. If you think you may have been exposed to a COVID-19 case and you're worried you may be effective, we're telling people they should stay at home and self-qarantine rather than go to the hospital and get tested. Why? Not because we don't have the beds or the ventilators or the doctors, but because we don't have the _testing_ capacity to test asymptomatic people to rule out the possibility they've been infected. Even symptomatic people with known transmission points, we're not testing, because we don't have enough testing capacity to test more than either people with severe symptoms, or high risk professions like health care providers. 

Italy is the scenario we're trying to avoid, where you have a 65 year old patient with severe syptoms and an 85 year old patient with severe symptoms, and oyu treat the 65 year old because if they survive they're likely to live another 25 years while the 85 year old is only likely to live another 5. We're nowhere near that - anecdotally, I can say that in the Boston area it's the Boston hospitals that are still handling most of the COVID cases for the rest of the state. 

The point of social distancing and quarantine is to stop transmission, and try to stop us from ever getting to a point where our hospitals can't keep up with severe cases. We're telling otherwise healthy people not to go to hospitals and get tested not beause we can't treat them, but because we can't _test_ them, and if we have a whole bunch of otentially infectious but otherwise healthy people getting together at hospitals, we're going to infect a whole LOT of people seeking care, who otherwise are likely to be uninfected (in MA we're still seeing a positive rate below 20%, and that's with tests going primarily to symptomatic patients and exposed healthcare providers, and not every random person who walks into an ER. 

Right now, with social distancing guidelines in place, the Trump administration believes a "good" outcome would be 100,000 deaths, and a "bad" one would be more like 200,000. With NO quarantine procedures, and a full "reopen the economy!" push, that probably increases by a factor of 10. It is WILDLY irresponsible to do so, and arguing that our hspitals are "already turning people away" is one of those things that is technically true but means a very, very different thing than it does somewhere like Italy, where the hospitals truly ARE being overloaded.


----------



## Drew

TedEH said:


> I mean... there's a pretty big difference between turning a lot of people away, and turning a few people away.


There's also the fact that, at least here in MA, which isn't as hard hit as New York City or Washington, but isn't far behind, we're turning healthy people away and telling them not to go and get tested unless they're showing severe symptoms, and not choosing which severely symptomatic person we're going to treat, vs. let die.


----------



## USMarine75

OxygenThief said:


> Let me put it this way -- we're already turning away people at hospitals. Last I saw, roughly 20% of people who get this have symptoms bad enough to be hospitalized. That means, despite having tried quarantines, we're about to have a virus hitting 80% of the population that kills 20% of them, for a death count of a bit over _50 million_, not counting secondary effects of people not being able to get treated for heart attacks, accidents, or similar.
> 
> That's our lowest-possible bodycount as of now with our social distancing measures. Given that, why on Earth are we bothering? Do you think we're going to somehow go meaningfully above 50 million without social distancing?




Let me put it this way...

Which of these seem clearer to you? A or B?

A.






or

B.


----------



## jaxadam

Chinese
Origin
Virus
In
December
19


----------



## Kobalt

jaxadam said:


> Chinese
> Origin
> Virus
> In
> December
> 19


Close enough.


----------



## vilk

I automatically assumed it's Co[rona]v[irus]id[#]-19


----------



## Drew

vilk said:


> I automatically assumed it's Co[rona]v[irus]id[#]-19


I assume it's some variation of that as well, though since COVID-19 refers to the illness and not the virus itself, I assume the ID is Infectious Disease. Probaly Viral rather than Virus, for the same reasons.


----------



## jaxadam

Covid-19, oh I swear
At this moment, you mean everything


----------



## Kobalt

The D stands for disease. Corona Virus Disease 2019.


----------



## Cynicanal

Drew said:


> Right now, we're telling _healthy_ people to stay home.


We're _pretending_ to tell healthy people to stay home. In reality, we're still telling tons of them to go to work (any big company can become "essential", so we've just created a big lottery where we kill companies and sectors at random), and everyone still has to go to the grocery store, and use the same carts that everyone else has touched, open the same freezer doors as everyone else, grab food from the same shelves that everyone else has been touching, etc.

Our measures are theater, nothing more.


----------



## penguin_316

“It’s not exponential”

“You don’t understand, we’re flattening the curve”

Sevenstring gonna sevenstring.

As Cynic stated, most people work in “mandatory sectors”. While my family can stay at home, I have to continue working. Every time I come home, I may come back bearing gifts. We are talking about an invisible enemy, social distancing practices today cannot undo months of inaction.

In our modern society, it is impossible to not expose yourself to this virus. A select few may have the resources to 100% wall themselves off to society, but as a practical matter most of us need to buy food/fuel/medicine/etc etc. So, looks like a classic catch 33.

Previous numbers on point, no “flattening” of the curve in sight.
US:
March 25 presently- 54,453 infected
March 30- 108,906
April 4- 217,812

PS- CDC is reporting 140k+ confirmed US infected, my numbers are too low for now.


----------



## narad

penguin_316 said:


> “It’s not exponential”



If you think I said it's not exponential, you should go reread my post. I said that any viable virus is exponential in the population it arises in. Beavers build dams. Spiders weave webs. Effective viruses spread exponentially in their communities until herd immunity becomes a factor.

To look at COVID numbers around the world and point this out, is akin to watching a beaver build a dam and proclaiming, "See! He built the dam! Just as I predicted he would!!"


----------



## penguin_316

narad said:


> If you think I said it's not exponential, you should go reread my post. I said that any viable virus is exponential in the population it arises in. Beavers build dams. Spiders weave webs. Effective viruses spread exponentially in their communities until herd immunity becomes a factor.
> 
> To look at COVID numbers around the world and point this out, is akin to watching a beaver build a dam and proclaiming, "See! He built the dam! Just as I predicted he would!!"



Nope, I posted that it’s exponential growth was going unchecked no matter the precautions put into place. The point of my post was that at the given rate of cases the entire US will be infected by the end of May or the start of June.You met that with arguments of “all virus’ are exponential at first” which I have to say /golfclap on that keen observation.

Keep backpeddling. Link some more articles about the curve flattening, we need another good laugh.


----------



## narad

penguin_316 said:


> Nope, I posted that it’s exponential growth was going unchecked no matter the precautions put into place.



Not sure you understand the definition of "unchecked" then. 

If we watched a game of soccer and one team walked off the field, that's unchecked. However bad that game is, if we have a regular game, and that score reduced by a single point, you don't refer to their scoring as "unchecked". 

So yes, the virus is going to be growing exponentially for a long time (as, that is what viruses do). What we care about is what that exponent is, and what it is over time (not in aggregate, because this exponent changes and you don't seem to understand that). Because the 5:0 soccer blowout is still a lot better than the 48:0 actual disaster. 

And you don't seem to understand that -- you only get to observe one of these numbers. You need two of them to make a mathematical argument. And the usual way of observing the thing we can't actually observe is to model it -- no model supports your idea that social distancing doesn't impede the speed and extent of the viral spread.


----------



## jaxadam

Best. Movie. Ever.


----------



## penguin_316

narad said:


> Not sure you understand the definition of "unchecked" then.
> 
> If we watched a game of soccer and one team walked off the field, that's unchecked. However bad that game is, if we have a regular game, and that score reduced by a single point, you don't refer to their scoring as "unchecked".
> 
> So yes, the virus is going to be growing exponentially for a long time (as, that is what viruses do). What we care about is what that exponent is, and what it is over time (not in aggregate, because this exponent changes and you don't seem to understand that). Because the 5:0 soccer blowout is still a lot better than the 48:0 actual disaster.
> 
> And you don't seem to understand that -- you only get to observe one of these numbers. You need two of them to make a mathematical argument. And the usual way of observing the thing we can't actually observe is to model it -- no model supports your idea that social distancing doesn't impede the speed and extent of the viral spread.



Unchecked in this instance refers to the growth of the numbers, regardless of social distancing. We have no way to truly know whether it works or not, since the virus spread for roughly 3 months before any precautions were put in place.

The exponential growth has remained in a band plus or minus ~15%. 

You love to argue about semantics don’t you? I can’t spell it out for you any more clearly.

Numbers go up. Numbers not go down yet. Big numbers bad. No end in sight. Get it? ffs


----------



## narad

penguin_316 said:


> You love to argue about semantics don’t you? I can’t spell it out for you any more clearly.



I'm afraid the semantics matter, as they often do when talking about data and policy and outlooks.


----------



## penguin_316

narad said:


> I'm afraid the semantics matter, as they often do when talking about data and policy and outlooks.



I posted numbers that are accurate to date. You come in with semantics and useless banter to sound important. I think this has run its course...
Post some numbers or move along. I can’t be the only one that doesn’t care about your personal opinion on the matter.


----------



## narad

penguin_316 said:


> I posted numbers that are accurate to date. You come in with semantics and useless banter to sound important. I think this has run its course...
> Post some numbers or move along. I can’t be the only one that doesn’t care about your personal opinion on the matter.



The numbers aren't the problem -- it's how you interpret them and what you argue for. If you look at a the reported numbers, and argue for the futility in trying to flatten the curve, or make off-handed comments about its lack of usefulness wrt the economy, then... well, I don't know exactly how to finish this sentence without personal insult.

But look, I can't teach you data analysis in a guitar subforum, but maybe you should listen to everyone else besides me that quoted your post and pointed out the error in your thinking. If all you really wanted to say was "big numbers == bad", and "hey, looks viruses grow exponentially!", mission accomplished. If you actually wanted to put together a cohesive argument for all the things you've been hinting at the past 5-10 pgs of posts, then I think you're going to have a hard time arguing for it objectively.


----------



## gnoll

This thread is becoming pretty ridiculous...



Cynicanal said:


> death count of a bit over _50 million_, not counting secondary effects of people not being able to get treated for heart attacks, accidents, or similar.
> 
> That's our lowest-possible bodycount



Do you seriously believe 50 million people in the US are gonna die from this? And that that's the best-case scenario?

I don't mean to downplay a serious situation, but maybe a little bit of perspective could be of use here?


----------



## penguin_316

narad said:


> The numbers aren't the problem -- it's how you interpret them and what you argue for. If you look at a the reported numbers, and argue for the futility in trying to flatten the curve, or make off-handed comments about its lack of usefulness wrt the economy, then... well, I don't know exactly how to finish this sentence without personal insult.
> 
> But look, I can't teach you data analysis in a guitar subforum, but maybe you should listen to everyone else besides me that quoted your post and pointed out the error in your thinking. If all you really wanted to say was "big numbers == bad", and "hey, looks viruses grow exponentially!", mission accomplished. If you actually wanted to put together a cohesive argument for all the things you've been hinting at the past 5-10 pgs of posts, then I think you're going to have a hard time arguing for it objectively.



You have yet to prove that social distancing has any effect. You have yet to prove the exponential growth has lessened. You have yet to touch on the numbers provided. I’m sorry, you’re not bringing anything to the table. 
See you in 5 days, projected US numbers 200k plus. I mean if we were flattening the curve we should see a curbing of these numbers correct? Care to give a time frame to your objective opinion regarding the matter? I didn’t think so.

My opinion: The only reason I posted the numbers in the first place was to show how botched this whole this has been and to extrapolate the data. The US will reach full infection within months. No, social distancing won’t curb that, it’s too little too late. Am I going around kissing my neighbors? No, but we’re bringing a knife to a gunfight.


----------



## Adieu

gnoll said:


> This thread is becoming pretty ridiculous...
> 
> 
> 
> Do you seriously believe 50 million people in the US are gonna die from this? And that that's the best-case scenario?
> 
> I don't mean to downplay a serious situation, but maybe a little bit of perspective could be of use here?



Global maybe?


----------



## penguin_316

He’s talking 50 million worldwide out of a population of roughly 6.3-6.5 billion.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

penguin_316 said:


> You have yet to prove that social distancing has any effect.



I feel like this is something of a wide net:

https://www.americanprogress.org/is...t-coronavirus-strategy-working-must-continue/

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200326/social-distancing-may-be-working-new-study-hints

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/03/30/robert-gehrke-heres-proof/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/5083173002

https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/2020-26/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.me...ncing-lockdown-working-some-see-progress/amp/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com...sh-flu-shows-why-social-distancing-works/amp/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1157816

https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/03/4...social-distancing-combat-coronavirus-outbreak

https://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2020/mar/19/covid-19-how-effective-is-social-distancing

https://www.google.com/amp/s/globalnews.ca/news/6709071/coronavirus-social-distancing-math/amp/

There were some others worth posting, but behind pay walls. If you have a Times or Post sub I'll post them. 

Again, you're going off of positive test results while there is no universal test protocol. It's impossible to know the exact correlation between actual infected and how many happened to be in the right place at the right time to get a test that just so happens to be positive. We're in agreement that the number of actual infected is greater than the number of tests that have been tabulated up to this point, but we don't know exactly what the proportion of that is, because we don't have those numbers, which are impossible to have, we can only default to what we see on the ground. The difference between those numbers is the factor that we seem to be going back and forth over.

Look at it this way:

Say there are actually 100,000,000 infected in the US. 

But we only process tests at a rate of 20,000 a week. 

Right now, since we're only processing so many tests, we'll always see a certain escalation in the number of positive tests. 

It'll take months to determine whether that big "actually infected" number is trending any which way, how much it's increasing. 

We've observed social distancing having a positive impact, in the past and with COVID19. It's just nearly impossible to represent that with hard numbers for the United States in real time especially given the poor testing protocol. 

You can have the opinion that it doesn't work, but that would be in disagreement with most expert sources. Maybe you're right, but we won't know that for a relatively long time. So the options at hand are go with experts in their field who using data and relevant observations to draw a widely accepted conclusion, or go with your gut and some of the minority opinions on the subject.


----------



## c7spheres

- Testing as many as possible is great, but most people will have already been infected, got sick, or die from it long before the tests are available, which sucks, but it's all that can be done other than distancing until something is found to combat it. 
- BTW, Alan Merrill who co-wrote I Love Rock n' Roll and from the band Arrows just died from it, 69 years old.


----------



## fantom

This thread is unbearable... Respect to mods for not banning stupidity and encouraging diverse viewpoints.

At this point, even Trump has been convinced that social distancing must be done. I'm not quite sure what the hell we are arguing about it for. It is either trolling or complete lack of understanding of the scale of the situation we are facing.


----------



## Cynicanal

No, it's not a lack of understanding of the scale; it is, in fact, understanding the immense scale, and that our public-health theater isn't going to help one tiny bit. Given what we've been told so far, I see no way that at least one-in-five people in the U.S. aren't dying in the next few months.


----------



## narad

penguin_316 said:


> You have yet to prove that social distancing has any effect. You have yet to prove the exponential growth has lessened. You have yet to touch on the numbers provided. I’m sorry, you’re not bringing anything to the table.



I mean, you have yet to prove that social distancing doesn't have any effect. You have yet to prove the exponential growth hasn't lessened. You've merely provided numbers which are several steps of bias and process away from the numbers you actually want to be talking about.

I think this is the bottom-line: Yea, I'm not really bringing anything to the table, besides support for the opinion of experts in the field we're talking about. And what I think is worth pointing out that you are not bringing anything to the table, while arguing to the contrary. Normally if someone pops into a thread saying, "So many qualitative arguments in this thread, let’s talk quantitative. Don’t respond, do the math for yourself", I would breathe a sigh of relief. But you actually have to be somewhat an expert to "do the math yourself" in this case, and the only arguments worse than non-objective ones are ones that are based on a faulty understanding of the data.

Do you think the experts use the number of confirmed cases as the primary point of reference for their models? Do you think you enroll in a PhD and day 1 they say, ah, "big number bad", here's your diploma? There's a reason it takes 4-7 years. There's a reason we don't derive policy from a random person on a guitar forum. The models are very complex. Even the models for determining true cases of outbreaks are fairly sophisticated and can't be based on direct reporting -- especially when the number of tests is very limited, and the conditions of their use vary drastically from city to city, and hospital to hospital.

And in that regard, the expert position is clear: Max did a great job objectively listing many such sources.



penguin_316 said:


> See you in 5 days, projected US numbers 200k plus. I mean if we were flattening the curve we should see a curbing of these numbers correct? Care to give a time frame to your objective opinion regarding the matter? I didn’t think so.



Look! The beaver's building a dam!

I mean, we _could_ see a flattening of these numbers, but we certainly wouldn't have to. We don't understand at all the behavior of confirmed cases to true cases, and you need to have an accurate understanding of that before you can even begin to talk about the numbers and how they relate to policy.

Just my own observation: in a city like NYC, when the population is huge and dense, and divided on whether to self isolate or to hang out with friends in the park, it's effectively on paper the experiment of what happens when there is no social distancing. The people outside get it, and go to the hospital and max out the stats on the tests performed in that period, and we can plot an exponential curve just on those people. The people inside don't get it, and we don't get any positive signal from that number. If this is the scenario, social distancing would be having a huge effect, and yet we would not have accurate method of assessing it. There are many such biases in reading off the confirmed case numbers, this is just one.



penguin_316 said:


> My opinion: The only reason I posted the numbers in the first place was to show how botched this whole this has been and to extrapolate the data. The US will reach full infection within months. No, social distancing won’t curb that, it’s too little too late. Am I going around kissing my neighbors? No, but we’re bringing a knife to a gunfight.



tl;dr, if you don't know what you're talking about, talking about it next to a list of numbers is not any better.


----------



## fantom

Cynicanal said:


> No, it's not a lack of understanding of the scale; it is, in fact, understanding the immense scale, and that our public-health theater isn't going to help one tiny bit. Given what we've been told so far, I see no way that at least one-in-five people in the U.S. aren't dying in the next few months.



How do you contradict yourself in the same post. You see no way that 1 in 5 aren't dying because you do not comprehend what experts are asking you to do and are tunnel visioned on you being more knowledgeable than experts about the possible outcomes. That shows you really do not understand the scale of the situation.


----------



## fantom

Btw, when this is all over, I'll sell you a used car with a 16% interest rate. I'm sure that is just as bad as a 3% interest rate. So I'll be doing you a favor.


----------



## penguin_316

Max, you did list a wide variety of links pointing to social distancing’s positive effects. However, you can’t look at data in a bubble as these links imply. The numbers continue to grow exponentially, as well as being grossly under reported. You are all eating up this hopium that our efforts are working and we’re winning. 

The US, specifically, has lost this fight. The globe seems teetering on the brink of doing the same, following our footsteps.

I can link plenty of pro and con articles as well. At some point you need to think, damn we’re being fed a pile of BS. Connect the puzzle pieces yourself.

How many people in the US are “essential”? How many are actually following the optional social distancing practices suggested? I have seen first hand massive disregard for the practice of social distancing. Add in a dash of “essential” workforce and you have a “war” that cannot be won.

Make note of the rhetoric spread by the president and other officials, “war” is a new hot button. We are fighting an invisible war against a virus... Let that sink into your mind. Why are you guys buying into this shit? Seriously, take two steps back, look at the numbers and come to your own conclusions. 

Of course, they will have countless experts on major news networks saying we’re kicking ass. The reality out my window is much more stark. I hope you understand my point. We will talk semantics another day, people are dying at an alarming rate. The number today pale in comparison to the numbers in the following months and years.

Now, look at what politics are approving behind our backs during this outbreak of mass hysteria. They are now pushing for a digital currency, decreased encryption anonymity for everyone on the internet, and further lack of privacy via renewed Patriot Act laws. 

Here is what you don’t want to hear. The stock markets will have another massive dip when this pandemic engulfs the US over the next 2 months. The US dollar will soar in power temporarily as the DXY continues on its way to new highs. Following that, we will see massive inflation of the USD.


----------



## Hollowway

penguin_316 said:


> Max, you did list a wide variety of links pointing to social distancing’s positive effects. However, you can’t look at data in a bubble as these links imply. The numbers continue to grow exponentially, as well as being grossly under reported. You are all eating up this hopium that our efforts are working and we’re winning.
> 
> The US, specifically, has lost this fight. The globe seems teetering on the brink of doing the same, following our footsteps.
> 
> I can link plenty of pro and con articles as well. At some point you need to think, damn we’re being fed a pile of BS. Connect the puzzle pieces yourself.
> 
> How many people in the US are “essential”? How many are actually following the optional social distancing practices suggested? I have seen first hand massive disregard for the practice of social distancing. Add in a dash of “essential” workforce and you have a “war” that cannot be won.
> 
> Make note of the rhetoric spread by the president and other officials, “war” is a new hot button. We are fighting an invisible war against a virus... Let that sink into your mind. Why are you guys buying into this shit? Seriously, take two steps back, look at the numbers and come to your own conclusions.
> 
> Of course, they will have countless experts on major news networks saying we’re kicking ass. The reality out my window is much more stark. I hope you understand my point. We will talk semantics another day, people are dying at an alarming rate. The number today pale in comparison to the numbers in the following months and years.
> 
> Now, look at what politics are approving behind our backs during this outbreak of mass hysteria. They are now pushing for a digital currency, decreased encryption anonymity for everyone on the internet, and further lack of privacy via renewed Patriot Act laws.
> 
> Here is what you don’t want to hear. The stock markets will have another massive dip when this pandemic engulfs the US over the next 2 months. The US dollar will soar in power temporarily as the DXY continues on its way to new highs. Following that, we will see massive inflation of the USD.



Well, you're just being a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian. Epidemiologists have been dealing with this stuff for decades. Social distancing does work. You can say it doesn't now, and I can't prove you wrong. But that's like me saying that the S&P 500 has grown continually over time, and then you say that I can't prove it will next year. Well, no, I can't. But the odds are in its favor. 

Secondly, why not try to save a life? If we don't do social distancing people will die, and the economy will suffer. If we do social distancing, we have a better shot. There are plenty of areas of the country where there's barely any virus. If we can delay those areas, then we don't all get it at once. I don't see how not having NYC people fly to Bumblehooney Wyoming isn't going to delay Bumblehooney from getting cases. 

Anyway, you can be a contrarian, or a conspiracy theorist, or libertarian, but my personal choice would be to listen to the people that do this stuff for a living, and try to keep my parents from dying of this.

(And if you could, please do post some of those articles showing that social distancing hasn't worked in a prior pandemic. I'm genuinely interested in this, and I have only seen models showing its effectiveness or case studies showing its effectiveness. Nothing showing its ineffectiveness.)


----------



## fantom

Let's explain this in a dumber way.

The virus spreads at some factor, r_naught. This is pretty much an interest rate. A larger interest rate, the higher your payment will be. Stretch it out over a year with compounding interest every few days, you want that interest rate to be low.

If it takes 2 years to make a vaccine, we want a lower interest rate so people don't die while waiting for the vaccine. If you had to buy something for 500k and pay it off in 2 years, would you rather use a credit card with close to 0% interest rate over 2 years or something with 24% compounding every week and with a weekly service fee?

Both are "exponential". But one is extremely bad in comparison.


----------



## Hollowway

Cynicanal said:


> We're _pretending_ to tell healthy people to stay home. In reality, we're still telling tons of them to go to work (any big company can become "essential", so we've just created a big lottery where we kill companies and sectors at random), and everyone still has to go to the grocery store, and use the same carts that everyone else has touched, open the same freezer doors as everyone else, grab food from the same shelves that everyone else has been touching, etc.
> 
> Our measures are theater, nothing more.



This is something I'm 100% in agreement with you on. So many of these essential jobs are just BS. I had a real estate agent tell me today that initially they were not considered essential, then they lobbied, and now are considered essential. I can't verify that, but it sounds about how the government and lobbyists work. And how is every restaurant and bar "essential"? I get that a grocery store is, because we have to eat, but do I really need to have such a plethora of choices for take out and alcohol-to-go? And I'm not at all confident that the to-go container has been wiped down with a Clorox wipe before being handed to me. Almost everything is considered essential. 

Not entirely related, but for you and @penguin_316 this is a cool website on social distancing measured by cellphone data. It definitely shows that this is not working in some areas, and is much better in others. https://www.unacast.com/covid19/social-distancing-scoreboard


----------



## blacai

I know understand how it's possible some people in the US think Earth is flat, vacines don't work or Darwin's theory is wrong... well in the page 62 and still discussing if flattening the curve works or not... I would also think Darwin's theory is wrong in some cases :_


----------



## MaxOfMetal

penguin_316 said:


> Max, you did list a wide variety of links pointing to social distancing’s positive effects. However, you can’t look at data in a bubble as these links imply. *The numbers* continue to grow exponentially, as well as being grossly under reported. You are all eating up this hopium that our efforts are working and we’re winning.
> 
> The US, specifically, has lost this fight. The globe seems teetering on the brink of doing the same, following our footsteps.
> 
> I can link plenty of pro and con articles as well. At some point you need to think, damn we’re being fed a pile of BS. Connect the puzzle pieces yourself.
> 
> How many people in the US are “essential”? How many are actually following the optional social distancing practices suggested? I have seen first hand massive disregard for the practice of social distancing. Add in a dash of “essential” workforce and you have a “war” that cannot be won.
> 
> Make note of the rhetoric spread by the president and other officials, “war” is a new hot button. We are fighting an invisible war against a virus... Let that sink into your mind. Why are you guys buying into this shit? Seriously, take two steps back, look at the numbers and come to your own conclusions.
> 
> Of course, they will have countless experts on major news networks saying we’re kicking ass. The reality out my window is much more stark. I hope you understand my point. We will talk semantics another day, people are dying at an alarming rate. The number today pale in comparison to the numbers in the following months and years.
> 
> Now, look at what politics are approving behind our backs during this outbreak of mass hysteria. They are now pushing for a digital currency, decreased encryption anonymity for everyone on the internet, and further lack of privacy via renewed Patriot Act laws.
> 
> Here is what you don’t want to hear. The stock markets will have another massive dip when this pandemic engulfs the US over the next 2 months. The US dollar will soar in power temporarily as the DXY continues on its way to new highs. Following that, we will see massive inflation of the USD.



What do those numbers represent? I'm not sure if you think they mean something different. I don't care if you hate @narad, but he started to explain how those numbers aren't something to hang your hat on right now. 

It seems like you're conflating a few things, namely the efficacy of social distancing when fighting epidemics/pandemics, the success of social distancing in the United States thus far, and how the government is handling the crisis. 

Social distancing does work. 

The United States isn't doing as well at social distancing than other countries anecdotally.

Our leaders are ineffectual, self serving, and likely harmful. 

You can believe all those things without putting on a tinfoil hat and screaming "the end is nigh" on the street corner. 

I don't think anyone here is overly optimistic about how the next 6 to 18 months are going to be, that doesn't mean that we can't try and use strategies proven to be effective, especially if it can help save some lives, obviously not all, but some.


----------



## thraxil

Cynicanal said:


> No, it's not a lack of understanding of the scale; it is, in fact, understanding the immense scale, and that our public-health theater isn't going to help one tiny bit. Given what we've been told so far, I see no way that at least one-in-five people in the U.S. aren't dying in the next few months.



I'd take a wager on that. Google says that the US population is 327.2 million. One in five of that is about 65 million. If 65 million people die from Covid 19 in the US by, let's say end of June, I will post how incredibly right you were and then delete my account. (Assuming I'm not dead or busy fighting over cat food since a 20% death rate would actually lead to the collapse of civilization).


----------



## Xaios

thraxil said:


> Assuming I'm not dead or busy fighting over cat food


Damn, I didn't know that one of the possible outcomes of a Coronavirus pandemic was the plot of District 9.


----------



## jaxadam

Man, why is everyone in such a bad mood in here? We should all just try to relax and enjoy life before the newly discovered asteroid hits us and wipes us out, the Close Orbiting Very Immense Diameter-20.


----------



## bostjan

We have a lot of data on this. How good that data is, well, that's open to debate.

But if you look at the curve for every nation, or each state in the USA, they are all strikingly different, but many of them have an initial small peak and are on their way up a second much bigger peak. It might correlate to how much testing is being done, but there is definitely at least one more variable than that.

You look at countries with the highest initial rate of spread, and those are places where people tend to greet each other more warmly, with hugs and kisses. Places that have had less drastic curves have practiced better social distancing, whether they have done more trsting or less, so social distancing seems to be a factor.

Since we can't go back in time and repeat the data with better social distancing, we can't really isolate the variables in a controlled way, but that certainly does not mean that we don't see evidence.

Also, it's common sense. If the virus comes from people, and you stay away from people, you do a better job staying away from the virus.


----------



## sleewell

jaxadam said:


> Man, why is everyone in such a bad mood in here? We should all just try to relax and enjoy life before the newly discovered asteroid hits us and wipes us out, the Close Orbiting Very Immense Diameter-20.




sucks that you have the compassion and empathy levels of zero like the piece of shit in charge you are most likely trying to emulate like a true beta but let's just hope you don't get this text or aren't the one sending it:







Kelly died on March 24 at the age of 48.


----------



## TedEH

I'll jump in with my poorly-educated two cents, cause what else is there to do right now?

From where I'm sitting, in Quebec, the whole distancing thing seems to be doing what it's supposed to be doing. We have 66 deaths total in Canada, I think? That doesn't sound like a lot to me, considering what's going on. But what do I know. This reads to me as all the dramatic things we're doing are accomplishing what they're meant to.

I feel like the "it's not working" thing is a direct result of people not doing what they should because they think it won't work.

Consider how close Ontario and New York are to each other (what's up, neighbors?). I can say that most of Ontario is taking things pretty seriously. The difference in population is something vaguely like 2:3 I think? (13 million in Ontario vs 20 million in New York State - ish), but what about the death rates? It's 10 vs 1000.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that there's a lot of exaggeration in that comparison, since the population density isn't the same at all. Ontario is the size of like 8 of your states, but we still have some large-ish populations grouped together and they're all pretty close to the borders with the states. My uneducated  is that there's a visible difference in how attitudes are affecting outcomes right now.


----------



## jaxadam

sleewell said:


> sucks that you have the compassion and empathy levels of zero like the piece of shit in charge you are most likely trying to emulate like a true beta but let's just hope you don't get this text or aren't the one sending it:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Kelly died on March 24 at the age of 48.



Thanks for the personal attack. For some reason I thought that was frowned upon in here, but I’m sure I’ll be the one banned for it. Believe it or not, I’m doing all I can, and I have my hands a little more full than you may think. I just feel a little humor sometimes breaks up the monotony of angst and despair.


----------



## Randy

jaxadam said:


> Thanks for the personal attack. For some reason I thought that was frowned upon in here, but I’m sure I’ll be the one banned for it. Believe it or not, I’m doing all I can, and I have my hands a little more full than you may think. I just feel a little humor sometimes breaks up the monotony of angst and despair.



Everyone's a little raw right now, so I'm letting a lot slide. Everybody takes these things differently. Posting in here right now is at everyone's discretion, otherwise I'd have banned that Cynicanal guy already.


----------



## narad

Randy said:


> Everyone's a little raw right now, so I'm letting a lot slide. Everybody takes these things differently. Posting in here right now is at everyone's discretion, otherwise I'd have banned that Cynicanal guy already.



I mean, you gotta be lenient, because now a 12 week suspension is like a lifetime ban (according to some people).


----------



## Demiurge

^Now now, not _them_. It's okay for the bodies to pile high as long as those galaxy-brained pragmatists and anyone they know or care about be spared.


----------



## spudmunkey

Some hopeful data from the US:


----------



## MaxOfMetal

spudmunkey said:


> Some hopeful data from the US:
> 
> View attachment 79109



This is just a measure of the tests given almost at random at this point. Graphs like this are functionally useless. See @narad's post above. 

The real "breakthrough" right now is that recoveries are starting to tally up. What it shows us is that folks remain sick for a long time, which is what's hammering our healthcare system. Even then, the data is mostly incomplete.


----------



## tedtan

penguin_316 said:


> Max, you did list a wide variety of links pointing to social distancing’s positive effects. However, you can’t look at data in a bubble as these links imply. The numbers continue to grow exponentially, as well as being grossly under reported. You are all eating up this hopium that our efforts are working and we’re winning



You do realize that tests in the US are only being given to those suspected of testing positive, right? We are by no means caught up with all of the people in that group yet, let alone having testing the entire population (or even a statistically relevant portion thereof). You cannot use the numbers that are being provided at this point to to project anything meaningful; the testing methodology simply doesn't support that at this point in time.




penguin_316 said:


> Make note of the rhetoric spread by the president and other officials, “war” is a new hot button. We are fighting an invisible war against a virus... Let that sink into your mind. Why are you guys buying into this shit? Seriously, take two steps back, look at the numbers and come to your own conclusions.



Yeah, it will be as much of a war as the "war" on drugs or the "war" on terror - essentially a means of locking up the socioeconomically disadvantaged and those with a darker skin complexion than porcelain white.


----------



## spudmunkey

MaxOfMetal said:


> This is just a measure of the tests given almost at random at this point.



To a point. We're ramping up tests every day. The US is testing approx 112,000 per day for the last couple of days, steadilly climbing up to this. So while we're testing more and more, the amount of cases on that chart is not increasing the same way. I'll admit, I'm operating on a HS-level understanding of statustics, though, so I'm likely missing something below the top-most level.

I'm of no dillusion, though that we're even remotely doing enough testing, though. As of yesterday, we've still only done 944k tests, with 160k positive.


----------



## shadowlife

penguin_316 said:


> Now, look at what politics are approving behind our backs during this outbreak of mass hysteria. They are now pushing for a digital currency, decreased encryption anonymity for everyone on the internet, and further lack of privacy via renewed Patriot Act laws.



This cannot be repeated enough.


----------



## Cynicanal

Hollowway said:


> Social distancing does work.


Then explain why Sweden, which isn't doing social distancing, has numbers in line with the rest of Europe.

EDIT: Your map has me in the middle of an area with a grade of "A". I'm still going to work every day. If that's an "A", we're doomed.


----------



## spudmunkey

Nvmnd, I was thinking of another site that provided letter grades for something else.


----------



## blacai

Cynicanal said:


> Then explain why Sweden, which isn't doing social distancing, has numbers in line with the rest of Europe.
> 
> EDIT: Your map has me in the middle of an area with a grade of "A". I'm still going to work every day. If that's an "A", we're doomed.


Well...actually Sweden is doing social distancing...but they didn't need a goverment to tell them to do so. 
Check the reports of using of public transport, remote working increasing and read a little bit of how people adjusted their worklife balance and how they spend the time in family with kids.
I'm sorry but I won't waste more time searching for articles or whatever... it's like talking with a stone.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Cynicanal said:


> Then explain why Sweden, which isn't doing social distancing, has numbers in line with the rest of Europe.



Sweden is doing social distancing, they're just not mandating it. The Swedes seem to be following the voluntary guidelines their government laid out, which frankly, probably wouldn't work anywhere else.

Sweden also spends a ton of money on their healthcare system and is, as a whole, very health conscious compared to most of Europe and especially North America.

EDIT: Ninja'd


----------



## blacai

"Germans could soon be issued "immunity certificates" that would allow them to leave the country's coronavirus lockdown earlier than the rest of the population if they test positive for antibodies to the virus."
https://www.businessinsider.com/cor...g-social-distancing-lockdown-2020-3?r=DE&IR=T


----------



## Cynicanal

blacai said:


> "Germans could soon be issued "immunity certificates" that would allow them to leave the country's coronavirus lockdown earlier than the rest of the population if they test positive for antibodies to the virus."
> https://www.businessinsider.com/cor...g-social-distancing-lockdown-2020-3?r=DE&IR=T


"Everyone hurry up and catch COVID 19 now so you can get your certificate earlier and get your leg up on the rest of the population when this all blows over!"

Like, wow, has no one in the German government ever heard of the phrase "perverse incentives"?


----------



## diagrammatiks

Cynicanal said:


> Then explain why Sweden, which isn't doing social distancing, has numbers in line with the rest of Europe.
> 
> EDIT: Your map has me in the middle of an area with a grade of "A". I'm still going to work every day. If that's an "A", we're doomed.



nah you're doomed. 

good luck man. One of my friends in Seattle got this a few weeks. you'll probably survive. but it's a hell of a ride.


----------



## Drew

Cynicanal said:


> We're _pretending_ to tell healthy people to stay home. In reality, we're still telling tons of them to go to work (any big company can become "essential", so we've just created a big lottery where we kill companies and sectors at random), and everyone still has to go to the grocery store, and use the same carts that everyone else has touched, open the same freezer doors as everyone else, grab food from the same shelves that everyone else has been touching, etc.
> 
> Our measures are theater, nothing more.


No, we're telling anyone who thinks they're sick to stay home. Stop trying to change the subject. We're not turning sick people away at the hospitals, and there's astill a sliver of chance we can buy ourselves enough time to make sure that doesn't happen. 

I don't know why you're so gung ho about thinking we should just throw up our hands and do nothing and why you're so invested in your beliefs, but every single person I've talked to in the ID/pathology/population modeling space thinks containment is critical, an as the token capitalist in this forum, I'm in complete agreement with them. Is this some sort of weird contrarian thing, or do you honestly not give a shit about how many more people would die if we just chose to do nothing?


----------



## vilk

Not to put words in dudeman's mouth, but I think it's not that he_ wants people to die_, rather that he _believes they will die_ irrespective of our preventative efforts. If he genuinely and so strongly believes that there's nothing we can do to stop it, then "do you really not give a shit how many more people would die" becomes kind of a non-sequitur.

The guy might be pretty dark as well as stubborn, but so far I haven't heard him say most of the things the users here are accusing him of having said.


----------



## fantom

penguin_316 said:


> How many people in the US are “essential”? How many are actually following the optional social distancing practices suggested? I have seen first hand massive disregard for the practice of social distancing. Add in a dash of “essential” workforce and you have a “war” that cannot be won.



I completely agree that businesses are trying to be classified as "essential" for the wrong reason. I personally would rather see the stimulus check pay people to sit home and watch Netflix.

For the ones that are essential, I have massive respect for anyone working in a grocery store, hospital, warehouse, courier service, etc. Thank you for not quitting.

Edit: according to cell phone data, my area has 97% staying home. I've really wanted to get out of bay area for many reasons for the past several years. This is the one time I'm proud of our leadership, both political and corporate, as well as the general population.



penguin_316 said:


> Now, look at what politics are approving behind our backs during this outbreak of mass hysteria. They are now pushing for a digital currency, decreased encryption anonymity for everyone on the internet, and further lack of privacy via renewed Patriot Act laws.



What on earth does the government being selfish pricks and pushing terrible agenda have to do with saving lives and social distancing? I feel like we could do both, have a decent government that serves and protects people without deepening their pockets.... but shady self-serving people keep getting elected by broke white people that for some reason identify with rich white people more than their actual peers. So for any policy compromise to happen to pass critical laws, we have to pay off greedy people to turn the other way.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...octors-they-ll-be-fired-if-they-talk-to-press


----------



## Cynicanal

vilk said:


> Not to put words in dudeman's mouth, but I think it's not that he_ wants people to die_, rather that he _believes they will die_ irrespective of our preventative efforts. If he genuinely and so strongly believes that there's nothing we can do to stop it, then "do you really not give a shit how many more people would die" becomes kind of a non-sequitur.
> 
> The guy might be pretty dark as well as stubborn, but so far I haven't heard him say most of the things the users here are accusing him of having said.


Good to see someone finally actually reading what I write!

(That said, I think preventative efforts so far have been mostly theater more than effective. I'm in an area that has an A on Max's map, and I'm still working, so are loads of other people, traffic was down for a few days but is back up to normal now so everyone is out-and-about, we're piling people into conference rooms for pointless meetings as always, etc... and none of this even begins to answer the question of grocery shopping. The current recommendations seem to me to be "do things that will make it look like you're social distancing, but don't actually social distance", which isn't productive in any way that I can see other than making people erroneously believe they are doing something.)


----------



## TedEH

^ Good thing your specific corner of the world is representative of everywhere then, right?

'Cause, just as anecdotally, it's a very different story here.


----------



## Cynicanal

According to Max's map pulled from cell phone data, my corner of the world is doing vastly better than most of the U.S.

So, no, my corner of the world isn't representative; in other places in the U.S., the theater has even less basis in reality.


----------



## spudmunkey

Cynicanal said:


> Good to see someone finally actually reading what I write!
> 
> (That said, I think preventative efforts so far have been mostly theater more than effective. I'm in an area that has an A on Max's map, and I'm still working, so are loads of other people, traffic was down for a few days but is back up to normal now so everyone is out-and-about, we're piling people into conference rooms for pointless meetings as always, etc... and none of this even begins to answer the question of grocery shopping. The current recommendations seem to me to be "do things that will make it look like you're social distancing, but don't actually social distance", which isn't productive in any way that I can see other than making people erroneously believe they are doing something.)



I mean, anecdotally, that's the exact opposite of what I'm experiencing...here, if you need to go to the store, there's more parking than I've ever seen, waaaay less traffic on the roads, every store has lines painted on the floor so that people stay 6ft apart when waiting in line, and most smaller businesses are limiting people to only 5 customers in the store at one time, with lines out the door, people standing 6ft apart. *shrugs* Some places are taking it more seriously than others... Are there people around? Sure. But it's an eerily-low quantity. I'm still working every day, but it's been over 2 weeks since I've seen a single co-worker, client, or friend in person. San Francisco, though (and the Bay area in general) was one of the first places in the US put anything into place, so we're already/only over 2-weeks in.

This morning, i was on an OAC (Owners, Architects, Contractors) call where we found out that this client has been given a waiver for a certain % of their staff because they are potentially "essential" due to their place in the financial sector. But, they are considering NOT taking this waiver and figuring out how to do more remotely, even though it means that they could start construction on their project almost 2 months earlier and be that much closer to being done once SIPes are lifted. At the end of the meeting, they are leaning towards not taking it, because they couldn't guarantee a safe environment because there would need to be too many trades working at once, and some of them use subcontractors that might not abide by the same practices as the actual contractors. And all of that was contigent on finding contractors volunteering to work on the project, which they weren't entirely sure they could. They they ar eholdoing off on a $4m project because they are trying to do their part to keep everyone as safe as they reasonably can.


----------



## fantom

vilk said:


> Not to put words in dudeman's mouth, but I think it's not that he_ wants people to die_, rather that he _believes they will die_ irrespective of our preventative efforts. If he genuinely and so strongly believes that there's nothing we can do to stop it, then "do you really not give a shit how many more people would die" becomes kind of a non-sequitur.
> 
> The guy might be pretty dark as well as stubborn, but so far I haven't heard him say most of the things the users here are accusing him of having said.





Cynicanal said:


> Good to see someone finally actually reading what I write!
> 
> (That said, I think preventative efforts so far have been mostly theater more than effective. I'm in an area that has an A on Max's map, and I'm still working, so are loads of other people, traffic was down for a few days but is back up to normal now so everyone is out-and-about, we're piling people into conference rooms for pointless meetings as always, etc... and none of this even begins to answer the question of grocery shopping. The current recommendations seem to me to be "do things that will make it look like you're social distancing, but don't actually social distance", which isn't productive in any way that I can see other than making people erroneously believe they are doing something.)



I have read it correctly every time. I never thought he wanted people to die. But at what point does an utter lack of respect for life and a strong belief that doing nothing is just as good as preventing deaths have the same meaning as believing people should just die?

Ya we can wordsmith around everything. At the end of the day, the attitude and outcome it brings is irrelevant to what people want and what people believe. I want a better outcome. I will take whatever actions I can to make that happen within my power.


----------



## Cynicanal

fantom said:


> I have read it correctly every time. I never thought he wanted people to die. But at what point does an utter lack of respect for life and a strong belief that doing nothing is just as good as preventing deaths have the same meaning as believing people should just die?
> 
> Ya we can wordsmith around everything. At the end of the day, the attitude and outcome it brings is irrelevant to what people want and what people believe. I want a better outcome. I will take whatever actions I can to make that happen within my power.


You clearly didn't read it correctly if you think that I think that our theatrical social distancing is going to prevent deaths.


----------



## TedEH

To give a picture of what it's like here:

I live above a depanneur / corner store, and while they don't have a lot of traffic in there, they've set up tape several feet away from the counter so that nobody can get close to them. The pin pad is also put within reach so you can pay, and they won't take cash. The cashier is always wearing a mask.

I'm working from home, which we've been doing since before it was ordered that our workplace had to be shut down. The current rule is no more than 5 people congregating in any place, and they're enforcing it via bylaw officers.

I go out to walk in the morning and again at lunch, to stretch the legs. The streets are empty. Parking lots, parks, malls, etc., are all bare. Grocery stores are open, but the traffic is lower than usual, and employees are following people around disinfecting things in between customers, including pin pads, the checkout machines, the carts, etc. They have sanitizer in the entrance and encourage people to use it. Most of the places I would normally go are closed, the cafes, etc. Restaurants are doing delivery only. Some places are doing drive-through only (Tim Hortons, lol).

It honestly amazes me that so many people are cooperating on something they can't directly see. And I think people are erring on the side of caution here - or maybe fear is a better word than caution. Very few people around here are taking any chances at all. I have trouble believing all of this has zero effect. It's worth stating that delaying the inevitable is still a valid and useful effect.


----------



## gnoll

Cynicanal said:


> grocery shopping.



Don't go all the time. You don't have to hoard stuff like a maniac, but buy enough food when you're there that you don't have to go very often.

Go at a time when there aren't many other people there.

Keep your distance to other people.

Be very mindful of hand hygiene and what you touch. DON'T TOUCH YOUR FACE. Maybe bring along a bottle of hand sanitizer if you have it.

Wash your hands when you get home and then again after you've unpacked your groceries.

Wash surfaces in your home that you touch often, like door handles and switches.

You can wipe down/wash containers and bottles and things when you get home. If possible you can even let things sit for a few days after you bring them home, and in the first hand consume things you had at home since before.

Don't go grocery shopping if you're feeling sick, obviously.


----------



## spudmunkey

gnoll said:


> Wash your hands when you get home and then again after you've unpacked your groceries.
> You can wipe down/wash containers and bottles and things when you get home. If possible you can even let things sit for a few days after you bring them home, and in the first hand consume things you had at home since before.



Anything non-perishables we buy sit in the garage (on a shelf, so as not to invite pests) for 3 days before we bring it inside the house. Same with any packages we've received that aren't urgent.

We try to limit a grocery store trip to once per week, one store. I supposed we should probably only have one of us go, and the other sendig a list, though...but we're both impulse shoppers.


----------



## fantom

Cynicanal said:


> You clearly didn't read it correctly if you think that I think that our theatrical social distancing is going to prevent deaths.



I never said you believe social distancing will prevent deaths. Reread what I wrote maybe.

I think the issue is that you fail to accept that other people disagree with you and think social distancing will help society and want you to do your part.


----------



## Cynicanal

fantom said:


> I never said you believe social distancing will prevent deaths. Reread what I wrote maybe.
> 
> I think the issue is that you fail to accept that other people disagree with you and think social distancing will help society and want you to do your part.


My job has been declared "essential", and my company has outright said "our top priority during the pandemic is continuing business as normal", so "doing my part" isn't helping a single person on earth.


----------



## budda

Not with that attitude, no.


----------



## StevenC

Cynicanal said:


> You clearly didn't read it correctly if you think that I think that our theatrical social distancing is going to prevent deaths.


You also said no social distancing would be better for the economy, but somehow think that will matter when also predicting a population drop of 20%, so why should anyone read correctly what you think?


----------



## Cynicanal

The Black Death took a lot more than 20%, and society still continued during and after, so yes, the economy and all of society will still matter with the massive population drop incoming.


----------



## fantom

https://politics.theonion.com/trump-urges-loosening-cdc-restrictions-to-let-coronavir-1842473921


----------



## zappatton2

It actually took me a sec to realize I was reading The Onion. Because that's just the world we live in now. Where it takes a sec to recognize parody.


----------



## spudmunkey

I think we need a Covid/Corona meme thread. There's been some killer ones, but didn't want to pollute the main thread.


----------



## SpaceDock

I’ve been working from home for a few weeks now. Today my boss told me I need to schedule vacation over the next few weeks because even though I am swamped with work they can’t have my vacation hours hanging on the books. I am very grateful to still be employed but my work is certainly essential as I work with municipal water functions. I think this is getting near recession level business stress. Only two weeks ago I was hearing a lot of “snowstorm” analogies. I hope we are all prepared for the economic winter.


----------



## Hollowway

Cynicanal said:


> EDIT: Your map has me in the middle of an area with a grade of "A". I'm still going to work every day. If that's an "A", we're doomed.



No, that's not how the site works. It's not just tracking you. It's an aggregate of _all_ people in your county who are using cell phones. So if you're traveling around, but most people aren't, then overall, your county isn't moving around as much as others. And if you are going to work, but not to bars, restaurants, etc., then your travel is still lower than typical, so that will help. Sounds like you're in a county where most people are moving around less than they did prior to all of this. You can click on your county and see the graph of week to week how much people are moving around.


----------



## SlipknotKoRnfan

Really hoping for that light at the end of the tunnel. I just received my layoff notice today. I'm sure a few of you guys are on the same boat.
Stay safe everyone.


----------



## Hollowway

Here’s an article on the social distancing in California helping suppress the spread. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out compared to other states.

https://www.latimes.com/california/...stancing-west-coast-california-new-york-covid


----------



## BlackSG91

It's good to know & a relief that white evangelicals have our backs with a cure...Hallelujah!




;>)/


----------



## MaxOfMetal

spudmunkey said:


> To a point. We're ramping up tests every day. The US is testing approx 112,000 per day for the last couple of days, steadilly climbing up to this. So while we're testing more and more, the amount of cases on that chart is not increasing the same way. I'll admit, I'm operating on a HS-level understanding of statustics, though, so I'm likely missing something below the top-most level.
> 
> I'm of no dillusion, though that we're even remotely doing enough testing, though. As of yesterday, we've still only done 944k tests, with 160k positive.



It's not just about the number of tests, it's about the distribution of them as well. 

Testing 100k people sick enough to go to a hospital will be different than 100k who use a drive up testing station which will be different if they tested 100k people from different households. 

Rate is important too. We're now testing more which will translate into more positives outside whatever the actual number of infected people. 

I know these charts and graphs and numbers are being thrown at us non-stop, and there is value to them, but the context is important.


----------



## USMarine75

penguin_316 said:


> You have yet to prove that social distancing has any effect. You have yet to prove the exponential growth has lessened. You have yet to touch on the numbers provided. I’m sorry, you’re not bringing anything to the table.



Just... fucking... no.

Social Distancing is proven to work.

You, Floppynoodle, and the other schmo are the anti-vaxxers of this thread. Even though the world’s foremost subject matter experts on this topic say one thing, you cry out how you know better. You sound like an asshole (note I’m not saying you are an asshole. That would be rude. I’m just saying you sound like one.)



Cynicanal said:


> No, it's not a lack of understanding of the scale; it is, in fact, understanding the immense scale, and that our public-health theater isn't going to help one tiny bit. Given what we've been told so far, I see no way that at least one-in-five people in the U.S. aren't dying in the next few months.



Just... fucking... no... x2. 

So this is worse than the 1918 H1N1 that killed 20-100M. Worse than all other known historical pandemics including the 1346 Black Plague? 

Source for your 0.2 attack rate?!


----------



## Cynicanal

USMarine75 said:


> So this is worse than the 1918 H1N1 that killed 20-100M. Worse than all other known historical pandemics including the 1346 Black Plague?
> 
> Source for your 0.2 attack rate?!


The black plague took out somewhere from 30%-60%, so, no, not worse than that.

20%-25% is the rate of hospitalization from every source I've seen. 80% of people are going to get it, according to New York's mayor. We don't have hospital beds with ventilators and trained medical personnel ready to go for anything close to a statistically significant amount of 80% of the population. Thus, the 20% that need treatment won't be able to get it. Guess what happens then?


----------



## USMarine75

Cynicanal said:


> The black plague took out somewhere from 30%-60%, so, no, not worse than that.
> 
> 20%-25% is the rate of hospitalization from every source I've seen. 80% of people are going to get it, according to New York's mayor. We don't have hospital beds with ventilators and trained medical personnel ready to go for anything close to a statistically significant amount of 80% of the population. Thus, the 20% that need treatment won't be able to get it. Guess what happens then?



fuck man I’ve had enough of your stupidity. You know nothing of epidemiology and medicine. You don’t even understand basic scientific principles. 

Those rates you learned (and are weirdly using as proof you’re right???) must be from your Wikipedia Doctorate. Their due to a whole host of reasons that don’t apply here.... including... you know... not understanding the modern disease model, not having palliative care, not having meds (antibiotics/antifungals/antivirals), not having surgical interventions, not having modern emergency medicine, not understanding principle of triage, not having a medical system in place, not having ventilators or even oxygen treatment, nosocomial infections, subsequent infections such as PNA prob killed 20% alone along with other comorbidities, etc.

So thanks for schooling me on the Y Pestis death rate.

Also.. for fucks sake man. That’s like me writing a 20 page thesis on your stupidity and all you come back with is “wrong dude, because you forgot a comma on page 17”.


----------



## narad

Cynicanal said:


> The black plague took out somewhere from 30%-60%, so, no, not worse than that.
> 
> 20%-25% is the rate of hospitalization from every source I've seen. 80% of people are going to get it, according to New York's mayor. We don't have hospital beds with ventilators and trained medical personnel ready to go for anything close to a statistically significant amount of 80% of the population. Thus, the 20% that need treatment won't be able to get it. Guess what happens then?



Good news, everybody! The fear-mongering stats (that came without citations) were incorrect!

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200331/covid-19-death-rate-drops-still-deadly-to-seniors

_The new analysis confirms earlier studies showing that both rates of death and hospitalization vary by age and increase with age. Children are least likely to die, with death rates in confirmed cases of less than 1% in newborns to 9-year-olds. That rose to 4.28% in people 70 and older, and to 7.8% in people 80 years and above.

While 11.8% of infected people in their 60s were estimated to have symptoms severe enough to need to be hospitalized, 16.6% of those in their 70s did. By age 80, 18.4% needed to be hospitalized._


----------



## thraxil

Cynicanal said:


> The black plague took out somewhere from 30%-60%, so, no, not worse than that.



Yes, but Bubonic Plague has a CFR of over 60% (if not treated with antibiotics). We don't know the CFR for Covid 19 precisely yet, but at most (absolute worst case based on Italy, assuming that every single person that was infected is represented) 10% but is most likely (by any *reasonable* estimate based on our imperfect data) somewhere in the 0.4 to 4% rate. That's very high compared to other diseases that are similarly contagious (which is why it's being taken so seriously), but is nowhere near what the world saw with Bubonic Plague.


----------



## narad

thraxil said:


> That's very high compared to other diseases that are similarly contagious (which is why it's being taken so seriously), but is nowhere near what the world saw with Bubonic Plague.



Dude, please. The bubonic plague, or so-called "Chinese plague", was a hoax perpetrated by the catholic church.


----------



## Cynicanal

narad said:


> Good news, everybody! The fear-mongering stats (that came without citations) were incorrect!
> 
> https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200331/covid-19-death-rate-drops-still-deadly-to-seniors
> 
> _The new analysis confirms earlier studies showing that both rates of death and hospitalization vary by age and increase with age. Children are least likely to die, with death rates in confirmed cases of less than 1% in newborns to 9-year-olds. That rose to 4.28% in people 70 and older, and to 7.8% in people 80 years and above.
> 
> While 11.8% of infected people in their 60s were estimated to have symptoms severe enough to need to be hospitalized, 16.6% of those in their 70s did. By age 80, 18.4% needed to be hospitalized._


OK, so 33 million in the U.S. are going to die. You say that as though it's a totally insignificant amount.


----------



## narad

Cynicanal said:


> OK, so 33 million in the U.S. are going to die. You say that as though it's a totally insignificant amount.



I don't at all. It is a big deal. Which is why you should stay the fuck at home. 

I'm just pointing out that your numbers are off by almost an order of magnitude, which severely reduces your fear-mongering / futility of social distancing agenda.


----------



## USMarine75

Cynicanal said:


> The black plague took out somewhere from 30%-60%, so, no, not worse than that.
> 
> 20%-25% is the rate of hospitalization from every source I've seen. 80% of people are going to get it, according to New York's mayor. We don't have hospital beds with ventilators and trained medical personnel ready to go for anything close to a statistically significant amount of 80% of the population. Thus, the 20% that need treatment won't be able to get it. Guess what happens then?



Here is modern day plague info from my work, edited for people that act like morons (I’m not saying you are a moron. That would be rude. I’m just saying you act like one). This is how dangerous the plague is in modern times:

Heat map of worldwide cases, approx last 5 years:



Heat map of cases in the US, last 50 years:



# of cases and deaths in US, approx last 20 years:



Yes, indeed, this is exactly like the 1346 Plague... 

tl;dr shut the fuck up


----------



## Cynicanal

narad said:


> I'm just pointing out that your numbers are off by almost an order of magnitude, which severely reduces your fear-mongering / futility of social distancing agenda.


The difference between 33 million and 50 million is less than 2x. An order of magnitude is 10x.


----------



## USMarine75

Cynicanal said:


> The difference between 33 million and 50 million is less than 2x. An order of magnitude is 10x.



what is the source of these stats or of your 0.2 attack rate?


----------



## narad

Cynicanal said:


> The difference between 33 million and 50 million is less than 2x. An order of magnitude is 10x.



The difference between a 20-25% hospitalization rate, and a 2-2.5% hospitalization rate is, indeed, an order of magnitude. 

Next?


----------



## lurè

I think our health system and hospitals have slightly improved since the bubonic plague, so comparing Covid19 with a pandemic of 600 years ago is kinda nonsense.


----------



## Xaios

Cynicanal said:


> OK, so 33 million in the U.S. are going to die. You say that as though it's a totally insignificant amount.


Do you not know how to use a calculator? 33 million is 10% of the population of the US, which is _waaaaaay_ higher than the aggregate mortality rate that the virus has displayed, and that's assuming that every single man, woman and child catches it, which won't be the case.

Also, agreed with lurè that comparing the economic ramifications of COVID 19 with that of the black death is just plain ridiculous. You're talking about a period of time which started _300 years before the discovery of bacteria._


----------



## narad

Xaios said:


> Do you not know how to use a calculator? 33 million is 10% of the population of the US, which is _waaaaaay_ higher than the aggregate mortality rate that the virus has displayed, and that's assuming that every single man, woman and child catches it, which won't be the case.



I think he's taking the death rate for people over 70 and applying it to everyone. I just... I can't reverse-engineer this level of miscalculation at this point.

It's like when you did math homework and school, you had to "show your work" -- all the subcomputations -- so your teacher could recognize where tf you went wrong. This guy just wrote "5".


----------



## USMarine75

lurè said:


> I think our health system and hospitals have slightly improved since the bubonic plague, so comparing Covid19 with a pandemic of 600 years ago is kinda nonsense.



Yup. That was my point. Faaaaarq.


----------



## bostjan

I feel bad for cashiers with everything they have to put up with right now. But I'm also starting to feel bad for customers because the last two times I went grocery shopping, the cashiers went against the posted policies at the store and got vocally frustrated with me for trying to comply with those postings.

I think Vermont is clearly doing a good job overall. The spread here is already starting to taper off, but in the Northeast Kingdom, we have 5 confirmed cases, and at least half of the population is scoffing at the restrictions. 

Suddenly, everyone is an epidemiologist. I'm doing the same thing, dropping all the data I can get into my models. I never studied epidemiology, although I work with very similar mathematics at work every day, so I feel like I know something. But the truth that I know is that I don't know anything about this disease. The experts are still saying that they know nothing about this disease. But the guy who can count change for a ten at the waste transfer station, the cranky old guy who has pushed the same button on a machine at the factory for 26 years, and the lady at the end of the street who makes her living by selling food stamps and stealing amazon boxes from people's porches - are all apparently better at epidemiology, virology, and practicing medicine than the collective CDC and WHO right now.


----------



## lurè

bostjan said:


> Suddenly, everyone is an epidemiologist. I'm doing the same thing, dropping all the data I can get into my models. I never studied epidemiology, although I work with very similar mathematics at work every day, so I feel like I know something. But the truth that I know is that I don't know anything about this disease. The experts are still saying that they know nothing about this disease. But the guy who can count change for a ten at the waste transfer station, the cranky old guy who has pushed the same button on a machine at the factory for 26 years, and the lady at the end of the street who makes her living by selling food stamps and stealing amazon boxes from people's porches - are all apparently better at epidemiology, virology, and practicing medicine than the collective CDC and WHO right now.



People don't waste time to show how "smarter" then others they are, even if scientists have said multiple times that this type of coronavirus is new and we don't know anything about it.
There are entire tv shows revolving around assumptions over assumptions about how this is going to evolve and how we should treat it. 
The average dumb person take those totally unfounded assumptions as excuse to criticize everyone and everything, when the reality is that we don't know so the best is to stay at home and wait to pass.


----------



## USMarine75

bostjan said:


> Suddenly, everyone is an epidemiologist. I'm doing the same thing, dropping all the data I can get into my models. I never studied epidemiology, although I work with very similar mathematics at work every day, so I feel like I know something. But the truth that I know is that I don't know anything about this disease. The experts are still saying that they know nothing about this disease. But the guy who can count change for a ten at the waste transfer station, the cranky old guy who has pushed the same button on a machine at the factory for 26 years, and the lady at the end of the street who makes her living by selling food stamps and stealing amazon boxes from people's porches - are all apparently better at epidemiology, virology, and practicing medicine than the collective CDC and WHO right now.



And who knew they were also all on SSO?


----------



## narad

USMarine75 said:


> And who knew they were also all on SSO?



Really makes you think when the same people recommending total apocalypse here, are possibly over in some other thread recommending you just gotta try an SD Black Winter, in a context where you actually might not know any better!


----------



## sleewell

the US spends the most per captia on heath care than any other nation and we are now saying 100k-200k deaths is best case scenario.

steve bannon said during the campaign that their goal was they systematic destruction of the federal govt. 

now we have states bidding for PPE against other states while the federal govt sits back and observes so they can find someone to blame when this is all over. 

hope the tax cuts for the 1% were worth it!!


----------



## possumkiller

narad said:


> Really makes you think when the same people recommending total apocalypse here, are possibly over in some other thread recommending you just gotta try an SD Black Winter, in a context where you actually might not know any better!


Hahaha! Yeah they're probably the ones going on about nickel frets on an Ibanez gio being a deal breaker.


----------



## spudmunkey

sleewell said:


> .
> now we have states bidding for PPE against other states while the federal govt sits back and observes



That's a lie...the states are also having to bid against FEMA.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

pretty interesting discussion on the pathophys aspect of COVID. It's more aimed at the average person versus healthcare professionals.




Also this:





floating moss ball petco


----------



## bostjan

KnightBrolaire said:


> pretty interesting discussion on the pathophys aspect of COVID



I watched that last night. Not the most informative thing I've seen, but entertaining enough and still informative enough.

Trump is now warning people to brace for big numbers of deaths, and the medical community is scrambling to find a treatment. To anyone who is mad that they didn't do something when this first started in November, keep in mind that the medical community can't move that fast. Treatments typically take years to develop. At this point, best case scenario, they might have had something that would have a 33% chance of curing you, a 33% chance of killing you, a 33% chance of doing nothing at all and a 1% chance of becoming the next LSD.

All joking aside, though, I do not envy anyone in the medical profession at this moment. In the video, he says that they are assuming the masks are protecting them. No one knows for sure at this point in time if the masks are effective at all. It could be like putting a band aid over a severed neck-stump. I guess when all you have are band-aids and you don't know, it's all you can do. But the thought that these people are risking not only their own lives, but also the lives of their loved ones in order to maybe save some unknown percentage of people who get this thing is extremely brave.

It personally makes me angry to see that there are so many people who don't want to listen to the experts who are risking this much to learn anything little smidge of information to pass along. But I've already said too much.


----------



## sleewell

i don't think anyone is blaming trump for not having a cure.

surely there is blame for calling it a dem impeachment hoax for months while other countries were laser focused on testing. we still don't have adequate testing and look like fools. south korea had their first case when we did and had mass testing in a week.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

bostjan said:


> I watched that last night. Not the most informative thing I've seen, but entertaining enough and still informative enough.
> 
> Trump is now warning people to brace for big numbers of deaths, and the medical community is scrambling to find a treatment. To anyone who is mad that they didn't do something when this first started in November, keep in mind that the medical community can't move that fast. Treatments typically take years to develop. At this point, best case scenario, they might have had something that would have a 33% chance of curing you, a 33% chance of killing you, a 33% chance of doing nothing at all and a 1% chance of becoming the next LSD.
> 
> All joking aside, though, I do not envy anyone in the medical profession at this moment. In the video, he says that they are assuming the masks are protecting them. No one knows for sure at this point in time if the masks are effective at all. It could be like putting a band aid over a severed neck-stump. I guess when all you have are band-aids and you don't know, it's all you can do. But the thought that these people are risking not only their own lives, but also the lives of their loved ones in order to maybe save some unknown percentage of people who get this thing is extremely brave.
> 
> It personally makes me angry to see that there are so many people who don't want to listen to the experts who are risking this much to learn anything little smidge of information to pass along. But I've already said too much.


The serious lack of PPE is going to fuck HCPs more than anything else. I have to stow a fucking N95 in a paper bag and re-use it for a week straight currently. It's a fucking nightmare across the country, I've seen other nurses/doctors talking about how this is horribly unsafe for everybody involved. A lot of nurses I know are getting fed up with this shit and are about ready to quit working, both for their safety and their family's safety. Some hospitals are trying to force HCPs to take care of patients, which is wrong, nurses/doctors have a duty to care only so long as they're not being forced to take unecessary risk, which not having adequate PPE most definitely falls under.

And once healthcare professionals get taken out of the equation, this shitshow will get exponentially worse. There was an article written by a Dr who was involved in the ebola cases back in 2015 and he mentioned exactly how the panic/slamming the hospitals with patients/ worker burnout/lack of PPE completely destroyed the healthcare infrastructure. It's going to happen again.

Edit: this article. I posted it earlier in the thread but it's still very relevant.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/a...92fx4ndjwQK1D7BSrRvEEEqH4ksP-6XBaTzQhYClvWjEo

The shitshow is also only going to get worse once the Reserves/National Guard starts pulling workers out of local hospitals to build their own under equipped field hospitals. That's just going to further exacerbate this shit.


----------



## spudmunkey

I saw a story a few days ago where a HCP reached out to a medical porn fetish site, and the site ended up donating all of their scrubs and possibly some other PPE. How scary is that that HCP are having to go to those lengths!?!


----------



## spudmunkey

sleewell said:


> i don't think anyone is blaming trump for not having a cure.



No, I don't think any reasonable person would. But we can blame him for *acting* like there wasn't a need for one, that there was one, or that there would be one soon.


----------



## possumkiller

spudmunkey said:


> I saw a story a few days ago where a HCP reached out to a medical porn fetish site, and the site ended up donating all of their scrubs and possibly some other PPE. How scary is that that HCP are having to go to those lengths!?!


That was the NHS in the UK.


----------



## spudmunkey

An interesting stat, even if not much useful information can be gleaned from it: according to the CDC's numbers, the deaths attributed to Covid-19 so far have, in the US anyway, passed the yearly total in 2017 of "accidental drownings", and "complications of medical and surgical care".


----------



## USMarine75

spudmunkey said:


> An interesting stat, even if not much useful information can be atributed to it: according to the CDC's numbers, the deaths attributed to Covid-19 so far have, in the US anyway, passed the yearly total in 2017 of "accidental drownings", and "complications of medical and surgical care".



“Accidental drowning”? 

or

“Accidental” drowning?


----------



## bostjan

In case it is of any use to anybody: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UTQQErOpJPQs4abLz4V4qUZ_jaB7J8F3MzaF1GORxkA/edit?usp=sharing


----------



## sleewell

well its not a shocker to hear that china has been drastically under reporting their deaths. i wonder what the real number actually is??


----------



## Cynicanal

narad said:


> The difference between a 20-25% hospitalization rate, and a 2-2.5% hospitalization rate is, indeed, an order of magnitude.
> 
> Next?





Xaios said:


> Do you not know how to use a calculator? 33 million is 10% of the population of the US, which is _waaaaaay_ higher than the aggregate mortality rate that the virus has displayed, and that's assuming that every single man, woman and child catches it, which won't be the case.
> 
> Also, agreed with lurè that comparing the economic ramifications of COVID 19 with that of the black death is just plain ridiculous. You're talking about a period of time which started _300 years before the discovery of bacteria._


Where are you guys getting 2% hospitalization rate? Italy is over 10% death rate, much less hospitlization!


----------



## bostjan

Cynicanal said:


> Where are you guys getting 2% hospitalization rate? Italy is over 10% death rate, much less hospitlization!



Did you read the link @narad posted? If you follow the chain back from this message, you will find it. It doesn't spell out the overall hospitalization rate, but it breaks it down by age. I'm sure you'll disagree with the data presented there, but, I mean, you were asking where he got the number, and it's pretty clear from what that article says that he likely interpolated the number from what was listed there.

Even if you don't buy the 2% hospitalization rate, assuming that 10% of the entire US population will die from the disease is a bit extreme. I wouldn't, at this point, say that any number is "wrong," because we honestly don't know enough- the experts are saying that they don't know enough yet. But there is a difference between taking what webMD is presenting with a grain of salt and just throwing your hands up in the air and assuming the opposite of what they are saying. The only hard numbers we can put down for sure are that there is at least a 0.02% death rate, assuming that the people who already died from the disease won't come back to life, or that they weren't erroneously reported to have died from the disease when there was some other cause, and at most 100%, in the highly unlikely chance that the people who recovered from the disease die later from complications or from reinfection and so does the rest of the human population. And we might never know what the correct numbers are.


----------



## lurè

Again, that 10% is calculated among positive tests which are done only to people with already medium-severe symptoms; if you have a mild fever you don't get tested even if you probably have Covid19, but only if your symptoms get worse.

There's a huge slice of population which has the virus but shows no symptoms, others with mild symptoms ( no breathing issues and just some fever) and others that probably already had it without even knowing.

All of these are not tested and aren't include among statistics, so that 10% death rate is among people hospitalized that required ICU.


----------



## spudmunkey

lurè said:


> There's a huge slice of population which has the virus but shows no symptoms, others with mild symptoms ( no breathing issues and just some fever) and others that probably already had it without even knowing.



According to Iceland's testing, 50% of those who tested positive were asymptomatic, after testing about 5% of their population (the US has done .336%, for reference)

Which is interesting, because one would think the US is focusing on testing people with symptoms, that ours would be higher than it is, but our ratio is more like 16.6% positive.


----------



## StevenC

Here's some more questions answered from Healthcare Triage, Mr Cynical should watch.


----------



## DiezelMonster

I'm not posting this here to stir the pot since I don't believe there is, but does anyone here subscribe to any level of conspiracy theories regarding this situation?

I have several co-workers that are really paranoid and believe something is afoot? 

I hope everyone is safe out there!


----------



## narad

bostjan said:


> Did you read the link @narad posted? If you follow the chain back from this message, you will find it. It doesn't spell out the overall hospitalization rate, but it breaks it down by age. I'm sure you'll disagree with the data presented there, but, I mean, you were asking where he got the number, and it's pretty clear from what that article says that he likely interpolated the number from what was listed there.



Yes, I just put a curve on the 3 points I had from the article, which creates a pretty exponential relationship between age and hospitalization rate, and then weighted the proportion of the US population in that demographic. It's not a gold standard (I think we don't expect the curve to be quite that exponential), but it's better than off-the-cuff claiming 10% of Americans will die for whatever reason. 

Even if you make pretty extreme assumptions the other way (like a linear taper between rates at childhood and rates at 70) it's pretty hard to expect a > 5% hospitalization rate in America, without also assuming that the existing data doesn't have a whole lot of bearing on American populations, American ethnicities, American healthcare, American geography, American habits. Which is also a pretty reasonable thing to assume I think, but just goes to show how little we can understand and expect!

I think the bottom-line is that people who don't crunch numbers for a living should definitely not be trying their hands at it now, and those that do are probably also pretty off in terms of estimates, but probably are experienced enough to know as much.


----------



## Demiurge

DiezelMonster said:


> I'm not posting this here to stir the pot since I don't believe there is, but does anyone here subscribe to any level of conspiracy theories regarding this situation?



No, not really. This is a combination of nature and our folly in properly handling it. Usually fueling conspiracy theories is the "cui bono" factor, but I can't see any of that here. Big businesses- who usually have governments wrapped around their fingers- are taking a bath. No one is benefiting. Of course, people are like, "this is how the government takes control of us." Guess what- we're effectively subjects of our respective governments anyway!


----------



## bostjan

DiezelMonster said:


> I'm not posting this here to stir the pot since I don't believe there is, but does anyone here subscribe to any level of conspiracy theories regarding this situation?
> 
> I have several co-workers that are really paranoid and believe something is afoot?
> 
> I hope everyone is safe out there!



99% of what I've heard about this pandemic sounds like a conspiracy theory.

I even know a person who vehemently believes the virus is not real, as in, it doesn't exist.

I think that if anything at all is clear about this virus, it's that it came from an animal of some sort that infected a human and spread through Wuhan China to the rest of China and the rest of the world.

If your conspiracy theory that fits around that, maybe it'd be interesting, but I can't speak for everyone here. It might cause unnecessary chafing.



narad said:


> Yes, I just put a curve on the 3 points I had from the article, which creates a pretty exponential relationship between age and hospitalization rate, and then weighted the proportion of the US population in that demographic. It's not a gold standard (I think we don't expect the curve to be quite that exponential), but it's better than off-the-cuff claiming 10% of Americans will die for whatever reason.
> 
> Even if you make pretty extreme assumptions the other way (like a linear taper between rates at childhood and rates at 70) it's pretty hard to expect a > 5% hospitalization rate in America, without also assuming that the existing data doesn't have a whole lot of bearing on American populations, American ethnicities, American healthcare, American geography, American habits. Which is also a pretty reasonable thing to assume I think, but just goes to show how little we can understand and expect!
> 
> I think the bottom-line is that people who don't crunch numbers for a living should definitely not be trying their hands at it now, and those that do are probably also pretty off in terms of estimates, but probably are experienced enough to know as much.



The often referenced Dunning-Kruger Effect.

I, personally, don't mind some reasonable speculation discussion. I mean, this is possibly the most important historical event of my lifetime, and we know virtually nothing about it yet. As fascinating as it is, I might not live to see the answers, especially if I get the disease any time soon.

For example, every country reporting to the WHO has a different curve and different severity. Is it based on differences in culture, public health, diet, income, testing?


----------



## DiezelMonster

Demiurge said:


> No, not really. This is a combination of nature and our folly in properly handling it. Usually fueling conspiracy theories is the "cui bono" factor, but I can't see any of that here. Big businesses- who usually have governments wrapped around their fingers- are taking a bath. No one is benefiting. Of course, people are like, "this is how the government takes control of us." Guess what- we're effectively subjects of our respective governments anyway!



Thanks, that is where my thought process lay, I just find it odd that about 5 people I work with are really into the conspiracy aspect and thought maybe I was missing something.

Cheers.


----------



## narad

DiezelMonster said:


> I'm not posting this here to stir the pot since I don't believe there is, but does anyone here subscribe to any level of conspiracy theories regarding this situation?
> 
> I have several co-workers that are really paranoid and believe something is afoot?
> 
> I hope everyone is safe out there!



The government, which is completely inept at distributing or organizing nearly anything, somehow manages a global plot involving untold thousands of people, the development of the virus, etc., in order to ... pass some legislation or get martial law going in the US? 

There's always a paradox in conspiracy theory people who somehow assume the government is simultaneously all-powerful and still incapable of basic function.


----------



## DiezelMonster

narad said:


> The government, which is completely inept at distributing or organizing nearly anything, somehow manages a global plot involving untold thousands of people, the development of the virus, etc., in order to ... pass some legislation or get martial law going in the US?
> 
> There's always a paradox in conspiracy theory people who somehow assume the government is simultaneously all-powerful and still incapable of basic function.




Right, How is that people believe the government is so inept, yet they can pull this off? A lot of the people that are claiming it's a conspiracy are citing this "Event 201" business.

Anyhow, Thanks guys, I typically don't feed into conspiracies, but there is something about the fever pitch around this with my co-workers thats got me scratching my head since these people are otherwise pretty level headed.


----------



## narad

DiezelMonster said:


> Right, How is that people believe the government is so inept, yet they can pull this off? A lot of the people that are claiming it's a conspiracy are citing this "Event 201" business.
> 
> Anyhow, Thanks guys, I typically don't feed into conspiracies, but there is something about the fever pitch around this with my co-workers thats got me scratching my head since these people are otherwise pretty level headed.



I personally like the one where "COVID-19" is some sort of acronym for new world order type stuff (~"covert information disrupt 2019"), like the conspirators have pulled off this insane thing involving massive secrecy on a global scale, but just wanted to put a little signature out there for those woke people to discover. 

Like "Alucard" was a vampire? Holy shit!


----------



## Cynicanal

All of the conspiracies I've heard involve it being a Chinese plot, not an American plot, and their government has their shit together much more in a "can they get stuff done" sense.


----------



## Demiurge

^Step 1: Infect your own people en masse...
...and it gets more competent from there.


----------



## Ralyks

Nah, all the conspiracy theories I hear involve North Korea feeding it through China and this was the “Christmas Gift” they were talking about late last year.


----------



## Señor Voorhees

Out of 110574


bostjan said:


> 99% of what I've heard about this pandemic sounds like a conspiracy theory.
> 
> I even know a person who vehemently believes the virus is not real, as in, it doesn't exist.



Sorry to quote such a small segment of your post, but I do want to address this. 

It's worth noting that an insanely HIGH vast majority of this virus has claimed lives 60+. Using Italy as the example like tons have, 11,264 deaths have been caused by the virus. In comparison, 591 for anyone younger than 60 (that is 0-59 years) have died from it. 

It's easy to believe you and everyone is invulnerable to it when roughly 90% of the deaths are older folks and you haven't experienced the loss yourself. Maybe I'm off base, but these numbers are important. This is scary to me because my wife's family is WELL into that "will die" demographic. On the other hand, my wife's family lives so far in the sticks that very few have tested positive for the disease. (only 4 have tested positive, and 0 deaths.) 

I'm not just worrying about MY family, though... How many old folks live in new york, cali, florida, etc? BIG fucking places... People denying that anything is wrong just because they're not personally in danger is super scary to me. I've said it a couple times in this thread that I'm not scared of personally getting it... I'm at a .2% risk of dying in my age group. I'm absolutely mortified of killing someone's mother, grandmother, or even whoever I come in contact with. 

I know you're not personally advocating the whole denial/conspiracy theory thing, but I can't help but lose sleep over the people I might kill because I wanted a bagel or something. I'm also 90% positive I've already contracted the virus, but I'm still scared of going anywhere other than taking my dogs out. 

I guess the tl;dr is that I didn't even really say that even if you think it's futile, it needs to be brought up to naysayers that just because they personally aren't in the largest of dangers doesn't mean loved ones of you or the strangers stanger's aren't. 

As a small derail, the retirement age in the usa is ~66 years. That's in the beginning of the "will very possibly die" demographic. Imagine retiring JUST to eat fucking dirt. These people are worth protecting for many reasons. People need to look at the greater picture. Fuck China's number, and look at the rest of the 1st world. Italy being a good example.

Weird rant to go on, I'm sorry. I just see it myself personally... The "I'm twenty something... Who cares, I'll be fine" folks who go out and do whatever they feel like while they essentially put yours, theirs, and MY family in danger. Boo at the naysayers. It sucks when people are so short/narrow sighted.


----------



## bostjan

Señor Voorhees said:


> Out of 110574
> 
> 
> Sorry to quote such a small segment of your post, but I do want to address this.
> 
> It's worth noting that an insanely HIGH vast majority of this virus has claimed lives 60+. Using Italy as the example like tons have, 11,264 deaths have been caused by the virus. In comparison, 591 for anyone younger than 60 (that is 0-59 years) have died from it.
> 
> It's easy to believe you and everyone is invulnerable to it when roughly 90% of the deaths are older folks and you haven't experienced the loss yourself. Maybe I'm off base, but these numbers are important. This is scary to me because my wife's family is WELL into that "will die" demographic. On the other hand, my wife's family lives so far in the sticks that very few have tested positive for the disease. (only 4 have tested positive, and 0 deaths.)
> 
> I'm not just worrying about MY family, though... How many old folks live in new york, cali, florida, etc? BIG fucking places... People denying that anything is wrong just because they're not personally in danger is super scary to me. I've said it a couple times in this thread that I'm not scared of personally getting it... I'm at a .2% risk of dying in my age group. I'm absolutely mortified of killing someone's mother, grandmother, or even whoever I come in contact with.
> 
> I know you're not personally advocating the whole denial/conspiracy theory thing, but I can't help but lose sleep over the people I might kill because I wanted a bagel or something. I'm also 90% positive I've already contracted the virus, but I'm still scared of going anywhere other than taking my dogs out.
> 
> I guess the tl;dr is that I didn't even really say that even if you think it's futile, it needs to be brought up to naysayers that just because they personally aren't in the largest of dangers doesn't mean loved ones of you or the strangers stanger's aren't.
> 
> As a small derail, the retirement age in the usa is ~66 years. That's in the beginning of the "will very possibly die" demographic. Imagine retiring JUST to eat fucking dirt. These people are worth protecting for many reasons. People need to look at the greater picture. Fuck China's number, and look at the rest of the 1st world. Italy being a good example.
> 
> Weird rant to go on, I'm sorry. I just see it myself personally... The "I'm twenty something... Who cares, I'll be fine" folks who go out and do whatever they feel like while they essentially put yours, theirs, and MY family in danger. Boo at the naysayers. It sucks when people are so short/narrow sighted.



Maybe the surprising part is that this guy is pushing 60 and has a cornucopia of concerning health problems.


----------



## Drew

Cynicanal said:


> Where are you guys getting 2% hospitalization rate? Italy is over 10% death rate, much less hospitlization!


You're in an interesting position to be questioning other's statistics. Where, again, was your "base case" forecast of 33 million Americans dying from COVID-19 drawn from?


----------



## Cynicanal

Drew said:


> You're in an interesting position to be questioning other's statistics. Where, again, was your "base case" forecast of 33 million Americans dying from COVID-19 drawn from?


Hospitalization rate will equal death rate once the hospitals reach capacity, which will happen very soon (much faster than it happened in Italy, since we have fewer hospital beds and respirators per capita).


----------



## Cynicanal

https://www.expressnews.com/news/lo...errides-San-Antonio-Bexar-County-15170236.php

Our measures are theater. No one really wants to reduce social contact, they just want to pretend to reduce social contact to gain the approval of other talking monkeys with car keys.


----------



## narad

Cynicanal said:


> https://www.expressnews.com/news/lo...errides-San-Antonio-Bexar-County-15170236.php
> 
> Our measures are theater. No one really wants to reduce social contact, they just want to pretend to reduce social contact to gain the approval of other talking monkeys with car keys.



A couple churches in Texas are allowed to (while strongly recommended not to) hold in-person mass, and now the entire social distancing method nationwide is useless?

I hope your immune system is stronger than your reasoning.


----------



## Cynicanal

Jobs, grocery shopping, restaurant takeouts, church, even Florida beaches remaining open -- when there's enough of a clamor that "but this isn't just for fun!!!" we open it up. At this point we're gathering people together often enough that us cancelling a few parties and baseball games is just a symbolic gesture. Maybe things are different in Japan, but in the U.S., there's no social distancing in place, just pretending to social distance.


----------



## blacai

I will try to adjust the message for those who cannot understand it with technical reports, studies...


----------



## Cynicanal

Sure, and when our measures are now saying "hey, everyone go to work, church, the store, restaurants, and everything else, but we'll close a few things symbolically to show that we're doing something!" how does that equate to "staying home so you can't cough on someone else"? I swear, it's like people here never passed kindergarten reading classes.


----------



## fantom

You clearly don't live near me. The only place people go is the supermarket, and everyone there looks terrified. Parks, beaches, playgrounds, sports fields, dog parks, etc. Are not only closed, but have police issuing warnings.

I should add, police around here turn the other way almost habitually... So just seeing them in the community is weird.


----------



## Cynicanal

Meanwhile, in TX, shitloads of counties have said "shelter in place, but literally every business is essential". Almost everyone is still going to the office like normal, still packing tons of people into conference rooms, still sharing mice and keyboards. When I drive home from work each day, I see every restaurant with their "open" signs on, and cars in the parking lots. Our governor has just told people to go to church, and knowing our state, they will. Hell, they were already holding congregations even when they weren't "supposed to", but they were doing "street congregations" where they marched around the streets while preaching, and no, they weren't staying six feet away from each other.

And my county has an "A" on Narad's pet "social distancing" website. LOL. None of what we're doing is real, we're just play-acting because everyone realizes we can't shut down society for real, but we're sure as hell going to pretend to in order to look like we're concerned goodpeople or to give ourselves the illusion of control because everyone is so unwilling to accept their own mortality. We're AIDS quilting and practicing ducking under our desks when the nukes fly, and pretending that what we're doing isn't theater.


----------



## narad

Cynicanal said:


> And my county has an "A" on Narad's pet "social distancing" website. LOL.



I sure as hell didn't post anything of the sort. Social distancing is a measure YOU have the ability to take. You put others at risk by not doing it, but you also put YOU at risk. So if you want to pretend like it serves no purpose, by all means. There's always going to be some percent of the population too stupid to follow advice, regardless of what it is. At least the virus will disproportionately affect those people.


----------



## Cynicanal

Yes, I have the ability to just walk away from my job, and I don't have to buy food. Right.

It's go to work or go homeless (my job is specialized enough that find another would be really hard for me at this point; if I lose it, I'm completely screwed, forever). And from there, nothing else matters; as long as some people there can go to restaurants, go to church, etc., I'm going to be exposed to those people because of mandatory meetings in closed conference rooms. And almost everyone else is in the same situation. And then those of us who get it at work will spread it to everyone else at the grocery stores.

The whole idea is a farce, and anyone who thinks otherwise is the same kind of person who thinks ducking under their desk will actually save them from a nuclear ICBM. Black plague 2.0 is here. At least this'll be another lesson for those willing to learn -- we can "progress" all we like, nature and death are still bigger than us; for all of our progress, the fools saying "a pandemic like that can't happen again, we've progressed so much!" will be proven to be fools.


----------



## narad

Cynicanal said:


> Yes, I have the ability to just walk away from my job, and I don't have to buy food. Right.
> 
> It's go to work or go homeless (my job is specialized enough that find another would be really hard for me at this point; if I lose it, I'm completely screwed, forever). And from there, nothing else matters; as long as some people there can go to restaurants, go to church, etc., I'm going to be exposed to those people because of mandatory meetings in closed conference rooms. And almost everyone else is in the same situation. And then those of us who get it at work will spread it to everyone else at the grocery stores.
> 
> The whole idea is a farce, and anyone who thinks otherwise is the same kind of person who thinks ducking under their desk will actually save them from a nuclear ICBM. Black plague 2.0 is here. At least this'll be another lesson for those willing to learn -- we can "progress" all we like, nature and death are still bigger than us; for all of our progress, the fools saying "a pandemic like that can't happen again, we've progressed so much!" will be proven to be fools.



Social distancing isn't a discrete-valued thing. A lot of people who just keep their distance, practice good hygiene, wear protective clothing, are going to wind up better than those that are grinding on someone at a rave or shaking everyones' hands at a church thing. Some people, like health care workers, service industry, etc., really can't help but come in close contact with people regularly and that's a shame for them. But successfully slowing the spread of the virus doesn't hinge just on these people.

I wish I had something edgy to put here. It's been so long since I've been 15... damn... yea, wait nuclear holocaust.. oh, shit...he already said that with the ICBMs... uhhmm..."this is the new normal"...wait no, he said that one too.... "wakeup sheeple"...ah, that's maybe to cliche...


----------



## mastapimp

narad said:


> I wish I had something edgy to put here. It's been so long since I've been 15... damn... yea, wait nuclear holocaust.. oh, shit...he already said that with the ICBMs... uhhmm..."this is the new normal"...wait no, he said that one too.... "wakeup sheeple"...ah, that's maybe to cliche...



When arguing with the mentally ill, sometimes it's best to just walk away. You're never going to convince some guys of anything no matter how hard you hit them with information.


----------



## thraxil

DiezelMonster said:


> I'm not posting this here to stir the pot since I don't believe there is, but does anyone here subscribe to any level of conspiracy theories regarding this situation?



I don't know how, but I suspect that my cat is behind all of this. Both of her humans now stay home all the time, have cancelled trips, and barely even go outside to get groceries. This is all working out *perfectly* for her. Too perfectly, if you ask me.


----------



## USMarine75

Cynicanal said:


> Hospitalization rate will equal death rate once the hospitals reach capacity, which will happen very soon (much faster than it happened in Italy, since we have fewer hospital beds and respirators per capita).



this is some truly epic dumb shit right here.


----------



## Demiurge

I think that there's a mixture of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good along with a lack of understanding of risk management.

Not everyone has the space, resources, or money to have stockpiled multiple months' worth of supplies. Most people, even under a shelter-in-place order, are going to need to go somewhere to get something they need at some point. This is going to involve the assumption of some risk. The contents of this thread notwithstanding, I'd argue that a reasonable person can assess the difference in risk between attending Spring break in Florida and only leaving one's home to get curbside grocery pickup every 10 days.


----------



## zappatton2

Seems to me, anecdotally at least, that there's a good deal of variation between States, which is gonna really drag this thing out. I know here in Canada, pretty much everyone is at home, save essential workers, and people are pretty unified about how to deal with this. In fact, there is a great deal of stigma and social backlash against people who are not social distancing. I'm worried we'll get this thing under control, only to have the "skeptic States" bring it right back into heavy circulation. If Trump had just put money into a worker's relief/support program instead of the stock market, even the stubborn "all cooperation is Communism" crowd would have incentive to stay the F home!


----------



## JSanta

zappatton2 said:


> Seems to me, anecdotally at least, that there's a good deal of variation between States, which is gonna really drag this thing out. I know here in Canada, pretty much everyone is at home, save essential workers, and people are pretty unified about how to deal with this. In fact, there is a great deal of stigma and social backlash against people who are not social distancing. I'm worried we'll get this thing under control, only to have the "skeptic States" bring it right back into heavy circulation. If Trump had just put money into a worker's relief/support program instead of the stock market, even the stubborn "all cooperation is Communism" crowd would have incentive to stay the F home!



Right now, there are 12 States that have not issued "stay-at-home" orders, all of which have GOP governors...

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/490695-several-states-have-yet-to-issue-stay-at-home-orders


----------



## sleewell

the governor of GA said yesterday that he just learned that day that people who aren't showing symptoms can transmit the disease.


that moron is in charge of a state. let that sink in for a bit before you just vote based on party lines next time.


----------



## TedEH

We've now officially got restricted travel on the bridged to/from Quebec. Which is unfortunate, since I'm right on that border. And a bunch of my music gear is in Ontario. The bridges aren't "closed" but they're spot-checking people to make sure your travel is "essential".


----------



## budda

@TedEH hopefully you have enough gear at home to stay sane. Otherwise, perhaps download a synth VST that lets you use your keyboard as piano keys, and see what happens (just spitballing).

This seems like it needs to be in this thread:


----------



## TedEH

budda said:


> @TedEH hopefully you have enough gear at home to stay sane


I've still got lots here, but it means I'm cut off from the room I can play drums in. The kit, and the good Jazz bass are all across the bridge and mostly inaccessible now. The backup bass and most of the guitars are here, at least.


----------



## gnoll

I have one cheap guitar and one cheap keyboard, and that's it. It's enough to practice and write with, but of course I won't be able to rehearse with the band until this is over.

I was feeling okay about this and was gonna use the situation as an opportunity to write a bunch of new music and lyrics, but that's not going very well at all. I'll be happy when this shit is over...


----------



## budda

Reminder: you don't *have* to be creative right now. We've never experienced anything like this before.


----------



## Demiurge

^This is something I needed to hear. I've been working remote this whole time (which has been stressful on its own), but I'm not quite sure what I was expecting, some wellspring of creative opportunity in all of the free time. Yet somehow, with the world going to hell, the muse ain't exactly singing.


----------



## Ralyks

budda said:


> Reminder: you don't *have* to be creative right now. We've never experienced anything like this before.



Hate to say it, but yeah, I haven’t been creative at all during this. Anxiety + taking care of a 4 year old by myself + my night classes starting again this week = me struggling to want to pick up my guitar.


----------



## blacai

gnoll said:


> I have one cheap guitar and one cheap keyboard, and that's it. It's enough to practice and write with, but of course I won't be able to rehearse with the band until this is over.
> 
> I was feeling okay about this and was gonna use the situation as an opportunity to write a bunch of new music and lyrics, but that's not going very well at all. I'll be happy when this shit is over...


Don't worry, it's ok. This is not the best situation and mood instability is normal.
Even when here in Germany restrictions are not that hard, the simple fact that I have to work everyday from home for three weeks already(I am lucky enough I can do it...I know) is slowly exhausting me. Boring as hell without human interaction. I do pauses for cooking, workout, guitar... but people are social animals :|
Then it is also the problem I cannot visit my parents in Spain(even if I wanted to.) where the situation is harder.


----------



## TedEH

You don't have to be creative, but you do need to fill the time with _something_. If I had my kit here, I'd be gladly just wasting hours away banging out some tunes, cause what else am I gonna do? I've been playing a lot of guitar lately. Not to write, but just to be doing something.


----------



## thraxil

Here's a pretty good paper estimating infections and the impact of interventions: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...urope-estimates-and-NPI-impact-30-03-2020.pdf

Some highlights from the summary:

We find that the slowing growth in daily reported deaths in Italy is consistent with a significant impact of interventions implemented several weeks earlier.

With current interventions remaining in place to at least the end of March, we estimate that interventions across all 11 countries will have averted 59,000 deaths up to 31 March [95% credible interval 21,000-120,000].

We estimate that, across all 11 countries between 7 and 43 million individuals have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 up to 28th March, representing between 1.88% and 11.43% of the population​


----------



## budda

TedEH said:


> You don't have to be creative, but you do need to fill the time with _something_. If I had my kit here, I'd be gladly just wasting hours away banging out some tunes, cause what else am I gonna do? I've been playing a lot of guitar lately. Not to write, but just to be doing something.



Sleep and TV are definitely a thing .

I play guitar for a bit in the morning since I'm still up by 7am, may or may not have a nap in the early afternoon, and usually watch at least a few episodes of something. I recently started the 1992 animated x-men on disney+ as I watched it a bit as a kid. Before that I finished star wars rebels (that "kids" show has a bit more lol).

But you don't have to be creative. Stress is a bitch, and this whole situation has pretty much everyone stressed right out.


----------



## sleewell

i just wanna get in a fucking mosh pit and play some shows again. really miss our local scene. were booked on 4/30 but i see zero chance of that happening. 

but thats just me being a selfish ass. my heart goes out to everyone losing people they love and the people working on the front lines in the hospitals and first responders.


----------



## jaxadam

Cynicanal said:


> even Florida beaches remaining open



So this isn't true. Most beaches have been closed for weeks now. The closures have been left to the discretion of the counties/municipalities. There is a big difference between an area like Miami Beach or Clearwater Beach which are tourist hotspots, versus a beach like Ponte Vedra Beach which is almost exclusively residential and relatively private. Almost all public beach accesses have been closed statewide for weeks, but that does not keep people off of more secluded areas.

Also, all vrbo/airbnb/vacation rental properties have been ordered to come to a halt. That is no easy decision to make in lieu of the restrictions, and will have devastating financial consequences for a state which relies heavily on tourism and rentals. A vrbo/airbnb/vacation rental is not just a house on a populated beach filled with 20 out-of-towners partying it up. There are small families or even just single people that will rent out a house/townhome/cottage in a secluded area for a month/6 months/a year. Although the understanding is to mitigate large swaths of people coming into a heavily populated tourist area, an order like that also has secondary consequences that affects a significant section of very low risk.


----------



## sleewell

tons of pics of thousands of people out partying all across FL last weekend. i am sure none of them had it though. ignorance is the new vaccine.


----------



## jaxadam

sleewell said:


> tons of pics of thousands of people out partying all across FL last weekend. i am sure none of them had it though. ignorance is the new vaccine.



Again, this isn't true. "all across FL" has been shut down for weeks.


----------



## sleewell

are you daft? just yesterday your moron gov finally issued a stay in place bc he was waiting to hear from trump. there are literally tons of pics of people out last weekend. if you put your head in the sand and say it never happened i guess that works but it does not change reality.


----------



## JSanta

I guess these images and information are untrue?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...hes-open-ron-desantis-stay-home-a9435971.html


----------



## jaxadam

JSanta said:


> I guess these images and information are untrue?
> 
> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...hes-open-ron-desantis-stay-home-a9435971.html



Anomalies and misleading. The St Johns County/Duval County anomaly consisted of many people ignoring park closures, parking where they want (in forbidden areas and on the road), and getting access anyway. That is Ponte Vedra Beach, and it is exclusively residential. Vilano is the same, exclusively residential, but people will circumvent rules to get access. The majority of all public access has been shut down for weeks; after the St Johns County/Duval County went viral police are patrolling the beaches and you will be asked to leave. There are still a select few people who go out and do what they want.


----------



## narad

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...y-theory-train-crash-usns-mercy-a9442586.html

Found MetalHex


----------



## zappatton2

narad said:


> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...y-theory-train-crash-usns-mercy-a9442586.html
> 
> Found MetalHex


I'm not familiar with the Independent, is this real? 'Cuz again, news and satire are really getting their wires crossed these days.


----------



## narad

zappatton2 said:


> I'm not familiar with the Independent, is this real? 'Cuz again, news and satire are really getting their wires crossed these days.



I thought the same thing, and/or being April Fools', but I think it's legit? The other articles seem boring and real.


----------



## DiezelMonster

narad said:


> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...y-theory-train-crash-usns-mercy-a9442586.html
> 
> Found MetalHex



Holy sheepshit! 

What the fuck is goin on out there? What conspiracy theory did he hope he would enlighten us all with??????


----------



## Cynicanal

https://www.wsj.com/articles/italys-coronavirus-death-toll-is-far-higher-than-reported-11585767179

Italy -- with a reported death rate approaching 12% -- has been drastically _underreporting_ deaths. My predictions keep coming true. Can't wait to see how I'll be written off as "crazy" this time.


----------



## Demiurge

It's nice that the article did not dignify him by saying exactly what conspiracy he was looking to unveil. 

That said I'm sure that the gaggle of 12 year-olds behind QAnon are working feverishly to tie this all into their bullshit.


----------



## jaxadam

zappatton2 said:


> I'm not familiar with the Independent, is this real? 'Cuz again, news and satire are really getting their wires crossed these days.



Well, if it's anything like the link @JSanta posted above, then it's misleading and sensationalist. 

In regard to the Florida beaches, here is a much more informed and accurate depiction, very contrary to the link he posted.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/cor...0200319-ftadcu7qxvhq3n2xsjuiejqium-story.html

This link actually shows dates of closures that occurred weeks ago that contradict the info in his National Enquire-esque link. It also states more information, such as "Duval had been shut down entirely since March 20. St. Johns had blocked public parking, but left the beach open." His leaves out information like that, that paint a more accurate picture of things being shut down, but rules being circumvented.


----------



## sleewell

pretty good read. 

https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...irus-unique-threat-south-young-people/609241/


----------



## DiezelMonster

Demiurge said:


> It's nice that the article did not dignify him by saying exactly what conspiracy he was looking to unveil.
> 
> That said I'm sure that the gaggle of 12 year-olds behind QAnon are working feverishly to tie this all into their bullshit.



didn't Qanon start with 4chan? Isn't this round of conspiracy culture literally a select group (Qanon) trolling people and all the gullible rubes buy in and fester on it? but it really is just "troll culture"? so fucked up.


----------



## Drew

Cynicanal said:


> Hospitalization rate will equal death rate once the hospitals reach capacity, which will happen very soon (much faster than it happened in Italy, since we have fewer hospital beds and respirators per capita).


i mean, that's a pretty big assumption that the professional ID scientists who model this stuff are NOT making. That's worth thinking about.

You're sensationalizing this as a reason to advocate doing nothing, but at least you just obliquely admitted that, despite you're earlier claims to the contrary, we are NOT turning away critically ill COVID patients from hospitals, since we're not at capacity. So, thanks for that little bit of honesty, if belated and accidental.


----------



## Cynicanal

We aren't doing so, yet (that's coming soon). Italy is. It should be easy to keep "we/us" straight from "Italy", there's an ocean separating us.


----------



## bostjan

DiezelMonster said:


> Holy sheepshit!
> 
> What the fuck is goin on out there? What conspiracy theory did he hope he would enlighten us all with??????



Rumour has it that the conspiracy theory is something about the Pope being part of a cult, packs of Marlboro cig's, something called "Spelly's war," and then ten or so pages of semantic arguments.


----------



## narad

Cynicanal said:


> We aren't doing so, yet (that's coming soon). Italy is. It should be easy to keep "we/us" straight from "Italy", there's an ocean separating us.



It should be, and yet you treat any situation from Italy as being completely relevant (or more, inevitable) in the US. And again, the mortality rate is deaths / confirmed positive. You can control that denominator in many different ways, so it's unclear what one would take away from such biased samples at this point.


----------



## spudmunkey

World wide, we are 2,445 cases away from 1,000,000 confirmed cases
Worldwide has crossed 50,000 total deaths, with 208,000 recovered.
US passed 1,000 new deaths in single day yesterday, for the first time.


----------



## bostjan

One thing about the scientific method is that poor quality sampling/data *does* make a weaker point, but *does not* make a stronger opposing point.

For example, if I had never seen an elephant before, and went to the zoo and they had one elephant, and I concluded from seeing it that all elephants are big and grey and have long noses and big ears, my data set is garbage, my conclusions are highly based on assumptions, and yet, I would still be correct. The argument that the death rate is necessarily much higher (or even worse, that it is a specific high number) based off of the valid assertion that the data available have biases, would be like someone else never seeing an elephant before, heard my story about the zoo and assumed that elephants come in six different colours, have noses that are between 5 cm and 200 cm and sometimes have wings.


----------



## spudmunkey

bostjan said:


> One thing about the scientific method is that poor quality sampling/data *does* make a weaker point, but *does not* make a stronger opposing point.
> 
> For example, if I had never seen an elephant before, and went to the zoo and they had one elephant, and I concluded from seeing it that all elephants are big and grey and have long noses and big ears, my data set is garbage, my conclusions are highly based on assumptions,



Especially since that same description could be used for my mother-in-law.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

bostjan said:


> One thing about the scientific method is that poor quality sampling/data *does* make a weaker point, but *does not* make a stronger opposing point.
> 
> For example, if I had never seen an elephant before, and went to the zoo and they had one elephant, and I concluded from seeing it that all elephants are big and grey and have long noses and big ears, my data set is garbage, my conclusions are highly based on assumptions, and yet, I would still be correct. The argument that the death rate is necessarily much higher (or even worse, that it is a specific high number) based off of the valid assertion that the data available have biases, would be like someone else never seeing an elephant before, heard my story about the zoo and assumed that elephants come in six different colours, have noses that are between 5 cm and 200 cm and sometimes have wings.


_
The Coronavirus in the Field_


----------



## blacai

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...rgentina-infecting-11-people-coronavirus.html

This untermensch came back from US to with signals of being infected with covid ... He refused to do quarantine and atended a familiar party, where he infected 20 people.
His grandpa was one of them and it was reported today he died.


----------



## fantom

Cynicanal said:


> Yes, I have the ability to just walk away from my job, and I don't have to buy food. Right.
> 
> It's go to work or go homeless (my job is specialized enough that find another would be really hard for me at this point; if I lose it, I'm completely screwed, forever). And from there, nothing else matters; as long as some people there can go to restaurants, go to church, etc., I'm going to be exposed to those people because of mandatory meetings in closed conference rooms. And almost everyone else is in the same situation. And then those of us who get it at work will spread it to everyone else at the grocery stores.
> 
> The whole idea is a farce, and anyone who thinks otherwise is the same kind of person who thinks ducking under their desk will actually save them from a nuclear ICBM. Black plague 2.0 is here. At least this'll be another lesson for those willing to learn -- we can "progress" all we like, nature and death are still bigger than us; for all of our progress, the fools saying "a pandemic like that can't happen again, we've progressed so much!" will be proven to be fools.



So you hate your job after millions of people got fired. You are mad that you have to go to work and everyone else can stay home or party at a beach. And likely you can't find a new job because you are insufferable. You keep saying the same doomsayer's statement over and over again. We got it. It is impossible for anyone to read this thread and not see your posts. Are you just bored and wanting to share your emotions online to accommodate for your personal life being crappy? If you aren't happy with your job, you are young enough to quit and find a new career path. The only thing holding you back is your internal beliefs and attitude.

To mods: I'm sorry if this is crossing a line, but this is getting a bit ridiculous.


----------



## sleewell

*there is a pretty solid ignore function*


----------



## fantom

sleewell said:


> *there is a pretty solid ignore function*



Best post in this thread... Looking for it now


----------



## MaxOfMetal

fantom said:


> Best post in this thread... Looking for it now



Click on the user's avatar, there should be an "ignore" option.


----------



## spudmunkey

Grim...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...0-000-body-bags-pentagon-covid-19/5111412002/


----------



## wankerness

spudmunkey said:


> Grim...
> 
> https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...0-000-body-bags-pentagon-covid-19/5111412002/



Yep, good times are a-coming. A friend of mine tried to bet me that over half a million would die to this. I wasn't taking that bet!!! I sure hope it's less, but yeah. 100,000 seems VERY optimistic with how idiotic the government has been through this whole thing, compounded by some of the southern states doing things that absolutely guarantee mass death (like the dipshit in charge of Florida just granting churches "essential business" status so services can continue).


----------



## Drew

Cynicanal said:


> We aren't doing so, yet (that's coming soon). Italy is. It should be easy to keep "we/us" straight from "Italy", there's an ocean separating us.



One, I've been reasonably polite with you, I dpn't think it's unreasonable to expect you to extend the same courtesy to me. 

Two, the only reason I interjected in this whole conversation was this post: 


Cynicanal said:


> 1-2M deaths (probably a lot more than that, really, but let's use these conservative numbers) are coming anyways, no matter what we do. If we're already turning away the _relatively healthy_ at hospitals, then flattening the curve failed _miserably_, and none of the self-imposed economic sanctions did a single thing for us.
> 
> We're _already in_ the worst-case scenario, no reason to add self-inflicted wounds.



...where you said we ARE turning away "relatively healthy" people at hospitals, that flattening the curve had already failed, and - and I don't think this is an extension or a stretch ofg what you wrote at _all_, it pretty clearly follows that you believed US hospitals were _already_ overloaded. 

They're not. We have plenty of emergency capacity, locally I'm hearing reports of around 15% usage/85% overflow capacity, which are pretty normal levels for the greater Boston area and not really showing any signs of elevation. That may change at some point, but it hans't changed yet, and - like I said in my original post - what you're thinking of is we're telling people who aren't displaying symptoms not to go to the hospitals because at present we don't have the _testing_ capacity, and putting large numbers of possibly sick people in close contact with each other where we can't test them is going to guarantee the transmission rate will pick up. We still have plenty of _treatment_ capacity, and through radical social distancing measures like telling people not to go to the hospital unless they're sick enough to require going to the hospital, we're hoping we DON'T exceed that capacity. 

Unless perhaps you were thinking of Italy when you wrote that? but there's that ocean...


----------



## fantom

Drew said:


> One, I've been reasonably polite with you, I dpn't think it's unreasonable to expect you to extend the same courtesy to me.
> 
> Two, the only reason I interjected in this whole conversation was this post:
> 
> 
> ...where you said we ARE turning away "relatively healthy" people at hospitals, that flattening the curve had already failed, and - and I don't think this is an extension or a stretch ofg what you wrote at _all_, it pretty clearly follows that you believed US hospitals were _already_ overloaded.



He probably got this from my post about the 17 year old that died in LA. That's a whole different problem to discuss. It seems to be not as simple as it seems...

https://time.com/5813731/teen-denied-insurance-coronavirus/


----------



## DiezelMonster

now there is a comet coming for us? Comet C/2019 Atlas?


----------



## jaxadam

DiezelMonster said:


> now there is a comet coming for us? Comet C/2019 Atlas?



See? No one listens to me.

https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-62#post-5119570


----------



## DiezelMonster

jaxadam said:


> See? No one listens to me.
> 
> https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-62#post-5119570



Sorry I missed your post, mine was in jest as well. I hope I don't get attacked! we indeed are all dealing with this situation simultaneously, weird place to be in on the planet when EVERYONE is finally all dealing with the same shit show at the same time. 

Anyhow, carry on.


----------



## bostjan

wankerness said:


> Yep, good times are a-coming. A friend of mine tried to bet me that over half a million would die to this. I wasn't taking that bet!!! I sure hope it's less, but yeah. 100,000 seems VERY optimistic with how idiotic the government has been through this whole thing, compounded by some of the southern states doing things that absolutely guarantee mass death (like the dipshit in charge of Florida just granting churches "essential business" status so services can continue).



If you look at the data I posted yesterday, if you follow the trend as of yesterday's WHO data for the USA, we are looking at 58.5k deaths in our nation, and it'll be 6 weeks before those slow to a trickle. Hopefully something will curb that, but I'm not seeing where the president is coming up with a a hundred thousand to a quarter million in the next two weeks. I know I don't have access to as good of data as he has, but I really don't trust his mathematics skills, either, and I know he tends to mis-speak quite often. Also, I have the sinking feeling that he might be tempted to inflate the predictions by half an order of magnitude, only so that he can later brag about how great of a job he did saving over half the people who were projected to die. Anyway, enough politics...

My model is an exponentially modified bell curve, the number of deaths "N" on day "d" are

N = Nmax lambda/2 EXP( (lambda/2) (2mu + lamda sigma² - 2d) ) ERFC( (mu + lambda sigma² - d) / (1.414 sigma) )

With a starting date of when I started tracking, 20 Jan 2020, d is the number of days past that.

From statistical analysis:

sigma = ± 11.6 deaths
mu = 91.3 days

From a least squares fit:

lamda = 2.61
Nmax = 58500 deaths

Being that everyone's changes in behaviour around the country are in the data that defines the fit, if the rate of change of those behavioural changes.. changes... then the data will blow up. Needless to say that this is a simplistic function to fit a complex problem, and trying to fit a bell curve to data that's all pre-peak is touchy anyway, this is probably way off, but I think it's still just about the best anyone can do without knowing something about the future.

There's also the possibility of the curve ringing, that is, the curve we are in now peaks, and starts to decay, then we lift restrictions, and a bigger curve starts superimposing over the smaller curve. In that case, there is no data presently available to make a prediction - but it could be something much more along the lines of 250k.

What might be a little less predicated on shaky data, though, is the predictive mortality rate, overall, taken by modelling the confirmed infections and the deaths and taking the ratio between the two Nmax values, which is around 5.4%, so 5.4% of the cases with symptoms bad enough to warrant testing, in the USA, will lead to death, unless we develop a better treatment than what we've had the past several weeks. Maybe HCQ along with azrithomycin will work, as long as we don't run out. If 75% or whatever of cases are not getting diagnosed, and 100% of the USA gets infected, that'd be, absolute worst case, 13 million people. So, with no social distancing, no treatment, no lock-downs, no nothing, we could conceivably have a case not that far off from @Cynicanal is saying. But it does appear that the policies in place are doing something for now, and it does look like we might be able to figure out a treatment or two before this gets us all. Best realistic case, the things we are working on continue to improve our chances and we come out of this with only 10k deaths in the USA. I really don't see it being less than that, though, unless we discover a dynamite cure overnight.



DiezelMonster said:


> now there is a comet coming for us? Comet C/2019 Atlas?



I think we are pretty safe from that thing, at least for the next 5000+ years. But, there's also a superswarm of locusts in Africa right now that could, quite possibly put much of the world into a famine this year, plus, before the Covid-19 pandemic, India and Pakistan were about to nuke each other, which could have led to WWIII, not to mention Iran and Saudi Arabia right next door to that also each standing at their (non-nuclear) missile launch buttons, looking like a couple of kid about to wet their pants...

The world has never *not *had problems that threatened our way of life, it's just that this one is coming much closer to me (and ostensibly you, if you are reading this within the next two months).


----------



## Cynicanal

bostjan said:


> If you look at the data I posted yesterday, if you follow the trend as of yesterday's WHO data for the USA, we are looking at 58.5k deaths in our nation, and it'll be 6 weeks before those slow to a trickle. Hopefully something will curb that, but I'm not seeing where the president is coming up with a a hundred thousand to a quarter million in the next two weeks. I know I don't have access to as good of data as he has, but I really don't trust his mathematics skills, either, and I know he tends to mis-speak quite often. Also, I have the sinking feeling that he might be tempted to inflate the predictions by half an order of magnitude, only so that he can later brag about how great of a job he did saving over half the people who were projected to die. Anyway, enough politics...


The 100k number isn't coming from Trump; he's echoing what Fauci is saying is best-case scenario.


----------



## sighval

DiezelMonster said:


> Sorry I missed your post, mine was in jest as well. I hope I don't get attacked! we indeed are all dealing with this situation simultaneously, weird place to be in on the planet when EVERYONE is finally all dealing with the same shit show at the same time.



Will we learn anything as a species tho?
The effects of climate change will dwarf this corona situation in due time and mitigating them may be a bit harder than developing a vaccine or some new antivirals. We've known of climate-altering properties of CO2 for well over a century now and the scientific community has been pretty clear about what's going to happen if we don't address some of the concerns surrounding that topic - in the same way as the scientific community has been pretty clear about what was going to happen if we didn't address some things regarding new fast-spreading diseases.
Well, what do they know, bunch of hacks. It's always about that grant money and nothing else.


----------



## DiezelMonster

bostjan said:


> If you look at the data I posted yesterday, if you follow the trend as of yesterday's WHO data for the USA, we are looking at 58.5k deaths in our nation, and it'll be 6 weeks before those slow to a trickle. Hopefully something will curb that, but I'm not seeing where the president is coming up with a a hundred thousand to a quarter million in the next two weeks. I know I don't have access to as good of data as he has, but I really don't trust his mathematics skills, either, and I know he tends to mis-speak quite often. Also, I have the sinking feeling that he might be tempted to inflate the predictions by half an order of magnitude, only so that he can later brag about how great of a job he did saving over half the people who were projected to die. Anyway, enough politics...
> 
> My model is an exponentially modified bell curve, the number of deaths "N" on day "d" are
> 
> N = Nmax lambda/2 EXP( (lambda/2) (2mu + lamda sigma² - 2d) ) ERFC( (mu + lambda sigma² - d) / (1.414 sigma) )
> 
> With a starting date of when I started tracking, 20 Jan 2020, d is the number of days past that.
> 
> From statistical analysis:
> 
> sigma = ± 11.6 deaths
> mu = 91.3 days
> 
> From a least squares fit:
> 
> lamda = 2.61
> Nmax = 58500 deaths
> 
> Being that everyone's changes in behaviour around the country are in the data that defines the fit, if the rate of change of those behavioural changes.. changes... then the data will blow up. Needless to say that this is a simplistic function to fit a complex problem, and trying to fit a bell curve to data that's all pre-peak is touchy anyway, this is probably way off, but I think it's still just about the best anyone can do without knowing something about the future.
> 
> There's also the possibility of the curve ringing, that is, the curve we are in now peaks, and starts to decay, then we lift restrictions, and a bigger curve starts superimposing over the smaller curve. In that case, there is no data presently available to make a prediction - but it could be something much more along the lines of 250k.
> 
> What might be a little less predicated on shaky data, though, is the predictive mortality rate, overall, taken by modelling the confirmed infections and the deaths and taking the ratio between the two Nmax values, which is around 5.4%, so 5.4% of the cases with symptoms bad enough to warrant testing, in the USA, will lead to death, unless we develop a better treatment than what we've had the past several weeks. Maybe HCQ along with azrithomycin will work, as long as we don't run out. If 75% or whatever of cases are not getting diagnosed, and 100% of the USA gets infected, that'd be, absolute worst case, 13 million people. So, with no social distancing, no treatment, no lock-downs, no nothing, we could conceivably have a case not that far off from @Cynicanal is saying. But it does appear that the policies in place are doing something for now, and it does look like we might be able to figure out a treatment or two before this gets us all. Best realistic case, the things we are working on continue to improve our chances and we come out of this with only 10k deaths in the USA. I really don't see it being less than that, though, unless we discover a dynamite cure overnight.
> 
> 
> 
> I think we are pretty safe from that thing, at least for the next 5000+ years. But, there's also a superswarm of locusts in Africa right now that could, quite possibly put much of the world into a famine this year, plus, before the Covid-19 pandemic, India and Pakistan were about to nuke each other, which could have led to WWIII, not to mention Iran and Saudi Arabia right next door to that also each standing at their (non-nuclear) missile launch buttons, looking like a couple of kid about to wet their pants...
> 
> The world has never *not *had problems that threatened our way of life, it's just that this one is coming much closer to me (and ostensibly you, if you are reading this within the next two months).




Sorry, which one of these problems is coming much closer to the both of us? having to do the math above? or the comet? or comet of locusts? or comet of locusts that shoot covid from their mouths? a new Rosanne series? I'm just so confused. sorry just trying to have a little fun and blow off steam.


----------



## DiezelMonster

sighval said:


> Will we learn anything as a species tho?
> The effects of climate change will dwarf this corona situation in due time and mitigating them may be a bit harder than developing a vaccine or some new antivirals. We've known of climate-altering properties of CO2 for well over a century now and the scientific community has been pretty clear about what's going to happen if we don't address some of the concerns surrounding that topic - in the same way as the scientific community has been pretty clear about what was going to happen if we didn't address some things regarding new fast-spreading diseases.
> Well, what do they know, bunch of hacks. It's always about that grant money and nothing else.




right, but at what point, since we are WELL passed mitigating these various issues, do we choose one to try and fix? Do they make something like that fancy tape that stops leaks on the late night infomercials to fix climate change or stop the spread of plague? Or do we all collectively deserve this? When do we start praying? is to too soon or too late?

Anyhow I'm just going to go bury my head in sand and wait for all this to blow over.


----------



## bostjan

Cynicanal said:


> The 100k number isn't coming from Trump; he's echoing what Fauci is saying is best-case scenario.



Fauci never said 100k dead was a best-case scenario. He was asked by CNN if "millions of cases" were predicted, and he said that there was a worst-case scenario with 100-200k who would die, but that it was highly unlikely. Of course, the media jumped all over the number and the name and took his comments out of context ( https://www.npr.org/sections/corona...-000-americans-could-die-from-the-coronavirus ) but at any rate, it's not Fauci's model and he doesn't want to be held to it, whatever the model actually predicts.

If you have a source, though, I would love to be corrected. 

But, I mean, I'm giving a broad prediction of very roughly 60k, so 100k is not really that far out of range... 250k is the number Trump had said in instances, and that's too much, I think, unless we do something more irresponsibly than we are doing now or we are facing more mutations or long-term trauma that we don't publicly know about yet.


----------



## bostjan

DiezelMonster said:


> Sorry, which one of these problems is coming much closer to the both of us? having to do the math above? or the comet? or comet of locusts? or comet of locusts that shoot covid from their mouths? a new Rosanne series? I'm just so confused. sorry just trying to have a little fun and blow off steam.



Locusts with fricken laser beams that project Roseanne doing maths.


----------



## Drew

fantom said:


> He probably got this from my post about the 17 year old that died in LA. That's a whole different problem to discuss. It seems to be not as simple as it seems...
> 
> https://time.com/5813731/teen-denied-insurance-coronavirus/


That just brings us back to bostjan's point about extrapolating from too-small data sets.


----------



## DiezelMonster

bostjan said:


> Locusts with fricken laser beams that project Roseanne doing maths.




Just great! Is it to early or too late to start praying?


----------



## Drew

DiezelMonster said:


> Just great! Is it to early or too late to start praying?


Based on how effective prayer has been at stopping gun violence, I'd say neither.


----------



## DiezelMonster

Drew said:


> Based on how effective prayer has been at stopping gun violence, I'd say neither.


----------



## wankerness

bostjan said:


> If you look at the data I posted yesterday, if you follow the trend as of yesterday's WHO data for the USA, we are looking at 58.5k deaths in our nation, and it'll be 6 weeks before those slow to a trickle. Hopefully something will curb that, but I'm not seeing where the president is coming up with a a hundred thousand to a quarter million in the next two weeks. I know I don't have access to as good of data as he has, but I really don't trust his mathematics skills, either, and I know he tends to mis-speak quite often. Also, I have the sinking feeling that he might be tempted to inflate the predictions by half an order of magnitude, only so that he can later brag about how great of a job he did saving over half the people who were projected to die. Anyway, enough politics...
> 
> My model is an exponentially modified bell curve, the number of deaths "N" on day "d" are
> 
> N = Nmax lambda/2 EXP( (lambda/2) (2mu + lamda sigma² - 2d) ) ERFC( (mu + lambda sigma² - d) / (1.414 sigma) )
> 
> With a starting date of when I started tracking, 20 Jan 2020, d is the number of days past that.
> 
> From statistical analysis:
> 
> sigma = ± 11.6 deaths
> mu = 91.3 days
> 
> From a least squares fit:
> 
> lamda = 2.61
> Nmax = 58500 deaths
> 
> Being that everyone's changes in behaviour around the country are in the data that defines the fit, if the rate of change of those behavioural changes.. changes... then the data will blow up. Needless to say that this is a simplistic function to fit a complex problem, and trying to fit a bell curve to data that's all pre-peak is touchy anyway, this is probably way off, but I think it's still just about the best anyone can do without knowing something about the future.
> 
> There's also the possibility of the curve ringing, that is, the curve we are in now peaks, and starts to decay, then we lift restrictions, and a bigger curve starts superimposing over the smaller curve. In that case, there is no data presently available to make a prediction - but it could be something much more along the lines of 250k.
> 
> What might be a little less predicated on shaky data, though, is the predictive mortality rate, overall, taken by modelling the confirmed infections and the deaths and taking the ratio between the two Nmax values, which is around 5.4%, so 5.4% of the cases with symptoms bad enough to warrant testing, in the USA, will lead to death, unless we develop a better treatment than what we've had the past several weeks. Maybe HCQ along with azrithomycin will work, as long as we don't run out. If 75% or whatever of cases are not getting diagnosed, and 100% of the USA gets infected, that'd be, absolute worst case, 13 million people. So, with no social distancing, no treatment, no lock-downs, no nothing, we could conceivably have a case not that far off from @Cynicanal is saying. But it does appear that the policies in place are doing something for now, and it does look like we might be able to figure out a treatment or two before this gets us all. Best realistic case, the things we are working on continue to improve our chances and we come out of this with only 10k deaths in the USA. I really don't see it being less than that, though, unless we discover a dynamite cure overnight.
> 
> 
> 
> I think we are pretty safe from that thing, at least for the next 5000+ years. But, there's also a superswarm of locusts in Africa right now that could, quite possibly put much of the world into a famine this year, plus, before the Covid-19 pandemic, India and Pakistan were about to nuke each other, which could have led to WWIII, not to mention Iran and Saudi Arabia right next door to that also each standing at their (non-nuclear) missile launch buttons, looking like a couple of kid about to wet their pants...
> 
> The world has never *not *had problems that threatened our way of life, it's just that this one is coming much closer to me (and ostensibly you, if you are reading this within the next two months).



I think the predictions for those lower numbers of death and showing peaks in April are all laser focused on the immediate future and missing what happens next. Until something major changes, there’s just going to be a cycle of these peaks over and over until we either mostly are immune or the virus mutates majorly into a wimpier form. If 2% fatality rate in a best case medical attention scenario is accurate, and way over 50% of the country must be infected to gain immunity, then we’re looking at a LOT of death. Alternative is to heavily lockdown states until a vaccine is widely available in 12-18 months or more. My guess is we’re going to see a ton of ebb and flow with lockdowns and deaths and it’s going to be ongoing for several months until truly effective treatments and strategies are developed and the fed starts actually doing something (which won’t happen unless the GOP is voted out, and even then not till January, and my guess is there won’t be enough left of the government’s money to do much by then after Trump and co have donated it all to themselves).


----------



## fantom

Drew said:


> Based on how effective prayer has been at stopping gun violence, I'd say neither.



Maybe it has been effective and we are doing it all wrong. We should pray for more gun violence!

/sarcasm


----------



## possumkiller

MaxOfMetal said:


> Click on the user's avatar, there should be an "ignore" option.


It doesn't really do any good when the bulk of the last twenty pages or so is just everyone's responses to this person.


----------



## thraxil

bostjan said:


> Hopefully something will curb that, but I'm not seeing where the president is coming up with a a hundred thousand to a quarter million in the next two weeks.



I'm certainly not a Trump fan or an alarmist, but I don't think that number is too unreasonable. What they're going on (I assume) is seeing that the current US deaths are at 6k and has been doubling about every three days. If it is still exponential and that continues for two weeks (4-5 doublings), it will be in the 100k range. The hope is that interventions will have begun to slow that down. I'm optimistic that we're seeing the slowdown on infection rate and that the death rate curve will follow it by a few weeks, but I don't think 100k dead in the US in the next few weeks is that crazy.

(Also, I make a point of not actually watching Trump himself speak. I don't know exactly what claims he or Fauci are making; I'm just going on what's been discussed here)


----------



## chopeth

blacai said:


> Then it is also the problem I cannot visit my parents in Spain(even if I wanted to.) where the situation is harder.



I'm with you mate, I can't visit them either and I'm less than 300km from them in the same country. My father is 70 and very inmunologically flawed (every month we take him to hospital for an immunoglobulines treatment) ... if he caught it I might not even be able to say goodbye to him.


----------



## blacai

chopeth said:


> I'm with you mate, I can't visit them either and I'm less than 300km from them in the same country. My father is 70 and very inmunologically flawed (every month we take him to hospital for an immunoglobulines treatment) ... if he caught it I might not even be able to say goodbye to him.


Thanks and keep your spirits up. It's the only thing we can do... 
Hope you and yours do well through this situation. \m/


----------



## bostjan

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-3964(20)30118-3/fulltext


----------



## vilk

bostjan said:


> https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-3964(20)30118-3/fulltext



That's kind of a tricky read for me, but my understanding of it is something like _We think we might know how to start trying to develop a vaccine that might work_


----------



## bostjan

vilk said:


> That's kind of a tricky read for me, but my understanding of it is something like _We think we might know how to start trying to develop a vaccine that might work_


One or two steps further than that. They have developed _and tested_ a vaccine that might work.

It's certainly not the end of the crisis, but it's the most optimistic thing I've seen in weeks.


----------



## sleewell

did anyone catch in the briefing yesterday where they were bragging about sending a large amount of masks to NYC?

with a few follow up questions its was revealed that instead of going to the hospitals they would be placed on the open market to the highest bidder, even overseas.


failure.


----------



## spudmunkey

No, but I saw Babyface Kushner basically tell states "Our stockpile of PPE and equipment isn't for states, it's for 'us'". Well then who the _fuck_ is "us" if it's not the states/US territories that need it?


----------



## sleewell

he is a fucking clown.


----------



## spudmunkey

weird double-post.


----------



## budda

What's this about 3M being ordered not to ship to Canada? Seriously?


----------



## Sumsar

Update from here in Denmark: Number of people in hospitals seems to have stabilized at around 530, so the influx and people getting better is about the same. Still more people are registred as being sick (currently 3500), but we are also testing a lot more, so it makes sense that those numbers are rising. We have about 140 in respirators / ventilators or whatever it is called. Our capacity was announced to be around 1200 (for respirators / ventilators), so it seems we are good for now, atleast until some second wave hits. Total we have about 140 deaths. All people over 50 years old. We are around 5,6 million people and I think we are doing fairly well, though ofc the loss of life is sad.

I have been working from home for what 3 - 4 weeks now? kinda lost track I must admit. No mentions of lay offs yet at all, though I work in the IT financial business so in the long run if smaller banks go down we may have layoffs. For now we have been limited to work 36 hours a week, which is what we are hired for, so no overtime, and they may start forcing people to spend some of their vacation. 
It takes a bit to adjust, but my team is working great. Half of them are in Poland anyway, so we would anyway have to do skype calls to communicate.

I feel sorry for people in the US, with millions of layoffs and thereby no healtinsurance. I know your views on the world is very different than here in Europe, but just maybe this may be a good time to introduce universal tax paid healtcare. You should try it - it is nice not having to worry about that part of life at all - ever.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Sumsar said:


> I know your views on the world is very different than here in Europe, but just maybe this may be a good time to introduce universal tax paid healtcare. You should try it - it is nice not having to worry about that part of life at all - ever.



Well... our country is run by inhumane and incompetent criminals, so...


----------



## spudmunkey

spudmunkey said:


> World wide, we are 2,445 cases away from 1,000,000 confirmed cases
> Worldwide has crossed 50,000 total deaths, with 208,000 recovered.
> US passed 1,000 new deaths in single day yesterday, for the first time.



The next day the US dipped slightly below 1K at 968 deaths. So far we're at 920 for Friday, at 2:30 PST.
7,000 total deaths in the US.
US has basically 25% of the world's total reported cases (24.97%)


----------



## wankerness

When you consider how few people that have it are actually tested in the US, even in the hospital and when they die, it’s hard to compare numbers like that. Though they’re doing the same thing in other countries like Italy and Spain too, just giving up testing cause they don’t have the equipment or especially time when it wouldn’t change how they’re treating the patients.


----------



## spudmunkey

spudmunkey said:


> The next day the US dipped slightly below 1K at 968 deaths. So far we're at 920 for Friday, at 2:30 PST.



Ok, well it's 1 hour later, and we're back over 1,000 deaths in a single day.


----------



## chopeth

High Plains Drifter said:


> Well... our country is run by inhumane and incompetent criminals, so...



I'd rather say generations of humans thoroughly brainwashed in individualism for instance. Are you going to kill the virus with AK-47's? A friend living there told me you run out of them. Buy a weapon and raise your scarf I think is the presidential recommendation.

What can you expect of a country that charges you 20,000$ for an appendicitis (if you spend your convalescence at home and your wife takes care of the scars)?


----------



## bostjan

chopeth said:


> I'd rather say generations of humans thoroughly brainwashed in individualism for instance. Are you going to kill the virus with AK-47's? A friend living there told me you run out of them. Buy a weapon and raise your scarf I think is the presidential recommendation.
> 
> What can you expect of a country that charges you 20,000$ for an appendicitis (if you spend your convalescence at home and your wife takes care of the scars)?



$20k?! No way. Try more like $55-180k


----------



## budda




----------



## zappatton2

budda said:


>


Right?!? WTF?!!


----------



## MaxOfMetal

The best part is that 3M operates manufacturing facilities around the world and has thus far worked with other governments to be able to export the masks to the United States, and if the supply chain is limited to "USA only" we'll actually have less available masks.


----------



## chopeth

bostjan said:


> $20k?! No way. Try more like $55-180k



That's because they didn't have to pay for a hospital bed or after medical care as they went home and the wife checked the scar. It was 20,000$ for sure. Insane


----------



## DiezelMonster

MaxOfMetal said:


> The best part is that 3M operates manufacturing facilities around the world and has thus far worked with other governments to be able to export the masks to the United States, and if the supply chain is limited to "USA only" we'll actually have less available masks.



If there at all was a time to do this..... D'OH!

I'm in Ontario Canada and I heard this news and I just had a deep belly laugh. Is Donnie in fact a true Super Villain? hahah so funny.

Take the fuckin masks, I'll strap a beavers ass to my face.


----------



## thraxil

DiezelMonster said:


> Take the fuckin masks, I'll strap a beavers ass to my face.



That's Canada's answer to everything.


----------



## Merrekof

spudmunkey said:


> Grim...
> 
> https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...0-000-body-bags-pentagon-covid-19/5111412002/


Out here, the local hospitals are placing cooler trucks (those used to transport frozen foods) to keep all the bodies until they can be buried or cremated.
Meanwhile there are more and more people around town who are getting sick and dying. And it is not just the old and sick, a former classmate of mine died last week. She was 31 years old and healthy, needless to say I'm getting worried..


----------



## DiezelMonster

thraxil said:


> That's Canada's answer to everything.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

Gimme that mask buddeh!!!


----------



## Xaios

DiezelMonster said:


> I'm in Ontario Canada and I heard this news and I just had a deep belly laugh.


As much as I despise him otherwise (a fact that's unlikely to change as he is, in essence, a small-time Trump the rest of the time), I will concede that, after the moment that the fact of this disease's severity sunk into his skull, Doug Ford has been doing a pretty good job managing the crisis. Credit where credit is due, unlike the fucking rat-bastard that is Jason Kenney. Alberta is about to get a very big, very rude awakening with the double whammy that is Coronavirus and the price of oil plunging deeper and deeper. It may have come too late, but I'll admit that Doug Ford surprised me by seemingly growing a conscience, at least for the duration of this ordeal.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

Xaios said:


> As much as I despise him otherwise (a fact that's unlikely to change as he is, in essence, a small-time Trump the rest of the time), I will concede that, after the moment that the fact of this disease's severity sunk into his skull, Doug Ford has been doing a pretty good job managing the crisis. Credit where credit is due, unlike the fucking rat-bastard that is Jason Kenney. Alberta is about to get a very big, very rude awakening with the double whammy that is Coronavirus and the price of oil plunging deeper and deeper. It may have come too late, but I'll admit that Doug Ford surprised me by seemingly growing a conscience, at least for the duration of this ordeal.



I agree, I am in no way a Ford guy, but he has acquitted himself fairly well in all of this, almost like if you just have qualified people in place and actually listen to them it's hard to fuck things up.


----------



## zappatton2

Xaios said:


> As much as I despise him otherwise (a fact that's unlikely to change as he is, in essence, a small-time Trump the rest of the time), I will concede that, after the moment that the fact of this disease's severity sunk into his skull, Doug Ford has been doing a pretty good job managing the crisis. Credit where credit is due, unlike the fucking rat-bastard that is Jason Kenney. Alberta is about to get a very big, very rude awakening with the double whammy that is Coronavirus and the price of oil plunging deeper and deeper. It may have come too late, but I'll admit that Doug Ford surprised me by seemingly growing a conscience, at least for the duration of this ordeal.


Agreed all around. The Ford government has been abysmal in everything else they've touched, but like you said, credit where it's due, Ford has surprisingly stepped up.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

So what you guys are saying is that Doug Ford is your Andrew Cuomo? Gotcha.


----------



## DiezelMonster

Xaios said:


> As much as I despise him otherwise (a fact that's unlikely to change as he is, in essence, a small-time Trump the rest of the time), I will concede that, after the moment that the fact of this disease's severity sunk into his skull, Doug Ford has been doing a pretty good job managing the crisis. Credit where credit is due, unlike the fucking rat-bastard that is Jason Kenney. Alberta is about to get a very big, very rude awakening with the double whammy that is Coronavirus and the price of oil plunging deeper and deeper. It may have come too late, but I'll admit that Doug Ford surprised me by seemingly growing a conscience, at least for the duration of this ordeal.




Yeah so far ole Dougie has been redeeming himself, let's hope that he continues down this path.

My belly laugh was for Trump though, not our government.


----------



## budda

MaxOfMetal said:


> The best part is that 3M operates manufacturing facilities around the world and has thus far worked with other governments to be able to export the masks to the United States, and if the supply chain is limited to "USA only" we'll actually have less available masks.



There's a 3M plant near my work, and a buddy's partner works there. I feel like we'd get some masks .

The idea is asinine, but it's not drumpf's first :/.


----------



## Ralyks

Doesn't 3M operate globally? I feel like there's a humanitarian violation on Trumps part there.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Ralyks said:


> Doesn't 3M operate globally? I feel like there's a humanitarian violation on Trumps part there.



The only violation is Trump's math. 

The DPA was envisioned just for a scenario like this, only back in the 50's we still made almost everything here. Now that it's the opposite, we don't really have the authority to force foreign governments to give us products not made on American soil, even if the company is headquartered in the US.


----------



## viifox

I've been doing the math, and the numbers say that if the US continues its 2-3 day doubling rate, then at least 11,200 will be the total number of deaths by the end of the day.

What i assume (and i could be wrong) is that the US doubling rate has been so high due to the overpopulated areas getting hit the hardest. NY, for example. 

I'd like to think that while this virus spreads throughout the US, the death rate will lower, even though the death toll will rise. They say its supposed to peak late April/early May. Perhaps we'll see a death rate decline shortly thereafter.


----------



## blacai

https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1246199405750992900?s=19
So Trump now says it's obama's fault that the US doesn't have proper tests...


----------



## Aso

viifox said:


> I've been doing the math, and the numbers say that if the US continues its 2-3 day doubling rate, then at least 11,200 will be the total number of deaths by the end of the day.
> 
> What i assume (and i could be wrong) is that the US doubling rate has been so high due to the overpopulated areas getting hit the hardest. NY, for example.
> 
> I'd like to think that while this virus spreads throughout the US, the death rate will lower, even though the death toll will rise. They say its supposed to peak late April/early May. Perhaps we'll see a death rate decline shortly thereafter.



That's a good thought but I think as it hits more rural and middle american cities there will be a problem in the hospitals and staff aren't equipped to deal with it. Many rural hospitals have no ICU beds or critical care staff because those cases are usually evac'd out to larger hospitals in bigger cities in the region. This may just overwhelm these few hospitals if people don't follow the recommendations and help mitigate the spread.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Not to mention there is less tracking of the sick and dead in rural communities.


----------



## possumkiller

So this has the potential to wipe out a lot of Democratic voters in dense populated cities.


----------



## ThePIGI King

^According to my realtor, a lot of "city" folk have been snapping up land for sale in my area the last few weeks to try and get out of the city now, or have an escape for if something similar happens in the future.

Kinda bummed as a plot of land I was about to purchase went into contract hours prior to my realtor talking to the land owner.

I hope this doesn't end up driving up land prices, or even worse, making the beautiful country side more town or city-esque.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Interesting read: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacque...ining-are-dying-and-we-are-letting-them-down/


----------



## possumkiller

MaxOfMetal said:


> Interesting read: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacque...ining-are-dying-and-we-are-letting-them-down/


I thought they were an expendable sacrifice fed to the economy much like all the kids we send to die for our freedom in other people's countries? You know, heroes?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

possumkiller said:


> I thought they were an expendable sacrifice fed to the economy much like all the kids we send to die for our freedom in other people's countries? You know, heroes?



No, you're thinking of the "olds", you know, anyone over 40. It's an easy mistake to make.


----------



## possumkiller

MaxOfMetal said:


> No, you're thinking of the "olds", you know, anyone over 40. It's an easy mistake to make.


Man, they are going to have a hard time finding voters if they keep killing off everyone over 40 and under 24...


----------



## MaxOfMetal

possumkiller said:


> Man, they are going to have a hard time finding voters if they keep killing off everyone over 40 and under 24...



Feature, not bug. 

The fewer the voters the better. Maybe even no one will show up.


----------



## possumkiller




----------



## MaxOfMetal

possumkiller said:


> View attachment 79247



I agree with the sentiment in some ways (seizing the means of production and all that jazz, workers taking a stand), but it's a little (lot) more complicated. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vi...s-walk-off-the-job-demand-to-make-ventilators


----------



## Adieu

Merrekof said:


> Out here, the local hospitals are placing cooler trucks (those used to transport frozen foods) to keep all the bodies until they can be buried or cremated.
> Meanwhile there are more and more people around town who are getting sick and dying. And it is not just the old and sick, a former classmate of mine died last week. She was 31 years old and healthy, needless to say I'm getting worried..



Damn... so, sh!t really IS hitting the fan big time? What's the verdict?

Somehow this SSO thread has become my most trusted source of news updates


----------



## thraxil

OK, the conspiracy theories are all fun and games until they start fucking with my internet connection: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...ttacked-amid-5g-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory


----------



## Adieu

thraxil said:


> OK, the conspiracy theories are all fun and games until they start fucking with my internet connection: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...ttacked-amid-5g-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory



April 1 gone viral horribly wrong?

Or fake news about fake news?


----------



## Shoeless_jose

The guardian is real news...


----------



## Merrekof

Adieu said:


> Damn... so, sh!t really IS hitting the fan big time? What's the verdict?
> 
> Somehow this SSO thread has become my most trusted source of news updates


At this moment, I'm talking for the region I live in, it is 'sort of' under control. Hospitals managed to install extra ICU's so they aren't overwhelmed. Two hospitals here are full so they are advising sick people to go to other hospitals in this area.

Meanwhile there are lots of people dying, you see a lot more obituaries in newspapers. Not just old people, also 40, 30, 20 year olds. Even a 12 year old kid without other health issues. (...that they knew of)

People have changed, everyone is an introvert al of a sudden..


----------



## sleewell

2 ppl have died in my county. Detroit is way worse.


----------



## sleewell

https://apnews.com/090600c299a8cf07f5b44d92534856bc

*U.S. ‘wasted’ months before preparing for virus pandemic*


any one of these things would have the gop screaming from the roof tops if the black guy had done them. let your hypocrisy really flow as you defend the current administrations complete bumbling of this situation.


----------



## ThePIGI King

Found this, cuious as to yalls thoughts.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/first...rgbXyhha4a5VLX6G4I7Jh7JrRGol9Gq6hoGG_dV1qcRlg

EDIT: Don't believe I saw this floating in here yet either.

https://www.contagionlive.com/news/results-from-a-controlled-trial-of-hydroxychloroquine-for-covid19

Mass hysreria is the real enemy.

Double edit:
Also, I won't mass post these, so here's one of them. This guy in this one isn't the most intelligent sounding, but he shows just how overwhelmed Chicago is


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> Found this, cuious as to yalls thoughts.
> 
> https://www.globalresearch.ca/first...rgbXyhha4a5VLX6G4I7Jh7JrRGol9Gq6hoGG_dV1qcRlg
> 
> EDIT: Don't believe I saw this floating in here yet either.
> 
> https://www.contagionlive.com/news/results-from-a-controlled-trial-of-hydroxychloroquine-for-covid19
> 
> Mass hysreria is the real enemy.
> 
> Double edit:
> Also, I won't mass post these, so here's one of them. This guy in this one isn't the most intelligent sounding, but he shows just how overwhelmed Chicago is




I wouldn't hang my hat on a 62 subject, five day, non-peer reviewed "study" in China.

The article itself admits to that:

_"In addition to the small size of this trial, the unspecified components of the hospital standard treatment and its variance between patients confounds assessment of the effect of hydroxychloroquine, particularly on whether it lessened severity given the small number of patients who experienced a worsening course. Also, excluding severe illness from study entry leaves the effect of hydroxychloroquine on severe symptoms an open question."_

Translation: it's pretty much a toss up until any of the full trials progress and a peer reviewed.

As for the hospitals, it's important to understand that not all hospitals are the same. Right now, it's hospitals with certain emergency room capabilities that are seeing significant upticks in traffic, and even then, it's hospitals in specific areas.

Right now, Chicago (and greater Cook County) has ~5000 cases. That's an order of magnitude less than places like NYC, so it's understandable that they're not facing the same levels of crowding.

To put that in perspective, NY has had almost as many deaths.

I'm not really touching that first article. If you look into the history of that publication and it's founders/staff it's validity is specious at best, being run by The Centre for Research on Globalization, a right wing anti-"globalization" conspiracy theory hub.


----------



## ThePIGI King

MaxOfMetal said:


> I wouldn't hang my hat on a 62 subject, five day, non-peer reviewed "study" in China.
> 
> The article itself admits to that:
> 
> _"In addition to the small size of this trial, the unspecified components of the hospital standard treatment and its variance between patients confounds assessment of the effect of hydroxychloroquine, particularly on whether it lessened severity given the small number of patients who experienced a worsening course. Also, excluding severe illness from study entry leaves the effect of hydroxychloroquine on severe symptoms an open question."_
> 
> Translation: it's pretty much a toss up until any of the full trials progress and a peer reviewed.
> 
> As for the hospitals, it's important to understand that not all hospitals are the same. Right now, it's hospitals with certain emergency room capabilities that are seeing significant upticks in traffic, and even then, it's hospitals in specific areas.
> 
> Right now, Chicago (and greater Cook County) has ~5000 cases. That's an order of magnitude less than places like NYC, so it's understandable that they're not facing the same levels of crowding.
> 
> To put that in perspective, NY has had almost as many deaths.
> 
> I'm not really touching that first article. If you look into the history of that publication and it's founders/staff it's validity is specious at best, being run by The Centre for Research on Globalization, a right wing anti-"globalization" conspiracy theory hub.


Yes, but you have to take in news from the right sided media and left sided. Listening only to news from people who only support one side and taking it in as true is stupid. Neither left nor right probably reports the truth fully, due to their political motivations. The truth likely falls somewhere between.

As for the drug:


France likes it. And honestly, if people are so scared it's worth trying since it has been successful. Better to try it than deny it and do nothing.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> Yes, but you have to take in news from the right sided media and left sided. Listening only to news from people who only support one side and taking it in as true is stupid. Neither left nor right probably reports the truth fully, due to their political motivations. The truth likely falls somewhere between.
> 
> As for the drug:
> 
> 
> France likes it. And honestly, if people are so scared it's worth trying since it has been successful. Better to try it than deny it and do nothing.




Nah. You don't have to "pick sides". You go with the sources that are independently verified and properly vetted. Stay away from editorial stuff, and don't just accept an article on source because it supports "your side".

There are plenty of centrist and traditionally conservative sources that are worth reading (I read The WSJ fairly regularly, and drop in on The Examiner sometimes) that is, objectively, not one of them.

I'm not sure what you're going on about with the Hydroxychloroquine argument. It's currently in trials, legitimate ones that will be big enough and peer reviewed, and we're all sort of waiting to see the results. I, and most, are waiting for the data before giving unproven treatment to human beings all willy-nilly.

Is it just because Trump is defending it?


----------



## sleewell

why didnt trump let dr. fauci answer the question on this topic yesterday? 


he came off like a 2 yr old there for sure.


----------



## ThePIGI King

MaxOfMetal said:


> Nah. You don't have to "pick sides". You go with the sources that are independently verified and properly vetted. Stay away from editorial stuff, and don't just accept an article on source because it supports "your side".
> 
> There are plenty of centrist and traditionally conservative sources that are worth reading (I read The WSJ fairly regularly, and drop in on The Examiner sometimes) that is, objectively, not one of them.
> 
> I'm not sure what you're going on about with the Hydroxychloroquine argument. It's currently in trials, legitimate ones that will be big enough and peer reviewed, and we're all sort of waiting to see the results. I, and most, are waiting for the data before giving unproven treatment to human beings all willy-nilly.
> 
> Is it just because Trump is defending it?


I haven't been watching or reading the political BS involved with this crap. I'm behind it simply because it seems to be working. If something that President Trump detested was the absolute cure I'd be behind that too.

I simply can't stand that the world has become what it has due to this. It's ridiculous really. I'm about as worried about COVID as I am being bitten by a shark in Ohio. And I think people who are losing their minds and acting as if this is the worst thing in even my lifetime are overdramatic and out of touch with reality. But that's just this heartless guy  

As for unproven and willy nilly, we can ask France here in a couple weeks.

@sleewell I don't watch Trump or anything political especially right now. Just because I don't actively attack him like you do doesn't mean I worship him. He's the President and so it is what it is. I never said he's perfect. Nobody is. Reading your posts makes it seem like he has personally harmed you. Chill out man.


----------



## wankerness

So, the US numbers are now less reliable than China's. Florida is barely testing anyone. Reports all over the place of people being refused tests cause they were too young, or cause the city was adhering to a federal mandate that they not test more than 250 people a day, etc. I’m sure it’s like that in many states. But, yeah. We’re already the worst in the world even with extreme testing suppression going on.

Trump didn’t let him answer cause he would have said THERE’S NO SOLID EVIDENCE IT WORKS (like he has said every time) when Trump just wants to give false hope so he can send people back to work so his hotels can make money. His dipshit economist is telling the country it works and that Fauci is wrong. Obviously he’s more qualified than a medical doctor.

based on what I’ve read, it does work to some degree - but ONLY if it’s administered BEFORE the case gets severe. Since everyone’s told to stay home until things get severe, it’s worthless for us. It basically won’t help once things are bad.


----------



## Randy

wankerness said:


> *THERE’S NO SOLID EVIDENCE IT WORK*
> ....
> based on what I’ve read, it does work to some degree - but ONLY if it’s administered BEFORE the case gets severe. Since everyone’s told to stay home until things get severe, it’s worthless for us. It basically won’t help once things are bad.



Bolded for emphasis because the media using that phrasing is fueling conspiracy theory and false hope, not rebutting it.

I read a few articles about it as well, and yeah that's the general consensus but the more specifics say basically there was ONE poorly translated French test that showed it was effective. Meanwhile, that test was primarily younger, healthier people earlier in the process, and it did things like highlighting lack of fever, pneumonia, etc. except those same people didn't HAVE those symptoms before they took the drug anyway.

Five to six similarly scaled trials showed literally no difference versus without it. And a lot of people say "well what do you have to lose?" well ALSO underreported and not easily assumed when the blanket position is "not proven to work" is that it can cause chest tightness and trouble breathing. So if you DON'T have the most severe coronavirus symptoms, don't worry, it might give them to you. And if you DO have them, it might compound them with zero evidence it'll help you at all.

Trump and his guys are fucking shameful in their pushing of this, but the media constantly rebutting it with "you shouldn't say that because it hasn't been proven" is far far FAR insufficient in explain this to people.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> I haven't been watching or reading the political BS involved with this crap. I'm behind it simply because it seems to be working. If something that President Trump detested was the absolute cure I'd be behind that too.
> 
> I simply can't stand that the world has become what it has due to this. It's ridiculous really. I'm about as worried about COVID as I am being bitten by a shark in Ohio. And I think people who are losing their minds and acting as if this is the worst thing in even my lifetime are overdramatic and out of touch with reality. But that's just this heartless guy
> 
> As for unproven and willy nilly, we can ask France here in a couple weeks.
> 
> @sleewell I don't watch Trump or anything political especially right now. Just because I don't actively attack him like you do doesn't mean I worship him. He's the President and so it is what it is. I never said he's perfect. Nobody is. Reading your posts makes it seem like he has personally harmed you. Chill out man.



That's sort of the point though, all evidence of certain drugs (Hydroxychloroquine is one, other retrovirals are being tested as well) working on COVID19 is anecdotal. We're all just waiting for the data. Folks can be sick for weeks, even months, so the process is slow. Painfully slow. I understand not having patience, but the process is like this for a reason: to get good data and a methodology that leads to conclusions that are scientifically supported.


----------



## ThePIGI King

MaxOfMetal said:


> That's sort of the point though, all evidence of certain drugs (Hydroxychloroquine is one, other retrovirals are being tested as well) working on COVID19 is anecdotal. We're all just waiting for the data. Folks can be sick for weeks, even months, so the process is slow. Painfully slow. I understand not having patience, but the process is like this for a reason: to get good data and a methodology that leads to conclusions that are scientifically supported.


And while that makes total sense, to wait for enough solid data, I also kind of see it being beneficial to giving it to patients now as well. Simply because as of now it seems to be one of the better and *more* "proven" treatments.

It almost feels like proactive versus reactive. And generally I prefer to be the former. But what you say makes sense. And you're right, I have little patience


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> And while that makes total sense, to wait for enough solid data, I also kind of see it being beneficial to giving it to patients now as well. Simply because as of now it seems to be one of the better and *more* "proven" treatments.
> 
> It almost feels like proactive versus reactive. And generally I prefer to be the former. But what you say makes sense. And you're right, I have little patience



So to be clear, is COVID19 not a big deal/nothing to worry about, or something worth trying potentially deadly/harmful experimental treatment on without proper testing because it's such a big deal/something to worry about?


----------



## sleewell

"i don't really pay attention to anything that is happening but here is my opinion where i repeat talking points and try to sound knowledgeable..."


forgive me if i stop reading posts that start with anything resembling the above. you don't get to throw your kool aid drinking answer in the ring if you preface it with your admission of purposely not paying attention to avoid being embarrassed by your cult leader.


----------



## ThePIGI King

MaxOfMetal said:


> So to be clear, is COVID19 not a big deal/nothing to worry about, or something worth trying potentially deadly/harmful experimental treatment on without proper testing because it's such a big deal/something to worry about?


If I was one of the people who thought it was a big deal I'd be all over any possible treatment. But no, I personally don't think it's an issue.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> If I was one of the people who thought it was a big deal I'd be all over any possible treatment. But no, I personally don't think it's an issue.



Then why support potentially dangerous, scientifically unproven drug therapies?


----------



## ThePIGI King

MaxOfMetal said:


> Then why support potentially dangerous, scientifically unproven drug therapies?


So that the portion of the world that is in panic mode can chill out and the world can go back to normal.

Just because I think this disease isn't a big deal doesn't mean I'm not effected by the fallout of people having to stay at home and businesses being shut down. Know how hard it is to buy ammo, especially at the prices they used to be? I normally shoot nearly every weekend but it's getting too expensive to do that now. Not worth it.

Plus, I can't go to the gym, can't go to the movies, can't go on a nice date out with the GF. The economy is taking a nose dive due to this. Just because I think people are overreacting doesn't mean I don't get effected by a "cure" being found quickly. The sooner people get a "cure" or vaccine or whatever, the sooner we all go back to work and have the economy stabalize and pick up and continue life as should be.


----------



## diagrammatiks

ya man. Almost no comics came out last week. All movies I wanna see are pushed back. and the the output of Japanese pornography has decreased considerably.

I'm with pigi. 

everyone back to work.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> So that the portion of the world that is in panic mode can chill out and the world can go back to normal.
> 
> Just because I think this disease isn't a big deal doesn't mean I'm not effected by the fallout of people having to stay at home and businesses being shut down. Know how hard it is to buy ammo, especially at the prices they used to be? I normally shoot nearly every weekend but it's getting too expensive to do that now. Not worth it.
> 
> Plus, I can't go to the gym, can't go to the movies, can't go on a nice date out with the GF. The economy is taking a nose dive due to this. Just because I think people are overreacting doesn't mean I don't get effected by a "cure" being found quickly. The sooner people get a "cure" or vaccine or whatever, the sooner we all go back to work and have the economy stabalize and pick up and continue life as should be.



So we should fast track a potentially harmful/deadly medical treatment?

Again, even the most optimistic (which again, are small, anecdotal, and not peer reviewed) sources say it cuts a couple days off of treatment.

There is no "cure". You don't really "cure" viruses.

Everyone in here wants things "back to normal". I get it. But there's no silver bullet.


----------



## spudmunkey

US has his 10K deaths.

When looking at "death vs recovered", we're still clocking in at just under 50% "recovered".


----------



## MaxOfMetal

spudmunkey said:


> US has his 10K deaths.
> 
> When looking at "death vs recovered", we're still clocking in at just under 50% "recovered".



Early on, stories of recovery taking several weeks and even months were reported, so it's probably going to be awhile before those numbers hit some form of parity, though it's not like those numbers are absolute. There are probably many who caught it early on and recovered, or passed, without testing taking place, even currently.


----------



## possumkiller

spudmunkey said:


> US has his 10K deaths.
> 
> When looking at "death vs recovered", we're still clocking in at just under 50% "recovered".


Really? So have more Americans died because of Trump than in the War on Terror? I haven't been keeping track but the last time I had checked the WoT body count for us was somewhere between 5-6k.


----------



## ThePIGI King

MaxOfMetal said:


> So we should fast track a potentially harmful/deadly medical treatment?
> 
> Again, even the most optimistic (which again, are small, anecdotal, and not peer reviewed) sources say it cuts a couple days off of treatment.
> 
> There is no "cure". You don't really "cure" viruses.
> 
> Everyone in here wants things "back to normal". I get it. But there's no silver bullet.


How many studies proven it to be harmful vs the studies to show it help?


----------



## TedEH

How many studies have proven that you, specifically you, will die, if you jump off a cliff?

Edit: Yeah, sorry that was dumb. But at the same time....


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> How many studies proven it to be harmful vs the studies to show it help?



It's an immunosuppresant. The risks of that class of drugs is fairly well understood.

It weakens your immune system as a function to either fight systemic conditions like lupus, or as an anti-parasitic to fight the protozoa that causes malaria.

So you risk secondary infection, and for someone who is already fighting a serious condition you could leave them vulnerable.

The article you linked earlier, your own source, points to nearly as many worsening during treatment, but again, it's not a great study to go by.

Drugs like this are also counter-indicative of vaccines, which are the primary treatment for viruses.

But we don't know exactly what's going to happen, so we need to see how these studies play out.

These aren't over the counter NSAIDs, these are powerful drugs that you can't just give to people to see what happens.


----------



## spudmunkey

possumkiller said:


> Really? So have more Americans died because of Trump than in the War on Terror?



Keep in mind that there likely would have been deaths with "perfect" action from any president.


----------



## Drew

ThePIGI King said:


> And while that makes total sense, to wait for enough solid data, I also kind of see it being beneficial to giving it to patients now as well. Simply because as of now it seems to be one of the better and *more* "proven" treatments.
> 
> It almost feels like proactive versus reactive. And generally I prefer to be the former. But what you say makes sense. And you're right, I have little patience


One, it's NOT proven, outside of the alluded-to too-small-to-be-reliable trial. 

Two, hydroxychloroquine is lethal in quantities of as little as two grams, and there have already been reports of people self-dosing themselves on this stuff and dying, because they were afraid they MIGHT have been exposed to coronavirus. Playing doctor without knowing WTF you're doing, as it happens is pretty dangerous. 

Three: 


ThePIGI King said:


> Yes, but you have to take in news from the right sided media and left sided. Listening only to news from people who only support one side and taking it in as true is stupid. Neither left nor right probably reports the truth fully, due to their political motivations. The truth likely falls somewhere between.


...when one side is peer-reviewed science and expert medical opinion, and the other is some story your Aunty Betty forwarded you that she saw on some internet site, you trust science. 

Is this interesting and worth pursuing in a controlled scientific experiment? Sure. Is it a great excuse to have the occasional gin and tonic in the meantime? G&Ts are always a good choice. Is this the silver bullet cure to coronavirus? Almost certainly not, and acting like it is is going to get a lot of people killed. 

Also, our resident cynical wunderkid seems to have dropped off the radar, but new cases have been slowing in the Greater Boston and Greater New York City area, and the rate of growth is coming in slower in the less-ravaged areas that adopted social distancing before coronavirus reallly hit them than it did in hard-hit areas before we broke out the shelter in place orders. There's a growing body of evidence that, no matter how much certain members here want to see the world burn, social distancing measures ARE making a significant difference in outcomes. 

https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion...0200402-rdbef5dmxrbmdcbzcjs73acte4-story.html


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Well that was a fucking journey.


----------



## JSanta

That was a trip Max!


----------



## vilk

Bill Mitchell should free himself from his mortal coil


----------



## sleewell

that series of asinine tweets escalated very quickly!


----------



## KnightBrolaire

watching nonmedical people act like they know what they're talking about has been the most entertainment I've had in the last few days.
everybody needs to stay in their own lanes


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> How many studies proven it to be harmful vs the studies to show it help?



Relevant: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ne...loroquine-covid-19-side-effects-1496368?amp=1


----------



## possumkiller

spudmunkey said:


> Keep in mind that there likely would have been deaths with "perfect" action from any president.


No doubt. However, in the US there will be far more than were necessary. Not only because of Trump and other political and corporate douchebaggery and dumbfuckery, but because the American system has been a rotten to the core for decades while people keep painting pretty facades over it.


----------



## possumkiller

My friends and I felt exactly the same when people would call us heroes and thank us for our service. I can't stand that shit.


----------



## spudmunkey

Borin Johnson taken to intensive care.

Also, goddamn you, The Onion...
https://www.theonion.com/boris-john...AV8MdDFxNF5qMzR5iqmktTCnaAxfnn7RjXA040nfQ13mU

"*Boris Johnson Released From Hospital After Defunding It, Shutting It Down*"


----------



## MaxOfMetal

spudmunkey said:


> Borin Johnson taken to intensive care.
> 
> Also, goddamn you, The Onion...
> https://www.theonion.com/boris-john...AV8MdDFxNF5qMzR5iqmktTCnaAxfnn7RjXA040nfQ13mU
> 
> "*Boris Johnson Released From Hospital After Defunding It, Shutting It Down*"



The Onion has been on-fucking-point.


----------



## Cynicanal

I see my posts are getting deleted now, but for those who think that things are returning to normal any time remotely soon:
https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/03...rus-disruptions-will-last-health-experts-say/



> Philanthropist Bill Gates warned in an appearance on “CBS This Morning” on Thursday that things like lifting bans on mass gatherings — public meetings or concerts — could be quite a way down the road.
> 
> Some activities, like reopening schools, might be deemed low risk and of societal benefit, Gates said. But mass gatherings “may be, in a certain sense, more optional.” Until large numbers of people can be vaccinated against the virus “those may not come back at all,” he said.
> 
> Though vaccine development is proceeding at a historic pace, in a best-case scenario a product won’t be available for the general public for at least 18 months, and likely longer. Early supplies, which will be limited, would be used to protect health workers.
> 
> [...]
> 
> “We’re at the front end of what will be a pretty arduous few years of something. What the something looks like, we don’t fully know,” said Konyndyk. “But I think our best case scenario is we can pull off what South Korea seems to be managing, which is get the curve down. And our job is going to be much bigger than theirs was. … Dramatically bigger.”


Are you ready for every single social event to be cancelled for literally _years_? Do you think society is going to be A-OK at the end of this? We're looking at _multiple years_ of isolation. How long do you think you're going to be able to keep going under these kinds of conditions?


----------



## Drew

Cynicanal said:


> I see my posts are getting deleted now, but for those who think that things are returning to normal any time remotely soon:
> https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/03...rus-disruptions-will-last-health-experts-say/
> 
> 
> Are you ready for every single social event to be cancelled for literally _years_? Do you think society is going to be A-OK at the end of this? We're looking at _multiple years_ of isolation. How long do you think you're going to be able to keep going under these kinds of conditions?


...so the right course of action here is to just say "damn the torpedoes!" and run up the death count in the short run? 

There's growing evidence that containment measures are working. We've already cut the doubling time in half and we're just at the leading edge of where we should start to see results, a couple weeks into this. NYC hospitals are still only at half capacity and we're buying them time to get half as many again beds online. We're seeing tangible, concrete evidence that we're making progress here. 

I have no idea why you're so invested in arguing we should do nothing and run up the body count, but considering hundreds of thousands to millions of people would die if we had it your way, that's _inhumanly _callous.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Cynicanal said:


> I see my posts are getting deleted now, but for those who think that things are returning to normal any time remotely soon:
> https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/03...rus-disruptions-will-last-health-experts-say/
> 
> 
> Are you ready for every single social event to be cancelled for literally _years_? Do you think society is going to be A-OK at the end of this? We're looking at _multiple years_ of isolation. How long do you think you're going to be able to keep going under these kinds of conditions?



Posts referencing suicidal ideation will not be left on the open forum. It's been against policy since this site was created. If you need help it's available here: 1-800-273-8255

It's free and anonymous. No one would blame you. These are troubling times and it's only natural to have certain thoughts and feelings. 

But don't take my word for it. Just give it a try.


----------



## spudmunkey

Why do you think people would listen to what bill gates has to say about a viral pandemic now? We didn't in 2015.


----------



## budda

Cynicanal said:


> I see my posts are getting deleted now, but for those who think that things are returning to normal any time remotely soon:
> https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/03...rus-disruptions-will-last-health-experts-say/
> 
> 
> Are you ready for every single social event to be cancelled for literally _years_? Do you think society is going to be A-OK at the end of this? We're looking at _multiple years_ of isolation. How long do you think you're going to be able to keep going under these kinds of conditions?



Wait, you think society was a-ok?

Your privilege is showing.


----------



## ThePIGI King

budda said:


> Wait, you think society was a-ok?
> 
> Your privilege is showing.


While I agree society has never been perfect, nor do I think it will ever be, why do you say his "privilege is showing"?


----------



## bostjan

The model I posted several pages back for spread in the USA is still holding up quite close between predicted and confirmed cases. If it continues to be correct, we have about a week before confirmed cases start slowly subsiding.

After that, the tail end of the outbreak will take a lot longer than the front end. I would be surprised if our government doesn't jump the gun and end up causing this thing to flare up again, based on all of the half-baked rhetoric so far.

If we err on the side of caution, though, we're still looking at months of social distancing and it's going to stress the economy to the breaking point.

But as I've said a few times, the value of your own health should be higher than the value of your financial stability.

I think we are facing a sort of catch-22. All of the reasonable models I've seen have predicted this would be much much worse if we just "let it rip," leading to hundreds of thousands or even close to a million deaths. Since we used those models to predict how to avoid that, by using social distancing and shutting down everything non-essential, and that worked, all of the "conspiracy" folks out there are going to point at the numbers that were as-predicted and shout, at the tops of their (covid-19-free) lungs that the models were wrong and that we over-reacted and sacrificed too much to save too few people.

So, yeah, I don't know. I guess this whole thing has done nothing to restore my faith in humanity. I, personally, hope to be able to look back on this year, at all, but, if I can, from a relatively disease-free future, I will think about just how much science and mathematics was poised to save the day and how ignorance and greedy people tried their best to sabotage everything.


----------



## Drew

So it turns out one of the largest makers of hydroxychloroquine paid Michael Cohen for "health care policy insights" aka access to Trump, after his election. 

https://lawandcrime.com/covid-19-pa...ccess-to-trump/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Shock. Awe.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Since we used those models to predict how to avoid that, by using social distancing and shutting down everything non-essential, and that worked, all of the "conspiracy" folks out there are going to point at the numbers that were as-predicted and shout, at the tops of their (covid-19-free) lungs that the models were wrong and that we over-reacted and sacrificed too much to save too few people.


Eh, I think those guys can go pound sand, and if they had even a _shred_ of intellectual honest, they'd probably agree. 

Remember when this was just on the horizon, and those same conspiracy folks kept saying "the flu kills 20,000 people a year, this has only killed dozens, what's the big deal?!" As of today, we have 10,000 deaths in the US, in a span of roughly two months, the vast majority of which occurring in the last 30 days. We'll be insanely lucky if we get out of this with as few as 20,000 deaths, and Trump - "there will be zero cases in a few weeks" - yes, that Trump - is now saying any outcome with fewer than 100,000 fatalities is a "win." 

At this point, we've already blown past the conspiracy theorists' "it's not a big deal" projections and we're on track for a fatality count thats going to exceed the flu, possibly by a sizable multiple, WITH the kind of shelter in place measures that conspiracy nutjobs are bitching about being totally unnecessary because 'it's just the flu." At this point, arguing that this was an overreaction involves lying to yourself, plain and simple.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

tesla is going to start making ventilators


----------



## narad

Like those submarines they built for the Thai rescue?


----------



## jaxadam

Drew said:


> Eh, I think those guys can go pound sand, and if they had even a _shred_ of intellectual honest, they'd probably agree.
> 
> Remember when this was just on the horizon, and those same conspiracy folks kept saying "the flu kills 20,000 people a year, this has only killed dozens, what's the big deal?!" As of today, we have 10,000 deaths in the US, in a span of roughly two months, the vast majority of which occurring in the last 30 days. We'll be insanely lucky if we get out of this with as few as 20,000 deaths, and Trump - "there will be zero cases in a few weeks" - yes, that Trump - is now saying any outcome with fewer than 100,000 fatalities is a "win."
> 
> At this point, we've already blown past the conspiracy theorists' "it's not a big deal" projections and we're on track for a fatality count thats going to exceed the flu, possibly by a sizable multiple, WITH the kind of shelter in place measures that conspiracy nutjobs are bitching about being totally unnecessary because 'it's just the flu." At this point, arguing that this was an overreaction involves lying to yourself, plain and simple.



The flu kills 291,000 to 646,000 worldwide a year, and 61,000 in the US in 2018. The CDC estimates that this season alone, as of mid-March, 29,000 to 59,000 have died.


----------



## ThePIGI King

KnightBrolaire said:


> watching nonmedical people act like they know what they're talking about has been the most entertainment I've had in the last few days.
> everybody needs to stay in their own lanes


Yea, I'm no expert at just about anything, especially science! Except maybe the science of shred at this point.

https://twitter.com/hashtag/filmmyhospital?src=hash

Pretty interesting as my earlier mention to this got shut down. Here's some of NYC and Houston. And well...all over.


----------



## budda

ThePIGI King said:


> While I agree society has never been perfect, nor do I think it will ever be, why do you say his "privilege is showing"?



Google definitions for white privilege, systemic racism, gaslighting, and emotional labour.


----------



## ThePIGI King

budda said:


> Google definitions for white privilege, systemic racism, gaslighting, and emotional labour.


And his comment displayed that in what way?


----------



## KnightBrolaire

ThePIGI King said:


> Yea, I'm no expert at just about anything, especially science! Except maybe the science of shred at this point.
> 
> https://twitter.com/hashtag/filmmyhospital?src=hash
> 
> Pretty interesting as my earlier mention to this got shut down. Here's some of NYC and Houston. And well...all over.


ah yes because the outside of a hospital somehow indicates what's going on inside. some morons will try to turn everything into a hoax. I personally know nurses in chicago, washington,ny and other states that are getting slammed with patients day in and day out.
I know a nurse in chicago that's dealing with a 15:1 patient to staff ratio ( which is insane)


----------



## narad

Cynicanal said:


> Are you ready for every single social event to be cancelled for literally _years_? Do you think society is going to be A-OK at the end of this? We're looking at _multiple years_ of isolation. How long do you think you're going to be able to keep going under these kinds of conditions?



If we're looking at multiple years of these posts, not long. Is this the new normal?


----------



## jaxadam

KnightBrolaire said:


> ah yes because the outside of a hospital somehow indicates what's going on inside. some morons will try to turn everything into a hoax. I personally know nurses in chicago, washington,ny and other states that are getting slammed with patients day in and day out.
> I know a nurse in chicago that's dealing with a 15:1 patient to staff ratio ( which is insane)



I heard they were going around taking temperatures, and some they had to do rectally. The nurse would pull the thermometer out and dip it in alcohol. They got to the next guy and he said "no way you're sticking that in my mouth" and she said "sir this is 99% alcohol" and he said "yeah, but that's 100% asshole!"


----------



## KnightBrolaire

jaxadam said:


> I heard they were going around taking temperatures, and some they had to do rectally. The nurse would pull the thermometer out and dip it in alcohol. They got to the next guy and he said "no way you're sticking that in my mouth" and she said "sir this is 99% alcohol" and he said "yeah, but that's 100% asshole!"



ask @USMarine75 about the silver bullet
some time


----------



## jaxadam

KnightBrolaire said:


> ask @USMarine75 about the silver bullet
> some time



Don't ask, don't tell


----------



## StevenC

jaxadam said:


> The flu kills 291,000 to 646,000 worldwide a year, and 61,000 in the US in 2018. The CDC estimates that this season alone, as of mid-March, 29,000 to 59,000 have died.


USA has less than 5% of the world's population, but 10% of the world's flu deaths? Damn, you guys must have some sort of health care issues over there.

For what it's worth, covid19 has killed almost 6000 people in the UK, which is several times the annual flu death figure.


----------



## narad

StevenC said:


> USA has less than 5% of the world's population, but 10% of the world's flu deaths? Damn, you guys must have some sort of health care issues over there.
> 
> For what it's worth, covid19 has killed almost 6000 people in the UK, which is several times the annual flu death figure.



That's just because you guys with nationalized heathcare are constantly killing off your own with the substandard service that comes with not financially incentivizing healthcare innovation. We regularly keep our weaklings alive with superior healthcare, and only in these one-off events do we prune them away, inflating the current deaths figure. It's what Ayn Rand would have wanted.


----------



## jaxadam

StevenC said:


> For what it's worth, covid19 has killed almost 6000 people in the UK, which is several times the annual flu death figure.



"The average number of *deaths* in *England* for the last five flu seasons, 2014/15 to 2018/19, was 17,000 *deaths* annually.

https://assets.publishing.service.g...ly_national_influenza_report_week_52_2019.pdf


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> Yea, I'm no expert at just about anything, especially science! Except maybe the science of shred at this point.
> 
> https://twitter.com/hashtag/filmmyhospital?src=hash
> 
> Pretty interesting as my earlier mention to this got shut down. Here's some of NYC and Houston. And well...all over.



There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding here of how hospitals work and what COVID19 looks like.

There are no visitors allowed, no non-essential staff, and no elective procedures being performed. Those with non-critical medical issues are being told to not go to the hospital. They're even instructing paramedic units to not take certain cases to hospitals.

The issue isn't that the physical buildings are overrun, it's specific resources that are being outpaced: PPE/BSI, nursing staff, ventilators and the associated ICU beds.

So the hospital itself has potentially fewer people in it, but we don't have the specific resources to treat the folks that are there.

This isn't a mass trauma incident. It's a slow burn.



jaxadam said:


> The flu kills 291,000 to 646,000 worldwide a year, and 61,000 in the US in 2018. The CDC estimates that this season alone, as of mid-March, 29,000 to 59,000 have died.



At the current pace, we'll blow past the 2018 (the particularly bad H3N2 year) numbers and the high estimate for the current year (which is actually data starting in October of 2019)in about two months. Just going by reported JHU numbers (around 1000 a day for the last seven days).

That's on top of existing flu deaths, which are likely going to be very high as well given the stress on the healthcare network.

It's worth mentioning that there's no official tracking of flu deaths, which is why the estimates vary considerably.

More info: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm


----------



## StevenC

jaxadam said:


> "The average number of *deaths* in *England* for the last five flu seasons, 2014/15 to 2018/19, was 17,000 *deaths* annually.
> 
> https://assets.publishing.service.g...ly_national_influenza_report_week_52_2019.pdf


You see, you chose 61,000 deaths in 2018 in the USA, so I chose to comment in the same good faith as you and pick a year that benefited my argument where there were 1700 deaths in 18/19.


----------



## jaxadam

StevenC said:


> You see, you chose 61,000 deaths in 2018 in the USA, so I chose to comment in the same good faith as you and pick a year that benefited my argument where there were 1700 deaths in 18/19.



I generally don’t converse with people who explicitly choose outliers to prove an otherwise unfounded point, ignoring historical trends and averages, especially while accusing me of using similar methodology. Enjoy the rest of your Covid season residing on my ignore list.


----------



## possumkiller

spudmunkey said:


> Borin Johnson taken to intensive care.
> 
> Also, goddamn you, The Onion...
> https://www.theonion.com/boris-john...AV8MdDFxNF5qMzR5iqmktTCnaAxfnn7RjXA040nfQ13mU
> 
> "*Boris Johnson Released From Hospital After Defunding It, Shutting It Down*"


Isn't he like literally the guy that just told the UK he was prepared to sacrifice their lives? At least he's leading by example, I guess...


----------



## chopeth

I'm a atheist, and although I don't want any harm to anybody even if he/she is a piece a shit, all the Boris Johnson thing makes me think of divine justice, karma or whatever.

Reports say not to be worried, Johnson is in good hands. What I don't know is whether the British are too.


----------



## budda

ThePIGI King said:


> And his comment displayed that in what way?



If you have to ask, you didn't read the definitions.


----------



## fantom

ThePIGI King said:


> So that the portion of the world that is in panic mode can chill out and the world can go back to normal.
> 
> Just because I think this disease isn't a big deal doesn't mean I'm not effected by the fallout of people having to stay at home and businesses being shut down. Know how hard it is to buy ammo, especially at the prices they used to be? I normally shoot nearly every weekend but it's getting too expensive to do that now. Not worth it.
> 
> Plus, I can't go to the gym, can't go to the movies, can't go on a nice date out with the GF. The economy is taking a nose dive due to this. Just because I think people are overreacting doesn't mean I don't get effected by a "cure" being found quickly. The sooner people get a "cure" or vaccine or whatever, the sooner we all go back to work and have the economy stabalize and pick up and continue life as should be.



So you seriously would rather our healthcare system starts randomly injecting chemicals that can kill people with no scientific basis so we can say we are finding a cure... All so you can go watch a movie with your girlfriend? Dude, most people are fine "watching Netflix".

Also, you know who used to use unproven drugs on humans for experiments to see what happened? Nazi Germany.


----------



## possumkiller

fantom said:


> Also, you know who used to use unproven drugs on humans for experiments to see what happened? Nazi Germany.


Let's not forget the military. I had my share of anthrax shots and malaria pills long before anyone cared if they were tested or approved. Almost 20 fucking years ago now. Still seems like yesterday.


----------



## soliloquy

a morbid thought to start off Tuesdays:
provided many hospitals are preventing family of sick ones to visit, in order to prevent the spread further. And furthermore, they are preventing families to pick up bodies (be it due to COVID-19, or other reasons), will this require a mass grave situation, or a massive cremation scenario? 

Likewise, many funeral homes and religious organizations have halted funeral services for the time being. 

I just read an article that China is burning bodies, creating massive smog. So pretty much whatever good came out of it for the environment, its going back to what it was before.


----------



## Ralyks

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52196730

So India is releasing hydroxychloroquine after Trump threatened "retaliation" if they didn't. This in particular caught my eye:

“President Trump - who, according to the New York Times, owns a "small personal financial interest in Sanofi, the French drugmaker that makes... the brand-name version of hydroxychloroquine" - called Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday, a day after India banned all exports of the drug "without exception".”

As Hannibal Buress once said “Yo ma.... money over everythang.”


----------



## ThePIGI King

fantom said:


> So you seriously would rather our healthcare system starts randomly injecting chemicals that can kill people with no scientific basis so we can say we are finding a cure... All so you can go watch a movie with your girlfriend? Dude, most people are fine "watching Netflix".
> 
> Also, you know who used to use unproven drugs on humans for experiments to see what happened? Nazi Germany.


I mean, going to a movie isn't the biggest upside, as I listed many other things, like a normalized economy. But by "no scientific basis" you mean a drug thats been around for decades that also was fully adopted by France with, as far as I know, good results. Then yes, that is what I'm saying.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> I mean, going to a movie isn't the biggest upside, as I listed many other things, like a normalized economy. But by "no scientific basis" you mean a drug thats been around for decades that also was fully adopted by France with, as far as I know, good results. Then yes, that is what I'm saying.



That's not what a "scientific basis" means. 

There is no "scientific basis" which is why there are currently trials being done in order to see either way what impact, if any, good or bad, there is at a reasonable scale to draw conclusions that can be repeated. That's science. 

What you're referring to is an anecdote. There's anecdotal evidence that goes both ways, for and against, it's use. A single, small sample in France seemed to point to positive outcomes, a Swedish one was bad enough that they stopped using it immediately, and a Chinese one landed just about in the middle. The problem with all three is the methodology. That's why there are something like seven different studies in four countries with large (1000+) samples in process right now. 

I'm not sure where you're seeing anything close to full adoption in France. The initial study was just 40 patients, and only about half saw any improvement. In fact France's version of the FDA is cautioning against its use.


----------



## sleewell

trump during the campaign: only i can fix this


trump now: hey i am just a backup, the states should be handling all of this. i just do the golfing and rallies.


----------



## Adieu

soliloquy said:


> a morbid thought to start off Tuesdays:
> provided many hospitals are preventing family of sick ones to visit, in order to prevent the spread further. And furthermore, they are preventing families to pick up bodies (be it due to COVID-19, or other reasons), will this require a mass grave situation, or a massive cremation scenario?
> 
> Likewise, many funeral homes and religious organizations have halted funeral services for the time being.
> 
> I just read an article that China is burning bodies, creating massive smog. So pretty much whatever good came out of it for the environment, its going back to what it was before.



Don't believe everything you read

Cities in everyday business as normal mode burn A LOT of shit daily... certainly creating MORE smog vs. stay-at-home lockdown but burning a couple percent of the population.

Even if it WERE a couple percent, which it's not. And even if they WERE, for some incomprehensible reason, ALL incinerated and ALL simultaneously... rather than over the course of the last 4 months or so,


PS and they're probably nowhere near universally cremated, orders and directives be damned. (I mean have you SEEN a zombie or epidemic movie? Just cuz dudes with guns and or badges tell you how to dispose of your deceased, doesn't actually mean people magically start doing what they're told... especially in Asian cultures that seem to have a pseudoreligious honor thy ancestor thing going)


----------



## tedtan

soliloquy said:


> a morbid thought to start off Tuesdays:
> provided many hospitals are preventing family of sick ones to visit, in order to prevent the spread further. And furthermore, they are preventing families to pick up bodies (be it due to COVID-19, or other reasons), will this require a mass grave situation, or a massive cremation scenario?



Yesterday's news reported that NYC is considering temporarily burying bodies as they have no more room in the morgues and are running out of refrigerated trailers.


----------



## bostjan

All of the bickering about hydroxychloroquine is actually interesting. But, I find it even more interesting that no one is arguing about Remdezivir. Honestly, from the data I've seen, neither treatment looks particularly good, but there exists a sort of militant optimism over each drug.



jaxadam said:


> I generally don’t converse with people who explicitly choose outliers to prove an otherwise unfounded point, ignoring historical trends and averages, especially while accusing me of using similar methodology. Enjoy the rest of your Covid season residing on my ignore list.


But on an average year (20-30k deaths in the US from flu and pneumonia*), the number @StevenC quoted is arguably less of an outlier than the number you quoted.

*The CDC does not distinguish between the cause of death being flu and any form of pneumonia. Pneumonia could be caused by viral infection, bacterial infection, fungus, protozoa, or even by chemicals. I don't think anyone would argue that the leading cause of pneumonia is anything but flu; however, the ambiguity remains in the data.


----------



## sleewell

bury me 6 feet deep


bostjan said:


> All of the bickering about hydroxychloroquine is actually interesting. But, I find it even more interesting that no one is arguing about Remdezivir. Honestly, from the data I've seen, neither treatment looks particularly good, but there exists a sort of militant optimism over each drug.
> 
> 
> But on an average year (20-30k deaths in the US from flu and pneumonia*), the number @StevenC quoted is arguably less of an outlier than the number you quoted.
> 
> *The CDC does not distinguish between the cause of death being flu and any form of pneumonia. Pneumonia could be caused by viral infection, bacterial infection, fungus, protozoa, or even by chemicals. I don't think anyone would argue that the leading cause of pneumonia is anything but flu; however, the ambiguity remains in the data.




trump probably doesn't have a financial interest in that one so he isnt pitching it.


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> All of the bickering about hydroxychloroquine is actually interesting. But, I find it even more interesting that no one is arguing about Remdezivir. Honestly, from the data I've seen, neither treatment looks particularly good, but there exists a sort of militant optimism over each drug.
> 
> 
> But on an average year (20-30k deaths in the US from flu and pneumonia*), the number @StevenC quoted is arguably less of an outlier than the number you quoted.
> 
> *The CDC does not distinguish between the cause of death being flu and any form of pneumonia. Pneumonia could be caused by viral infection, bacterial infection, fungus, protozoa, or even by chemicals. I don't think anyone would argue that the leading cause of pneumonia is anything but flu; however, the ambiguity remains in the data.



I am literally copy/pasting from an article. I’m not picking numbers or cherry-picking data to present my alternative-argument with alternative-facts like he was. I’m literally copy/pasting. If we want to keep looking at it, 61k is not much of an outlier from the upper-range estimate of 59k this year. His 1700 is an order of magnitude smaller than the 5 year average of 17k, and him citing 6k Covid related deaths as being much much higher than the flu is misleading and incorrect compared to the 5 year average.


----------



## Drew

jaxadam said:


> I am literally copy/pasting from an article. I’m not picking numbers or cherry-picking data to present my alternative-argument with alternative-facts like he was. I’m literally copy/pasting. If we want to keep looking at it, 61k is not much of an outlier from the upper-range estimate of 59k this year. His 1700 is an order of magnitude smaller than the 5 year average of 17k, and him citing 6k Covid related deaths as being much much higher than the flu is misleading and incorrect compared to the 5 year average.


...though, not for nothing, we'll be lucky to keep US fatalities under 61k from COVID-19 and that's WITH shutting down essentially every major city and whole swathes of states for months at a time to stop the spread. 

Everyone saying "oh, it's just like the flu, no reason to be alarmed" - if they TRULY mean that and are being intellectually honest in using that as a benchmark - should be having a come-to-Jesus moment right now, now that we're on track to very likely exceed annual flu death rates, WITH massive social distancing/shelter-in-place containment measures in place. for one, because even back then we knew it was more contagious and more lethal than the flu by orders of magnitudes, and for another, we're fast on track to exceed the level of deaths that this argument used as a litmus test for "not a big deal."


----------



## sleewell

very good point @Drew 

we are going to pass the flu deaths because of shutting things down and social distancing. had none of that been done the deaths would have been many, many times as bad.


----------



## jaxadam

Drew said:


> ...though, not for nothing, we'll be lucky to keep US fatalities under 61k from COVID-19 and that's WITH shutting down essentially every major city and whole swathes of states for months at a time to stop the spread.
> 
> Everyone saying "oh, it's just like the flu, no reason to be alarmed" - if they TRULY mean that and are being intellectually honest in using that as a benchmark - should be having a come-to-Jesus moment right now, now that we're on track to very likely exceed annual flu death rates, WITH massive social distancing/shelter-in-place containment measures in place. for one, because even back then we knew it was more contagious and more lethal than the flu by orders of magnitudes, and for another, we're fast on track to exceed the level of deaths that this argument used as a litmus test for "not a big deal."



I don’t disagree!


----------



## TedEH

Fun story -> The one person who works for us who counts as "essential" and is allowed to go into the office, got an almost $900 fine because he stopped for a moment outside to call someone for equipment he needed for work. Apparently, you're allowed to walk, but you're not allowed to stop. Keep moving, or $900.


----------



## Señor Voorhees

That's a bit of a bummer to an extent. I get why it's necessary, but people are already strapped for cash and guy has to go to work anyway, and was even technically DOING his job while he got the fine? Not sure your line of work, but I guess make your phone calls inside of the workplace.

We're not at that point yet here in NC, though we do have a stay at home order. You can go out for food and stuff, but if the cops see you out for too long you might get in trouble. Haven't heard of or seen anyone getting hassled yet. Most people know to keep moving, and very few are on the road. Won't lie, it worries me since my wife HAS to be out every day on the road. (to and from work... She's checking for some necessities at the store right now on the way home from work, etc.) We're getting to that point where we're going to need TP soon. Probably have another month's worth maybe. 

I can't wait for this whole thing to end. It's too frustrating and scary. I'll be happy when it's a distant memory and things are more stable/less fucked.


----------



## vilk

TedEH said:


> Fun story -> The one person who works for us who counts as "essential" and is allowed to go into the office, got an almost $900 fine because he stopped for a moment outside to call someone for equipment he needed for work. Apparently, you're allowed to walk, but you're not allowed to stop. Keep moving, or $900.


fuckin pig


----------



## possumkiller

vilk said:


> fuckin pig


Jesus no need for personal attacks. He's just telling a story.


----------



## Drew

jaxadam said:


> I don’t disagree!


Yeah, I was pretty ure you didn't.


----------



## sleewell

well irony is not dead


https://nypost.com/2020/04/07/pastor-who-criticized-coronavirus-mass-hysteria-dies-from-illness/


----------



## KnightBrolaire

newer model is predicting around 80,000 deaths in the US by august.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/health/ihme-updated-covid19-model/index.html


----------



## bostjan

jaxadam said:


> I am literally copy/pasting from an article. I’m not picking numbers or cherry-picking data to present my alternative-argument with alternative-facts like he was. I’m literally copy/pasting. If we want to keep looking at it, 61k is not much of an outlier from the upper-range estimate of 59k this year. His 1700 is an order of magnitude smaller than the 5 year average of 17k, and him citing 6k Covid related deaths as being much much higher than the flu is misleading and incorrect compared to the 5 year average.



I apologize for seeming dense, but I really don't follow the logical process here.

I had mentioned that



bostjan said:


> I think we are facing a sort of catch-22. All of the reasonable models I've seen have predicted this would be much much worse if we just "let it rip," leading to hundreds of thousands or even close to a million deaths. Since we used those models to predict how to avoid that, by using social distancing and shutting down everything non-essential, and that worked, all of the "conspiracy" folks out there are going to point at the numbers that were as-predicted and shout, at the tops of their (covid-19-free) lungs that the models were wrong and that we over-reacted and sacrificed too much to save too few people.
> 
> So, yeah, I don't know. I guess this whole thing has done nothing to restore my faith in humanity. I, personally, hope to be able to look back on this year, at all, but, if I can, from a relatively disease-free future, I will think about just how much science and mathematics was poised to save the day and how ignorance and greedy people tried their best to sabotage everything.



And Drew said, in response:



Drew said:


> Eh, I think those guys can go pound sand, and if they had even a _shred_ of intellectual honest, they'd probably agree.
> 
> Remember when this was just on the horizon, and those same conspiracy folks kept saying "the flu kills 20,000 people a year, this has only killed dozens, what's the big deal?!" As of today, we have 10,000 deaths in the US, in a span of roughly two months, the vast majority of which occurring in the last 30 days. We'll be insanely lucky if we get out of this with as few as 20,000 deaths, and Trump - "there will be zero cases in a few weeks" - yes, that Trump - is now saying any outcome with fewer than 100,000 fatalities is a "win."
> 
> At this point, we've already blown past the conspiracy theorists' "it's not a big deal" projections and we're on track for a fatality count thats going to exceed the flu, possibly by a sizable multiple, WITH the kind of shelter in place measures that conspiracy nutjobs are bitching about being totally unnecessary because 'it's just the flu." At this point, arguing that this was an overreaction involves lying to yourself, plain and simple.



And you said, in response:



jaxadam said:


> The flu kills 291,000 to 646,000 worldwide a year, and 61,000 in the US in 2018. The CDC estimates that this season alone, as of mid-March, 29,000 to 59,000 have died.



@StevenC mentioned that you chose the year with the worst reported numbers for flu and pneumonia deaths in the USA, which were quite significantly higher than average.

Whether you cherry pick those number or the article does, it's still cherry picking. If the point you were trying to make was that articles cherry pick numbers, then I don't see why StevenC's comments would have offended you.

I suppose I am simply confused. Maybe you could just come out and say whatever it is that you were going for in the first place.


----------



## bostjan

KnightBrolaire said:


> newer model is predicting around 80,000 deaths in the US by august.
> https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/health/ihme-updated-covid19-model/index.html



My prediction is still coming in under 60k. I wonder what methodology these folks are using to get such high numbers. UWash at >80k, Dr. Birx at ~100k, Trump at 250k, @Cynnical with I'm not sure what number, but way more than whatever I think...


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> I apologize for seeming dense, but I really don't follow the logical process here.
> 
> I had mentioned that
> 
> 
> 
> And Drew said, in response:
> 
> 
> 
> And you said, in response:
> 
> 
> 
> @StevenC mentioned that you chose the year with the worst reported numbers for flu and pneumonia deaths in the USA, which were quite significantly higher than average.
> 
> Whether you cherry pick those number or the article does, it's still cherry picking. If the point you were trying to make was that articles cherry pick numbers, then I don't see why StevenC's comments would have offended you.
> 
> I suppose I am simply confused. Maybe you could just come out and say whatever it is that you were going for in the first place.



This the simplest way I can put it:

Me: posts some statistics, without any opinion, analysis, or comparison attached to it. Just some numbers. That’s it.

Someone else: conjures up a bullshit psuedofact based on cherry-picking a data point 10 times less than a five year average to “prove a point” and literally admits to doing it, using reverse psychology as a defense mechanism by getting called out.

Maybe I’m the one who’s dense and is having a hard time understanding you. Can you point to where in my post I’m using misleading data to prove a point? Also, can you explain to me why it’s acceptable to choose an extreme outlier to compare typical data to and formulate a very misleading “fact”?


----------



## wankerness

bostjan said:


> My prediction is still coming in under 60k. I wonder what methodology these folks are using to get such high numbers. UWash at >80k, Dr. Birx at ~100k, Trump at 250k, @Cynnical with I'm not sure what number, but way more than whatever I think...



that model assumes that we will be social distancing till August - what do you think the odds are of THAT happening? Aka, if we take their methodology at face value we’re going to see a hell of a lot more than 80,000 deaths.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

bostjan said:


> My prediction is still coming in under 60k. I wonder what methodology these folks are using to get such high numbers. UWash at >80k, Dr. Birx at ~100k, Trump at 250k, @Cynnical with I'm not sure what number, but way more than whatever I think...



Short of a new treatment, a huge influx of supplies and equipment, or nearly every assumption about actual infection numbers is way off, I don't see us kicking the ~1000 deaths a day we're currently seeing. Deaths seem to be under reported as well.


----------



## Ralyks

bostjan said:


> @Cynnical with Almost all of us are going to die



Fixed that for ya.


----------



## bostjan

jaxadam said:


> This the simplest way I can put it:
> 
> Me: posts some statistics, without any opinion, analysis, or comparison attached to it. Just some numbers. That’s it.
> 
> Someone else: conjures up a bullshit psuedofact based on cherry-picking a data point 10 times less than a five year average to “prove a point” and literally admits to doing it, using reverse psychology as a defense mechanism by getting called out.
> 
> Maybe I’m the one who’s dense and is having a hard time understanding you. Can you point to where in my post I’m using misleading data to prove a point? Also, can you explain to me why it’s acceptable to choose an extreme outlier to compare typical data to and formulate a very misleading “fact”?



It could be conceivable that, in context, he could have taken your post to mean that it's no big deal. From follow up posts, I see that's not the case, but I think you might see where he might have drawn that conclusion.

Like, if you said "Iceland is cold" and I posted a temperature statistic of the internal temperatures of volcanoes in Iceland, with a reply quote to your post that "Iceland is cold," you can see where people might jump to the crazy conclusion that I was being contrary, right?



wankerness said:


> that model assumes that we will be social distancing till August - what do you think the odds are of THAT happening? Aka, if we take their methodology at face value we’re going to see a hell of a lot more than 80,000 deaths.



My prediction was actually drawn up before most places were implementing mandatory social distancing. I mean, I know what you are saying, and I agree that it assumes a lot of things, but I also think that if the government lifts social distancing requirements, there'll still be a mixture of cautious people and reckless people, as before and as now. It could well be that the scales tip too far into unpredictable territory... TL;DL - I guess we'll see.



MaxOfMetal said:


> Short of a new treatment, a huge influx of supplies and equipment, or nearly every assumption about actual infection numbers is way off, I don't see us kicking the ~1000 deaths a day we're currently seeing. Deaths seem to be under reported as well.



Well, the influx should be coming before August. I think it's not outrageously optimistic to think that there will be a treatment before August. If deaths are under-reported, I suppose they likely will still be under-reported by the same level in August.

Maybe modelling the growth of the virus is useless.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

bostjan said:


> Well, the influx should be coming before August. I think it's not outrageously optimistic to think that there will be a treatment before August. If deaths are under-reported, I suppose they likely will still be under-reported by the same level in August.
> 
> Maybe modelling the growth of the virus is useless.



I guess I'm just not as optimistic. I know there's stuff in process and keep hearing about more supplies coming down the pike, but until it materializes, I think 80k is conservative. 

Things are fairly liquid though. I think if we start seeing even a subtle decline in daily death toll I'll change my opinion. 

I don't think we'll hit six figures until late fall. If we stretch it out till then we'll be in decent shape.


----------



## jaxadam

https://www.insider.com/regular-cannabis-smoking-may-increase-covid-19-risk-lung-experts-2020-4



> Smoking marijuana could also make a person's COVID-19 symptoms worse compared to a non-smoker, Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, a pulmonologist and national spokesperson for the American Lung Association, told Insider.
> 
> Galiatsatos said that people who smoke marijuana regularly are more likely to experience severe COVID-19 symptoms because evidence suggests marijuana smoking can cause cells in the lungs to die.


----------



## Ralyks

jaxadam said:


> https://www.insider.com/regular-cannabis-smoking-may-increase-covid-19-risk-lung-experts-2020-4



NO! DONT YOU DARE TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME!


----------



## MaxOfMetal

jaxadam said:


> https://www.insider.com/regular-cannabis-smoking-may-increase-covid-19-risk-lung-experts-2020-4



Almost everyone I know who smokes (pot and cigs) has pretty much quit cold turkey. 

Now they just vape.


----------



## Ralyks

MaxOfMetal said:


> Almost everyone I know who smokes (pot and cigs) has pretty much quit cold turkey.
> 
> Now they just vape.



Everyone I know did the opposite when all that crazy shit about valingo happened a few months ago.... That nobody probably remembers now...
I toke green more but I have a vape pen just in case.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Ralyks said:


> Everyone I know did the opposite when all that crazy shit about valingo happened a few months ago.... That nobody probably remembers now...
> I toke green more but I have a vape pen just in case.



Yeah, I've definitely seen a shift from going from hoarding the stuff, to pretty much quitting as this has gotten more serious, at least for them.


----------



## Cynicanal

Ralyks said:


> Fixed that for ya.


Roughly 16% is "almost all" now?


----------



## Manurack

Good morning. Did anyone else catch Trudeau's video yesterday about "uuuh, speaking moistly on them ugh, what a terrible image!" LOL


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Well, the influx should be coming before August. I think it's not outrageously optimistic to think that there will be a treatment before August. If deaths are under-reported, I suppose they likely will still be under-reported by the same level in August.
> 
> Maybe modelling the growth of the virus is useless.


It's never useless - even if a model is _wrong, _ provided it's still based on a sound understanding and consistent input data, there's value in being able to see how the outcome changes as new data comes in. A model might get the death count wrong, but if you see the death count it estimates start to fall precipitously after implementing social distancing, that's still valuable to know that something you're doing is working. Sometimes the direction in which a model changes to changed inputs is just as important as its overalll accuracy in predicting an outcome. 

I think the thing to watch is what happens in the next two weeks as we begin to approach what most models see as the peak, as cases contracted just before the start of social distancing have had time to become severe. Hospitals aren't yet at capacity, even in NY - here in Boston one of our hospitals downtown is but there's still ample capacity at a number of the others both in the city and, especially, as you head towards the 'burbs. If we DO hit max capacity, and there's a good chance we do, the degree to which we overshoot ais going to have a huge impact on fatality rates.


----------



## Ralyks

https://apple.news/AK-sqzYsQQEaLI7WehYKetw

Well, people don't seem pleased with the administration handling this.


----------



## spudmunkey

Yesterday was the largest jump in Covid-19 deaths-per-day in the US so far: 1970, which is more than 600 higher than the old "record" from a few days ago. Today,, we're pacing to break 2,000.

It seems like we're still averaging about 145,000 tests per day, and about 31k confirmed cases per day, for at least a week.


----------



## Wrecklyss

A weird but not inaccurate analogy for all the complacency out there.


----------



## vilk

Chicago just put out a new "Public Health Order": all liquor sales in Chicago prohibited after 9 p.m.

What the hell is this? I don't frequent the liquor store after 9, in fact I usually grab it at the local grocer and they close at 9 even when there's no coronavirus... but what's this hoping to achieve? I mean bars are already closed. You're not allowed to hang out and drink inside the liquor store. 

The virus is spread by contact and surfaces, being in close proximity with another. What does this have to do with the hours of operation of a business or the product that's being sold?

Logically, the longer you keep a store open, the more you can spread out the traffic. Reducing hours of operation only means that more people would potentially have to go to the store at once. 

And why single out alcohol? Shouldn't it be the same likelihood of spreading regardless of the product? If it were a 24 hour Walgreens or something, what difference does it make whether it's alcohol or any of the other products on the shelf that's being purchased?


----------



## bostjan

vilk said:


> Chicago just put out a new "Public Health Order": all liquor sales in Chicago prohibited after 9 p.m.
> 
> What the hell is this? I don't frequent the liquor store after 9, in fact I usually grab it at the local grocer and they close at 9 even when there's no coronavirus... but what's this hoping to achieve? I mean bars are already closed. You're not allowed to hang out and drink inside the liquor store.
> 
> The virus is spread by contact and surfaces, being in close proximity with another. What does this have to do with the hours of operation of a business or the product that's being sold?
> 
> Logically, the longer you keep a store open, the more you can spread out the traffic. Reducing hours of operation only means that more people would potentially have to go to the store at once.
> 
> And why single out alcohol? Shouldn't it be the same likelihood of spreading regardless of the product? If it were a 24 hour Walgreens or something, what difference does it make whether it's alcohol or any of the other products on the shelf that's being purchased?



The PotUS is pushing a drug made by his friend's personal business and is strongly suspected not to work, there is a superswarm of locusts in Africa bigger than we've seen in 70 years, Chernobyl is flaring up with radiation for unknown reasons, and, weirdest of all, I sold more records so far in April than I sold in all of 2019. Nothing makes sense anymore.


----------



## TedEH

vilk said:


> Reducing hours of operation only means that more people would potentially have to go to the store at once.


It sort of strikes me that this logic could take some strain off of grocery stores: Make them all 24hr. People spread out more. No more lines. People who still work during the day have a time they can go shopping without it being an ordeal. Hire some of the now-unemployed to take some of those extra hours. Everyone wins. Lots of money spent in grocery stores.


----------



## spudmunkey

TedEH said:


> It sort of strikes me that this logic could take some strain off of grocery stores: Make them all 24hr. People spread out more. No more lines. People who still work during the day have a time they can go shopping without it being an ordeal. Hire some of the now-unemployed to take some of those extra hours. Everyone wins. Lots of money spent in grocery stores.



Making them open longer, means that the stores will have to add much more staff to manage that, while still dealing with super-low sales. Many stores around here are only open from 11am-7pm, because they can staff the whole store with 2 people, while still having 15 mins for pre-open and post-close procedes, and a 30-minute lunch for each without breaking any state labor laws. That's not only a financial hardship for any "essential" business, but also means that there are more people working throughout the day. Which I guess is a balance between fewer hands touching everything over the course of a day (like 1 produce or meat guy vs 3) vs fewer customers in one place at one time. Around here anyway, stores aren't packed. They are limiting the number of people inside, with spaced-out lines out-front. Many things are sold out, because people are buying too much in a short period of time and everyone's buying 1-2 week's worth of items rather than just a few days-worth. My local store can barely keep milk in stock for a *normal* weekday evening, much less when everyone who is shopping is buying 2 gallons instead of just 1 or 1/2.


----------



## bostjan

spudmunkey said:


> Making them open longer, means that the stores will have to add much more staff to manage that, while still dealing with super-low sales. Many stores around here are only open from 11am-7pm, because they can staff the whole store with 2 people, while still having 15 mins for pre-open and post-close procedes, and a 30-minute lunch for each without breaking any state labor laws. That's not only a financial hardship for any "essential" business, but also means that there are more people working throughout the day. Which I guess is a balance between fewer hands touching everything over the course of a day (like 1 produce or meat guy vs 3) vs fewer customers in one place at one time. Around here anyway, stores aren't packed. They are limiting the number of people inside, with spaced-out lines out-front. Many things are sold out, because people are buying too much in a short period of time and everyone's buying 1-2 week's worth of items rather than just a few days-worth. My local store can barely keep milk in stock for a *normal* weekday evening, much less when everyone who is shopping is buying 2 gallons instead of just 1 or 1/2.



I don't know what it's like other places, but here in the NEK, liquor sales are booming like never before. Our liquor store has also cut it's hours, though (we are only allowed one per town). It would seem like fewer employees x fewer hours + more sales = more profit, but maybe I'm missing some extra corona-virus-related expenses.


----------



## spudmunkey

Ahh, it's perhaps just a regional thing. The only places with lines out the door are small mom-n-pop grocers. A couple of liquor stores here have completely closed. Too few people are out-and-about that the labor cost off-sets the profits of whatever sales they might get. It seems like the only restaurants that are staying open are chains, restaurants that specialized in take-out already (the kind of place where if you dine-in, you're the only one, and while you're there it's a constant stream of pickups), and then a few of the places that have long brunch lines on the weekends...and even then, it's reduced hours. Some are skipping lunch service, some are closing early right after lunch, when before they might have staye open to 4.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Really, they need to switch almost completely to a delivery model. The infrastructure is already there, and with proper PPE/BSI and non-contact procedures it's incredibly safe.


----------



## ThePIGI King

bostjan said:


> The PotUS is pushing a drug


https://pjmedia.com/trending/report...-coronavirus-crisis-doctors-and-patients-say/

A Democrat publicly said something that wasn't negative about Trump? That's pretty new


----------



## StevenC

ThePIGI King said:


> https://pjmedia.com/trending/report...-coronavirus-crisis-doctors-and-patients-say/
> 
> A Democrat publicly said something that wasn't negative about Trump? That's pretty new


That's the same small French trial from before, anecdotal evidence and a bunch of propaganda tweets.


----------



## Cynicanal

https://www.fox5ny.com/news/779-more-coronavirus-deaths-reported-in-new-york



> "When will things go back to the way they were? I don't think it's about going back. I don't think it's ever about going back. The question is about going forward and that what we have to deal with here," Cuomo said. "I don't think we return to yesterday, where we were. I think if we're smart we achieve a new normal."



More and more, leaders are admitting what I've been telling you guys for weeks. There's no light at the end of this tunnel. Get used to universal house arrest, because it's here to stay.


----------



## jaxadam

Cynicanal said:


> There's no light at the end of this tunnel. Get used to universal house arrest, because it's here to stay.



Then what do you think will happen after that? I've been telling people for years that the movie Cyborg will come true. At least we'll all have cool names soon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg_(film)


----------



## TedEH

spudmunkey said:


> dealing with super-low sales





spudmunkey said:


> Many things are sold out, because people are buying too much in a short period of time


These things are a little at odds with eachother though, aren't they? Maybe people are buying groceries a bit less frequently, but I don't think grocery stores around here are hurting.



spudmunkey said:


> Around here anyway, stores aren't packed.


Pretty much any place around here that's open has lineups all day long. Groceries, liquor stores, the weed shops... I guess that's mostly all that's open. Partly because of the attempts to do things in a clean way, but the volume of people in those places doesn't seem to have dipped. The day before they started doing the lines outside (maybe a few days ago), I thought I could sneak in at lunch, and the store was legitimately packed with people _still_ stockpiling all kinds of things.


----------



## bostjan

ThePIGI King said:


> https://pjmedia.com/trending/report...-coronavirus-crisis-doctors-and-patients-say/
> 
> A Democrat publicly said something that wasn't negative about Trump? That's pretty new



Yeah, I've said it before, but giving people infected with a virus an immunosurpressive is probably going to make their symptoms go away, but long term is probably a stupid and dangerous idea.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

TedEH said:


> These things are a little at odds with eachother though, aren't they? Maybe people are buying groceries a bit less frequently, but I don't think grocery stores around here are hurting.



You can only profit off of what you can sell at the time.

Right now, at least in much of the United States, the supply chain has been significantly disrupted, so shelves are fairly empty. 

Additionally, folks are going without luxury items, which are typically higher margin goods. Whether it's self enforced austerity or because they've been fired/laid-off.



bostjan said:


> Yeah, I've said it before, but giving people infected with a virus an immunosurpressive is probably going to make their symptoms go away, but long term is probably a stupis and dangerous idea.



I don't know, I heard a very stable genius say it works.


----------



## viifox

Alright, this shit is just scary. Has it been discussed yet?...

_Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme: "In most parts of the world, due to lockdown, most of the transmission that's actually happening in many countries now is happening in the household at family level._

_In some senses, transmission has been taken off the streets and pushed back into family units._

_Now, we need to go and look in families to find those people who may be sick and remove them and isolate them in a safe and dignified manner."
_
Are they seriously talking about removing people from their homes now???


----------



## MaxOfMetal

viifox said:


> Alright, this shit is just scary. Has it been discussed yet?...
> 
> _Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme: "In most parts of the world, due to lockdown, most of the transmission that's actually happening in many countries now is happening in the household at family level._
> 
> _In some senses, transmission has been taken off the streets and pushed back into family units._
> 
> _Now, we need to go and look in families to find those people who may be sick and remove them and isolate them in a safe and dignified manner."
> _
> Are they seriously talking about removing people from their homes now???



What they're saying is that infected family members should quarantine away from uninfected family members.

The WHO is not a state actor with the authority to...really do anything. Definitely not what you're implying.


----------



## viifox

MaxOfMetal said:


> What they're saying is that infected family members should quarantine away from uninfected family members.
> 
> The WHO is not a state actor with the authority to...really do anything. Definitely not what you're implying.


Thank you for your thoughts. I sincerely hope i am reading into that wrong, and you are 100% correct.


----------



## Adieu

It'd be a hell of a lot better if they could and did, though


----------



## fantom

ThePIGI King said:


> https://pjmedia.com/trending/report...-coronavirus-crisis-doctors-and-patients-say/
> 
> A Democrat publicly said something that wasn't negative about Trump? That's pretty new



I'm not a democrat. I have voted for Republicans and Democrats based on my research and opinion if someone will do a good job. Trump is a liability and loose cannon. He is completely unfit and most Republicans are too blind to consider what is right in front of them.


----------



## blacai

viifox said:


> Alright, this shit is just scary. Has it been discussed yet?...
> 
> _Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme: "In most parts of the world, due to lockdown, most of the transmission that's actually happening in many countries now is happening in the household at family level._
> 
> _In some senses, transmission has been taken off the streets and pushed back into family units._
> 
> _Now, we need to go and look in families to find those people who may be sick and remove them and isolate them in a safe and dignified manner."
> _
> Are they seriously talking about removing people from their homes now???


In Spain this is one of the measures they are considering right now... Lot of organizations and jurists already concerned because it would require too much of twisting the civil rights


----------



## SD83

Short update from Germany... everything is pretty much the same as it has been two weeks ago, except for the fact that you can now actually buy toilet paper. 
Government support for small (and big) businesses is in place (and has in parts arrived, luckily), pretty much everything that sells food is still open, home depot as well, most restaurants I know now offer take away or delivery. You can still go out whenever you feel like going out, as long as you stay alone (or with the people you live with) or with at most one other person. 25 confirmed cases in the village I live (~15,000), which is 3 more than a week ago. 
The number of newly infected has, as of now, reached it's peak at March 26th. Politicians and experts are actually discussing taking first steps to going back to normal. Depending on sources, 40-50% of places in intensive care are still free, and hospitals are still taking in patients from abroad. Seriously, don't ask me, I have no idea why this seems to be working as well as it does, and I find it more than a bit disturbing hearing from other countries. 
Someone on this forum (I'm too lazy to look up the post) told me at March 11th we were 9-10 days behind Italy and it would totally blow up in the coming days... nothing of that kind. Fingers crossed. 
So... there might actually be a light at the end of this tunnel. It's not just South Korea & China that seemingly get through this, others will as well. Stay safe & healthy everyone.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Fucking yikes:

https://gizmodo.com/alabama-disavow...tm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_source=facebook

Alabama going full Aktion T4 up in this bitch.


----------



## narad

"Alabama no longer plans to deny ventilators to people with cognitive disabilities..."

Says state with 45th highest IQ in the nation.


----------



## vilk

narad said:


> "Alabama no longer plans to deny ventilators to people with cognitive disabilities..."
> 
> Says state with 45th highest IQ in the nation.




I was gonna say something like _I'd be surprised to learn that Alabama doesn't have the highest ratio of people with cognitive disabilities in the country_ ... 

...but then it kind of makes sense why they would have to plan for that kind of thing.


----------



## viifox

blacai said:


> In Spain this is one of the measures they are considering right now... Lot of organizations and jurists already concerned because it would require too much of twisting the civil rights


So they actually are talking about removing people from their families? And it would be mandatory?


----------



## blacai

viifox said:


> So they actually are talking about removing people from their families? And it would be mandatory?


The prime minister just threw the idea of accommodating "asymptomatic" infected people in hotels and sport centers... and asked the different regions for a list of available spaces that could be use for that purpose. He didn't mention how mandatory it would be, but as I said, lot of jurists already stated it wouldn't be possible.


----------



## viifox

blacai said:


> The prime minister just threw the idea of accommodating "asymptomatic" infected people in hotels and sport centers... and asked the different regions for a list of available spaces that could be use for that purpose. He didn't mention how mandatory it would be, but as I said, lot of jurists already stated it wouldn't be possible.


It's completely violating, imo, especially if your symptoms are not life threatening.


----------



## mastapimp

MaxOfMetal said:


> Fucking yikes:
> 
> https://gizmodo.com/alabama-disavow...tm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_source=facebook
> 
> Alabama going full Aktion T4 up in this bitch.



My wife worked for years on a medical review board for organ transplants...these kind of considerations are nothing new. It was shocking the first time i heard about these kind of things but cognitive ability is a huge factor in recovery.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mastapimp said:


> My wife worked for years on a medical review board for organ transplants...these kind of considerations are nothing new. It was shocking the first time i heard about these kind of things but cognitive ability is a huge factor in recovery.



I understand the concept of triage.

But, that's the job of doctors on an individual basis, not for politicians to make a blanket mandate.


----------



## viifox

Some good news.


----------



## wankerness

viifox said:


> So they actually are talking about removing people from their families? And it would be mandatory?



They did this in China - they had sorta rec centers for people with mild symptoms where they'd stay for a couple weeks until they were recovered. It's actually a GOOD thing since they were finding a ton of cases of it were caused by families staying together and thus if one person got infected then you'd have a household of infections. Given how many news stories there are in the US about how multiple members of a household died, or how many cases of hospitals having multiple beds taken up by people from the same household, lives could have been saved if there was wider scale testing and immediate quarantine of those who had it. Never going to happen here, but it's not some terrifying big brother thing, it's actually keeping more people alive.


----------



## viifox

wankerness said:


> They did this in China - they had sorta rec centers for people with mild symptoms where they'd stay for a couple weeks until they were recovered. It's actually a GOOD thing since they were finding a ton of cases of it were caused by families staying together and thus if one person got infected then you'd have a household of infections. Given how many news stories there are in the US about how multiple members of a household died, or how many cases of hospitals having multiple beds taken up by people from the same household, lives could have been saved if there was wider scale testing and immediate quarantine of those who had it. Never going to happen here, but it's not some terrifying big brother thing, it's actually keeping more people alive.


I can see if people wanted to do that voluntarily, but if any government official tried to come into my home and forcibly remove any of my family members (especially my kids), they'd end up with a bullet in their head.


----------



## SD83

wankerness said:


> They did this in China - they had sorta rec centers for people with mild symptoms where they'd stay for a couple weeks until they were recovered. It's actually a GOOD thing since they were finding a ton of cases of it were caused by families staying together and thus if one person got infected then you'd have a household of infections. Given how many news stories there are in the US about how multiple members of a household died, or how many cases of hospitals having multiple beds taken up by people from the same household, lives could have been saved if there was wider scale testing and immediate quarantine of those who had it. Never going to happen here, but it's not some terrifying big brother thing, it's actually keeping more people alive.


If I'm not mistaken, South Korea did at least something similar, placing infected people under strict quarantine with absolutely no contact to any healthy people (except for medical personal). And if I was living with somebody, if I knew I had a potentially deadly disease, I'd want to stay away from people, especially those I love. But you can't exactly book a hotel room or anything, and if the people you're currently living with move somewhere else, they could already be infected, spreading it further. I know one wants to be close to family and such, especially when you're not feeling well but when staying close could literally kill them... I'd welcome the option to go into some kind of quarantine "prison". Especially if I'm not "intensive care" levels of sick. Worst case scenario "the food sucks, the beds suck, the people around you are annoying af". Significantly better than "someone you love is dead, and you're to blame". Although if we had that option, I can't see many people taking it.


----------



## viifox

MaxOfMetal said:


> What they're saying is that infected family members should quarantine away from uninfected family members.
> 
> The WHO is not a state actor with the authority to...really do anything. Definitely not what you're implying.


So, apparently it is what i was implying.


----------



## zappatton2

I suppose I should have expected as much, but still 
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/...bEx1Xr_V7DZdXqCDcgp-TMRQMtgvDluguRQS63gA5Bp5o


----------



## Cynicanal

https://www.kxan.com/news/experts-u...QrFc3UXaZGmWi1wLtJM-pOqYRqsAxak98pCuj7mu3cbxE
https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2...n-plants-as-employees-get-sick-with-covid-19/

Turns out I've been much too optimistic about all of this; I wasn't counting on a complete collapse of the food supply chain, but that's also coming!


----------



## USMarine75

Cynicanal said:


> https://www.kxan.com/news/experts-u...QrFc3UXaZGmWi1wLtJM-pOqYRqsAxak98pCuj7mu3cbxE
> https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2...n-plants-as-employees-get-sick-with-covid-19/
> 
> Turns out I've been much too optimistic about all of this; I wasn't counting on a complete collapse of the food supply chain, but that's also coming!



Yeah, a regular Captain Fuckin' Sunshine.


----------



## jaxadam

Cynicanal said:


> https://www.kxan.com/news/experts-u...QrFc3UXaZGmWi1wLtJM-pOqYRqsAxak98pCuj7mu3cbxE
> https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2...n-plants-as-employees-get-sick-with-covid-19/
> 
> Turns out I've been much too optimistic about all of this; I wasn't counting on a complete collapse of the food supply chain, but that's also coming!



And that’s just the short term. Long term, the sun will exhaust all hydrogen, expand to a red giant consuming the earth, and then there will be the eventual heat death of the universe. So nothing looks promising.


----------



## sleewell

this just in.... we will all die at some point.


----------



## spudmunkey

jaxadam said:


> And that’s just the short term. Long term, the sun will exhaust all hydrogen, expand to a red giant consuming the earth, and then there will be the eventual heat death of the universe. So nothing looks promising.



Please, won't somebody think of the children?!?!


----------



## budda

jaxadam said:


> And that’s just the short term. Long term, the sun will exhaust all hydrogen, expand to a red giant consuming the earth, and then there will be the eventual heat death of the universe. So nothing looks promising.


----------



## shadowlife

MaxOfMetal said:


> Really, they need to switch almost completely to a delivery model. The infrastructure is already there, and with proper PPE/BSI and non-contact procedures it's incredibly safe.



I'm not sure about your area, but people I know who've tried using grocery delivery services (before all this virus hysteria) did not have the best experience.
Dented cans, products past their expiration date, poor quality fresh produce, broken eggs in a carton, etc.

Having everything delivered is great only if the people doing the gathering and delivering care about what they are doing.

As I said, things may be different in your case.


----------



## TedEH

Someone I know used one of those grocery delivery services recently - there was a miscommunication somewhere and 6 bananas somehow become 6 bunches of bananas.


----------



## viifox

I've been using Wal-Mart's grocery delivery system for a while now. It actually works quite well. Sure, there might be a couple items that were messed up, but i just give walmart a call and they're fast to fix any issues.

Funny enough, i just barely had them drop off some groceries. A gallon of milk was damaged in the process. No biggie. They'll just fix the issue.


----------



## AChRush1349

sleewell said:


> this just in.... we will all die at some point.


Wow, how philosophical and profound and relevant, we sure live in a society huh?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

shadowlife said:


> I'm not sure about your area, but people I know who've tried using grocery delivery services (before all this virus hysteria) did not have the best experience.
> Dented cans, products past their expiration date, poor quality fresh produce, broken eggs in a carton, etc.
> 
> Having everything delivered is great only if the people doing the gathering and delivering care about what they are doing.
> 
> As I said, things may be different in your case.



I've been using them since this debacle started and haven't had a single problem.


----------



## bostjan

My mom ordered groceries, waited a week, then they told her they were out of everything she wanted and cancelled her order.

Also, remember the model I posted several weeks ago (I don't think anyone here even looked at it at all)? Fauci is now saying there will be closer to 60k dead. I'd say something about being smart, but I'm sure the predictions from experts are bound to change as the assumptions I made in my model all blow up somehow.


----------



## narad

TedEH said:


> Someone I know used one of those grocery delivery services recently - there was a miscommunication somewhere and 6 bananas somehow become 6 bunches of bananas.



Man, where's mister tally man when you need him.


----------



## bostjan

narad said:


> Man, where's mister tally man when you need him.



Corona come and he wanna go home!


----------



## Demiurge

The home grocery services here have been, uh, medium, but it's probably more about the touch-and-go selection and them not quite knowing how to substitute. Availability has been more of an issue than anything.

We actually attempted 'analog' grocery shopping tonight. MA has a % occupancy cap so there was a limit on the number of people allowed in the store at a given time. Does that stop people from almost running into you at any point? Of course not. And of course the same people with no regard for social distancing-_ let alone personal space_- are the same douchebags not wearing any PPE. Surprisingly, there was TP and PT but no brown sugar or yeast, so I assume that people are baking-away their stress now.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

What I've been doing is putting in multiple orders with a spread of regional grocers. So far it's worked out pretty well. 

I understand that not everyone has the privilege of laying out that much money, or living in areas jam packed with grocery stores.


----------



## jaxadam

The home grocery delivery here has been nothing short of wildly popular and very successful for quite a while now, even prior to the pandemic. There are constantly 4 or 5 Shipt t-shirts in the store at any given time I'm there. We have some friends who have used them exclusively for years now. We used them about a week ago and they were only behind one day and they only had one thing they could find and substituted it anyway.


----------



## ramses

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-lets-zoom-xi-he-has-questions-to-answer/


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ramses said:


> https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-lets-zoom-xi-he-has-questions-to-answer/



"And so long as a fifth of humanity are subject to the will of an unaccountable, corrupt and power-hungry organization with a long history of crimes against its own people, the rest of humanity will not be safe."

This is peak lack of self-awareness.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

ramses said:


> https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-lets-zoom-xi-he-has-questions-to-answer/



Wow didn't realize the Globe and Mail had deteriorated so much the last few years, what a bunch of junk.


----------



## possumkiller

I am really happy that my wife and I moved to Poland.


----------



## sleewell




----------



## XPT707FX

TedEH said:


> Someone I know used one of those grocery delivery services recently - there was a miscommunication somewhere and 6 bananas somehow become 6 bunches of bananas.


Did they happen to only pay The price of 6 bananas, if so I think I may know who you are talking about


----------



## Necris

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/wa...nemy-during-long-winded-coronavirus-briefing/

The very stable genius™ who weeks ago claimed to have a innate understanding of medicine that astounded the doctors he spoke with now appears genuinely baffled as to why antibiotics don't work on a virus. He concludes that this is because the germ is very smart.


----------



## spudmunkey

As of today: 100,000 worldwide deaths, and 500,000 confirmed cases in the US.


----------



## Hollowway

So Kiesel is open, despite the fact that they’re a non-essential business? That seems pretty uncool. The whole idea of this shelter in place in California is to prevent people from having multiple contacts with other people. I know there are load of businesses not following the rules, but this to me just has Jeff thinking profits over safety of the guys and the population in general. There is no way you can rationalize a guitar factory as being essential.


----------



## mbardu

Hollowway said:


> So Kiesel is open, despite the fact that they’re a non-essential business? That seems pretty uncool. The whole idea of this shelter in place in California is to prevent people from having multiple contacts with other people. I know there are load of businesses not following the rules, but this to me just has Jeff thinking profits over safety of the guys and the population in general. There is no way you can rationalize a guitar factory as being essential.



That's the Tesla way 

It's definitely a weird move. Plus he's streaming live pretty much everyday from the factory and talks about his team's hours and everything.
To me he's setting himself up for some problems down the road with that..


----------



## spudmunkey

Yeah, not disagreeing.

As far as what they say they are doing:
They are working 4 days rather than 5, people who dont want to come in can just not work, people who can work from home are, and there was someone who would just clean occasionally who was put on cleaning duty all day, cleaning surfaces, doorknobs, etc. The showroom is also closed except for pickups.


----------



## possumkiller

So my dad sent me some video about how the surgeon general says Trump was responding to the virus from day one. Another about how it's a hoax because the army set up a field hospital in Washington and never had a single patient for nine days before leaving.


----------



## Demiurge

^So, in taking both together, the insinuation is that the pandemic is not happening but also Trump is on top of it. Gotta cover both those bases.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Demiurge said:


> ^So, in taking both together, the insinuation is that the pandemic is not happening but also Trump is on top of it. Gotta cover both those bases.



I think it's the inauthenticity that grates the most. 

If you think it's just a big hoax, okay. You're wrong, but that's an opinion to be had in earnest. Same with thinking that, likely because lack of knowledge, that the current administration hasn't fucked this up since rumblings in November 19. Cool. 

But throwing two or three layers of incompatible excuses up to prop up "your team" is fucking asinine and entirely transparent.


----------



## Hollowway

Yeah, anyone that’s open during this risks giving the impression that they care more about money than their employees. It’s definitely a risky move.


----------



## SD83

The police of our state just decided to put this out as a means of saying "thank you" to everyone for staying calm, reasonable and cooperative  Doesn't really help solving any problems, but I thought it was kinda cool anyways.


----------



## Bdtunn

Or they could at least do what some of the other companies are doing and make some medical supplies. 
I’m glad I’m not the only one who is put off by them not following the “rules”


----------



## technomancer

Hollowway said:


> So Kiesel is open, despite the fact that they’re a non-essential business? That seems pretty uncool. The whole idea of this shelter in place in California is to prevent people from having multiple contacts with other people. I know there are load of businesses not following the rules, but this to me just has Jeff thinking profits over safety of the guys and the population in general. There is no way you can rationalize a guitar factory as being essential.



Is this really shocking to you in any way, shape, or form?


----------



## gunch

technomancer said:


> Is this really shocking to you in any way, shape, or form?



Bro we gotta get music out to the people bro


----------



## narad

I think that's the right mix of cheesiness and earnest good vibes.


----------



## Jonathan20022

gunch said:


> Bro we gotta get music out to the people bro



*altruism intensifies*


----------



## mbardu

Bdtunn said:


> Or they could at least do what some of the other companies are doing and make some medical supplies.
> I’m glad I’m not the only one who is put off by them not following the “rules”



They could make beveled Poplar Burl masks!


----------



## Snarpaasi

mbardu said:


> They could make beveled Poplar Burl masks!



With a deep single cutaway, that gives better upper airway access.


----------



## Hollowway

technomancer said:


> Is this really shocking to you in any way, shape, or form?



“Hey guys, Jeff here. So a couple of our guys got sick with the coronavirus, despite us wiping stuff down. So we’re gonna have a sale. Help us out by buying some guitars because now my guys are sick.”


----------



## blacai

SD83 said:


> The police of our state just decided to put this out as a means of saying "thank you" to everyone for staying calm, reasonable and cooperative  Doesn't really help solving any problems, but I thought it was kinda cool anyways.



Nice 
Meanwhile in Frankfurt we had this Friday a real fight between police and +40(IRC) people while the firsts were controlling the streets.


----------



## bracky

Lots of folks still have to work. The quicker we all get back to work the better. I’m glad they didn’t bow to the virus hype.


----------



## broj15

So apparently the first round of stimulus checks were deposited into people's accounts today, and the IRS is saying more deposits will be made next week. There's links on the IRS website to a "portal where you can update your direct deposit information" which I NEED to do, but when you click on it it just takes you to the normal "track your refund" page that's always been on the site, with no option to update your info. I'm just trying figure out what's up since I had my 2019 tax return deposited on one of those prepaid cards since I'd get it sooner, but I'm not sure if stimulus check deposits will go through on that or not. If not then they're saying that people won't see paper checks until August, and even then I still need to update my mailing address so it doesn't get sent to my old apartment.

Now, I remember at one of Trump's first press conferences when this all got started that he said that the site would be ready soon "unlike other websites in the past" - an obvious stab at the issues they ran into with Obama's healthcare enrollment websites. But how can he say that when they're already sending out money and haven't even given people a chance or a way to update thier banking information? Once again I feel like the govt. Has done nothing but drop the ball and screw the pooch from the very beginning, from limited quantities of tests to outright denial of the severity of the situation.

I seriously hope every politician in Washington hasn't gotten a wink of sleep since this whole thing started, because they don't deserve it. Honestly I hope the stress is taking years off thier lives.


----------



## sleewell

They have my info but I didn't get it yet. Has anyone?


----------



## diagrammatiks

can I get one if I don't live in the us currently. still confused about that. 
really need to get the Aristides deposit in.


----------



## USMarine75

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/10/...ennis-petition-coronavirus-spt-int/index.html


----------



## broj15

USMarine75 said:


> https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/10/...ennis-petition-coronavirus-spt-int/index.html


"Wah my job that isn't even a real job that contributes nothing to society doesn't exist anymore. I can't believe I'm on lockdown in my parents 4 bedroom house waaahhhhh."

How terrible that you're surrounded by family in your parent's mansion. It's like when Gal Gadot and a bunch of other celebrities made that stupid video of them singing Imagine by John Lennon for Instagram in "solidarity" for everyone staying at home. Like, cool you sang a song (that sucks btw) written by a guy who beats women, now how about you send out some of the millions of dollars you made last year off of movies that were trash?

Edit: the more I read the angrier I get. The sense of entitlement is ridiculous. Complaining about the costs involved in competing in an international sport... When you're ranked No. 357 in the world. Idk maybe it's time she either got good and won some tournaments or chose a different career path cuz this one obviously isn't working.
That would be like me complaining about how my investment in music (time, gear, travel expenses) is astronomically greater than the small amount of money I've made from playing music.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

broj15 said:


> I seriously hope every politician in Washington hasn't gotten a wink of sleep since this whole thing started, because they don't deserve it. Honestly I hope the stress is taking years off thier lives.



Washington sleeps soundly and securely upon the hardships of it's people. US citizens are faceless numbers that only serve to elevate these politicians into wealth and power.


----------



## diagrammatiks

broj15 said:


> "Wah my job that isn't even a real job that contributes nothing to society doesn't exist anymore. I can't believe I'm on lockdown in my parents 4 bedroom house waaahhhhh."
> 
> How terrible that you're surrounded by family in your parent's mansion. It's like when Gal Gadot and a bunch of other celebrities made that stupid video of them singing Imagine by John Lennon for Instagram in "solidarity" for everyone staying at home. Like, cool you sang a song (that sucks btw) written by a guy who beats women, now how about you send out some of the millions of dollars you made last year off of movies that were trash?
> 
> Edit: the more I read the angrier I get. The sense of entitlement is ridiculous. Complaining about the costs involved in competing in an international sport... When you're ranked No. 357 in the world. Idk maybe it's time she either got good and won some tournaments or chose a different career path cuz this one obviously isn't working.
> That would be like me complaining about how my investment in music (time, gear, travel expenses) is astronomically greater than the small amount of money I've made from playing music.



finally someone else that gets it. Fuck the Beatles.


----------



## shadowlife

bracky said:


> Lots of folks still have to work. The quicker we all get back to work the better. I’m glad they didn’t bow to the virus hype.



Agreed.
If anything, this makes me want to get a Kiesel as my next guitar.


----------



## SD83

USMarine75 said:


> https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/10/...ennis-petition-coronavirus-spt-int/index.html



There is a lot wrong in society as it is, and that surely includes arts and sports. Sure, you could say that some people earn more per minute for running around and kicking a ball for 90-180 minutes a week than other people who take care of the sick, old and dying earn in a year and that is not right and I would be inclined to agree. And there is probably a lot wrong in professional tennis as well. Is this the right time to adress this? It might just be. 
But a lot of me also agrees with what broj15 said about the entitlement... she's 31 and no. 357 ffs. And apparently she's been doing this for over 15 years. As a writer or maybe even a musician you can probably keep on dreaming for a lot longer, but as a professional athlete... somewhere, out there, there is probably a 20 year old woman selling burgers during the day and cleaning toilets at night to make a living who could have been the next Serena Williams but who stopped playing professional tennis at 17 because at that time she was on the same level as 300 30-somethings still somehow hanging on to their dream of making a living playing tennis with no hope of ever making it to anywhere near the top. If you can't make it into the top 300, and you have the option (which she apparently had), just get a regular job and go amateur. Make room for others who maybe can, now or if they just stick around for a few more years.


----------



## _MonSTeR_

bracky said:


> Lots of folks still have to work. The quicker we all get back to work the better. I’m glad they didn’t bow to the virus hype.



Of course, the dead ones won't be going back to work...


----------



## iamaom

Bdtunn said:


> Or they could at least do what some of the other companies are doing and make some medical supplies.


What the hell would they make in a guitar workshop, cotton candy burst ventilators with rosewood knobs?

edit: damn above posters got to my joke first


----------



## Mathemagician

“The virus hype” ?

So, where exactly are you getting the idea that this is “hype”? Are people from all age groups dying, being asymptomatic for up to two weeks, and the elderly & immunocompromised being at greater risk of death just “made up bullshit”? 

“Some people have to work”. Yeah, there should be better support systems for a global pandemic I agree. 

This isn’t an economic crisis like 2008 was with bad lending. This is a health issue. You can’t just “go back to work” without massive amounts of people getting sick in a system that is not designed to handle that kind of load. 

The narrow-mindedness of people is always impressive.


----------



## bracky

Indeed.


----------



## Viginez

Mathemagician said:


> This isn’t an economic crisis like 2008 was with bad lending. This is a health issue. You can’t just “go back to work” without massive amounts of people getting sick in a system that is not designed to handle that kind of load.


apparently china did
sweden is also taking a different approach, much more relaxed and nobody is stopping them, but you won't hear it on cnn


----------



## Hollowway

bracky said:


> Lots of folks still have to work. The quicker we all get back to work the better. I’m glad they didn’t bow to the virus hype.


I completely agree that we all need to get back to work asap. But by some people going back, and others not, this drags on longer and longer. The state has told everyone to close down (except essential businesses) and for individuals to stay home. If we ALL did that, we'd get through this way quicker. As someone pointed out before, if literally everyone stayed home the virus would die out in 14 days. But having some people still go to parties, some businesses stay open, etc., this thing drags on and on. What Jeff is counting on is that everyone else follows the rules, but not him. If more businesses don't, then this drags on and on. And the longer it goes, the more likely we'll get into an economic depression. It's short term thinking for businesses to want to make a buck right now. Because they're likely doing it at the expense of cash flow over the next year. But like some are saying, Jeff has never been about good business planning. He's reactionary and impulsive, and only doing what he wants to right now, and not considering the future of his company or workers.


----------



## Masoo2

Viginez said:


> apparently china did
> sweden is also taking a different approach, much more relaxed and nobody is stopping them, but you won't hear it on cnn


you mean the China lying about death and infected numbers? you _really_ think they were truthful when they came out and said "no new cases" following the major outbreak around the world, yet they have arguably the largest population centers of vulnerable peoples?

and the sweden with their abhorrently high infected/death rate rn?

jeff should close the factory full stop. if he doesn't, hopefully california will.


----------



## Viginez

Masoo2 said:


> you mean the China lying about death and infected numbers? you _really_ think they were truthful when they came out and said "no new cases" following the major outbreak around the world, yet they have arguably the largest population centers of vulnerable peoples?
> 
> and the sweden with their abhorrently high infected/death rate rn?
> 
> jeff should close the factory full stop. if he doesn't, hopefully california will.


is there proof every other guitar company is closed?
i dont see a problem if the companies follow safety recommendations and have limited staff for a period of time.
btw, in europes large cities food markets are even fuller now and old people ride the bus every day (when i go to work).
also, assuming china is probably lying and they opened wuhan again, what is the cure then or what is stopping this from happening again?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Viginez said:


> apparently china did
> sweden is also taking a different approach, much more relaxed and nobody is stopping them, but you won't hear it on cnn



China is trying to return to normal ("trying" being the operative word as reinfection data is scarce) after months of actual lock down, not "lock down lite" that the US and some others have been trying. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...ates-its-liberation-as-covid-19-lockdown-ends

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-china-52016139

https://time.com/5808736/china-ends-hubei-coronavirus-lockdown/

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/24/asia/coronavirus-wuhan-lockdown-lifted-intl-hnk/index.html

The Swedish didn't need the government to mandate a lock down or stay in place order. They just did it, albeit it took some time, and it seems to have helped. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/04/10/europe/sweden-lockdown-turmp-intl/index.html

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fo...irus-lockdown-sweden-sees-rise-in-deaths/amp/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.economist.com/europe/2020/04/04/why-swedes-are-not-yet-locked-down

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1172781


----------



## USMarine75

Viginez said:


> apparently china did
> sweden is also taking a different approach, much more relaxed and nobody is stopping them...



https://www.euronews.com/2020/04/12/is-sweden-s-covid-19-strategy-working



Viginez said:


> ... but you won't hear it on cnn



Is the CNN fake news thing still... a thing?


----------



## possumkiller

Yeah. Maybe if you guys in the US do get back to work some good can come from it. You could be an example to the rest of the world of what happens when you don't give a fuck about your people. Oh wait... You already are.

It's like America and China are locked in a battle to see who can give the least amount of fucks about their citizens.


----------



## Ralyks

possumkiller said:


> Yeah. Maybe if you guys in the US do get back to work some good can come from it. You could be an example to the rest of the world of what happens when you don't give a fuck about your people. Oh wait... You already are.
> 
> It's like America and China are locked in a battle to see who can give the least amount of fucks about their citizens.



I mean, you're not wrong.


----------



## Viginez

USMarine75 said:


> https://www.euronews.com/2020/04/12/is-sweden-s-covid-19-strategy-working
> 
> 
> 
> Is the CNN fake news thing still... a thing?


possibly still as accurate as their polls...
funny you posted euronews and cnn together. cnn is the only us channel over here free on cable. wonder why. they follow the same agenda. 
cnn is also best at covering wars and getting the truth out about them...otherwise we wouldnt learn.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

All mainstream news leans left/ right at some point but I think that CNN does an okay job overall. Some segments are obviously heavily-biased but just like anything in life, you need to use your brain and not simply eat everything that someone's trying to feed you. Since Fox is the alternative, I'll take CNN and pick thru what's hype, what's speculative, and what's fact... then if I'm curious enough, I'll dbl-check other sources to confirm those facts.


----------



## possumkiller




----------



## SD83

USMarine75 said:


> https://www.euronews.com/2020/04/12/is-sweden-s-covid-19-strategy-working



One could say "they should have seen that coming", but then again, pretty much every government or organisation seems to have underestimated this, including the federal government agency responsible for this in Germany, the Robert-Koch-Institute, the president of which told the press in early february that they didn't expect more than a handful of cases outside of China and that there was basically no risk at all that it would turn into a pandemic (so if anyone feels the need to make fun of Trump or Johnson for not taking it serious until it was to late and pointing at Germany... we did basically the same thing. We just act like we didn't).
It seems simple enough though. It is a disease that is transmitted from one human to the next. It can apparently survive on different surfaces for up to 5 days, but the most reliable route of infection is direct contact with another person. If you reduce the contact with other people, you reduce the risk of infections. The more you reduce one, the more you reduce the other. So... numbers rising faster in Sweden than they do in Denmark would just be the logical thing to happen.

Though to be honest, with vaccines being most likely a year or more away and a reliable drug to fight it probably many months, I still tend to believe those sources that predict that in the end up to 70% of the people will be infected and that it is more a matter of when rather than if. In that case, since containment has obviously failed in most countries (and I'm still not sure about how trustworthy news from China are... they do however have no problem taking even the most drastic measures, so it might actually have worked), the thing to do would be to flatten the curve to a degree that the local health care system is able to handle it at any given time. Stay below that threshold and reach a point where the number of people cured is equal or higher than that of those newly infected (apparently with the current hospitalisation rate that threshhold would be at about 40,000 newly infected per day in Germany, currently at ~4,000, down from a max of 7,000).
However there was one study (https://www.land.nrw/sites/default/...chenergebnis_covid19_case_study_gangelt_0.pdf for those speaking German) from the village where it all started here. It did cause a bit of a controversy as it apparently is not clear how reliable the testing methods were and because for some reason it would be wrong to test multiple people from the same household. If that test was to be believed, almost 15% of the people they checked tested positive. At the time they did the study, they had about 1,300 confirmed cases in that area, 15% of the people would amount to 37,000. And even with some confirmed (?) cases of re-infection in Italy, Korea etc. (although I wonder if those people ever were completely cured in the first place or if the symptoms only had gone less severe for a time), if you had it, you're still very unlikely to get it again anytime soon. And the higher the number of those who are, at least temporarily, mostly immune, the lower the risk of infecting someone.

tl,dr: The numbers in Sweden are rising faster right now than in other countries, which was to be expected, that doesn't necessarily say anything about how many people will die in the end. If the mortality rate is the same and they can stay below the threshhold of what their health system can handle, Sweden might just reach the peak of new infections more quickly and end up with just as many dead per capita, but also return to normal more quickly.


----------



## DiezelMonster

Viginez said:


> is there proof every other guitar company is closed?
> i dont see a problem if the companies follow safety recommendations and have limited staff for a period of time.
> btw, in europes large cities food markets are even fuller now and old people ride the bus every day (when i go to work).
> also, assuming china is probably lying and they opened wuhan again, what is the cure then or what is stopping this from happening again?



I work at a music retailer in Canada and yes, all other manufacturers are closed as of last week! EVEN, gasp, Gibson.

Keisel could still be open because he many not have the money to close, ceasing operation will be catastrophic for a lot of small companies, I know here in Canada there are significant subsidies being handed out eventually, but we aren't sure when they will be pushed through so a lot of small businesses are toast. anyhow, Nobody is really prepared for this, Small business are just like a majority of the middle class, living paycheque to paycheque! 

Jeff is a twat though, so there is that.


----------



## shadowlife

DiezelMonster said:


> I work at a music retailer in Canada and yes, all other manufacturers are closed as of last week! EVEN, gasp, Gibson.
> 
> Keisel could still be open because he many not have the money to close, ceasing operation will be catastrophic for a lot of small companies, I know here in Canada there are significant subsidies being handed out eventually, but we aren't sure when they will be pushed through so a lot of small businesses are toast. anyhow, Nobody is really prepared for this, Small business are just like a majority of the middle class, living paycheque to paycheque!
> 
> Jeff is a twat though, so there is that.



I'm not saying they're still working, but I keep seeing new Suhr builds being posted on Instagram.
If they are working, then it's not fair to single out Kiesel, as much as someone may or may not like Jeff.


----------



## budda

You can have a camera roll and not be working though.


----------



## diagrammatiks

I'm not going to say that the Chinese government is putting out real data because history proves that they aren't...

but..they also had 6-8 weeks of very strict lockdown. Wuhan people were allowed to travel on April 8th. That's about 11 weeks of complete lockdown. 

Other cities are temporarily increasing distancing measures for about 3 weeks as those people get integrated.

The official numbers in my area say 350 cases and 1 death for the entire province. Even if the numbers were 10 times off, that's still fine.


----------



## DiezelMonster

shadowlife said:


> I'm not saying they're still working, but I keep seeing new Suhr builds being posted on Instagram.
> If they are working, then it's not fair to single out Kiesel, as much as someone may or may not like Jeff.



Suhr is a small factory compared to others, if they are practicing social distancing as hey work, what does it matter? Not everyone feels like you, not everyone wants to stay home, if they are given an option to keep working and be safe why do people care so much? People can make their own decisions.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

DiezelMonster said:


> Suhr is a small factory compared to others, if they are practicing social distancing as hey work, what does it matter? Not everyone feels like you, not everyone wants to stay home, if they are given an option to keep working and be safe why do people care so much? People can make their own decisions.



Individually that's fine, but the larger the group the more likely you'll run into the guy who doesn't wash his hands or follow basic social distancing, and that's really all it takes: one person not doing their part. Imagine if we took that stance on drunk driving. 

On the other side of that, I'm not going to begrudge someone who needs to go to work to pay the bills, keep food on the table. This country is an absolute shit show as far as taking care of folks like that. 

For a little context, I moved the Kiesel posts here from the big "positive" Kiesel thread, so what could be seen as singling out Kiesel in particular, was more on topic in the original thread.


----------



## DiezelMonster

MaxOfMetal said:


> Individually that's fine, but the larger the group the more likely you'll run into the guy who doesn't wash his hands or follow basic social distancing, and that's really all it takes: one person not doing their part. Imagine if we took that stance on drunk driving.
> 
> On the other side of that, I'm not going to begrudge someone who needs to go to work to pay the bills, keep food on the table. This country is an absolute shit show as far as taking care of folks like that.
> 
> For a little context, I moved the Kiesel posts here from the big "positive" Kiesel thread, so what could be seen as singling out Kiesel in particular, was more on topic in the original thread.




But that is the point, we live in a society of working pay to pay, not everyone can work at home not everyone can take time off. The option to essentially lose everything with a minimal chance to get sick? I'll take the chance, thats really my only option, unless you would like to pay my bills? the problem and its scary, is that NO ONE has the real answer, we can predict we can model we can talk in circles about the outcomes, but we sadly need to keep living.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

DiezelMonster said:


> But that is the point, we live in a society of working pay to pay, not everyone can work at home not everyone can take time off. The option to essentially lose everything with a minimal chance to get sick? I'll take the chance, thats really my only option, unless you would like to pay my bills? the problem and its scary, is that NO ONE has the real answer, we can predict we can model we can talk in circles about the outcomes, but we sadly need to keep living.



The thing is, businesses should be able to float payroll, and benefits. 

Prior to COVID, the business would purchase insurance to protect themselves and employees from "business interruption".

Post COVID the government is offering "Payroll Protection" and other small business loans. 

Additionally, local governments have put in place moratoriums on evictions and utility shut offs. 

I'm not saying we don't need more and better protections, but there's a lot out there right now, and folks should really weigh all their options before going to work.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Just to give some context of the scale we're at right now, we're at above 22,000 deaths, which most experts are saying is a conservative figure, after just about 12 weeks of known infection. 

The low estimate for flu deaths for the entire ~32 week 2019/2020 season is 24,000. The high is 62,000. 

That's based on infection numbers between 39 and 56 million. As far as we know, again this is a very conservative number based solely on the meager number of tests given, there are half a million confirmed cases of Coronavirus. 

I don't see how anyone can equate this with "just the flu" anymore.


----------



## narad

Lost a super smart guy to covid today. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Horton_Conway


----------



## MaxOfMetal

narad said:


> Lost a super smart guy to covid today.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Horton_Conway



Yeah, but did he, like, know the infection rate is exponential? 

Sorry if you knew him, Narad.


----------



## narad

Nah, didn't know him, but those artificial life ideas are one of the cooler things I remember learning about in undergrad. That rare combination of cool enough to spark some interest, simple enough to be understood by an undergrad.


----------



## blacai

narad said:


> Lost a super smart guy to covid today.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Horton_Conway


Shit... I remember reading his studies at the university and resolving some coding puzzles using the "game of life" logic


----------



## chopeth

There's no better definition of capitalism than not being able to attend to your grandmother funeral on Friday to avoid contact with other people while on Monday you are compelled to go to work by subway because, with some luck, you'll be provided with a mask.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Trump tweeting... call to fire Fauci due to his comments that more lives could've been spared had US acted earlier. The only guy in that shit-show with any integrity and transparency... Not surprising. Ego + agenda = stroke me or go home. Scum. 

https://abcnews.go.com/US/coronavirus-live-updates-trump-retweets-call-fire-fauci/story?id=70114771


----------



## SD83

High Plains Drifter said:


> Trump tweeting... call to fire Fauci due to his comments that more lives could've been spared had US acted earlier. The only guy in that shit-show with any integrity and transparency... Not surprising. Ego + agenda = stroke me or go home. Scum.
> 
> https://abcnews.go.com/US/coronavirus-live-updates-trump-retweets-call-fire-fauci/story?id=70114771



I'm just watching some of his comments right now... calm, quiet, reasonable is the impression I get. Like many others, he underestimated the threat, but everything I hear, even early february, he always makes of point of stating "this might get worse, far worse, and we must be prepared to react". At first I was about to say "well, Fauci himself said it wasn't going to be that bad, and now he says they should have reacted earlier, well how could they have if he said everything was fine?". But... it is one thing to have limited knowledge because that knowledge just does not exist yet and make assumptions based on that knowledge, that then turn out to be wrong (especially if you let everyone know that you are well aware of that possibility). It is a completely different thing to have limited knowledge because you just can't be bothered, make assumptions based on that. It gets worse when you later, when you can no longer avoid more knowledge, make new assumptions, tell everyone you knew that right from the start and blame others for your previous decisions. I wouldn't want such a person to watch my dog for half an hour, let alone run my country for 4 years.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

SD83 said:


> I'm just watching some of his comments right now... calm, quiet, reasonable is the impression I get. Like many others, he underestimated the threat, but everything I hear, even early february, he always makes of point of stating "this might get worse, far worse, and we must be prepared to react". At first I was about to say "well, Fauci himself said it wasn't going to be that bad, and now he says they should have reacted earlier, well how could they have if he said everything was fine?". But... it is one thing to have limited knowledge because that knowledge just does not exist yet and make assumptions based on that knowledge, that then turn out to be wrong (especially if you let everyone know that you are well aware of that possibility). It is a completely different thing to have limited knowledge because you just can't be bothered, make assumptions based on that. It gets worse when you later, when you can no longer avoid more knowledge, make new assumptions, tell everyone you knew that right from the start and blame others for your previous decisions. I wouldn't want such a person to watch my dog for half an hour, let alone run my country for 4 years.



I think that ever since Fauci has been in the public eye, he's been walking a fine line between trying to appease trump yet trying to report to the public with as much integrity as he can. I told my wife approx a week ago that I thought this was going to happen. trump's advisors literally have to sell their souls for any degree of job security.


----------



## wankerness

It never stops boggling my mind how NO ONE will stand up to Trump and tell him he can't do what he's doing. All the Republicans and Fox News people are just going to nod approvingly as he prematurely reopens the country and kills hundreds of thousands, or when he uses it to suppress the November election.

Fox news is constantly running shit comparing the current coronavirus deaths to # of car crash deaths or flu deaths, so that's how the right is still remaining brainwashed to think this is no worse than the flu. 

I personally have known three people that died from this already, including one guy younger than me (34). Ridiculous. I've never known of ANYONE personally that died from the flu in the rest of my life.


----------



## Merrekof

Guys, everyone has a pandemic on their hands and the US is having a political puppetry..great..

Meanwhile, music related. The Belgian government is discussing new rules on wednesday. There are talks and people (me included) are suspecting they are going to cancel every summer festival. I also assume the rest of Europe will follow. Some countries already cancelled a lot of major events.

Can you imagine, no music festivals, shows or tours, at least until september?


----------



## TedEH

Has someone already posted that article going around about how some are claiming there will be no concerts until fall 2021?

https://metalinjection.net/news/hea...VbyLEfRuyiIRjiVBz4yogoOm7_ZQvbMlj133Ut1IKLdIw


----------



## spudmunkey

Burning Man, scheduled for the 1st week of September,was cancelled over the weekend, for the first time in its history.


----------



## SD83

Merrekof said:


> Guys, everyone has a pandemic on their hands and the US is having a political puppetry..great..
> 
> Meanwhile, music related. The Belgian government is discussing new rules on wednesday. There are talks and people (me included) are suspecting they are going to cancel every summer festival. I also assume the rest of Europe will follow. Some countries already cancelled a lot of major events.
> 
> Can you imagine, no music festivals, shows or tours, at least until september?



The German government is to do the same on tuesday if I'm not mistaken, although they (supposedly) are to discuss what first steps to take to slowly go back to normal. 

Judging from what I see now, numbers, studies, and my limited understanding of the issue, I guess we'll see small cafes, restaurants, stores and the like re-open by the end of this months, maybe to some degree kindergartens as well. And from there, I hope, it will be "wait, see if things stay reasonably good, take the next step, wait". 

As for concerts (and clubs, which honestly I personally do miss a bit more), my guess is that the small venues might be allowed to open somewhere towards the end of may or, at worst, in june. Big shows with several thousand people? I don't see that before the end of summer, festivals, arena shows or big sports events... september sounds really optimistic to me. And that is Germany I'm talking about. I don't know about the situation in Belgium or Canada, but what I hear from Italy, Spain or the USA... that might take at best weeks (Italy) or at worst months (USA) longer. And all that is pretty much the best case scenario, if the "take careful steps back towards normality" strategy backfires, this will go on for a very long time. Right now though, I consider myself very much optimistic...


----------



## High Plains Drifter

TedEH said:


> Has someone already posted that article going around about how some are claiming there will be no concerts until fall 2021?
> 
> https://metalinjection.net/news/hea...VbyLEfRuyiIRjiVBz4yogoOm7_ZQvbMlj133Ut1IKLdIw



Those are the kinds of speculative stories ( no matter the legitimacy) that I try not to think about too much... not hard with a mortgage hanging over my head. But it becomes quite depressing to consider all of what may or may not happen long-term.


----------



## Ralyks

So I get a text from my mom saying one of the largest beef producers in the US had 250 cases and shut down. Anyone else here this, and if yes, good luck having a steak or burger anytime soon?


----------



## sleewell

i think it was pork.

smithfeild in sioux falls, SD


----------



## JSanta

The Smithfield plant was indeed shut down because of the virus.

https://www.npr.org/sections/corona...y-is-perilously-close-to-a-shortage-ceo-warns

The overwhelming message here is that the blow to supply chains for produce, proteins, and other foods are going to get worse before they get better. My local stores have thankfully been ok, but I know that won't last. I am going to shop tonight and hopefully get enough to freeze for a month and whatever produce I can that will last a week or two.


----------



## sleewell

they need to sell the food that is going to rot in warehouses that is meant for restaurants. who cares about the packaging. i heard one warehouse in WI has millions of pounds of cheese that should be sold to restaurants but they just arent buying it right now.

limits on how much milk you can buy as dairy farms are dumping 15-20k gallons a day down the drain. that makes no sense.


----------



## JSanta

sleewell said:


> they need to sell the food that is going to rot in warehouses that is meant for restaurants. who cares about the packaging. i heard one warehouse in WI has millions of pounds of cheese that should be sold to restaurants but they just arent buying it right now.
> 
> limits on how much milk you can buy as dairy farms are dumping 15-20k gallons a day down the drain. that makes no sense.



I've read similar news. Dairy producers are dumping milk because of lack of demand (https://www.michiganfarmnews.com/michigan-farmers-to-dump-milk-a-process-that-makes-them-sick) 

I think what you're saying is representative of siloed supply chain capabilities, along with the lack of buying due to the virus.


----------



## Chokey Chicken

I read that they're having people finish up with the remaining on premises product before shutting down for two weeks at least. So, hopefully, no wasted meat/product. Then hopefully that two weeks is sufficient.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

JSanta said:


> I've read similar news. Dairy producers are dumping milk because of lack of demand (https://www.michiganfarmnews.com/michigan-farmers-to-dump-milk-a-process-that-makes-them-sick)
> 
> I think what you're saying is representative of siloed supply chain capabilities, along with the lack of buying due to the virus.



This has certainly been somewhat of a wakeup call to folks who didn't previously understand how basic integrated supply chain works. 

It takes a lot of time and moving parts to get products from raw to finished to on shelves, with most of it carefully forecasted months in advanced. 

When even one part of that system sees disruption it leads to delays which leads to bottlenecks which lead to scarcity at point of sale. 

Right now we're seeing unprecedented disruption. I've been in manufacturing for almost 20 years now and I've NEVER seen anything like this. It's like a hurricane or tornado or flood but everywhere at the same time.


----------



## bostjan

Regarding all this talk in the news lately about people being reinfected...

1. I had mentioned earlier that there was a Chinese study that had separately identified two strains of the virus: an ancestral "S" strain and a more aggressive "L" strain. Well, now what we are seeing is that there is still a fairly dominant "S" strain, same as before, but, now, there are more than two dozen more aggressive strains. This is just a hunch, but I have a feeling that these more aggressive strains are not branches off of the L strain, but parallel branches off of the S strain. Early on, there was a lot of debate about whether the S strain was really less aggressive or not, but the debate has died down and there does seem to be some evidence to support the idea that the original virus transmitted to humans was highly contagious but not very deadly. SARS-CoV-2 is a virus that has all of its information stored in RNA protected by a small envelope of cell membrane (lipid bilayer). These sorts of viruses are prone to a lot of rapid mutation. Most of what we know about mutations of RNA viruses refer to influenza and adenovirus. Adenovirus can mutate very rapidly (with new strains created over the course of months), but poses little danger. Influenza poses more danger, and mutates new successful strains every few years. Coronavirus, in size, is about halfway between, and has now reached the point where, without historical data, any particular strain of this thing going around cannot be narrowed down to SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-2, because there is so much variation. It looks probable that these L-strains (now at least 26 of them) are mutating from the S strain, and the epidemiology involved is that people with the S strain have mild symptoms, and are more likely to travel and infect others, where the virus mutates into one of the several L-strains, and as such is more likely to develop harsh symptoms and be potentially lethal. The S strain keeps the virus spreading, though.

2. The reason there is no vaccine for the common cold is that there are so many hundreds of viruses that cause it. Even flu shots are a best guess at whichever strain is going to be bad that year, and even though influenza is influenza, strain H6N1 vaccine won't work against H2N2. If Covid-19 is caused by 27 strains of coronavirus that each require a different vaccine, then there is no reason to believe that naturally acquired immunity against strain S will work against strain L21 or whatever. Just from a common sense perspective, I do not believe that reinfection should be the least bit surprising, with that knowledge that the research community has shared with us.

3. Ok, I may sound like a broken record with this, but there are treatments for SARS. This thing is SARS, from a treatment perspective, they are the same group of virus. A SARS vaccine might not work against SARS-2, but the treatment is a totally different thing than a vaccine. We have a few treatments for SARS, and a bunch of them have been given limited test runs over the past 16 years against SARS. Since the president has a hardon for HCQ+Azithromycin, we should continue looking into that (even as most studies now show that it doesn't work against the virus, but rather just shuts off symptoms as it is an immunosuppressive and simply switches off the symptoms that are linked to the immune system fighting the virus), but, more importantly, we need a lot more data on other treatments that stemmed from SARS treatment. The problem is that SARS knowledge all goes back to places like East Asia, the middle east, and Africa, where the medical community may either not be trusted in the West or simply isn't transparent.

4. We still know very little about the virus, and as I type this, Trump is teasing about proclaiming that everyone go back to business as usual, just as we approach the peak of the spread of the virus.


----------



## wankerness

Trumo is such a fuckwad and I pray that the blue governors don't listen to him. I bet he'll try to strongarm them, by like, refusing to give them needed medical supplies unless they cancel their stay at home orders, cause he is the worst person in the world. I saw Boris Johnson's video today about his recovery, and I was absolutely stunned. That guy used to be painted as an equal to Trump, but they sure diverged in a huge way.

I really think you're wrong about the reinfection thing, there's still nothing more than a handful of anecdotal stories that are easily explained away by false negatives or them being at the wrong stage of the disease, etc. Maybe time will prove you right, but I hope not. I haven't seen anyone who seems to think rapid reinfection is a possibility other than the doomer brigade on r/coronavirus.

HCQ and AZT trials were just ended in Brazil after 11 people were actually killed by the drugs. Apparently the combo of them causes severe heart problems in a high percentage of patients (by themselves, it's a much lower risk). They also found no benefits to those who didn't get killed by them. So, yeah, sounds like they're out, unfortunately. Initial results sounded really hopeful.


----------



## Merrekof

MaxOfMetal said:


> It's like a hurricane or tornado or flood but everywhere at the same time.


Yep. And here in the EU, the EU is getting sh*t for doing not enough. Every nation is getting sh*t because no one is helping out Spain or Italy. (Howeverlast week France and Germany started taking in Italian patients to help out)

Solidarity is one of the EU's core principles but in this case, every nation is preparing itself for the storm they might not be able to handle.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Merrekof said:


> Yep. And here in the EU, the EU is getting sh*t for doing not enough. Every nation is getting sh*t because no one is helping out Spain or Italy. (Howeverlast week France and Germany started taking in Italian patients to help out)
> 
> Solidarity is one of the EU's core principles but in this case, every nation is preparing itself for the storm they might not be able to handle.



We, as a people, are not very good at cooperation when we don't see instant benefits. We're awful at the long game. 

In the late stage capitalism we've created, without financial opportunity, we don't act. 

If on day one every country realized the sort of problem this was going to be and then acted accordingly, things would be very different, but since there's no money in it and the ruling class felt well insulated, and politicians saw ulterior motivation, we wound up in the predictable cluster fuck we're seeing today. 

We're much stronger together, but it runs counter to the rugged individualism we've fostered.


----------



## SD83

bostjan said:


> Even flu shots are a best guess at whichever strain is going to be bad that year, and even though influenza is influenza, strain H6N1 vaccine won't work against H2N2. If Covid-19 is caused by 27 strains of coronavirus that each require a different vaccine, then there is no reason to believe that naturally acquired immunity against strain S will work against strain L21 or whatever. Just from a common sense perspective, I do not believe that reinfection should be the least bit surprising, with that knowledge that the research community has shared with us.


I was wondering about that stuff myself, mainly if being infected by one strain of the flu and making it through it would affect how your body reacts to other strains of the flu, and as it turns out, apparently it does. At least that is my understanding of this
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190320110619.htm
I have no idea how different one type of influenza virus is to the next one, but could this maybe play into how people react to COVID-19? If I'm not mistaken, there are types of corona-virus that are rather common and only cause a mild cold, if those are not that different from the current virus, would it be possible that having had a mild cold, caused by a close relative to that virus, makes the difference between experiencing a mild cold or going to hospital for three weeks? Or, maybe, not getting sick at all. 

I know, even if that makes sense from a medical point of view (which I'm not sure it even does), one would need years of studies to prove it. It's just one of those random thoughts that come up in my head every now and then, and your post was the perfect opportunity to get it out...


----------



## mpexus

Merrekof said:


> Yep. And here in the EU, the EU is getting sh*t for doing not enough. Every nation is getting sh*t because no one is helping out Spain or Italy. (Howeverlast week France and Germany started taking in Italian patients to help out)
> 
> Solidarity is one of the EU's core principles but in this case, every nation is preparing itself for the storm they might not be able to handle.



Yeah and Holland or Netherlands whatever you prefer is acting like spoiled brats... maybe its time what the so called "PIGS" (Portugal, Italy, Spain and Greece name actually given by a Brit...) to stop having their biggest companies fiscal Adress in their country and start paying taxes on their Homelands instead.


----------



## bostjan

wankerness said:


> Trumo is such a fuckwad and I pray that the blue governors don't listen to him. I bet he'll try to strongarm them, by like, refusing to give them needed medical supplies unless they cancel their stay at home orders, cause he is the worst person in the world. I saw Boris Johnson's video today about his recovery, and I was absolutely stunned. That guy used to be painted as an equal to Trump, but they sure diverged in a huge way.
> 
> I really think you're wrong about the reinfection thing, there's still nothing more than a handful of anecdotal stories that are easily explained away by false negatives or them being at the wrong stage of the disease, etc. Maybe time will prove you right, but I hope not. I haven't seen anyone who seems to think rapid reinfection is a possibility other than the doomer brigade on r/coronavirus.
> 
> HCQ and AZT trials were just ended in Brazil after 11 people were actually killed by the drugs. Apparently the combo of them causes severe heart problems in a high percentage of patients (by themselves, it's a much lower risk). They also found no benefits to those who didn't get killed by them. So, yeah, sounds like they're out, unfortunately. Initial results sounded really hopeful.



It looks like the media is now promoting another immunosuppressive, Tocilizumab, as the new hydroxychloroquine. Sigh. Why not let the doctors and biochemists figure this stuff out? Immunosuppressives will not fight the virus, they only fight what's fighting the virus.

Anyway...

The first reported case of reinfection was one of the Diamond Princess passengers. It's somewhat unlikely that he tested falsely, but, now there are a few similar cases... There is only speculation at the moment. Some are saying that it might be from false positives, which, in these more generic cases, I would say maybe yes, but like everything else with this virus, we'll see. China seems to be doing much better, so even if reinfection is possible, it doesn't seem to be a ubiquitous problem. Even if there are branch strains of the virus without cross-immunity, herd immunity to those different strains should eventually beat out the virus at large.



SD83 said:


> I was wondering about that stuff myself, mainly if being infected by one strain of the flu and making it through it would affect how your body reacts to other strains of the flu, and as it turns out, apparently it does. At least that is my understanding of this
> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190320110619.htm
> I have no idea how different one type of influenza virus is to the next one, but could this maybe play into how people react to COVID-19? If I'm not mistaken, there are types of corona-virus that are rather common and only cause a mild cold, if those are not that different from the current virus, would it be possible that having had a mild cold, caused by a close relative to that virus, makes the difference between experiencing a mild cold or going to hospital for three weeks? Or, maybe, not getting sick at all.
> 
> I know, even if that makes sense from a medical point of view (which I'm not sure it even does), one would need years of studies to prove it. It's just one of those random thoughts that come up in my head every now and then, and your post was the perfect opportunity to get it out...



Of the coronaviruses that cause the common cold, the most common is OC43, which has four distinct genotypes and 29 strains, with a new genotype emerging every eight years on average, and pretty much a new strain every year. It is unknown whether there is cross-immunity between strains of OC43, since acquired immunity to any particular OC43 virus only lasts a few weeks or months at best. If SARS-CoV-2 is anything like OC43, then a vaccine will be fruitless. From the rate of mutation, it doesn't look good, if we have 27 strains since November, then the virus has mutated in six months as much as it's closest understood relative has mutated in 40 years. Of course, maybe the Chinese doctors are just making all of this stuff up. Maybe the mutations will simply cease, or maybe there is one strain that yields good cross-immunity with the others.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

dead bodies are still infectious. Or rather their fluids/etc are
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/xandr/first-confirmed-case-someone-dying-110701734.html


----------



## bostjan

KnightBrolaire said:


> dead bodies are still infectious. Or rather their fluids/etc are
> https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/xandr/first-confirmed-case-someone-dying-110701734.html



I mean, I believe that dead bodies are still infectious, yes, but how would they know where this person was exposed to the virus?


----------



## KnightBrolaire

bostjan said:


> I mean, I believe that dead bodies are still infectious, yes, but how would they know where this person was exposed to the virus?


It was a forensic worker, so the assumption is they contracted it through working with dead bodies rather than some other method. Seems pretty plausible given how it can survive outside of a host for days, and other viruses are contractible via dead bodies (ebola and some prion diseases for example).


----------



## bostjan

KnightBrolaire said:


> It was a forensic worker, so the assumption is they contracted it through working with dead bodies rather than some other method. Seems pretty plausible given how it can survive outside of a host for days, and other viruses are contractible via dead bodies (ebola for example).



Agreed that it seems plausible. I'd say that it's safe to assume that any dead body could give you pretty much any nasty disease if you go handling it carelessly. But I guess I'm not 100% sold on the way the article is framed that it was confirmed.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

bostjan said:


> Agreed that it seems plausible. I'd say that it's safe to assume that any dead body could give you pretty much any nasty disease if you go handling it carelessly. But I guess I'm not 100% sold on the way the article is framed that it was confirmed.


It just does a poor job of trying to paraphrase the source document for clicks. 
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1752928X20300718


----------



## bostjan

KnightBrolaire said:


> It just does a poor job of trying to paraphrase the source document for clicks.
> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1752928X20300718



I get three pieces of data from that letter to the editor:

1. It's best to assume that you could get covid-19 from a dead body.
2. Thailand has no idea how many people are carrying the virus, nor does it seem (that the author of the letter believes) that they care.
3. PPE policies in Thailand for forensic professionals must be pretty loose, if this person is urging them to start wearing gloves.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

bostjan said:


> I get three pieces of data from that letter to the editor:
> 
> 1. It's best to assume that you could get covid-19 from a dead body.
> 2. Thailand has no idea how many people are carrying the virus, nor does it seem (that the author of the letter believes) that they care.
> 3. PPE policies in Thailand for forensic professionals must be pretty loose, if this person is urging them to start wearing gloves.


all it takes is one slip up with ppe to get infected. I know nurses that got exposed to hepatitis B because they had a small wound on their hand, and their glove ripped. Hell I've been sprayed in the face by blood and pus before. Face shields are a godsend.


----------



## bostjan

KnightBrolaire said:


> all it takes is one slip up with ppe to get infected. I know nurses that got exposed to hepatitis B because they had a small wound on their hand, and their glove ripped. Hell I've been sprayed in the face by blood and pus before. Face shields are a godsend.



That's rough. My workplace mandates that anyone signed up as a "first aid responder" get the hep b vaccine. I've seen gloves that either developed small tears just from putting them on or already had tears. No one likes double gloving because it causes dexterity issues. I can't imagine having to deal with people actively puking and hacking on you.

In a research lab, we deal with that doesn't try to bite us, and we almost always know what it is before it comes into contact with anyone. And I've still seen people stab themselves with needles on accident.

But I guess I just assumed that everyone handling dead bodies at this point was assuming that they were infectious. I mean, if not coronavirus, there are at least a few really nasty diseases that I can think of that a person could easily pick up from a cadaver.


----------



## vilk

It's got a 2 week incubation period. Presuming that the forensics dude was not in solitary fasting for 2 weeks prior, there's no way to guess where he got the virus.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

bostjan said:


> That's rough. My workplace mandates that anyone signed up as a "first aid responder" get the hep b vaccine. I've seen gloves that either developed small tears just from putting them on or already had tears. No one likes double gloving because it causes dexterity issues. I can't imagine having to deal with people actively puking and hacking on you.
> 
> In a research lab, we deal with that doesn't try to bite us, and we almost always know what it is before it comes into contact with anyone. And I've still seen people stab themselves with needles on accident.
> 
> But I guess I just assumed that everyone handling dead bodies at this point was assuming that they were infectious. I mean, if not coronavirus, there are at least a few really nasty diseases that I can think of that a person could easily pick up from a cadaver.


She had the hep b vaccine luckily (it's a requirement for anyone working with patients). accidental needlesticks are SUUUPER COMMON across healthcare. As is getting bit (at least in psych and EMS/ER). 


vilk said:


> It's got a 2 week incubation period. Presuming that the forensics dude was not in solitary fasting for 2 weeks prior, there's no way to guess where he got the virus.


Yeah it's inconclusive as to whether he got it from a dead body or some other means right now. You'd think we would have seen this happen earlier in China or Italy to forensic staff if this was easily attributed to working on corpses. Still, seems within the realm of possibility


----------



## ThePIGI King

Just curious if any other states are doing this:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/ohio-dewine-protest-end-social-distancing-reopen-economy-coronavirus


----------



## Ralyks

Trump stopped funding WHO. So.... take that?


----------



## possumkiller

If there is one thing that this Corvid-19 has taught me, it's that every single one of my friends and family in America are absolute and complete morons. I can't tell you the amount of bullshit conspiracy ramblings from "prominent doctors" (that always remain nameless for some reason) I get forwarded to me from my Dad, cousin, and old army buddies. Everything from it being a gay liberal media hoax to it was created in America and sold to China but it's being way overhyped, but it's way worse because it's an autoimmune disease and will lay dormant for years before wreaking havoc on its host again, but this is the new normal and everyone should get used to lockdown because there is no way society will ever go back to how it was. 

I thought about trying to hit them up with some facts from the actual medical experts but what would be the point? They think these people that have spent their lives studying diseases and how they work are the ones trying to fuck them over and not the politicians that are actually trying to fuck them over.


----------



## possumkiller

I take that back. My granny is still sharp as a tack. She is going to be 90 in November and she don't give a fuck. She's been waiting to die for the last ten years. Not because she gives a rat's ass about the economy, but because everyone from her generation for miles around is long gone and she's lonely. The world doesn't make sense to her anymore and she doesn't know wtf people are talking about half the time with all the tweeters and book faces and computer phones and shit. She is the only one in my family that ever had any sense.


----------



## SD83

Remember that video of Warsaw without people back at page... 10 or something? Here is one from my hometown, only this time the team who made it admitted they edited out some people, cars & bicycles. Though, not in the video, there was a clue in the description and they admitted it when someone in the comments said "hey, I live here, and there are less people than usual but it is not THAT empty". Exactly why I hardly trust anything I did not see with my own eyes or I get from people I trust that did. I'm not saying the video from Warsaw was edited, or any other in this context, to make areas appear more empty or more crowded, whatever fits your agenda, but it is easily possible.
And yes, it is not nearly that empty in Münster. You'll have a hard time finding the place this empty even now at 2 am on a sunday morning.


EDIT: This is more accurate:


----------



## Merrekof

SD83 said:


> Remember that video of Warsaw without people back at page... 10 or something? Here is one from my hometown, only this time the team who made it admitted they edited out some people, cars & bicycles. Though, not in the video, there was a clue in the description and they admitted it when someone in the comments said "hey, I live here, and there are less people than usual but it is not THAT empty". Exactly why I hardly trust anything I did not see with my own eyes or I get from people I trust that did. I'm not saying the video from Warsaw was edited, or any other in this context, to make areas appear more empty or more crowded, whatever fits your agenda, but it is easily possible.
> And yes, it is not nearly that empty in Münster. You'll have a hard time finding the place this empty even now at 2 am on a sunday morning.
> 
> 
> EDIT: This is more accurate:



I also found those videos weird. I live in a rural area and there is definetely a LOT less traffic everywhere. Especially at night. 
But the number of trucks and vans on the other hand, remain the same. Maybe even more since online shopping and parcel deliveries have skyrocketed. 
Sure, big cities have empty streets and squares but people still need food, utility services, online-bought consumer goods,.. and those things are all brought in by truck or van..

Also, when the sun comes out, there are byciclists and pedestrians everywhere!


----------



## possumkiller

I think all of those videos are bullshit. I live in Gdansk. I can take a video of lots of people, cars and bikes walking all around. Construction still going on. I have never seen any abandoned post apocalyptic crap like people are posting unless it is on Sunday when everyone is recovering from drinking.


----------



## bostjan

possumkiller said:


> Corvid-19









Sorry...


----------



## sleewell

ok so trump is basically accusing the WHO of exactly the things he did, clearly trying to deflect blame from himself.

he spent the last few months praising the WHO and china. now he wants to re write history bc its obvious he spent the entire months of jan and feb doing nothing but downplaying this instead of preparing.


also delaying the stimulus checks so they can add is fucking name. are you kidding me, what a piece of complete shit. 


trump kool aid drinkers are like yeah trump has total power, states have no rights woo hoo!!! we used to believe in stuff and now we believe in the exact opposite. we are so smart!!


----------



## MaxOfMetal

MaxOfMetal said:


> Just to give some context of the scale we're at right now, we're at above 22,000 deaths, which most experts are saying is a conservative figure, after just about 12 weeks of known infection.
> 
> The low estimate for flu deaths for the entire ~32 week 2019/2020 season is 24,000. The high is 62,000.
> 
> That's based on infection numbers between 39 and 56 million. As far as we know, again this is a very conservative number based solely on the meager number of tests given, there are half a million confirmed cases of Coronavirus.
> 
> I don't see how anyone can equate this with "just the flu" anymore.



And just like that we've gone past the lower estimate. 

Last flu season there were an estimated 34,200 deaths across the whole season. At the current rate we'll see that many in about a week, in a time span less than half of the recorded flu season. 

Again, this is NOT the flu.


----------



## narad

MaxOfMetal said:


> And just like that we've gone past the lower estimate.
> 
> Last flu season there were an estimated 34,200 deaths across the whole season. At the current rate we'll see that many in about a week, in a time span less than half of the recorded flu season.
> 
> Again, this is NOT the flu.



Man, that's just crazy. I don't know what you'd call growth like that. It's just so fast. It's like exp...losive.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Really frustrating here as the virus is overtaking all the large cities around us.. Austin, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio... and everyday, people seemingly still continuing to not really care... aside from being extra-pissed due to the growing inconveniences. We were forced to hit up walmart last week for a few things and I estimate about 1 out of 5 on the average... wearing a mask coming into/ out of the store. My wife was inside for about 35 mins while all I did was sit outside in the jeep, counting every five people. And inside the store my wife said shoppers and associates were hovering around each other everywhere... no distancing/ no protective measures. Not everyone, but the majority. 

Last week was quite humbling... asking all of our utility/ lending/ service providers for what they could do to help us... the majority only willing to postpone pmts 1-2 months... not reduce or waive pmts, or extend contracts. How does doubling my bill next month help me in the fucking least lol? It's supposed to peak here April 26th. You think I'm going to be financially more stable by May or June? Oh and thanks, Spectrum... Two additional free channels for a few weeks rather than waiving some of your bullshit fees over the next couple months... nice. 

Sadly, our local govt here seems apathetic or apprehensive regarding just about everything! They continue to "advise" safety guidelines. That means literally nothing to the "gun/ truck/ murica" crowd around here! I realize that some people must continue working but when you're shopping, why the hell won't you at least wear a mask or sanitize your hands or distance yourself? Maybe cover your mouth when you cough and maybe stop getting your news from your equally derelict friends. I swear... local officials shouldn't be suggesting and considering new measures. They need to step up and act decisively! The US has been a day late and a dollar short from the get-go with this thing. How in the world are we still moving so damned slow and timidly against something that is moving so aggressively and efficiently?


----------



## sleewell

well there is this piece of human garbage


https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...-he-s-willing-let-more-americans-die-n1184036

*Indiana congressman says he's willing to let more Americans die to save economy*

Favoring the economy over Americans' health "is the lesser of two evils," Rep. Trey Hollingsworth said.


----------



## wankerness

ThePIGI King said:


> Just curious if any other states are doing this:
> https://www.foxnews.com/us/ohio-dewine-protest-end-social-distancing-reopen-economy-coronavirus



Stop reading propaganda. Jesus. Of course people that live in an echo chamber that reinforces the idea that this is a democratic hoax are going to protest that they want to be able to gather in churches and go back to tightly-packed workplaces like the meat plant in South Dakota that just closed cause 200 employees got coronavirus. And of course Fox News is going to report on it as being a valid protest since they're the very echo chamber.


----------



## ThePIGI King

wankerness said:


> Stop reading propaganda. Jesus. Of course people that live in an echo chamber that reinforces the idea that this is a democratic hoax are going to protest that they want to be able to gather in churches and go back to tightly-packed workplaces like the meat plant in South Dakota that just closed cause 200 employees got coronavirus. And of course Fox News is going to report on it as being a valid protest since they're the very echo chamber.


Chill dude. I didn't say a thing other than asking if other states had protests like this yet. Hop off your criticism horse for a moment and relax.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> Chill dude. I didn't say a thing other than asking if other states had protests like this yet. Hop off you criticism horse for a moment and relax.



Nothing out here.


----------



## sleewell

the maga crew are protesting our gov today. she has been doing a great job. lets hope trump keeps bashing her and ppl here vote the other way in nov. 

the gov in ohio has also been doing a great job too, seems like a smart guy unlike that complete doof in FL.


----------



## possumkiller

ThePIGI King said:


> Chill dude. I didn't say a thing other than asking if other states had protests like this yet. Hop off your criticism horse for a moment and relax.


That's all we need is more freakin protesting hippies in the streets. Tell them to get off the street and get a damn job!


----------



## mpexus

Not everything is bad though... although it's sad that it needs a pandemic to "force" this.. Something that you guys over there really need to fix

March 2020 was the first March without a school shooting in the U.S. since 2002


----------



## sleewell

MaxOfMetal said:


> Nothing out here.




probably still reeling from that devastating state supreme court seat loss a few days ago after trying to suppress the vote.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mpexus said:


> Not everything is bad though... although it's sad that it needs a pandemic to "force" this.. Something that you guys over there really need to fix
> 
> March 2020 was the first March without a school shooting in the U.S. since 2002



Sort of like gluing your nostrils shut to give up cocaine.


----------



## jaxadam

mpexus said:


> Not everything is bad though...



Not everything is bad. It really has been a strange turn of events socially... and in a good way. I see more people out and about in our neighborhood walking, running, riding bikes, being just happy good neighbors and doing things they should always have been doing instead of working to death and playing on their phones/internet/netflixin'/whatever else. I see people helping other people more and coming together much more as a community. 

In the past week our 4 year old has basically learned to read, ride his bike without training wheels, and dive headfirst into the pool. My wife spent about 5 days straight sewing masks for all of our neighbors/friends/co-workers/family and that has made her very happy. Our neighborhood held a virtual 5k. 

When all this is over, there's a big part of me that hopes people continue to do what they're doing. I think it'd be great if more people could continue working from home and being more social and benevolent in the community instead of a 9 to 5 grind and then holing up in their houses every night when they get home.


----------



## ThePIGI King

possumkiller said:


> That's all we need is more freakin protesting hippies in the streets. Tell them to get off the street and get a damn job!


Gonna have to open up the economy so they can get those darned jobs


----------



## Frosty the Snowperson

ThePIGI King said:


> Gonna have to open up the economy so they can get those darned jobs


The solution is simple - become an essentially employee (food maker or broker, utility industry, etc.)


----------



## spudmunkey

I keep seeing people talk about guns around my local area, and seeing neighbors blast each other on NextDoor ("Why are/aren't gun stores open? They aren't/are essential!") and family on facebook talking about 2nd ammendment rights...but I haven't come across much intelligent talk at all about a part of the FIRST ammendment, which includes the right to assembly. Has anyone come across some good writing about that aspect of the shelter-in-place? I've seen mostly very skewed writings in a brief search this morning...like from websites called "1stAmmendmentOutragePanicforGod.com" or something.


----------



## mpexus

jaxadam said:


> When all this is over, there's a big part of me that hopes people continue to do what they're doing. I think it'd be great if more people could continue working from home and being more social and benevolent in the community instead of a 9 to 5 grind and then holing up in their houses every night when they get home.



I also hope this will change us overall... but even if it does it will short lived.

In France right now working Nurses are being harassed to leave their homes because their neighbors are posting Notes for them to find other places to live and even vandalizing their cars or asking them to park them in other places... same is happening in Spain...people really are SHIT!!!! Can you imagine working 16 hours saving lifes and coming home and read that shit? I think i would go spit on them all and if one of them appeared infect at the hospital i would refuse treating him.


----------



## SD83

mpexus said:


> I also hope this will change us overall... but even if it does it will short lived.
> 
> In France right now working Nurses are being harassed to leave their homes because their neighbors are posting Notes for them to find other places to live and even vandalizing their cars or asking them to park them in other places... same is happening in Spain...people really are SHIT!!!! Can you imagine working 16 hours saving lifes and coming home and read that shit? I think i would go spit on them all and if one of them appeared infect at the hospital i would refuse treating him.



That is just disgusting 



mpexus said:


> Not everything is bad though... although it's sad that it needs a pandemic to "force" this.. Something that you guys over there really need to fix
> 
> March 2020 was the first March without a school shooting in the U.S. since 2002



Given that I would consider decently paid jobs which you're likely to keep for the foreseeable future, affordable health care and affordable, good education (ie safety, independence and a certain degree of wealth) to be a good way to fight gun violence (or crime in general), I have little hope that this will have any lasting positive effects in that regard. Quite the opposite.


----------



## mpexus

SD83 said:


> Given that I would consider decently paid jobs which you're likely to keep for the foreseeable future, affordable health care and affordable, good education (ie safety, independence and a certain degree of wealth) to be a good way to fight gun violence (or crime in general), I have little hope that this will have any lasting positive effects in that regard. Quite the opposite.



There's poor people working 12+ hours a day all over the World and with bare education or not at all and this doesn't happen anywhere else... so the problem is not lack of jobs or education or lack of healthcare... its cultural and something else that millions refuse to see. My perspective is a mental issue allied with the fact of being extremely easy to get weapons that can kill dozens in a blink of an eye. And all in legal manners in the name of Profit disguised as "Constitutional Right".


----------



## Drew

jaxadam said:


> Not everything is bad. It really has been a strange turn of events socially... and in a good way. I see more people out and about in our neighborhood walking, running, riding bikes, being just happy good neighbors and doing things they should always have been doing instead of working to death and playing on their phones/internet/netflixin'/whatever else. I see people helping other people more and coming together much more as a community.
> 
> In the past week our 4 year old has basically learned to read, ride his bike without training wheels, and dive headfirst into the pool. My wife spent about 5 days straight sewing masks for all of our neighbors/friends/co-workers/family and that has made her very happy. Our neighborhood held a virtual 5k.
> 
> When all this is over, there's a big part of me that hopes people continue to do what they're doing. I think it'd be great if more people could continue working from home and being more social and benevolent in the community instead of a 9 to 5 grind and then holing up in their houses every night when they get home.


I've been holding onto this, too - you sort of HAVE to look at the silver linings, to get through this. I've been spending a lot more time with my girlfriend (even if we're both working, we're in the same house), we've been doing a ton more cooking, something we both enjoy, and now that we're out of our mandatory quarantines, we've been good about spending more time outside, which we've always done a lot of but has become a lot more critical to self-care these days. Selfishly, with fewer cars on the road, it's been a GREAT time to hunt Strava KOMS and PRs, and I'm getting back to the point where I can do 30 second to 2 minute max efforts without worrying. Andf work is straight-up insane, but I have a job and job security. With so many people outdoors you have to be careful with social distancing... ands that's a nuisance... but I'm also stoked to see so many ppeople going for walks, hikes, or bike rides, and especially in the latter case it's pretty clear that this is new to them and they're rturing over a new leaf. That's cool. 

It's a shitty time for everyone, but it's also not without its silver linings.


----------



## jaxadam

Drew said:


> or bike rides, and especially in the latter case it's pretty clear that this is new to them and they're rturing over a new leaf. That's cool.



We literally just bought my wife a new bike with one of those pull-behind thingy's and mine is in the shop getting a major makeover and I should have it back Friday.


----------



## bostjan

Frosty the Snowperson said:


> The solution is simple - become an essentially employee (food maker or broker, utility industry, etc.)


My employer right now is putting forth quite a bit of effort into hiring people in the midst of this. It sounds crazy, maybe, but it's part of keeping the electricity on.



spudmunkey said:


> I keep seeing people talk about guns around my local area, and seeing neighbors blast each other on NextDoor ("Why are/aren't gun stores open? They aren't/are essential!") and family on facebook talking about 2nd ammendment rights...but I haven't come across much intelligent talk at all about a part of the FIRST ammendment, which includes the right to assembly. Has anyone come across some good writing about that aspect of the shelter-in-place? I've seen mostly very skewed writings in a brief search this morning...like from websites called "1stAmmendmentOutragePanicforGod.com" or something.



The Bill of Rights only extends as far as it can without infringing on other people's rights to life, personal liberties, and property, though. And, during a time of national emergency, virtually all rights are suspended.

Fun fact time:

1. The Spanish Flu (during the end of WWI) was believed to have started in the USA. The federal government didn't want newspapers to report on the outbreak, because it would hurt the war effort, so news organizations that said anything at all about the epidemic at the start were punished severely under the freshly passed Alien and Sedition Acts. Anyone publishing information about Spanish Flu could be convicted of espionage and executed, so, unsurprisingly, when the government wanted to do a pro-war rally in Philidelphia in the midst of the ourbreak of the flu, doctors begged the press to publish data, and the press refused. The rally was held and well attended, and 17000 people in Philidelphia died of the flu. Worldwide, more people died of Spanish flu in three years than died of Bubonic Plague in a century.
2. In Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905), the Supreme Court ruled that, during an epidemic, you *have to* get vaccinated. Dudeman Jacobson didn't want a vaccine, but Cambridge was facing a deadly epidemic of smallpox, so... too bad. Public health was at risk, and that was determined to outrank personal liberty.
3. Check out https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journal-plague-year-180965222/ there are a few parallels between Wilson's 1918 response and with Trump's 2020 response to similar situations. Deny there is a problem. Punish those who question. Once it's stupidly obvious that you messed up, say you were doing whatever it took to cause the least amount of damage to the nation. History judges Wilson harshly. I imagine, that despite staunch support for Trump's (mis)handling of the pandemic, people will feel sick to their stomachs reading about him decades from now.



Drew said:


> I've been holding onto this, too - you sort of HAVE to look at the silver linings, to get through this. I've been spending a lot more time with my girlfriend (even if we're both working, we're in the same house), we've been doing a ton more cooking, something we both enjoy, and now that we're out of our mandatory quarantines, we've been good about spending more time outside, which we've always done a lot of but has become a lot more critical to self-care these days. Selfishly, with fewer cars on the road, it's been a GREAT time to hunt Strava KOMS and PRs, and I'm getting back to the point where I can do 30 second to 2 minute max efforts without worrying. Andf work is straight-up insane, but I have a job and job security. With so many people outdoors you have to be careful with social distancing... ands that's a nuisance... but I'm also stoked to see so many ppeople going for walks, hikes, or bike rides, and especially in the latter case it's pretty clear that this is new to them and they're rturing over a new leaf. That's cool.
> 
> It's a shitty time for everyone, but it's also not without its silver linings.



My work has been super busy, too. Trying to build up inventory in the event of a shutdown from someone getting sick in the factory, switching some production over to making masks, volunteering our lab for a handful of studies... A lot of 10-12 hour days here. But I'm the type of person who can't just sit and stare at the wall, so it's been a fine time for me personally to get involved with things I personally feel better about working on, and also staying super busy when everyone else is bored.


----------



## spudmunkey

Global tally officially over 2million global confirmed cases (2,050,031 ATM).

In the US, the additional new cases reported each day is levelling off...



...but we're still lagging waaaaay behind in testing in the US. We've barely increased testing in over 2 weeks.




US: 2407 deaths yesterday makes it the highest single day total by nearly 300, after 3 days of reductions, nearly 1/3 of them from new York state alone.


----------



## sleewell

its crazy to me that south korea had their first case the same day we did and they were able to scale up and perform mass testing 2 weeks later. we still arent even close months later or even at the very least showing any improvement. we have failed so badly at this which is why our economy is in shambles and they are doing ok. compete and utter failure of leadership.


----------



## wankerness

Yeah. We’re not having cases go up on the stat sheet because no one with it is getting tested except in a few specific locations/circumstances. Basically where I live, you can’t get a test unless you are in the hospital with critical symptoms AND you went out of the country recently/were around someone that did. As if it’s a virus people are still getting overseas now...

so yeah, as a result, we have one confirmed case in my town and a ton of people who clearly have it.


----------



## SD83

According to testing, we reached the peak in active cases 9 days ago, and the number of newly infected way before that. As a result, government decided to take first steps back to normal.
Meetings of more than 2 people in public places are still illegal at least until May 4th, but in addition to businesses that were open all the time (supermarkets, grocery stores, home depot, workshops etc.), if I understood the current news correctly, basically everything under 800m² (8,600 ft²) can open if they monitor how many people go inside and take some other precautions, car & bike dealers and book stores (and probably some others that I missed) may open regardless of their size. 
Schools are to remain closed until early may, exams can take place though. 
All big events with more than 1,000 attendants are canceled until August 31st. 
And honestly... I've never been a big fan of our government, but I still think that for once, they're doing a good job, by and large.


----------



## SpaceDock

When I look at the US numbers I see about 1/3 of the daily test is positive and I have heard of people infected not testing positive until they get really bad or the people who carry it in their intestines and not their lungs. I just wonder if we are fooling ourselves with low testing numbers and poor effectiveness of tests. 

On another note, just got my Covid Cash! Thanks Drumpf. Why is it that both stimulus checks I have received came from Republicans who decried these types of handouts. The last stimulus check I got was a month or so prior to the absolute breakdown of our banking and real estate markets, let’s see if history repeats itself again.


----------



## Xaios

bostjan said:


> Sorry...


----------



## USMarine75

bostjan said:


> Worldwide, more people died of Spanish flu in three years than died of Bubonic Plague in a century.



Well that greatly misrepresents the true effect of Y Pestis plague. The number of deaths is actually quite similar, but the percentage of the world population was much less in 1346 than 1918. And the surviving population percentage was even lower. It took around 200 years to replace the population loss from just 3 years of plague.

*In Europe*, it is thought that around *50 million* people died as a result of the Black Death over the course of three or four years. The population was reduced from some 80 million to 30 million.

vs.

The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least *50 million worldwide* with about 675,000 occurring in the United States.

Plague destroyed a higher proportion of the population than any other single known event. "One observer noted the living were scarcely sufficient to bury the dead”.

https://www.historyextra.com/period...c-facts-what-caused-rats-fleas-how-many-died/

Plague (Bubonic) has an estimated 50% attack rate, vs 1918 H1N1 which had estimated 10%.

Cause Actual number killed attack rate Worldwide population Pre and Post Adjusted deaths for 1.9B population
1918-1920 H1N1 50-100M 10% 1.9B and 1.8B 50-100M
1346-1351 Plague 75-100M 50% 450M and 375M *900M-1B*

This is all hypothetical, because medicine was primitive yet still more advance in 1918 than 1346. So perhaps H1N1 would have killed more in 1346? Perhaps Plague would have killed less in 1918? There is so much we still don't know... did Pneumonic plague cause the majority of those deaths in 1346-1351?

Also, you mentioned Spanish flu originated in the US, but we don't definitively know that. In fact, that is actually one of the least favored theories. When I was finishing Med school the current (then) theory everyone had money on was China: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...u-1918-china-origins-pandemic-science-health/


----------



## Merrekof

USMarine75 said:


> Well that greatly misrepresents the true effect of Y Pestis plague. The number of deaths is actually quite similar, but the percentage of the world population was much less in 1346 than 1918. And the surviving population percentage was even lower. It took around 200 years to replace the population loss from just 3 years of plague.
> 
> *In Europe*, it is thought that around *50 million* people died as a result of the Black Death over the course of three or four years. The population was reduced from some 80 million to 30 million.
> 
> vs.
> 
> The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least *50 million worldwide* with about 675,000 occurring in the United States.
> 
> Plague destroyed a higher proportion of the population than any other single known event. "One observer noted the living were scarcely sufficient to bury the dead”.
> 
> https://www.historyextra.com/period...c-facts-what-caused-rats-fleas-how-many-died/
> 
> Plague (Bubonic) has an estimated 50% attack rate, vs 1918 H1N1 which had estimated 10%.
> 
> Cause Actual number killed attack rate Worldwide population Pre and Post Adjusted deaths for 1.9B population
> 1918-1920 H1N1 50-100M 10% 1.9B and 1.8B 50-100M
> 1346-1351 Plague 75-100M 50% 450M and 375M *900M-1B*
> 
> This is all hypothetical, because medicine was primitive yet still more advance in 1918 than 1346. So perhaps H1N1 would have killed more in 1346? Perhaps Plague would have killed less in 1918? There is so much we still don't know... did Pneumonic plague cause the majority of those deaths in 1346-1351?
> 
> Also, you mentioned Spanish flu originated in the US, but we don't definitively know that. In fact, that is actually one of the least favored theories. When I was finishing Med school the current (then) theory everyone had money on was China: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...u-1918-china-origins-pandemic-science-health/


And this Covid might be just as bad as the Spanish flu. We changed a lot since then. Now we have more understanding about viruses and how to deal with them, we have much better equipment, better trained personnel, better medication like antibiotics,.. If we had al this in 1918, we certainly wouldn't have so many deaths.

The plague, well here is a fun anecdote. A pope (IIRC) said that drinking beer prevented getting the plague. He was ~sort of~ right about that. People got the plague from dirty water, among other things. And beer used water that was fermented an filtered so it was indeed better to drink beer than water.


----------



## USMarine75

Merrekof said:


> And this Covid might be just as bad as the Spanish flu. We changed a lot since then. Now we have more understanding about viruses and how to deal with them, we have much better equipment, better trained personnel, better medication like antibiotics,.. If we had al this in 1918, we certainly wouldn't have so many deaths.
> 
> The plague, well here is a fun anecdote. A pope (IIRC) said that drinking beer prevented getting the plague. He was ~sort of~ right about that. People got the plague from dirty water, among other things. And beer used water that was fermented an filtered so it was indeed better to drink beer than water.



Interesting to consider, but likely no. The major (lucky for us) difference is SARS-CoV-2 isn't affecting the spectrum of age groups that ether of those pandemics affected. The attack rate for this pandemic is massively skewed depending on your age demographic and prior cardiopulmonary history. That said, you're correct this would have certainly killed far more in 1918 or 1346. But 50-100M? Likely no.

See? Happy thoughts.


----------



## bostjan

USMarine75 said:


> Well that greatly misrepresents the true effect of Y Pestis plague. The number of deaths is actually quite similar, but the percentage of the world population was much less in 1346 than 1918. And the surviving population percentage was even lower. It took around 200 years to replace the population loss from just 3 years of plague.
> 
> *In Europe*, it is thought that around *50 million* people died as a result of the Black Death over the course of three or four years. The population was reduced from some 80 million to 30 million.
> 
> vs.
> 
> The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least *50 million worldwide* with about 675,000 occurring in the United States.
> 
> Plague destroyed a higher proportion of the population than any other single known event. "One observer noted the living were scarcely sufficient to bury the dead”.
> 
> https://www.historyextra.com/period...c-facts-what-caused-rats-fleas-how-many-died/
> 
> Plague (Bubonic) has an estimated 50% attack rate, vs 1918 H1N1 which had estimated 10%.
> 
> Cause Actual number killed attack rate Worldwide population Pre and Post Adjusted deaths for 1.9B population
> 1918-1920 H1N1 50-100M 10% 1.9B and 1.8B 50-100M
> 1346-1351 Plague 75-100M 50% 450M and 375M *900M-1B*
> 
> This is all hypothetical, because medicine was primitive yet still more advance in 1918 than 1346. So perhaps H1N1 would have killed more in 1346? Perhaps Plague would have killed less in 1918? There is so much we still don't know... did Pneumonic plague cause the majority of those deaths in 1346-1351?
> 
> Also, you mentioned Spanish flu originated in the US, but we don't definitively know that. In fact, that is actually one of the least favored theories. When I was finishing Med school the current (then) theory everyone had money on was China: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...u-1918-china-origins-pandemic-science-health/



Didn't say we definitively knew that, I said it was believed. It is believed. It says so on wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a source of definitive information, but as a gauge of what people believe to be true, it is pretty good. But anyway, it even mentions that belief in your own source. It sounds like the idea that it came from China is a fairly recent hypothesis.

Until your posting, I hadn't seen any credible sources that say that the plague killed 900 million people in any one century. Most estimates are in the tens of millions worldwide (source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2951374/), worldwide, Spanish Flu is estimated to have killed 50-100 million, as you mentioned.

Either way, I think these are clearly beside any of my points.


----------



## mpexus

Merrekof said:


> And this Covid might be just as bad as the Spanish flu. We changed a lot since then. Now we have more understanding about viruses and how to deal with them, we have much better equipment, better trained personnel, better medication like antibiotics,.. If we had al this in 1918, we certainly wouldn't have so many deaths.



Yes for sure but we have a huge "problem" they didn't had back then: Planes

Diseases travel further and faster than ever because of the easy way we can move around the globe by doing so we spread it all over without even knowing it.

Reading the interview with Death Angel drummer they were all sick already on their Tour Bus but only came home when the Tour got canceled. He was afraid of getting checked at the Airport but they didnt, because they knew them and let them pass without any tests... which is kinda WTF really...


https://www.decibelmagazine.com/202...qRkycDP1vDORGGJHN59gl1p9AMFvzD3SFFJPBxEP-cxO4 


Remembering I was in some cases mere Meters and sometimes Centimeters from them at their show in Cognac (France) and then reading 2 weeks later they were sick kinda made me worried...luckily either I didn't got anything or if I did i never felt it.


----------



## Merrekof

USMarine75 said:


> Interesting to consider, but likely no. The major (lucky for us) difference is SARS-CoV-2 isn't affecting the spectrum of age groups that ether of those pandemics affected.


We don't know yet. The Spanish initially wasn't that deadly, it waqn't until the second wace hit that the younger were dying. Although that doesn't seem to be the case when checking China or Singapore numbers.



mpexus said:


> Yes for sure but we have a huge "problem" they didn't had back then: Planes


Yep, definately! Back then, it took weeks to get from one continent to another. Now you can go to every continent within 24 hours or so..


----------



## USMarine75

bostjan said:


> Didn't say we definitively knew that, I said it was believed. It is believed. It says so on wikipedia.



Jesus whatever... that is, like totally, the most Trump saying ever.   



bostjan said:


> D It sounds like the idea that it came from China is a fairly recent hypothesis.



By recent you mean 6+ years ago?



bostjan said:


> Didn't say we definitively knew that, I said it was believed. It is believed. It says so on wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a source of definitive information, but as a gauge of what people believe to be true, it is pretty good. But anyway, it even mentions that belief in your own source. It sounds like the idea that it came from China is a fairly recent hypothesis.
> 
> Until your posting, I hadn't seen any credible sources that say that the plague killed 900 million people in any one century. Most estimates are in the tens of millions worldwide (source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2951374/), worldwide, Spanish Flu is estimated to have killed 50-100 million, as you mentioned.
> 
> Either way, I think these are clearly beside any of my points.



Not trying to be a dick, but have you ever taken a course on how to critically read journal articles? That is a terrible source to cite. They made an introductory paragraph throw-away comment about the # of deaths in a paper that otherwise had nothing to do about # of deaths. At least it was a well-cited article.


----------



## USMarine75

Merrekof said:


> We don't know yet. The Spanish initially wasn't that deadly, it waqn't until the second wace hit that the younger were dying. Although that doesn't seem to be the case when checking China or Singapore numbers.



You don't have to tell me.... we literally talk about the possibility of this daily.

https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/doi/10.1093/infdis/jiaa161/5815743

"Coronaviruses are sharply seasonal. They appear, based on serial interval and secondary infection risk, to have similar transmission potential to influenza A(H3N2) in the same population." 4 of the 7 known coronaviruses that regularly infect humans are seasonal and worse in winter.


----------



## Adieu

USMarine75 said:


> "Coronaviruses are sharply seasonal. They appear, based on serial interval and secondary infection risk, to have similar transmission potential to influenza A(H3N2) in the same population." 4 of the 7 known coronaviruses that regularly infect humans are seasonal and worse in winter.



Winter lasts a good solid 9 months of the year in a globalized world.

Hemispheres, man.

Without long-term tight lockdown, you got places in Canada and Russia that often see regular snow from November to April (and occasional in May and October too).

And then there's southern hemisphere winter in the interim.


----------



## USMarine75

Adieu said:


> Winter lasts a good solid 9 months of the year in a globalized world.
> 
> Hemispheres, man.



Hope you bought a lot of toilet paper and guns!

Good luck.


----------



## Adieu

USMarine75 said:


> Hope you bought a lot of toilet paper and guns!
> 
> Good luck.



Paper towels, knives and hammers

We be hardcore like dat


----------



## USMarine75

Adieu said:


> Paper towels, knives and hammers
> 
> We be hardcore like dat









Can you order this with lysol and face mask attachments?


----------



## Adieu

USMarine75 said:


> Can you order this with lysol and face mask attachments?



That's just a functionally useless exhibition piece for showcasing the capabilities of their custom order workshop


----------



## sleewell




----------



## bostjan

USMarine75 said:


> Jesus whatever... that is, like totally, the most Trump saying ever.
> 
> 
> 
> By recent you mean 6+ years ago?
> 
> 
> 
> Not trying to be a dick, but have you ever taken a course on how to critically read journal articles? That is a terrible source to cite. They made an introductory paragraph throw-away comment about the # of deaths in a paper that otherwise had nothing to do about # of deaths. At least it was a well-cited article.



You are not trying to be a dick, but you decide to nitpick the post I made, ignore all main points, and throw a bunch of insults at me. Classic.

Yes, 6 years out of 100 years is fairly recent. But feel free to nit pick that as much as you want. It's a free country, I guess.

Great job taking a throwaway comment I made and turning the discussion into something about how throwaway comments aren't worth a second thought. Also classic.


----------



## possumkiller

So a really good friend of mine that I went to Iraq with and lived with for a few months between deployments and helped me move and stored my truck and all of my stuff at his place while I was deployed, been friends for almost 20 years, just blocked me on messenger and unfriended me on facebook because I wouldn't agree with his right wing conspiracy about coronavirus. He actually got pretty hostile and started calling me names. It's really sad because I have been friends with him even though I knew I didn't agree with him and his insane politics. Yet, when he found out I wasn't a hardcore, brainwashed, right-wing nutjob anymore that was enough for him to throw away 18 years of friendship.


----------



## USMarine75

possumkiller said:


> So a really good friend of mine that I went to Iraq with and lived with for a few months between deployments and helped me move and stored my truck and all of my stuff at his place while I was deployed, been friends for almost 20 years, just blocked me on messenger and unfriended me on facebook because I wouldn't agree with his right wing conspiracy about coronavirus. He actually got pretty hostile and started calling me names. It's really sad because I have been friends with him even though I knew I didn't agree with him and his insane politics. Yet, when he found out I wasn't a hardcore, brainwashed, right-wing nutjob anymore that was enough for him to throw away 18 years of friendship.



Chris S.?


----------



## jaxadam

Adieu said:


> Winter lasts a good solid 9 months of the year in a globalized world.



Down here winter only lasts about 2 or 3 weeks!


----------



## High Plains Drifter

possumkiller said:


> So a really good friend of mine that I went to Iraq with and lived with for a few months between deployments and helped me move and stored my truck and all of my stuff at his place while I was deployed, been friends for almost 20 years, just blocked me on messenger and unfriended me on facebook because I wouldn't agree with his right wing conspiracy about coronavirus. He actually got pretty hostile and started calling me names. It's really sad because I have been friends with him even though I knew I didn't agree with him and his insane politics. Yet, when he found out I wasn't a hardcore, brainwashed, right-wing nutjob anymore that was enough for him to throw away 18 years of friendship.



That would likely catch me somewhere between dejected and infuriated. One of our best friends decided that my wife and I weren't worth continuing a friendship with because we were using the word "social distancing" and she just could not accept that level of panic and ignorance.

Sorry to hear that, pk. This is a time when we all need to exercise an extra degree of compassion and tolerance. It's certainly tough to lose friends... now more than ever since we really need as much support as we can get these days.


----------



## possumkiller

USMarine75 said:


> Chris S.?


Sean H. 

He was a rodeo bull rider when he was young and worked on oil rigs before the army. Funnily enough, despite his hardcore Republican rhetoric, he served one tour in Iraq, got himself committed for a "suicide attempt" and medically discharged right after collecting a bonus for reenlistment. Then he did some more time in Iraq with Blackwater until they were kicked out. Then he went on a VA disability kick and wound up getting himself 100% disability and medically retired. He tried to teach me how to game the system so I could get 100% disability as well. Now he's bought a truck and started his own trucking company. I guess freight isn't moving as much right now which is why he is so pissed about the lockdowns.


----------



## sleewell

might not seem like it now but long term you are better without those type of ignorant people in your lives. its also telling that people who probably use the term snowflake the most are often the biggest offenders of being gigantic pussies who always need their safe spaces.


----------



## USMarine75

possumkiller said:


> Sean H.
> 
> He was a rodeo bull rider when he was young and worked on oil rigs before the army. Funnily enough, despite his hardcore Republican rhetoric, he served one tour in Iraq, got himself committed for a "suicide attempt" and medically discharged right after collecting a bonus for reenlistment. Then he did some more time in Iraq with Blackwater until they were kicked out. Then he went on a VA disability kick and wound up getting himself 100% disability and medically retired. He tried to teach me how to game the system so I could get 100% disability as well. Now he's bought a truck and started his own trucking company. I guess freight isn't moving as much right now which is why he is so pissed about the lockdowns.



Jeez I've known those guys. 

My guy was a super nice normal guy. We stayed in touch after I got out in '05... but somewhere along the way he got weird. He was _that guy_ on FB that was re-posting every Russian troll-farm made post. Even the one about Hillary and the pizza place that was into underage sex slavery or whatever.


----------



## possumkiller

I mean I'm not hurt over it. I've grown tired of his toxic attitude and hipocrisy the last few years. It just sucks because I always held out hope that if I could grow up and get out of that mentality, my friends and family could as well.


----------



## Adieu

possumkiller said:


> I mean I'm not hurt over it. I've grown tired of his toxic attitude and hipocrisy the last few years. It just sucks because I always held out hope that if I could grow up and get out of that mentality, my friends and family could as well.



Nah, boy, you done been radicallized by dem green nazi eurohippie commies ... or at least that's what most of your old backwater acquaintances will convince themselves of before listening to a word you say.

It's pretty damn hard to preach at people from your roots when you've gotten over local hangups and moved on elsewhere entirely.

They'll always use the impenetrable "you're not one of us anymore, you've become one of THEM" shield to block out anything you have to say to them.


----------



## jaxadam

Adieu said:


> They'll always use the impenetrable "you're not one of us anymore, you've become one of THEM" shield to block out anything you have to say to them.



It's really quite simple, I just require anyone I hang out with to have a minimum credit score of 750.


----------



## spudmunkey

Adieu said:


> .
> 
> They'll always use the impenetrable "you're not one of us anymore, you've become one of THEM" shield to block out anything you have to say to them.



I can vouch for that, after moving to the San Francisco area, from rural Wisconsin, where up until a couple of years ago, my parents' neighbors' barn was still painted with a "BUSH/CHENEY" sign...


----------



## possumkiller

I wasn't preaching anything to anyone. I just didn't agree with his bs conspiracy theory.


----------



## USMarine75

spudmunkey said:


> I can vouch for that, after moving to the San Francisco area, from rural Wisconsin, where up until a couple of years ago, my parents' neighbors' barn was still painted with a "BUSH/CHENEY" sign...



I’d personally pick him up at the airport and drive him to the White House if we could replace the clown-shoes mothertrucker we have right now.


----------



## USMarine75

https://twitter.com/joshuapotash/status/1250788907287023619?s=12

What is the angry version of LOL? Because I’m that. Literally angry out loud right now. I hate him almost as much as Hitler and that guy on here that posted about playing and singing Stairway to Heaven.


----------



## Adieu

USMarine75 said:


> I’d personally pick him up at the airport and drive him to the White House if we could replace the clown-shoes mothertrucker we have right now.



Which one, Bush or Cheney?

Or are we past the point of getting to be too picky?


----------



## USMarine75

Adieu said:


> Which one, Bush or Cheney?
> 
> Or are we past the point of getting to be too picky?



Yeah I can’t be too picky at this point.


----------



## Adieu

Case in point: I just got banned from posting in a Covid topic on a more conservative-leaning music gear forum.

For saying its highly doubtful the Chinese were field testing bioweapons in one of their own biggest, richest, and most dissent-free big cities.

Not even because morals or trust the commies, but just because why would they??? Plenty of places they DIDN'T spend lots of money on, and where nobody would ever think to point the finger at them (Syria, Yemen, Sudan, etc) IF they were thus inclined and that needlessly homicidal


----------



## diagrammatiks

Adieu said:


> Case in point: I just got banned from posting in a Covid topic on a more conservative-leaning music gear forum.
> 
> For saying its highly doubtful the Chinese were field testing bioweapons in one of their own biggest, richest, and most dissent-free big cities.
> 
> Not even because morals or trust the commies, but just because why would they??? Plenty of places they DIDN'T spend lots of money on, and where nobody would ever think to point the finger at them (Syria, Yemen, Sudan, etc) IF they were thus inclined and that needlessly homicidal


 
y u go to rt. u lurve Marshalls and Hairmetal?


----------



## narad

diagrammatiks said:


> y u go to rt. u lurve Marshalls and Hairmetal?



If one gets banned from RigTalk, where does one go to make the "Waaahhh! I got banned from a guitar forum and it's so unfair!" thread?


----------



## USMarine75

narad said:


> If one gets banned from RigTalk, where does one go to make the "Waaahhh! I got banned from a guitar forum and it's so unfair!" thread?



TGP duh.


----------



## budda

RT->TGP->SSO


----------



## Drew

jaxadam said:


> We literally just bought my wife a new bike with one of those pull-behind thingy's and mine is in the shop getting a major makeover and I should have it back Friday.


Strava at once, or you're a dirty pirate hooker.  



spudmunkey said:


> Global tally officially over 2million global confirmed cases (2,050,031 ATM).
> 
> In the US, the additional new cases reported each day is levelling off...
> View attachment 79551


It's almost a pity that "social distancing is stupid, let's blow this shit up and get everyone sick and kill millions!" has evidently decided to peace the fuck out, now that we're getting increasingly clear evidence that shutdowns are working. 

Here in the States, within the last few days we've seen new cases coming in below discharges, and while there's a lot of geographic variation (and I may be misremembering what I read and it might be the Boston area, but if so that's enouraging since we were pretty hard hit) that's extremely encouraging.


----------



## narad

Drew said:


> It's almost a pity that "social distancing is stupid, let's blow this shit up and get everyone sick and kill millions!" has evidently decided to peace the fuck out, now that we're getting increasingly clear evidence that shutdowns are working.



Well according to him he was basically supposed to be dead this month, so any continued posting on his behalf is only a testament to how wrong he is.

Unless he's dead. In that case like, my bad.


----------



## sleewell

rig talk lololololol what an absolute shithole.

logic and facts have no place there, cmon. dear leader rim jobs only.


----------



## Adieu

diagrammatiks said:


> y u go to rt. u lurve Marshalls and Hairmetal?



Yes and no ... Marshall forum lol


----------



## blacai

If people weren't dying, this would be funny...


----------



## Merrekof

blacai said:


> If people weren't dying, this would be funny...



Dude... if I were to wake up from a 5 year coma and see this., my first thought would be: "oh wow, they made a sitcom with Donald Trump as president."


----------



## USMarine75

blacai said:


> If people weren't dying, this would be funny...




Dr Trump: Nurse, I need a 10cc bolus of chloroquiine, some people would add hydroxy, hydroxychloroquine.

Nurse Daniels: How do you want the medication delivered? PO? IM? Sublingual?

Dr Trump: TM

Nurse Daniels: huh?

Dr Trump: TM... through mouth.


----------



## spudmunkey

Daily statistics are going to be harder to compare to pre-tuesday, because NY (and possibly others) are going to start changing how they report deaths, per CDC guidelines.


----------



## ThePIGI King

spudmunkey said:


> Daily statistics are going to be harder to compare to pre-tuesday, because NY (and possibly others) are going to start changing how they report deaths, per CDC guidelines.
> 
> View attachment 79574
> 
> 
> View attachment 79575
> 
> View attachment 79576


Probably due to the skewed numbers. This is good, now people can see more realistic numbers and panic less. Good job CDC.


----------



## sleewell

Wow. Just saw some pics from the protest in Michigan yesterday. pretty ugly scene. 


white nationalist and nazi presence. Lots of assualt weapons. Some ppl brought their kids. Lots of "kill whitmer" type of classy stuff.



They blocked the hospital. ambulances could not get in. Doctors were in traffic trying to get them to move. 


I heard that another one is planned for weds. Fuck.


----------



## zappatton2




----------



## spudmunkey

sleewell said:


> I heard that another one is planned for weds. Fuck.



In texas and oregon, too.


----------



## MFB

jaxadam said:


> We literally just bought my wife a new bike with one of those pull-behind thingy's and mine is in the shop getting a major makeover and I should have it back Friday.



Oh man, you know it's hard times when Jax's wife had to become a rickshaw cabbie


----------



## narad

ThePIGI King said:


> Probably due to the skewed numbers. This is good, now people can see more realistic numbers and panic less. Good job CDC.



Don't panic. Panic's not good for anyone. But more realistic numbers would only lead people to panic more.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> Probably due to the skewed numbers. This is good, now people can see more realistic numbers and panic less. Good job CDC.



It's actually going to mark a sharp incline in daily deaths, while still potentially under reporting based on lack of testing. We'll probably see an uptick in deaths in areas where testing and reporting were minimal. 

It'll be interesting to see how the JHU numbers track alongside the new CDC guidelines.


----------



## ThePIGI King

@narad and @MaxOfMetal You're both right, it appears I misunderstood the new guidelines. I retract what I said. Bad job CDC. Stop inciting panic. Deaths from unconfirmed cases is only going to further skew data. As if it wasn't bad enough as is.


----------



## narad

ThePIGI King said:


> @narad and @MaxOfMetal You're both right, it appears I misunderstood the new guidelines. I retract what I said. Bad job CDC. Stop inciting panic. Deaths from unconfirmed cases is only going to further skew data. As if it wasn't bad enough as is.



It's just trying to be as accurate as possible. It's likely that assigning mysterious respiratory illness deaths to covid is going to lead to a more accurate number than not counting anyone who is not explicitly tested, when tests and resources are in short supply.


----------



## blacai

https://www.dw.com/en/top-german-co...ns-not-grounds-to-ban-all-protests/a-53153858


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> @narad and @MaxOfMetal You're both right, it appears I misunderstood the new guidelines. I retract what I said. Bad job CDC. Stop inciting panic. Deaths from unconfirmed cases is only going to further skew data. As if it wasn't bad enough as is.



Unfortunately, it's not an exact science. The fact is, we don't have the testing or reporting mechanisms in place to accurately plot how many have died as a result of COVID19. The CDC (and other organizations) are putting together criteria in order to give the best guess that can stand to academic scrutiny. 

For instance, we have no idea exactly how many people died in WWII. We have some estimates that use methodology which can be verified and scientifically supported to give as close to an accurate number as possible. 

The CDC has said we can't expect official numbers until at least next year anyway.


----------



## broj15

Welp, they got the first confirmed case of covid 19 in the nursing home that my grandma is at, but there's a couple things that aren't making sense:
1. They've been in lock down since early/mid March
2. Only people aloud in or out are staff, vendors, or select family members providing essential care (for example my uncle comes by once a week to pick up/drop off her laundry and he has to have his temperature checked at the door)
3. The first person to test positive was a RESIDENT who hasn't been out of the building or had contact with anyone from the outside in atleast a month. He just started showing symptoms late last week so the earliest he could've been infected was about 2 weeks ago
4. They test all the residents ONLY and come back with 5 more positive tests.
5. My grandma refused the test as it's very uncomfortable, she never leaves her room, and to put it bluntly, she's almost 97 and doesn't care if she lives or dies at this point. I totally understand and respect that, however I know that there's much more comfortable ways to die than covid 19 and I'd rather not see her go out like that, but that's besides the point.

The point I'm trying to make is that if the first person to show symptoms is a resident who hasn't left the building or had any outside contact other than with staff, then wouldn't it make sense that they contracted it from a staff member who is either asymptomatic and doesn't realize they're spreading it, or is experiencing mild symptoms and hiding it (incredibly unethical and irresponsible of a healthcare worker, especially in an elderly care facility).
So by that logic why weren't any of the staff tested and just the residents who, once again, are mostly unable to even leave the building and have only had very limited and heavily monitored contact with family for the past month? I'm personally of the opinion that if they aren't going to test everyone who has access to the facility then they might as well just not test anyone. Just doesn't make any sense to me at all.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

broj15 said:


> Welp, they got the first confirmed case of covid 19 in the nursing home that my grandma is at, but there's a couple things that aren't making sense:
> 1. They've been in lock down since early/mid March
> 2. Only people aloud in or out are staff, vendors, or select family members providing essential care (for example my uncle comes by once a week to pick up/drop off her laundry and he has to have his temperature checked at the door)
> 3. The first person to test positive was a RESIDENT who hasn't been out of the building or had contact with anyone from the outside in atleast a month. He just started showing symptoms late last week so the earliest he could've been infected was about 2 weeks ago
> 4. They test all the residents ONLY and come back with 5 more positive tests.
> 5. My grandma refused the test as it's very uncomfortable, she never leaves her room, and to put it bluntly, she's almost 97 and doesn't care if she lives or dies at this point. I totally understand and respect that, however I know that there's much more comfortable ways to die than covid 19 and I'd rather not see her go out like that, but that's besides the point.
> 
> The point I'm trying to make is that if the first person to show symptoms is a resident who hasn't left the building or had any outside contact other than with staff, then wouldn't it make sense that they contracted it from a staff member who is either asymptomatic and doesn't realize they're spreading it, or is experiencing mild symptoms and hiding it (incredibly unethical and irresponsible of a healthcare worker, especially in an elderly care facility).
> So by that logic why weren't any of the staff tested and just the residents who, once again, are mostly unable to even leave the building and have only had very limited and heavily monitored contact with family for the past month? I'm personally of the opinion that if they aren't going to test everyone who has access to the facility then they might as well just not test anyone. Just doesn't make any sense to me at all.



The problem is that due to the lack of tests they've pretty much clamped down to only test those who fall within a narrow criteria. 

I agree, much more testing needs to be done.


----------



## broj15

I totally get what you're saying, and that doesn't make sense. However it would just stand to reason that if they can't identify and isolate everyone with access to the facility (resident or staff) then they're risking a second outbreak, and in a way that sorta makes all the tests they administered to residents pointless.

It also just goes to illustrate how contagious this is though, if one person had already infected (atleast) 5 others by the time they started showing symptoms.

Edit: of course the majority of us understand how contagious it is, but maybe the naysayers will have an easier time with numbers they can count on one hand.


----------



## possumkiller




----------



## SD83

As for the nursing homes: The situation here seems largely under control/normal, it is completely out of control in some of those. Recently read a report from one home in a small city (~7,000) nearby, that had 21 confirmed cases in 35 residents. The entire village where I live (~15,000) has 25. Something is going very wrong in these homes and given what I hear from people who work in that field, it doesn't suprise me at all. They are already understaffed and underpaid under normal conditions.

As for the video from Berlin... a few hundred idiots in a city of 3.7 million. And I really don't get what their problem is. There is one friend of mine who is constantly ranting on FB about how they're taking away our freedom and all that... we're basically free to do whatever we want with VERY minor restrictions. Granted, some of those don't make the slightest bit of sense to me. You are allowed to go for a walk, but you are not allowed to rest on a bench for an extended period of time, or go to the park & sit on the grass all by yourself, for example. But other than that? I get that I'm not the most social person, but some people act like it's the end of the world that they can't meet their friends all at once, or can't have a barbeque with their neighbors or can't celebrate their birthday. And you can't currently go on holiday. You can't go to a restaurant and eat there, you can't go to a pub and drink there. But it's only been a few WEEKS. And it's one birthday, you'll probably have a few more. And yes, it is very sad that the restrictions mean that some people will die alone, and that funerals will be held with nearly no attendants, I understand that. But everything else, the impact on the private life of everyone in Germany right now, it is just a minor inconvenience. And contrary to what some claim, there is room in the media and politics for all sides of the argument, there are those who argue we should get rid of the restrictions quicker, there are those who argue we're getting rid of them too quickly and everything in between, there is room for debate and aside from "omg, this is a bio weapon" and stuff like that, every side is accepted and taken into account.


----------



## possumkiller




----------



## narad

I still love that phrasing of confederate statues as participation trophies. It really sapped any self-perceived notion of pride from that movement.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

narad said:


> I still love that phrasing of confederate statues as participation trophies. It really sapped any self-perceived notion of pride from that movement.



It was just one of those absolutely golden opportunities where the most harmless of things would absolutely bug the shit out of those that take it the most seriously.


----------



## Adieu

sleewell said:


> Wow. Just saw some pics from the protest in Michigan yesterday. pretty ugly scene.
> 
> 
> white nationalist and nazi presence. Lots of assualt weapons. Some ppl brought their kids. Lots of "kill whitmer" type of classy stuff.
> 
> 
> 
> They blocked the hospital. ambulances could not get in. Doctors were in traffic trying to get them to move.
> 
> 
> I heard that another one is planned for weds. Fuck.



I'm confused, what exactly do they want???


----------



## possumkiller

Adieu said:


> I'm confused, what exactly do they want???


To secede from the union? Crown Trump the king dictator?

Honestly, I say we let them. Just draw a line through the middle of America somewhere and let all those dumbasses live there and Trump can be their king. Everyone else can stay in the other half and get on with their lives even paying for and building a wall to keep themselves from illegally immigrating to Trumpistan and stealing hard-working god-fearing Trumpistanians' jobs.


----------



## sleewell

Adieu said:


> I'm confused, what exactly do they want???



They don't think the virus is real thanks to trump and fox.

They are upset the new order includes garden stores and boating. Its snowing and cold here. 

They are degenerate racists who dont care if they block the hospital from ambulances getting in. 

They voted for trump and will never blame him for being asleep at the wheel when strong national organization could have blunted this from being so bad.


----------



## sleewell

spudmunkey said:


> In texas and oregon, too.



Probably organized on FB by Russian trolls. 

This is exactly how you get a society to crumble. there will be violence at one of these protests.


----------



## Adieu

sleewell said:


> They don't think the virus is real thanks to trump and fox.
> 
> They are upset the new order includes garden stores and boating. Its snowing and cold here.
> 
> They are degenerate racists who dont care if they block the hospital from ambulances getting in.
> 
> They voted for trump and will never blame him for being asleep at the wheel when strong national organization could have blunted this from being so bad.



But... didn't The Orange One say he'd cure the virus with some weird drug cocktail?

But now it doesn't exist again??


----------



## Adieu

sleewell said:


> Probably organized on FB by Russian trolls.
> 
> This is exactly how you get a society to crumble. there will be violence at one of these protests.



Heeey now... I'M a Russian troll.

Kindly cease and desist from putting all y'all's homegrown domestic m0rons at our door.

We never had that kind of work ethic or dedication anyways.


----------



## diagrammatiks

possumkiller said:


> To secede from the union? Crown Trump the king dictator?
> 
> Honestly, I say we let them. Just draw a line through the middle of America somewhere and let all those dumbasses live there and Trump can be their king. Everyone else can stay in the other half and get on with their lives even paying for and building a wall to keep themselves from illegally immigrating to Trumpistan and stealing hard-working god-fearing Trumpistanians' jobs.



seriously let's get back to states rights and autonomy. ship the morons to one place and let them live there with each other.


----------



## possumkiller

Litrally just now forwarded to me from my dad.


----------



## budda

Wow.


----------



## narad

Feed the old people to the stock market! It hungers for sacrifice!


----------



## jaxadam

MFB said:


> Oh man, you know it's hard times when Jax's wife had to become a rickshaw cabbie



I’m her biggest customer... I just get her to pull me around the neighborhood while I drink Monsters and yell at everybody to go back inside.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

He's ready to start opening up restrictive orders in some states... like today. Testing capacity is absolute shit here in the us too... so get to work/ hope for the best.


----------



## wankerness

Adieu said:


> I'm confused, what exactly do they want???



They want to "reopen the economy." They think all citizens are as braindead as them, and that open businesses would immediately again have business like they did pre-coronavirus. Basically they think the only problem right now with the economy is the governor closing nonessential businesses. 

I really think they should be exported to Alabama or Florida or some other state that will appease them with a non-response and general portion of the population dumb enough to support open non-essential businesses.

Wisconsin just extended their stay-at-home directive for a month, but said non-essential businesses can now be open if they do curbside pickup, etc, and that golf courses can be open if they dont let people into the clubhouses, etc. This is the right kind of path - slow, cautious reopening since we're not overwhelmed. Not "OPEN EVERYTHING" and undoing everything and causing a mass outbreak.


----------



## JoshuaVonFlash

Between the recent protests and the various people willing to endanger folks so a line can go up, it's becoming really obvious that many Americans are as brainwashed and drunk on nationalism as they think people in Best Korea or China are.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

possumkiller said:


> View attachment 79582


What’s this picture of?


----------



## possumkiller

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> What’s this picture of?


Someone took a picture from inside a business where the protesters were beating on the doors.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

*sigh*

https://cnn.it/2RMTnmu

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.po.../15/coronavirus-rural-america-covid-19-186031

https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/16/rural-communities-coronavirus-toll/

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/08/us/coronavirus-rural-america-cases.html

https://www.npr.org/2020/04/09/8297...-just-as-coronavirus-arrives-in-rural-america


----------



## Merrekof

MaxOfMetal said:


> *sigh*
> 
> https://cnn.it/2RMTnmu


Wow, who knew...?


----------



## sleewell

its just been really crazy to see this mentality that well we don't have any cases right now so it probably wont happen to us. 

like the rest of the world is just making this stuff up or the virus cares how many people live in your county.


----------



## Aso

Is this now when the fun begins?

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/17/trump-states-stay-at-home-orders-192386

The POTUS telling his supporters to not follow the local government ordinances. We have to be the stupidest nation on earth.


----------



## sleewell

wonder why people arent taking this seriously???

https://twitter.com/i/status/1246146713523453957


----------



## Ralyks

So this was amusing.


----------



## Aso

sleewell said:


> wonder why people arent taking this seriously???
> 
> https://twitter.com/i/status/1246146713523453957



That looks like a highlight reel that will be used in the court case against Fox News that for misinformation on the epidemic. 

https://www.salon.com/2020/04/16/fo...awsuit-first-amendment-protects-false-speech/


----------



## zappatton2

Aso said:


> That looks like a highlight reel that will be used in the court case against Fox News that for misinformation on the epidemic.
> 
> https://www.salon.com/2020/04/16/fo...awsuit-first-amendment-protects-false-speech/


I hope this suit is successful. I'm a little tired of this idea that free speech means disseminating knowingly misleading information, especially when the objective is to cause harm. 

This idea that the media is too liberal if it doesn't give equal time to nonsense (climate change is a hoax, COVID-19 is a Democrat ploy, refugees are bringing terrorists, etc.) is absurd, and compromises the ability to maintain an informed electorate. Isn't that one of the most basic underpinnings of the concept of a liberal democracy?


----------



## Andromalia

From the outside, seeing Trump protesters rallying for deconfinement... while wearing masks is pretty funny.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Andromalia said:


> From the outside, seeing Trump protesters rallying for deconfinement... while wearing masks is pretty funny.



Their rabid hate for any semblance of decency is matched only by their lack of self-awareness.


----------



## possumkiller

zappatton2 said:


> I hope this suit is successful. I'm a little tired of this idea that free speech means disseminating knowingly misleading information, especially when the objective is to cause harm.
> 
> This idea that the media is too liberal if it doesn't give equal time to nonsense (climate change is a hoax, COVID-19 is a Democrat ploy, refugees are bringing terrorists, etc.) is absurd, and compromises the ability to maintain an informed electorate. Isn't that one of the most basic underpinnings of the concept of a liberal democracy?


They don't want a liberal democracy. Liberal is a dirty word. Like communism and socialism.

The "stimulus checks" are proof that they have no idea what they are talking about. If we just took everything we need to change and swapped the names out with things that had more republican patriotic connotations than liberal or socialist, they would lick it up like their dogs licking the peanut butter off their ball sacks.


----------



## sleewell

Andromalia said:


> From the outside, seeing Trump protesters rallying for deconfinement... while wearing masks is pretty funny.




It's not funny at all if you live here. Every racist w an assault weapon out and now trump is backing them. Someone is going to get shot. More people will get sick and make this worse.


----------



## Merrekof

sleewell said:


> It's not funny at all if you live here. Every racist w an assault weapon out and now trump is backing them. Someone is going to get shot. More people will get sick and make this worse.


Best country in the world eh!


----------



## possumkiller

Merrekof said:


> Best country in the world eh!


Ikr? I think in any other civilised country, a group of nazis armed with assault weapons gathering outside of a government building would be seen as terrorists and engaged by the military or law enforcement.


----------



## sleewell

delete


----------



## MaxOfMetal

possumkiller said:


> Ikr? I think in any other civilised country, a group of nazis armed with assault weapons gathering outside of a government building would be seen as terrorists and engaged by the military or law enforcement.



Here they're called _the base_.


----------



## Adieu

I suddenly miss the good ol CCCP... at least a moderate autocratic government would keep its aggressive lunatics in the looney bin , unarmed and well-sedated, and somehow manage to use all this economic might to brew up a few batches of masks and ventilators when needed

...and as to the chronic lack of lower-priority sh!t like toilet paper, well, deja vu without the benefits.

PS no Stalin no Lenin none of that rabid fanatic sh!t... I mean the frankly-just-too-mellow-to-win-the-cold-war 80s USSR


----------



## possumkiller

Adieu said:


> I suddenly miss the good ol CCCP... no Stalin no Lenin none of that rabid fanatic sh!t... I mean the frankly-just-too-mellow-to-win-the-cold-war 80s USSR


HAHAHA That needs to be framed and put on display.


----------



## possumkiller

Just forwarded to me by my dad.


----------



## Ralyks

possumkiller said:


> Just forwarded to me by my dad.




I couldn't even make it past him claiming it dies in 80 degree weather. The Middle East wouldn't be ravaged if that was the case.


----------



## possumkiller

Ralyks said:


> I couldn't even make it past him claiming it dies in 80 degree weather. The Middle East wouldn't be ravaged if that was the case.


Not to mention humans are generally about 98.6 on the inside lol.


----------



## MaxOfMetal




----------



## bostjan

possumkiller said:


> Just forwarded to me by my dad.




Everything he said in the video is easily verified to be false!


----------



## Boofchuck

possumkiller said:


> Ikr? I think in any other civilised country, a group of nazis armed with assault weapons gathering outside of a government building would be seen as terrorists and engaged by the military or law enforcement.


Which is exactly why they'll tell you they need guns.


----------



## Necris

MaxOfMetal said:


> Here they're called _the base_.


 I'm having a hard time telling if it was intended to also be a reference (the last month has been melting my brain) but, if it wasn't, there *is* literally a Neo-Nazi terrorist group in the states by that name.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

bostjan said:


> Everything he said in the video is easily verified to be false!


EXACTLY. 
Plus the guy in the video is fucking chiropractor, not an actual practitioner. Chiropractors are the biggest quacks in medicine. A bunch of them were spearheading the anti-vaxxer movement ffs.
https://factcheck.afp.com/false-claims-patents-fuel-novel-coronavirus-conspiracy-theories-online
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...iracy-theory-spreads-social-media/4569180002/


----------



## MaxOfMetal




----------



## jaxadam

'shopped


----------



## MaxOfMetal

jaxadam said:


> 'shopped



https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/04/17/maker-of-n95-masks-says-its-targeting-floridas-fraudsters-and-profiteers/?ads=b&utm_expid=.OkR8_rI9TJCniE4SYU689w.2&utm_referrer=https://www.google.com/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2020/04/18/mask-slightly-askew-desantis-encourages-floridians-to-go-outside?media=AMP+HTML

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailydot.com/debug/ron-desantis-face-mask/?amp

Sort of reminds me of GWB fucking up putting on a rain poncho.


----------



## wedge_destroyer

Ralyks said:


> I couldn't even make it past him claiming it dies in 80 degree weather. The Middle East wouldn't be ravaged if that was the case.



Random doctor is likely wrong but atleast cite a better reason than that to throw it out.

Iran (Tehran in particular) is still in the northern hemisphere, thus, they still have a winter. Its not 80° year round like Tahiti.

https://en.climate-data.org/asia/iran/tehran/tehran-198/


----------



## bostjan

wedge_destroyer said:


> Random doctor is likely wrong but atleast cite a better reason than that to throw it out.
> 
> Iran (Tehran in particular) is still in the northern hemisphere, thus, they still have a winter. Its not 80° year round like Tahiti.
> 
> https://en.climate-data.org/asia/iran/tehran/tehran-198/



Body temperature is 98 degrees Fahrenheit, so...


----------



## wedge_destroyer

bostjan said:


> Body temperature is 98 degrees Fahrenheit, so...



Hence why I said he was likely wrong..... im not a doctor so i wont/cant say he 100% is wrong just that it is very probable to find said doctor and his thoughts/statments in the 'Wrong/Incorrect' column.

But stating the warmth of the middle east, would have kept it from being hit hard, in winter or early spring is nonsense at best, (even if somehow 80° could kill it).


----------



## bostjan

wedge_destroyer said:


> Hence why I said he was likely wrong..... im not a doctor so i wont/cant say he 100% is wrong just that it is very probable to find said doctor and his thoughts/statments in the 'Wrong/Incorrect' column.
> 
> But stating the warmth of the middle east, would have kept it from being hit hard, in winter or early spring is nonsense at best, (even if somehow 80° could kill it).


I'm not a medical doctor, but neither is that dude. You can look up the patent on the us patent website. It was applied for a non-defined treatment for the original SARS, and hasn't been granted. It has nothing to do with covid-19. The 80 degree claim is just stupid, being much cooler than the human body. Drinking water/hot drinks to kill it is also stupid, giving that so many people who regularly drink water or hot drinks have been infected, not to mention that ghese are questions that have already been publicly addressed by people far more qualified.

The proposition that anyone should listen to such blatant bullshit is frankly insulting.


----------



## Boofchuck

MaxOfMetal said:


> Sort of reminds me of GWB fucking up putting on a rain poncho.


I was not prepared for that.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Boofchuck said:


> I was not prepared for that.



Either was he apparently.


----------



## wedge_destroyer

bostjan said:


> I'm not a medical doctor, but neither is that dude. You can look up the patent on the us patent website. It was applied for a non-defined treatment for the original SARS, and hasn't been granted. It has nothing to do with covid-19. The 80 degree claim is just stupid, being much cooler than the human body. Drinking water/hot drinks to kill it is also stupid, giving that so many people who regularly drink water or hot drinks have been infected, not to mention that ghese are questions that have already been publicly addressed by people far more qualified.
> 
> The proposition that anyone should listen to such blatant bullshit is frankly insulting.



Where did I say that the medical worker was correct and that others should listen to him? Please show me.
You can not.
Because I did not.

I pointed out that someone else's comment was nonsense and to find a better reason than temperature in Asia minor. As there are many better reasons to ignore the info present in that video, than percieved ambient temperatures in other parts of the world.


----------



## wankerness

possumkiller said:


> Ikr? I think in any other civilised country, a group of nazis armed with assault weapons gathering outside of a government building would be seen as terrorists and engaged by the military or law enforcement.



you know if that happens here, Trump would call the military in to fight the national guard who did it, trying to spark a civil war, just so he can call off the election cause his number one priority is avoiding jail (which he’ll face if he loses the election in 2020).


----------



## possumkiller




----------



## possumkiller

bostjan said:


> Body temperature is 98 degrees Fahrenheit, so...


Aaaaaaaaaactually, body temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit 9/11*100


----------



## possumkiller




----------



## blacai




----------



## sleewell

Bored at rig talk huh?


----------



## USMarine75

possumkiller said:


> Just forwarded to me by my dad.




https://factcheck.afp.com/false-claims-patents-fuel-novel-coronavirus-conspiracy-theories-online

Haha... The dude is no more a medical doctor than someone who has a PhD in Paleontology.

Also... It's 108 here and we have COVID-19.



SlamminSalmon said:


> You’re all useful idiots to the billionaire elites who control all the information you clowns think are “facts”
> 
> Just sit tight in your homes and wait for the forced inoculations care of Bill and Melinda Gates.


----------



## _MonSTeR_

I’ve always wanted to meet Bill Gates, it’s cool he’s going to fly to England too.


----------



## StevenC

USMarine75 said:


> https://factcheck.afp.com/false-claims-patents-fuel-novel-coronavirus-conspiracy-theories-online
> 
> Haha... The dude is no more a medical doctor than someone who has a PhD in Paleontology.
> 
> Also... It's 108 here and we have COVID-19.


Hey now, Paleontology is an awful lot like biology which is part of medicine. This dude is more like a PhD in Theology from the internet.


----------



## Ralyks

SlamminSalmon said:


> “USMarine” probably the most brainwashed mind controlled people out there.



Been a member since Friday with two posts, comes right to politics with nonsense we've seen before. MetalHex, or someone else from ghost of political discussions past?


----------



## USMarine75

StevenC said:


> Hey now, Paleontology is an awful lot like biology which is part of medicine. This dude is more like a PhD in Theology from the internet.



It was actually a reference to Ross from Friends, I just couldn't find the clip lol.

But spot on.


----------



## USMarine75

Ralyks said:


> Been a member since Friday with two posts, comes right to politics with nonsense we've seen before. MetalHex, or someone else from ghost of political discussions past?


----------



## narad

Man, mods are dropping the dupe account trolls so fast I don't even get to see them. Only their quoted remains. +1 post on RigTalk "I was just banned from SSO"

I'm waiting for some proper diligent long-game trolls that show up participating in helpful gear discussion for 2 years before coming in here to talk about Benghazi.


----------



## Ralyks

narad said:


> Man, mods are dropping the dupe account trolls so fast I don't even get to see them. Only their quoted remains. +1 post on RigTalk "I was just banned from SSO"
> 
> I'm waiting for some proper diligent long-game trolls that show up participating in helpful gear discussion for 2 years before coming in here to talk about Benghazi.



I mean, some of the mods probably have more time on their hands at the moment... As well as trolls....


----------



## narad

Ralyks said:


> I mean, some of the mods probably have more time on their hands at the moment... As well as trolls....



So say we all


----------



## USMarine75

narad said:


> So say we all



All this has happened before....


----------



## MaxOfMetal

narad said:


> Man, mods are dropping the dupe account trolls so fast I don't even get to see them. Only their quoted remains. +1 post on RigTalk "I was just banned from SSO"
> 
> I'm waiting for some proper diligent long-game trolls that show up participating in helpful gear discussion for 2 years before coming in here to talk about Benghazi.



I'm fairly certain homeboy doesn't even play guitar. 

Yeah, no one puts in the trolling effort anymore. Fucking millennials.


----------



## bostjan

wedge_destroyer said:


> Where did I say that the medical worker was correct and that others should listen to him? Please show me.
> You can not.
> Because I did not.
> 
> I pointed out that someone else's comment was nonsense and to find a better reason than temperature in Asia minor. As there are many better reasons to ignore the info present in that video, than percieved ambient temperatures in other parts of the world.



I never said you did. I was addressing how simple it is to disprove these claims without any medical background. Even if you say that he's probably incorrect, but imply that we shouldn't be saying he's definitely incorrect unless we have medical degrees, it's a subtle way of not holding these sorts of people accountable for blatant bullshitting.


----------



## StevenC

USMarine75 said:


> It was actually a reference to Ross from Friends, I just couldn't find the clip lol.
> 
> But spot on.


And there I was thinking you were dissing Dr Geller comparing him to a chiropractor. Sure he's not a really doctor, but he's several steps up from those guys.


----------



## blacai

USMarine75 said:


> It was actually a reference to Ross from Friends, I just couldn't find the clip lol.
> 
> But spot on.



This one?


----------



## USMarine75

blacai said:


> This one?




It's the one where he says he's a doctor and Joey says something like about being a dinosaur doctor.


----------



## wedge_destroyer

bostjan said:


> I never said you did. I was addressing how simple it is to disprove these claims without any medical background. Even if you say that he's probably incorrect, but imply that we shouldn't be saying he's definitely incorrect unless we have medical degrees, it's a subtle way of not holding these sorts of people accountable for blatant bullshitting.



Strange you find intent, when there was none.

Held accountable, how should i hold him accountable? As citizens we are suppoed to ignore him, and spread opposing information as we see fit. Free speech is still protected in the states, if thats where he is. 
Should we listen to him; once, immediately followed by no. Should we spread his foolish info; no. Should he be held accountable for speaking his mind; under what law? I dont recall him saying this is medical advisement, otherwise malpractice laws could come into effect. I will leave that to the lawyers. Until then free speech happens, ours is to not foster the spread of falsehoods.

I have stated he is likely wrong, i.e. I feel that he is incorrect. Being as i am a medical layman and have not taken (wasted) the time to fact check the whole thing; I am not in a position to 100% say yes he is wrong. Thus i am not going to do so. Nor will I say he is correct (or imply that he is), for many reasons, primarily that I feel he is wrong. Second I've not seen ANY evidence to corroborate his claims, what I have is in opposition to him. It has been a bit since I looked at peer reviewed studies or the Lancet, to see what the docs have to say, but in this case I dont really feel the need to.


----------



## possumkiller




----------



## Ralyks

Hey, My dad's a chiropractor 

Anyway, this is weird, because I thought the WHO didn't earn us, but this makes it sound like technically, yes, they did?:

https://apple.news/ACDYIiujIRC2wGDZXAprrng


----------



## Necris

His story continuously changes and blaming the WHO is just another attempt to shift blame away from himself.
There are few, if any, scenarios where the failure of the United States to respond to the Coronavirus pandemic doesn't fall directly on Trump given what we know, but he's used to being able to leave someone else holding the bag when things go south.

He's also tried blaming the impeachment proceedings for getting in the way of his ability to respond to the crisis, seemingly wanting people to forget the fact he had time to hold numerous rallies during the impeachment. Further, after the impeachment wrapped up on February 5th he had time to fire people who testified against him, and he held more rallies on the 10th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 28th and March 2nd all while claiming the Coronavirus was a Democrat hoax and/or downplaying its severity before finally declaring a state of emergency, the proclamation of which came on the 13th of March. That's more than a month after the WHO declared the virus a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on January 30th.


----------



## StevenC

Ralyks said:


> Hey, My dad's a chiropractor
> 
> Anyway, this is weird, because I thought the WHO didn't earn us, but this makes it sound like technically, yes, they did?:
> 
> https://apple.news/ACDYIiujIRC2wGDZXAprrng


The WHO seem to be getting a lot of flack for constantly updating their advice in a quickly evolving situation. People are going back to January to find things they qualified with "no evidence to suugest" or "at this time" to make it look like some wild pro-China conspiracy cover up disinformation campaign. New information coming out rapidly about a new disease means statements become outdated quite quickly, and those with false intentions are happy to take things out of context.

Secondly, chiropractic is possibly the highest form of quackery in the world and all of its practitioners are charlatans. Myles Power has some great videos about it on YouTube.


----------



## USMarine75

StevenC said:


> Secondly, chiropractic is possibly the highest form of quackery in the world and all of its practitioners are charlatans.



That was the 2019 list. 

I think this year's #1 was a tie between lawyer, economist, and Mel Kiper.


----------



## narad

USMarine75 said:


> That was the 2019 list.
> 
> I think this year's #1 was a tie between lawyer, economist, and Mel Kiper.



I thought President of the United States was going to top the 2020 list...


----------



## MaxOfMetal

MaxOfMetal said:


> And just like that we've gone past the lower estimate.
> 
> Last flu season there were an estimated 34,200 deaths across the whole season. At the current rate we'll see that many in about a week, in a time span less than half of the recorded flu season.
> 
> Again, this is NOT the flu.



In about 48hrs we'll pass the middle range of our estimated flu deaths for this season. It's been less than a week since we passed the lower estimate. Conceivably, we'll pass the upper limit in as much time. 

Again, this is not, and never was, just the flu.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

https://gomerblog.com/2020/04/natio...lth-crisis/?utm_source=FB&utm_campaign=DIRECT


----------



## Merrekof

MaxOfMetal said:


> Again, this is not, and never was, just the flu.


Well, the Chinese govt put in drastic measures to contain the virus by halting a big chunk of their economy.. I might be wrong but I can't remember a nation shutting down like that for a flu. Not even for a severe flu season..

The good thing about this is that everyone who was denying it last month now has evidence shoved in their face. Out here, there were non-believers too but they seem to be shutting up now that their friends, relatives or acquaintances are in the hospital or dead.


----------



## broj15

If this is off topic then mods can delete, but I just updated my direct deposit info to get my covid bucks last Thursday. Checked the IRS site a couple times since then and it keeps saying that the payment will be deposited into my account, but they don't have a date for it yet. Did anyone else have to update thier info and if so have you gotten you're money yet/how long did it take? Just wondering cuz I'm seeing alot of articles about people who filed with a tax firm and got an assisted refund (refund is sent to a third party bank, tax prep fees are taken out, and then the remainder is deposited into a prepaid debit card) are experiencing delays in getting thier payment because of a "glitch" (aka the IRS's website & payment system is probably just shit). I filed through Jackson Hewitt, but I've heard that H & R Block customers are experiencing the issue as well.

Like I said, if this is to off topic feel free to delete, but I figured I'd ask here cuz Jackson Hewitt is saying "hey, don't ask us. It's not our money" when you can actually get them to pick up the phone and the IRS is basically saying "fuck you we'll send your money when we feel like sending it". 

It's just frustrating because I got my 2019 taxes filed during the first week of February, but my bandmate didn't even file his 2018 taxes and just got them filed last week along with his 2019 taxes, and he got the update today that his stimulus money would be in his account by Tuesday. I check the site after he tells me this and it still won't say what day my shits supposed to be in my account. 

Edit: I guess to keep it slightly more on topic, can we appreciate the irony of Trump trashing Obama for how clunky the medicaire enrollment site was when, from everything I've read, getting these stimulus checks have been nothing but a headache for like 90% of people who didn't already have thier direct deposit info on file?


----------



## SD83

Meanwhile over here people are starting to seriously discuss wether or not the lockdown had ANY relevant effect on the local outbreak. Relative numbers (doubling rates, basic reproduction numbers... the later had been at 1 when the lockdown started. They have since dropped to .7, but they had been dropping before, and if you look at any curve, you couldn't tell when a lockdown happened) have been steadily falling since well before it was in place, and that has not changed in any meaningful way after it, even though one should expect to see the effects of a lockdown, at best, 5-7 days after it is in place. And the same thing is happening in Sweden currently, where there has never been a real lockdown as in most other countries, the government just told the people to "please keep your distance" and banned any meetings over 50 people, and that was it. Which I don't know, but that might be a bad thing as well as a good one... sure, it's good when less people die, but if it was not the lockdown that helped us, then what was? And how do we replicate that next time around?


----------



## narad

SD83 said:


> Meanwhile over here people are starting to seriously discuss wether or not the lockdown had ANY relevant effect on the local outbreak. Relative numbers (doubling rates, basic reproduction numbers... the later had been at 1 when the lockdown started. They have since dropped to .7, but they had been dropping before, and if you look at any curve, you couldn't tell when a lockdown happened) have been steadily falling since well before it was in place, and that has not changed in any meaningful way after it, even though one should expect to see the effects of a lockdown, at best, 5-7 days after it is in place. And the same thing is happening in Sweden currently, where there has never been a real lockdown as in most other countries, the government just told the people to "please keep your distance" and banned any meetings over 50 people, and that was it. Which I don't know, but that might be a bad thing as well as a good one... sure, it's good when less people die, but if it was not the lockdown that helped us, then what was? And how do we replicate that next time around?



Well I mean, it's only good to the extent that people follow it. In Tokyo we have a lockdown, but people queue up closely together early in the morning to buy masks, and the situation at local Costcos when masks comes out resembles a metal show. If Swedish people can be told to keep their distance, and they actually keep their distance, then I don't know what a formal lockdown would really bring to the table. Sweden's not NYC... it's not a super dense place, and if it's anything like Finland, people practice social distancing even in the absence of a medical phenomena, as a matter of personal preference.

The short of it is, I think it's going to be highly dependent on area. I'm sure some places don't really need a lockdown, but governments don't want to make a false positive in identifying their area as one, and costing lives. Even if you are actually in a place where the lockdown would have minimal effect, that will be difficult to model for a long time, and those that died will be blamed on such policy decisions.


----------



## gunch

broj15 said:


> If this is off topic then mods can delete, but I just updated my direct deposit info to get my covid bucks last Thursday. Checked the IRS site a couple times since then and it keeps saying that the payment will be deposited into my account, but they don't have a date for it yet. Did anyone else have to update thier info and if so have you gotten you're money yet/how long did it take? Just wondering cuz I'm seeing alot of articles about people who filed with a tax firm and got an assisted refund (refund is sent to a third party bank, tax prep fees are taken out, and then the remainder is deposited into a prepaid debit card) are experiencing delays in getting thier payment because of a "glitch" (aka the IRS's website & payment system is probably just shit). I filed through Jackson Hewitt, but I've heard that H & R Block customers are experiencing the issue as well.
> 
> Like I said, if this is to off topic feel free to delete, but I figured I'd ask here cuz Jackson Hewitt is saying "hey, don't ask us. It's not our money" when you can actually get them to pick up the phone and the IRS is basically saying "fuck you we'll send your money when we feel like sending it".
> 
> It's just frustrating because I got my 2019 taxes filed during the first week of February, but my bandmate didn't even file his 2018 taxes and just got them filed last week along with his 2019 taxes, and he got the update today that his stimulus money would be in his account by Tuesday. I check the site after he tells me this and it still won't say what day my shits supposed to be in my account.
> 
> Edit: I guess to keep it slightly more on topic, can we appreciate the irony of Trump trashing Obama for how clunky the medicaire enrollment site was when, from everything I've read, getting these stimulus checks have been nothing but a headache for like 90% of people who didn't already have thier direct deposit info on file?



FWIW still waiting on mine _and _waiting for the unemployment supplement money (the 600 dollars /week) I'm a broke hoe


----------



## JSanta

Same here. I manage our taxes so we always owe a nominal amount so the government isn't getting an interest-free loan from me. Which means it will be a couple of months before we receive the check (with shithead-in-chiefs name on it). Oh well, grateful to have a job still.


----------



## spudmunkey

I was suprised to actually get anything (I did receive it thursday) as I stopped following along when early reports say no money for anyone over a certain amount. I filed though TurboTax, got a refund this year, and still received a payment...and thankful I didn't have to groan/eye roll at the Donald Buck physical check.


----------



## Merrekof




----------



## tedtan

wedge_destroyer said:


> Free speech is still protected in the states, if thats where he is.



Freedom of speech is not without limit in the US. Child pornography is not protected under the freedom of speech laws (and is illegal, as well). Obscenities are not protected under the freedom of speech laws.

More apropos to the video in question, it is illegal to make statements to incite a fight, to threaten someone, to speak about engaging in illegal activities, etc. To cite an oft used example, you can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded area (e.g., a movie theater) unless there actually is a fire because people will be injured trying to get out. And it i this concept of causing injury to other people that is at the heart of this issue.

To extend this concept that speech that results in injury to other people is restricted (not protected by the free speech laws), someone posting videos that encourage people to go on with their normal lives without taking precautions against the corona virus is at least civilly liable for any illnesses or deaths that result from people following the advice in the video, and may well be criminally liable as well.

TLDR: The BS in that video is not protected by the free speech laws because it is likely to cause injury to any people that follow the info in it.


----------



## bostjan

tedtan said:


> Freedom of speech is not without limit in the US. Child pornography is not protected under the freedom of speech laws (and is illegal, as well). Obscenities are not protected under the freedom of speech laws.
> 
> More apropos to the video in question, it is illegal to make statements to incite a fight, to threaten someone, to speak about engaging in illegal activities, etc. To cite an oft used example, you can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded area (e.g., a movie theater) unless there actually is a fire because people will be injured trying to get out. And it i this concept of causing injury to other people that is at the heart of this issue.
> 
> To extend this concept that speech that results in injury to other people is restricted (not protected by the free speech laws), someone posting videos that encourage people to go on with their normal lives without taking precautions against the corona virus is at least civilly liable for any illnesses or deaths that result from people following the advice in the video, and may well be criminally liable as well.
> 
> TLDR: The BS in that video is not protected by the free speech laws because it is likely to cause injury to any people that follow the info in it.



Not to mention that holding a person socially accountable for spreading a bunch of BS that could potentially harm or even kill a bunch of people has nothing to do with the government guaranteeing freedom of speech.

Like I said, every bit of misinformation in that video is easily refuted by doing even just the tiniest thought experiment or google search.

I'm not sure how it is possible for people to try to ride the tightrope in between implying that I'm not qualified to refute those claims whilst still explicitly not agreeing with the statements themselves, but whatever.


----------



## ThePIGI King

tedtan said:


> More apropos to the video in question, it is illegal to make statements to incite a fight, to threaten someone, to speak about engaging in illegal activities, etc. To cite an oft used example, you can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded area (e.g., a movie theater) unless there actually is a fire because people will be injured trying to get out. And it i this concept of causing injury to other people that is at the heart of this issue



I know it's a bit off topic, but I'm curious.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I understood it, using your example of yelling "FIRE", the speech is legal and protected. What makes it illegal is inciting panic. So, if that's true, so long as nobody panics/reacts and nothing comes of it, the person yelling "fire" has not broken any laws.

I'm not super familiar with legal-ese or the way lawyers work through things. I'm also bad at English and getting thoughts into words, so I often misunderstand things. I'd love clarification on whether or not what I said is true or not. If it's too off topic PM me please.


----------



## ThePIGI King

Merrekof said:


> View attachment 79701


As for this, is this a real issue for anybody? The walmarts in both the city I work in and the town I live in are fully stocked. TP and all. The local grocery I go to for produce and meat is starting to put stuff on sale because they have so much.


----------



## spudmunkey

ThePIGI King said:


> As for this, is this a real issue for anybody? The walmarts in both the city I work in and the town I live in are fully stocked. TP and all. The local grocery I go to for produce and meat is starting to put stuff on sale because they have so much.



I went to the store on Thursday. No TP, no chicken. Most of the frozen section was multiple facings of the products they had a ton of. Almost a full door in the fronze section was the store brand, el-cheap-o chicken nuggets that normally only had two facings on the bottom shelf. I bought the last 3 single-serving salad bowl kits. No rice except for the "boutique" stuff, no lentils, no ramen, the whole cambell's soup fixture was completely empty. No yeast, no baking soda, no flour. I got the last gallon of "normal" milk, except for 2 gallons of skim. Most of the store *looked* stocked, but there were many exceptions. 

My girlfriend went to a store on Friday morning. She got the last package of TP from the store: a 6-pack of triple-ply, which we know wreak havoc on our plumbing...but she bought it because it was the only one left, and we were down to our last couple of rolls in each bathroom. Luckilly, we found some yeast at another store (the wrong kind, but I'll make it work), and she found out the grocery store's bakery was bagging up 5lb bags of their own flour to sell.


----------



## Necris

ThePIGI King said:


> Now correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I understood it, using your example of yelling "FIRE", the speech is legal and protected. What makes it illegal is inciting panic. So, if that's true, so long as nobody panics/reacts and nothing comes of it, the person yelling "fire" has not broken any laws.
> 
> I'm not super familiar with legal-ese or the way lawyers work through things. I'm also bad at English and getting thoughts into words, so I often misunderstand things. I'd love clarification on whether or not what I said is true or not. If it's too off topic PM me please.


The reaction of theater patrons to a person yelling "Fire!" in the theater is immaterial to whether or not the speech is legally protected based on the original ruling. The original ruling from the case ultimately concluded that any speech that was both false and dangerous was not protected by law. The premise of the phrase is that there is, in actuality, no fire in the theater at the time; so the speech in this context is false and likely to incite panic, therefore it fulfills the criteria of being false and dangerous and as such is neither legal nor protected regardless of the actual outcome of the hypothetical scenario.

Rulings on later "freedom of speech" related cases narrowed the scope of what the government could take action against. So... it's complicated.


----------



## TedEH

I had to go out for groceries today and the types of things that are or aren't in stock are kinda strange, IMO. TP seems to be replenished, and there's not really a shortage of meat. Soups are all there. But baking supplies are gone. I feel like what is/isn't available is going to be super regional for a while. Maybe some places are still in panic mode. Here, people more or less have their needs covered and have gotten over the TP thing, but are buying up all the "I have time to bake and learn to cook new things" kind of stuff. People's buying habits around here, anecdotally, seem to be centered around keeping from getting bored more than anything else.


----------



## Ralyks

Here, I haven't seen TP on a shelf in weeks, paper towels is blink and you'll miss it, most meats have been ok (we also have a bunch of local farms), frozen veggies go pretty quick, forget hand sanitizer. And I'm an hour and a half north of NYC.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Every time that I think this president can't prove any more useless... he's now talking about putting a temporary halt on ALL immigration into the US. Not sure if he doesn't realize the very real statistics of community spread... this virus already firmly entrenched in this country, or if he's using this as an opportunity to curb illegal immigration but um... nationwide testing? Still no? Um... okay. 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/20/politics/donald-trump-immigration-halt-coronavirus/index.html


----------



## Xaios

Only thing I haven't seen come back locally is Lysol wipes. Everything else seems to be at least attainable.


----------



## Merrekof

ThePIGI King said:


> As for this, is this a real issue for anybody? The walmarts in both the city I work in and the town I live in are fully stocked. TP and all. The local grocery I go to for produce and meat is starting to put stuff on sale because they have so much.


TP is back on the shelves as normal, hand sanitizer is still low in stock but available.
I get the feeling more people are doing groceries like me. Buying 15 boxes of cereal, a whole crate of milk, 15 jars of jam,.. you know, the stuff that lasts long..

(Btw, we have UHT milk, it lasts a lot longer out of the fridge)


----------



## MaxOfMetal

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/20/..._source=fbCNN&utm_content=2020-04-21T07:01:01

Oof.


----------



## BlackSG91

Now we have these supreme idiots going out and protesting saying "Give me liberty...or give me Covid-19." WTF??? I can't believe the extreme idiocy & stupidity of these Trump followers. They were also blocking traffic, especially ambulances that needed to get to the hospital. Of course Trump was encouraging this behaviour. He also said people were standing 6 feet from each other...total B.S. A lot of these protesters weren't even wearing masks. From the way things are going I predict total chaos for the U.S.


;>)/


----------



## Merrekof

Human stupidity still surprises me..

Here in Europe, several cellphone towers have been set on fire recently because presumably, the arsenists read somewhere that 5G towers are the cause of COVID19. Those towers weren't even supporting the 5G network..


----------



## possumkiller

Merrekof said:


> Human stupidity still surprises me..
> 
> Here in Europe, several cellphone towers have been set on fire recently because presumably, the arsenists read somewhere that 5G towers are the cause of COVID19. Those towers weren't even supporting the 5G network..


To be 100% honest, I don't think they even believe that shit. They're just pyromaniacs looking for any excuse to burn something.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Merrekof said:


> Human stupidity still surprises me..
> 
> Here in Europe, several cellphone towers have been set on fire recently because presumably, the arsenists read somewhere that 5G towers are the cause of COVID19. Those towers weren't even supporting the 5G network..


----------



## Demiurge

This smacks of a publicity stunt:
https://www.boston.com/sports/tom-brady/2020/04/20/tom-brady-working-out-tampa-park


----------



## jaxadam




----------



## ThePIGI King

This was just sent to me by someone I know. Unsure as to the validity or anything but man, if that's true that's crazy. Also for me the audio cut out when the dude behind the computer started talking. Unsure if y'all have that issue as well.


----------



## wankerness

Those studies are highly self-selecting in samples but are in fact leaning that way. It's not nearly as rosey as those guys are saying, but it's positive.


----------



## sleewell

its almost like if someone had been busy working on organizing mass testing instead of rallies and golf maybe we could have had the info and data to make better decisions. lock downs are what you have to resort to when you don't have enough data and just want to save as many lives as possible. 

saying its a hoax after the fact when you have done everything possible to avoid getting enough data to formulate an appropriate response is the peak of foolishness. 

the president is looking for a scapegoat. that much is clear. 

we all want the economy to re open. many people are smart enough though to realize the long term economic effects could be worse in 2-3 weeks if it has to be shut down again. some people just deny science and think a reality tv show host is smarter. hopefully we can declare bankrupty and covid will just go away, or get money from our dads.


----------



## ThePIGI King

@sleewell weren't you pro-lockdown?

I'm pretty sure you're one of those people that no matter what Trump does, you'll somehow critique and complain. He ain't perfect, but he's in office. Crying and name calling sure won't change that.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> @sleewell weren't you pro-lockdown?



You can be pro-lockdown for health reasons, and for reopening commerce for economic reasons. 

This isn't a "pick a side" thing. There is nuance to it.



> I'm pretty sure you're one of those people that no matter what Trump does, you'll somehow critique and complain. He ain't perfect, but he's in office. Crying and name calling sure won't change that.



That road goes both ways.


----------



## sleewell

“There are more important things than living"


- some moron in charge who probably also is lying about being pro life


----------



## spudmunkey

Looks like by the end of this week, the US will likely hit 50,000 deaths, and the end of the month will likely indicate 1,000,000+ cases.


----------



## sleewell




----------



## Merrekof

possumkiller said:


> To be 100% honest, I don't think they even believe that shit. They're just pyromaniacs looking for any excuse to burn something.


Does that mean the Norwegian black metal scene isn't so much against religion, but they wanted to set stuff on fire and Norway has wooden churches so the churches were sort of asking for it??


----------



## tedtan

ThePIGI King said:


> I know it's a bit off topic, but I'm curious.
> 
> Now correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I understood it, using your example of yelling "FIRE", the speech is legal and protected. What makes it illegal is inciting panic. So, if that's true, so long as nobody panics/reacts and nothing comes of it, the person yelling "fire" has not broken any laws.
> 
> I'm not super familiar with legal-ese or the way lawyers work through things. I'm also bad at English and getting thoughts into words, so I often misunderstand things. I'd love clarification on whether or not what I said is true or not. If it's too off topic PM me please.



Necris beat me to answer you, but what he said:




Necris said:


> The reaction of theater patrons to a person yelling "Fire!" in the theater is immaterial to whether or not the speech is legally protected based on the original ruling. The original ruling from the case ultimately concluded that any speech that was both false and dangerous was not protected by law. The premise of the phrase is that there is, in actuality, no fire in the theater at the time; so the speech in this context is false and likely to incite panic, therefore it fulfills the criteria of being false and dangerous and as such is neither legal nor protected regardless of the actual outcome of the hypothetical scenario.
> 
> Rulings on later "freedom of speech" related cases narrowed the scope of what the government could take action against. So... it's complicated.


----------



## sleewell

seems like a nice lady.


----------



## bostjan

MaxOfMetal said:


> https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/20/health/coronavirus-impact-by-the-numbers-trnd/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_term=link&utm_source=fbCNN&utm_content=2020-04-21T07:01:01
> 
> Oof.


Some of CNN's figures are a little fishy, but their points are solid, I guess. It probably isn't a good look, though, generally speaking, to do a "by the numbers" article and then get some of the numbers wrong, even if it's based on reporters not understanding how to properly quote people or how to express certain numbers in technical ways...

For example, Fauci did not predict 200k deaths. If you click on the source they provided (which is also CNN), it's a quote where Fauci expresses the desire not to quote a numerical prediction. Nice job CNN.  It's like if I asked you if you like Kiesel, and you refused to answer, and I went ahead and quoted you as saying you liked Kiesel.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

bostjan said:


> Some of CNN's figures are a little fishy, but their points are solid, I guess. It probably isn't a good look, though, generally speaking, to do a "by the numbers" article and then get some of the numbers wrong, even if it's based on reporters not understanding how to properly quote people or how to express certain numbers in technical ways...
> 
> For example, Fauci did not predict 200k deaths. If you click on the source they provided (which is also CNN), it's a quote where Fauci expresses the desire not to quote a numerical prediction. Nice job CNN.  It's like if I asked you if you like Kiesel, and you refused to answer, and I went ahead and quoted you as saying you liked Kiesel.



"I mean, looking at what we're seeing now, you know, I would say between 100 and 200,000 (deaths). But I don't want to be held to that," he said, adding that the US is going to have "millions of cases."

"Fauci and White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx had long supported extending the guidelines and gave a strong presentation with the new models that showed the 100,000 to 200,000 people could die, a source familiar with the President's decision told CNN."

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/29/politics/coronavirus-deaths-cases-anthony-fauci-cnntv/index.html



He certainly seems to think there's potential for that many. So he might not have made the exact prediction, but seems to at least agree with those who have.

We're about 1/4 of the way there, based on likely underreported numbers, for what it's worth.


----------



## Drew

ThePIGI King said:


> @sleewell weren't you pro-lockdown?
> 
> I'm pretty sure you're one of those people that no matter what Trump does, you'll somehow critique and complain. He ain't perfect, but he's in office. Crying and name calling sure won't change that.



This post confuses me. 

I want to re-open the economy as soon as humanly possible - there's economic harm being done the longer people are out of work, I'm worried about the impact on food production and delivery, and the longer this goes on, the more likely some of the firms are going to fail and those job losses become permanent. It's a mess. 

I also think anyone trying to reopen the economy NOW is a fucking idiot. If we do it too early, a whole lot of people are going to get sick that wouldn't otherwise, and the economic harm is going to be WORSE than if we wait. 

I want to reopen as soon as humanly possible. right now, it's NOT possible, without doing a lot more harm, so I think we need to wait. There's very little nuance in that position, I think, so I don't think it's a difficult statement to interpret.


----------



## bostjan

MaxOfMetal said:


> "I mean, looking at what we're seeing now, you know, I would say between 100 and 200,000 (deaths). But I don't want to be held to that," he said, adding that the US is going to have "millions of cases."
> 
> "Fauci and White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx had long supported extending the guidelines and gave a strong presentation with the new models that showed the 100,000 to 200,000 people could die, a source familiar with the President's decision told CNN."
> 
> https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/29/politics/coronavirus-deaths-cases-anthony-fauci-cnntv/index.html
> 
> 
> 
> He certainly seems to think there's potential for that many. So he might not have made the exact prediction, but seems to at least agree with those who have.
> 
> We're about 1/4 of the way there, based on likely underreported numbers, for what it's worth.



I think NPR is a more trustworthy news organization. Check out their quote from Fauci. It certainly doesn't jive with CNN's quote: https://www.npr.org/2020/04/09/8306...may-be-more-like-60-000-antibody-tests-on-way


----------



## Drew

ThePIGI King said:


> I know it's a bit off topic, but I'm curious.
> 
> Now correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I understood it, using your example of yelling "FIRE", the speech is legal and protected. What makes it illegal is inciting panic. So, if that's true, so long as nobody panics/reacts and nothing comes of it, the person yelling "fire" has not broken any laws.
> 
> I'm not super familiar with legal-ese or the way lawyers work through things. I'm also bad at English and getting thoughts into words, so I often misunderstand things. I'd love clarification on whether or not what I said is true or not. If it's too off topic PM me please.


Intent and understanding of your actions comes into it. If it helps, think of it as a different crime.. 

Your argument is that, technically speaking, it's not illegal to fire a gun at someone unless you hit them. As long as you miss, it's not murder, because they didn't ACTUALLY die. That might be technically true... But attempting to kill someone is still a crime, and if you shoot at them with intent to hit, and just miss, that's still attempted homicide. If you shoot at them intending to miss, and hit, then most likely you're facing manslaughter and not murder charges, since your intent wasn't to shoot them, just be a proper asshole. If you shot at them attempting to miss, and miss... More likely than not you're still facing some sort of lesser manslaughter charge, because it's pretty reasonable for an outside observer to see someone pointing a gun at someone, pull the trigger, and interpret that as your trying to kill them. 

By extension... 

if you yell fire in a crowded theater intenting to incite panic, and no one panics, you've still attempted to incite panic, and have broken the law. 
If you yell fire in a crowded theater NOT intending to incite panic, and people panic anyway, you've still incited panic, and have broken the law. 
If you yell fire in a crowded theater not intending to incite panic, and no one panics, then the circumstances matter a little - if it was, say, part of a theater production for you to run down the aisles yelling fire, you're very likel in the clear - but you also could very likely have broken the law for acting in a way tha, regardless of your intent, was likely to incite panic, even if somehow no one actually panics. I'd say it's more likely you'd get a stern lecture from law enforcement than criminal charges here, but if you had a prior record and a reputation, then who knows. 
Basically, if you yelled fire in a crowded theater and were either knowingly trying to incite panic, or wer well aware that while you weren't trying, it was entirely possible other people might not realize that and you very well might incite panic _anyway_, then you're absolutely in legal jeopardy.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

bostjan said:


> I think NPR is a more trustworthy news organization. Check out their quote from Fauci. It certainly doesn't jive with CNN's quote: https://www.npr.org/2020/04/09/8306...may-be-more-like-60-000-antibody-tests-on-way



The CNN quote is from March, the NPR one from April.

As things change, predictions change. Given that we're already at over 42k, with no real end in sight and with numbers that likely skew low, I don't think it's absurd to think that the original quote is still valid.

You're equating CNN with distorting the truth, when really, it's just semantics about what model is currently being discussed at the given time based on whatever estimates are at play.

Listen, I'm not really a big CNN, or network news in general, fan, but I thought that article was fairly well done. I followed at least one link for each number, and aside some rubs on semantics like this, it all seemed factual for the most part, maybe not 100% current, but nothing seems to be purposefully obfuscated.


----------



## sleewell

ThePIGI King said:


> @sleewell weren't you pro-lockdown?
> 
> I'm pretty sure you're one of those people that no matter what Trump does, you'll somehow critique and complain. He ain't perfect, but he's in office. Crying and name calling sure won't change that.




maybe you could describe your feelings on how clinton mismanaged bengahzi? my understanding is certain people felt that she was warned, did nothing, and people died.

whether or not that is true, it is certainly has been the rallying cry for quite some time, right?


fast forward to the present. trump was warned by american experts in the WHO in dec that this would be a major problem. he was then warned by higher ups within his own administration in jan, and in feb and in march that this would be a major issue. all during those months he was downplaying it.

is that not hypocrisy for you to take the position on clinton but give trump a free pass?

my point, which i have made before, is that south korea was able to scale up testing in 2 weeks. do you think it would have been wise for us to do the same thing or do you think we are better off without testing?

i'm not pro lockdown or anti lockdown - saying either of those out loud just sounds really stupid. i'm for having the data so you make the best decisions. i'm for wondering why our govt has failed us so badly on testing.


----------



## narad

Not the greatest meme, but one of my favorite movies so have to give props:


----------



## bostjan

MaxOfMetal said:


> The CNN quote is from March, the NPR one from April.
> 
> As things change, predictions change. Given that we're already at over 42k, with no real end in sight and with numbers that likely skew low, I don't think it's absurd to think that the original quote is still valid.
> 
> You're equating CNN with distorting the truth, when really, it's just semantics about what model is currently being discussed at the given time based on whatever estimates are at play.
> 
> Listen, I'm not really a big CNN, or network news in general, fan, but I thought that article was fairly well done. I followed at least one link for each number, and aside some rubs on semantics like this, it all seemed factual for the most part, maybe not 100% current, but nothing seems to be purposefully obfuscated.



...and the article in question is not from before the April NPR article...so...

I'm not saying that CNN is purposely trying to distort the truth, just that they are distorting the truth. It could well be because they are lazy or stupid or just bad at journalism.

If CNN cites CNN as the only source for a quote, I guess that's fine, if the quote is correct, but when it's clearly out of context (Fauci was asked about the number and responded with skepticism, which CNN quoted in a way that was blatantly misleading, and is now re-quoting that quote, despite it being not only dubious but also out-dated) that could be taken as shitty journalism at best, or as fear-mongering for the sake of driving profits, at worst.

Either way, it's frankly not a good look for CNN.

I feel it's important to keep them on the hook for this sort of shenanigans in the day and age of FOX News being also bad at journalism and seeing the downstream havoc it has caused with conspiracy theories that make no sense and all of the other junk that more and more Americans are believing now that only the fringes used to believe before journalists got this bad (not that they were ever perfect).


----------



## ThePIGI King

sleewell said:


> maybe you could describe your feelings on how clinton mismanaged bengahzi? my understanding is certain people felt that she was warned, did nothing, and people died.
> 
> whether or not that is true, it is certainly has been the rallying cry for quite some time, right?
> 
> 
> fast forward to the present. trump was warned by american experts in the WHO in dec that this would be a major problem. he was then warned by higher ups within his own administration in jan, and in feb and in march that this would be a major issue. all during those months he was downplaying it.
> 
> is that not hypocrisy for you to take the position on clinton but give trump a free pass?
> 
> my point, which i have made before, is that south korea was able to scale up testing in 2 weeks. do you think it would have been wise for us to do the same thing or do you think we are better off without testing?
> 
> i'm not pro lockdown or anti lockdown - saying either of those out loud just sounds really stupid. i'm for having the data so you make the best decisions. i'm for wondering why our govt has failed us so badly on testing.


I don't remember ever saying anything about Hillary or Bengahzi, so that makes your entire argument towards me invalid. I also didn't say Trump handled anything perfectly. I said society as a whole overreacted.


----------



## bostjan

ThePIGI King said:


> I don't remember ever saying anything about Hillary or Bengahzi, so that makes your entire argument towards me invalid. I also didn't say Trump handled anything perfectly. I said society as a whole overreacted.



I didn't see where he directed that at you personally, except to ask what your feelings were on Bengahzi.


----------



## sleewell

it was a great non answer. some times you can learn the most about a person from those.


----------



## vilk

A Trump supporter with no opinion on Hillary or Benghazi? Well I'll be...


----------



## KnightBrolaire

interesting piece on using serology tests to get more people back to working. 
https://thehill.com/opinion/healthc...DSJkXKR9QF-oXpsakHNSsy7iUqhE6zlqCQPIG-tUFDhlY


----------



## Randy

KnightBrolaire said:


> interesting piece on using serology tests to get more people back to working.
> https://thehill.com/opinion/healthc...DSJkXKR9QF-oXpsakHNSsy7iUqhE6zlqCQPIG-tUFDhlY



They started rolling out random antibody testing out this way over the weekend in an effort to get a grasp on how many people may have/had it, considering how narrow the testing was and how widely varied the symptoms were. Seems like a good first step.


----------



## possumkiller

Another entertaining waste of time from my dad.


----------



## SD83

possumkiller said:


> Another entertaining waste of time from my dad.



EDIT: Shit, I started to write before he was done and then he came up with the last few minutes. How do you go from "sounds reasonable enough, we have different views, but we see a very similar reality, this could be an interesting discussion" to "dafuq?" almost mid sentence?

I'd agree with a good deal of the information he brings up, his conclusions though... hardly. But that would be a perfect example of fact vs. opinion.
Facts for Germany are, for example, that in late february, almost 80% of beds in intensive care were being used. In early April, that number was down to about 60%. Because everything that wasn't necessary had been canceled/postponed. 
Opinion is that this clearly shows us that there is no need to worry, because we still got more than enough capacity. 

As for the counting... the local authority on that, the RKI, has made it clear on several occasion that they count everyone who died and was tested positive as "death by coronavirus". They also made it clear that the average victim of this, by their own definitions, was 80 and had at least 2 pre existing health problems. Is this the same way we count "death by influenza virus"? I'm not saying "this is just the flu", don't get me wrong, this is bad, and probably catastrophicly bad if you're old or in bad health (and male, because apparently in Germany & Italy, about 2/3 of the victims were men, and their share rises the younger the victims were... although at least for Italy, according to the Italian health ministry, among the first ~2,000 dead a total of 5 were under 40). I'm just saying we should be careful with those numbers. Excess mortality would be something I'd be interested in, ie the number of people who die in this time in an average year vs the ones who died this year. At least in Germany, that excess mortality is something that is considered when coming up with the death toll for the seasonal flu, so if we count those two by two different standards, it is hard to compare them properly.

And even the amount of people infected... the RKI changed their definition of that THRICE in the course of this pandemic. At first, they counted everyone who was tested positive, according to what the local health offices told them. Then, in early march, they only counted those who tested positive where the result was properly processed in their system, so the numbers started to lag behind those of the John-Hopkins-University by about a day. Then, in late march, you were counted as infected even without a test, if you had been in contact to someone with a positive test and showed symptoms. And a few days ago, they changed that BACK, so now they only count those with positive tests. There is not much difference in those numbers, but it isn't exactly improving trust in the numbers they release if they keep changing the definition of what is counted.

As the infection rates... that is actually something we should watch, I think, combined with testing to know how many people get infected, where they get infected, and if they even show symptoms. Is it not as infectious as we think? Because, maybe then we could lift the lockdown, carefully, earlier. Or is it as infectious as we think, maybe even more, and most people don't show any symptoms, which some studies seem to point to? In that case, a lot more people than we think are infected, and a lot of them don't even know it and go around spreading it... so the mortality rate would be way lower for the total population, but the mortality rate for those at risk is still catastrophicly high so if we have a lot of asymptomatic cases, maybe the lockdown is needed even more.


----------



## bostjan

Perpetually-out-of-breath respiratory therapist doesn't actually understand how PCR works or what viruses are.


----------



## BlackSG91

;>)/


----------



## sleewell

vilk said:


> A Trump supporter with no opinion on Hillary or Benghazi? Well I'll be...




hahaha. i know right? if only it was that easy to shut them up. i am sure he thinks she did a great job otherwise he def would have said something.


----------



## wankerness

sleewell said:


> i'm not pro lockdown or anti lockdown - saying either of those out loud just sounds really stupid. i'm for having the data so you make the best decisions. i'm for wondering why our govt has failed us so badly on testing.



What is there to wonder about? It's blatantly obvious to anyone but the cultists. Our president is completely incompetent and does not care one iota about saving lives, only about enriching himself both financially and ego-wise. Paradoxically, increasing testing would be the number one thing to help get the economy back on its feet, since that's the only way it will be safe to reopen things or will help the non-moronic 70% of the population to feel safe going out in public again, but Trump is too goddam stupid to put two and two together. And Mitch Mcconnell just fucking kicked a vote on testing funding back two weeks cause he didn't think they should vote on anything unless everyone was physically present at the senate, even though many Republicans thought it was very important to get funding out to hospitals and states and small businesses IMMEDIATELY. This means it will be, at the bare minimum, May 5th before the next round of emergency funds are approved, and that's only assuming ol' Mitch doesn't try to strip out everything that does anything other than make the rich richer. Of course giving retroactive tax payments of millions of dollars to the richest 80,000 people in the country was priority #1 for him a few weeks ago.

Mitch Mcconnell is a plague all by himself.


----------



## sleewell

^ that is truly the puzzling part. every expert and poll is saying testing will get people more comfortable to go back to work which is what we all want.

instead trump sees testing as people pointing out his sleeping/golfing at the wheel so the entire subject is off limits and he says we don't need it. it's something he thinks will hurt him politically so he is not doing anything about it while people are dying and that is what is holding up the economy.

even months later he still could see huge political upside by ramping up on mass testing. many people would say ok he was caught off guard, but he dug in and fixed it. that could be huge. instead he denies, says lies, shifts blame to someone new everyday which is hurting him and all of us.

such a huge mis judgement on his part and its only going to get worse with him rushing people back to work. he could have added many people to his base had he handled this better.


----------



## Drew

sleewell said:


> even months later he still could see huge political upside by ramping up on mass testing. many people would say ok he was caught off guard, but he dug in and fixed it. that could be huge. instead he denies, says lies, shifts blame to someone new everyday which is hurting him and all of us.


You know as well as I do that that's not Trump's style, though. He was opposed to widespread testing early on because he wanted to keep his "numbers low." Rather than admitting he was wrong and fixing it, the on-brand response would be to double down, keep testing low, and then in November point to the fact that the actual number of detected cases in the US is far lower than some arbitrary number he'll make up as an expert estimation, and talk about all the "winning" he's done. 

Meanwhile, my resident Trumpophile on Facebook I just haven't gotten around to blocking is sharing Brietbart articles about how Google may have Clinton's emails. You KNOW things are in dire straits in the Trump administration when they fall back on "but... her emails" four years after the election.


----------



## Randy

I'd like to know what's in Hillary's email that's worse than directly causing 10s of thousands of deaths to American citizens because you're concerned with optics.


----------



## tedtan

And now, not only has the Senate further confirmed Russia's interventions to help Trump win office, but we have several US intelligence personnel indicating that China is intervening to widen the political divide in the US and spread misinformation about the corona virus: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/us/politics/coronavirus-china-disinformation.html


----------



## Randy

And meanwhile, Barr's pet project is still indicting the intelligence community.


----------



## SD83

Drew said:


> Meanwhile, my resident Trumpophile on Facebook I just haven't gotten around to blocking is sharing Brietbart articles about how Google may have Clinton's emails. You KNOW things are in dire straits in the Trump administration when they fall back on "but... her emails" four years after the election.



Maybe it turns out that Hilary asked Putin to give one of his new bioweapons to Jinping so the Chinese could perfect it and release it on the world to ruin the US economy in case Trump won the elections, so the Democrats could win the election after the last one by A LOT, because they knew Trump would fail in such an event... in a world where 5G gives you gay coronavirus, that isn't even outrageously weird by some standards.


----------



## sleewell

this is rig talk in a meme.


----------



## bostjan

sleewell said:


> this is rig talk in a meme.



Those rolls are round, yet the sheets that come from them are flat! That doesn't make any sense! Also, you forgot about the pangolin using the HAARP machine to assassinate JFK from the twin towers.


----------



## Adieu

tedtan said:


> And now, not only has the Senate further confirmed Russia's interventions to help Trump win office, but we have several US intelligence personnel indicating that China is intervening to widen the political divide in the US and spread misinformation about the corona virus: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/us/politics/coronavirus-china-disinformation.html




Good ol' NY Times

Fuck!n trashy sh!t-stirrers whose claim to sophistication hinges on lazy inconsistent thesaurus abuse and an overt attempt to regularly get a sensationalist rise from not one but both sides of the American political divide with the same article.

Their work always leaves that disgusting "inadvertently touched something in a nasty public restroom" after-tingle


----------



## spudmunkey

Adieu said:


> Good ol' NY Times
> 
> Fuck!n trashy sh!t-stirrers whose claim to sophistication hinges on lazy inconsistent thesaurus abuse and an overt attempt to regularly get a sensationalist rise from not one but both sides of the American political divide with the same article.
> 
> Their work always leaves that disgusting "inadvertently touched something in a nasty public restroom" after-tingle



So the link is from NY...but does that mean you'll automatically reject the content, and not even look to see if and how it's reported elsewhere?


----------



## Adieu

spudmunkey said:


> So the link is from NY...but does that mean you'll automatically reject the content, and not even look to see if and how it's reported elsewhere?




...which, in this day and age, is a bigger win than merely getting one reader to blindly believe?

Damn moral quandaries


----------



## SD83

bostjan said:


> Also, you forgot about the pangolin using the HAARP machine to assassinate JFK from the twin towers.


Not the biggest fan of The HAARP Machine, but they are not THAT bad...  Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

https://www.decibelmagazine.com/202...w3XoGTIyrXeGm33rGCtnaP0d9aMm-J18cYl0_Bs_GMyuc
Also... re-reading this interview makes me increasingly angry. I mean, good for him he made it through this and apparently intends to care for his health some more, but... "I knew it was the coronavirus. I get colds here and there but I had a fever and aching and this intense flu. I never get sick like that." And then they get off the plane, the staff recognizes them and they aren't tested or anything. "We looked like shit and were sweating. But since they see us all the time we got lucky." No you moron, you did not get lucky. This guy just got back from a 12 day coma and he thinks he was LUCKY not to get tested three days prior to that? If they had just tested and quarantined them right there at the airport, they (maybe) wouldn't have infected a single person in the US and he (likely) wouldn't have gotten so sick he needed to be put in a fucking coma.
But then again, the next big city here had a lot of cases from people coming back from holiday from Ischgl, a popular ski ressort in northern Italy, in early march. And no one apparently considered putting them under quarantine or even testing them. Even though by that time the worst place to be in terms of coronavirus, globally, was northern Italy. "Common sense" apparently is a lot less contagious than "Corona virus".
EDIT: Added the link to the interview with Will Carroll from Death Angel.


----------



## Merrekof

SD83 said:


> a lot of cases from people coming back from holiday from Ischgl, a popular ski ressort in northern Italy, in early march.


This accounts for half of Europe, I guess..


----------



## bostjan

It's like Carroll doesn't even think at all about the fact that he exposed dozens of medical workers to the virus.

If I caught the virus abroad and accidentally brought it back home, I would feel pretty guilty. I guess since he knew what he had and knew that people at the airport would try to quarantine him to save everyone else, and he snuck past them anyway, it makes sense that he doesn't feel guilty about it. But then calling other people foolish at the end of the interview might be a little ironic.

Oh well, I'm glad he pulled through. I hadn't even heard that he had suffered from heart failure!


----------



## tedtan

Adieu said:


> Good ol' NY Times
> 
> Fuck!n trashy sh!t-stirrers whose claim to sophistication hinges on lazy inconsistent thesaurus abuse and an overt attempt to regularly get a sensationalist rise from not one but both sides of the American political divide with the same article.
> 
> Their work always leaves that disgusting "inadvertently touched something in a nasty public restroom" after-tingle



That was the first link I found, but this is being reported by quite a few different news agencies.


----------



## jaxadam

I mean just look at all that’s going on in the world right now... Covid-19, wildfires, Africa locusts, and the Tampa Bay Bucs poised to win the Super Bowl with Tom Brady and Gronkypunch.


----------



## bostjan

jaxadam said:


> I mean just look at all that’s going on in the world right now... Covid-19, wildfires, Africa locusts, and the Tampa Bay Bucs poised to win the Super Bowl with Tom Brady and Gronkypunch.



Don't forget Chernobyl reactivating, Mount Krakatoa rumbling, and Jeff Kiesel apologizing to a customer!


----------



## narad

bostjan said:


> Don't forget Chernobyl reactivating, Mount Krakatoa rumbling, and Jeff Kiesel apologizing to a customer!



No way that last one is real.


----------



## Adieu

tedtan said:


> That was the first link I found, but this is being reported by quite a few different news agencies.



So somebody in China is blaming (gasp) the Americans???


Shocker.


And they then went and did a typically western thing and made some cooky-ish videos about that.... WHOA.


They ~really~ crossed a line. How could they???



PS ...and yes, this DOES mean that we've all subconsciously been holding the Chinese Communist Party to a higher moral standard than any of our own. For a while now. Pass the popcorn while that sinks in.


----------



## LordCashew

wankerness said:


> ...the non-moronic 70% of the population...



Seems generous...


----------



## Ralyks

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-cuomo-briefing-tracking-bloomberg-20200422-vgyyzig3fnerxnxicc46jhb77y-story.html?outputType=amp

Bloomberg funding $10 million testing program for NY. As weird as that feels to say, fuck it, this could be good. Better than using that money to troll Trump more (even if in a way he still kind of is)


----------



## Randy

The data is in — stop the panic and end the total isolation
BY DR. SCOTT W. ATLAS


----------



## fantom

I will be first to admit that I didn't read the whole thing, but do I trust scientists over media?


We conclude that social distancing likely generates net social benefits. In our benchmark case, which we view as the most plausible case among those we examined, the present value of net benefits from social distancing amount to $5.16 trillion.​https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3561934

​


----------



## broj15

https://news.usc.edu/168987/antibody-testing-results-covid-19-infections-los-angeles-county/

Disclaimer: my posting this article should not be construed as trying to downplay the severity/impact, or advocate for a lift on stay at home orders.

The results are incredibly unsettling. We know that asymptomatic people can still be contagious, however I don't think we currently know how long they'll be contagious for (correct me if I'm wrong). And if such a large portion of the population has been infected and is asymptomatic then it seems almost impossible that the entire population won't become infected eventually. At that point it just seems more like a really unlucky lottery of who it's gonna manifest in and to what severity. And I'm not saying we should just "let it happen" either. As I said before, both of my parents are in the at risk category. I'm not working right now and I miss my family. There's really no reason for me to be in the city right now, 2 states away from them. But I still can't go home because I can almost guarantee that if I took the test tomorrow i'd have antibodies present in my body, and I have no way of knowing when I was infected or if I'm contagious or not.


----------



## iamaom

Bit of an incoherent ramble:



Randy said:


> The data is in — stop the panic and end the total isolation
> BY DR. SCOTT W. ATLAS


My state is really rewarding our governor for being tough on the pandemic, so I foresee another lock down extension into June. If a single nursing home gets another breakout and results in a couple dozen deaths (whether or not re-opening was to blame), the media will make a circus of it. The pandemic has been so politicized to abortion levels: if someone wants to end the lockdown for great reasons (as listed in the article), they get lumped in with the "liberate Michigan" people and not caring about old folks dying. Politicians are being shockingly responsive to their constituents right now, conservative states' populations don't give a shit and neither do their governors and liberal states are overreacting in reaction to conservative's underacting. 

I don't really think it can be contained that much longer, summer is coming and Seattle has already had some REALLY clear days that had a noticeable amount of people saying "fuck it" and going outside to gather. There's been a lot of increased police presence because of this which sucks because I still have to get new license plates but can't because the DMV is closed. Been driving like an old lady the past few months to avoid getting a ticket. God help us if there's a second wave this fall which will up the panic to 11, it would suck to just get back to "normal" only to go on another lock down.


----------



## bostjan

Randy said:


> The data is in — stop the panic and end the total isolation
> BY DR. SCOTT W. ATLAS


Thanks for posting that. It's "refreshing" to see something from the side with which I disagree that is at least somewhat coherent.
A couple of comments.
1. If you check the hyperlinks, most of them do not say anything remotely similar to what he says that they say. Why is that?!
2. Dr. Atlas is not only a medical doctor, but also a professor. One would think he would be academically honest by default. Perhaps he is making some stretchy inferences:
A. The Stanford paper cited does not give the mortality rate cited, but if you assume the entire nation has the same antibody prevalence given by the same from Santa Clara county, you can infer from the total confirmed deaths by simple division. The Stanford paper doesn't even imply this, because, frankly, that's ridiculous, as the sample was taken from an epicenter of the outbreak and there are also believed to be way more deaths from covid 19 than the official national number. A number of assumptions to get to the mortality rate in The Hill's article are deliberately misleading.
B. The NYC citation links to numbers that don't match what he's saying. Maybe he's rounding numbers down that should be rounded up, or using outdated data, but it's weird for sure.
C. The third citation dishonestly ignores "underlying conditions unknown" in its figure, which I'm calling out as deliberately misleading bullshit.
3. Search for Scott Atlas. He's been pushing this narrative since early March, shortly after social distancing took effect and well before any of these data were available. That's a big red flag for confirmation bias. 

Frankly, he might be right, but the mental gymnastics he's using to go from the data through the hoops of confirmation bias to this conclusion are quite infuriating.


----------



## sleewell

trump fans how you feeling about his awesome predictions? he sure has good awareness of his "hunches" right? super good gut instincts? the best.


said he thought it would all go away in april. how does that look now? just under 185k deaths and climbing pretty fast.

then he said he thought hydroxychloroquine would really work and be a game changer. said he had a hunch and whats the worst that could happen. killed a bunch of vets, no positive effects.

now he says it wont come back in the fall when all the experts say the opposite. you still believe everything he says right?


----------



## High Plains Drifter

sleewell said:


> trump fans how you feeling about his awesome predictions? he sure has good awareness of his "hunches" right? super good gut instincts?



lol forget about it. His supporters are still defending him, downplaying the virus, regurgitating baseless "facts", and touting their own custom-made rationalizations.


----------



## Randy

High Plains Drifter said:


> own custom-made rationalizations.



And in true SSO builder fashion, they have perpetual build times, dodgy quality control and terrible customer service.


----------



## Demiurge

https://local.theonion.com/man-not-sure-why-he-thought-most-psychologically-taxing-1843004933


----------



## bostjan

This: https://apnews.com/29719f13fe4c63b3625cc178fa1d0b50 is interesting.

Also interesting is how WTHR (Indianapolis), ABC, and the Sun have reposted the above story with headlines akin to "Lethal Injection Drugs Can Save COVID-19 Patients," which is just more deliberate misleading media shenanigans. It may be a true statement on technicality, but these sorts of headlines misrepresent the whole of the idea of the story... anyway...

I'm sure there will now be conspiracy theories about how the illuminati/democrats/feminists/people-who-shave-around-their-nipples-club is taking advantage of the crisis to put an end to capital punishment. I'm also quite sure at least one state will continue to refuse to help out, despite the validity of the reasoning behind this request. Also, I am afraid that there will be a story of some numbskull reading the headline and jumping to the conclusion that injecting lethal injection cocktail will cure coronavirus, and someone, somehow, will die as a result of either injecting drugs with similar names or somehow getting ahold of an actual lethal injection cocktail and shooting it.

Hopefully I am wrong and just bitter and jaded toward humanity.



sleewell said:


> trump fans how you feeling about his awesome predictions? he sure has good awareness of his "hunches" right? super good gut instincts? the best.
> 
> 
> said he thought it would all go away in april. how does that look now? just under 185k deaths and climbing pretty fast.
> 
> then he said he thought hydroxychloroquine would really work and be a game changer. said he had a hunch and whats the worst that could happen. killed a bunch of vets, no positive effects.
> 
> now he says it wont come back in the fall when all the experts say the opposite. you still believe everything he says right?



I don't believe any information Trump gives "through mouth" anymore. He is not a doctor, and, although he is paying some of the best doctors and scientists to advise him about the epidemic, he has, as a rule, disregarded every word they have said, contradicted them, and downplayed it every time he was wrong and they were right. But I don't disbelieve him because of that; I disbelieve him because he had proven back in 2016 that he was a compulsive liar, and has done everything in his power to reinforce that belief ever since.


----------



## Drew

broj15 said:


> https://news.usc.edu/168987/antibody-testing-results-covid-19-infections-los-angeles-county/
> 
> Disclaimer: my posting this article should not be construed as trying to downplay the severity/impact, or advocate for a lift on stay at home orders.
> 
> The results are incredibly unsettling. We know that asymptomatic people can still be contagious, however I don't think we currently know how long they'll be contagious for (correct me if I'm wrong). And if such a large portion of the population has been infected and is asymptomatic then it seems almost impossible that the entire population won't become infected eventually. At that point it just seems more like a really unlucky lottery of who it's gonna manifest in and to what severity. And I'm not saying we should just "let it happen" either. As I said before, both of my parents are in the at risk category. I'm not working right now and I miss my family. There's really no reason for me to be in the city right now, 2 states away from them. But I still can't go home because I can almost guarantee that if I took the test tomorrow i'd have antibodies present in my body, and I have no way of knowing when I was infected or if I'm contagious or not.


I forget if this was Bloomberg News or FiveThirtyEight where I read this, but I saw a pretty excellent contextuaization of that study that strongly suggests you should take it with a giant grain of salt.

First LA County has a population of a hair over 10 million. At the time of the study, they had 8,000 known cases. Or, 0.08% of the population had tested positive. That's the first important bit of contact - the _known_ cases are a miniscule part of the total population.

Now, i passing, we KNOW we're not testing enough and it's higher than that. No debate.

The next important part is that all tests occasionally fail. A test that only gives a false positive 99% of the time is _extremely _reliable, but does occasionally give false positives nonetheless. Why this matters, is given the incredibly small infected population, the number of false positives can dwarf the _known_ positives pretty quickly, and becomes a huge source of statistical noise. a 1% false positive rate would suggest the infected population was 1.08%, not 0.08%, or that an illness is 13.5x more prevalent than ity actually is_, even if our known positives are a perfect representation of the underlying infection rate_. If their estimate is that the true underlying rate is between 2.8% and 5.6%, then it's worth noting that a test that's 96% accurate or so could, in theory, fully explain their results.

As a further reason to discount this conclusion, if we again take a midpoint there and say that COVID-19 is actually around, oh, 35x more prevalent than known, that implies the "true" mortality rate is closer to 0.03-0.06% than our current estimation of on average around 1-2%. If you compare that to areas where we KNOW we have a lot more cases, that doesn't jive. New York City has had nearly 11,000 confirmed fatalities, on a population of 3.2 million. NYC's mortality rate, as a percentage not of known COVID-19 cases but of the _city's entire population_, is 0.34%, ten times what the authors of this study would predict if the _entire city_ had contracted COVID-19 rather than the 142,000 confirmed cases.

The math doesn't add up. To make this analysis work, you'd need to perform it somewhere like New York, where the number of confirmed cases as a percentage of the population (4.4% at present) is significantly larger than the false positive rate of the test, or you're injecting a tremendous amount of noise into your analysis that makes it impossible to draw meaningful conclusions.




SD83 said:


> Maybe it turns out that Hilary asked Putin to give one of his new bioweapons to Jinping so the Chinese could perfect it and release it on the world to ruin the US economy in case Trump won the elections, so the Democrats could win the election after the last one by A LOT, because they knew Trump would fail in such an event... in a world where 5G gives you gay coronavirus, that isn't even outrageously weird by some standards.


Careful man. OAN may be listening!


----------



## Randy

broj15 said:


> https://news.usc.edu/168987/antibody-testing-results-covid-19-infections-los-angeles-county/
> 
> Disclaimer: my posting this article should not be construed as trying to downplay the severity/impact, or advocate for a lift on stay at home orders.
> 
> The results are incredibly unsettling. We know that asymptomatic people can still be contagious, however I don't think we currently know how long they'll be contagious for (correct me if I'm wrong). And if such a large portion of the population has been infected and is asymptomatic then it seems almost impossible that the entire population won't become infected eventually. At that point it just seems more like a really unlucky lottery of who it's gonna manifest in and to what severity. And I'm not saying we should just "let it happen" either. As I said before, both of my parents are in the at risk category. I'm not working right now and I miss my family. There's really no reason for me to be in the city right now, 2 states away from them. But I still can't go home because I can almost guarantee that if I took the test tomorrow i'd have antibodies present in my body, and I have no way of knowing when I was infected or if I'm contagious or not.





Drew said:


> I forget if this was Bloomberg News or FiveThirtyEight where I read this, but I saw a pretty excellent contextuaization of that study that strongly suggests you should take it with a giant grain of salt.
> 
> First LA County has a population of a hair over 10 million. At the time of the study, they had 8,000 known cases. Or, 0.08% of the population had tested positive. That's the first important bit of contact - the _known_ cases are a miniscule part of the total population.
> 
> Now, i passing, we KNOW we're not testing enough and it's higher than that. No debate.
> 
> The next important part is that all tests occasionally fail. A test that only gives a false positive 99% of the time is _extremely _reliable, but does occasionally give false positives nonetheless. Why this matters, is given the incredibly small infected population, the number of false positives can dwarf the _known_ positives pretty quickly, and becomes a huge source of statistical noise. a 1% false positive rate would suggest the infected population was 1.08%, not 0.08%, or that an illness is 13.5x more prevalent than ity actually is_, even if our known positives are a perfect representation of the underlying infection rate_. If their estimate is that the true underlying rate is between 2.8% and 5.6%, then it's worth noting that a test that's 96% accurate or so could, in theory, fully explain their results.
> 
> As a further reason to discount this conclusion, if we again take a midpoint there and say that COVID-19 is actually around, oh, 35x more prevalent than known, that implies the "true" mortality rate is closer to 0.03-0.06% than our current estimation of on average around 1-2%. If you compare that to areas where we KNOW we have a lot more cases, that doesn't jive. New York City has had nearly 11,000 confirmed fatalities, on a population of 3.2 million. NYC's mortality rate, as a percentage not of known COVID-19 cases but of the _city's entire population_, is 0.34%, ten times what the authors of this study would predict if the _entire city_ had contracted COVID-19 rather than the 142,000 confirmed cases.
> 
> The math doesn't add up. To make this analysis work, you'd need to perform it somewhere like New York, where the number of confirmed cases as a percentage of the population (4.4% at present) is significantly larger than the false positive rate of the test, or you're injecting a tremendous amount of noise into your analysis that makes it impossible to draw meaningful conclusions.



I think it's important to contextualize all of this, though. I live with someone who's a germaphobe, fearful of disease etc. And with all the conflicting stories of spread, symptoms, lack of symptoms, etc. it's like every new wave of stories about this is a new crisis.

Several times, we've discussed this and ended up at the point of say "yeah, but what if you and I both have it and we're asymptomatic!?" at which point I say.... so? I keep my distance from people, I wear a mask and/or cover my cough/sneeze, I wear gloves, I wipe down surfaces even after I myself touch them, etc.

Hyper focusing on the disease spread and transmission to where being asymptomatic becomes MORE cause for concern, to me, elevates things to hysteria for no reason. I think one of the best possible things we could find out from these random tests and antibody tests is that more people have it or have had it than we knew, and it turns out that outward symptoms or severe symptoms are the exception and not the rule. That would provide a great many options.

I suspect the reality lies somewhere in between; where the infection rate is way underrepresented, as are deaths but so are recoveries and asymptomatic cases.

The worst outcome, which is what we're dealing with right now, is that it's descends into tribalism where one side wants to reopen everything at the potential cost of millions of lives, and the other side (in some cases) would prefer to be overly cautious to the point of ignorance to keep restrictions unnecessarily long and onerous just to be proven right. Considering how many cases, across a wide swath of geography we have, I think "we don't know yet" is becoming a less and less acceptable answer, at least issue to issue.


----------



## Adieu

bostjan said:


> This: https://apnews.com/29719f13fe4c63b3625cc178fa1d0b50 is interesting.
> 
> Also interesting is how WTHR (Indianapolis), ABC, and the Sun have reposted the above story with headlines akin to "Lethal Injection Drugs Can Save COVID-19 Patients," which is just more deliberate misleading media shenanigans. It may be a true statement on technicality, but these sorts of headlines misrepresent the whole of the idea of the story... anyway...
> 
> I'm sure there will now be conspiracy theories about how the illuminati/democrats/feminists/people-who-shave-around-their-nipples-club is taking advantage of the crisis to put an end to capital punishment. I'm also quite sure at least one state will continue to refuse to help out, despite the validity of the reasoning behind this request. Also, I am afraid that there will be a story of some numbskull reading the headline and jumping to the conclusion that injecting lethal injection cocktail will cure coronavirus, and someone, somehow, will die as a result of either injecting drugs with similar names or somehow getting ahold of an actual lethal injection cocktail and shooting it.
> 
> Hopefully I am wrong and just bitter and jaded toward humanity.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't believe any information Trump gives "through mouth" anymore. He is not a doctor, and, although he is paying some of the best doctors and scientists to advise him about the epidemic, he has, as a rule, disregarded every word they have said, contradicted them, and downplayed it every time he was wrong and they were right. But I don't disbelieve him because of that; I disbelieve him because he had proven back in 2016 that he was a compulsive liar, and has done everything in his power to reinforce that belief ever since.



Lethal injection drugs are LITERALLY barbituates/tranquilizers in one syringe and a fatal overdose of opiates in another. The killer part is simply in the quantity.

I pretty much guarantee you that there's people on your block who abuse a similar cocktail on purpose, to get high. It's the mix of choice for neurotic housewives that like to look down on their red-wine-and-valium brethren as alcoholics while maintaining their own addiction is entirely medicinal.

So, anyways... anyone who refers downers+opiates as "lethal injection mix" is most definitely trying to polarize an agenda or rabble rouse.


----------



## sleewell

shit i'll take a little bit of each right about now lol


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> The worst outcome, which is what we're dealing with right now, is that it's descends into tribalism where one side wants to reopen everything at the potential cost of millions of lives, and the other side (in some cases) would prefer to be overly cautious to the point of ignorance to keep restrictions unnecessarily long and onerous just to be proven right. Considering how many cases, across a wide swath of geography we have, I think "we don't know yet" is becoming a less and less acceptable answer, at least issue to issue.


...though, I think it's undeniable that we need to be EXTREMELY cautious for the time being and use that timeto _answer_ some of those quesitons, with a particular focus on the short term ones. The article you posted above gives a pretty optimistic read, but also glosses over a few pretty concerning knowns - the current transmission rate is quite high, estimates vary but I've seen anywhere from somewhere in the 1.5-2.5 range (closely in line with the Spanish flu of 1918) to north of 5. Severe cases requiring hospitalization vry by demographics, and Italy is probably an outlier at around 20%, but we seem pretty close to 10% here. I'm stating the obvious, but unless we have SOME effective way of treating people outside hospitals, those models in the "people dying of treatable illnesses because we're redirecting resources based on models and not actual outcomes" he refer to are going to likely understate the number of hospitalations we see. Here in MA, we're estimating we're probably less than 1-2 weeks from peak, and while we're not a capacity, we're also significantly above normal utilization rates. That's concerning. 

The focus here needs to be on finding a way to halt the spread, treat the symptoms, or, ideally, both, and while we need to loosen restrictions as soon as we can do so safely for other reasons, it's extremely risky to loosen them too soon. Even fucin' _Trump_, of all people, is now saying Georgia shouldn't be lifting restrictions yet. Broken clocks...


----------



## sleewell

trump is only saying now that to cover his ass.

you know he would have taken all the credit if kemp's decision was praised.

he convinced the governors to reopen, they wanted to curry favor with him so they did and now he throws them under the bus.

a true pile of crap.


----------



## spudmunkey

sleewell said:


> trump is only saying now that to cover his ass.



Absolutly. it's the same person who tweeted these, in support of people protesting shut-downs:


----------



## jaxadam

spudmunkey said:


> Absolutly. it's the same person who tweeted these, in support of people protesting shut-downs:



LIBERATE BANANAS


----------



## bostjan

So HCQ not only doesn't work, but is killing people, just as I predicted, and as many of my peers predicted. The Director of BARDA was fired for pointing out the truth that it doesn't work. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/us/politics/rick-bright-trump-hydroxychloroquine.html

And, now, researchers are afraid to release the data of the biggest HCQ/SARS-CoV-2 study to date, due to the likely repercussions from the Trump administration.


----------



## wankerness

He already just fired a top government vaccine expert over him saying that the government shouldn't give money to unproven treatments like HCQ and should instead be going after things that are scientifically proven.

Probably Jenny Mccarthy gets his job next


----------



## bostjan

wankerness said:


> He already just fired a top government vaccine expert over him saying that the government shouldn't give money to unproven treatments like HCQ and should instead be going after things that are scientifically proven.
> 
> Probably Jenny Mccarthy gets his job next



 Isn't she anti-vax? I guess that's what makes the joke funny. Or is it funny because it's so close to the truth?

Come on people, everyone should be coming _together_, it's _*Co*_vid-19, not *Dis*vid-19.

I made the mistake a couple weeks ago of posting some facts and figures, with several scientific journal articles cited, about HCQ on facebook, (where I usually avoid, because it's such a cesspool of political nonsense) and literally within seconds, two people (who just happen to be very vocally pro-Trump) started posting lengthy explanations, without data nor citation, arguing why I was wrong. A few other friends of mine jumped in and I deleted the post as things got out of control less than an hour later.


----------



## Necris

Fox has been pushing HCQ since the moment Trump first brought it up. Laura Ingraham was on Fox last night attacking reports that it didn't work. Though they're happy to promote it their coverage has never been about HCQ's efficacy as a treatment, it's about showing loyalty to Trump and an opportunity to portray science/the medical community as a whole as biased against Trump to try to give him a bit of breathing room.
They're doing it with their coverage of the WHO, the CDC, etc. too. They know as long as the base stays in line there will be few political consequences for Trump.


----------



## BlackSG91

I thinks it's time for me to Gogh to the hospital...quick!








;>)/


----------



## spudmunkey

Necris said:


> Fox has been pushing HCQ since the moment Trump first brought it up. Laura Ingraham was on Fox last night attacking reports that it didn't work. Though they're happy to promote it their coverage has never been about HCQ's efficacy as a treatment, it's about showing loyalty to Trump and an opportunity to portray science/the medical community as a whole as biased against Trump to try to give him a bit of breathing room.
> They're doing it with their coverage of the WHO, the CDC, etc. too. They know as long as the base stays in line there will be few political consequences for Trump.



Even in today's press conference, someone asked him about why he's stopped promoting it. He said he never stopped. He's seen great things, and other things, and maybe there was some not-so-good things, i don't know I didn't read it. Or some such nonsense.


----------



## Randy

spudmunkey said:


> He's seen great things, and other things, and maybe there was some not-so-good things, i don't know



Spot on impression.


----------



## Necris

Bill Bryan relayed the info that exposure to to humidity and UV light can lessen the lifespan of the virus on a surface and noted that bleach and isopropyl alcohol kill the virus in 5 minutes and 30 seconds respectively when found in saliva and respiratory fluids. Trump immediately asked him to look into testing injections of bleach and isopropyl alcohol into the body as a treatment.
Again, this is the man who claimed he had an innate understanding of medicine.


----------



## KnightBrolaire




----------



## Drew

Necris said:


> Fox has been pushing HCQ since the moment Trump first brought it up. Laura Ingraham was on Fox last night attacking reports that it didn't work. Though they're happy to promote it their coverage has never been about HCQ's efficacy as a treatment, it's about showing loyalty to Trump and an opportunity to portray science/the medical community as a whole as biased against Trump to try to give him a bit of breathing room.
> They're doing it with their coverage of the WHO, the CDC, etc. too. They know as long as the base stays in line there will be few political consequences for Trump.


I saw a fascinating study from some evidently pretty well-reputed scientists that concluded that cases were 30-60% higher in Americans who primarily got their news from Fox than from other sources, after controlling for all other variables, with viewers favoring Hannity at the upper end of that and Carlson the lower. That's insane.


----------



## gunch

Necris said:


> Bill Bryan relayed the info that exposure to to humidity and UV light can lessen the lifespan of the virus on a surface and noted that bleach and isopropyl alcohol kill the virus in 5 minutes and 30 seconds respectively when found in saliva and respiratory fluids. Trump immediately asked him to look into testing injections of bleach and isopropyl alcohol into the body as a treatment.
> Again, this is the man who claimed he had an innate understanding of medicine.



My own president told me to drink bleach


----------



## Randy

Donald J. Mengele


----------



## spudmunkey

As of today, the US has hit 50,000 deaths. Even a day earlier than I expected just a few days ago.


----------



## Randy

I'd like to point out the way MSM hackishly legitimizes the kind of off the wall shit Trump says


----------



## spudmunkey

Ripping open your body and exposing all of your virus-carrying cells to the sun is one way to guarantee you won't die from COVID-19.


----------



## Xaios

Because we live in the dumbest timeline, the President of the United States of America has now endorsed the Tide Pod Challenge.


----------



## broj15

Xaios said:


> Because we live in the dumbest timeline, the President of the United States of America has now endorsed the Tide Pod Challenge.



Let's face it. They couldn't keep us from having the forbidden treat forever. This is all just part of God's plan lol


----------



## blacai

just pure magic...

https://twitter.com/Daniel_Lewis3/status/1253482576699969537?s=15



Randy said:


> I'd like to point out the way MSM hackishly legitimizes the kind of off the wall shit Trump says
> 
> View attachment 79837


----------



## Wuuthrad




----------



## Merrekof

I just heard on the radio that doctor Trump said the cure for COVID-19 is UV-light and injecting bleach..

My colleages and I bursted out in laughing.

How can people still take this man seriously? 

That is a pretty dumb statement, if all his followers inject bleach, who will be left to vote for him?


----------



## sleewell

I hope lots of people chug bleach today.

We are the laughing stock of the entire world. Good job low info voters. Hope the overt racism was worth it.


----------



## TedEH

I don't understand how that guy is allowed to keep his job. Imagine being in a position where your choices can (and do) kill people, and nobody seems to be able to do anything about it. It's insane.


----------



## ThePIGI King

https://townhall.com/columnists/kev...ntibody-testing-proves-weve-been-had-n2567516


----------



## narad

ThePIGI King said:


> https://townhall.com/columnists/kev...ntibody-testing-proves-weve-been-had-n2567516



"*We’ve been told that the true death rate is 7.4% in New York*. We were told there would be hundreds of thousands dead. We were told that this was worse than the flu, which has still recorded more deaths to date in this past flu season—even though the CDC instructed medical personnel to start counting influenza, heart disease, pulmonary, respiratory, drug overdose, and possibly even car crash deaths as COVID-19 deaths."

By who? If anything we're told that the real rate of infection is likely more than 10x the tested positive rate. In other words, the results of the antibody testing are perfectly in line with what we would have expected.


----------



## thraxil

Direct quotes from the President during the most recent briefing:

"So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous uh whether it's ultraviolet or it's just very powerful light and I think you said that hasn't been checked but you're gonna test it. Then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body which you can do either through the skin or uh in some other way and I think you said you're gonna test that too. Sounds interesting."

"Right and then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or or almost a cleaning cause you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So that... you're going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds interesting to me."

"I would like you to speak to medical doctors to see if there's any way that you can apply light and heat to cure. You know. If you could. And maybe you can and maybe you can't. Again, I say maybe you can maybe you can't. I'm not a doctor. I'm like a person who has a good you know what."


----------



## JSanta

thraxil said:


> Direct quotes from the President during the most recent briefing:
> 
> "So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous uh whether it's ultraviolet or it's just very powerful light and I think you said that hasn't been checked but you're gonna test it. Then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body which you can do either through the skin or uh in some other way and I think you said you're gonna test that too. Sounds interesting."
> 
> "Right and then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or or almost a cleaning cause you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So that... you're going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds interesting to me."
> 
> "I would like you to speak to medical doctors to see if there's any way that you can apply light and heat to cure. You know. If you could. And maybe you can and maybe you can't. Again, I say maybe you can maybe you can't. I'm not a doctor. I'm like a person who has a good you know what."



The man in charge of the most powerful country in the world everyone. Absolutely terrifying.


----------



## SD83

thraxil said:


> Direct quotes from the President during the most recent briefing:
> 
> "So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous uh whether it's ultraviolet or it's just very powerful light and I think you said that hasn't been checked but you're gonna test it. Then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body which you can do either through the skin or uh in some other way and I think you said you're gonna test that too. Sounds interesting."
> 
> "Right and then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or or almost a cleaning cause you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So that... you're going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds interesting to me."
> 
> "I would like you to speak to medical doctors to see if there's any way that you can apply light and heat to cure. You know. If you could. And maybe you can and maybe you can't. Again, I say maybe you can maybe you can't. I'm not a doctor. I'm like a person who has a good you know what."



Some people should really try that. It might not cure the coronavirus, after all, dead people don't get any better, but it might cure the rest of mankind of their idiocy and save many lives. Don't ask me for names, one should never wish for a specific person to die, just... if you think this is a good idea, try it. That is what brilliant, misunderstood people do, they have an idea, and then they try it. Maybe they die and end up in a youtube video like "Top 10 people who thought they were brilliant scientists (who were actually rather stupid and got themselves killed in the process of proving it)". Maybe they succeed and rule the world forever after.


----------



## SpaceDock

For the love of God fucking republicans trying to say Biden has dementia because of his lifelong speech impediments need to wake the fuck up.


----------



## Adieu

SpaceDock said:


> For the love of God fucking republicans trying to say Biden has dementia because of his lifelong speech impediments need to wake the fuck up.



Nah the ol fart sure looks pretty dang confused at times.

...but with the way Trump derails when his meds/substance buzz runs out, that's a pretty fun case of the pot calling the kettle black


----------



## sleewell




----------



## KnightBrolaire




----------



## Randy

Russell Wilson let himself go.


----------



## wankerness

SpaceDock said:


> For the love of God fucking republicans trying to say Biden has dementia because of his lifelong speech impediments need to wake the fuck up.



He does, but Trump is SO much worse. He's just such a self-confident blustering buffoon that he can convince a total moron that he's in full possession of his facilities.

If you look at a video of trump speaking in the 80s, the decline is shocking. He actually used to sound moderately intelligent once upon a time! Never a genius or anything, but all the most popular soundbites and phrases he uses now are SO far removed from what he was 40 years ago.


----------



## possumkiller

Adieu said:


> the pot calling the kettle black


I never understood this to be honest. All of my pots are stainless steel. They are a kind of shiny silvery colour. And actually my tea kettle is exactly the same stainless steel.


----------



## jaxadam

possumkiller said:


> I never understood this to be honest. All of my pots are stainless steel. They are a kind of shiny silvery colour. And actually my tea kettle is exactly the same stainless steel.



304 or 316 stainless?


----------



## jaxadam

SpaceDock said:


> For the love of God fucking republicans trying to say Biden has dementia because of his lifelong speech impediments need to wake the fuck up.



I know it’s going to be very hard for you to read this, and I know it won’t change your mind, but at least read the section differentiating between a stutter and dementia. It may also help to see videos of Joe Biden from a few years ago talking much more coherently and actually knowing where he is and who he was talking to. I have to agree with the article on one thing though... Joe Biden is the worst choice the Dems could have made to defeat Trump in November.

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/...ples-of-bidens-dementia-symptoms-b010c8e6b45c


----------



## Demiurge

Most people I know in their 60s are forgetful and ornery near the point of being a liability, yet in politics someone turns 70 and people are like, "Let's get this sumbitch access to the launch codes!"


----------



## SpaceDock

Biden isn’t telling people to shine UV into their lungs or inject disinfectants into their body, period end of story. Trump is a wreck. I was watching that live yesterday and was dumbfounded that he continues on like this, boot Faucci from the meetings. All the Government people left there trying to rationalize what Trump was saying was so painful. This is the end of our country and four more years of this just can’t happen. I would vote for literally anyone over Trump, this has to stop. Our government can’t revolve around sycophants trying to make sense of this idiots ramblings. Joe was not ever my first or second pick but he looks like a godsend next to the orange menace. 

Your “joe is sick” crap is just like what the repubtards used against Hillary, oh look she is sick not the strong man like Trump. We need someone who is not a moron spreading idiotic ideas that our government then has to validate, just stop.


----------



## sleewell

this is hilarious. "im sure he is not talking about florida"


----------



## Wuuthrad

possumkiller said:


> I never understood this to be honest. All of my pots are stainless steel. They are a kind of shiny silvery colour. And actually my tea kettle is exactly the same stainless steel.



I take it to mean a worthless burnt pot that’s been left on the stove too long, turned black and needs to be tossed in the garbage. 

Which is appropriate considering...


----------



## Drew

ThePIGI King said:


> https://townhall.com/columnists/kev...ntibody-testing-proves-weve-been-had-n2567516



Ok, two things, real quick. 

1) Whoever wrote that is an idiot, a shrill, a partisan hack, and you need to find better news sources. 
2) If you want to be taken seriously in this discussion, don't just post a link with no context, no commentary, and peace out. 

Ignoring some of the more obvious narrative fuck-ups this guy performs (easy example - he compares the current death count, over five months, to the annual flu death count, over 12 months, and then writes it off because it's only 2/3 as high as the flu, ignoring that 1) if you give him the five months timeline, we've hit 2/3 the fatalities in about 40% of the time, and 2) his "5 months" ignores the fact we're seeing exponential growth on a new disease, and most of those 40,000 deaths occurred in the past month alone), there are still some glaring issues with interpreting Cuomo's press conference as "we've been had." 

Since I'm sure you didn't bother clicking on the underlying link, this study was done by testing 3,000 individuals out at supermarkets. Two issues there - one, that's not an especially large sample size for a state of nearly 20 million, and two, it's nowhere NEAR random, given the varying degree of seriousness people are taking this with. People going out regularly are _far_ more likely to be over-counted in a non-random sample like this, and when you're extrapolating a 3,000 person non-random sample across a population of 20 million, you're going to have problems even before you start worrying about the impact of false positives. 

Besides, We have pretty good evidence the underlying mortality rate _isn't_ 0.75%. Per my last post in here debunking shoddy statistics, if we have 11,500 confirmed deaths in New York City, a population of 3.2 million, then about 0.36% of the population has _already_ died of COVID-19. Not of the infected population, of the entire city. If the NYC sample suggesting 20% of the city had antibodies - again, small, nonrandom sample, watch for false positives, grains of salt abound - was actually accurate, then that would imply an underlying mortality rate of roughly 1.8%, not 0.75%, with 11,500 people dying out of an "underlying" infected population of 640,000. This hack's bullshit isn't even internally consistent. 

Seriously, this is one of the shoddiest stats-based arguments I've read YET on COVID-19. I don't know whether to be impressed, or disgusted.


----------



## Drew

possumkiller said:


> I never understood this to be honest. All of my pots are stainless steel. They are a kind of shiny silvery colour. And actually my tea kettle is exactly the same stainless steel.


This dates back to the widespread use of cast iron, I suspect, and of cooking over open flame.


----------



## jaxadam

Drew said:


> This dates back to the widespread use of cast iron, I suspect, and of cooking over open flame.



Bare cast or enamel?


----------



## spudmunkey

possumkiller said:


> I never understood this to be honest. All of my pots are stainless steel. They are a kind of shiny silvery colour. And actually my tea kettle is exactly the same stainless steel.



black pots and kettles existed long before stainless steel did, as they were cast iron, or if ceramic, blackenned from soot.


----------



## BlackSG91

I think this injecting disinfectants or bleach might be a wonderful idea after all. It might actually save the country when you really think about it. Since Trump's supporters are so loyal & trusting they just might take Donald's advice. This in turn will kill off a majority of Trumpers increasing the national IQ level beyond belief ensuring a Biden victory and real leadership that will save the U.S.A.


;>)/


----------



## bostjan

I guess I am old fashioned, since about 20% of my own cookware is cast iron.

Back to the virus, I don't know what to make of all of the bullshit going around. The virus is a hoax, and does not exist, but if you don't want to catch it, gargle with salt water, because heat much less than body temperature kills it. Also, there are no patients in hospitals with it, and the number of people who died from it are super low, but also the virus is so dangerous that it's worth shooting household cleaners into your veins if you get it, because that is the only way to stop you from dying?!

Ugh. Remember back when people kept their stupid thoughts to themselves? Pepperidge Farm - do you even remember?

The past two months now have been the same Mad Libs page over and over with Trump filling them in more and more ridiculously.


----------



## jaxadam




----------



## SpaceDock

Pot calling kettle black is just so outdated because how is calling something black a bad thing? Racist pot!


----------



## Adieu

possumkiller said:


> I never understood this to be honest. All of my pots are stainless steel. They are a kind of shiny silvery colour. And actually my tea kettle is exactly the same stainless steel.



...you prolly grew up with induction-convection-whatever gadgetry (which btw casts some serious doubt on your "ascended redneck" credentials, unless of course you were from a microwave-only kind of household...although still, at least y'all had a microwave, unlike some of us)

This is imagery from the crude metalwork stuck over an open fire era (and nope no teflon neither). Sh!t gets naaasty. On both sides.


----------



## sleewell

is it better to tell people to inject disinfectants

or say you were wasting people's time and just being sarcastic and joking around when you clearly weren't?


man the cult is so dumb to keep believing lie and after stupid lie.


----------



## Adieu

This is such a typical proud, dominant-personality, vain elderly alpha male type trying power past a senior moment on pure bluster and bullsh!t and denial pattern

If you've ever been around a declining family patriarch in his final years who refuses to admit it, you'll recognize it instantly.

It's a textbook case. They become utterly UNABLE to admit to any mistake, lack of information, or anything forgotten, no matter how minor, and will viciously lash out to shut down anyone who doesn't act like it never happened, because they start to feel like admitting ANYTHING is tantamount to admitting EVERYTHING (think "ready to bullshit you for hours instead of admitting they just can't find the remote or asking for help operating the damn programmable toaster oven")


Trump being Trump and brushing it off *IS* the evidence that he's losing the plot.


----------



## spudmunkey

Adieu said:


> ...you prolly grew up with induction-convection-whatever gadgetry (which btw casts some serious doubt on your "ascended redneck" credentials, unless of course you were from a microwave-only kind of household...although still, at least y'all had a microwave, unlike some of us)



I'm not sure what you're tlaking about.

I'm not him, but the home I grew up in didn't have a microwave until i was about...maybe 13. None of our pots of kettles were black. We had a conventional electric stove (with the exposed coil).

We spent a lot of time at my grandparents' houses. Their only black cookware was a single dusty cast iron pan hanging on the wall that was seemingly purely decorative., and the inside of a broiling/roasting pan, which had some sort of blck coating (not non-stick). They also had an electric stove, with the exposed coil).

Everywhere i've live since, including my own home for 10 years, have all had a gas stove...but I also don't own any black cookware.


----------



## Wuuthrad

Adieu said:


> This is such a typical proud, dominant-personality, vain elderly alpha male type trying power past a senior moment on pure bluster and bullsh!t and denial pattern
> 
> If you've ever been around a declining family patriarch in his final years who refuses to admit it, you'll recognize it instantly.
> 
> It's a textbook case. They become utterly UNABLE to admit to any mistake, lack of information, or anything forgotten, no matter how minor, and will viciously lash out to shut down anyone who doesn't act like it never happened, because they start to feel like admitting ANYTHING is tantamount to admitting EVERYTHING (think "ready to bullshit you for hours instead of admitting they just can't find the remote or asking for help operating the damn programmable toaster oven")
> 
> 
> Trump being Trump and brushing it off *IS* the evidence that he's losing the plot.



I seem to remember they’ve been saying he’s showed signs of Dementia or Early Alzheimer’s for quite some time? (Members of his staff?)

But maybe it’s part of his master plan to rob the treasury of trillions. Or at least he’s a good figure head for doing so...

“Disaster Capitalism” at work- the Shock Doctrine as a playbook.


----------



## Boofchuck

SpaceDock said:


> Pot calling kettle black is just so outdated because how is calling something black a bad thing? Racist pot!


----------



## KnightBrolaire




----------



## spudmunkey




----------



## possumkiller

Adieu said:


> ...you prolly grew up with induction-convection-whatever gadgetry (which btw casts some serious doubt on your "ascended redneck" credentials, unless of course you were from a microwave-only kind of household...although still, at least y'all had a microwave, unlike some of us)
> 
> This is imagery from the crude metalwork stuck over an open fire era (and nope no teflon neither). Sh!t gets naaasty. On both sides.


When I was a kid our pots and pans were just red, yellow, or blue painted thin ass stamped metal from the dollar store. Or TG&Y maybe I can't remember. But you're right, my mom couldn't cook for shit so most of my food came from microwaving bologna and hotdogs or toaster strudels. Apart from when mom would put on some hamburger helper stroganoff as a big dinner treat.

I lived (in the 90s) in a single wide trailer from the 60s that had a home made "double wide" addition over it that was in various stages of completion. We had snakes, opossums, roaches, spiders, and the occasional alligator. They literally cut down some trees in the woods next to a swamp behind some guy's barn to make room for this trailer. The bigshot farmer neighbor's barn was roof to roof jumping distance from our house. He stored bales of hay in it until lighting struck the big tree next to it and it fell down and crushed half of the barn. The school bus got stuck in my front "yard" one morning and had to be pulled out by the neighbor and his tractor. After that she (the old lady bus driver called Bouncing Betty) wouldn't come down our "road" to get us and we had to walk a mile to the pavement every morning and back every afternoon which actually wasn't so bad because at least it wasn't as embarrassing as the other kids seeing where we lived.


----------



## Adieu

Alright you pass, I'm just messing

But how is it you kids never cooked sh!t on a campfire?


----------



## spudmunkey

Adieu said:


> Alright you pass, I'm just messing
> 
> But how is it you kids never cooked sh!t on a campfire?



Enameled steel, aluminum, or aluminum foil pouches. Or just a grill grate.


----------



## possumkiller

Adieu said:


> Alright you pass, I'm just messing
> 
> But how is it you kids never cooked sh!t on a campfire?


Cast iron skillet. Well, when we went camping with Dad.

When we went camping with Mom and our stepdad we just used sticks. Either with hotdogs or marshmallows on the end.


----------



## blacai

*2:11 p.m.: Maryland warns residents not to ingest disinfectant after receiving more than 100 calls*
Maryland sent out an emergency alert after receiving more than 100 calls on consuming disinfectant as a possible treatment to COVID-19, according to the governor's office.

The calls came after President Donald Trump suggested using a disinfectant.


----------



## SD83

And they thought we would need until 2505 until we reached "Idiocracy" levels of madness. Some people seem way ahead of their time.


----------



## Merrekof

SD83 said:


> And they thought we would need until 2505 until we reached "Idiocracy" levels of madness. Some people seem way ahead of their time.


So Trump isn't conservative? He's ultra progressive!


----------



## jaxadam

possumkiller said:


> When I was a kid our pots and pans were just red, yellow, or blue painted thin ass stamped metal from the dollar store. Or TG&Y maybe I can't remember. But you're right, my mom couldn't cook for shit so most of my food came from microwaving bologna and hotdogs or toaster strudels. Apart from when mom would put on some hamburger helper stroganoff as a big dinner treat.
> 
> I lived (in the 90s) in a single wide trailer from the 60s that had a home made "double wide" addition over it that was in various stages of completion. We had snakes, opossums, roaches, spiders, and the occasional alligator. They literally cut down some trees in the woods next to a swamp behind some guy's barn to make room for this trailer. The bigshot farmer neighbor's barn was roof to roof jumping distance from our house. He stored bales of hay in it until lighting struck the big tree next to it and it fell down and crushed half of the barn. The school bus got stuck in my front "yard" one morning and had to be pulled out by the neighbor and his tractor. After that she (the old lady bus driver called Bouncing Betty) wouldn't come down our "road" to get us and we had to walk a mile to the pavement every morning and back every afternoon which actually wasn't so bad because at least it wasn't as embarrassing as the other kids seeing where we lived.



Man, I am really glad you got to grow up with a roof over your head, food to eat, and a school to go to.


----------



## sighval




----------



## KnightBrolaire

PURGE THE STUPID


----------



## Randy




----------



## possumkiller

jaxadam said:


> Man, I am really glad you got to grow up with a roof over your head, food to eat, and a school to go to.


And I'm really glad you were able to grow up to be an internet smartass. So I guess we all did well enough in the end.


----------



## jaxadam

possumkiller said:


> And I'm really glad you were able to grow up to be an internet smartass. So I guess we all did well enough in the end.



Honestly, I think we can only really have one purpose in life. Mine is to be an internet smartass, and my wife's is getting stains out of white linen upholstered dining room chairs.


----------



## Ralyks




----------



## jaxadam

Ralyks said:


> View attachment 79913



If for any reason you need to uninstall McAfee, here's the tutorial:


----------



## KnightBrolaire

never change madison, never change.


----------



## wankerness

I really wish there was some way to de-prioritize medical treatment for anyone who attends those things so they don’t end up taking a bed or ventilator from someone who actually deserves it. Alas, there is no justice.


----------



## BlackSG91

I hope Trump likes muzac.








;>)/


----------



## ThePIGI King

possumkiller said:


> And I'm really glad you were able to grow up to be an internet smartass. So I guess we all did well enough in the end.


Somebodys got do it. @jaxadam is a hero here. If everyone took stuff this seriously all the time the world would be an even worse place.

Thank you jax, for serving SSO. I salute you.


----------



## jaxadam

ThePIGI King said:


> Somebodys got do it. @jaxadam is a hero here. If everyone took stuff this seriously all the time the world would be an even worse place.
> 
> Thank you jax, for serving SSO. I salute you.



Thanks man. It is a job with little thanks and recognition, and even less money and respect. Still, I feel it beneficial and necessary to volunteer my time. It helps me to sleep better at night.


----------



## ThePIGI King




----------



## Ralyks

Sorry but I thought this was pretty goddamn funny.


----------



## Necris

ThePIGI King said:


> *video*


Years in the medical field dealing with people has has obviously built up the doctors' patience.  Those reporters clearly weren't on board with what they were hearing.


----------



## narad

I'm tired of seeing people put on scrubs just to reinterpret what they read in the news.


----------



## blacai




----------



## narad

blacai said:


>




Somebody say, "we don't have a civil right to be immortal"?


----------



## Adieu

ThePIGI King said:


>




Who are these inbred-looking fucks?

Something about em reeks simultaneously of sister wives, kissing cousins, and used car salesmen.


----------



## KnightBrolaire




----------



## sleewell

Adieu said:


> Who are these inbred-looking fucks?
> 
> Something about em reeks simultaneously of sister wives, kissing cousins, and used car salesmen.




two owners of an urgent care facility say their facility is losing business because people are afraid of COVID-19, then go on to say that COVID-19 isn’t that serious.

Dr. Erickson appears to have a bit of a problem with the truth.

_When Dr. Erickson explained why he believes the data supports his statements about reopening he also said that the Kern County Public Health Department agrees with him,*"I've talked to our local head of the health department and he's waiting for that, even though they are in agreement with me, their waiting for the powers that need to lift.."*

However, in a press briefing Thursday Public Health said Director Matt Constantine was not in agreement with Dr. Erickson on that issue, *"Our director has not concurred with the statements that were made yesterday about the need to reopen," Kern County Public Health Department Public Information Officer Michelle Corson said.*

After the Public Health Department's press conference, Dr. Erickson provided further clarification surrounding his conversation with the Kern Public Health Department Director Matt Constantine.* "When I talked to Matt Constantine we just went over the data of whats going on in the city and we were talking about the best approach to get people back to work we didn't have any agreement on when it would happen," Dr. Erickson said.*_


----------



## TedEH

That video of the protests terrifies me on a number of levels.


----------



## spudmunkey

It's good to at least see that testing in the US has increased a _little _bit. We had weeks of about 130,000 to 165,000 daily tests, while we've been more dancing around a 1/4 million each day for the last few days.


----------



## Necris

It's fun how the Lockdown protests are consistently just convergence points for every dumbass conspiracy theory and you frequently get guys who should only exist in a comedy sketch appearing in real life. Real Fox News and Facebook news success stories.

Also, sad news, the occasional appearances of "Dr. Trump" that have proved so entertaining probably won't be making a return. Though to be fair I don't think he could top asking doctors to look into injecting bleach, best to go out on a high note.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...fings-amid-fallout-from-disinfectant-comments


----------



## Drew

Necris said:


> Years in the medical field dealing with people has has obviously built up the doctors' patience.  Those reporters clearly weren't on board with what they were hearing.


Drive by posting, sharing really low-quality, biased editorial content, with no comment. Low information poster, don't waste your time, I've already wasted more text on this guy than I care to.


----------



## ThePIGI King

Drew said:


> Drive by posting, sharing really low-quality, biased editorial content, with no comment. Low information poster, don't waste your time, I've already wasted more text on this guy than I care to.


Biased editorial content huh. Because ABC News is known for being right-winged 

You sure that you just aren't the kind of guy that would discredit and argue anything that goes against your opinion? Generally ABC is all Anti-Trump and Democratic ideology. But the moment they say something against the grain they're no longer appreciated. I'd be willing to bet the majority of you guys are the biased ones, against literally anything that supports the idea that COVID isn't as big a deal as yall want it to be.


----------



## USMarine75

spudmunkey said:


> View attachment 79896



If you're gonna post shit like that... you can go fuck yourself.


----------



## KnightBrolaire




----------



## bostjan

ThePIGI King said:


> Biased editorial content huh. Because ABC News is known for being right-winged
> 
> You sure that you just aren't the kind of guy that would discredit and argue anything that goes against your opinion? Generally ABC is all Anti-Trump and Democratic ideology. But the moment they say something against the grain they're no longer appreciated. I'd be willing to bet the majority of you guys are the biased ones, against literally anything that supports the idea that COVID isn't as big a deal as yall want it to be.


ABC, on average, is fairly neutral, because it's news programming is generally operated by other companies. For example, the station that posted the interview was KERO, which is an ABC affiliate owned by E.W. Scipps Company. This is the same company that operates WTHR in Indianapolis, who, last week, was doing news stories that injecting yourself with the cocktail used for executions could cure you, and, still, on their homepage, called Covid-19 a type of flu.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> Biased editorial content huh. Because ABC News is known for being right-winged
> 
> You sure that you just aren't the kind of guy that would discredit and argue anything that goes against your opinion? Generally ABC is all Anti-Trump and Democratic ideology. But the moment they say something against the grain they're no longer appreciated. I'd be willing to bet the majority of you guys are the biased ones, against literally anything that supports the idea that COVID isn't as big a deal as yall want it to be.



You understand what "editorial" means, right? It's literally an opinion piece, not actual bias free reporting. It's sort of the opposite.

Using editorial content to present facts is not how this works, regardless of which side it falls on. It's bias by design.

Local news affiliates are also different from an owned/operated network station. 

See, it's posts like this that are probably the most alarming. Not that you hold whatever opinions you might which run for or against a given topic, but the earnest lack of understanding how this all comes together. That's sort of what Drew was getting at. You're not low information because you're "conservative" or "republican", you're low information because you don't even know what you're posting.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Ugh... how in the world is feeling biased left/ right even a thing these days as it relates to the actual virus? If hearing something thru some news source is perplexing to you, then dig around... listen to various medical professionals and economists then draw a conclusion. If you feel comfortable with one particular spokesperson, source, etc.. then go with that but don't turn off common sense and scrutiny. Lots of agendas out there to pick thru but damn... it's not hard. Plus this whole situation is completely new to most everyone so there should understandably be a degree of tweaking, reevaluation that happens as new stats become more solidly proven. Anyone that blindly believes what they hear from a politician or that venomously defends unsubstantiated facts or that takes opportunities to slam someone/ twist words to support what they WANT to believe... well that's just idiotic.


----------



## vilk

Didn't once Fox News have to admit that they were only an editorial and not actual news in order to not get in trouble for something? Or maybe it was just one of the specific programs. Or maybe that's not enough info to narrow it down lol


----------



## MaxOfMetal

High Plains Drifter said:


> Ugh... how in the world is feeling biased left/ right even a thing these days as it relates to the actual virus? If hearing something thru some news source is perplexing to you, then dig around... listen to various medical professionals and economists then draw a conclusion. If you feel comfortable with one particular spokesperson, source, etc.. then go with that but don't turn off common sense and scrutiny. Lots of agendas out there to pick thru but damn... it's not hard. Plus this whole situation is completely new to most everyone so there should understandably be a degree of tweaking, reevaluation that happens as new stats become more solidly proven. Anyone that blindly believes what they hear from a politician or that venomously defends unsubstantiated facts or that takes opportunities to slam someone/ twist words to support what they WANT to believe... well that's just idiotic.



Yeah, it sort of blows my mind to a degree that a global pandemic is an American political hot potato. 

What is this life?


----------



## bostjan

vilk said:


> Didn't once Fox News have to admit that they were only an editorial and not actual news in order to not get in trouble for writing some totally false stupid shit? Or maybe it was just one of the specific programs. Or maybe that's not enough info to narrow it down lol


Wouldn't be at all surprising.

This study suggests that Fox News viewers know less about the actual news than people that don't watch or read the news at all.


----------



## Necris

High Plains Drifter said:


> Ugh... how in the world is feeling biased left/ right even a thing these days as it relates to the actual virus? ... Anyone that blindly believes what they hear from a politician or that venomously defends unsubstantiated facts or that takes opportunities to slam someone/ twist words to support what they WANT to believe... well that's just idiotic.


A few members of my immediate family are Trump diehards. One has declared they don't "have time" to check the veracity of half of the shit they read but are happy to share it on facebook anyway. That same person once boiled over with anger telling me about how by their church pastor had corrected them on facebook after sharing some news article (which, upon reading it, was obviously bullshit) and asked me without a hint of irony "why aren't my facts as good as his facts?".
That was a couple years ago, take a guess as to how that has translated to the current situation.


----------



## StevenC

vilk said:


> Didn't once Fox News have to admit that they were only an editorial and not actual news in order to not get in trouble for something? Or maybe it was just one of the specific programs. Or maybe that's not enough info to narrow it down lol


https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fox-news-entertainment-switch/

Alas no, but it'd be a good story. It's just because of dumb interpretations of the First Amendment leading to a weak FCC.


----------



## sleewell

ThePIGI King said:


> Biased editorial content huh. Because ABC News is known for being right-winged
> 
> You sure that you just aren't the kind of guy that would discredit and argue anything that goes against your opinion? Generally ABC is all Anti-Trump and Democratic ideology. But the moment they say something against the grain they're no longer appreciated. I'd be willing to bet the majority of you guys are the biased ones, against literally anything that supports the idea that COVID isn't as big a deal as yall want it to be.




awfully cocky for someone who has no idea what editorial means.

keep thinking that its everyone else who is biased. that's a real good look for you.


----------



## JSanta

These doctors own an urgent care clinic that is being slammed financially because of this pandemic. That's all of the bias you need to know when discussing their editorial. BLUF - they make money from people that are sick and injured. There's nothing altruistic in their intent.

EDIT - I'm not discounting medical researchers - but I am saying that people that own a business that has been hurt by this pandemic will have a reason to operate with intentions other than those that are anything not related to making money.


----------



## vilk

StevenC said:


> https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fox-news-entertainment-switch/
> 
> Alas no, but it'd be a good story. It's just because of dumb interpretations of the First Amendment leading to a weak FCC.


Snopes to the rescue! Love that site. Thanks for clearing that up.


----------



## Necris

I feel like part of that rumor might have arisen from the fact that, when confronting the idea that they were deliberately misleading their audience, some Fox news hosts are quick to claim that they're merely "opinion" shows and not news. I recall O'Reilly and Hannity doing it in the past.


----------



## zappatton2

Can't remember it offhand, but John Oliver did a segment on some fringe right-wing news site in the States where the anchor even signs off with "Even when I'm wrong, I'm right". Always comforting to hear from someone who anchors a so-called news program that's supposed to be making for an informed electorate (one of the main benchmarks of a functioning liberal democracy).


----------



## Randy

vilk said:


> Didn't once Fox News have to admit that they were only an editorial and not actual news in order to not get in trouble for something? Or maybe it was just one of the specific programs. Or maybe that's not enough info to narrow it down lol



Might be Mandela effect from when Alex Jones said his show was entertainment to try and get out of either the defamation case with the Sandy Hook families or out of the custody dispute with his ex-wife because he's a raving madman on his show.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

JSanta said:


> These doctors own an urgent care clinic that is being slammed financially because of this pandemic. That's all of the bias you need to know when discussing their editorial. BLUF - they make money from people that are sick and injured. There's nothing altruistic in their intent.
> 
> EDIT - I'm not discounting medical researchers - but I am saying that people that own a business that has been hurt by this pandemic will have a reason to operate with intentions other than those that are anything not related to making money.



These Urgent Care Centers are the payday loan stores of medical care, and only an aberration that exists within America's broken, for profit healthcare industry. 

They're aimed at the elderly, poor, uninsured, and typically minority patients. The quality of care varies wildly, but the emphasis is on "bandage and boot" vs. providing quality, preventive healthcare.


----------



## ThePIGI King

@MaxOfMetal My original point from my response to Drew wasn't disagreeing about my video being an editorial or not. My intent was to try and say how he dismisses anything immediately when it goes against his own opinion.

@sleewell everyone has bias to some degree. As for "looks", I'm not too worried. Especially from a guy who can't capitalize letters or talk about his President without devolving to childish namecalling.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> @MaxOfMetal My original point from my response to Drew wasn't disagreeing about my video being an editorial or not. My intent was to try and say how he dismisses anything immediately when it goes against his own opinion.



You miss the point entirely.

Dismissing a biased editorial piece is not the same as dismissing fact based, formally sourced reporting.

Don't bring opinions to a fact fight. 

Opinion pieces have their place, but being the lynchpin to a strongly held belief isn't it.

Let me go a step further. Posting schlock like that, without any attempt at discussion, is frankly, insulting. 

You drop that video without realizing that it's from a podunk ABC affiliate with a dubious background, that the be-scrubbed individuals are owners of a for-profit clinic, that they can't even get their story straight, and expect us to sit down and digest it as if it has any merit? 

You only posted it because it wasn't an obvious "conservative" source at first blush, and people who look like doctors agree with your preconceived opinions. The irony is palpable, as is the projection. 

Then, to top it off, you don't even say anything so when folks call it out you're free to insert whatever reasoning is most convenient for your posting. 

"Hey, it's from liberal loving ABC."

No, it's not. 

"Well, you just don't respect anyone else's opinion."

What?


----------



## ThePIGI King

MaxOfMetal said:


> You miss the point entirely.
> 
> Dismissing a biased editorial piece is not the same as dismissing fact based, formally sourced reporting.
> 
> Don't bring opinions to a fact fight.
> 
> Opinion pieces have their place, but being the lynchpin to a strongly held belief isn't it.


But what about the facts and data inside the video? The doc even breaks down some numbers. This article quotes him since it's clear nobody watched it.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/news4s...-care-provides-statistical-update-on-covid-19

And then here's another link, even though everyone will pass on reading it due to the site.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.th...26/doctor-dan-erickson-coronavirus-reopen/amp

I understand opinions vs facts when it comes to science. But ignoring some facts because you disagree or don't like the source is more concerning.


----------



## Randy

ThePIGI King said:


> his President



Looking forward to 4 years of very polite posting from you about YOUR President, Joe Biden.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> But what about the facts and data inside the video? The doc even breaks down some numbers. This article quotes him since it's clear nobody watched it.
> https://www.google.com/amp/s/news4s...-care-provides-statistical-update-on-covid-19
> 
> And then here's another link, even though everyone will pass on reading it due to the site.
> https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.th...26/doctor-dan-erickson-coronavirus-reopen/amp
> 
> I understand opinions vs facts when it comes to science. But ignoring some facts because you disagree or don't like the source is more concerning.



The numbers are flawed. They're based on a small sampling of testing that is heavily self selecting.

They're medical doctors, not epidemiologists or mathematicians, though it's been heavily covered how poor using our current testing data is. 

Facts need context. The context they're using is flawed.


----------



## bostjan

ThePIGI King said:


> But what about the facts and data inside the video? The doc even breaks down some numbers. This article quotes him since it's clear nobody watched it.
> https://www.google.com/amp/s/news4s...-care-provides-statistical-update-on-covid-19
> 
> And then here's another link, even though everyone will pass on reading it due to the site.
> https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.th...26/doctor-dan-erickson-coronavirus-reopen/amp
> 
> I understand opinions vs facts when it comes to science. But ignoring some facts because you disagree or don't like the source is more concerning.



This has already been debunked, though. If you want to focus on the argument, and the argument has already been had, then what else is left? You cannot take subsample Y having X cases and the entire nation having Z deaths and calculate the death rate. If you want a more realistic number, you take the deaths from Kern County, no the deaths per population of the entire country. If you do that, you get 0.5% death rate, not 0.003% as the doctor stated.

Why is math so difficult for people?!


----------



## spudmunkey

ThePIGI King said:


> But what about the facts and data inside the video? The doc even breaks down some numbers. This article quotes him since it's clear nobody watched it.
> https://www.google.com/amp/s/news4s...-care-provides-statistical-update-on-covid-19
> 
> And then here's another link, even though everyone will pass on reading it due to the site.
> https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.th...26/doctor-dan-erickson-coronavirus-reopen/amp
> 
> I understand opinions vs facts when it comes to science. But ignoring some facts because you disagree or don't like the source is more concerning.



From the article:


> Dr. Erickson went on to say that the initial projections for the illness showed millions cases of death and called them "woefully inaccurate." He said those results were not materializing.



The thing is, nobody was actually "projecting" millions of deaths. Any talk surrounding numbers like that were absolute worst-case-scenario situations, basee on limited information for a still new virus. I mean, hell...just last week there was newly-published information about how the virus handles UV, as well as newly-attributed symptons. Where's their data showing that current shelter-in-place policies aren't the reason we're seeing numbers as low as they are?



> "Well we have 39.5 million people, if we just take a basic calculation and extrapolate that out, that equates to about 4.7 million cases throughout the state of California.Which means this thing is widespread, that's the good news. We've seen 1,227 deaths in the state of California with a possible incidents or prevalence of 4.7 million. That means you have a 0.03 chance of dying from COVID-19 in the state of California



Wait, what? That's not how that works, with testing as flawed as it is, as it's focused on high-risk people on the front lines, and people suspected of showing symptons. Of those that are tested, you're going to have a higher percentage of peopls testing positive for it. It's like surveying people at a pool for wet hair, and finding out that 80% of people there have wet hair, and then using that to extrapolate that 80% of americans have wet hair.


----------



## Necris

ThePIGI King said:


> But what about the facts and data inside the video? The doc even breaks down some numbers. This article quotes him since it's clear nobody watched it.


I watched the whole thing last night, including part 2. The initial response that they didn't bring much that was new to the table isn't unfounded.
People have been "extrapolating numbers" and making comparisons to Sweden for weeks now. If we're going to just play with numbers then the Sweden comparison isn't really great for their argument considering Sweden has both significantly lower population density than California as a whole (California's is just under 4x higer) and ~500 more deaths based on current counts. California has 4x higher population density but only ~2.5x the total infections *and* ~500 fewer deaths than the country that isn't social distancing? But social distancing isn't showing results?
Sweden also has more cases and deaths than it's neighbors combined, something they never mentioned.
Really, is that even the best way of trying to assess things or is it just easy to make the numbers produce desirable results? I can think of a bunch of reasons not to approach the data like the above and I'm not even a statistician, much less an epidemiologist. Other posters have even given solid reasons why we shouldn't, but we keep coming back to it.


Side note: Nothing against these doctors specifically but "x years of COMBINED experience" is such fucking nonsense. I get we live in a profoundly stupid society but you don't need to upsell your expertise.

Oh and if no-one watched the videos, at the end of part 2 Erickson implies that the coronavirus response as of right now is largely the government testing how well they can get the populace to fall in line and that the real threat right now is armed revolution, so take that how you will.


----------



## Randy

Necris said:


> "x years of COMBINED experience"



Are you telling me you wouldn't stand on SSO's reputation of 1 million COMBINED years of guitar playing?


----------



## Necris

I mean SSO can confidently recommend the ideal guitar for metal backed by our combined 15 centuries of debating tonewood and pickups.


----------



## spudmunkey

Necris said:


> I mean SSO can confidently recommend the ideal guitar for metal backed by our combined 15 centuries of debating tonewood and pickups.



Sounds like something a used prestige would say.


----------



## narad

When people talk about Scandanavia in the context of universal healthcare, fuck those socialists, this is 'Murica. 

Now when it's convenient to have their viral spread stats, Hej! Pass the lingonberries, snälla du!


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Necris said:


> A few members of my immediate family are Trump diehards. One has declared they don't "have time" to check the veracity of half of the shit they read but are happy to share it on facebook anyway. That same person once boiled over with anger telling me about how by their church pastor had corrected them on facebook after sharing some news article (which, upon reading it, was obviously bullshit) and asked me without a hint of irony "why aren't my facts as good as his facts?".
> That was a couple years ago, take a guess as to how that has translated to the current situation.



Not too well? lol. I understand to a degree that US citizens cling to a left or right side in many situations but it just irks me that there is such pointless and hazardous division in this country ( along with hatred and blame). Unbiased health and economic sciences should be taking the main stage and as much as I understand that the two are certainly not always harmonious together, it's an absolute shame that this country can't act as a unified nation to get both back on track. And as I've said before... it is absolutely ridiculous in the most dangerous regard, that we have been forced to go this long without availability of accurate and efficient testing.


----------



## TedEH

High Plains Drifter said:


> I understand to a degree that US citizens cling to a left or right side


I don't think it's unique to the US.

I honestly don't understand it either - how every viewpoint somehow has to get crammed into one of two or three boxes. People don't work that way. People generally have more nuance than that, but so many seem incapable of getting past "us vs. them". I think it contributes a lot to why I don't understand much about politics.


----------



## Adieu

ThePIGI King said:


> Biased editorial content huh. Because ABC News is known for being right-winged
> 
> You sure that you just aren't the kind of guy that would discredit and argue anything that goes against your opinion? Generally ABC is all Anti-Trump and Democratic ideology. But the moment they say something against the grain they're no longer appreciated. I'd be willing to bet the majority of you guys are the biased ones, against literally anything that supports the idea that COVID isn't as big a deal as yall want it to be.




That makes no sense

If we WANTED it to be nice and apocalyptic, we'd damn well be up in arms trying to convince all y'all that everything was a-ok


----------



## High Plains Drifter

TedEH said:


> I don't think it's unique to the US.
> 
> I honestly don't understand it either - how every viewpoint somehow has to get crammed into one of two or three boxes. People don't work that way. People generally have more nuance than that, but so many seem incapable of getting past "us vs. them". I think it contributes a lot to why I don't understand much about politics.



Probably not. I certainly don't follow politics in other countries as I already can't hardly process what we have going on here in the US. It's just such a shame the way this country is run... inefficiently and negligently... so many decent people simply disregarded by the government that nauseatingly proclaims to be acting in their best interest.


----------



## Randy

High Plains Drifter said:


> I understand to a degree that US citizens cling to a left or right side in many situations



The dichotomy is insane. You could literally pose the question "should we all be wiped out by a giant asteroid?" and you'd have a 47% vs 49% split on party lines with 4% undecided. The tribalism in this country is at an all time high, and it's less about "my side is always right" and more about "I must stake out the opposite position as you, even if it makes no sense". That's a unique brand of division.

The President literally told people to inject fucking Lysol into their lungs and half the country said "Well, if he says so".


----------



## vilk

Randy said:


> "I must stake out the opposite position as you, even if it makes no sense"



To me it usually seems that only one of the two sides is consistently doing that.

possumkiller is really the one that opened my eyes to it when he wrote in the past that the only policy position they have is _spite_. They would vote for _anything_, _absolutely anything_, no matter how in conflict with their self proclaimed values, so long as they believed that it would mean _sticking one to the libtards_.


----------



## Randy

vilk said:


> To me it usually seems that only one of the two sides is consistently doing that.
> 
> possumkiller is really the one that opened my eyes to it when he wrote in the past that the only policy position they have is _spite_. They would vote for _anything_, _absolutely anything_, no matter how in conflict with their self proclaimed values, so long as they believed that it would mean _sticking one to the libtards_.



I left it open for people to draw their own conclusions but yeah, one specific party is blatantly anti-science, anti-facts, etc.


----------



## sleewell

Dozens of daily briefs outlined how severe this threat was to our country. trump ignored them all while praising China and the WHO and downplaying the threat to the American people. all the red lights were blinking while our president was asleep at the wheel. no one in the cult is upset about this. 

#maga


----------



## spudmunkey

"There has been so much unnecessary death in this country. It could have been stopped and it could have been stopped short, but somebody a long time ago, it seems, decided not to do it that way," Trump told reporters at the White House. 

"And the whole world is suffering because of it," he added.


----------



## bostjan

So, here we are, end of April, still very little testing being done, and people are going back to work. I'm hopeful that it'll all work out, but we are kind of doing this blindly.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is reportedly MIA. South Korean news is reporting that he's hiding from Coronavirus, FOX news is reporting he was blown up by a missile test, and the rest of the international media is reporting that he is having some sort of heart trouble. None of those sources can specify any reason why they think they know what they claim to know, though.

Trump is being sued again, this time for refusing to give stimulus cheques to American citizens who married immigrants. (Footnote- Trump's current wife is a Slovenian immigrant.) There are also now some arguments between Trump and the governments of several states over aid, and those states happen to be mostly ones with Democratic governors... then he tweets this:



Trump said:


> Why should the people and taxpayers of America be bailing out poorly run states (like Illinois, as example) and cities, in all cases Democrat run and managed, when most of the other states are not looking for bailout help? I am open to discussing anything, but just asking?


----------



## possumkiller

I just wish I knew where to find higher resolution versions.


----------



## bostjan

Somebody with a good eye for comic art and a lot of free time on their hands ought to bring back the Garbage Pail Kids cards, but all with coronavirus themes.

For those of you under the age of 36, these were trading cards parodying Cabbage Patch Dolls, but with a heavy helping of dark humour and gross-out gags.

EDIT- Someone already made a spoof "Corona Mona" Card. (borderline NSFW)


----------



## spudmunkey

possumkiller said:


> I just wish I knew where to find higher resolution versions.
> View attachment 80011
> View attachment 80012
> View attachment 80013
> View attachment 80014
> View attachment 80015
> View attachment 80016




http://www.frodesignco.com/shop


----------



## broj15

For those that haven't seen it yet


----------



## vilk

bostjan said:


> Trump is being sued again, this time for refusing to give stimulus cheques to American citizens who married immigrants.



I thought it was just American citizens married to immigrants who don't have social security numbers? My wife is an immigrant here on a greencard, but she has a social security number, and we got our $2400 weeks ago. Not excusing it, because it's fucking wrong and transparently discriminatory.


----------



## narad

vilk said:


> I thought it was just American citizens married to immigrants who don't have social security numbers? My wife is an immigrant here on a greencard, but she has a social security number, and we got our $2400 weeks ago. Not excusing it, because it's fucking wrong and transparently discriminatory.



I think it is, but many "undocumented" workers still pay taxes through some national tax registry number. It seems weird that they pay into the system and not get paid out, but even at that point, it shouldn't somehow double-up to affect the spouse who is a tax-paying citizen.


----------



## wankerness

Necris said:


> I watched the whole thing last night, including part 2. The initial response that they didn't bring much that was new to the table isn't unfounded.
> People have been "extrapolating numbers" and making comparisons to Sweden for weeks now. If we're going to just play with numbers then the Sweden comparison isn't really great for their argument considering Sweden has both significantly lower population density than California as a whole (California's is just under 4x higer) and ~500 more deaths based on current counts. California has 4x higher population density but only ~2.5x the total infections *and* ~500 fewer deaths than the country that isn't social distancing? But social distancing isn't showing results?
> Sweden also has more cases and deaths than it's neighbors combined, something they never mentioned.
> Really, is that even the best way of trying to assess things or is it just easy to make the numbers produce desirable results? I can think of a bunch of reasons not to approach the data like the above and I'm not even a statistician, much less an epidemiologist. Other posters have even given solid reasons why we shouldn't, but we keep coming back to it.
> 
> 
> Side note: Nothing against these doctors specifically but "x years of COMBINED experience" is such fucking nonsense. I get we live in a profoundly stupid society but you don't need to upsell your expertise.
> 
> Oh and if no-one watched the videos, at the end of part 2 Erickson implies that the coronavirus response as of right now is largely the government testing how well they can get the populace to fall in line and that the real threat right now is armed revolution, so take that how you will.



I'm glad you read it critically, but you know the guy that drive-by posted it is completely resistant to anything not approved by the right-wing echo chamber, right?


----------



## wankerness

vilk said:


> I thought it was just American citizens married to immigrants who don't have social security numbers? My wife is an immigrant here on a greencard, but she has a social security number, and we got our $2400 weeks ago. Not excusing it, because it's fucking wrong and transparently discriminatory.



There are conflicting reports. I personally know someone married to a non-US citizen who has a social security number, and they both got their checks. I definitely have heard people say the policy was supposed to exclude even those people, and that many in that position got nothing. But, the rollout of the checks is such a clusterfuck that they might at some point.


----------



## Rosal76

broj15 said:


> For those that haven't seen it yet




A protest leader against the lockdown from North Carolina caught the Coronavirus. I believe she's O.K. now, though. If this doesn't scare lockdown protesters than I don't know what will. There are numerous links and probably more detailed articles about it and I just posted the first one I saw.

https://www.newsweek.com/leader-nor...-stay-home-tests-positive-coronavirus-1500545


----------



## wankerness

Rosal76 said:


> A protest leader against the lockdown from North Carolina caught the Coronavirus. I believe she's O.K. now, though. If this doesn't scare lockdown protesters than I don't know what will. There are numerous links and probably more detailed articles about it and I just posted the first one I saw.
> 
> https://www.newsweek.com/leader-nor...-stay-home-tests-positive-coronavirus-1500545



Unless she dies, I don't think it will scare any of them. Besides the real psychos, they mostly believe it's a real thing, just that it isn't very dangerous and they'll be fine cause they're TOUGH.


----------



## USMarine75

ThePIGI King said:


>






Necris said:


> Years in the medical field dealing with people has has obviously built up the doctors' patience.  Those reporters clearly weren't on board with what they were hearing.



@ThePIGI King I don't know the context nor the video content (because YT removed it for spreading false info), but I assume you took time out from forwarding stories about Hillary Clinton running a pizza-restaurant child-sex ring to post it?


----------



## ThePIGI King

USMarine75 said:


> @ThePIGI King I don't know the context nor the video content (because YT removed it for spreading false info), but I assume you took time out from forwarding stories about Hillary Clinton running a pizza-restaurant child-sex ring to post it?


I linked articles if you're still interested in the context 

And no, I don't dive into conspiracies really. I believe this is a disease that spreads fast. But isn't as bad as it's made out to be. I'd classify myself as someone who doesn't trust 99% or what I hear, not a conspiracy theorist.


----------



## budda

What is the difference between only believing 1% and being a conspiracy theorist


----------



## ThePIGI King

budda said:


> What is the difference between only believing 1% and being a conspiracy theorist


Believing little is very difficult than believing outrageous things simply because they're so outrageous they ought to be true.


----------



## budda

ThePIGI King said:


> Believing little is very difficult than believing outrageous things simply because they're so outrageous they ought to be true.



The concern is that you think 99% of information presented to you is false.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

I didn't take it as "false" as much as I thought "skepticism". When I don't necessarily trust someone it doesn't automatically translate to distrust... just means that maybe I don't know you so... caution.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> I linked articles if you're still interested in the context
> 
> And no, I don't dive into conspiracies really. I believe this is a disease that spreads fast. But isn't as bad as it's made out to be. I'd classify myself as someone who doesn't trust 99% or what I hear, not a conspiracy theorist.





ThePIGI King said:


> Believing little is very difficult than believing outrageous things simply because they're so outrageous they ought to be true.



Being a skeptic is very well and good, but if you only believe that 1% because it aligns with your preconceived beliefs it goes from skepticism to contrarianism for the sake of it pretty quickly. 

Without the tools to look at things objectively you just start hunting for confirmation.


----------



## Randy

ThePIGI King said:


> But isn't as bad as it's made out to be. I'd classify myself as someone who doesn't trust 99% or what I hear, not a conspiracy theorist.



Depends on who dictates your definition of "as bad as it's made out to be". If you live in Florida, GA or Las Vegas, COVID-19's "badness" is actually minimal. They closed a handful of beaches in Florida for what, a week? Two weeks? If the President of the United States is considered at all a trend-setter on things, he minimized COVID-19 as "just like the flu" "one day, poof, it's just going to go away" etc.

So saying "isn't as bad as it's made out to be" is WILDLY subjective. I know a lot of people that act like it literally doesn't exist. I don't think I've once posted "It's worse than it's made out to be" because that's relevant to my own personal experience and nobody else's, so why frame it that way?

Similarly, I'd like to know what "99% of what I hear" means. I know a lot of people that live in conspiracy echo chambers. So "I don't believe 99% of what I hear" when you listen to Alex Jones 99% of the time means you believe, idk, facts and science? It's a wildly subjective statement with no context.

If you can just blanket pronounce that you don't trust anybody and everyone's lying to you, I have to wonder how much of that worldview is based on reality and how much of that is based on ego. And I don't mean that as an insult or to say you've got a big ego, it just sounds like you don't like when people tell you anything, and even less when it comes from a position of authority. That's fine if that's your personal feelings but feelings aren't facts, and you hobble your perspective if you're going to grade your "facts" just on how the person reporting them makes you feel.


----------



## TedEH

Maybe this sounds dumb, but I do think we're "overreacting" a bit to this virus, in a sense, but in the absence of an objective 100% known "correct" way to react, overreaction is preferable to underreaction. If you're the average idiot like me, maybe you're not convinced that you should be acting like you'll literally die if you crack a window (even though some people seem to act like this is the case). Maybe if we did nothing and all went back to work, we'd be no worse off. But I don't know that. I don't think anyone does. I think it's impossible to know 100% objectively. The trick is that there's enough at stake that it's worth taking the safer course, even if you're completely wrong. I'd rather see the economy trashed for nothing than find out we made the wrong choice and quadrupled the number of people who had to die for our decision.

To that end, I say that the arguments about the numbers and interpretations etc are irrelevant. What if is _is _a big hoax, then what? We got taken, lesson learned, we'll recover from that eventually. We did the best we could with the cards we're dealt. But what if it turns out that the only thing keeping the death toll from exploding is all of this so-called overreacting? What if our curve-flattening efforts are masking how we narrowly avoided something much worse? Does anyone really want to take that gamble?


----------



## narad

budda said:


> What is the difference between only believing 1% and being a conspiracy theorist



Exactly. If the 1% is where you concentrated all the covid is caused by 5G towers, earth is flat, 9/11 was inside job, loch ness monster lives in underground channel...


----------



## Vyn

@Randy and or @MaxOfMetal , hypothetically speaking what's the punishment these days for calling someone a complete fucking moron in a Politics/Current Events discussion thread? Asking for a friend.


----------



## Randy

TedEH said:


> Maybe this sounds dumb, but I do think we're "overreacting" a bit to this virus, in a sense, but in the absence of an objective 100% known "correct" way to react, overreaction is preferable to underreaction. If you're the average idiot like me, maybe you're not convinced that you should be acting like you'll literally die if you crack a window (even though some people seem to act like this is the case). Maybe if we did nothing and all went back to work, we'd be no worse off. But I don't know that. I don't think anyone does. I think it's impossible to know 100% objectively. The trick is that there's enough at stake that it's worth taking the safer course, even if you're completely wrong. I'd rather see the economy trashed for nothing than find out we made the wrong choice and quadrupled the number of people who had to die for our decision.
> 
> To that end, I say that the arguments about the numbers and interpretations etc are irrelevant. What if is _is _a big hoax, then what? We got taken, lesson learned, we'll recover from that eventually. We did the best we could with the cards we're dealt. But what if it turns out that the only thing keeping the death toll from exploding is all of this so-called overreacting? What if our curve-flattening efforts are masking how we narrowly avoided something much worse? Does anyone really want to take that gamble?



I don't think it's about gambling and I don't think it's overreacting. The virus spreads through aerosolization (ie: coughing, sneezing or even just breathing), it can linger in the air or on surfaces for extended periods of time, where it can be breathed in or picked up on your skin/clothes/items and either inhaled or enter into your body through your direct contact with your orifices.

That's not speculation, that's fact based on hundreds of thousands of cases.

Unless you have a vaccine, literally the only way to combat it is through slowing or stopping the spread. If it spreads literally by sharing space with people, the only way to stop it is by stopping sharing space with people. The longer this goes on, the less chance the virus gets to spread and if it doesn't get a chance to multiply by jumping to someone else it dies off. 

It takes literally two things, time and isolation. That's it.

I mean, you're right, better safe than sorry in the absence of definites but we have definites!


----------



## Randy

"Overreaction" would be literal quarantining every sick person or forced prison-like isolation of everyone. Overreaction would be doing like Duerte said and shooting people in the streets for disobeying stay at home orders.

I don't think the government has done everything right at any level, and I question a lot of decisions with regard to essential and non-essential guidelines, etc. but telling people to stay home for a finite period of time is not a lot to ask. Keep in mind the incubation period is 5 to 11 days, and symptoms last 2 to 6 weeks. This has been going on for MONTHS and will be going on for several more specifically because people can't calm the fuck down and stay home, so they end up infecting someone else or getting infected and the clock starts again. It only feels like an overreaction because the goal post keeps getting moved the more selfish people insist on ignoring guidelines and spreading it further and further just so they can go to the fucking beach or the grocery store.


----------



## Randy

@TedEH not looking to trouble you, you're 100% right. I'm just pointing out how ridiculous it is the amount of hand holding and cajoling you need the do with these people to get them to do a really basic thing. The fact that telling people to stay home for a few weeks is even remotely considered an 'overreaction' is silly. I know you're not saying it is.


----------



## TedEH

Randy said:


> @TedEH not looking to trouble you, you're 100% right. I'm just pointing out how ridiculous it is the amount of hand holding and cajoling you need the do with these people to get them to do a really basic thing. The fact that telling people to stay home for a few weeks is even remotely considered an 'overreaction' is silly. I know you're not saying it is.


That's sort of my point though. I'm not disagreeing with you, so much as trying to illustrate that even if you were to take the opposing viewpoint, ignore or deny all facts, and assume everything you just said was fake news, it STILL doesn't make sense to stop being careful. Because if you don't believe those things to be true, then you're left with the gamble.

I don't think I'm _actually_ an idiot, but I know there's a lot of opposing bits of data and interpretation flying around - and it's difficult to know what is actually true or not. _Everyone_ is claiming their view is fact, and while we like to fall back on "follow the evidence! look up the research yourself!" etc, I doubt as many people are actually doing that as say they are, and not everyone has the know-how to know what to do with that information either way. I'm certainly not spending my time digging through all that stuff. You don't have to be correct to be convincing.



Randy said:


> "Overreaction" would be literal quarantining every sick person or forced prison-like isolation of everyone.


To a lot of people, that's what it looks like we are actually doing. I mean, I've not had a face-to-face conversation with another human being in well over a month (mild exaggeration but not far from the truth). People are getting fines for standing outside. There are police stationed at bridges and highways stopping people from going anywhere. Prison-like? No, not literally, but there's definitely an enforced isolation happening.


----------



## Adieu

wankerness said:


> There are conflicting reports. I personally know someone married to a non-US citizen who has a social security number, and they both got their checks. I definitely have heard people say the policy was supposed to exclude even those people, and that many in that position got nothing. But, the rollout of the checks is such a clusterfuck that they might at some point.



Wait, whaaaat???

Green card w/ SSN, legit taxpayer here. Still waiting on my money.

...are y'all saying that orange jackass took specific steps to prevent me getting paid?????


PS not married to anyone, American or otherwise, and never have been


----------



## budda

@TedEH but are you seeing increased police presence because some people are incapable of staying home?


----------



## sleewell

republicans made this ad.


----------



## Randy

TedEH said:


> That's sort of my point though. I'm not disagreeing with you, so much as trying to illustrate that even if you were to take the opposing viewpoint, ignore or deny all facts, and assume everything you just said was fake news, it STILL doesn't make sense to stop being careful. Because if you don't believe those things to be true, then you're left with the gamble.
> 
> I don't think I'm _actually_ an idiot, but I know there's a lot of opposing bits of data and interpretation flying around - and it's difficult to know what is actually true or not. _Everyone_ is claiming their view is fact, and while we like to fall back on "follow the evidence! look up the research yourself!" etc, I doubt as many people are actually doing that as say they are, and not everyone has the know-how to know what to do with that information either way. I'm certainly not spending my time digging through all that stuff. You don't have to be correct to be convincing.
> 
> 
> To a lot of people, that's what it looks like we are actually doing. I mean, I've not had a face-to-face conversation with another human being in well over a month (mild exaggeration but not far from the truth). People are getting fines for standing outside. There are police stationed at bridges and highways stopping people from going anywhere. Prison-like? No, not literally, but there's definitely an enforced isolation happening.



Yeah but what facts are still up in the air? It's spread enough that most people either know somebody that got it or has gotten it themselves. My uncle got it, he didn't eat a bat or travel to Wuhan China and makeout with the locals. He got it from doing basic shit like going to the store or work. People on this forum have gotten it and I've heard no speculation they did either of those things as well.

So if you get the virus from doing basic shit out of the house and there's no cure/vaccine, I'm not sure that the alternative theory is on stopping the spread? If you watch the protestor video earlier in the thread, the only alternative mindset is literally "I don't have it therefore it doesn't exist", how do you negotiate with that? 

And yeah it does suck. But it's not like the government is punishing people. What for and why? Every economy is reeling from this. Local governments WILL fold because of this, the federal governments are driving themselves into debts that will be almost impossible to dig out of.

Nobody's doing this as a punishment, this is just unpleasant shit we're all dealing with. Acting like somebody's "puting you through this" (again, not directed at you, I mean it in the general sense) is reminiscent of ancient people blaming the Gods for tornados or famine. It's just so... flat earthed thinking it's not even worth engaging.


----------



## TedEH

I never said it was a punishment. Nor did I say any facts were actually up in the air, just making the statement that it's difficult for a layperson to just accept that, or to have the capacity to verify that for themselves. I was trying to agree with you, in a roundabout way.

For what it's worth, I neither have it (that I'm aware of) or know anyone who has it. Nobody from my work, nobody from the bands I'm in, nobody I'm in contact with on facebook, etc. It's worth keeping in mind not everyone on the forum is in the US, and situations are varied. I can easily imagine someone in my position having doubts (again, I don't HAVE said doubts). I've heard, anecdotally, about two cases that didn't come from the news. A friend of a friends coworker, and someone who works in the same building as my sister (who works in health care) - both who tested positive, and then I heard nothing else. I was informed a day or two ago that a friend of mine's mother passed away, but there was zero indication that it had anything to do with covid. For all I know she was hit by a car.

To clarify -> I'm not saying that I have doubts about the existence or seriousness of the situation. I'm saying that _it's not unreasonable to be skeptical_. And I don't think it's fair to expect everyone to be able to work out 100% what is objective fact on their own. Accepting what is "known to be fact at this point" is on some level just putting trust in the source of the information.


----------



## bostjan

I don't personally know anyone who has tested positive for the virus. But, there are a couple of people I know personally who had very similar symptoms to what is reported (and definitely not just typical flu symptoms) and just never got tested. Because at the time, there was simply no place to get tested.

Is it a government conspiracy? No. Is it government incompetence? Naw, I don't even think that a competent government could have made the tests widely available and then successfully encourage them to be put into use in that sort of time-frame. However, it's now been a couple of months since the proverbial feces has struck the air-circulation device, and testing isn't much better and people are even more confused and skeptical.

The right-wingers with whom I interact online are still vehemently pushing HCQ as the miracle drug that cures coronavirus, even though it's been thoroughly debunkified now for more than two weeks. They just keep quoting literature from a month or more ago.

It's quite simple: we have moved from the atomic age into the information age and now into the misinformation age. It doesn't matter what the facts are, because any idiot with a computer can simply pour endless amounts of bullshit everywhere and then shout victory. It used to be that there were simply enough people to disbelieve the bullshit to put it to rest, but now these folks can congregate online and feed into each other. We have seen it reach its critical mass in the 2016 election and again it is happening now. And I don't know what we can do to fight the misinformation that doesn't also put a damper on healthy skepticism or infringe upon people's right to have their own zany opinions, no matter how stupid they are. But those zany opinions can move from silly to harmful pretty quickly during a state of crisis, and if people are able to convince others to buy into their stupidity, including those at high levels of government, we could potentially face a large scale societal collapse.


----------



## Ralyks

I'm noticing the Dow is up almost 600 points because a drug from Gilead called remdesivir might help? How long before that takes a 180?


----------



## Adieu

Ralyks said:


> I'm noticing the Dow is up almost 600 points because a drug from Gilead called remdesivir might help? How long before that takes a 180?



Well.... on the PLUS side, it's an actual anti-viral class medication. Not an antibacterial, UV light, bleach, or paint-thinner, but an actual antiviral.

So that's progress.

HOWEVER:

1) my mom got fired/layed off/ragequit from big pharma over a month ago. Everyone and their grandmother in that industry had been talking about that Gilead thing since before corona had jumped borders iirc... certainly way before mom left, since that was my sole source.


So....NOT NEWS.

2) may work =/= works well for everybody =/= quickly =/= available affordable and massproduced

3) there aren't really ANY particularly effective antivirals.... almost all the infectious disease stuff we're really shit at curing or even mitigating is invariably viral


----------



## bostjan

Ralyks said:


> I'm noticing the Dow is up almost 600 points because a drug from Gilead called remdesivir might help? How long before that takes a 180?


Remdesivir was the first drug that people turned to, before this mess spread outside of China, even. A bunch of the Diamond Princess passengers were treated with it, and it didn't work, for whatever reason, for those people. It's also still very expensive, and Gilead has intentionally kept people from having access to it (maybe for good reason).


----------



## TedEH

We got an email today from work telling us to officially treat the new working arrangements as "the new normal" until told otherwise. In other words, not to expect to back in to the office any time soon, even once things start opening up. They don't want anyone to go back in until we know it'll be permanently/properly safe, to avoid the disruption of having to go back home again.


----------



## spudmunkey

TedEH said:


> We got an email today from work telling us to officially treat the new working arrangements as "the new normal" until told otherwise. In other words, not to expect to back in to the office any time soon, even once things start opening up. They don't want anyone to go back in until we know it'll be permanently/properly safe, to avoid the disruption of having to go back home again.



I've not got a 2nd client who is not re-opening their office until 2021, and this afternoon i've got a meeting with a client to go over the plan to remove a bunch of desks, as they are only ever planning 20% occupation, with a rotating schedule of meeting rooms to allow for a few days of self-decontamination. To put it another way ,they are spending 10s of thousands of dollars in labor and storage to remove furniture, which we don't believe they would do without assuming it was not just a temporary solution.


----------



## TedEH

I dunno how well I can handle being stuck in my house until 2021.


----------



## spudmunkey

As of right now, the tallied deaths attributed to COVID-19 have surpassed 60,500. This milestone is of some significance, as 60,000* has pretty much been considered the top-end estimate of how many people die from the seasonal flu in a year in the US, while deaths continue at about 2000+ every day.

*OK, so some say 61,000, but we'll likely hit that by the end of the day)


----------



## High Plains Drifter

bostjan said:


> Is it government incompetence? Naw, I don't even think that a competent government could have made the tests widely available and then successfully encourage them to be put into use in that sort of time-frame. However, it's now been a couple of months since the proverbial feces has struck the air-circulation device, and testing isn't much better and people are even more confused and skeptical.



But it is incompetence. Certainly, tests couldn't have been made widely available at the drop of a hat. But the fact that nothing proactive has been done over the course of this administration screams incompetence and even malice if we're going to be so honest. The perfect storm was brewing and all our elected officials could do was sit back and watch. A responsible and competent government would have the equipment and the procedures already in place to at least begin to handle something of this magnitude This whole thing has been like a horrible experiment and it has exposed just how ill-prepared and horribly incompetent Washington truly is. The US had more than enough opportunity and time to prepare for something like this... but preparedness doesn't garner popularity nor votes. It's an absolute travesty that "we the people" are nothing more than expendable guinea-pigs. 



bostjan said:


> And I don't know what we can do to fight the misinformation that doesn't also put a damper on healthy skepticism or infringe upon people's right to have their own zany opinions, no matter how stupid they are. But those zany opinions can move from silly to harmful pretty quickly during a state of crisis, and if people are able to convince others to buy into their stupidity, including those at high levels of government, we could potentially face a large scale societal collapse.



Indeed.


----------



## spudmunkey

TedEH said:


> I dunno how well I can handle being stuck in my house until 2021.



Keep in mind that it's not that the shelter-in-place would continue until then. Even in the areas with the strictest rules about that sort of thing, most businesses will be able to open if they want, assuming that they can keep up with social distancing. Many companies are leting people voluntarily work in the office if they want...but the more labor-orientated jobs will be more of a challenge to work around. Likely with mandatory PPE, expanding to multiple shifts etc.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

Related since I've been seeing some of my non-medical friends sharing absolutely stupid shit the last couple of days:
https://engineering.nyu.edu/news/re...tion-could-slow-spread-fake-news-social-media


----------



## diagrammatiks

how'd this get so fucked up over there?

I'm eating tacos and going bars.


----------



## TedEH

At the same time, I'm in an awkward spot where being just inside the border of Quebec means I'm a bit more isolated than most, even without shelter-in-place. Quebec currently leads in cases/deaths, according to a quick google search, so the likelihood of the bridges getting opened up any time soon is pretty low, meaning that even if things open, I won't be able to get to anything. Most of the people I know, or things worth going out to, are on the other side. And I'm socially isolated in a sense for not being francophone. It's gonna be a rough year.


----------



## gunch

Ralyks said:


> I'm noticing the Dow is up almost 600 points because a drug from Gilead called remdesivir might help? How long before that takes a 180?




Because what’s good for them isn’t ever good for us


----------



## SD83

diagrammatiks said:


> how'd this get so fucked up over there?


Misinformation, lack of information, contradicting information. And, since that is exactly what we're used to, a severe lack of trust in the authorities. Or even scientists.

Great example from this place... face masks are now mandatory in shops, public places (indoors) and public transport. All through january, everyone who supposedly knew a thing or two about diseases told us "a face mask is not really good at protecting you from getting a virus, but it stops you from spreading it". A few weeks later, the authorities, politicians, health officials, the lot, started to tell everyone "there is no point in wearing a mask, it will not protect you, at all. The only exception might be those really good ffp3 masks, but they're sold out anyway, and we need them desperately in the hospitals, so don't even think about it." Now, all of a sudden, the same people tell us that literally any piece of cloth, that covers your mouth & nose, is fine. FFP3 masks, surgical masks, t-shirts, just put it on, you'll be fine. Honestly, I'm still stuck with the "it lowers your chance of getting an infection slightly and lowers your chance of spreading an infection drasticly", because that is basically what I was tought for... decades? But how are you supposed to trust your government or the media, when they tell you a different story on the same topic every other week?

It's worse in some countries (USA...) and less bad in others, but even here you can see the people drifting apart. They all look at the same things, and tell you entirely different stories about it. And to be fair, I'm starting to tend towards the "they're taking away our freedom, we have to be careful about that" side. Because so many people started telling me/us that shit would really hit the fan in a few days since early march. And every time you tell them "see, it's been two weeks now, nothing happened, because we're doing the right things", they go like "we're not doing enough, this will explode in a few days, at best a week!". We start a lockdown-light and everything stays fine? We have to do more! We're in the lockdown-light for over a months and things are improving drasticly? We can't start to slowly go back to normal or it will come back worse than it has ever been! And if all else fails, "the second wave will kill hundreds of thousands!!!!111!!". Like... chill. We currently have 36,000 confirmed active cases nation wide, steadily declining since early april from 72,000. We're still increasing our test capacities, we're still quarantining the confirmed cases and their households, we're still practicing social distancing, we still ban mass gatherings and face masks are now mandatory. No one takes about stopping that, and those are the things that are supposed to yield, by far, the best results. [/rant]

Somewhat related, didn't know if I should put this here or in the memes thread:


----------



## sleewell

https://news.usni.org/2020/04/28/us...ged-more-than-a-month-after-hawaii-port-visit


*USS Kidd Arrives in San Diego to Treat COVID-19 Outbreak; First Cases Emerged More than A Month After Hawaii Port Visit*

this is interesting. does it stay on surfaces much longer than we thought or how did this happen?


----------



## spudmunkey

bostjan said:


> Remdesivir was the first drug that people turned to, before this mess spread outside of China, even. A bunch of the Diamond Princess passengers were treated with it, and it didn't work, for whatever reason, for those people. It's also still very expensive, and Gilead has intentionally kept people from having access to it (maybe for good reason).



It sounds like there's been a clinical trial of about 400 people, where it's shown to reduce recovery time from 15 to 12 days, and reduced mortality from 11%+ to 8%. It's not some silver bullet, but seems pretty clearly to be of some help in regards to this trial, anywa.


----------



## bostjan

spudmunkey said:


> It sounds like there's been a clinical trial of about 400 people, where it's shown to reduce recovery time from 15 to 12 days, and reduced mortality from 11%+ to 8%. It's not some silver bullet, but seems pretty clearly to be of some help in regards to this trial, anywa.


Do you have a link?

This was published today, which doesn't look good at all.

EDIT: Remdesivir is an anti-viral drug. I think it's been mentioned before, but to reiterate, the idea of it, on paper at least, makes a ton more sense than HCQ.



sleewell said:


> https://news.usni.org/2020/04/28/us...ged-more-than-a-month-after-hawaii-port-visit
> 
> 
> *USS Kidd Arrives in San Diego to Treat COVID-19 Outbreak; First Cases Emerged More than A Month After Hawaii Port Visit*
> 
> this is interesting. does it stay on surfaces much longer than we thought or how did this happen?



Just a wild guess, but, on a boat full of healthy people, it probably spread around for a while without showing any symptoms in the infected. That's likely how it has been so difficult to contain. If the virus made everyone infected start bleeding out of their earholes, or something like that, then we would be able to identify who has it, and it'd be easier to prevent it from spreading.


----------



## ThePIGI King

I dunno what's more fun, the video or y'alls reaction


----------



## spudmunkey

bostjan said:


> Do you have a link?
> 
> This was published today, which doesn't look good at all.



Seems like a different study, with conflicting results. This other study was from NIAID trial, which according to what most outlets are reporting, is also supposed to be published today. 
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/29/dr-...navirus-drug-trial-shows-quite-good-news.html


----------



## bostjan

spudmunkey said:


> Seems like a different study, with conflicting results. This other study was from NIAID trial, which according to what most outlets are reporting, is also supposed to be published today.
> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/29/dr-...navirus-drug-trial-shows-quite-good-news.html



Ahh, got it. The results are not yet published anywhere, and what we are getting is essentially the teaser trailer for the paper from Fauci.

But, if you read the CNBC story carefully, you see:



CNBC said:


> Fauci said the median time of recovery for patients taking the drug was 11 days, compared with 15 days in the placebo group. He said the mortality benefit of remdesivir “has not yet reached statistical significance.”



Which is not too far from the results in the paper I read today, which stated that:



The Lancet" said:


> In this study of adult patients admitted to hospital for severe COVID-19, remdesivir was not associated with statistically significant clinical benefits. However, the numerical reduction in time to clinical improvement in those treated earlier requires confirmation in larger studies.



So, the smaller study, published today, says that there is no change in mortality and that there is not enough evidence collected to say whether it speeds up recovery or not, but it might. Fauci says that the larger study, which will be published in the future sometime, says that the drug reduces recovery time (which technically agrees with the other source), but that they can't say for sure if it has an effect on mortality or not (which also technically agrees with the other source).

However.



CNBC said:


> The results suggested a survival benefit, with a mortality rate of 8% for the group receiving remdesivir versus 11.6% for the placebo group, according to a statement from the National Institutes of Health released later Wednesday.



So, a little telephone game, since we don't know exactly what the NIH told CNBC, but CNBC is telling us that the NIH said the drug decreases mortality significantly (31% fewer people died with than without).

Interesting.

Honestly, I'm not sure I trust CNBC to read anything of a semi-technical nature and then paraphrase it properly, but they couldn't have just pulled those numbers out of their ass, right?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

spudmunkey said:


> As of right now, the tallied deaths attributed to COVID-19 have surpassed 60,500. This milestone is of some significance, as 60,000* has pretty much been considered the top-end estimate of how many people die from the seasonal flu in a year in the US, while deaths continue at about 2000+ every day.
> 
> *OK, so some say 61,000, but we'll likely hit that by the end of the day)



This is pretty significant. 

It's killed more people than the worse recorded flu season in the modern era, even with social distancing measures in place, in less than half the time. 

It will surpass the high estimate for the yearly flu burden, which is only the second time that's happened since the CDC has tracked it live, again in less than half the time of traditional "flu season". 

This is with all the social distancing, stay at home orders, masks, sanitizer, etc. Even with all those precautions it's gotten to this point.

How anyone can still say this is "just the flu" is beyond me.


----------



## JSanta

MaxOfMetal said:


> This is pretty significant.
> 
> It's killed more people than the worse recorded flu season in the modern era, even with social distancing measures in place, in less than half the time.
> 
> It will surpass the high estimate for the yearly flu burden, which is only the second time that's happened since the CDC has tracked it live, again in less than half the time of traditional "flu season".
> 
> This is with all the social distancing, stay at home orders, masks, sanitizer, etc. Even with all those precautions it's gotten to this point.
> 
> How anyone can still say this is "just the flu" is beyond me.



American exceptionalism at its finest


----------



## Vostre Roy

TedEH said:


> We got an email today from work telling us to officially treat the new working arrangements as "the new normal" until told otherwise. In other words, not to expect to back in to the office any time soon, even once things start opening up. They don't want anyone to go back in until we know it'll be permanently/properly safe, to avoid the disruption of having to go back home again.



Well I was given two options: use the federal help package or accept a change on my schedule, which went from 14/14 (14 days of work (12hrs shifts), 14 days off) to 28/28. Currently almost done with my first week of work, I'll report back how crazy I'm going...

Edit: Forgot to mention, I'm not going home every night, I'm stuck at my work camp for that period of time.


----------



## Randy

Vostre Roy said:


> work camp



Is this as awful as it sounds? Because it sounds quite awful


----------



## SD83

MaxOfMetal said:


> This is pretty significant.
> 
> It's killed more people than the worse recorded flu season in the modern era, even with social distancing measures in place, in less than half the time.
> 
> It will surpass the high estimate for the yearly flu burden, which is only the second time that's happened since the CDC has tracked it live, again in less than half the time of traditional "flu season".
> 
> This is with all the social distancing, stay at home orders, masks, sanitizer, etc. Even with all those precautions it's gotten to this point.
> 
> How anyone can still say this is "just the flu" is beyond me.



When were those precautions put in place? Because from what we hear over here, to say "very late" would be putting it mildly. 

But seriously, I just looked at the numbers over at worldometer and... that's just scary. The state of New York alone has almost four times the number of casualties as my entire country, while having only a quarter of the population. And in slightly less time. How people are still out protesting against the precautions is entirely beyond me. b
I really hope things will start to get better soon...


----------



## spudmunkey

SD83 said:


> When were those precautions put in place? Because from what we hear over here, to say "very late" would be putting it mildly.
> 
> But seriously, I just looked at the numbers over at worldometer and... that's just scary. The state of New York alone has almost four times the number of casualties as my entire country, while having only a quarter of the population. And in slightly less time. How people are still out protesting against the precautions is entirely beyond me. b
> I really hope things will start to get better soon...



Here in the San Francisco area, our 6 counties have had shelter-in-place orders since March 17th. Some individual cities/businesses started the week prior. Some states never had a SIP order.

Up through that date, there were 6,000 cases, out of 328,000,000 people in the US. For a country the size of Germany with 83,000,000 people, that should have equated to 1,500 cases, but Germany actually had 9,300 cases by that date. So not only a higher percentage, but a higher total overall, so it definitely makes sense that their SIP would have come sooner, even if the both used the same "%" metrics.


----------



## arasys

SD83 said:


> Misinformation, lack of information, contradicting information. And, since that is exactly what we're used to, a severe lack of trust in the authorities. Or even scientists.
> 
> Great example from this place... face masks are now mandatory in shops, public places (indoors) and public transport. All through january, everyone who supposedly knew a thing or two about diseases told us "a face mask is not really good at protecting you from getting a virus, but it stops you from spreading it". A few weeks later, the authorities, politicians, health officials, the lot, started to tell everyone "there is no point in wearing a mask, it will not protect you, at all. The only exception might be those really good ffp3 masks, but they're sold out anyway, and we need them desperately in the hospitals, so don't even think about it." Now, all of a sudden, the same people tell us that literally any piece of cloth, that covers your mouth & nose, is fine. FFP3 masks, surgical masks, t-shirts, just put it on, you'll be fine. Honestly, I'm still stuck with the "it lowers your chance of getting an infection slightly and lowers your chance of spreading an infection drasticly", because that is basically what I was tought for... decades? But how are you supposed to trust your government or the media, when they tell you a different story on the same topic every other week?
> 
> It's worse in some countries (USA...) and less bad in others, but even here you can see the people drifting apart.



At first, it was in January and Amazon was already running out of N95s, meanwhile coronavirus was a "democrats' hoax" for some. I read news from bunch of different places, and the officials' muted response here in US made things more worrisome.

Couple weeks later I saw on article on Le Monde, it was literally saying homemade masks are not effective. Later on I found an updated version of it, here's the part that really hit me:

"If the scientific literature isn't abundantly clear on the subject, there's no scientific proof of cloth masks' effectiveness. One American study published in 2010 has an example that a towel or tshirt has marginal effectiveness for filtering the molecules size of a virus"

("Si la littérature scientifique n’est pas abondante sur le sujet, un constat s’impose, selon la SF2S et la SF2H : _« Il n’existe pas de preuve scientifique de l’efficacité des masques en tissu. »_ Une étude américaine publiée en 2010 a par exemple montré qu’un torchon ou un tee-shirt n’ont une efficacité que _« marginale »_ pour filtrer des molécules de la taille d’un virus.")

Right after I read this article, US Surgeon General was on TV showing how to make your own masks made of tshirts, to probably offer a sense of security to people who have no masks? That literally scared me. 

Now they are talking about reopening the economy across states with minimal testing, and country's president recommends bleach injection. Not to mention people at my age also show signs of stroke after recovery. 

If states completely open up with quarantine fatigue and more people get sick during summer, we would be heading towards worse times with flu season in fall. Even from a daily life perspective, if someone sneezes because of cold, people will be more hysterical. And .. we also have elections coming up in US and second quarter's economy will be brutal. 

YAY I feel like a teletubby <3


----------



## Vostre Roy

Randy said:


> Is this as awful as it sounds? Because it sounds quite awful



Ain't that bad, has its pros and cons.

Pros: food, laundry and cleaning is done by the camp staff. I get out of bed 15 minutes before my shift start.

Cons: away from home, internet is as fast as 56k dial-up.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

MaxOfMetal said:


> This is pretty significant.
> 
> It's killed more people than the worse recorded flu season in the modern era, even with social distancing measures in place, in less than half the time.
> 
> It will surpass the high estimate for the yearly flu burden, which is only the second time that's happened since the CDC has tracked it live, again in less than half the time of traditional "flu season".
> 
> This is with all the social distancing, stay at home orders, masks, sanitizer, etc. Even with all those precautions it's gotten to this point.
> 
> How anyone can still say this is "just the flu" is beyond me.



Some more context, as of right now, it has killed more Americans (individually) in less than four months than:

- Suicide
- Kidney Disease
- Flu

For all 12 months of 2017.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm


----------



## thraxil

MaxOfMetal said:


> Some more context, as of right now, it has killed more Americans (individually) in less than four months than:



I would point out that there are roughly as many people dieing of covid 19 in the US every day as died during the Sep 11th attack. Every day. For months. However people want to compare it to things like the flu or car accidents, we have to admit that it's at least on par with 9/11, which had some pretty major political, economic, and cultural impacts. There's certainly an argument to be made that the reaction to 9/11 was disproportionate to the threat and had many serious problems (starting stupid wars, Patriot Act, the bullshit we've had to deal with at airports ever since, etc). But at the very least, anyone who supported those measures ("because terrorism") who's now opposed to stay at home orders and efforts to slow down covid 19 come across as at least inconsistent and probably racist.


----------



## Adieu

thraxil said:


> I would point out that there are roughly as many people dieing of covid 19 in the US every day as died during the Sep 11th attack. Every day. For months. However people want to compare it to things like the flu or car accidents, we have to admit that it's at least on par with 9/11, which had some pretty major political, economic, and cultural impacts. There's certainly an argument to be made that the reaction to 9/11 was disproportionate to the threat and had many serious problems (starting stupid wars, Patriot Act, the bullshit we've had to deal with at airports ever since, etc). But at the very least, anyone who supported those measures ("because terrorism") who's now opposed to stay at home orders and efforts to slow down covid 19 come across as at least inconsistent and probably racist.



9/11 was an insignificant blip the size of a rounding error, statistically speaking

The FUSS everybody kicked up was about "omfg, they DARED???", because America was under the impression that its overwhelming projection of military power across the globe meant no one, anywhere, would ever for a minute even consider screwing with em right back at them

The loss of life was not historically significant. The "oh shit we forgot that angry people might not be particularly rational, so being scary doesn't actually work 100% of the time" realization was what made it historically significant.

That was what shocked America. Dead New Yorkers? Ain't nobody ever liked em anyway.


----------



## TedEH

ThePIGI King said:


> I dunno what's more fun, the video or y'alls reaction




I just want to appreciate for a moment that the pre-roll ad for this video was the dumbest thing I've ever seen: A rubber ball thing you stick in your mouth and chew on as a form of exercise with the goal of shaving years off the look of your face. Even the ADS for the video are dumb and I haven't even seen the video yet.


----------



## Adieu

TedEH said:


> I just want to appreciate for a moment that the pre-roll ad for this video was the dumbest thing I've ever seen: A rubber ball thing you stick in your mouth and chew on as a form of exercise with the goal of shaving years off the look of your face. Even the ADS for the video are dumb and I haven't even seen the video yet.



So.... it's reuseable chewing gum???


----------



## TedEH

I made the mistake of actually watching the fox video that came after that dumb ad, and sweet jebus it's just as dumb as the ad.


----------



## narad

ThePIGI King said:


> I dunno what's more fun, the video or y'alls reaction




He's got a point in the WHO's waffling on their recommendations as more information comes in. Everything else was terribly stupid. The second History channel started running alien conspiracy shows for a ratings boost, I guess it should have been obvious that news companies would too.


----------



## sleewell

everything trump is accusing china and the who of he is much more guilty of himself. why did he praise both of them while downplaying covid for months?

fox is trying to deflect blame and find a scapegoat for their own role in calling this a hoax which is exactly what trump is doing. it is a feedback loop of propaganda. trump says hey i saw this on fox so its true. then fox says hey trump said this so its true and the loop just keeps going to the detriment of the poor morons who watch.


----------



## USMarine75

Adieu said:


> *9/11 was an insignificant blip* the size of a rounding error, statistically speaking
> 
> The FUSS everybody kicked up was about "omfg, they DARED???", because America was under the impression that its overwhelming projection of military power across the globe meant no one, anywhere, would ever for a minute even consider screwing with em right back at them
> 
> The loss of life was not historically significant. The "oh shit we forgot that angry people might not be particularly rational, so being scary doesn't actually work 100% of the time" realization was what made it historically significant.
> 
> That was what shocked America. *Dead New Yorkers? Ain't nobody ever liked em anyway*.



Asshole.


----------



## USMarine75

Adieu said:


> *9/11 was an insignificant blip* the size of a rounding error, statistically speaking
> 
> The FUSS everybody kicked up was about "omfg, they DARED???", because America was under the impression that its overwhelming projection of military power across the globe meant no one, anywhere, would ever for a minute even consider screwing with em right back at them
> 
> The l*oss of life was not historically significant*. The "oh shit we forgot that angry people might not be particularly rational, so being scary doesn't actually work 100% of the time" realization was what made it historically significant.
> 
> That was what shocked America. *Dead New Yorkers? Ain't nobody ever liked em anyway.*





USMarine75 said:


> Asshole.



Sorry MODS ! Sorry at @Adieu !




I apologize.




I misspoke.




I meant to say...




_Fucking_ asshole.


----------



## Adieu

USMarine75 said:


> Sorry MODS ! Sorry at @Adieu !
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I apologize.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I misspoke.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I meant to say...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _Fucking_ asshole.



People die. Badly. Every day. In America.


...and nobody bats an eye.

But this one was perpetrated by FOREIGN ENEMIES so it's special. People who have spent decades hating on New Yorkers and wishing them all the worst suddenly come up out of the woodwork rallying

Because politicians made it PERSONAL. An offense to the whole fucking tribe.


....in the years since, FAR MORE NEW YORKERS HAVE BEEN MURDERED BY FELLOW NEW YORKERS. AND NOW A VIRUS IS LIKELY TO KILL MORE STILL.

BUT NO FOREIGN ENEMY, NO BROWN DUDES DARING TO DAMAGE AMERICAN SYMBOLS = NOBODY CARES NOW.

Because it was NEVER about the people to you lot.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

What a fucking hill to die on.


----------



## SD83

Adieu said:


> People die. Badly. Every day. In America.
> 
> 
> ...and nobody bats an eye.
> 
> Because it was NEVER about the people to you lot.



What made 9/11 significant was not the amount of people killed. If my numbers are correct, about the same amount of people died in car crashes in that month, but for many, myself to some extend included, car crashes don't change the world, seeing the mighty USA being so vulnerable does. It's similar with mass shootings. 15,000 people shot dead every year, 500 of them in mass shootings, yet those are what everybody is talking about. It's not just about the numbers, it's the context. If 500 people die in California or Uganda, that's bad for them and their families and friends and such, but honestly, it doesn't really affect me. If 500 people die in the next big down, fuck, that's bad!

Look at it that way, we don't have to have tens of thousands die each year in traffic related accidents, a lot of that could be avoided if people were more reasonable, drove according to the conditions of the road, the weather, the traffic, their own skill. If they were sober, concentrating, and the cars were in good shape. We know that, we have some measures in place, but it kind of has always been that way, we wouldn't bring the whole world to a hold just because a few tenthousands or (globally) a few hundred thousand die each year. 
Same with the regular flu. The same stuff we do now with COVID-19, social distancing, washing your hands, (correct) use of disinfectants, wearing face masks, all that will prevent A LOT of flu infections and deaths. Thousands, tens of thousands, each year. And we have a somewhat effective vaccine. But we're used to it. We know more or less how bad it's going to be. 
With this... we don't. It could go away one day, like a miracle, as someone who claims to understand science very well said. It could be with us for a while, or forever. And as long as we don't know that, playing it safe sounds like a decent option to me, if we don't overdo it. Whatever that means, I honestly don't know.
For the record, 0 new cases recorded in the nearest bigger town yesterday, yay


----------



## thraxil

Adieu said:


> The loss of life was not historically significant. The "oh shit we forgot that angry people might not be particularly rational, so being scary doesn't actually work 100% of the time" realization was what made it historically significant.



I'm actually old enough (I was in my 20's in 2001 and even lived in Manhattan at the time) to remember that the raw death toll *was* a big part of the reaction. Repeated over and over again on the news and by anybody talking about the attacks.

The fact that it's a relatively small number compared to car accidents or heart disease or whatever was pointed out at the time and is kind of the the point I'm making. A lot of massive changes were made in response to a single event of 2000 deaths and many of the people who were pushing those changes and justifying it by the death toll happen to be the ones who are now arguing that we should ignore the equivalent happening every single day because it's harming their stock portfolio.


----------



## Adieu

SD83 said:


> What made 9/11 significant was not the amount of people killed. If my numbers are correct, about the same amount of people died in car crashes in that month, but for many, myself to some extend included, car crashes don't change the world, seeing the mighty USA being so vulnerable does. It's similar with mass shootings. 15,000 people shot dead every year, 500 of them in mass shootings, yet those are what everybody is talking about. It's not just about the numbers, it's the context. If 500 people die in California or Uganda, that's bad for them and their families and friends and such, but honestly, it doesn't really affect me. If 500 people die in the next big down, fuck, that's bad!
> 
> Look at it that way, we don't have to have tens of thousands die each year in traffic related accidents, a lot of that could be avoided if people were more reasonable, drove according to the conditions of the road, the weather, the traffic, their own skill. If they were sober, concentrating, and the cars were in good shape. We know that, we have some measures in place, but it kind of has always been that way, we wouldn't bring the whole world to a hold just because a few tenthousands or (globally) a few hundred thousand die each year.
> Same with the regular flu. The same stuff we do now with COVID-19, social distancing, washing your hands, (correct) use of disinfectants, wearing face masks, all that will prevent A LOT of flu infections and deaths. Thousands, tens of thousands, each year. And we have a somewhat effective vaccine. But we're used to it. We know more or less how bad it's going to be.
> With this... we don't. It could go away one day, like a miracle, as someone who claims to understand science very well said. It could be with us for a while, or forever. And as long as we don't know that, playing it safe sounds like a decent option to me, if we don't overdo it. Whatever that means, I honestly don't know.
> For the record, 0 new cases recorded in the nearest bigger town yesterday, yay



Exactly

And this is one we actually KNOW appropriate sensible active measures to counter for.... not like aforementioned patriotic fury-inducing 9/11, where a certain goofy looking but actually sly Texan with daddy-approval-issues managed to channel public anxieties into a pointless and unrelated crusade to settle his family's unfinished middle eastern business and attempt to one-up his daddy

Handwashing distacing and masks and shit actually MAKES SENSE.


----------



## narad

MaxOfMetal said:


> What a fucking hill to die on.



Ah, ol' edge-lord hill.


----------



## Andromalia

SD83 said:


> When were those precautions put in place? Because from what we hear over here, to say "very late" would be putting it mildly.
> 
> But seriously, I just looked at the numbers over at worldometer and... that's just scary. The state of New York alone has almost four times the number of casualties as my entire country, while having only a quarter of the population.



Comparisons are difficult to make, mostly because population density can vary widely from place to place, and even in the same country. The Paris region in France was hit pretty harshly while Lozère has an almost blank record. Guess which one is a big densely packed capital city and which one is a rural desert where people raise goats.

At the very least, comparisons should be made with equal density areas, and then you have other factors: for exemple, Portugal has very few sick people because all the heavy spanish population centers are on the mediterranean side of Spain.



> I'm actually old enough (I was in my 20's in 2001 and even lived in Manhattan at the time) to remember that the raw death toll *was* a big part of the reaction. Repeated over and over again on the news and by anybody talking about the attacks.



The toll in itself wasn't anything extraordinary, what was is you weren't mentally prepared for it to happen and you were shocked. And since you had elected an idiot as president, you got a rough deal. And then you elected him again, and since you don't learn you elected Trump a few decades later. Come on...


----------



## bostjan

The body count is only one of many aspects of a historical event. I mean, what was the official body count of slavery in North America? Does a low body count mean that there was less suffering or that the events of the era were insignificant?!

What was the body count of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand? 2? So the even was trivial, right?

And also, if we are talking historical events and comparing them with current events, we have to be careful. One is impacting us *now*, and we have an effect on the outcome, and the other already happened, and nothing will effect the outcome that has already come out.

Why are we even having this discussion?!

Anyway, I hear things are getting pretty bad in Russia, which forces us to consider the question: If we reopen business when the numbers are down, even if R0 < 1 for two weeks, what about the virus coming back in from other countries? And if the simple solution is to close our borders, how do you think international commerce works? Do people think that the truck drivers coming from Mexico are not using our rest stops and portajohns or coming into contact with people at gas stations or wherever they are delivering? Do you think a boat from China or Russia delivering rubber chickens isn't also delivering virus particles? Maybe someone should be thinking about how to disinfect goods arriving from outside of the nation. What are they discussing in Europe about this?

Also, if the numbers go down here in VT, they want to open back up, but what infected people coming across state lines from New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, etc.? Or people from Vermont going out of state and coming back in? I guarantee this will happen to a large extent, if it isn't already.

Obviously, we can't stay shut down until there is a cure or even an effective treatment, but I see a lot of folks already throwing caution to the wind.

I saw a video from thunderf00t on youtube, where he was saying we have to get the transmission rate less than 1.05 before we can reopen the USA. I often enjoy his videos, because he makes good points, although I have historically disagreed with his conclusions. In this case, I'm not sure it really matters, since people are bound to run out of patience long before it's appropriate to lift restrictions. Even if the transmission is dropped down to 0.00001 for two weeks, and we assume that the virus is going extinct, and we reopen- if there is one sick person who contacts people without immunity, then the whole thing starts over again. If acquired immunity is temporary, as it is with other species of coronavirus, then the reopening and closing businesses will simply continue until something breaks the cycle. Granted, the smaller the number of the infected population at the start of an outbreak, the more time it buys you to react, but, even with N=1 and no social distancing in place, we know that this particular species of virus can spread too rapidly for any uncoordinated government response of any sort to be effective, so it's up to policy makers to do a better job. Have any confidence at all that such a thing would happen?

I'm not saying that the sky is falling or that we're doomed, but something drastic is going to have to change to make the economic sacrifices worth it. And we don't have any leaders who have the cajones to make that happen. Time to not only dump Trump (he's honestly only a cog in the wheel), but to dump all of our federal government officials and replace with new. Temporarily give the states more power to cover the gap, since the states have done so much better a job, and honestly, the ones that are not doing a good enough job can be mitigated by isolation by neighbouring states, and they, too, should face major change as a result of this.


----------



## Randy

My gut say

1.) increase testing as much as absolute possible into June (both COVID and random anti-body screening)
2.) people confirmed to have had the virus already are cleared to work in next phase reopenings (even though it appears you can get it twice, it's universally less severe or asymptomatic)
3.) plasma transfusions for next phase reopening workers who are healthy but haven't had the virus
4.) put ALL resources, instead of wasting them on Shake Shack bailouts, into testing, hazard pay for workers, bridge loans/grants to businesses to reopen with focus on re-organizing for worker and customer safety (ie: change layout, expand delivery, online ordering for companies that are currently stranded) and
5.) resources for vulnerable persons, with expanded unemployment, grocery or meal delivery for the next 18-months so they don't HAVE to go out in the world
6.) legal and enforced, 50-state social distancing, capacity caps and mask requirements for at least the next 3 months
7.) temperature check all industries, all workers before shifts, and COVID-19 test for all travelers at all ports of entry

I think if you rolled out something like that, you could re-open most businesses in a timely manner, protect vulnerable people and promote herd immunity while we wait for a vaccine


----------



## Drew

ThePIGI King said:


> Biased editorial content huh. Because ABC News is known for being right-winged
> 
> You sure that you just aren't the kind of guy that would discredit and argue anything that goes against your opinion? Generally ABC is all Anti-Trump and Democratic ideology. But the moment they say something against the grain they're no longer appreciated. I'd be willing to bet the majority of you guys are the biased ones, against literally anything that supports the idea that COVID isn't as big a deal as yall want it to be.


No, I'm saying that YOU are the sort of guy who would discredit and argue against anything going against your own opinion, and when called out on it, you just move on to the next subject rather than actually trying to defend your views. You're dead set in your belief that, and I quote, "COVID isn't as big a deal as yall want it to be," and are just posting random links in this thread that support your belief, and when we poke holes in them, ignoring it and moving onto the next baseless claim that supports your prior-held views. 

If you wanna prove me wrong, you could start by addressing this. 

https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-102#post-5128844


----------



## Drew

MaxOfMetal said:


> See, it's posts like this that are probably the most alarming. Not that you hold whatever opinions you might which run for or against a given topic, but the earnest lack of understanding how this all comes together. That's sort of what Drew was getting at. You're not low information because you're "conservative" or "republican", you're low information because you don't even know what you're posting.


This, exacgly. Your posts here are sort of a collage of links to opinion peices with headlines that support your belief, and based on your 1) lack of additional commentary indicating WHY you think something's important and worth sharing, and 2) lack of response to any issues with the editorial pieces that are pointed out in subsequent conversations, youre giving the distinct opinion that you don't actually know what you're talking about but are just echoing others' views that support your desire to downplay this pandemic, for some reason.

You're, at present, functioning as a drive-by poster of poor quality content, rather than as someone actually making meaningful contributions to this conversation. If that's not a fair description of you or how you're trying to interact here, then maybe consider changing your actions.



ThePIGI King said:


> But what about the facts and data inside the video? The doc even breaks down some numbers. This article quotes him since it's clear nobody watched it.
> https://www.google.com/amp/s/news4s...-care-provides-statistical-update-on-covid-19
> 
> And then here's another link, even though everyone will pass on reading it due to the site.
> https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.th...26/doctor-dan-erickson-coronavirus-reopen/amp
> 
> I understand opinions vs facts when it comes to science. But ignoring some facts because you disagree or don't like the source is more concerning.


I already addressed those statistics in a prior reply, which you ignored. I'll link it here, again: 

https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-100#post-5128315

Considering you're STILL touting these statistics that I wrote a pretty long post explaining why there were some pretty big issues with their - an your - claims, there are only two conclusions I see:

1) You're posting, not reading other's posts, and then accusing them of not reading yours, or
2) You're straight-up ignoring anything that conflicts with your worldview.

....which is ironically what you're accusing _me_ of doing.


----------



## sleewell

shoot i'm still waiting to hear his opinions on bengahzi lololololol.


----------



## TedEH

I find it interesting that one of most grounded videos I've watched recently about covid came from Maddox. Remember Maddox? His website, and his first article on the matter are quite the rollercoaster though. On some level, I'll give him props for admitting that his initial response was way off.


----------



## Drew

Worth discussing here - false positive rates in antibody tests vary widely, but on average NY Times found a 5% false positive rate as fairly typical. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/health/coronavirus-antibody-tests.html?searchResultPosition=2

That would mean that even NYC where we have about a 5% confirmed infection rate using swab tests, you'd STILL expect to see twice the number of positive tests from an antibody test even if there wasn't a single additional case, and possibly as high as 4-5x the number of positives, depending on the test employed. 

From a purely statistical standpoint, given the low confirmed infection rate and the extremely high sampling noise, these studies are garbage.


----------



## Randy

Drew said:


> Worth discussing here - false positive rates in antibody tests vary widely, but on average NY Times found a 5% false positive rate as fairly typical.
> 
> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/health/coronavirus-antibody-tests.html?searchResultPosition=2
> 
> That would mean that even NYC where we have about a 5% confirmed infection rate using swab tests, you'd STILL expect to see twice the number of positive tests from an antibody test even if there wasn't a single additional case, and possibly as high as 4-5x the number of positives, depending on the test employed.
> 
> From a purely statistical standpoint, given the low confirmed infection rate and the extremely high sampling noise, these studies are garbage.



From the get-go, the 'administer at home' kits were known to be terribly inaccurate. I remember the article a couple weeks ago saying the way the FDA tweaked the criteria opened up the flood gates for known unreliable tests. So that doesn't come as much of a surprise, albeit I guess some form of confirmation.


----------



## USMarine75

Adieu said:


> People die. Badly. Every day. In America.
> 
> 
> ...and nobody bats an eye.
> 
> But this one was perpetrated by FOREIGN ENEMIES so it's special. People who have spent decades hating on New Yorkers and wishing them all the worst suddenly come up out of the woodwork rallying
> 
> Because politicians made it PERSONAL. An offense to the whole fucking tribe.
> 
> 
> ....in the years since, FAR MORE NEW YORKERS HAVE BEEN MURDERED BY FELLOW NEW YORKERS. AND NOW A VIRUS IS LIKELY TO KILL MORE STILL.
> 
> BUT NO FOREIGN ENEMY, NO BROWN DUDES DARING TO DAMAGE AMERICAN SYMBOLS = NOBODY CARES NOW.
> 
> Because it was NEVER about the people to you lot.



You're just like, a terrible human being, man.


----------



## Adieu

USMarine75 said:


> You're just like, a terrible human being, man.



Oh go blow up Saudi Arabia already... at least they had SOMETHING to do with your dear 9-11

Wait no that won't work, the Saudis are your leadership's best bros... unlike the places y'all actually bombed and invaded, which were just pet projects of your fave leaders.


....do you even realize that 9-11 was Bush's happiest or second happiest day in his whole life???? It was a damn godsend --- an excuse that let him do the stuff his daddy ways wanted to do in the Middle East AND a free re-election ticket.


Sheesh. You guys ate that shit right up. The ONLY reason your country got whipped into a frenzy of nationalism and hate was because opportunist politicians wanted to push through foreign wars and undemocratic laws like the Patriot Act.... NOT A ONE OF EM CARED A LICK ABOUT THE PEOPLE OF NEW YORK.

They were just damn thankful for the opportunity. And the ONLY reason you give it much thought and have a huge emotional response to it still (vs something that makes you go "oh yeah, I remember hearing about that back in the day" like Oklahoma City) is because they damn well made GOOD rabble rousing use of it.


Same deal today with Covid. Trump is wondering how to exploit the situation...


----------



## TedEH

USMarine75 said:


> You're just like, a terrible human being, man.


I hate to say it, but you're sort of illustrating the point he was trying to make. The historical significance of that event is almost entirely the cultural and emotional impact it had.


----------



## Adieu

TedEH said:


> I hate to say it, but you're sort of illustrating the point he was trying to make. The historical significance of that event is almost entirely the cultural and emotional impact it had.



And political.

Remember the Oklahoma City Bombing? NOT REALLY, NOT LIKE THIS YOU DON'T.

Lunatics blew building up, people died, it was sad but life went on. Politicians didn't pimp it to rally hate and fury for their pet cause. No crusade happened so you're not ready to climb through my phone screen and punch my lights out over it.


----------



## TedEH

I would normally fit "political" into the bucket of "cultural", but point taken. I suppose they're distinct enough.


----------



## Adieu

TedEH said:


> I would normally fit "political" into the bucket of "cultural", but point taken. I suppose they're distinct enough.



I also meant the whole blowing up entirely unrelated parts of the Middle East (note: FAR bigger human cost, by many orders of magnitude) part of "political"...


But yeah, getting back off the tangent, all I meant is that a politicized historical event's significance is sadly more about how wildly it got spun by political opportunists vs. the actual human costs.


----------



## bostjan

Adieu said:


> And political.
> 
> Remember the Oklahoma City Bombing? NOT REALLY, NOT LIKE THIS YOU DON'T.
> 
> Lunatics blew building up, people died, it was sad but life went on. Politicians didn't pimp it to rally hate and fury for their pet cause. No crusade happened so you're not ready to climb through my phone screen and punch my lights out over it.



It's a deep topic, but there was a lot about the OK City bombing that is dripping with conspiracy fodder. There are still some militia folks who are riled up about it for sure.


----------



## USMarine75

Adieu said:


> Oh go blow up Saudi Arabia already... at least they had SOMETHING to do with your dear 9-11
> 
> Wait no that won't work, the Saudis are your leadership's best bros... unlike the places y'all actually bombed and invaded, which were just pet projects of your fave leaders.
> 
> 
> ....do you even realize that 9-11 was Bush's happiest or second happiest day in his whole life???? It was a damn godsend --- an excuse that let him do the stuff his daddy ways wanted to do in the Middle East AND a free re-election ticket.
> 
> 
> Sheesh. You guys ate that shit right up. The ONLY reason your country got whipped into a frenzy of nationalism and hate was because opportunist politicians wanted to push through foreign wars and undemocratic laws like the Patriot Act.... NOT A ONE OF EM CARED A LICK ABOUT THE PEOPLE OF NEW YORK.
> 
> They were just damn thankful for the opportunity. And the ONLY reason you give it much thought and have a huge emotional response to it still (vs something that makes you go "oh yeah, I remember hearing about that back in the day" like Oklahoma City) is because they damn well made GOOD rabble rousing use of it.
> 
> 
> Same deal today with Covid. Trump is wondering how to exploit the situation...



I bet in high school people would describe you as kept to himself, smelled bad, and you were voted the most likely to wear a trench-coat to school? 

You take complex political events and boil them down to something that belongs in your anarchist manifesto you've been writing in your Montana cabin.



TedEH said:


> I hate to say it, but you're sort of illustrating the point he was trying to make. The historical significance of that event is almost entirely the cultural and emotional impact it had.



This has nothing to do with his opinion. This is purely about a) how he talks to people and b) how he values human lives.

He's an oxygen thief.



Adieu said:


> And political.
> 
> Remember the Oklahoma City Bombing? NOT REALLY, NOT LIKE THIS YOU DON'T.
> 
> Lunatics blew building up, people died, it was sad but life went on. Politicians didn't pimp it to rally hate and fury for their pet cause. No crusade happened so you're not ready to climb through my phone screen and punch my lights out over it.



Sure do remember it. As does everyone I know. It was one of the darkest days in America. But it's a terrible argument. One was domestic terrorism, where a domestic anarchist (and a co-conspirator) chose to retaliate for what they thought was federal overreach at Waco and Ruby Ridge by murdering 150+ people of which 20 were children. More children died at Sandy Hook (which I know you think is a False Flag op) and more adults died during the Las Vegas shooting.

However, the other was an attack upon my country that murdered 3000 people... the most in any attack directly on the US. Oklahoma City didn't register worldwide, meanwhile 9/11 was condemned ubiquitously worldwide.

It's the worst eternal terrorist attack in modern history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_terrorist_incidents
(the Tokyo subway attacks are similar, but domestic terrorism)

tl;dr All terrorist attacks are heinous. You're a shit-heel for cavalierly bandying about the numbers and the complexities.


----------



## TedEH

USMarine75 said:


> an attack upon my country


Again, you're still just illustrating the point. Huge numbers of people die regularly, but very few instances garner such an emotional response. Because those other cases were attacks on people, but THIS was an attack on AMERICA ITSELF.


----------



## Necris

Adieu said:


> Same deal today with Covid. Trump is wondering how to exploit the situation...


I'm pretty sure he's not wondering; or if he was at one point now seems to have a pretty good idea. He used the 2.5 million deaths projection for taking no action as a way to reframe his actual response as adequate almost immediately and downplay whatever the deathtoll ends up being.
2 days ago he was floating the idea that for certain states to get the coronavirus relief aid if they request it they'll have to end their sanctuary policies for illegal immigrants, so he already sees the economic damage caused by the coronavirus an opportunity to achieve certain political ends and I'm sure that plenty of his supporters won't see that as anything but a positive as long as it isn't their state.


----------



## USMarine75

TedEH said:


> Again, you're still just illustrating the point. Huge numbers of people die regularly, but very few instances garner such an emotional response. Because those other cases were attacks on people, but THIS was an attack on AMERICA ITSELF.



No, I'm not. Not even a little bit.

"attack upon my country" - You turned that into a jingoistic 'merca for your own purposes. I stated it as a fact. The country where I was born. 

You also are failing to acknowledge the truth of my statement. The world was initially disgusted by the attacks, including the majority of the ME. When AQ attacked the two US Embassies in Africa, it was also disavowed by the majority of the world. Fact, many senior members of AQ quit after those bombings, because they signed on for Mujahideen and Defensive Jihad, not to murder innocents (more locals died in Nairobi than people at the US Embassy). Playing devil's advocate, one can certainly understand their initial motivations, but also understand their disgust in how it played out.

But again, my point, which you avoided or don't understand, is that 9/11 was decried worldwide, whereas the Oklahoma City bombing was just one more internal case of domestic terrorism.


----------



## c7spheres

Just stopped in to see what's going on in here since I bailed when this thread first began. Yep, 111 pages in and nothing new. Time to go : )


----------



## USMarine75

c7spheres said:


> Just stopped in to see what's going on in here since I bailed when this thread first began. Yep, 111 pages in and nothing new. Time to go : )



Yup... I'm out too.  You can't argue with dumb trolls.

Oh well, @Adieu will likely pull a @Cynicanal and declare himself the winner, so congratulations in advance. "Dude, remember that time I totally tried to act like an internet tough-guy and shouted at the clouds, and the other guy laughed at me and walked away? Totally pwned him"

I'm also going to use @TedEH tactic from now on it's actually genius:
Someone: "Dude, you should buy a Fender they're 25.5" scale which I prefer."
Me: "That's cool, but I prefer 24.75" scale."
@TedEH: "You're kind of making his point, bro."​


tl;dr guitars


----------



## Randy

Here's an idea. Lets stop cocking up the COVID thread with shit that happened 20 years ago.


----------



## bostjan

Any word on that NIH report that was supposed to come out to show how Remdesivir actually works?

Anyone in Europe aware of what the opinion there is on the drug?


----------



## USMarine75

https://www.economist.com/briefing/...tm_term=2020-04-30&utm_content=article-link-1


----------



## jaxadam

Randy said:


> Here's an idea. Lets stop cocking up the COVID thread with shit that happened 20 years ago.



Hey man, can you point me to the page that shows the list of members that get a free pass for calling people fucking assholes or pieces of shit? I just wanted to see who all was on there.


----------



## Ralyks

c7spheres said:


> Just stopped in to see what's going on in here since I bailed when this thread first began. Yep, 111 pages in and nothing new. Time to go : )



I had no idea we'd get to 112 pages when I started this thread ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


----------



## Randy

jaxadam said:


> Hey man, can you point me to the page that shows the list of members that get a free pass for calling people fucking assholes or pieces of shit? I just wanted to see who all was on there.



Whenever the person on the receiving end is an asshole or a piece of shit, typically.


----------



## TedEH

Ralyks said:


> I had no idea we'd get to 112 pages when I started this thread ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


I had no idea when this started is basically this whole situation in a nutshell. Giant thread is appropriate for giant subject.


----------



## spudmunkey

TedEH said:


> I had no idea when this started is basically this whole situation in a nutshell.


----------



## SpaceDock

It’s been seven weeks now since I started working from home. We’ve all learned to move on and accept this as the new normal. While I am extremely grateful to be working from home and can fully function, my wife has to work in the factory during the day. There have been infected people there but everyone wears face masks now to assume they will not get sick. Working is the better option really. I worry because I don’t know how long so many can go without income and there are only two ways forward as I see it. We can go back to open economy and embrace the death or we hunker down waiting for science to rescue us. Right now I hear the 8 o clock wailing in the distance. This is fucked and I don’t see an end anytime soon.


----------



## Randy

SpaceDock said:


> It’s been seven weeks now since I started working from home. We’ve all learned to move on and accept this as the new normal. While I am extremely grateful to be working from home and can fully function, my wife has to work in the factory during the day. There have been infected people there but everyone wears face masks now to assume they will not get sick. Working is the better option really. I worry because I don’t know how long so many can go without income and there are only two ways forward as I see it. We can go back to open economy and embrace the death or we hunker down waiting for science to rescue us. Right now I hear the 8 o clock wailing in the distance. This is fucked and I don’t see an end anytime soon.



Oh yeah, as I'm writing this, I have had three SBA loans denied, I've been fighting with unemployment for over a month and my stimulus check is still in limbo. The last time I worked was March 16th, but most of my advertisers were closed a week or two before that, so I have not been paid $1 since the end of February.

I'm blessed to have support of family and to not have kids or a mortgage to worry about, but this is absolutely miserable. I have ~$500 to my name, and $10,000 of debt that's not going anywhere. I expected to catch a break somewhere along the way but nope, fighting and scraping and the bank account still draws ever lower as the bills keep coming.

As a man, it's demeaning. Feeling like you're begging, and the government (that's supposed to be your safety net) treating you like you're a panhandler and either ignoring you or actively pushing you away. Likewise, working and not getting paid or not working and feeling like you're a bum sitting at home in your underwear while your girlfriend pays the bills. It's fucking horrible. Can't wait for something to give, either some much needed help or a chance to work my own way out of it.


----------



## Vyn

Randy said:


> Oh yeah, as I'm writing this, I have had three SBA loans denied, I've been fighting with unemployment for over a month and my stimulus check is still in limbo. The last time I worked was March 16th, but most of my advertisers were closed a week or two before that, so I have not been paid $1 since the end of February.
> 
> I'm blessed to have support of family and to not have kids or a mortgage to worry about, but this is absolutely miserable. I have ~$500 to my name, and $10,000 of debt that's not going anywhere. I expected to catch a break somewhere along the way but nope, fighting and scraping and the bank account still draws ever lower as the bills keep coming.
> 
> As a man, it's demeaning. Feeling like you're begging, and the government (that's supposed to be your safety net) treating you like you're a panhandler and either ignoring you or actively pushing you away. Likewise, working and not getting paid or not working and feeling like you're a bum sitting at home in your underwear while your girlfriend pays the bills. It's fucking horrible. Can't wait for something to give, either some much needed help or a chance to work my own way out of it.



Jesus Christ. Hope things get better for you man and soon 

In Australia our incompetent ex-marketing wanker PM and his government clowns (seriously, it's taken a full on global fucking crisis to get them to actually be useful) have somehow managed to contain things to the point where we have one state free of COVID completely, however borders are going to be locked down for a while still. Where I live (Tasmania) will probably be the last to open, although our economy is fucked as we rely HEAVILY on international students and tourism to prop it up (Internationally, Australia will probably be closed off for the rest of this year probably). Tasmania alone is looking to hit 20%-25% unemployment (As an economist @Drew you'd find that figure the stuff nightmares are made from!).

My girlfriend and I have both kept our jobs thankfully (I'm tied up in critical energy infrastructure so I wasn't under threat however I thought she might be as an engineering consultant) and have been working from home since March. I'm still going into the office some days to service pieces of equipment, it's a fucking ghost town. Most people have complied really well with the social distancing measures and staying at home. There's only been a handful of people who have been fined for holding illegal gatherings so far.

Still struggling to comprehend how the US screwed the pooch on this one so badly. I understand the healthcare system is shit and you have a reality TV meme corpse for a President however surely there's layers of competent people below that who would have been able to put in the work?


----------



## High Plains Drifter

SpaceDock said:


> It’s been seven weeks now since I started working from home. We’ve all learned to move on and accept this as the new normal. While I am extremely grateful to be working from home and can fully function, my wife has to work in the factory during the day. There have been infected people there but everyone wears face masks now to assume they will not get sick. Working is the better option really. I worry because I don’t know how long so many can go without income and there are only two ways forward as I see it. We can go back to open economy and embrace the death or we hunker down waiting for science to rescue us. Right now I hear the 8 o clock wailing in the distance. This is fucked and I don’t see an end anytime soon.



This is similar to our situation. My wife was on leave for 8 weeks. Three weeks into it we made the decision for her to go back. I wish we hadn't but her anxiety was under control and she and I were both increasingly concerned that the longer she was gone, the more expendable her position might become... or that they could replace her altogether. Plus... having no income, yet continuing to have bills piling up was getting worrisome. 

We thought that things would be "better" by now but when she came home tonight she told me that they're not taking temperatures ( as supposedly required) and that they've had multiple employees that have tested positive over the last few weeks. She also says that only about half their customers are wearing masks when inside the building ( another supposed requirement... signs posted at the doors but some people are ignoring them... and company is doing noting to restrict or refuse entry ). Not sure if this comes down to this being the responsibility of the company or of law enforcement... and maybe there's just no solid law ( and/ or penalty) in place although I'd think that it would be under the same blanket as "compromising public safety" but I have no idea.

We also have mixed emotions that although we're glad her hours have been temporarily reduced from 40+ hrs down to 24 (good that she's not being exposed as much), we still aren't able to pay the bills due to the reduced pay. We have a small amount in savings but that's our safety net that we've spent years building. The thought of chipping away at that savings is sad and concerning. So idk... seems that no matter which direction we try to go there's just nothing comforting about the decisions we're being forced to make. And on Monday next week my LOA will be up and I'll be forced to either go back to work or put in my 2 wks notice. I just dunno.


----------



## Millul

I'd say, go to work with all the possible precautions in place.
We've been in lockdown for 8 weeks now, and I'll be actually going back to the office on monday - temp check at the gate, mandatory mask for the whole day, 3 meters between each working station in the office, with preassigned location for everyone, about 30% of the people is let back in and on weekly rotation.


----------



## spudmunkey

A pleasant way to spend 20 mins, and maybe learn something helpful. For example, I didn't realize there weren't studies about temp and cooking time for food for safety beyond just the one recommendation. And also, about why there's conflicting reporting about masks, and what the data actual means.

Most of this is very "no duh" for most of us, but I found this to be a great video to share with a couple of my older relatives on facebook. One aunt even wrote me separately to thank me for sharing it, and said she learned a lot and felt better about her own safety.


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> Whenever the person on the receiving end is an asshole or a piece of shit, typically.


Even then, I've done a LOT of biting my tongue in the interest of at least trying to keep this civil. 



bostjan said:


> Any word on that NIH report that was supposed to come out to show how Remdesivir actually works?
> 
> Anyone in Europe aware of what the opinion there is on the drug?


Literally on a call where this is being discussed. Short version - it does seem effective, though at the margins - average hospitalization time from 14 to 11 days. The more important news though is it does seem to make a more significant difference on the number of patients who end up on ventilators, and improves the mortality rate somewhat too. Don't have hard stats there. It's not a silver bullet by any means, but it does help somewhat.


----------



## BlackSG91

This Covid-19 pandemic is driving good 'ol Donny Trump crazy. He's been kooked up in the White House for months now. He said he would like to get out of the White House very soon...I think the whole country has been agreeing with that statement ever since he got elected.


;>)/


----------



## GoldDragon

I think its all smoke/mirrors and optimism to keep people civil.  Look at this graph. People have been sheltered at home and the death rate still exceeds 2K/day. Unless the slope descreases, we will have 2k x 365 = 730k people die in the first year. And thats IF the slope does not increase. If we reopen over the next month, it most certainly will rise.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/worldwide-graphs/#countries-deaths

What is happening is that everyone was serious about social distancing for the first month, but now alot of people are clamoring to reopen businesses. So the desire/need to work and support ourselves as a nation will quickly overwhelm any sentiment to save lives.

I think what they haven't told us is that eventually it will be much worse than predictions. We will eventually reach "herd immunity" after 1M people have died. There may be a vaccine, probably not. There will probably be drugs to decrease the mortality rate. But I think we will be living with this for hundreds of years, just like the flu. People with asthma and heart conditions will fall and eventually be dropped from the gene pool.


----------



## tedtan

Vyn said:


> Still struggling to comprehend how the US screwed the pooch on this one so badly. I understand the healthcare system is shit and you have a reality TV meme corpse for a President however surely there's layers of competent people below that who would have been able to put in the work?



Well, it's supposed to work that way, but Trump has failed to fill almost half of the positions he is supposed to fill and, further, has fired many of those he did manage to fill for not being sycophants. Those fired include include many people who, had they not been fired, would have been in positions to help get on top of this much earlier, but they didn't kiss Trump's ass, so we all suffer.

Then, unable to obtain the necessary supplies from the federal government, the various states purchased masks, testing supplies, etc. on their own. What did Trump do? He ordered the supplies confiscated and held as a part of the federal stock pile (which should be used to help the states, but Trump) further preventing the states from helping their citizens.

It's as if he is intentionally going out of his way to make this situation much worse than it already is.

And yesterday he was on TV stating that he has conclusive information that SARScov2 came from a Chinese lab in Wuhan, but can't share the info with anyone (presumably because it is classified, though he did not state that it was).


----------



## Drew

Drew said:


> Literally on a call where this is being discussed. Short version - it does seem effective, though at the margins - average hospitalization time from 14 to 11 days. The more important news though is it does seem to make a more significant difference on the number of patients who end up on ventilators, and improves the mortality rate somewhat too. Don't have hard stats there. It's not a silver bullet by any means, but it does help somewhat.


Update on this - decrease was actually from 15 to 11 vs the placebo, however the decline in mortality rates was not statistically significant. The main benefit, from a social and not single-patient perspective, is that this would allow us to stretch out hospital capacity further by getting patients out faster. Study of 600 patients, double blind, so it's methodologically sound. 



GoldDragon said:


> I think its all smoke/mirrors and optimism to keep people civil. Look at this graph. People have been sheltered at home and the death rate still exceeds 2K/day. Unless the slope descreases, we will have 2k x 365 = 730k people die in the first year. And thats IF the slope does not increase. If we reopen over the next month, it most certainly will rise.
> 
> https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/worldwide-graphs/#countries-deaths
> 
> What is happening is that everyone was serious about social distancing for the first month, but now alot of people are clamoring to reopen businesses. So the desire/need to work and support ourselves as a nation will quickly overwhelm any sentiment to save lives.
> 
> I think what they haven't told us is that eventually it will be much worse than predictions. We will eventually reach "herd immunity" after 1M people have died. There may be a vaccine, probably not. There will probably be drugs to decrease the mortality rate. But I think we will be living with this for hundreds of years, just like the flu. People with asthma and heart conditions will fall and eventually be dropped from the gene pool.


Three quick comments - 

1) What those charts don't show is the high degree of variation within the United States, and within Europe. New York has shown definite flattening. Massachusetts has show flattening. New Jersey is accelerating just as New York is slowing. In another two weeks Georgia should be a mess. 
2) You're seeing a graph on a linear scale, that starts exponential, then hits a constant slope, and continues at that slope. That actually IS evidence of flattening - it looks a lot more obvious when you look at a chart of new cases a day rather than cumulatibve, where tyhey're growing quickly, then they hit a wall and level off. Social distancing made a huge difference in the rate of spread: 

https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en&mid=/m/09c7w0

3) The real issue is 'reopening businesses" has become a political issue, where Trump and his supporters are pushing for it, because they're scared shitless he'll lose if the economy isn't rebounding by the fall, and they're willing to chance things getting a lot worse, on the off chance that we're wrong and they don't.


----------



## spudmunkey

GoldDragon said:


> 2) You're seeing a graph on a linear scale, that starts exponential, then hits a constant slope, and continues at that slope. That actually IS evidence of flattening - it looks a lot more obvious when you look at a chart of new cases a day rather than cumulatibve, where tyhey're growing quickly, then they hit a wall and level off. Social distancing made a huge difference in the rate of spread:



Sort of. If you also look at total testing numbers, you'll see that we're basically adding about 30K cases each day...but it's basically a flat percentage of the total tests done. Granted, this week, after weeks of about 140K daily tests, we're finally topping 200k tests per day, but our confirmed cases are also growing at seemingly similar rate. So from that perspective, it sounds like confirmed cases ar levelling off because we're bumping into the governor of testing capacity. Like...if you are a bouncer and counting people coming into a building, and your counter only went up to 100 and stops...you can't say you only have 100 people inside unless you stop letting people in. Otherwise, you can only say you have at LEAST 100 people inside.

But at the same time, deaths are also somewhat constant, and one would expect those to climb, also....but have have (relatively) steady:


----------



## GoldDragon

Drew said:


> 2) You're seeing a graph on a linear scale, that starts exponential, then hits a constant slope, and continues at that slope. That actually IS evidence of flattening - it looks a lot more obvious when you look at a chart of new cases a day rather than cumulatibve, where tyhey're growing quickly, then they hit a wall and level off. Social distancing made a huge difference in the rate of spread:


The rate of deaths is constant and that is with everything shut down. Unless the slope of the graph I posted decreases, there will be 2K deaths every day. After a year thats 750k people.

I was hoping they would wait until the slope decreased to reopen. The federal government released guidlines for states reopening which many of them do not seem prepared to do.


----------



## Drew

spudmunkey said:


> Sort of. If you also look at total testing numbers, you'll see that we're basically adding about 30K cases each day...but it's basically a flat percentage of the total tests done. Granted, this week, after weeks of about 140K daily tests, we're finally topping 200k tests per day, but out confirmed cases are also growing at seemingly about the same percentage. So from that perspective, it sounds like confirmed cases levelled off because we're bumping into the governor of testing capacity.


That's absolutely a definite possibility, though we HAVE been increasing testing. 

But, the spread of a disease follows an exponential growth path until it begins to burn out, if left unchecked and untreated. An exponential growth rate forms a straight line on a logarithmic scale. It forms an upwards curve on a linear scale like the one presented here. 

Worth noting too, in response to this: 



GoldDragon said:


> But I think we will be living with this for hundreds of years, just like the flu. People with asthma and heart conditions will fall and eventually be dropped from the gene pool.


Coronavirus will also continue to evole over time, and paradoxicaly this should in the long run cause it to become _less_ dangerous. Think about it liek this - in some ways, evolution is surprisingly "dumb" for something so powerful. It's easy to ascribe intents and motives subconsciously here when talking about a disease, but for COVID-19 and the associated coronavirus strand, evolutionary success isn't measured by how many people it kills. Every death is a burnt-out point, a strain that will have a harder time getting passed on. The strains that are _less_ likely to lay up a patient and cause them to seek medical care, quarantine, etc are the ones that are more likely to spread to another host, so the less fatal strains have an evolutionary edge simply because they're more successful at being transmitted. In the span of a week or two that doesn't matter, over the span of a few seasons, that begins to shift the virus population makeup pretty significantly, and in 10 years, COVID-19 could be about as serious as the common flu - something worth vaccinating for because it's preventable, but something that has evolved to only kill around 0.1% of the people it infects, because a lower mortality rate yields higher transmission rates. 

The real concern of course is that there's also a possibility that highly fatal strains could overtake the less fatal ones if they happen to mutate to become _more_ contagious. It's probably somewhat less likely due to the risk of these strains burning out, but it's absolutely possible.


----------



## GoldDragon

spudmunkey said:


> Sort of. If you also look at total testing numbers, you'll see that we're basically adding about 30K cases each day...but it's basically a flat percentage of the total tests done. Granted, this week, after weeks of about 140K daily tests, we're finally topping 200k tests per day, but our confirmed cases are also growing at seemingly similar rate. So from that perspective, it sounds like confirmed cases ar levelling off because we're bumping into the governor of testing capacity. Like...if you are a bouncer and counting people coming into a building, and your counter only went up to 100 and stops...you can't say you only have 100 people inside unless you stop letting people in. Otherwise, you can only say you have at LEAST 100 people inside.
> 
> But at the same time, deaths are also somewhat constant, and one would expect those to climb, also....but have have (relatively) steady:
> View attachment 80171




The only thing that matters is number of deaths. Those are easier to quantify and they are independent of how much testing is done.

What I see is a constant death rate. The death rate has plateaued at 2K deaths/day. Yes, deaths have gone down in NY, but the country as a whole will need to shelter much longer if we want to reduce the daily death rate. 

The problem is, what everyone knows to be true, is that when/if the economy reopens, if there are traces of CV in the population, there will be another explosion of the virus.

I'm calling it now... 500K-1M usa deaths in the first year.


----------



## Drew

GoldDragon said:


> The rate of deaths is constant and that is with everything shut down. Unless the slope of the graph I posted decreases, there will be 2K deaths every day. After a year thats 750k people.
> 
> I was hoping they would wait until the slope decreased to reopen. The federal government released guidlines for states reopening which many of them do not seem prepared to do.


...but, again, the mortality rate is constant, on a linear scale, while the rate of spread is now constant, on a linear scale. It's no longer growing exponentially. That's the first step to getting the mortality rate to declline.

Also worth considering is someone dying today, on May 1st, was probably exposed anywhere from two to four weeks ago, depending on how long it took them to become symptomatic, and for those symptoms to become severe enough to become life-threatening. April 6th, say, is an _eternity_ ago in the history of this pandemic. Death is a lagging indicator, and we're right around the point where the infection rate stopped exponential growth, given the lag to mortality.

EDIT - don't get me wrong, we're arguing to the same solution - we can't re-open the economy until the infection rate begins dropping, and we have the testing resources to isolate and trace essentially all cases in the country, to stamp this out. I just don't think a million deaths is a sure thing, unless we make some unforced errors here.


----------



## tedtan

Drew said:


> I just don't think a million deaths is a sure thing, unless we make some unforced errors here.



In general I would agree, but Trump is prone to making unforced errors.

I have no doubt that the final body count will be much higher with Trump in charge than with any competent person in charge, but I still would like to think that we won't exceed 120K deaths, even with Trump in office.


----------



## GoldDragon

Drew said:


> ...but, again, the mortality rate is constant, on a linear scale, while the rate of spread is now constant, on a linear scale. It's no longer growing exponentially. That's the first step to getting the mortality rate to declline.
> 
> Also worth considering is someone dying today, on May 1st, was probably exposed anywhere from two to four weeks ago, depending on how long it took them to become symptomatic, and for those symptoms to become severe enough to become life-threatening. April 6th, say, is an _eternity_ ago in the history of this pandemic. Death is a lagging indicator, and we're right around the point where the infection rate stopped exponential growth, given the lag to mortality.
> 
> EDIT - don't get me wrong, we're arguing to the same solution - we can't re-open the economy until the infection rate begins dropping, and we have the testing resources to isolate and trace essentially all cases in the country, to stamp this out. I just don't think a million deaths is a sure thing, unless we make some unforced errors here.



We're not disagreeing. The problem is, even if we are conservative about reopening, and wait until daily deaths falls to (say) half of what it is now, as soon as we reopen, there will be another explosion of cases.

The way I see this playing out... is that we will see a slight decline in death rate by the end of May. There will be a phased reopening, and the death rate will shoot up again, which will force another shutdown or scaling back. However, at that point, people will have acclimated to the new normal and be more willing to take risks, wont take it as seriously, so the death rate through the year will remain in the 1-3K/day range. That will get us to the 500k-1M prediction.

What they will eventually do, probably by next spring, is distribute the quick tests to places of employment and mandate that people need to be tested on a regular basis. If they have the virus, they will be instructed to shelter at home, but they will not take it seriously as the "herd immunity" mantra will take over. (People will say "youre going to get it eventually anyway".) This will also be accompanied by guidelines to wear masks in public places.

Unless they develop a vaccine, this will continue to percolate throughout society. Herd immunity will be reached but with a 1-2% mortality rate, that will be between 3M-6M usa deaths over the next few years. And of course if it mutates, the math could get worse.


----------



## Drew

GoldDragon said:


> We're not disagreeing. The problem is, even if we are conservative about reopening, and wait until daily deaths falls to (say) half of what it is now, as soon as we reopen, there will be another explosion of cases.
> 
> The way I see this playing out... is that we will see a slight decline in death rate by the end of May. There will be a phased reopening, and the death rate will shoot up again, which will force another shutdown or scaling back. However, at that point, people will have acclimated to the new normal and be more willing to take risks, wont take it as seriously, so the death rate through the year will remain in the 1-3K/day range. That will get us to the 500k-1M prediction.
> 
> What they will eventually do, probably by next spring, is distribute the quick tests to places of employment and mandate that people need to be tested on a regular basis. If they have the virus, they will be instructed to shelter at home, but they will not take it seriously as the "herd immunity" mantra will take over. (People will say "youre going to get it eventually anyway".) This will also be accompanied by guidelines to wear masks in public places.
> 
> Unless they develop a vaccine, this will continue to percolate throughout society. Herd immunity will be reached but with a 1-2% mortality rate, that will be between 3M-6M usa deaths over the next few years. And of course if it mutates, the math could get worse.



Where I disagree with you is mostly in cold cynicism. 

There;s a WIDE range to how seriously this is being taken fro state to state in this country. MAssachusetts, where I live, just introduced a state-wide face mask ordinance effective May 6th (the city I'm in had one go in effect Wednesday) when out in public. Georgia, meanwhile, just reopened, and Florida has loosened up pretty significantly. 

I think before most states loosen guidance, one or two republican-controlled states with Trump-aligned governors will reopen, have a couple weeks go by, and have a SURGE of new cases and mortalities, absolutely slamming their healthcare systems. I think at that point the rest of the country will come to their senses, and we'll be able to avoid having a _broad_ phased opening and flare-up, because we'll have a _localized_ one. 

Honestly, I think we as a society are too stupid and too distrustful of science, especially on the right, to not learn that lesson the hard way.


----------



## jaxadam

Drew said:


> and Florida has loosened up pretty significantly.



This is why. I know a lot of people in here will not like the facts presented by these graphs and charts. 

Start at 6:54.


----------



## GoldDragon

Drew said:


> Where I disagree with you is mostly in cold cynicism.
> 
> There;s a WIDE range to how seriously this is being taken fro state to state in this country. MAssachusetts, where I live, just introduced a state-wide face mask ordinance effective May 6th (the city I'm in had one go in effect Wednesday) when out in public. Georgia, meanwhile, just reopened, and Florida has loosened up pretty significantly.
> 
> I think before most states loosen guidance, one or two republican-controlled states with Trump-aligned governors will reopen, have a couple weeks go by, and have a SURGE of new cases and mortalities, absolutely slamming their healthcare systems. I think at that point the rest of the country will come to their senses, and we'll be able to avoid having a _broad_ phased opening and flare-up, because we'll have a _localized_ one.
> 
> Honestly, I think we as a society are too stupid and too distrustful of science, especially on the right, to not learn that lesson the hard way.




I'm not trying to be intentionally cynical, my question is this: If we haven't seen the death rate decline significantly, and we reopen, how do we have any expectation of having only 100K deaths?

Everything seems to point to 2k x 365 deaths over the first year.

Also, this is not a partisan issue. In liberal NYC, Pelosi was caught last February at chinese new years festival telling everyone to come out. De Blasio made similar statements about supporting the economy and going out to your favorite bar. (Much in the same way Italy encouraged people to "hug a Chinese" to overcome predjudice.. we saw what happened there.)

Red states have been less hard hit, mostly because of lower population densities. It might make sense for Georgia to open early, if they do not consider the impact on neighboring states. Mistakes are being made on both sides.

The biggest mistakes were made by China. They ejected foreign journalists, closed travel to/from wuhan, but did not stop international flights from leaving to spread this to the rest of the world.


----------



## DiezelMonster

Earlier in this thread I spoke about who has been hearing about conspiracy theories, and over the past week I've heard of some real out there insane ones.

I've had some people tell me they think this will eventually lead to a war with China. How in the world would that make sense? 

They literally have been saying if Kim Jong Un is dead, although he made a *picture less appearance today* that if he in fact is dead, the USA would invade North Korea? and then we would be at war with China? What the hell are these people on and where do you get it?!??! 

Just a crazy bit of info I thought I'd throw out there, and these are Canadian's as well! Can't imagine what folk in the bible belt think!

Good luck everyone and be safe!


----------



## bostjan

Ideally, I would say that the best situation would be everyone back at work with everyone testing regularly, but there aren't enough tests or even reliable tests, it seems, so, with the current situation, just be very careful.

The disease is not a death sentence for everyone, so:

1. Treat everything you touch as if it were covered in poop. It's gross to think about, but it could stop you from touching things you don't really need to touch in the first place, and could get you using PPE and handwashing more vigilantly.
2. Treat everyone as if they might have the virus.
3. Maybe this fits also under #1, but don't touch your face. If coworker Joe coughed into his hand, then touched the hot water tap to wash his hands, then you wash your hands later and turn off that hot water tap, then touch your face later still, it's kind of like coworker Joe just coughed directly in your face. If you use a paper towel to shut off the water, but Joe borrowed your stapler without asking, and you staple something, then touch your face, the same applies. Actually, there are a thousand scenarios where the same could apply, so just don't touch your face or touch anything that touches your face.

I think you could be careful as possible and there's still a chance of getting sick. You could lock yourself in a hyperbaric bubble, and maybe a tiny fly comes in through the air outlet and bites you and you get the virus. On the flip side of that, you might be intentionally reckless and get the virus and be asymptomatic. It's all about finding the appropriate balance between risk and reward. Or who knows, we might find a miracle cure for the virus, eradicate it in two weeks, and then get struck by a colossal gamma burst from deep space and all burn to ash anyway. You can't get to dark about the worst possibilities and you can't be too careless either.

If you need money for food, shelter, clothes, water, new guitars, heat, electricity, and other absolute necessities, then go back to work if you can, just be appropriately cautious, and you'll probably be okay.

Shutting down businesses and everything else was done to buy us time. I've been saying all along that health has to be #1 priority over economic gain, but, at this point, with government aid not coming or whatever, and also the government stimeying actual research that needs to be done in order to waste time looking into Trump's pet drugs that don't work, I think we are probably just on our own, sadly.

Masks probably are marginally effective. Wear a mask anyway. 5% effective is better than 0% effective, I guess.
Social distancing only works if everyone does it. If someone gets up in your face, politely remind them about social distancing. Most people, even if they are careless or dumb, will still back off at that point. If they continue to get in your face, try to avoid punching them in the face, since you could get someone else's blood or saliva or snot on you.



Drew said:


> Even then, I've done a LOT of biting my tongue in the interest of at least trying to keep this civil.
> 
> 
> Literally on a call where this is being discussed. Short version - it does seem effective, though at the margins - average hospitalization time from 14 to 11 days. The more important news though is it does seem to make a more significant difference on the number of patients who end up on ventilators, and improves the mortality rate somewhat too. Don't have hard stats there. It's not a silver bullet by any means, but it does help somewhat.



Based off of Fauci's comments or some other source of information?

----------------

Trump's handling of this has been objectively bad. He very publicly downplayed the virus. He shifted blame onto other people who had nothing at all do with anything remotely connected to what he's blaming them for. He's changed course so many times that very few people can keep track of his position on anything, even within his own administration. He's fired key people over differences of opinion that ended up being proven right either after or before he fired them. And he's pushed some very dangerous medical treatments that could have and actually did kill people. I'm sorry to be blunt, but anyone supporting his handling of the pandemic is being purposefully obtuse. Period.



GoldDragon said:


> I'm not trying to be intentionally cynical, my question is this: If we haven't seen the death rate decline significantly, and we reopen, how do we have any expectation of having only 100K deaths?
> 
> Everything seems to point to 2k x 365 deaths over the first year.
> 
> Also, this is not a partisan issue. In liberal NYC, Pelosi was caught last February at chinese new years festival telling everyone to come out. De Blasio made similar statements about supporting the economy and going out to your favorite bar. (Much in the same way Italy encouraged people to "hug a Chinese" to overcome predjudice.. we saw what happened there.)
> 
> Red states have been less hard hit, mostly because of lower population densities. It might make sense for Georgia to open early, if they do not consider the impact on neighboring states. Mistakes are being made on both sides.
> 
> The biggest mistakes were made by China. They ejected foreign journalists, closed travel to/from wuhan, but did not stop international flights from leaving to spread this to the rest of the world.



2k/deaths per day a near peak =/= 2k deaths per year all year. Disease spread never goes at a constant slope over time. It goes like a bell curve or a bell curve with some modifying factors. But yeah, that data is all with social distancing, so, as soon as people go back out there, the spread increases in rate, assuming that everyone isn't already developing immunity.


----------



## GoldDragon

bostjan said:


> 2k/deaths per day a near peak =/= 2k deaths per year all year. Disease spread never goes at a constant slope over time. It goes like a bell curve or a bell curve with some modifying factors. But yeah, that data is all with social distancing, so, as soon as people go back out there, the spread increases in rate, assuming that everyone isn't already developing immunity.



Yes, it would normally be a bell curve. The only reason it hasn't been, is because of closing down the economy.

As soon as the economy opens it will again take the bell curve shape. (The downward slope of the bell will be when 2/3rds have already had it and we have herd immunity.)

How flat the curve will be depends on how fast we open up.

This is like a forest fire in a drought. There are millions of acres of dry timber. Firefighters are battling back the blaze, but if they stop it will take the rest of the forest.

So far, only .333% of US population has been exposed. One third of a percent. There is still lots of dry forest to fuel the fire.


----------



## Chokey Chicken

.333% has been proven to have had it. I, as well as basically my entire family, very likely had it but we were never tested because it was before it was on our country's radar. Tons of people have had it and never got tested/factored in. (One example; William Ossman of youtube who's wife had it but they told him not to waste tests and assume he just had it.)

More people than what has been reported have had it and lived. Others have probably died. Regardless, of course, the first month or two after tests started getting administered the rates jumped crazily. If you have zero tests one day then suddenly have only 1k tests a day, of course the confirmed infection rate will jump from 0 to 100.


----------



## GoldDragon

Only 1m tested ppl have had it. If we assume 3x as many ppl actually had it, that is 3M ppl, still less that 1%.

If we assume 15M ppl (15 times!) had it, that is only 5%. 

This thing is just getting started.


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> This is why. I know a lot of people in here will not like the facts presented by these graphs and charts.
> 
> Start at 6:54.




His argument is "They said Florida would be the next New York" / "They said Florida will be the next Italy". That's strawman'ing. Would a generally rural state ever have an explosion like the densest city in the entire country? Would a rural spread-out American city with advance notice ever be as bad as a reasonably dense European city with no heads-up and large family units?

I'm surprised it's not worse in Florida given Florida people, but you can't base your policy by how wrong a few cherry-picked worst-case quotations are. The projection stats are not based around worst-case craziness like every city in the US being like NYC. However, if Florida can ease isolation while staying within the hospital resources, sounds good.

New case positivity is a terrible measure though to focus on though, given that they're knowingly increasing tests. That's a very massage-able statistic.


----------



## possumkiller

narad said:


> His argument is "They said Florida would be the next New York" / "They said Florida will be the next Italy". That's strawman'ing. Would a generally rural state ever have an explosion like the densest city in the entire country? Would a rural spread-out American city with advance notice ever be as bad as a reasonably dense European city with no heads-up and large family units?
> 
> I'm surprised it's not worse in Florida given Florida people, but you can't base your policy by how wrong a few cherry-picked worst-case quotations are. The projection stats are not based around worst-case craziness like every city in the US being like NYC. However, if Florida can ease isolation while staying within the hospital resources, sounds good.
> 
> New case positivity is a terrible measure though to focus on though, given that they're knowingly increasing tests. That's a very massage-able statistic.


https://imgur.com/gallery/u8LBNTV


----------



## SD83

Lot of stuff I'd like to comment on...
As for people dying, I know the situation here has never been as bad as it has been for example in New York or Italy, mainly in terms of deaths, and the lockdown has been less severe. Now it seems like, China aside, Germany is one of the first big countries to start coming out of lockdown, and so far, it seems to be going rather well.
The number of newly infected has been dropping, on average, since late march. On the 20th last month, most stores and such were allowed to re-open , with some restrictions regarding the number of people allowed in, they have to supply disinfectant etc. On the 27th, face masks became mandatory in all stores and on public transport, and schools started to slowly re-open. And... nothing happened. As of now, the numbers are still going down, and I really hope this trend continues. More businesses will be allowed to re-open on monday. 
Obviously, two weeks are not a long time by any means, but people who got infected last monday should have been showing symptoms early this week, so I guess if the numbers go up again, we should see that by next week. 
Granted, at least the people I know take the advice mostly serious, washing your hands, stay away from each other... in february, it felt like half the people I know were sick, since the lockdown started... none. Literally no one. 

I like the "treat everything you touch as if it were covered in poop" comparison, but working at a night club occasionally and with transfering cars all across the country being the main job, I luckily kinda adopted to that years ago. It is disgusting how some people treat themselves, and even if you don't see or smell it at first, a disturbing number of hands definitly have some degree of poop on them. Some people just don't wash themselves, and they keep touching everything.


----------



## possumkiller

narad said:


> His argument is "They said Florida would be the next New York" / "They said Florida will be the next Italy". That's strawman'ing. Would a generally rural state ever have an explosion like the densest city in the entire country? Would a rural spread-out American city with advance notice ever be as bad as a reasonably dense European city with no heads-up and large family units?
> 
> I'm surprised it's not worse in Florida given Florida people, but you can't base your policy by how wrong a few cherry-picked worst-case quotations are. The projection stats are not based around worst-case craziness like every city in the US being like NYC. However, if Florida can ease isolation while staying within the hospital resources, sounds good.
> 
> New case positivity is a terrible measure though to focus on though, given that they're knowingly increasing tests. That's a very massage-able statistic.


----------



## narad

possumkiller said:


> View attachment 80230



I here I was thinking it was God's toilet.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

narad said:


> I here I was thinking it was God's toilet.


an unflushed toilet full of decomposing shit and fetid water at that.


----------



## Ralyks

https://apple.news/AflrQc6PeSvqfNPT5Y9BX5A

Speaking of toilets, I'm just going to leave this here for the hell of it. It's relevant to the topic and it involves poop. Seriously.


----------



## BlackSG91

Well well...it looks like the CDC website has changed the number of Covid-19 deaths from 62,000 down to 37,308 deaths. I wonder how that all of a sudden changed? I smell a Sharpie!

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm








;>)/


----------



## possumkiller

BlackSG91 said:


> Well well...it looks like the CDC website has changed the number of Covid-19 deaths from 62,000 down to 37,308 deaths. I wonder how that all of a sudden changed? I smell a Sharpie!
> 
> https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ;>)/


Does this mean the zombie apocalypse is upon us, or has America become communist China?


----------



## jaxadam

BlackSG91 said:


> Well well...it looks like the CDC website has changed the number of Covid-19 deaths from 62,000 down to 37,308 deaths. I wonder how that all of a sudden changed? I smell a Sharpie!
> 
> https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ;>)/



What?!? Only 37k? This is not, and never was, and I repeat, just the flu. It was only a little more than half!


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> What?!? Only 37k? This is not, and never was, and I repeat, just the flu. It was only a little more than half!



Don't worry. It becomes worse when you consider how math works.


----------



## possumkiller




----------



## possumkiller

My home became famous for five minutes. This was on TV here in Poland a few minutes ago.


----------



## jaxadam

narad said:


> Don't worry. It becomes worse when you consider how math works.



Man, I’m so sorry it upsets you that facts, charts, and graphs are coming out depicting the situation as much better than presumed.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Imagine thinking you’re smart, but not knowing the difference between _provisional_ counts and _total_ counts. 

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html


----------



## BlackSG91

I think that the Covid-19 pandemic will just fizzle out and blow away soon...badabing badaboom!







;>)/


----------



## spudmunkey

jaxadam said:


> Man, I’m so sorry it upsets you that facts, charts, and graphs are coming out depicting the situation as much better than presumed.



The difference is that the 37k count comes from a different set of data, that has a built-in delay of 1-2 weeks. It's more accurate in the end, but it's not reflective of "today" because there's a long process to go from the "as of today" count, to that other provisional count.


----------



## spudmunkey

possumkiller said:


> View attachment 80240


Goddamnit...

*know (not "no")
*your (not "you're")
*rights (not "right's")

That has to be a photoshop, right?


----------



## jaxadam

spudmunkey said:


> The difference is that the 37k count comes from a different set of data, that has a built-in delay of 1-2 weeks. It's more accurate in the end, but it's not reflective of "today" because there's a long process to go from the "as of today" count, to that other provisional count.



Thank you so much for clearing that up in a polite, respectful manner. I thought MaxOfGoogle was going to, but he just likes to make fun of and call people names.


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> Man, I’m so sorry it upsets you that facts, charts, and graphs are coming out depicting the situation as much better than presumed.



I wish it was that way, but your comparisons are faulty. Let's ignore that you were using the incorrect number of US covid death, as pointed out above. You don't see it fundamentally flawed to draw a comparison between annual flu deaths to what is essentially the 3-month covid death count? Gotta keep those denominators even.

I mean... If you eat 64/12 oranges and I eat 62/3 oranges, have we eaten a similar amount of oranges?


----------



## jaxadam

narad said:


> I wish it was that way, but your comparisons are faulty. Let's ignore that you were using the incorrect number of US covid death, as pointed out above. You don't see it fundamentally flawed to draw a comparison between annual flu deaths to what is essentially the 3-month covid death count? Gotta keep those denominators even.



I was referring to the governor’s presentation of the State of Florida being in much better shape than originally anticipated.


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> I was referring to the governor’s presentation of the State of Florida being in much better shape than originally anticipated.



I was referring to this:



jaxadam said:


> What?!? Only 37k? This is not, and never was, and I repeat, just the flu. It was only a little more than half!


----------



## MaxOfMetal

jaxadam said:


> Thank you so much for clearing that up in a polite, respectful manner. I thought MaxOfGoogle was going to, but he just likes to make fun of and call people names.


----------



## jaxadam

narad said:


> I mean... If you eat 64/12 oranges and I eat 62/3 oranges, have we eaten a similar amount of oranges?



Now you’re not even talking math, you’re talking socket wrench sizes.


----------



## spudmunkey

jaxadam said:


> Now you’re not even talking math, you’re talking *american *socket wrench sizes.


----------



## jaxadam

:fist bump:


----------



## gunch

Adieu said:


> And political.
> 
> Remember the Oklahoma City Bombing? NOT REALLY, NOT LIKE THIS YOU DON'T.
> 
> Lunatics blew building up, people died, it was sad but life went on. Politicians didn't pimp it to rally hate and fury for their pet cause. No crusade happened so you're not ready to climb through my phone screen and punch my lights out over it.


 
Because a white dude did it


----------



## GoldDragon

spudmunkey said:


> Goddamnit...
> 
> *know (not "no")
> *your (not "you're")
> *rights (not "right's")
> 
> That has to be a photoshop, right?



It has to be self deprecation. Pretending to be stupid to fit the stereotype people throw at you. And thus being clever. And disproving the stupidity.


----------



## Ralyks

https://apple.news/AXh55StQETvK3xNUVr8X-Ug

So Trump dumped the HHS Watchdog that turned in a report showing "severe shortages" of testing and PPE at hospitals. Talk about being fucking petty.


----------



## spudmunkey

GoldDragon said:


> It has to be self deprecation. Pretending to be stupid to fit the stereotype people throw at you. And thus being clever. And disproving the stupidity.



Poe's law, I guess.


----------



## GoldDragon

spudmunkey said:


> Poe's law, I guess.


sorta.


----------



## Randy

jaxadam said:


> This is why. I know a lot of people in here will not like the facts presented by these graphs and charts.
> 
> Start at 6:54.




Finally got a chance to watch this. I don't like gloom and doom either, and any bit of good news that involves less sick or dead people is welcome news. 

That said, I think it's always valuable to take 'worst case' scenario into account. Trump minimized COVID by saying it wasn't even going to reach US or that it was just 'one case' so on. Most of the gloomy outlook on Florida was because Desantis was an early skeptic of COVID, along with the older population there. I think the issue is less with not locking the whole economy down perpetually, and more with minimizing the seriousness of the virus that potentially causes people to be less aware and less cautious in their individual behaviors.

You look at that story today about the town in Oklahoma, where they instituted wearing masks as a requirement in stores etc. and then the locals were threatening cashiers for mentioning it, so they reversed the rule. Nobody's even saying you can't go to the store (in OK anyway), they're not saying you can't buy your Cheerios or whatever. It's literally a rule to help keep you and the workers there's safe, it's barely an inconvenience but it's become this "us and them" thing, where people endanger themselves and others just to prove a point.

My concern about the Florida thing is that we've seen the virus and how it behaves enough to know it's a real thing, that's wildly contagious and it's effects can be severe if not deadly. Inevitably it WILL be a 1/5 or 1/4 of the population thing at least before a vaccine is an option. I'm worried states 'reopening' that were slow or minimal initial effect becoming places where it slow simmers while hot spots cool down, and it's reintroduced via interstate travel, to where it just becomes revolving infections.

The other concern is this overall "invincibility" illusion where a state like FL makes minimal effort to mitigate the virus and has minimal initial infections (likely exclusively dependent on FL specific factors and timing), and that's a "see nothing happened to me" thing both individually and on a state level, and you get more states antsy to open and more people who don't take of seriously, unnecessarily spawning more infections and more spread. Florida is unique place, geographically, demographically and environmentally. That's assuming the testing and death/hospitalization numbers are at all legitimate. And assuming they are, good for them but that still those people, in that state at this time.

The fact the reopenings are rolling out as we're have constant record high infection and death numbers tells me there's definitely a "hey it worked for them" factor. I saw Dallas County in TX reopened their malls and movie theaters this weekend, one day removed from their most single day fatalities. So an acceptable answer is "only 500 people died when you though it was going to be 2000! Let's all spit in eachothers mouths to pwn libz"


----------



## GoldDragon

Randy said:


> Finally got a chance to watch this. I don't like gloom and doom either, and any bit of good news that involves less sick or dead people is welcome news.
> 
> That said, I think it's always valuable to take 'worst case' scenario into account. Trump minimized COVID by saying it wasn't even going to reach US or that it was just 'one case' so on. Most of the gloomy outlook on Florida was because Desantis was an early skeptic of COVID, along with the older population there. I think the issue is less with not locking the whole economy down perpetually, and more with minimizing the seriousness of the virus that potentially causes people to be less aware and less cautious in their individual behaviors.
> 
> You look at that story today about the town in Oklahoma, where they instituted wearing masks as a requirement in stores etc. and then the locals were threatening cashiers for mentioning it, so they reversed the rule. Nobody's even saying you can't go to the store (in OK anyway), they're not saying you can't buy your Cheerios or whatever. It's literally a rule to help keep you and the workers there's safe, it's barely an inconvenience but it's become this "us and them" thing, where people endanger themselves and others just to prove a point.
> 
> My concern about the Florida thing is that we've seen the virus and how it behaves enough to know it's a real thing, that's wildly contagious and it's effects can be severe if not deadly. Inevitably it WILL be a 1/5 or 1/4 of the population thing at least before a vaccine is an option. I'm worried states 'reopening' that were slow or minimal initial effect becoming places where it slow simmers while hot spots cool down, and it's reintroduced via interstate travel, to where it just becomes revolving infections.
> 
> The other concern is this overall "invincibility" illusion where a state like FL makes minimal effort to mitigate the virus and has minimal initial infections (likely exclusively dependent on FL specific factors and timing), and that's a "see nothing happened to me" thing both individually and on a state level, and you get more states antsy to open and more people who don't take of seriously, unnecessarily spawning more infections and more spread. Florida is unique place, geographically, demographically and environmentally. That's assuming the testing and death/hospitalization numbers are at all legitimate. And assuming they are, good for them but that still those people, in that state at this time.
> 
> The fact the reopenings are rolling out as we're have constant record high infection and death numbers tells me there's definitely a "hey it worked for them" factor. I saw Dallas County in TX reopened their malls and movie theaters this weekend, one day removed from their most single day fatalities. So an acceptable answer is "only 500 people died when you though it was going to be 2000! Let's all spit in eachothers mouths to pwn libz"


WHO minimized severity, Trump repeated what experts were saying at the time.

The situation evolved.


----------



## Necris

The WHO's situation reports on the Coronavirus are easily searchable and as early as January 22nd, 2020 the virus was assessed as being a "high" risk globally, compared to a "very high" risk assessment for China. Global and regional risk was finally raised to "very high" on Report 39, on February 28th. At no point was the global risk ever considered "low". Is a consistent assessment of the virus as being a high risk to global health minimizing the severity of the virus?

Trump was briefed multiple times in January and slowly progressed from ignoring to downplaying the virus over the course of February, insisting the virus wasn't a threat to the US and would ultimately go away on its own. Before putting Mike Pence in charge of the coronavirus response in late february he claimed the infection rate “within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero,” and over the coming days accused the Democrats of "fearmongering" with regard to the virus. In an interview with Hannity he implied that those with mild cases could return to work but he later tried to deny this after being criticized for it. He was still tweeting comparing it to the flu in the second week of March and his pattern of downplaying of the virus' risk to the US is referenced in questions from this press briefing here from the 31st: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing...ers-coronavirus-task-force-press-briefing-15/

The idea that the WHO was the root cause of Trump's lackluster response early on is hard to support.


----------



## GoldDragon

Necris said:


> The WHO's situation reports on the Coronavirus are easily searchable and as early as January 22nd, 2020 the virus was assessed as being a "high" risk globally, compared to a "very high" risk assessment for China. Global and regional risk was finally raised to "very high" on Report 39, on February 28th. At no point was the global risk ever considered "low". Is a consistent assessment of the virus as being a high risk to global health minimizing the severity of the virus?
> 
> Trump was briefed multiple times in January and slowly progressed from ignoring to downplaying the virus over the course of February, insisting the virus wasn't a threat to the US and would ultimately go away on its own. Before putting Mike Pence in charge of the coronavirus response in late february he claimed the infection rate “within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero,” and over the coming days accused the Democrats of "fearmongering" with regard to the virus. In an interview with Hannity he implied that those with mild cases could return to work but he later tried to deny this after being criticized for it. He was still tweeting comparing it to the flu in the second week of March and his pattern of downplaying of the virus' risk to the US is referenced in questions from this press briefing here from the 31st: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing...ers-coronavirus-task-force-press-briefing-15/
> 
> The idea that the WHO was the root cause of Trump's lackluster response early on is hard to support.



That line of thinking is the only chance democrats have in this election. I'm not sure I buy that. Trump didn't want people rioting in the streets. A message of optimism has value in that regard.

If he came out with a hard message when there were < 100 cases, media would have beat the fascist drum. Which they have been beating the last three years. At this point, they wouldn't be blaming Trump for a slow response, they would be blaming him for an "over reactionary" response that "did untold damage to the economy."

The media / DNC will come to whatever negative conclusion about trump they possibly can.


----------



## narad

GoldDragon said:


> That line of thinking is the only chance democrats have in this election. I'm not sure I buy that. Trump didn't want people rioting in the streets. A message of optimism has value in that regard.
> 
> If he came out with a hard message when there were < 100 cases, media would have beat the fascist drum. Which they have been beating the last three years. At this point, they wouldn't be blaming Trump for a slow response, they would be blaming him for an "over reactionary" response that "did untold damage to the economy."
> 
> The media / DNC will come to whatever negative conclusion about trump they possibly can.



It would be highly uncharacteristic for the media to claim Trump ever put people's lives above the economy.


----------



## GoldDragon

narad said:


> It would be highly uncharacteristic for the media to claim Trump ever put people's lives above the economy.



They would blame him for the rioting and looting. They would have said "we need a more charismatic leader to lead the people in difficult times."

The message the american people got was "This sucks, but you're getting a 1200 stimulus check. America was great before this, and we will soon be great again."

If they closed down the economy before there was any hint of the PUA and stimulus, people would have rioted, disregarded directives, and blamed trump for being an overreactionary fascist. (I just want to add that I'm out of work because of the lockdown, while I haven't yet received my PUA, the 1200 check has allowed me to pay my bills. I know if there wasnt any hint of those programs, I would have been freaking out if I was told I couldnt work back in Feb.)

There were alot of factors being considered behind the scenes. The messaging was I'm sure not trump disregarding scientists.

Remember when trump said "he had absolute authority" to close or open the economy. Then the media picked it up and said trump was delusional fascist? Media said, "NO, the states have authority!" The next day trump said we will have guidelines for the states to reopen.

The important thing to realize is the media played into his hand. Now everyone knows the constitutional law regarding who has authority. People realize its not all in the presidents hands, there are limits to what he can do. 

If he had just said, "Its up to the states to decide when they want to reopen", the media would have lambasted trump as a weak and indecisive leader.

That is the game here. I hope you can see it.


----------



## narad

GoldDragon said:


> They would blame him for the rioting and looting. They would have said "we need a more charismatic leader to lead the people in difficult times."
> 
> The message the american people got was "This sucks, but you're getting a 1200 stimulus check. America was great before this, and we will soon be great again."
> 
> If they closed down the economy before there was any hint of the PUA and stimulus, people would have rioted, disregarded directives, and blamed trump for being an overreactionary fascist. (I just want to add that I'm out of work because of the lockdown, while I haven't yet received my PUA, the 1200 check has allowed me to pay my bills. I know if there wasnt any hint of those programs, I would have been freaking out if I was told I couldnt work back in Feb.)
> 
> There were alot of factors being considered behind the scenes. The messaging was I'm sure not trump disregarding scientists.
> 
> Remember when trump said "he had absolute authority" to close or open the economy. Then the media picked it up and said trump was delusional fascist? Media said, "NO, the states have authority!" The next day trump said we will have guidelines for the states to reopen.
> 
> The important thing to realize is the media played into his hand. Now everyone knows the constitutional law regarding who has authority. People realize its not all in the presidents hands, there are limits to what he can do.
> 
> If he had just said, "Its up to the states to decide when they want to reopen", the media would have lambasted trump as a weak and indecisive leader.
> 
> That is the game here. I hope you can see it.



I mean, while you're tossing out futures could you let me know the pick-5 lotto for Saturday? Might as well use this precog ability for something profitable in these tough times.


----------



## SpaceDock

Oh poor Drumpf, the system is rigged against him and everyone just wants him to fail! Life is so hard for rich guys who had millions of dollars for a childhood allowance! 

Being a President is a hard job that often presents no win scenarios but just blaming everyone else is why this whiny little bitch needs to step down. Trump decided to trust hard right propaganda over intelligence briefing just like he always does.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

The goal posts are moving faster than the virus.


----------



## SpaceDock

MaxOfMetal said:


> The goal posts are moving faster than the virus.



Right, Drumpf used to be the “non politician” who “told it straight” so the everyman could trust him. Republicans used to rail against how typical politician would lie during these incidents, now for Drumpf he is a lying cheerleader and they will love him for it. 

I think we all see how far the political coloring has gone because we can no longer deal with any problem, let alone a pandemic, without deviding ourselves on every nuance and trying prove our political bias instead of following facts and trusting professionals.


----------



## narad

MaxOfMetal said:


> The goal posts are moving faster than the virus.



Are they moving exponentially? Coronavirus spreads exponentially.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

narad said:


> Are they moving exponentially? Coronavirus spreads exponentially.



They'll be moved by 573,736ft by June. I’LL SEE YOU JUNE 14TH!


----------



## Randy

https://mobile.twitter.com/lost808s/status/1256063930411159555?s=21


----------



## bostjan

Randy said:


> https://mobile.twitter.com/lost808s/status/1256063930411159555?s=21


What a shithead. I'll bet, the next time the authorities have to show up at that park, they'll be writing a bunch of tickets.


----------



## broj15

Randy said:


> https://mobile.twitter.com/lost808s/status/1256063930411159555?s=21



I see a bunch of people who deserve to have thier stimulus checks taken away and given to someone else.


----------



## Randy

Like, you're lucky to be healthy and alive, weather's nice and your state/city said gathering at the park is cool, just you know, be mindful. NOPE! DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!


----------



## High Plains Drifter

When I succumb to this virus... the one thing that'll help me rest in peace will be that I no longer have to be a part of the self-entitled societal sadness that is the American people.


----------



## fantom

GoldDragon said:


> That line of thinking is the only chance democrats have in this election. I'm not sure I buy that. Trump didn't want people rioting in the streets. A message of optimism has value in that regard.
> 
> If he came out with a hard message when there were < 100 cases, media would have beat the fascist drum. Which they have been beating the last three years. At this point, they wouldn't be blaming Trump for a slow response, they would be blaming him for an "over reactionary" response that "did untold damage to the economy."
> 
> The media / DNC will come to whatever negative conclusion about trump they possibly can.





GoldDragon said:


> They would blame him for the rioting and looting. They would have said "we need a more charismatic leader to lead the people in difficult times."
> 
> The message the american people got was "This sucks, but you're getting a 1200 stimulus check. America was great before this, and we will soon be great again."
> 
> If they closed down the economy before there was any hint of the PUA and stimulus, people would have rioted, disregarded directives, and blamed trump for being an overreactionary fascist. (I just want to add that I'm out of work because of the lockdown, while I haven't yet received my PUA, the 1200 check has allowed me to pay my bills. I know if there wasnt any hint of those programs, I would have been freaking out if I was told I couldnt work back in Feb.)
> 
> There were alot of factors being considered behind the scenes. The messaging was I'm sure not trump disregarding scientists.
> 
> Remember when trump said "he had absolute authority" to close or open the economy. Then the media picked it up and said trump was delusional fascist? Media said, "NO, the states have authority!" The next day trump said we will have guidelines for the states to reopen.
> 
> The important thing to realize is the media played into his hand. Now everyone knows the constitutional law regarding who has authority. People realize its not all in the presidents hands, there are limits to what he can do.
> 
> If he had just said, "Its up to the states to decide when they want to reopen", the media would have lambasted trump as a weak and indecisive leader.
> 
> That is the game here. I hope you can see it.



You know when all of your friends and family tell you that you are in a bad relationship and you defend and rationalize what is obviously crappy behaviour by your significant other because you are too personally invested in the relationship to give up on the person.

Over time, behavior is more and more erratic, dangerous, and controlling.Then all your friends stop talking to you. And you stop having a social life?

That is pretty much Trump. It isn't the media's fault that he is doing a shitty job and alienating most of America and even more of America's allies. It is Trump and McConnel pulling that off.

You don't blame friends and family for being honest about an unhealthy relationship. You thank them for it and hope they still want to talk to you once you finally realize how abused you were.


----------



## fantom

And fwiw, I'm not a Democrat. I just think a literal piece of trash would make a better leader than Trump or McConnell. Hell, Trump is even attacking Bush #2 now.


----------



## GoldDragon

fantom said:


> That is pretty much Trump. It isn't the media's fault that he is doing a shitty job and alienating most of America and even more of America's allies. It is Trump and McConnel pulling that off.



Alienating most of America? Where did you read this? His approval numbers were good a few weeks ago in this partisan era.

Doing a bad job? Where did you read that? Economy was great, unemployment was lowest ever.

He has provided guidance for states to reopen, which some probably will not follow. He got congress to pass a bipartisan relief bill. There was a $1200 check. He restricted travel from China in early February. As we learned, trump does not have ultimate authority over states and when they reopen. He has provided science based guidelines for states to reopen. He lets Fauci speak almost every day during the pressers. He invoked disaster spending act that enabled him to use American industry (GM) to build ventilators and masks. But in most cases he did not have to invoke that.

Alienated the world? If you watch BBC news, foreign politicians usually speak positively of him. He has forged relationships with China and N. Korea. He got NATO members to increase defense spending towards what they had pledged. He has pushed back against Chinese trade imbalances. He forged a new trade deal, USMCA with Mexico and Canada that is more favorable to USA.

If you look at this *objectively* he has been, and is doing a good job within the limits of his power.

Your criticisms are just opinions. Everything I have stated is a fact.


----------



## Ralyks

GoldDragon said:


> Alienating most of America? Where did you read this? His approval numbers were good a few weeks ago in this partisan era.



And his numbers dipped right back down. Faster than any other president after getting a bump from a disaster. Hell, Dubya lasted longer in the positive after 9/11 than Trump did (which, by the way, did anyone see earlier today Trump attacking Dubya after Bush said handling this situation should not be a partisan issue?). Multiple polls that are much more recent show more people trust ANDREW FREAKING CUOMO over Trump when it comes to handling the current situation, and it's not even close. The economy was one of Trumps short term tactics to get a bunch of money to make everything look great and then go bankrupt YET AGAIN, and how the economy went to hell when proper preparation could have softened the blow is proof of that. And he's about to fuck up relations with China yet again, which caused anxiety and drops in the market to end last week.


----------



## JSanta

GoldDragon said:


> Alienating most of America? Where did you read this? His approval numbers were good a few weeks ago in this partisan era.
> 
> Doing a bad job? Where did you read that? Economy was great, unemployment was lowest ever.
> 
> He has provided guidance for states to reopen, which some probably will not follow. He got congress to pass a bipartisan relief bill. There was a $1200 check. He restricted travel from China in early February. As we learned, trump does not have ultimate authority over states and when they reopen. He has provided science based guidelines for states to reopen. He lets Fauci speak almost every day during the pressers. He invoked disaster spending act that enabled him to use American industry (GM) to build ventilators and masks. But in most cases he did not have to invoke that.
> 
> Alienated the world? If you watch BBC news, foreign politicians usually speak positively of him. He has forged relationships with China and N. Korea. He got NATO members to increase defense spending towards what they had pledged. He has pushed back against Chinese trade imbalances. He forged a new trade deal, USMCA with Mexico and Canada that is more favorable to USA.
> 
> If you look at this *objectively* he has been, and is doing a good job within the limits of his power.
> 
> Your criticisms are just opinions. Everything I have stated is a fact.



What's this relationship with China you reference? Are you talking about the trade war? Or his admiration for the the vote that made Xi Jinping president for life? And being friendly with Kim Jong-un, a verifiable madman that gladly executes family members and starves his people? These are the people our president should admire and be friendly with? 

Trump is a laughing stock, the hot mic at the G7, remember that? Our allies respect the office of the president, but seemingly not the person currently occupying it. The USMCA was mostly written and revised in Congress, not sure how you think he can take credit for that, short of the fear felt by our allies. 

You'll have to excuse my objective look at how he's done thus far, as I don't think there are many positives to take away from the things he says and does.


----------



## GoldDragon

OK, I'm out. Not possible to fight a fair 1 vs many debate.

As I said, every accomplishment I listed is a fact. You can try to cast them in a negative light, or say someone else was responsible, but in your heart of hearts you know you're wrong.

At least you have to admit, that his base is satisfied with his results. And thats what he was elected to do. The half of the country that did not vote for him will never accept his success. He vanquished the almighty Hillary. And the establishment. They will never forgive him. It was a wake up call that much of america does not think like you do. Scary stuff.


----------



## zappatton2

Speaking from my corner of the globe, the man is regarded at best as a running joke, and at worst, an incurious, petty, vindictive, swindling, narcissistic sociopath. The only nations that truly embrace him are led by the authoritarian strongmen he so openly admires and seeks to emulate. If America was ever regarded as a beacon to the world, it sure isn't right now.


----------



## Ralyks

GoldDragon said:


> OK, I'm out. Not possible to fight a fair 1 vs many debate.
> 
> As I said, every accomplishment I listed is a fact. You can try to cast them in a negative light, or say someone else was responsible, but in your heart of hearts you know you're wrong.
> 
> At least you have to admit, that his base is satisfied with his results. And thats what he was elected to do. The half of the country that did not vote for him will never accept his success. He vanquished the almighty Hillary. And the establishment. They will never forgive him. It was a wake up call that much of america does not think like you do. Scary stuff.



He wasn't elected to appeal to his base, he was elected to lead THE WHOLE COUNTRY. And remember, his base really is the minority. He lost the popular vote. He just knows how to play the electorial college. And honestly, a lot of people didn't want Hilary anyway, it was a lesser of two evil situation. And seriously, he really is only in favor globally with people you don't want to exactly be buddy buddy with, and if he's going to do that, he's not accomplishing anything for benefit to anyone except himself and aforementioned leader.


----------



## JSanta

GoldDragon said:


> OK, I'm out. Not possible to fight a fair 1 vs many debate.
> 
> As I said, every accomplishment I listed is a fact. You can try to cast them in a negative light, or say someone else was responsible, but in your heart of hearts you know you're wrong.
> 
> At least you have to admit, that his base is satisfied with his results. And thats what he was elected to do. The half of the country that did not vote for him will never accept his success. He vanquished the almighty Hillary. And the establishment. They will never forgive him. It was a wake up call that much of america does not think like you do. Scary stuff.



I'm not wrong though. And presidents aren't elected to serve their base, they are elected to serve the country, which this president has not done a good job of. The tax bill has added a huge amount to an already incredibly bad national debt, he's alienated our closest allies from us, not to mention the fact that he's a classless asshole. 

You've opted to cast things in a light that detracts from the fact that at no point has this president acted in good faith or compassion. The guy is a piece of shit, and I'm sure in your heart of hearts, you know I'm right.


----------



## jaxadam

https://twitter.com/stevesilberman/status/1257018873431220224?s=20


----------



## fantom

GoldDragon said:


> OK, I'm out. Not possible to fight a fair 1 vs many debate.
> 
> As I said, every accomplishment I listed is a fact. You can try to cast them in a negative light, or say someone else was responsible, but in your heart of hearts you know you're wrong.
> 
> At least you have to admit, that his base is satisfied with his results. And thats what he was elected to do. The half of the country that did not vote for him will never accept his success. He vanquished the almighty Hillary. And the establishment. They will never forgive him. It was a wake up call that much of america does not think like you do. Scary stuff.



Go back to the metaphor. This is the part where a bad relationship causes social problems. People try to tell you it is unhealthy, and you bail on them to ignore conflict. I personally like diverse viewpoints. I want you to contribute me meaningful information of you have it.

I'm just calling out that backing 1 person who is definitely not a good fit for their job makes no sense at all. He isn't a scapegoat or martyr. A lot of things he brought on himself by not being compassionate or just a decent human being. He didn't act like that to help you or the country. He acted like a jackass to make himself feel in charge and better than you. That isn't a good person to give power.


----------



## spudmunkey

GoldDragon said:


> OK, I'm out. Not possible to fight a fair 1 vs many debate.



Sure, I can respect that. Not going to "fight" against the specific points about his successes he'd had.

That said:



GoldDragon said:


> As I said, every accomplishment I listed is a fact. You can try to cast them in a negative light, or say someone else was responsible, but in your heart of hearts you know you're wrong.



You are of the opinion that anyone who says they think negatively about Trumps performance, even in the specific metrics mentioned, are being deceitful. And that they don't actually believe what they say.

I think one thing that may help you at least see the other side's perspective is that many of us simply see successes as "circumstantial", or even "accidental". Mr. Magoo may have ended the cartoon with a completed cake at the end of the episode...but it wasnt because of skill, or planning. There are SO many things that Trump and his administration will claim as "victories" that are simply results of him sitting in his chair, and not actively screwing it up. Like...him claiming "success" in appointing supreme court justices. Or "getting" congress to approve the $1200 stimulus...from another perspective, he simply signed what was given to him.

I can only speak for myself, but my disagreements with his philosophies and performance are honest and true. Credit where it's due: things like the USS Comfort for NY, cutting off travel from china...but on most things, I'm of the opinion he's very much President Magoo.


----------



## Ralyks

Oh, the blocking travel from China thing. That's all well and good until you realize people from Europe, who also had it before us, could fly over on the East Coast. Which is how we over here got the problem.


----------



## gunch

High Plains Drifter said:


> When I succumb to this virus... the one thing that'll help me rest in peace will be that I no longer have to be a part of the self-entitled societal sadness that is the American people.



Agreed but dying kind of sucks dude


----------



## Randy




----------



## High Plains Drifter

I'm not trolling this thread but I can only take so much, so apologies for the drive-by's, gents. I just wanna get this off my chest and yeah this thread ( although hard to digest at times) is to some degree therapeutic. So... 

What just continues to slay me over and over... and cause me to feel more anxiety, stress, and depression... is the overall mentality of so so many American's... young and old. I get that you don't care and "fuck govt intervention ( oppression... whatever)" but Jesus Christ... Just because no one can technically require you to wear a mask or utilize a an ounce of decency... it's heartbreaking to know that you just refuse to even be bothered by any of this. If you need to go out or go to work or want to socialize, then why not just say "Hey... I don't wanna spread this shit around and I tbh don't really wanna catch it either". But instead, it's "Fuck my/ your parents, grandparents, friends and coworkers that have existing health issues". Why not have some fucking mercy on them?? You're cool or tough or murica!... whatever! But damn you're a piece of trash for not doing what you can to limit the spread. And "Oh... some people can't breathe with them on." is bullshit... at least for the majority of folks out there moving around and shopping and traveling. You def need to stay home if you can't hardly breath anyway. Some of these masks are literally like nothing to breathe out of. Okay... back into the woodwork. Sorry for the mini-rant but again... helps a little sometimes... even if I'm not exactly contributing. Thanks, folks.


----------



## possumkiller

Jfc... Can you imagine how big of a moronic, babbling fuckup you have to be to make G.W. seem well-spoken, intelligent, likeable and even inspirational?


----------



## KnightBrolaire

Most Americans can't even wash their hands properly, let alone use a mask or gloves properly. 
I can't count how many times I've seen people wearing masks pulled down below their nose or wearing a mask that doesn't fit tightly to their face.
Same thing with gloves. There's morons running around touching stuff they need, go to pay and then they fuck up by digging through their purse, touching their face, etc. 
Not to mention how masks and bandanas are essentially useless for preventing you from catching Covid, they just make it slightly more difficult for asymptomatic idiots to spread it.


----------



## Ralyks

possumkiller said:


> Jfc... Can you imagine how big of a moronic, babbling fuckup you have to be to make G.W. seem well-spoken, intelligent, likeable and even inspirational?




And the Trump had the balls to rip Dubya for this after


----------



## narad

Ralyks said:


> And the Trump had the balls to rip Dubya for this after



What'd he say?


----------



## Vostre Roy

narad said:


> What'd he say?



Can't find an english article with the actual quote, but something close to this:

"He didn't bother to defend me during the biggest hoax of the USA history (impenchment) so he doesn't have the right to judge this situation"

And regarding masks, we are required to wear them at my workplace due to the fact that we are a remote camp, and some people still don't care. I have mine on for the whole 12h I'm working everyday. At some point, its like wearing glasses, you forget that you are wearing them unless you just think about it.


----------



## wankerness

GoldDragon said:


> Alienating most of America? Where did you read this? *His approval numbers were good a few weeks ago in this partisan era.*
> 
> *Alienated the world? If you watch BBC news, foreign politicians usually speak positively of him. *
> 
> If you look at this *objectively* he has been, and is doing a good job within the limits of his power.
> 
> Your criticisms are just opinions. Everything I have stated is a fact.



Those are absolutely not "Facts."

What are "Good" approval numbers to you? After 9-11, George W Bush's were ~80%. That's good. Trump's were around 50% and were quickly back down to 40%. That's not good. That means only his diehard supporters think he's doing a good job, along with another 10% that thought he was until his series of moronic televised campaign rallies where he suggested injecting disinfectants and blasting people with radiation and ran reelection ads.

Practically every leader other than Bolsonaro and the other worst of the worst has trashed the guy, either openly or (usually) politely and subtly since most of them are not like him, a big vindictive baby that throws around insults on Twitter. They absolutely do not respect him in any way and he's been repeatedly cut out of discussions the last few years since he's proven to be incompetent and uncooperative. Of course if you watch the BBC you're not going to see other leaders saying "that guy is a TOTAL LOSER." They have more class than that. If that's your barline, you have really been warped.

It is not surprising in the least that some Trumpers have started threatening violence towards people that wear masks while refusing to wear them themselves. I like how to them it's not infringing on others' rights to like, force kids to be traumatized by active shooter drills to support their right to have assault weapons, but it is for them to have to wear a mask when in a public store to avoid them spraying their germs everywhere. Garbage people, the lot.


----------



## bostjan

GoldDragon said:


> unemployment was lowest ever.



Lowest recorded US unemployment: 1.2%. Lowest recorded unemployment during Trump: 3.6% (3x higher)

Claim is false as stated.



GoldDragon said:


> He has provided guidance for states to reopen, which some probably will not follow. He got congress to pass a bipartisan relief bill. There was a $1200 check. He restricted travel from China in early February. As we learned, trump does not have ultimate authority over states and when they reopen.



Here are the exact guidelines from the white house.
Note how vague they are, and that without testing capabilities and tracing capabilities, these are literally just pipe dreams. It's all quite easily regarded as lip service, because none of these guidelines are followed through (yet) with any action from the executive branch to make these guidelines any more attainable. Seriously, I've suggested more specific guidelines myself, does that mean that I'd make a good PotUS? 

Congress passed a bill. Great. Trump signed that bill. Great. Then Trump insisted on signing all of the checks, too. Took a great move and added a petty political spin to it, but whatever. Still chalk this up as a win.

Trump's move to restrict China travel was too late. Period.



GoldDragon said:


> He has provided science based guidelines for states to reopen.



See the link above. No science there. This claim is flagrantly false.



GoldDragon said:


> He lets Fauci speak almost every day during the pressers.



Another false claim. Fauci has spoken, but has also been quite publicly restricted from making statements at times. He has also been blocked from giving a statement to the House.



GoldDragon said:


> He invoked disaster spending act that enabled him to use American industry (GM) to build ventilators and masks. But in most cases he did not have to invoke that.



Have you actually read about this? Trump filed an executive order evoking the defense production act, but then gave several conflicting statements to GM regarding the matter, most of which stated that he was not evoking the law. GM was already gearing up to produce ventilators before Trump signed the executive order, and it's unclear whether or not GM ever received any specific word from the white house regarding this, since, as I said, they already were doing it before the president prodded them (or didn't, it's confusing, because Trump can't even keep his own statements straight).



GoldDragon said:


> Alienated the world? If you watch BBC news, foreign politicians usually speak positively of him.



Citation needed.



GoldDragon said:


> He has forged relationships with China and N. Korea. He got NATO members to increase defense spending towards what they had pledged. He has pushed back against Chinese trade imbalances. He forged a new trade deal, USMCA with Mexico and Canada that is more favorable to USA.



So, is his relationship with China positive or negative? Even your own narrative here flip-flops on that. Truth is, North Korea is more out of control than ever, thanks to Trump and also to Obama. They are not reeled in at all by the USA. China is doing whatever they please as well, so we sure showed them (?)! I agree that he's pushed back trade imbalances, so there's that.



GoldDragon said:


> If you look at this *objectively* he has been, and is doing a good job within the limits of his power.
> 
> Your criticisms are just opinions. Everything I have stated is a fact.



Man, I know you probably feel like everyone is picking on you, but when you say stuff like this, without any regard to actual fact-checking your claims, it's just frustrating. The fact that you immediately peaced out when more than one person disagreed with this post just suggests that you never cared what the facts were from the beginning. I mean, a quick google search of each factoid/tidbit you posted could have avoided this and it would have taken, what, two minutes? But the fact that you got the name of the Defense Production Act wrong means that you didn't bother to look anything up, and you are just spouting off opinions as fact. And that's what's wrong with the USA today, is that so many people vote and make other decisions, not based on objective information, but based on what they want to believe is true, regardless of how untrue it is or how easy it is to verify it. I mean, if you want to have your own opinions that disagree with everyone else, cool, but you've shown that you don't want to stop there- you want to convince everyone else that you are right, without even putting in the effort to make sure you know what you are talking about first.

If you hadn't have added those last couple sentences, I would have just shrugged it off, but this whole idea of posting false "facts," using an argumentative tone, clearly showing that you don't care at all about making sure you know what you are talking about, and then adding the self-reinforcement at the end that you are objectively right about your opinions on how good Trump is and that "everything" you stated in your post was "a fact," it's infuriating.

If I get pulled over by a cop for doing 50 in a 35, do you think I should argue with the cop and then tell him his radar gun is just an opinion and that my speedometer said 35 and "that's a fact?!" How well would that go over, if I in fact, wasn't even looking at my speedometer and the cop's radar gun was just calibrated the day before, and I was the only car on the road? It's just going to piss the cop off even more. So, don't use reinforcement like that unless you want to get people up in arms.


----------



## broj15

At this point all I can do about the current situation in my city is laugh. All the experts said that we were supposed to hit our peak around April 25th. I knew that that was incredibly unrealistic. A day or two after that and they're already planning on opening things back up on May 15.... And then yesterday we see the biggest single day increase in cases since this whole thing began. No, not state wide, but just in the metro area. 100 people tested positive in 1 day. And they're still acting like opening back up on the 15th is gonna happen. 
Like I said. At this point all I can do is laugh.


----------



## TedEH

bostjan said:


> does that mean that I'd make a good PotUS?


I'd vote for you. If the alternative is Trump. And if I was American.


----------



## fantom

Regarding the BBC and Trump, why would a news network consistently use "trumplomacy" when talking about a president? I'll give you a hint, they aren't complimenting him. They disapprove of his way of handling both foreign and domestic relations enough that they use a buzzword to summarize it.


----------



## spudmunkey

I feel like we've gotten off track in a conversaiton more appropriate for the "Trump Administration" thread.

In other news, worldwide reported deaths have officially passed 1/4 million.

Saw a great sharable image on FB the other say, and made sure to share it with family: "Lifting shelter-in-pace restrictions doesn't mean the virus is gone. It means that we now appear to have room for you at the hospital." It ended up being a techable moment for a cousin when he asked, "What do you mean?" He works in factory 12+ hours a day, and had zero sense of what 'flattening the curve' meant, or anything like that. Turned into a very positive conversation. It turns out he fell really behind in the news when he was working on a job-site for a couple weeks, and then was affraid to ask questions, so he sort of just sheltered in his own mind, with his own fears of the unknown. It sounded like he felt better in the end about how to keep him and his family most safe.


----------



## SD83

I'll be back on topic in a few moments, but: I don't know about the BBC, but as for German media, the damage that Trump does to the image of "the American" is insane. No matter your political point of view, almost everyone considers him laughable at best and a dangerous sociopath at worst. He's had his successes, I even agree with him occasionally, but given that he says one thing today and then the exact opposite the other day, that's probably just by accident. And as for the economy going up, new jobs, growth... is he responsible for that or was he just at the right spot at the right time. Because we once had a democraticly elected head of state (that was most likely way worse and maybe considerably more intelligent), reasonably high approval numbers, unemployment rates dropping (and I'd guess he would have really liked the slogan "make Germany great again"... "make Deutschland Reich again", something along those lines), none of that meant he was good for the country, the people in the country or indeed anyone.

Back on topic. Had a long(ish) discussion with my dad today... I thought I was the optimistic one in our family (my sister is really concerned, my mom kinda indifferent as far as I know), but... let's say I was reminded where I got that "stay calm, stay focused, always do your best, we'll be fine in the end" attitude from. We largely agreed in the end though, it is time for the government to come up with a proper plan. Right now, it seems they meet each week and go "we will do this starting next monday, and everything else we will discuss when we meet again". Which, obviously, makes any kind of planning impossible. How about "we will do this starting next monday, and if things go as planned, we will do that starting the week after" and so forth. Keep the masks, keep the social distancing. That's basically what's happening right now, but how about a "best-case-scenario timeline"? Restaurants, pubs and such are allowed to re-open under certain conditions by next week if I'm not mistaken, zoos, museums and such are re-opening already.

Again, I know disturbingly little about what's happening in other countries on a smaller scale, but drive-in cinemas are making a HUGE comeback in Germany right now. There are new ones everywhere, and as far as I know, they're sold out whatever they show. Up to two people per car, tickets & orders (snacks, drinks) online only. Never thought I might end up watching a movie in a drive-in cinema... as someone who grew up in central Europe in the 80s and 90s, few things scream "50s USA" more than a drive-in cinema. Friend of mine happens to have a (new) Camaro, so that might be the perfect car to go there...
And, then there is this. Which is completely stupid, but also kind of... great? I mean, the music sucks, but I knew a few DJs who would be very willing to change that


----------



## bostjan

Vermont issued a bunch of new regulations at the end of April in order to send people back to work, but, honestly, a lot of people cannot go back to work with the regulations as is. As of right now, we officially reopen May 15, but that is expected to change if anything goes sideways. This is a tiny state with 600k or so population, and half of the license plates you'd normally see on the road are from out-of-state. Our biggest "city" has been hit pretty hard, as well as surrounding areas, but, where I live has fewer than a dozen people who have tested positive. Granted, I don't know of anyone who has had access to tests for coronavirus, even though I knew quite a few people who believed that they had it. But since the doctor's offices all closed, if you emailed your doctor, they would tell you to simply stay home regardless.

And that leads me to this whole testing thing. The _only_ way to know anything about what we are doing reopening businesses is to start testing people. I don't know what it's like in the cities, but here, no one is testing shit. Businesses are told that they *should* be taking employee's temperatures, but from what I understand, no one actually is doing it.

And while I still don't personally know anyone who tested positive, I now know two people who each knew someone who tested positive (family and friends out of state). For me, it seems like it's circling closer to home, but maybe that's just me.

And now people in Michigan are shooting retail staff over masks.

Like I've been saying, the virus is kind of scary, but the sheer stupidity of people is far more horrifying. I still have people on facebook denying that the virus is real, and now I'm dealing with my wife's ex demanding that we either send the stepkids to see him or have him come to our house to stay for a couple of weeks. My wife is not happy, the stepkids are not happy, and I don't know what to tell this guy, other than that now is most definitely not a good time.


----------



## Empryrean

once again, i am entering the thread off topic.. 

I just started work again this friday-- 3 days ago, I work retail. There was not a single day that I did not have someone make a huge fuss about having to wear a face mask and I am honestly bewildered at the sheer stupidity of others who believe in their self importance so much. Anyways.. hope everyone is well, or at least as well as you can be. I'm contemplating quitting and becoming homeless if this keeps up. cheers


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## diagrammatiks

It's funny because in China people were getting beat up for not wearing masks.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Empryrean said:


> once again, i am entering the thread off topic..
> 
> I just started work again this friday-- 3 days ago, I work retail. There was not a single day that I did not have someone make a huge fuss about having to wear a face mask and I am honestly bewildered at the sheer stupidity of others who believe in their self importance so much. Anyways.. hope everyone is well, or at least as well as you can be. I'm contemplating quitting and becoming homeless if this keeps up. cheers



My wife and I had to go to Lowe's today and after a few minutes inside, she said "We're gonna have to leave"... because I kept saying "fucking asshole" as we walked by people with no masks on. I agree... it's just absolutely insane to care so little about something so potentially dangerous. I know that masks are not an "end all" to maintaining safety but why not at least show some compassion... even just to appease others that may be more vulnerable. Just don't be a dick.. I swear it's not that hard. 

Indeed, man. I retired from manufacturing and graphic design some years ago but then decided to go back to work in retail part-time. I've been on leave for over a month now and I just don't think I can go back into that hazardous and depressing mess. We got our new property tax statement in the mail today and I don't even have the heart to open it up... maybe tomorrow. Peace/ Good luck whatever you decide to do. No easy decisions being made right now.


----------



## viifox

High Plains Drifter said:


> My wife and I had to go to Lowe's today and after a few minutes inside, she said "We're gonna have to leave"... because I kept saying "fucking asshole" as we walked by people with no masks on. I agree... it's just absolutely insane to care so little about something so potentially dangerous. I know that masks are not an "end all" to maintaining safety but why not at least show some compassion... even just to appease others that may be more vulnerable. Just don't be a dick.. I swear it's not that hard.
> 
> Indeed, man. I retired from manufacturing and graphic design some years ago but then decided to go back to work in retail part-time. I've been on leave for over a month now and I just don't think I can go back into that hazardous and depressing mess. We got our new property tax statement in the mail today and I don't even have the heart to open it up... maybe tomorrow. Peace/ Good luck whatever you decide to do. No easy decisions being made right now.


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.me...people-to-wear-masks-and-keep-a-distance/amp/


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## MaxOfMetal

viifox said:


> https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.me...people-to-wear-masks-and-keep-a-distance/amp/



Nothing says ”I respect your autonomy” like treating people like children. 

I get it, ”you catch more flies with honey...”

But I think, at this point, it's better to treat folks not conforming to the meager social distancing and PPE requirements along the lines of someone whipping their dick out in public vs. using the wrong salad fork.


----------



## viifox

MaxOfMetal said:


> Nothing says ”I respect your autonomy” like treating people like children.
> 
> I get it, ”you catch more flies with honey...”
> 
> But I think, at this point, it's better to treat folks not conforming to the meager social distancing and PPE requirements along the lines of someone whipping their dick out in public vs. using the wrong salad fork.


Oh, i get it. The problem I see with social shaming is the same problem I see with road rage: it's usually not very effective, and can even be dangerous.

We all know the scenerio of that one guy who cuts another guy off on the freeway (essentially threatening the person's life), so that guy decides to honk his horn, then the other guy raises his middle finger, which makes the other guy even more angry, and so on and so forth.

Calling someone a "fucking asshole" for not wearing a mask in public probably isn't going to change anyone's mind, and where I come from, I've seen shit like gun fights break out from people saying much less (no joke).

So, If you're going to be verbally aggressive with someone, just know that you probably aren't going to convince them of your perspective, and in some cases, you could actually make things worse.

People are always going to be people, so pick your battles.


----------



## viifox

MaxOfMetal said:


> Nothing says ”I respect your autonomy” like treating people like children.
> 
> I get it, ”you catch more flies with honey...”
> 
> But I think, at this point, it's better to treat folks not conforming to the meager social distancing and PPE requirements along the lines of someone whipping their dick out in public vs. using the wrong salad fork.


Oh, and I'd much rather see someone not wearing a mask in public than someone whipping their dick out.


----------



## Randy

Why we can't have nice things, exhibit 84,827:



> The Miami Beach Police Department announced Monday that the park was closed until further notice after they issued 7,329 verbal face cover warnings and more than 470 warnings for failing to social distance between Friday and Sunday.



https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/05/04/us/miami-beach-south-pointe-park-close-trnd/index.html


----------



## High Plains Drifter

viifox said:


> Calling someone a "fucking asshole" for not wearing a mask in public probably isn't going to change anyone's mind, and where I come from, I've seen shit like gun fights break out from people saying much less (no joke).
> 
> So, If you're going to be verbally aggressive with someone, just know that you probably aren't going to convince them of your perspective, and in some cases, you could actually make things worse.



I 100% agree with all of this. I absolutely cannot defend my actions today. I'm just so frustrated and scared for my own existence that I'm now saying things that I would never normally say. It's quite humiliating and baseless under pretty much any circumstances, to not be able to exhibit self-control... especially given how much we typically have to do that throughout our lives. But my fear and anxiety is so elevated lately... knowing that I may very well soon lose my home and even my life. It's like a nightmare that I can't wake up from and today I simply cracked. I really have no excuse for my behavior although the magnitude of all of this is sometimes just proving too much for me to rationally handle. I certainly was not aiming to make matters even worse by blurting out in the way that I did but it wasn't some conscious effort to change someone's actions. Had it been, then I would've started a civil conversation about it. I'm just going to have to try to do better to ignore people and respect their rights as I'm out in public.


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## possumkiller

Sorry but I am just so happy I am no longer in America. I would be in either Texas or Florida right now having to put up with these morons. Living in fear of the ignorant masses armed with military weapons. Having to let my kid go to one of those murder hole indoctrination camps they call schools... 

Actually I'm not sorry at all. I'm thinking about deleting my Facebook so I don't have to deal with my idiot friends and family on the American side sending their stupid ass conspiracy theories and jokes about my wife and I wearing masks when we go out.


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## broj15

Man this might sound so simple/obvious that it's stupid, but just for the sake of argument, how much would it slow the rate of infection if places just started propping thier doors open? I mean yeah, alot of places like grocery stores have automated doors, but at the places that don't like gas stations or low end grocery stores like Dollar tree/family dollar they don't. And EVERYONE that goes in has to touch that door handle. And I can guarantee that they aren't getting wiped down. there's no way they could do that effectively anyway. I mean they'd have to pay a person to just stand there and disinfect the handle after every person touches it, and that's simply not feasible. So why not just prop it open so no one has to touch it? Obviously the issue is more complicated than that, but if you have to go out it seems like just doing the bare minimum (wear a mask, don't touch anything you don't plan on taking home with you, and keep a safe distance from other people) will decrease your chance of infection immensely.


----------



## possumkiller

broj15 said:


> Man this might sound so simple/obvious that it's stupid, but just for the sake of argument, how much would it slow the rate of infection if places just started propping thier doors open? I mean yeah, alot of places like grocery stores have automated doors, but at the places that don't like gas stations or low end grocery stores like Dollar tree/family dollar they don't. And EVERYONE that goes in has to touch that door handle. And I can guarantee that they aren't getting wiped down. there's no way they could do that effectively anyway. I mean they'd have to pay a person to just stand there and disinfect the handle after every person touches it, and that's simply not feasible. So why not just prop it open so no one has to touch it? Obviously the issue is more complicated than that, but if you have to go out it seems like just doing the bare minimum (wear a mask, don't touch anything you don't plan on taking home with you, and keep a safe distance from other people) will decrease your chance of infection immensely.


I just had a conversation with my cousin last night about this kind of thing. My wife put some pictures of us taking our kid to the park up on bookface and we were wearing masks because it's the law here. Of course, every right-wing moron in my friends and family (which is almost all of them) decided I need to be educated about the gay liberal media conspiracy of wearing masks.


----------



## TedEH

The thing that gets me about masks around here is that nobody is using them properly. I live above a corner store, and almost everyone who comes in with a mask either has it barely hanging off of their face, or sitting below their noses, or hanging from their neck as if just having it in proximity is going to do anything useful for you.

I do agree about the door thing though. Leave them open. I don't think its unreasonable to have someone wiping down the doors though. Compared to the cost of just not working at all, having someone monitor the doors isn't that bad. If you're a small enough place, then it becomes the responsibility of whoever is closest the door whenever someone comes or goes.


----------



## possumkiller

Looks like people are already shooting and killing employees that tell them to wear face masks...


----------



## Randy

'Merica


----------



## narad

Now if these masks were bulletproof...


----------



## narad




----------



## sleewell

i think calling requests for assistance blue state bailouts is going to be another very dated and false statement in the next few short days. its like trump is writing the attack ads against him.


----------



## KnightBrolaire




----------



## Ralyks

narad said:


>



I've probably said before how I, like most of NY, am not a Cuomo fan, but the job he's done with this situation is pretty admirable.


----------



## Vostre Roy

KnightBrolaire said:


> View attachment 80334


----------



## JSanta

Ralyks said:


> I've probably said before how I, like most of NY, am not a Cuomo fan, but the job he's done with this situation is pretty admirable.



Almost 60% of the State (those that did show up) voted for him, which seems contrary to your statement. I do agree that he has done a good job with this. I also have no shame in saying I voted for him, and I will vote for him again.


----------



## Ralyks

JSanta said:


> Almost 60% of the State (those that did show up) voted for him, which seems contrary to your statement. I do agree that he has done a good job with this. I also have no shame in saying I voted for him, and I will vote for him again.



I voted for him because he was the best option presented at the time. Next time, I will vote for him because he's doing a damn good job.

I should probably clarify. I, personally, can count on one hand how many people I know that actually like him. And I'm basically an hour and a half north of NYC.


----------



## JSanta

Ralyks said:


> I voted for him because he was the best option presented at the time. Next time, I will vote for him because he's doing a damn good job.
> 
> I should probably clarify. I, personally, can count on one finger how many people I know that actually like him. And I'm basically an hour and a half north of NYC.



Same, though the people that say this to me are the same people that think Trump is a great President, so I tend to be rather dismissive of their opinion(s).


----------



## Ralyks

JSanta said:


> Same, though the people that say this to me are the same people that think Trump is a great President, so I tend to be rather dismissive of their opinion(s).



I would say 90% of those people I know are diehard Trump supporters, yes.


----------



## wankerness

The problem with all of this is that the lockdown accomplished exactly jack shit in most of the country, because nothing has improved over these two months, thanks to our federal government being COMPLETELY incompetent and evil. They actively stole PPE shipments from states, they refused to actually make any substantial increase in testing reagents/equipment, they refused to actually make any substantial increase in PPE, and now they're proclaiming everything a victory, just flat-out lying over and over on national TV saying that we've done a great job and have enough tests now, and saying it's safe to reopen. Almost NOTHING is better in most states than it was two months ago. We're in exactly the same position as we were before, only now thanks to the relentless Republican misinformation campaign, no one's going to obey any kind of social distancing measures if they are a Trump supporter, since it's become politicized and only "the libs" wear facemasks.

Our country is completely screwed. Most first-world countries have actually made a dent and are slowing spread (see: NYC stats for something representative of what is going on a lot of places), but the majority of the US is still increasing and is going to go back to largely unrestrained growth as soon as things are reopened and people start going out. Florida is openly suppressing any case numbers being reported to the public now, to keep people in the dark like good little sacrificial worker bees. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article242050696.html

The administration (FEMA, specifically) had one of their reports leaked yesterday that predicted over 3000 deaths a day by June, and over 200k new cases a DAY. Of course, the Trump/Kushner lie to the public is that things have peaked and we beat it. As if NYC was the only place in the country that had it...


----------



## Ralyks

wankerness said:


> Of course, the Trump/Kushner lie to the public is that things have peaked and we beat it. As if NYC was the only place in the country that had it...



Meanwhile, Trump hates NY now.


----------



## sleewell

the problem is most people look nationally and expect uniform results across the country when the timing of this is very different state by state and even city by city within each state. its not like this is hitting us all at the same time. some states are reopening before they have even peaked. lots of rural places said we aren't NYC, this will never get here when it's really only a matter of time before it gets everywhere.


----------



## Rosal76

possumkiller said:


> Of course, every right-wing moron in my friends and family (which is almost all of them) decided I need to be educated about the gay liberal media conspiracy of wearing masks.





possumkiller said:


> I'm thinking about deleting my Facebook so I don't have to deal with my idiot friends and family on the American side sending their stupid ass conspiracy theories and jokes about my wife and I wearing masks when we go out.



Just ignore them (individuals trying to persuade you). Keep your Facebook page and keep posting pictures of you and your family wearing face masks in public. You may be encouraging someone who didn't take the Coronavirus serious before to take it serious now. When/if the Coronavirus thing is over, you better believe I'm gonna be homebound for at least 2-3 months after it's over (hopefully) and I'm still gonna wear my face mask in public. And when my Conservative/Trump supporter friends call me up and ask if I'm gonna hang out, I'm gonna tell them, "bruh, you go ahead and liberate and walk around with your assault rifles in public. I'm staying home playing guitar and video games".


----------



## possumkiller

sleewell said:


> the problem is most people look nationally and expect uniform results across the country when the timing of this is very different state by state and even city by city within each state. its not like this is hitting us all at the same time. some states are reopening before they have even peaked. lots of rural places said we aren't NYC, this will never get here when it's really only a matter of time before it gets everywhere.


Yeap. They keep treating it like the US is one big homogeneous group. That is all going to go through it at the same time.


----------



## GoldDragon

If you compare the USA vs Europe, you will probably see a similar pattern. There are some countries that are hotbeds, other countries relatively unscathed. Taken as a whole there are still major issues.

Keep in mind, a country like france is actually smaller than texas. Italy is 3/4 the size of california. Germany is half the size of texas. Etc Etc.

You can't compare the USA to a single small cherrypicked country that is doing much better at containment. You have to look at Western Europe as a whole to make a comparison. 

Look at Russia. Things are starting to get out of hand there when earlier they were successful.

I bet North Korea is doing better at this than most. They are a hermit kingdom, have very little interaction with the world, and they can imprison or shoot anyone they deem a threat. And there is no visibility of any of this.

China had knowledge that the rest of the world didn't have and had the advantage that it didn't enter from multiple vectors. They knew exactly when/where it started and were able to trace its development. By the time we knew it was a pandemic, it had already been spreading undetected through many areas of the country.

So who exactly are you comparing USA to when you decide that we are doing a bad job?


----------



## sleewell

fb is a complete cesspool of trash. i am not sure how anyone is still on it. i thought i would miss it when i deleted it years ago but it has been the exact opposite. when anyone says i am not sure if this is true or not but i saw it on fb i try to exit the conversation as quickly as possible.


----------



## Ralyks

Another example is Canada. Population is less than just the state of California.


----------



## spudmunkey

Ralyks said:


> Another example is Canada. Population is less than just the state of California.



Interesting.

If you look at Cases, Deaths and Tests per million popultion, Canada has half the cases and half the deaths as the US, but more testing by about 10%.

California has about 10% fewer cases than Canada, about 40% fewer deaths...but then about 10-12% less testing.

It does go to show how hard it is to extract any sort of useable data from such small samples sizes, of such a global issue.


----------



## jaxadam

Rosal76 said:


> Just ignore them (individuals trying to persuade you). Keep your Facebook page and keep posting pictures of you and your family wearing face masks in public. You may be encouraging someone who didn't take the Coronavirus serious before to take it serious now. When/if the Coronavirus thing is over, you better believe I'm gonna be homebound for at least 2-3 months after it's over (hopefully) and I'm still gonna wear my face mask in public. And when my Conservative/Trump supporter friends call me up and ask if I'm gonna hang out, I'm gonna tell them, "bruh, you go ahead and liberate and walk around with your assault rifles in public. I'm staying home playing guitar and video games".



So I take it you're not coming to my Cinco de Mayo Cornonavirus party? It's gonna be a shit ton of people and the rule is you have to double dip all chips and dips.


----------



## wankerness

GoldDragon said:


> If you compare the USA vs Europe, you will probably see a similar pattern. There are some countries that are hotbeds, other countries relatively unscathed. Taken as a whole there are still major issues.
> 
> Keep in mind, a country like france is actually smaller than texas. Italy is 3/4 the size of california. Germany is half the size of texas. Etc Etc.
> 
> You can't compare the USA to a single small cherrypicked country that is doing much better at containment. You have to look at Western Europe as a whole to make a comparison.
> 
> Look at Russia. Things are starting to get out of hand there when earlier they were successful.
> 
> I bet North Korea is doing better at this than most. They are a hermit kingdom, have very little interaction with the world, and they can imprison or shoot anyone they deem a threat. And there is no visibility of any of this.
> 
> China had knowledge that the rest of the world didn't have and had the advantage that it didn't enter from multiple vectors. They knew exactly when/where it started and were able to trace its development. By the time we knew it was a pandemic, it had already been spreading undetected through many areas of the country.
> 
> So who exactly are you comparing USA to when you decide that we are doing a bad job?



I'm comparing regions of the US to other countries, which IS a fair comparison. As I said, NYC is comparable to say, Northern Italy or France or Spain, where they got hit really hard and now are on the downward end of the peak cause they radically adjusted behaviors and are enforcing social distancing guidelines. Not "THE US IS."

Anyway, for reference, go check out current infection rates adjusted per population, taking testing limits into account, and compare the US to literally any east asian country that isn't North Korea. We're doing absolutely abysmal compared to even Japan, who's having the worst reaction out of the major countries like Singapore and Malaysia and Taiwan and SK and even China. Even India's doing better than us. But again, we look better than we are, cause you can't report infections if you won't test them! Or if you block people from reporting them, like in Florida.

The most popular comparison would be South Korea vs the US, since we had the first case detected on the same day, and within a week or two they were testing 50K+ people a day, with their population far smaller than ours. They've heavily, heavily suppressed it and things are looking up. Even months later, we're still barely at that level, even without adjusting for population!!

I know that some will blow back on this kind of thing and say "oh rural communities barely have it, Texas has low rates, we should reopen everything and social distancing is BS, etc" since many people are all about not believing anything until it's in front of their face, ignoring the obvious cause/effect with how cases aren't detected when they're not tested (or even ALLOWED to be tested many places thanks to massive testing shortages), and all about refusing to plan for the future.

The fact of the matter is if people weren't such pigheaded morons in this country, we'd be able to get back to society functioning. Like, check out Czech Republic and Austria. Both countries mandated mask wearing, and infection rates declined by 90%. That will never fly here cause FREEDUMS. Even though a lockdown is vastly worse than wearing a mask in public.


----------



## spudmunkey

jaxadam said:


> So I take it you're not coming to my Cinco de Mayo Cornonavirus party? It's gonna be a shit ton of people and the rule is you have to double dip all chips and dips.



Only if there's a Kissing booth, and a "lick and pass" popcicle stand.


----------



## GoldDragon

wankerness said:


> I'm comparing regions of the US to other countries, which IS a fair comparison. As I said, NYC is comparable to say, Northern Italy or France or Spain, where they got hit really hard and now are on the downward end of the peak cause they radically adjusted behaviors and are enforcing social distancing guidelines. Not "THE US IS."
> 
> Anyway, for reference, go check out current infection rates adjusted per population, taking testing limits into account, and compare the US to literally any east asian country that isn't North Korea. We're doing absolutely abysmal compared to even Japan, who's having the worst reaction out of the major countries like Singapore and Malaysia and China and SK. Even India's doing better than us. But again, we look better than we are, cause you can't report infections if you won't test them! Or if you block people from reporting them, like in Florida.
> 
> I know that some will blow back on this kind of thing and say "oh rural communities barely have it, Texas has low rates, we should reopen everything and social distancing is BS, etc" since many people are all about not believing anything until it's in front of their face, ignoring the obvious cause/effect with how cases aren't detected when they're not tested (or even ALLOWED to be tested many places thanks to massive testing shortages), and all about refusing to plan for the future.
> 
> The fact of the matter is if people weren't such pigheaded morons in this country, we'd be able to get back to society functioning. Like, check out Czech Republic and Austria. Both countries mandated mask wearing, and infection rates declined by 90%. That will never fly here cause FREEDUMS. Even though a lockdown is vastly worse than wearing a mask in public.



I don't agree with any of this EXCEPT that there are pigheaded morons in this country.

I wish everyone took social distancing seriously. But its not one political ideology that dominates this behaviour. If you go out in public, you see more black people congregating and without masks and they are typically liberal.

The issue is that many black people still need to work, and if they've encountered 100-200 people working at Home Depot every day, do you think they are going to stay away from their friends? The people who don't want to socially distance are poor, and they are on both sides of the aisle.

Every country has different population densities, different economies, different governance to make accurate comparisons. Your comment at the beginning of the page about a totally corrupt and incompetent federal government, I don't agree with. You can't compare the entirety of the USA with a cherrypicked small asian country.

I have said earlier in this thread that we will see 500K-1M people die of this in USA over the next few years. I said it will cycle between 1k-3K/ day and that trend continues.

At this point the only way out is to entirely shut down the country by closing businesses and martial law for a year (we obv can't do that), or to be responsible and keep the new infections and deaths at amoderate trickle (1k-3k/day for a year or more until it runs its course.)

Regarding the speed of the response, new evidence shows that China and WHO obfuscated the transmissability and danger of the virus. You can try to blame T Admin, but Pelosi and Deblasio were out in NYC, late february telling people to go to chinese New Year, not to be afraid. This was a liberal photo op and diversity messaging that had negative consequences.

I think Trump and Fauci know where this has been headed, the response has been optimistic to ensure people aren't rioting in the streets. Besides Trump not being "your guy", what else would you have expected him to do with the information he had?

Everyone with a brain knows this is going to get much worse. Many more people are going to die. The economy is going to be royally screwed. If we had known the extent of this in Nov/Dec, we might have been able to close all international travel when China closed Wuhan. That would have had an impact.

Isn't it interesting that the virus coincides with the election cycle? In November will will still be reeling and seeing the massive impact. If this had come later, we would still be in the optimism phase. If it had come earlier, we would be in recovery phase come November.


----------



## Ralyks

https://apple.news/A76yfDIIXTPe4rj5EN37Emw

Man, Trump can't shake whistleblowers.


----------



## jaxadam

spudmunkey said:


> Only if there's a Kissing booth, and a "lick and pass" popcicle stand.



Once people go skinny dipping in the pool, it's anybody's guess...


----------



## TedEH

GoldDragon said:


> Isn't it interesting that the virus coincides with the election cycle?


No, it coincides with the usual virus-spreading seasons. Also, something something correlation and causation. 



spudmunkey said:


> Only if there's a Kissing booth, and a "lick and pass" popcicle stand.


This whole virus deal hasn't stopped some local stoners from offering me their joints on the rare occasion I run into them. The friendliness certainly isn't unappreciated, but maybe now isn't the best time for sharing.


----------



## Wuuthrad

Time for the “thinking caps” boys and girls, ladies and gentleman, birds and bees, dogs and cats, yin and yang, Sodom and Gomorrah...I recommend wool. A few brief summaries:


-sic- “With this ‘new administration,’We are ‘extraordinarily confident’ we are going to see this in the next few years, a ‘surprise epidemic.’ Dr. Fauci


“My Job was to teach Ebola cells how to infect human cells without killing them” - Dr Mikovits


Federal law changes in the 80s allowed govt researchers to copyright vaccines funded by public money, which at minimum represents a conflict of interest.


Fauci is a Fraud- he funded Wuhan research facility, which accelerated the SARS 2 virus. (It’s not natural for a virus to accelerate in 10 years.)


“We’re taking a liberal approach to Covid 19 mortality.” - Dr. Birx


“If we’re not testing...they’re calling it Covid 19” Dr. Mikovitz


“If someone dies with Covid 19 we are counting that as a Covid 19 death” Dr Birx


“You don’t die with an infection, you die from an infection” Dr Mirkovitz


Medicare pays 13k$ for a Covid admission.

39K$ for a Ventilator patient.


Which will probably kill them.


Medicines that have been effective for decades have been shut down so that profiteering pharma corps can manufacture disease and their “cures”


There are no dissenting voices allowed anymore in this “free” country.


Mass propaganda has divided us and driven us to hate each other by design.




-edit- Bill Gates claims no safety until the entire global population is inoculated with his virus (or is it vaccine?) can’t remember the difference anymore!


----------



## bostjan

Man, people in my home town are idiots.



Ralyks said:


> https://apple.news/A76yfDIIXTPe4rj5EN37Emw
> 
> Man, Trump can't shake whistleblowers.



Yeah, especially when Trump's recommendation was proven to not work, just as the guy who was fired over saying.



GoldDragon said:


> Besides Trump not being "your guy", what else would you have expected him to do with the information he had?



I know this wasn't directed at me, but, I mean, come on... you are talking about the guy who pushed the above drug as a game-changer, without any supporting data, and fired anyone who disagreed with him. You are talking about the guy who called the pandemic a democratic hoax. You are talking about the guy who said that the virus would "miraculously" go away in April. You are talking about the guy who has given out false information at every press conference, who has gagged Fauci, who took every opportunity in February and March to downplay the virus and in April and (so far) in May has shifted blame on everyone else. Do we have adequate testing? Unequivocally no. Trump says we do, or, now that he already said multiple times that we already do, he's walked back and said that we will soon. His leadership during this crisis has been >95% bad and <5% good. Sure he could do worse, but not much.

@Wuuthrad - so... is the virus created in the lab to kill us all or is it a phony ghost story that isn't real just to scare us? Is this a way for the government to steal money or for people to steal money from the government? I don't follow.


----------



## BlackSG91

;>)/


----------



## TedEH

Wuuthrad said:


> Time for the “thinking caps” boys and girls


You know, I've got time to kill. I'll bite and watch the video. I'm about 3 minutes in and there's lots of red flags already. The doc maker lists his credentials as "father". The lady conveniently is selling a book. Curious to see how long it'll take for this one to be taken down if it happens to get spread around a bunch. No sources listed. The weird news clip sounds like it's the same lady speaking.


----------



## wankerness

Wuuthrad said:


> Time for the “tinfoil caps”



Seek mental help.


----------



## Wuuthrad

bostjan said:


> Man, people in my home town are idiots.
> 
> 
> 
> Yeah, especially when Trump's recommendation was proven to not work, just as the guy who was fired over saying.
> 
> 
> 
> I know this wasn't directed at me, but, I mean, come on... you are talking about the guy who pushed the above drug as a game-changer, without any supporting data, and fired anyone who disagreed with him. You are talking about the guy who called the pandemic a democratic hoax. You are talking about the guy who said that the virus would "miraculously" go away in April. You are talking about the guy who has given out false information at every press conference, who has gagged Fauci, who took every opportunity in February and March to downplay the virus and in April and (so far) in May has shifted blame on everyone else. Do we have adequate testing? Unequivocally no. Trump says we do, or, now that he already said multiple times that we already do, he's walked back and said that we will soon. His leadership during this crisis has been >95% bad and <5% good. Sure he could do worse, but not much.
> 
> @Wuuthrad - so... is the virus created in the lab to kill us all or is it a phony ghost story that isn't real just to scare us? Is this a way for the government to steal money or for people to steal money from the government? I don't follow.



Please feel free to watch the video if you want the answer to your questions!

I didn’t post this to give my opinion, but to share some information, I think this video is worth the time.


----------



## Wuuthrad

wankerness said:


> Seek mental help.





wankerness said:


> Seek mental help.



For posting a video that you didn’t bother watching, are you deciding that I’m crazy?


----------



## TedEH

I'm about half way through the video now, can I be judgey? I'm at the part where she's claiming someone is trying to kill people with vaccines, but also the vaccines don't exist, but also the vaccines don't work.


----------



## TedEH

I take it back, they finally listed a source sort of. Showing footage taken supposedly from a facebook group made to look like it was recorded off a tv, with inconsistent sharpness in the weird facebook parts they edited into it. Fun stuff.

Edit so that I'm not just posting a whole bunch:
OH MAN the removed video from before makes an appearance too. Thanks for posting this, there's some gold in here.


----------



## Wuuthrad

TedEH said:


> I'm about half way through the video now, can I be judgey? I'm at the part where she's claiming someone is trying to kill people with vaccines, but also the vaccines don't exist, but also the vaccines don't work.



I think you’re comparing different vaccines of I remember correctly.


----------



## Wuuthrad

TedEH said:


> I take it back, they finally listed a source sort of. Showing footage taken supposedly from a facebook group made to look like it was recorded off a tv, with inconsistent sharpness in the weird facebook parts they edited into it. Fun stuff.



I agree it’s an interesting watch. I wouldn’t call it fun but I think it’s important to hear more than the mainstream media.


----------



## TedEH

I'll give you that what gives a video like this some weight, and might allow someone to believe it is that they mix some things that are potentially true (I can believe some places are hit worse than others because of certain demographics) with things that that sound plausible (yeah, I'm willing to believe some hospitals are coding things as covid that aren't, be it intentionally or otherwise), so that they can mix it in with some complete nonsense (like the part where they claim zinc works as a cure, or that only dogs have other coronaviruses).

So yes, as someone who watched the video -> I think you'd have to be either a bit crazy or very poorly informed to believe any of this.

OR be actively looking for something to validate a pre- decided stance despite it flying against common sense.


----------



## TedEH

And that extra bit of plausibility is why I think youtube should take stuff like this down. Because some people WILL believe it. Which is potentially dangerous. The lady speaking VERY CLEARLY doesn't understand the things she's talking about. "Wearing a mask literally activates your own virus" she says. At least the one that got taken down with those two doctors did a good job of being convincing. I can believe that those two actually did believe what they were saying.

Edit: To clarify, when I said "fun" I mean "this is clearly, almost entertainingly, fake".


----------



## Wuuthrad

TedEH said:


> And that extra bit of plausibility is why I think youtube should take stuff like this down. Because some people WILL believe it. Which is potentially dangerous. The lady speaking VERY CLEARLY doesn't understand the things she's talking about. "Wearing a mask literally activates your own virus" she says. At least the one that got taken down with those two doctors did a good job of being convincing. I can believe that those two actually did believe what they were saying.
> 
> Edit: To clarify, when I said "fun" I mean "this is clearly, almost entertainingly, fake".



So are you saying that Dr Fauci doesn’t have a financial interest in vaccines?

What about erroneous reporting of Covid fatalities?


----------



## Wuuthrad

TedEH said:


> So yes, as someone who watched the video -> I think you'd have to be either a bit crazy or very poorly informed to believe any of this.
> 
> OR be actively looking for something to validate a pre- decided stance despite it flying against common sense.



The humor of these “veiled” personal attacks never cease to amuse me on this forum.

Must feel nice to be sure of yourself. One of the advantages of youth, I suppose...


----------



## TedEH

I don't know enough about Fauci to know what his financial interests are. I do know that one guy having financial interests in vaccines doesn't lead to everything in that video.

Reporting of the virus stats were always known that they would never be perfect. And if you put enough people with varying opinions and motivations out there, you end up with people treating non-covid deaths as covid deaths. It's equally plausible that some believed that those were legitimately related to covid, or that overreporting was the best course of action. I have friends and family in healthcare, how come none of them have told me all of these alternate truths?

Also, not thinly veiled at all. I think you're wrong. I think you are either fishing and stretching for validation, or just legitimately don't understand what you're talking about.

And this is coming from someone (me) who is willing to admit that I don't really understand a lot of what's going on either. I'm no scientist or doctor, but I'm pretty good at spotting a BS argument, or an "artistically" put together video.


----------



## Wuuthrad

Ok fair enough, but what about the point “we are divided by propaganda of social media” and are fighting amongst each other.

I basically made a summary of the video which I found interesting, without offering my opinion.

I haven’t stated my opinion or beliefs, so I’m not sure why you might be “attacking the messenger,” so to speak. 

And censoring media is dangerous. I can’t agree with that at all. Who is anyone to decide? Are you living in the US?


----------



## Ralyks

https://apple.news/AxvHV6YrTRCierpPhANcuag

The White House talking about disbanding the coronavirus task team, what the fucking fuck?


----------



## TedEH

Wuuthrad said:


> Ok fair enough, but what about the point “we are divided by propaganda of social media” and are fighting amongst each other.


You can say "what about" 100 times and it doesn't change any of what I said. Google "whataboutism". It's a poor derailment tactic. Even if I agree that we're pretty polarized by things, that's entirely a flaw with our political systems and nothing to do with the video.



Wuuthrad said:


> I haven’t stated my opinion or beliefs, so I’m not sure why you might be “attacking the messenger,” so to speak.


Your endorsement was pretty heavily implied. If you don't think it was, then go back and re-read what you've said so far, trying to see if from anyone elses point of view.



Wuuthrad said:


> And censoring media is dangerous.


Convincing someone of something untrue is more dangerous.


----------



## TedEH

Wuuthrad said:


> Are you living in the US?


Does the virus live in the US?


----------



## wankerness

Ralyks said:


> https://apple.news/AxvHV6YrTRCierpPhANcuag
> 
> The White House talking about disbanding the coronavirus task team, what the fucking fuck?



Exactly, they're trying really hard to push the "we already beat it!!!" narrative. I wish this was happening closer to the election instead of with another 6-7 months minimum where they can kill us and bleed us dry.


----------



## Ralyks

wankerness said:


> Exactly, they're trying really hard to push the "we already beat it!!!" narrative. I wish this was happening closer to the election instead of with another 6-7 months minimum where they can kill us and bleed us dry.



We're fucked.


----------



## bostjan

Deep sigh.

I'm really sorry that people have lost their minds, and even more sorry that the people leading the government have lost their minds. I'm really not sure WTF happened to humanity. Maybe 5G really did fry everyone's brains.


----------



## StevenC

TedEH said:


> I'll give you that what gives a video like this some weight, and might allow someone to believe it is that they mix some things that are potentially true (I can believe some places are hit worse than others because of certain demographics) with things that that sound plausible (yeah, I'm willing to believe some hospitals are coding things as covid that aren't, be it intentionally or otherwise), so that they can mix it in with some complete nonsense (like the part where they claim zinc works as a cure, or that only dogs have other coronaviruses).
> 
> So yes, as someone who watched the video -> I think you'd have to be either a bit crazy or very poorly informed to believe any of this.
> 
> OR be actively looking for something to validate a pre- decided stance despite it flying against common sense.


I thought the zinc thing was real and that part of the appeal of hydroxycloroquine was that it carries zinc into the blood stream if taken together. Like that was the dream scenario for that drug, it would have its own effectiveness and would also carry zinc which might have had effectiveness since it works on other coronaviruses.


----------



## Necris

wankerness said:


> Exactly, they're trying really hard to push the "we already beat it!!!" narrative. I wish this was happening closer to the election instead of with another 6-7 months minimum where they can kill us and bleed us dry.



I can almost see Trump giving a televised address standing on an aircraft carrier in front of a big "Mission Accomplished" banner proudly announcing the "invisible enemy" has been defeated.


----------



## TedEH

That's the first I've heard of the zinc thing, so maybe I'm wrong on that one point. But that only holds any water if hydroxychloroquine works too. I thought that was either disproved, or up in the air, etc. Either way, it's not a vaccine. It's not a cure. At best, it was suggested as something that might help symptoms for current sufferers, and is even dangerous for some people who are immunosuppressed or otherwise don't need it, isn't it?

I'm no expert on it, so I might be behind on that story, and it's actually very helpful in some cases, but I'm preeeeeeeeeetty sure it's not a vaccine or a cure.


----------



## spudmunkey

Ralyks said:


> https://apple.news/AxvHV6YrTRCierpPhANcuag
> 
> The White House talking about disbanding the coronavirus task team, what the fucking fuck?



From what i've read, the actual quotes were that they are starting to talk about the plans for how the specific executive-appointed task force could wind down, when the time comes, for teh hand-off to the specific separate agencies. That makes sense to me. They clearly need to put together the exit strategy and start to talk about milestones soon, if they haven't already.


----------



## bostjan

StevenC said:


> I thought the zinc thing was real and that part of the appeal of hydroxycloroquine was that it carries zinc into the blood stream if taken together. Like that was the dream scenario for that drug, it would have its own effectiveness and would also carry zinc which might have had effectiveness since it works on other coronaviruses.



The idea is that it pulls zinc into the cells, where the virus does it's virus thing. Part of the problem, though, is that the efficacy of zinc against viruses is basically insignificant. There are some youtube videos that explain HCQ and CQ-P working that way, but, as we have seen, anyone can make a bullshit youtube video. The academic viewpoint is that Quinine-derivatives (such as HCQ and CQ-P) mess with the pH of the cytoplasm within the cells, making the cell toxic to the virus without permanently damaging itself. HCQ is better, because it is more soluable in water, so the circulatory system can pull it out of the cells once the cells get themselves into trouble. It works against malaria and other protozoan parasites, because they don't have a circulatory system to get rid of the quinine quickly enough to not die from its toxicity. 

The way it works on viruses, in real life, is that it doesn't. See, viruses, unlike what Trump, as well as many other people who didn't pay attention in biology class, are not "bugs" or bacteria at all. They aren't even living things. They are just information packaged into a fold of cell membrane. So the drug doesn't mess with a virus directly at all. The virus is immune to basically all sorts of toxins that interfere with cellular mechanics, because, well, they aren't made of cells.

It's also a pretty decent immunosuppressive, which is why it's very dangerous to take when battling a virus. That's why the drug is prescribed to lupus patients. Lupus is a disease where the body's immune system attacks the body itself. By putting the immune system into a sort of "time-out" of a less active state, lupus patients get direct relief from the disease. Given to a virus patient, though, the immune system becomes unable to remove the virus from the cell's vicinity. So, while mucous and phlegm go away (which are the white blood cells doing their thing to immobilize the virus and remove it from the body), the virus can rampantly spread within the cells and make the diseaase worse.


----------



## Wuuthrad

TedEH said:


> Does the virus live in the US?



Yes it does, but it’s not following orders is it? It’s not respecting any borders or boundaries! It’s very real and it can kill! Bad virus, we need to control it. But at what cost?

Is it a good enough reason for the biggest robbery of the US treasury in history which has happened (yet again) right before our eyes. As if there’s a good reason! It’s Vulture Capitalism perpetrated by the same old clowns.

But please, you’re advocating censorship based on your own preconceived notions, and making a lot of assumptions about what I believe, which I’ve never stated, despite your attempts to convince me otherwise. What you may not yet know about me- I like to spend a lot more time formulating my opinions than sharing them.

we’re supposed to have freedom of the press in the US, I don’t know what it’s like in your country, but I’ll tell you what’s happening in the US which seems to fascinate you for some reason? Pride, anger, jealousy, envy, pity? fEAR?!?

All legit reasons, as are any.

Corporate censorship, financial fraud at the highest level, overarching powers of govt, big business open yet small business shuttered, govt mandating the poor work in unsafe conditions.

I honestly fear people won’t be able to do anything about this scam out of fear, or they don’t care. Or they won’t be able to because they’ve been destroyed financially.

People appear to spend more time accumulating “likes” on social media than engaging in any real form of civil disobedience.

I agree with you on this truth thing. But how do you know it’s true? The guy selling you something most likely has a vested interest in deceiving you, especially when they’re main advertisement is fear of death.
And their story keeps changing...over and over again.

Is censorship of anything that isn’t true really good? Using this logic- Who gets to decide what’s true? the mainstream media? A popularity contest? Big brother? Ad revenue? For profit healthcare industry?

You ignored the truth of the video: Covid 19 deaths are being falsely reported for profit.

Have you read the news of our (US) test kits being contaminated with the virus? True story... google it


_“Rather than love and money and fame give me truth.” - Henry David Thoreau 

“Civil disobedience becomes a duty when laws become corrupt.” Mahatma Gandhi

“Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.” Albert Einstein

_


----------



## bostjan

Wuuthrad said:


> You ignored the truth of the video: Covid 19 deaths are being falsely reported for profit.



Who has profited?

Your posts are a lot to go through, man, but let's start with that. Specifically, who profited from the virus?


----------



## StevenC

Wuuthrad said:


> Yes it does, but it’s not following orders is it? It’s not respecting any borders or boundaries! It’s very real and it can kill! Bad virus, we need to control it. But at what cost?
> 
> Is it a good enough reason for the biggest robbery of the US treasury in history which has happened (yet again) right before our eyes. As if there’s a good reason! It’s Vulture Capitalism perpetrated by the same old clowns.
> 
> But please, you’re advocating censorship based on your own preconceived notions, and making a lot of assumptions about what I believe, which I’ve never stated, despite your attempts to convince me otherwise. What you may not yet know about me- I like to spend a lot more time formulating my opinions than sharing them.
> 
> we’re supposed to have freedom of the press in the US, I don’t know what it’s like in your country, but I’ll tell you what’s happening in the US which seems to fascinate you for some reason? Pride, anger, jealousy, envy, pity? fEAR?!?
> 
> All legit reasons, as are any.
> 
> Corporate censorship, financial fraud at the highest level, overarching powers of govt, big business open yet small business shuttered, govt mandating the poor work in unsafe conditions.
> 
> I honestly fear people won’t be able to do anything about this scam out of fear, or they don’t care. Or they won’t be able to because they’ve been destroyed financially.
> 
> People appear to spend more time accumulating “likes” on social media than engaging in any real form of civil disobedience.
> 
> I agree with you on this truth thing. But how do you know it’s true? The guy selling you something most likely has a vested interest in deceiving you, especially when they’re main advertisement is fear of death.
> And their story keeps changing...over and over again.
> 
> Is censorship of anything that isn’t true really good? Using this logic- Who gets to decide what’s true? the mainstream media? A popularity contest? Big brother? Ad revenue? For profit healthcare industry?
> 
> You ignored the truth of the video: Covid 19 deaths are being falsely reported for profit.
> 
> Have you read the news of our (US) test kits being contaminated with the virus? True story... google it
> 
> 
> _“Rather than love and money and fame give me truth.” - Henry David Thoreau
> 
> “Civil disobedience becomes a duty when laws become corrupt.” Mahatma Gandhi
> 
> “Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.” Albert Einstein
> _


Great, now imagine a world without a for profit healthcare and then try again.


----------



## Ralyks

Wuuthrad said:


> Yes it does, but it’s not following orders is it? It’s not respecting any borders or boundaries! It’s very real and it can kill! Bad virus, we need to control it. But at what cost?
> 
> Is it a good enough reason for the biggest robbery of the US treasury in history which has happened (yet again) right before our eyes. As if there’s a good reason! It’s Vulture Capitalism perpetrated by the same old clowns.
> 
> But please, you’re advocating censorship based on your own preconceived notions, and making a lot of assumptions about what I believe, which I’ve never stated, despite your attempts to convince me otherwise. What you may not yet know about me- I like to spend a lot more time formulating my opinions than sharing them.
> 
> we’re supposed to have freedom of the press in the US, I don’t know what it’s like in your country, but I’ll tell you what’s happening in the US which seems to fascinate you for some reason? Pride, anger, jealousy, envy, pity? fEAR?!?
> 
> All legit reasons, as are any.
> 
> Corporate censorship, financial fraud at the highest level, overarching powers of govt, big business open yet small business shuttered, govt mandating the poor work in unsafe conditions.
> 
> I honestly fear people won’t be able to do anything about this scam out of fear, or they don’t care. Or they won’t be able to because they’ve been destroyed financially.
> 
> People appear to spend more time accumulating “likes” on social media than engaging in any real form of civil disobedience.
> 
> I agree with you on this truth thing. But how do you know it’s true? The guy selling you something most likely has a vested interest in deceiving you, especially when they’re main advertisement is fear of death.
> And their story keeps changing...over and over again.
> 
> Is censorship of anything that isn’t true really good? Using this logic- Who gets to decide what’s true? the mainstream media? A popularity contest? Big brother? Ad revenue? For profit healthcare industry?
> 
> You ignored the truth of the video: Covid 19 deaths are being falsely reported for profit.
> 
> Have you read the news of our (US) test kits being contaminated with the virus? True story... google it
> 
> 
> _“Rather than love and money and fame give me truth.” - Henry David Thoreau
> 
> “Civil disobedience becomes a duty when laws become corrupt.” Mahatma Gandhi
> 
> “Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.” Albert Einstein
> _


----------



## StevenC

INB4 solar cult


----------



## Randy

bostjan said:


> Who has profited?
> 
> Your posts are a lot to go through, man, but let's start with that. Specifically, who profited from the virus?



Charminati confirmed


----------



## GoldDragon

If a hospital reports an uninsured patient as a Covid death, they are more likely to get reimbursement from the federal govt for the care. As opposed to just writing it off as a loss.

If you think the coronavirus relief isn't rampant with fraud, you aren't looking close enough. Hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, all perpetrate fraud on the American people.


----------



## StevenC

GoldDragon said:


> If a hospital reports an uninsured patient as a Covid death, they are more likely to get reimbursement from the federal govt for the care. As opposed to just writing it off as a loss.
> 
> If you think the coronavirus relief isn't rampant with fraud, you aren't looking close enough. Hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, all perpetrate fraud on the American people.


And the rest of the world?


----------



## Randy

GoldDragon said:


> If a hospital reports an uninsured patient as a Covid death, they are more likely to get reimbursement from the federal govt for the care. As opposed to just writing it off as a loss.
> 
> If you think the coronavirus relief isn't rampant with fraud, you aren't looking close enough. Hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, all perpetrate fraud on the American people.



Nice try but no.

Most hospitals are turning people away or telling them to stay home if they have COVID-like symptoms, as long as they're not severe enough to need oxygen, etc.

I tell you this based both on family who work in the ER and others who have/had coronavirus. The number is several times higher than what you see, based on the number of people I've known who had it and the doctor said 'yeah, you've got it, stay home and don't waste a test' over the phone.

And if we're going to chase this conspiracy down to it's logical conclusions... are you implying hospitals are infecting people or are you implying people aren't sick in the first place and you can just pull them off the ventilator and they'll go home miraculously? What are people dying of then?


----------



## Wuuthrad

You guys can ask me, argue with me or alternatively I think it’s probably a better idea to watch the video and ask your own questions. That was my hope anyway, not to start an argument. I can’t really defend the assertions made in the video it’s not mine. I do think it’s worth consideration.

Most of the questions I posed were related to the video. A few questions of a somewhat personal nature I entertained out of courteousness. I really don’t care what anyone thinks about me, I mean who doesn’t like being liked? But that’s not the reason for this post: I only care that people have an open mind and learn to read between the lines. I’ve lived long enough to know that someone is always pulling wool over your eyes! It’s up to you to figure it out.

One thing that strikes me as interesting, and also a wee bit unusual, is how some Canadians get all bothered about US politics and business. Ive never heard US friends even whisper about what goes on up there outside of Tours and border crossings....

More particularly in this case, the gentlemen or lady who seemed to speak with authority about this video, and then when asked about it said “I know nothing about Fauci,” when one of the main premises of the video is about his involvement in this pandemic.

It makes me wonder did you even watch the video? I know you claim to but how can I take you seriously after making such a claim and then sort of audaciously telling me how I think? Preposterous really!

In order to lighten the mood and inject some humor in these dark times, I will add my own partially sarcastic interpretation of the multitude of information I’ve read re. the financial side of the US Federal stimulus package for your enjoyment. Also note that the majority of small business loans were administered through Chase Bank (The Rockefeller Bank!) who’s first order of business was to duel out $ to the businesses who were indebted to them!




And no parts of this video are reflections of my personal opinion, as I’ve said several times, I posted this as it’s a non mainstream source of information for your consideration.

Anyways I wish everyone can be safe and healthy, and doesn’t get too messed up in this dark time of history.


----------



## TedEH

Sweet jebus, there's so much to unpack the in the last few threads.
Good thing we all have nothing but time on our hands. 



Wuuthrad said:


> But please, you’re advocating censorship based on your own preconceived notions


I wasn't advocating censorship, per-se, rather suggesting that it's preferable to widespread flat-out misinformation during a period of time where it could do a lot of harm.



Wuuthrad said:


> making a lot of assumptions about what I believe, which I’ve never stated


I'll invite you to go back and re-read your own posts. You've made a lot of statements that were not at all in the videos.



Wuuthrad said:


> I don’t know what it’s like in your country


I'm from Canada, not Mars. It's maybe 80% like America, just colder, more French instead of Spanish, and our equivalent to Florida Man is probably from Quebec.



Wuuthrad said:


> what’s happening in the US which seems to fascinate you for some reason?





Wuuthrad said:


> One thing that strikes me as interesting, and also a wee bit unusual, is how some Canadians get all bothered about US politics and business.


Covid is not an American problem, it's a world problem. The video talks about the virus as if it's a strictly American thing. It really isn't.



Wuuthrad said:


> The guy selling you something most likely has a vested interest in deceiving you


Ok maybe. Now keep that in mind while you rewatch the video you posted. Pay close attention to the part where *the lady being interviewed is selling a book.*



Wuuthrad said:


> Is censorship of anything that isn’t true really good?


If the information (or misinformation, as it might be) is harmful, then yes.



Wuuthrad said:


> Using this logic- Who gets to decide what’s true?


When I speak about "truth", I'm talking about objective truth. Not choices, not "fake news", not "some facts aren't actually true" kinds of facts. Just what is objectively real. A lot of what's in those videos are verifiably false. Objectively.



Wuuthrad said:


> You ignored the truth of the video: Covid 19 deaths are being falsely reported for profit.


Falsely reported? Maybe. For profit? You're going to need some actual proof before anyone believes you. A conspiracy theory youtube video is not proof of anything.



Wuuthrad said:


> the gentlemen or lady who seemed to speak with authority about this video, and then when asked about it said “I know nothing about Fauci,” when one of the main premises of the video is about his involvement in this pandemic.


The video was all over the place, but if it had a main premise, I'd describe it as being that we're supposedly being lied to about a virus that was manufactured so that a whole handful of parties can trick us for vague "reasons". You've yet to explain how this guy (or anyone else) benefits from people dying and the economy getting crushed. I know people like to say "follow the money", but there is no money to follow here. The economy is taking a beating. Nobody benefits from this. Being the richest guy means nothing if there's no economy to spend your money in.


----------



## GoldDragon

TedEH said:


> The video was all over the place, but if it had a main premise, I'd describe it as being that we're supposedly being lied to about a virus that was manufactured so that a whole handful of parties can trick us for vague "reasons". You've yet to explain how this guy (or anyone else) benefits from people dying and the economy getting crushed. I know people like to say "follow the money", but there is no money to follow here. The economy is taking a beating. Nobody benefits from this. Being the richest guy means nothing if there's no economy to spend your money in.



Thats a good question. Follow the money. Who do you think benefits from a worldwide pandemic?

The only one coming out of this on top is China.


----------



## wankerness

GoldDragon said:


> Thats a good question. Follow the money. Who do you think benefits from a worldwide pandemic?
> 
> The only one coming out of this on top is China.



China, whose economy depends on the rest of the world buying their crap? Yeah, destroying their economies and turning everyone against them so they stop buying Chinese goods is a great way for them to get ahead in the world.

China absolutely caused this and should be held responsible. But anyone suggesting they did it on purpose or will benefit from this is a complete moron.


----------



## GoldDragon

Whoa, take it down a notch cowboy.


----------



## narad

Ralyks said:


> https://apple.news/AxvHV6YrTRCierpPhANcuag
> 
> The White House talking about disbanding the coronavirus task team, what the fucking fuck?









EDIT: Blaarg, someone made this joke ::shakes fists::


----------



## Randy

narad said:


>



Not being overblown or hyperbolic about this but the timing of the wind down and reopening while we're hitting new peaks every day (even states like NY are guilty of this) make clear that the shutdowns were an experiment to see how the economy would survive, and in the cost v. benefit of economy v. lives, leadership determined the stock market won't tolerate another 6 to 12 months of this and decided letting the virus run amok is worth the risk.


----------



## fantom

GoldDragon said:


> If a hospital reports an uninsured patient as a Covid death, they are more likely to get reimbursement from the federal govt for the care. As opposed to just writing it off as a loss.
> 
> If you think the coronavirus relief isn't rampant with fraud, you aren't looking close enough. Hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, all perpetrate fraud on the American people.



You really need to present some kind of proof when making a claim that fraud, an actual crime, is being committed. Otherwise, you are making defamatory statements, which is also a crime. Freedom of speech does not allow you to falsely state a crime is occurring.


----------



## diagrammatiks

wankerness said:


> China, whose economy depends on the rest of the world buying their crap? Yeah, destroying their economies and turning everyone against them so they stop buying Chinese goods is a great way for them to get ahead in the world.
> 
> China absolutely caused this and should be held responsible. But anyone suggesting they did it on purpose or will benefit from this is a complete moron.



seriously. i'm super interested in knowing what kind of world these conspiracy nuts live in.

definitely not one where you actually have to run a business successfully.

who decides to get up one day and fuck all of their customers. no one does this.


----------



## narad

diagrammatiks said:


> seriously. i'm super interested in knowing what kind of world these conspiracy nuts live in.
> 
> definitely not one where you actually have to run a business successfully.
> 
> who decides to get up one day and fuck all of their customers. no one does this.



This is a Disney-level understanding of evil in the world / motivations of villains. Like this whole "follow the money" mentality, as if Dr. Fauci's whole goal in life was to amass a pile of cash in a bunker he can swim around in like Scrooge McDuck. Or like we're going to see post-pandemic Fauci driving around in a top-down Bentley with bikini babes. 

"But Dr. Fauci, millions of people died!!"

"The game's the game, dawg"


----------



## Necris

Step 1: Create and release deadly virus
Step 2: Cause significant damage to the global economy
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!


----------



## Randy

diagrammatiks said:


> who decides to get up one day and fuck all of their customers. no one does this.


----------



## fantom

So what you are really saying is that Jeff Bezos is just trying to make his ex-wife jealous that she divorced him too soon. You heard it here first folks. Just a jealous lover's dispute disguised as profiteering.

/Sarcasm


----------



## Karatekid

narad said:


> This is a Disney-level understanding of evil in the world / motivations of villains. Like this whole "follow the money" mentality, as if Dr. Fauci's whole goal in life was to amass a pile of cash in a bunker he can swim around in like Scrooge McDuck. Or like we're going to see post-pandemic Fauci driving around in a top-down Bentley with bikini babes.
> 
> "But Dr. Fauci, millions of people died!!"
> 
> "The game's the game, dawg"



Are we talking about the same guy (Fauci) who told the American public near the end of January, that they have nothing to worry about?


----------



## spudmunkey

Karatekid said:


> Are we talking about the same guy (Fauci) who told the American public sometime around January 26, that they have nothing to worry about?



No, you must be thinking of another Dr. Fauci.


----------



## Karatekid

spudmunkey said:


> No, you must be thinking of another Dr. Fauci.
> 
> View attachment 80365


----------



## Karatekid

Karatekid said:


>




My mistake it was January 21.


----------



## narad

Karatekid said:


> Are we talking about the same guy (Fauci) who told the American public near the end of January, that they have nothing to worry about?



Let's say it is -- you didn't give any sort of direct quote, and I'm not going to go try to do that work for you, but let's just assume he literally said exactly what you're saying. Certainly a lot of "experts" downplayed and underestimated the virus.

Now we are at a crossroads -- why did the scientist tell us information that wasn't correct?

a.) he made a mistake?

b.) he is spearheading a global conspiracy to infect the world with a dangerous virus, killing millions of people, and grinding the economy to a halt. He played the long game -- studying medicine, becoming established in the field, infiltrating the inner political circle and biding his time. All to either generally sow destruction because he enjoys it, or for some sort of financial kickback. The logic of this financial kickback mechanism is unknown to basically everyone except a larger group of co-conspirators, all who managed to set this up without anyone being the wiser. That is, except for a fringe group of forum guys who have no credentials of independently investigating anything but are simultaneously such super sleuths that they figured the whole scheme out, even without uncovering any actual hard evidence.

On the other hand, have you heard of Occam's razor?


----------



## Karatekid

narad said:


> Let's say it is -- you didn't give any sort of direct quote, and I'm not going to go try to do that work for you, but let's just assume he literally said exactly what you're saying.
> 
> Now we are at a crossroads -- why did the scientist tell us information that wasn't correct?
> 
> a.) he made a mistake?
> 
> b.) he is spearheading a global conspiracy to infect the world with a dangerous virus, killing millions of people, and grinding the economy to a halt. He played the long game -- studying medicine, becoming established in the field, infiltrating the inner political circle and biding his time. All to either generally sow destruction because he enjoys it, or for some sort of financial kickback. The logic of this financial kickback mechanism is unknown to basically everyone except a larger group of co-conspirators, all who managed to set this up without anyone being the wiser. That is, except for a fringe group of forum guys who have no credentials of independently investigating anything but are simultaneously such super sleuths that they figured the whole scheme out, even without uncovering any actual hard evidence.
> 
> On the other hand, have you heard of Occam's razor?



I just posted the video interview. This is someone who has been around a very long time. This isn’t some “mistake”


----------



## narad

Karatekid said:


> I just posted the video interview. This is someone who has been around a very long time. This isn’t some “mistake”



Ah, new account. I should have known. Things slow on rigtalk this week?


----------



## Karatekid

narad said:


> Ah, new account. I should have known. Things slow on rigtalk this week?



Can’t take the truth? That’s ok go ahead and ban me


----------



## spudmunkey

Fair enough. I got my dates mixed up.

As of January 21st when that aired, it was the very day after there was the very first single case confirmed case in the US, and under 500 cases worldwide. "We need to take it seriously" and "this is not something the citizens of the united states should be worried about" seemed reasonable at the time, to me anyways, even in hindsight.


----------



## Karatekid

Karatekid said:


> Can’t take the truth? That’s ok go ahead and ban me





spudmunkey said:


> Fair enough. I got my dates mixed up.
> 
> As of January 21st when that aired, it was the very day after there was the very first single case confirmed case in the US, and under 500 cases worldwide. "We need to take it seriously" and "this is not something the citizens of the united states should be worried about" seemed reasonable at the time, to me anyways, even in hindsight.



For a guy who is an expert on infectious diseases and who has been around in 5 administrations. Oh ok.


----------



## BlackSG91

*Happy Cinco de Mayo 2020! I can't wait to go to a crowded bar and get some Corona in me!*


;>)/


----------



## narad

Karatekid said:


> Can’t take the truth? That’s ok go ahead and ban me



I'm not going to ban you. I just think that someone who joins guitars forums again-and-again just to espouse wacko conspiracy theories probably has some mental issues to deal with. Entirely apart from your actual opinion on the matter, take a hint. Think about whether that's normal behavior for an adult.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

diagrammatiks said:


> who decides to get up one day and fuck all of their customers. no one does this.



Custom guitar builders.


----------



## possumkiller

I mean the dude with the big conspiracy video wasn't _completely_ wrong. There are definitely people profiting from the pandemic. Trump was awarding massive no-bid contracts to "companies" to build ventilators for many times their price while having zero experience or employees. 

Also, I'd be careful throwing around the statement about people fucking over their customers. That's kinda what SSO is all about. Everyone pouring cash into some boutique builder that misha and nolly are raving great things about that disappears with the money.

Apple is constantly fucking over their customers yet people still follow them like a cult. 

I'm definitely not saying any of that conspiracy bullshit is even remotely true but there are people and companies constantly trying to fuck over their customers for more profit.


----------



## diagrammatiks

possumkiller said:


> I mean the dude with the big conspiracy video wasn't _completely_ wrong. There are definitely people profiting from the pandemic. Trump was awarding massive no-bid contracts to "companies" to build ventilators for many times their price while having zero experience or employees.
> 
> Also, I'd be careful throwing around the statement about people fucking over their customers. That's kinda what SSO is all about. Everyone pouring cash into some boutique builder that misha and nolly are raving great things about that disappears with the money.
> 
> Apple is constantly fucking over their customers yet people still follow them like a cult.
> 
> I'm definitely not saying any of that conspiracy bullshit is even remotely true but there are people and companies constantly trying to fuck over their customers for more profit.



you're trying to make more money. assuming that an entire country acts like a failed guitar builder is kind of silly. That's exactly what you are trying to not do when running a business. 

apple comment is kinda random.


----------



## possumkiller

diagrammatiks said:


> you're trying to make more money. assuming that an entire country acts like a failed guitar builder is kind of silly. That's exactly what you are trying to not do when running a business.
> 
> apple comment is kinda random.


I'm just saying that fucking over the customer for more profits is a feature of our system. Many examples can be found such as Apple. Better-run companies usually get backlash and walk it back because if they aim to do business for a long period of time they need people to keep buying their shit. 

But the original question was who wakes up in the morning and decides to fuck over their customers. The answer is quite a lot of people.


----------



## diagrammatiks

possumkiller said:


> I'm just saying that fucking over the customer for more profits is a feature of our system. Many examples can be found such as Apple. Better-run companies usually get backlash and walk it back because if they aim to do business for a long period of time they need people to keep buying their shit.
> 
> But the original question was who wakes up in the morning and decides to fuck over their customers. The answer is quite a lot of people.



ok I get your point. 

So, like assuming we entertain this theory....
who really profits from this to the point where you can say this was deliberate.


----------



## sleewell

Bill Gates is going to micro chip us all for a huuuge profit. I read about it in Hillary's emails that were just found on Jeff Bezos server. George soros is also involved but I haven't figured out how yet, probably involving 5g mind control or giving us all autism w a vaccine. 


Did I miss any boogeymen were supposed to hate while being distracted from the swampiest swamp commiting fraud on enormous levels?


----------



## USMarine75

Karatekid said:


>




"right now."

The situation evolved.

If my patient presents with an open wound, I treat it as an open wound, provide prophylactic antibiotics, and assess/reassure there's nothing to worry about.

If he spirals down and develops MRSA/VRSA, Sepsis, or NF I tell him the prognosis has changed and it can be potentially life threatening.

You can only respond with the facts at hand. Neither statement/treatment was wrong. It's called evidence based medicine.

tl;dr when it comes to conspiracy theorists - if you believe in everything, you believe in nothing.



Randy said:


>


----------



## TedEH

I mildly regret introducing the phrasing of "follow the money" into my argument.  The point was to illustrate that there is no money to follow. Nobody is benefiting from this. 

People in health care? Doctors? Nurses? Hospitals? Nobody I know has gotten any money out of this. Instead they're put at high risk and being overworked.

People making ventilators? If I understand correctly (and I might be a bit off here), they're almost all companies that do a lot of other kinds of works, so while they might make some money from this one product, all of their other business (where they likely make the majority of their money) grinds to a halt.

People making vaccines? If the whole conspiracy is to sell us a fake cure for a huge price, then why is there nobody selling a cure? I mean, there's certainly some wackjobs on tv and the internet claiming to sell cures, but only the most gullible are going to buy into that. Which is unfortunate, but a whole other discussion. Nobody is buying cures right now. I'm surprised nobody has tried to pin this on the people who make hand sanitizer (please don't) since that's what people _are _buying.

Government? If your economy is destroyed, the people have no money. If the people have no money, then neither does the government.

Don't get me wrong, it would be false to state the literally nobody makes any profit in this arrangement. I make video games, and people are buying that shit up like mad right now. But I promise that nobody in video games orchestrated the virus as a means to get rich, or to crush the competing film industry or something.


----------



## possumkiller

diagrammatiks said:


> ok I get your point.
> 
> So, like assuming we entertain this theory....
> who really profits from this to the point where you can say this was deliberate.


Who profits from what? Like what are you even talking about? All I said was I would be careful saying something about who wakes up in the morning deciding to fuck over their customers because this is SSO where people have been known to wake up in the morning deciding to fuck their customers. I mentioned that it is actually a feature of capitalism to try to fuck the customer as much as possible to make more money. If there is too much blowback, better companies usually adjust to customer feedback.


----------



## sleewell

The gop senators who sold stocks after a classified briefing made lots of money. I think they then invested in ppe companies.

Amazon and Walmart are making lots of money.

Zoom and other work from home tech companies are doing well.

Because we failed to use the power of the federal govt to buy ppe in bulk for set prices and then distribute to states the ppe companies were basically allowed to sell to the highest bidders at many times normal profit levels.


----------



## Vostre Roy

TedEH said:


> I'm from Canada, not Mars. It's maybe 80% like America, just colder, more French instead of Spanish, and our equivalent to Florida Man is probably from Quebec.



Sir, I take offense.

Newfoudland man (Newfie) is our Florida Man, Alberta is our redneck Texas and Quebec is just old confederate living on a dead dream of secession.

Sorry about the off-topic reply, you can tune back to your regular virus propaganda conspiracy tin-foil discussion.


----------



## USMarine75

Cynicanal said:


> https://www.kxan.com/news/experts-u...QrFc3UXaZGmWi1wLtJM-pOqYRqsAxak98pCuj7mu3cbxE
> https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2...n-plants-as-employees-get-sick-with-covid-19/
> 
> Turns out I've been much too optimistic about all of this; I wasn't counting on a complete collapse of the food supply chain, but that's also coming!





Karatekid said:


> That’s ok go ahead and ban me



Again?


----------



## TedEH

Don't get me wrong, if there's a way to take advantage of a situation, someone's probably going to try it. The point is not whether or not literally nobody makes any money right now, but whether or not there's any reason to believe that the global situation we're in was orchestrated deliberately to make a dollar. Hint: There is no reason to believe that.


----------



## sleewell

Yes. Id agree with that.

Where in Canada is trailer park boys based in? I love that show so much.


----------



## Demiurge

TedEH said:


> Don't get me wrong, if there's a way to take advantage of a situation, someone's probably going to try it.



Exactly, and for the most part, there are sectors of business that are going to naturally do well during a situation such as this. There are companies selling baby clothes and others that sell coffins. Some sell streaming TV content and others bathing suits and others hiking gear. Business opportunity is with is in sickness and in health, till death do us part


----------



## thraxil

sleewell said:


> Yes. Id agree with that.
> 
> Where in Canada is trailer park boys based in? I love that show so much.



Nova Scotia. I grew up in northern Maine and that's the show I point people at to explain what it's like where I'm from (minus a few Canadianisms). Any character on that show easily could've fit in in my home town. There's even an episode that features the Dysart's truck stop in Bangor, which was a regular hangout for my high school friends.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

diagrammatiks said:


> who decides to get up one day and fuck all of their customers.



Also prostitutes.


----------



## KnightBrolaire




----------



## possumkiller

KnightBrolaire said:


> View attachment 80367


Which state is The Deep State anyway? I know Florida is the Sunshine State and Wyoming is like The Land of Lincoln or some shit but in all my two years of truck driving I never saw any state calling itself The Deep State.


----------



## JoshuaVonFlash

possumkiller said:


> Which state is The Deep State anyway? I know Florida is the Sunshine State and Wyoming is like The Land of Lincoln or some shit but in all my two years of truck driving I never saw any state calling itself The Deep State.


Badwater Basin in California is 282 below sea level, making California the "deepest" state.


----------



## Randy

diagrammatiks said:


> who decides to get up one day and fuck all of their customers. no one does this.


----------



## StevenC

possumkiller said:


> Which state is The Deep State anyway? I know Florida is the Sunshine State and Wyoming is like The Land of Lincoln or some shit but in all my two years of truck driving I never saw any state calling itself The Deep State.


Well, New York used to be called New Netherland, so probably there.


----------



## diagrammatiks

Randy said:


> View attachment 80368



fuck it you guys got me. 

if kiesel can be diesel and trump can trump then china can decide one day it doesn't want to sell anything to anybody anymore.


----------



## wankerness

The utterly loathsome garbage Republicans in my state supreme court/legislature are about to overturn the safer at home order and say everything has to open until they come up with a new plan. What. the. fuck. What's even the point of a new plan once everything's open and everyone's kicked off unemployment? The cases in the state will explode and the cat will be out of the bag. 

They were just furious we weren't keeping up with Georgia and Texas on the dumbass scale. I HATE that a little minority of assholes can destroy everything positive that our state had been doing. It's a good example of how the country is functioning as a whole.


----------



## Ralyks

Looks like Trump reversed course on disbanding the Covid team.


----------



## sleewell

Ralyks said:


> Looks like Trump reversed course on disbanding the Covid team.




nah, you prolly just misunderstood his sarcasm or yesterday was fake news.


----------



## bostjan

JoshuaVonFlash said:


> Badwater Basin in California is 282 below sea level, making California the "deepest" state.



It's also the highest state in the lower forty-eight. Whoah, like, I just had a thought, that, like, sometimes you have to get, like, really high, like, to be able to, umm, go really deep, dude. Like, what were we talking about again, dude? 



sleewell said:


> nah, you prolly just misunderstood his sarcasm or yesterday was fake news.



If I've learned anything from Trump, it's that I can lie about anything and later claim sarcasm as a defense, and also that if you deny something to the bitter end, people will give you an extraordinary amount of leeway. You never get caught in a lie that way, because when you lie it's just people misinterpreting your sarcasm, and if they have evidence of deeds you've done to disprove your intent, you just cause a bunch of chaos until people either forget why they hate you or it simply takes to long for them to explain it whilst you are constantly interrupting them.

So, you remember ages ago, I posted about there being two different strains of the virus? No?



bostjan said:


> Regarding all this talk in the news lately about people being reinfected...
> 
> 1. I had mentioned earlier that there was a Chinese study that had separately identified two strains of the virus: an ancestral "S" strain and a more aggressive "L" strain. Well, now what we are seeing is that there is still a fairly dominant "S" strain, same as before, but, now, there are more than two dozen more aggressive strains. This is just a hunch, but I have a feeling that these more aggressive strains are not branches off of the L strain, but parallel branches off of the S strain. Early on, there was a lot of debate about whether the S strain was really less aggressive or not, but the debate has died down and there does seem to be some evidence to support the idea that the original virus transmitted to humans was highly contagious but not very deadly. SARS-CoV-2 is a virus that has all of its information stored in RNA protected by a small envelope of cell membrane (lipid bilayer). These sorts of viruses are prone to a lot of rapid mutation. Most of what we know about mutations of RNA viruses refer to influenza and adenovirus. Adenovirus can mutate very rapidly (with new strains created over the course of months), but poses little danger. Influenza poses more danger, and mutates new successful strains every few years. Coronavirus, in size, is about halfway between, and has now reached the point where, without historical data, any particular strain of this thing going around cannot be narrowed down to SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-2, because there is so much variation. It looks probable that these L-strains (now at least 26 of them) are mutating from the S strain, and the epidemiology involved is that people with the S strain have mild symptoms, and are more likely to travel and infect others, where the virus mutates into one of the several L-strains, and as such is more likely to develop harsh symptoms and be potentially lethal. The S strain keeps the virus spreading, though.
> 
> 2. The reason there is no vaccine for the common cold is that there are so many hundreds of viruses that cause it. Even flu shots are a best guess at whichever strain is going to be bad that year, and even though influenza is influenza, strain H6N1 vaccine won't work against H2N2. If Covid-19 is caused by 27 strains of coronavirus that each require a different vaccine, then there is no reason to believe that naturally acquired immunity against strain S will work against strain L21 or whatever. Just from a common sense perspective, I do not believe that reinfection should be the least bit surprising, with that knowledge that the research community has shared with us.
> 
> 3. Ok, I may sound like a broken record with this, but there are treatments for SARS. This thing is SARS, from a treatment perspective, they are the same group of virus. A SARS vaccine might not work against SARS-2, but the treatment is a totally different thing than a vaccine. We have a few treatments for SARS, and a bunch of them have been given limited test runs over the past 16 years against SARS. Since the president has a hardon for HCQ+Azithromycin, we should continue looking into that (even as most studies now show that it doesn't work against the virus, but rather just shuts off symptoms as it is an immunosuppressive and simply switches off the symptoms that are linked to the immune system fighting the virus), but, more importantly, we need a lot more data on other treatments that stemmed from SARS treatment. The problem is that SARS knowledge all goes back to places like East Asia, the middle east, and Africa, where the medical community may either not be trusted in the West or simply isn't transparent.
> 
> 4. We still know very little about the virus, and as I type this, Trump is teasing about proclaiming that everyone go back to business as usual, just as we approach the peak of the spread of the virus.



There is starting to be some data coming in now about tracing those strains: https://arstechnica.com/science/202...-cov-2-mutation-overstep-data-grab-headlines/ maybe nothing surprising, but interesting, nonetheless. I think the fact that there are two distinguishable strains is crucial to remember as we develop treatments, vaccines, etc. If the antigens are of two different physical forms, I don't see how one vaccine could possibly cover them both. If we find out later that the two strains can mutate into each other somehow, then that could make this one of the most difficult viruses to combat globally.


----------



## spudmunkey

US is finally cracking 1/4 mil dily tests regularly...so that's some good news.


----------



## Drew

Wuuthrad said:


> You guys can ask me, argue with me or alternatively I think it’s probably a better idea to watch the video and ask your own questions. That was my hope anyway, not to start an argument. I can’t really defend the assertions made in the video it’s not mine. I do think it’s worth consideration.



Translation: "I actually don't know what the fuck I'm talking about, and don't want to do the 'research' of a hasty Google search for shady and easily disprovable sources to try to shore up my belief that this is just a giant government conspiracy and not a pandemic, so I'm just going to tell you to do it for me." 

Seriously, how do you post this with a straight face? People aren't going to hospitals in the middle of a pandemic and asking to be put on ventilators because they're bored on a Tuesday night and caught up on The Tiger King.


----------



## jaxadam

Drew said:


> asking to be put on ventilators because they're bored on a Tuesday night and caught up on The Tiger King.



I don’t know man, if I had a choice between Tiger King and ventilator, I might choose ventilator.


----------



## Drew

GoldDragon said:


> I'm not trying to be intentionally cynical, my question is this: *If we haven't seen the death rate decline significantly, and we reopen, *how do we have any expectation of having only 100K deaths?


Been offline for a few days so only seeing this now. Bolded bit for emphasis the answer is we _don't_. Not until we see the _case count_ decline significantly. I think we need one or two states to try and fail to reopen before we convince the country as a whole it can't be done safely, but I think ultimately that's going to be what happens - we realize we can't reopen, the states that aren't fully all in on shelter in place and face masks and social distancing will get on board in a hurry, and maybe by the summer the case load will start falling enough that we can do a ppased reopening coupled with aggressive testing and contact tracing.


----------



## Drew

jaxadam said:


> I don’t know man, if I had a choice between Tiger King and ventilator, I might choose ventilator.


That's actually fair.


----------



## mastapimp




----------



## sleewell

^ so funny


----------



## spudmunkey

sleewell said:


> ^ so funny



They were blasting a bunch of CCR, too. Sadly, I don't *think* they played Fortunate Son, but it would have been appropriate. 

Anyone else think it was hilarious that they/he wasn't wearing a recommended and offered-up mask in the tour of a mask factory?


----------



## tedtan

DARPA has identified several of the top antibodies responsible for fighting SARScov2 and are trying to reduce this to the top two or three. They have a means of introducing these antibodies into the body and causing it to produce those antibodies as if it were responding to a vaccine. They've proven the process effective in monkeys and will be starting human trial shortly.

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/penta...-find-the-most-potent-coronavirus-antibodies/


----------



## bostjan

tedtan said:


> DARPA has identified several of the top antibodies responsible for fighting SARScov2 and are trying to reduce this to the top two or three. They have a means of introducing these antibodies into the body and causing it to produce those antibodies as if it were responding to a vaccine. They've proven the process effective in monkeys and will be starting human trial shortly.
> 
> https://www.cbsnews.com/video/penta...-find-the-most-potent-coronavirus-antibodies/



Interesting. It will still probably take 3-4 months before it can go to production, if it works. But that's much faster than developing a vaccine. There had previously been talk of using antibodies from donated blood to do something similar. The problem with using donated blood is that there are a lot of religious people in the USA who are not allowed by their beliefs to accept donated blood.


----------



## USMarine75

Wuuthrad said:


> Time for the “thinking caps” boys and girls, ladies and gentleman, birds and bees, dogs and cats, yin and yang, Sodom and Gomorrah...I recommend wool. A few brief summaries:
> 
> 
> -sic- “With this ‘new administration,’We are ‘extraordinarily confident’ we are going to see this in the next few years, a ‘surprise epidemic.’ Dr. Fauci
> 
> 
> “My Job was to teach Ebola cells how to infect human cells without killing them” - Dr Mikovits
> 
> 
> Federal law changes in the 80s allowed govt researchers to copyright vaccines funded by public money, which at minimum represents a conflict of interest.
> 
> 
> Fauci is a Fraud- he funded Wuhan research facility, which accelerated the SARS 2 virus. (It’s not natural for a virus to accelerate in 10 years.)
> 
> 
> “We’re taking a liberal approach to Covid 19 mortality.” - Dr. Birx
> 
> 
> “If we’re not testing...they’re calling it Covid 19” Dr. Mikovitz
> 
> 
> “If someone dies with Covid 19 we are counting that as a Covid 19 death” Dr Birx
> 
> 
> “You don’t die with an infection, you die from an infection” Dr Mirkovitz
> 
> 
> Medicare pays 13k$ for a Covid admission.
> 
> 39K$ for a Ventilator patient.
> 
> 
> Which will probably kill them.
> 
> 
> Medicines that have been effective for decades have been shut down so that profiteering pharma corps can manufacture disease and their “cures”
> 
> 
> There are no dissenting voices allowed anymore in this “free” country.
> 
> 
> Mass propaganda has divided us and driven us to hate each other by design.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -edit- Bill Gates claims no safety until the entire global population is inoculated with his virus (or is it vaccine?) can’t remember the difference anymore!




^ Whole lot of nonsensical rambling.

And the basis of your video is a discredited researcher (and anti-vaxxer) who's had her paper withdrawn and hypothesis debunked. She's no better than Andrew Wakefield (not a Dr), Kary Mullis (genius in one field but a dummy in all others), Paul Duesberg, Sam Chachoua, or Dr Oz. Just because you get a degree doesn't mean you get a pass from being an idiot.

https://maldita.es/malditaciencia/2020/05/02/video-virologa-judy-mikovits-coronavirus/

tl;dr tell me more about chemtrails and GMO's


----------



## fantom

Drew said:


> Been offline for a few days so only seeing this now. Bolded bit for emphasis the answer is we _don't_. Not until we see the _case count_ decline significantly. I think we need one or two states to try and fail to reopen before we convince the country as a whole it can't be done safely, but I think ultimately that's going to be what happens - we realize we can't reopen, the states that aren't fully all in on shelter in place and face masks and social distancing will get on board in a hurry, and maybe by the summer the case load will start falling enough that we can do a ppased reopening coupled with aggressive testing and contact tracing.



Honestly, at this point the total case count does not matter. The only stat that should dictate reopening is the number of active hospital vacancies (hospital beds, ICU beds, ventilators, and healthy well-rested staff). And that number has increased in most of the country over the last 2 weeks.

I personally favor being cautious, but in this stupid country, a realistic goal is making sure the healthcare system is... Healthy...


----------



## wankerness

So Trump just loudly started yelling for the supreme court to repeal Obamacare. Apparently some higher-up Republicans are even trying to talk him down, but he's going ahead with it. That would go over like a lead balloon during a pandemic, if Trump-supporting Republicans didn't seem to be actively rooting for their own deaths...


----------



## fantom

bostjan said:


> The problem with using donated blood is that there are a lot of religious people in the USA who are not allowed by their beliefs to accept donated blood.



I'm saying this as someone raised in a religious family... If people choose to refuse medical treatment and die or get sick, let them. It isn't society's job to protect people from themselves. Let "God" pick sides. They can thankful when they get to wherever they end up. Just don't risk getting other people sick under the guise of "freedom". That is society's job. To protect ourselves from each other.



wankerness said:


> So Trump just loudly started yelling for the supreme court to repeal Obamacare. Apparently some higher-up Republicans are even trying to talk him down, but he's going ahead with it. That would go over like a lead balloon during a pandemic, if Trump-supporting Republicans didn't seem to be actively rooting for their own deaths...



Ya... The dumb part about it is that when this blows up on rural America, they will somehow find a way to blame Obamacare for dropping their coverage and think it is Obama's fault.


----------



## fantom

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...ial-cronyism-steered-trump-pandemic-response/

There is a link to the actual complaint in that article. It is just one person's word vs. everyone else, but Jesus this country is ****ed. I can't believe someone raised this many complaints as early as January and was effectively removed from the conversation and eventually "transferred" for saying common sense statements against superiors.

A lot of controversial topics from this thread are covered. He complained about shortage of PPE and exporting the stock to China before it happened. He complained about the political motivation regarding the hydroxychloroquine. He raised the death rate increasing under the drug. Raised concerns to build out more infrastructure and research for treatments in January. And the administration punished him for it?!? How do people support this administration anymore?

Also, in all hilariousness, every news article summarizes the complaint as damning evidence. Foxnews just mentioned he filed a complaint and ignored any ramification


----------



## bostjan

fantom said:


> How do people support this administration anymore?



"Alternative facts."

For them, there is no coverup, there are no complaints. Everything is rosy. Unemployment is the lowest ever, and it's only high because of the virus that doesn't exist that Trump is doing a perfect job fighting, and he's only doing a bad job fighting it because of Obama, who is also the reason unemployment is so high.


----------



## USMarine75




----------



## SpaceDock

diagrammatiks said:


> who decides to get up one day and fuck all of their customers. no one does this.



Bernie Rico Jr.


----------



## USMarine75

diagrammatiks said:


> who decides to get up one day and fuck all of their customers. no one does this.



Jonny Craig


----------



## Ralyks

diagrammatiks said:


> who decides to get up one day and fuck all of their customers. no one does this.



Corelia


----------



## bostjan

diagrammatiks said:


> who decides to get up one day and fuck all of their customers. no one does this.



Harvey Weinstein? 


Did I meme properly?


----------



## Ralyks

bostjan said:


> Harvey Weinstein?
> 
> 
> Did I meme properly?



You got a bit literal, but it works.


----------



## USMarine75

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/04/politics/coronavirus-intelligence/index.html


----------



## USMarine75

diagrammatiks said:


> who decides to get up one day and fuck all of their customers.


----------



## Drew

fantom said:


> Honestly, at this point the total case count does not matter. The only stat that should dictate reopening is the number of active hospital vacancies (hospital beds, ICU beds, ventilators, and healthy well-rested staff). And that number has increased in most of the country over the last 2 weeks.
> 
> I personally favor being cautious, but in this stupid country, a realistic goal is making sure the healthcare system is... Healthy...


I'd agree with you if we lived in a world with fast, accurate, and readily available testing, and robust, contact tracing, where we could be confident we knew who was infected, and who they had likely passed it on to. 

Since we have neither, a rising known case count means we have a rising unknown case count and community transmission, so if the hospitals aren't currently overwhelmed, just wait, they will be. 

Until the case count is low enough to end community transmission and allow contact tracing, loosening restrictions will just increase the rate of community transmission.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> Until the case count is low enough to end community transmission and allow contact tracing, loosening restrictions will just increase the rate of community transmission.



Do you really think we'll end up in a position where contact tracking will even be feasible in the USA? I really don't think it will ever be possible. If we value privacy as a basic human right, and a significant portion of Americans don't even believe in the virus, how is that ever going to work?

The way I see it, we are on a one-track ride through this. Our leadership will do nothing other than protect itself, no matter how ridiculous the lengths necessary. Our citizens are too busy cooking up half-baked conspiracy theories as excuses not to wash their hands or so that they can keep spitting on the sidewalk. The rest of us just need to just observe from a safe distance and let it rip, I guess. As a researcher, I'd love to say that we will come up with a treatment or a stopgap or whatever, but the leadership won't listen to science and wants to inject people with household cleaners and sunlight. Maybe I'm just having a rough day, but at this moment, I have nothing but pessimism that no matter what I do, no matter what people who are like me do, there will be enough slobbering fools out there to undo it all effortlessly, then move on to more destruction.


----------



## Ralyks

Well then hopefully we have new leadership after November.


----------



## JSanta

The AP is reporting that the administration is scrapping the CDCs guide on reopening. 

https://apnews.com/7a00d5fba3249e573d2ead4bd323a4d4

"The Trump administration has instead sought to put the onus on states to handle COVID-19 response. This approach to managing the pandemic has been reflected in President Donald Trump’s public statements, from the assertion that he isn’t responsible for the country’s lackluster early testing efforts, to his description last week of the federal government’s role as a “supplier of last resort” for states in need of testing aid."


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Do you really think we'll end up in a position where contact tracking will even be feasible in the USA? I really don't think it will ever be possible. If we value privacy as a basic human right, and a significant portion of Americans don't even believe in the virus, how is that ever going to work?


A combination of two things, really. One, we need to find a way that allows contact trcing, while still respecting privcy and being HIPPA compliant (Google and Apple proposed an interesting approach where each cell phone owner is assigned a random identifier, and if their phone spends more than three or five minutes within several feet of another phone, based on bluetooth transmission, then those phones swap identifiers and create a record of those two identifiers having been "in contact" at that point in time but exchange no personal data. Then, if someone tests positive, they're encouraged to self report to the platform that their unique identifier tested positive on a particular date, and any phones that have that identifier logged as a contact point within the infection window would notify their owner that they had been in contact with a known COVID case and should themselves be tested, but would not note the date or time of contact, and since no personal identifying information was associated with the ID, would also not be informed _who_ the contact was, because there would be no record tying IDs to individuals. It's actually a kind of nifty proposal.). And two, people tend to take the Coronavirus a LOT more seriously once they know someone who's gotten sick, so over time, the "Coronavirus is a liberal conspiracy" people would start to get sick a lot faster than those taking this seriously, and eventually would - mostly - come to their senses. 

The alternative is that a whole fucking LOT of people die. Pick your poison.


----------



## jaxadam




----------



## wankerness

Ralyks said:


> Well then hopefully we have new leadership after November.



It's going to be way too late to help anything with this, I'm afraid. Plus, can you imagine the psycho spree we're going to witness if he loses the election? He can still do whatever he wants until Mid-January, and the senate will probably rubber stamp all of it.


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


>




This guy was sorta funny when he talked about gluten free or something. Two years later... still existing? I might as well listen to what the numa numa kid has to say about covid.

Kinda reminds me of the South Park with Randy invents sarcasta-ball and gets stuck speaking permanently in sarcasm.


----------



## spudmunkey

narad said:


> This guy was sorta funny when he talked about gluten free or something. Two years later... still existing? I might as well listen to what the numa numa kid has to say about covid.
> 
> Kinda reminds me of the South Park with Randy invents sarcasta-ball and gets stuck speaking permanently in sarcasm.



One of the first things he brings up is the LA county data those two urgent care owners/doctors were referencing in their incorrect assessment of the published data, and misrepresentations of other peoples/organizations' positions.


----------



## fantom

Drew said:


> I'd agree with you if we lived in a world with fast, accurate, and readily available testing, and robust, contact tracing, where we could be confident we knew who was infected, and who they had likely passed it on to.
> 
> Since we have neither, a rising known case count means we have a rising unknown case count and community transmission, so if the hospitals aren't currently overwhelmed, just wait, they will be.
> 
> Until the case count is low enough to end community transmission and allow contact tracing, loosening restrictions will just increase the rate of community transmission.



Ideally, agree. I want everything you say to be true. But let's look from a different perspective for a second.

Realistically, it isn't going to happen that way. Most evidence seems to be showing the community spread where I live was happening in December / January and went undetected for nearly 2 months before someone died. It still wasn't acted on for another 3-4 weeks because the CDC was backlogged. And I live in an area that detected and reacted relatively quickly. At this point, the most realistic outcome is that everyone in bay area is going to get sick from this. It is a matter of when. The best case scenario is that the hospital system still works for everyone. I don't want that to be the case. I think our governer and local officials will try super hard to have reliable testing. But I will not be surprised to find out I test positive for antibodies despite working from home nearly 2 months and buying groceries maybe 4 times total. Why? Because I worked in January and February.

The only reliable way to make sure the hospital system is functional is to measure it's capacity and load directly. Everything else is trying to take on more than our society has shown it can handle and more distracting than anything else for now.



Drew said:


> A combination of two things, really. One, we need to find a way that allows contact trcing, while still respecting privcy and being HIPPA compliant (Google and Apple proposed an interesting approach where each cell phone owner is assigned a random identifier, and if their phone spends more than three or five minutes within several feet of another phone, based on bluetooth transmission, then those phones swap identifiers and create a record of those two identifiers having been "in contact" at that point in time but exchange no personal data. Then, if someone tests positive, they're encouraged to self report to the platform that their unique identifier tested positive on a particular date, and any phones that have that identifier logged as a contact point within the infection window would notify their owner that they had been in contact with a known COVID case and should themselves be tested, but would not note the date or time of contact, and since no personal identifying information was associated with the ID, would also not be informed _who_ the contact was, because there would be no record tying IDs to individuals. It's actually a kind of nifty proposal.). And two, people tend to take the Coronavirus a LOT more seriously once they know someone who's gotten sick, so over time, the "Coronavirus is a liberal conspiracy" people would start to get sick a lot faster than those taking this seriously, and eventually would - mostly - come to their senses.
> 
> The alternative is that a whole fucking LOT of people die. Pick your poison.



I want phone contact tracing to work. Assuming people get over the privacy issue it presents, it still has many issues. The approach doesn't work on many older phones. Globally, only 60% or so have a compatible phone. The main people that don't live in underprivileged conditions, are kids, or are adults. Importantly, 90% of the random positive test rate is happening to underprivileged households. Kids are one of the main social risk factors. And older people are the ones paying the price. Assuming you give them all free phones, people don't bring their phones with them everywhere. In addition, all of the currently infected people won't be able to create an accurate starting point. If there is some simulation showing the detection rate using this over time, I wouldn't be surprised to see it take 6 months to start converging in any reliable way. Honestly, this whole idea sounds like Elon Musk sending a rocket to rescue some kids from a flooded cave. It creates positive press, but probably doesn't actually help.


----------



## Ralyks

https://apple.news/A1ug1KSfLTS6I9ChpPkiWsw

So Trumps valet tested positive.


----------



## fantom

Ralyks said:


> Well then hopefully we have new leadership after November.





wankerness said:


> It's going to be way too late to help anything with this, I'm afraid.





Ralyks said:


> So Trumps valet tested positive.



Need I say more?


----------



## fantom

wankerness said:


> It's going to be way too late to help anything with this, I'm afraid. Plus, can you imagine the psycho spree we're going to witness if he loses the election? He can still do whatever he wants until Mid-January, and the senate will probably rubber stamp all of it.



The Senate can't rubber stamp anything from Trump. It's the other way around. Trump rubber stamps whatever the Senate passes from the House.


----------



## USMarine75




----------



## Drew

fantom said:


> I want phone contact tracing to work. Assuming people get over the privacy issue it presents, it still has many issues. The approach doesn't work on many older phones. Globally, only 60% or so have a compatible phone. The main people that don't live in underprivileged conditions, are kids, or are adults. Importantly, 90% of the random positive test rate is happening to underprivileged households. Kids are one of the main social risk factors. And older people are the ones paying the price. Assuming you give them all free phones, people don't bring their phones with them everywhere. In addition, all of the currently infected people won't be able to create an accurate starting point. If there is some simulation showing the detection rate using this over time, I wouldn't be surprised to see it take 6 months to start converging in any reliable way. Honestly, this whole idea sounds like Elon Musk sending a rocket to rescue some kids from a flooded cave. It creates positive press, but probably doesn't actually help.


Yes, but domestically, bluetooth-compatible phone usage is much higher than that, and most people DO travel with their phones. It's not perfect - the fact it requires self-reporting is another gap, and since whether or not you even believe in COVID-19 is a political question these days, evidently, that could be a further challenge. But it's a pretty great solution that could be rolled out overnight and requires no additional hardware. If there's a better one, I'd be happy to explore that too.


----------



## TedEH

I think this counts as one of those situations where a not-perfect solution is better than no solution at all.


----------



## tedtan

fantom said:


> But I will not be surprised to find out I test positive for antibodies despite working from home nearly 2 months and buying groceries maybe 4 times total. Why? Because I worked in January and February.



Back in February I had what I thought was a flu that got by the flu shot. Among the symptoms I had were fever, chills, a dry cough, three days wherein I had slightly more difficulty after minor exertion, and for two of those three days I lost the senses of taste and smell.

I think you and I, along with a lot more people, will test positive for antibodies because this has been spreading long before anyone knew about it.




fantom said:


> If there is some simulation showing the detection rate using this over time, I wouldn't be surprised to see it take 6 months to start converging in any reliable way. Honestly, this whole idea sounds like Elon Musk sending a rocket to rescue some kids from a flooded cave. It creates positive press, but probably doesn't actually help.



This approach is not too far away from what has worked in South Korea. Granted, we're not South Korea, but the methodology works.


----------



## GoldDragon

tedtan said:


> Back in February I had what I thought was a flu that got by the flu shot. Among the symptoms I had were fever, chills, a dry cough, three days wherein I had slightly more difficulty after minor exertion, and for two of those three days I lost the senses of taste and smell.
> 
> I think you and I, along with a lot more people, will test positive for antibodies because this has been spreading long before anyone knew about it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This approach is not too far away from what has worked in South Korea. Granted, we're not South Korea, but the methodology works.



I had a flu for eight days in mid March, also had the flu shot. It followed the same progression as CV-19, morphed into a cough at day five, but then fizzled out by day eight. I slept non stop first three days, and did nothing for a couple weeks. I'm hoping my caution kept it contained.

I meet alot of strangers in my job, so its reasonable I would have got it.

I have read some articles where "young and healthy" people get covid. Usually in the story, they say something like "he is/was an avid runner". My thinking is that if a young person thinks he is invincible, pounds a Starbucks and goes running when he has mild symptoms, that is what causes it to progress.

So while is generally hits the old and infirm, it also hits alot of dumbasses.


----------



## Drew

GoldDragon said:


> I have read some articles where "young and healthy" people get covid. Usually in the story, they say something like "he is/was an avid runner". My thinking is that if a young person thinks he is invincible, pounds a Starbucks and goes running when he has mild symptoms, that is what causes it to progress..


Counterintuitively, there's some evidence that suggests exercise is actually _helpful_ while fighting COVID-19. Not the most robust clinical source, here, but Business Insider is at least pretty good at not running pseudoscience.

https://www.businessinsider.com/exercise-may-help-prevent-a-deadly-coronavirus-complication-2020-4

Mother of all anecdotal evidence incoming - I haven't really been talking about it here, but I guess there's no real reason not to - I had COVID-19 early on, in mid March. My GF is a doctor, it's been ravaging the medical community here, but thankfully we both had pretty mild cases, were self-quarantining anyway because we figured she was going to contract it at some point, and my office went remote at the end of the week before either of us became symptomatic. She was a health care provider and was able to get tested even without a known transmission point - in my case, tests were still too scarce and only being provided to high risk individuals or serious cases to confirm a diagnosis, so because I was quarantining with a positive case and all my symptoms checked out, they told me they were calling me a presumed positive, to stay home for the full 14 days, and call the ER if symptoms worsened and then my doctor checked in periodically after that until it was clear I was going to be fine. Thankfully symptoms were incredibly mild for both of us, and there have been no lingering effects.

I'm also an avid cyclist. Not like, "I like riding my bike through the park," but like my quarantine plan was to take advantage of the empty streets to go Strava KOM hunting, to keep in racing shape as all my spring gravel events were getting cancelled. I stopped _training_ while we were waiting for test results and then while recovering, and of course I stayed indoors and rode on a trainer, but I didn't stop _riding_ at all, and made a point of doing a "virtual commute" of 20-30 minutes at least before or after work - both, when time permitted, but the markets were blowing the fuck up during this time so it often didn't - to at least keep my legs going and minimize the lost ground. Yeah, a moderate half hour in the saddle isn't a high intensity interval workout, but it's also not bed rest. At the time I was doing it because I was stubborn, but with the benefit of hindsight, the fact I kept maintaining moderate exercise may have actually contributed to how mild my symptoms were.

tl;dr - scientists and doctors still don't know what makes COVID-19 mild for some people, and lethal for others. For me, in a different world, it was something I wouldn't have felt right calling out of work over. I have friends and colleagues who lost loved ones from the same disease I initially wrote off as just being achy from working 14 hour days at an unfamiliar chair/table. Given what we know we can't _categorically_ say you're wrong, that anecdotal reports of a few runners getting COVID and dying means that being an idiot and exercising through it is a risk factor... But, the data we DO have is decent enough that a recommendation to _continue_ exercising to try to ward off and potentially minimize symptoms is defensible.

Anyway, Starbucks is shit.



tedtan said:


> Back in February I had what I thought was a flu that got by the flu shot. Among the symptoms I had were fever, chills, a dry cough, three days wherein I had slightly more difficulty after minor exertion, and for two of those three days I lost the senses of taste and smell.



The loss of smell is one of the weirder and more unusual symptoms, and if it was known to be in the part of the country you're in, that would lead me to suspect that you very likely DID get infected. That's a slippery slope, though - a popular right-wing series of memes have been about asking people to remember that weird flu they got back in November even though they got the flu vaccine this year, and clearly they already had COVID, which is impossible because it was first detected in China in December, evidently very soon after the first human transmission, and while we've revised our timetables a bit since we still are reasonably confident there were only a handful of cases in the states by mid-January, and this does take some time to spread. New York City got hit hard because it's a global transportation hub with tens of thousands of flights in and out from Europe every day, Boston got hit thanks to that Biogen conference, Seattle was a patient coming back from Wuhan although last I heard they didn't have a clear contact point for how it got to the nursing home... But even up to mid-March, when I got sick, the odds were still stacked against it being COVID just because there weren't enough cases out there to make transmission likely, right up until my girlfriend realized she couldn't smell the coffee I'd just ground one morning, not because she was congested or anything, but because she just couldn't smell. 

But there's a lot of people out there saying "I had the flu vaccine this year, and I had flu like symptoms, so I definitely had it," and the reality is it's actually pretty _common_ to still get the flu after the vaccine, bigger picture, because there's so much guesswork involved in estimating which strains will catch on, and which we should therefore try to inoculate people against.


----------



## Alexa run my life

I think my cat had it. She wasnt eating or drinking anything for 3 days.....she was on deaths door. There was one time she really scared us when she got off the couch she was wobbling and fell over (probably due to being so weak from not eating).

We brought her to the vet and they said she had a fever. They gave her an antibiotic that is effective for two weeks, fluids and an appetite stimulant, and luckily she got back to 100% after at least a whole week since the start of the treatment. 

It just came out of nowhere. The thing is though, is I have two other cats, and neither of them got sick. So why did she get sick and not the other two? I really dont know if she had the covid 19. 

I will add, when she recovered to 100%, she was clearly more upbeat, happy, and now spazzes out and plays more than the other two do....and shes the oldest one out of the bunch. Shes just an overgrown kitten, really.


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## spudmunkey

If antibiotics helped, it wasn't a virus, though, right? or is that just a myth?


----------



## wankerness

There's been a lot of stuff about deep breathing exercises being one of the main things to ward off really bad complications for people with moderate->severe cases. In the Chinese camps they set up for mild cases, they had group low-impact exercise just to get people to change body position and do deeper breathing.

There are some things they're correlating to severity of cases other than the simple and obvious obesity, diabetes and age. One BIG one is looking like Vitamin D deficiency, which on top of the correlation in severity of cases and vitamin D levels for people hospitalized, is also being theorized to possibly account for some of the difference in the vastly worse outcomes for black people vs white people (with latinos in the middle). The more melanin you have, the harder it is for people to absorb vitamin D. Not that plenty of white people aren't also deficient, but it's definitely a thing.

They're also finding nicotine seems to ward it off. They're starting to trial using nicotine patches on people somewhere, I think maybe it was Canada?? That said, if you smoke cigarettes, your odds of getting it are lower but your odds of dying from it if you do get it are much higher.

The last one I read was melatonin, but there's less evidence for that than Vitamin D so far.

So hey, if you're vitamin d deficient like most people, it might be time to start taking the supplements just in case! Since you're probably not getting multiple hours of sunlight (not through glass) a day like is necessary to get it naturally without diet.


----------



## wankerness

spudmunkey said:


> If antibiotics helped, it wasn't a virus, though, right? or is that just a myth?



Antibiotics don't help at all. There's almost no way that his cat possibly had it. They've documented two cases in the entire country of cats getting it so far. They both just had mild respiratory problems (sneeze, etc).


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## Alexa run my life

spudmunkey said:


> If antibiotics helped, it wasn't a virus, though, right? or is that just a myth?


Actually, I don't remember if it was an antibiotic, lol, it was just "something"....my partner took her there and took care of everything.

Also, she may still have gotten the covid 19 even though the shot would not have helped.


----------



## fantom

Drew said:


> Yes, but domestically, bluetooth-compatible phone usage is much higher than that, and most people DO travel with their phones. It's not perfect - the fact it requires self-reporting is another gap, and since whether or not you even believe in COVID-19 is a political question these days, evidently, that could be a further challenge. But it's a pretty great solution that could be rolled out overnight and requires no additional hardware. If there's a better one, I'd be happy to explore that too.





TedEH said:


> I think this counts as one of those situations where a not-perfect solution is better than no solution at all.



At what cost? You are talking about a hacky solution with many failure conditions being better than nothing, but what happens once Google and Apple create contact tracing? If a drug dealer gets arrested at a particular time, what stops the federal government from overstepping their boundaries and using contact tracing to go after people that hung out with them?

More realistically, do you really think the Trump adminstration won't use contact tracing apps to find illegal immigrants and send ICE to raid various places of employment?

To me, the result of building this technology is far scarier than the disease itself when you look more than 1 year out. It won't be working overnight. It will take months. As already mentioned, the number of failure modes mean there is a pretty good chance it won't work very well and take most of the time to just notify a small percentage of people.

Call me paranoid, but I would rather see more work into randomized free testing and less into contact tracing via cell phones.


----------



## TedEH

fantom said:


> At what cost? You are talking about a hacky solution with many failure conditions being better than nothing, but what happens once Google and Apple create contact tracing? If a drug dealer gets arrested at a particular time, what stops the federal government from overstepping their boundaries and using contact tracing to go after people that hung out with them?


I have a number of gut-reaction answers for that one, but the two that came to mind first:
a) I don't think that I prioritize the privacy of drug dealers over a solution to a pandemic.
b) Google already knows where you are. If it was that easy, they'd have done what you're suggesting already. I wouldn't doubt that it's been tried. Just because the technology exists on some level doesn't mean that every party that would need to be involved in order to use it maliciously is going to cooperate.

I also wasn't suggesting that we deploy any old thrown together blatant privacy violation, but I think this is a fair case for trading off some freedoms for people's safety. You can't get things for nothing. There's not going to be a solution where we can both 100% know where the virus is and who has it, but also give up zero personal information.


----------



## fantom

TedEH said:


> Google already knows where you are. If it was that easy, they'd have done what you're suggesting already. I wouldn't doubt that it's been tried. Just because the technology exists on some level doesn't mean that every party that would need to be involved in order to use it maliciously is going to cooperate.
> 
> I also wasn't suggesting that we deploy any old thrown together blatant privacy violation, but I think this is a fair case for trading off some freedoms for people's safety. You can't get things for nothing. There's not going to be a solution where we can both 100% know where the virus is and who has it, but also give up zero personal information.



Do people blindly enable location history and give apps permission to location? I don't know. I think the difference here is whether or not people have to give permission to Google or Apple in addition to self reporting. That, to my knowledge, hasn't been done before. And building a transitive, time-based network of people interacting in the real world also hasn't been done.

It isn't an issue of privacy or drug dealers. It is an issue of building technology that can't be undone. The best example I can think of is airport security after 9/11. Before 9/11, no one gave a crap who was in the airport as long as you didn't try to board a plane. Airports were pretty much like subway stations or train stations. Now we have all of these useless security checkpoints that ironically can't stop viruses. The fact that we used 9/11 as an excuse to go nuts with scanners in airports and tsa confiscating pretty much any liquid or "dangerous" item pretty much infringed on rights for no gain.

So if people do not have to enable contact tracing, what freedom is being sacrificed? If it needs to be enabled, how many people will do it?


----------



## TedEH

fantom said:


> Do people blindly enable location history and give apps permission to location?


Absolutely, people do that. Soooo many people have no idea how much information about them is being recorded by their cell phones. The general public, IMO, are not as tech-savvy as we would all like to believe they are. I remember it being a big revelation when people realized that they could pull up a map of everywhere they've been from google maps. Nobody opted into that - those who knew had the option to opt out, but lots of people still don't know that their location is tracked with that level of granularity.


----------



## narad

fantom said:


> At what cost? You are talking about a hacky solution with many failure conditions being better than nothing, but what happens once Google and Apple create contact tracing? If a drug dealer gets arrested at a particular time, what stops the federal government from overstepping their boundaries and using contact tracing to go after people that hung out with them?



What stops the federal government from driving tanks around shooting people? Laws, mostly.


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## GoldDragon

TedEH said:


> I think this counts as one of those situations where a not-perfect solution is better than no solution at all.



The ramifications of an application like this being accepted go pretty far. Collaboration between apple and google on something like this is the first step in something that will be far reaching.

There are legal and ethical issues of gps tracing, who has that information, and what they do with it.

I have often thought if you want to significantly cut down crime, you would enforce always on GPS tracing. Pretty hard to commit a murder and get away with it if they always know where you are. Certainly something like this should be instituted for felons.

OTH, it has far ranging impact on our liberty. I dont want to be traced in my every move, however I am honest and have never commited any crime, so it wouldnt really impact me.


----------



## TedEH

I'd be willing to bet that most people in this thread, and most cell phone users in general, have location access enabled on their phones. (And I'm sure someone's going to jump up and go OH YEAH NOT ME, but my point stands.) The data for basically everywhere you've been in the last few years might very well have already been recorded somewhere.

I'm not saying there's no legal/ethical/etc considerations, what I am saying is that a) the tech exists already and b) this is a case where, without throwing out those considerations entirely, it's worth giving up some of that so-called liberty if it saves some lives. I'm not saying we shouldn't be careful with those kinds of tools and that kind of data, but that doesn't mean the whole idea of using technology to help us here has to go out the window.

I think people like to overthink the ramifications of privacy issues more than they actually care about their privacy. Otherwise there should be a much bigger push back against google maps.


----------



## GoldDragon

TedEH said:


> I'd be willing to bet that most people in this thread, and most cell phone users in general, have location access enabled on their phones. (And I'm sure someone's going to jump up and go OH YEAH NOT ME, but my point stands.) The data for basically everywhere you've been in the last few years might very well have already been recorded somewhere.
> 
> I'm not saying there's no legal/ethical/etc considerations, what I am saying is that a) the tech exists already and b) this is a case where, without throwing out those considerations entirely, it's worth giving up some of that so-called liberty if it saves some lives. I'm not saying we shouldn't be careful with those kinds of tools and that kind of data, but that doesn't mean the whole idea of using technology to help us here has to go out the window.
> 
> I think people like to overthink the ramifications of privacy issues more than they actually care about their privacy. Otherwise there should be a much bigger push back against google maps.



I agree with all this. However, care should be exercised.

Once this gets out of the bottle, it could have unintended consequences. Much like social media. Wish they had studied and anticipated the societal effects on depression and narcissism. Just a harvard drop out who wanted to make a buck brought so much negativity to the world.

However, I firmly believe that Apple and Google intend to monetize this technology. It could go far beyond targeted ads.

As a software developer, who hasn't thought about killer social apps that could be made using GPS and proximity information? (Most of us dont have this data to play with.) The possibilities are limitless. Google and Apple will dominate this space if they collaborate for contact tracing functionality. And of course NSA will be plugged into the data. (This is actually the part that is more scary, especially given the politicization of federal govt. Remember when the IRS, targeted conservative groups for audits? Yeah that, but on steroids.)


----------



## TedEH

Staying off into tangent territory, but I can't imagine how you could have anticipated the impact of facebook on the world. How do you study that? How do you even know there's a need to study something like that before it blows up? in fairness, Facebook has facilitated a lot of positive things as well.

Maybe a way to keep people's concerns about security involved would be to opensource as much of it as possible. Open up as much of the implementation as possible to public scrutiny and even let people contribute.


----------



## narad

GoldDragon said:


> However, I firmly believe that Apple and Google intend to monetize this technology. It could go far beyond targeted ads.



Example?


----------



## tedtan

Drew said:


> The loss of smell is one of the weirder and more unusual symptoms, and if it was known to be in the part of the country you're in, that would lead me to suspect that you very likely DID get infected. That's a slippery slope, though - a popular right-wing series of memes have been about asking people to remember that weird flu they got back in November even though they got the flu vaccine this year, and clearly they already had COVID, which is impossible because it was first detected in China in December, evidently very soon after the first human transmission, and while we've revised our timetables a bit since we still are reasonably confident there were only a handful of cases in the states by mid-January, and this does take some time to spread. New York City got hit hard because it's a global transportation hub with tens of thousands of flights in and out from Europe every day, Boston got hit thanks to that Biogen conference, Seattle was a patient coming back from Wuhan although last I heard they didn't have a clear contact point for how it got to the nursing home... But even up to mid-March, when I got sick, the odds were still stacked against it being COVID just because there weren't enough cases out there to make transmission likely, right up until my girlfriend realized she couldn't smell the coffee I'd just ground one morning, not because she was congested or anything, but because she just couldn't smell.
> 
> But there's a lot of people out there saying "I had the flu vaccine this year, and I had flu like symptoms, so I definitely had it," and the reality is it's actually pretty _common_ to still get the flu after the vaccine, bigger picture, because there's so much guesswork involved in estimating which strains will catch on, and which we should therefore try to inoculate people against.



Yeah, I'm with you. I didn't start considering what I had to potentially be covid19 until the news began mentioning the weird symptom of the loss of taste and smell; that's been a pretty unique symptom of covid19. And even then, I haven't been tested for antibodies yet to prove it was coid19 (though I will get a test in the near future) simply because the test results won't change anything for me one way or the other.

But I can't rule covid19 out, either. I work in an engineering company with colleagues who travel all over the world for projects they are working on, including China, Italy, and Spain, and my wife is a biochemist-turned-nurse who has worked with covid19 positive patients (though they didn't start testing until mid March), so it is plausible that one or both of us were exposed to SARScov2 prior to the general population in the Houston area being exposed to it.


----------



## Alexa run my life

Can someone explain the loss of smell thing and how it's unusual? There's been times where I've been so clogged and stuffed up where I couldn't taste of smell a thing....It must have been the flu or something. It went away eventually


----------



## bostjan

Any thoughts on some of the dubious claims going around recently:

(I neither believer nor disbelieve these at this point)

1. Vitamin D helps your body fight the virus, so people with darker skin suffer more greatly from catching it than lighter-skinned people, due to the absorption of sunlight into the skin aiding in vitamin D metabolism. I guess this is one where the mechanations might sort of make sense, but there is also a lot of handwaving, it seems. 
2. Nicotine somehow wards off the virus; something about some French study where 40% of French people smoke yet only 4% of French covid-19 patients smoke. I wonder if one of the big tobacco companies funded that one.


?

Regarding GPS and cell phone tracking the virus...

I don't know what percentage of the US population actually believes that the virus is not really a virus, but rather something something 5G radiation something sickness- but, there are enough of those people that it poses a problem. If they start using cell phones to track the virus, those people are likely to become even more active in burning cell towers, screeching at cell phone users, and who knows what else. Not that we should be deterred from progress by the threat of a few idiots, but it's worth considering. Also, there are quite a few folks who don't have smartphones (myself, for example), so that pokes holes in the network of tracking, meaning the feature might not be as useful as one might think.

I don't know how to deal with all of the silliness going around. I dunno. I guess I went through life assuming people were smarter than they seem now. Maybe it's just a handful who are making a bigger impression than usual, but either way, it's more obvious than ever that education and indoctrination in the USA are big problems. I know quite a few anti-vaxxers, whom I didn't know were anti-vax until this started picking up steam. My own naievity led me to ask why they were anti-vax, hoping to get some sort of viewpoint I had not considered, but all I've heard was crazy talk, IMO. I've always known plenty of folks who were anti-government, and I had generally agreed with the general sentiment that the government is too inept and needs restructuring, but, with all of this going on, and people offering more detailed opinions, I'm shocked at some of the weird rhetoric I'm hearing and all of the impossible-to-follow logic. I'm not a big facebook guy, but lacking face-to-face interactions with friends, I started using my account again, and _holy shit_ are people crazy there! I don't know how anyone can log onto a site where you can't scroll through a dozen posts without seeing at least one mind-numbingly insane conspiracy post. What happened? Some of these people I haven't spoken to for more than five minutes in the last ten years, but they used to have nice conversations with me before that. Is there something in the tap water or what?


----------



## fantom

TedEH said:


> I'd be willing to bet that most people in this thread, and most cell phone users in general, have location access enabled on their phones. (And I'm sure someone's going to jump up and go OH YEAH NOT ME, but my point stands.) The data for basically everywhere you've been in the last few years might very well have already been recorded somewhere.
> 
> I'm not saying there's no legal/ethical/etc considerations, what I am saying is that a) the tech exists already and b) this is a case where, without throwing out those considerations entirely, it's worth giving up some of that so-called liberty if it saves some lives. I'm not saying we shouldn't be careful with those kinds of tools and that kind of data, but that doesn't mean the whole idea of using technology to help us here has to go out the window.
> 
> I think people like to overthink the ramifications of privacy issues more than they actually care about their privacy. Otherwise there should be a much bigger push back against google maps.



You don't have to bet. The GDPR requires all European Union citizens can look at and delete their personal data. You think people would have spotted their location being stored for 5 years and gone public by now. If anything, I think you are assuming far more than you realize about how organized and malicious tech companies are. In reality, they are disorganized and not that forward thinking.


----------



## Drew

GoldDragon said:


> However, I firmly believe that Apple and Google intend to monetize this technology. It could go far beyond targeted ads.


How exactly do you monetize a technology that keeps anonymized data of bluetooth identifiers you've come in contact with over a span of weeks? The whole point of doing it this way is that the system doesn't have any way of knowing who all the various identifiers ARE, or even where they are at that point in time, but just keeps a log of any other identifiers that were within close range for long enough, per bluetooth, to have potentially spread a virus.

Furthermore, why even bother, when we ALREADY have good location data being tied back to your google and facebook accounts in real time? I don't know how widely you travel, but if you're ever far from home and log into facebook on cell or wifi data, you immediately start getting localized ads for that location, then and for a period of time after. Signed, The Guy Who Got A Ton of Cycling in Chile Ads the First Time He Went to Patagonia.

What would the proposed bluetooth contact tracing approach offer, that Facebook and Google can't already do, given access to your user profile and search histories?


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> How exactly do you monetize a technology that keeps anonymized data of bluetooth identifiers you've come in contact with over a span of weeks? The whole point of doing it this way is that the system doesn't have any way of knowing who all the various identifiers ARE, or even where they are at that point in time, but just keeps a log of any other identifiers that were within close range for long enough, per bluetooth, to have potentially spread a virus.
> 
> Furthermore, why even bother, when we ALREADY have good location data being tied back to your google and facebook accounts in real time? I don't know how widely you travel, but if you're ever far from home and log into facebook on cell or wifi data, you immediately start getting localized ads for that location, then and for a period of time after. Signed, The Guy Who Got A Ton of Cycling in Chile Ads the First Time He Went to Patagonia.
> 
> What would the proposed bluetooth contact tracing approach offer, that Facebook and Google can't already do, given access to your user profile and search histories?



IDK, spitballing here, but, if you had a few gadgets, like vending machines, or billboards, or whatever, with identifiers, you could send ads to AG05016W every time it passes by the coke machine saying "Always Coca-Cola." It'd be easy enough to make that illegal, although, it's supposedly illegal for telemarketers to spam my phone with texts and cold calls, yet they still do sometimes.

My initial point wasn't so much how they'd do it, though, it was how people would freak out about the vague possibility of it being done, which I think is supported by some of the posts here. In the world of policies, the perception is as important, if not more important, than the actual use of the technology.


----------



## TedEH

^ The technology to do that already exists though. Google has a huge amount of location info, _and_ most of their business is ads. All that would need to happen is for some money to change hands for you to start getting coke ads whenever google predicts you're likely to revisit an area with a vending machine in it.



fantom said:


> If anything, I think you are assuming far more than you realize about how organized and malicious tech companies are. In reality, they are disorganized and not that forward thinking.


You might have misunderstood what I was getting at. I wasn't in any way trying to say that this tech is malicious. If anything, I tend to err towards the opposite. I usually assume nothing is malicious until given a very good reason otherwise. And I'm well aware of how unorganized software/tech companies can be.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> IDK, spitballing here, but, if you had a few gadgets, like vending machines, or billboards, or whatever, with identifiers, you could send ads to AG05016W every time it passes by the coke machine saying "Always Coca-Cola." It'd be easy enough to make that illegal, although, it's supposedly illegal for telemarketers to spam my phone with texts and cold calls, yet they still do sometimes.
> 
> My initial point wasn't so much how they'd do it, though, it was how people would freak out about the vague possibility of it being done, which I think is supported by some of the posts here. In the world of policies, the perception is as important, if not more important, than the actual use of the technology.


But, how would that be better than what Facebook and Google can already do?

As an easy example - I don't get Coke or Pepsi product ads on social media, presumably because - as someone who doesn't really drink soda - I don't search for their products, I don't follow the companies or interact with their points, I don't shop for their products online, etc. Long story short - nothing in the publicly available information they have on me suggests targeting me with an ad would be effective, so they don't I get a TON of "whiskey of the month" and bike component ads, meanwhile. If this Google/Apple partnership was going to try to blast out "drink Coca-Cola" ads, presumably they'd also want to target their advertising at least as well as they already do online, otherwise the return on investment wold be quite a bit lower. What would having a message on my phone that reads "always coca cola" do that just having a big sign on the vending machine that says the same doesn't do just as well? I'm not going to buy a can of coke in either case - I've literally done that once in the past decade. 

The thing that makes digital advertising so interesting for companies is the premise that you can target your ads to appear to only people who will be likely to respond to them. Without some sort of identifying information to help tailor ads, that's completely absent.


----------



## tedtan

Alexa run my life said:


> Can someone explain the loss of smell thing and how it's unusual? There's been times where I've been so clogged and stuffed up where I couldn't taste of smell a thing....It must have been the flu or something. It went away eventually



The weird thing is that you're not stuffed up, or even phlemy. Out of nowhere you all of a sudden just can't smell or taste anything.




bostjan said:


> 1. Vitamin D helps your body fight the virus, so people with darker skin suffer more greatly from catching it than lighter-skinned people, due to the absorption of sunlight into the skin aiding in vitamin D metabolism. I guess this is one where the mechanations might sort of make sense, but there is also a lot of handwaving, it seems.



I find this to be plausible, but suspect. There seems to be a disproportionate number of African Americans getting covid19 here in the US, but other underlying factors such as having to work public facing jobs/inability to work from home, jobs without medical insurance/healthcare, etc. are more likely to be the cause.




bostjan said:


> 2. Nicotine somehow wards off the virus; something about some French study where 40% of French people smoke yet only 4% of French covid-19 patients smoke. I wonder if one of the big tobacco companies funded that one.



I have not read this study, but find it suspect as well. Smokers have compromised lungs and cardiovascular systems in general, so they should be more vulnerable. And the numbers presented here don't even show direct correlation between smoking and not getting covid19, let alone a causation.




bostjan said:


> Also, there are quite a few folks who don't have smartphones (myself, for example), so that pokes holes in the network of tracking, meaning the feature might not be as useful as one might think.



The phones still ping the cell towers, so they can be tracked.




bostjan said:


> I know quite a few anti-vaxxers, whom I didn't know were anti-vax until this started picking up steam. My own naievity led me to ask why they were anti-vax, hoping to get some sort of viewpoint I had not considered, but all I've heard was crazy talk, IMO.



All of the reasons I've heard have to do with the belief that vaccines cause autism (which they don't).

But I can believe that, as a lot of people are crazy. Or stupid. Or both.




bostjan said:


> I've always known plenty of folks who were anti-government, and I had generally agreed with the general sentiment that the government is too inept and needs restructuring, but, with all of this going on, and people offering more detailed opinions, I'm shocked at some of the weird rhetoric I'm hearing and all of the impossible-to-follow logic.



Inept government that needs restructuring is an actual fact in the case of the overall US government. But the conspiracy theories fall into the crazy/stupid/both category IMO.


----------



## TedEH

tedtan said:


> The phones still ping the cell towers, so they can be tracked.


I haven't looked into what the actual proposed solution would be, but someone previously mentioned using bluetooth. As soon as you have to do anything that needs to be implemented on the device itself, non-smart phones are going to be a barrier. Hitting the same cell phone tower wouldn't provide enough information to tell if you're in proximity with anyone else. I'm not an expert in this, but I think doing anything with GPS information requires implementation on the device, and bluetooth definitely would.


----------



## bostjan

tedtan said:


> I find this to be plausible, but suspect. There seems to be a disproportionate number of African Americans getting covid19 here in the US, but other underlying factors such as having to work public facing jobs/inability to work from home, jobs without medical insurance/healthcare, etc. are more likely to be the cause.



Here is the abstract. I think it should be pretty obvious how much handwaving is involved, I mean, no vitamin D levels seem to have actually been measured in the study.



tedtan said:


> I have not read this study, but find it suspect as well. Smokers have compromised lungs and cardiovascular systems in general, so they should be more vulnerable. And the numbers presented here don't even show direct correlation between smoking and not getting covid19, let alone a causation.



Here it is and here's another paper drawing a similar conclusion based off of a similar thought process, but with a little more detail.



tedtan said:


> The phones still ping the cell towers, so they can be tracked.



Yeah... my phone is basically an antique, so I doubt it even is capable of GPS. They could tell generally where I was, if I was within range of a cell tower (which I rarely am- NE Vermont has notoriously awful cell coverage), but not whether I was near a vending machine or not. And besides, I don't care about that. My point was that people would freak out, not that people would freak out for good reason. I just don't want the tinfoil hat brigade to burn down the few cell towers we do actually have here.



tedtan said:


> All of the reasons I've heard have to do with the belief that vaccines cause autism (which they don't).
> 
> But I can believe that, as a lot of people are crazy. Or stupid. Or both.
> 
> Inept government that needs restructuring is an actual fact in the case of the overall US government. But the conspiracy theories fall into the crazy/stupid/both category IMO.





...



@Drew : IDK, all of the ads I tend to see are for watches (I don't wear watches), for Bible study (I'm an atheist), and dating metal chicks (I'm happily married). Maybe I'm just a weird platypus creature to the ad companies and they can't figure me out.


----------



## Ralyks

https://apple.news/ArN9aG7slRWexpCYLNRzIcg

So what are the chances this spreads through he White House?


----------



## budda

Leaving this here:


----------



## Ralyks

I see what you did there.


----------



## fantom

TedEH said:


> ^ The technology to do that already exists though. Google has a huge amount of location info, _and_ most of their business is ads. All that would need to happen is for some money to change hands for you to start getting coke ads whenever google predicts you're likely to revisit an area with a vending machine in it.



You are conflating 2 arguments. I agree that location history exists. Probably not just Google and Apple, but also Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, etc. keep some tabs on your behavior.

The thing that does not exist, afaik, and I do not think is a good idea, is to build a time-sensitive transitive graph that can infer social/proximity connections. For example, if my coworker volunteers at a hospital. I do not want some company or government to associate behavior of a random hospital employee to my wife simply because my coworker interacted with them on their free time. If this type of tech exists, I suspect the CIA, NSA, or DHS has it and not Apple or Google. I do not want a tech company to think this is a good idea just because it sounds good and the public will like it. It will make it easier for misuse of the feature for unrelated purposes.

What was the Real Genius quote? Too busy figuring out if it was possible to build it that they didn't stop to question if they should.


----------



## TedEH

Ah, yeh I see what you're getting at. 

I do imagine that opinions on "if they should" are going to vary pretty greatly.


----------



## diagrammatiks

man if the government wants to watch me masturbate. let them watch me masturbate. 

I'll say this though I've been living in China for like 5 years now. Ideologically it differently makes a difference knowing that you are constantly being monitored and traced. But, you'd be surprised how little difference it makes in peoples daily lives.


----------



## TedEH

Here's a thought: If you don't trust someone with your information, is the problem the information or the lack of trust?

On some level I wonder if it matters at all if you trust an entity with your data, since it seems like the deeper issue is lack of a belief that anyone can be working in our best interest.

Does that mean anything? I have no idea, I'm exhausted.


----------



## spudmunkey

With as many data leaks there are, trusting someome/a company to act in your best interest doesnt mean much.


----------



## TedEH

So here's a legitimate question:
What are we _actually_ concerned about when it comes to this data? We can talk about "we'll lose our freedoms" in vague terms, but what actual real-world impact does it have to have a potential graph of interactions somewhere, especially one that doesn't directly identify you? I mean in definite concrete terms. Specifics. The value of that data is in either targeted advertising (which I think is annoying, and "feels creepy" but has little real-world effect insofar as loss of freedom), or in trying to potentially take some kind of social control maybe? Are we expecting to be manipulated via this information to vote certain ways, or to be targeted by blackmail or something? Are we expecting it to become some kind of credit-score-like system where your standing in society is based on who you associate with?

In other words, what it the real-world thing that people are worried about when it comes to their data? Outside of "it doesn't feel good".

I still would argue that this kind of technology sort of exists already. If you take the google maps data and mash it together with your facebook account, you now have that already. If you had access to both of those databases at the same time, you could already build those associations. The pieces are all there. Even without this one extra bit of data about people, the only thing separating us from the worst-case scenario of putting those data points together is the layer of trust that it shouldn't happen. (Call that "law" or "trust" or whatever else, the point is that it's out of our individual hands for the most part.)

IMO we're past the point of keeping that kind of data to ourselves. We're so deep in data collection about everyone that it's no longer a question of whether we allow the collection of that data, and more a question of keeping people honest and pushing back when that data is misused.

/train-of-thought.


----------



## narad

Agreed. If you want to be off-the-grid, you have to like...actually do off-the-grid things like survive without a mobile phone or credit card. Utilizing your activity record to sell you stuff is a huge part of these company's business models, and yet, people want the service while paying for and providing nothing in return.

But I agree as well in that I don't see any business opportunity with contact tracing that doesn't already exist via ol' fashioned GPS tracking of your movements independently of others'.


----------



## diagrammatiks

governments and businesses have been tracking as much data as possible for a hundreds of years.


----------



## Randy

TedEH said:


> In other words, what it the real-world thing that people are worried about when it comes to their data?





spudmunkey said:


> With as many data leaks there are, trusting someome/a company to act in your best interest doesnt mean much.



This basically answers it. Remember the Ashley Madison breach a couple years ago, which was used to extort people for money. Likewise, the 2016 election and Cambridge Analytica (which trickled data over to Russia) shows examples of nefarious entities using data for targeted misinformation.

I feel like leftists are getting overly affectionate toward data mining just because those sounding the alarm are primarily coming from the right.


----------



## narad

Randy said:


> This basically answers it. Remember the Ashley Madison breach a couple years ago, which was used to extort people for money. Likewise, the 2016 election and Cambridge Analytica (which trickled data over to Russia) shows examples of nefarious entities using data for targeted misinformation.
> 
> I feel like leftists are getting overly affectionate toward data mining just because those sounding the alarm are primarily coming from the right.



But that's nothing where contact tracing is anything "new" vs usual GPS tracking, which I think is the point. Data-mining in general is too complex to get into without its own thread, but here I feel like fear-mongering about contact tracing, and about some Google-Apple conspiracy with it, is unfounded. I'm still asking for examples of how it would work differently, and the conspiracy people are not providing any.

Funny thing about the Ashley Madison leak though, is I'm in it! Fortunately I was like 20 yrs old at the time so it makes me pretty safe from any serious allegations, but I always wondered if someone tried to do like a meta-reputation algorithm to suss out people who are potentially untrustworthy -- say like some future father-in-law runs on you when he hears his daughter's engaged. It definitely made me think: hmm, if you ever do want to do something unscrupulous, it would be wise to make fake accounts.

And that's when I registered the username MetalHex on sevenstring.org.


----------



## SpaceDock

I believe contact tracing is futile and is just an excuse to let the tech industry sink their teeth further into our personal lives.


----------



## Randy

narad said:


> hmm, if you ever do want to do something unscrupulous, it would be wise to make fake accounts.



Which, of course, but it's a moving goalpost. 

The argument of most "who cares?" open data sharing advocates (of which I've been one at times in my life) is "Who cares? Does Apple care about your browser history? You out of several billion people?" which is and was entirely true. Until you get to the point where people can and do buy up those pools of data, that can get very specific, and filter down interested parties until it gets to you.

You can't say "well don't have an affair then" at the Ashley Madison example without saying privacy doesn't matter because of arbitrary finger wagging. When you start talking data harvesting and you start arguing "yeah but they deserved it" if it's anything besides breaking the law (tracking child porn or identity theft for example), you lose me.


----------



## TedEH

The Ashley Madison example is a fair point. And I think the argument that it's futile is a good concern as well. But in those cases, I'd still personally return to preferring to save some lives (assuming that it succeeds at doing so) over protecting people from the personal lives being exposed. I rate deaths as a worse problem than people's sex lives being exposed.



Randy said:


> Until you get to the point where people can and do buy up those pools of data, that can get very specific, and filter down interested parties until it gets to you.


To what end that is worse than losing more lives? It's certainly fair to say that allowing more data to be put out there without any oversight will have consequences, but I think we need to both identify in more specific terms what those consequences are, and consider that there could be ways to mitigate the concerns.

I go back to the idea that there are some brilliant people out there, and I think that open-sourcing the solution could help mitigate these concerns a fair bit. Let people see and poke at and criticize any holes in the security of the software before they install it. Let the security experts out there on the internet evaluate it for everyone to see, and validate that nothing sensitive or valuable is being given up by using it. Maybe that will make it ineffective because you'll lose adoption this way and it'll take much longer to implement, but at the same time, if it doesn't work, nothing is lost for trying.


----------



## Randy

TedEH said:


> To what end that is worse than losing more lives?



Oh yeah, to be clear, I'm in favor of anything that saves lives. I just don't think this will. There'll be an opt-in/opt-out and limited participation (you can't even get people to wear fuckin' masks without killing people for asking them) and it'll all be for naught.

Meanwhile, the oversight will be strong in the beginning, then it'll be filtered down to private contractors, then the rules will be relaxes so that they can do anything they want with the data and it'll be 'off to the races' with toxic abuses of personal data all over again.

This is a waste of time and money. $2000 a month to people who have been working this whole time and are in unaffected areas is a waste of time and money.

Strict, 50 state stay at home order for a full month, put the money into actually getting people assistance (ie: fixing the bottleneck in unemployment, guarantee grocery and prescription deliveries) to help break the anxiety and scaling up testing in literally every single community, block by block, house by house, person by person.

Trying to do it while people are still scattered and the rules of contact are inconsistent is a fucking waste. I have family here in NY that are loading up the car to head to SC and FL to get out of this shitty weather and to get out of the restrictions. That's the kinda stuff that'll either bring the virus there or bring it back.


----------



## GoldDragon

Here is the issue with tracing: In China they are forcing people to use an app for CV tracing. They have the ability to restrict people from going certain places. For instance, they have closed a restaurant, and a person goes there, the police are alarmed. Big trouble. Or even worse, its tied into their "social credit" system. They lose points and their rent goes up or the loose further access to certain areas or functions.

The logical extension of this technology is virtual gating and criminal records. What if government deems that someone with a felony can't go to certain neighborhoods.?

Or what if home owner associations put up gates around their communities so that someone without ___ net worth (or any other filter) can't enter?

What if companies pay big tech for access to the information? Now everyone has it. You think they will use it ethically?

If an essential service (like contract tracing) is required, then people are locked into the system and can't turn it off to avoid misuse of the information. Imagine if the movement database was hacked by criminals. They would know when you werent at home. Because the service is mandated, no one turns off their phone.

Its not hard to imaging scenarios where govt and big business (or criminals) who have access to your personal data would cause big problems. All you have to do is look to see what China is doing with contract tracing and social credit to see how bad this is.


----------



## TedEH

Randy said:


> Oh yeah, to be clear, I'm in favor of anything that saves lives. I just don't think this will.


That's fair.


----------



## Alexa run my life

GoldDragon said:


> Here is the issue with tracing: In China they are forcing people to use an app for CV tracing. They have the ability to restrict people from going certain places. For instance, they have closed a restaurant, and a person goes there, the police are alarmed. Big trouble. Or even worse, its tied into their "social credit" system. They lose points and their rent goes up or the loose further access to certain areas or functions.
> 
> The logical extension of this technology is virtual gating and criminal records. What if government deems that someone with a felony can't go to certain neighborhoods.?
> 
> Or what if home owner associations put up gates around their communities so that someone without ___ net worth (or any other filter) can't enter?
> 
> What if companies pay big tech for access to the information? Now everyone has it. You think they will use it ethically?
> 
> If an essential service (like contract tracing) is required, then people are locked into the system and can't turn it off to avoid misuse of the information. Imagine if the movement database was hacked by criminals. They would know when you werent at home. Because the service is mandated, no one turns off their phone.
> 
> Its not hard to imaging scenarios where govt and big business (or criminals) who have access to your personal data would cause big problems. All you have to do is look to see what China is doing with contract tracing and social credit to see how bad this is.


I'm waiting for it to it to be madatory federal law that everyone must have and carry a cell phone (tracking device) at all times. Can't afford one? They will be provided for you. Of course that is only the temporary "fix".....by 2030 Mr. Microsoft wants everyone vaccinated with their new "digital identity".


----------



## Ralyks

https://apple.news/ATK0-2qqgRQe-cQhPRxnHAw

Someone explain this shit?


----------



## JSanta

Ralyks said:


> https://apple.news/ATK0-2qqgRQe-cQhPRxnHAw
> 
> Someone explain this shit?



The inference I make of this is that they administration wasn't very concerned about the pandemic (and still very much appears that way even today). Trump contradicts a nurse on national television about PPE shortages. That should tell us all what we need to know.


----------



## zappatton2

Alexa run my life said:


> I'm waiting for it to it to be madatory federal law that everyone must have and carry a cell phone (tracking device) at all times. Can't afford one? They will be provided for you. Of course that is only the temporary "fix".....by 2030 Mr. Microsoft wants everyone vaccinated with their new "digital identity".


I dunno, I never owned a cell phone, not out of privacy fears, more just a "I never needed it before" and it seems like one of those things that, once I got it, I couldn't live without it, so I'll just pass until I can't actually do anything without one.

I work for a federal statistical agency, and we are legally mandated to strip personal identifiers from any collected data to ensure absolute confidentiality. I imagine data like this would be used to track general patterns rather than identify Bob on Highcastle Street, who didn't self-isolate, didn't separate his recycling, and smoked a doobie last Tuesday. I say that, with the caveat that governments as far-right as Trump's often seek to commandeer federal agencies for political purposes, agencies mandated to act in the public interest rather than the political/private interest, but I still think constitutional protections have enough teeth to apply to data of this nature.


----------



## Andromalia

TedEH said:


> So here's a legitimate question:
> What are we _actually_ concerned about when it comes to this data?



I'm not actually concerned: most of the tracking is done so you get targeted advertising. Since I consider advertising a threat and an attempt to fool me into buying stuff I shouldn't... no big deal, since I'm aware of the fact. I'm using adblockers on the internet, I don't watch TV etc because I feel assaulted when I see advertising.

But, I'm 47 and wasn't raised in an environment where advertising is omnipresent. The internet generations, the kids raised in front of screens, it might be different for them. My generation is kinda unique in that we were raised without internet brainwashing and mobile phones, but were young enough to catch the train and work in IT and become computer-literate.
We're kind of the link between the old and the new world.

This also implies that the data we put online is pretty innocuous. I never put anything work related online, or me being shitfaced.

I'm recruiting people at the moment, and screening for interviews. If I search for you on Facebook and see something, your resume goes to the trashbin. I don't want people dumb enough to not be able to use a simple Facebook setting. Your profile should be friends only.


----------



## Ralyks

I look at contact tracing like I look at my SSN being taken: You can take it, buy uhh, maybe lower your expectations


----------



## TedEH

Andromalia said:


> But, I'm 47 and wasn't raised in an environment where advertising is omnipresent. The internet generations, the kids raised in front of screens, it might be different for them.


I find this interesting, because at 31, I almost never find advertising to be offensive in it's own right. I find blatantly manipulative advertising, selling things that are fake or of no value, or outright lying to be offensive, but I have trouble faulting honest advertising - even targeted advertising. It's part of what keeps a lot of things we use afloat at this point. I don't use adblockers the way most do, but instead have blocking mechanisms for malicious software, popups, etc. I don't care if I see a youtube preroll video or a banner somewhere as long as it doesn't have unnecessary access to my computer (I don't consider fingerprinting for targeted ads to count under this unnecessary access).



Andromalia said:


> If I search for you on Facebook and see something, your resume goes to the trashbin.


I think it's worth being careful about how much tech savviness you can expect from the average person. As time goes on, I'm continually reminded that even among very bright people, any sort of computer/tech/internet literacy is not a given. It might be without a group of frequent forum users, gamers, etc., but I think the average person it much less tech savvy than they're given credit for. I would be much more concerned with _what_ you find on that facebook profile. I don't care if someone chooses to make parts of their life public, but I would take note if they're particularly careless with what they put out there. If every picture is them drunk or high or doing something illegal, etc., then maybe that's not the image I want my company to put forward (assuming I'm in a hiring position).

That lack of tech savviness I think is a good argument for why this contact tracing wouldn't work. Low adoption, fear of what the unknown tech is doing, users inadvertently breaking the system, etc.


----------



## Ralyks

TedEH said:


> That lack of tech savviness I think is a good argument for why this contact tracing wouldn't work. Low adoption, fear of what the unknown tech is doing, users inadvertently breaking the system, etc.



As someone that works at a bank and have customers that come to the branch to do something that can easily be done in moments with online banking but refuse to, I totally understand this.


----------



## MaxOfMetal




----------



## bostjan

Randy said:


> Strict, 50 state stay at home order for a full month, put the money into actually getting people assistance (ie: fixing the bottleneck in unemployment, guarantee grocery and prescription deliveries) to help break the anxiety and scaling up testing in literally every single community, block by block, house by house, person by person.



I think the only way to get that truly to work is to have the National Guard or the Army involved in bringing people's groceries to their homes, because, if you leave it to private companies, 1. the employees going out to delivery the groceries are still out there mingling, and it'll mess up the social distancing situation to a statistically significant effect, guaranteed, and 2. the private companies are highly likely to pull some pricing shenanigans or whatever.

Also, folks in rural areas, like me, will probably be shafted. Nearest grocery store is half hour away? - Guess you'll starve. Those things will work in concert in the USA to drive resentment that has already been building into a head, and people will likely grab their torches and pitchforks and that poor grocery clerk who now has to drive all over town with a trunk full of seafood on a hot summery day now has to put up with the family from Texas Chainsaw Massacre chasing after him with their shotguns, because grandma didn't like the cut of meat she got or whatever.

Maybe it's inevitable that this would turn the USA into the wild west of sorts. Sadly, even though I have so much love for humanity, my respect for my own nation is at its nadir.


----------



## Randy

Rural communities is exactly who I had in mind because I'm in the same spot. My friends that live in the cities have been getting fuckin' food and groceries delivered to them daily since this began. I tried to order groceries once and every local store was blocked up for four days. That's primarily who I had in mind as far as those who are underserved. I have a hard time believing the bulk of lockdown protestors are from the cities.


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> This basically answers it. Remember the Ashley Madison breach a couple years ago, which was used to extort people for money. Likewise, the 2016 election and Cambridge Analytica (which trickled data over to Russia) shows examples of nefarious entities using data for targeted misinformation.
> 
> I feel like leftists are getting overly affectionate toward data mining just because those sounding the alarm are primarily coming from the right.


I think Ashley Madison actually makes for a pretty great example here. 

There are two factors here. The first is whether or not you shoud make data available _in the first place_, and primarily that's the level we're discussing this on. 

I think the second is arguably more important though - _what data should you make available_, and how that increases your risk. 

Ashley Madison is an extreme example, maybe, but it was the names, addresses, and other contact information of customers who pretty reasonably could have been expected to want their identities kept private. Their data, if compromised, could be very damaging, personally, to those people. 

And, that's kind of the major sticking point of contact tracing in America - people are unwilling to share - rightfully so - information on whether or not they had COVID-19, the places they've gone, the people they've interacted with, etc. That's all information that in the right circumstances certainly could be used against you. 

That;s what makers this Google/Apple approach so interesting - it tracks none of that information. The trick would be making sure that bluetooth identifier _truly _was anonimous, and couldn't somehow be traced back to a user through the app or through the hardware. If so, though, all you have is a database of what random identifiers have been in proximity with a particular "index" identifier, possibly time stamped, possibly not (or, only the date and not the time is stored, etc - the devil will be in the details). 

If _truly_ anonymous, the dataset isn't actually potentially valuable to anyone else, because theres no way to tie it to a particular individual, it does no location tracking, and saves no other information aside from random codes to notify in the case a user identifies as a positive diagnosis. 

Self-reporting is rtequired and that makes it imperfect... But it could, theoretically, be a viable path forward, provided those potential vulnerabilities could be addressed. 

I guess I'm saying there are really three approaches here to safeguard personal data: 
-not share it in the first place,
-share it, but protect it to the grreatest extent possible
-share only information that would be worthless to someone else. 

Lots of folks are espousing the fist, which I don't think is viable if we want contact tracing. So, we're focusing on the second, which is challenging and there are many cautionary tales about how it can go wrong. But the third approach is also viable, and I only mentioned this proposal because it did seem to be an interesting approach that would allow contact tracing, without sharing any information that would really be useful for any other purpose.


----------



## Ralyks

Drew, that basically sounds like Apple Pay for the apocalypse  Not saying it’s a bad idea, just that the comparison jumped out quickly.


----------



## TedEH

Another big hurdle, IMO, is that no matter how secure you make the system, you still have to _convince people_ that it's secure. And as mentioned before, people aren't tech savvy enough to make this distinction for themselves, and there's a huge entrenched distrust for technology and handling of data out there.


----------



## Choop

TedEH said:


> Another big hurdle, IMO, is that no matter how secure you make the system, you still have to _convince people_ that it's secure. And as mentioned before, people aren't tech savvy enough to make this distinction for themselves, and there's a huge entrenched distrust for technology and handling of data out there.



Can't blame anyone for it IMO. Personal information is hacked and/or leaked all the time from databases, where it's completely out of users' hands at that point.


----------



## TedEH

I don't mean to point blame anywhere, just stating it as it is. Part of that is the existing landscape of how data is handled, but another part of that is that trust comes from understanding, and the level of understanding is quite low.


----------



## fantom

Man... I really cannot tell if this is satire anymore.

https://www.theonion.com/trump-blames-nation-s-susceptibility-to-coronavirus-out-1843392614


----------



## TedEH

To quote many a twitter user as they encounter something to which their gut response would take several times the space to express properly than the source material they're reacting to, regardless of the depth of their feelings or the depth of the source material, and realizing that the constrained space in which you can make any response is maybe for the best given the value of justifying what they've just encountered with a response at all:

Yikes.


----------



## Randy

fantom said:


> Man... I really cannot tell if this is satire anymore.
> 
> https://www.theonion.com/trump-blames-nation-s-susceptibility-to-coronavirus-out-1843392614



Not sure that's troupe white supremacists actually use, but species diversity actually helps *against *disease spread and genetic issues. Hence why most issues like deafness and blindness disproportionately effect purebred dogs more than mutts. Also why diseases like small pox wreaked such havok on Native Americans; because they were so isolated and homogeneous.


----------



## bostjan

Randy said:


> Not sure that's troupe white supremacists actually use, but species diversity actually helps *against *disease spread and genetic issues. Hence why most issues like deafness and blindness disproportionately effect purebred dogs more than mutts. Also why diseases like small pox wreaked such havok on Native Americans; because they were so isolated and homogeneous.



 I agree with the greater point, although I would contend that Native Americans had a rough time with diseases they had never been exposed to due to a lack of herd immunity and because some of the colonists were purposely weaponizing the exposure.

SARS-CoV-2 is the same way.

But with other diseases, for example, malaria, there is a gene in many people of African and Mediterranian heritage that makes it difficult for the parasite to infest a host. Unfortunately, two copies of the same gene causes sickle cell anemia. Genetic diversity doesn't guarantee better health, but it does encourage it, statistically speaking.


----------



## StevenC




----------



## MaxOfMetal

StevenC said:


>



This is why no one trusts the mainstream media; apple pie is fucking gross.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

trusting polls from huff post or most news sites is like trusting a janitor to do an appendectomy. pollup and Pew are the only ones that are worth a damn


----------



## TedEH

I suppose having to stretch as far as huff post to find examples of anyone agreeing on anything just continues to illustrate the point.


----------



## spudmunkey

I have seen all of the data of the dip-and-bump of the Spanish Flu, etc, but it's so hard to not fall into the "well, things seem to be getting better" mindset when seeing both the daily new cases and the daily death counts both seeming to *SLIGHTLY* be ramping down.

With as infectious as we keep hearing that it is, it's entirely possible that sooo many of us already have had and not known it that there's fewer people _left_ to still get it....but I don't know if that's true because we're (the US) is still only testing >300k a day (the US has passed 300K 3 times so far) I've been turned down twice for testing, which is fine, since I know that capacity should be directed at those who show symptoms or have more exposure to other people (I've been able to limit a lot of it, thankfully).

I'm also hopeful that it seems like some of the early suspiciouns of re-infection seem to have clarified themselves and turned out not to be the case, due to false positives, etc.

I'm obviously and genuinely curious to see how things may turn out in another week or two, with Mother's day. There are 16 people who live in the house next door. I was working in my driveway on Sunday and saw that they had rented a bouncy-house and threw a Mother's Day party, where there appeared to be at least 30 people there. In the later afternoon, there was a group of about 5 people who were saying their good-byes, because they were going to be going to one more party, before "dinner over at mom's". 2 people had masks on, pulled down to their chins, and seemingly everybody was hugging.


----------



## Drew

KnightBrolaire said:


> trusting polls from huff post or most news sites is like trusting a janitor to do an appendectomy. pollup and Pew are the only ones that are worth a damn


Whole lot of Ipsos and Axios on the COVID-19 related side of that, though, which are pretty solid and reputable, and also - I suspect - not the sort of organizations wasting their time on questions like "pro or con: apple pie? In general, do you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of Betty White?"

The right LOVES to shit on the so-called "mainstream meda," and for the most part they're full of shit and have their own ideological axe to grind, but I think one of the few valid lines of criticism they - rarely - lay out is a tendency to frame most issues as debates, with for and against sides. Here, unfortunately, that's working _for_ the right-wing fuckwad protestors, where treating what are at the end of the day fringe protests with a small minority of lunatics with flags and guns as "one side" of the debate in a way legitimizes them. The VAST majority of Americans think social distancing is a really fucking good idea, but ironically media coverage of the story could give you the impression there was a much more even split, simply because they're even bothering to give airtime to these jackasses.



spudmunkey said:


> I'm obviously and genuinely curious to see how things may turn out in another week or two, with Mother's day. There are 16 people who live in the house next door. I was working in my driveway on Sunday and saw that they had rented a bouncy-house and threw a Mother's Day party, where there appeared to be at least 30 people there. In the later afternoon, there was a group of about 5 people who were saying their good-byes, because they were going to be going to one more party, before "dinner over at mom's". 2 people had masks on, pulled down to their chins, and seemingly everybody was hugging.



My mothers Day I spent five hours in the car to drive out to see my parents, brought them a boule of fresh-baked sourdough that I'd handled with surgical grade care and transferred in a brown paper bag that had been undisturbed in a closet for weeks before hand, and then hung out in a folding chair I'd brought in their front lawn while they say on chairs on their porch 20 feet away, and had a glass of wine my dad left on the walkway up to their front steps for me in a paper cup that I took with me when I was done. And I'd already had, and recovered from, COVID-19 more than two months ago. My dad was a doctor and my mom was a nurse, and I'm just grateful they're taking this seriously.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

Drew said:


> Whole lot of Ipsos and Axios on the COVID-19 related side of that, though, which are pretty solid and reputable, and also - I suspect - not the sort of organizations wasting their time on questions like "pro or con: apple pie? In general, do you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of Betty White?"
> 
> The right LOVES to shit on the so-called "mainstream meda," and for the most part they're full of shit and have their own ideological axe to grind, but I think one of the few valid lines of criticism they - rarely - lay out is a tendency to frame most issues as debates, with for and against sides. Here, unfortunately, that's working _for_ the right-wing fuckwad protestors, where treating what are at the end of the day fringe protests with a small minority of lunatics with flags and guns as "one side" of the debate in a way legitimizes them. The VAST majority of Americans think social distancing is a really fucking good idea, but ironically media coverage of the story could give you the impression there was a much more even split, simply because they're even bothering to give airtime to these jackasses.
> 
> 
> 
> My mothers Day I spent five hours in the car to drive out to see my parents, brought them a boule of fresh-baked sourdough that I'd handled with surgical grade care and transferred in a brown paper bag that had been undisturbed in a closet for weeks before hand, and then hung out in a folding chair I'd brought in their front lawn while they say on chairs on their porch 20 feet away, and had a glass of wine my dad left on the walkway up to their front steps for me in a paper cup that I took with me when I was done. And I'd already had, and recovered from, COVID-19 more than two months ago. My dad was a doctor and my mom was a nurse, and I'm just grateful they're taking this seriously.


I'm shitting on most polls because I've had multiple stats and psychology teachers over the years lambast the media's inability to do a poll that's actually useful statistically. It's easy to throw all kinds of numbers up depending on how they word questions and how they gather their sample of respondents (I bet almost none of them bother with random polling or such, they likely rely on direct self-reported polls via their FB pages or websites). One of my favorite examples of this was when a male comedian went to a college campus and asked about women's suffrage. He basically just asked them if they believed in women's suffrage. A large number of them didn't even know what the suffrage movement was, so they said no.

The problem is that laypeople don't understand the difference between a good poll and a "bad" one just by looking at methodology (if they even bother to explain their method), and some laypeople will take those percentages at face value.
There's no insightful analysis to be gained from self-reported data 99% of the time unless you have an enormous sample size. Self-reporting bias is very real. People will take time to respond to survey or polls about things that interest them, which in turn skews the data. If you asked 75 self professed cat lovers and 5 self-professed dog lovers which animal they preferred, the data would be heavily skewed towards cats.
Point being, people are fucking dumb, and unless the polls are thoughtfully created, there's not much inherent statistical value to the "data" they gather. Good polls will mitigate bias through good methodology.


----------



## Randy

So, what about this outbreak in Wuhan now all of the sudden? Also a surge in reopened countries. I've got to imagine that effects expections on what a large scale and long term reopening strategy looks like.

My first impression is this sounds kinda like I was talking about in the Florida example, where you're going to have states/regions where there was minimal infection but also minimal quarantine (like societal factors like minimal contact habits, minimal travel, etc.) and those areas will either be where it lies dormant, or that become the next place it spreads once travel and interaction restrictions reopen.

I'm in the Mohawk Valley of NYS, which is slated to re-open Friday. Most of the cities have leveled off or dropped, but the rural community in Fulton County is exploding. Infections doubled over the weekend. It got into one of the nursing homes there, and it was speculated that it was because of transfer from resident to resident because they're not allowed to deny COVID positive residents to transfer there, but a week after the outbreak was reported, the county executive clarified they had taken in NO COVID positive residents, which means it came from the staff. 

In rural communities like that, LPN, CNA, RN are the only decent jobs available, so a virus like COVID hitting the nursing staff means hitting pretty much 100+ families all at once.

I don't doubt if/when re-open in the next week, a community like Fulton County will reinfect areas that have leveled off and we'll be shut back down a week or two later.


----------



## Ralyks

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-europe-52631045

So we went from hearing little about Russia, to them being just behind the US in cases now.


----------



## spudmunkey

Well, Spain is sitll ahead of them, but only just. Probably maybe Monday Russia will have passed them.


----------



## Randy




----------



## Andromalia

bostjan said:


> Also, folks in rural areas, like me, will probably be shafted. Nearest grocery store is half hour away? - Guess you'll starve.



My contractors in Israel told me that this is more or less what's happening there: you're allowed to go out of your place by 100m, if there's no food shop in that area you have to get deliveries, no exceptions.
Even in my city, if I had such limitations, I'd have to do all my shopping in a minishop which is fine as an emergency when you're out of coffee but ruinous if you do all your shopping there.


----------



## jaxadam

Randy said:


> View attachment 80636



What am I missing? Part of the stipulations for the PPP converting to a grant are staying open and not laying off or furloughing employees.


----------



## spudmunkey

Nvrmnd


----------



## Randy

jaxadam said:


> What am I missing? Part of the stipulations for the PPP converting to a grant are staying open and not laying off or furloughing employees.



Not "staying open", it's to rehire workers when safe to open. $600+ UI benefit was supposed to be incentive to follow the rules and stay home, PPP was to pay rents/utilities on business until reopening, and all the workers are guaranteed their jobs back and biz has money to pay them despite being closed for the last 2 - 3 months. That's why the repayment/loan-to-grant structure is delayed.

Also, most hair salons I know of, the hair dressers rent their chair. Are her hair dressers paid by her?


----------



## jaxadam

Randy said:


> Not "staying open", it's to rehire workers when safe to open. $600+ UI benefit was supposed to be incentive to follow the rules and stay home, PPP was to pay rents/utilities on business until reopening, and all the workers are guaranteed their jobs back and biz has money to pay them despite being closed for the last 2 - 3 months. That's why the repayment/loan-to-grant structure is delayed.
> 
> Also, most hair salons I know of, the hair dressers rent their chair. Are her hair dressers paid by her?



On the first round of PPP, my buddy got $965,000 at 1% with 60 day deferred payments for keeping the doors open. If he does not lay off or furlough anyone by July 1, it turns into a grant. I have kept my doors open, and I could have gone after the money, too, but I decided not to because we are not really that affected and I'd rather someone else have the money. Every other business I know that has gotten it here, was in order to keep the lights on and keep paying people. The PPP qualifying amount is 2.5 times the average monthly payroll, and literally 0.5 percent of that is for paying utilities. You can use up to but no more that 0.5% for the utilities. So how is it that utilities would be part of the PPP if you're not supposed to "stay open"?


----------



## GoldDragon

Randy said:


> Not "staying open", it's to rehire workers when safe to open. $600+ UI benefit was supposed to be incentive to follow the rules and stay home, PPP was to pay rents/utilities on business until reopening, and all the workers are guaranteed their jobs back and biz has money to pay them despite being closed for the last 2 - 3 months. That's why the repayment/loan-to-grant structure is delayed.
> 
> Also, most hair salons I know of, the hair dressers rent their chair. Are her hair dressers paid by her?



People that I have talked to who took the PPP also applied for EIDL and UE+600. Basically the mentality was to get everything they can get. 

My impression from job websites I frequent is that many people will just play dumb if they are audited and hope they will be forgiven in the chaos. Some self employed ICs claimed more employees than they had to get more PPP and a larger EIDL grant. My understanding is the EIDL grant gives 1K per employee.

The problem with the EIDL and PPP is double dipping. For most people, the largest free benefit is the UE+600. My feeling is that if they take loans to cover payroll (one or both of those loans require it) you aren't eligible for UE because technically you are still working. Yet people are applying for all of them.

The salon owner, if she rents her chairs, probably took the PPP to cover rent/util, although I think some significant percentage has to be for payroll. She is going to have problems.


----------



## Randy

jaxadam said:


> On the first round of PPP, my buddy got $965,000 at 1% with 60 day deferred payments for keeping the doors open. If he does not lay off or furlough anyone by July 1, it turns into a grant. I have kept my doors open, and I could have gone after the money, too, but I decided not to because we are not really that affected and I'd rather someone else have the money. Every other business I know that has gotten it here, was in order to keep the lights on and keep paying people. The PPP qualifying amount is 2.5 times the average monthly payroll, and literally 0.5 percent of that is for paying utilities. You can use up to but no more that 0.5% for the utilities. So how is it that utilities would be part of the PPP if you're not supposed to "stay open"?



Initial version of the PPP was more helpful than when Mnuchin revised as primarily about keeping people hired/working. You're actually making the case precisely, the PPP ultimately ended up going to people that were still open, period. And that's fine if it was a stimulus kinda thing to just keep money moving to float the stock market (assuming that's the desired outcome) but it was masked as assistance for ailing business, when it wasn't.

It is what it is, I'm just pointing out that her whole appeal was based on the government screwing her and it turned out she got business assistance, AND all her employees and herself would be getting that UE+600 until Texas cleared her to open, but she decided to play victim, when she was actually one of the fortunate ones.


----------



## Randy

GoldDragon said:


> People that I have talked to who took the PPP also applied for EIDL and UE+600. Basically the mentality was to get everything they can get.
> 
> My impression from job websites I frequent is that many people will just play dumb if they are audited and hope they will be forgiven in the chaos. Some self employed ICs claimed more employees than they had to get more PPP and a larger EIDL grant. My understanding is the EIDL grant gives 1K per employee.
> 
> The problem with the EIDL and PPP is double dipping. For most people, the largest free benefit is the UE+600. My feeling is that if they take loans to cover payroll (one or both of those loans require it) you aren't eligible for UE because technically you are still working. Yet people are applying for all of them.
> 
> The salon owner, if she rents her chairs, probably took the PPP to cover rent/util, although I think some significant percentage has to be for payroll. She is going to have problems.



We'll see. Keep in mind, people that take the UE are getting a 1099 and business owners getting forgiveness for the PPP have to get W-2s for all the people they hired. So the IRS is going to know who's double dipping.


----------



## possumkiller

This could come in handy


----------



## narad

possumkiller said:


> This could come in handy
> View attachment 80656



I feel like a lot of those guys are really ambitious and put in the extra 8 hours for additional doctorates in economics and political science.


----------



## Alexa run my life

Speaking of conspiracies.... What do you all think of Mr. Microsoft himself wanting the whole entire world vaccinated by year 2030 with pepper-flake sized, silicon based quantum-dot, digital identity tattoos?


----------



## Drew

KnightBrolaire said:


> I'm shitting on most polls because I've had multiple stats and psychology teachers over the years lambast the media's inability to do a poll that's actually useful statistically. It's easy to throw all kinds of numbers up depending on how they word questions and how they gather their sample of respondents (I bet almost none of them bother with random polling or such, they likely rely on direct self-reported polls via their FB pages or websites). One of my favorite examples of this was when a male comedian went to a college campus and asked about women's suffrage. He basically just asked them if they believed in women's suffrage. A large number of them didn't even know what the suffrage movement was, so they said no.
> 
> The problem is that laypeople don't understand the difference between a good poll and a "bad" one just by looking at methodology (if they even bother to explain their method), and some laypeople will take those percentages at face value.
> There's no insightful analysis to be gained from self-reported data 99% of the time unless you have an enormous sample size. Self-reporting bias is very real. People will take time to respond to survey or polls about things that interest them, which in turn skews the data. If you asked 75 self professed cat lovers and 5 self-professed dog lovers which animal they preferred, the data would be heavily skewed towards cats.
> Point being, people are fucking dumb, and unless the polls are thoughtfully created, there's not much inherent statistical value to the "data" they gather. Good polls will mitigate bias through good methodology.


Ok, so you just said a whole bunch of stuff I generally agree with...

...but, Ipsos and Axios generally produce "good polls" based on the criteria you outline, the polls you point to that ARE pretty suspect are the fluff questions like "How do you feel about kittens," and the fundamental point being made here, that there is quality polling to support the belief that the VAST majority of Americans believe stay at home orders and social distancing guidelines are sensible measures that should remain in place, is still a sound one.


----------



## StevenC

Alexa run my life said:


> Speaking of conspiracies.... What do you all think of Mr. Microsoft himself wanting the whole entire world vaccinated by year 2030 with pepper-flake sized, silicon based quantum-dot, digital identity tattoos?


This is a really dumb question that doesn't need to be asked.


----------



## Alexa run my life

StevenC said:


> This is a really dumb question that doesn't need to be asked.


Who pissed in your surgical mask? Lol


----------



## Shoeless_jose

Edit:
Everyone covered in more detail. Replied in haste delete.


----------



## Demiurge

Alexa run my life said:


> Speaking of conspiracies.... What do you all think of Mr. Microsoft himself wanting the whole entire world vaccinated by year 2030 with pepper-flake sized, silicon based quantum-dot, digital identity tattoos?



As long as this dystopian future comes with flying cars, whatevs


----------



## spudmunkey

Have there been any precident set about "self defence" when it comes to people getting closer than desired (or even required by local law)? If you feel your safety is in danger from someone getting too close because you could catch this virus from them, have there been any court rulings stating what someone might be able to do in this sort of situation?

This shirt made me think of the scenario, and how much someone might be able to get away with, in terms of using force to enforce distancing.


----------



## Alexa run my life

spudmunkey said:


> Have there been any precident set about "self defence" when it comes to people getting closer than desired (or even required by local law)? If you feel your safety is in danger from someone getting too close because you could catch this virus from them, have there been any court rulings stating what someone might be able to do in this sort of situation?
> 
> This shirt made me think of the scenario, and how much someone might be able to get away with, in terms of using force to enforce distancing.
> View attachment 80670


I dont think so because where does it stop? Your life may be in danger of someone giving you your standard house flu, should you be able to sue them over that, even if they know they have it? (I mean sometimes people still venture out when they're sick) but that's where it can start getting out of hand.


----------



## Randy

Alexa run my life said:


> Speaking of conspiracies.... What do you all think of Mr. Microsoft himself wanting the whole entire world vaccinated by year 2030 with pepper-flake sized, silicon based quantum-dot, digital identity tattoos?



I think that dunce invented the Zune and Clippy.


----------



## Alexa run my life

Randy said:


> I think that dunce invented the Zune and Clippy.


I know those two things are Microsoft related but I don't get the joke? Is Bill Gates a dunce?


----------



## Randy

They're flops. The guy is benign.


----------



## narad

The Zune was awesome... Great interface, higher fidelity audio support, solid hardware. I can't wait to try his vaccines and identity tattoos.


----------



## Randy

Hopefully they're not obsolete in two years. Imagine an entire generation of people who can't swim because they're weighed down by dozens of defunct Microsoft implants like lead weights.


----------



## narad

spudmunkey said:


> Have there been any precident set about "self defence" when it comes to people getting closer than desired (or even required by local law)? If you feel your safety is in danger from someone getting too close because you could catch this virus from them, have there been any court rulings stating what someone might be able to do in this sort of situation?
> 
> This shirt made me think of the scenario, and how much someone might be able to get away with, in terms of using force to enforce distancing.
> View attachment 80670



Whose "too F'n Close"? Mine?


----------



## Alexa run my life

narad said:


> The Zune was awesome... Great interface, higher fidelity audio support, solid hardware. I can't wait to try his vaccines and identity tattoos.


The digital I.D is inside the vaccine so you can kill two birds with one stone. And it's not that you'll be trying it, you'll be getting it.


----------



## dr_game0ver

So... How long before the usual "A man and woman stuck together during lockdown" type of rom-com BS movie?


----------



## Randy

Starring Rashida Jones.


----------



## narad

Alexa run my life said:


> The digital I.D is inside the vaccine so you can kill two birds with one stone. And it's not that you'll be trying it, you'll be getting it.



I don't trust the vaccine to work -- how can something inside me stop the 5G waves from reaching me on the outside?


----------



## Randy

narad said:


> I don't trust the vaccine to work -- how can something inside me stop the 5G waves from reaching me on the outside?



How come the outside of the hot pocket is cold but the inside is literally volcano lava?


----------



## MFB

Randy said:


> Starring Rashida Jones.



Or it'll be Jennifer Aniston and she's _trying to fuck_


----------



## spudmunkey

Randy said:


> Starring Rashida Jones.



And either Will Forte or Jason Sudeikis.


----------



## Alexa run my life

narad said:


> I don't trust the vaccine to work -- how can something inside me stop the 5G waves from reaching me





Randy said:


> How come the outside of the hot pocket is cold but the inside is literally volcano lava?


Not sure if you're joking because you think I am making it up or because you think it won't actually pan out.
https://id2020.org/


----------



## sleewell

Alexa run my life said:


> Not sure if you're joking because you think I am making it up or because you think it won't actually pan out.
> https://id2020.org/




i'm pretty sure everyone thinks you're joking.


----------



## Drew

Alexa run my life said:


> Who pissed in your surgical mask? Lol


He's not wrong, you know. You're spouting crazy anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories. I'm with you right up until the "wanting the whole world vaccinated," you're pretty uncontroversial to that point... but then you start going _deep_ down the rabbit hole.


----------



## Ralyks

https://apple.news/Aq6WLW-z8R4W07t79hioNRQ

I call bullshit. If he was serious, It would be called "Operation Ludicrous Speed".


----------



## Alexa run my life

sleewell said:


> i'm pretty sure everyone thinks you're joking.


I guess the jokes on them then.

Very well.

Conspiracy theory? It is a conspiracy alright....theory though? Feel free to research this project headed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.


----------



## sleewell

i'm just curious what parts of the internet do you have to stoop to in order to see the bill gates conspiracy stuff. is this coming from the same sources as pizzagate and flat earthers or are you going deeper into the rabbit hole to find the lunacy that you are spewing?


----------



## sleewell

Alexa run my life said:


> I guess the jokes on them then.
> 
> Very well.
> 
> Conspiracy theory? It is a conspiracy alright....theory though? Feel free to research this project headed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.




do you use reynolds wrap for your hat or just get the generic brand? i heard that reynolds wrap offers better protection against 5g.


----------



## zappatton2

Not a serious post here, but I did find this Facebook meme quite amusing;


----------



## spudmunkey

Alexa run my life said:


> Not sure if you're joking because you think I am making it up or because you think it won't actually pan out.
> https://id2020.org/



There's zero informaiton on that website that connects having a secure digital identity, and having microchips in a vaccine. I don't think "digital" means what you think it means.


----------



## TedEH

Wait - there's microchips _IN_ vaccines now? I must be waaaaay behind on my conspiracy info.


----------



## StevenC

Alexa run my life said:


> I guess the jokes on them then.
> 
> Very well.
> 
> Conspiracy theory? It is a conspiracy alright....theory though? Feel free to research this project headed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.


You're right.

Theory is usually a pretty high standard, this is more like a conspiracy discarded hypothesis.


----------



## Alexa run my life

Because when a snopes says its false, its false dammit!

Carry on


----------



## iamaom

zappatton2 said:


> Not a serious post here, but I did find this Facebook meme quite amusing;


Whoever made that image must like the taste of Gate's dick. I don't believe in conspiracy theory vaccine nonsense, but he did most certainly not "pretty much" invent the computer, if anything his shitty OS has been holding computing back for decades by trying to squash unions and FOSS. But this is also really off-topic.


----------



## budda

And now we arrive at the apple vs pc debate portion of the thread.


----------



## Alexa run my life

I still dont understand why there would be a shortage of masks for such a long time. Its just paper and rubber. And I understand that the large majority of masks and sanitizer and other PPE are being reserved for healthcare workers but, if non healthcare workers can't have access to the same PPE as easily, then thats a shit ton of people that cannot protect themselves. So.......the hospitals will just keep filling up due to lack of PPE for the other 99%


----------



## sleewell

Alexa run my life said:


> I still dont understand why there would be a shortage of masks for such a long time. Its just paper and rubber. And I understand that the large majority of masks and sanitizer and other PPE are being reserved for healthcare workers but, if non healthcare workers can't have access to the same PPE as easily, then thats a shit ton of people that cannot protect themselves. So.......the hospitals will just keep filling up due to lack of PPE for the other 99%




trump sent over 17 tons of ppe to china in early feb. very stable genius.

he also put boy wonder kushner in charge of distributing what was left. kushner thought it was wise to bring on very young and inexperienced kids to help him who basically had no idea what they were doing.


----------



## Alexa run my life

sleewell said:


> trump sent over 17 tons of ppe to china in early feb. very stable genius.


Again, we're talking paper and rubber....how long does it take to recoup that? Months apparently??


----------



## Drew

Alexa run my life said:


> I still dont understand why there would be a shortage of masks for such a long time. Its just paper and rubber. And I understand that the large majority of masks and sanitizer and other PPE are being reserved for healthcare workers but, if non healthcare workers can't have access to the same PPE as easily, then thats a shit ton of people that cannot protect themselves. So.......the hospitals will just keep filling up due to lack of PPE for the other 99%


Easy. We failed to stockpile them when we first became aware of the potential for a pandemic. 

The reason we're prioritizing healthcare workers is, we KNOW they're coming into contact with COVID-19 positive patients, and we have a finite number of health care providers, who have a very specialized skillset that we need in a pandemic. We need to keep as many as possible of them not getting sick and/or dying. As it is, most healthcare workers are getting one mask a shift, and at least here in the greater Boston area, we are sterilizing and reusing them between shifts.


----------



## Drew

Alexa run my life said:


> Again, we're talking paper and rubber....how long does it take to recoup that? Months apparently??


Oddly, a lot of them are made in china and imported from there. Production of pretty much everything in China slowed down in January through March.


----------



## Drew

Dineley said:


> What exactly is Bill Gates end game to try and microchip us all with vaccines anyway???


_Agenda 21, bro!_


----------



## Randy

Fine if you don't agree with the guy but no name calling and calm it with the vitriol.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

Randy said:


> Fine if you don't agree with the guy but no name calling and calm it with the vitriol.




Apologies for going overboard just the whole rejection of anything offered by those with expertise of any sort and just the passing on of totally unverified fantastical claims gets hard to stomach sometimes.

Sorry for throwing in the insult.


----------



## Randy

It's fine, I get it. But it's not like he killed somebody. I agree with 0% of what he's said and it's so overboard that it reads like parody, but I don't see any reason to get mad about it. Other than when he's been attacked directly, he hasn't been confrontational.


----------



## jaxadam

Randy said:


> Fine if you don't agree with the guy but no name calling and calm it with the vitriol.



I'm marking this one down!


----------



## Alexa run my life

spudmunkey said:


> There's zero informaiton on that website that connects having a secure digital identity, and having microchips in a vaccine. I don't think "digital" means what you think it means.


Of course it doesn't outright say it. Put the two together....Microsoft + GAVI literally translates as technology inside of a vaccine. That is clear as day to me. They can monitor "everyone's everything" once the world over has been raped with the vaccine. That is what I make of it.

What do you think it means?


----------



## StevenC

Alexa run my life said:


> Of course it doesn't outright say it. Put the two together....Microsoft + GAVI literally translates as technology inside of a vaccine. That is clear as day to me. They can monitor "everyone's everything" once the world over has been raped with the vaccine. That is what I make of it.
> 
> What do you think it means?


I can't tell if you have an over- or underactive imagination.


----------



## spudmunkey

Alexa run my life said:


> Microsoft + GAVI literally translates as technology inside of a vaccine.


----------



## Randy




----------



## jaxadam




----------



## Randy

Mono Neon = Instant like


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> It's fine, I get it. But it's not like he killed somebody. I agree with 0% of what he's said and it's so overboard that it reads like parody, but I don't see any reason to get mad about it. Other than when he's been attacked directly, he hasn't been confrontational.


It's tough because one one hand, if this ludicrous theory gets enough traction, there are going to be some real-world consequences when people are going to _choose_ not to get a coronavirus vaccine in another 12-ish months when one's developed and produced in quantities large enough to be effective. 

On the other, as long as it's only 5-10% of the population who chooses not to get a vaccine because they don't want Bill Gates to turn them gay, we'll probably still reach herd immunity, and the ones who get sick and die will disproportionately be the anti vaxxers. 

As a general principle, I'm against needless deaths, and against woefully blatant misinformation being spread unchallenged. And yet...


----------



## KnightBrolaire

Interesting article discussing the proliferation of covid related conspiracy theories, and why conspiracy theories spread. 
https://www.propublica.org/article/...4FDsnPc0f0owShAzVFkYFHASY5Nr773BV2sxFA59eXf5g

Also worth checking out the book "Why people believe weird things" if you want a good breakdown of irrational beliefs.


----------



## Ralyks

Drew said:


> As a general principle, I'm against needless deaths, and against woefully blatant misinformation being spread unchallenged. And yet..



Honestly I got to the point years ago where if you’re an anti-vaxer, and you get whatever the vaccine would prevent, my sympathy for you is very much zero.


----------



## Andromalia

Ralyks said:


> Honestly I got to the point years ago where if you’re an anti-vaxer, and you get whatever the vaccine would prevent, my sympathy for you is very much zero.


If it was only this, it'd be fine. The issue is, vaccines are not 100% proof, so untreated people are a danger to others, and voluntarily so. If you don't want vaccines, you have to be quarantined. For life if needed.


----------



## sleewell

i am sure there were good people on both sides


----------



## Drew

Andromalia said:


> If it was only this, it'd be fine. The issue is, vaccines are not 100% proof, so untreated people are a danger to others, and voluntarily so. If you don't want vaccines, you have to be quarantined. For life if needed.


Less because they're not effective - they're extremely effective - but because vulnerable members of society sometimes CAN'T be vaccinated. Children under the age of 2, people with severe allergies to the vaccines, etc. If there's a legitimate medical reason why you can't be given a vaccine, then you're at the mercy of others around you not getting sick, and depending on herd immunity. choosing not to get vaccinated not because you're unable but because you don't want to see "the life go out of my child's eyes" when the vaccine gloves them autism, or because you don't want Bill Gates to secretly microchip you with the vaccine, or any other trumped-up excuse not to get one when you're physically able to, is putting th elives of others at risk by weakening herd immunity. 

The irony is the correlation between anti-vaxxers and "reopen the economy" protesters s rising fast, which is probably not an irony at all in that the latter are looking for any excuse to justify their desire to go to Applebees and get a haircut, and convenience makes strange bedfellows.


----------



## Alexa run my life

Is anyone here an anti vaxxer? I am not one, BUT.....I am against mandatory vaccination because it is no different from rape. Someone sticking something inside your body against your will, is fucking rape. So when they start pulling this bullshit that, "you can't send your kid back to school unless they get vaccinated", or, enter a building, or buy this or that, or whatever it may be....is when it gets nazi Germany style; it's almost borderline blackmail. And that premise should crumble in the court of law if the law is just.

You guys have restored my faith in humanity that you think Bill Gates gives a fuck about you, and that population control has nothing to do with anything. (If this USA adopts an intrusive chinese-like, facial recognition, social credit and there will be no turning back once that happens, it will be all thanks to people like you guys. I hate to say that but I bet I'm not wrong. You know the kind of people that won't stop crying until everyone is on an equal, lowest level playing field.......if billy gets two apples and I only have one, then the teacher should take away billys second apple and make sure no one ever gets two apples ever again). That's the kind of attitude it takes to usher in the 1984, Brave New World, dystopia. "I dont feel comfortable in my own skin so I need to bring everyone down to my level."

If mandating vaccines was about health, why not mandate healthy eating? Why not mandate excersize? Because its obviously not about health it's about power, and control of the "grand chessboard" by way of forced medical intervention.

Enjoy


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Alexa run my life said:


> Is anyone here an anti vaxxer? I am not one, BUT.....I am against mandatory vaccination because it is no different from rape. Someone sticking something inside your body against your will, is fucking rape. So when they start pulling this bullshit that, "you can't send your kid back to school unless they get vaccinated", or, enter a building, or buy this or that, or whatever it may be....is when it gets nazi Germany style; it's almost borderline blackmail. And that premise should crumble in the court of law if the law is just.
> 
> You guys have restored my faith in humanity that you think Bill Gates gives a fuck about you, and that population control has nothing to do with anything. (If this USA adopts an intrusive chinese-like, facial recognition, social credit and there will be no turning back once that happens, it will be all thanks to people like you guys. I hate to say that but I bet I'm not wrong. You know the kind of people that won't stop crying until everyone is on an equal, lowest level playing field.......if billy gets two apples and I only have one, then the teacher should take away billys second apple and make sure no one ever gets two apples ever again). That's the kind of attitude it takes to usher in the 1984, Brave New World, dystopia. "I dont feel comfortable in my own skin so I need to bring everyone down to my level."
> 
> If mandating vaccines was about health, why not mandate healthy eating? Why not mandate excersize? Because its obviously not about health it's about power, and control of the "grand chessboard" by way of forced medical intervention.
> 
> Enjoy



You eating dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets every day doesn't really impact anyone else's life directly, though I'm sure those who love you will care when you die early because of it. 

By not being vaccinated you weaken herd immunity that can have direct consequences for those you don't even know. 

The state makes you get vaccinated much like they make you get licensed to drive a motor vehicle. You're welcome to live your life un-vaccinated, but then you don't get to legally benefit from the society built by those who care about being vaccinated. Just like you wouldn't be allowed to drive on public roads without a license. 

I'm sure the wacky YouTuber who espoused these beliefs made you think unchecked rugged individualism is "hot shit", but I guarantee you'll experience a far more fulfilling life by caring about those around you to some degree. Promise.


----------



## Drew

Alexa run my life said:


> Is anyone here an anti vaxxer? I am not one, BUT.....I am against mandatory vaccination because it is no different from rape. Someone sticking something inside your body against your will, is fucking rape. So when they start pulling this bullshit that, "you can't send your kid back to school unless they get vaccinated", or, enter a building, or buy this or that, or whatever it may be....is when it gets nazi Germany style; it's almost borderline blackmail. And that premise should crumble in the court of law if the law is just.



Yes, actually, you ARE an anti-vaxxer. This is a textbook anti-vax argument.


----------



## sleewell




----------



## Ralyks

sleewell said:


>


Oh I fucking love this.


----------



## wankerness

Alexa run my life said:


> mandatory vaccination because it is no different from rape. Someone sticking something inside your body against your will, is fucking rape. So when they start pulling this bullshit that, "you can't send your kid back to school unless they get vaccinated", or, enter a building, or buy this or that, or whatever it may be....is when it gets nazi Germany style; it's almost borderline blackmail. And that premise should crumble in the court of law if the law is just.






You're obviously completely immune to reason, and your entire middle paragraph is just the incoherent rantings of a madman, but a couple parts of this are egregiously stupid and offensive and I can't ignore them. To focus on them:



Alexa run my life said:


> mandatory vaccination because it is no different from rape. Someone sticking something inside your body against your will, is fucking rape. So when they start pulling this bullshit that, "you can't send your kid back to school unless they get vaccinated", or, enter a building, or buy this or that, or whatever it may be....is when it gets nazi Germany style; it's almost borderline blackmail. And that premise should crumble in the court of law if the law is just.



So you really think getting a shot at the doctor's office when you don't want one is the same as say, dropping the soap in the shower at prison? You really think that people having their kids vaccinated might as well be shipping them off to Joe Paterno or Jared from Subway or whatever? If you think getting an injection to help with a disease is identical to having an object forced into your body for the sexual gratification/power trip of another person, you are beyond all help. This is just insanely disgusting and offensive and minimizing of people who actually have been raped. 



> If mandating vaccines was about health, why not mandate healthy eating? Why not mandate excersize? Because its obviously not about health it's about power, and control of the "grand chessboard" by way of forced medical intervention.
> 
> Enjoy



Cause people eating garbage and giving themselves a heart attack won't be risking the lives of immunocompromised people around them. Unlike dipshits who refuse to get a vaccine, won't vaccinate their kids, and then cause measles outbreaks that mess up immunocompromised kids that couldn't handle a vaccine but would have been fine if vaccines were mandated and everyone else had them.

But, some things that are for public safety/health and only affect yourself ARE laws, like, seatbelts for example. I am guessing those probably offend you, too.


----------



## StevenC

Alexa run my life said:


> Is anyone here an anti vaxxer? I am not one, BUT.....I am against mandatory vaccination because it is no different from rape. Someone sticking something inside your body against your will, is fucking rape. So when they start pulling this bullshit that, "you can't send your kid back to school unless they get vaccinated", or, enter a building, or buy this or that, or whatever it may be....is when it gets nazi Germany style; it's almost borderline blackmail. And that premise should crumble in the court of law if the law is just.
> 
> You guys have restored my faith in humanity that you think Bill Gates gives a fuck about you, and that population control has nothing to do with anything. (If this USA adopts an intrusive chinese-like, facial recognition, social credit and there will be no turning back once that happens, it will be all thanks to people like you guys. I hate to say that but I bet I'm not wrong. You know the kind of people that won't stop crying until everyone is on an equal, lowest level playing field.......if billy gets two apples and I only have one, then the teacher should take away billys second apple and make sure no one ever gets two apples ever again). That's the kind of attitude it takes to usher in the 1984, Brave New World, dystopia. "I dont feel comfortable in my own skin so I need to bring everyone down to my level."
> 
> If mandating vaccines was about health, why not mandate healthy eating? Why not mandate excersize? Because its obviously not about health it's about power, and control of the "grand chessboard" by way of forced medical intervention.
> 
> Enjoy


Clone, robot, or long lost twin? Taking all bets! I also offer video poker.


----------



## Alexa run my life

sleewell said:


>


This is part of my point. You DON'T know whats in a vaccine.


----------



## MFB

Alexa run my life said:


> This is part of my point. You DON'T know whats in a vaccine.



Which is why the people who administer them for a living, DO know what's in them and we allow them to administer them, and they know that no part of the vaccine is the chemical compound that suddenly gives you autism.


----------



## sleewell

if you dont know about something and are dumb enough to just call it rape i've got nothing for you. enjoy getting your smarts from fb and being on the ignore list.


----------



## Randy

MFB said:


> Which is why the people who administer them for a living, DO know what's in them and we allow them to administer them, and they know that no part of the vaccine is the chemical compound that suddenly gives you autism.



It's the Sarah Palin conundrum. I don't trust anything I don't know, but I'm too lazy to learn anything new.


----------



## Alexa run my life

Sigh


----------



## sighval

Correct me if i'm wrong, but aren't you able to find out what's inside vaccines that are available on the market? Drug leaflets, stuff like that?


----------



## Randy

sighval said:


> Correct me if i'm wrong, but aren't you able to find out what's inside vaccines that are available on the market? Drug leaflets, stuff like that?



Yes but because they are made up of complex chemical compound names that you will find in both benign AND poisonous chemicals ("OMG! THEY PUT THAT STUFF IN RAT POISON!"), that does not abate these people.


----------



## sighval

Well then. I don't know the inner workings of, let's say, an airplane, should I go to the nearest airport and start shouting it's all a ruse and a secret plot to kill the passengers? They DO crash from time to time, after all...

Edit.
Cutting down on sarcasm a bit, I really find it quite interesting - what we believe and WHY (that's the important bit).


----------



## Andromalia

Alexa run my life said:


> Is anyone here an anti vaxxer? I am not one, BUT.....I am against mandatory vaccination



You do have an alternative, which is quarantine and isolation. Your pick. I heard Siberia can be a nice place.



> This is part of my point. You DON'T know whats in a vaccine.


That's true, that's what I pay a doctor for.

As a side note, we are probably more trustful in Europe because the health system here isn't designed to fuck us sideways.


----------



## Randy

sighval said:


> Well then. I don't know the inner workings of, let's say, an airplane, should I go to the nearest airport and start shouting it's all a ruse and a secret plot to kill the passengers? They DO crash from time to time, after all...
> 
> Edit.
> Cutting down on sarcasm a bit, I really find it quite interesting - what we believe and WHY (that's the important bit).



Sarcasm entirely appropriate. The onus on informing oneself until capable of making a decision is on the individual. If you don't want to do the leg work, don't and continue to make uninformed decisions or no decisions. But telling other people what to do or fear baiting just because you're paranoid and also ill informed is bullshit.


----------



## Alexa run my life

Randy said:


> The onus on informing oneself until capable of making a decision is on the individual.


Right. But even the "bunk" material needs to be _read_ (not to be confused with believed) in order for one to truly make an informed decision. 


StevenC said:


> This is a really dumb question that doesn't need to be asked


The learning stops when you stop asking questions.


----------



## TedEH

Alexa run my life said:


> But even the "bunk" material needs to be _read_ (not to be confused with believed) in order for one to truly make an informed decision.


No it doesn't. I don't need to read what an uninformed person thinks 5G is to know what it's not. I don't need to read anything to know there are no microchips in vaccines. You don't need to read a double-blind repeatable peer-reviewed study on the effect of abrupt cessation of excessive momentum to know that if you jump off a cliff, you're probably going to die. I even used all the biggest "you need science to prove it" words I could think of.



Alexa run my life said:


> The learning stops when you stop asking questions.


Learning also stops when you believe every answer that strikes you as vaguely plausible.


----------



## StevenC

Alexa run my life said:


> The learning stops when you stop asking questions.


Damn dude, how many more takes do you want on that one?


----------



## TedEH

Kinda changing the subject, but I don't really understand why things are starting to open up already. If feels really premature at this point. Even if you're not 100% onboard with the lockdown in the first place, it seems to me that if you're going to start a lockdown under certain conditions then we should be following through and lot lifting the lockdown until those conditions aren't true any more. When things first started to get serious and I got sent home in the first place there were a grant total of zero deaths from this yet. We still have over a hundred people dieing per day, but people are suddenly deciding to just start going back. I want to get out there as much as anyone else, but this feels like a bad idea.


----------



## wankerness

TedEH said:


> Kinda changing the subject, but I don't really understand why things are starting to open up already. If feels really premature at this point. Even if you're not 100% onboard with the lockdown in the first place, it seems to me that if you're going to start a lockdown under certain conditions then we should be following through and lot lifting the lockdown until those conditions aren't true any more. When things first started to get serious and I got sent home in the first place there were a grant total of zero deaths from this yet. We still have over a hundred people dieing per day, but people are suddenly deciding to just start going back. I want to get out there as much as anyone else, but this feels like a bad idea.



Depending on the country, some of the opening up actually IS smart, and things HAVE changed. No, there's not a cure for the disease or anything, but there are proven ways to massively reduce chance of infection and run many kinds of business without too much risk. Most countries bulked up their testing and contact tracing to an extent where yes, there will be outbreaks, but they'll be able to be detected and stomped out locally with some reasonable degree of speed. Like, in Italy, now things are opening up, but if you go anywhere without a mask or don't clean things properly or restaurants break the guidelines on number of people etc, there are heavy fines and/or jailtime and/or taking of licenses. If more than 80% of the population is wearing masks correctly, the risk is very low as long as you're smart.

Society has to get functioning again, but stuff like that is the only safe way to do it when you're dealing with a particular culture with a lot of "BUT MAH RIGHTS" morons. Many Asian countries are doing similar things, but have to wield the cudgel a bit less harshly cause their citizens are using to placing the greater good first. Same deal with countries like the Nordic ones (apart from Sweden, who's still vastly ahead of most regions of the US by virtue of the fact that the population isn't heavily anti-science and selfish) or Czech Republic or Austria or Germany. 

I don't know what your story is in Canada. I'd imagine that things are probably quite a bit more science-based than in the US, and that some effort has been made to work on contact-tracing, and that the government might have actually implemented some guidelines. You also have fewer big population centers than the US, so that should help.

In the US, of course, any and all safety regulations, even the non-lockdown ones, were heavily politicized in order to whip up the unwashed masses into a frenzy so conservative governments had an excuse to hide behind so they wouldn't have to keep paying unemployment to people, or keep writing bailout checks to anyone other than millionaires. Some states that are absolutely screwed like Michigan and my own had crazy people with guns protesting the governors (cause they were democrats) and the police didn't lift a finger. It's a mess and it's making it look like we're on the verge of a civil war, since all the propaganda outlets like Fox News are just screaming and screaming that Obama is out to get Trump, Democrats are out to steal freedoms, Coronavirus deaths are massively overreported and no one's going to talk about it after November cause it's all just a thing that the MAINSTREAM MEDIA is using to make Trump look bad, etc. 

In the last few days in Wisconsin, we had the GOP-controlled supreme court give a 4-3 vote to COMPLETELY throw out all safety regulations of any sort, and the GOP legislature given a voice in creating any new regulations, and the GOP immediately said "we don't need any regulations and refuse to work with the governor to create any unless things change." 

Part of the real shit here is that the deciding vote was from a justice who just lost the fricking election to a liberal, but since the election happens well in advance of when things actually take place, functionally this was a tyrannical minority that doesn't represent the current views of the voters in the state opening us up and destroying all public health regulations because they refuse to work with democrats and their main operating procedure seems to be "do the opposite of what democrats do, no matter what." One of the justices who voted to overturn it received over 20,000 in donations just before the vote, and her brilliant judicial wisdom was some moronic facebook mom sounding soundbite about Freedums. Some states with republican governors that instituted lockdowns are facing nothing like this, cause the legislators aren't opposed to lockdowns as much as they are opposed to backing up anything a republican leader does and trashing anything a democratic leader does. It's truly disgusting and this country will not stand like this.

I hope I can get out of here before things boil over and the particularly deranged conservatives out and out start murdering liberals/journalists/scientists. Lord knows the GOP is encouraging exactly that. I dread to think what will happen if Trump loses the election in that "lame duck" period of multiple months before he's actually kicked out of office.

Speaking of Trump, he loudly proclaimed today that he's taking Hydroxychloroquine as a preventative measure. A fox news host immediately reacted with "It will kill you. I cannot stress enough." Then of course some network exec or another must have caught the error of someone criticizing a Trump decision and carted out other hosts to say that it was very wise and good, even though all properly conducted tests are finding that no, it is not for this purpose. Ugh.

I guess Trump killing himself with the severe possible side effects from this would be poetic. More than likely, though, nothing will happen and the Trump administration will continue firing anyone that runs counter to his narrative.


----------



## spudmunkey

Is taking hydroxychloroquine to treat a disease you don't have (yet?) a bit like putting on a condom today for a date on Friday, or is there even a sliver of legitimate science there?

[Edit: *sigh* Apparently he was being "sarcastic" when he said he was taking it to reduce the severity of symptoms should he contract the virus.]


----------



## MaxOfMetal

spudmunkey said:


> Is taking hydroxychloroquine to treat a disease you don't have (yet?) a bit like putting on a condom today for a date on Friday, or is there even a sliver of legitimate science there?
> 
> [Edit: *sigh* Apparently he was being "sarcastic" when he said he was taking it to reduce the severity of symptoms should he contract the virus.]



"I didn't say something stupid/illegal/offensive; you_ just didn't get the joke_."


----------



## TedEH

wankerness said:


> I don't know what your story is in Canada. I'd imagine that things are probably quite a bit more science-based than in the US, and that some effort has been made to work on contact-tracing, and that the government might have actually implemented some guidelines. You also have fewer big population centers than the US, so that should help.


Not gonna lie, I don't follow the news as closely as I should, so maybe I've got things a little off- but like so many other things, Canada IMO basically just mimics what the US is doing, but with the drama dialed down some. We certainly have a lot _less_ of the whole freedom/conspiracy/etc nonsense going on, but a bit of our own nonsense: we had the worst rampage/shooting that's ever happened in our country, then a bunch of arguing about using the lockdown to sneak in some gun laws while people are focused on covid.

In terms of numbers though -> most of the charts I can find basically put us at a sort of projected "peak" right now, suggesting that people _think_ deaths and cases are both going to suddenly drop soon (I don't really know why the projections look like this) but with so much uncertainty that the chart (to someone like me who doesn't know better) sort of seems meaningless. Why are we assuming the numbers are going to drop off? We've changed practically nothing in the last couple of months.

I'm not going to pretend that I really understand. If I had no other information, I would say it looks like we're opening up not because it's any safer than it was, but because people have reached their breaking points and we've just culturally decided we can't stay inside any longer.


----------



## budda

Things will open and it will be bad again. Feels more like a PR move than a good idea imo.


----------



## fantom

Alexa run my life said:


> This is part of my point. You DON'T know whats in a vaccine.



Just for the sake of argument, you also don't know what is in most of the food you eat, the tap water you drink, the clothing you wear, the air conditioning you use, the paint surrounding you, the screen in front of you, etc. Why are all of those things safe?!


----------



## jaxadam

fantom said:


> Why are all of those things safe?!



According to the State of California, they're not!


----------



## TedEH

Am I imagining it, or is the general anti-government everything-is-a-conspiracy mentality slowly infiltrating the rest of the forum? In one or two threads about global issues, sure, you're bound to run into some weird or unexpected or bad takes, but it's making its way out into other conversations now. Don't like covid? Must be a cover up to give us all microchip-autism-causing-super-vaccines to control the world. Don't like annoying online guitar influencers? Must be a government coverup to give us all microchip-autism-causing-super-vaccines to control the world.


----------



## USMarine75




----------



## narad

That's the asshole that shutdown Napster!


----------



## sleewell

the way pelosi just casually called trump morbidly obese was hilarious. 


i'd bet $1000 he is not taking it. pretty good distraction from illegally selling arms to the saudis. we fall for this simple tactic every. single. time.


----------



## Ralyks

sleewell said:


> i'd bet $1000 he is not taking it. pretty good distraction from illegally selling arms to the saudis. we fall for this simple tactic every. single. time.



A friend and I were saying either this (minus it being a distraction for the Saudi deal and more that Trump has a monetary stake in drug), or he’s taking a placebo. Or, jokingly, he is taking it with the doctor trying to take him out.


----------



## jaxadam

Yoyoma said:


> The education system did wonders.



When I was in college, I found that most kids that learned "online" or used other sources other than the actual classroom instruction only obtained a horizontal, or surface level of understanding. I believe that one needs to be immersed in classroom instruction in order to achieve a more in-depth, or vertical learning of a subject. With so many arguments based on quick Google searches these days, I find it ironic that surface level knowledge attacks larger and more in-depth talking points. In addition, I am not surprised to find that Google tends to provide "correct" information for every single viewpoint.


----------



## Ralyks

Yoyoma said:


> Cause libtards gonna libtard. It amazes me how moronic and brainwashed all of you are. The education system did wonders.



First post on SSO and it’s in the Politics Thread to call people libtards. You’re just another in a line of them. Good thing it’s easy to report.


----------



## jaxadam

Ralyks said:


> First post on SSO and it’s in the Politics Thread to call people libtards. You’re just another in a line of them. Good thing it’s easy to report.



I mean, give them a chance. I thought the world was about peace, love, and acceptance. Let's at least hear them out. Would you feel more receptive to a new member if they came in and immediately posted disdain for the opposite team?


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> I mean, give them a chance. I thought the world was about peace, love, and acceptance. Let's at least hear them out. Would you feel more receptive to a new member if they came in and immediately posted disdain for the opposite team?



Lol, it's not a new person. It's just a new account. We've heard them out before...they've been found to be an idiot...and they've been banned, but they always come crawlin' back. You only have to hear someone out if they have something new to say.


----------



## Necris

sleewell said:


> the way pelosi just casually called trump morbidly obese was hilarious.
> i'd bet $1000 he is not taking it. pretty good distraction from illegally selling arms to the saudis. we fall for this simple tactic every. single. time.


To be fair, people who dislike Trump seem to fall for Pelosi's utterly empty gestures with a similar frequency. Clapping for Trump with a mocking look on her face, ripping up a copy of a speech, pointing out that he's obese; all worthless, even without considering how helpful she's been with regard to Trumps agenda over the course of his presidency.


----------



## Ralyks

jaxadam said:


> I mean, give them a chance. I thought the world was about peace, love, and acceptance. Let's at least hear them out. Would you feel more receptive to a new member if they came in and immediately posted disdain for the opposite team?



First off, you know this has happened numerous times and it’s the same person. Second, you come to a guitar based forum and go right for the politics section. Third, how about entering with an actual, intelligent talking point or argument instead of throwing out “libtard” and that’s basically it? Would you be accepting if I came in and just started calling people “republicunts”?


----------



## jaxadam

narad said:


> Lol, it's not a new person. It's just a new account. We've heard them out before...they've been found to be an idiot...and they've been banned, but they always come crawlin' back. You only have to hear someone out if they have something new to say.



Sorry man, I can't keep up. Me and Golden Shower, I mean Golden Dragon are overwhelming outnumbered, so we'll take all the reinforcements we can get!


----------



## StevenC

jaxadam said:


> Sorry man, I can't keep up. Me and Golden Shower, I mean Golden Dragon are overwhelming outnumbered, so we'll take all the reinforcements we can get!


I put out an ad for better conservatives but it's as yet unanswered.


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> overwhelming outnumbered, so we'll take all the reinforcements we can get!


Wait until you realize it's not a team sport.


----------



## Ralyks

Necris said:


> To be fair, people who dislike Trump seem to fall for Pelosi's utterly empty gestures with a similar frequency. Clapping for Trump with a mocking look on her face, ripping up a copy of a speech, pointing out that he's obese; all worthless, even without considering how helpful she's been with regard to Trumps agenda over the course of his presidency.



Honestly, I’m kind of over Pelosi at this point. She came in strong for the last year or two, but I feel like she hasn’t been all that effective during a lot of this mess.


----------



## Alexa run my life

TedEH said:


> Wait until you realize it's not a team sport.


That would make sense if everyone here weren't all on the blue team.


----------



## jaxadam

Alexa run my life said:


> That would make sense if everyone here weren't all on the blue team.



:fist bump:


----------



## TedEH

I'm not on any "team". I can find something to disagree with from just about anyone here.


----------



## Cynicanal

Drew said:


> Less because they're not effective - they're extremely effective - but because vulnerable members of society sometimes CAN'T be vaccinated. Children under the age of 2, people with severe allergies to the vaccines, etc. If there's a legitimate medical reason why you can't be given a vaccine, then you're at the mercy of others around you not getting sick, and depending on herd immunity. choosing not to get vaccinated not because you're unable but because you don't want to see "the life go out of my child's eyes" when the vaccine gloves them autism, or because you don't want Bill Gates to secretly microchip you with the vaccine, or any other trumped-up excuse not to get one when you're physically able to, is putting th elives of others at risk by weakening herd immunity.
> 
> The irony is the correlation between anti-vaxxers and "reopen the economy" protesters s rising fast, which is probably not an irony at all in that the latter are looking for any excuse to justify their desire to go to Applebees and get a haircut, and convenience makes strange bedfellows.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_swine_flu_outbreak

Yes, I'm sure it's just all of those crazy Jenny McCarthy followers, and not people who remember that last time a rushed vaccine was made mandatory because of a pandemic, it was flawed and killed and paralyzed loads of people.


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> I can find something to disagree with from just about anyone here.



:fist bump:


----------



## SpaceDock

TedEH said:


> Am I imagining it, or is the general anti-government everything-is-a-conspiracy mentality slowly infiltrating the rest of the forum? In one or two threads about global issues, sure, you're bound to run into some weird or unexpected or bad takes, but it's making its way out into other conversations now. Don't like covid? Must be a cover up to give us all microchip-autism-causing-super-vaccines to control the world. Don't like annoying online guitar influencers? Must be a government coverup to give us all microchip-autism-causing-super-vaccines to control the world.



You said it man. It started when Republicans wanted to push Laffer curve, then when they denied Global Warming, Clinton Emails, vaccines, and now Covid. It is some sick infection spreading deeper into the bones of the Republican Party, they don’t agree with something or want to push an agenda; they don’t use science or logic, they use propaganda and the idea that the world is wrong and they are right. You see it with the three Republicans that are shouting their argument in this thread and others. No facts, no science, they just want others with their same agenda to help build up their echo chamber of misinformation.


----------



## jaxadam

SpaceDock said:


> You see it with the three Republicans that are shouting their argument in this thread and others.



Which three? I wanna go read their posts!


----------



## SpaceDock

jaxadam said:


> Which three? I wanna go read their posts!



You are one of them. I also notice how many times in this thread you talk about ignoring people you don’t agree with and reinforcing the idea that other republicans should block everyone but the people they agree with. Pathetic.


----------



## jaxadam

SpaceDock said:


> You are one of them. I also notice how many times in this thread you talk about ignoring people you don’t agree with and reinforcing the idea that other republicans should block everyone but the people they agree with. Pathetic.



I'm one of them?! I'm registered NPA (non-party affiliated) and vote for whoever the heck I want. This time around I'm going to make the sensible choice and write in the MaxofMetal/Randy ticket. Mom/Randy 2020!


----------



## TedEH

Going completely off topic now, but is anyone able to explain to me (because I'm busy and don't want to bother googlling it) why you would need to be "registered" to a certain party in order to vote whatever way you want? I don't understand American politics very well, but having to be registered to be affiliated to a party in order to vote sounds like a terrible idea. We just go vote, and that's the end of the story.


----------



## SpaceDock

It’s very common for Republicans to say they are not Republicans because they don’t want to seem like they are mindless sheep. They instead call themselves Libertarians or Tea Party but tow the line for everything Republican and will for vote down ballot for them every time. I don’t think too many are fooled by their attempts to come off as independent free thinkers.

BTW I am a registered Democrat and while I am not going to carry specific peoples water for them, I will vote for Democrats I don’t always agree with.


----------



## mastapimp

TedEH said:


> Going completely off topic now, but is anyone able to explain to me (because I'm busy and don't want to bother googlling it) why you would need to be "registered" to a certain party in order to vote whatever way you want? I don't understand American politics very well, but having to be registered to be affiliated to a party in order to vote sounds like a terrible idea. We just go vote, and that's the end of the story.


In a general election, you can vote for whoever you wish and you don't have to have a party affiliation, just be registered to vote. Leading up to that general election, if you want any say on who gets to run, you have to vote within your registered party to select this individual in the primary election. The way you described it sounds like you're mixing up closed primaries with the general election. https://informationstation.org/kitc...MI-5WVjczA6QIVD47ICh3O0gzVEAAYASAAEgKRnPD_BwE


----------



## Cynicanal

TedEH said:


> Going completely off topic now, but is anyone able to explain to me (because I'm busy and don't want to bother googlling it) why you would need to be "registered" to a certain party in order to vote whatever way you want? I don't understand American politics very well, but having to be registered to be affiliated to a party in order to vote sounds like a terrible idea. We just go vote, and that's the end of the story.


Registering with a party affiliation allows you to vote in that party's primary; in a lot of areas in the U.S., the party makeup is one-sided to the point that the primary election effectively _is_ the election, with the general being a formality, so if you want to vote in local elections in a lot of the U.S., you have to be registered as a member of whichever party is dominant in your locality.


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> Going completely off topic now, but is anyone able to explain to me (because I'm busy and don't want to bother googlling it) why you would need to be "registered" to a certain party in order to vote whatever way you want? I don't understand American politics very well, but having to be registered to be affiliated to a party in order to vote sounds like a terrible idea. We just go vote, and that's the end of the story.



In order to vote in the primaries in a closed-primary state like Florida, you need to be registered for that party.


----------



## TedEH

Thanks for the link, I legit had no idea that's how that worked.


----------



## spudmunkey

TedEH said:


> Thanks for the link, I legit had no idea that's how that worked.



If you think about it, letting democrats vote in the republican primary, and vise-versa, would be a bad idea. Their votes would likely be for the person they thought would be most likely to LOSE in the genreral election. While I'm sure there would be people who would actully vote for who they thought would be best in all of the primaries, that's not really how it'd work out IRL.


----------



## spudmunkey

https://www.zdnet.com/article/australian-poll-finds-1-in-8-blame-bill-gates-and-5g-for-coronavirus/



> *Australian poll finds 1 in 8 blame Bill Gates and 5G for coronavirus*


----------



## TedEH

I'd like to believe that this is just 1 in 8 Australians being trolls.

But....


> Almost 40% of respondents said they believed coronavirus was created in a lab in Wuhan


----------



## Alexa run my life

Well Bill gates said it wasn't created in a lab, so end of discussion.


----------



## Humbuck

Alexa run my life said:


> Well Bill gates said it wasn't created in a lab, so end of discussion.



So did virtually every other science-backed entity in the world.


----------



## Alexa run my life

Humbuck said:


> So did virtually every other science-backed entity in the world.


Actually, it doesn't even matter how it came to be.


----------



## TedEH

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but I think you're being sarcastic. Part of me has stopped caring about the difference between people being sarcastic, people being trolls, and people being ignorant.


----------



## TedEH

In more fun news today, a walmart nearby (maybe 30 minutes on foot?) has closed down because 6 of their employees tested positive.


----------



## Randy

I've said it before but its worth repeating. Only a handful of states (the more aggressive shutdowns) successfully bent the curve. Everyone else is trending upward, albeit in a jagged increase/decrease day to day. Reopening now has nothing to do with this passing, it was a conscious decision to put the economy ahead of lives


----------



## Ralyks

SpaceDock said:


> They instead call themselves Libertarians



Actually, all of the libertarians I know were Ride or Die for Bernie this time.


----------



## Humbuck

Alexa run my life said:


> Actually, it doesn't even matter how it came to be.


Of course it matters...it just wasn't created in a lab in Wuhan. Nonsense lies are just that.


----------



## sleewell

Says a lot that the networks pushing ppl back to work are doing it remotely. It's not safe for them but by all means send other ppl back.


----------



## Ralyks

So who was Yoyoma? That was fast.


----------



## jaxadam

Ralyks said:


> So who was Yoyoma? That was fast.



Just a fellow guitar enthusiast perma-banned for wearing the wrong jersey.

Interestingly enough, if you increment each letter, you get Zpzpnb, which is Jeff Bezos’ password for his Amazon Prime account.


----------



## Ralyks

jaxadam said:


> Just a fellow guitar enthusiast perma-banned for wearing the wrong jersey.



You’d think If he was a fellow guitar enthusiast, he would have introduced himself by maybe showing us his rig. Not, yknow, just throwing “libtard” out there.

That or maybe he played Strictly 7's...


----------



## jaxadam

Ralyks said:


> he would have introduced himself by maybe showing us his rig.



Every time I introduce myself by showing off my rig, I get in a lot of hot water with the wife.


----------



## Alexa run my life

Humbuck said:


> Of course it matters...it just wasn't created in a lab in Wuhan. Nonsense lies are just that.


Oh you were there?


----------



## narad

I actually don't mind people suspecting that the virus may have been made in a lab -- China's not forth-coming with information, which I think casts a greater net of uncertainty over things than we might have in other situations. However, China not being forthcoming with information is par for the course, and pretty much everyone in the scientific community who has studied the virus has concluded that it has evolved naturally. I think the only thing keeping that a sorta-reasonable theory is that it's still early days and we haven't studied the virus enough to have conclusive understanding of its origin. Just the other day I heard some backpedaling on the idea that pangolins were an intermediary.

But there's a difference between keeping the door open on an idea and shouting it from the rooftops like you have evidence for it. 
And like half the people that believe it was created in a lab also believe that it was released intentionally, so you're right back into weird NWO conspiracies. When Fauci appeared to support Trump, they were with him, and when his recommendations drifted further from Trump's he became a plague profiteer who funneled money to a lab in Wuhan to develop the virus to destroy the world. The same guys who said it was a hoax to help dems win the election are the same guys that now believe it's from a lab in wuhan. It's not exactly the team with the best track record here.

I guess these are the people that were raised in the era of History Channel talking about aliens building the pyramids. Something went wrong in a sensitive time during brain development and now outrageous occurrences with no evidence become more likely than reality, I guess because reality is usually pretty boring.


----------



## TedEH

Randy said:


> I've said it before but its worth repeating. Only a handful of states (the more aggressive shutdowns) successfully bent the curve. Everyone else is trending upward, albeit in a jagged increase/decrease day to day. Reopening now has nothing to do with this passing, it was a conscious decision to put the economy ahead of lives


My skepticism for re-opening things here came from looking at charts here:
https://covid19.healthdata.org/canada

Every argument I've gotten for opening claimed that we've "been trending down for a while, so it's fine, we did our job already". But all the parts of the chart that suggest any improvement are in that giant blob of uncertainty. That downward trend isn't confirmed. Combine that with how we locked everyone down when we were at 0 deaths, but are re-opening at the slightest hint of an improvement despite > 100 people dying every day. It feels wrong to me. Even if it's not helping much - it seems like if we're going to lock everyone down, we should follow through with it until we're confident we're safely on the other side of things. I'm not convinced that we have a reasonable level of confidence for that. Maybe it is reasonable to open now, but I can't not be skeptical.


----------



## sleewell

Imo the lock downs are pointless at this point if half the ppl arent going to do them and the govt isnt going to spend the billions they allocated for testing and tracing. Fl and Ga are actively censoring their data to make it seem like everything is rosey. 

It was supposed to give time to ramp up testing, which didn't happen and you have a president ignoring his own guidelines and encouraging the handful of paid protesters. People take their queues from the top and what they see is someone who is putting his reelection first, ordering them to go back to work so they dont have to pay out as much unemployment.


----------



## GoldDragon

sleewell said:


> Imo the lock downs are pointless at this point if half the ppl arent going to do them and the govt isnt going to spend the billions they allocated for testing and tracing. Fl and Ga are actively censoring their data to make it seem like everything is rosey.
> 
> It was supposed to give time to ramp up testing, which didn't happen and you have a president ignoring his own guidelines and encouraging the handful of paid protesters. People take their queues from the top and what they see is someone who is putting his reelection first, ordering them to go back to work so they dont have to pay out as much unemployment.



The purpose of the lockdowns was to "flatten the curve". That has been done. To reduce the chance of completely overwhelming the medical system.

However, they are being disingenuous regarding the likely outcome here. If the virus works its way through the population, and the mortality rate is 1%, that means that eventually 3m people will die in the usa. Or of the death rate is .00333, then still a million people will die.

OTH, staying closed, lets say for a year, all that does is delay the inevitable, UNLESS they find a vaccine. If we stay closed for a year, bankrupt the country, destroy all businesses, there is still no guarantee the virus still won't work its way through everyone when we open up again, with the same eventual result.

The argument for staying closed only makes sense if you believe it will buy time enough to develop a vaccine. All the reports are that a vaccine won't be available until MAYBE January 2021.

Does the country have the ability to stay locked down another nine months? I suspect not.

Using logic, the only reasonable solution is to:

1) Shelter in place order. Flatten the curve so medical system does not get overwhelmed initially and we can learn more about the virus. 

2) Conservative phased reopening. With several potential outcomes.

a) Case rate stays constant, buying us enough time to develop a vaccine before it rips through the entire population

b) Case rate increases moderately. Because people are tired of being locked up and losing money, they would rather take their chances and keep working even if number of cases is rising. This assumes public sentiment has shifted (and it has).

c) Case rate increases drastically. Government can institute more targeted shutdowns in hot spot areas. At least there will have been some economic activity.

The reality of our situation is not political, not partisan. The outcome and decision matrix will have been the same whichever party was in power. But the desire to politicize it is high, because its the only way for Liberals to potentially win the next election.


----------



## TedEH

GoldDragon said:


> The purpose of the lockdowns was to "flatten the curve". That has been done. To reduce the chance of completely overwhelming the medical system.
> 
> However, they are being disingenuous regarding the likely outcome here. If the virus works its way through the population, and the mortality rate is 1%, that means that eventually 3m people will die in the usa. Or of the death rate is .00333, then still a million people will die.



Mortality rate of something like this is not just a roll of the die once you test positive. Availability of treatment, and capacity to take in the number of people affected _change_ those numbers. That's the whole point. If 10 people are put into critical condition, but you only have enough resources to help 2 of those people through it, what happens to the others?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

GoldDragon said:


> The purpose of the lockdowns was to "flatten the curve". That has been done. To reduce the chance of completely overwhelming the medical system.
> 
> However, they are being disingenuous regarding the likely outcome here. If the virus works its way through the population, and the mortality rate is 1%, that means that eventually 3m people will die in the usa. Or of the death rate is .00333, then still a million people will die.
> 
> OTH, staying closed, lets say for a year, all that does is delay the inevitable, UNLESS they find a vaccine. If we stay closed for a year, bankrupt the country, destroy all businesses, there is still no guarantee the virus still won't work its way through everyone when we open up again, with the same eventual result.
> 
> The argument for staying closed only makes sense if you believe it will buy time enough to develop a vaccine. All the reports are that a vaccine won't be available until MAYBE January 2021.
> 
> Does the country have the ability to stay locked down another nine months? I suspect not.
> 
> Using logic, the only reasonable solution is to:
> 
> 1) Shelter in place order. Flatten the curve so medical system does not get overwhelmed initially and we can learn more about the virus.
> 
> 2) Conservative phased reopening. With several potential outcomes.
> 
> a) Case rate stays constant, buying us enough time to develop a vaccine before it rips through the entire population
> 
> b) Case rate increases moderately. Because people are tired of being locked up and losing money, they would rather take their chances and keep working even if number of cases is rising. This assumes public sentiment has shifted (and it has).
> 
> c) Case rate increases drastically. Government can institute more targeted shutdowns in hot spot areas. At least there will have been some economic activity.
> 
> The reality of our situation is not political, not partisan. The outcome and decision matrix will have been the same whichever party was in power. But the desire to politicize it is high, because its the only way for Liberals to potentially win the next election.



The purpose was to flatten the curve _while developing the testing capabilities to reopen _and quarantine where needed.

So while the curve was flattened in some cases with very mild stay at home orders, and not comprehensive lock downs, very little was done to ramp up testing.

Basically, any time bought by sheltering in place was squandered as we don't have near the testing capacity to properly track and spot quarantine. The economy was damaged for nothing. Infection rates are going to continue to bound as we're nearly at square one again.

That's the method that has worked so far in the countries who have relaxed lock downs and stay at home orders.


----------



## GoldDragon

MaxOfMetal said:


> The purpose was to flatten the curve _while developing the testing capabilities to reopen _and quarantine where needed.
> 
> *So while the curve was flattened in some cases with very mild stay at home orders, and not comprehensive lock downs, very little was done to ramp up testing.
> *


*
*
I disagree. Over the next couple weeks in my state, free unscheduled testing will be available. There are a number of test sites that have required appointments and referrals, these will be open to the public.

Ability to conduct tests has increased dramatically. The phase 1 reopening which is ongoing is still very mild and only allows congregation of up to ten people, with masks. 

There appears to be a correlation between tests available and the phased reopening. 



MaxOfMetal said:


> Basically, any time bought by sheltering in place was squandered as we don't have near the testing capacity to properly track and spot quarantine. The economy was damaged for nothing. Infection rates are going to continue to bound as we're nearly at square one again.
> 
> That's the method that has worked so far in the countries who have relaxed lock downs and stay at home orders.



I agree the number of cases will begin to rebound. The decision matrix I provided above shows this would have happened regardless of whether we lock down for two months or nine months.

There is no way to save as many lives as possible AND the economy. The economy was not damaged for nothing. It was able to flatten the curve and keeping it from overwhelming the medical system initially.

The economy is on life support. It needs to reopen. Yet the shutdown was not "for nothing". It gave the medical system time to build up supplies, testing capabilities, and knowledge about the virus.


----------



## GoldDragon

uh...


----------



## MaxOfMetal

GoldDragon said:


> I disagree. Over the next couple weeks in my state, free unscheduled testing will be available. There are a number of test sites that have required appointments and referrals, these will be open to the public.
> 
> Ability to conduct tests has increased dramatically. The phase 1 reopening which is ongoing is still very mild and only allows congregation of up to ten people, with masks.
> 
> There appears to be a correlation between tests available and the phased reopening.
> 
> 
> 
> I agree the number of cases will begin to rebound. The decision matrix I provided above shows this would have happened regardless of whether we lock down for two months or nine months.
> 
> There is no way to save as many lives as possible AND the economy. The economy was not damaged for nothing. It was able to flatten the curve and keeping it from overwhelming the medical system initially.
> 
> The economy is on life support. It needs to reopen. Yet the shutdown was not "for nothing". It gave the medical system time to build up supplies, testing capabilities, and knowledge about the virus.



Patchwork improvement in local testing isn't going to do much when people are free to move outside the local area. National testing needs significant improvement to make a difference. 

I never said there was no improvement, there just isn't enough. We're still only testing about .001% of the population a day.


----------



## GoldDragon

MaxOfMetal said:


> Patchwork improvement in local testing isn't going to do much when people are free to move outside the local area. National testing needs significant improvement to make a difference.
> 
> I never said there was no improvement, there just isn't enough. We're still only testing about .001% of the population a day.



How do you know there isn't enough? Like I said, there seems to be a correlation between # of tests and the phased reopening. The phase 1 reopening is very mild and there has been no talk about when phase 2 occurs.

Furthermore, there are limits to what the federal government can and cannot do to the states. 

Are you sure the the federal government can make states stay closed?

Have you done a cost/benefit analysis and personally know that the economy can stay closed for another 1-9 months?

Do you believe that the federal govt has not provided enough money or assistance to develop testing through the *bipartisan *relief bills?


I'm not seeing any fault here.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

GoldDragon said:


> How do you know there isn't enough?



Based purely on our population compared to other much smaller nations, we're testing significantly fewer people per 1000.

If they're having difficulties with reopening, why wouldn't we?

Again, we're testing about one person for every thousand.

That's like testing less than 60 people in a crowd like this: 






> Like I said, there seems to be a correlation between # of tests and the phased reopening. The phase 1 reopening is very mild and there has been no talk about when phase 2 occurs.



There's no consistency really. Anecdotally, Wisconsin never really "closed", and tons of places are open, people are having parties, etc.



> Furthermore, there are limits to what the federal government can and cannot do to the states.
> 
> Are you sure the the federal government can make states stay closed?



I don't see why they couldn't, legally. Though I suppose that's something that would go to the courts.



> Have you done a cost/benefit analysis and personally know that the economy can stay closed for another 1-9 months?



Have you? Has anybody?

The economy isn't a Fuddruckers. You don't just lock the door and turn off the neon sign. People are spending money, people are making money. They were when stay at home orders were in place.

Would it be indefinitely sustainable? Of course not.

But just as it's not something you just "close" you can't just "open" it. Right now, most folks know that this isn't just over, so until they feel safe there's little that can be done.



> Do you believe that the federal govt has not provided enough money or assistance to develop testing through the *bipartisan *relief bills?



Not really. I think everyone dropped the ball there.



> I'm not seeing any fault here.



That's an opinion to have. I'm not convinced.


----------



## TedEH

GoldDragon said:


> Have you done a cost/benefit analysis and personally know that the economy can stay closed for another 1-9 months?


Has _anyone_ done this? How do you even measure that? At this point, the worst of the damage is done, IMO. Edit: Ninja'd.

More than that - you can't compare economic value with the value of people's health. I mean, you arguably can, but putting value on peoples health and lives is a not going to make you very popular.


----------



## StevenC

GoldDragon said:


> Are you sure the the federal government can make states stay closed?


I don't see any reason why anyone would start suing for states' rights if Trump said everyone should stay closed. Red states would follow the leader, and blue states closed before anyway.


----------



## GoldDragon

StevenC said:


> I don't see any reason why anyone would start suing for states' rights if Trump said everyone should stay closed. Red states would follow the leader, and blue states closed before anyway.



People and businesses are already suing states to reopen.

Trump initially said "I have authority to decide when things reopen", the press discovered he didn't have constitutional authority to do that, the next day he released guidelines for reopening. 

So actually, he doesn't normally have authority here. I believe it would require new legislation and democratic house wouldn't give him anymore power. It would be like Merkel telling Italy to stay closed.

You don't understand how things work in 'Merica.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

GoldDragon said:


> People and businesses are already suing states to reopen.
> 
> Trump initially said "I have authority to decide when things reopen", the press discovered he didn't have constitutional authority to do that, the next day he released guidelines for reopening.
> 
> So actually, he doesn't normally have authority here. I believe it would require new legislation and democratic house wouldn't give him anymore power. It would be like Merkel telling Italy to stay closed.
> 
> You don't understand how things work in 'Merica.



I think there's a difference between something not being legal vs. not being likely.


----------



## Alexa run my life

GoldDragon said:


> UNLESS they find a vaccine


And even then a vaccine isnt gauranteed to be 100% effective.

According to this, 100,000 kids die each year from the measles infection. And by the looks of the context clues, those that died include those that were vaccinated.https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/measles/symptoms-causes/syc-20374857

Point being even with a vaccine there can still be a shit ton of deaths.

THIS is where Big Brother will be more than glad to step in to answer the calls of the crying soccer moms, and all those with mental insecurity problems that stamp their feet and demand mandatory vaccination or a vaccination screening app for their iphone that will tell them if every passerby has been vaccinated and wont feel safe until it such laws are made.


----------



## Alexa run my life

sleewell said:


> Fl and Ga are actively censoring their data to make it seem like everything is rosey.


Whacko conspiracy theory? Source?


----------



## Ralyks

Alexa run my life said:


> Whacko conspiracy theory? Source?



https://apple.news/AVDvF21CASYaaIrFD1Js4vg


----------



## StevenC

GoldDragon said:


> You don't understand how things work in 'Merica.


You don't understand reading comprehension, so I guess that makes us even.


----------



## Alexa run my life

Ralyks said:


> https://apple.news/AVDvF21CASYaaIrFD1Js4vg


Seems like just a bunch of suspicion and no proof.


----------



## StevenC

Alexa run my life said:


> Seems like just a bunch of suspicion and no proof.


That's a bunch of suspicion and no proof, but Bill Gates putting nanomachines in vaccines is well substantiated?


----------



## Alexa run my life

StevenC said:


> That's a bunch of suspicion and no proof, but Bill Gates putting nanomachines in vaccines is well substantiated?


2 conspiracies don't make a right


----------



## jaxadam

Alexa run my life said:


> Seems like just a bunch of suspicion and no proof.



Despite what people thousands of miles away think, things are pretty rosey here in Florida. I literally know no one down here who has it. I just played tennis with a buddy of mine who is an ER doctor downtown and he said it is a non-issue. Life is completely normal if not better down here.


----------



## StevenC

jaxadam said:


> Despite what people thousands of miles away think, things are pretty rosey here in Florida. I literally know no one down here who has it. I just played tennis with a buddy of mine who is an ER doctor downtown and he said it is a non-issue. Life is completely normal if not better down here.


Good to know I'm getting through your ignore list still.


----------



## jaxadam

StevenC said:


> Good to know I'm getting through your ignore list still.



:high five:

I just say that stuff bluffing. I actually like everyone here, and would have any of you over for some jamming and some grilling and drinking Monsters. Except sleewell.


----------



## StevenC

jaxadam said:


> :high five:
> 
> I just say that stuff bluffing. I actually like everyone here, and would have any of you over for some jamming and some grilling and drinking Monsters. Except sleewell.


I'll look you up next time I'm in Jacksonville when this is over.


----------



## jaxadam

StevenC said:


> I'll look you up next time I'm in Jacksonville when this is over.



Give me a couple days notice so I can get the Trump signs out of my yard.


----------



## Cynicanal

TedEH said:


> Even if it's not helping much - it seems like if we're going to lock everyone down, we should follow through with it until we're confident we're safely on the other side of things.


...Have you even heard of the sunk costs fallacy?


----------



## TedEH

I don't think this is a sunk cost scenario. What we stand to lose if we're wrong and opening up way too early is much worse than what we stand to lose if we open too late.

If we're going to make the decision to close on the basis of valuing health over the economy, they we should base the decision to open up on that same principle.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Alexa run my life said:


> And even then a vaccine isnt gauranteed to be 100% effective.
> 
> According to this, 100,000 kids die each year from the measles infection. And by the looks of the context clues, those that died include those that were vaccinated.https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/measles/symptoms-causes/syc-20374857
> 
> Point being even with a vaccine there can still be a shit ton of deaths.
> 
> THIS is where Big Brother will be more than glad to step in to answer the calls of the crying soccer moms, and all those with mental insecurity problems that stamp their feet and demand mandatory vaccination or a vaccination screening app for their iphone that will tell them if every passerby has been vaccinated and wont feel safe until it such laws are made.



That's 100k globally, mostly in the developing world where vaccination isn't nearly as prevalent. Such as Sub-Saharan Africa. 

Even in the United States, where we've had between 55 and 1300* cases a year for the last decade, those are mostly small outbreaks in communities where vaccination isn't the norm.

* There were nearly 1300 cases in 2019, which is something of an outlier, as the next closest number of cases by year is 667 in 2014, the average over the years 2010 through 2019 is ~325, and not all cases lead to death. This was partly due to a rather bad outbreak in the Hesidic Jewish community in rural New York, who aren't really into vaccines.


----------



## GoldDragon

TedEH said:


> I don't think this is a sunk cost scenario. What we stand to lose if we're wrong and opening up way too early is much worse than what we stand to lose if we open too late.
> 
> If we're going to make the decision to close on the basis of valuing health over the economy, they we should base the decision to open up on that same principle.



Obviously, they are doing a phased reopening and if cases get out of hand they can slow down again. We may not get to phase 3 this year.

Why does it have to be black and white?


----------



## jaxadam

MaxOfMetal said:


> That's 100k globally, mostly in the developing world where vaccination isn't nearly as prevalent. Such as Sub-Saharan Africa.
> 
> Even in the United States, where we've had between 55 and 1300* cases a year for the last decade, those are mostly small outbreaks in communities where vaccination isn't the norm.
> 
> * There were nearly 1300 cases in 2019, which is something of an outlier, as the next closest number of cases by year is 667 in 2014, the average over the years 2010 through 2019 is ~325, and not all cases lead to death. This was partly due to a rather bad outbreak in the Hesidic Jewish community in rural New York, who aren't really into vaccines.



Is this all off the top of your head? Or is this information you have kept up with and have reference notes? Or did you... google it?


----------



## TedEH

GoldDragon said:


> Why does it have to be black and white?


It doesn't have to be, but from what I see here people are treating "some restrictions are being eased" as if it means "pandemic is over, go back to partying". I'm not saying don't open up at all. I'm saying maybe give it a couple o weeks so that we can confirm that things actually are trending down, not just projected.

I'm just suggesting caution. I'd be glad to be proven wrong, but it feels too early to me.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

jaxadam said:


> Is this all off the top of your head? Or is this information you have kept up with and have reference notes? Or did you... google it?



I read his link. Then looked into it a bit, read some CDC articles, a WHO article, and interesting enough some pretty good Forbes coverage.

I don't really see your point?

You don't question or get curious about things people say? Would it have been better if I did a book report? Would cable news been a better source?

Is anything I've said there been false? Misleading?

If you want references:
https://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html
https://www.who.int/news-room/detai...000-die-from-measles-as-cases-surge-worldwide

For what it's worth, some of this I did know about prior as a portion of my family are Hesidic Jews living in the Catskills. They don't vaccinate and have several children and aren't very young/healthy themselves, so I worry.

I've also been a HazMat technician for the last 15 years. I need 80 hours of CBRN training yearly to stay current, and I typically get more than that since I work GMP in a food plant now.

Scratch that.

I was playing squash with my proctologist friend and he said measles is not anything to worry about.

Better?


----------



## jaxadam

MaxOfMetal said:


> I read his link. Then looked into it a bit, read some CDC articles, a WHO article, and interesting enough some pretty good Forbes coverage.
> 
> I don't really see your point?
> 
> You don't question or get curious about things people say? Would it have been better if I did a book report? Would cable news been a better source?
> 
> Is anything I've said there been false? Misleading?
> 
> If you want references:
> https://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html
> https://www.who.int/news-room/detai...000-die-from-measles-as-cases-surge-worldwide
> 
> For what it's worth, some of this I did know about prior as a portion of my family are Hesidic Jews living in the Catskills. They don't vaccinate and have several children and aren't very young/healthy themselves, so I worry.
> 
> I've also been a HazMat technician for the last 15 years. I need 80 hours of CBRN training yearly to stay current, and I typically get more than that since I work GMP in a food plant now.
> 
> Scratch that.
> 
> I was playing squash with my proctologist friend and he said measles is not anything to worry about.
> 
> Better?



When you say looked into it a bit... do you mean with some notes and references and first hand experience, or did you... google it? I was just curious as to how you keep up with knowing everything about everything. And to top it off, a stellar track record of never being wrong!


----------



## MaxOfMetal

jaxadam said:


> When you say looked into it a bit... do you mean with some notes and references and first hand experience, or did you... google it? I was just curious as to how you keep up with knowing everything about everything. And to top it off, a stellar track record of never being wrong!



I don't know everything nor am I not ever wrong. 

At least that's what the phlebotomist I play rugby with says.


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> or did you... google it?


If anyone here is doing much more than googling things as their sources, I would be very surprised. Not much of a point to be made there.

It's not about the googling, it's what you do with the results.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

TedEH said:


> If anyone here is doing much more than googling things as their sources, I would be very surprised. Not much of a point to be made there.
> 
> It's not about the googling, it's what you do with the results.



The cardiologist I play badminton with definitely agrees with this.


----------



## jaxadam

MaxOfMetal said:


> The cardiologist I play badminton with definitely agrees with this.



Hey, I play tennis with a cardiologist, too! Same thing, he says it's been a non-issue down here.

I really don't know how you have the time to google all of this stuff though playing all of that squash, rugby, and badminton.


----------



## MFB

Alexa run my life said:


> 2 conspiracies don't make an alt-right



FTFY


----------



## MaxOfMetal

jaxadam said:


> Hey, I play tennis with a cardiologist, too! Same thing, he says it's been a non-issue down here.
> 
> I really don't know how you have the time to google all of this stuff though playing all of that squash, rugby, and badminton.



Got to stay fit, both mentally and physically, at least that's what the podiatrist I play chess with says.


----------



## jaxadam

MaxOfMetal said:


> Got to stay fit, both mentally and physically, at least that's what the podiatrist I play chess with says.



If you haven't played cricket with a radiologist, you haven't lived.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

jaxadam said:


> If you haven't played cricket with a radiologist, you haven't lived.



You know, that's exactly what the urologist I play lacrosse with says.


----------



## jaxadam

MaxOfMetal said:


> You know, that's exactly what the urologist I play lacrosse with says.



See, that's enough. I just googled it and google says that no urologists play lacrosse.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

jaxadam said:


> See, that's enough. I just googled it and google says that no urologists play lacrosse.



I don't have any notes or first hand experience of you Googling that, so it didn't happen.

*high fives neurologist I play soccer with*


----------



## jaxadam

MaxOfMetal said:


> I don't have any notes or first hand experience of you Googling that, so it didn't happen.
> 
> *high fives neurologist I play soccer with*



I would show you my browser search history, but it's just full of infowars bookmarks.

I like to google shit, too, but I also like hearing from actual doctors what's actually going on. I think it's an idiom known as "from the horse's mouth".


----------



## Alexa run my life

Why so much "Google-ing"? Whatever happened to "Ask Jeeves-ing"? Or even "Bing-ing"?

Shame on you all!


----------



## possumkiller

Alexa run my life said:


> Why so much "Google-ing"? Whatever happened to "Ask Jeeves-ing"? Or even "Bing-ing"?
> 
> Shame on you all!


For real! Wtf even happened to ask Jeeves? 

They need to bring that shit back with Stephen Fry's voice reading the search results.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

jaxadam said:


> I would show you my browser search history, but it's just full of infowars bookmarks.
> 
> I like to google shit, too, but I also like hearing from actual doctors what's actually going on. I think it's an idiom known as "from the horse's mouth".



Here's the thing, the information found on certain websites is written by doctors, scientists, researchers, and various other specialists. 

We've evolved past relying purely on oral tradition. 

So sure, your tennis bro probably has a lot of hands on experience with the situation at his own hospital, and that information is valuable. But it's just part of what's going on. So when you read information complied by tons of people's tennis partners who are also doctors, you get a more informed take. 

I know we're just little pictures on a guitar forum, but we are all people. So your homeboy telling you that COVID isn't something to worry about is just as valid as my actual high school buddy who works as an associate in internal medicine at the Mayo Clinic and thinks COVID is something to worry about. 

You know this, but you just want to pick a weird internet fight because our values and beliefs are different. 

But it's fine. We're cool. The rheumatologist I practice fencing with says not to hold grudges.


----------



## spudmunkey

Hot-Bot-ing?
Alta-Vista-ing.
Lycosing?
Wait...Archie-ing...

My endocrinologist/pinochle partner told me not to trust anyone, anywhere, ever. But...I'm not so sure.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

spudmunkey said:


> That...that is sor of an e[
> 
> 
> Hot-Bot-ing?
> Alta-Vista-ing.
> Lycosing?
> Wait...Archie-ing...



Lycos! 

Now that was a search engine with spunk!


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> I also like hearing from actual doctors what's actually going on


Wait - the worlds authorities on health have been visiting you and delivering covid news personally? How do you sign up for that?

Or did you have that information imparted to you through some form of media, like the internet?


----------



## Alexa run my life

Google - where all the top search results are what Google (or at least somebody), wants you to find first.

Also I cant help but read Mayo-clinic as Mayo-nnaise


----------



## TedEH

MaxOfMetal said:


> You know this, but you just want to pick a weird internet fight because our values and beliefs are different.


In fairness, this principle is the backbone of the internet.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

TedEH said:


> Wait - the worlds authorities on health have been visiting you and delivering covid news personally? How do you sign up for that?
> 
> Or did you have that information imparted to you through some form of media, like the internet?



By joining the racquet club! Haven't you been paying attention?


----------



## spudmunkey

Alexa run my life said:


> Also I cant help but read Mayo-clinic as Mayo-nnaise


----------



## Alexa run my life

My state started phase one of reopening today. Haircuts have been pushed back another two weeks. I have such a alphalpha cowlick that I took to it with my scissors last night and trimmed it.

Results? It looks much better. Not that the rest of my hair has grown much due to my receding hairline and overall thinning.


----------



## jaxadam

MaxOfMetal said:


> Here's the thing, the information found on certain websites is written by doctors, scientists, researchers, and various other specialists.
> 
> We've evolved past relying purely on oral tradition.
> 
> So sure, your tennis bro probably has a lot of hands on experience with the situation at his own hospital, and that information is valuable. But it's just part of what's going on. So when you read information complied by tons of people's tennis partners who are also doctors, you get a more informed take.
> 
> I know we're just little pictures on a guitar forum, but we are all people. So your homeboy telling you that COVID isn't something to worry about is just as valid as my actual high school buddy who works as an associate in internal medicine at the Mayo Clinic and thinks COVID is something to worry about.
> 
> You know this, but you just want to pick a weird internet fight because our values and beliefs are different.
> 
> But it's fine. We're cool. The rheumatologist I practice fencing with says not to hold grudges.



See, I think I found the problem. You like to misconstrue my words because of your prejudice against me based on your preconceived notion that our value systems are drastically different. I’m not sure how you know my value system based on 90% of my posts either being a joke or “nice guitar”.

I didn’t say “nothing to worry about”. I said “non-issue”. As in there is not this influx of Covid patients and people dying left and right because we opened the beaches. The predicted ramp-up and burden has been a non-issue.

But the people thousands of miles away are the experts on what’s going on in Florida. I’m just stating what I hear firsthand from our medical community to let others on here know that yes, Florida is still rosey. Maybe some other Floridians on here have a different experience or perspective, and I’d love to hear it, but that’s what is going on in my corner of the world.


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> I didn’t say “nothing to worry about”. I said “non-issue”.


Just being pedantic at this point, but there's barely a difference between those two.
non = not, issue = a thing to be worried about it.

If it's a non-issue, then is it or is it not something to be worried about?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

jaxadam said:


> See, I think I found the problem.  You like to misconstrue my words because of your prejudice against me based on your preconceived notion that our value systems are drastically different. I’m not sure how you know my value system based on 90% of my posts either being a joke or “nice guitar”.
> 
> I didn’t say “nothing to worry about”. I said “non-issue”. As in there is not this influx of Covid patients and people dying left and right because we opened the beaches. The predicted ramp-up and burden has been a non-issue.
> 
> But the people thousands of miles away are the experts on what’s going on in Florida. I’m just stating what I hear firsthand from our medical community to let others on here know that yes, Florida is still rosey. Maybe some other Floridians on here have a different experience or perspective, and I’d love to hear it, but that’s what is going on in my corner of the world.



And you're prejudice in thinking different automatically means "bad".


----------



## jaxadam

MaxOfMetal said:


> And you're prejudice in thinking different automatically means "bad".



From you in particular? Yes I do. From everybody else? No I don’t. It’s crystal clear your disdain in this sub forum. And yes, you equating this to a fight would symbolize you think this is “bad”. So maybe go ask your proctologist and see what he has to say. Mine says every day is shitty and he has to deal with nothing but assholes.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

jaxadam said:


> From you in particular? Yes I do. From everybody else? No I don’t. It’s crystal clear your disdain in this sub forum. And yes, you equating this to a fight would symbolize you think this is “bad”.



I got no hate for you. I disagree with some of your stances, but that's pretty much it. Like I said, different values.

I mean, if I genuinely didn't like you, wouldn't I just get you banned? Heck, I wasn't even the one who asked for you to be banned from the big politics thread.

Fighting isn't that bad either as long as it doesn't get too nasty. I don't think I've ever called you names. If I did, I was wrong. Unless you were being that, then I was right.


----------



## BlackSG91

Well I have some very great news for everyone on here. There's a cure for COVID-19 and it's legal up here! Let the good times roll.

https://www.ajc.com/news/canadian-s...bis-could-treat-covid/xtpNkbXF8JQosUNWYeTdpM/





;>)/


----------



## fantom

SpaceDock said:


> they don’t use science or logic, they use propaganda and the idea that the world is wrong and they are right. .... No facts, no science, they just want others with their same agenda to help build up their echo chamber of misinformation.



As a scientist / engineer, I can tell you more people than you want to know view logic and science as a belief system no better than religion. If you try to change your view to allow belief to mean more than logic, it might be easier to see why they take their stance. If you attack them for ignoring science, you only make them defensive and reinforce their beliefs. You are pretty much conveying your religion is right and theirs is wrong from their perspective.



GoldDragon said:


> The purpose of the lockdowns was to "flatten the curve". That has been done. To reduce the chance of completely overwhelming the medical system.
> 
> ...
> 
> The argument for staying closed only makes sense if you believe it will buy time enough to develop a vaccine. All the reports are that a vaccine won't be available until MAYBE January 2021.
> 
> Does the country have the ability to stay locked down another nine months? I suspect not.
> 
> Using logic, the only reasonable solution is to:
> 
> 1) Shelter in place order. Flatten the curve so medical system does not get overwhelmed initially and we can learn more about the virus.
> 
> 2) Conservative phased reopening. With several potential outcomes.
> 
> a) Case rate stays constant, buying us enough time to develop a vaccine before it rips through the entire population
> 
> b) Case rate increases moderately. Because people are tired of being locked up and losing money, they would rather take their chances and keep working even if number of cases is rising. This assumes public sentiment has shifted (and it has).
> 
> c) Case rate increases drastically. Government can institute more targeted shutdowns in hot spot areas. At least there will have been some economic activity.
> 
> The reality of our situation is not political, not partisan. The outcome and decision matrix will have been the same whichever party was in power. But the desire to politicize it is high, because its the only way for Liberals to potentially win the next election.



I mostly agree with a lot of this. First thing, the point was to not overwhelm healthcare. We wanted to buy time for supplies and testing, not a vaccine. Our glorious leader screwed up by ignoring the time we bought to get PPE and testing supplies up by hyperfocusing on hydrocloriquine. He missed the bigger picture.

Otherwise, without adequate testing, we can't detect if the case rate is increasing drastically or not. So your decision matrix has no reliable conditional.

And please drop the liberal vs conservative "only way to win" election propaganda shit. I don't give a crap who "wins" the election. I just want to see the government start acting like they are competent. If Trump can do that, I will vote for him. But so far he shows zero signs of caring about anything but himself being in power. He acts more like Xi than any prior USA president. That should bother the hell out of people being rallied to hate China.



MaxOfMetal said:


> The purpose was to flatten the curve _while developing the testing capabilities to reopen _and quarantine where needed.
> 
> So while the curve was flattened in some cases with very mild stay at home orders, and not comprehensive lock downs, very little was done to ramp up testing.
> 
> Basically, any time bought by sheltering in place was squandered as we don't have near the testing capacity to properly track and spot quarantine. The economy was damaged for nothing. Infection rates are going to continue to bound as we're nearly at square one again.
> 
> That's the method that has worked so far in the countries who have relaxed lock downs and stay at home orders.


Ya this.



MaxOfMetal said:


> Here's the thing, the information found on certain websites is written by doctors, scientists, researchers, and various other specialists.
> 
> We've evolved past relying purely on oral tradition.
> 
> So sure, your tennis bro probably has a lot of hands on experience with the situation at his own hospital, and that information is valuable. But it's just part of what's going on. So when you read information complied by tons of people's tennis partners who are also doctors, you get a more informed take.
> 
> I know we're just little pictures on a guitar forum, but we are all people. So your homeboy telling you that COVID isn't something to worry about is just as valid as my actual high school buddy who works as an associate in internal medicine at the Mayo Clinic and thinks COVID is something to worry about.
> 
> You know this, but you just want to pick a weird internet fight because our values and beliefs are different.
> 
> But it's fine. We're cool. The rheumatologist I practice fencing with says not to hold grudges.



Not to mention he wasn't working in a covid unit. Of course things are great. Most routines are cancelled and their workload went down. If asking a single person is a good way to get info, go play tennis with Bezos and ask if the economy is doing well....


----------



## Alexa run my life

fantom said:


> You are pretty much conveying your religion is right and theirs is wrong from their perspective


Hit the nail on the head. Excellent post. That's scientism for ya. It's not that you have to believe in science, it's that you have to believe in their science.


----------



## jaxadam

fantom said:


> go play tennis with Bezos and ask if the economy is doing well....



No pun intended, but I bet he’d have a pretty good handle on it!


----------



## GoldDragon

fantom said:


> I mostly agree with a lot of this. First thing, the point was to not overwhelm healthcare. We wanted to buy time for supplies and testing, not a vaccine. Our glorious leader screwed up by ignoring the time we bought to get PPE and testing supplies up by hyperfocusing on hydrocloriquine. He missed the bigger picture.



We were able to track increasing infection rates a month ago when we had less testing. How would we be unable to detect an increase in cases now?

Screwed up by ignoring time? I was watching the daily press briefings and at no time did it seem like a single front offensive. Hydrochloroquine was one avenue that Trump talked about to give people hope that already FDA approved drugs might be brought into service.

Did you watch the daily press briefings, or did you get your news filtered through the media?

And are you blaming the state's reopening on Trump? The media made it clear that the states have authority.


----------



## SpaceDock

BlackSG91 said:


> Well I have some very great news for everyone on here. There's a cure for COVID-19 and it's legal up here! Let the good times roll.
> 
> https://www.ajc.com/news/canadian-s...bis-could-treat-covid/xtpNkbXF8JQosUNWYeTdpM/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ;>)/




Well I’m immune to Covid 19 then.


----------



## ThePIGI King

MaxOfMetal said:


> I got no hate for you. I disagree with some of your stances, but that's pretty much it. Like I said, different values.
> 
> I mean, if I genuinely didn't like you, wouldn't I just get you banned? Heck, I wasn't even the one who asked for you to be banned from the big politics thread.
> 
> Fighting isn't that bad either as long as it doesn't get too nasty. I don't think I've ever called you names. If I did, I was wrong. Unless you were being that, then I was right.


If not liking someone can get them banned that's childish.

On the other hand I'm still not banned so clearly you were at least part way joking


----------



## fantom

GoldDragon said:


> Did you watch the daily press briefings, or did you get your news filtered through the media?
> 
> And are you blaming the state's reopening on Trump? The media made it clear that the states have authority.



I didn't blame anyone at all in my post. I pointed out that the shelter in place orders were to buy the healthcare system some overhead until better testing and contract tracing were established. It had nothing to do with finding a vaccine or cure. What does that have to do with me blaming anyone about anything?

I've gotten most of my information by reading medical papers and looking at data trends such as John Hopkins data. I actually read both Fox News and CNN as well as some other sites like Politico and fivethirtyeight. I also pay attention to international news. Oh and the things that Trump directly says on camera too. I'm not your enemy, but I do think you are biased in how you present yourself. Maybe you are not a biased person, but having an attitude when presenting information definitely doesn't help seem like it is for the right reasons.

And for the part about who is doing well, I think bay area and Seattle acted on data. Trump sat on his ass and said everything was fine.


----------



## Humbuck

Alexa run my life said:


> Oh you were there?



Nope...but I can read.


----------



## narad

GoldDragon said:


> uh...



Sounds like the behavior of someone who definitely clicked "Show ignored content"


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> If not liking someone can get them banned that's childish.
> 
> On the other hand I'm still not banned so clearly you were at least part way joking



Yeah, that's the point. 

If I really "hated" someone it's not like there's no recourse, but that's silly, and childish like you said. I'd never ban someone simply for disagreeing, with the one caveat that if it's something Alex has set as a rule.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

GoldDragon said:


> We were able to track increasing infection rates a month ago when we had less testing. How would we be unable to detect an increase in cases now?



This is more of an addendum to what we were talking about earlier, but I think it's a pretty good summary of where we're at testing wise and how it impacts moving forward.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/sites/default/files/public/downloads/cidrap-covid19-viewpoint-part3.pdf

It's not a very long read and is mostly digestible for the lay person, to whom it was written for.

*sigh*

Because it'll probably come up, the founder and director of CIDRAP was an advisor to the Bush administration (2001 to 2005), so this isn't a partisan hit piece or anything and really not partisan at all.

I'm not trying to really sway you or anyone, it's just a good read.


----------



## USMarine75

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/death-angel-drummer-satan-coronavirus-coma


----------



## MaxOfMetal

USMarine75 said:


> View attachment 80917
> 
> 
> https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/death-angel-drummer-satan-coronavirus-coma



That fucking delivered.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

USMarine75 said:


> View attachment 80917
> 
> 
> https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/death-angel-drummer-satan-coronavirus-coma


lmao this reads like some shit the Hard Times would write


----------



## Rosal76

USMarine75 said:


> View attachment 80917
> 
> 
> https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/death-angel-drummer-satan-coronavirus-coma



"...transformed him into a “Jabba the Hutt-like-monster” who vomited blood until he had a heart attack".


----------



## Drew

Alexa run my life said:


> Hit the nail on the head. Excellent post. That's scientism for ya. It's not that you have to believe in science, it's that you have to believe in their science.


One, you completely misunderstood what fantom was saying. He wasn't supporting you, quite the reverse he was pointing out that appealing to logic is a waste of time when you're dealing with someone who is arguing from a position of faith. 

Second, friendly reminder that the first step of the scientific method is assuming you're _wrong_, and only accepting your thesis once you can concretely prove the antithesis wrong. It's not that you "believe" in science, it's that you accept what you can _prove_.


----------



## Drew

Response to no one in particular - I think talking about this as a "phased reopening" is maybe a mistake and that we should be framing this discussion differently.

This pandemic isn't going anywhere. We don't have an effective treatment. We don't have a vaccine. The Moderna phase one test results this week were encouraging... But it's still unclear if we CAN develop a vaccine, as past outbreaks of different coronaviruses (SARS, MERS, and some of the strains of the "common cold") have generally only conveyed limited antibody resistance, and in some cases - especially a risk as it appears the immune system _response_ to coronavirus is what's doing the most harm, rather than the virus itself - it's possible that the presence of antibodies could actually render a subsequent infection _more_ dangerous. Even if we do successfully develop a reliable vaccine, it'll be a long time before we can produce and administer it in quantities needed to start approaching herd immunity. It's entirely possible that rather than life being normal by late summer, we could be a few months into multiple _years_ of social distancing. 

Talking about "reopening" makes it send like the risk is largely behind us, and that's really not the case. I think rather we should be talking about _adoption _- if we know close human interactions with strangers is going to be extremely dangerous for a long time to come, then how do we adapt modern life to allow us to live in as normal a way possible, while mitigating as much risk as we can? 

In practice that doesn't look TOO different. Closing down in-person dining, but shifting restaurants to take-out. Allowing merchant businesses to re-open for online/curbside pickup orders, and maybe over time very limited by-appointment in person visits where social distancing remains possible. Mandatory facemask in public policiers. Strict limits on in person gatherings, and encouraging normal large gatherings - church services, for example - to move to video/remote to as great an extent possible. But, very explicitly acknowledge that this isn't an "opening" of any sort, this is settling in for the long hall, that these are risk mitigation measures to respond to a situation that we admit we've failed to beat. 

Short of an effective vaccine or very effective treatment, we can't "reopen" the economy to the way it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. So, I think it makes a lot more sense to talk instead about how we adapt our economy to the virus, because it may be years yet before life becomes "normal" again.


----------



## Drew

Cynicanal said:


> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_swine_flu_outbreak
> 
> Yes, I'm sure it's just all of those crazy Jenny McCarthy followers, and not people who remember that last time a rushed vaccine was made mandatory because of a pandemic, it was flawed and killed and paralyzed loads of people.


I mean, it's far and away more the anti-vaxxers and Trump supporters looking for allies, than it is for people with an informed, deep understanding of some of the challenges present in developing a vaccine for a novel coronavirus. I agree that it's a lot more challenging than your average layperson realizes, not the least of which because antibody resistance doesn't appear to be permanent, and there are risks here that we have to weigh. But, if you think a lot of the people out there protesting against a vaccine are doing so because they're ID scientists who have spent decades studying coronavirus resistance...


----------



## zappatton2

Drew said:


> One, you completely misunderstood what fantom was saying. He wasn't supporting you, quite the reverse he was pointing out that appealing to logic is a waste of time when you're dealing with someone who is arguing from a position of faith.
> 
> Second, friendly reminder that the first step of the scientific method is assuming you're _wrong_, and only accepting your thesis once you can concretely prove the antithesis wrong. It's not that you "believe" in science, it's that you accept what you can _prove_.


And to add to this, I'd also refute the notion that there is any such thing as "our science" vs. "their science".

When the evidence linking cigarettes to a vast array of health issues was being shored up among health experts and scientists, those with a vested interest in keeping the tobacco rolling would hire people with some kind of (often unrelated) credentials to say there was another, equally valid, scientifically drawn conclusion. It happens today with anthropogenic climate-change, and a host of health products propped up by supposedly "science-supported" quackery. 

The media, in an attempt to appear even-handed, gives leverage to articles that have little to no grounding in legitimate science, which also served to muddy the waters for the layperson, who may be generally curious to learn about these things, but can't discern between what is grounded in public research within a specialized field, and what is presented by a self-professed expert working on behalf of a private organization with a particular ax to grind.


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## DiezelMonster

Drew said:


> Talking about "reopening" makes it send like the risk is largely behind us, and that's really not the case. I think rather we should be talking about _adoption _- if we know close human interactions with strangers is going to be extremely dangerous for a long time to come, then how do we adapt modern life to allow us to live in as normal a way possible, while mitigating as much risk as we can?
> 
> In practice that doesn't look TOO different. Closing down in-person dining, but shifting restaurants to take-out. Allowing merchant businesses to re-open for online/curbside pickup orders, and maybe over time very limited by-appointment in person visits where social distancing remains possible. Mandatory facemask in public policiers. Strict limits on in person gatherings, and encouraging normal large gatherings - church services, for example - to move to video/remote to as great an extent possible. But, very explicitly acknowledge that this isn't an "opening" of any sort, this is settling in for the long hall, that these are risk mitigation measures to respond to a situation that we admit we've failed to beat.
> 
> Short of an effective vaccine or very effective treatment, we can't "reopen" the economy to the way it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. So, I think it makes a lot more sense to talk instead about how we adapt our economy to the virus, because it may be years yet before life becomes "normal" again.




I live in Ontario Canada and the large store I work at just re-opened today, allowing limited customers in the store for only short periods and with no browsing.

I bring this up because there have been a few customers come in and almost all elderly as of right now, and two of them both told us we are paranoid! Even though one of them had a mask on.

My point is, we can talk about this all we want about slowing it down and taking "years" to social distance but the "mob mentality" says we are re-opening the world weather you like it or not.

I've seen so many people out today, the Home Depot parking lot maybe had 1 or two empty spaces out of hundreds.

I don't think there is any way to stop the juggernaut of consumerism. Well, Maybe a second wave that is many orders larger than the first.

Buckle up.


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## Drew

DiezelMonster said:


> My point is, we can talk about this all we want about slowing it down and taking "years" to social distance but the "mob mentality" says we are re-opening the world weather you like it or not.



Yeah, I mean, it sounds like an incredibly silly point to be making... But words matter, and calling this a "reopening" rather than an "adaptation" or a "new normal" or an "evolution to meet the demands of life in a pandemic" really paints a different picture than I think the facts warrant. 

We as a society need to figure out how to keep our economy afloat in the middle of a pandemic. The way to do that is NOT to just pretend the pandemic is over, and the most likely outcome here is a sudden spike in infections which will make it _harder_ to have some sort of economic normalcy.


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## Alexa run my life

Drew said:


> One, you completely misunderstood what fantom was saying. He wasn't supporting you, quite the reverse he was pointing out that appealing to logic is a waste of time when you're dealing with someone who is arguing from a position of faith.
> 
> Second, friendly reminder that the first step of the scientific method is assuming you're _wrong_, and only accepting your thesis once you can concretely prove the antithesis wrong. It's not that you "believe" in science, it's that you accept what you can _prove_.


1. It's above my pay grade to speak for somebody else. Can I have your job?

2. Yes you are correct about what the scientific method is, but what I am talking about is scientism as being dogmatic like religion. There are religous people that think "God" is the answer to everything and all the worlds problems, whereas there are material science people who dont believe in "God", yet the way the think science is going to solve the worlds problems, science then becomes their God. There can be radical atheistic against people who have a faith, only they themselves have faith....in science. I guess I misunderstood him, and you me.

3. Getting off topic


----------



## Cynicanal

Drew said:


> Talking about "reopening" makes it send like the risk is largely behind us, and that's really not the case. I think rather we should be talking about _adoption _- if we know close human interactions with strangers is going to be extremely dangerous for a long time to come, then how do we adapt modern life to allow us to live in as normal a way possible, while mitigating as much risk as we can?
> 
> In practice that doesn't look TOO different. Closing down in-person dining, but shifting restaurants to take-out. Allowing merchant businesses to re-open for online/curbside pickup orders, and maybe over time very limited by-appointment in person visits where social distancing remains possible. Mandatory facemask in public policiers. Strict limits on in person gatherings, and encouraging normal large gatherings - church services, for example - to move to video/remote to as great an extent possible. But, very explicitly acknowledge that this isn't an "opening" of any sort, this is settling in for the long hall, that these are risk mitigation measures to respond to a situation that we admit we've failed to beat.
> 
> Short of an effective vaccine or very effective treatment, we can't "reopen" the economy to the way it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. So, I think it makes a lot more sense to talk instead about how we adapt our economy to the virus, because it may be years yet before life becomes "normal" again.


At risk of getting rebanned, we're exactly where I said we'd be when I got banned for a month for "trolling" -- the options are "shut down forever" or "fuck it, whoever dies, dies." Shutting down all in-person gatherings forever, wearing uncomfortable facemasks that effectively render those of us who wear glasses blind, having permanent ~30% unemployment and an economy worse than the heights of the Great Depression, etc. is _such_ a shit option that there's no way it's preferable to "roll the dice, and if you're that 1 in 10, you die". 

At least we've finally hit the point that people have realized I've been right this whole time, and are acting like my ideas (that I was banned for) are actually their original ideas -- progress!


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## MaxOfMetal

Cynicanal said:


> At risk of getting rebanned, we're exactly where I said we'd be when I got banned for a month for "trolling" -- the options are "shut down forever" or "fuck it, whoever dies, dies." Shutting down all in-person gatherings forever, wearing uncomfortable facemasks that effectively render those of us who wear glasses blind, having permanent ~30% unemployment and an economy worse than the heights of the Great Depression, etc. is _such_ a shit option that there's no way it's preferable to "roll the dice, and if you're that 1 in 10, you die".
> 
> At least we've finally hit the point that people have realized I've been right this whole time, and are acting like my ideas (that I was banned for) are actually their original ideas -- progress!



To be clear, you were banned because you started talking about taking your own life. That opens up a can of liability worms that site ownership does not want to deal with. Everyone who has done similar previously has been banned, usually permanently. 

Alex doesn't really seem to care what anyone says so long as he feels it won't lead to the site getting in trouble. 

You were warned. Your posts were reported by numerous users (including those who haven't engaged with you directly in this thread). You persisted, and the owner of the forum, not any of the Mod staff, banned you.


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## TedEH

Cynicanal said:


> we've finally hit the point that people have realized I've been right this whole time


If we're reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally going to go down this road again, I don't think that's the conclusion anyone here has come to. Unless I'm reading this wrong, everyone is basically saying "we need a more nuanced approach than just a black and white closed/opened situation." That's exactly the opposite of what you've just said.

If I understand what people are saying, the big hurdle to handling things going forward is how to get people to understand that there's a difference between easing restrictions and acting like the pandemic is over.


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## Alexa run my life

If the healthcare system can handle the effects of opening the flood gates wide open, it would have been done long ago


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## zappatton2

Alexa run my life said:


> There can be radical atheistic against people who have a faith, only they themselves have faith....in science.


Radical atheism and scientific extremism are oxymorons, atheism doesn't say "there IS no god", it says "there is no evidence of a god, therefore the concept can be comfortably dismissed until such evidence presents itself". It is not a faith, but the absence of one.

Same concept with science; it is a method by which we come to understand natural processes that follows cumulative evidence that can be replicated. It cannot be radical or absolutist, but to the incurious, it can appear that way only because it doesn't entertain every possible notion equally, only that which is grounded in evidence and stands up to scientific scrutiny.


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## TedEH

Realistically, or maybe ideally, if everyone universally understood and agreed on those definitions, then you'd be right. But a proper definition of what science is doesn't stop someone who doesn't know that definition from treating it like a faith. There are people who think of science as a process, and others who think of it as a faith. Someone who treats it as a faith might be technically or semantically wrong, but those people _do _exist. It's not incorrect to say that they have faith in whatever comes out of the process, the part that's wrong is that they potentially misunderstand what "science" is supposed to mean.


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## zappatton2

I suppose what I would say, as a layperson, is that I do have faith in scientific expertise. I'm a pretty big fan of science mags (Scientific American, Nature, Skeptic and various Astronomy mags have all made monthly rounds in my mailbox), and when I can't quite grasp a particular concept or don't immediately have all the facts at my disposal, I trust the expertise of people who study and devote themselves to their scientific specialty.

It's a different concept of faith; rather, it's the assumption that those who work in the public natural sciences act in good faith and with professionalism, and when they don't, the collective nature of the field tends to weed them out (as we see with the ''medical experts" who traffic in for-profit agendas, who get called out pretty quickly by the scientific community at large).


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## Alexa run my life

zappatton2 said:


> Radical atheism and scientific extremism are oxymorons, atheism doesn't say "there IS no god", it says "there is no evidence of a god, therefore the concept can be comfortably dismissed until such evidence presents itself". It is not a faith, but the absence of one.
> 
> Same concept with science; it is a method by which we come to understand natural processes that follows cumulative evidence that can be replicated. It cannot be radical or absolutist, but to the incurious, it can appear that way only because it doesn't entertain every possible notion equally, only that which is grounded in evidence and stands up to scientific scrutiny.


Splitting hairs and off topic but,

Atheism is a lack of belief of gods. What you seem to be referring to is agnosticism, who says that there cannot be a god because there is no way of knowing. If you can show an agnostic some evidence of a god, they could hypothetically change their mind. If you show evidence of a god to an atheist, they still will not have faith in said god. At least this is my understanding of it

Some material science people absolutely worship the process, calculations and numbers. They have faith in said processes, calculations, and numbers that they will one day save humanity.


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## Cynicanal

zappatton2 said:


> I suppose what I would say, as a layperson, is that I do have faith in scientific expertise. I'm a pretty big fan of science mags (Scientific American, Nature, Skeptic and various Astronomy mags have all made monthly rounds in my mailbox), and when I can't quite grasp a particular concept or don't immediately have all the facts at my disposal, I trust the expertise of people who study and devote themselves to their scientific specialty.
> 
> It's a different concept of faith; rather, it's the assumption that those who work in the public natural sciences act in good faith and with professionalism, and when they don't, the collective nature of the field tends to weed them out (as we see with the ''medical experts" who traffic in for-profit agendas, who get called out pretty quickly by the scientific community at large).


I'd counter that by saying that scientists are still human. They screw up and make mistakes. The history of vaccines quickly created to deal with pandemics is poor (see: 1976 Swine Flu outbreak), the history of vaccines made to combat coronaviruses is poor (the coronavirus vaccine that used to be on the schedule for dogs has been removed, because it was ineffective, and based on what I've read, studies on the SARS vaccine were very mixed), and combining the two seems like a perfect storm for a vaccine that's much more likely than most to have bad results -- not because of bad intent of anyone involved, but just because it's a _really hard problem_ that we're trying to solve _really fast_, and that's a bad combination.


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## TedEH

Cynicanal said:


> I'd counter that by saying that scientists are still human.


Absolutely. That's why it's important to understand what science is and what it isn't.

For every case of someone treating science like a faith, there's also someone throwing the whole deal out because "it's meaningless if you can't trust science to be right all the time".

People want an infallible source of truth, but no matter what you believe, such a thing doesn't exist.


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## Shoeless_jose

Not to go too far into this rabbit hole but science and religion can co exist in a sense. Like believing there is a God doesn't mean you can't agree that there is gravity or climate change, electricity still works on the same principles.


----------



## jaxadam

Dineley said:


> Not to go too far into this rabbit hole but science and religion can co exist in a sense. Like believing there is a God doesn't mean you can't agree that there is gravity or climate change, electricity still works on the same principles.



What if God is gravity? He has brought us all together.

But I still like Newton’s 3rd Law of the Internet: for every opinion, there is an equal and opposite opinion.


----------



## Randy

Too soon to point out Trump totally wrong about the virus disappearing in the warm weather? Southern states reopened faster, averaging 80 degrees+ and all their numbers are on the rise.

I mean the guy lies or is willfully ignorant about shit literally every day but sometimes it's worth revisiting his predictions that never come true.


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## wankerness

Speaking of southern states, I heard today they're running out of ICU beds in Montgomery, AL and having to ship people to Birmingham and start making emergency wards. Since they're not reimplementing any kind of lockdown, I'd be very worried for the future as cases are steadily on the rise.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/21/us/montgomery-alabama-icu-bed-shortage/index.html


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## High Plains Drifter

Since there is some discussion on this page about the southern states...

So many people throughout Texas are "over all this shit". Attention spans have been challenged and have failed miserably. The weather's hot-n-sunny... and trucks-n-god-n-guns-n-stuff. This attitude is overwhelmingly steadfast despite Texas' infected numbers that are steadily rising in this town and all around us. They are done caring about any of this nonsense. 

Even my best bud can't be bothered to remember to wear a mask when he comes over. I feel that he likely doesn't wear a mask in public but I won't even ask him cause I know he'd just say "yeah I do"... even though when he's at my house, he keeps forgetting. Outside and at a distance I don't care too much but inside... how is it that you don't respect the health and safety of my wife and I? I'm your best friend... damn. 

Just pisses me off... no matter that your actions might NOT help... you won't do a damn thing that MIGHT help. Screw any science or data or news down here... Them big fancy fightin' words! Don't want the guy at the feed store to think you're some kinda liberal... or a momma's boy.

I'm back out for a while but I dig reading the respectful and sincere comments throughout this thread. Y'all please stay safe/ healthy.


----------



## narad




----------



## fantom

Alexa run my life said:


> Hit the nail on the head. Excellent post. That's scientism for ya. It's not that you have to believe in science, it's that you have to believe in their science.



Not going to lie, "their science" made me cringe. There is only one science. It is our science. Humanity's science. But I understand what you mean.



Drew said:


> One, you completely misunderstood what fantom was saying. He wasn't supporting you, quite the reverse he was pointing out that appealing to logic is a waste of time when you're dealing with someone who is arguing from a position of faith.



I was trying to help people communicate with each other instead of past each other. So I was supporting both of them to have a dialog?



Alexa run my life said:


> 1. It's above my pay grade to speak for somebody else. Can I have your job?



Haha. I think it is fair for him to state his interpretation. We are all artists after all. Just make sure I get my royalties!




Alexa run my life said:


> 2. Yes you are correct about what the scientific method is, but what I am talking about is scientism as being dogmatic like religion. There are religous people that think "God" is the answer to everything and all the worlds problems, whereas there are material science people who dont believe in "God", yet the way the think science is going to solve the worlds problems, science then becomes their God. There can be radical atheistic against people who have a faith, only they themselves have faith....in science. I guess I misunderstood him, and you me.



I think you are illustrating the point here pretty well. When people believe that science will, in the future, produce something, it gets interpreted the same as religion. Saying science will fix global warming or science will find a cure to this virus is a belief. You might as well say Jesus will come to Earth and purge us of the virus. However, if you accept that science can be and has been used to learn about the environment, including temperature changes and viruses, it is pretty ridiculous to dispute that evidence as wrong or a belief without having a reason that reproducible observations are invalid.

Edit: that doesn't mean the evidence has one possible conclusion. But I think most people agree the planet is getting warmer or this virus is spreading. I just don't think they agree on conclusions... Well except that "alternate facts" part... That needs to go down as humanity's biggest mistake.

The extrapolation, I believe people doing science will lead to a far better outcome than people going to church and asking for God to save them. But I acknowledge that is a belief. I have reasons that belief exists (like the fact that people observing electrons and planetary motions hundreds of years ago made it possible for my tablet to magically beam this data to some random magnet in Idaho that you can somehow view on your tablet thousands of miles away).


----------



## Ralyks

Randy said:


> Too soon to point out Trump totally wrong about the virus disappearing in the warm weather? Southern states reopened faster, averaging 80 degrees+ and all their numbers are on the rise.
> 
> I mean the guy lies or is willfully ignorant about shit literally every day but sometimes it's worth revisiting his predictions that never come true.



I feel like I mentioned this before, but that idea never made sense when you took a second think "oh, wait, the virus is already in parts of the world where it's already 80+ degrees." But Trump probably forgets that the weather is different outside of 'Murica, so....


----------



## vilk

High Plains Drifter said:


> Since there is some discussion on this page about the southern states...
> 
> So many people throughout Texas are "over all this shit". Attention spans have been challenged and have failed miserably. The weather's hot-n-sunny... and trucks-n-god-n-guns-n-stuff. This attitude is overwhelmingly steadfast despite Texas' infected numbers that are steadily rising in this town and all around us. They are done caring about any of this nonsense.
> 
> Even my best bud can't be bothered to remember to wear a mask when he comes over. I feel that he likely doesn't wear a mask in public but I won't even ask him cause I know he'd just say "yeah I do"... even though when he's at my house, he keeps forgetting. Outside and at a distance I don't care too much but inside... how is it that you don't respect the health and safety of my wife and I? I'm your best friend... damn.
> 
> Just pisses me off... no matter that your actions might NOT help... you won't do a damn thing that MIGHT help. Screw any science or data or news down here... Them big fancy fightin' words! Don't want the guy at the feed store to think you're some kinda liberal... or a momma's boy.
> 
> I'm back out for a while but I dig reading the respectful and sincere comments throughout this thread. Y'all please stay safe/ healthy.



Why are you inviting friends over to your home in the first place?


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## High Plains Drifter

vilk said:


> Why are you inviting friends over to your home in the first place?



Because after more than a month... isolation, depression, estrangement, etc were becoming very real issues for both of us. We got to the point where we both realized that we couldn't isolate ourselves indefinitely. Seeing my best friend again was very uplifting and imo crucial for my mental health. We have other friends that we still haven't invited over since this all began and I feel as if our friendship with those people is suffering at this point. But we had to draw the line somewhere and at least initially, my bud was very receptive about keeping his distance and wearing a mask... also, our visits were outside and for very short periods of time. 

Last week was different though... I desperately needed help taking out a tree that was about to fall on the house. He's good with stuff like that so I invited him over to lend a hand as well as to socialize for a bit. Anyway... That's my reasoning for my 3 short visits with him. And it really helped to lift my spirits as well as his. I'm just saddened that he's beginning to let his guard down now. It'll likely be another couple weeks until we get together again but I'm going to make sure that he keeps his distance, wears a mask the entire time, and that visits will continue to be short. 

And fwiw... We also made the decision to send my wife back to work rather than potentially losing our home. We're staying as safe as we can but we had to eventually make some concessions and try to bring some degree of normalcy and solace back into our lives. Shutting ourselves indoors with no outside contact was not something that we felt was realistically feasible since we know that this thing is going to likely be around for a long time to come. Sound health is not simply physical but emotional/ mental as well.


----------



## vilk

Just my opinion, but "isolation/estrangement" is kind of a bullshit excuse in the age of the smartphone. The tree situation on the other hand actually makes sense, and I totally understand that. You're lucky that you have a wife to live with; imagine the struggle of people who are _actually_ alone... but then again they can pull a computer out of their pocket and speak face to face with literally anyone and everyone they've ever met at any time they please, so it's not exactly solitary confinement is it.

Maybe I'm biased from having been in a long distance relationship across the Pacific ocean for a few years.


----------



## SpaceDock

Please don’t mind my short rant:

We have almost 100k Americans dead in only 8 weeks. This is after the largest shut down in world history and has brought the largest economy in the world to its knees. We shut down everything and have 100k Americans dead!

Now because people are “over it” or need to resume their retail job, we are reopening. I understand that people need money but 100k dead in 8 weeks with everything shut down. WTF do people think is going to happen as we reopen! I think we need a godamn miracle to not see a huge spike in cases and deaths.

I don’t think a cure is coming and any vaccine is likely to be mid/late next year. I believe we are going to kill hundreds of thousands with this reopening unless we are so freaking lucky, I just don’t know what people in charge are expecting to happen here. 

I have had to resign myself to the idea that I and most likely everyone I know will get this and I just need to hope for the best. I am starting to realize that none of the shut down was about preventing people from getting the disease, that is unavoidable. This is all about slowing down the spread but we will all get it.

I saw that Zuckerberg is estimating 5-10 years of working at home for his employees! I think he is a tool and I don’t like him, but I think he is right. Prepare for the long haul and good luck to those thinking we are over the peak. Praying I am wrong.


----------



## TedEH

There's a couple of companies nearby here who have decided to just move forward as a work-from-home-first kind of business, regardless of what happens going forward. I wonder if the place I work at is slowly headed that same direction.



vilk said:


> Just my opinion, but "isolation/estrangement" is kind of a bullshit excuse in the age of the smartphone.


Also just an opinion, but I don't think I'd agree. Even with video calls, there's something missing from that kind of socializing. I'm a very independent person, so most of the time this whole isolation thing isn't a huge deal, but even I've had moments where it hit me hard. Sometimes socializing digitally just isn't available when you need it. Putting everything online gives people the ability to opt out of socializing with you, leaving you at the whim of other people's schedules. You don't have the immediacy of just blurting out something to the person nearby. You lose the context of tone of voice or body language. You lose the actually-doing-something-with-someone aspect of socializing. And that's saying nothing of more intimate interactions.

I've basically lived in a box on my own for two months now and it would certainly be nice to have the option to interact with another human being for a change from time to time.


----------



## Randy

vilk said:


> Why are you inviting friends over to your home in the first place?



I generally agree with this sentiment but context matters. Something like quarantine/isolation is the same as dieting, where it only works if you have good guard rails. You under-do it and you get no benefits, you over-do it and it's unsustainable and you crack.

I haven't seen my sister or nieces and nephews since mid-February despite living 10-minute away, so we arranged a socially distant backyard meeting where everyone wore masks and all surfaces were cleaned before, during and after. It still brings risks with it but it was a rare meeting with as many precautions taken as possible, and likely will be a while before it happens again.

Then I have friends that make the same excuse, and they've been having mask-less drinking meetups with different groups of friends three or more days a week.

I mean, there's a balance you gotta have. Pure isolation would be great if you can hack it, but considering human factors, I think there's fairly clear lines between acceptable and unacceptable risks to maintain sanity.


----------



## wankerness

SpaceDock said:


> Please don’t mind my short rant:
> 
> We have almost 100k Americans dead in only 8 weeks. This is after the largest shut down in world history and has brought the largest economy in the world to its knees. We shut down everything and have 100k Americans dead!
> 
> Now because people are “over it” or need to resume their retail job, we are reopening. I understand that people need money but 100k dead in 8 weeks with everything shut down. WTF do people think is going to happen as we reopen! I think we need a godamn miracle to not see a huge spike in cases and deaths.
> 
> I don’t think a cure is coming and any vaccine is likely to be mid/late next year. I believe we are going to kill hundreds of thousands with this reopening unless we are so freaking lucky, I just don’t know what people in charge are expecting to happen here.
> 
> I have had to resign myself to the idea that I and most likely everyone I know will get this and I just need to hope for the best. I am starting to realize that none of the shut down was about preventing people from getting the disease, that is unavoidable. This is all about slowing down the spread but we will all get it.
> 
> I saw that Zuckerberg is estimating 5-10 years of working at home for his employees! I think he is a tool and I don’t like him, but I think he is right. Prepare for the long haul and good luck to those thinking we are over the peak. Praying I am wrong.



Not everyone is going to get it, especially if people aren't idiots. With many jobs, it is not hard for people to distance themselves enough that proper hygiene and maybe masks are going to prevent them from getting it from anyone else that's infected.

Studies on contact tracing are showing that most infections seem to be coming from what they call "super-spreading events," while the vast majority of people don't spread it to ANYONE. If someone screams in your face with it, or if you go to choir practice with someone infected, or if you're a medical worker and intubate someone with it without proper PPE you're going to get it. If you go to huge events with tons of people breathing hard/talking to each other, or if you're a retail worker and people keep getting in your face without masks, then you quite possibly will get it. Otherwise, probably not. Even chance of transmission between people that LIVE TOGETHER is something like 17%.

They're going to have a vaccine in less than 5 years, that's for sure. I dunno what Zuckerberg was thinking, but if he really said that I doubt it's that he thinks coronavirus is going to be in this phase for 5-10 years.


----------



## sleewell

same with anything. you can take isolation too far and you can take ignoring this too far. isolation until a vaccine is not really an option so we are going to have to find ways to be safe in public. 

i'm seeing new reports it may not live on surfaces as long as previously thought. can anyone else corroborate this?


----------



## wankerness

sleewell said:


> same with anything. you can take isolation too far and you can take ignoring this too far. isolation until a vaccine is not really an option so we are going to have to find ways to be safe in public.
> 
> i'm seeing new reports it may not live on surfaces as long as previously thought. can anyone else corroborate this?



It can live on surfaces for a long time (24 hours on cardboard, 2-3 days on plastic/metal), but it's not likely to infect anyone for very long as over that time period the cells are dying off and there might not have been enough of them there in the first place to infect you. Even if you touch the spot that it's living, if you wash your hands before you touch your orifices, it won't do anything. You CAN get infected that way, but the vast majority of it is person to person directly.


----------



## vilk

TedEH said:


> There's a couple of companies nearby here who have decided to just move forward as a work-from-home-first kind of business, regardless of what happens going forward. I wonder if the place I work at is slowly headed that same direction.
> 
> 
> Also just an opinion, but I don't think I'd agree. Even with video calls, there's something missing from that kind of socializing. I'm a very independent person, so most of the time this whole isolation thing isn't a huge deal, but even I've had moments where it hit me hard. Sometimes socializing digitally just isn't available when you need it. Putting everything online gives people the ability to opt out of socializing with you, leaving you at the whim of other people's schedules. You don't have the immediacy of just blurting out something to the person nearby. You lose the context of tone of voice or body language. You lose the actually-doing-something-with-someone aspect of socializing. And that's saying nothing of more intimate interactions.
> 
> I've basically lived in a box on my own for two months now and it would certainly be nice to have the option to interact with another human being for a change from time to time.



I understand that a video call isn't the same thing as being in the room with someone, but I also think that many of the people complaining about how unbearable """""isolation""""" is haven't made any serious effort to continue their social life remotely.

I think the phenomenon we are witnessing is that with the advent of texting/social media, people have moved away from phone calls. I remember when I was a 13 I used to talk on the phone with my girlfriend for ages. In the 80s people talked on the phone with their friends so much that teenagers were often given their own LAN line. These days we're just not used to it, and while text and social media relationships are enough to satisfy some, other's still crave that real-time interaction, but just aren't comfortable bothering someone with a phone call--because the reality is that in 2020, phone calls are bothersome. Only old people prefer to be called rather than texted. Voicemails are strictly for a call placed to a LAN line. Don't leave a voicemail on someone's cell phone--that's a jerk move. But this is all just a mindset, and now that we have to socially distance ourselves, it would be beneficial to break out of it and become more comfortable calling our friends.

Just curious: how many times in the past two months you've actually video called a friend, and how does that number compares against the number of times would have potentially met that person if there were no shelter at home in place?


Now I'm not trying to say that video chatting someone 100% replaces physically being in the room with them (I'm dying to jam with my band). I'm just saying that I feel a lot of people are complaining without first fully using the resources they have to compensate for the adjusted social setting we are living in... it's kinda like complaining about how tired you are to your coworkers in the morning when you admit that you stayed up til 3am watching youtube videos.


----------



## tedtan

fantom said:


> The extrapolation, I believe people doing science will lead to a far better outcome than people going to church and asking for God to save them. But I acknowledge that is a belief. I have reasons that belief exists (like the fact that people observing electrons and planetary motions hundreds of years ago made it possible for my tablet to magically beam this data to some random magnet in Idaho that you can somehow view on your tablet thousands of miles away).



That's the difference between belief in the scientific process and in religion: the belief in science is based on its prior accomplishments whereas religious belief is belief without any real world reason to hold that believe (e.g., its faith rather than a belied in something concrete).


----------



## High Plains Drifter

vilk said:


> Just my opinion, but "isolation/estrangement" is kind of a bullshit excuse in the age of the smartphone. The tree situation on the other hand actually makes sense, and I totally understand that. You're lucky that you have a wife to live with; imagine the struggle of people who are _actually_ alone... but then again they can pull a computer out of their pocket and speak face to face with literally anyone and everyone they've ever met at any time they please, so it's not exactly solitary confinement is it.
> 
> Maybe I'm biased from having been in a long distance relationship across the Pacific ocean for a few years.



Well the isolation/ estrangement issue isn't bullshit at all. I have a Galaxy Express 3 phone... lol... no internet connection on my phone nor my wife's. I do realize that we might as well be living in an Amish community with our lack of technology but skype or zoom or whatever the cool kids use, has not been an option for us. We'll get there eventually... My wife already wants to upgrade but we simply can't justify a more costly plan/ new phones at this time. I know that living without a phone that connects to the world seems ridiculous but I don't miss it cause I've never had it. It's usually after ppl have gotten used to something that they find they can't do without it but because we've never had smart-phone technology, it's not been a big deal to us.

Also, fact is that my bud and I are very project-oriented so sharing ideas about ongoing projects, showing off my landscaping jobs, etc, etc really only happens in person. I'm a social creature and although utilizing a screen may be doable in some situations, it's not a long-term solution to dealing with this virus... not for me anyway. I can be safe as I'm able and proactive and use common sense and isolate myself much more than I ever have before... but I can't hide from social interaction indefinitely.


----------



## Randy

vilk said:


> I understand that a video call isn't the same thing as being in the room with someone, but I also think that many of the people complaining about how unbearable """""isolation""""" is haven't made any serious effort to continue their social life remotely.



In my experience, it's mostly people doing both. Complaining about isolation and also making no effort to isolate.


----------



## Drew

Alexa run my life said:


> 1. It's above my pay grade to speak for somebody else. Can I have your job?
> 
> 2. Yes you are correct about what the scientific method is, but what I am talking about is scientism as being dogmatic like religion. There are religous people that think "God" is the answer to everything and all the worlds problems, whereas there are material science people who dont believe in "God", yet the way the think science is going to solve the worlds problems, science then becomes their God. There can be radical atheistic against people who have a faith, only they themselves have faith....in science. I guess I misunderstood him, and you me.
> 
> 3. Getting off topic


1) Sorry, but it's above your pay grade. 

2) But, science is dogmatic to a _method_. "Come up with a theory, test it by assuming you're wrong, and trying to prove it wrong. If not, share all your data and put it out there for peer review, and see if other people also can't prove your initial theory wrong. If this involves eventually proving that things we previously believed were correct, were in fact wrong, because we can now better explain them, then abandon those previous beliefs in favor of better ones." Religion is dogmatic to a set of beliefs. "I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. Under Pontius Pilate, He was crucified, died, and was buried." etc etc etc. In science, your beliefs are subject to empirical observation - you only believe what you can prove. In religion, empirical observation is subject to your beliefs. What you observe is clearly wrong, if it doesn't correspond with your belief system, and if it doesn't fit in your worldview, then you reject it. Science, if empirical observation doesn't fit with your worldview, you reject your worldview. 

Science is just a really effective problem solving strategy. Calling that a "god" makes about as much sense as calling linear regression a god, and while some familiarity with it put me in my pay grade, I'd hardly call that divine. 

3) One could argue, that to attack science you have to start by concluding that science is just another form of religion - which we rejected in #2 - that really what we have here is an attack on _religion_ more than on science. Which is ironic.


----------



## Drew

Cynicanal said:


> At risk of getting rebanned, we're exactly where I said we'd be when I got banned for a month for "trolling" -- the options are "shut down forever" or "fuck it, whoever dies, dies." Shutting down all in-person gatherings forever, wearing uncomfortable facemasks that effectively render those of us who wear glasses blind, having permanent ~30% unemployment and an economy worse than the heights of the Great Depression, etc. is _such_ a shit option that there's no way it's preferable to "roll the dice, and if you're that 1 in 10, you die".
> 
> At least we've finally hit the point that people have realized I've been right this whole time, and are acting like my ideas (that I was banned for) are actually their original ideas -- progress!



I completely disagree. Wearing face masks - glass wearer here, and an athlete on top of it, which poses some REAL special challenges - a long term prohibition on large gatherings, and restructuring our economy for as long as it takes to beat this or find a workable treatment - is VASTLY preferable to "fuck it, let'sd let 1 in 10 just die as a sacrifice to the god of economic progress." 

I don't think anyone is agreeing with your "ideas" here. We know we're in this for the long haul, but we also know it CAN be done. I think you're also selling human ingenuity short - our economy will evolve, we'll have progressively better and better facemasks, we'll find better ways to get more and more people back to work that won't put them at unnecessary risks, etc. Humans, for all the bad rap we get, are a pretty creative bunch. We just need to stop pretend this is going to go away and start adapting, and we CERTAINLY need to not just roll over and accept huge amounts of collateral damage because "my facemask is uncomfortable."


----------



## Drew

Cynicanal said:


> At risk of getting rebanned, we're exactly where I said we'd be when I got banned for a month for "trolling" -- the options are "shut down forever" or "fuck it, whoever dies, dies." Shutting down all in-person gatherings forever, wearing uncomfortable facemasks that effectively render those of us who wear glasses blind, having permanent ~30% unemployment and an economy worse than the heights of the Great Depression, etc. is _such_ a shit option that there's no way it's preferable to "roll the dice, and if you're that 1 in 10, you die".
> 
> At least we've finally hit the point that people have realized I've been right this whole time, and are acting like my ideas (that I was banned for) are actually their original ideas -- progress!



I completely disagree. Wearing face masks - glass wearer here, and an athlete on top of it, which poses some REAL special challenges - a long term prohibition on large gatherings, and restructuring our economy for as long as it takes to beat this or find a workable treatment - is VASTLY preferable to "fuck it, let'sd let 1 in 10 just die as a sacrifice to the god of economic progress." 

I don't think anyone is agreeing with your "ideas" here. We know we're in this for the long haul, but we also know it CAN be done. I think you're also selling human ingenuity short - our economy will evolve, we'll have progressively better and better facemasks, we'll find better ways to get more and more people back to work that won't put them at unnecessary risks, etc. Humans, for all the bad rap we get, are a pretty creative bunch. We just need to stop pretend this is going to go away and start adapting, and we CERTAINLY need to not just roll over and accept huge amounts of collateral damage because "my facemask is uncomfortable."


----------



## Drew

Alexa run my life said:


> Splitting hairs and off topic but,
> 
> Atheism is a lack of belief of gods. What you seem to be referring to is agnosticism, who says that there cannot be a god because there is no way of knowing. If you can show an agnostic some evidence of a god, they could hypothetically change their mind. If you show evidence of a god to an atheist, they still will not have faith in said god. At least this is my understanding of it
> 
> Some material science people absolutely worship the process, calculations and numbers. They have faith in said processes, calculations, and numbers that they will one day save humanity.


To split hairs further, agnosticism is the belief that it is unknowable whether or not there is a god, not that there is no god because we can't know if there is one. 

And, I think your statement that if you show an atheist evidence of god they'd reject it, well, _really_ depends on the standard of evidence you're using.  But, I'd also suggest that while it's possible that there are atheists out there who have rejected the existence of a higher power as a matter of _faith_, I think most atheists I've interacted with have done so as a matter of _reason_ due to the lack of evidence, and if you provided them compelling enough evidence, I think they would at least open their minds to the possibility that there was a higher power.


----------



## Drew

Dineley said:


> Not to go too far into this rabbit hole but science and religion can co exist in a sense. Like believing there is a God doesn't mean you can't agree that there is gravity or climate change, electricity still works on the same principles.


I've always thought that - as a not particularly religious person - science is a spectacularly useful way of answering "how" questions, but isn't really helpful -nor is it necessarily intended to be - at answering "why" questions. Religion is a great framework for trying to answer the big "why" questions, but is pretty poor at answering the "how" ones.


----------



## Cynicanal

Drew said:


> I completely disagree. Wearing face masks - glass wearer here, and an athlete on top of it, which poses some REAL special challenges - a long term prohibition on large gatherings, and restructuring our economy for as long as it takes to beat this or find a workable treatment - is VASTLY preferable to "fuck it, let'sd let 1 in 10 just die as a sacrifice to the god of economic progress."


You're not getting any large gatherings back in your lifetime then, you realize that, right?

We still had outbreaks of the 1918 flu as late as the 1950s. COVID-19 is _not_ going away any time soon, no matter what we do. So, sure, I guess if you want to say "no concerts, sporting events, weddings, religious services, etc. ever again!" then stopping mass gatherings and putting everyone out of work until we beat this is feasible. Otherwise...

(The good news is, my state is already saying "nah, fuck it" to that idea, and most stuff is reopening. Have fun living in a state with mandatory bubbles, I guess!)


----------



## Drew

SpaceDock said:


> Please don’t mind my short rant:
> 
> We have almost 100k Americans dead in only 8 weeks. This is after the largest shut down in world history and has brought the largest economy in the world to its knees. We shut down everything and have 100k Americans dead!
> 
> Now because people are “over it” or need to resume their retail job, we are reopening. I understand that people need money but 100k dead in 8 weeks with everything shut down. WTF do people think is going to happen as we reopen! I think we need a godamn miracle to not see a huge spike in cases and deaths.
> 
> I don’t think a cure is coming and any vaccine is likely to be mid/late next year. I believe we are going to kill hundreds of thousands with this reopening unless we are so freaking lucky, I just don’t know what people in charge are expecting to happen here.
> 
> I have had to resign myself to the idea that I and most likely everyone I know will get this and I just need to hope for the best. I am starting to realize that none of the shut down was about preventing people from getting the disease, that is unavoidable. This is all about slowing down the spread but we will all get it.
> 
> I saw that Zuckerberg is estimating 5-10 years of working at home for his employees! I think he is a tool and I don’t like him, but I think he is right. Prepare for the long haul and good luck to those thinking we are over the peak. Praying I am wrong.



I mean, basically all of this is right. I think we were fucked once whether or not there even WAS a coronavirus became a political question, and the best I can hope for is that when we start to see some real evidence that reopening is causing case counts to skyrocket, we'll backtrack. 

Really what we need to be focusing on here is how to minimize the economic damage of a sustained shelter-in-place, and how to let the largest number of people return to work in some form, while mitigating risk to the largest extent possible. That means facemasks, that means a lack of in-person interactions, that means moving almost everything to online/curbside pickup even in industries where this hasn't really been prevalent before, that means rethinking public transportation... Shit, maybe we need MORE protection than facemasks, maybe 2020 isn't the year of the return of the bandana, it's the year of the hazmat suit. Idunno, but we need to be thinking not about how soon I cn go back to Applebees with all my buds and get my nails did, we need to be thinking how we can allow our daily lives to evolve to allow us to live safely.


----------



## Drew

Cynicanal said:


> You're not getting any large gatherings back in your lifetime then, you realize that, right?
> 
> We still had outbreaks of the 1918 flu as late as the 1950s. COVID-19 is _not_ going away any time soon, no matter what we do. So, sure, I guess if you want to say "no concerts, sporting events, weddings, religious services, etc. ever again!" then stopping mass gatherings and putting everyone out of work until we beat this is feasible. Otherwise...
> 
> (The good news is, my state is already saying "nah, fuck it" to that idea, and most stuff is reopening. Have fun living in a state with mandatory bubbles, I guess!)


I'd say one to three years rather than "in my lifetime," but yeah. Long haul.

You also realize that, for all the reasons you point to where novel coronaviruses are difficult to make vaccines for, there's also no guarantee that an infection conveys anything more than very short term immunity, and that if your gameplan here is to open the floodgates, say fuck it, kill off a tenth of the population, and wait for herd immunity... Then a whole LOT of people are going to die as this keeps ranging on and on and on, and that herd immunity isn't going to happen, right?

EDIT - also, pointing to the 1918 flu as an example of why we should expect this to go on for another 40 years, well, sort of overlooks the fact that we didn't have a flu vaccine of _any_ sort until the mid-1940s, and at first it was primarily directed to the war effort. That particular flu got stamped out pretty quickly once we had a decent vaccine, and that was in the very early days of vaccination. Even the 1978 ourbreak was closer to the the introduction of the first flu vaccine, historically, than it is to today. I'm not going to say categorically that we won't mess something up bringing a vaccine into development, and I'm WELL aware that a novel virus where immuity doesn't seem to be permanent is going to pose a lot of additional challenges... But human ingenuity has solved some pretty incredible problems in the past, and i like our odds. I like them a lot more than merely thowing up our hands and saying "fuck it, if you die you die."


----------



## Cynicanal

If this rages on and on and takes out 10% every year, then we embrace extinction, and enjoy the time we have left. 

Not sure how you're getting "1 to 3 years". Again, we still had outbreaks of the 1918 flu close to 40 years after 1918 (and the strain is actually still here, it's just mutated into something less lethal). COVID-19 isn't going away. "Turn off the world and wait it out" means abandoning civilization forever. A few shut-ins will be fine with that, but I'd like to think that most people aren't willing to live entirely through their TV screens forever. Or maybe Black Flag was right when they wrote the "TV news shows us what it's like out there..." verse of "TV Party".


----------



## USMarine75

Cynicanal said:


> If this rages on and on and takes out 10% every year, then we embrace extinction, and enjoy the time we have left.
> 
> Not sure how you're getting "1 to 3 years". Again, we still had outbreaks of the 1918 flu close to 40 years after 1918 (and the strain is actually still here, it's just mutated into something less lethal). COVID-19 isn't going away. "Turn off the world and wait it out" means abandoning civilization forever. A few shut-ins will be fine with that, but I'd like to think that most people aren't willing to live entirely through their TV screens forever. Or maybe Black Flag was right when they wrote the "TV news shows us what it's like out there..." verse of "TV Party".



Your understanding of infectious disease gave me AIDS.


----------



## Drew

Cynicanal said:


> If this rages on and on and takes out 10% every year, then we embrace extinction, and enjoy the time we have left.
> 
> Not sure how you're getting "1 to 3 years". Again, we still had outbreaks of the 1918 flu close to 40 years after 1918 (and the strain is actually still here, it's just mutated into something less lethal). COVID-19 isn't going away. "Turn off the world and wait it out" means abandoning civilization forever. A few shut-ins will be fine with that, but I'd like to think that most people aren't willing to live entirely through their TV screens forever. Or maybe Black Flag was right when they wrote the "TV news shows us what it's like out there..." verse of "TV Party".


See my edit. In 1918 we were still nearly 30 years from the first flu vaccine. Really weird example to lead with.


----------



## Cynicanal

And we don't have a working coronavirus vaccine yet, and our timeline to it is an unknown.

1918 was the last huge pandemic like this. We didn't shut down "until we had a vaccine" or "until we had surefire treatment". That's simply not a feasible idea, as history shows us.


----------



## Drew

Cynicanal said:


> And we don't have a working coronavirus vaccine yet, and our timeline to it is an unknown.
> 
> 1918 was the last huge pandemic like this. We didn't shut down "until we had a vaccine" or "until we had surefire treatment". That's simply not a feasible idea, as history shows us.


...but our timeline is also fairly likely to not be "another 60 years." And our responses were actually fairly similar - widespread shelter in place guidelines generally enacted at the local level, quarantine, widespread use of face masks, etc.

I don't know how to make this any more clear to you, and debating this point by point is increasingly becoming a waste of time, I suspect, but I can't disagree with you any more strongly here. Prolonged social distancing, the use of masks, doing what we can _behaviorally_ to slow the spread of a disease, ARE effective ways of combatting a pandemic. You've just decided for whatever reason that you don't _want_ to, and you'd rather see a whole bunch of people die unnecessarily, than wear a face mask or try to limit your time around others. I don't get what your weird hangup on this is, but whatever, thank god people like you are in the minority.


----------



## KnightBrolaire




----------



## MaxOfMetal

Cynicanal said:


> wearing uncomfortable facemasks that effectively render those of us who wear glasses blind



I wear glasses (astigmatism) and wear safety eyeware at work, get the masks that come with a thin foam "seal" along the upper edge. You can even add your own. The foam doesn't have to be thick, really the thinner the better. Zero fogging, and a bit more comfortable too.

They sell them with a rubber part there instead, but that was just giving me dermatitis.


----------



## fantom

SpaceDock said:


> Please don’t mind my short rant:
> 
> We have almost 100k Americans dead in only 8 weeks. This is after the largest shut down in world history and has brought the largest economy in the world to its knees. We shut down everything and have 100k Americans dead!
> 
> Now because people are “over it” or need to resume their retail job, we are reopening. I understand that people need money but 100k dead in 8 weeks with everything shut down. WTF do people think is going to happen as we reopen! I think we need a godamn miracle to not see a huge spike in cases and deaths.
> 
> I don’t think a cure is coming and any vaccine is likely to be mid/late next year. I believe we are going to kill hundreds of thousands with this reopening unless we are so freaking lucky, I just don’t know what people in charge are expecting to happen here.
> 
> I have had to resign myself to the idea that I and most likely everyone I know will get this and I just need to hope for the best. I am starting to realize that none of the shut down was about preventing people from getting the disease, that is unavoidable. This is all about slowing down the spread but we will all get it.
> 
> I saw that Zuckerberg is estimating 5-10 years of working at home for his employees! I think he is a tool and I don’t like him, but I think he is right. Prepare for the long haul and good luck to those thinking we are over the peak. Praying I am wrong.



First off, I agree with you. I'll take a guess as to why...

I think for a large portion of the population, they feel having no income for several months (let alone years) might be worse than just getting killed. The virus is an invisible threat, like a tornado coming through... And if it happens, it must be God's Will. On the other hand, people and government taking away their resources for food and entertainment directly effects them now. It is immediate and causing a known quality of life problem.

I am curious to see how opinion to reopen correlates with net worth (or debt) as well as yearly household income and availability of the same supplies.

If you factor things like this in, someone who has an immediate quality of life problem will find it hard to consider other people might die when the situation already has them thinking it is an economic and livelihood death sentence for themselves.


----------



## Aso

Now that Trump has declared religious services an "essential" business/function, does this mean I can watch Joel Osteen pack his mega-church this Sunday? I am sure nothing could go wrong with that. My money is on Joel running services from within a plastic bubble though.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Aso said:


> My money is on Joel running services from within a plastic bubble though.



Well his wife is a plastic bubble so... prob not a difficult transition for him.


----------



## TedEH

I wish there was a way to use the ignore people feature in just one thread.


----------



## Aso

High Plains Drifter said:


> Well his wife is a plastic bubble so... prob not a difficult transition for him.


So you're saying he's been "in" a plastic bubble before?


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Aso said:


> So you're saying he's been "in" a plastic bubble before?



I tried to shake off some weird visuals as I was typing that lol.


----------



## wankerness

https://news.yahoo.com/new-yahoo-ne...ght-may-hamper-vaccine-efforts-152843610.html

44% of Trump voters think Bill Gates is trying to implant microchips in us with a vaccine. Jesus christ. This country is doomed. Even TRUMP HIMSELF hasn't promoted that theory and is hyping a vaccine ASAP. There's just this insidious correlation of being a goddam moron and believing moronic things.

And 19% of democrats apparently believe the same thing! Oh well. I guess democrats are slightly less than half as likely to be irretrievably stupid.


----------



## Alexa run my life

wankerness said:


> https://news.yahoo.com/new-yahoo-ne...ght-may-hamper-vaccine-efforts-152843610.html
> 
> 44% of Trump voters think Bill Gates is trying to implant microchips in us with a vaccine. Jesus christ. This country is doomed. Even TRUMP HIMSELF hasn't promoted that theory and is hyping a vaccine ASAP. There's just this insidious correlation of being a goddam moron and believing moronic things.
> 
> And 19% of democrats apparently believe the same thing! Oh well. I guess democrats are slightly less than half as likely to be irretrievably stupid.



Is anyone actually claiming that a vaccine for the current Covid19 pandemic would contain any kind of semi-conducting technologies?


----------



## SpaceDock

Alexa run my life said:


> Is anyone actually claiming that a vaccine for the current Covid19 pandemic would contain any kind of semi-conducting technologies?


----------



## ramses

wankerness said:


> 44% of Trump voters think Bill Gates is trying to implant microchips in us with a vaccine. Jesus christ. This country is doomed.



You are wrong. The whole world is doomed.

Mexico, Central America, and South America are overrun by this insane belief. (I have family and friends "there.")

I have also asked friends from South Asia, and it seems that the situation is similar.

China has propaganda about CIA operatives spreading the virus in Wuhan.

Normal people are ... I'd better shut up now.


----------



## spudmunkey

Alexa run my life said:


> Is anyone actually claiming that a vaccine for the current Covid19 pandemic would contain any kind of semi-conducting technologies?



I don't actually know...but many believe anyway, based on whatever little but they've heard, because it aligns with what they'd believe anyway.


----------



## narad

spudmunkey said:


> I don't actually know...but many believe anyway, based on whatever little but they've heard, because it aligns with what they'd believe anyway.



If it's on the people who don't believe such things to live on and continue human civilization once a vaccine is produced, then so be it. 2021: the year of the smartening.


----------



## wankerness

Wow, when I see something like this it really can't help but make me wish the infection rate was a lot higher on this thing. Truly insane.

https://t.co/NrCszlBn7Q
"The Texas GOP just had a rally in Bexar County. The GOP county chair ends the rally by saying coronavirus is a hoax perpetuated by Democrats and tells everyone to take off their masks. Then they shake hands and hug."
(video included)


----------



## thraxil

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/news/nearly-half-twitter-accounts-discussing-‘reopening-america’-may-be-bots


----------



## TedEH

If there was ever a conspiracy theory I was willing to believe it would be that most of the worlds serious problems are, at least in part, orchestrated by bored trolls.


----------



## zappatton2

TedEH said:


> If there was ever a conspiracy theory I was willing to believe it would be that most of the worlds serious problems are, at least in part, orchestrated by bored trolls.


I wouldn't even call that a conspiracy, I think at this point we can take it as fact.


----------



## Alexa run my life

https://unnwo.org/?fbclid=IwAR1pT6ksaMhvMqjU1GmcKR5FRqvcyJ-G0KHzdUv1Q8G0OMV7YzooEzFuBYI

Alongside Bill Gates pushing for a worldwide digital identity and vaccination by 2030, hes apparently also pushing for worldwide happiness for 10 billion people in 2050 by funding the United Nations' agenda to bring about "Happytalism".

They are also coming right out, loud and proud with the "New World Order". 

*"The United Nations New World Order Project is a global, high-level initiative founded in 2008 to advance a new economic paradigm, a new political order, and more broadly, a new world order for humankind, which achieves the UN’s Global Goals for Sustainable Development by 2030, and the happiness, well-being, and freedom of all life on Earth by 2050."*

I underlined the part for emphasis... Notice how it says freedom of all life and not freedom FOR all life.........real slick.

I'm so glad that he knows what is going to make everyone happy.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Give it a rest MetalHex.


----------



## spudmunkey

Alexa run my life said:


> I underlined the part for emphasis... Notice how it says freedom of all life and not freedom FOR all life.........real slick.


----------



## Alexa run my life

What? Nevermind.


----------



## spudmunkey

Just pointing out that a typo doesnt mean incideous intent.


----------



## Ralyks

To dig a meme out of its 6 feet, “I’m twelve and what is this?”


----------



## Alexa run my life

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.da...pbjdc1Vt0_nX3HLlMmoeV4HsoK1p2p6QuKLWTryaT98AQ

Geez Louise!

What to make of this?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-...Bs-PxEnPpYKCfSVNnZPZJLz04JFcVXAvIPEjHVsJELpD0


----------



## zappatton2

Alexa run my life said:


> https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.da...pbjdc1Vt0_nX3HLlMmoeV4HsoK1p2p6QuKLWTryaT98AQ
> 
> Geez Louise!


Yeah, but so what? "Feminist writer Clementine Ford" has fallen far enough down her own ideological rabbit hole that she's saying rash and dumb things, but her words don't affect much. There's really no comparing a statement like this with what we expect from our leaders. Or those tasked with informing the public, rather than distracting them with nonsense.


----------



## Alexa run my life

zappatton2 said:


> Yeah, but so what? "Feminist writer Clementine Ford" has fallen far enough down her own ideological rabbit hole that she's saying rash and dumb things, but her words don't affect much. There's really no comparing a statement like this with what we expect from our leaders. Or those tasked with informing the public, rather than distracting them with nonsense.


I'm not making a point to compare what she said to someone else (I don't even know who this woman is).

I'm just reacting to what she said. No need to be so defensive


----------



## StevenC

Alexa run my life said:


> What to make of this?
> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-...Bs-PxEnPpYKCfSVNnZPZJLz04JFcVXAvIPEjHVsJELpD0


BoJo's Government cocking something up? Nobody saw that coming.


----------



## TedEH

Taking a short break from conspiracy theories for a moment, I present to you the reason I am mad today:
(Only posting here instead of Why are you mad thread because it's sort of covid related?)

My grandmothers birthday was today, so I was invited to go visit over there - on the condition that it would be few people, and they'd keep a distance. She's almost 80 and has been stuck in a house alone for two months, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to go over there once - again, at a distance, and with few people. It was supposed to be just me and my parents, sitting outside, spaced apart, I know they have masks and so on, and my dad has COPD, so he has good reason to take this seriously. The invitation was phrased such that I was told to just show up around 3, the three of us will spend a short time outside, some chairs will be there already, they'll bring some food and have a way to do it cleanly.

Well, none of that went to plan, and I'm no longer convinced that they have any idea what they're doing. It ended up being _sixteen_ people, including kids running around, food and things being passed around and shared, running races around the house, etc. It was _way_ too much, and felt incredibly irresponsible. They ordered a bunch of KFC because it turned out that the food hadn't actually been planed at all, I was just told what I was told to convince me to go there. There were two unexpected people already there when I arrived, and cars just kept pulling up. At one point, they stuck some tongs in the box of fries and said "see look! No contact now!" while they've just had their hands all over the box, the tongs everyone is using etc. At the end of the night they even seemed to be proud of themselves for how "careful" they were, having a party with 16 people, and then admitting out loud that they know they're the ones who are vulnerable.

I'm..... I don't have proper words for it.

Just


----------



## Rosal76

TedEH said:


> , I present to you the reason I am mad today: (Only posting here instead of Why are you mad thread because it's sort of covid related?)
> 
> It was _way_ too much, and felt incredibly irresponsible.
> 
> I'm..... I don't have proper words for it.
> 
> Just



Don't feel too bad. I'm on same boat you're on. My 2 friends from high school had their wedding last Thursday (May 21) and against my better judgment, I attended. For the most part, I try to keep as healthy as I can through life. I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs, I eat healthy and exercise regularly. So why the f__k did I attend the wedding during this pandemic? I was f__king stupid, that's why. I did not shake hands with/hug anyone but that was completely futile in comparison to what I did do which was sitting and standing too close to people. Like trying to empty water from a sinking Titanic with a bucket. I lost my right to criticize other people who go out in public without masks and practice social distancing. That license was revoked. 

If there is anything good thing that came out of that, is that I got to talk to another person who also attended the same high school me and the newlyweds did. Turns out he likes to joke around a lot like me and we both agreed that when, if, the pandemic is over, we would start hanging out with the newlyweds as we did in high school 25 years ago. Grant it, I don't already have the Coronavirus and die. I'll see what happens in 2 weeks.

But yeah. very, very irresponsible on my part.


----------



## jaxadam

*600 Physicians Say Lockdowns Are A ‘Mass Casualty Incident’*


----------



## Randy

Not here to finger wag or say 'I told you so' but it proves the point that quarantine/isolation advocacy is there because it's unexpectedly hard to follow social distancing guidelines when you're in the situation, hence avoiding the situation all together.

My buddy is an avid boater and spends the whole year waiting for lake season. Cuomo opened the marinas/docks/beaches just in time for his boat to go into the water. He lives with his 85 year old grandmother and his mother who has lung problems and pulse/ox is usually around 90%.


I said look, I'm not telling you not to go out there and enjoy yourself but a bay full of people that have been cooped up for the last 2/3 months and all winter before that, and an army of out of towners drunk on Memorial Day weekend are NOT going to follow social distancing guidelines, period.

So the day he tied it up to the dock, he texts me "we're all partying but staying on our separate boats... the only people ignoring it are the college kids, they're the one out there with 20 people on a pontoon." By 5p, I get a weird drunk text and he's like "sorry, someone nabbed my phone. My friend brought his wife and kid up". This is on a boat where you're never more than 2ft from the next person. The next day he texts me his dock neighbor and his wife came over to help him rewire the lights, so they were both jammed into a compartment with eachother, breathing heavy and sweating.

I just stopped texting him back because it's so selfish when you have so much to lose. That's what's missing when governors or Dr. Birx talk about reopening, the perpetual overestimation of people to exercise any restraint whatsoever.


----------



## Randy

jaxadam said:


> *600 Physicians Say Lockdowns Are A ‘Mass Casualty Incident’*



Nothing new here. Cuomo said it himself at least a month ago that telling people to shelter in place, with parents or grandparents and kids either working or having recently been out in public, or just going to the grocery stores then huddling together and sharing the same 2,000sqft. was basically guaranteeing at least one person would get it and then everyone in the house would shortly thereafter.


----------



## TedEH

> How many cases of COVID-19 are prevented by these practices? “Zero,” Dr. Orient says. But the “ loss of patient morale, loss of oversight of care, especially at night are incalculable.”


I dunno how serious I can take the claims that millions are dying under the radar, when placed alongside claims like this one.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

lotta stuff to unpack in here. 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/im-looking-truth-states-face-100035918.html


----------



## AxRookie

Randy said:


> I *think* there was a version of this thread that existed that was either conspiracy ridden or racism ridden, I don't remember but I went into it once before it got totally nuked. Without knowing the context of that, I dunno what the shelf life of this one will be but we'll see.
> 
> Anyway, this seems to be how pandemics work. There's almost no scenario where this wasn't going to spread across the globe, and the case that appears to be community spread indicates we'll be dealing with it coast-to-coast shortly.
> 
> At this point, obviously you do containment as much as you can to slow the progression but considering the spread is now inevitable, I think the hope is some breakthroughs in treatment. Don't know what the numbers look like now but I was seeing a 2% mortality rate in the first few weeks of it vs. the usual, say, .05% from the flu.


The same thing is happing in almost ALL manner of forums from watch forums to R/C Car forums and everything in between... Pretty sad with all the conspiracy and racism coming from sooooo many people!

Ignorance runs amuck...


----------



## Randy

KnightBrolaire said:


> lotta stuff to unpack in here.
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/im-looking-truth-states-face-100035918.html



Living in the dumbest timeline. You can be pro-small government, low taxes, religious liberties, etc. That has zero to do with subverting science and endangering lives by gaslighting anti-mask or soft encouraging people to go to the beach, the movie theater, etc. where they can't or won't practice distancing.

By doctoring the data while people are being encouraged to or being rewarded for acting irresponsible, they take the virus even less serious and they act more brazen. I think 100% of businesses and public spaces could be open if people took the virus seriously and did basic things but because reopening is accompanied by treating the virus as a hoax to justify it, you allow people to go wherever, do whatever, and they wear no masks, they get in eachothers space, they go to packed public places even when they're exhibiting symptoms, etc.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

Randy said:


> Living in the dumbest timeline. You can be pro-small government, low taxes, religious liberties, etc. That has zero to do with subverting science and endangering lives by gaslighting anti-mask or soft encouraging people to go to the beach, the movie theater, etc. where they can't or won't practice distancing.
> 
> By doctoring the data while people are being encouraged to or being rewarded for acting irresponsible, they take the virus even less serious and they act more brazen. I think 100% of businesses and public spaces could be open if people took the virus seriously and did basic things but because reopening is accompanied by treating the virus as a hoax to justify it, you allow people to go wherever, do whatever, and they wear no masks, they get in eachothers space, they go to packed public places even when they're exhibiting symptoms, etc.


they'll only take it seriously when people they know start dying.


----------



## Alexa run my life

Went to Home Depot yesterday. Some of the employees were not even wearing masks. Granted it was in the Garden Center outdoors but still it was packed.


----------



## broj15

Had to make a trip to TWO different Wal Mart's the other day - which I avoid like the plague even before the pandemic (pun intended). The first one didn't have what I needed (needed new work shirts since I'm back at work now), but I noticed something wierd: the first Wal Mart I went to, which is in a lower income area was NOT requiring masks to enter the store, however the second one I went to, which is in a higher income neighborhood, was requiring masks for entry. Is there a correlation between the the one in a lower income area not requiring masks vs. The other requiring them for entry? Possibly.
But I was mainly thrown off because I thought a policy like that would be something overseen by corporate, as opposed to letting individual stores make that decision leaving room for inconsistency even between stores that are literally less than 10 miles apart. Has anyone else noticed anything like that recently?


Edit: also, been seeing alot of people wearing masks while driving... In thier cars... alone & with the windows rolled up. Don't get me wrong, I wear a mask anytime I'm in public, unless it's for that 3am trip to the gas station for a soda & candy bar where I know I probably won't be around many other people, but wearing a mask when you're alone in your own vehicle? I can't help but wonder if those people wear a condom while they jerk off too


----------



## spudmunkey

If I have multiple stops to make, I leave my mask on. I don't need to touch my mask or my face, then, which helps when there's nowhere to wash my hands.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

broj15 said:


> Had to make a trip to TWO different Wal Mart's the other day - which I avoid like the plague even before the pandemic (pun intended). The first one didn't have what I needed (needed new work shirts since I'm back at work now), but I noticed something wierd: the first Wal Mart I went to, which is in a lower income area was NOT requiring masks to enter the store, however the second one I went to, which is in a higher income neighborhood, was requiring masks for entry. Is there a correlation between the the one in a lower income area not requiring masks vs. The other requiring them for entry? Possibly.
> But I was mainly thrown off because I thought a policy like that would be something overseen by corporate, as opposed to letting individual stores make that decision leaving room for inconsistency even between stores that are literally less than 10 miles apart. Has anyone else noticed anything like that recently?
> 
> 
> Edit: also, been seeing alot of people wearing masks while driving... In thier cars... alone & with the windows rolled up. Don't get me wrong, I wear a mask anytime I'm in public, unless it's for that 3am trip to the gas station for a soda & candy bar where I know I probably won't be around many other people, but wearing a mask when you're alone in your own vehicle? I can't help but wonder if those people wear a condom while they jerk off too



Walmart is company that has many stringent guidelines and regulations. That said... they are also extremely inconsistent with their policies. The way that Walmart ( as a corporation) operates is that individual stores answer to their regional higher-ups in most contexts... not corporate. So what happens is that depending upon the store ( and that store's history with complaints, compliance, and productivity) some stores push the boundaries of ethics while others comply. If a store is operating with minimal complaints ( from customers, agencies, and regional representatives) then corporate does not generally get involved. Walmart is an absolutely horrid and negligent corporation overall. Consistency with civil rights, OSHA compliance, etc, etc... varies greatly from store to store unfortunately. Good vs bad neighborhood may play a part but typically there is more complexity than simply that in and of itself. 

Hardly anyone is being bothered with masks here where I live at this point. But I will say that when I had several errands to run the other day, I got tired of putting on/ removing repeatedly so I just stayed suited up ( actually 2 masks and safety glasses lol... I'm a dork). I dunno but maybe others are in that mindset too... just easier to leave it on when driving shorter distances/ making multiple stops.


----------



## TedEH

Putting on a mask before going to do groceries or something makes me feel like I'm preparing to rob the place.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

TedEH said:


> Putting on a mask before going to do groceries or something makes me feel like I'm preparing to rob the place.



That's probably my only hang up with wearing a mask. 

I'm a big dude with tattoos who works nights. So when I go into a gas station at 10 at night with my work clothes wearing a mask I'm sure the guy behind the counter is at least 60% sure I'm there to rob the place.


----------



## TedEH

I find it helpful to lean into the ridiculous feeling of it. Sort of "commit to the bit".


----------



## ThePIGI King

So we are at the end of May and I'm hopeful this ends soon. I know literally nobody with this. And I've been going around and talking to people.

So I never participated in socail distancing. I go to work, the grocery, gas station, gun stores, range, friends houses, bonfires, helped work the range for dozens of strangers including parties/bachelor parties, visited family, been to banks, etc. you name it. And I talk to everybody I come into contact with. Nobody knows anyone with it. Not a single soul I met even knows anyone with it. I dont wear a mask. Nobody I know wears a mask. I'm not debating that covid isn't real. Because it is real. I'm saying if it's a "pandemic" then where is it? Not in Ohio apparently. It's time to end the idiocy and resume life as normal.

This whole thing was blown out of proportion from the start.


----------



## JSanta

ThePIGI King said:


> So we are at the end of May and I'm hopeful this ends soon. I know literally nobody with this. And I've been going around and talking to people.
> 
> So I never participated in socail distancing. I go to work, the grocery, gas station, gun stores, range, friends houses, bonfires, helped work the range for dozens of strangers including parties/bachelor parties, visited family, been to banks, etc. you name it. And I talk to everybody I come into contact with. Nobody knows anyone with it. Not a single soul I met even knows anyone with it. I dont wear a mask. Nobody I know wears a mask. I'm not debating that covid isn't real. Because it is real. I'm saying if it's a "pandemic" then where is it? Not in Ohio apparently. It's time to end the idiocy and resume life as normal.
> 
> This whole thing was blown out of proportion from the start.



So 100k+ in this country dead already, and it's blown out of proportion? People going around acting normal and not taking precautions are a big part of the problem, and will continue to make things worse. Many of those infected are asymptomatic (https://med.stanford.edu/content/dam/sm/id/documents/COVID/AsymptCOVID_TransmissionShip.pdf). You're part of the problem.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> So we are at the end of May and I'm hopeful this ends soon. I know literally nobody with this. And I've been going around and talking to people.
> 
> So I never participated in socail distancing. I go to work, the grocery, gas station, gun stores, range, friends houses, bonfires, helped work the range for dozens of strangers including parties/bachelor parties, visited family, been to banks, etc. you name it. And I talk to everybody I come into contact with. Nobody knows anyone with it. Not a single soul I met even knows anyone with it. I dont wear a mask. Nobody I know wears a mask. I'm not debating that covid isn't real. Because it is real. I'm saying if it's a "pandemic" then where is it? Not in Ohio apparently. It's time to end the idiocy and resume life as normal.
> 
> This whole thing was blown out of proportion from the start.



Three folks at the plant I work at have it. Two more have recovered. I know three people who I work with every day who lost a loved one to it. 

What do our experiences have in common? They're anecdotes. Small samples of information that on their own are statistically insignificant within the pool of over 330 million people. 

Not everyone is symptomatic, and not all areas are equally affected. 

I don't at all doubt you don't know someone who is for sure infected. 

The thing is, acting like it's not a problem is why it's such a problem. If everyone followed the most basic guidelines (6ft, masks, self isolation when exposed, hand washing, etc.) we'd be able to just resume everything and move on, but folks have turned this into part of the culture war. Rugged individualism strikes again. 

So, again, if you want thinks to "get back to normal" faster, just wear a mask and wash your hands. It's cheap, easy, and half a it you should have already been doing. What's the worst that could happen?


----------



## Ralyks

ThePIGI King said:


> This whole thing was blown out of proportion from the start.



I live about an hour and a half north of NYC. I know people there, I know people who work there, and I know a few people that work for MTA. Also, all of my immediate family besides myself is in the healthcare system. To say this this was blown out of proportion after what some of them have seen or experienced is an insult to them.


----------



## vilk

ThePIGI King said:


> So we are at the end of May and I'm hopeful this ends soon. I know literally nobody with this. And I've been going around and talking to people.
> 
> So I never participated in socail distancing. I go to work, the grocery, gas station, gun stores, range, friends houses, bonfires, helped work the range for dozens of strangers including parties/bachelor parties, visited family, been to banks, etc. you name it. And I talk to everybody I come into contact with. Nobody knows anyone with it. Not a single soul I met even knows anyone with it. I dont wear a mask. Nobody I know wears a mask. I'm not debating that covid isn't real. Because it is real. I'm saying if it's a "pandemic" then where is it? Not in Ohio apparently. It's time to end the idiocy and resume life as normal.
> 
> This whole thing was blown out of proportion from the start.



1 in 5 are asymptomatic. 

For all you know, you spread it to someone who spread it to someone who spread it to their grandpa who died of it. Did you directly murder his grandpa through your brazen recklessness? Not 100%, but not 0% either.


----------



## thraxil

I have two friends who lost their parents to it. Both were unable to visit them in the hospital (like everyone else) and they died alone. Both were unable to travel to attend a funeral or even visit their families or friends for comfort.

I know about half a dozen now here in London that definitely had it (and a strong suspicion that it went around my partner's department and we both had mild cases). All recovered (mostly). One spent some time in the ICU (but never had to go on a ventilator). Several have ongoing issues even though they are testing negative now.

Plus Juan Giménez, one of my favorite artists of all time died from Covid, so fuck that disease.


----------



## Randy

Would like to point out that it's apex Republican to not believe the world exists past their own nose.


----------



## budda

TPK probably doesnt know anyone that works in a hospital. Nor would he say that to their face.


----------



## USMarine75

ThePIGI King said:


> So we are at the end of May and I'm hopeful this ends soon. I know literally nobody with this. And I've been going around and talking to people.
> 
> So I never participated in socail distancing. I go to work, the grocery, gas station, gun stores, range, friends houses, bonfires, helped work the range for dozens of strangers including parties/bachelor parties, visited family, been to banks, etc. you name it. And I talk to everybody I come into contact with. Nobody knows anyone with it. Not a single soul I met even knows anyone with it. I dont wear a mask. Nobody I know wears a mask. I'm not debating that covid isn't real. Because it is real. I'm saying if it's a "pandemic" then where is it? Not in Ohio apparently. It's time to end the idiocy and resume life as normal.
> 
> This whole thing was blown out of proportion from the start.



I'm not saying you _are_ an asshole... I'm just saying you're _acting_ like one when you say 100,000+ US deaths in 3.5 months are "blown out of proportion from the start". There's also the warning that there may be another peak coming.

4 of the 7 known coronaviruses are seasonal. There's also the expectation of flu season. Combine those and we may see a resurgence in Fall that dwarfs what we've seen so far.



budda said:


> TPK probably doesnt know anyone that works in a hospital. Nor would he say that to their face.


----------



## StevenC

I know I live in a different country and this is an America only problem, but two of my next door neighbours have it.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Regardless of intelligence, it's absolutely irresponsible to outright continue spreading your germs at this point in time. That makes me inclined to believe that a good deal of people who refuse to take any measures to protect themselves or others, actually ARE assholes to some degree. It's that defiant attitude that for some bizarre reason, is more important than taking the most reasonable and simplistic measures in order to slow down the spread of a very real virus. Using the "logic" that "I don't know of anyone who's gotten it" is where I begin to question someone's intelligence because honestly... the percentage of the entire US population that most everyone interacts with is an absolutely minuscule number. Not like someone would typically keep tabs on the majority of those people either. At best, a few close friends, several coworkers, and your immediate family members... That's it. To not believe factual data or real-world statistics and chalk this all up to hype or a hoax or whatever creative spin you want to apply... naw... You're just about as inhumane and arrogant as they come. Sorry but it's true... whether you care to admit it or not.


----------



## ThePIGI King

@ most of you - yea I'm a dick. However, many people who died with COVID but not due to it are tallied as COVID deaths. So that skews our numbers.

@budda If someone from a hospital asked my opinion I'd tell them directly to their face. I'm not afraid to speak my mind to anyone.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

ThePIGI King said:


> yea I'm a dick.



Why is that something to be proud of?

Even if the numbers skewed high (which by all relevant expert accounts, they don't) if wearing a mask could potentially safe someone's life, why wouldn't you? 

I just don't get it. What's the appeal?


----------



## tedtan

This NYT article is an interesting take on the divide in how republicans and democrats view the pandemic.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/us/politics/coronavirus-red-blue-states.html


----------



## JSanta

ThePIGI King said:


> @ most of you - yea I'm a dick. However, many people who died with COVID but not due to it are tallied as COVID deaths. So that skews our numbers.
> 
> @budda If someone from a hospital asked my opinion I'd tell them directly to their face. I'm not afraid to speak my mind to anyone.



It's more than that. You have have painted yourself has someone that has little to no regard for the people around you, and not willing to do a few minor things to keep other people safe. I don't get how people can live their lives with such disregard for the people around them.


----------



## budda

ThePIGI King said:


> @ most of you - yea I'm a dick. However, many people who died with COVID but not due to it are tallied as COVID deaths. So that skews our numbers.
> 
> @budda If someone from a hospital asked my opinion I'd tell them directly to their face. I'm not afraid to speak my mind to anyone.



Not sure if psychopath.


----------



## StevenC

ThePIGI King said:


> @ most of you - yea I'm a dick. However, many people who died with COVID but not due to it are tallied as COVID deaths. So that skews our numbers.


Going to need a citation and qualification for that "many".


----------



## AxRookie

The Internet Is Making People Dumber!


----------



## wankerness

StevenC said:


> Going to need a citation and qualification for that "many".


Every actual expert says the reverse, with anyone who died in many states (different states count differently) but didn't get tested NOT being counted as a COVID death. So yes, they're overcounted some places, massively undercounted others. The actual number is higher.

Basically this is another Republican rejection of facts, like how they say mail-in voting is rampant with fraud while in-person elections are fair (though then the same mouthbreathers say things like even with those millions of illegals/dead people voted for Hillary Clinton).


----------



## sleewell

^ by the same logic if you haven't personally witnessed voter fraud or really anything for that matter then you should not take it seriously and should just move on with your life. it's probably not affecting others if someone you know in your small town doesn't have it yet.


----------



## SpaceDock

Here is Colorado, our governor has been very aggressive with reopening and reclassifying deaths has been one of his tactics. We all know that comordidity is one of the biggest death factors for Covid. Like you have COPD or diabetes that is managed, then you get Covid and die. We are no longer calling this a Covid death because they did not die directly from Covid. I think it is disgusting and Pig King is falling into this new Republican tactic to downplay the disease.


----------



## ThePIGI King

MaxOfMetal said:


> Why is that something to be proud of?
> 
> Even if the numbers skewed high (which by all relevant expert accounts, they don't) if wearing a mask could potentially safe someone's life, why wouldn't you?
> 
> I just don't get it. What's the appeal?


https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/ar...-sars-cov-2#More-virus-on-outer-mask-surfaces

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-per...ntary-masks-all-covid-19-not-based-sound-data

Most articles say scientists are divided and it's sort of opinionated.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

I think what gets to me the most is simply the lack of compassion and discretion. To take such a bold stance just because you simply can't be bothered by something that has quite obviously caused so much death and suffering... to just be "over it" because it hasn't yet directly affected you? At the very least, that's quite selfish. The United States had an opportunity to unite and do something positive... something that could've shown that health and hygiene were important. But as with just about everything else, this pandemic has divided us even further as a country. I'm ashamed at the willful indiscretion of the citizens and leaders of this country. Had we simply been able to act together and tolerate a very slight inconvenience, many businesses would still exist right now, fewer people would be seeking unemployment, and many families wouldn't be grieving the loss of a loved one. Anything else... "Freedom/ Murica/ Hype/ Conspiricy" is simply an excuse. At least go ahead and admit that you don't give a damn about anything but yourself.


----------



## Choop

It's so disappointing not only to see people actively protest safety measures, but the USA just slowly kind of giving up in the midst of everything--what a depressing display of weakness.


----------



## Alexa run my life

I bet a shit ton of people are suffering and dying because they cant get the treatment they need because they are not deemed essential because they dont have the covids.

That's borderline a covid related death even though you never had it, you died because of the covid policies


----------



## spudmunkey

ThePIGI King said:


> https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/ar...-sars-cov-2#More-virus-on-outer-mask-surfaces
> 
> https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-per...ntary-masks-all-covid-19-not-based-sound-data
> 
> Most articles say scientists are divided and it's sort of opinionated.



What strikes me about the first article is that it doesn't mentioned the actual results of the petri dishes...only that particles were found on the outside of the masks. My first thought is: if it's on the mask, it's not in the air. At least not those specific particles, so there's some sort of reduction there. Like...when I replace my furnace filter, there's particulate on it...but there's also still a litle dust that gets through. The filter reduces it.

The 2nd article says:


> *Data lacking to recommend broad mask use*
> We do not recommend requiring the general public who do not have symptoms of COVID-19-like illness to routinely wear cloth or surgical masks because:
> 
> There is no scientific evidence they are effective in reducing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission
> Their use may result in those wearing the masks to relax other distancing efforts because they have a sense of protection
> We need to preserve the supply of surgical masks for at-risk healthcare workers.



That brings up a few thoughts:
Testing, while improved, is still not universally available on-demand. You may have it, and not know it. That's been one of the primary challenges of this virus: that you may carry it for as many as 2 weeks without displaying symptoms.

In regards to their point that it can cause people to relax their distancing...that's just human nature. In my own anecdotal experience, people with 4-wheel-drive are more likely to take risks in the snow and ice because they believe they are safer, even though 4WD doesn't improve steering or braking: just acceleration. And just because it's not a silver bullet for everyone, does that mean that most shouldn't try? Many people aren't distancing *already*...now tell them that masks are unessessary, and that just makes people feel even more comfortable with avoiding any precautions.

As far as supply of surgical masks: that article is from almost 2 months ago, and the issue seems to have calmed, at least some, and supplies are being re-replenished. More and more companies are coming online selling reuseable and fashionable masks, easing demand on the disposable surgical masks. Surgical masks aren't for the wearer's protection anyway, so preserving them for at-risk heathcare workers, as the article suggests, seems to not make total sense there, or perhaps I'm missing an obvious piece of the puzzle. I ordered 10 disposible masks from Amazon back in February, and they finally shipped in early May, because their entire supply was being re-directed to the health care industry, and are now finally able to ship to private consumers as their demand tapered.


----------



## TedEH

Alexa run my life said:


> I bet a shit ton of people are suffering and dying because they cant get the treatment they need because they are not deemed essential because they dont have the covids.


I've heard that claim a lot, but I've not come across anything that backed it up yet. You would think that if so many people were dying because hospitals were refusing to treat people who needed it, then we'd be hearing about it a lot more. What we _do_ hear is that it's _assumed_ that _probably_ people are skipping needed medical attention. But I've not heard any actual story of a hospital refusing someone who needed it, and I've not heard any first-hand stories of "I (or someone I know) needed care, and was refused". I don't doubt it's happened at all, but I _am_ very skeptical that it's happening "a shit ton". If I'm wrong, feel free to point out the examples.


----------



## jaxadam

ThePIGI King said:


> So we are at the end of May and I'm hopeful this ends soon. I know literally nobody with this. And I've been going around and talking to people.
> 
> So I never participated in socail distancing. I go to work, the grocery, gas station, gun stores, range, friends houses, bonfires, helped work the range for dozens of strangers including parties/bachelor parties, visited family, been to banks, etc. you name it. And I talk to everybody I come into contact with. Nobody knows anyone with it. Not a single soul I met even knows anyone with it. I dont wear a mask. Nobody I know wears a mask. I'm not debating that covid isn't real. Because it is real. I'm saying if it's a "pandemic" then where is it? Not in Ohio apparently. It's time to end the idiocy and resume life as normal.
> 
> This whole thing was blown out of proportion from the start.



Man, it's too bad your real life experiences don't line up with the internet!


----------



## Alexa run my life

TedEH said:


> I've heard that claim a lot, but I've not come across anything that backed it up yet. You would think that if so many people were dying because hospitals were refusing to treat people who needed it, then we'd be hearing about it a lot more. What we _do_ hear is that it's _assumed_ that _probably_ people are skipping needed medical attention. But I've not heard any actual story of a hospital refusing someone who needed it, and I've not heard any first-hand stories of "I (or someone I know) needed care, and was refused". I don't doubt it's happened at all, but I _am_ very skeptical that it's happening "a shit ton". If I'm wrong, feel free to point out the examples.


I've seen videos of doctors saying it's happening but I cannot produce any matter for you so that's why I said "I bet" because I wouldn't doubt if it was happening.


----------



## jaxadam

Alexa run my life said:


> I've seen videos of doctors saying it's happening but I cannot produce any matter for you so that's why I said "I bet" because I wouldn't doubt if it was happening.



You can't listen to doctors man, you have to listen to the internet.


----------



## TedEH

I just mean we haven't come across a good reason to believe that's happening, but but I've come across reasons (albeit anecdotal) to believe it's not. I have family members even who have been treated for non-covid related illnesses within the last few weeks, so I can at least say that in this area they aren't refusing non-covid care. And that's coming from an area where the hospitals around here are known for being pretty terrible.


----------



## Randy

jaxadam said:


> Man, it's too bad your real life experiences don't line up with the internet!



Its too bad the US is 3.5 million square miles and everything doesn't happen from coast to coast at the exact same time.


----------



## jaxadam

Randy said:


> Its too bad the US is 3.5 million square miles and everything doesn't happen from coast to coast at the exact same time.



You're WRONG! It's 3.797 million mi^2.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

ThePIGI King said:


> https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/ar...-sars-cov-2#More-virus-on-outer-mask-surfaces
> 
> https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-per...ntary-masks-all-covid-19-not-based-sound-data
> 
> Most articles say scientists are divided and it's sort of opinionated.



This type of precipitous argument is also nothing more than an excuse. I have very little notion to believe ( regardless of any statistical or speculative discrepancy) that someone citing such reasoning, would behave any more/ less responsibly than they already are. You err on the side of caution or you don't.


----------



## ThePIGI King

High Plains Drifter said:


> This type of precipitous argument is also nothing more than an excuse. I have very little notion to believe ( regardless of any statistical or speculative discrepancy) that someone citing such reasoning, would behave any more/ less responsibly than they already are. You err on the side of caution or you don't.


I don't err on the side of caution simply because I'm not going to blindly follow the recommendation to wear a mask that isn't proven to do anything beneficial.

If you want to believe that a mask will save the world I'm happy it helps your piece of mind. But I'm not going to wear them.

@Randy no not at the same time. Months later with confirmed cases nation wide.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

ThePIGI King said:


> I don't err on the side of caution simply because I'm not going to blindly follow the recommendation to wear a mask that isn't proven to do anything beneficial.
> 
> If you want to believe that a mask will save the world I'm happy it helps your piece of mind. But I'm not going to wear them.
> 
> 
> 
> @Randy no not at the same time. Months later with confirmed cases nation wide.



I get it and no, I don't think anyone believes that any single thing is going to "save the world" whatever that really means. It's simply a willingness or not, to act with some degree of tact or caution in order to minimize the spread of a very legitimately dangerous virus. It's all good... no one is likely going to change their opinions about this situation... at least not without a huge swing of the pendulum either way. We'll all just have to see where we are with this thing in the coming weeks and months. Stay well.


----------



## Randy

ThePIGI King said:


> @Randy no not at the same time. Months later with confirmed cases nation wide.



Correct and the points of entry were San Francisco and New York City. Texas have an especially big Chinatown I don't know about? No, so the virus spreading to ancillary and rural locations were slower. I live 500 miles from NYC and we've had one death in my county from community spread. Because demographically, we're not a group that travels to and from hot spots. But that doesn't meant it never gets here or where you are and never peaks. That's just silly.


----------



## jaxadam

High Plains Drifter said:


> You err on the side of caution or you don't.



That’s right. Safety is paramount. I go to a lot of upside down pineapple parties, and even though no one wears condoms, we are adamant about the masks.


----------



## Ralyks

High Plains Drifter said:


> I think what gets to me the most is simply the lack of compassion and discretion. To take such a bold stance just because you simply can't be bothered by something that has quite obviously caused so much death and suffering... to just be "over it" because it hasn't yet directly affected you? At the very least, that's quite selfish. The United States had an opportunity to unite and do something positive... something that could've shown that health and hygiene were important. But as with just about everything else, this pandemic has divided us even further as a country. I'm ashamed at the willful indiscretion of the citizens and leaders of this country. Had we simply been able to act together and tolerate a very slight inconvenience, many businesses would still exist right now, fewer people would be seeking unemployment, and many families wouldn't be grieving the loss of a loved one. Anything else... "Freedom/ Murica/ Hype/ Conspiricy" is simply an excuse. At least go ahead and admit that you don't give a damn about anything but yourself.



You pretty much summed up why I eventually want to leave the country. We’re never going to be united. Other countries might not be united, but at least it’s different, and most countries don’t have a stereotype like the whole “‘Murcia!” Ideology. What the fuck happened to humans being humans and being keepers of your fellow man, no matter race, ethnicity, background, etc?


----------



## jaxadam

Ralyks said:


> You pretty much summed up why I eventually want to leave the country. We’re never going to be united. Other countries might not be united, but at least it’s different, and most countries don’t have a stereotype like the whole “‘Murcia!” Ideology. What the fuck happened to humans being humans and being keepers of your fellow man, no matter race, ethnicity, background, etc?



Maybe it’s where you live. You should try to get around the country and see other places before leaving. I must live in a bubble, but people of all ages shapes and sizes are overwhelmingly happy, courteous, and seemingly doing just fine in my neck of the woods. Sounds like you should try to go to a few upside down pineapple parties.


----------



## Ralyks

jaxadam said:


> Maybe it’s where you live. You should try to get around the country and see other places before leaving. I must live in a bubble, but people of all ages shapes and sizes are overwhelmingly happy, courteous, and seemingly doing just fine in my neck of the woods. Sounds like you should try to go to a few upside down pineapple parties.



I’ve done my fair share of traveling. I don’t get to travel as much now because I raise a almost-5 year old by myself with complete custody because his mother is a useless manipulative addict that lives 6 hours away and decided to have another kid with one of her parents friends, I work 2 jobs, and I’m trying to finish my accounting degree. Add in a pandemic, and all of this is why I’m not in Portland, Maine or something.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Ralyks said:


> You pretty much summed up why I eventually want to leave the country. We’re never going to be united. Other countries might not be united, but at least it’s different, and most countries don’t have a stereotype like the whole “‘Murcia!” Ideology. What the fuck happened to humans being humans and being keepers of your fellow man, no matter race, ethnicity, background, etc?



100%. My heart truly breaks for this country. Every major event just brings further division. It's an absolute shame that so many people have become so self-centered and close-minded. I sincerely could've never imagined that one day I'd be living in a country with such complete abandon of conscience, humility, humanity, and common sense. It's as if we are hell-bent on destroying every last bit of good that we as human beings might've otherwise been able to create or preserve.


----------



## Ralyks

High Plains Drifter said:


> 100%. My heart truly breaks for this country. Every major event just brings further division. It's an absolute shame that so many people have become so self-centered and close-minded. I sincerely could've never imagined that one day I'd be living in a country with such complete abandon of conscience, humility, humanity, and common sense. It's as if we are hell-bent on destroying every last bit of good that we as human beings might've otherwise been able to create or preserve.



Honestly at times it feels like the Robin Williams bit “The Statue of Liberty, it says ‘give me your tired, your poor’, soon it’s going to have a baseball bat and it’s going to say ‘YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME?!’”


----------



## High Plains Drifter

jaxadam said:


> Maybe it’s where you live. You should try to get around the country and see other places before leaving. I must live in a bubble, but people of all ages shapes and sizes are overwhelmingly happy, courteous, and seemingly doing just fine in my neck of the woods. Sounds like you should try to go to a few upside down pineapple parties.



And I see that same behavior where I live too. Being seemingly happy and appearing just fine on the surface really means very little in the larger scope of things. Just like how people are often times only temporarily or artificially courteous. I see it all the time. I have a buddy of mine who by all accounts is a great guy in many ways... but he doesn't contribute anything to society, doesn't care for anyone outside of his immediate family, and remains very uneducated about the world outside of his own little bubble. I dunno... just another perspective I guess.


----------



## LordCashew

Jeez I’ve been storing pineapples upside down for years because it supposedly makes them ripen more evenly. After some Googling inspired by this thread, I’m hopeful no one got the wrong idea...


----------



## jaxadam

High Plains Drifter said:


> And I see that same behavior where I live too. Being seemingly happy and appearing just fine on the surface really means very little in the larger scope of things. Just like how people are often times only temporarily or artificially courteous. I see it all the time. I have a buddy of mine who by all accounts is a great guy in many ways... but he doesn't contribute anything to society, doesn't care for anyone outside of his immediate family, and remains very uneducated about the world outside of his own little bubble. I dunno... just another perspective I guess.



I guess it all depends on how you engage your community. For some reason, where I am it is very easy to get involved. Although @SpaceDock thinks I'm an unfunny troll, I try to do my part in my community with cancer charity events, etc., and it doesn't leave me with a feeling of two-faced interactions. My wife does something called Rethreaded with some of the other neighbor women where they make purses and shit which helps out women from sex trafficking. One of the airlines recently donated a bunch of old seat leather to them, and they made keychains, leather-bound diaries, etc. So I don't know, I see a lot of positive opportunity taking place, and I guess I am like you, I'd like to see more of it, but again I guess I'm just lucky in that it seems to be very prevalent here.


----------



## Alexa run my life

Ralyks said:


> What the fuck happened to humans being humans and being keepers of your fellow man, no matter race, ethnicity, background, etc?


One could argue that strangers are not always exactly your fellow man. If someone standing in line next to you in a store and is sneezing and coughing right next to you without covering his mouth, do you want to take the time to get to know that fellow man or do you want to get the fuck away from him?

On the other hand, you are more than welcome to help your fellow man as much as you want with no one to stop you.


----------



## narad

I would rather someone just follow the guidelines than circumvent them in order to do charitable works. If through your own stubbornness you're part of the spread, and in any way facilitate the disease reaching someone and killing them, there isn't all the leather purses in the world that could have you break even on that karma.



Alexa run my life said:


> One could argue that strangers are not always exactly your fellow man. If someone standing in line next to you in a store and is sneezing and coughing right next to you without covering his mouth, do you want to take the time to get to know that fellow man or do you want to get the fuck away from him?



Hey, if you want to dehumanize @ThePIGI King , you should at least tag him in the post.


----------



## jaxadam

narad said:


> I would rather someone just follow the guidelines than circumvent them in order to do charitable works. If through your own stubbornness you're part of the spread, and in any way facilitate the disease reaching someone and killing them, there isn't all the leather purses in the world that could have you break even on that karma.



All of these things have been put on hold due to the Covid-19 restrictions in place. Still, many things can be done from home. My wife hasn’t been at Rethreaded in months, but I did mention way way back in this thread that, since she has a sewing machine, she went to town for about five days on masks for friends, family, and co-workers. As well, a lot of friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers are doing similar things (i.e. buying and delivering food, drive-by birthday and graduation parties, etc.) that fall well within the current guidelines. I see all of this as a positive, and I don’t think they’re going home afterward and telling everyone on Facebook how fucked up everything is.

I guess my main point is that everything is not doom and gloom, and I see a lot of good will pouring out, all of this well within the respectable limits currently in place. It just must not jive with the atmosphere of this thread.


----------



## Randy

Ralyks said:


> You pretty much summed up why I eventually want to leave the country. We’re never going to be united. Other countries might not be united, but at least it’s different, and most countries don’t have a stereotype like the whole “‘Murcia!” Ideology. What the fuck happened to humans being humans and being keepers of your fellow man, no matter race, ethnicity, background, etc?



I think human beings and life in the US is more good than bad. I think where I disconnect from a lot of people is the notion that nothing can or deserves to be any better, or that you need to trash everything and start over again. I say it in the political threads at least every couple months; I'm strongly in the "we pay enough taxes, we deserve better quality of services and treatment for what we pay". Multinational corporations and illegal immigrants have advocates; middle class people that make up the majority of people in this country are assumed to have the most representation and they have the least. A lot of the Trump-centric populism is misplaced frustration over exactly that same point, but ending with the wrong conclusions.

That's what's driving me nuts over this COVID business. Masks and social distancing is supposed to be the compromise between hysteria and hoax, and even that is too much to ask! Your representatives are selling you out and endangering lives to push an agenda, you deserve better than that.


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> It just must not jive with the atmosphere of this thread.


If you haven't insulted someone for their political views or made a ridiculous unsubstantiated claim, you're internetting wrong.


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> If you haven't insulted someone for their political views or made a ridiculous unsubstantiated claim, you're internetting wrong.



I have a very subtle and nuanced approach; I like for it not to hit them until they’re driving home from work.


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> All of these things have been put on hold due to the Covid-19 restrictions in place. Still, many things can be done from home. My wife hasn’t been at Rethreaded in months, but I did mention way way back in this thread that, since she has a sewing machine, she went to town for about five days on masks for friends, family, and co-workers. As well, a lot of friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers are doing similar things (i.e. buying and delivering food, drive-by birthday and graduation parties, etc.) that fall well within the current guidelines. I see all of this as a positive, and I don’t think they’re going home afterward and telling everyone on Facebook how fucked up everything is.
> 
> I guess my main point is that everything is not doom and gloom, and I see a lot of good will pouring out, all of this well within the respectable limits currently in place. It just must not jive with the atmosphere of this thread.



I may have misinterpreted your point with the way it was interjected in the middle of discourse about wearing masks (and largely involving pineapple orientation). It's pretty simple from my pov: if you're intentionally putting yourself in situations with lots of interaction, bad. If you're boasting about it, you're an idiot. You're the guy running around after the party, "LOL, I double dipped all my chips in the salsa!", except the lax hygiene is putting others at risk of hospitalization or death.

Of course it's great if your area doesn't have it bad. As a matter of consequence, that's good to hear. As a matter of justification, it's terrible to use an anecdotal example to say anything about the bigger picture. In my area, the earth looks flat. For the record, the earth is not flat. 

In Tokyo we just lifted the state of emergency after sustained lows in new positives. There's a lot of reasons why this is, and I think a lot of them are lucky genetic and geographic things. But, we also have about 0% of people running around *boasting* about not wearing masks, and I'm sure that helps.


----------



## Randy

My current COVID story is that my girlfriend's boss is an evangelical extreme right Trump supporter who doesn't believe in COVID or even germs in general. He swears by the fact he doesn't even wash his hands because "bacteria is good for you".

She's been furloughed because of shutdowns that effected the line of work they do there, and hasn't been in contact with them since. One of the other employees agreed to go in and work under the table, and she communicated to my girlfriend that none of them wear masks in the office but she is concerned and vulnerable, so she does. Half the safety that comes from the mask is both parties wearing them, but I guess she kinda accepted the risk since she knew she was working there despite the restrictions and at least she was wearing her mask. Then two weeks ago her boss came over to her and told her she didn't need to wear her mask and basically shamed her into taking it off and not wear it if/when she came in anymore.

This concerned my girlfriend on a number of levels but she was still LOA anyway and her bosses are otherwise decent people, so she was concerned about going back but otherwise had no plans of making trouble for them. I don't like a lot of what they do, nor do I want my girlfriend being subjected to that but she's an adult and I leave her to handle things the way she wants.

So, yesterday, we see my nieces and nephews, second time since the end of February despite living 10-minute away because of COVID concerns, especially because we live up above my parents and my mother is an ER nurse that treats COVID patients. We are cautious around her but we're otherwise healthy, my main concern is less about getting it from her and more about getting it in the community and SPREADING it to her when she's working with vulnerable people. Hence why literally my mom and dad, and my girlfriend are the only people I've been within 6ft and not wearing a mask since March.

Anyway, we compromised on having a family Memorial Day party outside, social distanced, everyone masked. My parents, me, my girlfriend, the sister and the kids. We had separate tables, she brought separate food for her and the kids, we didn't hug or touch or share utensils. Despite the extra work, it was still nice.

Today the girlfriend's boss calls to tell her the office is reopening on Friday because of NY's phase 2. He asked if she was coming back, she asked about what they were doing about mitigating virus spread and he said nothing, nobody in the office wears masks, no sneeze guards, etc. because he doesn't believe in it. He said customers may wear them when they come in but that's it. She told him she's not comfortable with that situation (and it's a DOL violation, but she's too nice to snitch on the guy). One of his parting shots was that he drove by our house and saw my niece and nephew outside playing on the lawn without masks, and basically accused her of being a hypocrite.

Considering the lengths we've gone through to protect people and the pains my family have gone through for health and safety, along with he put my girlfriend through with the stress and the violation of privacy, I hit the fucking ROOF. Called him up 2 minutes later and chewed his ass OUT. I stand by what I said, he can do what he wants in his own life, and I'm whatever he does with his business (even if it's negligent) and also my girlfriend's choice if she chooses to continue there or whatever, but staking out my house and leveraging what my family does there is totally uncalled for. He's lucky he picked up the phone and it was out of my system by the time I got done because I was otherwise going to drive to his office and use his fucking skull as a cereal bowl.


----------



## AxRookie

Wow! this thread is like a runaway freight train!

All I can say is most people are dumb as shit...


----------



## Vyn

Randy said:


> My current COVID story is that my girlfriend's boss is an evangelical extreme right Trump supporter who doesn't believe in COVID or even germs in general. He swears by the fact he doesn't even wash his hands because "bacteria is good for you".
> 
> She's been furloughed because of shutdowns that effected the line of work they do there, and hasn't been in contact with them since. One of the other employees agreed to go in and work under the table, and she communicated to my girlfriend that none of them wear masks in the office but she is concerned and vulnerable, so she does. Half the safety that comes from the mask is both parties wearing them, but I guess she kinda accepted the risk since she knew she was working there despite the restrictions and at least she was wearing her mask. Then two weeks ago her boss came over to her and told her she didn't need to wear her mask and basically shamed her into taking it off and not wear it if/when she came in anymore.
> 
> This concerned my girlfriend on a number of levels but she was still LOA anyway and her bosses are otherwise decent people, so she was concerned about going back but otherwise had no plans of making trouble for them. I don't like a lot of what they do, nor do I want my girlfriend being subjected to that but she's an adult and I leave her to handle things the way she wants.
> 
> So, yesterday, we see my nieces and nephews, second time since the end of February despite living 10-minute away because of COVID concerns, especially because we live up above my parents and my mother is an ER nurse that treats COVID patients. We are cautious around her but we're otherwise healthy, my main concern is less about getting it from her and more about getting it in the community and SPREADING it to her when she's working with vulnerable people. Hence why literally my mom and dad, and my girlfriend are the only people I've been within 6ft and not wearing a mask since March.
> 
> Anyway, we compromised on having a family Memorial Day party outside, social distanced, everyone masked. My parents, me, my girlfriend, the sister and the kids. We had separate tables, she brought separate food for her and the kids, we didn't hug or touch or share utensils. Despite the extra work, it was still nice.
> 
> Today the girlfriend's boss calls to tell her the office is reopening on Friday because of NY's phase 2. He asked if she was coming back, she asked about what they were doing about mitigating virus spread and he said nothing, nobody in the office wears masks, no sneeze guards, etc. because he doesn't believe in it. He said customers may wear them when they come in but that's it. She told him she's not comfortable with that situation (and it's a DOL violation, but she's too nice to snitch on the guy). One of his parting shots was that he drove by our house and saw my niece and nephew outside playing on the lawn without masks, and basically accused her of being a hypocrite.
> 
> Considering the lengths we've gone through to protect people and the pains my family have gone through for health and safety, along with he put my girlfriend through with the stress and the violation of privacy, I hit the fucking ROOF. Called him up 2 minutes later and chewed his ass OUT. I stand by what I said, he can do what he wants in his own life, and I'm whatever he does with his business (even if it's negligent) and also my girlfriend's choice if she chooses to continue there or whatever, but staking out my house and leveraging what my family does there is totally uncalled for. He's lucky he picked up the phone and it was out of my system by the time I got done because I was otherwise going to drive to his office and use his fucking skull as a cereal bowl.



Fuck man, that's awful. How... Just how. I don't understand anymore. I get that in the States is a different culture to here, however how the hell did it get so tribal and so selfish?


----------



## Science_Penguin

TedEH said:


> I've heard that claim a lot, but I've not come across anything that backed it up yet. You would think that if so many people were dying because hospitals were refusing to treat people who needed it, then we'd be hearing about it a lot more. What we _do_ hear is that it's _assumed_ that _probably_ people are skipping needed medical attention. But I've not heard any actual story of a hospital refusing someone who needed it, and I've not heard any first-hand stories of "I (or someone I know) needed care, and was refused". I don't doubt it's happened at all, but I _am_ very skeptical that it's happening "a shit ton". If I'm wrong, feel free to point out the examples.



I for one have seen the opposite happen near me.

A relative of mine was in need of emergency dental surgery - bad infection due to shoddy previous dental work, I believe - and was checked in at a hospital downtown. No mention of how they "just barely managed to squeeze her in as one room just happened to open up at the right time" either.


----------



## TedEH

There's a chart I keep seeing (I'm too lazy to look it up right now) that shows supposed hospital resources available vs. the current load on those systems, and they've consistently had "general beds available" stats that looks fine. Hospitals (at least here) are not booked up full - but they _are_ extra stressed and exhausted of particular resources. Generally full? No. ICU full though? Yes. There were stats about ventilator use, but it didn't include availability.

Not surprisingly, the talk about things like hospitals tends to lack any nuance, so I can understand how one might think that hospitals are just full-up with people and refusing any non-covid care, but it's just not true. Not here, anyway.


----------



## zappatton2

For those who regard statistics as too abstract to get behind, sometimes animation makes all the difference;
https://public.flourish.studio/visu...x3XkJabzIFQWg2y2K6Xajunrvak-I16RaR2BoT_nJRTRA


----------



## vilk

Right now at my company we've got the warehouse staff coming in, and the office staff is supposed to stay home except for 2 people that handle phone calls or run into the warehouse to stop a shipment etc.

Unfortunately both the managers (but luckily not the president) are like Randy's GF's boss. The other day one of them sends a photo to the customer service teams chat telling the girl who runs our insta to post it. It's a picture of everyone who's not working from home, including the president and an accountant (who is supposed to be at home) having a BBQ, posing squeezed together as a group, no masks, no gloves... Like, how stupid can you be? And be so proud of your stupidity that you'd want to post it on social media? Apparently none of them wear any kind of masks or gloves. Manager says "We can't play God". "Customers don't come in here so we don't need to wear masks".

President wants to open back up in full on June 1st. If any motherfucker comes up to me without a mask I am B-lining in the opposite direction. Fucking idiots the lot of them.


----------



## ThePIGI King

TedEH said:


> If you haven't insulted someone for their political views or made a ridiculous unsubstantiated claim, you're internetting wrong.


More like if you found yourself feeling insulted by someone on the internet you're being an adult wrong.

@narad I do cover my coughs and sneezes. That makes sense to me, I've seen studies on the spread of particles with different methods of covering ones mouth/nose. I simply disagree with wearing a mask all the time. And I still don't feel dehumanized 

I will say that the boss Randy spoke about is wrong though. Not believing in something being necessary (masks) doesn't mean he should restrict others who believe they help from wearing them. Everybody should be able to take the precautions they see fit.


----------



## vilk

nvm


----------



## sleewell

i'd be interested to know if the people who are spreading this who never experience symptoms what % of the people they spread it to also do not get sick. is it the same as if you got it from someone who was sick?

how are some people getting sick and others aren't - different strains or that's just how the virus works? 

if you get it and don't have symptoms can you then a few months later get a different strain where you would then get sick?


----------



## wankerness

TedEH said:


> I've heard that claim a lot, but I've not come across anything that backed it up yet. You would think that if so many people were dying because hospitals were refusing to treat people who needed it, then we'd be hearing about it a lot more. What we _do_ hear is that it's _assumed_ that _probably_ people are skipping needed medical attention. But I've not heard any actual story of a hospital refusing someone who needed it, and I've not heard any first-hand stories of "I (or someone I know) needed care, and was refused". I don't doubt it's happened at all, but I _am_ very skeptical that it's happening "a shit ton". If I'm wrong, feel free to point out the examples.



I haven't looked into this a lot, but I heard it a bunch in NYC, and I would assume it's happened to a more limited extent other places. The actual statistics that suggested it were the amount of deaths from cardiac issues at home were vastly higher than they were any previous year, and the number treated for heart issues was vastly lower. The number was more than 4x more people who died, and 50% less people getting treatment. They started doing some public outreach to tell people that it was safe to go to the hospital. The thought wasn't that they COULDN'T get treatment, the thought was that people were scared to go to the hospital and risk COVID and thus didn't call an ambulance when they needed one (and would have if not for coronavirus).

Of course, the issue is confused by the fact that COVID causes cardiac arrest in some patients, so some portion of the increase is pretty asssuredly due to COVID deaths. Which were not counted as COVID deaths, for those republicans that insist everything is overcounted.

It's kind of hard for me to search to find exactly what I read before, but here are a couple quick results from Google that are discussing some of what I heard. 

http://www.ptca.org/news/2020/0408_INCREASED_DEATHS_NYC.html

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/loc...en-as-sign-of-covid-19-undercounting/2368678/


----------



## TedEH

Perhaps I stand corrected then.

Although, I do think there's a stretch between this and "millions" of additional deaths as claimed by some.


----------



## tedtan

Yeah. Also, NYC was hit REALLY hard by covid19, so I'm not sure representative it is of other areas.


----------



## wankerness

I am sure there are thousands. Millions, though? Not a chance. I doubt anyone's saying that is the case in the US or anything.


----------



## SpaceDock

tedtan said:


> Yeah. Also, NYC was hit REALLY hard by covid19, so I'm not sure representative it is of other areas.



From what I saw NYC had a few unique circumstances, very high population density, no room for distancing in public areas, and a fair amount of disinformation. Remember that black people were being told they couldn’t get Covid? Turns out to be very far from the truth, so they were not being safe and had enormous numbers after that. We will see if that happens with the new group of unbelievers.


----------



## TedEH

wankerness said:


> I doubt anyone's saying that is the case in the US or anything.


There was a link posted a page or two back that claimed exactly that.


----------



## Ralyks

Congratulations my fellow Americans, we are the first country to hit 100,000 deaths. That we know of.


----------



## spudmunkey

Ralyks said:


> Congratulations my fellow Americans, we are the first country to hit 100,000 deaths. That we know of.



Yeah, I saw that yesterday. USA #1!!


----------



## KnightBrolaire




----------



## Randy

Randy said:


> My current COVID story is that my girlfriend's boss is an evangelical extreme right Trump supporter who doesn't believe in COVID or even germs in general. He swears by the fact he doesn't even wash his hands because "bacteria is good for you".
> 
> She's been furloughed because of shutdowns that effected the line of work they do there, and hasn't been in contact with them since. One of the other employees agreed to go in and work under the table, and she communicated to my girlfriend that none of them wear masks in the office but she is concerned and vulnerable, so she does. Half the safety that comes from the mask is both parties wearing them, but I guess she kinda accepted the risk since she knew she was working there despite the restrictions and at least she was wearing her mask. Then two weeks ago her boss came over to her and told her she didn't need to wear her mask and basically shamed her into taking it off and not wear it if/when she came in anymore.
> 
> This concerned my girlfriend on a number of levels but she was still LOA anyway and her bosses are otherwise decent people, so she was concerned about going back but otherwise had no plans of making trouble for them. I don't like a lot of what they do, nor do I want my girlfriend being subjected to that but she's an adult and I leave her to handle things the way she wants.
> 
> So, yesterday, we see my nieces and nephews, second time since the end of February despite living 10-minute away because of COVID concerns, especially because we live up above my parents and my mother is an ER nurse that treats COVID patients. We are cautious around her but we're otherwise healthy, my main concern is less about getting it from her and more about getting it in the community and SPREADING it to her when she's working with vulnerable people. Hence why literally my mom and dad, and my girlfriend are the only people I've been within 6ft and not wearing a mask since March.
> 
> Anyway, we compromised on having a family Memorial Day party outside, social distanced, everyone masked. My parents, me, my girlfriend, the sister and the kids. We had separate tables, she brought separate food for her and the kids, we didn't hug or touch or share utensils. Despite the extra work, it was still nice.
> 
> Today the girlfriend's boss calls to tell her the office is reopening on Friday because of NY's phase 2. He asked if she was coming back, she asked about what they were doing about mitigating virus spread and he said nothing, nobody in the office wears masks, no sneeze guards, etc. because he doesn't believe in it. He said customers may wear them when they come in but that's it. She told him she's not comfortable with that situation (and it's a DOL violation, but she's too nice to snitch on the guy). One of his parting shots was that he drove by our house and saw my niece and nephew outside playing on the lawn without masks, and basically accused her of being a hypocrite.
> 
> Considering the lengths we've gone through to protect people and the pains my family have gone through for health and safety, along with he put my girlfriend through with the stress and the violation of privacy, I hit the fucking ROOF. Called him up 2 minutes later and chewed his ass OUT. I stand by what I said, he can do what he wants in his own life, and I'm whatever he does with his business (even if it's negligent) and also my girlfriend's choice if she chooses to continue there or whatever, but staking out my house and leveraging what my family does there is totally uncalled for. He's lucky he picked up the phone and it was out of my system by the time I got done because I was otherwise going to drive to his office and use his fucking skull as a cereal bowl.



Follow-up on this story.

The other girl, the one that was being told not to wear a mask. After the blow-up and my girlfriend refusing to come back, they asked her today to switch to full-time to fill in the gap and she quit instead.


----------



## Alexa run my life

Randy said:


> He swears by the fact he doesn't even wash his hands because "bacteria is good for you".



Technically there are good and beneficial bacteria on your hands. Everyone obsessively hyper sterilizing their hands every 5 minutes are killing even the beneficial microbes. Though a stretch, maybe thats what he was trying to get at in an in innocent, naive manner? (also noted that this is a virus we're dealing with here and not bacteria, but soap and sanitizers will effectively do the same thing to both. Actually, washing your hands has more to do with your hand friction with water than the soap (anecdote) ).

But yeah her boss does sound like a real jerk for lambasting people who want to be as safe as possible


----------



## narad

Alexa run my life said:


> (also noted that this is a virus we're dealing with here and not bacteria, but soap and sanitizers will effectively do the same thing to both. Actually, washing your hands has more to do with your hand friction with water than the soap (anecdote) ).



Isn't this the exact opposite of what everyone is saying? Soap destroys the lipid shield of the virus.


----------



## Alexa run my life

narad said:


> Isn't this the exact opposite of what everyone is saying? Soap destroys the lipid shield of the virus.


How is that different from what I am saying? Also I don't know what everyone else is saying. Not sure which part of my post you are referring to.

Edit: are you reffering to the last sentence? Just thinking outloud here but the friction plus water would remove the virus. If you put soap on a virus without friction and water, though maybe it has a weakened or absent lipid, it still remains on your hand I think. (If I think that is what you're saying)


----------



## narad

Alexa run my life said:


> How is that different from what I am saying? Also I don't know what everyone else is saying. Not sure which part of my post you are referring to.
> 
> Edit: are you reffering to the last sentence? Just thinking outloud here but the friction plus water would remove the virus. If you put soap on a virus without friction and water, though maybe it has a weakened or absent lipid, it still remains on your hand I think. (If I think that is what you're saying)



Yes, I'm saying one shouldn't try to publicly downplay the importance of soap when soap is often identified as _especially important_ to protecting against covid (given that the soap reacts with the virus' only physical defense).


----------



## Randy

Alexa run my life said:


> Though a stretch, maybe thats what he was trying to get at in an in innocent, naive manner?



The handwashing thing predates the COVID thing, for as long as she worked there. As in, he goes and uses the bathroom.... #1 and #2, and the sound of the sink never happens afterward.


----------



## Alexa run my life

Randy said:


> The handwashing thing predates the COVID thing, for as long as she worked there. As in, he goes and uses the bathroom.... #1 and #2, and the sound of the sink never happens afterward.


And how does she know that I wonder?? 

Yeah it's gross I guess but that's why you need to be responsible for your own hygiene. It's like when people at the gym get skeeved out because someone didn't wipe the machine when they were done. Well, then make it so that you always wipe down any machine or anything before _you_ use it. I know that's not your point but just sayin.


----------



## Randy

Alexa run my life said:


> And how does she know that I wonder??



Because her desk was across the hall from the bathroom in a small professional office (so, like, 8ft), you hear what the sink sounds like when someone uses it, and you can smell a shit when someone takes one, you can also tell when a person is in the bathroom for 1minute vs 10 minutes  Do you lack basic observational awareness or...?


----------



## Alexa run my life

Randy said:


> Because her desk was across the hall from the bathroom in a small professional office (so, like, 8ft), you hear what the sink sounds like when someone uses it, and you can smell a shit when someone takes one, you can also tell when a person is in the bathroom for 1minute vs 10 minutes  Do you lack basic observational awareness or...?


That's a terrible place to have a desk then. Well good luck in her finding a new job.


----------



## Randy

Alexa run my life said:


> Yeah it's gross I guess but that's why you need to be responsible for your own hygiene. It's like when people at the gym get skeeved out because someone didn't wipe the machine when they were done. Well, then make it so that you always wipe down any machine or anything before _you_ use it. I know that's not your point but just sayin.



Well yeah, this is classic "we move just as fast as our slowest runner" societal shit but that doesn't excuse being a drag on everyone else.

I'm also missing how that applies to this COVID discussion. Assume everyone else is gross and act accordingly? That's what the basic guidelines are. The current point of contention is that common sense says that prevention works best when both parties comply. Your mask filters out some snot and spit when you sneeze or wheeze, some makes it out but my masks filters some of it from making it into my mouth and lungs. That's, like, common sense. When only one side of the equation participates, the level of protection is cut in half.

The problem is that you can't just say "I don't care if I get it, so I won't wear a mask" because your fuckin spit and snot go in both directions and once you're infected, the virus goes from entering you, to now being spread by you. You're constantly in danger of taking it in and passing it out. Always. There's no argument that says "I don't care if I get it" that doesn't logically, simultaneously state "I don't care if I give it to you."


----------



## Randy

Alexa run my life said:


> That's a terrible place to have a desk then. Well good luck in her finding a new job.



There's a reason why I took a job with crap pay in exchange for having my own office


----------



## Alexa run my life

Randy said:


> When only one side of the equation participates, the level of protection is cut in half.


I understand. But a few bad ones will always get through. Do you want to hold a gun to everyone's head to make sure they wear a mask?


----------



## StevenC

Alexa run my life said:


> I understand. But a few bad ones will always get through. Do you want to hold a gun to everyone's head to make sure they wear a mask?


No you ask everybody to be a grownup, take the same responsibility and make the same sacrifices as the rest of us.


----------



## narad

We should just treat people like children where you have to incentivize everything. "Heya little guys, everyone who puts on their big-boy masks during covid outbreak can keep gun-time!"


----------



## Vyn

narad said:


> We should just treat people like children where you have to incentivize everything. "Heya little guys, everyone who puts on their big-boy masks during covid outbreak can keep gun-time!"



The sad thing is you could actually come up with a campaign that was "Wear your masks, protect the 2nd! Guns work better at 1.5 metres or greater!" and you would probably have COVID wiped out in a fortnight. #MURICA.


----------



## narad

Vyn said:


> The sad thing is you could actually come up with a campaign that was "Wear your masks, protect the 2nd! Guns work better at 1.5 metres or greater!" and you would probably have COVID wiped out in a fortnight. #MURICA.



That or some short advert opening with Clint Eastwood leaning in an alleyway, somehow smoking a cigarette through the side of the mask. Then some very effeminate cross-dressers leave a gay bar across the street, walk up to him, "Oh honey, take off that mask, let me see your pretty face." "I don't take my mask off for nobody", replies Eastwood, before shooting them both with an oversized pistol and driving off in an IROC camaro. It's got Texas plates but still reads "Live free or die"


----------



## sleewell

It's kinda funny how its playing out. Something like 80% of ppl say they want people wearing a mask so they feel comfortable going out in public. which would be more beneficial to trump as that would get the economy moving faster thus helping his chances in November. Instead he sides w the small minority who oppose masks and thinks they arent manly. 

Choosing vanity and the small minority over the path nearly everyone is saying would get them back out spending money.

It's like his opponents are giving him a road map to relection but he thinks this is the culture war that he wants to flame instead.


----------



## TedEH

Alexa run my life said:


> Do you want to hold a gun to everyone's head to make sure they wear a mask?


With the number of gun enthusiasts around, I'm surprised nobody is doing this. (That I'm aware of.)


----------



## KnightBrolaire

TLDR: stool can be infectious. close the lid when you flush in a shared bathroom to prevent aerosolization
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticl...527_MSCPEDIT&uac=364863PJ&impID=2397238&faf=1


----------



## Alexa run my life

TedEH said:


> With the number of gun enthusiasts around, I'm surprised nobody is doing this. (That I'm aware of.)


I'm sure most people on this site would probably think that it is the gun enthusiasts who are the ones not wearing the masks. Am I right?


----------



## Ralyks

Alexa run my life said:


> I'm sure most people on this site would probably think that it is the gun enthusiasts who are the ones not wearing the masks. Am I right?



Nope, I know a few gun enthusiasts that wear masks.


----------



## narad

lolatlibtards said:


> 41% of US deaths from covid-19 come from nursing homes.
> 
> Enjoy wearing masking in 40 degree weather!



Talking about American freedoms and speaking in celsius. What a poseur.


----------



## jaxadam

That dude just never lasts very long.


----------



## narad

lolatlibtards said:


> That’s cool. Continue on with your social justice and progressive politics while playing your $10,000 guitars



Damn you for insulting my financial wellbeing


----------



## MaxOfMetal

a very smart person said:


> ...while playing your $10,000 guitars



YOU HAVE VERY NICE THINGS! TAKE THAT!


----------



## zappatton2

Hey, I was being progressive too, I didn't know $10,000 guitars were part of the deal! Bonus!!


----------



## jaxadam

Anyone who would pay $10k for a guitar is a f$&@!ng idiot.


----------



## narad

MaxOfMetal said:


> YOU HAVE VERY NICE THINGS! TAKE THAT!



Wait until he discovers the watch thread...



jaxadam said:


> Anyone who would pay $10k for a guitar is a f$&@!ng idiot.


----------



## spudmunkey

Ralyks said:


> Nope, I know a few gun enthusiasts that wear masks.



There's a line out the local gun store's door almost all day every day, and almost eveyrone's wearing masks.


----------



## TedEH

Alexa run my life said:


> I'm sure most people on this site would probably think that it is the gun enthusiasts who are the ones not wearing the masks. Am I right?


I'd be lying if I said I didn't think there was an overlap, as far as the sort-of cartoonish image of the situation in my head goes.

Being slightly more serious, whatever overlap exists I'm sure is more just because there are a lot of freedom enthusiasts in the US, as well as a lot of gun enthusiasts in the US. Maybe a better way to put it is that the US is not a country lacking in enthusiasm.


----------



## StevenC

TedEH said:


> I'd be lying if I said I didn't think there was an overlap, as far as the sort-of cartoonish image of the situation in my head goes.
> 
> Being slightly more serious, whatever overlap exists I'm sure is more just because there are a lot of freedom enthusiasts in the US, as well as a lot of gun enthusiasts in the US. Maybe a better way to put it is that the US is not a country lacking in enthusiasm.


It's not cartoonish if all the anti-lockdown/anti-mask rallies are attended by folks toting rifles.


----------



## ThePIGI King

narad said:


> Talking about American freedoms and speaking in celsius. What a poseur.


My GF went to a Montessori (spelling is hard) school and so when I met her I had no clue she was using metric and celcius all the time. I got very confused on a regular basis until it clicked she was using different units of measurement 

Now however I end up using Celsius for my job so it's common for me to hear it.


----------



## Alexa run my life

ThePIGI King said:


> My GF went to a Montessori (spelling is hard) school and so when I met her I had no clue she was using metric and celcius all the time. I got very confused on a regular basis until it clicked she was using different units of measurement
> 
> Now however I end up using Celsius for my job so it's common for me to hear it.


Nice schools they seem!


----------



## Millul

narad said:


> Wait until he discovers the watch thread...



Wait. we have a watch thread?? Where???


----------



## Alexa run my life

StevenC said:


> No you ask everybody to be a grownup, take the same responsibility and make the same sacrifices as the rest of us.


I'm pretty sure at least one person has already asked that question within the last 4 months.

An FYI to everyone,

"Murica" and "muh ______" is the equivalent of "Libtard" or "snowflake" just so you guys know. Both sides look ridiculous and I need to point that out.


----------



## Randy

Alexa run my life said:


> I'm pretty sure at least one person has already asked that question within the last 4 months.
> 
> An FYI to everyone,
> 
> "Murica" and "muh ______" is the equivalent of "Libtard" or "snowflake" just so you guys know. Both sides look ridiculous and I need to point that out.



Except I see rednecks proudly wearing "murica" t-shirts all the time and I've never seen anyone wearing a libtard shirt.


----------



## zappatton2

Randy said:


> Except I see rednecks proudly wearing "murica" t-shirts all the time and I've never seen anyone wearing a libtard shirt.


Mine's in the hamper, lol.


----------



## Alexa run my life

Randy said:


> Except I see rednecks proudly wearing "murica" t-shirts all the time and I've never seen anyone wearing a libtard shirt.


Either way they are the go-to terms when used to slander either side.


----------



## StevenC

Alexa run my life said:


> Either way they are the go-to terms when used to slander either side.


Worth noting the rest of the world has been Murica-ing all you guys for decades. But I've never heard the word "libtard" used outside of the internet.


----------



## TedEH

^ Can confirm - it's pretty common in Canadia to sort of blanketly apply the whole 'murica image to the whole country. I'm not saying it's right. I'm saying it happens.

But also, no, those are not equivalent at all. One's a disrespectful jab at someone's vague political leanings, and the other is a lazy jab at the stereotype that Americans of all kinds are patriotic to a fault and use it to justify all kinds of nonsense.


----------



## Ralyks

Also, let's face it, a majority of people picked up "'Murica!" From South Park. Maybe Team America: World Police.


----------



## Vyn

As an outsider, you have both left and right morons who represent the whole 2nd amendment, guns for all MURICA stereotype.

When I'm using it, I'm not going after left or right wing views, I'm going after the insanity that is a large number of Americans on either side of politics will actually discuss and support a variety of issues however the moment you mention changes to the 2nd they loose their fucking minds and any shred of reason.


----------



## Alexa run my life

Vyn said:


> the moment you mention changes to the 2nd they loose their fucking minds



You're right, there are extremists on both sides.
When you mention it to pro 2nd people they take it as a threat when you talk about changing the 2nd. But when you talk to anti gun people about the 2nd they say stuff like "herr the 2nd amendment doesn't mean you can own an army tank herr derrrr". Kinda in the same way they say stuff like "freedom of speech doesn't mean you can yell fire in a theater herr derr". They always go to the absolute extreme exceptions to the rule as their leading example.


----------



## TedEH

Alexa run my life said:


> They always go to the absolute extreme exceptions to the rule as their leading example.


You're applying an us-vs-them mentality to something fairly universal. You are, right now, describing the opposing viewpoint in as extreme a way as you can while still trying to sound credible. You can easily reverse the views and do exactly the same thing.

"As soon as you try to mention the 2nd amendment it's all _they're gonna take away all your god given rights hurrr durrrr"_. It works both ways.

You can't say both sides are extreme, and then immediately negate that by claiming that only one side is extreme.


----------



## zappatton2

I think there's been all kinds of "extreme exceptions to the rule" trying to pass themselves off as the New Normal lately.


----------



## TedEH

"New normal" is certainly near the top of the list of phrases I'll be glad to stop hearing eventually.


----------



## zappatton2

TedEH said:


> "New normal" is certainly near the top of the list of phrases I'll be glad to stop hearing eventually.


You and me both.


----------



## sleewell

This is hilarious 

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles...t-thats-no-reason-not-to-reopen-jurassic-park


----------



## Humbuck

ThePIGI King said:


> This whole thing was blown out of proportion from the start.



100,000 dead and counting in the US and this has been blown out of proportion? Wow.


----------



## gunch

Mmm belligerent right wingers and casual ableism like chocolate and peanut butter


----------



## zappatton2

gunch said:


> Mmm belligerent right wingers and casual ableism like chocolate and peanut butter


Hey, you got racism in my abuse of power.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticl...530_MSCPEDIT&uac=364863PJ&impID=2400080&faf=1


----------



## sleewell

someone had it at those huge lake ozark pool parties.


----------



## SpaceDock

Some idiots had a giant garage sale down the street from me yesterday and were flying a giant Trump 2020 banner on the front of their house. Brilliant to have a neighborhood digging through your crap with no masks and walking through your house during a pandemic.


----------



## jaxadam

SpaceDock said:


> Some idiots had a giant garage sale down the street from me yesterday and were flying a giant Trump 2020 banner on the front of their house. Brilliant to have a neighborhood digging through your crap with no masks and walking through your house during a pandemic.



As long as they are following the same social distancing guidelines as the rioters I don’t think it should be a problem.


----------



## SpaceDock

jaxadam said:


> As long as they are following the same social distancing guidelines as the rioters I don’t think it should be a problem.



Rioters not wearing masks and up in the Police’s faces is bad as well, I don’t know why you think one is justifying another. I do think protests are far more important than garage sales, but should be done while being mindful of the pandemic.

It seems like far too many people have already forgotten about the 100k Americans dead in only a couple months. We had 100k Americans dead in a couple months of intense lockdown. Now everyone is acting like nothing happened and I am fearing a second wave in the next few weeks.


----------



## ThePIGI King

SpaceDock said:


> Rioters not wearing masks and up in the Police’s faces is bad as well, I don’t know why you think one is justifying another. I do think protests are far more important than garage sales, but should be done while being mindful of the pandemic.
> 
> It seems like far too many people have already forgotten about the 100k Americans dead in only a couple months. We had 100k Americans dead in a couple months of intense lockdown. Now everyone is acting like nothing happened and I am fearing a second wave in the next few weeks.


Yea, because when "100k" people die nobody riots or cares. But when one man is wrongfully killed by police the whole country goes up in arms, and multiple people have died in the riots. Sounds like people got everything backwards. I don't think some stupid virus matters to these kind of people at this point.


----------



## TedEH

ThePIGI King said:


> Yea, because when "100k" people die nobody riots or cares.


Have you seen the world lately? People are losing their minds right now. That's a far cry from nobody cares. To compare that to people being upset about police violence is to throw out all context and miss the point of both reactions you're comparing. Don't get me wrong, there's a whole other conversation to be had about police violence, and I'll refrain from opining about it now, but these things aren't fairly comparable.


----------



## jaxadam

SpaceDock said:


> Rioters not wearing masks and up in the Police’s faces is bad as well, I don’t know why you think one is justifying another. I do think protests are far more important than garage sales, but should be done while being mindful of the pandemic.
> 
> It seems like far too many people have already forgotten about the 100k Americans dead in only a couple months. We had 100k Americans dead in a couple months of intense lockdown. Now everyone is acting like nothing happened and I am fearing a second wave in the next few weeks.



Yes, as long as they’re breaking quarantine, they may as well break stuff, too. Instead of buy stuff.


----------



## TedEH

I was lacking some context about the police violence thing - so I did some googling. Sweet jebus. People really are losing their minds.


----------



## StevenC

ThePIGI King said:


> Yea, because when "100k" people die nobody riots or cares. But when one man is wrongfully killed by police the whole country goes up in arms, and multiple people have died in the riots. Sounds like people got everything backwards. I don't think some stupid virus matters to these kind of people at this point.


You know you can't protest a disease away, right?


----------



## ThePIGI King

StevenC said:


> You know you can't protest a disease away, right?


Just like you can't protest a dead guy back to life. But this a little off topic. You can, however, protest to end lockdowns or at least lessen the restrictions of things.


----------



## StevenC

ThePIGI King said:


> Just like you can't protest a dead guy back to life. But this a little off topic. You can, however, protest to end lockdowns or at least lessen the restrictions of things.


So you're comparing protesting against health measures with protesting for equality?
In total you're just pro killing people.


----------



## ThePIGI King

StevenC said:


> So you're comparing protesting against health measures with protesting for equality?
> In total you're just pro killing people.


If you bothered to read you'd see I said the death was wrongful. But rioting and killing other people and looting businesses in the name of justice for a man is insane. Tell me how the deaths of the 3 people in Columbus OH is justified.

I never said Mr. Floyd's death was justified or correct. All I'm saying is the damage caused by "protesters" to property and other people because of his death is stupid. And if you agree with rioting over it, then by default you too are stupid.

Also, is it really "equality" if people rally nationwide when an African American is killed, but not when Native Americans, Asians, or Caucasians are killed? By definition, it isn't equal.


----------



## narad

ThePIGI King said:


> If you bothered to read you'd see I said the death was wrongful. But rioting and killing other people and looting businesses in the name of justice for a man is insane. Tell me how the deaths of the 3 people in Columbus OH is justified.



Are you talking about the guy who shot people over toilet paper? That's the only thing I get when I search "3 dead columbus". How is that relevant to this conversation?


----------



## TedEH

ThePIGI King said:


> rioting and killing other people and looting businesses in the name of justice for a man is insane.


I get that coverage is likely to be very slanted, but everything I've seen about the riots suggested it was the police causing extra violence, not the protesters. 



ThePIGI King said:


> is it really "equality" if people rally nationwide when an African American is killed, but not when Native Americans, Asians, or Caucasians are killed? By definition, it isn't equal.


It is if you have a serious problem with how African Americans are treated compared to everyone else. It's not _that he was black_ that matters, it's how and why he was killed, and how each of these cases is emblematic of a pattern. You may not see it, but people do in fact get just as upset about other issues. I actually see as much or more outrage about the handling of native issues - but then again, I am in Canada, where the scales of those issues are different.

To spell it out bluntly: The problem is not that an individual was killed, it's that racism is alive and well in the US.


----------



## ThePIGI King

TedEH said:


> I get that coverage is likely to be very slanted, but everything I've seen about the riots suggested it was the police causing extra violence, not the protesters.
> 
> 
> It is if you have a serious problem with how African Americans are treated compared to everyone else. It's not _that he was black_ that matters, it's how and why he was killed, and how each of these cases is emblematic of a pattern. You may not see it, but people do in fact get just as upset about other issues. I actually see as much or more outrage about the handling of native issues - but then again, I am in Canada, where the scales of those issues are different.
> 
> To spell it out bluntly: The problem is not that an individual was killed, it's that racism is alive and well in the US.


Everyone does realize that Floyd was A) resisting arrest, and B) COD wasn't due to extreme pressure placed on him by the police officers, but due to pre-existing medical conditions that the police had no way of knowing.

Not saying that excuses his death by any means. But if I was the size of Floyd (from all pictures I've seen he was a fairly large man) and was resisting arrest, I too would likely end up on the ground to be controlled. Regardless of my color. My friend who is local LEO has had to place a knee on suspects resisting arrest on occasion.

Again, it's a tragedy he is dead. But look at the aftermath. 50 secret service members injured, The Presidents Church set ablaze, cop cars looted, businesses destroyed, people injured, and even people killed. @narad I apologize, I misremembered the article, I found it again - it's 1 dead, 2 more shot in Columbus.

As for the old "who shot first" debate (it was Han), most police officers did not fire until they had stuff thrown at them. Not to mention they're using non-lethal rounds and tear gas. I've been gassed, it really isn't that bad. I know guys that have been shot by non-lethals, and they leave welts, but aren't the end of the world. Cops are in the right here.

EDIT: Last comment on this. If you burn the flag, or accept the burning of the flag, you are the lowest of the low. Nothing pisses me off more than this.

I don't wanna derail this awesome thread anymore though. So if you wanna chit chat, PM me.


----------



## narad

ThePIGI King said:


> @narad I apologize, I misremembered the article, I found it again - it's 1 dead, 2 more shot in Columbus.



I still can't find this. If the riots are turning deadly, I'd like to hear about it and I'm surprised it's not being reported widely enough for me to find it on google.


----------



## TedEH

ThePIGI King said:


> Everyone does realize that Floyd was A) resisting arrest, and B) COD wasn't due to extreme pressure placed on him by the police officers, but due to pre-existing medical conditions that the police had no way of knowing.


A is debatable, given what I've read, and B, which is sort of fitting with the theme of the thread, sort of fits the whole co-morbidity thing, doesn't it? If someone has underlying health issues, you'd think leaning on his neck for 8 minutes certainly won't help right? I mean, the police, in theory, are supposed to be the ones trained in how to deal with things properly. Their job is to protect - including the people they are dealing with. I don't have time to dig very far into it right now, but so many of the details of that story fit under the category of "debatable", and therefore, the response to it is pretty much what I would expect.

Even if you ignore all of the above, the way police have been responding to the rioting just makes them look worse. I saw a video of cop pull down the mask of an otherwise peaceful protester (I'll give you one guess of the guy's race) who even had his hands above his head, and peperspray him in the face for no reason. Even if you're 100% right about your points (I don't think you are), how do you justify that kind of behaviour?


----------



## sleewell

is there video of him resisting arrest or is that just words of the guys who killed him trying not to get in trouble?


----------



## Drew

Ok, I missed a week here, and came back to 23 likes. I'm not even gonna TRY to get caught up in this thread. Did I miss anything important?


----------



## sleewell

pretty sure you already know that answer lol


----------



## tedtan

ThePIGI King said:


> Yea, because when "100k" people die nobody riots or cares. But when one man is wrongfully killed by police the whole country goes up in arms, and multiple people have died in the riots. Sounds like people got everything backwards. I don't think some stupid virus matters to these kind of people at this point.



George Floyd wasn't merely one man wrongfully killed by the police, he was one *MORE* man wrongfully killed by the police.


----------



## spudmunkey

tedtan said:


> George Floyd wasn't merely one man wrongfully killed by the police, he was one *MORE* man wrongfully killed by the police.



This. Saying the protests are because of "one man" is like saying the Arab Spring was just because of one police officer harassing a fruit cart owner once.


----------



## tedtan

ThePIGI King said:


> Also, is it really "equality" if people rally nationwide when an African American is killed, but not when Native Americans, Asians, or Caucasians are killed? By definition, it isn't equal.



Are you shitting me?

Look into how many black men have been wrongly killed by police, even just in the last few years. The police have been treating them like we're living in 1820 instead of 2020.

It's one thing to have a different opinion, but its quite another to be either willfully ignorant or twisting the facts around to try to support some BS perspective of equality.


----------



## SpaceDock

It’s been almost a week since this thread was updated even though something like ten thousand Americans died from Covid this week. I think we all “got over it” and the news cycle has moved on. Doesn’t matter that nothing has changed but now we have new distractions. This is why our culture never changes, we have zero capacity for focus to resolve our problems.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

SpaceDock said:


> It’s been almost a week since this thread was updated even though something like ten thousand Americans died from Covid this week. I think we all “got over it” and the news cycle has moved on. Doesn’t matter that nothing has changed but now we have new distractions. This is why our culture never changes, we have zero capacity for focus to resolve our problems.



What are we going to do? The government doesn't seem to want to help and is pushing to move on. 

The best thing we can do is handle our own unique situations the best we can. 

The history books will not be kind.


----------



## shadowlife

sleewell said:


> is there video of him resisting arrest or is that just words of the guys who killed him trying not to get in trouble?



I've been checking every day or two to see if any video surfaces, so far nothing. (I haven't checked today yet)

I do find it strange that we have video of the stop, then no video, then video after he's already on the ground restrained. 
I also wonder why there are no interviews with people who were there saying "he was resisting, that's why they put him on the ground"
OR
"he was just standing there cooperating, and for no reason they violently put him on the ground".
(again, I haven't looked for this in a few days- if there are any interviews with bystanders, please post a link to them)

If he was resisting, I think they had the right to use force, but how much force they used, and for how long will be up to a jury to decide if it was warranted or not.
For the record, given the video we have of him on the ground, I don't think it was necessary for Chauvin to keep his knee on his neck the way he did.

Back to the original point of video evidence, the one thing I will say with certainty is that I do not trust the media to tell the entire story in an unbiased way.


----------



## vilk

shadowlife said:


> I don't think it was necessary for Chauvin to keep his knee on his neck the way he did.



Wow, that must have been really painful for you to write. But I'm proud of you!


----------



## High Plains Drifter

shadowlife said:


> If he was resisting, I think they had the right to use force, but how much force they used, and for how long will be up to a jury to decide if it was warranted or not.
> For the record, given the video we have of him on the ground, I don't think it was necessary for Chauvin to keep his knee on his neck the way he did.



I don't think that "force" and "knowingly stopping someone from breathing" are even close to the same thing. No idea if this was an instance where force was justified. But regardless... What Chauvin did was absolutely unacceptable and criminal. An arresting officer is not judge/ jury/ executioner. Simply under that basic principle, Chauvin committed cold-blooded murder. Fuck him.


----------



## thraxil

Nurses get training on how to restrain violent patients without injuring them (at least, my ex, a VA psychiatric nurse did). If they can do it, why can't cops?


----------



## Metropolis

Only 20 new confirmed cases and no related deaths yesterday in Finland. Four days ago was the first day without any confirmed cases, but a single related death. We got off by little with this if it doesn't start to spread again. Can't say the same about our beloved neighbour Sweden...


----------



## Ralyks

My part of New York enters phase 2 tomorrow apparently. Seems like our case lost is taking, but I expect a spike within the next couple of weeks


----------



## jaxadam

The spread of Covid-19 by someone who is not showing symptoms appears to be rare.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/08/health/coronavirus-asymptomatic-spread-who-bn/index.html

So the good news is asymptomatic people are not unknowingly killing everyone's grandmothers en masse.


----------



## ramses

jaxadam said:


> The spread of Covid-19 by someone who is not showing symptoms appears to be rare.
> 
> https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/08/health/coronavirus-asymptomatic-spread-who-bn/index.html
> 
> So the good news is asymptomatic people are not unknowingly killing everyone's grandmonthers en masse.



Awesome!

One more reason to return to California gyms as they reopen this Friday!


----------



## DiezelMonster

jaxadam said:


> The spread of Covid-19 by someone who is not showing symptoms appears to be rare.
> 
> https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/08/health/coronavirus-asymptomatic-spread-who-bn/index.html
> 
> So the good news is asymptomatic people are not unknowingly killing everyone's grandmothers en masse.



And apparently you can't get it from surfaces. So then both driving reasons why we all sheltered in place possibly weren't necessary ? 

*shrug


----------



## vilk

jaxadam said:


> The spread of Covid-19 by someone who is not showing symptoms appears to be rare.
> 
> https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/08/health/coronavirus-asymptomatic-spread-who-bn/index.html
> 
> So the good news is asymptomatic people are not unknowingly killing everyone's grandmothers en masse.



Let's everyone please take note that the WHO is differentiating between asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic. Just because you or someone is not exhibiting symptoms, it does not mean you're not contagious, and the article goes on to say the CDC thinks 40% of new infections are coming from the pre-symptomatic.


----------



## jaxadam

vilk said:


> Let's everyone please take note that the WHO is differentiating between asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic. Just because you or someone is not exhibiting symptoms, it does not mean you're not contagious, and in fact they said that in the 40% of new infections are coming from the pre-symptomatic.



I wouldn’t know. They don’t even talk about it on the news here anymore.


----------



## vilk

jaxadam said:


> I wouldn’t know. They don’t even talk about it on the news here anymore.



You wrote:



jaxadam said:


> The spread of Covid-19 by someone who is not showing symptoms appears to be rare.



Which is incorrect, at least according to the information in the article you then proceeded to post. Just making sure we're all on the same page. Pre-symptomatic people are not wearing masks and spreading it after they've been infected but before they've begun to show symptoms.


----------



## jaxadam

vilk said:


> You wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Which is incorrect, at least according to the information in the article you then proceeded to post. Just making sure we're all on the same page. Pre-symptomatic people are not wearing masks and spreading it after they've been infected but before they've begun to show symptoms.



It’s literally the first line in the article. I didn’t even write it, I copy/pasted it. Just making sure we’re all on the same page.


----------



## SpaceDock

It seems more like you are trying to cherry pick articles just because you think they prove your previous assertions but you fail to read the articles you are using for your proof. What point are facts or information if their only purpose is to prove what we want to believe instead of what is objective?


----------



## TedEH

Having read the full text of the posted article, I assume that one quoted line was just the result of the WHO lady having mis-spoke. The rest of the text of the article very much clarifies things. If it wasn't intentional, it was an unfortunate choice of quotes to take from the article.


----------



## Vyn

Just thought I would leave this here. The scale of this is just beyond comprehension. Good chunk as well is coming from the US:


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> Having read the full text of the posted article, I assume that one quoted line was just the result of the WHO lady having mis-spoke. The rest of the text of the article very much clarifies things. If it wasn't intentional, it was an unfortunate choice of quotes to take from the article.



Here are some more unfortunate quotes from the article:

"We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing. *They're following asymptomatic cases, they're following contacts and they're not finding secondary transmission onward.* It is very rare -- and much of that is not published in the literature," she said. "We are constantly looking at this data and we're trying to get more information from countries to truly answer this question. *It still appears to be rare that an asymptomatic individual actually transmits onward."*


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> Here are some more unfortunate quotes from the article:


You say that sarcastically, but yeah - absolutely. It's an unfortunately worded article that chooses to use "asymptomatic" inconsistently. Failing to be specific and deliberate with word choice means that people can take whatever conclusion they want to hear from the text.

I read this as -
What they said: No symptoms right now? Not contagious!
What they meant to say: If you have a mild enough case that you're never going to show symptoms, then you're also not likely pass it to someone else. People who have no symptoms currently, but _are going to_, are still as contagious as we've always said they were.


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> You say that sarcastically, but yeah - absolutely. It's an unfortunately worded article that chooses to use "asymptomatic" inconsistently. Failing to be specific and deliberate with word choice means that people can take whatever conclusion they want to hear from the text.
> 
> I read this as -
> What they said: No symptoms right now? Not contagious!
> What they meant to say: If you have a mild enough case that you're never going to show symptoms, then you're also not likely pass it to someone else. People who have no symptoms currently, but _are going to_, are still as contagious as we've always said they were.



Then your beef is with CNN. I would contact them and ask for an editorial position posting a synopsis of what they _meant _to say for all of their articles. It can be like the TedEH cliff's notes, but only with your special twist!


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> Then your beef is with CNN.


You're not wrong, but at the same time having people selectively quote things to back up what's likely the wrong interpretation isn't great either. Given that we're talking about the spread of a pandemic, there's some risk involved in telling people that something is safe when it's not.


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> You're not wrong, but at the same time having people selectively quote things to back up what's likely the wrong interpretation isn't great either. Given that we're talking about the spread of a pandemic, there's some risk involved in telling people that something is safe when it's not.



Well maybe when you get your job there, you can add a medical disclaimer to your “_what they really meant to say”_ as well.

So at first it was one misquote that I had. Then I added an entire paragraph and that was an unfortunate misinterpretation as well. How many more quotes do I need to add until it goes from selectively quoting to generally quoting?


----------



## TedEH

Only one: The one that clarifies what they mean by asymptomatic in the context of the headline.



> A study in April found that viral shedding -- when people may be able to infect others -- could begin two to three days before symptoms appeared. In addition, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates in planning scenarios that 40% of coronavirus transmission is occurring before people feel sick.
> 
> "These patients weren't asymptomatic," Juthani said. Rather, they were "spreading disease before becoming symptomatic."


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> Only one: The one that clarifies what they mean by asymptomatic in the context of the headline.



Man, I wish I could go back and edit my original post to add that! It’s a little too late now, but going forward, do you think I should just add it in my signature line?


----------



## TedEH

I think that would be a step in the right direction. Ideally we can add a link to an rss feed of my notes once I work for CNN.


----------



## Viginez

it appears the virus is very selective when it comes to protests and your usual daily interactions


----------



## Drew

Viginez said:


> it appears the virus is very selective when it comes to protests and your usual daily interactions


This based on various public health groups coming out and saying they're not going to tell people not to go out and protest, but aside from the protests they should stay home? 

I mean, one could read that as the virus is very selective in where it infects people, and is allergic to social justice warriors. One could also read it as a cynical awareness that police brutality, particularly directed at blacks, kills a _fuck_ of a lot of Americans, a lot of the other problems of systematic racism make police violence pale by comparison, and that protesting racism and actually getting some critical mass to drive real, lasting change, is going to result, long term, in better health outcomes for the American public than holing up to avoid coronavirus. 

Think of it like a house in a snowstorm. It's snowing outside, it's cold, if you go out there you're going to risk frostbite. But, if your house is on fire, the prudent thing to do is to go out in the snow, because staying indoors is going to kill you a hell of a lot faster and with a hell of a lot more certainty than grabbing a hat and jacket, taking some precautions, and venturing out into the snow.


----------



## spudmunkey

Drew said:


> Think of it like a house in a snowstorm. It's snowing outside, it's cold, if you go out there you're going to risk frostbite. But, if your house is on fire, the prudent thing to do is to go out in the snow, because staying indoors is going to kill you a hell of a lot faster and with a hell of a lot more certainty than grabbing a hat and jacket, taking some precautions, and venturing out into the snow.



Thank you for this analogy.


----------



## jaxadam

*Quarantine has changed us — and it’s not all bad*

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/6/9/21279258/coronavirus-pandemic-new-quarantine-habits


----------



## tedtan

I have been fortunate enough to continue working form home during the pandemic and I can relate to that article. This has allowed me to prove to my employer that I am more productive without all the meetings and distractions in the office, so I intend to continue working from home going forward, which will allow me to do more of the things I want to do like getting back into growing vegetables, avoiding the daily commute to and from work, exercise more, etc.


----------



## sleewell

havent worked from home but traffic has been great. we just relaxed our lending guidelines somewhat. not quite to where we were before but were back to 80% ltv for most of the country.


----------



## jaxadam

*I’m an ER Doctor. Here’s What I Feel OK Doing as My State Reopens.*

https://slate.com/technology/2020/0...ivies-er-doctor.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab


----------



## TedEH

I think I like some of the premise of the article, but there's a fair bit of [citation needed] and it kinda rambles on and doesn't make much of a point. Basically just a roundabout admission that this one particular doctor doesn't know any better than anyone else.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

https://today.tamu.edu/2020/06/12/t...ks-critical-in-preventing-spread-of-covid-19/


----------



## wankerness

tedtan said:


> I have been fortunate enough to continue working form home during the pandemic and I can relate to that article. This has allowed me to prove to my employer that I am more productive without all the meetings and distractions in the office, so I intend to continue working from home going forward, which will allow me to do more of the things I want to do like getting back into growing vegetables, avoiding the daily commute to and from work, exercise more, etc.



I worry that a lot of more, shall we say, CAPITALISTIC employers will take that evidence and use it to suggest that if you prove you don't need to be there physically, they can hire someone in a different country who will work for far less than you.  I'm not worried about that with my employer, but I definitely know some people with bosses that would try that kind of thing. Or, they'd take it to mean that you don't need to get paid for full-time work if you're getting the same amount done at home as you did in the office in less than 8 hours.

Cue Michael Scott saying Jim is a lazy employee cause it takes Jim far less time to do the same things as it takes him.


----------



## TedEH

wankerness said:


> the same amount done at home as you did in the office in less than 8 hours


Maybe it depends on the kind of work being done, but I know that for some people this has led to doing _more _work rather than less. For me, it's sometimes longer, more productive days - in part because I know working at home is a risk of not being very productive, getting easily distracted, but also the risk of _looking_ like you're not productive since nobody can actively see what you're doing, _aaaaaaand_ the time that would have been spent commuting now just ends up being work time. Doesn't always work that way, but really value the freedom to dictate this for myself. Didn't sleep well and couldn't wake up on time to start early? Who cares, I'm at home. Need to split the day up because I have something that needs to be done? Doesn't matter, come back later and finish up. Maybe some could do that before, but now a lot of that power has moved into the hands of the worker.


----------



## AxRookie




----------



## tedtan

wankerness said:


> I worry that a lot of more, shall we say, CAPITALISTIC employers will take that evidence and use it to suggest that if you prove you don't need to be there physically, they can hire someone in a different country who will work for far less than you.  I'm not worried about that with my employer, but I definitely know some people with bosses that would try that kind of thing. Or, they'd take it to mean that you don't need to get paid for full-time work if you're getting the same amount done at home as you did in the office in less than 8 hours.
> 
> Cue Michael Scott saying Jim is a lazy employee cause it takes Jim far less time to do the same things as it takes him.



I'm not concerned about that in my specific case, but yeah, I could see that happening in a lot of places.


----------



## Drew

wankerness said:


> I worry that a lot of more, shall we say, CAPITALISTIC employers will take that evidence and use it to suggest that if you prove you don't need to be there physically, they can hire someone in a different country who will work for far less than you.  I'm not worried about that with my employer, but I definitely know some people with bosses that would try that kind of thing. Or, they'd take it to mean that you don't need to get paid for full-time work if you're getting the same amount done at home as you did in the office in less than 8 hours.
> 
> Cue Michael Scott saying Jim is a lazy employee cause it takes Jim far less time to do the same things as it takes him.


I'm less worried about that.

This is largely based on my observations in/from the finance industry, and in part on working with and training a team in India not quite fifteen years ago. I'll be the first to admit that it may not carry over perfectly to other industries, but it's still a data point to consider.

Outsourcing was really an early-mid 2000s phenomena. There's a couple reasons for that, but the two biggest, in my experience, were first, the sheer growth rate of wages in India in outsourcing locations/office prks was such that it just wasn't going to be cheaper in the long run. I worked with a team in a mid sized city in India, inside a large office park, and many of the members of the team were on their third or fourth job within the park, where they would take a 30% raise to move to a new employer, work there a year, and then repeat. It doesn't take much 20-30% annual growth to wipe out a wage differential. Second, it was reasonably easy to put teams together, with the right oversight, to be really good at process execution, where if you gave them a decision tree, and measured the right execution metrics, you could have them run from point A to point B like a well oiled machine through even rather complex workflows. When you started to get away from Yes/No decision trees to questions that both required more subjective evaluation and critical thinking (and here I blame an low-mid-tier Indian education system (I'm under the impression, right or wrong, that top universities in India are excellent) that, as a byproduct of demand for outsourced labor, is very focused on process execution and less so on logical analysis), you would run into problems. And, if you could boil the workflow down to a discrete algorithm with clear decisions at every point, why even bother to use a human when you could just write a computer program to do it? In finance the trend of moving ever more entry level work overseas seems to be over, and in a number of cases on-shoring has taken place (I had some big concerns about the long term vibility of the project I was involved with, eventually passing up a management position overseeing the team and project because I didn't think those concerns had been addressed, and sure enough an incident happened a few years afterwards, after I'd left, that caused some reputational damage and reslted in a lot of the work being on-boarded again).

The trend I've seen more recently, and I'll be curious how the pandemic changes this, is the major argument for off-shoring isn't the cost of labor (a few years back I remember seeing estimations that the cost of producing an iPhone in the US would only be about $5-10 higher than in China), but control of the supply chain, being able to have everyting concentrated in a single area, to better utilize just-in-time production techniques to push supply chain efficiency as far as possible. JIT supply chains, of course, are also incredibly susceptable to disruption, we learned the hard way in 2020, and I'll be curious to see if down the road that leads to some rethinking.

Long story short, I'd worry way less about your job being outsourced, if it could be done anywhere, than I would about it being automated, if there's little/no "human touch" value add in the role. More likely, I could see, would be firms offering existing employees the ability to telecommute, in return for giving up commuter benefits like subway or light rail passes, etc, or for taking a cost-of-living adjustment. Speaking personally if I was told I could keep my job, never have to come into the offie more than a couple times a year, but would be free to live wherever I wanted because of that, but it would take a 10% cut to my salary... I'd absolutely consider it.


----------



## JSanta

Drew said:


> I'm less worried about that.
> 
> This is largely based on my observations in/from the finance industry, and in part on working with and training a team in India not quite fifteen years ago. I'll be the first to admit that it may not carry over perfectly to other industries, but it's still a data point to consider.
> 
> Outsourcing was really an early-mid 2000s phenomena. There's a couple reasons for that, but the two biggest, in my experience, were first, the sheer growth rate of wages in India in outsourcing locations/office prks was such that it just wasn't going to be cheaper in the long run. I worked with a team in a mid sized city in India, inside a large office park, and many of the members of the team were on their third or fourth job within the park, where they would take a 30% raise to move to a new employer, work there a year, and then repeat. It doesn't take much 20-30% annual growth to wipe out a wage differential. Second, it was reasonably easy to put teams together, with the right oversight, to be really good at process execution, where if you gave them a decision tree, and measured the right execution metrics, you could have them run from point A to point B like a well oiled machine through even rather complex workflows. When you started to get away from Yes/No decision trees to questions that both required more subjective evaluation and critical thinking (and here I blame an low-mid-tier Indian education system (I'm under the impression, right or wrong, that top universities in India are excellent) that, as a byproduct of demand for outsourced labor, is very focused on process execution and less so on logical analysis), you would run into problems. And, if you could boil the workflow down to a discrete algorithm with clear decisions at every point, why even bother to use a human when you could just write a computer program to do it? In finance the trend of moving ever more entry level work overseas seems to be over, and in a number of cases on-shoring has taken place (I had some big concerns about the long term vibility of the project I was involved with, eventually passing up a management position overseeing the team and project because I didn't think those concerns had been addressed, and sure enough an incident happened a few years afterwards, after I'd left, that caused some reputational damage and reslted in a lot of the work being on-boarded again).
> 
> The trend I've seen more recently, and I'll be curious how the pandemic changes this, is the major argument for off-shoring isn't the cost of labor (a few years back I remember seeing estimations that the cost of producing an iPhone in the US would only be about $5-10 higher than in China), but control of the supply chain, being able to have everyting concentrated in a single area, to better utilize just-in-time production techniques to push supply chain efficiency as far as possible. JIT supply chains, of course, are also incredibly susceptable to disruption, we learned the hard way in 2020, and I'll be curious to see if down the road that leads to some rethinking.
> 
> Long story short, I'd worry way less about your job being outsourced, if it could be done anywhere, than I would about it being automated, if there's little/no "human touch" value add in the role. More likely, I could see, would be firms offering existing employees the ability to telecommute, in return for giving up commuter benefits like subway or light rail passes, etc, or for taking a cost-of-living adjustment. Speaking personally if I was told I could keep my job, never have to come into the offie more than a couple times a year, but would be free to live wherever I wanted because of that, but it would take a 10% cut to my salary... I'd absolutely consider it.



Apologies for going way off-topic, but in referencing your last point; I've heard from some senior level people at a health insurance company that the WFH has been successful enough for their company that they are looking to drop some of their office space. As you mentioned, I'm not worried about off-shoring. If anything, I think we may see the US re/on-shore some manufacturing because of the problems with the supply chain that were encountered.

I think what does happen is that telecommuting will become more normal. It may mean that real estate prices in places like Silicon Valley and NYC will drop because people are no longer tied to their work location. What that could now mean is that I could work for a company that typically didn't hire non-local candidates. It also could mean that the competition pool will open up meaning that the job search process would be even more competitive. My wife has a medical practice and I work and teach at a University, so we are located where we work, and have to be, but I imagine that as teleworking becomes the norm (and I strongly believe that it will), people will move to where they want to live regardless of where the work is. If the only pre-requisite to teleworking from a technical perspective is the correct equipment and internet connection, the rules to the game change.


----------



## TedEH

I don't know how quickly that process will happen, but I'm seeing that move happen around here too. I suspect I won't be going back to an office for a long time. Some offices in the area have decided to make this arrangement permanent.


----------



## spudmunkey

I work in the office furniture industry, and we're seeing lots of conversations about abandonning the HQ concept, with consolidated ammenties, and instead some are looking towards more but smaller offices. The trade off is that it may no longer be cost effective to provide as elaborate and high-quality catering and other ammenities to the entire staff, but some may be willing to forgoe that in favor of a shorter commute, or working somewhere with free parking, etc.

These next few months are going to be in interesting time for one of my main clients, as they have already closed on a lease for more than 12 floors in a building that isn't even going to be finished being built until 2024, and they were planning to consolidate their current 2 HQs and 3 other neighboring offices into this one "mega office". it was going to have a pool, tennis courts, a gym, an 8th floor open patio, etc etc. if they switch to smaller offices, they get none of that...so recruiting is going to be an interesting thing over the next little while, as well. You have a split of people that are terrified to go to work, especially those who take mass transit, and then you have people that are champing at the bit to go back to work (honestly, I'm one of those...but make no mistake, it's with safety top-of-mind: I want access to disinfectants, I'm Ok wearing a mask all day, etc etc).


----------



## JSanta

spudmunkey said:


> I work in the office furniture industry, and we're seeing lots of conversations about abandonning the HQ concept, with consolidated ammenties, and instead some are looking towards more but smaller offices. The trade off is that it may no longer be cost effective to provide as elaborate and high-quality catering and other ammenities to the entire staff, but some may be willing to forgoe that in favor of a shorter commute, or working somewhere with free parking, etc.
> 
> These next few months are going to be in interesting time for one of my main clients, as they have already closed on a lease for more than 12 floors in a building that isn't even going to be finished being built until 2024, and they were planning to consolidate their current 2 HQs and 3 other neighboring offices into this one "mega office". it was going to have a pool, tennis courts, a gym, an 8th floor open patio, etc etc. if they switch to smaller offices, they get none of that...so recruiting is going to be an interesting thing over the next little while, as well. You have a split of people that are terrified to go to work, especially those who take mass transit, and then you have people that are champing at the bit to go back to work (honestly, I'm one of those...but make no mistake, it's with safety top-of-mind: I want access to disinfectants, I'm Ok wearing a mask all day, etc etc).



I'm not sure if it's a matter of being terrified so much as it is I've actually enjoyed being able to work from home. Granted, I'm lucky. My wife and I have our own office spaces in our home, and we can go the whole day not seeing each other. Had we been in our first apartment when I was still in the Army, that was 500sq, we probably would have killed each other by now. What my university has seen is that much of the staff has done exceptionally well at home. Sure, the social aspect of work is basically gone, but as people can gather someday in the future, that will change. 

I'd be more than happy to only go on campus the days I teach and then be at home the rest of the time. I've learned how to onboard staff remotely, and how to be a more effective communicator. I think the underlying question is really why go back to working in an office for those that can get by just as well remotely? There have been so many arguments made against remote work over the years, but as soon as we were all thrust into it, things have been mostly OK. The social cues and many of the benefits of working together will have to be shaped around this new normal. The cube drive-bys that can be annoying do lead to good conversations, and we are certainly missing some of that. 

I think that if all things went back to normal, meaning people can socialize in person without risk to personal safety, and that lives can be lived mostly normal, many people would be happy to just continue working from home. I do miss being able to just go do things, and if I could still get away for a meal with my wife at a restaurant, take a vacation without restriction, or get to the gym, I would be much happier, in general.


----------



## spudmunkey

Again, I'm one of those weirdos who are much more productive inthe office environment, i have access to material samples and more equipment than I want in my home (dual monitors, large format floorplan plotting printers).

My specific job means that I also have lots of parts and pieces I am having to bring to my home, etc. A portion of my job is also testing out products like workstations and chairs, which isn't easy from home. Spefically some of the subjective things that don't show up on a spec sheet: how easy it it to access power and data cabling, are the metal doors on this access panel noisy and rattly, how effective are these acoustic produdts *really*...and then there's the project management of on-site installations. I know for sure I'd have to be at least in the city 2 days per week, minimum, and I'd be in the office in between those visits.

My girlfriend is loving working from home, but she's also set up in the spare bedroom on a fully-featured ergonomic height adjustable desk, monitor arm and her favorite task chair. I'm at the 36" round dining table, in a $39 plastic dining chair, with a clamp-on power unit. She also took mass transit to the office most days (gross), and I drive.


----------



## thraxil

I've been working remotely for six years now. Software, so definitely one of the easier jobs to make remote. I started when my partner got a job offer in a different country and we decided to move. I was a lead developer at my previous job and had been there for almost 15 years, so when I told my boss that I was leaving, they countered by offering to let me work remotely. That was a pretty rare and fortunate situation since I'd earned a lot of trust and respect. Anyone else probably wouldn't have gotten the offer. It worked pretty well because I was so familiar with all of our systems and could work very independently. The developer team pretty much already communicated entirely through writing even when we were all in the same room together (IRC, later Slack, code, tickets, etc) so there wasn't much of a change in our day to day work. Meetings sucked mainly because I was the only remote worker so they never invested much in that setup. It would often be a laptop running Skype sitting in the room and I could barely hear or see anything and I'd just have my coworkers fill me in later on what actually mattered. After about three years, higher ups in a different department at the university instituted a blanket policy banning remote work. So even though my department was happy with my situation, I got an ultimatum to move back to NYC or leave. So, since then I've been working for a fully remote startup. We have people all around the world (US, UK, Spain, Croatia, Turkey, Uruguay, Ecuador, China, Jordan, Iraq, and for a while Poland and Uganda). We do nearly everything in writing and asynchronously with the occasional Zoom meeting. There are a lot of advantages from that setup. We get good developers from wherever they are rather than limiting the hiring pool to one small geographic region. No office expenses/rent/etc. Having a culture of writing everything down actually really pays for itself over time because things end up better documented and more automated than they might otherwise. Major downside is that we really can only hire senior level developers. We have not yet figured out how to bring in juniors and give them the support and mentoring they need in a remote only setup. That limits how quickly we can grow and definitely affects the kinds of projects we undertake.

Working from home has worked well for me up until very recently. I'm not a super social person and pretty comfortable being by myself so I didn't miss the office environment much. The biggest lesson I had to learn early on (especially because I was in Europe and my coworkers were back in NYC) was to completely turn off notifications and close everything out at the end of my workday. Otherwise, I'd work a full day, then get pulled back into a conversation or code review in the evening and realize that I'd spent from 8am to 11pm working. Now I keep work stuff entirely contained in a separate browser profile and a dedicated phone. Those get closed out and shut down at the end of the workday so I'm more or less unreachable (my coworkers have my regular number so they can reach me in an emergency, but they know that they'd be interrupting my personal time so it's not done lightly). With the lockdown though, working from home has become more difficult because my partner is now also working from home. She teaches and basically has to take over the entire flat with her lights and camera setup and it's really hard to focus when all of that is going on around me.

Thankfully some cheap office space recently opened up down the street from me. As soon as I can get internet set up there and a desk/chair delivered, I'll be able to "commute" 200m and work there.

On a more Covid-related note, this Friday I'm attending a fucking _Zoom_ funeral for one of my former coworkers back in NYC who passed away last week from this stupid disease.


----------



## tedtan

JSanta said:


> Apologies for going way off-topic, but in referencing your last point; I've heard from some senior level people at a health insurance company that the WFH has been successful enough for their company that they are looking to drop some of their office space. As you mentioned, I'm not worried about off-shoring. If anything, I think we may see the US re/on-shore some manufacturing because of the problems with the supply chain that were encountered.



Something else I've been hearing from executives is that lower level employees are often directly responding to their emails/team meetings/etc. rather than their managers, so the executives are beginning to consider trimming some fat from the less productive middle management area.


----------



## sleewell

this appears to be good news:

https://thehill.com/policy/healthca...avirus-deaths-by-one-third-among-severely-ill


----------



## Ralyks

sleewell said:


> this appears to be good news:
> 
> https://thehill.com/policy/healthca...avirus-deaths-by-one-third-among-severely-ill



Hope so. Miami is on pause, and I honestly think a lot of areas will follow. I’m in The Mid Hudson region of NY, and would be shocked in the slightest if somewhere between us, NYC, and Long Island that a pause could occur. My job is suppose to open more branches next week but we’re not suppose to tell customers because who knows what can change between now and next week. So, customers will basically find out by driving past the building.


----------



## AxRookie

sleewell said:


> this appears to be good news:
> 
> https://thehill.com/policy/healthca...avirus-deaths-by-one-third-among-severely-ill


hydroxychloroquine??? lolol Dam that is good news, now I can stop drinking bleach!


----------



## MFB

> A clinical trial in Great Britain has found that a cheap, widely available drug reduces deaths from coronavirus in severely ill patients on ventilators by one-third, which researchers hailed as a significant breakthrough.



Oh boy, I can't wait for it to become widely unavailable and extremely expensive once pharma companies patent it


----------



## broj15

Recently had to attend a (non covid related) funeral.... Even though it was supposed to be private/"immediate" family only I'd still say there was easily 40-50 people there, all of which live in different parts of the country, some of us in metropolitan areas that have been hit especially hard.

Even though masks were required, I was totally appalled by the lack of social distancing taking place. People standing right next to each other, hugging, shaking hands, sharing surfaces, etc.. 
Apparently for the past week other members of my family were trying to convince my parents to arrange some sort of gathering afterwards AT THEIR HOME. Finally me and my sister had to knuckle down and tell them we simply would not allow that to happen... So the gathering was moved to a different venue and me, my sister, and parents didn't attend. 

I know it's harsh but I simply had to tell my dad, who was upset by the entire situation, that doing something so reckless and irresponsible means that we'd probably be planning atleast one more funeral by the end of the month.

Sorry for the anecdote, but it just blows my mind that people are content to carry on with business as usual just because the media is no longer running 24/7 coverage on the situation.


----------



## StevenC

MFB said:


> Oh boy, I can't wait for it to become widely unavailable and extremely expensive once pharma companies patent it


It's a 60 year old drug that has been generic for years.


----------



## tedtan

StevenC said:


> It's a 60 year old drug that has been generic for years.



Yeah, I don't foresee a patent issue with this, but I can see an increased demand for it following this study result in a shortage in supply.


----------



## Drew

JSanta said:


> Apologies for going way off-topic, but in referencing your last point; I've heard from some senior level people at a health insurance company that the WFH has been successful enough for their company that they are looking to drop some of their office space. As you mentioned, I'm not worried about off-shoring. If anything, I think we may see the US re/on-shore some manufacturing because of the problems with the supply chain that were encountered.
> 
> I think what does happen is that telecommuting will become more normal. It may mean that real estate prices in places like Silicon Valley and NYC will drop because people are no longer tied to their work location. What that could now mean is that I could work for a company that typically didn't hire non-local candidates. It also could mean that the competition pool will open up meaning that the job search process would be even more competitive. My wife has a medical practice and I work and teach at a University, so we are located where we work, and have to be, but I imagine that as teleworking becomes the norm (and I strongly believe that it will), people will move to where they want to live regardless of where the work is. If the only pre-requisite to teleworking from a technical perspective is the correct equipment and internet connection, the rules to the game change.


I agree with all of this. I also would expect the value of urban/suburban office park properties to drop, particularly the latter I think.


----------



## Drew

sleewell said:


> this appears to be good news:
> 
> https://thehill.com/policy/healthca...avirus-deaths-by-one-third-among-severely-ill


Grain of salt, but per my girlfriend the doctor, this is acctually pretty standard practice in the US, putting patients going on ventilators (an invasive, somewhat harmful process only done because they've deteriorated until this is better than the alternative) on a suite of steroids, to give their body the best chance possible to hold up to the added stress. I'm not sure how much variety in types of steroids employed in te US there is and if this oarticular one is more effective than others, or if the use of steroids in this manner was _not_ typical practice in the UK, and in turn how functionally useful this will be here in the States. Also, there's no evidence that it helps with patients NOT on ventilators.


----------



## jaxadam

Drew said:


> I agree with all of this. I also would expect the value of urban/suburban office park properties to drop, particularly the latter I think.



That is something that developers here are realistically considering. In 2008/2009, funding just stopped immediately on existing projects and development went belly up. In this new circumstance, the secondary and tertiary effects moving forward is for example restaurants that have been planned and are in development for certain capacity may have that capacity force reduced, thus reducing income the business plan was able to generate, thus reducing rental markets on commercial properties. There are a lot of development unknowns here right now as Florida is in the midst of a boom.


----------



## DiezelMonster

jaxadam said:


> That is something that developers here are realistically considering. In 2008/2009, funding just stopped immediately on existing projects and development went belly up. In this new circumstance, the secondary and tertiary effects moving forward is for example restaurants that have been planned and are in development for certain capacity may have that capacity force reduced, thus reducing income the business plan was able to generate, thus reducing rental markets on commercial properties. There are a lot of development unknowns here right now as Florida is in the midst of a boom.




I've heard that Tampa bars and restaurants are open and at 30% capacity, how long do you suspect it will take for things will go back to "business as usual" though? How are they policing that 30% capacity limit?


----------



## Drew

DiezelMonster said:


> I've heard that Tampa bars and restaurants are open and at 30% capacity, how long do you suspect it will take for things will go back to "business as usual" though? How are they policing that 30% capacity limit?


So far I've mostly heard anecdotal reports, but a number of bars are starting to shut back down after waves of infection have hit both patrons and staff, nd I believe Miami is considering closing back down. There's absolutely a reopening spike occurring.


----------



## AxRookie

Drew said:


> So far I've mostly heard anecdotal reports, but a number of bars are starting to shut back down after waves of infection have hit both patrons and staff, nd I believe Miami is considering closing back down. There's absolutely a reopening spike occurring.


Yep, A spike was sooo predictable is not really funny...


----------



## Randy

Can we cue up that smug fuck Desantis peacocking at that press conference pointing to the charts in PowerPoint or nah?


----------



## AxRookie

Randy said:


> Can we cue up that smug fuck Desantis peacocking at that press conference pointing to the charts in PowerPoint or nah?


What, this one?


----------



## Randy

The 'facts and data' one from two months ago where he's bragging about how good their numbers are and how wrong the experts were about the curve in Florida from reopening/not closing.


----------



## sleewell

trumps press sec said yesterday that you had as much of a chance of catching covid at the upcoming rally as catching a foul ball at a baseball game.

is that the best analogy? don't quite a few ppl catch foul balls at every game? i guess the difference would be those people don't go on to give that ball to their family and friends for the next few weeks.


----------



## DiezelMonster

We are starting to slowly open back up here in Ontario. Tomorrow, our restaurants and patios will be opening. A lot of my co-workers and friends want to go wild and go out. 

I'm just going to stay home still for a bit haha, let them test the waters. I'm not afraid really but I just am not sure we are ready for this yet. Truthfully it feels like people have forgotten there is a pandemic.


----------



## budda

DiezelMonster said:


> We are starting to slowly open back up here in Ontario. Tomorrow, our restaurants and patios will be opening. A lot of my co-workers and friends want to go wild and go out.
> 
> I'm just going to stay home still for a bit haha, let them test the waters. I'm not afraid really but I just am not sure we are ready for this yet. Truthfully it feels like people have forgotten there is a pandemic.



Ontario is already open. Patios opened nearly a week ago, tatto shops opened monday.


----------



## DiezelMonster

budda said:


> Ontario is already open. Patios opened nearly a week ago, tatto shops opened monday.



Not where I am in Hamilton and Burlington. They are opening tomorrow. We had more cases here and had to wait longer.


----------



## Descent

Drew said:


> So far I've mostly heard anecdotal reports, but a number of bars are starting to shut back down after waves of infection have hit both patrons and staff, nd I believe Miami is considering closing back down. There's absolutely a reopening spike occurring.



Thanks to our rioting, we're seeing very increased numbers in Houston, TX. It would've died down if we didn't have the riots/protests that saw according to media about 60,000 people for several days not really practicing proper distancing. Our hospitals are at 80% right now, a before that we had very few cases for the size of the city. 

Restaurants and concert venues opening up slowly, some had to shut down after an employee/s reported with the 'Rona.


----------



## Randy

Patios and inside of bars/restaurants here in Upstate NY, as long as they're at 50% capacity or less, 6ft. distance at bars and plastic barriers between booths. I'm not even entertaining the idea, especially after seeing Texas and Florida, I'll stick to eating at home or in my car for now.


----------



## Randy

Descent said:


> Thanks to our rioting, we're seeing very increased numbers in Houston, TX. It would've died down if we didn't have the riots/protests that saw according to media about 60,000 people for several days not really practicing proper distancing. Our hospitals are at 80% right now, a before that we had very few cases for the size of the city.
> 
> Restaurants and concert venues opening up slowly, some had to shut down after an employee/s reported with the 'Rona.



I haven't seen signs of spikes in other cities with major protests though.


----------



## JSanta

Randy said:


> I haven't seen signs of spikes in other cities with major protests though.



The ol' causation versus correlation conundrum...

The increase in cases in Houston couldn't possibly be because of reopening too early, could it? 

I digress


----------



## budda

DiezelMonster said:


> Not where I am in Hamilton and Burlington. They are opening tomorrow. We had more cases here and had to wait longer.



Interesting. I figured everything was open if London was, but that's what assuming gets you .

I expect a bump in cases. I'll know pretty quick since my partner works on the covid floor of a hospital.

I want to book a tattoo for july or august, but Im gonna wait a few weeks to see how things react before trying. I've waited two years, what's a bit longer.


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> The 'facts and data' one from two months ago where he's bragging about how good their numbers are and how wrong the experts were about the curve in Florida from reopening/not closing.


Cuomo just announced NYC is now recommending people arriving from Florida self-quarrantine for 14 days. THAT must have felt pretty good for him.  



Descent said:


> Thanks to our rioting, we're seeing very increased numbers in Houston, TX. It would've died down if we didn't have the riots/protests that saw according to media about 60,000 people for several days not really practicing proper distancing. Our hospitals are at 80% right now, a before that we had very few cases for the size of the city.
> 
> Restaurants and concert venues opening up slowly, some had to shut down after an employee/s reported with the 'Rona.


Houston may be the exception to prove the rule, but generally other cities with large protests haven't seen upticks yet. That doesn't mean they're not coming - we're really right at the 2-week mark from when the protests really gathered mass, so we'd only be seeing the earliest uptick in case from that anyway right about now. And, cases have been rising for some time. Protestors may have _contributed_ to that, but it seems hard at this point to conclude they were the _cause_. Also, not for nothing, most of the pictures of protests I've seen, masks were _everywhere_.


----------



## Viginez

meanwhile in italy (yesterday)
second wave incoming?
who is upset


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Hey guys, we figured out how to get them to care about coronavirus!


----------



## spudmunkey

I keep seeein


Viginez said:


> meanwhile in italy (yesterday)
> second wave incoming?
> who is upset




They are protesting against the governments' COVID restrictions, which they feel are too strict, right?


----------



## StevenC

Viginez said:


> meanwhile in italy (yesterday)
> second wave incoming?
> who is upset


Ferrari drove an F1 car through Maranello today and it was the first time no one turned up to see a Ferrari driving around Maranello.


----------



## Ralyks

sleewell said:


> trumps press sec said yesterday that you had as much of a chance of catching covid at the upcoming rally as catching a foul ball at a baseball game.
> 
> is that the best analogy? don't quite a few ppl catch foul balls at every game? i guess the difference would be those people don't go on to give that ball to their family and friends for the next few weeks.



I don’t like throwing out “stereotypical dumb blonde”, but man, Kayleigh McEnany comes off as a stereotypical dumb blonde. Who also happened to vote by mail 11 times in the past 10 years.


----------



## Viginez

spudmunkey said:


> I keep seeein
> 
> 
> 
> They are protesting against the governments' COVID restrictions, which they feel are too strict, right?


nope. soccer fans celebrating the winner of the italian cup. possibly thousands.


----------



## spudmunkey

Ralyks said:


> I don’t like throwing out “stereotypical dumb blonde”, but man, Kayleigh McEnany comes off as a stereotypical dumb blonde. Who also happened to vote by mail 11 times in the past 10 years.



Eh, I've only seen her speak a few times, and the only times she's come across as "dumb" is when she seems like she's stumbling to find some sort of neutral way to answer/not answer a question about something absurd (even if it is an absurd reality), or when repeating DJT's words. I'd still stick with dishonest for now.


----------



## AxRookie

sleewell said:


> trumps press sec said yesterday that you had as much of a chance of catching covid at the upcoming rally as catching a foul ball at a baseball game.
> 
> is that the best analogy? don't quite a few ppl catch foul balls at every game? i guess the difference would be those people don't go on to give that ball to their family and friends for the next few weeks.


Trump should just hand out hydroxychloroquine to everyone at the door! I mean what do they have to lose, BUT THEIR LIVES...


----------



## sleewell

Arizona reported 3,246 new COVID-19 cases Friday morning, surpassing the record-high of 2,519 new cases reported the day before.

Texas reported 3,516 new COVID cases Thursday evening, an increase from the previous record-high of 3,129, which was reported Wednesday.

In Florida, 3,822 new cases were reported Friday, the highest single-day increase for the state, beating a record set Thursday of 3,207 new cases.


----------



## narad

Hmm...


----------



## jaxadam

Does that mean there is better funding, and they are being more proactive and testing more in states and counties where Trump won? Asking for a friend.


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> Does that mean there is better funding, and they are being more proactive and testing more in states and counties where Trump won? Asking for a friend.



It could be because of more testing, but any excuse you want to try to throw at it, you have to also apply both ways, i.e., if it's more testing, that would then assume blue states were doing more testing initially, and have since decreased or leveled out testing as red states increased tests. It doesn't seem super plausible to me that these figures are completely removed from actual viral spread.


----------



## jaxadam

Does that mean there were more protests in states and counties where Trump won? Asking for a friend of a friend.


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> Does that mean there were more protests in states and counties where Trump won? Asking for a friend of a friend.



Seems unlikely. I'm guessing more general skepticism and intentionally reckless behavior in redder states. California's not on a great trend either though, so one can't rule out perhaps the effect of better weather?

red vs. blue trends, it's not something we have a definitive grasp on for why the data is the way it is. But it's clear that many places are in second-wave mode, which is itself a bit of a blue state "I told you so"


----------



## jaxadam

Honestly, if you flip the graph on the left, all you really did was post a picture of a shark.


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> Honestly, if you flip the graph on the left, all you really did was post a picture of a shark.



It's a metaphor for not getting out of the water when the lifeguard was pointing out in the water and shouting.


----------



## jaxadam

narad said:


> It's a metaphor for not getting out of the water when the lifeguard was pointing out in the water and shouting.



Very impressive. That was quick-witted and non-confrontational. Unlike others who rinse, repeat, and google their talking points ad nauseam, you show true potential. I would have a difficult time in a battle of wits with you, and would most likely yield to the more sensitive and nuanced topics.


----------



## Ralyks

https://apple.news/AffNgqRMDRGOLz9YBdDLRMQ

Six Trump staffers tested positive ahead of the Tulsa rally.

I mean, there were enough lifeguards, but I guess Oklahoma is international waters ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


----------



## fantom

narad said:


> It could be because of more testing, but any excuse you want to try to throw at it, you have to also apply both ways, i.e., if it's more testing, that would then assume blue states were doing more testing initially, and have since decreased or leveled out testing as red states increased tests. It doesn't seem super plausible to me that these figures are completely removed from actual viral spread.



I don't know about every state, but California case count has been increasing like crazy due to more tests the last several weeks. So I wouldn't buy into this stupid testing red states more than blue states reasoning.


----------



## fantom

In other news, the NIH finally abandoned studies on hydroxychloroquine. That was a good few weeks after WHO. They started tests around the same time WHO studies concluded it as ineffective. Good thing we wasted a month of researchers time chasing down a dumb political agenda against recommendations of apolitical scientists across the world.

Trump is a false prophet. Or maybe it was a joke the whole time like the rest of this presidency.


----------



## fantom

jaxadam said:


> Very impressive. That was quick-witted and non-confrontational. Unlike others who rinse, repeat, and google their talking points ad nauseam, you show true potential. I would have a difficult time in a battle of wits with you, and would most likely yield to the more sensitive and nuanced topics.



So you just trolled him for like 4 posts and then insulted many members of the forum. Well played.


----------



## jaxadam

fantom said:


> So you just trolled him for like 4 posts and then insulted many members of the forum. Well played.



I wouldn’t say that at all. I enjoyed our lighthearted banter, and respected his response to my shark joke. You, on the other hand, are confrontational.


----------



## fantom

"I was just joking".


----------



## Ralyks

fantom said:


> In other news, the NIH finally abandoned studies on hydroxychloroquine. That was a good few weeks after WHO. They started tests around the same time WHO studies concluded it as ineffective. Good thing we wasted a month of researchers time chasing down a dumb political agenda against recommendations of apolitical scientists across the world.



Even better, we now have a MASSIVE surplus of hydroxychloroquine we don't need. YUGE surplus.


----------



## Cynicanal

narad said:


> Hmm...


Wow, excellent job finding a graph that shows that Clinton did better than Trump in coastal metropolitan areas. I'd have never been able to come up with that blinding bit of insight on my own!

You know, I was just thinking the other day, "it's not going to be long until someone sees the increasing cases in the non-coastal states as the virus travels inward as a sign that 'see, locking down is good!', but those same people aren't going to advocate for locking down New York because Texas is sick even though Texas had to lock down because New York was sick." Glad to see that my predictions still come true, every single time.


----------



## StevenC

Cynicanal said:


> Wow, excellent job finding a graph that shows that Clinton did better than Trump in coastal metropolitan areas. I'd have never been able to come up with that blinding bit of insight on my own!
> 
> You know, I was just thinking the other day, "it's not going to be long until someone sees the increasing cases in the non-coastal states as the virus travels inward as a sign that 'see, locking down is good!', but those same people aren't going to advocate for locking down New York because Texas is sick even though Texas had to lock down because New York was sick." Glad to see that my predictions still come true, every single time.


So what you're saying is New York should have locked down when Italy and China were sick, and we all agree?


----------



## AxRookie

Ralyks said:


> Even better, we now have a MASSIVE surplus of hydroxychloroquine we don't need. YUGE surplus.


Well now Trump doesn't have to worry about running out of it himself, Now he can keep a hoard of it in the white house basement just to be sure he doesn't run out of that live-saving miracle cure!!!


----------



## Cynicanal

StevenC said:


> So what you're saying is New York should have locked down when Italy and China were sick, and we all agree?


No, what I'm saying is that shutting down the rest of the nation while the coasts were sick was absolutely stupid. Of course, it was inevitable given that our nation's politics is polarized into "coasts vs. 'flyover'", with the former fucking over the latter at every opportunity. Now, "flyover" will be made to shut down again, and coasts are going to trumpet their superiority even more, even though that superiority was just the result of "we didn't make it national policy that you had to shut down when you weren't sick".


----------



## spudmunkey

Testing availability in California has skyrocketed in the last few weeks. I'm now up to 2 clients who are requiring actual tests (not just temp checks) for all contractors/vendors, with weekly tests for each addition week of on-site work. I've now had 2 tests, with zero issues getting tested.


----------



## narad

Cynicanal said:


> Wow, excellent job finding a graph that shows that Clinton did better than Trump in coastal metropolitan areas. I'd have never been able to come up with that blinding bit of insight on my own!



Thanks!



Cynicanal said:


> You know, I was just thinking the other day, "it's not going to be long until someone sees the increasing cases in the non-coastal states as the virus travels inward as a sign that 'see, locking down is good!', but those same people aren't going to advocate for locking down New York because Texas is sick even though Texas had to lock down because New York was sick."



It's not just a coastal -> inland phenomenon. As stated earlier, California is moving in a bad direction, Oregon too. On the east coast, Florida, Virginia, the Carolinas, all also big contributors. 

And I'm not saying anything with regard to lockdown policy. I've heard many people point at CA/NYC during the worst of it and act like it was never going to be relevant to them, and therefore, not a serious problem. 



Cynicanal said:


> Glad to see that my predictions still come true, every single time.



You should say them out loud next time!


----------



## Drew

Cynicanal said:


> Wow, excellent job finding a graph that shows that Clinton did better than Trump in coastal metropolitan areas. I'd have never been able to come up with that blinding bit of insight on my own!
> 
> You know, I was just thinking the other day, "it's not going to be long until someone sees the increasing cases in the non-coastal states as the virus travels inward as a sign that 'see, locking down is good!', but those same people aren't going to advocate for locking down New York because Texas is sick even though Texas had to lock down because New York was sick." Glad to see that my predictions still come true, every single time.


This Nostradamus act of yours would be way more impressive if you were telling us about these predictions _beforehand_ rather than after the fact saying "yup, totally called that." 

Anyway, none of this take away from the decreasing number of cases in _most_ coastal areas - New York City and Boston, for example, are seeing cases drop, which is probably responsible for most of that change, while coastal states like Florida and Georgia that barely shut down and went straight to reopen, while still coastal, are now seeing surges. It looks awfully like those shutdowns may have actually been effective. Weird, eh?


----------



## Cynicanal

Drew said:


> Anyway, none of this take away from the decreasing number of cases in _most_ coastal areas - New York City and Boston, for example, are seeing cases drop, which is probably responsible for most of that change, while coastal states like Florida and Georgia that barely shut down and went straight to reopen, while still coastal, are now seeing surges. It looks awfully like those shutdowns may have actually been effective. Weird, eh?


Wow, it's almost like the first areas to get hit with a pandemic are the first to recover. Who could have possibly called that?


----------



## sleewell

Cynicanal said:


> Wow, it's almost like the first areas to get hit with a pandemic are the first to recover. Who could have possibly called that?




i seem to remember you saying we would never recover so i guess not you.


----------



## jaxadam

For the first time ever, @sleewell finally posted something funny.


----------



## narad

sleewell said:


> i seem to remember you saying we would never recover so i guess not you.



#newnormal


----------



## spudmunkey

I just got out of a vid conf meeting with a project team where they told us that anyone who has dined out, or had food delivered in the last 14 days will not be allowed on-site. So we basically have to self-quarantine for 2 weeks plus the 2 weeks of the project, in addition to submitting negative test results before the start, and then new negative tests each week of the project. So that's no restaurant-prepared meals for a month, and 3 COVID tests.


----------



## Drew

Cynicanal said:


> Wow, it's almost like the first areas to get hit with a pandemic are the first to recover. Who could have possibly called that?


It's a good thing we have your amazing foresight in this thread, otherwise I don't know _what_ we'd do. 

Though, it is sort of an enigma how the US got their first confirmed case on January 20th and we're still battling the pandemic, while New Zealand didn't even see an infection until _February 28th_, and they've completely eradicated COVID-19. I don't know what they did that was so different than us, where today we're gradually being overtaken by Brasil, another country with an idiot populist president who refused to shut down, as the largest hot spot in the world, while they're fully reopened and haven't had a case is something like a month. It's the damndest thing...



sleewell said:


> i seem to remember you saying we would never recover so i guess not you.


----------



## diagrammatiks

So when is this trainwreck going to get any better.

I eventually need to go back to the states.


----------



## spudmunkey

It took until May before we got more than 4 days in a row of 200,000+ daily tests in the US, and the last three days were all over 518,000 (two were over 578,000), so I suspect we'll be cracking 600,000 tests for the first time this week.

The US just passed 27,000,000 administered tests. Of those, around 2.2m were positive.

That means:
8.3% of those tested, tested positive.

I don't believe these two numbers can be directly correlated, but deaths equate to .044% of total tests.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/immunity-covid-19-rapidly-declines-170107017.html


----------



## spudmunkey

KnightBrolaire said:


> https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/immunity-covid-19-rapidly-declines-170107017.html



Because _of course_ it does.


----------



## Señor Voorhees

Seeing a lot of comments talking about how the antibodies are only produced when they're needed. Those same people seem to be against vaccines in general, so they can eat my ass in that regard and it has me casting doubt on the claim. I don't know enough about antibodies or whatever to refute or defend anything. Can anyone else chime in? Does your body stop producing antibodies until they're needed, or are these people just wishful thinking contrarians? My brief googling (can't look it up without finding a bunch of corona things similar to the linked article) leads me to believe this is true. Your body doesn't produce cells to kill shit until it's there, basically.

School me, folks.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

Señor Voorhees said:


> Seeing a lot of comments talking about how the antibodies are only produced when they're needed. Those same people seem to be against vaccines in general, so they can eat my ass in that regard and it has me casting doubt on the claim. I don't know enough about antibodies or whatever to refute or defend anything. Can anyone else chime in? Does your body stop producing antibodies until they're needed, or are these people just wishful thinking contrarians? My brief googling (can't look it up without finding a bunch of corona things similar to the linked article) leads me to believe this is true. Your body doesn't produce cells to kill shit until it's there, basically.
> 
> School me, folks.


Basically there's natural immunity (innate) and adaptive (comes after the innate). Natural immunity is stuff like cilia and mucus lining the nasal passages/lungs/cough reflex (traps/expels foreign bodies), skin/acidic secretions (make it very difficult for organisms/viruses to infiltrate), body/gut flora, macrophages/NK cells/WBCs (help kill invaders) and some other stuff. In other words, natural immunity is like Skynet and its defenses. 
IF the pathogen/microbes make it past all that then the adaptive system kicks in, which is what most people think of when they think of immunity/antibodies. 

Adaptive is essentially like the Terminator. They can pick out their target from a crowd and will hunt them to the ends of the earth, but they suck at seeing through disguises (eg rapidly mutating viruses like influenza), and they eventually forget what their target looks like/need a system update to keep hunting their target (antibodies "forget" antigens over time and need to be exposed again to keep up their effectiveness) eg varicella booster shots for the elderly to prevent shingles/chicken pox or any booster vaccines.
Adaptive immunity is further split up into active acquired (eg kid gets measles and now has antibodies to prevent contracting it again, or they got a vaccine) and passively acquired (eg baby is breastfed and gets mother's antibodies). Passively acquired is usually much shorter lasting than actively acquired. Actively acquired like vaccination is the safer and more effective route of protecting the general populace. Can you get a disease and still get the actively acquired immunity? sure, but the whole point of vaccination is that it mitigates the risk of dying overall. Most of the anti-vaxxers have such a poor grasp on the biological sciences that they don't understand that they're basically advocating for the "natural" and more dangerous version of vaccination, which would require actively contracting diseases that still kill people world wide (eg measles/rubella/TB, etc).

Fun fact: vaccines have been in use in some form for at least 500+ years. The Chinese and Turks would take patients with smallpox and grind up their scabs and blow them up a healthy person's nose, or they would scratch them with an infected tool.

I wrote a paper systematically pulling apart the anti-vaxxer movement and refuting their common claims a while back if you're interested.


----------



## jaxadam

Antibodies are like antimatter, very rare and even more expensive. Right now I believe a gram of antimatter is going for around 62.5 trillion.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

jaxadam said:


> Antibodies are like antimatter, very rare and even more expensive. Right now I believe a gram of antimatter is going for around 62.5 trillion.


I'll sell you some dried scabs and used kleenex I took off a covid patient for 5 million


----------



## jaxadam

KnightBrolaire said:


> I'll sell you some dried scabs and used kleenex I took off a covid patient for 5 million



Add me on Venmo @ therealantimatterdealer


----------



## Drew

KnightBrolaire said:


> https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/immunity-covid-19-rapidly-declines-170107017.html


This is something worth keeping an eye on for sure, but a LOT more work needs to be done. There are at least two reasons I can think of to discount it,. 

One, reinfection is exceedingly rare, rare enough that we're not yet sure it's actually happening. there are isolated reports of it happening; the only one I'm personally aware of (from a local hospital) there was roughly one month between confirmed infection and suspected reinfection, which is still within the range of a possible positive swap (usually they clean up within two weeks, but more than a month does happen, and thankfully you stop shedding virus long before a swab comes back negative). So, it's not impossible... but if reinfection is happening, it's happening with improbably low frequency, given the decay rates these studies claim. 

Two, past coronaviruses have generally conveyed SOME immunity - SARS seemed to provide immunity for about two to three years after infection before antibodies really began to decline, though common cold coronavirus strains have provide quite a bit less. It's being theorized that the more dangerous strains produce more immunity, but we don't know that for sure. 

So, definitely something to watch for... but if patients lost immunity in only a month or two, it stands to reason we'd have a lot more confirmed reinfections than we do, so I'd be more inclined to bet that immunity lasts at least six months, at this point, roughly six months in.


----------



## Señor Voorhees

KnightBrolaire said:


> Basically there's natural immunity (innate) and adaptive (comes after the innate). Natural immunity is stuff like cilia and mucus lining the nasal passages/lungs/cough reflex (traps/expels foreign bodies), skin/acidic secretions (make it very difficult for organisms/viruses to infiltrate), body/gut flora, macrophages/NK cells/WBCs (help kill invaders) and some other stuff. In other words, natural immunity is like Skynet and its defenses.
> IF the pathogen/microbes make it past all that then the adaptive system kicks in, which is what most people think of when they think of immunity/antibodies.
> 
> Adaptive is essentially like the Terminator. They can pick out their target from a crowd and will hunt them to the ends of the earth, but they suck at seeing through disguises (eg rapidly mutating viruses like influenza), and they eventually forget what their target looks like/need a system update to keep hunting their target (antibodies "forget" antigens over time and need to be exposed again to keep up their effectiveness) eg varicella booster shots for the elderly to prevent shingles/chicken pox or any booster vaccines.
> Adaptive immunity is further split up into active acquired (eg kid gets measles and now has antibodies to prevent contracting it again, or they got a vaccine) and passively acquired (eg baby is breastfed and gets mother's antibodies). Passively acquired is usually much shorter lasting than actively acquired. Actively acquired like vaccination is the safer and more effective route of protecting the general populace. Can you get a disease and still get the actively acquired immunity? sure, but the whole point of vaccination is that it mitigates the risk of dying overall. Most of the anti-vaxxers have such a poor grasp on the biological sciences that they don't understand that they're basically advocating for the "natural" and more dangerous version of vaccination, which would require actively contracting diseases that still kill people world wide (eg measles/rubella/TB, etc).
> 
> Fun fact: vaccines have been in use in some form for at least 500+ years. The Chinese and Turks would take patients with smallpox and grind up their scabs and blow them up a healthy person's nose, or they would scratch them with an infected tool.
> 
> I wrote a paper systematically pulling apart the anti-vaxxer movement and refuting their common claims a while back if you're interested.



Hey, thanks for the explanation. It helps my understanding a bit. To be clear, even with my stupidly limited knowledge I never hopped on the anti-vax bandwagon. I only entertained the idea enough to read up on it so I could see the typical arguments they give, and they never made sense to me. It is, imo, important to learn both sides of an argument before just outright discrediting, and that goes for something as obvious, at least to me, as vaccines and such.

Thanks again!


----------



## Ralyks

https://apple.news/AInHExfg6Td2XtvW7JqGaFQ

Guess Trump DID want to slow down testing.


----------



## Cynicanal

Drew said:


> It's a good thing we have your amazing foresight in this thread, otherwise I don't know _what_ we'd do.
> 
> Though, it is sort of an enigma how the US got their first confirmed case on January 20th and we're still battling the pandemic, while New Zealand didn't even see an infection until _February 28th_, and they've completely eradicated COVID-19. I don't know what they did that was so different than us, where today we're gradually being overtaken by Brasil, another country with an idiot populist president who refused to shut down, as the largest hot spot in the world, while they're fully reopened and haven't had a case is something like a month. It's the damndest thing...


I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that New Zealand is a tiny isolated island while the U.S. and Brazil are massive countries with huge populations.

But hey, authoritarian governments totally can get it done, right? I mean, China is totally done fighting it oh wait no new outbreak in Beijing lol.


----------



## spudmunkey

Ralyks said:


> https://apple.news/AInHExfg6Td2XtvW7JqGaFQ
> 
> Guess Trump DID want to slow down testing.



It's one thing to try to say that, of course, increased testing will mean more positive results. Yes, the more you look, the more people you will find that test positive and are asymptomatic. But when it's paired with increased/record _hospitalizations_? That's the "real" shit.


----------



## Drew

Cynicanal said:


> I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that New Zealand is a tiny isolated island while the U.S. and Brazil are massive countries with huge populations.
> 
> But hey, authoritarian governments totally can get it done, right? I mean, China is totally done fighting it oh wait no new outbreak in Beijing lol.


Ah right, immigrants are the problem. 

New Zealand, a nation that is absolutely _not_ an authoritarian government, locked down, HARD, from the moment a case was detected. It worked.

You meanwhile have changed your tune at every turn here, from "we can't beat it so why even try" to "of course the coastal states are recovering faster than the inland states, they already beat it." I have NO idea what it is about the idea of wearing a mask that gets your panties all in a bunch, but you have some hangup about it here that both requires you to hate any federal and state restrictions related to COVID-19, while also _insisting_ that every new development, you "knew it all along."

No matter that your coastal/flyover thing isn't actually true, of course. Florida and Texas are the two new hotsots, and Texan Gov. Abbott gave a press conference a few hours back admitting his state is facing a "massive" surge in new cases and they expect to exceed hospital capacity within days. If you want to get into dueling predictions, I'd expect Abbott to have to backtrack at least in part on Phase III in the coming week - he's already tightened up public gatherings from fewer than 500 to fewer than 100 in advance of fourth of july, and I think he's going to have to admit the writing's on the wall before much longer.


----------



## Drew

Ralyks said:


> https://apple.news/AInHExfg6Td2XtvW7JqGaFQ
> 
> Guess Trump DID want to slow down testing.


I'm not one to engage in conspiracy theories, but considering Trump has made it perfectly clear he wants less testing for fewer confirmed cases, the move to shut down federal testing sites and move to private companies responsible for testing is really, really concerning. 

Won't do a thing about hospitalizations, but Texas especially needs all the testing they can get these days. This could become a wedge between Trump and staunch supporter and Texan senator John Cornyn, which is worth watching - he was NOT pleased with this news.


----------



## Cynicanal

Don't worry, no one has "beaten" it -- October is coming. But the nation will do everything in its power to make sure that the North-East and West coasts come out ahead of everyone else, since that's always been the #1 driving fource of national policy on any issue (see also: state income tax was federal tax deductable prior to the recent reforms, but state property tax wasn't -- this was a targeted economic attack specifically at certain states. The post-Civil War "punish the South!" "reconstruction" never stopped, despite what your history books will tell you). Then they'll say "it's because the South is just so backwards, so we should disenfranchise them even more!" even when it's actually because Texas had to shut down for New York, but New York won't have to shut down for Texas.

And, yes, I'm well aware of what's going on in Texas, given that I live here, and we've had confirmed cases in my office (and it's particularly bad timing for me, my vacation is next week, and there's a real chance I'll end up being forced to blow 40 hours of PTO being quarantined when, had the timing been any different, those would be charged to sick time, which wouldn't count against me). Sure am glad we shut down for a month, it made a huge difference, let me tell you oh wait no it did exactly what I said it would and we got the spike as soon as it was lifted. Lockdowns don't work for this, all they do is delay it, but I'm glad we permanently destroyed our economy to "worse than the Great Depression" levels for nothing, that was really productive.


----------



## sleewell

With better leadership I think the lockdowns would have been successful. We could have united together and been smarter about all of this but instead it's been treated as another culture war which is foolish on all sides. Trump even got a bump in the polls initially which to me says people wanted to rally behind the president like this country has during previous crises. I think he could have gotten a large increase in overall job approval had he handled it better.

Many states locked down too early and reopened too fast. In violation of trump's own guidelines even though he was encouraging them to break them to help his re election chances. so states dont follow guidelines by a republican ish president to reopen and the best solution is, of course, to blame the other team bc that's how you lead in 2020 I guess.


----------



## Cynicanal

What choice did we have but to re-open? So many businesses are essential with everyone still going to work, we all have to go to the grocery store, we know that Vitamin D deficiency is one of the major factors that causes some infections to be worse than others (meaning the real best way to fight this disease is to get sunlight, NOT to stay indoors all day) that the entire idea that we can shut down and do anything but delay the inevitable is absurd. The spike is going to come no matter what we do -- a shutdown is another twenty years of economic depression, which for my generation is simply untenable -- living poor is much worse than being dead, when it comes right down to it. And, besides, as soon as you re-open, you get a spike anyways (New Zealand ALREADY has several new cases, just a couple days after declaring "victory").

Get ready to lose 10% of people you know in the next few months. Then do it again in the second-wave. Then again in early 2021. And that's at a minimum; it's going to go on a lot longer than that, in all probability. The best thing to do is to read some Schopenhauer and practice resignation and acceptance of what's to come.


----------



## narad

Cynicanal said:


> we know that Vitamin D deficiency is one of the major factors that causes some infections to be worse than others (meaning the real best way to fight this disease is to get sunlight, NOT to stay indoors all day)



If only there was some other way to get Vitamin D than by reopening businesses.


----------



## Cynicanal

If people are outside, they're not distancing.

BTW, most of the cases in Texas are in Houston and Dallas... the cities that had large protests. Not reopening is unlikely to have helped -- this appears to be largely driven by the George Floyd protests. Like I said, lockdowns are useless -- symbolic action, like pretending that taking off our shoes at the airport and letting minimum-wage workers take naked pictures of us protects us from terrorists.


----------



## diagrammatiks

Cynicanal said:


> What choice did we have but to re-open? So many businesses are essential with everyone still going to work, we all have to go to the grocery store, we know that Vitamin D deficiency is one of the major factors that causes some infections to be worse than others (meaning the real best way to fight this disease is to get sunlight, NOT to stay indoors all day) that the entire idea that we can shut down and do anything but delay the inevitable is absurd. The spike is going to come no matter what we do -- a shutdown is another twenty years of economic depression, which for my generation is simply untenable -- living poor is much worse than being dead, when it comes right down to it. And, besides, as soon as you re-open, you get a spike anyways (New Zealand ALREADY has several new cases, just a couple days after declaring "victory").
> 
> Get ready to lose 10% of people you know in the next few months. Then do it again in the second-wave. Then again in early 2021. And that's at a minimum; it's going to go on a lot longer than that, in all probability. The best thing to do is to read some Schopenhauer and practice resignation and acceptance of what's to come.



I mean the government could have done a good job in the beginning. 
and people could have not acted like fuck nuggets.

it's been three months. that's more then enough time to have gotten this under control.


----------



## Cynicanal

Yeah, that's why China totally has it under control and doesn't have a fresh new outbreak in Beijing. Or why Taiwan and South Korea haven't had repeated new outbreaks. Or why New Zealand doesn't already has a bunch of cases after declaring "victory".

Oh wait. No, none of that is true. But it's always cool to hate on whoever has the most power -- biblical authors hated on Rome's government, now everyone hates on the U.S.'s government.


----------



## diagrammatiks

Cynicanal said:


> Yeah, that's why China totally has it under control and doesn't have a fresh new outbreak in Beijing. Or why Taiwan and South Korea haven't had repeated new outbreaks. Or why New Zealand doesn't already has a bunch of cases after declaring "victory".
> 
> Oh wait. No, none of that is true. But it's always cool to hate on whoever has the most power -- biblical authors hated on Rome's government, now everyone hates on the U.S.'s government.



you do understand this is a disease right. short of a vaccine there's no way to eradicate it completely.

but sure. 54 confirmed cases about 2 weeks in one of the most densely populated cities in the entire world. Already under control. 

1 fresh outbreak in a country of over a billion people. 

that sure is worse then the situation in the US.


----------



## narad

Cynicanal said:


> Yeah, that's why China totally has it under control and doesn't have a fresh new outbreak in Beijing. Or why Taiwan and South Korea haven't had repeated new outbreaks. Or why New Zealand doesn't already has a bunch of cases after declaring "victory".
> 
> Oh wait. No, none of that is true. But it's always cool to hate on whoever has the most power -- biblical authors hated on Rome's government, now everyone hates on the U.S.'s government.



Yup. We're criticizing the US's handling of covid not because they lead the world in covid cases and deaths, but because they have like 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and a space force. I'm so jealous!!


----------



## TedEH

Cynicanal said:


> If people are outside, they're not distancing.


If only I could get the crowds of people off of my balcony so I can get some vitamin D. 

Lots of people have been able to get outside for a short time every day without being close to people. I've been outside for an average of 2 hours every day for the last few months and distancing is zero problem most of the time. If anything, it's hard to get close to people, cause they're paranoid of every other person they encounter. As long as you don't _literally go to the beach and have a party_, it's not nearly as difficult as you're suggesting.



Cynicanal said:


> it's always cool to hate on whoever has the most power


If you look at the US right now and the first thing that comes to mind is "power", I don't know what to tell you. You're clearly looking at the world through a very narrow lens.... dare I say a cynical lens.

I honestly don't get what your goal is here. What are you trying to accomplish by arguing with people on a guitar forum who clearly don't believe a word you're saying?


----------



## TedEH

Speaking of who has the most power -
I just saw a video of Trump admitting he has no idea what the 19 in covid19 is for.


----------



## possumkiller

TedEH said:


> Speaking of who has the most power -
> I just saw a video of Trump admitting he has no idea what the 19 in covid19 is for.


Just?

That information is days old.


----------



## TedEH

Days isn't too bad. I'm not actively seeking out these things, it only happened to make its way to me this morning. It could be days or months ago, it's still a facepalm.


----------



## sleewell

Elect a clown, laugh at his jokes. Isnt it fun to have someone so uniformed as president??


----------



## Descent

Cynicanal said:


> But it's always cool to hate on whoever has the most power -- biblical authors hated on Rome's government, now everyone hates on the U.S.'s government.



People are literally paid to hate on the US government.


----------



## Drew

Cynicanal said:


> Don't worry, no one has "beaten" it -- October is coming. But the nation will do everything in its power to make sure that the North-East and West coasts come out ahead of everyone else, since that's always been the #1 driving fource of national policy on any issue (see also: state income tax was federal tax deductable prior to the recent reforms, but state property tax wasn't -- this was a targeted economic attack specifically at certain states. The post-Civil War "punish the South!" "reconstruction" never stopped, despite what your history books will tell you). Then they'll say "it's because the South is just so backwards, so we should disenfranchise them even more!" even when it's actually because Texas had to shut down for New York, but New York won't have to shut down for Texas.
> 
> And, yes, I'm well aware of what's going on in Texas, given that I live here, and we've had confirmed cases in my office (and it's particularly bad timing for me, my vacation is next week, and there's a real chance I'll end up being forced to blow 40 hours of PTO being quarantined when, had the timing been any different, those would be charged to sick time, which wouldn't count against me). Sure am glad we shut down for a month, it made a huge difference, let me tell you oh wait no it did exactly what I said it would and we got the spike as soon as it was lifted. Lockdowns don't work for this, all they do is delay it, but I'm glad we permanently destroyed our economy to "worse than the Great Depression" levels for nothing, that was really productive.


Please. Texas barely shut down, and you guys are paying through the teeth for it now. Sure enough, while the announcement is light on detail, your governor announced today that further phases of the reopening have been temporarily halted while Texas tries to avoid an "apocalyptic" outcome. Did I predict it or WHAT?!?



Cynicanal said:


> If people are outside, they're not distancing.
> 
> BTW, most of the cases in Texas are in Houston and Dallas... the cities that had large protests. Not reopening is unlikely to have helped -- this appears to be largely driven by the George Floyd protests. Like I said, lockdowns are useless -- symbolic action, like pretending that taking off our shoes at the airport and letting minimum-wage workers take naked pictures of us protects us from terrorists.


There were protests _all over the country_. Some of the biggest were in New York City, where coronavirus cases have continued to drift down. They continue to fall here in Boston too, where we also had large protests, and that's despite continued gradual reopening (indoor dining at 50% capacity opened lst week) although with a requirement state-wide for wearing masks in public. Blaming Houston and Dallas on protesters, and not idiots who refused to wear masks, is an excuse, and you know it.

Just wear a fucking mask and get off your high horse. They work. They save lives. They reduce community transmission. And the sooner we can reduce community spread the sooner it actually IS safe to allow limited reopenings - your government just moved too fast, reopened when community transmission was too high, and your infection rate is now going parabolic for it.


----------



## thraxil

Descent said:


> People are literally paid to hate on the US government.







You guys are getting paid?


----------



## Drew

Also, in the interest of intellectual honesty here, let's not pretend that the only reason customers are staying home was because of lockdowns. Retail shopping and dinner reservation data has been pretty clear that a sharp drop in reservations was already happening _before_ shutdown orders went into effect - tons of good data out there, but here's an article from the day before NYC shut down, that mentions reservations were falling off a cliff and a number of restaurants were already shutting down before the city order came through.

https://www.restaurantbusinessonlin...table-data-shows-just-how-bad-traffic-falling

People aren't staying home just because the government won't let them go out. They're staying home anyway, because they legitimately don't want to get sick. Reservation data suggests that this is happening again in Florida and Texas - after initially stabilizing at around a decline of 40-45% from prior years under phased reopenings, in recent days that's fallen into the 60% decline range, because people want to go out to eat... but they want to not get COVID-19 a whole lot more than they want to go out to eat.

https://www.opentable.com/state-of-industry

Also worth mentioning is if you dig around a bit, Texas and Florida are both showing a slight decline in the percent of restaurants open, in the most recent period. I'd be very surprised if that doesn't prove lingering. 

Blaming the economic harm of COVID-19 entirely on the government really involves a lot of putting the cart before the horse here.


----------



## spudmunkey

Drew said:


> Also, in the interest of intellectual honesty here, let's not pretend that the only reason customers are staying home was because of lockdowns. Retail shopping and dinner reservation data has been pretty clear that a sharp drop in reservations was already happening _before_ shutdown orders went into effect - tons of good data out there, but here's an article from the day before NYC shut down, that mentions reservations were falling off a cliff and a number of restaurants were already shutting down before the city order came through.
> 
> https://www.restaurantbusinessonlin...table-data-shows-just-how-bad-traffic-falling
> 
> People aren't staying home just because the government won't let them go out. They're staying home anyway, because they legitimately don't want to get sick. Reservation data suggests that this is happening again in Florida and Texas - after initially stabilizing at around a decline of 40-45% from prior years under phased reopenings, in recent days that's fallen into the 60% decline range, because people want to go out to eat... but they want to not get COVID-19 a whole lot more than they want to go out to eat.
> 
> https://www.opentable.com/state-of-industry
> 
> Also worth mentioning is if you dig around a bit, Texas and Florida are both showing a slight decline in the percent of restaurants open, in the most recent period. I'd be very surprised if that doesn't prove lingering.
> 
> Blaming the economic harm of COVID-19 entirely on the government really involves a lot of putting the cart before the horse here.



I would agree with that sentiment. We are allowed to go grocery shopping every day. And I prefer only shopping for a couple days-worth at a time...but we are still only going every 2-3 weeks. We did a poll in this morning's all-hands meeting, and less than 1% of folks would be willing to go to a movie if a theater opened up today. Many stores are staying closed simply because it's cheaper than paying their staff to cover the way way way lower sales, even though people are allowed to shop.

My main client (I work in office furniture/planning) did a survey of all of their offices, worldwide. In EMEA, depending on the location, between 13 and 41% of people are wanting to come back to work, with the understanding that there will be pretty robust safety protocol in place...but want to still come in at the first re-opening phase.

In the US, the average is 3%. Meaning even though their areas are "opening up" out of shelter in place, people are not willing to go back. Yes, many of these are people who just want to work from home, but surveys say this is about 70% of the workforce. So of the 30% of those that want to return to the office, only about 10% of those are willng to do so.

In their Sau Paulo office, it's less than 1% of the overral work force that's willing to come back.


My own office was planning on doing a 'soft open' on the 29th, but that's been pushed back to at least August 3rd.


----------



## spudmunkey




----------



## sleewell

my work is still pretty empty but some have come back. one of my bosses is saying he probably wont be back this year. even if i didn't have a house full of young kids i would probably still come to the office but everyone is different. 

another bank in town recently built a huge building right next to their main office. for the area these are 2 huge office buildings and now both are probably nearly empty. pretty crazy.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

My wife called me today and said that they have 5 employees that tested positive and are still working ( IN FOOD PREP!). They have another 3 more confirmed ( cashiers). Mgmt is saying "Shhh... don't say anything!". We are just east of Austin where they've been setting records for DAYS ( 5551 new cases just yesterday). Our town is blowing up too... numbers going up rapidly per day. My wife wants to get tested but I said "Why?... As soon as you go back in tomorrow, then how does that help?". It only matters if you're isolating/ quarantining. Am I wrong about this, guys? Plus the fact that from what other ppl are telling her, it's $200 each test! Nice huh? I've been on the phone today with our local health dept, the covid emergency mgmt hotline, and the county judge's office. I've alerted them to the info that my wife has given me. But there is NO protocol in place here... no requirements nor restrictions for restaurants, stores, etc... no accountability/ no penalties. I won't ask how a county or state or country is permitted to act with such disregard for it's citizens... I know the answer. It just makes me absolutely sick. Wish us luck... it's getting really fucking bumpy here, folks.


----------



## Cynicanal

Drew said:


> Please. Texas barely shut down.


Aren't you the guy that, a couple months ago, posted some map created via cell-phone data that showed that a lot of the parts of Texas that are flaring up now were actually among the "most shut-down" in the nation? A bit of consistency would be nice.

As for all of you guys saying "no one is willing to go back to work!"... where the hell do you get that data from? Everyone I know who has the option of working is working. I've gone into the office through this whole thing; so has everyone else in my company who can't do 100% of their normal work from home (and we're going to continue to go in to the office come hell or high water, since we're declared "essential"). It doesn't matter what the risks are; gotta make $$$. We're still consuming resources, so we have to still produce them.


----------



## vilk

High Plains Drifter said:


> My wife called me today and said that they have 5 employees that tested positive and are still working ( IN FOOD PREP!). They have another 3 more confirmed ( cashiers). Mgmt is saying "Shhh... don't say anything!". We are just east of Austin where they've been setting records for DAYS ( 5551 new cases just yesterday). Our town is blowing up too... numbers going up rapidly per day. My wife wants to get tested but I said "Why?... As soon as you go back in tomorrow, then how does that help?". It only matters if you're isolating/ quarantining. Am I wrong about this, guys? Plus the fact that from what other ppl are telling her, it's $200 each test! Nice huh? I've been on the phone today with our local health dept, the covid emergency mgmt hotline, and the county judge's office. I've alerted them to the info that my wife has given me. But there is NO protocol in place here... no requirements nor restrictions for restaurants, stores, etc... no accountability/ no penalties. I won't ask how a county or state or country is permitted to act with such disregard for it's citizens... I know the answer. It just makes me absolutely sick. Wish us luck... it's getting really fucking bumpy here, folks.



Get a VPN, make an anonymous account on social media, and dox the employer? Is that illegal? I actually don't know...


----------



## Drew

High Plains Drifter said:


> My wife called me today and said that they have 5 employees that tested positive and are still working ( IN FOOD PREP!). They have another 3 more confirmed ( cashiers). Mgmt is saying "Shhh... don't say anything!". We are just east of Austin where they've been setting records for DAYS ( 5551 new cases just yesterday). Our town is blowing up too... numbers going up rapidly per day. My wife wants to get tested but I said "Why?... As soon as you go back in tomorrow, then how does that help?". It only matters if you're isolating/ quarantining. Am I wrong about this, guys? Plus the fact that from what other ppl are telling her, it's $200 each test! Nice huh? I've been on the phone today with our local health dept, the covid emergency mgmt hotline, and the county judge's office. I've alerted them to the info that my wife has given me. But there is NO protocol in place here... no requirements nor restrictions for restaurants, stores, etc... no accountability/ no penalties. I won't ask how a county or state or country is permitted to act with such disregard for it's citizens... I know the answer. It just makes me absolutely sick. Wish us luck... it's getting really fucking bumpy here, folks.


Fingers crossed for you man. There's a huge variery of responses state-by-state but here, I can get tested for free at walk-in clinics. I thought the federal drive-thru clinics Trump wants to close were free as well. 

If your wife were to test positive, would she be able to self-quarantine for 14 days? If so getting tested makes sense. If not, it may make sense to just assume you're both positive and act accordingly - self quarantine as much as you're able, wear masks everywhere, etc.


----------



## Drew

Cynicanal said:


> Aren't you the guy that, a couple months ago, posted some map created via cell-phone data that showed that a lot of the parts of Texas that are flaring up now were actually among the "most shut-down" in the nation? A bit of consistency would be nice.
> 
> As for all of you guys saying "no one is willing to go back to work!"... where the hell do you get that data from? Everyone I know who has the option of working is working. I've gone into the office through this whole thing; so has everyone else in my company who can't do 100% of their normal work from home (and we're going to continue to go in to the office come hell or high water, since we're declared "essential"). It doesn't matter what the risks are; gotta make $$$. We're still consuming resources, so we have to still produce them.


Missed this - I honestly don't recall, and I'm not going to wade through 150 pages of this thread to check. But, Texas was one of the first states to reopen. Anyway, you're a fine one to talk about internal consistency.  

Doing a quick google search though, this is Philly-focused but you can pick out Texas on the state by state comparison over time chart - Texas definitely lagged the national average in % of population staying home, eyeballing it I'd say bottom quartile to bottom fifth. 

https://www.inquirer.com/news/coronavirus-mobility-stay-at-home-shutdown-20200502.html

I didn't say people don't want to _work_. I said people don't want to go out to eat, go shopping, or otherwise interact in public because it's fucking dangerous. If you're in a service industry, you kinda need people wanting your services if you want to work. Service DEMAND fell, independent of any government orders, and appears to be falling again as the pandemic worsens. If you're going to argue with me, that's fine, but please at least bother to understand the arguments I'm _actually making_ before trying to disagree with me.


----------



## Señor Voorhees

Why are people against wearing masks anyway? Is it really just me who always kinda just wanted it to be socially acceptable to wear masks? 

As an aside, I have a friend who works at a huge plant that's responsible for a lot of the sauces/food stuffs a lot of brands make/distribute. They've been having off and on cases for months. Too the point where one guy tested positive on the line, they sent that shift home, and didn't tell the next shift what had happened without cleaning up. On top of that, they in general kinda just try to sweep it under the rug, and their idea of "deep cleaning" is to mist things down for two hours and send everyone back to work.

One way or another, we just need to realize that we're fucked. Take precautions, but nothing we do is going to fix much in the short term. Be kind, keep yourself and your loved ones as safe as you can, but things are just doomed to be bumpy throughout. Everyone, including the people I care about, seem to have kind of forgotten it and moved on... I can't keep my fiance's grandparents safe if they're just gonna go out and about with the rest of the family/having get togethers. I'll wear my mask and stay in as much as possible, but I'm finding it hard to care anymore. It's like a car rolling down a hill into lava, and you try your damndest to hold onto the bumper to prevent it from going in, but there's just too much working against you.

Perhaps it's fueled by the fact that I have massive depression. I almost wish I'd catch the fucking disease (if I haven't already) and buy my way out of this world without having to feel guilty about eating bullets.


----------



## TedEH

Señor Voorhees said:


> Why are people against wearing masks anyway?


I think there's a fairly intuitive answer to that: It's covering up your face, which is one of the most identifiable parts of a person. Your identity and your expression are now obscured and this makes people uncomfortable, both as the mask-wearer and the observer. Combine that with the fact that it doesn't "feel" like normal behaviour, and you've got a recipe for a lot of cognitive friction.


----------



## Cynicanal

My argument about people supposedly not wanting to work was more in response to Spudmunkey and Sleepwell; sorry for any confusion caused.

EDIT: Re: masks, I've been wearing one (my job has been mandating it), but I'll say this -- it's fucking _uncomfortable_, especially if you have to wear it for more than a few minutes. All of the air you breathe gets humid as hell, it gets in your mouth if you try to talk, and it pulls on your ears really hard all the time.


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## sleewell

i was referring to people working from home but not wanting to come back to the office, not refusing to work entirely.


----------



## Cynicanal

Again, though -- people who have to go into an office to get their job done are doing it. Officies of companies that managed to get themselves declared "essential" have been as busy as normal, provided they're in a sector that isn't a service sector.


----------



## Señor Voorhees

TedEH said:


> I think there's a fairly intuitive answer to that: It's covering up your face, which is one of the most identifiable parts of a person. Your identity and your expression are now obscured and this makes people uncomfortable, both as the mask-wearer and the observer. Combine that with the fact that it doesn't "feel" like normal behaviour, and you've got a recipe for a lot of cognitive friction.



This is probably fair, but I can't help but think that it's because (maybe in conjunction with what you said), especially in the south, we hate people telling us what to do. The anti-American contrarians that seem to be getting more and more popular these days. Whatever someone above us tells us to do, we want to do the opposite. People didn't want to go outside until they were told not to and shit like that. 

I hope mask wearing becomes the norm. Back when I worked retail, I was sick of the god damn old folks and cretins blasting sneezes and open mouth coughing in my face.


----------



## sleewell

TedEH said:


> I think there's a fairly intuitive answer to that: It's covering up your face, which is one of the most identifiable parts of a person. Your identity and your expression are now obscured and this makes people uncomfortable, both as the mask-wearer and the observer. Combine that with the fact that it doesn't "feel" like normal behaviour, and you've got a recipe for a lot of cognitive friction.




yeah i don't think that is it at all. they are taking their queues from trump - simple as that. he doesn't wear one so they don't. he thinks it makes him look weak and is an admission of his failures.

ever see the vid where trump moves his water bottle from the table to the floor and then pence immediately copies him? 

if trump was wearing a mask his lemmings, i mean followers would do the same.


----------



## spudmunkey

I've tried out a bunch of masks, and if I have to wear any for any length of time, there's only a couple of them that I wear, and none hook around my ears. I either have tie straps behind my head, or I have three of the "XL" masks from GhostCircus apparel, and I've tied string between the two ear loops, so it acts more like n elestic strap behind my head, and not hooked into my ears....but even without it, the XL size is much less uncomfortable on my ears than the "normal" size. Very soft, jersey knit style fabric.
https://ghostcircusapparel.com/coll...ucts/ninja-xlarge-organic-cotton-face-cover-1

I have another, where there's a top and bottom cord that goes behind my head. It's not eleastic: there's a spring clip that adjusts the strap like a draw string. That one's quite comfortable, buy very heavy/thick. It's from DEFY Bags. It's pricey, and definitely the most expensive mask I have, but it's the most comfortable. It's just heavy.
https://defybags.com/products/copy-of-the-bandit-mask


edit: i wonder if there's a subreddit for reviewing masks...


----------



## TedEH

Señor Voorhees said:


> we hate people telling us what to do


 I hear that. I think that's pretty standard behaviour too.



sleewell said:


> they are taking their queues from trump


There's no reason it can't be different reasons for different people. There are plenty of non-Trump followers who are hesitant to wear a mask as well. Plenty of people here don't wear masks, and it's nothing to do with Trump. I won't claim I've worn a mask the whole time, although I should have been.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Drew said:


> Fingers crossed for you man. There's a huge variery of responses state-by-state but here, I can get tested for free at walk-in clinics. I thought the federal drive-thru clinics Trump wants to close were free as well.
> 
> If your wife were to test positive, would she be able to self-quarantine for 14 days? If so getting tested makes sense. If not, it may make sense to just assume you're both positive and act accordingly - self quarantine as much as you're able, wear masks everywhere, etc.



Thanks, Drew. As of today, no she wouldn't be able to take a 14 day quarantine... not without losing her job. I'm not optimistic that my phone calls today will have any positive effect but I did what I could. Thinking of encouraging her to [again] take another LOA if she's even able. Last LOA was supposed to last 8 wks but she went back after only 3 wks ( fear of eliminating her position plus bills to pay). It's really just so surreal. Texas in in such a bad way atm... due to the exploding numbers as well as the continuing lack of coordination by local/ state/ federal govt. 

Thanks again, man. She and I continue to use an excess of hygienic practices that include washing hands constantly and wearing face-masks with filter inserts.


----------



## Cynicanal

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53175459

Europe's restrictions failed -- as soon as they were lifed, cases immediately spiked. Again, if you're not going to shut down forever, which obviously isn't viable, there's no sense of shutting down short-term.


----------



## spudmunkey

Cynicanal said:


> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53175459
> 
> Europe's restrictions failed -- as soon as they were lifed, cases immediately spiked.



The restrictions were never meant to eliminate the virus. It was to buy time. The world was caught unprepared, with shortages of vital supplies and procedures. The phrase i've seen several times now in meme form is, "The virus never went away. We just have room in the hospital for you now." Everyone knew that cases would rise again once restrictions were lifted...it's just that nurses/doctors won't have to use binder page protectors as visors, tampons as masks, or try to clean and re-use gloves. Ventilators are being produced en masse and distributed to places that needed them, etc.


----------



## Cynicanal

If that's the case, then why are people using the spike of infections in TX (or the U.S. as a whole) as evidence that we opened too early? If the existence of a spike is inevitable, then it can't be used be used as evidence that the pandemic is being handled well or poorly.


----------



## spudmunkey

Cynicanal said:


> If that's the case, then why are people using the spike of infections in TX (or the U.S. as a whole) as evidence that we opened too early? If the existence of a spike is inevitable, then it can't be used be used as evidence that the pandemic is being handled well or poorly.



There are places where the spices are out-pacing other places, and worth paying attention to.


----------



## Drew

Cynicanal said:


> If that's the case, then why are people using the spike of infections in TX (or the U.S. as a whole) as evidence that we opened too early? If the existence of a spike is inevitable, then it can't be used be used as evidence that the pandemic is being handled well or poorly.


Because there's no spike in Massachusetts or New York, states that have been MUCH more conservative. Meanwhile, Texas and Florida, amongst the first states to reopen, and who have pushed ahead VERY aggressively with reopening to an unusual degree, are seeing huge spikes and seem to be losing control of the pandemic. Houston area hospitals are now exceeding capacity, which was the very thing a shutdown was supposed to avoid. Remember, this wasn't about shutting down to delay a spike to some point in a future - the phrase all along was "flattening the curve" and slowing the spread of the virus to a degree where we never exceeded medical capacity, rather than allowing everyone to get sick all at once, and completely overwhelm our ability to treat patients. 

It's also a mistake to think about this as a "reopening" - we can't "go back to normal" until we have a robust treatment or a vaccine and enough people vaccinated to reach herd immunity. What governments are trying to do here, some a LOT better than others, is figure out how we can allow as much normal business activity as possible, in a safe manner that reduces to the greatest extent possible the spread of the disease. Texas and Florida got ahead of themselves. Frankly, even here in Mass, where we have the lowest rate of spread in the country at the moment, is pushing it a bit too - we're about to allow indoor dining at 50% capacity, and a number of local restaurants have announced they have no plans to reopen indoor dining yet because they don't think it can be done yet safely. For the most part, they've adapted with limited outdoor dining and a lot of delivery/to go business. And adapting, not reopening, should be the theme here. 

Abbott announced at noon today bars are being closed again. Man am I GOOD at predicting things.


Cynicanal said:


> Again, though -- people who have to go into an office to get their job done are doing it. Officies of companies that managed to get themselves declared "essential" have been as busy as normal, provided they're in a sector that isn't a service sector.


Again, I'm sorry for somehow not making this clearer for you than I did, but people are not going out and consuming services because they're afraid of getting sick. Considering roughly 70% of the US economy is service-based, that's a problem.

Non-service sector jobs are a mix - overall manufacturing is down, with ISM numbers in the range that usually suggests mild contraction, but there's a huge amount of variety and Boeing moving to resume 737-MAX production is adding some noise here too. Auto demand is pretty high - people who usually relied on public transportation are eyeing a future where they want to stay off - home improvement good demand is high, etc. Consumer spending is being redirected to homes, DIY projects, stuff you can do on your own, and away from services.


----------



## Drew

TedEH said:


> There's no reason it can't be different reasons for different people. There are plenty of non-Trump followers who are hesitant to wear a mask as well. Plenty of people here don't wear masks, and it's nothing to do with Trump. I won't claim I've worn a mask the whole time, although I should have been.


Trump has outsized influence with his followers though. If you stop thinking of them as a political party and start thinking of them as a cult of personality, it makes a lot more sense. He's said on a number of occasions now that he thinks people are wearing masks to show their disapproval of him, so thus not wearing a mask has become 2020's MAGA hat. He's also trying to reduce testing as much as he possibly can - it seems like he honestly doesn't believe COVID-19 is real, and the whole thing will just go away if we ignore it.


----------



## spudmunkey

The whole "more testing means more cases and makes us look bad" thing is stupid. He could let the testing run full-steam ahead and claim some sort of victory. "Look at this! We're testing 5x more than we did back when the virus was really hitting us hard, and we're still only finding the same number of cases. We have to dig deeper to find it. The virus is on the run! MOMENTUM!"

We hit nearly 40k cases back in April when we were only testing 120k. Now we've passd 600k daily tests, and we still only just hit 40K. That is good news.


----------



## Drew

spudmunkey said:


> The whole "more testing means more cases and makes us look bad" thing is stupid. He could let the testing run full-steam ahead and claim some sort of victory. "Look at this! We're testing 5x more than we did back when the virus was really hitting us hard, and we're still only finding the same number of cases. We have to dig deeper to find it. The virus is on the run! MOMENTUM!"
> 
> We hit nearly 40k cases back in April when we were only testing 120k. Now we've passd 600k daily tests, and we still only just hit 40K. That is good news.


I mean, again, it honestly only starts to make sense if he really does believe COVID-19 is just some liberal conspiracy, and the only reason it's an issue is the "lamestream media" won't stop talking about testing numbers. 

I honestly feel a bit bad for what's about to happen n Florida and Houston, but honestly, I think a lot of this country may NEED that kind of shock to the system and wake up call to remind us that we're stll living in a pandemic and that we haven't "beaten" it. 

Behind a paywall so I can't read it, but Pence's editorial claiming we beat COVID has gotten a lot of attention, for all the wrong reasons: 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/there-isnt-a-coronavirus-second-wave-11592327890

Namely, that he's fucking delusional.


----------



## Cynicanal

Drew said:


> It's also a mistake to think about this as a "reopening" - we can't "go back to normal" until we have a robust treatment or a vaccine and enough people vaccinated to reach herd immunity.


If that's the case, we're never going back to normal, which really is a non-option. If that's what you believe (and it's what I believe, too), then the only option is to accept that a whole lot of people are going to die over and over for a long time. We've never made a successful vaccine against a coronavirus -- we've even pulled the old coronavirus canine vaccine off of the schedule because it didn't work. There's no reason other than blind optimism to think that could change now.

If you're waiting for a vaccine, you're waiting forever.


----------



## TedEH

Cynicanal said:


> we're never going back to normal


I think a lot of people have very different ideas of what "back to normal" means. For a lot of people, going 100% back to normal isn't a good idea, virus or not. Being more careful about health and cleanliness is a good thing. Working from home is a big lifestyle improvement for some. If you think of "normal" as the lifting of restrictions that stop people from going outside, from being social at all etc - obviously, that level of normal is going to happen eventually. It's going to be another "new normal", but it'll still eventually be normal.



Cynicanal said:


> the only option is to accept that a whole lot of people are going to die over and over for a long time.


Nobody has denied that this is going to continue to kill people - the point right now isn't to eliminate all deaths, it's to reduce them as much as is possible to do.



Cynicanal said:


> There's no reason other than blind optimism to think that could change now.


Unless you've got some kind of scientific / medical expertise that the rest of us don't, there's also no reason other than blind pessimism to think that nothing is ever going to improve.

Everything you say is just one extreme or another, leaving zero room for grey area or nuance. The world doesn't just work in extremes. It's not just "either nobody will die or everyone will die". We can reduce deaths if we're willing to live a bit selflessly, which is better than panicking or saying fuck it.

The key word there is "selfless". This "new normal" is not the end of the world. If the best case scenario is some personal sacrifices so that we don't kill more people than necessary, then yeah - that's reasonable. We'll adapt. And yes, for some, it's a larger sacrifice than others. And yes, it's challenging, it's uncomfortable, it's putting people in some really shitty scenarios - but if you'd rather have more people die than deal with any amount of hardship, then you're the asshole in that scenario.


----------



## Metropolis

Cynicanal said:


> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53175459
> 
> Europe's restrictions failed -- as soon as they were lifed, cases immediately spiked. Again, if you're not going to shut down forever, which obviously isn't viable, there's no sense of shutting down short-term.



Some eastern European countries and Sweden are not the whole Europe. Sweden's tactics have been worst in whole continent during this pandemic. They're not allowed to travel in significant amount of countries, including Finland. We had only seven confirmed cases yesterday, and it's been decreasing a lot.

For example USA will not get rid of this until the vaccine is available. Can't say for sure, but around 40 000 confirmed cases per day is pretty bad.


----------



## diagrammatiks

Cynicanal said:


> If that's the case, we're never going back to normal, which really is a non-option. If that's what you believe (and it's what I believe, too), then the only option is to accept that a whole lot of people are going to die over and over for a long time. We've never made a successful vaccine against a coronavirus -- we've even pulled the old coronavirus canine vaccine off of the schedule because it didn't work. There's no reason other than blind optimism to think that could change now.
> 
> If you're waiting for a vaccine, you're waiting forever.



literally back to normal over here.

but you do you.


----------



## Drew

Cynicanal said:


> If that's the case, we're never going back to normal, which really is a non-option. If that's what you believe (and it's what I believe, too), then the only option is to accept that a whole lot of people are going to die over and over for a long time. We've never made a successful vaccine against a coronavirus -- we've even pulled the old coronavirus canine vaccine off of the schedule because it didn't work. There's no reason other than blind optimism to think that could change now.
> 
> If you're waiting for a vaccine, you're waiting forever.


One, I disagree with you. We've never been remotely this motivated to find a vaccine or a treatment to a coronavirus in the past, and even if we only eventually develop a vaccine that grants a few years' immunity, that in itself will be enough to cause community transmission to fall through the floor, and would make this an extremely isolated illness rather than a global pandemic.

Two, even if somehow I DID agree with you... That's a remarkably poor reason to say "fuck it, let's all get sick at once." Your state is about to find out what happens when you DON'T take steps to slow the spread, and the healthcare system is overwhelmed.

The irony here, is that the whole point of the shutdown that you've railed incessantly about, was to buy enough time to figured out what was effective to slow the spread, to obtain enough masks and ventilators and build enough overflow capacity to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed, to build out contact tracing programs, and to stop still-unprepared hospitals from being overwhelmed in the first place, in the early days of this when we were still grappling with a largely unknown enemy. We succeded at that last part... But a lot of states, a wildly disproportionate number of them Republican-led, squandered that opportunity by rushing ahead with a reopening with zero regard to the consequences because "the economy," and now for large parts of this country all of that economic pain is going to be for nothing.

I'm not saying the Northeast was perfect - New York City should have shut down well before it did, and tens of thousands of people are dead today for that delay who otherwise might have made it. But we've at least learned from our mistakes, and maybe for reasons as simple as for New England this is a real, tangible killer whereas a lot of the less hard-hit parts of the country weren't taking COVID-19 seriously, we seem to have done a pretty good job getting on top of it, whereas a lot of the south and midwest is belatedly realizing that they kinda fucked up.


----------



## narad

diagrammatiks said:


> literally back to normal over here.
> 
> but you do you.



Same over here. Watching this dude talk about the new normal and stuff is like watching some guy describing his bad drug trip while I'm totally sober.

But we have Amabie. Not really fair to compare.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

diagrammatiks said:


> literally back to normal over here.
> 
> but you do you.





narad said:


> Same over here. Watching this dude talk about the new normal and stuff is like watching some guy describing his bad drug trip while I'm totally sober.
> 
> But we have Amabie. Not really fair to compare.



Remember guys, the coronavirus, like healthcare and drugs, are _American problems_.


----------



## Randy

Upstate NY here. New York supposedly dropped way off and upstate 'never got it', so almost everything's reopened and lots of people taking no precautions. Today's news said small factory down the road from me has 38 positive cases in one shift, which is half of them or more and they're just getting around to testing the other shifts now.

I said it before like 100 pages ago, people seemingly having no concept of the idea these things don't happen everywhere at the same time. The false sense of "we're out of the woods" or "I behaved, I deserve to treat myself" is grossly irresponsible.


----------



## JSanta

Randy said:


> Upstate NY here. New York supposedly dropped way off and upstate 'never got it', so almost everything's reopened and lots of people taking no precautions. Today's news said small factory down the road from me has 38 positive cases in one shift, which is half of them or more and they're just getting around to testing the other shifts now.
> 
> I said it before like 100 pages ago, people seemingly having no concept of the idea these things don't happen everywhere at the same time. The false sense of "we're out of the woods" or "I behaved, I deserve to treat myself" is grossly irresponsible.



I'm further west in NY than you are, but we're seeing similar things. But I have been really happy to mostly see people wearing masks (correctly covering their face) when I do have to get groceries or run other errands. We try to pick dinner up once a week from a local place and seeing people with masks off at a restaurant still feels off to me. 

My father and his GF are going to her families cabin in the Adirondacks for the holiday weekend. There will be at least a dozen people up there. I am willing to bet at least half of the group will get sick.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

No one around here wears masks, and I don't think anyone really did a few months ago either. I've had to pick up some materials, food, get gas, etc. and I can count on one hand how many folks, employees included, were wearing masks. 

That's probably why my county has the most cases per capita in the state. 

Fucking idiots.

Needless to say, we've [family] pretty much been locked down since things started. I still go to work, but I work by myself and everyone on the other shifts have been taking this seriously, which is something of a surprise. Thankfully, everyone else works from home.


----------



## Randy

JSanta said:


> I'm further west in NY than you are, but we're seeing similar things. But I have been really happy to mostly see people wearing masks (correctly covering their face) when I do have to get groceries or run other errands. We try to pick dinner up once a week from a local place and seeing people with masks off at a restaurant still feels off to me.
> 
> My father and his GF are going to her families cabin in the Adirondacks for the holiday weekend. There will be at least a dozen people up there. I am willing to bet at least half of the group will get sick.



Yeah the Adirondacks are outlaw country. My friend has a boat docked in the Adirondacks and the whole lake is Trump flags and people who don't wear masks, call covid "just a cold" etc. Fulton County has been the worst in this region as far as compliance and hot spots, and that's actually where most of the people from that factory live. Lots of Confederate flags too, it's like a little piece of the South up here.

I live dead center in the Mohawk Valley, so you get city and then rural alternating pockets of compliance depending on how far you get away from the highway, which is a socioeconomic indicator really.


----------



## sleewell

Americans have at most a 10 day attention span and I think that is even generous. This didnt hit everywhere within that window so now we deal with the fallout. 


Had someone yesterday tell me with a straight face it's going to be gone the day after the election.


----------



## Boofchuck

Well, my phone was automatically updated with a Covid 19 tracker that uses location services and Bluetooth to notify me if I've been near someone who has reported to have Covid, and to notify people around me if I have it. The info is supposed to be anonymous.

Not sure how I feel about this.


----------



## Ralyks

I'm in the Mid-Hudson region of NY, and other than say Poughkeepsie (which I'm close to), a lot of areas here didn't get hit hard. My town got 7 total cases, no deaths. People are out and about. That said, I'm still wearing a mask and the other day had to take my son from the playground in our town because not just it was crowded, but like only 1/4 of the people there had masks on. So yeah, while I think we're subsided for now considering our proximity to NYC, I'm still being pretty damn cautious. Especially because I see cases rising with people from out of state trying to head over here. A group of my friends had to tell our best friend, who moved to Florida from here a few days back, that right now most of us don't feel comfortable if he were to come up, and he'd have to isolate anyway (which itself led to a whole "how are they gonna track self isolation?" discussion).


----------



## Randy

Ralyks said:


> I'm in the Mid-Hudson region of NY, and other than say Poughkeepsie (which I'm close to), a lot of areas here didn't get hit hard. My town got 7 total cases, no deaths. People are out and about. That said, I'm still wearing a mask and the other day had to take my son from the playground in our town because not just it was crowded, but like only 1/4 of the people there had masks on. So yeah, while I think we're subsided for now considering our proximity to NYC, I'm still being pretty damn cautious. Especially because I see cases rising with people from out of state trying to head over here. A group of my friends had to tell our best friend, who moved to Florida from here a few days back, that right now most of us don't feel comfortable if he were to come up, and he'd have to isolate anyway (which itself led to a whole "how are they gonna track self isolation?" discussion).



I'm not sure of the psychology of infection or fear of being infected, but the whole thing reminds me of the cat pheromone that lulls mice into WANTING to approach the cat, which makes it easier to catch them. It's like, the more likely someone is to be infected or in a 'hot spot', the more inclined they are to travel and attend social events. Could make a good zombie movie.


----------



## Ralyks

Randy said:


> Could make a good zombie movie.



Oh, I'm sure that's already in the works at multiple studios. And just like the meme, it will star The Rock and he'll find the vaccine while taking out a group of terrorist that are involved for some inane reason.


----------



## Rosal76

Randy said:


> Could make a good zombie movie.



If George A. Romero was still alive, he could have done something in his next zombie movie. George did have a reputation for recognizing key events in time and adding them in his zombie movies. 2nd picture below is from his Dawn of the dead movie from 1978. 4th picture is from Day of the dead from 1985.


----------



## JSanta

Randy said:


> Yeah the Adirondacks are outlaw country. My friend has a boat docked in the Adirondacks and the whole lake is Trump flags and people who don't wear masks, call covid "just a cold" etc. Fulton County has been the worst in this region as far as compliance and hot spots, and that's actually where most of the people from that factory live. Lots of Confederate flags too, it's like a little piece of the South up here.
> 
> I live dead center in the Mohawk Valley, so you get city and then rural alternating pockets of compliance depending on how far you get away from the highway, which is a socioeconomic indicator really.



My wife and I drove through there on our way to Quebec last year. She'd never been up in that area, but she joked that it looked like we were in Southern rural Virginia because of all of the Confederate flags. I mean, it's not funny, like at all, but still. My father could not understand how I wouldn't want to go with them...


----------



## zappatton2

Randy said:


> Could make a good zombie movie.


----------



## Drew

Boofchuck said:


> Well, my phone was automatically updated with a Covid 19 tracker that uses location services and Bluetooth to notify me if I've been near someone who has reported to have Covid, and to notify people around me if I have it. The info is supposed to be anonymous.
> 
> Not sure how I feel about this.


Sounds like a GREAT excuse to stay home and not go near anyone!


----------



## Boofchuck

Drew said:


> Sounds like a GREAT excuse to stay home and not go near anyone!


I'll add it to the pile haha.


----------



## sleewell

i think they are up to 84 cases traced from a local bar here in east lansing. the bar by my house is doing volleyball everyday now and they are packed. granted its outside but i would think transmission would be pretty easy when playing volleyball. i don't know if they are making people sign a waiver or not.


----------



## Drew

sleewell said:


> i think they are up to 84 cases traced from a local bar here in east lansing. the bar by my house is doing volleyball everyday now and they are packed. granted its outside but i would think transmission would be pretty easy when playing volleyball. i don't know if they are making people sign a waiver or not.


Got a text from a buddy to myself and 8 other people, all friends or cousins, asking if anyone was around over the fourth to get together at his (70yo) parents' place, hang out in his pool, drink some beers, and play cornhole and volleyball. In a sidebar conversation with two other close friends, he mentioned he was wearing masks in public, but not with family.

Needless to say, I will NOT be attending.


----------



## jaxadam

Drew said:


> Got a text from a buddy to myself and 8 other people, all friends or cousins, asking if anyone was around over the fourth to get together at his (70yo) parents' place, hang out in his pool, drink some beers, and play cornhole and volleyball. In a sidebar conversation with two other close friends, he mentioned he was wearing masks in public, but not with family.
> 
> Needless to say, I will NOT be attending.



Why not? No top shelf bourbon? I mean I probably wouldn’t go to a party either if it’s just gonna be some beers and corn hole.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

At one of the Memorial Hermann Hospitals in Houston ( there are several... not sure which facility) 47% of incoming patients are testing positive. No matter what ailment or injury someone is coming in for, everyone is getting tested, and again... 47% are testing positive.


----------



## Drew

jaxadam said:


> Why not? No top shelf bourbon? I mean I probably wouldn’t go to a party either if it’s just gonna be some beers and corn hole.


You complete me. <3


----------



## Empryrean

whew it's been about two months now of me working with the general public again and my district has been having stores randomly close for 14days un-announced. I didn't have to dig too hard to find out that plenty of my co-workers are a bunch of fucking idiots trying to party it up like they're indestructible. My own store was closed for one day for a deep clean because a dingus here couldn't keep it in his pants and wanted to party with a girl from another store. Turns out that her mom tested positive for covid and now she's on paid leave, presumably to watch her child who is no longer going to have a free babysitter. again, I only know about the 14day closures because of my eavesdropping, there is no internal communication about the stores testing positive for covid, theres no communication about the risk, they're basically telling us to quit if we feel unsafe. anyways hope yall are well, im somehow still keeping it together


----------



## spudmunkey

Thankfully: it seems my local testing site has a new process. Instead of the brainstem-spearing up-the-nose swab: this one was a almost-make-you-puke back-of-the-tongue, and then once only halfway up each nostril.

Tip: trim your nose hairs, or else it'll tickle like you're getting a mild electrocution in your nose.


----------



## spudmunkey

Goddamn it, how are they already releasing Season 2? We've barely reached the mid-season break on Season 1!!
https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/new-swine-flu-found-china-has-pandemic-potential

I bet there was a company somewhere that made 2020 catastrophy bingo cards printed up, but then recalled them when they saw "pandemic" listed on it twice, and thought, "Whaaa? Nah...this is a mistake. We need to re-print these."


----------



## spudmunkey

The good news is that the US is flattening the curve.

The bad news, is that it's vertically.


----------



## sleewell

is there any possibility the virus has mutated and is not as deadly as it was a few months ago?

seems like if hospitalizations have been setting records in FL, TX and CA for the last few weeks deaths would be creeping back up right?


----------



## spudmunkey

sleewell said:


> seems like if hospitalizations have been setting records in FL, TX and CA for the last few weeks deaths would be creeping back up right?



Yes, sort of.
A) There's a delay between when you are exposed and when/if you show symptons, there's a delay between when symptoms start and serious symptoms set in for hospitalization, and then a delay from when hospitalization starts and death (or an even longer period before you're considered "recovered")
B) The longer we are fighting the disease and symptoms, the more we know about it/them, and we'll just continue to get better at keeping mild cases mild, and preventing death from more severe cases.


----------



## Drew

spudmunkey said:


> Yes, sort of.
> A) There's a delay between when you are exposed and when/if you show symptons, there's a delay between when symptoms start and serious symptoms set in for hospitalization, and then a delay from when hospitalization starts and death (or an even longer period before you're considered "recovered")
> B) The longer we are fighting the disease and symptoms, the more we know about it/them, and we'll just continue to get better at keeping mild cases mild, and preventing death from more severe cases.



I'd add:
C) It seems the new hotspots are predominately due to younger people, who require hospitalization at a slightly lower rate - the optimist's case for Florida, especially, where this is the most pronounced, is this could potentially be the least-awful route towards herd immunity, letting the people least likely to die get sick. Note that I'd take some serious convincing to come around to actually believing this. 

But mostly I think it's just a matter of time.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/new-strain-covid-more-infectious-1.892276


----------



## sleewell

^ interesting.


what is the latest on if you can get it again? seems like i'll read something one day and then the opposite a few days later.

if the death rate stays lower and they are finding you might have immunity all of these cases might not be the worst case scenario that it seems like certain sections of the media are committed to portraying. obviously no deaths and a clear national strategy would be ideal but in a pandemic that occurred in an election year when we are so divided it could be a lot better scenario than what was happening a few months ago in NYC and Italy just in terms of the sheer amount of deaths.


----------



## Adieu

Randy said:


> I'm not sure of the psychology of infection or fear of being infected, but the whole thing reminds me of the cat pheromone that lulls mice into WANTING to approach the cat, which makes it easier to catch them. It's like, the more likely someone is to be infected or in a 'hot spot', the more inclined they are to travel and attend social events. Could make a good zombie movie.



A lot of things actually behave like that

There's parasites whose life stages depend on passing through multiple carriers to mature, and they actually make their hosts act ridiculous so that predators can catch them and they can hitch a ride into the predator

Also, arguably, some STDs seem to stimulate promiscuity


----------



## wankerness

Drew said:


> I'd add:
> C) It seems the new hotspots are predominately due to younger people, who require hospitalization at a slightly lower rate - the optimist's case for Florida, especially, where this is the most pronounced, is this could potentially be the least-awful route towards herd immunity, letting the people least likely to die get sick. Note that I'd take some serious convincing to come around to actually believing this.
> 
> But mostly I think it's just a matter of time.



Herd immunity is an impossibility and is a strategy only thrown around by right wingers who want to justify doing absolutely nothing. Most estimates say that herd immunity would require a bare minimum of 60% of the population, and usually more like 80%-90% to be immune before it takes hold. So let's be really generous with numbers:

60% of 300 million = 180 million
Cases per day currently = 50,000
Number of days at that rate required to get us to 180 million infected = 3600 = ALMOST TEN YEARS
Amount of time you're actually immune to it after catching it - evidence is suggesting that it's probably closer to one year than ten, so essentially herd immunity is completely impossible unless we hit 180 million infections in less than a year. And THAT would really be apocalyptic on the health system.

There's no way out of this until we get a vaccine or a functional "cure" that doesn't involve everyone stopping being dipshits running around in groups in public without masks. This country is screwed since apparently ~50% of our country believes that their personally wearing masks is worse than hundreds of thousands of deaths.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

wankerness said:


> Herd immunity is an impossibility and is a strategy only thrown around by right wingers who want to justify doing absolutely nothing. Most estimates say that herd immunity would require a bare minimum of 60% of the population, and usually more like 80%-90% to be immune before it takes hold. So let's be really generous with numbers:
> 
> 60% of 300 million = 180 million
> Cases per day currently = 50,000
> Number of days at that rate required to get us to 180 million infected = 3600 = ALMOST TEN YEARS
> Amount of time you're actually immune to it after catching it - evidence is suggesting that it's probably closer to one year than ten, so essentially herd immunity is completely impossible unless we hit 180 million infections in less than a year. And THAT would really be apocalyptic on the health system.



Remember, that 50k is based solely on the relatively small amount we're testing daily. It is not the actual number of new infections, which are likely significantly higher given the availability of testing. Infection also isn't transmitted 1:1, it tends to happen in clusters, where a single infection leads to multiple.


----------



## wankerness

MaxOfMetal said:


> Remember, that 50k is based solely on the relatively small amount we're testing daily. It is not the actual number of new infections, which are likely significantly higher given the availability of testing. Infection also isn't transmitted 1:1, it tends to happen in clusters, where a single infection leads to multiple.



Initial estimates, when the US's testing was really terrible, was that there were likely ~10x as many infections as the official numbers, but I believe that's gone way down. However, to be very liberal with our estimate and say if there's still 10x the infections as the number testing positive, it would still take a full year for herd immunity, which pessimistic estimates would still put at possibly longer than the actual immunity conferred. There's no such thing as herd immunity with things like the flu and the common cold, partly as it's impossible for everyone to get it within the short window of conferred immunity in order to eradicate it, and then the cycle just starts up again the next year.

This is also going to be scrambled by the fact that a hefty number of the population AREN'T idiots, so infection will start slowing as the no facemask socializers all get it, only to explode again when immunity runs out/we come out of our holes and society starts up again.

I'm very, very skeptical of college campuses being able to be open for the full semester in this country - seems like an inevitability that the dumber/less careful students are going to catch it and give it to huge numbers of others in a matter of days (this is already happening with student athletes/fraternities living on campus at a few places, like in Washington), at which point the only outcome I can see happening is admin immediately sending everyone home (and if they didn't, a ton of students dropping out anyway). It's too bad my job is dependent on the miraculous chance of it not occuring!


----------



## StevenC

Bars and restaurants here were allowed to open yesterday. The government said a bunch of stuff about table service and outdoors only for bars, so they've all been doing work to allow them to open in compliance. But Northern Ireland being Northern Ireland, the guidance came out super vague and not mentioning any of the stuff the government announced. As a result in my town one bar and one restaurant are open out of about 20, despite most of them probably being in compliance. None of them can be sure though.

My dad went out to the bar the past two nights and the restaurant tonight which I'm not super happy about. But at least our numbers are pretty good at the moment.

In other news our Deputy First Minister took a selfie at a funeral this week with two other people, all not wearing masks. She's been making it very clear that it was nothing like Dominic Cummings but, much like Dominic Cummings, she has a lot of respect for the regulations.


----------



## Randy

JSanta said:


> My wife and I drove through there on our way to Quebec last year. She'd never been up in that area, but she joked that it looked like we were in Southern rural Virginia because of all of the Confederate flags. I mean, it's not funny, like at all, but still. My father could not understand how I wouldn't want to go with them...






https://dailygazette.com/article/2020/07/04/trump-themed-event-draws-hundreds-of-boats-to-lake


----------



## Adieu

So.... how socially undistanced do y'all think the 4th went?

Are we expecting a brief tenfold increase in NEW cases in like a week, or more like a tenfold increase in TOTAL cases?


----------



## wankerness

Adieu said:


> So.... how socially undistanced do y'all think the 4th went?
> 
> Are we expecting a brief tenfold increase in NEW cases in like a week, or more like a tenfold increase in TOTAL cases?



It will be in more like 2-3 weeks, but I'd guess probably about a 2 fold increase in new cases. No way was it 10x new cases bad, it's only like 40% of the population that's stupid enough to go out in crowded areas in public and frolic maskless. And 10x TOTAL cases??? That would only happen if like everyone in the country was shoved into football stadiums and told to scream for a couple hours!


----------



## High Plains Drifter

In Texas, cases are very likely going to spike "again" in 2-3 weeks due to the 4th celebrations. Some cities/ counties shut down festivals/ fireworks but sadly, many others did not... OR they shut down "the parade but fireworks are still on" or visa/versa. We can't get it together down here. Mayor of Austin is begging Governor Abott to allow individual mayors to mandate stay at home orders as they see fit. But Abott says nope to that. We're doing everything that we can to make sure that going into any further waves/ spikes, hospital beds will be unavailable. Isn't that great? Many hospitals throughout Dallas, Austin, SA, and Houston are reporting that resources are being stretched very close to capacity at this time. 

You might as well forget about appealing to people's humanity or discretion at this point. You care or you don't and if you don't care, there's not one damn thing that will change your mind or your behavior. So yeah... at least here in Texas and certainly in other southern states... we'll see another sub-spike amidst this current spike... back-to-back/ overlapping. By the way... We're good and tired of babysitting too so lotta parents are already champing at the bit to shove their rugrats back into the classroom.

Funny as fuck that if we could've been wearing masks/ washing hands from the get-go, we could've potentially saved many businesses, lives, etc... but naw... flying the Confederate Flag and drinking beer in my boat plus hot dogs-n-titties!" is what drives the southern states decisions on how to proceed with this deadly health crisis.


----------



## Randy

Any validity to the theory the US got two different strains? One more lethal and slow spread, one faster spread and less lethal? You see numbers in Florida with, like, 10,000 cases in a day and you'd expect the hospitals to be totally overflowing.

One thing worth noting, for all the "it's just a flu", "you've got a 99.98% chance of surviving" stuff, the numbers in Flordia at least as of yesterday showed a 2.1% mortality rate and that's just weighed against total infections, not against recoveries (so a lot of those new cases may and likely will become fatal). The skyrocketing numbers with little to no pumping the brakes but almost no new talk about ICU capacity, ventilator shortages, PPE shortages, etc is presumably driving this new belief that flare-ups and your favorite watering hole spurring 100+ infections, close two days and then reopen are the new normal.


----------



## fantom

Randy said:


> Any validity to the theory the US got two different strains? One more lethal and slow spread, one faster spread and less lethal? You see numbers in Florida with, like, 10,000 cases in a day and you'd expect the hospitals to be totally overflowing.



https://www.cnn.com/cnn/2020/07/02/health/coronavirus-mutation-spread-study/index.html

Synopsis: spreads 10x faster, no more deadly. It is dominating most of USA with the exception of SF bay area. The worrying part is that the mutation to the receptor is the one that vaccines are targeting. It isn't clear if that will be a setback.


----------



## fantom

High Plains Drifter said:


> We're good and tired of babysitting too so lotta parents are already champing at the bit to shove their rugrats back into the classroom.



Ad a parent, I get it. What is sad is that government officials are trying to figure out school or no school. If the community can't create a small 10-15 kid home-based approach to childcare and schooling, parents are going to burn out and resort to support of public schools for a break. Italy said it early on. Stop relying o. The government to make things go back the way they were and start relying on small communities for healthcare and childcare.


----------



## jaxadam

https://slate.com/technology/2020/06/covid-death-rate-declining-explained.html


----------



## Adieu

wankerness said:


> And 10x TOTAL cases??? That would only happen if like everyone in the country was shoved into football stadiums and told to scream for a couple hours!



I stayed in so I wouldn't know, but if large parts of the country did the 4th in business-as-usual mode, then.... that's pretty much the equivalent


----------



## Ralyks

Adieu said:


> but if large parts of the country did the 4th in business-as-usual mode



Which they did...


----------



## KnightBrolaire

There have been similar studies in China and the United States and "the key finding from these representative cohorts is that most of the population appears to have remained unexposed" to Covid-19, "even in areas with widespread virus circulation," said a Lancet commentary published along with Spain's findings.
*"In light of these findings, any proposed approach to achieve herd immunity through natural infection is not only highly unethical, but also unachievable," said the Lancet's commentary authors, Isabella Eckerle, head of the Geneva Centre for Emerging Viral Diseases, and Benjamin Meyer, a virologist at the University of Geneva.*

"The relatively low seroprevalence observed in the context of an intense epidemic in Spain might serve as a reference to other countries. At present, herd immunity is difficult to achieve without accepting the collateral damage of many deaths in the susceptible population and overburdening of health systems," the report reads.



*"With a large majority of the population being infection naïve, virus circulation can quickly return to early pandemic dimensions in a second wave once measures are lifted," the Lancet's commentary authors Eckerle and Meyer wrote of the findings.
*

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/06/health/spain-coronavirus-antibody-study-lancet-intl/index.html


----------



## Randy

Seemingly even harder to take hold here in the states, as the sociological dynamics and the geography mean lots of isolated clusters, which is why we're seeing these flare-ups so many months apart and over such a long distance.

I know from an anecdotal standpoint, I've been "good", no hanging out with friends, mask everywhere, etc. I have literally one "safe" group, which is my g/f, and my parents. Outside of them, we've had my sister, her husband and their two kids over; and they're adamant against going out and strict on masks as well. And even when they're over, we still wear masks and social distance. But admittedly, with the group so "small", I'm more lax than I'd be in a public setting. Even with a mask, I don't walk closer than 6ft from a person, won't talk standing directly infront of a person, won't touch anything another person handled or was breathing on, etc. But with the "safe" group, those practices are relaxed.

The thing being, I *kinda* know where all those people go and how they act but you can't guarantee it. Maybe my brother in law has to get his car inspected and they're busy, so he's stuck in a cramped waiting room where masks are less effective and he gets it in there, etc. And in that case, it only takes the one person to get it for the rest of the people in my "safe" group to DEFINITELY all get it.

With that dynamic spread across every community of every state, yeah, COVID could absolutely slow burn its way through this country for years.


----------



## Cynicanal

KnightBrolaire said:


> ]
> *"With a large majority of the population being infection naïve, virus circulation can quickly return to early pandemic dimensions in a second wave once measures are lifted," the Lancet's commentary authors Eckerle and Meyer wrote of the findings.*


So, I guess the optimism that "the world isn't going to be on lockdown for 18 months" that everyone had early in this is gone now? 

Like I've been saying, lockdowns won't work unless they're _permanent_ (which isn't really a good option). And, as someone upthread noted, it's already mutated the spike protein that the vaccine was targeting, so combine that with our 0% success rate with coronavirus vaccines in the past, and you start to see the picture.

This virus is here to stay, folks. I know a lot of you will want to bury your heads in the sand about it, but this time 2021, it's still going to be here. And 2022. And 2023. And 2030. And 2040. And beyond.


----------



## TedEH

I'm not sure if I count myself lucky or unlucky that the group I've been considering safe in the same sense is made up of an agoraphobe and a person with a broken leg. They're both practically incapable of going anywhere.


----------



## TedEH

Cynicanal said:


> So, I guess the optimism [...] is gone now?



You're a little late on that boat, people have been referring to this as "the new normal" for months now. I don't think it could be said that the lockdown is permanent in it's current form (people still have their limits), but it's certainly lasting longer than I expected it to. If it ends up meaning that we all spend about a third of the year, for the next few years or longer, locked indoors then..... yeah, that's the new normal I guess.

People are going to continue to adapt, one way or another. If that means that it becomes the norm from now on to wear masks in public, then fine. If it means we basically always have hand sanitizer at the entrance to every store for the rest of forever, then I think that's a positive, virus or not. If that means that working from home becomes a lot more common, I'm ok with that. Part of me hopes that this prompts us to be alot more careful choosing our leadership in the future (please stop voting for entertainers to become president).

I will continue to lament the loss of live music though.


----------



## Randy

I'd consider this some form of new normal, yeah. 

I'm a 'glass half full' guy and VERY forgiving of people's idiosyncrasies, but whining about masks and people insisting on jet setting to and from hot spots or thrown COVID parties, I'm honestly burned out on people. TBH, unemployment dries up at the end of the month and my businesses isn't reopened again in earnest because of NYS restrictions and all my partners agreeing it's unsafe TO immediately reopen, I'm heavily considering taking whatever work I can get where I'm working from home and/or isolated; regardless of income. I'll revisit that thought if/when an effective vaccine comes around but as far as "rolling the dice", no, I'll sooner burn through my savings.


----------



## spudmunkey

Made a delivery to an office today, and witnessed a new kind of dummy.

You know how when you are driving, and looking for an address, you turn down the radio?

I have to assume she has some sort of similar connection with her eyes and her mouth/nose. The admin opened the refrigerator door, pulled down her mask while she peered inside, poked around a bit, then closed the door and pulled her mask back up. like she needed to pull her mask down to see clearly. While she's breathing directly into the refrigerator with shared drinks and people lunches.


----------



## sleewell

it sounds like there will be another relief bill passed soon. more direct payments, i bet they keep the increased unemployment benefits going.


----------



## Ralyks

sleewell said:


> it sounds like there will be another relief bill passed soon. more direct payments, i bet they keep the increased unemployment benefits going.



I've heard McConnell is now open to another round of direct payments, which in itself is shocking, but he said he feels people who made less than 40k suffered the most, so I'm willing to bet they lower the cap from 75k to 40 -50k as a compromise to get McConnell to get it through the Senate.


----------



## Randy

sleewell said:


> it sounds like there will be another relief bill passed soon. more direct payments, i bet they keep the increased unemployment benefits going.



I'm assuming the compromise on PUA will be lower payouts, more focus on impacted areas and industries, shorter duration and incentives for going back to work.

I think the two groups of people who were left out and still haven't been given a needed boost are family owned small businesses (PPP and EILD were employee focused) and essential workers. I'd like to see more modest payouts in the stimulus and PUA in exchange for hazard pay and direct assistance for biz NOT tethered to employment.


----------



## diagrammatiks

Cynicanal said:


> So, I guess the optimism that "the world isn't going to be on lockdown for 18 months" that everyone had early in this is gone now?
> 
> Like I've been saying, lockdowns won't work unless they're _permanent_ (which isn't really a good option). And, as someone upthread noted, it's already mutated the spike protein that the vaccine was targeting, so combine that with our 0% success rate with coronavirus vaccines in the past, and you start to see the picture.
> 
> This virus is here to stay, folks. I know a lot of you will want to bury your heads in the sand about it, but this time 2021, it's still going to be here. And 2022. And 2023. And 2030. And 2040. And beyond.



no dude this is the new normal when you live in a country that did a super fucking terrible job of taking care of a problem.

no one ever disagreed with that.

edit: oh ya it doesn't help when people are dummies.


----------



## narad

TedEH said:


> You're a little late on that boat, people have been referring to this as "the new normal" for months now.



Dude, you're replying to Mr. New Normal


----------



## possumkiller

https://imgur.com/gallery/3XkcNfY


----------



## Adieu

Randy said:


> Any validity to the theory the US got two different strains? One more lethal and slow spread, one faster spread and less lethal? You see numbers in Florida with, like, 10,000 cases in a day and you'd expect the hospitals to be totally overflowing.
> 
> One thing worth noting, for all the "it's just a flu", "you've got a 99.98% chance of surviving" stuff, the numbers in Flordia at least as of yesterday showed a 2.1% mortality rate and that's just weighed against total infections, not against recoveries (so a lot of those new cases may and likely will become fatal). The skyrocketing numbers with little to no pumping the brakes but almost no new talk about ICU capacity, ventilator shortages, PPE shortages, etc is presumably driving this new belief that flare-ups and your favorite watering hole spurring 100+ infections, close two days and then reopen are the new normal.



Isn't Florida pretty much majority-elderly-alcoholics though?


----------



## sleewell

The "war time" president throws in the towel after not doing anything besides golfing and watching tv. Huge shocker. those bone spurs must be acting up again. 


Elect a clown, they said what's the worst that could happen?


----------



## Adieu

sleewell said:


> The "war time" president throws in the towel after not doing anything besides golfing and watching tv. Huge shocker. those bone spurs must be acting up again.
> 
> 
> Elect a clown, they said what's the worst that could happen?



There's an old Russian saying: "the clowns leave, but the circus remains"


----------



## Viginez

...edit


----------



## Surveyor 777

I normally stay out of this thread because I haven't had anything to say and really haven't been keeping current on the news, but I have to vent on something that is DRIVING ME NUTS.

I had to go to two stores in the past week. Both stores have "direction" arrows marked with tape on the floor, ALL OVER THE PLACE. I didn't measure, but in one store I swear the arrows were placed every 6 feet, so there were A LOT of them.

I would think a common-sense thing would be to realize these are pointing in the direction you are supposed to walk, right? Well, maybe this is only a "suggestion" by the store (sarcasm).

It is pretty much 50/50 - half the people follow the correct "direction" throughout the store. The other half walk wherever the hell they want.

If we're supposed to be keeping 6' apart, it's pretty damn hard when I'm walking the "right" way down the aisle and some jackass is walking straight toward me and there is maybe 1 foot between carts when we pass each other.

Seriously:

1. Are you that damn arrogant that you think "I can do what I want"?
2. Are you that damn arrogant that you think "Nobody is going to tell me what to do - this is America"?
3. Or are you just that stupid?

I was just fuming last night after I left the grocery store. I feel sorry for the people working there. I hate to think of this, but I wouldn't put it past one of these arrogant morons to go to the store when they're sick, cough their brains out and infect the people working there.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Surveyor 777 said:


> I normally stay out of this thread because I haven't had anything to say and really haven't been keeping current on the news, but I have to vent on something that is DRIVING ME NUTS.
> 
> I had to go to two stores in the past week. Both stores have "direction" arrows marked with tape on the floor, ALL OVER THE PLACE. I didn't measure, but in one store I swear the arrows were placed every 6 feet, so there were A LOT of them.
> 
> I would think a common-sense thing would be to realize these are pointing in the direction you are supposed to walk, right? Well, maybe this is only a "suggestion" by the store (sarcasm).
> 
> It is pretty much 50/50 - half the people follow the correct "direction" throughout the store. The other half walk wherever the hell they want.
> 
> If we're supposed to be keeping 6' apart, it's pretty damn hard when I'm walking the "right" way down the aisle and some jackass is walking straight toward me and there is maybe 1 foot between carts when we pass each other.
> 
> Seriously:
> 
> 1. Are you that damn arrogant that you think "I can do what I want"?
> 2. Are you that damn arrogant that you think "Nobody is going to tell me what to do - this is America"?
> 3. Or are you just that stupid?
> 
> I was just fuming last night after I left the grocery store. I feel sorry for the people working there. I hate to think of this, but I wouldn't put it past one of these arrogant morons to go to the store when they're sick, cough their brains out and infect the people working there.



Come down here to Texas. You'll go back to Wisconsin with a fresh perspective on arrogance and stupidity. But seriously... Don't come here. We're fucked.


----------



## TedEH

I have trouble getting worked up over the arrows on the ground, both because I don't think they accomplish what they set out to do, but also the rest of what goes on in grocery stores is a shitshow at this point, so it's a pick-your-battles kind of situation.

From everything I've seen so far, risk of infection tends to be time x proximity. Given that people don't bother with masks, and many that do are doing it wrong, and the arrows cause people to queue up with little or no concern for distance, it ends up defeating it's purpose. If you go into the store and only need one thing, the best way to reduce your time spent in any amount of proximity to anyone is to go at a time that there's not likely to be a lot of people, go directly to what you need and get out, IMO. If I pass someone by for a fraction of a second, that's not worse than being sandwiched between two people with no masks who insist on following the subset of rules they choose because of convenience without regard for _why_ the rules are in place. More than that - stopping someone to deride them is increasing exposure even more, since now you're directly breathing at someone who would have otherwise been long out of risk range by now.


----------



## possumkiller

High Plains Drifter said:


> Come down here to Texas. You'll go back to Wisconsin with a fresh perspective on arrogance and stupidity. But seriously... Don't come here. We're fucked.


I'm going to be honest. I see a lot of conservative dickwads saying that if you don't like it then leave. I did and it's probably the best thing I've ever done.


----------



## Randy

Adieu said:


> Isn't Florida pretty much majority-elderly-alcoholics though?



Depends if you follow Desantis logic or common sense. He said first that the spread was from migrant workers and then he said it was from young folks in NON-business related social situations that they have no control over. So according to him, no, Florida's senior population aren't getting it.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

High Plains Drifter said:


> Come down here to Texas. You'll go back to Wisconsin with a fresh perspective on arrogance and stupidity. But seriously... Don't come here. We're fucked.



Don't let the swing state status fool you, outside of parts of Milwaukee and Madison it's fucking Mississippi Jr. up here.


----------



## possumkiller

MaxOfMetal said:


> Don't let the swing state status fool you, outside of parts of Milwaukee and Madison it's fucking Mississippi Jr. up here.


Moving around a lot when I was a kid and being a truckdriver for a couple of years taught me that once you get outside city limits, the USA is the same everywhere.


----------



## Vostre Roy

Bolsonaro (Brezil president) has been tested positive to COVID-19


----------



## zappatton2

Vostre Roy said:


> Bolsonaro (Brezil president) has been tested positive to COVID-19


Good. I'm not one to wish misfortune on others. Except him. Fuck him.


----------



## Adieu

Vostre Roy said:


> Bolsonaro (Brezil president) has been tested positive to COVID-19



Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy

Well, unless it takes Putin and Trump... here's hoping


----------



## wankerness

Unfortunately, it sounds like he's not very affected by it, and that will probably make him double down on his "get everyone to contract it!!!" plan.

I'm glad that guy exists, so we know we could have a leader that was even worse. Though it sounds like the general populace there is being a lot less stupid than ours.


----------



## Rosal76

Adieu said:


> Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy
> 
> Well, unless it takes Putin and Trump... here's hoping



I'm sure a lot people already know about it but Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.'s girlfriend, caught the Coronavirus. She was tested 4 days ago and the test was positive. I'm assuming she caught it at the Mount Rushmore rally Trump had on the 4th but I don't know for sure. But anyways, the anti-Trump people were not apologetic one bit about the posts they made on her Twitter page. Some of the posts they made.

"You caught a hoax?"
"Karma, eat a whole bag of it."
"Prayers and bleach."
"You'll be O.K. In the meantime, give Donald Trump a big wet, sloppy kiss."
"She couldn't find a mask big enough to cover that trap (mouth)."
"$30,000 on plastic surgery. $6 face mask. Logic."


----------



## spudmunkey

Rosal76 said:


> \She was tested 4 days ago and the test was positive. I'm assuming she caught it at the Mount Rushmore rally Trump had on the 4th but I don't know for sure.



*checks calendar* I'm pretty sure we do know for sure. 

If I read/remember correctly, I do believe someone travelled with the president spent time with her at the rally.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Not to doubt our illustrious and moral administration but I certainly wouldn't be at all surprised if these people in close contact with trump, haven't honestly tested positive. This would allow him to proclaim that "they had it and got over it without any major issues". If they have indeed contracted it and they recover, then you can also bet that trump will use this to solidify his claims that the virus is no big deal. No matter what, this vindictively negligent criminal will indeed use anything... factual or fabricated as an opportunity to pat his back and beat his chest.


----------



## jaxadam

*Wearing Face Masks During Sex Encouraged To Help Reduce Coronavirus Transmission*

https://www.forbes.com/sites/marlam...P9UnmjzvNDe3Rv--nxathprn9TTbQWXY#2e30b0d65c6d


----------



## JSanta

jaxadam said:


> *Wearing Face Masks During Sex Encouraged To Help Reduce Coronavirus Transmission*
> 
> https://www.forbes.com/sites/marlam...P9UnmjzvNDe3Rv--nxathprn9TTbQWXY#2e30b0d65c6d



*if engaging in sexual activities with someone you have not been quarantining with. 

I don't see this being any different than any other type of close quarters contact with people you have not been isolating with. Wear a mask. Reduce transmission.


----------



## Ralyks

JSanta said:


> *if engaging in sexual activities with someone you have not been quarantining with.
> 
> I don't see this being any different than any other type of close quarters contact with people you have not been isolating with. Wear a mask. Reduce transmission.



This sounds like it should be a Tinder disclaimer.


----------



## spudmunkey

There's already been a handfull of videos on pornhub with masks. So I've heard.


----------



## spudmunkey

"Click-it or ticket"
"Bag it before you shag it"
"Mask-it or casket"

They write themselves.


----------



## Señor Voorhees

In the grand scheme of things someone, even someone like trump, is more likely to survive than not. Prepare for him to catch it, (if he hasn't already,) be fine, then pass it off even more like not such a big deal when he realizes he beat the big bad covid "flu bug."

It doesn't mean anything, but I know somebody who has like 9000 underlying conditions, (dementia, heart issues, diabetes, etc etc.) who was confirmed to have it, but never bought the farm from it... Never really showed systems. With this world's luck, that's exactly how trump would get it. A fat old out of shape fuck who can't lift a glass of water, hates people of color and gays, will be A fucking okay while legitimately good people die to it. 

My hope is that he gets it, his body handles it poorly but he survives, and has a moment of clarity that something else should maybe be done. I'm not holding my breath, however. The man has proven to be a heartless self serving cunt since the beginning of time. If he gets it and survives, everyone is out of the woods as far as he's concerned.


----------



## TedEH

JSanta said:


> *if engaging in sexual activities with someone you have not been quarantining with.


We're all too busy on guitar forums for this to be a concern anyway.


----------



## Adieu

JSanta said:


> *if engaging in sexual activities with someone you have not been quarantining with.
> 
> I don't see this being any different than any other type of close quarters contact with people you have not been isolating with. Wear a mask. Reduce transmission.



Gloryholes - the future of intimacy


----------



## Xaios

Adieu said:


> Gloryholes - the future of intimacy


Can one catch Covid through the dick from a blowjob? These are the real questions.

As far as Bolsonaro catching it goes... Despite recognizing that honestly a lot of people would be better off without him around, an acute case seems to be a horrible way to go, and that's the kind of suffering that I truly wouldn't wish on anyone, even if they so richly deserve it. Even if their governing policies are certainly a direct cause of other people going through it.


Rosal76 said:


> But anyways, the anti-Trump people were not apologetic one bit about the posts they made on her Twitter page. Some of the posts they made.
> 
> "You caught a hoax?"
> "Karma, eat a whole bag of it."
> "Prayers and bleach."
> "You'll be O.K. In the meantime, give Donald Trump a big wet, sloppy kiss."
> "She couldn't find a mask big enough to cover that trap (mouth)."
> "$30,000 on plastic surgery. $6 face mask. Logic."


I'm annoyed by this. I'm just as anti-Trump as most people here, but this doesn't help. It's needlessly vindictive, even if she's earned it (which, admittedly, is an assumption on my part based solely on her career choices and the current company she keeps), and unless she emerges from it with a profound change in tune, all it really accomplishes is further galvanizing the right's (incredibly bad faith, but still present) messaging that "See, the left just wants to kill us!" Also, as a one-time conservative who eventually came around (and I know I'm not alone in that on this forum), I have to believe that other people can to, but seeing people on the left make these kinds of statements against someone that the left itself knows is suffering from a potentially fatal disease can only possibly push anyone who's starting to question their beliefs back into thinking that the left is devoid of moral fiber.


----------



## possumkiller

True. 
I just assumed there are assholes on all sides and *try* not to sink to the same level.

It's pretty difficult sometimes though.


----------



## TedEH

possumkiller said:


> It's pretty difficult sometimes though.


...?

It's not difficult to avoid wishing horrible things on people on a public forum.


----------



## possumkiller

TedEH said:


> ...?
> 
> It's not difficult to avoid wishing horrible things on people on a public forum.


It is.


You have to remember not everyone is Canadian.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

I simply don't have it in me to revel in the suffering of anyone. There are people out there that I feel deserve what they get when they act with complete disregard for others and certainly for those that have intentionally caused unspeakable harm or suffering to others ( this includes animals). And I do feel that some horrid people should be put to death for exceedingly inhumane acts. But even in those types of circumstances... I wish only swift and humane consequence. If eliminating a threat or punishing criminal acts means that someone is put to death then so be it but again, it should be with the sole intent to protect others and to address accountability of heinous crimes... not to inflict suffering. We are human beings and should in turn act with humanity and humility... always.


----------



## TedEH

possumkiller said:


> You have to remember not everyone is Canadian.



You don't have to be Canadian to be a decent person. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


----------



## possumkiller

TedEH said:


> You don't have to be Canadian to be a decent person. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


It's easy for you to say when you live in Canada. You don't have to worry about your government officials trying to kill you for money.


----------



## jaxadam

Says the guy who kills possums for fun!


----------



## possumkiller

High Plains Drifter said:


> I simply don't have it in me to revel in the suffering of anyone. There are people out there that I feel deserve what they get when they act with complete disregard for others and certainly for those that have intentionally caused unspeakable harm or suffering to others ( this includes animals). And I do feel that some horrid people should be put to death for exceedingly inhumane acts. But even in those types of circumstances... I wish only swift and humane consequence. If eliminating a threat or punishing criminal acts means that someone is put to death then so be it but again, it should be with the sole intent to protect others and to address accountability of heinous crimes... not to inflict suffering. We are human beings and should in turn act with humanity and humility... always.


I can't say I feel the same. I think the punishment should fit the crime.
Dude choked a restrained guy to death on a public street. He should die the same way.

Some 18 year old girl and her friends beat the shit out of a 12 year old girl and broke most of her bones and set her on fire to slowly die while she smoldered. They should get the same thing.

They should experience the trauma and suffering they forced upon others.


----------



## possumkiller

jaxadam said:


> Says the guy who kills possums for fun!


I never said it was for fun. It's a job that has to be done.


----------



## jaxadam

I was always told if you have to do a job, make it fun.


----------



## vilk

It's my opinion that if every anti-masker spontaneously "disappeared" in the night, America would be a better place for it tomorrow. Not just because we'd see our COVID-19 problems calm down, but generally.


----------



## Adieu

TedEH said:


> You don't have to be Canadian to be a decent person. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯



I take it you don't travel?


----------



## Adieu

possumkiller said:


> Some 18 year old girl and her friends beat the shit out of a 12 year old girl and broke most of her bones and set her on fire to slowly die while she smoldered. They should get the same thing.
> 
> They should experience the trauma and suffering they forced upon others.



Damn... when and where did THAT happen????


----------



## TedEH

What even is this conversation 
Being American isn't a prerequisite to being an asshole on the internet.


----------



## spudmunkey

TedEH said:


> What even is this conversation
> Being American isn't a prerequisite to being an asshole on the internet.



No, but it helps.


----------



## possumkiller

Adieu said:


> Damn... when and where did THAT happen????


One of the many crime documentaries my wife watches. The main girl got a prison sentence and is now raising puppies.

When I had come back to Florida in 2010, there was a story on the news that took place not far from where I was. A high school kid had a crush on a high school girl. She didn't like him. She invited him to her house in the middle of nowhere to help her with homework. He got there and her older brothers broke his legs and shot him multiple times before setting him on fire and burning him alive. When dad got home, he was pissed about the mess they made. He had them chop the remains up into pieces and bury it in the woods and then clean and bleach the area where they killed him.


There was also Casey Anthony.

And the "zombie guy" that was eating someone's face on the highway.


----------



## spudmunkey

This one, maybe?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Shanda_Sharer

Was it an older case?


----------



## possumkiller

spudmunkey said:


> This one, maybe?
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Shanda_Sharer
> 
> Was it an older case?


That's the one.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

possumkiller said:


> I can't say I feel the same. I think the punishment should fit the crime.
> Dude choked a restrained guy to death on a public street. He should die the same way.
> 
> Some 18 year old girl and her friends beat the shit out of a 12 year old girl and broke most of her bones and set her on fire to slowly die while she smoldered. They should get the same thing.
> 
> They should experience the trauma and suffering they forced upon others.



I certainly understand that thought but respectfully disagree. In the larger context of societal morality, we should not get to choose how or to what degree someone physically/ mentally suffers while being put to death. When you consider incarceration, although it causes suffering, it is ultimately to remove that person from society and to punish and/ or rehabilitate that person. But when someone is sentenced to death, I don't believe that during that process there should be some sort of prescribed suffering to take place. That's a brutal approach that serves no other purpose than fulfilling the same type of satisfaction that the convicted person felt while committing their heinous crime. Again... putting someone to death should be swift and without some underlying sense of satisfaction or retribution. It should only serve to eradicate the individual from society... period. 

We'll just have to disagree on this... Topic seems more fitting for the trump thread anyway.


----------



## jaxadam

The guy kills racoons man, what do you expect?


----------



## Adieu

possumkiller said:


> One of the many crime documentaries my wife watches. The main girl got a prison sentence and is now raising puppies.
> 
> When I had come back to Florida in 2010, there was a story on the news that took place not far from where I was. A high school kid had a crush on a high school girl. She didn't like him. She invited him to her house in the middle of nowhere to help her with homework. He got there and her older brothers broke his legs and shot him multiple times before setting him on fire and burning him alive. When dad got home, he was pissed about the mess they made. He had them chop the remains up into pieces and bury it in the woods and then clean and bleach the area where they killed him.
> 
> 
> There was also Casey Anthony.
> 
> And the "zombie guy" that was eating someone's face on the highway.



With neighbors like that, no wonder the locals luv their guns...


----------



## sleewell

over 15k cases in one day in FL. 

send the kids back to school right before the election. 

lets fucking do it. kill em all!!!!!!

bring back the plague 2020


----------



## Adieu

sleewell said:


> over 15k cases in one day in FL.
> 
> send the kids back to school right before the election.
> 
> lets fucking do it. kill em all!!!!!!
> 
> bring back the plague 2020



Maybe that WAS the whole point?

I mean, it DOES seem to bungle the elections every time, and its unflattering geographic contours must surely be an embarrassment to the rest of this great-again nation....


----------



## Adieu

They're just working for the dream of severing Lady Liberty's limp, swollen, phimotic microweenis 


(Geographically speaking)


----------



## Drew

That new record in Florida, incidently, is a new one-day record for _any_ state, eclipsing New York by 3,000 cases in the height of their outbreak during the shutdown. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/12/us/florida-coronavirus-covid-cases.html


----------



## sleewell

back down to over 12k new cases yesterday so they are all good.


the calls..... they are coming from inside the house!!

“I know it isn’t popular to talk about in some Republican circles, but we still have a testing problem in this country. My son was tested recently; we had to wait 5 to 7 days for results. My daughter wanted to get tested before visiting her grandparents, but was told she didn’t qualify,” Mulvaney wrote in a CNBC op-ed. “That is simply inexcusable at this point in the pandemic.”


“Put another way, the fact that people aren’t going on vacation probably has more to do with fear of getting sick than it does with their economic condition. Giving people a check, or some financial incentive to travel, won’t solve their problem. Make people feel safe to go back on an airplane or cruise ship, and they will of their own accord,” Mulvaney wrote. “Elections, despite what too many politicians think, cannot be bought. But problems can be solved. As lawmakers consider the next stimulus, let’s hope they focus on the latter.”


----------



## spudmunkey

sleewell said:


> the fact that people aren’t going on vacation probably has more to do with fear of getting sick than it does with their economic condition.



Literally this. i've been able to work this whole time, and I got stimulus payment. But I'm still hesitant to go anywhere where there's "people", on a lfight, or a hotel, etc.


----------



## jaxadam

spudmunkey said:


> Literally this. i've been able to work this whole time, and I got stimulus payment.



Lucky you! Do you mind sharing since I didn't get any?


----------



## spudmunkey

Goddamn you, The Onion...


----------



## jaxadam

sleewell said:


> over 15k cases in one day in FL.
> 
> send the kids back to school right before the election.
> 
> lets fucking do it. kill em all!!!!!!
> 
> bring back the plague 2020



ya dood it is crazy down here brah... i mean, we're almost at 2/3rds the death rate of Michigan and 1/10th of new york. shit is whack yo!!!!!!



Drew said:


> That new record in Florida, incidently, is a new one-day record for _any_ state, eclipsing New York by 3,000 cases in the height of their outbreak during the shutdown.
> 
> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/12/us/florida-coronavirus-covid-cases.html



There may be a silver lining to this... In a press conference this evening, it was noted that Florida has gone from testing 15,000 cases a day to over 100,000 cases a day. In some instances we have tested more in one day than some countries (Taiwan) have total. Here's the silver lining: A majority of these cases are asymptomatic or very mild symptoms, but it gives the person testing positive the knowledge to know they have it and do everything in their power to isolate and slow the spread.


----------



## jaxadam

https://www.tmc.edu/news/2020/06/blood-type-may-affect-covid-19-outcomes-study-shows/

This comment is legit:



> i am a o neg blood - we are immune to this--- if you have the green,blue, hazel eye color you are a pure blood o neg bloodline --that blood has high levels of copper..To be president in this country you have to be o neg bloodline. we are the bloodline from the annukai gods. your god/ google it


----------



## budda

sleewell said:


> over 15k cases in one day in FL.
> 
> send the kids back to school right before the election.
> 
> lets fucking do it. kill em all!!!!!!
> 
> bring back the plague 2020



We still have the plague.

It just doesn't cause this *gestures at current events*


----------



## Drew

jaxadam said:


> https://www.tmc.edu/news/2020/06/blood-type-may-affect-covid-19-outcomes-study-shows/
> 
> This comment is legit:


 



jaxadam said:


> ya dood it is crazy down here brah... i mean, we're almost at 2/3rds the death rate of Michigan and 1/10th of new york. shit is whack yo!!!!!!
> 
> 
> 
> There may be a silver lining to this... In a press conference this evening, it was noted that Florida has gone from testing 15,000 cases a day to over 100,000 cases a day. In some instances we have tested more in one day than some countries (Taiwan) have total. Here's the silver lining: A majority of these cases are asymptomatic or very mild symptoms, but it gives the person testing positive the knowledge to know they have it and do everything in their power to isolate and slow the spread.


Yeah, hopefully if you test enough people, and they treat the results seriously enough, you can slow this down somewhat... but with bars, restaurants, and shops all open, and maybe 30% of the country treating this as a giant libtard hoax to make the God Emperor look bad, well, there's a point where community transmission is going to be impossible to stop without a full lockdown, and you guys are careening towards that. 

Stay safe, man. Fingers crossed for you and your family.


----------



## LordCashew

jaxadam said:


> https://www.tmc.edu/news/2020/06/blood-type-may-affect-covid-19-outcomes-study-shows/
> 
> This comment is legit:



I was on board until he misspelled Anunnaki. Such blatant disrespect...


----------



## possumkiller




----------



## TedEH

Masks are finally becoming required in public spaces here. It became required in Ontario recently, so it was inevitable that Quebec was soon to follow.


----------



## wankerness

For a preview of what's going to happen here in a month, check out what happened in Israel when they opened the school system:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/israe...were-a-disaster-that-wiped-out-lockdown-gains

And this was when they were starting from a position of VERY few infections in the country! This is going to be a real disaster considering in some regions probably 10% of the population has it. For better or worse, at least Florida's leading the way, so when things inevitably explode there most of the country will still be able to cancel their plans before they follow them down the same tunnel.

The only good news there is that it sounds like the very young children were OK during their trial run with 3rd graders and under. I have read that it's around age 12 where children start becoming susceptible to catching it/spreading it (not that they'll get serious cases very often, but they'll all give it to each other and all the staff/teachers).


----------



## Ralyks

My concern is what are they going to do about parents. I raise my about-to-be-5 year old by myself with full custody with his mom 6 hours away, and I also have to work full time. With having him suppose to start kindergarten shortly, like, is having to stay home so your child can stay home going to be a reason to get furloughed or seek unemployment in some way? Are the employers going to work around all of this? I don't want the health risks that come with kids back to school either, but in that case, figure out how The parents can still pay rent, bills, food, etc.


----------



## wankerness

Ralyks said:


> My concern is what are they going to do about parents. I raise my about-to-be-5 year old by myself with full custody with his mom 6 hours away, and I also have to work full time. With having him suppose to start kindergarten shortly, like, is having to stay home so your child can stay home going to be a reason to get furloughed or seek unemployment in some way? Are the employers going to work around all of this? I don't want the health risks that come with kids back to school either, but in that case, figure out how The parents can still pay rent, bills, food, etc.



We could do what every civilized, first world country is doing and pay some kind of UBI to people. Oh wait, we have republicans in charge.


----------



## Ralyks

wankerness said:


> We could do what every civilized, first world country is doing and pay some kind of UBI to people. Oh wait, we have republicans in charge.


----------



## spudmunkey

Well, as of tomorrow, my company is down-sizing, and I'll be out of a job. I'm sort of a "right hand man" support role to people with a more revenue-creating skillset, so to keep them on-board, roles like mine are being eliminated.

For context, i work for a commercial furniture dealer. We provide cubicles, and open-plan workspaces, lounge furniture, conference tables and chairs, signage, design services, installation project management, reception desks, cafe tables and chairs, etc. So basically, outfitting offices. Which are sitting empty. And new plans screeched to a halt.

I had supported an account manager for one specific large international account, and handled some of the day-to-day stuff for her, and then also some smaller projets that came in to our office.

So...that sucks.


----------



## sleewell

sorry to hear that.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Very sorry to hear that, @spudmunkey. I truly hope you're able to rebound from this layoff. Also @Ralyks and other SSO guys that have children involved in all of this... I dearly hope going forward, that you, your children, and families remain safe and healthy. Be well, everyone.


----------



## jaxadam

High Plains Drifter said:


> Very sorry to hear that, @spudmunkey. I truly hope you're able to rebound from this layoff. Also @Ralyks and other SSO guys that have children involved in all of this... I dearly hope going forward, that you, your children, and families remain safe and healthy. Be well, everyone.



I figure if young children are so immune to this, they can take our jobs and go to work for us, and us adults stay home and homeschool ourselves.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

jaxadam said:


> I figure if young children are so immune to this, they can take our jobs and go to work for us, and us adults stay home and homeschool ourselves.



I'm all for kids hitting the bricks and contributing to the household by the time they're weaned but still... safety first.


----------



## sleewell

has anyone see anything that it might affect different blood types differently? what i saw said type O would be less affected and type A would be more likely to develop worse symptoms. hard to know what to believe these days. 

it also sounds like autopsies are revealing lots of blood clots throughout the body.


----------



## tedtan

sleewell said:


> has anyone see anything that it might affect different blood types differently? what i saw said type O would be less affected and type A would be more likely to develop worse symptoms. hard to know what to believe these days.
> 
> it also sounds like autopsies are revealing lots of blood clots throughout the body.



Yes. It's too early to say for sure, but it appears that type O blood (positive or negative) makes you both less likely to get covid19 and more likely to have a mild case if you do end up with it. The working theory at this point is that the A and B proteins are in the plasma, rather than on the red blood cells as with types A and B, which puts them in a better place to identify and fight off invasive foreign bodies such as SARScov2.


----------



## sleewell

very interesting.


----------



## Ralyks

jaxadam said:


> I figure if young children are so immune to this, they can take our jobs and go to work for us, and us adults stay home and homeschool ourselves.



I mean, I AM entering my last semester for my accounting degree next month...


----------



## Randy

spudmunkey said:


> Well, as of tomorrow, my company is down-sizing, and I'll be out of a job. I'm sort of a "right hand man" support role to people with a more revenue-creating skillset, so to keep them on-board, roles like mine are being eliminated.
> 
> For context, i work for a commercial furniture dealer. We provide cubicles, and open-plan workspaces, lounge furniture, conference tables and chairs, signage, design services, installation project management, reception desks, cafe tables and chairs, etc. So basically, outfitting offices. Which are sitting empty. And new plans screeched to a halt.
> 
> I had supported an account manager for one specific large international account, and handled some of the day-to-day stuff for her, and then also some smaller projets that came in to our office.
> 
> So...that sucks.



Very sorry to hear that.

I've held that there's a bit of cognitive dissonance or a deliberately naive attitude about how COVID would effect the marketplace. First the idea that businesses could just 'pause' and come back months later like nothing happened, or that you could reopen businesses at pace or use the PPP etc as a parachute and everything would be fine. The dynamic of how people work, how customers shop, how employees interact with their business, etc is turned completely upside down and it'll be years for it go back to 'normal' assuming it ever does.

Malls reopened here in NY on Saturday, which is where my office is located (that's been closed since early March). Other than just being apprehensive about going back to that setting, there's also the issue of half my customers just completely out of business or 'paused' indefinitely (like the local casino, and music venues), then the remainder of my customers either cash strapped or uncertain about long term, so they're not looking to spend money. The only potential customer I had on the hook that's in good shape from before COVID is the local grocery store chain, and even they shot me down back in April because they said they don't know where they're spending their marketing money in the future. 

So yeah, this is going to be slow and painful. I liken it to nuclear fallout, where a bunch of people die on impact, then die from exposure, then from starving after the wildlife/crops die off, so on. We're still many months away from knowing what 'new normal' looks like as far as business is concerned.


----------



## spudmunkey

A couple of headlines from here. Read the bottom one first.



Well, that was an interesting 14 hours. Ha!


----------



## Randy

spudmunkey said:


> A couple of headlines from here. Read the bottom one first.
> View attachment 82670
> 
> 
> Well, that was an interesting 14 hours. Ha!



This is NY in a nutshell, although we haven't shifted to 'close again' yet.

Infection flare-ups are happening all around my area, but they keep getting blamed on outside factors (travelers from other regions, or other states) and the percentage of positive tests stays below 9%, so they keep re-opening more things day-by-day, week-by-week even though the cases are no longer declining or flat. Cuomo knows the game he's playing, especially when he holds press conferences touting "continues to decline" and then a week of rising rates and the new phrase shifts to "continues to remain low".

One example is indoor dining. Literally every business I know reconfigured for curbside delivery and distanced outdoor/patio seating. There was no reason to push indoor dining, but there it is, and you start getting whole restaurant staff testing positive. And then we had outdoor distanced graduation ceremonies, but "numbers are low" so they switched to allow "distanced" indoor graduation ceremonies and now they're looking at one positive case there that's suspected as leading to 20+.

I can't wrap my head around NOT sticking with something sustainable if it's working.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Not to sound Cynical but we have not begun to see the worst of this. Americans as a whole are not capable of utilizing sound judgement nor self-control... period.


----------



## Science_Penguin

High Plains Drifter said:


> Not to sound Cynical but we have not begun to see the worst of this. Americans as a whole are not capable of utilizing sound judgement nor self-control... period.



Worst part is, natural selection's a slow, patient, sneaky son of a bitch. A crap ton of people are gonna get through this with no consequences (at least none inconvenient for them personally) and say "I told ya it wasn't such a big deal!" and that's just going to exacerbate our problems...


----------



## wankerness

Yeah. The time for staying at home and avoiding all contact is now, not three months ago. This is going to be horrific and there is absolutely no chance anyone will do anything to help the general public’s pain until Trump is out of office. I read that 5 million people have lost health care since this started, and millions are about to be evicted. Those two things will be great considering the plague is at the very bottom of its curve in any location that’s not going to lock down.


----------



## SpaceDock

^ Yep, I feel like the last few months were a warm up for what’s next. I think America really missed our opportunity to quarantine this out, now we are stuck until after flu season. Horrifying to think that shit might not be back to sorta normal until March 2021, 8 months away. That’s if we don’t fall off the social cliff by then.


----------



## spudmunkey

Didn't wanna stay home because their hair is getting a little long, and want to be served inside a restaurant, and shop.
Don't wanna wear a mask because...reasons. Everything from "I don't wanna" to "masks are the first steps to the holocaust"

US Covid cases still on the rise, and as of last week, so are US deaths.


----------



## Ralyks

spudmunkey said:


> Didn't wanna stay home because their hair is getting a little long, and want to be served inside a restaurant, and shop.
> Don't wanna wear a mask because...reasons. Everything from "I don't wanna" to "masks are the first steps to the holocaust"
> 
> US Covid cases still on the rise, and as of last week, so are US deaths.



You're absolutely spot on, but more importantly, I definitely stole that Flanders family gif and added to my Simpsons folder.

But yeah, I can see this just getting worse through March. I had a depressed chuckle anytime someone things a vaccine will be here before the year is out.


----------



## spudmunkey

But heat kills it. Arizona and Florida don't count for some reason. Oh, and it's a Democrat hoax...that basically every other country in the world is in on. Fauci said all this would happen, and it's happening!! It's like Ray in Ghostbusters. If he just would have kept everytrhing to himself, we wouldn't be overrun by a Stay-Puft mashmallow virus.


----------



## possumkiller




----------



## sleewell

I have words. The best words. It's going to be great. I'm a really smart person.


----------



## tedtan

possumkiller said:


> View attachment 82676



I saw that interview yesterday. As bad as it was, I didn't lose any respect for Trump, though, because I didn't have any to begin with.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

Now hospital data not being sent to CDC sent directly to White House. If you cant stop a pandemic just take the data and change it. Problem solved.


----------



## sleewell

Dineley said:


> Now hospital data not being sent to CDC sent directly to White House. If you cant stop a pandemic just take the data and change it. Problem solved.




this just reeks of foul play. the hospitals should learn to use the BCC function and send the data to both.


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> One example is indoor dining. Literally every business I know reconfigured for curbside delivery and distanced outdoor/patio seating. There was no reason to push indoor dining, but there it is, and you start getting whole restaurant staff testing positive. And then we had outdoor distanced graduation ceremonies, but "numbers are low" so they switched to allow "distanced" indoor graduation ceremonies and now they're looking at one positive case there that's suspected as leading to 20+.
> 
> I can't wrap my head around NOT sticking with something sustainable if it's working.


Frankly, most of the people I've talked to who've gone out to eat (and despite trepidations, I'm one of them) have actually preferred outdoor, more well-spaced dining and beer/cocktail gardens to normal indoor service. It's been kind of a pleasant change. 

Here indoor dining is back again at reduced capacity, but a lot of restaurants aren't bothering and a lot of the ones that are have continued to offer outdoor seating. We've gad a lot of streets partially closed down, or parking on one side closed, to allow more space for diners while not impeding sidewalk access, and it's worked fairly well. 


spudmunkey said:


> Well, as of tomorrow, my company is down-sizing, and I'll be out of a job. I'm sort of a "right hand man" support role to people with a more revenue-creating skillset, so to keep them on-board, roles like mine are being eliminated.
> 
> For context, i work for a commercial furniture dealer. We provide cubicles, and open-plan workspaces, lounge furniture, conference tables and chairs, signage, design services, installation project management, reception desks, cafe tables and chairs, etc. So basically, outfitting offices. Which are sitting empty. And new plans screeched to a halt.
> 
> I had supported an account manager for one specific large international account, and handled some of the day-to-day stuff for her, and then also some smaller projets that came in to our office.
> 
> So...that sucks.


Man, I'm sorry to hear this. :/


----------



## fantom

Dineley said:


> Now hospital data not being sent to CDC sent directly to White House. If you cant stop a pandemic just take the data and change it. Problem solved.



I just saw this in the news. What the actual fuck. Let's accuse China of hiding information and then do it ourselves? The public has a right to see the data (especially capacity and ICU beds). This is especially true for hospitals receiving federal money. Big Corps and legal groups, please file the freedom of information act lawsuits now.


----------



## Adieu

fantom said:


> This isn't China or Russia.



No, it's really NOT.

China today actually gets shit DONE when they need to. And as to Russia, the population has at least gotten accustomed to the futility of expecting proper management from the government.

Here in America? People are like "huuuuh? Wtf is going on? That's not possible / can't be / surely not here / this kinda third world crap won't ever possibly happen to us / somebody must be mistaken / it's a conspiracy / lieeeeees commies terrorists blacks queers iranians chinese incel anons and or the media must be stirring shit" whenever predictable hijinks ensue.


----------



## diagrammatiks

China hasn't even done 1/10th of the stupid stupid shit the us gov has done this past 7 months.


----------



## narad

diagrammatiks said:


> China hasn't even done 1/10th of the stupid stupid shit the us gov has done this past 7 months.



China's stuff usually seems pretty smart. It's just also kinda mean.


----------



## Adieu

narad said:


> China's stuff usually seems pretty smart. It's just also kinda mean.



At least it's straightforward.

Pretty open surveillance, pretty open censorship, pretty open crackdown on any and all religious activity that exceeds a ceremonial/traditional cultural flavor and cultivates fervent "true believer" types.

vs. Ooh lets put mexican kids in cages to intimidate their parents and can someone get me an estimate on an bond villain alligator moat??? Oh and let's always designate a random villain-of-the-week/month/year and pick fights with them to deflect attention from any and all issues


----------



## High Plains Drifter




----------



## spudmunkey

Georgia's governor just banned any Georgia city or country from mandating masks.


----------



## jaxadam

spudmunkey said:


> Georgia's governor just banned any Georgia city or country from mandating masks.



When my wife goes out, she says 90%+ people are wearing their masks. When I go out, it’s easily <50% and sometimes <25%.


----------



## mastapimp

jaxadam said:


> When my wife goes out, she says 90%+ people are wearing their masks. When I go out, it’s easily <50% and sometimes <25%.


I live in north central FL and it's about 80-90% in the metro areas and about 20% masks or less in the rural areas. They won't give a fuck until one of their family members dies or is hospitalized. Went on a day trip to Cedar Key back in early June and it was as if nobody had heard of social distancing or PPE.


----------



## Ralyks

Apparently Georgia banned requiring masks. Soooo next hotspot?


----------



## jaxadam

mastapimp said:


> I live in north central FL and it's about 80-90% in the metro areas and about 20% masks or less in the rural areas. They won't give a fuck until one of their family members dies or is hospitalized. Went on a day trip to Cedar Key back in early June and it was as if nobody had heard of social distancing or PPE.



Well, I guess it all really depends on where you go. I’d say at Publix 90% of the people are pretty responsible. I’d say at the Gold Club no one really wants to wear them!

And I didn’t even know we had a north central Florida. I thought we only had North Florida, Orlando, Tallanasty and Cuba.


----------



## mastapimp

jaxadam said:


> Well, I guess it all really depends on where you go. I’d say at Publix 90% of the people are pretty responsible. I’d say at the Gold Club no one really wants to wear them!
> 
> And I didn’t even know we had a north central Florida. I thought we only had North Florida, Orlando, Tallanasty and Cuba.



There's also the Redneck Riviera (pan handle)


----------



## possumkiller

mastapimp said:


> There's also the Redneck Riviera (pan handle)


I never understood why they call it a pan handle. Growing up I always thought that they were referring to the dick sticking out into the ocean bit that actually looks like a pan handle.


----------



## wankerness

Ralyks said:


> Apparently Georgia banned requiring masks. Soooo next hotspot?



It's already a hotspot. They're right up there after Florida/Arizona.

My state is still a republican hellscape with no safety in place whatsoever and will be until August at the earliest, when one of the supreme court fucktards finally gets removed from office (he lost the election months ago but has been continuing to wreak havoc in the meantime) and there's a tiny chance they wouldn't overturn anything the gov attempts to do. Still very unlikely, though, since it will still be 4-3 republican majority and only one of them even has the smallest semblance of a soul. And the state legislature is twice as bad - the most loudmouthed of the bunch was the ghoul that forced our in-person election during lockdown and declared it safe from within a hazmat suit. We're screwed. Like, worse than Mississippi.


----------



## sleewell

The White House Press Secretary on Trump's push to reopen schools: "The science should not stand in the way of this."


----------



## JSanta

sleewell said:


> The White House Press Secretary on Trump's push to reopen schools: "The science should not stand in the way of this."



And then went on to reference the Journal of the American Medical Association pediatric study of 46 hospitals that she said showed the risk to children posed by Covid-19 is less than that posed by the seasonal flu (I grabbed this from CNN, https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-07-16-20-intl/index.html). 

I do not disagree for a minute that not having school in person is bad for kids (hell, not being able to do stuff sucks as an adult), but the risk of bringing home the disease to older family members cannot be ignored. 

Also, the screenshots of CNN used for the spokesperson are hilarious. Like, straight-up dead inside eyes. Part of me wants to believe that even she can't believe the bat shit crazy stuff she says to the public everyday.


----------



## Xaios

sleewell said:


> The White House Press Secretary on Trump's push to reopen schools: "The science should not stand in the way of this."


I wish I was surprised that one of Trump's lackeys is quite literally saying that science is the enemy.


----------



## vilk

The ironic part is that it's about going to school (the place where you learn about Science)


----------



## High Plains Drifter

We mainly watch CNN in this household... CNN plus other news links although we will not watch Fox for any reason. But I really wish at this point that CNN would relax their brand of hype and "tune in for the foreboding details" type of presentation. The fear is there already... It's real. Sensationalizing these stories is absolutely unnecessary and not at all helpful for anyone. Regardless of the ratings-game, they're going too far. In some instances, the politicized correlations are certainly warranted but the way that they go about reporting many of these stories is only reinvigorating the naysayers. Thankfully, CNN is indeed presenting facts and science but they are often times making themselves look quite biased and potentially unreliable to anyone that already questions the legitimacy of "the nightly news". Stop the senseless speculations, stop the fearmongering, stop the dramatic background music, stop playing connect the dots, and quit asking unqualified people and politicians about their "take" on Trump's mental health. Just report factual information, interviews, statistics, etc. That's what we all need and it's what we deserve.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticl...20_mscpedit_&uac=364863PJ&impID=2468791&faf=1
higher incidence of stillbirths attributed to covid 19, largely due to inability for patients to get proper checkups.
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticl...20_mscpedit_&uac=364863PJ&impID=2468791&faf=1


----------



## spudmunkey

KnightBrolaire said:


> https://www.medscape.com/viewarticl...20_mscpedit_&uac=364863PJ&impID=2468791&faf=1
> higher incidence of stillbirths attributed to covid 19, largely due to inability for patients to get proper checkups.
> https://www.medscape.com/viewarticl...20_mscpedit_&uac=364863PJ&impID=2468791&faf=1



i want to be against it purely because of their acronymn:


> RECOVERY (Randomised Evaluation of COVid-19 thERapY)



However, it's good news. The results are good for what it is: a drug meant for people who are already so severely affected that they require ventilation or oxygen. While the focus is so often on the vaccine, we also still need reliable, effective treatments for people on the other end of the disease's timeline.


----------



## fantom

KnightBrolaire said:


> higher incidence of stillbirths attributed to covid 19, largely due to inability for patients to get proper checkups.
> https://www.medscape.com/viewarticl...20_mscpedit_&uac=364863PJ&impID=2468791&faf=1



While this is sad, it does make the "wearing a mask is a choice" thing way more ridiculous and hypocritical than it already was.


----------



## spudmunkey

fantom said:


> While this is sad, it does make the "wearing a mask is a choice" thing way more ridiculous and hypocritical than it already was.



To many, it wont see that way. They see the "hoax" of fake crowded hospitals as a reason other people are getting hurt because they cant get "real" care.


----------



## sleewell

a field hospital in NYC cost more than $52 million and served only 79 patients. yikes. could have bought each patient a bentley and hired them a driver to take them to a hospital a few miles away and still saved a ton of money.


----------



## spudmunkey

sleewell said:


> a field hospital in NYC cost more than $52 million and served only 79 patients. yikes. could have bought each patient a bentley and hired them a driver to take them to a hospital a few miles away and still saved a ton of money.



The way I see it: better safe than sorry. Look at it as an insurance policy. The USS Comfort only took on just over 180 patients. Yes, it can max-out at 1000-ish, but it would have been limited with distancing. Also, the field hospiital took 79 patients, and the Comfort took in 182. That was 261 people that didn't go to the hospitals, which were raising red flags over increasing COVID hospitalizations. I don't think anyone would argue that if NY didn't take the shut down measure they did, and if people didn't comply like they did, then those numbers almost asuredly would have gone much higher.


----------



## sleewell

so here we are nearly 6 months into this, maybe 7 if we started to act when the first intelligence reports started to mention it. did anyone believe the hostage video trump from yesterdays briefing? he looked defeated. reading from a script saying to wear a mask after he did not out in public just the night before. saying they are working on a plan and should have something soon. working on a plan in late july after pushing for states to reopen going against the plan they originally laid out but never followed. bouncing between letting the states handle everything to blaming them for how they followed his advice. talking about our great testing while actively trying to cut all testing funds from the latest trillion dollar relief package. 


to me it looks like trump wanted to be done with this months ago and has given up. the gamble was to put the economy first for his re election chances and to stop talking about it entirely and its hard to see if that is paying off at this point. the only reason he went out there yesterday is bc he cant have rallies and is seeing really bad polling, he needs to win the states that are on fire right now and cant continue just saying it will all magically go away. i don't get the sense he cares about people or that he really wants to do the work of the job he applied for. 


can anyone please share their thoughts if they disagree, maybe point me towards something that would support the opposite position? how is the US doing with this compared to other countries? is the media over hyping the situation for political reasons?


----------



## diagrammatiks

sleewell said:


> so here we are nearly 6 months into this, maybe 7 if we started to act when the first intelligence reports started to mention it. did anyone believe the hostage video trump from yesterdays briefing? he looked defeated. reading from a script saying to wear a mask after he did not out in public just the night before. saying they are working on a plan and should have something soon. working on a plan in late july after pushing for states to reopen going against the plan they originally laid out but never followed. bouncing between letting the states handle everything to blaming them for how they followed his advice. talking about our great testing while actively trying to cut all testing funds from the latest trillion dollar relief package.
> 
> 
> to me it looks like trump wanted to be done with this months ago and has given up. the gamble was to put the economy first for his re election chances and to stop talking about it entirely and its hard to see if that is paying off at this point. the only reason he went out there yesterday is bc he cant have rallies and is seeing really bad polling, he needs to win the states that are on fire right now and cant continue just saying it will all magically go away. i don't get the sense he cares about people or that he really wants to do the work of the job he applied for.
> 
> 
> can anyone please share their thoughts if they disagree, maybe point me towards something that would support the opposite position? how is the US doing with this compared to other countries? is the media over hyping the situation for political reasons?



doing terribly.


----------



## sleewell

diagrammatiks said:


> doing terribly.




i'm curious how things were handled in China. did they provide similar stimulus checks / increased unemployment / small business grants / corporate bailouts that we have? i know that they were able to do much more aggressive and thus effective lock downs but i have not heard much on if that also included financial assistance from the govt.


----------



## wankerness

sleewell said:


> so here we are nearly 6 months into this, maybe 7 if we started to act when the first intelligence reports started to mention it. did anyone believe the hostage video trump from yesterdays briefing? he looked defeated. reading from a script saying to wear a mask after he did not out in public just the night before. saying they are working on a plan and should have something soon. working on a plan in late july after pushing for states to reopen going against the plan they originally laid out but never followed. bouncing between letting the states handle everything to blaming them for how they followed his advice. talking about our great testing while actively trying to cut all testing funds from the latest trillion dollar relief package.
> 
> To me it looks like trump wanted to be done with this months ago and has given up. the gamble was to put the economy first for his re election chances and to stop talking about it entirely and its hard to see if that is paying off at this point. the only reason he went out there yesterday is bc he cant have rallies and is seeing really bad polling, he needs to win the states that are on fire right now and cant continue just saying it will all magically go away. i don't get the sense he cares about people or that he really wants to do the work of the job he applied for.
> 
> can anyone please share their thoughts if they disagree, maybe point me towards something that would support the opposite position? how is the US doing with this compared to other countries? is the media over hyping the situation for political reasons?



What do you mean the opposite position? You've got a couple opposing things going on here. Most of what you say is inarguably true. Trump absolutely wanted to wash his hands of coronavirus and move past it and ignore it, and definitely still wants to. I doubt we have a snowball's chance in hell of things getting better unless he's replaced in January. I anticipate we'll stay at around a thousand deaths a day at the bare minimum all the way until Trump is out of office or there's a massive vaccine rollout. Every time cases start to go down somewhere, they are more than made up for by other trash states like my own that are dominated by right-wingers in their death cult.

Regarding testing, he first was talking about how great our testing was, but then moved on to insane blathering about how we only have cases cause we have too much testing, as if you don't get a disease until you test for it. This was accompanied by him outright trying to slash funding for testing. The Republicans in the senate, to their credit, have pushed hard back against this and want testing expanded in their states, since anyone with the slightest modicum of intelligence knows that to possibly improve this situation people need to be tested. But Trump only cares about re-election and has decided that high numbers need to be countered by artificially lowering the numbers instead of by actually FIXING THE PROBLEM. His move a week ago where he said hospitals must now report numbers directly to the white house instead of the CDC was a great first step in them just starting to lie about the numbers to make things look better than they are. Fortunately most states will still have reliable data, but it's clearly him trying to pull a Florida on the whole country (Florida, where the death toll is VASTLY higher than reported - their pneumonia deaths, iirc, are up by over 5000 from last year - juking the stats so it isn't attributed to coronavirus).

I absolutely disagree if you were implying that Trump has given up on re-election, though. The guy's life depends on getting re-elected since he's going to be facing so many criminal charges the second he's out of office. He's been making TONS of moves towards stealing the election, and even basically saying in his Fox news interview the other day that even if he manages to lose the election he'll refuse to accept the results. I bet he'll agitate his followers into violence if he loses the election, too, since he's been laying the seeds for screaming about mail-in voting being totally corrupt and something that democrats use to steal elections. If the guy doesn't get re-elected, we're going to see widespread violence from his most die-hard supporters egged on by him screaming at the top of his lungs from november till January about the election being stolen and the democrats not being allowed to get away with it. If he DOES get re-elected, especially if it's through massive voter suppression (they're already closing down tons of sites in cities while ensuring none are closed in rural areas, just like they did in Wisconsin primaries a few months ago) we're going to see riots that absolutely dwarf the George Floyd ones.

This country is a nightmare right now, it's going to get radically worse, and if we weren't currently banned from travel thanks to Trump and co turning us into the plague states of america, I would suggest getting out while you still can. The BEST case scenario we can hope for is Trump and the republicans get massively defeated in November despite all their election fuckery, that Trump cowardly just slinks off in January peacefully, and that thus they're only allowed to go scorched earth destroying as much as possible for two months. The way the losers of elections get to continue doing whatever they want for two months is insanely dangerous with an unhinged president like we have now. It's a relic of the old days when it took weeks to travel across the country.


----------



## wankerness

sleewell said:


> i'm curious how things were handled in China. did they provide similar stimulus checks / increased unemployment / small business grants / corporate bailouts that we have? i know that they were able to do much more aggressive and thus effective lock downs but i have not heard much on if that also included financial assistance from the govt.



I've heard that China's got government unemployment but that you have to have paid into it, so a lot of people might be screwed similarly to the US. I don't think the details are really out there right now, they're pretty secretive about the goings-on in their country, especially if they're not good.

I think companies are not really easily compared to the situation here as they're usually government-managed, and thus they kind of just perpetually are in a system of bailouts. I'd imagine funding has changed since this all happened.


----------



## sleewell

no, i was not implying that he has given up on reelection although he seems to consistently take the 20% side on nearly every 80-20 issue so it is confusing. what i was saying is that he looks and acts defeated. in his body language and general demeanor. at one point yesterday he just threw up his arms and said it is what is. like it had to be this way, like this was happening in every other country and nothing could have been done to make it better. just accept it and grow numb to the increasing death toll. he is the victim. this happened to him.


----------



## Ralyks

The only good thing that can come from Trump getting reelected is if the Democrats keep the House and take the Senate, basically blocking all of his bad ideas and overriding vetoes. Or try to impeac him again. I wouldn't be shocked if the Dems have the House and Senate, Trump resigned at some point and tried to be a matter on he way out... Except, as pointed out before, he's fucked the moment he's out of office.


----------



## diagrammatiks

sleewell said:


> i'm curious how things were handled in China. did they provide similar stimulus checks / increased unemployment / small business grants / corporate bailouts that we have? i know that they were able to do much more aggressive and thus effective lock downs but i have not heard much on if that also included financial assistance from the govt.



I have no idea. There's like a social security thing that gets taken out of paychecks every month and then that can get paid out if necessary. 

But my company never shut down so none of my employees took that option.

I'm sure some sort of assistance was given. 

I mean it's not all good. lot's of restaurants went out of business and stuff. But my cit was only shutdown for like 10 weeks. 

Bars, clubs, restaurants and malls all opened up way back mid may.


----------



## wankerness

sleewell said:


> no, i was not implying that he has given up on reelection although he seems to consistently take the 20% side on nearly every 80-20 issue so it is confusing. what i was saying is that he looks and acts defeated. in his body language and general demeanor. at one point yesterday he just threw up his arms and said it is what is. like it had to be this way, like this was happening in every other country and nothing could have been done to make it better. just accept it and grow numb to the increasing death toll. he is the victim. this happened to him.



To be fair, that's exactly the republican response to school shootings, too. "There's just nothing that can be done," says the only country where this happens.


----------



## wankerness

Ralyks said:


> The only good thing that can come from Trump getting reelected is if the Democrats keep the House and take the Senate, basically blocking all of his bad ideas and overriding vetoes. Or try to impeac him again. I wouldn't be shocked if the Dems have the House and Senate, Trump resigned at some point and tried to be a matter on he way out... Except, as pointed out before, he's fucked the moment he's out of office.



I can't see any way that would happen - the odds of the democrats taking the senate are much lower than Biden being elected if we have poll numbers to go on, and many of the states that are going to be doing the serious election screwing are probably going to be the same ones where Republicans currently hold the senate positions anyway.


----------



## Drew

wankerness said:


> I can't see any way that would happen - the odds of the democrats taking the senate are much lower than Biden being elected if we have poll numbers to go on, and many of the states that are going to be doing the serious election screwing are probably going to be the same ones where Republicans currently hold the senate positions anyway.


I'd say it's hardly a done deal, or even likely at this point... but the odds of the Democrats retaking the Senate are a LOT higher thn they were six months ago. 

538 hasn't released their forecast models this year (and I'm wondering if they even plan on doing so, for Heisenburg-related reasons), but looking at Predictit, the Democrats are now favored to take the Senate if betting markets can be believed: 

https://www.predictit.org/markets/d...y-will-control-the-Senate-after-2020-election

A contract for a Democratic win 90 days ago was $0.43 on the dollar, and is now up to $0.64 on the dollar, with those equating loosely to probability estimations. The GOP has slumped in kind. This isn't especially scientific and really calling this right requires a lot more information about likely voter decisions in a lot of different states, but the overal tenor I'd say is about right - the Democrats are in a far better place than they were three months ago, thanks to the way Trump is driving the GOP brand into the ground, and Republican governors are getting increasingly low marks from their constituents for the way they're handling the COVID-19 crisis. 

Subjectively, a 64% chance of taking the senate feels high, for what it's worth. But I think no worse than a coinflip is defensible right now.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

2020 keeps getting better lmao


----------



## Adieu

KnightBrolaire said:


> 2020 keeps getting better lmao
> View attachment 83006



Called it! Several weeks back


----------



## spudmunkey

It's because NY's health department has been recommending it for over a month.
https://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2020/06/n...-to-endorse-glory-holes-to-fight-coronavirus/


----------



## Adieu

sleewell said:


> a field hospital in NYC cost more than $52 million and served only 79 patients. yikes. could have bought each patient a bentley and hired them a driver to take them to a hospital a few miles away and still saved a ton of money.



That's not yikes, expensive

That's OOOH, EMBEZZLEMENT!!!


----------



## KnightBrolaire

the oscar mayer ad right below it is a bit on the nose lol


----------



## Adieu

Hey this is kinda old now, but did we miss this?


Death sentences by video chat (from an actual legitimate-ish court, for a seemingly "normal", non-political homicide, no less):

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cn...a/nigeria-zoom-death-sentence-intl/index.html


----------



## spudmunkey

This is why we won't have a halloween...







Looks like 3rd and Broadway in Nashville?


----------



## vilk

inbred hillbilly retard pieces of shit


----------



## jaxadam

Adieu said:


> Hey this is kinda old now, but did we miss this?
> 
> 
> Death sentences by video chat (from an actual legitimate-ish court, for a seemingly "normal", non-political homicide, no less):
> 
> https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cn...a/nigeria-zoom-death-sentence-intl/index.html



Sounds like he got the zoom of doom


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Wanted to quickly vent a little here... 

My wife texted me earlier, saying that her boss's mother has tested positive for coronavirus. Her boss is a 20-something party girl who has downplayed the virus from the start. She openly mocked and laughed at my wife early on, for being so cautious and serious about the virus. Apparently she is now all of a sudden taking safety and hygiene very seriously but I have a hard time giving a damn about people whom suddenly decide that "now it's a big deal b/c I know someone who's got it". I hope like Hell that my wife's boss isn't carrying this shit but regardless, she continues as she has from the start... proactive, distanced from everyone at work, eating lunch outdoors, disinfecting everything she touches, and wearing double-layered masks all day long ( 10 hr shifts). I'm so damned proud of my wife but still so worried for her safety.

Also... my best bud has over the past week been telling me that he is very run-down and feeling nauseous, dehydrated, etc. My wife asked me "Could he have the virus?" and I told her that it's certainly possible. He's another one that has continually downplayed the virus. He comes from a conservative family and he and I have butted heads many times on a variety of topics. But moving forward, I'm worried about being around him... even after he's back to feeling better. The reason being that I know that even if he's showing symptoms, he won't get tested unless he winds up admitted to an ER... so in my mind, he could be a potential spreader. I also don't feel that he would necessarily tell anyone if he did in fact test positive. He has always had this weird "don't tell anyone" type of pride(?) that he's adopted from his parents... akin to the "never let 'em see you cry" mindset. Anyway... I'm just not sure that I want to be around him at all anymore... ever. And that breaks my heart. 

These are the kinds of things that prior to the pandemic wouldn't even be issues for my wife and I. But now... it's changing the dynamics and complexities of how we feel about our relationships with others... how we interact and how we conduct ourselves as we forge ahead in these unprecedented times. 

Thanks for allowing me to convey these personal feelings here. I just needed to get this outta my head.


----------



## Adieu

Is feeling exhausted and dehydrated a symptom? Shit


----------



## jaxadam

Adieu said:


> Is feeling exhausted and dehydrated a symptom? Shit



I think that’s just a symptom of too much Corona!


----------



## sleewell

odd this isn't getting more coverage. by my count this is the first US area to have to start such a practice. 

https://www.star-telegram.com/news/coronavirus/article244443257.html

COVID-19 patients will be ‘sent home to die’ if deemed too sick, Texas county says


----------



## Ralyks

sleewell said:


> odd this isn't getting more coverage. by my count this is the first US area to have to start such a practice.
> 
> https://www.star-telegram.com/news/coronavirus/article244443257.html
> 
> COVID-19 patients will be ‘sent home to die’ if deemed too sick, Texas county says



I mean, they DO like to execute people quite a bit...


----------



## SpaceDock

Wow, death panels in Texas under Trump. What’s it gonna take Republicans? Panels like that were used to trash Obama for years even though they never existed


----------



## KnightBrolaire

Jesus christ it's obvious none of you understand how triage and hospice works in healthcare. Doctors and nurses have to decide who lives and dies all the time. It's literally what triage entails, deciding which patients have the best chance of survival with intervention and use of resources, and which do not.

Sending people home to die in their own beds is both more comfortable/cost efficient for the patient and resource efficient for the hospital. This is how hospice has been going the last few years across the USA. It allows people that to die with some dignity and near family rather than being hooked up to a 12 lead and a bed alarm/bunch of other crap and possibly dying alone. 

*“For all of those patients that most certainly do not have any hope of improving, they are going to be better taken care of within their own family in the love of their own home rather than thousands of miles away dying alone in a hospital room,” he said. “Unfortunately, Starr County Memorial Hospital has limited resources and our doctors are going to have to decide who receives treatment, and who is sent home to die by their loved ones,”*

Stay in your fucking lanes people


----------



## spudmunkey

Forgive the outsider naivete: Isn't hospice normally at the request of the patient/family, and not due to limited resources at the hospital?


----------



## sleewell

totally normal for the ICUs to be full. totally normal for 142+k deaths when other developed nations have fractions of those numbers. everything is totally normal, in fact its great that we are saving money.


----------



## Ralyks

KnightBrolaire said:


> Jesus christ it's obvious none of you understand how triage and hospice works in healthcare. Doctors and nurses have to decide who lives and dies all the time. It's literally what triage entails, deciding which patients have the best chance of survival with intervention and use of resources, and which do not.
> 
> Sending people home to die in their own beds is both more comfortable/cost efficient for the patient and resource efficient for the hospital. This is how hospice has been going the last few years across the USA. It allows people that to die with some dignity and near family rather than being hooked up to a 12 lead and a bed alarm/bunch of other crap and possibly dying alone.
> 
> *“For all of those patients that most certainly do not have any hope of improving, they are going to be better taken care of within their own family in the love of their own home rather than thousands of miles away dying alone in a hospital room,” he said. “Unfortunately, Starr County Memorial Hospital has limited resources and our doctors are going to have to decide who receives treatment, and who is sent home to die by their loved ones,”*
> 
> Stay in your fucking lanes people



I mean, my mom's an occupational therapist who works with the elderly, my sister is a nurse practitioner for one of the bigger hospitals in NY after spending a decade there as an RN, my dad, while currently a chiropractor and acupuncturist, got his start in a children's hospital and moved on to nuclear medicine, and my best friends parents are both nurses. Sooooo, I kind of have an idea of what's going on.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

spudmunkey said:


> Forgive the outsider naivete: Isn't hospice normally at the request of the patient/family, and not due to limited resources at the hospital?


Hospice is generally when patients are terminal with less than 6 months to live (though it can start further out in some cases), and the diagnosis has been confirmed by at least 2 doctors. It is totally voluntary, and some ethnic groups choose not to have it due to cultural concerns (african americans, many latin americans, some northern african/middle eastern groups ). Patients can choose not to have hospice care at any point, or they can restart it if they get worse. Hospice is rarely done in hospital anymore just due to it being unnecessary, as all the procedures and supplies can be used offsite at a patient's home and contracted out to a dedicated hospice team/company. On the rare occasion that hospitals do hospice, they generally have dedicated wings to it. In the case of the county hospital referenced in the article, limited resources are absolutely a factor. They even explicitly stated that.


----------



## Drew

KnightBrolaire said:


> Jesus christ it's obvious none of you understand how triage and hospice works in healthcare. Doctors and nurses have to decide who lives and dies all the time. It's literally what triage entails, deciding which patients have the best chance of survival with intervention and use of resources, and which do not.
> 
> Sending people home to die in their own beds is both more comfortable/cost efficient for the patient and resource efficient for the hospital. This is how hospice has been going the last few years across the USA. It allows people that to die with some dignity and near family rather than being hooked up to a 12 lead and a bed alarm/bunch of other crap and possibly dying alone.
> 
> *“For all of those patients that most certainly do not have any hope of improving, they are going to be better taken care of within their own family in the love of their own home rather than thousands of miles away dying alone in a hospital room,” he said. “Unfortunately, Starr County Memorial Hospital has limited resources and our doctors are going to have to decide who receives treatment, and who is sent home to die by their loved ones,”*
> 
> Stay in your fucking lanes people


Access to healthcare has become so politicized in this country that I don't think that's really possible any more, i'm afraid. When they were making the same decisions in Italy when they were overloaded and prioritizing patients based on number of years of life likely to be able to be saved, no one used the term "death panel" because no political party had used that term to attack a health care coverage proposal that would prioritize treatments based on likely quality/quantity of life improvements, but now that that Pandora's Box has been opened, in what world will that party's words NOT get thrown back at them, when a Republican state is having to send home the elderly sick to die because they only have the beds to treat people who, actuarily speaking, will probably be around more than another ten years if they make a recovery? 

Saying they'll be "better taken care of within their own family" is some pretty heavy spin, of course - we're talking slowly suffocating to death on a ventiator in a hospital in isolation amongst strangers in recycled PPE, or slowly suffocating to death in their own bedroom while their families look on in horror - both sound pretty damned horrifying to me, but hey, I just work here.


----------



## Señor Voorhees

I mean, we have over 3 times the population of a lot of other first world countries so the numbers would logically be higher wouldn't they? 

If you take the EU as a whole, they're not TOO far behind the United States in percentage dead. (.03% vs .045% of population is dead respectively.) Not that the numbers are too great in either case... The US isn't handling it nearly as well as we should and even though we have fewer people, more have died, but as far as percentages go when you scale the numbers up, they fall closer in line with us. Of course, I also didn't look into confirmed cases vs recoveries either, and either of these numbers can be TERRIBLY skewed since I'm betting a lot of those COVID deaths weren't COVID.

All I know is that it's terrifying that in North Carolina where I live, 57% of deaths are attributed to a population of people who only count for 6% of cases. THEY are why we're supposed to be playing it safe, and nobody seems to get that. It's not always about ourselves. Imagine if we all just took care of each other with common courtesy. Wear a fucking mask and stay away from each other as much as possible. Not hard. I've been doing the second part just about my whole damn life, and the mask may be unpleasant but if it can help prevent Joe Schmoe's grandmother from getting sick, even if only .5% effective (fake number pulled from my ass,) then why WOULDN'T you do it?


----------



## spudmunkey

Señor Voorhees said:


> If you take the EU as a whole, they're not TOO far behind the United States in percentage dead. (.03% vs .045% of population is dead respectively.)



.03 to .045 seems like a small difference. But that's a 50% increase.


----------



## Drew

Señor Voorhees said:


> I mean, we have over 3 times the population of a lot of other first world countries so the numbers would logically be higher wouldn't they?
> 
> If you take the EU as a whole, they're not TOO far behind the United States in percentage dead. (.03% vs .045% of population is dead respectively.) Not that the numbers are too great in either case... The US isn't handling it nearly as well as we should and even though we have fewer people, more have died, but as far as percentages go when you scale the numbers up, they fall closer in line with us. Of course, I also didn't look into confirmed cases vs recoveries either, and either of these numbers can be TERRIBLY skewed since I'm betting a lot of those COVID deaths weren't COVID.
> 
> All I know is that it's terrifying that in North Carolina where I live, 57% of deaths are attributed to a population of people who only count for 6% of cases. THEY are why we're supposed to be playing it safe, and nobody seems to get that. It's not always about ourselves. Imagine if we all just took care of each other with common courtesy. Wear a fucking mask and stay away from each other as much as possible. Not hard. I've been doing the second part just about my whole damn life, and the mask may be unpleasant but if it can help prevent Joe Schmoe's grandmother from getting sick, even if only .5% effective (fake number pulled from my ass,) then why WOULDN'T you do it?


Well, numbers are a funny thing. 

There's a "law of large numbers" that gets tossed around a lot, where 0.045% of the population times a very large number is actually a fuckload of people. I'd posit though that there's also a "law of small numbers" and that seemingly small differences in small numbers are actually very, very significant. Going from 0.03% of the population to 0.045% of the population seems like no big deal at all... but it's also a 50% increase in mortality rate, which is _huge_. 

To your first point, our _totals_ should be higher by virtue of he larger base... but there are two things worth keeping in mind here. First, you can - and should - noremalize by total population for caparability, and when you do, the US per-capita mortality rate is the fourth highest in the world, and the per-capita case rate is the 10th highest in the world, though that's a little skewed by a few very small countries - the Vatican with 12 cases and a population of 801, and San Mrino with 699 cases and a population 33,900 both fall above us by the numbers, for example. Second, the trends in when those cases were occuring also kinda matter, and much of Europe is now more or less reopened because their daily new case rate has slowed to a trickle, while ours continues to set all time highs. This of course matters because their mortality rates should stay roughly where they are now, whereas ours will continue to rise.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

Last few posts had a lot of well spoken truths about how horrifying this all is. I'm in Canada things are fairly in control where I live but I hope people still take it seriously as wem hit new reopening phases


----------



## wat

Received positive test results today. I've had very mild symptoms for about 8 days that seem to be subsiding. I felt the most normal today. 

When I wake up in the morning my lungs felt really weird for a few days and 2 days ago it was slightly difficult & painful to breathe. But after an hour or so I feel 95% normal. I've even been doing yard work, playing guitar and stuff. Some nights I start feeling a little run down around the time the sun starts going down. Coughing just a little bit. I've been taking 5,000 IU of vitamin D3 for like 2 months in anticipation of the COOF, getting lots of sun and trying to generally be healthy so maybe that's helping. 

I got it from my room mates who have both been coughing since around the 1st. I haven't gone anywhere in weeks so I'm sure it came from them. They didn't even tell me they had been sick until I noticed one of them coughing (the night I started feeling weird) and asked one of them. He told me they've both been coughing for 3 weeks. 
One of them works in a department store so it was only a matter of time. I worked in live sound but that's been dead for months now. 

Theyve been coughing way more than me and hacking up phlegm. My symptoms have been the mildest and seem to be pretty much gone, so if I'm really over it then I'll have beat them to recovery in spite of catching it from them. 


Altogether I know about 25 people who have had it(guess what state we're in ) and 2 of them were hospitalized and they were over 65 years old. The rest are in their 20's, 30's & 40's and as far as I know they had varying symptoms for about a week and felt normal after that, except my roommates who are going on a month. I'm really not even worried, tbh. Mortality rate is very, very low.  It's kind of surreal how little I or anybody I know gives a fuck. My family doctor and a few nurses I know have said that the Covid cases/hospitalization/death statistics here are being MASSIVELY fucked with.

I know it's an unpopular opinion but I would be totally willing to just get back to working concerts in a few weeks and the people who are worried can just stay inside . If i had kids I'd be really worried about what kind of economy and purchasing power they are gonna be left with. Basically everyone I know feels the same. Guess that's just how we do around here


----------



## Drew

Glad it sounds like youve got a mild case, though in your home state, the COVID statistics are being massively fucked with by pushing them DOWN, because your governor is trying to hide the extent of the pandemic. Anyone who goes out and gets back to work risks - as was the case for you - bringing it back to anyone they're quaranrtined with. We probably could have gotten on top of this if we'd acted sooner and more aggressively, like most of Europe did, but now, we don't have many good options left.


----------



## fantom

KnightBrolaire said:


> Jesus christ it's obvious none of you understand how triage and hospice works in healthcare. Doctors and nurses have to decide who lives and dies all the time. It's literally what triage entails, deciding which patients have the best chance of survival with intervention and use of resources, and which do not.



Dude, I can tell you from experience you have no idea what you are talking about. Your attitude in this response shows you have never had someone close to you be terminally ill or you are just tone deaf. And when I say close to you, I mean you are the person that the hospital is talking to regarding how to make business related decisions about someone you love. I hope you never have to go through this shit and realize how far your head is up your ass.

Sorry if this is confrontational, but you really hit a nerve here.



spudmunkey said:


> Isn't hospice normally at the request of the patient/family, and not due to limited resources at the hospital?



Yes. The hospital will ask a family if they prefer to go home and bring up the financial cost. The decision is left to the family.



KnightBrolaire said:


> Patients can choose not to have hospice care at any point, or they can restart it if they get worse



Yes. This is true.


----------



## InHiding

In my country of approx 5.5 million people we have 329 deaths so far. You do the math from there.


----------



## possumkiller

fantom said:


> Dude, I can tell you from experience you have no idea what you are talking about. Your attitude in this response shows you have never had someone close to you be terminally ill or you are just tone deaf. And when I say close to you, I mean you are the person that the hospital is talking to regarding how to make business related decisions about someone you love. I hope you never have to go through this shit and realize how far your head is up your ass.
> 
> Sorry if this is confrontational, but you really hit a nerve here.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes. The hospital will ask a family if they prefer to go home and bring up the financial cost. The decision is left to the family.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes. This is true.



Pretty sure he's a medic.


----------



## fantom

possumkiller said:


> Pretty sure he's a medic.



There is a big difference between in the field issues (whether wartime or domestic accidents) vs hospitalizations for things like the flu or covid.

Also, the doctors typically don't make a decision regarding if someone stays or goes. Usually the administration people do that with the families. Medic or not, his post was just not accurate to how hospitals work (pre covid).


----------



## KnightBrolaire

fantom said:


> Dude, I can tell you from experience you have no idea what you are talking about. Your attitude in this response shows you have never had someone close to you be terminally ill or you are just tone deaf. And when I say close to you, I mean you are the person that the hospital is talking to regarding how to make business related decisions about someone you love. I hope you never have to go through this shit and realize how far your head is up your ass.
> 
> Sorry if this is confrontational, but you really hit a nerve here.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes. The hospital will ask a family if they prefer to go home and bring up the financial cost. The decision is left to the family.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes. This is true.


I watched my grandma die in hospice from pancreatic cancer and I work as an ER nurse. I watched my mom have to make the decision to take my grandma off life support. I do triage all the time, I have a pretty good idea what I'm talking about. Admin is pretty much all paper pushers, they only discharge at the behest of the provider aka a doctor or NP.




possumkiller said:


> Pretty sure he's a medic.


used to be, then got my bsn.


----------



## jaxadam

KnightBrolaire said:


> I watched my grandma die in hospice from pancreatic cancer and I work as an ER nurse. I watched my mom have to make the decision to take my grandma off life support. I do triage all the damn time, I have a pretty damn good idea what I'm talking about. Admin is pretty much all paper pushers, they only discharge at the behest of the provider.
> But yeah go ahead with the ad hominem instead of actually offering a counterpoint to my statement.
> 
> 
> 
> used to be, then got my bsn.



Do you do any diagnosing over the internet or via Zoom? I’ve had a few issues crop up.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

jaxadam said:


> Do you do any diagnosing over the internet or via Zoom? I’ve had a few issues crop up.


lol you'd be better off asking @USMarine75 or @Purelojik


----------



## jaxadam

KnightBrolaire said:


> lol you'd be better off asking @USMarine75 or @Purelojik



Yeah, old age is starting to catch up to me... I’m starting to have dry dreams and wet farts!


----------



## USMarine75

jaxadam said:


> Do you do any diagnosing over the internet or via Zoom? I’ve had a few issues crop up.





KnightBrolaire said:


> lol you'd be better off asking @USMarine75 or @Purelojik



PM me.


----------



## narad

Me too? I'm having issues where I suck at guitar.


----------



## spudmunkey

Holy shit, my whole family's going bonkers over that Dr. Stella Immanuel video, and using the fact that it's been deleted by Twitter and Facebook as proof that she's telling the truth, yet ignoring videos of her ministries of her claiming that the virus was created because God was angry at homosexuals, spread by the Illuminti, that Jesus will take down Facebook's servers, that many gynocological health issues are caused by dreaming about sex with witches and demons, and cysts are because demons are stealing men's sperm in their dreams, then changing to the form of a male demon to impregnate women to make more demons. That she says there's no need to wear masks and thet nobody in her practice wears masks, but then videos of her clinic show her wearing masks, and patients are required to wear masks when they visit her office.


----------



## BigViolin

Sounds legit.


----------



## spudmunkey

BigViolin said:


> Sounds legit.



Not to mention her thoughts on doctors using Alien DNA to treat patients, "spirit wives" and "spirit husbands"...

There's also been links made to the organization embroidered on their lapcoats to the Tea Party Patriots and Prager. I haven't looked too deeply into those reported links or what they mean.


----------



## tedtan

A new study indicates that it may be possible to determine the likelihood of having a serious case of covid19 based on which of six different groupings of symptoms that you have:

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/covid-19-symptom-clusters-223755338.html

Excerpt:



> The study identified six clusters of symptoms:
> 
> Cluster 1 (“flulike” with no fever): Headache, loss of smell, muscle pains, cough, sore throat, chest pain, no fever
> 
> Cluster 2 (“flulike” with fever): Headache, loss of smell, cough, sore throat, hoarseness, fever, loss of appetite
> 
> Cluster 3 (gastrointestinal): Headache, loss of smell, loss of appetite, diarrhea, sore throat, chest pain, no cough
> 
> Cluster 4 (severe level one, fatigue): Headache, loss of smell, cough, fever, hoarseness, chest pain, fatigue
> 
> Cluster 5 (severe level two, confusion): Headache, loss of smell, loss of appetite, cough, fever, hoarseness, sore throat, chest pain, fatigue, confusion, muscle pain
> 
> Cluster 6 (severe level three, abdominal and respiratory): Headache, loss of smell, loss of appetite, cough, fever, hoarseness, sore throat, chest pain, fatigue, confusion, muscle pain, shortness of breath, diarrhea, abdominal pain



and



> The researchers also looked at which clusters of patients were more likely to require ventilators or supplemental oxygen and found that patients in clusters 6, 5, and 4 (19.8 percent, 9.9 percent, and 8.6 percent, respectively) needed the most respiratory support. But “only 1.5 percent of people with cluster 1, 4.4 percent of people with cluster 2, and 3.3 percent of people with cluster 3 COVID-19 required breathing support,” according to a statement by King's College London, whose researchers, along with scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital, provided input during the development of the app for the study.


----------



## Drew

tedtan said:


> A new study indicates that it may be possible to determine the likelihood of having a serious case of covid19 based on which of six different groupings of symptoms that you have:
> 
> https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/covid-19-symptom-clusters-223755338.html


I'm not sure how much credence to give a study like this though - the "cluster" that required the most respiratory support, Cluster 6, was also the only one that listed "shortness of breath" as a symptom, and the differences between 4 and 5, and 2 and 3, in terms of required respiratory support aren't really all that huge. Meanwhile, Cluster 1 had the lowest respiratory support rate... but was also hands down the "weakest" set of symptoms, too, with no fever. 

Some of that is pretty self evident, no? The mildest cases resulted in the lowest need for respiratory support?


----------



## zappatton2

tedtan said:


> A new study indicates that it may be possible to determine the likelihood of having a serious case of covid19 based on which of six different groupings of symptoms that you have:
> 
> https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/covid-19-symptom-clusters-223755338.html
> 
> Excerpt:
> 
> 
> 
> and


Whelp, I guess I'll get tested the day I stop stinking to holy hell.


----------



## sleewell

the president feels that this nut job is “very respected” and “impressive”.

She has often claimed that gynecological problems like cysts and endometriosis are in fact caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches. She alleges alien DNA is currently used in medical treatments, and that scientists are cooking up a vaccine to prevent people from being religious.


----------



## Adieu

sleewell said:


> the president feels that this nut job is “very respected” and “impressive”.
> 
> She has often claimed that gynecological problems like cysts and endometriosis are in fact caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches. She alleges alien DNA is currently used in medical treatments, and that scientists are cooking up a vaccine to prevent people from being religious.




That just made my day


Where can I get more information? This is addictive


----------



## sleewell

https://www.thedailybeast.com/stell...-alien-dna-demon-sperm-and-hydroxychloroquine


----------



## Adieu

...also, is it just me, or are her "views" directly attributable to listening to a lot of Testament albums while on way too many drugs????



PS maybe she thought Testament was Christian rock


----------



## thraxil

sleewell said:


> and that scientists are cooking up a vaccine to prevent people from being religious.



Now that someone has mentioned it, why are scientists working on anything *other* than a vaccine to prevent people from being religious? If they could nail that, pretty much every other problem in the world would sort itself out...


----------



## sleewell

i want trump supporters to defend this.

middle of a pandemic. 150k dead. spends his time supporting complete nut jobs (who is not actually a medical doctor but plays one for social media) spouting total non sense.

is this the response you expected from dear leader? are these the people you want our president supporting and saying are very impressive?

please explain how this type of stuff helps our country and how you are proud to have voted for this.


----------



## Adieu

thraxil said:


> Now that someone has mentioned it, why are scientists working on anything *other* than a vaccine to prevent people from being religious? If they could nail that, pretty much every other problem in the world would sort itself out...



We HAD one





Then the Americans spent trillions of dollars to mess it all up and eventually here we are, back in the middle ages with our sermons about demon sperm and facemasks disrespecting JC's daddy


----------



## BigViolin

The Onion has done it's job but is no longer relevant. The real headlines are now more ridiculous than the made up ones.

edit: Oops I was wrong, just checked and the Onion still rules.


----------



## tedtan

Drew said:


> I'm not sure how much credence to give a study like this though - the "cluster" that required the most respiratory support, Cluster 6, was also the only one that listed "shortness of breath" as a symptom, and the differences between 4 and 5, and 2 and 3, in terms of required respiratory support aren't really all that huge. Meanwhile, Cluster 1 had the lowest respiratory support rate... but was also hands down the "weakest" set of symptoms, too, with no fever.
> 
> Some of that is pretty self evident, no? The mildest cases resulted in the lowest need for respiratory support?



While it may seem self evident, in science, as you know, it is still important to validate what would otherwise be an assumption. So even if the study only links early respiratory issues to later a need for hospitalization and ventilator usage, it not only provides further information in support of the assumption, but also can help relieve some stress for people who test positive but don't end up having early respiratory issues.

So while that study doesn't contain any earth shattering revelations, I wouldn't dismiss it outright, either.


----------



## Wuuthrad

“The Great Mask Debate” 

Lolz my ex sent me: 

https://m.imgur.com/gallery/boSVct0


----------



## SpaceDock

Wuuthrad said:


> “The Great Mask Debate”
> 
> Lolz my ex sent me:
> 
> https://m.imgur.com/gallery/boSVct0



I had a really intense mask debate with my wife. Sometimes you need to really hold your own and get it all out.


----------



## broj15

sleewell said:


>




Damn, totally gonna use "Mountain Of Fire & Miracles Ministries" as the name for my harsh noise/grind solo project


----------



## HeHasTheJazzHands

https://twitter.com/THEHermanCain/status/1288843301722890240?s=19

Herman Cain died after contracting Covid a few weeks ago.


----------



## sleewell

lying on your death bed, remembering that 20 minute bit about walking down ramps at the rally where you caught the virus that kills you.


----------



## spudmunkey

HeHasTheJazzHands said:


> https://twitter.com/THEHermanCain/status/1288843301722890240?s=19
> 
> Herman Cain died after contracting Covid a few weeks ago.



Holy shit...

This tweet aged like fine milk...


----------



## diagrammatiks

that twitter comment thread is gold.


----------



## HeHasTheJazzHands

spudmunkey said:


> Holy shit...
> 
> This tweet aged like fine milk...
> View attachment 83295


----------



## Adieu

Maybe he was right about the second wave being sorta irrelevant?


...since the first one ended up getting him.


Apres nous, le deluge


----------



## spudmunkey

Adieu said:


> Maybe he was right about the second wave being sorta irrelevant?
> 
> 
> ...since the first one ended up getting him.
> 
> 
> Apres nous, le deluge



Saw a morbid comment somewhere this morning, but it's been stick in my head:

Herman Cain: Stop worrying about coronavirus
Coronavirus: Stop worrying about Herman Cain.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

"plausma"... Jesus Christ.. Plasma, dude.. plasma. Fuck he's illiterate.


----------



## HeHasTheJazzHands

spudmunkey said:


> Saw a morbid comment somewhere this morning, but it's been stick in my head:
> 
> Herman Cain: Stop worrying about coronavirus
> Coronavirus: Stop worrying about Herman Cain.


----------



## Vyn

The state of Victoria in Australia just hit stage 4 lockdown last night. No essential workers, emergency and utility workers only, mandatory masks for everyone. Second wave has hit fucking hard due to a bunch of selfish douchebags.


----------



## sleewell




----------



## Ralyks

https://news.yahoo.com/white-house-reportedly-scrapped-national-152323670.html

Not sure the validity of this, but if it's true, what the actual fuck?


----------



## JSanta

Ralyks said:


> https://news.yahoo.com/white-house-reportedly-scrapped-national-152323670.html
> 
> Not sure the validity of this, but if it's true, what the actual fuck?



I have zero problem believing that this is true. I doubt we'll see substantiation, but I could see Trump's calculus on Covid being just what the article stated.


----------



## Randy

As far as being a petty dictator, sure I can see it but 'Red State Donald Trump' is only an anomaly of the last 5 years. Do you think real estate developer Donald Trump gives a fuck about Alabama or Georgia, or Harley Davidson riders or truckers after he's out of office and he doesn't need their votes anymore? No way, he's going straight back to his ivory tower.

So to that end, I don't see Trump personally making a move like that unless he was going to telegraph it. For how yin and yang he and Cuomo are in the news, they seem to always walk away from their private calls/meetings pretty amicably.


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> As far as being a petty dictator, sure I can see it but 'Red State Donald Trump' is only an anomaly of the last 5 years. Do you think real estate developer Donald Trump gives a fuck about Alabama or Georgia, or Harley Davidson riders or truckers after he's out of office and he doesn't need their votes anymore? No way, he's going straight back to his ivory tower.
> 
> So to that end, I don't see Trump personally making a move like that unless he was going to telegraph it. For how yin and yang he and Cuomo are in the news, they seem to always walk away from their private calls/meetings pretty amicably.


Could you see his team doing it, though? Remember, early on Kushner was the one telling Trump to treat it as a public relations and not public health issue, and from there to "let the states lead the charge, and if they fuck it up we can just blame Democratic governors and not take political liability" isn't that far a leap. And, I only scanned the Vanity Fair story (I was away with minimal reception all weekend) but I do recall that the plan was being described as "close to being ready to present to Trump" before they ditched it. 

I mean, Trump and his team have politicized everything ELSE about COVID-19, and it's hard to picture a simpler occam's razor style reason for Kushner building out a national testing program, and then pulling the plug on it and instead recommending they kick it to the states, than that politics were an explicit consideration.


----------



## sleewell

what part of trump's presidency thus far indicates he is governing for his base vs the entire country? even the tax cut bill targeted blue states. 

the story above rings true because its backed up by 3.5 years of evidence. while NYC and NJ were struggling even mitch said another relief bill would be a blue state bailout. now weeks later they are considering another one bc states like FL, AZ, and TX and other states in the south are dealing with it.


----------



## SpaceDock

Ralyks said:


> https://news.yahoo.com/white-house-reportedly-scrapped-national-152323670.html
> 
> Not sure the validity of this, but if it's true, what the actual fuck?



A disease that is spreading like wild fire in inner cities and disproportionately affecting brown and black people, why would they want to stop that? Sounds like a plan Trump would embrace. 

I also love how Kushner hired his college roommate to help with this and they discussed all of it on WhatsApp, just icing on the corruption cake.


----------



## sleewell

off to a rocky start....

https://www.fatherly.com/parenting/all-these-schools-reopened-and-then-had-covid-19-outbreaks/

what is the worst that could happen??? it is what it is. i am sure there arent any kids who live with older at risk folks right?


----------



## Ralyks

Honestly, my son was suppose to start kindergarten in a month, but given he has an IEP for services since he’s behind developmentally and with the uncertainty of schools during this, I’m pretty sure I’m keeping him back and instead starting kindergarten next year. Just trying to work out the logistics with his OT, PT, and ST.


----------



## ElRay

sleewell said:


> ... what is the worst that could happen??? it is what it is. i am sure there arent any kids who live with older at risk folks right?


U.S. tRump-Cult seems to think that kids are 100% immune to the disease (I wonder what lumbering Cheeto they got that from?) and somehow contain it (they carry much greater viral loads, you know) without passing it on. It is what it is.



EDIT: what?


----------



## ElRay

Adieu said:


> Maybe he was right about the second wave being sorta irrelevant? ...


There can't be a 2nd wave if the 1st hasn't finished.


----------



## sleewell

i'm just at a loss. after the lock downs certain states clearly rushed to reopen which is why we have been averaging over 1k deaths per day for the last 10 days. 

so now we are doing the exact same thing with schools? our kids?!?

were falling for the same lines. just reopen, just go back to school, it will all go away. how many times do you have get duped before you begin to maybe ask some questions or begin to think for yourself?

we put guidelines in place, get pressured to ignore them, see horrible results and then choose to do it again? what the fuck.


----------



## ElRay

SpaceDock said:


> I had a really intense mask debate with my wife. Sometimes you need to really hold your own and get it all out.


Yup, and if others don't want to participate, you have to take care of yourself.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

I'm afraid that with the ignorance of so many Americans, that it simply does not register with you so long as it's not directly affecting you. "We'll wait until we're sliding down the hill before we try to find secure footing". 

My heart goes out to those not only struggling to make the tough decisions regarding their children's education but also to those that are in an even more dire situation like @Ralyks... with concerns relating to developmental issues. Seems that we're more worried about MLB, NBA, NHL, and NFL and that's truly just sad. I get that sports are important and that many working-class people are also affected by these restrictions and postponements but our schools and our children should absolutely come first... not thrown together into a petri dish with minimal precautions and fingers crossed.

And today, Congress is still unwilling to pass a stimulus bill to assist the millions of Americans that are suffering amidst unemployment/ insurance... as the two sides continue to point fingers and bicker. 

Oh and get ready SD... here it comes!


----------



## MFB

MFB said:


> Oh boy, I can't wait for it to become widely unavailable and extremely expensive once pharma companies patent it





StevenC said:


> It's a 60 year old drug that has been generic for years.



https://mobile.twitter.com/PATreasurer/status/1291070203263148032

"Remdesivir manufacturer, Gilead, just set the price for the COVID-19 treatment: between $2,300 and $3,100 per patient.
@icer_review estimates the treatment costs approx. $1 per vital to produce. $1."

Why, who EVER could have seen this coming?


----------



## spudmunkey

OK, so maybe I musunderstood...I read that line as just refering to gilead as the manufacturer of Remdesivir, but that this COVID treatment that are talking about was something else.

"Author of 'The Shining', Stephen King, releases book" wouldn't make me think 'The Shining' was the new book.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

MFB said:


> https://mobile.twitter.com/PATreasurer/status/1291070203263148032
> 
> "Remdesivir manufacturer, Gilead, just set the price for the COVID-19 treatment: between $2,300 and $3,100 per patient.
> @icer_review estimates the treatment costs approx. $1 per vital to produce. $1."
> 
> Why, who EVER could have seen this coming?



What's even more gross, is taxpayers have already paid _at least_ $70 million for its development via grants. 

https://www.citizen.org/news/the-public-already-has-paid-for-remdesivir/


----------



## StevenC

MFB said:


> https://mobile.twitter.com/PATreasurer/status/1291070203263148032
> 
> "Remdesivir manufacturer, Gilead, just set the price for the COVID-19 treatment: between $2,300 and $3,100 per patient.
> @icer_review estimates the treatment costs approx. $1 per vital to produce. $1."
> 
> Why, who EVER could have seen this coming?


How does this negate remdesivir being long out of patent and available for anyone to produce for $1 and sell for $1.01?


----------



## Adieu

America lol

The land where generic antibiotics and antivirals WITH insurance cost 20x more than the same stuff at the pharmacy counter for cash in other countries

Wonder if veterinary places sell it for 1000x less like they do with antibiotics?


----------



## KnightBrolaire

ElRay said:


> U.S. tRump-Cult seems to think that kids are 100% immune to the disease (I wonder what lumbering Cheeto they got that from?) and somehow contain it (they carry much greater viral loads, you know) without passing it on. It is what it is.
> 
> 
> 
> EDIT: what?


Not going to get into the other crap since it's just typical trump idiocy but kids do carry a greater viral load:
"...*indicating that young children have equivalent or more viral nucleic acid in their upper respiratory tract compared with older children and adults (Figure). The observed differences in median CT values between young children and adults approximate a 10-fold to 100-fold greater amount of SARS-CoV-2 in the upper respiratory tract of young children.*... *Thus, young children can potentially be important drivers of SARS-CoV-2 spread in the general population, as has been demonstrated with respiratory syncytial virus, where children with high viral loads are more likely to transmit*.6 Behavioral habits of young children and close quarters in school and day care settings raise concern for SARS-CoV-2 amplification in this population as public health restrictions are eased. In addition to public health implications, this population will be important for targeting immunization efforts as SARS-CoV-2 vaccines become available."
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2768952


----------



## ElRay

KnightBrolaire said:


> Not going to get into the other crap since it's just typical trump idiocy ...


 Yup. There's been talk about kids carrying higher viral loads as being equivalent to them being "sinks" that soak-up the virus and protect adults.


----------



## MFB

StevenC said:


> How does this negate remdesivir being long out of patent and available for anyone to produce for $1 and sell for $1.01?



It doesn't, except that now that we're in a pandemic with this virus everybody was scrambling for the cure and whoever got to it first was going to try and make that profit - which now happens to be Gilead. If there wasn't a pandemic, would this price still be set?

This is the price gouging I expected to see from the start. I don't think it's unreasonable to say anyone is expecting them to operate at a 0% profit, that's an unsustainable business model, but to take the drug that has been reported as costing $1 to make and charge _2300-3100x_ it's cost, it's a blatant "fuck you, pay us" to the entire market; especially after as Max showed, the R&D of this has been covered at a minimum of $70M, so where's all this going back to? Obviously they'll have to cover manufacturing of it and all that, so if it were even something like $100, I don't think anyone besides the uninsured would bat an eye (and I know I'm greatly downplaying how many that really is), but this is greed in it's most basic form.


----------



## fantom

And Trump pushing a EO to require US funds to buy from US companies is just enabling price gouging. I thought Republicans wanted less government regulations? Congrats Gilead, you are the new Comcast.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presiden...rmeasures-critical-inputs-made-united-states/

I'm totally fine with us manufacturing for common goods. But ground breaking research to save lives of millions of people should, forgive the pun, Trump politics.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

interesting development in filtered masks. Basically making them easier to breathe through, while preventing particles over 100nm from entering. It'll be interesting to see how it works in the real world though.
https://www.qut.edu.au/science-engineering/about/news?id=167069


----------



## BigViolin

https://tripleaughtdesign.com/shop/shadow-rs-mask/

Those filters would go well with the tadgear masks...well maybe in a few months.


----------



## jaxadam

KnightBrolaire said:


> interesting development in filtered masks. Basically making them easier to breathe through, while preventing particles over 100nm from entering. It'll be interesting to see how it works in the real world though.
> https://www.qut.edu.au/science-engineering/about/news?id=167069



100 nm!? How do they measure that? Tape measure only goes down to 1/32”!


----------



## Adieu

I needed an item from the next county over for work and took the scenic route along PCH on the way back


OMFG there's good reason friggin Huntington Beach CA made national news a few times.... it's like white trash spring break in full swing there.

Maybe 5% masked, if that. Massive massive crowds just wandering around the beach and the beachfront shops.

It's like a rebellion against common sense in full swing



PS i used to drive rideshare and know the area real well. Attendance wasn't just near normal year summer.... it was more like halfway to 4th of July Fireworks level of crowding


Fuuuuuck.


----------



## fantom

The bay area subreddit has people from Tahoe pleading for tech employees not to travel there. Apparently tourists willing to vacation during a pandemic don't give a crap about wearing masks or social distancing (they are saying less than 10% wear masks or are mindful of distance when shopping). The local government is ignoring the community because they want their economy on track. I could imagine this is happening is many more tourist towns.


----------



## spudmunkey

Same thing happened in Pacifica and Half Moon Bay. Basically any tourist location. I don't know about anywhere else, but Pacifica was actually upping police presence, and lots of people were complaining about getting citations.


----------



## Adieu

I think Huntington is just your local assortment of shitheads out of Orange County and South Los Angeles County

The mask thing really does seem to be political or even racial here, though. The Hispanic and Asian communities seem to have almost complete compliance regardless of their other demographic traits... while Trump's lower-income disgruntled whites base seems to be flaunting their non-compliance en masse


It gets pretty ridiculous. Mexican homeless and drug dealer looking Asian youths all masked up, families of fat white people with bottle blonde daughters and tattooed sons all ignoring it.... what the hell is going on in this country????


----------



## Xaios

Adieu said:


> what the hell is going on in this country????


Honestly, as an outsider, I'm not at all surprised that this is what it has come to for the US. While every country has its share of selfish, deluded nimrods, America's quotient of them seems far higher than most of the rest of the world. The level of anti-intellectualism in America is staggering; many seem to actively revel in their ignorance like it's something to be proud of because they believe that education only leads to being tainted by the evils of progressivism. These people are so zealous in these notions that they're willing to shoot themselves in the foot if they think that such an act will "own the libtards." Hell, the American evangelical lobby has placed on their pedestal a man who represents everything they should despise. They've built an idol of him, only this time it took the form of an orange pig instead a golden calf. More people still have spent years justifying the second amendment as being necessary in case a tyrannical government decided to oppress the populace, and then responded to that very thing happening by moaning in pleasure while deepthroating the tyrannical government's cock and swallowing the jizz like it was blood of Christ because the populace who were being oppressed were black.

The most damning thing is that, frankly, I don't see it changing. Once upon a time, I thought that the outbursts of racism, xenophobia and just general shittiness seen among Americans were aberrations, the death rattle of a dying ideology. Honestly, by how much traction those notions seem to be gaining, I just don't know if that's true anymore. I thought that they were simply being brought to the fore because your shitheel president was setting the tone of the discussion, but sheer number of lunatics willing to take his every verbal excrement as gospel, tens of millions of people... yeah, I just don't have the words to express my disappointment and disgust.

So, yeah. To answer your question, what is going on is that America has reached a place that it was heading all along. Its trajectory is unchanged, Trump and Coronavirus simply floored the gas pedal and got it there faster.


----------



## Flappydoodle

I think it was predictable that the US would not cope well with a pandemic.

What you need to cope with a pandemic is a combination of:
1. Government that can make big decisions without opposition
2. A governance system where laws can be brought in very quickly
3. The ability to highly control the population - track movement, test, enforce behaviours
4. Well-informed citizens who are up to date on developments
5. Highly compliant citizens who will actually do what they are told
6. The ability to control the narrative
7. Being an island and/or having excellent control of people entering/leaving

But what is America?
1. A country where government is divided by design and nobody has absolute power 
2. A system which is slow as hell, legal contests all over the place
3. A country where individual freedom is build into the national psyche
4. A country with just awful media, no matter which side you're on
5. A country well-known for rebelling against authority
6. A country with loads of channels of information (including social media) and none are trustworthy
7. A country with infamously porous borders, 100 major international travel hubs

So you have countries like China where they snap their fingers and they can lock you down, ban travel, weld your doors shut, mandate that you undergo medical testing etc. They will also track and trace you everywhere, whether you like it or not. And the population is highly compliant because you easily get "disappeared" off to prison if you step out of line.

You also have countries where they are simply not capable. Too poor. Too incompetent. Too corrupt. They don't have the capability to test, track, track or treat. Nobody can enforce behavioural changes. That includes much of South America, SE Asia, Africa - none of their numbers are going to be accurate right now.

Or you have a country like New Zealand or Taiwan where their governments are less divided, where people are more likely to trust and comply with instructions. It also helps that they are islands with 1-2 major sites of entry. 

Somewhere like the UK is in the middle. There is political divide, but at least they speak the same language and don't literally hate each other. The Prime Minister is also a LOT more powerful than a President, so it's easier to get stuff done. British people are quite rebellious, but also have "war time mentality" built into the national psyche where we will pool together for the greater good. And the media, though having their own opinions and biases, isn't as toxic as the US which makes literally EVERYTHING political and divisive.


----------



## TedEH

^ The only thing that would make me uncomfortable in that list above is the inclusion of "control the narrative". That phrase, to my ears, always has this negative connotation of intentionally obscuring information or preventing people from talking/thinking what they want. If "controlling the narrative" means "give people facts", then sure - control how much misinformation makes it into the situation. There's way too much focus on "narratives" - I don't want a story, I want the truth.


----------



## MASS DEFECT

spudmunkey said:


> Same thing happened in Pacifica and Half Moon Bay. Basically any tourist location. I don't know about anywhere else, but Pacifica was actually upping police presence, and lots of people were complaining about getting citations.



SF is losing it, too. Have you seen Dolores Park? Damn. People are bored and none the wiser.


----------



## Drew

Xaios said:


> So, yeah. To answer your question, what is going on is that America has reached a place that it was heading all along. Its trajectory is unchanged, Trump and Coronavirus simply floored the gas pedal and got it there faster.


While there is certainly an anti-intellectual, xenophobic, right wing slant to whay's going on here, I think it goes quite a bit deeper than that. America has always elevated "rugged individualism" to the level of almost a national cult, and being an independent, free-thinking, do-it-yourself enterprising, patriot in pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of justice are what we teach every young American to aspire to grow up to be. 

That's all well and good, and in many ways this has led to American exceptionalism.... But it also makes us SINGULARLY unprepared to deal with something like a pandemic, because we're taught to prioritize the exceptional individual over the common good, so when we then have to go and ask our country-men-and-women to make modest sacrifices for the good of the whole country, a disproportionate number of Americans think that sort of communal thinking is diametrically opposed to the values this country was founded upon. 

I think the right tends to be far more prone to this line of thinking than the left - blame Ann Rand, if you will - but we're a nation who's pretty thoroughly indoctrinated to, to name-check a different author, take the fork less traveled because it will make all the difference. It's a real problem, and I think the American love-affair with rugged individualism may ultimately be the undoing of the American hegemony we've lived in since the end of WWII.


----------



## sleewell

the big ten just cancelled their football season. i talked to some people who work at msu this weekend. they think things are going to go really badly if they stick with in person classes in the fall. think about students from all over the country coming back. our welcome week alone is massive party. then they all go back home for a break or for a holiday and spread it some more. its not hard to imagine this happening in every college town in the country and the ripple effect it will have.

the school in GA that suspended that kid for posting a pic of a packed hallway (they took the suspension back) already has 9 cases and is shutting down for 2 days.

saying kids are largely immune is another in a long list of really stupid trump quotes.


----------



## Randy

Kids spreading it despite being largely asymptomatic or mild symptoms is one thing, but I'm still worried about what long term side effects could be. Thinking of the chicken pox and shingles thing, or football concussions and CTE. Kids could be throwing COVID parties today and even if they don't infect an at risk person as a results, they could all be in an iron lung 10 or 20 years from now. At this point our window into what happens after the virus has run its course is only 6 to 8 months. Pushing herd immunity or 'let it burn' or personal choice right now is grossly irresponsible considering how limited our knowledge of this is. To assume there are no reverberating effects is beyond ignorant.


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> Kids spreading it despite being largely asymptomatic or mild symptoms is one thing, but I'm still worried about what long term side effects could be. Thinking of the chicken pox and shingles thing, or football concussions and CTE. Kids could be throwing COVID parties today and even if they don't infect an at risk person as a results, they could all be in an iron lung 10 or 20 years from now. At this point our window into what happens after the virus has run its course is only 6 to 8 months. Pushing herd immunity or 'let it burn' or personal choice right now is grossly irresponsible considering how limited our knowledge of this is. To assume there are no reverberating effects is beyond ignorant.


Frankly, that's not even a viable option because even if we KNEW there were no long term health effects, with a virus this contageous and an unchecked r-0 of probably somewhere around 2, and with on average 20% of patients requiring hospitalization, we simply couldn't accomodate the number of patients who would need medical support to survive. It's pretty simply math, and anyone who claims otherwise is delusional.


----------



## Randy

The Desantis strategy is basically keep the infections among youth, so they don't get hospitalized or in the nursing homes where they're likely to die sooner than see the inside of an ICU. I'm only half kidding too.


----------



## Flappydoodle

TedEH said:


> ^ The only thing that would make me uncomfortable in that list above is the inclusion of "control the narrative". That phrase, to my ears, always has this negative connotation of intentionally obscuring information or preventing people from talking/thinking what they want. If "controlling the narrative" means "give people facts", then sure - control how much misinformation makes it into the situation. There's way too much focus on "narratives" - I don't want a story, I want the truth.



What is mean is that people need to understand what is happening at a specific time. 

In the UK it’s gone from telling you not to wear masks to making them compulsory. It’s gone from stay at home to now begging people to eat out. That sort of thing. People need narratives to understand why it’s better to do certain things at certain times. 

Again, something like this is difficult when you have lots of media sources which are all filled with opinion and bias.


----------



## Flappydoodle

Randy said:


> Kids spreading it despite being largely asymptomatic or mild symptoms is one thing, but I'm still worried about what long term side effects could be. Thinking of the chicken pox and shingles thing, or football concussions and CTE. Kids could be throwing COVID parties today and even if they don't infect an at risk person as a results, they could all be in an iron lung 10 or 20 years from now. At this point our window into what happens after the virus has run its course is only 6 to 8 months. Pushing herd immunity or 'let it burn' or personal choice right now is grossly irresponsible considering how limited our knowledge of this is. To assume there are no reverberating effects is beyond ignorant.



It’s definitely possible that there will be long term effects. But suspending all normal life forever (or until mass vaccination) is also impossible. Erring on the side of absolute caution and trying to reduce cases to 0 is also futile and incredibly damaging for a country like the US. There’s no ‘good’ option out there unfortunately.


----------



## Flappydoodle

Drew said:


> While there is certainly an anti-intellectual, xenophobic, right wing slant to whay's going on here, I think it goes quite a bit deeper than that. America has always elevated "rugged individualism" to the level of almost a national cult, and being an independent, free-thinking, do-it-yourself enterprising, patriot in pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of justice are what we teach every young American to aspire to grow up to be.
> 
> That's all well and good, and in many ways this has led to American exceptionalism.... But it also makes us SINGULARLY unprepared to deal with something like a pandemic, because we're taught to prioritize the exceptional individual over the common good, so when we then have to go and ask our country-men-and-women to make modest sacrifices for the good of the whole country, a disproportionate number of Americans think that sort of communal thinking is diametrically opposed to the values this country was founded upon.
> 
> I think the right tends to be far more prone to this line of thinking than the left - blame Ann Rand, if you will - but we're a nation who's pretty thoroughly indoctrinated to, to name-check a different author, take the fork less traveled because it will make all the difference. It's a real problem, and I think the American love-affair with rugged individualism may ultimately be the undoing of the American hegemony we've lived in since the end of WWII.



The anti-science is on both political sides. Loads of vaccine scepticism is left wing, due to distrust of big pharma. The left is almost more likely to believe in ‘natural’ therapies like homeopathy, acupuncture, healing crystals, reiki, and other nonsense instead of the medical system. And the right wing distrusts government and ‘expert’ authority, and is more likely to believe in god than doctors. 

Another major problem is that science is inherently messy, leading to mixed messages. Back in March, all the UK health authorities were saying there is zero evidence supporting wearing masks and that you shouldn’t buy them. Now they’re making them compulsory. Was that science based or logistics based (ie we had a shortage in March so they lied)? Who knows. Either way, this also erodes trust, no matter your politics. 

And scientists are humans too and they aren’t all trustworthy, truthful or professional. For example, Prof Raoult (the guy who popularised HCQ for Covid) is the worlds most cited microbiologist, with 2,000+ publications, 200 lab members, 8 companies, more than 50 patents. He SHOULD be an authoritative and trustworthy source of information... but he isn’t. He’s a total loon and his papers about HCQ are terrible science and basically propaganda. So this also massively muddies the waters and erodes trust.


----------



## sleewell

I dont think anyone credible is saying to stay inside until there is a vaccine. there is however a vastly better way this could have been handled which would have us in a lot better place right now. We are currently banned from nearly every country in the entire world bc of how poorly we botched this. Reopening schools in areas with high levels of community spread is going to make things worse as we head into the regular flu season. Also it's great that some businesses can operate outside now but it's going to get cold in lots of states soon, which is really going to push them closer to bankruptcy.


----------



## diagrammatiks

Flappydoodle said:


> It’s definitely possible that there will be long term effects. But suspending all normal life forever (or until mass vaccination) is also impossible. Erring on the side of absolute caution and trying to reduce cases to 0 is also futile and incredibly damaging for a country like the US. There’s no ‘good’ option out there unfortunately.



I mean the us could have done something effective and in the middle.


----------



## Ralyks

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wa...navirus-covid-live-updates-us/?outputType=amp

Russia claiming they have a vaccine.

Yeah. Ok.


----------



## Adieu

Ralyks said:


> https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/11/coronavirus-covid-live-updates-us/?outputType=amp
> 
> Russia claiming they have a vaccine.
> 
> Yeah. Ok.



Russia was also claiming to have beaten the outbreak and got caught falsifying data and bullshitting to reopen for a bogus constitutional amendment referendum (for an amendment that was already, illegally, ratified, and really only served to reset Putin's term limit and give him a retirement policy as a lifetime Senator should he want it later)


....don't buy these liars' bullshit.


If you want covid-fighting guidance, look to South Korea or Vietnam.


----------



## Ralyks

Adieu said:


> Russia was also claiming to have beaten the outbreak and got caught falsifying data and bullshitting to reopen for a bogus constitutional amendment referendum (for an amendment that was already, illegally, ratified, and really only served to reset Putin's term limit and give him a retirement policy as a lifetime Senator should he want it later)
> 
> 
> ....don't buy these liars' bullshit.
> 
> 
> If you want covid-fighting guidance, look to South Korea or Vietnam.



or New Zealand.

And trust me, I’m not buying for a second that Russia actually has a working vaccine.


----------



## Flappydoodle

diagrammatiks said:


> I mean the us could have done something effective and in the middle.



I'm honestly not sure they could. I don't think Trump has done a great job in any way, but he isn't single-handedly to blame. This would have been a shitshow with Obama, Bush or anybody really. With the factors mentioned in my post, I can't really think of many things which could have been done differently in the real world (i.e. not a hypothetical where the US population magically behaves like Korean, Japanese etc). To my knowledge, POTUS can't declare a lockdown. He can't even unilaterally close borders (which is what Taiwan etc did very early).

The US also has several things going for it:
1. A booming and massive economy where people are hungry to make money
2. World-leading, enormous bioscience research capabilities and expertise
3. Huge manufacturing capabilities for biologics (peptide-based vaccines, antibodies etc)

That ensures you'll come out of this quite well in the end, IMO.

You can also see these qualities reflected in countries like the UK where this power is now showing. Couple months ago you couldn't get a test anywhere. Now the UK is testing more per capita than any other comparable nation (i.e. not including island nations and tiny states like Monaco, Luxembourg, Iceland etc). The testing and modelling is absolutely outstanding and you can have extremely high confidence in the numbers reported. You also have Oxford leading the vaccine charge, and lots of high quality and trustworthy research coming out.

You also have to bear in mind that any comparisons you are making are against numbers reported by other countries. They have different demographics, maybe different virus strains, and they are quite possibly fiddling their numbers - either by simply not testing/diagnosing/categorising correctly, or by lying.

For example, the UK and Pakistan have almost identical confirmed case numbers. Yet the UK has THIRTY times more deaths. Things like this have no single clear explanation. Maybe it's our greater levels of obesity, or higher median age, or we are more truthful, or maybe over-aggressive certifying deaths as Covid. But you'd also think Covid would ravage a population which is poor, lived in crowded conditions, has poor healthcare etc. 

Really, who the hell knows!


----------



## sleewell

are you really saying that obama would have created a culture war over masks? 

he would have encouraged states to reopen before meeting the guidelines laid out by his own govt?

he would have encouraged schools to reopen while there was up to a 20% infection rate? he would keep repeating a obviously false statement that kids are immune?

obama would have picked fights and done opposition research on the top doctors in the country? 

i am sure he would have fired the team of experts he put in place to deal with something like this.


----------



## Adieu

Ralyks said:


> or New Zealand.
> 
> And trust me, I’m not buying for a second that Russia actually has a working vaccine.



One that works? Who knows

One that works that they've actually properly tested for safety and efficacy and didn't "adjust" any of the numbers on or keep quiet about side effects? No chance in hell


----------



## thraxil

Flappydoodle said:


> You also have Oxford leading the vaccine charge, and lots of high quality and trustworthy research coming out.



My partner got an envelope from the NHS a few weeks ago, but left it sitting on the counter because she assumed it was their usual reminder that they want her to go in for a gyno appointment and she didn't want to deal with that right now. She finally opened it the other day, she discovered that it was actually an invitation to the Oxford vaccine trial. Of course by then she'd missed the deadline...


----------



## Randy

Russian vaccine works but it turns you into final form Tetsuo.


----------



## possumkiller

sleewell said:


> are you really saying that obama would have created a culture war over masks?
> 
> he would have encouraged states to reopen before meeting the guidelines laid out by his own govt?
> 
> he would have encouraged schools to reopen while there was up to a 20% infection rate? he would keep repeating a obviously false statement that kids are immune?
> 
> obama would have picked fights and done opposition research on the top doctors in the country?
> 
> i am sure he would have fired the team of experts he put in place to deal with something like this.


Obama wouldn't, but the Republican half of the government and population would. Just because Obama would be president doesn't mean that everyone would've magically fallen inline and done what he said. It's a problem with American culture.


----------



## Randy

possumkiller said:


> Obama wouldn't, but the Republican half of the government and population would. Just because Obama would be president doesn't mean that everyone would've magically fallen inline and done what he said. It's a problem with American culture.



So-so. I think there's very few people who are adamantly anti-mask to their core, I think they'd be more like seatbelts or motorcycle helmets were it NOT framed by people (besides Trump, but empowered by him) as a political issue. The American part comes from the fact there HAS to be a duality on issues no matter how common sense they are, and that endangering yourself and others doesn't matter as much a pwning your opposition.

I don't think Obama being president would make 'everybody' wear their masks but I think you'd have more compliance, yes.


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> So-so. I think there's very few people who are adamantly anti-mask to their core, I think they'd be more like seatbelts or motorcycle helmets were it NOT framed by people (besides Trump, but empowered by him) as a political issue. The American part comes from the fact there HAS to be a duality on issues no matter how common sense they are, and that endangering yourself and others doesn't matter as much a pwning your opposition.
> 
> I don't think Obama being president would make 'everybody' wear their masks but I think you'd have more compliance, yes.


I also think you would have gotten a national testing program and centralized/standardized testing reporting/tracking, and probably some sort of contact tracing program right now. 

This, IMO, is the two critical ways in which the Trump organization is failing - it's still exceedingly hard to get rapid testing even in major urban areas (it took me maybe seven or eight phone calls before I could find somewhere that would take walk-ins same day and give results in 2-3 days, in downtown Boston of all places), and we have no contact tracing program to speak of. 

I have a friend who's a research fellow at Harvard and she was telling me about the proposed student protocol for this coming academic year - students on campus will be tested 3x a week, and someone like her who works with grad students frequently will be tested 2x a week. Honestly, if we want to normalize life in this country again, that's what we ALL need to be doing, coupled with some way to notify anyone that someone they'd come in contact with in the past few days tested positive. I mention this because I'm sure for much of this group that seems like a very draconian testing regiment, which really highlights just how short of that we're coming - that shouldn't feel draconian at all, that's the minimum we need to do to identify and quarantine pockets of Covid before they can break out and do more harm.


----------



## sleewell

agreed. testing is actually going down. results are still taking way too long which makes the test worthless. we are far too long into this for those two things to be happening. 

this was not a situation to let the states figure it out for themselves. the lack of national leadership has crippled us.


----------



## Drew

sleewell said:


> agreed. testing is actually going down. results are still taking way too long which makes the test worthless. we are far too long into this for those two things to be happening.
> 
> this was not a situation to let the states figure it out for themselves. the lack of national leadership has crippled us.


Honestly, in a major urban area, the fact it was a real challenge to find somewhere where I could get tested that 1) I didn't have to register for two weeks in advnce, and 2) would get me results in less than 5 days, is kind of mindblowing.


----------



## Randy

The problem with Trump on this issue is that he's done so much to alienate the US from it's allies and he's filled up cabinet with cronies and 'yes men' for four years, anybody with the vaguest sense of foresight was saying 'boy, I hope we don't need those for anything'.

Then covid hits and oh yeah, that's why you don't do those things.

The gaslighting anti-vax and anti-science conspiracies, the vanity, the insistence on admitting no wrongdoing ever, the pandering to polls and affirmations from his base, etc. They all setup this scenario where the US was unprepared when the virus hits, disease/pandemic response were ill prepared to roll out testing/treatment/isolation when it inevitably spread, inconsistent messaging on disease control fed existing narrative of distrust of professionals, so on.

Call it a perfect storm or call it the inevitable cascading effect of cutting the brake lines on American norms. Any one less of these things would've saved lives.

It's worth remembering the grim-dark death projections from the beginning of this talking about 200,000+ deaths before the end of the year. Then infections fell and everyone called Fauci an alarmist and they revised numbers to 80,000 to 100,000. We're now rocketing past those numbers and looking likely to even eclipse that 200,000 number before year's end. There's literally no world where you can have all this going on and no responsibility for outcome falls on the response of leadership, especially when all four corners of the rest of the damn world got the same virus and didn't have the crisis we had here. You don't need to look at "what if it was someone else" hypotheticals to see that.


----------



## iamaom

Drew said:


> would get me results in less than 5 days, is kind of mindblowing.


I actually work in a lab with some testing machines (though I do not run any them nor am I qualified to do so), this situation goes way beyond the Trump administration, the entire US infrastructure was not prepared for this kind of outbreak, a large part of it because the health care industry is mostly private. Labs performing medical testing have to be approved by the government (which is a good thing), but still have to fight for real estate and employees like any private business. When some labs simply didn't have enough room for a new machine, they couldn't just rent out more space, so the entire country is bottle necked by sending COVID tests halfway across the country to only a few labs that were able to get running early enough. Unsurprisingly, when a lab that's meant to test X number of specimens per day suddenly has 10x the volume but without 10x the employees there's a massive backlog. It also didn't help that my company had layoffs + a hiring freeze + a raise freeze for nearly 3 months because profits sank due to almost no one without important medical issues going to the doctor during a viral pandemic. The amount of overtime people were expected to give to offput the layoffs caused several people to quit (one of the most important jobs in the labs pays $2/hr more than starbucks) during said hiring freeze, compounding the problem even further. But hey, at least our stocks stayed steady.


----------



## Drew

iamaom said:


> I actually work in a lab with some testing machines (though I do not run any them nor am I qualified to do so), this situation goes way beyond the Trump administration, the entire US infrastructure was not prepared for this kind of outbreak, a large part of it because the health care industry is mostly private. Labs performing medical testing have to be approved by the government (which is a good thing), but still have to fight for real estate and employees like any private business. When some labs simply didn't have enough room for a new machine, they couldn't just rent out more space, so the entire country is bottle necked by sending COVID tests halfway across the country to only a few labs that were able to get running early enough. Unsurprisingly, when a lab that's meant to test X number of specimens per day suddenly has 10x the volume but without 10x the employees there's a massive backlog. It also didn't help that my company had layoffs + a hiring freeze + a raise freeze for nearly 3 months because profits sank due to almost no one without important medical issues going to the doctor during a viral pandemic. The amount of overtime people were expected to give to offput the layoffs caused several people to quit (one of the most important jobs in the labs pays $2/hr more than starbucks) during said hiring freeze, compounding the problem even further. But hey, at least our stocks stayed steady.


These are all valid concerns... but we've known COVID was likely to become a global pandemic since at least February. Could we have signifiantly expanded testing testing centers over those 6 months with federal funds, could we have avided those hiring freezes and layoffs in existing capacity during that time, and could we have, at a minimum, standardized our reporting data so it's truly comparable from state to state? Absolutely. It would have been hard by day one, but were now something like seven months into fighting this globally, and more than 5 since we locked down domestically. Other countries have managed to ramp up testing to the sorts of levels I'm taking about, the fact we haven't is a travesty and the fact there's been zero national support for testing has a lot to do with that.


----------



## SpaceDock

I just wish we could go back to civility in our politics and not politicize this disease like it has been, but if you look up masks in the Spanish flu, the same thing happened back then.

What I think people should consider is how Trump had such an easy opportunity to build hope and consensus, but he threw it all away because he doesn’t want to own anything. Can you imagine Bush at the rubble days after 9/11 saying “it is what it is” “I did the best with what the Clintons left for me” “New York can take care of this, it’s not up to the Federal government to fix this” “Clinton was terrible.”


----------



## spudmunkey

Real talk: and I'm absolutely willing to believe that i haven't seen it because it's been held back by the media:

Has trump ever made any sort of somber speech about those who've died? Like...when there was the 10,000, 50,000 or 100,000 death milestones?

Besides thowing in a brief "Oh, sure, it's terrible, but..." before attacking something/someone else, I mean.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

spudmunkey said:


> Real talk: and I'm absolutely willing to believe that i haven't seen it because it's been held back by the media:
> 
> Has trump ever made any sort of somber speech about those who've died? Like...when there was the 10,000, 50,000 or 100,000 death milestones?
> 
> Besides thowing in a brief "Oh, sure, it's terrible, but..." before attacking something/someone else, I mean.



"it is what it is"


----------



## SpaceDock

spudmunkey said:


> Real talk: and I'm absolutely willing to believe that i haven't seen it because it's been held back by the media:
> 
> Has trump ever made any sort of somber speech about those who've died? Like...when there was the 10,000, 50,000 or 100,000 death milestones?
> 
> Besides thowing in a brief "Oh, sure, it's terrible, but..." before attacking something/someone else, I mean.



Not to my knowledge. This is part of Trumps personality, he just doesn’t have that in him. You remember the “he knew what he was getting into” gold star family or the “come back to the hospital to meet me” El Paso victim? I just don’t think he has a shred of empathy in him because that is weakness in his mind. You have to remember that Trump thought his older brother was a “loser” for struggling with addiction. He had his own “personal Vietnam with STDs.” Cold as ice.

To once again contrast with Bush. George W used to read the list of names that died in the Iraq and Afghan wars every single day because he wanted to constantly remind himself that they were real people who died for our country. I say Trump should get comfortable because that list of Covid deaths is getting real long.


----------



## SpaceDock

SpaceDock said:


> I just wish we could go back to civility in our politics and not politicize this disease like it has been, but if you look up masks in the Spanish flu, the same thing happened back then.
> 
> What I think people should consider is how Trump had such an easy opportunity to build hope and consensus, but he threw it all away because he doesn’t want to own anything. Can you imagine Bush at the rubble days after 9/11 saying “it is what it is” “I did the best with what the Clintons left for me” “New York can take care of this, it’s not up to the Federal government to fix this” “Clinton was terrible.”




Shit! I forgot what Trump actually said about 9/11, “looks like I have the tallest building now.”


----------



## spudmunkey

SpaceDock said:


> Shit! I forgot what Trump actually said about 9/11, “looks like I have the tallest building now.”



Remember when he said that he was there "helping a little bit" removing rubble?

Or when he said he saw the 2nd plane hit, and people jumping from the building from his penthouse view...4 miles away?

Or when he said he saw "thousands and thousands" of Muslim's celebrating and cheering as the buildings fell?

Or when he pledged $10,000 to a Howard Stern-involved charity event, but didn't actually make the payment?

Or when he said he qualified for a $150,000 grant for one of his buildings because he said he let people stay there and store thing there...but there's no record of that, and it's not even mentioned on his grant application?

Or when he said he was sending workers to help cleanup, but an FDNY chief who was on-site for months said there was never anyone sent?

Or when he donated $100,000 to the 9/11 museum and boasted about his donation, leaving out the fact that it was actually Trump Foundation that made the donation, using other people's money?

Or when, on an anniversary of the attack, he tweeted the somber and respectful, "I would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and losers, on this special date, September 11th."?


----------



## Drew

spudmunkey said:


> Real talk: and I'm absolutely willing to believe that i haven't seen it because it's been held back by the media:
> 
> Has trump ever made any sort of somber speech about those who've died? Like...when there was the 10,000, 50,000 or 100,000 death milestones?
> 
> Besides throwing in a brief "Oh, sure, it's terrible, but..." before attacking something/someone else, I mean.


Not to the best of my knowledge, either. He's made brief, passing references to the human cost, which I guess is not nothing... But he's been incapable of sustaining any note of solemnity and for the most part he's been too busy about bragging about our mortality rate being low (which it isn't particularly) or how great our response is, or how if we were only doing less testing, our numbers would be better.

If he's done more than that, then I'd guess the main reason we're not hearing more about it today isn't some media conspiracy not to report about him showing a shred of empathy for once, but because if it ever DID happen, he promptly backed away and went back to his usual solipsistic bullshit, and any brief flash of human decency got washed away by the flood.


----------



## ElRay

SpaceDock said:


> ... Can you imagine Bush at the rubble days after 9/11 saying “it is what it is” “I did the best with what the Clintons left for me” “New York can take care of this, it’s not up to the Federal government to fix this” “Clinton was terrible.”


It's worse than that. Bush Jr. never even came close to anything remotely resembling ignoring/dismissing/dismantling OP-Plans/personnel/infrastructure built by the Clintons and left in place for him, and then blaming the Clintons. Bush Jr never even came close to anything remotely resembling selling-off/gaving-away strategic supplies built-up and left for him, and then blaming the Clintons.

Politics aside, Trump is the very meme of the kid jamming a stick the the front spokes of his own bike and then whining about how others have done him wrong. If you deny this, *you're introducing politics* into the COVID response, because *you're ignoring reality*.


----------



## TedEH

This is 2020: If you spend any time on the internet, you're either ignoring reality, or "on the wrong team". Welcome to the future.


----------



## Yonko

The human body is designed to respond with antibodies when infected with a virus. Coronavirus is a cold virus, so for the vast majority, it shouldn't be an issue. Masks aren't going to prevent viral transfer... only an air supplied suit can accomplish that.


----------



## jaxadam

Holy shit you are going to get raked over the coals in this thread. Godspeed.


----------



## Yonko

jaxadam said:


> Holy shit you are going to get raked over the coals in this thread. Godspeed.


Why?


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Yonko said:


> Masks aren't going to prevent viral transfer... only an air supplied suit can accomplish that.



bullshit


----------



## jaxadam

Exhibit 1.


----------



## Yonko

Surgical asks help prevent bacterial transference. N95 masks can filter smaller particles, but these are rarely worn. The masks that you see most people wearing are a deterrent; preventing you from touching your face/mouth. Best thing you can do to help prevent infection, is keep your hands washed. A surgical mask will NOT block coronavirus particles. No way - no how.


----------



## jaxadam

Good luck my friend.


----------



## SpaceDock

Yonko said:


> Coronavirus is a cold virus, so for the vast majority, it shouldn't be an issue.



There are 165,000 dead Americans that would disagree. I get what you are saying but even a .1% death rate at country wide spread is going to devastate our nation. We need to respect science and not offer up these dismissals of how devastating Covid has been to the world.


----------



## jaxadam

Exhibit 2.


----------



## SpaceDock

Yonko said:


> Surgical asks help prevent bacterial transference. N95 masks can filter smaller particles, but these are rarely worn. The masks that you see most people wearing are a deterrent; preventing you from touching your face/mouth. Best thing you can do to help prevent infection, is keep your hands washed. A surgical mask will NOT block coronavirus particles. No way - no how.



Masks are not for blocking what you are inhaling, although they do help because Covid is spread through droplets not like you are inhaling a pure airborne virus strain. Masks are about protecting others from spitting out those droplets and yes, they are very effective at slowing the transmission of Covid. If you haven’t seen the particle dispersal studies, I would take some time to google it. It is not anything hard to grasp as the evidence is visual and very easy to understand.


----------



## SpaceDock

jaxadam said:


> Exhibit 2.



Sorry, Jax but I am trying to slow the spread of misinformation once again and trying to be courteous, not “rake over the coals.”


----------



## Yonko

SpaceDock said:


> There are 165,000 dead Americans that would disagree. I get what you are saying but even a .1% death rate at country wide spread is going to devastate our nation. We need to respect science and not offer up these dismissals of how devastating Covid has been to the world.


Non sequitur. You comment is unrelated to mask effectiveness.


----------



## SpaceDock

Yonko said:


> Non sequitur. You comment is unrelated to mask effectiveness.



Uh, your comment was: 

Yonko said: ↑
Coronavirus is a cold virus, so for the vast majority, it shouldn't be an issue.

My reply was: 
There are 165,000 dead Americans that would disagree. I get what you are saying but even a .1% death rate at country wide spread is going to devastate our nation. We need to respect science and not offer up these dismissals of how devastating Covid has been to the world.

My second comment was about your mask fallacies.


----------



## Yonko

SpaceDock said:


> Masks are not for blocking what you are inhaling, although they do help because Covid is spread through droplets not like you are inhaling a pure airborne virus strain. Masks are about protecting others from spitting out those droplets and yes, they are very effective at slowing the transmission of Covid. If you haven’t seen the particle dispersal studies, I would take some time to google it. It is not anything hard to grasp as the evidence is visual and very easy to understand.


Surgical masks are for blocking bacteria transfer; inhaled and exhaled. Vented masks filter on intake air only. Virus particals adhere to droplets of humidity, not just large visible "spitting" droplets. Nothing can "slow" the transmission of a virus... once you're infected, that's it. The only way to protect from viral infection, via air-supplied environmental isolation suit.


----------



## spudmunkey

Even if a mask didn't actually catch any droplets, the air that carries particles is GREATLY slowed down, reducing the potential outward spread.

But it _does_ catch droplets. :



Surgical masks aren't just to keep you from touching your face. If that were true, surgeons would just wear shields, and not shields AND masks.


----------



## Yonko

SpaceDock said:


> Uh, your comment was:
> 
> Yonko said: ↑
> Coronavirus is a cold virus, so for the vast majority, it shouldn't be an issue.
> 
> My reply was:
> There are 165,000 dead Americans that would disagree. I get what you are saying but even a .1% death rate at country wide spread is going to devastate our nation. We need to respect science and not offer up these dismissals of how devastating Covid has been to the world.
> 
> My second comment was about your mask fallacies.


"...mask fallacies". Please, define.


----------



## Yonko

spudmunkey said:


> Even if a mask didn't actually catch any droplets, the air that carries particles is GREATLY slowed down, recuding the potential spread. But it DOES catch droplets (keep in mind that this Coronavirus is larger than the aerosolized liquid here):



When I say "transmission", I'm referring to infection... not particle deceleration. Of course, any method of diffusing output will help impede travel.


----------



## narad

Yonko said:


> When I say "transmission", I'm referring to infection... not particle deceleration. Of course, any method of diffusing output will help impede travel.



So... you're saying I should wear a mask?


----------



## jaxadam

Yonko said:


> Surgical masks are for blocking bacteria transfer; inhaled and exhaled. Vented masks filter on intake air only. Virus particals adhere to droplets of humidity, not just large visible "spitting" droplets. Nothing can "slow" the transmission of a virus... once you're infected, that's it. The only way to protect from viral infection, via air-supplied environmental isolation suit.



When these guys aren’t playing guitar or attending Antifa rallies, they are bleeding edge virologists. They have top secret access to the Biden/Kamala playbook that will, come November, eradicate the pandemic, smash Amazon to bits so Bezos can no longer keep $170 billion in his BoA free checking account, and make every domicile in the continental US, including Alaska, Hawaii and the other US territories a healthy, happy, and perfectly peaceful place. Notice I’m a big fan of the Oxford comma. In order to convey this message, they will speak in a language that is hard to decipher using code words like Republicrap, Trumptard, etc. Although you may believe you have a right to your opinion, and may even wholeheartedly believe your stance without any ill will or malice, you will most certainly be “convinced” otherwise.


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> When these guys aren’t playing guitar or attending Antifa rallies, they are bleeding edge virologists. They have top secret access to the Biden/Kamala playbook that will, come November, eradicate the pandemic, smash Amazon to bits so Bezos can no longer keep $170 billion in his BoA free checking account, and make every domicile in the continental US, including Alaska, Hawaii and the other US territories a healthy, happy, and perfectly peaceful place. Notice I’m a big fan of the Oxford comma. In order to convey this message, they will speak in a language that is hard to decipher using code words like Republicrap, Trumptard, etc. Although you may believe you have a right to your opinion, and may even wholeheartedly believe your stance without any ill will or malice, you will most certainly be “convinced” otherwise.



Playing guitar, lol


----------



## Yonko

I'll tell you this... I fell ill several months ago, and it was unlike any cold I've ever contracted. It started-out with a headache, which was odd, progressed to swollen glands in my neck, then into my sinus tissue. Body aches galore, to the point where I decided to go to Urgent Care. The doc never swab tested me? He prescribed me a Z pack, and sent me on my way. The Z pack effects were worse than the illness, so I only took three tablets. I was ill for about 5 days, then began to improve. I was a bit weak for a few days, and at some point it felt like I was becoming ill again, but I think it was just a case of nerves.


----------



## SpaceDock

Man, there is so much here to unpack. 

please read up on how to protect yourself and others

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-mask/art-20485449

@spudmunkey posted a much more amusing particle spread video than I was going to. 

It just really seems like some people like to be contrarian and bury themselves in denial, even to the extent of what I can only interpret is the purposeful redefining of terms to elude having a concise conversation.


----------



## Yonko

I vaped throughout the entire illness. Propylene Glycol (PG) is a dessicant (which dries you out), so I'm wondering if the PG _may have_ prevented the infection from getting into my lungs? Just a hunch...


----------



## jaxadam

Yonko said:


> I'll tell you this... I fell ill several months ago, and it was unlike any cold I've ever contracted. It started-out with a headache, which was odd, progressed to swollen glands in my neck, then into my sinus tissue. Body aches galore, to the point where I decided to go to Urgent Care. The doc never swab tested me? He prescribed me a Z pack, and sent me on my way. The Z pack effects were worse than the illness, so I only took three tablets. I was ill for about 5 days, then began to improve. I was a bit weak for a few days, and at some point it felt like I was becoming ill again, but I think it was just a case of nerves.



Do you think it was... a really bad cold?


----------



## Yonko

I don't like wearing the mask, so there's that. I'm not concerned about myself, but I do care if others become infected. I don't know what underlying issues others my have, and I'm not going to risk someone else's health, just because I don't agree with the protocol. It sucks, but I've been through much worse.


----------



## TedEH

You're either trolling or incredibly ignorant. I'd prefer to believe you're trolling. Either way, signing up a new account just to go strait to the politics section to post unpopular opinions isn't a great start.


----------



## jaxadam

Yonko said:


> I don't like wearing the mask, so there's that. I'm not concerned about myself, but I do care if others become infected. I don't know what underlying issues others my have, and I'm not going to risk someone else's health, just because I don't agree with the protocol. It sucks, but I've been through much worse.



I actually like wearing the mask because now I don’t have to brush my teeth anymore.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Yonko said:


> I don't like wearing the mask, so there's that. I'm not concerned about myself, but I do care if others become infected. I don't know what underlying issues others my have, and I'm not going to risk someone else's health, just because I don't agree with the protocol. It sucks, but I've been through much worse.



Good on you. 

I'm not too fond of them myself. I have to wear all manner of masks at work (SCBA/SABA, PAPR, etc.), so for the first couple months it wasn't bad. Ah well. Like you said, could be worse.


----------



## TedEH

Yonko said:


> I don't like wearing the mask, so there's that.


See if you had led with that, I think you'd have gotten a warmer response. Assuming this means you're using the mask despite not thinking it does anything.


----------



## Yonko

jaxadam said:


> Do you think it was... a really bad cold?


I've had a many colds in 57 years, and I've never felt anything like it. My temp went up for about 24 hours, then came back down. Scary stuff!


----------



## jaxadam

Yonko said:


> I've had a many colds in 57 years, and I've never felt anything like it. My temp went up for about 24 hours, then came back down. Scary stuff!



Do you think it just could have been some bad Chinese food?


----------



## Yonko

TedEH said:


> See if you had led with that, I think you'd have gotten a warmer response. Assuming this means you're using the mask despite not thinking it does anything.


Like I said, I'm not concerned if I get sick, but it would **** me up if I thought I made someone else sick. Here's the thing... I was wearing a mask (in my area) before anyone. I would go shopping, and people were like...


----------



## Yonko

jaxadam said:


> Do you think it just could have been some bad Chinese food?


lol! Na... It was definitely viral. I do enjoy me some General's Chicken though.


----------



## spudmunkey

Yonko said:


> I vaped throughout the entire illness. Propylene Glycol (PG) is a dessicant (which dries you out), so I'm wondering if the PG _may have_ prevented the infection from getting into my lungs? Just a hunch...



https://www.uwhealth.org/news/vapin...ptibility-to-and-severity-of-covid-19-w/53396


----------



## SpaceDock

.....and we all wonder why the US is roiling in Covid while the rest of the developed world is leaving us behind.


----------



## Yonko

“...electronic cigarettes causes significant damage to the lungs..." 
Smoked for 30 years. Been vaping for over 12 years, and my lungs are now clear. No coughing - I feel great!


----------



## Yonko

SpaceDock said:


> .....and we all wonder why the US is roiling in Covid while the rest of the developed world is leaving us behind.


Do you think BLM/ANTIFA riotin... I mean... _protests_ could have anything to do with it?


----------



## spudmunkey

Yonko said:


> Do you think BLM/ANTIFA riotin... I mean... _protests_ could have anything to do with it?



Didn't help. But also considering the protests were still just a *fraction* of the people returning to work, dining out, shopping, etc...


----------



## Yonko

spudmunkey said:


> Didn't help. But also considering the protests were still just a *fraction* of the people returning to work, dining out, shopping, etc...


BLM/ANTIFA rioters... work? 

People dining and returning to work... so, masks _don't_ work then?


----------



## spudmunkey

Yonko said:


> BLM/ANTIFA rioters... work?
> 
> People dining and returning to work... so, masks don't work then?



Maybe i wasn't clear...total up all of the people who protested. Then total up all of the returning staff at the factories, stores, and offices that re-oppened, and you'll get a muuuuch higher total.

When you go out to dine, I assume you take your mask off to eat, right? And drink?

Masks reduce. Not eliminate. But you get so many people into confined spaces, not able (or not willing) to keep safe distance, etc.

A bullet proof vest won't save you from every bullet...but you're darned tootin' you're going to have one on if you're in a situation where it could help.

But not everybody wears them enough of the time. Anecdotal data point: Asshole at the grocery store yesterday pulled his mask down to bend over and look more closely at the produce, like how you turn down the radio when you're looking for an address.

Since March, through to a couple weeks ago before I (temporarily) lost my job, I had customers trying to find loopholes to get us to great the state/county mandates. Maybe other companies are doing it, but we're not, and I sure as hell aren't going to put anyone in harms way. i've now had to be tested 6 times. Twice just to show that I had a recent negative test to be allowed on-site, but 4 of them were a result of getting a contact tracing notification that someone I may have been in contact with just tested positive. OK, now I'm just rambling...


----------



## Yonko

COVID-19 = $15k per every diagnosed case / $39k per every intubated patient.


----------



## spudmunkey

Yonko said:


> COVID-19 = $15k per every diagnosed case / $39k per every intubated patient.



*insert Picard facepalm here*


----------



## ElRay

Yonko said:


> Why?


Because you're spewing trivially, and frequently, disproven nonsense.

"Colds" are caused by: Rhinovirus, Coronavirus, RSV and "parainfluenza"
Coronavirus are also the virus behind MERS & SARS. These are not "colds"
COVID-19 attacks pulmonary cells unlike any "cold" and causes permanent scaring. "Colds" don't do this.
COVID-19 has caused strokes. "Colds" don't do this.

COVID-19 spreds via droplets, not "free" viruses. Masks stop droplets.


----------



## Adieu

Yonko said:


> COVID-19 = $15k per every diagnosed case / $39k per every intubated patient.




... including in dirt-poor third world places with little to no government support and a very real current run on public services?

Nah.


----------



## spudmunkey

Adieu said:


> ... including in dirt-poor third world places with little to no government support and a very real current run on public services?
> 
> Nah.



I tried typing something to that effect, starting over twice, and figured someone else could say it better, in fewer words.


----------



## Flappydoodle

thraxil said:


> My partner got an envelope from the NHS a few weeks ago, but left it sitting on the counter because she assumed it was their usual reminder that they want her to go in for a gyno appointment and she didn't want to deal with that right now. She finally opened it the other day, she discovered that it was actually an invitation to the Oxford vaccine trial. Of course by then she'd missed the deadline...



Well, in all honesty, if I’m young and healthy I wouldn’t be part of a clinical trial, especially when everything is being rushed and there’s a lot of pressure to perform. So IMO she didn’t miss much


----------



## Flappydoodle

sleewell said:


> are you really saying that obama would have created a culture war over masks?
> 
> he would have encouraged states to reopen before meeting the guidelines laid out by his own govt?
> 
> he would have encouraged schools to reopen while there was up to a 20% infection rate? he would keep repeating a obviously false statement that kids are immune?
> 
> obama would have picked fights and done opposition research on the top doctors in the country?
> 
> i am sure he would have fired the team of experts he put in place to deal with something like this.



Probably not. But has any of that actually had an impact? I’m sceptical. Governors, schools etc made their own decisions. As for masks, the evidence from experts has also been extremely misleading. In the early days they flat out lied, for their own reasons, by telling us not to wear them. Same thing happened in loads of countries. 

I think Trump is a loudmouth idiot most of the time. But I’m not convinced he has had much impact at all on the course of this pandemic.


----------



## Flappydoodle

Drew said:


> These are all valid concerns... but we've known COVID was likely to become a global pandemic since at least February. Could we have signifiantly expanded testing testing centers over those 6 months with federal funds, could we have avided those hiring freezes and layoffs in existing capacity during that time, and could we have, at a minimum, standardized our reporting data so it's truly comparable from state to state? Absolutely. It would have been hard by day one, but were now something like seven months into fighting this globally, and more than 5 since we locked down domestically. Other countries have managed to ramp up testing to the sorts of levels I'm taking about, the fact we haven't is a travesty and the fact there's been zero national support for testing has a lot to do with that.



Yes and no. There are lots of ways to do the testing. They’re using RT-qPCR, but there are a few major manufacturers of the analysers (BD, Roche, etc) which use different methodologies. There are a few major types of assay which are used (the most common being SYBR). There are also different ways of running internal and external controls, and the results are semi-quantitative. Ie the test results is expressed relative to those controls. This is a well known problem in the research world where the compatibility between machines and reagents is not perfect, so replicating a published method in your own lab will not duplicate the result exactly. Obviously for national-level testing on a massive scale, this is a major problem. 

Also, the way the US is structured seems to be a barrier. If machines are owned by private hospitals, private labs, individual states, it doesn’t lend itself to a national-level response like the UK has done. And there is very little IMO which a president can do to change that. Throwing money at the labs is probably all that can be done, and I think they did that already in the US. 

Lastly, there is massive demand for all those machines, reagents now. Everybody is competing for those resources. If you’re running an academic research lab, good luck buying superscript, SYBR, or even basic RNA extraction reagents right now. Even the UK ran out of actual testing kits (the swabs, sterile tube with reagent in it) for a period of time.


----------



## TedEH

Flappydoodle said:


> I think Trump is a loudmouth idiot most of the time. But I’m not convinced he has had much impact at all on the course of this pandemic.


I don't know how anyone can say Trump had no influence on the pandemic when he actively encouraged people to _not_ take steps to slow spread. Turning the masks into a political issue, doing nothing at all to curb all the misinformation, sometimes adding his own misinformation to the mix, etc. You can't say that the masks are a big factor is why the US is failing to handle this, and give zero of that blame to Trump.

You're talking about the most influential person in the US. If _he_ took things seriously, so would his followers, and maybe the country wouldn't be in the mess it's in now.


----------



## TedEH

I was very disappointed this morning when I got up and looked at my phone to find a long rant by someone I regarded as being pretty reasonable most of the time - detailing how they're sure that Bill Gates is a pedophile putting nano-bots in our vaccines because he's part of Illuminati or something like that. Not a single comment from anyone trying to counter it, just everyone going "OMG you're so brave to speak the truth".

I'm pretty sure 2020 is the year I officially lose faith in humanity. It's not even 7:30 in the morning and I've already reached that point of "ok that's enough internet for today".


----------



## Adieu

TedEH said:


> I was very disappointed this morning when I got up and looked at my phone to find a long rant by someone I regarded as being pretty reasonable most of the time - detailing how they're sure that Bill Gates is a pedophile putting nano-bots in our vaccines because he's part of Illuminati or something like that. Not a single comment from anyone trying to counter it, just everyone going "OMG you're so brave to speak the truth".
> 
> I'm pretty sure 2020 is the year I officially lose faith in humanity. It's not even 7:30 in the morning and I've already reached that point of "ok that's enough internet for today".



You and possum should compare family trees, maybe you're relatives?


----------



## TedEH

The post I saw wasn't from a relative, if that's what you meant.


----------



## Adieu

TedEH said:


> The post I saw wasn't from a relative, if that's what you meant.



Then just cut em loose and enjoy the relief


----------



## TedEH

I can ignore the individual instance easily enough. It doesn't negate the feeling of disappointment that comes with realizing how rare it is to encounter reason.
Even with all of the nonsense we argue about here, I'm pretty sure this forum is the most reasonable place I'm aware of.

If it's not covid, conspiracy theories, people's dumb politics, climate change still hasn't gone away, arguments I've gotten into recently about religion/spirituality recently, having had to deal with some health care things this year and seeing how horrible that system is, etc. - it certainly feels like 2020 is making it painfully difficult to not see how stupid and stubborn people in general are. And I'm not even excluding myself from that. I'd be the first to call myself an idiot too. It's hard to shake that feeling of just "sweet jebus, we're all idiots, aren't we?"


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> The post I saw wasn't from a relative, if that's what you meant.



What did Jean Claude Van Damme say?


----------



## Wuuthrad

Flappydoodle said:


> I think Trump is a loudmouth idiot most of the time. But I’m not convinced he has had much impact at all on the course of this pandemic.



Even though what you’ve said is a massive understatement and completely glosses over the dangerous shit this conman “prez” is trying to capitalize on, I kind of agree with your first sentence, but COME ON MAN! I don’t think he deserves that much generosity anymore, as if he ever did- come to think of it- No fucking way. No excuses for this wannabe fascist! 

Set aside the lies, blames, misinformation, science denial, racism bigotry sexism and overall Utter Bullshit coming from the Oval Office for a second...

Is “it is what it is” in any way an appropriate Presidential statement re. our ever rising record breaking World Number One Death Toll?

Especially when considering a few examples, such as his months of claiming this would magically disappear, or masks were some kind of political statement against him?

I mean we can probably agree there’s a certain amount of BS inherent in his job, but his Addresses and actions have polarized people and directly contributed to spreading the virus.

I seriously think the very least we should expect from this President (or any President really,) and especially since during this guy’s administration truth is quite rare indeed, is maybe a bit of _lying in favor_ of the entire population he’s supposedly “sworn to” or whatever, and not divisive antagonistic childish selfish name calling insults towards people who actually give a fuck and know what they’re doing!

A simple “I want to stop this virus and with everyone of you helping, here’s what we’re going to do based on the best science and medical knowledge available” would mean so much more than all this crap we’ve had to endure...

But no! It’s fucking “inject bleach” or shine light up your ass and buy my latest shit investment of a drug that doesn’t even work as I continue to rig the US Gov. for my crooked cronies and behind their backs laugh at all the dumasses who voted me into office!

Seriously though who voted for this con man? Either rich fucks who don’t want to pay any taxes, religious idiots or racist douchebags... forget about the uneducated whom he said to their face “I love the poorly educated” and they fucking applauded...SMDH!

He’s like a wannabe robber baron of 100 years ago...a figure head of a broken twisted system more like it, and yet again here we are propped up by the lesser of two same old story.

I worry the long con has crossed the generational divide- what I mean is have the youth lost any faith or belief in the system of governance to be for and by the people? I fucking hope not, but I get that way myself sometimes. 

If so, this is the con coming to fruition, yet we always have the new day to make a difference! Well I can still hope anyway, I guess...

Trumps not entirely an idiot, no way! He’s trying his best to play you, make as much money while he can, prevent exposing his sex trafficking “friends” (partners) while he’s growing old and the only way he can get it up is prostitution and erectile dysfunction drugs, simultaneously losing his mind before our eyes!

In summary I’m growing tired of old white dudes running the world, aren’t you?

And fuck the virus, wear a fucking mask, protect yourself and everyone else. It’s so fucking simple, even if it doesn’t work (bs) it just might work- and isn’t that good enough? Like why not take an easy shot at the best possible outcome? Has nobody played dice or cards before? It’s not even a 50/50 chance here...really there’s not much hope otherwise!


Anyway why can’t everyone do the right thing and shut the fuck up! Nobody has a constitutional right to infect other people, it just ain’t happening.

Pretty sure the “big bad” Gov has the Constitutional authority to prevent the spread of pandemics btw... isn’t there some relevant amendment outside of the big ego stroke dick suck #2...???

If not might as well be some new amendment to protect us from the tyranny of idiocy we are suffering now!

Peace imma bow out, I’ve said enough...


----------



## thraxil

Flappydoodle said:


> Well, in all honesty, if I’m young and healthy I wouldn’t be part of a clinical trial, especially when everything is being rushed and there’s a lot of pressure to perform. So IMO she didn’t miss much



I mean... the disappointment was more about wanting to help other people and missing out on the chance, but ok...


----------



## Adieu

TedEH said:


> I can ignore the individual instance easily enough. It doesn't negate the feeling of disappointment that comes with realizing how rare it is to encounter reason.
> Even with all of the nonsense we argue about here, I'm pretty sure this forum is the most reasonable place I'm aware of.
> 
> If it's not covid, conspiracy theories, people's dumb politics, climate change still hasn't gone away, arguments I've gotten into recently about religion/spirituality recently, having had to deal with some health care things this year and seeing how horrible that system is, etc. - it certainly feels like 2020 is making it painfully difficult to not see how stupid and stubborn people in general are. And I'm not even excluding myself from that. I'd be the first to call myself an idiot too. It's hard to shake that feeling of just "sweet jebus, we're all idiots, aren't we?"



Oh, definitely


Although it is kinda trippy that I fall on the right-wing-ish obstinate bigot side of THIS particular forum's political spectrum, since inRL I'm usually the one in the family telling people to cut the bigotry or cautioning everybody about impending authoritarian shit and getting called a paranoid leftist (...and then said authoritarian shit invariably goes and actually happens, and everybody's like "huh musta been a lucky guess")


----------



## wankerness

Flappydoodle said:


> Probably not. But has any of that actually had an impact? I’m sceptical. Governors, schools etc made their own decisions. As for masks, the evidence from experts has also been extremely misleading. In the early days they flat out lied, for their own reasons, by telling us not to wear them. Same thing happened in loads of countries.
> 
> I think Trump is a loudmouth idiot most of the time. But I’m not convinced he has had much impact at all on the course of this pandemic.



Here's a very, very thorough article that should disabuse you of that notion. It's absolutely primarily a result of the government here. Do you think we're vastly worse-off than every single other developed country, even all the ones with much higher population densities and allegedly inferior social services, because of something other than the government? 

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/coronavirus-american-failure/614191/

And blaming it on the Governors is exactly what trump wants you to do. It was his gameplan from the beginning - shirk responsibility so all the bad that happens can be blamed on them, while also refusing to give them the money to actually do anything positive.


----------



## StevenC

Adieu said:


> Oh, definitely
> 
> 
> Although it is kinda trippy that I fall on the right-wing-ish obstinate bigot side of THIS particular forum's political spectrum, since inRL I'm usually the one in the family telling people to cut the bigotry or cautioning everybody about impending authoritarian shit and getting called a paranoid leftist (...and then said authoritarian shit invariably goes and actually happens, and everybody's like "huh musta been a lucky guess")


Nah Adieu, you're just the chaotic neutral all the right wing guys here think they are.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

I will say this Trump totally could have made huge impact. I'm in Ontario Canada. People had referred to our premiere Doug Ford as a "mini trump" but by coming out daily taking a back seat to scientists preaching unity and not trying to rush it not only did we get things under control here but he boosted himself politically big time. Lots of Ford haters changed their tune all because he came across as genuine and humble while letting those who know better inform his decisions.

I'm still not nuts about him for various other policy issues but he did earn my trust and I feel Trump could have had the same net positive effect had he tried to lead for once.


----------



## fantom

Flappydoodle said:


> I think Trump is a loudmouth idiot most of the time. But I’m not convinced he has had much impact at all on the course of this pandemic.



So let's suppose he didn't downplay it, dissolve the unit trained to fight a pandemic, sell critical supplies, cause governers to get into bidding wars, etc. Let's assume you are right.

He did absolutely nothing and had no impact. That's slightly better than reality, but why the hell are you ok with the leader of this country having zero impact when we desperately need a leader to have high positive impact. To me, the defense of Trump that "he didn't have an impact" is admitting that he failed horribly at his job.


----------



## Xaios

TedEH said:


> I was very disappointed this morning when I got up and looked at my phone to find a long rant by someone I regarded as being pretty reasonable most of the time - detailing how they're sure that Bill Gates is a pedophile putting nano-bots in our vaccines because he's part of Illuminati or something like that. Not a single comment from anyone trying to counter it, just everyone going "OMG you're so brave to speak the truth".
> 
> I'm pretty sure 2020 is the year I officially lose faith in humanity. It's not even 7:30 in the morning and I've already reached that point of "ok that's enough internet for today".


I had a similar moment a few days ago with someone comparing Fauci to Mengele. Because, sure, obviously a doctor who personally went in and treated Ebola patients in order to set an example is of an equivalent footing to the man who sent people to the gas chambers by the thousands, only to make it apparent that those who died quickly were the lucky ones.


Dineley said:


> I will say this Trump totally could have made huge impact. I'm in Ontario Canada. People had referred to our premiere Doug Ford as a "mini trump" but by coming out daily taking a back seat to scientists preaching unity and not trying to rush it not only did we get things under control here but he boosted himself politically big time. Lots of Ford haters changed their tune all because he came across as genuine and humble while letting those who know better inform his decisions.
> 
> I'm still not nuts about him for various other policy issues but he did earn my trust and I feel Trump could have had the same net positive effect had he tried to lead for once.


I still wouldn't trust Ford as far as I could throw him on any other policy issue, not before the current crisis and likely not after either. However, even I will concur that his response to Coronavirus epidemic has been laudable.


----------



## Ralyks

Dineley said:


> Lots of Ford haters changed their tune all because he came across as genuine and humble while letting those who know better inform his decisions.
> 
> I'm still not nuts about him for various other policy issues but he did earn my trust and I feel Trump could have had the same net positive effect had he tried to lead for once.



So he's basically Canadian Andrew Cuomo.


----------



## sleewell

trump fans living in an alternate reality be like... yeah he is an idiot but i don't think his terrible response really made anything worse. obama wearing a tan suit was a moment of national shame and embarrassment but its totally fine for a president to say we should inject bleach from the same podium. 

trump on the one ebola death: obama should resign

trump right now with 170k deaths on his hands: it is what is


----------



## diagrammatiks

Trump being like I hate people that don't support me. I'm clearly a racist.

I barely helped Puerto Rico disaster relief because I can't wrap my head around them being American citizens.

But ya no one else could have done a better on handling this shit.


----------



## Drew

Flappydoodle said:


> Yes and no. There are lots of ways to do the testing. They’re using RT-qPCR, but there are a few major manufacturers of the analysers (BD, Roche, etc) which use different methodologies. There are a few major types of assay which are used (the most common being SYBR). There are also different ways of running internal and external controls, and the results are semi-quantitative. Ie the test results is expressed relative to those controls. This is a well known problem in the research world where the compatibility between machines and reagents is not perfect, so replicating a published method in your own lab will not duplicate the result exactly. Obviously for national-level testing on a massive scale, this is a major problem.
> 
> Also, the way the US is structured seems to be a barrier. If machines are owned by private hospitals, private labs, individual states, it doesn’t lend itself to a national-level response like the UK has done. And there is very little IMO which a president can do to change that. Throwing money at the labs is probably all that can be done, and I think they did that already in the US.
> 
> Lastly, there is massive demand for all those machines, reagents now. Everybody is competing for those resources. If you’re running an academic research lab, good luck buying superscript, SYBR, or even basic RNA extraction reagents right now. Even the UK ran out of actual testing kits (the swabs, sterile tube with reagent in it) for a period of time.


I mean, that's all well and good, but considering it's been six months now, if we actually had a powerful, focused, concerted federal effort to address all of these things, I'm fairly confident that we would have done so by now. The US government is an extremely powerful organizaion when it's focused on an issue as a matter of national emergency. Instead, Trump opted to sit it out, let the states fend for themselves, and then proceeded to out-bid the states on emergency medical supplies for a federal stash, until Charlie Baker here in Mass finally called him out on his shit. 

The federal response to the COVID-19 outbreak has been almost wholly lacking. Of course that was a contributing factor for the US to be one of the hardest hit countries in the world.


----------



## ElRay

Flappydoodle said:


> ... As for masks, the evidence from experts has also been extremely misleading. In the early days they flat out lied, for their own reasons, by telling us not to wear them ...


This is flat-out WRONG on so many levels and is nonsense arrogantly, willfully and ignorantly being parroted by tRump Cultists in the US and other paranoid conspiracy nuts outside the US.

The message has been VERY clear, agrees with reality and 100% undisputed by actual medical professionals:
*Wear a F'n Mask to protect yourself and others around you*.​
No medical professionals lied at the beginning. The initial data supported that COVID-19 was spread as loose virus. Even then, the message was to save N95 masks for healthcare providers and that regular masks might not help, but they wouldn't hurt. Months and months ago, it was clearly shown that COVID-19 could survive in, and be spread by, droplets. At that point, and consistently since then, medical professionals have been saying:
*Wear a F'n Mask to protect yourself and others around you*.​


----------



## KnightBrolaire

If you don't wear a mask then the furries win


----------



## Ralyks

KnightBrolaire said:


> If you don't wear a mask then the furries win
> View attachment 83806



That's the furriest Juggalo I've ever seen.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Ralyks said:


> That's the furriest Juggalo I've ever seen.



That's actually Violent J from ICP.

The story is pretty heartwarming. His kid is a major furry and when he found out, instead of being shitty, he's been mega supportive. There was a story on NPR about it. More parents need to be like Violent J. I never thought I'd type that sentence.


----------



## fantom

MaxOfMetal said:


> That's actually Violent J from ICP.
> 
> The story is pretty heartwarming. His kid is a major furry and when he found out, instead of being shitty, he's been mega supportive. There was a story on NPR about it. More parents need to be like Violent J. I never thought I'd type that sentence.



Furries, how do those work?


----------



## Metropolis

Dumbass neighbour from upstairs where I live went for a vacation to Macedonia and there was 12 infected people at the flight back from there, out of 115 passengers. Dude is probably at the quarantine for next two weeks. Still just around 20 cases a day in this country, and testing has increased drastically.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Metropolis said:


> Dumbass neighbour from upstairs where I live went for a vacation to Macedonia and there was 12 infected people at the flight back from there, out of 115 passengers. Dude is probably at the quarantine for next two weeks. Still just around 20 cases a day in this country, and testing has increased drastically.



If we don't have tests then we don't have cases... that's how we keep our #s low!


----------



## SpaceDock

Did you guys go and buy some oleander yet? I trust the My Pillow guy with making sound medical decisions.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

I've actually got oleander growing in the back yard. Just gonna mash em up and snort em for the best night's sleep in the whole wide world.


----------



## Adieu

fantom said:


> Furries, how do those work?



Like wearing lady panties for kicks... but on a whole nother level.


----------



## fantom

Adieu said:


> Like wearing lady panties for kicks... but on a whole nother level.



Pure motherf*-ing magic, right?


----------



## Wuuthrad

This is becoming a case of “same old story.” And yet so many of my “friends” still only use this for contacting people. I don’t get it. Why take part in Facebook if it’s directly responsible for destroying our country?

*Facebook funnelling readers towards Covid misinformation - study*


https://www.theguardian.com/technol...ng-readers-towards-covid-misinformation-study


----------



## Wuuthrad

Also:

Facebook 'danger to public health' warns report https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53820225


----------



## SpaceDock

Facebook is a plague, too bad shallow people need validation and can’t walk away.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

lmao when people recommend cardiac glycosides (highly toxic medicine with narrow safety index) for a virus
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticl...19_mscpedit_&uac=364863PJ&impID=2514967&faf=1
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticl...19_mscpedit_&uac=364863PJ&impID=2514967&faf=1


----------



## Ralyks

SpaceDock said:


> Facebook is a plague, too bad shallow people need validation and can’t walk away.



I'm currently on my third time this year of deactivating Facebook. I keep thinking it's ok to go back, and then I see the ugly side of humanity within a week. I only still have Messenger because for some reason that's how my guitar teacher and I communicate ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


----------



## Ralyks

Covid at Sturgis confirmed. Timing seems about right.


----------



## nightflameauto

Ralyks said:


> Covid at Sturgis confirmed. Timing seems about right.


NOBODY COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING!

Can we stop winning for just a few days? I mean, even champions need to take a break from winning for the off-season. When's our off-season?


----------



## sleewell

that smash mouth show was totally worth it tho!!!!!!! you are an all star baby!!!!


----------



## Ralyks

https://www.wsj.com/articles/troubled-covid-19-data-system-returning-to-cdc-11597945770?mod=mhp

Hey, remember that time the White House decided to take the testing data job from the CDC? Boy, that was a fun month or two.


----------



## Drew

Ralyks said:


> https://www.wsj.com/articles/troubled-covid-19-data-system-returning-to-cdc-11597945770?mod=mhp
> 
> Hey, remember that time the White House decided to take the testing data job from the CDC? Boy, that was a fun month or two.


Honestly, that's good news.


----------



## Adieu

Drew said:


> Honestly, that's good news.



Really?


Way I see it, the two most probable reasons are:

1) Trump camp has replaced the necessary people to cook the books when and as needed

2) Trump camp stopped playing because they've decided that the election is no longer an issue


And while there are some interesting takes on #2 that involve Trump capitulating or even fleeing the country, it's far faaaaar more likely that it means they're planning to start a "short victorious war" or have decided to cancel the election outright.


Yaaaay everybody.


----------



## Drew

Adieu said:


> Really?
> 
> 
> Way I see it, the two most probable reasons are:
> 
> 1) Trump camp has replaced the necessary people to cook the books when and as needed
> 
> 2) Trump camp stopped playing because they've decided that the election is no longer an issue
> 
> 
> And while there are some interesting takes on #2 that involve Trump capitulating or even fleeing the country, it's far faaaaar more likely that it means they're planning to start a "short victorious war" or have decided to cancel the election outright.
> 
> 
> Yaaaay everybody.


1) To the best of my knowledge, there's been no executive or high level turnover at the CDC during that month long window. I think DHS just finally admitted they couldn't do it. Data quality for the past month-ish could be suspect, sure, but it's not like the CDC doesn't have any of the prior data, nor will they have any trouble continuing to track new data. The information we will now have to go on will be higher quality, for having the CDC tabulate it. 

2) You keep insisting Trump will "cancel" the election, and then when a number of people here, myself included, patiently explain to you how that's not possible since the date of the presidential election is constitutionally mandated, you ignore us and keep insisting the election will be canceled. I have zero doubt Trump will attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the outcome - he's already laying the groundwork for that, with his attacks on voting by mail and the USPS. I wouldn't be shocked if he does some throwing around executive power to try to generate a "rally around the flag" bump, as well. But Trump does not have the power to cancel the election, full stop.


----------



## Viginez

some big demos in germany today (as i understand there is no requirement to wear masks)


----------



## jaxadam

Future Leader of the Free World said:


> "Covid has taken this year, just since the outbreak, has taken more than 100 year, look, here's, the lives, it's just, when you think about it. More lives this year than any other year, for the past hundred years."


----------



## sleewell

i mean its no inject bleach moment but it def proves biden is the only one out there saying dumb stuff. you totally nailed him bro, great stuff.


----------



## vilk

jaxadam said:


>



Stumbling over words during a speech doesn't make Biden sound even marginally as stupid Trump as stating clearly that he believes the 1917 flu pandemic ended WWII. Like literally how absolutely fucking retarded do you have to be. Biden barely eked it out, but at least the thing he was trying to say isn't patently false.


----------



## Ralyks

I feel like at this point trying to mock Biden for his speech is pointless. Even with his fumbless, at least he TRIES to sound like a PRESIDENT. Not like he drank too much covfefe.


----------



## Millul

Viginez said:


> some big demos in germany today (as i understand there is no requirement to wear masks)





The Bundspolizei actually stopped and broke up that manifestation shortly after its start, because they were not respecting the mandatory social distancing measures...then some people tried to enter the Reichstag, but my understanding is they didn't go far...


----------



## MASS DEFECT

Pelosi just gave Trump ammunition. lol What was she thinking???


----------



## vilk

MASS DEFECT said:


> Pelosi just gave Trump ammunition. lol What was she thinking???


 What did she do/say?
I tried googling "Pelosi just gave Trump ammunition" but I didn't find anything relevant...


----------



## Adieu

vilk said:


> What did she do/say?
> I tried googling "Pelosi just gave Trump ammunition" but I didn't find anything relevant...



She's always giving him ammunition

If I were a Trumpist, I'd be praying for her good health and career longevity.

Grandma's looks, behavior, and antics make him look comparatively good all the freakin time to his base.


----------



## SpaceDock

MASS DEFECT said:


> Pelosi just gave Trump ammunition. lol What was she thinking???



She walked in a salon from the hair washing station back to the chair without a mask. 

But Trump does visits in Kenosha yesterday with no mask. Did a rally early in the week with hundreds of people who refused to wear masks and boo’ed when told to. 

It’s all just a big distraction.


----------



## jaxadam

vilk said:


> What did she do/say?
> I tried googling "Pelosi just gave Trump ammunition" but I didn't find anything relevant...



That’s what you googled? Like that’s what you literally typed in google?


----------



## vilk

jaxadam said:


> Shitpost


 Nice shitpost bro


----------



## jaxadam

vilk said:


> Nice shitpost bro



No, I’m just generally curious as to what you were expecting with a search like that. It just seems unbelievable vague, with no point of reference, and would probably just return a result linking to this thread. Calm down soldier.


----------



## vilk

jaxadam said:


> No, I’m just generally curious as to what you were expecting with a search like that. It just seems unbelievable vague, with no point of reference, and would probably just return a result linking to this thread. Calm down soldier.









I was asking the dude to expound on his comment.


----------



## jaxadam

vilk said:


> I was asking the dude to expound on his comment.



Well hot damn! I just shitposted a shitpost!


----------



## MASS DEFECT

vilk said:


> What did she do/say?
> I tried googling "Pelosi just gave Trump ammunition" but I didn't find anything relevant...



Oh. Apologies. I thought I provided a link. Well, gist is that she had a "private" indoor salon appointment in a county where salons are not supposed to give indoor service. The without a mask thing adds to it. Frankly, it could be spun several different ways, but the optics are not really good considering she always called for obeying restrictions.


----------



## vilk

jaxadam said:


> Well hot damn! I just shitposted a shitpost!



Here's the difference, since it seems like you don't really get it:
My question to Mass was for clarification on a subject that is relevant to this thread.
Your question to me was some weird (failed) attempt to mock me, and totally irrelevant to any topic we're discussing here.


----------



## Mathemagician

https://www.stutteringhelp.org/content/joe-biden


Jaxadam again acting in bad faith. Because yes it’s a Trump-fan talking point to post up about Joe Biden’s speaking mistakes. Because it is a well-known fact that’s Joe Biden has a stutter. It hasn’t affected his ability to do his job his entire life.

Joe was cycling through town a month ago, and meanwhile Trump apparently lied about having strokes, can’t lift his own hands, and can’t walk a set of stairs. Gotta love the desperate deflection.

The constant nit-picking at non-issues like Biden’s stutter just looks like desperate people trying to bully someone with a minor speech issue.

Oh wait, Trump openly mocked a handicapped reporter live. So his “fans” love that angle.

I say “Trump fans” because it’s very possible for someone to like reasonable tax rates, market competition, and budget spending that isn’t blown out to hell without supporting someone that is literally bankrolled by Russian ownership of his properties and their sole source of lending.


Trump =/= Conservative. And it’s time people stopped pretending it does. Biden is a center right politician FFS.


----------



## jaxadam

vilk said:


> Here's the difference, since it seems like you don't really get it:
> My question to Mass was for clarification on a subject that is relevant to this thread.
> Your question to me was some weird (failed) attempt to mock me, and totally irrelevant to any topic we're discussing here.



Sorry buddy. I guess I’m just not constantly in a bad mood like you are. I assume a minimum level of intellect to get my humor, but I guess some choose to be blinded by it with bias. Maybe from here on out, maybe just maybe just try to view my posts with a little more objectivity and you may see them a little more for what they are. Or you can just continue the petulant attacks.


----------



## jaxadam

Mathemagician said:


> https://www.stutteringhelp.org/content/joe-biden
> 
> 
> Jaxadam again acting in bad faith. Because yes it’s a Trump-fan talking point to post up about Joe Biden’s speaking mistakes. Because it is a well-known fact that’s Joe Biden has a stutter. It hasn’t affected his ability to do his job his entire life.
> 
> Joe was cycling through town a month ago, and meanwhile Trump apparently lied about having strokes, can’t lift his own hands, and can’t walk a set of stairs. Gotta love the desperate deflection.
> 
> The constant nit-picking at non-issues like Biden’s stutter just looks like desperate people trying to bully someone with a minor speech issue.
> 
> Oh wait, Trump openly mocked a handicapped reporter live. So his “fans” love that angle.
> 
> I say “Trump fans” because it’s very possible for someone to like reasonable tax rates, market competition, and budget spending that isn’t blown out to hell without supporting someone that is literally bankrolled by Russian ownership of his properties and their sole source of lending.
> 
> 
> Trump =/= Conservative. And it’s time people stopped pretending it does. Biden is a center right politician FFS.



I thought it was more about the fact that he thought the virus had been around for 100 years, but feel free to once again continuously attack me. Again, I guess I’m just not in as bad a mood as other people and feel the need to constantly personally attack others, but I’m always the bad guy. I feel you at many times provide wonderful insight to many topics here, especially concerning finances, and I wish you well.


----------



## Mathemagician

jaxadam said:


> I thought it was more about the fact that he thought the virus had been around for 100 years, but feel free to once again continuously attack me. Again, I guess I’m just not in as bad a mood as other people and feel the need to constantly personally attack others, but I’m always the bad guy. I feel you at many times provide wonderful insight to many topics here, especially concerning finances, and I wish you well.



While I appreciate the compliment I am “attacking” bad-faith discussion. Not you personally, as I don’t know you.

Nitpicking every word is a losing game when the “horse you’re backing” is Donald Trump. A man who has actively lied about every single thing on every topic and whose every statement needs to be fact checked.

A politican who fights the wearing of masks on a purely political basis (not science), who ignored the virus at first to avoid hurting his poll #’s and has let Americans die because they had the poor luck to “trust his authority“.

Who has actively ignored his own intelligence community in favor of a foreign nation’s commentary.

And if you’re fishing for “cute sound bites” he stated that planes existed in the 1700’s, and who is now floating a conspiracy theory of “planes loaded with thugs”.

Hey, as long as I know Biden is not perfect and is just a regular elected official who will hire experts without such massive conflicts of interest - unlike the entirety of the current admin’s cabinet much of whom have been indicted of criminal activity - then I’m more comfortable with the center-right Biden for this upcoming election.


----------



## vilk

jaxadam said:


> Sorry buddy. I guess I’m just not constantly in a bad mood like you are. I assume a minimum level of intellect to get my humor, but I guess some choose to be blinded by it with bias. Maybe from here on out, maybe just maybe just try to view my posts with a little more objectivity and you may see them a little more for what they are. Or you can just continue the petulant attacks.


I've read enough bad faith arguments and shit posts from you that I feel my bias has a very solid foundation, and anyone with a minimum level of intellect can see that plain as day. Everything is always just a joke, and when you get called out, then suddenly you're the victim under attack. We've all seen you do it a dozen times over and I perfectly predicted your reply to me before I even posted. Sorry for the petulant attack, soldier. That's just my style of humor! What, don't you get the joke? No need to get all bent out of shape, grumpy pants.


----------



## SpaceDock




----------



## Randy

MASS DEFECT said:


> indoor salon appointment in a county where salons are not supposed to give indoor service



Wait, there are outdoor salons? That sounds messy.


----------



## Ralyks

Uhh I've gotten my haircut indoors for like a couple of months now being the only person in there. Is this a specific California thing?


----------



## Randy

Sounds like it's 'county by county'. Idk, not that I fully trust Cuomo's reopening structure but California seemed like a hypocritical mess from the getgo. I'll never forget Blue States chastising Florida for being soft on group gatherings and crowded beaches, and then a week later there were pics of hundreds of people on a SoCal beach and Newsome is like "Aww, c'mon guy..." like that was an accident.


----------



## spudmunkey

jaxadam said:


> I thought it was more about the fact that he thought the virus had been around for 100 years, but feel free to once again continuously attack me.



The difference is that Biden's verbal slip-ups are in phrasing, or word-choice. He didn't "think the virus had been around for 100 years". He stumbled on his words. Unlike the current president who repeats so many lies over and over, and then digs in, claiming his mistake wasn't a mistake, but a joke, or something equally ridiculous. How many times did he say the Spanish flu was 1917? He referenced airports when talking about the Revolutionary War, and said the Spanish Flu was "probably what ended the second World War. All the soldiers were sick."


----------



## spudmunkey

Ralyks said:


> Uhh I've gotten my haircut indoors for like a couple of months now being the only person in there. Is this a specific California thing?





Randy said:


> Sounds like it's 'county by county'. Idk, not that I fully trust Cuomo's reopening structure but California seemed like a hypocritical mess from the getgo. I'll never forget Blue States chastising Florida for being soft on group gatherings and crowded beaches, and then a week later there were pics of hundreds of people on a SoCal beach and Newsome is like "Aww, c'mon guy..." like that was an accident.



Genuine question: were Florida's beaches closed? My understanding is that many California beaches were indeed closed. I know because I live 4 minutes from one...and it was limited to counties and cities that met certain defined metrics. It's clear milestones and timelines for counties to get in and out of specific phases of shelter-in-place. Some cities go in and out because they successfully have 3 weeks of reduced case counts, but then sometimes go back on when cases rise too high again. From my perspective, it's been pretty clear, and orderly.


----------



## jaxadam

spudmunkey said:


> Genuine question: were Florida's beaches closed?



Yes, almost all major beaches were closed for a significant amount of time. Sone preemptive openings occurred which prompted another shutdown.


----------



## jaxadam




----------



## Viginez

Millul said:


> The Bundspolizei actually stopped and broke up that manifestation shortly after its start, because they were not respecting the mandatory social distancing measures


they just set traps from the beginning to gather thousands together in small streets and then claim failed social distancing...it's all planned out.
despite that, the protest went on the entire day i think, 99,9% peaceful
that reichstag incident, well, smelled like an publicity stunt for the media, which is not surprising


----------



## Ralyks

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...-table-high_woodward-1210p:homepage/story-ans

Welp, Trump knew. And downplayed it. And here we are.


----------



## sleewell

Ralyks said:


> https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bob-woodward-rage-book-trump/2020/09/09/0368fe3c-efd2-11ea-b4bc-3a2098fc73d4_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-high_woodward-1210p:homepage/story-ans
> 
> Welp, Trump knew. And downplayed it. And here we are.




yeah but biden had a funny gaffe though so we are going to ignore this. there is a tape of trump saying it but fake news!! trump is the best!!


----------



## possumkiller

Ralyks said:


> https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bob-woodward-rage-book-trump/2020/09/09/0368fe3c-efd2-11ea-b4bc-3a2098fc73d4_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-high_woodward-1210p:homepage/story-ans
> 
> Welp, Trump knew. And downplayed it. And here we are.


Everyone knew that he knew from the beginning. Even if the president is a dumbass, do people really think they don't get briefed on the latest intelligence on everything? 

At this point who gives a fuck? Anyone that is actually human isn't voting for trump. Nothing will change their mind. The zombies that will be voting for trump couldn't care less. He could butt fuck the lord jesus christ while eating a live baby on the white house lawn and they wouldn't care. The only thing that will change their vote (can't really say minds since they don't have any) would be if he suddenly decided to ban guns or jesus or turn libtard himself.


----------



## SpaceDock

I like how Trumps rebuttal to all this “downplaying the virus” news is to come out and announce “these will be my Supreme Court choices.” This is what his voters care about. Fetus lives matter, fuck anyone outside the womb.

edit: Ted Cruz is on the Supreme Court nominee list


----------



## sleewell

i really just wanna hear one trump fan defend the woodward tapes.

fake news?

blame woodward?

fear monger in chief didn't want to panic people?

avoid all together?

biden's fault?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

sleewell said:


> fear monger in chief didn't want to panic people?



That's been the go-to as far as in person interactions.


----------



## sleewell

makes absolutely no sense. there is such a wide margin between the panic he tries to create on every other issue and just telling people the truth he knew in jan and feb.

wear a mask, this is more deadly than the flu. this is not a democratic hoax. that is all he should have said. would not have created panic at all and we would have been past this already like nearly every other country.

daily deaths in US on tues were still over 1k. countries in Europe were 30 or less. what their leaders said did not create panic. they did not create a culture war over the very things that would have helped us.


----------



## tedtan

Trump wants the chaos, though. It's the only shot he has at surviving the coming election.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

My take is "Racists unite!". Nothing matters anymore to trump supporters. He could get caught on video holding up a Stop-n-Go with a crack-pipe in his mouth. His supporters are going to say that the video didn't show the "real truth". The poor President had low blood sugar and needed that Snickers bar... He wasn't himself! And the crack pipe... It was actually a candy cane... duh! And the clerk threatened him first. Thank God he had that gun for self-defense! 

I mean, have y'all seen the interviews of the people that refused to wear masks at the Michigan rally??? Holy shit... The absolute stupidity has reached a level of insanity that boggles the mind. You might as well forget using logic with these delusional and ignorant people. 

I was dumb enough to think that some of his supporters would turn on him after the Woodward confessions... but I honestly don't think that matters to anyone either. I have no more faith in the American people anymore nor in Washington. We're super-level fucked as a country... seriously. I can't even care anymore. It hurts too much. Fuck all of this.


----------



## diagrammatiks

High Plains Drifter said:


> My take is "Racists unite!". Nothing matters anymore to trump supporters. He could get caught on video holding up a Stop-n-Go with a crack-pipe in his mouth. His supporters are going to say that the video didn't show the "real truth". The poor President had low blood sugar and needed that Snickers bar... He wasn't himself! And the crack pipe... It was actually a candy cane... duh! And the clerk threatened him first. Thank God he had that gun for self-defense!
> 
> I mean, have y'all seen the interviews of the people that refused to wear masks at the Michigan rally??? Holy shit... The absolute stupidity has reached a level of insanity that boggles the mind. You might as well forget using logic with these delusional and ignorant people.
> 
> I was dumb enough to think that some of his supporters would turn on him after the Woodward confessions... but I honestly don't think that matters to anyone either. I have no more faith in the American people anymore nor in Washington. We're super-level fucked as a country... seriously. I can't even care anymore. It hurts too much. Fuck all of this.



really the best we can hope for is that little bits of his supporters that he's seriously aggravating just don't vote.


----------



## Rosal76

High Plains Drifter said:


> I was dumb enough to think that some of his supporters would turn on him after the Woodward confessions... but I honestly don't think that matters to anyone either. I have no more faith in the American people anymore nor in Washington.



If you met 2 of my friends (who are husband and wife) that I've known for 25 years now, you would be in absolute disbelief on their way of thinking. They're hardcore Trump supporters and they got their MAGA hats. They absolutely cannot, and I mean f__king cannot recognize proven science and signs that something is seriously wrong. Below is just 1 of many, many, many stories that has happened to them because they didn't believe something was/is wrong.

Their daughter died in 2010 because they had determined that her sickness was not serious enough for her to go to the hospital. When a 15 year old girl is crying and coughing that freaking loud and that much spit is coming out of her mouth, there is something seriously wrong. You do 1 of 2 things. You call 911 and/or you take her to the hospital. I even offered to take their daughter to the hospital and the wife said, "she's just faking it". Their daughter died 2 days later. You had better believe friends and family were questioning their actions and talking behind their backs.

If you got into a conversation with them about the dangers of excessive alcohol, cigarettes, weed, and the proper way to lose weight, I swear man, you will actually feel dumb just listening to them. When you hear their explanations/logic/reasoning, you actually have to look at them and see if they're really serious about what they're saying. Them and Trump simply can't accept that science is authentic and genuine and when to take action when something is seriously wrong.


----------



## wankerness

Speaking of coronavirus and the dystopian hellscape that is Wisconsin, the republicans on the state supreme court just effectively cancelled all mail-in voting, meaning the election will be even worse than the March one where we were a national laughingstock. At least there the absentee ballots got mailed out. This time, the republicans voted along party lines to recall all absentee ballots that had been printed, saying we need to add Kanye West and the Green Party to the ballot, entirely predicated on them deciding some bogus lawsuit from the Green Party where they want to be added to the ballot is suddenly worthy of consideration. There is NO way, if this goes through (and it will, thanks to republican majorities in the legislature/supreme court and all the lame duck laws that make the governor unable to do anything) that millions of ballots are going to get printed and mailed in time for the deadline next week. Basically, anyone that's legitimately unable to vote from in-state has just lost their vote, and there's a good chance that people that live in the state are not going to get ballots on time on a much larger scale than the last election, which already featured thousands of people, primarily in democrat-leaning areas, not getting them.

Republicans in this state are democracy-hating scum, plain and simple. They'll do ANYTHING to stop people from voting unless they go in-person on election day, like concern-trolling about the f'in Green Party. "Get Republicans Elected Every November" indeed.

This state is completely unfixable unless guillotines come back into style.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

wankerness said:


> Speaking of coronavirus and the dystopian hellscape that is Wisconsin, the republicans on the state supreme court just effectively cancelled all mail-in voting, meaning the election will be even worse than the March one where we were a national laughingstock. At least there the absentee ballots got mailed out. This time, the republicans voted along party lines to recall all absentee ballots that had been printed, saying we need to add Kanye West and the Green Party to the ballot, entirely predicated on them deciding some bogus lawsuit from the Green Party where they want to be added to the ballot is suddenly worthy of consideration. There is NO way, if this goes through (and it will, thanks to republican majorities in the legislature/supreme court and all the lame duck laws that make the governor unable to do anything) that millions of ballots are going to get printed and mailed in time for the deadline next week. Basically, anyone that's legitimately unable to vote from in-state has just lost their vote, and there's a good chance that people that live in the state are not going to get ballots on time on a much larger scale than the last election, which already featured thousands of people, primarily in democrat-leaning areas, not getting them.
> 
> Republicans in this state are democracy-hating scum, plain and simple. They'll do ANYTHING to stop people from voting unless they go in-person on election day, like concern-trolling about the f'in Green Party. "Get Republicans Elected Every November" indeed.
> 
> This state is completely unfixable unless guillotines come back into style.



Thats so insane. i remember there and another state like rammed through laws neutering governor after they lost the election. The fact that losers still have power after is insane.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

wankerness said:


> Speaking of coronavirus and the dystopian hellscape that is Wisconsin, the republicans on the state supreme court just effectively cancelled all mail-in voting, meaning the election will be even worse than the March one where we were a national laughingstock. At least there the absentee ballots got mailed out. This time, the republicans voted along party lines to recall all absentee ballots that had been printed, saying we need to add Kanye West and the Green Party to the ballot, entirely predicated on them deciding some bogus lawsuit from the Green Party where they want to be added to the ballot is suddenly worthy of consideration. There is NO way, if this goes through (and it will, thanks to republican majorities in the legislature/supreme court and all the lame duck laws that make the governor unable to do anything) that millions of ballots are going to get printed and mailed in time for the deadline next week. Basically, anyone that's legitimately unable to vote from in-state has just lost their vote, and there's a good chance that people that live in the state are not going to get ballots on time on a much larger scale than the last election, which already featured thousands of people, primarily in democrat-leaning areas, not getting them.
> 
> Republicans in this state are democracy-hating scum, plain and simple. They'll do ANYTHING to stop people from voting unless they go in-person on election day, like concern-trolling about the f'in Green Party. "Get Republicans Elected Every November" indeed.
> 
> This state is completely unfixable unless guillotines come back into style.



It really is a fucking shithole.


----------



## sleewell

herd mentality?? too senile to know that the phrase is herd immunity and that has been debunked by anyone reputable?

trump fans just have given up on mounting any sort of defense of this foolishness huh?


----------



## Adieu

sleewell said:


> i really just wanna hear one trump fan defend the woodward tapes.
> 
> fake news?
> 
> blame woodward?
> 
> fear monger in chief didn't want to panic people?
> 
> avoid all together?
> 
> biden's fault?



They don't care

They're convinced Biden would die in office and his VP pick is one type of minority too far from their older white guy standard for acceptable leadership

Obama being half-white, male, and likeable seems to have been their absolute limit to tolerance.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

TLDR: basically UV-C light in 222nm is safe to use around people and can destroy covid-19.
https://www.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/en/news/60119


----------



## spudmunkey

Just got an invite to this group from someone who was trimmed from my contact list a few fractions of a second later. What a weird coincidence.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/835147217006697/permalink/920145511840200/


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

spudmunkey said:


> Just got an invite to this group from someone who was trimmed from my contact list a few fractions of a second later. What a weird coincidence.
> 
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/835147217006697/permalink/920145511840200/


Sheeesh. He’s lucky he is white, resisting like that.


----------



## SpaceDock

spudmunkey said:


> Just got an invite to this group from someone who was trimmed from my contact list a few fractions of a second later. What a weird coincidence.
> 
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/835147217006697/permalink/920145511840200/



it is an embarrassment. Our country turned disease prevention into party affiliation. How far down are we going to go. 

not sure if you guys read about how the White House coronavirus task force was working with the CDC and USPS to distribute 2 masks to every American before the effort was mysteriously shut down. 

please vote


----------



## High Plains Drifter

SpaceDock said:


> not sure if you guys read about how the White House coronavirus task force was working with the CDC and USPS to distribute 2 masks to every American before the effort was mysteriously shut down.
> 
> please vote



Yep... trump was already asked about that and as totally expected, he placed blame on the CDC director for not making it happen. The truly sad thing at this point is that regardless of who wins the election, we as a nation are divided further than ever before. I've never felt so much tension in the air in just about all social environments as what it feels like now.


----------



## shadowlife

The governor of Florida just lifted all COVID-19 restrictions on businesses statewide:

_*"Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says he is lifting all restrictions on businesses statewide that were imposed to control the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19. Most significantly, that means restaurants and bars in the state can now operate at full capacity.

Up to now, restaurants and bars in Florida could serve customers indoors at 50% of legal occupancy. DeSantis said his new executive order lifts that restriction statewide, though local governments can keep additional limits in place if they're justified for health or economic reasons.

"Every business has the right to operate," DeSantis said. "Some of the locals can do reasonable regulations. But you can't just say no."

DeSantis also said his order would stop cities and counties from fining people for not wearing mandated face coverings. He said fines and other penalties imposed so far would be suspended."
*_
Full article here:

https://www.npr.org/sections/corona...covid-19-restrictions-on-businesses-statewide

It's about time. Hopefully more governors will follow his lead.


----------



## diagrammatiks

vaccine is available where I live.


----------



## Adieu

diagrammatiks said:


> vaccine is available where I live.



Real vaccine? Or Putin vaccine?

Putin vaccine clearly doesn't work right, cause Putin himself is still holed up in a bunker and has no intention of leaving it


----------



## diagrammatiks

Adieu said:


> Real vaccine? Or Putin vaccine?
> 
> Putin vaccine clearly doesn't work right, cause Putin himself is still holed up in a bunker and has no intention of leaving it



well service and health workers are being required to get one (forced vaccination china lol)

and individuals can sign up for a shot. it's like stupid expensive though compared to a normal vaccine. 

now, does it work. I have no clue. and I don't really trust it enough to go get one.


----------



## Wuuthrad

shadowlife said:


> The governor of Florida just lifted all COVID-19 restrictions on businesses statewide:
> 
> 
> It's about time. Hopefully more governors will follow his lead.



You do realize that States have the power to do their own thing right?

And to suggest otherwise might give too much power to the Federal Government, would it not?

Which may be precisely what is needed to control the pandemic?


----------



## Ralyks

We did it guys. 1 million deaths worldwide. Good job team, let's head home...


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Ralyks said:


> We did it guys. 1 million deaths worldwide. Good job team, let's head home...



America- "Hold my beer..."


----------



## Drew

Wuuthrad said:


> You do realize that States have the power to do their own thing right?
> 
> And to suggest otherwise might give too much power to the Federal Government, would it not?
> 
> Which may be precisely what is needed to control the pandemic?


Broken record, but one of my constant points throughout this whole thing has been that America's tradition of "rugged individualism' may have some positives, but also leaves us woefully prepared to respond to a threat like a pandemic that requires collective sacrifice for the common good. 

That said... Five weeks till the election, typical incubation period of two weeks or less... Surprised DeSantis isn't delaying this a couple weeks, because that puts the election squarely in the path of a spike in case count if people actually do return to restaurants at full capacity. Even a phase in date of Oct 15th would be late enough that there wouldn't be much visible evidence of a surge come Election Tuesday. 

Whcih, to be fair, they might not - I've done outdoor dining a decent number of times late summer and fall and occasionally that requires walking, masked, through indoor dining to get to a patio, and I've never seen more than a handful of parties in even large restaurants, WELL below the capacity restraints here in Boston.


----------



## Ralyks

https://apple.news/AYTi2djNnQuONJx8OnkAoPg


----------



## Ralyks

Holy fuck, Trump and Melania tested positove


----------



## sleewell

Hope had symptoms, tested positive and trump kept doing events. I'm not like a very stable genius or anything but that sounds dumb.


----------



## Chokey Chicken

Prepare for him to come out perfectly okay and use it as an example of how "stupid" it is to make a big deal about it.

This will likely feed his and his supporters narrative that it's nothing to worry about, despite the fact that we already know not everyone shows symptoms or shows less intense symptoms.


----------



## Shoeless_jose




----------



## Surveyor 777

Chokey Chicken said:


> Prepare for him to come out perfectly okay and use it as an example of how "stupid" it is to make a big deal about it.
> 
> This will likely feed his and his supporters narrative that it's nothing to worry about, despite the fact that we already know not everyone shows symptoms or shows less intense symptoms.



That's exactly what I was thinking. They'll get the "mild" version, then he'll blabber about how this is no big deal. All his followers will believe it and will completely ignore (or continue to ignore) the guidelines given to us by actual doctors and scientists.

I'm sure some people are pleased that he got it but I was hoping he wouldn't, for exactly the reason I stated.


----------



## Chokey Chicken

Surveyor 777 said:


> That's exactly what I was thinking. They'll get the "mild" version, then he'll blabber about how this is no big deal. All his followers will believe it and will completely ignore (or continue to ignore) the guidelines given to us by actual doctors and scientists.
> 
> I'm sure some people are pleased that he got it but I was hoping he wouldn't, for exactly the reason I stated.



I was hoping, admittedly optimistically, that he'd catch it and come to terms with "well shit, I was wrong... Time to right my wrongs."

Just looks like I'll have to settle for the trivial victory of me laughing at the sight of trump wearing a mask. I'm sure someone forced him to, but now is the best time for him TO wear it. 

I wish I could laugh, but it's just such a damn shame that this is where my country is.


----------



## spudmunkey

Chokey Chicken said:


> I was hoping, admittedly optimistically, that he'd catch it and come to terms with "well shit, I was wrong... Time to right my wrongs."



Don't get your hopes up. It didn't do much for for Borris Johnson.


----------



## Mathemagician

He now has a 2-week vacation from public appearances, debating, and a media pity party. It’s a solid play all told.


----------



## vilk

I was thinking that he/GOP thinks he's gonna lose, so this way he can """"die"""" and skip all the criminal charges, debt, etc. that await him once he's out of office. Just a theory.


----------



## possumkiller

vilk said:


> I was thinking that he/GOP thinks he's gonna lose, so this way he can """"die"""" and skip all the criminal charges, debt, etc. that await him once he's out of office. Just a theory.


Or pence will be president and pardon him.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

possumkiller said:


> Or pence will be president and pardon him.



Yeah. I can see them pulling a Nixon/Ford.


----------



## Kaura

But what if Trump dies? Honestly curious. Let's say tomorrow Trump was declared dead tomorrow. What would happen?


----------



## Wrecklyss

Kaura said:


> But what if Trump dies? Honestly curious. Let's say tomorrow Trump was declared dead tomorrow. What would happen?



I would hope all the people screaming "hoax," "scam-demic," etc., might decide that we really should listen to health experts and start following the guidances that can slow/stop the spread, thus stop the cost of human life that's lost due to sheer complacency; but I doubt people have that kind of common sense.

Maybe if the guy who told everyone not to worry about it because he "didn't want to cause a panic" succumbs to the very non-threat that only became political because of his own words and actions, his worshippers will realize this guy actually LIES ALL THE TIME and maybe HIS IDEAS REALLY AREN'T THAT GREAT AFTER ALL!

But humans would still have to have a little humanity left to reflect on the lessons a loss can teach.


----------



## budda

Kaura said:


> But what if Trump dies? Honestly curious. Let's say tomorrow Trump was declared dead tomorrow. What would happen?



Pence. And that's just as scary.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

Kaura said:


> But what if Trump dies? Honestly curious. Let's say tomorrow Trump was declared dead tomorrow. What would happen?


vice president gets sworn in as president. Elections would be even more of a shitshow since the republican candidate would be dead.


----------



## Science_Penguin

Kaura said:


> But what if Trump dies? Honestly curious. Let's say tomorrow Trump was declared dead tomorrow. What would happen?



Fuel for QAnon conspiracy theories...


----------



## Shoeless_jose

Pence doesn't worry me really he's a quack on social issues but he isn't the rip the country apart at the seems to further galvanize the 28% that like him.

Plus if Trump passed Republican turnout would be abyssmal. Hope he recovers with enough complications to teach him a lesson.


----------



## nightflameauto

There's beginning to be some noise this morning from people asking why it's imperative for them to stay socially distanced while our government officials gather into tight spaces to celebrate continuously. The announcement of the Supreme Court nominee was a packed rose garden, shoulder to shoulder, with no masks, that then went indoors to continue to shake hands, hug, kiss each other and share drinks.

It's now looking like a super-spreader event as multiple people in attendance, including President Trump, are testing positive.

People are saying, "I haven't been able to hug my parents since March, and our leadership do this?"

I honestly don't want the president to die. People think Pence isn't as scary as him, but Pence is in some ways even worse. He's not as erratic, but he's also not all opposed to stomping on people's necks to get what he wants. He's more controlled, more manipulative, and more calculating than Trump by a mile. That's not who you want stepping into the president's role right on the cusp of the election.


----------



## tedtan

I don't want Pence in office, even temporarily, because I don't him to get the opportunity to pardon Trump.


----------



## sleewell




----------



## bostjan

The CDC just announced that they are acknowledging that SARS-Cov-2 is airborne, after they announced it was, and retracted that statement, months ago, amidst the vast majority of the medical research community already reaching that conclusion.


----------



## shadowlife

*Stats Hold a Surprise: Lockdowns May Have Had Little Effect on COVID-19 Spread*

_If lockdowns really altered the course of this pandemic, then coronavirus case counts should have clearly dropped whenever and wherever lockdowns took place. The effect should have been obvious, though with a time lag. It takes time for new coronavirus infections to be officially counted, so we would expect the numbers to plummet as soon as the waiting time was over.

How long? New infections should drop on day one and be noticed about ten or eleven days from the beginning of the lockdown. By day six, the number of people with first symptoms of infection should plummet (six days is the average time for symptoms to appear). By day nine or ten, far fewer people would be heading to doctors with worsening symptoms. If COVID-19 tests were performed right away, we would expect the positives to drop clearly on day ten or eleven (assuming quick turnarounds on tests).

To judge from the evidence, the answer is clear: Mandated lockdowns had little effect on the spread of the coronavirus. The charts below show the daily case curves for the United States as a whole and for thirteen U.S. states. As in almost every country, we consistently see a steep climb as the virus spreads, followed by a transition (marked by the gray circles) to a flatter curve. At some point, the curves always slope downward, though this wasn’t obvious for all states until the summer._

Full article, with charts, here:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020...ay-have-had-little-effect-on-covid-19-spread/


----------



## StevenC

shadowlife said:


> *Stats Hold a Surprise: Lockdowns May Have Had Little Effect on COVID-19 Spread*
> 
> _If lockdowns really altered the course of this pandemic, then coronavirus case counts should have clearly dropped whenever and wherever lockdowns took place. The effect should have been obvious, though with a time lag. It takes time for new coronavirus infections to be officially counted, so we would expect the numbers to plummet as soon as the waiting time was over.
> 
> How long? New infections should drop on day one and be noticed about ten or eleven days from the beginning of the lockdown. By day six, the number of people with first symptoms of infection should plummet (six days is the average time for symptoms to appear). By day nine or ten, far fewer people would be heading to doctors with worsening symptoms. If COVID-19 tests were performed right away, we would expect the positives to drop clearly on day ten or eleven (assuming quick turnarounds on tests).
> 
> To judge from the evidence, the answer is clear: Mandated lockdowns had little effect on the spread of the coronavirus. The charts below show the daily case curves for the United States as a whole and for thirteen U.S. states. As in almost every country, we consistently see a steep climb as the virus spreads, followed by a transition (marked by the gray circles) to a flatter curve. At some point, the curves always slope downward, though this wasn’t obvious for all states until the summer._
> 
> Full article, with charts, here:
> 
> https://www.nationalreview.com/2020...ay-have-had-little-effect-on-covid-19-spread/


I mean, you know this is disingenuous because the US didn't lockdown in any serious way like, for example, New Zealand did.

But in case you are actually unable to tell the difference, some of the obvious hallmarks of bad science are worthless graphs and being published in a book instead of a journal.

I really shouldn't give you ay benefit of the doubt though, considering the page you linked to has a video of Van Morrison. [I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of my country and whole island to apologise for the existence of Van Morrison.]


----------



## bostjan

I mean, it doesn't take a statistician to figure out what went wrong there.

The point of the shutdown, touted as "flatten the curve" had two purposes: 1. Delay the worst part of the epidemic so that researchers would have more time to develop a treatment and/or a vaccine, and 2. keep the "impulse" of patient levels in hospital beds down, such that the hospitals could more effectively treat a few people at a time.

The failures, however, made the entire thing into an exercise in futility. 1. Researchers were unable to develop a treatment, nor a vaccine, before everything reopened. 2. Hospitals got so slow (partly because there was no treatment anyway), that they had to lay off their staff. 3. With everyone staying home, the supply chain broke down, which delayed research. 4. The shutdown was so short and poorly followed, that all it did was prolong the peak, rather than flatten it out.

It'd be like, you had mice in your house, and the expert exterminator said to lay out traps and seal off entry points for new mice to come in, so, you sealed your back door with concrete, and dropped two mousetraps on the floor, but you propped open your front door permanently and threw away the two traps you used after the first two mice were caught and didn't replace them.


----------



## shadowlife

StevenC said:


> I mean, you know this is disingenuous because the US didn't lockdown in any serious way like, for example, New Zealand did.



I'm not familiar with how the US version of lockdown compared to anywhere else in the world.

What I am familiar with is millions of people losing their jobs, thousands of businesses having to close for good, and depression/suicide rates going up, all due to a strategy that is being proven to be ineffective.

If a similar strategy was used in your country with a more positive outcome, then I'm glad it worked there.


----------



## StevenC

shadowlife said:


> I'm not familiar with how the US version of lockdown compared to anywhere else in the world.
> 
> What I am familiar with is millions of people losing their jobs, thousands of businesses having to close for good, and depression/suicide rates going up, all due to a strategy that is being proven to be ineffective.
> 
> If a similar strategy was used in your country with a more positive outcome, then I'm glad it worked there.


"Man wonders why bandaging left arm didn't stop bleeding in right arm"


----------



## shadowlife

StevenC said:


> "Man wonders why bandaging left arm didn't stop bleeding in right arm"



"Man regrets letting doctor amputate left arm for a splinter in left pinky."


----------



## SpaceDock

200k dead Americans are a splinter? I think you need to reflect on that a bit.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

shadowlife said:


> I'm not familiar with how the US version of lockdown compared to anywhere else in the world.
> 
> What I am familiar with is millions of people losing their jobs, thousands of businesses having to close for good, and depression/suicide rates going up, all due to a strategy that is being proven to be ineffective.
> 
> If a similar strategy was used in your country with a more positive outcome, then I'm glad it worked there.



As mentioned, the US never went into any kind of actual lock-down. Parts of the country did but only for short periods of time and never in any kind of serious way. The president decided not to instill any stringent nor long-lasting plan... instead throwing responsibility upon the state's governors and local mayors to mandate/ enforce... or not. There was never any actual national strategy. To only further exacerbate that already haphazard response, a huge part of the American public were allowed to make their own decisions regarding the wearing of masks and social distancing."This guy didn't do it so why should I do it?" and "It's a hassle to wear a mask" became the accepted and normal mindset all across the country despite the science and the true numbers of infections and deaths. Businesses and individuals have been left to interpret and subsequently enforce their own "standards" with little to no influence from local or state authorities to mandate or penalize. So like the bunch of self-entitled little brats that we as a country are, we kept rolling the numbers upward and still to this day are... seemingly without any prevailing conscience nor common sense. 

The saddest part of all of this is that we didn't have to lose so many jobs and we didn't need to lose so many lives. And we wouldn't even have needed any interpretation of a "lock-down". Had we as a country simply used common fucking sense and accepted the inconvenience of wearing masks then the numbers wouldn't have continued to rise. Our flat out moronic citizens just couldn't manage the simplest degree of respect for this virus nor for the health and welfare of businesses and fellow Americans. It has been throughout this year just as it has been throughout our history... me first and I'll worry about it later... and that idiocy is only more deeply entrenched now, in that this is an election year. Independent thought has taken a back seat and instead been replaced by mob-mentality and politicized flag-waving. As a country... we have repeatedly failed the most basic test of humanity, humility, and integrity. "Fuck the dead and dying/ Be a real man and vote trump"


----------



## shadowlife

SpaceDock said:


> 200k dead Americans are a splinter? I think you need to reflect on that a bit.



And you might want to investigate how many of those 200k were killed solely by COVID-19.


----------



## shadowlife

High Plains Drifter said:


> Independent thought has taken a back seat and instead been replaced by mob-mentality and politicized flag-waving.



Is that new? Seems like it's been that way for decades.


----------



## spudmunkey

shadowlife said:


> And you might want to investigate how many of those 200k were killed solely by COVID-19.



If I found a secret list of everything you were deathly allergic to, and killed you by covertly administering them, are you saying I didn't kill you?

By your words, nearly nobody has ever died from AIDS.

How is "but comorbidities" is still a matter of discussion, this many months into it.


----------



## SpaceDock

shadowlife said:


> And you might want to investigate how many of those 200k were killed solely by COVID-19.



 Nice job showing how informed you are.


----------



## Ralyks

shadowlife said:


> And you might want to investigate how many of those 200k were killed solely by COVID-19.



And you might want to investigate how many people died of it at home and thus went unreported.


----------



## shadowlife

Ralyks said:


> And you might want to investigate how many people died of it at home and thus went unreported.



Unreported?

Did their families bury them in the backyard in the middle of the night?


----------



## Randy

shadowlife said:


> Unreported?
> 
> Did their families bury them in the backyard in the middle of the night?



I know people who died of respiratory distress during the pandemic that died before they could ever seek treatment and were never tested. My mother, who I live with, is an ER nurse that treats COVID patients and their policy is still to turn people away if they have COVID symptoms and tell them not to bother coming in unless they're in respiratory distress and not to waste a test if they're 1.) asymptomatic or on the opposite end of the spectrum 2.) definitely sure they have COVID. That's not imaginary, those are real people who I know.

So yes, absolutely is underreported.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

shadowlife said:


> Is that new? Seems like it's been that way for decades.



Absolutely nothing new... just greatly accentuated now since so many people here in the US feel the need to ramp up their stupidity during any type of crisis.


----------



## SpaceDock

Here is Colorado they stopped testing people who died for Covid to save on the tests back in April. So in many of these situations, someone dies when they never sought treatment in the hospital and we will never know if Covid was the cause or not.


----------



## shadowlife

Randy said:


> I know people who died of respiratory distress during the pandemic that died before they could ever seek treatment and were never tested. My mother, who I live with, is an ER nurse that treats COVID patients and their policy is still to turn people away if they have COVID symptoms and tell them not to bother coming in unless they're in respiratory distress and not to waste a test if they're 1.) asymptomatic or on the opposite end of the spectrum 2.) definitely sure they have COVID. That's not imaginary, those are real people who I know.
> 
> So yes, absolutely is underreported.



My mistake- I thought that when someone dies at home, an autopsy was mandatory to determine the cause of death.
(Unless they were in hospice, or already diagnosed with a terminal illness)
Given the emphasis on COVID-19 throughout the world, I thought it would be automatic that it would have been one of the things tested for, and thus, reported.
I could counter with the stories of guys dying in motorcycle accidents and being listed as COVID deaths, but there's no point.

This is all a tangent from the article I posted, which questions whether the lockdowns in the US made any difference, and/or were worth the negative consequences. I post articles with links to the source- you guys can dismiss them outright, or take the time to read them and decide whether there is any merit to them.


----------



## sleewell

When you sabotage a lock down so your cult followers don't take them seriously and then question why they weren't effective. 


Liberate!! 





(This country from reality tv politicians)


----------



## StevenC

shadowlife said:


> My mistake- I thought that when someone dies at home, an autopsy was mandatory to determine the cause of death.
> (Unless they were in hospice, or already diagnosed with a terminal illness)
> Given the emphasis on COVID-19 throughout the world, I thought it would be automatic that it would have been one of the things tested for, and thus, reported.
> I could counter with the stories of guys dying in motorcycle accidents and being listed as COVID deaths, but there's no point.
> 
> This is all a tangent from the article I posted, which questions whether the lockdowns in the US made any difference, and/or were worth the negative consequences. I post articles with links to the source- you guys can dismiss them outright, or take the time to read them and decide whether there is any merit to them.


For what it's worth, I did take the time to read you ad for a book. Excuse me, article. It was trash, so you can't just say "I'm only putting the information out there".

Arguing whether a lockdown was a good thing is facetious your country intentionally sabotaged lockdown efforts.


----------



## fantom

shadowlife said:


> What I am familiar with is millions of people losing their jobs, thousands of businesses having to close for good, and depression/suicide rates going up, all due to a strategy that is being proven to be ineffective.
> 
> If a similar strategy was used in your country with a more positive outcome, then I'm glad it worked there.



For once, I agree with something you said.

If I... decided to go golfing and host social events to brag about myself instead of working... Ignored that my company's services (that I'm responsible for) were down... told experts trying to help to go fuck themselves... distracted my co-workers from the user facing outage... Obstructed and threatened any coworkers trying to help the situation... and then blamed competing companies' products for all of our user issues and loss of revenue... Well, I would think my "strategy" didn't work at all.

So yes, the strategy has been ineffective, because the strategy was to ignore everything and act like a man child instead of taking any responsibility. Do you really think that Trump asking the country to unite, wear masks, stop having parties, and listen to doctors while figuring out logistics of supplies and unifying effort would have gone just as badly?!


----------



## shadowlife

StevenC said:


> you can't just say "I'm only putting the information out there".



Actually, I can, and will continue to do so, even if the information I post goes against the herd mentality narrative of the day.

I'm not sure what gave you the impression that I need your permission to do anything, or that I give a shit about your opinion, but in case you are confused- I don't.


----------



## sleewell

its just a really dumb argument to attempt to make. you can't say something wasn't effective that was sabotaged from the start. i wouldn't even call what we did as a lockdown compared to what happened in other countries. about 50% of the people didn't attempt it all bc they believed the kool aid served up by trump and fox news that it all was a hoax.


buys a new car
slashes tire with a knife
writes article about how new tires these days are terrible


----------



## StevenC

shadowlife said:


> Actually, I can, and will continue to do so, even if the information I post goes against the herd mentality narrative of the day.
> 
> I'm not sure what gave you the impression that I need your permission to do anything, or that I give a shit about your opinion, but in case you are confused- I don't.


I'm sorry, I didn't realise I had to use the most simple language. "You can't just say" means "you can't use this as a justification to dump garbage and not take part in the discourse of the thread". Which isn't me giving or denying you permission.


----------



## nightflameauto

People like shadowlife here keep telling us that the "real numbers" of COVID deaths are way lower. Yet a statistical study of death month to month over the previous ten years show that we're approaching 275k more deaths in the states this year than the rolling average for the year to this point.

Consider how much lower we are in traffic accidents overall outside of the Sturgis Stupid, and yes I'm making that an official title, the real number may even be higher.

The continued narrative that "it's not that bad," seems to either be hopeful grasping at straws, or outright lying at this point. It's real. It's here. And our continued effort to ignore it or flaunt it isn't helping any of us.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

I'll never understand how the knee-jerk reaction of folks called out for junk methodology is "well everyone says I'm wrong, so I must be right". Like, maybe you're wrong. Maybe your sources are shitty. Nope. Everyone is a sheep in a herd of echos, only true rugged individualist can be right. Or, heck, maybe you're totally right. Own the libs and show us.



We can't even have a frank discussion without things getting weirdly partisan. 

This is a virus. It doesn't care who you vote for. It doesn't care if taxes are theft or if you should own an assault rifle. This isn't even an American problem. Literally the whole world is dealing with this, but sure, it's just the American libtards.


----------



## StevenC

shadowlife said:


> Actually, I can, and will continue to do so, even if the information I post goes against the herd mentality narrative of the day.
> 
> I'm not sure what gave you the impression that I need your permission to do anything, or that I give a shit about your opinion, but in case you are confused- I don't.


https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1502/5917573

Read this instead of political editorial ads for books.


----------



## shadowlife

StevenC said:


> https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1502/5917573
> 
> Read this instead of political editorial ads for books.



Thanks for the link.

_"We detected an immediate and significant reversal in SARS-CoV-2 epidemic suppression after relaxation of social distancing measures across the U.S. Premature relaxation of social distancing measures undermined the country’s ability to control the disease burden associated with COVID-19."
_
The point of the lockdowns was "2 weeks to flatten the curve" and keep hospitals from being overrun.

According to the crowd here, the US never followed the lockdowns, and yet the curve was flattened, and I don't know of a single hospital that was overrun. So tell me again why the lockdowns were/are needed?


----------



## StevenC

shadowlife said:


> Thanks for the link.
> 
> _"We detected an immediate and significant reversal in SARS-CoV-2 epidemic suppression after relaxation of social distancing measures across the U.S. Premature relaxation of social distancing measures undermined the country’s ability to control the disease burden associated with COVID-19."
> _
> The point of the lockdowns was "2 weeks to flatten the curve" and keep hospitals from being overrun.
> 
> According to the crowd here, the US never followed the lockdowns, and yet the curve was flattened, and I don't know of a single hospital that was overrun. So tell me again why the lockdowns were/are needed?


I don't know how to respond without calling you a name.


----------



## sleewell

bc we are still averaging waaaaaaaaaaaaay too many cases and deaths per day. we could have gotten levels much lower like other countries did and our economy would be much more recovered by now. instead we are dragging this on for much longer which is why schools are remote and jobs are not coming back as fast as they were lost. its like a slow burn that is holding us back vs a tough 2-3 week stretch that would have put us in a much better spot for the last several months.

i feel like everyone complaining about the lockdowns forgets about the trillions of dollars we borrowed for stimulus checks, ppp grants, and corp bailouts. all of that money would have gotten us through even a month lockdown. you got the money but still were out there acting a fool bc you claimed it was a hoax.

you are correct that hospitals did not become overrun but its not really disputable that we got our daily case levels as low as other countries did, not even close.

trump's plan was to ignore covid and to just restart the economy but that was foolish bc you cant have a good economy in the middle of a healthcare crisis. fix the healthcare crisis and the economy will rebound.


----------



## bostjan

shadowlife said:


> Thanks for the link.
> 
> _"We detected an immediate and significant reversal in SARS-CoV-2 epidemic suppression after relaxation of social distancing measures across the U.S. Premature relaxation of social distancing measures undermined the country’s ability to control the disease burden associated with COVID-19."
> _
> The point of the lockdowns was "2 weeks to flatten the curve" and keep hospitals from being overrun.
> 
> According to the crowd here, the US never followed the lockdowns, and yet the curve was flattened, and I don't know of a single hospital that was overrun. So tell me again why the lockdowns were/are needed?



If that statement does harm to anyone's point in this thread, it's your own, so I am confused as to why you think you are correct here.

To summarize, your point was that the lockdown didn't work. Some other people said that the lockdown would have worked better if people had actually followed the rules, and you posted a counter-argument that those people's statements are wrong, because when the rules were lifted, things got even worse. Do you know how logic works?


----------



## BigViolin

The issue for many isn't truth or logic but how info makes them feel.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

@shadowlife- Despite how lock-downs worked or were intended to work in other countries, the sad fact is that here in the US, lock-downs were supposed to be part of a more proactive strategy, really only discussed here in the US early on in the pandemic. The reason was the same as the science behind wearing masks... as a combined one-two punch, it would greatly reduce the spread. But politics came into play along with a skeptical public that for whatever reasons didn't care or didn't have the ability to conform to these guidelines. Lock-downs were sporadic and short-lived for the most part. 

When speaking of a flattened curve here in the US, a long-term flattening never happened, spikes continued, and the flattening itself was WAY higher than what was deemed by health officials to be a positive sign of getting the virus under control. Hospitals were inundated with cases.. hospitals in Florida, Texas, New York, California, and Oregon especially. There was lack of PPE, staffing shortages, bed shortages, etc. And the point was more the concern to be able to keep hospitals operating efficiently and safely in order to be able to provide for other non-covid related cases. 

Regarding any news that you've heard that contradicts any of that, there are many accounts of some of our hospitals being close to, at, or over capacity for varying lengths of time. Some capacity concerns imo were handled quietly simply out of fear that the federal government might somehow make matters even worse. Keep in mind that our own government pitted states against one another to secure their own ventilators and PPE. It was a free for all and as our president stated in different contexts many times, democratic-run states deserved to be criticized and penalized more than republican-run states. 

Add to all of this that the news here was changing so rapidly that hospitals as well as news outlets struggled to even be able to keep their reporting up to date and relevant. So a good deal of what might normally be a running headline, instead got trampled under each new news day. Lastly, the absolute disregard for any transparency or accuracy regarding the true numbers ( of infected, of tests being administered, and of actual statistics in general) led to a constant discrepancy in reliable reporting.

Linked articles are all over the place and there are a dizzying number of them... one disputing another, some with a great deal of bias, others that appear more scientific and neutral but literally anything that someone wants to find on any side of this matter, is widely available. You cannot expect to be able to develop a clear cut understanding of what all has happened here in the US just by clicking on a couple of links or watching some random news broadcast. 

And responsible Americans want nothing more than to ultimately realize that all of this has indeed been blown out of proportion. We don't want this to be happening and to be seeing things as bad as they appear. But it's really hard to feel too optimistic when you're witnessing a presidential administration with no conscience, with no humility, and with little to no transparency. I indeed hope that many of us are overreacting but with all that has occurred in this country just this year alone, many of would rather err on the side of caution than to discover first hand that we were right all along.


----------



## Drew

shadowlife said:


> My mistake- I thought that when someone dies at home, an autopsy was mandatory to determine the cause of death.
> (Unless they were in hospice, or already diagnosed with a terminal illness)
> Given the emphasis on COVID-19 throughout the world, I thought it would be automatic that it would have been one of the things tested for, and thus, reported.



So, one of the major issues with the US pandemic response is we simply didn't have enough capacity to test. We waited too long to start developing testing kits, one of the first major test kits available initially turned out to be flawed and had to be scrpped, etc. In April Trump was talking about how "anyone who wants to get tested can get tested," at a time when in the greater Boston area we still only had the capacity to process a couple hundred tests a day. 

Even today, likely under some political interference and a desire to keep the official case count down, the CDC is recommending that if you think you have Covid, but your symptoms are mild, yoiu should stay home and not get tested, to preserve tests for where they're most needed, and only go into a hospital to get tested if your symptoms worsen and you may need additional medical treatment. Things are better now in Boston than they were in April, but I know for a fact in March and April we were telling people with symptoms and known exposure not to get tested because we needed to preserve testing capacity for people with serious symptoms to be sure it was Covid and not something lse we were treating. 

So, with all that as background, why would we test a _dead_ person, when doing so would have zero impact on medical outcome? Seeing as, you know, they were dead?


----------



## sleewell

well to be fair we didn't get to the logic part of that particular conspiracy theory lol... kinda falls apart when you talk it out doesn't it?


oh hey look over there micro chips for everyone, dont wear a mask bc the dems are all pedophiles and trump was put here to save the kids.


----------



## shadowlife

Counting The True Cost Of Another Shutdown Due TO COVID-19:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/aug/10/counting-the-true-cost-of-another-shutdown-due-to-/

The Past Three Months Have Proved It: The Costs Of Lockdown Are Too High

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...-proved-it-the-costs-of-lockdown-are-too-high

The COVID-19 Shutdown Will Cost Americans Millions Of Years Of Life

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthc...will-cost-americans-millions-of-years-of-life


----------



## TedEH

I picked one of those three links at random, and the very first line - the initial premise of the whole thing - is misleading from the beginning:


> Our governmental COVID-19 mitigation policy of broad societal lockdown focuses on containing the spread of the disease at all costs, instead of “flattening the curve” and preventing hospital overcrowding.


This is exactly the opposite of true. Your governmental mitigation policy was ENTIRELY focused on flattening the curve and NEVER claimed it could outright stop the spread.


----------



## SpaceDock

shadowlife said:


> Counting The True Cost Of Another Shutdown Due TO COVID-19:
> 
> https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/aug/10/counting-the-true-cost-of-another-shutdown-due-to-/
> 
> The Past Three Months Have Proved It: The Costs Of Lockdown Are Too High
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/busines...-proved-it-the-costs-of-lockdown-are-too-high
> 
> The COVID-19 Shutdown Will Cost Americans Millions Of Years Of Life
> 
> https://thehill.com/opinion/healthc...will-cost-americans-millions-of-years-of-life



Amusingly, that last article was written by Scott Atlas who is Trumps current Covid advisor.


I’ll play along though. Let’s say we go along with whatever you are proposing. What is that exactly? Lift all restrictions and act like nothing happened? Current death rate is still 3-4% so that might be 3-4 million American deaths. Do we try to treat them in hospitals or just tell people if they get Covid they are on their own? Sure most of the deaths will be the elderly, so do we just not treat anyone over 65 and leave hospitals for the young? I don’t know that any of that would play out too well. 

I get that the lockdowns suck, they are going to drag on for as long as people don’t play the game. The problem with shitty situations like a pandemic is that even the best option might not be convenient and might even be detrimental to many.


----------



## sleewell

It's almost like he knows how to copy and paste opinion pieces but really has no idea how to articulate thoughts into cohesive statements. 

Troll ??


----------



## fantom

shadowlife said:


> According to the crowd here, the US never followed the lockdowns, and yet the curve was flattened, and I don't know of a single hospital that was overrun



I takes less than 10 seconds to check a claim you make and see it isn't true... Maybe you should try researching some of things you say before you say them? Here are just the first few search results with just data for July. Let's not forget that NYC area was hammered back in March and April.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/health/us-coronavirus-tuesday/index.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...855e5e-c135-11ea-864a-0dd31b9d6917_story.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...ston-overwhelmed-icus-leave-covid-19-n1233430


----------



## shadowlife

SpaceDock said:


> I’ll play along though. Let’s say we go along with whatever you are proposing. What is that exactly?



You asked without being an ass about it, so here goes:

-Open everything.

Parents should have the option to keep their kids home from school if they choose and it’s economically feasible in their situation.

High risk people and people who live with high risk people can wear a mask, face visor, biohazard suit, whatever they want. But masks work right? That’s what all the experts say? So a mask should be good enough for the high risk people.

Healthy people with functioning immune systems should not have to wear a mask everywhere they go.

-Get rid of the idiotic restrictions.

Someone goes to a restaurant, has to wear a mask while they walk to their table and then take it off for the hour they’re eating? That makes sense to anyone here? It’s like having a “pissing section” at a public swimming pool.

-Keep using the new sanitization protocols that most places have in effect. This should have happened even if there was never a COVID-19, as it would cut down on “illnesses” in general.


-Your estimate of 3-4 million more deaths is based on two things:

1- a vaccine is never created. So then what? We stay in lockdown forever, acting like androids who are terrified to be near other humans?

2-the death rate remains at 3-4% and doesn’t go down. Given that doctors and hospitals are better prepared to treat people with this now than they were in March, it’s conceivable that more people can be saved if they go to the hospital, and the death rate will decline.

And while yes, the number of infected people will go up if there are no restrictions, it’s not like all of a sudden there’s going to be 3 million people heading to the hospital at the same time.


-Stop all unnecessary testing. Save the tests and resources for the people who need it the most, the elderly and other high risk people.

Straight from the CDC, which hopefully is a valid enough source for all the fact checkers here:

_If you have symptoms of COVID-19 and want to get tested, call your healthcare provider first. Most people will have mild illness and can recover at home without medical care and may not need to be tested_.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

shadowlife said:


> You asked without being an ass about it, so here goes:
> 
> -Open everything.
> 
> Parents should have the option to keep their kids home from school if they choose and it’s economically feasible in their situation.
> 
> High risk people and people who live with high risk people can wear a mask, face visor, biohazard suit, whatever they want. But masks work right? That’s what all the experts say? So a mask should be good enough for the high risk people.
> 
> Healthy people with functioning immune systems should not have to wear a mask everywhere they go.
> 
> -Get rid of the idiotic restrictions.
> 
> Someone goes to a restaurant, has to wear a mask while they walk to their table and then take it off for the hour they’re eating? That makes sense to anyone here? It’s like having a “pissing section” at a public swimming pool.
> 
> -Keep using the new sanitization protocols that most places have in effect. This should have happened even if there was never a COVID-19, as it would cut down on “illnesses” in general.
> 
> 
> -Your estimate of 3-4 million more deaths is based on two things:
> 
> 1- a vaccine is never created. So then what? We stay in lockdown forever, acting like androids who are terrified to be near other humans?
> 
> 2-the death rate remains at 3-4% and doesn’t go down. Given that doctors and hospitals are better prepared to treat people with this now than they were in March, it’s conceivable that more people can be saved if they go to the hospital, and the death rate will decline.
> 
> And while yes, the number of infected people will go up if there are no restrictions, it’s not like all of a sudden there’s going to be 3 million people heading to the hospital at the same time.
> 
> 
> -Stop all unnecessary testing. Save the tests and resources for the people who need it the most, the elderly and other high risk people.
> 
> Straight from the CDC, which hopefully is a valid enough source for all the fact checkers here:
> 
> _If you have symptoms of COVID-19 and want to get tested, call your healthcare provider first. Most people will have mild illness and can recover at home without medical care and may not need to be tested_.



You have it sort of backwards.

Masks (of the cloth or fiber barrier type) help to prevent the spread from the infected to the uninfected. They are not designed to protect the wearer.


----------



## shadowlife

MaxOfMetal said:


> You have it sort of backwards.
> 
> Masks (of the cloth or fiber barrier type) prevent the spread from the infected to the uninfected. They are not designed to protect the wearer.



Which is something that still makes no sense.
How is it that the mask can stop the droplet from moving from the inside to the outside, but not from the outside to the inside? Especially if someone is social distancing and the droplet has to travel 3, 4 , 6 or 10 feet before it even gets to the mask of the "receiver".

And if what you say is true, how has no company had the genius idea to make a mask that will stop droplets in both directions?
They'd be making a fortune, no?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

shadowlife said:


> Which is something that still makes no sense.
> How is it that the mask can stop the droplet from moving from the inside to the outside, but not from the outside to the inside? Especially if someone is social distancing and the droplet has to travel 3, 4 , 6 or 10 feet before it even gets to the mask of the "receiver".
> 
> And if what you say is true, how has no company had the genius idea to make a mask that will stop droplets in both directions?
> They'd be making a fortune, no?



First of all, please drop the "if what *you* say" thing. It's not me, it's a consensus amongst the medical and scientific community that properly worn face masks of a given thickness will help prevent the spread of viruses suspended in droplets.

Totally unscientific test:

- Grab a garden hose and spreader nozzle. 
- Place a burlap sack over the nozzle and spray it at someone. 
- Now, remove the burlap sack and place it in front of someone and spray.

You should notice that preventing the spray leads to a less soaked person than just placing a small barrier. 

There are plenty of masks that will stop spray from both directions, they're just very expensive and cumbersome. I wear a PAPR at work that filters the air, but it costs about $2500 and filter cartridges are $200 and only last a certain amount of time. It encapsulates my whole head. Twenty years ago I would have had to been on a SABA system which costs as much as a Ferrari and needs a hose tether. Science and industry has been pushing this technology cheaper and smaller for decades, it's just not quite "there" yet for what you're talking about.


----------



## Mathemagician

shadowlife said:


> I'm not familiar with how the US version of lockdown compared to anywhere else in the world.
> 
> What I am familiar with is millions of people losing their jobs, thousands of businesses having to close for good, and depression/suicide rates going up, all due to a strategy that is being proven to be ineffective.
> 
> If a similar strategy was used in your country with a more positive outcome, then I'm glad it worked there.



This right here is disingenuous. You cannot claim to be so “informed” on Covid-19 and have zero idea about how it has played out in different countries. 

You’re literally announcing that you only care about pushing your agenda and NOT that you care about facts or research on reducing numbers. 

The masks work to protect OTHERS from YOU. Because it captures a substantial amount of the vapor and water droplets that carry Covid-19 and reduces the amount getting out into the air.

One of the MAIN issues is the actual fact that there is a RANGE of symptoms and impact on people. So a “healthy young person” may have it and be infected but asymptomatic. 

However if they live in a home with or go to church with another older person or at-risk individual who believes that a magic sky fairy will protect them, they can easily pass it to them via extended close proximity. 

And when the infected asymptomatic person coughs, sneezes, or spits while talking they are spreading it out onto everyone and everything. This puts the at-risk people in harms way. 

The constant willful DISMISSAL of science has nothing to do with you potentially “misunderstanding” what doctors and scientists around are saying. 

It’s that you just so desperately want to be “right” that you already decided you’ll deny anything and everything that disagrees with your pre-selected outcome. 

Own the fact that you don’t care about science or medicine, and that you just want to be “right”. 

The saddest part is that neither Covid, nor the next one, or the one after that are political. And people will keep dying because of poor management of a pandemic at the federal level which absconded all responsibility.


----------



## shadowlife

MaxOfMetal said:


> First of all, please drop the "if what *you* say" thing. It's not me, it's a consensus amongst the medical and scientific community that properly worn face masks of a given thickness will help prevent the spread of viruses suspended in droplets.
> 
> Totally unscientific test:
> 
> - Grab a garden hose and spreader nozzle.
> - Place a burlap sack over the nozzle and spray it at someone.
> - Now, remove the burlap sack and place it in front of someone and spray.
> 
> You should notice that preventing the spray leads to a less soaked person than just placing a small barrier.
> 
> There are plenty of masks that will stop spray from both directions, they're just very expensive and cumbersome. I wear a PAPR at work that filters the air, but it costs about $2500 and filter cartridges are $200 and only last a certain amount of time. It encapsulates my whole head. Twenty years ago I would have had to been on a SABA system which costs as much as a Ferrari and needs a hose tether. Science and industry has been pushing this technology cheaper and smaller for decades, it's just not quite "there" yet for what you're talking about.



No need to be defensive- "if what you say" refers to the fact that you posted it, not that I think it's only your opinion and no one else's.

Second, your analogy is flawed.
Turning on a garden hose can be down with differing amounts of pressure. To reach someone standing six feet away you'd have to use a substantial amount of pressure. Comparing that to people, someone would have to be coughing or sneezing constantly in order for their droplets to "soak" the other person. An average person just breathing is like having the garden hose on only slightly, and you're not going to be soaking anyone in that instance, least of all the part of them that's covered with a piece of burlap.

But thanks for posting- your analogy did get me to think about that part of my post.


----------



## Wuuthrad

shadowlife said:


> You asked without being an ass about it, so here goes:
> 
> -Open everything.
> 
> Parents should have the option to keep their kids home from school if they choose and it’s economically feasible in their situation.
> 
> High risk people and people who live with high risk people can wear a mask, face visor, biohazard suit, whatever they want. But masks work right? That’s what all the experts say? So a mask should be good enough for the high risk people.
> 
> Healthy people with functioning immune systems should not have to wear a mask everywhere they go.
> 
> -Get rid of the idiotic restrictions.
> 
> Someone goes to a restaurant, has to wear a mask while they walk to their table and then take it off for the hour they’re eating? That makes sense to anyone here? It’s like having a “pissing section” at a public swimming pool.
> 
> -Keep using the new sanitization protocols that most places have in effect. This should have happened even if there was never a COVID-19, as it would cut down on “illnesses” in general.
> 
> 
> -Your estimate of 3-4 million more deaths is based on two things:
> 
> 1- a vaccine is never created. So then what? We stay in lockdown forever, acting like androids who are terrified to be near other humans?
> 
> 2-the death rate remains at 3-4% and doesn’t go down. Given that doctors and hospitals are better prepared to treat people with this now than they were in March, it’s conceivable that more people can be saved if they go to the hospital, and the death rate will decline.
> 
> And while yes, the number of infected people will go up if there are no restrictions, it’s not like all of a sudden there’s going to be 3 million people heading to the hospital at the same time.
> 
> 
> -Stop all unnecessary testing. Save the tests and resources for the people who need it the most, the elderly and other high risk people.
> 
> Straight from the CDC, which hopefully is a valid enough source for all the fact checkers here:
> 
> _If you have symptoms of COVID-19 and want to get tested, call your healthcare provider first. Most people will have mild illness and can recover at home without medical care and may not need to be tested_.



Why are you suggesting this particular set of circumstances in such detail, and where did they come from? What is your motivation? Are you an egalitarian humanitarian who has nothing but the best interest of the many over the few? Is there a new found sense of social responsibility and care for the well being of your fellow humans as a result of this global pandemic? 
It’s ok to have a heart! Please take care of it. 


Interesting to note that there were more infections in one day related to the White House Event than the entirety of what was it 4 or 5 entire Asian nations (who by the way have done strict lockdowns and social distancing and are now able to function as normal within guidelines. And have far fewer fatalities.)





Personally I would never suggest some half baked non scientific nonsense regarding disease treatment that I know nothing about. 

I also personally know many people who have contracted the disease and someone who was hired to dig mass graves for all the dead. 

My suggestion is to follow the lead of an Asian country, where people who don’t wear masks are required to bury those who died of Covid.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

shadowlife said:


> No need to be defensive- "if what you say" refers to the fact that you posted it, not that I think it's only your opinion and no one else's.
> 
> Second, your analogy is flawed.
> Turning on a garden hose can be down with differing amounts of pressure. To reach someone standing six feet away you'd have to use a substantial amount of pressure. Comparing that to people, someone would have to be coughing or sneezing constantly in order for their droplets to "soak" the other person. An average person just breathing is like having the garden hose on only slightly, and you're not going to be soaking anyone in that instance, least of all the part of them that's covered with a piece of burlap.
> 
> But thanks for posting- your analogy did get me to think about that part of my post.



I'm not being defensive. Just making sure that it's understood that what you're saying runs counter to the medical and scientific community, not just some dude on a forum. It's not your opinion vs. mine. My opinion is to default to the internationally recognized experts in thier field.

As for the analogy, it was just meant to explain the difference between capturing droplets at the source compared to preventing inhalation from contaminated air.

It should be quite telling that you need thousands of dollars in specialized equipment to prevent infection from droplets in the air, while a few dollars in fabric can do a reasonable job in protecting others if it blocks droplets at the source.


----------



## narad

Fiiiiiivveee Goooollldennn Riiinnnnnnngssssss


----------



## TedEH

shadowlife said:


> To reach someone standing six feet away you'd have to use a substantial amount of pressure.


So.... people should stay distant from eachother then? 'Cause without any distance, it takes very little pressure. Have you met people? People are gross up close.

Or hey - what if we invented something .... something that _masks_ a little bit of that pressure so that we can be a little bit less careful and still generally function as normal.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Just wear the damn mask folks. No one is going to think you're a pussy or a sheep or not cool, and if they do, they're probably no one whose opinion you should care about anyway. 

At worst, you might be a little uncomfortable at first, at best you might save somebody's life. It might even be someone you love. 

I don't care if you're wearing a mask that says "MAGA" or "Lock Her Up" or one of those 110% American holster masks. Just wear it. 

Please.


----------



## sleewell

trump's war on masks is the height of foolishness. it runs counterproductive to his own goals and reelection hopes.

we all want the economy to come back. everyone wearing a mask would have gotten us there faster. there just aren't enough looney toons op ed pieces to refute the science.

people have died over fights at stores over wearing a mask. think about that. is that a good reason to not be alive any more?


trump chopped his own knees out with this culture war that he started for vanity reasons. had he been smarter and worn one from the start and told others to do the same we would be in a much better place right now and trump would be cruising to 4 more years.


----------



## bostjan

If you wear a mask, it stops you from spraying particles in the air.

If you don't wear a mask, you spray particles into the air.

If someone else wears a mask, they might not breathe in those particles, right away, but they still get on their skin, clothes, into their ears and eyes and other mucous membranes, etc.

Please don't go around spouting off medical advise if you have no idea what you are talking about.


----------



## Mathemagician

bostjan said:


> If you wear a mask, it stops you from spraying particles in the air.
> 
> If you don't wear a mask, you spray particles into the air.
> 
> If someone else wears a mask, they might not breathe in those particles, right away, but they still get on their skin, clothes, into their ears and eyes and other mucous membranes, etc.
> 
> Please don't go around spouting off medical advise if you have no idea what you are talking about.



He knows it’s wrong. He just wants to “win” so he’s willing to deny everything that has been researched. 

It’s why he keeps trying to frame himself as an “equal” OPINION. 

You don’t have to back up opinions like “chocolate is better”. So he pretends that there isn’t a wealth of science and research being done to clearly explain the pros of wearing a mask, and the ZERO cons of wearing one. 

Dude knows he has no scientific support, he is just intent on denying everything to “insult weak people”.


----------



## narad

Mathemagician said:


> He knows it’s wrong. He just wants to “win” so he’s willing to deny everything that has been researched.
> 
> It’s why he keeps trying to frame himself as an “equal” OPINION.
> 
> You don’t have to back up opinions like “chocolate is better”. So he pretends that there isn’t a wealth of science and research being done to clearly explain the pros of wearing a mask, and the ZERO cons of wearing one.
> 
> Dude knows he has no scientific support, he is just intent on denying everything to “insult weak people”.



I liked it in school when someone could just grade your argument and that was that. Now no one knows how to argue and no one gets any feedback to fix themselves, except the group-think support from their bubble, which scores only the stance and not the rationale.


----------



## fantom

So high level, the problem with everything you are pitching is that you only care about things reflecting what you want and assume you either won't get sick or will survive. The issue I have with your mentality is that you are oblivious to the risk to other people. You don't seem to care about potentially risking others get sick to fulfill your wishes. The role of the government is to represent what is good for the people, not what is good for individuals. In order to do this, you have to throw out logic about how individuals are treated and start doing some serious statistics at scale. How many people are expected to get sick or die with a certain policy? When you disregard the scale of the problem simply to say "I matter more than the collective", I no longer trust you have any idea what you are talking about.

If you want to weigh the financial and economic risks over the health risks, then I would just say there are many clear solutions. People shouldn't get paid by feds for sitting out home and throwing parties. Feds should be creating jobs. Manufacture ppe. Improve testing. Deliver packages and food. Hell, send people who want income to California and Oregon to build fire lines as the firefighters are severely overworked. There are solutions to economic problems that just require people to work in different areas then they did before.

As for schools, homeschool. Double the teachers with some of those unemployed. Send kids to teachers houses and keep a bubble.

Ya other solutions exist, but people need to stop trying to go back in time to the way things were before and find solutions to the situation now.



shadowlife said:


> -Open everything.
> 
> Parents should have the option to keep their kids home from school if they choose and it’s economically feasible in their situation



Amazes me that school, which is probably the closest thing to socialism in the United States, is the main talking point of people who want to pretend this isn't a serious problem.

I wouldn't send my daughter to school right now unless the format was changed. I have also taught in a university before, and there is no way you could pay me to go teach classes right now. I don't think it is fair that you want to disregard risks to public employees or other families simply because you think you will be fine.



shadowlife said:


> Get rid of the idiotic restrictions.
> 
> Someone goes to a restaurant, has to wear a mask while they walk to their table and then take it off for the hour they’re eating? That makes sense to anyone here? It’s like having a “pissing section” at a public swimming pool.



You are missing the entire point. Government policy is about limiting the number of sick people who need to use medical resources. The restrictions aren't there to inconvenience you. They are there to protect other people. You are pitching a bunch of "I want to socialize at a restaurant, so I should be able to" without mentioning anything about medical workers who just want to be able to go work regular hours without worrying about getting sick.



shadowlife said:


> -Keep using the new sanitization protocols that most places have in effect. This should have happened even if there was never a COVID-19, as it would cut down on “illnesses” in general.



Like wearing masks and avoiding closed spaces? Those policies are for sanitization reasons. This point contradicts the previous point.



shadowlife said:


> -Stop all unnecessary testing. Save the tests and resources for the people who need it the most, the elderly and other high risk people



First, I think we are substantially undertesting. I have never been tested or asked if I wanted a test. The president was "over testing" the Whitehouse and still had a blow up there. Second, testing is because the virus spreads before symptoms. What is your plan to prevent something like NYC level outbreak without testing?

If anything, testing is an example where jobs can be created.



shadowlife said:


> If you have symptoms of COVID-19 and want to get tested, call your healthcare provider first. Most people will have mild illness and can recover at home without medical care and may not need to be tested



Um, the is exactly what is going on right now.



shadowlife said:


> Turning on a garden hose can be down with differing amounts of pressure. To reach someone standing six feet away you'd have to use a substantial amount of pressure.



Because people are experts at covering their mouths when sneezing and coughing. And they can also stop it from happening with little effort.


----------



## Drew

shadowlife said:


> Straight from the CDC, which hopefully is a valid enough source for all the fact checkers here:
> 
> _If you have symptoms of COVID-19 and want to get tested, call your healthcare provider first. Most people will have mild illness and can recover at home without medical care and may not need to be tested_.


Broken record, but this is exactly why we haven't been doing Covid-19 tests on people who died outside of hospitals for unclear reasons, you know. 

This is why the fact our excess mortality rate is in the ballpark of +20-25% is kind of concerning, and suggests we're probably missing a lot of deaths from Covid in our tally. The fact we're discouraging sick people from seeking tests in much of the country means we _know_ we're missing lots of cases of covid, as well.


----------



## MASS DEFECT

shadowlife said:


> You asked without being an ass about it, so here goes:
> 
> -Open everything.
> 
> Parents should have the option to keep their kids home from school if they choose and it’s economically feasible in their situation.
> 
> High risk people and people who live with high risk people can wear a mask, face visor, biohazard suit, whatever they want. But masks work right? That’s what all the experts say? So a mask should be good enough for the high risk people.
> 
> Healthy people with functioning immune systems should not have to wear a mask everywhere they go.
> 
> -Get rid of the idiotic restrictions.
> 
> Someone goes to a restaurant, has to wear a mask while they walk to their table and then take it off for the hour they’re eating? That makes sense to anyone here? It’s like having a “pissing section” at a public swimming pool.
> 
> -Keep using the new sanitization protocols that most places have in effect. This should have happened even if there was never a COVID-19, as it would cut down on “illnesses” in general.
> 
> 
> -Your estimate of 3-4 million more deaths is based on two things:
> 
> 1- a vaccine is never created. So then what? We stay in lockdown forever, acting like androids who are terrified to be near other humans?
> 
> 2-the death rate remains at 3-4% and doesn’t go down. Given that doctors and hospitals are better prepared to treat people with this now than they were in March, it’s conceivable that more people can be saved if they go to the hospital, and the death rate will decline.
> 
> And while yes, the number of infected people will go up if there are no restrictions, it’s not like all of a sudden there’s going to be 3 million people heading to the hospital at the same time.
> 
> 
> -Stop all unnecessary testing. Save the tests and resources for the people who need it the most, the elderly and other high risk people.
> 
> Straight from the CDC, which hopefully is a valid enough source for all the fact checkers here:
> 
> _If you have symptoms of COVID-19 and want to get tested, call your healthcare provider first. Most people will have mild illness and can recover at home without medical care and may not need to be tested_.



Man. America really needs to improve their Science school curriculum. This just runs contrary to any logic and scientific consensus. 
A lot of Asian countries have followed stricter measures that would make most Americans throw tantrums. Look at them now. They are almost back to normal. 

Why can't you guys just follow simple rules and elementary science? A 1st World Country, the most powerful one on earth, has 200,000 dead for what could have been an easily preventable infection--- just boggles the mind.


----------



## Wuuthrad

But come on... people _need _Brazilians!

And they’ve got rights to threaten to shoot anyone who disagrees!

Never mind nobody wants to see that FUPA...

Ppl have a right to spew! It’s written in secret drool on the constitution. It’s the Zero amendment!

Only special people with special powers can see it! It’s the side effect of Coronavirus!


----------



## Wuuthrad

And they thought I was crazy when I said viruses are mind control agents! Ladies and gentlemen....It’s true! Coronavirus is a narcotic! 

https://uahs.arizona.edu/news/pain-...-2-infection-may-help-explain-covid-19-spread


----------



## Wuuthrad

And why the f*** can’t we get N95? They were going to mail out masks to everyone...

7 months later and 3m can’t go into overtime and produce real masks for everyone?

This is pathetic. It was so easy to stop this. Just stay inside for a couple weeks...wear a mask.

Why are there millions of adults acting like petulant children?

Maybe anyone who still isn’t taking this serious should be a test subject for experimental drugs- you’re actions are almost going to infect you anyway, might as well put yourself to use. Just like your fearless leader!


----------



## fantom

Granted, this started before the pandemic, but one of the cited reasons is risk to nursing staff due to limited workers and ppe... Let's hope this doesn't spread to other hospitals. Please wear a mask and don't break our healthcare system anymore!

https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/fall-2020-strikes


----------



## fantom

Another interesting read... The former CDC director definitely doesn't think very highly of the Trump administration. Curious how @shadowlife can spin this

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7222830-Foege-Letter.html

It is all over the news, so unless most major news organization got scammed, this is legitimate.


----------



## Wuuthrad

Shit is no joke people! Mask up, wash up, distance and stop being idiots dragging everyone down the toilet with you. (I hope none has to hear this)

As far as “Socialism” is concerned?
100k $ medical bill for Trump Covid treatment, and counting.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ment-cost-healthcare-coronavirus-b863454.html


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Like I said on the second fucking page of this thread, even if this virus doesn't kill you, it'll sure as Hell bankrupt you and your family, which can be damn near as deadly in this country.


----------



## sleewell

is there irony in the fact that the miracle drug being touted by trump is made by stem cell research via abortion as he is putting a supreme court justice on the court who wants to abolish roe v wade?

its too bad every other person facing federal tax evasion charges can't get the govt to pay 100k for that sort of treatment.


----------



## Bogner

fantom said:


> Another interesting read... The former CDC director definitely doesn't think very highly of the Trump administration. Curious how @shadowlife can spin this
> 
> https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7222830-Foege-Letter.html
> 
> It is all over the news, so unless most major news organization got scammed, this is legitimate.


Since when has the news been accurate? Don't mistake repetition as truth. The CDC is in the patent/vaccine selling business.


----------



## shadowlife

Bogner said:


> Since when has the news been accurate? Don't mistake repetition as truth. The CDC is in the patent/vaccine selling business.



"Business" being the key word.


----------



## bostjan

Bogner said:


> Since when has the news been accurate? Don't mistake repetition as truth. The CDC is in the patent/vaccine selling business.



The CDC is a federal agency that answers to the President via the Secretary of Health.


----------



## StevenC

Bogner said:


> Since when has the news been accurate? Don't mistake repetition as truth. The CDC is in the patent/vaccine selling business.


It's really easy to feel this way as an American, but remember there is a whole rest of the world out there with similar thoughts and science that doesn't have privatised medicine.


----------



## BigViolin

Oh shit, truth!


----------



## Wuuthrad

Trump finally reveals the details of his long awaited “health care plan!” He wants everyone to have access to the same Covid treatment he got, for free....! lmfao

100k x how many hundred million? Isnt that like a gazillion dollars?

I know that steroid he’s on has some powerful side FX but man he trippin!

Better yet, send me 100k- I’ll find my own drugs tyvm! Or not!


----------



## Wuuthrad

Everyone needs to watch this:

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/podcast/dispatch/covid-19-the-medical-supply-crisis/


----------



## thebeesknees22

An old high school buddie's wife got covid, and she got suuuuuuuper sick. It's been around a month now. Pneumonia like symptoms etc.. I sometimes wonder if she's going to make it. She's like early 30's too.

My sister's a nurse, and she's been getting swamped. There were some younger-ish people who should have made it through ok die there.

I pretty much wound up breaking up with my gf because she wouldn't wear a mask or distance half the time when she was out and about. ..I'm not torn up by that decision. Recklessness is just a huge turnoff. 

yay covid!...... -____-


----------



## sleewell

trump had some struggles breathing/coughing last night on hannity. the roids def got him feeling some sort of way.


----------



## nightflameauto

sleewell said:


> trump had some struggles breathing/coughing last night on hannity. the roids def got him feeling some sort of way.


During the interview where he's declaring himself 100% cured no less.


----------



## sleewell

wear your damn mask, quit acting like a dumbass in support of a failed reality tv star. 

https://thehill.com/changing-americ...-arizona-saw-a-75-percent-drop-in-coronavirus

*Arizona saw a 75 percent drop in coronavirus cases after mask requirements and bar closures, CDC says*


----------



## ElRay

MaxOfMetal said:


> ... what you're saying runs counter to the medical and scientific community ...


That doesn't stop this crew. It's that same arrogant ignorance (The science/evidence doesn't make sense to me, therefore reality has to be wrong), willful ignorance (It violates what I've believed for years, there's no way I could have been wrong, therefore reality has to be wrong.) and/or conspiracy neurosis (All the evidence fits, therefore reality has to be wrong.) that keeps flat-earthers, anti-evolutionists, anti-vaxers, anthropogenic climate change deniers, pro-MLMers and tRump-Cult members in their reality-defying worlds.

Unfortunately, its also what keeps otherwise decent GOP members sacrificing their morals and ethics to fall in line and support the tRump-Cult.


----------



## ElRay

MaxOfMetal said:


> Like I said on the second fucking page of this thread, even if this virus doesn't kill you, it'll sure as Hell bankrupt you and your family, which can be damn near as deadly in this country.



... and even if it doesn't kill you, and you have good insurance, you could be left with permanent muscular, pulmonary, cardiac and/or neural problems.

... and even if it doesn't kill *YOU*, and _*YOU*_ have good insurance, *YOU* could infect somebody with crappy/no insurance.

... and even if it doesn't kill *YOU*, and _*YOU*_ have good insurance, *YOU* could infect somebody resulting in their death/permanent disability.

... and even if it doesn't kill *YOU*, and _*YOU*_ have good insurance, *YOU* could infect somebody, that lives with somebody, with crappy/no insurance that winds up in debt, with permanent disabilities and/or death.


----------



## Millul

The egoism is astounding.
People making it a matter of personal freedom, when WEARING A FUC#ING MASK is all that was asked of us.

Such a shame...and now, Europe is having to enforce stricter rules again, to avoid getting back to April-like conditions.


----------



## Randy

Nancy Pelosi Should Take The Stimulus Deal

"Pelosi instead spent the weekend blasting the White House offer, which includes $300 billion in aid to state and local governments, a $400-a-week boost to the unemployed and a more aggressive round of stimulus checks to households than those delivered under the March stimulus bill. The Trump administration proposal would provide a family of four making less than $150,000 an influx of at least $4,400, as The Washington Post detailed. This is real money.

And yet, in separate letters released Saturday and Sunday, Pelosi assailed the Trump proposal for failing to adequately address virus testing, tracing and vaccine development; refusing to tighten OSHA regulations; excluding economic relief to U.S. territories and Native American tribes; and for “cruelly” doing “nothing to address inequities in COVID incidence and impact on communities of color.”


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> Nancy Pelosi Should Take The Stimulus Deal
> 
> "Pelosi instead spent the weekend blasting the White House offer, which includes $300 billion in aid to state and local governments, a $400-a-week boost to the unemployed and a more aggressive round of stimulus checks to households than those delivered under the March stimulus bill. The Trump administration proposal would provide a family of four making less than $150,000 an influx of at least $4,400, as The Washington Post detailed. This is real money.
> 
> And yet, in separate letters released Saturday and Sunday, Pelosi assailed the Trump proposal for failing to adequately address virus testing, tracing and vaccine development; refusing to tighten OSHA regulations; excluding economic relief to U.S. territories and Native American tribes; and for “cruelly” doing “nothing to address inequities in COVID incidence and impact on communities of color.”


I mean, the shitty part of this debate is, BOTH arguments can simultaneously be right. 

All the things Pelosi is holding out for are of vital importance to both fighting a pandemic, and trying to fuel a recovery. And if taking a deal now makes any of these less likely to happen, that's a huge concern.

At the same time, something IS definitely better than nothing.


----------



## Randy

Drew said:


> I mean, the shitty part of this debate is, BOTH arguments can simultaneously be right.
> 
> All the things Pelosi is holding out for are of vital importance to both fighting a pandemic, and trying to fuel a recovery. And if taking a deal now makes any of these less likely to happen, that's a huge concern.
> 
> At the same time, something IS definitely better than nothing.



I think taking the deal is the right choice.

This is most likely the last deal you get before the election, after that, you're definitely not getting anything during the lame duck (supposing Trump loses, which is likely). If Biden wins but the Dems don't win the Senate, Republicans won't be anymore generous, they might not offer anything at all. State govs and workers can't wait 3+ months (or forever) for any additional relief.

On the flipside, if Biden wins AND the Dems take the Senate, they can still pass a more robust third plan that addresses the holes Pelosi sees in the current bill.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Randy said:


> I think taking the deal is the right choice.
> 
> This is most likely the last deal you get before the election, after that, you're definitely not getting anything during the lame duck (supposing Trump loses, which is likely). If Biden wins but the Dems don't win the Senate, Republicans won't be anymore generous, they might not offer anything at all. State govs and workers can't wait 3+ months (or forever) for any additional relief.
> 
> On the flipside, if Biden wins AND the Dems take the Senate, they can still pass a more robust third plan that addresses the holes Pelosi sees in the current bill.



This. 

It reflects poorly on both sides to not reach a deal. 

They think they're playing the game, but once again they're unprepared to sell what would be the right decision to make, reaching a deal, and spinning it as a victory. 

Pelosi and crew are just too damn used to sparring with "regular" old republicans to navigate dealing with someone with no ideology but themselves.


----------



## sleewell

nancy clearly has gotten the better of trump during these negotiations. she should recognize a win and take it.


----------



## SpaceDock

It’s a tough one because I see value in what she is holding out for but still seems like the time to make a deal. Worst part is that Republicans don’t see value in the hold out items, I just don’t get it.


----------



## Drew

sleewell said:


> nancy clearly has gotten the better of trump during these negotiations. she should recognize a win and take it.


I'm not sure she did this time. Trump and the GOP started out targeting what, $900B? The original Democratic bill was $3,300B. Last figure I saw was $1.8T so the GOP has come up $900B, while the Democrats have lowered their offer to $2,200B, or down $1,100B, with $400b of daylight between the two. True, some of it is the contents of the bill and not just the headline figures (and, not for nothing, the GOP plan includes reallocation of existing CARES Act funding as part of its spend), but the Democrats are nowhere close to being met in the middle, and Pelosi has a long list of (imo) pretty reasonable priorities that are not included here. Contrast this to the shutdown, which Pelosi won so handily that the final deal was actually more generous with her priorities than her original offer. Trump has just decided to make no substantial attempt to negotiate here, and has made just enough concessions so he can try to blame the Democrats for not working with him.



Randy said:


> I think taking the deal is the right choice.
> 
> This is most likely the last deal you get before the election, after that, you're definitely not getting anything during the lame duck (supposing Trump loses, which is likely). If Biden wins but the Dems don't win the Senate, Republicans won't be anymore generous, they might not offer anything at all. State govs and workers can't wait 3+ months (or forever) for any additional relief.
> 
> On the flipside, if Biden wins AND the Dems take the Senate, they can still pass a more robust third plan that addresses the holes Pelosi sees in the current bill.


What I wrote above notwithstanding, I'd be far more comfortable with this approach if I had a fair amount of confidence that Biden would win, and the Democrats would expand their House majority and pick up a significant Senate majority. The problem with just passing a stop gap until the Democrats can take it up in January, is you KNOW the GOP is going to stonewall any further spending because "we just made huge concessions to the Democrats on the _last_ bill and now they want to waste even more taxpayer money and bury us deeper in debt," and because now with Biden in the White House if things suck for the country, the Democrats own that, not the Republicans. As it stands, even with Democrats controlling all three chambers of government, it's awfully hard to see how they're going to get enough votes to block a filibuster, and in turn the best option they might have is to try to cobble something together revenue-neutral via reconciliation, and for stimulus spending to stimulate growth, it kinda has to be spending, not revenue-neutral accounting exercises, per a traditional economic understanding of the terms.

Idunno. I get the appeal of doing any sort of deal just get get some sort of stimulus spending going again... But I think the idea that "we can just pass another bill once the Democrats are in control" downplays some of the political realities of what they'll actually be able to do. Paradoxically, the best chance of passing a meaningful stimulus deal might be holding out until even the GOP can't deny the evidence that we NEED an additional meaningful stimulus bill. I don't like it, either.

EDIT - I'm not familiar with this columnist and where he's oriented politically, but scanning the op-ed: 



> The dispute over the stimulus in Democratic circles has not been about the economic situation, but the politics of addressing it. Passing a stimulus bill, critics argue, would hand Trump a much-needed legislative win heading into the November election.



...if he thinks THIS is why Pelosi isn't taking this deal, he's on crack and hasn't been paying attention. Not for nothing, Trump already publicly scuttled the talks so trying to take credit for any sort of deal after that would be pretty ludicrous.


----------



## Randy

Watch Alt-Right YouTuber Beg Cop For Mercy After Obnoxious Anti-Mask Stunt Backfires


----------



## bostjan

Half-joking question: If a democrat governor mandated an executive order banning self-inflicted cranial gunshot wounds, would any alt-right folks shoot themselves in protest? If not, what if Trump tweeted that bullets are no big deal?


----------



## Drew

Drew said:


> ...if he thinks THIS is why Pelosi isn't taking this deal, he's on crack and hasn't been paying attention. Not for nothing, Trump already publicly scuttled the talks so trying to take credit for any sort of deal after that would be pretty ludicrous.


Further reason I think this argument is bullshit - Trump is _pushing_ for a big stimulus on Twitter - "STIMULUS! Go Big Or Go Home!" - much to the annoyance of the congressional GOP coalition, who are well aware that in three months' time they'll very likely be in the minority and pushing against Democratic initiatives by saying we can't spend money because of the national debt, so passing a bigger bill so soon before they all become born-again budget hawks is a bit too much of a flip-flop for them.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> Further reason I think this argument is bullshit - Trump is _pushing_ for a big stimulus on Twitter - "STIMULUS! Go Big Or Go Home!" - much to the annoyance of the congressional GOP coalition, who are well aware that in three months' time they'll very likely be in the minority and pushing against Democratic initiatives by saying we can't spend money because of the national debt, so passing a bigger bill so soon before they all become born-again budget hawks is a bit too much of a flip-flop for them.



No flip flop is too big for the GOP.
Just look at the Supreme Court bamboozle.


----------



## Randy

This clearly going well. Forgive NYP channel but the video is best condensed version of what happened without 15min of crosstalk.



'Stop playing games with our lives': Americans on financial brink plead with politicians to pass bill for 2nd stimulus checks


----------



## slan

I'll just leave this here.


----------



## MASS DEFECT

^Cringe. That unmasked lady politician and black dogs (omg racial dogwhistle for real) is supposed to be Pelosi and BLM? lol Andy James is waisting his talent.


----------



## SpaceDock

Randy said:


> Watch Alt-Right YouTuber Beg Cop For Mercy After Obnoxious Anti-Mask Stunt Backfires



Some people are just so horribly desperate for attention, blows my mind.


----------



## sleewell

I'd wear a Death mask. Lots of bands are selling them. Would beat my light blue freebie from work.


----------



## narad

slan said:


> I'll just leave this here.




Directed by im14andthisisdeep


----------



## Chokey Chicken

slan said:


> I'll just leave this here.





What the fuck did I just watch? I don't know what's worse; the video or the surprising amount of "truth bomb dropped" comments.


----------



## Randy

slan said:


> I'll just leave this here.




Boomer AF


----------



## StevenC

Did Ben Garrison direct this?


----------



## Science_Penguin

Chokey Chicken said:


> What the fuck did I just watch? I don't know what's worse; the video or the surprising amount of "truth bomb dropped" comments.



"Surprising?"

Nah, this is FFDP we're talking about. They know their audience.


----------



## Ralyks

So Pelosi is now giving a deadline of Tuesday to get a deal done before the election.

It's a bold strategy Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for her.


----------



## fantom

slan said:


> I'll just leave this here.




I really don't understand the message of this video. Considering Trump is acting more like a Soviet dictator than any other US president ever has, how can they seriously create something like this and not feel like tools.

And whoever said Andy James is wasting his talent... Understatement of the year contender.


----------



## Randy

Ralyks said:


> So Pelosi is now giving a deadline of Tuesday to get a deal done before the election.
> 
> It's a bold strategy Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for her.



No idea how much leverage she had here, I thought it was a terrible bluff but then I heard her last call to WH was positive.


----------



## MASS DEFECT

fantom said:


> I really don't understand the message of this video. Considering Trump is acting more like a Soviet dictator than any other US president ever has, how can they seriously create something like this and not feel like tools.
> 
> And whoever said Andy James is wasting his talent... Understatement of the year contender.


 lol I even mispelled it as "waisting". 

Yes, it a waste. But I think the dude agress with Zoltan, since he shared his Facebook post about this not being anti-mask and just pro-freedom. Whatever that means. Why do they think this is an upfront to their freedoms?

Americans are still deep in the pandemic because of this mindset.


----------



## bostjan

Freedom means being able to do whatever the heck you want as long as it doesn't infringe on the freedoms of anyone else to do whatever they want.

For example, I can be free to swing my arms around like an asshole all I want, but if I'm within 6ish feet of another person, my doing so would infringe on their right to do the same, so it's no longer libertarian philosophy so much as simply being an asshat.

Likewise, if you want to not wear a mask in public during a pandemic, that's fine, as long as you stay the hell away from me or any air that might be upwind of me, but the moment you infringe on that condition, you are no longer exercising your rights, but rather infringing on mine.

I know philosophy is a difficult subject, but, this particular scenario is pretty easy to understand.


----------



## Randy

FFDP: LOL! Gotcha, sorry you liberals are too triggered to realize the masks were a metaphor! As an aside, you can go online to FFDP.com and buy a mask from us!

https://www.metalinsider.net/news/f...ssues-statement-on-new-living-the-dream-video


----------



## spudmunkey

My brother's wife's really- beloved grandmother has it, And they need to decide to put her in a ventilator or not. They live in rural Wisconsin, and I know my brother and his wife have been reluctant participants in the general "chose life over fear" philosophy everyone there seems to have, which extra sucks.


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> No idea how much leverage she had here, I thought it was a terrible bluff but then I heard her last call to WH was positive.


It seems... overly aggressive, I agree. 

However, Pelosi is a seasoned politician and an expert negotiator - you're only as good as your last game, of course, but she did take Trump to the cleaners in the government shutdown fiasco over his wall funding. And there's definitely a weird power structure in play here, where Trump wants a big deal to deliver to his base before the election, Pelosi wants a big deal because Democrats are the party that believes the government CAN help, and McConnell doesn't want a big deal because he believes Reagan's quip about how "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" is one of the scariest sentences in the English language. So there's definitely room to work here, especially if Trump's position is that he just has to hold out because the Democrats will be more desperate to pass a bill than he'll be, and will eventually just get desperate and fold. If he thinks that's no longer on the table, then yeah, I could say him moving in a hurry, and agreeing to a package much closer to what the Democrats have been holding out for, if he believes the alternative is no stimulus at all. And if he does that, and Mnuchin and Pelosi agree to a bill, then McConnell is going to be put in a VERY difficult place, in an election where some sort of stimulus is very popular with a lot of Americans, and the Senate is in very real jeopardy of falling into Democratic hands. 

I don't know if it's a _good_ strategy. But, I can at least put myself into a headspace where it's not a _bad _strategy, where the outcomes are 1) no deal, which is the status quo (neither good nor bad politically for Pelosi, bad economically), 2) an agreement for a deal between Pelosi and Mnuchin much closer to what the Democrats wanted, that McConnell won't stomach and dies in the Senate (good politically for Pelosi, bad economically), or 3) an agreement much closer to what the Democrats wanted that McConnell grudgingly puts to a vote and sends to Trump with a handful of moderate Republicans and virtually all Democrats supporting it (good for Pelosi politically, good economically). Or, possibly, 4) the deal still mostly sticks to the Republican contours but Pelosi wrangles out a few more concessions, and it passes the Senate and goes to Trump's desk, which I'd say is less good than 2 and 3 politically for Pelosi but still better than the stalemate in 1, but is also probably good politically for most other parties involved on the measure, though it gets a little complex when assessing the impact on individual Senators in close re-election races. 

I mean, the more I think about it, whatever else it may be, it's not crazy, provided she really does walk away from the negotiating table if nothing comes of it.


----------



## Drew

spudmunkey said:


> My brother's wife's really- beloved grandmother has it, And they need to decide to put her in a ventilator or not. They live in rural Wisconsin, and I know my brother and his wife have been reluctant participants in the general "chose life over fear" philosophy everyone there seems to have, which extra sucks.


Man, I'll keep her family in my thoughts.


----------



## odibrom

Hey folks, I just came across this video, which is kind of "Conspiracy Theory" themed, but, nevertheless, it delivers lots of information, almost like those CSI tv series. I cannot process this amount of info because most of its players and references are unknown to me (bear with me, I'm not American, nor English, nor German, I'm from a small country in Europe). I can process however that it makes serious accusations to lots of people and that, as I suspected, this may well be a plot from those in/with power (not necessarily the politicians, although these may well be easily corrupted... I wonder why??). So, what say you, is this video bull shit or is it food for fight??



Sorry, subs in Portuguese, but you can all follow his voice...?

Again, I'm sharing this video seeking your opinions because I'm fucking messed up with this shit. Understand also that I'm not positioning myself as believer or not, I prefer to consider myself as neutral, as an angry neutral because I'm fed up with lies from allover the place and sources. I believe in science because science is seeking knowledge, I just don't believe in men and their agendas, and even less in scientist with "pay checks" or "connections".

I've been learning throughout human history that, as religion, science is now being used to push agendas and obscured interests so some may profit while many others languish. It sickens me how some people can be so money hungry and careless with all the rest of mankind, wildlife or the earth itself... how long will it take for us to go back into the caves era? Which will kill us first, the _T-Virus_ from _Resident Evil_, the _Skynet _from _Terminator_ (which latter became know as... "_The Matrix_")?...

FUCK!... sorry, had to say it. FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!


----------



## fantom

MASS DEFECT said:


> lol I even mispelled it as "waisting".
> 
> Yes, it a waste. But I think the dude agress with Zoltan, since he shared his Facebook post about this not being anti-mask and just pro-freedom. Whatever that means. Why do they think this is an upfront to their freedoms?
> 
> Americans are still deep in the pandemic because of this mindset.



The stupid thing about it... People who are antimask are usually the same ones that want schools to make sure girls aren't showing too much skin. Because forcing others to wear clothing to cover up someone's belly button and shoulders is necessary to stop boys from commiting rape, but clothing on your face to stop you from getting someone else sick is a violation of freedom.

Can we start serving antimaskers who get people sick manslaughter charges? Maybe that will get the point across.

Fwiw: I agree with dress codes, just think masks should be more strict than dress codes.



Randy said:


> FFDP: LOL! Gotcha, sorry you liberals are too triggered to realize the masks were a metaphor! As an aside, you can go online to FFDP.com and buy a mask from us!
> 
> https://www.metalinsider.net/news/f...ssues-statement-on-new-living-the-dream-video



The statement doesn't call out trump or the gop as being hypocrotical. It reads like "all sides are equally bad" crap that gets dropped when white supremacists run over protesters.


----------



## bostjan

odibrom said:


> Hey folks, I just came across this video, which is kind of "Conspiracy Theory" themed, but, nevertheless, it delivers lots of information, almost like those CSI tv series. I cannot process this amount of info because most of its players and references are unknown to me (bear with me, I'm not American, nor English, nor German, I'm from a small country in Europe). I can process however that it makes serious accusations to lots of people and that, as I suspected, this may well be a plot from those in/with power (not necessarily the politicians, although these may well be easily corrupted... I wonder why??). So, what say you, is this video bull shit or is it food for fight??
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry, subs in Portuguese, but you can all follow his voice...?
> 
> Again, I'm sharing this video seeking your opinions because I'm fucking messed up with this shit. Understand also that I'm not positioning myself as believer or not, I prefer to consider myself as neutral, as an angry neutral because I'm fed up with lies from allover the place and sources. I believe in science because science is seeking knowledge, I just don't believe in men and their agendas, and even less in scientist with "pay checks" or "connections".
> 
> I've been learning throughout human history that, as religion, science is now being used to push agendas and obscured interests so some may profit while many others languish. It sickens me how some people can be so money hungry and careless with all the rest of mankind, wildlife or the earth itself... how long will it take for us to go back into the caves era? Which will kill us first, the _T-Virus_ from _Resident Evil_, the _Skynet _from _Terminator_ (which latter became know as... "_The Matrix_")?...
> 
> FUCK!... sorry, had to say it. FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!




I only made it to the part where he said that the death rate worldwide has not gone up. The death rate has actually gone up 5% from 2018 to 2019 and, since it's still 2020, we don't know the final number, but the first half of the year went up another 4% higher than 2019. If you count the total deaths from 56 million to projected 58 1/4 million, this is a surplus of 2 1/4 million, actually much higher than the 1 1/8 million reported covid deaths. Take further into account that the lockdown has decreased traffic accidents, and you're left with exactly the opposite conundrum that the man in the video is arguing as evident.

This is the typical conspiracy-related bullshit that people do where they state a bunch of utter bullshit as fact with no source to back it up, and figure that no one will put forth the effort to research anything themselves. I didn't bother fact-checking anything else he's saying, since every conclusion hinges on the last, and his starting point is a lie.

Also, what do the government agencies have to gain from going along with the lies? The big pharma companies sure are raking it in by selling the zero treatments available and zero vaccines available right now. How absolutely ridiculous!


----------



## nightflameauto

odibrom said:


> Hey folks, I just came across this video, which is kind of "Conspiracy Theory" themed, but, nevertheless, it delivers lots of information, almost like those CSI tv series. I cannot process this amount of info because most of its players and references are unknown to me (bear with me, I'm not American, nor English, nor German, I'm from a small country in Europe). I can process however that it makes serious accusations to lots of people and that, as I suspected, this may well be a plot from those in/with power (not necessarily the politicians, although these may well be easily corrupted... I wonder why??). So, what say you, is this video bull shit or is it food for fight??
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry, subs in Portuguese, but you can all follow his voice...?
> 
> Again, I'm sharing this video seeking your opinions because I'm fucking messed up with this shit. Understand also that I'm not positioning myself as believer or not, I prefer to consider myself as neutral, as an angry neutral because I'm fed up with lies from allover the place and sources. I believe in science because science is seeking knowledge, I just don't believe in men and their agendas, and even less in scientist with "pay checks" or "connections".
> 
> I've been learning throughout human history that, as religion, science is now being used to push agendas and obscured interests so some may profit while many others languish. It sickens me how some people can be so money hungry and careless with all the rest of mankind, wildlife or the earth itself... how long will it take for us to go back into the caves era? Which will kill us first, the _T-Virus_ from _Resident Evil_, the _Skynet _from _Terminator_ (which latter became know as... "_The Matrix_")?...
> 
> FUCK!... sorry, had to say it. FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!



Man, conspiracy theorists are having a field day with the pandemic, despite the fact that it is a real thing that is really happening.

The problem is that conspiracy theory says the entire thing is a plot, while not taking into account the very real adage most governments and power seekers the world over believe in. "Never let a tragedy go to waste." So, yes, the pandemic is real. The death toll is real. The overloaded hospitals are real. And politicians everywhere are using it as an excuse to grab more power, as that is always their end goal. The fact they're acting in bad faith doesn't negate the reality of the pandemic, it's just another symptom of our society trying to eat itself.


----------



## odibrom

Again, I don't consider myself as a believer nor a denier, I rather be conscious and alert to whatever comes. That video honestly confuses me and I'm having a hard time in what sources to believe since I'm not versed in micro biology, virology or internal medicine, for example.

@bostjan my understanding, is that this man is arguing that most of the deaths are not from this new corona virus, but from other diseases that got mistreated and labeled (on purpose?) as Covid19 deaths. He also says that the most common "ON/OFF" test delivers mostly false positives and that the hospitals were not that full of CoVid19 patients and that there's a media orchestration behind this in collusion with the big pharma and a few other players. What do they have to gain? money, obviously. Where does it comes from? From selling/licencing (?) tests, masks, cleansing products,etc... If this is to be true, I'm betting he is getting a price on his head...

I'm sure that there is in fact a virus circulating the globe, that I got validated. But some things make me itch, and in particular the fact that W.H.O. asked not to do autopsies to the dead bodies... WHY? Why did they ask/say that? Forgive me if this has already been debated here and I missed, maybe someone could do a quick update?

Now, in order to make this plot work, one should have to deal a whole lot of effort in so every single doctor in ICU/ER (or whatever) would declare COVID19 as cause of death. That's a hell lot of pay checks to make, world wide. So I find that this videos, although it may have some interesting points of view as lack of plural opinions, also extrapolates a lot so the effort needed to get things done as he says seams almost "impossible"...

I'm divided here, for one side, I don't want to be a blind follower of whatever is said in TV/net/wherever from whatever side of this question, on the other, the more I read on this, the more confused I get. I'm starting to believe that there are no honest persons and that everyone and their mothers is trying to get a larger slice of the Sun for themselves.


----------



## bostjan

Well, everything you said breaks down if the claim that the death rate hasn't gone up worldwide ends up being false, though. Which, if you look up the numbers, seems to be a bullshit claim.

If covid isn't killing people, then what is?

WHO doesn't do autopsies, because they have nothing to gain for anyone by doing them, and they are already spread super thin. I mean, by the same token, why don't the conspiracy theorists do the autopsies? If you think WHO is some sort of powerful trillion-dollar organisation, then maybe look that up independently as well, because they are not.


----------



## odibrom

Forgive me for eventually not expressing myself correctly. My question is still why did W.H.O. recommended "NOT TO DO AUTOPSIES"? Wouldn't it be the first thing doctors should do to find more about this "new virus", how it kills, what organs get targeted? That is REALLY SHADY in my book... there have been some Spanish and I think also Italian doctors doing autopsies to the dead supposedly killed by Covid (going against W.H.O. recommendations) and are trying to tell their story. But the conspiracy theory doesn't fill all this story's black holes...

... we are in need for a new evolution of men, from Homo Sapiens to Homo Sentiens...


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Honestly, fuck conspiracy theorists and especially fuck the dipshits who proliferate this schlock. 

It's offensive. It's insensitive. It's demeaning. It's embarrassing. 

I get it, a lot of this shit doesn't make sense to the lay person. But once-in-a-generation experts in thier field, with mountains of credentials, with unimpeachable track records have said, in detail, what is going on. 

That's all I'm saying. I'm done with this thread for now. It's so draining. 

I also don't care what you have to say. Not even a little.


----------



## Ralyks

Honestly, after watching John Oliver this week, a lot about the W.H.O. made a ton more sense. Especially considering that work on a budget on a large hospital, except they're, y'know, dealing with the entire globe.


----------



## odibrom

Again, my apologies, my intentions are/were not of derailing this thread nor fomenting any conspiracy theory, I've said it up front that that particular video had that vibe. I shared it because it made me feel awkward, sad and in need for other opinions about it from people with other information sources, so I could make my mind a little better on this subject. For that I thank you. I have doubts, lots of them, about this whole situation either in my country as well as world wide, and I only gather this much info. Accessing people with other sources of information on the same subject is a way of learning a bit more, and that's why I reached for the good folks of SSO, and you delivered good info, feelings and vibes. Again, my apologies for any possible misreading of my intentions and a big thank you for your tremendous patience (yep, that's you @bostjan ) .

@MaxOfMetal please, don't be mad at/because of me, I was honestly in need for some assistance in understanding that particular video.

 to all!...


----------



## bostjan

I wasn't part of the WHO's decision making process to recommend against autopsies on covid patients, but, if I were, I would have made the same decision. Here's why:

1. There were a number of cases, early in the pandemic, in which coroners contracted the disease from dead bodies, in spite of using PPE, particularly in southeast Asia.
2. There is already a large amount of data regarding the pathology of covid, i.e. how it affects the lungs to kill people, so there might be some value in the autopsy, but not enough to warrant potentially expose more people to the disease.
3. I would not take into account the possibility of conspiracy theorists thinking I, or my organization, was up to something nefarious. Frankly, conspiracy theorists gonna conspiracy theorize. 

We more recently learned that there might be several other pathological processes with SARS-CoV-2 infections that, in retrospect, might have been caught earlier, had there been more autopsies - but - that's not a guarantee, and also, there are no proven treatments for any of it as of yet. So... potentially exposing coroners and their staff to a deadly virus for little or no gain in the battle against the disease would have been a bad move.


----------



## spudmunkey

spudmunkey said:


> My brother's wife's really- beloved grandmother has it, And they need to decide to put her in a ventilator or not. They live in rural Wisconsin, and I know my brother and his wife have been reluctant participants in the general "chose life over fear" philosophy everyone there seems to have, which extra sucks.



She died late this morning, after complications from pneumonia. She never went on a ventilator because she was afraid of the dangers.

Another cousin found out he has it this morning, and is feeling a little under the weather and got tested. Turns out his mom tested positive for the antibodies, but never knew she had it. She went to donate blood, and a test is a part of that process now.


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> Honestly, fuck conspiracy theorists and especially fuck the dipshits who proliferate this schlock.
> 
> *It's offensive. It's insensitive. It's demeaning. It's embarrassing.*



It's worse than that, it's actually dangerous.
Because then people start to believe it and then people will fail to take basic protective measures and then people end up spreading that thing like wildfire.


----------



## Ralyks

spudmunkey said:


> She died late this morning, after complications from pneumonia. She never went on a ventilator because she was afraid of the dangers.
> 
> Another cousin found out he has it this morning, and is feeling a little under the weather and got tested. Turns out his mom tested positive for the antibodies, but never knew she had it. She went to donate blood, and a test is a part of that process now.



My condolences


----------



## mbardu

spudmunkey said:


> She died late this morning, after complications from pneumonia. She never went on a ventilator because she was afraid of the dangers.
> 
> Another cousin found out he has it this morning, and is feeling a little under the weather and got tested. Turns out his mom tested positive for the antibodies, but never knew she had it. She went to donate blood, and a test is a part of that process now.



This sucks big time. Sorry for your loss.


----------



## Drew

odibrom said:


> @bostjan my understanding, is that this man is arguing that most of the deaths are not from this new corona virus, but from other diseases that got mistreated and labeled (on purpose?) as Covid19 deaths. He also says that the most common "ON/OFF" test delivers mostly false positives and that the hospitals were not that full of CoVid19 patients and that there's a media orchestration behind this in collusion with the big pharma and a few other players. What do they have to gain? money, obviously. Where does it comes from? From selling/licencing (?) tests, masks, cleansing products,etc... If this is to be true, I'm betting he is getting a price on his head...


I mean, I know you're just passing along something you saw for discussion, and that this is your summarizing something you watched, rather than deeply-held beliefs of your own... so, I trust you won't be offended when I say that this argument is a load of shit. 

The best analogy I've seen to the "yes, they had covid, but it wasn't covid that killed them" argument is to pretend that, instead of covid, it was something else. Say, a gunshot. If someone was shot, rushed to the hospital, and eventully died, and they had diabetes, people making this argument are basically saying, "oh, it wasn't the bullet that killed them, they had a pre-existing diabetes condition." That's ludicrous. 

Do COVID tests have false positives? Yes. A bad test may display a false positive as often as 5% of the time. It'll also display false negatives, but let's ignore those and say that it's never a false negative, and that the "positive" test result rate is 105% of the real rate, or put another way the underlying symptomatic infection rate is maybe 95.2% of the reported symptomatic infection rate. I mean, that doesn't really move the needle... There's still a fucking LOT of people who have Covid. 

If you think this is about money... The margins on tests, cleaning products, masks, etc, are not that high, and most of that is going to places outside of the medical community (my go-to masks are made by cycling and outdoor companies, most of my disinfectant products are from Trader Joe's, etc). But, you know where you REALLY make money? Extended hospitalizations, not two weeks on a ventilator, but several months as part of wnd of life care. If you think this whole thing is just letting people die off now to make more money, well, the financial incentives are kind of against letting people die of a viral plague. 

And, I can assuure you - thinks are a bit better here in Mass, though we're heading towards a second peak in mid-November... but my GF is a doctor, and in April, things got BAD in the hospitals in the greater Boston area. She thankfully spent most of her time on an overflow team covering the ICU so the ICU doctors could handle the overflow COVID wings, but did a few shifts in the COVID wings herself, and most of the nights she did, when I went over to her place I'd find her in the fetal position on her couch. 

This guy is full of shit. You want an economic reason to understand this video? Check how many views he's gotten, and I don't know if YouTube has disabled monetization on Covid videos or not yet, but I'd bet heavily they hadn't when he posted that.


----------



## Drew

spudmunkey said:


> She died late this morning, after complications from pneumonia. She never went on a ventilator because she was afraid of the dangers.
> 
> Another cousin found out he has it this morning, and is feeling a little under the weather and got tested. Turns out his mom tested positive for the antibodies, but never knew she had it. She went to donate blood, and a test is a part of that process now.


Fucking hell, man, I'm so sorry.


----------



## odibrom

@Drew thank you very much for your informed reply. I truly needed another view on that video 'cause I'm not inside of all of this, hence posting it here to ask for everyone's thoughts. You and @bostjan provided it. I insisted a bit on the video's arguments in order only to really understand this deaper, so and again, I'm sorry for possible misreadings of my intentions. Please don't read me as a troll here. Best regards to all.


----------



## Drew

odibrom said:


> @Drew thank you very much for your informed reply. I truly needed another view on that video 'cause I'm not inside of all of this, hence posting it here to ask for everyone's thoughts. You and @bostjan provided it. I insisted a bit on the video's arguments in order only to really understand this deaper, so and again, I'm sorry for possible misreadings of my intentions. Please don't read me as a troll here. Best regards to all.


Likewise, thank you for taking my reply in the manner I intended it, and not as a personal attack. You posted that looking for second opinions and critical thinking, not to troll.


----------



## fantom

Just gonna leave this here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/jhxybe/business_sign_in_oakland/


----------



## fantom

shadowlife said:


> According to the crowd here, the US never followed the lockdowns, and yet the curve was flattened, and I don't know of a single hospital that was overrun. So tell me again why the lockdowns were/are needed?



Aside from the places I already mentioned, what so you think about this? SLC is going to start prioritizing care to less sick and younger people. Doctors are literally receiving instructions to let people die. Right now. Trump adminstration has done nothing except admit defeat. People are literally dying while you claim nothing is wrong.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/10/25/with-coronavirus-cases/


----------



## spudmunkey

Hospitals in some parts of Wisconsin are already seeing at-capacity COVID and ICU wards, so the state has opened up a field hospital in the State Fair Park grounds.
https://www.postcrescent.com/story/...breaking-point-state-prepares-ove/5915194002/ They planned for it in April, but only just opened it and they've only started using it in the last couple of days. It's meant for new cases where people aren't serious enough to need such close care, but not healthy enough to go home yet, to save the actual hospital resources for the more serious cases.

1 month ago to the day, they were averaging 5 deaths statewide. One month later, the average is 28 and climbing. Looking at cases numbers from 2 weeks ago, which deaths usually lag behind, they are 80% higher now than they were two weeks ago, which was 25% higher than 2 weeks before...so new cases are ramping up (and not linearly), with deaths ramping up shortly behind...and these deaths were seeing now are with 7 months of improved understanding of the disease and therapies.

Up until September 30th, the highest deaths they've seen was 22, one day was 20, and one day was 19. From September 30th on, there have been 10 days with over 20 daily deaths, including two days over 40 and two more over 30.

You're also taking US as a whole. Parts of the country took lockdowns more seriously that others. You can't even go state-by-state. The resolution is much more fine than that.


----------



## SpaceDock

This is just like Spanish Flu, this winter is when our health systems are going to be truly tested.


----------



## Drew

We broke 90,000 daily new cases on Friday in the States, and while here in Massachusetts we're doing better than most of the rest of the country, our governor just rolled a bunch of restrictions back into place effective Friday, including a state-wide facemask mandate when out in public. 

As a guy who wears glasses, I've pretty much resigned myself to being blind outdoors this winter, lol.


----------



## spudmunkey

Some agency in Wisconsin posted a graphic that says the state passed 2000 deaths, and the comments are ALL (Why isn't it reported that almost all are in dem areas like Milwaukee and Madison?" and memes about how "people are free to have a different opinion" and then spin out of control into "race issues got this bad under Obama". *sigh*


----------



## spudmunkey

Drew said:


> We broke 90,000 daily new cases on Friday in the States, and while here in Massachusetts we're doing better than most of the rest of the country, our governor just rolled a bunch of restrictions back into place effective Friday, including a state-wide facemask mandate when out in public.
> 
> As a guy who wears glasses, I've pretty much resigned myself to being blind outdoors this winter, lol.



Have you tried any of the products out there for reducing fog? I know they've existed for years especially for snorkel/SCUBA facemasks, but always just used spit.


----------



## Drew

spudmunkey said:


> Have you tried any of the products out there for reducing fog? I know they've existed for years especially for snorkel/SCUBA facemasks, but always just used spit.


Not yet. My girlfriend - who splits time between contacts and glasses but mainly wears glasses at work in a hospital - is strting to research them, though, and researching things is sort of her happy place, so I'm letting her run with it. 

Turns out that MA order is actually a full stay-at-home curfew between 10pm and 5am, ongoing. Wish we could institute that Wednesday at midnight, just in case.


----------



## Surveyor 777

Drew, if you guys find something that works, please let me know. I always have the fogging problem with the glasses I wear in the winter for fatbiking - my facemask forces my breath up into the glasses and they fog up all the time.


----------



## KnightBrolaire




----------



## Drew

Surveyor 777 said:


> Drew, if you guys find something that works, please let me know. I always have the fogging problem with the glasses I wear in the winter for fatbiking - my facemask forces my breath up into the glasses and they fog up all the time.


I absolutely do. 

@KnightBrolaire - it's only November, let's not get ahead of ourselves.


----------



## spudmunkey

KnightBrolaire said:


> View attachment 86643



That's all well and good, but we didn't lose Neil Peart or Eddie Van Halen in 536AD.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

Drew said:


> I absolutely do.
> 
> @KnightBrolaire - it's only November, let's not get ahead of ourselves.


I'm still hoping that yellowstone goes off and truly fucks this country up


----------



## nightflameauto

KnightBrolaire said:


> I'm still hoping that yellowstone goes off and truly fucks this country up


I'm down with this. That or that giant meteor everybody keeps hoping for.


----------



## spudmunkey

nightflameauto said:


> I'm down with this. That or that giant meteor everybody keeps hoping for.


----------



## sleewell




----------



## possumkiller

nightflameauto said:


> I'm down with this. That or that giant meteor everybody keeps hoping for.


Careful what you wish for. Even if trump loses, he still controls the nukes until January.


----------



## vilk

spudmunkey said:


> Have you tried any of the products out there for reducing fog? I know they've existed for years especially for snorkel/SCUBA facemasks, but always just used spit.





Drew said:


> Not yet. My girlfriend - who splits time between contacts and glasses but mainly wears glasses at work in a hospital - is strting to research them, though, and researching things is sort of her happy place, so I'm letting her run with it.
> 
> Turns out that MA order is actually a full stay-at-home curfew between 10pm and 5am, ongoing. Wish we could institute that Wednesday at midnight, just in case.





Surveyor 777 said:


> Drew, if you guys find something that works, please let me know. I always have the fogging problem with the glasses I wear in the winter for fatbiking - my facemask forces my breath up into the glasses and they fog up all the time.



I recommend Pitta mask. It's a Japanese patented micromesh mask that's super comfortable and, in my experience, has way less fogging issues than any other mask I've tried (even ones with special pads to block air from moving up into glasses). Luckily I have had some that my wife brought back from Japan since before the pandemic even happened, but I see that they are now available on Amazon.


----------



## narad

vilk said:


> I recommend Pitta mask. It's a Japanese patented micromesh mask that's super comfortable and, in my experience, has way less fogging issues than any other mask I've tried (even ones with special pads to block air from moving up into glasses). Luckily I have had some that my wife brought back from Japan since before the pandemic even happened, but I see that they are now available on Amazon.



Meanwhile I'm here wondering if the masks sold in the US are better for caucasian features, since with the masks sold here and the height of my nose, I lose about 25% of my lower visible range and going down stairs becomes an act of blind faith.


----------



## vilk

narad said:


> Meanwhile I'm here wondering if the masks sold in the US are better for caucasian features, since with the masks sold here and the height of my nose, I lose about 25% of my lower visible range and going down stairs becomes an act of blind faith.


With pitta mask, I actually tuck it under the nose pads of my glasses, and this improves the visibility. Can't really do it with paper masks though. Are you using a pitta mask? Oh, I guess you'd need to be wearing glasses as well hah


----------



## tedtan

Surveyor 777 said:


> Drew, if you guys find something that works, please let me know. I always have the fogging problem with the glasses I wear in the winter for fatbiking - my facemask forces my breath up into the glasses and they fog up all the time.



I used to go on multi day fishing trips and sleep in my truck overnight and found that Fog-X (I think it's called Rain-X Anti Fog now) would prevent the windows from fogging up. I haven't tried it on glasses, but it's definitely worth a shot.


----------



## Surveyor 777

tedtan said:


> I used to go on multi day fishing trips and sleep in my truck overnight and found that Fog-X (I think it's called Rain-X Anti Fog now) would prevent the windows from fogging up. I haven't tried it on glasses, but it's definitely worth a shot.



Thanks - I'll try that this winter. I wouldn't have a problem with fogging when I walk outside with my glasses on. It's just when I pull my facemask over my mouth. There isn't a tight seal by my nose, so all my breath coming out of my mouth goes straight up into my glasses.

I try breathing through my nose but when I'm really exerting myself, I start breathing through my mouth - I can't help it.


----------



## narad

vilk said:


> With pitta mask, I actually tuck it under the nose pads of my glasses, and this improves the visibility. Can't really do it with paper masks though. Are you using a pitta mask? Oh, I guess you'd need to be wearing glasses as well hah



I'm using a pitta-style mask, with the ridge in the middle that definitely helps. But yea, I'm going to need to throw on some glasses for fashion and usability I guess


----------



## slan

Fingers crossed...

https://investors.pfizer.com/invest...erim-Analysis-from-Phase-3-Study/default.aspx


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

Surveyor 777 said:


> Thanks - I'll try that this winter. I wouldn't have a problem with fogging when I walk outside with my glasses on. It's just when I pull my facemask over my mouth. There isn't a tight seal by my nose, so all my breath coming out of my mouth goes straight up into my glasses.
> 
> I try breathing through my nose but when I'm really exerting myself, I start breathing through my mouth - I can't help it.


Pitta masks are the best I’ve used for fogging so far.


----------



## StevenC

Somebody tell Mike Pence praying for it doesn't count as contributing to vaccine development.


----------



## gunch

We think DeWine is going to shut Ohio down again


----------



## gunch

gunch said:


> We think DeWine is going to shut Ohio down again


In a week if cases don’t go down, other than that just telling people to keep masking up


----------



## bostjan

Bosses where I work have to urge people to stay home. Numbers here in VT had been really really low until this week. And in two weeks college kids are coming back home. I'm tempted to lock myself in my house until 2021.


----------



## Mathemagician

tedtan said:


> I used to go on multi day fishing trips and sleep in my truck overnight and found that Fog-X (I think it's called Rain-X Anti Fog now) would prevent the windows from fogging up. I haven't tried it on glasses, but it's definitely worth a shot.



Just throwing out do some reading on what’s in that before you put it that close to your eyes. 3-5ft away on a windshield is different from something your eyelashes can occasionally brush against. 



StevenC said:


> Somebody tell Mike Pence praying for it doesn't count as contributing to vaccine development.




Pfizer declined all government aid in order to not be held to any politicization of a vaccine or trial result. They weren’t part of any program and immediately shot down any baseless claims Pence tried to make.


----------



## Ralyks

https://www.google.com/amp/s/market...9-vaccine-results-unveiled-2020-11-1029790705

Pfizer saving the world AND doing insider trading. Fun.

Anyway, in NY it looks like we may have a curfew and trying to limit social gatherings to no more than 10 people. I still think a temporary lockdown comes. I just think it will be 2 - 4 weeks instead of 2 - 4 months, now that we know what we're dealing with.


----------



## SpaceDock

I still wonder if this vaccine success story isn’t just another pump and dump scheme. Seems like a lot of these trials get huge press when the company tells everyone how great their progress is, who really knows until they get it peer reviewed, published, accepted by the FDA.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

SpaceDock said:


> I still wonder if this vaccine success story isn’t just another pump and dump scheme. Seems like a lot of these trials get huge press when the company tells everyone how great their progress is, who really knows until they get it peer reviewed, published, accepted by the FDA.



Apparently the stuff needs to be kept at below -100 degrees fahrenheit, outside of that it's useless in less than five minutes. 

I was just reading an article and it sounds like a logistical nightmare distributing and storing it long enough to be useful.


----------



## StevenC

MaxOfMetal said:


> Apparently the stuff needs to be kept at below -100 degrees fahrenheit, outside of that it's useless in less than five minutes.
> 
> I was just reading an article and it sounds like a logistical nightmare distributing and storing it long enough to be useful.


It can withstand 4 heat cycles before going off. It's a logistical nightmare, but plenty of vaccines and treatments have similar requirements.

In just wincing at injecting something that cold.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

StevenC said:


> It can withstand 4 heat cycles before going off. It's a logistical nightmare, but plenty of vaccines and treatments have similar requirements.
> 
> In just wincing at injecting something that cold.



This makes it seem much more fragile: 

cnn.com/cnn/2020/11/10/health/pfizer-vaccine-distribution-cold-chain/index.html

Thankfully it's thawed before injection.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

StevenC said:


> It can withstand 4 heat cycles before going off. It's a logistical nightmare, but plenty of vaccines and treatments have similar requirements.
> 
> In just wincing at injecting something that cold.


It'll prob be a IM injection like the flu shot in the arm, plus they'll warm the vaccine before injection. It could be worst tbh, it could be like the PB (penicillin/bicillin) shot I got in basic training, which suckkeddd. Imagine an injection of icy cold sludge straight into your ass cheek and your ass/legs are really sore for days afterward.


----------



## StevenC

KnightBrolaire said:


> It'll prob be a IM injection like the flu shot in the arm, plus they'll warm the vaccine before injection. It could be worst tbh, it could be like the PB (penicillin/bicillin) shot I got in basic training, which suckkeddd. Imagine an injection of icy cold sludge straight into your ass cheek and your ass/legs are really sore for days afterward.


I'll never get over IV drips of icy penicillin.


----------



## SpaceDock

I think this is an IV drip you have to get, not a shot.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

We are 3-4 weeks into our second full lockdown here in Ireland. We’ve got the numbers way down and looks like we will have a moderate Re-opening so we can enjoy Christmas this year. We make a colossal mess of most things but great to see my country doing something so well.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

SpaceDock said:


> I think this is an IV drip you have to get, not a shot.


where did you hear that?


----------



## SpaceDock

On CBS news last night. Needs clinical setting, IV, and observation for 1 hour.


----------



## KnightBrolaire

SpaceDock said:


> On CBS news last night. Needs clinical setting, IV, and observation for 1 hour.


yeesh. That's going to significantly slow down the rollout of the vaccine then.


----------



## sleewell

Most universities, large and medium sized hospitals have the type of freezers that will work. I heard its also a 2 part dose, something like another dose needed 27 or 28 days later.


----------



## ElRay

KnightBrolaire said:


> ... it could be like the PB (penicillin/bicillin) shot I got in basic training ...


Oh yeah. Typhoid was another that sucked; it felt like is was dissolved in vodka that had been kept at the bottom of the freezer for over a month. Late 90's/Early 00's Anthrax was the one I hated the most: Smear "infected" ointment on your shoulder, poke at it about a dozen times with a lancet, wipe the goo into the wound and cover it with a band-aid. Then you've got this crusty, potentially infectious divot on your shoulder until it heals.


----------



## Drew

sleewell said:


> Most universities, large and medium sized hospitals have the type of freezers that will work. I heard its also a 2 part dose, something like another dose needed 27 or 28 days later.


I can't confirm the IV drip part, but it's absolutely a 2-dose regimen, with 28 days between doses. 

The Pfizer news may have really moved the market and drummed up a lot of attention, but really it doesn't do much to advance the timeline where we expect to reopen in the 2nd half of the year. Available next month, plus 28 days, plus a focus on healthcare workers and first responders at first, means that the general public will likely begin to get vaccinated around maybe the end of March, and won't begin to have immunity before the end of April. Couple months beyond that where we can first start to approach herd immunity, so at present I'd say we're on track for maybe early August. It's still awesome news, especially the 90%+ effectiveness rate (for perspective the flu vaccine is 50-60%), but it doesn't get us out of this any faster than we'd been previously hoping. 

Meanwhile, after breaking 100k daily cases last week, we're up to 145k today. That's NOT good.


----------



## bostjan

Herd immunity doesn't work for a virus that has no long term immunity, though. This isn't the flu. These vaccines are taking clever approaches around that, which is much needed.

There are already a handful of coronaviruses widespread, and there is no herd immunity for any of the others.


----------



## ElRay

Drew said:


> ... but it's absolutely a 2-dose regimen, with 28 days between doses. ...


Egads. It will be Hep-B for me all over again  That's a 3-dose (X, X+30, X+180) sequence. I got the initial dose about 8-9 times, the second dose about 5-6 times, but could never get the third dose in time. Then in 2016, the Doc looked at my shot records and said, "You're good to go. If you get Hep-B, I'll come and care for you personally."


----------



## slan

Time to put down the bong, Steph.

https://www.theprp.com/2020/11/12/n...earth-anti-vax-simulation-theory-etc-beliefs/

"I’m grateful for COVID, for teaching me the actual germ theory, and that is the virus is something the body creates. You are not capable of catching a virus from somebody. You develop viruses because you have some type of poison or toxin within you. And that’s your poisoned and toxined cells secreting the virus to clean them from the body." 

"The germaphobes we’re not… we can’t do anything but try to help them out because they genuinely believe that there’s a deadly virus going around and they would have believed it already. They already thought life was deadly and dangerous. So this is no help to them. But everyone else part-time wears the mask, they already know it’s worthless. You know they all got their little favorite little logo matching their outfits. It’s like clown show. Please stop, you’re embarrassing yourself.

And that’s no disrespect to those who’ve fallen ill and even those who died from whatever they may have died from. Obviously none of that is disregarded, but I do not connect that to what this is, you know? What this is some, this is just some mental trickery."


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

slan said:


> Time to put down the bong, Steph.
> 
> https://www.theprp.com/2020/11/12/n...earth-anti-vax-simulation-theory-etc-beliefs/
> 
> "I’m grateful for COVID, for teaching me the actual germ theory, and that is the virus is something the body creates. You are not capable of catching a virus from somebody. You develop viruses because you have some type of poison or toxin within you. And that’s your poisoned and toxined cells secreting the virus to clean them from the body."
> 
> "The germaphobes we’re not… we can’t do anything but try to help them out because they genuinely believe that there’s a deadly virus going around and they would have believed it already. They already thought life was deadly and dangerous. So this is no help to them. But everyone else part-time wears the mask, they already know it’s worthless. You know they all got their little favorite little logo matching their outfits. It’s like clown show. Please stop, you’re embarrassing yourself.
> 
> And that’s no disrespect to those who’ve fallen ill and even those who died from whatever they may have died from. Obviously none of that is disregarded, but I do not connect that to what this is, you know? What this is some, this is just some mental trickery."


Yeah it sounds like it might be time. Weed is a different beast than it was when I was a regular smoker. It’s crazy strong now and just doesn’t make me feel like it did all those years ago. I could see myself having beliefs similar to his if I were to indulge heavy on it long term. Makes me a little “unbalanced”.

Back on topic. Spent some time with a friend and her husband roughly two weeks ago. Both have tested positive. I’ve been under quarantine since finding out, only leaving the house to go get tested. Waiting for my results and enjoying my surprise vacation. I don’t think I have it, as I’ve got no symptoms. But I won’t know until I get that call. They say 1-3 days for results, but that was Wednesday morning.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

I just got my lab results earlier. Negative. Yippee!!!


----------



## diagrammatiks

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> Yeah it sounds like it might be time. Weed is a different beast than it was when I was a regular smoker. It’s crazy strong now and just doesn’t make me feel like it did all those years ago. I could see myself having beliefs similar to his if I were to indulge heavy on it long term. Makes me a little “unbalanced”.
> 
> Back on topic. Spent some time with a friend and her husband roughly two weeks ago. Both have tested positive. I’ve been under quarantine since finding out, only leaving the house to go get tested. Waiting for my results and enjoying my surprise vacation. I don’t think I have it, as I’ve got no symptoms. But I won’t know until I get that call. They say 1-3 days for results, but that was Wednesday morning.



I think people definitely smoke this weed we got now like we used to smoke the weed we used to have 20 years ago. people would be dead.

this shit's only good for like micro dosing.


----------



## aesthyrian

People consume cannabis in very large amounts these days, and in various forms. No one is dying.


----------



## diagrammatiks

aesthyrian said:


> People consume cannabis in very large amounts these days, and in various forms. No one is dying.



oh fuck the cannabis police are coming to get me for the crime of hyperbole.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

aesthyrian said:


> People consume cannabis in very large amounts these days, and in various forms. No one is dying.


Just their brain cells.


----------



## Ralyks

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> Just their brain cells.



Excuse me, I smoke regularly, and also raise a kid by myself, have steady income, pay all of my bills and rent on time, have a few college degrees and certificates, and about to complete an Accounting Degree in a month from now. I take exception to your stereotype.

Edit: Also, do some research https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20030701/heavy-marijuana-use-doesnt-damage-brain


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

I never said a person couldn’t be functional if they choose to use it. I said it affects your brain. Short term memory is affected by using it. That is something almost anyone who has used it can attest to. I’m speaking from my own personal experience here. I’ve done the research.


----------



## aesthyrian

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> Just their brain cells.



 

Somehow D.A.R.E. still has free rent in people's minds even in 2020.


----------



## Mathemagician

Lorcan Ward said:


> We are 3-4 weeks into our second full lockdown here in Ireland. We’ve got the numbers way down and looks like we will have a moderate Re-opening so we can enjoy Christmas this year. We make a colossal mess of most things but great to see my country doing something so well.



That makes me happy to read. 



sleewell said:


> Most universities, large and medium sized hospitals have the type of freezers that will work. I heard its also a 2 part dose, something like another dose needed 27 or 28 days later.



28 days later...wait I’ve seen this movie!


----------



## narad

sleewell said:


> Most universities, large and medium sized hospitals have the type of freezers that will work. I heard its also a 2 part dose, something like another dose needed 27 or 28 days later.



28 Days...wait I’ve seen this movie!


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

aesthyrian said:


> Somehow D.A.R.E. still has free rent in people's minds even in 2020.


Nope, as a matter of fact I voted to legalize it in my state. This all from my own first hand experience here. Marijuana can also affect your brains ability to produce serotonin. Some are more sensitive to this than others. So to say it doesn’t affect your brain is ridiculous. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17508987/
Consume all you want, but to try and ignore the negative effects it has and only touting the positive isn’t a very objective view. There’s nothing wrong with making more informed decisions. Sorry to derail here. I’ll stay on topic now.


----------



## AxRookie

There is a single-dose vaccine that doesn't require ultra-cold storage that's not far behind the two-dose vaccine and it's been showing very promising results, I believe it's in its third stage trials...


----------



## StevenC

AxRookie said:


> There is a single-dose vaccine that doesn't require ultra-cold storage that's not far behind the two-dose vaccine and it's been showing very promising results, I believe it's in its third stage trials...


There are lots of vaccines in third stage trials right now.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Herd immunity doesn't work for a virus that has no long term immunity, though. This isn't the flu. These vaccines are taking clever approaches around that, which is much needed.
> 
> There are already a handful of coronaviruses widespread, and there is no herd immunity for any of the others.


Well, re-infection is sort of a wildcard here - we know it's possible, but it's exceedingly rare - we've identified a handful of instances based on RNA sequencing where we've been able to confirm for a fact that someone came down with COVID-19 twice, from separate infections. I want to say 5, worldwide, so far. It's exceedingly rare - at a minimum, we can be pretty sure that typical immunity is at least 9+ months. 

Meanwhile, we release a flu vaccine every year because it also doesn't provide long term immunity, with the intent of trying to get to herd immunity, and the flu vaccine is typically 50-70% effective. Pfizer's was 90%, and Moderna's today was 94%. 

Extremely high effectiveness coupled with at least 9 months' protection, and herd immunity starting to kick in around 60-70% immunized, means that we can probably get to a point where r-star drops significantly with only 3/4 of the country immunized, which we should be able to do in nine months. We may not completely eradicate the disease - that's probably no longer in the cards anyway - but getting to the point where there's enough herd immunity - even short term - from a vaccine that the number of cases shrinks organically because there just aren't enough viable hosts is absolutely attainable. 

And maybe we just have to get an annual Covid booster for the next couple years, while this burns out of it's own accord... but infection - and vaccination - provides immunity for long _enough_ that we can beat it back with a vaccine.


----------



## spudmunkey

How likely is it that, like the flu shot, a vaccine would provide some lesser protection from other similar viruses that aren't the exact same one? Like...even if the makers of the flu shots guess wrong as to which one will be the most important flu to fight, the shot will still likely help reduce the incidents of serious effects of some other influenzas. Do we know if these new vaccines might have a similar effect?

If I understand correctly, these sort of respiratory diseases are getting frequent and more serious, with the previous well-known SARS, MERS, etc...would a COVID-19/SARS-COV-2 vaccine put us in a better place against future outbreaks of similar respiratory infections?


----------



## Drew

spudmunkey said:


> If I understand correctly, these sort of respiratory diseases are getting frequent and more serious, with the previous well-known SARS, MERS, etc...would a COVID-19/SARS-COV-2 vaccine put us in a better place against future outbreaks of similar respiratory infections?



Very likely no. However, the fact the first two vaccines we have coming to market were based on an untried, experimental approach, were developed in less than 9 months from the sequencing of the viral RNA, and are both 90% or better effective, significantly higher than typical vaccine efficacy rates, means we'll be in much better shape to respond the next time we have a potential pandemic outbreak. 

And, I mean, hopefully we've all learned a thing or two about how to prevent the spread from a purely behavioral standpoint, too.


----------



## SpaceDock

I think we all just need to get real that if/when a vaccine is available and all of whatever goes down with it, we are still stuck doing quarantine and all this for at least until end of Q2 2021. They need to make this stuff and distribute it, no one on these boards is even getting close to being in the first several rounds of distribution. I might be pessimistic, but I think we will have a new strain or even a whole new virus out of China by then. I tend to think this is the new normal.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> Well, re-infection is sort of a wildcard here - we know it's possible, but it's exceedingly rare - we've identified a handful of instances based on RNA sequencing where we've been able to confirm for a fact that someone came down with COVID-19 twice, from separate infections. I want to say 5, worldwide, so far. It's exceedingly rare - at a minimum, we can be pretty sure that typical immunity is at least 9+ months.
> 
> Meanwhile, we release a flu vaccine every year because it also doesn't provide long term immunity, with the intent of trying to get to herd immunity, and the flu vaccine is typically 50-70% effective. Pfizer's was 90%, and Moderna's today was 94%.
> 
> Extremely high effectiveness coupled with at least 9 months' protection, and herd immunity starting to kick in around 60-70% immunized, means that we can probably get to a point where r-star drops significantly with only 3/4 of the country immunized, which we should be able to do in nine months. We may not completely eradicate the disease - that's probably no longer in the cards anyway - but getting to the point where there's enough herd immunity - even short term - from a vaccine that the number of cases shrinks organically because there just aren't enough viable hosts is absolutely attainable.
> 
> And maybe we just have to get an annual Covid booster for the next couple years, while this burns out of it's own accord... but infection - and vaccination - provides immunity for long _enough_ that we can beat it back with a vaccine.



Covid antibody halflife has been studied, and our current estimate is 36 days. For influenza, that same measurement is 190 days (over 5 times longer). With an old-fashioned vaccine, we'd be talking a series of boosters every two months. Add in the fact that immunity to covid is a lot less developed than flu in the first place, and you're looking at possibly a shot every two weeks. It's not at all the same thing as flu.

From the perspective of herd immunity, you have a virus that stays in the system for up to four weeks with an antibody halflife of five weeks. Herd immunity won't work if that data is correct. Period.


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## spudmunkey

bostjan said:


> Covid antibody halflife has been studied, and our current estimate is 36 days.



Last week I remember reading a bit about how actual immunity may stick around much longer than active antibodies.


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## bostjan

spudmunkey said:


> Last week I remember reading a bit about how actual immunity may stick around much longer than active antibodies.



Antibodies are specific immunity against a virus. There are other kinds of immune responses, but those might lead to serious long-term negative effects, like allergies. It might not sound dangerous, but, in some cases it may be deadly, and in most cases, probably won't be effective immunity anyway.

Just think about it from a high level. Coronaviruses mutate faster than influenza, the virus partivles are much smaller, and, as a rule, learned immunity to them (generally, as a virus class) is not long term. SARS-CoV-2 is not your typical coronavirus, but, it's much more like those than it is like flu viruses.

As I think everbody is aware, there is no herd immunity to any sort of common cold (coronaviruses other than Sars and Covid are types of common cold). Therefore, counting on herd immunity, based on our current knowledge, is overly optimistic to the point of foolishness.

The reason people keep talking about herd immunity is because of Scott Atlas, who seems to be the sole proponent pushing the idea that Covid will just go away one day. Atlas has been described by Dr. Fauchi as either misinterpreting or outright lying about everything he says, and Dr. Birx refuses to even be in the same room with him. Just consider the facts. If that's not good enough, I guess, consider the source.


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## Wuuthrad




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## spudmunkey

Nvrmnd


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## sleewell

north and south dakota are straight up killing it. right up there with some of the poorest and least medically advanced countries of the world!!! USA USA USA!!!


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## MaxOfMetal

sleewell said:


> north and south dakota are straight up killing it. right up there with some of the poorest and least medically advanced countries of the world!!! USA USA USA!!!



If you want to hate the world, read this:

https://www.thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/526204-south-dakota-nurse-says-many-dying-patients-still-insist-covid-19-not%3Famp


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## nightflameauto

sleewell said:


> north and south dakota are straight up killing it. right up there with some of the poorest and least medically advanced countries of the world!!! USA USA USA!!!


I'm so proud.

Meanwhile our governor's main concern is building a security fence around the capitol and her residence to "keep out the violent left." Well, that's her main concern when she's not roasting our mayor for asking people to behave responsibly by wearing masks and avoiding gatherings.

I feel like our leadership in this state and nation have somehow lost the thread. Granted, until it actively kills off the majority of them, it isn't any real concern to them. Less voters means a greater chance Republicans can keep getting elected. Except they aren't smart enough to realize they are disproportionately killing off their main voting base of older folks and midwestern yokels. Thus far I've only lost one relative that was an ardent Trump supporter, but one of the others has been traveling the nation this year visiting every relative that will allow him in their house, so he's doing his part.

*FACEPALM*


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## sleewell

yeah i saw that yesterday. they would rather have lung cancer than realize it might actually be the dem impeachment hoax they saw on fox news. 

i'm not saying trump and fox news are responsible for every covid death but certainly there are many people dying right now who didn't have to die because of them. history is not going to look back favorably on how poorly we handled this because of how politically divided we are.


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## gunch

sleewell said:


> yeah i saw that yesterday. they would rather have lung cancer than realize it might actually be the dem impeachment hoax they saw on fox news.
> 
> i'm not saying trump and fox news are responsible for every covid death but certainly there are many people dying right now who didn't have to die because of them. history is not going to look back favorably on how poorly we handled this because of how politically divided we are.


It’s Facebook too


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## bostjan

So, where is the evidence that immunity lasts nine months? The CDC seems to me to be the initial source of that figure, which they do not attribute to any peer reviewed study. Note also the source again, the CDC took months to say that covid was airborne after the international community had acknowledged that fact.

One of the first recorded covid cases from the Diamond Princess died after being reinfected just a couple weeks after initial recovery. The CDC stated that he never cleared the infection, but his case file showed that PCR identified a different strain each time.

You say five or six cases recorded of reinfection, but actually, those are six peer reviewed papers about case studies of reinfections. Versus zero peer reviewed papers about cases where people showed prolonged immunity against exposure subsequent to recovery. 6 to zero isn't very promising.

I really hope I'm wrong, but the evidence is pretty steep that herd immunity is not going to be an important factor. If it actually is, then, at the current rate of spread, the vaccine won't be necessary by the time it's widely available. So it's important for the pharmaceutical industry, at least, not to espouse too rosy a view on the epidemic.

It's a new disease still, so we just don't know much, if anything, for sure, but we do have data, and the data we do have paints an entirely different picture than what the mainstream media is portraying- to the point of exhausting frustration from the scientific community.

Edit - fuuuu.... I just saw the corona map for the northeast. Every county is at the worst rating now except one in Maine, one in Vermont, and two in Virginia. Not good... https://dfr.vermont.gov/about-us/covid-19/modeling/covid-19-modeling-graphics


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## High Plains Drifter

I was initially going to post this pic of my great-nephew in the "happy" thread but whelp... here we are. Although not really on-topic regarding statistical/ analytical content, I decided to post here to reiterate the importance of continuing to take this virus seriously. Please stay safe and continue being proactive to minimize the spread. 

So my great-nephew, Arlo was born Oct 27th ( named after Arlo Guthrie but makes me think of Arlo in 'The Good Dinosaur' movie). He was perfectly healthy and hopefully still is. But shortly after mom/ dad/ dino jr had come home from the hospital, they were growing restless of the covid restrictions so they decided to allow their friends to come over. Their friends also have a new baby ( born Sept) and they wanted to get them together for a play-date kinda thing. My sister and bro-in-law were also there... fucking smart. 

This was Friday Nov 6th. On the 7th, the friends attended a wedding and reception. I have no idea how big the event was but I'm assuming a decent gathering since there seems to be a ton of ppl in the US not taking this thing seriously anymore. Then on Mon the 9th, the friend's baby started developing flu symptoms. By that Wed he had tested positive for covid. They contacted my niece that same day to give them a heads up. At this point both parents had also tested positive. 

So now my sister, bro-in-law, niece, her husband, and dino-baby are all in quarantine... fortunately none have tested positive nor are showing any symptoms. I'm truly hoping that they're out of the woods but another 3-4 days and I'll feel a lot better. The assumption is that at least one of the friends contracted the virus at the wedding or reception... just one day after their interaction with my family members. No idea what their status is atm fwiw. 

As angry as I was at my niece as well as my sister, I've only been supportive cause that's what they need... not criticism. It was dumb as fuck to expose Arlo to anyone outside of the immediate family imo but it is what it is and I'm not arm-chair quarterbacking anyone's decision. I know it's got to be frustrating to have a newborn and have to be isolated but I have to say that listening to a close family member share this kind of thing is very sobering and sincerely hits hard. I'm just not ready to lose my sis nor hear the wrenching details of anyone in my family battling this virus. 

So please please please... Keep wearing masks, stay vigilant, and don't take anything for granted. I guess the genuinely fucked up thing about covid is that unlike a car-accident or some kind of surgery, you're never out of the woods no matter if you get it or come close to getting it. Each and every day is a risk... every time you leave the house. Please keep doing the right thing no matter the temporary inconvenience/ no matter how tired you are of this whole thing. Sorry for all the words but thanks for reading.





Man, he's gonna hate this pic if he grows up to be a republican...


----------



## Ralyks

Yeah, our adopted cousin had a baby shower recently that my family declined attending recently because of this. Just found out one of my (not-adopted) cousins is positive, and we're still waiting on others. Plus she's married with 3 kids so not optimistic there.

Anyway, now there seems to be a possibility that immunity can last years, but no one can seem to make up their minds:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/health/coronavirus-immunity.amp.html


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## sleewell

cute kiddo!!!! i miss that.

our oldest had a fever yesterday, said he didnt feel well but then was fine a few hours later. big relief. think he just didnt want to do online school.


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## bostjan

Ralyks said:


> Yeah, our adopted cousin had a baby shower recently that my family declined attending recently because of this. Just found out one of my (not-adopted) cousins is positive, and we're still waiting on others. Plus she's married with 3 kids so not optimistic there.
> 
> Anyway, now there seems to be a possibility that immunity can last years, but no one can seem to make up their minds:
> https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/health/coronavirus-immunity.amp.html


I don't subscribe to NY Times.

From the google data, your article seems to cite this paper from August: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.11.20171843v2

The authors of that paper applied for a patent on a vaccine. Their sampling and sample storage might be suspect.

But even in that paper:



> Still, the results call for caution regarding antibody-based “immunity passports,” herd immunity, and perhaps vaccine durability, especially in light of short-lived immunity against common human coronaviruses. Further studies will be needed to define a quantitative protection threshold and rate of decline of antiviral antibodies beyond 90 days.



If there's a different study cited in the NY Times article?


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## nightflameauto

My coworkers boys were in quarantine up until last week. They're back in quarantine today. My niece is in her third quarantine. Maybe this back to school idea isn't working out so well?

But good news, since my niece's birthday is going to happen in the middle of this quarantine, the whole family is planning on gathering with her to celebrate. Including people from Minnesota, South Dakota and Iowa. *FACEPALM* Geeze, I really wonder why our area is so hard hit right now.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> So, where is the evidence that immunity lasts nine months? The CDC seems to me to be the initial source of that figure, which they do not attribute to any peer reviewed study. Note also the source again, the CDC took months to say that covid was airborne after the international community had acknowledged that fact.
> 
> One of the first recorded covid cases from the Diamond Princess died after being reinfected just a couple weeks after initial recovery. The CDC stated that he never cleared the infection, but his case file showed that PCR identified a different strain each time.
> 
> You say five or six cases recorded of reinfection, but actually, those are six peer reviewed papers about case studies of reinfections. Versus zero peer reviewed papers about cases where people showed prolonged immunity against exposure subsequent to recovery. 6 to zero isn't very promising.
> 
> I really hope I'm wrong, but the evidence is pretty steep that herd immunity is not going to be an important factor. If it actually is, then, at the current rate of spread, the vaccine won't be necessary by the time it's widely available. So it's important for the pharmaceutical industry, at least, not to espouse too rosy a view on the epidemic.
> 
> It's a new disease still, so we just don't know much, if anything, for sure, but we do have data, and the data we do have paints an entirely different picture than what the mainstream media is portraying- to the point of exhausting frustration from the scientific community.
> 
> Edit - fuuuu.... I just saw the corona map for the northeast. Every county is at the worst rating now except one in Maine, one in Vermont, and two in Virginia. Not good... https://dfr.vermont.gov/about-us/covid-19/modeling/covid-19-modeling-graphics



Well, there's two ways of coming at this question. 

The simplest is this - if infection didn't convey SOME sort of immunity lasting at least the duration of the pandemic thus far, there would be ample evidence of reinfection. Instead, we have at most a handful of confirmed cases where someone has been infected on two occasions. There could be a bunch we're missing, sure, but even then with more than 10,000,000 confirmed cases of infection in the United States, even a couple hundred cases of reinfection, including a bunch we just missed, would still make the reinfection rate a rounding error away from zero. So, I think you're asking the wrong question - rather than "where is the evidence that immunity lasts nine months," I think we need to be asking, "if reinfection IS possible, then why is almost no one getting reinfected, and why is the reinfection rate a mere sliver of the overall _infection_ rate?" 

The more complex reason - antibody immunity may not be the only way the body fights Covid (and in fact with many of the more severe cases being immuno-related, it may be something the disease weaponizes). I've seen T-cell immunity discussed as a possible explanation here. For what it's worth, my antibody test came back negative, and even though it seems objectively likely that I do have some sort of immunity, it's not going to stop me from behaving as if I don't because we don't know how long it lasts. 

Again, though... The simplest explanation is, if reinfection was possible after 36 days for the vast majority of cases of Covid, we'd be seeing a lot more cases of reinfection than we are. Any thesis that reinfection is possible within at least the first 9 months has to somehow account for the fact that, whatever the reason, it's not really happening.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> Well, there's two ways of coming at this question.
> 
> The simplest is this - if infection didn't convey SOME sort of immunity lasting at least the duration of the pandemic thus far, there would be ample evidence of reinfection. Instead, we have at most a handful of confirmed cases where someone has been infected on two occasions. There could be a bunch we're missing, sure, but even then with more than 10,000,000 confirmed cases of infection in the United States, even a couple hundred cases of reinfection, including a bunch we just missed, would still make the reinfection rate a rounding error away from zero. So, I think you're asking the wrong question - rather than "where is the evidence that immunity lasts nine months," I think we need to be asking, "if reinfection IS possible, then why is almost no one getting reinfected, and why is the reinfection rate a mere sliver of the overall _infection_ rate?"
> 
> The more complex reason - antibody immunity may not be the only way the body fights Covid (and in fact with many of the more severe cases being immuno-related, it may be something the disease weaponizes). I've seen T-cell immunity discussed as a possible explanation here. For what it's worth, my antibody test came back negative, and even though it seems objectively likely that I do have some sort of immunity, it's not going to stop me from behaving as if I don't because we don't know how long it lasts.
> 
> Again, though... The simplest explanation is, if reinfection was possible after 36 days for the vast majority of cases of Covid, we'd be seeing a lot more cases of reinfection than we are. Any thesis that reinfection is possible within at least the first 9 months has to somehow account for the fact that, whatever the reason, it's not really happening.



At the risk of sounding patronizing (I know you are intelligent, but this is my way of trying to build from common ground), :

In the immune system, there are active components that are produced as a specific response to target a substance, and there are passive components that are either always there to prevent a substance from entering a cell or are produced to simply attack everything that looks suspicious to your body. Only the active immune response is involved in a vaccine in a meaningful way.

When a learned immunity goes away, it doesn't count down and you get sick at t=0. Instead, over time, you gradually lose the biological machinery that fights off that specific virus (or antigen or toxin or whatever), so your risk of being reinfected changes exponentially. If the halflife of antibodies is 35 days, then 35 days after the virus is cleared from your system, you have half as many antibodies. After 70 days, one quarter, and so on. As the number of antibodies in your bloodstream goes down, the odds of those antibodies affecting a quick immune response targeting the disease also goes down. Like, if you go biking in the woods, you might see a bear. If the woods where you are biking have twice as many bears, you are twice as likely to see a bear. 

With herd immunity, its modeled after active immune responses. There is no herd immunity to cyanide, for example, even though you can build a resistance to cyanide through your passive immune system, but since there is no active immunity, there is no herd immunity. That's why the half life of the antibodies is indicative of how well herd immunity will work.

Obviously, there are a lot of other factors. What is the rate of transmission? What is the incubation time? What is the recovery time? What is the mortality rate? Etc.

For example, if the mortality rate of a disease is 100%, then, obviously, the reinfection rate is zero. If the rate of transmission is low, the prevalence will tend to either be low or increase very slowly, so the reinfection rate will be low.

But, with covid, what do we know and what do we not know?

We know:

The transmission rate is extremely high.
The halflife of antibodies is much lower than for the typical serious human virus.
The prevalence a year ago was nil, but right now is at a historic high and increasing quickly.
Incubation time is extremely variable.

What we don't know:

What the reinfection rate is.

The CDC says reinfection is probably rare. Think again. They don't know. The virus is less than a year old. A year ago, we knew literally nothing about it. Six months ago, we knew practically nothing about it, and the CDC was going around shooting its mouth off about tons of stuff that we later found out was flat out wrong and that there had never been any evidence to support their rosy outlook. I'm not saying that they are wrong, I'm saying that they are not even wrong. They just don't know. I don't know. You don't know. No one knows. How many cases of reinfection need to be published in peer-reviewed journals for you to think reinfection might be a cause for concern? Six? Twelve? Twenty-four? A hundred? Pick a number. It doesn't matter. The virus doesn't care how many papers have or have not been published about it. The fact is that reinfections *do* occur, and not one or two cases. Six peer-reviewed cases in journals and a couple dozen more unvetted in the media. If the CDC said reinfection is rare, I'd say that the evidence is pretty weak either way, but there is a lot more evidence that it can happen than that it cannot.


----------



## Drew

I still think you're overcomplicating it, though. Let's assume I have a working knowledge of viral infection (I do, better than average - my dad was a doctor, took a heavy science courseload in high school, am currently dating a doctor, so I'm hearing pretty constant debates on this stuff faily. I'm also expected to have a handle on how the pandemic can impact economic growth, and this is pretty clearly a big factor here).

Let's say the antibody half life is 36 days, and that anyone beyond that point is theoretically eligible to be re-infected. 36 days ago, we were probably right around the 10mm case mark, so any of the subsequent ~2mm cases could safely be considered to have very high liklihoods of antibody immunity, but the first 10mm likely don't, given that half life.

The current US population is about 330 million.

Huge simplifying assumption here - that, if anything, is highly conservative, since higher infection rates have corresponded with larger population centers - let's assume cases are randomly distributed amongst the population, and no other factors increase or reduce the likelihood of infection.

That gives us an _infection_ rate of just over 3%, as of 36 days ago.

The assumption that no immunity is conveyed past 36 days, put another way, is that on a 36 day lag, the re-infection rate should coverge with the infection rate, and 3% of cases should have been reinfected.

On a denominator of 10mm, that's about 303,000 cases of reinfection.

What we've observed, instead, is a few dozen confirmed cases of reinfection. call it 36 cases, out of that 10mm pool, and you have a reinfection rate of 0.00036%. My probability isn't good enough to tell you what the probability of expecting 303,000 reinfection cases and getting 24 is, but needless to say it's very, very, very low.

So, that's the question I think we need to answer - if infection DOESN'T provide immunity, then why is reinfection occurring at a rate of less than 0.00036%, and not the 3% that infection itself is occurring at?

Before we reject the possibility that having Covid provides immunity over at least the timeline we've been able to observe with better than 99.999% effectiveness, I think we have to account for the fact that more than 99.999% of covid patients have managed to not get infected a second time, as opposed to 97% of non-covid patients. Former covid patients who have been asymptomatic for at least 36 days - past the point where you think antibody protection has weakened - are roughly 8,333x less likely to contract Covid than patients who were never infected in the first place.

If that's not immunity, then it sure looks, acts, walks, talks, and smells a lot like immunity, you know?


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> Let's say the antibody half life is 36 days, and that anyone beyond that point is theoretically eligible to be re-infected.



You clearly didn't pick up what I was throwing down.

Let's start again.

Half life is not the same as reinfection time. It is not the time when a switch flips and people are no longer immune. Are we on the same page there? No.

Immunity is not a boolean operation.

If there are fewer antibodies in a person's system, they are more likely to be reinfected. So it's related.

It's statistics.

Say a person gets infected and gets better, and at some arbitrary time t=0, let's say your immune system has a 99% chance of activating immunity upon exposure. At t=36 days, that is 49.5%. At t=72 days, it'd be 24.75%, etc. So, in comparison to a common virus like influenza, reinfection from exposure is at more or less the same liklihood in 20% of the time, or, another way to look at it is that you are overall 32 times more likely to be reinfected upon second exposure to covid as you are with flu.

The reason I am not saying "reinfection is possible after x days" is because that makes little sense. Some people might get reinfected right away upon exposure and other people with good immune systems might hold onto immunity longer. It also depends on the level of exposure.

For example. The half life for tetanus antibodies is about 11 years. You are reccomended to get a booster every ten years. If you accidentally miss one for more than a year, it doesn't guarantee that you'll get lockjaw if you step on a nail. Likewise, you aren't 100% protected up to 11 years. It's just that the odds start to get to the tipping point where it's economically prudent to re-up.

You with me?

Let me put it this way. Alcohol half life is 4 hours in the human body. Does that mean that 4 hours after you finish drinking, you are suddenly sober? Pimozide (an antipsychotic) has a half life of 350 hours. That means redosing times are in weeks instead of hours.

Now, furthermore, there are over two dozen strains of SARS-CoV-2, many of which probably have co-immunity, but some of which possibly don't. We don't know. So interpretting the data is complicated, thus why I don't want to entertain this fantasy that immunity is lifelong for covid. Again, we know firsthand that it is not always so, and we have the data now that strongly suggests that immunity wanes 5x faster than it does against the flu. Reinfection is possible.

TL;DR - Immunity is not a boolean value. Reinfection is possible. Subtler perspectives are necessary to discuss in detail.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> TL;DR - Immunity is not a boolean value. Reinfection is possible. Subtler perspectives are necessary to discuss in detail.


I am 100% with you.

However, my original point was, we now have about a 9 month window where we can observe real world data on reinfection probabilities. Empirically, reinfection appears possible, but at least 9 months out, appears insanely rare - you are 8,333 times more likely to get infected, than to get re-infected, based on the empirical data we have.

Now, as you point out, immunity isn't boolean. But, within certain bounds, the difference between a spectrum and a boolean outcome gets pretty inconsequential. Based on what we've seen empirically, infection risk would drop to _very nearly zero_ if a vaccine gets real-world outcomes akin to what we're seeing from actual infection, and with efficacy rates in the 94.5-95% range based on the two trial vaccines we have, the effectiveness of the vaccine and whether it grants immunity in the first place in any meaningful sense is by far the larger variable than the risk of reinfection in an inoculated indiidual becoming reinfected, _for at least the 9 month window where we have real world observational data to base conclusions on_.

So, what I'm getting at is, given a 95% effective vaccine and - assuming it replicates actual infection - a 99.9996% reduction in re-infection, then if herd immunity for something like the flu normally begins to occur at 70% with a 50-70% effective vaccine that we'll assume provides 100% protection, calling it 60% at the midpoint and throwing a little bit of algebra at the problem, we should start to see pretty meaningful declines in the transmission rate from the virus coming in contact with people it tries, but fails, to infect, by the time we get around 45% of the country vaccinated, which is pretty doable in a 9-month-maybe-greater window. And if we can get the transmission rate to drop far enough, there may come a point where we can stop just assuming community transfer is a thing that's happening that we're powerless to stop, and go back to the days where when a case occurs, we identify it, isolate it, and stop the spread behabiorally - a strong vaccine, a very low reinfection rate for at least a 9-month window, and testing and contact tracing will be. game changer in _how_ we fight covid. It doens't have to perfectly prevent reinfection forever, to provide an incredibly strong edge in the fight to stop transmission.

It's like the old joke about the farmer and the engineer at a dance across the room from a pretty girl whose attentions they're vying for, and the girl's father telling both men that they can take turns each crossing half the remaining distance between them and the girl. "But that means we'll never reach her!" the engineer says, throwing up his hands. "Yeah, but I'll get close enough," replies the farmer. The engineer, technically speaking, is right - the farmer is still going to get a dance, though.

So, long story short, those "subtler perspectives" are pretty irrelevant when it comes to functionally fighting the spread of covid, unless you can point to some other external factor other than a vastly higher probability of reducing reinfection, that's responsible for reinfection happing at a rate something in the ballpark of 1/10,000 of the rate of infection. Saying the whole thing is pointless because 99.9996% or greater isn't the same as 100% is the same as saying we should throw away a huge advantage just because it isn't a perfect advantage.

Are you picking up what I'M throwing down?



bostjan said:


> ...thus why I don't want to entertain this fantasy that immunity is lifelong for covid.


This was never my claim or my point - again, we may disagree on the exact number, but there are at least a handful of confirmed cases of reinfection. Rather, I'm saying we don't NEED 100% guaranteed immunity or lifetime immunity, to use a vaccine as an incredibly effective tool to stop community transfer and decimate the case count. And, that based on what we've seen so far, with worldwide almost 56 million cases and only a handful of confirmed reinfections, it's a pretty empirically reasonable conclusion to draw that, 9 months into the pandemic, the probability of reinfection is vanishingly small for at least 9 months, so in theory a vaccine should convey comparale protection for at least that long too, which is ample time to get larger parts of this country vaccinnated, to reduce the transmission rate and starve out the virus.


----------



## SpaceDock

My grandmother has COVID


----------



## bostjan

The herd immunity threshold for covid is thought by our best experts to be around 70% of the population with immunity.

Keep in mind that the definition of herd immunity is not erradication, it's the tipping point where there is one new infection for each recovery or death.

The vaccine will be great, but, as long as 40% of people in the US think that the virus is a hoax, the vaccine won't give us herd immunity. Maybe we will have to get our first two doses and then a booster every month until all of the baby boomers are either in the hospital or in nursing homes, which could be decades.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> The herd immunity threshold for covid is thought by our best experts to be around 70% of the population with immunity.
> 
> Keep in mind that the definition of herd immunity is not erradication, it's the tipping point where there is one new infection for each recovery or death.
> 
> The vaccine will be great, but, as long as 40% of people in the US think that the virus is a hoax, the vaccine won't give us herd immunity. Maybe we will have to get our first two doses and then a booster every month until all of the baby boomers are either in the hospital or in nursing homes, which could be decades.


But that's a far cry from "where's the evidence that immunity lasts 9 months" and "evidence is pretty weak that reinfection is rare."

I'd say that the extreme paucity of reinfection cases is pretty strong evidence that the reinfection rate remains close to zero for at _least_ the nine months we've been able to observe, and that the handful of confirmed cases of reinfection in a pandemic that has infected nearly 60 million people is pretty strong evidence that reinfection is extremely rare for at least 9 months after reinfection.

Like, I'm not calling a vaccine a magic bullet that stops Covid dead in its tracks - we don't have enough data to make a claim like that just yet. But I DO think there's enough evidence to reject the opposite hypothesis, that there's no evidence of at least functional immunity for the first 9 months, and there;s weak evidence that reinfection is rare. Empirical observation tells us that the evidence is pretty _strong_ for both of those claims. There's no silver bullet, but there's no doom and gloom either.


----------



## bostjan

I think where we disagree is about this "reinfection is rare" thing. A few dozen documented cases for a virus that has only been around worldwide for ten months, when it takes two weeks of incubation, two weeks of symptoms, and then a couple of months to publish a paper about it... there is no way to know what the reinfection rate nine months after infection would be. We won't know that for maybe another year.

What we do know is the antibody half life, which given excellent insight into the mechanics of these sorts of things.

And it's not like the data collected identifies reinfection distinctly from infection.

Anyway, we know very well that tetanus reinfection is a large risk. How many scholarly papers can you find detailing case studies of reinfection? If it's more than six for every ten month period, I would be floored.

No one thinks that a 36 day half life is a good prospect.

I'm sure there's no convincing you at this point that the evidence that is extant points to reinfection being highly probable. I'm not sure who's telling you that it's weak evidence or why they are telling you that.

The most likely outcome of the vaccine (unless the developers do something extraordinarily clever - I am aware of at least two developers who are trying some really new things to make the vaccine more effective long term) is that you'll have to get boosters periodically, and the period of such will be more like 1-2 months than a year, which reflects the data I provided several days ago.


----------



## bostjan

SpaceDock said:


> My grandmother has COVID


Man, I'm sorry to hear that! I hope she gets well quickly!


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## BigViolin

Yeah, double that. ^ Mojo sent to Grandma SpaceDock.


----------



## SpaceDock

Thanks


----------



## High Plains Drifter

SpaceDock said:


> My grandmother has COVID



So sorry to hear this. Sending strength and support to her and her family.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> I think where we disagree is about this "reinfection is rare" thing. A few dozen documented cases for a virus that has only been around worldwide for ten months, when it takes two weeks of incubation, two weeks of symptoms, and then a couple of months to publish a paper about it... there is no way to know what the reinfection rate nine months after infection would be. We won't know that for maybe another year.


You're splitting hairs.

Call it six months then, to allow a month for infection to detection as a reinfection, and two months to write a paper about it. That's still a pretty sizable length of time with a near-zero reinfection rate, making a vaccine, from a purely _pragmatic_ stance, extremely useful in severely decelerating the rate of transmission.

Splitting hairs part deux - how many cases do we have to have missed, for the confirmed reinfection rate to be _materially_ different from the actual reinfection rate, on either a six- or nine-month horizon? We know of a handful of cases. Is it plausible that the actual number of cases is actually hundreds of thousands, consistent with the infection rate, and we're just somehow missing 99.8% of reinfection cases?

You're an extremely smart guy, bostjan. But set aside antibody half-lifes for a moment, and ask yourself if what we're empirically observing is consistent with immunity or resistance dropping to 20% within two months. If it's not, so what are you_r other _explanations for the empirical data?


----------



## Drew

SpaceDock said:


> My grandmother has COVID


Fingers crossed for you, man. How's she doing? It's scary as shit, but even in elderly with pre-existing conditions, survival is stll int he ballpark of 9 out of 10; not odds you'd want to take on lightly, but still favorable. My thoughts are with you and your family.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> You're splitting hairs.
> 
> Call it six months then, to allow a month for infection to detection as a reinfection, and two months to write a paper about it. That's still a pretty sizable length of time with a near-zero reinfection rate, making a vaccine, from a purely _pragmatic_ stance, extremely useful in severely decelerating the rate of transmission.



Plus another month to get reinfected and another month to be recovered in between. More like 4 months of opprotunal cross section for data. Six such cases in that much cross section, to me, is significant. I'd go so far as to say one such case would be concerning and three or four would be alarming under that light. How many would you expect to see?



> Splitting hairs part deux - how many cases do we have to have missed, for the confirmed reinfection rate to be _materially_ different from the actual reinfection rate, on either a six- or nine-month horizon? We know of a handful of cases. Is it plausible that the actual number of cases is actually hundreds of thousands, consistent with the infection rate, and we're just somehow missing 99.8% of reinfection cases?



Absolutely yes. We haven't been looking for it, yet we have seen it. There is no metric recorded for reinfection.



> You're an extremely smart guy, bostjan. But set aside antibody half-lifes for a moment, and ask yourself if what we're empirically observing is consistent with immunity or resistance dropping to 20% within two months. If it's not, so what are you_r other _explanations for the empirical data?


 Thanks, Drew!
I know you are very smart as well, which is what makes these discussions so difficult to walk away from...

I'd say, in general, that hard parameters like "how stiff is this material," "what is the power output of this system," or "what is the half life of this substance in the bloodstream" are sometimes more valuable than empirical parameters like "do buildings made out of this material break," "has anyone been fatally electrocuted by touching the critical parts of system," or "do people get reinfected." In the case of covid, though, we can check both boxes, because there are multiple case studies *and* we have the half life measurements, which itself is amazing, considering how new the virus is.

It's a crossroads. Take the imperfect data into account and maintain vigilence because reinfection appears to be universally possible, or focus on the limitations of the data and assume reinfection is unlikely so that we ignore booster doses and loosen our behaviour if we've been diagnosed.

On a side topic, I've just found out that I have two contact traces: one positive once removed and one twice removed from the people around me. I went ahead and got tested this morning.


----------



## StevenC

Don Jr's got it now.


----------



## diagrammatiks

been thinking of going the vaccine.

hmm what to do what to do.


----------



## Mathemagician

SpaceDock said:


> My grandmother has COVID



Im sorry to hear that. Prayers your way.


----------



## Ralyks

StevenC said:


> Don Jr's got it now.



Add Rick Scott.

Also I'm worried my son's mother's cousin who I'm still close with may have gotten it. He's in the Buffalo NY area and they seem to be the current NY hotspot.


----------



## spudmunkey

Ralyks said:


> Add Rick Scott.



And Giuliani's son, a whitehouse...aid, I think.


----------



## nightflameauto

This is why we're doing so shitty fighting this disease in the US:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/rolla...came-possible-coronavirus-superspreader-event

The people involved aren't even a little sorry. They seem pretty proud of themselves.

Our city enacted a mask mandate going into effect as of Midnight last night. People are pissed off to no end. I've already seen two people throw massive shit-fits when they weren't allowed into a store without a mask. This is gonna get ugly.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

I'm honestly still to this day baffled at human being's complete lack of concern regarding this virus. I'm not naive in the least regarding human nature but this is one hell of a goof to wrap my head around. They're pissed off and although some of that is misplaced ( trump loosing, shitty lives, too much Monster Energy) it still depresses and amazes me that so many Americans can remain so derelict regarding something as simple as hygiene and basic safety... something that is destroying our economy, overwhelming our hospitals, and compromising the health and the lives of so so so many people. Way to go, America...


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Plus another month to get reinfected and another month to be recovered in between. More like 4 months of opprotunal cross section for data. Six such cases in that much cross section, to me, is significant. I'd go so far as to say one such case would be concerning and three or four would be alarming under that light. How many would you expect to see?


I mean, with more than 10 million confirmed infections more than about two months old at this point and about 3% of the country having now been infected, if there was NO difference in underlying probability of infection between the two pools after two months (another way of saying no lasting immunity) about 300,000 cases. Six is, by comparison, an awfully small number, and enough different from the expected infection rate that I think we need some better explanation than chance, no?


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> I mean, with more than 10 million confirmed infections more than about two months old at this point and about 3% of the country having now been infected, if there was NO difference in underlying probability of infection between the two pools after two months (another way of saying no lasting immunity) about 300,000 cases. Six is, by comparison, an awfully small number, and enough different from the expected infection rate that I think we need some better explanation than chance, no?



3% infection rate, after an arbitrarily long time, would result in a 0.09% reinfection rate (3% of the 3%). At this point along an exponential growth curve like this, it'd be expected to be much less (because information moves slowly).

Again, see how many papers you can find about tetanus reinfection.

Also, he're an article in _Science_ from a few days ago with nearly a thousand confirmed reinfection cases: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...-twice-suggesting-immunity-wanes-quickly-some

I took my test a week ago and still no results yet. Let that be an indication of how slowly the information about this stuff gets confirmed.

Frankly, with the proof necessary being a positive test, negative test, then another positive test, chances are fairly high that the *vast majority *of reinfections are probably considered as prolonged single infections.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> 3% infection rate, after an arbitrarily long time, would result in a 0.09% reinfection rate (3% of the 3%). At this point along an exponential growth curve like this, it'd be expected to be much less (because information moves slowly).


Yeah - US population of 360 million, give or take. 12.5 million cases to date, maybe closer to 10 million as of a month and a half or so ago, the period in which you think immunity has likely waned, gets us a 2.7777-cant draw the repeating symbol over the 7 but you get the point infection rate. I've rounded that to 3% for convenience, but lets call it 2.78% to make the math clean.

There's two ways you can calculate the expected incidence of reinfection, either 2.78% of 2.78%, or 0.077%, and apply that to the total population, which gives you an expected caseload of about 278,000. Or, you could do what I was doing, and just assume that if 2.78% of the total population got sick, then absent any immunity, then 2.78% of the infected cases should get it a second time, and 2.78% of 10 million is again about 278,000.

In either case, both approaches yield the same expected reinfection population, 278,000 cases of reinfection. 

That Science article actually says there have been 50, not nearly a thousand, cases of reinfection, although it notes they're sure that's understated, but that's also global; using the same approach, with 59mm confirmed cases on a global population of about 7,800mm, we have an infection rate of 0.75%, which would imply a reinfection rate of (1+0.75%)^2 -1 or about 0.0056%, times 7800mm = about 438,000 cases of reinfection. Instead, we have 50, lower by a factor of nearly 9,000x. Even if we assume the true number is "slightly less than a thousand), that's STILL off by more than a factor of 438x from the observed rate of reinfection.

In the US and worldwide, reinfection is occurring at a rate low by a factor of thousands what it _should _be occurring at, left to chance. Again, if you want to conclude that a Covid infection offers little to no lingering immunity, then there's some pretty compelling statistical evidence for the null hypothesis that needs to be explained first.


----------



## sleewell

isnt it wild to think about the fact that there are multiple vaccines out right now that could potentially end this nightmare and the only thing holding us back is mass production and distribution? can you imagine if we could just snap our fingers and be there right now, that would be so great. so ready for this to be over.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> Yeah - US population of 360 million, give or take. 12.5 million cases to date, maybe closer to 10 million as of a month and a half or so ago, the period in which you think immunity has likely waned, gets us a 2.7777-cant draw the repeating symbol over the 7 but you get the point infection rate. I've rounded that to 3% for convenience, but lets call it 2.78% to make the math clean.
> 
> There's two ways you can calculate the expected incidence of reinfection, either 2.78% of 2.78%, or 0.077%, and apply that to the total population, which gives you an expected caseload of about 278,000. Or, you could do what I was doing, and just assume that if 2.78% of the total population got sick, then absent any immunity, then 2.78% of the infected cases should get it a second time, and 2.78% of 10 million is again about 278,000.
> 
> In either case, both approaches yield the same expected reinfection population, 278,000 cases of reinfection.
> 
> That Science article actually says there have been 50, not nearly a thousand, cases of reinfection, although it notes they're sure that's understated, but that's also global; using the same approach, with 59mm confirmed cases on a global population of about 7,800mm, we have an infection rate of 0.75%, which would imply a reinfection rate of (1+0.75%)^2 -1 or about 0.0056%, times 7800mm = about 438,000 cases of reinfection. Instead, we have 50, lower by a factor of nearly 9,000x. Even if we assume the true number is "slightly less than a thousand), that's STILL off by more than a factor of 438x from the observed rate of reinfection.
> 
> In the US and worldwide, reinfection is occurring at a rate low by a factor of thousands what it _should _be occurring at, left to chance. Again, if you want to conclude that a Covid infection offers little to no lingering immunity, then there's some pretty compelling statistical evidence for the null hypothesis that needs to be explained first.





> Even if it is, many labs don’t have the time or money to clinch the case. As a result, the number of genetically proven reinfections is orders of magnitude lower than that of suspected reinfections. The Netherlands alone has 50 such cases, Brazil 95, Sweden 150, Mexico 285, and Qatar at least 243.



50 in the Netherlands. One country of 17M people. In the same sentence, four other countries are listed with a total of 823 confirmed reinfections. (I didn't write this paper, but if you try reading it, it makes a lot of the exact points I've been saying)

So for the third time I'm asking, how many confirmed cases do you need to see of reinfection before you start to believe me? A million will probably never happen, but if you want ten thousand, we will eventually get there, it'll just take time.



sleewell said:


> isnt it wild to think about the fact that there are multiple vaccines out right now that could potentially end this nightmare and the only thing holding us back is mass production and distribution? can you imagine if we could just snap our fingers and be there right now, that would be so great. so ready for this to be over.



With what I'm hearing, that vaccines are 70-90% effective in the wild, that it's two doses and that there are some unpleasant side effects, and the studies that suggest a booster will be necessary every 6-8 weeks, coupled with the antivax movement the strongest it's been in modern times, and a majority of Trump's supporters thinking it's not even a real virus, I don't think an end to this is anywhere in sight.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> So for the third time I'm asking, how many confirmed cases do you need to see of reinfection before you start to believe me? A million will probably never happen, but if you want ten thousand, we will eventually get there, it'll just take time.


For the third time, at present, I'd expect to see 2.78% of 2.78% re-infections in the United States, or roughly 278,000 cases of reinfection, given the US population of about 365mm.

Instead, we have a half dozen. Where are the other 277,994 cases?

The article cites 50 _suspected_ cases of reinfection in the Netherlands, but not genetically confirmed cases. But, let's run the same numbers. The Netherlands have a population of 17.3mm, and 490k covid cases, so 2.83% of the population has gotten Covid. 2.83% of 2.83% is 0.08%, times 17.3 million yields a predicted 13,885 cases of reinfection. Instead, they suspect they have _50_.

I mean, I'm going to make the same disclaimer here - I know you're a pretty bright guy, and if you've studied viral pathology extensively, I'm sure you know more about the subject than I do. But making mathematical inferences is literally what I get paid to do professionally, and this isn't especially complex math. 50 is not 13,885. 6 is not 278,000. It's certainly POSSIBLE that a Covid infection offers no lingering protection from the disease, but it's not hard at all to predict estimated reinfection cases in the absence of immunity just by extrapolating the initial infection rate to the reinfection rate. If those predicted values differ from observed values, then either the hypothesis that there's no immunity is wrong, or there's some other variable we're not accounting for. If you've got a hypothesis of what that other variable we're not accounting for might be, then I'm all ears.



bostjan said:


> 50 in the Netherlands. One country of 17M people. In the same sentence, four other countries are listed with a total of 823 confirmed reinfections. (I didn't write this paper, but if you try reading it, it makes a lot of the exact points I've been saying)



Again, those are suspected cases - it also mentions there are 24 confirmed cases worldwide. I don't want to belabor this point to far because it's actually not all that important - even if every single one of those cases turned out to be confirmed and not just a lingering case that briefly went asymptomatic, that's still _far _below the rate at which cases _should_ be occuring, if infection offered no subsequent protection. 

I'm trying to figure out where our disconnect is here, and maybe it's that you think I'm making some sort of binary statement, when what I'm saying is a lot more probabalistic - we know reinfection is possible. Your takeaway seems to be because it can happen, then an infection offers no immunity. My takeaway though, and the point I seem to be failing to get across to you, is if you look at observed rates of infection vs observed rates of _reinfection_, reinfection is happening at a rate _far_ below what the simple "percent of percent" model that both you and I are using in our discussion would suggest _should_ be happening. There has to be some explanation for that - if it's not infection significantly reducing the probability of reinfection, then I think you're going to need an alternative explanation for why the reinfection rate is _so_ far below where we would expect it to be.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> For the third time, at present, I'd expect to see 2.78% of 2.78% re-infections in the United States, or roughly 278,000 cases of reinfection, given the US population of about 365mm.
> 
> Instead, we have a half dozen. Where are the other 277,994 cases?
> 
> The article cites 50 _suspected_ cases of reinfection in the Netherlands, but not genetically confirmed cases. But, let's run the same numbers. The Netherlands have a population of 17.3mm, and 490k covid cases, so 2.83% of the population has gotten Covid. 2.83% of 2.83% is 0.08%, times 17.3 million yields a predicted 13,885 cases of reinfection. Instead, they suspect they have _50_.
> 
> I mean, I'm going to make the same disclaimer here - I know you're a pretty bright guy, and if you've studied viral pathology extensively, I'm sure you know more about the subject than I do. But making mathematical inferences is literally what I get paid to do professionally, and this isn't especially complex math. 50 is not 13,885. 6 is not 278,000. It's certainly POSSIBLE that a Covid infection offers no lingering protection from the disease, but it's not hard at all to predict estimated reinfection cases in the absence of immunity just by extrapolating the initial infection rate to the reinfection rate. If those predicted values differ from observed values, then either the hypothesis that there's no immunity is wrong, or there's some other variable we're not accounting for. If you've got a hypothesis of what that other variable we're not accounting for might be, then I'm all ears.



This is pointless.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Ok, so anything short of 100% theoretical yield is not good enough for you.
> 
> To me, that's a 100% unreasonable burden of proof.
> 
> I guess the conversation is over then.
> 
> Also, you didn't read the article nor the quote, and obviously mischaracterized it to further your point. But none of that matters anymore. This is pointless.


Go reread my edit, particulary the binary vs probability one.

The math is pretty clear here. We should have hundreds of thousands of cases of reinfection in the United States alone, based on the infection rate and the assumption that infection confers no lingering protection. We don't. Why?

You know the scientific method as well as I - start by assuming the null hypothesis. "Infection conveys no protection from reinfection." If that were true, we should expect to see reinfection of around 2.78%x2.78%x365,000,000 = 278,000 cases. Instead, we have maybe a half dozen confirmed cases of reinfection in the United States. What's the probability that the true underlying rate of reinfection is 278,000, but the actual measured rate of reinfection is only 6? Pretty damned low, low enough that regardless of whether you're working on a p-value of .05 or .01 it's fairly safe to conclude you can reject the null hypothesis.

Again, if you have an _alternate_ explanation as to why reinfection is so incredibly rare, that would be worth discussing. But, from a purely statistical standpoint, it's awfully hard to look at the data and not come away with the belief that infection seems to offer a pretty serious reduction in the risk of subsequent reinfection.



bostjan said:


> This is pointless.


This is math. By your _own estimation_, we should have nearly 300,000 cases of reinfection in the United States.


----------



## bostjan

I never said there is no immunity. I said there is no long term immunity. You took exception at that, saying that the flu vaccine still works, even though flu has no long term immunity. Note that we still have no herd immunity for flu in sight. I had also pointed out that the half life for flu antibodies is 5-6 times longer than that of SARS-CoV-2.



bostjan said:


> Herd immunity doesn't work for a virus that has no long term immunity, though. This isn't the flu. These vaccines are taking clever approaches around that, which is much needed.
> 
> There are already a handful of coronaviruses widespread, and there is no herd immunity for any of the others.



Now you are saying that, unless we currently have 300k clinically confirmed cases of reinfection, reinfection is negligibly rare, in spite of hundreds of cases from each of several countries that only recently started looking into this, which were clinically confirmed to a slightly lower standard than what you insist is necessary. I've already said multiple times that such a standard is absolutely impossible in the real world short of a few special cases and also explained why the number would be much less than what you said anyway. Thus, this conversation is pointless.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> I never said there is no immunity. I said there is no long term immunity. You took exception at that, saying that the flu vaccine still works, even though flu has no long term immunity. Note that we still have no herd immunity for flu in sight. I had also pointed out that the half life for flu antibodies is 5-6 times longer than that of SARS-CoV-2.
> 
> 
> 
> Now you are saying that, unless we currently have 300k clinically confirmed cases of reinfection, reinfection is negligibly rare, in spite of hundreds of cases from each of several countries that only recently started looking into this, which were clinically confirmed to a slightly lower standard than what you insist is necessary. I've already said multiple times that such a standard is absolutely impossible in the real world short of a few special cases and also explained why the number would be much less than what you said anyway. Thus, this conversation is pointless.




Listen, I'm signing off for the night here and won't be back on before at least tomorrow afternoon, but if you want to have a serious conversation about this, I think a really good first step would be proposing an alternative mechanism which would keep observed reinfection well below expected reinfection.

I don't think it's a fair expectation that there should be exactly 278,000 cases of reinfection in the US, because that's 2.78% of 2.78% of the US Population. I don't know if I would even necessarily bother to point out that if there were 139,000 cases of reinfection, that we were seeing reinfection art a rate of about half of what we'd expect, even though frankly that would be a bit unusual.

But, we're so well beyond what the numbers "should" look like, given the assumption that infection carries no immunity, that I think we have to start to assume that either some resistance is a very likely product of infection, or there's some other reason that we need to account for that's keeping reinfection incredibly low.

We have maybe a half dozen cases of reinfection we've been able to confirm. That could be 10,000 cases of confirmed reinfection, and reinfection would still be occurring at a rate of 1/30th of what we'd "expect" with the assumption of no lasting immunity. That's maybe a point I should have made more explicitly - even if you assume that of those 6 cases, we're only actually identifying something like one out of 2,000, it doesn't really change the conclusion. Even if we're only catching 1 out of 5,000, reinfection is _still_ abnormally rare. The conclusion here that _something _is certainly causing reinfection to happen at a way lower rate than we'd expect isn't sensitive at all to pretty wild swings in our input values. It doesn't pass the sniff test, something is stopping people who have had covid from coming down with covid a second time at nearly the rate that people who haven't had covid are coming down with covid.

Again, if you've got an alternative hypothesis, I say this with zero sarcasm, I'd _love_ to hear it.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> But, we're so well beyond what the numbers "should" look like, *given the assumption that infection carries no immunity*, that I think we have to start to assume that either some resistance is a very likely product of infection, or there's some other reason that we need to account for that's keeping reinfection incredibly low.



Sounds good. But only once you get it out of your head that I supposedly said that the infection carries no immunity, or else whatever association you are making between "no long term immunity" and "no immunity." It's just frustrating if you are going to misrepresent what I had said, especially when I just clarified the distinction.


----------



## failsafe

sleewell said:


> isnt it wild to think about the fact that there are multiple vaccines out right now that could potentially end this nightmare and the only thing holding us back is mass production and distribution? can you imagine if we could just snap our fingers and be there right now, that would be so great. so ready for this to be over.


Half the country probably won’t take it


----------



## sleewell

Who cares? If we have a good vaccine and good treatment options we should be able to open things back up. Going to shows again and traveling sound fun to me.


----------



## StevenC

sleewell said:


> Who cares? If we have a good vaccine and good treatment options we should be able to open things back up. Going to shows again and traveling sound fun to me.


Because if you need 70% covered and it's only 90% effective you need basically 80% of people to get it.


----------



## SpaceDock

I tend to believe that we will vaccinate and keep up on vaccinating health workers and elderly people in care facilities, after that the virus will continue on spreading in communities forever. Most people don’t get sick or die, most people don’t even know they have it. Once medical workers and the elderly are protected, the small minority who do have extreme reactions will have care available because we will have stopped the major influx of patients. I think the virus is something we will be forced to spread around and live with forever.


----------



## Mathemagician

SpaceDock said:


> I tend to believe that we will vaccinate and keep up on vaccinating health workers and elderly people in care facilities, after that the virus will continue on spreading in communities forever. Most people don’t get sick or die, most people don’t even know they have it. Once medical workers and the elderly are protected, the small minority who do have extreme reactions will have care available because we will have stopped the major influx of patients. I think the virus is something we will be forced to spread around and live with forever.



New Zealand literally stopped it by doing the one thing anyone needed to do.


----------



## bostjan

sleewell said:


> Who cares? If we have a good vaccine and good treatment options we should be able to open things back up. Going to shows again and traveling sound fun to me.



TL;DR Things will not go back to normal.

Reasoning:
1. Herd immunity means that there are enough people immune that the number of active cases cases stops increasing. I.e. the number of new infections equals the number of people recovering or dying.
2. Based on the best estimate for the unmodified rate of initial spread, herd immunity requires 70% of the population to become immune to reach the tipping point.
3. Based on the estimates of 70-90% effectiveness of the vaccines that might become available, between 78% and 100% will be required to take the vaccine.
4. Based on the measured halflife of antibodies and data from cases of reinfection, there is very strong evidence that immunity fades very rapidly. If 100% people become immune naturally at an arbitrary date, a significant proportion could still be reinfected just weeks later, and, worst plausible case from available data is that more than half could be susceptible again in two months.
5. Since the most likely vaccine candidates require two initial doses and are expected to require boosters on a bimonthlyish basis, it will be difficult to get people to take it as directed, so the vaccine, although greatly welcome, will not likely be the game changer from an epidemiology standpoint.

Even if everybody on Earth takes their vaccine as directed, there is virtually no possibility of eradicating the virus.

Even if you want to do your part, and you take your vaccine as directed, say hello to 48 hours of awful side effects, another dose two weeks later with also awful side effects, then needing to get your booster with the same awful side effects every 2ish months until the next quantum leap in prevention is discovered years from now.



Mathemagician said:


> New Zealand literally stopped it by doing the one thing anyone needed to do.



*for two days....


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Sounds good. But only once you get it out of your head that I supposedly said that the infection carries no immunity, or else whatever association you are making between "no long term immunity" and "no immunity." It's just frustrating if you are going to misrepresent what I had said, especially when I just clarified the distinction.


I'm really just confused by this discussion, because I'm not sure what I'm saying that's so controversial. 

I never said that Covid conveys long term immunity. I also never said it conveys permanent immunity. 

My point, well, I guess what's important here is first the point itself, and then implications of the point, so let's subdivide further. 

My point itself was, if you look at the observed rate of reinfection in nature, and compare it to what you would expect in a "no immunity after 36 days" or whatever the 30-odd day threshold you've stated you believe protection lasts for, and compare column A to column B, something is clearly wildly out of whack. We're not finding cases at a rate of 2.78% of 2.78%. We're finding cases at a rate of something like 0.01% of 2.78%. There are a couple possible explanations I could think of for this, and one is certainly for some reason we're just way worse at identifying the second infection than the first infection (and if so I'd love some color on why this might be), but another - IMO, more plausible - explanation is that whatever immunity a Covid infection conveys lasts, if not indefinitely, then at least long enough that there aren't large numbers of prior Covid patients who are at more than negligible risk of a second infection. Call that something other than "long term immunity" if you want, but a pretty neat, tidy explanation of the difference between infection rate and reinfection rate that _we are objectively observing in nature, right this moment_, is that virtually all patients who have recovered from covid are still protected from reinfection. Again, it's possible this isn't the case... but the data provides pretty strong evidence. 

Corollary to point above - we now have three vaccines that have demonstrated greater than 90% effectiveness at preventing infection in clinical trials. They haven't released full data yet, but at least in the case of Pfizer's vaccine the trial began in July, so even if you assume the 28 day regiment wasn't completed until early August that's a 2-3 month window, double what your expectations were, at a minimim. 

Why this matters - there are two factors that really drive the spread of the disease. The first is how easily it can be passed from one host to another. We can't fight that with a vaccine, but we can make behavioral modifications to address that - social distancing, wearing masks, hand washing, etc. These are clearly not enough to stop the spread of Covid alone, but in the past we've demonstrated that they're effective at reducing it. 

The second, though, is how resistant new hosts are to becoming infected. This is where a vaccine CAN matter, hugely. Right now, with 97% of the population having no prior exposure to Covid-19, the odds of any person at random being exposed to Covid having no immunity are high enough to not really matter. However, with a widespread adaptation of a vaccine, even if well sort of the 70% target, the odds that any new person exposed to Covid will become infected falls pretty percipitously - say we innoculate half the country, an the probability of a random person getting infected drops from 100% to maybe 50%. That would be enough to cut r-star in half, and with estimated r-star below 2 for Covid 19, that would put r-star below 1, meaning the virus would start to burn itself out, with individuals each infecting less than one new person in aggregare and the total case count gradually dropping over time. If immunity wasn't lasting - and there's no reason to believe it's permanent - this wouldn't last forever and we'd likely need boosters or a seasonal update of some sort, but the number of covid cases would begin to trend down, rather than continue to rise, pretty quickly, as the proportion of te country vaccinated increases. 

This wouldn't completely eradicate covid - it's possible we may never do that, it may just become one more seasonal vaccine, although it's not impossible - but it puts us back in control of the pandemic and would allow us to start going back to targeted isolation and case tracking rather than living with community spread. 

Long story short, a vaccine that offers even temporary immunity of several months - and the data suggests a real possibility that we're looking at immunity quite a bit longer than two or three months - would be an invaluable aid in containing the virus, as it would be pretty straightforward to get us to a point where the total number of cases began shrinking, possibly quite aggressively, which would allow highly effective behavioral approaches like quarantining and contact tracing cases to be used to fight it, which aren't really possible at present due to the sheer number of cases and pervasiveness of the disease.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> 4. Based on the measured halflife of antibodies and data from cases of reinfection, there is very strong evidence that immunity fades very rapidly. If 100% people become immune naturally at an arbitrary date, a significant proportion could still be reinfected just weeks later, and, worst plausible case from available data is that more than half could be susceptible again in two months.


Listen, I'm sorry to have to keep hammering this point home, but we actually _don't_ have very strong evidence to support this claim. 

Antibody half-life rate, sure, seems to be about 36 days. That's concerning. 

Data from cases of reinfection, though... The observed rate of reinfection is a fractional proportion of what it _should_ be, given a 36-day half life. 
This suggests that either for some reason we're missing something like ten thousand cases for every one we catch, or some _other_ mechanism is providing protection against reinfection, with T-cells being a prime candidate (and in other coronaviruses like SARS and MERS they've been detectible for several years after infection, so this is consistent with what we know about this type of virus, as well). 

I'm not saying if you've had covid you should stop wearing a mask and go spend time in large crowds indoors, but the empirical evidence is that, whatever the story is with antibody protection, reinfection does seem to be happening at an abnormally low rate.


----------



## sleewell

i feel like some posts kinda feel like that guy 40 pages back who was saying this was never going to end who we all kinda determined was suicidal.

this will eventually pass. the world is not ending. i'll def take the vaccine and will be back out and about as soon as possible.


----------



## Drew

sleewell said:


> i feel like some posts kinda feel like that guy 40 pages back who was saying this was never going to end who we all kinda determined was suicidal.
> 
> this will eventually pass. the world is not ending. i'll def take the vaccine and will be back out and about as soon as possible.


Hey, its entirely possible some other factor is responsible for the stupidly low rate of observed reinfection - behavioral changes, maybe. But considering the initial waves were concentrated in medical hodbeds like San Francisco, Boston, and New York, back in February and March, I don't think it's very plausible that we're missing reinfections in those large, wealthy, urban areas with exceptional access to medical care and testing, because we're not looking or just don't recognize them. It strains credibility. 

I'm not saying if you've had covid you should stop taking precautions, by ANY means, because there's a difference between statistical probability and certainty. But, if you've had covid, and one of your family members hasn't and has identified risk factors, maybe volunteering to be the one to do the grocery shopping wouldn't be a bad risk mitigation strategy.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> I'm really just confused by this discussion, because I'm not sure what I'm saying that's so controversial.
> 
> I never said that Covid conveys long term immunity. I also never said it conveys permanent immunity.
> 
> My point, well, I guess what's important here is first the point itself, and then implications of the point, so let's subdivide further.
> 
> My point itself was, if you look at the observed rate of reinfection in nature, and compare it to what you would expect in a "no immunity after 36 days" or whatever the 30-odd day threshold you've stated you believe protection lasts for, and compare column A to column B, something is clearly wildly out of whack.



I still never said what you think I said. There is still no data on what you keep saying there is data for.



Drew said:


> We're not finding cases at a rate of 2.78% of 2.78%. We're finding cases at a rate of something like 0.01% of 2.78%.



1. We will not find such. I've already explained why, but you didn't bother to read it.
2. We are not finding that, because those data are not available. Period. I wish you'd stop pretending we have data we do not have.
3. Absense of data to support something is not data to support the absense of something.
4. We actually do have case studies, hundreds of them now, which, in the absence of data, are quite convincing (but I guess not to you). 6 of those had a positive test, negative test, then a positive test. Well over eight hundred had a positive test, 30+ days symptom-free without a test at all, and then a return of symptoms and another positive test.



Drew said:


> There are a couple possible explanations I could think of for this, and one is certainly for some reason we're just way worse at identifying the second infection than the first infection (and if so I'd love some color on why this might be), but another - IMO, more plausible - explanation is that whatever immunity a Covid infection conveys lasts, if not indefinitely, then at least long enough that there aren't large numbers of prior Covid patients who are at more than negligible risk of a second infection. Call that something other than "long term immunity" if you want, but a pretty neat, tidy explanation of the difference between infection rate and reinfection rate that _we are objectively observing in nature, right this moment_, is that virtually all patients who have recovered from covid are still protected from reinfection. Again, it's possible this isn't the case... but the data provides pretty strong evidence.



Repeating that we have data we do not have doesn't change anything, though.



Drew said:


> Corollary to point above - we now have three vaccines that have demonstrated greater than 90% effectiveness at preventing infection in clinical trials. They haven't released full data yet, but at least in the case of Pfizer's vaccine the trial began in July, so even if you assume the 28 day regiment wasn't completed until early August that's a 2-3 month window, double what your expectations were, at a minimim.



What expectations?



Drew said:


> Why this matters - there are two factors that really drive the spread of the disease. The first is how easily it can be passed from one host to another. We can't fight that with a vaccine, but we can make behavioral modifications to address that - social distancing, wearing masks, hand washing, etc. These are clearly not enough to stop the spread of Covid alone, but in the past we've demonstrated that they're effective at reducing it.
> 
> The second, though, is how resistant new hosts are to becoming infected. This is where a vaccine CAN matter, hugely. Right now, with 97% of the population having no prior exposure to Covid-19, the odds of any person at random being exposed to Covid having no immunity are high enough to not really matter. However, with a widespread adaptation of a vaccine, even if well sort of the 70% target, the odds that any new person exposed to Covid will become infected falls pretty percipitously - say we innoculate half the country, an the probability of a random person getting infected drops from 100% to maybe 50%. That would be enough to cut r-star in half, and with estimated r-star below 2 for Covid 19, that would put r-star below 1, meaning the virus would start to burn itself out, with individuals each infecting less than one new person in aggregare and the total case count gradually dropping over time. If immunity wasn't lasting - and there's no reason to believe it's permanent - this wouldn't last forever and we'd likely need boosters or a seasonal update of some sort, but the number of covid cases would begin to trend down, rather than continue to rise, pretty quickly, as the proportion of te country vaccinated increases.



All wild speculation, though, every number you just stated. These might be correct, but all rate pretty rosy on the scale of liklihood.



Drew said:


> This wouldn't completely eradicate covid - it's possible we may never do that, it may just become one more seasonal vaccine, although it's not impossible - but it puts us back in control of the pandemic and would allow us to start going back to targeted isolation and case tracking rather than living with community spread.
> 
> Long story short, a vaccine that offers even temporary immunity of several months - and the data suggests a real possibility that we're looking at immunity quite a bit longer than two or three months - would be an invaluable aid in containing the virus, as it would be pretty straightforward to get us to a point where the total number of cases began shrinking, possibly quite aggressively, which would allow highly effective behavioral approaches like quarantining and contact tracing cases to be used to fight it, which aren't really possible at present due to the sheer number of cases and pervasiveness of the disease.



We have *no data to suggest that. None. Period.
*
The data we *do* have, that the antibodies cease production 5-6 times more rapidly than flu (which requires yearly boosters) and 50-60 times faster than tetanus, which requires boosters ever 10 years, along with the hundreds of case studies suggesting that reinfection (case studies are not data, even in the thousands, but in lieu of data are sufficient to make informed conclusions) after 50 days weighs in a lot heavier than the fact that we have not measured the reinfection rate yet. I'm pretty sure you know that, but somehow we still continue to disagree about that but whatever. 



Drew said:


> Listen, I'm sorry to have to keep hammering this point home, but we actually _don't_ have very strong evidence to support this claim.
> 
> Antibody half-life rate, sure, seems to be about 36 days. That's concerning.
> 
> Data from cases of reinfection, though... The observed rate of reinfection is a fractional proportion of what it _should_ be, given a 36-day half life.
> This suggests that either for some reason we're missing something like ten thousand cases for every one we catch, or some _other_ mechanism is providing protection against reinfection, with T-cells being a prime candidate (and in other coronaviruses like SARS and MERS they've been detectible for several years after infection, so this is consistent with what we know about this type of virus, as well).
> 
> I'm not saying if you've had covid you should stop wearing a mask and go spend time in large crowds indoors, but the empirical evidence is that, whatever the story is with antibody protection, reinfection does seem to be happening at an abnormally low rate.



Where is the data on the reinfection rate. Post it.


----------



## bostjan

Just published paper concerning a "new" confirmed case study: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30910-5/fulltext

This guy got covid in May, tested negative for antibodies, tested positive for the virus 20 May, recovered, then tested negative for the virus 3 Jun, came down with symptoms again (worse the second time), tested positive 22 Jul, and the case was published 23 Nov.

To reiterate my previous point, these case studies take time. No one has published compiled reinfection data. Case studies from July are being published end of November. July was still very early in the pandemic. Heck, now is still somewhat early.

Anybody thinking we must know the reinfection rate now (e.g. the CDC, who had only recently reversed their declaration that the virus was not airborne) is dreaming. It'll be years before there is good data.


----------



## diagrammatiks

bostjan said:


> TL;DR Things will not go back to normal.
> 
> Reasoning:
> 1. Herd immunity means that there are enough people immune that the number of active cases cases stops increasing. I.e. the number of new infections equals the number of people recovering or dying.
> 2. Based on the best estimate for the unmodified rate of initial spread, herd immunity requires 70% of the population to become immune to reach the tipping point.
> 3. Based on the estimates of 70-90% effectiveness of the vaccines that might become available, between 78% and 100% will be required to take the vaccine.
> 4. Based on the measured halflife of antibodies and data from cases of reinfection, there is very strong evidence that immunity fades very rapidly. If 100% people become immune naturally at an arbitrary date, a significant proportion could still be reinfected just weeks later, and, worst plausible case from available data is that more than half could be susceptible again in two months.
> 5. Since the most likely vaccine candidates require two initial doses and are expected to require boosters on a bimonthlyish basis, it will be difficult to get people to take it as directed, so the vaccine, although greatly welcome, will not likely be the game changer from an epidemiology standpoint.
> 
> Even if everybody on Earth takes their vaccine as directed, there is virtually no possibility of eradicating the virus.
> 
> Even if you want to do your part, and you take your vaccine as directed, say hello to 48 hours of awful side effects, another dose two weeks later with also awful side effects, then needing to get your booster with the same awful side effects every 2ish months until the next quantum leap in prevention is discovered years from now.
> 
> 
> 
> *for two days....



hello speculation land.

we've had a vaccine for 5 months now. 

everything will be fine. 

just relax.


----------



## bostjan

diagrammatiks said:


> hello speculation land.
> 
> we've had a vaccine for 5 months now.
> 
> everything will be fine.
> 
> just relax.



What did I say that was speculation?


----------



## diagrammatiks

bostjan said:


> What did I say that was speculation?



you really need to relax man. It’s not going to do you any good to die of a anxiety attack before the highly deadly infectious disease gets you.


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## sleewell

That things will not go back to normal.

You sound like eeyore from winnie the pooh.


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## bostjan

Because it's total fantasy land dreaming to think things will go back to normal. The virus will wane but will never go away. The vaccine that we've supposedly had since March is going to come out and we'll learn why it didn't come out right away, then nowhere near enough people will get it. Besides that, the economy is going to take years to repair and that's all completely aside from any of the issues I've brought up.

It's not panic or depression, it's realism.

When this thread kicked off, most people thought I was way overestimating this thing, and we've blown way past what I had predicted long ago. So you just keep on ignoring all of the stuff we know about it by now and lie to yourselves that everything will go back exactly the way it was before as soon as the vaccine comes out if it makes you feel good.


----------



## diagrammatiks

bostjan said:


> Because it's total fantasy land dreaming to think things will go back to normal. The virus will wane but will never go away. The vaccine that we've supposedly had since March is going to come out and we'll learn why it didn't come out right away, then nowhere near enough people will get it. Besides that, the economy is going to take years to repair and that's all completely aside from any of the issues I've brought up.
> 
> It's not panic or depression, it's realism.
> 
> When this thread kicked off, most people thought I was way overestimating this thing, and we've blown way past what I had predicted long ago. So you just keep on ignoring all of the stuff we know about it by now and lie to yourselves that everything will go back exactly the way it was before as soon as the vaccine comes out if it makes you feel good.



dawg. you're talking about this like people talk about guns. More than half the world has this under control right now and the remaining level of not normal is about as intrusive aviation after 911. which is annoying but hardly the end of the world.

Now America might not go back to normal but that as fuck all to do with vaccines, or the infection rate, or the probability of reinfection.


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## bostjan

Where did I ever say this was the end of the world?

And last I checked militiagan (where the user to whom I replied is listed to reside) was smack in the middle of the zone where all of the problems I had brought up were worst. Things for us are not going back to normal.


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## sleewell

Stay inside forever I guess then, the world is ending and we will never be normal again. I've been working at my office the entire time. We have 3 kids in preschool since july.

11 million people are employed by the restaurant industry and dont have the luxury to lock themselves inside and still collect a paycheck. Lord knows they cant rely on the govt to feed them and pay their rent. 

If a vaccine is 90-95% effective along with much better treatment options since the spring I'll def take those chances and I dont really care about the fools who are too dumb not to take the vaccine. Stupid people dont always live till their 90s.

I'm sure there were eeyores during the Spanish flu back in 1918 who said we would never get back to normal too, people get depressed and wollow in it but that is not how I choose to live my life.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Has everyone here seen Shaun of The Dead? 

Fucking killer movie, absolute classic, but for those who haven't it's basically a funny zombie movie. But the part I'm talking about *spoiler alert* is at the end where society kinda just lives with having zombies around. 

This:


It's not that the zombies aren't dangerous anymore, but we sort of find ways to live with that danger. 

That's sort of what it means when folks talk about how things will never be the same. We'll always have covid, it's just about the changes we make to deal with it moving forward. We can't just pretend it's gone or going to be gone tomorrow. We just have to adapt.


----------



## Kaura

@MaxOfMetal Shaun of the Dead is probably my favorite movie of all-time. At least most rewatched. Hell, might watch it today again. 

In other news, I just heard that 3 people in my workplace has been tested positive. Starting today, my staffing firm requires everyone to wear maskes. Which is kinda funny because that only applies to people in our staffing firm. There's like 3 different staffing firms at my workplace + the people who work directly for the firm.


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## Wuuthrad

Traveling crisis nurse working without health care describes the current situation in the USA treating Covid patients. 

Even if she was insured and contracted Covid, insurance wouldn’t cover it!

All I can say is we should all give Thanks to the Health Care Workers!


----------



## bostjan

The WHO had a big meeting a few hours ago. One of the hot topics was dropping the idea of herd immunity altogether. The great example was superspreaders of measles in 2019, in spite of vaccinations above the herd immunity threshold in states or nations, there was no such vaccination level in specific communities.

Interesting side topic anyway.

Also, WHO's executive scientists have been begging Pfizer for vaccine trial data and Pfizer had responded (according to Dr. Swaminathan) saying that they have no data available past two months for efficacy.

We (meaning the medical community, not ss.o lol) need to know this before the vaccine's booster regimen can even begin to be explored. 

Couple that with the botching of AstraZeneca's studies, and I think that there is a long way to go. I still think Moderna's approach is the most clever, but we'll have to wait and see.

Oh, and my test from over a week ago came back negative.


----------



## Randy

NY spiking again, even upstate here. Some counties have been absolutely deliberately letting places ignore the regulations. 

Albany pretty good at reporting cases and reporting bar violations, etc. Schenectady mum on most (people around here know the bar owners are connected, you'll see the mayor bar hopping most nights even), so unsurprisingly they're spiking and reporting "no idea where these people got it from". I know one bartender that had it, they told her coworkers during her shit to quarantine and that's it. Pay no mind to all the people who she encountered during her shift or all the nights she was out barhopping before and after. It's a shit show.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Randy said:


> NY spiking again, even upstate here. Some counties have been absolutely deliberately letting places ignore the regulations.
> 
> Albany pretty good at reporting cases and reporting bar violations, etc. Schenectady mum on most (people around here know the bar owners are connected, you'll see the mayor bar hopping most nights even), so unsurprisingly they're spiking and reporting "no idea where these people got it from". I know one bartender that had it, they told her coworkers during her shit to quarantine and that's it. Pay no mind to all the people who she encountered during her shift or all the nights she was out barhopping before and after. It's a shit show.



It's the same out here. Everyone is like "where are these cases coming from?" while bars and restaurants are hopping and contact tracing is a joke. 

My workplace, which has been quite insulated so far, is starting to crack and that's just the cases we know of. 

Ball = dropped.


----------



## Randy

And that's exactly the issue, because it's not like those people are completely segregated from everyone else.

My girlfriend is having a helluva time with this, because she has family in the nursing home and they keep going into 14 day quarantine because of staff coming back positive. I mean, you're talking about single college aged girls with a boring job, some money in their pockets and the weekend off, what do you think they're doing with their free time? Of course it's getting in those places.

Likewise, same thing with those types and the "family comes first" bullshit. My sister in law "my family is the most important thing to me" type, we call around to get headcount for Thanksgiving (which was small, immediate family) of course everyone is basically doing the same lockdown type routine, but she's like "oh I'm doing Friendsgiving (3 hours away in a cluster area at 5.5+% positive rate), I've been here for the last 4 days but don't worry I'll be back in time for dinner" shows up and guess who's the only one coughing? Like, bruh.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

This is how zombies happen in movies. Some dipshit gets bit, knows they got bit, but doesn't tell anyone and just sort of waits until they start biting everyone else. 

No one out here wants to get tested or admit they're sick because they either a) couldn't stop going on about how it was simultaneously fake and China's fault, b) need to work to makes ends meet, c) doesn't feel like being inconvenienced by quarantine, d) feels like they'll be a pariah, or a combination of them all.


----------



## spudmunkey




----------



## diagrammatiks

spudmunkey said:


> View attachment 87517



fun data


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> We have *no data to suggest that. None. Period.
> *
> The data we *do* have, that the antibodies cease production 5-6 times more rapidly than flu (which requires yearly boosters) and 50-60 times faster than tetanus, which requires boosters ever 10 years, along with the hundreds of case studies suggesting that reinfection (case studies are not data, even in the thousands, but in lieu of data are sufficient to make informed conclusions) after 50 days weighs in a lot heavier than the fact that we have not measured the reinfection rate yet. I'm pretty sure you know that, but somehow we still continue to disagree about that but whatever.


Ok, last time. You won't take it from me. Will you take it from my girlfriend, an internist who's been working on her large Boston-area hospital's Covid-19 response team? Or her good friend, an infectious disease research doctor at a well-known university in Cambridge, Mass? 

The consensus in the medical community is that while reinfection is certainly not _impossible_, that a covid infection conveys pretty robust immunity that lasts at least as long as the pandemic has been going on, due to the improbably low cases of reinfection that have been identified, and that this immunity seems to last at least as long as the pandemic has been going on. She literally laughed when I asked her for a sanity check, and asked what the hell you were going on about, and that it's not like antibodies are the body's only way of fighting viruses, and that the leading contender right now for explaining _why _immunity was happening was t-cell immunity. 

This is worth a look, and explicitly addresses what you've been going on about with antibodies. 

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/what-...n-why-immunity-is-about-more-than-antibodies/

So, stop trying to pretend an 0.0008% reinfection rate is the same as a 2.78% reinfection rate and changing the subject to antibody decay every time the data gets awkward. What you're saying has no basis in science, is WAY out of the mainstream in the medical community's thinking on Covid immunity, and at this point you're constant "the sky is falling" refrains that this is just going to be a disaster and a vaccine can't work is pure fear mongering. If you insist on continuing to post that there is no lingering immunity to covid, I'm going to drop all pretext of trying to debate this with you and instead resort to simple fact-checking and pointing out that there's no medical basis for your claims, every time you continue to make them. 

Last time I'm explaining this - antibody response is only a small part of the body's approach to fighting a virus, and based on the data we have, it's pretty clear _something_, which we believe to be t-cells, is doing a very effective job stopping re-infection. We don't know how long this will last, but we know it's lasted at least as long as the pandemic itself. End of story.


----------



## Wuuthrad

Drew said:


> Ok, last time. You won't take it from me. Will you take it from my girlfriend, an internist who's been working on her large Boston-area hospital's Covid-19 response team? Or her good friend, an infectious disease research doctor at a well-known university in Cambridge, Mass?
> 
> The consensus in the medical community is that while reinfection is certainly not _impossible_, that a covid infection conveys pretty robust immunity that lasts at least as long as the pandemic has been going on, due to the improbably low cases of reinfection that have been identified, and that this immunity seems to last at least as long as the pandemic has been going on. She literally laughed when I asked her for a sanity check, and asked what the hell you were going on about, and that it's not like antibodies are the body's only way of fighting viruses, and that the leading contender right now for explaining _why _immunity was happening was t-cell immunity.
> 
> This is worth a look, and explicitly addresses what you've been going on about with antibodies.
> 
> https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/what-...n-why-immunity-is-about-more-than-antibodies/
> 
> So, stop trying to pretend an 0.0008% reinfection rate is the same as a 2.78% reinfection rate and changing the subject to antibody decay every time the data gets awkward. What you're saying has no basis in science, is WAY out of the mainstream in the medical community's thinking on Covid immunity, and at this point you're constant "the sky is falling" refrains that this is just going to be a disaster and a vaccine can't work is pure fear mongering. If you insist on continuing to post that there is no lingering immunity to covid, I'm going to drop all pretext of trying to debate this with you and instead resort to simple fact-checking and pointing out that there's no medical basis for your claims, every time you continue to make them.
> 
> Last time I'm explaining this - antibody response is only a small part of the body's approach to fighting a virus, and based on the data we have, it's pretty clear _something_, which we believe to be t-cells, is doing a very effective job stopping re-infection. We don't know how long this will last, but we know it's lasted at least as long as the pandemic itself. End of story.



Clearly the USA is leading the world in many Covid categories, not the least of which is fighting the pandemic via meaningless online arguments, mostly from people with very little if any medical knowledge, and also significantly misinformed opinions!


----------



## _MonSTeR_

I’m going to jump in briefly here on the data situation. I’ve no idea how data collection is being managed in the US but here in the U.K. the data collection, ‘test and trace’ and government advice is a joke. I literally don’t know that I’d trust the data to be reliable enough to base opinions on. Maybe the US has better organisation from non hospitalised cases?

I was very ill in the spring with some of the reported symptoms, but not the most common ones. I’d had contact with colleagues from China. I didn’t take a test because they weren’t available, I was I’ll again with all the symptoms and took a test (the antigen test) which came back negative, so my case which may or may not have been positive with lack of reinfection, but we’ll never know.

The clinical work for a vaccine normally takes months and months, so whilst I know that this is a global emergency, but I’m still nervous about the robustness.

I’m not an expert on COVID, but my epidemiology professor is a member of the U.K.’s SAGE committee and I worked in contract research for a few years so whilst I’m out of touch, I’ve some familiarity with the science...


----------



## Wuuthrad

Study: “Coronavirus was in US earlier than previously known:”

https://www.npr.org/sections/corona...eeks-earlier-than-previously-known-study-says


----------



## Wuuthrad




----------



## bostjan

Here's a NYP article saying exactly what I've been saying all along: https://nypost.com/2020/12/01/north-carolina-county-reports-cases-of-covid-19-reinfection/

Another article from NatGeo: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/12/why-coronavirus-reinfections-are-happening/

We may not have the data other people in the thread keep referencing for another year, but we now have enough anecdotes of reinfection that statements like "reinfection is extremely rare," or implications that the reinfection rate is negligible are directly observed to be false representations.

And, to be clear, this isn't me saying this is the end of the world. This is just me saying that immunity to this particular coronavirus doesn't seem to be special compared to immunity to garden-variety cotonaviruses, therefore reinfection is likely enough to consider it a risk (in the general case) after a couple of months. So continue to be vigilant and careful whether you had it or not. Likewise, once the vaccine is available, it will be the first vaccine ever for a virus with this sort of short immune memory, so be careful! The vaccine might only cover you for a couple of months.

Anyone can deny this, because we don't know for sure, but the evidence we have clearly points to the possibility of boosters as often as bimonthly and the possibility of reinfection.


----------



## Viginez

this is coming from ex-Pfizer head of research Dr. Michael Yeadon

https://www.wodarg.com/english/


----------



## StevenC

Viginez said:


> this is coming from ex-Pfizer head of research Dr. Michael Yeadon
> 
> https://www.wodarg.com/english/


This the guy who said coronavirus was "fundamentally over in the UK" just last month?


----------



## bostjan

StevenC said:


> This the guy who said coronavirus was "fundamentally over in the UK" just last month?


Yeah, he claimed that there ought to be herd immunity by now, during a radio show, and has provided literally no data to substantiate his reasoning during the backlash. 
Wodarg himself has been causing quite a stir, because his logic (paraphrased, yet I'd say accurate) is that the vaccine could cause infertility and other long- term side effects, therefore, all vaccine research should be halted permanently.

I mean, that's a classic non sequitor.


----------



## Adam Of Angels

Curious to hear what some of you guys might make of this. California and Texas have had drastically different approaches to mitigation, yet roughly similar outcomes in terms of outbreaks:


----------



## nightflameauto

bostjan said:


> Yeah, he claimed that there ought to be herd immunity by now, during a radio show, and has provided literally no data to substantiate his reasoning during the backlash.
> Wodarg himself has been causing quite a stir, because his logic (paraphrased, yet I'd say accurate) is that the vaccine could cause infertility and other long- term side effects, therefore, all vaccine research should be halted permanently.
> 
> I mean, that's a classic non sequitor.


Holy ever loving shit. That's some serious stupid.


----------



## BigViolin

Whatever approach is implemented does not matter if there are enough dipshits that won't follow it.


----------



## Adam Of Angels

BigViolin said:


> Whatever approach is implemented does not matter if there are enough dipshits that won't follow it.



In the case of California (specifically LA County) hardly anything was open, and the differences between the two places were too great to chalk it up to stupidity. There's plenty of other similar examples. I suppose the most salient supposition is that the virus is good at getting around our mitigation efforts, and we're being assholes to eachother for no reason.


----------



## BigViolin

There were some short term, isolated victories in LA and the Bay Area. Overall though I don't think the difference was that great outside of the cities, though I'm quite a bit north of you. Up here in wine country you cross a bridge and lockdowns look like black friday.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

My buddy texted me this morning saying that he tested positive. His timeline is a little sketchy but sounds like he became symptomatic the Monday before Thanksgiving which would've been Nov 23rd. 

Symptoms that he described were a fever for a few days ( not sure how this was determined), then sinus discomfort ( not sure to what extent), then he says that he lost all sense of taste and smell. He tends to downplay a lot of things so I have no idea how transparent he's being about any additional symptoms. On a related note, it really pisses me off that he says he's going back to work Monday because it will have been two weeks by then. He's not planning to get re-tested before returning to work. 

Anyway... just wanted to share this as this virus continues to spread.


----------



## BigViolin

A lot of folks I encounter have mild concern until they are inconvenienced then it's "people gotta live their lives".


----------



## Drew

Wuuthrad said:


> Clearly the USA is leading the world in many Covid categories, not the least of which is fighting the pandemic via meaningless online arguments, mostly from people with very little if any medical knowledge, and also significantly misinformed opinions!


 

So much leadership! Greatest leadership! Across so many categories! 

I may come to miss the mock Trump impressions one day. Fair trade, though.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Here's a NYP article saying exactly what I've been saying all along: https://nypost.com/2020/12/01/north-carolina-county-reports-cases-of-covid-19-reinfection/
> 
> Another article from NatGeo: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/12/why-coronavirus-reinfections-are-happening/
> 
> We may not have the data other people in the thread keep referencing for another year, but we now have enough anecdotes of reinfection that statements like "reinfection is extremely rare," or implications that the reinfection rate is negligible are directly observed to be false representations.
> 
> And, to be clear, this isn't me saying this is the end of the world. This is just me saying that immunity to this particular coronavirus doesn't seem to be special compared to immunity to garden-variety cotonaviruses, therefore reinfection is likely enough to consider it a risk (in the general case) after a couple of months. So continue to be vigilant and careful whether you had it or not. Likewise, once the vaccine is available, it will be the first vaccine ever for a virus with this sort of short immune memory, so be careful! The vaccine might only cover you for a couple of months.
> 
> Anyone can deny this, because we don't know for sure, but the evidence we have clearly points to the possibility of boosters as often as bimonthly and the possibility of reinfection.



Sigh. 34 suspected, not confirmed, cases, but if we treat them as confirmed, 34 cases of reinfection amongs a population of 373,000 confirmed cases of initial infection is a rate of 0.009%. North Carolina's population is 10.49mm, so you have an initial infection rate of 3.56%, but a reinfection rate of 0.009%. Again, no one has claimed reinfection is _impossible_. However, over the 9+ months this pandemic has been going on, the data we have shows it to be extremely, extremely, extremely _unlikely. _Which is a distinction you evidently haven't yet been able to grasp. 

So, again, the post quoted above contains opinions that the the medical and scientific community's strong consensus has been to reject, and that the current scientific understanding is that an initial Covid infection reduces your risk of reinfection exponentially, for a period at least as long as cases have been observed in the United States.


----------



## Drew

EDIT:


bostjan said:


> Another article from NatGeo: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/12/why-coronavirus-reinfections-are-happening/



Dude, did you even read this article? I'm only getting it in bits and peices because it's behind a paywall and after a couple seconds a popup comes up telling me to subscribe or create an account, but from the paragraph just above the "Immunity Symphony" header onwards, it's talking about the fact reinfections happening at _all_ is surprising, because there's growing evidence that infection does convey robust protection, via B and T cell immunity. 

Read your own damned sources, man. They're agreeing with what _I'm_ saying here.


----------



## Adam Of Angels

Drew said:


> EDIT:
> 
> 
> Dude, did you even read this article? I'm only getting it in bits and peices because it's behind a paywall and after a couple seconds a popup comes up telling me to subscribe or create an account, but from the paragraph just above the "Immunity Symphony" header onwards, it's talking about the fact reinfections happening at _all_ is surprising, because there's growing evidence that infection does convey robust protection, via B and T cell immunity.
> 
> Read your own damned sources, man. They're agreeing with what _I'm_ saying here.



We've had evidence of T and B cell response as far back as May. Somehow still isn't widely reported on.


----------



## Drew

Adam Of Angels said:


> We've had evidence of T and B cell response as far back as May. Somehow still isn't widely reported on.


I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here, but:

1) we have a reinfection-rate that, even if we count all suspected cases as confirmed, is running at a mere fraction of the rate, normalized on the pool of individuals with an initial infection, of the rate of infections normalized by total population, which from a purely statistical stanpoint is pretty compelling evidence that _something _is providing protection, and
2) B and, especially, T cell immunity is consistent with what we know of other coronaviruses that we have seen in human populations, notably SARS and MERS.

The medical community is on board with it, neither of those are at all controversial claims, but evidently it's a stretch to get non-professional media to even talk about antibody immunity, much less lesser-layperson-undestood mechanisms by which a body fights a virus. I've been having this argument for something like a half dozen cases now, that we _do_ have pretty good evidence that an initial infection produces a very robust amount of protection from subsequent reinfection, but evidently the fact that it's like 99.7% protection rather than 100% infection means it's all garbage, worthless, and we're all going to get sick 36 days after we get it in the first place.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> EDIT:
> 
> 
> Dude, did you even read this article? I'm only getting it in bits and peices because it's behind a paywall and after a couple seconds a popup comes up telling me to subscribe or create an account, but from the paragraph just above the "Immunity Symphony" header onwards, it's talking about the fact reinfections happening at _all_ is surprising, because there's growing evidence that infection does convey robust protection, via B and T cell immunity.
> 
> Read your own damned sources, man. They're agreeing with what _I'm_ saying here.


Drew, did you read the article? If not, don't even bother responding anymore. If so, which part of it are you refering to? The part where the standard of evidence you are insisting is necessary to stop telling me that I'm wrong is practically impossible to achieve or what?

And just because we disagree about whether or not you have some data that no one has collected on reinfection rates doesn't mean that we disagree about everything. Did I say that people getting reinfected will have it worse the second time? No. I said that the fact that reinfections occur will make it nearly impossible for us to develop herd immunity. Now that WHO is dropping the idea of herd immunity, I feel like my point there went from thinking ahead to fruition. Whatever words you are trying to put into my mouth at this point, regardless of how silly you think they are, won't make me admit I said something wrong, unless it can be correctly paraphrased to something I actually said at some point.

Let me make this as clear as possible:

If you have the reinfection rate data post it now or else I continue to firmly assume that you don't have it.

No one else is collecting the data and I've demanded it from you several times. You keep referencing it but I think you are just making an assertion and pretending your own assertion proves your point. It's not a good strategy.


----------



## SpaceDock

On the reinfection topic, my nightly news just said there are 40 confirmed reinfections in Colorado to date.


----------



## Wuuthrad

Covid is pretty simple-

It’s a highly infectious PREVENTABLE disease.

If you’re not capable of preventing this disease, you’re either an idiot, incapacitated, or a sociopathic or psychopathic individual.


----------



## bostjan

Wuuthrad said:


> Covid is pretty simple-
> 
> It’s a highly infectious PREVENTABLE disease.
> 
> If you’re not capable of preventing this disease, you’re either an idiot, incapacitated, or a sociopathic or psychopathic individual.



There are a lot of steps hat can prevent it from spreading. However, particularly workers in health care have no option to take the most effective step of stayimg away from people who have it, and none of the other prevention meyhods currently available are 100% effective, so there are still a statistically significant number of people being very careful and still getting infected, regardless of how smart they are. Probably that's not what you meant, but it might be worth a disclaimer either way.


----------



## MaxOfMetal




----------



## Metropolis

Wuuthrad said:


> Covid is pretty simple-
> 
> It’s a highly infectious PREVENTABLE disease.
> 
> If you’re not capable of preventing this disease, you’re either an idiot, incapacitated, or a sociopathic or psychopathic individual.



In everyday life with totally random odds, simply not.


----------



## _MonSTeR_

Wuuthrad said:


> Covid is pretty simple-
> 
> It’s a highly infectious PREVENTABLE disease.
> 
> If you’re not capable of preventing this disease, you’re either an idiot, incapacitated, or a sociopathic or psychopathic individual.



Ironically U.K. government guidelines are such that the use of PPE as a measure to prevent the spread of the disease is recommended AGAINST in British schools.

I’ve just seen our unpublished city statistics for confirmed infections in schools and the primary school (5-11 year olds) rates and absolutes are higher than either secondary (11-18) or higher education. Kids can get it and are getting it and are spreading it but are largely asymptomatic. My wife is the head teacher (what you guys in the States call the school Principal) and at one point she had 43% of her staff off ill or isolating from it because they’re advised against PPE and the buildings are not big enough for social distancing and the government dictates that schools must be open. 

That’s part of why data gathering on this whole thing is skewed. Many people who have it are not included in the data, so it’s based on false assumptions, which means we’re building our house upon the sand.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

MaxOfMetal said:


> View attachment 87646



Or maybe it was!!! Its actually Apple not Bill Gates trying to get us.


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## Shoeless_jose

R


----------



## sleewell

probably fair at this point to call out all the dem mayors, governors and members of congress being total hypocrites by breaking their own guidelines and recommendations. mayor of denver said not to travel for the holidays and then boards a plane to MS. gov of CA ordering people to stay at home and then dining with lobbyists at a high end restaurant, didn't he go to HI too? there was another who recorded a message telling people to stay home from his vacation rental in Cabo. Feinstein not wearing a mask at the airport. the list goes on and on. pretty fucking stupid if you ask me, its not like they wont get caught.

it's not to the level of holding rallies and telling people its the flu but its def not a good look.


----------



## nightflameauto

sleewell said:


> probably fair at this point to call out all the dem mayors, governors and members of congress being total hypocrites by breaking their own guidelines and recommendations. mayor of denver said not to travel for the holidays and then boards a plane to MS. gov of CA ordering people to stay at home and then dining with lobbyists at a high end restaurant, didn't he go to HI too? there was another who recorded a message telling people to stay home from his vacation rental in Cabo. Feinstein not wearing a mask at the airport. the list goes on and on. pretty fucking stupid if you ask me, its not like they wont get caught.
> 
> it's not to the level of holding rallies and telling people its the flu but its def not a good look.


It's not just politicians. My wife's podcasts are filled with Democratic leaning people who are sometimes literally SCREAMING that people need to stay home for the holidays and not travel and then immediately talking about their trips across the country to visit their family for the holidays. I don't get what it is about even modest celebrity, but all of these folks have themselves convinced that they are somehow mores special than the rest of us plebes and clearly their superior genetics won't allow them or their families to get infected.

My wife and I are locked in aside from my trips to work. No visitors, and no visiting. The extent of our "get togethers" was my wife making pepperoni rolls for our niece and leaving them at her door for her birthday.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Drew, did you read the article? If not, don't even bother responding anymore. If so, which part of it are you refering to? The part where the standard of evidence you are insisting is necessary to stop telling me that I'm wrong is practically impossible to achieve or what?
> 
> And just because we disagree about whether or not you have some data that no one has collected on reinfection rates doesn't mean that we disagree about everything. Did I say that people getting reinfected will have it worse the second time? No. I said that the fact that reinfections occur will make it nearly impossible for us to develop herd immunity. Now that WHO is dropping the idea of herd immunity, I feel like my point there went from thinking ahead to fruition. Whatever words you are trying to put into my mouth at this point, regardless of how silly you think they are, won't make me admit I said something wrong, unless it can be correctly paraphrased to something I actually said at some point.
> 
> Let me make this as clear as possible:
> 
> If you have the reinfection rate data post it now or else I continue to firmly assume that you don't have it.
> 
> No one else is collecting the data and I've demanded it from you several times. You keep referencing it but I think you are just making an assertion and pretending your own assertion proves your point. It's not a good strategy.


It's behind a pay wall so I only got it in bits and peices. If you copy and paste it here, I'll be happy to point you to the relevant sections. 

I DO have the reinfection rate data. You've provided the number of suspected cases of reinfection, and from there it's basic math. Divide - and this is a _generous _assumption for you - the number of suspected cases of reinfection by the number of cases of infection, and that's your reinfection rate. Compare that to your infection rate - number of cases of infection divided by total population - and if A is a whole heck of a lot smaller than B, then something's going on. 

I mean, if your whole argument is that "yeah, well, the reason the reinfection rate is so small is that for some reason we're just missing all of those cases of reinfection," then I'll ask, again, for you to provide some sort of explanation why we're missing cases of reinfection at a rate wildly higher than we're missing cases of infection. 

And, again - I'm not the one arguing against the medical and scientific community's best understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic here, so I don't know why you keep asking me to prove they're all right.


----------



## Adam Of Angels

Drew said:


> It's behind a pay wall so I only got it in bits and peices. If you copy and paste it here, I'll be happy to point you to the relevant sections.
> 
> I DO have the reinfection rate data. You've provided the number of suspected cases of reinfection, and from there it's basic math. Divide - and this is a _generous _assumption for you - the number of suspected cases of reinfection by the number of cases of infection, and that's your reinfection rate. Compare that to your infection rate - number of cases of infection divided by total population - and if A is a whole heck of a lot smaller than B, then something's going on.
> 
> I mean, if your whole argument is that "yeah, well, the reason the reinfection rate is so small is that for some reason we're just missing all of those cases of reinfection," then I'll ask, again, for you to provide some sort of explanation why we're missing cases of reinfection at a rate wildly higher than we're missing cases of infection.
> 
> And, again - I'm not the one arguing against the medical and scientific community's best understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic here, so I don't know why you keep asking me to prove they're all right.




This. Your chances of reinfection aren't zero, but they're close enough that you can assume it won't happen. And, two things of note: 1. There's virtually zero cases of severe reinfection, and 2. Even the cases we have found might have a more complex explanation.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> It's behind a pay wall so I only got it in bits and peices. If you copy and paste it here, I'll be happy to point you to the relevant sections.
> 
> I DO have the reinfection rate data. You've provided the number of suspected cases of reinfection, and from there it's basic math. Divide - and this is a _generous _assumption for you - the number of suspected cases of reinfection by the number of cases of infection, and that's your reinfection rate. Compare that to your infection rate - number of cases of infection divided by total population - and if A is a whole heck of a lot smaller than B, then something's going on.



So, to be clear, the data you have is data I gave you? I, the person who has been harping that we don't have the data, gave you the data? The data that I've said many times is anecdotes and incomplete, you are assuming is complete? Do I get to say ""c'mon man!" at this point?



Drew said:


> I mean, if your whole argument is that "yeah, well, the reason the reinfection rate is so small is that for some reason we're just missing all of those cases of reinfection," then I'll ask, again, for you to provide some sort of explanation why we're missing cases of reinfection at a rate wildly higher than we're missing cases of infection.



I've explained this multiple times, posted multiple sources, and even told you how one of them is not behind a paywall, but just requires you to enter an email address (you don't even have to validate the email), but you've read none of that. It is not my problem of you do not read.

We do not have reinfection data. Up to now, no one was collecting it. This is how the entire argument started. If you think I said something else that you disagree abouy, why not post the actual words with which you disagree? That might clear up the entire misunderstanding between us.



Drew said:


> And, again - I'm not the one arguing against the medical and scientific community's best understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic here, so I don't know why you keep asking me to prove they're all right.



Dude, if ou are saying reinfection rates are negligible (which I think is safe to assume if you continue this disagreement and use phrases like "reinfection ... is extremely, extremely, extremely rare"), you aren't agreeing with the experts anymore. In terms of scientific papers published in the last month now, the consensus has changed from "we don't know about reinfection" to "we need to expect there to be reinfection." This has been evidenced by a number of journal articles I already posted. If you have papers to refute those, post them, otherwise, again, it's not my problem if you do not read.


----------



## bostjan

Adam Of Angels said:


> This. Your chances of reinfection aren't zero, but they're close enough that you can assume it won't happen. And, two things of note: 1. There's virtually zero cases of severe reinfection, and 2. Even the cases we have found might have a more complex explanation.



1. Your chances of reinfection appear to be much higher than zero. They start at essentially zero at t=0 and increase to the point where they are much closer to your chances of initial infection than to zero, at some point in time that we don't yet know, but months rather than decades (as it is with most serious viral infections).
2. There are some cases of severe reinfection, but a. that's beside the point and b. again, we do not have data, only a few cases studies. For example, the first case study of a suspected reinfection was a patient on the Diamomd Princess, who recovered, got sick again, and then died. Maybe, beinh an older man, his immune system was no good. There are a lot of maybes, which is why we need data in order to be conclusive.
3. The point I originally made, that has caused all of this ruckus, which I firmly stand by is two things:
A. The apparent evidence of reinfection means that herd immunity to the virus will not be achievable.
B. The data on antibody half life that we do have strongly suggests that the vaccine will require booster doses at some interval that is not yet known. This interval appears to be more like 2 months than 10 years.

No one in this thread is claiming that covid is going to kill us all or whatever nonsense has to do with the virus ending our civilization. The virus is here to stay, but it will eventually be just another daily inconvenience for most people. Maybe life expectancy will drop permanently by some amount that will be arguably significant/insignificant, but it's all speculation.

For the sake of clarification: a mild reinfection means that you are contagious. That's key in understanding the spread of a virus in an epidemic, which is what we were talking about.


----------



## Wuuthrad




----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> So, to be clear, the data you have is data I gave you? I, the person who has been harping that we don't have the data, gave you the data? The data that I've said many times is anecdotes and incomplete, you are assuming is complete? Do I get to say ""c'mon man!" at this point?


Drop the tone, we're trying to have a serious discussion here. 

So, you're not questioning the interpretation of the data you're presenting - that, for instance, in Maryland, if we assume every suspected case of reinfection is an actual case, we have an _observed _reinfection rate of 0.009%, compared to an observed infection rate of 3.56%. Your assertion, then, is that we can't draw conclusions about this, because the observed rate, based on the data you're sharing, is actually garbage because we're doing a bad job observing it. 

So, let's dig into that a bit. _Why_ should we not trust the reinfection statistics - the same ones you're sharing - but that we should trust the infection statistics? Why is it so much harder to identify a second Covid case than a first? 

The entirity of your argument appears to be "oh, but the data is wrong.: Ok, sure. Prove it. Why is it wrong? What, if not immunity, is responsible for the radically lower observed reinfection rate, relative to the observed infection rate? Your basic argument here is that while both numbers are estimates of the underlying population values (which, hey, I get math, I'm 100% on board with this), one is a whole lot worse than the other. For that to hold water in any sort of scientific sense, it should have a rational, empirical solution. Absent that, what you're doing is hypothesizing a whole bunch of dancing angels on the head of a pin. 

Give me a reason why the two rates differ, if _not_ lingering protection from reinfection. Provide some evidence. I've asked a number of times for you to do this now, and you really haven't. 



bostjan said:


> We do not have reinfection data. Up to now, no one was collecting it. This is how the entire argument started. If you think I said something else that you disagree abouy, why not post the actual words with which you disagree? That might clear up the entire misunderstanding between us.


I'm sorry, but in what world is this true? We're in the middle of a global pandemic. Cases are being tracked at the state and local level very aggressively. We're following up on cases very aggressively - I know in my case, both my doctor's office and city public health officials were both following up on me. The scientific and medical community is VERY interested in how long protection lasts, and many of the initial hotspots were also biotech hubs. In San Fran, I know they're doing RNA-sequenced contact tracing. You think we're just not bothering to ask, "oh, gee, I wonder, do you think people can get it twice?" You think people who HAVE gotten it a second time are just failing to mention to their doctors and their public health officials that they tested positive prior? The very fact we DO have a handful of confirmed, and several times as many suspected, reinfection cases means people re out there looking for reinfection cases. I'm sure we're missing some reinfection cases, just as I'm sure we're missing some infection cases, but if you're argument is we only have so few cases of reinfection because no one's looking for them, _in the middle of a global pandemic where we've shut down entire cities and sectors of the economy because of how serious we're taking this_, then I can assure you, yes, the medical community is absolutely looking for cases of reinfection. They're just finding them at a MUCH lower rate than they're finding initial infections. 



bostjan said:


> I've explained this multiple times, posted multiple sources, and even told you how one of them is not behind a paywall, but just requires you to enter an email address (you don't even have to validate the email), but you've read none of that. It is not my problem of you do not read.


Ok, again, watch your tone here. You're veering away from actually discussing this, to just trying to launch as many ad hominems as you can. You're better than that. 

But, since you insist, sure I'll give National Geographic my fucking email and get even more spam just to savwe you the trouble of copying and pasting something into this thread. Full article below, but here's one of the passages I managed to catch before a popup blocked me out: 

"What makes the reinfection story even more mystifying is that such accounts come at a time when emerging research suggests immunity to COVID-19 might actually be robust. Some preliminary studies do show that antibody levels drop within a couple months after SARS-CoV-2 infections, but others argue that these waning numbers don’t mean a loss of protection."

The entire gist of the article is "Reinfection is possible, even if it's rare and there's growing evidence that immunity to Covid-19 may actually be robust, so be careful even if you've had it." You're taking the headline, though, and extrapolating from "reinfection is possible, if rare," to "infection conveys no lasting immunity." That's not even close to an accurate interpretation. And again, these aren't souces I'm cherry picking to try to counter your argument - these are _your own chosen sources_ which are disagreeing with you. 

EDIT - have to post the article in a second post, since it's too long with the above post.


----------



## Drew

Still too long. I've cut out the intro, which is a pity because it _also_ says what I'm saying, and just focused on the point that first caught my attention:



National Geographic said:


> What makes the reinfection story even more mystifying is that such accounts come at a time when emerging research suggests immunity to COVID-19 might actually be robust. Some preliminary studies do show that antibody levels drop within a couple months after SARS-CoV-2 infections, but others argue that these waning numbers don’t mean a loss of protection.
> 
> *The immunity symphony*
> In fact, fading antibodies may be a sign of a normal and healthy immune response. In November, a British study published as a preprint (meaning that it was not peer reviewed) reported that an initial flood of antibodies soon after infection corresponded with protection for six months—even if the antibody levels faded over time. The study documented only three asymptomatic reinfections among 1,246 health-care workers who had detectable antibodies early on.
> 
> That’s because antibody levels don’t reveal the full story of a person’s ability to fight off future infections, says S. Vincent Rajkumar, an oncologist and professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, who studies immunity.
> 
> Think of the human immune system as an orchestra, and among its versatile players are B cells and T cells. When SARS-CoV-2 invades, the body’s opening movement is frantic. Some B cells rev up swiftly, producing that first burst of antibodies within a week or two. Simultaneously, a group of T cells—known as killers—hunts down any other cell infected by the coronavirus and gets it to self-destruct. A separate type of T cell—known as helpers—guides both of these crisis responses. If any part loses the harmony, it can throw off the entire production and actually cause more damage rather than less.
> 
> While all of this is happening, the immune system is also learning. A fraction of these B cells and T cells get stored away as so-called memory cells. After recovery, the memory cells continue to work behind the scenes to prevent reinfections.
> 
> “The cells that made those antibodies will still be around. It will be difficult for a new infection to cause the same amount of harm as the first one. The body already knows how to respond,” Rajkumar says.
> 
> This is why scientists were excited in July when a research paper showed that memory T cells were still detectable years after people recovered from the 2002-2003 SARS coronavirus, a close cousin of this year’s plague.
> 
> Now, the latest evidence suggests that both B cells and T cells generated from COVID-19 infections are also likely to stick around for the long run. One preprint, published November 16, began to sketch out the lifespans for these critical components of the immune system among 185 coronavirus patients. It showed that memory B cells remained widely abundant after six months, while memory T cells had been reduced, but only by half. Another study from November found that a hundred health-care workers who contracted the coronavirus in the spring and showed mild or few symptoms—and didn’t produce many antibodies to begin with—still had robust T cells six months later.
> 
> What’s unknown is how these B cells and T cells will act if the body is re-exposed to the coronavirus. Will they produce an inflammatory response that somehow leads to a worse case later with more severe symptoms? Or will they blunt the outcome and yield the mild reinfections witnessed in some early reports?
> 
> 
> Even if recovered COVID-19 patients are counting on a less painful second episode, they shouldn’t toss aside their masks.
> 
> They could still catch the virus and pass it to others, who might then become sick.
> 
> If the trajectories of cold-causing coronaviruses are any reassurance, getting COVID-19 again won’t be nearly as miserable the second time for most people, says Rajkumar. That means the Hong Kong case would be the norm, while the Nevada man who developed a more severe case after being re-infected might not be typical.
> 
> For now, there isn’t enough long-term research to know if B cells and T cells activated by the cutting-edge mRNA vaccines on the verge of approval will offer lasting protection, though a recent, two-month study in mice suggests that the answer could be “yes.”
> 
> In the meantime, even if recovered COVID-19 patients are counting on a less painful second episode, they shouldn’t toss aside their masks. They could still catch the virus and pass it to others, who might then become sick.
> 
> “You might get re-infected, and your symptoms might be so mild that you don’t know about it,” says Rajkumar, adding that mask-wearing should continue until the world has reached herd immunity. “It’s wise to wear a mask even if you’ve had COVID-19 out of concern for others.”


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> Drop the tone, we're trying to have a serious discussion here.
> 
> So, you're not questioning the interpretation of the data you're presenting - that, for instance, in Maryland, if we assume every suspected case of reinfection is an actual case, we have an _observed _reinfection rate of 0.009%, compared to an observed infection rate of 3.56%. Your assertion, then, is that we can't draw conclusions about this, because the observed rate, based on the data you're sharing, is actually garbage because we're doing a bad job observing it.
> 
> So, let's dig into that a bit. _Why_ should we not trust the reinfection statistics - the same ones you're sharing - but that we should trust the infection statistics? Why is it so much harder to identify a second Covid case than a first?
> 
> The entirity of your argument appears to be "oh, but the data is wrong.: Ok, sure. Prove it. Why is it wrong? What, if not immunity, is responsible for the radically lower observed reinfection rate, relative to the observed infection rate? Your basic argument here is that while both numbers are estimates of the underlying population values (which, hey, I get math, I'm 100% on board with this), one is a whole lot worse than the other. For that to hold water in any sort of scientific sense, it should have a rational, empirical solution. Absent that, what you're doing is hypothesizing a whole bunch of dancing angels on the head of a pin.
> 
> Give me a reason why the two rates differ, if _not_ lingering protection from reinfection. Provide some evidence. I've asked a number of times for you to do this now, and you really haven't.
> 
> 
> I'm sorry, but in what world is this true? We're in the middle of a global pandemic. Cases are being tracked at the state and local level very aggressively. We're following up on cases very aggressively - I know in my case, both my doctor's office and city public health officials were both following up on me. The scientific and medical community is VERY interested in how long protection lasts, and many of the initial hotspots were also biotech hubs. In San Fran, I know they're doing RNA-sequenced contact tracing. You think we're just not bothering to ask, "oh, gee, I wonder, do you think people can get it twice?" You think people who HAVE gotten it a second time are just failing to mention to their doctors and their public health officials that they tested positive prior? The very fact we DO have a handful of confirmed, and several times as many suspected, reinfection cases means people re out there looking for reinfection cases. I'm sure we're missing some reinfection cases, just as I'm sure we're missing some infection cases, but if you're argument is we only have so few cases of reinfection because no one's looking for them, _in the middle of a global pandemic where we've shut down entire cities and sectors of the economy because of how serious we're taking this_, then I can assure you, yes, the medical community is absolutely looking for cases of reinfection. They're just finding them at a MUCH lower rate than they're finding initial infections.
> 
> 
> Ok, again, watch your tone here. You're veering away from actually discussing this, to just trying to launch as many ad hominems as you can. You're better than that.
> 
> But, since you insist, sure I'll give National Geographic my fucking email and get even more spam just to savwe you the trouble of copying and pasting something into this thread. Full article below, but here's one of the passages I managed to catch before a popup blocked me out:
> 
> "What makes the reinfection story even more mystifying is that such accounts come at a time when emerging research suggests immunity to COVID-19 might actually be robust. Some preliminary studies do show that antibody levels drop within a couple months after SARS-CoV-2 infections, but others argue that these waning numbers don’t mean a loss of protection."
> 
> The entire gist of the article is "Reinfection is possible, even if it's rare and there's growing evidence that immunity to Covid-19 may actually be robust, so be careful even if you've had it." You're taking the headline, though, and extrapolating from "reinfection is possible, if rare," to "infection conveys no lasting immunity." That's not even close to an accurate interpretation. And again, these aren't souces I'm cherry picking to try to counter your argument - these are _your own chosen sources_ which are disagreeing with you.
> 
> EDIT - have to post the article in a second post, since it's too long with the above post.



Edit- sorry, this is just not worth it.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Edit- sorry, this is just not worth it.


It's "not worth it" because the math doesn't check out. Absent some other logical explaination why we're having such a harder time finding even suspected cases of reinfection - and proving reinfection is difficult and requires RNA sequencing, but simply identifying a _suspected _case is not, and merely requires two positive swaps separated by at least several weeks and a negative swab, yet we're finding suspected cases at a rate many thousand times lower, normalized by the number of initial infections, than we are initial infections normalized by total population.

I'm asking you for a reasonable explanation why the reinfection rate is so much lower than the infection rate. All you've come up with is, with zero evidence, "we must be missing a lot of reinfections." That doesn't really hold water, there's no reason we should be missing suspected reinfection cases at a rate thousands of times higher than suspected infection cases. The empirical data _strongly_ suggests lingering immunity, and virtually all of the sources you've shared here have pointed to a belief in robust immunity and noted reinfection is rate. The fact reinfection is _possible_ doesn't mean it's _likely_, and to say otherwise right now means ignoring a lot of inconvenient empircal data, as well as ignoring the other ways in which the human body builds immunity to viral infections.

It's unclear how long this will last, in the future, and that's something we'll need to monitor and potentially adjust our vaccination strategy for. But, at this point, it's extremely hard to reject the conclusion that a Covid-19 infection provides fairly robust immunity for at least the length of time the pandemic has been ongoing (which, including China, is now coming up on 12 months).

I guess, maybe the better question here is, what observed reinfection rate _would_ you accept as evidence of robust immunity lasting longer than the antibody half life, if not - again, using Maryland's stats, but these have actually been pretty consistent when I've done the same analysis with other numbers you've provided, which is another reason to suspect they're not due to chance - a reinfection rate of 0.009% vs an initial infection rate of 3.56%? Like, if that was 0.0045%, would you be conceding that Covid provides ample protection from reinfection? Or 0.0005%? Or is the presence of a _single case_ of reinfection, for you, evidence that a Covid infection provides no immunity at all?

Like, what's your threshold of proof here?


----------



## bostjan

At this point, I'd just be happy with you ceasing this habit of putting words in my mouth and then trying to prove them wrong.

If I said we don't have reinfection data, don't say that I gave you reinfection data, unless I did. Otherwise, you are being disrespectful.

If I said that I never claimed Covid infection provides no immunity at all, then I never said it, unless you can recall a time I did. The fact that I've already tried to clear this up, yet you keep going, is super disrespectful.

So, how can we have a serious discussion with you ignoring me when I state that you are putting words in my mouth that I never said?

And if you are unwilling to answer one very important and simple question, I am unwilling to interface with you any further on this matter:

**** What claim, exactly, did I make, in my own words, that you primarily disagree with? ****

Quote me. Or, paraphrase me, but if you paraphrase out of context or you otherwise misrepresent what I said, then I'm done.


----------



## Ralyks

Soooo how about Giuliani getting it?


----------



## spudmunkey

Ralyks said:


> Soooo how about Giuliani getting it?



He's already filed 17 lawsuits to get the Hellmann's Mayo Clinic to reverse the results.

Oh, and you have it backwards. Giuliani doesn't have COVID. COVID caught a case of Giuliani.


----------



## sleewell

thy art is murder and slipknot both announced separate European 2021 tours. pretty badass. i feel like next year is going to be a great year for live music, i know my band is ready to get maybe 8 or 9 people out lol.


----------



## Xaios

sleewell said:


> thy art is murder and slipknot both announced separate European 2021 tours. pretty badass. i feel like next year is going to be a great year for live music, i know my band is ready to get maybe 8 or 9 people out lol.


It'll be a great time to tour New Zealand, provided a 14 day quarantine of course.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> At this point, I'd just be happy with you ceasing this habit of putting words in my mouth and then trying to prove them wrong.
> 
> If I said we don't have reinfection data, don't say that I gave you reinfection data, unless I did. Otherwise, you are being disrespectful.
> 
> If I said that I never claimed Covid infection provides no immunity at all, then I never said it, unless you can recall a time I did. The fact that I've already tried to clear this up, yet you keep going, is super disrespectful.
> 
> So, how can we have a serious discussion with you ignoring me when I state that you are putting words in my mouth that I never said?
> 
> And if you are unwilling to answer one very important and simple question, I am unwilling to interface with you any further on this matter:
> 
> **** What claim, exactly, did I make, in my own words, that you primarily disagree with? ****
> 
> Quote me. Or, paraphrase me, but if you paraphrase out of context or you otherwise misrepresent what I said, then I'm done.


Ok, I'm honestly not sure what the sticking point is here.

First - this started when you disagreed with a statement _I_ made, that we're on track to, given the vaccination timeline, to get to the 60-70% herd immunity by maybe late summer, which is about what the expectation had been all along anyway, so the vaccination news doesn't advance the timeline, merely confirm it. You replied herd immunity is impossible with coronaviruses, I replied that from a functional standpoint that doesn't really matter, since we have evidence of extremely robust immunity for at least the 9+ months the pandemic has been going on, so even if it's 99.999% rather than 100%, that's still good enough that we can get enough immune inviduals out there that community transmission will drop below a R* of 1 and the number of cases will start falling, eventually quite rapidly, trather than rising. Then you started to point to isolated cases of reinfection and a 36 day antibody half life as proof that immunity is only going to be measured n weeks - and I quote:


bostjan said:


> Covid antibody halflife has been studied, and our current estimate is 36 days. For influenza, that same measurement is 190 days (over 5 times longer). With an old-fashioned vaccine, we'd be talking a series of boosters every two months. Add in the fact that immunity to covid is a lot less developed than flu in the first place, and you're looking at possibly a shot every two weeks. It's not at all the same thing as flu.


THAT is where I disagree with you. The data is pretty good that immunity is longer than a few weeks to maybe two months.

With all that as background:


You're saying we "don't have reinfection data." I disagree - we have five confirmed, and maybe a couple hundred (worldwide, not US) suspected cases of reinfection. That _IS_ reinfection data.

Your argument seems to be, then - not putting words into your mouth, just trying to understand what you're saying - that while we have data, it's not _accurate_ data, because the reinfection rate is actually _way_ higher than this. You have not, unless I've missed this, provided evidence for this - this is your belief, but is not one that you've shown any evidence for. You've pointed to scientists saying they believe it's probably higher than the rate we're finding, but 1) they're saying that about initial infections too, and 2) it could be several hundred times higher, and reinfections would still be occurring at a rate hundreds to thousands of times lower than initial infection, so that could be true and still not tell us anything actionable.

So, my argument is basically:
1) the observed reinfection rate is, absent any other information, the best estimation we currently have of the reinfection rate, and
2) based on the observed reinfection rate, reinfection is occurring at a rate lower by a factor of _thousands_ as initial infections, in a pandemic that's been in the States nearly a year.
3) absent some other factor to explain this difference, this would strongly imply pretty robust immunity - something a lot of the sources you've shared have also stated.

If I follow you right - and if I don't, please point out where I'm losing your argument - your argument is basically:
1) the observed reinfection rate is worthless, because for some unspecified reason we're doing an awful job identifying suspected cases of reinfection.
2) because we don't know the reinfection rate, we can't conclude there is immunity.
3) Since antibodies have a 36 day halflife, then immunity must not last longer than 2 months.

There's a couple problems I've tried to point out with this, mostly focusing on the fact scientists increasingly think - similar to SARS and MERS - T cell and B cell immunity are the primary mechanisms of protection against reinfection, so antibodies are actually not really the mechanism at all here.

But, maybe the one I should be spending more time on, is the first point. You plainly don't believe the reinfection rate, as derived by suspected cases of infection over the potential universe of people who could be reinfected (i.e. - people who were infected in the first place) is accurate. That's fine - two rational people can agree on this, and if I had to bet then I'd absolutely say it's likely higher than what we've found. However, if your argument is because of this we don't _know_ the reinfection rate... and therefore we cant' make empirical conclusions about immunity.... well, one of those empircal conclusions about immunity is that there _is_ no immunity, and if your argument is to reject reinfection data because it's incomplete, then you can't turn around and assume that reinfection is occurring at the same rate, normalized by potential candidate populations, as infection, that the underlying reinfection rate is also around 3.8%, or in line with the overall infection rate, and that there is no immunity. You don't have the data to make that claim.

Absence of proof is not proof of absence. If your whole argument here is we don't actually know the reinfection rate because we're probably missing cases, then you can't go and make statements that depend on knowing the reinfection rate to prove, nd take them as settled science. In a no-immunity world, the infection rate and reinfection rate should track very closely (in fact, I'd expect the reinfection rate to be a little higher, given that the distribution of cases isn't really random, and high risk individuals will be overrepresented in the second set, the sample of people with an initial infection who could potentially be reinfected). If you want to conclude that we don't know if Covid-19 provides immunity, well, that's certainly a valid view, though the data we have on reinfection makes me question that stance. But, your argument has been we _do_ know whether Covid-19 provides immunity, and the answer is no, it doesn't. Given that the evidence we do have suggests reinfection is possible but extremely rare, that's not a conclusion you can really support without first throwing out all the empirical evidence we have from people actively seeking out cases of reinfection, and then second just assuming the reinfection rate is the same as the initial infection rate, which we have zero evidence to support (and some evidence to deny).

Does this help any? If your whole problem with me concluding fairly robust immunity through at leas 9 months is we don't know for sure the reinfection rate statistics we have based on observed data are accurate because we might be missing cases, you can't turn around and assume no immunity beyond a month or two and as evidence just assume that we're missing enough cases to make up the difference. That doesn't make logical sense.

Now, again, I'l repeat my last question:


Drew said:


> I guess, maybe the better question here is, what observed reinfection rate _would_ you accept as evidence of robust immunity lasting longer than the antibody half life, if not - again, using Maryland's stats, but these have actually been pretty consistent when I've done the same analysis with other numbers you've provided, which is another reason to suspect they're not due to chance - a reinfection rate of 0.009% vs an initial infection rate of 3.56%? Like, if that was 0.0045%, would you be conceding that Covid provides ample protection from reinfection? Or 0.0005%? Or is the presence of a _single case_ of reinfection, for you, evidence that a Covid infection provides no immunity at all?
> 
> Like, what's your threshold of proof here?


----------



## TedEH

It makes me a bit sad to see you guys argue.


----------



## Drew

TedEH said:


> It makes me a bit sad to see you guys argue.


Try being one of us.  It's not like I actually enjoy beating dead horses. 

I honestly don't understand what's confusing about this, though. Reinfection has happened, but even suspected cases are occurring at a rate, relative to their respective populations, thousands of times lower than infection is happening in the first place. If it was 2-1 or 3-1 or 5-1 or something, maybe that could be coincidence and could be explained by normal sampling error. 10-1, 20-1, you're starting to stretch credulity, but it's not impossible. But, we're finding suspected cases of reinfection at a rate several thousand times lower, in the population of potential candidates who have had Covid once, than the rate we are finding cases of covid, in the population of living people in an area. 

It's not technically impossible that some other factor explains this... but if you're going to reject evidence of relatively robust immunity lasting the better part of a year, at a minimum, after infection, that's probably a good place to start, to try to find a way to make the data we have fit your hypothesis. You can't just reject the data we do have because "we're probably missing all the cases that we would have to have to bring the reinfection rate up to the infection rate." 

I mean, this conversation is basically The Hardy Boys and the Case of the Missing Covid Reinfections. There are just too few of them that we've found to be consistent with a belief that the reinfection rate is not statistically different from the infection rate, you know?


----------



## Wuuthrad




----------



## Wuuthrad




----------



## Wuuthrad




----------



## Ralyks

Wuuthrad said:


> View attachment 87730



This would be my exact response.


----------



## bostjan

bostjan said:


> Covid antibody halflife has been studied, and our current estimate is 36 days. For influenza, that same measurement is 190 days (over 5 times longer). With an old-fashioned vaccine, we'd be talking a series of boosters every two months. Add in the fact that immunity to covid is a lot less developed than flu in the first place, and you're looking at possibly a shot every two weeks. It's not at all the same thing as flu.





Drew said:


> THAT is where I disagree with you. The data is pretty good that immunity is longer than a few weeks to maybe two months.



@Drew:

Thanks for clearing that up.

I stand by my statement that covid antibody half-life is 36 days, based on research published in New England Journal of Medicine on 18 June 2020 by Long et. al.

This research was confirmed by other studies done by Yang and Temte since then, among others. Although some of the measurements were slightly higher, the average measurement is around 40 days. Many of these studies were ongoing when the discussion started. Frankly, though 40 days and 36 days is not a significant difference at any rate.

I stand by my statement that the antibodies for flu virus have a half life averaging about 190 days, as is well documented in research for decades.

I stand by my statement that an old-fashioned vaccine (the vaccines we will most likely get are not like old fashioned vaccines, for one, they have been bioengineered to produce longer-lasting antibodies, which is in research that has been published since after our argument started, but, in my defense, I had mentioned that these new vaccines were working on this) would require boosters every x amount of weeks (rather than years- with the new vaccine technology, this might be months, but still more frequent than other vaccines).

Maybe trivial, but I stand by my statement that covid is nothing like the flu.

I think these are three pretty simple-to-verify statements.

If you disagree with all three, then:

1. What do you propose is the antibody half-life for covid? What is your source or what are your sources?

2. What do you propose is the antibody half-life for influenza? Source?

3. Are you saying covid is like the flu? If so, how? Perhaps there is a misunderstanding there.

4. Do you disagree with the statement that, if there were an old-fashioned vaccine for covid, it would require a booster every 2-ish weeks to affect seemless immunity for the general population? If so, what is your reasoning for that?

But, you said a lot more, and I think this is where things tend to go off the rails... I'll try to keep it short at the risk of coming off curt.



Drew said:


> With all that as background:
> 
> 
> You're saying we "don't have reinfection data." I disagree - we have five confirmed, and maybe a couple hundred (worldwide, not US) suspected cases of reinfection. That _IS_ reinfection data.



Nope. Anecdotes is not data.

Analogy, in the politics thread, if someone said "here's are 50 anecdotes about Trump Management having no racist policy and 3 anecdotes about them having a racist policy," it does not mean that Trump Management's rental policy was racist 6% of the time. That's essentially what we would be doing if we said "here are x cases of reinfection that were noted, but there are y cases of infection, therefore the reinfection rate is x/y." I hope that's clear enough. I feel like I've tried to explain that a number of ways, and, honestly, we've both been less and less patient the more we've discussed it. Frankly, it doesn't even hinge the point I was making in the quote above one way or the other, so... 



Drew said:


> Your argument seems to be, then - not putting words into your mouth, just trying to understand what you're saying - that while we have data, it's not _accurate_ data, because the reinfection rate is actually _way_ higher than this. You have not, unless I've missed this, provided evidence for this - this is your belief, but is not one that you've shown any evidence for. You've pointed to scientists saying they believe it's probably higher than the rate we're finding, but 1) they're saying that about initial infections too, and 2) it could be several hundred times higher, and reinfections would still be occurring at a rate hundreds to thousands of times lower than initial infection, so that could be true and still not tell us anything actionable.



If I was pointing to scientists who seemed to be saying that the reinfection rate is probably higher than [IDK what], it was fuzzy communication on my part. My attempted point was not that "the reinfection rate is X" it was "we don't know what the reinfection rate is."

We honestly never really know anything perfectly, but, with the infection rate, we are at least tracking it on a significant scale. There is no such tracking of reinfections. Even if we wanted to track it, it is a lot more difficult to confirm, so it is a lot more messy to track. I suppose you can disagree with me about how difficult it is or what data we have or whatever, again, I'm not sure it's entirely material to my initial point you quoted.



Drew said:


> So, my argument is basically:
> 1) the observed reinfection rate is, absent any other information, the best estimation we currently have of the reinfection rate, and
> 2) based on the observed reinfection rate, reinfection is occurring at a rate lower by a factor of _thousands_ as initial infections, in a pandemic that's been in the States nearly a year.
> 3) absent some other factor to explain this difference, this would strongly imply pretty robust immunity - something a lot of the sources you've shared have also stated.
> 
> If I follow you right - and if I don't, please point out where I'm losing your argument - your argument is basically:
> 1) the observed reinfection rate is worthless, because for some unspecified reason we're doing an awful job identifying suspected cases of reinfection.
> 2) because we don't know the reinfection rate, we can't conclude there is immunity.
> 3) Since antibodies have a 36 day halflife, then immunity must not last longer than 2 months.



I would clarify:
1) We have not been tracking the reinfection rate until maybe now-ish (no data published anywhere about such). For nuance, see my point above.
2-3) Of course there is immunity. Immunity for whatever virus never lasts forever. It doesn't suddenly dry up after x amount of time, either. It starts out weak, then gets strongest just as the body beats the virus. It then fades at some rate proportional to its strength. Think compound interest, except backward. The more immunity you have, the more rapidly you lose it. The best data point we can have to characterize loss of adapted immunity is antibody half-life. If you know of a better one, that'd be a great discovery.
Anyway, based on the antibody half-life, doctors make certain decisions on when to give booster shots, because that's when the safety of an immune response starts to get sketchy. I've used the example of tetanus. You need a tetanus booster every ten years, because the antibodies fade to the point where, after ten years, reinfection can be dangerous. For natural covid immunity, the conventional wisdom suggests that the analog to that time frame would be about 2 months. If there is a better way to calculate that, it'd be good to know.



Drew said:


> There's a couple problems I've tried to point out with this, mostly focusing on the fact scientists increasingly think - similar to SARS and MERS - T cell and B cell immunity are the primary mechanisms of protection against reinfection, so antibodies are actually not really the mechanism at all here.



Ok. You are correct. With many other coronaviruses (SARS and MERS are coronaviruses) we rely heavily on immune responses from other pathways. However, I am hesitant to open this can of worms, because I don't see it doing anything other than muddying the waters with unknowns. Mainly because we know that, with many other coronaviruses, people can become sick from them over and over again. I feel like going down this discussion pathway would just lead us to more arguments about things that don't really reinforce points either of us are trying to make.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> But, maybe the one I should be spending more time on, is the first point. You plainly don't believe the reinfection rate, as derived by suspected cases of infection over the potential universe of people who could be reinfected (i.e. - people who were infected in the first place) is accurate. That's fine - two rational people can agree on this, and if I had to bet then I'd absolutely say it's likely higher than what we've found. However, if your argument is because of this we don't _know_ the reinfection rate... and therefore we cant' make empirical conclusions about immunity.... well, one of those empircal conclusions about immunity is that there _is_ no immunity, and if your argument is to reject reinfection data because it's incomplete, then you can't turn around and assume that reinfection is occurring at the same rate, normalized by potential candidate populations, as infection, that the underlying reinfection rate is also around 3.8%, or in line with the overall infection rate, and that there is no immunity. You don't have the data to make that claim.



I said there is no long term immunity to covid. I stand by that statement for now, but I may yet be proven wrong. The main thing is, and I've said this before, that "no long term immunity" is not equivalent to "there is no immunity." I'm not trying to be pedantic about this, honestly. If you don't believe me, please read my previous posts and look at what I actually said and how careful I have been not to paint with such clumsy strokes.

...I think up to this point, it'd been a pretty fun post to respond to. Here's where I go "whoah, buddy... hold on there..."



Drew said:


> Absence of proof is not proof of absence.



Agreed.



Drew said:


> If your whole argument here is we don't actually know the reinfection rate because we're probably missing cases, then you can't go and make statements that depend on knowing the reinfection rate to prove, nd take them as settled science.



Which statement did I make that requires knowing the reinfection rate to "prove," or, more generally, to reasonably support?!



Drew said:


> In a no-immunity world, the infection rate and reinfection rate should track very closely (in fact, I'd expect the reinfection rate to be a little higher, given that the distribution of cases isn't really random, and high risk individuals will be overrepresented in the second set, the sample of people with an initial infection who could potentially be reinfected).



Whoah, there, buddy.

In a no-immunity world, we would all be dead from the common cold.

In a world where immunity fades in a matter of weeks or months, no, the infection rate and reinfection rate don't track each other in phase. Why would we expect that?

Why would high-risk people be in the set of people to get reinfected?! If the virus kills you, you can't get reinfected. If the virus messes you up, you'd be sick longer, thus, not getting reinfected. I don't think this really has anything to do with anything I said, but I am just curious where these thoughts are coming from.



Drew said:


> If you want to conclude that we don't know if Covid-19 provides immunity, well, that's certainly a valid view, though the data we have on reinfection makes me question that stance. But, your argument has been we _do_ know whether Covid-19 provides immunity, and the answer is no, it doesn't.



Huh? I'm not trying to be a pain here, but I don't follow whatever it is you are saying. If it doesn't matter for whatever reason, let's just forget about that.



Drew said:


> Given that the evidence we do have suggests reinfection is possible but extremely rare, that's not a conclusion you can really support without first throwing out all the empirical evidence we have from people actively seeking out cases of reinfection, and then second just assuming the reinfection rate is the same as the initial infection rate, which we have zero evidence to support (and some evidence to deny).



Not sure what you are trying to imply, but...


Drew said:


> Absence of proof is not proof of absence.





Drew said:


> Does this help any? If your whole problem with me concluding fairly robust immunity through at leas 9 months is we don't know for sure the reinfection rate statistics we have based on observed data are accurate because we might be missing cases, you can't turn around and assume no immunity beyond a month or two and as evidence just assume that we're missing enough cases to make up the difference. That doesn't make logical sense.



My initial point was that immunity is shorter-lived than it is with any other life-threatening viruses (influenza inclusive). It was directed at what the news has recently been referring to as "immunity passports."

If you want me to post a lengthy post about how immunity works, I already did a long time ago. I could try to find it and post it again, but at this point, maybe it's a dead horse and it'd just be annoying.




Drew said:


> Now, again, I'l repeat my last question:




It seems to me like that series of questions goes a bunch of different directions, and none of those directly reference anything close to the post you quoted as to where we disagree.

Not trying to be patronizing here, but, what I think is going on is that you are inferring a lot of things from what I said, which weren't actually what I was saying, and also inferring other things on top of that, perhaps from another previous discussion or something. I probably incorrectly assumed something was directed at me early on, and that added to the confusion before it was done brewing.

Like, if I said that there is not going to be any such thing as herd immunity to covid, maybe that's too sweeping a generalization, but, from the way I understand that combination of words, it seems like a pretty safe statement to make at this point in time, much safer than when I first said it. Maybe that combination of words, or whatever combination of words I used to convey that idea, meant something different to you, or maybe it means the same thing to you as it does to me, but you disagree, because... something something reinfection rate (not trying to be condescending, just exhausted of this by now).

In order for me to change my mind about herd immunity, I'd need to see some number of two or more data studies that would logically lead to such a conclusion. But, if I see two data studies that turn that on its ear somehow, but also inadvertently happen to read four more otherwise in between, then I'd reserve the right to remain convinced of my stance.

Sorry if that beats about the bush too much, but I really feel like we aren't even having the same argument at times.


----------



## bostjan

That's honestly the longest and most exhausting post I've ever made. I'd just as soon no one reads it and we can just forget about the entire thing and move on. But, in case anyone has the patience to read it, there you go.


----------



## diagrammatiks

you need carriers to spread this disease. without carriers your half immunity doesn't even matter.


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## bostjan

diagrammatiks said:


> you need carriers to spread this disease. without carriers your half immunity doesn't even matter.


But that's entire the point. The weaker adaptive immunity is, the longer the person carries the virus.

The T cells mentioned don't fight the virus directly, they kill off infected cells. A significant portion of those infected cells are still shedding the virus, making it possible for the carrier to infect others.

So you can't have half immune people without some of them potentially being carriers, in reference to any viral disease.

And with a virus as widespread as covid is now, there will always be carriers anyway.


----------



## Wuuthrad




----------



## fantom

Wuuthrad said:


> View attachment 87740



I think the Republican strategy here is to let 95% of the population die to a foreign disease. Make America Great Again, 1492 style! Think of all the resources and land we can take once the population is a few million. Want a mansion? Want a Porsche? That is the American way. /S


----------



## bostjan

Kind of a side topic, but anyone familiar with what is going on in southeast India right now? Hundreds of people hospitalized with weird symptoms. Covid and other viral common serious viral diseases ruled out by testing, but common pesticides also ruled out by testing.

I think it might be some sort of metal poisoning in the food supply, but a few news outlets are saying that the patients all have varying habits. Hopefully the mystery is solved soon and has nothing to do with infectious disease. The way 2020 has gone, though, how unsurprising would it be for another novel deadly virus to suddenly appear just before the end of the damned year?


----------



## nightflameauto

bostjan said:


> Kind of a side topic, but anyone familiar with what is going on in southeast India right now? Hundreds of people hospitalized with weird symptoms. Covid and other viral common serious viral diseases ruled out by testing, but common pesticides also ruled out by testing.
> 
> I think it might be some sort of metal poisoning in the food supply, but a few news outlets are saying that the patients all have varying habits. Hopefully the mystery is solved soon and has nothing to do with infectious disease. The way 2020 has gone, though, how unsurprising would it be for another novel deadly virus to suddenly appear just before the end of the damned year?


No biggie. Just the zombie apocalypse.

Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me in the least. On the bright side, with travel restrictions already in place due to COVID, it's doubtful it would be able to take off like COVID did in the early months.


----------



## bostjan

nightflameauto said:


> No biggie. Just the zombie apocalypse.
> 
> Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me in the least. On the bright side, with travel restrictions already in place due to COVID, it's doubtful it would be able to take off like COVID did in the early months.


The Indian government is insisting it's related to some sort of release of pollution. Some of the patients tested negative for heavy metals, but some did test positive for lead, in very recent news. Also just in, the WHO is sending a team of scientists to India to investigate.

Two things that I find interesting:

1. Why do governments/political parties keep insisting they can do medical research better from their oak desks and leather chairs than scientists in the field?

2. The WHO seems to be pretty eager to jump on this one, for whatever reason.

In other Covid news, some of the first people outside of trials are getting their vaccines today.


----------



## sleewell

so trump turned down more vaccine doses from pfizer?


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> That's honestly the longest and most exhausting post I've ever made. I'd just as soon no one reads it and we can just forget about the entire thing and move on. But, in case anyone has the patience to read it, there you go.


So, this is going to have to be somewhat rushed since I'm on a whole series of calls today, have 30 minutes till my next, and am also shoveling food into my face while I type.

I'm not questioning the antibody half-life. I'm saying that the evidence we have based on other coronaviruses we've studied for much longer periods of time suggests antibodies are not a main source of long term protection, and instead T cells and B cells are what we need to look at. So, I guess I'm saying, I don't think the antibody halflife is at all meaningful here.

I think we DO have reinfection data. It's almost certainly incomplete, but 1) we're looking for reinfection cases, or we wouldn't be writing academic papers on them, andf 2) they're extremely rare. Dividing the suspected reinfection cases by the total initial cases yields a reinfection rate. I'm assuming your argument here is that you think the number of reinfection cases is inaccurate because we're just missing a whole bunch, but if that's not a fair haracterization, let me know. Either way, we have data. What's open to debate is whether or not it's _good_ data, but it is empirical evidence.

Corollary #1 - when I was talking about a "no-immunity world" above, I thought it was pretty clear I was talking about immunity to covid-19, not the common cold. Evidently that wasn't clear, I apologize for the conclusion.

Corollary #2 - this has been implicit in my posts for a while now, and I may have stated it expicitly t some poont, but in a "no immunity to Covid" world, then the reinfection rate (the number of cases of reinfection to total number of initial infections) should not be statistically different from the infection rate (number of cases of initial infection to total population) because infection and reinfection are being assumed to be independent - that's merely expressing the statement "infection carries no long term protection to reinfection" mathematically. I don't think we're disagreeing here, but just in case, I want to make sure that we're both in agreement that if Covid provided no lingering immunity, then the infection and reinfection rates should converge (they have not, in fact, converged. By a long shot.).

So, I guess, what I'm saying is this - I don't buy the conclusion that Covid immunity lasts a month or two tops. Two reasons:

Covid is a coronavirus, and what we know about coronaviruses suggests that antibodies are not the primary means of immunity, T-cells are (and we've observed multi-year protection from SARS and MERS). Theres a theoretical mechanism that would provide similar rotection tpo Covid.
Our empirical observed data, such as we have thus far, suggests reinfections can happen, but ARE very rare. The empirically observed reinfection rate is far lower than the empirically observed infection rate. It's possible that the empirically observed reinfection rate is wrong... But, if you throw out the data we have, then one we still have a theoretical mechanism that would provide lingering immunity, and two, going from 'we don't know the reinfection rate" to "the reinfection rate closely agrees with the infection rate" (a necessary precondition for the belief that immunity lasts a month or two, in a pandemic that has strung on for 12 months now) is a statement we have even LESS evidence for, than the statement "reinfection seems awfully rare."

Like, if you want to conclude a covid infection does not provide immunity for at least 9-12 months, and point to the possibility we're just doing a poor job picking up cases... You could argue that we don't have enough evidence to _conclude_ that, and while I personally think from a probabilistic standpoint the likelihood of that conclusion not being true is relatively low, but it's at least a valid statement depending on your chosen threshold of proof. But, I think going from "we can't say that for certain" to "we can say with a high degree of certainty that a covid infection only conveys immunity for a month or two" is something that there is absolutely not enough evidence to make, and in fact what evidence we do have (extremely low observed reinfection numbers, other coronaviruses providing immunity lasting for years through T cell infecgion) seemingly runs counter t that conclusion.

Make sense? Are there specific parts of this you disagree with? Lunch finished, going back to prep for my next call with the 9 minutes I still have.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> So, this is going to have to be somewhat rushed since I'm on a whole series of calls today, have 30 minutes till my next, and am also shoveling food into my face while I type.
> 
> I'm not questioning the antibody half-life. I'm saying that the evidence we have based on other coronaviruses we've studied for much longer periods of time suggests antibodies are not a main source of long term protection, and instead T cells and B cells are what we need to look at. So, I guess I'm saying, I don't think the antibody halflife is at all meaningful here.
> 
> I think we DO have reinfection data. It's almost certainly incomplete, but 1) we're looking for reinfection cases, or we wouldn't be writing academic papers on them, andf 2) they're extremely rare. Dividing the suspected reinfection cases by the total initial cases yields a reinfection rate. I'm assuming your argument here is that you think the number of reinfection cases is inaccurate because we're just missing a whole bunch, but if that's not a fair haracterization, let me know. Either way, we have data. What's open to debate is whether or not it's _good_ data, but it is empirical evidence.
> 
> Corollary #1 - when I was talking about a "no-immunity world" above, I thought it was pretty clear I was talking about immunity to covid-19, not the common cold. Evidently that wasn't clear, I apologize for the conclusion.
> 
> Corollary #2 - this has been implicit in my posts for a while now, and I may have stated it expicitly t some poont, but in a "no immunity to Covid" world, then the reinfection rate (the number of cases of reinfection to total number of initial infections) should not be statistically different from the infection rate (number of cases of initial infection to total population) because infection and reinfection are being assumed to be independent - that's merely expressing the statement "infection carries no long term protection to reinfection" mathematically. I don't think we're disagreeing here, but just in case, I want to make sure that we're both in agreement that if Covid provided no lingering immunity, then the infection and reinfection rates should converge (they have not, in fact, converged. By a long shot.).
> 
> So, I guess, what I'm saying is this - I don't buy the conclusion that Covid immunity lasts a month or two tops. Two reasons:
> 
> Covid is a coronavirus, and what we know about coronaviruses suggests that antibodies are not the primary means of immunity, T-cells are (and we've observed multi-year protection from SARS and MERS). Theres a theoretical mechanism that would provide similar rotection tpo Covid.
> Our empirical observed data, such as we have thus far, suggests reinfections can happen, but ARE very rare. The empirically observed reinfection rate is far lower than the empirically observed infection rate. It's possible that the empirically observed reinfection rate is wrong... But, if you throw out the data we have, then one we still have a theoretical mechanism that would provide lingering immunity, and two, going from 'we don't know the reinfection rate" to "the reinfection rate closely agrees with the infection rate" (a necessary precondition for the belief that immunity lasts a month or two, in a pandemic that has strung on for 12 months now) is a statement we have even LESS evidence for, than the statement "reinfection seems awfully rare."
> 
> Like, if you want to conclude a covid infection does not provide immunity for at least 9-12 months, and point to the possibility we're just doing a poor job picking up cases... You could argue that we don't have enough evidence to _conclude_ that, and while I personally think from a probabilistic standpoint the likelihood of that conclusion not being true is relatively low, but it's at least a valid statement depending on your chosen threshold of proof. But, I think going from "we can't say that for certain" to "we can say with a high degree of certainty that a covid infection only conveys immunity for a month or two" is something that there is absolutely not enough evidence to make, and in fact what evidence we do have (extremely low observed reinfection numbers, other coronaviruses providing immunity lasting for years through T cell infecgion) seemingly runs counter t that conclusion.
> 
> Make sense? Are there specific parts of this you disagree with? Lunch finished, going back to prep for my next call with the 9 minutes I still have.



I feel like the scope of the discussion is just out of control for a message board format.

Coming back to the linchpin you kindly provided for me regarding the source of our disagreement, I am once again unclear, so forgive me if I'm making assumptions that are incorrect:

(?) You don't disagree with the half-life I had cited for various immunoglobins associated with SARS-CoV-2 or influenza, but rather, you disagree with the relevance of such to the discussion, as it pertains to herd immunity or wider related concepts of societal immunity?

I think that I have several disagreements with various little things you are saying, but I hope you'd agree that it'd be more effective for both of is if we defined the most rooted source of our disagreement and focused on that, if we are to have the discussion at all. In light of that, my little disagreements might be nitpicky, or they might be somehow consequential to the discussion, depending on where you are going with this.

For example, if you disagree with using antibody half-life as a parameter to model the rate of spread, and instead wish to use the "reinfection rate," then I would suggest that you either define this "reinfection rate" or explain what it means. Then, perhaps, look up if it is even a thing that is or can be measured, by looking it up for other viral diseases.

As immunity is not a boolean of either "you are completely immune" or "you will definitely get sick," I would suggest that any sort of statistical modeling where you take a number of anecdotal cases and divide that into the total number of positive test results for a population is meaningless.

I agree that there are shortcomings in using antibody half-life as the only data point for the virus's reinfection potential, but I don't see a better alternative available. As someone who has been actively modelling the spread of the virus for almost a year, I'd love to see how you propose the inclusion of your number into any sort of mathematical model.


----------



## BigViolin

I feel you guys would be besties in the real world.


----------



## bostjan

BigViolin said:


> I feel you guys would be besties in the real world.


I hope so! Our paths have nearly crossed a couple times.

@Drew has certainly been right about a lot of things I had contradicted him about in the politics threads, like the extent of the Russian interference in the 2016 election, which I initially thought sounded crazy. I was wrong.

I'll admit that I'm often wrong about politics, and I'd never want to try to argue with Drew about financial topics. But, if I have a wheelhouse, this sort of thing is about as close as it gets to it. I taught a class in mathematical methods (including a unit on epidemiology) at a nursing college in Indiana for six semesters. I quit so I could take a "cooler" job developing diagnostic methods and instruments for machines, but I've also worked with health care on the side on a volunteer basis doing data science, among other things. This whole covid pandemic and the polarized reactions I've received from my work as well as this particular discussion here has me questioning whether I'll ever try to do anything like that again.


----------



## Ralyks

Looks like we might be teaching another lock down at the end of the week here in NY.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> I hope so! Our paths have nearly crossed a couple times.
> 
> @Drew has certainly been right about a lot of things I had contradicted him about in the politics threads, like the extent of the Russian interference in the 2016 election, which I initially thought sounded crazy. I was wrong.
> 
> I'll admit that I'm often wrong about politics, and I'd never want to try to argue with Drew about financial topics. But, if I have a wheelhouse, this sort of thing is about as close as it gets to it. I taught a class in mathematical methods (including a unit on epidemiology) at a nursing college in Indiana for six semesters. I quit so I could take a "cooler" job developing diagnostic methods and instruments for machines, but I've also worked with health care on the side on a volunteer basis doing data science, among other things. This whole covid pandemic and the polarized reactions I've received from my work as well as this particular discussion here has me questioning whether I'll ever try to do anything like that again.


Shit, it's not impossible we'll connect for a beer one of these days too, I'd hoped either before or after Rasputitsa this year (which as I recall Burke Mountain is awfully close to your neck of the woods) but covid got in the way of that. I haven't seen a go/no go decision for 2021, but I'm not especially optimistic we'll be in a good enough place re: vaccinations to make that happen, and beyond that one of the organizers was just diagnosed with cancer and is currently in the ugly phase of the battle. :/ 

Though, I would also point out that while I'm myself not a medical professional, 1) I do data analysis of sampled data for a living so I have a pretty good level of comfort with this sort of problem, and 2) I grew up in a medical family, am dating a doctor closely involved with her hospital's Covid response, most of her friends are doctors, and some of them are infectious disease specialists at highly regarded research programs. I'm getting inundated with the medical community's best thinking on a pretty constant basis, so it's not like I'm some guy just spouting off his ass here, either.


----------



## SpaceDock

bostjan said:


> Kind of a side topic, but anyone familiar with what is going on in southeast India right now? Hundreds of people hospitalized with weird symptoms. Covid and other viral common serious viral diseases ruled out by testing, but common pesticides also ruled out by testing.
> 
> I think it might be some sort of metal poisoning in the food supply, but a few news outlets are saying that the patients all have varying habits. Hopefully the mystery is solved soon and has nothing to do with infectious disease. The way 2020 has gone, though, how unsurprising would it be for another novel deadly virus to suddenly appear just before the end of the damned year?



Covid-20 y’all.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> I feel like the scope of the discussion is just out of control for a message board format.
> 
> Coming back to the linchpin you kindly provided for me regarding the source of our disagreement, I am once again unclear, so forgive me if I'm making assumptions that are incorrect:
> 
> (?) You don't disagree with the half-life I had cited for various immunoglobins associated with SARS-CoV-2 or influenza, but rather, you disagree with the relevance of such to the discussion, as it pertains to herd immunity or wider related concepts of societal immunity?
> 
> I think that I have several disagreements with various little things you are saying, but I hope you'd agree that it'd be more effective for both of is if we defined the most rooted source of our disagreement and focused on that, if we are to have the discussion at all. In light of that, my little disagreements might be nitpicky, or they might be somehow consequential to the discussion, depending on where you are going with this.
> 
> For example, if you disagree with using antibody half-life as a parameter to model the rate of spread, and instead wish to use the "reinfection rate," then I would suggest that you either define this "reinfection rate" or explain what it means. Then, perhaps, look up if it is even a thing that is or can be measured, by looking it up for other viral diseases.
> 
> As immunity is not a boolean of either "you are completely immune" or "you will definitely get sick," I would suggest that any sort of statistical modeling where you take a number of anecdotal cases and divide that into the total number of positive test results for a population is meaningless.
> 
> I agree that there are shortcomings in using antibody half-life as the only data point for the virus's reinfection potential, but I don't see a better alternative available. As someone who has been actively modelling the spread of the virus for almost a year, I'd love to see how you propose the inclusion of your number into any sort of mathematical model.


So, I'd say it's the second - based on what we know about coronaviruses, the antibody half life is highly unlikely to be a predictor of the length of immunity an infection conveys. 

I'll start by also noting we agree on at least one thing, I think - a Covid-19 infection conveys a high probability of immunity for at least SOME period of time. I think we're mostly disagreeing on the length, and I'm looking at empirical observation and coming to an estimation of "at least 9 months, since that's about the length of time it's been widespread in the US population," while you're looking at the antibody data and saying "probably 2 months or less, based on antibody decay." Is that fair? 

So, reinfection rate... Speaking in pure statistical terms here. There's a "true" or "population" reinfection rate, which we don't know (and can't know, until weve measured the entire population of infections, the entire population of reinfections, and divided one by the other... and even then you - rhetorical you not you yourself - could nitpick a little bit and say that's only the _realized_ reinfection rate and as it'll vary a little by chance that's itself ony an estimation of the probability of reinfection given secnd exposure.

But, there's a hypothetical "true" reinfection rate, which per above is definitionally unknowable. That's true of ANY disease, or really any event that can be expressed in probabilistic terms, btw. But, there's this - let's call it a platonic ideal reinfection rate. We can't measure that directly, but we can look at the prevalence of cases of reinfection, and by normalizing that by the total universe of people who _could_ get reinfected, you can get the, in statistical terms, sample reinfection rate, an estimation of what the underlying population reinfection rate is. 

Two points to make in passing, one against my argument, the other for: 

we don't have a good estimation I can point to for the sample size. If we have - as in the case of Maryland - 36 suspected cases of reinfection, out of more than 375,000 cases of infection, then it matters tremendously if those 36 cases were found by reviewing 1,000 patients who had tested positive for Covid (at which point 3.6% of the sample was a suspected reinfection, which is awfully close to the overall infection rate in Maryland), or if that number was as of a result of reviewing 10,000 covid-positive cases (at which point it becomes statiatically very unlikely that the "true" population value is 3.6%, when the sampled value is 0.36%). 
On the other hand, our top-line infection rate is _also_ an estimate of the underlying/true "population" infection rate, with all the same caveats. It's possible but not likely it's lower than reported (lots of false positives), and possible and quite a bit more likely that it's actually a bit higher than reported (asymptomatic cases). This is just a general problem with data analysis, rather than a specific reason to discount estimates of the sample reinfection rate - it's coming in low relative to thr sample infection rate, but while that could potentially be due to sampling-related uncertainty, it's also just as likely the sample infection rate is too low, as well. In other words, to a certain extend, sampling error as a source of uncertainty kind of cancels out here, since if reinfection is truely independent of infection, there aren't as many reasons to suggest one sample is statistically biased, but not the other. 
I think it makes sense to pause here and also note we're looking at it from two different perspectives - yours is more top-down and prescriptive, or "this is the antibody half-life, therefore this is the expected immunity period, given the antibody half-life," while mine is more bottom up and descriptive, or "this is the frequency we're observing, so what does that imply about the probability of reinfection." You're looking at this as logially working through the various peices to build a better model, whereas I'm coming at it more as looking at the output and making inferences about how the virus is behaving.

Two valid approaches, but both with weaknesses - your approach impunity assumes the presence of antibodies is the only thing that can stop someone from getting Covid twice. Again, I don't think that's a fair assumption given what we know about covid. My approach meanwhile is a lot more sensitive to data quality. If Maryland found 36 cases by looking at 1,000 patients, then yes, that would be a scenario where the estimated reinfection rate actually WAS closely in line with the estimated infection rate, and at that point I'd say that, unless there was something highly non-random about that sample, my hypothesis that however long immunity lasts, it hasn't stopped, would become a lot more suspect. 

But, based on the data we have, if we assume no immunity beyond two months, and the probability of reinfection converges with the probability of infection (whatever those underlying probabilities are - knowable only through estimation, their exact values are actually sort of irrelevant here from a makin-statistical-inferences standpoint, just that they should agree) beyond that point... then we're missing a whole boatload of cases of reinfection. 

That's kind of what I'm getting at - from a purely quantitative standpoint, either infection rate > reinfection rate by a very significant amount (another way of expressing "infection conveys some form of immunity" mathematically), or for some reason we're doing an abysmal job of finding cases of reinfection. Stating that takes zero knowledge of the rate of spread of covid, the exact mechanism via which the body fights off reinfection, etc etc etc, although given that what we know about coronaviruses, there's good reason to believe the atibody response isn't the mechanism, I'd say understanding the science here certainly _helps,_ and one of the added factors that makes me a little more comfortable accepting the conclusion that there's immunity lasting at least as long as the period we've lived through is that there's a pretty good narrative that supports the data we do have.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> For example, if you disagree with using antibody half-life as a parameter to model the rate of spread, and instead wish to use the "reinfection rate," then I would suggest that you either define this "reinfection rate" or explain what it means. Then, perhaps, look up if it is even a thing that is or can be measured, *by looking it up for other viral diseases.*
> 
> As immunity is not a boolean of either "you are completely immune" or "you will definitely get sick," *I would suggest that any sort of statistical modeling where you take a number of anecdotal cases and divide that into the total number of positive test results for a population is meaningless.*


Two specific comments here, though, on the bolded parts. 

1) by looking it up for other diseases - I'm not sure what you're going at here, but just to be clear - one of my points is that for _any_ disease, this is pretty much by definition unknowable in any strict deductive reasoning sense. It's not like you can ask a virus, "what's the probability that someone whos had you once, can have you again, two years later," and if somehow you could, then you'd have to get into a whole awkward series of questions on whether or not you had any particular reason to trust that virus, or how the virus would even know in the first place. For _any_ disease, when we make statements about immunity, there's a lot of inductive reasoning that has to happen before we can get to that point, be it Covid-19 or the common flu. 

2) Technically, number of suspected reinfection cases, divided by number of individuals who have tested positive. But, why is that meaningless? This may be the crux of our entire disagreement - I'm saying that, while the "true" values are unknowable in any purely deductive sense, at a minimum if infection and reinfection are _truely_ independent, and infection has no bearing at all at decreasing the chance of subsequent infection two months down the road... Then the total population of patients who have had coronavirus as of two months ago are statistically speaking as likely to get coronavirus _again_ as someone who never had it in the first place. 

I think that last statement at least could be where we are disagreeing - if I write "the total population of patients who have had coronavirus as of two months ago are statistically speaking as likely to get coronavirus _again_ as someone who never had it in the first place," would you say you agree with that statement? I kind of think you _have_ to, if you've concluded immunity lasts at most two months. If thats the case, then I think the actual observed rate of coronavirus reinfections in the number of people who had the case two months ago is a _very_ important check on your model's assumptions with respect to reinvestment risk.


----------



## bostjan

@Drew: Can you tell me the "reinfection rate" as you defined it, for any other viral disease? Doesn't have to be Influenza, but, for example, H1N1?


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> @Drew: Can you tell me the "reinfection rate" as you defined it, for any other viral disease? Doesn't have to be Influenza, but, for example, H1N1?


Not much data out there on H1N1 - a few papers about cases of reinfection, but not much on how many suspected cases we've found. Find me that data, and I'd be happy to express it as a rate (or, rather, as a rate representing the estimation of the underlyinfg probability of getting it a second time).

EDIT - if this is what you're getting at, then the rate is greater than 0.00%, so it appears reinfection is possible, and it's also QUITE a bit less than the rate of infection in the population as a whole, which between the two means that concluding a H1N1 infection offers robust protection against subsequent H1N1 infections is a statistically-defensible thing to say.


----------



## bostjan

SpaceDock said:


> Covid-20 y’all.



I really don't think so, but, honestly, that was the first thought that crossed my mind.



Ralyks said:


> Looks like we might be teaching another lock down at the end of the week here in NY.



I just saw the covid map for the Northeast. I think I only saw one county that wasn't listed at the worst rating. 



Drew said:


> Shit, it's not impossible we'll connect for a beer one of these days too, I'd hoped either before or after Rasputitsa this year (which as I recall Burke Mountain is awfully close to your neck of the woods) but covid got in the way of that. I haven't seen a go/no go decision for 2021, but I'm not especially optimistic we'll be in a good enough place re: vaccinations to make that happen, and beyond that one of the organizers was just diagnosed with cancer and is currently in the ugly phase of the battle. :/
> 
> Though, I would also point out that while I'm myself not a medical professional, 1) I do data analysis of sampled data for a living so I have a pretty good level of comfort with this sort of problem, and 2) I grew up in a medical family, am dating a doctor closely involved with her hospital's Covid response, most of her friends are doctors, and some of them are infectious disease specialists at highly regarded research programs. I'm getting inundated with the medical community's best thinking on a pretty constant basis, so it's not like I'm some guy just spouting off his ass here, either.



Sorry, I wasn't trying to imply that you were not qualified to talk about Covid, in case that came off.

I obviously haven't been down to MA for a pretty long time, now, but being the nearest civilized place to where I live and work, I used to go down there about once a year-ish for various reasons. Used to be a lot more often when we had offices in Framingham and Canton, but those closed down because the area was too expensive.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Sorry, I wasn't trying to imply that you were not qualified to talk about Covid, in case that came off.


Honestly, I think it's helpful for us to pause and note how radically different our approaches here are, to rhis question.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> Not much data out there on H1N1 - a few papers about cases of reinfection, but not much on how many suspected cases we've found. Find me that data, and I'd be happy to express it as a rate (or, rather, as a rate representing the estimation of the underlyinfg probability of getting it a second time).
> 
> EDIT - if this is what you're getting at, then the rate is greater than 0.00%, so it appears reinfection is possible, and it's also QUITE a bit less than the rate of infection in the population as a whole, which between the two means that concluding a H1N1 infection offers robust protection against subsequent H1N1 infections is a statistically-defensible thing to say.



No, what I'm getting at is that the reinfection rate is not a metric that I've really ever seen before you brought it up. I suspect there are a few good reasons why. I've tried to explain that, but I'm not very good at explaining it, evidently.



Drew said:


> Honestly, I think it's helpful for us to pause and note how radically different our approaches here are, to rhis question.



Different approaches are not necessarily a negative thing.

I think there are a lot of similarities in our approaches, in that we are both looking for numerical parameters.

If there is such a thing as a reinfection rate for other viral diseases, then it'd be very interesting to compare those with the numbers you've worked out.

However, we are still early into covid's existence, so I don't think we have really good numbers yet.

The CDC's website, last week, said covid reinfections are rare. Today it says that several studies are investigating reinfection.



Drew said:


> Two specific comments here, though, on the bolded parts.
> 
> 1) by looking it up for other diseases - I'm not sure what you're going at here, but just to be clear - one of my points is that for _any_ disease, this is pretty much by definition unknowable in any strict deductive reasoning sense. It's not like you can ask a virus, "what's the probability that someone whos had you once, can have you again, two years later," and if somehow you could, then you'd have to get into a whole awkward series of questions on whether or not you had any particular reason to trust that virus, or how the virus would even know in the first place. For _any_ disease, when we make statements about immunity, there's a lot of inductive reasoning that has to happen before we can get to that point, be it Covid-19 or the common flu.
> 
> 2) Technically, number of suspected reinfection cases, divided by number of individuals who have tested positive. But, why is that meaningless? This may be the crux of our entire disagreement - I'm saying that, while the "true" values are unknowable in any purely deductive sense, at a minimum if infection and reinfection are _truely_ independent, and infection has no bearing at all at decreasing the chance of subsequent infection two months down the road... Then the total population of patients who have had coronavirus as of two months ago are statistically speaking as likely to get coronavirus _again_ as someone who never had it in the first place.
> 
> I think that last statement at least could be where we are disagreeing - if I write "the total population of patients who have had coronavirus as of two months ago are statistically speaking as likely to get coronavirus _again_ as someone who never had it in the first place," would you say you agree with that statement? I kind of think you _have_ to, if you've concluded immunity lasts at most two months. If thats the case, then I think the actual observed rate of coronavirus reinfections in the number of people who had the case two months ago is a _very_ important check on your model's assumptions with respect to reinvestment risk.



1) I mean, using the reinfection rate was your choice and language, not mine. I'm just asking that if what you did for covid, you could do for any other disease. Whatever the number is that you calculated- take what that represents, and find the number associated with the same concept for literally any other viral disease.

2) But there is no data publicly available that identifies the total suspected number of reinfection cases, is there? If there is, where did you find it? And if the answer is something I posted, then it is not what you just said it was.

Lastly:



Drew said:


> ... you're looking at the antibody data and saying "probably 2 months or less, based on antibody decay." Is that fair?



I don't think I said that, no. Closest thing I can recall to anything that might have sounded like that was about needing a booster shot potentially every two months (or possibly more often) to ensure strong enough immunity, and that was with a couple of qualifiers. Or that I might have mentioned a specific case where a passenger on the Diamond Princess recovered and was reinfected in less than two months. I don't think that anything I said was equivalent to claiming that the average person would be just as susceptible to reinfection as initial infection after two months. If I had said that at any point, feel free to quote it and I will admit that I was wrong.

What's more accurate is to state that, based on the antibody decay data that we have, the idea of an "immunity passport" based on natural immunity would potentially be very dangerous until we know something we currently don't know. Based on case studies that have been peer-reviewed and published, the idea of an "immunity passport" would be very dangerous until we know something we currently don't know. Based on the number of suspected cases of reinfection documented in peer-reviewed and published articles, the idea of an "immunity passport" would be extremely dangerous until we learn something we currently don't know.

In terms of herd immunity due to naturally acquired immunity, the data and case studies strongly suggest that the entire concept is garbage. That is, based on what we currently know about the virus, the rate of spread, and the rate at which antibodies fade from the immune system (antibodies prevent the virus from entering a cell, the other methods you mentioned don't really work that way, so that's another discussion - it may perturb the data, but should not affect the conclusion) and further supported by the number of case studies, it is mathematically highly probable that the number of people able to prevent the spread of the virus will never be high enough to form the firewall necessary to overcome the rate of new infections. That point is pretty moot at this point, since epidemiologists are beginning to eschew the idea of herd immunity entirely, based on unrelated case studies.


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## Drew

I actually think we're getting somewhere - in tone, if nothing else. Progress.  



bostjan said:


> 1) I mean, using the reinfection rate was your choice and language, not mine. I'm just asking that if what you did for covid, you could do for any other disease. Whatever the number is that you calculated- take what that represents, and find the number associated with the same concept for literally any other viral disease.


Well, part of that is I'm treating this as a statistical problem to solve, right? You're entirely welcome ot call that ratio something else if you'd rather, but the gist of it is, in a world where getting covid provides no lingering protection to getting it again, then the rate at which we detect cases of covid in covid patients more than two months out from their infection should be about the same rate we find cases of covid in the population at large. If you have a problem with the term I'm uysing for this being "reinfection rate" because it implies some physiological information about the disease that you don't think we have, from the perspective of the mechanics in which it infects someone, then let's call it something else - "the rate at which we identify positive covid cases amongst former covid patients" is a lot more cumbersome than "reinfection rate," but lets go with it. 

The simple statistical way of putting this, in language I hope you're more comfortable with, is we can observe two rates - let's say X is "the rate at which we identify positive covid cases amongst the population as a whole," and Y is "the rate at which we identify positive covid cases amongst the population of people with prior covid diagnoses who had it more than the antibody half-life, 36 days, ago." This is a general principle I've outlined a number of times now and you haven't really addressed, so let's stop and come to agreement on this now - 

*If a covid infection does NOT provide lingering protection outside of the antibody half-life window, then over a large enough sample size, X HAS to equal Y.* In small samples some noise is possible, but over a large sample, there should be no difference in the rate at which we find cases of Covid in the general public, and amongst covid survivors. Are you with me here? 

The problem right now is that basic math suggests this is not the case. We have found 6 confirmed, and dozens to maybe a few hundred suspected, cases of reinfection globally. We've had something like 50 million cases globally that are old enough to be outside the half-life window, though, so the actual incidence rate of detection of cases of reinfection, from the population of individuals who are at risk of a second infection, is negligible. There's a HUGE difference between X and Y. 

And, again, coming at this purely from a mathematical perspective... You can call the ratios X and Y whatever you want and that's fine, I went with reinfection rate because it was pretty concise, but you can call it something else if that makes you more comfortable discussing it, but the important thing is they have to agree for it to hold that there's no immunity beyond the antibody half-life. 

At the end of the day, there simply aren't enough cases of reinfection turning up, by a LONG shot, for us to need a booster injection every two weeks to two months to protect huge percentages of the population from Covid. This is speaking purely from the reinfection data we have, and even before we start accounting for things like T cell immunity rather than antibodies being the primary source of protection for the other coronavirus pandemics we've experienced in recent years. 

Crux of it here, though, is again you can call those ratios whatever you want, but if there's no lingering protection for at least the better part of a year after a covid infection, then we should be finding new cases of covid in the general public, at about the same frequency as second cases of covid amongst covid survivors. And we're not. 

FWIW, I think the idea of an "immunity passport" is stupid, too, since we don't know when covid immunity will _end_ for prior survivors, and if I've learned ANYTHING from Americans in the last four years, I don't trust us not to lie about having had it for "freedom." But, at the same time, I'm reasonably confident we're still within the window that even early infections have an awfully high probably of resisting a second infection if exposed to the coronavirus a second time.


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## Drew

bostjan said:


> I don't think I said that, no. Closest thing I can recall to anything that might have sounded like that was about needing a booster shot potentially every two months (or possibly more often) to ensure strong enough immunity, and that was with a couple of qualifiers. Or that I might have mentioned a specific case where a passenger on the Diamond Princess recovered and was reinfected in less than two months. I don't think that anything I said was equivalent to claiming that the average person would be just as susceptible to reinfection as initial infection after two months. If I had said that at any point, feel free to quote it and I will admit that I was wrong.


I'll take you up on that - this is a BIG part of what I'm disagreeing with:



bostjan said:


> Covid antibody halflife has been studied, and our current estimate is 36 days. For influenza, that same measurement is 190 days (over 5 times longer). With an old-fashioned vaccine, we'd be talking a series of boosters every two months. Add in the fact that immunity to covid is a lot less developed than flu in the first place, and you're looking at possibly a shot every two weeks. It's not at all the same thing as flu.


The need for a booster every few weeks to few months to provide protection from Covid-19 isn't even close to consistent with the number of cases of reinfection we're finding, given the number of patients who have been infected with, and recovered from, Covid more than 36 or 72 days ago.

But, end of the day, if there's _anything_ I want you to address here, it's the "X has to equal Y" bit above. If there's some _other_ reason why second cases of Covid-19 should be harder to find, by a factor of several thousand, than first infections are, that could certainly explain the data we have... but the prevalence of Covid-19 reinfections is WAY too low for that rapid of a decay in immunity. We should have several million suspected cases, not several dozen to several hundred.


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## bostjan

Drew said:


> I actually think we're getting somewhere - in tone, if nothing else. Progress.



Ok, I feel like the big disconnect is in how we're going from a half-life to a total loss of immunity.

So, you know about exponential decay. The theory is that immunity of a population works something like that.

Without getting too deep into differential equations, let's make a totally unrealistic example for the sake of simplicity, then go out from there until somebody goes off the deep end...

Let's first make a series of convienient assumptions:
Assume that the odds of infection upon exposure are directly proportional to the number of antibodies.
Assume that everyone generates the same number of antibodies upon exposure, and further assume that this number is somehow the minimum number of antibodies to block 100% of virus replication (for now).
Assume that the rate of loss of antibodies is proportional to the number of antibodies at that time.
Assume, purely for a convenient example, that an entire population is exposed simultaneously at time t=0.
Assume, purely for convenience, that a second exposure event occurs at t=50 days.

Now let's set the symptomatic infection proportion to 10%, the population to 1 000 000 and the halflife of antibodies to 36 days. Let's also set the recovery time to 14 days.

At time zero, 1 million people are exposed and ten percent of them become infected, which is 100 000. After 14 days, everyone has recovered. Since *everyone* in the scenario was exposed, this is the point where everyone has enough antibodies to block the virus from multiplying. After 50 days (14+36), everyone has half of the immunity they had at 14 days. Exposure number two happens, but we expect half as many people to develop a reaction, so now it's 50 000 people.

That's the basic groundwork, I think.

Now, same assumptions, but the second exposure doesn't happen at t=50 days, it happens at t=86 days (50+36). With this model, 3/4 of the initial ammount develop a reaction, so 75 000 instead of 100 000.

Ok?

So, at what point in time does the number go back to exactly 100 000?

The answer is never, theoretically, since, no matter how many times you cut "100%"immunity in half, it never reaches identically zero.

Ok? But what about those assumptions? Well, many of them are bad.

First, if you fight off the virus, you develop a lot more than 100% of the antibodies required to block an initial exposure. Secondly, the virus doesn't expose everyone at once. Thirdly, not all exposures are equal. Fourth, people who are infected can infect others, whether they are symptomatic or not. And much much more.

So, the first one- say that the antibody maximum is 200% instead of 100%. Well, then if exposure two were to be 50 days after exposure one, the number of reactions is zero, because everyone exposed in that simplest scenario has 100% of the antibodies necessary to nip it before it can take hold.

Why would that be? Well, if a person develops symptoms, the virus has already multiplied to 100s or, likely 1000s of times the initial exposure. So, realistically, that second exposure event could need to be 7 or more times the half-life to get any significant reaction from your population. That's >266 days. And that's just a simple example, so please don't quote me as saying that there will be covid reinfections at 266 days...

Second, the virus does not expose everyone at once. The spread of the virus itself goes like an expanding exponential in a population, at least early on. One person gets sick, and exposes two people. Each of them exposes two people and two becomes 4 and then 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, and so on. "Herd immunity" was the concept that half the people in the two by two scenario carry immunity, so one person exposes two, minus one who is immune, so one stays one forever. Maybe one recovers just as one other gets sick, or maybe, generally, the number of sick people at the herd immunity tipping point is X, so X people are always infected. In reality, nothing quite works this way, though. Some people are superspreaders and some go home and quarantine... anyway,...

If we peel back mistakes one and two from our assumptions, we see that there is *no *scenario where we ever get a number of reinfections that is 1% (10% of 10%), but something that is a portion of that, depending on how quickly the virus spreads and how immune people have to get to recover versus how immune they have to be to stay healthy right off.

Might be a good time to stop and check in. If I'm already starting off on the wrong foot with you and we already disagree, no sense building on that.



Drew said:


> I'll take you up on that - this is a BIG part of what I'm disagreeing with:
> 
> 
> The need for a booster every few weeks to few months to provide protection from Covid-19 isn't even close to consistent with the number of cases of reinfection we're finding, given the number of patients who have been infected with, and recovered from, Covid more than 36 or 72 days ago.



This is extremely dependent on how the vaccine works versus how natural immunity works. It is generally safe to assume that they are *not *the same. Pointing back to the example above, natural immunity develops a lot more antibodies, because the body stops generating them after a day or two, versus a week or two.



> But, end of the day, if there's _anything_ I want you to address here, it's the "X has to equal Y" bit above. If there's some _other_ reason why second cases of Covid-19 should be harder to find, by a factor of several thousand, than first infections are, that could certainly explain the data we have... but the prevalence of Covid-19 reinfections is WAY too low for that rapid of a decay in immunity. We should have several million suspected cases, not several dozen to several hundred.



I have to strongly strongly disagree with the assumption that x infection equals x^2 reinfection. Reinfection will significantly lag behind infection: 1. Immunity drops exponentially, not like a delta function, 2. People who are infected will at least temporarily modify behaviours on a large scale, 3. Initial immunity at recovery is much higher than the strength of immunity required to avoid infection, by at least two orders of magnitude, 4. Reinfection with a fraction of the antibodies required should lead to much milder symptoms. That's all aside from heavy biases in sampling and confirmation. But, there may also be a counter-effect if different mutations of the virus have weak or no cross-immunity... there's a ton we don't know. But according to the model, the scenario you described cannot exist. If Y is reinfection portion, Y will start at zero and, at some point, approach some fraction of X^2 (X is infection portion). That fraction would only be identically one if recovery was impossible, which breaks the model anyway.


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## bostjan

So, coming back to a realistic model of the epidemic, the 36 day half-life in antibodies relates to some large component of immunity fading at a rapid rate, but from what starting point, we don't know yet, and similar goes for the vaccine: there will be a fade, at some rate, in immunity, from another starting point.

This is sort of meta-numerical in that we don't know the parameters but we can build a model and play with the unknowm parameters to see what happens. In any case, though, a concept of natural herd immunity breaks down, because natural immunity fades rapidly enough to make the scenario impossible. 70% of people able to stop the virus from replication at exposure might seem achievable, but is not sustainable indefinately.

Also, the vaccine will require boosters at some regular frequency. I highly doubt, even with leaps in vaccine technology, that the period necessary for boosters would ever be wide enough to contribute to a synthetic herd immunity, unless a shocking number of people take the vaccine.


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## Millul

I havn't read the full exchange, but I'm happy you guys seem to be finding some common ground.

I mean, it only took 289874321 words online, vs 1 beer IRL


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## Drew

bostjan said:


> So, at what point in time does the number go back to exactly 100 000?
> 
> The answer is never, theoretically, since, no matter how many times you cut "100%"immunity in half, it never reaches identically zero.
> 
> 
> If we peel back mistakes one and two from our assumptions, we see that there is *no *scenario where we ever get a number of reinfections that is 1% (10% of 10%), but something that is a portion of that, depending on how quickly the virus spreads and how immune people have to get to recover versus how immune they have to be to stay healthy right off.


Ok, I agree with a lot of this, but this right here is exactly where we disagree. 
The number, as a mathematition would put it, converges with zero. No matter how many times you cut it in half, it never quite reaches 0% immunity... but over time the number gets closer and closer to zero, and becomes different from zero by an infinitely small difference, in infinite iterations. High school algebra was a long time ago, but I believe it's an accepted mathematical proof that the solution to an equation that converges with a term IS that term, but that's kind of a wonky distinction to make. 

The actionable one is, there comes a point where an immunity offering an 0.5% chance of rejecting infection is worthless enough that you can start to ignore the probability of rejecting reinfection without materially impacting your results. Like, yes, maybe it's true an individual has a less-than-1% chance of _not_ getting covid when exposed, and if your job is to detail the response in as technically clear terms as possible, sure that should be noted... But, in practice, if you expose 200 people to Covid, and 199 of them get it vs 200 of them get it, you're still getting a LOT of reinfections, and conclusions about the risk of reinfection don't differ all that much if you're concluding a 100% chance or a 99.5% chance. Even if it's not a perfect model, concluding no immunity is a pretty good _approximation_ past the point where the half-life decay starts to get towards or below single digits, even if it's not literally true, if antibodies ARE the body's primary means of fighting covid. The difference between that approximation and the literally true value is a rounding error when it comes to estimating reinfection cases. 

Second, given that immunity, as an approximation, wouild be expected to rapidly approach zero over time, then it follows that the prevalence of covid cases in covid survivors, expressed as a ratio, will also converge with the prevalence of covid cases in the population at large, also expressed as a ratio. This is simple math - a belief in immunity that converges towards zero means that whether or not someone has had covid once should become a variable with no predictive ability for the probability of getting a second infection. If tat's the case, then the population of people who haven't had covid and the populaton of people who have had covid long enough ago that immunity has begun to converge to zero are two random samples, with respect to the prospect of anyone in either sample getting Covid, and we should find new infections in both samples at similar rates. 

In theory, maybe the initial infection sample will show a rate of 3.5% and the reinfection sample two months out will show a rate of 3.49999% because 0.5% of that population still has some slight chance of resisting infection, two or three months after initial infection. You could be more generous and say that maybe a quarter of the population would still resist infection if exposed, and your expected incidence rate would drop to 2.625% for the "reinfection" sample. But, in pretty much any scenario where those samples CAN be considered random because there's no substantial probability of avoiding infection after 2-3 months, those two incidence detection rates should converge, and should come pretty close to each other. 

And this is the point I've been trying to make all along - they're not converging, or if they are it's happening at a glacial pace. In Maryland, since that was the last data you gave me to look at, we had 3.65% of the population having tested positive to Covid, and 0.09% of those people who tested positive were suspected to have been reinfected. If we assume that all suspected reinfections ARE reinfections, and use those two detection rates to back into the percentage of Covid survivors who seem to be resisting reinfection (given, again, a "lingering immunity quickly converging to zero" assumption suggests they shouldn't be materially more likely to resist infection, and that covid survivors are a random sample of the population with respect to the liklihood of catching covid again), then if your expected rate of positive tests is 3.65% and your actual rate of positive tests is 0.09%, then that implies individuals in the second, "covid survivor" sample are resisting reinfection with a probability of around 97.5% (estimated as 1- (actual rate/predicted rate)). 

Immunity isn't perfect, even from the start. It doesn't instantly turn off either, and rather declines with time. I'm in agreement with you so far. But, where I do disagree, is if you look at the rate at which we're finding second positive cases in people who have had covid, compared to the rate at which we're finding positive cases in people with no prior exposure, the vast difference in the two rates is pretty compelling evidence that, however long Covid immunity remains "very high," call it 90%+, we don't seem to have stepped outside that window here. 

And maybe the last point I want to try tomake, about where we're disagreeing... Herd immunity doesn't have to be perfect and permanent, to end this pandemic. Again, the data suggests 9 months is still inside the high-90s probability of resisting infection window. We don't know how long that will hold, though if it follows the half-life model you ascribe to, that would suggest we should still have robust immunity in people with prior exposure for quite some time. But, being conservative, let's say that it holds up for a year, and then drops off extremely rapidly, for reasons we don't understand yet. If we can over the next six months get 70% of the population vaccinated, on top of the ~4% who have had it to date,that'll slow the transmission rate to nearly a quarter because only roughly 25% of the people who could become exposed are capable of developing infections themselves. The R-rate of Covid is estimated to be somewhere in the low 1s, last I saw (for discussion let's say 1.5%), meaning for every person who gets covid, they go on to infect 1.5 people on average, and the number of cases grows over time. Cut that in quarter, and the pandemic burns out. If that immunity were to evaporate in August of 2022, we can cross that bridge when we get there, but we'll be dealing with a VASTLY smaller case count than we are today because Covid will have spent a year starved of suitable hosts. 

I think the two general undercurrents of what I've been arguing are, one, from a purely statistical standpoint, we don't have nearly enough cases of reinfection to be consistent with a rapidly declining immunity model, and two, when talking about the real world impact, getting hung up on the details between a 2.5% chance of reinfection and a 0% chance of reinfection may be extremely meaningful on a personal level if you're that person, but are not that meaningful at all at the population level when trying to estimate the number of cases we would expect to see.


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## bostjan

Drew said:


> Ok, I agree with a lot of this, but this right here is exactly where we disagree.
> <<convergence>>



At t=infinity, yes, but t=infinity is unrealistic, therefore 0% immunity is unrealistic.



Drew said:


> The actionable one is, there comes a point where an immunity offering an 0.5% chance of rejecting infection is worthless enough that you can start to ignore the probability of rejecting reinfection without materially impacting your results. Like, yes, maybe it's true an individual has a less-than-1% chance of _not_ getting covid when exposed, and if your job is to detail the response in as technically clear terms as possible, sure that should be noted... But, in practice, if you expose 200 people to Covid, and 199 of them get it vs 200 of them get it, you're still getting a LOT of reinfections, and conclusions about the risk of reinfection don't differ all that much if you're concluding a 100% chance or a 99.5% chance. Even if it's not a perfect model, concluding no immunity is a pretty good _approximation_ past the point where the half-life decay starts to get towards or below single digits, even if it's not literally true, if antibodies ARE the body's primary means of fighting covid. The difference between that approximation and the literally true value is a rounding error when it comes to estimating reinfection cases.



Not sure if these are rhetorical numbers, but you are assuming all of the numbers we do not know and doing so in a way that is incongruent with data.



Drew said:


> Second...



The rate of immunity loss is rapid. The starting point, we don't know. Again, if 100 [units] was arbitrarily the number of antibodies required to fight the virus from entering any cells and promoting viral replication, then the number of antibodies, maximum at recovery, would possibly be 2-4 orders of magnitude higher, say between 10 000 and 1 000 000 [units]. We don't know yet what it is. The number of antibodies at recovery is certainly much much higher than the number of antibodies required to prevent viral reattachment. So, again, the numbers you keep plugging in for examples don't seem anywhere near realistic to me. A low guess might be 100:1 antibodies at recovery:antibodies at virtual protection. With a half life of 36 days, that reduction would take 239 days. That'd put us back into late April or May, which is why we might just now start seeing some reinfections. Does that make sense or no?



Drew said:


> In theory, maybe the initial infection sample will show a rate of 3.5% and the reinfection sample two months out will show a rate of 3.49999% because 0.5% of that population still has some slight chance of resisting infection, two or three months after initial infection. You could be more generous and say that maybe a quarter of the population would still resist infection if exposed, and your expected incidence rate would drop to 2.625% for the "reinfection" sample. But, in pretty much any scenario where those samples CAN be considered random because there's no substantial probability of avoiding infection after 2-3 months, those two incidence detection rates should converge, and should come pretty close to each other.



Two months out, I would expect only very few reinfections from natural immunity.


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## bostjan

Drew said:


> And this is the point I've been trying to make all along - they're not converging, or if they are it's happening at a glacial pace. In Maryland, since that was the last data you gave me to look at, we had 3.65% of the population having tested positive to Covid, and 0.09% of those people who tested positive were suspected to have been reinfected. If we assume that all suspected reinfections ARE reinfections, and use those two detection rates to back into the percentage of Covid survivors who seem to be resisting reinfection (given, again, a "lingering immunity quickly converging to zero" assumption suggests they shouldn't be materially more likely to resist infection, and that covid survivors are a random sample of the population with respect to the liklihood of catching covid again), then if your expected rate of positive tests is 3.65% and your actual rate of positive tests is 0.09%, then that implies individuals in the second, "covid survivor" sample are resisting reinfection with a probability of around 97.5% (estimated as 1- (actual rate/predicted rate)).



Convergence will eventually happen, yes. The half life is like a gauge of the speed with which that convergence occurs, but the ratio between initial antibody concentration and effective antibody concentration is just as important, because it gauges the starting point.

Example: how long will it take you to get to Washington DC?

In order to know how long it will take, you must know the average rate of speed you will go to get there *and* the distance you are away from Washington DC. If the train going there goes 90 miles per hour, you will get there at a rapid rate, no doubt. But if you start from the Moon, it'll still take a very very long time.

Likewise, if you know the antibody half-life, then you know the time constant for antibody immunity. If you don't know the ratio between antibody concentrations, then you don't know the "distance." But... If we are starting to see a significant enough number of cases of reinfection now, then we can back calculate the "distance" for those people. If the speed is more constant for different people than the "distance," then you can still make estimates, but only until there is better data.



Drew said:


> Immunity isn't perfect, even from the start. It doesn't instantly turn off either, and rather declines with time. I'm in agreement with you so far. But, where I do disagree, is if you look at the rate at which we're finding second positive cases in people who have had covid, compared to the rate at which we're finding positive cases in people with no prior exposure, the vast difference in the two rates is pretty compelling evidence that, however long Covid immunity remains "very high," call it 90%+, we don't seem to have stepped outside that window here.



But no one was measuring that for months!



Drew said:


> And maybe the last point I want to try tomake, about where we're disagreeing... Herd immunity doesn't have to be perfect and permanent, to end this pandemic. Again, the data suggests 9 months is still inside the high-90s probability of resisting infection window. We don't know how long that will hold, though if it follows the half-life model you ascribe to, that would suggest we should still have robust immunity in people with prior exposure for quite some time. But, being conservative, let's say that it holds up for a year, and then drops off extremely rapidly, for reasons we don't understand yet. If we can over the next six months get 70% of the population vaccinated, on top of the ~4% who have had it to date,that'll slow the transmission rate to nearly a quarter because only roughly 25% of the people who could become exposed are capable of developing infections themselves. The R-rate of Covid is estimated to be somewhere in the low 1s, last I saw (for discussion let's say 1.5%), meaning for every person who gets covid, they go on to infect 1.5 people on average, and the number of cases grows over time. Cut that in quarter, and the pandemic burns out. If that immunity were to evaporate in August of 2022, we can cross that bridge when we get there, but we'll be dealing with a VASTLY smaller case count than we are today because Covid will have spent a year starved of suitable hosts.
> 
> I think the two general undercurrents of what I've been arguing are, one, from a purely statistical standpoint, we don't have nearly enough cases of reinfection to be consistent with a rapidly declining immunity model, and two, when talking about the real world impact, getting hung up on the details between a 2.5% chance of reinfection and a 0% chance of reinfection may be extremely meaningful on a personal level if you're that person, but are not that meaningful at all at the population level when trying to estimate the number of cases we would expect to see.



I mean, again, I can't see where you are getting any of those numbers. I think there are a lot of assumptions, because you had said many times that you got the numbers from me or from sources I gave that were listing anecdotes, not data. It seems as though we are at an impasse with the entire anecdote-data equivalency argument with you on the side of "unequivocally, yes" and me on the side of "no, not until there is actual data." I'm frankly surprised that we can't agree on that.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> But no one was measuring that for months!
> 
> 
> 
> I mean, again, I can't see where you are getting any of those numbers. I think there are a lot of assumptions, because you had said many times that you got the numbers from me or from sources I gave that were listing anecdotes, not data. It seems as though we are at an impasse with the entire anecdote-data equivalency argument with you on the side of "unequivocally, yes" and me on the side of "no, not until there is actual data." I'm frankly surprised that we can't agree on that.


This is what I find frustrating about this argument - these views are internally inconsistent.

One, we HAVE been looking for data on reinfection, or we wouldn't have even incompete data on reinfection. Whether or not Covid is something you can get twice is something the medical community is VERY interested in, and since the vast majority of Covid patients survive, it's not at all hard to do a survey of current cases and simply ask "have you ever had a positive PCR swab before?" Part of your argument seems to hinge on the fact that we don't actually know how often people are getting it twice, because no one is asking... but we also know it CAN happen twice, because we have suspected cases of reinfection.

This is the data you shared that I've been going back to, incidentally:


bostjan said:


> Here's a NYP article saying exactly what I've been saying all along: https://nypost.com/2020/12/01/north-carolina-county-reports-cases-of-covid-19-reinfection/
> 
> Another article from NatGeo: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/12/why-coronavirus-reinfections-are-happening/
> 
> We may not have the data other people in the thread keep referencing for another year, but we now have enough anecdotes of reinfection that statements like "reinfection is extremely rare," or implications that the reinfection rate is negligible are directly observed to be false representations.


First link in particular, I'm quoting the rest of it because your conclsion "we have enough anecdotes of reinfection to conclude statements like "reinfection is extremely rare" is what I'm specifically questioning. 

That link cites that the most populous county in NC has 34 suspected cases of reinfection. I actually misread it thinking it was statewide, so I'll adjust my numbers here, but they've identified 34 cases which they haven't confirmed by RNA sequencing, but seem to be individuals contracting Covid twice. Mecklenburg county has, per a google search for their reported cases, 48,033 cases. That means of those 48,033 cases, 34/48,033 or 0.07% of them have gotten a second Covid infection. There are, again per google, 1.11 million people in Mecklenbuerg county. 4.37% of our first sample has gotten Covid. 0.07% of our second sample, in a county where we know they're at least attempting to count how many people are getting it twice, has gotten Covid a second time. 

So, this brings me to the second internal inconsistency - if you want to say, "yes, but we don't know how good a job they're actually doing finding cases of reinfection, so we can't trust that 34 cases number, it could be much higher than that," then that's fine and that's a legitimate area of disagreement. You're right, we don't know how accurate that count is, and how many people from those 48k cases they've surveyed to see if they had experienced a prior infection. But, importantly, if we don't know if it's accurate, we also don't know it's NOT accurate, either, and unless your argument is "an 0.07% rate - roughly one-in-1,400 - isn't one we'd describe as 'extremely rare,'" and we don't need better data to disprove that claim, then it also follows that we don't have the data to definitively say that reinfection ISN'T extremely rare, either. 

So, my point here is, we don't have ALL the data, but we have SOME data, we have a school of mathematics that's specially tailored to making probabilistic conclusions based on incomplete data, statistics, and statistics tells us that the rate at which we're finding suspected cases of reinfection is _extremely_ important in making inferences about how likely it is that we have robust immunity for a period of at least 6-9 months. 

Honestly, one of the things I've struggled with the most in this whole debate is your belief that if we find _any _cases of reinfection, then any sort of probably resistance to reinfection lasting more than a couple weeks to a couple months is impossible, and you've been extremely unwilling to discuss how the number of cases impacts our ability to make conclusions about this. Whenever I try to turn back to that, you go back to talking about antibody half-lifes again. 

So, humor me. Bolded because I've asked this a few times now an I don't wnt you to gloss over it. *What sort of data WOULD you want to or expect to see, in the distribution of outcome and frequency at which cases were being identified, to conclude that there seemed to be some sort of high-probability-but-not-infallible resistance to reinfection, without making any conclusions about how it was occurring, just THAT it was occurring? *


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> *What sort of data WOULD you want to or expect to see, in the distribution of outcome and frequency at which cases were being identified, to conclude that there seemed to be some sort of high-probability-but-not-infallible resistance to reinfection, without making any conclusions about how it was occurring, just THAT it was occurring? *



What I want to see, ideally, is what sort of antibody counts we see in recovered patients with natural infection, what sort of antibody counts we see in reinfected individuals around the time they become reinfected, in statistically significant numbers. I don't expect to see any data like that until probably late 2021 or 2022.

Like I had mentioned before, if there is long-term immunity to covid-19, we shouldn't be seeing any more than a couple of cases at this time. As for what I would expect to see in terms of numbers, that's what I keep saying - we don't know.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> What I want to see, ideally, is what sort of antibody counts we see in recovered patients with natural infection, what sort of antibody counts we see in reinfected individuals around the time they become reinfected, in statistically significant numbers. I don't expect to see any data like that until probably late 2021 or 2022.
> 
> Like I had mentioned before, if there is long-term immunity to covid-19, we shouldn't be seeing any more than a couple of cases at this time. As for what I would expect to see in terms of numbers, that's what I keep saying - we don't know.


That's not the question I asked though - I didn't ask anything about what we would need to see to prove _antibodies _were the mechanism protecting against reinfection. You're pre-supposing that antibodies, and not T-cells, are the mecanism here, and accordingly are focusing only on antibodies and not any other possible way the body is defending itself. 

Forget about how, the first step here is to determine IF it's happening. What sort of data about prevalence of cases would you need to see, in the absence of any information about antibodies, to determine that SOMETHING was providing fairly robust immunity?


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> One, we HAVE been looking for data on reinfection, or we wouldn't have even incompete data on reinfection.



What you are calling "incomplete data" now is still what I've been calling "a collection of anecdotes."



Drew said:


> Whether or not Covid is something you can get twice is something the medical community is VERY interested in, and since the vast majority of Covid patients survive, it's not at all hard to do a survey of current cases and simply ask "have you ever had a positive PCR swab before?" Part of your argument seems to hinge on the fact that we don't actually know how often people are getting it twice, because no one is asking... but we also know it CAN happen twice, because we have suspected cases of reinfection.



I've been tested. There is no form or question about whether you've been tested before. There is no data, as far as I know, available in published literature with a total number of reinfections or anything distinguishing any of the positive test data between people who got it once versus otherwise. If you know for a fact that I'm wrong about any of this, it'd be straightforward to prove. But, I'm guessing that the number of positives we see is just a number of positive test results with no data tying any of it to any particular person, therefore, it'd be impossible to compile reinfection data from it. In fact, HIPA would make that very act kind of legally sticky.



Drew said:


> This is the data you shared that I've been going back to, incidentally:
> 
> First link in particular, I'm quoting the rest of it because your conclsion "we have enough anecdotes of reinfection to conclude statements like "reinfection is extremely rare" is what I'm specifically questioning.
> 
> That link cites that the most populous county in NC has 34 suspected cases of reinfection. I actually misread it thinking it was statewide, so I'll adjust my numbers here, but they've identified 34 cases which they haven't confirmed by RNA sequencing, but seem to be individuals contracting Covid twice. Mecklenburg county has, per a google search for their reported cases, 48,033 cases. That means of those 48,033 cases, 34/48,033 or 0.07% of them have gotten a second Covid infection. There are, again per google, 1.11 million people in Mecklenbuerg county. 4.37% of our first sample has gotten Covid. 0.07% of our second sample, in a county where we know they're at least attempting to count how many people are getting it twice, has gotten Covid a second time.



That's a count of how many anecdotal cases of reinfection there were. Those were cases where a doctor treating a person flagged them and another followed up. The threshold for considering an infection is low - one positive test. The threshold for considering a reinfection is much much higher: the person has to have had a positive test, recovered, received a negative test, then had a reason to take a test again and have it come back positive, then they still have to be flagged by their doctor and referred to another person who puts the case study together.

Where the initial infection data point breaks down is when someone is positive but doesn't take a test.

Where the reinfection data point breaks down is when:
1. The person didn't test the first time.
2. The person who did take the first positive test did not take the second negative test.
3. The person who tested positive, then negative did not take the subsequent positive test because:
a. they already had covid, so they should be immune.
b. the symptoms aren't as bad, and they were okay last time anyway. - or -
c. it's too disruptive/inconvenient.
4. The person who *did* _somehow_ manage to take all three requisite tests didn't tell their doctor. (when I took my test, they explicitly told me that they would not contact my doctor unless I specifically instructed them to do so, and even then, I ought to just tell my doctor myself anyway, because there is virtually no follow up on their end - because they are so incredibly busy).
5. The person who did make it through all of those above steps didn't notify their doctor , for whatever reason, on the last step.
6. The doctor, for whatever reason, didn't refer the person for a case study or the person refused to participate.

I imagine steps 2 or 3 could potentially be a large loss. But regardless of all of that, we don't have a compilation of reinfection data for the world nor for any region.



Drew said:


> That's not the question I asked though - I didn't ask anything about what we would need to see to prove _antibodies _were the mechanism protecting against reinfection. You're pre-supposing that antibodies, and not T-cells, are the mecanism here, and accordingly are focusing only on antibodies and not any other possible way the body is defending itself.
> 
> Forget about how, the first step here is to determine IF it's happening. What sort of data about prevalence of cases would you need to see, in the absence of any information about antibodies, to determine that SOMETHING was providing fairly robust immunity?



I answered your question:



bostjan said:


> Like I had mentioned before, if there is long-term immunity to covid-19, we shouldn't be seeing any more than a couple of cases at this time. As for what I would expect to see in terms of numbers, that's what I keep saying - we don't know.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> What you are calling "incomplete data" now is still what I've been calling "a collection of anecdotes."
> *plus a whole bunch of other stuff*


Dude, you can't keep ignoring data because it's inconvenient to you. We have, in North Carolina, 34 individuals who are believed, but not proven, to have had covid twice. That's either data, and we can use it to make some inferences about how often reinfection is occurring, or it's not data, and there is no data on how frequently reinfection is occurring.


If that's "a collection of anecdotes" and not data, then sure. We have 0 cases of reinfection in Meckenberg County, despite some anecdotal chatter, so there are no cases of reinfection, there is no evidence that immunity dissipates quickly after an infection, and we have nothing to talk about here and I'm not sure why you're wasting everyone's time arguing, with no data, that, and I quote, "it is false to say that reinfection is 'extremely rare."

IF it's data, however incomplete... Then we have evidence that about 0.07% of infections in Meckenberg County have become reinfected, which is roughly a 1-in-1,400 rate lower than the rate at which people are becoming infected in the first place. That doesn't _prove_ reinfection is exceedingly rare, nor does it provide good evidence how much longer any sort of fairly robust immunity will last in the future... but at a minimum, it's evidence that suggests reinfection MAY be rare, and pretty significantly increases the probability that robust, if not 100%, immunity is still in place for individuals who have been exposed to Covid. Again, I'd feel much more confident making this statement if I knew the sample size we were going from that the 34 individuals were identified from, but as a thought experiment to track with the overal infection rate any sample larger than about 800 individuals surveyed would suggest that infections were less common in the previously-infected population than the never-infected population.

Pick your poison. You either have no evidence to disprove the belief that reinfection is rare, or what evidence we do have suggests reinfection is rare. You can't point to "anecdotes" to conclude immunity doesn't linger, but then say I can't use "anecdotes" to make some inferences about how common reinfection is.

EDIT - I'll also point out, that we're never going to GET that coplete data set, for this or any disease, and the entirety of scientific progress has been driven by making conclusions involving estimations of probability that a statement may be true based on incomplete, sampled data. Frankly, trying to hold me to a standard here where I'm not allowed to make any conclusions about the probability of reinfection without having a perfect, complete, data set of all individuals who were infected and then reinfected.


----------



## Adam Of Angels

It occurs to me that the difference here is too great to be attributable to differences in mitigation compliance. Any theories? I figure either preexisting immunity afforded by prior exposure to other viruses, or maybe dramatic variance in Vitamin D/Zinc levels.


----------



## spudmunkey

I remember reading some early into that suggested that some part of the east-of-eastern-europe part of the world had a sort of built-in, genetic low-level resistance to this type of virus. I dont remember specifics or sources.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

First off- I apologize if somewhere in this discussion between Boost & Drew is the information that I'm looking for but it's a lot to read through. Secondly- I'd like to thank you both for weighing in on this topic in detail already, as it certainly affects us all or could at some point. I have already read a good deal of your discussion but at this time, I'd like to ask a few questions specifically relating to the spot that I'm currently in, and since you have processed a good deal of statistical info, I'd appreciate either ( or maybe more interestingly both) of you to give me your thoughts or advice. Okay... 

I posted a few pages back that my best friend became symptomatic back on Nov 23rd and tested positive Tues Dec 1st. He tested again Dec 6th, negative. His only symptoms throughout this timeline were mild... fever, sinus discomfort, and loss of taste/ smell. Please keep in mind that this is all according to him so I'm trying to maintain trust in his transparency although I take what he says with a grain of salt as he tends to downplay and twist things at times to seemingly make himself "look good"... if that makes sense. 

So this is where I'm at and where I could use some input from others like yourselves ( or whoever else also might want to chime in)...

He says he wants to get together soon and I'm certain that he's not planning to get a 3rd test at any point ( assuming that he continues symptom-free). But... he's my best friend and he's recently had COVID. That's a big thing for my wife and I to digest and the thought of he and I getting together anytime soon, frankly scares the hell out of her and it honestly concerns me too despite that he's not currently infected. I assured her that I had no plans to get together anytime this week although I'm pretty sure that by next week he's going to want to hang out for a few hours. I've also assured my wife that I have no plans to be in close quarters with him ( like in a vehicle, small room, etc). I've assured her that if we did hang for a while that I would remain proactive about wearing my masks as I always do ( I wear 2 masks at once fwiw) and that I would keep reminding him to not allow his mask to slip off his face as he's been pretty lax about the few times that we've hung out this year.

But dudes... I'm scared of this virus and I'm at a loss as to how to go about behaving around my best bud. Should I even be concerned? I don't want to ostracize him and I'm sure that some day my fear will likely subside. But I've gotten so used to "treating" everyone outside of my home as if they have covid regardless of anything... distancing myself, washing my hands religiously, always double-masked in public, etc. Would you feel safe being around someone that has tested positive/ now negative? Is next week too soon? Are there some things that I should be asking him? I know that if I pry too much for certain details of his experience, that he'll likely start feeling offended or like he's being grilled so I'm very conscious of utilizing discretion. I appreciate that this can be a sensitive situation for friends and family that care but are concerned for their own safety. 

So... that's my deal and if you can provide me with any advice ( outside of basic common sense stuff that we all should know and execute at this point), or if you have any data that you could sum up in condensed context to give me some peace of mind... it would truly be appreciated. Thanks so much for any assistance.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> Dude, you can't keep ignoring data because it's inconvenient to you.



You keep bringing up my tone with you, yet you also keep talking like this to me. Not angry, just letting you know that it might not be the best way to have a great discussion.



Drew said:


> If that's "a collection of anecdotes" and not data, then sure.



I feel like I've made my stance as to whether or not I think we have the reinfection data as clear as possible, over dozens of posts and for weeks now:


bostjan said:


> I still never said what you think I said. There is still no data on what you keep saying there is data for.





bostjan said:


> We have *no data to suggest that. None. Period.*





bostjan said:


> Where is the data on the reinfection rate. Post it.





bostjan said:


> The data that I've said many times is anecdotes





bostjan said:


> We do not have reinfection data.





bostjan said:


> Anecdotes is not data.



I mean, we both have to admit that it's comical that you keep asking me this and I keep saying these things.

If I was in a bad mood, which I'm not, I might assume that your semantic wordplay between "data" and "evidence" is being willfully pedantic, but actually, I think it's probably just unintentional semantics.

Obviously, there can be evidence without there being data. I think that's a very easily defensible statement. Like, if I say here are some anecdotes about X and Y, therefore I believe X and Y, then anyone who flips out and says, "but that's not data" only really has a point if there is some sort of counter argument other than that. For example, if there was data, that'd be a better standard than anecdotes.

The reason these covid-twice case studies don't qualify as data is, I think, pretty simple. It's not a controlled study. That is, you don't pick a number of people who are infected, dig into their history, test them at intervals, etc. So, you know, there is no positive versus negative. It's not looked into in a case study. Is that agreeable? I have a feeling that you are pretty adamant about this whole thing about taking the number of case studies and dividing it into the number of positive, and I think you get the feeling that I'm pretty adamant that the result of that doesn't represent anything meaningful. I get the strong feeling that, no matter what I say, nor what reasoning I use, it'll never address whatever reasoning you are using to say that it is representative of how many people are not getting reinfected. But, from the simplest standpoint, if it has no tie back to the number of people not getting reinfected, then it just isn't representative of that in any way. 



Drew said:


> ...why you're wasting everyone's time arguing, with no data, that, and I quote, "it is false to say that reinfection is 'extremely rare."



That's a fair point. But I'll come back to anecdotes as one form of evidence. It's honestly not the highest standard of evidence. But here's an analogy: Heresay in court is not a very good standard of evidence, but it's used in court often regardless. If Jimmy says Johnny said he was going to kill Jacky, and then Jacky was murdered, that doesn't look good for Johnny - but it's not particularly indefensible for Johnny's lawyer; however, if Jimmy, Juney, Jaqueline, Jeremy, Junior, Lester, Paul, Mary, Frank, David, and George all give independent stories about how Johnny told them each individually that he was going to kill Jacky, I think Johnny's goose is cooked. 

If there's no counter-evidence, then that makes it look worse for Johnny. For example, if he has no alibi... This idea of counting the number of anecdotes and dividing by the total number of cases is, well, it sounds nutty to me. That's why I had asked a couple of times for you to try to find any other viral disease where anyone had published any sort of method like that. It'd be like Johnny's lawyer saying, "well, we asked 20 of Jacky's friends if they knew Jacky, and they said yes, and not one of them mentioned anything about Johnny..." - at least that's how it seems to me. By taking the total number of anecdotal cases and dividing by the total number of positive tests, you're not testing for the thing you are trying to infer. But I guess that's what you are disputing - that the number of anecdotes somehow infers that all of those positives are first-time infections, even though they necessarily include the reinfections from the anecdotes as well... kind of weird, but tell me I'm wrong...

You don't like me bringing up the antibodies, but that's also evidence. You counter that by saying that T cell immunity is also a thing. I agree it is also a thing, but, and I've pointed this out at least twice before in this thread, there is no metric for T cell immunity. I've also pointed out that my points all have to do with the spread of the virus, which T cell immunity is less effective at controlling than antibodies. How do I know that? Well, it has to do with how those things work, and it's complicated. I am very hesitant to get deep into that, because you are picking apart every claim I make, and I know you are just looking for me to mis-speak about something, and whether it is once or thirty times removed from the point, I just know it'll be "haha gotcha!" So, instead, give me the metric on how T cell immunity works to prevent the virus from spreading that I've already asked you for. If you don't have that data, then I'll concede that you might have a point of some sort there, but since we can't quantify it, it's a weaker point than that which we can quantify and we know has a direct effect on immunity in a way that is extremely effective at preventing the spread of the disease.

EDIT, and the CDC changed the wording on their website yet again:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/201...quarantine,possibility of spreading the virus.



The CDC said:


> Based on what we know from similar viruses, some reinfections are expected.



Not that I trust the CDC that much, but I find it interesting that they went from saying "Reinfections are very rare" to "We don't know whether reinfections are common" to "Studies are ongoing as to how common reinfections are." to "some reinfections are expected." Seems like a gradual about-face to me. Again, not that it supports any of my points, since I ignored the CDC when they said "Reinfections are very rare" in the first place.


----------



## Randy

High Plains Drifter said:


> First off- I apologize if somewhere in this discussion between Boost & Drew is the information that I'm looking for but it's a lot to read through. Secondly- I'd like to thank you both for weighing in on this topic in detail already, as it certainly affects us all or could at some point. I have already read a good deal of your discussion but at this time, I'd like to ask a few questions specifically relating to the spot that I'm currently in, and since you have processed a good deal of statistical info, I'd appreciate either ( or maybe more interestingly both) of you to give me your thoughts or advice. Okay...
> 
> I posted a few pages back that my best friend became symptomatic back on Nov 23rd and tested positive Tues Dec 1st. He tested again Dec 6th, negative. His only symptoms throughout this timeline were mild... fever, sinus discomfort, and loss of taste/ smell. Please keep in mind that this is all according to him so I'm trying to maintain trust in his transparency although I take what he says with a grain of salt as he tends to downplay and twist things at times to seemingly make himself "look good"... if that makes sense.
> 
> So this is where I'm at and where I could use some input from others like yourselves ( or whoever else also might want to chime in)...
> 
> He says he wants to get together soon and I'm certain that he's not planning to get a 3rd test at any point ( assuming that he continues symptom-free). But... he's my best friend and he's recently had COVID. That's a big thing for my wife and I to digest and the thought of he and I getting together anytime soon, frankly scares the hell out of her and it honestly concerns me too despite that he's not currently infected. I assured her that I had no plans to get together anytime this week although I'm pretty sure that by next week he's going to want to hang out for a few hours. I've also assured my wife that I have no plans to be in close quarters with him ( like in a vehicle, small room, etc). I've assured her that if we did hang for a while that I would remain proactive about wearing my masks as I always do ( I wear 2 masks at once fwiw) and that I would keep reminding him to not allow his mask to slip off his face as he's been pretty lax about the few times that we've hung out this year.
> 
> But dudes... I'm scared of this virus and I'm at a loss as to how to go about behaving around my best bud. Should I even be concerned? I don't want to ostracize him and I'm sure that some day my fear will likely subside. But I've gotten so used to "treating" everyone outside of my home as if they have covid regardless of anything... distancing myself, washing my hands religiously, always double-masked in public, etc. Would you feel safe being around someone that has tested positive/ now negative? Is next week too soon? Are there some things that I should be asking him? I know that if I pry too much for certain details of his experience, that he'll likely start feeling offended or like he's being grilled so I'm very conscious of utilizing discretion. I appreciate that this can be a sensitive situation for friends and family that care but are concerned for their own safety.
> 
> So... that's my deal and if you can provide me with any advice ( outside of basic common sense stuff that we all should know and execute at this point), or if you have any data that you could sum up in condensed context to give me some peace of mind... it would truly be appreciated. Thanks so much for any assistance.



I mean, I'm as cautious as anyone but it is realistically a virus with a 97%+ recovery rate. So, you know, being cautious is a different thing than being "afraid", so to speak. 

The chances you're gonna get it from him, even if distance isn't maintained or only one person wears their mask right etc, is very low. Most studies I've seen indicate you need higher concentrations for longer durations to have likely transmissions, so like, a group of people, or closed environment or extended duration where you're basically hot boxing eachother with your breath. Or you know, would need to be sneezing or actively doing something that put you in direct contact with saliva/phlegm/mucus etc. So the likelihood he still has it and you're gonna get it if you're doing anything besides sitting in a car with the windows closed for 2 hours or wrestling, are very low.

The bigger issue to me is the social aspect, which are having friends that act irresponsibly, make you feel guilty or like you're a wimp, then they get it, and then they go right back to pressuring you to hang out, despite showing their level of irresponsibly and apparent lack of regard for other people. 

Pretty much all my friends are on hold right now for exactly that reason. Nobody close to me has got it but I have friends that say "oh yeah I'm super cautious, all I do is go to work and go home" and then someone else will tell me they spent the night at the bar with them. Or I have friends that have been riding me to hand out straight away from March until now without acknowledging WHY I'm weary of meeting up, and I have to think if they're that insistent and cavalier about meeting up with me, how many other people that are a lot looser with their behavior take them up on it over that period of time?

I don't want to get the virus, I don't want to spread the virus to my family but probably more likely and more pressing, I don't want to enable people making shitty decisions. I'm getting a ton of people telling me how stressed they are at a "second lockdown" or "second wave" and I shake my head, other than not liking seeing people sick, this doesn't bother me because I actually changed my behaviors/habits, so it's not like I'm "dying" to go to a concert or do a group bar thing or whatever. It's actually crazy disappointing how little a lot of people are willing to inconvenience themselves about doing one or two little things for a little while to save lives (including their own).

If my friend was pressing me to meet AND they've had the virus from being irresponsible AND they don't even know how to wear the fucking mask right, I'd probably tell them to lose my number for a few more months.


----------



## bostjan

Adam Of Angels said:


> It occurs to me that the difference here is too great to be attributable to differences in mitigation compliance. Any theories? I figure either preexisting immunity afforded by prior exposure to other viruses, or maybe dramatic variance in Vitamin D/Zinc levels.


There are a lot of ideas I've seen flying around out there about that graph:
Maybe this is because of prior virus exposure?
Maybe it's blood type?
Maybe it's diet?
Maybe some other genetic factor?

The only one that can be tested easily for some sort of correlation is blood type, since the others are difficult to quantify or even define in a way that makes things measurable. There is some sort of fuzzy correlation between blood type and covid-19: https://www.hematology.org/newsroom...possible-link-between-blood-type-and-covid-19 - but I'm not sure the correlation is good enough to really be super conclusive, and also they say that type B blood is more susceptible, yet the places where type B is most prevalent are mostly in Asia, where the virus is most under control, but where B- in particular is more common, the virus is worse. Some day soon, we'll have a better understanding of that graph.

@High Plains Drifter - Wow, sorry to hear that. I wish he would get tested again for peace of mind, but I know that it's tough because:
a. Test results are currently taking a very long time to be processed.
b. I know first-hand that if you take the test and haven't received your results back yet, everyone considers you to be positive.

And also, another positive would be bad news and super inconvenient, but he'd need to know that not knowing doesn't mean not being positive.

There are false negatives with the test, there are mistakes that occur, especially when labs are doing testing at capacity around the clock all week. So, regardless of whether reinfection is possible in such a short time frame or not, your friend could potentially be contagious, particularly five days after a test. Do we know what sort of test he took? We're basically two/two-and-a-half weeks after he came down with symptoms, so, just based on the data of how long the virus lasts, etc., it doesn't make sense that he'd have recovered and gotten it again, but he might not be clear from the virus. Generally the recommendation is to quarantine either for 14 days or for 7 days after recovery, whichever is safest.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> That's a fair point. But I'll come back to anecdotes as one form of evidence. It's honestly not the highest standard of evidence. But here's an analogy: Heresay in court is not a very good standard of evidence, but it's used in court often regardless. If Jimmy says Johnny said he was going to kill Jacky, and then Jacky was murdered, that doesn't look good for Johnny - but it's not particularly indefensible for Johnny's lawyer; however, if Jimmy, Juney, Jaqueline, Jeremy, Junior, Lester, Paul, Mary, Frank, David, and George all give independent stories about how Johnny told them each individually that he was going to kill Jacky, I think Johnny's goose is cooked.





You just, in the span of a single paragraph, went from calling "anecdotal" cases of reinfection "not evidence" when I wanted to use them to make some inferences about how common reinfection is, but then immediately turned around and said, "oh, yeah, it's not the highest standard of evidence, but it IS evidence" one paragraph later.

You can't have it both ways. Either you don't get to point to "anecdotal" cases of reinfection as evidence that it's happening, or you do and then I get to use that same data in my argument that it's extremely rate. Pick one, I honestly don't care which, but just pick one and stick to it.



> You don't like me bringing up the antibodies, but that's also evidence. You counter that by saying that T cell immunity is also a thing. I agree it is also a thing, but, and I've pointed this out at least twice before in this thread, there is no metric for T cell immunity. I've also pointed out that my points all have to do with the spread of the virus, which T cell immunity is less effective at controlling than antibodies.


Ok, but that's precisely why I think we have to talk about the real world prevalence of reinfection. You note that T cell immunity is awfully difficult to measure in the body by looking at T cells. Sure, fine, whatever - I honestly have no clue, save that a whole bunch of really smart infectious disease specialist doctors I know are telling me they think this is what's stopping reinfection. But, if we can't measure it directly, then the next best thing is to look at how bodies that may or may not contain T cells from prior infections are actually responding, in the wild. Basically, if the observed rate of reinfection suggests that recovered patients are still immune well into the period of time in which antibody resistance should be getting awfully low, then what does that suggest about the presence of T cell immunity? 

And, broken record here, we either accept that the reported cases of reinfection are "data" that we can make inferences from, in which case then the data we DO have is extremely rare, or we accept that it's not data, in which case there's no data that points to reinfection in the united states, besides one man in Nevada with two separate strains confirmed by RNA sequencing. 

You CANNOT continue to insist that suspected reinfection cases are "data" when you want to say reinfection is common, but "anecdotal" when I want to say it's rare.


----------



## Drew

High Plains Drifter said:


> So... that's my deal and if you can provide me with any advice ( outside of basic common sense stuff that we all should know and execute at this point), or if you have any data that you could sum up in condensed context to give me some peace of mind... it would truly be appreciated. Thanks so much for any assistance.


Couple thoughts, but I think the single biggest is that, if this is a good friend of yours, and you feel ANY discomfort about spending time with him right now, he's probably going to be pretty understanding of that. 

Relatedly - I've seen VERY few of my friends since the start of the pandemic, and the ones I have it's been entirely in situations where we can hang out outside without coming into close contact with each other. You may have some specific worries with respect to his recent Covid diagnosis, but honestly, in the middle of a global pandemic here, you should have some concern about seeing him _anyway_ if it means being indoors together or being inside of say 10 feet of each other outdoors without masks. 

From a purely clinical standpoint, our best understanding is that people infected with Covid stop shedding virus within two weeks after the onset of symptoms. If he became symptomatic on 11/23, then yesterday would have marked two weeks. He _should_ be in the clear, though I would absolutely give it another week or so before interacting with him in person, and even then I'd keep rock-solid covid protocols in place - honestly, behaving as if every single person you interact with outside of your immediate household is a known carrier is not a bad habit to be in these das. 

Which kind of brings me to a bigger point - should ANY of us be socializing with anyone? Most of my friends consider me high risk because I'm dating a doctor who works in a hospital, and the fact that 99%+ of my interaction with my circle of friends has been virtual this year is something that I don't have a problem with at all. I think it's insane the number of people who traveled to see family for Thanksgiving this year, I know of a number of "friend-of-friend" positive cases that stemmed from Thanksgiving, and in the case of one of my GF's brother's families who always host thanksgiving, she and I convinced them NOT to this year because it was too much of a risk for her parents, and like clockwork her niece developed a splitting headache on Black Friday and tested positive. She'd have been shedding virus like crazy over Thanksgiving. 

So, I guess it's a two part question. Your buddy is probably no longer contagious, and while trace quantities of RNA can sometimes show up in PCR swabs for a long time after an infection (doctors dont have a good handle on why some cases are "long," but it happens), even in those cases patients stop being infectious after two weeks once they're symptom free. So, from a pure "will my friend give me Covid," the answer is very likely no. However, the second and broader part is, is it a good idea to see anyone outside of your household, and I don't think it is. The fact thata. buddy of yours god sick, thankfully appears to be fine today, but got sick and you've been socializing with him is a pretty clear warning that you really don't KNOW that anyone around you is healthy. 

Does that help any?


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> You just, in the span of a single paragraph, went from calling "anecdotal" cases of reinfection "not evidence" when I wanted to use them to make some inferences about how common reinfection is, but then immediately turned around and said, "oh, yeah, it's not the highest standard of evidence, but it IS evidence" one paragraph later.



Since you put those words in quotes, and I *never* said that, and I've asked you three times recently not to put words in my mouth, I take this personally. This is not even close to the gist of what I said.



Drew said:


> You CANNOT continue to insist that suspected reinfection cases are "data" when you want to say reinfection is common, but "anecdotal" when I want to say it's rare.



I'm done. If you can't be civil enough to stop that, I'm not going to have this discussion anymore.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Since you put those words in quotes, and I *never* said that, and I've asked you three times recently not to put words in my mouth, I take this personally. This is not even close to the gist of what I said.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm done. If you can't be civil enough to stop that, I'm not going to have this discussion anymore.


Dude, you told me in one breath that we have no data on reinfection, and the numbers I was citing - ones you gave _me_ - were merely "anecdotes," that I couldn't use as evidence that reinfection was extremely rare, and then in the very next told me "yeah, ok, but anecdotes are allowable in a court of law as hearsay, and if we use them as evidence, there's a lot of evidence that reinfection is common."

Do you disagree with ANY of that characterization? If I can't _quote_ things you said without being accused of putting words in your mouth, how exactly can we discuss this?

I mean, shit man, you think it's "civil" to tell me that I'm just making shit up, when I'm using numbers _you_ chose? All I'm asking is for you to be _consistent_ on when a number is reliable and when one isn't. That's a pretty low ask.


----------



## Drew

*dupe*


----------



## groverj3

Oh, hi guys. It's been a while since I've been around here. I don't think I have the time to read 200+ pages of this, but I _do_ have a Ph.D. in molecular biology now (yay for graduating from 23rd grade into this shitshow) so if you want a biologist's perspective on anything feel free to ask me. Keep in mind, I don't work in public health, so I won't claim to be an expert there (but there are real experts out there when it comes to that and you should all listen to them). However, if you have questions about the biology, how vaccines work, how mutation rates work, etc. or you just want an opinion from a scientist hit me up.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

@Randy

Dammit.. no hot butter wrestling nor intimate tickle fights in the car... this sucks! Seriously... I lol'd at that. 

I do try to remain conscious of irrational fear vs fear vs caution and at least for the most part, I feel that I've been able to maintain a fairly reasonable distinction between them. Hopefully that will keep me safe and sane moving forward and not allow unprocessed anxiety to cloud my decisions nor my day to day contentment. 

That's a great point and absolutely valid regarding the guilt and pressure. He hasn't yet pressured me besides mentioning that he'd like to get together sometime soon. I kinda blew it off since I hadn't at that time even discussed the prospect with my wife. She's the light of my life and so her feelings are absolutely paramount with me in just about all aspects of how I live my life. 

But yeah... It's a tough one because he comes from a conservative household where his own inherent feelings of humanity and responsibility are often put to the test with a father that is contrarily more about survival of the fittest and other God/ Murica values. Needless to say I don't care for his parents in the least but my bud is honestly a good dude overall. He knows that I take this virus very seriously although at the beginning of the infections in America I remember him saying something to the effect of "I'm taking it seriously but I'm not gonna freak out over it". That was in reference to me discussing with him basic things that my wife and I were doing to be safe like frequently washing our hands and avoiding going out in public any more than necessary. I have no idea since cases have skyrocketed and since his infection, whether or not he's being any more proactive regarding hygiene and behavior but I feel like if he was, that maybe he wouldn't have caught it yet. And that carries over to another valid statement made above... about pondering how responsible our friends are being when we can't see how they're actually behaving around others. 

Like I said, he's not pressuring me and I know that he respects my concerns ( at least to a degree) but whether or not he understands how truly devastating this virus really can be to so many people and to what degree he is conducting himself safely day to day... I honestly don't know. The very few times that we have gotten together this year, there were indications that he wasn't consistently safeguarding himself. I guess that's where some of my concern lies and obviously that can't be accurately determined. 

@bostjan

Thank you... Even with the virus raging everywhere, it sincerely hit me right in the gut when hearing that someone so close to me had contracted it. This was also after just last month learning of my great-nephew and other family members were in close contact with several positive cases. Fortunately though, they avoided getting it. 

Part of the reason that I still consider my bestie as positive ( or at least not completely in the clear), is because I just don't 100% believe that he tested twice. I know that sounds bad and generally speaking, he's an honest guy. But this is just very different because at least to me, it's such a serious matter... not "My buddy claims that he's wearing clean socks today". I don't normally scrutinize too much that he says because even if he says something that I wonder about, it's typically trivial. So again... I'm not suggesting that he's a dishonest person, just that this is BIG to me so I've got my super-skeptical mode activated. 

To your question, I don't know what kind of test he took either time and again... I'm not sure that I completely trust that he even took a second test. I'm just going by what he told me. I also know that if he was planning to go back to work this week ( which he did), that he knows I would've been very critical had he mentioned he didn't take or wouldn't be taking a second test. He knows I've been much more cautious and concerned about the virus than he has. So could he have said that he took a second test simply to appease me? Absolutely. That's yet another reason that I'm not ready to even consider getting together with him yet. I also think that at this point, I'm going to abstain even longer and just let him know if he hits me up next week, that I'm not comfortable. If he's the true-friend that I've felt him to be, then he shouldn't have much issue with my convictions on this and if he does feel pissy then I guess he'll have to get over it. We have a pretty strong friendship and have always supported one another throughout several challenging situations and good/ bad times. 

@Drew

That absolutely does help. My apologies for mucking up the thread with my queries but maybe it'll help someone else in a similar situation, as well as myself. Sincere gratitude for your correspondence. 

No way that I would be around anyone but my wife, without masks in any indoor setting... no matter the distance. If/ when my bud and I do eventually hang out, it'll definitely be outdoors. Just a couple of months ago I wasn't even comfortable hanging out with him in my garage with the garage door open. We cut that visit short even though we were both wearing masks. I just didn't feel safe for whatever reason. Not sure if he was pissed but he never acted like it nor made me feel like he was... although I feel like I'm the one that has to be proactive or else he'll take whatever cue I offer. I just don't think that he's generally using consistently sound judgement... I dunno. 

Fact remain though, as your input has truly resonated with me... that I need to push the reset button and come to terms with the safest/ healthiest way for me to proceed now with everyone outside of my home... regardless of what has recently transpired with anyone's health/ wellness. This really has been very helpful and I again extend my sincere gratitude. I feel refreshed... with a little better sense of things and maybe a little better control as I move forward in the wonderful new world of covid. 

You guys are awesome.. Thanks.


----------



## ElRay

bostjan said:


> ... that's what I keep saying - we don't know.


But it's incredibly difficult to prove a negative. We know we have very low, aka nearly non-existent re-infection numbers. So, we do have the major point of what you're asking.

The second part of what you're asking is confirmation that the nearly non-existent re-infection numbers are low because the "actual" reinfection rate is "so low", or because the detection rate of reinfection is "so low". The reality is, unless you have viable evidence that the observed reinfection rate is artificially low because the detection rate misses a large number of reinfected individuals, the current scientific consensus stands.

It's like being "cured" of AIDS. You're technically not 100% virus-free, it's just "so low" that it's undetectable and you're not capable of infecting anybody else.


----------



## Drew

ElRay said:


> But it's incredibly difficult to prove a negative. We know we have very low, aka nearly non-existent re-infection numbers. So, we do have the major point of what you're asking.
> 
> The second part of what you're asking is confirmation that the nearly non-existent re-infection numbers are low because the "actual" reinfection rate is "so low", or because the detection rate of reinfection is "so low". The reality is, unless you have viable evidence that the observed reinfection rate is artificially low because the detection rate misses a large number of reinfected individuals, the current scientific consensus stands.
> 
> It's like being "cured" of AIDS. You're technically not 100% virus-free, it's just "so low" that it's undetectable and you're not capable of infecting anybody else.


Thank you. This has been my whole point all along. We have imperfect data - in the real world we ALWAYS have imperfect data - but the _rate_ at which we're finding suspected cases of reinfection suggests that, at least 9 months in, that reinfection is very rare, and if the half-life of antibodies is short enough that it implies a not-insignificant risk of reinfection after only a couple months, then we have to consider the possibility that something other than antibody resistance is protecting people. Which, given what we know about MERS and SARS, makes a lot of sense.


----------



## Drew

groverj3 said:


> Oh, hi guys. It's been a while since I've been around here. I don't think I have the time to read 200+ pages of this, but I _do_ have a Ph.D. in molecular biology now (yay for graduating from 23rd grade into this shitshow) so if you want a biologist's perspective on anything feel free to ask me. Keep in mind, I don't work in public health, so I won't claim to be an expert there (but there are real experts out there when it comes to that and you should all listen to them). However, if you have questions about the biology, how vaccines work, how mutation rates work, etc. or you just want an opinion from a scientist hit me up.


Certainly would appreciate your input on the likelihood of reinfection, since we've been having a heated argument for the last half dozen pages or so over whether or not it's fair to say that, at least to date, reinfection is rare.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Since you put those words in quotes, and I *never* said that, and I've asked you three times recently not to put words in my mouth, I take this personally. This is not even close to the gist of what I said.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm done. If you can't be civil enough to stop that, I'm not going to have this discussion anymore.


Final thing I'll say on this particular exchange. 

I'd love to apologize for "putting words into your mouth," but if what you're referring to is me paraphrasing this: 


bostjan said:


> That's a fair point. But I'll come back to anecdotes as one form of evidence. It's honestly not the highest standard of evidence. But here's an analogy: Heresay in court is not a very good standard of evidence, but it's used in court often regardless. If Jimmy says Johnny said he was going to kill Jacky, and then Jacky was murdered, that doesn't look good for Johnny - but it's not particularly indefensible for Johnny's lawyer; however, if Jimmy, Juney, Jaqueline, Jeremy, Junior, Lester, Paul, Mary, Frank, David, and George all give independent stories about how Johnny told them each individually that he was going to kill Jacky, I think Johnny's goose is cooked.


as this: 


Drew said:


> "oh, yeah, it's not the highest standard of evidence, but it IS evidence"


...rather than quoting the entire paragraph, which I'd already quoted earlier in my response...

Then, no, I'm sorry, I don't think paraphrasing an entire paragraph into a single sentence is putting words into your mouth, nor do I think that was an unfair characterization of your argument (and if it's the use of the word "evidence" you resent, you're suggesting your hypothetical Johnny would be convicted in your analogy, and you don't convict in a court of law without evidence). 

If I put words into your mouth somewhere else in that post, point it out and I'll be happy to apologize. If not, well, I've been awfully patient with you pointing to "anecdotes" about reinfection as evidence reinfection is NOT rare, but then when I turn around and put those numbers in context to show the rate at which we're finding reinfection is negligible, saying it's not evidence. If you're going to point to "anecdotes" to say something is common, then the context I'm providing for those anecdotes (population of a county, case count of a county, here, for the "anecdote" of 34 reinfections in one NC county) are quite a lot less controversial than the anecdotes you're bringing up yourself. 

No one is saying reinfection is impossible. What we ARE debating is how common it is, and placing reports of reinfection in context is absolutely critical for understanding that.


----------



## Drew

High Plains Drifter said:


> @Drew
> 
> That absolutely does help. My apologies for mucking up the thread with my queries but maybe it'll help someone else in a similar situation, as well as myself. Sincere gratitude for your correspondence.
> 
> No way that I would be around anyone but my wife, without masks in any indoor setting... no matter the distance. If/ when my bud and I do eventually hang out, it'll definitely be outdoors. Just a couple of months ago I wasn't even comfortable hanging out with him in my garage with the garage door open. We cut that visit short even though we were both wearing masks. I just didn't feel safe for whatever reason. Not sure if he was pissed but he never acted like it nor made me feel like he was... although I feel like I'm the one that has to be proactive or else he'll take whatever cue I offer. I just don't think that he's generally using consistently sound judgement... I dunno.
> 
> Fact remain though, as your input has truly resonated with me... that I need to push the reset button and come to terms with the safest/ healthiest way for me to proceed now with everyone outside of my home... regardless of what has recently transpired with anyone's health/ wellness. This really has been very helpful and I again extend my sincere gratitude. I feel refreshed... with a little better sense of things and maybe a little better control as I move forward in the wonderful new world of covid.
> 
> You guys are awesome.. Thanks.


Shit, man, this is a thread about a pandemic. We've lately been in the middle of a discussion of how likely reinfection is, but first and foremost this is a thread about how we're all doing in it. Your story and your cncerns are absolutely part of that discussion. 

IF it helps, I had covid myself back in March - my girlfriend is a doctor, we were probabl within the first couple hundred cases in the greater Boston area. I haven't really talked about that much here, and I probably won't, but today I'm in a situation where all the data we have suggests I'm probably immune... But I'm still, 100%, behaving like I could catch it from anyone, like I could infect anyone, and I'm if anything more religious about social distancing than a lot of my friends who I'm not really seeing these days, because it IS possible I could catch it again howeer much the odds are in my favor, and I don't want to infect anyone I care about. That's maybe the biggests takeaway from this whole thing, for me - things like probabilities are very useful for making conclusions in aggregate about the outcomes we should expect for large numbers of people. But you and I don't get that luxury- a population's outcome may be probabalistic, but yours and mine will be binary. We either get Covid, or we don't. We either have permanent lung damage, or we don't. We either die, or we don't. We eiither infect and kill a loved one, or we don't. Immunity to reinfecton in 95% cases of exposure is awesome, when it comes to clamping down on the spread of a virus and strategizing on how we're going to fight this. However, in your own day to day life, a 5% chance of getting sick again is probably unacceptably high, when the risk of exposure is currently as high as it is. 

Guess I'm just saying there's a difference in talking about this at the population level, and at the individual level, and we really need to be talking about both. Glad your buddy is ok.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> Final thing I'll say on this particular exchange.
> 
> I'd love to apologize for "putting words into your mouth," but if what you're referring to is me paraphrasing this:
> 
> as this:
> 
> ...rather than quoting the entire paragraph, which I'd already quoted earlier in my response...
> 
> Then, no, I'm sorry, I don't think paraphrasing an entire paragraph into a single sentence is putting words into your mouth, nor do I think that was an unfair characterization of your argument (and if it's the use of the word "evidence" you resent, you're suggesting your hypothetical Johnny would be convicted in your analogy, and you don't convict in a court of law without evidence).
> 
> If I put words into your mouth somewhere else in that post, point it out and I'll be happy to apologize. If not, well, I've been awfully patient with you pointing to "anecdotes" about reinfection as evidence reinfection is NOT rare, but then when I turn around and put those numbers in context to show the rate at which we're finding reinfection is negligible, saying it's not evidence. If you're going to point to "anecdotes" to say something is common, then the context I'm providing for those anecdotes (population of a county, case count of a county, here, for the "anecdote" of 34 reinfections in one NC county) are quite a lot less controversial than the anecdotes you're bringing up yourself.
> 
> No one is saying reinfection is impossible. What we ARE debating is how common it is, and placing reports of reinfection in context is absolutely critical for understanding that.



No, I have no problem with that particular paraphrase.  I was referring to the first half of the quote with my first statement. 

So, rather than dig into the minutae of who said what when and so forth , I choose accept your apology and apologize myself for my contribution to the misunderstanding , as I truly didn't intend for my assertion about herd immunity to spiral into 20+ pages of 1000+ character posts back-and-forth . In the spirit of that, this will be my last post in this thread for the near future. If you want to continue to post here, please do . If you want to PM me to clarify anything or to continue the discussion privately, I'm okay with that, too .


----------



## groverj3

Drew said:


> Certainly would appreciate your input on the likelihood of reinfection, since we've been having a heated argument for the last half dozen pages or so over whether or not it's fair to say that, at least to date, reinfection is rare.



Sure, I'll chime in here.

For some background, I think there are three camps that tend to pop up in terms of their thoughts on this (ignoring the deniers, because they aren't worth giving a platform to):

1. There's no hard evidence of reinfection because the examples out there are pretty spurious and anecdotal, therefore we throw out the argument.
2. Said anecdotal evidence of reinfection exists, and we must assume that reinfection is a real possibility and be very concerned that it happens often.
3. Reinfection may occur, as it can with many viruses, in some percentage of cases. This number of cases is a small percentage of the total, but the fact that nobody (well, _almost_ nobody) has any pre-existing immunity means that by the law of large numbers this low percentage is an absolute large number in the real world. So, it's something to take seriously, but you shouldn't assume that it is the norm, nor assume it will happen if *you* get the virus (though, don't fall into inverse gambler's fallacy here and resist believing it if it happens).

I'm in camp 3. Other similar viruses do, at some low level, exhibit reinfection behavior in short order due to quirks with how the immune system works and how an infection could be cleared without developing a robust log-term immune response. It is rare, however. Though, with something like this pandemic there is *very* large n for overall infections, and therefore, you should assume that rare events *can and will happen*. This doesn't mean they aren't still rare in a probabilistic sense, but the absolute value of such rare occurrences *is *observable.

That being said, the data on a macro level for reinfection is spotty at best. Mostly anecdotal. And even when it comes from doctors, it is still mostly anecdotal. This doesn't mean it's impossible, and it makes logical sense with what we know about viral infection (and pathogenic infection of any sort, actually) that it could occur, but it's unclear how big of a problem it is.

So, overall, a very long-winded answer to say:

1. We don't know how big of a problem it is
2. It can happen with other viral infections, albeit rarely
3. It probably isn't the *norm* but likely does happen


----------



## groverj3

I want to make a comment that's not a direct answer to anything I've seen in this thread as of yet, but I think is incredibly important to mention.

Communication on all things pandemic is highly inconsistent. I'm not talking about the governmental responses. What I'm referring to has more to do with how scientists communicate and how the media does.

In science, if you've gone to grad school, you're taught never to make a claim about anything without specific experimental evidence. If you're speculating, that's all well and good, but you can't publish on that, and you can't really make that the crux of your argument at say... a conference or something.

In messaging to the public by the media, sensationalism is the name of the game. I don't mean that this situation isn't a big deal and they're blowing it out of proportion. I mean that the way a journalist will interpret statements by scientists is not going to be in keeping with the intent of the messaging.

How does manifest? A situation like this:

Scientist - Knows how the immune system works and barring this virus doing something insane, we understand that we would expect the immune system to respond to it like it does to anything else. However, we don't have *direct* evidence. So, scientist says "We just don't know about reinfection or how long immunity lasts." Which is not quite true. We're not writing a paper here. It's okay to say that we *think* this is how immunity works for this based on how the immune system responds to similar viruses.

Journalist - Hears "We don't know." from the scientist and reports "We can all get reinfected, nobody know how immunity for this works."

Can we all see how this is a huge problem?


----------



## Adam Of Angels

groverj3 said:


> I want to make a comment that's not a direct answer to anything I've seen in this thread as of yet, but I think is incredibly important to mention.
> 
> Communication on all things pandemic is highly inconsistent. I'm not talking about the governmental responses. What I'm referring to has more to do with how scientists communicate and how the media does.
> 
> In science, if you've gone to grad school, you're taught never to make a claim about anything without specific experimental evidence. If you're speculating, that's all well and good, but you can't publish on that, and you can't really make that the crux of your argument at say... a conference or something.
> 
> In messaging to the public by the media, sensationalism is the name of the game. I don't mean that this situation isn't a big deal and they're blowing it out of proportion. I mean that the way a journalist will interpret statements by scientists is not going to be in keeping with the intent of the messaging.
> 
> How does manifest? A situation like this:
> 
> Scientist - Knows how the immune system works and barring this virus doing something insane, we understand that we would expect the immune system to respond to it like it does to anything else. However, we don't have *direct* evidence. So, scientist says "We just don't know about reinfection or how long immunity lasts." Which is not quite true. We're not writing a paper here. It's okay to say that we *think* this is how immunity works for this based on how the immune system responds to similar viruses.
> 
> Journalist - Hears "We don't know." from the scientist and reports "We can all get reinfected, nobody know how immunity for this works."
> 
> Can we all see how this is a huge problem?



Yes, and they don't limit their sensationalism to Covid science.


----------



## spudmunkey

Adam Of Angels said:


> Yes, and they don't limit their sensationalism to Covid science.



So much is focused on ad revenue, unfortunately. The small ones do it to survive, the big ones do it to amass more wealth.

An example I just saw today was an article about a product that was being recalled because of a choking hazard. The headline said something like "Target tells customers, 'If you bought this dangerous product, return it'". The thumbnail was a photo of the exterior of a Target store.

It isn't until you click INTO the article that you find out it's about a pair of boots that are also sold in other stores...but they quoted Target's statement in the article.

Like...I'm not sure how much more un-helpful the headline could be. It doesn't mention the product, anything about the recall, and even worse, makes people think that if they don't shop at Target that there's no need to see what the recall is about.


----------



## BigViolin

Critical Thinking should be a mandatory yearly course starting in 6th grade.


----------



## groverj3

Adam Of Angels said:


> Yes, and they don't limit their sensationalism to Covid science.


For sure. It manifests pretty severely in coverage of anything involving science though because scientists and journalists don't even speak the same language when it comes to what's required to make a claim or what speculation even means.


----------



## gunch

BigViolin said:


> Critical Thinking should be a mandatory yearly course starting in 6th grade.


 It should be that doesn’t serve the powers that be


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> No, I have no problem with that particular paraphrase.  I was referring to the first half of the quote with my first statement.
> 
> So, rather than dig into the minutae of who said what when and so forth , I choose accept your apology and apologize myself for my contribution to the misunderstanding , as I truly didn't intend for my assertion about herd immunity to spiral into 20+ pages of 1000+ character posts back-and-forth . In the spirit of that, this will be my last post in this thread for the near future. If you want to continue to post here, please do . If you want to PM me to clarify anything or to continue the discussion privately, I'm okay with that, too .


Now I'm even more confised, because if I read that right, that WAS the part I paraphrahsed, and put in quotation marks to make it clear that it wasn't a statement _I_ was making. 

But, if it was, then my intent was 100% to shorten up a paragraph into a single sentence summary, and not put words into your mouth. If in doing so I did a shoddy enough job of it that, as it appears, it looks more like the later than the former, then I definitely apologize for that.


----------



## Drew

groverj3 said:


> Scientist - Knows how the immune system works and barring this virus doing something insane, we understand that we would expect the immune system to respond to it like it does to anything else. However, we don't have *direct* evidence. So, scientist says "We just don't know about reinfection or how long immunity lasts." Which is not quite true. We're not writing a paper here. It's okay to say that we *think* this is how immunity works for this based on how the immune system responds to similar viruses.
> 
> Journalist - Hears "We don't know." from the scientist and reports "We can all get reinfected, nobody know how immunity for this works."


Great post (and, as well, the one before it - I'm squarely in Camp 3, myself, while where at it - there are 6 confirmed cases worldwide so we know at a minimum it's possible, and dozens to a few hundred in the US, so we can reasonably suspect it's happening more than those 6 cases; where there's smoke, there's fire. There just isn't MUCH smoke, and as someone who works in a data-driven industry that rewards not just the right conclusions, but the right conclusion while everyone else is still wrong, I'm maybe a little more comfortable extrapolating from imcomplete data than a pure scientist, and there isn't nearly enough smoke to suggest the fire is widespread, if you will). 

I think what's especially interesting here is how a scientist should act with respect to making statements they can't - yet - prove, when public health is at stake. And there are two separate ways of looking at it - one, the cost of being wrong and reinfection actually becoming pretty common in a shorter-than-expexted timeline could mean a whole bunch of people stop social distancing, risking getting themselves and others sick, and as a second-order effect, there are strong social cues on this stuff and you're under a lot more pressure to social distance when EVERYONE is social distancing, so people who had Covid suddenly stopping wearing masks because they believe, right or wrong, tha they're immune could have an even greater impact on mask wearing. 

But, the other side of it is, scientists limiting statements to "reinfection is possible" without weighing in at all on the _probability_ of reinfection, comes with its own behavbioral costs, with the single biggest being the willingness to get a vaccine. If the scientific community shares no more than "reinfection is possible," then it becomes pretty hard to take them seriously when they then say "get vaccinated." 

FWIW, if anyone wants to see the Pfizer clinical data, this is from the New England Journal of Medicine (about as respected a source as you can ask) - my girlfriend sent it to me last night, largely so she'd have a record of the link to go back and re-read herself. 

https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577

tl;dr - there were essentially no differences in the rate at which trial candidates and placebo candidates got COVID for the first seven days after the first injection (second injection occurred at day 21), then the trial vaccine sample showed infections basically dropping off a cliff. They only have, and have published, data out to about 120 days, but there's no clearly perceptible uptick in infection rates in the second half of the sample period, so if there is any acceleration in the rate of detection of new cases/weakening of immunity, I'd say that in the sample size we're working with, it's probably fair to conclude it's very slight. 

Vaccinations started today in the US.


----------



## Drew

spudmunkey said:


> So much is focused on ad revenue, unfortunately. The small ones do it to survive, the big ones do it to amass more wealth.


Though, I'm not sure it's quite this simple. Sensationalism alone really depends on having a constant supply of _new_ sensational stories to run. It's a good way to get in front of an audience if you don't have one, but once you do, _quality _of information also becomes really important - running a good, detailed, nuanced, well researched article on Covid reinfection, for example, where you walk through what we know, what we don't, what we're trying to learn, and making some well-researched, and clear, inferences on the _probability_ of reinfection, as well what to watch that could cast doubt on thoise probabilities, would be more likely to make people turn to you on other sources. 

I could see somewhere like The Atlantic doing that sort of coverage, and people do tend to trust them for that.


----------



## spudmunkey

White House Official Crede Bailey Recovering From Severe Covid-19, Friend Says - Bloomberg

Apparently a senior white house official has been out for 3 months in secret, and ended up losing a foot and lower leg, and also a toe on his other foot.


----------



## fantom

groverj3 said:


> In science, if you've gone to grad school, you're taught never to make a claim about anything without specific experimental evidence. If you're speculating, that's all well and good, but you can't publish on that, and you can't really make that the crux of your argument at say... a conference or something.



Unless you publish in machine learning. Then you can say whatever you want.



spudmunkey said:


> White House Official Crede Bailey Recovering From Severe Covid-19, Friend Says - Bloomberg
> 
> Apparently a senior white house official has been out for 3 months in secret, and ended up losing a foot and lower leg, and also a toe on his other foot.



Ya I just read this article and was going to post it. It is really sad that this happened to a die-hard Trump supporter in the White House and Trump still didn't take this virus more seriously. I am curious if this person still supports Trump after his ordeal.


----------



## groverj3

Drew said:


> Great post (and, as well, the one before it - I'm squarely in Camp 3, myself, while where at it - there are 6 confirmed cases worldwide so we know at a minimum it's possible, and dozens to a few hundred in the US, so we can reasonably suspect it's happening more than those 6 cases; where there's smoke, there's fire. There just isn't MUCH smoke, and as someone who works in a data-driven industry that rewards not just the right conclusions, but the right conclusion while everyone else is still wrong, I'm maybe a little more comfortable extrapolating from imcomplete data than a pure scientist, and there isn't nearly enough smoke to suggest the fire is widespread, if you will).
> 
> I think what's especially interesting here is how a scientist should act with respect to making statements they can't - yet - prove, when public health is at stake. And there are two separate ways of looking at it - one, the cost of being wrong and reinfection actually becoming pretty common in a shorter-than-expexted timeline could mean a whole bunch of people stop social distancing, risking getting themselves and others sick, and as a second-order effect, there are strong social cues on this stuff and you're under a lot more pressure to social distance when EVERYONE is social distancing, so people who had Covid suddenly stopping wearing masks because they believe, right or wrong, tha they're immune could have an even greater impact on mask wearing.
> 
> But, the other side of it is, scientists limiting statements to "reinfection is possible" without weighing in at all on the _probability_ of reinfection, comes with its own behavbioral costs, with the single biggest being the willingness to get a vaccine. If the scientific community shares no more than "reinfection is possible," then it becomes pretty hard to take them seriously when they then say "get vaccinated."
> 
> FWIW, if anyone wants to see the Pfizer clinical data, this is from the New England Journal of Medicine (about as respected a source as you can ask) - my girlfriend sent it to me last night, largely so she'd have a record of the link to go back and re-read herself.
> 
> https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577
> 
> tl;dr - there were essentially no differences in the rate at which trial candidates and placebo candidates got COVID for the first seven days after the first injection (second injection occurred at day 21), then the trial vaccine sample showed infections basically dropping off a cliff. They only have, and have published, data out to about 120 days, but there's no clearly perceptible uptick in infection rates in the second half of the sample period, so if there is any acceleration in the rate of detection of new cases/weakening of immunity, I'd say that in the sample size we're working with, it's probably fair to conclude it's very slight.
> 
> Vaccinations started today in the US.



All good points here. And completely off-topic, I'm basically right next door to you. Technically in Charlestown, but really on the Somerville side of I-93 and the Sullivan Square T station is right outside my window (which is just a delightful sound to hear all the time).


----------



## Drew

groverj3 said:


> All good points here. And completely off-topic, I'm basically right next door to you. Technically in Charlestown, but really on the Somerville side of I-93 and the Sullivan Square T station is right outside my window (which is just a delightful sound to hear all the time).


Ah, I asked you about this in another thread, but we can pick it up here - you're even closer than you realize, actually, I'm over in Union Square. You're probably what, 2/3 of a mile from me? Too funny! Post covid, we should try to grab a beer sometime. For now, watch out for cyclists - I'll be the lunatic either on an off-white gravel bike with bright red trim, or a really fast looking so-dark-it-looks-black teal road bike, and while I don't ride through that square all that often I do occasionally go through if I'm heading north of the city.


----------



## groverj3

Drew said:


> Ah, I asked you about this in another thread, but we can pick it up here - you're even closer than you realize, actually, I'm over in Union Square. You're probably what, 2/3 of a mile from me? Too funny! Post covid, we should try to grab a beer sometime. For now, watch out for cyclists - I'll be the lunatic either on an off-white gravel bike with bright red trim, or a really fast looking so-dark-it-looks-black teal road bike, and while I don't ride through that square all that often I do occasionally go through if I'm heading north of the city.



Yes! Very close. We'll pick it up via PM.


----------



## spudmunkey

In the US, the death toll has reached 77.75 kilobenghazis.


----------



## BigViolin

"Benghazis" just became my new unit of measure for everything in-law related.


----------



## bostjan

I just got an email from the local hospital telling me that they will have the vaccine available for certain high-risk people shortly after New Year, and then for everyone else a few weeks/couple months after that.

I'm not put off by the allergic reactions in Alaska, but I do find it interesting that all of the reported allergy problems so far have been from places with northern latitudes. Maybe coincidence? Probably...


----------



## Xaios

bostjan said:


> I just got an email from the local hospital telling me that they will have the vaccine available for certain high-risk people shortly after New Year, and then for everyone else a few weeks/couple months after that.
> 
> I'm not put off by the allergic reactions in Alaska, but I do find it interesting that all of the reported allergy problems so far have been from places with northern latitudes. Maybe coincidence? Probably...


Why do I have to read this? I live in the freaking Yukon.


----------



## Millul

Xaios said:


> Why do I have to read this? I live in the freaking Yukon.



Well, why is that a problem? Aren't you alone there?


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> I just got an email from the local hospital telling me that they will have the vaccine available for certain high-risk people shortly after New Year, and then for everyone else a few weeks/couple months after that.
> 
> I'm not put off by the allergic reactions in Alaska, but I do find it interesting that all of the reported allergy problems so far have been from places with northern latitudes. Maybe coincidence? Probably...


"certain high-risk people" meaning OUTSIDE of the health care and first responder communities, right? Here in Boston they've been vaccinating since maybe the start of the week, though there's some variation within hospital (one local hospital is doing first-come first-served, so there was some outrage when some of their finance team managed to register for early spots and guys in suits were going down to get shots while front line workers were stuck further back in the queue, whereas my GF's hospital is prioritizing based on line of business).

January would be on the leading edge of when I'd expect to see high risk laypeople getting vaccinated down here in the Boston area.


----------



## sleewell

wish trump wouldn't have turned down more doses of vaccine from pfizer. i would get the jab today if possible.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> "certain high-risk people" meaning OUTSIDE of the health care and first responder communities, right? Here in Boston they've been vaccinating since maybe the start of the week, though there's some variation within hospital (one local hospital is doing first-come first-served, so there was some outrage when some of their finance team managed to register for early spots and guys in suits were going down to get shots while front line workers were stuck further back in the queue, whereas my GF's hospital is prioritizing based on line of business).
> 
> January would be on the leading edge of when I'd expect to see high risk laypeople getting vaccinated down here in the Boston area.



Yes. Here we have phase 1: health care workers (starting this past Monday), phase 2: the sick and elderly (starting January-ish), and then phase 3: essential workers (i.e. just about everyone else - starting sometime in the spring). I have no problem with the way they planned that, considering how many doses they'll likely get, but I'm honestly worried that there won't be enough and phase 3 will end up delayed until mid-summer. (Just my gut feeling)

Actually, come to think of it, most of our over-70 population moves to Florida or Mexico over the winter. I don't know if you noticed, but our winters here in the NEK are pretty brutal, like pushing -40° wind chills. There might not be anybody around eligible for phase 2 once it rolls out.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Yes. Here we have phase 1: health care workers (starting this past Monday), phase 2: the sick and elderly (starting January-ish), and then phase 3: essential workers (i.e. just about everyone else - starting sometime in the spring). I have no problem with the way they planned that, considering how many doses they'll likely get, but I'm honestly worried that there won't be enough and phase 3 will end up delayed until mid-summer. (Just my gut feeling)


You're in good company there - the Trump team passed up on an opportunity to reserve another 50 or 100 million doses and now Pfizer's vaccine is pre-sold througuh the summer. With, I think it was the AstraZeneca vaccine that got delayed, not Moderna, but one of the two, anyhow, it's pretty likely that the third tier is more of a June-July event. 

I'm tentatively planning to being able to go back to a pretty normal life by August, and since my company is pretty aggressive about working in the office, being back at work by June. We could beat that, but Im not counting on it.


----------



## bostjan

My employer seems to have made most of the changes in our policies permanent. I'm quite pleased with that. I don't mind having office people around or guests coming to visit, but usually it'll work out where the company's higher-ups happen to come by right when I'm donning a rubber suit fishing around for fiber optics in a vat or some other unbecoming situation.


----------



## StevenC

New restrictions in the UK mean in not going to see my brother and sister this Xmas, and probably not for 2 months after that at least. 

Hopefully in that time a good chunk of people will be vaccinated though and we'll no more about this new mutation.


----------



## spudmunkey

sleewell said:


> wish trump wouldn't have turned down more doses of vaccine from pfizer. i would get the jab today if possible.



I...I don't this that is as big if a story as it's being made out. I realize funding isn't infinite, and with several other vaccines following right behind, I could see a rational decision being to not put all of your eggs in one basket in the off chance there's some issue, and would also mean that you've got 2 or 3 flowing pipelines of vaccines coming in, which is a more "secure" decision.

At least, I can rationalize it with the bit of information I've stumbled across, which I know is not the whole story.


----------



## spudmunkey

From Tyler "YouTube's 'Music Is Win'" Larson's wife:


----------



## Drew

spudmunkey said:


> I...I don't this that is as big if a story as it's being made out. I realize funding isn't infinite, and with several other vaccines following right behind, I could see a rational decision being to not put all of your eggs in one basket in the off chance there's some issue, and would also mean that you've got 2 or 3 flowing pipelines of vaccines coming in, which is a more "secure" decision.
> 
> At least, I can rationalize it with the bit of information I've stumbled across, which I know is not the whole story.


Nah, it's short sighted. We had 100 million doses on order (50 million people) and I believe 100 million of another vaccine, Astrazenica, I bvelieve. Pfizer had already released enough clinical trial data to indicate that theirs had some real promise, so as part of their production ramp up, in advance of FDA approval, Pfizer started contacting countries again about placing a second round of orders. Miost accepted; the Trump administration, for some reason, did not. It's not like they had to pay even if Pfizer couldn't deliver, and it's not like they had enough orders already placed to vaccinate the whole population, or there were a bunch of other phase 3 trial vaccines to choose from so they just wanted to diversify - there were maybe 3 contenders at this point, with Pfizer lookiing strongly like the first to come to market. 

I don't think it was necessarily something nefarious - honestly, this looks a lot more like sheer incompetence, that somehow no one who got the news that Pfizer was offering them another 100 million doses put it together that we were going to NEED another hundred million doses, and if we didn't grab a spot in the queue now, then we'd be months further back while we waited for Pfizer to deliver to all the countries who had already made orders. Like, general concerns about "putting all your eggs in one basket" are all well and good, but if you have three options and need 700 million doses/350 million treatments cumulatively across all three, and you have 200 million of those in order from two of the three and one of those two says, "hey, you've ordered 100 million, we think we can give you twice that, but you have to commit now," and you say "no, I'm all set"....?


----------



## fantom

Honestly, at this point, I don't think it is incompetence. The Trump adminstration is so fixated on trying to overturn the election that they are willing to burn down the country to get there. They know damn well that any chaos they cause will either make Biden's presidency look worse or, in the off chance Trump actually succeeds, can be blamed on Democrats for distracting him.

Incompetence was an excuse up until last year when Trump got impeached for prioritizing election results over this country. How is the federal government not coordinating vaccines any different then not coordinating PPE? Incompetence would mean the problem is fixable. This is intent now.


----------



## Drew

fantom said:


> Honestly, at this point, I don't think it is incompetence. The Trump adminstration is so fixated on trying to overturn the election that they are willing to burn down the country to get there. They know damn well that any chaos they cause will either make Biden's presidency look worse or, in the off chance Trump actually succeeds, can be blamed on Democrats for distracting him.
> 
> Incompetence was an excuse up until last year when Trump got impeached for prioritizing election results over this country. How is the federal government not coordinating vaccines any different then not coordinating PPE? Incompetence would mean the problem is fixable. This is intent now.


I'd need to check the timeline to say this with 100% certainty, but I'd put decent money on the fact that this second order they passed on, happened _before_ the election.

EDIT - yup, this was July, where they were offered 100 to 500 million additional doses, and repeatedly warned by Pfizer that they doubted they'd be able to keep up with demand and if they didn't lock it in now, it would be months before they could. 

Now, admittedly, you wouldn't be wrong to accuse Pfizer of using drug dealer tactics here... but, I mean, they work for a reason.


----------



## bostjan

So, despite travel bans and extra precautions, Australia now has the newer UK strain of the virus. 

Just goes to show how little can be done in today's global economy to contain a virus.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> So, despite travel bans and extra precautions, Australia now has the newer UK strain of the virus.
> 
> Just goes to show how little can be done in today's global economy to contain a virus.


Honestly, one of the biggest takeaways that I'm not seeing much discussion about - yet, anwyay - is the degree to which international travel has gone mainstream even in the last 20 years. 2000, travel to and from china was basically just businessmen and politically connected individuals, as I understand, and it wasn't easy to go abroad if you were Chinese, or enter China, outside of a few carefully controlled areas, if you were not. That's less true today, as a byproduct of the rapidly growing Chinese middle class. I'm talking about China as an example, and not because it's entyirely their fault - I dn't have hard data, but I think the cost of international travel from the US has also fallen quite a bit in the last couple decades, and it' never been easier for a middle class American to spend a week in Italy, or South Korea, than it was pre-recession. 

There are some pretty big public health implications for that, but one of the biggest is any containment plan for a pandemic needs to pretty much start with the assumption that once it hits the point of community transmission in ANY community, anywhere, it's probably going global. We either need to backtrack on globalization - IMO, a really bad idea - or do some serious work to align pandemic responses from country to country, to make sure that countries like China can't try to cover up a new pandemic when it first breaks (to be fair, they were more transparent by far than with SARS), or that countries like the US can't half-ass the response for political reasons, and allow themselves to be overrun.


----------



## sleewell

its funny to me that even though they don't know much about the new mutation they are still very quick to say the current vaccines will still work on it. i dont have a dog in the fight either way, just an observation. can they know that for sure so soon??


----------



## StevenC

sleewell said:


> its funny to me that even though they don't know much about the new mutation they are still very quick to say the current vaccines will still work on it. i dont have a dog in the fight either way, just an observation. can they know that for sure so soon??


In the UK, at least, no one is saying that. They've been saying there's no indication it won't work.


----------



## bostjan

I don't know that enforcing international expectations upon a massive sovereign nation like China is that much more viable a plan than reversing globalization.

I guess either way, I'd expect both to fall under the category of "there's nothing we can do."

So, what can we do? Well, for one, hopefully, our elected officials will give up on this crusade against science. If there's some science that is inconvenient for your political platform, instead of denying it, maybe look into it carefully with as little bias as possible, and, if it can't be debunked from that mindset, change your platform so that it's in touch with reality.

But I'm not going to hold my breath over that, either.



sleewell said:


> its funny to me that even though they don't know much about the new mutation they are still very quick to say the current vaccines will still work on it. i dont have a dog in the fight either way, just an observation. can they know that for sure so soon??



This is another interesting thing. From what I've read, the spike proteins that the vaccine is designed to fight against, are mostly identical to the strains used to develop the vaccine. While that doesn't mean for sure that the vaccine will work, it's a very good indicator.

However, the fact that there are so many mutations of this virus already is a strong indicator that we ought to be cautious in case a mutation that has different spike proteins starts to become more virulent (or already has). There are already tons of different strains of SARS-CoV-2 out there; it seems some are more spreadable, others are more dangerous. If there is a vaccine-resistant strain, we can hope that it'll have neither of the other worrisome characteristics.


----------



## nightflameauto

StevenC said:


> In the UK, at least, no one is saying that. They've been saying there's no indication it won't work.


That's been the medical community's response in the US as well, but our media is filled with talking head morons that auto-translate that to "vaccines will absolutely stop this new variant."

Granted, the average viewer/listener in the US hears anything OTHER than that they'll shut down and avoid the vaccine when they can get it 'cause "it doesn't work anyway," so there may be some incentive to overhype on the side of optimism.

I wish I didn't live in a paradise for ignorance.


----------



## sleewell

"They've been saying there's no indication it won't work."

dude i am just giving you shit here but doesnt that mean they are saying it will work? haha double negatives trip me up some times.


----------



## bostjan

sleewell said:


> "They've been saying there's no indication it won't work."
> 
> dude i am just giving you shit here but doesnt that mean they are saying it will work? haha double negatives trip me up some times.


"no indication it won't work" = ""we think it will work, but don't quote us on that."


----------



## nightflameauto

sleewell said:


> "They've been saying there's no indication it won't work."
> 
> dude i am just giving you shit here but doesnt that mean they are saying it will work? haha double negatives trip me up some times.


Not exactly the same, though. They are essentially saying they have no fact based evidence that it will not work. They are not saying that it absolutely will work. It's a fine line, but the fine lines matter in science and medicine. Until it's actually been tested and studied with the new strain, they'll have a more solid answer. Right now we're standing in "theoretical" territory rather than evidentiary reporting territory.


----------



## StevenC

sleewell said:


> "They've been saying there's no indication it won't work."
> 
> dude i am just giving you shit here but doesnt that mean they are saying it will work? haha double negatives trip me up some times.


It means the same as "up to 71% more transmissable". This is what the science is indicating right now but we don't know for certain yet.


----------



## diagrammatiks

Drew said:


> Honestly, one of the biggest takeaways that I'm not seeing much discussion about - yet, anwyay - is the degree to which international travel has gone mainstream even in the last 20 years. 2000, travel to and from china was basically just businessmen and politically connected individuals, as I understand, and it wasn't easy to go abroad if you were Chinese, or enter China, outside of a few carefully controlled areas, if you were not. That's less true today, as a byproduct of the rapidly growing Chinese middle class. I'm talking about China as an example, and not because it's entyirely their fault - I dn't have hard data, but I think the cost of international travel from the US has also fallen quite a bit in the last couple decades, and it' never been easier for a middle class American to spend a week in Italy, or South Korea, than it was pre-recession.
> 
> There are some pretty big public health implications for that, but one of the biggest is any containment plan for a pandemic needs to pretty much start with the assumption that once it hits the point of community transmission in ANY community, anywhere, it's probably going global. We either need to backtrack on globalization - IMO, a really bad idea - or do some serious work to align pandemic responses from country to country, to make sure that countries like China can't try to cover up a new pandemic when it first breaks (to be fair, they were more transparent by far than with SARS), or that countries like the US can't half-ass the response for political reasons, and allow themselves to be overrun.



Wondering about this. People keep saying this. I'm wondering how much more transparent the government or the media were supposed to be.

It could have definitely been handled better right. By all accounts the Wuhan government knew something was up by mid to late December. They tried to suppress the news. That was bad. All of the officials were fired and the response rules were rewritten though. That won't happen again at least. 

Local news starts reporting that something is up around January 7th - 15th. Still no response from the government. This in hindsight is pretty bad since they should have stopped the spring festival travel.

By February right after Spring Festival travel completed, Wuhan is shutdown all major cities are shutdown. Government enforced work at home regulations are passed and all restaurants and gatherings are closed and banned.

At this point people are dying. Social media is reporting on hospital conditions.
International media is reporting on this as early as February 1st. So at the very least people know what was going on in February. That's when I'm seeing news on major newspapers and feeds. 

It could have been better, but seriously ever other country had since January to do something about this.




bostjan said:


> I don't know that enforcing international expectations upon a massive sovereign nation like China is that much more viable a plan than reversing globalization.
> 
> I guess either way, I'd expect both to fall under the category of "there's nothing we can do."
> 
> So, what can we do? Well, for one, hopefully, our elected officials will give up on this crusade against science. If there's some science that is inconvenient for your political platform, instead of denying it, maybe look into it carefully with as little bias as possible, and, if it can't be debunked from that mindset, change your platform so that it's in touch with reality.
> 
> But I'm not going to hold my breath over that, either.
> 
> 
> 
> This is another interesting thing. From what I've read, the spike proteins that the vaccine is designed to fight against, are mostly identical to the strains used to develop the vaccine. While that doesn't mean for sure that the vaccine will work, it's a very good indicator.
> 
> However, the fact that there are so many mutations of this virus already is a strong indicator that we ought to be cautious in case a mutation that has different spike proteins starts to become more virulent (or already has). There are already tons of different strains of SARS-CoV-2 out there; it seems some are more spreadable, others are more dangerous. If there is a vaccine-resistant strain, we can hope that it'll have neither of the other worrisome characteristics.



We're at the point now where world that stopped polio, plague, smallpox gets fucked up by really mean flu.


----------



## Drew

diagrammatiks said:


> Wondering about this. People keep saying this. I'm wondering how much more transparent the government or the media were supposed to be.
> 
> It could have definitely been handled better right. By all accounts the Wuhan government knew something was up by mid to late December. They tried to suppress the news. That was bad. All of the officials were fired and the response rules were rewritten though. That won't happen again at least.
> 
> Local news starts reporting that something is up around January 7th - 15th. Still no response from the government. This in hindsight is pretty bad since they should have stopped the spring festival travel.
> 
> By February right after Spring Festival travel completed, Wuhan is shutdown all major cities are shutdown. Government enforced work at home regulations are passed and all restaurants and gatherings are closed and banned.
> 
> At this point people are dying. Social media is reporting on hospital conditions.
> International media is reporting on this as early as February 1st. So at the very least people know what was going on in February. That's when I'm seeing news on major newspapers and feeds.
> 
> It could have been better, but seriously ever other country had since January to do something about this.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> We're at the point now where world that stopped polio, plague, smallpox gets fucked up by really mean flu.


I mean, you just listed a whole bunch of ways the Chinese government could have been better. They DID do a lot better than they did in the SARS pandemic, but each of those missteps cost valuable time, and every time there was a disagreement between what the government was saying, and what the media was saying, THAT also caused confusion and time. 

Also, waiting until AFTER spring festival travel was, let's be honest, a political and not public health decision, and prtty dumb.  

China isn't alone here, too - Trump's response, treating it as a political crisis for months, and "the latest liberal hoax," and wasting crucial time where we cxould have been trying to prepare for the spread of Covid into the US nd potentially even stop it, was unconscionable. And I think ultimately that's an even better example of why a country-level response is going to be increasingly challenging in coming years - whether or not the US is really the moral authority it says it is may be debatable, but even if you take us at face value there, we _really_ botched our own response to Covid, so it shows that even the "good guys" can be subject to political pressures that can really hamstring the response.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> I don't know that enforcing international expectations upon a massive sovereign nation like China is that much more viable a plan than reversing globalization.


Well, as China globalizes, they become increasingly more dependent on the global economy to preserve their own domestic economy. Trump did a pretty shitty job putting economic pressure on them to acheive political goals in the last four years, but one of the reasons for that is his "America First!" insistence that we go it alone, while also picking fights with NATO, NAFTA, and the EU over trade. He pissed off all his potential allies. A truly unified, international approach to handling China, with coordinated economic consequences if they DIDN'T sign on as an equal partner to an international accord with minimum transparency standards and agreed-upon containment protocols, would have a chilling effect on the Chinese economy, and in turn the burgeoning Chinese middle class, and the Communist Party's own political instability. 

Just because Trump failed to do it singlehanded, doesn't mean the EU, US, and ASEAN nations together couldn't do it. And if COVID-19 isn't the mother of all case studies... At a minimum, wet markets in China should be shut down after this, and the Chinese government doensn't have a leg to stand on if they don't like it.


----------



## bostjan

diagrammatiks said:


> We're at the point now where world that stopped polio, plague, smallpox gets fucked up by really mean flu.



I mean polio is one of the oldest documented diseases, is easily preventable by keeping human waste out of the potable water supply, and didn't get a vaccine until the 1950's.

Plague is another, but at nearly a thousand years since it was well documented, and it still is endemic in many poorer nations, I don't know if it sets a good example of how kick-ass our medical technology is worldwide. It's also fairly easily preventable by proper sanitation and treatable with conventional antibiotics.

Smallpox stands out as the disease we've beat, or, at the very least effectively beat. But, yet again, it's existed forever, and been well documented, and it's essentially the first disease for which a vaccine of any sort was known.

By taking a virus that has no treatment and no cure (coronavirus) and modifying it (naturally or artificially, it is a totally new strain since 2019) to be much deadlier, it's sort of the "perfect storm." The fact that the world found out about it essentially in very early 2020 and developed a vaccine to be commercially available by the end of that same year is, frankly, awe-inspiring. It's essentially the common cold on crank, and we've been musing about a vaccine for the common cold for half a century at least, and now we have something that is pretty close to that because of all of this.

I think this is a great case of "chalk up a point for science!" - but, at the same time, with the Chinese government arresting the doctor who discovered the virus, suppressing any and all information about it during the most critical first month, and the USA trying to turn the virus into a political hoax, and several nations that should know better treating it like a joke on so many levels, we also need to have a serious conversation about why the hell politics has to go and try to break all of science's toys.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> Well, as China globalizes, they become increasingly more dependent on the global economy to preserve their own domestic economy. Trump did a pretty shitty job putting economic pressure on them to acheive political goals in the last four years, but one of the reasons for that is his "America First!" insistence that we go it alone, while also picking fights with NATO, NAFTA, and the EU over trade. He pissed off all his potential allies. A truly unified, international approach to handling China, with coordinated economic consequences if they DIDN'T sign on as an equal partner to an international accord with minimum transparency standards and agreed-upon containment protocols, would have a chilling effect on the Chinese economy, and in turn the burgeoning Chinese middle class, and the Communist Party's own political instability.
> 
> Just because Trump failed to do it singlehanded, doesn't mean the EU, US, and ASEAN nations together couldn't do it. And if COVID-19 isn't the mother of all case studies... At a minimum, wet markets in China should be shut down after this, and the Chinese government doensn't have a leg to stand on if they don't like it.



I can honestly say that without covid happening when it did, I really believe that Trump's odds of somehow remaining in office would have been at least twofold. That's not to say that he would have outright won the election, but whatever underhanded scheming he had in place would have been much more effective. I think that seeing him literally telling people that injecting bleach and sunlight might be the cure was just too much to handle. There's no way to appear to be some sort of wizard-level political mastermind whilst saying something that incredibly stupid. So maybe just enough people got fed up and just the right key people decided to inch away from him just as the election was winding up.

But, who knows, maybe instead of covid, we could have had a nuclear crisis with Iran, or a hostage crisis with the Saudis, or a hostage crisis with Canada finally having enough... the trajectory that guy was on from 2017-2019 was so bleak and unpredictable, there's no "what-if" scenario that could sound 100% like a joke.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> I can honestly say that without covid happening when it did, I really believe that Trump's odds of somehow remaining in office would have been at least twofold. That's not to say that he would have outright won the election, but whatever underhanded scheming he had in place would have been much more effective. I think that seeing him literally telling people that injecting bleach and sunlight might be the cure was just too much to handle. There's no way to appear to be some sort of wizard-level political mastermind whilst saying something that incredibly stupid. So maybe just enough people got fed up and just the right key people decided to inch away from him just as the election was winding up.
> 
> But, who knows, maybe instead of covid, we could have had a nuclear crisis with Iran, or a hostage crisis with the Saudis, or a hostage crisis with Canada finally having enough... the trajectory that guy was on from 2017-2019 was so bleak and unpredictable, there's no "what-if" scenario that could sound 100% like a joke.


I thought he was a modest underdog coming into 2020 anyway - I took a lot of flack from that in the Trump Administration thread, but giving how bad his polling and approval numbers, I still think that was an accurate assessment at the time - but only a modest one, with odds only slightly worse than a coin flip. Covid definitely changed that though, and the last thing I want to do is bring up 2016 again, but I think it makes a LOT of sense to go back and think long and hard about Clinton's midnight phone call campaign spots, because we basically just lived that.


----------



## nightflameauto

There was a report put out this morning about the new relief bill and how, had the Trump administration pushed Mitch and co to accept Nancy Pelosi's proposed stimulus/relief bill in the fall he probably would have gotten a sweeping win despite how deplorable he's behaved literally the entire time the COVID situation has been happening. And sadly, I could totally see that happening with how close it was even with him and his administration literally botching everything they possibly could botch.

Had a coworker test positive after a big family gathering for the holidays. Too many people still not taking this seriously. Apparently the virus is just supposed to know how important family gatherings are during this time of year.


----------



## bostjan

nightflameauto said:


> There was a report put out this morning about the new relief bill and how, had the Trump administration pushed Mitch and co to accept Nancy Pelosi's proposed stimulus/relief bill in the fall he probably would have gotten a sweeping win despite how deplorable he's behaved literally the entire time the COVID situation has been happening. And sadly, I could totally see that happening with how close it was even with him and his administration literally botching everything they possibly could botch.
> 
> Had a coworker test positive after a big family gathering for the holidays. Too many people still not taking this seriously. Apparently the virus is just supposed to know how important family gatherings are during this time of year.



I can't help but picture alien invaders from a far-away world coming toward the Earth, observing our satellite communications, detecting our weaknesses, scheming on how they will overthrow our governments and enslave us; then, on their way here, intercepting news broadcasts from 2020, reconsidering setting foot on this covid-infested despot-driven pollution-saturated rock and going back home.

Like the muppet aliens on Sesame Street... drooling over the thought of human flesh, seeing 2020, and then "Nope nope nope nope nope nope...."


----------



## diagrammatiks

Drew said:


> I mean, you just listed a whole bunch of ways the Chinese government could have been better. They DID do a lot better than they did in the SARS pandemic, but each of those missteps cost valuable time, and every time there was a disagreement between what the government was saying, and what the media was saying, THAT also caused confusion and time.
> 
> Also, waiting until AFTER spring festival travel was, let's be honest, a political and not public health decision, and prtty dumb.
> 
> China isn't alone here, too - Trump's response, treating it as a political crisis for months, and "the latest liberal hoax," and wasting crucial time where we cxould have been trying to prepare for the spread of Covid into the US nd potentially even stop it, was unconscionable. And I think ultimately that's an even better example of why a country-level response is going to be increasingly challenging in coming years - whether or not the US is really the moral authority it says it is may be debatable, but even if you take us at face value there, we _really_ botched our own response to Covid, so it shows that even the "good guys" can be subject to political pressures that can really hamstring the response.



People go home for spring festival. They don't leave the country and this year every that went home stayed home forever. 

I guess I'll ask the question another way.

What degree of disclosure would have been necessary for this not to be an issue after the initial wuhan case 

and seeing how the world behaved in the months since what government would have actually taken those steps.

Actually, I guess it's a rhetoric question. I honestly, don't think it would have made a difference.


----------



## nightflameauto

bostjan said:


> I can't help but picture alien invaders from a far-away world coming toward the Earth, observing our satellite communications, detecting our weaknesses, scheming on how they will overthrow our governments and enslave us; then, on their way here, intercepting news broadcasts from 2020, reconsidering setting foot on this covid-infested despot-driven pollution-saturated rock and going back home.
> 
> Like the muppet aliens on Sesame Street... drooling over the thought of human flesh, seeing 2020, and then "Nope nope nope nope nope nope...."



LOL. Before the SS Aliens I was thinking, "Why don't we just park in a wide orbit and wait for them to finish themselves off?"


----------



## Drew

Well, again, you answered your own question:



diagrammatiks said:


> Wondering about this. People keep saying this. I'm wondering how much more transparent the government or the media were supposed to be.
> 
> It could have definitely been handled better right. *By all accounts the Wuhan government knew something was up by mid to late December. They tried to suppress the news. *That was bad. All of the officials were fired and the response rules were rewritten though. That won't happen again at least.
> 
> *Local news starts reporting that something is up around January 7th - 15th. Still no response from the government.* This in hindsight is pretty bad since* they should have stopped the spring festival travel.*
> 
> *By February right after Spring Festival travel completed,* Wuhan is shutdown all major cities are shutdown. Government enforced work at home regulations are passed and all restaurants and gatherings are closed and banned.
> 
> *At this point people are dying. *Social media is reporting on hospital conditions.
> International media is reporting on this as early as February 1st. So at the very least people know what was going on in February. That's when I'm seeing news on major newspapers and feeds.
> 
> It could have been better, but seriously ever other country had since January to do something about this.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> We're at the point now where world that stopped polio, plague, smallpox gets fucked up by really mean flu.




Couple quick points of emphasis - the Wuhan government tried to cover it up for the first couple weeks, then the media picked it up several weeks lat3er and the government ifnored it, then the government decided to wait until after the spring festival travel, which allowed Covid to spread from Wuhan to all over provinces in China, to shut down the Wuhan province. That's three big things right there - address the crisis locally rather than trying to cover it up, when the coverup failed the federal government could have taken decisive steps rather than ignore it, and then when it became apparent thay a lockdown was going to be necessaty, they waited until it was too late to be effective.


I'm not saying China is alone here - in generalized terms, this is the same pattern that happened in the US, with the caveat that some local goverments did a lot better than others.



diagrammatiks said:


> Actually, I guess it's a rhetoric question. I honestly, don't think it would have made a difference.



IF you believe nothing the government could have done would have made a difference thay's a different story, and for what it's worth I disagree, but that's a matter of perspective. but, you yourself pointed to three distinct ways in which the Chinese response could have been a lot better, and which would have significantly increased the probability that this pandemic was stamped out at the municipal level, and never had the chance to go national or international.

I think a pretty clear takeaway from the degree to which today's world is interconnected is, when dealing with a highly contagious virus, the early response is likely going to be critical in stopping the spread and preventing it from becoming a full blown pandemic, because international barriers are too fluid to prevent the spread of a disease once it reaches community transmission. To a lesser extent, that's also true when a virus first reaches a new country, and the ham-fisted US response, namely denying it was even a problem, is largely responsible for how hard the country is being hit today.

But, if the problems that caused Covid-19 to spread are bigger than the Chinese response alone, while there are clear areas in which their response could have been improved, it's also pretty clear that the solution _also_ has to be bigger than China.


----------



## diagrammatiks

Drew said:


> Well, again, you answered your own question:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Couple quick points of emphasis - the Wuhan government tried to cover it up for the first couple weeks, then the media picked it up several weeks lat3er and the government ifnored it, then the government decided to wait until after the spring festival travel, which allowed Covid to spread from Wuhan to all over provinces in China, to shut down the Wuhan province. That's three big things right there - address the crisis locally rather than trying to cover it up, when the coverup failed the federal government could have taken decisive steps rather than ignore it, and then when it became apparent thay a lockdown was going to be necessaty, they waited until it was too late to be effective.
> 
> 
> I'm not saying China is alone here - in generalized terms, this is the same pattern that happened in the US, with the caveat that some local goverments did a lot better than others.
> 
> 
> 
> IF you believe nothing the government could have done would have made a difference thay's a different story, and for what it's worth I disagree, but that's a matter of perspective. but, you yourself pointed to three distinct ways in which the Chinese response could have been a lot better, and which would have significantly increased the probability that this pandemic was stamped out at the municipal level, and never had the chance to go national or international.
> 
> I think a pretty clear takeaway from the degree to which today's world is interconnected is, when dealing with a highly contagious virus, the early response is likely going to be critical in stopping the spread and preventing it from becoming a full blown pandemic, because international barriers are too fluid to prevent the spread of a disease once it reaches community transmission. To a lesser extent, that's also true when a virus first reaches a new country, and the ham-fisted US response, namely denying it was even a problem, is largely responsible for how hard the country is being hit today.
> 
> But, if the problems that caused Covid-19 to spread are bigger than the Chinese response alone, while there are clear areas in which their response could have been improved, it's also pretty clear that the solution _also_ has to be bigger than China.



No, I meant that the Chinese government could have done better by themselves in hind sight. But, it would have absolutely made no difference to the global response.

The other point is that the wuhan discovery to lockdown was about 45 days. The reasons would have been different but I don't think any government could have provided a sufficient response to prevent this in that initial time period. Shrug.


----------



## bostjan

diagrammatiks said:


> People go home for spring festival. They don't leave the country and this year every that went home stayed home forever.
> 
> I guess I'll ask the question another way.
> 
> What degree of disclosure would have been necessary for this not to be an issue after the initial wuhan case
> 
> and seeing how the world behaved in the months since what government would have actually taken those steps.
> 
> Actually, I guess it's a rhetoric question. I honestly, don't think it would have made a difference.



https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/30/asia/wuhan-china-covid-intl/index.html

The first case, it's forgivable. The 3000th case, not so much. I mean, it's no secret anymore that the government was actively suppressing information about the virus after it already was a local health crisis and becoming crystal clear that it would very likely become a global health crisis. You could argue that they didn't know it would be a global health crisis, but, in hindsight, silencing the doctors and scientists who were suggesting it was heading that way is now an indefensible rhetorical position.

Would another government handle it in the best possible way? No, very likely not. But I can't think of a government in the west that would have not handled it at least a little better than China did. Do you disagree?


----------



## diagrammatiks

bostjan said:


> https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/30/asia/wuhan-china-covid-intl/index.html
> 
> The first case, it's forgivable. The 3000th case, not so much. I mean, it's no secret anymore that the government was actively suppressing information about the virus after it already was a local health crisis and becoming crystal clear that it would very likely become a global health crisis. You could argue that they didn't know it would be a global health crisis, but, in hindsight, silencing the doctors and scientists who were suggesting it was heading that way is now an indefensible rhetorical position.
> 
> Would another government handle it in the best possible way? No, very likely not. But I can't think of a government in the west that would have not handled it at least a little better than China did. Do you disagree?



You're going to sit there in America, living through the American response and ask that question with a straight face.

man I dunno.


----------



## bostjan

diagrammatiks said:


> You're going to sit there in America, living through the American response and ask that question with a straight face.
> 
> man I dunno.



How many doctors/researchers in the USA were jailed for stating that the virus existed?!


----------



## diagrammatiks

bostjan said:


> How many doctors/researchers in the USA were jailed for stating that the virus existed?!



I mean it's 1 versus Zero. If that's your bright line for effective response I guess you're living the dream.


----------



## bostjan

diagrammatiks said:


> I mean it's 1 versus Zero. If that's your bright line for effective response I guess you're living the dream.


Did I say that we had an effective response? No. Did I say that our handling of the early outbreak would have been at least slightly better than China's? Yes. I stand firmly on that statement. You don't have to be a Michelin star 5 course meal to be slightly better than a plate of dogshit.


----------



## Drew

Yeah, I hate to say it, but while the American response was, to put it gently, pretty bad, it's hard to see the _initial_ Chinese response as any better. 

And yes, I think 45 days from first detection to shutdown is too long. We didn't do much better than that in Boston, maybe 40 days between first detection and imposing a national emergency to shut down the city, but - again, I'm wondering if maybe I'm not making this point clearly enough - _both _the United States and China handled the initial days of this pandemic pretty horrendously. We BOTH need to do better, and I think that's highly unlikely to happen unless some third party nonpartisan body is there to handle some of the initial, politically unpopular decisions. 

Bad time for us to be starting to pull out of the WHO.


----------



## diagrammatiks

bostjan said:


> Did I say that we had an effective response? No. Did I say that our handling of the early outbreak would have been at least slightly better than China's? Yes. I stand firmly on that statement. You don't have to be a Michelin star 5 course meal to be slightly better than a plate of dogshit.



That's fine and I disagree. You need discovery, confirmation, acceptance, and response.

The US maybe maybe would have been a little bit better at those first couple of steps. But this administration still hasn't even completed these steps yet.

It's easy to make hypotheticals. Do I think the dems under Hillary would have been effectively, absolutely without a doubt and could every western government have done better. For sure.

But looking at responses 45-90 days after the initial wuhan news was widespread in the west...

My opinion is that nobody did it any better. Dude but whatever, it's just an opinion.


----------



## bostjan

diagrammatiks said:


> That's fine and I disagree. You need discovery, confirmation, acceptance, and response.
> 
> The US maybe maybe would have been a little bit better at those first couple of steps. But this administration still hasn't even completed these steps yet.
> 
> It's easy to make hypotheticals. Do I think the dems under Hillary would have been effectively, absolutely without a doubt and could every western government have done better. For sure.
> 
> But looking at responses 45-90 days after the initial wuhan news was widespread in the west...
> 
> My opinion is that nobody did it any better. Dude but whatever, it's just an opinion.



We can bicker and argue about who did the more horrible job, but as long as we agree that arresting people who for the use of science to try to save innocent people's lives is inexcusably bad, then I'm satisfied.


----------



## Drew

diagrammatiks said:


> My opinion is that nobody did it any better. Dude but whatever, it's just an opinion.


Oh, idunno, New Zealand hasn't had a Covid case for months. Thailand had their first in several months within the past week. South Africa has mostly stamped out the pandemic, in part because it took 5 days to declare a state of emergency and 10 to do a full shut down. Vietnam (south, not north) implimented a full shutdown of its borders within about a week of the first detected case and has kept their case count extremely low, as well, and has yet to report a single death.

I'm not saying the US did a great job and was a model response, because by any objective standard, we didn't, and aren't. China, however, pretty clearly isn't either, and pointing to the US's flawed response doesn't prove any effective response was impossible and therefore China was blameless, because plenty of OTHER countries did do a very effective job responding, by being transparent, aggressive, and honest.


----------



## diagrammatiks

bostjan said:


> We can bicker and argue about who did the more horrible job, but as long as we agree that arresting people who for the use of science to try to save innocent people's lives is inexcusably bad, then I'm satisfied.



Well, sure I'm American. I agree with that. But not all societies err on the side of freedom. We're not going to jail people like anti-vaxxers that spout deliberately harmful nonsense either.


----------



## bostjan

diagrammatiks said:


> Well, sure I'm American. I agree with that. But not all societies err on the side of freedom. We're not going to jail people like anti-vaxxers that spout deliberately harmful nonsense either.



Who's jailing anti-vaxxers?


----------



## diagrammatiks

Drew said:


> Oh, idunno, New Zealand hasn't had a Covid case for months. Thailand had their first in several months within the past week. South Africa has mostly stamped out the pandemic, in part because it took 5 days to declare a state of emergency and 10 to do a full shut down. Vietnam (south, not north) implimented a full shutdown of its borders within about a week of the first detected case and has kept their case count extremely low, as well, and has yet to report a single death.
> 
> I'm not saying the US did a great job and was a model response, because by any objective standard, we didn't, and aren't. China, however, pretty clearly isn't either, and pointing to the US's flawed response doesn't prove any effective response was impossible and therefore China was blameless, because plenty of OTHER countries did do a very effective job responding, by being transparent, aggressive, and honest.



Oh ya, kinda lost the plot while we were discussing. I agree with this. Obviously, China could have done better. My only point is that barring some hypothetical perfect containment strategy in December I think the US would be exactly where it is right now.


----------



## diagrammatiks

bostjan said:


> Who's jailing anti-vaxxers?



well china.


----------



## bostjan

diagrammatiks said:


> well china.



Ahh. I misunderstood your intent initially. Gotcha.


----------



## Drew

diagrammatiks said:


> Oh ya, kinda lost the plot while we were discussing. I agree with this. Obviously, China could have done better. My only point is that barring some hypothetical perfect containment strategy in December I think the US would be exactly where it is right now.


I think a couple things could have prevented that, or at least drastically lessened it. 


A containment strategy in the New Zealand/Vietnam/South African model with a fast, aggressive, centralized response, in China. 
A containment strategy as above, in the United States. 
Both would have shut down the pandemic in America. Beyond that, 

Any modicum of central government recognition of the problem and execution of established containment policies, rather than calling it a "liberal hoax" and counting on it to only hit "blue state" governments, would have led to US case counts per million in line with, at worst, mainland Europe. 
There were a lot of things that could have been done better by a lot of people, in a lot of points in the chain.


----------



## bostjan

The most drastic response I can think of would have been to lock everyone down inside of their homes and have the national guard take over infrastructure operations and deliver necessities by ration door-to-door. I don't see even that eradicating the spread of the virus, since people are generally stupid.

In the US's case, though, having a leader who continually downplayed the virus, warned that the economy was more important to salvage than a few million American lives, and so forth, all worked pretty well to undermine the efforts to slow the spread.


----------



## nightflameauto

diagrammatiks said:


> Well, sure I'm American. I agree with that. But not all societies err on the side of freedom. We're not going to jail people like anti-vaxxers that spout deliberately harmful nonsense either.


While I agree that we shouldn't be attempting to jail people for using the science to save people's lives, apparently it's perfectly OK to raid someone's house for attempting to report the real numbers while the governor is telling you to falsify them.
https://www.tallahassee.com/story/n...jones-sues-fdle-over-morning-raid/3990170001/

We're not exactly making ourselves look like rational actors during this pandemic.


----------



## bostjan

nightflameauto said:


> While I agree that we shouldn't be attempting to jail people for using the science to save people's lives, apparently it's perfectly OK to raid someone's house for attempting to report the real numbers while the governor is telling you to falsify them.
> https://www.tallahassee.com/story/n...jones-sues-fdle-over-morning-raid/3990170001/
> 
> We're not exactly making ourselves look like rational actors during this pandemic.



The Rebekah Jones cases is still a wait-and-see thing for me. She's claiming some dramatic things that have been debunked by bodycam footage. I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of those "the truth is somewhere in between the claims" sort of things. But we'll find out more soon, since she's suing.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> The most drastic response I can think of would have been to lock everyone down inside of their homes and have the national guard take over infrastructure operations and deliver necessities by ration door-to-door. I don't see even that eradicating the spread of the virus, since people are generally stupid.


I'm not sure I agree, but I think at a minimum had we done a four-week hard lockdown in late March or early April when community spread was starting to gain speed, coupled with a total closing of our borders for all but emergency travel, I think we could have bought enough time for Covid to mostly burn out and to get us back to a point where we could go back to tracking isolated cases again, which would REALLY change the dynamic in the fight against the virus. 

What we ended up doing, instead, was sort of the worst of both worlds - a half-assed and inconsistent lockdown where some areas were locked down pretty heavily while others only partially locked down, guaranteeing a fair amount of economic harm... but there were enough exceptions in the former to render them imperfect, and the latter were generally lifted far too quickly, ensuring that the economic costs wouldn't actually buy us all that much, and we were certain to have a lingering crisis that would come back and, eventually, get worse. 

The sort of short, sharp, total lockdown you proposed would have sucked to live through, and would have been expensive at the federal level since we woud have to either support companies to continue paying salaries, or provide substantial unemployment benefits to huge swathes of the population.... but it probably would have done less economic damage in the long run than what we're living with now, where surging case counts, even without any sort of federal, state, or local lockdown directives, are causing people to stay home.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> I'm not sure I agree, but I think at a minimum had we done a four-week hard lockdown in late March or early April when community spread was starting to gain speed, coupled with a total closing of our borders for all but emergency travel, I think we could have bought enough time for Covid to mostly burn out and to get us back to a point where we could go back to tracking isolated cases again, which would REALLY change the dynamic in the fight against the virus.
> 
> What we ended up doing, instead, was sort of the worst of both worlds - a half-assed and inconsistent lockdown where some areas were locked down pretty heavily while others only partially locked down, guaranteeing a fair amount of economic harm... but there were enough exceptions in the former to render them imperfect, and the latter were generally lifted far too quickly, ensuring that the economic costs wouldn't actually buy us all that much, and we were certain to have a lingering crisis that would come back and, eventually, get worse.
> 
> The sort of short, sharp, total lockdown you proposed would have sucked to live through, and would have been expensive at the federal level since we woud have to either support companies to continue paying salaries, or provide substantial unemployment benefits to huge swathes of the population.... but it probably would have done less economic damage in the long run than what we're living with now, where surging case counts, even without any sort of federal, state, or local lockdown directives, are causing people to stay home.



Oh, I hope you don't think I was suggesting that- I was merely saying that the most drastic action we could have taken in the USA would probably not have been as effective as New Zealand. People here just tend to be less able to conform to rules, and we are also a much larger nation with more borders.

But I think we both mostly agree that the way the situation was handled here was much more bad than good.

Vermont, in particular, started off doing much better than most of the country, because our governor did impose lots of rules to slow the spread. Still, at least around where I live, a significant enough fraction of people refused to follow the rules and the police refused to enforce them anyway. I can't imagine participation would be much better in other states.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> People here just tend to be less able to conform to rules, and we are also a much larger nation with more borders.


I've been saying for a LONG time now that this American fetish for "rugged individualism" is maybe pretty great in a lot of contexts, but it leaves us singularly unprepared to make collective sacrifice for the common good.


----------



## JSanta

Drew said:


> I've been saying for a LONG time now that this American fetish for "rugged individualism" is maybe pretty great in a lot of contexts, but it leaves us singularly unprepared to make collective sacrifice for the common good.



It's something I've been saying for a long time. The premise of "American Exceptionalism" really shouldn't be a point of pride.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> I've been saying for a LONG time now that this American fetish for "rugged individualism" is maybe pretty great in a lot of contexts, but it leaves us singularly unprepared to make collective sacrifice for the common good.




Note how exactly zero cowboy movies are set during a plague year. (I'm probably wrong about this and someone will slap me with a correction, but maybe it'll introduce me to an interesting B-movie)


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Note how exactly zero cowboy movies are set during a plague year. (I'm probably wrong about this and someone will slap me with a correction, but maybe it'll introduce me to an interesting B-movie)


I'd watch that.


----------



## Randy

Finally taking hold in my area. Surrounding county positivity rate up to 9%. My mom still works in the ER, still have the policy of turning away COVID patients with minor symptoms and even with that, they got 18+ threw the ER daily and that's in a small rural county.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

Randy said:


> Finally taking hold in my area. Surrounding county positivity rate up to 9%. My mom still works in the ER, still have the policy of turning away COVID patients with minor symptoms and even with that, they got 18+ threw the ER daily and that's in a small rural county.




Thats intense! My grandmother was in a nursing home and sadly caught it and has passed the numbers were staggering at one point like 20 of 29 residents in the one wing had it. I forget staff numbers. No visitors had been allowed in for a long time had to do zoom calls at the very end its so dystopian.

Even funeral can only be 10 people all need negative test to be able to go.


----------



## Randy

Dineley said:


> Thats intense! My grandmother was in a nursing home and sadly caught it and has passed the numbers were staggering at one point like 20 of 29 residents in the one wing had it. I forget staff numbers. No visitors had been allowed in for a long time had to do zoom calls at the very end its so dystopian.
> 
> Even funeral can only be 10 people all need negative test to be able to go.



Ugh I'm so sorry to hear that. 

We've been confronting some of the same as well, my girlfriend was raised by her grandparents and we cared for them for the last several years. Eventually they went downhill enough that they had to go to the nursing home, neither contracted Covid but both had rapid mental decline after the lockdowns started and recently passed.

We actually just had the funeral for her grandfather last week, only 10 people because of COVID restrictions and it turns out two of the people there tested positive two days later and now we're in quarantine as a result. I already missed out on dressing up as Santa for my nieces first Christmas as a result and we might be missing Christmas with any of our family at all as now. 

The two people that tested positive are the type that said "it's just a cold" "I probably already had it in January" etc and have been partying several times a week since March. They had mild symptoms day of the service, got a test that Tuesday and waited a week until they had the results back to tell any of us that were there. 

It's maddening the amount of irresponsibly that goes into contracting and spreading it in a lot of cases, and that behavior seems to be mirrored in the irresponsibility of informing people or admitting it came from them.


----------



## Drew

Man, my condolences to you both.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Same- Condolences going out to you both @Randy and @Dineley 

I feel like I need to vent this here... will try to keep it short. 

Talked to my sister last night and I'm beginning to think that we're just not on the same page at this point. She talks like someone that's still taking the virus seriously and I believe that she was... at least for a while. But she shares with me that she and her husband are going to get together with my niece, her husband, and their son ( who already came VERY close to being exposed to the virus just about a month ago). And she then mentions that my nephew and his new girlfriend will be joining them. I asked her if they would be eating and of course they all will be. I then asked her about my nephew's girlfriend and my sister goes on and on about how nice she is and that she thinks that they are responsible. But she really doesn't know because nephew and new g/f live about an hour away in a large city ( Columbus Ohio). So there's no real knowledge of how my nephew and his g/f behave and/ or what kind of contact they may have had with other potential carriers. 

I mean... I get it. It's like religion where you preach and play the part but then you decide to tweak the rules to suit yourself... sigh. But here my wife and I are doing everything possible to stay safe and making a lot of sacrifices in the process. I just don't have much sympathy for "covid fatigue". We're all tired of this shit but while some of us are still doing our part, others seem to just be over it. 

And a quick fwiw- my buddy that I spoke of recently that contacted covid... not only has not pressured me to get together but hasn't even contacted me at all. I have no idea what's up with him or his family but I've got a bad feeling about his lack of communication over the past couple weeks.


----------



## TedEH

Now officially confirmed both my parents have the 'rona.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

TedEH said:


> Now officially confirmed both my parents have the 'rona.



Shit hope they do okay seems Quebec and Ontario somehow had it all fall apart on us this last month


----------



## Mathemagician

TedEH said:


> Now officially confirmed both my parents have the 'rona.



Your family is in my thoughts.


----------



## spudmunkey

My brother is now on his 2nd quarantine. Thankfully he can quarantine with his wife and daughter this time.

Last time, his wife had to quarantine alone when her grandma died, and she had taken her to the hospital in her car.


----------



## maliciousteve

My Dad and Brother tested positive for the virus a couple of weeks ago. For a couple of days it felt like they had a cold and now they're both back to normal. My Aunt also had it but only lost her sense of taste and smell for a day. It's rather bizarre how it barely affects people, like a minor cold and some others it floors them or worse.


----------



## lurè

I'm still showing no symptoms, but my drummer got it and he had a couple of days of fever and headache.

He also started baking bread, which is worrying considering he's unable to make even a toast.


----------



## groverj3

My 97 year old grandmother got it in a nursing home, and apparently has fully recovered. I'm pretty sure that she's eternal.

If cancer (twice) and COVID didn't get her then I guess she's probably living forever.


----------



## jaxadam

groverj3 said:


> My 97 year old grandmother got it in a nursing home, and apparently has fully recovered. I'm pretty sure that she's eternal.
> 
> If cancer (twice) and COVID didn't get her then I guess she's probably living forever.



That’s like my uncle. Guy is 92, tested positive and never had symptoms, and has never had any major ailments his entire life. I think it’s all the wine he drinks at lunch.


----------



## zappatton2

jaxadam said:


> That’s like my uncle. Guy is 92, tested positive and never had symptoms, and has never had any major ailments his entire life. I think it’s all the wine he drinks at lunch.


Does beer have the same effect? 'Cuz it's noon where I am.


----------



## groverj3

jaxadam said:


> That’s like my uncle. Guy is 92, tested positive and never had symptoms, and has never had any major ailments his entire life. I think it’s all the wine he drinks at lunch.


I would say that the news about my grandma also bodes well for my longevity, but my dad was adopted so I'm not genetically related to her.


----------



## SD83

maliciousteve said:


> It's rather bizarre how it barely affects people, like a minor cold and some others it floors them or worse.


And some people seem to be somewhat immune. A friend of mine was quarantined recently because she tested positive, she had mild symptoms for about two weeks. But she lives with her boyfriend, they were quarantined together, sharing the same bed all that time, same kitchen, bathroom, everything, he was tested twice, both negative. I'd consider that interesting and it would be nice to know why he didn't get it while being extremely exposed to the virus for a long time, at least take a blood sample and check if he maybe already had it in spring or something... no, nobody cared.

The fact that we are starting vaccination right now and they start with the very old and those who work in the medical field makes me somewhat optimistic. Without that, it would probably take until March or April for the numbers to drop as all the measures taken to prevent the spread since October seem to amount to exactly nothing at all. But with it... about 70% of the people who died in Germany were over 80, 96% were over 60, and of all the nearly 30,000 victims the virus claimed, only 103 were under 35. And if we manage to bring the numbers of people dying or spending weeks in hospital down, we can start to live with the virus, literally and figuratively. 
I just hope the new strains appearing recently don't ruin all of that...


----------



## jaxadam

zappatton2 said:


> Does beer have the same effect? 'Cuz it's noon where I am.


----------



## Ralyks

Welp, had to go get my son from daycare due to exposure. Getting a test for him today. Date of exposure is being marked as 12/23. We're both asymptomatic, so hoping for the best. Called my own doctor to see if I should get a test and was told they won't see me if I'm asymptomatic.


----------



## bostjan

So I was billed $200 each for my test and my sons' tests. If there is another incident before I can recover economically, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to afford getting tested again.


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> So I was billed $200 each for my test and my sons' tests. If there is another incident before I can recover economically, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to afford getting tested again.



My wife got charged for hers. I think they said if she tested positive, she didn't get charged. Since she tested negative, she got charged.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

jaxadam said:


> My wife got charged for hers. I think they said if she tested positive, she didn't get charged. Since she tested negative, she got charged.



Absolutely sickening and unconscionable...


----------



## zappatton2

Wait, you have to _pay_ to get a COVID test? Does that not defeat the purpose of a public campaign to reduce spread? I can't think incentivizing people to _not _get tested is a good way to do this.


----------



## JSanta

zappatton2 said:


> Wait, you have to _pay_ to get a COVID test? Does that not defeat the purpose of a public campaign to reduce spread? I can't think incentivizing people to _not _get tested is a good way to do this.



It depends. In NYS, you can get tested for free at county/state run sites, but there are private options. Welcome to America.


----------



## spudmunkey

JSanta said:


> It depends. In NYS, you can get tested for free at county/state run sites, but there are private options. Welcome to America.



I have no problem with this. A baseline care availble to everyone, with catered or expedited services availble to those who can afford it? Seems fair.


----------



## wankerness

spudmunkey said:


> I have no problem with this. A baseline care availble to everyone, with catered or expedited services availble to those who can afford it? Seems fair.



yeah, too bad it only applies to some states, like ones that aren’t trying really hard to keep their numbers down for PR reasons.


----------



## groverj3

bostjan said:


> So I was billed $200 each for my test and my sons' tests. If there is another incident before I can recover economically, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to afford getting tested again.


America, where we have *ALL THE FREEDOMS* (TM). Including the frequently overlooked freedom to go broke obtaining medical services.

It's like we're living a shitty dystopian cyberpunk novel, because we have hypercapitalism and no safetynet, but we also don't get to have our bodyparts replaced with better, cooler, robot bodyparts. I feel like I'm being cheated, on both sides of this.


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


>



More proof that covid reduces your sense of taste.


----------



## sleewell

Pfizer asked the White House in September if they could help them obtain supplies to make more covid vaccine. they were disappointed at the lack of response. 

Avoiding doing work that would help us get out of this... making America great again?!?


----------



## JSanta

spudmunkey said:


> I have no problem with this. A baseline care availble to everyone, with catered or expedited services availble to those who can afford it? Seems fair.



I meant more that there are such disparities across the country, and that insurance plays a part in it. An international pandemic, and some States are charging people money unless the test comes back positive. It's mind boggling to me.


----------



## nightflameauto

JSanta said:


> I meant more that there are such disparities across the country, and that insurance plays a part in it. An international pandemic, and some States are charging people money unless the test comes back positive. It's mind boggling to me.


Far as I know, my state charges regardless. I mean, they get to claim they are paying for it by covering a percentage of it, but you still get hit with what's essentially a co-pay to get tested. Which is ridiculous enough in its own right. Then you get insulted by being told by the government that they're really helping out by covering their percentage of the cost.

One state over, where a coworker lives, it's free because they're actually trying to reduce spread and be half honest about it.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

So, needless to say. COVID-19 Is spreading like crazy where I live, it’s no longer people you know by proxy that have it. My ex girlfriends Dad and Mom have it, along side with the Mom’s current BF (they’re divorced.) Another ex and her husband both have it. My Dad’s next door neighbors daughter. Three morons in my apartment building also have it too. Four people at work have had it. That’s THIRTEEN people that I regularly see that have contracted it. I got tested after spending time with my ex. Tested negative. So now I have doubled down on my quarantine. I go to work and I come home anymore. That’s about it. The test was free for me, I live in Washington.


----------



## spudmunkey

Here, the state covers it IF your insurance doesn't. To stretch the program funding, they will first see if your insurance will pay for it before doing into the other resources.


----------



## bostjan

I think I might have to spend some time studying the law to see if I can get some coverage. The people I spoke to on the telephone told me the tests would cost roundabout $40-50, which I was just going to spring myself. I should know by now that hospital billing is always 5-1000 times whatever is quoted.


----------



## Ralyks

Welp, on top of my sons scenario, my manager just called me to tell me one of my coworkers tested positive over the weekend, whom I last had contact with Saturday. Fortunately I'm asymptomatic and I’m on vacation until the 6th anyway but.... not what I had in mind for my time off. Kind of a poetic way to end 2020, really...


----------



## diagrammatiks

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/...6iyKVTG_BVaAgMKvQnuFgTYwGpeVgjlEob4oSOGQcdTB4

oops


----------



## mastapimp

bostjan said:


> I think I might have to spend some time studying the law to see if I can get some coverage. The people I spoke to on the telephone told me the tests would cost roundabout $40-50, which I was just going to spring myself. I should know by now that hospital billing is always 5-1000 times whatever is quoted.


 There should be no-cost options, especially with community testing programs. The "Drive thru" testing options here have often been advertised as free. My wife was tested 3 times back in July/August and did not have to pay (twice drive thru, once at a hospital).


----------



## Ralyks

My son came back negative. Whew.


----------



## nightflameauto

mastapimp said:


> There should be no-cost options, especially with community testing programs. The "Drive thru" testing options here have often been advertised as free. My wife was tested 3 times back in July/August and did not have to pay (twice drive thru, once at a hospital).


I just found out we have a "free" option here in South Dakota. "Free" is in quotes because it comes with a $50 administration fee, and in some cases (not sure specifically which) another $50 filing fee. "Free"


----------



## jco5055

Any other Americans not get check #2 yet, but they got check #1 instantly? I wonder if my change of address between the two payments is slowing things.


----------



## spudmunkey

I got the first when i still had a job. Been unemployed for over 3 months now, and no check. Still haven't been able to get unemployment, either.


----------



## Ralyks

No check yet, and I got my first one quick. Wonder if it has anything to do with having a kid.


----------



## sleewell

ours was half what it was supposed to be. not sure how to get the rest but i tried calling the irs a few times through a few different numbers and it says a bunch of stuff and then hangs up with no ability to speak to a person.


----------



## bostjan

Regarding US stimulus checks - I got my direct deposit over the weekend for the promised amount.

Regarding the virus itself, does anyone here know much about the new 501Y.V2 strain from South Africa? I haven't seen much myself, mostly the mainstream media flailing around as if it's the worst thing since Covid itself. The B.1.1.7 strain caused almost as much ruckus but might actually end up being a good* thing.

(*in that, if it's more contagious, but not as deadly, and affects cross-immunity with deadlier strains, it could be a cowpox/smallpox-type situation)


----------



## Thaeon

narad said:


> More proof that covid reduces your sense of taste.



Can confirm. While I had it I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between Miller High Life and Guinness other that mouth feel.



bostjan said:


> I think I might have to spend some time studying the law to see if I can get some coverage. The people I spoke to on the telephone told me the tests would cost roundabout $40-50, which I was just going to spring myself. I should know by now that hospital billing is always 5-1000 times whatever is quoted.



My COVID ER visit didn't cost me a red cent in the Capitalist hellscape that is Texas.


----------



## diagrammatiks

I had to get tested. that test is no fun. Who knew a stick could go so far up your nose.


----------



## Thaeon

diagrammatiks said:


> I had to get tested. that test is no fun. Who knew a stick could go so far up your nose.



Did that one to myself yesterday in order to come back to work. Not fun.


----------



## StevenC

My brother has it at the moment, but is currently living with his girlfriend and her family in London. So they all have it but seem to be recovering fine and not too much ill health beyond the usual symptoms.


----------



## TedEH

So Quebec is now going to putting a curfew into effect, lasting a month. If you're caught outside after 8pm without a good reason, it's up to a $6000 fine.

This month is going to suck.


----------



## bostjan

TedEH said:


> So Quebec is now going to putting a curfew into effect, lasting a month. If you're caught outside after 8pm without a good reason, it's up to a $6000 fine.
> 
> This month is going to suck.


$6000?! That's just crazy! That's like $4500 USD or almost one entire month's rent for a studio apartment in Montreal!

Here in VT, the police aren't even really allowed to ask why people aren't following the rules, so, basically, all a person does to get out of a ticket is vaguely mention that they have some sort of excuse, then not give the actual excuse. It seems to be working, for the most part, nonetheless, though. But, if we had a $4000+ fine, well, people in VT wouldn't even be able to afford that.


----------



## nightflameauto

How strict are they with that curfew? Like, is walking the dogs a good enough excuse to be outside? Going to get a pack of smokes or a case of beer? Had to get out of the house to avoid beating yourself to death with a baseball bat out of boredom? Where's the line there?

Or is it like it is around here where we have all these official mandates that nobody pays attention to?


----------



## thebeesknees22

TedEH said:


> So Quebec is now going to putting a curfew into effect, lasting a month. If you're caught outside after 8pm without a good reason, it's up to a $6000 fine.
> 
> This month is going to suck.



When I first read that I thought, man that sucks ... but then I realized I only go out to go to Costco or the grocery store so it's not going to be any different for me.


----------



## TedEH

nightflameauto said:


> How strict are they with that curfew?


It hasn't taken effect yet, so it's yet to be seen, but it looks to me like they're taking it seriously.



nightflameauto said:


> Like, is walking the dogs a good enough excuse to be outside?


Walking a dog is allowed, but no more than 1km away from your home.



nightflameauto said:


> Going to get a pack of smokes or a case of beer?


Not allowed. Do it before 8pm. More than that, stores are to close at 7:30 so there's no place to go to get those things.



nightflameauto said:


> Had to get out of the house to avoid beating yourself to death with a baseball bat out of boredom?


Definitely not allowed.



nightflameauto said:


> Where's the line there?


It's another one of those blurry "essential" lines.



nightflameauto said:


> Or is it like it is around here where we have all these official mandates that nobody pays attention to?


I've seen people get fines for some of the previous rules, so I have no reason to believe they don't mean it. The announcement included comments about how there will be police out enforcing it.


----------



## bostjan

Vaccine manufacturers are all starting to report that their vaccines work against both the UK (B.1.1.7) and SA (501Y.V2) variants.

And the UK variant is confirmed to be in the USA.


----------



## beerandbeards

Received the Moderna vaccine on Friday 1/8. My arm is sore at the injection site like I got punched in the arm.

My wife says her arms hurts to move but otherwise no other symptoms.


----------



## Randy

bostjan said:


> Vaccine manufacturers are all starting to report that their vaccines work against both the UK (B.1.1.7) and SA (501Y.V2) variants.
> 
> And the UK variant is confirmed to be in the USA.



A jeweler and all his employees tested positive for UK variant in Saratoga about a week ago. Claims he didn't travel but I dunno how believable that is.


----------



## mastapimp

beerandbeards said:


> Received the Moderna vaccine on Friday 1/8. My arm is sore at the injection site like I got punched in the arm.
> 
> My wife says her arms hurts to move but otherwise no other symptoms.



My wife also got the Moderna vaccine a few days ago and said the exact same thing. I know about 10 people that have received it in the last couple of weeks and that's the extent of their complaints so far.


----------



## sleewell

Thoughts on Biden's plan to release all available doses now instead of holding some back to guarantee everyone a 2nd dose?

Has production increase enough to allow this? Would suck if the 2nd dose is required to be immune and we dont have any left.


----------



## narad

sleewell said:


> Thoughts on Biden's plan to release all available doses now instead of holding some back to guarantee everyone a 2nd dose?
> 
> Has production increase enough to allow this? Would suck if the 2nd dose is required to be immune and we dont have any left.



Seems like it would be worse to have a larger portion of the population walking around as more susceptible carriers than to have half as many walking around even less vulnerable. But to really understand and discuss the issue we'd need access to numbers we don't have.


----------



## thraxil

narad said:


> Seems like it would be worse to have a larger portion of the population walking around as more susceptible carriers than to have half as many walking around even less vulnerable. But to really understand and discuss the issue we'd need access to numbers we don't have.



Yeah, the issue is that we really don't know what the effect of a single dose approach is because that wasn't tested and studied. It seems reasonable to assume that the first dose affords some immunity but there's no guarantee. I think it's kind of problematic to have spent the last year saying "listen to the scientists and experts" and then just switch to "YOLO! Ignore the science and try this other approach instead."


----------



## StevenC

It's what the UK is doing.

Originally doses were being scheduled 3 weeks apart, but the new plan is 12 weeks apart to get more people some level of immunity. This was first proposed just before Xmas, 2 weeks into the vaccine rollout, and was announced as the new plan this week.

As narad says, we don't have the numbers to determine whether this is a good idea, but by the time Biden is in office there will be a test subject in the UK for hik to look at.


----------



## Ralyks

Isn't Biden also going to invoke the defense production act immediately as well?


----------



## bostjan

Maybe Biden knows something we don't know yet. Or else this seems like a sort of risky chance to take. It might work, though, in the long run.


----------



## sleewell

Yes he has said he will use the DPA.


----------



## DiezelMonster

Ontario is also talking about a curfew, There is not enough police to police this!

I'm adopting a dog tomorrow hahah, I'm lucky that I'm trying to quit smoking but I have a balcony on my apartment but this is REALLY sounding insane to me, we can't go out because everything is closed like bars and restaurants?!?! 

So shortening store hours means MORE people in a concentrated space, how does that make sense?

I don't see this working in Ontario....




TedEH said:


> It hasn't taken effect yet, so it's yet to be seen, but it looks to me like they're taking it seriously.
> 
> 
> Walking a dog is allowed, but no more than 1km away from your home.
> 
> 
> Not allowed. Do it before 8pm. More than that, stores are to close at 7:30 so there's no place to go to get those things.
> 
> 
> Definitely not allowed.
> 
> 
> It's another one of those blurry "essential" lines.
> 
> 
> I've seen people get fines for some of the previous rules, so I have no reason to believe they don't mean it. The announcement included comments about how there will be police out enforcing it.


----------



## Wuuthrad

TedEH said:


> So Quebec is now going to putting a curfew into effect, lasting a month. If you're caught outside after 8pm without a good reason, it's up to a $6000 fine.
> 
> This month is going to suck.



At least you guys are trying. I mean we’re sort of trying here. But I can’t really understand why many people seem to be actively trying to make other people suffer...


----------



## TedEH

Trying is a way to put it. I'm not sure what a literal curfew accomplishes - it feels more like a punishment than a safety measure, especially if you were already generally following the rules.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

Travel restrictions are a better solution if nightlife is already closed by then. During one of our lockdowns I was constantly running into checkpoints although they were more used to fine people for not having tax, insurance or NCT. It did dissuade a lot of travelling and we got our numbers way down.

We were leading the way in Ireland but made an absolute balls of it. Back in a strict lockdown with sky high numbers. At least vaccines are slowly rolling out. We are getting 40,000 shipped in a week which is nowhere near enough but its a start.


----------



## bostjan

Will some places still enforce curfews after most of the people getting the vaccine have had it? 

I'd be interested to know why or why not.

Not sure how it'd play out in Canada, but in the USA, anybody getting a $6k fine for disobeying some sort of government restriction of which a large portion of the population were skeptical would most likely lead to endless court cases. I'll go ahead and predict that, if any US cities try this sort of thing in the next few months, and anyone who has had the vaccine gets ticketed, there will be a nasty legal battle going at least to State Supreme Courts.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

bostjan said:


> Will some places still enforce curfews after most of the people getting the vaccine have had it?
> 
> I'd be interested to know why or why not.
> 
> Not sure how it'd play out in Canada, but in the USA, anybody getting a $6k fine for disobeying some sort of government restriction of which a large portion of the population were skeptical would most likely lead to endless court cases. I'll go ahead and predict that, if any US cities try this sort of thing in the next few months, and anyone who has had the vaccine gets ticketed, there will be a nasty legal battle going at least to State Supreme Courts.



In my experience, local governments can and have instituted curfews and other restrictions meant to limit exposure, but the police will never enforce it. 

When WI, and specifically Milwaukee and Racine counties were on "lock down" I had no problem basically doing whatever and whenever. My company printed out "get out of jail free cards" for in case if we got pulled over or something and it just never happened. I drive right by cops. Nothing.


----------



## bostjan

MaxOfMetal said:


> In my experience, local governments can and have instituted curfews and other restrictions meant to limit exposure, but the police will never enforce it.
> 
> When WI, and specifically Milwaukee and Racine counties were on "lock down" I had no problem basically doing whatever and whenever. My company printed out "get out of jail free cards" for in case if we got pulled over or something and it just never happened. I drive right by cops. Nothing.



I'm in the same situation here in VT. Our curfews have been lifted, but, last year, there were some not-at-all-serious penalties for being out messing around. We still have a mask mandate, but the people you most often see with no masks are the cops themselves. One of our local shops had a somewhat nasty altercation between shop employees and some anti-maskers, not probably for what you'd think, but because the employees refused to take off their own masks to wait on the customers, and the police refused to get involved unless someone became violent. Luckily nothing came to that.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> I'm in the same situation here in VT. Our curfews have been lifted, but, last year, there were some not-at-all-serious penalties for being out messing around. We still have a mask mandate, but the people you most often see with no masks are the cops themselves. One of our local shops had a somewhat nasty altercation between shop employees and some anti-maskers, not probably for what you'd think, but because the employees refused to take off their own masks to wait on the customers, and the police refused to get involved unless someone became violent. Luckily nothing came to that.


Out of curiosity, what's the policy these days with respect from people out of state coming to VT? I have a long weekend coming up at the end of February and my girlfriend and I have been looking at places we could go - most likely we'll be staying in MA since it's hard to tell where things will be in a month and a half's time, but if no one really cares about people coming in from out of state, that opens the door a little. (Short term, I'm probably going to be chancing it for an afternoon anyway - my grandmother is in hospice, fading fast (old age, not covid), and while it's gonna kill me to not be able to hug my mom when the time comes, I'll at least want to e able to _see_ her, if it's at all possible).


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> Out of curiosity, what's the policy these days with respect from people out of state coming to VT? I have a long weekend coming up at the end of February and my girlfriend and I have been looking at places we could go - most likely we'll be staying in MA since it's hard to tell where things will be in a month and a half's time, but if no one really cares about people coming in from out of state, that opens the door a little. (Short term, I'm probably going to be chancing it for an afternoon anyway - my grandmother is in hospice, fading fast (old age, not covid), and while it's gonna kill me to not be able to hug my mom when the time comes, I'll at least want to e able to _see_ her, if it's at all possible).


The governor wants all non-essential travel here to be subject to a 14 day quarantine, but no one is really clear on what that means, exactly. Any travel for family emergencies would be considered essential.

Really sorry to hear about your grandmother.


----------



## JSanta

Well, I went to get a Covid test so I can start back in the classroom at the end of the month, and it came back positive last night. I wouldn't have known had I not been tested. Other than a weekly run to the grocery store, I don't leave my house. My wife is going to get tested today, but we're thinking she may have brought it home from the hospital.

Right now I don't have any symptoms other than a bit of a sore throat, but I'm not sure if that's due to allergens in the air, the virus, or psychosomatic. 

I have a friend that was just today extubated, and it looks like he may make it. The disparity how the virus impacts people is incredible. Stay safe everyone.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> The governor wants all non-essential travel here to be subject to a 14 day quarantine, but no one is really clear on what that means, exactly. Any travel for family emergencies would be considered essential.
> 
> Really sorry to hear about your grandmother.


Thanks man. She's old. 90. She's lived a long, full life, and lost her husband (at 92) almost exactly a year ago. I'm surprised she's held on as long as she has without him. She's at peace, and I mostly wish I could just be there for my mom, who's about to lose her second parent.


----------



## Drew

JSanta said:


> Well, I went to get a Covid test so I can start back in the classroom at the end of the month, and it came back positive last night. I wouldn't have known had I not been tested. Other than a weekly run to the grocery store, I don't leave my house. My wife is going to get tested today, but we're thinking she may have brought it home from the hospital.
> 
> Right now I don't have any symptoms other than a bit of a sore throat, but I'm not sure if that's due to allergens in the air, the virus, or psychosomatic.
> 
> I have a friend that was just today extubated, and it looks like he may make it. The disparity how the virus impacts people is incredible. Stay safe everyone.


Fingers crossed for you man - I had it in March myself and it wasn't fun, but it was managable. I think I owe you a PM anyway, but reach out if there's anything I can do. 

And, AWESOME news about your friend!


----------



## JSanta

Drew said:


> Fingers crossed for you man - I had it in March myself and it wasn't fun, but it was managable. I think I owe you a PM anyway, but reach out if there's anything I can do.
> 
> And, AWESOME news about your friend!



I appreciate it. And really sorry to hear about your grandmother. I've lost a couple of family members this year, and not being able to be there with family and even the funerals has been really tough for the same reason you mentioned. 

I received the positive results Monday evening, and just within the last hour received the call from the county contact tracers. They are incredibly backed up with cases. I feel terrible because I got tested only because I had to. I made my quick stop at the grocery store on Saturday (masked as always) and did stop at my in-laws (our bubble because my mother-in-law and wife both work at the same location). Thankfully they are both ok, but to think I could have transmitted a deadly virus to them or anyone else is weighing on me. Had I not been tested, my behavior wouldn't have changed, but it still an awful situation. We'll get my wife's results back tonight. We both think she brought it home from the hospital.


----------



## Drew

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I almost certainly caught it from my girlfriend - she became symptomatic about 48 hours before I did - who also almost certainly took it home from the hospital as well. She had a LOT of guilt about getting me, and one of her friends, sick as well, even though we were both ultimately fine. That's the main reason I haven't seen my parents more than a handful of times, and from afar, since this started - I'm not going to get them sick, period.


----------



## Ralyks

I'm kinda unaware of how restrictions have played out in NY. But I also pretty much only take my son to daycare, go to work, and go home, because everything I need in my village is a 1 - 3 minute walk. If it was just me, I'd have zero problem staying home, playing guitar and video games, using my home gym setup I finagled, and being stoned. I only really go anywhere else sometimes because raising a 5 year old alone, well, you need to get him to burn off some energy before he basically undoes all of the cleaning you spent a couple hours on in 3 minutes.

But I also live in a place where I've never met anyone that likes Cuomo, yet he constantly gets reelected. He's like to NY what Ted Cruz is to Texas.


----------



## sleewell

Our gov is being way too cautious imo. She has basically everything closed and our cases have been low for a while, hospitals nowhere near full. This isn't going away so we need to find a way to live with it that doesnt involve closing everything. If you want to stay home and have your food delivered go for it but lockdowns should be based on hospital capacity and not just closing everything until you think this will be over.


----------



## Randy

Ralyks said:


> I'm kinda unaware of how restrictions have played out in NY. But I also pretty much only take my son to daycare, go to work, and go home, because everything I need in my village is a 1 - 3 minute walk. If it was just me, I'd have zero problem staying home, playing guitar and video games, using my home gym setup I finagled, and being stoned. I only really go anywhere else sometimes because raising a 5 year old alone, well, you need to get him to burn off some energy before he basically undoes all of the cleaning you spent a couple hours on in 3 minutes.
> 
> But I also live in a place where I've never met anyone that likes Cuomo, yet he constantly gets reelected. He's like to NY what Ted Cruz is to Texas.



I'm still furloughed but that primarily because my job specifically lives off of live concert, bars, hospitality and entertainment industries. As far as restrictions, there's very little you can't do AFAIK. Stores are all open, restaurants are all open (with capcity restrictions and rules, but they're open), etc. I loathe Andrew Cuomo but I think most people would be hard pressed to point out a really significant restriction since, say, August that isn't in place with good reason. Most of the rest of the limitation going on are based on the decisions of the business owners, not the state.


----------



## spudmunkey

November 29th was the last day the US counted fewer than 1,000 deaths per day.

November 8th was the last time out 7-day average was below 1,000.

5 of the last 7 days have all been over 4,000 dead.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Some time in the next several days, we will have more deaths from coronavirus than we had in WWII. 

The way things are going, sometime around St. Patrick's day, it's possible we'll eclipse the number lost in the American Civil War. 

We're experiencing roughly the equivalent to the number of fallen some soldiers in the entire Iraq War every day. 

So 1.5x 9/11s a day.


----------



## Demiurge

The company I work had, around the end of 2020, talked about staff returning to office in March. Last week, they had us all drop by to pick up company-issue PCs, monitors, etc. This freaking place wouldn't invest in hardware upgrades when we were all there (our computers have the old 3:2 monitors), so this would suggest that we're not going back any time soon.


----------



## Drew

sleewell said:


> Our gov is being way too cautious imo. She has basically everything closed and our cases have been low for a while, hospitals nowhere near full. This isn't going away so we need to find a way to live with it that doesnt involve closing everything. If you want to stay home and have your food delivered go for it but lockdowns should be based on hospital capacity and not just closing everything until you think this will be over.



I _strongly_ disagree.

Hospital capacity is a lagging indicator, in the 3-4 week ballpark. It can take upwards of a week but typically maybe 5 days for someone exposed to Covid to become symptomatic, and then generally it takes about two weeks for them to degrade to the point where they require hospitalization. Once in the hospital, the average stay is probably in the weeks too, especially for patients requiring ventilation. 

Right now, hospitalizations probably reflect the state of the pandemic around Thanksgiving. This is your recent trajectory: 

https://www.google.com/search?q=mic...j0i10i395l7.3509j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Not surprisingly, your peak occurred just over a week after the order went into effect, and have started to trend down from there. That means it's working. If you wait until the hospitals are close to being overloaded, though, that means one month later, they WILL be overloaded. 

Also, not for nothing, a hospital at full capacity for covid patients is one that has zero capacity for all other types of patients, which is hardly a good place to be, either.


----------



## Drew

In other news, my grandmother died last night. I'm grateful it wasn't covid, and I'm grateful most of her sons and daughters were able to be there at the very end, and I'm grateful it was peaceful. I'm just sad I can't be with my mom right now, when she needs support the most.


----------



## TedEH

That's brutal. Sorry to hear that.


----------



## JSanta

Really sorry to hear that Drew. My condolences to you and your family.


----------



## sleewell

Drew said:


> I _strongly_ disagree.
> 
> Hospital capacity is a lagging indicator, in the 3-4 week ballpark. It can take upwards of a week but typically maybe 5 days for someone exposed to Covid to become symptomatic, and then generally it takes about two weeks for them to degrade to the point where they require hospitalization. Once in the hospital, the average stay is probably in the weeks too, especially for patients requiring ventilation.
> 
> Right now, hospitalizations probably reflect the state of the pandemic around Thanksgiving. This is your recent trajectory:
> 
> https://www.google.com/search?q=mic...j0i10i395l7.3509j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
> 
> Not surprisingly, your peak occurred just over a week after the order went into effect, and have started to trend down from there. That means it's working. If you wait until the hospitals are close to being overloaded, though, that means one month later, they WILL be overloaded.
> 
> Also, not for nothing, a hospital at full capacity for covid patients is one that has zero capacity for all other types of patients, which is hardly a good place to be, either.




you are absolutely welcome to disagree but i live here and its my opinion. 

tbh i am kinda over living in panic mode 24/7. we have been told the hospitals are going to be full this entire time and it never happens. kinda is starting to feel like the kid crying wolf story. when we are now down to around 2600 cases a day that does not seem to be reason to keep everything closed. 

we are almost a year in at this point with no end in sight. this is destroying people who work in the service industry and no one really seems to care about them at all. like i said if you think you are high risk it is very easy to stay inside and have everything delivered. it is disgraceful that educators don't have the vaccine yet, kids should be in school.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

sleewell said:


> you are absolutely welcome to disagree but i live here and its my opinion.
> 
> tbh i am kinda over living in panic mode 24/7. we have been told the hospitals are going to be full this entire time and it never happens. kinda is starting to feel like the kid crying wolf story. when we are now down to around 2600 cases a day that does not seem to be reason to keep everything closed.
> 
> we are almost a year in at this point with no end in sight. this is destroying people who work in the service industry and no one really seems to care about them at all. like i said if you think you are high risk it is very easy to stay inside and have everything delivered. it is disgraceful that educators don't have the vaccine yet, kids should be in school.



We're so close to a vaccine being widely available. So close. 

Just hold out a little longer. Don't squander the last year in the home stretch.


----------



## BigViolin

Sorry Drew, condolences to you and yours.


----------



## Drew

sleewell said:


> tbh i am kinda over living in panic mode 24/7. we have been told the hospitals are going to be full this entire time and it never happens. kinda is starting to feel like the kid crying wolf story. when we are now down to around 2600 cases a day that does not seem to be reason to keep everything closed.


Everyone's over living in panic mode 24/7. That doesn't mean your logic isn't circular - hospitals are NOT full, precisely because you're doing things to stop them from getting full. If you stop doing those things, they're gonna fill up. LA right now has begun having ambulances triage patients and not even bothering to bring patients to the hospital who are deemed in the field to have a low chance of survival. If you want to live like that, well, that's on you, but coming from a state that got hit hard early on and has already been through this, you don't want to be in a situation where suddenly your hospitals are even close to capacity. 

Of course, if you can tell me with a 100% straight face that, if you reopened fully tomorrow, and three weeks from now were hit by a car and left to die at the scene of the accident because there wasn't a hospital bed for you, you'd call that a fair trade, then I don't know what to tell you here. No one's saying this situation doesn't suck, but intentionally allowing your health care system and health care workers to be overrun because you're sick of not being able to go out to eat is absolutely not the answer here.


----------



## Drew

BigViolin said:


> Sorry Drew, condolences to you and yours.


Thanks man. She lived to 90, lived a long, full life, and I don't think died with many regrets. I just wish I could be there for my mom.


----------



## StevenC

The hospitals here are absolutely slammed right now because people couldn't follow less strict orders and aren't recovering as expected because people still can't follow very strict orders.

In good news though, my grandparents and great-aunt have all got their first dose of vaccine and some of my doctor friends have gotten it too. We're at about 5% vaccination for the country so far in Northern Ireland. Unfortunately my cousins' grandmother just got a positive test which I imagine is due to so many (dumb) people visiting her after her husband and son died in December; the attendance and mask wearing at those funerals was appalling.


----------



## Thaeon

Drew said:


> In other news, my grandmother died last night. I'm grateful it wasn't covid, and I'm grateful most of her sons and daughters were able to be there at the very end, and I'm grateful it was peaceful. I'm just sad I can't be with my mom right now, when she needs support the most.



I'm sorry to hear that Drew.

@sleewell I just got over the virus. We do not need to be loosening restrictions. Before the virus I was running 5ks several times a week before work. Now a flight of stairs is work. Its really not the short term getting over the virus that concerns me. Its the long term neurological damage, and lung damage that concerns me. Recovery doesn't end with feeling better and your energy level coming back. You don't know if you're one of the people that could literally stroke out 6 months or a year later as a result of having it.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Because, of course:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/01/15/trump-vaccine-reserve-used-up/


----------



## DistinguishedPapyrus

Man... reading the first post on this thread and now knowing now how things actually went down... I havn't been on this forum in a while, like a couple years. Wow. Just mind blowing. I work in a hospital in Florida. This has been the wildest year, in over a decade I've been doing this, 2020 was by far, hands down the worst. And I live in a smaller town where we weren't some kind of major epicenter, but still we were stressed to the max for the capacity we could handle. Around April was the worst. At the biggest peak we had around 80 positives in my hospital. But I had a chance to talk to a nurse who did a contract in NYC for a little over 2 months during April-June. Freaking insane stories to listen to, that place was like a battlezone. They were putting patients in tents outside, in parking garages, having to cut corners because they simply didn't have the supplies to do what they had to do... just nuts. They would go to a hotel, a bus would pick them up in the morning or evening depending on their shift. They would work 12 hours and the bus would take them back to the hotel at the end of the shift. Eat dinner, sleep, eat breakfast then get on the bus and do it all again. They didn't get to pick what location or what shift they worked, it was all 12 hours, work 6 days get one day off, over and over for a 72 day contract.

I'm so tired of it. I just hope this crap ends or at least subsides soon.


----------



## spudmunkey

Jesus...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/18/us/california-crematoriums-limit-suspension-coronavirus/index.html


----------



## Millul

spudmunkey said:


> Jesus...
> 
> https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/18/us/california-crematoriums-limit-suspension-coronavirus/index.html



That reads like a war-zone report rather than an LA county newspiece


----------



## Millul

Here in Germany, chancellor Merkel is right now in a meeting with the 16 states prime ministers to decide new measures to contain the pandemic.
A new strain was discovered YESTERDAY in Bayern, where as of this week FFP2 masks are mandatory to be allowed in public places.

Let's see what they come up with, I expect at least surgical masks mandatory the country over, and a few weeks of lock down extension.


----------



## TheBlackBard

I have questions if anyone would care to chime in.

Has anyone documented severe side of effects of the vaccine? My job is offering them, now referring to me an "essential worker" (why the hell I wasn't considered that for the past year is beyond me), and it's free for me. I'm not trying to sound like a nutjob, but I do want to know if I should get this vaccine with as early as it is. I'm not an anti-vaxxer, I've gotten my other vaccines, I just want to know that I'm in good hands with one of these.


----------



## jaxadam

TheBlackBard said:


> I have questions if anyone would care to chime in.
> 
> Has anyone documented severe side of effects of the vaccine? My job is offering them, now referring to me an "essential worker" (why the hell I wasn't considered that for the past year is beyond me), and it's free for me. I'm not trying to sound like a nutjob, but I do want to know if I should get this vaccine with as early as it is. I'm not an anti-vaxxer, I've gotten my other vaccines, I just want to know that I'm in good hands with one of these.



I know a lot of people who have gotten it, and they all have said the exact same thing. The only side effect they have had is soreness at the injection site and that’s literally it.


----------



## TheBlackBard

jaxadam said:


> I know a lot of people who have gotten it, and they all have said the exact same thing. The only side effect they have had is soreness at the injection site and that’s literally it.



Ah okay. Well if that's the case, I'll go ahead and grab one then. Thank you!


----------



## TedEH

My sister has also gotten one of the vaccines and I've heard nothing in the way of side effects.


----------



## sleewell

i would take it.


----------



## JSanta

My wife and mother in law have received their first doses. My MIL was exhausted the next day, my wife just had soreness at the injection site, kind of like a flu shot.


----------



## tedtan

My wife and many of her colleagues have received it and the first dose has no side affects except some mild soreness t the injection site, like a flu shot.

Those that have received the second dose have reported some flu like symptoms for the first ~24 hours after receiving the injection, but nothing more then that.


----------



## devastone

My mom and her husband (too late in life for "stepdad") both got their first shots, pretty much the same thing, pretty much like a flu shot, I think she was a little run down for a day.


----------



## Sumsar

Regarding vaccines, the good thing here is that millions and maybe billions of people will get the same vaccine all over the world, so even if there is long term issue arising from the vaccine, there will be a big mandate to resolve those side effects, sincei t will be so wide spread.
And still those side effects are probably preferable to the short (and long) term side effect of Covid-19, which amongst others include death.


----------



## tedtan

tedtan said:


> My wife and many of her colleagues have received it and the first dose has no side affects except some mild soreness t the injection site, like a flu shot.
> 
> Those that have received the second dose have reported some flu like symptoms for the first ~24 hours after receiving the injection, but nothing more then that.



To add to this, I spoke with my wife last night and she mentioned that several of her colleagues have experienced a mild injection site reaction after the first dose resulting in an itchy rash around the injection site, but not bad enough to need steroids.




Sumsar said:


> Regarding vaccines, the good thing here is that millions and maybe billions of people will get the same vaccine all over the world, so even if there is long term issue arising from the vaccine, there will be a big mandate to resolve those side effects, sincei t will be so wide spread.
> And still those side effects are probably preferable to the short (and long) term side effect of Covid-19, which amongst others include death.



The thing is that those side effects are actually the result of the immune system reacting to the vaccine, and this covid vaccine really drives the immune system into high gear, so getting around the side effects is probably not possible, at least with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.


----------



## bostjan

I'd rather my body think it's sick for 24 hours and feel crappy than potentially deal with really being sick and feeling much more crappy for 1-2 weeks, put my family in danger, and have a 3-4% chance of biting it in the process.


----------



## tedtan

Yeah, it may be slightly unpleasant, but the benefit far outweighs the unpleasantness.


----------



## TedEH

I've been a bit curious what the impact of the vaccine would be on someone who isn't already in good health - say for someone who already has a lung problem, I don't know if something that's going to knowingly/intentionally trigger an immune response that, while better than getting covid itself, could still be a pretty rough ride.


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> I've been a bit curious what the impact of the vaccine would be on someone who isn't already in good health - say for someone who already has a lung problem, I don't know if something that's going to knowingly/intentionally trigger an immune response that, while better than getting covid itself, could still be a pretty rough ride.



I know someone currently going through radiation (proton therapy) and chemo and right now their doctor has advised them to hold off on the vaccine.


----------



## JSanta

TedEH said:


> I've been a bit curious what the impact of the vaccine would be on someone who isn't already in good health - say for someone who already has a lung problem, I don't know if something that's going to knowingly/intentionally trigger an immune response that, while better than getting covid itself, could still be a pretty rough ride.



mRNA vaccines have been under research for a really long time. I don't see there being any side effects beyond what most of the population experiences to other vaccines. Just like with polio or small pox, the side effects are far outweighed by the disease itself.



jaxadam said:


> I know someone currently going through radiation (proton therapy) and chemo and right now their doctor has advised them to hold off on the vaccine.



This is also a great point. People that are healthy or not immunocompromised get vaccinated (in general) to protect those that cannot safely receive a vaccine. 

Great article from Hopkins for those that are interested: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/hea...eases/coronavirus/is-the-covid19-vaccine-safe


----------



## mastapimp

TedEH said:


> I've been a bit curious what the impact of the vaccine would be on someone who isn't already in good health - say for someone who already has a lung problem, I don't know if something that's going to knowingly/intentionally trigger an immune response that, while better than getting covid itself, could still be a pretty rough ride.


My coworker that's 65 had his first dose of the Moderna vaccine a week and half ago. For the last 20 years or so, he's had significant lung scarring (to the point that he may need a transplant soon). He was advised by his pulmonologist to take the vaccine as a severe case of COVID would be a death sentence for him. So far, he's had no adverse effects of the vaccine.


----------



## TedEH

The case I was thinking of was someone who has COPD and recently just recovered from Covid - to be honest, I was surprised (and relieved) he made it through. Even if the side effects are a fraction of the ride the actual infection would be, I'm not sure he can endure a fraction of that experience again.


----------



## JSanta

TedEH said:


> The case I was thinking of was someone who has COPD and recently just recovered from Covid - to be honest, I was surprised (and relieved) he made it through. Even if the side effects are a fraction of the ride the actual infection would be, I'm not sure he can endure a fraction of that experience again.



Recent British study has found waning immunity from the virus after contracting it (https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4257)

The CDC recommends waiting 90 days after contracting the virus before getting the vaccine (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html#:~:text=If you were treated for,getting a COVID-19 vaccine.)

I realize those don't directly answer your concerns, but it is applicable information.


----------



## TedEH

In all likelihood he's not high on the list of people to get the vaccine. Thanks for the info though.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

I'm scheduled for my first Moderna dose Feb 2nd. Not gonna lie.. I'm nervous as hell. But my wife says I'm worth more to her alive than dead, so... Wish me luck.


----------



## tedtan

The oncology clinic my wife works at received the Moderna vaccine for their patients who are able to receive it (some of the chemo patients can't) and since the vaccine is only good for a few hours after removing it from the freezer, there is commonly several doses each day that go unclaimed. In order to avoid wasting these doses, the clinic has made them available to spouses of their employees and I was able to take advantage of that policy yesterday afternoon.

I received the first dose of the Moderna vaccine and nothing to report other than a mild soreness around the injection site similar to a flu shot. I have not experienced anything else that could be a side effect. I get the second dose on 18 Feb and will update afterwards.


----------



## jaxadam

High Plains Drifter said:


> But my wife says I'm worth more to her alive than dead



Lucky for you... I think it's the opposite for me!


----------



## High Plains Drifter

jaxadam said:


> Lucky for you... I think it's the opposite for me!



Naw... I've seen the lubbers. Someone's gotta save her from those flightless nightmares.


----------



## groverj3

I'm like the lowest possible priority to get the vaccines, since I can work from home seemingly forever, have no underlying health conditions (knock on wood), and am only 31 years old.

Ironically, I worked on RNA biology in grad school, which I finished during this shitshow.

Even more ironic, people I know who haven't graduated from my PhD program are getting the vaccine because they're classified as working in education.

Oh well. If you have science questions hit me up. I probably already posted a bunch a while back in this thread, but life is so fucking monotonous right now I don't even remember.


----------



## Ralyks

I have no idea where I am on the priority list. I'm working in a physical bank branch dealing with a regular stream of people and their cash, which is, well, a major germ carrier. Yet anytime I ask I basically get ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


----------



## TedEH

I can feel for that. I had to go into a bank branch recently and very much didn't want to be there.


----------



## tedtan

My wife received the second Moderna dose last week and only experienced some soreness at the injection site and a bit of fatigue the day following the injection. No fever, headaches, etc. that some people have reported.

I'll let you know how it works out me once I get the second dose in a few weeks.


----------



## Drew

tedtan said:


> My wife received the second Moderna dose last week and only experienced some soreness at the injection site and a bit of fatigue the day following the injection. No fever, headaches, etc. that some people have reported.
> 
> I'll let you know how it works out me once I get the second dose in a few weeks.


The Moderna, I think, vaccine kicked my girlfriend's ass. She couldn't lift her arm over her head for 48 hours after the first injection, and had pretty intense flu-like symptoms and fatigue after the second to the degree where she ended up calling out that next day. It varies by person to person, of course, and she'd had a prior exposure, which may have been a factor.


----------



## Wuuthrad

News about Bolsonaro intentionally spreading the Coronavirus in Brazil. If I had my tin hat on, I’d suspect Trump was in on it.


https://english.elpais.com/americas...ional-strategy-to-spread-the-coronavirus.html


----------



## Drew

Wuuthrad said:


> News about Bolsonaro intentionally spreading the Coronavirus in Brazil. If I had my tin hat on, I’d suspect Trump was in on it.


I have a friend down in Brasil and we'd occasiopnally check in with each other on our respective presidents. She may have had it slightly worse than us, but clearly that's a contest we all lose.


----------



## beerandbeards

I’m receiving the 2nd dose of the Moderna vaccine tomorrow morning. Took the day off just in case I’m laid out.


----------



## Wuuthrad

Drew said:


> I have a friend down in Brasil and we'd occasiopnally check in with each other on our respective presidents. She may have had it slightly worse than us, but clearly that's a contest we all lose.



I’ve got a friend from Belo Horizonte. Never mind the political, the gang violence he’s shown me, which is freely shared online, is actually frightening.

We’re taking brutal SAW horror movie type stuff I’m not even going to repeat, to save people quite a bit of nausea!


----------



## tedtan

Drew said:


> The Moderna, I think, vaccine kicked my girlfriend's ass. She couldn't lift her arm over her head for 48 hours after the first injection, and had pretty intense flu-like symptoms and fatigue after the second to the degree where she ended up calling out that next day. It varies by person to person, of course, and she'd had a prior exposure, which may have been a factor.



Yeah, we were surprised she had such an easy time of it since many of her colleagues had results similar to your girlfriend.


----------



## beerandbeards

I’m about 7 hours post 2nd dose vaccine. So far I’m feeling my status quo. Just ever so slight feeling that was was stuck with a needle.

my wife is feeling itchy at the injection site, warm to the touch and slightly swollen. Otherwise no issues.


----------



## Wuuthrad

Awaiting my 1A vaccine call... I’m wondering if it will be Pfizer or Moderna?

Hmm...some German Genetic Soup or New England Rodent RNA? Either way I say:

BRING IT!

I’m actually a fair bit excited and a more than a fair bit relieved to be getting vaccinated! It’s been such a weirdly stressful year unlike any other...

If I am part of a mad genetic experiment, it certainly won’t be the first time!

And I’m more than happy to contribute to the greater good!


----------



## Wuuthrad

A year on, some interesting research:




https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/3/who-led-covid-19-probe-team-in-china-visits-wuhan-virus-lab


----------



## beerandbeards

Update after 2nd vaccine: I had chills in the middle of the night, was able to get back to sleep. Woke up with a fever and slight headache.

took some Tylenol and feeling better. Still have a slight headache


----------



## beerandbeards

Update after 2nd dose Moderna: I’m starting to feel normal after two days. I’ve ran the gamut of fever, chills, sweats, headache, aches. I haven’t felt sick in years so this really sucked. Wife only experienced arm pain and some fatigue. I would advise everyone to get vaccinated but be prepared to take Tylenol and drink plenty of fluids.


----------



## Drew

beerandbeards said:


> Update after 2nd dose Moderna: I’m starting to feel normal after two days. I’ve ran the gamut of fever, chills, sweats, headache, aches. I haven’t felt sick in years so this really sucked. Wife only experienced arm pain and some fatigue. I would advise everyone to get vaccinated but be prepared to take Tylenol and drink plenty of fluids.



Don't _pre_-treat the vaccine with Tylenol or ibuprofen or any other fever suppressant as this does seem to weaken the immune response a little, but onve you've been injected, absolutely don't hesitate to treat the symptoms, because there's no clinical evidence that this leads to weakened effectiveness of the vaccine.


----------



## Wuuthrad

Got mine- get yours ASAP! We got this! Let’s do this people!

Also Masks Work!


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Received my first Moderna vaccine Feb 2nd. No issues aside from some injection-site soreness a day or two afterwards that lingered for a few days. I did feel a very mild stiffness in my left hand for a few hours but I believe that I have some early signs of arthritis. My hands have been achy and stiff for many months prior to the vaccination. And within a few minutes afterwards, my chest felt a bit tight but I think that was just due to some anxiety. Other than those extremely mild feelings, it went well. I'm much more concerned about the second dose than I ever was about the first one.


----------



## sleewell

https://www.mediaite.com/news/johns-hopkins-doctor-predicts-covid-will-be-mostly-gone-by-april/

“There’s a 76 percent reduction in daily cases over the last six weeks”


----------



## Ralyks

Still waiting to be able to get one. You'd think working in a banking branch with cash that's inheritedly dirty to begin with, we'd be there with grocery store workers. Apparently not...

Fortunately My mom and sister got both of their doses, and my dad and mom's husband got their first doses over the past few days. As soon as the news of the J&J approved broke, my sister (who's a nurse practitioner) instantly said myself and my brother-in-law would likely get that shot soon. Sooooo here's hoping.

That said, as soon as I get the second dose, I'm getting my son to stay with my mom or sister for a day and getting plenty stoned during the possible symptomatic period.... Don't judge me.


----------



## Wuuthrad




----------



## bostjan

Wuuthrad said:


> View attachment 91060


If that's true, someone with a twitter account needs to tweet at the governor's post about everything 100% being open, and say "Except your mansion." That's some seriously ironic crap.


----------



## nightflameauto

bostjan said:


> If that's true, someone with a twitter account needs to tweet at the governor's post about everything 100% being open, and say "Except your mansion." That's some seriously ironic crap.


He'd just reply like Cartman and say, "you ha, me ha," and not see the irony on any level.


----------



## Wuuthrad

https://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2021/as-cases-spread-across-us-last-year-pattern-emerged-suggesting-link-between-governors-party-affiliation-and-covid-19-case-and-death-numbers.html


----------



## zappatton2

Wuuthrad said:


> View attachment 91396
> 
> 
> https://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-rel...tion-and-covid-19-case-and-death-numbers.html


"I'm shocked!!!" said exactly nobody.


----------



## Wuuthrad

zappatton2 said:


> "I'm shocked!!!"



...said the GOP as they defund education!


----------



## Shoeless_jose

Pre registered for vaccine in my area in Ontario Canada, my work is essential enough to be in on this phase.


----------



## Drew

Wuuthrad said:


> View attachment 91396
> 
> 
> https://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-rel...tion-and-covid-19-case-and-death-numbers.html


Now, now. That study is based on "facts," which are based in "reality," and as we know, reality has a well known liberal bias.


----------



## Wuuthrad

Drew said:


> Now, now. That study is based on "facts," which are based in "reality," and as we know, reality has a well known liberal bias.




IKR, and all this “knowledge!” it goes against the Good Book!


----------



## Wuuthrad

https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/m39h39/professional_wrestlers_enforce_the_face_mask_rule/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf


----------



## bostjan

Wuuthrad said:


> View attachment 91396
> 
> 
> https://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-rel...tion-and-covid-19-case-and-death-numbers.html


Vermont has a republican governor. Of course, when Trump started his weird odyssey of injecting bleach and shooting people with sun rays, the governor distanced himself from the GOP like it was radioactive shark lava.


----------



## Wuuthrad

“Oldy” but goody:


----------



## thebeesknees22

Dineley said:


> Pre registered for vaccine in my area in Ontario Canada, my work is essential enough to be in on this phase.



lucky! I'm about as far from being an essential worker as one can get so I don't expect to get mine for a looong time.


----------



## bostjan

I'm scheduled to get vax'd in about a month. That could change if they don't get as many vaccines as they intend, though.

Now I have to be extra careful for a month, since everyone right of center around here seems to think this thing is over now.


----------



## Wuuthrad

Vaccines are being implemented on a state by state basis, everyone should check CDC to find out their State protocol:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/index.html

As an essential worker in my state it took a couple weeks to get on the list for a first shot, but everything is moving much more quickly now, as new eligibilities are opening up, are being schedule more quickly, and as more vaccines are being produced they should be more readily available to pretty much everyone soon.

I think by May all people over 16 should be eligible, and many will be much sooner.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

I received my 2nd Moderna shot on Monday. Had no serious side effects. Felt a bit lethargic but not even sure that was entirely from the vaccine. Glad to have both shots at this point since even though I see most people still being proactive, there are plenty of em out and about with no face coverings. And yeah.. here in Texas we have spring break knocking on our door and a republican governor who seems to get off watching people succumb to illness and suffering. "Time to party and open up everything up.. Oh and ditch the masks, pussies!" What a gem he is.


----------



## Wuuthrad

Come on Fellas, time to get busy! 
(Good news from hardandsmart . net ) 




https://hardandsmart.net/2021/02/13...vid-19-that-are-able-to-neutralize-the-virus/


----------



## sleewell

Michigan is saying everyone over 16 can get it starting 4/5. My oldest is going back to school on Monday.


----------



## BigViolin

Received my second Pfizer shot on Thursday. The predominate side effect was of an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for science.


----------



## jaxadam

BigViolin said:


> Received my second Pfizer shot on Thursday. The predominate side effect was of an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for science.



:highfive:


----------



## beerandbeards

BigViolin said:


> Received my second Pfizer shot on Thursday. The predominate side effect was of an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for science.



Welcome to the club!


----------



## Xaios

I got poked a week ago, Moderna vaccine. Side effects were that my arm felt like someone had punched it for about a day, I was a bit stiff the next day, and I had the same kind of dreams I get when I'm sick for a couple nights.

I don't remember the lead-up, but one of those dreams ended with me standing in front of a conference room full of people and telling them to go fuck themselves. It was kind of entertaining.


----------



## bostjan

Xaios said:


> I got poked a week ago, Moderna vaccine. Side effects were that my arm felt like someone had punched it for about a day, I was a bit stiff the next day, and I had the same kind of dreams I get when I'm sick for a couple nights.
> 
> I don't remember the lead-up, but one of those dreams ended with me standing in front of a conference room full of people and telling them to go fuck themselves. It was kind of entertaining.



"I want what he had." LOL


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Xaios said:


> I got poked a week ago, Moderna vaccine. Side effects were that my arm felt like someone had punched it for about a day, I was a bit stiff the next day, and I had the same kind of dreams I get when I'm sick for a couple nights.
> 
> I don't remember the lead-up, but one of those dreams ended with me standing in front of a conference room full of people and telling them to go fuck themselves. It was kind of entertaining.



Funny... My arm was fairly sore after the first Moderna vax but after the 2nd one, almost no soreness whatsoever. Definitely felt more stiffness in my hands after the first shot as well. I feel like side effects were more pronounced ( although still quite minimal) after the first shot. But I also realize that I was on heightened alert after both doses so something like a slight headache or something could've been from the vax or it could've just been from allergens, stress, etc. BTW That must've been a fairly liberating dream lol!


----------



## Xaios

High Plains Drifter said:


> Funny... My arm was fairly sore after the first Moderna vax but after the 2nd one, almost no soreness whatsoever.


Haven't had my second shot yet. Everyone seems to react differently to it, though. Some people have a rough go after one of the shots, some after both, and some experience no real issues whatsoever. Of course, I'm personally hoping that I'll be in that last group.


----------



## p0ke

Xaios said:


> I don't remember the lead-up, but one of those dreams ended with me standing in front of a conference room full of people and telling them to go fuck themselves. It was kind of entertaining.



Sounds kinda similar to what my friends had from a malaria-vaccine they took when we were traveling to Vietnam in 2011 - there were many options, I personally chose to just eat some pills with my breakfast (it was also the cheapest alternative) but a couple of guys deliberately chose a vaccine that was known to cause hallucinations just to see what it was like.
One of them said he had a dream where he was flying a jet plane through a paper funnel, and another talked about taking care of the JFK-murderer's horses, which incidentally happened to be violet and pink in color 

... no word of when I'll get vaccinated myself. The elderly and other high-risk people are getting it at the moment, and supposedly everyone here should have it by the end of the summer, but I kinda doubt that.


----------



## TedEH

It's officially been a year of working at home. What was supposed to be a short curfew over the holidays now seems to be basically permanent.


----------



## Drew

TedEH said:


> It's officially been a year of working at home. What was supposed to be a short curfew over the holidays now seems to be basically permanent.



For me, my office shut down after Friday, 3/13, with my team being instructed to bring everything we thought we'd need tp stay remote for "a couple of weeks." Timing was a godsend too, as yesterday was the one year anniversary of my girlfriend (a doctor) becoming symptomatic, and I followed suit a year ago tomorrow. With the benefit of hindsight I guess we were fortunate, as we never went through that "sterilize your groceries" phase that most people went through. 

I'd imagine I'll be back in the office mostly full time by late summer or early fall, nut st a minimum I think now that we've established we CAN work remote for long periods of timer successfully, it'll be the norm to stay home whenever you have a cold or something, which IMO is going to be a pretty big improvement for office health.


----------



## sleewell

been at the office this entire time. our area in the building normally fits 7 and its been me and another dude here with no issues. pretty good amount of people have been in the building this last year. my 3 youngest kids have been in preschool since early summer.


honestly its dumb they are even trying to prioritize the vaccine at this point. just give it to everyone that wants it as fast as possible. stop waiting around for dumbasses who will never take it bc of the "research" they did on fb. it's just taking way too long to get it to the people who want it. cases will keep going down as more people get the shot, its foolish to horde the supply of doses waiting for people who will never take it. its like holding up thousands of dollars to save a penny or two.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

I work in a giant brewery. Luckily, my position and seniority let me choose more isolated tasks 90% of the time. 

I think it's outrageous that folks who can't work remote and especially those who work with the public weren't a top priority. 

Luckily, the misses and I were able to get vaccinated before I tracked it home. 

I'm not sure how things are by you guys, but the vaccine locations don't really give a shit here. Just book an appointment online, sign a piece of paper that says you super extra swear you're supposed to get the vaccine and have at it. No check or anything. So I guess it doesn't matter who gets priority.


----------



## Drew

sleewell said:


> honestly its dumb they are even trying to prioritize the vaccine at this point. just give it to everyone that wants it as fast as possible. stop waiting around for dumbasses who will never take it bc of the "research" they did on fb. it's just taking way too long to get it to the people who want it. cases will keep going down as more people get the shot, its foolish to horde the supply of doses waiting for people who will never take it. its like holding up thousands of dollars to save a penny or two.


There absolutely could be some variation about this depending on where in the country you are. 

But, here in MA, and in VT where my parents live, the limiting factor isn't people wanting to get the shot, it's doses of vaccines to inject and hands to administer the injection. Opening it up to anyone who wants it won't get people vaccinated any quicker, it'll just change the composition of the groups getting the vaccine, and tilt it away from high risk groups and towards lower risk, healthier groups where the vaccine will save fewer lives. 

Michigan could very well be different, and if there's a shortage of people _willing_ to get the shot, that would suggest a course correction is warranted. But states generally have a lot of leeway on when to move on to the next group of individuals, so if Michigan hasn't yet gotten down to our age group, the most likely explanation is they're still filling up appointments as fast as they can offer them with 75+ or 65+ or whatever you guys are onto.


----------



## TedEH

I can't even decide if I'd want to go back to an office at this point. There's some huge tradeoffs - the level of freedom involved has been great, there's no commute, I feel like there's a lot of trust and responsibility, etc., but also sometimes zero socializing which is kinda weird.


----------



## Demiurge

TedEH said:


> I can't even decide if I'd want to go back to an office at this point. There's some huge tradeoffs - the level of freedom involved has been great, there's no commute, I feel like there's a lot of trust and responsibility, etc., but also sometimes zero socializing which is kinda weird.



As my company is looking to start bringing people back, I've thought about it and quickly determined that I don't really care if I see any of my colleagues again if that's the trade-off  Even though the organization features teams, there's no real working-side-by-side camaraderie anyway. Also, during this time, management really went out of their way to crack the whip on us and morale is pretty low; adding back the hassle of commute w/fuel costs and losing of the perk of working from home- it's probably not going to go over well. A couple of our competitors during the shutdown actually transitioned nearly all positions that are able to work from home into remote positions- which was smart and therefore something my company won't do.


----------



## thebeesknees22

TedEH said:


> It's officially been a year of working at home. What was supposed to be a short curfew over the holidays now seems to be basically permanent.



Legault will never let people out from under curfew. Not until everyone's been vaccinated and he has no choice. He's on a pretty big power trip and has been for a while.


----------



## TedEH

Demiurge said:


> I don't really care if I see any of my colleagues again if that's the trade-off




Realistically I only really work directly with one person on the team who would be in the same office, and the rest would still be remote anyway. I think the ideal would be if I could stay working at home most days and just come in for occasional checkins, or for all-hands meetings, or just Fridays or something.

Maybe if we went back to offices I'd get use to _that_ again and not want to stay home, who knows.


----------



## zappatton2

Man, my whole thing is wanting to get back to the office! 90% of what I like about my job is the people I work with, and since most of my school friends have moved away, and my family and high-school friends are a six hour (or more) drive away, work accounts for a dominant chunk of my social life. 

I wish Canada wasn't so behind with the vaccine roll-out, after 4 years of America making us look good, we're really returning the favour.


----------



## Demiurge

I work with some really good people, but, alas, there sure is a lot about a workplace that good people alone won't forgive.


----------



## thebeesknees22

zappatton2 said:


> Man, my whole thing is wanting to get back to the office! 90% of what I like about my job is the people I work with, and since most of my school friends have moved away, and my family and high-school friends are a six hour (or more) drive away, work accounts for a dominant chunk of my social life.
> 
> I wish Canada wasn't so behind with the vaccine roll-out, after 4 years of America making us look good, we're really returning the favour.




same. My industry has a pretty ah ...unique work culture. High ball wednesdays. Friday lunch drinks which turn into all night friday going out ...then back to the office the next day when we're doing heavy OT. lol 

Working from home just means we're stuck to our desks 24/7. The one advantage if we did permanent wfh though is that we could move to cheaper areas....but they'd just cut our pay if we do. 

Canada's been pretty abysmal with the vaccine rollouts, but hopefully it'll step into high gear soon. The US won't want it's next door neighbor not fully vaccinated so I'm hoping they'll let Canada become high priority when they get the US side taken care of.


----------



## Ralyks

Trump finally said on Fox News that people should get the vaccine.
About fucking time.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Ralyks said:


> Trump finally said on Fox News that people should get the vaccine.
> About fucking time.



It's only because he's getting some traction in mainstream media that folks should give him credit for the vaccine, as if he whittled it out of an old chair leg himself.


----------



## Wuuthrad

As f****d up as our former Prez was, I am glad he’s not got his head entirely up his own...

well maybe that’s not true after all, but I’m glad he’s actually sending out the right message, even thought it’s self serving, late, and an abomination when considering everything else he’s done ( or hasn’t done) re. Covid.


----------



## Ralyks

MaxOfMetal said:


> It's only because he's getting some traction in mainstream media that folks should give him credit for the vaccine, as if he whittled it out of an old chair leg himself.



Trust me, just because he did the right thing, doesn't mean I forgot who were talking about here. And he still sucks.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Ralyks said:


> Trust me, just because he did the right thing, doesn't mean I forgot who were talking about here. And he still sucks.



Is it really "doing the right thing" this late in the game? Sounds more like doing the absolute bare minimum (possibly less) in hopes of trying to boost his political brand.


----------



## Ralyks

MaxOfMetal said:


> Is it really "doing the right thing" this late in the game? Sounds more like doing the absolute bare minimum (possibly less) in hopes of trying to boost his political brand.



By definition, yes. But sometimes doing the right thing can still be shitty.


----------



## Wuuthrad




----------



## Wuuthrad

Watching the news, many EU countries have banned the use of AstraZeneca vaccine due to a near “0.0002” % chance of blood clots, which is far lower than normal blood clots without a vaccine, also lower than Covid itself, and all this while cases are rising! 

In this case all I can say is USA USA USA. We are (finally) #1! At least in terms of fighting this with vaccines, despite the idiocy of loosening restrictions far too much in some States.


----------



## nightflameauto

My states back on the rise after dropping larger city mask mandates and opening wide open because, "the vaccines are here!" Except, us normies (not elderly or health impacted) can't get it yet unless by some random circumstance. So last weekend we curbsided a pet food order and the Hu Hot next door was packed to the rafters. And they wonder why cases are on the rise again?

Biden was on TV this morning saying in some areas they have a massive surplus of the vaccine because those that have priority are refusing to take it, while large numbers of people that want the vaccine are being turned away because they don't qualify. There's some sort of disconnect there that needs to be worked out.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

nightflameauto said:


> My states back on the rise after dropping larger city mask mandates and opening wide open because, "the vaccines are here!" Except, us normies (not elderly or health impacted) can't get it yet unless by some random circumstance. So last weekend we curbsided a pet food order and the Hu Hot next door was packed to the rafters. And they wonder why cases are on the rise again?
> 
> Biden was on TV this morning saying in some areas they have a massive surplus of the vaccine because those that have priority are refusing to take it, while large numbers of people that want the vaccine are being turned away because they don't qualify. There's some sort of disconnect there that needs to be worked out.



The pandemic is a big, universal problem, something that the federal, not state, government should be handling. 

Imagine if we went to war and every state was given a nebulous amount of equipment and told to just adhere to a basic outline of the strategy. That's sort of what we're doing with the pandemic response and it's a mess. 

The virus doesn't give a shit about our arbitrary borders or politics. 

This is something of a common theme for this country.


----------



## Ralyks

Getting the first jab of the Moderna shot on Friday.


----------



## nightflameauto

MaxOfMetal said:


> The pandemic is a big, universal problem, something that the federal, not state, government should be handling.
> 
> Imagine if we went to war and every state was given a nebulous amount of equipment and told to just adhere to a basic outline of the strategy. That's sort of what we're doing with the pandemic response and it's a mess.
> 
> The virus doesn't give a shit about our arbitrary borders or politics.
> 
> This is something of a common theme for this country.


Even better than that, in some states, like mine, where the Governor insists this just isn't an issue (thanks Noem), it's been left up to mayors and city councils. Our mayor actually did surprisingly well for a while considering his political background, but eventually he either gave up or got scolded for attempting to keep people behaving like adults. I mean, come on, we're a Republican controlled states. How is it gonna look if we behave like adults? The other Republican controlled states might start pulling our pigtails on the playground if we did that!

Sorry if that comes off as catty, but man am I sick of seeing people around me brush this all off as nothing and then wondering why we, statistically speaking, have one of the worst per capita infection and death rates.


----------



## Drew

Ralyks said:


> Trump finally said on Fox News that people should get the vaccine.
> About fucking time.


Oh please. We'd developed a vaccine for COVID-19 within a matter of days of sequencing the RNA for the virus, back in Januarty 2020 when Trump was calling Covid "the new Democratic hoax." He's full of shit.


----------



## Ralyks

Drew said:


> Oh please. We'd developed a vaccine for COVID-19 within a matter of days of sequencing the RNA for the virus, back in Januarty 2020 when Trump was calling Covid "the new Democratic hoax." He's full of shit.



Again, fully aware of who we're talking about and that he's full of shit.


----------



## Drew

Ralyks said:


> Again, fully aware of who we're talking about and that he's full of shit.


Fair. Mostly just venting.


----------



## Wuuthrad

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...biden-covid-vaccines-goal-early-b1819306.html

And despite the naysayers!


----------



## Ralyks

Just got the first moderna jab. Easiest shot I've ever gotten. I feel fine so far. There, now I jinxed myself and will be feeling like death tomorrow.


----------



## Xaios

Ralyks said:


> Just got the first moderna jab. Easiest shot I've ever gotten. I feel fine so far. There, now I jinxed myself and will be feeling like death tomorrow.


You're doomed, I say. *DOOOOOOMED*.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Not sure if anyone else is seeing a significant discrepancy in their covid stimulus pmt ( and maybe this is better suited for the political thread) but my wife and I were counting on a check of $2800 ( $1400 each). Received a letter from Dept of Treasury today that we would be receiving a total of $1200. I just don't get it. Only change to our status from 2019 to 2020 was that I lost my job last year so our income was significantly less in 2020 than in 2019... We bring in well below $100k a year. Wtf? 

Anyone else seeing a discrepancy like this?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

High Plains Drifter said:


> Not sure if anyone else is seeing a significant discrepancy in their covid stimulus pmt ( and maybe this is better suited for the political thread) but my wife and I were counting on a check of $2800 ( $1400 each). Received a letter from Dept of Treasury today that we would be receiving a total of $1200. I just don't get it. Only change to our status from 2019 to 2020 was that I lost my job last year so our income was significantly less in 2020 than in 2019... We bring in well below $100k a year. Wtf?
> 
> Anyone else seeing a discrepancy like this?



A week or so ago I got a statement from the IRS about the _previous_ stimulus, which came to $1200 for my wife and I. Perhaps it's the same notice? We still got the full $2800 with the current stimulus. Check to see if it's the same thing.


----------



## StevenC

Xaios said:


> You're doomed, I say. *DOOOOOOMED*.


----------



## Wuuthrad

High Plains Drifter said:


> Not sure if anyone else is seeing a significant discrepancy in their covid stimulus pmt ( and maybe this is better suited for the political thread) but my wife and I were counting on a check of $2800 ( $1400 each). Received a letter from Dept of Treasury today that we would be receiving a total of $1200. I just don't get it. Only change to our status from 2019 to 2020 was that I lost my job last year so our income was significantly less in 2020 than in 2019... We bring in well below $100k a year. Wtf?
> 
> Anyone else seeing a discrepancy like this?



Yes, same thing happened here. I realized it was just that the payments arrived months before the letter. Basically the letter is regarding your previous payment, and in both cases arrived so much later it was a bit confusing.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

MaxOfMetal said:


> A week or so ago I got a statement from the IRS about the _previous_ stimulus, which came to $1200 for my wife and I. Perhaps it's the same notice? We still got the full $2800 with the current stimulus. Check to see if it's the same thing.





Wuuthrad said:


> Yes, same thing happened here. I realized it was just that the payments arrived months before the letter. Basically the letter is regarding your previous payment, and in both cases arrived so much later it was a bit confusing.



Quoting partial content of the letter: 

"The US Department of the Treasury issued you a second economic impact payment (EIP2) as provided by the COVID-related Tax Relief Act of 2020. 

An EIP2 payment in the amount of $1200.00 was issued by check/debit card."


----------



## MaxOfMetal

High Plains Drifter said:


> Quoting partial content of the letter:
> 
> "The US Department of the Treasury issued you a second economic impact payment (EIP2) as provided by the COVID-related Tax Relief Act of 2020.
> 
> An EIP2 payment in the amount of $1200.00 was issued by check/debit card."



It's 2021. That's talking about the stimulus from the end of last year.


----------



## Ralyks

Yeah, I got a letter about the second stimulus about a month ago. Months after I already got my direct deposit.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

MaxOfMetal said:


> It's 2021. That's talking about the stimulus from the end of last year.



I was almost sure that it was 2021 this year  In my defense though, since the letter was dated 3-12-21 and since we're currently waiting on our stimulus check, the "COVID-related Tax Relief Act of 2020" wasn't exactly assuring that this was regarding last years stimulus. 

Thank you, @MaxOfMetal , @Wuuthrad , and @Ralyks for your replies.


----------



## narad

Wuuthrad said:


> View attachment 91639
> 
> 
> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...biden-covid-vaccines-goal-early-b1819306.html
> 
> And despite the naysayers!



Call me skeptical. That's like a distance of basically 3 full court lengths and frankly Biden was way past his even by the Larry Bird era. He was even impressed by this comparatively trivial Obama throw:


----------



## Wuuthrad

https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/m9et4r/sad_antimasker_karens_sob_me_me_me/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf


----------



## Wuuthrad




----------



## Se7enHeaven

In regard to your first point, if she had a VIRUS, she wouldn't be operating. That's the point... the size of a virus will escape the holes found in masks (hold up your mask to a bright light). In any case, maybe debunk the research:
https://thewallwillfall.org/2020/06...f-science-relevant-to-covid-19-social-policy/

Over 85% of mask wearers (including those driving in cars alone, lol) contract the virus... since it's floating around in the air and get IN your mouth along the sides, under around the chin, etc. Unless your face is sealed, it does nothing. Regardless, I know two medical doctors who contracted it, and they were older and so, did get ill, but shook it within 2-5 days by taking the following (research the dose amounts):

NAC
Queretin
Zinc
Selenium
Vit C & D

Or, trust the gov't and take an injection that is not an actual vaccine (people need to stop calling it that, because if you research what a vaccine is and how they create it, this is not it). But whatever, to each his or her own.


----------



## Se7enHeaven

StevenC said:


> I can't explain how intentionally obtuse and ignorant this is. It would take all day.



Fantastic response... you changed my mind.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

_Just another day in Fucknutsville._


----------



## spudmunkey

Se7enHeaven said:


> In regard to your first point, if she had a VIRUS, she wouldn't be operating.



Not sure what that has to do with anything...everyone always has viruses. There's no such thing as being virus-free. There's also bacteria, but viruses in your body outnumber bacteria 10:1.



Se7enHeaven said:


> That's the point... the size of a virus will escape the holes found in masks (hold up your mask to a bright light)



Again, you're ignoring that the size of the virus is almost irrelevant since it's not wandering without a container, within droplets. You can fit through your home's doorway, but you likely can't if you had to get through it in your car. If nothing else, the force behind the air flow expelled is DRASTICALLY cut down by a face covering. Drape a bed sheet or towel in front of a box fan. The air is smaller than the holes in the sheet, no? And yet, the air pressure and speed is drastically cut on the other side of the sheet. Mu shop vac has a muffler. Without it, anything not caught by the filter is blown out at tens of miles per hour, travelling yards. It's a strong enough airflow that it can be used as a leaf blower (actually advertised as such on the box). With the muffler, the exhaust barely ruffles a pant leg standing right behind it. Anything hoping to catch a wave on it would be in for a short trip.

It's important to also understand that there's been no actual final determination that it's actually *technically* "airborne". That is a specific term beyond just small droplet transmission over short distances. There are some indications that this may have happened, but only in limited cases, where a known-infected person was likely expelling significant amount of particulate within a small-ish area, over a long period of time.



Se7enHeaven said:


> and take an injection that is not an actual vaccine (people need to stop calling it that, because if you research what a vaccine is and how they create it, this is not it). But whatever, to each his or her own.



OK, I did. The Johnson and Johnson vaccine is a viral vector-type vaccine...just like many other vaccines. Yeah, the others are a new type that's never been put on the market before. I don't blame anyone for being hesitant about that aspect.



Se7enHeaven said:


> (including those driving in cars alone, lol)



You'll likely see me regularly like this. You're not supposed to take off and put on your mask over and over, to avoid touching your own face, right? If I've got 3 stops in a row, I'm just going to leave it on. I'm not such a delicate, fragile snowflake that I can't handle it and have to pull it off the moment I'm more than 6ft away from anyone.  On Friday, I'll be picking up my car from the shop, then grocery shopping, then getting my first shot. I'll be putting on my mask before I walk into the mechanic's office, then not taking it off until I've come home and washed my hands. I'm happy for you if that scenario somehow makes you feel superior. 



Se7enHeaven said:


> In any case, maybe debunk the research:



Ugh, that fucking site (Their reporting includes such conspiracies as 9/11 as a false flag operation, and the Charlie Hebdo attack was also staged.

Update Alert 4: Masks for Prevention of Respiratory Virus Infections, Including SARS-CoV-2, in Health Care and Community Settings (nih.gov)

"One study of 16,397 health care workers and first responders (86% health care workers) found that use of an N95 or surgical mask all of the time versus not all of the time was associated with a decreased risk for infection (adjusted OR, 0.83 [CI, 0.72 to 0.95] and 0.86 [CI, 0.75 to 0.98], respectively) (3). In the second study, done in 20 614 asymptomatic health care workers, risk for infection was reduced with any mask use versus no mask use (OR, 0.58 [CI, 0.50 to 0.66]) (4). Findings were consistent when the analysis was stratified by mask type (N95: OR, 0.54 [CI, 0.47 to 0.62] vs. surgical masks: OR, 0.71 [CI, 0.58 to 0.86]). An N95 mask was associated with decreased risk versus a surgical mask (OR, 0.76 [CI, 0.63 to 0.92])."


----------



## sleewell

people get covid who wear masks so they must not work.


man talk about sound scientific reasoning. case closed!!


why is all anti vax "research" usually derived from facebook or youtube??


----------



## p0ke

Wuuthrad said:


> Watching the news, many EU countries have banned the use of AstraZeneca vaccine due to a near “0.0002” % chance of blood clots, which is far lower than normal blood clots without a vaccine, also lower than Covid itself, and all this while cases are rising!



Over here, they just stopped issuing it for a couple of weeks or so until some test results come in, but according to the news it should be back soon since basically all of the UK has been vaccinated with said stuff without issues...


----------



## zappatton2

sleewell said:


> people get covid who wear masks so they must not work.
> 
> 
> man talk about sound scientific reasoning. case closed!!
> 
> 
> why is all anti vax "research" usually derived from facebook or youtube??


I'm sure each of those youtube videos are strenuously peer reviewed, in keeping with the lofty, evidence-based standards of the Q club.


----------



## StevenC

p0ke said:


> Over here, they just stopped issuing it for a couple of weeks or so until some test results come in, but according to the news it should be back soon since basically all of the UK has been vaccinated with said stuff without issues...


There were 37 instances of blood clots out of several million doses given. This repents a lower risk of blood clots than not getting the vaccine.


----------



## diagrammatiks

Se7enHeaven said:


> Fantastic response... you changed my mind.



I mean when people are fucknutstupid you really can't change their mind. 

usually the problem takes care of themselves unless a whole fuckton of them gather in one place and manage to elect a president.


----------



## StevenC

Se7enHeaven said:


> take an injection that is not an actual vaccine (people need to stop calling it that, because if you research what a vaccine is and how they create it, this is not it). But whatever, to each his or her own.


Please explain what this means because people keep saying it, I keep asking for explanations and then they ghost me.

And you lose points if I see the words "gene therapy".


----------



## p0ke

StevenC said:


> There were 37 instances of blood clots out of several million doses given. This repents a lower risk of blood clots than not getting the vaccine.



Yup, but still somehow someone has decided it's connected... It sounds stupid, but hopefully we'll be back on track soon anyway...


----------



## tedtan

tedtan said:


> My wife received the second Moderna dose last week and only experienced some soreness at the injection site and a bit of fatigue the day following the injection. No fever, headaches, etc. that some people have reported.
> 
> I'll let you know how it works out me once I get the second dose in a few weeks.



OK, I've been busy dealing with some property damage after the winter storm hit Texas and knocked power out for a week and playing catch up at work, but I did manage to get the second dose of the Moderna vaccine.

My experience was a sore arm a couple of hours after the shot, then, the second day after the shot, I was really tired for the second half of the day. When I say really tired, I fell asleep after lunch, and I normally cannot take naps/sleep during the day to save my life. But once I woke up on day three, I was fine; no other side effects. Then, a few days later, my arm itched at the injection site for a couple of days and had a mild rash (injection site reactions are pretty common with this vaccine, it seems), but that was it. No nausea, body aches, or anything like that.

My sister and her husband are teachers and received the J&J vaccine and they both had body aches, head aches, fever, chills, etc. the day after the shot, but were fine after that.

I've also had a number of people I know come down with COVID19, a cousin and his wife who both had mild cases, my younger brother and his girlfriend who both had mild cases, and a friend and his wife who both had mild cases. Then I have another cousin and her husband who had much more symptomatic cases, though they didn't need to go to the hospital. But her husband's step father spent three weeks in the hospital with it, and the husbands of two of my wife's sorority sisters have had much more severe cases - one is currently in the hospital, and has been for weeks, and one has passed away.

So from the people I know IRL, that's six mild cases, two symptomatic cases, and three hospitalizations, one of whom passed away.


----------



## Se7enHeaven

StevenC said:


> Please explain what this means because people keep saying it, I keep asking for explanations and then they ghost me.
> 
> And you lose points if I see the words "gene therapy".



Easy... look up how a vaccine is made... and then consider how this one is made and what it does to replace aspect of your DNA. Regardless, you can have my shot if you're all for it. I've had it... I know two doctors who've had it... Quercetin, NAC, Vit C & D, Zinc and Selenium... gone in 2-5 days via all natural means. Those who have died or got very sick all had low Zinc and D levels (both required for a strong immune system). A person is 99.7% capable of fighting any flu (including the CCP virus) via natural means and immunity, whereas there is less chance of NOT getting sick, etc., via the 'vaccine.' Doesn't make sense. If you want to see a video of a military doctor (who studied biological warfare), PM me and I'll dig it up... she warns people not to take it. But, whatever. There are as many who don't want it as those who want it.


----------



## spudmunkey

Se7enHeaven said:


> Easy... look up how a vaccine is made... and then consider how this one is made and what it does to replace aspect of your DNA.



Yeah...take your own advice. There's no "one way" that vaccines are made. Even live attenuated are made multiple ways. There are some literally made from toxins. The mRNA vaccines have zero effect, nor even a mechanism, to "replace aspect of your DNA".



Se7enHeaven said:


> I know two doctors who've had it... Quercetin, NAC, Vit C & D, Zinc and Selenium... gone in 2-5 days via all natural means.



Your anecdotal experiences literally mean almost nothing. Looking at the number of cases vs the number of deaths, you'd have to know, on average, 55 people who tested positive before knowing someone who died from it. I personally know 4 people who've died from it, and I don't even think I know 220 people. Ha! See how "useful" small scale anecdotes are?



Se7enHeaven said:


> Those who have died or got very sick *all *had low Zinc and D levels



[citation needed]

Yeah, D's a big deal. Even Fauci says he takes, and recommends, a D supplement, as surprised as you may be to agree with him. It's well known that Vitamin D deficiencies can be dangerous. Vitamin D deficiencies is actually an officially-declared "epidemic" in the US. Has been for, like, over 10 years if not 20. One of the things that sucks about not having a robust preventative care health system in the US, is that easily-addressed preventative care isn't able to be applied to things like this. Yeah, people who aren't strong enough to fight COVID die from it. And weakening immune systems are a global epidemic. Low D also leads to increases in MS, hypertension, cancers, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis. We'd all be better off with more sunlight (with sunscreen, of course) and more dietary D. Everyone deserves to get more D. As much D as they can handle. OK, now I'm just being silly...


----------



## StevenC

Se7enHeaven said:


> Easy... look up how a vaccine is made... and then consider how this one is made and what it does to replace aspect of your DNA. Regardless, you can have my shot if you're all for it. I've had it... I know two doctors who've had it... Quercetin, NAC, Vit C & D, Zinc and Selenium... gone in 2-5 days via all natural means. Those who have died or got very sick all had low Zinc and D levels (both required for a strong immune system). A person is 99.7% capable of fighting any flu (including the CCP virus) via natural means and immunity, whereas there is less chance of NOT getting sick, etc., via the 'vaccine.' Doesn't make sense. If you want to see a video of a military doctor (who studied biological warfare), PM me and I'll dig it up... she warns people not to take it. But, whatever. There are as many who don't want it as those who want it.


Nope. Not an answer. I've looked it up. What is the mechanism for an mRNA vaccine to change your DNA?

A vaccine is something that gives you immunity to a disease without getting the disease. That has been the definition at least several decades. There are several kinds of vaccines. mRNA vaccines are a new kind, but not the second kind. There are not "traditional" vaccines and mRNA vaccines.

You don't know what you're talking about.

I don't care what some military doctor says. How do you conspiracy folks always confuse what a shill is and who might be doing it?


----------



## Se7enHeaven

StevenC said:


> Nope. Not an answer. I've looked it up. What is the mechanism for an mRNA vaccine to change your DNA?
> 
> A vaccine is something that gives you immunity to a disease without getting the disease. That has been the definition at least several decades. There are several kinds of vaccines. mRNA vaccines are a new kind, but not the second kind. There are not "traditional" vaccines and mRNA vaccines.
> 
> You don't know what you're talking about.
> 
> I don't care what some military doctor says. How do you conspiracy folks always confuse what a shill is and who might be doing it?



We have something in common, since I don't care what you say. I suggest a high school biology book to understand how mRNA works in the body, in repairing and replacing blocks within a person's DNA. And mRNA is a 'method' that has not been tested or proven... be the guinea pig... no skin off my nose.


----------



## StevenC

Se7enHeaven said:


> We have something in common, since I don't care what you say. I suggest a high school biology book to understand how mRNA works in the body, in repairing and replacing blocks within a person's DNA. And mRNA is a 'method' that has not been tested or proven... be the guinea pig... no skin off my nose.


This is just not right.

mRNA are instructions for making things in the body. They are used for synthesising proteins. Please find me a source that they are not for synthesising proteins. mRNA is a code that tells a ribosome what to make. A ribosome is like a 3d printer for molecules. They read the mRNA instructions and print the output. In this case they are used to print the spike protein for the SarsCov-2 virus. Injected mRNA would not survive long enough to penetrate into a human cell nucleus to have any potential to do anything to your DNA.

mRNA vaccines have been in development for 30 years. They've been tested a lot. They've been trialled very thoroughly in the last year and they've been injected into the arms of millions. If they weren't safe we'd know by now. Secondly, there are other non mRNA vaccines on the market and you aren't complaining about them. 

---

Remember a few months ago when the whole worry was that _they _were going to inject everyone with microchips? But then, despite the mRNA vaccine trials being published publicly almost a year ago, once they came to market it was no longer about microchips and it was all about manipulating DNA?

That's how you know this is nonsense.


----------



## Se7enHeaven

StevenC said:


> This is just not right.
> 
> mRNA are instructions for making things in the body. They are used for synthesising proteins. Please find me a source that they are not for synthesising proteins. mRNA is a code that tells a ribosome what to make. A ribosome is like a 3d printer for molecules. They read the mRNA instructions and print the output. In this case they are used to print the spike protein for the SarsCov-2 virus. Injected mRNA would not survive long enough to penetrate into a human cell nucleus to have any potential to do anything to your DNA.
> 
> mRNA vaccines have been in development for 30 years. They've been tested a lot. They've been trialled very thoroughly in the last year and they've been injected into the arms of millions. If they weren't safe we'd know by now. Secondly, there are other non mRNA vaccines on the market and you aren't complaining about them.
> 
> ---
> 
> Remember a few months ago when the whole worry was that _they _were going to inject everyone with microchips? But then, despite the mRNA vaccine trials being published publicly almost a year ago, once they came to market it was no longer about microchips and it was all about manipulating DNA?
> 
> That's how you know this is nonsense.



Completely safe... go take it. Ignore the deaths recorded by the CDC (at least those are the reported cases... among the THOUSANDS of people suffering from severe side effects NOW... and be prepared for ongoing issues years from now, although just try to blame it on the vaccine in the future... tough to do). mRNA sends that information to all your tissues... if you want covid in your testicles and other body parts, then go for it. And don't suggest this cannot happen... where, exactly, is the mRNA in the 'vaccine' going? Only one type of tissues? Trust the gov't... and trust Bill Gates (just ask the families of children who have died from his vaccines in Africa and India... completely safe. Those are not made up numbers... nor are the thousands of children paralyzed. And consider this... if you were a 'case,' then you have antibodies... then why is the gov't pushing for those with antibodies to still get the vaccine? Any idea how deadly that combination can be (as it would be for other diseases)? This has been reported on for years, and THIS particular bullcrap vaccine has NOT been tested, but go ahead... nothing else to say on the subject, as people have made up their minds... half of the world doesn't want it, whereas the other can't wait to get it. But even after getting it, you still have to social distance... you still have to wear a mask. Brilliant mind control.


----------



## TedEH

I don't know where you're getting that information from. Everything the CDC has reported, that I've seen, indicates the vaccine is safe. They have reports of deaths after taking the vaccine but none are attributed to the vaccine itself - given that high-risk, elderly, etc. people were prioritized to get it in most places, it stands to reason that some of the people who get the vaccine will die at some point, vaccine or not. People in this thread say they got it and were fine. I know people who have gotten it and they're fine. There's been hundreds of millions of people given the vaccine - if there was a problem, I'm sure it would have been widely reported by now.

Even if you attributed all of the deaths reported by CDC to be _because of_ the vaccine (which would be stupid), that's still only 0.0018% of people who were at high risk to begin with. The majority of people are not high risk. 

I did some mild googling at this point, and I can't find anything that attributes any deaths to the vaccine.


----------



## spudmunkey

In a total non-sequitur *wink*, I've been on internet forums since 1996, and today is the first time I've ever used an "ignore" function.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

This is what happens when folks get thier news and information from dudes screaming in thier pickup trucks by themselves.


----------



## sleewell

Lol they stormed the Capitol under the promise the kraken would be released. Now that same person is saying no reasonable person should have believed her.


And we are expecting these same gullible uneducated people to understand biology, vaccines and how DNA works.


----------



## SpaceDock

There is a big difference between opinions and disinformation. Can we just ban people who are choosing to spread disinformation, it is safer for everyone.


----------



## StevenC

Se7enHeaven said:


> Completely safe... go take it. Ignore the deaths recorded by the CDC (at least those are the reported cases... among the THOUSANDS of people suffering from severe side effects NOW... and be prepared for ongoing issues years from now, although just try to blame it on the vaccine in the future... tough to do). mRNA sends that information to all your tissues... if you want covid in your testicles and other body parts, then go for it. And don't suggest this cannot happen... where, exactly, is the mRNA in the 'vaccine' going? Only one type of tissues? Trust the gov't... and trust Bill Gates (just ask the families of children who have died from his vaccines in Africa and India... completely safe. Those are not made up numbers... nor are the thousands of children paralyzed. And consider this... if you were a 'case,' then you have antibodies... then why is the gov't pushing for those with antibodies to still get the vaccine? Any idea how deadly that combination can be (as it would be for other diseases)? This has been reported on for years, and THIS particular bullcrap vaccine has NOT been tested, but go ahead... nothing else to say on the subject, as people have made up their minds... half of the world doesn't want it, whereas the other can't wait to get it. But even after getting it, you still have to social distance... you still have to wear a mask. Brilliant mind control.


And I'm the one who needs to read a biology textbook  You're just ignoring everything that's posted.

Look buddy, I appreciate biology is hard; I appreciate science reading comprehension is a whole other language; I understand it can be hard to let go off beliefs; I know it can feel like the world is against you and when you voice your opinion people can be rude to you, I even did it here and I'm sorry. But if you'd really like to talk about this stuff, I'm here to help. PM me any time, I'm not a biologist but part of my job is science communication and I know it's unintuitive sometimes.

I really hope you're ok.

Side note: several of my friends and family have had both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines at this point and I'm slightly impatiently waiting my turn. (AZ is not an mRNA vaccine, so if there is some scheme to change people's DNA, they're not going to do it like that)


----------



## Wuuthrad

Se7enHeaven said:


> Completely safe... go take it. Ignore the deaths recorded by the CDC (at least those are the reported cases... among the THOUSANDS of people suffering from severe side effects NOW... and be prepared for ongoing issues years from now, although just try to blame it on the vaccine in the future... tough to do). mRNA sends that information to all your tissues... if you want covid in your testicles and other body parts, then go for it. And don't suggest this cannot happen... where, exactly, is the mRNA in the 'vaccine' going? Only one type of tissues? Trust the gov't... and trust Bill Gates (just ask the families of children who have died from his vaccines in Africa and India... completely safe. Those are not made up numbers... nor are the thousands of children paralyzed. And consider this... if you were a 'case,' then you have antibodies... then why is the gov't pushing for those with antibodies to still get the vaccine? Any idea how deadly that combination can be (as it would be for other diseases)? This has been reported on for years, and THIS particular bullcrap vaccine has NOT been tested, but go ahead... nothing else to say on the subject, as people have made up their minds... half of the world doesn't want it, whereas the other can't wait to get it. But even after getting it, you still have to social distance... you still have to wear a mask. Brilliant mind control.





Dude you should really consider a career in exposing the years of fraud re. genetic engineering in medical science. 

I’m sure millions of Type1 diabetics would love to hear your “truth” about DNA. 

Btw...


----------



## High Plains Drifter

SpaceDock said:


> There is a big difference between opinions and disinformation. Can we just ban people who are choosing to spread disinformation, it is safer for everyone.



I dunno... These kinds of conspiracy theory posts allow people like @spudmunkey , @StevenC , @Drew , and others to dispute these often erroneous and unsubstantiated claims which can serve as assuring support to other community members.


----------



## SpaceDock

A year later and half million dead Americans, I have zero tolerance for this BS anymore. I tried to have so many of those conversations early on, now these people only serve to validate each other and spread lies.


----------



## Wuuthrad

Here’s some actual scientific research, I guess. Not claiming expertise btw! 

https://www.inverse.com/science/deforestation-disease-outbreak-study


----------



## Se7enHeaven

StevenC said:


> And I'm the one who needs to read a biology textbook  You're just ignoring everything that's posted.
> 
> Look buddy, I appreciate biology is hard; I appreciate science reading comprehension is a whole other language; I understand it can be hard to let go off beliefs; I know it can feel like the world is against you and when you voice your opinion people can be rude to you, I even did it here and I'm sorry. But if you'd really like to talk about this stuff, I'm here to help. PM me any time, I'm not a biologist but part of my job is science communication and I know it's unintuitive sometimes.
> 
> I really hope you're ok.
> 
> Side note: several of my friends and family have had both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines at this point and I'm slightly impatiently waiting my turn. (AZ is not an mRNA vaccine, so if there is some scheme to change people's DNA, they're not going to do it like that)



Go ahead and get it. If mRNA delivers information to cells (all cells of the body... this vaccine does not pick and choose), then just consider all the cells of the body taking up covid information and what that means long-term, particularly in healthy people could easily could fight such a virus... it's idiotic (just like those who already have the antibodies and who are scrambling for the vaccine... it's like having the regular flu and heading to the doctor's for a flu shot... would you do that?). Ignore all the stats at the CDC as well. Does anyone remember Bill Gates giving a speech (you can find it), explaining how the world is over-populated and the best remedy is through vaccination? Very interesting comment, no? And don't tell me that the deaths caused by his polio vaccine (and the mutilations) are not known... India kicked him out of the country, and then just recently welcomed him back with mandatory vaccinations... who's getting paid off? And for those who like to sling around the term 'conspiracy theory,' yes. The FBI worked for years on mafia conspiracies, correct? A conspiracy is a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful. Nothing more, nothing less; it does not mean its true or false, whereas the 'theory' aspect are speculations based on information. Remember the Russia Collusion conspiracy theory that lasted three years, that some on this forum likely bought into? The CIA was ahead of Project Mockingbird, an actual conspiracy that no one denies (it's out in the open and admitted to by the CIA)... at one time it was a theory, and now it's fact. I bet you think the 1 million missing children every year and the massive child porn/prostitution rings are fake 'conspiracy theory,' as well. From my perspective, those ignoring the warning signs and willing to take an UNTESTED vaccine (it's being tested NOW, and people are dying who shouldn't be dying due to their age and health) is amazing to me. When has the gov't done anything for the benefit of the sheeple? Regardless, have at it. Of all the people I know, only about 20% tops talk about taking the vaccine, have no idea Gates' history, no idea that the Rothchilds and Rockefellers are actually responsible for creating the FDA (pushing chemicals while denouncing natural treatments), etc. No conspiracy... simple history not being taught. I'm out... I'll stick to music discussions. Best wishes to everyone. I don't bring up this stuff because I hate mankind (or 'people kind' according to Trudope), but because I'm concerned.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Welp that definitely helped fill out my RWNJ BINGO card.


----------



## spudmunkey

MaxOfMetal said:


> Welp that definitely helped fill out my RWNJ BINGO card.
> 
> View attachment 91862


Ooh, tough card, what with there being no squares for Chy-na, or the W.H.O.


----------



## StevenC

Se7enHeaven said:


> Go ahead and get it. If mRNA delivers information to cells (all cells of the body... this vaccine does not pick and choose), then just consider all the cells of the body taking up covid information and what that means long-term, particularly in healthy people could easily could fight such a virus... it's idiotic (just like those who already have the antibodies and who are scrambling for the vaccine... it's like having the regular flu and heading to the doctor's for a flu shot... would you do that?). Ignore all the stats at the CDC as well. Does anyone remember Bill Gates giving a speech (you can find it), explaining how the world is over-populated and the best remedy is through vaccination? Very interesting comment, no? And don't tell me that the deaths caused by his polio vaccine (and the mutilations) are not known... India kicked him out of the country, and then just recently welcomed him back with mandatory vaccinations... who's getting paid off? And for those who like to sling around the term 'conspiracy theory,' yes. The FBI worked for years on mafia conspiracies, correct? A conspiracy is a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful. Nothing more, nothing less; it does not mean its true or false, whereas the 'theory' aspect are speculations based on information. Remember the Russia Collusion conspiracy theory that lasted three years, that some on this forum likely bought into? The CIA was ahead of Project Mockingbird, an actual conspiracy that no one denies (it's out in the open and admitted to by the CIA)... at one time it was a theory, and now it's fact. I bet you think the 1 million missing children every year and the massive child porn/prostitution rings are fake 'conspiracy theory,' as well. From my perspective, those ignoring the warning signs and willing to take an UNTESTED vaccine (it's being tested NOW, and people are dying who shouldn't be dying due to their age and health) is amazing to me. When has the gov't done anything for the benefit of the sheeple? Regardless, have at it. Of all the people I know, only about 20% tops talk about taking the vaccine, have no idea Gates' history, no idea that the Rothchilds and Rockefellers are actually responsible for creating the FDA (pushing chemicals while denouncing natural treatments), etc. No conspiracy... simple history not being taught. I'm out... I'll stick to music discussions. Best wishes to everyone. I don't bring up this stuff because I hate mankind (or 'people kind' according to Trudope), but because I'm concerned.


mRNA doesn't interact with cells, it interacts with ribosomes as I've already said. It is not long lived enough to travel much further than the injection site and certainly not able to get into a cell nucleus.

Bill Gates was talking about infant mortality. He was talking about the projections for the earth's population and where it will stabilise. We know it'll be between 10 and 15 billion. 10 billion is obviously a better number for all of us. The reason vaccines help achieve this lower number is that they are the best way to tackle infant mortality.

The key problem with high infant mortality rates are that it increases birth rates, but since it is so difficult for parents to predict it increases birth rates past compensation and leads to very large families. These large families in turn have large families and overpopulation becomes an issue. Vaccines are the reason so few children die to preventable diseases in the Western world and a large reason why we have such low infant mortality rates. If you look up birthday rates from any developed nation you will see sharp declines in family sizes over the last 150 years due entirely to medical advances.

Ireland as an example will never reach its pre-famine population because of medical advances. Anecdotally, I've seen family sizes diminish massively in the last few generations here.

Bill Gates did not develop the polio vaccine. The polio vaccine is older than Bill Gates.

Bear in mind I have a different government to you.

Nobody cares if you're hypotheses are conspiracies, people care if they have evidence.


----------



## Se7enHeaven

Jeez, I thought ribosomes were part of cells. "In a eukaryotic cell, a cell with a nucleus, ribosomes begin in a specialized part of the nucleus called the nucleolus. The nucleolus is a cluster of DNA containing genes that carry the code for one ribosomal component, a molecule called ribosomal RNA that is closely related to DNA."


Bill Gates is your friend, and he's currently in charge of world vaccination; he pumped hundreds of millions into Pfizer, Maderna, etc., besides Amazon and Apple, heading projects in reducing sunlight (due to global warming), owns a good percentage of Monsanto (eat that if you wish) and mass surveillance technology. Do you think that's not true and there's no evidence? It's PUBLIC RECORD. Your gov't likely is not 'different,' since just about every world leader (apart from Trump and currently Hungary and Brazil) are for a one-world gov't, heavily influenced by China. The degree of pro-socialism and communism taking place in the 'free world' is astounding (maybe get a subscription to Epoch Times). But I guess that's all conspiracy. By the way, I would like to see proof of what most people say on this thread on many topics, and I don't care what you have to say either, but I support your freedom of speech. However, for some, freedom of speech is great when you want the other party to be quiet.


----------



## StevenC

Se7enHeaven said:


> Jeez, I thought ribosomes were part of cells. "In a eukaryotic cell, a cell with a nucleus, ribosomes begin in a specialized part of the nucleus called the nucleolus. The nucleolus is a cluster of DNA containing genes that carry the code for one ribosomal component, a molecule called ribosomal RNA that is closely related to DNA."
> 
> 
> Bill Gates is your friend, and he's currently in charge of world vaccination; he pumped hundreds of millions into Pfizer, Maderna, etc., besides Amazon and Apple, heading projects in reducing sunlight (due to global warming), owns a good percentage of Monsanto (eat that if you wish) and mass surveillance technology. Do you think that's not true and there's no evidence? It's PUBLIC RECORD. Your gov't likely is not 'different,' since just about every world leader (apart from Trump and currently Hungary and Brazil) are for a one-world gov't, heavily influenced by China. The degree of pro-socialism and communism taking place in the 'free world' is astounding (maybe get a subscription to Epoch Times). But I guess that's all conspiracy. By the way, I would like to see proof of what most people say on this thread on many topics, and I don't care what you have to say either, but I support your freedom of speech. However, for some, freedom of speech is great when you want the other party to be quiet.


I'd be very happy to continue talking to you, but I need you to answer two questions for me, please:

Where do the other non-mrna vaccines come into this conspiracy? That is, if the goal with mRNA vaccines is DNA manipulation, how do viral vector, protein subunit and inactivated vaccines further that end?
Genuinely, what would it take to convince you that your beliefs are wrong?


----------



## diagrammatiks

Se7enHeaven said:


> Jeez, I thought ribosomes were part of cells. "In a eukaryotic cell, a cell with a nucleus, ribosomes begin in a specialized part of the nucleus called the nucleolus. The nucleolus is a cluster of DNA containing genes that carry the code for one ribosomal component, a molecule called ribosomal RNA that is closely related to DNA."
> 
> 
> Bill Gates is your friend, and he's currently in charge of world vaccination; he pumped hundreds of millions into Pfizer, Maderna, etc., besides Amazon and Apple, heading projects in reducing sunlight (due to global warming), owns a good percentage of Monsanto (eat that if you wish) and mass surveillance technology. Do you think that's not true and there's no evidence? It's PUBLIC RECORD. Your gov't likely is not 'different,' since just about every world leader (apart from Trump and currently Hungary and Brazil) are for a one-world gov't, heavily influenced by China. The degree of pro-socialism and communism taking place in the 'free world' is astounding (maybe get a subscription to Epoch Times). But I guess that's all conspiracy. By the way, I would like to see proof of what most people say on this thread on many topics, and I don't care what you have to say either, but I support your freedom of speech. However, for some, freedom of speech is great when you want the other party to be quiet.



I read this whole thing. 

and now I feel sad. and terrible.


----------



## StevenC

SpaceDock said:


> A year later and half million dead Americans, I have zero tolerance for this BS anymore. I tried to have so many of those conversations early on, now these people only serve to validate each other and spread lies.


I totally understand this position and have been there myself lately. This is a really good video I think everyone should watch:



(thumbnail is not serious)


----------



## Se7enHeaven

StevenC said:


> I'd be very happy to continue talking to you, but I need you to answer two questions for me, please:
> 
> Where do the other non-mrna vaccines come into this conspiracy? That is, if the goal with mRNA vaccines is DNA manipulation, how do viral vector, protein subunit and inactivated vaccines further that end?
> Genuinely, what would it take to convince you that your beliefs are wrong?


To answer both questions: 1) provide a list of ingredients for all these vaccines and let me know if you willingly would put that into your body under other circumstances; 2) explain to me why a person who already has anti-bodies or is perfectly healthy (with a 99.7% chance of survival) is encouraged to take the vaccine; 3) why is it that person still has to social distance and wear a mask after getting the vaccine; 4) why are there 'sufficient' number of deaths and severe health issues among people of younger age who should easily be able to combat a flu-type virus; 5) how is it that vaccines take years to develop, yet this one was done in months; 6) how is it that the groups and individuals involved in promoting vaccines so heavily also are founders and investors in vaccine companies (that lobby the gov't and pay out big bucks... ask Cameltoe Harris during her presidential run); 7) why is it that other medications have been proven highly effective, including natural supplements, yet ignored by the media (and, I presume, yourself). I do have many other questions, but back to work. Have a good one.


----------



## Se7enHeaven

StevenC said:


> I totally understand this position and have been there myself lately. This is a really good video I think everyone should watch:
> 
> 
> 
> (thumbnail is not serious)




1. I'm not a conservative... more of a libertarian
2. That video is general in nature, and there are a few blind sheeple videos that should be presented for the other end of the spectrum
3. Go for the vaccine... more power to you and everyone who wants it; I suspect there will be plenty left over for those who want extra doses (by the way, notice the gov't is now suggesting annual vaccinations... vaccination passports (CHINA!!!!!), among other things that will bring in even more money for certain groups and politicians. Hmmm. Nothing to see here folks, just move along. No conspiracy... just listen to the mockingbird news media. It's all there on the idiot tube.


----------



## StevenC

Yep, this has now devolved into lunacy. Sorry for wasting your time.

EDIT: to hell with it, I've come this far


I would not willing inject random preservatives. However, I also wouldn't willingly drink hydrogen peroxide despite it containing all the same stuff as water.
We are unsure how long immunity lasts for. There are some cases of reinfection, though not a significant amount. It is important for people to get vaccinated to reach herd immunity. There is significantly less loss of life involved when otherwise healthy people get vaccinated than hoping to get an light case of it. There are also long term chronic illnesses associated with covid recovery and they are very unpredictable. 
Vaccines take time to work and even then it'll be proper to wear a mask until there is a large portion vaccinated. Basically to protect the unvaccinated. Also vaccine efficacy rates aren't 100% and some vaccines require two doses for their target efficacy.
Because this is far worse than the flu. And it is not a flu, not even the same type of virus. Seems like the higher mortality rate (than would be expected if this were the flu) in young people would be a strong argument in favour of vaccines.
mRNA vaccines take way less time to develop than others, we got lucky here. the AZ vaccine was also adapted from a similar MERS vaccine they were working on. The others are a case of lots of funding and effort because of how important it is for humanity. Finally, companies were allowed to overlap trials to speed up certification, but they still had to complete the first three trials. Stage 4 trials are ongoing as they test for long term effects, and that's why all of the vaccines only have emergency certification.
You mean Dolly Parton? There are loads of vaccine advocates. As many as there are doctors and nurses and immunologists and other biologists. You're talking about 2 or 3 famous people who happen to spend lots of time and money on philanthropy and public health in particular. (Lobbying doesn't quite exist in the rest of the world to the extent it does in America, so this isn't really the case outside of that limited experience.)
Citation needed. There are some incredibly expensive stem cell treatments (what Trump had, who later had the vaccine) and we're starting to develop other effective hospital treatments, but there are currently no "natural supplements" or over the counter treatments.
My best friend is a doctor in a COVID ward, please stop diminishing what's happening and answer the 2 simple questions I asked.


----------



## Se7enHeaven

StevenC said:


> Yep, this has now devolved into lunacy. Sorry for wasting your time.



Have a great day!


----------



## StevenC

Se7enHeaven said:


> Have a great day!


See above


----------



## lurè

You are more likely to die from heart attack during sex then from a vaccine.

Choose one.


----------



## SpaceDock

One of my biggest pet peeves of the last ten years is Republicans calling themselves Libertarians because they don’t want to defend Republicans but have no idea what real libertarian ideals are and act like authoritarians.


----------



## Se7enHeaven

StevenC said:


> See above



For SpaceDock, I'm not a Republican... I'm not even an American. 

As for the post just made, if an argument is partly based on the fallacy of appeal to authority ('my friend is a doctor'), then OK. I know more medical professionals than other types of people, having worked with physicians, surgeons, oncologists, periodontists and chiropractors (and I did some lecturing with them in different capacities). You can look up my name (Brian D. Johnston) and see that I am a professional contributor with the Merck Manual, found in every physician's office in North America (you also can find me on the online version if you don't have a hardcover version... or ask your doctor friend). I'm not completely oblivious to this issue and know far more people in the medical field who are refusing the vaccine than those desiring to take it (about 80-90% refusal). No idea of your friend's hospital, but I do know of several hospitals that are not overrun with covid issues, and mostly are empty because of surgeries being postponed (I would bet more people have died from postponed and delayed surgeries... and medical neglect... than from covid... my mother being one of them, who passed May 19, 2020).

As for as more likely dying from a heart attack during sex than a vaccine, sounds good to me, although hopefully after I cum. There's also a higher risk of dying in a car accident, from cancer, from suicide, from accidents in the home, drug overdose, etc., etc., than dying from Covid, yet the world does not seem hell bent on correcting those issues any time soon and putting people in a panic as a result. You can find stats here: https://www.worldometers.info/ It's interesting that between Jan 1st and March 31st, 2020, about 21,297 people died from covid... 113,034 from the flu... but no flu pandemic (and, miraculously, flu has all disappeared, but I bet many 'covid' deaths since then are from the flu)... 9,913,702 deaths from abortion (no pandemic).

I'm done with this thread, and so do continue on in good health and best wishes. I merely wanted to share a few points and people can make up their own minds and do their own research.


----------



## TedEH

Se7enHeaven said:


> You can find stats here: https://www.worldometers.info/ It's interesting that between Jan 1st and March 31st, 2020, about 21,297 people died from covid... 113,034 from the flu... but no flu pandemic (and, miraculously, flu has all disappeared, but I bet many 'covid' deaths since then are from the flu)... 9,913,702 deaths from abortion (no pandemic).


You're comparing a few months of covid to a whole year of flu. Covid has been around for just about a year, and has killed 2.7 million people. THAT's the number to compare to 113034. Not the number from a small selection of months at the beginning of the pandemic.


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## SpaceDock




----------



## sleewell

Trump tells woodward this is way more deadly than the flu.


Months later trump fans still saying it's the same as the flu.


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## Wuuthrad

https://mashable.com/article/disinformation-dozen-study-anti-vaxxers/




^ Fake news? Fake names?

Subscribe to my upcoming YT channel to learn more about the evil VAX microchips, because the more money I make the more Truth you deserve!


----------



## spudmunkey

Weird how nearly all of them have vested financial interests in alternative medicine, cures, etc...and yet few who believe their messaging will apply the same hesitation logic as they do about billionaires who are involved in research, etc, as previously mentioned by @StevenC here https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-222#post-5258140



Wuuthrad said:


> https://mashable.com/article/disinformation-dozen-study-anti-vaxxers/
> 
> View attachment 91887
> 
> 
> ^ Fake news? Fake names?
> 
> Subscribe to my upcoming YT channel to learn more about the evil VAX microchips, because the more money I make the more Truth you deserve!


----------



## StevenC

Se7enHeaven said:


> For SpaceDock, I'm not a Republican... I'm not even an American.
> 
> As for the post just made, if an argument is partly based on the fallacy of appeal to authority ('my friend is a doctor'), then OK. I know more medical professionals than other types of people, having worked with physicians, surgeons, oncologists, periodontists and chiropractors (and I did some lecturing with them in different capacities). You can look up my name (Brian D. Johnston) and see that I am a professional contributor with the Merck Manual, found in every physician's office in North America (you also can find me on the online version if you don't have a hardcover version... or ask your doctor friend). I'm not completely oblivious to this issue and know far more people in the medical field who are refusing the vaccine than those desiring to take it (about 80-90% refusal). No idea of your friend's hospital, but I do know of several hospitals that are not overrun with covid issues, and mostly are empty because of surgeries being postponed (I would bet more people have died from postponed and delayed surgeries... and medical neglect... than from covid... my mother being one of them, who passed May 19, 2020).
> 
> As for as more likely dying from a heart attack during sex than a vaccine, sounds good to me, although hopefully after I cum. There's also a higher risk of dying in a car accident, from cancer, from suicide, from accidents in the home, drug overdose, etc., etc., than dying from Covid, yet the world does not seem hell bent on correcting those issues any time soon and putting people in a panic as a result. You can find stats here: https://www.worldometers.info/ It's interesting that between Jan 1st and March 31st, 2020, about 21,297 people died from covid... 113,034 from the flu... but no flu pandemic (and, miraculously, flu has all disappeared, but I bet many 'covid' deaths since then are from the flu)... 9,913,702 deaths from abortion (no pandemic).
> 
> I'm done with this thread, and so do continue on in good health and best wishes. I merely wanted to share a few points and people can make up their own minds and do their own research.


More than all the other stuff you've said, I need to point out that chiropractic in particular is bunk. I don't give a damn who you are or what you've done if you think including such a quack in a list of medical professionals is reasonable.

I try not to insult people, so I'll just say your inability to answer to simple questions about your beliefs has become clearer.


----------



## narad

lurè said:


> You are more likely to die from heart attack during sex then from a vaccine.
> 
> Choose one.



Checkmate incels.


----------



## narad

SpaceDock said:


> One of my biggest pet peeves of the last ten years is Republicans calling themselves Libertarians because they don’t want to defend Republicans but have no idea what real libertarian ideals are and act like authoritarians.



Ah, but the new definition of a libertarian is a republican that argues fringe views in the political sections of guitar forums (and has likely been banned from TGP).


----------



## Wuuthrad

Is this nut job trying to Troll a real life Doctor?


----------



## Drew

High Plains Drifter said:


> I dunno... These kinds of conspiracy theory posts allow people like @spudmunkey , @StevenC , @Drew , and others to dispute these often erroneous and unsubstantiated claims which can serve as assuring support to other community members.


Idunno man, it's pretty fucking exhausting to have to keep doing it, and I have, like, a day job and an album I'd rather be working on.  

There have been a couple reported deaths from the AstraZeneca mRNA vaccine, but nothing from any of the others that I've heard yet. There have been _plenty_ of side effects, but febrile symptoms after an anti-viral shot that inoculates against a fever are so common that anyone who wasn't expecting some sort of febrile response from their immune system as it's learning to attack a new virus hasn't been paying attention. I've heard of zero other symptoms though, again aside from the handful of AZ clotting related deaths. Same tired old Gates anti-vax lies about India and Africa, though, can we maybe get our anti-vaxxers to try a little harder? This shit is getting boring.


----------



## Drew

Funny thing, and kind of a telling stat here... Coming into the vaccination push, the concern was mostly engagement with Black and Latinx communities, many of whom have had ample reasons to be distrustful of the government over the years, and have often lacked the economic flexibility to do things like go to a clinic in the middle of a weekday afternoon. That hasn't really been the case at all, however - there's been a strong response, certainly helped by outreach efforts, but also by a population that has borne a disproportionate brunt of the pandemic and desperately wants protection. 

Where we HAVE struggled to get people vaccination, oddly (and I mean not oddly at all), has been white conservative men, particularly older white conservative men. That's Trump's legacy, folks. :/


----------



## MFB

Drew said:


> [...] and an album I'd rather be working on.



I feel like I've seen this before, but where?!


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Drew said:


> Idunno man, it's pretty fucking exhausting to have to keep doing it, and I have, like, a day job and an album I'd rather be working on.



Understood and very much appreciated.


----------



## StevenC

Drew said:


> Idunno man, it's pretty fucking exhausting to have to keep doing it, and I have, like, a day job and an album I'd rather be working on.
> 
> There have been a couple reported deaths from the AstraZeneca mRNA vaccine, but nothing from any of the others that I've heard yet. There have been _plenty_ of side effects, but febrile symptoms after an anti-viral shot that inoculates against a fever are so common that anyone who wasn't expecting some sort of febrile response from their immune system as it's learning to attack a new virus hasn't been paying attention. I've heard of zero other symptoms though, again aside from the handful of AZ clotting related deaths. Same tired old Gates anti-vax lies about India and Africa, though, can we maybe get our anti-vaxxers to try a little harder? This shit is getting boring.


Quick correction: AZ is not an mRNA vaccine, it's a viral vector.


----------



## TedEH

Dude gave up on this thread, but for some reason has kept DMing me with claims about all stats being fake and having deflections for any possible question.


----------



## spudmunkey

TedEH said:


> Dude gave up on this thread, but for some reason has kept DMing me with claims about all stats being fake and having deflections for any possible question.



Oof...yeah...glad I blocked.


----------



## TedEH

You can block? I know you can ignore, but I've never blocked someone from DMs before.


----------



## Xaios

TedEH said:


> Dude gave up on this thread, but for some reason has kept DMing me with claims about all stats being fake and having deflections for any possible question.


Post screenshots. _Please_.


----------



## narad

StevenC said:


> Quick correction: AZ is not an mRNA vaccine, it's a viral vector.



Now you're just naming Haken albums. Nice try.


----------



## StevenC

narad said:


> Now you're just naming Haken albums. Nice try.


I have an affinity for that band, yes, but the mountain of puns is purely coincidental.


----------



## Wuuthrad

When is anecdote not proof? Well, at least it something...Word of mouth is usually good enough for this old school fella anyway, and one of the easiest ways to sort through the BS imo, so here’s mine:

Had both shots of Moderna and felt nothing but some soreness in my arm after the first shot. I’m not the #1 in the health category either, but I said to myself hey it’s a necessary immune booster, I probably need it at this point, and more importantly is contributing to “stopping the spread.”

Imagine if the former POTUS had only come out with “Stop the Spread” instead of that other BS he was grifting on...

If anyone still on the fence:


----------



## TedEH

Xaios said:


> Post screenshots. _Please_.


I'm too lazy for screenshots, and need not make too much more drama than necessary, but it's what you think it is: 90% of covid deaths are "actually the flu", which "comes directly from the CDC" except that also "all the stats are fake". It's all being faked so that Gates can sell you a vaccine and hospitals can get paid for treating 'rona patients. I tried to ask how that explains the extra 2 million people dead, and every time I asked it was diverted into more of the same talking points, the word "scamdemic", and a link to healthimpactnews-dot-com that has all the same talking points on it (I dug around a little bit, it's a _goldmine_ of religion-tinted nutjobbery written by a guy who started as a coconut oil salesman).


----------



## Xaios

TedEH said:


> I dug around a little bit, it's a _goldmine_ of religion-tinted nutjobbery written by a guy who started as a coconut oil salesman


I got an inkling that the religious angle would play into it when he started giving the whole "one world government orchestrated by the Chinese, and only Trump and Bolsonaro are fighting back" spiel. Even as a Christian myself, I tend to regard anyone who starts railing about that particular topic as someone who's watched "Left Behind" too many times (by which I mean watched it at all without either facepalming or breaking out into hysteric laughter).


----------



## spudmunkey

TedEH said:


> I'm too lazy for screenshots, and need not make too much more drama than necessary, but it's what you think it is: 90% of covid deaths are "actually the flu", which "comes directly from the CDC" except that also "all the stats are fake". It's all being faked so that Gates can sell you a vaccine and hospitals can get paid for treating 'rona patients. I tried to ask how that explains the extra 2 million people dead, and every time I asked it was diverted into more of the same talking points, the word "scamdemic", and a link to healthimpactnews-dot-com that has all the same talking points on it (I dug around a little bit, it's a _goldmine_ of religion-tinted nutjobbery written by a guy who started as a coconut oil salesman).



Still not curious enough to unblock, but wondering if he acklowdged ANY of the undisputable questions? In the video be posted that i first responded to, she's lying about even small things like, "Now, THIS is TB mask, and it's a 'serious' mask. Not just an N95."...when the exact photo she's using is exactly just one company's design for an N95...nothing special. 

That's the thing that always gets me...you can go back and forth about the reliability of sources for data...but then when you can show them things that are indisputably misleading (purposefully or otherwise), they just dart off in the other direction with, "What bout THIS?!" without ever acknowledging they were wrong about ANYTHING. Reminds me a lot of Trump, actually. He'll say something demonstrably wrong, will be shown the actual fact, and then changes subject, without ever back to it until he just repeats it again, to someone else.


----------



## TedEH

Lol why even ask? You already know how the conversation went without me elaborating.


----------



## Drew

MFB said:


> I feel like I've seen this before, but where?!


Here, 10 years ago?  

I really am chipping away though. I'll probably just do an EP rather than a full length, but I have a couple mostly written songs, right down to the solo sections, and a couple more that are getting there. It's fun to be working again.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

The amount of people with zero post secondary education going off on social media that masks and vaccines are programming us not to think critically, calling forced vaccinations "rape" and "slavery" ignoring the fact you needed vaccines to enroll in public schools.


----------



## diagrammatiks

Dineley said:


> The amount of people with zero post secondary education going off on social media that masks and vaccines are programming us not to think critically, calling forced vaccinations "rape" and "slavery" ignoring the fact you needed vaccines to enroll in public schools.



you're being super friggin kind that post secondary is all they are missing.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

diagrammatiks said:


> you're being super friggin kind that post secondary is all they are missing.



oh 100% on that just i know some of them graduated highschool with me lol


----------



## diagrammatiks

Dineley said:


> oh 100% on that just i know some of them graduated highschool with me lol



But then again the world literally takes all kinds.

My mom is in charge of a small investment fund that is primarily about bio-tech research, vaccines, preventative medicines etc...
she literally believes that doctors lie to you to sell medicine. vaccines other then the ones that are state mandated to go to school are unnecessary and fake. they passed on hpv research because people shouldn't be having sex before marriage or for recreational purposes. 
literally makes no sense.


----------



## TedEH

I feel like part of what makes weird conspiracy nonsense so pervasive is that there are slivers of truth to it. I think it would be naive to think that nothing sketchy ever happens in medicine or in politics or business or technology or whatever else have you. I've got what I think is a healthy distrust of doctors who aren't specialists, politicians in general, etc etc.

The trick is recognizing that doesn't make _every_ sketchy theory true.


----------



## lurè

There's no 100% accuracy and 0% risks in any aspect of life, from vaccines and medicines to going outside and being struck by a lightning.


----------



## nightflameauto

StevenC said:


> I have an affinity for that band, yes, but the mountain of puns is purely coincidental.


OMG! It all makes sense now!

"Spare me your obsolete empathy.
The voice of sympathy means nothing to me."

Trump is simply the Cockroach King, attempting to utilize the Virus to bring on Affinity, while skipping over all the unnecessary technological progress that was foretold.

There's a conspiracy theory brewing there that would make Qanon look like an extremely reluctant story teller.


----------



## StevenC

nightflameauto said:


> OMG! It all makes sense now!
> 
> "Spare me your obsolete empathy.
> The voice of sympathy means nothing to me."
> 
> Trump is simply the Cockroach King, attempting to utilize the Virus to bring on Affinity, while skipping over all the unnecessary technological progress that was foretold.
> 
> There's a conspiracy theory brewing there that would make Qanon look like an extremely reluctant story teller.


Qanon is the protagonist from Visions.


----------



## michael_bolton

very entertaining thread  

if anyone has any gas left in the tank (not to be confused with GAS) - can someone explain to me like I'm 3 - this covid shot how does it work in layman terms? I get that it's not a conventional vaccine where you get a micro dose of the virus for your body to develop antibodies to fight the real deal if you catch it... dafuq is it then, has it been done before? feel free to post a link to somewhere where this is explained


----------



## TedEH

michael_bolton said:


> can someone explain to me like I'm 3 - this covid shot how does it work in layman terms? I get that it's not a conventional vaccine where you get a micro dose of the virus for your body to develop antibodies to fight the real deal if you catch it...


My understanding (and I could be very wrong about this), is that this _is_ the same concept as normal vaccines. You're either getting a component of, or something very similar to, the material the virus is made of so that the body can learn how to fight it.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/how-they-work.html


----------



## StevenC

michael_bolton said:


> very entertaining thread
> 
> if anyone has any gas left in the tank (not to be confused with GAS) - can someone explain to me like I'm 3 - this covid shot how does it work in layman terms? I get that it's not a conventional vaccine where you get a micro dose of the virus for your body to develop antibodies to fight the real deal if you catch it... dafuq is it then, has it been done before? feel free to post a link to somewhere where this is explained


First, that's not exactly how regular vaccines work. Here's a better one: vaccines aim to expose you to the markers (antigens) of a virus. They do this in different ways but the main ways are by exposing you to either a weakened version of the virus itself or tacking the marker onto some other molecule that is even safer to inject. Your body then learns to fight this marker.

An analogy would be if the virus is a guy with a gun, scientists beat and tie up the bad guy so that he's still holding his gun then inject him into your body. Your immune system then finishes the bad guy off and learns to recognize the gun. (or in the case of viral vector it's an arm with a gun on a cardboard cut out.)

mRNA vaccines (two of the several covid vaccines; Pfizer and Moderna) work on the same principle of exposing you to this marker, but instead of injecting a virus they give you the messages for your body to create just the marker part of the virus and none of the rest of it.

Connecting that to the previous analogy, your body has a bunch of 3D printers for cells. These new vaccines include the instructions for those 3D printers to print out the arm with the gun and your body learns to recognize arms with guns and how to deal with them.


----------



## michael_bolton

StevenC said:


> instead of injecting a virus they give you the messages for your body to create just the marker part of the virus and none of the rest of it.



gotcha. cool. so these messages - I'm guessing this is where the "this is not a vaccine but instead some substance telling your "body"* to produce something and then fight it" type deal coming from.

*body - what exactly are we talking here (I heard DNA but reading this thread sounds like that might be incorrect)? has this type of thing been tried before?


----------



## StevenC

michael_bolton said:


> gotcha. cool. so these messages - I'm guessing this is where the "this is not a vaccine but instead some substance telling your "body"* to produce something and then fight it" type deal coming from.
> 
> *body - what exactly are we talking here (I heard DNA but reading this thread sounds like that might be incorrect)? has this type of thing been tried before?


This is a brand new technology in the sense that we've finally got it working after 30 years of research and development.

Yes, the substance in this vaccine is not what your immune system responds to, unlike other vaccines.

Specifically, mRNA is read by things called ribosomes (our 3D printers). Ribosomes create amino acids and combine them into proteins, according to the instructions on the mRNA they are reading. This is how most stuff in your body is made. DNA, mRNA and ribosomes are not the same things but work together as integral parts of all living things. DNA is the genetic code of a living thing, all living things have DNA and it's all the same stuff (that's why, for example, GMOs work with genes from different organisms). This genetic code is where the mRNA gets its instructions (this is why mRNA therapy is revolutionary, because once a virus's DNA is sequenced the mRNA to make the vaccine can be made, which is much quicker than other kinds of vaccine). The mRNA is what then gets read by the ribosomes which produce proteins that express our genetics.

Crucially, it's a one way street. DNA->mRNA->ribosomes, injecting foreign mRNA can't alter DNA but it can make ribosomes produce a different protein. In this case, the spike protein of the virus.


----------



## michael_bolton

StevenC said:


> ...
> Crucially, it's a one way street. DNA->mRNA->ribosomes, injecting foreign mRNA can't alter DNA but it can make ribosomes produce a different protein. In this case, the spike protein of the virus.



ok cool. so that substance in the vaccine is mRNA that is telling the ribosomes to produce a part of the virus that then is attacked by the body. nothing is changed on the DNA level or is permanent. sounds pretty logical with the only downside (at least on the psychological level) being that this is new tech.

from the perspective of this being effective. with flu shots - you need to get a new one once a year or whatever since it is mutating and so they give you a new strain so your immune system knows whatsup. with this mrna approach - does the resulting virus fragment produced by the ribosomes match a specific version of covid? 

speaking of effectiveness - are there numbers showing that you're better off with a vaccine vs not getting a shot - in terms of your chances of getting sick/being able to fight it off? reason I'm asking is I also hear things like "it's less effective compared to traditional vaccines" etc.


----------



## StevenC

michael_bolton said:


> ok cool. so that substance in the vaccine is mRNA that is telling the ribosomes to produce a part of the virus that then is attacked by the body. nothing is changed on the DNA level or is permanent. sounds pretty logical with the only downside (at least on the psychological level) being that this is new tech.
> 
> from the perspective of this being effective. with flu shots - you need to get a new one once a year or whatever since it is mutating and so they give you a new strain so your immune system knows whatsup. with this mrna approach - does the resulting virus fragment produced by the ribosomes match a specific version of covid?
> 
> speaking of effectiveness - are there numbers showing that you're better off with a vaccine vs not getting a shot - in terms of your chances of getting sick/being able to fight it off? reason I'm asking is I also hear things like "it's less effective compared to traditional vaccines" etc.


Yes to your first paragraph. mRNA can't live very long in the body, otherwise bad things would happen, so that isn't a significant worry in my opinion (not an biologist/immunologist though).

With regards to the flu, the reason you need to get the vaccine every year is because current flu vaccines attack a specific part of the flu virus that mutates frequently (the head). This also leads to many active strains at once, hence why the flu vaccine has a lower efficacy rate than other vaccines. There have been some recent breakthroughs in the search for a universal flu vaccine that attack parts that mutate less frequently (the stalk). mRNA vaccines may also be able to do this more trivially, but I'm not sure and the latest breakthrough in that regard is not a mRNA based.

So the answer to your second paragraph is it depends. The UK variant has a spike mutation but it relates to the number of spikes, so the vaccines are working on it. I'm not sure about the nature of the other current variants, but some vaccines seem to work on them and some at different efficacy rates. If the spike doesn't change, the vaccine will work; if the spike changes a small amount or in a way irrelevant to the immune response, the vaccine should still work to an extent.

You are better off getting any vaccine of those approved in most countries (I'm personally wary of the Sputnik vaccine because they're not publishing much data) than not getting vaccinated. The numbers for which are the most effective vaccines don't fully exist yet. Different trials measured slightly different things and presented their results slightly differently so the headlines are hard to compare. We need much longer term data before anyone can make that claim, but it seems the best case scenarios have the mRNA vaccines as effective or more so than the best non-mRNA vaccines (I classify them as mRNA and non-mRNA because that is more useful and less nebulous than "traditional"). All the data shows that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are probably some of the better vaccines and give a very good level of protection compared to any of the other available vaccines and, for comparison, way better than any flu shot ever made.


----------



## profwoot

Yeah that spike protein is how covid gains access to our cells to begin with, so the vaccines targeting that protein were expected to be relatively robust against viral mutations, since no matter what else mutates the spike protein will still be there to induce an immune response, and if the spike protein itself mutates, its ability to actually infect us might be compromised.

That's a simplistic explanation but it has basically held up so far, as far as I've seen (not my field either).

Edit: Ope StevenC already covered this. My bad. 

Might as well add that the covid vaccines seem to be very effective at relieving symptoms in people with long-haul covid, and the vaccines like J&J that are somewhat less effective at preventing infection are still extremely effective in preventing an infection from causing serious symptoms. This isn't generally true of vaccines and I'm not sure if the specialists have figured out what's up with that.


----------



## Wuuthrad

_R-WANKERS (finally) WAKING UP!?_

Enough already! AMIR? Even she’s in on it! 

https://uproxx.com/viral/sarah-palin-covid-positive-pro-mask-pro-vaccine/


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Wuuthrad said:


> _R-WANKERS (finally) WAKING UP!?_
> 
> Enough already! AMIR? Even she’s in on it!
> 
> https://uproxx.com/viral/sarah-palin-covid-positive-pro-mask-pro-vaccine/
> 
> View attachment 92062



More of pragmatism than an "awakening". 

There's a reason the narrative is shifting towards "thank Trump for bestowing the vaccine upon us" vs. "Liberal hoax", and it has everything to do with the realization that they need to frame this as a GOP win to both save face in 2022 and make sure that thier constituents live that long. 

The "now that I've experienced it first hand, I truly understand the meaning of Christmas" storyline is sexy. It's got a total made for TV movie appeal vs. "Fuck! We didn't think this through. Pivot!" 

Unsurprisingly, Palin has been hinting at a return to politics. Nice timing, huh?


----------



## SpaceDock

Wife just got first shot today and Colorado opening up vaccines to anyone over 16 on Friday. I think low adoption rates by repubtards is giving me an early opportunity. Darwinism at its finest, they don’t want to protect themselves... I’m over it at this point.


----------



## Xaios

SpaceDock said:


> Wife just got first shot today and Colorado opening up vaccines to anyone over 16 on Friday. I think low adoption rates by repubtards is giving me an early opportunity. Darwinism at its finest, they don’t want to protect themselves... I’m over it at this point.


The nice thing about being vaccinated is at least we don't have to worry nearly as much about them hurting us personally (although we're obviously still cognizant of the effect they'll have on vulnerable people). I get my second shot on Monday next week, definitely looking forward to being done with this.


----------



## Drew

Read an interesting and sort of depressing story about Chile and their Covid experience today - the short version is they have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, and accordingly are pushing ahead with a reopening. Except, the reopening is ahead of pace relative to the vaccination, and they've suddenly gotten a worsening surge on their hands. 

We appear tobe in the _early_ phases of that here in the states, as well: 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html

...with the Northeast and Upper Midwest being the two hotspots. :/


----------



## Demiurge

^Yeah, people are starting to lighten-up on precautions because of the vaccine even though they haven't gotten it yet. The high-risk people who got their shots aren't exactly the same people poised to crowd the bars, restaurants, etc.


----------



## TedEH

Quebec curfew is being moved back to 8pm again.


----------



## sleewell

got a notification i could have gotten my first shot on 4/7 but we are going to be in FL so hopefully ill get it when we get back.


----------



## Xaios

TedEH said:


> Quebec curfew is being moved back to 8pm again.


I feel for you. We've been pretty lucky in the Yukon, there haven't been more than a handful of cases at the time, but hearing the news from BC, it's a similar story. They're closing down bars and restaurants again for 3 weeks due to the surge which seems to be driven by the variant strain.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Demiurge said:


> The high-risk people who got their shots aren't exactly the same people poised to crowd the bars, restaurants, etc.



That's probably been my biggest critique of the whole vaccine roll-out.


----------



## tedtan

TedEH said:


> I'm too lazy for screenshots, and need not make too much more drama than necessary, but it's what you think it is: 90% of covid deaths are "actually the flu", which "comes directly from the CDC" except that also "all the stats are fake". It's all being faked so that Gates can sell you a vaccine and hospitals can get paid for treating 'rona patients. I tried to ask how that explains the extra 2 million people dead, and every time I asked it was diverted into more of the same talking points, the word "scamdemic", and a link to healthimpactnews-dot-com that has all the same talking points on it (I dug around a little bit, it's a _goldmine_ of religion-tinted nutjobbery written by a guy who started as a snake oil salesman).



FTFY.


----------



## StevenC

Demiurge said:


> ^Yeah, people are starting to lighten-up on precautions because of the vaccine even though they haven't gotten it yet. The high-risk people who got their shots aren't exactly the same people poised to crowd the bars, restaurants, etc.


Having worked in a bar until the pandemic, I couldn't describe a higher risk group of people. But maybe bars are different in the rest of the world.


----------



## Drew

MaxOfMetal said:


> That's probably been my biggest critique of the whole vaccine roll-out.


Eh, it makes sense to take care of the people statistically something like 10x more likely to die from an infection and 50x more likely to have severe symptoms, before the ones who bear like a tenth the risk of death and a fiftieth the risk of ending up in the hospital, purely from a minimizing harm/strain on medical resources standpoint. 

That said, there HAS been a surprise uptick in older patrons going out to bars and restaurants now that they've been vaccinated.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Drew said:


> Eh, it makes sense to take care of the people statistically something like 10x more likely to die from an infection and 50x more likely to have severe symptoms, before the ones who bear like a tenth the risk of death and a fiftieth the risk of ending up in the hospital, purely from a minimizing harm/strain on medical resources standpoint.
> 
> That said, there HAS been a surprise uptick in older patrons going out to bars and restaurants now that they've been vaccinated.



I get that, but it also helps to reduce overall infection in the long run, which would be better served by vaccinating folks who can't just chill at home on Zoom (retail employees, factory workers, rideshare/public transit workers, etc.). 

I'm all for vaccinating those at greater risk of a fatal infection, but I think there are outside factors that can be potentially just as deadly long-term.


----------



## Drew

MaxOfMetal said:


> I get that, but it also helps to reduce overall infection in the long run, which would be better served by vaccinating folks who can't just chill at home on Zoom (retail employees, factory workers, rideshare/public transit workers, etc.).
> 
> I'm all for vaccinating those at greater risk of a fatal infection, but I think there are outside factors that can be potentially just as deadly long-term.


Yeah, thats why - at least here in Mass - retail and service workers got priority treatment in our second tier, and why we included health care professionals who were literally on the front line of treating the pandemic in the first. 

I mean, I get that there's a lot of variation from state to state, and maybe Wisconsin just did an abnormally shitty job (or MA did an abnormally good one), but Mass, at least, has been pretty thoughtul in how we've rolled out the vaccine, and I'm confident that we're in a much better position today for that than if we'd just distributed the same number of doses in a semi-random free for all, and I say semi random because it would be skewed towards those best able to secure sign-up spots - younger, more tech savvy, and with more flexible schedules. 

Believe me, I'd love to be vaccinated by now, too. But I also fully understand why there were a lot of people who were at higher risk, either behaviorally or medically, than I was, and who needed to be vaccinated first.


----------



## vilk

Walking past the pharmacy on the way to the grocery store, they have a sandwich board out front that says "now giving vaccines", I walk in and ask to be put on the leftover list, boom 3 hours later they call me up and now I'm vaccinated johnson & johnson one and done. It was free.


----------



## Metropolis

vilk said:


> Walking past the pharmacy on the way to the grocery store, they have a sandwich board out front that says "now giving vaccines", I walk in and ask to be put on the leftover list, boom 3 hours later they call me up and now I'm vaccinated johnson & johnson one and done. It was free.



What... I had to look at calendar, it's not april fools anymore.

When you live in a country where is strict vaccination order, and vaccines are held as hostage by local government and healthcare. It's just an unefficient shit show of bureaucracy. And of course vaccines are purchased in co-operation with European Union.


----------



## vilk

Metropolis said:


> What... I had to look at calendar, it's not april fools anymore.
> 
> When you live in a country where is strict vaccination order, and vaccines are held as hostage by local government and healthcare. It's just an unefficient shit show of bureaucracy. And of course vaccines are purchased in co-operation with European Union.


That's why I asked to be put on the list for whatever is left over after that days appointments. People cancel, people forget, people watch a YouTube video and chicken out, but they have to use those shots once thawed, that day. This is how my mother was able to get vaccinated early as well. Most places giving the vaccine have a list of people who they can call to get whatever amount of vaccine is left at the end of the day. I certainly wasn't expecting them to call me only 3 hours later, I was actually like 5 beers deep lol but it's walking distance for me.


----------



## Metropolis

vilk said:


> That's why I asked to be put on the list for whatever is left over after that days appointments. People cancel, people forget, people watch a YouTube video and chicken out, but they have to use those shots once thawed, that day. This is how my mother was able to get vaccinated early as well. Most places giving the vaccine have a list of people who they can call to get whatever amount of vaccine is left at the end of the day. I certainly wasn't expecting them to call me only 3 hours later, I was actually like 5 beers deep lol but it's walking distance for me.



In here if someone cancels vaccine is just given to next person in line, and you can't make an appointment for that.


----------



## diagrammatiks

Metropolis said:


> In here if someone cancels vaccine is just given to next person in line, and you can't make an appointment for that.



It’s after the entire day is done since they can’t unfreeze the doses again or something. 

seems weird but lots of places in America are doing it now.


----------



## Drew

diagrammatiks said:


> It’s after the entire day is done since they can’t unfreeze the doses again or something.
> 
> seems weird but lots of places in America are doing it now.


Yeah, it makes sense - if the vaccine isn't used within a couple hours of coming back to room temp, it spoils, and a vaccine in anyone's arm beats a vaccine in the trash. 

How likely you are to get a dose this way really varies locally, though - I'm on the last at two hospitals, thanks to my girlfriend and another cycling buddy, have been for a mont or two, and am still waiting - again, here in Massachusetts, I'm in a high population density and highly educated area with a high percentage of health care and biotech workers, so anti-vax fear hasn't really got much of a foothold, and demand for the vaccine is sky high. Every once in a while someone does get lucky though.


----------



## Wuuthrad




----------



## Shoeless_jose

I get my first shot Tuesday. Sadly was able to qualify for being fat before I qualified as an essential worker (food processing/agriculture)


----------



## nightflameauto

I've been on the waiting list for end-of-day shots at one of our clinics and have been for over a month and haven't been contacted. Luckily, this week our state opened up vaccine appointments for anyone over sixteen, so the wife and I have appointments Thursday at 1:30. Finally.


----------



## JSanta

Second shot knocked me on my ass about 15 hours after the injection, and lasting about 10 hours from that point. But after 25 hours or so in total, it was like nothing had happened. 

Unpleasant experience, 10/10 would recommend.


----------



## Necris

Fully vaccinated as of Saturday. At about 3am Sunday, a bit more than 12 hours after getting the vaccine, I woke up because my toes and fingers were absolutely freezing; it was basically a significantly more uncomfortable version of what usually happens when I start to get sick. I put on more layers of socks and took some acetaminophen and went back to sleep and it had mostly subsided by the time I woke up again. For the rest of the day I was just dealing with muscular aches, which were probably due more to exercise than the vaccine though I do think the vaccine made them more pronounced than normal. Today I woke up feeling fine, the injection site is just a bit sore if I touch it.


----------



## Drew

And in a rather hilarious twist I get my first shot Wednesday, because the updated CDC guidance drops the risk requirements from two comorbidities to one, adjusts the weight risk factor from a BMI of "obese" to one of "overweight," and BMI is a uselessly broad, imprecise metric that doesn't take body composition into account, and I'm now eligible because as someone who rides up mountains as fast as he can for fun, I just carry a fuckload more leg muscle mass than your average American.


----------



## zappatton2

Caught a bit of the Jays game in Texas, wow, do they _ever _just not care.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

zappatton2 said:


> Caught a bit of the Jays game in Texas, wow, do they _ever _just not care.



I've been fully vaccd since the 8th of last month and I still wear mine... double most times. But yeah... I see more and more ppl have now given up even trying to utilize a little common sense and humanity. It's just too much to ask of them... sigh.


----------



## zappatton2

And of course I should say, I certainly don't mean "they" to imply all Texans, I've no doubt there's a huge chunk of the State watching in horror. But leadership on the matter, or the complete lack thereof, tends to bring out the predictable offenders, and the virus just gets that much more leverage to spread and potentially mutate into something worse.


----------



## SpaceDock

I still just don’t get the a-holes that don’t understand that personal restraint for the community is a positive thing. Do they just drink and drive? Only not because they will get a ticket?


----------



## spudmunkey

SpaceDock said:


> I still just don’t get the a-holes that don’t understand that personal restraint for the community is a positive thing. Do they just drink and drive? Only not because they will get a ticket?



There's likely a significant cross-over with Christians, many of whom believe that atheists can't possibly actually be good people because they don't fear hell or God's wrath, so they clearly must not have any _reason _to be "good".


----------



## High Plains Drifter

zappatton2 said:


> And of course I should say, I certainly don't mean "they" to imply all Texans, I've no doubt there's a huge chunk of the State watching in horror. But leadership on the matter, or the complete lack thereof, tends to bring out the predictable offenders, and the virus just gets that much more leverage to spread and potentially mutate into something worse.



I think you're getting a fairly accurate picture. Texas is all about herd mentality... not herd immunity. In places that still encourage masks, you see almost everyone wearing one but in places where you can get away without one, the number of unmasked people is a lot higher. Seems that it's more about appearance than it is about conscience... Can't have your redneck buddies thinking you look silly.


----------



## bostjan

Just got my first dose yesterday at noon. Felt great afterward, until about 4 hours later, when I just felt super tired. Woke up this morning feeling like I never slept. Other tgan tired, I feel normal, though.


----------



## Xaios

I got my second dose on Monday. The side effects I experienced were pretty much the same as the first dose. Sore arm, stiffness the next day and weird dreams. Aside from my arm being tender to the touch, I'm pretty much back to normal. Feels good to be fully vaccinated!


----------



## Demiurge

My wife & I secured appointments to receive MT-2 Nano on "everybody's eligible" day. It's a relief.


----------



## mastapimp

bostjan said:


> Just got my first dose yesterday at noon. Felt great afterward, until about 4 hours later, when I just felt super tired. Woke up this morning feeling like I never slept. Other tgan tired, I feel normal, though.


I got my first Pfizer shot on Friday evening. By bedtime the injection site was sore, but no other symptoms. Sore arm lasted a day and a half and didn't stop me from playing guitar or mowing the grass/yard work the day after the shot. Completely back to normal by Sunday afternoon.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Other *tgan *tired, I feel normal, though.


I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself.  

Got my first shot about two hours ago. I'm pushing fluids and waiting to see what happens.


----------



## wankerness

I just got second moderna shot. After the first one, the next couple days, I felt much more tired than normal. Also felt like I'd been punched in the arm those two days, and couldn't sleep on that side. But, didn't ever feel SICK. I expect to maybe get knocked on my butt by this one, though. With my parents, one of them got a one day flu, basically, and the other didn't really have any side effects. But I think they're worse the younger you are, on average. Whatever.

I'm looking forward to being functionally immune. I'd much rather have a couple days of soreness and possible fever or something than a possible lifetime of reduced lung capacity! I have lots of coworkers that are refusing to get it saying "i'm not putting something untested in my body!! we don't know the long-term effects!" They're universally right-wingers, of course. I'm always tempted to go off on them about refusing Trump's Vaccine and how much disrespect they're showing to god emperor Trump.

Anyway, even with the few that aren't saying it in bad faith cause they're being brainwashed by Facebook morons and Fox News, that seems like a silly fear. I'll take not knowing the longterm effects (but being pretty assured there aren't any negative ones) over knowing that there are definitely often bad longterm effects from NOT getting it and contracting coronavirus!


----------



## thraxil

It's weird. Google's stats are showing that 47% of the UK population has had at least one dose of vaccine (with 8% fully vaccinated) vs 33% (and 19%) in the US. But I only know one person here who has had a dose (because she works with disabled children and counts as a "carer") and as an under-50 person with no comorbities it doesn't look like I'll be elligible for maybe months. Meanwhile it seems like everyone I know in the US is already getting vaccinated. Not complaining; it's just odd.


----------



## StevenC

thraxil said:


> It's weird. Google's stats are showing that 47% of the UK population has had at least one dose of vaccine (with 8% fully vaccinated) vs 33% (and 19%) in the US. But I only know one person here who has had a dose (because she works with disabled children and counts as a "carer") and as an under-50 person with no comorbities it doesn't look like I'll be elligible for maybe months. Meanwhile it seems like everyone I know in the US is already getting vaccinated. Not complaining; it's just odd.


Yeah, it's weird because of the way the UK and US are governed. The vaccine is being given to anyone over 40 in Wales, for example and in Northern Ireland everyone I know over 50 has gotten the first or been offered an appointment. Plus all the doctors, nurses etc have gotten their second doses by now. Over 50s plus essential staff makes more than 50% of our population. Then in the US you have states with loads of random eligibility criteria.


----------



## mmr007

They announced this morning on MSNBC (the final word on everything) that states with the strictest mask mandates are seeing the biggest spikes in COVID cases while those that have dropped mandates and restrictions are seeing the biggest drop in cases. I swear I thought I was on FOX or OAN News...but nope. So today I will go maskless...AND...I won't wear a seatbelt. And I may or may not wear clean underwear.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mmr007 said:


> They announced this morning on MSNBC (the final word on everything) that states with the strictest mask mandates are seeing the biggest spikes in COVID cases while those that have dropped mandates and restrictions are seeing the biggest drop in cases. I swear I thought I was on FOX or OAN News...but nope. So today I will go maskless...AND...I won't wear a seatbelt. And I may or may not wear clean underwear.



Mandates are useless without enforcement. 

We had a mandate out here until recently, but even the Sheriff said he wouldn't enforce, so no one wore masks. 

Though, keep in mind, it's sort of like seeing a bunch of sick people at a hospital and saying that hospitals make people sick. Areas with mask mandates tend to be more prone to infection through other factors, like population density. 

But then you have the "x factor" that is testing. Just because an area has more positive tests doesn't necessarily mean it has more infections, it just means more tests. 

Vaccination rates will also tip things. Folks who are vaccinated, even if they haven't waited for full efficacy, are acting as if they're completely immune. I've seen that first hand.


----------



## profwoot

Got my 2nd jab of Moderna on Tuesday and managed to be functional for teaching yesterday, with only some mild and short-lived wooziness (and some mild soreness at the injection site and, today, a decent amount of swelling/tenderness of the ipsilateral axillary lymph nodes). Thank science.

Regarding the current pattern of cases, it makes some sense if one remembers that the more backwards states also tend to be the warmer ones, so cases remain higher where it's colder despite mask mandates. I assume some people are nevertheless claiming this proves that masks don't work, but if there's one thing the last year _has_ proven it's the power of motivated reasoning.


----------



## nightflameauto

Going for my first poke today a little after lunch. I took the rest of today and tomorrow off in case I have any negative reactions. If I don't I have plenty of guitar stuff to do at home. If I do I'll just sleep it off or veg on the couch until I feel better.

FWIW, our area has seen an increase in cases due to those getting their first poke thinking they're done now and can do whatever they want. I've heard more than a few saying they're finally able to hug their kids/grandkids again the day after their first shot, and stop wearing masks anywhere it's not required because "it's over now." It's not universal, but there's enough folks doing it to cause a noticeable increase in cases. Even with our near complete lack of testing data.


----------



## ElRay

mmr007 said:


> ... states with the strictest mask mandates are seeing the biggest spikes ...


Citation? Unless MSNBC started doing scientific research, they're a NEWS reporting station, not a source of scientific data/analysis.

As previous stated, "Mask Mandates" have nothing to do with mask wearing, and like the people with the poorest health and/or diet are the ones most likely to be taking vitamins, non-compliance can lead to increased mandates. The closest thing I could find to support this actually started with OAN (in the US) mischaracterizing a CDC report. The CDC report said absolutely nothing about the effectiveness of masks and was very explicit that they were exclusively talking about a correlation between mandates from March 1st through December 31st, 2020. Simple comments:

Correlation does not imply causation.
There's a lot of dynamics in that time period that could easily drown-out the effects of mandates.

Correlation does not imply causation.
Numbers will increase exponentially/geometrically, so obviously changes "now" will be bigger than changes "then"
Correlation does not imply causation.
Mask mandates are not equivalent to mask wearing.
Correlation does not imply causation.
A quick consult with Dr. Google turns-up a simple NEWS article from November explaining why the interpretation is flawed:
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-...-a-spike-in-covid-19-infections-idUSKBN2802W4

Finally, all the data supports that wearing masks reduce transmission rates, period, ESPECIALLY THE LATEST DATA.


----------



## mmr007

Omg where is an 80’s drill sergeant when you need one. I simply stated that there was a weird through the looking glass moment on the news where they stated that it appeared we were in opposite world and that things were trending in reverse to what had been the norm. I thought my comments could easily be seen as not a serious attempt to rewrite covid safety protocols.


----------



## fantom

thraxil said:


> It's weird. Google's stats are showing that 47% of the UK population has had at least one dose of vaccine (with 8% fully vaccinated) vs 33% (and 19%) in the US. But I only know one person here who has had a dose (because she works with disabled children and counts as a "carer") and as an under-50 person with no comorbities it doesn't look like I'll be elligible for maybe months. Meanwhile it seems like everyone I know in the US is already getting vaccinated. Not complaining; it's just odd.


The only people I know in bay area that have been vaccinated are health care workers, over 60, or lied about their occupation up until a week ago. Now I know 3 younger people who just went to a vaccination site and waited in the overflow line.

My point is: most people I know are still not vaccinated or eligible.


----------



## spudmunkey

fantom said:


> The only people I know in bay area that have been vaccinated are health care workers, over 60, or lied about their occupation up until a week ago. Now I know 3 younger people who just went to a vaccination site and waited in the overflow line.
> 
> My point is: most people I know are still not vaccinated or eligible.



I don't know many people, but I and my girlfriend are in the Bay Area, we both have our 2nd shot next week at a chain pharmacy. When we got out firs tone, there were only 2 people ahead of us in line. We're both under 50, I have no job to lie about. We were in-and-out in 20 minutes (15 of those minutes was the recommended "sitting in a chair after the shot to see if there's any immediate allergic reactions" time, and 3 minutes of it was because a couple originally from Sri Lanka (they were telling their life story very loudly), who brought their puppy in a duffel bag, spent time taking photos of the process slowing things down, and then a few "couples" photos...while blocking the exit from the area where people were getting shots, backing things up there). Also, all 4 of the people from my last job that I still keep in regular contact with are all vaccinated, and all under 50. They mostly work from home, and any on-site work is HIGHLY "secure" in terms of disinfection protocol, mask and distancing enforcement, etc.

Note: The above is not to "argue" with your point, just offering up another anecdote. Granted, the plural of "anecdote" isn't necessarily "data", but...well...not sure where I was going with that...


----------



## spudmunkey

mmr007 said:


> They announced this morning on MSNBC (the final word on everything) that states with the strictest mask mandates are seeing the biggest spikes in COVID cases while those that have dropped mandates and restrictions are seeing the biggest drop in cases. I swear I thought I was on FOX or OAN News...but nope. So today I will go maskless...AND...I won't wear a seatbelt. And I may or may not wear clean underwear.



I can't seem to find a link to this report, even on their own website searching "mask". Do you happen to have any context from the report that could help my seartch? I can only seem to find stat-after-stat about how once you go down to county levels, counties which have mandates do better than those that don't. State-wide isn't a very useful metric for something like this. Better than "nation v nation" trends, but falls apart a bit when you look closer.


----------



## Wuuthrad




----------



## Shoeless_jose

I read about 40% of new covid cases are from 5 states.

New York, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Florida. 

Article here https://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny...0210406-drxlb777lvfzviqvufl75otfhe-story.html


----------



## Wuuthrad




----------



## Wuuthrad

#1 Covid Vax sideFX


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Dineley said:


> I read about 40% of new covid cases are from 5 states.
> 
> New York, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Florida.
> 
> Article here https://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny...0210406-drxlb777lvfzviqvufl75otfhe-story.html



I think this breakdown is a bit more insightful:

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/states-comparison

Case numbers are a percentage of tests, if you don't test you skew the numbers. 

So a state like Rhode Island who is testing the crap out of population, but returning fairly low overall new confirmed cases is less scary than, for example, South Dakota, who isn't really doing much testing but the proportion of those tested is coming back positive far more frequently.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

MaxOfMetal said:


> I think this breakdown is a bit more insightful:
> 
> https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/states-comparison
> 
> Case numbers are a percentage of tests, if you don't test you skew the numbers.
> 
> So a state like Rhode Island who is testing the crap out of population, but returning fairly low overall new confirmed cases is less scary than, for example, South Dakota, who isn't really doing much testing but the proportion of those tested is coming back positive far more frequently.




Fair enough for me too NY and NJ make sense to be high on list due to lots of testing and super dense population. And Florida there cause its anarchy.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Dineley said:


> Fair enough for me too NY and NJ make sense to be high on list due to lots of testing and super dense population. And Florida there cause its anarchy.



I think the only thing keeping California and Texas off the list is how good and bad each is doing as far as restrictions and testing respectively.


----------



## spudmunkey

MaxOfMetal said:


> I think the only thing keeping California and Texas off the list is how good and bad each is doing as far as restrictions and testing respectively.



California is an interesting case. It's not just "cities vs rural". SoCal _seems_ to be much different than the San Francisco area, for example.


----------



## fantom

spudmunkey said:


> I don't know many people, but I and my girlfriend are in the Bay Area, we both have our 2nd shot next week at a chain pharmacy. When we got out firs tone, there were only 2 people ahead of us in line. We're both under 50, I have no job to lie about. We were in-and-out in 20 minutes (15 of those minutes was the recommended "sitting in a chair after the shot to see if there's any immediate allergic reactions" time, and 3 minutes of it was because a couple originally from Sri Lanka (they were telling their life story very loudly), who brought their puppy in a duffel bag, spent time taking photos of the process slowing things down, and then a few "couples" photos...while blocking the exit from the area where people were getting shots, backing things up there). Also, all 4 of the people from my last job that I still keep in regular contact with are all vaccinated, and all under 50. They mostly work from home, and any on-site work is HIGHLY "secure" in terms of disinfection protocol, mask and distancing enforcement, etc.
> 
> Note: The above is not to "argue" with your point, just offering up another anecdote. Granted, the plural of "anecdote" isn't necessarily "data", but...well...not sure where I was going with that...



Good info. How did you make an appointment? Or did you just show up? Every pharmacy I try says I'm not eligible still.



spudmunkey said:


> California is an interesting case. It's not just "cities vs rural". SoCal _seems_ to be much different than the San Francisco area, for example.



Ya, one of my co-workers just drove to Salinas and had no trouble getting a dose there. I've also seen appointments north of Napa.


----------



## spudmunkey

fantom said:


> Good info. How did you make an appointment? Or did you just show up? Every pharmacy I try says I'm not eligible still.



CVS. I did have to look at a location about 15 minutes away, driving past two other locations.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Here in the US, people may also want to check Walmart Pharmacy https://www.walmart.com/cp/1228302

I've been fully vaccinated for over a month but my wife hasn't even had her first jab yet. Ever since vaccinations opened up to +16, we've been searching every few days at 6 locations within a 50 mile radius.

Then last night an appointment at one of those Walmart pharmacies came up but I missed it because within the time it took ( maybe one minute) to complete the application, it got snatched up. At that point I realized that I was going to have to put in some marathon refresh sessions if I was going to get her scheduled. So I spent a lot of time over the past 24 hours continuously checking those locations closest to us. 

Finally tonight while refreshing... about a dozen open appointments showed up all at once here at our local Walmart pharmacy just a couple miles away! All of them were for the same day, Thurs April 15. So we quickly picked one of the afternoon slots and booked it. My wife is so absolutely relieved and ecstatic to finally be on the schedule now but it certainly took a good deal of time to get her on the list.


----------



## Drew

Drew said:


> Got my first shot about two hours ago. I'm pushing fluids and waiting to see what happens.


~48 hour update - some muscle soreness in my upper bicep the night of and day after the shot, worse than a typical flu shot but not nearly as bad as I was expecting, and today I've got some lymph node tenderness in my underarm, but nothing bad at all. Certainly didn't keep me off my road bike yesterday.


----------



## profwoot

Check out this story of the woman responsible for the tech used in the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/08/health/coronavirus-mrna-kariko.html

I relate to this so hard. My research doesn't involve anything so useful but I'm one of the vast majority of scientists who decide it's not worth spending most of one's time begging for money from short-sighted gatekeepers. It really sucks that we make it so hard for scientists that our success stories are those of people capable of enduring endless bullshit. 

On the other hand, I found a job where I get to teach very smart and motivated students and publish here and there on projects that don't require a ton of funding, while reserving some time to make music (or, you know, play video games). So I can't complain on a personal level. But the whole system still needs to be exploded.


----------



## Demiurge

I'm already starting to fret breaking bad habits started during lockdown. 

Let's just say, I remember starting the lockdown snacking on Cadbury Mini-Eggs, and I find myself doing the same, into the 13th month.


----------



## thebeesknees22

Demiurge said:


> I'm already starting to fret breaking bad habits started during lockdown.
> 
> Let's just say, I remember starting the lockdown snacking on Cadbury Mini-Eggs, and I find myself doing the same, into the 13th month.



for me it's coffee....I'm drinking like 6...7 cups a day.. I get so tired sitting in my apartment ...so I have a cup...then another...and another.... ...and another.... rinse/repeat.


----------



## SpaceDock

Bam, got my J&J shot! Putting this shit in the rear view mirror. Time to get back to my hobbies of using dive bar restrooms and making out with strangers.


----------



## spudmunkey

SpaceDock said:


> Bam, got my J&J shot! Putting this shit in the rear


Huh, I thought it was an arm shot like the others.




> ...view mirror.


----------



## sleewell

Been in Florida for a week now. No restrictions. Been great. 

Going back to Michigan later today. Gov is talking about another lockdown after the last one basically just ended. To me that is more foolishness. Most of the recent cases have been through youth sports which they will never stop so she is just destroying our economy. 

It's just odd. Kinda would rather be in Florida to be honest.


----------



## zappatton2

Whelp, a good friend of mine just lost her Dad to this. This makes it all the more visceral to me, especially my anger at the people who think mask mandates are a civil rights violation. From a browse of my Facebook feed, it seems to come from the sorts of folks who have no idea what a real civil rights violation actually looks like.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

SpaceDock said:


> Bam, got my J&J shot! Putting this shit in the rear view mirror. Time to get back to my hobbies of using dive bar restrooms and making out with strangers.




I hear you. Anytime I listen to The Strokes I crave getting loaded and sweating on random folks while I get footloose haha


----------



## Drew

sleewell said:


> Been in Florida for a week now. No restrictions. Been great.
> 
> Going back to Michigan later today. Gov is talking about another lockdown after the last one basically just ended. To me that is more foolishness. Most of the recent cases have been through youth sports which they will never stop so she is just destroying our economy.
> 
> It's just odd. Kinda would rather be in Florida to be honest.


You've seen what's happening with Michigan case counts, right? Your state is the current font line of the pandemic, with more new cases than either New York, Texas, or California, or any other state in the union, on a _much_ smaller population base.

You SHOULD be locking down again, and you SHOULD be putting a temporary halt to youth athletics. You guys are getting hammered.


----------



## linthat22

Drew said:


> You've seen what's happening with Michigan case counts, right? Your state is the current font line of the pandemic, with more new cases than either New York, Texas, or California, or any other state in the union, on a _much_ smaller population base.
> 
> You SHOULD be locking down again, and you SHOULD be putting a temporary halt to youth athletics. You guys are getting hammered.



The problem is that we don't know if the numbers are even true, because Whitmer hasn't been the most honest. I have friends that work for the largest medical group in west Michigan and even they have shared with me that their internal charts don't show any spikes or capacity being an issue at any of the hospitals.

It's very telling that Michigan is skyrocketing, yet states that are wide open have seen massive reductions.


----------



## SpaceDock

Here we go again: fake numbers, fake virus.


----------



## spudmunkey

linthat22 said:


> It's very telling that Michigan is skyrocketing, yet states that are wide open have seen massive reductions.



It's not that simple.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

I’m scheduled to get my first round on Thursday, Moderna for me. Someone I work with Mother caught it and didn’t survive. So I asked her if she is getting the vaccine. She made up one excuse after the other why she isn’t going to get it. That’s pretty fucking moronic. Her partner is considered high risk too!!!


----------



## linthat22

SpaceDock said:


> Here we go again: fake numbers, fake virus.



I didn't say fake virus, because we know it's real. I'm just giving my first hand account of what information has been shared with me. Plus it's not beyond the realm of plausibility that the numbers we're being told are being mis-counted. And I'm just referring to Michigan only as I can't speak for other areas.


----------



## SpaceDock

linthat22 said:


> I didn't say fake virus, because we know it's real. I'm just giving my first hand account of what information has been shared with me. Plus it's not beyond the realm of plausibility that the numbers we're being told are being mis-counted. And I'm just referring to Michigan only as I can't speak for other areas.



Because it totally makes sense that Whitmer would shut down the reopening, screw her own economy, and potentially fire up more crazies to kidnap and murder her all just to make it look like there are more cases than there really are.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

SpaceDock said:


> Because it totally makes sense that Whitmer would shut down the reopening, screw her own economy, and potentially fire up more crazies to kidnap and murder her all just to make it look like there are more cases than there really are.




Step 3 profit!


----------



## _MonSTeR_

Had my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine this morning. Feels like I got punched in the shoulder for a ‘dead arm’ like when we were kids! The cat and I took a nap this afternoon. but so far (fingers crossed) I feel fine!


----------



## fantom

So what does everyone think about Michigan calling for more vaccines to hotspots (aka, asking for more vaccines for themselves)?

I mean, I get it from a statistics standpoint. Send more to places with higher case rates. But it ignores the social aspect entirely. People all over the country are waiting to be allowed to get a vaccine. Many of them aren't visiting family, taking vacations, or leaving their house outside of essentials. The fact that people who are taking more risks are possibly going to be prioritized sounds completely unfair to me.

My thought is that vaccines should be distributed evenly per capita. We should not enable governors to lift restrictions, realize their case rates get out of control, then demand higher vaccine doses sent to their hotspots. It is the wrong behavior to incentivize.


----------



## thebeesknees22

@fantom
well... that answer I believe... is complicated.

True they are willingly putting themselves at a higher risk. But on the other hand due to them putting themselves at higher risk it increases the chance at another new variant emerging. As the virus spreads more, it increases the chances of new variants. New variants put everyone at risk.

So on one hand it's not good that they aren't being cautious. But due to their lack of respect for others, they need to be vaccinated as soon as possible, because the likely hood of them creating a new variant is higher. 

It's not fair. But the world isn't fair and we need to get this under control asap one way or another. As much as I would like to people pay for their own stupidity, it puts everyone at more risk. So I'd rather just get the hot spots taken care of as soon as possible. 

My 2 cents anyway. We're still free to be angry with them. but hot spots need to be vaccinated asap.


----------



## Mathemagician

Did the 1-shot J&J other than soreness around the area it’s fine. Can’t even be sure it was the shot as I worked out the day before. 

Honestly just hoping that even the “doubters” change their minds and just go do the one-shot versus doing nothing, if only so they can go “seeeee are you haaaapppy nooow?”


----------



## fantom

thebeesknees22 said:


> @fantom
> well... that answer I believe... is complicated.
> 
> True they are willingly putting themselves at a higher risk. But on the other hand due to them putting themselves at higher risk it increases the chance at another new variant emerging. As the virus spreads more, it increases the chances of new variants. New variants put everyone at risk.
> 
> So on one hand it's not good that they aren't being cautious. But due to their lack of respect for others, they need to be vaccinated as soon as possible, because the likely hood of them creating a new variant is higher.
> 
> It's not fair. But the world isn't fair and we need to get this under control asap one way or another. As much as I would like to people pay for their own stupidity, it puts everyone at more risk. So I'd rather just get the hot spots taken care of as soon as possible.
> 
> My 2 cents anyway. We're still free to be angry with them. but hot spots need to be vaccinated asap.


Ya, I get the statistics explanation. They should have some type of cost though. At this point, vaccines are in demand, asking for more should cost your tax payers, whether it is financially or via some other means (such as forced community service).


----------



## linthat22

SpaceDock said:


> Because it totally makes sense that Whitmer would shut down the reopening, screw her own economy, and potentially fire up more crazies to kidnap and murder her all just to make it look like there are more cases than there really are.



Dude, that's exactly what she did. When the lawmakers took away her power, she circumvented the system and used the DHHS underling to keep her measures in place. Is it any wonder that she's been asking for a federal bail outs due to her mishandling of the state? 

Just for instance, in her last Friday address, one of the points she made was that restaurants were part responsible for the spike. If you ever go into a restaurant in Michigan it's madness. Mask on as soon as you enter till you sit at your table, no one is around you, the waiting staff are fully masked, etc etc. It's not different than the ridiculousness the kids deal with at school.

From what's been reported, Whitmer followed the same guidelines as Cuomo and put sick people in nursing homes when they shouldn't have. This even went against multiple guidelines. So of course, the numbers will spike. Couple her unfavorable status with the crazies you outlined (which ended up being an FBI honeypot) and yes, you're going to have people question her motives and actions. Just unfortunate that the willful idiots that went along with the FBI plot, went along with it. I think any rational person would know that trying to kidnap a governor is going to look negative, regardless of the situation. But that's what the FBI and CIA do......


----------



## spudmunkey

linthat22 said:


> (which ended up being an FBI honeypot)
> [...] the FBI plot,



[_Citation needed_]


----------



## Drew

linthat22 said:


> The problem is that we don't know if the numbers are even true, because Whitmer hasn't been the most honest. I have friends that work for the largest medical group in west Michigan and even they have shared with me that their internal charts don't show any spikes or capacity being an issue at any of the hospitals.
> 
> It's very telling that Michigan is skyrocketing, yet states that are wide open have seen massive reductions.


Just, no. 

EDIT - here, the NY Times reports both top-level data reported by the state, and county-level data, reported by individual counties and usually in advance of the state numbers. I just checked, for kicks, and the state level data was actually about five cases _low_ compared to what the counties are reporting. 

Pandemic fatigue is a real thing, I'm ready to be done with this too, it sucks. I get it.. but the fastest way to get this over with is to stop looking for excuses to pretend that we're _not_ starting to lose ground to the pandemic again, and you guys are front and center in the fight against one of the highly contagious new variants. Pretending this is all some made-up political ploy is a sure-fire way to ensure things are going to get worse, not better.


----------



## linthat22

spudmunkey said:


> [_Citation needed_]



https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/1...en-an-fbi-entrapment-of-a-bunch-of-crackpots/

Ask and you shall receive.


----------



## linthat22

Drew said:


> Just, no.
> 
> EDIT - here, the NY Times reports both top-level data reported by the state, and county-level data, reported by individual counties and usually in advance of the state numbers. I just checked, for kicks, and the state level data was actually about five cases _low_ compared to what the counties are reporting.
> 
> Pandemic fatigue is a real thing, I'm ready to be done with this too, it sucks. I get it.. but the fastest way to get this over with is to stop looking for excuses to pretend that we're _not_ starting to lose ground to the pandemic again, and you guys are front and center in the fight against one of the highly contagious new variants. Pretending this is all some made-up political ploy is a sure-fire way to ensure things are going to get worse, not better.



*edit* didn't see you added more after the fact, so I'm retracting my initial comment.

After reading your comment, I hate to say that this pandemic has been used as a political football. When Trump was in office everyone inflated the numbers to make him look bad. Now we're post-Trump and the numbers are still growing but with less criticism (no more death count on CNN). 

Let's think about this logically for Michigan. Restaurants were able to open up at half capacity not to long ago (on top of the many that closed their doors forever), the bulk of children's sports have been cancelled statewide (along with marathons and bowling tournaments), most schools have been doing face to face learning with strict protocols, all retailers require a mask before entering for anything, and yet all those things the state mandated are the causes?

You're correct that fatigue is real, but there's been plenty of shenanigans that should make anyone sceptical at this point.

*Last edit* this will be my last post in this thread. Just wanted to provide another aspect from a Michigan standpoint and I know everyone has a valid viewpoint and/or opinion.


----------



## BigViolin

The conspiracy theory thing is out of control.

I couldn't even drop an amp off at UPS without hearing about the big corps being responsible for the virus because it's so good for business.


----------



## SpaceDock

linthat22 said:


> (no more death count on CNN).



Actually watching CNN right now with the total death count 562,062 on the screen.


----------



## linthat22

SpaceDock said:


> Actually watching CNN right now with the total death count 562,062 on the screen.



Dammit, going against my last comment. They were initially removed until called out on it. Thank you for letting me know they're back on.


----------



## spudmunkey

linthat22 said:


> https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/1...en-an-fbi-entrapment-of-a-bunch-of-crackpots/
> 
> Ask and you shall receive.



Did...did you read it? "The defendant's lawyers are arguing" does not equal "it turns out...". It's a defense attorney's job to throw every excuse against the wall they can, on the off chance something sticks.


----------



## TedEH

I think it should count as a red flag, if not outright setting off the BS alarm, if the sites you reference are littered with talking points about Freedom and The Woke Left. One of their "top articles" is about how we, as a society, are degrading into savagery because schools are teaching demon worship and human sacrifice (???) instead of good ol' Murican Christianity.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

linthat22 said:


> https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/1...en-an-fbi-entrapment-of-a-bunch-of-crackpots/
> 
> Ask and you shall receive.



Hey, why did you switch the links?

Original link: https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-g...ed-me-infiltrate-plot-kidnap-gretchen-whitmer


----------



## nightflameauto

Got my first jab Thursday of the Moderna. Felt like I took a good punch to the arm, but no other side effects. SD opened up wide for anybody over sixteen due to lack of demand. Asking around, most of the wife's relatives except her mom are skipping it because they just don't see the reason to do it. Of course, they also have been having parties the entire time this has been going on and don't understand why they are theirs keep getting sick. It's all fake, you know. Eek.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

I just don't get the resistance. It's free, depending on region it's easy to get, the side effects are typically very mild, and it just might help someone else not die. It'll even help open the economy faster.

Trump got it. Rich people payed to get it. The Pope got it. High ranking government officials on both sides have gotten it. 

Populations who have every reason to be skeptical about getting it, are going out and getting it. 

Is there any argument that doesn't end in "liberal hoax" or "space reptilian mind control" at this point?


----------



## nightflameauto

MaxOfMetal said:


> I just don't get the resistance. It's free, depending on region it's easy to get, the side effects are typically very mild, and it just might help someone else not die. It'll even help open the economy faster.
> 
> Trump got it. Rich people payed to get it. The Pope got it. High ranking government officials on both sides have gotten it.
> 
> Populations who have every reason to be skeptical about getting it, are going out and getting it.
> 
> Is there any argument that doesn't end in "liberal hoax" or "space reptilian mind control" at this point?


"Don't give a shit," ranks pretty high on the list for some folks. But most resisting are stuck in the "it never existed anyway" rut.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

It's the ignorant mindset that "I haven't got it and Bob down the street didn't get it". People are literally so stubborn that they'd rather do noting until it's too late. They believe that cases aren't as high as the "fake media" is saying and that only the most sickly and elderly are the ones that are dying from covid. They would rather risk contracting it... feeling that there's barely even any chance that they'll get it. And that if they do get it, that it'll be just like so many other people that they've heard about, where symptoms were very mild. The inconvenience of taking less than 10 seconds to put on a mask before going into the store to grab their beer and bbq fixin's just isn't justified. Oh and it makes them look like a Biden supporter, a weakling, or a science-fearing commie. Gotta keep playing the part of big strong Murican person as it so perfectly compliments the bling on their jacked up family truckster. Sadly... they're just that fucking dumb.


----------



## TedEH

High Plains Drifter said:


> It's the ignorant mindset that "I haven't got it and Bob down the street didn't get it".


Except that we're approaching the point where pretty much everyone knows people who got it at some point. I've got family, friends, and coworkers who have all caught it at some point - some almost died themselves, and I know that covid has taken some of my coworkers family from them. A year ago it would make sense to say it didn't look real because "nobody had it", but it's very clearly here. And be here I mean everywhere.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

About 1/10 Americans have/had it. Saying "I don't know anyone..." is becoming less and less tenable.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

TedEH said:


> Except that we're approaching the point where pretty much everyone knows people who got it at some point. I've got family, friends, and coworkers who have all caught it at some point - some almost died themselves, and I know that covid has taken some of my coworkers family from them. A year ago it would make sense to say it didn't look real because "nobody had it", but it's very clearly here. And be here I mean everywhere.



Absolutely agree. But I think that the "I've got family, friends, and coworkers who have all caught it at some point" is part of the problem. Unless the anti-mask/ anti-science people actually see firsthand that their friend or family member died or experienced excruciatingly severe symptoms, it's just not enough for them to take it seriously. I never could've imagined living in a world where people seem so hell-bent on flirting with disaster and I think it's insane that some people actually wear their covid infection as a badge of honor... but here we are.


----------



## TedEH

Aaaaaaaaaaaand I just got out of a meeting where another coworker announced they have it. Good times.


----------



## Xaios

TedEH said:


> Aaaaaaaaaaaand I just got out of a meeting where another coworker announced they have it. Good times.


Was this an in-person meeting?


----------



## spudmunkey

TedEH said:


> Aaaaaaaaaaaand I just got out of a meeting where another coworker announced they have it. Good times.



"Great meeting, everyone. Oh, one last thing..."


----------



## bostjan

Darn near 75% of my family back in Michigan has it right now. My mom, AFAIK, is the only one vax'd and she doesn't have it. My oldest relatives all have it though.

There are several ongoing local outbreaks.

I still have 3 weeks before I get dose 2. My wife has a ton of stuff she needs me to do out of town, and I'm thinking this month is def. not a good time to go anywhere.

I'm also stressed about these P variants of the virus that are resistant to natural immunity to other variants, as the vaccine's efficacy is yet unknown.


----------



## TedEH

Xaios said:


> Was this an in-person meeting?


Lol no, they're probably thousands of kilometres away. About as socially distant as we could possibly be.


----------



## Mathemagician

They. Want. To. Win. 

If they don’t get the vaccine. And they don’t get the virus. And no one they care about dies. Then they “won”.


----------



## Drew

linthat22 said:


> *edit* didn't see you added more after the fact, so I'm retracting my initial comment.
> 
> After reading your comment, I hate to say that this pandemic has been used as a political football. When Trump was in office everyone inflated the numbers to make him look bad. Now we're post-Trump and the numbers are still growing but with less criticism (no more death count on CNN).
> 
> Let's think about this logically for Michigan. Restaurants were able to open up at half capacity not to long ago (on top of the many that closed their doors forever), the bulk of children's sports have been cancelled statewide (along with marathons and bowling tournaments), most schools have been doing face to face learning with strict protocols, all retailers require a mask before entering for anything, and yet all those things the state mandated are the causes?
> 
> You're correct that fatigue is real, but there's been plenty of shenanigans that should make anyone sceptical at this point.
> 
> *Last edit* this will be my last post in this thread. Just wanted to provide another aspect from a Michigan standpoint and I know everyone has a valid viewpoint and/or opinion.


Yeah, I missed your initial post, which I suspect was, ahem, not very tactful... And my edit was precicely _because_ I probably wouldn't have replied with much tact to that either.  

But, at the same time, it's not too hard to hit google and get a sense that Michigan's reported numbers are _probably_ good - it took me all of three minutes and a copy/past and one excel formula to verify that the state totals crossfooted to within what I would consider acceptable tolerances with the county level reports. 

As far as everyone "inflating the numbers to make Trump look bad," and then "less criticism" today, well, I disagree on both counts: 

Not sure a better way to hotlink this and I wish I could insert the graph as an image, but look at daily case counts: 

https://www.google.com/search?q=us+...457j69i60l3.1689j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

They were fucking _abysmal_ at the end of Trump's term, where he essentially peaced out, and by late february/early march, we'd made a lot of progress, sure, but only succeeded in bringing them down to about the _peak_ of the "second wave" over the summer, the previous high point. 

And this is the newly appoiunted CDC director under Biden: 

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/03/rochelle-walensky-covid-19-warning



> During a press briefing on Monday, Walensky told reporters: “When I first started at CDC about two months ago I made a promise to you: I would tell you the truth even if it was not the news we wanted to hear. Now is one of those times when I have to share the truth, and I have to hope and trust you will listen.” Warning of what she sees happening down the line based on the surge in new coronavirus cases, a visibly shaken Walensky said, “I’m going to pause here, I’m going to lose the script, and I’m going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom. We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope, but right now I’m scared. I know what it’s like as a physician to stand in that patient room, gowned, gloved, masked, shielded, and to be the last person to touch someone else’s loved one because their loved one couldn’t be there. I know what it’s like when you’re the physician, when you’re the health care provider, and you’re worried that you don’t have the resources to take care of that patient in front of you. I know that feeling of nausea when you read the crisis standards of care and you wonder whether there are going to be enough ventilators and who’s going to make that choice. And I know what it’s like to pull up to your hospital every day and see the extra morgue sitting outside.”



Headline is not a direct quote, unfortunately, but points to Vanity Fair.  

To your final point - Michigan didn't "mandate" any of those things, they relaxed mandates prohibiting, in part due to tremendous public (and, especially, Republican) pressure to return to "normal." Michigan, as it happens, is now at the front line of the fight against one of the new more infectious mandates. If relaxing protocols was the cause of this surge, which I agree, in part they were... then how is not immediately reversing those relaxations NOT the right answer? Like, we both seem to agree on what the problem is, is there any shame at all in admitting Michigan has moved too fast, is getting hammered now for it, and maybe we should stop in-person schooling and shut down indoor dining again for another month or two, until we can get much more of the population vaccinated?


----------



## Drew

MaxOfMetal said:


> Trump got it. Rich people payed to get it. The Pope got it. High ranking government officials on both sides have gotten it.


I'm leery of making TOO strong conclusions on the impact leadership can have on the response to a pandemic, and while cases surged in the US after Trump lost the election and basically withdrew from public life, only to emerge every now and then to hold a rally claiming the election ws stolen, it's possible the holidays would have pushed case counts up one way or another. 

But, if you want a clear, concrete example of how a leader _could_ impact the decisions of others, Trump's decision to get the vaccine in secret (while both Harris and Biden did it as a press conference, essentially), while Trump's supporters are FAR less likely to get vaccinated than pretty much any other demographic group you could draw, is a pretty clear example of an opportunity where Trump could have _single handedly_ made a difference in the fight against covid... but was too afraid of "appearing weak." Holding a press conference and saying "if I can do it, so can you" when they jabbed him in the arm almost certainly would have led to increased vaccinations. 



TedEH said:


> Aaaaaaaaaaaand I just got out of a meeting where another coworker announced they have it. Good times.


Same here, one of the younger members of our team is out sick today after testing positive over the weekend. There's subtle institutional pressure to go into the office now and then while respecting a 25% capacity limit, and I know he'd been going in a couple times a week (I haven't been, only once for a meeting which really shouldn't have been done in person and twice to pick things up off hours). We're targeting a 7/12 phased opening with the company divided in two groups and each group working two days a week in the office and the other three remote, and I'm very curious to know if this is going to lead to a rethink of the next phase of our opening plan.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Darn near 75% of my family back in Michigan has it right now. My mom, AFAIK, is the only one vax'd and she doesn't have it. My oldest relatives all have it though.
> 
> There are several ongoing local outbreaks.
> 
> I still have 3 weeks before I get dose 2. My wife has a ton of stuff she needs me to do out of town, and I'm thinking this month is def. not a good time to go anywhere.
> 
> I'm also stressed about these P variants of the virus that are resistant to natural immunity to other variants, as the vaccine's efficacy is yet unknown.


Man, I'm sorry to hear this. Fingers crossed for your family.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

People are so damn stupid and narrow sighted. My co worker’s own Mother, dead of COVID. Still won’t get the shots herself. I’m half way tempted to point out that if whoever passed it along to her Mother had the vaccine. She’d probably still be alive.


----------



## spudmunkey

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> People are so damn stupid and narrow sighted. My co worker’s own Mother, dead of COVID. Still won’t get the shots herself. I’m half way tempted to point out that if whoever passed it along to her Mother had the vaccine. She’d probably still be alive.


Maybe... we don't *technically* know that fully yet.


----------



## _MonSTeR_

As an update on my post jab situation. My arm feels fine, I know a lot of folks said that their arms ached for about a week, I’m 2 days in and I can’t feel the injection site and the muscle ache has gone.

I do have a headache and the sniffles. I’m clearly coming down with man-flu and will need at least a week off work 

Or I might just take a couple of paracetamol...


----------



## diagrammatiks

If you're vaccinated that means you can't be a carrier also?


----------



## Acme

Wife got the Pfizer one, no side effects whatsoever. I got the first dose of the Russian one Sunday afternoon. All grand until the following morning. Then headache, tiredness kicked in and my body temperature started to increase. It went up to 38,5 Celsius by 2 PM, so I got some Rubophen and by the evening, I was sort of fine (37,5 Celsius). Today morning everything is back to normal. I'll get the second shot on 2nd May.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

CDC and FDA just paused administration of J&J after six recipients in the United States developed a rare disorder involving blood clots within about two weeks of vaccination.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/us/politics/johnson-johnson-vaccine-blood-clots-fda-cdc.html


----------



## Bodes

diagrammatiks said:


> If you're vaccinated that means you can't be a carrier also?



Unfortunately you can be vaccinated and be a carrier of the virus. Same with many other vaccines.
Vaccines do help to reduce the chance of passing it on. Not up on the latest figures around this, so can't say anything else.


----------



## Mathemagician

High Plains Drifter said:


> CDC and FDA just paused administration of J&J after six recipients in the United States developed a rare disorder involving blood clots within about two weeks of vaccination.
> 
> https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/us/politics/johnson-johnson-vaccine-blood-clots-fda-cdc.html



I thought clots were tied to the AstraZeneca vaccine? Anything to do with the supplier who last month mixed up the AZ and J&J supply, before going 100% J&J?


----------



## Drew

diagrammatiks said:


> If you're vaccinated that means you can't be a carrier also?





Bodes said:


> Unfortunately you can be vaccinated and be a carrier of the virus. Same with many other vaccines.
> Vaccines do help to reduce the chance of passing it on. Not up on the latest figures around this, so can't say anything else.


This is fairly complicated. At a minimum, vaccination drastically _diminishes_ your likelihood of transmitting the virus to another person - with the vast majority of transmission droplet based, droplet-based transmission requiring fairly high viral loads, and a healthy immune system response killing off the virus before it can really get a foothold, viral transmission should be (and appears to be) pretty rare, for fully vaccinated individuals whose bodies successfully prevent infection. What makes it complicated is, "pretty rare" isn't the same as "completely impossible," and even a _highly_ effective vaccine with 95%+ efficacy will still, roughly one time in twenty, result in a vaccinated person getting infected, if almost always asymptomatically, in which case they certainly could still infect someone else. With some of the more infectious variants, risk of infection for vaccinated individuals appears slightly higher too. 

So, yeah, it's possible. It's not very likely, but it's still a risk you want to be attuned to if you're vaccinated and spending time around high risk unvaccinated people.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Mathemagician said:


> I thought clots were tied to the AstraZeneca vaccine? Anything to do with the supplier who last month mixed up the AZ and J&J supply, before going 100% J&J?



"Regulators in Europe and elsewhere are concerned about a similar issue with another coronavirus vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University researchers, that has not been authorized for emergency use in the United States. At the news conference, Dr. Marks drew a connection between the two vaccines, saying the cases involving rare blood clots were very similar." 

News reports that I've seen seem to be downplaying this new development... understandably so because they surely don't want to create any more skepticism or hesitancy than there already is surrounding any of the vaccines. Only six people out of over 16 million so it's an incredibly low number. Hopefully this latest news won't significantly impact progress but it's certainly going to temporarily slow things down a bit.


----------



## Drew

Mathemagician said:


> I thought clots were tied to the AstraZeneca vaccine? Anything to do with the supplier who last month mixed up the AZ and J&J supply, before going 100% J&J?


No, this is a separate issue. 

Six clots, out of 6.8 million doses administered, all in women. It could be a coincidence it's all women, in which case the odds of clotting are roughly one-in-a-million, it could effect only women, in which case its more like 1-in-500,000.... or, considering all six women had low platelet counts and clotting is a risk there anyway, it could be entirely unrelated to vaccination at all. Either way, there's a meme going around that points out that this is also a risk of birth control, with about 1-in-20,000 frequency, and covid has a 1-in-5 chance of putting you in the hospital, so I don't think this is something I'd be losing sleep over anyway. Easy for me to say as a man though.


----------



## Drew

High Plains Drifter said:


> "Regulators in Europe and elsewhere are concerned about a similar issue with another coronavirus vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University researchers, that has not been authorized for emergency use in the United States. At the news conference, Dr. Marks drew a connection between the two vaccines, saying the cases involving rare blood clots were very similar."



Only other thing I'd add to this thread is that there's a lot of popular unease with mRNA vaccines, as they're a pretty new technology, bigger picture. Neither AstraZeneca nor J&J are mRNA vaccines, which is something that should _not_ be lost sight of here. This is the same type of vaccine we've been using since we first started treating polio.


----------



## Mathemagician

mRNA tech is going to be useful for SO many new breakthrough treatments. 

However from an article it said the 6 people were all women 18-48 years old. So could potentially be a complication with birth control or another medication that has clotting as a side effect, who knows as it’s such a small #.


----------



## Drew

Mathemagician said:


> mRNA tech is going to be useful for SO many new breakthrough treatments.
> 
> However from an article it said the 6 people were all women 18-48 years old. So could potentially be a complication with birth control or another medication that has clotting as a side effect, who knows as it’s such a small #.


Yeah, agreed. 

On one hand, the FDA is being _very_ aggressive by pausing use of the vaccine while they look into this. 

On the other, that (plus the incredibly small number of cases after nearly 7 million doses) does make it somewhat harder to argue that they were rushing this out without adequately vetting it, for political reasons - a one-in-a-million incidence wouldn't be expected to come up in even a large scale clinical trial, and they're certainly not hesitating to pump the brakes now.


----------



## fantom

spudmunkey said:


> CVS. I did have to look at a location about 15 minutes away, driving past two other locations.


I was able to book an appointment finally thanks to Santa Clara lifting restrictions early.

I am looking forward to the side effect of an undeniable urge to purchase Microsoft products.


----------



## spudmunkey

diagrammatiks said:


> I am looking forward to the side effect of an undeniable urge to purchase Microsoft products.



#ZuneCrew4Lyf


----------



## SpaceDock

Drew said:


> No, this is a separate issue.
> 
> Six clots, out of 6.8 million doses administered, all in women. It could be a coincidence it's all women, in which case the odds of clotting are roughly one-in-a-million, it could effect only women, in which case its more like 1-in-500,000.... or, considering all six women had low platelet counts and clotting is a risk there anyway, it could be entirely unrelated to vaccination at all. Either way, there's a meme going around that points out that this is also a risk of birth control, with about 1-in-20,000 frequency, and covid has a 1-in-5 chance of putting you in the hospital, so I don't think this is something I'd be losing sleep over anyway. Easy for me to say as a man though.



One of my male coworkers brought this up today as his reason for delaying his vaccination. I said, “yeah, you should be afraid....because you are a lady.”


----------



## Bodes

Australia's first blood clot in a patient who recently had the AstraZeneca vaccine was a male, the TGA (our CDC) has since linked the clots to the vaccine. So our government has stopped given that vaccine to under 50s.

Again, low platelets:
"He had low platelets, but he had clots in his liver, in his spleen and in his gut in general," Coronacast host Dr Norman Swan told ABC News.

Source:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04...coronavirus-vaccine-has-blood-clots/100046540


----------



## _MonSTeR_

having had the mRNA based Pfizer jab, I’m currently waiting to turn into the Hulk, or develop some other unforeseen but exceptionally cool super powers.

Mainly just the sniffles left so far though


----------



## jaxadam

My wife developed a significant skin rash/hives after the first one. She got the second Pfizer dose yesterday, and protocol was for her to remain onsite for 30 minutes after the shot. She developed severe hives last night, major arm pain this round, and is just miserable.


----------



## JSanta

jaxadam said:


> My wife developed a significant skin rash/hives after the first one. She got the second Pfizer dose yesterday, and protocol was for her to remain onsite for 30 minutes after the shot. She developed severe hives last night, major arm pain this round, and is just miserable.



Really sorry to hear that, I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Hopefully she's better soon!


----------



## Drew

jaxadam said:


> My wife developed a significant skin rash/hives after the first one. She got the second Pfizer dose yesterday, and protocol was for her to remain onsite for 30 minutes after the shot. She developed severe hives last night, major arm pain this round, and is just miserable.


Ah, hope she feels better soon, man.


----------



## Captain Butterscotch

I got my second shot of Pfizer on Sunday and I felt fine until Sunday night. 102.7 was the highest I recorded my fever and I was having chills while sweating through my sheets. It laid me on my ass all day Monday but then Tuesday came around and I was fine again. Great cell reception now, though.


----------



## Bodes

Captain Butterscotch said:


> Great cell reception now, though.


----------



## spudmunkey

My cousin has taken our playful back and forth about vaccines on Facebook to private messages, to tell me I'm suicidal for having gotten my first dose, and since my 2nd shot is Friday, he'll "start preparing for my funeral".

*sigh*


----------



## High Plains Drifter

spudmunkey said:


> My cousin has taken our playful back and forth about vaccines on Facebook to private messages, to tell me I'm suicidal for having gotten my first dose, and since my 2nd shot is Friday, he'll "start preparing for my funeral".
> 
> *sigh*



Holy shit.. he silly..

Wife gets her first jab tomorrow at 2pm then has to go back to work till 8pm. You've never seen someone so excited. Really wish she was off the next two days but just super relieved for her since she works around a ton of people 48+ hrs a week.


----------



## spudmunkey

High Plains Drifter said:


> Holy shit.. he silly..
> 
> Wife gets her first jab tomorrow at 2pm then has to go back to work till 8pm. You've never seen someone so excited. Really wish she was off the next two days but just super relieved for her since she works around a ton of people 48+ hrs a week.



I'm sure you're aware, but just in case: *full* power of the vaccine isn't reached until about 2 weeks after the 2nd injection. So no raw-dog pota-potty orgies for 2 weeks.


----------



## Xaios

spudmunkey said:


> So no raw-dog pota-potty orgies for 2 weeks.


Great, _*now*_ you tell me.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

spudmunkey said:


> I'm sure you're aware, but just in case: *full* power of the vaccine isn't reached until about 2 weeks after the 2nd injection. So no raw-dog pota-potty orgies for 2 weeks.



Roger that. She's just so glad to finally be starting the process. I actually emphasized to her last night to not start licking handrails and doorknobs just yet.


----------



## Drew

spudmunkey said:


> My cousin has taken our playful back and forth about vaccines on Facebook to private messages, to tell me I'm suicidal for having gotten my first dose, and since my 2nd shot is Friday, he'll "start preparing for my funeral".
> 
> *sigh*


Just better hope this isn't one of those "poetic justice" situations, eh? :/

Saw some interesting, and in no way independently verified, stats going around about the percentage of people who wouldn't get vaccinated even if they could. Apparently, 5% of Democrats would turn down vaccination if offered... as well as 22% of independents, and _43%_ of Republicans, which is mad.

(EDIT - and since "independent" is increasingly a misnomer in American politics, I strongly suspect the majority of that 22% is very likely "closet Republicans" who identify as independent but pretty much always vote Republican nonetheless.)


----------



## vilk

spudmunkey said:


> My cousin has taken our playful back and forth about vaccines on Facebook to private messages, to tell me I'm suicidal for having gotten my first dose, and since my 2nd shot is Friday, he'll "start preparing for my funeral".
> 
> *sigh*



Tell him to sack up and bet you cash on it. $1000. People sometimes actually learn a lesson via the loss of money.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Drew said:


> Just better hope this isn't one of those "poetic justice" situations, eh? :/
> 
> Saw some interesting, and in no way independently verified, stats going around about the percentage of people who wouldn't get vaccinated even if they could. Apparently, 5% of Democrats would turn down vaccination if offered... as well as 22% of independents, and _43%_ of Republicans, which is mad.
> 
> (EDIT - and since "independent" is increasingly a misnomer in American politics, I strongly suspect the majority of that 22% is very likely "closet Republicans" who identify as independent but pretty much always vote Republican nonetheless.)



Maybe a good percentage of those republicans will take their fallen messiah's lead... get vaccinated and just lie about it. 

My wife has now received her first Moderna dose!


----------



## SpaceDock

spudmunkey said:


> My cousin has taken our playful back and forth about vaccines on Facebook to private messages, to tell me I'm suicidal for having gotten my first dose, and since my 2nd shot is Friday, he'll "start preparing for my funeral".
> 
> *sigh*



Don’t get too freaked out if you do get sick from that second dose. It is a lot more brutal than the first. People who have healthy immune systems will have strong reactions.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

Got my first shot today (Moderna), felt a little itchy and sore. But it’s really only noticeable when I touch the area. That was about six hours ago, no tiredness or anything really worth mentioning. Felt good enough to do what I had planned for my day off. Gardening.


----------



## spudmunkey

SpaceDock said:


> Don’t get too freaked out if you do get sick from that second dose. It is a lot more brutal than the first. People who have healthy immune systems will have strong reactions.



Oh, I'm not worried, and am expecting to be down-and-out for at least Friday and Saturday. However, we stupidly accepted a custom order for some concrete planters through our etsy store, a larger order than we've ever had, and they have to ship Monday, which means lots of working with concrete, lots of sanding concrete over the weekend, with two full days wearing a full-on actual filtered respirator. That...might not have been smart. Ha!


----------



## Mathemagician

jaxadam said:


> My wife developed a significant skin rash/hives after the first one. She got the second Pfizer dose yesterday, and protocol was for her to remain onsite for 30 minutes after the shot. She developed severe hives last night, major arm pain this round, and is just miserable.



She’s gotta channel her inner mom and look at her arm and go “I’ll give you something to be sore about!” And then lift weights. If it’s gonna hurt, it better have a reason.



spudmunkey said:


> My cousin has taken our playful back and forth about vaccines on Facebook to private messages, to tell me I'm suicidal for having gotten my first dose, and since my 2nd shot is Friday, he'll "start preparing for my funeral".
> 
> *sigh*



Power move him and send him a copy of the eulogy you want him to read for you. 



High Plains Drifter said:


> Maybe a good percentage of those republicans will take their fallen messiah's lead... get vaccinated and just lie about it.
> 
> My wife has now received her first Moderna dose!



Ivanka posted a photo of getting the shot (and hey props for sending a positive message about it) and the comment section is a flat wall of anger and Covid denial. Like, it was surprising. 



spudmunkey said:


> Oh, I'm not worried, and am expecting to be down-and-out for at least Friday and Saturday. However, we stupidly accepted a custom order for some concrete planters through our etsy store, a larger order than we've ever had, and they have to ship Monday, which means lots of working with concrete, lots of sanding concrete over the weekend, with two full days wearing a full-on actual filtered respirator. That...might not have been smart. Ha!



That’s just big oof. 5gs crossed for you bro. Remember it makes you faster so it might actually help.


----------



## lurè

I'm starting to work as substitute teacher in a middle school where 2/3 of the classes have been shut down due to covid.

Me next monday:


----------



## jaxadam




----------



## Ralyks

Got my second Moderna shot today. Looking forward to feeling like shit tomorrow.



jaxadam said:


>



What's funny is, everyone I've talked to think not only will he not resign or be forced out, he'll run again and win. And that's from people that hate Cuomo (which seems to be most everyone I know, both parties). Somehow, he still has the support of most voters, just not politicians. But guess which ones are voting for him.


----------



## Wuuthrad

Ralyks said:


> Got my second Moderna shot today. Looking forward to feeling like shit tomorrow.



NOT TO WORRY DOLLY IS HERE!




Seriously though, hopefully it’s nothing much more than a sore arm as happened to me.


----------



## Ralyks

Wuuthrad said:


> NOT TO WORRY DOLLY IS HERE!
> 
> View attachment 92508
> 
> 
> Seriously though, hopefully it’s nothing much more than a sore arm as happened to me.



Nope. Tossing and turning from 2:30 on with a bit of a fever. Now just really tired and sore all over now.


----------



## Wuuthrad

Ralyks said:


> Nope. Tossing and turning from 2:30 on with a bit of a fever. Now just really tired and sore all over now.



Bummer, although the way I understand it is that response means your immune system is up to the task.


----------



## Demiurge

Got Moderna part 1 earlier this afternoon. I've been feeling like ass as of late with allergies so I wonder if I'll even notice side effects.


----------



## fantom

So I'm not sure if this has been discussed already.

Can someone please explain to me why conservatives cannot just stick to one story? For months, they were preaching herd immunity was the only way out of this mess. Now that we have a vaccine available to reach herd immunity, like 40% of them refuse to take it. So all that bullshit about herd immunity is now irrelevant because "my body, my choice". Why even pick that phrase, just to piss off raped women who want to have an abortion but get dicked over by zealotry?

Seriously, if everyone had just chilled at home for 3 weeks over a year ago, the virus would have died off. We would have saved trillions in economic impact. No restrictions would exist. But people chose to do stupid shit because "herd immunity" and "freedom". Now they are making things drag out longer by refusing to be vaccinated. I seriously hope some of these people just get sick at this point. Not legitimate people with health conditions and allergies, but the ones who think Ted Cruz's opinion should override multiple infections specialists, they can catch this shit and suffer. It would be God's Will, right?

Sorry if this is opinionated. I'm just getting really tired of hearing crappy reasons. I really need to hear a decent one that isn't just trying to incite people.


----------



## bostjan

fantom said:


> So I'm not sure if this has been discussed already.
> 
> Can someone please explain to me why conservatives cannot just stick to one story? For months, they were preaching herd immunity was the only way out of this mess. Now that we have a vaccine available to reach herd immunity, like 40% of them refuse to take it. So all that bullshit about herd immunity is now irrelevant because "my body, my choice". Why even pick that phrase, just to piss off raped women who want to have an abortion but get dicked over by zealotry?
> 
> Seriously, if everyone had just chilled at home for 3 weeks over a year ago, the virus would have died off. We would have saved trillions in economic impact. No restrictions would exist. But people chose to do stupid shit because "herd immunity" and "freedom". Now they are making things drag out longer by refusing to be vaccinated. I seriously hope some of these people just get sick at this point. Not legitimate people with health conditions and allergies, but the ones who think Ted Cruz's opinion should override multiple infections specialists, they can catch this shit and suffer. It would be God's Will, right?
> 
> Sorry if this is opinionated. I'm just getting really tired of hearing crappy reasons. I really need to hear a decent one that isn't just trying to incite people.


Because conservatives are not monolithic. I've said it before, but the conservative movement in the USA right now is simply the collective counter-culture political movement.
I hate to dig up a dead horse, but whether or not the concept of "herd immunity" can even apply to something like this virus, which mutates 5x faster than any other serious disease-causing virus is a concept up for debate. The vaccine is thought to not work as well against the "P" strains of the virus from Brazil, and vaccine companies are working quickly to provide a booster.
However, the overall general concept of "this thing ends sooner if more people get vaccinated" is 100% valid.
However, however, the vaccines available are still technically experimental, so long-term side-effects might end up being a thing, and the government will just shrug if they are, because this was an emergency, and the unknown long-term side-effects were assumed to be very likely less serious than the long term side effects of the virus.
It's something I can sort of see both sides, but to me, it's clear that one side is weighing risks far more appropriately than the other. Analogy- if covid were a hungry tiger and the vaccine were a tranquilizer dart, would you choose to use the tranquilizer dart on the tiger to neutralize and risk the one in a million chance that the tiger might have an opioid tolerance and just get angry, or would you take your nine out of ten chances of being eaten by not using the dart?


----------



## sleewell

most of the people that i speak with who dont want to take it think they would be fine if they got it and question how it was able to come to market so fast. depending on how far down the rabbit hole they are you start to hear rumblings about bill gates and other craziness. they hear stats that make it seem like over 99% of people who get will be fine and never think they would be one of the people to have a bad case or long haul symptoms. 


it also seems like right wing media tends to overly focus on the very few instances of side affects which drowns out all of the good its probably doing. oh look 6 people out of millions got blood clots, lets talk about that 24/7 instead of the fact that it probably saved many many more people's lives and by focusing on this we are convincing many more people not to get it.

why did trump take it privately??? he could have done a lot of good by getting it publicly while telling people to get it.


----------



## zappatton2

I also tend to think "reactionary conservatism" falls into an endless "shifting of the goalposts" tendency. Think of climate change; first, it's a lie. Then, okay, it's not a lie, but climate has always been changing and we're not the culprit. Then, okay, we're driving it, but anything we do about it will destroy our economy and embolden socialism. 

I have members in my family who can't even remember how much they fought against gay rights in the 80's and 90's, who now spread anti-Muslim and immigrant memes, citing gay rights as the precious thing we'll lose to the incoming horde. It's bizarre.


----------



## fantom

sleewell said:


> it also seems like right wing media tends to overly focus on the very few instances of side affects which drowns out all of the good its probably doing. oh look 6 people out of millions got blood clots, lets talk about that 24/7 instead of the fact that it probably saved many many more people's lives and by focusing on this we are convincing many more people not to get it.



Ya, the fact that people completely fail to understand orders of magnitude when discussing chances/odds is what really gets me.

Given the current info, you are like 10x more likely to get struck by lightning and die then die from J&J... Yet people really care to avoid the vaccine.

Quickly looking up numbers, the average american is 2x more likely to die in a mass shooting than from J&J...

And that isn't even considering the other 3 major vaccines right now.

It's ok though, buying 10 lottery tickets per week will make people millionaires!


----------



## spudmunkey

Tucker Carlson, on his show on Fox News:


----------



## fantom

spudmunkey said:


> Tucker Carlson, on his show on Fox News:
> 
> View attachment 92588



Tucker Carlson doesn't have to think of a reason. All he has to do is ask an expert and relay the reason.

The fact that these people influence public opinion on a "news" channel is beyond me. The science behind vaccines is pretty simple: Your immune system can deal with it, but you are still able to infect others. Those people might not be immunized yet or they might not be able to be immunized for other reasons.

The fact that a news show cannot consult a single expert and just report the advice is farcical. The fact they think they have to figure out the result and act as medical doctors should be illegal and punished.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

I swear this is actual population control at this point like nature started making us dumber to help keep numbers in line lol.


----------



## lurè

aaand one of my 2 classe has been shut down due to covid after just 1 day of work


----------



## thraxil

And.... Ted Nugent has Covid...

I hope he survives, but I'm OK with him having a really miserable time of it.


----------



## nightflameauto

thraxil said:


> And.... Ted Nugent has Covid...
> 
> I hope he survives, but I'm OK with him having a really miserable time of it.


I'm as indifferent to his survival as he is to human decency. I won't wish for his death, but I certainly won't waste any effort on hoping for his recovery.


----------



## Drew

spudmunkey said:


> Tucker Carlson, on his show on Fox News:
> 
> View attachment 92588


Dude is an idiot. There's a pretty clear reason - if we start telling people who have been vaccinated they don't have to wear masks in public (his bit on social distancing is odd, since we ARE telling them they don't have to distance or wear masks indoors in private with unvaccinated low risk individuals), then the number of people wearing masks in public will start to drop, social norms will change for it, and unvaccinated people who just don't want to wear a mask will feel less social pressure to do so, because there;s no ready way to prove they aren't actually vaccnated. 

Keeping a public mask mandate in place until we approach a vaccination level that should provide herd immunity is just a really effective way of keeping unvaccinated people wearing masks. It has little at all to do with vaccinated people, save that it's not like it HURTS them.


----------



## TedEH

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a vaccine do nothing in terms of your ability to spread it to other people anyway? You might not get sick yourself, but if we have no proof it stops you from being a carrier, then the mask is still necessary because it's not about protecting yourself at that point. 

I mean, for a lot of us, it was never about protecting ourselves anyway - I could get the rona and be fine - but I know plenty of people who _wouldn't be_ if they got it from me.


----------



## spudmunkey

TedEH said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a vaccine do nothing in terms of your ability to spread it to other people anyway?



Sort of. Maybe. But maybe not. In some cases, vaccines do indeed prevent you from spreading the illness. Sometimes they can have a transmission-blocking effect, but the other way they can help is if the vaccines allows your body to keep any viral load you DO carry very low, decreasing the likelihood that someone would get infected by what you are spreading, basically reducing the concentration/effectiveness of the virus in a specific volume of spit, etc. 

And actually, and I could be wrong, but I think all of the "big 4" vaccines do indeed show some signs that they MAY reduce transmission, this is actually one of the harder things to test for because of so many variables. Right now, there's a large study going on with college students getting frequent tests to test this very thing, which seems to currently be our best-case-scenario to understand how well it might work.


----------



## Se7enHeaven

using gov't stats
https://brandnewtube.com/watch/fina...9-pandemic-never-existed_JmPw8cUxQG1w7NP.html


----------



## TedEH

That guys video and the articles on his website add nothing to the conversation that haven't been discussed to death. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

His website is full of gems:


> Trees are being chopped down everywhere (despite the claim that they are essential for getting rid of carbon dioxide). Why is this? Simple. Trees interfere with 5G and must be removed to improve signal strength.





> One of the reasons for making people wear masks was clearly to stop them talking to one another





> Anyone driving while wearing a mask should be arrested.





> Hospital doctors are reporting that children as young as 10-years-old are self-harming as a result of the fake pandemic. How many suicides will there be this year?



Plus the usual rantings about zinc and fluoride and Bill Gates and everything being an affront to church-goers.


----------



## TedEH

Hah, I somehow missed the best one:



> Today, of course, the receptors required for the control of the human brain do not need to be implanted surgically. Indeed, modern receptors are so small that they could be placed in the body via a far less intrusive method – an apparently ordinary injection, for example.
> 
> Just thought you should know…


----------



## sleewell

lmao!!!!!!!!!!

seriously why are we cutting trees down?!? i haven't seen anything made of wood in a long time - if ever. this one goes all the way to the top i tell ya!!!!


----------



## Se7enHeaven

sleewell said:


> lmao!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> seriously why are we cutting trees down?!? i haven't seen anything made of wood in a long time - if ever. this one goes all the way to the top i tell ya!!!!



Most homes have lumbar in them. A 2x4 in Canada now costs $6, whereas a year ago it was $2. Overall framing, roofs. stuff like that.


----------



## TedEH

My back has lumbar. I can't think of a single thing made from trees.


----------



## MaxOfMetal




----------



## sleewell

bruh


----------



## Se7enHeaven

TedEH said:


> My back has lumbar. I can't think of a single thing made from trees.


furniture, homes (as already indicated), guitars (I think you play one), speaker cabinets (you may use those as well), some pedal boards (again), toothpicks, pencils...


----------



## TedEH

I just legitimately laughed out loud. My morning is made.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Laughing so hard my back hurts.


----------



## sleewell

holy shit. i dont even...


----------



## Mathemagician

Super-boring response for the sake of anyone reading who may be unaware:

Materials prices shoot up because they were hampered at the source by closures/shutdowns of businesses for who knows how long depending on the country of origin. Of the companies allowed to reopen they’ve had to implement Covid protocols for distancing etc which would generally negatively affect amount processed. Then global shipping and transport has been slowed to a crawl for the last year+ decreasing supply further.

And on the demand side you have massive increase in residential demand for lumber as homeowners have engaged in project after project to both make use of their new free time while quarantined and add useable space to their homes. 

It’s just basic supply and demand. But it’s more fun to link videos that say “It’s a conspiracy.” It’s always a conspiracy. The most obvious and logical reason is too boring, so let’s play “who can say the most ridiculous nonsense”.

Bonus point for convincing others who are not skilled at critical reasoning.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Mathemagician said:


> Materials prices shoot up because they were hampered at the source by closures/shutdowns of businesses for who knows how long depending on the country of origin. Of the companies allowed to reopen they’ve had to implement Covid protocols for distancing etc which would generally negatively affect amount processed. Then global shipping and transport has been slowed to a crawl for the last year+ decreasing supply further.
> 
> And on the demand side you have massive increase in residential demand for lumber as homeowners have engaged in project after project to both make use of their new free time while quarantined and add useable space to their homes.
> 
> Nooo, couldn’t be basic supply and fucking demand. It’s a conspiracy. It’s always a conspiracy. The most obvious and logical reason is too boring, so let’s play “who can say the most ridiculous nonsense”.
> 
> Bonus point for convincing others who are not skilled at critical reasoning.



I don't know, can you _back_ that up with any data?


----------



## Mathemagician

MaxOfMetal said:


> I don't know, can you _back_ that up with any data?



My $1,000+ Per month in financial data subscriptions, lol.

If there is anything I’ve learned about speaking with people who argue in bad faith, is that they show up to drop a little “quip” or link, and then instantly disappear whenever anyone disproves their baseless claims with data. Because “losing” to a peer reviewed article isn’t fun anymore.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Mathemagician said:


> My $1,000+ Per month in financial data subscriptions, lol.
> 
> If there is anything I’ve learned about speaking with people who argue in bad faith, is that they show up to drop a little “quip” or link like they think they are fucking Q from their mass delusion of an online LARP game and then instantly disappear whenever anyone disproves their baseless claims with data.



This thread is delivering today.


----------



## Mathemagician

MaxOfMetal said:


> This thread is delivering today.



Hey, I edited my comment to be nicer.


----------



## TedEH

I'm not sure I have the _spine_ to comment any further.


----------



## sleewell

yea i dunno... that point is not very well supported, its almost like you need to dial up the lumbar support or something.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Mathemagician said:


> Hey, I edited my comment to be nicer.



I'm sure he has the backbone to withstand your criticism.


----------



## nightflameauto

This thread. WTF? LOL.

FWIW, our demand in the cabinet industry has been through the roof for months at this point. We're discussing adding another shift just to try and un-bury ourselves from the lead time hell we've found ourselves in. It's absurd.

And some of those cabinets are made from trees.


----------



## Drew

TedEH said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a vaccine do nothing in terms of your ability to spread it to other people anyway? You might not get sick yourself, but if we have no proof it stops you from being a carrier, then the mask is still necessary because it's not about protecting yourself at that point.
> 
> I mean, for a lot of us, it was never about protecting ourselves anyway - I could get the rona and be fine - but I know plenty of people who _wouldn't be_ if they got it from me.


My best guess, from what's coming out of the CDC, is they believe it's at least fairly effective at stopping transmission via vaccinated individuals, but aren't ready to fully commit to that given the incomplete picture they have right now. It's awfully hard to understand their guidance that fully vaccinated adults can socialize indoors without masks with low risk adults, but should still wear masks around high risk ones.


----------



## Drew

Mathemagician said:


> Hey, I edited my comment to be nicer.


It might help to go back and reread a couple posts above yours, which could really provide some support for what you're seeing getting towards the bottom of thread.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Drew said:


> It might help to go back and reread a couple posts above yours, which could really provide some support for what you're seeing getting towards the bottom of thread.



Shut up, Drew.


----------



## Drew

MaxOfMetal said:


> Shut up, Drew.


 Oh come on. Go back and reread that.


----------



## beerandbeards

....cervical and thoracic


----------



## Mathemagician

UPDATE:

Two weeks after taking the vaccine I broke my arm. The fact that I fell off my bike right at the “2 Week” mark is very suspicious.


----------



## StevenC

Mathemagician said:


> UPDATE:
> 
> Two weeks after taking the vaccine I broke my arm. The fact that I fell off my bike right at the “2 Week” mark is very suspicious.


Which vaccine did you get? Have broken arms been added as a side effect yet and rollout been halted?


----------



## Bodes

Mathemagician said:


> UPDATE:
> 
> Two weeks after taking the vaccine I broke my arm. The fact that I fell off my bike right at the “2 Week” mark is very suspicious.



So the vaccine absorbed all of the calcium from your body, made a stick out of it and threw it in your wheel spokes, so that you fell off your bike and broke your arm? What an awful vaccine!


----------



## Drew

Mathemagician said:


> UPDATE:
> 
> Two weeks after taking the vaccine I broke my arm. The fact that I fell off my bike right at the “2 Week” mark is very suspicious.


Was it the same arm you got the shot in? INQUIRING MINDS HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW!!!

Also, I'm very sorry to hear that. Broke a collarbone when a turning car didn't see me about two years ago, and it was NOT a fun couple weeks.


----------



## thebeesknees22

The vaccine turned him into Mr Glass. Sucks you got that roll of the dice @Mathemagician. Getting the unbreakable guy's powers would have been a lot more fun.


----------



## Mathemagician

Drew said:


> Was it the same arm you got the shot in? INQUIRING MINDS HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW!!!
> 
> Also, I'm very sorry to hear that. Broke a collarbone when a turning car didn't see me about two years ago, and it was NOT a fun couple weeks.



The opposite arm. So apparently the chip can move freely through your body. Good to know. Seems like “they” want to keep us inside longer.


----------



## Drew

Mathemagician said:


> The opposite arm. So apparently the chip can move freely through your body. Good to know. Seems like “they” want to keep us inside longer.


How insidious.


----------



## bostjan

bostjan said:


> Darn near 75% of my family back in Michigan has it right now. My mom, AFAIK, is the only one vax'd and she doesn't have it. My oldest relatives all have it though.
> 
> There are several ongoing local outbreaks.
> 
> I still have 3 weeks before I get dose 2. My wife has a ton of stuff she needs me to do out of town, and I'm thinking this month is def. not a good time to go anywhere.
> 
> I'm also stressed about these P variants of the virus that are resistant to natural immunity to other variants, as the vaccine's efficacy is yet unknown.



My eldest uncle just died from covid.

He was literally scheduled to get his first dose of vaccine the day he ended up admitted to the hospital.


----------



## bostjan

Oak-ay, _back_ to the pines puns... (sorry I had to _alder_ my post)

Those jokes did _spruce_ the thread up a bit.


----------



## Mathemagician

bostjan said:


> My eldest uncle just died from covid.
> 
> He was literally scheduled to get his first dose of vaccine the day he ended up admitted to the hospital.



My condolences.


----------



## Drew

Fucking hell, man, I'm so sorry. :/


----------



## Jonathan20022

Is it just me or are these updates to the guidelines even given a moment's consideration?

They just lifted restrictions on vaccinated people to not wear masks unless in a crowd, who's checking and upholding this?




What's with this messaging? There's multiple fucking strains of COVID, and they basically gave the entire country a free pass to not wear their masks unless questioned. This makes the situation infinitely worse for businesses to enforce mask wearing indoors, and making it seem like we're back in 2019.


----------



## sleewell

to be fair they are talking about outdoors which seems reasonable to me.


----------



## Drew

Jonathan20022 said:


> They just lifted restrictions on vaccinated people to not wear masks unless in a crowd, who's checking and upholding this?


I've been saying for a LONG time that my suspicion is they've been holding off on giving this guidance, even though they suspect it's safe, for exactly this reason. I'm guessing with more than half of the country vaccinated, this is moving from the stick to the carrot, trying to give some added incentive for any of the straglers, but who knows.

Moot point for me because local ordinances still require masks where I live.

EDIT - in fact, the ordinance was announced in my city one year ago today.


----------



## nightflameauto

Sometimes individuals, even doctors, don't think through the larger ramifications of their words. In context, for someone paying attention, they make total sense. Out of context, in the typical attention span of the average fruit fly. . . er, American catching sound bytes on the news, that's pretty much carte blanche to go naked mud wrestling with the neighbors. Especially since most will see "It's the return of freedom. It's the return of us being able to do normal activities again," and if they managed to pay attention that far in they've probably stopped noticing the words and started planning for the apple bobbing and skinny dipping party.


----------



## Drew

nightflameauto said:


> ...and skinny dipping party.


Where?!?


----------



## Jonathan20022

Yeah IMO it's incredible destructive messaging to send out to the entire country, we should be approaching this with caution not flipping a switch and changing our habits developed for the last year and a half.

Even if it is outside, I'd think signals we need to be sending are not to proceed like we're one and done with the pandemic.


----------



## TedEH

Jonathan20022 said:


> Yeah IMO it's incredible destructive messaging to send out to the entire country


Given how people nitpick and deconstruct and intentional take things out of context, etc etc etc forever, basically any message you said to the entire country is going to destructive in some sense, according to someone. There's enough "we're not through this yet" messaging out there that the only people who are going to take this as a free pass are the ones who were only listening selectively to begin with.

The pandemic is (excuse the mild pun) no longer novel - it's been over a year, there's no excuses anymore for people to jump from ignorance to the most convenient conclusions.


----------



## Jonathan20022

There's nothing destructive about cautious messaging, only passive state enforcement. America was never ready to compromise it's lifestyle for their own and others' safety, and it's as grossly apparent as ever that that is the case. I have to disagree also, we need more bleak messaging and implied dangers to keep people alert. You make the point that the selective listeners were going to act of their own will anyways, but this is confirmation for hundreds of thousand others who were on the fence.

There's another new strain of this thing absolutely ravaging India, and as far as I'm concerned no one can guarantee that variant hasn't landed state-side already.

I'm not taking any chances, and I'm keeping my habits up. I might ease up in the next year or two, but I'm overweight (attempting to fix that) and I value my long term livelihood over thinking this is over naively.


----------



## Xaios

Jonathan20022 said:


> but this is confirmation for hundreds of thousand others who were on the fence.


I agree with everything else you said, but after this long, was anyone _actually_ still on the fence about this? It seems like practically everyone made up their minds a long time ago. All this really does is give ammunition to people who were already probably not observing lockdown measures to begin with.


----------



## diagrammatiks

How come the country was able to prevent me from smoking wherever and whenever I want. But can’t get its shit together for like 6 months so this pandemic gets handled.


----------



## nightflameauto

diagrammatiks said:


> How come the country was able to prevent me from smoking wherever and whenever I want. But can’t get its shit together for like 6 months so this pandemic gets handled.


Let's be honest, we couldn't get it together for two weeks up front as we claimed we were gonna. Mild inconvenience is clearly tantamount to stomping on our necks. According to certain folks at any rate.


----------



## TedEH

It's not like stopping people from smoking everywhere was an overnight change, and tons of people still do it anyway. People have been arguing about the rights to smoke for ages. People still argue about it. Now vaping is part of that whole argument. I dunno who we're kidding, nicotine won that war.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

TedEH said:


> nicotine won that war.



Not really. No one smokes anymore compared to how they used to. It's actually kind of amazing how well the campaigns to reduce smoking worked.

I remember in the 90's fucking everyone smoked everywhere, and it was even worse in the 80's. 

It's not all doom and gloom.


----------



## diagrammatiks

TedEH said:


> It's not like stopping people from smoking everywhere was an overnight change, and tons of people still do it anyway. People have been arguing about the rights to smoke for ages. People still argue about it. Now vaping is part of that whole argument. I dunno who we're kidding, nicotine won that war.



are you kidding me? smokers are like lepers in the states now.


----------



## TedEH

Maybe it's different here. As far as I can tell, we have a few fewer smokers here, but instead we have TONS of people vaping instead.


----------



## Drew

diagrammatiks said:


> are you kidding me? smokers are like lepers in the states now.


I'd actually been seeing it come back a little bit lately, at least before 2020. I'll be curious if I see a lot more people smoking when things normalize a bit again.


----------



## Drew

Jonathan20022 said:


> Yeah IMO it's incredible destructive messaging to send out to the entire country, we should be approaching this with caution not flipping a switch and changing our habits developed for the last year and a half.
> 
> Even if it is outside, I'd think signals we need to be sending are not to proceed like we're one and done with the pandemic.


For me, I think where the messaging is a little confusing, is the focus is kind of the reverse of what I'd have rather seen - "PEOPLE WHO ARE VACCINATED DON'T NEED MASKS OUTDOORS!!!" ...except when they're in public and within 6 feet of others and cant socially distance. I think lots of people will hear the first part and tune out the second, whereas starting backwards, "when vaccinated people are not in public and not within 6 feet of other, potentially unvaccinated people, and are able to effectively social distance, they can take their masks off."


----------



## Ralyks

I've also noticed a MAJOR decrease in cigarette smoking the past few years. I feel like only one or two friends or family.kembers I know that smoked cigarettes still do.

Pot, on the other hand, especially with the Pandemic and now that it's legal here in NY.... I have a lot of new smoking buddies.


----------



## Xaios

TedEH said:


> Maybe it's different here. As far as I can tell, we have a few fewer smokers here, but instead we have TONS of people vaping instead.


/cue jokes about French people and smoking.


----------



## Wuuthrad

CDC has updated the mask guidelines-


----------



## Shoeless_jose

Xaios said:


> /cue jokes about French people and smoking.



Quebec definitely is way more smokers paradise than other places. I remember we went on school trip to Quebec and they had cigarette vending machines.


----------



## Wuuthrad




----------



## philkilla

Got the 2nd shot (pfizer) Thursday. Thought maybe there'd be some sickness, but I've felt awesome the entire weekend.


----------



## makecamera

philkilla said:


> Got the 2nd shot (pfizer) Thursday. Thought maybe there'd be some sickness, but I've felt awesome the entire weekend.



Same. Got my 2nd pfizer shot Friday morning and have felt pretty normal through the weekend. Maybe a bit more tired than usual, but did all my normal things, including strenuous activities.


----------



## Surveyor 777

philkilla said:


> Got the 2nd shot (pfizer) Thursday. Thought maybe there'd be some sickness, but I've felt awesome the entire weekend.



That's good to hear. I'm getting my second (pfizer) shot next week. 

First one was no big deal. A little shoulder soreness but nothing to prevent me from doing all normal activities.


----------



## sleewell

FL cancels all covid restrictions. good for them!! wish my state would do the same.


----------



## mastapimp

Surveyor 777 said:


> That's good to hear. I'm getting my second (pfizer) shot next week.
> 
> First one was no big deal. A little shoulder soreness but nothing to prevent me from doing all normal activities.



My first Pfizer shot was nothing...went out and cut the grass and other yard work for 3-4 hours with no problem.

Second shot put me out of commission for a few days. Felt like I had several flu symptoms like fatigue, soreness in certain joints, mild headaches. My arm was much sorer and I had some swelling under my armpit at that lymph node. I'd put myself at about 80% after 3 days and 100% back to normal by day 4.


----------



## jaxadam

sleewell said:


> FL cancels all covid restrictions. good for them!! wish my state would do the same.


----------



## jaxadam

mastapimp said:


> My first Pfizer shot was nothing...went out and cut the grass and other yard work for 3-4 hours with no problem.
> 
> Second shot put me out of commission for a few days. Felt like I had several flu symptoms like fatigue, soreness in certain joints, mild headaches. My arm was much sorer and I had some swelling under my armpit at that lymph node. I'd put myself at about 80% after 3 days and 100% back to normal by day 4.



Pretty much the same with my wife. The second one wrecked her. She was down for about two days, and for about a week broke out into hives at her joints (ankles, hips, elbows). After a bit of googling, it seems more common than we thought, and her primary care physician had her alternate Zyrtec and Benadryl.


----------



## mastapimp

sleewell said:


> FL cancels all covid restrictions. good for them!! wish my state would do the same.


It'll be interesting to see the traction this gets with businesses. My prediction is that this will make the masks disappear overnight in the rural areas but things won't quickly change in the metro areas. Capacity restrictions have been lifted for a while yet people in the big cities still wear the masks regularly while indoors. it's the rural areas that have acted like nothing's ever happened. I'm in FL and have traveled around the state throughout the pandemic and have seen this firsthand. Even though the CDC mask guidance for outdoor use just changed, hardly anyone wears or wore their masks walking around unless they're in a busy area or walking with friends/colleagues. 

I think the state vaccination rate is still only at 30%. I know people that have recently gotten sick and spread it to others. My brother-in-law got Covid a few days into scheduling his first shot cause he stopped giving a shit about precautions and thought things were ending. My ex-gf's uncle just died from it last week. Personally, I think it's too soon, but it's FL and people are gonna do whatever the fuck they feel like.


----------



## mastapimp

jaxadam said:


> Pretty much the same with my wife. The second one wrecked her. She was down for about two days, and for about a week broke out into hives at her joints (ankles, hips, elbows). After a bit of googling, it seems more common than we thought, and her primary care physician had her alternate Zyrtec and Benadryl.


A bunch of my friends and coworkers had similar reactions to mine. I hadn't heard of hives yet, but I'm glad that it's not just isolated to your wife and she could manage the reaction with OTC supplies. 

I got chastised by my wife for having a "man cold."

My wife was vaccinated back in Jan/Feb with Moderna. She had headaches first shot, and little to no reaction at all on her second.


----------



## nightflameauto

jaxadam said:


> Pretty much the same with my wife. The second one wrecked her. She was down for about two days, and for about a week broke out into hives at her joints (ankles, hips, elbows). After a bit of googling, it seems more common than we thought, and her primary care physician had her alternate Zyrtec and Benadryl.


My wife, second week after the first round of moderna, got what I would refer to as a huge welt, except it wasn't raised, right around the injection site. Probably a little bigger than a fist, just a big round area that was reddish purple that slowly faded over the course of the next week. She takes a regular allergy pill normally and she figured it was probably some reaction or other so didn't do anything else other than put some topical ointment on it on the worst looking day. She said it never hurt, just itched a little.

We had heard of some allergy like reactions and were actually surprised hers was so mild since so many other medications make her break out like crazy. Vaccines usually don't do much more to her than give her arm soreness. We consider ourselves lucky.

Our second shot is Thursday, and then we're out until the boosters start rolling in. We're taking Thursday and Friday to veg out just in case. If it doesn't do anything, she's working on writing her novel(s) and I'm working on music so we've got plenty to do.


----------



## MFB

Heyooo, one of my co-workers came around asking if we wanted the J&J vaccine, place next door to us had a spare dose; so I said sure, and as of 4PM today, I'm officially vaccinated!


----------



## Drew

mastapimp said:


> I think the state vaccination rate is still only at 30%. I know people that have recently gotten sick and spread it to others. My brother-in-law got Covid a few days into scheduling his first shot cause he stopped giving a shit about precautions and thought things were ending. My ex-gf's uncle just died from it last week. Personally, I think it's too soon, but it's FL and people are gonna do whatever the fuck they feel like.


Yeah, I worry about this too - Florida lags the nation a bit in vaccination, though they're by no means the worst offender, and while they've made progress, a full reopening and relaxation of ALL covid restrictions seems suicidal. 

Then again, they've been pushing their luck all along and things haven't completely blown up on them, which surprises me, but also can't be discounted.


----------



## sleewell

mastapimp said:


> It'll be interesting to see the traction this gets with businesses. My prediction is that this will make the masks disappear overnight in the rural areas but things won't quickly change in the metro areas. Capacity restrictions have been lifted for a while yet people in the big cities still wear the masks regularly while indoors. it's the rural areas that have acted like nothing's ever happened. I'm in FL and have traveled around the state throughout the pandemic and have seen this firsthand. Even though the CDC mask guidance for outdoor use just changed, hardly anyone wears or wore their masks walking around unless they're in a busy area or walking with friends/colleagues.
> 
> I think the state vaccination rate is still only at 30%. I know people that have recently gotten sick and spread it to others. My brother-in-law got Covid a few days into scheduling his first shot cause he stopped giving a shit about precautions and thought things were ending. My ex-gf's uncle just died from it last week. Personally, I think it's too soon, but it's FL and people are gonna do whatever the fuck they feel like.




TX did the same over a month or two ago. at the time everyone said the sky would be falling and it never did. 

maybe other states need to just admit they have been wrong and follow the lead.


----------



## Drew

sleewell said:


> TX did the same over a month or two ago. at the time everyone said the sky would be falling and it never did.
> 
> maybe other states need to just admit they have been wrong and follow the lead.


Texas is an interesting case, actually, as they're one of the few states where Covid cases have remained steady. Florida at least is falling, though still from a rate of maybe 6,000 new cases a day. Texas has had a 7-day moving average of 3-3500 for more than a month now, in a pretty narrow band.

So, I don't know if you can look at the data and say everyone else was "wrong" and Texas was "right." Your state peaked at a 7-day average of around 8,000 new cases a day in mid-April, and has fallen 50% since then. Florida I worry is being premature here, but they peaked at around 6800 cases around the same time, and have seen about 30% improvement since then. Texas hasn't seen any improvement at all. And the objective here is still to _beat_ Covid, not just to keep people getting sick at the same rate they are today.

EDIT - also, the _composition_ of covid cases is an important factor here. I wasn
t sure if this existed publicly, but sure enough: 

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/transmission/variant-cases.html

Map of case count by variant. Texas has relatively low concentrations of the "variants of concern" as the CDC terms them, 414 cases of the B.1.1.7 "UK variant' in a population maybe 20% greater than Florida's. Florida, meanwhile, has more than 3,500 confirmed cases of the UK variant, which is significantly more contagious than the original strain. A full relaxation of all social distancing measures, if the population actually goes ahead and does just that, is running a huge risk of this variant getting a foothold again, and turning Florida into Michigan (2,300 cases of this variant, in a population just over a third of Florida's).


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Also... regarding Texas, I don't think that people living outside of a certain state should automatically assume a direct correlation between national news statistics and how people are actually behaving. Individual counties as well as businesses don't automatically let down their guard due to what's deemed acceptable or permitted by govt representatives. Here where I live, in certain stores you'd never know that Texas ever eased restrictions statewide because you still see upwards of maybe 80-90% wearing masks and subsequently respecting businesses' requests to mask up, distance, etc. Depends on other factors too... time of day, the particular business, etc. 

Unfortunately though, I have to admit that within the last couple weeks there are def more people not wearing masks. Overall it appears that people are relaxing their concerns about covid and/ or are allowing themselves to be influenced more and more by what they see others doing. But generally speaking, you never saw an abrupt night & day difference in most people's behaviors when Texas eased restrictions. At this point I think that most people aren't living their lives in accordance with the latest news reports as much as they simply seem to be acting as they personally feel makes the most sense. 

I've been fully vaccinated since March 8th but wearing a mask in public just feels better to me... reduces other viruses, allergens, etc from entering my body and gives me the opportunity to mutter insults and indiscretions under my breath w/o offending anyone. So I have no plans to stop masking anytime soon. And if it helps to continue to spread the message that this virus still exists, then I have no problem remaining part of that PSA.


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## sleewell

Sounds like you are making my case lol. Every time the so called experts are wrong they just move the goal posts or come up with an excuse why we should be locked down forever. At least I am able to process evidence and admit I was wrong without just blindly staying on one side. GA has been open this entire time and is fairing better than most.

Lift the restrictions and just let people decide for themselves.

We have much better treatments now and a vaccine. Time to get back to life as best as we are able. If you let them the sky is falling types will always tell you to be scared and to stay inside. They have nice cushy jobs and get paid either way.

I'm guessing within this echo chamber that everyone is getting paid to work from home and has yet to wonder how they will provide for their families when the govt shuts them down. It also seems like there are more introverts here who probably never want to go back to the office so its easier to keep buying whatever is being fed to you.


----------



## vilk

Ask me if I think any person I see in public moving within 6' of others without a mask on isn't an asshole. Maybe you're vaxxed and everything is hunky dory... Guess what? No one knows your socially retarded ass from Adam.

Imagine someone hypothetically cruised around the park with a model gun and was flashing it at people and shit to freak them out. Sure, they weren't gonna hurt anyone and they knew that... But they're still an asshole. Yeah, maybe flashing a gun is an inherently more malicious action than not wearing a mask in public, but I'm pretty sure COVID-19 put more people in the ground last year than bullets did...


----------



## thebeesknees22

sleewell said:


> Sounds like you are making my case lol. Every time the so called experts are wrong they just move the goal posts or come up with an excuse why we should be locked down forever. At least I am able to process evidence and admit I was wrong. GA has been open this entire time and is fairing better than most.
> 
> Lift the restrictions and just let people decide for themselves.
> 
> We have much better treatments now and a vaccine. Time to get back to life as best as we are able. If you let them the sky is falling types will always tell you to be scared and to stay inside. They have nice cushy jobs and get paid either way.
> 
> I'm guessing within this echo chamber that everyone is getting paid to work from home and has yet to wonder how they will provide for their families when the govt shuts them down.




the whole problem is hospital capacity. As soon as hospitalizations drop to a reasonable level then restrictions can lift. It's not about people following rules if they want to or not. It's about keeping the hospitals from filling up. They still aren't down enough. Nurses are still having to pull really long shifts. Hospitals are still low on beds in a lot of areas. If you have other issues besides COVID then good luck getting help until hospitalizations for COVID go down.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

sleewell said:


> Sounds like you are making my case lol. Every time the so called experts are wrong they just move the goal posts or come up with an excuse why we should be locked down forever. At least I am able to process evidence and admit I was wrong without just blindly staying on one side. GA has been open this entire time and is fairing better than most.
> 
> Lift the restrictions and just let people decide for themselves.
> 
> We have much better treatments now and a vaccine. Time to get back to life as best as we are able. If you let them the sky is falling types will always tell you to be scared and to stay inside. They have nice cushy jobs and get paid either way.
> 
> I'm guessing within this echo chamber that everyone is getting paid to work from home and has yet to wonder how they will provide for their families when the govt shuts them down. It also seems like there are more introverts here who probably never want to go back to the office so its easier to keep buying whatever is being fed to you.



It seems that you're making a lot of assumptions. I've never heard of anyone suggesting that they feel lock-downs or even restrictions should last forever nor that anyone would want them to. And everyone is free to interpret "the latest updated info" as they choose... whether that's seen as moving the goal-posts or whether that's simply the premise that we are learning as we go. I also don't "blindly stay on one side or another" as I've certainly made changes over the past year or so ago due to evidentiary conclusions as well as my own conclusions and common sense. IMO, most health professionals have remained pretty transparent from the get go... knowing that they didn't have all the answers and that protocol and recommendations would likely change over time.

I'm one of those people that feels as if full-blown lock-downs never would have been necessary had we as a society had more of a conscience and common sense regarding how we conduct ourselves. Despite that we've obviously come a long way since the beginning, I'm not so sure that as many people have that "sky is falling" mindset as what you seem to be suggesting. My wife had no choice but to keep working full time in a very infectious environment... and this was throughout the worst of the pandemic. She doesn't have the luxury of working from home so we adapted, sucked it up, and did our best to make sound decisions regarding our lives, our finances, etc. And she saw her fellow coworkers in every phase of infection... those that fared well, those that became very sick, those that required eventual hospitalization, and those that died. These were all people that she worked with side by side 48-50 hours a week. Some days she just broke down in tears which imo was absolutely understandable. You can be scared as hell and still maintain integrity in your decisions so I don't believe that it's as cut & dry as ( at least appears to me) you're making things out to be.


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## TedEH

High Plains Drifter said:


> that's simply the premise that we are learning as we go. [...] knowing that they didn't have all the answers and that protocol and recommendations would likely change over time.


At some point it's important to realize that this is what an expert is in the first place. Being an expert doesn't mean you're an infallible source of knowledge, it means you're in the best position to continue to re-evaluate new information. It would be a red flag if expert opinions didn't ever change over time or have some variance between experts.


----------



## Demiurge

sleewell said:


> I'm guessing within this echo chamber that everyone is getting paid to work from home and has yet to wonder how they will provide for their families when the govt shuts them down. It also seems like there are more introverts here who probably never want to go back to the office so its easier to keep buying whatever is being fed to you.



LOL wait- so there are people you know of who that are in favor of extending restrictions _just_ so they can continue to work from home? That's wild. I'd agree that people working from home have the luxury to wait, but let's not pretend that they're the group with the greater motivation to hear what they want to hear.


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## sleewell

Demiurge said:


> LOL wait- so there are people you know of who that are in favor of extending restrictions _just_ so they can continue to work from home? That's wild. I'd agree that people working from home have the luxury to wait, but let's not pretend that they're the group with the greater motivation to hear what they want to hear.




we actually had someone leave our company bc they would not guarantee her work from home status forever. i think you would be surprised at how many people would be in the same boat.

that is what is really frustrating to me. part of this whole thing is fear mongering us to make us scared of being around people. you have to show everyone what team you are on even if you look like a complete idiot with a mask on outside when no one is around you or you are that moron who refuses to wear one inside a crowded store and start spouting off dumb shit you read on fb.

we are becoming scared of our shadow and its further dividing us when we should be coming together. everyone is their own echo chambers like in this thread and everyone else is just dumb bc they dont fully agree with you.

i like going to the office which is why i havent worked from home yet. i like the people i work with. i like socializing and being friendly.

its frustrating that even with the vaccine people are still scared to even do basic things. it feels like the goal posts keep getting moved and we are just being forced into a permanent state of fear and lock downs. i actually heard someone on tv say we cant go back more towards normal bc fall is coming and we will be back indoors soon so we cant get lulled into complacency... REALLY?!?!? man that is the opposite of how i choose to live my life. you can always be scared of something to ruin your life over if you really try hard enough.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

sleewell said:


> we actually had someone leave our company bc they would not guarantee her work from home status forever. i think you would be surprised at how many people would be in the same boat.
> 
> that is what is really frustrating to me. part of this whole thing is fear mongering us to make us scared of being around people. you have to show everyone what team you are on even if you look like a complete idiot with a mask on outside when no one is around you or you are that moron who refuses to wear one inside a crowded store and start spouting off dumb shit you read on fb.
> 
> we are becoming scared of our shadow and its further dividing us when we should be coming together. everyone is their own echo chambers like in this thread and everyone else is just dumb bc they dont fully agree with you.
> 
> i like going to the office which is why i havent worked from home yet. i like the people i work with. i like socializing and being friendly.
> 
> its frustrating that even with the vaccine people are still scared to even do basic things. it feels like the goal posts keep getting moved and we are just being forced into a permanent state of fear and lock downs. i actually heard someone on tv say we cant go back more towards normal bc fall is coming and we will be back indoors soon... REALLY?!?!? man that is the opposite of how i choose to live my life. you can always be scared of something to ruin your life over if you really try hard enough.



Back in February of 2020, when you said this, it came off as plucky optimism. Now, almost 600k dead later, it just makes you seem like the crazy FB boomer you're talking about.


----------



## philkilla

Surveyor 777 said:


> That's good to hear. I'm getting my second (pfizer) shot next week.
> 
> First one was no big deal. A little shoulder soreness but nothing to prevent me from doing all normal activities.



Maybe the Pfizer cocktail is different. My arm was a little sore, but I still ate/drank and worked in the yard with no problems.


----------



## sleewell

yup, i am crazy boomer bc i don't agree with the echo chamber. dig in folks, your way is right and everyone else is wrong and stupid. the echo chamber will always make you feel better and give your egos some well needed stroking. the echo chamber will def solve all of our problems as long as we quickly insult and run off anyone who might have a different opinion. i'll even admit i have been guilty of this behavior and to be honest am embarrassed about it. 

i'll see myself out, doesn't seem like any other opinions are welcome here so i'll let y'all just keep patting yourselves on the backs falling over agreeing with each other. the gear parts of this site are really awesome, so much knowledge and helpful people so i'll just stick to those threads moving forward. 

it is shitty to say but people were going to die either way. its a pandemic and we had to learn on the fly. sending positive cases back into nursing homes was probably not the best idea along with many other things that could have been handled better. the US was never going to pull off a full on lock down like some countries have done but if you really think you are smarter than everyone else and your way is the best and only way there really is nothing i would ever be able to say to change your already closed minds. go back and look through my posts, my opinions have actually evolved over time by observing, listening to opposing viewpoints, asking questions and keeping an open mind which i guess is not really allowed here so whatever.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

sleewell said:


> yup, i am crazy boomer bc i don't agree with the echo chamber. dig in folks, your way is right and everyone else is wrong and stupid. the echo chamber will always make you feel better and give your egos some well needed stroking. the echo chamber will def solve all of our problems as long as we quickly insult and run off anyone who might have a different opinion. i'll even admit i have been guilty of this behavior and to be honest am embarrassed about it.
> 
> i'll see myself out, doesn't seem like any other opinions are welcome here so i'll let y'all just keep patting yourselves on the backs falling over agreeing with each other. the gear parts of this site are really awesome, so much knowledge and helpful people so i'll just stick to those threads moving forward.
> 
> it is shitty to say but people were going to die either way. its a pandemic and we had to learn on the fly. sending positive cases back into nursing homes was probably not the best idea along with many other things that could have been handled better. the US was never going to pull off a full on lock down like some countries have done but if you really think you are smarter than everyone else and your way is the best and only way there really is nothing i would ever be able to say to change your already closed minds. go back and look through my posts, my opinions have actually evolved over time by observing, listening to opposing viewpoints, asking questions and keeping an open mind which i guess is not really allowed here so whatever.



I mean, this rant is practically taping episodes of Bonanza while the VCR flashes "12:00".


----------



## diagrammatiks

sleewell said:


> yup, i am crazy boomer bc i don't agree with the echo chamber. dig in folks, your way is right and everyone else is wrong and stupid. the echo chamber will always make you feel better and give your egos some well needed stroking. the echo chamber will def solve all of our problems as long as we quickly insult and run off anyone who might have a different opinion. i'll even admit i have been guilty of this behavior and to be honest am embarrassed about it.
> 
> i'll see myself out, doesn't seem like any other opinions are welcome here so i'll let y'all just keep patting yourselves on the backs falling over agreeing with each other. the gear parts of this site are really awesome, so much knowledge and helpful people so i'll just stick to those threads moving forward.
> 
> it is shitty to say but people were going to die either way. its a pandemic and we had to learn on the fly. sending positive cases back into nursing homes was probably not the best idea along with many other things that could have been handled better. the US was never going to pull off a full on lock down like some countries have done but if you really think you are smarter than everyone else and your way is the best and only way there really is nothing i would ever be able to say to change your already closed minds. go back and look through my posts, my opinions have actually evolved over time by observing, listening to opposing viewpoints, asking questions and keeping an open mind which i guess is not really allowed here so whatever.



absolutely untrue. there's enough evidence that if people got their shit together this could have been taken care of in 3 months with no vaccine needed.


----------



## JSanta

sleewell said:


> yup, i am crazy boomer bc i don't agree with the echo chamber. dig in folks, your way is right and everyone else is wrong and stupid. the echo chamber will always make you feel better and give your egos some well needed stroking. the echo chamber will def solve all of our problems as long as we quickly insult and run off anyone who might have a different opinion. i'll even admit i have been guilty of this behavior and to be honest am embarrassed about it.
> 
> i'll see myself out, doesn't seem like any other opinions are welcome here so i'll let y'all just keep patting yourselves on the backs falling over agreeing with each other. the gear parts of this site are really awesome, so much knowledge and helpful people so i'll just stick to those threads moving forward.
> 
> it is shitty to say but people were going to die either way. its a pandemic and we had to learn on the fly. sending positive cases back into nursing homes was probably not the best idea along with many other things that could have been handled better. the US was never going to pull off a full on lock down like some countries have done but if you really think you are smarter than everyone else and your way is the best and only way there really is nothing i would ever be able to say to change your already closed minds. go back and look through my posts, my opinions have actually evolved over time by observing, listening to opposing viewpoints, asking questions and keeping an open mind which i guess is not really allowed here so whatever.



Your opinion reads like "People will die, and as long as I can do what I want to do, I'm willing to risk people dying". 

I'm sick of all this too. We all feel like we've lost time that can never be made up. But as hospitals across the world continue to struggle with how many people are deathly ill with this virus, we can't be too careful.


----------



## Demiurge

sleewell said:


> we actually had someone leave our company bc they would not guarantee her work from home status forever. i think you would be surprised at how many people would be in the same boat.



You'd have to admit, though, that there's more than a few miles between wanting to keep working from home and wanting restrictions to continue so this can be.

In fact, it's virtually a whole other matter. At least in my line of work, positions either have some WFH days as a perk if they're not fully remote at many companies. The thought is that if it is shown that the work can be done remotely, then why require that a position 'live' in an office? The same company that laid me offer years back because they wanted certain jobs to be in specific geographical locations has pulled a total 180 in favor of remote work. It's hard for other companies to put the genie back into the bottle when asking everyone to return, knowing what their competition offers and that the employees know they could offer it, too. My company has announced that they're reviewing to see which positions could become permanent WFH- not out of future virus fears but because there's no need to have every position report to a physical location.


----------



## diagrammatiks

Demiurge said:


> You'd have to admit, though, that there's more than a few miles between wanting to keep working from home and wanting restrictions to continue so this can be.
> 
> In fact, it's virtually a whole other matter. At least in my line of work, positions either have some WFH days as a perk if they're not fully remote at many companies. The thought is that if it is shown that the work can be done remotely, then why require that a position 'live' in an office? The same company that laid me offer years back because they wanted certain jobs to be in specific geographical locations has pulled a total 180 in favor of remote work. It's hard for other companies to put the genie back into the bottle when asking everyone to return, knowing what their competition offers and that the employees know they could offer it, too. My company has announced that they're reviewing to see which positions could become permanent WFH- not out of future virus fears but because there's no need to have every position report to a physical location.



ya these two situations have almost nothing to do with each other. 

If anything at least from a lot of companies and people I know in i.t. this whole thing has shown that a lot of work can be done from home. Slack and unified product flow boards are much more efficient than having to slog into meetings. 

if you can be as efficient wfh then there's no reason companies wouldn't allow this. 

The only downside is that...if there's no locational requirement for your job...and if they figure out that there's some temporal requirement for your job...you're going to lose your job to someone in India.


----------



## Demiurge

diagrammatiks said:


> The only downside is that...if there's no locational requirement for your job...and if they figure out that there's some temporal requirement for your job...you're going to lose your job to someone in India.



Luckily, with the particulars of my job and the need to be in the region, I don't have to worry about that, but there is certainly that downside with making a job a little too portable.


----------



## MFB

I woke up feeling like a sack of bricks this morning. Went back to bed multiple times between 630 and 815, didn't think it'd take that much out of me; I kept wanting to get up but my body just went into auto shutdown and said no for me. I then proceeded to dress in gym pants, a cable knot sweater and my beanie because I felt cold without being sick.

Took some ibuprofen and ate some food around 10AM, started to take some of the edge off and then it's gotten slightly better as time goes on.

I hadn't heard any stories about the J&J one, but I only know one person who had it, but compared to what I've heard, this seems mild.


----------



## Drew

sleewell said:


> we actually had someone leave our company bc they would not guarantee her work from home status forever. i think you would be surprised at how many people would be in the same boat.
> 
> that is what is really frustrating to me. part of this whole thing is fear mongering us to make us scared of being around people. you have to show everyone what team you are on even if you look like a complete idiot with a mask on outside when no one is around you or you are that moron who refuses to wear one inside a crowded store and start spouting off dumb shit you read on fb.
> 
> we are becoming scared of our shadow and its further dividing us when we should be coming together. everyone is their own echo chambers like in this thread and everyone else is just dumb bc they dont fully agree with you.
> 
> i like going to the office which is why i havent worked from home yet. i like the people i work with. i like socializing and being friendly.
> 
> its frustrating that even with the vaccine people are still scared to even do basic things. it feels like the goal posts keep getting moved and we are just being forced into a permanent state of fear and lock downs. i actually heard someone on tv say we cant go back more towards normal bc fall is coming and we will be back indoors soon so we cant get lulled into complacency... REALLY?!?!? man that is the opposite of how i choose to live my life. you can always be scared of something to ruin your life over if you really try hard enough.


With all due respect...

Your contributions in this thread, at _least_ for the last several months, possibly longer and I just did a better job tuning you out, have been very focused on how covid, for lack of a better word, _inconveniences_ you. You think you look dumb in a mask, so you don't want to wear one. You go into the office because you like socializing, and seem to be judging the employee who left because they wanted her to return to the office. You think it's unfair that Michigan, which let's be honest was THE hotspot in the US, was tightening Covid restrictions while Texas was relaxing them. You're now jealous of Florida for doing the same, and accusing anyone who disagrees with you of panicking and saying the "sky is falling." 

While you're doing this, you're also decrying "echo chambers" and saying people need to stop being divided and "come together." In context, I can only interpret that as "come together, and fully support the things I already agree with, rather than being divided, and continuing to disagree with me." 

I'll be honest. If you were to get covid, spend a couple weeks on a ventilator, and die, that'd be pretty shitty, and I'd feel sorry for you. But, at the end of the day, it also wouldn't really impact _my_ life at all. If this was as simple as letting you run whatever risks you were comfortable with, and if you had to pay the piper then so be it, then whatever, I wouldn't lose much sleep about it. 

But, it's not. You're _still_ in one of the US Covid hotspots, and while the same containment measures you've been decrying have done some good and have led to declining casecounts, you're still seeing more covid cases per capita than anywhere else in the country, more than double the national rate and a full 25% over the next highest state, Colorado. Your state is fighting a far more contagious variant, the UK mutation, than most of the rest of the country, and if that strain were to make significant footholds in other parts of the country, we'd be FUCKED. As it stands, with the high case rates you're still having, we're running an unacceptable risk of that strain mutating further and becoming even _more _dangerous (which is what happened in India, who a couple months ago was congratulating themselves believing the worst was over, and are on track to break 500,000 _confirmed_ new cases daily any day now, and the underlying case rate is probably already double that due to inadequate testing). 

You don't stop fighting, in a baseball game, a war, or against a pandemic, at the first sight the tide has turned and you may be launching a comeback. You stop fighting when you've won - the fat lady's sung, your enemies are crushed, you see them driven before you, and you hear the lamentations of their women and children, or when the disease is beat back to the point that community transmission is no longer a risk. 

And if that _inconveniences_ your way of life, well, if you guys fuck this up for the rest of us you're going to be inconveniencing a whole fuck of a lot of other people. This isn't about you anymore. Grow a set and pitch in for the good of the country. 

And, for the love of god, if you're one of these "vax-hesitant" folks, just go and get the fucking shot. It works, and I'm sick of not going to concerts or bars and having all my races cancelled but I'm also not so selfish that I'm just going to strap a giant fucking "Mission Accomplished" banner off the nearest aircraft carrier and play make-believe.


----------



## Drew

MFB said:


> I woke up feeling like a sack of bricks this morning. Went back to bed multiple times between 630 and 815, didn't think it'd take that much out of me; I kept wanting to get up but my body just went into auto shutdown and said no for me. I then proceeded to dress in gym pants, a cable knot sweater and my beanie because I felt cold without being sick.
> 
> Took some ibuprofen and ate some food around 10AM, started to take some of the edge off and then it's gotten slightly better as time goes on.
> 
> I hadn't heard any stories about the J&J one, but I only know one person who had it, but compared to what I've heard, this seems mild.


My sister got the J&J shot. It knocked her on her ass, too. I don't know how it compares in that respect to Moderna, but Pfizer has a lower mRNA dose than Moderna and symptoms have generally been milder from my highly-unscientific-butl-large survey. The good news is you're very nearly out the other side, and it beats the _shit_ out of getting covid.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Drew said:


> My sister got the J&J shot. It knocked her on her ass, too. I don't know how it compares in that respect to Moderna, but Pfizer has a lower mRNA dose than Moderna and symptoms have generally been milder from my highly-unscientific-butl-large survey. The good news is you're very nearly out the other side, and it beats the _shit_ out of getting covid.



All I know is, that Moderna shot is no joke. Everyone at the plant that's gotten it has been sick for days. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the company offering three sick days to anyone vaccinated for "recovery".


----------



## nightflameauto

MaxOfMetal said:


> All I know is, that Moderna shot is no joke. Everyone at the plant that's gotten it has been sick for days. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the company offering three sick days to anyone vaccinated for "recovery".


Getting second moderna Thursday. Contacting HR regarding possible "recovery" days.

 

I already took a few days off for it just in case. If I'm not sick, I've got a new guitar to futz with, or should by then. *REFRESHES TRACKING*


----------



## High Plains Drifter

I'm sincerely glad that some of you might be able to have a day or two off after receiving your 2nd dose. I had very minimal side effects but ya never know how it's going to effect you. 

On a related note- we're supposed to have our new bed delivered on the same day that my wife gets her 2nd Moderna dose. She'll be two days into her five day vacation at that time so she should have plenty of time to recover if she winds up with more pronounced side effects. I hope that I'll be able to get this new bed all set up for her prior to her experiencing any discomfort from the vaccine. She's so excited right now and so deserving... 2nd dose, new bed, and vacation incoming next week!


----------



## Demiurge

I almost regret not putting in for time off after my 2nd shot, but really a searing headache and feeling like shit sound a lot like normal work conditions.


----------



## spudmunkey

Anecdotally, it seems like most of the people with reactions that I've heard/read about, where they felt "a bit" to "pretty" ill, were from Moderna and J&J. I guess we lucked out with the Pfizer. Stupid us, we accepted a custom order from my GF's etsy store for a lot of an item for gift bags. Making it requires heavy lifting, working in the sun, and wearing a full-on half-face filtered 3M respirator, and it needed to be turned around over the weekend for shipment on Monday...and we were getting our shots on Friday. Ha! Thankfully, we lucked out and had minimal-if-any side effects. I felt a bit "off" on Saturday, but that could just be that I was hyper aware of anything that felt sub-optimal, and could also have been a little under-hydrated, or any other number of things that I don't normally pay close attention to.

On Sunday we sold at a small 1-block street fair, in San Francisco's "The Castro". Every single person was wearing a mask unless they were eating and drinking. Even the 4 guys who were naked except for flip-flops, their little dick-kerchief, baseball cap, sunglasses, and their masks.


----------



## MFB

Drew said:


> My sister got the J&J shot. It knocked her on her ass, too. I don't know how it compares in that respect to Moderna, but Pfizer has a lower mRNA dose than Moderna and symptoms have generally been milder from my highly-unscientific-butl-large survey. The good news is you're very nearly out the other side, and it beats the _shit_ out of getting covid.



This is the first thing in MONTHS that actually straight up forced me to eat food before noon, and by food I mean something more than the protein shake I have for lunch. Pretty quickly during quarantine, due to the lack of kitchen at my old apt. and just laziness to cook in the communal kitchen, I switched to intermittent fasting and doing a shake for lunch at 12 on the dot.

By 9:45 this morning I ate two biscuits, then had three Eggos at noon, and some cookies roughly an hour ago - and the more I eat (plus pop ibuprofen) the better I've been feeling; which isn't usually how being "sick" works, but I'll take it to be back in action tomorrow.


----------



## jaxadam

MFB said:


> By 9:45 this morning I ate two biscuits, then had three Eggos at noon, and some cookies roughly an hour ago



Just eating that alone would probably make me feel like I had the flu.


----------



## Wuuthrad




----------



## narad

MaxOfMetal said:


> I mean, this rant is practically taping episodes of Bonanza while the VCR flashes "12:00".



Flashbacks to my dad rotating in his arm chair to check the cushion creases: "Where's the clicker??"


----------



## MFB

jaxadam said:


> Just eating that alone would probably make me feel like I had the flu.



I mean, I'm a fat fuck (now slightly less due to OMAD and IF but still) so it didn't really make a dent; and my body was basically in panic mode thinking we were dying so I was just giving it whatever signal it fired off to shut it up/speed it up back to normal. I honestly didn't have the realization until I agreed to the shot what it would do to me today, but in for a penny, in for a pound and all.


----------



## Ralyks

I was fortunate that my second moderna shot happen to take place during my paid week off, because the day after kicked my ass. 230 in the morning with chills and fevers, body aches, tossing and turning. By 11:30 the fever and chills mostly stopped, but I still had my sister take my son for the rest of the day because the body aches suuuuucked and lasted until the following afternoon.

But yeah, from everything I've gathered, people who get Pfizer seem the least likely to have symptoms.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

I am glad there seems to be progress I feel Texas and Florida may see another spike when they get into their summer heat pushing more folks into inside AC areas but hopefully vaccines are far enough along by then.


----------



## LordCashew

Wuuthrad said:


> View attachment 93030



That blue radiating from their shoulders shows the 5G signal already broadcasting from the injection sites, right?


----------



## Jonathan20022

Drew said:


> With all due respect...
> 
> Your contributions in this thread, at _least_ for the last several months, possibly longer and I just did a better job tuning you out, have been very focused on how covid, for lack of a better word, _inconveniences_ you. You think you look dumb in a mask, so you don't want to wear one. You go into the office because you like socializing, and seem to be judging the employee who left because they wanted her to return to the office. You think it's unfair that Michigan, which let's be honest was THE hotspot in the US, was tightening Covid restrictions while Texas was relaxing them. You're now jealous of Florida for doing the same, and accusing anyone who disagrees with you of panicking and saying the "sky is falling."
> 
> While you're doing this, you're also decrying "echo chambers" and saying people need to stop being divided and "come together." In context, I can only interpret that as "come together, and fully support the things I already agree with, rather than being divided, and continuing to disagree with me."
> 
> I'll be honest. If you were to get covid, spend a couple weeks on a ventilator, and die, that'd be pretty shitty, and I'd feel sorry for you. But, at the end of the day, it also wouldn't really impact _my_ life at all. If this was as simple as letting you run whatever risks you were comfortable with, and if you had to pay the piper then so be it, then whatever, I wouldn't lose much sleep about it.
> 
> But, it's not. You're _still_ in one of the US Covid hotspots, and while the same containment measures you've been decrying have done some good and have led to declining casecounts, you're still seeing more covid cases per capita than anywhere else in the country, more than double the national rate and a full 25% over the next highest state, Colorado. Your state is fighting a far more contagious variant, the UK mutation, than most of the rest of the country, and if that strain were to make significant footholds in other parts of the country, we'd be FUCKED. As it stands, with the high case rates you're still having, we're running an unacceptable risk of that strain mutating further and becoming even _more _dangerous (which is what happened in India, who a couple months ago was congratulating themselves believing the worst was over, and are on track to break 500,000 _confirmed_ new cases daily any day now, and the underlying case rate is probably already double that due to inadequate testing).
> 
> You don't stop fighting, in a baseball game, a war, or against a pandemic, at the first sight the tide has turned and you may be launching a comeback. You stop fighting when you've won - the fat lady's sung, your enemies are crushed, you see them driven before you, and you hear the lamentations of their women and children, or when the disease is beat back to the point that community transmission is no longer a risk.
> 
> And if that _inconveniences_ your way of life, well, if you guys fuck this up for the rest of us you're going to be inconveniencing a whole fuck of a lot of other people. This isn't about you anymore. Grow a set and pitch in for the good of the country.
> 
> And, for the love of god, if you're one of these "vax-hesitant" folks, just go and get the fucking shot. It works, and I'm sick of not going to concerts or bars and having all my races cancelled but I'm also not so selfish that I'm just going to strap a giant fucking "Mission Accomplished" banner off the nearest aircraft carrier and play make-believe.



I was honestly going to write something up but caught up on the discussion and you put it so much more eloquently than I could have.

My home country is feeling it pretty terribly right now (Brazil), and I feel pretty lucky to have the vaccine, and that I'm supplied masks at my job to work through the pandemic even if I have to come into the office daily. I had a coworker make small talk the other day saying "can't wait to get these masks off man", and I just point blank told him I'd be wearing mine for at least another year until we are actually back to normal. If my fat ass can breathe fine with it on, anyone else should be able to health permitting.

Also as hilarious as this video is, it's also incredibly frustrating because it just puts a face on the kind of people that are "inconvenienced" by this pandemic. Just fuck their shit, people are so incredibly selfish.



EDIT: Filmed in Marquette, Michigan ironically


----------



## Wuuthrad

LordIronSpatula said:


> That blue radiating from their shoulders shows the 5G signal already broadcasting from the injection sites, right?



Yes indeed, but strangely I’m having difficulties tuning into their specific frequency for some reason...


----------



## Drew

Jonathan20022 said:


> EDIT: Filmed in Marquette, Michigan ironically


 

Didn't know you were Brazilian - country is a mess right now. :/ I have a friend who thankfully is in the Netherlands these days, but she's from Brazil and we've been checking in periodically. Bolsonaro and Trump had us both on almost the exact same trajectory, for a while there, but where we reversed course after the election things have just continued to degrade. Her mom got vaccinated a few weeks ago, and she cried when she got the news. It's a scary time to live there. 

Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to get mine off too. But I'm not doing it until my not wearing a mask isn't going to jeopardize someone else's life. And the soonest way to make that happen is for us ALL to keep taking this seriously, and not fuck up the landing here after all the sacrifices we've made.


----------



## Jonathan20022

Drew said:


> Didn't know you were Brazilian - country is a mess right now. :/ I have a friend who thankfully is in the Netherlands these days, but she's from Brazil and we've been checking in periodically. Bolsonaro and Trump had us both on almost the exact same trajectory, for a while there, but where we reversed course after the election things have just continued to degrade. Her mom got vaccinated a few weeks ago, and she cried when she got the news. It's a scary time to live there.
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to get mine off too. But I'm not doing it until my not wearing a mask isn't going to jeopardize someone else's life. And the soonest way to make that happen is for us ALL to keep taking this seriously, and not fuck up the landing here after all the sacrifices we've made.



Agreed, it does me no harm to wear mine so likewise until it's no longer dangerous to I will keep wearing it. It's a good thing to normalize too, people should use them in the future if they fall ill and must go in a public location for something.

Yeah my grandparents on my dad's side are far enough away from any cities that they're more than safe with our relatives who help take care of them. Everyone else is in Rio and it's terrifying to live through the pandemic with Bolsonaro guiding the ship, the vaccination rate has steadily shot up so I'm just praying they can get the jab sooner than later.


----------



## Bigredjm15

As a doctor. Get your damn vaccine!!!!! Side effects are temporary, immunity can be long lasting! Keep your family and loved ones safe. I will gladly answer any questions about the vaccines themselves, the medicinal chemistry of them, the conspiracy theories of them, the science behind it, the statistics and whatever else. And please don't message me saying, "my friend on facebook said..." Fuck your friends facebook MD degree. Listen to the experts. Anyways. Cheers, Love yall, keep safe and lemme know if I can be of service.


----------



## Empryrean

got my second dose today! feeling perfectly fine with the exception of a sore arm and raw fingertips but the fingertips is because of playing guitar and cutting my nails too short


----------



## nightflameauto

Wife and I had our second jab Thursday on our 21st Anniversary. As my coworker said, "so romantic." LOL.

We were a little tired the next day, but aside from that and the usual sore arms, no big whup. She spent the day writing and I spent it making music so it didn't bother us much.

I'm also suffering raw fingertips. MAYBE IT IS THE VACCINE!

Nah. New guitar in the house and it needs it's daily beating.


----------



## thebeesknees22

Got my vaccine appointment booked finally!


----------



## TedEH

They opened up appointments for 30+ today, so got an appointment booked. Will let people know if my cell reception improves.


----------



## btbg

sleewell said:


> i'll see myself out, doesn't seem like any other opinions are welcome here so i'll let y'all just keep patting yourselves on the backs falling over agreeing with each other. the gear parts of this site are really awesome, so much knowledge and helpful people so i'll just stick to those threads moving forward.



You strike me as the kind of person who would call someone a "snowflake" if they said this to you.

Snowflake.


----------



## narad

nightflameauto said:


> Wife and I had our second jab Thursday on our 21st Anniversary. As my coworker said, "so romantic." LOL.
> 
> We were a little tired the next day, but aside from that and the usual sore arms, no big whup. She spent the day writing and I spent it making music so it didn't bother us much.
> 
> I'm also suffering raw fingertips. MAYBE IT IS THE VACCINE!
> 
> Nah. New guitar in the house and it needs it's daily beating.



Sounds like some school program to get kids off drugs.

"Remember kids, nothing's more romantic than safety!"


----------



## wankerness

MaxOfMetal said:


> All I know is, that Moderna shot is no joke. Everyone at the plant that's gotten it has been sick for days. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the company offering three sick days to anyone vaccinated for "recovery".



Hmm. Here we get plenty of sick time but weren't given "special" sick time for vaccination or anything. As far as I talked to people who got the Moderna like myself, almost everyone had about a day of feeling like trash after the second shot, except for a couple of people who'd already had covid, who instead felt awful after the first shot.

I got my shot at noon, woke up around 4:30 with severe aches and chills, and barely felt human until the next day! It was rough. About as bad as the last time I got a bad lung infection. I never actually had a fever, though. Still, it blows my mind that so many people are so inept at risk assessment that they're like "well I'd probably get sick from the vaccine so why would I get it?!??!" or "we don't know what the vaccine will do to you!!!" while also usually refusing to wear a mask or social distance. It's like, we're PRETTY DAMN SURE the vaccine is not going to do anything bad to you, sure, there's possibly some tiny risk there. But, that's where these morons cut things off in their brain. There's no "but we do know that the virus, if you're not vaccinated, will VERY PROBABLY fuck you up quite badly and almost definitely give you much worse health effects than anything you'd ever get from the vaccine, even if you don't end up in the hospital." It's like the vaccine and the virus are completely independent concepts in their tiny brains!

I'd get vaccine hesitancy if they were ALSO going to continue masking forever and not ever interacting with other people who aren't masked, or something. But it's NEVER like that.


----------



## Wuuthrad

Bigredjm15 said:


> As a doctor. Get your damn vaccine!!!!! Side effects are temporary, immunity can be long lasting! Keep your family and loved ones safe. I will gladly answer any questions about the vaccines themselves, the medicinal chemistry of them, the conspiracy theories of them, the science behind it, the statistics and whatever else. And please don't message me saying, "my friend on facebook said..." Fuck your friends facebook MD degree. Listen to the experts. Anyways. Cheers, Love yall, keep safe and lemme know if I can be of service.




Im fully vaccinated since February, and fully on board with following science and the experts, and was just curious if there has been, or is there any ongoing research re. the possible long term side effects of the vaccine? Thanks very much in advance!


----------



## Wuuthrad

Big shocker here, eh? I was thinking last year when this started- how hard is it really for the entire world to just stay at home for a couple, maybe 3 weeks?




https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-was-preventable-says-who-commissioned-report


----------



## TedEH

Poke 1 is done, poke 2 is scheduled.


----------



## thebeesknees22

@TedEH - how long till #2? is it 4 months? One of the guy's I work with said his 2nd one was around 4 months out. :/


----------



## diagrammatiks

Wuuthrad said:


> Big shocker here, eh? I was thinking last year when this started- how hard is it really for the entire world to just stay at home for a couple, maybe 3 weeks?
> 
> View attachment 93335
> 
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-was-preventable-says-who-commissioned-report



I knew this.


----------



## MFB

thebeesknees22 said:


> @TedEH - how long till #2? is it 4 months? One of the guy's I work with said his 2nd one was around 4 months out. :/



Say what now? Everyone I know did their 2nd shot within 3-4 WEEKS, not months.


----------



## thebeesknees22

nah, in Canada it's delayed.  Or it has been. I'm not sure if that's still the case or not. I'll find out next week after I get my first one.


----------



## MFB

Ah fuck that's right, y'all are up north of the border. Totally forgot about that for when it actually matters.


----------



## thebeesknees22

lol, yeah first world problem? or is this a second world problem? ha Am I living in the first world? /facepalm I don't know anymore *me cries


----------



## Bigredjm15

Wuuthrad said:


> Im fully vaccinated since February, and fully on board with following science and the experts, and was just curious if there has been, or is there any ongoing research re. the possible long term side effects of the vaccine? Thanks very much in advance!


 Thanks for your question! Yes there is ongoing research! Remember, these vaccines were given to volunteer subjects back in March of 2020. So really we have about a years worth ahead of time research going on. Obviously we are monitoring more recently vaccinated people for side effects, via the VAERs program. The original patients will be followed, from what I remember, for at least 2 years. Also another promising nugget, J&J had 6 patients with blood clots, out of 6 million doses, and they pulled the vaccine for review, that's how SERIOUS the CDC/Gov is taking this. And really when you look at the development and physiological effect of these "new" mRNA vaccines (have been in development since 1960's), there would be no long term effects. The science behind it is essentially telling our body to do what it always does, instead its telling it to make spike proteins that the body has no use for, so our body makes anti-bodies to it.


----------



## Mathemagician

Forgot if I commented. Got the J&J around 6pm and was fine that evening. Next day was generally fatigued/sore joints but slept it off and fine the next day. Also CDC put out an updated report that the efficacy for J&J may be as high as 85% in the US versus the most common variant here. 

1 jab and done? Heck yes.


----------



## MFB

I attribute probably 75% of my post-shot feeling to the fact that I had to work and couldn't take that day off due to deadlines. Any other time I would've just said sick day and been done with it, but not this past week and a half.

I will say, it took a surprisingly long time for my shoulder to not feel like someone punched it too many times though; got real old real fast.


----------



## TedEH

thebeesknees22 said:


> @TedEH - how long till #2? is it 4 months? One of the guy's I work with said his 2nd one was around 4 months out. :/


Yeah, I was kinda surprised by that. I thought it was supposed to be 1 month, but it's not until September. Maybe a scheduling / supply issue? I'm not super worried about it. I can find statements with some googling that claim most of the work is being done by shot 1.

It's only been a few hours, but I can definitely feel some arm soreness. Nothing severe by any stretch.


----------



## Wuuthrad

Bigredjm15 said:


> Thanks for your question! Yes there is ongoing research! Remember, these vaccines were given to volunteer subjects back in March of 2020. So really we have about a years worth ahead of time research going on. Obviously we are monitoring more recently vaccinated people for side effects, via the VAERs program. The original patients will be followed, from what I remember, for at least 2 years. Also another promising nugget, J&J had 6 patients with blood clots, out of 6 million doses, and they pulled the vaccine for review, that's how SERIOUS the CDC/Gov is taking this. And really when you look at the development and physiological effect of these "new" mRNA vaccines (have been in development since 1960's), there would be no long term effects. The science behind it is essentially telling our body to do what it always does, instead its telling it to make spike proteins that the body has no use for, so our body makes anti-bodies to it.



Is there anywhere to read about this research? Particularly the long term studies? I tried to google this but you know how that can go It often results in less than scientific results! Thanks again.


----------



## Xaios

TedEH said:


> Yeah, I was kinda surprised by that. I thought it was supposed to be 1 month, but it's not until September. Maybe a scheduling / supply issue?


Ouch, that's a rough wait. I'm fairly certain it also varies province to province. As I live in the territories, we got preferential treatment, and it looks like that also helped us get our second doses as soon as possible after our first. I got my first dose of Moderna on March 8th and my second dose on April 5th.

The Yukon has a plan to start lessening restrictions starting Mayt 25th, including allowing those who are fully vaccinated to not have to self-isolate for 2 weeks when returning from out of the territory. I was planning to go down to Alberta to look at used cars in June, but given how much Covid is exploding their, I'm honestly not comfortable going there even being fully vaccinated.


----------



## thraxil

MFB said:


> Say what now? Everyone I know did their 2nd shot within 3-4 WEEKS, not months.



Yeah, not everywhere outside the US. My partner got her first shot a couple weeks ago and her second is scheduled for mid July.


----------



## TedEH

Xaios said:


> The Yukon has a plan to start lessening restrictions


This is the biggest reason, obviously, that I wish things were moving faster, and I why I'm not a fan of the AZ doses going unused and things like that. The Quebec curfew started back during the holidays I think, and was supposed to only be a few weeks, but instead has lasted long enough that I'm not even confident I remember when it started. Was it the holidays? Was it after that? I don't know. What even is time anymore. And it was instated without a good explanation for why they were doing it. It still doesn't make any sense and just makes life more difficult for no reason. Even when we hit the date on the 17th where the restrictions are supposed to be backed off a bit, we still have a curfew, it's just an hour later.

I honestly really don't like the precedent the curfew sets. It's an unreasonable restriction that helps nobody that they're holding fast about despite no evidence that it does anything useful (IMO it might be making things worse), and it's proving to be "temporary" in the same sense as taxes. What was supposed to just protect us from a holiday spike (that it didn't protect us from) has just been part of life for most of the year so far.

Between that and the interprovincial bridges being cut off at times, the sense of isolation gets very real, without the accompanying sense of it being for a good reason.


----------



## Bigredjm15

Wuuthrad said:


> Is there anywhere to read about this research? Particularly the long term studies? I tried to google this but you know how that can go It often results in less than scientific results! Thanks again.


Yes and no. The data collection is available here VAERS - Data (hhs.gov). Without spending an afternoon on their site drilling down exact parameters for searching specific patients by date administration, that would be the best site to use. Digging into studies, such as Developing mRNA-vaccine technologies (nih.gov). Would also send you down a rabbit hole of all kinds of stuff. And that kind of information if not trained in, can cause brain aneurysms lol. This might be an easier read. How Do We Know the COVID-19 Vaccine Won’t Have Long-Term Side Effects? (muhealth.org). If there were any MAJOR side effects that would halt administration of the vaccines, it would have been done already essentially.


----------



## thebeesknees22

TedEH said:


> This is the biggest reason, obviously, that I wish things were moving faster, and I why I'm not a fan of the AZ doses going unused and things like that. The Quebec curfew started back during the holidays I think, and was supposed to only be a few weeks, but instead has lasted long enough that I'm not even confident I remember when it started. Was it the holidays? Was it after that? I don't know. What even is time anymore. And it was instated without a good explanation for why they were doing it. It still doesn't make any sense and just makes life more difficult for no reason. Even when we hit the date on the 17th where the restrictions are supposed to be backed off a bit, we still have a curfew, it's just an hour later.
> 
> I honestly really don't like the precedent the curfew sets. It's an unreasonable restriction that helps nobody that they're holding fast about despite no evidence that it does anything useful (IMO it might be making things worse), and it's proving to be "temporary" in the same sense as taxes. What was supposed to just protect us from a holiday spike (that it didn't protect us from) has just been part of life for most of the year so far.
> 
> Between that and the interprovincial bridges being cut off at times, the sense of isolation gets very real, without the accompanying sense of it being for a good reason.




I'm hugely not a fan of these never ending curfews. Their time frames are just BS they made up, and not based on anything. 

Legault needs to go. He's incompetent, and he's just on a massive power trip where he thinks he's king. 

Plus he seems more focused on language laws than building up the healthcare infrastructure during a pandemic.................I just hope the people of QC boot him out when it comes time.


----------



## zappatton2

Well, I got my first appointment confirmed for June 9th, woot! It'll be the two shots, with the second booked in September, but it's better than not knowing!


----------



## TedEH

I've got lots of opinions about language laws, but that's for another time/place/thread/pandemic.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Wife just got her second jabbity-jab! Hopefully side effects will be minimal.


----------



## zappatton2

TedEH said:


> I've got lots of opinions about language laws, but that's for another time/place/thread/pandemic.


Oui je suis d'accord


----------



## Lorcan Ward

After nearly 5 months of hard lockdown here I can finally get a haircut and go clothes shopping. Still no pubs, restaurants or hotels open though. Our economy is going to be f**ked from shutting everything down but we are making good progress on vaccinating our population.


----------



## Surveyor 777

Got my second pfizer shot this morning (along with my daughter). Will wait & see what side effects I'll have. Upper arm was barely sore for the first one, so really hoping for something similar this time.


----------



## StevenC

Lorcan Ward said:


> After nearly 5 months of hard lockdown here I can finally get a haircut and go clothes shopping. Still no pubs, restaurants or hotels open though. Our economy is going to be f**ked from shutting everything down but we are making good progress on vaccinating our population.


I got my hair cut two weeks ago and then got really messed up afterwards when the pubs opened. It was a bad time. Still need new clothes.


----------



## bostjan

Second shot of Moderna was a little rough for me, but not too bad. I took the following morning off just in case, and ended up feeling fine anyway, well, until later that following evening, when I felt like I had a nasty cold for several hours. But, then those symptoms went away and I was pretty much back to normal.

Than a few days later, my arm broke out in a weird checkerboard rash that lasted exactly 48 hours then suddenly disappeared.

I'm a thousand miles away from my extended family, but I heard that hardly anyone was wearing masks at my uncle's funeral (he died of complications from Covid-19). I feel really sorry for my aunt (his wife), my mom, and my other aunt (his sister), and I understand it's a really bad time, but there's all of the sudden a bunch of drama brewing there over covid-political stuff. I fall pretty much in the middle of the political spectrum between the three of them, but, whatever the case, it makes me really sad that the grieving process has to involve politics at any rate.

Please stay safe everybody. If you can and you haven't yet, get vax'd. If you can't get vax'd, just be careful! We're over the hump now.


----------



## nightflameauto

CDC putting out an announcement that masks are no longer needed for fully vaccinated people (unless packed tightly with unvaccinated people) is really sending massive waves of resentful stupidity careening around the babble-sphere.

How we manage to turn even the simple things into yet another reason to get politically angry at this point is just so asinine. MAH TEAM! MAH TEAM!

Fuck your team. Listen to the science, behave like an adult, and stop whining about how everything is some kind of attack on your freedom.


----------



## Boofchuck

Ironically enough, I get the sense that a lot of vaccinated people will still wear masks as a precaution and unvaccinated+anti mask people will be the most eager to crowd without masks.


----------



## Randy

Timing!


----------



## bostjan

Randy said:


> Timing!
> View attachment 93364


95% effective at preventing infection still means a 1 in 20 chance of becoming infected upon exposure.

With thousands of celebrities out there mixing and mingling, it's somewhat surprising it took this long. Frankly, there are probably many more who simply haven't been tested, especially considering vaccinated people are far less likely to develop symptoms.

But that's precisely why, a hundred pages ago, I had suggested that the vaccine would not ever magically make this disease go away.


----------



## TedEH

It's very possible that my understanding of vaccines is lacking (it probably is), but I was under the impression that a vaccine just means you're much more resilient to something if you catch it, not that you don't catch it in the first place.


----------



## Randy

bostjan said:


> 95% effective at preventing infection still means a 1 in 20 chance of becoming infected upon exposure.
> 
> With thousands of celebrities out there mixing and mingling, it's somewhat surprising it took this long. Frankly, there are probably many more who simply haven't been tested, especially considering vaccinated people are far less likely to develop symptoms.
> 
> But that's precisely why, a hundred pages ago, I had suggested that the vaccine would not ever magically make this disease go away.



And of course I'm a virus-aphobe now and I got the vaccine that's only 67% effective 

CDC release on this mask stuff stinks of politics. Probably to distract from the jobs report and the gas shortage.

I agree if the science is there but the reaction and the nuts and bolts of how you back off of the mask mandate with <50% of people vaccinated is a heavy lift. The coverage of this was YOU DON'T NEED A MASK ANYWHERE ANYMORE ..._if you're vaccinated.... _Which is already being misinterpreted and abused.

CDC stills says to wear mask on bus, subway, plane, homeless shelters etc. They specifically cite those places. Okay, so cramped places where there's people of varying vaccination levels, health conditions etc. If those places are a model for where you should still wear a mask, there's a lot of places that mimic that same dynamic that you're NOT mentioning like bars and music venues. Why leave those out?

Also, since I'm sure Cuomo is going to be quick to roll back mask mandate in NY, what does that do for say grocery store for kids that are too young to get the vaccine? Mask is supposed to be 50% to protect you, 50% to protect everyone else. Kids in the store with people hotboxing the place of who knows whether they're vaccinated or not?

My friend pointed out even if you wanted to use the vaccine card as a pass to go maskless, they made the fuckin thing paper and too big to fit in a wallet. Zero chance anyone is going to carry it with them. Zero chance anywhere (besides maybe some clubs, events venues) will even bother enforcing vaccination requirements.

Feels like this recommendation just fell out of the sky.


----------



## nightflameauto

Yeah, there are already service industry workers saying this CDC "take off the mask" thing is basically a giant middle finger to them and their coworkers. I know around here it was always a struggle to get ANYBODY to wear a mask, even with the strictest guidelines. So now it's basically a free-for-all. And I'm pretty sure our vaccinated percentage isn't anywhere near the highest in the country.

On the bright side, we had a drop in new cases for the first time since forever, so you know, it must all be over.

What a fucking mess.


----------



## thebeesknees22

I think CDC is just a bit naive. They seem to think people will be responsible. They should know by now that's not the case. They should have kept the mandate through summer until the numbers drop a bit more.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Wanted to update here- My wife got her 2nd dose at 9:30 am yesterday. She was fine all day aside from the normal injection site soreness. But around 6:30 pm it hit her hard... almost like a wave smacked her down. Her temp soared to 99.1f and she had some serious chills. This was accompanied by heavy perspiration, body aches, a pounding headache, soreness in her hands and arms, and some congestion. Most of those side effects subsided within a few hours but she's remained quite lethargic throughout the night and into today. She's been taking ibuprofen and drinking lots of water but she has very little appetite and is still really tired.


----------



## nightflameauto

thebeesknees22 said:


> I think CDC is just a bit naive. They seem to think people will be responsible. They should know by now that's not the case. They should have kept the mandate through summer until the numbers drop a bit more.


You wouldn't think there'd be anybody involved in the CDC that would be that naive at this point. The whole thing just stinks to high heaven of "we need a win and damn the consequences."


----------



## thebeesknees22

nightflameauto said:


> You wouldn't think there'd be anybody involved in the CDC that would be that naive at this point. The whole thing just stinks to high heaven of "we need a win and damn the consequences."



eh, I'm not sure I agree with that, but I see how it comes across. There are plenty of smart people in the world that lack common sense.

I think it would be too big of a risk that would most definitely blow up in their faces if they weren't confident in the data. I don't think they would be putting this out if the data wasn't looking sound, but unfortunately I do think they're too naive and believe the people will be responsible with it.

I think they're trying to be upfront with people (as Fauci has been from the get go.) 

But people that should be masking up still aren't going to listen. 

I think in their minds they think it will make more people want to get vaccinated that haven't yet, because "hey! if you get vaccinated you don't have to wear a mask anymore!"

But those people who aren't vaccinating now won't just because of this data. They'll just not mask up anyway and go about their business.


----------



## Wuuthrad

As far as I understand, the vaccine effectiveness is related to getting sick, not in stopping getting the virus. Is this wrong?


----------



## Randy

Wuuthrad said:


> As far as I understand, the vaccine effectiveness is related to getting sick, not in stopping getting the virus. Is this wrong?



Effectiveness number is based on getting virus with symptoms vs control group in the test afaik. My understanding is that you can still get the virus but 1.) Not [supposed to] get sick 2.) Not [supposed to] pass it along

But that's an oversimplification. Still comes down to viral load, concentration and exposure, along with other conditions.

The virus typically wants to get you sick and reproduce in your body. My understanding is that with the vaccine, it's not supposed to effectively replicate and incubate within your body and you're not getting sick so you're not sneezing and coughing all over the place for the next person to take in. Doesn't mean it's repelled or killed the instant it touches your body, just that it's less likely to make it back out again once it's there, effectively.

Which is why I think viral load and concentration play a factor. If the bus and plane recommendation meant anything, it's likely that it's STILL possible to get sick if you have the vaccine and STILL possible to spread it but way less effectively on its own just by virtue of breathing in public. But a densely populated space with little ventilation means it hangs around in the air longer and it's more concentrated, maybe potentially enough to overwhelm your immune system?

That's at least the sound of it. The CDC recommendation sounds like they're envisioning scenario where everyone is vaccinated so limited chance to passing it, limited chance of receiving it in groups with other vaccinated persons, even if you get it it's in small levels and your symptoms will be less or non existent. This i believe it also based on the fact they expect you to see eachother in passing, maybe talk for a couple minutes or sit in a room across from eachother etc, but not a Roman orgy or something.


----------



## Randy

That said, I think the above statement about it being naive is correct. Vaccination numbers are lower than they need to be effective still.

In the scenario before we're talking small groups (or even large) of all vaccinated people meeting and moving on. You look at something like a bar or concert at capacity, the chances of everyone being honest and thoroughly vetted before entering is very low so figure on the the vaccination numbers reflecting the proportions at large at <50%.

Does the CDC recommendation hold up to a concert venue with less than half the people vaccinated, all sweating and breathing heavily in a confined space for 3 or 4 hours? No. Yet that's most likely to become a reality at large as an effect of the pressure/rush to "normal".

Even if I give the Biden admin more credit and say this isn't distraction politics, it's still likely "carrot and the stick" to try and get more people to take the vaccine. I just think they're underestimating how effective the regulations were at slowing the spread. A full reopen, release of mask mandate based on the honor system alone won't get it done.


----------



## ramses

TedEH said:


> It's very possible that my understanding of vaccines is lacking (it probably is), but I was under the impression that a vaccine just means you're much more resilient to something if you catch it, not that you don't catch it in the first place.



The vaccine prepares your immune system to quickly deal with the virus during the incubation period. So, you do not shed the virus, and do not develop disease.

However, under the right conditions any immune system can be overwhelmed. If you are a fully vaccinated physician dealing with ICU patients, you should be wearing protective equipment as usual.


----------



## Randy

So it begins.

Father in law just got back from FL today. Went into gas station here in NY with no mask and they kicked him out and he was screaming about CDC says you don't need a mask etc.

Partner calls her brother to tell him what happened, halfway through the story "wait why did they kick him out I thought you don't need to wear a mask anymore".

Thanks for giving them the fuel, Joe.


----------



## Ralyks

I'm fully vaccinated and still plan on wearing a mask in most places probably through the rest of the year, at least indoors. Outdoors I'll assess it on a case by case basis (like if I'm taking my kid to the playground or soccer practice and it's easy to keep space, sure, no mask). I don't trust indoors yet.


----------



## spudmunkey

I had to go to the hospital a couple if weeks ago, and still will wear an N95 when I go next week.

My girlfriend went to Trader Joe's, Target and Safeway this afternoon. Only 2 people were without masks at trader Joe's, and everyone was masked at Safeway and Target.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

Okay so I got my second dose of Moderna on Thursday. More severe side effects afterwards. But do-able. Went back to work on Saturday. 
But! My real reason for posting is to hear more opinions about the CDC dialing back mask rules. I went into Trader Joe’s and about 50% of the customers weren’t wearing masks. 
I seriously doubt every one of those people were fully vaccinated. You’re asking people to have integrity when it comes to being honest about being fully vaccinated. But I just don’t have that faith in the general public. This just seems short sighted and dangerous to me. 
I don’t think this is going to push anybody who is on the fence into getting vaccinated.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Unfortunately I think that the CDC is in a hard spot here. They're simply being transparent in their findings and updates. But sadly the anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists will just act even more self-righteous in their continued defiance. More and more fully vaxed people will stop wearing masks for sure but hopefully for the most part, the ones that have always taken this seriously will continue to do so for as long as they feel it's the responsible thing to do.

I'd like to stop wearing mine eventually but at this point it's really not a hard thing to continue doing... like zipping up my pants in public, it ain't that difficult. One thing's for sure though, I'm not going to stop wearing a mask until the CDC reports that viral spread is no longer a concern. If we can get it more under control then I'll consider unmasking but I have no plans nor expectations that that'll be anytime soon. At least for now, cases are still too high. And on a side note, it's been really cool over the past year that I haven't had a single cold nor seasonal flu.


----------



## nightflameauto

Randy said:


> Effectiveness number is based on getting virus with symptoms vs control group in the test afaik. My understanding is that you can still get the virus but 1.) Not [supposed to] get sick 2.) Not [supposed to] pass it along
> 
> But that's an oversimplification. Still comes down to viral load, concentration and exposure, along with other conditions.
> 
> The virus typically wants to get you sick and reproduce in your body. My understanding is that with the vaccine, it's not supposed to effectively replicate and incubate within your body and you're not getting sick so you're not sneezing and coughing all over the place for the next person to take in. Doesn't mean it's repelled or killed the instant it touches your body, just that it's less likely to make it back out again once it's there, effectively.
> 
> Which is why I think viral load and concentration play a factor. If the bus and plane recommendation meant anything, it's likely that it's STILL possible to get sick if you have the vaccine and STILL possible to spread it but way less effectively on its own just by virtue of breathing in public. But a densely populated space with little ventilation means it hangs around in the air longer and it's more concentrated, maybe potentially enough to overwhelm your immune system?
> 
> That's at least the sound of it. The CDC recommendation sounds like they're envisioning scenario where everyone is vaccinated so limited chance to passing it, limited chance of receiving it in groups with other vaccinated persons, even if you get it it's in small levels and your symptoms will be less or non existent. This i believe it also based on the fact they expect you to see eachother in passing, maybe talk for a couple minutes or sit in a room across from eachother etc, but not a Roman orgy or something.


Your last sentence is sorta joking, but seriously the CDC may have been better off to have a coded system in place like we did for terror alerts back when that was all the rage.
Level 5 - masks and social distancing everywhere
Level 4 - masks most places, social distance indoors
Level 3 - Drop the masks unless in a known hotbed or confined spaces
Level 2 - No masks, no social distancing outside of known non-vaccinated
Level 1 - Full blown Roman Orgy

I do wonder why some folks throw such hissy fits about the masks. I never had a problem with them even wearing the shitty cloth ones. Once you get decent N95s that you can fit properly, it's barely noticeable unless you're in some serious heat. It's barely an inconvenience, yet people act like you're ripping off their genitals and feeding them to them if you ask them to mask up. WTF?


----------



## TedEH

I still think there's some element of people not being comfortable with faces not being visible. Concealed identifiable features = danger. That, and and inability to handle something that "might look funny".


----------



## MaxOfMetal

RE: Masks

I think a lot of it comes down to personal experience as well. Healthcare workers, Firefighters, trades people, people who work in manufacturing, etc. are used to wearing PPE, and often much more cumbersome and "extreme" forms of it, so it doesn't bother them vs. someone who works in an office setting who has never donned any sort of mask. 

I have to wear various respirator (passive and powered) and SABA/SCBA units at work, for hours at a time, so a thin cloth mask is nothing. Back when I worked abatement, it was even more extreme. 

As someone who often has to train people on PPE etiquette, I completely understand how annoying it can be at first, but after a day or two it's just something most folks get used to.


----------



## Randy

TedEH said:


> I still think there's some element of people not being comfortable with faces not being visible. Concealed identifiable features = danger. That, and and inability to handle something that "might look funny".



That is a good point. 

I live in a VERY safe community, very small crime rate I believe one murder within the last 30 years and it was two people who were known to eachother, and I believe not a single robbery/mugging in my entire lifetime. 

The two or three most anti-mask people that I know were also the only three people I know who insisted on getting their concealed carry permit. And I mean, some people and some settings it's necessary or appropriate but living and working here, in the settings they've dealt with for the last 30 to 70 years each between them, it's just not there, it's all paranoia.

I mean, we've all seen the way bigots reacted to Muslim garb before masks for covid were the norm.


----------



## spudmunkey

Randy said:


> .
> 
> I mean, we've all seen the way bigots reacted to Muslim garb before masks for covid were the norm.



"Masks are the DUMBocRATS trying to spread Sharia Law!!"


----------



## Randy

Yep

https://imgur.com/gallery/s7M41kI


----------



## Mathemagician

Randy said:


> So it begins.
> 
> Father in law just got back from FL today. Went into gas station here in NY with no mask and they kicked him out and he was screaming about CDC says you don't need a mask etc.
> 
> Partner calls her brother to tell him what happened, halfway through the story "wait why did they kick him out I thought you don't need to wear a mask anymore".
> 
> Thanks for giving them the fuel, Joe.



What is it that people who worship private businesses don’t understand about private businesses? 

It’s private. It can set its own rules on its premises. If the US government made the rules it would be a nationalized government building….


----------



## MFB

Mathemagician said:


> What is it that people who worship private businesses don’t understand about private businesses?
> 
> It’s private. It can set its own rules on its premises. If the US government made the rules it would be a nationalized government building….



If only they hadn't made such a big deal over one gay cake from a bakery, who knows how things would've gone down today


----------



## MFB

COVID restrictions to lift in Massachusetts on May 29th, got to say, I'm actually pretty stunned by this. I know a good chunk of my firm is vaccinated, along with friends/family (large chunk work in healthcare, so it's not surprising they are), I just didn't think they'd make it so soon. I figured at least wait until 4th of July weekend or something, but hey, the numbers have been trending in the right direction and I haven't personally run into any anti-maskers.

https://boston.cbslocal.com/2021/05...pening-restrictions-may-29-gov-charlie-baker/


----------



## LordCashew

MaxOfMetal said:


> Back when I worked abatement, it was even more extreme.


I used to do mold abatement. There's nothing quite like wearing a Tyvek suit and full face mask in an attic in the middle of summer. Especially when customers are super pissed about their house getting torn apart. What a great industry...


----------



## Ralyks

MFB said:


> COVID restrictions to lift in Massachusetts on May 29th, got to say, I'm actually pretty stunned by this



Here in NY, they're getting lifted TOMORROW.
Not really thrilled about that.


----------



## Demiurge

Got Moderna #2 yesterday afternoon. There was just some arm pain on the first one, but this one: oh, my sweet, disgusting body feels like it has been hit by a garbage truck.


----------



## Shoeless_jose




----------



## bostjan

Anyone else started getting crap for wearing their mask yet? My employer has a strict wear-your-mask-when-you-are-within-six-feet-of-anyone-else-no-matter-who-it-is policy. The rules say nothing about vaccines (yet), but I've already had at least three people tell me that I need to take my mask off, since I'm fully vaccinated (actually, it started before I was even fully vaccinated).

I guess my level of surprise is basically negligible that this is happening, but I have been a little surprised at who are the people taking offense to me wearing a mask around them - most of them are the more liberally-minded coworkers and colleagues.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

bostjan said:


> Anyone else started getting crap for wearing their mask yet? My employer has a strict wear-your-mask-when-you-are-within-six-feet-of-anyone-else-no-matter-who-it-is policy. The rules say nothing about vaccines (yet), but I've already had at least three people tell me that I need to take my mask off, since I'm fully vaccinated (actually, it started before I was even fully vaccinated).
> 
> I guess my level of surprise is basically negligible that this is happening, but I have been a little surprised at who are the people taking offense to me wearing a mask around them - most of them are the more liberally-minded coworkers and colleagues.



Man, I've been getting that since day one out here. 

But it's Wisconsin. 

I guess the biggest shock was how many medical and first responder staff that have been anti-mask, and particularly now with the new CDC guidelines. 

Oh well. 

My company also has a mask-all-the-time-or-else policy...but regardless of who wears a mask or doesn't the "or else" hasn't really happened. Luckily, I work mostly on my own so I haven't sweat it too much.


----------



## bostjan

MaxOfMetal said:


> Man, I've been getting that since day one out here.
> 
> But it's Wisconsin.
> 
> I guess the biggest shock was how many medical and first responder staff that have been anti-mask, and particularly now with the new CDC guidelines.
> 
> Oh well.
> 
> My company also has a mask-all-the-time-or-else policy...but regardless of who wears a mask or doesn't the "or else" hasn't really happened. Luckily, I work mostly on my own so I haven't sweat it too much.



We had one guy get written up for refusing to wear a mask here, but it was basically because he decided to push his luck in a very direct way - but that was probably almost a year ago. Most everyone else realized early on that the "warnings" were essentially bottomless. So, if you got a verbal warning for not wearing your mask, all you had to do was not strike up an argument about it and go on not wearing a mask...

Ironically, the ones who are anti-mask now are the ones in authority positions- sort of a reversal of how it was last year.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

bostjan said:


> We had one guy get written up for refusing to wear a mask here, but it was basically because he decided to push his luck in a very direct way - but that was probably almost a year ago. Most everyone else realized early on that the "warnings" were essentially bottomless. So, if you got a verbal warning for not wearing your mask, all you had to do was not strike up an argument about it and go on not wearing a mask...
> 
> Ironically, the ones who are anti-mask now are the ones in authority positions- sort of a reversal of how it was last year.



Yeah, a couple of folks have been sent home over it, but that's mainly because of how they reacted (loudly, rudely) when asked to wear a mask. 

Management is just sick of policing over it so they're getting more and more lax. It's just sort of become another item of PPE that they enforce only when they absolutely have to like nets, vests, front facing caps, etc.


----------



## Ralyks

My job isn't changing covid guidelines yet, or at least in my district, but I told them I planned on wearing a mask regardless until at least the end of the year, and nobody gave me a problem.


----------



## StevenC

Vaccination for my age group has opened up here, so looks like it's F5 season. Missed all the ones for this week though.


----------



## thebeesknees22

I got my 1st shot. Pfizer. Didn't feel a thing when I got jabbed. 

2nd shot is set for September.


----------



## thraxil

StevenC said:


> Vaccination for my age group has opened up here, so looks like it's F5 season. Missed all the ones for this week though.



I finally got an appointment booked today. Earliest one I could get was three weeks out though. Guess demand is high here in London.


----------



## StevenC

thraxil said:


> I finally got an appointment booked today. Earliest one I could get was three weeks out though. Guess demand is high here in London.


Yeah, ours went live yesterday about 20 minutes after my daily "can I get vaccinated" news check. They're doing them week at a time here, but I'm not sure if I should be checking daily to snipe for cancellations.


----------



## nightflameauto

StevenC said:


> Yeah, ours went live yesterday about 20 minutes after my daily "can I get vaccinated" news check. They're doing them week at a time here, but I'm not sure if I should be checking daily to snipe for cancellations.


I don't know if it'll work the same for you folks over yonder, but here they had end of day openings so that they used the vaccines they had prepared for cancelations/no shows before the end of the day. I have several coworkers that managed to snag vaccines that way. In our case around here that was call-in only.

I would assume just to not waste vaccines they have something similar going on.

As of yesterday I'm officially two weeks out from my second dose of moderna, no worse for the wear. Guess it's time to party.

Or sit at home on the couch with the wife and a whiskey like I've always done. Whatevs.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

I was fully vaccinated as of the beginning of this month. I missed the first round when they opened it up to service workers of all ages, those spots went super fast. They couldn't stick me fast enough.

I am a server and bartender at a small upscale restaurant. Most of the employees weren't masking up and patrons would occasionally express their open derision to those of us who did. If it didn't ultimately constitute a risk to others I'd hope they got COVID. Tables do occasionally request someone masked or vaccinated, on the other hand. 

I also quit a bartending job at a bowling alley shortly before this one, because there was zero attempt by the establishment to guarantee social distancing. Soon after I left they had a massive outbreak there during bowling leagues. I take absolutely no satisfaction in a bunch of people getting sick, but I fkn told them so. 

I have mixed feelings about service industry mask requirements. I feel like bars and restaurants should have just stayed closed, but we don't have the infrastructure to support all those people, which is really the bigger problem as I see it. I was and still am in favor of paying everyone to stay the F home. Money printer go brrrrrrrrrr

I feel, ultimately, that requiring service workers to wear masks is shunting responsibility off to the people least able to affect change. Anyone coming to a restaurant over the last year has made an incredibly dangerous, irresponsible, and selfish decision. I'd rather leave such antisocial actors to their own lot, but once again, them getting sick puts others at risk, and so I have been left with no choice but to mask up in order to protect other people from their entitled behavior. 

Anyone working as a cook right now and being required to wear a mask should be getting hazard pay at the VERY least, I can't imagine working on a line wearing a mask. Just kill me now.


----------



## TedEH

wheresthefbomb said:


> I feel like bars and restaurants should have just stayed closed, but we don't have the infrastructure to support all those people, which is really the bigger problem as I see it.





wheresthefbomb said:


> Anyone coming to a restaurant over the last year has made an incredibly dangerous, irresponsible, and selfish decision.


The way I see it, it was between a bunch of people being broke vs a different bunch of people sick and dying - choices were made, and now we're stuck with the consequences.
For all the whining people have done about "freedom", we've had _tons_ of freedom in terms of how to respond to this whole deal. Choices were made. We chose to go to work even if it put people at risk, we chose to keep shopping and dining out even if it put people at risk, we chose to shame people who wanted to be safe, we chose to politicize things. None of what people have done for the last year was inevitable - people chose it.


----------



## Metropolis

MaxOfMetal said:


> Man, I've been getting that since day one out here.
> 
> But it's Wisconsin.
> 
> I guess the biggest shock was how many medical and first responder staff that have been anti-mask, and particularly now with the new CDC guidelines.
> 
> Oh well.
> 
> My company also has a mask-all-the-time-or-else policy...but regardless of who wears a mask or doesn't the "or else" hasn't really happened. Luckily, I work mostly on my own so I haven't sweat it too much.



Most likely because medical environment is much more controlled for using a mask of some sort. And effect of using one in everyday life is somewhat questionable, variables and situations with different outcomes are basically endless. But whatever makes people feel safe and protected... I've been lately using FFP2/N95 in school and public transport, and recommendation for using a mask will be taken down in this country around july.

Still no appointments for vaccination in my age group of 30-34 in this town, maybe in couple of weeks they will open it.


----------



## groverj3

Got my second dose of Moderna yesterday. Felt fine until probably 10pm and the muscle aches started.

Woke up probably three times through the night with chills, then sweating like crazy, muscle and joint aches. However, I managed to get comfortable enough to sleep until about 11am here, and now I just feel like shit because I slept like shit. No other lingering side effects. Felt like a 12 hr flu. I'll take it over getting COVID.

It was frustrating because most people I know in other states have been fully vaccinated for weeks or more. However, that probably speaks more to stupid anti-vax people reducing demand. Less of that here in MA.

Also, for all the stupid shit the US government has done through all this, at least we have vaccine availability. I can't imagine these moronic anti-vaxxers though, people around the world are desperate for them and we have them available to literally anyone who wants one for free and people STILL won't do it.


----------



## groverj3

I spent the early part of the pandemic in AZ and MI. Then finished my move to MA. It was a really interesting experience to see all variations of taking this seriously, and not, throughout the country on a 3000 mile drive.


----------



## Wuuthrad

wheresthefbomb said:


> I was fully vaccinated as of the beginning of this month. I missed the first round when they opened it up to service workers of all ages, those spots went super fast. They couldn't stick me fast enough.
> 
> I am a server and bartender at a small upscale restaurant. Most of the employees weren't masking up and patrons would occasionally express their open derision to those of us who did. If it didn't ultimately constitute a risk to others I'd hope they got COVID. Tables do occasionally request someone masked or vaccinated, on the other hand.
> 
> I also quit a bartending job at a bowling alley shortly before this one, because there was zero attempt by the establishment to guarantee social distancing. Soon after I left they had a massive outbreak there during bowling leagues. I take absolutely no satisfaction in a bunch of people getting sick, but I fkn told them so.
> 
> I have mixed feelings about service industry mask requirements. I feel like bars and restaurants should have just stayed closed, but we don't have the infrastructure to support all those people, which is really the bigger problem as I see it. I was and still am in favor of paying everyone to stay the F home. Money printer go brrrrrrrrrr
> 
> I feel, ultimately, that requiring service workers to wear masks is shunting responsibility off to the people least able to affect change. Anyone coming to a restaurant over the last year has made an incredibly dangerous, irresponsible, and selfish decision. I'd rather leave such antisocial actors to their own lot, but once again, them getting sick puts others at risk, and so I have been left with no choice but to mask up in order to protect other people from their entitled behavior.
> 
> Anyone working as a cook right now and being required to wear a mask should be getting hazard pay at the VERY least, I can't imagine working on a line wearing a mask. Just kill me now.



I feel for you! Damn what can I say!


----------



## Wuuthrad




----------



## spudmunkey

Wuuthrad said:


> View attachment 93702



"it's because they are subservient sheeple with no freedom." - racist uncle Leroy.


----------



## Metropolis

Wuuthrad said:


> View attachment 93702



What are these "asian countries" or "asian people", small amount of population from more developed eastern Asia?

Meanwhile in India, which is an asian country, right?


----------



## StevenC

Metropolis said:


> What are these "asian countries" or "asian people", small amount of population from more developed eastern Asia?
> 
> Meanwhile in India, which is an asian country, right?



I'm sure you know this, but that tweet did not say "all Asian countries". It's talking about Japan, Korea and China which have a well documented history of mask wearing. 

And I'm sure you also know this, but the wider world has been talking about how stupid the Indian president was being by not shutting down festivals during a massive outbreak.


----------



## narad

Metropolis said:


> What are these "asian countries" or "asian people", small amount of population from more developed eastern Asia?
> 
> Meanwhile in India, which is an asian country, right?




They're talking about places like here in Japan (obviously mask culture isn't a big part of life in India). Apart from mask shortages during the initial outbreak, and travel restrictions in/out, basically life as usual here.

When we get 1k cases a day it's considered a reflection on poor behavior and people reign it in a bit. In comparison that's like a pretty good day for just NY. Despite some bad roll outs and distribution, and slow official policy, it turns out if your populous isn't 50% self righteous anti-science assholes, you can pretty much manage.


----------



## Randy

narad said:


> They're talking about places like here in Japan (obviously mask culture isn't a big part of life in India). Apart from mask shortages during the initial outbreak, and travel restrictions in/out, basically life as usual here.
> 
> When we get 1k cases a day it's considered a reflection on poor behavior and people reign it in a bit. In comparison that's like a pretty good day for just NY. Despite some bad roll outs and distribution, and slow official policy, it turns out if your populous isn't 50% self righteous anti-science assholes, you can pretty much manage.



Wednesday was the end of mask mandate in NY, and it's been 50/50 as far as pleasantly surprised and unsurprisingly disappointed with the way compliance dropped off. Same day was official opening of lake/boating season, so my buddy stopped by local watering hole and it was three deep at the bar, not a mask in the entire building.

The thing that stands out to me is how quick people are to congratulate themselves or declare they're "ready to get back to normal" when meanwhile they barely, if at all changed their behaviors during the height of the pandemic anyway. Can't tell you how many people I know that are like "ah, I deserve this" and they're demasked, going to the bar shoulder to shoulder at happy hour, going to the movies as near full capacity when they were going to the bar, throwing parties and going to the movies (when they were open) anyway.

It's like, less that people are responding to the fact they "couldn't" do these things and more like they were doing these things anyway and they're just responding to the fact they no longer need to feel guilty for it.


----------



## John

Randy said:


> Wednesday was the end of mask mandate in NY, and it's been 50/50 as far as pleasantly surprised and unsurprisingly disappointed with the way compliance dropped off. Same day was official opening of lake/boating season, so my buddy stopped by local watering hole and it was three deep at the bar, not a mask in the entire building.
> 
> The thing that stands out to me is how quick people are to congratulate themselves or declare they're "ready to get back to normal" when meanwhile they barely, if at all changed their behaviors during the height of the pandemic anyway. Can't tell you how many people I know that are like "ah, I deserve this" and they're demasked, going to the bar shoulder to shoulder at happy hour, going to the movies as near full capacity when they were going to the bar, throwing parties and going to the movies (when they were open) anyway.
> 
> It's like, less that people are responding to the fact they "couldn't" do these things and more like they were doing these things anyway and they're just responding to the fact they no longer need to feel guilty for it.




Very relatable in the southern part of the US. ie- in Texas bans are up now in public schools from requiring masks, among a variety of other decisions that aren't very wise.
While I'm disappointed as well, I'm not surprised at the rate of compliance dropping off/how eager such people are to throw precautions and restrictions under the bus. Even at the slightest indication of being closer to normal, many would not hesitate to sweep those precautions under the rug as if nothing ever happened. An example of that was around last summer (more or less): several folks started to ease with the restrictions in place in one way or another upon hearing some downward trends pertaining to infection rates, and of course said infection rates spiked back up not too long after.


----------



## StevenC

Randy said:


> Wednesday was the end of mask mandate in NY, and it's been 50/50 as far as pleasantly surprised and unsurprisingly disappointed with the way compliance dropped off. Same day was official opening of lake/boating season, so my buddy stopped by local watering hole and it was three deep at the bar, not a mask in the entire building.
> 
> The thing that stands out to me is how quick people are to congratulate themselves or declare they're "ready to get back to normal" when meanwhile they barely, if at all changed their behaviors during the height of the pandemic anyway. Can't tell you how many people I know that are like "ah, I deserve this" and they're demasked, going to the bar shoulder to shoulder at happy hour, going to the movies as near full capacity when they were going to the bar, throwing parties and going to the movies (when they were open) anyway.
> 
> It's like, less that people are responding to the fact they "couldn't" do these things and more like they were doing these things anyway and they're just responding to the fact they no longer need to feel guilty for it.


I'm amazed that you're just dropping everything at once. Our regular pubs are opening tomorrow after a month or so of only allowing outdoor dining/drinking. But still everything is table service only and no sitting/standing at the bar at all. Which seems fair considering most bar staff haven't been vaccinated here, but most bar patrons have been offered at least their first vaccine.

I'm still doing some weekend shifts for extra pedal money, but I'm not going to do it if things aren't strict and I can't tell people where to go if I'm feeling uncomfortable.


----------



## Empryrean

unsurprisingly, my gun toting redhat side of the family has scared my grandparents into not taking the vaccine. It truly sucks that they are the closest relatives to my grandparents and I hope that they feel immeasurable guilt when one of them gets it


----------



## Randy

Empryrean said:


> unsurprisingly, my gun toting redhat side of the family has scared my grandparents into not taking the vaccine. It truly sucks that they are the closest relatives to my grandparents and I hope that they feel immeasurable guilt when one of them gets it



No clue why an elderly person should be more afraid of taking the vaccine than not. Even the most generous Alex Jones' of the world are believers in slow-kill and forced sterilization. If you're in your late 70s to 80s, what's to lose? 

I know a few people in that age bracket that have been lulled into fearing the vaccine because "what happens long term?" Why you looking to have more kids? Long term if you're 80 years old is three weeks from now, lets get real.


----------



## Randy

Pertinent:


----------



## Randy

StevenC said:


> I'm amazed that you're just dropping everything at once. Our regular pubs are opening tomorrow after a month or so of only allowing outdoor dining/drinking. But still everything is table service only and no sitting/standing at the bar at all. Which seems fair considering most bar staff haven't been vaccinated here, but most bar patrons have been offered at least their first vaccine.
> 
> I'm still doing some weekend shifts for extra pedal money, but I'm not going to do it if things aren't strict and I can't tell people where to go if I'm feeling uncomfortable.



It's all about economics here. Biden got a bad jobs report and GDP slowdown, so he wanted "back to normal" so they he has an excuse to boot those remaining off unemployment and ramp up the economy. 

In my state, Cuomo has always been a big partner of lobbyists and big business, but he's also an effective cog in the Biden machine, so he was going to fold to these recommendations no matter what his health experts or common sense told him. I said it last year, Cuomo and most of the rest of the governors are the same as guys like Desantis, they feign "science" and "safety" about 5% more until it gets in the way of $$$. Explain to me the science of lifting mask mandate, social distancing and venue capacities a week out from Memorial Day? It's all about the money.

Keep in mind, CDC and NYS guidelines both state no mask IF you're vaccinated but we just accept that's essentially unenforceable since bartenders aren't authorized to read your medical records. To that end, my friend told me the other day he saw someone in the home improvement store, where it's prominently posted "if you are not vaccinated you must wear a mask". One patron was not wearing one, so a worker asked them if they had their vaccine and he had an absolute and total meltdown because that's a "personal question". 

As if it wasn't tough enough trying to get people to comply with uniform mask requirements as a low wage worker, now you need to ask about the vaccination status and that wedges open the whole BS of your politics, your medical situation, your religious beliefs, etc. It's untenable.


----------



## StevenC

Randy said:


> It's all about economics here. Biden got a bad jobs report and GDP slowdown, so he wanted "back to normal" so they he has an excuse to boot those remaining off unemployment and ramp up the economy.
> 
> In my state, Cuomo has always been a big partner of lobbyists and big business, but he's also an effective cog in the Biden machine, so he was going to fold to these recommendations no matter what his health experts or common sense told him. I said it last year, Cuomo and most of the rest of the governors are the same as guys like Desantis, they feign "science" and "safety" about 5% more until it gets in the way of $$$. Explain to me the science of lifting mask mandate, social distancing and venue capacities a week out from Memorial Day? It's all about the money.
> 
> Keep in mind, CDC and NYS guidelines both state no mask IF you're vaccinated but we just accept that's essentially unenforceable since bartenders aren't authorized to read your medical records. To that end, my friend told me the other day he saw someone in the home improvement store, where it's prominently posted "if you are not vaccinated you must wear a mask". One patron was not wearing one, so a worker asked them if they had their vaccine and he had an absolute and total meltdown because that's a "personal question".
> 
> As if it wasn't tough enough trying to get people to comply with uniform mask requirements as a low wage worker, now you need to ask about the vaccination status and that wedges open the whole BS of your politics, your medical situation, your religious beliefs, etc. It's untenable.


Yeah, that's just not fair on people. Here we still have to wear masks everywhere, except if you are at your table in a bar or restaurant.


----------



## nightflameauto

I live in a part of the country where the "mandates" that existed were never observed by the entire population. Even at the height of everything it wasn't uncommon to see large groups of people gathered together with a smattering of masked folks among large piles of non-masked. Some dine-in places closed altogether, some went limited capacity, but the one thing that didn't happen is hard-line mandates on masks anywhere but grocery stores.

Now that we're getting news of mandates being lifted we've got people throwing what little caution they had at the wind and doing fuck-all other than, "everything's back to normal. No more worries." I've got a whole bunch of relatives my age and younger that aren't going to vaccinate. Partially because of politics, partially because, "I don't do other vaccines, why would I do this?" Most of them never gave a shit about anything over the last year and change. They'd still go to any place that was open and allowed them in, and pack in as tight as they could every time.

It sucks watching this happen when my wife and I have barely left the house other than curbside pickups for over a year and even then we both wore masks when the car windows were open waiting. I have gone to the office, but there were actual requirements in place there. Anywhere considered public areas (hallways, conference rooms, etc.) had strict six foot minimums and masks required at all times. Conference rooms were limited to about 1/3rd capacity. Most if not all meetings were remote/zoom/teams/etc. We did everything the way we were supposed to this entire time. And now we STILL do what we're supposed to despite being two weeks and change out from being vaccinated and watch all the dumbshits that did nothing different the entire time celebrate being "back to normal."

It's sickening. I hope they don't get sick just for the general good of the rest of us, but I won't be surprised if we see another wave sweep through the nation as stupid as the general population is being right now. It's so dumb, and so avoidable. But to hell with the inconvenience of being safe in your own home, or god forbid wearing a mask to interact with others. Full speed ahead and damn the consequences. Gah.


----------



## StevenC

Getting my vaccine on Monday!!!! 

My older brother and his gf got there's on Friday, just need my sister, younger brother and his girlfriend and that'll be everybody I care about sorted!


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> Keep in mind, CDC and NYS guidelines both state no mask IF you're vaccinated but we just accept that's essentially unenforceable since bartenders aren't authorized to read your medical records. To that end, my friend told me the other day he saw someone in the home improvement store, where it's prominently posted "if you are not vaccinated you must wear a mask". One patron was not wearing one, so a worker asked them if they had their vaccine and he had an absolute and total meltdown because that's a "personal question".
> 
> As if it wasn't tough enough trying to get people to comply with uniform mask requirements as a low wage worker, now you need to ask about the vaccination status and that wedges open the whole BS of your politics, your medical situation, your religious beliefs, etc. It's untenable.


I mean, the natural response to all of this _should _be for individual shops, bars, and restaurants to enforce their OWN mask mandates, as there's nothing that prohibits them from, as private businesses, doing so. That'll flush out the anti-vax nutjobs REAL quick. 

Unfortunately, major national retail chains are lifting their mandates. 

We lift ours in MA this coming weekend. I think a lot of individual businesses plan on continuing to require them, and I certainly plan on continuing to carry one with me when I go out and likely wearing it indoors anyway, even if I'm no longer required to. It's a courtesy thing.


----------



## MFB

Buddy of mine shared a story about a local music retailer around here in the NE area, Bullmoose Music - one of my friends used to manage this particular store, and several others worked there - fired all their staff over mask protocols. NH seems to be lifting their policy, and the store is planning to follow suite despite protests from the staff, so they said "OK, if you want to keep wearing a mask, feel free to do it while employed elsewhere." 

Pretty crazy to me, didn't think this was really the time to be canning people for wanting to be on the right side of history, especially given that now you're just a number on the list of others looking for people to work for minimum wage


----------



## Demiurge

That was disappointing to hear about Bullmoose- it seemed like a pretty chill little chain of stores. But, alas, NH has gotta NH...


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Drew said:


> I mean, the natural response to all of this _should _be for individual shops, bars, and restaurants to enforce their OWN mask mandates, as there's nothing that prohibits them from, as private businesses, doing so. That'll flush out the anti-vax nutjobs REAL quick.



That's sort of part of the problem.

Depending on low paid, poorly treated food service and retail workers to enforce masks just isn't going to work, regardless of (typically weak) management policy.


----------



## Randy

The thing that kinda chaps my ass is that there's still a mask mandate and still a mask recommendation at the national level, but because the ability to enforce the specifics of it (vaccinated vs unvaccinated) have fallen off, the language has fallen off as well. 

When you as a science minded or left leaning person discuss it and you have to open the discussion be conceding that "the mask mandate has been lifted" it implies that the mask wearing, as a matter of policy, is entirely optional and it's not. If you are VACCINATED it's optional. If you are unvaccinated, it's either required locally or recommended at the national level.


----------



## Randy

NYS and nationally touting low positive numbers, at or below 1% but my county and those neighboring have still been a steady 4% and that's before the likely blowback from the mask repeal less than a week ago.


----------



## JSanta

I went grocery shopping for the first time since the mandate for vaccinated people was lifted. Observations: it was mostly older people not wearing masks (probably 65+), some soccer moms in athleisure, and some middle-aged men. Can't speak specifically to race because I live in a fairly white area, so while it was mostly white folks, but there was other representation, just not as many. Surprised some of the older folks have decided to immediately stop wearing a mask, but that surprise was/is predicated on them worried about their health and not political leanings. Whatever.

Still wore my mask, and I plan to do so for at least another month while we see how this honor system experiment works.


----------



## Randy

Fact of the matter is that masks, social distancing and occupancy limits were lowest common denominator policies to protect stupid people.

I'll bet $1,000,000 I could have gone this whole pandemic without a mask and still not gotten the virus because I have common sense, a lot of people do not.

Went to rural Walmart this afternoon for some odds and ends, this place was awful for mask compliance even during the worst of the pandemic. Three times they were in the news for advisory warning if you were there in the electronics department on X day, get tested.

So anyway, went there today and it's hard to guess the mask numbers, sometimes it was 50/50, sometimes I was the only person with one in a group of 20+ people in an area. Notable was the infamous electronics department where no patrons and no staff wore them, despite about 90% of staff throughout the rest of the building wearing them.

One thing I noted in particular, it was a family idk of they were having their phone replaced or whatever but it was say a husband and a wife and couple kids, at the electronics desk with the associate, none of them with masks and they're leaning over huddled in within inches of eachother passing the phone around also touching and looking at it practically touching heads/faces. This went on for as long as I was near the department, so 4 to 5 minutes.

THAT'S the shit that will get you fucking sick. Fine, go to the store, don't wear a mask. But swap spit and take the thing you hold to your face and poke with your filthy fingers and hand it to someone else who will fondle it and then touch their face and pick their nose and eat their food, etc etc. and close talk in a humid spit cloud for several minutes, so on.

It's an entire scenario that's ripe for virus transmission and if you all wear your mask, sanitize surfaces, wear gloves if you're handing foreign objects, social distance etc then you can actually STILL go to the same store, STILL get the same service and just not get sick or get someone else sick. You can actually get through the same scenario doing none of those things as long as you're cognizant, but you're talking to people with no cognition, so the only way to help them is playing nanny because they're too dumb to do it for themselves. It's maddening.


----------



## TedEH

Feels to me like we're entering a kinda weird phase of this whole deal, where for me at least, some of the wires are getting crossed in terms of what I feel like I should or shouldn't be doing. I ended up going to a small gathering this weekend and kinda felt like I was doing something wrong the whole time - but it was 5 people total at the peak of it, and everyone there was vaccinated, and there were still masks out. Despite the fact that the risk level was probably actually pretty low, it still felt like I was doing something wrong.

The attitude seems to be pretty different here compared to what I hear in the thread. The oldest person I've spoken to about it (my grandmother, 80) said she probably doesn't expect to stop wearing masks in public for the foreseeable future, regardless of the progress mad with vaccinating people. Things don't feel much different compared to say 6 months ago - still masks everywhere, still mandated when indoors anywhere, still a bunch of people not bothering, but that's not a surprise.

At least the curfew in Quebec is finally going away. I don't think it did anything except make people's lives difficult.


----------



## Drew

TedEH said:


> Feels to me like we're entering a kinda weird phase of this whole deal, where for me at least, some of the wires are getting crossed in terms of what I feel like I should or shouldn't be doing. I ended up going to a small gathering this weekend and kinda felt like I was doing something wrong the whole time - but it was 5 people total at the peak of it, and everyone there was vaccinated, and there were still masks out. Despite the fact that the risk level was probably actually pretty low, it still felt like I was doing something wrong.


TBH, even with perfectly clear guidance, and perfect implementation, I suspect you'd still feel that way. 

I'm fully vaccinated, in a state that, if it hasn't officially lifted the mandate for fully vaccinated people yet, will this weekend (I'm actually unclear on that), and when I see someone without a mask, my first instinct is STILL that they're an anti-vax nutjob Republican. It's going to take some time for that to pass.  

I will say I was up in Maine last weekend and ate lunch indoors for the first time in like a year and a half, and it felt... anticlimatic.


----------



## TedEH

All I did was have a meal with my parents, but the act of sitting at a table to eat where other people are also sitting and eating felt like someone should be busting down the door to arrest us at any moment. Not gonna lie, the curfew did a lot towards creating an air of oppression (as much as I hesitate to call it that). And I really do hesitate to use that phrasing, because despite everything, I feel more free now than I did at the beginning of 2019, thanks to working from home.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Drew said:


> ... and when I see someone without a mask, my first instinct is STILL that they're an anti-vax nutjob Republican. It's going to take some time for that to pass.



A couple days ago for the first time since I can remember, I had a friendly cheerful exchange with an unmasked random stranger. I typically never talk to unmasked people but I think I'm just so tired of the whole divided society thing. With more and more unmasked people out in public, it's starting to feel weird to keep switching gears around every corner.


----------



## Drew

High Plains Drifter said:


> A couple days ago for the first time since I can remember, I had a friendly cheerful exchange with an unmasked random stranger. I typically never talk to unmasked people but I think I'm just so tired of the whole divided society thing. With more and more unmasked people out in public, it's starting to feel weird to keep switching gears around every corner.


Here in Mass, for now i's a little easier since the mandate isn't lifted until Saturday, so anyone in public without a mask IS violating a mandate... but even then people are getting quite a bit more slack about it when they're not around people, myself included. I was out on my road bike over lunch doing hill repeats, and while I still had a Buff around my nexk in case I came into close quarters with anyone, I left it down rather than pulling it up over my face while I was riding. Technically, thay's in violation of guidance too, and the only thing that makes me any different from anyone going out without a mask is I DO pull it up whenever I expect to pass within 6' of someone. 

I guess we're all trying to figure it out as we go, but it'll be the wild west starting Saturday.


----------



## bostjan

Anyone else know anyone who has had a stroke recently?

A very close family member of mine (who is in his 50's) just had a stroke, last weekend a friend of mine, who is around my age, had a mild stroke, and a coworker has two close family members who had strokes in the past month (one in her 40's and the other in his late 50's). For reference, until this year, no one I've ever personally known has ever had a stroke under the age of sixty. None of them had been vaccinated, so it's definitely nothing to do with the vaccine, but there was a ton of covid going around my family a couple months ago, and same with my friend and my coworker. It just seems really weird to me that this is happening.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Anyone else know anyone who has had a stroke recently?
> 
> A very close family member of mine (who is in his 50's) just had a stroke, last weekend a friend of mine, who is around my age, had a mild stroke, and a coworker has two close family members who had strokes in the past month (one in her 40's and the other in his late 50's). For reference, until this year, no one I've ever personally known has ever had a stroke under the age of sixty. None of them had been vaccinated, so it's definitely nothing to do with the vaccine, but there was a ton of covid going around my family a couple months ago, and same with my friend and my coworker. It just seems really weird to me that this is happening.


I don't, at least not since Covid, but I'm really sorry to hear that man.


----------



## TedEH

It sounds like a really unfortunate coincidence. That's rough.


----------



## Demiurge

Stress can do terrible things to the body, and these are times undoubtedly causing immense amounts of it.


----------



## Randy

bostjan said:


> Anyone else know anyone who has had a stroke recently?
> 
> A very close family member of mine (who is in his 50's) just had a stroke, last weekend a friend of mine, who is around my age, had a mild stroke, and a coworker has two close family members who had strokes in the past month (one in her 40's and the other in his late 50's). For reference, until this year, no one I've ever personally known has ever had a stroke under the age of sixty. None of them had been vaccinated, so it's definitely nothing to do with the vaccine, but there was a ton of covid going around my family a couple months ago, and same with my friend and my coworker. It just seems really weird to me that this is happening.






> *Strokes and Other Concerns*
> 
> The paper also notes that COVID-19, and other diseases that cause severe inflammation throughout the body, increase the risk that fatty plaque built up in the blood vessels will rupture, leading to heart attacks and stroke. Influenza and certain other viruses have been associated with increased risk of plaque ruptures within the first week after the disease was diagnosed, the authors state in their review of the available COVID-19 medical literature.



https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200515115644.htm


----------



## groverj3

You'd think that I could use my platform of having a PhD in molecular biology to reassure people about the vaccines, how safe they are, how they work, etc. However, usually mentioning that I studied that for so long to the anti-vax crowd just results in accusations of being on the payroll of big pharma.

Which I guess technically IS true. I do work indirectly for that industry, haha. However, it'd be pretty unethical of me to care about companies that indirectly result in revenue for my employer in a different division of the company than I even work for over sharing scientifically-informed information, even if there was some kind of massive conspiracy... Which there isn't.

But for real, 'merica gonna 'merica.


----------



## thebeesknees22

groverj3 said:


> You'd think that I could use my platform of having a PhD in molecular biology to reassure people about the vaccines, how safe they are, how they work, etc.



shouldn't you be using that PhD to give people superpowers? just sayin'


----------



## bostjan

groverj3 said:


> You'd think that I could use my platform of having a PhD in molecular biology to reassure people about the vaccines, how safe they are, how they work, etc. However, usually mentioning that I studied that for so long to the anti-vax crowd just results in accusations of being on the payroll of big pharma.
> 
> Which I guess technically IS true. I do work indirectly for that industry, haha. However, it'd be pretty unethical of me to care about companies that indirectly result in revenue for my employer in a different division of the company than I even work for over sharing scientifically-informed information, even if there was some kind of massive conspiracy... Which there isn't.
> 
> But for real, 'merica gonna 'merica.



That's okay, even if your degree was completely funded independently, you're ideas would be ignored because you were brainwashed by a liberal university.

And, at any rate, 95% of facts are antagonistic toward anti-vax mentality anyway, so it's unfair to use those in a discussion.


----------



## JSanta

groverj3 said:


> You'd think that I could use my platform of having a PhD in molecular biology to reassure people about the vaccines, how safe they are, how they work, etc. However, usually mentioning that I studied that for so long to the anti-vax crowd just results in accusations of being on the payroll of big pharma.
> 
> Which I guess technically IS true. I do work indirectly for that industry, haha. However, it'd be pretty unethical of me to care about companies that indirectly result in revenue for my employer in a different division of the company than I even work for over sharing scientifically-informed information, even if there was some kind of massive conspiracy... Which there isn't.
> 
> But for real, 'merica gonna 'merica.



My father has accused me of using my education as a weapon against his opinions. Almost verbatim, he said he was angry with me because I used facts to counter his opinions. 

People like him think that facts are arbitrary, but for people that research or conduct studies for a living know that the bar to establish something as a fact is really high. But, that doesn't suit the narrative some people have, so arguing with them is like wrestling with a pig in the mud. At some point, you figure out the pig is enjoying it.


----------



## nightflameauto

JSanta said:


> My father has accused me of using my education as a weapon against his opinions. Almost verbatim, he said he was angry with me because I used facts to counter his opinions.
> 
> People like him think that facts are arbitrary, but for people that research or conduct studies for a living know that the bar to establish something as a fact is really high. But, that doesn't suit the narrative some people have, so arguing with them is like wrestling with a pig in the mud. At some point, you figure out the pig is enjoying it.


What pisses me off is how universal this bullshit is. Like, it used to be we all had one crazy uncle or something that would argue his opinions are just as important as all that "failed" education, science, facts, etc. Now it's like half the public has turned into our crazy uncles, and it's becoming impossible to have a fact based conversation with anybody without somebody else barging in to tell you you're wrong because Fox News, Trump, pedophiles and Lizard People.

It feels like somewhere along the line we all lost the fight against the tyranny of stupidity, and now we're reaping the rewards of that loss.


----------



## JSanta

nightflameauto said:


> What pisses me off is how universal this bullshit is. Like, it used to be we all had one crazy uncle or something that would argue his opinions are just as important as all that "failed" education, science, facts, etc. Now it's like half the public has turned into our crazy uncles, and it's becoming impossible to have a fact based conversation with anybody without somebody else barging in to tell you you're wrong because Fox News, Trump, pedophiles and Lizard People.
> 
> It feels like somewhere along the line we all lost the fight against the tyranny of stupidity, and now we're reaping the rewards of that loss.



I went about 4 months without speaking to my father. When I finally reached out to him, I set ground rules for our interactions, which he could take or leave. He's decided to shut his mouth and we can have some kind of relationship. Similar thing with my mother, but she still likes to push things a bit more, for whatever reason.


----------



## Mathemagician

I’ve missed a lot of this thread but has anyone seen the announcements from moderne regarding them thinking they may have some HIV vaccine trials in the works using the MRNA tech? Essentially getting 20+ years of funding in a year really ramped up what the research has made available. Who knew.


----------



## spudmunkey

JSanta said:


> I went about 4 months without speaking to my father. When I finally reached out to him, I set ground rules for our interactions, which he could take or leave. He's decided to shut his mouth and we can have some kind of relationship. Similar thing with my mother, but she still likes to push things a bit more, for whatever reason.



It's cuz women are "splitters", haven't you heard?
https://www.wrtv.com/news/local-new...andy-store-described-as-sexist-unprofessional


----------



## Drew

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/26/...ck&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Health

Not to revive an old debate, but scientists have some fairly encouraging evidence that immunity to Covid-19 lasts at least a year, possibly quite a long time longer, and will likely be increased further with vaccination, with memory B cells stored in bone marrow as the mechanism, based on analysis of bone marrow from a (admittedly, small) sample of recovered covid patient bone marrow. If true, Covid survivors likely will not need booster shots, even if people who did not have covid still do, and it goes a long way to explain why reinfection has been so rare in people who were diagnosed with covid.


----------



## wannabguitarist

groverj3 said:


> You'd think that I could use my platform of having a PhD in molecular biology to reassure people about the vaccines, how safe they are, how they work, etc. However, usually mentioning that I studied that for so long to the anti-vax crowd just results in *accusations of being on the payroll of big pharma*.
> 
> Which I guess technically IS true. I do work indirectly for that industry, haha. However, it'd be pretty unethical of me to care about companies that indirectly result in revenue for my employer in a different division of the company than I even work for over sharing scientifically-informed information, even if there was some kind of massive conspiracy... Which there isn't.
> 
> But for real, 'merica gonna 'merica.



This shit drives me insane. I went to a college with a fairly solid biology and chemistry programs _and _there are a ton of biotech startups in the area as well as a number of big players. I've poached 3 of my friends from their research/lab/drug development positions into corporate finance or operation roles because they were struggling to bring in over $50-60k, which isn't much in San Diego.

If big pharma was paying people to shill I know they'd all happily take that money to go back into the lab instead of being excel monkeys


----------



## Rosal76

bostjan said:


> Anyone else know anyone who has had a stroke recently?



My older brother got a stroke last January. His was bad. He had to stay at the hospital, I think for like 2 or 3 days. He now has problems swallowing, can't feel parts of his face and has trouble walking and using either his left or right arm. Can't remember which. He is 50. He didn't get the Covid19 vaccine when he got the stroke so of course, we were worried why he was in the hospital but the doctor told us it was because he got the stroke from not dieting well and lack of exercise. And him having type 1 Diabetes did not help one single bit.


----------



## bostjan

nightflameauto said:


> What pisses me off is how universal this bullshit is. Like, it used to be we all had one crazy uncle or something that would argue his opinions are just as important as all that "failed" education, science, facts, etc. Now it's like half the public has turned into our crazy uncles, and it's becoming impossible to have a fact based conversation with anybody without somebody else barging in to tell you you're wrong because Fox News, Trump, pedophiles and Lizard People.
> 
> It feels like somewhere along the line we all lost the fight against the tyranny of stupidity, and now we're reaping the rewards of that loss.



There's never been any shortage of stupidity at any point in history. It just changes shape every ten years or so.


----------



## nightflameauto

bostjan said:


> There's never been any shortage of stupidity at any point in history. It just changes shape every ten years or so.


While this is true, we're exiting an age where at least the truly stupid people had enough shame to keep their damned mouths shut when the adults were speaking. After twenty or so years of that the current crop of "I'll just keep yelling louder until the intelligent ones stop talking" is maddening.


----------



## thebeesknees22

oh those people have always been around. They just have a louder megaphone with the internet. It just took them a while to realize it.


----------



## TedEH

bostjan said:


> It just changes shape every ten years or so.


I wonder if ubiquitous internet access makes people more confident in general-
and ninja'd.


----------



## StevenC

Mathemagician said:


> I’ve missed a lot of this thread but has anyone seen the announcements from moderne regarding them thinking they may have some HIV vaccine trials in the works using the MRNA tech? Essentially getting 20+ years of funding in a year really ramped up what the research has made available. Who knew.


I could be wrong, but I think MRNA has long been thought to be great prospect for HIV for a variety of reasons. Had there been no COVID pandemic for the past 18 months I imagine we'd all be talking about this.


----------



## bostjan

nightflameauto said:


> While this is true, we're exiting an age where at least the truly stupid people had enough shame to keep their damned mouths shut when the adults were speaking. After twenty or so years of that the current crop of "I'll just keep yelling louder until the intelligent ones stop talking" is maddening.


 Maybe it was my upbringing or the town I grew up in. I remember in Kindergarten, my teacher being a crackhead and just generally being inept at adult responsibilities. I recall two of my neighbours doing stupid things that resulted directly in them being shot by the police. I have the recollection of the president of the USA telling the president of the USSR that they'd have to unite together when the Martians came to invade the Earth (this was years after the Viking landers, so there's really no excuse).

It's the same stupid crap as it always was. Maybe it is louder than it used to be, but it's not really any more or less stupid.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/26/...ck&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Health
> 
> Not to revive an old debate, but scientists have some fairly encouraging evidence that immunity to Covid-19 lasts at least a year, possibly quite a long time longer, and will likely be increased further with vaccination, with memory B cells stored in bone marrow as the mechanism, based on analysis of bone marrow from a (admittedly, small) sample of recovered covid patient bone marrow. If true, Covid survivors likely will not need booster shots, even if people who did not have covid still do, and it goes a long way to explain why reinfection has been so rare in people who were diagnosed with covid.



I think there's a lot going on with the data presented there by the NY Times. But, the data point that 4 out of 19 people had no detectable memory B cells for covid after just a few months would be pretty concerning, if we didn't already have booster shots on the way. Whether the antibodies or leukocytes or whatever are decreasing at whatever rate, I think we should all be able to agree that real data on reinfection is what would be most interesting.

There's also this article from BMJ: https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1353

In one city where a reinfection study was done, the P.1 variant had reinfected 18% of the sample population. That's the data point that I had been so worried about a year ago when we were debating whether the vaccine would be enough to stop this craziness.


----------



## thebeesknees22

TedEH said:


> I wonder if ubiquitous internet access makes people more confident in general-
> and ninja'd.



anonymity definitely makes people more likely to be jerks.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> I think there's a lot going on with the data presented there by the NY Times. But, the data point that 4 out of 19 people had no detectable memory B cells for covid after just a few months would be pretty concerning, if we didn't already have booster shots on the way. Whether the antibodies or leukocytes or whatever are decreasing at whatever rate, I think we should all be able to agree that real data on reinfection is what would be most interesting.
> 
> There's also this article from BMJ: https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1353
> 
> In one city where a reinfection study was done, the P.1 variant had reinfected 18% of the sample population. That's the data point that I had been so worried about a year ago when we were debating whether the vaccine would be enough to stop this craziness.


I mean, we both agree, at least, that a lot more work needs to be done to settle this for sure. But reinfection is abnormally rare, and while, to borrow a line from XKCD, that doesn't _prove_ immunity lasts way longer than antibodies, it sort of does wink suggestively from the corner.


----------



## TedEH

thebeesknees22 said:


> anonymity definitely makes people more likely to be jerks.


I meant less the anonymity, and more just the idea that anyone can claim to have "done their research", or can "do their own research", or has seen 100 youtube videos full of "useless facts" that are convincing enough to make people think they know more than they used to. I mean, we know a lot of trivia, but not not much more than that. As in, maybe the internet has made us take a step backwards in terms of being willing to say "I don't know" when presented with any question. Now _everyone_ knows _everything. We're all experts._


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> I mean, we both agree, at least, that a lot more work needs to be done to settle this for sure. But reinfection is abnormally rare, and while, to borrow a line from XKCD, that doesn't _prove_ immunity lasts way longer than antibodies, it sort of does wink suggestively from the corner.



I'd hardly say 18% of a population sample being reinfected with the virus goes along with "reinfection is rare," but tomato tomato.


----------



## spudmunkey

Well, this is certainly an interesting take on COVID vaccination...

https://twitter.com/i/status/1397582489980395522


----------



## MaxOfMetal

spudmunkey said:


> Well, this is certainly an interesting take on COVID vaccination...
> 
> https://twitter.com/i/status/1397582489980395522



Now that's a dick.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> I'd hardly say 18% of a population sample being reinfected with the virus goes along with "reinfection is rare," but tomato tomato.


I'm not wasting my time getting into you with this, because if there's anything _else_ we can agree on, it's that neither of us are changing the other's minds on this.


----------



## wankerness

bostjan said:


> Anyone else know anyone who has had a stroke recently?
> 
> A very close family member of mine (who is in his 50's) just had a stroke, last weekend a friend of mine, who is around my age, had a mild stroke, and a coworker has two close family members who had strokes in the past month (one in her 40's and the other in his late 50's). For reference, until this year, no one I've ever personally known has ever had a stroke under the age of sixty. None of them had been vaccinated, so it's definitely nothing to do with the vaccine, but there was a ton of covid going around my family a couple months ago, and same with my friend and my coworker. It just seems really weird to me that this is happening.



I read many times over the last year about COVID causing younger people to have strokes. I’d say it’s very possible it’s related.


----------



## Metropolis

Got an appointment at next thursday for the first doze, it's probably Biontech-Pfizer.


----------



## TedEH

The curfew here is fiiiiiiiiiiinally over.
Time to go outside and enjoy all that 5G at ungodly hours of the night.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

I went to live music at a bar with real actual people (outside stage area). Been well over a year since I did anything like that, or seen that many people I knew at one time. It was exciting and also incredibly overwhelming.

Anyone else noticing that they have become a little feral over the last year? I've been basically hiding in my cabin in the woods with my cat, amps, and stash since lockdown. Social interaction has sometimes be awkward, moreso even than before, as I remember how "normal people" act. Nothing intense, but I have noticed more talking over others, missing social queues, and generally being a big-mouth. I chalk it up to not practicing those hard-won social skills much over the last year. 

Being a server helps a bit, but those canned interactions don't quite give the same panoply of interpersonal experience, and it's easy to be demure when it's my job.


----------



## Drew

Mask mandae is lifted tomorrow here in MA, and I think we're back to 100% capacity indoor dining. I still plan on eating outdoors as much as possible and avoiding huge crowds, but then again pre-covid I'd have said the same, so I'm not sure how much has changed.


----------



## wankerness

Drew said:


> Mask mandae is lifted tomorrow here in MA, and I think we're back to 100% capacity indoor dining. I still plan on eating outdoors as much as possible and avoiding huge crowds, but then again pre-covid I'd have said the same, so I'm not sure how much has changed.



I've eaten inside places a few times since getting vaccinated. It seems fine, we always try to be at least a couple tables away from anyone. If we see the place is packed then we get takeout or go elsewhere. Probably isn't much safety risk to us at this point, both being vaccinated, but I guess I'm just more conscious of other people's germs than I was before. I don't particularly want flu or a cold, either!

The main difference is now takeout seems a more viable option. We only used to do it wth Chinese, but now we do it all kinds of places. It's often more pleasant to go to some park or something instead of a dingy restaurant. Though with some places the food usually tastes better if you eat it there instead of having it crammed into a takeout container.


----------



## spudmunkey

I never was able to lower my standards enough to enjoy most take-out. I'm a "fresh" snob, I guess.  Unless it's something like a curry or pad kee mao, I would rather just go home and have something boring than pay a restaurant price for something that doesn't stay crunchy, gets soggy/steamed, etc. I don't even like eating outside at the resturant, because wind/breeze cools down food too quickly. 

We've done take-out I think 10 times since last March, and really only because my girlfriend got free GrubHub and uberEats coupons for attending vendor presentations.


----------



## Drew

wankerness said:


> I've eaten inside places a few times since getting vaccinated. It seems fine, we always try to be at least a couple tables away from anyone. If we see the place is packed then we get takeout or go elsewhere. Probably isn't much safety risk to us at this point, both being vaccinated, but I guess I'm just more conscious of other people's germs than I was before. I don't particularly want flu or a cold, either!
> 
> The main difference is now takeout seems a more viable option. We only used to do it wth Chinese, but now we do it all kinds of places. It's often more pleasant to go to some park or something instead of a dingy restaurant. Though with some places the food usually tastes better if you eat it there instead of having it crammed into a takeout container.


I've done it once so far, but honestly if the weather's any good outdoor dining is jusy more pleasant. It just had almost never been an option in Boston, until this past year.


----------



## wankerness

Drew said:


> I've done it once so far, but honestly if the weather's any good outdoor dining is jusy more pleasant. It just had almost never been an option in Boston, until this past year.



Very few restaurants here offer outdoor seating; they just never had it before and properties have no space for it. It's too bad. I think ONE of our several downtown restaurants managed to expand their seating out to the sidewalk, but had to pay a lot to then add a boardwalk to the side of the sidewalk to give pedestrians enough room to get around that seating section. Small town failure. Though it's not much better anywhere other than like, Madison and Milwaukee, where some neighborhoods already had tons of space for that kind of thing due to pedestrian-only areas of downtown.

Though right now it is 45 degrees F out and rainy.


----------



## TedEH

IMO the value in take-out food is just not having to cook anything. When you're not a great cook yourself, the standard gets set pretty low.


----------



## spudmunkey




----------



## Xaios

spudmunkey said:


> View attachment 94042


While the choice of iconography is morally repulsive (and somewhat ironic, as it seems there's a significant overlap between Holocaust and Covid deniers), at least their willingness to self-identify as such makes them easier to avoid in public.


----------



## Furtive Glance

Eugh.


----------



## vilk

.


----------



## groverj3

wannabguitarist said:


> This shit drives me insane. I went to a college with a fairly solid biology and chemistry programs _and _there are a ton of biotech startups in the area as well as a number of big players. I've poached 3 of my friends from their research/lab/drug development positions into corporate finance or operation roles because they were struggling to bring in over $50-60k, which isn't much in San Diego.
> 
> If big pharma was paying people to shill I know they'd all happily take that money to go back into the lab instead of being excel monkeys


For real.

I went to grad school because I made $14.50/hr with a degree in biochemistry at a job that required that degree, in the industry that exists solely to test drugs to make sure they don't kill you.


----------



## spudmunkey

Xaios said:


> While the choice of iconography is morally repulsive (and somewhat ironic, as it seems there's a significant overlap between Holocaust and Covid deniers), at least their willingness to self-identify as such makes them easier to avoid in public.



"Having to wear masks is just like the holocaust, and vaccination cards? It's the same as being forced to wear a gold star in 1940s Germany! A gold star, just like this...$5, call now, get your own, and wear it everywhere to own the libs/DEMONcRATS/DUMBoCRAPS!!"


----------



## spudmunkey

"Fuck around and find out"





And now I'm sure the right is going to start a Stetson boycott, to protest about "cancel culture".


----------



## Xaios

spudmunkey said:


> "Fuck around and find out"
> 
> View attachment 94098
> View attachment 94099
> 
> 
> And now I'm sure the right is going to start a Stetson boycott, to protest about "cancel culture".


Came here to post this. The woman also published a canned crocodile tears response about how she dIdN'T mEaN tO tRiViAlIzE tHe HoLoCaUsT.


----------



## StevenC

1 down, just got my first AZ dose and only feeling giddiness so far.


----------



## diagrammatiks

thebeesknees22 said:


> anonymity definitely makes people more likely to be jerks.



you'd think that this is the case...
but a lot of things are being posted on Facebook now where people use their real names...and have open profiles...

and.....

ya no change


----------



## Xaios

diagrammatiks said:


> you'd think that this is the case...
> but a lot of things are being posted on Facebook now where people use their real names...and have open profiles...
> 
> and.....
> 
> ya no change


Indeed. Awful people have generally come to expect that they gain more from supposedly publicly martyring themselves for their shitty views in order to receive validation from their peers.


----------



## StevenC

Migraine city at the moment. Far lighter than the ones I normally get.

I can worry myself into a migraine though, so not sure if it's that, a coincidence, or a real side effect.


----------



## Bodes

Just got back from getting the AZ vaccine. 
I'm technically not eligible for it in my state (Victoria, Australia), but took my wife to get her Pfizer jab (emotional support/boredom reliever) at one of our major vaccination centres. Cheekily asked "any chance of a jab?", Doctor was more than happy to, but only the AZ vaccine. if I signed a release form stating I know there is a tiny risk of blood clots. Any vaccine is better than no vaccine.


----------



## LordCashew

Got Pfizer'd with my wife yesterday. Her arm was sore almost immediately but I felt nothing. When I woke up this morning I did have some soreness resembling a decent bruise under the injection site and it's still there, but other than that I feel totally normal.

We'll see what happens in three weeks...


----------



## nightflameauto

StevenC said:


> 1 down, just got my first AZ dose and only feeling giddiness so far.


This all turns to tears when the Metalzone chips kick on every time you pick up a guitar from now on. 

I walked into a restaurant to grab carryout for the first time in . . . well over a year. And there were other people in there. I wasn't sure if I should back into a corner and hold my arms over my head or if I should get in line.


----------



## StevenC

Feeling a lot better today, managed to sleep pretty well last night after a couple of ibuprofen. Managed to eat some food, but couldn't finish my usual breakfast/lunch. Still a bit sore and woozy but drinking water seems to help. My arm has started hurting at the injection site.

My back is pretty sore, but that's a me thing whenever I get sick.


----------



## Demiurge

This morning we were advised that we'll probably return to the office in full capacity at some point between the middle of this month and mid-August. (We are not in the precision-manufacturing business, luckily.) On the surface, I'm not thrilled because I'm accustomed to the comforts of working from home, but I think that I've been in deep denial over the effects that 100% WFH has had on work-life balance. 

If it's that important to them that I schlep to the office just to work on inferior hardware in a noisy environment, well maybe I won't be logging-in early on sleepless mornings or working late on sunny evenings just to get one more thing done (which begets "one more thing... AND one more thing" ad infinitum).


----------



## StevenC

Demiurge said:


> This morning we were advised that we'll probably return to the office in full capacity at some point between the middle of this month and mid-August. (We are not in the precision-manufacturing business, luckily.) On the surface, I'm not thrilled because I'm accustomed to the comforts of working from home, but I think that I've been in deep denial over the effects that 100% WFH has had on work-life balance.
> 
> If it's that important to them that I schlep to the office just to work on inferior hardware in a noisy environment, well maybe I won't be logging-in early on sleepless mornings or working late on sunny evenings just to get one more thing done (which begets "one more thing... AND one more thing" ad infinitum).


Man, I don't get how so many companies don't realise that productivity can be better with people working from home. My dad works from home full time and gets a full day done by 2pm. People will work more when you help them do it.


----------



## Demiurge

StevenC said:


> People will work more when you help them do it.



Absolutely. Granted, it's not the greatest thing to admit- with all the discourse about "late stage capitalism" and companies trying to squeeze every little bit out of their people- but I don't mind doing a little bit more if I'm motivated and working comfortably. When the company gets too greedy with altruism is when things really start to sour which is what happened where I am.


----------



## StevenC

Demiurge said:


> Absolutely. Granted, it's not the greatest thing to admit- with all the discourse about "late stage capitalism" and companies trying to squeeze every little bit out of their people- but I don't mind doing a little bit more if I'm motivated and working comfortably. When the company gets too greedy with altruism is when things really start to sour which is what happened where I am.


In the UK, the civil service was one of the first places to go hard on working from home but now they're one of the first places to go hard on returning to the office. Both to set an example of what can be done by industry. All the civil servants I know loved the first policy and hate the new one.

People in London get 4 hours of their life back and don't come to work exhausted to run the government. Sounds like a win-win.


----------



## bostjan

Life supposedly goes back to normal in Vermont today. Guess we'll find out in about two weeks whether this was a good idea or not.


----------



## Xaios

As someone who worked from home years before the pandemic, it personally didn't work for me. I found that I was far too easily distracted at home and that I needed an office environment to be productive. Bear in mind, this was before Youtube existed.


----------



## Randy




----------



## Bodes

AZ kicked my ass. Had uncontrolled shivers for 30 mins. Then insane headache plus cold and hot sweats. 
Basically everything listed as a possible side effect I got to the extreme.
Now under observation at the hospital. Head feels like it is exploding.


----------



## jaxadam

Bodes said:


> AZ kicked my ass. Had uncontrolled shivers for 30 mins. Then insane headache plus cold and hot sweats.
> Basically everything listed as a possible side effect I got to the extreme.
> Now under observation at the hospital. Head feels like it is exploding.



Holy fuck man, that’s not good.


----------



## Bodes

jaxadam said:


> Holy fuck man, that’s not good.



Let's just say I've had better nights in my life. The good news is they are saying it is definitely not the blood clots.


----------



## Demiurge

Xaios said:


> As someone who worked from home years before the pandemic, it personally didn't work for me. I found that I was far too easily distracted at home and that I needed an office environment to be productive. Bear in mind, this was before Youtube existed.



Yeah, it takes a bit of discipline to keep the home-distractions at bay at times, but I think of it as no worse than distractions in the office. There are folks in the office who can string-together chats, trips to get coffee, trips to get water, trips to the bathroom, etc. and get very little work done. At least at home, I have all the quiet I need to really concentrate when I have the need.


----------



## StevenC

Bodes said:


> AZ kicked my ass. Had uncontrolled shivers for 30 mins. Then insane headache plus cold and hot sweats.
> Basically everything listed as a possible side effect I got to the extreme.
> Now under observation at the hospital. Head feels like it is exploding.


I hope you get through it soon dude. I had crazy temperature swings but the headache wasn't so bad, and I certainly haven't required hospitalisation.

All the reports I've heard are a rough two days at most, hopefully you'll be back to normal in no time.


----------



## Bodes

StevenC said:


> I hope you get through it soon dude. I had crazy temperature swings but the headache wasn't so bad, and I certainly haven't required hospitalisation.
> 
> All the reports I've heard are a rough two days at most, hopefully you'll be back to normal in no time.



Thanks. I feel ok now. Docs just keeping me here, but won't tell me why.


----------



## spudmunkey

It's very interesting to me that of the 4 primary global vaccines (well, western hemisphere, anyway), the two that seem to be more likely to have side effect reactions are both the more "conventional" style. Is that an inherent benefit of MRNA vaccines, or are these coincidences?


----------



## StevenC

spudmunkey said:


> It's very interesting to me that of the 4 primary global vaccines (well, western hemisphere, anyway), the two that seem to be more likely to have side effect reactions are both the more "conventional" style. Is that an inherent benefit of MRNA vaccines, or are these coincidences?


Pfizer and Moderna have side effects too, but they tend to be more after the second dose. All vaccines are designed to incite an immune response and therefore will have some level of side effects.


----------



## Randy

spudmunkey said:


> "Fuck around and find out"
> 
> View attachment 94098
> View attachment 94099
> 
> 
> And now I'm sure the right is going to start a Stetson boycott, to protest about "cancel culture".



This popped up on my CL feed this morning. Timing seems more than coincidence


----------



## Demiurge

^That is a remarkable amount of investment in one of the stupider battles in the "culture war". On the bright side, though, I consider it progress for wingnuts over all: while using it in an enormously stupid false equivalence, the implied acknowledgement that the holocaust happened and/or was bad is a surprisingly big step.


----------



## jaxadam

Brb, moving to West Virginia.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

jaxadam said:


> Brb, moving to West Virginia.



You've heard of COVID-19, now get ready for COVID-45!


----------



## Drew

Xaios said:


> As someone who worked from home years before the pandemic, it personally didn't work for me. I found that I was far too easily distracted at home and that I needed an office environment to be productive. Bear in mind, this was before Youtube existed.


Honestly, I'm pretty ure I've been more productive from home than the office. Less distractions from coworkers, no commuting time, and - unfortunately - since I'm already home, it's super easy to "just do this one last thing" over and over again until suddenly it's 8pm.


----------



## nightflameauto

Drew said:


> Honestly, I'm pretty ure I've been more productive from home than the office. Less distractions from coworkers, no commuting time, and - unfortunately - since I'm already home, it's super easy to "just do this one last thing" over and over again until suddenly it's 8pm.


Having a wife and two dogs prevented that problem for me. Five minutes after quitting time I've got two seventy pound dogs randomly stopping by to jump up to give me reminder nudges and the wife going, "Are you done yet? How 'bout now? How 'bout now?"

Without that though, yeah, I could see myself devolving pretty quickly into "SHIT! IT'S MIDNIGHT?!?"


----------



## bostjan

No chance I could be very effective working from home with my current living situation. Plus, I work with some pretty big pieces of equipment, and, unfortunately, I don't have a 900 square foot room with a 40 foot ceiling in my home, in order to perform the tasks I do at work regularly, so working from home was never going to be an option for me during the pandemic, unless my role significantly changed.

Between living in the middle of nowhere and being personally very disciplined about wearing a mask, wearing gloves, not touching my face, and washing my hands any time I arrive or leave someplace- I've been super lucky not to have caught covid despite continuing to work around other folks (some of whom have tested positive). However, my face really really itches. I think that once this thing is over, the first thing I'm going to do is scratch my face for an hour straight.


----------



## thraxil

Drew said:


> and - unfortunately - since I'm already home, it's super easy to "just do this one last thing" over and over again until suddenly it's 8pm.



I've worked remotely for six years now and that's always been the biggest challenge. Especially if you're like me and many of your non-work hobbies also involve being on the computer, so it's not even like you can just shut off the computer and go do something else. And being in the UK/EU while most of my coworkers in the US makes it worse because when my day should be ending, everyone else is just getting into gear and I start to get a flurry of messages and questions, and it's really easy for me to get pulled into those conversations. If you don't deal with it, you *will* eventually burn out.

My approach for the last few years that's worked pretty well is to set up a separate browser profile for work. Work slack, email, and everything else only goes into that browser. I don't have anything work related sent to my phone (if I really needed my phone for work, I'd buy a dedicated "work phone" for that). At the end of the day, when I get up to make dinner, I close the work browser and that makes me essentially un-contactable. If I'm on the computer after dinner, I would have to go well out of my way to even be aware of what's going on. My coworkers know how to reach me in a real emergency, but they'd have to be very deliberate about it.

I also try to make a point of doing something at the end of the day that gets me off the computer for an hour or two just to get me out of that mindset. I go for a walk, play guitar, draw, or play video games (console only). Anything to switch my brain out of work mode. I might get back on the computer later, but I'm much less likely to want to check in on work things.


----------



## TedEH

I find I've been keeping the work balance thing in a decent place for the last year while doing the at-home thing. I basically end my day at the same time as I would otherwise make supper, so getting hungry towards the end of the day makes it pretty easy to just say f it, sign out and go make some food and step away from the PC for a while. It helps that because the work is all done through a bunch of remote/vpn/etc stuff, once I sign out, it's a process to get back in, so closing out the work day has a sort of finality to it.


----------



## nightflameauto

thraxil said:


> I've worked remotely for six years now and that's always been the biggest challenge. Especially if you're like me and many of your non-work hobbies also involve being on the computer, so it's not even like you can just shut off the computer and go do something else. And being in the UK/EU while most of my coworkers in the US makes it worse because when my day should be ending, everyone else is just getting into gear and I start to get a flurry of messages and questions, and it's really easy for me to get pulled into those conversations. If you don't deal with it, you *will* eventually burn out.
> 
> My approach for the last few years that's worked pretty well is to set up a separate browser profile for work. Work slack, email, and everything else only goes into that browser. I don't have anything work related sent to my phone (if I really needed my phone for work, I'd buy a dedicated "work phone" for that). At the end of the day, when I get up to make dinner, I close the work browser and that makes me essentially un-contactable. If I'm on the computer after dinner, I would have to go well out of my way to even be aware of what's going on. My coworkers know how to reach me in a real emergency, but they'd have to be very deliberate about it.
> 
> I also try to make a point of doing something at the end of the day that gets me off the computer for an hour or two just to get me out of that mindset. I go for a walk, play guitar, draw, or play video games (console only). Anything to switch my brain out of work mode. I might get back on the computer later, but I'm much less likely to want to check in on work things.


My brain is exploding at this post. You don't have a work provided computer and a personal computer? If my work shit was on my DAW/3D/Writing system, I'd probably never accomplish any of my hobby computer things because I'd constantly be getting sucked into work drama crap during off hours. That's one separation I absolutely insisted on during work from home.


----------



## thebeesknees22

thraxil said:


> I've worked remotely for six years now and that's always been the biggest challenge. Especially if you're like me and many of your non-work hobbies also involve being on the computer, so it's not even like you can just shut off the computer and go do something else. And being in the UK/EU while most of my coworkers in the US makes it worse because when my day should be ending, everyone else is just getting into gear and I start to get a flurry of messages and questions, and it's really easy for me to get pulled into those conversations. If you don't deal with it, you *will* eventually burn out.
> 
> My approach for the last few years that's worked pretty well is to set up a separate browser profile for work. Work slack, email, and everything else only goes into that browser. I don't have anything work related sent to my phone (if I really needed my phone for work, I'd buy a dedicated "work phone" for that). At the end of the day, when I get up to make dinner, I close the work browser and that makes me essentially un-contactable. If I'm on the computer after dinner, I would have to go well out of my way to even be aware of what's going on. My coworkers know how to reach me in a real emergency, but they'd have to be very deliberate about it.
> 
> I also try to make a point of doing something at the end of the day that gets me off the computer for an hour or two just to get me out of that mindset. I go for a walk, play guitar, draw, or play video games (console only). Anything to switch my brain out of work mode. I might get back on the computer later, but I'm much less likely to want to check in on work things.




I supervise 2 time zones. I too know the pain of the later timezone not respecting the hours. I live on the east coast in North America and supervise both the east and west coasts. I'm always getting bombarded with chats from 6pm-10pm my time. 


When i need to disconnect i just set my chat to unavailable so i don't get notifications. I do check it though unless i'm busy with something else later in the evening in case there's an emergency (they happen often...)


----------



## StevenC

bostjan said:


> No chance I could be very effective working from home with my current living situation. Plus, I work with some pretty big pieces of equipment, and, unfortunately, I don't have a 900 square foot room with a 40 foot ceiling in my home, in order to perform the tasks I do at work regularly, so working from home was never going to be an option for me during the pandemic, unless my role significantly changed.
> 
> Between living in the middle of nowhere and being personally very disciplined about wearing a mask, wearing gloves, not touching my face, and washing my hands any time I arrive or leave someplace- I've been super lucky not to have caught covid despite continuing to work around other folks (some of whom have tested positive). However, my face really really itches. I think that once this thing is over, the first thing I'm going to do is scratch my face for an hour straight.


This is very valid. There are plenty of jobs that can't or shouldn't be done remotely, and there are plenty of people who do work better when they go to the office as a means of managing the work life balance. I know people whose jobs already offer extensive WFH options, but they're all worried of taking them until they get to a high enough position that they don't get discriminated against during promotions. I'd just like to see broad legislation for WFH options and discrimination related to it, but I'm not sure that'll happen with my current government.


nightflameauto said:


> My brain is exploding at this post. You don't have a work provided computer and a personal computer? If my work shit was on my DAW/3D/Writing system, I'd probably never accomplish any of my hobby computer things because I'd constantly be getting sucked into work drama crap during off hours. That's one separation I absolutely insisted on during work from home.


It's basically impossible to fit two whole computers into any accommodation in London.


----------



## neotronic

spudmunkey said:


> It's very interesting to me that of the 4 primary global vaccines (well, western hemisphere, anyway), the two that seem to be more likely to have side effect reactions are both the more "conventional" style. Is that an inherent benefit of MRNA vaccines, or are these coincidences?



At least the cause of blood clots is already known: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-558954/v1

Good news is, the vaccine can be fixed to not to cause thrombosis.


----------



## thraxil

StevenC said:


> It's basically impossible to fit two whole computers into any accommodation in London.



Correct. I have a large setup with multiple 4K monitors, standing desk, ergonomic keyboard, etc. To have totally, physically separate setups for work and play that both do what I need, I'd need another room in my flat. I actually used to have a Macbook Pro that was dedicated to audio stuff but my partner's laptop broke so I let her take that one to use and have never gotten it back...


----------



## nightflameauto

thraxil said:


> Correct. I have a large setup with multiple 4K monitors, standing desk, ergonomic keyboard, etc. To have totally, physically separate setups for work and play that both do what I need, I'd need another room in my flat. I actually used to have a Macbook Pro that was dedicated to audio stuff but my partner's laptop broke so I let her take that one to use and have never gotten it back...


That sucks, man. I was gonna toss out the laptop thing as I've got three of them that rotate to the working desk depending on the task, but I've also gone through handing a Macbook over to the spouse when their laptop croaked, so I know them feels.


----------



## Louis Cypher

Posted this in a different thread but thought I would add here too. Map of the current estimates on when the countries of the world will be fully vaccinated. It clearly highlights the Rich v Poor inequality and vaccine hoarding by the rich countries who can afford to. Its a worldwide problem not just an UK/Europe/USA problem. 2 or more years before most of the people in countries within Africa are vaccinated, when its already been a year nearly since the UK started ordering by the millions a vaccine is a pretty cruel indictment on the "Wests" hoarding






(Apologies if this has already been posted, thread is tl;dr)


----------



## Millul

Getting my J&J shot tomorrow morning!


----------



## Millul

Aaaaaaaand....done!
No big issues so far, just feeling tired - but it's a pretty familiar feeling


----------



## MFB

Millul said:


> Aaaaaaaand....done!
> No big issues so far, just feeling tired - but it's a pretty familiar feeling



Give it until the next morning before you think you've beat it. When I got mine I felt fine the entire night, but then woke up like a sack of bricks and wore a knit sweater/beanie the entire day while I felt cold.


----------



## Millul

MFB said:


> Give it until the next morning before you think you've beat it. When I got mine I felt fine the entire night, but then woke up like a sack of bricks and wore a knit sweater/beanie the entire day while I felt cold.



It actually remained that way, aside for a slight ache around the point of the injection.
Worked all day yesterday after the shot, today as well, and I'm actually training arms at the moment...


----------



## StevenC

Pretty major news. Currently in hospital with blood clots from AZ. I will hopefully be OK in a few days


----------



## MaxOfMetal

StevenC said:


> Pretty major news. Currently in hospital with blood clots from AZ. I will hopefully be OK in a few days



Holy fuck, feel better dude.


----------



## Xaios

StevenC said:


> Pretty major news. Currently in hospital with blood clots from AZ. I will hopefully be OK in a few days


Geez man, hope you're okay!


----------



## jaxadam

StevenC said:


> Pretty major news. Currently in hospital with blood clots from AZ. I will hopefully be OK in a few days



Holy crap man, that's terrible news. I hope you get on the right track soon.


----------



## Bodes

StevenC said:


> Pretty major news. Currently in hospital with blood clots from AZ. I will hopefully be OK in a few days



Sorry to hear that, mate. Hope you get better quickly.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Really hope you'll get back in action asap. Feel better!


----------



## StevenC

Thanks guys. We caught it early and I had surgery to remove clots this morning. All went well, so things should be going well.


----------



## thebeesknees22

glad you're doing better dude! hope you're all good soon!


----------



## Xaios

Well, we've finally got a bona fide Covid outbreak in my neck of the woods. Thankfully I'm fully vaccinated, but some of those affected are infected with the P1 variant, which vaccines are only partially effective against. Wonderful.


----------



## spudmunkey

It astounds me that people are so anxious to get on cruise ships. First cruise: 2 positive test results from 1 family, quarantined, and left behind at the port for quarantine/treatment.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

People just don't fucking get it. My wife's boss ( trumper/ anti vaxer/ anti-masker/ hypocrite/ cunt) has been out sick for the past three days and my wife heard today that the bitch may have covid. Unsubstantiated but if true I hope it's not a variant that might put my wife ( fully vaccinated) at an elevated risk. Where she works... with thousands of people coming and going per day, I see maybe less than 30% still masking whenever I stop by.


----------



## Bodes

@StevenC great news, mate! Hope you recover quickly and are back behind the strings in no time! 
*international high five*


----------



## Bodes

High Plains Drifter said:


> My wife's boss ...



Is it a company with a HR department? If so, report the boss as they are potentially putting other worker's and visitor's health at risk.

If not, do you have a state health department that has any balls?

Edit: poor spelling, grammar.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Bodes said:


> Is it a company with a HR department? If so, report the boss as they are potentially putting other worker's and visitor's health at risk.
> 
> If not, do you have a state health department that has any balls?
> 
> Edit: poor spelling, grammar.



Early on in the pandemic I contacted every state agency that I could because at that time her employer ( I felt) was not protecting it's employees. I got nowhere because the laws, mandates, etc were very loosely outlined along with interpretation and enforcement. Since that time, her company... like so many other Texas and/ or American companies, has all but abandoned any protocol or basic CDC guidance measures. Here in Texas our governor cancelled any/ all statewide mandates ( mask requirement being a big part of all this) and left it up to individual companies in terms of how they feel they want to address safety/ hygiene measures moving fwd. Pretty much most businesses have all but abandoned any measures to limit viral spread. TLDR version - The pandemic here in certain parts of the US has been all but forgotten now.


----------



## linthat22

High Plains Drifter said:


> People just don't fucking get it. My wife's boss ( trumper/ anti vaxer/ anti-masker/ hypocrite/ cunt) has been out sick for the past three days and my wife heard today that the bitch may have covid. Unsubstantiated but if true I hope it's not a variant that might put my wife ( fully vaccinated) at an elevated risk. Where she works... with thousands of people coming and going per day, I see maybe less than 30% still masking whenever I stop by.



Ugh, you sound like a lefty loon. Do you drive your car with rubber gloves on and a face mask too?


----------



## jaxadam

linthat22 said:


> Ugh, you sound like a lefty loon. Do you drive your car with rubber gloves on and a face mask too?



Don’t worry, now that states are scaling back reporting, it’ll be all but forgotten soon!

https://www.npr.org/sections/health...-scale-back-pandemic-reporting-stirring-alarm


----------



## TedEH

I can't remember if I posted this already - I don't think I did - but I was kinda saddened recently when I checked in with an old friend of mine. She's got some issues (something similar to schizophrenia, but different in ways not worth getting into here) - and the short of it is that she doesn't really have the capacity to understand a lot of what's going on in the world. I asked if she had any trouble trying to book a vaccine appointment ('cause it's been a challenge in Ontario from what I understand) and she replied saying she wasn't going to do it at all because she doesn't trust it. It's tricky because she likely has no "real" reason to distrust it, but I also don't want to be pushy.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

TedEH said:


> It's tricky because she likely has no "real" reason to distrust it, but I also don't want to be pushy.



That is indeed a tricky situation. No right answers here, though I'd say "not being pushy" is a good approach. If it were me I would be concerned for their safety, but I tend to err on the side of honoring others' agency and I have a lot more room for understanding in cases like this than I do with people who refuse out of what amounts to privilege. 

If anything, I would say personally that protecting people like your friend is _precisely_ the responsibility the rest of us carry in getting vaccinated.


----------



## TedEH

^ Honestly, yeah, all of the above.



wheresthefbomb said:


> If it were me I would be concerned for their safety


I'm concerned for her on a normal day, even without the 'rona.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

I def understand vaccine hesitancy. The day that I made my appt for the first jab, I was apprehensive for sure. But with several of her fellow employees contracting the virus, several more being hospitalized, and two eventually dying... I had to just bite the bullet and do it. She was crazy scared that if she brought it home to my immune-compromised ass, that I'd wind up on a ventilator or worse. So glad that we're both now fully vaccinated. It's worth the peace of mind alone. 

It's a shame that so many people no longer feel a need to get vaccinated. I don't think that a lot of these people were ever waiting to see how safe any of the vaccines were. I think they were just hoping that cases and deaths would decrease, and now that that's happening they have no intention on ever getting vaccinated.


----------



## StevenC

Looks like I'll probably get a second dose of Pfizer instead at this point. Maybe I'll be the focus of a research paper.


----------



## btbg

linthat22 said:


> Ugh, you sound like a lefty loon.



And you sound like a cunt.


----------



## btbg

MFB said:


> Give it until the next morning before you beat it.



Giggity.


----------



## Ralyks

Welp, guess here in NY, just about all restrictions are gone after June. It was fun while it lasted. C'mon kids, let's go home...


----------



## TedEH

btbg said:


> Giggity.


I just want to take a moment to appreciate that this was a 666th post well spent.


----------



## Drew

thraxil said:


> I've worked remotely for six years now and that's always been the biggest challenge. Especially if you're like me and many of your non-work hobbies also involve being on the computer, so it's not even like you can just shut off the computer and go do something else. And being in the UK/EU while most of my coworkers in the US makes it worse because when my day should be ending, everyone else is just getting into gear and I start to get a flurry of messages and questions, and it's really easy for me to get pulled into those conversations. If you don't deal with it, you *will* eventually burn out.
> 
> My approach for the last few years that's worked pretty well is to set up a separate browser profile for work. Work slack, email, and everything else only goes into that browser. I don't have anything work related sent to my phone (if I really needed my phone for work, I'd buy a dedicated "work phone" for that). At the end of the day, when I get up to make dinner, I close the work browser and that makes me essentially un-contactable. If I'm on the computer after dinner, I would have to go well out of my way to even be aware of what's going on. My coworkers know how to reach me in a real emergency, but they'd have to be very deliberate about it.
> 
> I also try to make a point of doing something at the end of the day that gets me off the computer for an hour or two just to get me out of that mindset. I go for a walk, play guitar, draw, or play video games (console only). Anything to switch my brain out of work mode. I might get back on the computer later, but I'm much less likely to want to check in on work things.


I've coped in a similar manner. 


Early on, like literally the weekend we decided to go remote, I ordered a new laptop, partly because my desktop was too old to siupport a version of MacOS that supported two screens (yet, still runs a DAW like a champ - chalk one up to Apple), and partly because I didn't wqant to be working in a room with my guitars all along one wall next to me and my bike set up on a trainer behind me. When IT upgraded me to a VPN connection, I went as far as to set up a second user profile, a work one with all my telecommuncation stuff set up, and a personal one I use for verything else... though in practice I use my desktop far more than I switch profiles. 
I take a proper lunch break every day I can, and either go out for a training ride outdoors, or a trainer spin indoors, to break up the work day. 
At the end of the week, I break down my office setup (tabeltop standing desk, two screens, etc) on my dining table and pack it all up for the weekend. 
I'm not great about scheduling someting to end the day, but most days I'll at least pick up a guitar for a few minutes before starting to cook dinner, and last year was pretty good about after work bike rides. 
It all helps at the margins, I guess, and while I'm unquestionably burning out, that's more because my vrious responsibilities have grown to the point there's no realistic way one person can do them all. I'm just trying to convince my boss of that.


----------



## Drew

@StevenC - how're you feeling?


----------



## StevenC

Drew said:


> @StevenC - how're you feeling?


Still in ICU but nearly better. Got the clot scraped out on Friday and have been feeling better since then. Coordination is still all screwed up though. Hoping to be in a neurology ward tomorrow and then home over the weekend. I had severe migraine symptoms starting a week after the vaccine, went to hospital on Thursday morning and had a seizure in the emergency room. Rushed to the main hospital in Belfast after that. Mostly just exhausted from weird sleep, weird food and weird steroids.

Need to get out of hospital soon to actually know how well I am, because I'm losing my mind a bit here. ICU is crazy busy.

Going to be taking part in a hematology/genome study for this vaccine, which is exciting. There seems to have been single digit cases in Northern Ireland so far.


----------



## jaxadam

StevenC said:


> Still in ICU but nearly better. Got the clot scraped out on Friday and have been feeling better since then. Coordination is still all screwed up though. Hoping to be in a neurology ward tomorrow and then home over the weekend. I had severe migraine symptoms starting a week after the vaccine, went to hospital on Thursday morning and had a seizure in the emergency room. Rushed to the main hospital in Belfast after that. Mostly just exhausted from weird sleep, weird food and weird steroids.
> 
> Need to get out of hospital soon to actually know how well I am, because I'm losing my mind a bit here. ICU is crazy busy.
> 
> Going to be taking part in a hematology/genome study for this vaccine, which is exciting. There seems to have been single digit cases in Northern Ireland so far.



Good to hear, buddy. You're the only other Irish person I like besides Andy Murray. Wait, nevermind, he's Scottish. Same difference.


----------



## Drew

StevenC said:


> Still in ICU but nearly better. Got the clot scraped out on Friday and have been feeling better since then. Coordination is still all screwed up though. Hoping to be in a neurology ward tomorrow and then home over the weekend. I had severe migraine symptoms starting a week after the vaccine, went to hospital on Thursday morning and had a seizure in the emergency room. Rushed to the main hospital in Belfast after that. Mostly just exhausted from weird sleep, weird food and weird steroids.
> 
> Need to get out of hospital soon to actually know how well I am, because I'm losing my mind a bit here. ICU is crazy busy.
> 
> Going to be taking part in a hematology/genome study for this vaccine, which is exciting. There seems to have been single digit cases in Northern Ireland so far.


Damn man. I'm glad this is isolated (extremely so, most of the rare AZ clotting cases I've heard have been women, but when you have a sample size of 6, that can absolutely happen by luck of the draw), but even more so that you're recovering. ICUs are not places designed for people to spend a long period of time in, I hope you're out soon and starting to return to normal life and full health.


----------



## bostjan

StevenC said:


> Still in ICU but nearly better. Got the clot scraped out on Friday and have been feeling better since then. Coordination is still all screwed up though. Hoping to be in a neurology ward tomorrow and then home over the weekend. I had severe migraine symptoms starting a week after the vaccine, went to hospital on Thursday morning and had a seizure in the emergency room. Rushed to the main hospital in Belfast after that. Mostly just exhausted from weird sleep, weird food and weird steroids.
> 
> Need to get out of hospital soon to actually know how well I am, because I'm losing my mind a bit here. ICU is crazy busy.
> 
> Going to be taking part in a hematology/genome study for this vaccine, which is exciting. There seems to have been single digit cases in Northern Ireland so far.


 I hope all is well soon.


----------



## Randy

Cuomo in full victory lap after NY crossed 70% vaccination threshold, planning fireworks all across the state and lifting all remaining restrictions...

...except the 70% number is for 18+ adults and not including the 12 to 17, and also falls short of herd immunity number. And despite lifting all restrictions, he is maintaining state of emergency powers.

Oh, and being a man of science, NYS crossed the arbitrary 70% threshold on his dad's birthday. Total coincidence.


----------



## Randy

Also


----------



## spudmunkey

Randy said:


> Cuomo in full victory lap after NY crossed 70% vaccination threshold, planning fireworks all across the state and lifting all remaining restrictions...
> 
> ...except the 70% number is for 18+ adults and not including the 12 to 17, and also falls short of herd immunity number. And despite lifting all restrictions, he is maintaining state of emergency powers.
> 
> Oh, and being a man of science, NYS crossed the arbitrary 70% threshold on his dad's birthday. Total coincidence.



That 70% also includes people who only got 1/2 of the required shots.


----------



## Xaios

Randy said:


> Also
> 
> View attachment 94694


People just don't learn.


----------



## Bodes

spudmunkey said:


> That 70% also includes people who only got 1/2 of the required shots.



*head desk* statistics are never a politician's strength.

Here in Australia, our federal government refuses to say how many people are fully vaccinated, just says how many vaccines have been administered. 
Plus they are completely inept at acquiring vaccines.


----------



## narad

StevenC said:


> Need to get out of hospital soon to actually know how well I am, because I'm losing my mind a bit here. ICU is crazy busy.



Got you covered, dude!

https://www.sevenstring.org/search/19830371/


----------



## wheresthefbomb

One of my broader concerns in all of this is places in the world like India, where there are massive densities of undocumented, impoverished citizens as well as refugees. Even if we were to achieve "herd immunity" in the countries that are ahead on vaccinations, I can't see how we could possibly ever eradicate the reservoirs of sickness in these dense population centers. 

As people are talking about things "going back to normal," I can't help but think that this far from over on a global level, and that we have yet to see the final fallout from the confluence of refugee crises and a global pandemic.


----------



## zappatton2

wheresthefbomb said:


> One of my broader concerns in all of this is places in the world like India, where there are massive densities of undocumented, impoverished citizens as well as refugees. Even if we were to achieve "herd immunity" in the countries that are ahead on vaccinations, I can't see how we could possibly ever eradicate the reservoirs of sickness in these dense population centers.
> 
> As people are talking about things "going back to normal," I can't help but think that this far from over on a global level, and that we have yet to see the final fallout from the confluence of refugee crises and a global pandemic.


Not to mention the possibilities for variant mutations popping up in masses of unvaccinated people that could render our own vaccines ineffective. I see a lot of nationalism growing here at home, but this is one of those issues that requires a global strategy, despite the usual suspects spitting and sneering about those vile "globalists" among us.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

zappatton2 said:


> Not to mention the possibilities for variant mutations popping up in masses of unvaccinated people that could render our own vaccines ineffective. I see a lot of nationalism growing here at home, but this is one of those issues that requires a global strategy, despite the usual suspects spitting and sneering about those vile "globalists" among us.



Indeed, I have observed similar trends here, and I suppose that my true concern at the heart of my previous post is that, to borrow a friend's words, historically the answers to these kinds of situations tend toward fascism, slavery, and genocide.


----------



## bostjan

zappatton2 said:


> Not to mention the possibilities for variant mutations popping up in masses of unvaccinated people that could render our own vaccines ineffective. I see a lot of nationalism growing here at home, but this is one of those issues that requires a global strategy, despite the usual suspects spitting and sneering about those vile "globalists" among us.



That's 100% right. The more the virus is allowed to breed, the more it is able to mutate. The more it mutates, the higher the likelihood something will break our immunity.

Either that or the fact that the Aral sea is completely dry now, coupled with the fact that there is a secret Soviet bioweapons lab located on an island there (well, used to be an island, now just a hill), means that Covid-24 will be the least of our worries 3 years from now. I guess just do the best you can and try not to worry too much about the things you can't change.


----------



## spudmunkey

bostjan said:


> That's 100% right. The more the virus is allowed to breed, the more it is able to mutate. The more it mutates, the higher the likelihood something will break our immunity.



I read an article (may very well have been linked to from here) where someone with HIV or AIDS had the virus. Since their immune system was so compromised, the virus was basically free to live and mutate for months or maybe even a year, to the point where that single person was a carrier for 30 distinct variants. THIRTY.


----------



## StevenC

I made it home from hospital! Feel like I'm going to sleep for a week but have lots of meds to take in the morning.


----------



## Furtive Glance

Courtesy of my TN Visa, I am now fully vaccinated months before I would have been in BC. No side effects (yet?) for the 2nd Moderna dose.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

StevenC said:


> I made it home from hospital! Feel like I'm going to sleep for a week but have lots of meds to take in the morning.


----------



## Bodes

B


StevenC said:


> I made it home from hospital! Feel like I'm going to sleep for a week but have lots of meds to take in the morning.



Brilliant news!


----------



## linthat22

btbg said:


> And you sound like a cunt.



lolol get yer shot goy!


----------



## thebeesknees22

Shazaam! got my 2nd covid shot rescheduled for July 16th now. It was originally going to be in September.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

thebeesknees22 said:


> Shazaam! got my 2nd covid shot rescheduled for July 16th now. It was originally going to be in September.



Nice. Now we'll all be able to communicate through our 5G Elon Musk Space WiFi. Just gotta find my tin foil hat first. 

Why was your second dose delayed so long?


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Research indicated that delaying the second dose to guitarists was acceptable cause they're such badasses.


----------



## thebeesknees22

CovertSovietBear said:


> Nice. Now we'll all be able to communicate through our 5G Elon Musk Space WiFi. Just gotta find my tin foil hat first.
> 
> Why was your second dose delayed so long?




I live in Canadia. We're just behind on getting doses here  

But it's picking up at least. I think there's more pressure to get the border opened up on the US side so it feels like we're getting more doses sooner. 

@High Plains Drifter LOL



I need the border to open up once we're in good shape here so I can go down south and buy some headphones lol. They're so ridiculously expensive in Canada.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

High Plains Drifter said:


> Research indicated that delaying the second dose to guitarists was acceptable cause they're such badasses.



Our fingers are always moving so fast, the circulating COVID transcripts were being translated into correctly folded exogenous proteins 10x, even with the depreciating transcript counts left from the first dose. Makes sense, makes sense.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

thebeesknees22 said:


> I live in Canadia. We're just behind on getting doses here
> 
> But it's picking up at least. I think there's more pressure to get the border opened up on the US side so it feels like we're getting more doses sooner.
> 
> @High Plains Drifter LOL
> 
> 
> 
> I need the border to open up once we're in good shape here so I can go down south and buy some headphones lol. They're so ridiculously expensive in Canada.



Oh damn, well I'm glad your back in line for a quicker shot! I'm in California and had my doses back in February when they started the heavy rollout for most essential workers, even though I'm technically not one.


----------



## thebeesknees22

You'll be ready for your booster shot by the time we get it all rolled out here haha


----------



## Furtive Glance

Maybe a booster shot will embed the “5G Schematic from a TS9”.


----------



## LordCashew

Furtive Glance said:


> Maybe a booster shot will embed the “5G Schematic from a TS9”.


But will the booster TS9 be used as a boost before or after the MT-2? My vaccination signal chain matters and I need to know!


----------



## spudmunkey

It had better be full bypass.


----------



## lurè

The second dose is a noise gate


----------



## Edika

TS+MT2 in a tube power amp=tight Death Metal sound!

Getting my second dose of AZ Tuesday morning. I had only pain in the vaccination area for a few days, like having a nasty bruise but no side effects. I was wary of the clot issue but nothing popped up. The misses was feeling tired for a few days but nothing more than that.

Glad to hear @StevenC you managed to pull through with no issues and sorry to hear that you were one of the unlucky ones to have clotting issues from the AZ vaccine.

To my understanding, it seems that people that have more severe reactions to the vaccine would have been more in danger of being severely sick with COVID, have long COVID and in the worst case die from it. Please correct me if I'm wrong in this.

@groverj3 I know it's a few pages back, but I hadn't checked this thread for a while. I was called a pharma paid shill for trying to debunk an article that spoke about a non existent "scientist" that used an optical microscope to kill viruses by using some special light that resonated with crystal structure of viruses . I had worked with electron microscopy studying semiconductor structures in my master and PhD and was approaching it from a material science perspective. Plus I was working in my current job that has nothing to do with pharma or life sciences lol. All of what I said required high school science knowledge. Still, I was trying to promote the pharma companies poisoning people with toxic chemicals instead of healing them with UV light shone on them (or whatever other idiotic thing they were suggesting).


----------



## Randy

Hmm

https://mobile.twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1408044544730533888?s=10


----------



## Edika

Randy said:


> Hmm
> 
> https://mobile.twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1408044544730533888?s=10



Oh man the comments below...


----------



## Randy

Edika said:


> Oh man the comments below...



Yeah I mean, any science, medicine, Fauci or Biden skeptic posts are a magnet for Q-anons and Trumpies so I try to wear my blinders, but what Fauci is saying there does line up with my own logic on this.

The CDC clearly kept in place recommendation of masks and distance in places like homeless shelters and mass transit for a reason. I think I even said it in this thread, if there's science behind telling people to wear mask on a bus then what makes a mask unnecessary at a shoulder to shoulder indoor concert?

Clearly the science understands there's limits to the protection afforded by the vaccine, so some safety measures should be taken. But that requires nuance and Biden admin wanted to kickstart full reopening and victory lap, so the messaging centered around the vaccine fixes everything and they saved the nuance for specialized circumstances to make sure people felt safe at "normal" activities even if they aren't.


----------



## nightflameauto

Randy said:


> Yeah I mean, any science, medicine, Fauci or Biden skeptic posts are a magnet for Q-anons and Trumpies so I try to wear my blinders, but what Fauci is saying there does line up with my own logic on this.
> 
> The CDC clearly kept in place recommendation of masks and distance in places like homeless shelters and mass transit for a reason. I think I even said it in this thread, if there's science behind telling people to wear mask on a bus then what makes a mask unnecessary at a shoulder to shoulder indoor concert?
> 
> Clearly the science understands there's limits to the protection afforded by the vaccine, so some safety measures should be taken. But that requires nuance and Biden admin wanted to kickstart full reopening and victory lap, so the messaging centered around the vaccine fixes everything and they saved the nuance for specialized circumstances to make sure people felt safe at "normal" activities even if they aren't.


What's really sad about this situation is that any rationally thinking person should be aware that the vaccine wasn't an instant "I'm immune from now to forever on all possible COVID variants," but that it could allow you a bit more wiggle room than fully locked in your own world. Unfortunately for us, "rationally thinking people" are a vast minority in the face of being told what they want to hear and we have hordes of people that tried desperately to do the right thing through this whole pandemic and are now throwing all caution to the wind because the administration wanted a win.

My wife and I have had several conversations about how uncomfortable we are with the idea of going to a restaurant to dine in yet. Meanwhile we have sell-out shows at our arenas going on because, now that the vaccine is an option for people, the whole country seems to believe it's all over.

A friend on another forum summed up the situation nicely. "Multiple things are simultaneously hopeless." And for fuck sake is it ever true.


----------



## Edika

Randy said:


> Yeah I mean, any science, medicine, Fauci or Biden skeptic posts are a magnet for Q-anons and Trumpies so I try to wear my blinders, but what Fauci is saying there does line up with my own logic on this.
> 
> The CDC clearly kept in place recommendation of masks and distance in places like homeless shelters and mass transit for a reason. I think I even said it in this thread, if there's science behind telling people to wear mask on a bus then what makes a mask unnecessary at a shoulder to shoulder indoor concert?
> 
> Clearly the science understands there's limits to the protection afforded by the vaccine, so some safety measures should be taken. But that requires nuance and Biden admin wanted to kickstart full reopening and victory lap, so the messaging centered around the vaccine fixes everything and they saved the nuance for specialized circumstances to make sure people felt safe at "normal" activities even if they aren't.



As mentioned previously in the thread this is a global issue. Even if you don't take into account the inequality of vaccine distribution in poorer countries, you see variants popping up in Western countries, in places where the vaccination hasn't progressed as much. The more people get infected, the bigger the chances of a new variant that will be resistant to vaccines. 

I know people are fed up with the situation but this is a dynamic problem that evolves with how it's handled by politicians and the masses. It's not a coincidence that the moment they opened up bars and restaurants the infection rate jumped up in Northern Ireland and the Delta variant appeared. 

For antivaxers and Q anon nuts, anything is proof the other side is trying to get them, even if their conclusions are contradicting what they where saying a moment ago.


----------



## Randy

nightflameauto said:


> My wife and I have had several conversations about how uncomfortable we are with the idea of going to a restaurant to dine in yet.



Well that's the big thing right there. We had lockdown moments here in the States but most of them were pretty brief and still allowed some level of options to leave the house or get things you need, and participate in some activities.

So I mean, I don't think there's been any kind of really suffocating type restrictions on your general day-to-day life in over a year in most or all places. But you know, it's "give an inch and they'll take a mile" with relaxing restrictions, to where asking people to do the most minor of things is asking way too much. 

That's kinda the issue, I haven't eaten in a restaurant since the pandemic began but things like enforced distancing, outdoor dining, masking in common areas, limited capacity to spread people out were common sense things that really didn't intrude on your ability to enjoy that experience. There's a worldwide pandemic ravaging whole continents and hundreds of people in my own city have died, but here I am in Olive Garden eating breadsticks. But the fact my waiter is wearing a mask or I can't stand at the bar COMPLETELY ruins the experience, and now I feel like I'm in Auschwitz! LIBERATE LIBERATE LIBERATE!

I post pretty regularly on a football forum, and the team released their guidelines stadium for upcoming season. Full capacity, no vaccination requirement to attend, no masks. And 99% of the posters were like "YEAH! FUCK YEAH! HOME GAME'S GONNA AT FULL CAPACITY WOOP WOOP!" It boggles the mind that the ability for people to enjoy their sports team is not contingent on if they win or lose or if they play at all but, I need to see 100% of the seats full with people not wearing masks and having no red tape to attending to be able to enjoy this experience.

And the fact is that now the people in charge are catering to that level of spoiled brat-ism.


----------



## spudmunkey

lurè said:


> The second dose is a noise gate



I know a few people who could use that...COVID, or not.


----------



## jaxadam

spudmunkey said:


> I know a few people who could use that...COVID, or not.



:fist bump:


----------



## nightflameauto

spudmunkey said:


> I know a few people who could use that...COVID, or not.


With the sensitivity knob turned all the way off.


----------



## Drew

Hey, so can we talk about Florida? 

Their "reopen at all costs" approach has been hailed by the right-wing news bubble as proof that all these lockdowns were unnecessary and did more harm than good, as the oft-predicted second surge after the reopening never _really_ happened. 

But, their unemployment claims unexpectedly ticked up last week, so I thought I'd check covid stats in the state. They've been holding flat at around 1,600 cases a day, seven day moving average, for basically all of June, so there's no obvious uptick, though their reporting IS a little lumpy. 

But, if you dig in a bit further... They've been holding flat where they were at the end of May, while the nation as a whole has been trending down. There are at present something like 11,200 daily cases, seven dat moving average, nation wide... meaning Florida is responsible for roughly 15% of the nation's Covid count (I'm doing this off memory, don't have the numbers in front of me, so they may not check out exactly but I did run the numbers and remember the percentages well), in a state with 29mm or so people, or about 6.5% of the total US population. Meanwhile, California, a state that's had problems of its own with Covid and probably rushed their reopening a little too, has been seeing about 700 cases a day, 7-day average, on a population of more than 40mm citizens, not quite double Florida's. 

Florida isn't experiencing a covid _surge._ Instead, what they're experiencing is a covid _stalemate_, where their case count is stubbornly failing to decline and as time passes and the rest of the nation does a better and better job of stamping out the spread of covid, they're becoming responsible for a larger-and-larger percentage of the nation's total covid cases. 

If this is a "success story" in the right wing media, then these guys are REALLY bad at data analysis.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> If this is a "success story" in the right wing media, then these guys are REALLY bad at data analysis.



I mean...that's the right wing we're talking about...are you surprised 
And in the rare cases they're not simply bad at it, they're voluntarily manipulating or misrepresenting the data instead.


----------



## Bodes

Sydney, Australia has gone into a 7 day lockdown due to around 100 locally transmitted cases in the past week.

Even though not the most well constructed response, a quote from the state health officer.

TLDR: vaccinated people can still catch and pass on COVID. Stay the fark home.



> Why can't vaccinated people go out and about?
> Dr Chant was asked about vaccinated people and whether their movement had to be restricted.
> 
> She said it was "too soon for that".
> 
> "We know the vaccines are very effective at preventing serious disease. We know that for the AstraZeneca, we need the two doses and also with the Pfizer, to have the two doses to have the maximum impact.
> 
> "We do, however, know that a proportion of people are not protected, and can become infectious, even if you're vaccinated. Now, again, if you're vaccinated, you're likely - and get the disease, you are less likely to transmit, but it can't be ruled out."
> 
> "Once we move and get the population vaccinated and that's going to still be - you know, unfortunately a while off, we will have to re-calibrate our settings, and as we've always said and I think I've said for many months we will at some point have to accept that there will be some community transmission, but we do not want that to occur until we have vaccinated all of the adult population and are progressing through with vaccines available for children as well."


----------



## possumkiller

My wife and I got both doses of phfizer as well as my seventy-something mother in law, sister in law and her boyfriend, 15 year old niece. Nobody has had any problems or side fx. 

They are running a very smooth and efficient vaccination program here in Gdansk. I was impressed. It was in a huge gymnasium with tons of people but I was in and out in minutes both times. I got a vaccination card in my wallet and they emailed my EU certificate. 

My family in the US, more specifically Florida.... are fucking idiots. I have been keeping them updated on the science throughout all of this. Showing them proper sources of information. My sister even bothered to wear a mask for a while. When I asked her if she got her vaccination, she said she's not getting that crap. My mom avoids talking about it even though she has friends that died from it. 



JSanta said:


> I went about 4 months without speaking to my father. When I finally reached out to him, I set ground rules for our interactions, which he could take or leave. He's decided to shut his mouth and we can have some kind of relationship. Similar thing with my mother, but she still likes to push things a bit more, for whatever reason.



I have stopped talking to mine since around last winter holiday season. I just couldn't handle the constant messages, posts, and links to crazy alt right bullshit anymore. Almost everyone in my family avoids him. He is starting pretrial in August for felony battery on an elderly person over 65. My sister had her toddler daughter over to visit him. His sister and mother came over to check on him because he had been sick. My grandmother stayed in the car because she is 91 and doesn't get around very well. He was in the back yard trying to fly a kite with my sister's (f36) kid (f4). He (m56) couldn't get the kite to fly and my aunt (f66) started to tell him how to pull the string. So he came up to her and hit her on the side of the head and dragged her down off the deck into the grass and leaned over her and started yelling and swearing at her. My sister took her daughter to her car and called the police. 

The story is really sad because the house my dad lives in isn't even his. He grew up living with his parents on a farm. They sold that farm and house and moved to another plot on the back 40 into a different house built by my grandfather's brother who bought the land from my grandfather after my mother and father divorced and had their trailer that his parents cosigned for repossessed from that plot in 1986. The two years that my parents lived there and the four years he was in the army after that were the only time in his life that he did not live under his parents' roof. My grandparents moved twice after they sold their farm and both times they had to bring along their adult son. He spends his money faster than he can make it. He likes to pretend he is rich when at the most he has been middle class for a few years and most of the time in poverty. After my grandfather died, that house was supposed to go to my dad but he files for bankruptcy almost every seven years. My grandmother who is 91 and lives on something like 900$ a month social security check while paying for her own food and meds still pays the god damn mortgage for him and even loans him money. Even though he makes decent money driving a trash truck. He traded a perfectly fine running 2002 tundra for a brand new 2020 tacoma 4x4 and took on a massive loan. He could have paid that house off twenty years ago. The price was 80,000$ and they have been paying it off since 1995. The monthly payment is like 200 and something. Yet he still has his mom pay it even though she moved out because of his abuse. He is constantly bouncing around jobs. He's mainly been a truck driver since 1996 but he is always bouncing between companies. He's totaled two trucks because he can't stay off his fucking phone while he's driving. He was an owner operator for almost two years and was supposedly making shit tons of money like 12-15k a month. But then he totaled that truck in Colorado because he couldn't stay off the damn phone and had to have an old army buddy pick him up and let him crash at his place because he was flat broke again. Nobody knows where all of the money he made went. Probably donations to the NRA, his favorite mega church, Amway, or other right wing cons. What I find strange is that he was anti-antivax until the covid vaccinations came along. Anyway, he is looking at prison time since he plead not guilty and is taking it to trial. His whole defense is just saying he didn't do it and my aunt is lying. Even though there were witnesses. Basically, he's a big bag of dicks and I kind of hope he gets put away for a while. Not that he would learn anything from it.


----------



## TedEH

Well that's a whole lot of horrible.


----------



## possumkiller

TedEH said:


> Well that's a whole lot of horrible.


My sister is not much better to be honest. She has three kids with three different dads. She rarely works. Her main way of surviving is shacking up with dudes that will take care of her and then be miserable until they break up and she moves on to another one. She's an alcoholic. Drives drunk with her kids in the car. Drinks and smokes weed while pregnant. She shares a lot of the irresponsible and loud mouth shit talking traits of our dad. She also leeches off of whoever will help her. I have let her live with me twice. She lived with my father and grandmother for a few years. She "borrowed" about 12k from our grandmother that she has never paid back on top of getting my grandmother to sign for her a loan for a car that she got repossessed and then another car a few years later. 

My mother is very similar. She only works when she is single. She just moves from one man to the next when things aren't going the way she wants. She is completely focused on her own survival. She left my dad for my first stepdad that she was cheating with. Then when he got sick and died, she left my sister and I in the half house half trailer to go get married to the next guy. She spent 20 years married to a guy that was paralyzed from the waist down. She had to move him around and bathe him and clean him up and clean his house and take care of all that shit for 20 years in exchange for not working at a regular job. He died and she got jack shit. Nowhere to live and had to find a job. She got a job until she found a new guy to take care of her. Now she hasn't even got married to this guy yet and he is already in the hospital with some mysterious shit. People are starting to call it a pattern.

I am starting to think that my family might just be redneck white trash. I'm like the only one to actually gtfo of that little cesspool town and get educated. Which for me is strange. They have all travelled. They have had chances to succeed and pissed it all away. Why are they such moronic shitbags? It goes without saying that my dad is a trump worshipper. However, my sister and mother can't stand him and my mother votes Democrat. Yet they still go for all this covid conspiracy shit.


----------



## TedEH

I've known some people like that. I generally avoid them.


----------



## Bodes

@possumkiller 
That is a whole lot of negativity in your life. It sounds like you have made some real positive steps in your life. 
I hope you can continue to break your family cycle, make a success of yourself and be a good role model for your sister's children, if you are not already. Sounds like they really need someone.


----------



## Drew

mbardu said:


> I mean...that's the right wing we're talking about...are you surprised
> And in the rare cases they're not simply bad at it, they're voluntarily manipulating or misrepresenting the data instead.


Sarcasm might not have been entirely evident.  But, you know, "'facts' have a well-known liberal bias," and it's not like the GOP isn't well known for making shit up to defend their politics.


----------



## lurè

Getting my first shot tomorrow; 5G is the future!


----------



## mbardu

lurè said:


> Getting my first shot tomorrow; 5G is the future!



Have you decided what magnet you're picking for your injection? 
Classic Alnico? High output ceramic?


----------



## Xaios

mbardu said:


> Have you decided what magnet you're picking for your injection?
> Classic Alnico? High output ceramic?


I got whatever Ibanez puts in their stock pickups. That way, when I plug myself in, the farting noises coming from my amp will be justifiable.


----------



## AwakenTheSkies

I haven't been called for vaccination yet, but I'm not so sure about it. I've heard about some pretty nasty side effects. Apparently my friends mom went blind for a couple hours after doing one of the shots, and everyone feels bad after doing the 2nd shot. I'm not sure if that's normal, I haven't been vaccinated since I was a kid. I'm not political minded at all but this is all a bit sketchy. It's irresponsible to society to not vaccinate myself, but it's also irresponsible to myself to take this vaccine since I don't know what it will do to me. It's like a gamble, russian roulette. Ideally I would rather just wait a few years until I know it's safe to take the vaccine, but I also want to work, move to a different country...


----------



## Bodes

AwakenTheSkies said:


> I haven't been called for vaccination yet, but I'm not so sure about it. I've heard about some pretty nasty side effects. Apparently my friends mom went blind for a couple hours after doing one of the shots, and everyone feels bad after doing the 2nd shot. I'm not sure if that's normal, I haven't been vaccinated since I was a kid. I'm not political minded at all but this is all a bit sketchy. It's irresponsible to society to not vaccinate myself, but it's also irresponsible to myself to take this vaccine since I don't know what it will do to me. It's like a gamble, russian roulette. Ideally I would rather just wait a few years until I know it's safe to take the vaccine, but I also want to work, move to a different country...



Hey. Yes the side effects do suck if you get them bad, like I did. I don't regret having the AZ.

A majority of people seem to have limited or no real side effects. Best idea is to have plenty of water before and after the doses, plus paracetamol after every 4 fours. I was told no not take paracetamol before. Don't know the reason.

Possibly having a few days of feeling like crap could be much better than catching COVID while unvaccinated.
If nothing else, having the vaccine earlier could help open up the world sooner.

AstraZeneca has the side effects after the 1st dose. Pfizer the second. Not sure about the others as we don't have them in Australia so no need to read up about them.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

AwakenTheSkies said:


> I haven't been called for vaccination yet, but I'm not so sure about it. I've heard about some pretty nasty side effects. Apparently my friends mom went blind for a couple hours after doing one of the shots, and everyone feels bad after doing the 2nd shot. I'm not sure if that's normal, I haven't been vaccinated since I was a kid. I'm not political minded at all but this is all a bit sketchy. It's irresponsible to society to not vaccinate myself, but it's also irresponsible to myself to take this vaccine since I don't know what it will do to me. It's like a gamble, russian roulette. Ideally I would rather just wait a few years until I know it's safe to take the vaccine, but I also want to work, move to a different country...



The majority of people have absolutely little to no side effects. Soreness around the injection site is the most common. From there you might experience a few hours of feeling lethargic, very minor and short lived joint/ muscle discomfort, and just a bit like you have a cold. And that's typically the worst side effects out of a HUGE number of people. 

If it hits you a little harder, you may experience the above mentioned side effects lasting a little longer ( like 12 to 24 hours as opposed to just a few hours) or possibly those side effects a bit more accentuated. This is even more uncommon. 

Even more isolated/ rare, you may wind up feeling a good deal of fatigue, more severe headaches/ body aches, some nausea, and essentially like you have the flu. Again... very rare and you're talking about 24 to 36 hours at most.

Beyond that you'd likely be looking at an emergency room visit or hospitalization for severe vomiting and/ or diarrhea, dehydration, etc. But now we are talking about a very unlikely scenario and more than likely less troublesome ( especially long-term) than if you were to have notable complications from the actual virus. True that many people don't experience major issues from covid but with the possibility of what covid CAN do to you as opposed to what a vaccine will likely do to you, it's really a no-brainer in my opinion. 

Get the vaccine... Protect yourself, protect others, build herd immunity, and take back some degree of control of how you live your life. Covid cases tie up hospital beds and tax the health-care system in a bad way. The vaccine costs nothing and is proven to be effective against even the Delta variant. You'll be fine, man and you'll have more peace of mind once you've been vaccinated. Just do it.


----------



## lurè

mbardu said:


> Have you decided what magnet you're picking for your injection?
> Classic Alnico? High output ceramic?



Ceramic for the first dose; if I dont like it i'm switching to alnico for the second shot.


----------



## ElRay

lurè said:


> mbardu said:
> 
> 
> 
> Have you decided what magnet you're picking for your injection? Classic Alnico? High output ceramic?
> 
> 
> 
> Ceramic for the first dose; if I dont like it i'm switching to alnico for the second shot.
Click to expand...

Personally, I'm going for the single-shot/dual-shot switch.


----------



## StevenC

AwakenTheSkies said:


> I haven't been called for vaccination yet, but I'm not so sure about it. I've heard about some pretty nasty side effects. Apparently my friends mom went blind for a couple hours after doing one of the shots, and everyone feels bad after doing the 2nd shot. I'm not sure if that's normal, I haven't been vaccinated since I was a kid. I'm not political minded at all but this is all a bit sketchy. It's irresponsible to society to not vaccinate myself, but it's also irresponsible to myself to take this vaccine since I don't know what it will do to me. It's like a gamble, russian roulette. Ideally I would rather just wait a few years until I know it's safe to take the vaccine, but I also want to work, move to a different country...


Please go get vaccinated when it is available to you.


----------



## _MonSTeR_

With regards to the side effects, I felt pretty rough both times.

I had a stinking headache and felt achy all over, like a minor case of flu. I took paracetamols and ibuprofens for the aches and pains, drank a can of red bull for a caffeine boost, then a lot of water and in traditional English fashion a few cups of tea. Ate normally (well a bit of comfort food) and within 48 hours I was absolutely fine.

I’ve had the worst side effects from anyone I work with or know socially, but I’m a wuss for man-flu anyway.

To be honest my side effects were not as bad as a decent hang over, I’d not hesitate to get vaccinated.

I had no pain at the injection site, a little stiffness maybe, like I’d done a couple of extra sets of delt raises on shoulder day, but that’s it.

_Also, my boss had his vaccination a few weeks prior to mine and he saw I was feeling rough so basically gave me a free pass for the day, people really appreciate other people getting their jabs. _


----------



## thraxil

AwakenTheSkies said:


> It's like a gamble, russian roulette. Ideally I would rather just wait a few years until I know it's safe to take the vaccine, but I also want to work, move to a different country...



Literally *hundreds of millions* of people have had the vaccine now and had no side effects beyond a sore arm and maybe a day or two of feeling slightly under the weather. The few cases of more severe side effects get vastly more attention.

There's risk, but based on the current numbers it looks like getting the covid vaccine is probably one of the lowest risk activities you could think of. Of the top of my head, some activities that have a higher probability of death or long term health consequences: driving or riding a mile in a car, taking a shower, petting a dog, cooking dinner, eating a sandwich, riding a bicycle, climbing a flight of stairs.


----------



## Quitty

Well, late to the party but i spent the past 2 years working for an international biotech company, and supplying all the big boys including those in question here.
Not a scientist myself, but i can safely debunk most of these conspiracy theories, assuming they don't debunk themselves (e.g Bill Gates 5G chip thing). Also, while i wouldn't necessarily trust a goverment to be transparent or honest, i'd trust the flow of money in a free market.

It's important to note that it very evidently works. Spread ratio drops. Death rates drop. Hospital occupancy drops. Hospital sales cycles drop.
On a more personal note - me and the wife got Pfizer'd and had very minimal - albeit different - side effects. Definitely worth it to spare the risk of CoViD-19 side effects. I don't get why we aren't talking a whole lot more about how absolutely dreadful these can be.


----------



## _MonSTeR_

Oh and one more side effect... I might not have developed 5G and I can't use a wireless system without a wireless system, like I thought the Pfizer vaccine would let me, but....

my mids *ARE *now more haunting and my sustain *IS* even better!

YMMV...


----------



## TedEH

I find it kinda telling that people will jump all over the "risks" of covid vaccines, but nobody bats an eye at the risks of every other medication they take, or just normal day-to-day things. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that birth control has a higher risk of blood clotting complications than AZ ever did, and nobody cares. I've got a friend who was almost killed by _advil_, and nobody cares. Cars are giant metal death traps that people die in daily but nobody cares, not even considering sports cars or motorcycles etc.


----------



## Quitty

TedEH said:


> I find it kinda telling that people will jump all over the "risks" of covid vaccines, but nobody bats an eye at the risks of every other medication they take, or just normal day-to-day things.


This qualifies as a rant, but;
There's a solid case to be made that most medications go through longer testing phases that cross out long-term effects. I'd also argue that you stand a better chance of a hospital successfully treating your Advil OD than a long-term AZ complication.

All of this isn't to say the vaccines are abnormally dangerous, but i think we all need a reality check; These vaccines are novel and their approval was rushed.
That said, long term CoViD-19 complications should scare the living shit out of everyone and their likelihood is higher. 

I think the significance and risk of both the disease and its vaccines are downplayed. Since we collectively proved we weren't reliable enough to to handle our own toilet-paper, there seems to be a strong push towards calming things down rather than causing a panic - the downside of which is this whole tinfoil-hat-infused-antivaxx-hell.


----------



## StevenC

Quitty said:


> I'd also argue that you stand a better chance of a hospital successfully treating your Advil OD than a long-term AZ complication.


They seem to be figuring out the AZ complication treatments pretty well.


----------



## _MonSTeR_

I know that this is in the off topic section, but you say ‘AZ’ and ‘complications’ together and I’ll tell you that this is *exactly* why I’m waiting till Ibanez release a version with the original Edge trem


----------



## TedEH

Quitty said:


> There's a solid case to be made that most medications go through longer testing phases that cross out long-term effects. I'd also argue that you stand a better chance of a hospital successfully treating your Advil OD than a long-term AZ complication.


On what basis? That Advil OD was a life-critical thing and the treatment went wrong at several turns. His chances were far from good, and he's lucky to be alive. It's been discussed to death already, but the way these vaccines are made is not some brand-new experimental thing that sprung out of nowhere.


----------



## thebeesknees22

People back home in southern Missouri aren't really getting vaccinated and the Delta variant is eating them up. Hospitals are nearing capacity again. They're running low on vents etc... My sister's a nurse and I have some other people I grew up with that are nurses back there too and they're beyond fed up with people not getting vaccinated. I don't blame them. There aren't enough nurses in the area to take care of them all and they're being asked to do OT nonstop, and it's not slowing down.


----------



## Xaios

thebeesknees22 said:


> People back home in southern Missouri aren't really getting vaccinated and the Delta variant is eating them up. Hospitals are nearing capacity again. They're running low on vents etc... My sister's a nurse and I have some other people I grew up with that are nurses back there too and they're beyond fed up with people not getting vaccinated. I don't blame them. There aren't enough nurses in the area to take care of them all and they're being asked to do OT nonstop, and it's not slowing down.


Yeah, this is gonna keep happening. Morons will continue to refuse to get vaccinated, which in turn will make them factories for variants, which in turn make the vaccines that normal people get less effective. Tangentially, that will feed into all the bullshit narratives that anti-vaxxers construct about vaccine efficacy.


----------



## Randy

Xaios said:


> Yeah, this is gonna keep happening. Morons will continue to refuse to get vaccinated, which in turn will make them factories for variants, which in turn make the vaccines that normal people get less effective. Tangentially, that will feed into all the bullshit narratives that anti-vaxxers construct about vaccine efficacy.



This is why I haven't changed my behaviors much from where they were when NY was at it's worst.

I got J&J and I'm confident in the science that it will keep me out of the hospital if I got a breakthrough case but as a healthy person in their 30s I was never afraid of getting it and dropping dead (though I do have concerns of future side effects), my biggest consideration was always being a conduit to infecting another person.

I think the airplane analogy applies about putting on your mask first and then putting on the person next to you. You can help other by helping yourself. Even if you don't care if you get sick, you can infect someone else or you take up a space in the emergency room that can't be taken by someone else in more grave condition, so on. Thinking everything begins and ends with you has a ripple effect.


----------



## bostjan

TedEH said:


> It's been discussed to death already, but the way these vaccines are made is not some brand-new experimental thing that sprung out of nowhere.



This particular sort of vaccine kind of is brand-new, though, but not in the sprung-out-of-nowhere sense and more like the "we had to take a novel approach" sense.

It's really easy for that fact to be either severely overstated, but it probably tends to be understated often enough to point that out.


----------



## TedEH

I was under the impression that the general idea of how these vaccines are put together isn't new, but I'm no expert. Point being that it's not just a bunch of random chemicals and junk we injected into people and hoped for the best.


----------



## bostjan

TedEH said:


> I was under the impression that the general idea of how these vaccines are put together isn't new, but I'm no expert. Point being that it's not just a bunch of random chemicals and junk we injected into people and hoped for the best.


Right.

Actually this new approach had been tried a few times before, but never really succeeded until the covid vaccine. Personally, I think it is awesome how we were able to develop a vaccine this quickly, test it, and administer it to a large portion of the population.


----------



## jaxadam

I better quit drinking Monsters...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/vaccines-may-curb-virus-mutations-162917356.html



> But 10 of 14 soft drinks produced positive or weakly positive results, with no apparent link between the test results and the soft drinks' ingredients, the researchers reported on Monday on medRxiv ahead of peer review.


----------



## bostjan

jaxadam said:


> I better quit drinking Monsters...
> 
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/vaccines-may-curb-virus-mutations-162917356.html





> with no apparent link between the test results and the soft drinks' ingredients



That's weird. Does that mean the damned virus is in the drink? I would hope that they'd automatically follow this series up with a PCR test to make sure.


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> That's weird. Does that mean the damned virus is in the drink? I would hope that they'd automatically follow this series up with a PCR test to make sure.



I mean just read the side effects on the side of the can. Don't drink if you're pregnant or nursing, may cause heart palpitations or SHORTNESS OF BREATH. I mean it's been right there out in the open the whole time.


----------



## Drew

Quitty said:


> All of this isn't to say the vaccines are abnormally dangerous, but i think we all need a reality check; These vaccines are novel and their approval was rushed.


This is, I suppose, true _in a sense_. But it's also not. 

The _timeline_ from testing to approval was abnormally fast. As a result, we probably don't have as good a handle as we might normally on what the one-, two-, and five-year aftereffects of these vaccine are, aside from the general observation that based on the science alone and the fact that mRNA doesn't live long in the human body but is quickly consumed, in theory there shouldn't be any. 

However, the testing process itself, weighted by data and not time, was _not_ rushed. A point a friend of mine at a biochem firm raised to me was that the difference between Covid-19, and most sicknesses we're doing double-blind control group testing on, is that when we started clinical trials people were getting Covid a fucking _lot_, so we were able to very quickly build up an extremely statistically-significant body of evidence in an extremely short period of time. Other mRNA vaccines had been developed and were being tested, but they were being trialed on illnesses that your chance of contracting by random chance was lower by many orders of magnitude than it was of catching covid. 

So, paradoxically, we were able to run a clinical trial as fast as we were precisely _because_ the pandemic was so bad and so many people were getting sick. The silver lining of that was that it made it _extremely_ easy to gather data, so by the time the FDA reviewed applications for clinical use, they had extremely robust data to work with.


----------



## mbardu

Quitty said:


> This qualifies as a rant, but;
> There's a solid case to be made that most medications go through longer testing phases that cross out long-term effects. I'd also argue that you stand a better chance of a hospital successfully treating your Advil OD than a long-term AZ complication.
> 
> All of this isn't to say the vaccines are abnormally dangerous, but i think we all need a reality check; These vaccines are novel and their approval was rushed.
> That said, long term CoViD-19 complications should scare the living shit out of everyone and their likelihood is higher.
> 
> I think the significance and risk of both the disease and its vaccines are downplayed. Since we collectively proved we weren't reliable enough to to handle our own toilet-paper, there seems to be a strong push towards calming things down rather than causing a panic - the downside of which is this whole tinfoil-hat-infused-antivaxx-hell.



I find this quite balanced.
The vaccine is clearly the way forward for the greater good. However, I see most reasonable people (and not saying I'm reasonable  , but I've been guilty of it too) have suddenly become vaccine experts and are taunting the miracle Covid-19 virus as almost perfect, and we tend to forget our own bias.

If we do recall about a year ago, when it was Trump saying we'd have a vaccine in 2020, he was mocked by the same media and group of people who were saying any such rushed vaccine would be untested and unsafe. It's flipped on its head now when everyone who questions the vaccine as untested is put in the "Trump support/science denier" category automatically (even when they're at the opposite end of the political spectrum). In 2020 the theory of a lab-grown virus was laughed at because Trump said it...but now every media is slowly backing away from their mockeries and now taking it seriously. Bias is a hell of a drug. 

In an imperfect world such as ours, vaccination will help a ton. But it's also a shame you're not able to even ask whether a very new vaccine administered to billions will have long term effects down the road. Either you're put in the flat-earther/Jan-6 denier group, or the only answers you get are 1-"it hasn't happened before so this vaccine won't have long term effects either" or 2-"if you even want to say there might be long term effects, you need a long term study showing there are long term effects" - which is obviously not possible yet.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> This is, I suppose, true _in a sense_. But it's also not.
> 
> The _timeline_ from testing to approval was abnormally fast. As a result, we probably don't have as good a handle as we might normally on what the one-, two-, and five-year aftereffects of these vaccine are, aside from the general observation that based on the science alone and the fact that mRNA doesn't live long in the human body but is quickly consumed, in theory there shouldn't be any.
> 
> However, the testing process itself, weighted by data and not time, was _not_ rushed. A point a friend of mine at a biochem firm raised to me was that the difference between Covid-19, and most sicknesses we're doing double-blind control group testing on, is that when we started clinical trials people were getting Covid a fucking _lot_, so we were able to very quickly build up an extremely statistically-significant body of evidence in an extremely short period of time. Other mRNA vaccines had been developed and were being tested, but they were being trialed on illnesses that your chance of contracting by random chance was lower by many orders of magnitude than it was of catching covid.
> 
> So, paradoxically, we were able to run a clinical trial as fast as we were precisely _because_ the pandemic was so bad and so many people were getting sick. The silver lining of that was that it made it _extremely_ easy to gather data, so by the time the FDA reviewed applications for clinical use, they had extremely robust data to work with.



The overwhelming majority of studies on Covid-19 vaccine show great efficacy and great risk/reward ratio.
And you are spot on with the scale of the pandemic not only justifying the process, but also helping the science.

The only part that is still a concern is long term, and by definition, we have 0 of that because the virus wasn't there 18 months ago, the vaccine a year ago.
When you ask most experts about long term effects, they will tell you that vaccines usually don't have long term effects. But on the other end, a respiratory virus doesn't usually kill millions as quickly as Covid-19 has killed millions, leaving a lot of "cured" people with long term effects as a consequence of the disease So I don't know if the "it hasn't happened before" answer is quite enough.

Where it was "rushed" is in the rollout rather than the approval. Usually you would administer a new drug/treatment/vaccine to a small population, even after testing and regulatory approval. And if there are effects 5 years down the road, at least you have not given it to half the population of the world... Some form of precautionary principle, but that's basically out the window this time around.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> Where it was "rushed" is in the rollout





mbardu said:


> Usually you would administer a new drug/treatment/vaccine to a small population





mbardu said:


> And if there are effects 5 years down the road


I don't think we could have lasted 5 years of just waiting around for test results. While I can concede that there's not _zero_ concern, I don't think we're talking about a high enough risk of serious enough effects that another 5 years of covid deaths and economic crunch would justify the delay.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

bostjan said:


> That's weird. Does that mean the damned virus is in the drink? I would hope that they'd automatically follow this series up with a PCR test to make sure.


Could be some cross-reactivity with reagents in some of these colorimetric assays that the researchers aren't aware of. Haven't looked much into these rapid-test kits could be a plethora of reasons including assay sensitivity, reagent/substrate cross-reactivity, etc. but could be easily confirmed through other means (ELISA or hard PCR). ddPCR would be a really good standard to reference as those produce upwards of 10,000 technical replicates per sample but most testing labs (and other labs) are only equipped with qPCR machines as the technology is older and inexpensive (but you need 3 200uL wells equating to 3 technical replicates in which ddPCR would only take up one well, I guess I just have a disdain for qPCR :-/ )
PCR tests should be simple but I bet they're not in the drinks. I've got a few primers targeting portions of a COVID transcript, could probably bang out a few tests myself hahaha.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> I don't think we could have lasted 5 years of just waiting around for test results. While I can concede that there's not _zero_ concern, I don't think we're talking about a high enough risk of serious enough effects that another 5 years of covid deaths and economic crunch would justify the delay.



You said it yourself, economy is _such _the number one concern that the adverse effects of a vaccine would need to be _tremendous _for it to change the incentives and the machine that restarts the economy. We could not have waited 5 years. Not even 2. And maybe adverse effects would be there in 10 years, not 5. No way to tell, and we're not going to wait forever.
Which is why I'm saying vaccine is _still _our best shot.

Or I should say, our _best _best shot would have been for everyone to stay the F at home for real for a month (if an entire country like NZ can do it, no reason others couldn't do it too) ... but that ship sailed loooong ago, and there's no money in that.

But the extreme of saying "we know there's 0 risk besides short term side effect" is not true either. We should at least be humble to say we don't know for sure.


----------



## TedEH

I guess in the absence of knowing I prefer to naively err on the side of "we'll probably be ok". Even if I'm wrong, there's not much I can do about it outside of acting on the best information I have, like everyone else.


----------



## Xaios

mbardu said:


> If we do recall about a year ago, when it was Trump saying we'd have a vaccine in 2020, he was mocked by the same media and group of people who were saying any such rushed vaccine would be untested and unsafe. It's flipped on its head now when everyone who questions the vaccine as untested is put in the "Trump support/science denier" category automatically (even when they're at the opposite end of the political spectrum). In 2020 the theory of a lab-grown virus was laughed at because Trump said it...but now every media is slowly backing away from their mockeries and now taking it seriously. Bias is a hell of a drug.


Trump also said that hydroxychloroquine was gonna be a great anti-covid drug, and that he also pondered aloud the efficacy of injecting disinfectant directly into the body. He doesn't make statements such as these or the ones about vaccine timelines or lab-grown viruses because they're true. Rather, he makes them because he wants to be perceived as an authority, to be seen as the guy with all the answers. It's no coincidence that Qanons have a fixation on being in-the-know, privy to supposedly big secrets that "they" don't want you to know. Their desire for exclusive access dovetails perfectly with Trump's desire to be seen as the man who has all the secrets, and it doesn't bother him one bit that he has to continuously spin more and more bullshit from thin air because it feeds his ego. As such, even when he made statements that may turn out to be factually correct, it can hardly be described as the truth.


----------



## spudmunkey

A broken clock is right twice a day.


----------



## TedEH

spudmunkey said:


> A broken clock is right twice a day.


I was literally thinking this and was going to type it, then glanced down and saw you beat me to it. Well played.


----------



## thebeesknees22

But...what if you're on a 24hr clock? just sayin'


----------



## TedEH

Given we're talking about Trump, it seems unlikely. I don't think he can count that high.


----------



## thebeesknees22

hahahah


----------



## mbardu

Xaios said:


> Trump also said that hydroxychloroquine was gonna be a great anti-covid drug, and that he also pondered aloud the efficacy of injecting disinfectant directly into the body. He doesn't make statements such as these or the ones about vaccine timelines or lab-grown viruses because they're true. Rather, he makes them because he wants to be perceived as an authority, to be seen as the guy with all the answers. It's no coincidence that Qanons have a fixation on being in-the-know, privy to supposedly big secrets that "they" don't want you to know. Their desire for exclusive access dovetails perfectly with Trump's desire to be seen as the man who has all the secrets, and it doesn't bother him one bit that he has to continuously spin more and more bullshit from thin air because it feeds his ego. As such, even when he made statements that may turn out to be factually correct, it can hardly be described as the truth.





spudmunkey said:


> A broken clock is right twice a day.



Exactly. And you are making my point about bias.
Because Trump said the vaccine might have been lab made in China, knee-jerk reaction we said it was dumb and mocked it last year. Was pretty likely to be BS, coming from his mouth. But when it started to sound like a not so crazy possibility earlier in the year, now we had trouble accepting it - because we had put it into the "silly disinfectant UV-Trump" category. And now a year later, everyone is walking back their mockeries from last year and trying not to lose face while acknowledging it's a very real possibility.

We're doing the same with absolutely any doubt that anyone raises about the vaccine long term effects now. Because there are 5g/magnet/alien antivaxers out there, we put anyone in the same box if they dare ask questions. They must be anti-science Trumpers if they're anxious. Not necessarily on this forum, but in the media in general. Kinda negates any possibility for debate. The sole arguments I've seen on that front from people who even tried to answer in good faith have been the ones I mentioned above. 1-there have not been awful long term effects of past vaccines in the past in general, so there won't be any for this one either and 2-we need a study demonstrating that there are long term side-effects, otherwise we know for sure that there are none. Both of which are logical fallacies.

Anyway that's a lot of word to say, the vaccine is probably the best we can do right now, but on another note, partisan generalization sucks and it kind of muddies things like precautionary principles or "minority reports".


----------



## thraxil

Drew said:


> The _timeline_ from testing to approval was abnormally fast. As a result, we probably don't have as good a handle as we might normally on what the one-, two-, and five-year aftereffects of these vaccine are, aside from the general observation that based on the science alone and the fact that mRNA doesn't live long in the human body but is quickly consumed, in theory there shouldn't be any.
> 
> However, the testing process itself, weighted by data and not time, was _not_ rushed. A point a friend of mine at a biochem firm raised to me was that the difference between Covid-19, and most sicknesses we're doing double-blind control group testing on, is that when we started clinical trials people were getting Covid a fucking _lot_, so we were able to very quickly build up an extremely statistically-significant body of evidence in an extremely short period of time. Other mRNA vaccines had been developed and were being tested, but they were being trialed on illnesses that your chance of contracting by random chance was lower by many orders of magnitude than it was of catching covid.



This is important and I want to expand on it a bit because I see a lot of misinformation out there along the lines of "vaccine/drug trials usually take years and years but the covid vaccines came out quickly, therefore they must not be as well tested or safe as others". That *seems* like a reasonable argument on the surface.

What I think a lot of people don't understand is that the covid vaccine trials were held to the same standards in terms of efficacy and safety. The reason that it happened quickly is partly, as Drew explained, large amounts of easily available data, but also involves a lot of eliminating of beaurocratic processes that normally slow down trials.

A vaccine or drug trial typically goes through a number of phases (simplifying immensely here), going from lab tests, to animal tests, to very small scale human tests, and then scaling out to larger test groups over longer periods. The drug companies do it that way because most trials aren't successful and it's cheaper to eliminate the failing ones earlier on during less expensive phases. The FDA and equivalent agencies like it that way because it reduces the harm that can be done during a test (eg, catching dangerous interactions in the animal testing phase before any humans are exposed, or catching problems before a drug is given to a cohort of 1000 people). Normally, these phases are done sequentially, usually with long delays between each of them while data is analyzed, submitted to different agencies, reviewed by lawyers, funding requests for the next phase work their way through the pipeline, etc. The FDA is not known for speed or efficiency. All that stuff that isn't the actual running of trials is what makes vaccine or drug approvals typically take years to go through. It's "run a phase for a couple months, wait six months or a year, run another phase" and repeat until the drug either is approved or fails (or the drug company decides that it won't be profitable enough even if it works).

With covid being such a massive problem, the FDA agreed to prioritize and streamline the process. Drug companies were able to effectively start multiple phases at the same time and run them in parallel. As soon as they got results from one, they were allowed to start the next without waiting for the FDA to go through their results with a fine-tooth comb. This absolutely does mean that there may have been more danger to participants in the studies (if there were other drugs and vaccines being tested that didn't go through because they were found to be harmful, that wouldn't surprise me, and we'll probably just never hear about those).

But in the end, there's still the same burden of evidence required to show effiicacy and safety as any other treatment. The FDA didn't relax that aspect.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

thraxil said:


> This is important and I want to expand on it a bit because I see a lot of misinformation out there along the lines of "vaccine/drug trials usually take years and years but the covid vaccines came out quickly, therefore they must not be as well tested or safe as others". That *seems* like a reasonable argument on the surface.
> 
> What I think a lot of people don't understand is that the covid vaccine trials were held to the same standards in terms of efficacy and safety. The reason that it happened quickly is partly, as Drew explained, large amounts of easily available data, but also involves a lot of eliminating of beaurocratic processes that normally slow down trials.
> 
> A vaccine or drug trial typically goes through a number of phases (simplifying immensely here), going from lab tests, to animal tests, to very small scale human tests, and then scaling out to larger test groups over longer periods. The drug companies do it that way because most trials aren't successful and it's cheaper to eliminate the failing ones earlier on during less expensive phases. The FDA and equivalent agencies like it that way because it reduces the harm that can be done during a test (eg, catching dangerous interactions in the animal testing phase before any humans are exposed, or catching problems before a drug is given to a cohort of 1000 people). Normally, these phases are done sequentially, usually with long delays between each of them while data is analyzed, submitted to different agencies, reviewed by lawyers, funding requests for the next phase work their way through the pipeline, etc. The FDA is not known for speed or efficiency. All that stuff that isn't the actual running of trials is what makes vaccine or drug approvals typically take years to go through. It's "run a phase for a couple months, wait six months or a year, run another phase" and repeat until the drug either is approved or fails (or the drug company decides that it won't be profitable enough even if it works).
> 
> With covid being such a massive problem, the FDA agreed to prioritize and streamline the process. Drug companies were able to effectively start multiple phases at the same time and run them in parallel. As soon as they got results from one, they were allowed to start the next without waiting for the FDA to go through their results with a fine-tooth comb. This absolutely does mean that there may have been more danger to participants in the studies (if there were other drugs and vaccines being tested that didn't go through because they were found to be harmful, that wouldn't surprise me, and we'll probably just never hear about those).
> 
> But in the end, there's still the same burden of evidence required to show effiicacy and safety as any other treatment. The FDA didn't relax that aspect.


Yup the FDA and bureaucratic process bog everything down. Worked with a company for pre/post IND submission and it was a huge hassle with everything down to formatting of the documents and related paperwork that were submitted (which should be expected, especially going in for pre-clinicals). As you said though, this process in particular was efficacious.


----------



## Drew

mbardu said:


> You said it yourself, economy is _such _the number one concern that the adverse effects of a vaccine would need to be _tremendous _for it to change the incentives and the machine that restarts the economy. We could not have waited 5 years. Not even 2. And maybe adverse effects would be there in 10 years, not 5. No way to tell, and we're not going to wait forever.
> Which is why I'm saying vaccine is _still _our best shot.



FWIW, I don't think this was about the economy. 

Roughly half a million Americans died of Covid from the start of the pandemic until the start of March, roughly 12 months later. Of those half million, the first alf died pretty steadily between March 2020 and November 2020, and the second half died between maybe the start of December and the start of February as the growth rate started to go exponential, a period of three months. Annualize that and you get about 2 million deaths a year, if the rate of deaths remained stable and didnt continue to accelerate. This is at a time when by year end maybe 20 million Americans had tested positive for Covid, or roughly 6% of the population, and when the issue was politicized enough that containment measures were going to fail at least regionally so not much could be done to stop the spread. 

Let's say by February that had jumped to roughly 30mm americans, or 9% of the population, and of that half a million or 1.7% had died. To get to herd immunity, around 70%, with _no_ vaccine, another 61% of the country, 201.3mm Americans give or take, would have had to be exposed, and with a 1.7% fatality rate, we'd expect nearly 3.5mm more Americans to die in the process. We can talk about improved treatment outcomes... but that kind of volume would have continued to overwhelm hospitals, worsening those oucomes, and also leading to additional otherwise-preventable deaths when hospitals were stretched past capacity (I'd point to CA telling first responders to triage on the scene and unless survival was fairly likely with medical care, don't send patients to hospitals; this was already happening). It's tough to say how many second-order "excess deaths" there would have been but the estimations I've seen are generally about double the rate of covid deaths for "excess mortality" over expected mortality at long term averages. So, double the covid death count and you have at least a estimation of what the total deaths associated with Covid would likely be, diagnosed cases but also undiagnosed mortalities, and people dying from other reasons tha might otherwise have been prevented. 

So, that gets us to an alternate-reality do nothing death count of probably around 8 million Americans (3.5 plus 0.5, times two). Four million Americans could very well - somehow - die of vaccination complications, and we've _still _ probably saved four million American lives. 

You can talk about the economic impacts, and they're not small, and additionally at a minimum you still need "the economy" to grow food and deliver it to people or even more people will die, so you can't just shut it down entirely... but there's a simple argument here that rolling the dice on the extremely low liklihood of long term risks from an mRNA vaccine - and it's a technology that dates back to the 90s, even if this is the first with broad approval - makes sense purely for the number of lives it will probably save.


----------



## Drew

thraxil said:


> This is important and I want to expand on it a bit because I see a lot of misinformation out there along the lines of "vaccine/drug trials usually take years and years but the covid vaccines came out quickly, therefore they must not be as well tested or safe as others". That *seems* like a reasonable argument on the surface.
> 
> What I think a lot of people don't understand is that the covid vaccine trials were held to the same standards in terms of efficacy and safety. The reason that it happened quickly is partly, as Drew explained, large amounts of easily available data, but also involves a lot of eliminating of beaurocratic processes that normally slow down trials.



That's a great point too, and if you want to talk about things the Trump administration got _right_ in their Covid response, that's a big one. 

But, I'd look at it like this - say you want to test the effacacy of "Danger - 20% grade" signs, and of "Stop" signs, for making drivers slow down. The first one is going to take a LONG time, because the number of hills in the world with 20% downhill grades is just not that high, they tend not to get much traffic, and finding ones _without_ warning signs are tough, too. Meanwhile, stop signs are _everywhere_. It's pretty easy to find intersections with stop signs, intersections without them, and in both cases ones getting a lot of traffic. It's a cakewalk to gather enough data to tell if they make drivers slow down or not. 

The Covid vaccine is a stop sign. We had enough data to know it was working, extremely well, within 90 days of the start of clinical trials, and the faster we could get it out there, the more lives we'd save.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> FWIW, I don't think this was about the economy.
> 
> Roughly half a million Americans died of Covid from the start of the pandemic until the start of March, roughly 12 months later. Of those half million, the first alf died pretty steadily between March 2020 and November 2020, and the second half died between maybe the start of December and the start of February as the growth rate started to go exponential, a period of three months. Annualize that and you get about 2 million deaths a year, if the rate of deaths remained stable and didnt continue to accelerate. This is at a time when by year end maybe 20 million Americans had tested positive for Covid, or roughly 6% of the population, and when the issue was politicized enough that containment measures were going to fail at least regionally so not much could be done to stop the spread.
> 
> Let's say by February that had jumped to roughly 30mm americans, or 9% of the population, and of that half a million or 1.7% had died. To get to herd immunity, around 70%, with _no_ vaccine, another 61% of the country, 201.3mm Americans give or take, would have had to be exposed, and with a 1.7% fatality rate, we'd expect nearly 3.5mm more Americans to die in the process. We can talk about improved treatment outcomes... but that kind of volume would have continued to overwhelm hospitals, worsening those oucomes, and also leading to additional otherwise-preventable deaths when hospitals were stretched past capacity (I'd point to CA telling first responders to triage on the scene and unless survival was fairly likely with medical care, don't send patients to hospitals; this was already happening). It's tough to say how many second-order "excess deaths" there would have been but the estimations I've seen are generally about double the rate of covid deaths for "excess mortality" over expected mortality at long term averages. So, double the covid death count and you have at least a estimation of what the total deaths associated with Covid would likely be, diagnosed cases but also undiagnosed mortalities, and people dying from other reasons tha might otherwise have been prevented.
> 
> So, that gets us to an alternate-reality do nothing death count of probably around 8 million Americans (3.5 plus 0.5, times two). Four million Americans could very well - somehow - die of vaccination complications, and we've _still _ probably saved four million American lives.
> 
> You can talk about the economic impacts, and they're not small, and additionally at a minimum you still need "the economy" to grow food and deliver it to people or even more people will die, so you can't just shut it down entirely... but there's a simple argument here that rolling the dice on the extremely low likelihood of long term risks from an mRNA vaccine - and it's a technology that dates back to the 90s, even if this is the first with broad approval - makes sense purely for the number of lives it will probably save.



Your arguments are pretty flawed - I'm sure you must realize it:

"the death rate is 1.7% because we have 500k deaths on 30M positive tests" is gone the moment you remember that a _large _majority of people were carriers with little to no symptoms and were _not tested_. Even the CDC warns about it, and there might already have been anywhere between 100 and 180M Americans with the disease - out of which you are only taking into account the 33M officially confirmed ones. So the 1.7% is incredibly flawed from the start.
Randomly doubling _that _as a cherry on top, is pretty preposterous. Excess deaths do show that totals are slightly higher than strictly using the Covid-deaths counted by the CDC, but that is likely to be for the exact same reason as the above. Covid tracking is slightly under-counting actual impact. Other causes of death are roughly unchanged. If you have any source on why doubling makes sense, I'd gladly take a look. In the meantime, the _actual _historical data for the last year (including the worst months with overrun hospitals when Covid was pretty much running free in the US) is readily available on the CDC website (easy csv format too) and does not show that made-up doubling at all.
The death rate early on is naturally higher than the long run one. The earlier more fragile populations are impacted first, the first strains of virus are typically deadlier, and medical care, no matter what you think, have indeed progressed significantly over a year... Overall death rates trend down pretty consistently. Lots of sources, but Jama one if you'd like.
Now, nobody is saying that the strategy of "let it run its course" would have been good. If we're taking numbers out of our butts, I'd say we should use a more reasonable rate of 0.3% - and that's being pessimistic. No need to double it just because we feel like it either, that's not very rigorous. Then you're looking at ~800k to deaths, or 300k more than where we were earlier this year. That's nowhere near your 7.5M additional deaths. Still absolutely awful of course, but we don't need to make stuff up either.

Again, for a very simple reality check, about 100 to 180 million americans have _already _had the disease (even according to conservative CDC), so according to your nightmare scenario with made up numbers, we should _already _be at 4 million dead and that's far from the case.

The funny thing however is that - even if your calculation made sense, you're just continuing with the strawman without having read the first thing I said  .Which was first and foremost that the vaccine is the best option we're left with.

The strategy that would have made so much more sense is #1: stay the F at home worldwide for a month. We would have been done with it a year ago. But muh freedom and muh economy. That didn't happen obviously, so vaccine is the best we have as strategy #2, since we have collectively given up on therapeutics.

But it's not because it's the best we have that we need to brush away the concerns of people who say we need to be careful about long term effects. The second strawman are the tirades about accelerated vaccine testing and large pool of data because of the scale of the pandemics. Then condescending stop signs metaphors. Nobody argued any of that  .

It's just that nobody has any data about *long term* effects because it's literally impossible to know yet. So we have to be conscious that we're throwing any and all precautionary principles out the window by giving the new vaccine to literally billions of people, and that's a concern. Say, we're giving all the cars in the world a new braking system. We've tested the new braking system in a lab. We've tested the braking system on a statistically significant number of cars for 1000 miles. You perform zero wear-test after 1000 miles. Now we're sending half the cars in the world towards your metaphorical stop sign every day after 10s of thousands of miles. Nobody knows if they'll be able to brake or not. It's basically "hope for the best"! See I can make metaphors too 

The vaccine* is *a big unknown. The protein it targets, the delivery mechanism, and indeed the fact that some versions use rna. It's easy to poke fun with "rNa iS OlD tEcH fRoM tHe 90s" when people say it's new, but it *is *new tech. Yeah the principles are not new. Lab versions are not new. Animal models even. But the step from the lab is never trivial (relevant xkcd). I mean, fusion energy in a lab is old tech from the 70s, so we can just replace all our power plants 10 years ago, right  ?

I was going to quote examples where we threw away cautionary principle and paid the price for it, but I'm not sure if it would be useful. After all, in the US we can still u_se _asbestos and Glyphosate even though we know they're harmful now (way later), so I suppose that's why the argument doesn't resonate..

Edit since I don't want to just be negative: What could we do better? Well if the interest was really public health and not $$$, then maybe use the few vaccines that are traditional rather than the new ones we have little experience with at this scale? If profit is not the goal, then maybe remove the profit incentive and make that vaccine open source and have it produced worldwide where needed? And maybe before taking the vaccine, especially an experimental one, test for the presence of antibodies first. Maybe you don't need it, or just need a booster (literally half the people or more may already have had the disease in a lot of countries). And maybe stop lowering the age of vaccine recipients to help the older population while the risk/reward ratio is way lower the younger you are? Young ones will be the ones bearing the burden of long term effects if any, while people who are already 65 years old don't give a shit if they develop cancer 25 years down the road.

Just some thoughts...


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> Nobody knows if they'll be able to brake or not


The problem with this kind of phrasing / thinking is that it implies that we're just yolo'ing it and saying "meh, lets just inject ourselves with anything at all, and 50/50 we're all dead or mutated or something next year from the vaccines", and this is neither accurate or helpful. "We just don't know" is not the complete picture. We have, at the very least, _reasonable doubt_ that there's anything to worry about in comparison to what we would need to worry about if we didn't take the vax now, and enough evidence that it does what it's supposed to do so far. Metaphors aside, what exactly are we expecting these long term effects of the vaccine to be? We're all going to suddenly die? We're all going to suddenly become sterile? We're all going to cut our life expectancy in half? We're all going to have the one arm infected with something and amputated? We're all going to mutate and get super powers? And on what basis are we suspecting these outcomes?

I mean, it's not like we go through this same process for everything we take or get prescribed on a regular basis. We'll trust whatever nonsense pills the family doc' yolos onto their patients like it's an episode of House, we'll trust the random street drugs you bought off your friends 'cause "don't worry they're totally legit" and "you gatta try this, it'll change your life and open your eyes". Somehow that's acceptable risk (despite demonstrably doing lots of harm to people on a regular basis), but vaccines aren't?

You might as well say "it's too risky to go outside because there's no proof that something terrible won't happen, since the future hasn't happened yet". You'd be _technically correct_, but the conclusion isn't rational. Sure, you don't know. But there's no more reason to believe that something _will _happen either.


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## thraxil

TedEH said:


> We have, at the very least, _reasonable doubt_ that there's anything to worry about in comparison to what we would need to worry about if we didn't take the vax now, and enough evidence that it does what it's supposed to do so far.



Right. And conversely, we know that *not* getting the vaccine has a very real chance of severe long term health consequences not just for the person opting out of the vaccine, but for the rest of the population who suffers when we allow the virus to spread and mutate through a large unvaccinated population. If you're in a burning building, you don't stay in there because you might get hit by a meteorite if you go outside.

Medically, it's also relevant that these are one (or two) dose exposures. It's *possible* for there to be long term consequences of something like that, but most of the time it's reasonable to assume some correlation between overall exposure and long term risks. Eg, if the vaccine caused cancer of some kind, we'd almost certainly be seeing that already. But our current understanding of the mRNA vaccines is that they never enter the nucleus of the cell, and everything breaks down pretty quickly after the immune system learns to make the antibodies. Outside that initial window, it's a reasonable expectation that the long term effect on the body is going to be the same as any other vaccine. This is in contrast with the kinds of things that we see causing unforeseen long term consequences, like asbestos, pesticides, smoking, leaded gasoline, etc. Any of those in a tiny dose or two is unlikely to be a problem; it takes long term chronic exposure and/or large doses. If you get a covid shot every day for the next few years, then go ahead and worry about unforeseen long term consequences.

In the absence of either evidence of long term problems or a medical/scientific argument for why there might be those kinds of issues, the question becomes whether it's a better policy in general for people to accept that there's a small but nonzero chance of long term problems and get the vaccine, or to ignore the known, large negative consequences and opt out. Almost no medications, vaccines or treatments have zero chance of side effects or risk, either short or long term. This kind of risk analysis is not new or unique to the covid vaccine.


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## profwoot

It's funny to hear the cries of "BIAS!" about Trump. "Sure, he lies about literally everything, but a couple of his lies ended up actually being true[-ish] and that means y'all are biased against him!" Do kids these days not know about the boy who cried wolf?


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## thraxil

mbardu said:


> But it's not because it's the best we have that we need to brush away the concerns of people who say we need to be careful about long term effects. The second strawman are the tirades about accelerated vaccine testing and large pool of data because of the scale of the pandemics.



I'm sorry if you thought that was directed at you, specifically. In the overall conversation about vaccine hesitancy, the "but it was rushed through FDA testing" is a very, very common talking point that I hoped to preempt.



mbardu said:


> Say, we're giving all the cars in the world a new braking system. We've tested the new braking system in a lab. We've tested the braking system on a statistically significant number of cars for 1000 miles. You perform zero wear-test after 1000 miles. Now we're sending half the cars in the world towards your metaphorical stop sign every day after 10s of thousands of miles. Nobody knows if they'll be able to brake or not. It's basically "hope for the best"! See I can make metaphors too



The appropriate metaphor there though would be that that braking system was designed in a world where previously cars had no ability to brake and you had to just coast to a stop or crash into hay bales or something. The fact that it might wear out and fail after 10s of thousands of miles doesn't make it not a vast improvement over everyone just crashing into each other and we'd be insane to take the approach of "well, we can't be sure it will never fail, so let's just keep having lots of fatal car crashes" option.



mbardu said:


> Edit since I don't want to just be negative: What could we do better? Well if the interest was really public health and not $$$, then maybe use the few vaccines that are traditional rather than the new ones we have little experience with at this scale?



Which traditional vaccines do we have for covid that are available?


----------



## CovertSovietBear

thraxil said:


> Right. And conversely, we know that *not* getting the vaccine has a very real chance of severe long term health consequences not just for the person opting out of the vaccine, but for the rest of the population who suffers when we allow the virus to spread and mutate through a large unvaccinated population. If you're in a burning building, you don't stay in there because you might get hit by a meteorite if you go outside.
> 
> Medically, it's also relevant that these are one (or two) dose exposures. It's *possible* for there to be long term consequences of something like that, but most of the time it's reasonable to assume some correlation between overall exposure and long term risks. Eg, if the vaccine caused cancer of some kind, we'd almost certainly be seeing that already. But our current understanding of the mRNA vaccines is that they never enter the nucleus of the cell, and everything breaks down pretty quickly after the immune system learns to make the antibodies. Outside that initial window, it's a reasonable expectation that the long term effect on the body is going to be the same as any other vaccine. This is in contrast with the kinds of things that we see causing unforeseen long term consequences, like asbestos, pesticides, smoking, leaded gasoline, etc. Any of those in a tiny dose or two is unlikely to be a problem; it takes long term chronic exposure and/or large doses. If you get a covid shot every day for the next few years, then go ahead and worry about unforeseen long term consequences.
> 
> In the absence of either evidence of long term problems or a medical/scientific argument for why there might be those kinds of issues, the question becomes whether it's a better policy in general for people to accept that there's a small but nonzero chance of long term problems and get the vaccine, or to ignore the known, large negative consequences and opt out. Almost no medications, vaccines or treatments have zero chance of side effects or risk, either short or long term. This kind of risk analysis is not new or unique to the covid vaccine.



What exact part of this mechanism is scaring people? For Pfizer/Moderna the added untranslated portions of the RNA transcript, 5' cap and polyadenylated 3' tail, only serve to stabilize the RNA transcript before degradation through exoribonucleases. 
RNA transcript is endocytosed by dendritic cells and subsequently translated in the cytoplasm, and I don't think translocation into the nucleus is an actual point to worry about. 
If anything a disadvantage of the RNA transcript would be inefficient protein translation through improperly made UTR modifications and quick exoribonucleic activity which would render low immunogenicity due to inadequate exposure to the exogenous protein. 

Do they think RNA will suddenly want to mutate and go rogue somehow? Have these people not heard of live, attenuated vaccines? Or is the worry the mechanism of delivery itself such as the lipids used? These are all pretty common techniques that are also used in-vitro/in-vivo that are adapted for safety and efficacy in humans. Of what we've seen the major side effect of these vaccines are unwanted, lateral and generic inflammatory responses. 

Multiple types of viruses have evolved to hijack these mechanisms and we've learned to use and adapt them for our own gain of function and understanding. The point of contention might be people's lack of knowledge or lack of willingness to learn imo


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## spudmunkey

thraxil said:


> .
> 
> Which traditional vaccines do we have for covid that are available?



J&J and AZ are the "conventional" type ( or at least non-mRNA, since there really isn't a single "conventional" method/design).

Ammusingly it's the one with the lowest efficacy rate (J&J) and the one with the most high-profile side effects/issues (AZ).


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## mbardu

CovertSovietBear said:


> What exact part of this mechanism is scaring people? For Pfizer/Moderna the added untranslated portions of the RNA transcript, 5' cap and polyadenylated 3' tail, only serve to stabilize the RNA transcript before degradation through exoribonucleases.
> RNA transcript is endocytosed by dendritic cells and subsequently translated in the cytoplasm, and I don't think translocation into the nucleus is an actual point to worry about.
> If anything a disadvantage of the RNA transcript would be inefficient protein translation through improperly made UTR modifications and quick exoribonucleic activity which would render low immunogenicity due to inadequate exposure to the exogenous protein.
> 
> Do they think RNA will suddenly want to mutate and go rogue somehow? Have these people not heard of live, attenuated vaccines? Or is the worry the mechanism of delivery itself such as the lipids used? These are all pretty common techniques that are also used in-vitro/in-vivo that are adapted for safety and efficacy in humans. Of what we've seen the major side effect of these vaccines are unwanted, lateral and generic inflammatory responses.
> 
> Multiple types of viruses have evolved to hijack these mechanisms and we've learned to use and adapt them for our own gain of function and understanding. The point of contention might be people's lack of knowledge or lack of willingness to learn imo



I love how suddenly everyone is a vaccine expert and loves to play smarter-than-thou 
Yes, in theory there's no issue with mrna. Yes they have gone through trials. Yes we understand the mechanisms they're supposed to go through.
But at many points in history, we have also been pretty sure about stuff being safe when it ended up actually unsafe. Glyphosate, asbestos come to mind - but even literally in the medical field with the hundreds of drugs that were later recalled despite rigorous initial short term trials. 

Long story short, it's dangerous to think we know _everything_. There are often unintended side effects to new tech, and they don't materialize in the know processes, or even in the known-unkowns ... but in the unknown unknowns that hubris often brushes aside (like you do  )



thraxil said:


> Medically, it's also relevant that these are one (or two) dose exposures. It's *possible* for there to be long term consequences of something like that, but most of the time it's reasonable to assume some correlation between overall exposure and long term risks. Eg, *if the vaccine caused cancer of some kind, we'd almost certainly be seeing that already.*



Some cancers take decades to materialize so this is demonstrably false. 



spudmunkey said:


> J&J and AZ are the "conventional" type ( or at least non-mRNA, since there really isn't a single "conventional" method/design).
> 
> Ammusingly it's the one with the lowest efficacy rate (J&J) and the one with the most high-profile side effects/issues (AZ).



Yes I was thinking of J&J in terms of traditional vaccine. It's still very good (more so than many other non-Covid vaccines), and plenty good in a world where now so many people already have antibodies.



TedEH said:


> The problem with this kind of phrasing / thinking is that it implies that we're just yolo'ing it and saying "meh, lets just inject ourselves with anything at all, and 50/50 we're all dead or mutated or something next year from the vaccines", and this is neither accurate or helpful. "We just don't know" is not the complete picture. We have, at the very least, _reasonable doubt_ that there's anything to worry about in comparison to what we would need to worry about if we didn't take the vax now, and enough evidence that it does what it's supposed to do so far. Metaphors aside, what exactly are we expecting these long term effects of the vaccine to be? We're all going to suddenly die? We're all going to suddenly become sterile? We're all going to cut our life expectancy in half? We're all going to have the one arm infected with something and amputated? We're all going to mutate and get super powers? And on what basis are we suspecting these outcomes?
> 
> I mean, it's not like we go through this same process for everything we take or get prescribed on a regular basis. We'll trust whatever nonsense pills the family doc' yolos onto their patients like it's an episode of House, we'll trust the random street drugs you bought off your friends 'cause "don't worry they're totally legit" and "you gatta try this, it'll change your life and open your eyes". Somehow that's acceptable risk (despite demonstrably doing lots of harm to people on a regular basis), but vaccines aren't?



I would definitely not trust random street drugs, but if you do...then more power to you  ! As for new drugs, then yeah, we trust them as much as we can when they go through trials and they're approved for use. And sometimes 1 or 5 or 20 years later they are taken off the market because they actually had unforeseen long term side effects. There have been literally hundreds of drugs deemed safe which were later pulled from the market after _decades _because they cause things as diverse as cancer/cardiac arrythmia/strokes/liver failure etc etc. The system does not guarantee perfection and it happens way more often than you think. it also has _a lot _of inertia so it takes a while to take corrective actions.
And this time around we're not injecting something new to small group of specific patients over decades ... but to literally billions of humans at once. It's entirely on a different scale.

The point was not "there's a 50/50 chance that something goes horribly wrong". But at this scale, even small risk percentages become catastrophic.

In a world where many *(and I mean _many_) people already likely have antibodies, picking a vaccine that's less of an unknown quantity, not administering to people who already have immunity, not administering to 8 year old kids etc... There are a few things that could drop the risk factor by an order of magnitude if something wrong _was to happen_. And it would help if everyone stopped pretending like we know everything for sure and _this time it's different_. Usually that doesn't end well.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

mbardu said:


> I love how suddenly everyone is a vaccine expert and loves to play smarter-than-thou
> Yes, in theory there's no issue with mrna. Yes they have gone through trials. Yes we understand the mechanisms they're supposed to go through.
> But at many points in history, we have also been pretty sure about stuff being safe when it ended up actually unsafe. Glyphosate, asbestos come to mind - but even literally in the medical field with the hundreds of drugs that were later recalled despite rigorous initial short term trials.
> 
> Long story short, it's dangerous to think we know _everything_. There are often unintended side effects to new tech, and they don't materialize in the know processes, or even in the known-unkowns ... but in the unknown unknowns that hubris often brushes aside (like you do  )



Well yeah science is my trade, I've helped developed a vaccine that employs the use of an attenuated flavivirus strain and have worked with the FDA and other entities. My company is going through pre-clinical trials, transitioning into clinical trials and my background is immunology in grad school and virology after I developed my skills in industry. While not an expert there's a lot you can learn if you simply browse through https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ 

We absolutely don't know everything but as with most models: all models are wrong but some are useful.


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## mbardu

CovertSovietBear said:


> Well yeah science is my trade, I've helped developed a vaccine that employs the use of an attenuated flavivirus strain and have worked with the FDA and other entities. My company is going through pre-clinical trials, transitioning into clinical trials and my background is immunology in grad school and virology after I developed my skills in industry. While not an expert there's a lot you can learn if you simply browse through https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
> 
> We absolutely don't know everything but as with most models: all models are wrong but some are useful.



There's no question about the model telling us the vaccine does its job from an immunology standpoint- that much is clear, and now proven. Again, it's not really the debate. By and large, no immediate side effects either, and even the blood related clots one seem rare.

But since you're in the field, you're entirely aware of the frequency of recalls for long term side effects. So, as long as you say "We absolutely don't know everything", then we agree. That _really _wasn't the tone of your initial answer though.


----------



## profwoot

mbardu said:


> There's no question about the model telling us the vaccine does its job from an immunology standpoint- that much is clear, and now proven. Again, it's not really the debate. By and large, no immediate side effects either, and even the blood related clots one seem rare.
> 
> But since you're in the field, you're entirely aware of the frequency of recalls for long term side effects. So, as long as you say "We absolutely don't know everything", then we agree. That _really _wasn't the tone of your initial answer though.



You're really just stating some of the absolute basic parameters of the decision-making process and then i guess thinking you have an argument? Of course everything has risks. As with literally every single other human behavior, we make decisions based on weighing the pros and cons. In the case of a virus that has, even with the extreme efficacy of all the vaccines, killed 4 MILLION people worldwide in a year and half, the calculus is slightly different vs, to use one of your examples, asbestos, an infamously dangerous material that killed far fewer than covid over a much longer period of time while granting only marginal benefits relative to other materials in preventing or controlling architectural fires, as opposed to preventing untold millions of deaths, as the covid vaccines will have done.

What would you have had the scientific community, in cooperation with various world governments including that of the US, do differently? just wait longer and longer until you subjectively feel more comfortable? Even though the people who know way more about each of the parameters going into the calculus consider the risks to be acceptable, particularly relative to the speed at which people die every day they delay? 

Of course these are difficult issues, but let's acknowledge what we're actually talking about here -- the scientific community understands the risks better than you do, yet you trust your own thinking more than theirs. It's certainly possible, albeit extremely unlikely, that you're right, but you should also acknowledge all the research into how irrational the human brain is, in particular how bad it is at knowing when it knows enough about a topic to have a valid opinion on that topic. Given how very obvious this phenomenon is in public life right now, consider the relative likelihood of you knowing better than the relevant scientists vs the likelihood that you, like all humans, trust your own opinions too much?


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## mbardu

profwoot said:


> What would you have had the scientific community, in cooperation with various world governments including that of the US, do differently? just wait longer and longer until you subjectively feel more comfortable? Even though the people who know way more about each of the parameters going into the calculus consider the risks to be acceptable, particularly relative to the speed at which people die every day they delay?
> 
> Of course these are difficult issues, but let's acknowledge what we're actually talking about here -- the scientific community understands the risks better than you do, yet you trust your own thinking more than theirs. It's certainly possible, albeit extremely unlikely, that you're right, but you should also acknowledge all the research into how irrational the human brain is, in particular how bad it is at knowing when it knows enough about a topic to have a valid opinion on that topic. Given how very obvious this phenomenon is in public life right now, consider the relative likelihood of you knowing better than the relevant scientists vs the likelihood that you, like all humans, trust your own opinions too much?



I've stated what I would have done actually- you probably would have seen if you had bothered to read instead of skimming through and then fighting another strawman. Because none of it is "hUrR dUrR wait longer" like you imply.

As for the "the experts know everything uR dumb" part of your argument, I also work in science, and the best people I've worked with are those who realize that they don't understand everything and can't predict everything. The _only _thing I'm saying here is "we don't know for sure", unlike the others who seem almost certain there won't be any long term effects (as if we could know). And why does it matter this time? Well because, as you're quoting numbers too, the numbers _should _mean we try to alleviate possible future issues if we can, because they are that big. Yeah, 4 million dead means this is terribly serious...and if things go as planned, we want to give the new vaccine to more than 4 _billion _people. And there's never been such a large scale experiment in the past ever.

The irrational attitude here is to think "this time it's different", like we thought for phthalates, for asbestos, for radium, for glyphosate, for lead, and for the myriads of drugs that are recalled later despite being initially approved for use. All those were seen as safe at the time by all the community too, you know? But we're not very rational as a species, otherwise we would have stayed the fuck at home worldwide for a month last year and this whole thing would have been done. In general, if we were rational as a species, we wouldn't waste 50% of the food produced worldwide while plenty starve. If we were rational as a species, the artic would not be melting while the oceans are literally on fire. It's clear rationality doesn't drive the world we live in  . The entire pandemic has proven that the people, in charge or not, are not rational. At the global level, from no masks to masks, from asking people to stay at home too late, then reopening at the worst possible moments, from partial border closures and petty fights over supplies to hiding essential data. At the individual level from the ones taking masks as an affront and politicizing the virus to the poor folks still denying Covid while dying from it... What makes you think the global community is acting rationally now?

We always want to think we know everything, but a few years ago we had not even discovered the biggest organ in the human body  . Which kinda happens to be linked to the immune system and will be flooded with the vaccine btw, but I digress. Because maybe and most likely the new vaccines will be perfectly fine. But if it's not, maybe we would have been better off to use the old-tech vaccines and to not have vaccinated the very young and to not have re-vaccinated the people already having a lot of antibodies. Because we lose nothing with that, and if anything even benign were to happen...what's wrong with it happening to "only" 1 billion people rather than 4 billion***?

***_Divided by 4 is a back of the envelope calculation based on: 1- using the old tech vaccine as much as possible/make it open source if possible 2- not vaccinating people who have good level of antibodies already (tests have gotten a lot better and don't have a lot of false negatives) and 3- stop lowering the age of those getting the vaccines as is currently the trend_


----------



## profwoot

mbardu said:


> I've stated what I would have done actually- you probably would have seen if you had bothered to read instead of skimming through and then fighting another strawman. Because none of it is "hUrR dUrR wait longer" like you imply.
> 
> As for the "the experts know everything uR dumb" part of your argument, I also work in science, and the best people I've worked with are those who realize that they don't understand everything and can't predict everything. The _only _thing I'm saying here is "we don't know for sure", unlike the others who seem almost certain there won't be any long term effects (as if we could know). And why does it matter this time? Well because, as you're quoting numbers too, the numbers _should _mean we try to alleviate possible future issues if we can, because they are that big. Yeah, 4 million dead...but if things go as planned, we want to give the new vaccine to more than 4 _billion _people. And there's never been such a large scale experiment in the pat ever.
> 
> The irrational attitude here is to think "this time it's different", like we thought for phthalates, for asbestos, for radium, for glyphosate, and for the myriads of drugs that are recalled later despite being approved for use. All those were seen as safe at the time by all the community too. And we always want to think we know everything, but a few years ago we had not even discovered the biggest organ in the human body  . Which kinda happens to be linked to the immune system btw. I digress, because maybe and most likely the new vaccines will be perfectly fine. But if it's not, maybe we would have been better off to use the old-tech vaccines and to not have vaccinated the young and to not have re-vaccinated the people already having a lot of antibodies. Because we lose nothing with that, and if anything, even benign were to happen...what's wrong with it happening to "only" 1 billion people rather than 4 billion?



Your thinking is absolutely dominated by the existence of scientific failures. Of course there have been failures! Of course every scientist is also irrational! That's my whole point! The entire purpose of the scientific enterprise is to attempt to mitigate the inherent irrationality of every single human. Past failures are simply not useful to your argument unless invoked in the context of all the relevant pros and cons of this particular situation, and it's simply not possible for any individual, let alone one lacking specific expertise, to understand all the nuances. So, imperfect as the process may be, why do you trust your independent judgment over the one resulting from this rigorous process involving such a large number of experts?

Note that this argument is quite distinct from "the experts know everything uR dumb", as you put it, and you'll acknowledge this fact if you've any interest in a good faith discussion.

The fact is that even the smartest, most experienced experts in the world largely build their views by just believing the words of people or communities that they trust, because there's simply no alternative. The most important thing is therefore evaluating who to put your trust in. There are certainly times when scholarly groups from outside the medical community have productively challenged things within it as well -- that too is sometimes part of the process. In general, does it seem like a good idea for the average person to ignore that process and just trust in whatever random hodgepodge of sources they encounter while developing their opinions? Who do you trust on this issue?


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> We always want to think we know everything, but a few years ago we had not even discovered the biggest organ in the human body



A few years ago? I think I discovered it when I was like 12, and that was back in 1995.


----------



## mbardu

profwoot said:


> Your thinking is absolutely dominated by the existence of scientific failures. Of course there have been failures! Of course every scientist is also irrational! That's my whole point! The entire purpose of the scientific enterprise is to attempt to mitigate the inherent irrationality of every single human. Past failures are simply not useful to your argument unless invoked in the context of all the relevant pros and cons of this particular situation, and it's simply not possible for any individual, let alone one lacking specific expertise, to understand all the nuances. So, imperfect as the process may be, why do you trust your independent judgment over the one resulting from this rigorous process involving such a large number of experts?
> 
> Note that this argument is quite distinct from "the experts know everything uR dumb", as you put it, and you'll acknowledge this fact if you've any interest in a good faith discussion.
> 
> The fact is that even the smartest, most experienced experts in the world largely build their views by just believing the words of people or communities that they trust, because there's simply no alternative. The most important thing is therefore evaluating who to put your trust in. There are certainly times when scholarly groups from outside the medical community have productively challenged things within it as well -- that too is sometimes part of the process. In general, does it seem like a good idea for the average person to ignore that process and just trust in whatever random hodgepodge of sources they encounter while developing their opinions? Who do you trust on this issue?



And if _you_ had good faith, you'd realize that without actually replying to anything I'm saying, you choose to misrepresent my position instead. I didn't argue against anything you are trying to defend.

We have a wonderful scientific process in place, and on average it makes us go forward, despite occasional hiccups. It's pretty neat to be able to even conceive the tech within those rna vaccines, let alone verifying that they work, and at scale.

But my point is one of policy, not of granular science in a given area. There used to be such a thing as a precautionary principle that would have thought trying something new with absolutely 0 long term science on 4 billion would be pure madness. Especially while we have alternatives. Even open sourcing the traditional vaccine and producing it worldwide would have been better if we absolutely wanted to give it to billions (notwithstanding the fact we are soon basically at herd immunity anyway considering how poorly we've managed the outbreak anyway...). But being as irrational as we are, we are instead going a route that could have pretty terrible consequences (that part _is _par for the course with the pandemic at this point, so I guess that's not surprising).

A precautionary principle acknowledges the unkown unknonws of science, which are left after the amalgamation of existing+new knowledge and the scientific process has given us a pretty good idea of what we _can _know. We chose to ignore it more and more under _various _incentives and rationales...and that won't come without risks.

And for the last time, none of that is saying "I know better". Its just saying we don't know, so we should exercise caution. And that used to be a thing at way smaller scale - way before we got to impact billions of people. The only people actually arguing that they _know_ for sure are those who say we don't need additional caution. That the process has become good enough that we can do away with precautions (while by some metrics, the process has gotten worse in a good number of fields).

Edit: Two things I forgot in my reply.
1-My "hodgepoge of sources" on those matters is roughly CDC/Nature/JAMA/pubmed, so choose to believe those or not - up to you.
2-Can the entire community (not individuals or groups) be wrong and systematically lead to poor outcomes by not acknowledging dissenting voices? Yes, check the guy who got the Nobel prize for revolutionizing ulcer treatment after being ignored by his entire field of expertise.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> A few years ago? I think I discovered it when I was like 12, and that was back in 1995.



lmao you kid, but I'll use your post as an excuse- if you do a quick check the interstitium was not know before at least 2015, or more realistically 2018.

And the interesting thing is that it is _extremely _important in the context of inflammation and immune response - yet we had no idea it even existed when we were developing the new delivery mechanism for rna vaccines.


----------



## profwoot

mbardu said:


> And for the last time, *none of that is saying "I know better".*



I don't see how this is true. The process resulted in policies with a certain amount of caution, and the entirety of your point is that the scientific recommendations and/or the resulting policies were insufficiently cautious. I've been attempting to get you to do some self-reflection about why you think this, but regardless, your position as stated most definitely includes a presumption that you know better. 

Given the extreme efficacy and safety of these vaccines (especially the mRNA ones), many lives could have been saved if they had skipped the whole clinical trial stage and just got shots in arms ASAP, but I hope everyone would agree that we can only say that with the benefit of hindsight and that those trials are an essential caution built into the system, with many additional cautions in earlier and later stages, e.g., regarding extension of vaccine recommendations to younger people as sufficient evidence of safety and efficacy in representative cohorts becomes available.

Unless you can point out anything specific that they did wrong, your whole argument boils down to "however cautious they were, I think they should have been more cautious." Ok, I guess.


----------



## mbardu

profwoot said:


> I don't see how this is true. The process resulted in policies with a certain amount of caution, and the entirety of your point is that the scientific recommendations and/or the resulting policies were insufficiently cautious. I've been attempting to get you to do some self-reflection about why you think this, but regardless, your position as stated most definitely includes a presumption that you know better.
> 
> Given the extreme efficacy and safety of these vaccines (especially the mRNA ones), many lives could have been saved if they had skipped the whole clinical trial stage and just got shots in arms ASAP, but I hope everyone would agree that we can only say that with the benefit of hindsight and that those trials are an essential caution built into the system, with many additional cautions in earlier and later stages, e.g., regarding extension of vaccine recommendations to younger people as sufficient evidence of safety and efficacy in representative cohorts becomes available.



Still zero effort to answer with substance on any specific point, so you latch onto a single sentence, huh? Still trying the strawman and now ad-hominem because of nothing you could _actually _answer?

Anyway, you still have given zero answer whatsoever about how or why the scientific community in general, or you in particular know for sure that the new vaccines are safe _*long term*. _So you should probably take a good look in the mirror of self-reflection before jumping on your high horse of "I'm the one who knows better".

As far as I'm concerned, I'll continue to say that I don't know what the long term effects will be if any, and I don't believe anybody would be able to know. This is very different btw from saying "I know there will be long term harmful effects". *I don't know *and I'm sure hoping there aren't. If you have a source showing answers for that, I'll gladly take a look. If we are able to know, then that would alleviate the concerns obviously and I'd happily cross-out that doubt.
However the only answer you get if you _do _ask this question is that vaccines (traditional ones) usually don't have long term side effects. And I'm sure you can see how that answers has at least 2 fatal flaws before even getting into the discussion (if you need hints - I've already said why). Anything to say about that?

Like- for sure, the newer vaccines are excellent as a barrier to Covid. Did anyone doubt that?
They could even have saved more lives had they been available earlier. Probably not nearly as much as you think, because all phases of those vaccines, including even the production were started before final approvals (so the approval was not such a long a bottleneck to production) - but sure, I can agree to that.

That's still not my point though - stop trying to make it my point, just so that you can fight it while we already agree on that .

My point is just a what-if. What if we give it to 4 billion people and it has just a 0.5% incidence of, say...aggressive lymphoma 15 years later for example?
Of course that's a totally made up scenario, but in such a case, wouldn't it be better if that didn't include 1 Billion literal children at the time? And that we had used the traditional vaccine on 2 Billion of those people instead? So that only 1 Billion people would be at risk instead of 4? Your answer: no, it's not worth it. If something happens, whatever - we couldn't have done anything differently anyway (spoiler: we could have).

Again, this is made up and lymphoma is just a random example because we're talking about immune response. Is there a huge risk that this happens? Not really. I am not saying "I know it will cause lymphoma" as I'm sure you're going to latch onto that otherwise  . But drugs have been pulled for so many unforeseen reasons that it's pretty narrow-minded to think those things don't happen. I'll add one more example to the pile . Shouldn't have to, since a single example should invalidate the "never" claim anyway (isn't logic wonderful?), but for example, in the 2000s Pfizer (oh! look who's there) had to pay about a billion $ because a pretty benign anti-inflammatory of theirs ended up causing fatal skin necrolysis. Like, NSAID are like the most common well-known well accepted drugs, very little room for change or error, nobody even imagined it could have any reaction... and yet boom.



profwoot said:


> Unless you can point out anything specific that they did wrong, your whole argument boils down to "however cautious they were, I think they should have been more cautious." Ok, I guess.



I'll point to one thing they did wrong, for sure. It's only the fifth time I'll do so and you'll still ignore it I'm sure.

It's fine to start using new technologies, new treatments, new methods with only limited trials, using partial, but statistically significant proof. We do it all the time. Even for the drugs that had to later be pulled because of very serious side effects in the past, the risk reward ratio was often still good because new drugs are usually only used gradually, over time, and starting with very small (relatively speaking) populations.
What is wrong in this case is doing the same on billions and billions of people - again, with zero data on anything long term. Both in the scale (billions) and in its speed (months), this is 100% unprecedented. And it's not just "a little bit new" as far as vaccines go. It's a different target, it's the first use of rna, and the delivery mechanism of said rna is also new. Closest vaccination that comes to mind at this scale and speed is the flu vaccine, but that's only increasing slowly in scale over the years, it changes very little year over year...and even that is still at least an order of magnitude less people than what we want to do with the new covid vaccines.

But they have to know somehow, right - you're going to say? Nobody would risk letting something with long terms effects in the wild would they? This would never happen, would it?
I quoted already _plenty _of examples where this exact thing happened, so the "never" argument won't hold much water.

I didn't make up the precautionary principle. It's a thing....Except it's not in the case of this situation apparently  . Or in general, it's something that fewer and fewer people care about because a lot of incentives are twisted. It doesn't bother you and that's fine. But if you're (you are? or you are not?) pretending to be authoritative, I'm sure you'll admit that it can bother others.


----------



## Mathemagician

Drew said:


> Hey, so can we talk about Florida?
> 
> Their "reopen at all costs" approach has been hailed by the right-wing news bubble as proof that all these lockdowns were unnecessary and did more harm than good, as the oft-predicted second surge after the reopening never _really_ happened.
> 
> But, their unemployment claims unexpectedly ticked up last week, so I thought I'd check covid stats in the state. They've been holding flat at around 1,600 cases a day, seven day moving average, for basically all of June, so there's no obvious uptick, though their reporting IS a little lumpy.
> 
> But, if you dig in a bit further... They've been holding flat where they were at the end of May, while the nation as a whole has been trending down. There are at present something like 11,200 daily cases, seven dat moving average, nation wide... meaning Florida is responsible for roughly 15% of the nation's Covid count (I'm doing this off memory, don't have the numbers in front of me, so they may not check out exactly but I did run the numbers and remember the percentages well), in a state with 29mm or so people, or about 6.5% of the total US population. Meanwhile, California, a state that's had problems of its own with Covid and probably rushed their reopening a little too, has been seeing about 700 cases a day, 7-day average, on a population of more than 40mm citizens, not quite double Florida's.
> 
> Florida isn't experiencing a covid _surge._ Instead, what they're experiencing is a covid _stalemate_, where their case count is stubbornly failing to decline and as time passes and the rest of the nation does a better and better job of stamping out the spread of covid, they're becoming responsible for a larger-and-larger percentage of the nation's total covid cases.
> 
> If this is a "success story" in the right wing media, then these guys are REALLY bad at data analysis.



Look Florida does things a certain way. The Florida way. Which often coincides with the wrong way. But it’s how it’s always been done. 

I really don’t like you insinuating that things could be improved. Or in any way changed to make things better going forward. 

That’s not Florida. Florida has gators, Covid, and hella Stanley cups.


----------



## spudmunkey

Mathemagician said:


> That’s not Florida. Florida has gators, Covid, and hella Stanley cups.



And bath salts.


----------



## TedEH

At this point I'm just skimming posts because my interest in the details is quickly diminishing. tl;dr: Nobody is claiming there's no risks at all, but throwing skepticism of vaccines around isn't going to help anyone right now, and anything that fuels hesitancy (or strait up anti-vax sentiment) is just going to slow the whole process down and is not what we need right now.


----------



## mbardu

spudmunkey said:


> And bath salts.



Floridaman is certainly not the hero we need, but he's the one we deserve right now.


----------



## profwoot

mbardu said:


> Still zero effort to answer with substance on any specific point, so you latch onto a single sentence, huh? Still trying the strawman and now ad-hominem because of nothing you could _actually _answer?
> 
> Anyway, you still have given zero answer whatsoever about how or why the scientific community in general, or you in particular know for sure that the new vaccines are safe _*long term*. _So you should probably take a good look in the mirror of self-reflection before jumping on your high horse of "I'm the one who knows better".
> 
> As far as I'm concerned, I'll continue to say that I don't know what the long term effects will be if any, and I don't believe anybody would be able to know. This is very different btw from saying "I know there will be long term harmful effects". *I don't know *and I'm sure hoping there aren't. If you have a source showing answers for that, I'll gladly take a look. If we are able to know, then that would alleviate the concerns obviously and I'd happily cross-out that doubt.
> However the only answer you get if you _do _ask this question is that vaccines (traditional ones) usually don't have long term side effects. And I'm sure you can see how that answers has at least 2 fatal flaws before even getting into the discussion (if you need hints - I've already said why). Anything to say about that?
> 
> Like- for sure, the newer vaccines are excellent as a barrier to Covid. Did anyone doubt that?
> They could even have saved more lives had they been available earlier. Probably not nearly as much as you think, because all phases of those vaccines, including even the production were started before final approvals (so the approval was not such a long a bottleneck to production) - but sure, I can agree to that.
> 
> That's still not my point though - stop trying to make it my point, just so that you can fight it while we already agree on that .
> 
> My point is just a what-if. What if we give it to 4 billion people and it has just a 0.5% incidence of, say...aggressive lymphoma 15 years later for example?
> Of course that's a totally made up scenario, but in such a case, wouldn't it be better if that didn't include 1 Billion literal children at the time? And that we had used the traditional vaccine on 2 Billion of those people instead? So that only 1 Billion people would be at risk instead of 4? Your answer: no, it's not worth it. If something happens, whatever - we couldn't have done anything differently anyway (spoiler: we could have).
> 
> Again, this is made up and lymphoma is just a random example because we're talking about immune response. Is there a huge risk that this happens? Not really. I am not saying "I know it will cause lymphoma" as I'm sure you're going to latch onto that otherwise  . But drugs have been pulled for so many unforeseen reasons that it's pretty narrow-minded to think those things don't happen. I'll add one more example to the pile . Shouldn't have to, since a single example should invalidate the "never" claim anyway (isn't logic wonderful?), but for example, in the 2000s Pfizer (oh! look who's there) had to pay about a billion $ because a pretty benign anti-inflammatory of theirs ended up causing fatal skin necrolysis. Like, NSAID are like the most common well-known well accepted drugs, very little room for change or error, nobody even imagined it could have any reaction... and yet boom.
> 
> 
> 
> I'll point to one thing they did wrong, for sure. It's only the fifth time I'll do so and you'll still ignore it I'm sure.
> 
> It's fine to start using new technologies, new treatments, new methods with only limited trials, using partial, but statistically significant proof. We do it all the time. Even for the drugs that had to later be pulled because of very serious side effects in the past, the risk reward ratio was often still good because new drugs are usually only used gradually, over time, and starting with very small (relatively speaking) populations.
> What is wrong in this case is doing the same on billions and billions of people - again, with zero data on anything long term. Both in the scale (billions) and in its speed (months), this is 100% unprecedented. And it's not just "a little bit new" as far as vaccines go. It's a different target, it's the first use of rna, and the delivery mechanism of said rna is also new. Closest vaccination that comes to mind at this scale and speed is the flu vaccine, but that's only increasing slowly in scale over the years, it changes very little year over year...and even that is still at least an order of magnitude less people than what we want to do with the new covid vaccines.
> 
> But they have to know somehow, right - you're going to say? Nobody would risk letting something with long terms effects in the wild would they? This would never happen, would it?
> I quoted already _plenty _of examples where this exact thing happened, so the "never" argument won't hold much water.
> 
> I didn't make up the precautionary principle. It's a thing....Except it's not in the case of this situation apparently  . Or in general, it's something that fewer and fewer people care about because a lot of incentives are twisted. It doesn't bother you and that's fine. But if you're (you are? or you are not?) pretending to be authoritative, I'm sure you'll admit that it can bother others.



Yeah your attitude off the bat is too reminiscent of the average ignorant troll so I ain't readin all that. It seems like you're just continuing to point out past failures as if that helps your case and throwing vague accusations of certainty as if I haven't carefully explained to you how uncertain everyone involved actually is (a technique called strawmanning, in case you would like yet another opportunity to self-reflect about your habit of projection). Ok and you're still pearl-clutching about long-term side effects as if everyone involved hasn't had that at the front of their minds throughout the process. It's even more likely that covid has long-term side effects being prevented by the vaccines, even beyond, you know, death by the millions. But that doesn't help your argument so pay no mind. Have a good one.


----------



## mbardu

profwoot said:


> a technique called strawmanning, in case you would like yet another opportunity to self-reflect about your habit of projection



Man, you can't be serious. You have done nothing but strawmanning since the start. Do you even know what that means?
Re-read your own posts...with paragraphs and paragraphs explaining how the novel vaccines are great at fighting Covid, and how I was dumb to say otherwise...except I never said otherwise and was always clear that they're indeed very good at doing that. How do you want me to take you seriously 



TedEH said:


> At this point I'm just skimming posts because my interest in the details is quickly diminishing. tl;dr:





profwoot said:


> I ain't readin all that



What compelling arguments, wow. Really the answers of people who have the rationality on their side and the sources to back it up . Right on schedule too. Easy way to not answer _anything,_ and still try to go away on that high horse, which must be nice. Up to you though - bye


----------



## BigViolin

ijustwannaargue.com


----------



## Bodes

It is quite clear that there will be no consensus of ideas here. Maybe you all have to agree to disagree and move on before this thread gets closed or things get too personal?


----------



## spudmunkey

Especially since everyone egrees on the basics: yes, we lack long-term data, but with current information, the vaccines are still "worth it". Beyond that, differences are...basically academic or matter of opinion.


----------



## TedEH

If I didn't want to be argumentative, I'd stay off the internet. 

Second jab got re-scheduled to this upcoming Friday.


----------



## Randy

Covid has lasted over a year and mutated numerous times at this point. I think it's fair to draw some parallels with the seasonal flu regarding the likelihood this is going to be part of life for a long time.

Anyway, as such, you're getting some covid antibodies in you over your lifetime unless you're in one of those untouched native communities in a jungle somewhere. So the paranoia regarding the vaccine seems kinda idk futile.


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> Still zero effort to answer with substance on any specific point, so you latch onto a single sentence, huh? Still trying the strawman and now ad-hominem because of nothing you could _actually _answer?
> 
> Anyway, you still have given zero answer whatsoever about how or why the scientific community in general, or you in particular know for sure that the new vaccines are safe _*long term*. _So you should probably take a good look in the mirror of self-reflection before jumping on your high horse of "I'm the one who knows better".
> 
> As far as I'm concerned, I'll continue to say that I don't know what the long term effects will be if any, and I don't believe anybody would be able to know. This is very different btw from saying "I know there will be long term harmful effects". *I don't know *and I'm sure hoping there aren't. If you have a source showing answers for that, I'll gladly take a look. If we are able to know, then that would alleviate the concerns obviously and I'd happily cross-out that doubt.
> However the only answer you get if you _do _ask this question is that vaccines (traditional ones) usually don't have long term side effects. And I'm sure you can see how that answers has at least 2 fatal flaws before even getting into the discussion (if you need hints - I've already said why). Anything to say about that?
> 
> Like- for sure, the newer vaccines are excellent as a barrier to Covid. Did anyone doubt that?
> They could even have saved more lives had they been available earlier. Probably not nearly as much as you think, because all phases of those vaccines, including even the production were started before final approvals (so the approval was not such a long a bottleneck to production) - but sure, I can agree to that.
> 
> That's still not my point though - stop trying to make it my point, just so that you can fight it while we already agree on that .
> 
> My point is just a what-if. What if we give it to 4 billion people and it has just a 0.5% incidence of, say...aggressive lymphoma 15 years later for example?
> Of course that's a totally made up scenario, but in such a case, wouldn't it be better if that didn't include 1 Billion literal children at the time? And that we had used the traditional vaccine on 2 Billion of those people instead? So that only 1 Billion people would be at risk instead of 4? Your answer: no, it's not worth it. If something happens, whatever - we couldn't have done anything differently anyway (spoiler: we could have).
> 
> Again, this is made up and lymphoma is just a random example because we're talking about immune response. Is there a huge risk that this happens? Not really. I am not saying "I know it will cause lymphoma" as I'm sure you're going to latch onto that otherwise  . But drugs have been pulled for so many unforeseen reasons that it's pretty narrow-minded to think those things don't happen. I'll add one more example to the pile . Shouldn't have to, since a single example should invalidate the "never" claim anyway (isn't logic wonderful?), but for example, in the 2000s Pfizer (oh! look who's there) had to pay about a billion $ because a pretty benign anti-inflammatory of theirs ended up causing fatal skin necrolysis. Like, NSAID are like the most common well-known well accepted drugs, very little room for change or error, nobody even imagined it could have any reaction... and yet boom.
> 
> 
> 
> I'll point to one thing they did wrong, for sure. It's only the fifth time I'll do so and you'll still ignore it I'm sure.
> 
> It's fine to start using new technologies, new treatments, new methods with only limited trials, using partial, but statistically significant proof. We do it all the time. Even for the drugs that had to later be pulled because of very serious side effects in the past, the risk reward ratio was often still good because new drugs are usually only used gradually, over time, and starting with very small (relatively speaking) populations.
> What is wrong in this case is doing the same on billions and billions of people - again, with zero data on anything long term. Both in the scale (billions) and in its speed (months), this is 100% unprecedented. And it's not just "a little bit new" as far as vaccines go. It's a different target, it's the first use of rna, and the delivery mechanism of said rna is also new. Closest vaccination that comes to mind at this scale and speed is the flu vaccine, but that's only increasing slowly in scale over the years, it changes very little year over year...and even that is still at least an order of magnitude less people than what we want to do with the new covid vaccines.
> 
> But they have to know somehow, right - you're going to say? Nobody would risk letting something with long terms effects in the wild would they? This would never happen, would it?
> I quoted already _plenty _of examples where this exact thing happened, so the "never" argument won't hold much water.
> 
> I didn't make up the precautionary principle. It's a thing....Except it's not in the case of this situation apparently  . Or in general, it's something that fewer and fewer people care about because a lot of incentives are twisted. It doesn't bother you and that's fine. But if you're (you are? or you are not?) pretending to be authoritative, I'm sure you'll admit that it can bother others.



I missed a lot of the discussion, but wanted to chime in.

We do have data. It might not be perfect, but it is better than fear. Even with quarantines, travel restrictions, shelter in place orders, lockdowns, and generally no social events, this virus has killed over 600k people in the US in a little over a single year. Worldwide, 4 million? If we ignore anyone who got sick and also experiences long term complications as well as deaths that haven't been confirmed, this virus killed 1/500 people both domestically and globally. Do you understand that? One out of 500. That was before variants started popping up every few months.

What else do we know? In US, we know about 10% of the population has caught it as a lower bound based on positive cases. So worst case if no changes happen, we are looking at 1/50 people dying. Of course, that is a pessimist view. But it is less pessimist than a baseless thought that everyone getting lymphoma or some other chronic issue in 10 years. It's actually very good data if you think about it. We know with high confidence the range of fatalities, not including people who survive with disabilities, is within an order of magnitude of 1% of the domestic and global population. If that doesn't scare you, I don't know what to tell you except: trust experts.

So my first point here: your scientific process concern is acceptable, and I wholeheartedly agree that in a contained environment, your concerns make sense. But we have a virus that invaded our species, infected a large percentage, and killed off a population larger than many countries. And that was with a half assed attempt to hide in the shadows instead flaunt ourselves at it.

Can you imagine what a shitshow this will be if we just reopen everything and wait for 10 years to vaccinate 50% of the population just because the longshot that some autoimmune response might kill people in 30 years?!

The risk of long term effects shouldn't be ignored. And I don't think a single medical professional believes vaccines are risk-free. There is always a long shot that something goes wrong. But the the very real scenario of people not getting vaccinated leads to a bad outcome with much higher confidence. We have plenty of data already supporting this. Is the "no vaccine" scenario worse than the longshot that the vaccine kills everyone with cancer in 20 years? Probably not. But vaccination is far less likely to have a bad outcome, even if that bad outcome could be worse. You are making an argument that plane crashes kill everyone when something goes wrong so everyone should drive all the time because it is safer. Statistically, we know it isn't.

What I really don't get... people who are afraid of the vaccine have no problem living in a house with asbestos, lead paint, and other toxins. They have no problem breathing or ingesting the toxins and pollutants we inject into our environment during manufacturing and just general use of things like cars. The people have no problem eating sugars, preservatives, supplements, etc. that are known to cause cancer. They have no problem smoking.

Point two: If you want to improve your health outlook in 20 years, maybe focus energy and effort on something that has far more evidence of being dangerous?


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> I missed a lot of the discussion, but wanted to chime in.
> 
> We do have data. It might not be perfect, but it is better than fear.....



I'll say that trying to really not be condescending, but you have the same fundamental misunderstanding as Drew and the others have regarding the scale of infections of Covid. And I don't mean to be derogatory, because I had made the exact same calculation (if we were to multiply the deaths by 5 or 10, how even more terrible this could get) rather recently, but I was wrong then as well. I don't know if it's because you just skipped the start of the discussion, or because you skimmed through what I wrote (and linked) just because you assumed I was trolling, but I discussed that already.

Anyway - the 1/500? That could get 10+ times worse and kill say, 6/8 million people in the US? This is not the case at all. We don't have 600,000 deaths out of 30M infections. At all. We have 30M cases _officially tested and categorized by the CDC_. But by the CDC's own estimates (and they're not necessarily the ones who estimate even the highest range), even _4 months ago _(latest estimate is from March), we had already had more than 100M infections in the US. Some people say more than 200M. Bring that to today, and take a conservative guess to say 150M.

Source:
CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html




With last summer, then back to school, then the holidays, basically almost everyone who would have caught it ended up catching it. And the overwhelming (and I mean _overwhelming_) proportion of cases did not get a test and an official count in the 30M reported ones.

Now, don't get me wrong - even out of 150M (not 30M), 600k is still a terrible loss of life. This could have been avoided a year ago if people stayed at home worldwide. And for that matter could still be stopped even now with some basic coordination (which we know won't happen because the machine is in progress...). New Zealand has demonstrated it like 3 times already 

But although it is terrible loss of life, the "it would get 10 times worse without vaccine" scenarios that everyone keeps coming up with are _pure fiction_. If 150M Americans have already been infected with the virus, then it can_ at worse_ get twice as bad. And that's very pessimistic considering the CDC is among the sources that under-weights those numbers, plus a litany of reasons I already listed (but no one bothers to read because it's easier to call the other guy a troll, right?). For example, the fact that treatment is much better now, that the people likely to be infected have already been infected, same for the most vulnerable people etc. I linked a couple of sources on that as well: you're just less likely to die from Covid in the US now than a year ago. We're just in a better shape.

I can't state this enough because I this might be the crux of the misunderstanding. It cannot get 10 times worse. At worse we'd get to 800k deaths total compared to today's 600k, and although I'd happily look at a competing calculation (anyone please? actual calculation or argument instead of just jumping to the antivax/troll attacks?), I feel like that's already pessimistic. And I don't say it lightly...800k would be abysmal. 600k already is and 10k was and 100 was.

If everyone just stayed the fuck home it would be close to 0 _for real_. It sucks that we are already almost at herd immunity for practical purposes, because of the way we got there, but now we're almost there nonetheless, whether it sucks or not. The discussion of no vaccine / novel vaccine / traditional vaccine / who should get the vaccine etc and the associated risk/benefits would be way different at 5% of infections and with no herd immunity in sight. But we've been so bad (so, _so bad_) at taking care of this mess that we're not there anymore, and we already almost have that herd immunity now. The discussion _should _be different, but it is not, because we are still using the easily disproven argument of "it could get 10 times worse". How rational or scientific is that?

The "10 times worse case" is literally infinity times less likely than the "major widespread lethal complications from the novel vaccine" because, while the second one is very very unlikely, the first one is _literally impossible_.
In b4 the "but what-if the Covid mutate so badly that it becomes very different and deadlier and actually re-infects everyone", because in that scenario the old vaccines would not help either.



fantom said:


> What I really don't get... people who are afraid of the vaccine have no problem living in a house with asbestos, lead paint, and other toxins....



And here again, I don't know if you're doing it on purpose, but it's the same attitude that boxes people who won't think 100% like you into a made up category.

If I summarize your post and the others, it's not really trying to understand what I'm saying. Instead you imagine that...just to say what I'm saying, I'd need to be a dumb Trump supporting antivaxer who loves to drive a coal-rolling pickup truck, loves asbestos/lead, eats preservatives and loves to smoke. Put the person in a box. After all, I don't even realize it could easily get 10 times worse with just a bit less novel vaccination, right? Well actually none of that is true, and no it could not (and that's easily disproven too). But imagining otherwise is easier than trying to understand what the other guy is saying. Or worse, try and facing the cognitive dissonance that maybe some of the basic argument of the last few pages (it could get 10 times worse) is easily disproven, while the only other argument (the vaccines work great against Covid) is really only a strawman, because nobody said the opposite (the stats just don't lie).

And I don't even get your specific examples either that case. Not _all of them_, but a lot of people worried about _long term_ effects are _exactly _the same people worried about asbestos/lead/cigarette smoke/poor diets/environmental damage due to things like cars etc. They're exactly the same people who are mad at Monsanto for lobbying to classify Roundup as safe or pissed off because the FDA has no problems authorizing a useless Alzheimer's drug just because it makes shareholders 50k US$ a pop. They're exactly the people who miss the days of precautionary principle and who see that the incentives of today are becoming quite perverse.

The thinking is actually very consistent with: "hey, maybe don't give a novel vaccine to kids who are proven to not need it" and "maybe if you have the option to test for antibodies and see you're already protected against Covid, maybe don't do something useless to you and the community if there's even a small risk that it may go wrong down the line" and "hey, maybe if you are not protected against Covid and _should _get a vaccine, maybe use a proven old tech to do that, instead of something novel that may or may not blow up in our face in the future".
And although some of those people and arguments (especially about "_toxins_" to be found in absolutely _everything _around us) can go _way _too far and become overly paranoid, in this case the points above stand IMHO. Or I'd happily try to hear from anyone why they don't and change my mind but again...something easily disproven (it could get 10 times worse), some strawman arguments (bu..bu..but the novel vaccines work well at preventing Covid infection- why yes it does! but that was never the discussion), some ad-hominem attacks, and some as-unscientific-as-it-gets generalizations (_traditional vaccines usually don't cause long term effects_) are not answering much TBH.


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> I can't state this enough because I this might be the crux of the misunderstanding. It cannot get 10 times worse. At worse we'd get to 800k deaths total compared to today's 600k, and although I'd happily look at a competing calculation (anyone please? actual calculation or argument instead of just jumping to the antivax/troll attacks?), I feel like that's already pessimistic. And I don't say it lightly...800k would be abysmal. 600k already is and 10k was and 100 was.



No misunderstanding. I literally said that it was a cynical number. It is obvious the cdc numbers undercount. I bounded the rate to a best case scenario, no more deaths, and a worst case scenario, 10% infected. That gives us 0.5% to 2% fatalities relative to the total population. I said the stat we have is within an order of magnitude of 1% meaning exactly that. The stats aren't perfect. My guess is the expectation is about 40-50% of the population has been infected at some point, but we really do not know. Considering hotspots flare up regularly, I don't think it is anywhere near 70-80% yet.

I don't know how you got to 800k instead of 1.2 million. 800k would imply the total infection rate is already beyond 75%. I don't buy it.

If we compromise on 60% have been infected, that means we are looking at another year of high case rates and shelter in place orders to deal with hotspots for medical personnel. It also means we are looking at 400k more deaths.

The part of my post that you completely missed is that these are all probabilistic events. We have relatively high confidence on infection rates, fatality rates, and the number of lives at risk. We have extremely low confidence that anything bad will happen due to a vaccine. Even moreso, there is no evidence that the 30 year vaccine side effects will be any different than the asymptomatic infection side effects.

When you calculate the expected outcome of probabilistic events by completely ignoring the confidence intervals, you are fudging numbers to suit your own narrative. This is your fundamental mistake. You are saying that chance of something bad with a vaccine happening outweighs the good. There is absolutely no way in hell you know that. Most evidence suggests the opposite is true. Yes, there are a few outcomes if you simulate the scenarios where a vaccine kills the planet. But there are probably millions if not more where the vaccine does far more good than harm. We care about the expected outcome, not the random edge cases and outliers.



mbardu said:


> everyone just stayed the fuck home it would be close to 0 _for real_



People suck



mbardu said:


> And here again, I don't know if you're doing it on purpose, but it's the same attitude that boxes people who won't think 100% like you into a made up category.



So lets not rant on it anymore than this? You don't need to write 3 paragraphs saying I'm wrong because you assume my brain works a certain way that you disagree with. Pretty ironic.


----------



## TedEH

Alright, so I've got two questions:

One is specifically for mbardu: I asked before, and I ask again - what are you expecting the potential adverse effect of the vaccine to be? "There can be consequences" is one thing, but there's a big difference between "we'll all get cancer" and "a few of us will be 5% more susceptible to sunburns" or something like that. We've talked circles around "there's clearly a non-zero amount of risk", but nobody want to suggest _a risk of what exactly_?

And the second thing for anyone smarter than me who wants to weigh in: Is it not important to still go hard on the preventative measures for the purposes of preventing more mutations? If people just "go back to normal" because they feel like the risk level is acceptable now despite there still being lots of potential to spread things, is that not increasing the likelihood of further mutations that could send us back to square one?

And if you answer with "that's just paranoia" - my gut reaction would be that spider man meme where there's multiple spider mans pointing at eachother.


----------



## StevenC

TedEH said:


> And the second thing for anyone smarter than me who wants to weigh in: Is it not important to still go hard on the preventative measures for the purposes of preventing more mutations? If people just "go back to normal" because they feel like the risk level is acceptable now despite there still being lots of potential to spread things, is that not increasing the likelihood of further mutations that could send us back to square one?
> 
> And if you answer with "that's just paranoia" - my gut reaction would be that spider man meme where there's multiple spider mans pointing at eachother.


Yes, please keep wearing a mask in public, washing your hands and social distancing where possible regardless of vaccination status. You can't know the health status of anyone else, but you can take steps to mitigate their impact on your health.

Vaccines are not a guarantee of immunity and especially for variants that haven't developed yet, so in the current climate of massive global vaccine inequality and highly politicised health and hygiene, it is better to continue to do at least some of what we've been doing.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> No misunderstanding. I literally said that it was a cynical number. It is obvious the cdc numbers undercount. I bounded the rate to a best case scenario, no more deaths, and a worst case scenario, 10% infected. That gives us 0.5% to 2% fatalities relative to the total population. I said the stat we have is within an order of magnitude of 1% meaning exactly that. The stats aren't perfect. My guess is the expectation is about 40-50% of the population has been infected at some point, but we really do not know. Considering hotspots flare up regularly, I don't think it is anywhere near 70-80% yet.
> 
> I don't know how you got to 800k instead of 1.2 million. 800k would imply the total infection rate is already beyond 75%. I don't buy it.



Geez that's a big, *big *cop out. I didn't make up the "it can get 10 times worse" or "millions more will die" points. You made it, like the people before you. Then you condescend with things like "_If that doesn't scare you, I don't know what to tell you except: trust experts_" while _you _had the scale totally wrong. Someone shows you it's not possible, with sources, and the answer is now moving the goalposts... "No but you see we didn't _really _mean 10 times worse. We didn't _really _mean million more dead. We didn't really _mean _it would be 1/50 people dead in the US. We didn't really mean close to 1% of the population dead. Those were just random words - pay no attention to them it's not what we meant actually". Then why say it  . Or is it really that much easier to keep digging that hole than to say "Oh I didn't realize we already have 150M infections in the US"?
I mean, OK up to you but if you think that serves your point... The arguments based on "it can get 10 times worse" just don't make sense.

Then the "1.2M vs 800k means we're already beyond 75% of infections, you're wrong" just proves you're not even _trying _to understand what I'm saying - or even read it. Are you just trying to find your "ha-ha" moment and sweep your "it can get 10 times worse" under the carpet? You are literally arguing against a point I didn't make...
Because I didn't say 75+%, did I? Can you show me where I said that? I believe I said _quite explicitly_ ~150M, didn't I? You can check if you need to. Which if I recall....is _not_ 75% of the US population. How much is it? I don't know, maybe about 45%? So basically your proud "My guess is the expectation is about 40-50% of the population" is taking my number and making it yours as if _you _figured it out. Like...wat?

Plus, either you didn't know there were already ~150M infections in the US (which is OK, I didn't really re-check the numbers myself until ~10 days ago) and you were at least arguing in good faith with the "it could kill 1% of the population/it could get 10 times worse". Or you knew, and you were arguing in bad faith, because that knowledge directly invalidates any such exaggerations. The "_you are fudging numbers to suit your own narrative. This is your fundamental mistake_" is pretty ironically golden in that context.

But basically we agree on ~150M. I'll even say it was your idea and you came up with 50% of the US population first if you want. So at least that's good....but from then, why _do you _think it's just a matter of multiply by two? Keeping aside that even _that _would be a far cry from the "multiply by 10" or "7 more million dead" of others ... there are many factors why it's _not_ just multiply by two.
The vulnerable people have already got Covid and suffered the majority of the deaths we've seen. The people most likely to get the virus already got it. We have also gotten better at health outcomes for people who do get Covid. Clearly, a lot of us are vaccinated too (150M too). We've already vaccinated _a lot_. Had we filtered out people with already strong level of antibodies, and used a not-so-novel vaccine to minimize unknowns, I feel like we would have been less reckless (more...reckfull? )... and we'd still be almost at herd immunity for practical purposes.



fantom said:


> If we compromise on 60% have been infected, that means we are looking at another year of high case rates and shelter in place orders to deal with hotspots for medical personnel. It also means we are looking at 400k more deaths.



Strawman. I didn't say do nothing. I just say don't vaccinate kids who are proven to not need it, don't take a novel vaccine if you have already high level of antibodies (we know how to test), and if you have to vaccinate, maybe use older tech instead of the novel one. Or better yet, do what we would have done a year ago, and everyone just stay home for a month.



fantom said:


> When you calculate the expected outcome of probabilistic events by completely ignoring the confidence intervals, you are fudging numbers to suit your own narrative. This is your fundamental mistake. You are saying that chance of something bad with a vaccine happening outweighs the good. There is absolutely no way in hell you know that. Most evidence suggests the opposite is true. Yes, there are a few outcomes if you simulate the scenarios where a vaccine kills the planet. But there are probably millions if not more where the vaccine does far more good than harm. We care about the expected outcome, not the random edge cases and outliers.



Come on man, I work in stats don't try . We're only talking about a potential tail risk event here anyway. Plus, again, arguing a point I didn't make. "There is absolutely no way in hell you know that", I agree 100% that I don't know. Because _nobody _knows. But the thing is the world is not one-dimensional and there is more than one solution. We even have different have different vaccines and ways to test for antibodies. And my point from the start has been about unknown unknowns vs everyone becoming a vaccine expert suddenly saying_ they know_ the novel vaccines are 100% safe. Everything is new about the novel vaccine, and we lose very little if anything by using just a slightly different approach, by still pretty much mitigating all risk. And no, the slightly different approach is not "do nothing and let millions die in the US" (which again, cannot happen at that point). And the novel vaccine can still be used on a smaller group of people too, it doesn't have to be on 4/5 billion people at once. Why is nuance so hard?



fantom said:


> People suck
> 
> So lets not rant on it anymore than this? You don't need to write 3 paragraphs saying I'm wrong because you assume my brain works a certain way that you disagree with. Pretty ironic.



I didn't make up your point, you brought up your point. I didn't have to assume anything about your brain, you made an explicit generalization that's pretty clear there for all to read. And then your answer is just "no please don't talk about things where maybe I was wrong"? OK, well nobody forces _you _to post an unrelated narrow-minded paragraph of "haha people who are cautious are dumb" if you are then hurt by a paragraph of reply.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> Alright, so I've got two questions:
> One is specifically for mbardu: I asked before, and I ask again - what are you expecting the potential adverse effect of the vaccine to be? "There can be consequences" is one thing, but there's a big difference between "we'll all get cancer" and "a few of us will be 5% more susceptible to sunburns" or something like that. We've talked circles around "there's clearly a non-zero amount of risk", but nobody want to suggest _a risk of what exactly_?



There's a reason I don't say something explicitly, and it's because I don't know for sure. I'm not directly in the medical field. I _do _have family in the field (specifically MD/doctors in public safety and medical policy), and even they would prefer not to speculate. Because of what we're talking about, the thing that I _think _would surprise the least amount of people would be either some sort of lymphoma, or something that would look like a novel form of auto-immune disease. But nobody will tell you "I know it's going to be that" because nobody knows. And don't get me wrong, neither thing is very likely to happen and were it to happen it would (probably? hopefully) be unlikely to happen to a large percentage of people. My sole concern is that a small percentage of a few billions can still be quite a lot.



TedEH said:


> And the second thing for anyone smarter than me who wants to weigh in: Is it not important to still go hard on the preventative measures for the purposes of preventing more mutations? If people just "go back to normal" because they feel like the risk level is acceptable now despite there still being lots of potential to spread things, is that not increasing the likelihood of further mutations that could send us back to square one?
> 
> And if you answer with "that's just paranoia" - my gut reaction would be that spider man meme where there's multiple spider mans pointing at eachother.



We lose nothing by still doing common sense things like wearing a mask when it's crowded and washing our hands.
Would help with many things besides Covid (basic things such as the flu) as well.


----------



## profwoot

Just a couple observations to no one in particular:

1. If you're interested to know why the experts think what they do, read what the experts have written. Spreading misinformation on an unrelated message board is certainly a good way to get engagement, but it's not a good way to actually learn the information necessary to have a properly informed opinion, because:

2. Expertise available here to answer your concerns will be limited. There are several scientists that regularly participate here, a couple of which actually have domain expertise for this thread, as I recall, but in general what you get is a bunch of people who don't want to let misinformation go unchallenged, but don't necessarily have the specific expertise to refute every point of a Gish galloping interlocutor, since a universal truth is that it is orders of magnitude more difficult to dispel bullshit than it is to spew it. Even if you do have said expertise, after spending your day teaching a topic to grateful students you maybe don't want to spend your free time doing the same thing except with an added layer of abject hostility, since someone spreading misinformation on the internet is unlikely to be interested in assimilating the information necessary to have a properly informed opinion (c.f., observation #1).

Obviously there's someone in particular dominating this thread right now, but others have done the same thing earlier in this very thread and others will come along later, just as it happens in most any thread on any site about any sufficiently engaging topic. This is one of the reasons why I stopped posting on the internet entirely several years ago (until recently, and I still only post here). There's only so many times you can carefully type out an explanation of a complex principle only to see it ignored by someone obviously mostly interested in litigating whatever trivium they can latch onto to feed their spleen, and who also just hates you with the fire of a thousand suns, because internet. It's still important to challenge misinformation for the benefit of the lurkers, and I'm glad so many have done so throughout. Also if you're here because you just did a search for Trivium I'm really sorry.


----------



## mbardu

profwoot said:


> Just a couple observations to no one in particular:
> 
> 1. If you're interested to know why the experts think what they do, read what the experts have written. Spreading misinformation on an unrelated message board is certainly a good way to get engagement, but it's not a good way to actually learn the information necessary to have a properly informed opinion, because:



Agreed 100%, which is why unlike most, I give sources. And not social media sources or empty platitudes, but CDC/Jama/Nature/pubmed etc. Few people actually read them though, and mostly go by what gets the most "likes" - see actual number of infections above, and despite that the continuing "but it can get 10 times worse" arguments even in the face of evidence.



profwoot said:


> There's only so many times you can carefully type out an explanation of a complex principle only to see it ignored by someone obviously mostly interested in litigating whatever trivium they can latch onto to feed their spleen, and who also just hates you with the fire of a thousand suns, because internet. It's still important to challenge misinformation for the benefit of the lurkers, and I'm glad so many have done so throughout. Also if you're here because you just did a search for Trivium I'm really sorry.



Agreed as well. There are people who will jump to strawman and debate points you never made instead of even _considering _they might learn something new and different from their own bias and the echo chamber. Agreed with the hate too - what a shame. People who instead of debating, just call the other ignorant trolls and say "I ain't reading that". Then, _without _reading them, insult their intelligence a priori to try and get "ha-ha" moments? Against points that were not even made in the first place? That's messed up. What a shame _some people_ would do that- It's pretty exhausting, right? People really shouldn't lower themselves to that type of hate, should they? And how does boasting about _not reading_ also allow them to understand and supposedly counter anything. It boggles the mind, really.

But hey, at least there are some who will continue to try and factually explain stuff, without accusing the others of being ignorant trolls, without ignoring their arguments in favor of strawman arguments, and will actually link sources when they're making a point. Especially with how sisyphean it feels.

Geez, horses are really getting higher and higher for some people.
But no people _in particular_ of course, no  .


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> Come on man, I work in stats don't try



Opening with a fallacy. Great. You can't discredit my argument because you assume that I don't work in a specific field and you do.



mbardu said:


> only talking about a potential tail risk event here anyway



Are we?



mbardu said:


> , again, arguing a point I didn't make.



I never tried to argue your point. I asked you two questions.

1. When you calculate the expected outcome of the virus vs. the vaccine, why are you using different parts of the distribution of possible outcomes? When you talk about the virus, you discredit any pessimistic view and say only 200k people might die and probably 80% of the population already got it. These are taking an optimistic sampling.

When you talk about the vaccine, you hyperfixated on the tail part of the distribution as the leading reason that it is unnecessary. If you sampled both outcomes with and without your bias, you would come to a different conclusion. But you seem to stubborn to understand that.

2. Why do you assume the long-term risks of getting the virus are better than the long term risks of the vaccine? At this rate, almost everyone will get this virus at some point. They have similar uncertainty. Why discount one and not the other? We can still influence the delay between now and more.people catching the virus for real.


----------



## bostjan

Jeezus. No one is holding a gun to your head demanding you get vaccinated.

If you want to wait until the vaccine is FDA approved, or not take it at all, just say "no, thank you," and go about your day.

I can kind of see where you are coming from about how hard we are pushing the vaccine on kids, but as far as people who have developed natural immunity to the virus through contact, there are plenty of discussions in this thread with peer-reviewed citations about how natural immunity doesn't last as long as the vaccine and is less generalized to fight against variants. There have also been plenty of documented cases of kids dying of covid and only a few from the vaccine. It's a tough decision to make, but no one knows the outcome yet, so you can't be taken seriously if you claim to know the outcome.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> Opening with a fallacy. Great. You can't discredit my argument because you assume that I don't work in a specific field and you do.



Keeping aside the fact that your statements I was _just _answering to were squarely aimed at belittling me (which you have no trouble trying to do but then balk at a reply), I gotta say I never assumed you worked in anything specific. But I do find the "*Opening *with a fallacy" quite funny considering it's 2/3rds or the way in already. It's impressive how you manage to ignore everything that comes before just because you don't have any answer. Did you just cognitive-dissonance it all out or what? Wow I'm impressed 



fantom said:


> Are we?


Yes. The risk of catastrophic novel vaccine side effects is in the tail of the distribution. Almost a black swan that we hope won't happen. I'm the first to say it. For those, you know as well as I do that estimates of probabilities are going to be a crapshoot at best. Maybe a reason to not apply the risk to 4/5 Billion people if we have alternatives though? it would be a _big _difference if we did not have alternatives, but we do.



fantom said:


> I never tried to argue your point I asked you two questions.
> 
> 1. When you calculate the expected outcome of the virus vs. the vaccine, why are you using different parts of the distribution of possible outcomes? When you talk about the virus, you discredit any pessimistic view and say only 200k people might die and probably 80% of the population already got it. These are taking an optimistic sampling.
> 
> When you talk about the vaccine, you hyperfixated on the tail part of the distribution as the leading reason that it is unnecessary. If you sampled both outcomes with your bias, you would come to a different conclusion. But you seem to stubborn to understand that.
> 
> 2. Why do you.assume the long-term risks of getting the virus are better than the long term risks of the vaccine? At this rate, almost everyone will get this virus at some point. They have similar uncertainty. Why discount one and not the other?



This is really strawman upon strawman now, isn't it?

"_When you calculate the expected outcome of the virus vs. the vaccine_", why are you trying to make we say things I am not saying? Where am I making the calculation you're describing? Can you show where? I didn't say "the virus is better" now, did I? nor did I say "nobody should get vaccinated", did I? Do you need to make stuff up? Do I need to type everything again again? Well, yeah apparently I do:

For kids, there is little benefit to the vaccine, and yet we're trying to lower and lower the age of vaccination, especially with novel vaccines
For people who have had the virus and who retain strong immunity, "_expected outcome of the virus vs. the vaccine_" doesn't make sense because it's too late already. They'll have the long term effects of the virus anyway if there are any. Do you need to add the risk of (however unlikely) effects of a novel vaccine too just because, especially if it doesn't bring them benefits?
For adults who have not had the virus and have no immunity, they should get vaccinated. But they don't have to be vaccinated with something novel that we don't know the long term effects of
This is the entire logic behind why I'm saying: 1-don't vaccinate kids with something novel we don't know, 2- don't vaccinate people with strong immunity who've had the virus, and 3-when you have to, vaccinate with a known quantity instead of something novel. What would be wrong with that exactly?
Every answer I get (you're the 4trh or 5th) is a strawman that actually doesn't even address any of that (instead it's "uR dumb you don't understand that the virus protects against Covid", or "why don't you want people to get the vaccine?!?"), a ridiculous exaggeration (it could get 10 times worse!), an ad-hominem attack, or a combination of 2 or 3 of those



fantom said:


> 2. Why do you.assume the long-term risks of getting the virus are better than the long term risks of the vaccine? At this rate, almost everyone will get this virus at some point. They have similar uncertainty. Why discount one and not the other?



Who said that? Why are you pretending like I said that? Is it not possible to have a honest discussion without misrepresenting my points? Where did I discount the long term effects of the virus? Can you point to where?



fantom said:


> probably 80% of the population already got it. These are taking an optimistic sampling



Beyond strawman, now bold-faced lie even in the face of multiple corrections already? Where did I say 80% of the population got it already? Can you point to where? I recall saying specifically 150M (or about 45%), and it's right there for everyone to see. Do you have to make stuff up?

Regarding remaining risk of deaths, if you want to show me _your _calculation (that's not just _let's multiply everything by 2_) and how many deaths _you _would expect in my proposed scenario (not vaccinating children, not revaccinating for people who can be tested to have strong immunity already, vaccinating with traditional instead of novel when required), and why 200k is too optimistic, please knock yourself out. I actually think it's a bit pessimistic, considering at the current rate it would already take years to get to 200k. You'd excuse me for maybe asking for _some _convincing from you. Two posts ago you were talking about having 1/50 people die in the US (so 6 million - talk about who's raising unsupported hysteria, btw), which is _easily _disproven, and now you're just taking another number out of your hat with no other explanation than "it's today times 2".

If you have a real point, you probably don't need to go into ridiculous exaggerations to make it . Otherwise it just removes a ton of credibility.

Oh, and inb4 your "but later I added 'within 1 order of magnitude' so I'm right haha" that I didn't address before btw ... but this is the biggest cop out of all. It does sounds smart on the surface of it doesn't it? But come on. If you don't care to be any more specific than 1 order of magnitude, then what are you trying to debate? Don't care whether it's 100k deaths vs 1 million deaths? Don't care whether 30 million or 300 million people have been infected in the US? Wouldn't matter if 100M vs 1 Billion got side effects? 1 order of magnitude is ridiculously huge in that discussion.
Say you're saying it could get 10 times worse, but since it's one multiplication by 10 away, you'd still be right even if it was to not change _at all _compared to today? Wat? What type of argument is that  . The guy saying "Covid is fake, we've only had the usual 60k flu deaths" is right too because 60k is within an order of magnitude of 600k? And I can say we will have at most 800k deaths total when all is said and done...and if it turns out to be 8 million (_for the sake of argument, because we saw already how that's not even close to possible_), I can still say I'm right then? After all it's only 1 order of magnitude away right, that's not too different. All the wat?


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> Yes. The risk of catastrophic novel vaccine side effects is in the tail of the distribution. Almost a black swan that we hope won't happen. I'm the first to say it. For those, you know as well as I do that estimates of probabilities are going to be a crapshoot at best. Maybe a reason to not apply the risk to 4/5 Billion people if we have alternatives though? it would be a _big _difference if we did not have alternatives, but we do.



This is the core point I'm trying to make. As a statistician, you should realize how bias this is. You are basing your entire belief and analysis on the most unlikely outcome. From a statistics standpoint, you are telling people to never go outside because they might slip and hit their head and die. Or that they should never cross a street because they might get hit by a bus.

We have 3 approved vaccines just in US. There are a handful of others. The likelihood that all vaccines catastrophically fail and kill people is astronomically low. The likelihood that one kills 10% of it's recipients in 30 years is also extremely low. Even then, with multiple vaccines that's closer to 2% of the population, many of whom will be over 60 years old.

You keep praising the tail end outcome as the reason to do nothing without considering the other half. What if getting this virus leads to severe issues like HIV did? You are advocating one side and using your credentials, name dropping with crap like "I know because my family are doctors", and "but I do this for a living" expertise to push an agenda. You are blind to your bias.



mbardu said:


> For kids, there is little benefit to the vaccine, and yet we're trying to lower and lower the age of vaccination, especially with novel vaccines



What? What evidence is there that kids are safe from this virus? How do you know that them getting the virus won't cause them lifelong complications?

I will be the first to admit that it's a crapshoot either way for long term effects. But we know the short term outcome is better. As a parent, I have no choice but to let kids socialize at school, daycare, playgrounds, etc. The highest risk of an outbreak for my family is kids. The fact you act like they are safe without considering how many people they interact with and how easy it is for a virus to spread through a daycare or school to every family shows you have no idea what you are talking about.



mbardu said:


> For people who have had the virus and who retain strong immunity, "_expected outcome of the virus vs. the vaccine_" doesn't make sense because it's too late already. They'll have the long term effects of the virus anyway if there are any. Do you need to add the risk of (however unlikely) effects of a novel vaccine too just because, especially if it doesn't bring them benefits



This is not true. See research and discussions.



mbardu said:


> For adults who have not had the virus and have no immunity, they should get vaccinated. But they don't have to be vaccinated with something novel that we don't know the long term effects of



They should be vaccinated, but...

Why don't you just say you don't think they should be vaccinated.


----------



## profwoot

fantom said:


> This is not true. See research and discussions.



In b4 "rofl 'See research and discussions' wtf argument is this lolz" as he continues to focus on "winning" an argument that only he is having as if one of us googling it for him is Internet Forum Law and not just an impotent rhetorical device used by trolls who literally don't care enough about the actual content of the conversation to google around a bit about the facts or principles invoked by the commenters on the same side of the debate as, you know, the experts.

Regardless of whether kids should be vaccinated, the main thing is that mbardu is a victim in all this because he's figured out something science hasn't and if only we were more logical the world would see it his way.


----------



## fantom

profwoot said:


> the main thing is that mbardu is a victim in all this because he's figured out something science hasn't and if only we were more logical the world would see it his way.


Unfortunately, medical researchers and virologists haven't figured out how to change public perception or behavior. They can give all the right medical advice, but it fell on deaf ears buried in the sand. This pandemic shows how far behind our society is from where we thought it was. I say that with disappointment and hope that the trajectory is improving.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> Unfortunately, medical researchers and virologists haven't figured out how to change public perception or behavior. They can give all the right medical advice, but it fell on deaf ears buried in the sand. This pandemic shows how far behind our society is from where we thought it was. I say that with disappointment and hope that the trajectory is improving.



What a dumb generalization... If medical researchers had a way to show that there were no long term concerns, or if they tried to address the issue, then the question wouldn't be there. For example, they have shown how very effective the Covid vaccines are, and any reasonable person can see that they definitely are. No deaf ears there. They are pretty amazing actually. But safety and efficacy (I'll include short term safety in "efficacy" here) are different things, and they only tout the latter while talking very little about the former. How can you keep the smarter-than-thou attitude while conflating the two and making those basic logic faults?

The pandemic shows how dumb we are as a society sure for a good number of reasons (mostly because we didn't just stay at home for a month to nip it in the bud), but not because some people ask whether it's safe long term just because it works short term.

As what you are saying below:



fantom said:


> This is the core point I'm trying to make. As a statistician, you should realize how bias this is. You are basing your entire belief and analysis on the most unlikely outcome. From a statistics standpoint, you are telling people to never go outside because they might slip and hit their head and die. Or that they should never cross a street because they might get hit by a bus.
> 
> We have 3 approved vaccines just in US. There are a handful of others. The likelihood that all vaccines catastrophically fail and kill people is astronomically low. The likelihood that one kills 10% of it's recipients in 30 years is also extremely low. Even then, with multiple vaccines that's closer to 2% of the population, many of whom will be over 60 years old.
> 
> You keep praising the tail end outcome as the reason to do nothing without considering the other half. What if getting this virus leads to severe issues like HIV did? You are advocating one side and using your credentials, name dropping with crap like "I know because my family are doctors", and "but I do this for a living" expertise to push an agenda. You are blind to your bias.
> 
> 
> 
> What? What evidence is there that kids are safe from this virus? How do you know that them getting the virus won't cause them lifelong complications?
> 
> I will be the first to admit that it's a crapshoot either way for long term effects. But we know the short term outcome is better. As a parent, I have no choice but to let kids socialize at school, daycare, playgrounds, etc. The highest risk of an outbreak for my family is kids. The fact you act like they are safe without considering how many people they interact with and how easy it is for a virus to spread through a daycare or school to every family shows you have no idea what you are talking about.
> 
> 
> 
> This is not true. See research and discussions.
> 
> 
> 
> They should be vaccinated, but...
> 
> Why don't you just say you don't think they should be vaccinated.



It's fairly easy to summarize




It's all summarized by your last sentence too.



fantom said:


> Why don't you just say you don't think they should be vaccinated.



[_multinegatives altert_] I won't say I don't think they should be vaccinated, because that's not true. You really _really _love to put thoughts in my head and words in my mouth to get that one rhetorical win... but none of those imaginary things are true. I absolutely think they should get vaccinated. I do also think it's a better idea to do it with the old school vaccines than the new ones, just out of precautionary principle. Are you so one dimensional that any "yes _but also"_ statement is too hard to comprehend?

Kids is a tough question, but considering infections + vaccinations have brought us or will soon almost bring us to 80% herd immunity, they, like everyone else - are safer everyday. Why am I saying they're also safer _comparatively to others_? Well again, just CDC data showing that symptomatic illnesses, but even more so hospitalization and death outcomes are lower than other age groups. 
You also mock my "what-if the novel vaccines we're pushing have long term side effects", but then go on to your own hypothetical "what if Covid itself has long term side effects like HIV?" and it doesn't bother you one bit? Especially because your hypothetical is different. If there are long term effects, we already have a lot of people who have had Covid; so sadly for them the point is moot. As for kids, well when we do reach herd immunity (since we vaccinate adults first), those wo did not get it are very unlikely to catch Covid at all. That's pretty different from actively and proactively vaccinating them with something novel for little benefit and unknown risk. And if the discussion was "should we use the adults to keep the kids safe" vs "should we use the kids to keep the adults safe", I do have kids, so I'd go with the first option every time. Up to you to think otherwise.
But all this aside, if they must be vaccinated, then I'd also think a traditional vaccine type would be the best route to go if and when it's approved.

You said it yourself, we have the luxury of having multiple vaccines, and one of them is something that, through its similarity to what we have done in the past, is unlikely to have long term effects. The two mRNA ones though? There's no way for us to say the same. We can't use past history. As we near herd immunity, is it so crazy to say we should use something with way less unknowns in priority?

PS: and can you stop with the misdirection and bad faith please.
I _only _spoke about stats because _you _started to play the stats card in order to belittle an argument I was _not even making_. I _only _mentioned my family (to someone else, _not even to you_), to say that even the doctors (who know way more than I do) do not know what long term effects could look like in practice. You really have to dig far. Why do you need to make stuff up? It's very very petty and transparent at this point. Do you think it furthers your point? Do you have so little of an actual argument (past your "10 times worse" hysteria) that you _need _those strawmen and attacks?


----------



## bostjan

The only way to get people to stay home would have been to kill everyone right off the bat. Even if the national guard bagged up all of the groceries and delivered them door to door, all it'd take is 0.1% of the population to disobey and the disease keeps spreading.


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> What a dumb generalization



I literally paraphrased a bay area health officer who is working directly with people for one of the largest populations in the country. He must be dumb too?

https://www.smchealth.org/health-officer-updates/december-7-2020-health-officer-statement.

Quote below:

"I’m not sure we know what we’re doing. (Please don’t misinterpret this sentence. The science and public health principles around disease transmission interruption – no gathering, mask wearing, social distancing, etc. – are clear. I’m referring to how to get you, the community, to change your behavior)."
​It is clear we are talking past each other at this point. I don't mean to personally offend you. I have read and tried to really understand where you are coming from, but I'm not sure you have done the same.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> The only way to get people to stay home would have been to kill everyone right off the bat. Even if the national guard bagged up all of the groceries and delivered them door to door, all it'd take is 0.1% of the population to disobey and the disease keeps spreading.



I kinda think the 0.1% figure is very low. Transmission is very high, but not _that high_.
In countries like Australia/NZ or Singapore, or even South Korea past the whole issues with the sects - they were often able to contain the whole thing, and the only time they have issues now is when they allow people in from countries that didn't want to put the same effort that _they _put in. People were still able to go get food, go to work for essential jobs; and having a lot of things paused or done remotely was no different than in the rest of the world - except done smart and consistently to actually be useful.

The US and countries like Western Europe didn't even _try_. Sure, there were stay-at-home orders in place, but people went to the park and to the mall, and haircuts, and bike rallies and met their friends and family regardless. Last summer and last holiday seasons, people travelled and met and partied like a normal year. Put huge effort in ways to _circumvent _the restrictions. Some areas had record turnout 

I'm not saying it would have been _easily _possible to do otherwise. People screamed bloody oppression at the mere thought of staying indoors to help society as a whole. But had we made the effort, the pandemic would mechanically have been done with, I'm quite sure of it.

Hell, even if you had to use the national guard to deliver supplies, that would probably have been a way _way _lower societal and economic costs than the shitty excuse of leadership we've had for the last year.

It's always the same lack of rationality with those dumb humans.
Should we maybe consume and pollute a little bit less to avoid burning the planet? Or find a better way to create energy? Naaaah, it can't really get that bad. Or if it does we'll get into carbon capture. Or we'll find a way to geoengineer when it gets to it. Probably/maybe /hopefully geoengineering won't screw things further, it's OK we'll do some short term tests first.
Should we stop for a month and let this Covid thing die out before it gets out of hand? Naaaah, let's do whatever we want and we'll find a cure or a vaccine later. If it works well enough at stopping Covid, we don't even have to worry about anything longer term than that it'll probably be fine.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> I literally paraphrased a bay area health officer who is working directly with people for one of the largest populations in the country. He must be dumb too?



If this was not clear, this was solely aimed at the dumb generalization that people who don't say exactly the same thing as you are dumb with ears in the sand who don't understand science. Highlighting for example that vaccine efficacy is clear to everyone reasonable. but still, always your need to attack.
This was not aimed at the scientists' communication. Some scientists are great communicators, some are clearly not - there's a bit of everything and your quote is pretty anecdotal...



fantom said:


> It is clear we are talking past each other at this point. I don't mean to personally offend you. *I have read and tried to really understand where you are coming from, but I'm not sure you have done the same.*



You can't be for real.

If that were true, you would have replied to any actual point I raised (instead of making up imaginary ones), avoided the dozen strawman arguments, stopped shifting the goalposts with every single reply, and maybe admitted things like "10 times worse" or "one order of magnitude" or any number of those exaggerations and backtrackings were maybe not the most conducive to the discussion.
I could take many clear examples of your bad faith. From the start I said about 45% of the population in the US has been infected already, to show there was no way it could get 10 times worse. You lied and made that 75% just to get a rhetorical win. I corrected you, pointed you to the actual number I quoted, and you don't care- you lied again that I now supposedly said 80%.
Or supposedly you now know that I think those people should not be vaccinated? Whereas I was saying and explaining the opposite from the very beginning?
Shall I go on?

Whereas I doubt you will be able to find where I either egregiously misrepresented your arguments the same way you did, or failed to reply to your points. I'll wait.

As it stands, what you've been doing is _not _called reading and understanding, and that's certainly not how a good faith discussion looks like. Even suggesting that this _would _be reading and understanding is fairly insulting to both those concepts lmao


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> The US and countries like Western Europe didn't even _try_. Sure, there were stay-at-home orders in place, but people went to the park and to the mall, and haircuts, and bike rallies and met their friends and family regardless. Last summer and last holiday seasons, people travelled and met and partied like a normal year. Put huge effort in ways to _circumvent _the restrictions. Some areas had record turnout



This is categorically false information. People in Italy were extremely well behaved and stay home..they had paperwork to go grocery shopping and were behaving.

As far as the US, it likely depends on where you live. In bay area, most people stayed home for months. Everything was closed. I drove 80+ miles daily and can tell you the highways and downtown streets were vacant. Even parks and outdoor locations were deserted. The only place people went were grocery stores, and everyone followed rules.

It wasn't until Thanksgiving, when Newsom got caught with oil execs having expensive dinner that most of the bay area people said f*$# it and started going out more.

The only exceptions I can think to people bending rules around here were construction contractors (many didn't wear masks when not running tools), which was considered a vital business for some unknown reason.


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> If this was not clear, this was solely aimed at the dumb generalization that people who don't say exactly the same thing as you are dumb with ears in the sand who don't understand science. Highlighting for example that vaccine efficacy is clear to everyone reasonable for example. Not at the scientists' communication. Some scientists are great communicators, some are clearly not - there's a bit of everything.
> 
> 
> 
> You can't be for real.
> 
> If that were true, you would have replied to any actual point I raised (instead of making up imaginary ones), avoided the dozen strawman arguments, stopped shifting the goalposts with every single reply, and maybe admitted things like "10 times worse" or "one order of magnitude" or any number of those exaggerations and backtrackings were maybe not the most conducive to the discussion.
> I could take many clear examples of your bad faith. From the start I said about 45% of the population in the US has been infected already, to show there was no way it could get 10 times worse. You lied and made that 75% just to get a rhetorical win. I corrected you, pointed you to the actual number I quoted, and you don't care- you lied again that I now supposedly said 80%.
> Or supposedly you now know that I think those people should not be vaccinated? Whereas I was saying and explaining the opposite from the very beginning?
> Shall I go on?
> 
> Whereas I doubt you will be able to find where I either egregiously misrepresented your arguments the same way you did, or failed to reply to your points. I'll wait.
> 
> As it stands, what you've been doing is _not _called reading and understanding, and that's certainly not how a good faith discussion looks like. Even suggesting that this _would _be reading and understanding is fairly insulting to both those concepts lmao


Honestly, the majority of every post you write tells me how I am making an argument wrong instead of discussing the points. Of course I stopped reading it all.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> Honestly, the majority of every post you write tells me how I am making an argument wrong instead of discussing the points. Of course I stopped reading it all.



I love it when people try to play smarter-than-thou, make up things that others said, bring strawman arguments all over the place....but then also later admit they didn't even bother to read what they were replying to. I don't understand how it makes sense to be _proud _of that.

Again - find me an example of what I did not discuss...or even an instance - a single one of where I mischaracterized your points as egregiously as you did mine. I'll wait. Even for the numerous strawman cases, I highlighted most of them from you (and there were plenty) and still tried to reply. You? Crickets . Any response I give you that you don't like because it messes up your point? Crickets. But repeating the same lie over and over again, you have 0 problem with that right? Are you going to pretend I said "already 85% of people have been infected" next? Then you'll make it 90%?

Then you don't like me telling you that things like "it could get 10 times worse" are wrong or misleading, but somehow it's my fault that you are wrong? And that's the reason you cannot discuss? Wat?


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> This is categorically false information. People in Italy were extremely well behaved and stay home..they had paperwork to go grocery shopping and were behaving.
> 
> As far as the US, it likely depends on where you live. In bay area, most people stayed home for months. Everything was closed. I drove 80+ miles daily and can tell you the highways and downtown streets were vacant. Even parks and outdoor locations were deserted. The only place people went were grocery stores, and everyone followed rules.
> 
> It wasn't until Thanksgiving, when Newsom got caught with oil execs having expensive dinner that most of the bay area people said f*$# it and started going out more.
> 
> The only exceptions I can think to people bending rules around here were construction contractors (many didn't wear masks when not running tools), which was considered a vital business for some unknown reason.



And where people were "behaving", it worked. Except people were not behaving everywhere. In fact they were not "behaving" as you say in _most _places. And both the US and Europe are open enough that people screwing up in one region means it's not stopping. Did you go to Europe last spring/summer? It was ridiculous. Everyone filled the paperwork, but then used it to go see their friends. Streets and parks were FULL of people. They had to disband/close clandestine bars and night clubs.
As for the Bay Area, it's probably one of the area where we did our best within the US...but traffic in and out of the area never really stopped so clusters mechanically continued to pop up.
Maybe some individuals tried, or even towns and regions. But _as a whole_, the US and Europe did not try. To wit, zero federal alignment in the US - _almost_-zero European Union harmonization.


----------



## profwoot

dude seriously. Why must this whole thread be about you? Why argue every single point as if every word in this thread is some kind of affront to you? Are we just not allowed to talk about covid without every word being nitpicked and being waterboarded by your endless victimhood? YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE TRYING TO HAVE AN ARGUMENT. While you're apparently here for the purpose of implementing what you learned in all those "how to win an argument" blogs you used to read, the rest of us are just trying to relax on the internet and maybe learn something about guitars or whatever.

Just read the effing room, man. Think of an internet forum thread like a party, which, past a certain age, pretty much means standing/sitting around talking to people about whatever. It seems like you're not "good at parties" as they say. Your bullshit is going to get challenged, because this place is full of some pretty level-headed, good-at-parties type of folk, but that doesn't mean we've signed up to tutor you. (omg my horse is getting ever higher, you're being victimized) or that we're going to hire a committee to workshop every word for fear of you latching onto yet another trivial bit of phrasing and getting blasted for another 6 paragraphs about how we're sooooo hypocritical/bad at arguing/stupid/mean and meanwhile the only time you even mention the substance of the argument is to hit somebody else over the head with it, because really what you're here to do is get your dopamine fix. Not everybody gets much of a dopamine rush from being an asshole on the internet; or more to the point, from researching stuff for the purpose of correcting those who do.

Incidentally, your efforts are absolutely futile. Even if by some miracle you did string together a coherent argument that had me wondering about some aspect of the consensus, I would go look into the science behind it and understand it for myself (on this particular topic I'd just walk down the hall and discuss it with a couple of the other faculty in my department who study viruses). You literally can't convince me, because I am not who you need to convince. Like any thinking person, I trust the scholarly community by default. Within my own field I've certainly had disagreements about some consensus or near-consensus ideas, including one pretty major one about which I was ultimately vindicated as the consensus has shifted far closer to my point of view. But I'm an expert on that stuff and every scientific community has heated and often bitter disagreements (c.f., my discussion of the scientific process in previous posts). However, scientists often cite research far enough outside their expertise that they just pretty much have to at least provisionally accept it if it seems reasonably well received by the relevant experts, because it is not possible to go get a PhD-level understanding of every topic relevant to your research project.

People who don't work within a particular field but are nevertheless convinced they have outsmarted the expert consensus on some issue are called cranks. And hey on extremely rare occasions cranks end up being correct! Those occasions are well into the tails of the distribution, but some people nevertheless latch onto that one time a crazy thing happened and therefore distrust the science on other issues too. But there are an absolute ton of cranks. My field is not particularly sexy or controversial and I still get unsolicited emails all the time from people convinced of their argument, oftentimes so incoherent as to be "not even wrong", as they say. That one time a crank got something right is not evidence in favor of your particular crank argument.

I'm obviously a lot less interested in covid vaccine side-effects than you are, but I do follow various people I trust to point out real issues as they arise. It's all about who you trust. People like to assume people who believe dumb things are dumb, or blame the bad education system, but the human brain is so susceptible to propaganda even the smartest people often fall for it. It does no good to have a 200 IQ if you don't apply those faculties to whatever compartmentalized stuff you have sufficient irrational motivation to believe in. If they come to trust people who say dumb shit, eventually they're gonna start believing it.

Look, between my teaching and research I've got toes in 3 or 4 different fields, plus I'm still in the middle of learning music production, with my first song due to be "finished" any day now (granted I've thought that for a while), so my love of learning new and challenging stuff runneth o'er. If the people I trust aren't raising any alarms about the scientific consensus, then I'm gonna just accept it. I only provide my own scenario because it's what I know, but I imagine the average person with sufficient control over their time tends to be close to their limit in the same way, so it's not cool to just expect other people to do your research for you when they're just trying to hang out on a message board. I know that's going to be frustrating for you, and you'll probably choose to ignore all the nuance and just say I'm lazy/stupid/have lost the argument (because I'm not having an argument). Oh and you're being victimized, because in the end, the journey of life is really all about the times you felt victimized along the way.

Sorry, apparently I had some processing I needed to do. I've said my peace now.


----------



## mbardu

profwoot said:


> Rant



I gotta say I'm impressed. Instead of general platitudes, it would have taken you one sentence to reply factually about _any _of the points I made (before or after you turned them into your strawmen or attacked me by the way), _one _sentence to show you were interested in any sort of discussion, one source for me to go through and you showing me how wrong I was, one sentence to contribute to the COVID-19 discussion in any shape or form (kinda the subject here)... but instead - you chose to launch a long & laborious literal logorrheic litany of your random thoughts. Bold strategy Cotton. All that to attack just one dude and say what?

it bothers you that I make replies here against the echo chamber => OK
internet forums are like a party, and you think you're the cool kid at parties while I'm not => OK _crying_emoji.png_
people should read the room "as they say", and only ever say the same things as the echo chamber, otherwise it makes you feel bad feelings => OK
you have already decided that you cannot be convinced => OK makes sense why you don't care about any actual discussion
you think my logic is incoherent, yet have no way to explain how or why it is incoherent => OK
you don't want to understand or discuss here, you prefer to listen to experts and leave it at that => OK, and for most things that pass the smell test, that ain't even a bad approach. Just not exactly sure why you jumped into the discussion trying to have an argument and get the last word in then...
you are not very interested in vaccine side-effects => OK
you are so smart and you produce music and almost have your first song => OK
you think I'm a crank who distrusts science, while you're the bestest scientist in the world in 3 to 4 field who's the only one who loves to learn new stuff => wow OK thank you for giving us your wisdom wow. It's too bad you have not graced the discussion with any of your genius to show me the errors of my ways, but instead have kept it to strictly strawman arguments or personal attacks. Truly a waste of your potential...but I guess you must have your reasons?
tl;dr, your wall of text is basically "you're dumb, I'm smart". Well you know what, I know a lot of very smart people, much smarter than I will ever be...and one thing they definitely have in common is that they don't go around shouting "I'm smart, listen to meeeee, I'm riiiiight" from the rooftops  . Oh and also, when presented with an argument, even outside of their comfort zone or the echo chamber, they tend to give it a honest consideration instead of thinking "I'm smart so my bias is better" and only replying with derogatory attack or strawman arguments because they want to be the cool kid at the party "as they say". PS: none of those would ever seriously talk about "IQ" 

Now, that's just anecdotal evidence of course so we can't generalize from those people. But again, instead of multiple posts of nothing but strawman arguments, attacks, and the culmination here of 6 paragraphs of nothing + platitudes + attacks against me, it would have taken you *one *well constructed sentence to deconstruct any of my actual arguments (pick just one) and tell me anything of relevance and of substance. Like your colleague before you though, once your strawman logic is pointed out....you just chose not to reply anything. How quaint... And how sad too, _crying_emoji.png again. _It would have saved you _so _much time of your previous time of serious scientist-in-3/4-fields-plus-music-producer if your genius had granted us with that one sentence vs this here debacle...



profwoot said:


> Not everybody gets much of a dopamine rush from being an asshole on the internet



Interesting to get your firsthand experience. So if it's not dopamine you're after while you do just that, going around insulting someone you don't even know after accusing them of thinking things they didn't think...then what is it that you get from the experience? It must be _pretty _good if you - not only allow it to distract you from your 3-to-4-expert-science fields and one-song-production important duties, but actually keep coming back to do it more and more. Wow.



profwoot said:


> Why must this whole thread be about you


Bruh...like...bruh...
All my arguments are about Covid. People just don't like that I reply when they attack me. Here though...your post is really something else. What we learn here is how you're so smart in 3/4 fields, which scholars you trust or not, who your scientist friends are, your PHD level education, your adventures in fighting the status quo, the unsolicited people emailing you, how curious and adventurous your mind truly is, your expert knowledge of IQ (big ooOOooOOf for IQ btw), your teaching and research, how good you are at parties, and....your collection of horses that are of high stature I guess? I think we just need to hear about your good looks and movie tastes now.. W.O.W. This is so much unrelated random info I don't even know. To me it reads like a parody of a hungry nerdy tinder bio. And _I'm_ the one making the posts about myself because I dared to say once (with caveats) that even some doctors in my family don't know for sure about possible Covid side effects?
Do you...do you not realize the irony?

The mind is truly boggled beyond comprehension


----------



## fantom

@mbardu

This is all 100% off topic and not intended to be part of the covid discussion.

I reread everything we both wrote in response to each other. Honestly, because I wasn't sure if you were gaslighting me or just a dick.

Out of the 4600 words you wrote 41% were random defensive posturing or arguing points I never brought up. 20% was you being condescending and derrogatory (hilarious that you first statement in response to me said you were trying to be neither of these lol).

About 32% of what you wrote was actually relevant to anything I discussed, and less than one third of that (about 10% total) was actually relevant to what I originally asked you and not rude (ie, not pulling opinions out of the air and pushing them as facts while flexing your alpha male penis).

So ya, there is a reason I skimmed your 4600 word essay addressed to me. It honestly was not fun to read, at all, and I had other real life priorities. A large part of it was off topic, arrogant, and dismissive, so I waited til I had free time.

As for why I didn't reply to every one of your sentences. I have a job and family. I don't have time to respond to 4600 words in a day. I tried to prioritize things that were interesting, but it became tedious as the number of discussion points increased. It doesn't help that your arrogance was poking out in the first and second reply. It went downhill and not worth the time quickly.

You can assume I won't respond again. I don't really care what you have to say anymore, and pretty sure you are not reading what I had to say either after second guessing myself.


----------



## diagrammatiks

Don't fight autism with words


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> I kinda think the 0.1% figure is very low. Transmission is very high, but not _that high_.
> In countries like Australia/NZ or Singapore, or even South Korea past the whole issues with the sects - they were often able to contain the whole thing, and the only time they have issues now is when they allow people in from countries that didn't want to put the same effort that _they _put in. People were still able to go get food, go to work for essential jobs; and having a lot of things paused or done remotely was no different than in the rest of the world - except done smart and consistently to actually be useful.
> 
> The US and countries like Western Europe didn't even _try_. Sure, there were stay-at-home orders in place, but people went to the park and to the mall, and haircuts, and bike rallies and met their friends and family regardless. Last summer and last holiday seasons, people travelled and met and partied like a normal year. Put huge effort in ways to _circumvent _the restrictions. Some areas had record turnout
> 
> I'm not saying it would have been _easily _possible to do otherwise. People screamed bloody oppression at the mere thought of staying indoors to help society as a whole. But had we made the effort, the pandemic would mechanically have been done with, I'm quite sure of it.
> 
> Hell, even if you had to use the national guard to deliver supplies, that would probably have been a way _way _lower societal and economic costs than the shitty excuse of leadership we've had for the last year.
> 
> It's always the same lack of rationality with those dumb humans.
> Should we maybe consume and pollute a little bit less to avoid burning the planet? Or find a better way to create energy? Naaaah, it can't really get that bad. Or if it does we'll get into carbon capture. Or we'll find a way to geoengineer when it gets to it. Probably/maybe /hopefully geoengineering won't screw things further, it's OK we'll do some short term tests first.
> Should we stop for a month and let this Covid thing die out before it gets out of hand? Naaaah, let's do whatever we want and we'll find a cure or a vaccine later. If it works well enough at stopping Covid, we don't even have to worry about anything longer term than that it'll probably be fine.


If you are talking about eradicating the disease by staying in for a month, all it takes to foil that is literally one transmission of the infection and you'd have to add another month. If there was literally one more transmission over that added month add another month. The disease started from one infection, and the only way to eradicate it is to have exactly zero infections in humans.
If you are talking about slowing the spread to zero growth, that only takes about 2/3 of the population to stay home, but we've seen how that didn't happen. People are notoriously horrible at following directions. Even if we all locked ourselves up until it passed, you have to keep in mind that would mean no electricity, no running water, no supplies, nothing- for that entire time. Those things all require people going to work to happen.


----------



## spudmunkey

Plus, some people who contracted it have carried it for months, breeding their own home-brew mutations. One woman with AIDS had it for I think close to a year and they found 30 distinct variations in her.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> @mbardu
> 
> This is all 100% off topic and not intended to be part of the covid discussion.
> 
> I reread everything we both wrote in response to each other. Honestly, because I wasn't sure if you were gaslighting me or just a dick.
> 
> Out of the 4600 words you wrote 41% were random defensive posturing or arguing points I never brought up. 20% was you being condescending and derrogatory (hilarious that you first statement in response to me said you were trying to be neither of these lol).
> 
> About 32% of what you wrote was actually relevant to anything I discussed, and less than one third of that (about 10% total) was actually relevant to what I originally asked you and not rude (ie, not pulling opinions out of the air and pushing them as facts while flexing your alpha male penis).
> 
> So ya, there is a reason I skimmed your 4600 word essay addressed to me. It honestly was not fun to read, at all, and I had other real life priorities. A large part of it was off topic, arrogant, and dismissive, so I waited til I had free time.
> 
> As for why I didn't reply to every one of your sentences. I have a job and family. I don't have time to respond to 4600 words in a day. I tried to prioritize things that were interesting, but it became tedious as the number of discussion points increased. It doesn't help that your arrogance was poking out in the first and second reply. It went downhill and not worth the time quickly.
> 
> You can assume I won't respond again. I don't really care what you have to say anymore, and pretty sure you are not reading what I had to say either after second guessing myself.



Like your colleague. If you wanted to keep it on topic and reply to any single argument I made, it would have taken you one sentence. Or show one example of where I mischaracterized your points as bad as you did mine, one sentence. You complain about "gaslighting", but that's what _you _have been doing the entire time. Talk about gaslighting? Show me where I said infections where at 80% already? Or said people without immunity shouldn't get vaccinated. It would take you one sentence to do so. If you were interested in the Covid discussion, you'd have explained your argument of "it can get 10 times worse" or any other fallacies. Instead you just count words and continue to shift the goalposts.

The discussion is far from what you describe. You jump in to use the same exact arguments as the others and say 1-it could get 10 times worse/it could kill 6 Million people in the US and 2-people who say "we should be cautious" are dumb because they like smoking. I reply to you, with sources (I had already posted before) to show 1-is literally not possible and 2-is a dumb generalization that you know nothing about. Do you discuss any of it? No, you don't acknowledge any of it, and instead jump right into strawman arguments in order to move the goalposts and get a rhetorical win. According to you, you are _now _the one who now figured out the infection rate and it explains how I was wrong and it could kill (now, not even acknowledging the dramatic reduction on your own part) 1.2 Million, not 800k. And the rest is the same back and forth. Any reply you cannot make is replaced by shifting goalposts and personal attacks.

You don't have time to read and reply...how sad...except you do it here by lying about the whole discussion and making up stuff a posteriori....
But riddle me this: if you don't have time but do have an ounce of intellectual honesty, instead of another unrelated diatribe here - it would take you _one sentence_ to make your case. So why not do it. Go ahead and show me where I said infections where at 80% already? Or said people without immunity shouldn't get vaccinated. Or said we should have done nothing? Or anything else you accuse me of. I'll wait. But apparently it's way easier to again shift the discussion and you _like _to waste your time counting words instead...


----------



## TedEH

I don't have enough popcorn for this thread anymore.


----------



## Xaios

TedEH said:


> I don't have enough popcorn for this thread anymore.


Agreed. This thread has devolved into




.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> If you are talking about eradicating the disease by staying in for a month, all it takes to foil that is literally one transmission of the infection and you'd have to add another month. If there was literally one more transmission over that added month add another month. The disease started from one infection, and the only way to eradicate it is to have exactly zero infections in humans.
> If you are talking about slowing the spread to zero growth, that only takes about 2/3 of the population to stay home, but we've seen how that didn't happen. People are notoriously horrible at following directions. Even if we all locked ourselves up until it passed, you have to keep in mind that would mean no electricity, no running water, no supplies, nothing- for that entire time. Those things all require people going to work to happen.



I am talking about killing the virus indeed.
The virus is virulent, but with contact tracing and serious measures, the countries I've listed were able to kill it. Whole countries. Even to kill it _multiple times_ for some of them. Only to get new cases, only because people imported them...not because the same people kept brewing them internally.
Accounts vary, but the understanding was that a ~10 day range was good enough to close a cluster or small outbreak. So a month (that's rough obviously) _did work _in a bunch of places.
A single case (if it was even a single case at the start) could have spread like wildfire early on with zero measure in place, of course. A single case, with contact tracing and people behaving by staying home - entirely different story. NZ is perfect example of that.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> Whole countries. Even to kill it _multiple times_ for some of them


If you have to kill it multiple times, did you ever really kill it in the first place?

IMO this is a global problem, and countries don't exist in isolation. "Killing it" means nothing if it's not universal.


----------



## diagrammatiks

everything is ok over here.

probably gonna get the vaccine soon. maybe.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> If you have to kill it multiple times, did you ever really kill it in the first place?
> 
> IMO this is a global problem, and countries don't exist in isolation. "Killing it" means nothing if it's not universal.



Exactly my point. It would have needed to be worldwide.
They killed it multiple times only because it kept coming in from overseas.


----------



## TedEH

Except that right now the best global solution we have is getting as many vaccines into arms as possible.


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> I am talking about killing the virus indeed.
> The virus is virulent, but with contact tracing and serious measures, the countries I've listed were able to kill it. Whole countries. Even to kill it _multiple times_ for some of them. Only to get new cases, only because people imported them...not because the same people kept brewing them internally.
> Accounts vary, but the understanding was that a ~10 day range was good enough to close a cluster or small outbreak. So a month (that's rough obviously) _did work _in a bunch of places.
> A single case (if it was even a single case at the start) could have spread like wildfire early on with zero measure in place, of course. A single case, with contact tracing and people behaving by staying home - entirely different story. NZ is perfect example of that.



Australia has had a couple of random spikes in the midst of lockdowns, aside from instances in which travelers were involved, meaning that there's proof of exactly what I said.

They can think they killed all of the virus, but there will always be one infected person somewhere who is sneezing on some other infected person. If neither of the two get tested, the virus spread with no data to say it spread until suddenly 350 people test positive for seemingly no reason. That's unfortunately just how it works.

This darn thing is just going to be a part of life from here to the end of humanity. Neither lockdowns nor vaccines can guarantee to eradicate it.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> Australia has had a couple of random spikes in the midst of lockdowns, aside from instances in which travelers were involved, meaning that there's proof of exactly what I said.
> 
> They can think they killed all of the virus, but there will always be one infected person somewhere who is sneezing on some other infected person. If neither of the two get tested, the virus spread with no data to say it spread until suddenly 350 people test positive for seemingly no reason. That's unfortunately just how it works.
> 
> This darn thing is just going to be a part of life from here to the end of humanity. Neither lockdowns nor vaccines can guarantee to eradicate it.



What you're saying about two people sneezing on each other is exactly why the confinement would need to be strict enough, and long enough. As in only keep _actually _essential things running, and only go out for groceries every other week while masked and actually paying attention. If people are out and about sneezing on each other it obviously means you don't have a strict confinement in place.

Consensus is at ~10/15 days for not being contagious anymore, with no real risk beyond that- and I have not seen it debated really. So a month to a few more weeks is plenty for the virus transmission to die out within a closed cluster.

Australia is interesting because there were indeed a couple of cases where they did spike around June/July of last year for example. Some clusters looked out of nowhere because of asymptomatic transmission, that's true as well. It even looked pretty bleak at some point, worse than many countries. But they went right back to _actually _confinement and check it out - here's an actual chart for Australia:




They got _over _UK/France in terms new cases per million for a bit, and this is interesting because it means the virus _was _circulating widely in the country, not just a single spot. And yet, the moment they closed again and re-did a strict and committed confinement, it's basically back to 0.

Similar pictures for Singapore, one of the most densely-populated countries in the world. Let things slide => Spike. Be serious with confinement and then:



Back to 0.

So this is not wishful thinking or science fiction. It is possible. If all other countries had closed to get the same curve as Australia/Singapore, we'd literally have millions fewer deaths and there would be nobody to import it to another country.

Now I'm not naive ... I know our global leadership is _way _too incompetent to make it happen. But it would have been the solution a year ago, with millions fewer deaths, and only a few weeks of minor economic impact. Would still be the solution today btw, but now with all the loss, everyone has the "sunk-cost" mindset and we would never ever consider it. But that's just because we're not rational. Every case where this was done for real has worked.


----------



## bostjan

0 reported does not necessarily mean 0 infections, though.

As I said, if a nation is physically closed off from ever other nation (as Australia is), and their numbers go from zero to not zero, then there were unreported cases.

And if you still have people getting groceries, people running power plants, people sanitizing your sewage, people fixing your roads, people driving delivery trucks, people piloting planes and boats and trains to move essential goods around the world, then not everyone is isolated. If not everyone is isolated and not everyone is un-infectious, then there will be a nonzero infection rate.

And even if the growth rate of the pandemic goes to a large amplitude negative number, people would still have to hold that pattern of behaviour until the actual number of infections goes to zero- something that is impossible in practice.

The whole point of slowing the spread was to give medical technology time to come up with a treatment or a prevention. Now that there is a highly effective preventative method, well, it's time to utilize it wherever prudent and start restoring services that are essential on a longer-term basis.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> New0 reported does not necessarily mean 0 infections, though.
> 
> As I said, if a nation is physically closed off from ever other nation (as Australia is), and their numbers go from zero to not zero, then there were unreported cases.
> 
> And if you still have people getting groceries, people running power plants, people sanitizing your sewage, people fixing your roads, people driving delivery trucks, people piloting planes and boats and trains to move essential goods around the world, then not everyone is isolated. If not everyone is isolated and not everyone is un-infectious, then there will be a nonzero infection rate.
> 
> And even if the growth rate of the pandemic goes to a large amplitude negative number, people would still have to hold that pattern of behaviour until the actual number of infections goes to zero- something that is impossible in practice.
> 
> The whole point of slowing the spread was to give medical technology time to come up with a treatment or a prevention. Now that there is a highly effective preventative method, well, it's time to utilize it wherever prudent and start restoring services that are essential on a longer-term basis.



0 reported_ over a significant period of time _kinda means 0 at some point.

Why did Australia not stay flat at 0? Well even being an island, Australia still took in people who brought the virus back in because they caught it overseas. Expats coming back home for example.

It only goes on (and on) because there are only a few "good students" types of countries, and the others continue to mess up. There's a pretty wide consensus about how long you can remain contagious (10/15 days) - and the virus cannot survive on its own, so if your cluster doesn't go on to infect others (hence the need for the confinement to be long enough and serious enough); it's basically done. Where would the virus come from at that point? It's not like we remained infectious for months.



bostjan said:


> And if you still have people getting groceries, people running power plants, people sanitizing your sewage, people fixing your roads, people driving delivery trucks, people piloting planes and boats and trains to move essential goods around the world, then not everyone is isolated. If not everyone is isolated and not everyone is un-infectious, then there will be a nonzero infection rate.



New Zealand and Australia and Singapore have roads and power plants and people getting groceries and people driving delivery trucks too... And it's not like people in New Zealand have had to suffer terrible societal costs either - they pretty much lived their life as normal over the last few months.
It's true that people moving around the world continue to bring it back to the "virtuous" countries yeah... But that's exactly the issue. It's only because the countries they came from at that point had not made the effort to bring infections to 0.


----------



## AwakenTheSkies

I work as night receptionist at hotels in a "party town" and cases are going up again, lot of people infected. Working at night is my favourite job and I really need the money. God I hope they don't shut things down again. I will be so fucking pissed if they do. It has been so hard to find a job as night receptionist again since I lost my last one due to the start of the pandemic..


----------



## bostjan

Singapore is doing very well compared to other places, but yesterday they had 26 new covid cases. They haven't had zero new cases any given day this year.

New Zealand had 18 new covid cases yesterday. New Zealand is also one of the most isolated nations on the planet.

26 is not zero. 18 is not zero.

"Everybody just stay home and it'll go away without needing the vaccine" is *not* going to work.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> "Everybody just stay home and it'll go away without needing the vaccine" is *not* going to work.



Everybody just stay home and it'll go away, _as long as everyone does it_.
Since there are others who keep sending you the disease, especially now that everyone wants to reopen everything and travel, it never stops.

As I said, I'm not naive. Our leadership was never going to make it happen.
But just take the shape of the Singapore/Australia or other curves(they're right there) and imagine those on the worldwide curve. Even if you're not convinced it would have disappeared, still- compared to the embarrassing disaster of crisis management we got, we literally would have saved millions of lives from last year to now. And could still save hundreds of thousands if we were serious now.

Totally different discussion from the vaccine btw - the 2 needn't be related; except that the above would have saved millions of lives while we were waiting and there was no vaccine available.


----------



## Bodes

As an Aussie, I feel I should jump in here.

Our multiple outbreaks have all been found to have started due to lapses in our hotel quarantine. Absolutely zero to do with undiagnosed community transmission, for months on end.

The one that is occurring in Sydney right now was started with an unvaccinated driver of international flight crew not wearing a mask or distancing from the crew he was transporting, and not limiting his movement around the community when he became symptomatic . The company has been fined for not vaccinating their front line workers and not maintaining their 'mandatory testing regime'.
Link to story: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-23/nsw-covid-bondi-outbreak-timeline/100237834

In saying that, our federal and state governments have completely screwed up the vaccine roll-out, especially for front line workers, butthat is a whole different story, that I don't want to start.


----------



## Bodes

I should also add that Melbourne's sustained lockdown (4 months) last year could have been shorter if people didn't catch up with friends at the essential shops, with their entire households. That attitude annoyed the hell out of me.
The numbers is Sydney are 'relatively high' due to people holding parties.
24 of 30 people caught covid from the one infected guest at a family gathering.
Another party had 12, I think, transmissions when they all should have been in 'hard' lockdown.
List goes on.


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> Or show one example of where I mischaracterized your points as bad as you did mine



Sure. Let's take my first post and extract a few sentences.



fantom said:


> this virus has killed over 600k people in the US in a little over a single year.





fantom said:


> In US, we know about 10% of the population has caught it as a lower bound based on positive cases. So worst case if no changes happen, we are looking at 1/50 people dying. Of course, that is a pessimist view





fantom said:


> We know with high confidence the range of fatalities, not including people who survive with disabilities, is within an order of magnitude of 1% of the domestic and global population.



So what did I say?

Lower bound, at least 600k have already died.
Upper bound, using 10%, which I admitted was a pessimist view, up to 600 million could die.

We can say with extremely high confidence that between 600k and 6 million people in US will die.

I could add here, to make the point more clear, we have even higher confidence that between 0 and 350 million will die. And lower confidence that between 800k and 1 million will die.

If we are in disagreement on trying to bound the likelihood function, that is fine..but you never once discussed it. Here is what you said...



mbardu said:


> *I'll say that trying to really not be condescending, but you have the same fundamental misunderstanding as Drew and the others have regarding the scale of infections of Covid*. *And I don't mean to be derogatory, because I had made the exact same calculation (if we were to multiply the deaths by 5 or 10, how even more terrible this could get) rather recently, but I was wrong then as well*.* I don't know if it's because you just skipped the start of the discussion, or because you skimmed through what I wrote (and linked) just because you assumed I was trolling, but I discussed that already*



First off, nothing you said addressed my point at all. You rambled about unrelated shit and set up your defensive posturing so you could attack a point I never made.

So let me be clear: I never said that if you multiply the current deaths by 10 you will get the expected number of deaths. I said it is an upper bound with high confidence. The probability of 6 million deaths is extremely low. My entire point is that the expected number of deaths is a probability function. If you want to calculate the expected number of deaths, you have to integrate the probability of a specific outcome by the chance that outcome will happen. This is basic statistics. If you work in this field as you claim, this should not be new to you.

So I made a statement to you that the expected death rate was within an order of magnitude of 1% of the population. This is pretty much saying, the optimist scenario, no more people die f(600k)=1 otherwise 0 and the pessimist scenario are strictly less and greater than the real expectation. To me, making a claim that the number of expected deaths is between 600k and 6 million shouldn't surprise anyone. But somehow, you read it as me saying 10x people are going to die.

So I tried to tell you this.



fantom said:


> When you calculate the expected outcome of probabilistic events by completely ignoring the confidence intervals, you are fudging numbers to suit your own narrative. This is your fundamental mistake.



You replied with misrepresenting me again, but this time with the asshole filter starting to shut off.



mbardu said:


> Geez that's a big, *big *cop out. I didn't make up the "it can get 10 times worse" or "millions more will die" points. You made it, like the people before you



I said the worst case upper bound is based on the known case rate. I stated it was a pessimist view (and honestly I think the real case rate is off by about 5-6x and the number is closer to 50-60% of the population, which is why I said 1.2 million in a later post). I never said I thought millions more people in US will get infected. I never said 10x was a likely outcome. But you fixated on it because you read a few other people discuss it already, which I had no idea about. You brought your baggage to the conversation, and I called you out on it.

But surely I misread what you wrote about what I wrote...




mbardu said:


> Say you're saying it could get 10 times worse, but since it's one multiplication by 10 away, you'd still be right even if it was to not change _at all _compared to today? Wat? What type of argument is that  . The guy saying "Covid is fake, we've only had the usual 60k flu deaths" is right too because 60k is within an order of magnitude of 600k?



Again, I do not think it is going to be 10x worse. I never said it would be. And you misrepresented it yet again!




mbardu said:


> Come on man, I work in stats don't try . We're only talking about a potential tail risk event here anyway.


So here is the deal. You claimed to be an statistics expert. But you seemingly have no actual idea how to apply statistics to a college level homework problem. You lack the fundamentals to have a conversation about this topic and attack people with incomplete information. Instead of trying to understand what I was saying, you repeatedly harped on the 10x thing, drew a conclusion about what I know, and started treating me like human garbage. So gratz you win the internet. Enjoy your free porn.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> Sure. Let's take my first post and extract a few sentences.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So what did I say?
> 
> Lower bound, at least 600k have already died.
> Upper bound, using 10%, which I admitted was a pessimist view, up to 600 million could die.
> 
> We can say with extremely high confidence that between 600k and 6 million people in US will die.
> 
> I could add here, to make the point more clear, we have even higher confidence that between 0 and 350 million will die. And lower confidence that between 800k and 1 million will die.
> 
> If we are in disagreement on trying to bound the likelihood function, that is fine..but you never once discussed it. Here is what you said...
> 
> 
> 
> First off, nothing you said addressed my point at all. You rambled about unrelated shit and set up your defensive posturing so you could attack a point I never made.
> 
> So let me be clear: I never said that if you multiply the current deaths by 10 you will get the expected number of deaths. I said it is an upper bound with high confidence. The probability of 6 million deaths is extremely low. My entire point is that the expected number of deaths is a probability function. If you want to calculate the expected number of deaths, you have to integrate the probability of a specific outcome by the chance that outcome will happen. This is basic statistics. If you work in this field as you claim, this should not be new to you.
> 
> So I made a statement to you that the expected death rate was within an order of magnitude of 1% of the population. This is pretty much saying, the optimist scenario, no more people die f(600k)=1 otherwise 0 and the pessimist scenario are strictly less and greater than the real expectation. To me, making a claim that the number of expected deaths is between 600k and 6 million shouldn't surprise anyone. But somehow, you read it as me saying 10x people are going to die.
> 
> So I tried to tell you this.
> 
> 
> 
> You replied with misrepresenting me again, but this time with the asshole filter starting to shut off.
> 
> 
> 
> I said the worst case upper bound is based on the known case rate. I stated it was a pessimist view (and honestly I think the real case rate is off by about 5-6x and the number is closer to 50-60% of the population, which is why I said 1.2 million in a later post). I never said I thought millions more people in US will get infected. I never said 10x was a likely outcome. But you fixated on it because you read a few other people discuss it already, which I had no idea about. You brought your baggage to the conversation, and I called you out on it.
> 
> But surely I misread what you wrote about what I wrote...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Again, I do not think it is going to be 10x worse. I never said it would be. And you misrepresented it yet again!
> 
> 
> 
> So here is the deal. You claimed to be an statistics expert. But you seemingly have no actual idea how to apply statistics to a college level homework problem. You lack the fundamentals to have a conversation about this topic and attack people with incomplete information. Instead of trying to understand what I was saying, you repeatedly harped on the 10x thing, drew a conclusion about what I know, and started treating me like human garbage. So gratz you win the internet. Enjoy your free porn.



I didn't pretend you said "it *will* get 10x worse". But you clearly did say "it *could *get 10 times worse". Your "you read it as me saying 10x people _are going to die_" is patently false and easy to see as the lie it is, because despite your cherry-picking (I personally prefer to link whole posts instead of taking sentences outside of context for an easy win - but you do you...), you were still not able to find an actual quote of me saying that. Or else show me the quote now since you like to cherry pick apparently.

But anyway you didn't say "it _will _for sure", but you absolutely did say that _it could get 10 times worse_ according to you. The moment you include it in your probability distribution, you are saying it could happen. You repeat it yourself "I bounded the rate to a best case scenario, no more deaths, and a worst case scenario, 10% infected". It is part of your scenarios. It's not a discussion of which scenario is likely or not. Not a discussion of which is a pessimistic or optimistic outcome. And I didn't pretend you said it _will _happen. But you decided to include it in _your _scenarios. You clearly have "10 times worse" in the range of your outcomes. That's what "you said it could happen" means lmao  . It's not my fault it was something wrong to include and you're now trying to walk it back. It doesn't make it a misrepresentation to say you did so 

In fact, I didn't misrepresent you _at all_. Either you are the one who doesn't know what a probability distribution is (in which case, please stop with "high school" kind of patronizing)...and you didn't _mean _that it _could _get 10 times worse. In that case, you don't understand the maths, you don't agree _yourself _with the distribution and scenarios you are proposing _yourself_, but at least you are honest... Or the other way around, you understand what you said, and are now being absolutely dishonest. Which one is it?
And no, for the last time - maybe you did not realize the levels of infections at the time (which is OK), but "it could get 10 times worst" is just wrong. It cannot happen. So there is no point in debating your imagined probability distribution that includes this case, because it is easily proven that it is invalid from the start by including a whole range of outcomes that are _actually literally_ impossible. If it includes such a non-zero portion that is (and not just a little bit, but quite a lot) plain wrong, the entire thing is comically skewed and unusable.

This feels like bizarro world... You include "it could get 10 times worse" in your range of cases. You say that "this is one of my scenarios". You repeat it when pressed for clarification. But somehow when I say you did I'm the bad guy for re(_not mis_)presenting you and for saying how it invalidates your case? Here as well...the mind truly boggles.

As for the other way around...I don't need to work nearly as hard as you to show you're the one misrepresenting stuff. No need to cherrypick anything or go through your convolutions or re-explain a probability distribution. I say very simply "150M/45% of the population has likely been infected" in my first post. You reply "no you're wrong to say _75%_, it's 45%" (here). In that link, you are not only literally saying I am wrong to say that much (something I didn't say), and then to add insult to injury you parade your "it's probably around 45%" like you are actually the one who came up with the number yourself. The exact number that was in the post you replied to  .Then as if that wasn't enough for you despite my replies, you pretend I later even said 80% (here). Just show me where I said either 75% or 80% or else stop trying to walk back all your hypocrisy now with cherrypicking. I have already shown you a multitude of other mischaracterizations on your end btw, and you had not bothered to answer _on a single one_. The single one you try to pin on me is easily disproven and for what. Just more attacks against me without any contribution to the discussion? Not sure what you're trying to gain, especially as I thought you didn't have time for this.

In any case, can you please, _please _stop with your "haha I said 1 order of magnitude, so I'm always right" stuff? Saying nothing of substance is ... one way to not say much that is wrong, sure (although you _do _manage to screw even that up by saying it could get 10 times worse), but it also means you're not saying anything at all. I don't even feel like re-typing something different so there goes:


> This is the biggest cop out of all. It does sounds smart on the surface of it doesn't it? But come on. If you don't care to be any more specific than 1 order of magnitude, then what are you trying to debate? Don't care whether it's 100k deaths vs 1 million deaths? Don't care whether 30 million or 300 million people have been infected in the US? Wouldn't matter if 100M vs 1 Billion got side effects? 1 order of magnitude is ridiculously huge in that discussion. Almost to the point of disrespectful to both the discussion, but more importantly the people impacted.
> Say you're saying it could get 10 times worse, but since it's one multiplication by 10 away, you'd still be right even if it was to not change _at all _compared to today? Wat? What type of argument is that  . The guy saying "Covid is fake, we've only had the usual 60k flu deaths" is right too because 60k is within an order of magnitude of 600k? And I can say we will have at most 800k deaths total when all is said and done...and if it turns out to be 8 million (_for the sake of argument, because we saw already how that's not even close to possible_), I can still say I'm right then? After all it's only 1 order of magnitude away right, that's not too different. All the wat?


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> I didn't pretend you said "it *will* get 10x worse". But you clearly did say "it *could *get 10 times worse". Your "you read it as me saying 10x people _are going to die_" is patently false and easy to see as the lie it is, because despite your cherry-picking (I personally prefer to link whole posts instead of taking sentences outside of context for an easy win - but you do you...), you were still not able to find an actual quote of me saying that. Or else show me the quote now since you like to cherry pick apparently.
> 
> But anyway you didn't say "it _will _for sure", but you absolutely did say that _it could get 10 times worse_ according to you. The moment you include it in your probability distribution, you are saying it could happen. You repeat it yourself "I bounded the rate to a best case scenario, no more deaths, and a worst case scenario, 10% infected". It is part of your scenarios. It's not a discussion of which scenario is likely or not. Not a discussion of which is a pessimistic or optimistic outcome. And I didn't pretend you said it _will _happen. But you decided to include it in _your _scenarios. You clearly have "10 times worse" in the range of your outcomes. That's what "you said it could happen" means lmao  . It's not my fault it was something wrong to include and you're now trying to walk it back. It doesn't make it a misrepresentation to say you did so
> 
> In fact, I didn't misrepresent you _at all_. Either you are the one who doesn't know what a probability distribution is (in which case, please stop with "high school" kind of patronizing)...and you didn't _mean _that it _could _get 10 times worse. In that case, you don't understand the maths, you don't agree _yourself _with the distribution and scenarios you are proposing _yourself_, but at least you are honest... Or the other way around, you understand what you said, and are now being absolutely dishonest. Which one is it?
> And no, for the last time - maybe you did not realize the levels of infections at the time (which is OK), but "it could get 10 times worst" is just wrong. It cannot happen. So there is no point in debating your imagined probability distribution that includes this case, because it is easily proven that it is invalid from the start by including a whole range of outcomes that are _actually literally_ impossible. If it includes such a non-zero portion that is (and not just a little bit, but quite a lot) plain wrong, the entire thing is skewed and unusable.
> 
> This feels like bizarro world... You include "it could get 10 times worse" in your range of cases. You say that "this is one of my scenarios". You repeat it when pressed for clarification. But somehow when I say you did I'm the bad guy for re(_not mis_)presenting you and for saying how it invalidates your case? Here as well...the mind truly boggles.
> 
> As for the other way around...I don't need to work nearly as hard as you to show you're the one misrepresenting stuff. No need to cherrypick anything or go through your convolutions or re-explain a probability distribution. I say very simply "150M/45% of the population has likely been infected" in my first post. You reply "no you're wrong to say _75%_, it's 45%" (here). In that link, you are not only literally saying I am wrong to say that much (something I didn't say), and then to add insult to injury you parade your "it's probably around 45%" like you are actually the one who came up with the number yourself. The exact number that was in the post you replied to  .Then as if that wasn't enough for you despite my replies, you pretend I later even said 80% (here). Just show me where I said either 75% or 80% or else stop trying to walk back all your hypocrisy now with cherrypicking. I have already shown you a multitude of other mischaracterizations on your end btw, and you had not bothered to answer _on a single one_. The single one you try to pin on me is easily disproven and for what. Just more attacks against me without any contribution to the discussion? Not sure what you're trying to gain, especially as I thought you didn't have time for this.
> 
> In any case, can you please, _please _stop with your "haha I said 1 order of magnitude, so I'm always right" stuff? Saying nothing of substance is ... one way to not say much that is wrong, sure (although you _do _manage to screw even that up by saying it could get 10 times worse), but it also means you're not saying anything at all. I don't even feel like re-typing something different so there goes:



Can you tell me with 100% confidence that 6 million people will not die from covid? Can you tell me with 100% confidence that neither of us will get struck by lightning?

You are really nitpicking on wording when it makes you feel right and then ignoring it when it makes you wrong. Yes, there "could" statistically be 6 million deaths, but it is so unlikely at the current time that the world "could" should not be implied to mean "will".

I'll say there similarly "could" be 6 million lymphoma cases, but it is also so unlikely that it shouldn't mean "will".

It really amazes me that the tail end of the distribution for the number of possible covid deaths is irrelevant to you, but the tail of the expected vaccine deaths is so important to you that you will fight someone to the death to prove you are right. Please be consistent.

I think we are done here. Have a good time arguing with someone else. It is insufferable to read through you rants to try to extract maybe 10% of the useful discussion through the insults and random unrelated brain dump.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> Can you tell me with 100% confidence that 6 million people will not die from covid? Can you tell me with 100% confidence that neither of us will get struck by lightning?
> 
> You are really nitpicking on wording when it makes you feel right and then ignoring it when it makes you wrong. Yes, there "could" statistically be 6 million deaths, but it is so unlikely at the current time that the world "could" should not be implied to mean "will".
> 
> I'll say there similarly "could" be 6 million lymphoma cases, but it is also so unlikely that it shouldn't mean "will".
> 
> It really amazes me that the tail end of the distribution for the number of possible covid deaths is irrelevant to you, but the tail of the expected vaccine deaths is so important to you that you will fight someone to the death to prove you are right. Please be consistent.
> 
> I think we are done here. Have a good time arguing with someone else. It is insufferable to read through you rants to try to extract maybe 10% of the useful discussion through the insults and random unrelated brain dump.



So you _did _say "it could get 10 times worse". And you _did _say "it could be 6 million deaths".
I guess there was really no reason for you to insult me just for saying you did, then! Wow. And I did not mischaracterize anything you said either, then. Wow. That sure was some wasted fury on your part.

It sounds really _really _hard for you to admit stuff. So, _sooo _hard that even while trying to admit-it-but-not-really ("OK I said it, but this", "OK I said it, but that", "OK I said it, but uR wronger because..."), you still find ways to be insulting and try to pin _your _choice of scenarios and _your _choice of outcomes..._on me_ somehow  . All the insults you used above. All your belittling about me not knowing how stats work, proven wrong, and yet you can't even get a real "OK I said it" that would show a bit of self-reflection, and make you a little bit less toxic. No, you have to try and attack, again. We can't ever move forward in a discussion if it takes you 4 pages of misdirection, insults and strawman arguments before you're to "admit" (if we can even call it that) the simplest stuff that _you said_. We can't have a discussion if you walk back half your points and throw them under the rug to move the goalposts and insult the moment you feel challenged. We could talk about the shape of an imagined distribution of yours, but you don't even want to pick one. You're the one trying to win on both fronts with "it could get 10 times worse, you need to be careful" but also "no it could not get 10 times worse I'm not dumb". Just like weighing everything by 1 order of magnitude (1 death is the same as 10 deaths to your analysis), you're basically saying a whole lot of nothing, and its opposite too. While insulting me in the process.

Talking about self-reflection, interesting part is that you were and are still unable (it's only the 5th time I ask but whatever) to tell me why _you _however decided to misrepresent all my arguments with a bunch of lies instead, and have no issue with that. I provided a couple of clear cut examples for you to pick from btw, but crickets. Even now in this very reply by the way. Like that funny bit: when trying to get your "win" by saying "the world _could _should not be implied to mean it _will_" ....as if you're bringing light onto the world with all your infinite wisdom, but in actuality in reply to a paragraph where I literally, and I mean _literally _effing _started_ with "I didn't pretend you said it *will* get 10x worse, only that it could" . Here I'll jog your memory considering reading the post you're replying to is hard apparently:


> I didn't pretend you said "it *will* get 10x worse". But you clearly did say "it *could *get 10 times worse".



At this point are you just tacking on more additional intellectual dishonesty on top just for the fun? Literally replying "uR dumb, because it does not mean it will" in reply to something where I literally start by "I'm not saying it means it will"? Or did you _just now _understand the difference between "could" and "will" in what I said and think you have to enlighten us too  ?

Oh but I guess we'll never know since (for the third time now is it?) you think you've "won" the discussion and want to leave it at that, right? Too bad, or I guess we'll see you again when you think of another insult for me or another way to jump in without adding anything to the discussion. Or maybe I'll see you back to explain why it's OK for _you _to mischaracterize everything I said? After all you're so good at doing it that you just did it a couple more times just in this one post! lmao, who am I kidding, in the list of things that are never going to happen, this is the one that's never going to happen the most


----------



## Drew

mbardu said:


> Your arguments are pretty flawed - I'm sure you must realize it:
> 
> "the death rate is 1.7% because we have 500k deaths on 30M positive tests" is gone the moment you remember that a _large _majority of people were carriers with little to no symptoms and were _not tested_. Even the CDC warns about it, and there might already have been anywhere between 100 and 180M Americans with the disease - out of which you are only taking into account the 33M officially confirmed ones. So the 1.7% is incredibly flawed from the start.
> Randomly doubling _that _as a cherry on top, is pretty preposterous. Excess deaths do show that totals are slightly higher than strictly using the Covid-deaths counted by the CDC, but that is likely to be for the exact same reason as the above. Covid tracking is slightly under-counting actual impact. Other causes of death are roughly unchanged. If you have any source on why doubling makes sense, I'd gladly take a look. In the meantime, the _actual _historical data for the last year (including the worst months with overrun hospitals when Covid was pretty much running free in the US) is readily available on the CDC website (easy csv format too) and does not show that made-up doubling at all.
> The death rate early on is naturally higher than the long run one. The earlier more fragile populations are impacted first, the first strains of virus are typically deadlier, and medical care, no matter what you think, have indeed progressed significantly over a year... Overall death rates trend down pretty consistently. Lots of sources, but Jama one if you'd like.


I don't have time to do this justice, but... no.

1) we don't have a good handle on how many people were asymptomatic and went untested, but on the same token, we do know that some of those positive tests were repeats - I think my fiancee is up to ten tests by now, thanks in part to her profession.
2) the confirmed covid death count is half the number of excess deaths. It's not random, though you may disagree with the line of thought here - ultimately, if people are dying at a highly elevated rate, with the totals twice the confirmed covid deaths, it doesn't mater if the other half of the deaths were undiagnosed Covid, or *insert something else that was untreated because we were too busy fighting covid* because in either case people are still dying at a highly elevated rate as a direct result or byproduct of the pandemic.
3) I think we got a pretty good handle on how to treat covid by the time of the fall wave, personally. Early datys, sure... but a relatively small percent of the deaths date back to the early days.

But, the bigger issue is a #4 you're not really addressing - you think all the analysis there is bullshit. Say you're right. Say only half again the number of people would have died in 2021 as did in 2020, and say furthermore that those "excess deaths" which put the 2020 death count closer to a million than a half million would have happened _anyway_, and people were just dying in weirdly elevated rates in 2020 for reasons that had nothing at all to do with the pandemic.

If all of that were true - which it clearly isn't, but let's pretend it is - then vaccinnation when we did, as aggressively as we did, would still probably be expected to save the lives of the better part of a quarter million Americans. I don't know about you, but I think cutting the "lives saved" estimation down from 4 million Americans, to 250,000 Americans... and the calculus is STILL that vaccination makes sense purely from the perspective of the amount of lives it's going to say, and that has nothing to do with the economy.

250,000 Americans who are not going to die this year because of a vaccine may not be quite as compelling as 4,000,000 Americans who are not going to die, I _guess_, but at that point, we're still splitting hairs and the exact number of lives saved is still firmly in the category I'd call "a fucking LOT."


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> I don't have time to do this justice, but... no.
> 1) we don't have a good handle on how many people were asymptomatic and went untested, but on the same token, we do know that some of those positive tests were repeats - I think my fiancee is up to ten tests by now, thanks in part to her profession.



Do you have anything more argumented than just a "no" by any chance? A link or source if you don't have time to make the argument yourself? I mean...You feel there must have been 30M or less infections in the US so far, you dubiously imply it could be even _less _due to double counting (while ignoring that people don't test positive anymore a week after they're done with Covid) and you base your thinking on that. But some people have worked to get some estimates instead of just feelings and dubious claims. We _do _have some handle actually, I already linked to it twice for that matter. I even included the chart before.
Even with old data (almost six months ago), even according to the conservative CDC, it was already way (_way_) more than the 30M you base your entire calculation on.
But don't let actual sources and data distract from what you "feel" must be the case, sure.
Even you colleague above (frootloop or something) who hates my guts has acknowledged the number must actually be closer to 150M total infections. If that isn't an incredible touchstone, I don't know what is . It must even be _very _right since he tried to pass it as his own finding after I raised it .



Drew said:


> 2) the confirmed covid death count is half the number of excess deaths. It's not random, though you may disagree with the line of thought here - ultimately, if people are dying at a highly elevated rate, with the totals twice the confirmed covid deaths, it doesn't mater if the other half of the deaths were undiagnosed Covid, or *insert something else that was untreated because we were too busy fighting covid* because in either case people are still dying at a highly elevated rate as a direct result or byproduct of the pandemic.



Again, this is a lie.
Confirmed deaths as of today are a 605k.
_Actual _numbers (not made up in your mind) all the way from _late 2019 _show excess deaths at 698k if you take the _high _range of the count from the CDC. Is 698k double 605k now? Again, don't let actual facts and things like "arithmetic" get in the way right?

Source for count of confirmed deaths is pretty much everywhere.
Link for actual count of excess deaths: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm



Drew said:


> 3) I think we got a pretty good handle on how to treat covid by the time of the fall wave, personally. Early datys, sure... but a relatively small percent of the deaths date back to the early days.
> 
> But, the bigger issue is a #4 you're not really addressing - you think all the analysis there is bullshit. Say you're right. Say only half again the number of people would have died in 2021 as did in 2020, and say furthermore that those "excess deaths" which put the 2020 death count closer to a million than a half million would have happened _anyway_, and people were just dying in weirdly elevated rates in 2020 for reasons that had nothing at all to do with the pandemic.



I won't say bullshit out of politeness, but all your analysis above _is just wrong_. There's no 2 way about it. It's easily proven with just 2 links. The sources above make that extremely clear, no matter how you feel about it. Infections are way higher than the 30M that you think. Excess deaths are way lower than the "double the Covid count" as you think. 698k != 2x600k. I'm not making this stuff up, you literally have the links if you want to check!



Drew said:


> If all of that were true - which it clearly isn't, but let's pretend it is - then vaccinnation when we did, as aggressively as we did, would still probably be expected to save the lives of the better part of a quarter million Americans. I don't know about you, but I think cutting the "lives saved" estimation down from 4 million Americans, to 250,000 Americans... and the calculus is STILL that vaccination makes sense purely from the perspective of the amount of lives it's going to say, and that has nothing to do with the economy.
> 
> 250,000 Americans who are not going to die this year because of a vaccine may not be quite as compelling as 4,000,000 Americans who are not going to die, I _guess_, but at that point, we're still splitting hairs and the exact number of lives saved is still firmly in the category I'd call "a fucking LOT."



Oh it's 4 million now? I thought you said 8 million initially? I find it interesting that you silently walk back your initial claim of 8 Million at risk, and it's now down randomly to half - but hey, you're not the first to walk back your initial outrageous point and move the goal posts. But even_ that _4 million is hysterical fear mongering though.

Take the worst possible case imaginable. Like, absolute worst. Only 100 million American have been infected so far. Let's say the traditional vaccine that I recommend since the beginning has absolutely _0 efficacy_, despite all the trials showing it's very good. Say Covid-19 becomes the one and only disease where it's capable of infecting, not just 70% of a population. Not even say 80%, all concepts of herd immunity be damned. Say it can infect _almost 100%_ of the population. It has never happened to any disease before, but OK, let's say we could _triple _infection counts in that case! Say we have made absolutely _zero progress_ in treating the disease as well, and getting significantly better hospitalization/survival outcomes is not a thing, despite all the literature to the contrary. Say we now take the _high _range of Covid excess deaths (700k), not even the median or something in between. The high. And say that somehow the most vulnerable people haven't already died from Covid, and somehow we're not _any _better at saving lives than a year ago, so just multiply _that _by 3, and you are at _half_ your 4 million. Even with outrageously pessimistic assumptions you're at least exaggerating by 2 (by 4 if we use the actual 8 million you initially used and are now silently trying to sweep under the rug).

And that's being outrageous. So you're not making me a favor or anything by saying "it might be 250k at risk". It's just a fact that this is what we are looking at if we use the actual data. 4/8 million was never the risk, and you hanging on to it is not the rational thing to do. At least it's good that you're slowly acknowledging that this is the much more reasonable scale of things that we're actually looking at - not 8 millions. I'll call that progress.
Now for those 250k, no matter how you portray me as an antivaxer (despite my recommendation to _literally use a vaccine_ - the traditional one), I never said we should do nothing. My point has simply been from the start that maybe we can focus on giving the adults without immunity the traditional vaccine, and this should mechanically protect a large majority of those 250k people, because for practical purposes, we are already almost at herd immunity at this point. Contrast that to arbitrarily vaccinating more and more people, including literal children, including people already having immunity, including children already having immunity - all _specifically _with a new vaccine tech which may have unknown long term effects... I see little upside, and a big unknown. I mean, you are free to think that all human inventions (the mRNA vaccines in this case) have always been problem free, and no human invention has ever caused unforeseen issues down the road. I personally think the examples of exactly the opposite are plenty, including in the medical field.


----------



## TedEH

I'm barely reading the posts anymore, but this is a huge amount of argument to put forward to defend an unknown unknown - and to what end? You're not going to change anyone's mind. I maintain that even not really following any of the math, it's pretty shitty to nitpick about unknown unknowns just to encourage hesitation to participate in a low-risk high-benefit-to-everyone-else activity.


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## mbardu

TedEH said:


> I'm barely reading the posts anymore, but this is a huge amount of argument to put forward to defend an unknown unknown - and to what end? You're not going to change anyone's mind. I maintain that even not really following any of the math, it's pretty shitty to nitpick about unknown unknowns just to encourage hesitation to participate in a low-risk high-benefit-to-everyone-else activity.



At the end of the day, it's not even a huge argument. It's just that the bulk of my replies have to be about defending against strawman arguments, because people have a knee-jerk reaction and really _really _want to portray me as unscientific antivaxxer. Ironically, despite being pretty much the only one not relying on feelings, and actually linking sources and methodology instead - and the fact that I largely recommend a vaccine. 

It's fine if you don't want to read through, there's a lot as a result of the above - and it must be quite boring  . I just always find those answers the strangest though. "I'm not going to read all of it, but you're wrong and won't convince me". Sure I guess. But that's just admitting you don't want to go beyond your bias and try to even be open-minded to convincing. It's fine, but I'm not sure why boast about it.


----------



## TedEH

That's been thousands of words over, what, a dozen pages? I count that as a huge argument.


----------



## Drew

mbardu said:


> At the end of the day, it's not even a huge argument. It's just that the bulk of my replies have to be about defending against strawman arguments, because people have a knee-jerk reaction and really _really _want to portray me as unscientific antivaxxer. Ironically, despite being pretty much the only one not relying on feelings, and actually linking sources and methodology instead - and the fact that I largely recommend a vaccine.


No, at the end of the day, it's about the fact you think this was, and I quote:


mbardu said:


> You said it yourself, economy is _such _the number one concern that the adverse effects of a vaccine would need to be _tremendous _for it to change the incentives and the machine that restarts the economy.



I'm not sure what the number is where it stops being about "saving the economy" and starts being about "saving human lives," but my point is simply that we can debate what that number is, exactly, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter if the estimation of the cost of not vaccinating is 4,000,000 lives or 250,000 lives, because in either case the crossover point is WELL below that number.


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## mbardu

TedEH said:


> That's been thousands of words over, what, a dozen pages? I count that as a huge argument.



Yeah sorry, misunderstanding.
I meant my arguments, or my points are fairly straightforward with just a couple of sources.

The arguments because i am constantly defending against personal attacks, strawman and mischaracterizations, yeah that's a bunch


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## mbardu

Drew said:


> No, at the end of the day, it's about the fact you think this was, and I quote:
> 
> 
> I'm not sure what the number is where it stops being about "saving the economy" and starts being about "saving human lives," but my point is simply that we can debate what that number is, exactly, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter if the estimation of the cost of not vaccinating is 4,000,000 lives or 250,000 lives, because in either case the crossover point is WELL below that number.



Ok i guess that's one way to shift the goalposts and talk about something absolutely not related instead of answering on even a _single_ point  . Wow, literally 0 effort.
But again, ill take it at least as a win that you have taken down your 8 million down to 4 million, down to 250k, and then we can discuss what to do for those. Because nobody said "do nothing" and i even discussed that part in the above that you chose to ignore.

One step at a time I guess...
At least we're done with the "millions could die" made up hysteria, because that was not conducive to a rational discussion, that's for sure.

As for saving human lives, the rational thing to do would have been to close for a month worldwide a year ago. Forget everything else and hunker down to actually save people. Millions would have been saved. Incidentally this would also have been the best for the economy btw. But that ship has sailed because saving lives never became the priority and now we're in a shitty mish mash of incompetence and bad incentives. Anyone who thinks our leadership has been and is being rational and competent is a bit delusional.


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> Yeah sorry, misunderstanding.
> I meant my arguments, or my points are fairly straightforward with just a couple of sources.
> 
> The arguments because i am constantly defending against personal attacks, strawman and mischaracterizations, yeah that's a bunch



Dude, I already said that only 10% of what you wrote to me alone was relevant to the discussion. Discussion with just me was nearly 500 words with a majority attacking me or defending yourself before I even stopped caring to be nice.

You are repeatedly making this a *huge* argument and all the excess wording is making it very far from *straightforward* for anyone reading your responses.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> shift the goalposts


I mean, if you're going to talk about shifting goalposts, you've written thousands of words to jump from "I'm a bit hesitant about vaccines" to "the numbers don't add up, so clearly our leadership is incompetent", which are not the same argument. Maybe the goalposts aren't _moving_ so much as _people just have different goals_.



mbardu said:


> ill take it at least as a win


Why is it so important to "win" this conversation? Even if you're right and everyone else is wrong, what does that accomplish?



mbardu said:


> Anyone who thinks our leadership has been and is being rational and competent is a bit delusional.


I don't think anyone here thinks leadership has been great regarding the whole pandemic. But what does that have to do with anything? _Are we moving the goalposts here?_



mbardu said:


> the rational thing to do would have been to close for a month worldwide a year ago.


Seems awfully naive to me to think that you could convince all of the US, let alone the world, to listen to an instruction like that for month. "Close" is also pretty vague - lots of places did close things down pretty significantly and it didn't solve everything. You give so much as a bit of leeway to interpret "close" and people will find ways to do what they want.

At the end of the day.... can we move on? Nobody is changing any minds here.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> Dude, I already said that only 10% of what you wrote to me alone was relevant to the discussion. Discussion with just me was nearly 500 words with a majority attacking me or defending yourself before I even stopped caring to be nice.
> 
> You are repeatedly making this a *huge* argument and all the excess wording is making it very far from *straightforward* for anyone reading your responses.



Whereas your here post adds so much to the argumented discussion right 

I gotta say I'm impressed. You manage to not even last one page after your 3rd "im out", and are not even pretending to answer anything at all now? Just jump to attack me just because? Wow.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> I mean, if you're going to talk about shifting goalposts, you've written thousands of words to jump from "I'm a bit hesitant about vaccines" to "the numbers don't add up, so clearly our leadership is incompetent", which are not the same argument. Maybe the goalposts aren't _moving_ so much as _people just have different goals_.



That's not shifting the goalposts. Shifting the goalposts is:

"it could be 8 million dead", and when proven wrong going "I meant it could be 4 million dead", and when proven wrong, going "OK it's only 250k but you don't care about human life you're an antivax"
or:

"it could get 10 times worse", and when proven wrong going "I didn't actually _mean _it could get 10 times worse", and when proven wrong straight up inventing things like "you pretended I said it *will*, not *could*, so you're wrong"
Shifting the goalposts means you have to answer on the first thing and disprove it. Then the person shifts it to something else (never acknowledging anything), and you have to disprove that. And they then shift to something else. And then complain that the discussion takes long 

Shifting the goalposts would be if someone provided a documented source of why I am wrong on my initial argument (so far I've been the only one with sources) and me then trying to sweep my initial argument under the rug and pivoting to something else for them to answer. I still stand by any of my original points, I just said _also _that our leadership is incompetent. Those are unrelated things.



TedEH said:


> Why is it so important to "win" this conversation? Even if you're right and everyone else is wrong, what does that accomplish?



Some people are interested in the discussion and in understanding things. If your discussion is based on wildly and easily provable falsehoods/hysteria (like "it could kill 8 million people"), then it is rotten from the start. So it's a win to me that we can do away with those falsehoods. Unless...you like people believing things that are easily proven false?



TedEH said:


> I don't think anyone here thinks leadership has been great regarding the whole pandemic. But what does that have to do with anything? _Are we moving the goalposts here?_



No, as mentioned that's not what moving goalposts means. Two things can be true at the same time, and unlike many, I have not had to walk back any of my points, mispresent others arguments', or create strawmen because I was unable to reply factually. "Leadership is incompetent" is just a separate observation altogether, and I'll stand by it as well.



TedEH said:


> Seems awfully naive to me to think that you could convince all of the US, let alone the world, to listen to an instruction like that for month. "Close" is also pretty vague - lots of places did close things down pretty significantly and it didn't solve everything. You give so much as a bit of leeway to interpret "close" and people will find ways to do what they want.



I said exactly that before. That I'm not naïve and that this would have been very difficult. Doesn't mean it wouldn't have been the right thing to do.
As for what "close" means, the implications, the impacts, example countries, and in which cases it works or doesn't work, I detailed a bunch in the 2 previous pages.

Cheers


----------



## bostjan

@mbardu it might be worth trying to understand the point at which the who dogpile started (or maybe not).

You made two claims a few pages ago. Something about how, if everyone had stayed at home for a month, it would have been better than a vaccine and the second claim was something about how the medical industry has given up searching for a treatment.

Are those a fair characterization, or do I need to go dig up the exact wording you used?

If so, I think most of the past few pages of the thread were backlash because of how crazy it is to assume that getting everyone, worldwide, to stay at home for one month, without a single case of congregation outside of any household, globally, is preposterous.

If that is not a proper characterization of your first enumerated claim, then maybe there was just a massive misunderstanding.


----------



## TedEH

^ I was under the impression the original dogpile was on comments about vax hesitancy - a claim that the vaccines are at a high enough risk of some unknown long term side-effect that we should be limiting who we give it to.


----------



## thebeesknees22

TedEH said:


> ^ I was under the impression the original dogpile was on comments about vax hesitancy - a claim that the vaccines are at a high enough risk of some unknown long term side-effect that we should be limiting who we give it to.




That's how it seemed to me too, then my eyes started glazing over from all the text and I stopped reading. Damn my millennial short attention span.


----------



## nightflameauto

I haven't been participating in this thread the past few days specifically because it felt like somebody was spinning as hard as they could to drum up a fight, and I've watched that sort of thing play out often enough to just not much feel like dealing with it.


thebeesknees22 said:


> That's how it seemed to me too, then my eyes started glazing over from all the text and I stopped reading. Damn my millennial short attention span.


I'm not millennial and I tend to read a *TON* of super long form writing, some of it extremely dry on what most would consider boring topics like astrophysics, the history and origins of life, theoretical physics and astrobiology, and my eyes glazed over about page two of this ongoing war of words. It's a whole lot of writing to not really make any salient points. Or at least not any that can be sorted out from all the attempted put downs and defensive bullshit.

I will say, while it's really added to the overall word count, it's made what has mostly been an informative and friendly conversation into something that feels much more confrontational and antagonistic. So, you know, we got that going for us.


----------



## bostjan

TedEH said:


> ^ I was under the impression the original dogpile was on comments about vax hesitancy - a claim that the vaccines are at a high enough risk of some unknown long term side-effect that we should be limiting who we give it to.


Oh.
Well, I don't know who said what, but we _are_ limiting who we give the vaccine to, so...


----------



## TedEH

I think we went off the rails at approximately this point:


Drew said:


> FWIW, I don't think this was about the economy.





mbardu said:


> Your arguments are pretty flawed - I'm sure you must realize it:



And I know that we do limit who we give vaccines to, but not much. I read the suggestion as being that we should be limiting _more:_


mbardu said:


> In a world where many *(and I mean _many_) people already likely have antibodies, picking a vaccine that's less of an unknown quantity, not administering to people who already have immunity, not administering to 8 year old kids etc... There are a few things that could drop the risk factor by an order of magnitude if something wrong _was to happen_. And it would help if everyone stopped pretending like we know everything for sure and _this time it's different_. Usually that doesn't end well.


And there were other comments, but I don't feel like digging. The phrasing/message, as I took it, was that vaccines are riskier than we think.

I don't know what it's like in other places, but here you can get the vaccine (and are recommended to do so) as long as you're at least 12. We don't check for antibodies first, and we don't generally filter out who gets which version, other than there being some restrictions around who can get AZ based on age, I think.
Actually, the messaging from Quebec has been that the mRNA options are described as being the _more safe_ option for pregnant women, so that's a thing.


----------



## spudmunkey

The way i understand it, that the reason authorizations for younger people is taking a bit longer, is really just dosage. The Previous "under 18" range that was given emergency authorization was still for the adult dose. Now, though, for the next range, the task is determining the proper dosage/schedule for those in this newer/younger age range.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> @mbardu it might be worth trying to understand the point at which the who dogpile started (or maybe not).
> 
> You made two claims a few pages ago. Something about how, if everyone had stayed at home for a month, it would have been better than a vaccine and the second claim was something about how the medical industry has given up searching for a treatment.
> 
> Are those a fair characterization, or do I need to go dig up the exact wording you used?



It's not exactly how I would characterize it. If that got lost along the way, the points I made were a couple of separate things:


I _do _believe closing shop worldwide for real a year ago would have ended the pandemic and saved millions of lives. We have enough examples to show that its possible to bring down even large circulation to basically 0 with good measures in place. Yes it takes effort on the population for a month or two, but ends up being significantly less costly from all standpoints (loss of life & economy). I did not make any claim as to how that related specifically to vaccines
Separately from that:

Since we did not do the above, a lot of countries are now in a state where roughly half the population had already been infected by the virus. We are not at all in the same place we would have been at 1%/5%/10%
Scenarios relying on hysteria (it could still kill millions in the US if we did nothing) are false. This is not saying we should do nothing, it's just saying we don't need to make up stuff and succumb to mass hysteria _now _as we assess risk-benefits discussions. We should have freaked out a year ago and closed up shop to actually save lives and we didn't...panic rarely leads to logic. In other words, I don't like inflated BS, sue me 
The science on vaccines is not monolithic.

The traditional vaccines are very good at preventing Covid. They are also enough of a known quantity that we can draw from history to at least infer that long term risks should be very low.
The novel vaccines are _amazing _at preventing Covid. They are _definitely not_ a know quantity long term though, and may have unforeseen side effects. I didn't pretend to know that _they will_ have side effects. It's just pretty common for novel inventions in history (medical history included) to have side effects that we understand much later. Here, especially because the lymphatic system is still not understood that well. When I joined the discussion, there were a number of comments to the effect of "_we know_ the vaccines don't have any long term side effect", and that is not true - we don't know.
There is a lot of "opinion" that everyone should get vaccinated, even if they have already had Covid and have strong antibody protection. However, I have not found much science on the topic. I don't know for sure of course, but I do find it unlikely that there is benefit in most cases to getting vaccinated if you already had Covid. The numbers for Covid reinfections are so small that the handful that were serious made the worlwide news. Still - that's debatable, but even if "I've had Covid already" is not enough a criteria, we know how to test for and measure antibodies
There is no serious study on benefits of vaccination to children. It's mixed and mostly opinion at that point
Based on the above, my take on it was that:

We have a good traditional vaccine
We have already a lot of infections and people with antibodies
With current infections, and remaining non vaccinated adults getting vaccinated, we can _easily _get to herd immunity
As a result, we could negate the scale and risk of any potential side effect of novel vaccines simply by limiting the population getting it. Instead, the current policies we're pushing will have those administered (as a couple of shots, plus likely future boosters), to _billions _of people. I believe it's pretty risky to borderline unethical to do something like that (novel medical technology) at such a scale in such a short window of time. And not only is that a first, but we could do without to get to herd immunity
The children discussion was a bit on the side. Usually we apply more caution to children, especially ethically because, should there be long term side effects, they would pay a higher cost than, say the 65+. This time around we're "_relatively_" rushing to get children as young as 12/8 vaccinated with the novel vaccines. There is no strong evidence of benefit, but if we still must - I'd still think ethically it would be a better choice to use the traditional vaccine. It is significantly more similar to those in the existing pediatric vaccine schedule anyway- and those have been shown to be very safe even over the long term
After that, there are nuances - like maybe older populations where the novel vaccine work even better, and the risk and impact of any novel vaccine long-term effect is minimized even further; that's different from the younger population's tradeoff. I was just trying to summarize.

Along the way I did comment as well on things like incompetent and irrational leadership, and on short term poor incentives that lead to poor decisions (such as _not even trying_ to close for real for example). That was not my main goal, but there were a couple of points about how the rational thing to do was to listen to the rational leadership, whereas this whole crisis has clearly highlighted a certain lack of rationality and competence on their part. Well except in places like AUS/NZ who did manage to close for the greater good.

I'd take any challenge to any of the above. But most of the attacks against me have been:

you don't think vaccines are effective
you would let millions die in the US
you don't believe and understand science
you don't know how to count
you want to do nothing
Or any number of made-up strawman arguments, and this is what has occupied most of the posts.


----------



## StevenC

ITT: people who didn't read the Kiesel Never Again thread


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> borderline unethical


Honestly, I think things got off the rails because you'll be saying things that generally make sense, then just throw some random detail in there that makes the whole more difficult to take. Like, yeah, if we believe there's a risk involved in vaccinating people who already got infected once (I don't think many believe this), then it would follow that it's reasonable to avoid doing that - but then you call it "unethical" as if we're forcing people to do it (we're not).


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> Honestly, I think things got off the rails because you'll be saying things that generally make sense, then just throw some random detail in there that makes the whole more difficult to take. Like, yeah, if we believe there's a risk involved in vaccinating people who already got infected once (I don't think many believe this), then it would follow that it's reasonable to avoid doing that - but then you call it "unethical" as if we're forcing people to do it (we're not).



For practical purposes, we _are _effectively forcing more and more people.
Not everywhere has access to a choice of vaccine, and yet some places (recently like France) are restricting more and more things to people who have not been vaccinated yet. Like restricting access to not only recreational activities, but shopping centers as well. You can survive with not going to a concert. Much less so if you cannot feed yourself and your family. Not to mention schooling, when we're talking about children. So at some point, you don't really have much of a choice.

And I get it. As a vaccine proponent in general, it's for the societal greater good.
But when we have unknowns and alternatives that include another vaccine, that's the part I'm talking about.

And just to clarify, I didn't say there's a risk in vaccinating people who got covid, and a risk _because _they got infected once. I'm saying there _may not be a benefit. A_nd we can check for antibodies. Yet if we go the systematic route, pushed by the hysteria of "millions more could die in the US", we're just needlessly adding those bodies to the pile of possible candidates for novel vaccine side effects. A pile that I think we could make smaller, so that if there _were _to be side effects of the novel vaccine, even with a low % of risk, that the downside would not still be huge just because we're multiplying by billions.


----------



## thebeesknees22

he keeps calling scenarios on covid killing millions of people hysteria too, but ah... looking at the numbers 4million people have died from it world wide already. Just sayin'


----------



## mbardu

thebeesknees22 said:


> he keeps calling scenarios on covid killing millions of people hysteria too, but ah... looking at the numbers 4million people have died from it world wide already. Just sayin'



Indeed, 4 million _worldwide _through the worst of the pandemic - and it's disheartening. Especially because actual coordinated closure could have saved _a lot_ those people.

Saying Covid could still kill 6/8 Million people from now onwards _in the US only_, and make that the driver of your argument...that's a straight up different story that yes, is pretty much hysteria.


----------



## thebeesknees22

is it though over a period of a decade or 20 years? 

if 50% of americans refuse to get vaccinated then Covid will never go away. The virus keeps evolving, killing faster/getting people sicker quicker. If we're at 400k in the first year. (currently 600k dead) 8 million dead in a decade isn't totally unfathomable as the virus continues to have more variants. 

If more people get vaccinated then the odds decrease dramatically of that happening. 

What's yer next argument pilgrim.


----------



## mbardu

thebeesknees22 said:


> is it though over a period of a decade or 20 years?
> 
> if 50% of americans refuse to get vaccinated then Covid will never go away. The virus keeps evolving, killing faster/getting people sicker quicker. If we're at 400k in the first year. (currently 600k dead) 8 million dead in a decade isn't totally unfathomable as the virus continues to have more variants.
> 
> If more people get vaccinated then the odds decrease dramatically of that happening.
> 
> What's yer next argument pilgrim.



You're not making new points that nobody has brought up before. With half the population already infected (where we are _today_), we have had 600k deaths so far. Even if we didn't get any better at treatment (which we did), even if the most vulnerable had not already suffered the worst losses etc etc (I covered this exact point with Drew on the last pages with a few more arguments), it would be, at worst, and to really simplify, twice what we have today. Likely much lower.

But that's not even important, because if you _actually read_ what I wrote you'll see I agree: people who don't have immunity already _should _get vaccinated - and with that we'll soon be at herd immunity since we're so close already.


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> Whereas your here post adds so much to the argumented discussion right
> 
> I gotta say I'm impressed. You manage to not even last one page after your 3rd "im out", and are not even pretending to answer anything at all now? Just jump to attack me just because? Wow.



I'll let anyone else judge whether my post added value. You are extremely biased 

There is no point in being a part of a discussion with you. You are more interested in being right and shitting on people than having a conversation. Nothin I say will make you act respectful or analyze your own logic. I've dealt with people like you at work for over 20 years, they usually stir the pot and quit or get fired within a year. Everyone moves on and no one cares outside of joking about their behavioral issues. The best thing I can contribute here is for you to drastically reevaluate your communication style and ego. I was wrong to even engage you. I added you to my ignore list. It made the thread tolerable again.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> There is no point in being a part of a discussion with you. You are more interested in being right and shitting on people than having a conversation. Nothin I say will make you act respectful or analyze your own logic. I've dealt with people like you at work for over 20 years, they usually stir the pot and quit or get fired within a year. Everyone moves on and no one cares outside of joking about their behavioral issues. The best thing I can contribute here is for you to drastically reevaluate your communication style and ego. I was wrong to even engage you. I added you to my ignore list. It made the thread tolerable again.



Cool- Another very useful post! You really like trying to change the record after the fact, don't you? At least it's clear from your posts who was misrepresenting the other's points, while being confrontational and belittling. If it _wasn't_ clear from your _very first_ reply for some reason, at least you make sure that it's clear all the way through with _this here last/current post._ Well I'll tell you what, at least you're unyieldingly consistent.

Unless your here post above was supposed to be respectful and friendly? In which case I'll give you a 10/10*** on respect then (***_actually 1/10 because numbers don't matter and we can do everything at one order of magnitude apparently_) .Oooh the irony .

So I guess bye for the time being... You _will _be missed! Or you _could _be missed. I don't know, they're the same thing to you, right? Or not I guess, because according to your logic "yes" and "no" essentially mean the same thing too.

What is it now - the 5th time we're saying goodbyes? How time flies... At this rate, what's the chance we see you again with another attack against me? I'd say about 50%, so by your very own logic I guess I can be about 80% confident (since it's the same thing) so talk to you soon .


----------



## thebeesknees22

On another note, a family member shared a post to "pray for X" on fb just now. 

I read the post and it was for the husband of a nurse back home in Southern MO. 

The nurse wasn't vaccinated. She didn't seem to be an anti-vaxxer. Apparently she just kept putting it off, and so did Mr X. (or so she said)

Now he's lying in the hospital with Covid and it seems that he most likely isn't going to make it. (the post seemed like he was on his way out)

It feels weird to peer into the world of people that are either too lazy, or are anti-vaxx, or just don't make it a priority, and to see them expressing that regret when everyone in my immediate circle are all getting their shots.


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> Cool- Another very useful post! You really like trying to change the record after the fact, don't you? At least it's clear from your posts who was misrepresenting the other's points, while being confrontational and belittling. If it _wasn't_ clear from your _very first_ reply for some reason, at least you make sure that it's clear all the way through with _this here latest/current post._ Well I'll tell you what, at least you're consistent.
> 
> Unless your here post above was supposed to be respectful and friendly? In which case I'll give you a 10/10*** on respect then (***_actually 1/10 because numbers don't matter and we can do everything at one order of magnitude apparently_) .Oooh the irony .
> 
> So I guess bye for the time being... You _will _be missed! Or you _could _be missed. I don't know, they're the same thing to you, right? Or not I guess, because according to your logic "yes" and "no" essentially mean the same thing too.
> 
> What is it now - the 5th time we're saying goodbyes? How time flies... At this rate, what's the chance we see you again with another attack against me? I'd say about 50%, so by your very own logic I guess I can be about 80% confident (since it's the same thing) so talk to you soon .


Project more. You are the one who has been misrepresenting things and belittling me since your very first response. Please stop trying to win with me and take a fucking hint. I already said you successfully got me to disengage with your charming personality. You won the internet. Everything is yours. What else do you want?


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> Not everywhere has access to a choice of vaccine


I assume you don't mean this literally? As in "don't have a choice because of societal pressure" or something like that? If not, where is it being forced?



mbardu said:


> You can survive with not going to a concert. Much less so if you cannot feed yourself and your family.


Most of the conversation has been US-centric - I'm pretty confident that in the US / Canada / most of Europe, etc., it's been entirely optional to get the vaccine (and free! It is here at least), and nothing about refusing the vaccine stops you from feeding your family. As far as I'm aware there are no "you can't buy groceries without a vaccine" rules or "you can't be employed without a vaccine" rules outside of something like maybe healthcare where it would be stupid to refuse protection. Who is starving because they didn't take the vaccine?



mbardu said:


> And just to clarify, I didn't say there's a risk in vaccinating people who got covid [...] we're just needlessly adding those bodies to the pile of possible candidates for novel vaccine side effects


What...?



mbardu said:


> it would be, at worst, and to really simplify, twice what we have today. Likely much lower.


I skipped a lot of the last few pages 'cause it was a rambly mess of arguing about arguments, but doesn't this hinge on the idea that you can't be reinfected? And doesn't THAT hinge on the idea that even if current variants can't re-infect that allowing mutations means we could end up with something that can?


----------



## TedEH

And again, I honestly think you'd get more traction as well if you didn't use phrases like "bodies to the pile" when talking about unknown-unknown potential side-effects of vaccines that most people aren't that worried about. I'm reasonably confident you're getting as much push back as you are because your responses are phrased so aggressively.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> Project more. You are the one who has been misrepresenting things and belittling me since your very first response. Please stop trying to win with me and take a fucking hint. I already said you successfully got me to disengage with your charming personality. You won the internet. Everything is yours. What else do you want?



Hey you're back! Well, that was quick!

You know what, you are right... I shouldn't have said you pretended infections were at 75%, then 80% when in fact it was clear you actually said 45%. That was an obvious misrepresentation. I shouldn't then have taken that number you showed&sourced and tried to pretend it was mine to discredit you. I shouldn't have said you were suggesting not to vaccinate after you explicitly said to vaccinate. I shouldn't have constantly shifted the goalposts from "it could get 10 times worse" to "I didn't mean it could get 10 times worse" to "bu bu but....you pretended I said it *will*, not *could*" after I literally said "could". Repeatedly. I shouldn't have told you that you know nothing and should just listen to the experts. I shouldn't have said you're dumb to smoke while worrying about the vaccine. Like, out of nowhere and I don't even smoke  . I shouldn't have said you were too stubborn while I was the one consistently ignoring 80% of your posts. I shouldn't have made all those strawman arguments in lieu of the actual things you said. I shouldn't have imagined assumptions about relative long-term risks of vaccine vs covid and put those words in your mouth while you had actually said no such thing. I shouldn't have said you were categorically spreading false information while you actually had firsthand knowledge. I shouldn't have accused you of saying that the vaccine will do this, or will do that, while you were literally only speaking about what _could _happen. I shouldn't have played smarter-than-thou and said you are not able to solve a simple college problem, while I was actually wrong on my whole argument. I shouldn't have said you're a dumb colleague from work who gets fired for behavioral issues.

Oh wait, no wait, oh no shit, it's actually _the opposite_ of what actually happened...
Then I guess it's OK since _you _are allowed to misrepresent and attack, right  ?


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> I assume you don't mean this literally? As in "don't have a choice because of societal pressure" or something like that? If not, where is it being forced?
> 
> 
> Most of the conversation has been US-centric - I'm pretty confident that in the US / Canada / most of Europe, etc., it's been entirely optional to get the vaccine (and free! It is here at least), and nothing about refusing the vaccine stops you from feeding your family. As far as I'm aware there are no "you can't buy groceries without a vaccine" rules or "you can't be employed without a vaccine" rules outside of something like maybe healthcare where it would be stupid to refuse protection. Who is starving because they didn't take the vaccine?



I don't know Canada well. I know the US, South East Asia, and Europe much better. The US - freedom will prevail, in at least a lot of states, so what I'm talking about just won't happen. In places in SE Asia and Europe, restrictions started as "you have to be vaccinated to go to large events and gatherings". No big deal. Then progressively extended to small events and things like practicing sports. Sure. Then recently, to some shopping centers. And they keep extending.
I'm not discussing the logic and merits of those measures - don't get me wrong. But I'm just saying that at some point, if you're not able to even go grocery shopping, it's tough to "Feed your family". So to some extent, it becomes indirectly mandatory.



TedEH said:


> What...?
> 
> ---------
> 
> And again, I honestly think you'd get more traction as well if you didn't use phrases like "bodies to the pile" when talking about unknown-unknown potential side-effects of vaccines that most people aren't that worried about. I'm reasonably confident you're getting as much push back as you are because your responses are phrased so aggressively.


What I meant. I didn't mean people who had been infected could specifically have a particular risk when taking the vaccine. I meant 1-they may not have a particular benefit, 2-we can test for antibodies, and yet 3-they'd maybe needlessly be participating in the novel-vaccine large scale experiment if something was to go wrong down the road.
I realized now that "bodies pile" could sound macabre so I shouldn't have said it that way - thank you for pointing it out. I just meant the bigger and bigger group that would be impacted should there be a side effect.

Let me offer a thought experiment.
It's 3 years ago. An experiment is proposed. We have this new drug that's using a brand new novel process that seems to be doing its job very well. We've made short term tests and they look good. We don't have any long term data at all, we don't know what it will do 20 years down the road, but we really want to give it to 4 billion humans, including many children. We have this other drug, that maybe doesn't work quite as bananas, but still quite good. We also know the long term effects of that other one quite well and it's pretty harmless. But you know what, we really _really _want to use the new one instead. So let's do it. Would you have been in favor of that experiment?



TedEH said:


> I skipped a lot of the last few pages 'cause it was a rambly mess of arguing about arguments, but doesn't this hinge on the idea that you can't be reinfected? And doesn't THAT hinge on the idea that even if current variants can't re-infect that allowing mutations means we could end up with something that can?



If the virus mutates a little, it tends to become more transmissible, but less deadly. If the virus mutates a lot, then we're not talking about Covid-19 anymore, and even current vaccines may not be a good protection. But like I said in the same post you only partially quoted, we can hopefully avoid that to a good extent if people (in priority adults) without immunity get vaccinated ( I still have a bias towards the traditional vaccine for most people) and we quickly get to herd immunity in as many places as possible. We're almost there.


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> I _do _believe closing shop worldwide for real a year ago would have ended the pandemic and saved millions of lives. We have enough examples to show that its possible to bring down even large circulation to basically 0 with good measures in place. Yes it takes effort on the population for a month or two, but ends up being significantly less costly from all standpoints (loss of life & economy). I did not make any claim as to how that related specifically to vaccines


Something weird about novel viral spread is that slowing the spread does _not_ yield fewer ultimate infections, it just takes longer for the apex to come.

So far, there is no cure for covid, and the effecacy of treatments are still very poor. If no one got the vax, it'd be ultimately way more infections. If they never develop a treatment that's as effective as the vaccine, that strategy would cost more lives.


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> Hey you're back! Well, that was quick!
> 
> You know what, you are right... I shouldn't have said you pretended infections were at 75%, then 80% when in fact it was clear you actually said 45%. That was an obvious misrepresentation. I shouldn't then have taken that number you showed&sourced and tried to pretend it was mine to discredit you. I shouldn't have said you were suggesting not to vaccinate after you explicitly said to vaccinate. I shouldn't have constantly shifted the goalposts from "it could get 10 times worse" to "I didn't mean it could get 10 times worse" to "bu bu but....you pretended I said it *will*, not *could*" after I literally said "could". Repeatedly. I shouldn't have told you that you know nothing and should just listen to the experts. I shouldn't have said you're dumb to smoke while worrying about the vaccine. Like, out of nowhere and I don't even smoke  . I shouldn't have said you were too stubborn while I was the one consistently ignoring 80% of your posts. I shouldn't have made all those strawman arguments in lieu of the actual things you said. I shouldn't have imagined assumptions about relative long-term risks of vaccine vs covid and put those words in your mouth while you had actually said no such thing. I shouldn't have said you were categorically spreading false information while you actually had firsthand knowledge. I shouldn't have accused you of saying that the vaccine will do this, or will do that, while you were literally only speaking about what _could _happen. I shouldn't have played smarter-than-thou and said you are not able to solve a simple college problem, while I was actually wrong on my whole argument. I shouldn't have said you're a dumb colleague from work who gets fired for behavioral issues.
> 
> Oh wait, no wait, oh no shit, it's actually _the opposite_ of what actually happened...
> Then I guess it's OK since _you _are allowed to misrepresent and attack, right  ?



I have asked you several times to stop talking to me. This is now harassment. From now on I will report every post replying to me with the same garbage. Just agree to disagree and move on.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> I have asked you several times to stop talking to me. This is now harassment. From now on I will report every post replying to me with the same garbage. Just agree to disagree and move on.



Oh no am I in trouble? Is your dad a Mod? And you're going to tell on me  ? Bu...bu..but..._you _keep talking to me though I don't get it, how does that even work ?

Anyway, tip for you. If you _actually _ignore me, you won't be seeing my posts anymore sooo I guess bye for the 7th time! I'll miss your (as always honest and argumented and not aggressive at all) replies which truly contribute _so much_ to the discussion.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> Something weird about novel viral spread is that slowing the spread does _not_ yield fewer ultimate infections, it just takes longer for the apex to come.



If all countries had the same curve as Australia, as we've seen two pages ago, and if there were no foreign transmissions. Let's even close borders if that makes you feel better. Where would new cases come from then? The virus dies off on its own and all clusters are isolated for multiple times the incubation+infectious periods.

New Zealand cases all came from overseas. Singapore too. Australia as well, despite what you say - and as confirmed by our local colleague. Closing borders solves that, if you want to be that extreme. If overseas didn't have cases either then...where would the cases come from? Once you're at 0 for two weeks everywhere (make it a month if you want) , you're are at 0 forever basically.

I mean I get the argument that it did spread like wildfire early on because of asymptomatic transmission, when we _didn't know_ what was hitting us. But once that passed, some countries showed it was possible to do the right thing and just end it. We just keep infecting them due to our own incompetence


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> If all countries had the same curve as Australia, as we've seen two pages ago, and if there were no foreign transmissions. Let's even close borders if that makes you feel better. Where would new cases come from then? The virus dies off on its own and all clusters are isolated for multiple times the incubation+infectious periods.
> 
> New Zealand cases all came from overseas. Singapore too. Australia as well, despite what you say - and as confirmed by our local colleague. Closing borders solves that, if you want to be that extreme. If overseas didn't have cases either then...where would the cases come from? Once you're at 0 for two weeks everywhere, you're are at 0 forever basically.
> 
> I mean I get the argument that it did spread like wildfire early on because of asymptomatic transmission, when we _didn't know_ what was hitting us. But once that passed, some countries showed it was possible to do the right thing and just end it. We just keep infecting them due to our own incompetence


Your scenario has zero plausibility. Might as well say that we should have just gave everyone a cure.

If Singapore closed its borders for a month, people would be starving. You realize that those city states rely on imports for their food? Closing the border is not going to happen.

People can't just stay home forever without doing essential jobs or getting supplies. As long as people are moving about and interfacing with each other, there is going to be transmission. Once we realized covid was out of wuhan, it was basically everywhere, so, even if everyone behaved best for their knowledge, it still wouldn't have contained it.

You keep pointing at all of these countries that have never had zero new cases for more than one consecutive day all year, as if that proves a point, but all it proves is that even the best case scenarios have covid transmission. If Australia has more transmission than foreigners entering, then there is transmission from nonforeigner to nonforeigner. Whether it started with a bat or a pangolin or Tom Hanks, it doesn't much matter once it's in your neighbourhood.

Nothing against Australia's handling of it- it's just never going to be as effective as a widespread vaccine.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> Your scenario has zero plausibility. Might as well say that we should have just gave everyone a cure.
> 
> If Singapore closed its borders for a month, people would be starving. You realize that those city states rely on imports for their food? Closing the border is not going to happen.
> 
> People can't just stay home forever without doing essential jobs or getting supplies. As long as people are moving about and interfacing with each other, there is going to be transmission. Once we realized covid was out of wuhan, it was basically everywhere, so, even if everyone behaved best for their knowledge, it still wouldn't have contained it.
> 
> You keep pointing at all of these countries that have never had zero new cases for more than one consecutive day all year, as if that proves a point, but all it proves is that even the best case scenarios have covid transmission. If Australia has more transmission than foreigners entering, then there is transmission from nonforeigner to nonforeigner. Whether it started with a bat or a pangolin or Tom Hanks, it doesn't much matter once it's in your neighborhood.
> 
> Nothing against Australia's handling of it- it's just never going to be as effective as a widespread vaccine.



Actually I kinda know how Singapore works, I lived there for about 8 years and know the place quite well. They're not necessarily the best example for the point you're trying to make, because they are _extremely _well prepared, and actually have a bunch of strategic reserves for most things. Like, they have at least a few months of strategic national stockpile of rice at any given time, and could have procured more with a couple weeks notice.

As for others, Vatican is Italy, we understand that. Monaco is France. Brunei is Malaysia/Indonesia (I'm gonna get killed for that ). I'm not saying we let the poor dude in Sealand starve either!

Besides, I was thinking about _passenger _traffic being stopped. Freight has not been shown to cause issues, and we were already taking care of that whole part in most places, by not even allowing the crew to come ashore, and just unloading the cargo/containers instead. So it wouldn't very different.

Locally, the point about people doing their essential job and getting groceries- I've already answered. Australia and Singapore have essential workers too. And people going grocery shopping; albeit at reduced frequency and taking caution. It's not an issue if you are actually careful. Australia is a good example again. They had spikes with more transmissions than foreigners entering, true. Quite a bit more actually... undetected at first because of asymptomatic transmission. But they're the best example precisely because once they saw it and put more restrictions in place, the numbers went right back down, so it is possible. And that's still with people circumventing some of the restrictions. Well crack down harder on that maybe? It's not careful grocery shopping that's exploding the pandemic, but if that's your concern, just have the national guard drop 6 weeks of rice and beans at your doorstep, throw in free Netflix for everyone and call it a day  . If we can afford fraudsters getting lambos with PPP money, we can afford some national guard rice and free Netflix.

Finally, this is not related to the vaccine discussion. We could and should have done that a year ago, when the vaccine was not even an option. And it's at that point that we would have saved millions and millions of lives. We basically said "eeeeh that sound slike too much effort" and killed millions in the process. As time passes by, it becomes more of a moot point with every day that passes. So many people having been infected and so much death already, but that's just because we've been dumb enough to not even try. All the way from countries/regions/cities not coordinating their lockdowns, to individuals going to visit family and party with friends in secret, nobody was thinking long term and rationally. I'm pretty sure it could have worked. Maybe not absolutely 100% sure, you can never know for sure. But I know for sure we didn't try. There were no serious lockdowns in the countries I know (France/UK/Italy/US at least) - people as a whole just did not put the effort.

Even if you don't believe in "it could have gone to 0" and we can agree to disagree, shouldn't we have coordinated? At this point, because of lack of coordination, most regions have gone through not one, but multiple costly lockdowns. Just, maybe everyone do theirs at the same time and maybe do it _seriously _in order to get their curve to look like Australia? You'd still be at today and ready with vaccines, except you'd have saved millions of lives (and trillions of $$$) along the way.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> nobody was thinking long term and rationally


It's not reasonable to expect that the entire planet would all fall in line with a singular coordinated plan to do _anything._ You can't even convince people to _be nice on the internet_, how do you expect to convince a whole planet to shelter in place for a month? It was never a reasonable strategy because you can't coordinate people in that way. It's literally impossible. You can't even get a handful of people to occasionally wear masks. It's a non-argument. You might as well say "we should have just predicted the pandemic would happen, and stopped it at it's source before it became covid". Sure, I bet that would have worked great, if it had ever been an option, but it wasn't. We can talk in circles about what we _should_ have done, if we were all perfect and prescient, but where does that get us?


----------



## StevenC

I feel like this is the time to mention that mRNA vaccines are way safer than viral vector vaccines, because they seek to eliminate the most dangerous part of "traditional" vaccines.

There have been more adverse reactions to the "traditional" vaccines already that arguing that we might all die in 5 years time seems kind of quaint.


----------



## diagrammatiks

oooh getting my first shot tomorrow. 

wish me luck.


----------



## mbardu

StevenC said:


> I feel like this is the time to mention that mRNA vaccines are way safer than viral vector vaccines, because they seek to eliminate the most dangerous part of "traditional" vaccines.
> 
> There have been more adverse reactions to the "traditional" vaccines already that arguing that we might all die in 5 years time seems kind of quaint.



Since the beginning of the discussion, I don't think anyone has misrepresented how the mRNA vaccines work. They only target a subunit and are in theory less harmful as a result, sure. And in theory they do only that. Historically though, there have been plenty of medical treatments deemed safe that later turned out to have serious complications; even though their initial mechanism was well understood. That's why it's a side effect: they do what they're supposed to, but they also do something else that we didn't realize. Who said it's even the mRNA that's the problem? Maybe it's the delivery mechanism?

Nobody said that we will all die in 5 years so that's obviously a strawman too. Saying anything close to that or implying certitude would be pure hysteria, just like saying 8 million were going to die from Covid in the US at that point. Interestingly, noone balks at that 8 million figure since it's consistent with the echo chamber, so we gobble it up instead...

Anyway, if you do you want to be rigorous about what we know and what we don't know, you _can _say the mRNA vaccines are safer than the traditional vaccines _short term._ Their efficacy is also higher (this is well documented). But you cannot say that they are safer _long term_ because we simply do not have any science proving that. They may very well be totally benign. It's even more likely than not. But we don't know. And yet we are conflating certitude about short term with certitude about long term. I'm sure you can see that's not really rigorous.

Yet, just like people don't bat an eye at "8 million more are going to die in the US" while this can easily be proven false, they don't have problem believing "the mRNA vaccines have no long term side effect" while there is obviously no science on the subject. If that's not bias, I don't know what is.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

diagrammatiks said:


> oooh getting my first shot tomorrow.
> 
> wish me luck.



I got Pfizer, once you get your second dose you can log into the 5G Elon Musk-Gates Space WiFi and connect to sevenstring there!


----------



## thebeesknees22

diagrammatiks said:


> oooh getting my first shot tomorrow.
> 
> wish me luck.



Nice dude!

I get my 2nd shot tomorrow morning! 

*ᕦ(ò_óˇ)*


----------



## StevenC

mbardu said:


> Since the beginning of the discussion, I don't think anyone has misrepresented how the mRNA vaccines work. They only target a subunit and are in theory less harmful as a result, sure. And in theory they do only that. Historically though, there have been plenty of medical treatments deemed safe that later turned out to have serious complications; even though their initial mechanism was well understood. That's why it's a side effect: they do what they're supposed to, but they also do something else that we didn't realize. Who said it's even the mRNA that's the problem? Maybe it's the delivery mechanism?
> 
> Nobody said that we will all die in 5 years so that's obviously a strawman too. Saying anything close to that or implying certitude would be pure hysteria, just like saying 8 million were going to die from Covid in the US at that point. Interestingly, noone balks at that 8 million figure since it's consistent with the echo chamber, so we gobble it up instead...
> 
> Anyway, if you do you want to be rigorous about what we know and what we don't know, you _can _say the mRNA vaccines are safer than the traditional vaccines _short term._ Their efficacy is also higher (this is well documented). But you cannot say that they are safer _long term_ because we simply do not have any science proving that. They may very well be totally benign. It's even more likely than not. But we don't know. And yet we are conflating certitude about short term with certitude about long term. I'm sure you can see that's not really rigorous.
> 
> Yet, just like people don't bat an eye at "8 million more are going to die in the US" while this can easily be proven false, they don't have problem believing "the mRNA vaccines have no long term side effect" while there is obviously no science on the subject. If that's not bias, I don't know what is.


Calling everything a strawman is a strawman.

It's also not a strawman. It's ad absurdum. Get your fallacies right.


----------



## mbardu

StevenC said:


> Calling everything a strawman is a strawman.
> 
> It's also not a strawman. It's ad absurdum. Get your fallacies right.



I don't get it. If you don't want to answer anything, then why type? Just to proudly say you actually made _more than one _logical fallacy...but have no interest in the substance of it?


----------



## StevenC

mbardu said:


> I don't get it. If you don't want to answer anything, then why type? Just to proudly say you actually made _more than one _logical fallacy...but have no interest in the substance of it?


Your argument is that the mRNA vaccines might be more dangerous than the "traditional" vaccines like AstraZeneca that's already killing people.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

thebeesknees22 said:


> Nice dude!
> 
> I get my 2nd shot tomorrow morning!
> 
> *ᕦ(ò_óˇ)*


----------



## mbardu

StevenC said:


> Your argument is that the mRNA vaccines might be more dangerous than the "traditional" vaccines like AstraZeneca that's already killing people.



Not sure if I'm able to call that a strawman or not, but it's not my argument and it's not what I said...

Safety/danger is multidimensional, and my argument (on that single point, not _overall argument_) is that short term and long term are not the same thing. Saying "we know mRNA is safe long term" (or safer than non-mRNA) is unprovable. Even if one has some side effect short term, we know that the tech and process it uses has generally been found to be safe over the long term. We don't have that information for mRNA.

I don't get it. Why is it so easy to accept outlandish provably wrong claims such as "8 million more people will die from Covid in the US at that point", yet we systematically try to misrepresent what I'm saying?


----------



## StevenC

In actual news, I got a blood test today to look at how much immunity I have after one dose of AZ and make decisions about the rest of my vaccination plan. But still looks like at least one Pfizer dose.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

StevenC said:


> In actual news, I got a blood test today to look at how much immunity I have after one dose of AZ and make decisions about the rest of my vaccination plan. But still looks like at least one Pfizer dose.



I don't know, dude. That sounds pretty dangerous.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

MaxOfMetal said:


> I don't know, dude. That sounds pretty dangerous.


Those dangerous needles can puncture eyes too if you're not careful I've heard, unknown effects of being so sharp.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

CovertSovietBear said:


> Those dangerous needles can puncture eyes too if you're not careful I've heard, unknown effects of being so sharp.



I just want to know Steve is safe 35 years from now.


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> Scenarios relying on hysteria (it could still kill millions in the US if we did nothing) are false. This is not saying we should do nothing, it's just saying we don't need to make up stuff and succumb to mass hysteria _now _as we assess risk-benefits discussions. We should have freaked out a year ago and closed up shop to actually save lives and we didn't...panic rarely leads to logic. In other words, I don't like inflated BS, sue me
> 
> The novel vaccines are _amazing _at preventing Covid. They are _definitely not_ a know quantity long term though, and may have unforeseen side effects. I didn't pretend to know that _they will_ have side effects. It's just pretty common for novel inventions in history (medical history included) to have side effects that we understand much later. Here, especially because the lymphatic system is still not understood that well. When I joined the discussion, there were a number of comments to the effect of "_we know_ the vaccines don't have any long term side effect", and that is not true - we don't know.



I just want to say that I agree with you there. I think our opinions diverge beyond that, but, yes, we do *not* understand the long-term health effects of mRNA vaccine technology. We also cannot and probably should not waste our energy going through endless "what-if" scenarios of the past actions/inactions. That's partly why I think the whole discussion of "if we would have just locked everyone in their house for 30 days, covid would have went away" - it's not plausible because a) people would have not stayed in their houses (most people worldwide don't even live in houses), and more importantly b) it's too late anyway.



mbardu said:


> There is a lot of "opinion" that everyone should get vaccinated, even if they have already had Covid and have strong antibody protection. However, I have not found much science on the topic. I don't know for sure of course, but I do find it unlikely that there is benefit in most cases to getting vaccinated if you already had Covid. The numbers for Covid reinfections are so small that the handful that were serious made the worlwide news. Still - that's debatable, but even if "I've had Covid already" is not enough a criteria, we know how to test for and measure antibodies



As I previously mentioned, and as was discussed at length earlier in this thread (for dozens of pages even), naturally acquired immunity to covid decreases with strength over time. There have been some cases of people getting it twice, and there is a camp that believes that, as years pass, people with natural immunity to covid could become likely enough to get reinfected that it could be a significant concern, globally. The artificial immunity from mRNA vaccines is much more robust, and there are peer reviewed studies demonstrating that.



mbardu said:


> There is no serious study on benefits of vaccination to children. It's mixed and mostly opinion at that point



Define "serious study." No offense, but I get the feeling your are trying to weasel a point. If you mean that no such study has yet been completed, you are correct, however, there are tons of ongoing studies that we should start seeing resultant publications from starting maybe as early as September. At this point, it is an unknown, because the study isn't done yet. Maybe I missed whoever said that the study was done and/or that the results of the vaccine trials with children were positive.



mbardu said:


> With current infections, and remaining non vaccinated adults getting vaccinated, we can _easily _get to herd immunity



Is herd immunity the goal? Herd immunity is the concept that enough people have antibodies that the number of deaths/recoveries balances perfectly with the number of new infections. It's also been debunked as a concept altogether by the CDC and by the medical community in general, recently, simply because there are pockets of people who can cause local outbreaks that can be devastating, even if there is global herd immunity statistics. ...because viruses don't spread from population to population without first spreading person to person.



mbardu said:


> As a result, we could negate the scale and risk of any potential side effect of novel vaccines simply by limiting the population getting it. Instead, the current policies we're pushing will have those administered (as a couple of shots, plus likely future boosters), to _billions _of people. I believe it's pretty risky to borderline unethical to do something like that (novel medical technology) at such a scale in such a short window of time. And not only is that a first, but we could do without to get to herd immunity



Who determines the ethicality of it, and under what rubric? It's risky, but so is the opposite. If you weigh out the risks pro vs. con, and actually follow through with the mathematics, then you have an argument there, but just because you feel it is so is not really good logic.



mbardu said:


> The children discussion was a bit on the side. Usually we apply more caution to children, especially ethically because, should there be long term side effects, they would pay a higher cost than, say the 65+. This time around we're "_relatively_" rushing to get children as young as 12/8 vaccinated with the novel vaccines. There is no strong evidence of benefit, but if we still must - I'd still think ethically it would be a better choice to use the traditional vaccine. It is significantly more similar to those in the existing pediatric vaccine schedule anyway- and those have been shown to be very safe even over the long term



I certainly never suggested that we give the vaccine to children on a large scale. Were you responding to someone else?



mbardu said:


> I'd take any challenge to any of the above. But most of the attacks against me have been:
> 
> you don't think vaccines are effective
> you would let millions die in the US
> you don't believe and understand science
> you don't know how to count
> you want to do nothing
> Or any number of made-up strawman arguments, and this is what has occupied most of the posts.



I don't think you are referring to me, since I don't believe you claimed those things.

I believe you claimed that a full-scale lockdown would have been more effective than a vaccine. My stance is that it doesn't matter, since there never was and could not have been such a lock-down when it was necessary, and now it's too late. If you want to counter that it's not too late, then that's a discussion that we could have, but it'd be pretty brief, I think.

I also understand that you ruffled a ton of feathers in here, so you are basically arguing @mbardu versus the rest of ss.o, which makes it difficult to go back and forth with any one particular forum user.


----------



## StevenC

MaxOfMetal said:


> I just want to know Steve is safe 35 years from now.


RemindMe! 35 years Tell Max if I'm alive


----------



## TedEH

CovertSovietBear said:


> Those dangerous needles can puncture eyes too if you're not careful I've heard, unknown effects of being so sharp.


You can't _prove_ you won't gouge your eye out.


----------



## Drew

mbardu said:


> Ok i guess that's one way to shift the goalposts and talk about something absolutely not related instead of answering on even a _single_ point  . Wow, literally 0 effort.
> But again, ill take it at least as a win that you have taken down your 8 million down to 4 million, down to 250k, and then we can discuss what to do for those. Because nobody said "do nothing" and i even discussed that part in the above that you chose to ignore.
> 
> One step at a time I guess...
> At least we're done with the "millions could die" made up hysteria, because that was not conducive to a rational discussion, that's for sure.
> 
> As for saving human lives, the rational thing to do would have been to close for a month worldwide a year ago. Forget everything else and hunker down to actually save people. Millions would have been saved. Incidentally this would also have been the best for the economy btw. But that ship has sailed because saving lives never became the priority and now we're in a shitty mish mash of incompetence and bad incentives. Anyone who thinks our leadership has been and is being rational and competent is a bit delusional.


I'm throwing you on ignore immediately after posting this, because between this and your memestock thread, I think it's pretty clear you're just here to troll and start fights for the fun of it, rather than to have an actual discussion. And, I may no longer be a mod here, but I WOULD remind everyone who is that the header on this forum reads "Strictly moderated forum, so use your better judgement when posting." Which you, clearly, are not. 

But no, this isn't some massive moving of the goalposts. Rather, what it is, is I'm saying _i could concede you every single point you just made_, I could say you were right about _literally every one of those points_... and it _still_ wouldn't change the outcome or the fundamental point I was making, which is that this wasn't about the economy, it was about saving lives. For what it's worth, I'm NOT conceding every one of those points, I think you're wrong, and I don't know what the point of this giant circle-jerk of yours is, but I'm checking out because you're not worth the effort.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> As I previously mentioned, and as was discussed at length earlier in this thread (for dozens of pages even), naturally acquired immunity to covid decreases with strength over time. There have been some cases of people getting it twice, and there is a camp that believes that, as years pass, people with natural immunity to covid could become likely enough to get reinfected that it could be a significant concern, globally. The artificial immunity from mRNA vaccines is much more robust, and there are peer reviewed studies demonstrating that.


I REALLY don't want to open this can of worms again (  ) but I'll just note that this is far from settled science, and I've seen a number of studies come to the opposite conclusion, that it's possible that people who have received a vaccine may need a booster down the road, but possible that people who recovered from Covid may not. At a minimum, there isn't much evidence that immunity in recovered Covid patients wanes - here's a Cleveland Clinic Study that found no evidence of it waning at least 10 months out (see page 9), and found a handful of breakthrough cases in vaccinated populations, but none in unvaccinated prior survivors.

Again, though, a LOT more research, and over a much longer period of time, will need to be done before we can say that for sure.


----------



## mbardu

First of all, thank you for taking time to read everything, and to answer everything, and not trying to make me say what I did not say. That's a huge breath of fresh air compared to a lot of others.



bostjan said:


> I just want to say that I agree with you there. I think our opinions diverge beyond that, but, yes, we do *not* understand the long-term health effects of mRNA vaccine technology. We also cannot and probably should not waste our energy going through endless "what-if" scenarios of the past actions/inactions. That's partly why I think the whole discussion of "if we would have just locked everyone in their house for 30 days, covid would have went away" - it's not plausible because a) people would have not stayed in their houses (most people worldwide don't even live in houses), and more importantly b) it's too late anyway.
> 
> As I previously mentioned, and as was discussed at length earlier in this thread (for dozens of pages even), naturally acquired immunity to covid decreases with strength over time. There have been some cases of people getting it twice, and there is a camp that believes that, as years pass, people with natural immunity to covid could become likely enough to get reinfected that it could be a significant concern, globally. The artificial immunity from mRNA vaccines is much more robust, and there are peer reviewed studies demonstrating that.



I don't know if I have seen an actual study showing if the vaccine is generally stronger than the natural infection, or if the immunity lasts longer in one case or the other. If you have seen some comparative analyses, I'd be interested and that could settle the question. I've only seen opinions to the tune of "we don't think there's a downside". My understanding was that we don't know, and yet we are still recommending that people who were infected still get the vaccine, while we could test for antibodies and know who's well protected or not (infection or vaccine).

Edit: Wow, even Drew agreed with me on that one. Hell is going to freeze over 



bostjan said:


> Define "serious study." No offense, but I get the feeling your are trying to weasel a point. If you mean that no such study has yet been completed, you are correct, however, there are tons of ongoing studies that we should start seeing resultant publications from starting maybe as early as September. At this point, it is an unknown, because the study isn't done yet. Maybe I missed whoever said that the study was done and/or that the results of the vaccine trials with children were positive.



I just meant an actual medical study. And yes, my point was that none had been completed so the extent of efficacy vs short term side-effect is an unknown. That's about it. We'll probably know fairly soon on that first part - although that will tell us nothing long term.



bostjan said:


> Is herd immunity the goal? Herd immunity is the concept that enough people have antibodies that the number of deaths/recoveries balances perfectly with the number of new infections. It's also been debunked as a concept altogether by the CDC and by the medical community in general, recently, simply because there are pockets of people who can cause local outbreaks that can be devastating, even if there is global herd immunity statistics. ...because viruses don't spread from population to population without first spreading person to person.



Natural herd immunity as "our goal" was "debunked" early on yeah. Some people suggested it as a way to do nothing (no confinement, no masks, nothing) at a time when we had a small number of infections and no vaccine in sight, but that was naturally countered by "sure, but that will kill a whole lot of people" ... That was a really _really _bad idea then, but somehow we decided to _still _do _just that _ (by investing no effort in coordinated measures) and ended up with exactly the predictable outcome, a very high level of infection in most western countries, and 600k deaths in the US. That was then, and that shipped having sailed long ago, we're not far from herd immunity now, and actually there for practical purposes in a number of places.



bostjan said:


> Who determines the ethicality of it, and under what rubric? It's risky, but so is the opposite. If you weigh out the risks pro vs. con, and actually follow through with the mathematics, then you have an argument there, but just because you feel it is so is not really good logic.
> 
> I certainly never suggested that we give the vaccine to children on a large scale. Were you responding to someone else?



What is risky in that scenario? Is it using the traditional vaccine more, testing people for sustained immunity and level of antibodies, and not vaccinating literal children - is that the "opposite" that you think is risky?

Following through with the mathematics is not really difficult. The bulk of the "mathematics" effort so far has been spent on showing (repeatedly) how statements like "Covid could still kill 8 million in the US" were outrageous. For the actual point, the mathematics are super simple, you can't even call them maths. It's the value of the assumptions that you inject in the equation that's tricky.
There is a non-zero probability _s_ that the new tech has an unidentified long term negative side effect.
The weighted negative impact is very simply s*N (the number of people who got the novel vaccine).
If you don't know s, do you want to make N _4 billion_ if you have other options?
Usually when we don't know s for a new medical treatment, we at least have the benefit of slow rollout and small scale to keep N very low. The ethics of it is really just to how big of a group you want to apply the unknown s to.



bostjan said:


> I don't think you are referring to me, since I don't believe you claimed those things.
> 
> I believe you claimed that a full-scale lockdown would have been more effective than a vaccine. My stance is that it doesn't matter, since there never was and could not have been such a lock-down when it was necessary, and now it's too late. If you want to counter that it's not too late, then that's a discussion that we could have, but it'd be pretty brief, I think.
> 
> I also understand that you ruffled a ton of feathers in here, so you are basically arguing @mbardu versus the rest of ss.o, which makes it difficult to go back and forth with any one particular forum user.



I didn't directly compare efficacy of lockdown to vaccine.
But maybe let me try and clarify the ethics/rationality point and add to my thought experiment from earlier.

It's 3 years ago. An experiment is proposed. We have this new drug that's using a brand new novel process that seems to be doing its job very well. We've made short term tests and they look good. We don't have any long term data at all, we don't know what it will do 20 years down the road, but we really want to give it to 4 billion humans, including many children. We have this other drug, that maybe doesn't work quite as bananas, but still quite good. We also know the long term effects of that other one quite well and it's pretty harmless in the long term. But you know what, we really _really _want to use the new one instead. So let's do it. 4 billion people get it, no questions asked.

Would you have found that experiment rational and ethical? If this was in isolation, not knowing the context and any benefit of said drug, I bet most people would have said this is _preposterous _and goes against any logic and precautionary principle.
We don't stop to think about it today because we believe the alternative would be extremely extremely bad, and we don't think there's an another way to go about the problem. Which is why I was trying to nuance the hysteria of false things like "it will cause 8 million more deaths" on one hand on the "risk" side; and show possible alternatives (less children vaccinated, more traditional vaccine) on the other.

Independently from that, let's say that no matter what, everyone will have to go in lockdown in their homes for a month _anyway_. At least. This is what happened in practice after all. They may need to do it longer, or repeat the process. But countries will not necessarily coordinate and not try to enforce it _that hard_. Most people would do it well sure, but there would obviously be outliers. But get this. If the regions/countries actually invested the effort to do it well, spent a _fraction _of what the vaccine logistics would ultimately cost in order to try _that _seriously first, and actually coordinated, it would give you let's say a 50/50 chance of not having to do the weird new drug experiment at all, saving millions of lives and trillions in economic activity in the process.

Wouldn't it have been worth it to _try_? Would it have been worth it to try it if it was only a 25% chance of success? Wouldn't it be the reasonable and rational option?
It's an effort yeah, and there would have been hurdles sure- but it's not like vaccine rollout is zero effort, and we're doing it.

Now, you're saying it's too late, it didn't happen etc. I know it's not going to happen at this point. But it sounds to me like the only argument as to _why _we have kept on not trying has just been an increasing sunk cost and the associated fallacy. Especially the argument of "but we can't just pause for 6 weeks!" whereas not doing it right means many countries have had to lose much more than that.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> I'm throwing you on ignore immediately after posting this, because between this and your memestock thread, I think it's pretty clear you're just here to troll and start fights for the fun of it, rather than to have an actual discussion. And, I may no longer be a mod here, but I WOULD remind everyone who is that the header on this forum reads "Strictly moderated forum, so use your better judgement when posting." Which you, clearly, are not.
> 
> But no, this isn't some massive moving of the goalposts. Rather, what it is, is I'm saying _i could concede you every single point you just made_, I could say you were right about _literally every one of those points_... and it _still_ wouldn't change the outcome or the fundamental point I was making, which is that this wasn't about the economy, it was about saving lives. For what it's worth, I'm NOT conceding every one of those points, I think you're wrong, and I don't know what the point of this giant circle-jerk of yours is, but I'm checking out because you're not worth the effort.



Well the thing is by conceding all those points (which, anyway, it's either that or burying your head in the sand from _actual _sources), it did change the outcome. At least by us saying the same thing i.e. 200k (or OK 250k if you want) people actually at risk (not 8 million) in the US. And thus the question becoming best risk/reward approach to bring _that _as close to 0 as possible - while skipping the hysteria you were trying to induce.

But now if you are actually not conceding anything and are still saying 8 million could die, despite literally 2 clicks showing you absolutely unequivocally how that would be literally impossible - then I don't know what to tell you. Enjoy your own hysteira, I guess.

And it was _also _you in the GME thread too  ? Wow. Well at least you're consistent. The funny thing is that in _that_ thread, we were not that far from agreeing, but after you _moved the goalposts_ to avoid acknowledging that there was even a _possibility _that GME could go back up at the time, the stock price actually shot right back up from 40$ to 300$. At least I guess we can consider ourselves happy that you're not a MOD so you wouldn't just close down a thread like the $GME one just because you happened to be wrong.

Anyway, bye!


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> I REALLY don't want to open this can of worms again (  ) but I'll just note that this is far from settled science, and I've seen a number of studies come to the opposite conclusion, that it's possible that people who have received a vaccine may need a booster down the road, but possible that people who recovered from Covid may not. At a minimum, there isn't much evidence that immunity in recovered Covid patients wanes - here's a Cleveland Clinic Study that found no evidence of it waning at least 10 months out (see page 9), and found a handful of breakthrough cases in vaccinated populations, but none in unvaccinated prior survivors.
> 
> Again, though, a LOT more research, and over a much longer period of time, will need to be done before we can say that for sure.



Here's my source for my original comment: https://sciencetaskforce.ch/en/policy-brief/protection-duration-after-vaccination-or-infection/

Looking at the stats in the paper you posted, 15 out of 22777 vaccinated and previously uninfected people tested positive. That's 0.066%. The expectation then, under the null hypothesis, for the group of 1359 unvaccinated and previously infected group testing positive would be 0.066% * 1359 is less than one infection. 

I'm sure you know enough mathematics to know that this isn't a good data set to prove anything one way or the other.

Here's a detailed article from The Lancet with contrary conclusions: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00662-0/fulltext

Reinfection at 3.5 months is reported at 0.7% - https://medicine.missouri.edu/news/study-finds-covid-19-reinfection-rate-less-1-those-severe-illness
with a 3.2 % mortality (which is approximately the same as the mortality rate for first infection). I'm sure we disagree how immunity fades over time, based on our previous discussions, but I believe we already had that discussion and I already presented my sources for how I developed my approach and you already explained your approach, and we simply disagreed.

The vaccine is only about 95% effective.

So, putting that all together, 5% of vaccinated people from your paper (5% of 22777) would have no increased immunity, which would result in 1139 unprotected people. Just over 1/100th of them got infected, which is lower than expected based on the probability of exposure. The people who were previously infected should all have natural immunity unless they have compromised immune systems (these are all health care workers, so take that for what it's worth).


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Here's my source for my original comment: https://sciencetaskforce.ch/en/policy-brief/protection-duration-after-vaccination-or-infection/
> 
> Looking at the stats in the paper you posted, 15 out of 22777 vaccinated and previously uninfected people tested positive. That's 0.066%. The expectation then, under the null hypothesis, for the group of 1359 unvaccinated and previously infected group testing positive would be 0.066% * 1359 is less than one infection.
> 
> I'm sure you know enough mathematics to know that this isn't a good data set to prove anything one way or the other.


...which is why I said we need more time, and more data.  But, at a minimum, given the 10+ month observation period here, the fact that no MORE than expected (fwiw, 0.8969 cases, or roughly 0.9 cases per 1359, so not _much _less than one case, either) tested positive also provides at least some evidence - not irrefutable, but also not negligible - that prior infection is potentially at least no _worse_ at protecting you from Covid than vaccination, over timelines of at least ten months, possibly longer.

Again, we need a lot more data before we can say this for certainty, but that Cleveland Clinic study is at least a fairly decent piece of evidence from an extremely reputable source that argues against prior infection being _worse_ than vaccination at offering protection. Don't get me wrong - I had covid, I got vaccinated as soon as I could anyway. But, it's entirely possible I didn't need to, and already had robust resistance with or without a vaccination, and there isn't good evidence yet suggesting that immunity will be less lasting than that conveyed by a mRNA vaccine.

EDIT - though, vaccine vs infection comparisons are only part of the story here - part of why I was sharing this was over an observation period of 10 months, early double the "about six month" period your study cited, an unvaccinated population of prior covid survivers numbering 1359 had no covid cases, in a hospital were covid was prevalent enough that nearly 5% of employees had tested positive, during the worst wave of the pandemic, in a study began on December 16th, 2020 through May 15th 2021. Knowing what percentage of unvaccinated survivors should have gotten infected if immunity is weaker than a vaccine is a little tough - your 0.066% is drawn from the vaccinnated pool and would suggest that natural immunity is considered exactly as effective as a vaccine - but if it's believed to decay below 50% after 6 months, then over a long period of time the breakthrough rate should be somewhat _above_ 0.066%. It doesn't appear to have been


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> First of all, thank you for taking time to read everything, and to answer everything, and not trying to make me say what I did not say. That's a huge breath of fresh air compared to a lot of others.



I try not to put words in the mouths of others, since I understand firsthand how frustrating that can be.



mbardu said:


> I don't know if I have seen an actual study showing if the vaccine is generally stronger than the natural infection, or if the immunity lasts longer in one case or the other. If you have seen some comparative analyses, I'd be interested and that could settle the question. I've only seen opinions to the tune of "we don't think there's a downside". My understanding was that we don't know, and yet we are still recommending that people who were infected still get the vaccine, while we could test for antibodies and know who's well protected or not (infection or vaccine).



There were quite a few early studies maybe 6-8 months ago about it. It'd take me a while to dig those up...



mbardu said:


> I just meant an actual medical study. And yes, my point was that none had been completed so the extent of efficacy vs short term side-effect is an unknown. That's about it. We'll probably know fairly soon on that first part - although that will tell us nothing long term.



Right, it'll be years before we know if there are long term side-effects. But the gambit is between the unknown of will I get covid versus the unknown of will I get long-term side effects. Likely, some percentage of people who get the vaccine will get long-term side effects >0% but <100%. But, there are also a lot of long-term side effects from having covid, so it's like Let's Make a Deal, where there is a game of Russian Roulette behind door number one and a different game of Russian Roulette behind door number two. And if you choose neither door, a man with one bullet in a revolver walks up behind you and pulls the trigger. But it's life- no one makes it to the end alive. I think it's not incredibly imprudent to choose the chance that will affect me later, if at all. The same applies to any adult making the same choice.



mbardu said:


> Natural herd immunity as "our goal" was "debunked" early on yeah.



Right, but if herd immunity is a concept that never applied to a global pandemic and, based on our updated wisdom on infectious diseases, doesn't really apply in any scenario anymore, at least in any way that appears similar to the old way it was understood, then there is no value to the statement that we are approaching the outdated threshold for herd immunity with this global pandemic.



mbardu said:


> What is risky in that scenario? Is it using the traditional vaccine more, testing people for sustained immunity and level of antibodies, and not vaccinating literal children - is that the "opposite" that you think is risky?



The risks are: 1. The traditional vaccine has a higher incidence of serious acute side effects (sometimes fatal) than the mRNA vaccine. 2. The disease has a higher mortality than either type of vaccine. 3. Children *might* have a higher mortality from the virus than for one/either type of vaccine, because they have a nonzero mortality to the virus and their mortality to the vaccine is yet undetermined.

We still have a lot to learn about immunity, but we found out that the half life of antibodies from natural infection was about 90 days. We found out that the half life of antibodies from mRNA vaccines is about 200-400 days. We found out that T cell half life in each case is about 1.5x as much. We've found out a lot. 



mbardu said:


> There is a non-zero probability _s_ that the new tech has an unidentified long term negative side effect.
> The weighted negative impact is very simply s*N (the number of people who got the novel vaccine).
> If you don't know s, do you want to make N _4 billion_ if you have other options?
> Usually when we don't know s for a new medical treatment, we at least have the benefit of slow rollout and small scale to keep N very low. The ethics of it is really just to how big of a group you want to apply the unknown s.



I think the mathematics works a little more subtly than that. There could be many different long-term side effects, all with different incidences and different times-to-onset. Maybe those side effects are more or less serious than the side effects known from covid. But let's say that s is the chance of suddenly dying. Say the mortality of covid is m. If s>m, more people die from the vaccine, and if s<m, more people die from covid. Simple enough. Even if s=m, the vaccine is better, since you at least live longer waiting for long-term side effects than you do waiting to slowly drown in your own snot from covid. With m estimated between 2-4%, and not knowing s, it's a tough call, but once you factor in people's personal responsibilities and freedoms, maybe solving the mathematical inequality between a totally unknown number and a wildly estimated number doesn't really matter as much.



mbardu said:


> I didn't compare efficacy of lockdown to vaccine.
> But maybe let me try and clarify the ethics/rationality point and add to my thought experiment from earlier.
> 
> ....



You keep losing me at the 8 million more deaths bit.

We don't have long-term data on the traditional covid vaccine, though, and I still don't see where we are vaccinating masses of children before studies are concluded, so I'm not sure I see how this analogy relates.



mbardu said:


> Wouldn't it have been worth it to _try_? Would it have been worth it to try it if it was only a 25% chance of success? Wouldn't it be the reasonable and rational option?



How do you define success? Eradicating covid completely? I'd say 25% chance of it working is overestimated by 25%. If you mean slowing down the spread, then what's the purpose of slowing it down? Until we get what? A vaccine? We have one. A treatment? Kind of a tough sell when we have a vaccine, considering the economic cost.



mbardu said:


> It's an effort yeah, and there would have been hurdles sure- but it's not like vaccine rollout is zero effort, and we're doing it.
> 
> Now, you're saying it's too late, it didn't happen etc. I know it's not going to happen at this point. But it sounds to me like the only argument as to _why _we have kept on not trying has just been an increasing sunk cost and the associated fallacy. Especially the argument of "but we can't just pause for 6 weeks!" whereas not doing it right means many countries have had to lose much more than that.



I still stand firm on the argument that getting absolutely all people to stay in lock down, globally, for 6 weeks, only ever had absolutely zero chance of happening. The only way this strategy would have worked at all, at any point in time, would have been if China had locked down Wuhan and all adjacent areas starting the moment that they heard about the possibility of there being a novel coronavirus. And we all know that was never going to happen given their government.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> *stuff*


I gotta say, I should have put that guy on mute a long time ago, because it's WAY more fun reading these exchanges when the one side who's just trolling is just.... not there.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> ...which is why I said we need more time, and more data.  But, at a minimum, given the 10+ month observation period here, the fact that no MORE than expected (fwiw, 0.8969 cases, or roughly 0.9 cases per 1359, so not _much _less than one case, either) tested positive also provides at least some evidence - not irrefutable, but also not negligible - that prior infection is potentially at least no _worse_ at protecting you from Covid than vaccination, over timelines of at least ten months, possibly longer.
> 
> Again, we need a lot more data before we can say this for certainty, but that Cleveland Clinic study is at least a fairly decent piece of evidence from an extremely reputable source that argues against prior infection being _worse_ than vaccination at offering protection. Don't get me wrong - I had covid, I got vaccinated as soon as I could anyway. But, it's entirely possible I didn't need to, and already had robust resistance with or without a vaccination, and there isn't good evidence yet suggesting that immunity will be less lasting than that conveyed by a mRNA vaccine.


If the experimental data cannot differentiate between the outcome of the null hypothesis and the outcome of the hypothesis due to small sampling size, then the evidence doesn't support either conclusion. I posted some information that supports a different viewpoint, if you are interested.

The general consensus is that natural immunity decreases 2-4 times as rapidly as vaccine-induced immunity. If natural immunity in health individuals averages 9 months before reaching a balance point of decreased efficacy (which is the part we still mostly don't know for sure, but we now have some straggling data points, where we only had anecdotes when we last had the discussion), then the vaccine should last 18-36 months. This is largely in line with studies done by the vaccine manufacturers that have been fairly recent, suggesting boosters every 1-2 years. So all of the data we do have that is being used to shape our decisions fits pretty much into that viewpoint.

I know I'm not likely to change your mind on pretty much anything that has to do with covid, since you seem fairly well entrenched into your viewpoint. I can respect that. If you want to continue discussing, and shoot some more articles back and forth, I'm more than happy to do that as well.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> I try not to put words in the mouths of others, since I understand firsthand how frustrating that can be.



That's very much appreciated as well as too rare around these parts. Hopefully I didn't distort anything you said either.



bostjan said:


> Right, but if herd immunity is a concept that never applied to a global pandemic and, based on our updated wisdom on infectious diseases, doesn't really apply in any scenario anymore, at least in any way that appears similar to the old way it was understood, then there is no value to the statement that we are approaching the outdated threshold for herd immunity with this global pandemic.



I'm not sure. I do believe groups like WHO still consider that herd immunity would be useful - they're just strongly discouraging against what we did (ie getting most of the way there by letting the thing spread naturally to a majority of the population).



bostjan said:


> The risks are: 1. The traditional vaccine has a higher incidence of serious acute side effects (sometimes fatal) than the mRNA vaccine. 2. The disease has a higher mortality than either type of vaccine. 3. Children *might* have a higher mortality from the virus than for one/either type of vaccine, because they have a nonzero mortality to the virus and their mortality to the vaccine is yet undetermined.



Right. What I'd say would be that on 1-even though serious, the short term side effects have been quantified as very rare and are a known quantity. As for long term effects, the traditional vaccine has the critical benefit of being very similar to what we know well, which is simply not the case of the novel ones. And as for your points 2-3, as you highlighted yourself, those risks are not necessarily unique to the traditional vaccine (that I was saying could be used more).



bostjan said:


> We still have a lot to learn about immunity, but we found out that the half life of antibodies from natural infection was about 90 days. We found out that the half life of antibodies from mRNA vaccines is about 200-400 days. We found out that T cell half life in each case is about 1.5x as much. We've found out a lot.



That part is interesting and I checked your direct sources. In particular, the June article is one I had not seen, and it does indicate good benefits for vaccine immunity over natural one, which was not as conclusive the last time I had looked for that info. Thank you!



bostjan said:


> I think the mathematics works a little more subtly than that. There could be many different long-term side effects, all with different incidences and different times-to-onset. Maybe those side effects are more or less serious than the side effects known from covid. But let's say that s is the chance of suddenly dying. Say the mortality of covid is m. If s>m, more people die from the vaccine, and if s<m, more people die from covid. Simple enough. Even if s=m, the vaccine is better, since you at least live longer waiting for long-term side effects than you do waiting to slowly drown in your own snot from covid. With m estimated between 2-4%, and not knowing s, it's a tough call, but once you factor in people's personal responsibilities and freedoms, maybe solving the mathematical inequality between a totally unknown number and a wildly estimated number doesn't really matter as much.
> 
> You keep losing me at the 8 million more deaths bit.



That was an obvious simplification for discussion's sake. I could have separated risk of side effect from impact of side effect into more than one variable...but since we don't know the value of either, I don't think it changes the discussion much. As you showed, with a single "s", you get most of the information you need, and you just need a population to multiply this ratio by.
There's one nuance I would like to add to your addition above. I think you assume that in your scenario, the same number of people get the vaccine and get Covid. Hence why you are able to simplify that number N and get to your equations and inequalities with homogenous m and s.
And that's not what I meant exactly, since we don't start from 0.
Say that where we stand today, the incremental number of people who will get Covid is M. I say incremental, because for risk-benefit purposes today, people cannot un-have Covid, so the past is the past. The number of people we want to give the vaccine to is N. If we take an extreme, but simplifying case, we say that we want N to be 1 today, 100% - everyone gets the novel vaccine. It's a bit extreme, we never have cases where everyone gets the vaccine, but we never have cases where everyone gets the disease either. I'll leave reinfections aside for a moment.
My key point is that M is not equal to 1 or 100%. Numbers vary by country but say 50% of people have had Covid already. So the incremental M, what we're using for risk/benefit on things we control is M = 0.5. While we still want N to be 1 with the current doctrine. Now if I take your assumption s=m, say that S is the total "vaccine side effect" S=s*N and C is the "incremental Covid effect" C=m*M. From that, we get S = 2 C or C/S = 0.5, and if the population still likely to get Covid was even closer to 0, then so would the benefit ratio C/S. Say we were in the total opposite scenario and everyone has had Covid at the exact same time, there's literally no one to protect from Covid anymore. No vaccine benefit at all, the ratio is 0.
Now that was a lot of simplification of course - It's already a long text, I can't even imagine if I put that in a system of differential equations that will include reinfections and dynamic effect of N on M. 
And I'm not saying the absolute value of the ratio is high or lwo in real life - I still don't know. But just to say that where we start from, and who already had Covid matters to benefit/risk calculations; and hence the point of the earlier discussions about whether 10% of the population had it vs 50%, whether covid Risk was 8 Millions or 200k, who was already strongly protected etc...



bostjan said:


> We don't have long-term data on the traditional covid vaccine, though, and I still don't see where we are vaccinating masses of children before studies are concluded, so I'm not sure I see how this analogy relates.


There are a number of countries vaccinating 12 year olds. I include them in kids, but maybe not everyone does and counts them as "teens" instead.



bostjan said:


> How do you define success? Eradicating covid completely? I'd say 25% chance of it working is overestimated by 25%. If you mean slowing down the spread, then what's the purpose of slowing it down? Until we get what? A vaccine? We have one. A treatment? Kind of a tough sell when we have a vaccine, considering the economic cost.
> 
> I still stand firm on the argument that getting absolutely all people to stay in lock down, globally, for 6 weeks, only ever had absolutely zero chance of happening. The only way this strategy would have worked at all, at any point in time, would have been if China had locked down Wuhan and all adjacent areas starting the moment that they heard about the possibility of there being a novel coronavirus. And we all know that was never going to happen given their government.



Hey you changed the question!
Yes I define success as eradicating Covid completely, but the question was not whether you thought it was 25% likely... But instead,_ assuming it was a 25% chance_, would you have thought it would have been worth it to try?

Now on likelihood, I find it a bit arbitrary and extreme to say there would have been *0%* chance of it happening. Especially had we put even a fraction of the effort we put in vaccine production and logistics.
I don't think China is the best example for the point you're trying to make, because they have zero hesitation in putting the effort _totalitarian style _ to stop their spreads (like, literally chaining people into their own homes).
But without going to those extremes, the Australia example is still the one that resonates with me. They were doing worse than France/UK at some point, and brought it to almost 0, with almost only imported cases (as our local colleague confirmed). Towards the bottom of the curve once you get close to 0, maybe test a bit more, maybe apply the type of "hotel-style" quarantine even to clusters within the country (we're only talking a handful of people at a time), and at some point, you're done.

Well at least I believe so .
You've made it clear you won't easily budge on the exactly 0%, and if so, at least I think we can agree to disagree. I however 100% appreciate the effort that went into your replies, as well as the recent studies you linked to. I can't tell you how refreshing a change of pace that is after the usual reactions and attacks you usually get instead when you're not entirely aligned with the single echo chamber.

Cheers!


----------



## Bodes

Oh poopy doopy, back in lockdown in Melbourne, for two reasons:
1. People from the Sydney cluster moved to Melbourne, which is allowed, and should have been in strict home quarantine.
The father went shopping...

2. Removalists from Sydney transported a separate family to Melbourne, also allowed, but one of the removalists were symptomatic before leaving Sydney, yet still decided to work...

The ...s are for you can guess the rest of the story.
Just when Melbournians thought they couldn't hate Sydney-siders any more. Friendly state rivalry, nothing sinister.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

Imagine typing a wall of text in response to someone who said they are putting you on ignore. Go play guitar or something.

Miss when this thread was actually useful not just some dude going on about this magical nobody going anywhere at all in the world for a month idea


----------



## thebeesknees22

So things are going full meltdown in Springfield, MO. Last night hospitals were calling out for federal help. They're basically full to the brim with the Delta variant patients.


----------



## spudmunkey

*sigh*

We've known people can get it twice for, like, over a year. Yet she's so damn sure she doesn't, just..."just because", I guess.



You can "be in charge of [your] own fucking life"...somewhere else.


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## Thorsday

Los Angeles County is mandating the masks again, after the mandate had been lifted for just over two months...


----------



## diagrammatiks

spudmunkey said:


> *sigh*
> 
> We've known people can get it twice for, like, over a year. Yet she's so damn sure she doesn't, just..."just because", I guess.
> 
> 
> 
> You can "be in charge of [your] own fucking life"...somewhere else.




that lady sucks..
but the bigger issue...

they fucking trying to have cruises.
right now?

the fuck.

i mean i'm a big weirdo. i'm pretty much the only person in my age group that loves cruises. I looove them.

but right now. noooooo


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday said:


> Los Angeles County is mandating the masks again, after the mandate had been lifted for just over two months...


Good


----------



## High Plains Drifter

My wife told me that her store mgr informed her yesterday that they will be requiring employees that aren't vaccinated to wear masks. Up till now the company's "policy" has been for all employees to wear masks and that if anyone has covid/ tests positive for covid, that they can't come back to work w/o a neg test ( although that's never been strictly enforced and as of about a month ago... not enforced at all. That was at the time that the state of Texas cancelled all mandates). No idea how or if they plan to enforce this new rule. 

But what I found odd is that they are saying that being masked is an 'all or nothing' deal. Like if you're going to wear a mask that you have to wear it all day.. no individual discretionary on/ off/ on/ off ( with the exception of meal breaks). I thought that was weird and seemingly arbitrary. She also told me that if any unvaccinated employees happen to contract covid that they will be fired. 

So I don't get it... I assume she'll be given some more details in the next couple days but unless they begin requiring proof of vaccinations from their employees then I don't see how any of this will be effective nor realistic.


----------



## Bodes

High Plains Drifter said:


> My wife told me that her store mgr informed her yesterday that they will be requiring employees that aren't vaccinated to wear masks. Up till now the company's "policy" has been for all employees to wear masks and that if anyone has covid/ tests positive for covid, that they can't come back to work w/o a neg test ( although that's never been strictly enforced and as of about a month ago... not enforced at all. That was at the time that the state of Texas cancelled all mandates). No idea how or if they plan to enforce this new rule.
> 
> But what I found odd is that they are saying that being masked is an 'all or nothing' deal. Like if you're going to wear a mask that you have to wear it all day.. no individual discretionary on/ off/ on/ off ( with the exception of meal breaks). I thought that was weird and seemingly arbitrary. She also told me that if any unvaccinated employees happen to contract covid that they will be fired.
> 
> So I don't get it... I assume she'll be given some more details in the next couple days but unless they begin requiring proof of vaccinations from their employees then I don't see how any of this will be effective nor realistic.



WITAF?!? I wish your wife great health and safety while she works at that workplace.
Over here you hear about 'the stupidity of Americans', ignore it then stories like yours keep popping up as being not just a small sample size and yep, it seems to be true. 

Although, in saying that, stories of stupidity tend to stick in your head, more than good stories. Then you can go back and read my posts a page or two ago and think 'the stupidity of Aussies'.


----------



## TedEH

Bodes said:


> 'the stupidity of Americans'


Stupidity certainly isn't exclusive to any one country. 

From what I've heard, Ontario has been doing well in terms of their numbers (there was an announcement that Ottawa recently had zero 'rona patients in hospitals for the first time since the whole deal started). I'm still hesitant to "return to normal" though. I know some people's work from home options are being revoked, and there's some discomfort associated with that, for a bunch of reasons.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Bodes said:


> WITAF?!? I wish your wife great health and safety while she works at that workplace.
> Over here you hear about 'the stupidity of Americans', ignore it then stories like yours keep popping up as being not just a small sample size and yep, it seems to be true.
> 
> Although, in saying that, stories of stupidity tend to stick in your head, more than good stories. Then you can go back and read my posts a page or two ago and think 'the stupidity of Aussies'.



Right?! I don't think that any country is immune from stupidity within it's govt and citizens but America certainly never fails to deliver on the 'hold my beer' moments. The truly sad thing and I guess where I might try to at least possess some degree of understanding towards businesses, is that counties, cities, and states have since the start of the pandemic, been forced to piece together their own interpretations of protocol. I'm not defending any companies nor individuals but we have certainly been enduring a whole host of inconsistencies and misinformation... with little to no repercussions regarding how people decide to handle health and safety. 

Thankfully my wife is fully vaccinated and masks up religiously but as for her company's reasoning behind these new guidelines, it just doesn't make sense... unless like I said, they begin to actually start keeping a record of who's been vaccinated. The thing that kills me though is that they seem to be using the threat of job termination to get people to either get vaccinated or wear a mask.. problem being that after the fact it's too late! That person has at that point potentially already infected other employees/ customers. So I just don't get it. And I don't see why they are 'all or nothing' on the masks. I mean, if you're outside unloading freight or something then no big deal if you're not masked. Then when you come in and are around others... put it on. I see no point in that rule at all.


----------



## possumkiller

Things were locked down here for so long I got used to doing everything at home. I will admit it does feel good to be able to masticate in public again.


----------



## Randy

possumkiller said:


> Things were locked down here for so long I got used to doing everything at home. I will admit it does feel good to be able to masticate in public again.



Woah woah woah, keep that stuff inside Pee Wee.


----------



## thebeesknees22

Shazaam! 2nd covid shot done! ...finally!


----------



## possumkiller

Randy said:


> Woah woah woah, keep that stuff inside Pee Wee.


I did! My son and I were just masticating at McDonald's a few minutes ago for the first time in about a year. It did feel a bit strange at first but you ease back into it pretty quickly.


----------



## BigViolin

I hope you weren't in the ball pit.


----------



## spudmunkey

[


High Plains Drifter said:


> .
> But what I found odd is that they are saying that being masked is an 'all or nothing' deal. Like if you're going to wear a mask that you have to wear it all day.. no individual discretionary on/ off/ on/ off ( with the exception of meal breaks). I thought that was weird and seemingly arbitrary.



I could see that as being a way to stop people from skirting around the rules by setting their all way with the mask hanging on one ear, then when someone asked them about it, quickly grab their water/coffee, and claim they are just taking frequent sips, etc.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

spudmunkey said:


> [
> 
> 
> I could see that as being a way to stop people from skirting around the rules by setting their all way with the mask hanging on one ear, then when someone asked them about it, quickly grab their water/coffee, and claim they are just taking frequent sips, etc.


Just like the gym chads who pull down their mask under their nose. My gym recently got rid of mask requirements but I only keep wearing it in order to not look at my face when lifting and to avoid some nasty BO.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

spudmunkey said:


> [
> 
> 
> I could see that as being a way to stop people from skirting around the rules by setting their all way with the mask hanging on one ear, then when someone asked them about it, quickly grab their water/coffee, and claim they are just taking frequent sips, etc.



I honestly hadn't considered that angle but you may be right. I appreciate the insight. I'll be curious to hear how things play out whenever my wife has some more info about these new policies.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> I know I'm not likely to change your mind on pretty much anything that has to do with covid, since you seem fairly well entrenched into your viewpoint. I can respect that. If you want to continue discussing, and shoot some more articles back and forth, I'm more than happy to do that as well.


I think we're pretty clearly BOTH at that point.  I think the only thing that will change either of our minds - in that we're firmly intrenched in views that we both believe we have strong evidence for - is time, and simple observation over the next couple years as we have a lot more data about reinfection rates in people who 1) had covid, but were not vaccinated, 2) had covid, AND were vaccinated, and 3) did not have covid, and were vaccinated. At least we both are in perfect agreement that group 4, people without prior covid exposure who were NOT vaccinated, are fucked. 

(edit - though, again, my point was that if prior Covid infection was a worse protector, especially if it was a _materially_ worse protector, from subsequent reinfection, the 0.06% rate you back into is actually too low, probably way too low, and if protection falls by half over three months than over 10 months you should be seeing _significantly _more than cases in 0.06% of patients. As a baseline, 22,777 employees were unvaccinated at the end of the study and 2,139 cases occured in that population, an incidence rate of around 9.4%. If protection waned by around 50% over 6 months, then infections should start to trend back up towards that number over time, and I'd expect to see at least a couple percentage points' worth of cases (maybe 25-50), not the 0.06%/0.9 cases in a vaccine believed to have a slower antibody decay. Long story short, I agree that the sample is too small to conclude you're getting _better_ protection via a prior covid infection, but it throws a lot of doubt on the likelihood that the protection is _worse_.)


----------



## fantom

Just thinking aloud...

When comparing vaccine risk, we have to factor in that anyone already partially or fully vaccinated isn't really a choice anymore.

The US rate is something like 50-55% of people received a shot. So only about 150million have a choice at this point. We also know the number of vaccinated people who have been hospitalized or died is practically zero. And we know that mrna tech was studied on cancer patients 5+ years ago (with no people leaking information that they suffered long term issues years after studies).

If we make a claim that only 200k more people will die (which is ludicrous), it pretty much means that the probability of a large scale 5+ year side effect multiplied by the probability it affects an individual needs to be worse than about 1/750.

And this is for an optimist case. Of the number of new deaths was something like 500k, this is more like 1/300.

When I wrote some replies earlier, I was assuming a failure rate applying to everyone was a long shot, like 1 in a few million. Looking at the numbers from the other side, it is utterly ridiculous that anyone thinks getting a vaccine is higher risk than not.


----------



## thebeesknees22

Annnnnd now it's finally starting.

Family friends and people in the community back home are starting to drop like flies in southern Missouri. People still aren't getting vaccinated. More will bite the bullet. 

And it won't matter how many die, those that aren't vaccinated now probably won't ever get it because they are too damn hard headed to do what they're told.


----------



## Randy

My mom still working in the ER, has multiple co-workers who've gotten breakthrough COVID cases despite being vaccinated.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

I should prob put this rant in the 'angry' thread but whatever. At this point, I'm thoroughly convinced that the most prominent reasoning in those that continue to refuse to wear masks ( whether they ever did at one time or never did) comes down to one thing... VANITY. I see it over and over again and it just slays me that people are more worried about their perceived image than health, safety, science, rising cases, break-thru cases, more transmissible variants, etc. 

I'm 100% convinced that their refusal to wear a mask comes down to "What will my FB friends say? I don't wanna look like a liberal or a democrat! The other people I know don't wear one so I'm not going to either! I don't wanna look dumb! I need to look cool! I wanna look sexy!" 

FFS it's just absolutely moronic. Such a sad study in how far people will go to preserve their image.


----------



## Thorsday

The Yellow Vesters in France are protesting Macron's mandatory vaccine pass... Any Frenchies in this thread?


----------



## Ralyks

Boy, y’all should see the NFLs policy that’s happening.


----------



## jaxadam

List of Olympians that tested positive, some fully vaccinated.

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/spo...-tested-positive-for-covid-full-list/3164696/


----------



## thebeesknees22

High Plains Drifter said:


> I should prob put this rant in the 'angry' thread but whatever. At this point, I'm thoroughly convinced that the most prominent reasoning in those that continue to refuse to wear masks ( whether they ever did at one time or never did) comes down to one thing... VANITY.



oh it 100% is. That plus they don't want to be told what to do.


----------



## Randy

High Plains Drifter said:


> I should prob put this rant in the 'angry' thread but whatever. At this point, I'm thoroughly convinced that the most prominent reasoning in those that continue to refuse to wear masks ( whether they ever did at one time or never did) comes down to one thing... VANITY. I see it over and over again and it just slays me that people are more worried about their perceived image than health, safety, science, rising cases, break-thru cases, more transmissible variants, etc.
> 
> I'm 100% convinced that their refusal to wear a mask comes down to "What will my FB friends say? I don't wanna look like a liberal or a democrat! The other people I know don't wear one so I'm not going to either! I don't wanna look dumb! I need to look cool! I wanna look sexy!"
> 
> FFS it's just absolutely moronic. Such a sad study in how far people will go to preserve their image.



Definitely caving to peer pressure. I remember how awkward it felt like the first time I walked into a store wearing a mask and feeling eyes on me.

Now that we've "come out the other side", I'm back to being in the like maybe 2% to 5% that mask up in the store and get VERY awkward stares from people. I'm lucky I'm a little broad shouldered and unapproachable looking because I'm sure I'd have gotten an earful by now otherwise.

I've already noticed I get treated different. I was in the local Ag/Livestock supply place the other day only human being in the building wearing a mask among patrons, all workers. Two lines infront of two registers. One person infront of me, three people in the other line. Other register was stalled because cashier was on the phone, so my cashier was the only one actually getting anything done.

Woman infront of me cashes out and she's waiting for them to bring her dog out from daycare. My cashier stops, leaves her register to get the dog. Tells girl in back to bring dog out, comes back. Punches some stuff into the register, goes back to ask girl to bring dog out again, and asks another girl to come out to take over other register. Just doing literally everything in her power to NOT actually cash anyone else seemingly.

Finally runs out of other stuff to do, gets back behind her register LOOKS OVER HER SHOULDER TO THE OTHER LINE AND ASKS FOR NEXT CUSTOMER WHILE I'M LITERALLY STANDING INFRONT OF HER. Someone pushes their stuff over to her side of the counter and she cashes them out. Looks over her shoulder and asks for the next person! I step belly up to the counter and drop my stuff on it loud, and she's now staring me in the face and speechless. Proceeds to annoyedly ring me out in silence.


----------



## spudmunkey

The most confusing people: those who wear masks even though there's not a local mask mandate to do so, but then don't cover their nose with it.


----------



## Bodes

We have some pretty strong mask rules atm. What annoys me is the sports coaches 'wear' their masks under their noses and they keep broadcasting those images. I wish they'd bloody fine them, like they would anyone else. 
Yet again, the elite get everything handed to them.


----------



## Randy

Bodes said:


> We have some pretty strong mask rules atm. What annoys me is the sports coaches 'wear' their masks under their noses and they keep broadcasting those images. I wish they'd bloody fine them, like they would anyone else.
> Yet again, the elite get everything handed to them.



There was a little bit of that the NFL got away with but a lot of hefty fines too. Current vax policy is off the charts strict and they've already handed out some $50,000+ fines just for OTAs.


----------



## Thorsday

What if the flu was a bio weapon in the first place? 

It kills elderly and immunocompromised people every year, and, it's come to this... 

My bullshit meter was pinging that spring/early summer after all of this had begun to transpire.

*Self love intact*

So now the Whitehouse is flagging Facebook posts that they deem to be misinformation. We have a Ministry of Truth!


----------



## Adieu

Randy said:


> My mom still working in the ER, has multiple co-workers who've gotten breakthrough COVID cases despite being vaccinated.



Pardon the crude comparison and do NOT take this as some kind attempt to offend your parent, but that's sort of like saying condoms don't always protect sex workers against HIV.

ER employees in a pandemic have infinitely more chances for exposure to go sideways than, say, a loner with a remote job or a stay-at-home pensioner 

Just because vaccines are somewhat less than reliable in extreme exposure scenarios does not devalue them in any shape or form


----------



## Adieu

diagrammatiks said:


> that lady sucks..
> but the bigger issue...
> 
> they fucking trying to have cruises.
> right now?
> 
> the fuck.
> 
> i mean i'm a big weirdo. i'm pretty much the only person in my age group that loves cruises. I looove them.
> 
> but right now. noooooo



Some middle aged people are too bored and horny to care about safety anymore


----------



## thebeesknees22

Randy said:


> Definitely caving to peer pressure. I remember how awkward it felt like the first time I walked into a store wearing a mask and feeling eyes on me.
> 
> Now that we've "come out the other side", I'm back to being in the like maybe 2% to 5% that mask up in the store and get VERY awkward stares from people. I'm lucky I'm a little broad shouldered and unapproachable looking because I'm sure I'd have gotten an earful by now otherwise.
> 
> I've already noticed I get treated different. I was in the local Ag/Livestock supply place the other day only human being in the building wearing a mask among patrons, all workers. Two lines infront of two registers. One person infront of me, three people in the other line. Other register was stalled because cashier was on the phone, so my cashier was the only one actually getting anything done.
> 
> Woman infront of me cashes out and she's waiting for them to bring her dog out from daycare. My cashier stops, leaves her register to get the dog. Tells girl in back to bring dog out, comes back. Punches some stuff into the register, goes back to ask girl to bring dog out again, and asks another girl to come out to take over other register. Just doing literally everything in her power to NOT actually cash anyone else seemingly.
> 
> Finally runs out of other stuff to do, gets back behind her register LOOKS OVER HER SHOULDER TO THE OTHER LINE AND ASKS FOR NEXT CUSTOMER WHILE I'M LITERALLY STANDING INFRONT OF HER. Someone pushes their stuff over to her side of the counter and she cashes them out. Looks over her shoulder and asks for the next person! I step belly up to the counter and drop my stuff on it loud, and she's now staring me in the face and speechless. Proceeds to annoyedly ring me out in silence.



wow, people can be real a-holes sometimes. 

The US is going to have a hell of a time re-implementing mask rules. That time's going to come soon too.


----------



## Ralyks

thebeesknees22 said:


> wow, people can be real a-holes sometimes.
> 
> The US is going to have a hell of a time re-implementing mask rules. That time's going to come soon too.



I’ve already started wearing one more regularly again. I had planned on doing so once the weather cooled down again anyway because one, of course another wave was going to come and two, hell, I haven't gotten any form of sick since wearing one. Actually interviewed with a major bank the other day and the manager that interviewed me basically felt exactly the same, so at least some people are thinking yeah, maybe time to wear one until we can actually get through this.

Also, I spent money on some neat band masks, I want my money's worth


----------



## TedEH

From what I understand, we're doing much better here than in th' States - we've had pretty low numbers here for a good while now (I had expected things to spike after Canada day, but there was no spike), but we still mostly wear masks everywhere. You get looks/berated if you _dont_ wear one, not the other way around. It's still mandated indoors in most places unless you're eating or something, and every new conversation with someone in person inevitably becomes "this feels like we're doing something we shouldn't be".


----------



## Randy

Adieu said:


> Pardon the crude comparison and do NOT take this as some kind attempt to offend your parent, but that's sort of like saying condoms don't always protect sex workers against HIV.
> 
> ER employees in a pandemic have infinitely more chances for exposure to go sideways than, say, a loner with a remote job or a stay-at-home pensioner
> 
> Just because vaccines are somewhat less than reliable in extreme exposure scenarios does not devalue them in any shape or form



To be clear, I'm not trying to diminish the value of vaccines. Even Fauci (who I'm not the biggest fan of) says they're a "layer" of protection.

My point is two fold. One, just because you have the vaccine doesn't mean you have superpowers. Be mindful of the things you do, the people around you, etc still because you never know what your level of exposure might be.

Second, I actually think most or all the hospital workers got the virus outside of work. It's not a warzone like it was when it was at it's worst, they're still wearing head to toe PPE for any suspected cases, and N95+eye protection for anyone else. But that city was ground zero for the spread in both waves because people still wanted to backyard barbecue, go to the bar on the lake etc so it's common for the workers to jam themselves in like sardines with hundreds of other people on the daily with ZERO protection, distancing, or anything


----------



## Adieu

Oh definitely

People can't seem to be convinced to park their asses on a couch, stuff their faces, and watch TV at home like responsible adults in their free time.

Everybody like ooh BBQ, ooh Aunt Helen from Chicago is gonna fly in for the weekend, ooh let's go on a package tour vacation, ooh that concert/sporting event seems like just the thing

And it even applies to people who NEVER WENT ANYWHERE, EVER, BEFOFE.

My dad's school buddy retired from a diplomatic post in Iraq sitting cooped up in a compound behind an electric fence with machine gunners for the last 5 years. Yay, finally retired and home, it's BBQ time... everybody there caught covid and the guy was dead 3 weeks later.

Shoulda stayed in Iraq. Damn.


----------



## Bodes

The last few posts are similar to what we are hearing from Sydney. Supposed to be in a hard lockdown, apart from essential work and shopping, but multiple families got together a few days back and all 18 have covid.
That is just one of the multiple stories the state Premier says every day.
Then yesterday there were large anti-lockdown protests. Very few masks worn and no social distancing.

Just stay the f home for two weeks, like you should have been doing, zoomed each other instead, and these lockdowns probably would have been over by now.

People are just so selfish or stupid.


----------



## Thorsday

I feel as if I've been set on Ignore. Some conversation. Triggered snowflakes are en masse.


----------



## spudmunkey

Thorsday said:


> I feel as if I've been set on Ignore. Some conversation. Triggered snowflakes are en masse.


No, it's just your posts have been mostly not worth response.

Ok, so your comments aren't getting attention... that's worth complaining about, and blaming "triggered nowflakes"? I think you're giving yourself way too much credit. 



Thorsday said:


> What if the flu was a bio weapon in the first place?
> 
> It kills elderly and immunocompromised people every year, and, it's come to this...
> 
> My bullshit meter was pinging that spring/early summer after all of this had begun to transpire.
> 
> *Self love intact*



W...what?

See? Like that.


----------



## Bodes

Thorsday said:


> I feel as if I've been set on Ignore. Some conversation. Triggered snowflakes are en masse.



Maybe. 
People in this thread are open for discussion with people who have differing views, but the way that you entered the thread makes you sound like you just want to start an online fight, aka trolling. There have been more than enough trolls come through.

Yes, a vast majority (all?) people who stay in this thread are of the opinion that COVID is a real pandemic event, so it can come across to some as a reverberation chamber to others. 

If you want to start a conversation or debate, you need to bring some evidence or like you said, you will just be ignored.


----------



## Bodes

Adieu said:


> Oh definitely
> 
> People can't seem to be convinced to park their asses on a couch, stuff their faces, and watch TV at home like responsible adults in their free time.
> 
> Everybody like ooh BBQ, ooh Aunt Helen from Chicago is gonna fly in for the weekend, ooh let's go on a package tour vacation, ooh that concert/sporting event seems like just the thing
> 
> And it even applies to people who NEVER WENT ANYWHERE, EVER, BEFOFE.
> 
> My dad's school buddy retired from a diplomatic post in Iraq sitting cooped up in a compound behind an electric fence with machine gunners for the last 5 years. Yay, finally retired and home, it's BBQ time... everybody there caught covid and the guy was dead 3 weeks later.
> 
> Shoulda stayed in Iraq. Damn.



I don't feel that liking your post is right, due to a guy dying, but what you meant by your post I agree with.


----------



## Randy

Adieu said:


> Oh definitely
> 
> People can't seem to be convinced to park their asses on a couch, stuff their faces, and watch TV at home like responsible adults in their free time.
> 
> Everybody like ooh BBQ, ooh Aunt Helen from Chicago is gonna fly in for the weekend, ooh let's go on a package tour vacation, ooh that concert/sporting event seems like just the thing
> 
> And it even applies to people who NEVER WENT ANYWHERE, EVER, BEFOFE.
> 
> My dad's school buddy retired from a diplomatic post in Iraq sitting cooped up in a compound behind an electric fence with machine gunners for the last 5 years. Yay, finally retired and home, it's BBQ time... everybody there caught covid and the guy was dead 3 weeks later.
> 
> Shoulda stayed in Iraq. Damn.





Bodes said:


> The last few posts are similar to what we are hearing from Sydney. Supposed to be in a hard lockdown, apart from essential work and shopping, but multiple families got together a few days back and all 18 have covid.
> That is just one of the multiple stories the state Premier says every day.
> Then yesterday there were large anti-lockdown protests. Very few masks worn and no social distancing.
> 
> Just stay the f home for two weeks, like you should have been doing, zoomed each other instead, and these lockdowns probably would have been over by now.
> 
> People are just so selfish or stupid.



Repeating myself from some months (year?) back but the fact is that you could still do like 99% of your favorite pre-covid activities if you took very basic precautions but THAT'S the shit people can't be bothered to do, so you get what you get.

Could have a bbq but hold it outside, don't share buffet style serving setup, sit distanced, GET VACCINATED, etc. But no, I don't want to get vaccinated, the mask hurts my face, I want to do keg stands, I want to bob for apples and finger fuck eachother in the mouth if I'm having a bbq. YEE YEE!


----------



## TedEH

Thorsday said:


> I feel as if I've been set on Ignore. Some conversation. Triggered snowflakes are en masse.


It could be the ignore feature, but you don't even need to use the ignore feature to ignore someone. Some posts just don't warrant a response. Maybe people are exhausted from arguing in circles about dumb things all the time and actively tried to avoid going down that path for the bazillionth time.



Bodes said:


> of the opinion that COVID is a real pandemic


It's not "an opinion", it's the state of the world right now. "Thorsday is a troll" is an opinion. "COVID is real" is a fact.


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday said:


> I feel as if I've been set on Ignore. Some conversation. Triggered snowflakes are en masse.





StevenC said:


> I love when people just out themselves like this. Basically holding up a sign saying "Put me on your ignore list".


----------



## wheresthefbomb

Thorsday said:


> I feel as if I've been set on Ignore. Some conversation. Triggered snowflakes are en masse.



Interesting, it seems as though you're having an adverse reaction to people expressing themselves freely, up to and including not responding to you. 

If I didn't know better, I might think that you've been "triggered" by people not caring about your contributions.

If I didn't know better, I might think that you're a "snowflake" who wants a "safe space" where everyone has to pat you on the head and tell you that your fountainhead talking points are the most refreshing and brilliant take anyone has ever heard, ever.


----------



## Thorsday

Well... Just checking. 

I stand by my statement that didn't get a response. 

I'm used to perceiving the world differently from most people, and I'm fine with that. 

I've just come to expect the worst of people, corporations, and governments.


----------



## Thorsday

Bodes said:


> Maybe.
> People in this thread are open for discussion with people who have differing views, but the way that you entered the thread makes you sound like you just want to start an online fight, aka trolling. There have been more than enough trolls come through.
> 
> Yes, a vast majority (all?) people who stay in this thread are of the opinion that COVID is a real pandemic event, so it can come across to some as a reverberation chamber to others.
> 
> If you want to start a conversation or debate, you need to bring some evidence or like you said, you will just be ignored.



This thread does appear to be a support group for those burying their heads in the sand, completely unwilling to deal with the reality we are facing. It's nefarious skullduggery. 

I have posted some outing links. They get ignored or refuted based on feelings of the belief system that the government cares about health and well being. They don't.

I don't have to spoon feed evidence anymore. There's mountains of it.


----------



## Bodes

TedEH said:


> It's not "an opinion", it's the state of the world right now. "Thorsday is a troll" is an opinion. "COVID is real" is a fact.



Sorry, yes, you are right it is a fact. Poor word choice. I was merely trying to not come across to Thorsday in a shouting "you know nothing, how can you not think this is a real threat!!1!" kind of manner.
Triggering them was not what I wanted to do.





Randy said:


> Repeating myself from some months (year?) back but the fact is that you could still do like 99% of your favorite pre-covid activities if you took very basic precautions but THAT'S the shit people can't be bothered to do, so you get what you get.
> 
> Could have a bbq but hold it outside, don't share buffet style serving setup, sit distanced, GET VACCINATED, etc. But no, I don't want to get vaccinated, the mask hurts my face, I want to do keg stands, I want to bob for apples and finger fuck eachother in the mouth if I'm having a bbq. YEE YEE!



Humans-gonna-human, unfortunately. Thanks for the laugh!


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday said:


> I have posted some outing links.


You haven't though.


----------



## Randy




----------



## High Plains Drifter

Thorsday said:


> They get ignored or refuted based on feelings of the belief system that the government cares about health and well being. They don't.
> 
> I don't have to spoon feed evidence anymore. There's mountains of it.



The US govt cares very little about the welfare of it's citizens for sure. But I doubt that very many people needed the govt to convince them to get vaccinated either. By the time that I finally had the opportunity to get vaxed, there was plenty of real-world/ non-politicized proof that covid was something I didn't want inside me. I would guess that most people's decision to get vaccinated came from listening to health-care professionals, ER docs, virologists, epidemiologists, etc.


----------



## bostjan

Thorsday said:


> This thread does appear to be a support group for those burying their heads in the sand, completely unwilling to deal with the reality we are facing. It's nefarious skullduggery.
> 
> I have posted some outing links. They get ignored or refuted based on feelings of the belief system that the government cares about health and well being. They don't.
> 
> I don't have to spoon feed evidence anymore. There's mountains of it.


Your profile has not posted a single hyperlink in this thread at any recent date. Maybe you used another profile or maybe you thought you did but forgot.

You might think we are a bunch of idiots, but many people posting in this thread are scientists and health care professionals. There is certainly a lot of misinformation about covid out there and we have been critical of the CDC more than once or twice in the past with their handling of information, but 99% of the worst misinformation is coming from folks that keep claiming to know some sort of truth no one else knows, which they usually never specifically state how or why they know.


----------



## Thorsday

bostjan said:


> Your profile has not posted a single hyperlink in this thread at any recent date. Maybe you used another profile or maybe you thought you did but forgot.
> 
> You might think we are a bunch of idiots, but many people posting in this thread are scientists and health care professionals. There is certainly a lot of misinformation about covid out there and we have been critical of the CDC more than once or twice in the past with their handling of information, but 99% of the worst misinformation is coming from folks that keep claiming to know some sort of truth no one else knows, which they usually never specifically state how or why they know.



I referenced a very damning US Supreme Court Case No. and CDC webpage that outs how disgusting vaccine ingredients are, just a few pages back. Hammer on.


----------



## bostjan

Thorsday said:


> I referenced a very damning US Supreme Court Case No. and CDC webpage that outs how disgusting vaccine ingredients are, just a few pages back. Hammer on.





Thorsday said:


> I have posted some outing links.


There is no post in this thread from you with any hyperlinks, and, not that mentioning the Supreme Court or CDC is equivalent to posting a link, but you haven't made any mention of either of those two thinggs in the thread either. It's stuff like that which would encourage people to put you on ignore.


----------



## Thorsday

US Supreme Court Case verdict from last summer... Very revealing.
https://thestaracademy.co.za/u-s-govt-loses-landmark-vaccine-lawsuit/

https://www.icandecide.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Stipulated-Order-copy-1.pdf

CDC VAX ingredients. Won't bother to update the pdf. Caustic, corrosive Neurotoxins galore, regardless.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/b/excipient-table-2.pdf

Anyone who disagrees with me stinks of having skin in the game. 

or they're simply simps. Plumtarded, perhaps.

Low Effort claims against me can bite the nitrite weenie.


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday said:


> US Supreme Court Case verdict from last summer... Very revealing.
> https://thestaracademy.co.za/u-s-govt-loses-landmark-vaccine-lawsuit/
> 
> https://www.icandecide.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Stipulated-Order-copy-1.pdf
> 
> CDC VAX ingredients. Won't bother to update the pdf. Caustic, corrosive Neurotoxins galore, regardless.
> https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/b/excipient-table-2.pdf
> 
> Anyone who disagrees with me stinks of having skin in the game.
> 
> or they're simply simps. Plumtarded, perhaps.
> 
> Low Effort claims against me can bite the nitrite weenie.


None of this says what you think it says.

That first link says autism rates are expected to drop as a result of the court case, but there is literally no data to say vaccines cause autism. In fact there has only been one study that claimed that, it didn't find a link and was written by a child abuser who cooked the data to sell his own vaccine.


----------



## Kaura

Just came back from my first jab. I was supposed to have it on last friday but I cancelled it at the last minute because I read an article that people, mostly young men my age have got some heart infection because of the vaccine and hell, even the document I got said the same thing. 

"I Got Jabbed And All I Got Was These Stupid Heart Problems But At Least I Didn't Catch The Flu" -Fall Out Boy (2005)


----------



## StevenC

Kaura said:


> Just came back from my first jab. I was supposed to have it on last friday but I cancelled it at the last minute because I read an article that people, mostly young men my age have got some heart infection because of the vaccine and hell, even the document I got said the same thing.
> 
> "I Got Jabbed And All I Got Was These Stupid Heart Problems But At Least I Didn't Catch The Flu" -Fall Out Boy (2005)


That's probably the rarest side effect of all at the minute, for what it's worth.


----------



## diagrammatiks

Thorsday said:


> US Supreme Court Case verdict from last summer... Very revealing.
> https://thestaracademy.co.za/u-s-govt-loses-landmark-vaccine-lawsuit/
> 
> https://www.icandecide.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Stipulated-Order-copy-1.pdf
> 
> CDC VAX ingredients. Won't bother to update the pdf. Caustic, corrosive Neurotoxins galore, regardless.
> https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/b/excipient-table-2.pdf
> 
> Anyone who disagrees with me stinks of having skin in the game.
> 
> or they're simply simps. Plumtarded, perhaps.
> 
> Low Effort claims against me can bite the nitrite weenie.



so literally the same ingredients that are in food. 

how is it possible to be so stupid and still exist.


----------



## TedEH

Thorsday said:


> CDC VAX ingredients. Won't bother to update the pdf. Caustic, corrosive Neurotoxins galore, regardless.


Oh shit dude, have you heard they've been putting dihydrogen monoxide in the water?


----------



## CovertSovietBear

Kaura said:


> Just came back from my first jab. I was supposed to have it on last friday but I cancelled it at the last minute because I read an article that people, mostly young men my age have got some heart infection because of the vaccine and hell, even the document I got said the same thing.



Right, so those are rare cases of myocarditis/pericarditis in younger men (graph below) mostly given after the second dose and on onset of ~4 days. As the vaccines are delivered through an intramuscular route. The 3-4 day onset makes sense from the perspective of T cell trafficking route, where various tissue homing ligands are upregulated and are targeting muscle tissue. 

TLDR: Vaccine given through muscle tissue, immune system actively looks in muscle tissue to search for infected cells/COVID antigen and secretes inflammatory substances.

It's noted that while most of these patients were hospitalized, 95% of the cases were mild.

Source: 
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7027e2.htm
https://www.dicardiology.com/article/overview-myocarditis-cases-caused-covid-19-vaccine

The article then provides links to several publications at the bottom, quick reads. 

CDC Articles:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/myocarditis.html
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/clinical-considerations/myocarditis.html


Figure 1:


----------



## TedEH

I can't remember if I reported back after jab number two. I had been expecting to need a day off to recover, but there was nothing - even the slight muscle pain had been worse with the first one. Maybe I got lucky.


----------



## bostjan

Thorsday said:


> US Supreme Court Case verdict from last summer... Very revealing.
> https://thestaracademy.co.za/u-s-govt-loses-landmark-vaccine-lawsuit/
> 
> https://www.icandecide.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Stipulated-Order-copy-1.pdf
> 
> CDC VAX ingredients. Won't bother to update the pdf. Caustic, corrosive Neurotoxins galore, regardless.
> https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/b/excipient-table-2.pdf
> 
> Anyone who disagrees with me stinks of having skin in the game.
> 
> or they're simply simps. Plumtarded, perhaps.
> 
> Low Effort claims against me can bite the nitrite weenie.


1. That's not the US Supreme Court, it's the New York Southern Circuit Court. It says it very clearly at the top of the document in the link you posted.
2. It's not a verdict, it's a stipulation based on the Freedom of Information Act. It says it very clearly at the top of the link you posted.
3. The entire point of the document is to require the Department of Health and Human Services to post some lab reports.
4. In response to your first link, Robert F. Kennedy has been quoted saying:


Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said:


> That statement is untrue. I don't know where it came from.


5. Is your point in the third link that the CDC is not posting the ingredients in the covid vaccine? If you are interested, the individual vaccine manufacturers have publicly listed the ingredients that they use. For example Moderna - the FDA lists them here: https://www.fda.gov/media/144638/download#page=2
Which of these ingredients are you worried about?


----------



## TedEH

I ended up stumbling down some youtube rabbit holes the other day where some anti-vax people were being interviewed, and one of them said something like "I'm not anti-vax, I'm pro-safety" then started using some awfully familiar talking points and I got flashbacks to this thread. I'm reminded that the internet _is_ real life.


----------



## LordCashew

Thorsday said:


> Anyone who disagrees with me stinks of having skin in the game.
> 
> or they're simply simps. Plumtarded, perhaps.
> 
> Low Effort claims against me can bite the nitrite weenie.


This sounds like an invitation to reasoned, mutually edifying dialogue if I've ever heard one.


----------



## Cyanide_Anima

People who are so deep into conspiracy theory and distrust of the world reveal a lot about themselves. They don't trust themselves and project dishonesty and fear out into the world because they themselves are dishonest and cannot be trusted. They lie unabashedly if they believe it furthers their cause they believe to be true. But they can be dishonest in order to push their truth since the end justifies the means. They believe everything out in the world is the same as themselves. They have an inability to see the world in any other way other than through themselves. It's not even worth discussing anything in this realm with them since they simply are unable to have an honest discussion around these topics.


----------



## Thorsday

Cyanide_Anima said:


> People who are so deep into conspiracy theory and distrust of the world reveal a lot about themselves. They don't trust themselves and project dishonesty and fear out into the world because they themselves are dishonest and cannot be trusted. They lie unabashedly if they believe it furthers their cause they believe to be true. But they can be dishonest in order to push their truth since the end justifies the means. They believe everything out in the world is the same as themselves. They have an inability to see the world in any other way other than through themselves. It's not even worth discussing anything in this realm with them since they simply are unable to have an honest discussion around these topics.



In my case, you'd be wrong. I think you're naivety is weakness. What's wrong with having hatred for people who only want money and power? Your avatar hints that you hate the military industrial complex just as much as I hate big pharma.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

I've started typing replies to his absurd posts a few times and always manage to stop myself. Seeing how the discourse has progressed I see I did the right thing.

Second jab 3 weeks ago no issues. Took a day off work just because its first chance to take a f
Day off without needing Covid test to come back.


----------



## Thorsday

diagrammatiks said:


> so literally the same ingredients that are in food.
> 
> how is it possible to be so stupid and still exist.



So, phenol is in the food you eat?

Aluminum is in many products containing flour, yes. I avoid the white death. 

You come off like mainlining bovine and pig DNA is appealing.

Processed food must love you.


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday said:


> So, phenol is in the food you eat?
> 
> Aluminum is in many products containing flour, yes. I avoid the white death.
> 
> You come off like mainlining bovine and pig DNA is appealing.
> 
> Processed food must love you.


You sound like the sort of person that doesn't understand the difference between water and hydrogen peroxide.


----------



## Drew

This is worth keeping an eye on:

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/23/del...ective-in-israel-prevents-severe-illness.html

Israel, if you'll recall, got preferential access to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in return for tremendous data transparency provided back to the company, and this is from that - they've revised their current effectiveness estimations down from 64% a couple weeks ago, to 39% as of a few days ago, though with still evidence of robust 94% or so protection against severe cases.

Importantly, and I'm sorry I can't find this breakdown off a Bloomberg terminal, so I can't provide an independent source aside from this image, from Bloomberg citing Israeli Ministry of Health data, but when broken into segments based on when the shot was given, the cohort vaccinated in January has seen effectiveness plummet to a whopping 16% (though, again, protection against severe Covid and hospitalization is still pretty high).







It's not a massive group so the margin of error is huge - 0% to 45% - but based on this data the Israeli Ministry of Health is moving forward with plans for booster shots.

This contrasts, sharply, with data coming out of the UK, with effectiveness still in the mid-80s, and while there's a possibility that it may be related to a slightly longer period between doses n the UK, more likely (given the pattern coming out of Israel) it's simply that the UK didn't really start widespread vaccinations before March.


----------



## Drew

Also, why are you guys feeding a troll with 58 total posts, something like half of them in this thread? Have we gotten THAT soft?


----------



## TedEH

We had the right idea with the ignoring, then took the bait when called on it.  Back to ignoring it is then.


----------



## StevenC

Drew said:


> Also, why are you guys feeding a troll with 58 total posts, something like half of them in this thread? Have we gotten THAT soft?


In my defence, it's really hot outside and I'm sick.


----------



## Drew

StevenC said:


> In my defence, it's really hot outside and I'm sick.


 Ok, ok. Cable's out, too, I suppose?


----------



## StevenC

Drew said:


> Ok, ok. Cable's out, too, I suppose?


No cable, TV is bad and the internet is slow.


----------



## bostjan

Thorsday said:


> So, phenol is in the food you eat?
> 
> Aluminum is in many products containing flour, yes. I avoid the white death.
> 
> You come off like mainlining bovine and pig DNA is appealing.
> 
> Processed food must love you.



Is there phenol in the covid vaccine? Aluminium? https://www.hackensackmeridianhealt...own-of-the-ingredients-in-the-covid-vaccines/
Looks like no.

There's a lot of misinformation out there.


----------



## SpaceDock

bostjan said:


> There's a lot of misinformation out there.



Anyone continuing to push anti vax conspiracy garbage is just willfully ignorant and I am sadly at the point that I hope they do get COVID so they will spend their time grasping for breathe and I won’t have to listen to their bullshit.


----------



## Bodes

Thorsday said:


> US Supreme Court Case verdict from last summer... Very revealing.
> https://thestaracademy.co.za/u-s-govt-loses-landmark-vaccine-lawsuit/
> 
> https://www.icandecide.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Stipulated-Order-copy-1.pdf



The Star academy article is essentially quoting this website: https://cairnsnews.org/2018/11/19/u...j9T-ZWRv20-to7a4tiaUNgeb1F3AL9UGY7O3kzCzK_Fxw

Please have a look at the main page: https://cairnsnews.org/

I mean, seriously. They are an anti-lockdown, anti-vaxx morons from Australia with zero reputation. Read through some of their other articles.
Far North Queensland is like the Australian version of Florida in a stereotypic, outsider-looking-in, kind of way. Apologies to any Floridians out there.


Same goes with the icandecide website. Bunch of loonies!





Thorsday said:


> CDC VAX ingredients. Won't bother to update the pdf. Caustic, corrosive Neurotoxins galore, regardless.
> https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/b/excipient-table-2.pdf
> 
> Anyone who disagrees with me stinks of having skin in the game.
> 
> or they're simply simps. Plumtarded, perhaps.
> 
> Low Effort claims against me can bite the nitrite weenie.



If you do not understand how/why these ingredients are used, please don't just post random crap without detailed information.

I am in no way saying that vaccines have not caused harm or death ever, there certainly have been many cases of the poor effect that some vaccines have had on individuals. I am saying that the benfits for a great majority far outweighs the negatives in a tiny minority of individuals.


You may as well just post: https://www.dhmo.org/truth/Dihydrogen-Monoxide.html
If you don't understand what this website is talking about, whether it is an ironic website or some random troll, then any link not from a reputable source should be ignored.


----------



## Thorsday

I suppose I'm a lunatic who will never change anyone's mind. I think humans evolved for eons without vaccines. Human men were more manly, then... Women more feminine. No weird cancers.

What is so idiotic or ignorant about trusting your immune system? 

Vaxxholes argue that AntiVaxxers are irresponsible and putting people at risk by being unvaccinated. But, and it's a big but, if you are vaccinated, why are you mad that I'm not vaccinated? 

As for the source of that article, that is rather immaterial. The point is that the HHA and CDC failed to produce evidence of vaccines being tested and are actually safe. So they lost the lawsuit against ICAN. Plain and simple.


----------



## Thorsday

Bodes said:


> The Star academy article is essentially quoting this website: https://cairnsnews.org/2018/11/19/u...j9T-ZWRv20-to7a4tiaUNgeb1F3AL9UGY7O3kzCzK_Fxw
> 
> Please have a look at the main page: https://cairnsnews.org/
> 
> I mean, seriously. They are an anti-lockdown, anti-vaxx morons from Australia with zero reputation. Read through some of their other articles.
> Far North Queensland is like the Australian version of Florida in a stereotypic, outsider-looking-in, kind of way. Apologies to any Floridians out there.
> 
> 
> Same goes with the icandecide website. Bunch of loonies!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If you do not understand how/why these ingredients are used, please don't just post random crap without detailed information.
> 
> I am in no way saying that vaccines have not caused harm or death ever, there certainly have been many cases of the poor effect that some vaccines have had on individuals. I am saying that the benfits for a great majority far outweighs the negatives in a tiny minority of individuals.
> 
> 
> You may as well just post: https://www.dhmo.org/truth/Dihydrogen-Monoxide.html
> If you don't understand what this website is talking about, whether it is an ironic website or some random troll, then any link not from a reputable source should be ignored.



Cheap blood-brain barrier penetrating agents are the reason those ingredients are in there. The foreign DNA... Disgusting and unnatural. 

The Moderna vaccine is the first of its kind... mRNA... Changes our DNA. I guess some people are into that sort of thing... The Singularity is Near, as Ray Kurzweil put it.


----------



## Randy

"People took false comfort in, 'Well, we hit 70 percent vaccine rate. We're done. Hallelujah. Let's have a party, a bottle of champagne. It's done.' No," said Cuomo, who celebrated the end of the state of emergency with state-funded fireworks. ("The emergency is over," he said at the time.) "

Hmm, wonder where "people" got that impression from.


----------



## narad

Thorsday said:


> I suppose I'm a lunatic who will never change anyone's mind. I think humans evolved for eons without vaccines. Human men were more manly, then... Women more feminine. No weird cancers.



Yea, those Paleolithic women were thickkkk


----------



## spudmunkey

Thorsday said:


> I suppose I'm a lunatic who will never change anyone's mind. I think humans evolved for eons without vaccines.



...and died way earlier, from many preventable diseases and disorders. Yes, there were people who lived to their 70s, 80s, and even 100+...but they were much fewer and further between...and in general, our health is better leading up to our deaths.



> No weird cancers.



Cancers have been found in humans as early as 1500BC. Cancers also exist in nearly every mammal, including ones who haven't discovered refined flours, processed foods and vaccines.



> What is so idiotic or ignorant about trusting your immune system?



Vaccines don't replace an immune system. They help your immune system prep for a test. It's like a Mega Man strategy guide. Your immune system can go in and try to defeat Flash Man, but you're going to have a hell of a time if you didn't learn that you should be using Metal Blade against him.



> Vaxxholes argue that AntiVaxxers are irresponsible and putting people at risk by being unvaccinated. But, and it's a big but, if you are vaccinated, why are you mad that I'm not vaccinated?


 Because the unvaccinated are breeding grounds for variants, which could circumvent vaccinations. This isn't some "the 'other' people are dirty" kind of divisionist mentality...it's literally how viruses work.


----------



## Bodes

Thorsday said:


> Cheap blood-brain barrier penetrating agents are the reason those ingredients are in there. The foreign DNA... Disgusting and unnatural.
> 
> The Moderna vaccine is the first of its kind... mRNA... Changes our DNA. I guess some people are into that sort of thing... The Singularity is Near, as Ray Kurzweil put it.



Weeeeeee! This is fun! I like your jib! You are also helping me be more informed about reasons why I should get my second jab in a few weeks.


So I am better informed, can you please post a link to a scientific paper, written by real scientists with a background in this area which shows the ingredients are "Cheap blood-brain barrier penetrating agents"? Sounds like a fun read.

https://www.health.gov.au/initiativ...is-it-true-can-covid-19-vaccines-alter-my-dna

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/mrna.html

Yes I know these links are to government organisations (Australian then US, respectively), and I know you distrust governments, but here is a link to a piece which uses information provided by Associate Professor Archa Fox from the UWA School of Human Sciences and School of Molecular Sciences and her colleagues.
https://www.uwa.edu.au/news/article/2021/june/can-mrna-vaccines-affect-my-genetic-code


Edit: Wanted to add this link https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/...ccines-concernes-conversation-guide/100018588


----------



## bostjan

Thorsday said:


> Human men were more manly, then


For instance, there was less whinging about having to get vaccinated. 

I can honestly say that I agreed with mbardu when he said that we have no idea about the longterm effects of mRNA vaccines. It's totally new. I totally get being afraid of new things being put into your body.

But, in the end, we will all die and shrivel and rot back into dirt: vax'd, unvax'd, antivax, democrat, republican, socialist, anarchist, etc. No one gets a prize at the end of the game of life. Sure covid only kills 4 out of 100, but we already know that there are some pretty scary long term effects of having wild covid. If the vaccine causes me to grow a third arm ten years from now, I'll just get a doubleneck guitar. It's better than having had died in the last two months or even trying to manage the elevated risk of stroke and lung disease associated with long covid. And just maybe humanity can learn something from this vaccine to improve the response the next time something lime this happens, which, with the planet's population reaching closer to a critical point every year, might be sooner than everyone tends to expect.


----------



## fantom

Thorsday said:


> I suppose I'm a lunatic who will never change anyone's mind. I think humans evolved for eons without vaccines. Human men were more manly, then... Women more feminine. No weird cancers.
> 
> What is so idiotic or ignorant about trusting your immune system?
> 
> Vaxxholes argue that AntiVaxxers are irresponsible and putting people at risk by being unvaccinated. But, and it's a big but, if you are vaccinated, why are you mad that I'm not vaccinated?
> 
> As for the source of that article, that is rather immaterial. The point is that the HHA and CDC failed to produce evidence of vaccines being tested and are actually safe. So they lost the lawsuit against ICAN. Plain and simple.



Because I have kids who can't be vaccinated that need to go to daycare and school? So ignorant self-absorbed assholes risk putting my kids in a hospital for doing something trivial like getting educated or playing in a public park?

I have no problem with you not getting vaccinated. But I also know you aren't willing to stay home and have no problem risking the loves of others. So ya, unvaccinated people are a problem to society because they are too selfish to put others before themselves.


----------



## Thorsday

All this talk about the Delta, the Lambda Variants... Talks like permutation of viruses is something so new and scary. 

Most physiologists used to advise not bothering with the flu shot, because that is the old variant from the flu season past. 

I know the truth hurts, but the state and big pharma bought and paid for media stoked such a gnarly fire over this virus, that they successfully scared a lot of people into giving their freedoms away, and effectively forced the small business competition out of operation.

The collateral damage was astounding. 

And the rich got richer. 

It is true that we will all die someday, and identity politics of each respective specimen seems irrelevant... I just want to live my life my way. Kids are definitely home schooling.


----------



## spudmunkey

Thorsday said:


> All this talk about the Delta, the Lambda Variants... Talks like permutation of viruses is something so new and scary.



Then you aren't paying attention. The yearly flu shot is different each year because of not only different types of viruses, but mutations, as well.



> Most physiologists used to advise not bothering with the flu shot, because that is the old variant from the flu season past.



[Citation needed]

Just like with the COVID shot, the flu shots, even if they guess "wrong", still reduces the severity and duration of an infection. I held off on flu shots until I was 38. I'd get really sick every year, for at least 4-5 days with lingering effects for another week. I've had the flu shot every year since,, and have had no more than 1 day of illness. I know, I know...an anecdote isn't the same as data...but it aligns with expectations and well-accepted science.



> The collateral damage was astounding.
> 
> And the rich got richer.



Not gonna deny or disagree with that. Few would. Including the biggest anti-vaccination voices making tens of millions ofdollars from selling "natural cures", etc.


----------



## _MonSTeR_

bostjan said:


> If the vaccine causes me to grow a third arm ten years from now, I'll just get a doubleneck guitar.



Personally I’m hoping for super strength, or maybe the ability to fly.

I’ll settle for the vaccine reducing the symptoms of the virus if I get it... and then i’ll claim it was all due to my newly acquired ‘mutant healing factor’


----------



## diagrammatiks

Thorsday said:


> All this talk about the Delta, the Lambda Variants... Talks like permutation of viruses is something so new and scary.
> 
> Most physiologists used to advise not bothering with the flu shot, because that is the old variant from the flu season past.
> 
> I know the truth hurts, but the state and big pharma bought and paid for media stoked such a gnarly fire over this virus, that they successfully scared a lot of people into giving their freedoms away, and effectively forced the small business competition out of operation.
> 
> The collateral damage was astounding.
> 
> And the rich got richer.
> 
> It is true that we will all die someday, and identity politics of each respective specimen seems irrelevant... I just want to live my life my way. Kids are definitely home schooling.



oh god please yes. keep your kids at home forever


----------



## narad

Thorsday said:


> Kids are definitely home schooling.



Alright kids, settle down, class is about to begin. Please open up your facebooks to "The Bill Gates 5G vaccine is the weapon of the NWO".


----------



## StevenC

diagrammatiks said:


> oh god please yes. keep your kids at home forever


Dude links to websites that think vaccines cause autism. I don't want him anywhere near kids if he associates with known child abuser Andrew Wakefield.


----------



## bostjan

Thorsday said:


> All this talk about the Delta, the Lambda Variants... Talks like permutation of viruses is something so new and scary.
> 
> Most physiologists used to advise not bothering with the flu shot, because that is the old variant from the flu season past.
> 
> I know the truth hurts, but the state and big pharma bought and paid for media stoked such a gnarly fire over this virus, that they successfully scared a lot of people into giving their freedoms away, and effectively forced the small business competition out of operation.
> 
> The collateral damage was astounding.
> 
> And the rich got richer.
> 
> It is true that we will all die someday, and identity politics of each respective specimen seems irrelevant... I just want to live my life my way. Kids are definitely home schooling.


None of what you said was relevant.

If you were bit by a cobra, would you die, rather than get the antivenin, if you had to get it from a business?

The vaccine is effective at preventing covid and, more importantly, lessening the seriousness of the variants.

Not that anything you said in this thread has been true. But it's irrelevant to deciding to get vaccinated anyway.


----------



## possumkiller

He's kindof right though. You guys are all just a democrat echo chamber in here. When I first joined, it was pretty off-putting to see all the big names here in a big liberal circle jerk smothering conservative posters in your lefty logic like some kind of political debate bukkake. But then I went to college for an associate's degree, continued on later to a university for a bachelor's degree, and gained firsthand knowledge of how the system works. It seems like the more information and education people absorb, the more they start leaning left. Suddenly I found myself in agreement standing side by side with the guys here blowing loads of facts and logic at uneducated and ignorant right wing maniacs like I used to be.


----------



## TedEH

Lol @ Thor keeps liking the posts that are clearly making fun of him.



possumkiller said:


> You guys are all just a democrat echo chamber in here.


It's not a political conversation. Viruses and vaccines don't care who you voted for.



_MonSTeR_ said:


> Personally I’m hoping for super strength, or maybe the ability to fly.


I'm pretty excited for the 5G super-power of not accidentally killing my vulnerable older family members.


----------



## possumkiller

TedEH said:


> It's not a political conversation. Viruses and vaccines don't care who you voted for.


Umm... Yes it is totally a political conversation. Ted, I know it's hard to see from your high horse up there in the People's Republic of Canada, but in the US, you can tell what political party a person belongs to just by whether they believe in the corona virus or not.


----------



## TedEH

It's an unfortunate correlation, nothing more than that. The virus still doesn't care who you vote for. Trying to maintain the subject being a political conversation is a step in the wrong direction.

Or, an alternative take -> if your "political side" of an issue that's killing people is the one that's selfish, paranoid, ignorant of science, willingly puts other people at risk, etc... well, I think it speaks for itself why people lean the other way.


----------



## nightflameauto

As much as I don't want to get involved with the trololololololols, I just have to say it's frustrating seeing people babble about how mRNA changes our DNA. That's not at all how any of this shit works. mRNA is naturally occurring in every living cell in your body. The difference is that the mRNA vaccines introduce a sequence that is not ordinarily in the body unless you've already caught COVID. These vaccines send mRNA messages to the body's cells to begin producing the anti-bodies that protect/fight off COVID. They're so minimally impactful before the body flushes them that we need two doses of these mRNA vaccines for full effectiveness.

Now, is there something else that's gonna long term side-effect us into multiple sex organs or whatever it is the fear mongers are proposing? I don't know. But losing your shit over a naturally occurring messenger system the body uses constantly isn't a very scientific place to start. Yes, the vaccines introduce mRNA sequences you don't have yourself unless you catch COVID naturally. Sorry it's so damn scary to some to introduce those mRNA sequences without catching a possibly deadly disease and keeping your fingers crossed you survive it long enough for the naturally occurring mRNA to start producing the anti-bodies that will eventually stop it from ravaging you into oblivion.

And I have yet to understand how it impacts your freedom to take a free vaccine to prevent yourself from serious illness and possible death, and ALSO protect those more vulnerable than you that have the misfortune of having to tolerate you in their lives.

Wearing a mask stops you from nothing aside from french kissing every person you see. That's not an impact on your freedom.

Getting a vaccine takes a few seconds to minutes out of your life twice. It has no impact on your freedom to do whatever other shit you want to do aside from whining about how oppressed you are because you're expected to behave like an adult.

Granted, in the states being asked to behave like an adult is so the antithesis of the freedom crusaders that I get why that's so upsetting for you. You can't tell a toddler to behave like an adult and expect results. I leave the rest of that thought for those with enough brain cells left in their head after filling it with conspiracy bullshit to sort it out.


----------



## TedEH

possumkiller said:


> your high horse up there in the People's Republic of Canada, but in the US, you can tell what political party a person belongs to just by whether they believe in the corona virus or not


For what it's worth, you can see the same kinds of things here - you can tell a bunch about a persons world views by how they react to covid. What I've been seeing a lot of lately is people who seem to be wearing masks below their noses sort of defiantly. But it's not the singular point that you're extrapolating from, it's the pattern -> the same person will waltz into a public place like a store and not use the free hand sanitizer, ignore the directional arrows, stand as close to people as possible, lift their mask when they get to the cash when they start talking, etc.

I really don't get the under-the-nose-mask people. The message of how to wear a mask properly was so prevalent over the last year and a half that it's hard to imagine anyone didn't get the message by now, so it's hard not to read it as trying to be defiant at this point.


----------



## nightflameauto

TedEH said:


> For what it's worth, you can see the same kinds of things here - you can tell a bunch about a persons world views by how they react to covid. What I've been seeing a lot of lately is people who seem to be wearing masks below their noses sort of defiantly. But it's not the singular point that you're extrapolating from, it's the pattern -> the same person will waltz into a public place like a store and not use the free hand sanitizer, ignore the directional arrows, stand as close to people as possible, lift their mask when they get to the cash when they start talking, etc.
> 
> I really don't get the under-the-nose-mask people. The message of how to wear a mask properly was so prevalent over the last year and a half that it's hard to imagine anyone didn't get the message by now, so it's hard not to read it as trying to be defiant at this point.


Our company health nazi. . . er, um, "personal trainer" is one of those. I asked her about it one day and she literally said she just likes to be able to breathe with a mask on, and after deeper conversation I realized she just never even thought about what it meant to be breathing outside of the mask.

So yeah, there's probably some defiance on some people's parts. But let's never forget how many people will just do the easy thing without thought because it's easy. That's one consistency among all us humanoid creatures.


----------



## fantom

Thorsday said:


> All this talk about the Delta, the Lambda Variants... Talks like permutation of viruses is something so new and scary.
> 
> Most physiologists used to advise not bothering with the flu shot, because that is the old variant from the flu season past.
> 
> I know the truth hurts, but the state and big pharma bought and paid for media stoked such a gnarly fire over this virus, that they successfully scared a lot of people into giving their freedoms away, and effectively forced the small business competition out of operation.
> 
> The collateral damage was astounding.
> 
> And the rich got richer.
> 
> It is true that we will all die someday, and identity politics of each respective specimen seems irrelevant... I just want to live my life my way. Kids are definitely home schooling.



Ironically, you think the state and big pharma is trying some scheme. The reality is: the longer people refuse to get vaccinated, the more CEOs at big companies like Amazon will take in cash and the income gap will widen. Inflation will keep getting worse because stimulus checks have to come from somewhere. And our resource chain and production issues will set America back in the global economy. You are effectively making a choice to risk unprotected members of society, but also screw over a large percentage of the population economically. This is what will make the rich richer. This is what Fox News and The Republican agenda, who are mostly rich already, want. Stupid people filling their wallets.

But it's ok, you are privileged enough to make your free decisions and home school your kids at the cost of others. Who cares about the people that aren't, amirite? Please, never use a hospital when you get sick. The healthcare workers don't need more work.


----------



## narad

possumkiller said:


> Ted, I know it's hard to see from your high horse up there



I think they just call them moose


----------



## diagrammatiks

The best is people that are now all about the lab leaked deadly bio weapon theory.

ok well fine....

so is it dangerous or not.


----------



## budda

narad said:


> I think they just call them moose



Top tier.


----------



## jaxadam

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...talization-children-mask-mandates/5380480001/


----------



## SpaceDock

possumkiller said:


> He's kindof right though. You guys are all just a democrat echo chamber in here. When I first joined, it was pretty off-putting to see all the big names here in a big liberal circle jerk smothering conservative posters in your lefty logic like some kind of political debate bukkake. But then I went to college for an associate's degree, continued on later to a university for a bachelor's degree, and gained firsthand knowledge of how the system works. It seems like the more information and education people absorb, the more they start leaning left. Suddenly I found myself in agreement standing side by side with the guys here blowing loads of facts and logic at uneducated and ignorant right wing maniacs like I used to be.



Weird!?? It’s almost like becoming educated turns people off to the right wing bullshit, who woulda thunk it?


----------



## nightflameauto

jaxadam said:


> https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...talization-children-mask-mandates/5380480001/


I see this going over like a lead balloon.

Those who have tried to be responsible the entire time, wore a mask until they reached full vaccination status plus two weeks, and tried to avoid contact with others if at all possible are going to recoil being told they need to sack up AGAIN because half or more of their fellow man are fucking selfish cunts.

And those who haven't done any of that are going to continue to not do any of that making those that tried to be responsible even more likely to say, "Fuck it. I'm done altering my life because the rest of you are too self-centered to take even a tiny bit of responsibility."

It ain't gonna mean much for me. I still mask everywhere in public but in my cubicle at work and at a sit-down restaurant, which I've only done once a couple weeks ago for the first time since January 2020. So, I'll stop eating out again and do what I've been doing. But those looking for the rage point, I'm pretty sure this will have the potential to trigger both "sides" of the responsibility vs. freedom war.

I'll say it again. 2021, you're no 2020, but dammit, you're trying.


----------



## Drew

narad said:


> Yea, those Paleolithic women were thickkkk


I know, it's pretty ridiculous, huh? 

It also misses two key observations - one, that viruses _used_ to kill absolutely huge percentages of the population - smallpox and polio, for example, both of which have been eradicated thanks to vaccination efforts. And two, that in the past diseases used to be relatively geographic in nature - we didn't move around much, so viruses only spread slowly. Smallpox was present in Europe for a long time, long enough that while Europeans never built immunity to it, it was at least no longer a novel virus so they had some resistance, though at the cost of _huge_ numbers of dead Europeans over time. When European explorers made the - at the time, months long and harrowing - journey across the Atlantic and introduced smallpox to Native American populations, they had no limited resistance, to them it was a novel virus, and it absolutely _decimated_ them, hitting them as hard as it used to hit Europe. Which brings us to another hard truth - sure, human beings evolved perfectly well over millennia without vaccines... but what that means in practice is a whole shitload of them got sick and died, and over numerous generations the survivors who were a little better at fighting off a particular virus would pass their genes down and their grandchildren would try to rebuild the decimated populations. In some cases, they didn't, I'm sure, and pockets of humanity would just disappear as the virus burnt itself out. So, you can go the mass death route if you really want to, I suppose... but I'd rather go the vaccination route and not bury all those friends, myself. 

I mean, the suggestion that we'd be better off letting whole swathes of the world just die off, so the survivors would be "more manly" is pretty fucking hilarious, when you get down to it.  Evolution is literally letting things kill us so the survivors who happen to be better adapted to it pass those genes down, and that's a very messy, VERY slow process. It works over a millennia or two, sure, if you don't mind the body count and the fact you, youre children, or your grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren won't live nearly long enough to benefit from this evolution. 



possumkiller said:


> Umm... Yes it is totally a political conversation. Ted, I know it's hard to see from your high horse up there in the People's Republic of Canada, but in the US, you can tell what political party a person belongs to just by whether they believe in the corona virus or not.


...which, you have to admit, is a pretty ludicrous reality, since there's plenty of objective evidence that Covid-19 is a real virus.  But if one political party wants to define itself as the one who denies reality... I mean, I _guess_ that's cool...


----------



## Drew

Since the image failed to post for some reason last night on that update on the decline in effectiveness to 16% in stopping symptomatic infections in Israeli citizens who were vaccinated in January, I did some more poking and the story is now being reported a bit more widely - here's the Times of Israel: 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveb...is-only-40-effective-at-halting-transmission/

Headline rate of 38%, but with _major_ differentiation based on month the vaccine was administered, and based on their ongoing study Israel is moving forward with plans for a booster shot, based on what appears to be about 6 months' worth of protection. There's a link at the bottom of the story to a number of _other_ Israeli experts questioning the findings, but at present this is worth keeping an eye on.


----------



## profwoot

It's interesting that ranting about Big Pharma is seen by some as a reason in itself to not get vaccinated, when it's the liberals who've shown any concern about all the issues inherent in letting corporations run society. Plus you've got all these anti-vaxers dying of covid trying desperately to get their hands on any Big Pharma-supplied treatment they can. Their stance is not a principled one. They've simply fallen for propaganda.

I'm still pissed about the recent approval of the drug supposedly effective in treating alzheimer's. The clinical trials showed no benefit at all, and a tiny-if-any effect on brain plaques that may or may not have anything to do with the actual process by which alzheimer's destroys brain function, but now Biogen will get $56k per year from millions of desperate patients for a drug that we already know doesn't work. Its approval process was almost certainly corrupt, and it wouldn't be the first time. Rant about that, not the free vaccines with the power to save millions of lives.


----------



## Drew

profwoot said:


> I'm still pissed about the recent approval of the drug supposedly effective in treating alzheimer's. The clinical trials showed no benefit at all, and a tiny-if-any effect on brain plaques that may or may not have anything to do with the actual process by which alzheimer's destroys brain function, but now Biogen will get $56k per year from millions of desperate patients for a drug that we already know doesn't work.


Eh, that's making a LOT of generalizations and glossing over a LOT of data.

There's a growing body of evidence that tau protein buildup may be the mechanism by which Alzheimer effects patients - it's not settled science, but it's the most promising hypothesis we have. And, what you call a "tiny-if-any" effect is a mean decline of between 30 and 49% in the various periodicity and dose strength groups, and cutting something in half is pretty damned significant, and if long term trials have the effect we think they could, it would be an absolute lifeline to Alzheimer's patients. I don't know if you've ever watched a loved one suffer from Alzheimer's, but we lost my grandmother after about a decade of this, and she didn't recognize me for the last five years of her life. I don't know for sure she consistently recognized my dad by the very end. Long story short, it's a fairly promising drug - it has a sizable effect on what we have pretty good reasons to believe is the cause of Alzheimer's.

The price is insane, of course, and I _hope_ will fall as we get out of phase 1 B trials and closer to a broad production, but the science is very encouraging.


----------



## profwoot

Drew said:


> Eh, that's making a LOT of generalizations and glossing over a LOT of data.
> 
> There's a growing body of evidence that tau protein buildup may be the mechanism by which Alzheimer effects patients - it's not settled science, but it's the most promising hypothesis we have. And, what you call a "tiny-if-any" effect is a mean decline of between 30 and 49% in the various periodicity and dose strength groups, and cutting something in half is pretty damned significant, and if long term trials have the effect we think they could, it would be an absolute lifeline to Alzheimer's patients. I don't know if you've ever watched a loved one suffer from Alzheimer's, but we lost my grandmother after about a decade of this, and she didn't recognize me for the last five years of her life. I don't know for sure she consistently recognized my dad by the very end. Long story short, it's a fairly promising drug - it has a sizable effect on what we have pretty good reasons to believe is the cause of Alzheimer's.
> 
> The price is insane, of course, and I _hope_ will fall as we get out of phase 1 B trials and closer to a broad production, but the science is very encouraging.



That very desperation is what makes me pissed about it. Alzheimer's is an absolute nightmare, so of course those families will do whatever they can to hold onto hope, even if it means paying obscene prices for marginally effective drugs. I'll defer to your stats, and I do hope it's effective as that. But I recall reading that effects on plaque didn't show up at all in at least one trial. Fingers crossed, I guess.


----------



## Drew

profwoot said:


> That very desperation is what makes me pissed about it. Alzheimer's is an absolute nightmare, so of course those families will do whatever they can to hold onto hope, even if it means paying obscene prices for marginally effective drugs. I'll defer to your stats, and I do hope it's effective as that. But I recall reading that effects on plaque didn't show up at all in at least one trial. Fingers crossed, I guess.


Well, it's been granted approval via the accelerated approval pathway, which means it was fast tracked based on the fact it DOES show strong clinical potential over existing treatments, but also that Biongen must continue to operate a clinical trial given it's accelerated approval and if the benefits fail to materialize the approval can be pulled. Basically, the FDA is saying the benefits outweigh the risks by enough that they think patient quality of life will best be served by rolling the dice here. 

What the cost to patient actually comes out to be I can't say, but I suspect it will be largely covered by insurance - either way, it's pretty eye-watering. But the FDA doesn't stand to benefit financially from the sale of this drug, and the accelerated approval path means they think it's very likely to be a more effective treatment than what we have today (mere symptom management). 

Of course, I have NO clue what a "fair" price for this should be - how much R&D money Biongen has dumped into both this and other potential treatments that didn't pan out, what it costs to produce, etc. $57,000 will buy you a rather nice Tesla, though, so it's a fucking LOT of money.


----------



## profwoot

I asked a department colleague who studies this stuff and he was pretty animated about it. He reminded me that the scientific committee evaluating the clinical trials all recommended against its approval but they got overruled. He also mentioned that while Tau seems likely to be involved in the disease process that the new drug only targets the beta amyloid plaques, which are far less promising of a target. Shrug.


----------



## Thorsday

How does everyone here feel about governing officials' thinly veiled "Rules for thee but not for me" behavior? If COVID-19 was as bad as they were squawking, they're either as reckless and self absorbed as all get-out, or this whole thing really is what I think it is.

I read people saying things like 'Ockem's Razor', and simply refusing to connect the dots. It astounds me so many don't see it.

Shut down your non-essential beauty salon, so our essential Super WalMart Target can open beauty salons in their locations...

Sick life. All these petty insults are hysterical. I'm not a Republican, by the by.

Yes, go get indoctrinated by the Ministry of Truth, while I spend my time and money on grass fed red meat, free range worm fed chicken/eggs and God-given fruits. 

There is no individual. Only The Party.


----------



## Thorsday

And another thing: masks aren't going to stop viral droplets from getting into your eye sockets. Even by way of entering the respiratory system... They're trying to stop a mosquito with a chicken wire.


----------



## TedEH

Thorsday said:


> masks aren't going to stop viral droplets from getting into your eye sockets.


I want to ignore the obvious troll, but this is too good. This is THE dumbest mask take. You know where the droplets _come from_ right? Do you exhale or sneeze through your eyes? Are you that guy that used to shoot milk from his eyes for Guinness World Records or whatever it was?


----------



## Thorsday

TedEH said:


> I want to ignore the obvious troll, but this is too good. This is THE dumbest mask take. You know where the droplets _come from_ right? Do you exhale or sneeze through your eyes? Are you that guy that used to shoot milk from his eyes for Guinness World Records or whatever it was?



Also aren't going to stop droplets from going out. Sure, it's like how a condom isn't 100% effective, is my point, there. 

So hostile. Ignore the main points I wanted to discuss.


----------



## Thorsday

Supporting insight on natural defense.


----------



## Adieu




----------



## spudmunkey

Thorsday said:


> Supporting insight on natural defense.




Yes. Absolutely. But you'll notice he never once said "if you're all the pinnacle of health, nobody would need vaccines."

There were over 400,000 _excess_ deaths last year, and that's with a record-low-for-decades death rate of the flu, which normally kills 30-75k per year...and that was with weeks and months (in some places) of shut downs, masks, millions if people working and schooling from home, sanitation on a massive scale, etc.


----------



## fantom

Thorsday said:


> Also aren't going to stop droplets from going out. Sure, it's like how a condom isn't 100% effective, is my point, there.
> 
> So hostile. Ignore the main points I wanted to discuss.



So your justification that masks don't help is that condoms don't work 100% of the time?

This is a new low...


----------



## TedEH

Thorsday said:


> Sure, it's like how a condom isn't 100% effective, is my point, there.


That's a horrible argument. They work enough of the time to have done wonders for people's sexual health (as well as freedom, if you're going to take the "freedom" angle).
Just like masks.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯


----------



## SpaceDock

Thorsday said:


> Supporting insight on natural defense.




This guy is a holistic chiropractor you twit.  Srsly take five seconds to check your sources.


----------



## spudmunkey

SpaceDock said:


> This guy is a holistic chiropractor you twit.  Srsly take five seconds to check your sources.



The thing is, I watched most of it, and he's not wrong about anything that I could discern...except that the take-away shouldn't be "if people just took are more zinc and less sugar, none of this would be happening"...but that seems to be how so many people are taking it, if you read the comments on the video. Oh, and if you believe in "god" and are healthy, it's *because* of your belief in "god".


----------



## TedEH

To protect my brain cells, I stopped watching that video at "good hygiene isn't your responsibility".



"Just don't be sick or old" is about the troll-y-est solution to a pandemic suggested yet.


----------



## spudmunkey

TedEH said:


> To protect my brain cells, I stopped watching that video at "good hygiene isn't your responsibility".
> View attachment 96102
> 
> 
> "Just don't be sick or old" is about the troll-y-est solution to a pandemic suggested yet.



Ha, fair...I think that was just a side effect of him trying to simplify the message with one check mark for each line, rather than a checkerboard. For that specific line, he said, "To learn how the virus spreads, so they can teach us how to have good hygeine and good protective measures".


----------



## TedEH

Even if he had "correctly" graphed responsibilities - the whole chart exists as a cop out to say that people have no personal responsibility to help fight the pandemic - only to keep yourself healthy, everyone else be damned. Screw old people, anyone not born perfect, those who made lifestyle choices with or without knowing they'd have to fight a pandemic, anyone with vices (which is everyone) etc., amirite?


----------



## thebeesknees22

TedEH said:


> Even if he had "correctly" graphed responsibilities - the whole chart exists as a cop out to say that people have no personal responsibility to help fight the pandemic - only to keep yourself healthy, everyone else be damned. Screw old people, anyone not born perfect, those who made lifestyle choices with or without knowing they'd have to fight a pandemic, anyone with vices (which is everyone) etc., amirite?



isn't that just the normal Ayn Rand/Republican philosophy? "only oneself matters, and everyone else be damned" kinda thing. That pretty much has been their whole philosophy for decades.


----------



## bostjan

Thorsday said:


> How does everyone here feel about governing officials' thinly veiled "Rules for thee but not for me" behavior? If COVID-19 was as bad as they were squawking, they're either as reckless and self absorbed as all get-out, or this whole thing really is what I think it is.
> 
> I read people saying things like 'Ockem's Razor', and simply refusing to connect the dots. It astounds me so many don't see it.
> 
> Shut down your non-essential beauty salon, so our essential Super WalMart Target can open beauty salons in their locations...
> 
> Sick life. All these petty insults are hysterical. I'm not a Republican, by the by.
> 
> Yes, go get indoctrinated by the Ministry of Truth, while I spend my time and money on grass fed red meat, free range worm fed chicken/eggs and God-given fruits.
> 
> There is no individual. Only The Party.



Yeah, I've noticed the politicians travelling to Mexico, eating out, not wearing masks, etc. I'm not surprised; I suppose I have low expectations. Politiciand and cops need to follow the law, too.

It's easy to fall into the echo chamber. That's why it is important to trust the experts, but verify the facts.


----------



## StevenC

SpaceDock said:


> This guy is a holistic chiropractor you twit.  Srsly take five seconds to check your sources.


For what it's worth, the proper term for these not doctors is chiropractics.

I know.


----------



## Thorsday

TedEH said:


> Even if he had "correctly" graphed responsibilities - the whole chart exists as a cop out to say that people have no personal responsibility to help fight the pandemic - only to keep yourself healthy, everyone else be damned. Screw old people, anyone not born perfect, those who made lifestyle choices with or without knowing they'd have to fight a pandemic, anyone with vices (which is everyone) etc., amirite?



Old people die... Are you a pre-teen? 

And those excess deaths you're carrying on about are bogus. Follow the money and you'll see hospitals received substantially more money from the govt if the death certificate read cause of death: COVID-19.


----------



## TedEH

Aaaaaaaaand that's my limit. Onto the ignore list you go.


----------



## Thorsday

TedEH said:


> To protect my brain cells, I stopped watching that video at "good hygiene isn't your responsibility".
> View attachment 96102
> 
> 
> "Just don't be sick or old" is about the troll-y-est solution to a pandemic suggested yet.



Go carnivore and be happy.


----------



## Thorsday

thebeesknees22 said:


> isn't that just the normal Ayn Rand/Republican philosophy? "only oneself matters, and everyone else be damned" kinda thing. That pretty much has been their whole philosophy for decades.



Man didn't evolve to become apex predators by helping the weaker men. It's not me you are angry with. So many people hate nature and what is natural.


----------



## Thorsday

SpaceDock said:


> This guy is a holistic chiropractor you twit.  Srsly take five seconds to check your sources.



That doesn't make him wrong.

This world is upside down for taking medical advice from unhealthy "doctors" who get you sick on purpose, so they can sell you drugs.

Go follow the food pyramid, Sickbreed. No, better yet: Compose a song. An epic song about how much you love Bill Gates, fat bodies, and comfort.


----------



## narad

Man became an apex predator based on cooperation and innovation. Unscientific edgelords believing in conspiracy theories are the opposite of why mankind succeeded. 

Imagine in your head any person in modern society who contributed notably to mankind, out of the thousands of examples anyone would recognize from name alone. Now, are they anti-vax? Did they believe in Q-anon? Did they think doctors cause diseases? Didn't think so.


----------



## Thorsday

narad said:


> Man became an apex predator based on cooperation and innovation. Unscientific edgelords believing in conspiracy theories are the opposite of why mankind succeeded.
> 
> Imagine in your head any person in modern society who contributed notably to mankind, out of the thousands of examples anyone would recognize from name alone. Now, are they anti-vax? Did they believe in Q-anon? Did they think doctors cause diseases? Didn't think so.



Define apex predator. Word sounds so scary so you bring your connotation of said word into a point of your argument. Of course I believe in helping fellow man/fraternity/family/tribalism. 

Here is the denotation of the word: An apex predator, also known as an alpha predator or top predator, is a predator at the top of a food chain, without natural predators. 

My argument is that we are smart enough to kill just about anything, and there is a conspiracy with corporations to make a malnourished populace that are easy to bend to their will.

Hell yes, doctors want to kill you, useful idiots only have a sheepskin to push pills. They prescribe statins to lower your cholestrol to some arbitrary number... You're made of cholestrol. You accept the statins and you are paying to kill your own cells. That's just one of many examples.

Don't lump me in with right wing extremists. I observe trends, search for data and think for myself, with common sense. My God given gut tells me so much about people and the world. 

It all goes back to health...


----------



## Bodes

I quite like these answers, with links, to some basic questions around COVID. Yes some of them only relate to Australia, but they are still reasonably relevant. They are based on common questions this news channel receives from their readers and viewers.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07...ed-questions-coronavirus-most-asked/100324504


----------



## fantom

Thorsday said:


> Man didn't evolve to become apex predators by helping the weaker men. It's not me you are angry with. So many people hate nature and what is natural.



Helping weaker men is called cooperative behavior. It is the exact reason humans are so successful from an evolutionary standpoint...

I'm sure even you see the irony of throwing out a naturalist / survival of the fittest attitude using the internet. Unless you are Amish and can live off the land, it's kind of hypocritical and lazy to fallback on the "nature says I'm right" argument. I had an ex that fell back to this argument anytime she didn't get what she wanted. I see patterns too.



Thorsday said:


> My argument is that we are smart enough to kill just about anything, and there is a conspiracy with corporations to make a malnourished populace that are easy to bend to their will.
> 
> Hell yes, doctors want to kill you, useful idiots only have a sheepskin to push pills. They prescribe statins to lower your cholestrol to some arbitrary number... You're made of cholestrol. You accept the statins and you are paying to kill your own cells. That's just one of many examples



Or maybe it's just capitalism and survival of the fittest. You just haven't realized that you are one of the weak ones. I am too, welcome to the club!


Btw, you may not call yourself a Republican, and you probably aren't by current standards. But your views on life align with many Republican families I knew growing up (including my own). I wouldn't be surprised if you were still in the political closet.


----------



## Abominorg the Grotesque

I remember in the mid 2000s when you would frequently hear about "pandemics" occurring in the PRC like bird flu, swine flu, H1N1 etc it often occurred to me that it might all literally be bullshit. The Chinese state is a scientific bureaucracy where they have this system where the state health authorities micromanage society and literally have eugenics policies and population-numbers-reduction shit like the One-Child policy. Like, that's what the scientific/medical culture of this supposedly pandemic-ridden society is like. Think people like that might BS the entire thing for political reasons?

Considering the fact that they are actual totalitarians, the PRC regime was more than likely using widespread fear of pandemics to simply rule the population through fear similar to how the US and other Western countries at the time would use the fear of terrorism and terrorist attacks. If you can create an atmosphere of constant crisis and paranoia people will go along with pretty much anything their government asks them to do and support totally fascistic measures they wouldn't normally. The public, in any country, has almost none of the resources at their disposal to verify things like mortality rates beyond the official figures the government gives them. In a political climate where its socially unacceptable to question the official figures, you literally have no way of knowing whether there actually is a real pandemic going on, or you've merely been made to believe that there is by those in power, so that they might gain more power.

In early 2020 when the disease had only been around for like a month and the talking heads on the news were already going on about "the new normal", and even talking about using the Army or National Guard to deal with the disease, I began to perceive that there is a fairly strong possibility we were all being had the same way we were after 9/11 and the place was about to become authoritarian as fuck again. 

There might be a kernel of truth to panics about diseases the same way that there is a kernel of truth to panic about terrorism, but it shouldn't be used as an excuse to completely alter the nature of society and people's way of life the way this thing has been for over a year now.

You let those sort of situations go on for decades at a time, where some crisis happens, people go into full-panic mode, let the gov's pass all kinds of restrictive measures, and after a number of decades it accumulates to the point that you're living in a totally different society from the one you started out in.

I've always thought the practice of wearing sick masks in public all the time is dehumanizing and primarily about creating a culture of social control and conformity rather than disease prevention. Japan, although a relatively free society compared to China, has a deep-seated culture of, like, not bucking the system and very collectivist social attitudes; so its not surprising that it became a phenomenon there years before an actual pandemic happened. Japanese society is kind of like America circa 1950s, although the masks lend a creepy cult-like atmosphere to the place. Yeah, it probably is healthful in some way or another, but it is also ludicrous and dystopian. I think its pitiful to see almost an entire people adopt such a custom in the span of like one generation.

Some cultures actually are just more germophobic than others, in a sort of irrational way. I don't care how healthful a squat toilet might be, you couldn't pay me to use one of the things, because they strike me as absurd.

I thought in the US people would generally be way more resistant to masking, but most people don't really care anymore because they're so spiritually and emotionally defeated from having lived through the post-9/11 era, and now this, that they're cool with going along through life like they're citizens of some Asian police state. Or like Jake Gyllenhal in that Bubble Boy movie.

It is absurd to live life as though you were in a friggin' hospital ward; there's just no way that the world you live in is actually as hellishly dangerous of a place as the fucking fear mongers on TV have been making it out to be for years. I tell myself every day: Dude, there is no way that you were unfortunate enough to have been born in some Apocalyptic age with all this mayhem out of "28 Days Later" or "The Day After Tomorrow" going on; and the world is, in fact, that exact same decent, friendly, and free place I remember from when I was a kid. For years now its seemed to me like 90% of the human race just went nuts after 9/11 and are basically obedient brainwashed slaves.

I personally believe that the absolute worst types of societies...the most oppressive cultures that are the most reminiscent of science-fiction police states, are ones where the scientist-class and science bureaucrats are in control of the state and run everything. You live in a place like that long enough and you'll start to see the return of every heinous and discredited science of yesteryear like eugenics, vivisection, human experimentation, etc, because the Dr. Mengele types will be able to operate freely, having set themselves up as an unaccountable state-funded bureaucracy that can't be freely criticized by the public or third parties. All of the humanitarian progress that was made in fields like psychology and medicine that were known for being riddled with social prejudices and exploiting and persecuting people in the 20th century happened because people were able to offer objective, third-party criticism of scientific institutions from outside of them, and the authorities didn't necessarily pander and kowtow to science, scientists and doctors as much as today. With institutionalized science and state-level bureaucracy you have none of the objectivity which science is supposed to embody, because they've become the new unquestionable guardian class and are corrupt as fuck.

You know that society in the book The Giver, where eugenicists secretly run the state from behind the scenes and only the Giver and a few others know about it? That's what world civilization could end up turning into if people revert to that sort of unquestioning support for orthodox science and medicine they had in the early 20th century. A lot of what post-1960s culture was all about was this growing skepticism toward institutionalized science and a search for other ideas from around the world because it became obvious to people that misguided scientific and and healthcare institutions were actually ruining the world rather than improving it, and being used as an apparatus of abuse and tyranny.

The way things have been going, I'd say...ten years from now, you're either going to be living in a place not too different from America circa 2019, or you're gonna be living in some kind of Coronavirus police state where people wear friggin' Body Condoms all the time and your employer forces you to get a vaccine every year. Deep down inside you'll know it doesn't do a fucking thing for you the same as flu shots. I think I speak for many a person's true personal conscience that they maybe are afraid to express when I say, Fuck That!


----------



## diagrammatiks

Is this a fucking copy pasta. Come on. There’s no way real people are this stupid.

like how do you eat and breathe and shit.

the funniest funniest part about this is that other then the borders being closed, China has been fine. 

I think I wore a mask for like 15 days.


----------



## mbardu

Abominorg the Grotesque said:


> I remember in the mid 2000s when you would frequently hear about "pandemics" occurring in the PRC like bird flu, swine flu, H1N1 etc it often occurred to me that it might all literally be bullshit. The Chinese state is a scientific bureaucracy where they have this system where the state health authorities micromanage society and literally have eugenics policies and population-numbers-reduction shit like the One-Child policy. Like, that's what the scientific/medical culture of this supposedly pandemic-ridden society is like. Think people like that might BS the entire thing for political reasons?
> 
> Considering the fact that they are actual totalitarians, the PRC regime was more than likely using widespread fear of pandemics to simply rule the population through fear similar to how the US and other Western countries at the time would use the fear of terrorism and terrorist attacks. If you can create an atmosphere of constant crisis and paranoia people will go along with pretty much anything their government asks them to do and support totally fascistic measures they wouldn't normally. The public, in any country, has almost none of the resources at their disposal to verify things like mortality rates beyond the official figures the government gives them. In a political climate where its socially unacceptable to question the official figures, you literally have no way of knowing whether there actually is a real pandemic going on, or you've merely been made to believe that there is by those in power, so that they might gain more power.
> 
> In early 2020 when the disease had only been around for like a month and the talking heads on the news were already going on about "the new normal", and even talking about using the Army or National Guard to deal with the disease, I began to perceive that there is a fairly strong possibility we were all being had the same way we were after 9/11 and the place was about to become authoritarian as fuck again.
> 
> There might be a kernel of truth to panics about diseases the same way that there is a kernel of truth to panic about terrorism, but it shouldn't be used as an excuse to completely alter the nature of society and people's way of life the way this thing has been for over a year now.
> 
> You let those sort of situations go on for decades at a time, where some crisis happens, people go into full-panic mode, let the gov's pass all kinds of restrictive measures, and after a number of decades it accumulates to the point that you're living in a totally different society from the one you started out in.
> 
> I've always thought the practice of wearing sick masks in public all the time is dehumanizing and primarily about creating a culture of social control and conformity rather than disease prevention. Japan, although a relatively free society compared to China, has a deep-seated culture of, like, not bucking the system and very collectivist social attitudes; so its not surprising that it became a phenomenon there years before an actual pandemic happened. Japanese society is kind of like America circa 1950s, although the masks lend a creepy cult-like atmosphere to the place. Yeah, it probably is healthful in some way or another, but it is also ludicrous and dystopian. I think its pitiful to see almost an entire people adopt such a custom in the span of like one generation.
> 
> Some cultures actually are just more germophobic than others, in a sort of irrational way. I don't care how healthful a squat toilet might be, you couldn't pay me to use one of the things, because they strike me as absurd.
> 
> I thought in the US people would generally be way more resistant to masking, but most people don't really care anymore because they're so spiritually and emotionally defeated from having lived through the post-9/11 era, and now this, that they're cool with going along through life like they're citizens of some Asian police state. Or like Jake Gyllenhal in that Bubble Boy movie.
> 
> It is absurd to live life as though you were in a friggin' hospital ward; there's just no way that the world you live in is actually as hellishly dangerous of a place as the fucking fear mongers on TV have been making it out to be for years. I tell myself every day: Dude, there is no way that you were unfortunate enough to have been born in some Apocalyptic age with all this mayhem out of "28 Days Later" or "The Day After Tomorrow" going on; and the world is, in fact, that exact same decent, friendly, and free place I remember from when I was a kid. For years now its seemed to me like 90% of the human race just went nuts after 9/11 and are basically obedient brainwashed slaves.
> 
> I personally believe that the absolute worst types of societies...the most oppressive cultures that are the most reminiscent of science-fiction police states, are ones where the scientist-class and science bureaucrats are in control of the state and run everything. You live in a place like that long enough and you'll start to see the return of every heinous and discredited science of yesteryear like eugenics, vivisection, human experimentation, etc, because the Dr. Mengele types will be able to operate freely, having set themselves up as an unaccountable state-funded bureaucracy that can't be freely criticized by the public or third parties. All of the humanitarian progress that was made in fields like psychology and medicine that were known for being riddled with social prejudices and exploiting and persecuting people in the 20th century happened because people were able to offer objective, third-party criticism of scientific institutions from outside of them, and the authorities didn't necessarily pander and kowtow to science, scientists and doctors as much as today. With institutionalized science and state-level bureaucracy you have none of the objectivity which science is supposed to embody, because they've become the new unquestionable guardian class and are corrupt as fuck.
> 
> You know that society in the book The Giver, where eugenicists secretly run the state from behind the scenes and only the Giver and a few others know about it? That's what world civilization could end up turning into if people revert to that sort of unquestioning support for orthodox science and medicine they had in the early 20th century. A lot of what post-1960s culture was all about was this growing skepticism toward institutionalized science and a search for other ideas from around the world because it became obvious to people that misguided scientific and and healthcare institutions were actually ruining the world rather than improving it, and being used as an apparatus of abuse and tyranny.
> 
> The way things have been going, I'd say...ten years from now, you're either going to be living in a place not too different from America circa 2019, or you're gonna be living in some kind of Coronavirus police state where people wear friggin' Body Condoms all the time and your employer forces you to get a vaccine every year. Deep down inside you'll know it doesn't do a fucking thing for you the same as flu shots. I think I speak for many a person's true personal conscience that they maybe are afraid to express when I say, Fuck That!



Wait...all that to say that masks are authoritarian?

Seriously, what is the problem with wearing a mask for a bit when you go to crowded places? And maybe just go to crowded places a little bit less too? Are we going to go full alt-right and compare that to the holocaust? Oh wait, you already did mention Mengele lmao 

The same people who complain that this feels neverending and authoritarian are the ones who pretty much _ensured _it would be neverending by not having worn a mask or not being willing to skip on their favorite activities for a couple of weeks. All in the name of muh freedom? So short-sighted...

If you want to compare to other societies, people in New Zealand did it right from the start, didn't whine about "lack of freedom" for a couple of weeks... and they are now out and about living their normal life without mask as we speak. Cafes, bars, schools, crowded stadiums, normal gatherings, you name it... Oh, and they saved thousands of lives too btw. As for Japan? "Creepy cult-like atmosphere" are clearly the words of someone who knows nothing of the culture or country.


----------



## Abominorg the Grotesque

mbardu said:


> Wait...all that to say that masks are authoritarian?
> Are we going to go full alt-right and compare that to the holocaust? Oh wait, you already did mention Mengel lmao
> 
> The same people who complain that this feels neverending and authoritarian are the ones who pretty much _ensured _it would be neverending by not having worn a mask or not being willing to skip on their favorite activities for a couple of weeks. All in the name of muh freedom? So short-sighted...



Yeah American society generally is authoritarian as hell during any crisis period and people tolerate a level of statism and government intervention in their lives that they wouldn't under normal conditions. The period during the World Wars is a good example, it was literally like living in a socialist country where they had mandated ration programs, the Alien and Sedition Act, draft, etc. It took decades to reign some aspects of that in, society was still a lot more militarized in the 1960s than it is today where people pretty much take it for granted that the government doesn't like outright control your industry as a state monopoly, and the military plays a more diminished role in society. 

There's nothing normal about stuff like vaccine passports; the Normal was what life was like when you didn't have to deal with horseshit like that, and the society you now live in is some new and more centralized and bureaucratic place they've replaced it with. Its like dealing with Darth Sidious in Star Wars III, you actually have to _make_ the authorities return society to normal and demand it of them because they won't willingly give up the new emergency powers they acquire in the midst of one of those periods.


----------



## fantom

Abominorg the Grotesque said:


> I remember in the mid 2000s when you would frequently hear about "pandemics" occurring in the PRC like bird flu, swine flu, H1N1 etc it often occurred to me that it might all literally be bullshit. The Chinese state is a scientific bureaucracy where they have this system where the state health authorities micromanage society and literally have eugenics policies and population-numbers-reduction shit like the One-Child policy. Like, that's what the scientific/medical culture of this supposedly pandemic-ridden society is like. Think people like that might BS the entire thing for political reasons?
> 
> Considering the fact that they are actual totalitarians, the PRC regime was more than likely using widespread fear of pandemics to simply rule the population through fear similar to how the US and other Western countries at the time would use the fear of terrorism and terrorist attacks. If you can create an atmosphere of constant crisis and paranoia people will go along with pretty much anything their government asks them to do and support totally fascistic measures they wouldn't normally. The public, in any country, has almost none of the resources at their disposal to verify things like mortality rates beyond the official figures the government gives them. In a political climate where its socially unacceptable to question the official figures, you literally have no way of knowing whether there actually is a real pandemic going on, or you've merely been made to believe that there is by those in power, so that they might gain more power.
> 
> In early 2020 when the disease had only been around for like a month and the talking heads on the news were already going on about "the new normal", and even talking about using the Army or National Guard to deal with the disease, I began to perceive that there is a fairly strong possibility we were all being had the same way we were after 9/11 and the place was about to become authoritarian as fuck again.
> 
> There might be a kernel of truth to panics about diseases the same way that there is a kernel of truth to panic about terrorism, but it shouldn't be used as an excuse to completely alter the nature of society and people's way of life the way this thing has been for over a year now.
> 
> You let those sort of situations go on for decades at a time, where some crisis happens, people go into full-panic mode, let the gov's pass all kinds of restrictive measures, and after a number of decades it accumulates to the point that you're living in a totally different society from the one you started out in.
> 
> I've always thought the practice of wearing sick masks in public all the time is dehumanizing and primarily about creating a culture of social control and conformity rather than disease prevention. Japan, although a relatively free society compared to China, has a deep-seated culture of, like, not bucking the system and very collectivist social attitudes; so its not surprising that it became a phenomenon there years before an actual pandemic happened. Japanese society is kind of like America circa 1950s, although the masks lend a creepy cult-like atmosphere to the place. Yeah, it probably is healthful in some way or another, but it is also ludicrous and dystopian. I think its pitiful to see almost an entire people adopt such a custom in the span of like one generation.
> 
> Some cultures actually are just more germophobic than others, in a sort of irrational way. I don't care how healthful a squat toilet might be, you couldn't pay me to use one of the things, because they strike me as absurd.
> 
> I thought in the US people would generally be way more resistant to masking, but most people don't really care anymore because they're so spiritually and emotionally defeated from having lived through the post-9/11 era, and now this, that they're cool with going along through life like they're citizens of some Asian police state. Or like Jake Gyllenhal in that Bubble Boy movie.
> 
> It is absurd to live life as though you were in a friggin' hospital ward; there's just no way that the world you live in is actually as hellishly dangerous of a place as the fucking fear mongers on TV have been making it out to be for years. I tell myself every day: Dude, there is no way that you were unfortunate enough to have been born in some Apocalyptic age with all this mayhem out of "28 Days Later" or "The Day After Tomorrow" going on; and the world is, in fact, that exact same decent, friendly, and free place I remember from when I was a kid. For years now its seemed to me like 90% of the human race just went nuts after 9/11 and are basically obedient brainwashed slaves.
> 
> I personally believe that the absolute worst types of societies...the most oppressive cultures that are the most reminiscent of science-fiction police states, are ones where the scientist-class and science bureaucrats are in control of the state and run everything. You live in a place like that long enough and you'll start to see the return of every heinous and discredited science of yesteryear like eugenics, vivisection, human experimentation, etc, because the Dr. Mengele types will be able to operate freely, having set themselves up as an unaccountable state-funded bureaucracy that can't be freely criticized by the public or third parties. All of the humanitarian progress that was made in fields like psychology and medicine that were known for being riddled with social prejudices and exploiting and persecuting people in the 20th century happened because people were able to offer objective, third-party criticism of scientific institutions from outside of them, and the authorities didn't necessarily pander and kowtow to science, scientists and doctors as much as today. With institutionalized science and state-level bureaucracy you have none of the objectivity which science is supposed to embody, because they've become the new unquestionable guardian class and are corrupt as fuck.
> 
> You know that society in the book The Giver, where eugenicists secretly run the state from behind the scenes and only the Giver and a few others know about it? That's what world civilization could end up turning into if people revert to that sort of unquestioning support for orthodox science and medicine they had in the early 20th century. A lot of what post-1960s culture was all about was this growing skepticism toward institutionalized science and a search for other ideas from around the world because it became obvious to people that misguided scientific and and healthcare institutions were actually ruining the world rather than improving it, and being used as an apparatus of abuse and tyranny.
> 
> The way things have been going, I'd say...ten years from now, you're either going to be living in a place not too different from America circa 2019, or you're gonna be living in some kind of Coronavirus police state where people wear friggin' Body Condoms all the time and your employer forces you to get a vaccine every year. Deep down inside you'll know it doesn't do a fucking thing for you the same as flu shots. I think I speak for many a person's true personal conscience that they maybe are afraid to express when I say, Fuck That!



I agree that the 9/11 response was absurd. TSA is a waste of time. Scanners suck. Unlimited ability for the feds to spy on citizens without a warrant is bad. And I wouldn't be surprised if the response did absolutely nothing to keep us safer. I was complaining about this junk since day one.

What does any of this have to do with a pandemic sickening people again? I can tell you hate 9/11, but this is an ongoing virus mutating and infecting people. Viruses don't hate people because their skin color, religious preference, or whatever some dude did 50 years ago with bombs. Viruses don't retaliate and instigate. The moment you personify a virus to give you an excuse to ignore it is the moment you are competing with your own biases. It's almost as dumb as saying we should ignore forest fires because Napoleon burned down your great grandpa's hut.

If you want to know if the virus is real, go to a hospital and ask if you can volunteer in the covid ward or with testing. Talk to people who have first hand experience and get healthy information.


----------



## fantom

Abominorg the Grotesque said:


> There's nothing normal about stuff like vaccine passports; the Normal was what life was like when you didn't have to deal with horseshit like that, and the society you now live in is some new and more centralized and bureaucratic place they've replaced it with



Um... We've had vaccine records for decades that are required to enroll kids in public school. Pretty normal, right?

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/records/find-records.html


----------



## Thorsday

mbardu said:


> Wait...all that to say that masks are authoritarian?
> 
> Seriously, what is the problem with wearing a mask for a bit when you go to crowded places? And maybe just go to crowded places a little bit less too? Are we going to go full alt-right and compare that to the holocaust? Oh wait, you already did mention Mengele lmao
> 
> The same people who complain that this feels neverending and authoritarian are the ones who pretty much _ensured _it would be neverending by not having worn a mask or not being willing to skip on their favorite activities for a couple of weeks. All in the name of muh freedom? So short-sighted...
> 
> If you want to compare to other societies, people in New Zealand did it right from the start, didn't whine about "lack of freedom" for a couple of weeks... and they are now out and about living their normal life without mask as we speak. Cafes, bars, schools, crowded stadiums, normal gatherings, you name it... Oh, and they saved thousands of lives too btw. As for Japan? "Creepy cult-like atmosphere" are clearly the words of someone who knows nothing of the culture or country.



Dude. I've been to Japan. North, Central and South. Right before the pandemic. Very few wear masks.

You compare California USA to New Zealand and boast infection rate differences? You're funny. Who goes to New Zealand? I'd love to. Just haven't booked it!


----------



## Thorsday

fantom said:


> Um... We've had vaccine records for decades that are required to enroll kids in public school. Pretty normal, right?
> 
> https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/records/find-records.html



Fuck public school. California is a shit show of welfare/unemployment toads who are more comfortable on The Dole than working a job. It's a straight up Worker's Party Revolt.

Not to say I am not a proponent for individuals having a purpose... The System is being gamed. But thuh plandemic... PSYOP against human weakness...


----------



## narad

Thorsday said:


> Dude. I've been to Japan. North, Central and South. Right before the pandemic. Very few wear masks.



Basically everyone wears masks if they're visibly sick (or if they're girls and have a blemish). I just passed probably 3,000 Japanese people today and I could count on my digits how many were not wearing masks. And as for dystopias... yea, super creepy to be able to take mass transit in a populated city and not get sick every couple months like in London/NYC....


----------



## StevenC

This is why America needs universal health care.

In the rest of the world doctors aren't trying to scam us because the system isn't for profit. Epipens don't cost $1000 each. People trust their health care professionals.

All this anti-medical establishment conspiracy nonsense is America's biggest export.


----------



## Bodes

StevenC said:


> This is why America needs universal health care.
> 
> In the rest of the world doctors aren't trying to scam us because the system isn't for profit. Epipens don't cost $1000 each. People trust their health care professionals.
> 
> All this anti-medical establishment conspiracy nonsense is America's biggest export.



Epipens cost $1000 in the USA??? Far out!!
I bought two for my son and got change from $100AUD a few months back!

Medicare certainly has some awesome benefits! Yes I do understand that our tax dollars have paid for the remaining costs, but let's spread the love for the greater good.


----------



## possumkiller

SpaceDock said:


> Weird!?? It’s almost like becoming educated turns people off to the right wing bullshit, who woulda thunk it?


I also think you have to have some sort of basic humanity and capacity for empathy to start with, though. I am working on a second bachelor's degree in cultural anthropology this time and it has been a cool ride so far. I have come to understand much more regarding the social constructs of race and gender that I would have had no way to comprehend before. The thing is people have to want to change. I started to realize that I was a racist ignorant douche and I wanted to stop being an ignorant racist douche. Unfortunately a most of my former friends and my family are quite content to remain ignorant and intolerant.


----------



## TedEH

Abominorg the Grotesque said:


> you literally have no way of knowing whether there actually is a real pandemic going on


I mean, people dying is pretty big red flag. Nurses getting burnt out. Do you know anyone who works in long-term care? They had to witness people in their care drop like flies.


----------



## narad

TedEH said:


> I mean, people dying is pretty big red flag. Nurses getting burnt out. Do you know anyone who works in long-term care? They had to witness people in their care drop like flies.



They had to witness people in their care drop like flies.... all the way to the bank


----------



## bostjan

StevenC said:


> This is why America needs universal health care.
> 
> In the rest of the world doctors aren't trying to scam us because the system isn't for profit. Epipens don't cost $1000 each. People trust their health care professionals.
> 
> All this anti-medical establishment conspiracy nonsense is America's biggest export.



Crazy how the same people who want to undo health care reform here are the same ones who think covid is a conspiracy by medical companies to take over the world.

Crazy how people are justifying conspiracy theories that China created covid by comparing the lack of pre-covid mask wearers in Japan to post-covid mask wearers in California.

Crazy how some people think that the government is tyrannical because they are _suggesting_ that you wear a mask or else they'll ask you nicely to put one on, especially when many of those people were the same ones empathized with the group of people who tried to overturn a democratic election by force.

It's difficult to balance between not stigmatizing craziness with not legitimizing people's crazy ideas. It's always better to argue ideas and not people. But what do you do when people try to start arguments and then don't want to listen to any rational reasoning and just keep getting more and more passionate and less and less coherent? At some point, there are no options left but to stop responding to them, either by ignoring or blocking them.


----------



## Adieu

Thorsday said:


> Fuck public school. California is a shit show of welfare/unemployment toads who are more comfortable on The Dole than working a job. It's a straight up Worker's Party Revolt.
> 
> Not to say I am not a proponent for individuals having a purpose... The System is being gamed. But thuh plandemic... PSYOP against human weakness...



Learn your material.

California is a shit show of DISABILITY cheats. Ain't nobody got time for them crappy worthless unemployment checks.

/fixed it for you


----------



## Adieu

SpaceDock said:


> This guy is a holistic chiropractor you twit.  Srsly take five seconds to check your sources.



I believe the problem is that their audiences don't understand the big words these frauds hide behind

Holistic chiropractor = full body wellness joint masseuse

Like, literally. But it sounds so much better!!!


----------



## Randy

"Holistic" in quack medicine means "the whole person" which means "body mind and spirit". 

Which sounds benign enough but in practice it means things like "I want you to be healthy but you shouldn't take any medications because TOXINS BAD, so we're going to heal you with crystals and hands hovering over you to transfer energy". 

Holistic medicine is a case study in the balance of scamming people and the effectiveness of placebos.


----------



## StevenC

Adieu said:


> Holistic chiropractor = full body wellness joint masseuse


No chiropractic is a load of nonsense based on magic. Literally.

Holistic is a valuable word that quacks have stolen.


----------



## BigViolin

I'm getting more than a little tired of "believing stupid shit that makes my little ego feel good" being conflated with trusting ones gut. Intuition lives on a solid base of knowledge and experience. Your cognitive dissonance is the opposite of that.


----------



## Demiurge

BigViolin said:


> I'm getting more than a little tired of "believing stupid shit that makes my little ego feel good" being conflated with trusting ones gut. Intuition lives on a solid base of knowledge and experience. Your cognitive dissonance is the opposite of that.



That's the tough thing about shaking conspiracy theories: they're often framed to flatter intelligence (while actually insulting it). What's more appealing to people who want to appear smart than to lay claim to having knowledge that few possess or- even better- that the masses are loathe to believe? Hilariously, it's part of foundational reasoning to consider that if an implied 'offer' is too good to be true, it probably is.


----------



## Xaios

Randy said:


> Which sounds benign enough but in practice it means things like "I want you to be healthy but you shouldn't take any medications because TOXINS BAD, so we're going to heal you with crystals and hands hovering over you to transfer energy".


TIL chiropractors use The Force.


----------



## Drew

BigViolin said:


> I'm getting more than a little tired of "believing stupid shit that makes my little ego feel good" being conflated with trusting ones gut. Intuition lives on a solid base of knowledge and experience. Your cognitive dissonance is the opposite of that.


*standing ovation*


----------



## Adieu

StevenC said:


> No chiropractic is a load of nonsense based on magic. Literally.
> 
> Holistic is a valuable word that quacks have stolen.



Yes

But they're literally goddam folk masseuses trying to sound respectably medical.

And a lot of low IQ average joes have NO IDEA that they aren't medical professionals (which is sort of the point)


----------



## Drew

Adieu said:


> Yes
> 
> But they're literally goddam folk masseuses trying to sound respectably medical.
> 
> And a lot of low IQ average joes have NO IDEA that they aren't medical professionals (which is sort of the point)


Hey, I'll never knock massage. It fucking rules.

But I wouldn't turn to a masseuse for the latest on infectious disease research, either.


----------



## StevenC

My second dose appointment would have been this coming Monday apparently, but I've had to cancel while we decide on a new plan.


----------



## narad

Had the second shot about 12 hours ago. I am obliterated


----------



## Bodes

narad said:


> Had the second shot about 12 hours ago. I am obliterated



How's your phone signal? I've heard it takes a few days to really get going. Keep us posted.


----------



## Thorsday

I guess the consensus here keeps me in my place. 

Thanks to the unsilent minority here, it is confirmed most musicians are libbys. I was only trying to free you from the reptilian spell...

Now I'll just take my balls and go home. Hammer on.


----------



## Adieu




----------



## BlackMastodon

You guys see the latest research that eating raw meat is actually perfectly healthy? One study from a wellness guru on YouTube I follow actually showed that protein levels were HIGHER and toxin levels were LOWER after just 1 month of raw meat only diets. My gut has been very vocal after I gave it a try, and once my diarrhea subsided to a manageable level, I knew that I had been lied to my whole life! 

I mean, think about it? How did humans become apex predators? You think our ancestors were frying mammoth steaks back then? Don't think so, pal. I actually threw away my LYING pans and sold my appLIEances. Seems like it was all just a big hoax from big gas to keep us in the system, paying for services we don't even need. Has anyone even SEEN gas before? I don't even think it's real! What's natural about it anyway? If gas was real than God would've shown it to us by now. 

You sheep can enjoy your hot meals, but I'm gonna dig into this delicious, cold, soggy, flap of flesh like our ancestors in America did.


----------



## bostjan

BlackMastodon said:


> You guys see the latest research that eating raw meat is actually perfectly healthy? One study from a wellness guru on YouTube I follow actually showed that protein levels were HIGHER and toxin levels were LOWER after just 1 month of raw meat only diets. My gut has been very vocal after I gave it a try, and once my diarrhea subsided to a manageable level, I knew that I had been lied to my whole life!
> 
> I mean, think about it? How did humans become apex predators? You think our ancestors were frying mammoth steaks back then? Don't think so, pal. I actually threw away my LYING pans and sold my appLIEances. Seems like it was all just a big hoax from big gas to keep us in the system, paying for services we don't even need. Has anyone even SEEN gas before? I don't even think it's real! What's natural about it anyway? If gas was real than God would've shown it to us by now.
> 
> You sheep can enjoy your hot meals, but I'm gonna dig into this delicious, cold, soggy, flap of flesh like our ancestors in America did.


Yeah, but food is just a ploy from food corporations to get you addicted.


----------



## SpaceDock

Thorsday said:


> I guess the consensus here keeps me in my place.
> 
> Thanks to the unsilent minority here, it is confirmed most musicians are libbys. I was only trying to free you from the reptilian spell...
> 
> Now I'll just take my balls and go home. Hammer on.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

Antivaxx: WE HAVE AN IMMUNE SYSTEM!

....

If you have feet why do you wear shoes then?

Checkmate atheists. 

Where are my reptilian overlords, maybe they'll throw a chunk of raw steak, or a rotting piece of jungle fruit for my primate brain to feast on while they probe my brain, can someone hold my tin foil hat for a sec?


----------



## thebeesknees22

BlackMastodon said:


> You guys see the latest research that eating raw meat is actually perfectly healthy?



di-sgusting. I've eaten tartar before. Never....*shudder*... Never again.


----------



## Adieu

BlackMastodon said:


> You guys see the latest research that eating raw meat is actually perfectly healthy? One study from a wellness guru on YouTube I follow actually showed that protein levels were HIGHER and toxin levels were LOWER after just 1 month of raw meat only diets. My gut has been very vocal after I gave it a try, and once my diarrhea subsided to a manageable level, I knew that I had been lied to my whole life!
> 
> I mean, think about it? How did humans become apex predators? You think our ancestors were frying mammoth steaks back then? Don't think so, pal. I actually threw away my LYING pans and sold my appLIEances. Seems like it was all just a big hoax from big gas to keep us in the system, paying for services we don't even need. Has anyone even SEEN gas before? I don't even think it's real! What's natural about it anyway? If gas was real than God would've shown it to us by now.
> 
> You sheep can enjoy your hot meals, but I'm gonna dig into this delicious, cold, soggy, flap of flesh like our ancestors in America did.



You actually can, but only fresh clean meat from animals that don't get any human pathogens (basically, just beef - except the head)

Any crap you can get from raw beef is from surface contamination from unsanitary butcher shop or retailer surfaces.

The actual cow doesn't carry pathogens that can affect humans (except mad cow diseases, but that's brain matter only)


----------



## Xaios

Adieu said:


> except mad cow diseases, but that's brain matter only


*Sigh
*
I lost an uncle to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human form of mad cow, just last year. Feels have come rushing back.


----------



## thraxil

Adieu said:


> The actual cow doesn't carry pathogens that can affect humans (except mad cow diseases, but that's brain matter only)



Don't forget about beef tapeworms: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/taenia-saginata


----------



## spudmunkey

BlackMastodon said:


> You guys see the latest research that eating raw meat is actually perfectly healthy? One study from a wellness guru on YouTube I follow actually showed that protein levels were HIGHER and toxin levels were LOWER after just 1 month of raw meat only diets. My gut has been very vocal after I gave it a try, and once my diarrhea subsided to a manageable level, I knew that I had been lied to my whole life!
> 
> I mean, think about it? How did humans become apex predators? You think our ancestors were frying mammoth steaks back then? Don't think so, pal. I actually threw away my LYING pans and sold my appLIEances. Seems like it was all just a big hoax from big gas to keep us in the system, paying for services we don't even need. Has anyone even SEEN gas before? I don't even think it's real! What's natural about it anyway? If gas was real than God would've shown it to us by now.
> 
> You sheep can enjoy your hot meals, but I'm gonna dig into this delicious, cold, soggy, flap of flesh like our ancestors in America did.



Cannibal sandwiches. 

My family, whenever there's a big holiday gathering (particularly New Years), always had a platter of raw freshly-ground beef, with those tiny "cocktail" loaves of rye bread, raw sliced white onions, and a salt and pepper shaker next to it. The meat was bought as steaks, and ground in my aunt's own meat grinder. Pretty much the only way it could ever even start to be considered "safe".

Cannibal Sandwiches: A Polarizing And Misunderstood Wisconsin Tradition | Wisconsin Public Radio (wpr.org)

Yes, we lived in SE Wisconsin.


----------



## Thorsday

bostjan said:


> Crazy how the same people who want to undo health care reform here are the same ones who think covid is a conspiracy by medical companies to take over the world.
> 
> Crazy how people are justifying conspiracy theories that China created covid by comparing the lack of pre-covid mask wearers in Japan to post-covid mask wearers in California.
> 
> Crazy how some people think that the government is tyrannical because they are _suggesting_ that you wear a mask or else they'll ask you nicely to put one on, especially when many of those people were the same ones empathized with the group of people who tried to overturn a democratic election by force.
> 
> It's difficult to balance between not stigmatizing craziness with not legitimizing people's crazy ideas. It's always better to argue ideas and not people. But what do you do when people try to start arguments and then don't want to listen to any rational reasoning and just keep getting more and more passionate and less and less coherent? At some point, there are no options left but to stop responding to them, either by ignoring or blocking them.



Okay, I'll bite. Your reading comprehension skills fail when someone you fundamentally disagree with provides insight.

Everyone is your teacher. Make it a point of pride to glean everything you deem sufficient. Move on. Let's be literal, and not emotional. Live by that. 

The collective failure to recognize there is not one true enemy of the people... It is not just from medical corporations that we are having war waged against us... 

It is the seven major corporations that own all of the other corporations. The major movers and shakers. They get into politicians' policy making... Make money go places where it shouldn't have. Real bag men. 

China did create the coronavirus variant in question. At the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Don't split hairs. Your bickering is just that. You're a drop in the bucket. 

Your failure to connect the dots make me or other "conspiracy theorists" seem incoherent. But you have been made to be so docile, there is no convincing you that you've been fooled, and things are certainly not alright. 

Vaccine Passports are mandatory in France, Italy, and Greece... Soon to be mandatory come September in Great Britain. We are witnessing the end of a liberal democracy when people en masse are protesting against the mandate in the streets, but the mainstream media won't cover it.


----------



## Thorsday

Adieu said:


> You actually can, but only fresh clean meat from animals that don't get any human pathogens (basically, just beef - except the head)
> 
> Any crap you can get from raw beef is from surface contamination from unsanitary butcher shop or retailer surfaces.
> 
> The actual cow doesn't carry pathogens that can affect humans (except mad cow diseases, but that's brain matter only)



Get a grass fed steak or cut of lamb and sear it in grass fed cow butter. Way healthier than the processed food diet, or awful veganism.

Ahi Tuna is great raw with wasabi.


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday said:


> Okay, I'll bite. Your reading comprehension skills fail when someone you fundamentally disagree with provides insight.
> 
> Everyone is your teacher. Make it a point of pride to glean everything you deem sufficient. Move on. Let's be literal, and not emotional. Live by that.
> 
> The collective failure to recognize there is not one true enemy of the people... It is not just from medical corporations that we are having war waged against us...
> 
> It is the seven major corporations that own all of the other corporations. The major movers and shakers. They get into politicians' policy making... Make money go places where it shouldn't have. Real bag men.
> 
> China did create the coronavirus variant in question. At the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Don't split hairs. Your bickering is just that. You're a drop in the bucket.
> 
> Your failure to connect the dots make me or other "conspiracy theorists" seem incoherent. But you have been made to be so docile, there is no convincing you that you've been fooled, and things are certainly not alright.
> 
> Vaccine Passports are mandatory in France, Italy, and Greece... Soon to be mandatory come September in Great Britain. We are witnessing the end of a liberal democracy when people en masse are protesting against the mandate in the streets, but the mainstream media won't cover it.





Thorsday said:


> Get a grass fed steak or cut of lamb and sear it in grass fed cow butter. Way healthier than the processed food diet, or awful veganism.
> 
> Ahi Tuna is great raw with wasabi.





Thorsday said:


> Now I'll just take my balls and go home. Hammer on.


It's always too good to be true


----------



## Thorsday

Questioning is and should be the place of reason. 

The fact that questioning the mainstream narrative has become taboo, should in fact, send a chill up everyone's spine. 

Your othering of me is racist against straight white real beef eating males, by the way.


----------



## narad

Thorsday said:


> Questioning is and should be the place of reason.
> 
> The fact that questioning the mainstream narrative has become taboo, should in fact, send a chill up everyone's spine.
> 
> Your othering of me is racist against straight white real beef eating males, by the way.



Questioning + supporting evidence. You seem to be replacing the latter with Dan Brown novels.


----------



## Thorsday

narad said:


> Questioning + supporting evidence. You seem to be replacing the latter with Dan Brown novels.



I bet no one watched the Dr. Ekberg video I posted. Great points were made, especially at the end. Just because he's a Chiropractor by degree does not mean he was wrong in any sense. He's not wrong. Calling him a quack is reckless and dismissive. His rhetoric is more based in physiology than most Doctors, who push the Pill du jour. 

Readers digest: Don't drink alcohol excessively, don't eat sugar or flour, eat animal protein, exercise, have low stress. Don't damage the 70 Trillion cells in your body, and any virus is not a concern.


----------



## narad

Thorsday said:


> I bet no one watched the Dr. Ekberg video I posted. Great points were made, especially at the end. Just because he's a Chiropractor by degree does not mean he was wrong in any sense. He's not wrong. Calling him a quack is reckless and dismissive. His rhetoric is more based in physiology than most Doctors, who push the Pill du jour.
> 
> Readers digest: Don't drink alcohol excessively, don't eat sugar or flour, eat animal protein, exercise, have low stress. Don't damage the 70 Trillion cells in your body, and any virus is not a concern.



You need to take a clear stance because you're mixing up general advice you can get from any nutritionist, with outlandish claims like your diet is makes you impervious to viruses. Probably people only have problems with the untested, unscientific claims. But I'm open minded. Gather up a bunch of healthy-eating guys and inject them all with covid (or maybe HIV for the guys who eat the most steaks?) and let's put the hypothesis to the test.


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday said:


> I bet no one watched the Dr. Ekberg video I posted. Great points were made, especially at the end. Just because he's a Chiropractor by degree does not mean he was wrong in any sense. He's not wrong. Calling him a quack is reckless and dismissive. His rhetoric is more based in physiology than most Doctors, who push the Pill du jour.
> 
> Readers digest: Don't drink alcohol excessively, don't eat sugar or flour, eat animal protein, exercise, have low stress. Don't damage the 70 Trillion cells in your body, and any virus is not a concern.


Any chiropractic intelligent enough to give useful medical advice would not be advertising that they are a chiropractic.


----------



## narad

Bodes said:


> How's your phone signal? I've heard it takes a few days to really get going. Keep us posted.



I don't even have a brain signal at this point. Damn, that was easily 4-5x as bad as the first shot


----------



## Thorsday

Okay, Sickbreed Freud. Lunacy. Fuck right off... Suggesting mainlining viruses into otherwise healthy specimens is utterly reprehensible! Vegan bitch.



narad said:


> You need to take a clear stance because you're mixing up general advice you can get from any nutritionist, with outlandish claims like your diet is makes you impervious to viruses. Probably people only have problems with the untested, unscientific claims. But I'm open minded. Gather up a bunch of healthy-eating guys and inject them all with covid (or maybe HIV for the guys who eat the most steaks?) and let's put the hypothesis to the test.


----------



## Thorsday

StevenC said:


> Any chiropractic intelligent enough to give useful medical advice would not be advertising that they are a chiropractic.



Did you even watch the entire video? I would bet no. Your refutal lacks substance. All about title... Sad. I can tell You are sad. Won't take advice from anyone. Chew your chode, in lieu of chewing the cud, and see how that works out for you.


----------



## narad

Thorsday said:


> Okay, Sickbreed Freud. Lunacy. Fuck right off... Suggesting mainlining viruses into otherwise healthy specimens is utterly reprehensible! Vegan bitch.



For the greater good. The quicker we dispel the idiocy you're preaching, the more lives saved.


----------



## Thorsday

narad said:


> For the greater good. The quicker we dispel the idiocy you're preaching, the more lives saved.



So you want to kill off natural masculinity. Check.


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday said:


> Did you even watch the entire video? I would bet no. Your refutal lacks substance. All about title... Sad. I can tell You are sad. Won't take advice from anyone. Chew your chode, in lieu of chewing the cud, and see how that works out for you.


Like, I'm literally on my way to the hospital right now for medical advice from actual doctors. 

Also, narad unfortunately is not vegan.


----------



## BlackMastodon

His posts have stopped being fascinating-stupid and have completely shifted gears to full-throttle-stupid. I thought he was leaving to play with his balls or something?


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday said:


> Okay, Sickbreed Freud. Lunacy. Fuck right off... Suggesting mainlining viruses into otherwise healthy specimens is utterly reprehensible! Vegan bitch.


First off, I thought the virus wasn't real or it wasn't a real pandemic so there shouldn't be anything to worry about. 

Second, vaccines are typically intramuscular injections.


----------



## narad

Thorsday said:


> So you want to kill off natural masculinity. Check.



The people who talk about natural masculinity tend to be some of the least masculine people. It was like when republicans were calling trump an alpha male. The dude is 75% big macs and has zero history of doing anything athletic and brave. It's just people obsessing and protecting their own shortcomings.


----------



## StevenC

narad said:


> The people who talk about natural masculinity tend to be some of the least masculine people. It was like when republicans were calling trump an alpha male. The dude is 75% big macs and has zero history of doing anything athletic and brave. It's just people obsessing and protecting their own shortcomings.


Actually, Trump thinks doing athletics will kill you faster because the body is like a battery or some nonsense like that.


----------



## jaxadam

StevenC said:


> Actually, Trump thinks doing athletics will kill you faster because the body is like a battery or some nonsense like that.



It's true! My heart only has a finite amount of beats, and I ain't wastin' 'em running around the block in a bunch of Lulu Lemon!


----------



## Metropolis

Got second shot of Pfizer today and had to put my guitar down almost immediately because of muscle pain. Damn it feels irritating... couldn't sleep on my left side in couple of nights after first doze.


----------



## Adieu

Thorsday said:


> Now I'll just take my balls and go home. Hammer on.


----------



## diagrammatiks

I'm totally down with bringing back masculinity

you good with wigs and tights?







If you don't dress like this every day you are just a cuck.


----------



## narad

diagrammatiks said:


> I'm totally down with bringing back masculinity
> 
> you good with wigs and tights?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If you don't dress like this every day you are just a cuck.



That's the lamestream media depiction of the founding fathers. Don't start trying to tell me a bunch a soy boys created this country!


----------



## bostjan

Thorsday said:


> Okay, I'll bite. Your reading comprehension skills fail when someone you fundamentally disagree with provides insight.



[citation needed]



Thorsday said:


> Everyone is your teacher. Make it a point of pride to glean everything you deem sufficient. Move on. Let's be literal, and not emotional. Live by that.



Says the person who is trying to argue with ~15 other people at the same time whilst not addressing any particular thing anyone is saying. 



Thorsday said:


> The collective failure to recognize there is not one true enemy of the people... It is not just from medical corporations that we are having war waged against us...



A medical company could be scummy and still make a life-saving drug. There's no reason why either of those is prerequisite to the other. I never defended medical companies.



Thorsday said:


> It is the seven major corporations that own all of the other corporations. The major movers and shakers. They get into politicians' policy making... Make money go places where it shouldn't have. Real bag men.



I don't see where anyone here has defended any major corporations.



Thorsday said:


> China did create the coronavirus variant in question. At the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Don't split hairs. Your bickering is just that. You're a drop in the bucket.



I think that we don't know whether they did or not. Either way, what does that have to do with people in Japan wearing masks at any point in time prior to 2020?!



Thorsday said:


> Your failure to connect the dots make me or other "conspiracy theorists" seem incoherent. But you have been made to be so docile, there is no convincing you that you've been fooled, and things are certainly not alright.



The "dots" aren't even on the same pages as the picture you're trying to draw for us.



Thorsday said:


> Vaccine Passports are mandatory in France, Italy, and Greece... Soon to be mandatory come September in Great Britain. We are witnessing the end of a liberal democracy when people en masse are protesting against the mandate in the streets, but the mainstream media won't cover it.



This is the only point you make that I feel warrants an in depth discussion.

I'm not 100% familiar with all of these foreign policies. But, let's focus on the UK for a moment, since I am familiar with that one. The idea moving forward is that, if a person is fully vaccinated and can prove it so, that person will not have to quarantine when entering the UK. If the person is not vaccinated or does not prove such to the satisfaction of the UK authorities, it's 2 weeks of quarantine. I suppose the question is whether this is an infringement upon the rights of others. I think that, if we were to assume that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is airborne transmissible and is the cause of a disease that could potentially debilitate or kill an otherwise healthy person, then this vaccine or quarantine when travelling abroad policy is common sense justifiable, since not having it would otherwise infringe upon the rights of those who do not travel. From the moral perspective, if the UK government truly believes those assumptions to be true, then they are morally obligated to put such a policy in place to protect their subjects, as is the sole purpose of a government (protecting their subjects from a deadly outside threat). We have now heaps of evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is airborne transmissible. We have a ton of evidence that the virus causes a potentially debilitating or lethal disease. So, it'd be upon someone claiming this policy to be unjustifiable (you) to provide compelling evidence to the contrary of those things.


----------



## StevenC

This dude just came into this thread insulting all of us expecting us to bow down to his lack of sources?


----------



## fantom

Thorsday said:


> Fuck public school. California is a shit show of welfare/unemployment toads who are more comfortable on The Dole than working a job. It's a straight up Worker's Party Revolt.
> 
> Not to say I am not a proponent for individuals having a purpose... The System is being gamed. But thuh plandemic... PSYOP against human weakness...


Why not "Fuck Mississippi?" More than one state has vaccine requirements for school. Let them biases out.


----------



## profwoot

Thorsday might be the best example of the Dunning-Kruger effect I've ever seen. Granted, I don't hang out on anti-reality fora so he's probably not actually exceptional. Still, wow.


----------



## ArtDecade

Thorsday said:


> So you want to kill off natural masculinity. Check.



Wait a second. The guy still sporting a 90s Emo haircut and trying to grow facial hair is the savior of natural masculinity?


----------



## bostjan

profwoot said:


> Thorsday might be the best example of the Dunning-Kruger effect I've ever seen. Granted, I don't hang out on anti-reality fora so he's probably not actually exceptional. Still, wow.


Yes, I agree. Part of one of the Dunning and Kruger papers was about logic, specifically. Since the subjects taking the logic puzzle tests did not know the correct answers, they believed that they were completing them with solid logic, and had no idea that the thought process they were using to answer the logic puzzles was devoid of any consistent logic.

But there's a lot more going on here than just that. These conspiracy theories are overwhelmingly passed on from person to person and not independently worked out by their adherents. So it's also an example of Dawkin's original memetics theories from the 70's. Originally a meme was an idea or behaviour that one person would observe another person doing and then copy, without understanding the idea or behaviour itself.

There's also quite a bit of classical logical fallacy happening. A chiropractor says eat meat and follow some other very simple lifestyle choices and you'll be immune from disease. People point out that this is contrary to basically all medical evidence. Conspiracy-dude's rebuttal is:

1. Restate the point.


Thorsday said:


> Don't damage the 70 Trillion cells in your body, and any virus is not a concern.


2. Ad hominem anyone who disagrees (in the most bizarre way possible)


Thorsday said:


> Chew your chode


3. Appeal to authority (whose authority has already been debunked anyway)


Thorsday said:


> His rhetoric is more based in physiology than most Doctors, who push the Pill du jour.


4. Non sequitor


Thorsday said:


> So you want to kill off natural masculinity. Check.


5. Begging the question


Thorsday said:


> Hell yes, doctors want to kill you, useful idiots only have a sheepskin to push pills. They prescribe statins to lower your cholestrol to some arbitrary number... You're made of cholestrol. You accept the statins and you are paying to kill your own cells.



I could go on, but these are pretty much copy-paste examples out of the logic and rhetoric textbook.

Using faulty logic, of course, doesn't make the statement untrue, it just makes the statement unsupported by truth. I think that other people on the site might be too quick to conflate those two things. But this guy's arguments are so full of nonsense that >90% of them fall under the concept of not-even-wrong. There are some things, like, "did the virus come from a lab?" that we simply don't know, and he might be right about that, but, since the "logic" he used to arrive at the conclusion that


Thorsday said:


> China did create the coronavirus variant in question. At the Wuhan Institute of Virology.


is so full of holes that it's more absent than substantive, whether he's right about that or not is no better than flipping a coin.

A lot of the stuff he's alluding to but not really saying in any sort of direct way is just really dangerous stuff. Vaccines, in general, are not killing us. Eating meat does not make a person immune to disease. Governments enacting policies to control the spread of disease is not tyranny. These are facts that we can be about as sure of as any facts at all. To debate them effectively would require abandonment of axioms that would also consequently nullify any point in having any sort of debate anyway, therefore, they are self-defeating arguments.


----------



## TedEH

On some levels it's just frustrating that dealing with a pandemic has to be made that much worse 'cause every idiot with internet access needs to broadcast their  on the matter to everyone whether they want to hear it or not.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

My wife just texted me saying that she's short staffed due to four people being out with covid... two confirmed anyway. And two others showing symptoms/ waiting for test results. Central Texas is a hot bed of active cases now. We had a chance but as expected, there's just too damn many selfish, ignorant, hypocrites that want things to get back to normal yet refuse to do what needs to be done in order to get back to normal... truly insane. 

Been a roller coaster of emotions over the past 18 months... terrified I'd get it, then coming to terms with it all, then hope, then relief... and now accepting that I'll probably get it due to completely arrogant douche-bags like our latest troll in this thread.

Hopefully if I catch this Delta variant ( or even worse mutation) it won't be severe enough for me to require hospitalization since I've at least been vaccinated. I never stopped masking-up and at this point with so many self-entitled conservative snowflakes all around, seems I'll simply have to remain vigilant. Oh well... Suckin' it up as usual since the anti-vax crowd can't be bothered to behave responsibly. 

Checked today to see if I'd sprouted a vagina... to my disappointment, not yet.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

Speaking of natural masculinity, I wear a mini skirt better than most women I know. My ass looks so fucking good in one, telling me that isn't God's will is like saying God didn't want the Mona Lisa. 

Also, Vegan Bitch sounds like a kickass grindcore band. 


Back on topic, my life is continuing on the contradictory trajectory of COVID being great for me. Two days ago I got an unexpectedly large bump to my credit limit, and with 12 months of rent relief on the way I went down to a car dealership to see if I could get anything (no credit and little savings the last couple times I tried). 

This time my credit was higher (666 to be precise, Hail Stan) and I had the ability to make a much bigger downpayment and ended up with a 22k mile 2019 Nissan Rogue right when everyone is running out of cars.


----------



## Crungy

High Plains Drifter said:


> Checked today to see if I'd sprouted a vagina... to my disappointment, not yet.



Like Betty White said, those things can take a pounding


----------



## BlackMastodon

bostjan said:


> Yes, I agree. Part of one of the Dunning and Kruger papers was about logic, specifically. Since the subjects taking the logic puzzle tests did not know the correct answers, they believed that they were completing them with solid logic, and had no idea that the thought process they were using to answer the logic puzzles was devoid of any consistent logic.
> 
> But there's a lot more going on here than just that. These conspiracy theories are overwhelmingly passed on from person to person and not independently worked out by their adherents. So it's also an example of Dawkin's original memetics theories from the 70's. Originally a meme was an idea or behaviour that one person would observe another person doing and then copy, without understanding the idea or behaviour itself.
> 
> There's also quite a bit of classical logical fallacy happening. A chiropractor says eat meat and follow some other very simple lifestyle choices and you'll be immune from disease. People point out that this is contrary to basically all medical evidence. Conspiracy-dude's rebuttal is:
> 
> 1. Restate the point.
> 
> 2. Ad hominem anyone who disagrees (in the most bizarre way possible)
> 
> 3. Appeal to authority (whose authority has already been debunked anyway)
> 
> 4. Non sequitor
> 
> 5. Begging the question
> 
> 
> I could go on, but these are pretty much copy-paste examples out of the logic and rhetoric textbook.
> 
> Using faulty logic, of course, doesn't make the statement untrue, it just makes the statement unsupported by truth. I think that other people on the site might be too quick to conflate those two things. But this guy's arguments are so full of nonsense that >90% of them fall under the concept of not-even-wrong. There are some things, like, "did the virus come from a lab?" that we simply don't know, and he might be right about that, but, since the "logic" he used to arrive at the conclusion that
> 
> is so full of holes that it's more absent than substantive, whether he's right about that or not is no better than flipping a coin.
> 
> A lot of the stuff he's alluding to but not really saying in any sort of direct way is just really dangerous stuff. Vaccines, in general, are not killing us. Eating meat does not make a person immune to disease. Governments enacting policies to control the spread of disease is not tyranny. These are facts that we can be about as sure of as any facts at all. To debate them effectively would require abandonment of axioms that would also consequently nullify any point in having any sort of debate anyway, therefore, they are self-defeating arguments.


You should, like, writes papers, bro. 

Also "chew your chode" is a great insult and one that I will definitely use.


----------



## Drew

Can we maybe just stop feeding the troll? This thread used to be a pretty good source of news and insight on the pandemic, now it's just page after page of insults and homeopathic bullshit.


----------



## zappatton2

narad said:


> I don't even have a brain signal at this point. Damn, that was easily 4-5x as bad as the first shot


Yeah, I got my second shot a few weeks back, and it laid me out for a couple of days. Full on fever, and just moving at all was a struggle. I would say after 3 days I was back to 100% (mostly better after two).


----------



## BlackMastodon

zappatton2 said:


> Yeah, I got my second shot a few weeks back, and it laid me out for a couple of days. Full on fever, and just moving at all was a struggle. I would say after 3 days I was back to 100% (mostly better after two).


I just got my second shot on Monday (happy birthday to me) and was anticipating an ass kicking, but I was totally fine. I was a bit tired/lethargic the next day but my arm wasn't even as sore as the first shot. Dunno if it matters but both shots were Pfizer. Glad it didn't lay me out, in any case. Fingers crossed the inevitable third shot will also go smoothly.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

Thorsday said:


> Okay, I'll bite. Your reading comprehension skills fail when someone you fundamentally disagree with provides insight.
> 
> Everyone is your teacher. Make it a point of pride to glean everything you deem sufficient. Move on. Let's be literal, and not emotional. Live by that.
> 
> The collective failure to recognize there is not one true enemy of the people... It is not just from medical corporations that we are having war waged against us...
> 
> It is the seven major corporations that own all of the other corporations. The major movers and shakers. They get into politicians' policy making... Make money go places where it shouldn't have. Real bag men.
> 
> China did create the coronavirus variant in question. At the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Don't split hairs. Your bickering is just that. You're a drop in the bucket.
> 
> Your failure to connect the dots make me or other "conspiracy theorists" seem incoherent. But you have been made to be so docile, there is no convincing you that you've been fooled, and things are certainly not alright.
> 
> Vaccine Passports are mandatory in France, Italy, and Greece... Soon to be mandatory come September in Great Britain. We are witnessing the end of a liberal democracy when people en masse are protesting against the mandate in the streets, but the mainstream media won't cover it.




I didn't read everything but there have been "vaccine passports" in place for a long time to go to areas where you would be a risk without proper vaccination it's just this weird random pushback from mouth breathers in America who have never been outside of their county talking about "reptilian overlords" 

You lose all credibility when you lack common knowledge and go down crazy conspiracy crap. Anyways I need my adrenochrome dose now. Peace.


----------



## thebeesknees22

I set that dude to ignore that everyone's arguing with a while back so this thread has become a bunch of people arguing with somebody that's not there for me now. So now this thread makes no sense. lol It's like watching a bunch of schizophrenics yelling at the wind.


----------



## StevenC

Got results today that I have covid antibodies and no signs of every having had covid, so despite the intensely bad reaction I did gain some level of immunity from the AstraZeneca vaccine. 



thebeesknees22 said:


> I set that dude to ignore that everyone's arguing with a while back so this thread has become a bunch of people arguing with somebody that's not there for me now. So now this thread makes no sense. lol It's like watching a bunch of schizophrenics yelling at the wind.


My OCD means I keep clicking Show Ignored Content on every thread.


----------



## Thorsday

No... I'm not talking about a 72 hour Quarantine for intercontinental travel, say from Japan to USA. Where you (pay for: 30,000 Yen or $270 USD, and) show a CERTIFICATE OF TESTING (negative) and give your word that you quarantined the hours leading up to the flight... 

I am talking about PROOF OF VACCINATION just to dine indoors at a restaurant or go to a night club. It's been mandated in France, Italy, and Greece, already. 

People are protesting in large, peaceful demonstrations. "My Body My Choice" signage and the like... 

See the fundamental difference between a fiscally taxing and inconvenient TEST versus a chemical molestation in the form of a INOCULATION ?

If your moral or (lack of) religious beliefs allow vaccines, I'm fine with that. But why are you so brazen as to cut my tongue out or ostracize people like me as social lepers because we don't have the same stance on the matter? A bit intolerant...

A lot of armchair virtue signaling in here. A couple psychiatrists here, too. Oh, insults on my masculinity.... And to ask for citations. This isn't a school report. If that's all you have to deflect my rhetoric... That's fine. Make no mistake, the mainstream narrative is not the reality of the situation.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

How are y'all falling for this low quality bait?


----------



## narad

MaxOfMetal said:


> How are y'all falling for this low quality bait?



Boredom, Max. It's always out of boredom.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

narad said:


> Boredom, Max. It's always out of boredom.



You can't think of any other way to alleviate boredom while in front of a computer?


----------



## Randy

ITT: When chemdotinfo gets red pilled


----------



## wheresthefbomb

My rent relief just hit the landlord's account, backpaid 5 months and I'll be covered through January. I had been issued a vague letter that said I was confirmed but it didn't feel real, now it definitely feels real. 

Winter is always a hard time here, especially the more broke you are. This will be a most welcome reprieve as I focus on school and making car payments.


----------



## TedEH

MaxOfMetal said:


> You can't think of any other way to alleviate boredom while in front of a computer?


After.... what has it been? 16 months of sitting in front of said computer? Not really.


----------



## Thorsday

MaxOfMetal said:


> How are y'all falling for this low quality bait?



God only knows.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

Drew said:


> Can we maybe just stop feeding the troll? This thread used to be a pretty good source of news and insight on the pandemic, now it's just page after page of insults and homeopathic bullshit.



The path of this thread seems to follow: Civil discussion and experiences -> Troll -> Civil discussion and experiences -> Troll -> Repeat


BlackMastodon said:


> Dunno if it matters but both shots were Pfizer. Glad it didn't lay me out, in any case. Fingers crossed the inevitable third shot will also go smoothly.



Had my second Pfizer shot early March, arm was sore fore a few hours both times but no other associated pain. Had some friends get Moderna and they were the ones typically taking a whole day off after their second dose. I'm also unsure if there's some sort of anticipated bias going in for the shots, i.e. if you keep thinking it might hurt, then your body might just convince itself that it does. 
Other anticipated boosters and novel vaccines are aiming for intranasal sprays which would then route immunity through your mucosa, which in turn might negate some of the lethargic effects of an intramuscular shot.


----------



## Bodes

Not trying to feed, trying get conversation restarted

It is always interesting to read how people try to take things said by authority figures out of context, and when an authority figure makes a slip of the tongue, people take that footage and run with it to prove/disprove something:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-30/coronacheck-pcr-tests-cdc-covid-flu/100334096

tldr: In the USA, the CDC has changed its PCR method of detecting COVID so that labs that can detect BOTH COVID and the flu viruses can only do PCR testing. Now people misinterpreting (deliberately or maybe out of context?) the message saying that the original PCR test could not distinguish between the COVID and Flu viruses and numbers have been substantially inflated. *head desk*


----------



## CovertSovietBear

Bodes said:


> CDC has changed its PCR method of detecting COVID so that labs that can detect BOTH COVID and the flu viruses can only do PCR testing. Now people misinterpreting



Oh I've done those types of reactions all the time! They're called multiplexed reactions. For example, to distinguish a particular section of DNA in your sample, you need a "guide" at least 20 bases (A T C or G) long, as a unique combination of a string of 20-25 bases is enough to distinguish samples, and even enough for a human genome sample (approximately a few billion bases). These "guides" are called "primers" and you set them at opposing ends of whatever DNA you want to detect.
Here's a small example from IDT showcasing how the tech works from a qPCR perspective (the machines most labs use, if you have the money it's easier to do ddPCR): https://www.idtdna.com/pages/education/decoded/article/multiplex-qpcr-how-to-get-started
One from ThermoFisher: https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/...l-time-pcr-basics/what-is-multiplex-qpcr.html

I have more familiarity with the BioRad systems but these are basically the same thing from other biotech competitors.
I see how this message can be skewed though, especially those who didn't pay attention and/or would rather not learn about the basic biology.

TLDR:


----------



## narad

CovertSovietBear said:


> Oh I've done those types of reactions all the time! They're called multiplexed reactions. For example, to distinguish a particular section of DNA in your sample, you need a "guide" at least 20 bases (A T C or G) long, as a unique combination of a string of 20-25 bases is enough to distinguish samples, and even enough for a human genome sample (approximately a few billion bases). These "guides" are called "primers" and you set them at opposing ends of whatever DNA you want to detect.
> Here's a small example from IDT showcasing how the tech works from a qPCR perspective (the machines most labs use, if you have the money it's easier to do ddPCR): https://www.idtdna.com/pages/education/decoded/article/multiplex-qpcr-how-to-get-started
> One from ThermoFisher: https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/...l-time-pcr-basics/what-is-multiplex-qpcr.html
> 
> I have more familiarity with the BioRad systems but these are basically the same thing from other biotech competitors.
> I see how this message can be skewed though, especially those who didn't pay attention and/or would rather not learn about the basic biology.
> 
> TLDR:
> View attachment 96166



@Thorsday , this is the kind of informative post you're going up against with a youtube slideshow of quotes like some sort of inspirational calendar for conspiracy theories.


----------



## Thorsday

narad said:


> @Thorsday , this is the kind of informative post you're going up against with a youtube slideshow of quotes like some sort of inspirational calendar for conspiracy theories.



Some Chinese scientific paper from 2016 flexing their PCR testing methods? 

My rhetoric remains unchallenged. I'm saying civil liberties are being taken under falsehoods and propaganda. China's bioweapon was not as deadly as they hoped. The power hungry hacks and their useful idiots are doubling down and are currently on damage control, (The White House) are in bed with Silicon Valley Tech Giants, flagging posts for Facebook, that they want us to believe are misinformation. 

There is no evidence of a pandemic, when less people died in 2020 than 2019. Less fatalities. Just because the news and the government tells you to be scared of this variant of the common flu... 

The YT video I shared is actually profound... The current administration is using the authoritarian playbook... But, the common good... No good will ever come of giving a government complete control over individual autonomy. Society is nothing without its people.

For a bunch of people who call themselves musicians, y'all sure come off as conformist cream puffs.


----------



## spudmunkey

Thorsday said:


> less people died in 2020 than 2019. Less fatalities.



[Citation needed]


US 2017: 2.81 million
US 2018: 2.84 million
US 2019: 2.85 million
US 2020: 3.3 million


----------



## diagrammatiks

This is what happens when the other side has an mbardu working for them. 
if they got into an argument the sso server would run out of storage space


----------



## narad

diagrammatiks said:


> This is what happens when the other side has an mbardu working for them.
> if they got into an argument the sso server would run out of storage space



A breakthrough in the world of physics today as scientists announced the creation of a perpetual motion machine based on thorsday-mbardu dynamics.


----------



## narad

Thorsday said:


> The YT video I shared is actually profound... The current administration is using the authoritarian playbook... But, the common good... No good will ever come of giving a government complete control over individual autonomy. Society is nothing without its people.



Profound? Sounds like some angsty high schooler's essay topic for a polisci unit.

Your posts are 99% your opinion, 1% the opinions of random youtube nobodies, and you act like this should be a convincing argument? A good argument doesn't allow for people to question the validity of every link in your chain of reasoning.


----------



## Thorsday

narad said:


> Profound? Sounds like some angsty high schooler's essay topic for a polisci unit.
> 
> Your posts are 99% your opinion, 1% the opinions of random youtube nobodies, and you act like this should be a convincing argument? A good argument doesn't allow for people to question the validity of every link in your chain of reasoning.



So harsh... But You're from Tokyo? You must be heavy metal with all of those socialized dentistry, mercury-laden fillings in your teeth. 

Any free thinking human that finds the YT video I shared 99% Opinion is a hack. History is history. 

You're so subservient to the idea of hopelessness...


----------



## MaxOfMetal

diagrammatiks said:


> This is what happens when the other side has an mbardu working for them.
> if they got into an argument the sso server would run out of storage space



Come on @mbardu, this is your moment.


----------



## narad

Thorsday said:


> So harsh... But You're from Tokyo? You must be heavy metal with all of those socialized dentistry, mercury-laden fillings in your teeth.



I live in Tokyo, I'm not from Tokyo.

And regarding dentistry (wtf tangent of an argument) you have all the options for fillings as you do in western countries with privatized dental. If you need a filling today you'd likely opt to get a plastic/ceramic one and it would be similarly covered by the national healthcare. People > ~50 years old have metal fillings, just like in the US. 

So I think that makes you 0 for 2 on Japan talking points so far?


----------



## jaxadam

narad said:


> So I think that makes you 0 for 2 on Japan talking points so far?



Yeah, well what about the Olympics? They're not even being held in Tokyo, they're secretly being held in the same warehouse they filmed the moon landings.


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> Yeah, well what about the Olympics? They're not even being held in Tokyo, they're secretly being held in the same warehouse they filmed the moon landings.



Honestly would have been a better venue.


----------



## ArtDecade

I'll accept that C19 is a hoax. Maybe that Biden is a lizard monster. Probably even that pizza chains are involved in sex trafficking. But now this dude is now condemning Japanese dentistry? That I won't stand for.


----------



## nightflameauto

Don't feel bad @Thorsday, you aren't alone. Not saying you're in good company, but you're not alone.

Man, that video is fucking BR00TAL. I almost feel as tired after watching that as I did after the Chimaira/Dethklok show in First Avenue. God damn.


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> Come on @mbardu, this is your moment.





diagrammatiks said:


> This is what happens when the other side has an mbardu working for them.
> if they got into an argument the sso server would run out of storage space



If you'd like me to reply to whatever is happening here, I think I already gave some of my thoughts. From "Covid doesn't exist" to a Jeff-Kiesel-worthy tirade about "Manliness", there's enough craziness for everyone to see, and at least as far as I can tell, usually not much substance was given to support any ridiculous claim. I'd happily be proven wrong though.

But since I'm called out by name I'll take a minute to answer the fans, sure  !

Personally, the thing I find funniest is that most people here are not that different from @Thorday and just don't even realize it.

Keeping aside a handful of actually qualified folks, the majority here just goes about spouting generalities as if everyone had suddenly become expert evolutionary biologists overnight. Everyone trying to speak with authority as vaccine experts - yet without sharing, let alone having actually even tried reading any source. The majority is also perfectly fine going with ridiculous hysteria and not questioning anything, even with things as blatantly exaggerated as "at this rate, Covid-19 could still kill 8 million people in the US" to justify their thoughts, without verifying, _as long as it goes with their bias_. And if the end justify the means, since vaccination will help in the short term, then whatever, I just personally think the truth doesn't need blatant exaggerations and misrepresentations...

On a similar note, the majority of folks will also group _anyone _who questions and wants to discuss _anything _and doesn't toe the line 100% with the trolls in a dumb "us vs them" one dimensional mentality. To wit, the fact that I'm called here. And people think it makes them _smart _doing all that, whereas it actually just shows they don't have an ounce more of nuance compared to what they criticize. The difference is just mostly where their own bias comes from .

Now there are a _handful _of people who _will _seriously try to have a nuanced discussion, and I tip my hat to people like @bostjan all day long for even trying, and doing so in a respectful way. Talking about the actual, not made up numbers, and agreeing to disagreeing on some points. Even going as far as saying something as benign as "we don't know for sure" on stuff, which most are incapable of. Most people don't realize that his "here's why I believe the calculated risk of even the novel vaccines is probably largely worth it" is an entirely different state of mind and statement when compared to knee jerks such as "hur dur you're just saying to do nothing and you want to kill 8 Million people in the US, don't you know all medical tech is always safe" .

Speaking of @bostjan :



bostjan said:


> I'm not 100% familiar with all of these foreign policies. But, let's focus on the UK for a moment, since I am familiar with that one. The idea moving forward is that, if a person is fully vaccinated and can prove it so, that person will not have to quarantine when entering the UK. If the person is not vaccinated or does not prove such to the satisfaction of the UK authorities, it's 2 weeks of quarantine. I suppose the question is whether this is an infringement upon the rights of others. I think that, if we were to assume that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is airborne transmissible and is the cause of a disease that could potentially debilitate or kill an otherwise healthy person, then this vaccine or quarantine when travelling abroad policy is common sense justifiable, since not having it would otherwise infringe upon the rights of those who do not travel. From the moral perspective, if the UK government truly believes those assumptions to be true, then they are morally obligated to put such a policy in place to protect their subjects, as is the sole purpose of a government (protecting their subjects from a deadly outside threat). We have now heaps of evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is airborne transmissible. We have a ton of evidence that the virus causes a potentially debilitating or lethal disease. So, it'd be upon someone claiming this policy to be unjustifiable (you) to provide compelling evidence to the contrary of those things.



The passes in places such as France is a different discussion compared to the quarantine discussions for coming into places such as the UK. IMHO, it makes total sense to quarantine upon arrival and I've said a lot that we haven't done _enough _of those coordinated measures worldwide early on. Even today, as it's more and more apparent that the vaccine protects way less against delta, and doesn't actually prevent you from being contagious, it still makes sense and you could even argue it's not _strict enough_.

But the health pass in France is different. It is quickly heading in a direction where if you're not double vaccinated (not even talking about boosters probably becoming mandatory too at some point), then you'll have a hard time doing even basic things such as going grocery shopping in mainstream shopping centers to feed yourself. And I could see how that's troubling. Say you're not vaccinated and you cannot go to concerts and sporting events and the cinema and crowded bars and the like, then I'd say that's understandable. Plus if you don't _want _to get vaccinated, then you can at least make the effort of passing up on those things for a bit. Nobody "needs" any of this to at least decently survive. But there are things you do need though.
And I get that it's still an emergency situation in a lot of places, and the argument of overwhelming the healthcare system is still a concern, so you have to do _something_. Clearly, the French gov thinks they really have no other tool. When you think about it though, vaccinated people are _still contagious_ so the pass is not there to stop contagion. And if we're talking pressure on the national health system, then a good chunk of the fault is on the shoulders of the gov itself for aggressively defunding it, in the years leading to, and even _during _Covid... So put all those together ... isn't that a bit of a slippery slope? Say the gov wants to lighten the load _even more_ on the healthcare system (since they always want to defund it some more) and they now have precedent, maybe they look into chronic and preventable stuff? Say control how much people drink and exercise, and what they eat? Now you can no longer go to restaurants if your BMI is too high or if you haven't exercised this week  ? Smokers are no longer allowed at concerts?
Now, that's obviously only a wacky thought experiment at this stage, but I can sure understand why people are upset. Putting "vaccinated people are still contagious" with "the healthcare system suffering is a lot due to the gov itself" together really doesn't help sell the measure either. And you can tell it's not just fringe groups being upset either. Getting hundreds of thousands of people to demonstrate against it in France, _during the summer months_ is a pretty big feat in and of itself. And it's actually funny to see the media bias in portraying the demonstrations (when they do cover them at all), because they'll make an effort to only show you a handful of Thordays, while firsthand account I have of people attending those, including medical professionals, tell me that it's not the crowd _at all_. The pass also applies to 12 year olds, and soon likely to younger people as time goes by as well, so you know people are going to be upset about that too. It's a whole mess really.


----------



## diagrammatiks

goddamn. I just had to get a throat swab that was worse then the nose test.

almost threw up on my cute doctor.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> Smokers are no longer allowed at concerts?


I'll hesitate to respond to much else 'cause I'm sure enough people are primed to argue all day, but I _will say_ that I'd be ok with this one. Stopping people from going into a restaurant or something because of their BMI is obviously ridiculous, but smoking affects the people around you, which I think is a pretty clear line that's already been drawn here (making it not really a slippery slope at all). I imagine most non-smokers would be perfectly happy with the idea of no smoking in indoor venues, which I'm pretty sure is already the case in a lot of places. Unless you're trying to say we'd be preventing anyone who has ever had a cigarette from ever seeing live music again, at which point you're playing semantic games to make things look more like a slippery slope than they really are. I'll give you the benefit and say that's probably not what you're suggesting.

It's kinda the same with "vaccinated people are still contagious". You're technically right, but the reduced level of risk is the part that's important. I know my anecdotal take is meaningless, but I can see loooooooots more social activity going on within groups of vaccinated people in this area, things opening up, people dining in, etc. and our number haven't gone back up. Someone will see "vaccinated people are still contagious" and take it as "vaccines don't make anything safer", which is not true. Sometimes it doesn't matter if you're technically right, because you're giving people things to latch onto to fuel hesitancy and ignore other equally correct points - at a time where the biggest challenge to getting back to normal and getting back all the freedom we all desperately want is people hesitating to participate in the thing that is actually getting us back to normal.

And that to me is the big irony of these conversations - so many cries for "mah freedom!" when failing to help out is what's actually restricting our freedom. We have a _much less_ push back / hesitancy to vaccines in this area and we're getting our freedoms back. Slowly, sure. Carefully, sure. But it's happening. The last month or so has been (for me at least) a lot of "first time in over a year" moments - everything from being inside a building with no mask, going to a pub, concerts are starting back up a bit, I went to a sort of outdoor food market thing this week, etc.


----------



## Randy

diagrammatiks said:


> goddamn. I just had to get a throat swab that was worse then the nose test.
> 
> almost threw up on my cute doctor.



Kinky.


----------



## Randy

TedEH said:


> Smoking



NYS already strict anti-smoking. No smoking in "any places of employment" but also no smoking in parks, no smoking within 100 feet of public buildings, etc.


----------



## diagrammatiks

Smokers aren’t allowed any where anymore. 

When I was in Italy at they airport they built a pod that had a maximum occupancy of like 5 people. I was the sixth person in there to vape once and run out and some dude started screaming at me in Italian. Fascists. 



Randy said:


> Kinky.



I know right. I mean she was dressed head to toe in a full face mask and a biohazard suit. But she was 5 feet tall and had a cute voice. Lemme tell ya cutest professional women I’ve ever met have been the doctors at planned parenthood. Love me some doctors.


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> Speaking of @bostjan :
> 
> The passes in places such as France is a different discussion compared to the quarantine discussions for coming into places such as the UK. IMHO, it makes total sense to quarantine upon arrival and I've said a lot that we haven't done _enough _of those coordinated measures worldwide early on. Even today, as it's more and more apparent that the vaccine protects way less against delta, and doesn't actually prevent you from being contagious, it still makes sense and you could even argue it's not _strict enough_.
> 
> But the health pass in France is different. It is quickly heading in a direction where if you're not double vaccinated (not even talking about boosters probably becoming mandatory too at some point), then you'll have a hard time doing even basic things such as going grocery shopping in mainstream shopping centers to feed yourself. And I could see how that's troubling. Say you're not vaccinated and you cannot go to concerts and sporting events and the cinema and crowded bars and the like, then I'd say that's understandable. Plus if you don't _want _to get vaccinated, then you can at least make the effort of passing up on those things for a bit. Nobody "needs" any of this to at least decently survive. But there are things you do need though.
> And I get that it's still an emergency situation in a lot of places, and the argument of overwhelming the healthcare system is still a concern, so you have to do _something_. Clearly, the French gov thinks they really have no other tool. When you think about it though, vaccinated people are _still contagious_ so the pass is not there to stop contagion. And if we're talking pressure on the national health system, then a good chunk of the fault is on the shoulders of the gov itself for aggressively defunding it, in the years leading to, and even _during _Covid... So put all those together ... isn't that a bit of a slippery slope? Say the gov wants to lighten the load _even more_ on the healthcare system (since they always want to defund it some more) and they now have precedent, maybe they look into chronic and preventable stuff? Say control how much people drink and exercise, and what they eat? Now you can no longer go to restaurants if your BMI is too high or if you haven't exercised this week  ? Smokers are no longer allowed at concerts?
> Now, that's obviously only a wacky thought experiment at this stage, but I can sure understand why people are upset. Putting "vaccinated people are still contagious" with "the healthcare system suffering is a lot due to the gov itself" together really doesn't help sell the measure either. And you can tell it's not just fringe groups being upset either. Getting hundreds of thousands of people to demonstrate against it in France, _during the summer months_ is a pretty big feat in and of itself. And it's actually funny to see the media bias in portraying the demonstrations (when they do cover them at all), because they'll make an effort to only show you a handful of Thordays, while firsthand account I have of people attending those, including medical professionals, tell me that it's not the crowd _at all_. The pass also applies to 12 year olds, and soon likely to younger people as time goes by as well, so you know people are going to be upset about that too. It's a whole mess really.



Thanks for the kind words.

I'm still not entirely familiar with France's vaccine passport policy. Personally, I don't get warm feelings about vaccine passports in general, since they could give a false sense of security about a lot of things we don't know. But, from what I've read recently, France will require a certificate that indicates that a person meets one of the following criteria:
1. 2+ weeks since final dose of any of the 4 mainstream covid vaccines
2. Negative covid test a maximum of 72 hours ago
3. A positive covid test no less than 2 weeks ago, but no more than 6 weeks ago
and it would allow a person to do the following:
1. Dine in at restaurants or cafes
2. Attend large sporting events
3. Utilize public trains or aircraft
4. Work at a health care facility

The criteria for the certificate might have some logic to them, and, probably, these are based on some necessary assumptions at large-scale effectiveness; however, I have the following concerns:
1. Approximately 5% of people are still susceptible after full vaccination. The variants can still be spread (as you mentioned) by vaccinated people. And, it'll probably be updated at some point when the booster shots are figured out, but at some unknown point in time, the protection of the vaccine might fade enough to compromise the effectiveness of this policy.
2. Seems like the most potentially effective scenario. Maybe someone contracts covid right after testing negative and begins rapidly shedding the virus, but that seems to be unlikely. 
3. That one seems arbitrary to me. I don't think we have a very solid understanding of whatever knowledge is required to decide that.

As far as the actions that require the certificate, I can see two of those as potentially being fairly obtrusive, but, it's understandable that you would not want a contagious person in cramped quarters of public transit or potentially infecting a bunch of people already dealing with health issues.

I haven't seen anything about grocery stores. Is that under the current or proposed policy?

In terms of infringement upon the rights of others - I watched the video @Thorsday posted. It's basically an opinion piece about "collectivism is bad" and then a bunch of quotes from sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers to justify why. I'm not sure that I see the relevance of the argument with respect to the claims that got people fired up in the thread (for example, claims that covid is an engineered bioweapon, claims that covid is not real, claims that the covid vaccine has neurotoxins, claims that eating meat makes people immune to covid, etc.). But it might be relevant to the discussion about how France is dealing with these (so dubbed) "vaccine passports."

So, does the government have the right to tell people where they can and cannot go? If so, how far should that right extend? I think there's always going to be a difference in philosophy when addressing that question. The anarchist will say "no" unequivocally. Pretty much every other school of thought has to draw a line somewhere. For example, if I have my own property and wish to limit access to it, some might see the government enforcing my limitations to my private property as justified. I believe that anyone outside of an anarchist philosophy would deem the government in its right to remove a person from a piece of property if they took it by killing the previous owner. And unless you adhere to some sort of extreme fundamentalism, I think you have to entertain the thought that, wherever you would normally draw the line, it could be dynamic, depending on a situation such as a global pandemic of a deadly disease.

What is the point of government at all? In the case of France, according to the Constitution of France, it is to protect people's liberty, property, safety and resistance against oppression. The virus has a great way of driving a wedge between two of these goals: liberty and safety. Normally, sitting next to someone on a train would not be a threat to their safety, but, if you are harbouring a deadly airborne communicable disease, just coming within an arm's length of a person could be a direct threat to the person's safety. Telling a person that they cannot be in a certain place because they might be carrying a deadly disease seems like it'd normally be an infringement on that person's personal liberty, but, when a large portion of the population in the country _is_ exposed to the disease, it is also a valid concern. When the government is also providing the prophylactic at no cost to the individual and is also offering diagnostics, the justification starts to have some solid grounding. There may be an issue for those who are afraid of both the vaccine and the diagnostic procedure causing them harm. I can see how the French government could point at their Constitution to support either side of this argument, but, ultimately, if they err on the side of temporarily suspending too many liberties, they could make up for it later somehow, whereas if they were to err on the side of putting too many people in danger, those people could die as a result, and the government can't do anything to fix that after the fact.

So there is a lot of subtlety in between the two extreme vaccine stances of "just get the darned shot and go" and "f*** you, I won't do what you tell me!" That's why you have so many people all with their firm ideas and no one is likely going to change anyone else's mind. And it doesn't help when so many of the key bits of data that would be used as strong points in the argument are yet unknown.

And the choice could also be equally bad either way. Maybe the vaccine will kill ~4% of people in the long run, and also affect some sort of long-term disability in larger portions of the population, just like covid, in which case no one would ultimately be safer. At this point, we don't expect that to be the case, but we also can't rule it out.


----------



## TedEH

Thanks to the videos in this thread, I'm getting a bunch of nonsense youtube recommendations I have to tell it not to recommend to me anymore.


----------



## ArtDecade

TedEH said:


> Thanks to the videos in this thread, I'm getting a bunch of nonsense youtube recommendations I have to tell it not to recommend to me anymore.



Handle your web browser with care. Don't open nonsense. LOL.


----------



## narad

TedEH said:


> Thanks to the videos in this thread, I'm getting a bunch of nonsense youtube recommendations I have to tell it not to recommend to me anymore.



You've just been redpilled and you don't even know it yet.


----------



## jaxadam

ArtDecade said:


> Handle your web browser with care. Don't open nonsense. LOL.



Well according to mine it thinks all I like is tennis and motocross and that I want to buy a new Escalade.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> Thanks for the kind words.
> 
> I'm still not entirely familiar with France's vaccine passport policy. Personally, I don't get warm feelings about vaccine passports in general, since they could give a false sense of security about a lot of things we don't know. But, from what I've read recently, France will require a certificate that indicates that a person meets one of the following criteria:
> 1. 2+ weeks since final dose of any of the 4 mainstream covid vaccines
> 2. Negative covid test a maximum of 72 hours ago
> 3. A positive covid test no less than 2 weeks ago, but no more than 6 weeks ago
> and it would allow a person to do the following:
> 1. Dine in at restaurants or cafes
> 2. Attend large sporting events
> 3. Utilize public trains or aircraft
> 4. Work at a health care facility
> 
> The criteria for the certificate might have some logic to them, and, probably, these are based on some necessary assumptions at large-scale effectiveness; however, I have the following concerns:
> 1. Approximately 5% of people are still susceptible after full vaccination. The variants can still be spread (as you mentioned) by vaccinated people. And, it'll probably be updated at some point when the booster shots are figured out, but at some unknown point in time, the protection of the vaccine might fade enough to compromise the effectiveness of this policy.
> 2. Seems like the most potentially effective scenario. Maybe someone contracts covid right after testing negative and begins rapidly shedding the virus, but that seems to be unlikely.
> 3. That one seems arbitrary to me. I don't think we have a very solid understanding of whatever knowledge is required to decide that.
> 
> As far as the actions that require the certificate, I can see two of those as potentially being fairly obtrusive, but, it's understandable that you would not want a contagious person in cramped quarters of public transit or potentially infecting a bunch of people already dealing with health issues.
> 
> I haven't seen anything about grocery stores. Is that under the current or proposed policy?
> 
> In terms of infringement upon the rights of others - I watched the video @Thorsday posted. It's basically an opinion piece about "collectivism is bad" and then a bunch of quotes from sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers to justify why. I'm not sure that I see the relevance of the argument with respect to the claims that got people fired up in the thread (for example, claims that covid is an engineered bioweapon, claims that covid is not real, claims that the covid vaccine has neurotoxins, claims that eating meat makes people immune to covid, etc.). But it might be relevant to the discussion about how France is dealing with these (so dubbed) "vaccine passports."
> 
> So, does the government have the right to tell people where they can and cannot go? If so, how far should that right extend? I think there's always going to be a difference in philosophy when addressing that question. The anarchist will say "no" unequivocally. Pretty much every other school of thought has to draw a line somewhere. For example, if I have my own property and wish to limit access to it, some might see the government enforcing my limitations to my private property as justified. I believe that anyone outside of an anarchist philosophy would deem the government in its right to remove a person from a piece of property if they took it by killing the previous owner. And unless you adhere to some sort of extreme fundamentalism, I think you have to entertain the thought that, wherever you would normally draw the line, it could be dynamic, depending on a situation such as a global pandemic of a deadly disease.
> 
> What is the point of government at all? In the case of France, according to the Constitution of France, it is to protect people's liberty, property, safety and resistance against oppression. The virus has a great way of driving a wedge between two of these goals: liberty and safety. Normally, sitting next to someone on a train would not be a threat to their safety, but, if you are harbouring a deadly airborne communicable disease, just coming within an arm's length of a person could be a direct threat to the person's safety. Telling a person that they cannot be in a certain place because they might be carrying a deadly disease seems like it'd normally be an infringement on that person's personal liberty, but, when a large portion of the population in the country _is_ exposed to the disease, it is also a valid concern. When the government is also providing the prophylactic at no cost to the individual and is also offering diagnostics, the justification starts to have some solid grounding. There may be an issue for those who are afraid of both the vaccine and the diagnostic procedure causing them harm. I can see how the French government could point at their Constitution to support either side of this argument, but, ultimately, if they err on the side of temporarily suspending too many liberties, they could make up for it later somehow, whereas if they were to err on the side of putting too many people in danger, those people could die as a result, and the government can't do anything to fix that after the fact.
> 
> So there is a lot of subtlety in between the two extreme vaccine stances of "just get the darned shot and go" and "f*** you, I won't do what you tell me!" That's why you have so many people all with their firm ideas and no one is likely going to change anyone else's mind. And it doesn't help when so many of the key bits of data that would be used as strong points in the argument are yet unknown.
> 
> And the choice could also be equally bad either way. Maybe the vaccine will kill ~4% of people in the long run, and also affect some sort of long-term disability in larger portions of the population, just like covid, in which case no one would ultimately be safer. At this point, we don't expect that to be the case, but we also can't rule it out.



You do have a generous view of the French constitution. Under the fifth Republic, its main goal in practice has been to satisfy the ego of a strong presidential figure; the population's welfare being a distant second . But at this point, that's an entirely different discussion.

As for the vaccine pass, you do raise good points. I obviously simplified, but it is true you can go by with 1-a recent PCR test, or 2-if you have had Covid _recently_. 2 is obviously not a long term solution for anyone, and as for 1-it could sound OK in isolation, but they are also making the PCR tests less accessible, while requesting them to be more frequent, and making them more expensive/not covered by insurance. This could sound benign, but the healthcare system is one where in theory you have nothing to almost nothing to pay out of pocket, and most people don't budget much for healthcare because it's already taken out of their paycheck. So it's far from a "real" possibility either for most people.

As for the implications of the pass. Anything such as crowded places, recreation, trains etc...It would be hard to debate the logic behind it.

But yeah, there were, at least until pretty recently, very real provisions to restrict shopping to a large extent as well. In France, a very large proportion of grocery shopping is done in medium to large indoors/closed shopping centers where you can find a bunch of small "discretionary shops", but a large grocery store takes up most of the space. So restricting shopping centers on the basis of a given square-footage would definitely restrict access to those as well.
Whether this was kept and to what square-footage (hence to what inconvenience level), I gotta say I'm not sure 100%. Like in the US, a bunch of amendments were crammed into the law at the last minute as it was being rushed overnight, and I have not been to the Journal Officiel to verify.

PS: Do you mean "Approximately 5% of people are still susceptible"...as in susceptible to catch a symptomatic case of Covid, or susceptible to be contagious? Do we already have concrete numbers on the latter? Here I would tend to be cautious, especially considering how disastrous the rushed semi-rigorous analyses and communication have been recently. The coverage of vaccine efficacy against delta is pretty hilarious one that comes to mind IMO. Vaccine efficacy decreases hand in hand with delta prevalence increasing, yet nobody thinking that maybe the vaccine is not working well at all on delta (and the drop in _overall _efficacy is just mechanically due to delta prevalence). We started with "vaccine still works on delta", then "works at 80%", then "works at 60%" etc and still revising down. Don't get me wrong, it's obviously a moving target, and it does look like the vaccine at least still works very well at preventing severe complications. But widely presenting those moving targets as settled, even with the "noble" goal of upping vaccination is still not a good look when you have to then keep revising them.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> Thanks to the videos in this thread, I'm getting a bunch of nonsense youtube recommendations I have to tell it not to recommend to me anymore.



Ideally you should watch those from a burner laptop on public wifi. 
Short of that, at least you should use incognito.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> You've just been redpilled and you don't even know it yet.



_Omae wa mou redpilled-u

Nani?!?_


----------



## ArtDecade

mbardu said:


> _Nani?!?_


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> I'll hesitate to respond to much else 'cause I'm sure enough people are primed to argue all day, but I _will say_ that I'd be ok with this one. Stopping people from going into a restaurant or something because of their BMI is obviously ridiculous, but smoking affects the people around you, which I think is a pretty clear line that's already been drawn here (making it not really a slippery slope at all). I imagine most non-smokers would be perfectly happy with the idea of no smoking in indoor venues, which I'm pretty sure is already the case in a lot of places. Unless you're trying to say we'd be preventing anyone who has ever had a cigarette from ever seeing live music again, at which point you're playing semantic games to make things look more like a slippery slope than they really are. I'll give you the benefit and say that's probably not what you're suggesting.
> 
> It's kinda the same with "vaccinated people are still contagious". You're technically right, but the reduced level of risk is the part that's important. I know my anecdotal take is meaningless, but I can see loooooooots more social activity going on within groups of vaccinated people in this area, things opening up, people dining in, etc. and our number haven't gone back up. Someone will see "vaccinated people are still contagious" and take it as "vaccines don't make anything safer", which is not true. Sometimes it doesn't matter if you're technically right, because you're giving people things to latch onto to fuel hesitancy and ignore other equally correct points - at a time where the biggest challenge to getting back to normal and getting back all the freedom we all desperately want is people hesitating to participate in the thing that is actually getting us back to normal.
> 
> And that to me is the big irony of these conversations - so many cries for "mah freedom!" when failing to help out is what's actually restricting our freedom. We have a _much less_ push back / hesitancy to vaccines in this area and we're getting our freedoms back. Slowly, sure. Carefully, sure. But it's happening. The last month or so has been (for me at least) a lot of "first time in over a year" moments - everything from being inside a building with no mask, going to a pub, concerts are starting back up a bit, I went to a sort of outdoor food market thing this week, etc.



To reply here - and to @bostjan as well.

I am not saying _I personally_ am on the "_muh freedom_" side of the discussion. In fact I laugh at the regular "you're a trumpist troll" accusations I get considering I am squarely on the leftist collectivist side of the political spectrum and keep _begging _everyone to stay the F home for 6 weeks and end this freaking thing once and for all... I don't smoke either and largely prefer to avoid anywhere with cigarette smoke btw - those are just examples.

But I cannot not emphasize with the people on the other end, especially on things like the French vaccine pass. Plus like mentioned above, I am not necessarily a big fan of exaggerations or embellishments of the truth just because we feel it's the right moral thing to do. The truth should be enough to stand on its own. Plus - the more you embellish and the embellishments can be easily proven wrong, the more ammunition you give to the people who are really far gone.

Your argument about "muh freedom" and the counterproductive nature of things? And things going back to normal on your end now? Sure...that's what I've been saying all along. If everyone had stayed at home for a bit a year ago, we'd be done with the thing, and would have avoided millions of death along the way. Or at least we would have been able to stay we tried...because really in practice we didn't.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> _Omae wa mou redpilled-u
> 
> Nani?!?_



redpilled-eiru -- gotta get it in progressive form


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> redpilled-eiru -- gotta get it in progressive form



My years of Japanese are way _way _behind me so I don't guarantee any accuracy to my jokes


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> Ideally you should watch those from a burner laptop on public wifi.


It's just a youtube video.


----------



## spudmunkey

TedEH said:


> Thanks to the videos in this thread, I'm getting a bunch of nonsense youtube recommendations I have to tell it not to recommend to me anymore.



Go to your history, and you can remove specific viewed videos from it. It works super well.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> It's just a youtube video.



and my reply was just a joke but that didn't translate well it seems :-|


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> What is the point of government at all? In the case of France, according to the Constitution of France, it is to protect people's liberty, property, safety and resistance against oppression. The virus has a great way of driving a wedge between two of these goals: liberty and safety.


I can;t speak for the French government, but our Declaration of Independence references certain unalienable rights, "amongst them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and I'd argue that the particular ordering here is no coincidence. And before someone comes in with Ben Franklin's bit about anyone giving up a little liberty for a little safety deserves neither, that was with respect to a tax dispute, and doesn't mean what you think it means. 



bostjan said:


> And the choice could also be equally bad either way. Maybe the vaccine will kill ~4% of people in the long run, and also affect some sort of long-term disability in larger portions of the population, just like covid, in which case no one would ultimately be safer. At this point, we don't expect that to be the case, but we also can't rule it out.


We DO have pretty good tools for making decisions based on uncertain outcomes, though, and I don't think its a radical proposition to say the probability of Covid killing, say, 0.8% of infected patients and the probability of another surge with a far more infectious strain catching hold while less than 60% of the country is vaccinated occurring is probably higher than the probability of the covid vaccine killing 4% of people who take it, so it's just a matter of assigning probabilities, probability-weighting the estimated dead, and just continuing to reassess your probabilities over time as you move forward. Which is why vaccination is being _strongly_ recommended.

I'm seeing you having a conversation with no one, and "ignored user" as the last poster in this thread - did someone say mbardu three times in front of a mirror?


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> You do have a generous view of the French constitution. Under the fifth Republic, its main goal in practice has been to satisfy the ego of a strong presidential figure; the population's welfare being a distant second . But at this point, that's an entirely different discussion.
> 
> As for the vaccine pass, you do raise good points. I obviously simplified, but it is true you can go by with 1-a recent PCR test, or 2-if you have had Covid _recently_. 2 is obviously not a long term solution for anyone, and as for 1-it could sound OK in isolation, but they are also making the PCR tests less accessible, while requesting them to be more frequent, and making them more expensive/not covered by insurance. This could sound benign, but the healthcare system is one where in theory you have nothing to almost nothing to pay out of pocket, and most people don't budget much for healthcare because it's already taken out of their paycheck. So it's far from a "real" possibility either for most people.
> 
> As for the implications of the pass. Anything such as crowded places, recreation, trains etc...It would be hard to debate the logic behind it.
> 
> But yeah, there were, at least until pretty recently, very real provisions to restrict shopping to a large extent as well. In France, a very large proportion of grocery shopping is done in medium to large indoors/closed shopping centers where you can find a bunch of small "discretionary shops", but a large grocery store takes up most of the space. So restricting shopping centers on the basis of a given square-footage would definitely restrict access to those as well.
> Whether this was kept and to what square-footage (hence to what inconvenience level), I gotta say I'm not sure 100%. Like in the US, a bunch of amendments were crammed into the law at the last minute as it was being rushed overnight, and I have not been to the Journal Officiel to verify.
> 
> PS: Do you mean "Approximately 5% of people are still susceptible"...as in susceptible to catch a symptomatic case of Covid, or susceptible to be contagious? Do we already have concrete numbers on the latter? Here I would tend to be cautious, especially considering how disastrous the rushed semi-rigorous analyses and communication have been recently. The coverage of vaccine efficacy against delta is pretty hilarious one that comes to mind IMO. Vaccine efficacy decreases hand in hand with delta prevalence increasing, yet nobody thinking that maybe the vaccine is not working well at all on delta (and the drop in _overall _efficacy is just mechanically due to delta prevalence). We started with "vaccine still works on delta", then "works at 80%", then "works at 60%" etc and still revising down. Don't get me wrong, it's obviously a moving target, and it does look like the vaccine at least still works very well at preventing severe complications. But widely presenting those moving targets as settled, even with the "noble" goal of upping vaccination is still not a good look when you have to then keep revising them.


Really just going off of how the Constitution is worded, not the intent.

I think the debate against the logic behind the pass is the shaky assumptions upon which it's built. Everyone wants to think that immunity against covid is like armor plate. As in, you either have immunity or not- those who have recovered or those who have been vaccinated have immunity, and those who have not had covid or been vaccinated do not have immunity. But, in reality, immunity isn't a perfect virus deflector. It's a tactical response that your body has to the intrusion of a pathogen, in order to neutralize it. The vaccine is like a simulation of a viral attack. If your body figures out the winning strategy, then you have boosted the effect of your immunity to a real infection. But, if the infection is particularly aggressive, or if the infection somehow follows a different strategy, or, if enough time passes and your immune system forgets how to react appropriately, or, or, or ... then the vaccine doesn't protect you. Absolutely the same applies to natural immunity. In fact, if person A has never been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 and person B has already had it and also been vaccinated, but has, say, an organ transplant or something that compromises their immune system, person B is very likely to be at a higher risk than person A of serious complications ultimately resulting from exposure. What I'm getting at is that there is no magical timeframe during which people are always safe against the virus after infection nor after vaccination. The variants, the anecdotes of immune people still spreading the virus, the gradual fade of immunity, etc., all make it a fairly complicated problem to calculate when exactly it will be safe again to go to concerts or raves or frat parties or whatever. Ultimately, people will probably ignore the government's advice and mandates and do whatever they want anyway, and the amount of transgression will increase as a function of time in lockdown.

5% of vaccinated people are still susceptible to catching symptomatic covid. The number who are still contagious would necessarily be at least that, and, I think, what we are observing in the field is that the vaccines might significantly decrease the chance of spreading the virus, but also that it is possible for someone vaccinated to be immune and still spread the virus.

The best strategy, IMO, would be to throw everything we can at the virus as soon as we can- lockdowns, vaccines, etc., and keep working as hard as we can on a treatment and a booster. Maybe that won't be enough to eradicate it, but at least we already got it to be held at bay for a little while.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> and my reply was just a joke but that didn't translate well it seems :-|


I wasn't sure. This comment brought to you by NordVPN. (But not actually, 'cause those VPN services are mostly useless for most people.)



mbardu said:


> Or at least we would have been able to stay we tried...because really in practice we didn't.


A lot of people _have_ been trying though. And I continue to say that's a big source of the pushback you've gotten from your comments. I don't think you're some kind of Trumpist, alt-right, etc etc person trying to tell us the rona is a fake virus to sell us 5G nanobots to erase our masculinity or something. But it's difficult to take it seriously when _anyone_ says "this would all have gone brilliantly if you all just followed _my plan_. I've got it all figured out." Again, maybe you're technically right on some level, in some universe somewhere, but that was never an option in this reality given that for all the effort a lot of people _have_ put into to doing their part - whatever they believe that to be - there was always going to be huge swathes of people throwing wrenches in the works. "If everyone had just done what I said" is putting the blame on.... well, everyone, including those who are doing everything in their power to do the right thing. That's not really fair, is it?

I mean, I DID do as much as I thought I could. I stayed home. I skipped Christmas and my birthday and other holidays and socializing and all that crap. I got the jabs, I wore my mask, I argued with people on the internet, I worked from home, I helped someone else who needed access to groceries so that the number of people going into public would be minimized - I stayed away from anyone who had the rona or symptoms, which included my parents, one of whom almost died from it, etc. I don't know how much more "trying" I could have done.


----------



## TedEH

Drew said:


> did someone say mbardu three times in front of a mirror?


You're not far off.


----------



## Drew

TedEH said:


> You're not far off.


I should probably just throw the other troll on ignore too, but I'm still hoping someone just bans him or runs him off.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> I wasn't sure. This comment brought to you by NordVPN. (But not actually, 'cause those VPN services are mostly useless for most people.)
> 
> 
> A lot of people _have_ been trying though. And I continue to say that's a big source of the pushback you've gotten from your comments. I don't think you're some kind of Trumpist, alt-right, etc etc person trying to tell us the rona is a fake virus to sell us 5G nanobots to erase our masculinity or something. But it's difficult to take it seriously when _anyone_ says "this would all have gone brilliantly if you all just followed _my plan_. I've got it all figured out." Again, maybe you're technically right on some level, in some universe somewhere, but that was never an option in this reality given that for all the effort a lot of people _have_ put into to doing their part - whatever they believe that to be - there was always going to be huge swathes of people throwing wrenches in the works. "If everyone had just done what I said" is putting the blame on.... well, everyone, including those who are doing everything in their power to do the right thing. That's not really fair, is it?
> 
> I mean, I DID do as much as I thought I could. I stayed home. I skipped Christmas and my birthday and other holidays and socializing and all that crap. I got the jabs, I wore my mask, I argued with people on the internet, I worked from home, I helped someone else who needed access to groceries so that the number of people going into public would be minimized - I stayed away from anyone who had the rona or symptoms, which included my parents, one of whom almost died from it, etc. I don't know how much more "trying" I could have done.



Don't take it personally. If you did your part, then clearly you're not who I'm talking about. But many people did not, and more importantly, those who did saw their efforts go to waste because the responses were not coordinated under poor governance. Inconsistencies in the USA led to states breeding their clusters and passing them to each other when others reopened - same thing with countries in Europe; so it never worked. So individuals did try, but our global leaders certainly did not - and that's mostly where the blame lies, not as much with individuals. That's what "we didn't even try" means. As a society, not as an individual.


----------



## Xaios




----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> We DO have pretty good tools for making decisions based on uncertain outcomes, though, and I don't think its a radical proposition to say the probability of Covid killing, say, 0.8% of infected patients and the probability of another surge with a far more infectious strain catching hold while less than 60% of the country is vaccinated occurring is probably higher than the probability of the covid vaccine killing 4% of people who take it, so it's just a matter of assigning probabilities, probability-weighting the estimated dead, and just continuing to reassess your probabilities over time as you move forward. Which is why vaccination is being _strongly_ recommended.



Oh, I'm with you. I'm vaccinated. I talked everyone in my immediate family into doing it. I talked one of my coworkers who is staunchly anti-vax into doing it, too. But I'm 100% certain that no one is 100% certain that the vaccine is not going to have some sort of long term side effects. But, lives are at stake, and I'm better than 99% certain that the vaccine is the best option we have available right now.

Then again, there's a one-in-a-billion chance that none of it will matter, since Harvard is looking for extraterrestrial life. Maybe they find it, and then an advanced race of extraterrestrials come to Earth and murder us all. I'd say it's impossibly small odds, but, then again, we just watched as Trump became president, a bad cop actually went to prison after a high-profile abuse of power case, and the military started talking about UFO's; so it's almost like someone seeded the wrong random numbers onto reality in 2015 and anything could happen. 



Drew said:


> I'm seeing you having a conversation with no one, and "ignored user" as the last poster in this thread - did someone say mbardu three times in front of a mirror?


 That's a pretty accurate caricature of what happened.


----------



## TedEH

You could take the alternative angle that, in light of how little faith one might have in people in general, it's practically a miracle that we've made the progress we did. For all the complaining we do about the internet/social media we've definitely managed to spread enough of a message around to get _a decent number_ of people to stay home, vax up, mask up, etc. We managed to get a vaccine, that works as far as we know, into people in under two years, that's pretty good. At least some places have managed to keep numbers reasonable. Things could have been much worse. They could have been much better too but.... 



bostjan said:


> an advanced race of extraterrestrials come to Earth and murder us all


They could equally come down to earth and deliver cures for things we were too stupid to figure out on our own.

I'm at least _trying_ to be positive.


----------



## Randy




----------



## Randy

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/07...g-breakthrough-cases-just-delta-variant-grew/

"The U.S. agency leading the fight against Covid-19 gave up a crucial surveillance tool tracking the effectiveness of vaccines just as a troublesome new variant of the virus was emerging.

While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped comprehensively tracking what are known as vaccine breakthrough cases in May, the consequences of that choice are only now beginning to show.

...

But in the months since, the number of vaccine breakthrough cases has grown, as has the risk that they present. And while the CDC has stopped tracking such cases, many states have not. Bloomberg gathered data from 35 states and identified 111,748 vaccine breakthrough cases through the end of July, more than 10 times the CDC’s end-of-April tally."


----------



## mbardu

Randy said:


> View attachment 96191
> 
> 
> View attachment 96192



Yup, there you go. That's one of the arguments of the people pissed at the "it will stop contaminations" arguments behind vaccine passports such as the French one. Where you basically give rights to vaccinated people and remove rights from people who aren't.

Again, not saying that pushing the vaccine is not something that you could feel is the right, logical, moral and urgent thing to do. I also think it can be useful and many people should get it. But just goes to show that the way it's being pushed is not always honest or rigorous. Here, although the argument of "at least we think that vaccinated people should not contaminate others _nearly as much_ so they should have more freedom to go as they like without masks" may sound nice on paper and if it fits your bias, but we have really little data to support that. Or in this case data that directly contradicts it.

Just like the initial bias of "the vaccine still protects against the variants" is still unchallenged by many, while the data supporting it is pretty thin, getting thinner with larger delta prevalence, and with counterexamples aplenty.

But _of course_, vaccinated people are less likely to contaminate others, right? And _of course_ the vaccine must protect against variants, right? If those are proven then sure. But sometimes we don't necessarily know yet, while we're still already using those assumptions to shape public opinion and laws and make risk/benefit calculations.
And the more we do it, the more we ostracize people who are not 200% onboard with the unproven stuff; the more we have to walk back earlier statements based on invalid assumptions, the more you alienate people.

Other bits from the MA study: vaccinated people account for about 75% of symptomatic cases, they also account for about 75% of hospitalizations (actually 80%) ... in a population where we're just about nearing 75% of adults vaccinated.

So of course, small sample size...but the overwhelming case we think is there if coming at it with a certain bias may not necessarily be as overwhelming as we believe it to be. I still see a lot of people describing the effect of the vaccine as one or two orders of magnitudes drop in likelihood to catch and transmit the virus (which would be overwhelming) - but such a drastic effect would mean the MA result would be quasi impossible statistically speaking. So either the prevailing assumptions are wrong, or the study is wrong. As far as the CDC is concerned, they seem to think the study is not necessarily wrong as they're backtracking and revising their recommendations as we speak, so make of that what you will.


----------



## Randy

Idk if Dems became the new "Don't Tread On Me" party or if they just wanted to notch a win for Biden, but the amount of pushback I'm getting from people in my party about these new CDC recs and guidelines is massive.

Before anything CDC, Fauci, WHO, whatever said it was gospel. Now every time I send someone an update about vaccine effectiveness, recommendation for masks etc it's "well I'm not gonna get sick anyway so idgaf".


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Randy said:


> Idk if Dems became the new "Don't Tread On Me" party or if they just wanted to notch a win for Biden, but the amount of pushback I'm getting from people in my party about these new CDC recs and guidelines is massive.
> 
> Before anything CDC, Fauci, WHO, whatever said it was gospel. Now every time I send someone an update about vaccine effectiveness, recommendation for masks etc it's "well I'm not gonna get sick anyway so idgaf".



I get the feeling that there was a lot of over-promising about what having an effective vaccine means. It was sold to a lot of folks as a sort of "get out of covid free" card, when it really isn't.


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> I get the feeling that there was a lot of over-promising about what having an effective vaccine means. It was sold to a lot of folks as a sort of "get out of covid free" card, when it really isn't.



That's a point I'm curious about- to see how much Biden and most of the media will walk back. Wonder if it will be like the tiny maybe we were wrong actually and the virus _may _have been a lab accident but please forget we were wrong please let it disappear, or if they will largely and honestly acknowledge the mistake to get people to mask back up.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mbardu said:


> That's a point I'm curious about- to see how much Biden and most of the media will walk back. Wonder if it will be like the tiny maybe we were wrong actually and the virus _may _have been a lab accident but please forget we were wrong please let it disappear, or if they will largely and honestly acknowledge the mistake to get people to mask back up.



I don't think where the virus came from matters, whenever it's brought up there's always a political slant and not anything of substance as far as helping to curb infections. It's a blame game and a distraction. Not that there isn't some importance to learning about the origins, it's just different conversation I think. 

It's pretty obvious that dangling the reduction of mandates in front of people carrot on a stick style has gone as far as it can in getting people vaccinated and is now starting to be actively harmful. 

In true American political fashion there will be no acknowledgement of that blunder, but we already knew that.


----------



## Randy

Maybe I'm just not in the core of the group they were trying to appeal to but "life goes back to normal the minute you get the vaccine" never really clicked for me. I think other than sex, I can probably live with not standing within 6 feet of people for the rest of my life. It's kinda weird to me HOW fixated people are on having to be so damn close to people, without a mask.

I think I said it a year+ ago, it reminds me of that thing cats have in their shit that gets in a mouse's brain causing them to expose themselves. Something about the danger of breathing death into eachothers lungs makes them want to do it even more.


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> I don't think where the virus came from matters, whenever it's brought up there's always a political slant and not anything of substance as far as helping to curb infections. It's a blame game and a distraction. Not that there isn't some importance to learning about the origins, it's just different conversation I think.
> 
> It's pretty obvious that dangling the reduction of mandates in front of people carrot on a stick style has gone as far as it can in getting people vaccinated and is now starting to be actively harmful.
> 
> In true American political fashion there will be no acknowledgement of that blunder, but we already knew that.



I didn't mean it in a political way with the above.

It doesn't matter to me where the virus comes from either, and even if from a lab, the "whoops we screwed up and let it leave the lab lmao" scenario remains (a little bit ) more likely than a concerted global effort to control the human race through 5G.
But it does however matter to me a great deal whether people are being honest about it, because it tells me whether they're being honest about things in general.

If there was an acknowledgement of "maybe we were wrong and it may have come from a lab", it would have been a sign that maybe some people (the ones I'd like to see in position of leadership) have some level of honesty, but that did not really happen. A bit the opposite actually. It's not only people in power btw, most people I know have progressively changed their replies from "no way it's lab-made, only dumb trumpers would think that" to "well who cares where it came from, it never mattered". Saying "whelp maybe I was wrong" is pretty hard.

So here, I'd really like to see the message here on masks mandates and vaccinated/unvaccinated. I can tell you it's _not _going to help the debate in France 

If we had to make it political, I would really _really _hope that the current US Admin would be more transparent than the prior one, and be able to acknowledge when things are not necessarily as we initially thought instead of sweeping things under the rug. I still have some hope (it would be _hard _to be worse than the prior admin), but public trust is easy to erode.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Randy said:


> Maybe I'm just not in the core of the group they were trying to appeal to but "life goes back to normal the minute you get the vaccine" never really clicked for me. I think other than sex, I can probably live with not standing within 6 feet of people for the rest of my life. It's kinda weird to me HOW fixated people are on having to be so damn close to people, without a mask.
> 
> I think I said it a year+ ago, it reminds me of that thing cats have in their shit that gets in a mouse's brain causing them to expose themselves. Something about the danger of breathing death into eachothers lungs makes them want to do it even more.



Same here. 

Honestly, outside of going to play music with folks and my old hobby of putting my hands on everything at music stores, I haven't really missed anything, and I really only stopped/significantly reduced all that because of other people. 

The masks never bothered me, and I certainly don't mind folks staying the fuck out of my personal space.


----------



## Bodes

Was the vaccine advertised as a 'you won't catch it' miracle drug?

Here in Australia, our politicians have tried/are trying to be careful with their words and saying that any vaccine never guarantees anything, but that they are good at assisting in reducing the severity and longevity of any infection. 

They also said it appears to reduce the transmission of the virus due to most vaccinated people seem to have lower viral loads.

All of these statements were always followed up with something about the vaccine is no substitute for social distancing, good personal hygiene measures and wearing masks when in places where separation is not an option.

In my state, Victoria, even when we went 100 days of zero cases outside of hotel quarantine for returned travellers, there was, and still is, a mask mandate on all public transport. 

Politicians have said many really dumb things, especially certain conservative ones, but the message about vaccine efficacy have been fairly consistent to me.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Bodes said:


> Was the vaccine advertised as a 'you won't catch it' miracle drug?



There was just little nuance to it in the mainstream.


----------



## jaxadam

Bodes said:


> They also said it appears to reduce the transmission of the virus due to most vaccinated people seem to have lower viral loads.



It sounds like the tune on that is starting to change.

https://www.statnews.com/2021/07/30/what-delta-has-changed-in-the-covid-pandemic-and-what-it-hasnt/



> But the variant appears to be causing breakthrough infections — infections in people who have been vaccinated — at higher rates than other variants, with vaccinated people also reporting higher rates of symptomatic illness. And some vaccinated people who get infected, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this week, seem to carry roughly the same level of virus in their upper airways — their noses and throats — as unvaccinated people.


----------



## spudmunkey

mbardu said:


> the "whoops we screwed up and let it leave the lab lmao" scenario remains (a little bit )



It's not quite as  if you've ever looked into the history of artificial sweeteners, and discover how many were discovered on accident from a chemist accidentally licking their fingers. Like...more than 2 of them were discovered that way.


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> There was just little nuance to it in the mainstream.



Biden and the admin were _heavily_ pushing the "get the vaccine and get back to your normal life without a mask, while the unvaccinated folks will be masked and barred from stuff" angle.
Have we forgotten already?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mbardu said:


> Biden and the admin were _heavily_ pushing the "get the vaccine and get back to your normal life without a mask, while the unvaccinated folks will be masked and barred from stuff" angle.
> Have we forgotten already?



That's what I mean, it was all black and white, which only got us so far.

They were just telling people what they wanted to hear: that all you needed was a couple shots and we're back to 2018.

But don't get me wrong everyone able to should get vaccinated based on what we know right now.


----------



## Randy




----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> That's what I mean, it was all black and white, which only got us so far.
> 
> They were just telling people what they wanted to hear: that all you needed was a couple shots and we're back to 2018.
> 
> But don't get me wrong everyone able to should get vaccinated based on what we know right now.



Oh yeah yeah sorry.
The forum doesn't do nested quotes but I was replying to the person you were replying to.


----------



## TedEH

I had seen something specific to Ontario recently that, to my eyes, made it look like vax was basically doing what we expected it to do:


At least in this area, the message has been for a good while what the majority of cases still happening are to non-vax'd people. I'm not a statistician, so someone smarter than me can work out if this is meaningful or not. That's on top of the anecdotal element of knowing things have been getting closer to normal-ish here, contacts + freedoms have been significantly restored from what they were 6 months ago, without the spikes in numbers you'd expect if the vax wasn't doing _something_ useful.

More screenshots because why not:


Given that Canada Day was almost a month ago, and days like that end up being basically free-for-alls, there's been more than enough time for all those contacts to pick things back up again, but it didn't happen. I don't know what to attribute that to, if not the relatively high number of people we have who are vax'd.



Randy said:


> I think other than sex, I can probably live with not standing within 6 feet of people for the rest of my life.


I don't think I could live without live music for too much longer.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> I had seen something specific to Ontario recently that, to my eyes, made it look like vax was basically doing what we expected it to do:
> View attachment 96199
> 
> At least in this area, the message has been for a good while what the majority of cases still happening are to non-vax'd people. I'm not a statistician, so someone smarter than me can work out if this is meaningful or not. That's on top of the anecdotal element of knowing things have been getting closer to normal-ish here, contacts + freedoms have been significantly restored from what they were 6 months ago, without the spikes in numbers you'd expect if the vax wasn't doing _something_ useful.
> 
> 
> I don't think I could live without live music for too much longer.



There might be less variant prevalence in Canada + the vaccines work amazing against the base variant that they were derived from.

Just my 2 cents hypothesis.


----------



## Randy

TedEH said:


> I don't think I could live without live music for too much longer.



Would you be able to live with having live music where you're not crammed into the venue like sardines? I wouldn't mind if the tickets were 2x the price if the venue was 1/2 the capacity, if that's a necessary compromise.


----------



## Randy

mbardu said:


> There might be less variant prevalence in Canada + the vaccines work amazing against the base variant that they were derived from.
> 
> Just my 2 cents hypothesis.



The Israeli Ministry of Health data Drew posted elsewhere seems to indicate the vaccine effectiveness drops off after a period of time we're only just now crossing with the earliest recipients. I wouldn't put a lot of value in any infection rate statistics from any sample group that have had broad access to the vaccine less than 6 or 7 months.


----------



## TedEH

If nothing else, you can maybe imagine why the view from my igloo is a bit different than the American experience.



Randy said:


> Would you be able to live with having live music where you're not crammed into the venue like sardines?


We don't really have venues for that here. We have $100+ outdoor events, and $10 dive shows where you're packed like sardines. Very little in between. And it wouldn't be the same. 

Actually, I say that, but they have opened up shows here again, and I'm not sure capacity is limited anymore. I'm hesitant to go though. Just 'cause we "can", I don't know that I'm sold that we should.


----------



## narad

Randy said:


> Would you be able to live with having live music where you're not crammed into the venue like sardines? I wouldn't mind if the tickets were 2x the price if the venue was 1/2 the capacity, if that's a necessary compromise.



Hear!Hear! More entertainment for the gentry! My, those Haken fellows put on a fine show indeed! Splendid!


----------



## mbardu

Randy said:


> The Israeli Ministry of Health data Drew posted elsewhere seems to indicate the vaccine effectiveness drops off after a period of time we're only just now crossing with the earliest recipients. I wouldn't put a lot of value in any infection rate statistics from any sample group that have had broad access to the vaccine less than 6 or 7 months.



I've seen those numbers over the last couple of months. Never shared them because sharing graphs in hebrew will 100% make people call you a deranged conspirationist  . The way I interpreted the trends was similar to my reply above though. At first, Delta was unheard of, there were fewer cases and in that context the vaccine worked great in proportion. Delta grew a lot and grew quickly over time, bringing in a lot of cases, and in an almost directly inversely correlated way, overall vaccine efficacy (not broken down by delta/non-delta) dropped like a rock.

Hypothetical scenario. It almost sounds like Delta is already close to a Covid-21 and the vaccine doesn't really work that great against it. So we have places where it's not really prevalent, and the vaccine is great at dealing with last year's virus.
Then you have places where we are almost at herd immunity against Covid-19, and we are vaccinating more and more, but not seeing quite the protection we were hoping for.
I exaggerate, as I don't think we're quite there, and Massachusetts/Israel are still only anecdotes. But at least that's what the numbers would look like if that were the case.

One thing is for sure though - I doubt many people would consider the above a possibility, and if it turns out to be the confirmed a few months down the road, nobody will admit that they might have been wrong


----------



## Randy

It's possible but the Israeli data is specifically measuring people getting infected now (so seemingly majority Delta variant) and when you ask the question when did you get vaccinated, theres a correlation between how long it's been and what percentage of them were symptomatic.

Considering it's a 6 month cliff, I wouldn't discount the idea there's other "stuff" that potentially happens after that 6 month window (like hospitalizations).


----------



## Thorsday

This is whole thing (not you guys) is literally Clown Hour Eleven. 

A mutation!? A permutation? Let's jab some more!!! 

Get on with humanity. 

Fuck the fearmongering governments and the corporations that are benefiting from all of this.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> Hear!Hear! More entertainment for the gentry! My, those Haken fellows put on a fine show indeed! Splendid!



Can you imagine?
Twice the price considering the travesty of what TicketMaster + (ticketMaster-sponsored) scalpers are already doing to entertainment prices?
How rich are you guys?


----------



## Adieu

Bodes said:


> Was the vaccine advertised as a 'you won't catch it' miracle drug?
> 
> Here in Australia, our politicians have tried/are trying to be careful with their words and saying that any vaccine never guarantees anything, but that they are good at assisting in reducing the severity and longevity of any infection.
> 
> They also said it appears to reduce the transmission of the virus due to most vaccinated people seem to have lower viral loads.
> 
> All of these statements were always followed up with something about the vaccine is no substitute for social distancing, good personal hygiene measures and wearing masks when in places where separation is not an option.
> 
> In my state, Victoria, even when we went 100 days of zero cases outside of hotel quarantine for returned travellers, there was, and still is, a mask mandate on all public transport.
> 
> Politicians have said many really dumb things, especially certain conservative ones, but the message about vaccine efficacy have been fairly consistent to me.



You enviable people have your own private continent. And brains.


----------



## Bodes

Adieu said:


> You enviable people have your own private continent. And brains.



Technically not a continent, just an island.
The brains part was more we have universal healthcare and we couldn't afford to turn into, at the time, Italy with the number of hospitalisations.

Now we are just not letting our own citizens back home, while letting celebrities and sports stars come and go as they please. Let's not forget about our awful vaccine roll out.


----------



## Bodes

Randy said:


> Would you be able to live with having live music where you're not crammed into the venue like sardines? I wouldn't mind if the tickets were 2x the price if the venue was 1/2 the capacity, if that's a necessary compromise.



If you knew how screwed over Australia is with ticket prices and lived here, you wouldn't say that. Minimum $70 for a reasonably known band, in an 800 capacity venue, before ticket fees added.


----------



## budda

Let's see if this works...

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1420957777409740807


----------



## Randy

mbardu said:


> Can you imagine?
> Twice the price considering the travesty of what TicketMaster + (ticketMaster-sponsored) scalpers are already doing to entertainment prices?
> How rich are you guys?



Depends on the band and the venue. Most of the shows I'd give a shit about locally are between $20 and $25. Only pricey one looks to be Gojira which is $37.

Maybe double price is a stretch but a cushion to keep the place from being shoulder to shoulder while still paying the band their share isn't unreasonable. That's the way they did it in NY during imposed capacity limitations and they were still selling out.

Or the alternative is continuing cycle of transmission, which seems a little stubborn. For people dying to see live music, sounds kinda "well only if it's cheap and convenient", must not really care that much.


----------



## Randy

budda said:


> Let's see if this works...
> 
> https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1420957777409740807



"Yeah but... (!)"


----------



## narad

budda said:


> Let's see if this works...
> 
> https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1420957777409740807



More transmissable than SARS or MERS? Eats some fucking raw meat and stop being a baby.


----------



## mbardu

Randy said:


> "Yeah but... (!)"



That's a lot of exclamation marks.

And the tweet chain is (a bit ) more alarmist than i would be on the basis of a single study/event.


----------



## StevenC

mbardu said:


> That's a lot of exclamation marks.
> 
> And the tweet chain is (a bit ) more alarmist than i would be on the basis of a single study/event.


You wrote thousands of words about a hypothetical worry.


----------



## Randy

mbardu said:


> That's a lot of exclamation marks.
> 
> And the tweet chain is (a bit ) more alarmist than i would be on the basis of a single study/event.



I don't know so much alarmist in content but the tone was a little over the top. To his point, it does come across as muddled messaging and fact filtering.

Part of my job is queueing up the morning and afternoon news for a local radio station, so I usually hear the latest headlines/narratives out there in real-time and across the board, all the stories about this I've heard over the last week (months really) have been a muted retelling of the actual report or accompanied by editorialized "but really, this is all that matters... yadda yadda". The one today was about the biggest increase in cases since this past winter but hot on the heels of it was doctor "but it's mostly unvaccinated people and those who are poz and vaxxed aren't getting hospitalized, so this is just proof vax works" which is spoon-feeding people conclusions.


----------



## mbardu

StevenC said:


> You wrote thousands of words about a hypothetical worry.



Indeed - I tend to think when you're trying to make a point, explanations and measure are better than exclamation marks and emojis and exaggerations.


----------



## Adieu

Bodes said:


> If you knew how screwed over Australia is with ticket prices and lived here, you wouldn't say that. Minimum $70 for a reasonably known band, in an 800 capacity venue, before ticket fees added.



Which dollar though? Yours is cheaper


----------



## Bodes

Adieu said:


> Which dollar though? Yours is cheaper



$70 AUD which is about $50 USD. The last international gig I went to was Blind Guardian for about $87 AUD, about $62 USD, at a 800 capacity venue.

I had tickets to see The Offspring at a 15,000 capacity basketball stadium last year, which COVID cancelled, for about $170AUD, $125 USD. That is pretty normal for a band of that tier. $90 AUD will get you nose bleed seats, if you are lucky.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> I tend to think when you're trying to make a point, explanations and measure are better than exclamation marks and emojis and exaggerations.


This is the internet, there's no difference between word count and exclamation points here.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> This is the internet, there's no difference between word count and exclamation points here.



That part is left entirely to the reader.


----------



## Randy

More characters per minute = more emotion per minute


----------



## jaxadam




----------



## mbardu

jaxadam said:


>



Future presidential material.
What a time to be alive...


----------



## jaxadam

mbardu said:


> Future presidential material.
> What a time to be alive...



I am trying my ass off to be his running mate, but they said there is a good chance they'll look into my SSO post history.


----------



## Randy

jaxadam said:


> I am trying my ass off to be his running mate, but they said there is a good chance they'll look into my SSO post history.



And want to make you the nominee instead?


----------



## jaxadam

Randy said:


> And want to make you the nominee instead?



No no no... I'll settle for VP. I just want to sit in the big house and watch 80's Van Damme movies and walk around and eat a bunch of hors d'oeuvres all day, I don't want any responsibility. Big Ron can do all of the heavy lifting and I'll just nod along and keep posting on SSO from IPVanish.


----------



## Randy

Tbh, Desantis and Dem govs are about 2 degrees off from eachother on this at most. He's just saying what most of them are thinking.


----------



## Thorsday

mbardu said:


> Future presidential material.
> What a time to be alive...



Sweet Land of Lizardry... From Every Mountainside... Let Fuidom Wring...


----------



## profwoot

Thorsday said:


> Sweet Land of Lizardry... From Every Mountainside... Let Fuidom Wring...



The boy's touched.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

jaxadam said:


>



That's prime Futurama material in the flesh


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> I've seen those numbers over the last couple of months. Never shared them because sharing graphs in hebrew will 100% make people call you a deranged conspirationist  . The way I interpreted the trends was similar to my reply above though. At first, Delta was unheard of, there were fewer cases and in that context the vaccine worked great in proportion. Delta grew a lot and grew quickly over time, bringing in a lot of cases, and in an almost directly inversely correlated way, overall vaccine efficacy (not broken down by delta/non-delta) dropped like a rock.
> 
> Hypothetical scenario. It almost sounds like Delta is already close to a Covid-21 and the vaccine doesn't really work that great against it. So we have places where it's not really prevalent, and the vaccine is great at dealing with last year's virus.
> Then you have places where we are almost at herd immunity against Covid-19, and we are vaccinating more and more, but not seeing quite the protection we were hoping for.
> I exaggerate, as I don't think we're quite there, and Massachusetts/Israel are still only anecdotes. But at least that's what the numbers would look like if that were the case.
> 
> One thing is for sure though - I doubt many people would consider the above a possibility, and if it turns out to be the confirmed a few months down the road, nobody will admit that they might have been wrong


https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2108891
The mRNA vaccines are about 85% effective against the delta variant (whereas 90% effective against the older variants). Astra-Zeneca (and ostensibly the other non-mRNA vaccines), while being nearly 75% effective against the older strains, is maybe only about 67% effective against the delta variant.
Since immunity wanes with time (at least as medical science understands it, disputed by most of the people on this board), we expect that 67% protection at peak could translate to a shorter time span of protection against that variant and a higher viral load for those who are non-symptomatic due to being vaccinated. That expectation does seem to fit the data we are observing. Places like the USA (among the elderly) and Israel, where the vaccine was administered early, might benefit from booster shots before the delta variant has a chance to take hold. Sadly, though, it looks like it might already be too late for the boosters to be maximally effective. Meanwhile, in other places where people either have no access to vaccines or are refusing to get them, we should expect to see more mutation and variation of the virus.

As I had mentioned very early on, this virus has a tendency to mutate quickly. Within a couple months of its initial discovery, there were already two major variants, and now, a year and a half later, there are dozens of variants with at least a few different spike protein variations (the vaccine works based on recognition of those proteins, which means that the rapid mutation is the most likely potential cause of future mass-breakthrough cases in vaccinated people).

The scientific community is working as quickly as possible to understand how immunity is affected by time in populations. Of course, there are tons of other variables that will determine how an individual's immunity changes with time, like age, exposure to other pathogens, pre-existing health conditions, etc., so it's not a simple problem to solve.


----------



## Drew

TedEH said:


> At least in this area, the message has been for a good while what the majority of cases still happening are to non-vax'd people. I'm not a statistician, so someone smarter than me can work out if this is meaningful or not.


I mean, there's plenty of stats on this out there, but the nice thing is the stats are good enough that you don't need them to describe the lay of the land:

getting vaccinated drastically reduces your risk of getting Covid, for at least a 6-month horizon.
If you're vaccinated and DO get covid, you've also drastically reduced your risk of getting a severe case, and deaths amongst the vaccinated are happening at a rate of a tiny fraction of a percentage point.



bostjan said:


> Since immunity wanes with time (at least as medical science understands it, disputed by most of the people on this board),


I don't think anyone's disputed that immunity wanes with time, but rather I think there's been a LOT of dispute over what that timeline is. IIRC your original belief was that with a 36-day half-life for antibodies in the human body, we were likely to need boosters every 2-3 months. That seems less likely, today. Israel believes, based on the data they've collected, that we're likely to need boosters at least every 6 months - that may be accurate, that may be due to a failure in study design, but it's a data point. My assertation has always been that looking at how rate repeat cases of covid are, we seem to have good immunity for at _least _6-9 months, perhaps longer, and that SARS/MERS seems to suggest that more severe cases of coronavirus-caused illnesses seem to convey longer-lingering immunity, so there's at least hope that Covid-19 could also convey longer protection as well. The Israeli data would seem to call that longer protection into question, provided there's no reason to suspect immunity provided by a vaccine to differ from immunity provided by previous infection, which I can't think why there would be - in any event, people experiencing second infections are happening at a nonzero rate so clearly it's possible, but it DOES still seem to be rare. 

tl;dr - it's I think pretty universally expected in this thread that protection will wane with time, however how MUCH time we have is very much up for debate, and the difference between 2 months and, say, 12-24 months is _huge_ when it comes to response planning (or would be if fucking idiots could stop being fucking idiots and go get vaccinated to bring us up to herd immunity, so we could stop worrying about community spread and return to a quarantine cases/contact tracing playbook).


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> Idk if Dems became the new "Don't Tread On Me" party or if they just wanted to notch a win for Biden, but the amount of pushback I'm getting from people in my party about these new CDC recs and guidelines is massive.
> 
> Before anything CDC, Fauci, WHO, whatever said it was gospel. Now every time I send someone an update about vaccine effectiveness, recommendation for masks etc it's "well I'm not gonna get sick anyway so idgaf".


My best guess is this is a combination of two things - one, this issue is so politically fraught by this point that people are tending to react along partisan divides, and two, Democrats are probably feeling like "but, we're the party that did all the right things, wore masks until we could get vaccinated, got vaccinated, etc. Why should WE be punished because the OTHER party was too selfish and put themselves over country?!" Which, of course, is a short-sighted and partisan reaction to a long-term aepartisan problem. Aka, it's stupid.


----------



## Adieu

Thorsday said:


> This is whole thing (not you guys) is literally Clown Hour Eleven.
> 
> A mutation!? A permutation? Let's jab some more!!!
> 
> Get on with humanity.
> 
> Fuck the fearmongering governments and the corporations that are benefiting from all of this.



Lemme guess: no high school diploma? Or did you attend a backwater district that took an "alternative" (creationist?) approach to teaching the sciences?


----------



## Drew

Drew said:


> Hey, so can we talk about Florida?
> 
> Their "reopen at all costs" approach has been hailed by the right-wing news bubble as proof that all these lockdowns were unnecessary and did more harm than good, as the oft-predicted second surge after the reopening never _really_ happened.
> 
> But, their unemployment claims unexpectedly ticked up last week, so I thought I'd check covid stats in the state. They've been holding flat at around 1,600 cases a day, seven day moving average, for basically all of June, so there's no obvious uptick, though their reporting IS a little lumpy.
> 
> But, if you dig in a bit further... They've been holding flat where they were at the end of May, while the nation as a whole has been trending down. There are at present something like 11,200 daily cases, seven dat moving average, nation wide... meaning Florida is responsible for roughly 15% of the nation's Covid count (I'm doing this off memory, don't have the numbers in front of me, so they may not check out exactly but I did run the numbers and remember the percentages well), in a state with 29mm or so people, or about 6.5% of the total US population. Meanwhile, California, a state that's had problems of its own with Covid and probably rushed their reopening a little too, has been seeing about 700 cases a day, 7-day average, on a population of more than 40mm citizens, not quite double Florida's.
> 
> Florida isn't experiencing a covid _surge._ Instead, what they're experiencing is a covid _stalemate_, where their case count is stubbornly failing to decline and as time passes and the rest of the nation does a better and better job of stamping out the spread of covid, they're becoming responsible for a larger-and-larger percentage of the nation's total covid cases.
> 
> If this is a "success story" in the right wing media, then these guys are REALLY bad at data analysis.


Wanted to pick this back up:

Florida has now gone from a covid stalemate, to a full blown Covid surge:

https://www.google.com/search?q=flo...512l3j0i512.2778j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Their two highest all-time high case counts both occurred within the past week. It took a little longer to happen than maybe a lot of people expected, and for a while there it was mostly evident in the data as a _lack_ of change while everyone else was improving, than in a change... but that protracted stalemate finally bubbled over as the Delta variant got a foothold, and they're currently getting absolutely _fucked_ by the virus. Eyeballing it, they're now responsible for somewhat more than a third of the country's daily new cases, while representing that same 6.5% of the population.

EDIT - and coincidentally, a few minutes after I posted this I saw that CNBC is running a news story about Florida setting a new high for Covid hospitalizations, higher than the peak over the winter, and the average age has now dropped to 42 - it's hitting more people, and younger people, harder, than it used to there. The daily death count has already started to come up, but typically lags hospitalizations by a couple weeks, so that's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> I don't think anyone's disputed that immunity wanes with time, but rather I think there's been a LOT of dispute over what that timeline is.



Well, no, I don't think that's at all accurate. You can go back to page 190 or whatever and read the sequence of events for yourself, but neither of us claimed we knew what the timeline was. I had said some things about the half life of antibodies, but I did explain that it didn't mean that after x halflifes, you suddenly get sick again.

The statement I made that set a bunch of people (not limited to just you) was [note: this was before the vaccine was available]:



bostjan said:


> Herd immunity doesn't work for a virus that has no long term immunity, though. This isn't the flu. These vaccines are taking clever approaches around that, which is much needed.
> 
> There are already a handful of coronaviruses widespread, and there is no herd immunity for any of the others.



Your particular reply was:



Drew said:


> Well, re-infection is sort of a wildcard here - we know it's possible, but it's exceedingly rare - we've identified a handful of instances based on RNA sequencing where we've been able to confirm for a fact that someone came down with COVID-19 twice, from separate infections. I want to say 5, worldwide, so far. It's exceedingly rare - at a minimum, we can be pretty sure that typical immunity is at least 9+ months.
> 
> Meanwhile, we release a flu vaccine every year because it also doesn't provide long term immunity, with the intent of trying to get to herd immunity, and the flu vaccine is typically 50-70% effective. Pfizer's was 90%, and Moderna's today was 94%.
> 
> Extremely high effectiveness coupled with at least 9 months' protection, and herd immunity starting to kick in around 60-70% immunized, means that we can probably get to a point where r-star drops significantly with only 3/4 of the country immunized, which we should be able to do in nine months. We may not completely eradicate the disease - that's probably no longer in the cards anyway - but getting to the point where there's enough herd immunity - even short term - from a vaccine that the number of cases shrinks organically because there just aren't enough viable hosts is absolutely attainable.
> 
> And maybe we just have to get an annual Covid booster for the next couple years, while this burns out of it's own accord... but infection - and vaccination - provides immunity for long _enough_ that we can beat it back with a vaccine.



Picking apart that 10 month old response:
1. We now know that reinfection is not exceedingly rare.
2. We now know that the antibody response to the vaccine is 5 times higher than it is from natural infection.
3. We now know that the vaccines given to the elderly populations 8 months ago have been wearing off long enough that we definitely see the effects of it presently, meaning that people were getting vaccinated and then infected, testing positive, and the data had been recorded, within 7-7.5 months.
4. The medical community still does not believe that herd immunity is a possible goal with covid.

But I wasn't addressing you specifically. There were 3 _*other*_ users who responded, telling me that I was wrong that immunity faded over time, with sharper words than you (one of those was later edited and blanked out), two even heavily implying that I was mentally ill for suggesting such a concept. I also took a little bit of flack (not just from you) for saying that roughly half the US wouldn't get the vaccine, and here we are at (as of today) 50.1% of the USA fully vaccinated. Some of those posts were liked by other users, as well, regardless of how nasty they were worded, so it really gives the overall impression to me that the forum, on average, believed more along the lines of those three users than me, singularly. But the facts suggested, even then, that immunity faded over time. I posted links to everything I had said to back it up.

As for our argument, I believe much of it spiraled out of control when you began misrepresenting what I had been claiming by heavily paraphrasing, going from me saying that immunity was observed to fade over time to you stating that I had said that infection provided no immunity. I don't really think you stated anything explicitly non-factual other than where you had inaccurately paraphrased me, although I did have some issues with your reasoning and broad conclusions, which is a pretty nuanced thing to argue about.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> But I wasn't addressing you specifically. There were 3 other users who responded, telling me that I was wrong that immunity faded over time, with sharper words than you (one of those was later edited and blanked out. I also took a little bit of flack (not just from you) for saying that roughly half the US wouldn't get the vaccine, and here we are at (as of today) 50.1% of the USA fully vaccinated.
> 
> As for our argument, I believe much of it spiraled out of control when you began misrepresenting what I had been claiming by heavily paraphrasing. I don't really think you stated anything explicitly non-factual other than where you had inaccurately paraphrased me, although I did have some issues with your reasoning and broad conclusions, which is a pretty nuanced thing to argue about.


Ah, I guess it's to your credit that I tuned out most of those responses as not worth remembering.  

I think a lot of it too is that... how to say this... I think a fairly rapid delay in protection, say to the tune of six months, may make herd immunity impossible _in theory_... But _in practice_ if you can get enough people inoculated rapidly enough that community transmission stops because for _a period of time_ you have herd immunity, before it begins waning, that could be enough to get on top of the pandemic. If we got 80% of the country innoculated inside 4 months, then we'd have two months where breakthrough infections would be exceedingly rare, and you could begin quarantining cases and contact tracing and quarantining contacts, and inside of two months you should have been able to pretty thoroughly beat back the pandemic and, hopefully, reduce it to a point where we're quarantining and handling isolated pockets again, and kind of reset the timer and get us back to where we were early on in the pandemic before it was pretty much everywhere. 

Of course, I'll definitely admit that: 

1) that too was a pretty nuanced point and lent itself to being misinterpreted as a belief that herd immunity in an absolute and not practical sense was totally possible, and 
2) the belief that we could get 80% of the public vaccinated in a couple months turned out to be _woefully_ naïve, because anti-vax sentiment got wildly politicized and nearly 30% of Republicans are refusing to get vaccinated.


----------



## bostjan

Well, we are still learning how immunity fades over time from both natural and vaccine-induced immunity, not to mention the yet unknown booster. 

As a thought experiment, consider a population where 90% of the adults get vaccinated, with a peak protection of 94%, so about 85% are immune. That's pretty good protection. But, from the studies I had posted back in 2020, we now expect that those numbers might not guarantee a drop in cases, since the 10% of adults who will refuse the vaccine tend to live in clusters, rather than spread out over the world. Furthermore, the kids, who are ineligible for vaccination, congregate with each other and form a reservoir that acts as a driving force. If we expect vaccine coverage to amount to something more like 30% protection after 7 months, which is what we've seen in Israel, then we would expect an immunity decay curve that would not only not eradicate the disease, but not allow a significant amount of time between surges to restore the economy.

Maybe Israel is a "worst case scenario" for some reason, but I would argue that Israel is doing a better job vaccinating than most of the world, and also point out that even before the delta variant, there already was a Brazilian variant that was resistant against the vaccine, so there will likely be more such variants in the future.

Then, I don't know, but, it seems like this conceptual idea of herd immunity is really just not going to be meaningful in any sort of way.

As a related topic, if we can only get 50.1% of people eligible for vaccination to get two doses, what percentage of people are going to get their booster?

As another related topic, if it turns out that the drop in efficacy of the vaccine in early-adopter areas is not because of the delta variant, but rather, because of the drop in immunity (something we are looking into), then is a 12 month booster cycle prudent? Maybe we need a 6 month cycle. It's one of those things that cannot be ruled out with our current knowledge, but, since there is as of yet no booster shot, and there is so little we even know about the vaccines, as people like mbardu are quick to rightly point out, there is a significant amoutn of friction to proposing that we get these boosters going on a 6 month cycle already (which means people who got their vaccines before March should be scheduling a booster now).

Whether boosters are on a 12 month cycle or a 6 month cycle, or anything in between, there is still some amount of protection, regardless of the function of effective immunity over time. But, either way, someone has to start and continue distributing booster shots to everyone in the world in order to continue making strong headway against the virus. If the mRNA vaccine gives 5x the immune response of natural infection, and the half life of natural infection is 36 days, maybe most people will only need a booster every 3-5 years, really. The more conventional vaccines might be the ones that need six month boosters, but that sort of would end up implying that either: a. the vaccine is somehow not as effective as natural infection or b. reinfection cases from 2020 were vastly under-represented.


----------



## Drew

Lots of good questions there - the only thing I'll add, @bostjan, is that while the prevalence of the Delta variant these days certainly complicates things, it's extremely likely to be uniformly impacting Israelis who were vaccinated in January, as it was those vaccinated in April, so Israel's working hypothesis IS that what we're seeing is not the vaccine simply being less effective against the Delta variant, but rather that immunity is fading, since the later cohorts are still seeing good levels of protection, though one that drops off as length of time from date of full immunity increases. 

I still think seeking high levels of vaccination as part of a multi-pronged approach is a pretty common-sense move - getting 85% of the population effectively immune, as in your first scenario, makes it a LOT easier to deal with the number of cases and make it a lot easier to mitigate spread through other tools - again, identify, quarantine, and contact trace cases. This is before we even address the fact that the vaccinate may only give you, worst case, about 6 months of fairly robust protection from infection, but even 6 months out if the effectiveness has fallen into the teens, it's still somewhere around 85% effective at keeping people out of the hospital when they DO get sick. 

I guess - stating something I think we probably both agree with, just to put a point on it and try to wrap up this tangent - we're at a point in the pandemic where our mitigation strategies pretty clearly need to evolve to keep up with the virus. "Zero case" closed border strategies seemed effective for a while until it became clear that this wasn't realistic in practice and was probably discouraging vaccine adaption to at least some degree. Vaccination seemed promising for a while, and has clearly done a LOT of good, but it's becoming clear that this too has two weaknesses - one, that there's a strong, and geographically-correlated, anti-vax contingent that are keeping cases high in certain areas, and two, that there's enough evidence to at least strongly suggest that booster shots will be necessary, and since by now we're pretty confident vaccinated individuals can still infect others if they do become a breakthrough case, that social distancing and use of masks will likely still be required. None of these is reasons NOT to try to minimize international spread through at least some sort of control, nor to continue to push mass vaccination, of course... but neither will be _enough_ to stop this on its own.


----------



## bostjan

Lindsay Graham has covid.



Drew said:


> Lots of good questions there - the only thing I'll add, @bostjan, is that while the prevalence of the Delta variant these days certainly complicates things, it's extremely likely to be uniformly impacting Israelis who were vaccinated in January, as it was those vaccinated in April, so Israel's working hypothesis IS that what we're seeing is not the vaccine simply being less effective against the Delta variant, but rather that immunity is fading, since the later cohorts are still seeing good levels of protection, though one that drops off as length of time from date of full immunity increases.
> 
> I still think seeking high levels of vaccination as part of a multi-pronged approach is a pretty common-sense move - getting 85% of the population effectively immune, as in your first scenario, makes it a LOT easier to deal with the number of cases and make it a lot easier to mitigate spread through other tools - again, identify, quarantine, and contact trace cases. This is before we even address the fact that the vaccinate may only give you, worst case, about 6 months of fairly robust protection from infection, but even 6 months out if the effectiveness has fallen into the teens, it's still somewhere around 85% effective at keeping people out of the hospital when they DO get sick.







Drew said:


> I guess - stating something I think we probably both agree with, just to put a point on it and try to wrap up this tangent - we're at a point in the pandemic where our mitigation strategies pretty clearly need to evolve to keep up with the virus. "Zero case" closed border strategies seemed effective for a while until it became clear that this wasn't realistic in practice and was probably discouraging vaccine adaption to at least some degree. Vaccination seemed promising for a while, and has clearly done a LOT of good, but it's becoming clear that this too has two weaknesses - one, that there's a strong, and geographically-correlated, anti-vax contingent that are keeping cases high in certain areas, and two, that there's enough evidence to at least strongly suggest that booster shots will be necessary, and since by now we're pretty confident vaccinated individuals can still infect others if they do become a breakthrough case, that social distancing and use of masks will likely still be required. None of these is reasons NOT to try to minimize international spread through at least some sort of control, nor to continue to push mass vaccination, of course... but neither will be _enough_ to stop this on its own.



It seems to me that the friction against quick adoption to a more play-it-safe booster policy could have already hurt us a little. Best case, if we decided today to give everyone a booster after 6 months, those boosters will be ready to be distributed maybe by October, more realistically, December or later. But the other side of this is that 1. we still need an effective treatment and 2. we might be all donning masks for much of the second half of the year, with numbers surging wherever people refuse to wear them.

Even the people I know who had been ultra-cautious are making fun of me for wearing my mask when I go shopping. There's a huge stigma - "you are vaccinated, but you _still_ wear a mask- you are an idiot." Everybody wants this thing to go away, but merely wishing it away will do nothing.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Even the people I know who had been ultra-cautious are making fun of me for wearing my mask when I go shopping. There's a huge stigma - "you are vaccinated, but you _still_ wear a mask- you are an idiot." Everybody wants this thing to go away, but merely wishing it away will do nothing.


Honestly, it's tough - I feel the need to explain that I AM vaccinated, but I'm still playing it safe, and that's not because *I'm* scared so much out of concern for people around me and a general understanding of statistics and large populations has be believing that we're not out of this yet. At least the part of Boston I'm in has been pretty consistent about indoor mask usage all along so I don't feel like too much of an outlier, but while I was definitely getting lax about it for a while I'm making more of an effort to remember one when I 'm leaving home for a while (say, to work, 2x a week now) and expect to be going inside somewhere, these days. 

The "vaccinated people don't need to wear masks" thing was entirely predicated on the beliefs that 1) breakthrough infections would be rare, and 2) when vaccinated individuals got sick, they would be less likely to infect others. Thanks to viral mutations, the delta strain is breaking through a bit higher than the original variants (and there's better evidence implying protection may wane over time to enough to matter), and there's now good evidence that even if you're vaccinated, your viral loads will be easily high enough to spread covid to others. I fully expect the CDC to take the next step and suggest that the entire country, and not just "hot spots," go back to mask wearing in the next month or so.


----------



## Thorsday

Adieu said:


> Lemme guess: no high school diploma? Or did you attend a backwater district that took an "alternative" (creationist?) approach to teaching the sciences?



You would be punctilious in your first assumption. 

I just took over the family business. Evil Technology and some day trading on the side. It does get a bit lonely, though. Anyone who ever gets close to me dies... 

I bet the death certificate says COVID-19.


----------



## Adieu

Thesaurus abuse will not an education fake.


----------



## Thorsday

"Education" is indoctrination, largely.


----------



## bostjan

Thorsday said:


> "Education" is indoctrination, largely.


Some very indoctrinated folks made the dozens of means necessary for you to publicly post that statement.

The thing is, indocterinated or not, it doesn't make anyone right nor wrong. In fact, docterine might be very useful. At least with education, a person has developed their critical thinking skills (which don't necessarily make them right nor wrong) in order to poke holes in docterines that contain flaws and compare from a larger battery of different docterines.


----------



## narad

Thorsday said:


> "Education" is indoctrination, largely.



I must have missed the political brainwashing while elbows deep in discrete math, algorithm design, linear algebra, etc. I mean, what kinds of classes do you think constitute an education? Where exactly in the curriculum does indoctrination take place? Or do you think it was a subliminal thing like "They Live"?

And contrast that with your apparent education via fringe YouTube, and ask which is a most likely source of indoctrination: textbooks of dry material written by experts in the field, or a random guy on youtube getting paid per view to tell you what you already want to believe?


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> I must have missed the political brainwashing while elbows deep in discrete math, algorithm design, linear algebra, etc. I mean, what kinds of classes do you think constitute an education? Where exactly in the curriculum does indoctrination take place? Or do you think it was a subliminal thing like "They Live"?
> 
> And contrast that with your apparent education via fringe YouTube, and ask which is a most likely source of indoctrination: textbooks of dry material written by experts in the field, or a random guy on youtube getting paid per view to tell you what you already want to believe?



Actually meeting a diverse audience of people, all the while studying on concepts that are _not easy;_ understanding that what you may believe is simple and intuitive in principle is actually _not _and requires a ton of not only personal work but also constant peer challenge...of course higher education is indoctrination, dude!

Plus yeah...things like stochastic calculus, computational maths, fluid dynamics, biochem ... those are myths. Only indoctrination is left. Once you're done with college you'll just be formatted to forget all cOmMoN sEnSe and believe that humans should have rights or that global warming is killing the planet. Nonsense!

...seriously, the recent resurgence of anti-intellectualism needs to stop.


----------



## thraxil

narad said:


> I must have missed the political brainwashing while elbows deep in discrete math, algorithm design, linear algebra, etc.



My Physics degree indoctrrinated me into the metric system. Then it's a slippery slope to full blown Marxism.


----------



## Xaios

thraxil said:


> My Physics degree indoctrrinated me into the metric system. Then it's a slippery slope to full blown Marxism.


Once you get into the physics, you know what comes next.

Marijuana. Then jazz music, forget about it.


----------



## narad

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00324-2/fulltext

Great. All the stupid anti-vaxxers about to get even l̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶d̶o̶c̶t̶r̶i̶n̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ stupider.


----------



## jaxadam

narad said:


> linear algebra, etc.



Linear Algebra?! That's easy, it's just straight lines!


----------



## Drew

Some real awesome posts in this thread in the last 24 hours.  

"setting and rising of the burning sphere in the sky that is making me evolve pink skin," for our resident anti-vaxxer.


----------



## jaxadam

New York City will require proof of vaccination for indoor activities.

https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covi...-require-vaccination-proof-indoor-dining-gyms


----------



## bostjan

What does it take to be called "anti-vax" these days?

There was one of those "middle ground" videos that featured pro- vs anti- vax, and there was a pediatrician on the anti-vax side. I didn't hear him explicitly say anything anti-vax during the debate. It was more like, I don't know, reasonable-but-overly-cautious stuff like how sometimes vaccines have side effects for some people and maybe we should research that. If I was on a web series like that and said stuff like that, but every time I appeared on screen, there was a subtitle "Dr. Bostjan, Anti-Vax," I would have been livid.

Jenny McCarthy has been sort of the poster child for the anti-vax thing, yet all I've heard her say is that we vaccinate too early (which I don't really agree with, but I think is a far cry from what I generally consider anti-vax).



jaxadam said:


> New York City will require proof of vaccination for indoor activities.
> https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covi...-require-vaccination-proof-indoor-dining-gyms



I wonder how that'll go over.

As the media continues to sensationalize the studies that suggest vaccinated people are not-that-much-less likely to spread the virus than sick people, we might just end up segregated for a while- gyms for vax'd/gyms for unvax'd (or maybe unvax'd will just continue to have to work out at home), etc. I don't know that's where people will go with this, but it seems to be the natural place to go.

As much as I'd love this entire pandemic to just Uno reverse itself, even with there being a vaccine and even if we get a good treatment for it, I don't see it ever going away. We'll either get to the point where we just cope with it and establish a new normal or something worse will come along to make us forget about it.



jaxadam said:


> Linear Algebra?! That's easy, it's just straight lines!



Right? What could be simpler than solving a system of linear equations? Linear Algebra was super easy in comparison to the other mathematical classes indoctrination we had to learn in school. I really liked partial differential equations liberal diversity and equality, though. Working with the wave equation really helped me understand how guitars made different tones liberal liberal liberal brainwash brainwash liberal.


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> I really liked partial differential equations



Partial Differential Equations?! That's easy, you only have to do part of it!


----------



## Hollowway

I just stumbled across a right wing Covid hoax, antivax thread on Reddit. Wow. It’s shocking to see that, even right now, even today, people think that there are not hospitals at capacity in Florida, that the vaccine doesn’t work, and that Covid isn’t harming people. In this particular thread they were talking about how it’s all “theater.” It’s just depressing that this huge number of people think that there is a highly orchestrated attempt between “leftists,” “the establishment,” “the media,” and “science” to deprive them of their rights. I just don’t get how that many people out there can be so willfully uninformed, or easily duped by misinformation. It just totally bummed me out. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that this is all politics and politicians using misinformation to sway people for votes, but it’s still not the country I thought I lived in. There are a lot more scarily ignorant people than I would have believed.


----------



## Thorsday

Hollowway said:


> I just stumbled across a right wing Covid hoax, antivax thread on Reddit. Wow. It’s shocking to see that, even right now, even today, people think that there are not hospitals at capacity in Florida, that the vaccine doesn’t work, and that Covid isn’t harming people. In this particular thread they were talking about how it’s all “theater.” It’s just depressing that this huge number of people think that there is a highly orchestrated attempt between “leftists,” “the establishment,” “the media,” and “science” to deprive them of their rights. I just don’t get how that many people out there can be so willfully uninformed, or easily duped by misinformation. It just totally bummed me out. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that this is all politics and politicians using misinformation to sway people for votes, but it’s still not the country I thought I lived in. There are a lot more scarily ignorant people than I would have believed.



People who are elderly, have underlying conditions (cell damage), are immunocompromised, etc. die from the flu every year. What's new? 

Fuck me dead, I'm so sick of Sychophants... The Mass Psychosis is real.


----------



## narad

Hollowway said:


> I just stumbled across a right wing Covid hoax, antivax thread on Reddit. Wow. It’s shocking to see that, even right now, even today, people think that there are not hospitals at capacity in Florida, that the vaccine doesn’t work, and that Covid isn’t harming people. In this particular thread they were talking about how it’s all “theater.” It’s just depressing that this huge number of people think that there is a highly orchestrated attempt between “leftists,” “the establishment,” “the media,” and “science” to deprive them of their rights. I just don’t get how that many people out there can be so willfully uninformed, or easily duped by misinformation. It just totally bummed me out. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that this is all politics and politicians using misinformation to sway people for votes, but it’s still not the country I thought I lived in. There are a lot more scarily ignorant people than I would have believed.



I got together with fellow scientists at a consortium and we all thought it would be a real hoot if we made everyone stay inside and not have any fun for two years. I personally get charged an arm and a leg now for shipping amps to the US and back, but that's just a sacrifice I make for the cause.

The conspiracy theorists die out real fast if you have to get specific on who and why.


----------



## Thorsday

narad said:


> I got together with fellow scientists at a consortium and we all thought it would be a real hoot if we made everyone stay inside and not have any fun for two years. I personally get charged an arm and a leg now for shipping amps to the US and back, but that's just a sacrifice I make for the cause.
> 
> The conspiracy theorists die out real fast if you have to get specific on who and why.



Of course you're a libby dibby non-American. That's fine. Enjoy your Union, citizen.


----------



## narad

Thorsday said:


> Of course you're a libby dibby non-American. That's fine. Enjoy your Union, citizen.



I'm American. Don't let my correct usage of the word "sychophants" fool you.


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday said:


> People who are elderly, have underlying conditions (cell damage), are immunocompromised, etc. die from the flu every year. What's new?
> 
> Fuck me dead, I'm so sick of Sychophants... The Mass Psychosis is real.


"People die and we shouldn't try to stop it" says person giving health advice


----------



## diagrammatiks

narad said:


> I'm American. Don't let my correct usage of the word "sychophants" fool you.



these type of people also have a very hard time understanding americans living abroad for some reason.


----------



## narad

diagrammatiks said:


> these type of people also have a very hard time understanding americans living abroad for some reason.



It's weird that the idea of a Japanese person speaking fluent english and spending their time arguing about American politics on a guitar forum was more plausible than that there was just an American existing outside of America. 

But then again, it's the same brain that's scoring a global conspiracy of control as more plausible than there being a dangerous virus and everyone doing obvious strategies to mitigate its spread. Or scoring meat as a more potent defense against a virus than a vaccine.


----------



## bostjan

It's frustrating that so many folks are denying this virus exists. My family back in Michigan dealt directly with the virus for about two months; it cost me an uncle and we are still dealing with longer-term health problems after "recovery" three months hence. And @Thorsday and others still want to say it's all a conspiracy; just don't waste your time trying to convince me.

In other news, it looks like boosters research is on hold now, simply because the WHO is saying that there is no point giving people boosters when so many are unvaccinated. I agree with the spirit of that sentiment, but, in execution, I fear that many of the places where people are unvaccinated are dealing with corrupted governments and will not receive their vaccines regardless of whether biotech is researching boosters or not. Meanwhile, in Israel, for example, millions of people who have their vaccines wearing off may become high risk.


----------



## spudmunkey

SF General is offering free "supplemental" (note: not "booster") mRNA shots for anyone who's received the J&J vacine.


----------



## Drew

narad said:


> I'm American. Don't let my correct usage of the word "sychophants" fool you.


You'll also note, naturally, that he completely ignored the content of your post, and instead fell back on an ad hominem. 

Someone's gotta get these trolls a new fucking playbook, because this is getting kinda dull.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> In other news, it looks like boosters research is on hold now, simply because the WHO is saying that there is no point giving people boosters when so many are unvaccinated. I agree with the spirit of that sentiment, but, in execution, I fear that many of the places where people are unvaccinated are dealing with corrupted governments and will not receive their vaccines regardless of whether biotech is researching boosters or not. Meanwhile, in Israel, for example, millions of people who have their vaccines wearing off may become high risk.


It's a total Sophie's choice, because while their point that we need to continue to try to help under-vaccinated populations is pretty clearly true, depending on the rate at which protection fades, we also run the risk of losing the progress we HAVE made in more well-vaccinated areas, and arguably wasting all those hundreds of millions of doses for it. 

Of course, you could just as easily argue that the woefully undervaccinated South is already doing that for us. We're seeing new case growth rates in the 150-200% rate in Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina, which is fucking insane.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> It's a total Sophie's choice, because while their point that we need to continue to try to help under-vaccinated populations is pretty clearly true, depending on the rate at which protection fades, we also run the risk of losing the progress we HAVE made in more well-vaccinated areas, and arguably wasting all those hundreds of millions of doses for it.
> 
> Of course, you could just as easily argue that the woefully undervaccinated South is already doing that for us. We're seeing new case growth rates in the 150-200% rate in Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina, which is fucking insane.


Lots of difficult choices the past year and a half...

I'm all for struggling to get the vaccines to everybody who wants them. I think that the conundrum is that the solution to that problem isn't mutually exclusive with the development and distribution of boosters.

They need to be able to quickly get vaccine manufacturing going in facilities nearer to the parts of the world that have vaccine shortages. Simply cranking out more vaccine at the places that are already cranking out vaccine isn't going to be as effective, due to the fact that logistics are a nightmare right now.

Also, if the first wave of vaccinated people are the ones responsible for making the vaccines, and those people's vaccines are wearing off, we have the same problem as when the cabin pressure in the airplane drops. You put your own mask on first, not out of selfishness, but because you can't help put on other people's masks if you've already asphyxiated.

If the vaccine manufacturers decide they need to pull back on booster development, then I'd be willing to accept that, but I'm not sure the WHO is prepared to solve the problems themselves that need to be solved in order for their directive to become effective. Maybe I'm wrong, though.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Lots of difficult choices the past year and a half...
> 
> I'm all for struggling to get the vaccines to everybody who wants them. I think that the conundrum is that the solution to that problem isn't mutually exclusive with the development and distribution of boosters.
> 
> They need to be able to quickly get vaccine manufacturing going in facilities nearer to the parts of the world that have vaccine shortages. Simply cranking out more vaccine at the places that are already cranking out vaccine isn't going to be as effective, due to the fact that logistics are a nightmare right now.
> 
> Also, if the first wave of vaccinated people are the ones responsible for making the vaccines, and those people's vaccines are wearing off, we have the same problem as when the cabin pressure in the airplane drops. You put your own mask on first, not out of selfishness, but because you can't help put on other people's masks if you've already asphyxiated.
> 
> If the vaccine manufacturers decide they need to pull back on booster development, then I'd be willing to accept that, but I'm not sure the WHO is prepared to solve the problems themselves that need to be solved in order for their directive to become effective. Maybe I'm wrong, though.


All excellent points. FWIW my gut reaction is I disagree with the WHO here, but I also have to own my own biases, and as a well-off American living in a state with well-higher-than-average vaccination rates, I'm likely to prioritize my own interests and those of people in situations similar to mine over those in poorer countries with extremely low vaccination rates. If I was living in or traveling through sub-Saharan Africa, how different would my response be? That I can't say.

The only "costless" solution is to find ways to increase production of both vaccines AND boosters, but easier said than done. Biden at least utilized some of the emergency wartime powers he has as President to speed this (the Merck/Pfizer agreement is a great example of shit Trump SHOULD have been doing but wasn't), but need still vastly outstrips supply.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> It's frustrating that so many folks are denying this virus exists. My family back in Michigan dealt directly with the virus for about two months; it cost me an uncle and we are still dealing with longer-term health problems after "recovery" three months hence. And @Thorsday and others still want to say it's all a conspiracy; just don't waste your time trying to convince me.
> 
> In other news, it looks like boosters research is on hold now, simply because the WHO is saying that there is no point giving people boosters when so many are unvaccinated. I agree with the spirit of that sentiment, but, in execution, I fear that many of the places where people are unvaccinated are dealing with corrupted governments and will not receive their vaccines regardless of whether biotech is researching boosters or not. Meanwhile, in Israel, for example, millions of people who have their vaccines wearing off may become high risk.



I have no idea how you can deny the virus, or even say it's just a flu when it's clearly _at least _an order of magnitude worse.

As for boosters, what is the end game? Continue to selectively and partially vaccinate the same populations against the variants we knew 6 months ago in order to "reopen the economy" there and ultimately drop other precautions? What if it turns out reopening even with say a 60/70% vaccine coverage may actually be the _ideal _breeding ground for more virulent or vaccine-resistant variants, that can then circulate in and out of a region/country if things are open. And then as usual the most vulnerable populations (in terms of individuals such as the immunocompromised or in terms of countries like Peru or India) are hit the worst.
This line of thinking was judged 100% out there a few months ago (and people talking about it were basically laughed at- as usual as antivax)...but new metrics on delta, and now rise of lambda are making it look like not so dumb after all.
What is the good solution then? Sounds like you would need to vaccinate a very high percentage of the population (and that would mean global population), at a quicker pace that what we've done so far - and even then still have serious and coordinated confinement measures as well together with/after the vaccination. But then, if this sounds like easy peasy from a logistics standpoint, I don't know why the "maybe we try an _actual _confinement _worldwide _for a bit _anyway_" sounds so silly. Or maybe we'll get there.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

mbardu said:


> As for boosters, what is the end game? Continue to selectively and partially vaccinate the same populations against the variants we knew 6 months ago in order to "reopen the economy" there and ultimately drop other precautions? What if it turns out reopening even with say a 60/70% vaccine coverage may actually be the _ideal _breeding ground for more virulent or vaccine-resistant variants, that can then circulate in and out of a region/country if things are open. And then as usual the most vulnerable populations (in terms of individuals such as the immunocompromised or in terms of countries like Peru or India) are hit the worst.



Good read, published a few days ago too! Boosters may be better suited for scenarios where we have higher rates of vaccinations and certainly not at our current percentages. With varying/spotty rates throughout the US and the rest of the world it's hard to say how highly unvaccinated areas and vaccinated areas will entwine and affect overall progressive mutation of the different strains.


----------



## bostjan

The reality of the situation might be too depressing to really discuss without getting into a heated discussion.

Frankly, vaccinations at a mass global scale in places like the Congo or Afghanistan or North Korea are probably pretty much impossible. Global lockdowns are pretty much impossible. "Herd immunity" is pretty much impossible, even combining vaccines with natural immunity, unless there is something of a wild card we don't yet understand.

If the vaccine lasts (statistically) 6 months, or even 12 months, and natural immunity lasts 2 months or even 6 months, then this is just going to keep circulating amongst the population. Even if the direct mortality is 3-4%, but long term effects mean significantly elevated incidences of stroke and serious lung disease, this is just going to mean that life expectancy and quality of life, on average, are going to go down. I mean, humanity dealt with similar or worse with widespread tuberculosis and the numerous plagues. It's not the end of the world, but it could be a profound shift in our culture.

What does that mean about people like @Thorsday, our the crazy uncle who believes it's all a democratic hoax?


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> If the vaccine lasts (statistically) 6 months, or even 12 months, and natural immunity lasts 2 months or even 6 months, then this is just going to keep circulating amongst the population. Even if the direct mortality is 3-4%, but long term effects mean significantly elevated incidences of stroke and serious lung disease, this is just going to mean that life expectancy and quality of life, on average, are going to go down. I mean, humanity dealt with similar or worse with widespread tuberculosis and the numerous plagues. It's not the end of the world, but it could be a profound shift in our culture.


I don't quite share your doom and gloom prognosis... but, if you're right, eh, I'd make a pretty happy natural hermit anyway, and I wouldn't mind a world where our cities just became a lot less crowded. I can do my job well enough from home, and riding a road bike up mountains for fun is a pretty great socially distant hobby. This outcome wouldn't, personally speaking, be the worst, for me _personally_. 


bostjan said:


> What does that mean about people like @Thorsday, our the crazy uncle who believes it's all a democratic hoax?


Is that even what he believes? I haven't really been able to ascribe a single unifying motive to him aside from "real men eat meat and don't worry about viruses, because that's what our cavemen ancestors with 20-30yr lifespans did!" and "pwn everyone who isn't me!" To be fair though I've been mostly tuning him out.


----------



## BigViolin

It's why we can't have nice things.


----------



## TedEH

bostjan said:


> What does that mean about people like @Thorsday, our the crazy uncle who believes it's all a democratic hoax?


I don't think it says much at all. There's some large gaps between nihilism, cynicism, conspiracies, trolling, and just plain not giving a shit.

It doesn't help anyone's case that any futility in trying to mitigate a pandemic is pretty directly _caused_ by the people yammering about it being futile in the first place.
Or in other words, "we can't do anything about it" is rightly met with "not with that attitude".

Edit:
Or in other other words, we'd all be out of this already if everyone just followed mbardu's plan from the beginning.


----------



## Adieu

bostjan said:


> The reality of the situation might be too depressing to really discuss without getting into a heated discussion.
> 
> Frankly, vaccinations at a mass global scale in places like the Congo or Afghanistan or North Korea are probably pretty much impossible. Global lockdowns are pretty much impossible. "Herd immunity" is pretty much impossible, even combining vaccines with natural immunity, unless there is something of a wild card we don't yet understand.
> 
> If the vaccine lasts (statistically) 6 months, or even 12 months, and natural immunity lasts 2 months or even 6 months, then this is just going to keep circulating amongst the population. Even if the direct mortality is 3-4%, but long term effects mean significantly elevated incidences of stroke and serious lung disease, this is just going to mean that life expectancy and quality of life, on average, are going to go down. I mean, humanity dealt with similar or worse with widespread tuberculosis and the numerous plagues. It's not the end of the world, but it could be a profound shift in our culture.
> 
> What does that mean about people like @Thorsday, our the crazy uncle who believes it's all a democratic hoax?



Vaccination in North Korea isn't impossible

It's probably in the top 5 of easiest-to-vax countries around. Totalitarian states have zero difficulties getting the population to obey simple and straightforward directives.

They're pretty much the Nike logo if it came with a big fat cop for extra motivation


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> I don't quite share your doom and gloom prognosis... but, if you're right, eh, I'd make a pretty happy natural hermit anyway, and I wouldn't mind a world where our cities just became a lot less crowded. I can do my job well enough from home, and riding a road bike up mountains for fun is a pretty great socially distant hobby. This outcome wouldn't, personally speaking, be the worst, for me _personally_.



Not so bad for me, either, really. Certainly not ideal, but, in my line of work, I've been super in-demand and super busy since the beginning of the pandemic. I miss visiting my family from out of state and I definitely miss live music, but other than that...

I think there's generally no harm in being optimistic, but, there _does_ come a point, when things are going wrong, that you have to adjust your strategy. Presently, I think, our strategy is how to beat covid. I've been saying since March of 2020 that we need some sort of magic bullet treatment in order to make it essentially go away. At that time, everyone else was saying vaccine... Now there is a vaccine and there is still no effective treatment. @mbardu points out that boosters just mean an endless rush to keep it at bay, at least with our current situation, and that's a good point. For sure a vaccine is a power prevention tool, and I'm not about to shrug it off, but we also need to be realistic about its limitations. Either we need to somehow come up with that treatment (which, at this point, since there has never been an effective treatment for anything like it, it's like "guess which number I'm thinking" when the number could be not just an integer, but any number), or we need to start adjusting to what life will be like under the worsened scanario.



Drew said:


> Is that even what he believes? I haven't really been able to ascribe a single unifying motive to him aside from "real men eat meat and don't worry about viruses, because that's what our cavemen ancestors with 20-30yr lifespans did!" and "pwn everyone who isn't me!" To be fair though I've been mostly tuning him out.



Well, there's a lot of internal inconsistency in general among conspiracy theorists when the virus is both a hoax and a Chinese superweapon.


----------



## bostjan

Adieu said:


> Vaccination in North Korea isn't impossible
> 
> It's probably in the top 5 of easiest-to-vax countries around. Totalitarian states have zero difficulties getting the population to obey simple and straightforward directives.
> 
> They're pretty much the Nike logo if it came with a big fat cop for extra motivation



Contingent upon the regime in power giving them the vaccine. Does the Kim regime want to vaccinate people? If so, is there a way for pharmaceutical companies to hand off the vaccines? Does there exist an infrastructure to get those vaccines transported from the drop-off point to where they are administered without having them spoil? If not, and if they do spoil, would anyone even mention it?


----------



## bostjan

Who is responsible for naming the new Korean variant "Delta Plus?"


----------



## spudmunkey

bostjan said:


> Who is responsible for naming the new Korean variant "Delta Plus?"



Samsung, if I had to guess.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> At that time, everyone else was saying vaccine... Now there is a vaccine and there is still no effective treatment. @mbardu points out that boosters just mean an endless rush to keep it at bay, at least with our current situation, and that's a good point. For sure a vaccine is a power prevention tool, and I'm not about to shrug it off, but we also need to be realistic about its limitations.
> 
> Well, there's a lot of internal inconsistency in general among conspiracy theorists when the virus is both a hoax and a Chinese superweapon.


That internal inconsistency is nothing new, though, and has been a fixture of the Trump administration's response to crises for a LONG time now. All those leaks that were "totally fake" and "not a big deal even if they were true" but also a "very big deal" that needed to be punished, leaking "totally fake" material, comes to mind.  

Well, that first part is really just a reflection on understanding the limits of a vaccine - coming into this, we didn't have a great handle on how long protection would last, with thinks likle antibody half like suggesting 2-3 months to an acceptable level, with SARS/MERS suggesting maybe a couple years. Today, that picture is a little clearer, with some evidence pointing to maybe no more than 6 months, but certainly better than the worst case scenario, at least. 

If the outcome of this is that I need to get a Covid vaccine every 6 months, well, I get a flu shot every 12, so that's not radically different.


----------



## Drew

EDIT - actually, I'll use this duplicate post to make one added point - the single best argument against employing booster shots right now, I'd say, is the data is NOT conclusive that they're needed, and doing so at this point would add some Heisenbergian noise to the situation whereby in giving out boosters intended to boost immunity, it makes it impossible to even tell if those boosters were needed in the first place. 

We know the vaccine works, at least for a period of time. Doing anything more broad-based than exploring the effectiveness of a booster regime in a clinical trial, large enough to draw meaningful conclusions, but not so large as to impact our ability to draw conclusions about real-world fade in immunity, would be statistically insane.


----------



## Adieu

Well shit...I do hope this is slightly more effective than a flu vaccine


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> What does that mean about people like @Thorsday, our the crazy uncle who believes it's all a democratic hoax?



jaxadam/Thorsday 2024. Make E.coli Great Again


----------



## TedEH

I wish we could make this thread great again.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> Not so bad for me, either, really. Certainly not ideal, but, in my line of work, I've been super in-demand and super busy since the beginning of the pandemic. I miss visiting my family from out of state and I definitely miss live music, but other than that...
> 
> I think there's generally no harm in being optimistic, but, there _does_ come a point, when things are going wrong, that you have to adjust your strategy. Presently, I think, our strategy is how to beat covid. I've been saying since March of 2020 that we need some sort of magic bullet treatment in order to make it essentially go away. At that time, everyone else was saying vaccine... Now there is a vaccine and there is still no effective treatment. @mbardu points out that boosters just mean an endless rush to keep it at bay, at least with our current situation, and that's a good point. For sure a vaccine is a power prevention tool, and I'm not about to shrug it off, but we also need to be realistic about its limitations. Either we need to somehow come up with that treatment (which, at this point, since there has never been an effective treatment for anything like it, it's like "guess which number I'm thinking" when the number could be not just an integer, but any number), or we need to start adjusting to what life will be like under the worsened scanario.



Before your options 1 and 2 - I'd still come back to option 0, which should have been the one to try from the start. Close the borders, and everyone stay the F at home for 6 weeks (everywhere) and be done with it.

"It can't be done" or "people would never do it" is a good way to not even try, but there will come a point where it'll be apparent to everyone (IMHO it's already very apparent if you look objectively) that the massive loss of life, neverending inconveniences, risk of _really _nasty variant, societal costs, economic costs, personal and collective stress, political damage, demonstrations, heartbreaks, increasing inequalities (rich get richer, poor get poorer - countries and individuals alike) far outweigh the small one-time cost of staying the fuck at home for 6 weeks. Both at a collective level, and at an individual level. Maybe it's not obvious if we forget the big picture of the last 18 months, but wouldn't it be obvious if we took that step back? Or maybe it will be obvious after a few more years and few more variants that devastate this or that country? At what point do we stop to say "Maybe that's what we should have tried and should try"? When 3/4% of the population is dead like @bostjan mentioned?

I'm not sure "We're not sure it can be done" is an excuse when you consider how large the benefits would be if it worked. Even if the probability was only 10%. There's the rhetoric from leadership that it's a "war" against Covid. Yet, societies have done way more difficult things in times of war than staying home for a bit (our grandparents who saw war would be a bit insulted that this is our insurmountable battle); and we're spending way more collective effort and resources developing and delivering vaccines that it would take to just give everyone a bunch of food, stop nonessential stuff for a bit, close international transit as much as possible, and support essential workers as much as we should in the meantime (especially as they could be asked to isolate themselves further). I'm not saying it would cost 0. It would cost supporting the people that need to be supported, actually staying at home with heavy penalties instead of circumventing at every possible turn, and having the logistics in place to survive without travel and without the non essential stuff for just a bit. We can come up with solutions too. Do a non-negotiable hotel-quarantine (like countries like Singapore/NZ have done) for escaped cases so that those don't go back to the pool right away for example. But that's not even that crazy an effort. And don't stop vaccines either. Where we have them, they have eased the pain for sure (especially against alpha) quite a lot. Just don't ignore the confinement as a result.
The rhetoric is about "war", yet the approach from the start has not been "let's defeat the enemy", but instead "let's disrupt normal life _as little as possible_". I don't know whoever won a war with that type of attitude.

Yet because of sunk costs, because of "We're smarter than this we don't need to stop for 6 weeks.", because of "We're smarter than this we'll just build a vaccine.... then boosters.... then silver-bullet treatment"- we don't and won't even try. Hubris with short-sighted decisions.

Funny thing, some are already resigned to "it'll just be like the flu", yet maybe if we actually closed shop for a bit, the flu itself is gone after 6 weeks. Can you imagine 



Drew said:


> If the outcome of this is that I need to get a Covid vaccine every 6 months, well, I get a flu shot every 12, so that's not radically different.



People in rich countries do that, and all those not-very-sick vaccinated carriers of the virus help breed and circulate neverending variants - which every once in a while send devastation to a random slightly-less-rich country without the means to keep up with boosters every 3 months.


----------



## mbardu

Adieu said:


> Vaccination in North Korea isn't impossible
> 
> It's probably in the top 5 of easiest-to-vax countries around. Totalitarian states have zero difficulties getting the population to obey simple and straightforward directives.
> 
> They're pretty much the Nike logo if it came with a big fat cop for extra motivation



That, pretty much.
In fact that might be similar reason why some of the Chines numbers are not as fake as some people think they are.
Sure they might have higher case and deaths count than communicated officially. But with a population under constant surveillance to comply, and authorities who have no qualms in literally welding people's doors shut to keep them home.... I can believe that they are able to stop widespread outbreaks.
Not saying that's how it _should _be done...but I can believe it works


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> Before your options 1 and 2 - I'd still come back to option 0, which should have been the one to try from the start. Close the borders, and everyone stay the F at home for 6 weeks (everywhere) and be done with it.
> 
> "It can't be done" or "people would never do it" is a good way to not even try, but there will come a point where it'll be apparent to everyone (IMHO it's already very apparent if you look objectively) that the massive loss of life, neverending inconveniences, risk of _really _nasty variant, societal costs, economic costs, personal and collective stress, political damage, demonstrations, heartbreaks, increasing inequalities (rich get richer, poor get poorer - countries and individuals alike) far outweigh the small one-time cost of staying the fuck at home for 6 weeks. Both at a collective level, and at an individual level. Maybe it's not obvious if we forget the big picture of the last 18 months, but wouldn't it be obvious if we took that step back? Or maybe it will be obvious after a few more years and few more variants that devastate this or that country? At what point do we stop to say "Maybe that's what we should have tried and should try"? When 3/4% of the population is dead like @bostjan mentioned?
> 
> I'm not sure "We're not sure it can be done" is an excuse when you consider how large the benefits would be if it worked. Even if the probability was only 10%. There's the rhetoric from leadership that it's a "war" against Covid. Yet, societies have done way more difficult things in times of war than staying home for a bit (our grandparents who saw war would be a bit insulted that this is our insurmountable battle); and we're spending way more collective effort and resources developing and delivering vaccines that it would take to just give everyone a bunch of food, stop nonessential stuff for a bit, close international transit as much as possible, and support essential workers as much as we should in the meantime (especially as they could be asked to isolate themselves further). I'm not saying it would cost 0. It would cost supporting the people that need to be supported, actually staying at home with heavy penalties instead of circumventing at every possible turn, and having the logistics in place to survive without travel and without the non essential stuff for just a bit. We can come up with solutions too. Do a non-negotiable hotel-quarantine (like countries like Singapore/NZ have done) for escaped cases so that those don't go back to the pool right away for example. But that's not even that crazy an effort. And don't stop vaccines either. Where we have them, they have eased the pain for sure (especially against alpha) quite a lot. Just don't ignore the confinement as a result.
> The rhetoric is about "war", yet the approach from the start has not been "let's defeat the enemy", but instead "let's disrupt normal life _as little as possible_". I don't know whoever won a war with that type of attitude.
> 
> Yet because of sunk costs, because of "We're smarter than this we don't need to stop for 6 weeks.", because of "We're smarter than this we'll just build a vaccine.... then boosters.... then silver-bullet treatment"- we don't and won't even try. Hubris with short-sighted decisions.
> 
> Funny thing, some are already resigned to "it'll just be like the flu", yet maybe if we actually closed shop for a bit, the flu itself is gone after 6 weeks. Can you imagine
> 
> 
> 
> People in rich countries do that, and all those not-very-sick vaccinated carriers of the virus help breed and circulate neverending variants - which every once in a while send devastation to a random slightly-less-rich country without the means to keep up with boosters every 3 months.


I know we'll keep coming back to this, but 100% no way this works, and we've discussed why.

Best case, a few developed countries could have done a lockdown akin to what Italy did, and that didn't work long term, so no way a few more cou tries doing it would have helped on a global scale.

Could we lock down now for 6 weeks? No. Not happening. Too many people in poorer or wartorn countries are barely surviving as it is. Millions of people even in the USA have literally no home to lock down in.

So, first you solve the homeless crisis, end world poverty, establish world peace, then, and only then, you can talk about trying to get nearly 300 nations to coordinate what you are talking about.

It'd be easier to just wipe out humanity. No humans=no human corona viruses.


----------



## spudmunkey

bostjan said:


> It'd be easier to just wipe out humanity. No humans=no human corona viruses.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> I know we'll keep coming back to this, but 100% no way this works, and we've discussed why.
> 
> Best case, a few developed countries could have done a lockdown akin to what Italy did, and that didn't work long term, so no way a few more cou tries doing it would have helped on a global scale.
> 
> Could we lock down now for 6 weeks? No. Not happening. Too many people in poorer or wartorn countries are barely surviving as it is. Millions of people even in the USA have literally no home to lock down in.
> 
> So, first you solve the homeless crisis, end world poverty, establish world peace, then, and only then, you can talk about trying to get nearly 300 nations to coordinate what you are talking about.
> 
> It'd be easier to just wipe out humanity. No humans=no human corona viruses.



I know you're not convinced, but if I recall it was more an "agree to disagree" situation than an objective conclusion of why it couldn't be done.
Your assumption that we need to fix homelessness and war is not really needed or relevant to the discussion.
For sure there are people in warzones, and people in the streets. Probably other exceptions too. Nothing is going to change that but that's besides the point.
For better or for worse, even those groups will at the end of the day be mostly isolated. People who care for the homeless and are in the same group? It sucks, but they isolate for 6 weeks - and we could and should give them the resources to do so. Is it easy? No. Is it harder than the collective effort/waste/heartache/loss of life that we keep having? Is it harder than actual wartime sacrifices our grandparents have had to go through? I don't think so.

In your examples- either they have the disease initially in those groups, and it circulates a bunch before dying off within those few weeks. Or they don't have the virus, and they're _protected _by people not being all happily-travely worldwide. It's not like unfortunate homeless people or war victims will travel to 50 cities and forcibly meet with isolated people in the course of those 6 weeks in order to give the virus or get it.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

For all those way smarter than me. What are thoughts on India's Covid numbers essentially just dropping like crazy after weeks of reading how it was out of control. Was there something that drastically changed the situation there??


----------



## mbardu

spudmunkey said:


>



Hey now that's a cure for pollution and global warming and social inequalities as well!


----------



## wheresthefbomb

Dineley said:


> For all those way smarter than me. What are thoughts on India's Covid numbers essentially just dropping like crazy after weeks of reading how it was out of control. Was there something that drastically changed the situation there??



I don't know you so I couldn't comment to our relative intelligence, but admitting what you don't know tends to be a sign of fair intelligence. Here is my basic and non-expert understanding:

India's numbers have been low this entire time, or at least during the times I have looked into the global situation. The population in India is massive and dense, many of its constituents are undocumented in some form (indigenous, poor, refugees etc) and so even before COVID, they had no real idea of the actual death rate. Now, with everything else going on, it's very likely they have even fewer resources to work with, and so it would stand to reason that their ability to report an accurate death or even case count is proportionally affected.

Given these factors, it is quite likely that the situation there has been and still is beyond our comprehension, and likewise that there is little chance of vaccinating enough of the population there to achieve herd immunity. India is not the only place facing this kind of refugee/population density crisis, and it's concerning that these already-unwanted populations are going to become continual reservoirs of new strains.

Stepping away from what I know into the realm of my own cynicism, this concerns me outside the proliferation of COVID because historically the answer to these kinds of problems is genocide/ethnic cleansing.


Edit: It is also a testament to our shortsightedness and privilege as a national population that we have failed to achieve herd immunity via vaccination in the U.S. not because of geopolitical factors outside our control, but because we collectively just didn't feel like it. (To be crystal clear, I'm not saying that would be a guaranteed solution, just that we didn't do it when we totally could have.)


----------



## Shoeless_jose

wheresthefbomb said:


> I don't know you so I couldn't comment to our relative intelligence, but admitting what you don't know tends to be a sign of fair intelligence. Here is my basic and non-expert understanding:
> 
> India's numbers have been low this entire time, or at least during the times I have looked into the global situation. The population in India is massive and dense, many of its constituents are undocumented in some form (indigenous, poor, refugees etc) and so even before COVID, they had no real idea of the actual death rate. Now, with everything else going on, it's very likely they have even fewer resources to work with, and so it would stand to reason that their ability to report an accurate death or even case count is proportionally affected.
> 
> Given these factors, it is quite likely that the situation there has been and still is beyond our comprehension, and likewise that there is little chance of vaccinating enough of the population there to achieve herd immunity. India is not the only place facing this kind of refugee/population density crisis, and it's concerning that these already-unwanted populations are going to become continual reservoirs of new strains.
> 
> Stepping away from what I know into the realm of my own cynicism, this concerns me outside the proliferation of COVID because historically the answer to these kinds of problems is genocide/ethnic cleansing.
> 
> 
> Edit: It is also a testament to our shortsightedness and privilege as a national population that we have failed to achieve herd immunity via vaccination in the U.S. not because of geopolitical factors outside our control, but because we collectively just didn't feel like it. (To be crystal clear, I'm not saying that would be a guaranteed solution, just that we didn't do it when we totally could have.)




Was not trying to demean myself only point out that there are several people in this thread with much higher levels of expertise on a lot of these subjects.

Also I realize that in India counting stuff is not as easy but if you look at graph shown below you figure they didn't suddenly lose the ability to track things. And based on how intensely the Delta variant is gripping USA if it originated in India hard to see how it just dropped off so sharply.


----------



## Adieu

Dineley said:


> For all those way smarter than me. What are thoughts on India's Covid numbers essentially just dropping like crazy after weeks of reading how it was out of control. Was there something that drastically changed the situation there??



Authoritarian broke country

They just stopped counting on purpose or never funded counting in the areas currently getting hit


----------



## Hollowway

Do we know if anyone has looked into the flat earthers, etc, to see if there’s a lot of crossover to Covid being a staged hoax? I would think that there would be a huge amount of crossover there. People who just choose to believe in something that is demonstrably false, either through active or passive ignorance, would seem to be likely to believe in most of these sorts of things.


----------



## diagrammatiks

bostjan said:


> Who is responsible for naming the new Korean variant "Delta Plus?"



Delta rn...

WHAT THE FUCK GUYS


----------



## nightflameauto

https://patch.com/new-jersey/newarknj/nj-governor-loses-his-cool-covid-vaccine-protesters

I managed to catch the video of it on the "news" this morning and man I wanted to cheer him on. It's so damned frustrating that such a large percentage of folks in our country are neck deep in their own ass over this situation. It's nice to see some of our government officials are at least as frustrated as us plebes that tried to do the right things. Even if it's not somebody I personally admire for any other reason.


----------



## diagrammatiks

This guy is like a very active mayones spokesperson and sales rep online.

It's like...guys if you want covid...it's really easy to get it. get it right now. for freedom.


----------



## StevenC

Damn, how stupid do you have to be to repost something from GB News?


----------



## bostjan

diagrammatiks said:


> This guy is like a very active mayones spokesperson and sales rep online.
> 
> It's like...guys if you want covid...it's really easy to get it. get it right now. for freedom.
> 
> View attachment 96389



Ben Franklin's actual quote, free of context is actually:



Benjamin Franklin said:


> Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.



The context of the quote, however, makes the fact that it's quoted, or more often heavily paraphrased, pretty comical. Franklin was writing to the PA state legislature about how the Penn family wished to pay a lump sum of cash in order to secure a promise that the legislature would not be able to tax them for their activities in PA anymore. So, what sounds quite profound figuratively, was actually quite literal and means more the opposite of what people think it means. Franklin was urging the state legislature to reject the cash lump sum and refuse to consider giving up their authority to tax this private family in the future.

But whatever, not like anyone gives a toss about history or context or what words mean anymore.


----------



## zappatton2

bostjan said:


> Ben Franklin's actual quote, free of context is actually:
> 
> 
> 
> The context of the quote, however, makes the fact that it's quoted, or more often heavily paraphrased, pretty comical. Franklin was writing to the PA state legislature about how the Penn family wished to pay a lump sum of cash in order to secure a promise that the legislature would not be able to tax them for their activities in PA anymore. So, what sounds quite profound figuratively, was actually quite literal and means more the opposite of what people think it means. Franklin was urging the state legislature to reject the cash lump sum and refuse to consider giving up their authority to tax this private family in the future.
> 
> But whatever, not like anyone gives a toss about history or context or what words mean anymore.


I'm not pretending to be smart myself, but I tend to think for roughly half the electorate, if it can't fit on a bumper sticker, it ain't gettin' traction, context, nuance or history be damned.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

zappatton2 said:


> I'm not pretending to be smart myself, but I tend to think for roughly half the electorate, if it can't fit on a bumper sticker, it ain't gettin' traction, context, nuance or history be damned.



Culturally I feel as if a free Doritos Locos and a bumper sticker (or a 7/11 Slurpee) would've been better incentive for the American population to get the vaccine, but even hard cash incentives aren't enough for some.


----------



## jaxadam

Joe Biden says 350 million Americans have been vaccinated.

https://mobile.twitter.com/charliespiering/status/1423696513599946752


----------



## spudmunkey

Must've been using some sort of methodology inspired by Florida:




I assume the slip up was 350 million doses of vaccination rather than 350 million people vaccinated, right?


----------



## mbardu

spudmunkey said:


> I assume the slip up was 350 million doses of vaccination rather than 350 million people vaccinated, right?



We really need younger sharper people in leadership...


----------



## Adieu

jaxadam said:


> Joe Biden says 350 million Americans have been vaccinated.
> 
> https://mobile.twitter.com/charliespiering/status/1423696513599946752



That's nothing.

Putin said 500 million Russians made good use of subsidized mortgages... and some people suspect that might actually be somewhat "true" (read: sneaky shits embezzled half a billion bogus mortgages and the senile clown thinks that's a good thing)


----------



## bostjan

Yeah, it's 350 M doses. 

One thing that might be worth mentioning, my mom told me this weekend that a lot of folks in Detroit have been freaking out about the latest news that the vaccine wears off, and might only effectively protect some people for six months, so some number of vaccinated people are somehow getting a third dose of the normal vaccine. It's hearsay and anecdotal, so who knows what's actually happening, but _IF_ there is any significant number of people managing somehow to get a third dose this way, it could inflate the numbers.


----------



## Adieu

Wait, so low income white people think the vax gonna chip their brains, while low income black people allegedly "double bag" the vax just to be on the safe side????

Or did something change in Michigan? Cause folks in Detroit is code for blue collar black people right?


----------



## bostjan

Adieu said:


> Wait, so low income white people think the vax gonna chip their brains, while low income black people allegedly "double bag" the vax just to be on the safe side????



I guess one chip might as well be three?



Adieu said:


> Or did something change in Michigan? Cause folks in Detroit is code for blue collar black people right?



78% of the time, yes.

I guess NYT did an article on this over a week ago, but I hadn't seen it until now: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/29/science/covid-vaccine-booster-third-shot.html


----------



## spudmunkey

I'm not sure if it's expanded, but a week or two ago, San Francisco General Hospital was offering an mRNA "supplemental" shot (not a "booster") to anyone who received the J&J vaccine.


----------



## MASS DEFECT

What are the chances of DeSantis getting a Republican presidential nomination for 2024? Is he a top contender? With all the posturing he is doing in Florida, I think he will be a more efficient and effective Trump. And that is another nightmare.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

MASS DEFECT said:


> What are the chances of DeSantis getting a Republican presidential nomination for 2024? Is he a top contender? With all the posturing he is doing in Florida, I think he will be a more efficient and effective Trump. And that is another nightmare.




I can't believe how much mileage and red meat him and Abbot are getting out of masks. Like they are the slightest inconvenience even for me whose glasses fog up lots with them like they are not a hassle at all yet this seems to be the hill to die on for republicans


----------



## nightflameauto

Dineley said:


> I can't believe how much mileage and red meat him and Abbot are getting out of masks. Like they are the slightest inconvenience even for me whose glasses fog up lots with them like they are not a hassle at all yet this seems to be the hill to die on for republicans


Well, you know, wearing a mask is the equivalent of the showers in the Nazi Concentration Camps. Heathen.

I honestly don't get it either. Even when N95s were in short supply and I was essentially strapping a couple layers of t-shirt over my face it didn't feel like that bad of an inconvenience. And yeah, I got the fogged glasses too. Big whup. I managed to sit in a steaming courtroom for four days that way as a jury member, including several trips up and down the stairs to go to the sequester room and it bothered me only once when climbing the stairs. I can't imagine people that sit at a desk for a living bitching about masks now that N95s are everywhere. Those pretty much remove even the glass fogging issue if you get them fitted correctly.

I suppose it's all playing to the base. But when your base is so fundamentally broken that crying about masks appeals to them during a global pandemic, do you REALLY want to keep playing to them?


----------



## CovertSovietBear

Looks like Abbott is prioritizing medical procedures and other actions to get through this surge. Also heard on NPR that they are mobilizing more tents outside due to lack of space/resources. 

Sauce:
https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/gov...n-to-mitigate-rise-in-covid-19-cases-in-texas

But not sure if Florida will end up doing anything considering DeSantis wants to out-Trump anything and everything he does. 

Mask mandates are back here in CA but I don't mind wearing a mask everywhere, I'm just glad they've kept the gym open.


----------



## nightflameauto

Well, that was disappointing.

I just had a meeting about nothing related to COVID, but it broke down in anti-mask rhetoric and Fauci bashing.

"How could anybody believe anything out of that asshole's mouth?"

"I just want a charicature of him with a duck bill saying "quack."

Good fuck, you idiots. I wonder why there's a surge in the virus right now? And the worst part is, lead conspiracy theorist was in there. He's already gone so off the deep end he needed the company CEO and HR to have a sit down with him to tell him to stop sending conspiracy theory bullshit to the company_all email address. So it's not like I could say word fucking one without getting the lunatic all fired up. I just essentially got up and left the room.

At least they managed to fit in a few diatribes about how broke California is because of those damned Democrats in between the mask and Fauci bashing. God damn. That's fucking depressing.


----------



## Bodes

Reading through some of the recent comments, all I can think of is "Florida has their own whackjob named Abbott?".
Our ex-Prime Minister Tony Abbott might give your Abbott a run for whom is the bigger loony. So glad he has almost evaporated from our political landscape.


----------



## Drew

MASS DEFECT said:


> What are the chances of DeSantis getting a Republican presidential nomination for 2024? Is he a top contender? With all the posturing he is doing in Florida, I think he will be a more efficient and effective Trump. And that is another nightmare.


I don't know what the chances of him getting the nomination are - I think Trump is the biggest wildcard. If coming into the primaries he's still widely seen as a viable candidate by the GOP then Trump will be the nominee and the best DiSantis can hope for is VP. If Trump is for some reason out, but Trumpism is still pretty well regarded, DiSantis is positioning himself to take up that mantle, for sure. If Trump is out and his brand of politics is out with him, then DiSantis will have spent the last four years making an ass out of him for nothing.


----------



## fantom

Dineley said:


> I can't believe how much mileage and red meat him and Abbot are getting out of masks. Like they are the slightest inconvenience even for me whose glasses fog up lots with them like they are not a hassle at all yet this seems to be the hill to die on for republicans



He isn't making a big deal about masks. He is making a big deal about giving the decision to the parents, counties, and businesses, as long as the parents, counties, and business don't require masks. Gotta preach small government even if using a government office to override smaller government, unless Biden, amirite?


----------



## Shoeless_jose

fantom said:


> He isn't making a big deal about masks. He is making a big deal about giving the decision to the parents, counties, and businesses, as long as the parents, counties, and business don't require masks. Gotta preach small government even if using a government office to override smaller government, unless Biden, amirite?



Yeah it's the ultimate lunacy


----------



## MASS DEFECT

Imagine this happening if we had no vaccines.


----------



## bostjan

https://thehill.com/changing-americ...15-more-than-a-million-americans-have-already

It's something like a quarter of a percent of Americans who have had the extra dose as a "booster."


----------



## High Plains Drifter

At least a temporary instance of cooler heads prevailing. Not sure if this will set a precedence or if it will quickly go back to business as usual for Abbott and the irresponsible right, but at least this is something. There desperately needs to be a much harder and more constant push-back against the GOP's reign of insanity and selfishness. They are nothing more than a criminal element at this point and they need to be met with resistance and consequence of their actions... despite that I'm not holding my breath on any of this. 
_________________________

"A Texas judge on Tuesday approved a temporary restraining order preventing the enforcement of Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) ban on mask mandates in schools, just hours after leaders from San Antonio and Bexar County filed a challenge.

Bexar County Civil District Court Judge Toni Arteaga approved the order following an hourlong hearing Tuesday, allowing county and city school officials to require masks in public schools until an additional decision is made on Abbott’s executive order on Monday, according to local ABC affiliate KSAT.

The city of San Antonio and Bexar County filed the lawsuit earlier Tuesday asking the court to put a temporary hold on Abbott’s executive order so that it could require masks in public schools, as well as mandate that unvaccinated students quarantine if they are determined to have been in close contact with someone who tests positive for COVID-19. 

The decision represents a blow for Abbott, who issued the executive order in late July, saying at the time that entities that failed to comply could be fined up to $1,000. 

In response to the ruling, Abbott spokesperson Renae Eze said in a statement to The Hill that the governor’s “resolve to protect the rights and freedoms of all Texans has not wavered.” "

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-...rary-restraining-order-against-abbotts-school


----------



## StevenC

Just got my second vaccine today after an appointment with one of my doctors. She said current data suggests mixing vaccines gives harsher _normal _side effects, so I'll let you guys know how I get on.

Guess I'm #TeamPfizer now!


----------



## narad

MASS DEFECT said:


> Imagine this happening if we had no vaccines.
> 
> View attachment 96621



What's going on over there? People just not giving a damn anymore? Just a Delta boost?


----------



## Adieu

StevenC said:


> Just got my second vaccine today after an appointment with one of my doctors. She said current data suggests mixing vaccines gives harsher _normal _side effects, so I'll let you guys know how I get on.
> 
> Guess I'm #TeamPfizer now!



2nd vax = 3rd dose? Clinical trial of alternate 1st booster? Or DIY experimentation?


----------



## bostjan

narad said:


> What's going on over there? People just not giving a damn anymore? Just a Delta boost?


2021 has been basically 2020 with less giving a damn over here, so probably both of those. It hasn't hit where I live (probably won't be too bad in places with 12 people per square km).

------------

I heard something today about work on a nasal spray version of the vaccine.

-------------

Also, I know there was a lot of talk several pages ago about side effects, and this is not a technical article by any means, but: https://www.uab.edu/news/health/ite...-the-long-term-side-effects-of-covid-vaccines

Even though the point of the article could be wrong, I still think it's hitting the nail on the head considering what we know and how much we do not know.

-------------

In other other other news, reporters uncovered that Lindsay Graham's family invested money in Remdezivir, one of the drugs that showed early promise in treating covid, that was later debunked and hotly defended by some conservatives as a miracle cure after being debunked.


----------



## StevenC

Adieu said:


> 2nd vax = 3rd dose? Clinical trial of alternate 1st booster? Or DIY experimentation?


2nd dose, but because I had a very bad reaction to the first Astrazeneca dose I got Pfizer for the second.


----------



## nightflameauto

narad said:


> What's going on over there? People just not giving a damn anymore? Just a Delta boost?


I'll try to be brief, but here's the basic rundown.

People in 2020 fell into one of three camps. Staunchly anti-mask, anti-social-distancing, party all the time because fuck you, etc was one. The second was trying to follow the advice of doctors and scientists by social distancing, locking themselves up at home and avoiding any sort of crowd, and when they absolutely had to go out masking up. The third was just done with the whole thing before it even started and took the stance that they're gonna get it no matter what they do so they're just gonna live their lives and whatever happens will happen.

Fast-forward to when the vaccine came out and camp one completely opposed it. Camp two jumped on as soon as was feasible. Camp three is fairly evenly broke between people that do it just to get along with folks, or avoid doing it just to get along with folks as they're all about whatever makes things easier for the most part.

Now, today, we have huge surges happening and those in camp one are STILL anti-mask, anti-social-distancing and have convinced themselves that masks are literally the same as being sent to the showers in Auschwitz. Camp two is getting tired of trying to pick up the slack for the rest of the country, and camp three is still flat out not giving a shit either way.

So, those that have been trying for a year and a half are tired of fighting tooth and nail to do the right thing in the face of ever mounting stupidity displayed by our countrymen and women. Some of us gave up because they get told all day every day that it doesn't matter what you do. We're fucked so we just as well enjoy what we can while we can. Not all of them, but there are some. I have coworkers that did everything right up until a couple months ago, and you could just sense the "I give up" waves pouring off of them as news of new outbreaks popped up.

It's tough trying to stay on target when there's a large portion of your friends, coworkers and acquaintances fully bought into the Trump mentality, screaming bloody murder about Fauci being a crook and a liar, and berating you every time they see you with a mask. I can definitely understand why some have giving up trying, but it's just more fodder for the virus.

And here we are. The USA has spent so much time telling people that they don't matter, that nothing they do will remain, and that we're simply cogs in the money making machine for the elite that being confronted with an actual problem that we could pull together and survive has left massive waves of us finally giving up that little shred of hope we ever had. I'm still trying, but it gets harder every damn day.

Guess I wasn't so brief after all.


----------



## Bodes

nightflameauto said:


> I'll try to be brief, but here's the basic rundown.



That was exhausting just reading that post and you did make it brief.
No wonder people are now saying they are over it and no longer caring. People are still being berated over choice to wear a mask for personal safety?
Would be cool to turn those 'my body, my choice' slogans back on them using the same slogan, but with an extra 'so I choose to have the vaccine and wear a mask'. That'd confuse them to no end.
I'm sure someone could make a much better come back slogan that me.


----------



## bostjan

There are also clusters of breakthrough cases being reported where large gatherings are happening, some people are vax'd and some not, and then a large portion of people at the gather are getting sick whether they are vax'd or not.

There is yet no evidence, but I have a hunch it could be partly because the vaccine is starting to wear off enough to make real differences in the numbers.


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> There are also clusters of breakthrough cases being reported where large gatherings are happening, some people are vax'd and some not, and then a large portion of people at the gather are getting sick whether they are vax'd or not.
> 
> There is yet no evidence, but I have a hunch it could be partly because the vaccine is starting to wear off enough to make real differences in the numbers.



Looks like it also depends on which one you get.

https://wap.business-standard.com/a...nst-delta-pfizer-42-study-121081201173_1.html


----------



## spudmunkey

Bodes said:


> People are still being berated over choice to wear a mask for personal safety?



Two weeks ago, I was in a grocery store. Around here, probably 90% of shoppers kept wearing masks even through the period of reduced numbers. These two "sons of the soil"-lookin' dipshits were pointing out people in masks, making "ba-a-a-a" sheep noises, chuckling to themselves. I was walking behind them as they walked towards the produce department, past the pharmacy, where a customer in line had on a mask and he also had long hair. One of the spreadnecks pointed to him, and said, "I'll bet he's a communist!"


----------



## nightflameauto

spudmunkey said:


> Two weeks ago, I was in a grocery store. Around here, probably 90% of shoppers kept wearing masks even through the period of reduced numbers. These two "sons of the soil"-lookin' dipshits were pointing out people in masks, making "ba-a-a-a" sheep noises, chuckling to themselves. I was walking behind them as they walked towards the produce department, past the pharmacy, where a customer in line had on a mask and he also had long hair. One of the spreadnecks pointed to him, and said, "I'll bet he's a communist!"


Yup, sounds familiar.

I got called a sheep by a coworker earlier this week. It's an awesome feeling being called that by a guy that literally sent a company wide email with one of the whack-job theories of how Donald Trump was going to storm the capital and arrest all the Democrats right before Biden's inauguration. And you don't dare argue with him, since he's got his own little cult of followers in the office. And he has been known to go completely batshit at the drop of a hat.

Why HR hasn't done more that talk to him about this is beyond me.

These are the people we're living with in the States. And they call those of us attempting to do the right thing brainwashed sheep and deranged idiots. It's a miracle we haven't had somebody snap and shank a bitch in the building yet.


----------



## Randy

bostjan said:


> There are also clusters of breakthrough cases being reported where large gatherings are happening, some people are vax'd and some not, and then a large portion of people at the gather are getting sick whether they are vax'd or not.
> 
> There is yet no evidence, but I have a hunch it could be partly because the vaccine is starting to wear off enough to make real differences in the numbers.



That's what the Israeli study implied, regarding the apparent 6-month vaccine cliff. I'm actually surprised there hasn't been increased focus on a booster or Delta specific shot, but the bulk of the push is still "get a vaccine and you won't die!".


----------



## SpaceDock

MASS DEFECT said:


> Imagine this happening if we had no vaccines.
> 
> View attachment 96621



For the first time since all this started I have been finding out that a number of people I know are getting COVID and being hospitalized. They are all under 50 and each time it’s like “oh they got COVID and are super boned now because they decided not to get vaccinated, huh well sucks for their family.” Vaccines have been easily available around here since April so I really can’t feel bad for them.


----------



## MASS DEFECT

narad said:


> What's going on over there? People just not giving a damn anymore? Just a Delta boost?





nightflameauto said:


> I'll try to be brief, but here's the basic rundown.
> 
> People in 2020 fell into one of three camps. Staunchly anti-mask, anti-social-distancing, party all the time because fuck you, etc was one. The second was trying to follow the advice of doctors and scientists by social distancing, locking themselves up at home and avoiding any sort of crowd, and when they absolutely had to go out masking up. The third was just done with the whole thing before it even started and took the stance that they're gonna get it no matter what they do so they're just gonna live their lives and whatever happens will happen.
> 
> Fast-forward to when the vaccine came out and camp one completely opposed it. Camp two jumped on as soon as was feasible. Camp three is fairly evenly broke between people that do it just to get along with folks, or avoid doing it just to get along with folks as they're all about whatever makes things easier for the most part.
> 
> Now, today, we have huge surges happening and those in camp one are STILL anti-mask, anti-social-distancing and have convinced themselves that masks are literally the same as being sent to the showers in Auschwitz. Camp two is getting tired of trying to pick up the slack for the rest of the country, and camp three is still flat out not giving a shit either way.
> 
> So, those that have been trying for a year and a half are tired of fighting tooth and nail to do the right thing in the face of ever mounting stupidity displayed by our countrymen and women. Some of us gave up because they get told all day every day that it doesn't matter what you do. We're fucked so we just as well enjoy what we can while we can. Not all of them, but there are some. I have coworkers that did everything right up until a couple months ago, and you could just sense the "I give up" waves pouring off of them as news of new outbreaks popped up.
> 
> It's tough trying to stay on target when there's a large portion of your friends, coworkers and acquaintances fully bought into the Trump mentality, screaming bloody murder about Fauci being a crook and a liar, and berating you every time they see you with a mask. I can definitely understand why some have giving up trying, but it's just more fodder for the virus.
> 
> And here we are. The USA has spent so much time telling people that they don't matter, that nothing they do will remain, and that we're simply cogs in the money making machine for the elite that being confronted with an actual problem that we could pull together and survive has left massive waves of us finally giving up that little shred of hope we ever had. I'm still trying, but it gets harder every damn day.
> 
> Guess I wasn't so brief after all.



That's the tragic part. The US has the best vaccine, choices, access, and roll-out among any nation. And yet, it constantly fails with self-inflicted wounds because "Muh Freedom" and "rugged individualism". Why can't Americans be like the Japanese when it comes to masking? Why is it so haaaaaaaard???? Why is vaccination so hard when it's free and readily available, when 3rd world countries literally go to war for vaccine access and people line up for 5 hours just to get one shot?


----------



## Bodes

spudmunkey said:


> Two weeks ago, I was in a grocery store. Around here, probably 90% of shoppers kept wearing masks even through the period of reduced numbers. These two "sons of the soil"-lookin' dipshits were pointing out people in masks, making "ba-a-a-a" sheep noises, chuckling to themselves. I was walking behind them as they walked towards the produce department, past the pharmacy, where a customer in line had on a mask and he also had long hair. One of the spreadnecks pointed to him, and said, "I'll bet he's a communist!"



WITAF?!? *head desk*
I can understand if people don't want to wear a mask to 'prove a point' or something, but to actively engage in bullying like that is just nuts.
It is like those movie jocks who shove the 'nerd' into the lockers as they walk past. What are you trying to prove?




nightflameauto said:


> Yup, sounds familiar.
> 
> I got called a sheep by a coworker earlier this week. It's an awesome feeling being called that by a guy that literally sent a company wide email with one of the whack-job theories of how Donald Trump was going to storm the capital and arrest all the Democrats right before Biden's inauguration. And you don't dare argue with him, since he's got his own little cult of followers in the office. And he has been known to go completely batshit at the drop of a hat.
> 
> Why HR hasn't done more that talk to him about this is beyond me.
> 
> These are the people we're living with in the States. And they call those of us attempting to do the right thing brainwashed sheep and deranged idiots. It's a miracle we haven't had somebody snap and shank a bitch in the building yet.



Yeah, HR should really be on top of this workplace bullying. It is your choice to mask up, be vaccinated, etc. You determined that it is in your best interest to do so. 
Why can' they just leave it at that? They don't have to agree with your choice, like you don't have to agree with their choice.
Maybe ask HR if they can come at this issue from that angle?


----------



## spudmunkey

Jesus...

https://www.insider.com/four-broward-county-school-teachers-pass-from-covid-24-hours-2021-8

"4 teachers died of COVID within 24 hours in Broward County, Florida"

"Out of the four deceased, three were not vaccinated, but one was set to get the vaccine, said Union president Anna Fusco, per NBC Miami. All four were on summer break when they caught the virus and died just as the school year was about to begin, she added."


----------



## nightflameauto

Randy said:


> That's what the Israeli study implied, regarding the apparent 6-month vaccine cliff. I'm actually surprised there hasn't been increased focus on a booster or Delta specific shot, but the bulk of the push is still "get a vaccine and you won't die!".


The reason we're constantly hearing that is because of how large a portion of our country is refusing to get vaccinated because 5G, mind control chips, Bill Gates, Lizard People and all that nonsense. If we could get a larger portion of the public to behave like sane, rational adults, maybe we'd start hearing public discourse about a booster or development of a Delta specific vaccine.


----------



## Randy

At this point it's just gonna slow burn killing idiots until it's exhausted that resource. I don't enjoy any loss of life but somewhere along the line the rational bunch of us need to focus on what's good for people who'll actually take the help they're offered.


----------



## nightflameauto

Randy said:


> At this point it's just gonna slow burn killing idiots until it's exhausted that resource. I don't enjoy any loss of life but somewhere along the line the rational bunch of us need to focus on what's good for people who'll actually take the help they're offered.


I'm with you.

I long said we needed something to thin the herd. As much as I don't condone death just because, we're overpopulated. The only "nice" (and I use that loosely) thing about this situation is most of the deaths at this point in the game in the US are self-selecting for . . . shall we say misinformed?

Fuck it, no need to be polite. Idiots. Self-selecting idiots.


----------



## bostjan

Randy said:


> At this point it's just gonna slow burn killing idiots until it's exhausted that resource. I don't enjoy any loss of life but somewhere along the line the rational bunch of us need to focus on what's good for people who'll actually take the help they're offered.


It's not quite that simple, though.

Food for thought: There's a nonzero chance that the vaccine won't work on a particular person. There's a fairly substantial chance a virus could penetrate or bypass a mask a particular person is wearing. Washing your hands is effective, but there is still a nonzero chance a particular person could wash very thoroughly and still be exposed. Even if a person is 100% smart and careful, there is a nonzero chance they could become infected. Usually, that wouldn't be a profound issue, but with such a vast number of idiots running around open coughing, blowing their snotrockets all over the milk at the grocery store, not bothering to get vax'd or wear masks, etc., we are all at a fair amount of risk just going about our necessary business day-to-day.

So while I don't see it the same way as you, to be fair, it makes no difference. Whether I try to reason with those people or you just don't give a toss about them, either way, they're going to just continue risking everyone else's wellbeing for the lulz.


----------



## Randy

bostjan said:


> It's not quite that simple, though.
> 
> Food for thought: There's a nonzero chance that the vaccine won't work on a particular person. There's a fairly substantial chance a virus could penetrate or bypass a mask a particular person is wearing. Washing your hands is effective, but there is still a nonzero chance a particular person could wash very thoroughly and still be exposed. Even if a person is 100% smart and careful, there is a nonzero chance they could become infected. Usually, that wouldn't be a profound issue, but with such a vast number of idiots running around open coughing, blowing their snotrockets all over the milk at the grocery store, not bothering to get vax'd or wear masks, etc., we are all at a fair amount of risk just going about our necessary business day-to-day.
> 
> So while I don't see it the same way as you, to be fair, it makes no difference. Whether I try to reason with those people or you just don't give a toss about them, either way, they're going to just continue risking everyone else's wellbeing for the lulz.



I actually see it 100% the same as you, tbh. My bigger concern is that the state and federal government are pumping millions (billions?) into vaccine education and pop-up or home vaccination options for people that are fully aware it exists and they can get it, but choose not to. 

Now that the cat is out of the bag that there's either a vaccine effectiveness cliff or the ability for the virus to mutate beyond what the vaccine was engineered to handle, so inoculated people can still get it, pass it and get sick from it (maybe die?), I think more resources need to go into what is phase 2 of this. Trying to get everyone else to catch up at the EXPENSE of giving the people who are trying to help end this isn't going anywhere.


----------



## bostjan

Well, I'm hoping I was wrong, but I tried to start a discussion 80ish pages ago here about how there were peer-reviewed papers on how natural immunity was predicted to last maybe only 1-3 months after recovery. There's since been some vaccine studies that show that the vaccine should last 2-3 times longer than natural immunity. @Drew had a fantastic question about why we weren't (at the time- this was before the vaccine was available) seeing tons of reinfection cases, and I had suggested that we didn't have the capability to gather the data.

But now, I have a hunch, with no data to back this up at all, that maybe recovery from natural infection doesn't work quite how we expect. There are a lot of long-term covid symptoms, so maybe the natural infection somehow keeps the immune system working longer.


----------



## fantom

Randy said:


> My bigger concern is that the state and federal government are pumping millions (billions?) into vaccine education and pop-up or home vaccination options for people that are fully aware it exists and they can get it, but choose not to



I have a bigger problem with the states and fed still writing stimulus checks when we have tons of unfilled job positions now. At this point we have a welfare system supporting people using the pandemic as an excuse not to get their shit together. We are enabling dumb behavior across the board.

I said it last year and I'll say it again: stop admitting unvaccinated people into hospitals. Make it clear that you forfeit your right to healthcare if you choose to ignore the virus risk.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> I said it last year and I'll say it again: stop admitting unvaccinated people into hospitals. Make it clear that you forfeit your right to healthcare if you choose to ignore the virus risk.



I'm OK to encourage people to get vaccinated, as well as to wear a mask and be cautious.
This however is one of the worst arguments you could make in that direction.
It's clear it goes against most interpretations of the Hippocratic oath.
It is also extremely arbitrary in terms of its criteria.

Say you have two patients.
One is a person who has had a "healthy" lifestyle forever, exercises 3 times a week, eats well, sleeps well. Has 0 comorbidities. Stays at home 99% of the time and is very cautious with masking and distancing when going out for essential stuff. Did not get the vaccine. Catches Covid, but luckily doesn't infect others thanks to his precautions. Comes to the hospital and requires some, but not overwhelming care thanks to lack of comorbidities. He's out in 2 days with minimal burden on the medical staff if treated.
The second one never exercises, eats like shit, smokes and drinks a bunch. Has had cancer in the past- debatably at least in part because of lifestyle choices. Has diabetes and hypertension. Got the vaccine though. Took it as a "get out of jail, do whatever you want" card and went partying/traveling around with no mask or social distancing. Catches Covid, gives it to _a bunch_ of people because of lack of precautions, and _then _ends up in the hospital in bad shape. Requires 2 weeks of ICU and a heavy burden on medical staff. He was vaccinated though!

You're basically saying let the 1st guy die and make the 2nd live; and I'm not sure you're qualified to be the arbiter of this. What if the 2nd caused a bunch of deaths through his carelessness...would you feel the same?


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Well, I'm hoping I was wrong, but I tried to start a discussion 80ish pages ago here about how there were peer-reviewed papers on how natural immunity was predicted to last maybe only 1-3 months after recovery. There's since been some vaccine studies that show that the vaccine should last 2-3 times longer than natural immunity. @Drew had a fantastic question about why we weren't (at the time- this was before the vaccine was available) seeing tons of reinfection cases, and I had suggested that we didn't have the capability to gather the data.
> 
> But now, I have a hunch, with no data to back this up at all, that maybe recovery from natural infection doesn't work quite how we expect. There are a lot of long-term covid symptoms, so maybe the natural infection somehow keeps the immune system working longer.


It's ironic - actually, extremely not, if you think about how science works, lol - that I think we're starting to meet in the middle on this one. 

Data is still incomplete, and it's dangerous to make assumptions on small data sets. But, a year and a half down the road, with some pretty big waves at least a year behind us, we know that reinfection is possible but still seems kind of rare, given an assumption that someone who had it once is just as likely as someone who hasn't had it, to get it today (which seems like it should be at least reasonably true). 

However, it seems - based on what I fully confess is anecdotal evidence - to be happening to a higher degree than it used to. I have a friend who's the medical director at a community health center in the area, and at present her practice is aware of five cases where someone 1) contracted covid in 2020, 2) got vaccinated in early 2021, and 3) recently contracted the Delta variant. There's a LOT of possible explanations here, and one that needs to be taken seriously is her practice serves a lower income community with a higher prevalence of pre-existing risk factors so it's not a random selection, but it IS a selection that probably numbers well into the thousands. Delta could be a factor as well, but in any event, five distinct breakthrough cases where a patient had natural and vaccine exposure suggests that there's a good chance that there IS a limit to protection that falls within a year or so. 

Again, though... nonrandom sample, small sample, tough to know how seriously to take this one anecdote, though as they say the plural of anecdote is data. 

Either way, prevalence of reinfection amongst people who have a previous infection is something I'd love to have more data on.


----------



## Drew

fantom said:


> I have a bigger problem with the states and fed still writing stimulus checks when we have tons of unfilled job positions now. At this point we have a welfare system supporting people using the pandemic as an excuse not to get their shit together. We are enabling dumb behavior across the board.
> 
> I said it last year and I'll say it again: stop admitting unvaccinated people into hospitals. Make it clear that you forfeit your right to healthcare if you choose to ignore the virus risk.


No argument with your second point. At a minimum, give vaccinated individuals preference over unvaccinated in areas pushing capacity. 

Your first... Job shortages are more compex than I think they appear at a glance. The JOLTS survey gets a lot of attention for the suggestion that with 9.2 million job openings, that should be enough to filly absorb the (now) 5.5 or so million people short of pre-pandemic workforce levels we are. But there are two problems with that line of thought - one, that some of them left the workforce for non-economic reasons (for one, childcare has been a fucking nightmare for the last 18 months) so umemployment benefits may not move the needle much there, and two, the "normal" level of open positions in te JOLTS survey data isn't 0, it's more like 7.2 million, based on pre-pandemic averages, and that's about the typical level of churn our ecnomy sees at any given time. That means there's about 2 million excess jobs, with maybe 5.5 million people potentially looking for them, which kind of complicates this view that there's a massive labor shortage. 

I think there are some sector-specific shortages, for sure, leisure and hospitality in particular. But these are generally poorly-paid, emotionally demanding jobs that I'mm not surprised people aren't rushing to return to. Overall, though, I think it's dangerous to paint with too broadly a brush here, based on sector-level shortfalls that just happen to be fairly obvious.


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> That's what the Israeli study implied, regarding the apparent 6-month vaccine cliff. I'm actually surprised there hasn't been increased focus on a booster or Delta specific shot, but the bulk of the push is still "get a vaccine and you won't die!".


The one thing that gives me hope with the Israeli study, though (which I on the measure find deeply concerning), is that the selection of people who were vaccinated in January, February, etc wasn't at all random, but January prioritized the elderly and infirm and those with multiple comorbidities. So, it's possible what we're seeing is some weakening, but in a sample group that was more prone to breakthrough cases _anyway_. Israel's decision to start giving boosters to the elderly and those at highest risk seems to be a tacit acknowledgment of that point. I believe Israel as a country skews a little older than average, as well. 

The UK should be another pretty good case study in coming months too, as they had a rapid country wide vaccination effort that was somewhat ahead of ours, and their overall population demographics are similar to ours. They're still in the high 80s with Delta as the dominant strain, but if they start falling, it'll be an early warning for us all.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> I said it last year and I'll say it again: stop admitting unvaccinated people into hospitals. Make it clear that you forfeit your right to healthcare if you choose to ignore the virus risk.





Drew said:


> No argument with your second point. At a minimum, give vaccinated individuals preference over unvaccinated in areas pushing capacity.



TFW when you think you're so intellectually and morally superior that you get to decide who gets potentially lifesaving care based on a single dimension of a complex problem.
I'd be interested in the same argument about how donut eaters forfeit the right to healthcare for diabetes and smokers forfeit the right to be treated for cancer. That's the collective wet dream of for-profit insurance companies that we usually love to hate.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

I say just don't give them guns or driver's licenses. 

We'd reach 90% immunized in about a week. 

Stop allowing marriage licenses between first cousins and we'd get that last little bit today.


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> TFW when you think you're so intellectually and morally superior that you get to decide who gets potentially lifesaving care based on a single dimension of a complex problem.
> I'd be interested in the same argument about how donut eaters forfeit the right to healthcare for diabetes and smokers forfeit the right to be treated for cancer. That's the collective wet dream of for-profit insurance companies that we usually love to hate.


Some people might have a non-insane reason for not getting vaccinated. It's a slippery slope.


MaxOfMetal said:


> I say just don't give them guns or driver's licenses.
> 
> We'd reach 90% immunized in about a week.
> 
> Stop allowing marriage licenses between first cousins and we'd get that last little bit today.


The driving thing is the way the federal government has leveraged the states several times in the past.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> Some people might have a non-insane reason for not getting vaccinated. It's a slippery slope.



That, plus some vaccinated people thinking they can't be contagious anymore and take no precautions are arguably more of a risk to others than some non-vaccinated folks who are very careful.


----------



## fantom

Drew said:


> No argument with your second point. At a minimum, give vaccinated individuals preference over unvaccinated in areas pushing capacity.
> 
> Your first... Job shortages are more compex than I think they appear at a glance. The JOLTS survey gets a lot of attention for the suggestion that with 9.2 million job openings, that should be enough to filly absorb the (now) 5.5 or so million people short of pre-pandemic workforce levels we are. But there are two problems with that line of thought - one, that some of them left the workforce for non-economic reasons (for one, childcare has been a fucking nightmare for the last 18 months) so umemployment benefits may not move the needle much there, and two, the "normal" level of open positions in te JOLTS survey data isn't 0, it's more like 7.2 million, based on pre-pandemic averages, and that's about the typical level of churn our ecnomy sees at any given time. That means there's about 2 million excess jobs, with maybe 5.5 million people potentially looking for them, which kind of complicates this view that there's a massive labor shortage.
> 
> I think there are some sector-specific shortages, for sure, leisure and hospitality in particular. But these are generally poorly-paid, emotionally demanding jobs that I'mm not surprised people aren't rushing to return to. Overall, though, I think it's dangerous to paint with too broadly a brush here, based on sector-level shortfalls that just happen to be fairly obvious.



I agree with childcare being an issue. We were able to find an in home daycare. I see the lack of childcare a big opportunity for people to get paid to help with kids.

Regarding service jobs. Several restaurants around here are closed after lunch because they can't hire help. I couldn't get a to-order sandwich at a sandwich shop because they were short-staffed and just making premade sandwiches to deal with it. Yet I see people on the same street corners with cardboard signs saying they need any help they can get.

And what about FedEx and Amazon shortages? Why can't we get the state and federal governments to supplement the salary or wage of workers in short supply instead of just blindly writing a stimulus check? If working a childcare job, courier, or food service job is demoralizing, give bonuses to people willing to do it.


----------



## Adieu

MaxOfMetal said:


> I say just don't give them guns or driver's licenses.
> 
> We'd reach 90% immunized in about a week.
> 
> Stop allowing marriage licenses between first cousins and we'd get that last little bit today.



Pretty sure they'll just keep reproducing outside of wedlock and buying guns on craigslist

Driver's licenses? Ain't nobody got time for that


----------



## Bodes

MaxOfMetal said:


> I say just don't give them guns or driver's licenses.
> 
> We'd reach 90% immunized in about a week.
> 
> Stop allowing marriage licenses between first cousins and we'd get that last little bit today.



Thanks @MaxOfMetal , I laughed a little too hard at that post.
Pity those suggestions won't work for the nuffs down here in Australia. We'd have to make it a booze ban and no sports viewing, live or on TV, for that to have an impact.


----------



## Drew

fantom said:


> I agree with childcare being an issue. We were able to find an in home daycare. I see the lack of childcare a big opportunity for people to get paid to help with kids.
> 
> Regarding service jobs. Several restaurants around here are closed after lunch because they can't hire help. I couldn't get a to-order sandwich at a sandwich shop because they were short-staffed and just making premade sandwiches to deal with it. Yet I see people on the same street corners with cardboard signs saying they need any help they can get.
> 
> And what about FedEx and Amazon shortages? Why can't we get the state and federal governments to supplement the salary or wage of workers in short supply instead of just blindly writing a stimulus check? If working a childcare job, courier, or food service job is demoralizing, give bonuses to people willing to do it.


My point is, there are a LOT more jobs in this country than food service and Amazon, and if those specific sectors are struggling to find workers, that does't automatically mean that ALL industries are struggling to find workers. 

When you talk about restaurants around you being short staffed, how many out-of-work waiters and sandwich makers do you know who aren't bothering to look for a job? How confident are you that the issue here is they're collecting unemployment benefits at a higher take-home than they would if they were working, and not that the people who used to do that, before getting laid off, just got jobs doing something else? 

And, how likely do you think one of those guys sanding at a street counter with an "anytthing helps" sign would be to get a job at a sandwich shop, if they were previously on a car assembly line before the chip shortages hit, and they have no restaurant or hospitality service? How likely do you think they would even _apply_ for a $10-15/hr position if they had been taking home $75k a year in manufacturing? 

I really think at least a large part of the problem here is a skills mismatch, and that aggregate labor demand may actually be a bit light, but the pool of service and hospitality workers has probably shrunk, which isn't a surprising outcome if a lot of them got shafted by their employers in the pandemic. 

As far as people staying home for family obligations being a problem that could be solved by employing people to provide childcare, that kind of assumes that these same people can afford someone to provide childcare, which is far from a safe assumption. 

I'll be honest - there's _some_ evidence that generous unemployment benefits were slowing the return of people to the labor force, mostly in the form of last month's blockbuster employment report as benefits were expiring in a good number of states. But, I'd be comfortable betting heavily that it's not the only thing, or even the largest thing, responsible for the shift in employment patterns in the last 18 months.


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> TFW when you think you're so intellectually and morally superior that you get to decide who gets potentially lifesaving care based on a single dimension of a complex problem.
> I'd be interested in the same argument about how donut eaters forfeit the right to healthcare for diabetes and smokers forfeit the right to be treated for cancer. That's the collective wet dream of for-profit insurance companies that we usually love to hate.



Diabetes caused by someone eating too many donuts and drinking too many sodas isn't killing people that sit next to them on an airplane or bus. And they can go to work, a movie, or a concert without someone potentially going to a hospital or dying. Same is true for cancer.

There is a reason you can't smoke in restaurants anymore. I see no problem with treating unvaccinated people as a problem for *others*. I don't give a shit about what they do to themselves.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> Diabetes caused by someone eating too many donuts and drinking too many sodas isn't killing people that sit next to them on an airplane or bus. And they can go to work, a movie, or a concert without someone potentially going to a hospital or dying. Same is true for cancer.
> 
> There is a reason you can't smoke in restaurants anymore. I see no problem with treating unvaccinated people as a problem for *others*. I don't give a shit about what they do to themselves.



People ending up in the hospital because of cancer, or because of heart attack, or because of practicing a dangerous sport...end up "loading" the healthcare system all the same compared to someone ending up in the hospital because of Covid. I'd argue the societal cost of one case of long term cancer or diabetes treatment could also easily be higher than that of one or a few cases of Covid (which remains a disease where the large majority of cases are asymptomatic to mild). I didn't see any large scale bans on donuts, alcohol, smoking, dangerous sports over the last 18 months; I didn't see those people rejected from the ER - yet that would sure as hell have lowered the pressure on healthcare. If the idea is about personal responsibility to oneself, preventable outcomes, and not overloading the healthcare system, then there's no difference.

If the idea then is about protecting and not _infecting _others, then your argument falls flat on its face anyway because it's clear today how very easy it is to transmit the virus to tons of people, even if you've been vaccinated. Especially because a lot of vaccinated people end up largely _more dangerous_ because they use it as an excuse to basically stop any other precaution. Yet those people are doing an A-OK according to your made up rule, even if they end up causing plenty of deaths. Or maybe you missed the messaging change when mass vaccination went from "It will stop transmission" to "you can still get the virus and infect others, but you will do better yourself if you catch it"?

Again- there couldn't be a worse suggestion than "just don't treat people without vaccines", and you still haven't answered my hypothetical above... Because you can't.


----------



## bostjan

People who eat too many beans are destroying the environment with their farts! People who shoot drugs are supporting terrorists! People who go on the internet are wasting our electricity!!!!!!

Look, if we only allowed perfect people to be treated in hospitals, we might just as well shut all of the hospitals down permanently.

Also, if we do cut it off just at vaccines, and a guy comes into the ER with breathing problems and doesn't have his vaccine card on him, I guess that's too bad, huh?

Did you hear about that guy in Indonesia who donned a burka and used his wife's vaccine card to board a plane, then got caught on the flight, and tested positive for covid? Maybe having a vaccine card doesn't mean you're vaccinated.

-----

In other news, more than 1500 vaccinate Americans have died from covid.


----------



## Xaios

Gotta agree with mbardu on this one. One of the burdens of civilized society is the necessity of taking care of those whose actions put them on the low end of the bell curve. It's not just Covid either, people need medical aid all the time for acting stupidly in ways that hurt not only themselves but others. Drunk drivers are a scourge, but if someone injures themselves while doing it, I might not mourn their passing, but I would do everything I could to prevent it (not as a doctor, but from the perspective of social policy).

Now for the admission: I'm diabetic, and yes, it's self-inflicted. The medical system in Canada saved my life. I repay it by advocating for it, and doing whatever I can to not be an unnecessary burden on it in the future.

Medical aid can't and shouldn't ever be rendered based on the preconceived value of the person receiving care.


----------



## StevenC

bostjan said:


> Look, if we only allowed perfect people to be treated in hospitals, we might just as well shut all of the hospitals down permanently.


Why do you think I'm only opening up about Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence 2 months after getting out of hospital?


----------



## mbardu

Xaios said:


> Gotta agree with mbardu on this one. One of the burdens of civilized society is the necessity of taking care of those whose actions put them on the low end of the bell curve. It's not just Covid either, people need medical aid all the time for acting stupidly in ways that hurt not only themselves but others. Drunk drivers are a scourge, but if someone injures themselves while doing it, I might not mourn their passing, but I would do everything I could to prevent it (not as a doctor, but from the perspective of social policy).
> 
> Now for the admission: I'm diabetic, and yes, it's self-inflicted. The medical system in Canada saved my life. I repay it by advocating for it, and doing whatever I can to not be an unnecessary burden on it in the future.
> 
> Medical aid can't and shouldn't ever be rendered be rendered based on the preconceived value of the person receiving care.



Hippocrates be damned, let's even say we were to play the "who gets to have his life saved today in the hospital" game between Bill and Bob, and let's say you would judge on "stupid" or "moral". In this scenario, Bob is part of the "I've got the vaccine so I can do whatever I want recklessly and infect hundreds _Massachussets-style_"-crowd, while Bill is an ermit keeping to himself who didn't get his vaccination and only got Covid because of Bob creating clusters all over the place... I _might _ask Bill to wait for his turn while I treat Bob and Bill's other victims first.


----------



## jaxadam

Xaios said:


> Medical aid can't and shouldn't ever be rendered based on the preconceived value of the person receiving care.


----------



## mbardu

StevenC said:


> Why do you think I'm only opening up about Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence 2 months after getting out of hospital?



Naaah man, 2 months is not _nearly_ enough. That's the kind of info you bring with you to your grave.


----------



## bostjan

StevenC said:


> Why do you think I'm only opening up about Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence 2 months after getting out of hospital?


Actually, according to hospitalarchive...


----------



## mbardu

_This is now a Dream Theater thread_


----------



## Randy

Drew said:


> No argument with your second point. At a minimum, give vaccinated individuals preference over unvaccinated in areas pushing capacity.
> 
> Your first... Job shortages are more compex than I think they appear at a glance. The JOLTS survey gets a lot of attention for the suggestion that with 9.2 million job openings, that should be enough to filly absorb the (now) 5.5 or so million people short of pre-pandemic workforce levels we are. But there are two problems with that line of thought - one, that some of them left the workforce for non-economic reasons (for one, childcare has been a fucking nightmare for the last 18 months) so umemployment benefits may not move the needle much there, and two, the "normal" level of open positions in te JOLTS survey data isn't 0, it's more like 7.2 million, based on pre-pandemic averages, and that's about the typical level of churn our ecnomy sees at any given time. That means there's about 2 million excess jobs, with maybe 5.5 million people potentially looking for them, which kind of complicates this view that there's a massive labor shortage.
> 
> I think there are some sector-specific shortages, for sure, leisure and hospitality in particular. But these are generally poorly-paid, emotionally demanding jobs that I'mm not surprised people aren't rushing to return to. Overall, though, I think it's dangerous to paint with too broadly a brush here, based on sector-level shortfalls that just happen to be fairly obvious.



Forgive me if I'm repeating myself but it reminds me of an article about labor shortages in the local newspaper.

They went to a job fair and they had two different food packing companies that said we've had the worst time getting workers ever and it's because they're being paid to stay home... The fine print was that both companies had massive layoffs during covid despite demand staying the same, so they dropped people who had been with the company for years and the people that were left had to work overtime to make up for it.

On the other side of the job fair floor was local costume shop that also provides costumes for film, theater, etc. They said they have been at full employment capacity at all their locations, and they opened a third one mid covid and already filled that one too. The only reason they were at the job fair was to get some seasonal workers for Halloween and Christmas.

So yeah, I mean, a tale two different employment markets really.


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> Especially because a lot of vaccinated people end up largely _more dangerous_ because they use it as an excuse to basically stop any other precaution. Yet those people are doing an A-OK according to your made up rule, even if they end up causing plenty of deaths



Citation needed. I call bs.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> Citation needed. I call bs.



All ethics of care aside, Hippocrates be damned, all examples ignored by you as you brush aside all concerns with your idea... Just "call BS" without an actual argument aside from your sadistic urge to kill the unvaccinated apparently...

But OK, just a few things:

Outbreaks such as Massachusetts one was among mostly vaccinated individuals, who carry as much virus for infection as unvaccinated ones
CDC updated recommendation and reminder that it's possible for vaccinated people to infect others 
Model indicating that vaccine-only strategy without being careful with other measures keeps the virus circulating alive and well, and can _increase _the risk of virus-resistant variants
Vaccines do protect _you _against the worst of Delta. However, vaccinated people who still catch Delta are more likely to be _asymptomatic _than unvaccinated people, yet tend to be more contagious in the first 5/7 days of infection. If they go about their day without a mask, are they less dangerous, or more dangerous than the mask-wearing unvaccinated in your opinion?
None of that should be needed though. You should not refuse care to people based on arbitrary one-dimensional rules. Have you ever broken a speed limit on the road by 1MPH? Too bad! You know this could endanger others right? If you get caught in a car crash then, you won't be treated. Your fault after all!

It doesn't work that way, man. Even convicted-witout-a-doubt murderers and rapists get medical care and you want to treat random people worse just because you don't understand them? Just because you think you are superior and have it all figured out?


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> But OK, just a few things:
> 
> Outbreaks such as Massachusetts one was among mostly vaccinated individuals, who carry as much virus for infection as unvaccinated ones
> CDC updated recommendation and reminder that it's possible for vaccinated people to infect others
> Model indicating that vaccine-only strategy without being careful with other measures keeps the virus circulating alive and well, and can _increase _the risk of virus-resistant variants
> Vaccines do protect _you _against the worst of Delta. However, vaccinated people who still catch Delta are more likely to be _asymptomatic _than unvaccinated people, yet tend to be more contagious in the first 5/7 days of infection. If they go about their day without a mask, are they less dangerous, or more dangerous than the mask-wearing unvaccinated in your opinion?



The first 2 articles reference an event that happened before it was known that Delta spreads across vaccinated people. It doesn't demonstrate that vaccinated people were acting anymore careless than unvaccinated people at the same event.

The 3rd article.has this exact text... Which pretty much says abide by social distancing & use masks in public. Vaccinated people are not the issue here.

Our results suggest that policymakers and individuals should consider maintaining non-pharmaceutical interventions and transmission-reducing behaviours throughout the entire vaccination period.​The last study is talking about whether there is a difference in hospitalization needs between vaccinated and unvaccinated people. It pretty much says people are faring better when vaccinated.

The mRNA vaccines are highly effective at preventing symptomatic and severe COVID-19 associated with B.1.617.2 infection. Vaccination is associated with faster decline in viral RNA load and a robust serological response. Vaccination remains a key strategy for control of COVID-19 pandemic.​Absolutely nothing you linked supports that vaccinated people are being more irresponsible or putting others at risk.




mbardu said:


> None of that should be needed though. You should not refuse care to people based on arbitrary one-dimensional rules. Have you ever broken a speed limit on the road by 1MPH? Too bad! You know this could endanger others right? If you get caught in a car crash then, you won't be treated. Your fault after



We actually do revoke the license of people who habitually drove drunk. We revoke ability to vote or own firearms for felons. Health care is a luxury we take for granted. If you prefer we let insurance companies bankrupt people instead of just proactively helping them, that is your choice. But I stand by what I said. People who refuse to get vaccinated or wear a mask are a risk. It doesn't matter who the hell they voted for or where they live.


----------



## TedEH

fantom said:


> Health care is a luxury


This feels like a very American sentiment.


----------



## mbardu

Strawman, strawman, strawman...


fantom said:


> The first 2 articles reference an event that happened before it was known that Delta spreads across vaccinated people. It doesn't demonstrate that vaccinated people were acting anymore careless than unvaccinated people at the same event.
> 
> The 3rd article.has this exact text... Which pretty much says abide by social distancing & use masks in public. Vaccinated people are not the issue here.
> 
> Our results suggest that policymakers and individuals should consider maintaining non-pharmaceutical interventions and transmission-reducing behaviours throughout the entire vaccination period.​The last study is talking about whether there is a difference in hospitalization needs between vaccinated and unvaccinated people. It pretty much says people are faring better when vaccinated.
> 
> The mRNA vaccines are highly effective at preventing symptomatic and severe COVID-19 associated with B.1.617.2 infection. Vaccination is associated with faster decline in viral RNA load and a robust serological response. Vaccination remains a key strategy for control of COVID-19 pandemic.​Absolutely nothing you linked supports that vaccinated people are being more irresponsible or putting others at risk.



I didn't say "vaccinated people are being more irresponsible", I said "vaccinated people who are being irresponsible are more of a risk than unvaccinated who are very careful". Why are you trying to make me say what I didn't say?

I didn't say "vaccines are bad at preventing severe Covid". In fact I acknowledged it multiple times. I said, "even if vaccinated, you can still actively spread the virus".

Oh but I guess it's just easier to try and find any minute misrepresentation you can hold on to instead of providing an actual argument. And easier to pivot (now apparently it's no longer a refusal of care, we're down to "they are dangerous, no matter their politics" - talk about unrelated side-track) than to admit the initial idea was dumb.

At least it's progress I guess; better than the initial sadistic "let's let all unvaccinated die, I am the arbiter of who shall live or not"  .


TedEH said:


> This feels like a very American sentiment.



Yes indeed. And that sentiment of "I don't like those people, so they deserve to die!"... Yikes.


----------



## TedEH

In some fairness,


mbardu said:


> vaccinated people end up largely _more dangerous_


sounds pretty ambiguous because you're not being explicit about who you're comparing.



mbardu said:


> "vaccinated people who are being irresponsible are more of a risk than unvaccinated who are very careful"


Much more clear. Much more reasonable.


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> Yes indeed. And that sentiment of "I don't like those people, so they deserve to die!"... Yikes



I never said I don't like any specific group of people. And I never said anyone deserves to die. But thanks for putting words in my mouth. A+ on reading comprehension.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> In some fairness,
> 
> sounds pretty ambiguous because you're not being explicit about who you're comparing.
> 
> 
> Much more clear. Much more reasonable.



You're truncating my post here. Selectively quoting and cutting sentences is misleading. I didn't imply an absolute.
In line with my initial thought experiment of comparing two made up individuals, I was saying (if you include the entire sentence) literally "*a lot* of vaccinated people end up largely _more dangerous_". Emphasis "a lot", not "all" or "always". My point was to show that it was not a far-fetched purely hypothetical scenario. And I am pretty sure most would agree that there are_ a lot of people in the US _who took the vaccine as a "you don't need to wear a mask". I mean...even the president said it literally and plenty have stuck with that.

No matter. If that was confusing, then thank you for pointing it out. I'll happily correct and repeat "vaccinated people who are being irresponsible are more of a risk than unvaccinated who are very careful". And regarding the above, it wouldn't even _need _to be "a lot" for a policy of "let the unvaccinated die" to be awful. But it just _happens _to be a lot.


----------



## fantom

TedEH said:


> This feels like a very American sentiment



Because I know many people who died because they couldn't get treatment for a disease and got dicked by their insurance. It is an American sentiment, because this is the country we have. I'd love for it to change, but I'm not going to preach an ideal reformed health care system as a solution to a pandemic.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> I never said I don't like any specific group of people. And I never said anyone deserves to die. But thanks for putting words in my mouth. A+ on reading comprehension.



I was 100% sure you would pivot to semantics as a last resort 


fantom said:


> I said it last year and I'll say it again: stop admitting unvaccinated people into hospitals. Make it clear that you forfeit your right to healthcare if you choose to ignore the virus risk.


So in this case, the "specific group of people" is "unvaccinated people". _You _defined the group by saying who should have access to hospitals or not. And I assumed you wanting to refuse them lifesaving care meant you were OK with them dying. Or that they were deserving. Otherwise you simply did not think through the implications of what you were saying.

But maybe I got that wrong, so let's check.
Wouldn't want to misinterpret what you said after all.
So just answer this.

An unvaccinated person arrives at the hospital in dire acute respiratory distress. If we follow @fantom's genius hospital policy, now they can't be treated, and they will surely die for lack of medical care.
Do you _like _that person, but still want to guarantee them certain death regardless by refusing them hospital care?
Do you think that person _doesn't deserve to die_, but you still want to guarantee them certain death regardless by refusing them hospital care?
Which is it?

Please enlighten us, I'm legitimately curious how you'll twist that one.
Are you able to answer a _single _post without pivoting or misrepresenting?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Quick, everyone pile on Kiesel, he's busy in here!


----------



## TedEH

I mean, you're both playing the "that's not exactly what I said" game at this point. It's the internet, and we're all a bunch of pedantic jerks, so you gatta be very explicit about what you mean. That being said, "lets not help people who don't deserve it for whatever reason" isn't a good take.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> I mean, you're both playing the "that's not exactly what I said" game at this point. It's the internet, and we're all a bunch of pedantic jerks, so you gatta be very explicit about what you mean. That being said, "lets not help people who don't deserve it for whatever reason" isn't a good take.



Then don't truncate my post on purpose, man .
I'm kidding though, I have zero problem with you pointing out where I was not clear, quite the opposite. I'll happily correct and make the point clearer.
Clarification is always good!

Who knows, maybe with some clarifications we'll also learn that "stop admitting unvaccinated people into hospitals" actually meant "let's try to help everyone and accept everyone in hospitals regardless of vaccine status" all along .


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> Quick, everyone pile on Kiesel, he's busy in here!



Wow, it's nice being famous .
You're not 100% up to date though @MaxOfMetal , these days it's more whether stainless steel frets are any good and whether Balaguer imports are horribly overpriced or not


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> I was 100% sure you would pivot to semantics as a last resort
> 
> So in this case, the "specific group of people" is "unvaccinated people". _You _defined the group by saying who should have access to hospitals or not. And I assumed you wanting to refuse them lifesaving care meant you were OK with them dying. Or that they were deserving. Otherwise you simply did not think through the implications of what you were saying.
> 
> But maybe I got that wrong, so let's check.
> Wouldn't want to misinterpret what you said after all.
> So just answer this.
> 
> An unvaccinated person arrives at the hospital in dire acute respiratory distress. If we follow @fantom's genius hospital policy, now they can't be treated, and they will surely die for lack of medical care.
> Do you _like _that person, but still want to guarantee them certain death regardless by refusing them hospital care?
> Do you think that person _doesn't deserve to die_, but you still want to guarantee them certain death regardless by refusing them hospital care?
> Which is it?
> 
> Please enlighten us, I'm legitimately curious how you'll twist that one.
> Are you able to answer a _single _post without pivoting or misrepresenting?



How about an option you didn't consider?

People have a right to choose whether or not they get vaccinated, but they must understand the cost of their decision on the people that would have to help them? Give public or private healthcare providers the right to refuse services.

I'm not sure why this is controversial. We did it with kids and chickenpox, polio, and smallpox. You don't get your kid vaccinated, he/she/they can't go to school or daycare. We allow private businesses the ability to kick out customers or choose what work they are willing to do. The only difference here is that you have some expectation that doctors are required to help everyone. This boils down to whether or not the Hippocratic Oath is still valid in modern times during a pandemic. Is it moral to save lives at the potential cost of more?

So no, I don't want people to die. Unvaccinated or not. Part of the issue here is that vaccinated people aren't dying, even if they get sick or hospitalized. The links that *you* provided show that. You are asking for special treatment, from both a human resource side of things and a medical cost side of things, for unvaccinated people. That comes from public tax dollars or collective insurance plan. I don't agree with that usage of resources. You don't agree with me. So let's move on.

Either way, I leave the decisions to health experts to decide regardless of my belief. Politicians and news anchors need to get the hell out of the way. I just think the health experts should be able to impose real consequences for people ignoring them.


----------



## TedEH

There's a huge gap between not letting someone into a school, and letting them get sick or die.



fantom said:


> whether or not the Hippocratic Oath is still valid in modern times during a pandemic


Why would it not apply? I mean, it's a pandemic, sure - but we haven't reached "the world is literally about to end, every man for himself" levels of catastrophic. Ethics don't just go out the window.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> Ethics don't just go out the window.



For some people, it does apparently.


TedEH said:


> There's a huge gap between not letting someone into a school, and letting them get sick or die.



Nope, same thing. And with the new medical selection by @fantom, kids will no longer be admitted to hospitals if they're not up to date on all their vaccinations. They can just go ahead and die.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> How about an option you didn't consider?
> 
> People have a right to choose whether or not they get vaccinated, but they must understand the cost of their decision on the people that would have to help them? Give public or private healthcare providers the right to refuse services.
> 
> I'm not sure why this is controversial. We did it with kids and chickenpox, polio, and smallpox. You don't get your kid vaccinated, he/she/they can't go to school or daycare. We allow private businesses the ability to kick out customers or choose what work they are willing to do. The only difference here is that you have some expectation that doctors are required to help everyone. This boils down to whether or not the Hippocratic Oath is still valid in modern times during a pandemic. Is it moral to save lives at the potential cost of more?
> 
> So no, I don't want people to die. Unvaccinated or not. Part of the issue here is that vaccinated people aren't dying, even if they get sick or hospitalized. The links that *you* provided show that. You are asking for special treatment, from both a human resource side of things and a medical cost side of things, for unvaccinated people. That comes from public tax dollars or collective insurance plan. I don't agree with that usage of resources. You don't agree with me. So let's move on.
> 
> Either way, I leave the decisions to health experts to decide regardless of my belief. Politicians and news anchors need to get the hell out of the way. I just think the health experts should be able to impose real consequences for people ignoring them.



So to the question :



mbardu said:


> Are you able to answer a _single _post without pivoting or misrepresenting?



The answer is a loud and unequivocal no then 

There's no third option. Either he gets hospital treatment and lives, or doesn't and dies. You can't even answer a simple binary question to the simple problem you _yourself_ created? Instead and as usual, only pivots in your post. Only things absolutely unrelated to the question asked or the discussion at hand, irrelevant or already answered.

And in the meantime, that guy that you do not _not like_ and don't think _deserves to die? _That guy who can't breathe and who's waiting anxiously to know if hell be admitted to the hospital or not? Well, thanks to the literal application of your policy, he literally died, while you were going on unrelated tangents . Good job! At least you can revel in the moral victory that you didn't _really_ _want_ him to die, but you just _wanted_ a policy that would ensure that he _would_ die .


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> So to the question :
> 
> 
> 
> The answer is a loud and unequivocal no then
> 
> There's no third option. Either he gets hospital treatment and lives, or doesn't and dies. You can't even answer a simple binary question to the simple problem you _yourself_ created? Instead and as usual, only pivots in your post. Only things absolutely unrelated to the question asked or the discussion at hand, irrelevant or already answered.
> 
> And in the meantime, that guy that you do not _not like_ and don't think _deserves to die? _That guy who can't breathe and who's waiting anxiously to know if hell be admitted to the hospital or not? Well, thanks to the literal application of your policy, he literally died, while you were going on unrelated tangents . Good job! At least you can revel in the moral victory that you didn't _really_ _want_ him to die, but you just _wanted_ a policy that would ensure that he _would_ die .



How have I pivoted? I've repeatedly said the same thing: if there is a consequence of possibly dying to a virus and you refuse to take a vaccine that has been proven to reduce your chance to die, you should accept that risk and not place burden on others. This has been my stance the entire time.

Yes, the person still dies. No I don't want that. But it is their right to choose not to be vaccinated.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> How have I pivoted? I've repeatedly said the same thing: if there is a consequence of possibly dying to a virus and you refuse to take a vaccine that has been proven to reduce your chance to die, you should accept that risk and not place burden on others. This has been my stance the entire time.
> 
> Yes, the person still dies. No I don't want that. But it is their right to choose not to be vaccinated.



People who speed by a 5 mph should be left to die by the side of the road when they crash. They shouldn't have gone 5 MPH over! They knew the possible consequences! It was easy to avoid, but they refused. Why would you put a burden on EMS and rescue teams? Yes, the person will die. No I don't _want _that. But It was their right not to do that thing so I think they _should _die.

People who go for a hike in the countryside and end up having an accident should be left to die even if there's a ranger nearby. They shouldn't have gone for a hike in the wilderness after all. They knew the possible consequences! It was easy to avoid, but they refused. Why would you put a burden on rangers and rescue. Yes, the person will die. No I don't _want _that. But It was their right not to do that thing so I think they _should _die.

People who play American football and have a concussion upon contact with another player should be left to die on the field even though there are medical teams nearby. They shouldn't have tackled that guy. They knew the possible consequences! It was easy to avoid, but they refused. We shouldn't put a burden on the medical staff. Yes, the person will die. No I don't _want _that. But It was their right not to do that thing so I think they _should _die.

Teenagers who went to ride jetskis and had an accident should have been left to drown even though there was rescue nearby. They shouldn't have done an activity that could be dangerous to themselves and others. They knew the possible consequences! It was easy to avoid and _not _do it, but they refused. We shouldn't put a burden on people to rescue them and on the medical staff. Yes, the teenagers will die. No I don't _want _that. But It was their right not to do that thing so I think they _should _die.

People who ate like shit and drank plenty of alcohol without exercising during the last 18 months should not be treated if they happen to have a heart attack. After all, they should have refrained from those things. They knew the possible consequences! It was easy to avoid, but they refused. We know full well that the hospitals need their full capacity to care for Covid patients. We shouldn't put the burden of their choices on others. Yes, the person will die. No I don't _want _that. But It was their right not to do that thing so I think they _should _die.

That's you. That's how you sound.


mbardu said:


> Say you have two patients.
> 
> One is a person who has had a "healthy" lifestyle forever, exercises 3 times a week, eats well, sleeps well. Has 0 comorbidities. Stays at home 99% of the time and is very cautious with masking and distancing when going out for essential stuff. Did not get the vaccine. Catches Covid, but luckily doesn't infect others thanks to his precautions. Comes to the hospital and requires some, but not overwhelming care thanks to lack of comorbidities. He's out in 2 days with minimal burden on the medical staff if treated.
> 
> The second one never exercises, eats like shit, smokes and drinks a bunch. Has had cancer in the past- debatably at least in part because of lifestyle choices. Has diabetes and hypertension. Got the vaccine though. Took it as a "get out of jail, do whatever you want" card however and went partying/traveling around with no mask or social distancing. Catches Covid, gives it to _a bunch_ of people because of lack of precautions, and _then _ends up in the hospital in bad shape. Requires 2 weeks of ICU and a heavy burden on medical staff. He was vaccinated though!



Again, the fact that you think patient 2 should get care but patient 1 should to be left to die after being refused access to a hospital is quite telling.


----------



## Randy

TedEH said:


> This feels like a very American sentiment.


----------



## mbardu

Wolf Blitzer honestly shocked said:


> Are you saying that society should just let the unvaccinated die?





fantom excitedly said:


> yeah yeah YEEEEAAAAAAH!



Even Ron effing Paul didn't _dare _say it out loud .

@fantom goes a step further too. Even if you have health insurance. Even if you have lived a perfectly healthy life and have subsidized all those people with unhealthy and dangerous lifestyle choices for years or decades. Even then, you _still _get to be denied care and die out of breath in front of the hospital.


----------



## spudmunkey

Didn't Marjorie Taylor Greene recently say something along the lines of "everyone will die evwntually anyway" in regards to either mask mandates or vaccines?


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> Even Ron effing Paul didn't _dare _say it out loud .
> 
> @fantom goes a step further too. Even if you have health insurance. Even if you have lived a perfectly healthy life and have subsidized all those people with unhealthy and dangerous lifestyle choices for years or decades. Even then, you _still _get to be denied care and die out of breath in front of the hospital.



As far as I'm concerned, for all the shit you keep spewing at me, you don't seem to understand that other people are losing medical care because antivax covid deniers are taking hospital resources.

Utah: https://kslnewsradio.com/1953847/icu-capacity-hits-102-at-utah-intermountain-facilities/
Texas: https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/10/coronavirus-texas-hospitals-icu-beds/
Florida: https://www.floridatoday.com/story/...ovid-19-cases-dominate-admissions/5550954001/
Alabama: https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.co...zations-strain-state-icu-capacity/5538009001/

And that is literally just me taking 2 minutes to look up information.

I do not want anyone to die. I want people to be accountable for their personal decisions that have negative impact on public resources.

And I would argue anyone denying a vaccine is not living a "perfectly healthy lifestyle." But it's ok. You are always right because you can't seem to understand that someone can disagree with you without repeatedly attacking them.


----------



## spudmunkey

"Your child will wait for another child to die"

https://www.kwtx.com/2021/08/14/no-pediatric-icu-beds-available-dallas-amid-covid-19-surge/


----------



## Empryrean

I see there's quite a hot bit of banter flying back and forth that I wont be touching but I did feel like saying it's probably a good idea to get vaccinated. One of my bosses' parents just had a bad run-in with covid and the other ain't lookin too hot either. Luckily my workplace is leaving the masking thing optional and everyone but one person is still wearing them. It's rough, man. Be safe


----------



## jaxadam

mbardu said:


> For some people, it does apparently.



No kidding. I'm glad to see the "let 'em die" crowd out in full force. I now know which names I'll be scratching off the "2nd annual jaxadam fall charity guitar giveaway"!


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> As far as I'm concerned, for all the shit you keep spewing at me, you don't seem to understand that other people are losing medical care because antivax covid deniers are taking hospital resources.
> 
> Utah: https://kslnewsradio.com/1953847/icu-capacity-hits-102-at-utah-intermountain-facilities/
> Texas: https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/10/coronavirus-texas-hospitals-icu-beds/
> Florida: https://www.floridatoday.com/story/...ovid-19-cases-dominate-admissions/5550954001/
> Alabama: https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.co...zations-strain-state-icu-capacity/5538009001/
> 
> And that is literally just me taking 2 minutes to look up information.
> 
> I do not want anyone to die. I want people to be accountable for their personal decisions that have negative impact on public resources.



We get it, no need for more links. What _you_ don't seem to get is that _everyone_ understood your argument _the first time around_. You seem to be the only one not understanding its implications.

People should be held accountable. The guy not getting the vaccine should be held accountable ie should literally be left to die. The teens doing jetski or playing football should be held accountable ie should literally be left to die. The people overeating, smoking, not exercising, should be held accountable ie should literally be left to die. The people going hiking in the dangerous wilderness and driving 5 mph over should be held accountable ie should literally be left to die. We don't _want_ them to die sure, we're nice. They _should_ die to teach them a lesson not to have a negative impact on public resources though.

We got it. We understood your argument already. I'm not spewing shit. I'm _literally_ repeating your argument, in your own words, and you're the one calling it shit .


----------



## ExileMetal

Is it ethical to be unvaccinated, given the data we have (assuming no special cases)? And if it is, how did you reach that conclusion?


----------



## TedEH

@fantom - there's still a huge difference between needing some kind of triage because you're overwhelmed (which IS already happening), and just telling anyone who has made a mistake to just go die. Triage is already happening. If you want to make an argument for _prioritizing_ people who haven't screwed themselves by being anti-vax, I'd still disagree with you, but that would at least be a reasonable argument.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

I mean, technically "ethics" also applies to hypocritical and self-serving religious beliefs so that seems like a potentially convoluted term. I see it as more of a "personal responsibility" issue... people feeling that they have an obligation to act responsibly or not. But even then... so much becomes a matter of interpretation. 

I've lived many years and never seen anything even close to the level of division, lack of awareness, and stubbornness as what I've seen in the past couple years in reference to politics, health, and social issues... And the ever so righteous "morality" that seems to accompany every argument.


----------



## ExileMetal

High Plains Drifter said:


> I mean, technically "ethics" also applies to hypocritical and self-serving religious beliefs so that seems like a potentially convoluted term. I see it as more of a "personal responsibility" issue... people feeling that they have an obligation to act responsibly or not. But even then... so much becomes a matter of interpretation.
> 
> I've lived many years and never seen anything even close to the level of division, lack of awareness, and stubbornness as what I've seen in the past couple years in reference to politics, health, and social issues... And the ever so righteous "morality" that seems to accompany every argument.



The main reason I asked was that ethics was the term used to attack the stance of denying unvaccinated people access to hospitals, and rightfully so. However, it is hypocritical to not first discuss if there is a moral dilemma that exists if you are unvaccinated, which I believe was the original poster’s intended argument that was lost in a sea of false equivalence about wanting to kill people.

You place ethics and morality in quotes, but they are critical to these discussions.


----------



## mbardu

ExileMetal said:


> The main reason I asked was that ethics was the term used to attack the stance of denying unvaccinated people access to hospitals, and rightfully so. However, it is hypocritical to not first discuss if there is a moral dilemma that exists if you are unvaccinated, which I believe was the original poster’s intended argument that was lost in a sea of false equivalence about wanting to kill people.
> 
> You place ethics and morality in quotes, but they are critical to these discussions.



You're making it more complex than it has to be. The ethical issue with denying non vaccinated people hospital care is just the ethical issue of denying _anyone _hospital care.

No matter how you describe it, there is no fundamental difference between denying _them _care, and denying the number of examples I quoted before similar care.
The hikers, football players, jetski-users, 5mph-speedsters, during-pandemic-donut-eaters know that what they are doing is a risk. They are a danger to themselves as well as to others. They still do what they want. So by the former "unvaccinated shouldn't get care _*because *_they knowingly endanger themselves and others while risking to overload the healthcare system" logic (if you can call that _logic_), all those people should also be denied care if their choice ends up hurting them or others. Because they also knowingly endanger themselves and others while risking to overload the healthcare system.
If you are pushing for the former, you are also OK by definition with denying others care based on their life choices.
All of those have a risk and a dilemma involved, and the reason why we don't arbitrarily deny care to some people based on a single criteria is because luckily, most people in our societies understand that you shouldn't apply final (literally death) consequences to complex dilemmas.
This would open up a whole can of worms that people don't realize, I think.

Nowadays, like @High Plains Drifter mentioned, so many people have such a narrow frame of mind, such a binary thinking- that no logical discussion is possible.
Can't see that it's the same thing or a slipery slope. Forget all logic and because _they _are vaccinated and think _they _have the absolute right, they get to make death decisions for a whole category of human beings.

Like, I am all for saying plenty of people who are not currently vaccinated probably should. I also believe many people also have bad reasoning behind not being vaccinated - just plain wrong. But there's a huge leap from that to "we can just leave all unvaccinated to die lmao"...and it bothers me that some people don't see it. Instead of thinking about any implication, incapable to acknowledge that maybe it's not all black or white, just jump to "nono you're just an antivax Covid denier - those guys made their choice, so they deserve to die".
Would be interesting to see how people like @fantom react the day one of their habits or failing, or them just being wrong on something becomes shunned by society and punishable by death. Whoops, I guess you should just_ literally die _now.


----------



## fantom

ExileMetal said:


> The main reason I asked was that ethics was the term used to attack the stance of denying unvaccinated people access to hospitals, and rightfully so. However, it is hypocritical to not first discuss if there is a moral dilemma that exists if you are unvaccinated, which I believe was the original poster’s intended argument that was lost in a sea of false equivalence about wanting to kill people.
> 
> You place ethics and morality in quotes, but they are critical to these discussions.



Thank you for getting it and phrasing it much better than me.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> Thank you for getting it and phrasing it much better than me.



It's fine to discuss the ethics and morals or rationale of getting the vaccine or not. Again, a lot of people not getting the vaccine have pretty dumb reasons.

However you saying "people without vaccines should just not be allowed treatment and can just die instead" is the opposite of a discussion, and is the opposite of any sort of measure, understanding or ethics.

It's not because having more people vaccinated would be good that suddenly all arguments (including certain death for a group of people) become justified just because. Or else just follow your own argument and say that hikers, football players, jetski-users, 5mph-speedsters, during-pandemic-donut-eaters should also be refused care for the exact same reason as the non vaccinated. That would reduce load on the healthcare system, and would punish people who knew the risks and endangered others. Would leave hospital free for everyone truly virtuous, who has never made a single mistake in their life. Add everyone who has driven a car or bought anything produced with fossil fuel energy to the pile of those denied care by the way. After all, atmospheric human-made pollution has been and will be a much bigger cost to humans than Covid. They knew it, it's well documented and they decided to knowingly endanger other people. Your hospitals will have _plenty_ of room to spare!
It would still be horrible, would still lack empathy or ethics, but_ at least_ it would be internally consistent. Short of that, you're just making yourself the arbitrary arbiter of what is virtuous and what is not - punishable by death as a result.


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> However you saying "people without vaccines should just not be allowed treatment and can just die instead" is the opposite of a discussion, and is the opposite of any sort of measure, understanding or ethics



Is it ethical for people who choose to be unvaccinated or refuse to wear a mask to prolong the pandemic another year or two or three or indefinitely? Do you really believe that fewer people will die if there are no immediate consequences for the people prolonging the issue? I don't just mean dying of covid. I also mean people with heart attacks, strokes, non urgent surgeries, accidents, etc. You are so fixated on one detail that you can't seem to comprehend what I am saying.


----------



## TedEH

fantom said:


> Is it ethical for people who choose to be unvaccinated or refuse to wear a mask to prolong the pandemic another year or two or three or indefinitely?


Two wrongs make a right, amirite?


----------



## TedEH

fantom said:


> Do you really believe that fewer people will die if there are no immediate consequences for the people prolonging the issue? I don't just mean dying of covid. I also mean people with heart attacks, strokes, non urgent surgeries, accidents, etc. You are so fixated on one detail that you can't seem to comprehend what I am saying.


I would think the fewest number of people will die, if the most people are given care. Again, you gatta make that distinction between triage and just denying care.


----------



## fantom

TedEH said:


> I would think the fewest number of people will die, if the most people are given care. Again, you gatta make that distinction between triage and just denying care.


I agree in the near term. You are assuming unlimited health care. Delta or Lambda have a real risk of overwhelming the system, in which case more people will die due to lack of healthcare resources. I would rather we don't overwhelm the system. In order to do that, there has to be immediate consequences for people refusing to listen to medical advice. So what do you propose those consequences should be? And it's fine if you don't think there should be any at all, but that is the crux of the issue here. We need to prevent things from spiraling out of control again, and it looks like we might be too late for that.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> Is it ethical for people who choose to be unvaccinated or refuse to wear a mask to prolong the pandemic another year or two or three or indefinitely? Do you really believe that fewer people will die if there are no immediate consequences for the people prolonging the issue? I don't just mean dying of covid. I also mean people with heart attacks, strokes, non urgent surgeries, accidents, etc. You are so fixated on one detail that you can't seem to comprehend what I am saying.



What you are saying equates to basically tilting at windmills. You can't imagine that the world is not in black or white, so can't comprehend that I'm still saying from the start that more people getting vaccinated would be _better_. Would probably reduce the number of covid deaths in the short term.

But I also think more vaccinated wearing masks would also help. Those who don't are a risk to themselves and to the community. And Covid aside, I'd also think people speeding less, doing less dangerous activities, eating better, exercising more, would help reduce the majority causes of death in the US. I also think people driving and consuming less would help curb climate change, which is a bigger threat than Covid. An existential one actually. 
And yet you don't see me advocate for the death of those who don't abide by what I preach. Because there are concepts such as nuance, measure, and yeah ethics that you apparently have very little grasp on. And those are not "details". The end should never justify the means.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> I agree in the near term. You are assuming unlimited health care. Delta or Lambda have a real risk of overwhelming the system, in which case more people will die due to lack of healthcare resources. I would rather we don't overwhelm the system. In order to do that, there has to be immediate consequences for people refusing to listen to medical advice. So what do you propose those consequences should be? And it's fine if you don't think there should be any at all, but that is the crux of the issue here. We need to prevent things from spiraling out of control again, and it looks like we might be too late for that.



So immediate consequences are needed, and in the case of unvaccinated people, even people who have been very cautious not to infect others, it could be penalty of death through lack of care. 

If a vaccinated guy is shown to be contagious and reckless, and without wearing a mask is shown to have caused an outbreak putting hundreds in the hospital....does he also get no care and a death sentence?

I mean... I don't really expect you to answer considering you shift the discussion instead of answering simple binaries... But maybe you'd at least consider the meaning of what you're advocating for?


----------



## TedEH

fantom said:


> there has to be immediate consequences for people refusing to listen to medical advice.


You mean like lockdowns, mask mandates, businesses shutting down, the economy taking a huge hit, tons of people who are our friends and relatives dying, curfews, fines, loss of employment, loss of the ability to travel, fuel for political unrest, petty internet arguments, oh and hey did I say tons of people who are our friends and family are dying?

If you suddenly told people "if you don't vax, you can just go die if you get sick", you're just going to fuel more anti-vax sentiment. Because people dig their heels in and get defensive when they're told they're wrong - they don't just change their tunes. Now the virus isn't just "an experimental drug for a fake a virus to control us with nanobots", now you're actively trying to kill us. Great. So much better.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> I agree in the near term. You are assuming unlimited health care. Delta or Lambda have a real risk of overwhelming the system, in which case more people will die due to lack of healthcare resources. I would rather we don't overwhelm the system. In order to do that, there has to be immediate consequences for people refusing to listen to medical advice. So what do you propose those consequences should be? And it's fine if you don't think there should be any at all, but that is the crux of the issue here. We need to prevent things from spiraling out of control again, and it looks like we might be too late for that.



Maybe there should be better incentives, better education, better rewards or carrots.
Maybe if delta and lambda are that bad, we need new stay at home orders.
There should also be clarification to most that even vaccinated, you should still be really careful.
There should also be the acknowledgement that, just like you're not even _trying_ to understand what im saying and where your arguments lead, there are people who will just refuse to understand, and refuse to mask up and vaccinate no matter what.

No matter, the consequence should not be to let people die. And even if we didn't have any better idea, we should still not let people die. This is not even a question of covid at this point. We should not coerce people through threat of life vs death. That's just entirely immoral.


----------



## fantom

It i


TedEH said:


> You mean like lockdowns, mask mandates, businesses shutting down, the economy taking a huge hit, tons of people who are our friends and relatives dying, curfews, fines, loss of employment, loss of the ability to travel, fuel for political unrest, petty internet arguments, oh and hey did I say tons of people who are our friends and family are dying?
> 
> If you suddenly told people "if you don't vax, you can just go die if you get sick", you're just going to fuel more anti-vax sentiment. Because people dig their heels in and get defensive when they're told they're wrong - they don't just change their tunes. Now the virus isn't just "an experimental drug for a fake a virus to control us with nanobots", now you're actively trying to kill us. Great. So much better.



I'm seeing a trend of people who just want to say what is wrong without actually addressing the point.

What do you propose? Do you think there should be immediate consequences so that we don't have to lockdown again? What would you do? Or do you think freewill is totally fine and trumps everything else?

And ya, I agree with your statement. The annoying dick is proof that people will get defensive if you make a policy. I'm trying to ask for a constructive discussion regarding the point of people fearing no consequences until they need help.


----------



## Randy

Now would be a good time to take a deep breath and stop 'tit for tat'.


----------



## Randy

Reopening this thread on a trial basis, but the sniping is done. If it happens again (you all know who you are), the threads getting locked and most likely bans are going out.


----------



## narad

How I imagine controversial posters feel entering this thread:


----------



## TedEH

Getting back on topic - today I think is the first time I've glanced at stats for Canada and went "oh... I guess there _is_ really a fourth wave". Well, we're doomed.


----------



## MFB

TedEH said:


> Getting back on topic - today I think is the first time I've glanced at stats for Canada and went "oh... I guess there _is_ really a fourth wave". Well, we're doomed.



Went out to dinner with my folks on Saturday night, stepdad had a golf weekend previously, now we got word today he had some exposure from one of the guys at the tournament - so now I'm working from home to minimize my office exposure.

No word on if it was Delta or the OG strain, but I'm not doing shit until I hear from him which will hopefully be today as he works in a healthcare facility.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Randy said:


> Reopening this thread on a trial basis, but the sniping is done. If it happens again (you all know who you are), the threads getting locked and most likely bans are going out.



I just want to thank you, Randy for your willingness to give this another shot. This thread has been a great resource for myself and I'm sure many others regarding factual statistics, differing opinions, and real-world perspectives... some of which we don't always hear about on the local and national news. I've also found it informative regarding what's going on in other parts of the world from big cities to little towns. Again... Sincere thanks.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

Went out to grab a few drinks this weekend in San Francisco and a few places already had "proof of vaccination" in order to enter. I'm pretty indifferent about it and flashed my QR code to get in. California has a system in place where you receive a QR code that verifies vaccination status and for me it was easier just to flash my phone. 
While some places asked for masks there was no enforcement.

Wanted to see if anyone here has seen this implemented where they live and how they feel about it. In San Francisco county it's supposed to be implemented formally on the 20th so places are just preparing for that eventuality.


----------



## narad

High Plains Drifter said:


> I just want to thank you, Randy for your willingness to give this another shot.



Of course he would. The first one's only like 30% effective.


----------



## bostjan

My hometown did a "#GETDOWNTOWN" this weekend. Lots of people herding around our tiny little downtown from all over the US, none of whom were wearing masks, so there's that.

I mean, I know I've said it before, but you can't keep people locked up. It'd be nicer if people would wear their masks just to not be jerks about it, but expecting people not to be jerks is a generally perfect recipe for disappointment, covid or no.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> How I imagine controversial posters feel entering this thread:



Hey mods, is this considered bullying?
People keep attacking me personally, I'm scared 

In other news, we were dropping off our son to school this morning. There were *clear and repeated* instructions to all parents to wear a mask and to absolutely not socialize. No exceptions. 
Nobody gave a fuck. Everywhere, people congregating, talking into each other's faces, no masks or mask on the chin. W T F ?!?
The school is also mandating masks for all kids so what kind of an example is that setting?!?
Everyone's excuse ? Either "I'm vaccinated" or "everyone else is vaccinated"


----------



## spudmunkey

CovertSovietBear said:


> Wanted to see if anyone here has seen this implemented where they live and how they feel about it. In San Francisco county it's supposed to be implemented formally on the 20th so places are just preparing for that eventuality.



I haven't been able to go wanywhere, but all of the places I *would* want to go, already have it in place, and have for a couple of weeks.


----------



## jaxadam

mbardu said:


> Hey mods, is this considered bullying?
> People keep attacking me personally, I'm scared
> 
> In other news, we were dropping off our son to school this morning. There were *clear and repeated* instructions to all parents to wear a mask and to absolutely not socialize. No exceptions.
> Nobody gave a fuck. Everywhere, people congregating, talking into each other's faces, no masks or mask on the chin. W T F ?!?
> The school is also mandating masks for all kids so what kind of an example is that setting?!?
> Everyone's excuse ? Either "I'm vaccinated" or "everyone else is vaccinated"



It's obviously a free-for-all here in Florida, but I would say I saw probably 50% mask usage this morning on the first day back. I do expect to see that dip as people just get more comfortable. We had our "meet the teacher" Friday and I felt like everyone was doing a pretty good job. The school board is at least trying to take as many precautionary measures as possible (i.e. water fountains only for bottle filling, cleaning, quarantining, etc.) and keeping us updated.


----------



## SpaceDock

They cancelled my businesses Return to Work plans that were scheduled for 9/13. So do I thank the dying morons so I can continue to not have to visit the office?


----------



## Ralyks

I was at Between The Buried And Me Friday, and I wore a mask the entire time unless I was in the smoking section (which, they didn't give a fuuuuck about smoking weed. Thanks Cuomo! Now get the hell off of our lawn). And with how humid it's been in New York, that happened quite a bit. I probably would have just sweated Covid out by the end.

But yeah, I'm back to a mask anywhere in public. And my 6 year old has no problem wearing one. It is what it is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


----------



## spudmunkey




----------



## Bodes

spudmunkey said:


> View attachment 96810



What in the actual F......?!? Health departments?!? 
I really need that double face palm meme right now. Too lazy to search for it.


----------



## MFB

Well, looks like my mom's office sent out an email saying that three of the people who were in on Friday (while she was in, one of whom she had contact with) tested positive for COVID; she said she had a headache and felt feverish but was only ~98, but that's apparently what COVID feels like with the vaccine.

So now I have a test booked for Thursday to see if I'm also positive, while we wait on her results as well.


----------



## Bodes

MFB said:


> Well, looks like my mom's office sent out an email saying that three of the people who were in on Friday (while she was in, one of whom she had contact with) tested positive for COVID; she said she had a headache and felt feverish but was only ~98, but that's apparently what COVID feels like with the vaccine.
> 
> So now I have a test booked for Thursday to see if I'm also positive, while we wait on her results as well.



Good luck and hope you and your mother recover quickly.

I find it crazy you have to book for a test. We just rock up to one of the many state government-run testing centres. The more effort people have to put in, the less likely they will go do something. 
But a two day wait is insane! What happens if someone actually has the virus, but gets too sick to take themselves down to be tested over those few days? 

Sorry to rant. Fingers crossed for you, mate!


----------



## Mathemagician

fantom said:


> I have a bigger problem with the states and fed still writing stimulus checks when we have tons of unfilled job positions now. At this point we have a welfare system supporting people using the pandemic as an excuse not to get their shit together. We are enabling dumb behavior across the board.



Anything less than $15/hr isn’t enough to live off of. When those jobs start paying $15+ they’ll get applicants. Free market isn’t hard.

Also lots of firms (office jobs) in my area are pushing back return to work dates. Almost all are on board with hybrid schedules. Think 3 days in 2 days WFH permanently. 

I’m not seeing a full 5 days in the office anywhere but maybe trading desks.


----------



## Randy

Near fist fights at local school board meetings over mask mandates. This particular item jumped out at me:


----------



## Xaios

Randy said:


> Near fist fights at local school board meetings over mask mandates. This particular item jumped out at me:
> 
> View attachment 96826


Where do they get this shit? Like, what child when being abducted would only _mouth_ the words "help me" instead of screaming at the top of their lungs? The only way to stop them from doing that would be if the abductor covered their mouth, in which case they wouldn't be able to mouth "help me" anyway.


----------



## Randy

Xaios said:


> Where do they get this shit?



From the fetish websites they frequent probably?

I also appreciate how in this scenario the kid is going to obediently leave his mask on while he's being abducted.


----------



## fantom

Bodes said:


> Good luck and hope you and your mother recover quickly.
> 
> I find it crazy you have to book for a test. We just rock up to one of the many state government-run testing centres. The more effort people have to put in, the less likely they will go do something.
> But a two day wait is insane! What happens if someone actually has the virus, but gets too sick to take themselves down to be tested over those few days?
> 
> Sorry to rant. Fingers crossed for you, mate!



Ya, last summer I could just show up to a drive thru test site with no line. The last time I thought I needed a test, all slots were booked for 14 days. By the time I would've been tested, the results would have been negative just due to the timeline. /shrug


----------



## nightflameauto

Randy said:


> Near fist fights at local school board meetings over mask mandates. This particular item jumped out at me:
> 
> View attachment 96826


You know, a few years ago I would have thought this was some excellent IRL trolling satire. Sadly, the last few years have taught me that not only are people that stupid, they'll double down on the stupid and believe whatever made up shit somebody fed them.

This whole mask "debate," is one of the dumber things to come around during the pandemic. Why is it a debate? If you have a decent mask and aren't roaming around in 90+F heat, it doesn't cause that much discomfort.

The choice is:
A) Be an adult and behave responsibility for the betterment of society in general.
B) Be a giant child that throws constant temper tantrums anytime someone asks you to accept a very mild inconvenience for the betterment of society in general.

I'm just shocked by how many people choose option B.


----------



## spudmunkey

So. Much. Shadenfreude.


----------



## Randy

spudmunkey said:


> So. Much. Shadenfreude.
> View attachment 96835



And he's getting that ghoulish plasma infusion like Trump. See, you don't need masks and vaccines if you have access to the absolute best medical treatment in the world!


----------



## spudmunkey

Randy said:


> And he's getting that ghoulish plasma infusion like Trump. See, you don't need masks and vaccines if you have access to the absolute best medical treatment in the world!



You mean "plahsma"

https://twitter.com/i/status/1288918084879880192


----------



## StevenC

So looks like my vaccine side effects have gone now. Had aches, chills and fevers for a day or two after, but a pretty bad headache until yesterday. Wasn't even comparable at its worst to the blood clot headache though, so I don't know if I've had to reevaluate headaches or if I wasn't so bad.

My doctor said mixing vaccines seems to result in worse second dose side effects, so maybe that's why it lasted 5 days instead of the two or three I've mostly been hearing.

Anyway, fully vaccinated now. Hopefully nothing weird happens next week like last time.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

StevenC said:


> So looks like my vaccine side effects have gone now. Had aches, chills and fevers for a day or two after, but a pretty bad headache until yesterday. Wasn't even comparable at its worst to the blood clot headache though, so I don't know if I've had to reevaluate headaches or if I wasn't so bad.
> 
> My doctor said mixing vaccines seems to result in worse second dose side effects, so maybe that's why it lasted 5 days instead of the two or three I've mostly been hearing.
> 
> Anyway, fully vaccinated now. Hopefully nothing weird happens next week like last time.


Glad you're feeling better. Two slightly different antigens and their respective immunological responses must be why some people are having worst/longer symptoms, but at least it's feasible to do so


----------



## jaxadam

StevenC said:


> So looks like my vaccine side effects have gone now. Had aches, chills and fevers for a day or two after, but a pretty bad headache until yesterday. Wasn't even comparable at its worst to the blood clot headache though, so I don't know if I've had to reevaluate headaches or if I wasn't so bad.
> 
> My doctor said mixing vaccines seems to result in worse second dose side effects, so maybe that's why it lasted 5 days instead of the two or three I've mostly been hearing.
> 
> Anyway, fully vaccinated now. Hopefully nothing weird happens next week like last time.



That's good to hear. My wife is still dealing with major chronic hives for going on 5 months now, and has to take a prescription Zyrtec. She goes to the allergist next Tuesday to see if they can figure out what's going on. She's also talked to/run into a few other women who have had the same thing happen after the Pfizer combo.


----------



## Vostre Roy

My appointement for my second shot got moved from somewhere in september to this friday. Didn't requested it but I'm fine with that, coming back home tomorrow so I'll have a good two weeks to deal with any symptoms, should I have any.

At my workplace's camp, mask are still mandatory unless I'm working by myself and ain't interacting with anybody. We still get tested before we board the plane and again 5 days upon arriving on site. Hand washing and temperature scans are mandatory before entering the cafeteria. We've had a few positive cases on site since the beginning but no outbreaks at all, so I guess that those measure works.


----------



## John

spudmunkey said:


> So. Much. Shadenfreude.
> View attachment 96835



It was only a matter of time. Especially from the guy who opted to celebrate the state's independence day by declaring independence from sound medical advice.
Truly outstanding.


----------



## TheBolivianSniper

I saw huge crowds on campus walking to the gym today and it was a trip but I've got some decent hope for the future. Apparently music festivals aren't really causing issues so long as they're checking vaccinations and tests and CMU does both. Pitt can't but if you're in the city you're gonna be vaccinated. I really don't think it's ever gonna go away, just eventually will be like the flu. 

I got to perform live for the first time in 2 years 2 weeks ago and I think things should be fine to perform for crowds so long as they check vaccinations and tests. Parties and events are still happening but I've heard people are asking for vaccine cards and shit. Once again, I'm not too worried since I'm doing as much as I can, wearing a mask inside/at work, got vaccinated a while ago, got tested, probably had covid, all that shit. 

I just figured I'd drop a little beam of sunshine into this thread bc numbers are going up but in PA there's so many people not vaccinated bc of their own idiocy it was only a matter of time. They made sure it went too slow but ultimately it was gonna spike pretty hard.


----------



## Bodes

Today marks our 200th day of lockdowns here in Melbourne! Not continuously, but on and off over the last 18 months.
We should hold a party!!! Wait a second, we're in lockdown... *tears*

I know it is not as bad as a number of you out there, but let's spread some hope that this crap finishes fairly soon.

Stay safe, look after yourselves, try to not fret the small stuff (you need at least 27 inches to hit that low F# [/sillyness]), get vaccinated and


----------



## Randy

I don't think most people in the US can fully appreciate what a lockdown means because in most places it simply meant a strongly worded suggestion you don't do something please.


----------



## fantom

Bodes said:


> you need at least 27 inches to hit that



Giggity giggity

Sorry, couldn't resist


----------



## Bodes

@Randy our lockdown is strict but not too stupid if you think logically.
Masks anywhere and everywhere outside of home
No visitors
2 hours recreation per day, within 5km of your house. Only with household members and/or 1 friend.
No playgrounds or recreational equipment open
No gyms and all non-essential stores closed
Thank Bob daycare is still open, no way I could work from home with the little man around.
Take away food only, no eat in.
Schools closed, except for students who have both parents being deemed essential workers
Curfew 9pm-5am.
And because of stupid pub crawls last weekend: masks can't be removed for the consumption of alcohol. Which essentially means you can only have booze at your own residence.

Big fines for breaking these rules.

Edit: a few more restrictions added. Man that is a long list, probably missing some but you all get the point.


----------



## thebeesknees22

@Bodes - that's pretty similar to what we had here in Quebec. Hope you all can get vaccines rolled out there soon so that can let up. That's a looong time to be locked down like that.


----------



## Bodes

thebeesknees22 said:


> @Bodes - that's pretty similar to what we had here in Quebec. Hope you all can get vaccines rolled out there soon so that can let up. That's a looong time to be locked down like that.



Sorry if I made it sound like these were the restrictions the entire time. These are our 'stage 4' restrictions. We've had these now for three weeks and another two to go. We also had these restrictions for short periods a few times, but in our 112 day lockdown last year, these were the restrictions for about 40 days of it.
It sucks. I just get pissed off when our government announce the police busted a party and that became a super spreader event, etc.

If you want to read some vitriol being spewed towards morons thinking the rules don't apply, a Jewish family held an engagement party last weekend with 69 people, now 10 of them have covid and they are getting death threats and anti-semetic abuse thrown their way.
Didn't help that one guest uploaded a video of them all laughing about them deliberately flaunting the rules during the speeches.

I'm all for calling them all a bunch of dickheads, but reading some of the comments about them being Jewish would make certain minority groups proud, and I kinda half feel sorry for them.


----------



## thebeesknees22

oooh, that's not as bad then. We had that for like 7-8 months straight lol


----------



## spudmunkey

Orlando urges reduced water usage as liquid oxygen used to purify water goes to COVID patients - Orlando Sentinel


----------



## Randy

Here in upstate NY, there are no mandates at the state/county/local level and I haven't seen a single business that has changed their mask policy as of today. 

Mask wearing varies depending on where you are, in the cities I'm seeing sub-50% in most stores, and out in the rural areas it's still like two or three people masked and nobody else, even in a grocery store with 50-60 people including staff.

It's actually kinda surprising that you're seeing so much more mitigation in what I'd consider conservative areas (even if it's being imposed by local biz). Might be partially since we're in political limbo right now. Lt Gov taking Cuomo's place so far telegraphing that she is willing to crack the whip.


----------



## Randy

CNN hosting disgusting self congratulatory "we beat covid" concert while record number of people are still dying from the virus. God seemingly smiting them by unleashing a fucking hurricane on them for their hubris.


----------



## Bodes

Randy said:


> CNN hosting disgusting self congratulatory "we beat covid" concert while record number of people are still dying from the virus. God seemingly smiting them by unleashing a fucking hurricane on them for their hubris.



You have to be kidding, right? Please tell me it is April 1st.


----------



## Randy

> CNN:
> 
> Some of music's biggest names descended on the Great Lawn at New York City's iconic Central Park for the "We Love NYC: The Homecoming Concert" on Saturday to perform for a vaccinated crowd of 60,000.
> 
> The concert was meant to be "a celebration of New York City's comeback" after a challenging 17 months marked by the Covid-19 pandemic and "promote health, safety, and equity," according to a news release for the show.



Despite, at this point, very significant data showing unvaccinated people still spread the disease.


----------



## Bodes

Mother Nature is trying to tell them something: go home and stay there, you morons!


----------



## Randy

https://mobile.twitter.com/bneidhardt/status/1429215509778685954?s=10


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Randy said:


> https://mobile.twitter.com/bneidhardt/status/1429215509778685954?s=10


----------



## narad

Very disappointed with this entire idea and with Colbert not wearing a mask.


----------



## Randy

Rich folks, politicos and huge recording artists that have been insulated from the real worst of the pandemic all patting themselves on the back while the audience stand outside in the rain, infecting eachother.


----------



## Ralyks

Trump got booed in Alabama at a rally for telling people they should get vaccinated.

I'm ready to move to the Eastern hemisphere. Or some obscure part of Canada.


----------



## thebeesknees22

Ralyks said:


> Trump got booed in Alabama at a rally for telling people they should get vaccinated.
> 
> I'm ready to move to the Eastern hemisphere. Or some obscure part of Canada.



So how long until they start to think he's been replaced by some imposter lizard person?


----------



## Mathemagician

spudmunkey said:


> Orlando urges reduced water usage as liquid oxygen used to purify water goes to COVID patients - Orlando Sentinel



And a good sized group of people just see “Florida governor against masks and vaccines” and cheer. Willfully ignoring data that says “Hey man just throwing on a mask really reduces risks…”


----------



## Shoeless_jose

Why is this a CNN concert??? Seems like an NYC thing no??? And was likely scheduled while rates were falling before huge delta surge.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Dineley said:


> Why is this a CNN concert??? Seems like an NYC thing no??? And was likely scheduled while rates were falling before huge delta surge.



So many advertisers, companies, and organizations didn't want to be perceived as "odd man out" so they made an effort to just go with the flow in regards to acting like this pandemic was as good as over. A lot of people really did have high hopes that we'd be at a point into late summer/ fall 2021 where the pandemic would be in the rear view. Whether sincere or just to save face... everybody jumped the gun (except for us poor and responsible folks lol). We all should've known we couldn't handle a pandemic without digging ourselves into a deep hole... we can't even handle a simple presidential election.


----------



## Ralyks

Dineley said:


> And was likely scheduled while rates were falling before huge delta surge.



Pretty much that. And a bunch of acts dropped off. Still, not really a smart then. Then again, I saw BTBAM in a small indoor theater a week ago, who am I to talk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


----------



## thraxil

Well, Eric Wagner from Trouble is now dead from Covid: https://www.brooklynvegan.com/troublethe-skull-vocalist-eric-wagner-rip/


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Ralyks said:


> Pretty much that. And a bunch of acts dropped off. Still, not really a smart then. Then again, I saw BTBAM in a small indoor theater a week ago, who am I to talk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯



Worth it.


----------



## Ralyks

thraxil said:


> Well, Eric Wagner from Trouble is now dead from Covid: https://www.brooklynvegan.com/troublethe-skull-vocalist-eric-wagner-rip/



Saw that while I was at the gym. Proceeded to throw in Psalm 9.

Anyway, Pfizer got FDA approval. I'm sure the new excuse will be "It hasn't been approved long enough"


----------



## spudmunkey

Ralyks said:


> Anyway, Pfizer got FDA approval. I'm sure the new excuse will be "It hasn't been approved long enough"



Oh, no...that's too easy of a goalpost to cross, eventually. It's "Oh, so you trust the FDA now like a subservient sheep?" or they will pull up an article about past shitty things Pfeizer, J&J, etc have done. Which, actually, in my mind, is a more valid argument than the former.


----------



## Drew

Mask mandate back in place, indoors in Boston, beginning Friday. You can only take a mask off while actively eating or drinking. Definitely for the best.


----------



## spudmunkey

Drew said:


> You can only take a mask off while actively eating or drinking. Definitely for the best.



I'm suddenly remembering a scene from a _Charles in Charge_ episode where Buddy is wearing a ski mask (the kind with the one oval hole for your eyes, but covers your mouth and nose), and is given a mug of hot cocoa. He raises it to his masked face, drinks it through his mask (leaving a light brown spot on his off-white mask), and proclaims, "It tastes fuzzy."


----------



## bostjan

So... now that these are starting to get official approval, the vaccines are picking up trade names. Pfizer is now "Comirnaty" (like "community" but with RNA in it), and Moderna is now "Spikevax."

In other news, now that kids are going back to school in many parts of the US, vax'd and unvax'd people alike are getting sick from their kids, just as I had predicted would happen last year. If we don't get a widely available booster by October, I bet there will be some discussion about learning going remote again.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Walgreens is pumping out Pfizer and Moderna boosters like it's going out of style. 

Got mine today in fact. 

Just walk in, ask for it, show them your card, sign and date and done.


----------



## bostjan

MaxOfMetal said:


> Walgreens is pumping out Pfizer and Moderna boosters like it's going out of style.
> 
> Got mine today in fact.
> 
> Just walk in, ask for it, show them your card, sign and date and done.



Vermont's policy has been "we'll let you know when it's available" with estimates at mid-fall at this point. Is Wisconsin doing a booster or just a third dose of the same thing as the first two (which might ultimately be what the booster ends up being)?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

bostjan said:


> Vermont's policy has been "we'll let you know when it's available" with estimates at mid-fall at this point. Is Wisconsin doing a booster or just a third dose of the same thing as the first two (which might ultimately be what the booster ends up being)?



Third dose of the same thing, in my case Pfizer.


----------



## Randy

Let's see how well this ages


----------



## jaxadam

Jesse Jackson and wife hospitalized with covid despite being fully vaccinated.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jesse-jackson-wife-hospital-covid-19/


----------



## bostjan

You mean the same organization that warned us that they had just discovered that the virus was airbourne in *May of 2021*? That was 15 months after everyone else had already acknowledged that. 

The CDC knows nothing.



jaxadam said:


> Jesse Jackson and wife hospitalized with covid despite being fully vaccinated.
> 
> https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jesse-jackson-wife-hospital-covid-19/



It's been about 8 months since they were vaccinated.


----------



## wankerness

MaxOfMetal said:


> Walgreens is pumping out Pfizer and Moderna boosters like it's going out of style.
> 
> Got mine today in fact.
> 
> Just walk in, ask for it, show them your card, sign and date and done.



Wow, really??? I need to do that. I figured they'd be like most states where they will turn you away unless you lie and say you're getting a first dose. Thanks for the info!! I have a walgreens in town.


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> It's been about 8 months since they were vaccinated.



Yep, I don't think these have a long term efficacy. My wife has severe hives from the Pfizer, and finally goes to the allergist tomorrow. I joke with her that we'll know when it wears off when she quits getting hives!


----------



## MaxOfMetal

wankerness said:


> Wow, really??? I need to do that. I figured they'd be like most states where they will turn you away unless you lie and say you're getting a first dose. Thanks for the info!! I have a walgreens in town.



There's a list on Walgreens' site with which locations have each vaccine, Pfizer vs. Moderna. It's pretty comprehensive though, even in little old Racine just about everywhere had both.


----------



## Randy

jaxadam said:


> Yep, I don't think these have a long term efficacy. My wife has severe hives from the Pfizer, and finally goes to the allergist tomorrow. I joke with her that we'll know when it wears off when she quits getting hives!



I'm still on team "just get the shot", but my friend has semi-severe bouts of vertigo ever since getting his second shot and a close family friend has VERY severe tinnitus since March that's only recently lightening up but lingering neurological side effects.

Something lost in this discussion between ideological gamesmanship and trying to mitigate virus spread/death is that it's always been considered healthy to stay skeptical of the pharmaceutical companies. Considering the government contracts for these "free shots", I don't think there's anything wrong with questioning how much suppression of negative information about the vaccines is going on at multiple levels. Not just side effects but length of efficacy and how effective overall.

Posted this elsewhere.

"You aren't legally allowed to know which variant gave you COVID-19 in the US, even if it's Delta"
https://www.businessinsider.com/covid-patients-cant-know-which-variant-infected-them-delta-2021-8

Gotta wonder if the dirty secret is that not all these cases are Delta. Could go either way. Either it turns out the vaccine is less effective at vanilla (alpha?) Covid than the drug companies have reported or there are more variants at play, but the drug companies want to keep up the pace of vaccines without having to change the formula.

Not saying that's the case and I still believe getting the vaccine is verse 1, line 1 on how to combat this thing but it's kinda lost that there are real questions to be asked that regular folks can't ask because we're pinned between anti-vaxxers and "it's fine everything's fine, full steam ahead, the end is around the corner, just keep pushing out more shots" from the fed.


----------



## jaxadam

Randy said:


> I'm still on team "just get the shot", but my friend has semi-severe bouts of vertigo ever since getting his second shot and a close family friend has VERY severe tinnitus since March that's only recently lightening up but lingering neurological side effects.
> 
> Something lost in this discussion between ideological gamesmanship and trying to mitigate virus spread/death is that it's always been considered healthy to stay skeptical of the pharmaceutical companies. Considering the government contracts for these "free shots", I don't think there's anything wrong with questioning how much suppression of negative information about the vaccines is going on at multiple levels. Not just side effects but length of efficacy and how effective overall.
> 
> Posted this elsewhere.
> 
> "You aren't legally allowed to know which variant gave you COVID-19 in the US, even if it's Delta"
> https://www.businessinsider.com/covid-patients-cant-know-which-variant-infected-them-delta-2021-8
> 
> Gotta wonder if the dirty secret is that not all these cases are Delta. Could go either way. Either it turns out the vaccine is less effective at vanilla (alpha?) Covid than the drug companies have reported or there are more variants at play, but the drug companies want to keep up the pace of vaccines without having to change the formula.
> 
> Not saying that's the case and I still believe getting the vaccine is verse 1, line 1 on how to combat this thing but it's kinda lost that there are real questions to be asked that regular folks can't ask because we're pinned between anti-vaxxers and "it's fine everything's fine, full steam ahead, the end is around the corner, just keep pushing out more shots" from the fed.



Good points. At this point, my wife is not too keen on getting a booster, and she almost definitely wouldn't get it for our kids (granted they're only 4 and 6). We actually had friends have to rush another friend to the ER after the second shot with the same vertigo symptoms you'd described.

The rough part about all of this is that we just know, in our particular circle of the world, more first-hand cases of people having bad reactions to the shots versus any significant actual covid cases. I don't know what that means, I don't know how that makes people feel seeing these breakthrough cases, and I don't know how that's going to play into a booster rollout come September because people are starting to become very skeptical. I know very normal, well-educated, even-keeled people, some even doctors/pharmacists/nurses who are terrified of getting any version of a vaccine right now. I know very strange, out-there, off their rocker people who are coming around and seriously considering it.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

Here's a neat website that tracks variants, and verbatim: "CoVsurver is to highlight phenotypically or epidemiologically interesting candidate amino acid (aa) changes for further research and should ideally be combined with experimental testing and verification of any predicted phenotypes". 3D modeling of the spike glycoprotein as shown below. You can also align sequences and check for emerging, novel variant consensus sequences.

https://www.gisaid.org/hcov19-variants/




It's always good to be wary of any data coming from these companies and to keep a keen eye on reoccurring, long term symptoms. As for vaccine efficacy across strains, as long as enough similarity remains between them they should be fine, but problems remain regarding length AND type of immune response. These RNA polymerases induce enough mutations as it is and we are placing a lot of selective evolutionary pressure with vaccines and infections among unvaccinated pockets in the south (as far as the USA goes), I'm not even sure of developing countries which already don't have the resources to handle these cases, let alone start distributing vaccines. 

If the strains diverge too much then looking at other ways of inducing different immune responses should be looked at, and there are plenty in development: 
https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker

A friend mentioned something interesting though, maybe we could spread an attenuated virus strain that would give a low level infection to kids which would then spread slowly through the population, more data needed but I see public trust as a bigger issue. Feasible in my mind but I make viruses for a living and that's where my trust of the process comes in at. I know for a lot of other people, even scientists outside of my field, that they don't have enough tangible information on there end to make the decision so quickly/easily.


----------



## mbardu

Randy said:


> I'm still on team "just get the shot", but my friend has semi-severe bouts of vertigo ever since getting his second shot and a close family friend has VERY severe tinnitus since March that's only recently lightening up but lingering neurological side effects.
> 
> Something lost in this discussion between ideological gamesmanship and trying to mitigate virus spread/death is that it's always been considered healthy to stay skeptical of the pharmaceutical companies. Considering the government contracts for these "free shots", I don't think there's anything wrong with questioning how much suppression of negative information about the vaccines is going on at multiple levels. Not just side effects but length of efficacy and how effective overall.
> 
> Posted this elsewhere.
> 
> "You aren't legally allowed to know which variant gave you COVID-19 in the US, even if it's Delta"
> https://www.businessinsider.com/covid-patients-cant-know-which-variant-infected-them-delta-2021-8
> 
> Gotta wonder if the dirty secret is that not all these cases are Delta. Could go either way. Either it turns out the vaccine is less effective at vanilla (alpha?) Covid than the drug companies have reported or there are more variants at play, but the drug companies want to keep up the pace of vaccines without having to change the formula.
> 
> Not saying that's the case and I still believe getting the vaccine is verse 1, line 1 on how to combat this thing but it's kinda lost that there are real questions to be asked that regular folks can't ask because we're pinned between anti-vaxxers and "it's fine everything's fine, full steam ahead, the end is around the corner, just keep pushing out more shots" from the fed.



I agree with a lot of what you said.
The crazy part is how much the zeitgeist of today has managed to hypersimplify the discourse, and managed to put any single questioning thought in the "crazy" category to ensure a one-way conversation. And almost nobody questions it. People on one end of the discussion will just see someone start a sentence with "I support vaccines _but_..." and immediately put that person in the "crazy 5g-conspirationist" category and disregard anything that will come after. It sounds so simple and basic as a strategy. Paint one side of the discussion as an extreme exaggerated dumb homogenous group, and you easily manage to get an army of almost fanatical unquestioning followers - just by making them feel smarter than the others. "_You_'re smarter than those dumb conspirationists since _you _don't question the vaccine at all". Yet it works absolutely bananas because that's so many people around nowadays.

And I'm not saying "fanatical" lightly, there are people who are literally advocating for letting the unvaccinated die just because.

There is no nuance left.

Another example that comes to mind is those sensationalist headlines of "dumb MAGAts buy random horse dewormer to treat Covid" whereas the actual information is not that at all. There is a human antiparasitic drug that is known to work on the same type of spike protein as Covid19. There are a couple of studies on it, including a large scale one in the UK in progress. A lot of the "positive" studies have serious bias and the drug is hardly proven to help _that _much with Covid. But on the other hand, it is super cheap, and known to basically have _no _side effects (with decades of history) and has literally won a Nobel prize. I've spoken to a couple of doctors (family doc and my kid's pediatrician) who have no problem with it and have prescribed it in the past with no issue. But since earlier this year, they are no longer even _allowed _to prescribe it. Most pharmacies are no longer allowed to stock it. Why?
So _some _dumb people turn to the animal formulation in dumb dosages out of desperation. Is that smart? Clearly not. Is that as the story describes it though? Not at all.

Lies and lies and misrepresentations and insults are hardly the way to get more people on board. Two quotes from the article: "vaccine policy among supporters of vaccines is increasingly anchored to the irrational views of those who oppose them" and "an attempt to vaccinate at all costs—by creating fear in the public and pushing the notion that two doses of mRNA at the current dose level or nothing at all are the only two choices—a logical error called the fallacy of the excluded middle.". In these parts the equivalent of that is people claiming "Covid will kill 8 million more people in the US if we don't vaccinate everyone" and everyone nodding in approval as it this was even remotely close to possible.

Anecdote: my parents live in a French village, my mom is one of the mayor's deputy and my dad is a retired nurse who helped at the local retirement home. They have had noticeably more deaths in the 2 months of mass vaccination earlier this year than they've had in the Covid outbreak from last year. You're not even _allowed _to raise the alarm on things like that though, because the only tolerable message is "we need to just vaccinate everyone ASAP no question asked".

Maybe it's the right thing to do. Most probably for many groups of populations. But the way it's pushed should be concerning to anyone paying attention.


----------



## jaxadam

So it looks like my wife might be having an issue with PEG in the Pfizer vaccine.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...id-19-vaccine-trigger-rare-allergic-reactions

The particular allergist she went to handled the patients from the trials here in Jacksonville last year, and some people got so bad they had to pull them out. One person was so bad in fact they are on two shots a day, steroids, and 3 antihistamines still, so the allergist said that my wife should consider herself pretty lucky that she's able to manage the symptoms with one Zyrtec a day.

They also said there is a vaccine coming up that does not have the PEG in it, and they recommend she get that one for her booster.


----------



## thebeesknees22

Randy said:


> I'm still on team "just get the shot", but my friend has semi-severe bouts of vertigo ever since getting his second shot and a close family friend has VERY severe tinnitus since March that's only recently lightening up but lingering neurological side effects..



interesting. I have had tinnitus in my right ear a couple of weeks after I got my first shot. I wasn't sure if it was the shot though, or if it was the zoom meetings with some people have really loud resonant mic's, or if it was me trying to mix at a louder volume in my apartment. 

I still have it to some degree, but it's lessened a bit over time. ....hopefully it goes away at some point if it was due to the shot...... It's pretty annoying.

I'm 100% on team get the shot. I'll get the booster when it comes time for me.


----------



## bostjan

As news of the US Federal Government trying to conduct it's own investigation into the lab origin theory that started regaining traction this summer spreads, China is now claiming that the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in a US Military lab and then was purposely exposed to people in Wuhan in late 2019.

Which of these conspiracy theories are true? Probably neither- the evidence for both is merely circumstantial. But there's a social commentary here. Would China infect it's own people with a highly contagious and potentially deadly virus? I doubt it, but there is no question in anyone's mind that, if this happened accidentally, there is no way China would admit it. Would the USA intentionally infect Chinese people in Wuhan with a bioweapon? Again, I highly doubt it. I also see it unlikely that the US military would target Wuhan, even knowing that there's a prominent virology lab there. What I see much more likely is that China would accidentally release something, then blame the USA for it, after denying any knowledge of it for a year. But, I still see no hard evidence leading me to believe the conspiracies.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> As news of the US Federal Government trying to conduct it's own investigation into the lab origin theory that started regaining traction this summer spreads, China is now claiming that the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in a US Military lab and then was purposely exposed to people in Wuhan in late 2019.
> 
> Which of these conspiracy theories are true? Probably neither- the evidence for both is merely circumstantial. But there's a social commentary here. Would China infect it's own people with a highly contagious and potentially deadly virus? I doubt it, but there is no question in anyone's mind that, if this happened accidentally, there is no way China would admit it. Would the USA intentionally infect Chinese people in Wuhan with a bioweapon? Again, I highly doubt it. I also see it unlikely that the US military would target Wuhan, even knowing that there's a prominent virology lab there. What I see much more likely is that China would accidentally release something, then blame the USA for it, after denying any knowledge of it for a year. But, I still see no hard evidence leading me to believe the conspiracies.


To be fair, I think there's really two versions of the "lab leak" theory - a capital-L "Lab Leak" where China created an uber-coronavirus vaccine in a lag and intentionally released it, and a lowercase-l "lab leak" where human transmission of a naturally-occuring coronavirus first occurred in the Wuhan lab from either a mishandled viral specimen or, far more likely, a mishandled captive bat. The Capital-L theory is the one getting the most, ahem, alterative-media attention, and is almost certainly pure science fiction. The lowercase-l theory, however, is. lot more plausible, especially given the fact that Wuhan is not actually in an area with a large bat population, and bats were largely dormant and hibernating in the late-November/early-December period where first human transmission would likely have occurred, and ddespite Chinese official denials there's decent evidence that live specimens were stored and handled in Wuhan. 

The international response to the two versions is radically different, too - capital-L is basically an act of war and should come with strong international sanctions and condemnation; lowercase-l is shoddy lab protocol (and from a lab that allegedly and based on reputable firsthand accounts I've read, had pretty good safety protocols in place, and almost certainly was not engaged in "gain of function" viral research), but the worst of the international blowback should be reserved for the coverup, and not the leak itself.


----------



## Drew

Wncouraging news on the booster front - 

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/08/25/world/covid-delta-variant-vaccine

tl;dr and for those not able to get past the paywall, J&J has found a second shot of their vaccine provides an antibody response ranging from as least as large, to 9x more robust, than the first shot. Pfizer has reported broadly similar results, and per inverviews with some immunologists cited in a Bloomberg article I saw this morning that I don't know where to find off the terminal, this is not a terribly un-standard result, that the immune system needs to have a couple interactions with a pathogen to really get up to speed fighting it off, and the more repetitions, the faster and better the immune response. 

As always, hardly definitive, but a story to watch and potentially encouraging news.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> As news of the US Federal Government trying to conduct it's own investigation into the lab origin theory that started regaining traction this summer spreads, China is now claiming that the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in a US Military lab and then was purposely exposed to people in Wuhan in late 2019.
> 
> Which of these conspiracy theories are true? Probably neither- the evidence for both is merely circumstantial. But there's a social commentary here. Would China infect it's own people with a highly contagious and potentially deadly virus? I doubt it, but there is no question in anyone's mind that, if this happened accidentally, there is no way China would admit it. Would the USA intentionally infect Chinese people in Wuhan with a bioweapon? Again, I highly doubt it. I also see it unlikely that the US military would target Wuhan, even knowing that there's a prominent virology lab there. What I see much more likely is that China would accidentally release something, then blame the USA for it, after denying any knowledge of it for a year. But, I still see no hard evidence leading me to believe the conspiracies.



There doesn't need to be a conspiracy for a careless employee and a couple of safety failures to allow an enhanced coronavirus to leave the lab and start infecting people in Wuhan. Just needs short-sightedness and negligence, which the world (including the scientific world) still has plenty of.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> To be fair, I think there's really two versions of the "lab leak" theory - a capital-L "Lab Leak" where China created an uber-coronavirus vaccine in a lag and intentionally released it, and a lowercase-l "lab leak" where human transmission of a naturally-occuring coronavirus first occurred in the Wuhan lab from either a mishandled viral specimen or, far more likely, a mishandled captive bat. The Capital-L theory is the one getting the most, ahem, alterative-media attention, and is almost certainly pure science fiction. The lowercase-l theory, however, is. lot more plausible, especially given the fact that Wuhan is not actually in an area with a large bat population, and bats were largely dormant and hibernating in the late-November/early-December period where first human transmission would likely have occurred, and ddespite Chinese official denials there's decent evidence that live specimens were stored and handled in Wuhan.
> 
> The international response to the two versions is radically different, too - capital-L is basically an act of war and should come with strong international sanctions and condemnation; lowercase-l is shoddy lab protocol (and from a lab that allegedly and based on reputable firsthand accounts I've read, had pretty good safety protocols in place, and almost certainly was not engaged in "gain of function" viral research), but the worst of the international blowback should be reserved for the coverup, and not the leak itself.



I feel like, if you asked a hundred people, you'd get these two theories and quite a few in between. For example, I know one person who tried to tell me that they strongly believed that the virus was a Chinese bioweapon that accidentally leaked out. I came across someone online who thought it was a Russian or old Soviet bioweapon that was accidentally released. Now China is saying it is a US bioweapon that was intentionally released. I'm sure if you looked hard enough you could find someone who thought it was a natural bat virus that was intentionally released by bats or whatever.

I still feel like the most plausible explanation, based off of what little evidence there is, is that the virus was some natural thing that mutated unexpectedly as it jumped species, and the Chinese government tried to cover up whatever was going on because they, at some point, didn't know whether it came from the lab or not. But I guess I can't entirely rule out the idea that it is a bioweapon made by Batman to sabotage the Marvel movie's box office returns. Who knows?

And sure, bats are not really common in that area, but look at the weird animals that were available at the wet market where this whole thing started to get out of control. I'd be mildly surprised if there we *not* any bats there.



Drew said:


> Wncouraging news on the booster front -
> 
> https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/08/25/world/covid-delta-variant-vaccine
> 
> tl;dr and for those not able to get past the paywall, J&J has found a second shot of their vaccine provides an antibody response ranging from as least as large, to 9x more robust, than the first shot. Pfizer has reported broadly similar results, and per inverviews with some immunologists cited in a Bloomberg article I saw this morning that I don't know where to find off the terminal, this is not a terribly un-standard result, that the immune system needs to have a couple interactions with a pathogen to really get up to speed fighting it off, and the more repetitions, the faster and better the immune response.
> 
> As always, hardly definitive, but a story to watch and potentially encouraging news.



Good to know that the boosters are going to be here soon for the various types of vaccines, but I still haven't heard anyone give a date. I'd venture a guess that there's a small but significant chance that the first date we hear will be postponed anyway, but it'd be nice to have some idea what the time frame will end up being.



mbardu said:


> There doesn't need to be a conspiracy for a careless employee and a couple of safety failures to allow an enhanced coronavirus to leave the lab and start infecting people in Wuhan. Just needs short-sightedness and negligence, which the world (including the scientific world) still has plenty of.



Yes, but if there was a lab leak and the Chinese government conspired to cover it up, it becomes a conspiracy.

I remember a time when it was considered a conspiracy theory to say that Bush had been warned about the 911 attacks and just didn't take it seriously, and then the White House just swept the warnings under the rug as if they never existed and lied in response to when the intelligence people brought it up. 20 years later, that's pretty much the accepted version of events. The idea came into mainstream acceptance late enough to allow Bush to be re-elected under the guise that he handled the attacks in the best possible way.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> I feel like, if you asked a hundred people, you'd get these two theories and quite a few in between.


Qoting this but responding to the whole post - yeah, I mean, I guess I laid out the two endpoints of a continuum, more than a full set of options - I think the Capital-L Lab Leak thing is probably a cluster, though, including the accidental or intentional leak of a lab-made bioengineered virus, and I think this is an _extremely_ unlikely outcome. As you start to soften the theory though, the accidental transmission of an existing virus at the lab becomes a lot more plausible. More or less plausible than a wet market transmission, eh, I'd say maybe just a little more simply due to seasonal factors, bt in either event if the Wuhan Lab DOES end up being involved somehow, this is almost certainly how it would have happened. 

It's tough, though, because - thanks in large part to Trump et al's early insistance that "the China virus" was created at Wuhan - there's a LOT of baggage in this range of possibilities, and part of my initial resistance to the theory was how firmly the Trump administration set the goalposts initially around the leak of a lab-made virus and how that became the initial narrative. 



bostjan said:


> I remember a time when it was considered a conspiracy theory to say that Bush had been warned about the 911 attacks and just didn't take it seriously, and then the White House just swept the warnings under the rug as if they never existed and lied in response to when the intelligence people brought it up.


To be fair, the narrative is a little more complex than that - Clinton was very concerned about al Qaeda as a terrorist threat to the US, including potentially an attack on US soil, going as far as to produce a fairly in-depth dossier to provide to the incoming Bush administration that was then basically ignored as they preferred to focus on state sponsors. And, there was some intel that, well after the fact, was able to be assembled into growing evidence of the actual 9/11 attacks... but it's far easier to tell what's important and what isn't in hindsight, and it's not like the Clinton administration told Bush, "hey, al Qaeda is going to hijack airplanes and crash them into buildings," and they did nothing. Certainly possible I missed something, but the 9/11 Commission's report concluded it was an intelligence failure, rather than good intelligence that the Bush administration just ignored. That, we probably SHOULD have been able to put enough of the puzzle together, but failed to.


----------



## bostjan

There was an accidental release of weaponized disease once before. IIRC it was some sort of anthrax that was accidentally released in Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan or something. There have been other instances where it's been imagined quite a bit as explanation for other events, but at least there is one case that is fairly well documented and accepted, even if it's rarely talked about.

As for 911, it's off topic, but the CIA did give Bush a briefing something like just days or a weekish before 911 that literally said that Osama bin Laden had planned on hijacking a bunch of commercial airliners and killing lots of people. It didn't exactly say that they were targeting the WTC, but it wasn't just "here's a dossier that something might happen," it was more along the lines of a one-sheet paper with a verbal discussion of "here's what this bad guy is planning and very close to doing" and it ended up being the first half of that same bad guy's actual plan just a few days later. IDK how that's an intelligence failure.


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## Drew

re: 9/11, I'll have to go back and do some reading, if I'm being honest i havent read anything on the subject in 10 years. It's actually looking rather like I'll be in DC for the 20th anniversary of the attacks, so it wouldn't hurt to refresh.  

Part of why I think it's insanely unlikely that a genetically modified virus wasn't accidentally or intentionally released, though, is because that type of research is _extremely_ closely restricted, and _extremely_ hard to do with any degree of control. I've shared this link before but it's worth a re-share, as the sole western scientist to be working in the lab around the time Covid-19 likely began circulating: 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...a-lab-scientist-at-wuhan-institute-speaks-out

tl;dr - no one at the lab had been sick around the time transmission must have happened, if anyone WAS doing gain-of-function research then not a soul else at the lab knew about it, and while containment measures at the lab were world class, occasionally mistakes do happen and if Wuhan was the source it was almost certainly in that. 

I mean, the other thing, is that it's kind of a natural Occam's Razor - we have no real evidence, or reason to believe, that SARS-Cov-2 was lab-grown, and it probably wouldn't even be on anyone's radar if it wasn't for the fact that there WAS a lab studying coronaviruses in the province the disease was first discovered. SARS-Cov-2 doesn't have to be lab grown for the lab to be the source of the original transmission, and like China needs any excuse to be shady as fuck into any public outside investigation into anything that could even _potentially_ be described as creating the appearance of wrongdoing on their part.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> re: 9/11, I'll have to go back and do some reading, if I'm being honest i havent read anything on the subject in 10 years. It's actually looking rather like I'll be in DC for the 20th anniversary of the attacks, so it wouldn't hurt to refresh.
> 
> Part of why I think it's insanely unlikely that a genetically modified virus wasn't accidentally or intentionally released, though, is because that type of research is _extremely_ closely restricted, and _extremely_ hard to do with any degree of control. I've shared this link before but it's worth a re-share, as the sole western scientist to be working in the lab around the time Covid-19 likely began circulating:
> 
> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...a-lab-scientist-at-wuhan-institute-speaks-out
> 
> tl;dr - no one at the lab had been sick around the time transmission must have happened, if anyone WAS doing gain-of-function research then not a soul else at the lab knew about it, and while containment measures at the lab were world class, occasionally mistakes do happen and if Wuhan was the source it was almost certainly in that.
> 
> I mean, the other thing, is that it's kind of a natural Occam's Razor - we have no real evidence, or reason to believe, that SARS-Cov-2 was lab-grown, and it probably wouldn't even be on anyone's radar if it wasn't for the fact that there WAS a lab studying coronaviruses in the province the disease was first discovered. SARS-Cov-2 doesn't have to be lab grown for the lab to be the source of the original transmission, and like China needs any excuse to be shady as fuck into any public outside investigation into anything that could even _potentially_ be described as creating the appearance of wrongdoing on their part.



What is extremely closely restricted in the public eye is often surprisingly loose in one way, shape, or form, if you dig into it. It could have been something as simple as a lab tech didn't get enough sleep the night before and chucked a sample in the wrong bin. No safety checks in place, bin goes to the wrong facility, and voila- a deadly virus is on a scrap of whatever material that gets handled carelessly.

Is it likely? Not at all. But neither was someone with a weakened immune system eating a pangolin that just happened to have bat shit on it, with the bat having been infected with just the right mutation of a virus to infect the pangolin and then subsequently the human who ate it, right?

If you asked me where this stupid virus came from, all I can do is speculate, because the only correct answer anyone can give at this point, especially me, is "hell if I know."


----------



## Xaios

bostjan said:


> If you asked me where this stupid virus came from, all I can do is speculate, because the only correct answer anyone can give at this point, especially me, is "hell if I know."


Aye. At this point, as far as the public good goes, it doesn't really matter. The supposed source of the virus is just a political football being thrown around which enables various governments to play the blame game.


----------



## Randy

Xaios said:


> Aye. At this point, as far as the public good goes, it doesn't really matter. The supposed source of the virus is just a political football being thrown around which enables various governments to play the blame game.



Seems one sided. International community says it happened in nature, China says we bioengineered it and deposited it there, then tried to blame them. That seems a bit lopsided.


----------



## Bodes

An interesting statistic from the New South Wales, Australia, Health department:



I know this will probably not change many anti-vaxxer thoughts on not to vaccinate themselves.

NSW also had over 1000 one-day new COVID cases for the first time yesterday. I know these seem like small numbers to the rest of the world, but Australia has taken a very different approach to the virus.


----------



## mbardu

Randy said:


> Seems one sided. International community says it happened in nature, China says we bioengineered it and deposited it there, then tried to blame them. That seems a bit lopsided.



A lot of that has changed and a number of countries and the WHO are saying the lab escape/accident hypothesis is not really unlikely _at all_. Most people who are still considering it as "out there conspiracy" are usually remembering Trump suggesting it, and having the knee jerk reaction of "it must be wrong".

Also just for laughs for those who haven't seen it:


----------



## spudmunkey

What I keep thinking about is the history of "artificial" sweeteners. That more than a couple discoveries were made when a lab worker, working on some unrelated chemistry, accidentally licked their fingers or forgot to wash their hands before lunch. Saccharine, Aspartame and I think at least one more were all discovered like that, if I remember right.


----------



## Randy

spudmunkey said:


> What I keep thinking about is the history of "artificial" sweeteners. That more than a couple discoveries were made when a lab worker, working on some unrelated chemistry, accidentally licked their fingers or forgot to wash their hands before lunch. Saccharine, Aspartame and I think at least one more were all discovered like that, if I remember right.



So what you're saying is the next big thing is gonna be Coke Guano flavored?


----------



## CovertSovietBear

I've seen more than a few scientists grab their phone after handling viruses (notably, lentiviruses, but the worse offenders were my undergraduates ), so not at all surprised by how some discoveries have been made, though I guess it differs by what field you're in.



Bodes said:


> An interesting statistic from the New South Wales, Australia, Health department:
> View attachment 97155
> 
> 
> I know this will probably not change many anti-vaxxer thoughts on not to vaccinate themselves.
> 
> NSW also had over 1000 one-day new COVID cases for the first time yesterday. I know these seem like small numbers to the rest of the world, but Australia has taken a very different approach to the virus.



How's the current vaccine situation in Australia? Not sure if the Pfizer booster has been approved but I'm due soon if they do, seems unfair given how many other places still need their initial dose.


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## ArtDecade

CovertSovietBear said:


> How's the current vaccine situation in Australia? Not sure if the Pfizer booster has been approved but I'm due soon if they do, seems unfair given how many other places still need their initial dose.



25% of the population is fully vaccinated. Australia took a little while to approve the American-made vaccines so now that there are more options available as of early August.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> What is extremely closely restricted in the public eye is often surprisingly loose in one way, shape, or form, if you dig into it. It could have been something as simple as a lab tech didn't get enough sleep the night before and chucked a sample in the wrong bin. No safety checks in place, bin goes to the wrong facility, and voila- a deadly virus is on a scrap of whatever material that gets handled carelessly.


Again, though, that's with the assumption it was bioengineered (if I read your post right - the "gain of function" research is extremely restricted, meaning if no one working in the lab, including non-Chinese citizens, knew it was happening, it very likely wasn't). What you're describing here is the sort of accidental leak that could happen even with pretty good safety protocols if someone happened to accidentally run up against a gap, with a naturally occurring sample. Like I said, mistakes happen. But if someone was doing gain-of-function research in Wuhan, it was without the knowledge of most/all of their colleagues. Not impossible, but much more unlikely.

But, end of the day, at the moment we don't know. Some sort of lab leak/accidntal transmission of a naturally occuring virus, as a hypothesis, is at least plausible - probably about as plausible as a wet market, considering it's a little hard to get live bats to sell when they're not widely found in your province and are busy hibernating. Which is _also _not impossible, but not likely, if significantly more likely than secret unregulated gain of function research that no one else at the lab knew about. 



bostjan said:


> If you asked me where this stupid virus came from, all I can do is speculate, because the only correct answer anyone can give at this point, especially me, is "hell if I know."



I mean, it's an internet discussion message board. We're here to share information and speculate, there's nothing wrong with speculation, provided you're sharing information the speculation is based on.


----------



## Drew

ArtDecade said:


> 25% of the population is fully vaccinated. Australia took a little while to approve the American-made vaccines so now that there are more options available as of early August.


As I understand there was also some slow initial uptake, as an unfortunate byproduct of the fact you Aussies did a good enough job of quarantining and closing your borders, that vaccination felt a lot less urgent than it did for, say, Americans Who Don't Primarily Watch Fox News.


----------



## profwoot

If covid began as a bioweapon, its creators were supremely incompetent. A perfect bioweapon is one that quickly kills everyone it infects so it doesn't have time to make it back around the world and infect the people who created it. A virus that is extremely transmissible with a long asymptomatic stage and that takes a few weeks to kill a small percentage is just about the worst possible bioweapon.

I don't have a strong opinion regarding its actual origins, but I still lean a bit toward the unregulated wet markets in wuhan, around which the first cases have been tracked to, and which are known to deal in relevant wild animals. A natural interaction origin would have happened much farther south where said animals actually live, and an accidental lab leak would presumably have led to the first cases appearing near the lab, or I guess near someplace else the lab might have been sending samples. So it's either the original wet market hypothesis, or if one insists on it being malicious, some kind of ad hoc half-assed plan involving a disgruntled lackey planting it near the market to provide cover. Of course then you'd expect the og covid strain to be very similar to one at the wuhan lab, which it isn't, as far as anybody knows (last I read, anyway).


----------



## bostjan

profwoot said:


> If covid began as a bioweapon, its creators were supremely incompetent. A perfect bioweapon is one that quickly kills everyone it infects so it doesn't have time to make it back around the world and infect the people who created it. A virus that is extremely transmissible with a long asymptomatic stage and that takes a few weeks to kill a small percentage is just about the worst possible bioweapon.
> 
> I don't have a strong opinion regarding its actual origins, but I still lean a bit toward the unregulated wet markets in wuhan, around which the first cases have been tracked to, and which are known to deal in relevant wild animals. A natural interaction origin would have happened much farther south where said animals actually live, and an accidental lab leak would presumably have led to the first cases appearing near the lab, or I guess near someplace else the lab might have been sending samples. So it's either the original wet market hypothesis, or if one insists on it being malicious, some kind of ad hoc half-assed plan involving a disgruntled lackey planting it near the market to provide cover. Of course then you'd expect the og covid strain to be very similar to one at the wuhan lab, which it isn't, as far as anybody knows (last I read, anyway).


It depends on what you want the bioweapon to do, but I agree. But, most chemical and biological weapons are not engineered to be weapons, they are usually mistakes. The guy who discovered the irritating effects of mustard gas was just messing around with ether and tried tasting the product of ether and chlorine ( https://zenodo.org/record/1885270#.YSfrGI1Ki70 p117 ). It's not like the computer games where you type in the mortality and transmitability you want and print viruses out or something.


----------



## Drew

profwoot said:


> A virus that is extremely transmissible with a long asymptomatic stage and that takes a few weeks to kill a small percentage is just about the worst possible bioweapon.


I mean, beyond that, it's also _extremely _standard for a coronavirus. Nothing abnormal about the incubation period, nothing abnormal about the progression, nothing even that abnormal about the symptoms, for a novel virus... Nothing about how Covid-19 infects people and the symptoms it causes are at all abnormal to the degree that it begins to become suspicious it was engineered rather than naurally occuring. 

What Covid-19 IS, however, is a viral disease that does seem awfully opportune, with the long incubation period, high r*, and relatively low fatality that makes it pretty unlikely to burn itself out. If there was a disease out there somewhere that, if transferred into a human host, would kick off a global pandemic, it stands to reason that it would be something much like this.


----------



## Bodes

Drew said:


> As I understand there was also some slow initial uptake, as an unfortunate byproduct of the fact you Aussies did a good enough job of quarantining and closing your borders, that vaccination felt a lot less urgent than it did for, say, Americans Who Don't Primarily Watch Fox News.



It was a slow uptake. Mainly due to our Prime Minister being a total farquad. He wanted to only use AZ as we could manufacture it here, it took longer than expected to get going. Then the eligibility was extremely restricted, by the PM.
Now we have a reasonable amount of vaccines, and eligibility has opened up to 16 year olds, we don't have the people to actually administer the vaccines quick enough.
We have crap loads of AZ,but everyone wants Pfizer, again due to our PM being a douche.
Sorry, am I blaming our moronic PM for everything?
He has a very punchable face.

Also we had to have an ex-PM negaotiate woth Pfizer after our current-PM told them to go jump in a lake.
FFS


----------



## Demiurge

Today we received a mask mandate at work. We don't need to wear them while we're at our desks as misery kills 99.9% of viruses.


----------



## jaxadam

Demiurge said:


> as misery kills 99.9% of viruses.



:highfive:


----------



## estabon37

Bodes said:


> It was a slow uptake. Mainly due to our Prime Minister being a total farquad. He wanted to only use AZ as we could manufacture it here, it took longer than expected to get going. Then the eligibility was extremely restricted, by the PM.
> Now we have a reasonable amount of vaccines, and eligibility has opened up to 16 year olds, we don't have the people to actually administer the vaccines quick enough.
> We have crap loads of AZ,but everyone wants Pfizer, again due to our PM being a douche.
> Sorry, am I blaming our moronic PM for everything?
> He has a very punchable face.
> 
> Also we had to have an ex-PM negaotiate woth Pfizer after our current-PM told them to go jump in a lake.
> FFS



The eligibility element was the biggest factor for everyone in my (admittedly tiny) social circle. I live on a state border, working as a teacher in the state that I don't live in, which has on-and-off meant having to use the permission forms of the two different states at different points in time in order to travel between home and work. I'm older than I'd estimate 60-70% of my colleagues, and I'm 39 - 1 year younger than the eligibility limit that existed for MONTHS. Everyone I worked with wanted a vaccine and very few of us were allowed to get them. 

My principal managed to find a bit of a loophole in the system that meant we could all qualify around a week before they opened it up to over-16s anyway. I lucked out and got a quick appointment, somehow getting in before a few of my colleagues that had been eligible for a while (they're not exactly prioritising regional areas for vaccines when the two most populous cities are being hit hard). 

I have half a mind to kick off a whole other thread in this corner of the forum around the implications of Remote Learning on the future of education .... but teaching is a sufficiently busy job that I think this is my first post on the forum in around seven years, so I might need to retire before I try to become a regular contributor to the forum again.


----------



## Drew

Demiurge said:


> Today we received a mask mandate at work. We don't need to wear them while we're at our desks as misery kills 99.9% of viruses.


Ha! Same! 

We're only required to wear them in public spaces in the building, but it's "recommended" we wear them inside our passcard-protected floor and at our desks, and I could tell our HR person giving us this update was not happy about it and was probably bowing to the sheer number of people contacting her and saying "hey, it's crazy that we're being required to come into the office during this Delta wave when there are no masks." The requirement to come in at least twice a week is still in place but we're being told if we don't feel safe or are otherwise at risk we can stay home (and I'm more productive from here so I plan on it), and the requirement thay we start coming in 4x a week after Labor Day has been pushed back at least a month. 

This whole situation is stupid, we're in the middle of surging cases and even here in Massachusetts breakthrough cases are happening often enough, we know vaccinated people can still spread covid if they have a breakthrough case, and I work in an office with 50-something people. We've proven we can run our company from home, we've done it from more than a year in VERY trying circumstances, there's no reason to come back now if it entails any risk at all to do so.


----------



## Drew

estabon37 said:


> My principal managed to find a bit of a loophole in the system that meant we could all qualify around a week before they opened it up to over-16s anyway. I lucked out and got a quick appointment, somehow getting in before a few of my colleagues that had been eligible for a while (they're not exactly prioritising regional areas for vaccines when the two most populous cities are being hit hard).


I got in through a loophole, too - they lowered the risk factors from two to one, and the weight factor from a BMI of "obese" to one of "overweight" about a month before they opened it up to the general public. I put on a couple pounds over the late winter/spring due to insane work stress, but I'm still what most people would call slim - the problem is, I'm also a road cyclist, so I carry a TON more lower body muscle than your average person, and my BMI had juuuuust crept up over 25 shortly before the announcement.  So, I have a power-to-weight ratio probably right around 4w/kg, which will destroy most cyclists on a long climb, outside of a professional peloton at least... but on paper I'm "overweight," so I got the shot in early April.


----------



## nightflameauto

Drew said:


> We've proven we can run our company from home, we've done it from more than a year in VERY trying circumstances, there's no reason to come back now if it entails any risk at all to do so.


The reason is a pretty simple one, at least at my business. The boss's feel that if people aren't in their line of sight they aren't working. Despite the fact our team developed an entire new product line from home in record time AND managed to get the catalogs updated AND rebuilt the ordering web site. They caught two dumb fucks in customer service that would log in in the morning so they were "visible" on teams, then post updates to facebook of them at the beach, or at the mall, or out to eat during their working hours. Rather than scold those two, we got the word in less than 24 hours after these jackwagons fucked up that we were all required to come back to the office no matter what our circumstances were unless we tested positive. Period. End of story.

Management doesn't do logical processing. They insist we all be punished when one person screws the pooch. At least, that's the only conclusion we've been able to come to from this situation, and it's not the first time we've gotten company wide changes because one of two people did something stupid. Thus far we haven't lost any lives due to management stupidity, but if the virus keeps circulating it's only a matter of time.

What I wouldn't give for a logical world. SMH.


----------



## Drew

nightflameauto said:


> The reason is a pretty simple one, at least at my business. The boss's feel that if people aren't in their line of sight they aren't working.


Our situation isn't as cut and dry as yours, but I suspect that's part of it. Two things, that I see, are driving our decision. 

1) There was a LOT of concern that productivity would fall when we first made the decision to go remote for "two, maybe three, weeks" back in March of 2020 (which happened in the nick of time, my now-fiancee is a doctor and became symptomatic that following Sunday after we shut the office down on Friday, and I only didn't infect the whole company by the narrowest of margins), and senior non-C-suite colleagues do appear to be being coached to say how much more productive they feel now that they're back in the office. 

2) My company was founded by a bunch of old-school Mainers, and there's this very old school "it takes more than a little bit of snow to stop ME from getting to work in the morning!" attitude at the place - for the longest time, while on paper we were allowed to work from home during a blizzard, if you were at all a person they saw as someone with a career at the place, you were subtly and sometimes not so subtly encouraged to find some way to get in to work, and it was always strongly implied being there in adverse conditions was good for your career. That attitude has NOT served us well in Covid - our 65+ year old president still goes into the office most days now, and we did my year end review/salary adjustment stuff in person in December in one of our big conference rooms (in masks, at least). I think it was the exception and not the norm this year as I made partner, but I don't know that for a fact and he very well may have met face to face with everyone VP-or-above, which frankly is an insane unnecessary risk.


----------



## MFB

Drew said:


> Ha! Same!
> 
> We're only required to wear them in public spaces in the building, but it's "recommended" we wear them inside our passcard-protected floor and at our desks, and I could tell our HR person giving us this update was not happy about it and was probably bowing to the sheer number of people contacting her and saying "hey, it's crazy that we're being required to come into the office during this Delta wave when there are no masks." The requirement to come in at least twice a week is still in place but we're being told if we don't feel safe or are otherwise at risk we can stay home (and I'm more productive from here so I plan on it), and the requirement thay we start coming in 4x a week after Labor Day has been pushed back at least a month.
> 
> This whole situation is stupid, we're in the middle of surging cases and even here in Massachusetts breakthrough cases are happening often enough, we know vaccinated people can still spread covid if they have a breakthrough case, and I work in an office with 50-something people. We've proven we can run our company from home, we've done it from more than a year in VERY trying circumstances, there's no reason to come back now if it entails any risk at all to do so.



Same for my office in Charlestown, mask when we're coming into the building to our office, and in our office if we're going to the kitchen/bathroom - but aside from that, it's business as usual. It's like a 2 mins walk up to our suite so I'm not too bothered by it, I just need to find what the hell I did with my actual good masks so I'm not buying more disposables that I won't need.

My biggest up in the air right now is if my gym in Waltham is following suit and requiring them again, in which case, I won't be happy


----------



## Demiurge

Drew said:


> This whole situation is stupid, we're in the middle of surging cases and even here in Massachusetts breakthrough cases are happening often enough, we know vaccinated people can still spread covid if they have a breakthrough case, and I work in an office with 50-something people. We've proven we can run our company from home, we've done it from more than a year in VERY trying circumstances, there's no reason to come back now if it entails any risk at all to do so.



The email announcing the mask mandate included the cheerful announcement that we had finally reached 75% capacity back in the office, because it was seemingly more important to achieve that status than anything else. To paraphrase the old joke, they're going to do on Wednesday what they wanted to do Monday regardless of what happened on Tuesday.

What really irks people is that the contrasting 25% are customer service reps whose positions are now all work-from-home while no such offer was made to anyone else. It was always going to be interesting to see how companies handled the return in the sense that ending work-from-home would be seen as rescinding a perk or a privilege, so this was pretty bad.


----------



## Drew

MFB said:


> My biggest up in the air right now is if my gym in Waltham is following suit and requiring them again, in which case, I won't be happy


Regardless of whether it's mandated, the CDC is _recommending_ people wear masks indoors in public places in moderate to high risk areas now, and specifically included gyms in their examples. All of Massachusetts is moderate to high risk. I'd wear a mask if I were you.


----------



## thebeesknees22

I wear my mask in the gym. It's really not a big deal to have one on while working out.

Only about 10% of us actually wear masks while working in the gym I'm at though which is ....kinda annoying tbh

You'll never pass ninja school if you can't do a workout without one!


----------



## fantom

Demiurge said:


> The email announcing the mask mandate included the cheerful announcement that we had finally reached 75% capacity back in the office, because it was seemingly more important to achieve that status than anything else. To paraphrase the old joke, they're going to do on Wednesday what they wanted to do Monday regardless of what happened on Tuesday.



Metrics should not dictate strategy. Isn't this common sense for anyone with a business background by now?


----------



## bostjan

Sort of on topic, but it looks like Jeopardy hostess Miyam Bialik is being targeted by cancel culture over a statement she made 10+ years ago about vaccines. I dunno, I just find it sad that people with no scientific literacy are trying to go after someone for being anti-science, when that person has a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA.

There's an indoor concert here in my little nowhere town (in our abandoned mall no less) in September. How irresponsible would it be to go and wear a mask?


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> I dunno, I just find it sad that people with no scientific literacy are trying to go after someone for being anti-science, when that person has a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA.



How so ... don't you know that nowadays just saying "everyone should just get the vaccine and shut up" gives you automatic intellectual superiority  ?



bostjan said:


> There's an indoor concert here in my little nowhere town (in our abandoned mall no less) in September. How irresponsible would it be to go and wear a mask?



If it were me, I wouldn't go. Maybe for a couple more months still.
But maybe that's just paranoia and it'll perfectly fine with a mask.

I feel there's also a difference between being packed like sardines at a sold-out full-capacity event vs reasonable distancing in a larger (relatively speaking) venue with limited capacity and distancing. Not sure which one applies here.


----------



## TedEH

bostjan said:


> Jeopardy hostess Miyam Bialik is being targeted by cancel culture over a statement she made 10+ years ago about vaccines


Didn't you know, only perfect people are allowed to have jobs.

In some seriousness, I was under the impression she was making relatively recent claims that doubled down on the hesitancy even if she reluctantly agreed to the jab. Also the bits about shilling for very pseudo-science-y stuff while banking on her "I'm totally a real scientist" credibility and popularity from Big Bang.


----------



## SpaceDock

I get to go back to work for the first time since March of last year just to clear out my old desk then go to a party with my direct group. We are planning to never go back to working in the office, just go back for group trainings or team building activities. Can’t say I am upset.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

TedEH said:


> Didn't you know, only perfect people are allowed to have jobs.



If only folks shilled as hard for everyday folks who made a stupid decision years ago and are thus blocked from gainful employment or equal representation in society as they do millionaires and billionaires who just want to be bigger more powerful millionaires and billionaires.


----------



## Bodes

I hope they don't mix up my 2nd dose of AZ today (lining up now) as I'd prefer to have better 5G reception than the Metal Zone circuitry.


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> If only folks shilled as hard for everyday folks who made a stupid decision years ago and are thus blocked from gainful employment or equal representation in society as they do millionaires and billionaires who just want to be bigger more powerful millionaires and billionaires.



It would suck if it happened, but luckily I don't think _anyone _around these parts is shilling for billionaires to get bigger and more powerful. Quite the opposite, and for good reason  . Similarly, most people here would lean (or _think _that they lean) heavily on the side of equity, inclusiveness, rehabiliation and forgiveness (re: your comment on employment/representation vs past mistakes***).

The comment above was something else entirely- about how a lot of people feel intellectually superior, not because they have the training, self awareness, or actual wits to back it up ... but because they've been baited to think "if you _just _do X or believe in Y, then it _proves _that you're smarter and superior to those _other _people who _must _all be dumb antivaxers". Which I would find amusing in how stupidly well it works, if I was not also a _tad _scared of how dehumanizing and cult-like it ends up.

_***: forgiveness/equity and understanding mistakes does not apply to the non-vaccinated...those can just die amirite _


----------



## jaxadam

We had a friend participate in a University of Texas antibody study. They got both Pfizers in February, and currently test negative for antibodies (no antibodies present). They also tested negative for natural antibodies, so they never had asymptomatic covid. I think their doc is not recommending the Pfizer booster, but switching to Moderna.


----------



## Bodes

jaxadam said:


> We had a friend participate in a University of Texas antibody study. They got both Pfizers in February, and currently test negative for antibodies (no antibodies present). They also tested negative for natural antibodies, so they never had asymptomatic covid. I think their doc is not recommending the Pfizer booster, but switching to Moderna.



Reading stories like this more often. I really wonder how much of a difference the Moderna will be considering how they are both mRNA-based vaccines.
Good luck to your friend and thank them for being part of the study. The more information the world has on these new vaccines, the better.


----------



## StevenC

bostjan said:


> Sort of on topic, but it looks like Jeopardy hostess Miyam Bialik is being targeted by cancel culture over a statement she made 10+ years ago about vaccines. I dunno, I just find it sad that people with no scientific literacy are trying to go after someone for being anti-science, when that person has a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA.
> 
> There's an indoor concert here in my little nowhere town (in our abandoned mall no less) in September. How irresponsible would it be to go and wear a mask?


Is this the same lady who says people born by C-section aren't favoured evolutionarily and should have passed peacefully instead? Or the one who's a big supporter of what Israel is doing to Palestinians? Or the one who said Weinstein victims were asking for it because of how they dressed?

I don't care what degree she has.


----------



## mbardu

StevenC said:


> Is this the same lady who says people born by C-section aren't favoured evolutionarily and should have passed peacefully instead? Or the one who's a big supporter of what Israel is doing to Palestinians? Or the one who said Weinstein victims were asking for it because of how they dressed?
> 
> I don't care what degree she has.



See, the thing is... I don't really know that much about that person, but what is more likely? That she is the _cartoonishly _evil person that you describe who has all those crazy views, and that should be dehumanized and hated as a result? It has it all, right? Anti woman, anti Palestine, anti science.

Or is it more likely she is painted in such a light on purpose by people who want to "cancel" (what a shitty word) or decridibilize her? Hoping that nobody will actually check on any of those things.


----------



## StevenC

mbardu said:


> See, the thing is... I don't really know that much about that person, but what is more likely? That she is a _cartoonishly _evil person that you describe who has all those crazy views, and that should be dehumanized and hated as a result?
> Or that she is painted in such a light on purpose by people who want to "cancel" (what a shitty word) or decridibilize her?


She has said these things a bunch of times over the years. I'm not saying she's cartoonishly evil, I'm saying she's delusional and self serving.

She's shilling nootropics for goodness sake. No one needs to paint her any way in particular, she does it herself.


----------



## mbardu

StevenC said:


> She has said these things a bunch of times over the years. I'm not saying she's cartoonishly evil, I'm saying she's delusional and self serving.



OK you made me look so on your 3 points:

1- Regarding C-section, she didn't say "people born by C-section aren't favoured evolutionarily and should have passed peacefully instead". She said "I don't believe that, but I do know that there are people who think that".

2- Regarding Israel/Palestine, apparently her thought-crime is to believe that Israel has a right to exist. Oh, and to be Jewish. She says:


> Israel deserves to live as an autonomous, free and secure nation. The Palestinian people deserve the same. What is happening now by extremists on both sides is tragic. It’s horrible. This is unacceptable. And I have to hope that peace and justice will be


I don't know about you, but I cannot see how "The Palestinian people deserve to live as an autonomous, free and secure nation" means we should oppress them.


3- Regarding women, in her NYT op-ed, she says stuff like:


> Women should be able to wear whatever they want. They should be able to flirt however they want with whomever they want. Why are we the ones who have to police our behavior?



So pretty much the opposite of "Weinstein victims were asking for it". The op-ed is there for all to read if interested. it's hardly an attack on women but mor an introspection and "this industry is very shitty, it didn't start with Weinstein, at least I consider myself lucky I wasn't a victim of it because I wasn't as pretty as others".


Sounds to me like on-purpose manipulation to make someone look evil. All with one-liners that nobody will bother to check. And people fall for it because it's nice to hate on others and feel superior.


----------



## StevenC

I just keep falling for it


----------



## mbardu

StevenC said:


> I just keep falling for it



Well at least acknowledgement is the first step to change


----------



## TedEH

Well, if we're going to go down that rabbit hole, I don't think anyone went as far as cartoonishly evil. She's definitely an influential person who has the credentials to be able to speak from an apparent position of authority, who has a track record of saying dumb things.

Here's a thing she said in 2020 (as in not 10 years ago) while trying to convince everyone that their criticisms of her were unfounded:
"Do I believe that most people don't even know what hep B is, but vaccinate their newborns for it anyway because they're simply told to? Yes." Then went on to imply that we give children too many vaccines just because it's in the education system's interest to keep butts in chairs for money or something.


----------



## IwantTacos

mbardu said:


> OK you made me look so on your 3 points:
> 
> 1- Regarding C-section, she didn't say "people born by C-section aren't favoured evolutionarily and should have passed peacefully instead". She said "I don't believe that, but I do know that there are people who think that".
> 
> 2- Regarding Israel/Palestine, apparently her thought-crime is to believe that Israel has a right to exist. Oh, and to be Jewish. She says:
> 
> I don't know about you, but I cannot see how "The Palestinian people deserve to live as an autonomous, free and secure nation" means we should oppress them.
> 
> 
> 3- Regarding women, in her NYT op-ed, she says stuff like:
> 
> 
> So pretty much the opposite of "Weinstein victims were asking for it". The op-ed is there for all to read if interested. it's hardly an attack on women but mor an introspection and "this industry is very shitty, it didn't start with Weinstein, at least I consider myself lucky I wasn't a victim of it because I wasn't as pretty as others".
> 
> 
> Sounds to me like on-purpose manipulation to make someone look evil. All with one-liners that nobody will bother to check. And people fall for it because it's nice to hate on others and feel superior.


Israel cannot exist without oppressing Palestine. 

awaiting your novel.


----------



## mbardu

IwantTacos said:


> Israel cannot exist without oppressing Palestine.
> 
> awaiting your novel.



Well sorry to disappoint with the debate you want to have, but I am _far _from a hardline zionist so that's not going to happen.
I actually side more closely with the Palestinian cause than with the Israeli one.

And my intention was not to debate that. Just to say that it's funny to see how you can grossly misrepresent someone's positions in order to make them look ridiculously evil, and people easily buy it without question as long as it fits their bias because they just like to hate.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> Well, if we're going to go down that rabbit hole, I don't think anyone went as far as cartoonishly evil. She's definitely an influential person who has the credentials to be able to speak from an apparent position of authority, who has a track record of saying dumb things.
> 
> Here's a thing she said in 2020 (as in not 10 years ago) while trying to convince everyone that their criticisms of her were unfounded:
> "Do I believe that most people don't even know what hep B is, but vaccinate their newborns for it anyway because they're simply told to? Yes." Then went on to imply that we give children too many vaccines just because it's in the education system's interest to keep butts in chairs for money or something.



But it _is _a "cartoonishly" or ridiculously exaggerated picture to make someone look evil or dumb. Just take everything that is a sensitive topic, (anti-woman, anti-science, motherF-ing Israel-Palestine conflict  ) and paint someone with having made up extremist positions on those, in the worst light possible, even if they said _the opposite _of what you imply... and you are creating a "villain" just for people to hate on and feel superior to. Then it's easy to say "yeah that person sucks" or "her diploma or qualifications don't count haha".

As for your quote on "most people don't even know what hep B is, but vaccinate their newborns for it anyway because they're simply told to? Yes"....
How is that dumb? Most parents _don't _really know what hep B is and how it works, and most parents _do _say "yes" to vaccines because they're told it's the right thing to do. That's pretty factual. That's not saying it's wrong to vaccinate, or that the pros don't outweigh whatever cons there may be. They most certainly frequently do. But I'm not discussing the benefits of Hep-B vaccination, and the statement itself doesn't discuss any of that either.

After that, it's a side discussion, but you'd have to be a bit naive to not think "getting children's butt into school chairs" is a pretty high priority at the social level nowadays.
For a number of reason: from _having _to have 2 parents slave away full time (not taking care of kids) in the shitty society we've built...to the fact that a lot of exhausted parents simply cannot actually stand to live the whole day with their kids  .
If you need any proof, just look at right now. Covid is at its worse in many areas in the USA, and everyone is acting like it's just not a thing. School is starting as normal everywhere, there are not any "remote learning" options left, and you're considered delinquent if you don't put your child in school to catch Covid. All that despite pretty much _all _school districts reporting clusters of Covid days after opening.


----------



## Bodes

Damn. I think I got the Metal Zone vaccine. I have woken up a little fuzzy this morning.
It could have been the beers I had watching my AFL team win a finals match. But I am 100% certain it was the MT-2. 

Considering how sick I felt after jab #1, I can not complain one bit, whether it is a vaccine or beer induced fuzziness.


----------



## fantom

profwoot said:


> If covid began as a bioweapon, its creators were supremely incompetent. A perfect bioweapon is one that quickly kills everyone it infects so it doesn't have time to make it back around the world and infect the people who created it. A virus that is extremely transmissible with a long asymptomatic stage and that takes a few weeks to kill a small percentage is just about the worst possible bioweapon



If it were a bioweapon, why assume the motivations were to kill a targeted number of people quickly? If you assume they intended to infect as many people as possible and wanted global chaos for years if not decades, I'd argue they were more than competent.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> But it _is _a "cartoonishly" or ridiculously exaggerated picture to make someone look evil or dumb


It's not "painting someone as" anything if they plainly said or did something dumb. She actively promotes "brain booster" pills that have been thoroughly debunked despite being a neuroscientist. I've done no painting - she's holding the brush herself.



mbardu said:


> As for your quote [...] How is that dumb?


Because it was used as justification for the idea that we give too many vaccines to kids. Nevermind that (as far as I understand it) all these vaccines have helped keep child mortality rates much lower than they've ever been historically. It doesn't matter that the premise is true, it does not follow that being unaware of what a disease is would be a good argument against vaccinating for it.



mbardu said:


> After that, it's a side discussion, but you'd have to be a bit naive to not think "getting children's butt into school chairs" is a pretty high priority at the social level nowadays.


Again, you're misreading the implication. The statement wasn't "it's good to have kids in schools", it was "the reason we vaccinate kids is because schools are making money from it". It's not about the schools, it's about using school as an excuse for being critical of vaccines.

Here, judge for yourself: (My quote was from 2:10 in. I tried to include the timestamp but the forum markup thingie removed it.)

When I watch this, I don't see a very "scientific" take. I see someone who got called out getting defensive and trying to weasel out of it. If you see nothing unreasonable in that video, then we'll have to agree to disagree.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> It's not "painting someone as" anything if they plainly said or did something dumb. She actively promotes "brain booster" pills that have been thoroughly debunked despite being a neuroscientist. I've done no painting - she's holding the brush herself.
> 
> 
> Because it was used as justification for the idea that we give too many vaccines to kids. Nevermind that (as far as I understand it) all these vaccines have helped keep child mortality rates much lower than they've ever been historically. It doesn't matter that the premise is true, it does not follow that being unaware of what a disease is would be a good argument against vaccinating for it.
> 
> 
> Again, you're misreading the implication. The statement wasn't "it's good to have kids in schools", it was "the reason we vaccinate kids is because schools are making money from it". It's not about the schools, it's about using school as an excuse for being critical of vaccines.
> 
> Here, judge for yourself: (My quote was from 2:10 in. I tried to include the timestamp but the forum markup thingie removed it.)
> 
> When I watch this, I don't see a very "scientific" take. I see someone who got called out getting defensive and trying to weasel out of it. If you see nothing unreasonable in that video, then we'll have to agree to disagree.




My single point remains that a few people are trying to paint a picture of a person as anti-Palestine, anti-women, anti C-section, and anti vaccines, while all of those points are demonstrably lies. That's painting a picture of someone as dumb, immoral and antivax, all through verifiably false ad-hominem attacks, just to be able to attack that person's credentials and credibility.

All logic and nuance goes out the window and the people who attack from an imagined position of intellectual superiority have basically 0 standing.

Have you even _*watched *_the video _you _posted  ? Like seriously? I mean...I had a lot of trouble going through the video myself (she's very annoying to listen to ) but for god's sake, she's literally saying she's getting vaccinated against Covid and she's literally encouraging people to get vaccinated against Covid.

So why the hate at all in the first place? She is advocating for the vaccine, and she's doing so towards an audience that may 1-not often hear that message and 2-may be persuaded by her. Why hate on her for doing that?!? This video is not "scientific" (it's not her doctoral thesis, it's an opinion vlog lmao....), but I bet with that video she's getting more people vaccinated than you ever will .

Why are you mad against her?
Is it because she's a religious person and says she feels icky with some vaccine ingredients...but does it _regardless_?
Is it because she _dared _say that some kids sometimes have adverse reaction to vaccines and that doesn't sit well with you?
Is it because she says that part of the equation of vaccines has a profit motive, while you believe that vaccines would _magically be _the _only _part of the health system that doesn't have a profit component somehow?


----------



## TedEH

I'm not mad, nor do I hate her. I honestly don't care if she does or doesn't host a TV show either. I stated what I think: she's in a position of some influence, probably still "critical" of vaccines, and IMO she's either not as smart as her degree might lead people to believe or doesn't care that people will view her actions/opinions as being "backed by a scientist" even if they have no scientific merit.



mbardu said:


> Is it because she's a religious person and says she feels icky with some vaccine ingredients...but does it _regardless_?


No. I don't care about her religion. IMO, a scientist shouldn't base their opinion of vaccines on "icky chemicals" though.



mbardu said:


> Is it because she _dared _say that some kids sometimes have adverse reaction to vaccines and that doesn't sit well with you?


That's not the argument she made. If that had been the whole video, we'd have no disagreement. Obviously, if a kid has adverse reactions, you'd want to avoid that. She probably should have just stopped at that - "hey, we did get the shots!" - end of video. What she _did_ say instead is that we're supposedly not entitled to know her reasons for being skeptical, which on one level is fair enough, but on another level, is a bad look when you're a scientist and spend the rest of the video talking in circles about how maaaaaybe soooort of kiiiiiind of vaccines might sooooooometimes be bad anyway.



mbardu said:


> Is it because she says that part of the equation of vaccines has a profit motive


You know what - I'll give you this one. Implying vaccines are untrustworthy because there's a potential profit motive somewhere is a bad take during a pandemic. Maybe if she had taken the schedule of vaccines given to kids and demonstrated in some way that they did nothing but made someone rich, then we'd have a conversation. I don't stop eating because the grocery story profits from it.



mbardu said:


> while you believe that vaccines would _magically be _the _only _part of the health system that doesn't have a profit component somehow?


I never said I believe that, because I don't. What I _did_ say is that it's not a good enough reason to be "critical" of vaccines - in the sense of whether or not you should take them.

I mean don't get me wrong - I generally value a healthy level of skepticism, curiosity, etc. But if you're someone who is both educated and in a position of influence - you have both a PhD and a broad audience - I expect better. I expect them to know better. I expect some diligence. I expect them to have the capacity to google what Hep B is - or hey, maybe _being a doctor and all_, should probably know more about it than the average person or be very capable of finding out. I expect being able to back up what you say - or even just _sound like you can back it up_ with something more than "chemicals are icky". I expect a doctor to know better than to refer to the unknown as "chemicals" as if she wouldn't have a very clear understanding of what a chemical is and why we call it that.

So no, I'm not mad... I'm just disappointed.  I'm glad she took the vax. And I'm glad she's encouraging others to do it too.


----------



## John

I'm sure most people here don't need this reiterated to them, but please, _*don't*_ take horse dewormer to prevent or treat COVID-19. The folks spamming these are an endangerment to themselves and their families, case in point:


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> I'm not mad, nor do I hate her. I honestly don't care if she does or doesn't host a TV show either. I stated what I think: she's in a position of some influence, probably still "critical" of vaccines, and IMO she's either not as smart as her degree might lead people to believe or doesn't care that people will view her actions/opinions as being "backed by a scientist" even if they have no scientific merit.
> 
> 
> No. I don't care about her religion. IMO, a scientist shouldn't base their opinion of vaccines on "icky chemicals" though.
> 
> 
> That's not the argument she made. If that had been the whole video, we'd have no disagreement. Obviously, if a kid has adverse reactions, you'd want to avoid that. She probably should have just stopped at that - "hey, we did get the shots!" - end of video. What she _did_ say instead is that we're supposedly not entitled to know her reasons for being skeptical, which on one level is fair enough, but on another level, is a bad look when you're a scientist and spend the rest of the video talking in circles about how maaaaaybe soooort of kiiiiiind of vaccines might sooooooometimes be bad anyway.
> 
> 
> You know what - I'll give you this one. Implying vaccines are untrustworthy because there's a potential profit motive somewhere is a bad take during a pandemic. Maybe if she had taken the schedule of vaccines given to kids and demonstrated in some way that they did nothing but made someone rich, then we'd have a conversation. I don't stop eating because the grocery story profits from it.
> 
> 
> I never said I believe that, because I don't. What I _did_ say is that it's not a good enough reason to be "critical" of vaccines - in the sense of whether or not you should take them.
> 
> I mean don't get me wrong - I generally value a healthy level of skepticism, curiosity, etc. But if you're someone who is both educated and in a position of influence - you have both a PhD and a broad audience - I expect better. I expect them to know better. I expect some diligence. I expect them to have the capacity to google what Hep B is - or hey, maybe _being a doctor and all_, should probably know more about it than the average person or be very capable of finding out. I expect being able to back up what you say - or even just _sound like you can back it up_ with something more than "chemicals are icky". I expect a doctor to know better than to refer to the unknown as "chemicals" as if she wouldn't have a very clear understanding of what a chemical is and why we call it that.
> 
> So no, I'm not mad... I'm just disappointed.  I'm glad she took the vax. And I'm glad she's encouraging others to do it too.



I read two things over and over in your replies:

This video is not scientific enough => again, it's a vlog, not a dissertation or a pubmed publication. Even scientists are humans who also speak in simplified terms sometimes, you know....
She has an audience, she should be careful with what she preaches => she _is_ encouraging people to get the Covid vaccine. Especially in that format, and because of her background, she may reach people who otherwise would not get the vaccine. All the more beneficial.
So what are we hating on? Why do we need to make stuff up like she's anti women, anti-Palestine, anti C-section etc as a knee jerk reaction just to attack the individual?
She is not the most pro vaccine-without-question person there is, and that's shocking to some people here. She doesn't present _all _her reasons for why, but if there are personal reasons there, I could understand. So seen from the perspective of the echo chamber here, where we automatically put all vaccines (no matter which ones, no matter the individual risk/benefits) on a single homogenous pedestal of perfectness for all of eternity without questioning or discussion allowed, that can be shocking. How that (everything is the same and debating in the middle is not allowed) is seen as "more scientific" is beyond me, but that's besides the point.
I just still lament how we lack a single shred of nuance and have to assassinate every single character who deviates just a tad from the party line. Can you blame her for not going into details about her general thoughts if she gets that kind of vitriol that easily?

Again, we're in the Covid thread, she's encouraging people to get the Covid vaccine, and look at the hate.
I don't even particularly like her, but I still kinda feel bad.


----------



## StevenC

It'd especially ironic that she's skeptical of vaccines because of pharmaceutical profits, when our current antivax movement stems from one guy's get rich quick scheme to smear one particular vaccine so people would use his instead.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> Why do we need to make stuff up like she's anti women, anti-Palestine, anti C-section etc as a knee jerk reaction just to attack the individual?


Again, you've responded directly to me, and I did none of this. You're putting other people's words in my mouth.



mbardu said:


> I just still lament how we lack a single shred of nuance and have to assassinate every single character who deviates just a tad from the party line.


We're just going to go in circles forever. This isn't a "lack of nuance", this is arguing past eachother. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯



mbardu said:


> I bet with that video she's getting more people vaccinated than you ever will


Since we went here (why?), and it's slightly more on topic - a friend of mine a day or two ago actually did manage to convince their vaccine-skeptic neighbour to go get it. This was someone who was on the fence but scared of who-knows-what, but was willing to be convinced and trusted my and my friends judgment enough to follow our example. You know why it worked? Because we led by example and didn't get defensive or antagonistic about it. I also have another friend who has been scared of the vax for a while (she's got mental health problems and doesn't take in new information easily) who I'm slowly trying to nudge in the right direction - again, there's some trust built up, so if she sees that I get it and don't die or turn into a lizard person, then some of that fear can be alleviated.


----------



## TedEH

You know what - I'm gonna take that a step farther and say Bialik's not exactly convincing anyone to go get vaccinated this way, I'm convinced she's reinforcing people's skepticism - because, as you say, people aren't good at nuance. Read the comments section of that video (as in, observing a sample of the people she has potential influence over) and tell me you don't see a bunch of anti-vax and conspiracy nonsense that takes the inch of the video and runs a mile with it.

"Vaccines are population control"
"Hepatitis doesn't actually exist"
"Thank you for sharing your medical point of view"
"I'm a mom and I'm terrified of vaccines"
"You can't adapt to toxins / poison" (aka the vaccines are just poison)


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> You know what - I'm gonna take that a step farther and say Bialik's not exactly convincing anyone to go get vaccinated this way, I'm convinced she's reinforcing people's skepticism - because, as you say, people aren't good at nuance. Read the comments section of that video (as in, observing a sample of the people she has potential influence over) and tell me you don't see a bunch of anti-vax and conspiracy nonsense that takes the inch of the video and runs a mile with it.
> 
> "Vaccines are population control"
> "Hepatitis doesn't actually exist"
> "Thank you for sharing your medical point of view"
> "I'm a mom and I'm terrified of vaccines"
> "You can't adapt to toxins / poison" (aka the vaccines are just poison)



Maybe she would say "as a mom I'm scared of vaccines" (and maybe she has personal reasons to be scared of vaccines), but she doesn't speak of population control or she doesn't say Hep B doesn't exist or any other BS though. Where? She doesn't' say vaccines are poison; she says vaccines are useful and that her kids and she are vaccinated. Your angle is _entirely _made up.

Edit: Or is she responsible for youtube comments now? 

So :


TedEH said:


> Again, you've responded directly to me, and I did none of this. You're putting other people's words in my mouth.



Yes indeed, that's what you're doing.
You are demonstrably saying false things just to make her look bad.
You might not agree with her, and you can make your argument on any point, but having to make stuff up usually doesn't give you great standing.
If you're so right, then why do you have to lie?


----------



## mbardu

StevenC said:


> It'd especially ironic that she's skeptical of vaccines because of pharmaceutical profits, when our current antivax movement stems from one guy's get rich quick scheme to smear one particular vaccine so people would use his instead.



You don't know why she's skeptical of some vaccines. It's at least from a number of factors, that include some that I imagine are personal and that she doesn't speak of publicly.

You on the other hand have a preconceived notion in your mind that anyone with _any degree_ of vaccine skepticism is thinking that way because they've fallen into the Andrew-whatever-his-name-is conspiracy rabbit hole. You believe that anyone doubting any aspect of vaccine is 100% that. Nuance isn't a thing and there's no other possibility right? So you try to apply that to her.
Setting aside the fact for a moment that in the (granted,_ very annoying_) video above, she explains how _specifically _she is not that.... there _*are *_a number of reasons for why it makes sense for some people to be skeptical of some vaccines. It doesn't make them conspiracy nut-jobs.

There is not a single "our current antivax movement". The reason it's presented that way is because this is a classic strategy of presenting the dumbest most extreme view of the "opposition" so as to remove any nuance and to decridibilize every single angle of questioning. You'd think people would realize it's a dumb caricature and a manipulative strategy. But no, it's crazy that it works so well. It works especially well too because it softly flatters the target audience into making them think "you are _better _and _smarter _than those dumb antivax" so people gobble it up. Flattery is the easiest way to convince.

Hell- It's the same generalization as the ones which paint *all *videogamers as violent murderers or *all *metal guitar players as satanist nazis based on dumb stereotypes. Everyone here would laugh at those stereotypes ... but we can't get enough of the antivax stereotypes though, right? Those must be true because we're not the targets there. And those stereotypes makes _us _feel smarter so they gotta be true .
Exact same oversimplification and manipulation...


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> Yes indeed, that's what you're doing.


I never at any point said she was anti-woman or anything about c-sections or Palestine or anything. I'm talking strictly about the vaccine stuff. The other comments were from other people.



mbardu said:


> You are demonstrably saying false things just to make her look bad.


No I'm not. You have the video link. You can look it up. I said her comments section has a) vax skepticism in it, and b) frames her views as "coming from a scientist". Here, I'll do it for you: 









There's not a single thing I've made up, and you've got all the resources in front of you to verify that for yourself. I've literally handed you the video, the quotes, and the comments I've referred to. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ You've all the power to come to a different conclusion if you want to, but trying to "call me out for making things up to make her look bad" is ridiculous. You're either trolling, or not trying.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> I never at any point said she was anti-woman or anything about c-sections or Palestine or anything. I'm talking strictly about the vaccine stuff. The other comments were from other people.
> 
> 
> No I'm not. You have the video link. You can look it up. I said her comments section has a) vax skepticism in it, and b) frames her views as "coming from a scientist". Here, I'll do it for you:
> View attachment 97278
> 
> View attachment 97279
> 
> View attachment 97280
> 
> View attachment 97281
> 
> 
> There's not a single thing I've made up, and you've got all the resources in front of you to verify that for yourself. I've literally handed you the video, the quotes, and the comments I've referred to. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ You've all the power to come to a different conclusion if you want to, but trying to "call me out for making things up to make her look bad" is ridiculous. You're either trolling, or not trying.



So is your point now that youtube comments are bad? I never brought youtube in the discussion - you did. And does she control youtube comments? If it's your first time going through youtube comments, I have bad news for you.

Edit: and you even made me look for Youtube comments for 5 minutes, and they're not even that bad as far as Youtube comments go. Very respectful as far as comments go too tbh  . There's one "Hep B doesn't exist" which I have no idea where it comes from, but the rest is pretty tame. Have seen no population control or BS in top comments either. Even if it were, I fail to see how that's an argument against the person here though.


----------



## TedEH

Dude, why are you arguing everything at me? I legit can't tell if you're trolling at this point.
Let me recap:

I said: I think she's not very smart (my subjective opinion, based on her association with brain booster pills) and that she's not helping anti-vax sentiment (which is backed up by her own video and the comments).
That's it. End of story. That is my WHOLE opinion. Everything else has been you being mad at me for not sharing your interpretation. Let it go man. This is my last comment on the subject. If you reply to this by claiming I said something else that I never said - onto the ignore list you go, 'cause it's not worth goin in circles over. We disagree. It's fine.


----------



## Drew

TedEH said:


> Dude, why are you arguing everything at me? I legit can't tell if you're trolling at this point.
> Let me recap:


Don't want to interject, but you appear to be arguing with one of the members I finally gave up and blocked, because they seemed to be far more invested in arguing ad nauseum for the sake of arguing, rather than trying to come to any conclusions. Just throwing it out there, it made my browsing-and-discussing experience a LOT more pleasant, to filter out people who were more interested in winning an argument, _any_ argument, than trying to be part of a collective effort to better understand a subject.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> Dude, why are you arguing everything at me? I legit can't tell if you're trolling at this point.
> Let me recap:
> 
> I said: I think she's not very smart (my subjective opinion, based on her association with brain booster pills) and that she's not helping anti-vax sentiment (which is backed up by her own video and the comments).
> That's it. End of story. That is my WHOLE opinion. Everything else has been you being mad at me for not sharing your interpretation. Let it go man. This is my last comment on the subject. If you reply to this by claiming I said something else that I never said - onto the ignore list you go, 'cause it's not worth goin in circles over. We disagree. It's fine.



That's always the funniest line of reply.
"Why do you keep replying to me?" .... well I don't know, maybe because you keep replying to me? I don't know, it's a bit of a circular logic, no?

Anyway - you jumped in halfway through a discussion so maybe I'm mixing things up with the other poster too. That said, you did specifically say "I don't think anyone went as far as cartoonishly evil", while I 100% think some people did and that's what I was replying to. Not my fault you raised that part.

If you're just here to say you believe she's not very smart, then that's indeed your very subjective opinion. I have no reason to think you and I are smarter than she is, especially based on selective biased info from the internet; but if you like to pretend to be smarter than others on the internet because your opinion differs from theirs, knock yourself out. Something like "most people don't even know what hep B is, but vaccinate their newborns for it anyway because they're simply told to" may not fit well with bias but it's true regardless.

If you're here to say she doesn't help antivax sentiment, you post a video where she is literally encouraging people to go get vaccinated, so I fail to see your point? Even the comments you _cherrypick_ (most are not like that) are hardly bad as far as youtube comments go. I'll maintain that she has more potential to convince people to get vaccinated that you and I will ever have.


----------



## TedEH

Drew said:


> Don't want to interject


^ I'll give you that I've got a bad habit of getting caught up in the back and forth. I should do better. It's about time to get some lunch anyway. Gonna feed myself instead o' the trolls.


----------



## bostjan

Sorry, I didn't mean to start a flame war and then duck out.

Bialik's smartness or stupidness aside, I think the main point here, for me, is how someone can say something somewhat measured and it can be taken by extremists and twisted. This is especially the case when it comes to vaccines. I'd certainly not put Jenny McCarthy on my list of top smartest people, but she's been hammered with flack for being anti-vax, as well, and she never said the thing everybody thought she said either. You say anything about vaccines at all these days, and people paraphrase it as you saying you're anti-vax. I think McCarthy's actual quote and Bialik's actual quote are somewhat related, but anyway...

I don't really care if she loses her job hosting Jeopardy, but I do think it'd be regrettable if she lost her job _because_ she said something anti-vax, when, in this particular case, she didn't actually say the thing that got her in trouble.

If she lost her job hosting Jeopardy because people stopped watching Jeopardy due to her public persona being abrasive, then whatever; hosting a show is all about how you look anyway.

I haven't heard anyone publicly try to get her cancelled because of her political nor religious views. 

**************************
-----------------------


But speaking of politics getting all tangled up with medicine in silly ways, did you see this: https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2021...patient-with-ivermectin-despite-cdc-warnings/

A guy with covid in the ICU. His wife does a google search and finds some claims on political sites that horse dewormer treatments cure covid. The wife demands the hospital administer the treatment. The hospital does their own literature search and determines that the treatment is likely to do more harm than good. The wife then gets a certified pulmonologist to prescribe the drug remotely. The hospital refuses to administer the treatment. The wife then goes to the Republican Party and they sue and the judge ordered the hospital to deworm this patient. I hope it works for him, but the studies pushing the drug have already been debunked. The whole debacle seems to be a carbon copy of the whole mess with HCQ.

I have a big question here - why are these political-types so hell-bent on this idea of these anti-parasitic drugs working against a virus? Does anyone realize that a virus is not the same as a worm or a paramecium? As in, not at all even close to the same thing? There are no biological pathways that make any sense here, same with HCQ. At least Remdezivir has biochemical logic behind maybe working, but since that didn't show promise, the drugs these Trump-followers have been pushing have gotten further and further from logic. From virus to paramecium to worm treatments, this path leads to the next big thing being stitches or bear spray.


----------



## StevenC

mbardu said:


> You don't know why she's skeptical of some vaccines. It's at least from a number of factors, that include some that I imagine are personal and that she doesn't speak of publicly.
> 
> You on the other hand have a preconceived notion in your mind that anyone with _any degree_ of vaccine skepticism is thinking that way because they've fallen into the Andrew-whatever-his-name-is conspiracy rabbit hole. You believe that anyone doubting any aspect of vaccine is 100% that. Nuance isn't a thing and there's no other possibility right? So you try to apply that to her.
> Setting aside the fact for a moment that in the (granted,_ very annoying_) video above, she explains how _specifically _she is not that.... there _*are *_a number of reasons for why it makes sense for some people to be skeptical of some vaccines. It doesn't make them conspiracy nut-jobs.
> 
> There is not a single "our current antivax movement". The reason it's presented that way is because this is a classic strategy of presenting the dumbest most extreme view of the "opposition" so as to remove any nuance and to decridibilize every single angle of questioning. You'd think people would realize it's a dumb caricature and a manipulative strategy. But no, it's crazy that it works so well. It works especially well too because it softly flatters the target audience into making them think "you are _better _and _smarter _than those dumb antivax" so people gobble it up. Flattery is the easiest way to convince.
> 
> Hell- It's the same generalization as the ones which paint *all *videogamers as violent murderers or *all *metal guitar players as satanist nazis based on dumb stereotypes. Everyone here would laugh at those stereotypes ... but we can't get enough of the antivax stereotypes though, right? Those must be true because we're not the targets there. And those stereotypes makes _us _feel smarter so they gotta be true .
> Exact same oversimplification and manipulation...


Sorry, but yes the current antivax movement in the Western world does boil down to Andrew "not a doctor" Wakefield saying vaccines cause autism. That's been the foundation for everything in the past 20 years. Like at the start of his presidency, Trump was asked about vaccines causing autism and he said he wanted to look into it, starting the trend of antivax among trump types that has carried through the pandemic. 

Wakefield wanted to descredit MMR so he could sell his own; one of Bialik's skepticisms about vaccines is that the pharmaceutical industry is giving all these vaccines to kids just to make money. There really weren't any serious broad concerns about vaccines pre 1997. Even Wakefield had to stress to people that he only had a problem with MMR, because it quickly stopped being "this MMR vaccine causes autism, but mine doesn't" and became "vaccines cause autism", and eventually "vaccines are bad".

That's just reality. There literally is no credible antivax stance. It doesn't exist. Bialik says she hasn't fully vaccinated her children because there are too many vaccines at too young an age, but there is no credible research to support her. This is a talking point that evolved from the Wakefield scam.

But yes, let's keep defending the lady who uses her neuroscience degree to sell nootropics. That's totally not a scam.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> But speaking of politics getting all tangled up with medicine in silly ways, did you see this: https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2021...patient-with-ivermectin-despite-cdc-warnings/
> 
> A guy with covid in the ICU. His wife does a google search and finds some claims on political sites that horse dewormer treatments cure covid. The wife demands the hospital administer the treatment. The hospital does their own literature search and determines that the treatment is likely to do more harm than good. The wife then gets a certified pulmonologist to prescribe the drug remotely. The hospital refuses to administer the treatment. The wife then goes to the Republican Party and they sue and the judge ordered the hospital to deworm this patient. I hope it works for him, but the studies pushing the drug have already been debunked. The whole debacle seems to be a carbon copy of the whole mess with HCQ.
> 
> I have a big question here - why are these political-types so hell-bent on this idea of these anti-parasitic drugs working against a virus? Does anyone realize that a virus is not the same as a worm or a paramecium? As in, not at all even close to the same thing? There are no biological pathways that make any sense here, same with HCQ. At least Remdezivir has biochemical logic behind maybe working, but since that didn't show promise, the drugs these Trump-followers have been pushing have gotten further and further from logic. From virus to paramecium to worm treatments, this path leads to the next big thing being stitches or bear spray.



Calling it horse dewormer is often the same type of manipulative simplification that is used against Blayik.
Ivermectin is a well known drug for humans, it has won a Nobel prize, and has had little to no side effects over decades of use at various dosages.
The only reason why people turn to animal formulation and dosage is because for the last few months, doctors are prevented from prescribing it, and pharmacies are prevented from stocking it. Is it dumb to go to stock up at farm supplies as a result? Very very much so....but it also wouldn't have happened if those people were able to get the human formulation instead.

The drug is clearly *not *an antirival, but early (in the Covid19 era) in-vitro studies have shown good promise because of the reaction against the very type of spike proteins that coat Covid. We however don't have any reliable study besides in vitro. There _was _some hopes that in populations who would benefit from Ivermectin anyway, it would help Covid-19 morbidity just by the fact of not having multiple ailments at once. Not likely to be the case in most western countries, but let's see. IMO the Oxford study will settle that.


----------



## mbardu

StevenC said:


> Sorry, but yes the current antivax movement in the Western world does boil down to Andrew "not a doctor" Wakefield saying vaccines cause autism. That's been the foundation for everything in the past 20 years. Like at the start of his presidency, Trump was asked about vaccines causing autism and he said he wanted to look into it, starting the trend of antivax among trump types that has carried through the pandemic.
> 
> Wakefield wanted to descredit MMR so he could sell his own; one of Bialik's skepticisms about vaccines is that the pharmaceutical industry is giving all these vaccines to kids just to make money. There really weren't any serious broad concerns about vaccines pre 1997. Even Wakefield had to stress to people that he only had a problem with MMR, because it quickly stopped being "this MMR vaccine causes autism, but mine doesn't" and became "vaccines cause autism", and eventually "vaccines are bad".
> 
> That's just reality. There literally is no credible antivax stance. It doesn't exist. Bialik says she hasn't fully vaccinated her children because there are too many vaccines at too young an age, but there is no credible research to support her. This is a talking point that evolved from the Wakefield scam.
> 
> But yes, let's keep defending the lady who uses her neuroscience degree to sell nootropics. That's totally not a scam.



So you know every single person who's ever had a doubt on vaccines and you know personally they subscribe to the exact same school of thought, then? Wow.
I guess we can also put all metal guitarists in the "satanist nazi" category and all videogamers in the "mental schoolshooter" category if we are able to freely generalize to all people based on some caricatures.

Nobody cares about your essay about Andrew whatever. Only a tiny fraction of the population takes that dumb guy seriously.
He's just become a scarecrow to pin all people with any vaccination questioning to, in order to decridibilize them. And you are the perfect example that it's working.

What does "There literally is no credible antivax stance" mean? If it is antivax as in "all vaccines are bad", then yeah of course there is no credible thing behind that. Very _very few_ people believe that though. If it is "not all vaccines are exactly the same and some vaccines are bad for some people", then it's an entirely different picture. Are you seriously not able to see the difference?


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> Dude, why are you arguing everything at me? I legit can't tell if you're trolling at this point.
> Let me recap:
> 
> I said: I think she's not very smart (my subjective opinion, based on her association with brain booster pills) and that she's not helping anti-vax sentiment (which is backed up by her own video and the comments).
> That's it. End of story. That is my WHOLE opinion. Everything else has been you being mad at me for not sharing your interpretation. Let it go man. This is my last comment on the subject. If you reply to this by claiming I said something else that I never said - onto the ignore list you go, 'cause it's not worth goin in circles over. We disagree. It's fine.



I mean, you _are _trying to back up your argument with YouTube comments.


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> Calling it horse dewormer is often the same type of manipulative simplification that is used against Blayik.
> Ivermectin is a well known drug for humans, it has won a Nobel prize, and has had little to no side effects over decades of use at various dosages.
> The only reason why people turn to animal formulation and dosage is because for the last few months, doctors are prevented from prescribing it, and pharmacies are prevented from stocking it. Is it dumb to go to stock up at farm supplies as a result? Very very much so....but it also wouldn't have happened if those people were able to get the human formulation instead.
> 
> The drug is clearly *not *an antirival, but early (in the Covid19 era) in-vitro studies have shown good promise because of the reaction against the very type of spike proteins that coat Covid. We however don't have any reliable study besides in vitro. There _was _some hopes that in populations who would benefit from Ivermectin anyway, it would help Covid-19 morbidity just by the fact of not having multiple ailments at once. Not likely to be the case in most western countries, but let's see. IMO the Oxford study will settle that.


But it is a horse dewormer.
It has little to no side effects at *appropriate* doses, but it toxic at high doses. People down south have already been calling poison control in droves over these side effects: https://www.npr.org/2021/08/23/1030...ermectin-covid-misinformation?t=1630340831069

Those studies have been debunked and I already mentioned that and posted a link with more information. This is exactly the same arguments that were made to try to force HCQ through.

I think the best way to settle it, whatever the case, is through an actual study, but the people who supported HCQ still are ardent in their insistence that it cures covid despite the mound of evidence we currently have that it doesn't work, and most of them are the same people who are backing Ivermectin. At some point, we have to just stop listening to the boy who cried wolf.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> Sorry, I didn't mean to start a flame war and then duck out.
> 
> Bialik's smartness or stupidness aside, I think the main point here, for me, is how someone can say something somewhat measured and it can be taken by extremists and twisted. This is especially the case when it comes to vaccines. I'd certainly not put Jenny McCarthy on my list of top smartest people, but she's been hammered with flack for being anti-vax, as well, and she never said the thing everybody thought she said either. You say anything about vaccines at all these days, and people paraphrase it as you saying you're anti-vax. I think McCarthy's actual quote and Bialik's actual quote are somewhat related, but anyway...
> 
> I don't really care if she loses her job hosting Jeopardy, but I do think it'd be regrettable if she lost her job _because_ she said something anti-vax, when, in this particular case, she didn't actually say the thing that got her in trouble.
> 
> If she lost her job hosting Jeopardy because people stopped watching Jeopardy due to her public persona being abrasive, then whatever; hosting a show is all about how you look anyway.
> 
> I haven't heard anyone publicly try to get her cancelled because of her political nor religious views.



I don't care about Blayik one way or the other either. The issue just really sticks with me in how much it shows the total polarization of the discussion.
For instance, I had not seen her cancelled because of political or religious view, but because she's not the biggest vaccine advocate, now some people here would suddenly be suggesting we do just that.

I get it, if the vaccine love/hate discussion is a spectrum, she is not exactly at the very end of the "love" side. She's been in the past a doubter on some vaccines and may have her personal/religious or whatever reasons for doing so - but she's far from the opposite end of the spectrum either. But no, there's no nuance and we have to put her and everyone else in the "Andrew-W-derived nutjob" category. Which is a shame because maybe by being somewhere in the _center_, she can speak to and convince some people that would not even consider listening to the only extreme we hear here (the "extreme" we love-vaccines-so-much-we-could-marry-them-and-everyone-else- is-antivax camp).


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> But it is a horse dewormer.
> It has little to no side effects at *appropriate* doses, but it toxic at high doses. People down south have already been calling poison control in droves over these side effects: https://www.npr.org/2021/08/23/1030...ermectin-covid-misinformation?t=1630340831069
> 
> Those studies have been debunked and I already mentioned that and posted a link with more information. This is exactly the same arguments that were made to try to force HCQ through.
> 
> I think the best way to settle it, whatever the case, is through an actual study, but the people who supported HCQ still are ardent in their insistence that it cures covid despite the mound of evidence we currently have that it doesn't work, and most of them are the same people who are backing Ivermectin. At some point, we have to just stop listening to the boy who cried wolf.



It is an _everything _and _everyone _dewormer. Or antiparisitic if we don't want to be pejorative on purpose like with the "horse" characterization.
Including animals and humans. It's far _far _from the only compound to be used on humans as well as other mammals.
Yes, there have been poison control calls about toxicity at high dosages. Of course, it's dumb to take animal dosages  . Everything is lethal at high enough dosage.
Wouldn't have happened if the safe human formulation had not been cut from circulation, but dumb regardless  .

The link you posted is not a debunk of Ivermectin. It is a note that one study has currently been removed from one preprint, and describes that the current overall science is not conclusive. Not debunked.
Fundamentally we agree though. There is no proof that it does anything on Covid in practice. More likely than not, it doesn't do anything (or maybe it does help with morbidity somehow but only as a side effect). But we just don't know - and the oxford study should be able to settle that.


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> I mean, you _are _trying to back up your argument with YouTube comments.


Find me a better source of direct reactions to a video by it's targeted audience than it's own comments section, then I'll use that instead. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Nevermind.


----------



## TedEH

I went for lunch.... the thread did not improve while I was gone.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> The hospital refuses to administer the treatment. The wife then goes to the Republican Party and they sue and the judge ordered the hospital to deworm this patient.


This is the part when they lose me. How the fuck did the patient _win_ this suit?

What constitutional right does a person have to demand any particular medicinal procedure be administered, not because there's any medical basis for it, but simply because they _want_ that treatment? Like, what's the difference between a patient suing because he or she wants to be prescribed ivermectin, despite not being a horse and having worms, and a patient suing because he or she wants to be prescribed Dilaudid, despite not having extreme levels of pain?


----------



## spudmunkey

I know nothing about this sort of thing, but found a lot of the replies to this reddit post interesting:
"Why are anti-parasitics (ie hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir[he meant Ivermectin) tested as COVID-19 treatment?"

https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/pek6no/why_are_antiparasitics_ie_hydroxychloroquine/


----------



## mbardu

spudmunkey said:


> I know nothing about this sort of thing, but found a lot of the replies to this reddit post interesting:
> "Why are anti-parasitics (ie hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir[he meant Ivermectin) tested as COVID-19 treatment?"
> 
> https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/pek6no/why_are_antiparasitics_ie_hydroxychloroquine/



Nonono, you're not supposed to actually try and understand if it could work or ask those questions.
You're just supposed to keep calling it a horse dewormer and leave it at that.
Otherwise...I guess this also makes you an Andrew-worshipping antivax or something  ?


----------



## BigViolin

Drew said:


> How the fuck did the patient _win_ this suit?


Mbardu argued until they gave up.


----------



## bostjan

spudmunkey said:


> I know nothing about this sort of thing, but found a lot of the replies to this reddit post interesting:
> "Why are anti-parasitics (ie hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir[he meant Ivermectin) tested as COVID-19 treatment?"
> 
> https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/pek6no/why_are_antiparasitics_ie_hydroxychloroquine/



Fun thread, but it doesn't really address the question.

Tangent- for example, the smallpox vaccine started out by someone observing that milk maids were never getting smallpox. Eventually that led to the discovery of cross-immunity between deadly smallpox and far-less-dangerous cowpox. Quinine was discovered as a cure for malaria after someone with malaria drank it, mistaking it for something akin to hemlock, trying to die quickly and avoid the pain, then very shortly after felt better. Science has come a long way, but the basic principle still stands that everything starts with an observation, then a hypothesis, then so on. What the heck is the observation that led to people trying Ivermectin on SARS-family viruses in vitro?

Counter-example: there is a group right now working on antibodies from llamas. Why llamas? Well, llamas are close relatives to camels, and camels were an important vector contributing to the spread of MERS, which is a cousin to covid. The camels didn't seem to pick up a life-threatening infection from MERS/SARS/covid, even though the virus used their cells to replicate. Maybe it'll work, probably not, but, at least there is some sort of basis for trying it. It seems like HCQ/Ivermectin/whatever is more like throwing everything at the wall to see if anything sticks, and a bunch of looney-tunes people are glamming on before any of the information is ready, and then a bunch of idiots are in the hospital after OD'ing on aquarium cleaner or horse dewormer because they'd rather take doses of similar-sounding things manufactured for totally not the purpose of what they are trying than to listen to, like, actual medical doctors.


----------



## TedEH

Has anyone tried hitting the body with a tremendous - whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light? And then supposing you brought the light inside of the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way... or maybe a disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> Fun thread, but it doesn't really address the question.
> 
> Tangent- for example, the smallpox vaccine started out by someone observing that milk maids were never getting smallpox. Eventually that led to the discovery of cross-immunity between deadly smallpox and far-less-dangerous cowpox. Quinine was discovered as a cure for malaria after someone with malaria drank it, mistaking it for something akin to hemlock, trying to die quickly and avoid the pain, then very shortly after felt better. Science has come a long way, but the basic principle still stands that everything starts with an observation, then a hypothesis, then so on. What the heck is the observation that led to people trying Ivermectin on SARS-family viruses in vitro?
> 
> Counter-example: there is a group right now working on antibodies from llamas. Why llamas? Well, llamas are close relatives to camels, and camels were an important vector contributing to the spread of MERS, which is a cousin to covid. The camels didn't seem to pick up a life-threatening infection from MERS/SARS/covid, even though the virus used their cells to replicate. Maybe it'll work, probably not, but, at least there is some sort of basis for trying it. It seems like HCQ/Ivermectin/whatever is more like throwing everything at the wall to see if anything sticks, and a bunch of looney-tunes people are glamming on before any of the information is ready, and then a bunch of idiots are in the hospital after OD'ing on aquarium cleaner or horse dewormer because they'd rather take doses of similar-sounding things manufactured for totally not the purpose of what they are trying than to listen to, like, actual medical doctors.



Part of the reason for trying is observational. Some populations taking Ivermectin were observed to not have as bad a morbidity for Covid-19. Not exactly a gold-standard study, but neither was your example about milk maids. Plus early initial signs that it could have worked on other infectious respiratory diseases in the past - even if that didn't pan out. And we often try to repurpose existing drugs when dealing with new stuff. Not sure what's the concern in looking?

As for horse-dewormer, again this wouldn't happen if the human version wasn't suppressed. I've spoken to a couple of physicians who would have 0 issue prescribing it considering how the thing is harmless, but they are just not able to.

The final result is dumb, but the characterization as "people are taking a random horse dewormer just because" is _at best_ dishonest.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> Has anyone tried hitting the body with a tremendous - whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light? And then supposing you brought the light inside of the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way... or maybe a disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?



If you're trying to further show that according to you, everyone with even a slightly different opinion has to be demonized or presented as dumber than dumb, you're doing a great job  . You're picking Trump, your colleague is picking the tiny group of Andrew-conspirationists...same difference.

Is it so hard to understand that there are middle grounds and people who do not share your views?


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> This is the part when they lose me. How the fuck did the patient _win_ this suit?
> 
> What constitutional right does a person have to demand any particular medicinal procedure be administered, not because there's any medical basis for it, but simply because they _want_ that treatment? Like, what's the difference between a patient suing because he or she wants to be prescribed ivermectin, despite not being a horse and having worms, and a patient suing because he or she wants to be prescribed Dilaudid, despite not having extreme levels of pain?



Not even the patient himself, but his wife.

It's a weird precedent to set.

Ever seen _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_? Benicio del Toro's character keeps "prescribing" illegal drugs to Johnny Depp's character - is that where we're headed? You want some illegal drugs, just get some quack doctor from Samoa or Tuvalu or wherever the hell to "prescribe" it and threaten to sue the pharmacist if they won't give it to you.



mbardu said:


> The final result is dumb, but the characterization as "people are taking a random horse dewormer just because" is _at best_ dishonest.



Call it a lie if you want, but that's exactly what is happening right now in the deep south. And the behaviour directly parallels the same hysteria that happened with the confusion around HCQ.

Like I said, I hope it works. We really need an effective treatment. But we can't just go guzzling pool chemicals or whatever and call it good.


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> If you're trying to further show that according to you, everyone with even a slightly different opinion has to be demonized or presented as dumber than dumb, you're doing a great job  . You're picking Trump, your colleague is picking the tiny group of Andrew-conspirationists...same difference.
> 
> Is it so hard to understand that there are middle grounds and people who do not share your views?


All he did was quote Trump without context. If you read something into it that offended you, then maybe take an introspective moment to reflect on that, I mean, I say maybe you can, maybe you can't. I'm not a doctor. I'm just here to present talent; I'm here to present ideas.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> Call it a lie if you want, but that's exactly what is happening right now in the deep south. And the behaviour directly parallels the same hysteria that happened with the confusion around HCQ.



I didn't say it was a _lie_. Lies by omission are not _technically _lies.
It's just an oversimplification with a clear agenda - a berating on purpose, like on pretty much everything going against the single "all vaccine at all costs" strategy.



bostjan said:


> Like I said, I hope it works. We really need an effective treatment. But we can't just go guzzling pool chemicals or whatever and call it good.



Doesn't mean I support people guzzling pool chemicals, the whole thing is dumb 
I don't even have high hopes for Ivermectin itself. Doesn't mean we should be biased in its reporting though.
To some extent, large or small, berating people looking into therapeutics will have an effect at the end of the day - in public perception, in the effort that's put in etc. Do you think that type of PR gives incentive to actually trying large scale rigorous studies to actually check efficacy? Nobody wants to touch it with a 10-foot pole now. And I'm not even particularly rooting for therapeutics for therapeutics - just noticing how the debate is really deformed - and that in and of itself has consequences.


----------



## Randy

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/live-updates/coronavirus-delta-variant-latest-news/?id=79720727


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> All he did was quote Trump without context. If you read something into it that offended you, then maybe take an introspective moment to reflect on that, I mean, I say maybe you can, maybe you can't. I'm not a doctor. I'm just here to present talent; I'm here to present ideas.



I'm not taking anything personally. I'm not the one getting my medications from farm or pet supplies 
But you know full well the context that is crystal clear here: it is to mock any opinion that's not "in line" by attaching it to extreme cases like Trump or Wakefield.
That's just totally counterproductive to any actual discussion.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> If you're trying to further show


What's the word I'm looking for.... levity? Breathe a bit. Go get some lunch. Not everything is an argument.


----------



## nightflameauto

mbardu said:


> I'm not taking anything personally. I'm not the one getting my medications from farm or pet supplies
> But you know full well the context that is crystal clear here: it is to mock any opinion that's not "in line" by attaching it to extreme cases like Trump or Wakefield.
> That's just totally counterproductive to any actual discussion.


I know I'll regret this, but. . . 

You seem to be utterly convinced that everyone you interact with is guilty of what you describe here and attack every possible point as being what you're describing, whether it is or not. 

Maybe, sometimes, you're desire to paint us all as predisposed idiots incapable of seeing nuance has turned you into somebody that sees nothing but people that are predisposed idiots incapable of seeing nuance. In a way, you've made yourself exactly what you're accusing everybody else of being.

My suggestion, that I'm sure you'll ignore in favor of painting me as another predisposed idiot incapable of seeing nuance, is to maybe take a moment to think before flail typing as fast as you can to re-frame what the other person is saying, and actually try reading what you're responding to. I know that's a way out there, crazy ass thought, so I won't expect it, but it might be nice to try sometime. That or go take a walk and try to think happy thoughts.


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> I didn't say it was a _lie_. Lies by omission are not _technically _lies.
> It's just an oversimplification with a clear agenda - a berating on purpose, like on pretty much everything going against the single "all vaccine at all costs" strategy.
> 
> 
> 
> Doesn't mean I support people guzzling pool chemicals, the whole thing is dumb
> I don't even have high hopes for Ivermectin itself. Doesn't mean we should be biased in its reporting though.
> To some extent, large or small, berating people looking into therapeutics will have an effect at the end of the day - in public perception, in the effort that's put in etc. Do you think that type of PR gives incentive to actually trying large scale rigorous studies to actually check efficacy? Nobody wants to touch it with a 10-foot pole now. And I'm not even particularly rooting for therapeutics for therapeutics - just noticing how the debate is really deformed - and that in and of itself has consequences.



I think you might be missing the forest for the trees. Whether Ivermectin does not work was a point made by literally no one. It's an unproven drug that a hospital in Ohio is now forced, by a court of law, to administer, due to politics. If you want to talk about how you get someone not to touch a treatment with a 40-foot pole, take one particular case and force an unapproved treatment on someone whilst making a media circus of the whole event. What if the guy ends up dying after all of this, with no fault of the drug.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Ever seen _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_? Benicio del Toro's character keeps "prescribing" illegal drugs to Johnny Depp's character - is that where we're headed? You want some illegal drugs, just get some quack doctor from Samoa or Tuvalu or wherever the hell to "prescribe" it and threaten to sue the pharmacist if they won't give it to you.


I might have gotten a little too cute there, but Dilaudid is an _extremely _strong opiate that definitely has strong street demand and I knew from a character in a book I read having it as their narcotic of choice, long before I knew anyone who'd actually been prescribed it. That's exactly the point I was getting at, though I think the Fear and Loathing example is a lot more fun.


----------



## nightflameauto

bostjan said:


> I think you might be missing the forest for the trees. Whether Ivermectin does not work was a point made by literally no one. It's an unproven drug that a hospital in Ohio is now forced, by a court of law, to administer, due to politics. If you want to talk about how you get someone not to touch a treatment with a 40-foot pole, take one particular case and force an unapproved treatment on someone whilst making a media circus of the whole event. What if the guy ends up dying after all of this, with no fault of the drug.


The courts and the lawyers should be held liable for malpractice. If they want to pretend their doctors, they should have the right to be sued the same as a doctor. And I'd be willing to bet the judge and the lawyer don't currently have malpractice insurance to cover it.


----------



## Randy

I have zero idea why this guy's trolling is so effective around here. It was clear he's arguing in bad faith like, hundreds of pages ago. I counted twice I posted something AGREEING with him and he still turned it around into an argument? No idea why you waste your time, let the guy argue with himself.


----------



## SpaceDock

Just here to say the /ivermectin subreddit is a riot.


----------



## Drew

nightflameauto said:


> The courts and the lawyers should be held liable for malpractice. If they want to pretend their doctors, they should have the right to be sued the same as a doctor. And I'd be willing to bet the judge and the lawyer don't currently have malpractice insurance to cover it.


I suppose, the more I think about this, maybe the question of whether ivermectin is medically valid ISN'T irrelevant, or at least entirely so. I suppose you could argue it's fairly comparable to a doctor not being willing to prescribe birth control to a woman of childbearing age, and threough that filter, then it does seem like a woman WOULD have a case to have the courts compel the doctor to write her a prescription. Though, the counterargument there would be that in that situation the disagreement isn't over which particular birth control the woman wanted, but rather that she wanted it at all and the doctor was refusing for some sort of moral reason - here, the doctor is clearly very willing to treat the patient for covid, just not by prescribing something where there's no clinical research suggesting it's an effective treatment, and the lawsuit seems to be arguing that the man in question should get to decide which covid treatments he wants, even including those his doctor has ruled out as inappropriate. That's a much tougher standard, I'd think.

Of course, the fact that there IS no medical research finding that a horse parasite can cure covid means this is all semantic, and be basically sued to force his doctor to prescribe him snake oil... 

(tl;dr version is that whether ivermectin is medically valid, after thinking out loud for a bit, is secondary to whether the doctor was willing to treat the patient for covid at all. A patient has a right to be treated - a patient does not have a right to force a doctor to do something they have legitimate reasons for thinking is medically inappropriate.)

EDIT - which, I suppose, is a way of saying that after, while thinking out loud, I considered the possibility that maybe whether ivermectin is clinically effective may be material here, I eventually talked myself out of that possibility while thinking through it, as it seems what's material here to a court of law is whether the doctor is willing to treat something in the first place. If they are, then they have leeway as a professional to do so in the way they they believe best, while taking the patient's best interest into account. It would be appropriate for a court to order a docor to treat a covid patient for covid if for some reason they don't want to, but not for them to order any particular treatment. And anyone who quotes that first part where I'm hearing it out, but not my eventual conclusion, needs to check their reading comprehension.


----------



## nightflameauto

Drew said:


> I suppose, the more I think about this, maybe the question of whether ivermectin is medically valid ISN'T irrelevant, or at least entirely so. I suppose you could argue it's fairly comparable to a doctor not being willing to prescribe birth control to a woman of childbearing age, and threough that filter, then it does seem like a woman WOULD have a case to have the courts compel the doctor to write her a prescription. Though, the counterargument there would be that in that situation the disagreement isn't over which particular birth control the woman wanted, but rather that she wanted it at all and the doctor was refusing for some sort of moral reason - here, the doctor is clearly very willing to treat the patient for covid, just not by prescribing something where there's no clinical research suggesting it's an effective treatment, and the lawsuit seems to be arguing that the man in question should get to decide which covid treatments he wants, even including those his doctor has ruled out as inappropriate. That's a much tougher standard, I'd think.
> 
> Of course, the fact that there IS no medical research finding that a horse parasite can cure covid means this is all semantic, and be basically sued to force his doctor to prescribe him snake oil...
> 
> (tl;dr version is that whether ivermectin is medically valid, after thinking out loud for a bit, is secondary to whether the doctor was willing to treat the patient for covid at all. A patient has a right to be treated - a patient does not have a right to force a doctor to do something they have legitimate reasons for thinking is medically inappropriate.)


Well, we are in the one country in the world where prescription drugs get TV ads plastered everywhere. Maybe some folks have just gotten used to the idea that they can make up their own treatment plan and the doctor just has to do it?

You know, people that aren't smart enough to realize what they don't know. Which is a sad percentage of people at this stage.


----------



## Drew

nightflameauto said:


> Well, we are in the one country in the world where prescription drugs get TV ads plastered everywhere. Maybe some folks have just gotten used to the idea that they can make up their own treatment plan and the doctor just has to do it?
> 
> You know, people that aren't smart enough to realize what they don't know. Which is a sad percentage of people at this stage.


My dad was a doctor, and I'm engaged to a doctor. You wouldn't BELIEVE how often this happens, where a patient comes in wanting to be prescribed a certain drug, and won't accept anything else. I'd LOVE to see direct-to-patient medical advertising end.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> I think you might be missing the forest for the trees. Whether Ivermectin does not work was a point made by literally no one. It's an unproven drug that a hospital in Ohio is now forced, by a court of law, to administer, due to politics. If you want to talk about how you get someone not to touch a treatment with a 40-foot pole, take one particular case and force an unapproved treatment on someone whilst making a media circus of the whole event. What if the guy ends up dying after all of this, with no fault of the drug.



I don't really care one way or the other whether that guy gets ivermectin or not, but it's not as you describe it either.
I've talked to a couple of physicians (way more qualified than I am) who really see no harm in ivermectin, and would have had no trouble prescribing it ... except they are prevented from doing so. This is not the same as if a rogue patient was suing to get a random horse dewormer or opiates. That's something that some people even in the medical community are OK with, and something that, by the way is proven to be harmless.

The article you quoted starts with "A Butler County judge ruled in favor of a woman last week who sought to force a hospital to administer an animal dewormer" which is false - or misleading at best. It is not _solely _an animal dewormer, it is also a human medication that by the way has also been shown to have pretty much no side effects. How much do you want to bet that the lawsuit was not to get the animal formulation treatment (like people and the article seem to imply), but obviously the human formulation that physicians are now prevented to prescribe? So again, "horse dewormer" is not true in this case. Sure, it might not cure Covid - it's unlikely that it does even help, but it won't harm either.
On top of being dishonest, the article and the forums are also making it political (The article says "the drug has grown in popularity among conservatives"), whereas it doesn't need to be.

The misrepresentation is absolutely flagrant. 
Some people don't care about exaggerations or misrepresentations as long as it fits their bias.
As far as I'm concerned, I don't like misrepresentations, simplifications or outright lies - and I prefer a truth that disproves something I thought was true (we can all learn something new everyday) to a lie that supports my point. Sounds like that's a minority opinion to have, but I don't mind being in the minority for that.


----------



## bostjan

@Drew

Well, some details:

1. The patient isn't the one calling the shots, it's his spouse, who maybe has power of attorney or something (IDK).
2. There actually was a prescription written for the treatment in question, just not through the hospital, and not through any in-person physician's visit. The exact details there are also not clear, but maybe irrelevant.
3. There is research, just nothing finalized.

That said... this all probably could have been avoided by just having the guy participate in one of the ongoing studies. Of course, it's just as likely he could end up in the placebo group. At this point, since nothing is approved or even really known, there's not yet any difference between the two groups as far as we know.

This might seem like a weird thing to bring up, but this drug is available, from what I can tell, only by prescription for human use. If it was OTC medication, then it might be a quite different story.

One could say "well, this drug, in small doses is 100% safe," but, well no. No drug is ever 100% safe. I suppose that doesn't probably matter to most people, but what is specific here is that the benefit of it is unproven and the risks are unknown.

Just in general, giving a doctor a court order to use a specific drug on a specific patient is clearly stupid. Your proverbial woman could go to another doctor, but this guy in ICU is stuck there with the hospital he's in unless he's airlifted or whatever - probably a no-go when he's infected with a deadly virus. But also birth control is approved by the FDA. If I found some quack doctor to prescribe me valium to treat my acid reflux, when there is no such FDA treatment approved, and then sue the pharmacist when he won't hand it over, and the court rules that I get the valium, it's a pretty big deal. Not just because the judge is making medical decisions far beyond professional qualifications, but also because there is now a local governing entity (court) directly contradicting a federal governing entity (the FDA).

But this is the era of politics trumping science. Climate change, evolution, HCQ, masks, etc., it's all clearly politics versus science. It's what we know versus what we want to believe. It's the post-modernist literature evaluation applied to scientific discovery, and it doesn't work that way.


----------



## mbardu

nightflameauto said:


> I know I'll regret this, but. . .
> 
> You seem to be utterly convinced that everyone you interact with is guilty



Not quite. There a few people who it's possible to have a nuanced conversation with.



nightflameauto said:


> Maybe, sometimes, you're desire to paint us all as predisposed idiots incapable of seeing nuance has turned you into somebody that sees nothing but people that are predisposed idiots incapable of seeing nuance. In a way, you've made yourself exactly what you're accusing everybody else of being.
> 
> My suggestion, that I'm sure you'll ignore in favor of painting me as another predisposed idiot incapable of seeing nuance, is to maybe take a moment to think before flail typing as fast as you can to re-frame what the other person is saying, and actually try reading what you're responding to. I know that's a way out there, crazy ass thought, so I won't expect it, but it might be nice to try sometime. That or go take a walk and try to think happy thoughts.



If you have a problem with what I am saying, can you show me where I painted you as a predisposed idiot?
Because that's not the goal and I'll happily correct something that gave you this impression.

I just don't like seeing lies and exaggerations uncorrected, as well as dumb generalizations that put any _slightly _different thought into a neat "box" in order to delegitimize it. Like made up attacks on random individuals. or unrelated rants about Wakefield or Trump. Looking back a few posts, I am literally only replying on the basis of "you can have different opinions, it doesn't make you antivax" and "even if you don't agree on a particular topic, it doesn't mean you have to make stuff up and misrepresent". Do you have a problem with that? Or is it OK in your book for someone to mispresent or outright lie just because they believe they're right?

Have _you _read what I was replying to?
Because things like Blayik being an anti-vax anti-science anti-women anti-Palestine are all demonstrably true - you can check for yourself in just two clicks. 
Just like "that lady sued to get a horse dewormer injected" is _at best_ a gross mischaracterization.
This doesn't imply that Blayik is perfect (I don't really like the person) or that it's smart to use farm supplies as your pharmacy.
But if you have a real point, you should be able to make your point without resorting to gross generalizations, misrepresentations, unrelated rants and personal attacks.


----------



## bostjan

@mbardu - The drug is primarily used as an antiparasitic for livestock. There's nothing untrue about characterizing it that way. Maybe we would both prefer that the article said "Unproven treatment," but it sounds like plenty of people would have a problem with that as well.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> @Drew
> 
> 1. The patient isn't the one calling the shots, it's his spouse, who maybe has power of attorney or something (IDK).
> 2. There actually was a prescription written for the treatment in question, just not through the hospital, and not through any in-person physician's visit. The exact details there are also not clear, but maybe irrelevant.
> 3. There is research, just nothing finalized.



I'm not surprised that there would have been a prescription written.
Again, some physicians have nothing against Ivermectin, so the characterization of "random horse dewormer forced by a clueless spouse" is just plain dishonest.



bostjan said:


> @mbardu - The drug is primarily used as an antiparasitic for livestock. There's nothing untrue about characterizing it that way. Maybe we would both prefer that the article said "Unproven treatment," but it sounds like plenty of people would have a problem with that as well.



The drug has saved countless human lives, enhanced the quality of life of a magnitude more , it's been called a wonder, has won a nobel prize for its use on humans and there is plenty of literature to support all of that

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043740/
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2015/press-release/

Continuing to characterize it only as livestock drug is at best very very misleading.
It's fine to say it might not help at all for Covid, but why do we need to misrepresent it?

What would be the problem with calling it "unproven treatment prescribed by a physician" exactly? That would certainly be more factual and truthful compared to trying to make it sound like she literally was trying to get an animal product injected into her husband. Or don't you see the difference in what this conveys?


----------



## nightflameauto

mbardu said:


> Not quite. There a few people who it's possible to have a nuanced conversation with.
> 
> 
> 
> If you have a problem with what I am saying, can you show me where I painted you as a predisposed idiot?
> Because that's not the goal and I'll happily correct something that gave you this impression.


Not me personally, as I do my best not to engage with you unless I'm really bored or feeling like punishing myself.


> I just don't like seeing lies and exaggerations uncorrected, as well as dumb generalizations that put any _slightly _different thought into a neat "box" in order to delegitimize it. Like made up attacks on random individuals.


Like you do throughout these conversations?



> or unrelated rants about Wakefield or Trump. Looking back a few posts, I am literally only replying on the basis of "you can have different opinions, it doesn't make you antivax" and "even if you don't agree on a particular topic, it doesn't mean you have to make stuff up and misrepresent". Do you have a problem with that? Or is it OK in your book for someone to mispresent or outright lie just because they believe they're right?


Well, apparently you do. Your inability to respond to what a poster actually wrote and instead make up wildly speculative threads that might, maybe, possibly be connected if they were in the box you want to shoo them into plants you squarely in what you're claiming to fight against.

You have a problem with people pigeon holing others based on loose connections? I have a problem with blatant hypocracy.


> Have _you _read what I was replying to?


Yes. Better question: Have you? I think you get some loose idea of what's being said and then develop your reply based on filling in gaps that aren't filled.


> Because things like Blayik being an anti-vax anti-science anti-women anti-Palestine are all demonstrably true - you can check for yourself in just two clicks.
> Just like "that lady sued to get a horse dewormer injected" is _at best_ a gross mischaracterization.
> This doesn't imply that Blayik is perfect (I don't really like the person) or that it's smart to use farm supplies as your pharmacy.
> But if you have a real point, you should be able to make your point without resorting to gross generalizations, misrepresentations, unrelated rants and personal attacks.


Pot = kettle.

But I'm sure that's not gonna penetrate either.


----------



## mbardu

nightflameauto said:


> Not me personally, as I do my best not to engage with you unless I'm really bored or feeling like punishing myself.
> 
> Like you do throughout these conversations?
> 
> 
> Well, apparently you do. Your inability to respond to what a poster actually wrote and instead make up wildly speculative threads that might, maybe, possibly be connected if they were in the box you want to shoo them into plants you squarely in what you're claiming to fight against.
> 
> You have a problem with people pigeon holing others based on loose connections? I have a problem with blatant hypocracy.
> 
> Yes. Better question: Have you? I think you get some loose idea of what's being said and then develop your reply based on filling in gaps that aren't filled.
> 
> Pot = kettle.
> 
> But I'm sure that's not gonna penetrate either.



Instead of generalizations, if you have an actual outright lie I gave, a made up fact to attack an individual, or an occasion where I genuinely didn't answer a particular poster, I'll happily correct it.
Don't be shy, and feel free to point me in that direction.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> it's been called a wonder, has won a nobel prize


As a treatment for _roundworm_. There was also a nobel prize given out for figuring out some details of how circadian rhythms work, but taking a nap isn't a proven treatment for covid either.



bostjan said:


> but what is specific here is that the benefit of it is unproven and the risks are unknown.


Which, hey, isn't that the same argument mbardu was throwing around pages and pages ago in favour of being skeptical about which vaccines to take?


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> Continuing to characterize it only as livestock drug is at best very very misleading.





the article I posted said:


> The drug was originally developed to deworm livestock animals before doctors began using it against parasitic diseases among humans. Several researchers won a Nobel Prize in 2015 for establishing its efficacy in humans. It’s used to treat head lice, onchocerciasis (river blindness) and others.



Your characterization of the article's characterization is dishonest by the same logic by which you called it dishonest.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> Don't be shy, and feel free to point me in that direction.


Well for one, you kept saying I was calling Bialik anti-woman and anti-palestine, which I didn't - and then continued to use that misattribution to make a jab at me:



mbardu said:


> Because things like Blayik being an anti-vax anti-science anti-women anti-Palestine are all demonstrably true - you can check for yourself in just two clicks.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> As a treatment for _roundworm_. There was also a nobel prize given out for figuring out some details of how circadian rhythms work, but taking a nap isn't a proven treatment for covid either.



If you read anything I wrote in good faith, you will see that I never pretended Ivermectin was going to cure Covid.

I just said it was absolutely unfair to present it as a random horse dewormer like a lot of people like to do.



TedEH said:


> Which, hey, isn't that the same argument mbardu was throwing around pages and pages ago in favour of being skeptical about which vaccines to take?



That might sound weird to you, but I am highly skeptical of Ivermectin too.
Doesn't mean I have to misrepresent it to support my point.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> Your characterization of the article's characterization is dishonest by the same logic by which you called it dishonest.



You know people only read the first few sentences - if that. That's why I talked about how the article _starts_.
Proof: half the posters here are still calling it a random horse dewormer.

It's like a political lie, you say it loud once, it gets into everyone's head. You correct it later when people are no longer listening. Damage is done.


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> random horse dewormer





mbardu said:


> random horse dewormer





mbardu said:


> random horse dewormer





mbardu said:


> random horse dewormer





mbardu said:


> random horse dewormer


5 different posts where you said that phrase 5 different times. I searched the last four pages of the thread, and those were the *only* times that exact phrase was used (other than quotes of you).


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> but taking a nap isn't a proven treatment for covid either.



Yes it is, but only if you're using a MyPillow! Go to MyPillow.com now and enter promo code SSO for 7% off!


----------



## TedEH

You know, maybe a good nap could cure how this thread makes me feel.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> Well for one, you kept saying I was calling Bialik anti-woman and anti-palestine, which I didn't - and then continued to use that misattribution to make a jab at me:



Proof again you didn't read what I said.
You came in saying "nobody represented her as cartoonishly evil", whereas it was clear that your colleague before you was doing just that.
You said that here: https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-294#post-5311930
Whereas I think this qualifies as a series of lies just for the sake of a cartoonishly evil presentation: https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-293#post-5311860
So I clarified it.

Then I know _you_ didn't call her anti-palestine or anti-women, you just presented her as antivax, not smart, and with a platform.
So that's what I mostly replied to in my subsequent replies to you.
Then it just got lost in "who's responsible for youtube comments"...


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> 5 different posts where you said that phrase 5 different times. I searched the last four pages of the thread, and those were the *only* times that exact phrase was used (other than quotes of you).



Two people can play this game.

Some mentions of horse dewormer:

https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-295#post-5312505

https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2021...patient-with-ivermectin-despite-cdc-warnings/

https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-295#post-5312520

https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-295#post-5312541

https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-295#post-5312567

https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-296#post-5312620

I did not include synonyms, or sheep/cattle instead of horse but you're a reasonable person and I'm sure you sense a tone there.


----------



## TedEH

Well, I've reached my limit. Ignore list and a nap it is.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> *Just in general, giving a doctor a court order to use a specific drug on a specific patient is clearly stupid.* Your proverbial woman could go to another doctor, but this guy in ICU is stuck there with the hospital he's in unless he's airlifted or whatever - probably a no-go when he's infected with a deadly virus. But also birth control is approved by the FDA. If I found some quack doctor to prescribe me valium to treat my acid reflux, when there is no such FDA treatment approved, and then sue the pharmacist when he won't hand it over, and the court rules that I get the valium, it's a pretty big deal. Not just because the judge is making medical decisions far beyond professional qualifications, but also because there is now a local governing entity (court) directly contradicting a federal governing entity (the FDA).


Yeah, this is kind of what I was coming around to. I think you can fairly conclude that courts can order a doctor to treat a patient, period; I don't think you can come up with a valid legal argument to conclude they can force a doctor to prescribe a specific drug against their professional judgement, provided they are currently providing sound medical care to treat whatever symptoms are present. I'm shocked the courts sided with the patient/his wife, nd I'm surprised there wasn't an appeal.


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> Two people can play this game.
> 
> Some mentions of horse dewormer:
> 
> https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-295#post-5312505
> 
> https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2021...patient-with-ivermectin-despite-cdc-warnings/
> 
> https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-295#post-5312520
> 
> https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-295#post-5312541
> 
> https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-295#post-5312567
> 
> https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-296#post-5312620
> 
> I did not include synonyms, or sheep/cattle instead of horse but you're a reasonable person and I'm sure you sense a tone there.



Six links.

Zero that mention the word combination that you keep using, or any combination of synonyms of those three words. Two of them don't even mention horses nor worms. If I were grading you, I'd give you half credit on 4 of 6. 33% see me after class.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> Six links.
> 
> Zero that mention the word combination that you keep using, or any combination of synonyms of those three words. Two of them don't even mention horses nor worms. If I were grading you, I'd give you half credit on 4 of 6. 33% see me after class.



Seriously that's going to be your argument? Hark on the fact I used the particular word "_random_"? I'm sure you can come up with a better defense than that, can't you?
If someone was going to insult a guy and call him stupid, would a good defense be "nu-huh, I only called him dumb"?

Do you _really _not see how it is presented pejoratively everywhere just to elicit those knee jerk responses? Whether you call it a random horse dewormer, a cattle antiparasitic or a sheep pill doesn't change the message in the least. If you say "someone wants to inject that", it's a wildly different message than "someone wants to have their physician's prescription (of that Covid-unproven, but harmless very-human medicine) fulfilled by the hospital". Again, I don't even care about the case itself, and most likely Ivermectin doesn't really help at all. But the way it's presented...

If you go with this type type of half truths, omissions and misrepresentations, then that's no better than conspirationists putting emphasis on all those dAnGeRoUs cHeMiCaLs in vaccines just to elicit an emotional reactions in their readers...
And if we want to be better, we shouldn't use the same tactics.
But hey, just like hating on outright lies and misrepresentations, maybe that's just me.


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> Seriously that's going to be your argument? Hark on the fact I used the particular word "_random_"? I'm sure you can come up with a better defense than that, can't you?
> If someone was going to insult a guy and call him stupid, would a good defense be "nu-huh, I only called him dumb"?
> 
> Do you _really _not see how it is presented pejoratively everywhere just to elicit those knee jerk responses? Whether you call it a random horse dewormer, a cattle antiparasitic or a sheep pill doesn't change the message in the least. If you say "someone wants to inject that", it's a wildly different message than "someone wants to have their physician's prescription (of that Covid-unproven, but harmless very-human medicine) fulfilled by the hospital". Again, I don't even care about the case itself, and most likely Ivermectin doesn't really help at all. But the way it's presented...
> 
> If you go with this type type of half truths, omissions and misrepresentations, then that's no better than conspirationists putting emphasis on all those dAnGeRoUs cHeMiCaLs in vaccines just to elicit an emotional reactions in their readers...
> And if we want to be better, we shouldn't use the same tactics.
> But hey, just like hating on outright lies and misrepresentations, maybe that's just me.


Maybe try to play by the same rules you expect others to play by and you'll have more fun and/or have more productive conversations.

For example, if you want to argue over the wording that is used, don't change the wording you're quoting.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> Maybe try to play by the same rules you expect others to play by and you'll have more fun and/or have more productive conversations.
> 
> For example, if you want to argue over the wording that is used, don't change the wording you're quoting.



Can you answer those honestly?
Like literally answering those questions.

Does the difference in vocabulary between "random horse dewormer", "cattle antiparasitic", "sheep pill", or "animal drug", change the meaning and tone of having most people describe Ivermectin as an arbitrary animal drug that people would somehow be trying to use on humans out of the blue?

And out of the 2 - what is more factual:

the lady sued the hospital to inject horse dewormer into her a husband
the lady had a prescription for a human anti-parasitic. that drug is not approved for human treatment of Covid, and there are no clear studies proving its efficacy, yet she sued the hospital to have it used anyway
What is more likely to rile up the reader though...

Edit: not sure what you are referring to with "rules". Did I ever use a pure "vocabulary" issue as an argument or a defense? Did I make that rule? Do you have an example of that? Because I don't think I would nitpick on just the specific word if the meaning is the same.


----------



## nightflameauto

People aren't just taking animal dewormer:
https://www.abc12.com/2021/08/20/po...eople-take-livestock-dewormer-treat-covid-19/

Except they are.

That poison control is getting enough calls about it to publicly discuss it even in one state, it's not some random one-off case of getting a doctor to prescribe human grade medication.

We can rattle our way around that argument any way you'd like, but any claim that it's just not happening is make believe. Is it happening in massive, nationally relevant quantities? No. That'd be make believe as well. But it's happening, and that fact should be troubling.

Now, pardon me, I ran out of horse tranquilizers so I've gotta dig out my dog's old *tram-a-dol* medication for tonight.

(PS Why is the actualy spelling of *tram-a-dol* a banned word?)


----------



## mbardu

nightflameauto said:


> People aren't just taking animal dewormer:
> https://www.abc12.com/2021/08/20/po...eople-take-livestock-dewormer-treat-covid-19/
> 
> Except they are.
> 
> That poison control is getting enough calls about it to publicly discuss it even in one state, it's not some random one-off case of getting a doctor to prescribe human grade medication.
> 
> We can rattle our way around that argument any way you'd like, but any claim that it's just not happening is make believe. Is it happening in massive, nationally relevant quantities? No. That'd be make believe as well. But it's happening, and that fact should be troubling.
> 
> Now, pardon me, I ran out of horse tranquilizers so I've gotta dig out my dog's old *tram-a-dol* medication for tonight.
> 
> (PS Why is the actualy spelling of *tram-a-dol* a banned word?)



If you are in good faith, you will re-read what I wrote to realize I never said that it didn't happen. I in fact did lament that it was happening. Specifically I said 1-it is happening, 2-it is dumb that people are doing so, and 3-it would happen _less_ if the human formulation was not being systematically blocked from use (like by the hospital in the article).
I said as much at least here: https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-295#post-5312527
here: https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-296#post-5312573
here: https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-296#post-5312585
And never once said poison control was not getting calls - quite the opposite, and quite literally so.

So why do you need to pretend that I said something I didn't?
Why lie?


----------



## nightflameauto

mbardu said:


> If you are in good faith, you will re-read what I wrote to realize I never said that it didn't happen. I in fact did lament that it was happening. Specifically I said 1-it is happening, 2-it is dumb that people are doing so, and 3-it would happen _less_ if the human formulation was not being systematically blocked from use (like by the hospital in the article).
> I said as much at least here: https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-295#post-5312527
> here: https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-296#post-5312573
> here: https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-296#post-5312585
> And never once said poison control was not getting calls - quite the opposite, and quite literally so.
> 
> So why do you need to pretend that I said something I didn't?
> Why lie?


Doesn't feel great having people misrepresent what you say, does it?

My day is about done, so I'm probably out on whatever diatribe you're about to direct my way. Enjoy your rant. I may or may not see it tomorrow.


----------



## TedEH

nightflameauto said:


> (PS Why is the actualy spelling of *tram-a-dol* a banned word?)


There's a few weird word banned for spam reasons, I assume.


----------



## mbardu

nightflameauto said:


> Doesn't feel great having people misrepresent what you say, does it?
> 
> My day is about done, so I'm probably out on whatever diatribe you're about to direct my way. Enjoy your rant. I may or may not see it tomorrow.



What does your answer even mean 
That _you _are _trying _to argue in bad faith? That _you _do misrepresent what people are saying and that makes you....right somehow in proving that...I am supposedly the one doing it...?

I mean... HWAT ? 

Anyway, I don't have any particular diatribe for you but if you have something of substance (not like the above), I'll reiterate: "Instead of generalizations, if you have an actual outright lie I gave, a made up fact to attack an individual, or an occasion where I genuinely didn't answer a particular poster, I'll happily correct it". And I mean that sincerely. Your post here though? That's not it, chief.


----------



## StevenC

This thread gets significantly better when it's just people yelling into the wind.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

nightflameauto said:


> (PS Why is the actualy spelling of *tram-a-dol* a banned word?)





TedEH said:


> There's a few weird word banned for spam reasons, I assume.



For whatever reason spam bots think everyone needs to take the edge off with a tram' while gambling online on a counterfeit cell phone with a raging boner.


----------



## StevenC

MaxOfMetal said:


> For whatever reason spam bots think everyone needs to take the edge off with a tram' while gambling online on a counterfeit cell phone with a raging boner.


If they spent any time around here they'd know what we all really need is counterfeit Swiss balckmachines.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

StevenC said:


> If they spent any time around here they'd know what we all really need is counterfeit Swiss balckmachines.



Hey, we already tried blocking Huf.


----------



## Bodes

Randy said:


> View attachment 97290
> 
> 
> https://abcnews.go.com/Health/live-updates/coronavirus-delta-variant-latest-news/?id=79720727



Could be a poorly placed title vs snapshot? 

But I think there is more to that story than what I read in that news live blog.

My thoughts (happy to have people show evidence to counter these):

- Delta is more contagious than other strains.

- Pfizer _seems_ to 'wear off' after 6 month in a (small?) % of the population, this _could _help explain why fully-vaccinated people going to hospital. More data is needed here.

- It is reported that more fully-vaccinated people are going to hospital with delta, compared to fully-vaccinated people who have caught one of the other strains, but the other strains were more prevalent _before _the higher percentages of vaccines that have been administered we have now, so there may be limited data available to prove/counter this. There seems to be less of the other variants around now.

- All reports of fully-vaccinated people in ICU, on ventilators, or have died in Australia have been reported to also have other underlying health issues. But this is a very, very small sample to read into. Not up to date with what is being reported in other countries.


----------



## Randy

Bodes said:


> All reports of fully-vaccinated people in ICU, on ventilators, or have died in Australia have been reported to also have other underlying health issues.



Wasn't that the case with vanilla covid and no vax though? Hasn't it always been 99% unhealthy or obese people?


----------



## ramses

Randy said:


> Wasn't that the case with vanilla covid and no vax though? Hasn't it always been 99% unhealthy or obese people?



Correct. The official number: 95% of people in ICUs have multiple lifestyle diseases (e.g., obesity, diabetes type II, fatty liver, etc.)

The amazing news is that vaccination is incredibly effective at keeping people with lifestyle diseases out of the ICU (or worst).


----------



## Shoeless_jose




----------



## estabon37

nightflameauto said:


> Well, we are in the one country in the world where prescription drugs get TV ads plastered everywhere. Maybe some folks have just gotten used to the idea that they can make up their own treatment plan and the doctor just has to do it?



I know this is a couple of pages old now, but this still blows my mind. I became a relatively big fan (by Australian standards) of NFL over the last ten years or so, and on the rare occasions I get to watch games live (when they're not on at 4am on a Monday) I am absolutely blown away by the medicine / drug ads. They're so LONG! I've been living with adblockers for a while now, so I'm not used to ads in general, but American drugs ads move so quickly from funny / awkward into downright bizarre. I'm sure if you grow up with them they seem normal, but they're really not. When a cartoon elf tells me that a breakfast cereal is healthy my natural skepticism kicked in at a fairly early age. To have some clean-cut not-quite-middle-aged must-be-a-professional wearing a lab coat smiling and recommending a particular drug for a range of broadly described potentially unrelated conditions is outright dystopian. 

That said, the USA isn't the only country that allows direct-to-consumer medical advertising. New Zealand is admittedly the only other country: https://www.nzma.org.nz/journal-art...f-prescription-drugs-be-effectively-regulated. The linked article argues that with sufficient government regulation it can be done in a non-predatory manner. I guess you just need to live in a country where the population doesn't equate government regulation with communism / socialism / the very death of society itself.

I think it's pretty obvious why people in one country in particular are so used to the idea of individuals pushing particular preferred treatments regardless of their levels of background knowledge or experience.


----------



## nightflameauto

mbardu said:


> What does your answer even mean
> That _you _are _trying _to argue in bad faith? That _you _do misrepresent what people are saying and that makes you....right somehow in proving that...I am supposedly the one doing it...?
> 
> I mean... HWAT ?
> 
> Anyway, I don't have any particular diatribe for you but if you have something of substance (not like the above), I'll reiterate: "Instead of generalizations, if you have an actual outright lie I gave, a made up fact to attack an individual, or an occasion where I genuinely didn't answer a particular poster, I'll happily correct it". And I mean that sincerely. Your post here though? That's not it, chief.


I literally took your exact framing and turned it around on you. You choose what argument you are fighting against, cherry pick individual posts that sometimes are said as hyperbole or humor and rail against them for page after page not getting the argument actually made, then wonder why people put you on the ignore list.

Fuck off, man. You can't play by your own rules. If you can't understand that, I suggest therapy.


estabon37 said:


> I know this is a couple of pages old now, but this still blows my mind. I became a relatively big fan (by Australian standards) of NFL over the last ten years or so, and on the rare occasions I get to watch games live (when they're not on at 4am on a Monday) I am absolutely blown away by the medicine / drug ads. They're so LONG! I've been living with adblockers for a while now, so I'm not used to ads in general, but American drugs ads move so quickly from funny / awkward into downright bizarre. I'm sure if you grow up with them they seem normal, but they're really not. When a cartoon elf tells me that a breakfast cereal is healthy my natural skepticism kicked in at a fairly early age. To have some clean-cut not-quite-middle-aged must-be-a-professional wearing a lab coat smiling and recommending a particular drug for a range of broadly described potentially unrelated conditions is outright dystopian.
> 
> That said, the USA isn't the only country that allows direct-to-consumer medical advertising. New Zealand is admittedly the only other country: https://www.nzma.org.nz/journal-art...f-prescription-drugs-be-effectively-regulated. The linked article argues that with sufficient government regulation it can be done in a non-predatory manner. I guess you just need to live in a country where the population doesn't equate government regulation with communism / socialism / the very death of society itself.
> 
> I think it's pretty obvious why people in one country in particular are so used to the idea of individuals pushing particular preferred treatments regardless of their levels of background knowledge or experience.


Well, we are the fountain of idiocy. We may not have created it, but by gawd we WILL perfect it.

BTW, love the sig.


----------



## bostjan

estabon37 said:


> I know this is a couple of pages old now, but this still blows my mind. I became a relatively big fan (by Australian standards) of NFL over the last ten years or so, and on the rare occasions I get to watch games live (when they're not on at 4am on a Monday) I am absolutely blown away by the medicine / drug ads. They're so LONG! I've been living with adblockers for a while now, so I'm not used to ads in general, but American drugs ads move so quickly from funny / awkward into downright bizarre. I'm sure if you grow up with them they seem normal, but they're really not. When a cartoon elf tells me that a breakfast cereal is healthy my natural skepticism kicked in at a fairly early age. To have some clean-cut not-quite-middle-aged must-be-a-professional wearing a lab coat smiling and recommending a particular drug for a range of broadly described potentially unrelated conditions is outright dystopian.
> 
> That said, the USA isn't the only country that allows direct-to-consumer medical advertising. New Zealand is admittedly the only other country: https://www.nzma.org.nz/journal-art...f-prescription-drugs-be-effectively-regulated. The linked article argues that with sufficient government regulation it can be done in a non-predatory manner. I guess you just need to live in a country where the population doesn't equate government regulation with communism / socialism / the very death of society itself.
> 
> I think it's pretty obvious why people in one country in particular are so used to the idea of individuals pushing particular preferred treatments regardless of their levels of background knowledge or experience.


90 second commercial:
"Depressed? Ask your doctor or pharmacist is enditol is right for you."
"Enditol has not been certified by the FDA to treat depression. Some serious side effects include explosive bleeding, spontaneous combustion, sudden heart attack, and liver blackening. If you experience these side effects, see your doctor. Do not take enditol if you are nursing, pregnant, or incarcerated. Milder side effects include loss of appetite, nausea, fatigue, suicidal thoughts, sudden violent changes in sleep routines, headaches, vomiting, gastrointestinal distress, and hairy nipples. Do not take if you are operating heavy machinery, such as jackhammers, steamrollers, excavators, or bulldozers. Do not take if you are also taking an F.A.R.T. inhibitor or other SPLI blockers, such as ileftmyex, grininberitol, or fukitol. Do not take if you have a history of DUI. Enditol is only available by prescription and not valid in Hawaii or Puerto Rico. Some restictions apply. All rights reserved."
Next comercial:
"If you've taken enditol, and developed black liver, you could be entitled to a five hundred trillion dollar settlement. Call the law offices of Walken, Tripp, and Fallon today at 1-800-GET-BENT, that's 1-800-438-2368."


----------



## r33per

I'm just here for a like from StevenC


----------



## StevenC

r33per said:


> I'm just here for a like from StevenC


Don't you get enough in the Formula 1 thread?


----------



## mbardu

nightflameauto said:


> I literally took your exact framing and turned it around on you. You choose what argument you are fighting against, cherry pick individual posts that sometimes are said as hyperbole or humor and rail against them for page after page not getting the argument actually made, then wonder why people put you on the ignore list.
> 
> Fuck off, man. You can't play by your own rules. If you can't understand that, I suggest therapy.
> BTW, love the sig.



You did none of that.
You tried a lie, got caught, and have no defense, so you switch back to generalities and to attacking me personally (not anything I said) with stuff like "fuck off".
You'll notice I'm never aggressive like that - yet people with no argument have no trouble doing so against me once they run out of lies.

Again- Instead of generalizations or attacks, if you have an actual outright lie I told to show me, a made up fact that I used to attack an individual, or an occasion where I genuinely didn't answer a particular poster, I'll happily correct it. Show me any supposed rule I broke besides not going along with the echo chamber. Like one. Anything specific. Oh or anytime I had to insult or tell someone to fuck off for lack of an answer as well? Made up generalities or the platitudes you come up with are not showing that.


----------



## mbardu

estabon37 said:


> I know this is a couple of pages old now, but this still blows my mind. I became a relatively big fan (by Australian standards) of NFL over the last ten years or so, and on the rare occasions I get to watch games live (when they're not on at 4am on a Monday) I am absolutely blown away by the medicine / drug ads. They're so LONG! I've been living with adblockers for a while now, so I'm not used to ads in general, but American drugs ads move so quickly from funny / awkward into downright bizarre. I'm sure if you grow up with them they seem normal, but they're really not. When a cartoon elf tells me that a breakfast cereal is healthy my natural skepticism kicked in at a fairly early age. To have some clean-cut not-quite-middle-aged must-be-a-professional wearing a lab coat smiling and recommending a particular drug for a range of broadly described potentially unrelated conditions is outright dystopian.
> 
> That said, the USA isn't the only country that allows direct-to-consumer medical advertising. New Zealand is admittedly the only other country: https://www.nzma.org.nz/journal-art...f-prescription-drugs-be-effectively-regulated. The linked article argues that with sufficient government regulation it can be done in a non-predatory manner. I guess you just need to live in a country where the population doesn't equate government regulation with communism / socialism / the very death of society itself.
> 
> I think it's pretty obvious why people in one country in particular are so used to the idea of individuals pushing particular preferred treatments regardless of their levels of background knowledge or experience.



If you go to Europe, you'll also encounter a lot of people who try to pick the drugs or treatments they prefer. "Alternatives" such as homeopathics are huge as well.
There was also a lot of support for HCQ in France early on in the Pandemic. The overall theme is there in a lot of Western countries.
One thing is for sure though, they won't litigate as much as the US and try to attack a hospital.
In Western Europe they're probably more likely to start a protest than to file a lawsuit 

That said, the advertising for drugs in the US _is _scary.
Definitely one of the most shocking aspects of American TV for anyone with an outside perspective. Luckily, it looks to me like that's a dying boomer thing. I don't think it's as prevalent in the streaming services used by those damn millennials (creepy drug ads ... another industry they'll put an end to?).


----------



## nightflameauto

mbardu said:


> You did none of that.
> You tried a lie, got caught, and have no defense, so you switch back to generalities and to attacking me personally (not anything I said) with stuff like "fuck off".
> You'll notice I'm never aggressive like that - yet people with no argument have no trouble doing so against me once they run out of lies.
> 
> Again- Instead of generalizations or attacks, if you have an actual outright lie I told to show me, a made up fact that I used to attack an individual, or an occasion where I genuinely didn't answer a particular poster, I'll happily correct it. Show me any supposed rule I broke besides not going along with the echo chamber. Like one. Anything specific. Oh or anytime I had to insult or tell someone to fuck off for lack of an answer as well? Made up generalities or the platitudes you come up with are not showing that.


Congrats, man. You failed the Turing test.

Have a nice life. Time to refresh the ignore list.


----------



## mbardu

nightflameauto said:


> Congrats, man. You failed the Turing test.
> 
> Have a nice life. Time to refresh the ignore list.



Oh the irony... 

Well at least you made it 100% clear that despite 3 opportunities to make a case, you just didn't have a point to begin with, and just have something against me personally.

Anyway, bye!


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

Try some PM’s don’t get the thread locked.


----------



## nightflameauto

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> Try some PM’s don’t get the thread locked.


Nah. I'm done. Can't be reasoned with. Can't be communicated with. And can't acknowledge a ribbing for what it is.

If anything feels off to the moderators, feel free to give me some time off. I probably deserve it for being dumb enough to acknowledge his existence in the first place.


----------



## bostjan

https://www.foxnews.com/health/pfizer-bourla-covid-19-vaccine-resistant-variant-likely-emerge

Headline should be Pfizer CEO tells Fox News exactly what it wants to hear to boost ratings.

I guess I missed this when it was new news a week ago, but it's just stating the obvious: this virus mutates very quickly, so vaccines might be a very routine thing for the foreseeable future - between boosters due to variants and boosters because of time-dependent exponential decay of immunity...

But maybe there are some much broader interpretations.


----------



## StevenC

Our deputy First Minister tested positive today, so there's hope.


----------



## Drew

The best part about reading this thread with a troll muted, is that the posts per page drops from 20 to something like 7.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> The best part about reading this thread with a troll muted, is that the posts per page drops from 20 to something like 7.



That sure would be good for visibility. Sadly, now _half _of _those _remaining posts are one or two users randomly jumping in every other page to tell everyone how they're proud and brave to click ignore and looking for the validation of doing so. All while secretly _still _reading and raging against the things they supposedly ignored


----------



## nightflameauto

bostjan said:


> https://www.foxnews.com/health/pfizer-bourla-covid-19-vaccine-resistant-variant-likely-emerge
> 
> Headline should be Pfizer CEO tells Fox News exactly what it wants to hear to boost ratings.
> 
> I guess I missed this when it was new news a week ago, but it's just stating the obvious: this virus mutates very quickly, so vaccines might be a very routine thing for the foreseeable future - between boosters due to variants and boosters because of time-dependent exponential decay of immunity...
> 
> But maybe there are some much broader interpretations.


When any drug company CEO is talking about such things, you also have to remember that they're speaking with dollar signs in their eyes. Even if what they are saying has a seed of truth, they'll exaggerate it as much as they possibly can because they want boosters, new vaccines for variants, and every other possible avenue towards more $$$$ pouring into the corporate coffers.

Dude's probably masturbating furiously over Delta right now.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

So someone yesterday was talking about Ivermectin, it quickly devolved into a why not conversation. Apparently “well for one thing, you’re not a horse.” wasn’t a strong enough reason. He argued that the truth of its efficiency is being hidden from us all. At that point I stopped listening and was able to walk away without being too frustrated. I’m losing my ability to converse with conspiracy theorists that I come into regular conversations with. Which is disconcerting to me, if we we get too far past the point of being able to just talk— I fear that the division in our Country could be disastrous for us?


----------



## wankerness

Bodes said:


> - All reports of fully-vaccinated people in ICU, on ventilators, or have died in Australia have been reported to also have other underlying health issues. But this is a very, very small sample to read into. Not up to date with what is being reported in other countries.



This "underlying health issue" thing being used as a counterargument against why we should be worried about covid infuriates me. MOST people have an underlying health issue of some sort. People like to dismiss deaths like "oh they had an underlying condition, it wouldn't happen to me" when what, well over half of the population has one? In this state it's especially funny cause this "argument" most regularly comes out of the mouth of 300 pound rednecks and their equally heavy wives that subsist primarily on mcdonalds, who are mad that someone told their equally unhealthy kid to wear a mask at school.

Do you think covid deaths are only actually a signifer the disease is dangerous if they kill people in the "healthy" 40% of the population? And it's not just obese people that have these conditions, there are regularly young, outwardly healthy people that turned out to have a heart defect or something that results in them having a very bad time or dying when they get covid cause "they thought it wouldn't be a big deal."


----------



## mbardu

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> So someone yesterday was talking about Ivermectin, it quickly devolved into a why not conversation. Apparently “well for one thing, you’re not a horse.” wasn’t a strong enough reason. He argued that the truth of its efficiency is being hidden from us all. At that point I stopped listening and was able to walk away without being too frustrated. I’m losing my ability to converse with conspiracy theorists that I come into regular conversations with. Which is disconcerting to me, *if we we get too far past the point of being able to just talk*— I fear that the division in our Country could be disastrous for us?



Highlighted for emphasis is exactly the issue, and also what you're doing in your 3 sentences there, and others have been doing. People so entrenched in a single vision of the world that they don't want to, or even _cannot _have a discussion because they have already decided what they _think _the others believe. Without even trying to actually listen to any other opinion. So instead they make stuff up that _nobody said,_ plug their ears and call everyone a conspiracy theorist.

If not, honestly- can you show me where anyone _here _said or implied "the truth of its efficiency is being hidden from us all"? Yet everyone is acting like that happened and so we have to be up in arms.

Why would "you’re not a horse" be an argument against the use of the very common human formulation of Ivermectin? The woman in the article above was not asking for a horse medicine as far as we know. She was asking for the very-human version she had a prescription for. And yet we have to make her sound cra_*zier*_ than she is for sensationalism.
Isn't "it's not proven and there's no particular reason to use it" a good enough argument on its own and we have to make stuff up?


----------



## mbardu

nightflameauto said:


> When any drug company CEO is talking about such things, you also have to remember that they're speaking with dollar signs in their eyes. Even if what they are saying has a seed of truth, they'll exaggerate it as much as they possibly can because they want boosters, new vaccines for variants, and every other possible avenue towards more $$$$ pouring into the corporate coffers.
> 
> Dude's probably masturbating furiously over Delta right now.



Wait wait wait, I though there was no profit motives in vaccines and boosters at all, so you were not allowed to talk about it? Because even saying it could be part of the equation at all would have you labelled an antivax? What a difference two pages make...


----------



## bostjan

nightflameauto said:


> When any drug company CEO is talking about such things, you also have to remember that they're speaking with dollar signs in their eyes. Even if what they are saying has a seed of truth, they'll exaggerate it as much as they possibly can because they want boosters, new vaccines for variants, and every other possible avenue towards more $$$$ pouring into the corporate coffers.
> 
> Dude's probably masturbating furiously over Delta right now.



Delta was sooooo two months ago, last month it was lambda, now it's onto the new beta C.1.2 substrain in South Africa. Poor guy's about to skin himself raw.



Dumple Stilzkin said:


> So someone yesterday was talking about Ivermectin, it quickly devolved into a why not conversation. Apparently “well for one thing, you’re not a horse.” wasn’t a strong enough reason. He argued that the truth of its efficiency is being hidden from us all. At that point I stopped listening and was able to walk away without being too frustrated. I’m losing my ability to converse with conspiracy theorists that I come into regular conversations with. Which is disconcerting to me, if we we get too far past the point of being able to just talk— I fear that the division in our Country could be disastrous for us?



It's not really a new thing with all of the google MD's out there. Just search WebMD for 5 minutes, and you're 100% good to go ahead and diagnose yourself with a rare disease. So, why leave the pharmaceutical research to chemists and doctors, when you can save all of the time and money and just do it yourself? My friend's mom is a pharmacist, and I have a few friends of my own who are pharm. tech's, so I'm definitely going to find the cure for covid myself, by googling and arguing with people on the internet.


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> Delta was sooooo two months ago, last month it was lambda, now it's onto the new beta C.1.2 substrain in South Africa.



I thought Lambda was changed to Delta-Plus because it didn’t sound scary enough?


----------



## TedEH

Now that I think of it, I'm really surprised nobody has busted out the phrase "Super COVID" yet.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> It's not really a new thing with all of the google MD's out there. Just search WebMD for 5 minutes, and you're 100% good to go ahead and diagnose yourself with a rare disease. So, why leave the pharmaceutical research to chemists and doctors, when you can save all of the time and money and just do it yourself? My friend's mom is a pharmacist, and I have a few friends of my own who are pharm. tech's, so I'm definitely going to find the cure for covid myself, by googling and arguing with people on the internet.



tO bE fAiR, armchair scientist and gullible people are on both sides.
If someone's argumented answer to "I'd like to use a prescribed ivermectin" like the woman in the article is "it's only a horse medicine", just because they read a couple of sensationalized headlines, then that person is _just _as gullible as the dumbass who's going to farm supplies to get his fix. They're not as dangerous sure, because they happen to be on what we think is the "righter" side of the discussion, and they do have better sources at least, but just as gullible regardless. Especially when there are clear and sufficient answers in the fact that Ivermectin is absolutely not proven to do anything against Covid, with the couple of studies that go in that direction being pretty sus.

It's difficult to see it from deep within the echo chamber, but there doesn't need to be just two extremes to the discussions. There is still the possibility for such a thing as a middle ground. And fostering a middle ground can help bring people back from the extremes and maybe see progress. Being just as derogatory and mocking and dishonest as the other extreme side, and attacking the middle ground - all that is doing the opposite of what you'd want the end result to be.


----------



## bostjan

jaxadam said:


> I thought Lambda was changed to Delta-Plus because it didn’t sound scary enough?


Not sure if serious, but the variants street names and their scientific classification names are:

Alpha B.1.1.7 (UK)
Beta B.1.351 (USA)
Gamma P.1 (Brazil)
Delta B.1.617.2 (India)
Delta Plus B.1.617.2.1
Epsilon B.1.427, B.1.429 (California)
Zeta P.2 (Rio de Janeiro)
Eta B.1.525 (Nigeria)
Theta P.3 (Japan)
Iota B.1.526 (New York)
Kappa B.1.617.1 (India)
Lambda C.37 (Peru)


----------



## CovertSovietBear

Not sure if already shared, but found a preliminary paper (not peer-reviewed as it was published on medRxiv) on other effects the Pfizer vaccine has on the immune system, including production of inflammatory cytokines after vaccination w/ non-specific stimuli:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.03.21256520v1.full.pdf

Short read


----------



## nightflameauto

Everytime I hear the Lambda variant it just makes me wanna watch Revenge of The Nerds on repeat.


----------



## MFB

jaxadam said:


> I thought Lambda was changed to Delta-Plus because it didn’t sound scary enough?



Nah, too many people were trying to sign up for it thinking it was a rewards program when you buy flights


----------



## mbardu

CovertSovietBear said:


> Not sure if already shared, but found a preliminary paper (not peer-reviewed as it was published on medRxiv) on other effects the Pfizer vaccine has on the immune system, including production of inflammatory cytokines after vaccination w/ non-specific stimuli:
> 
> https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.03.21256520v1.full.pdf
> 
> Short read



Anybody remember when a few researchers were saying "maybe despite those absolutely bonkers short-term protections against Covid-19, we should be careful because the novel vaccines could have longer term unexpected effects on the innate immune system" and they were quickly called antivax conspirationists? With the _very scientific_ argument that "everybody knows vaccines don't have long term effects". Pepperidge farm remembers...

It's just one preprint study, but I guess maybe it is actually worth a look so that's good to see.


----------



## Drew

nightflameauto said:


> When any drug company CEO is talking about such things, you also have to remember that they're speaking with dollar signs in their eyes. Even if what they are saying has a seed of truth, they'll exaggerate it as much as they possibly can because they want boosters, new vaccines for variants, and every other possible avenue towards more $$$$ pouring into the corporate coffers.
> 
> Dude's probably masturbating furiously over Delta right now.


Though, devil's advocate... Covid is probably not THAT lucrative for drug companies, and could potentially be a net money loser. 

For one, most of the vaccines on the market were develioped with government support (I think Pfizer was the exception) and are being sold to the US government at cost. They're breaking even on R&D, but that's about it. 

For the other, covid has actually caused most hospitals to LOSE money, for the simple fact that keeping covid patients alive is now a full time job which means they're not doing the sort of routine procedures that are generally profit centers for hospitals. I'm getting this mostly at the hospital level rather than the drug company one (my fiancee and a few of her friends work at different Boston area hospitals and have pretty good transparency into the economic consequences), and they've all seen sharp revenue declines. I have to assume the same is largely true from a drug standpoint, and selling covid vaccines and treatments is simply less profitable than prescribing all the sort of lifestyle ailment drugs for indigestion, high cholersterol, high blood pressure, etc, as well as stuff like anasthesia and antibiotic regiments for elective surgery, etc. 

People in the conspiracy camp keep talking about hospitals padding covid numbers to make more money, but honestly that's pretty nonsensical - if they could, they'd be far better off using those beds for the usual routine surgeries and whatnot, since per patient they make a fuckload more turning a bed over a couple times a week for inpatient surgery than they do keeping someone on a ventilator two weeks.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> Though, devil's advocate... Covid is probably not THAT lucrative for drug companies, and could potentially be a net money loser.
> 
> For one, most of the vaccines on the market were develioped with government support (I think Pfizer was the exception) and are being sold to the US government at cost. They're breaking even on R&D, but that's about it.
> 
> For the other, covid has actually caused most hospitals to LOSE money, for the simple fact that keeping covid patients alive is now a full time job which means they're not doing the sort of routine procedures that are generally profit centers for hospitals. I'm getting this mostly at the hospital level rather than the drug company one (my fiancee and a few of her friends work at different Boston area hospitals and have pretty good transparency into the economic consequences), and they've all seen sharp revenue declines. I have to assume the same is largely true from a drug standpoint, and selling covid vaccines and treatments is simply less profitable than prescribing all the sort of lifestyle ailment drugs for indigestion, high cholersterol, high blood pressure, etc, as well as stuff like anasthesia and antibiotic regiments for elective surgery, etc.
> 
> People in the conspiracy camp keep talking about hospitals padding covid numbers to make more money, but honestly that's pretty nonsensical - if they could, they'd be far better off using those beds for the usual routine surgeries and whatnot, since per patient they make a fuckload more turning a bed over a couple times a week for inpatient surgery than they do keeping someone on a ventilator two weeks.



Covid is not lucrative for everyone, but it is lucrative for many

*~~~~~~~~~~~
*
Moderna ($MRNA) earnings report: https://investors.modernatx.com/new...rts-second-quarter-fiscal-year-2021-financial



> Revenue: Total revenue was $4.4 billion for the three months ended June 30, 2021, compared to $67 million for the same period in 2020. Total revenue was $6.3 billion for the six months ended June 30, 2021, compared to $75 million for the same period in 2020



Revenue up from 75 Million to 4.4 *Billion *and they're not making a killing? *Net *Income of ~2.8B on gross revenue of ~4.2B and we're to believe that they're selling _*at cost*_?

Sotck price is up +480% year over year.

inb4 "But companies like Merck without a Covid product are not benefitting". Or "J&J is not benefitting as much". Yeah, that's the point, some companies with better "COVID products" profit more than others which are not positioned well in the market, that's free market. The better the Covid product they sell, the more they are profiting off of the situation. Hence MRNA.
Some people are _definitely _making a profit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some individual hospitals maybe are losing money (although it'd be interested to actually see a report because _any _serious hospital losing money in the US is pretty surprising), but if they are, could it be the exception rather than the rule?

HCA healthcare ($HCA) - ( biggest group of hospitals in the US) earnings report: https://investor.hcahealthcare.com/...021-Results-Raises-2021-Guidance/default.aspx

Despite low surgery admissions in 2020 full year, they did not lose money. Financial performance in 2020 was also the same as financial performance in 2019 - which was already very good. 2021 is already setting new earnings records.

Stock price is up +90% year over year, compared to $SPY "only" up 29%

~~~~~~~~~~~~

But just like the "8 Million people could die next year in the US unless everyone gets vaccinated !!!", people buy that stuff with "likes" while the sources are right there for everyone to see.

I don't get the compulsive need to lie, make stuff up or embellish the arguments. The truth is like 2 clicks away, anyway. Is it just knowing that people are not even going to bother to check? Is it because we get the warm fuzzies from arguments that fit our bias, even if they are exaggerations or untruths? At best (_best_), the above previous post is misleading and selective generalization.

It's perfectly fine to say "people profiting from something doesn't mean it's bad". It's OK to say that the "hospitals padding covid numbers to make more money" argument is a dumb conspiracy. But why on top of that make up easily disproven things as if that made the point stronger? Why use the tactics of the conspirationists you're trying to disprove?


----------



## estabon37

Drew said:


> Though, devil's advocate... Covid is probably not THAT lucrative for drug companies, and could potentially be a net money loser.
> 
> For one, most of the vaccines on the market were develioped with government support (I think Pfizer was the exception) and are being sold to the US government at cost. They're breaking even on R&D, but that's about it.
> 
> For the other, covid has actually caused most hospitals to LOSE money, for the simple fact that keeping covid patients alive is now a full time job which means they're not doing the sort of routine procedures that are generally profit centers for hospitals. I'm getting this mostly at the hospital level rather than the drug company one (my fiancee and a few of her friends work at different Boston area hospitals and have pretty good transparency into the economic consequences), and they've all seen sharp revenue declines. I have to assume the same is largely true from a drug standpoint, and selling covid vaccines and treatments is simply less profitable than prescribing all the sort of lifestyle ailment drugs for indigestion, high cholersterol, high blood pressure, etc, as well as stuff like anasthesia and antibiotic regiments for elective surgery, etc.
> 
> People in the conspiracy camp keep talking about hospitals padding covid numbers to make more money, but honestly that's pretty nonsensical - if they could, they'd be far better off using those beds for the usual routine surgeries and whatnot, since per patient they make a fuckload more turning a bed over a couple times a week for inpatient surgery than they do keeping someone on a ventilator two weeks.



See, this highlights aspects of what is collectively called the US Health Care system that show how disconnected a lot of those parts seem to be. Again, I'm an 'outsider' and have no expertise in this field, so take the following with a massive rock of salt. 

To the best of my knowledge hospitals operate fairly independently in the US (quick Google result: 58% private non-profit, 21% private for-profit, 21% government owned). That means weirdly close to 80% of the hospitals in a country of over 300 million people operate independently of any given level of government. In Australia, our number is around 47% private and declining (Australia has a private health care system on top of the national Medicare system for people that want to have coverage for very specific health concerns or just 'extra comfort' if they spend a fair bit of time in health care). 

Here's the thing, though: our pharmaceutical industry doesn't anywhere near as independently as the US's. I've never seen pharmaceuticals as being a major aspect of health care until I started seeing more American media; it's just part of a service here. And that's the important thing: we see health care as a service, like education, public transport, general infrastructure. 

That a hospital has to think at all about whether it can afford to remain open in not just the wealthiest country on Earth, but in a country that has America's level of pharmaceutical profits is complete insanity. That there are financial incentives in health care at all is a tragedy, and that anyone can even conceive of the argument that hospitals are trying to make money and for it to sound normal shows how broken the system is. I swear some of the people in this conversation now were having these conversations in this space ten years ago and were making the argument that a national-level health emergency would cripple the country. For the US's sake I hope it's another hundred years before the next pandemic, because I can't see your health care system surviving this happening again in the near future.


----------



## mbardu

estabon37 said:


> See, this highlights aspects of what is collectively called the US Health Care system that show how disconnected a lot of those parts seem to be. Again, I'm an 'outsider' and have no expertise in this field, so take the following with a massive rock of salt.
> 
> To the best of my knowledge hospitals operate fairly independently in the US (quick Google result: 58% private non-profit, 21% private for-profit, 21% government owned). That means weirdly close to 80% of the hospitals in a country of over 300 million people operate independently of any given level of government. In Australia, our number is around 47% private and declining (Australia has a private health care system on top of the national Medicare system for people that want to have coverage for very specific health concerns or just 'extra comfort' if they spend a fair bit of time in health care).
> 
> Here's the thing, though: our pharmaceutical industry doesn't anywhere near as independently as the US's. I've never seen pharmaceuticals as being a major aspect of health care until I started seeing more American media; it's just part of a service here. And that's the important thing: we see health care as a service, like education, public transport, general infrastructure.
> 
> That a hospital has to think at all about whether it can afford to remain open in not just the wealthiest country on Earth, but in a country that has America's level of pharmaceutical profits is complete insanity. That there are financial incentives in health care at all is a tragedy, and that anyone can even conceive of the argument that hospitals are trying to make money and for it to sound normal shows how broken the system is. I swear some of the people in this conversation now were having these conversations in this space ten years ago and were making the argument that a national-level health emergency would cripple the country. For the US's sake I hope it's another hundred years before the next pandemic, because I can't see your health care system surviving this happening again in the near future.



Oh boy...
If you're shocked to see for profit _hospitals_ in the US, wait until you hear about for profit _prisons _who pay off judges to get more occupancy / legal slave labor.

The whole country is quickly becoming a dystopian kakistocratic hell hole for the current generations.


----------



## mbardu

https://pix11.com/news/texas-school...tpfAV92XPTm9-Vu65WelnNfqV4FiCa1nyUSKaByU3Mzag

Oh nooo, who could have seen that coming!?
How could acting like Covid is over and reopening everything (including in person full-capacity schooling) have consequences ?!?

That and the above reminded me of this:


----------



## spudmunkey

Did that article say when the first person died? How far back was that first death? My brain assumed the same month, but I re-read it and didn't see a mention of it.


----------



## mbardu

spudmunkey said:


> Did that article say when the first person died? How far back was that first death? My brain assumed the same month, but I re-read it and didn't see a mention of it.



The articles don't give actual dates as far as I can tell.
The more "precise" you'll get is that the second death came "days after" the first one.


----------



## bostjan

spudmunkey said:


> Did that article say when the first person died? How far back was that first death? My brain assumed the same month, but I re-read it and didn't see a mention of it.


McCormick passed away Aug 24. Chansler passed away Aug 29.


----------



## Drew

estabon37 said:


> That a hospital has to think at all about whether it can afford to remain open in not just the wealthiest country on Earth, but in a country that has America's level of pharmaceutical profits is complete insanity. That there are financial incentives in health care at all is a tragedy, and that anyone can even conceive of the argument that hospitals are trying to make money and for it to sound normal shows how broken the system is. I swear some of the people in this conversation now were having these conversations in this space ten years ago and were making the argument that a national-level health emergency would cripple the country. For the US's sake I hope it's another hundred years before the next pandemic, because I can't see your health care system surviving this happening again in the near future.


In general, I think your post is on/fairly close to the mark, and that there's a lot you're saying I agree with. I'll say too I probably would agree with your overall point, that health care in the US is ripe with examples of poor management, and can and should be significantly streamlined. 

The devil is in the details, though. 

I don't think the fact most hosptals are for-profit is really the root of the issue here - at the end of the day, medical care (especially now, with overloaded hospitals) is just one more example of a scarce resource, and it has to be allocated somehow. Centralized planning at this scale is incredibly tough, and in theory an efficient free market for health care should do a pretty good job of directing care to where need is greatest, with some general caveats about capitalism and intergenertional transfer of resource that makes most markets in the US not especially free, in practice. 

Where we run into problems, though, are for all the free market metaphors used to describe our current system by most critics and supporters alike, nothing about American healthcare functions like a free market. 

Remember that most healthcare is obtained through health insurance, most health insurance is obtained through an employer, and only part of the cost of coverage is borne by the insured. Further, while there are a large number of health insurers in the country, they are all organized at the state level and have limited-to-no ability to compete over state lines, so in any given state you might have two or three major health insurers working at scale, and there are pretty huge economies of scale when it comes to competing for the health insurance business of an entire company. In pratice, the health coverage market is often a duopoly or triopoly in America, with end cstomers rarely seeing options from more than one or two poviders, with a handful of total plans open to them. 

Next, remember that most insurance companies operate within a preferred "network" where reimbursement rates go up pretty significantly if you go out of network. Insurance companies negotiate contracts with hospitals with agreed-upon rates for various procedures, and then turn around and charge their members a given rate per procedure, reimbursing the rest. There's no up-front transparency into what an procedure will cost, save that if you do it in-network it will be mostly/entirely covered once you exceed a deductible, and if you d it out of network it's going to cost you a fixed percentage of whatever your bill says when you're done. 

The upshot of all of this is, from the sake of someone with insurance, they've chosen from one of a handful of available plans, made available to them through their work from one or two insurers. Those insurers will then tell them which hospitals they need to choose from. When they go to a hospital for a procedure, they're not told what it will cost, the cost when they eventually get a bill is more or less arbitrary and may as well be made up because it's not what the insurance company will pay the hospital and it's not what the patient will pay the insurance company. They're not given a range of options with different costs to treat a condition, they're not given a range of providers who will do it for different prices, and once they exceed their deductable, they don't actually pay for care over and above their insurance premium in most situations, so there's no incentive to self-ration and choose care the most likely to offer the greatest benefit for the least price. 

In short, nothing at all about health care in America functions at all like a market. The whole thing reminds me of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe, and the Trattitoria Drive where the impossible calculations necessary to move a spaceship faster than the speed of light can only happen when they're preformed on the tab of a bill in a simulacrum of a small town Italian trattitoria where no one has any idea how they come up with the final value at the bottom of the bill, anyway. It's stark raving insane. 

But, in theory, an actual healthcare marketplace could probably work pretty well and would help control costs, if only we had one.


----------



## TedEH

Vaccine passports took effect in Quebec today. Also, a bunch of pamphlets taped up protesting the loss of freedoms, to go with it of course.


----------



## zappatton2

TedEH said:


> Vaccine passports took effect in Quebec today. Also, a bunch of pamphlets taped up protesting the loss of freedoms, to go with it of course.


Yeah, Ontario is pretty far behind on the passport thing, but it's an inevitability. What I wonder; for those of us who don't carry devices, what exactly are we to do? I've already printed off my second vaccine confirmation, but I'm pretty sure that won't suffice.

I know I'm not the only one in this boat either, plenty of older folks don't carry iPhones, so are there plans to accommodate them? I haven't been able to find info on this online.


----------



## bostjan

I thought the "vaccine passports" could be either digital or paper.

If they are going to go digital only here in VT, then I'm out. There's no way I can afford an iPhone.


----------



## thebeesknees22

TedEH said:


> Vaccine passports took effect in Quebec today. Also, a bunch of pamphlets taped up protesting the loss of freedoms, to go with it of course.




I personally am totally fine with the passports. Especially since 90% of the people in the gym don't respect the mask mandates. (..although I highly doubt they'll even bother enforcing the vaccine passport either)

I'm guessing a lot of business will just shrug at it. tbh


----------



## jaxadam

This is interesting...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34375047/


----------



## CovertSovietBear

The efficacy of vaccine passports lies in usage + enforcement, which I guess depends on the culture. Mostly everyone respects the mask laws here in northern CA, only a few people at the gym pull the mask down off their nose.


----------



## zappatton2

Well, looks like Ontario will need proof of vaccination for public areas, starting Sept 22nd.


----------



## mbardu

jaxadam said:


> This is interesting...
> 
> https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34375047/



No! You're not allowed to post that link!
We're only allowed to call Ivermectin a horse dewormer and to mock people who try to get it. 
Only the "all vaccine for everyone" approach is allowed here, and we have to shape opinion to that in every possible way 

In all seriousness though, that study itself is pretty controversial.
People who push back argue (and they're not wrong) that the meta analysis is not very consistent in how it measures its primary outcomes, and that it could easily be skewing results. Plus one of the studies reference was based on wrong data. There is at least one other meta-analysis out there that IIRC concludes that argues there is no positive effect of Ivermectin.

Until we have something more conclusive, we should still be very cautious before saying Ivermectin works to any extent, just like we needed to be so for HCQ. 
The ongoing Oxford study, if done well and showing no results could easily put an end to the discussion. But "cautious" doesn't mean we need to insult even the idea of looking into its efficacy. This actively discourages even the work we could conduct to actually conclusively verify.


----------



## SpaceDock

mbardu said:


> No! You're not allowed to post that link!
> We're only allowed to call Ivermectin a horse dewormer and to mock people who try to get it.
> Only the "all vaccine for everyone" approach is allowed here, and we have to shape opinion to that in every possible way
> 
> In all seriousness though, that study itself is pretty controversial.
> People who push back argue (and they're not wrong) that the meta analysis is not very consistent in how it measures its primary outcomes, and that it could easily be skewing results. Plus one of the studies reference was based on wrong data. There is at least one other meta-analysis out there that IIRC concludes that argues there is no positive effect of Ivermectin.
> 
> Until we have something more conclusive, we should still be very cautious before saying Ivermectin works to any extent, just like we needed to be so for HCQ.
> The ongoing Oxford study, if done well and showing no results could easily put an end to the discussion. But "cautious" doesn't mean we need to insult even the idea of looking into its efficacy. This actively discourages even the work we could conduct to actually conclusively verify.



For me, I just can’t get my mind around how people would request specific treatments as if they know more than doctors because they think they are the google king. Why can’t people just trust the doctors, but I see that it is really that people just want to trust their brand of information to hell and back. If fauci said ivermectin then republicans wouldn’t want it. 

I really just can’t wrap my mind around the “faux news said it’s good, gimme that doctor!” I had to get vaccinated to go to public school, to live in my college dorm, and later to take a specialized job at my work. Vaccines have always just been part of life and I believe people only hesitate due to the politics of it, then they only want these specific drugs because their politics advertises it to them.


----------



## TedEH

CovertSovietBear said:


> The efficacy of vaccine passports lies in usage + enforcement


I guess that's basically the same story as every other measure attempted so far.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

SpaceDock said:


> For me, I just can’t get my mind around how people would request specific treatments as if they know more than doctors because they think they are the google king. Why can’t people just trust the doctors, but I see that it is really that people just want to trust their brand of information to hell and back. If fauci said ivermectin then republicans wouldn’t want it.
> 
> I really just can’t wrap my mind around the “faux news said it’s good, gimme that doctor!” I had to get vaccinated to go to public school, to live in my college dorm, and later to take a specialized job at my work. Vaccines have always just been part of life and I believe people only hesitate due to the politics of it, then they only want these specific drugs because their politics advertises it to them.



Cause in post-trump bizzarro world, this is somehow another strategic 'owning the libs' move. It's truly insane.


----------



## mbardu

SpaceDock said:


> For me, I just can’t get my mind around how people would request specific treatments as if they know more than doctors because they think they are the google king. Why can’t people just trust the doctors, but I see that it is really that people just want to trust their brand of information to hell and back. If fauci said ivermectin then republicans wouldn’t want it.
> 
> I really just can’t wrap my mind around the “faux news said it’s good, gimme that doctor!” I had to get vaccinated to go to public school, to live in my college dorm, and later to take a specialized job at my work. Vaccines have always just been part of life and I believe people only hesitate due to the politics of it, then they only want these specific drugs because their politics advertises it to them.



You, like plenty here are the one injecting politics into it. And injecting the vaccine/antivax discussion as well. Neither of which are related to the discussion at hand - and both of which shows that the echo chamber here cannot even imagine that there is a middle ground somewhere that is not "only vaccines work and suggesting anything otherwise makes you a dumb antivax".

Just like calling it a horse dewormer over and over and pretending it has never been used on humans; or that it's not possible for a compound to work on most mammals (horse and human included); or pretending that we never repurpose drugs.... Just like all of that, putting politics and vaccines in the discussion is just one more way to decridibilize the discussion _itself _in favor of the only acceptable messaging in current zeitgeist, AKA "only vaccines work and suggesting anything otherwise makes you a dumb antivax".

It's not a people vs doctors either. There are physicians I know who would be prescribing Ivermectin (but are actively prevented to do so); and they are some of the most liberal (in the American sense) and FOX-hating people I know. They are not opposed to the vaccines either, and recommend them to most of their adult patients. The woman in the lawsuit article had a prescription from a doctor as far as I can tell - and that's what she was trying to have fulfilled; obviously not suing to give horse dewormer to her husband at the hospital...

There is a middle ground such as "Vaccines can do a lot of good. Yet it's still worth it to be open minded and to consider risk benefits for each population group. And even if vaccines are weapon #1, therapeutics and/or prophylactics may be useful too".

But no, if you even _suggest _so here, you are seen as an antivax right-wing FOX-eating idiot. The mythical dumb Trump zealot wakefield cultist who you would have to be to even deviate an inch from the party line, right?

Doesn't that lack a bit of nuance in your opinion? Like -why bring vaccines and FOX into that specific discussion in the first place?
I mean, it's fine if we _want _an echo chamber that only tolerates one extreme of the discussion, just put everything else (middle included) in a big exaggerated "dumb antivax-trumpers" box - and then for sure we'll have a homogeneous discourse. But usually there is something to gain by considering diversity and at least _some _opinions besides you own.

It's only a forum here so it's OK, there's only one dude being attacked for trying to voice a different opinion on a few things.

But the bias goes beyond that, and the more mainstream it becomes, the more it discourages people much smarter than me who _could _work on stuff like exploring repurposing existing drugs or other forms of therapeutics or prophylactics... If you were a researcher and you made a groundbreaking discovery regarding Ivermectin _now_, do you really think you'd risk your reputation on it considering how all the people (like here) are actually the ones making it political? Making a joke out of it and associating it dishonestly _only _to dumb users of an animal farm supply, whereas it's a safe formula that has saved countless human lives and won a nobel prize? Nope . So you and your field only work on vaccines and follow exactly a single script because otherwise you're mocked and decridibilized.


----------



## jaxadam

mbardu said:


> decridibilize





mbardu said:


> decridibilized


----------



## mbardu

jaxadam said:


>



Sorry - not native speaker. I meant to mean "make someone/something appear wrong and rob it of his credibility", but it's very likely not be a correct term in English sorry


----------



## jaxadam

mbardu said:


> Sorry - not native speaker. I meant to mean "make someone/something appear wrong and rob it of his credibility", but it's very likely not be a correct term in English sorry



I figured... I always read your posts with a touch of an accent!


----------



## Bodes

SpaceDock said:


> For me, I just can’t get my mind around how people would request specific treatments as if they know more than doctors because they think they are the google king. Why can’t people just trust the doctors



The problem is we have seen that in the last few decades we have seen a huge decline in people's trust in authority figures. I do not want this to turn into a discussion for/against certain figures who I will not name, as they are not the only leaders who have lead to this increased distrust. Just look at the numbers of Prime Ministers Australia has had since 2007 and how they were ousted. Plus all political 'debates' seem to turn into a primary school level, mud flinging, name calling, "you're wrong", yelling competition.

I think at this point so many health professionals are unable to keep up with the latest 'best practice' because of how overworked they are as well as having information being thrown at them from all different angles. I feel really sorry for everyone who is working in healthcare. Not saying anything that has been discussed here is best practice or not, just speaking generally.

Hell the nurse who gave me my 2nd AZ dose didn't even know that AstraZeneca had a name change to Vaxzevira. Mainly due to the labelling, forms, signage still saying AstraZeneca to not confuse people. Australia had to change the name, for some reason. Something to do with the EU and/or UK regulatory panel not recognising any Australian vaccine passport (when we can get out of here) under the AZ name.


----------



## LordCashew

mbardu said:


> Sorry - not native speaker. I meant to mean "make someone/something appear wrong and rob it of his credibility", but it's very likely not be a correct term in English sorry


I'm almost certain you already know "discredit," but that's basically what it means. I like decridibilize, it seems to connote more of a process, but it's not in the dictionary _yet. _All you need is for it to get popular.


----------



## nightflameauto

Speaking of healthcare professionals, I watched a documentary a while back that interviewed several nurses and doctors working in COVID wards. The most heartbreaking thing in the whole show was one nurse crying talking about how disheartening it is to have people literally having their last words be "I'm not dying of some made-up illness," or something that means the same thing and then expiring. Or those that need intubated screaming and trying to punch them because it's all fake and it can't be happening.

It feels like such a different world from the eighties to now. If I'm honest, I have to say I'm scared to death of what the next forty years is going to bring us. Heck, sometimes I'm scared of what the next year will bring us.


----------



## spudmunkey

Meanwhile, the covidiots are claiming that all of that extra stress and staff/bed shortages is simply because of nurses quitting/being let go because of nurse vaccine mandates.

https://www.tiktok.com/@hello_nurse_/video/6998217003156753670?_d=secCgYIASAHKAESPgo8ApBrMW4+ahAjaurv5WfrWmwqvcDFanwrDRMztUKN1qtTq9W+O8mhlOGI9XK+Oj6vJURlZ5upzzgqlH64GgA=&checksum=5eaa32ff84fffbd3b3780ee445589beab2471ef40513c97ff1795dc52b11826a&language=en&preview_pb=0&sec_user_id=MS4wLjABAAAAHhPa_ufujwM94YycEJuMHaRnbU_Un01RDdjExW2_HCKWkpljWeoQvgUdhFpfu4_k&share_app_id=1233&share_item_id=6998217003156753670&share_link_id=ECAED85A-9512-424C-AE40-52CA2088EFB4&source=h5_m×tamp=1630547670&tt_from=facebook&u_code=def95jb173fl3f&user_id=6873952963511223301&utm_campaign=client_share&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=facebook&_r=1


----------



## bostjan

There are some nurses out there who are quitting and being let go, and I'd bet that some number greater than zero are because of vaccines. But it's no secret that the majority of the reason for the healthcare labour shortage is due to burnout. The average nurse's salary in Alabama is $38k/yr. Considering a pretty much average warehouse technician job pays $33k/yr in the same state, you might be prone to reconsider your career choice after, I dunno, maybe the 400th covid patient you had to deal with, especially if you were on the backend of that average.



Bodes said:


> huge decline in people's trust in authority figures



I think this is the biggest factor in today's weird culture in the USA. Between anti-science sentiment running rampant here, the sovereign citizen movement, general workplace apathy, and the decline of our schooling system, it's got to be a combination of the information being widely available that shows how incompetent our leaders really are, and the post-modernist school of thought that is sometimes taken too extreme to the point of disbelieving everything told to you.

It's been a few years now since I've taught at the college level full-time, but I recall students wanting to argue over the most mundane things. One that stuck out was a conversion from hours into days that went awry in a student's homework calculations, and he actually tried to tell me that he didn't believe that there were 24 hours in one day because whoever defined that conversion was just a flawed human being. The problem is, when you are trying to become an engineer, and you use this kind of reality-bending "logic," it means the stuff you design fails and potentially kills people, but yeah, whatever, human beings define units of measure, so we should be able to convert them however we want without regard to any sort of prescribed standards.


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> and he actually tried to tell me that he didn't believe that there were 24 hours in one day because whoever defined that conversion was just a flawed human being.



Well, he's not wrong. It's actually 23 hours and 56 minutes. Maybe he was being as precise as he can to become an engineer.


----------



## TedEH

I mean, if you're going to go that far, as I understand it, the precise time of "a day" (indicated by time between the sun being at it's highest point) fluctuates. The problem isn't whether he's right or wrong, it's whether or not that pedantry is appropriate or applicable in context - which I'm sure it's not. I'm a pedantic jackass lots of the time, but I'll be the first to admit that pedantry can be counter-productive.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

bostjan said:


> The average nurse's salary in Alabama is $38k/yr.


That rate is as abysmal and comparable to working in academia


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> I think this is the biggest factor in today's weird culture in the USA. Between anti-science sentiment running rampant here, the sovereign citizen movement, general workplace apathy, and the decline of our schooling system, it's got to be a combination of the information being widely available that shows how incompetent our leaders really are, and the post-modernist school of thought that is sometimes taken too extreme to the point of disbelieving everything told to you.



Yeah I mean in some ways it may be the internet - this whole "I did my own research!" thing is basically "I read a few websites that fit with my preconceived biases" now. 

I saw a great Onion headline the other day, "Area Man Does His Own Research On Covid Vaccine By Enrolling 45,000 Of His Friends In A Double-Blind Trial." It's hilarious... but it's hilarious only because "doing your own research" has been in practice cheapened to the point where we DO consider a Google search "research."


----------



## spudmunkey

jaxadam said:


> Well, he's not wrong. It's actually 23 hours and 56 minutes.



It's ahkchually... 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds...


----------



## bostjan

jaxadam said:


> Well, he's not wrong. It's actually 23 hours and 56 minutes. Maybe he was being as precise as he can to become an engineer.





TedEH said:


> I mean, if you're going to go that far, as I understand it, the precise time of "a day" (indicated by time between the sun being at it's highest point) fluctuates. The problem isn't whether he's right or wrong, it's whether or not that pedantry is appropriate or applicable in context - which I'm sure it's not. I'm a pedantic jackass lots of the time, but I'll be the first to admit that pedantry can be counter-productive.



If it was an astronomy class or something like that, then, yes, a sidereal day is 23.93 hours, but that's the time it takes for the Earth to rotate such that a fixed point in space is at the same declination again, which has no meaning to us outside of that specific context. If this is an introductory engineering class and you are converting from days into hours in order to figure out the average speed of a motorist on a road trip, then that doesn't make any sense.

It's actually very simple. Look at the azimuthal angle of the Sun right now, and one day from now, the Sun will be at the same azimuthal angle. The altitude changes with seasons, so ignore that. An hour is defined as one day divided by 24.

A sidereal day is still 24 sidereal hours. It just so happens that one sidereal day is 23.93 solar hours and one solar day is 24.07 sidereal hours, because the Earth is revolving around the Sun. But no one cares about sidereal days nor sidereal hours unless you are either a) doing some crazy Astronomy or b) doing some really crazy navigation that requires some sort of crazy Astronomy.

For example, if the bank tried to pull some crap on me where they charged me a late fee because they ran their calendar on sidereal days instead of the days everyone else in the world uses, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't hold up in court, unless the ghost of Jonny Cochran was their attorney.



Drew said:


> Yeah I mean in some ways it may be the internet - this whole "I did my own research!" thing is basically "I read a few websites that fit with my preconceived biases" now.
> 
> I saw a great Onion headline the other day, "Area Man Does His Own Research On Covid Vaccine By Enrolling 45,000 Of His Friends In A Double-Blind Trial." It's hilarious... but it's hilarious only because "doing your own research" has been in practice cheapened to the point where we DO consider a Google search "research."



LOL

Yeah, whether it's primary or secondary research, there are obviously lots of different quality tiers.


----------



## jaxadam

spudmunkey said:


> It's ahkchually... 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds...



Yeah but can you convert that into parsecs?


----------



## jaxadam

spudmunkey said:


> It's ahkchually... 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds...



Yeah but can you convert that into parsecs?


----------



## bostjan

A parsec is a distance that results in one second of arc parallax over one entire Earth orbit.

An attoparsec is about 3 cm, or about 3 million beard-seconds.


----------



## Bodes

jaxadam said:


> Yeah but can you convert that into parsecs?



Smartarse or not, I got a giggle. Thanks!


----------



## spudmunkey

jaxadam said:


> Yeah but can you convert that into parsecs?



Calculating parsecs as a measure of time will be dependent on the known difficulty of going through a specific route as the variable in the distance/time equation.


----------



## jaxadam

spudmunkey said:


> Calculating parsecs as a measure of time will be dependent on the known difficulty of going through a specific route as the variable in the speed/distance/time equation.



Well then just do lightyears…


----------



## spudmunkey

jaxadam said:


> Well then just do lightyears…



So just another measure of distance? "This ship can do the Kessel Run in 39.12 lightyears" is basically the exact same sentence.


----------



## TedEH

bostjan said:


> A parsec is a distance that results in one second of arc parallax over one entire Earth orbit.


Wait - is parsec short for parabolic second or something? Edit.... parallax second?


----------



## bostjan

TedEH said:


> Wait - is parsec short for parabolic second or something? Edit.... parallax second?


Yes, *par*allax *sec*ond.

Joe Rogan has covid and is using Ivermectin. New data is showing surges of positive tests among children under the age of 12.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

We need a new thread for bostjan to explain cosmic distances for us. Reminded me of this video:



Something something MEGAPARSEC


----------



## spudmunkey

bostjan said:


> Yes, *par*allax *sec*ond.
> 
> Joe Rogan has covid and is using Ivermectin.



And monoclonal antibody treatment, which only has "emergency use authorization". And Ivermectin isn't approved for treating COVID. So he's not actually hesitant of anything not officially approved, and willing to gobble down/take in anything because he's scared.


----------



## Crungy

Maybe he just has pinworm really bad and is using covid as a cover up


----------



## jaxadam

Crungy said:


> Maybe he just has pinworm really bad and is using covid as a cover up



:fistbump:


----------



## Bodes

We had an overdose yesterday in Australia of someone buying Ivermectin illegally online and scoffing a lot of them.
Please, if you going to take prescription drugs, you gotta be careful.


----------



## estabon37

Again; sorry for the slow / late reply. Teaching, man...

Okay, first up: Jesus fucking Christ I didn't realise how much I missed detailed, nuanced interactions on the internet until I read this reply. I work with 11-15 year olds and reduced my internet interactions to just Reddit (basically the same as interacting with 11-15 year olds) just out of sheer lack of time. Thanks for taking the time to walk me through some stuff, Drew. 

Next:



Drew said:


> Remember that most healthcare is obtained through health insurance, most health insurance is obtained through an employer, and only part of the cost of coverage is borne by the insured. Further, while there are a large number of health insurers in the country, they are all organized at the state level and have limited-to-no ability to compete over state lines, so in any given state you might have two or three major health insurers working at scale, and there are pretty huge economies of scale when it comes to competing for the health insurance business of an entire company. In pratice, the health coverage market is often a duopoly or triopoly in America, with end cstomers rarely seeing options from more than one or two poviders, with a handful of total plans open to them.
> 
> Next, remember that most insurance companies operate within a preferred "network" where reimbursement rates go up pretty significantly if you go out of network. ...
> 
> The upshot of all of this is, from the sake of someone with insurance, they've chosen from one of a handful of available plans, made available to them through their work from one or two insurers. Those insurers will then tell them which hospitals they need to choose from. ...
> 
> In short, nothing at all about health care in America functions at all like a market. ...
> 
> But, in theory, an actual healthcare marketplace could probably work pretty well and would help control costs, if only we had one.



Everything you wrote is WHY I'm ignorant. I don't know of any other system on the planet that works the way health care in the US 'works'. Australia has a private system, but it works the way private schools work: you're automatically entitled to the free option and the free option is actually functional at worst at fantastic at best (again; I aim to set up a separate education thread/rant in a couple of weeks when I'm on school holidays), but if you want to purchase the rights to a private option it's going to come with a lot of great facilities and bells and whistles. It won't change the core service at all, but you'll be super comfortable while using the service, and you won't have to interact with poor people. 

I follow the situation in the US partially out of it being all over international news, but largely because my partner was born over there and two of her brothers are currently living in NT state and Pennsylvania. I've been over there a couple of in the last five years and everyone I was lucky enough to meet and every community I briefly interacted with made me feel more invested in wanting them to do well. I got asked about healthcare a weird amount. It seems that through the internet / social media a growing number of Americans are seeing how convoluted their system is and how heavily it's designed to profit the owners of various companies. Personally, I think it would benefit everyone if it became a shared national system with more regulations, but if it can instead become a true marketplace then that would still be better than the current setup/.


----------



## estabon37

Bodes said:


> The problem is we have seen that in the last few decades we have seen a huge decline in people's trust in authority figures. ... Just look at the numbers of Prime Ministers Australia has had since 2007 and how they were ousted.



I agree with your sentiment, but I think this bit needs clarity for people not familiar with the Australian system. Four Prime Ministers were ousted in eight years by their own parties. Where some countries directly vote for their leaders, we vote for a party, and whoever leads the party leads the country. What you wrote might ambiguously imply that the Australian people quickly come to distrust their leaders and use electoral / political processes to remove them from leadership. The reality is ... dumber. Just, so much dumber. I don't remember the last time I met someone that liked a Prime Minister unless they're talking about whoever was in charge 3-8 Prime Minsters ago. I'm not sure we ever had trust in authority figures in this country, and I used to think that was a good thing until the conspiracy theorists started getting in everyone's ears. 



Bodes said:


> We had an overdose yesterday in Australia of someone buying Ivermectin illegally online and scoffing a lot of them.
> Please, if you going to take prescription drugs, you gotta be careful.



Well, that sucks. Sounds like someone who had real potential as Prime Minister.


----------



## nightflameauto

What sucks about American healthcare is you can't even really have a rational discussion with people about how to fix it. Trying to even casually mention that maybe we could reform it and make it a little less expensive instead of tagging words like "affordable" onto free tickets for the insurance companies will get at least half of the people around you to start throwing massive fits about how doctors need to eat too and we have to let people make money.

Maybe not every hospital needs to look like a fucking cathedral in the entrance? How about they spend the money they rape out of our pockets on functionality instead of sports arenas and such? Nope. GOTS TO MAKE MONEY!

Some of us are literally priced out of healthcare just to get by. If my wife or I were to actually have emergency care, we'd probably go bankrupt at this point. It's fucked, but we don't dare discuss fixing it. Lip service from the Democrats about doing something during election cycles, but their fixes thus far have only increased premiums and prices for service for those of us that tried to pay in until it became completely unaffordable. Apparently the fix is to fuck everybody that doesn't have millions. Those people (government officials and millionaires) get Cadillac plans from taxpayer money. Everybody else needs to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and work harder!

AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!


----------



## Drew

spudmunkey said:


> Calculating parsecs as a measure of time will be dependent on the known difficulty of going through a specific route as the variable in the distance/time equation.


I mean, I don't want to take anything for granted, but I assume weve all seen Solo here, no?  

@estabon37 - god, no problem man, and like I said, your understanding was _basically_ accurate. There's just some added nuance in there too.


----------



## Drew

nightflameauto said:


> What sucks about American healthcare is you can't even really have a rational discussion with people about how to fix it. Trying to even casually mention that maybe we could reform it and make it a little less expensive instead of tagging words like "affordable" onto free tickets for the insurance companies will get at least half of the people around you to start throwing massive fits about how doctors need to eat too and we have to let people make money.


The tricky thing is, in some ways - they're not wrong. My dad was a primary care internist, and at 40 I'm reasonably sure I'm making more than he was at the end of his career - one of the side effects of, well, a LOT of health care reform laws in the last 20-40 years is that primary care medicine has become increasingly unprofitable to provide, thanks in large part to the way Medicare reimbursement rates are calculated, despite the fact that it's so critical to health outcomes.

Meanwhile, while I'm not even close to hurting, my fiancee makes a multiple of what I do, as a specialist.

There are a LOT of things that don't make sense about health care in America, but the upshot is we live in a world and a country where you can say some people are being priced out of health insurance, and you can say primary care doctors are struggling to get by, and BOTH statements can be true.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

Recent papers from Israel, think this was discussed a few pages back, waning immunity and looking at a booster: 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.29.21262792v1.full.pdf

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.27.21262679v1.full.pdf


----------



## Shoeless_jose

spudmunkey said:


> Calculating parsecs as a measure of time will be dependent on the known difficulty of going through a specific route as the variable in the distance/time equation.




Lol such as the Kessel Run, but I see you used that yourself later in thread.


----------



## IwantTacos

Drew said:


> The tricky thing is, in some ways - they're not wrong. My dad was a primary care internist, and at 40 I'm reasonably sure I'm making more than he was at the end of his career - one of the side effects of, well, a LOT of health care reform laws in the last 20-40 years is that primary care medicine has become increasingly unprofitable to provide, thanks in large part to the way Medicare reimbursement rates are calculated, despite the fact that it's so critical to health outcomes.
> 
> Meanwhile, while I'm not even close to hurting, my fiancee makes a multiple of what I do, as a specialist.
> 
> There are a LOT of things that don't make sense about health care in America, but the upshot is we live in a world and a country where you can say some people are being priced out of health insurance, and you can say primary care doctors are struggling to get by, and BOTH statements can be true.



how is that an upside.


----------



## Randy

IwantTacos said:


> how is that an upside.



Upshot =/= upside

Basically "upshot" in this case refers to the idea after you mash all these different variables together, this is the result that comes out the other end. Good, bad or indifferent, this is the outcome.

To the larger point, I am going to stop short of crying over the ill effects of affordable healthcare on healthcare workers. 

The greatest casualty of expensive healthcare is the lack of prevenative medicine, because people end up waiting until there's absolutely no other choice but to go to the emergency room or until the problem has evolved to the point that they need extensive specialized medicine.

Getting a job in healthcare shouldn't be an automatic class upgrade for the rest of your life. *That* expectation is a result of the shitty system we're in. Your field of work should afford you a sustainable, comfortable lifestyle yes. I'd argue the reason healthcare workers expect to be paid as much as they do is because the job is so taxing. If you have healthier people and a better environment for care, you have less workers burned out and better quality of life. 

There's a butterfly effect there.


----------



## mmr007

What sucks about American healthcare is the average American.....They are stupid...even the educated ones. Americans aren't demanding reform (other than those who are currently fucked) in droves large enough to cause said reform because a word they don't understand like socialism scares them. They feel that if they have a job and insurance and a premium they pay that is preferable to a job with insurance but no premium but sky high taxes to pay for insurance for everyone else in America. 

It's the same reason we can't get proper "death tax" reform because even though most Americans will never experience a negative effect...we all believe we are going to win next weeks lottery and then how dare the government tax that wealth when I die. What's mine is mine damnit and if you don't have good health insurance then you should have tried harder at some random point in your life. We are selfish and fractured and this "rugged individualism" we pride ourselves on is not feasible in a modern interconnected world. Our attitude is a relic of something that was only successful until the late 19th century.

I have literally heard people argue we should not have socialized medicine like some European nations because if they have it so good why did they need our help in WW2 against the Nazis? WTF?!

Again our current system is a JOB KILLER. That is fact. Employers will literally limit the number of employees they hire because the employer contribution to the healthcare system is too hire to warrant more workers. So they go to temp, seasonal and part time labor to avoid those costs!!!

I pay about $3000 a year in premiums not including deductibles and copays. If I pay nothing in premiums but my taxes go up $2000 a year I still save $1000 a year and I have health insurance. And the employer pays nothing because they are removed from the equation and so is the health insurance companies who buy a lamborghini every time my kidney hurts.

Oh and one more thing. Fuck masks! Either make it a crime punishable by fine of $100 for not wearing in public because this is SOOO important or drop the issue completely. Don't leave it up to business' employees to attempt to "shame" people into compliance. How stupid. We already have enough vitriol going around.

Damnit now I'm pissed. Heading over to the Solar guitar thread to vent.....


----------



## Ralyks

Well, shit.


----------



## narad




----------



## SpaceDock

Things would be very different if Fauci would have lead with that.


----------



## Señor Voorhees

"Mah peenus ain't small! It's yuge! I had me some 50 vaccines, it's tha biggest in all the land!" 

Beats the hell out of "I'll just take some horse de-wormer, that'll work."


----------



## spudmunkey

SpaceDock said:


> Things would be very different if Fauci would have lead with that.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

spudmunkey said:


> View attachment 97429


Can confirm as a fact, I’m officially hung like an 8 year old.


----------



## jaxadam

Rage Against the Vaccine


----------



## Randy

So, new Biden plan says mandate vax for all federal workers and contractors, all healthcare settings that take Medicaid or Medicare (which effectively means all hospitals, most everywhere else) and any business with over 100 employees has to vax or weekly tests, which is targeted at the big boys like Walmart, etc. 

We'll see what this looks like in practice. NYS announced essentially the same rules regarding healthcare workers and it's been a mass exodus of workers since then. Small nursing home where my gf had her grandparents posted over a dozen positions open over night.

Just thinking out loud, I think this virus has been managed literally as bad as humanly possible. This is what a failure looks like. 

There were early successes but not getting red and blue states on the same page, not securing travel from countries of origin, rolling back mandates to early, taking too long to get vaccines out coast to coast, and then just the ruthlessness of the virus itself with regard to evolving and being a tough SOB.

The eviction ban is no longer enforceable, the end of mortgage forbearance, end of UE extended benefits all at once while the infection numbers are close to 100,000 per day worse than that were at their previous worst and now mass healthcare workers walking out. All landing within a couple weeks of eachother. 

This vaxx mandate is too little too late if it's supposed to pull us away from the edge and double fucked for saving some kinda nasty hit to the economy.


----------



## StevenC

Randy said:


> We'll see what this looks like in practice. NYS announced essentially the same rules regarding healthcare workers and it's been a mass exodus of workers since then. Small nursing home where my gf had her grandparents posted over a dozen positions open over night.


This baffles me. How can nursing home staff be quitting over vaccines?


----------



## SpaceDock

Anyone fighting getting vaccinated at this point is a moron living in a repubtard Facebook bubble. In ten years people will look back on this like dipshits who were pissed about wearing seatbelts. Glad to see Biden mandate it, I am over this and these horse paste munching a-holes need to suck it up.


----------



## Randy

StevenC said:


> This baffles me. How can nursing home staff be quitting over vaccines?



They were the ones bringing it into the homes and killing the residents from the getgo but nobody wanted to say it. 

Here in the rural area I live, it's well known nursing home staff is the job you get if you have no education but you want to make $20/hr.+, so lots of women take those jobs but they're still MAGA to the hilt, doing keg stands on the weekends. I'm sure a lot of them are anticipating strong arming their way into not having to take it, or (ironically) going on unemployment in the meantime.

It's a mess though. On one hand I'm disgusted by the idea of someone unvaxxed being in close contact with frail elderly people, on the other you're cutting the staff at some of these places by 1/3 or more when they're criminally understaffed as it is. It's not good, none of this is good.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Randy said:


> So, new Biden plan says mandate vax for all federal workers and contractors, all healthcare settings that take Medicaid or Medicare (which effectively means all hospitals, most everywhere else) and any business with over 100 employees has to vax or weekly tests, which is targeted at the big boys like Walmart, etc.
> 
> We'll see what this looks like in practice. NYS announced essentially the same rules regarding healthcare workers and it's been a mass exodus of workers since then. Small nursing home where my gf had her grandparents posted over a dozen positions open over night.
> 
> Just thinking out loud, I think this virus has been managed literally as bad as humanly possible. This is what a failure looks like.
> 
> There were early successes but not getting red and blue states on the same page, not securing travel from countries of origin, rolling back mandates to early, taking too long to get vaccines out coast to coast, and then just the ruthlessness of the virus itself with regard to evolving and being a tough SOB.
> 
> The eviction ban is no longer enforceable, the end of mortgage forbearance, end of UE extended benefits all at once while the infection numbers are close to 100,000 per day worse than that were at their previous worst and now mass healthcare workers walking out. All landing within a couple weeks of eachother.
> 
> This vaxx mandate is too little too late if it's supposed to pull us away from the edge and double fucked for saving some kinda nasty hit to the economy.



Was going to reply verbatim "too little/ too late" before reading all the way to the end of your post. 100% agree. And although not related to healthcare, my wife's company ( just the store where she works) lost seven employees over the last 3-4 weeks... and many more than that over the past few months. She's super stressed atm because that trend just continues to increase her workload. Some have left for unknown reasons, some currently out on LOA with covid, as well as a few that were out on LOA and just never came back. I dunno what's happening but with so many job losses last year, I would've thought that people would be busting down doors to get a job. Most of those positions start at $17 hr. I feel horrible for my girl... She showed me last night all the hair in the shower after she got out... said it's just falling out. All I could say was that bald-n-sexy is a thing. Not entirely sure how comforting that was.


----------



## Randy

SpaceDock said:


> Anyone fighting getting vaccinated at this point is a moron living in a repubtard Facebook bubble. In ten years people will look back on this like dipshits who were pissed about wearing seatbelts. Glad to see Biden mandate it, I am over this and these horse paste munching a-holes need to suck it up.



Unfortunately I dont think he or anyone else is going to be able to bluster this into being effective, and SCOTUS is probably going to gut most or all of this.


----------



## Randy

If you can't enforce it on the federal workers that come to your house and handle your stuff, you can't enforce if at all or it's ultimately meaningless.


----------



## Randy

Vaccine cliff still looking like a very real thing, and rollout of consensus on effectiveness of an official booster is snails pace slow. So you're still fighting to get a single shot for 40% of people, while the other half of the population are rapidly approaching the expiration date. And if you can't get people to get one shot, good luck getting them to come back 6 months later for another. I see literally zero path forward here.


----------



## Se7enHeaven

TRUST THE GOVERNMENT, C'MON MAN!


----------



## jaxadam

53% of the US is vaccinated. I wonder what will happen when you tell the other 47%, or 155,055,068 people "or else".


----------



## Randy

jaxadam said:


> 53% of the US is vaccinated. I wonder what will happen when you tell the other 47%, or 155,055,068 people "or else".



Yeah that's kinda what I mean. It's like, almost completely unenforceable. You can't have an economic recovery and also tell half the country get the vaccine or you can't work.


----------



## SpaceDock

53% of the US is vaccinated, we are number 55 in the world for percent of population vaccinated, right behind Cambodia. Let that sink in. We had the vaccine well before those countries as well. It’s backwards politics and morons holding us back. We have to get vaccines to go to public school, go to college, serve in the military, and to take many jobs. Now that the vaccine is fully FDA approved there is no reason to not make it mandatory. If people really want to walk away from their job because they are that obstinate, I don’t think they are the people employers want anyhow.


----------



## thebeesknees22

SpaceDock said:


> 53% of the US is vaccinated, we are number 55 in the world for percent of population vaccinated, right behind Cambodia. Let that sink in. We had the vaccine well before those countries as well. It’s backwards politics and morons holding us back. We have to get vaccines to go to public school, go to college, serve in the military, and to take many jobs. Now that the vaccine is fully FDA approved there is no reason to not make it mandatory. If people really want to walk away from their job because they are that obstinate, I don’t think they are the people employers want anyhow.




That's what needs to happen. Make it mandatory all across the board. Those that refuse to take it will start to go broke> give up> get their vaccines and get back to work. They'll bitch about it, but they'll do it except for the most extreme elements. And why, some might ask? Because people love money, and if their path to making money is cut off by a vaccine requirement, then they will at some point break down and take the damn thing.


----------



## Xaios

Well, this gets it closer: https://www.businessinsider.com/bid...over-100-employees-to-mandate-vaccines-2021-9


----------



## Spaced Out Ace

Man, I'm SO glad the tyrants are out though.


----------



## mbardu

SpaceDock said:


> Anyone fighting getting vaccinated at this point is a moron living in a repubtard Facebook bubble. In ten years people will look back on this like dipshits who were pissed about wearing seatbelts. Glad to see Biden mandate it, I am over this and these horse paste munching a-holes need to suck it up.



Yikes...
Hateful generalizations really come easily, even to those who think of themselves as having the moral high ground.
Literally the same as the "thought" process of people on the other end of the political spectrum that they so hate.


----------



## vilk

mbardu said:


> Yikes...
> Hateful generalizations really come easily, even to those who think of themselves as having the moral high ground.
> Literally the same as the "thought" process of people on the other end of the political spectrum that they so hate.


Except that only _one_ side of this vaccine debate is killing people.


----------



## mbardu

vilk said:


> Except that only _one_ side of this vaccine debate is killing people.



I was not talking about who's killing who. We know vaccines can save a ton of lives.
Literally _just _commenting on hateful generalizations.


----------



## vilk

mbardu said:


> I was not talking about who's killing who. We know vaccines can save a ton of lives.
> Literally _just _commenting on hateful generalizations.



Is it really "hateful" to say fuck these asshats who are killing everyone?


----------



## mbardu

vilk said:


> Is it really "hateful" to say fuck these asshats who are killing everyone?



When you are talking about 45% of a population and you know almost nothing of the people in that group.
When you actively wish harm to that many people just on the basis of an imagined stereotype of the mythical dumb antivax MAGAt.
Yeah I'd say that's a pretty gross, unneeded and pretty hateful generalization.


----------



## vilk

mbardu said:


> When you actively wish harm


 Sorry, I know I wasn't the person you originally replied to, but I didn't notice anyone doing that. What I did notice is people actively wishing these fucking idiots would get vaccinated because _they are actively harming people right now_.


----------



## mbardu

vilk said:


> Sorry, I know I wasn't the person you originally replied to, but I didn't notice anyone doing that. What I did notice is people actively wishing these fucking idiots would get vaccinated because _they are actively harming people right now_.



I was literally saying that things like "moron living in a repubtard Facebook bubble" or calling people we know nothing about "dipshits" is a bit of a hateful generalization.
As for harm, now it's celebrating that people would no longer have jobs as some sort of revenge, or a few pages ago in this same thread it was wishing hospitals would stop treating unvaccinated people and we should just let them die.
The hate is there for all to see.


----------



## StevenC

Resist the urge to press "show ignored content".


----------



## Bodes

I'm going to need to pull the "I'm a foreigner" card for more information. 

Are Americans that politically divided that these accusations of the majority of your citizens who aren't getting vaccinated on the Republican side of the political spectrum? Or are people being a bit too over the top with their statements? 
Surely the almost 40% of your population not being partially vaccinated at this stage must be from all political persuasions?


----------



## IwantTacos

Bodes said:


> I'm going to need to pull the "I'm a foreigner" card for more information.
> 
> Are Americans that politically divided that these accusations of the majority of your citizens who aren't getting vaccinated on the Republican side of the political spectrum? Or are people being a bit too over the top with their statements?
> Surely the almost 40% of your population not being partially vaccinated at this stage must be from all political persuasions?



nope. The unvaccinated and the deaths currently skew overwhelming fly conservative. Almost to a factor of 6 to 1.


----------



## IwantTacos

vilk said:


> Sorry, I know I wasn't the person you originally replied to, but I didn't notice anyone doing that. What I did notice is people actively wishing these fucking idiots would get vaccinated because _they are actively harming people right now_.



Or you know. Actively harming themselves
https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/


----------



## Bodes

IwantTacos said:


> nope. The unvaccinated and the deaths currently skew overwhelming fly conservative. Almost to a factor of 6 to 1.



Colour me surprised. 
How is this measured? Or is it an estimation based on 'they live in an area that historically vote Republican' thing?


----------



## StevenC

Se7enHeaven said:


> TRUST THE GOVERNMENT, C'MON MAN!


You're the guy who pretended to be a doctor to tell people not to get vaccinated.

Also, I've since taken an mRNA vaccine and I'm feeling pretty good.


----------



## Se7enHeaven

StevenC said:


> You're the guy who pretended to be a doctor to tell people not to get vaccinated.
> 
> Also, I've since taken an mRNA vaccine and I'm feeling pretty good.



Awesome for you; don't forget the boosters, in order to keep your passport active and up to date. By the way, can you quote me where I stated I was a doctor, as opposed to suggesting information (like everyone else on this and every other DISCUSSION forum)? I don't know anyone who passed from covid (the flu), but I do know two who passed from the medication (one was older, so he may not count, whereas one was mid-50s and healthy) and another fifteen with 'injuries' (nose bleeds, modest neurological disorders, bell's palsy, constant illness that won't go away, contracting Delta). And that was after my Doctor Welby M.D. audition.


----------



## StevenC

Se7enHeaven said:


> Awesome for you; don't forget the boosters, in order to keep your passport active and up to date. By the way, can you quote me where I stated I was a doctor, as opposed to suggesting information (like everyone else on this and every other DISCUSSION forum)? I don't know anyone who passed from covid (the flu), but I do know two who passed from the medication (one was older, so he may not count, whereas one was mid-50s and healthy) and another fifteen with 'injuries' (nose bleeds, modest neurological disorders, bell's palsy, constant illness that won't go away, contracting Delta). And that was after my Doctor Welby M.D. audition.


You pretended by omission. You said you were in a medical textbook and people should listen to you, which has only one implication.


----------



## Se7enHeaven

StevenC said:


> You pretended by omission. You said you were in a medical textbook and people should listen to you, which has only one implication.



Go ahead and quote me. I clearly stated that because I contributed to the Merck Manual (in the areas of exercise and rehab) that I knew doctors from that publication and their stance on the vaccine. There was no omission. I indicated my knowledge and understanding based on the expertise of others. It was through YOUR misinterpretation, for which I am not liable.


----------



## vilk

mbardu said:


> I was literally saying that things like "moron living in a repubtard Facebook bubble" or calling people we know nothing about "dipshits" is a bit of a hateful generalization.
> As for harm, now it's celebrating that people would no longer have jobs as some sort of revenge, or a few pages ago in this same thread it was wishing hospitals would stop treating unvaccinated people and we should just let them die.
> The hate is there for all to see.



... But if they got vaccinated, none of that stuff would happen to them... So hating them and shitting on them for being selfish assholes is actually the most loving thing we can do short of putting a gun to their head and force vaccinating them.

Also, you should try thinking of "they would no longer have jobs" as less of a "revenge" and more of a "saving people's lives_._"

They could save their livelihoods so easily. But they're too selfish and prideful. Hey! There's something we can agree upon: I don't think anti-vaxxers are _all_ stupid. Yes, the vast majority of them are, but many of them are just selfish and prideful. But beyond a certain point, is that really different than being stupid? That's a rhetorical question.

Observe my power of precognition: you want to reply that _both sides are selfish and prideful
_
I know, I know, mine is a miraculous ability. But here's the thing: only _one_ side of this vaccination debate is killing people.


----------



## bostjan

Se7enHeaven said:


> Go ahead and quote me. I clearly stated that because I contributed to the Merck Manual (in the areas of exercise and rehab) that I knew doctors from that publication and their stance on the vaccine. There was no omission. I indicated my knowledge and understanding based on the expertise of others. It was through YOUR misinterpretation, for which I am not liable.


I thought you were going to stick to music discussion on here?



vilk said:


> anti-vaxxers



Honestly, I sympathize with people's fear of the vaccine. It's something completely new and, as much as people say "untested," (which is not true) it's still potentially misunderstood. As time ticks on, that potential fades. But anyway, I don't trust the government any more than your average Republican voter, but, what I do trust is science. If there is a good chunk of tested science that says that covid has a 1-5% chance of killing me, and, from the implications of our best science, there is an almost certainty of getting infected, eventually, without the vaccine, and also, there is a good chunk of science that says that the vaccine has a 1-5 in one hundred million chance of killing me, I'll go with the vaccine.

All of those asterisks and footnotes and pre-emptive apologies in consideration, though- this bold move by Biden is stupid. Hold your rage, please, until the end, people, but hear me out. We know that vaccinated people can spread the virus. We greatly suspect that immunity granted by the vaccine lasts longer than natural immunity, but still wanes significantly in the general population after 9 months. We are now going to basically force people to get vaccinated or die. While the vaccine is a very important part of fighting the virus, it's going to take more than that.

What is the end goal of this mandate? Is it just to get people vaccinated? Is it to save some number of lives? I do believe it will do both of those things, but it'll come at a cost. Since the goal isn't spelled out in measurable terms, this mandate will be the perpetual talking point of Biden's political opponents as a failure for years to come.

And I know that there are more restrictions being added to the federal and air travel mask mandates, and I think those are a good step, but I suspect that they'll either get challenged and shot down or end up being unobserved after not-enough-time for whatever reason.


----------



## TedEH

Se7enHeaven said:


> bell's palsy


I kinda want to call BS on this. Isn't "bell's palsy" specifically used for cases of "unknown cause"? If it was known to have been incited by a vaccine, they wouldn't have called it bell's palsy, as I understand it. I'm obviously no expert, I just know people who have been given this diagnosis, and it was explained to me as being a catch-all term for "your face did funky things and we don't know why". Correct me if I'm wrong though.

I say this because I feel like there's a huge effort for anti- or vax-skeptical people to attribute anything they can to vaccines even if there's no basis for it, and this would be a great example of that.

Edit: I'll go a step further that the whole list of conditions you posted are things that happen to normal people all the time. Nose bleeds? You're going to attribute _nose bleeds_ to vaccines as a good enough reason to be skeptical? You know what else causes nose bleeds? EVERYTHING. Air too dry? Nosebleeds. Got some weak capillaries in your nose? Nosebleeds. Particularly violent sneeze? Maybe you pick your nose too much? You don't have perfect blood pressure? Went for a jog? Nosebleeds. Got punched in the face? Nosebleed!

Edit edit: And if the cost of not dying or accidentally killing someone else is an occasional nosebleed, that's a pretty tiny cost to pay. Wouldn't want to _mildly inconvenience_ ourselves for the safety of others, I guess.


----------



## vilk

bostjan said:


> killing me



TBH, sometimes I wonder if I'd rather have that than permanent lung damage. Btw, what's the maximum length for brain fog? What happens with decisions we make while brain fogged?

You know what sometimes sounds like a fate worse than death? Having a stroke. My dad's friend had a stroke in his early 50s, and it more or less turned him retarded.

I know you're not an unaware person, bostjan, so I'm surprised that I have to remind you of the possible consequences of contracting covid-19. Aside from all the *DEATHS* that the willingly unvaccinated cause and are personally responsible for, let's also consider all the other horrible, debilitating afflictions they disperse onto others every day.


----------



## StevenC

I used to sympathise with antivax people, then suffered a life threatening vaccine side effect. Turns out those people don't care about safety, they care about being smug.


----------



## TedEH

vilk said:


> let's also consider all the other horrible, debilitating afflictions they disperse onto others


Can confirm that some I've known to catch the 'rona so far didn't die, but were hit hard enough by it that their lives will be severely worsened from this point forward. My dad got it while already trying to live with COPD and I have zero doubts that it's taken a significant amount of time off of his remaining life expectancy, and most of that remaining time is likely to be a struggle.


----------



## mbardu

vilk said:


> ... But if they got vaccinated, none of that stuff would happen to them... So hating them and shitting on them for being selfish assholes is actually the most loving thing we can do short of putting a gun to their head and force vaccinating them.
> 
> Also, you should try thinking of "they would no longer have jobs" as less of a "revenge" and more of a "saving people's lives_._"
> 
> They could save their livelihoods so easily. But they're too selfish and prideful. Hey! There's something we can agree upon: I don't think anti-vaxxers are _all_ stupid. Yes, the vast majority of them are, but many of them are just selfish and prideful. But beyond a certain point, is that really different than being stupid? That's a rhetorical question.
> 
> Observe my power of precognition: you want to reply that _both sides are selfish and prideful
> _
> I know, I know, mine is a miraculous ability. But here's the thing: only _one_ side of this vaccination debate is killing people.



Again, you're arguing against points I didn't make.
I literally just said that everyone can make hateful generalizations.
The poster before you was doing that, and even though that was not the case initially, you are now starting to do that as well by saying that most of those people are antivax, most are stupid and most are selfish and prideful. That's also a hateful generalization from your high horse.
Have you actually met a representative group of unvaccinated people or are you stuck with the imagined notion of a homogenous group of stupid MAGAt like 99% of posters here? The generalized patronizing would seem to indicate the latter.

If you are not seeing the hate from others, then you are closing your eyes on purpose.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> All of those asterisks and footnotes and pre-emptive apologies in consideration, though- this bold move by Biden is stupid. Hold your rage, please, until the end, people, but hear me out. We know that vaccinated people can spread the virus. We greatly suspect that immunity granted by the vaccine lasts longer than natural immunity, but still wanes significantly in the general population after 9 months. We are now going to basically force people to get vaccinated or die. While the vaccine is a very important part of fighting the virus, it's going to take more than that.
> 
> What is the end goal of this mandate? Is it just to get people vaccinated? Is it to save some number of lives? I do believe it will do both of those things, but it'll come at a cost. Since the goal isn't spelled out in measurable terms, this mandate will be the perpetual talking point of Biden's political opponents as a failure for years to come.



I would have thought the same as you. Likely to get some more people vaccinated, so with some upside- but stupid nonetheless.

Would have thought that a mandate like that would have pretty terrible political costs for Biden too, even from his base, considering how much of an overreach it is.
But judging from here, it might not- it looks like most people _really _have 0 problem with "the ends justify the means" when they agree with the general direction.
You'd think that sort of attitude would only apply to "the other side", and any overstep of authority _is _scrutinized (as it should) when it's coming from that "other side".
But this one is actually celebrated here, especially if it goes and harms the group you hate. Just like the "just let unvaccinated people die, they're no longer allowed in hospitals" crowd earlier...
It really is comical how symmetrical things are.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> That's also a hateful generalization from your high horse.


What kind of world do you live in where wanting a pandemic to end is a high horse?



mbardu said:


> it looks like most people _really _have 0 problem with "the ends justify the means"


WFT are you on about? If "the means" is a vaccine that _doesn't harm people, _and the ends is literally _an earlier end to a pandemic that is killing people, _what is there to justify? OF COURSE the means are justified by that end.

Sometimes a generalization is pretty reasonable. I can understand that some people are afraid of vaccines - that's fine. It's natural to be afraid of things you can't control. It's _not_ however reasonable to generalize that 40%+ of the US "probably maybe have a good reason for avoiding the vaccine and you're just being mean". You're generalizing as much as anyone else if you think that.


----------



## bostjan

vilk said:


> TBH, sometimes I wonder if I'd rather have that than permanent lung damage. Btw, what's the maximum length for brain fog? What happens with decisions we make while brain fogged?
> 
> You know what sometimes sounds like a fate worse than death? Having a stroke. My dad's friend had a stroke in his early 50s, and it more or less turned him retarded.
> 
> I know you're not an unaware person, bostjan, so I'm surprised that I have to remind you of the possible consequences of contracting covid-19. Aside from all the DEATHS that the willingly unvaccinated cause, let's also consider all the other horrible, debilitating afflictions they disperse onto others.



I'm not discounting those. In fact, I agree 100%.

As a personal choice, I got the vaccine first chance I could. I've pressured my friends to get vax'd. I'm 100% pre-vax. Whatever the side effects, long term, of the vaccine are, they are almost 100% certainly better than the long term effects of covid.

But that is all nothing to do with my point.

I'm a problem-solver, by trade. The solution to any problem starts with understanding the present situation and contrasting that with the actual desired situation, then identifying what the hell the roadblocks are that stop the two from being the same.

What is the actual problem? If you ask Joe Schmo on the street, he's going to tell you that the problem is that the damned economy can't open up for very long without a ton of people getting sick. Knowing that the vaccine doesn't prevent transmission, we have a misdirection already when we propose that the be-all and end-all solution to Joe Schmo's problem is getting more people vaccinated.

Let's assume for one minute that every person who objects to getting vaccinated suddenly, with this edict, decides to get vaccinated, and forget how implausible that scenario is just for the sake of argument. You still have 5% of the population who is _effectively_ unvaccinated, because that's the proportion of people where the vaccine doesn't take. Then you have breakthrough cases because of variants, so, say 10% of the population still getting infected. Herd immunity is right out the window with the fact that the vaccine doesn't prevent transmission. Is this a better scenario than 4-6 times as many people being infected, absolutely, in terms of fighting the virus, but then there are other problems to fix. 1. You just forced ~40% of the population to do something diametrically opposed to their personal philosophy, so there will be bitter resentment, at the very least, if not violence. 2. The person who issued the edict will face the backlash of the fact that, even though everyone did as they were told, tens or hundreds of thousands are still getting very sick. 3. Out of ~200M Americans getting vax'd, expect there to be a few dozen with serious complications and a handful who die, then recall that these are all people violently opposed to the very idea of the vaccine. 4. Children under 12 still can't get vaccinated. 5. The fallout of Trump rising back to power re-invigorated by the PR blunder.

This would be better if fought with clear and unadulterated information. Let people decide to get vaccinated. Get people wearing masks. I'd rather see people strongarmed into wearing masks, because the intrusion of wearing a mask on a person's personal freedom is a level or two less than vaccination. Masks are also better at preventing the spread than vaccines are.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> What kind of world do you live in where wanting a pandemic to end is a high horse?



What do you mean?
Everyone wants the pandemic to end.
"High horse" just means you think you know everything and are free to generalize and patronize.



TedEH said:


> If "the means" is a vaccine that _doesn't harm people, _and the ends is literally _an earlier end to a pandemic that is killing people, _what is there to justify? OF COURSE the means are justified by that end.



Vaccines in general are a clear net positive. And in the case of Covid, they save plenty of lives. But here again, saying that vaccines cause 0 harm is also a dumb generalization.



TedEH said:


> Sometimes a generalization is pretty reasonable. I can understand that some people are afraid of vaccines - that's fine. It's natural to be afraid of things you can't control. It's _not_ however reasonable to generalize that 40%+ of the US "probably maybe have a good reason for avoiding the vaccine and you're just being mean". You're generalizing as much as anyone else if you think that.



Sometimes (rarely) generalization is reasonable. Sometimes it is not. Have you met a representative group of unvaccinated people before deciding that they are a majority of dumb anti-vaxx trumpers? That a good number of them _don't_ have a good reason not to be vaccinated?


----------



## IwantTacos

mbardu said:


> I would have thought the same as you. Likely to get some more people vaccinated, so with some upside- but stupid nonetheless.
> 
> Would have thought that a mandate like that would have pretty terrible political costs for Biden too, even from his base, considering how much of an overreach it is.
> But judging from here, it might not- it looks like most people _really _have 0 problem with "the ends justify the means" when they agree with the general direction.
> You'd think that sort of attitude would only apply to "the other side", and any overstep of authority _is _scrutinized (as it should) when it's coming from that "other side".
> But this one is actually celebrated here, especially if it goes and harms the group you hate. Just like the "just let unvaccinated people die, they're no longer allowed in hospitals" crowd earlier...
> It really is comical how symmetrical things are.



like you figured out that liberal and leftists are generally ok with authority when it's used for good things and not ok with authority when it's used for batshit stupid things. 

Like not every liberal minded person is actually a secret proudhonian anarchist. 

Do you really think this is some kind of revelation that you've made?

We're pretty much much against the government when it bans abortions but generally ok when it bans hate crimes. 

holy shit the hypocrisy.


----------



## cwhitey2

bostjan said:


> *This would be better if fought with clear and unadulterated information.* Let people decide to get vaccinated. Get people wearing masks. I'd rather see people strongarmed into wearing masks, because the intrusion of wearing a mask on a person's personal freedom is a level or two less than vaccination. Masks are also better at preventing the spread than vaccines are.



People today don't believe the facts, because it's their "opinion".

I have a couple friends who have told me "stop it with your damn sources, I don't care about them" when discussing things that clearly need to be sourced. They take their opinion over facts 99% of the time.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> Sometimes (rarely) generalization is reasonable. Sometimes it is not. Have you met a representative group of unvaccinated people before deciding that they are a majority of dumb anti-vaxx trumpers? That a good number of them _don't_ have a good reason not to be vaccinated?


Have YOU met 40 something percent of the country before deciding that they DO have a good reason? You're making almost the _same generalizations_ everyone else is, and just landing on a different conclusion. One of those generalizations is reasonable, the other is not. Hint: It's reasonable that a considerable chunk of that 40% of people are politically motivated or acting out of fear, it's NOT reasonable that 40% of people have circumstances that make vaccines more dangerous for them or others than covid would be, but we somehow don't know what those circumstances are is or why.

Is it a generalization? Absolutely. But it's a reasonable one.


----------



## mbardu

IwantTacos said:


> like you figured out that liberal and leftists are generally ok with authority when it's used for good things and not ok with authority when it's used for batshit stupid things.
> 
> Like not every liberal minded person is actually a secret proudhonian anarchist.
> 
> Do you really think this is some kind of revelation that you've made?
> 
> We're pretty much much against the government when it bans abortions but generally ok when it bans hate crimes.
> 
> holy shit the hypocrisy.



So by your own logic it's OK to have something authoritarian happening as long as for now you agree with that authoritarian thing.
Wow, there's no way this could ever backfire.

You'd think it would be possible to be liberal/leftist (in the American sense) and still be able to have some objective concern when something goes too far but no. 
You judge "the other side" harshly based on your worldview (and believe me, I judge them harshly too), but if you have zero qualms using the exact same tools and arguments as they are using, then you are also responsible for them using those tools and tactics when they're in power and pushing things you disagree with.


----------



## Randy

Glad to see (almost) everybody is back to political gamesmanship instead of saving the human race.


----------



## TedEH

The extended range guitar community should really get back to work solving the worlds problems. 
I kid, but nah, we're feeding the troll again. Back to ignore it is.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> Have YOU met 40 something percent of the country before deciding that they DO have a good reason? You're making almost the _same generalizations_ everyone else is, and just landing on a different conclusion. One of those generalizations is reasonable, the other is not. Hint: It's reasonable that a considerable chunk of that 40% of people are politically motivated or acting out of fear, it's NOT reasonable that 40% of people have circumstances that make vaccines more dangerous for them or others than covid would be, but we somehow don't know what those circumstances are is or why.
> 
> Is it a generalization? Absolutely. But it's a reasonable one.



You arbitrarily say that it's reasonable to generalize to your imagined reasons, yet you still have no argument for that.
It's literally just imagined on your end.

I'm doing none of that, not pretending to do so - but most importantly you're making a logical mistake here.
The logical proof here is the same as proving an untruth. You would only need a _single _counterexample to prove that you're wrong.
If you are going to hate on an entire group through generalization, then just one person being hated unfairly means the generalization is wrong.
If you are going to implement a measure like this one who chunks everyone in a single category with no options, then just one person being unfairly harmed means it is unfair.

And no matter how many times we try to paint the unvaccinated as a homogenous group of dumb FOX-er antivaxx, I actually know plenty of people who are _not _that.
Are they enough to generalize? No, and I never pretended to generalize. Maybe they are not even a majority. They are however plenty enough as counterexamples.


----------



## bostjan

cwhitey2 said:


> People today don't believe the facts, because it's their "opinion".
> 
> I have a couple friends who have told me "stop it with your damn sources, I don't care about them" when discussing things that clearly need to be sourced. They take their opinion over facts 99% of the time.



Unfortunately, you're correct. 

Between the brain fog from covid, the brain fog from arguing with people who insist that the Earth is not getting warmer because their feet are cold, the brain fog from the endless news cycle of 3 second soundbites, etc., I'm approaching the point of just not caring anymore about other people's rights, since they, by and large, will only use those rights to infringe on mine. I suppose I should choose my battles.


----------



## mbardu

Randy said:


> Glad to see (almost) everybody is back to political gamesmanship instead of saving the human race.



That's the thing that's a bit disheartening. There's zero need to bring politics in the discussion, yet it's the go-to to squash any differing opinion. Just call any dissenter a "dumb Trumpublican" and you just got yourself a golden argument to discredit everything else they're going to say. No need to even come up with actual discussion points. Even @bostjan has to walk on eggs with stuff like "pre-emptive apologies in consideration" in order not to get immediately bashed 

Saving the human race is easy. Everyone just stay at home for a month and this thing is OVER. Give everyone military rations if needed. There, problem solved


----------



## jaxadam

mbardu said:


> Give everyone military rations if needed. There, problem solved



There's nothing better than sitting by the pool eating MRE's with a couple of cases of Bud heavy and a handlful of chicks that work the night shift at Emperor's Gentleman's Club. I mean nothing.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> Unfortunately, you're correct.
> 
> Between the brain fog from covid, the brain fog from arguing with people who insist that the Earth is not getting warmer because their feet are cold, the brain fog from the endless news cycle of 3 second soundbites, etc., I'm approaching the point of just not caring anymore about other people's rights, since they, by and large, will only use those rights to infringe on mine. I suppose I should choose my battles.



That's the real ideological conundrum there. It's tempting to cross those lines and say "fuck it". But when the pendulum swings and those others are then the ones in charge, they will feel justified to turn it up to 11 against you. Aren't we also a little bit culpable then? Since we _have _to make it political, the democrats and the use of filibuster comes to mind when you think of that scenario.


----------



## jaxadam

StevenC said:


> Resist the urge to press "show ignored content".



Remind me why it's important to constantly broadcast this.



TedEH said:


> Back to ignore it is.



What made you remove them from ingore, to just put them back on?


----------



## mbardu

jaxadam said:


> What made you remove them from ingore, to just put them back on?



The "I'll put you on ignore" argument is 80% of the time just posturing from people who don't want to lose face when they run out of things to say, but actually keep reading regardless hoping they can come back later for a quick win against an out-of-context point that nobody made. Before soon again disappearing when that doesn't work either.
Usually, the more they broadcast their "I'll put you on ignore" for the validation of their peers, the more that's likely to be the case too.

Oh whoops, look I generalized as well - too bad, but I guess that's a "reasonable" generalization too


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> That's the real ideological conundrum there. It's tempting to cross those lines and say "fuck it". But when the pendulum swings and those others are then the ones in charge, they will feel justified to turn it up to 11 against you. Aren't we also a little bit culpable then? Since we _have _to make it political, the democrats and the use of filibuster comes to mind when you think of that scenario.


I don't affiliate with either major political party, so I assume no culpability for Biden's ego trip. That said, I still think this is less destructive than Trump suggesting that people inject sunlight and lysol.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> I don't affiliate with either major political party, so I assume no culpability for Biden's ego trip. That said, I still think this is less destructive than Trump suggesting that people inject sunlight and lysol.



I was also talking beyond politics regarding your discussion of personal choices within the social contract. Didn't mean to imply you were particularly supporting Biden here.

Now, of course the vaccine is mostly safe and unlikely to seriously harm the majority of those who will be forced to take it one way or another.
But just like you said, the way it's done may very well ensure that we mechanically get Trump (or a "DeSantis"-like) and full Republican control the next time around.
And not only that, but we can be sure they'll take that whole situation as precedent to implement some nasty sh*t with 0 remorse.


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> What made you remove them from ingore, to just put them back on?


I didn't technically remove from ignore, I just hit the "show ignored" 'cause otherwise I just see a bunch of no-context shouting into the void - and it's difficult to fight the urge to see what all the drama is about. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I dunno what I expected exactly - it's always just more people arguing just to hear their own voice, so to speak.


----------



## jaxadam

mbardu said:


> The "I'll put you on ignore" argument is 80% of the time just posturing from people who don't want to lose face when they run out of things to say, but actually keep reading regardless hoping they can come back later for a quick win against an out-of-context point that nobody made. Before soon again disappearing when that doesn't work either.
> Usually, the more they broadcast their "I'll put you on ignore" for the validation of their peers, the more that's likely to be the case too.
> 
> Oh whoops, look I generalized as well - too bad, but I guess that's a "reasonable" generalization too



My favorite is when they thank all of the responses to the ignored posts.

As an aside, my aunt and uncle where fully vaccinated back in January. They are in an independent living facility and did the finger-prick antibody test. They both have no antibodies to be found, but the caregiver told them that doesn't mean anything . I have another buddy who got covid last year, did not get the vax, and a month ago his antibody test returned a result in the 700's.


----------



## cwhitey2

bostjan said:


> ...*I'm approaching the point of just not caring anymore about other people's rights, since they, by and large, will only use those rights to infringe on mine.* I suppose I should choose my battles.



1000% agree


----------



## mbardu

jaxadam said:


> As an aside, my aunt and uncle where fully vaccinated back in January. They are in an independent living facility and did the finger-prick antibody test. They both have no antibodies to be found, but the caregiver told them that doesn't mean anything . I have another buddy who got covid last year, did not get the vax, and a month ago his antibody test returned a result in the 700's.



In the same vein, I don't know their antibody count...but I do know of people (hell, even on this here forum there are a few) who go to events/concerts unmasked and think they are superior because they got vaccinated 5 months ago and took it as a "free-to-do-whatever-you-want" card - nobody cares about the risk _they _are posing.

Whereas I know people who cannot get vaccinated, already got mild Covid, have been actively and selflessly helping during the whole pandemic, are being extremely cautious with social interactions and masking - and yet those are the people we have to discriminate against, insult by putting them in a "dumb selfish Trump-tard" box, and those are the people we want to take livelihood and healthcare from...

Really don't think that's fair.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

cwhitey2 said:


> People today don't believe the facts, because it's their "opinion".
> 
> I have a couple friends who have told me "stop it with your damn sources, I don't care about them" when discussing things that clearly need to be sourced. They take their opinion over facts 99% of the time.


http://wapo.st/1JRQatz

We've solved climate change without sources or information everybody, we did it. 

Grabbing some popcorn to read this thread again, who wants some?


----------



## TedEH

I think I'm just baffled by how much arguing and mental gymnastics people have to go to in order to avoid doing their part. Like I can empathize on some level with mbardu and his arguing, 'cause the best I can assume, if I give him the benefit, is that he knows one or two people who have some kind of immune disorder that make vaccines dangerous for them or something, and they take some undue flak for it. I get it. That's fine. And his penchant for arguing makes him extrapolate from that to "hey man everyone has their reasons". I can appreciate that. But there's _no way in hell_ that's actually representative of almost half the US.

I mean, I've come across people who are hesitant for their reasons too:
- One friend of mine has schizoaffective disorder and literally doesn't understand what's going on
- Some who are scared that they aren't in good enough health to withstand what would otherwise be minor side-effects
- A friends neighbour who was scared of what might be in the vaccine, but never looked it up and hoped they could just shelter at home instead (but of course took zero precautions when interacting with _us_, and still went out into public pretty often, hosted birthday parties for her kids at home, etc, because of course). We did actually manage to convince her to get the vax. She didn't die. No side effects. Bill gates hasn't visited her. She didn't suddenly become an annoying "liberal" overnight.
- The usual conspiracy or political nonsense, etc

But how many of those are _actually_ at a heightened risk in regards to taking the vaccine? From what I can see, and I'm not trying to position this as a "scientific take" by any stretch, it's obviously anecdotal, but I see LOTS of fear, but much less _informed legit reasons to be hesitant_. I'm not saying there are zero reasons. But I _am_ saying that as far as I can tell, there are very few. I mean, even if 1 out of 100 people suffered something serious from the vaccine - that's still _much_ lower than the percentage of people who aren't taking it. How does that account for the rest of them?

In a pandemic, "they have their reasons" isn't good enough if nobody is willing to talk about what those reasons are. That leaves only being able to speculate about people's motivations, leading to everyone arguing about who is generalizing about what. My  is that fear and being uninformed is not a good enough reason on it's own, and it's difficult to avoid assuming that this is what's happening when nobody is willing to volunteer their real motivations.


----------



## Randy

bostjan said:


> Unfortunately, you're correct.
> 
> Between the brain fog from covid, the brain fog from arguing with people who insist that the Earth is not getting warmer because their feet are cold, the brain fog from the endless news cycle of 3 second soundbites, etc., I'm approaching the point of just not caring anymore about other people's rights, since they, by and large, will only use those rights to infringe on mine. I suppose I should choose my battles.



Which is fine from a personal, psychological standpoint but as a matter of practicality, navigating an apocalyptic hellscape of death disease and famine because of everyone else does effect our lives.

This was the absolute stupidest course for this pandemic to take. The economy was actually surprisingly healthy despite having large sectors of business shut down. I personally think we know for a fact the "independence from the virus" rollback on mandates was not science based and I don't even think it was based on saving the economy, I think it was 100% political points and it blew up in their face because we're all fucked now.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

Randy said:


> we're all fucked now.


You summed it up well in your last post, mismanagement at multiple levels that span from the beginning of this conundrum and continue until now.


----------



## bostjan

CovertSovietBear said:


> http://wapo.st/1JRQatz
> 
> We've solved climate change without sources or information everybody, we did it.
> 
> Grabbing some popcorn to read this thread again, who wants some?



Ahh, the snowball defense.

That guy was re-elected in 2020 by a margin of 2:1 and won his primary by a margin of 5:1. He's cosponsored a bill revoking the freedom of speech guaranteed by the Constitution, campaigned to bring back earmarks, and has accepted over half a million dollars in kickbacks from the oil industry alone. Definitely the exemplar of the US Senate.



TedEH said:


> Some who are scared that they aren't in good enough health to withstand what would otherwise be minor side-effects



According to the Institute of Global Health Innovation, that's the #1 reason people in Europe don't get the vaccine. I have personally come across quite a few Americans that have given similar reason. Being open with them about my side effects when I was vaccinated seemed to have helped them come around.

In the USA, there is this portrayal in the media that the people refusing the covax are either "It's against God's Will" or "The government is trying to put microchips in me," and, while I'm assuming those people exist somewhere, I've never heard these arguments first hand unless sarcastic.

Most people are not quite as stupid as we tend to think that they are, but people are also surprisingly irresponsible and fickle. That's why I'm saying to just calmly offer the information and reassure people that the vaccine is safe. If you are going to go on the aggressive, find the people spreading absolute bullshit and slap them upside the head. If the volume comes down on this, people will start to come around. You'll always have Alex-Jones-level morons out there, and there's not much you can do for them to stop them from eating their neighbours as soon as they think the apocalypse is coming, but that's also a smaller proportion of the population than the 50% of adults who haven't been vaccinated yet.



Randy said:


> Which is fine from a personal, psychological standpoint but as a matter of practicality, navigating an apocalyptic hellscape of death disease and famine because of everyone else does effect our lives.
> 
> This was the absolute stupidest course for this pandemic to take. The economy was actually surprisingly healthy despite having large sectors of business shut down. I personally think we know for a fact the "independence from the virus" rollback on mandates was not science based and I don't even think it was based on saving the economy, I think it was 100% political points and it blew up in their face because we're all fucked now.



I said it over a year ago, but the economy was going to take it rough from this no matter how it was handled. We're pretty far from being out of the wood in terms of public health and the economy. If you let the virus run rampant, people get sick and die and everyone else starts to panic, which crashes the economy. If you clamp down and order people to stay at home, people automatically panic and crash the economy. When we had Trump pressuring governors to stay open, and governors were each deciding to handle the thing differently, it caused a lot of panic. I guess the pleasant surprise was finding out that Americans have a very short attention span for panic. Here in VT, it was something like 2-3 weeks we couldn't really find TP, and now, even though things aren't really much better, numbers-wise, I can go to the store and buy isopropanol just as easily as I could in 2019. But, I don't see any scenario where the US economy could have weathered the pandemic without taking any damage.

This virus should have been the least political thing. In 1918, the Influenza pandemic had a similar set of circumstances. People were told to mask up and stay away from each other. Theaters and restaurants were closed. Churches operated with lowered capacities. There are plenty of records of this, but hardly any record of people politicizing the disease. That was over 100 years ago, when germ theory had only barely achieved widespread public acceptance. Nationalism and partisanism were running high after WWI, but the tooth-and-nail fighting of information for political purposes was more or less governments telling the press to stop reporting the death toll numbers.


----------



## Se7enHeaven

TedEH said:


> I kinda want to call BS on this. Isn't "bell's palsy" specifically used for cases of "unknown cause"? If it was known to have been incited by a vaccine, they wouldn't have called it bell's palsy, as I understand it. I'm obviously no expert, I just know people who have been given this diagnosis, and it was explained to me as being a catch-all term for "your face did funky things and we don't know why".



When you have that stroke type appearance within hours of taking something, likely that is the cause. It's somewhat common among delivering mothers. Eventually, it tends to go away. I have a client who had it over a year ago (not from the vax) and it's yet to correct itself. I suppose each case is unique in terms of how long it lasts. You are correct that there is no one single cause: _Bell's palsy, also known as acute peripheral facial palsy of unknown cause, can occur at any age. The exact cause is unknown. It's believed to be the result of swelling and inflammation of the nerve that controls the muscles on one side of your face. Or it might be a reaction that occurs after a viral infection._


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> I think I'm just baffled by how much arguing and mental gymnastics people have to go to in order to avoid doing their part. Like I can empathize on some level with mbardu and his arguing, 'cause the best I can assume, if I give him the benefit, is that he knows one or two people who have some kind of immune disorder that make vaccines dangerous for them or something, and they take some undue flak for it. I get it. That's fine. And his penchant for arguing makes him extrapolate from that to "hey man everyone has their reasons". I can appreciate that. But there's _no way in hell_ that's actually representative of almost half the US.
> 
> I mean, I've come across people who are hesitant for their reasons too:
> - One friend of mine has schizoaffective disorder and literally doesn't understand what's going on
> - Some who are scared that they aren't in good enough health to withstand what would otherwise be minor side-effects
> - A friends neighbour who was scared of what might be in the vaccine, but never looked it up and hoped they could just shelter at home instead (but of course took zero precautions when interacting with _us_, and still went out into public pretty often, hosted birthday parties for her kids at home, etc, because of course). We did actually manage to convince her to get the vax. She didn't die. No side effects. Bill gates hasn't visited her. She didn't suddenly become an annoying "liberal" overnight.
> - The usual conspiracy or political nonsense, etc
> 
> But how many of those are _actually_ at a heightened risk in regards to taking the vaccine? From what I can see, and I'm not trying to position this as a "scientific take" by any stretch, it's obviously anecdotal, but I see LOTS of fear, but much less _informed legit reasons to be hesitant_. I'm not saying there are zero reasons. But I _am_ saying that as far as I can tell, there are very few. I mean, even if 1 out of 100 people suffered something serious from the vaccine - that's still _much_ lower than the percentage of people who aren't taking it. How does that account for the rest of them?
> 
> In a pandemic, "they have their reasons" isn't good enough if nobody is willing to talk about what those reasons are. That leaves only being able to speculate about people's motivations, leading to everyone arguing about who is generalizing about what. My  is that fear and being uninformed is not a good enough reason on it's own, and it's difficult to avoid assuming that this is what's happening when nobody is willing to volunteer their real motivations.



If you just look objectively at how _any _dissenting opinion to the "vaccine only for everyone" approach is received- the amount of vitriol, insults, attack, straight up call for harm (even in here, just look at how it's spoken of...), you'll easily understand why people are not more enthusiastic in sharing their reasons.
In general, the scale of vaccine harm and side effects is reduced/silenced quite a bit, both actively through attacks like the ones we're seeing here, as well as passively. What I mean by passively is bias in people in good faith thinking all vaccines are always safe, so if they experience adverse effects, they'll attribute it to anything _but _the vaccine. They'll never go and self-report.
Now, notice I am not saying the benefits don't still _largely _outweigh the downsides. I'm not saying vaccines cause autism or 5G or any other nonsense. Yet I can tell people can't wait to accuse me of just that and call me an antivax as I type this. To wit, you couldn't even avoid a few gratuitous quips at Bill Gates or conspiracies just because, while none of your actual examples included that 

Now how many people/what proportion of people...you have your anecdotes, I have mine, everyone has theirs, we don't know who has more... At least it's good that you acknowledge that you just feel that there not a lot of good reasons, but don't have any scientific backing for that impression.
I find it a bit amusing that you say "Some who are scared that they aren't in good enough health to withstand what would otherwise be minor side-effects" just to dismiss it out of hands. As far as anecdotes go, I spoke of it before but I know of at least one place (small town with a lot of older retirees) where they've seen significantly _more _death this year immediately after the vaccination campaign than they had seen last year during the entire first Covid outbreak. If that impacts you, maybe the question is not so dumb...

But anyway, from a logic standpoint none of that matters. At the end of the day, if you are trying to generalize on an entire population, or put in place policies affecting an entire group, a single counter-example should suffice to say your generalization is wrong or your policy is unfair.
I know for a fact that there's quite a bit more than just one counter-example. I'd go as far as to argue that it's a good percentage of the 40% of unvaccinated people, but even if we disagree and you think it's minute - it's besides my initial point.

My initial point was _just _that hateful generalizations are no good, but apparently even people who think themselves better, or people who should know better have no problem making them the moment they kinda agree with the message. Oh and they also don't have a problem with authoritarian stuff either, as long as it doesn't affect them personally. Good to know!


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> According to the Institute of Global Health Innovation, that's the #1 reason people in Europe don't get the vaccine. I have personally come across quite a few Americans that have given similar reason. Being open with them about my side effects when I was vaccinated seemed to have helped them come around.
> 
> In the USA, there is this portrayal in the media that the people refusing the covax are either "It's against God's Will" or "The government is trying to put microchips in me," and, while I'm assuming those people exist somewhere, I've never heard these arguments first hand unless sarcastic.
> 
> Most people are not quite as stupid as we tend to think that they are, but people are also surprisingly irresponsible and fickle. That's why I'm saying to just calmly offer the information and reassure people that the vaccine is safe. If you are going to go on the aggressive, find the people spreading absolute bullshit and slap them upside the head. If the volume comes down on this, people will start to come around. You'll always have Alex-Jones-level morons out there, and there's not much you can do for them to stop them from eating their neighbours as soon as they think the apocalypse is coming, but that's also a smaller proportion of the population than the 50% of adults who haven't been vaccinated yet.



Most people are not quite as stupid as we tend to think that they are, but a lot of people like to think that's the case so that they can feel superior.

Same as you, I have never met a single actual 5g conspiracy-warrior or anti-vaccine religious zealot, and yet people on one side of the discussion act like they're everywhere, just because we can see a few of those on YouTube or on TV for sensationalism...

I followed closely the "anti-vaccine-pass" demonstrations in France because I still have a lot of contacts there, and it's absolutely infuriating. If you look at media coverage, the press is trying to make the people there look and sound like absolute lunatics, whereas if you actually talk to people with firsthand experience of the demonstrations, the handful of lunatics are a small minority that the majority is kind of ashamed to see in their ranks.


----------



## Drew

IwantTacos said:


> how is that an upside.


Up_shot_, not up_side_. Colloquial for "but, the short summarized version is," rather than "but wait, here's the _good _news!"


----------



## Randy

bostjan said:


> Ahh, the snowball defense.
> 
> That guy was re-elected in 2020 by a margin of 2:1 and won his primary by a margin of 5:1. He's cosponsored a bill revoking the freedom of speech guaranteed by the Constitution, campaigned to bring back earmarks, and has accepted over half a million dollars in kickbacks from the oil industry alone. Definitely the exemplar of the US Senate.
> 
> 
> 
> According to the Institute of Global Health Innovation, that's the #1 reason people in Europe don't get the vaccine. I have personally come across quite a few Americans that have given similar reason. Being open with them about my side effects when I was vaccinated seemed to have helped them come around.
> 
> In the USA, there is this portrayal in the media that the people refusing the covax are either "It's against God's Will" or "The government is trying to put microchips in me," and, while I'm assuming those people exist somewhere, I've never heard these arguments first hand unless sarcastic.
> 
> Most people are not quite as stupid as we tend to think that they are, but people are also surprisingly irresponsible and fickle. That's why I'm saying to just calmly offer the information and reassure people that the vaccine is safe. If you are going to go on the aggressive, find the people spreading absolute bullshit and slap them upside the head. If the volume comes down on this, people will start to come around. You'll always have Alex-Jones-level morons out there, and there's not much you can do for them to stop them from eating their neighbours as soon as they think the apocalypse is coming, but that's also a smaller proportion of the population than the 50% of adults who haven't been vaccinated yet.
> 
> 
> 
> I said it over a year ago, but the economy was going to take it rough from this no matter how it was handled. We're pretty far from being out of the wood in terms of public health and the economy. If you let the virus run rampant, people get sick and die and everyone else starts to panic, which crashes the economy. If you clamp down and order people to stay at home, people automatically panic and crash the economy. When we had Trump pressuring governors to stay open, and governors were each deciding to handle the thing differently, it caused a lot of panic. I guess the pleasant surprise was finding out that Americans have a very short attention span for panic. Here in VT, it was something like 2-3 weeks we couldn't really find TP, and now, even though things aren't really much better, numbers-wise, I can go to the store and buy isopropanol just as easily as I could in 2019. But, I don't see any scenario where the US economy could have weathered the pandemic without taking any damage.
> 
> This virus should have been the least political thing. In 1918, the Influenza pandemic had a similar set of circumstances. People were told to mask up and stay away from each other. Theaters and restaurants were closed. Churches operated with lowered capacities. There are plenty of records of this, but hardly any record of people politicizing the disease. That was over 100 years ago, when germ theory had only barely achieved widespread public acceptance. Nationalism and partisanism were running high after WWI, but the tooth-and-nail fighting of information for political purposes was more or less governments telling the press to stop reporting the death toll numbers.



That's kind of the part that blows my mind.

I post pretty frequently on a football message board and honestly most people on there aren't knuckledraggers but I have been reading over the last year over and over "watching the game last night I was glad to see the stadium full and it felt great, I was pumped up, feels like back to normal again" and the mindset blows my mind. You can't enjoy the game unless it's a full stadium but further, you can't enjoy watching the game ON TV unless the stadium is full. And that's among even moderate or even 70/30 lefties to righties. 

I get the same thing from my friend, he's been bitching for months about vaccine passes and portals and mandates despite being vaxxed. Said well IF I want to go to a club I don't want to have to fight with my phone or worry about it not loading and the bouncer kicking me out. That's besides even getting past the idea you would insist on going to a club in the first place, the idea that it's maybe good but hypothetically could inconvenience me somehow someday maybe so I'd prefer it didn't happen at all.

This super weird insistence that not only do I want my life not even 1% different but I don't want anyone else's life any different either or whatever. It's just madness.


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> This was the absolute stupidest course for this pandemic to take. The economy was actually surprisingly healthy despite having large sectors of business shut down. I personally think we know for a fact the "independence from the virus" rollback on mandates was not science based and I don't even think it was based on saving the economy, I think it was 100% political points and it blew up in their face because we're all fucked now.


Honestly, I've been saying for more than a year now that the resiliency of the US economy and the way it can rapidly adapt to adjust to changing circumstances is one of the most _encouraging_ things to come out of this pandemic. We were thrust into a world in which it wasn't safe to come within six feet of others indoors, and inside of a _month _you had restaurants moving full-scale into delivery only or cook-at-home meal kits, bars successfully lobbing to get blue laws changed to allow pre-packaged cocktail to go sales and where they couldn't selling mixer kits, businesses figuring out how to contact free curbside business... Shit, a local open-air market set up what was basically a giant Chutes and Ladders style map oin their courtyard to let their vendors shuttle customers with appointments through to run what was basically a contact-free farmers market... It was hardly seamless, and businesses definitely failed and a lot of the ones who didn't were still struggling... but I thought it was remarkable how well our economy found ways to continue producing goods and services that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. 

Which is one more reason why I think we declared victory too soon. I understand the Biden Administration's thought process - by granting more privileges to vaccinated Americans it would encourage more people to get vaccinated, a carrot rather than a stick... but, with no stick at all and no actual way to enforce accountability - vaccine record requirements, for one - it was stupid because of course this would fail, and evidently we can no longer count on Americans to do the right thing for their country if it involves even the _slightest_ inconvenience.


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> ...but I have been reading over the last year over and over "watching the game last night I was glad to see the stadium full and it felt great, I was pumped up, feels like back to normal again" and the mindset blows my mind. You can't enjoy the game unless it's a full stadium but further, you can't enjoy watching the game ON TV unless the stadium is full. And that's among even moderate or even 70/30 lefties to righties.



Like, I get this thought process, and how a return to normal life probably DOES feel good, after the last 18 months. But the amount of burying of one's head in the sands to feel that way while being well aware that we're nowhere close to beating this back, and even vaccinated people are still getting sick (I personally know two breakthrough cases right now, one of which was a teenager who "kids don't get covid" and the other her and her husband, and their two young kids, _both_ got sick, even though they're both vaccinated). Like, if it was true, and we could really all go to a packed arena with impunity, that'd be great. But it's not, so feeling that way right now is basically just believing in fairy tales.


----------



## Randy

Drew said:


> Honestly, I've been saying for more than a year now that the resiliency of the US economy and the way it can rapidly adapt to adjust to changing circumstances is one of the most _encouraging_ things to come out of this pandemic. We were thrust into a world in which it wasn't safe to come within six feet of others indoors, and inside of a _month _you had restaurants moving full-scale into delivery only or cook-at-home meal kits, bars successfully lobbing to get blue laws changed to allow pre-packaged cocktail to go sales and where they couldn't selling mixer kits, businesses figuring out how to contact free curbside business... Shit, a local open-air market set up what was basically a giant Chutes and Ladders style map oin their courtyard to let their vendors shuttle customers with appointments through to run what was basically a contact-free farmers market... It was hardly seamless, and businesses definitely failed and a lot of the ones who didn't were still struggling... but I thought it was remarkable how well our economy found ways to continue producing goods and services that wouldn't have been possible otherwise.
> 
> Which is one more reason why I think we declared victory too soon. I understand the Biden Administration's thought process - by granting more privileges to vaccinated Americans it would encourage more people to get vaccinated, a carrot rather than a stick... but, with no stick at all and no actual way to enforce accountability - vaccine record requirements, for one - it was stupid because of course this would fail, and evidently we can no longer count on Americans to do the right thing for their country if it involves even the _slightest_ inconvenience.





Drew said:


> Like, I get this thought process, and how a return to normal life probably DOES feel good, after the last 18 months. But the amount of burying of one's head in the sands to feel that way while being well aware that we're nowhere close to beating this back, and even vaccinated people are still getting sick (I personally know two breakthrough cases right now, one of which was a teenager who "kids don't get covid" and the other her and her husband, and their two young kids, _both_ got sick, even though they're both vaccinated). Like, if it was true, and we could really all go to a packed arena with impunity, that'd be great. But it's not, so feeling that way right now is basically just believing in fairy tales.



My larger point which I forgot to make is that, right now we're fighting the battle of getting people vaccinated but knowing vaccinated people are still spreading the virus and increasingly with some severe outcomes. 

This is a, IMO, very hard to implement executive order to try and get people vaccinated that don't want to be. A lot of them. And if you snapped your fingers and it happened, there are still real issues with beating tis and recovering. And that will require SOME kind of participation by the people who are right now willingly vaccinated, when a lot of them have since come to the decision "I did my part, I've been good long enough so fuck everything else" (I see this stubbornness daily), so now you've got the secondary or third actions you're likely gonna have to take and fight with THESE people as well to get them to do it.


----------



## bostjan

Randy said:


> That's kind of the part that blows my mind.
> 
> I post pretty frequently on a football message board and honestly most people on there aren't knuckledraggers but I have been reading over the last year over and over "watching the game last night I was glad to see the stadium full and it felt great, I was pumped up, feels like back to normal again" and the mindset blows my mind. You can't enjoy the game unless it's a full stadium but further, you can't enjoy watching the game ON TV unless the stadium is full. And that's among even moderate or even 70/30 lefties to righties.
> 
> I get the same thing from my friend, he's been bitching for months about vaccine passes and portals and mandates despite being vaxxed. Said well IF I want to go to a club I don't want to have to fight with my phone or worry about it not loading and the bouncer kicking me out. That's besides even getting past the idea you would insist on going to a club in the first place, the idea that it's maybe good but hypothetically could inconvenience me somehow someday maybe so I'd prefer it didn't happen at all.
> 
> This super weird insistence that not only do I want my life not even 1% different but I don't want anyone else's life any different either or whatever. It's just madness.



Less than a third of the unvaxed people I know are Trump supporters. And nearly half of the people I know are Trump supporters.

I think a lot of people (partly evidenced much earlier in this thread) thought that the vaccine would be basically the end of this. Not that it would "go away," but, that with the vaccine available, life would settle into a sort of new normal with most of the people being immune and the businesses all opening back up.

I guess what I've been saying since November-ish, is that the vaccine is the first major piece of the puzzle, but that there is so much more that has to happen before things go "back to normal." Even if we have this mandated passport/vaxcard/vaxvisa/etc., and it needs to be updated once/twice every year with a booster, it's going to eventually (prematurely) get ignored. There are also already people forging these things. There is a small but fairly substantial portion of the population that is far _less_ likely to do something, even for their own benefit, if the government tells them to do it.

I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think this mandate from Biden is at all what we need right now.


----------



## Xaios

Got my vaccine passport. It's kinda weird though, they just put a stamp on my hand that says "999".


----------



## bostjan

Xaios said:


> Got my vaccine passport. It's kinda weird though, they just put a stamp on my hand that says "999".


Mine's on my forehead, but I got S/N "GGG"


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> Mine's on my forehead, but I got S/N "GGG"



Lucky you, I got the dyslexic guy, mine says "ddd"


----------



## Se7enHeaven

INCOMING NEWS
https://simonparkes.org/post/governor-speaks-out/


----------



## SpaceDock

Se7enHeaven said:


> INCOMING NEWS
> https://simonparkes.org/post/governor-speaks-out/



Thanks for linking to your 5G conspiracy webpage. There is no such thing as a 100% vaccine and the death rate of those with the vaccine is 1 in 10,000. Someone who is not vaccinated is 11 fold more likely to die. Stop spreading knee jerk idiocy.


----------



## jaxadam

Se7enHeaven said:


> INCOMING NEWS
> https://simonparkes.org/post/governor-speaks-out/



Hot damn that websites got some links on it boy! One or two more clicks and my 5G celestial patriot starter kit will show up in the mail!


----------



## Se7enHeaven

SpaceDock said:


> Thanks for linking to your 5G conspiracy webpage. There is no such thing as a 100% vaccine and the death rate of those with the vaccine is 1 in 10,000. Someone who is not vaccinated is 11 fold more likely to die. Stop spreading knee jerk idiocy.



I linked to a video that has nothing to do with the site? Could quite grasp that... no comment on the video, from the Gov of West Virginia? Or do you want to redirect again, about something on the subject of 5G?


----------



## spudmunkey

Se7enHeaven said:


> INCOMING NEWS
> https://simonparkes.org/post/governor-speaks-out/



OK, so a clip played by a video podcaster, on a website of a guy selling "body allign EMF protection discs", which is basically a 1.25" round sticker for the back of your phone, and even a keychain with the sticker attached, that's supposed to protect your dog from 5G.

I understand that it's literally playing a video clip of the governor's speech, but c'mon, man...do better with sources...

OK, so: cases increasing among vaccinated in the last 2 months. How does that relate to the curve of people getting vaccinated in the first place? If 100% of people are vaccinated, then 100% of people testing positive will have been vaccinated.

The question is: how are those "tested positive" cases comparing to hospitalizations and deaths, taking those same vaccination numbers into account?

He mentioned that the number of deaths increased by 25%. Going from 4-5 is an increase in 25%. But he left out the other side of that equation: how much have unvaccinated deaths increased?

In West Virginia, cases have increased by 320%. So if vaccinated folks are only increasing by 25% while being 39% of the population, that seems to prove the vaccinated are doing pretty well.

In west Virginia, deaths are up 500% from 8 weeks ago. So again, vaccinated only going up 25% while being 39% of the population, seems pretty damned good.

edit: Here's a speech from the same governor from 2 days ago: "Pfeizer has been approved by the FDA, and I've told you that for 14 days now. We can't get the Biden administration to move forward on booster shots, we'll continue to try." "The only weapon we have is vaccination."


----------



## Se7enHeaven

spudmunkey said:


> OK, so a clip played by a video podcaster, on a website of a guy selling "body allign EMF protection discs", which is basically a 1.25" round sticker for the back of your phone, and even a keychain with the sticker attached, that's supposed to protect your dog from 5G.
> 
> I understand that it's literally playing a video clip of the governor's speech, but c'mon, man...do better with sources...
> 
> OK, so: cases increasing among vaccinated in the last 2 months. How does that relate to the curve of people getting vaccinated in the first place? If 100% of people are vaccinated, then 100% of people testing positive will have been vaccinated.
> 
> The question is: how are those "tested positive" cases comparing to hospitalizations and deaths, taking those same vaccination numbers into account?
> 
> He mentioned that the number of deaths increased by 25%. Going from 4-5 is an increase in 25%. But he left out the other side of that equation: how much have unvaccinated deaths increased?
> 
> In West Virginia, cases have increased by 320%. So if vaccinated folks are only increasing by 25%, that seems to prove the vaccinated are doing pretty well.
> 
> In west Virginia, deaths are up 500% from 8 weeks ago. So again, vaccinated only going up 25%, seems pretty damned good.



Weird... I'm posting about a speech given by a Governor and people are concerned about where it's posted, rather than the content. Weak. In any case, if you think an increase in deaths, by those vaccinated, at 25% is damned good, then I don't know what to say. What are YOUR stats from, to suggest there is a 500% increase (and without explaining what the increase is from, e.g., drug overdose, cancer, car accidents)? You said "do better with sources," but you provided NONE.


----------



## Randy

Se7enHeaven said:


> INCOMING NEWS
> https://simonparkes.org/post/governor-speaks-out/



Can't trust a guy in such an ill fitting suit.


----------



## TedEH

I know we have an ignore people feature, but do we have an ignore thread feature? And yes, before anyone doesn't get the joke and "calls me on it", I see the irony of posting in a thread about not wanting to participate in the thread.


----------



## spudmunkey

Does someone have the link that was posted? After I posted my reply, I meant to see if I could find that specific speech from the WV governor to see what he was actually saying at the excerpt of that clip with the complete context, but I closed the window and I think I've got OP ignored.


----------



## Randy

TedEH said:


> I know we have an ignore people feature, but do we have an ignore thread feature? And yes, before anyone doesn't get the joke and "calls me on it", I see the irony of posting in a thread about not wanting to participate in the thread.



To each their own but I don't personally have an issue with "ignore worthy" arguments going on alongside ones I give a shit about. I think about it like the "Post Your Gas" thread. If something doesn't tickle my fancy, I roll right past it unphased. I kinda process dumb/bad faith posts in political threads the same way.


----------



## spudmunkey

OK, I found it. it was 3 weeks ago.

Starting at 22:38:


He used these increase in positive cases and deaths among the vaccinated as an example of how even vaccinated people are even being affected by non-vaccinated, and how he's pressing for booster shots for the most vulnerable parts of their population. And you can see how, by the numbers I provided in my previous post.


----------



## spudmunkey

Se7enHeaven said:


> Weird... I'm posting about a speech given by a Governor and people are concerned about where it's posted, rather than the content. Weak. In any case, if you think an increase in deaths, by those vaccinated, at 25% is damned good, then I don't know what to say. What are YOUR stats from, to suggest there is a 500% increase (and without explaining what the increase is from, e.g., drug overdose, cancer, car accidents)? You said "do better with sources," but you provided NONE.



My source? Literally any reputable source that tracks COVID cases and deaths, and comparing yesterday to 2 months ago. I didnt think I had to clarify "covid cases & deaths", but that's what I meant with 320% and 500%: the change in COVID cases and deaths respectively.

However, I will readily admit that my numbers are indeed flawed for one reason. You posted this as if this was brand new breaking information. So, I looked up today's numbers and looked up numbers from 2 months ago. However, what I didn't know until I was able to find the actual source source of the video from the Govermor's own YouTube channel ( And boy, does he talk slow… took a long time to find the right video with that clip… I eventually noticed that he rarely wears a tie, so was able to find the most recent video where he was wearing a tie, and searched through that video to find the clip), was that this was from 3 weeks ago. So I will absolutely admit that my numbers are probably skewed a bit, due to being 3 weeks off of both what "today" means and also "2 months ago" means.

But you're arguing a point he is NOT making. He's not doubting published numbers. You are mis-interpreting his intent, i have to assume partially because it was edited to remove his actual context by the vlogger/radio show/podcast host, to insinuate something else.

And while cases of vaccinated have gone up 25% in 8 weeks...how much have vaccination totals gone up in those same 2 months? Anything around 25%? Even if zero additional people were vaccinated in the last 8 weeks...you know what didn't go up at all? The number of UNvaccinated people...yet their numbers went up, too.

It's worth pointing out that West Virginia has among the lowest, if not the lowest, percentages of vaccinated population, and also has among the highest (if not the highest) increases in cases in the nation.


----------



## spudmunkey

Actually, going back to August 23rd and June 28th numbers (the date that video was posted, and the day 8 weeks prior:
Overall new cases went up 1,734%
Deaths went up 250% (using the running 7-day averages for 6/28 since they don't report every day) 

For comparison:
Santa Clara County in California (SCC); 1.9 million people, 1,477 people/square mile, 81%+ fully vaccinated
West Virginia (WV); 1.7m people, 77.1 people/square mile, 39.9% vaccinated

(I just picked SCC because it's the closest county to me that's close to West Virginia's population)

Since 8/15 (4 weeks):
SCC Cases: 19.6% drop
SCC Deaths: 11 of these 26 days had 0 deaths, but the 7-day average is actually up 100%. It went from 1 (8/15) to 2 (yesterday).

WV Cases: 400% increase
WV deaths 750% increase

Today WV's deaths 7-day average is 750% higher than Santa Clara County, despite being 1/19th as densely populated, not being a border state (for whatever that's worth...a lot to a certain Florida governor), and 0 international airports (California has 9, and Santa Clara County is within 40 miles of 3 of those international airports) and give-of-take 1/7 the homeless population.


----------



## Randy

> Conversely, smaller companies see being exempt as an advantage. Like other businesses, Alan Dietrich, CEO of Crater Lake Spirits in Bend, Oregon, is facing staff shortages. He has a 36 workers, with an immediate need for two or three more.
> 
> “Being left out of the mandate is helpful for hiring,” he said. “We are still finding that a small but meaningful number of people in our area are vaccine hesitant, and staffing is so tough that even one person is significant to us.”



https://www.timesunion.com/news/art...6448006.php?IPID=Times-Union-HP-Editors-Picks


----------



## Se7enHeaven

spudmunkey said:


> But you're arguing a point he is NOT making. He's not doubting published numbers. You are mis-interpreting his intent, i have to assume partially because it was edited to remove his actual context by the vlogger/radio show/podcast host, to insinuate something else.



Interesting, but you assume I was arguing a point... and misinterpreting something, when all I did was post it, because actual numbers were being presented. That's all. Have a good one.


----------



## Ralyks

Saw this floating around. Good. I’ll be waiting for their homes to be foreclosed on so I can buy it cheap.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

Ralyks said:


> View attachment 97573
> 
> 
> Saw this floating around. Good. I’ll be waiting for their homes to be foreclosed on so I can buy it cheap.



Lol walk out on a weekend that will show them!!!


----------



## Randy




----------



## fantom

Randy said:


> https://www.timesunion.com/news/art...6448006.php?IPID=Times-Union-HP-Editors-Picks


So they are afraid we'll have vacancies in the government? Where was that concern when Trump voluntarily refused to fill vacancies?


----------



## Bodes

An interesting article... almost a big whinge in places, but most statements seem correct.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09...imate-change-australia-anti-vaxxers/100455944


----------



## TheBlackBard

Been a week after my second shot. Frankly, I'm disappointed. No superpowers, what the fuck?


----------



## Crungy

I didn't get any superpowers either, stupid guvmint is holding out on me!


----------



## nightflameauto

I just want to take a brief moment to thank those that have attempted to do the right thing, staying masked, getting vaccinated when they could, social distancing, sheltering in place and the like. Thanks to you I got to wish my grandma happy 100th Birthday on Saturday.

Now back to your regularly scheduled bitch-fests.


----------



## Jonathan20022

Julian Lage just posted that all upcoming tour dates require proof of vaccination for entry, absolutely fucking based.

Of course there are people whining that they can't enter with a negative covid test, but personally? Get fucked, musicians have been itching to perform for over a year and a half it's not your right to go to your local bar and potentially fuck their livelihood up.

More places should have been this pro-active with enforcement of vaccination a few months out from mass vaccination numbers accumulating. And even before then just documented covid tests, as in if you bought your fake test on Facebook and you got your grocery store infected. They should be able to look at their logs and contact trace it back to your forged test and you should get arrested & tried as a bio-terrorist once they suspect you and actually test you for covid.

The fact that the CDC/Govt left enforcement to the point of sale to reject business is still such a fucked up concept to me.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

TheBlackBard said:


> Been a week after my second shot. Frankly, I'm disappointed. No superpowers, what the fuck?





Crungy said:


> I didn't get any superpowers either, stupid guvmint is holding out on me!


You might have to come out at night when the skies are clear in order to connect to the SpaceX/Gates/Bezos 5G wifi network, pointing your left index finger and right pinky towards the vicinity of the Taurus and Orion constellations usually helps, then the powers will sync in properly and your forehead should glow purple.


----------



## Randy




----------



## bostjan

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wmh3.435

Kind of a weird paper (weakly) correlating Trump support with the covid death rate (as well as other variables).


----------



## Randy

bostjan said:


> https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wmh3.435
> 
> Kind of a weird paper (weakly) correlating Trump support with the covid death rate (as well as other variables).



Yeah I mean idk, I'm not trying to say 1:1, it's just some dark humor that happened to show up in my feed just as my father in law has been going on and on about how vaccine is slow kill, masks are for demoralizing people into submission, children can't breathe in masks so it's screwing up their brains and the only Governor who's got it right so dad is Desantis. Felt like an apt time to post that.


----------



## bostjan

Randy said:


> Yeah I mean idk, I'm not trying to say 1:1, it's just some dark humor that happened to show up in my feed just as my father in law has been going on and on about how vaccine is slow kill, masks are for demoralizing people into submission, children can't breathe in masks so it's screwing up their brains and the only Governor who's got it right so dad is Desantis. Felt like an apt time to post that.


Sorry if that came off argumentative. It's 100% anecdotal, but when covid ripped through my extended family, 80% of my relatives who had to go to the ER were Trump supporters, even though maybe only 20-25% of my extended family were Trump supporters.

As for the pop-culture medical misinformation running rampant:

1. The vaccine might kill us all, but there's currently no unbiased reason to think so. There's just as much chance at the moment that space aliens will get us all before it matters anyway.

2. Masks depriving the brain of oxygen is the stupidest shit I've ever heard. As if the brain surgeon who wears a mask all work day is a brain-damaged moron or something.

3. My cousin, the first in my family to get covid, was, before she got covid, posting on facebook daily. Dozens of medical conspiracy theories and so forth. It's no stretch of the imagination to equate risky behaviours with bad medical information or with bad medical outcomes.


----------



## Randy

bostjan said:


> 2. Masks depriving the brain of oxygen is the stupidest shit I've ever heard. As if the brain surgeon who wears a mask all work day is a brain-damaged moron or something.



Yeah this one I got an especially big laugh out of because he said it right after saying masks don't work and my girlfriend (who's somewhat apolitical) said "wait, if masks don't do anything how come children's breathing is supposedly restricted by wearing it? It can't really be both ways can it?" and he's like "well, I gotta go, breakfast is on the stove..." *click*


----------



## spudmunkey

COVID is both overblown/harmless, and also it's so dangerous that Biden's destroying America because of "immigrants".


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wmh3.435
> 
> Kind of a weird paper (weakly) correlating Trump support with the covid death rate (as well as other variables).


I mean, correlation is not causation, but... 

https://www.businessinsider.com/cov...worst-affected-states-voted-trump-wapo-2021-9

23 states have a covid per capital rate higher than the national average rate. 21 of them voted for Trump. 

If you dig further, states and counties that voted for Trump also have a lower vaccine adoption rate than states and counties that voted for Biden. Republicans are quite a bit more likely to be vaccine-hesitant or outright opposed to vaccination than Democrats or independent voters. 

So, like, correlation doesn't imply causation... but there's a whole lot of clear potential causal links in play here. And, I mean, I don't want to be flippant, exactly, but if Trump is planning on running in 2024, considering how narrow his path to victory already is, he can't keep killing off his supporters like this without starting to hurt his electoral chances, even if the survivors blame Biden and not Trump.


----------



## bostjan

Not to turn this into the Trump thread 2.0, but...

Causation is a pretty elusive thing, but it's a logically deduced thing. Science denial certainly doesn't _cause_ covid. The SARS-CoV-2 virus causes covid. But, now that there is a highly effective vaccine and still no effective treatment for covid, anti-vax attitude has a strong potential to cause covid hospitalization. Also, disbelief in the fact that the SARS-CoV-2 virus causes covid might cause riskier behaviours, such as going maskless, meeting in large groups, etc., which, on average, will cause more prevalence of covid infection than responsible behaviours like wearing a mask at the grocery store, staying home, etc.

I think it's pretty safe to make the conclusion that science denial has a causative effect on severe covid, at this point in time.

Another science denial topic is climate change denial, which should be easily linked to Trump support. Another sort of underlying reason for science denialism is religious fundamentalism, which is also generally linked to Trump support. Not all Trump supporters are science deniers, by any means, but, it's pretty safe to make the conclusion that science denial is one of many causative effects on Trump support.

If two things are linked to one of the same root causes, it should be no surprise that there is correlation, but having one of the same root causes does not guarantee correlation, especially if other root causes are widely evident. So, I suppose the question that remains, then, is what the other root causes are for 1. severe covid, and 2. Trump support. Other than science denial, I don't really see anything that sticks out as intuitively obvious, but it seems to be part of what the paper was digging around looking for.


----------



## Drew

I'll nitpick a littl, @bostjan - science denial doesn't cause _severe_ covid, but it's an associated risk factor in two ways; one, science denial is an associated risk factor with fairly high predictive power for not getting the covid vaccine, and not being vaccinated makes it much more likely you'll get covid in the first place, and two, as being vaccinated not only has a huge impact on your chances of getting covid, but also a pretty huge impact on your chances of a covid infection becoming severe, science denial is also associated with fairly strong predictive power with an existing covid infection becoming severe. 

I think taking it a step beyond that, there's an added wrinkle here in that clearly not all science deniers are Trump supporters (though there's high correlation, I suspect), and not all Trump supporters are science deniers (ditto), but Trump supporters have been primed to see covid through a political lens and supporters that might otherwise by and large trust medical science are holding out on vaccination not because they necessarily disagree with the science (though many do), but because covid is "not that big a deal," they rthink. 

Admittedly, a lot of this is semantic.  If supporting a candidate makes you less likely to get a vaccine, and not getting vaccinated makes you more likely to get sick, and more likely to get severely sick if you get sick in the first place, well... it's not rocket surgery what's going to happen next. 

The irony is that in whole swathes of the country now, these same people are overfilling emergency rooms and hospitals being kept alive on ventilators while doctors, who they don't trust enough to listen to them and get a vaccine, are trying to save their lives and in turn unable to try to save the lives of other people who need medical attewntion but there aren't enough remaining beds to take them in, so this whole thing isn't just some hypothetical logical experiment but a situation that really, really, really sucks for a ton of our countrymen who DO trust the scientific method.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> Sorry if that came off argumentative. It's 100% anecdotal, but when covid ripped through my extended family, 80% of my relatives who had to go to the ER were Trump supporters, even though maybe only 20-25% of my extended family were Trump supporters.
> 
> As for the pop-culture medical misinformation running rampant:
> 
> 1. The vaccine might kill us all, but there's currently no unbiased reason to think so. There's just as much chance at the moment that space aliens will get us all before it matters anyway.
> 
> 2. Masks depriving the brain of oxygen is the stupidest shit I've ever heard. As if the brain surgeon who wears a mask all work day is a brain-damaged moron or something.
> 
> 3. My cousin, the first in my family to get covid, was, before she got covid, posting on facebook daily. Dozens of medical conspiracy theories and so forth. It's no stretch of the imagination to equate risky behaviours with bad medical information or with bad medical outcomes.



Masks depriving the brain of oxygen is the dumbest thing ever.

I do take issue with one thing in what you said.
The vaccine has been shown to be very good and very safe, that's for sure.
And there is currently no unbiased reason to think it will come back with a vengeance to kill us in the future.
But it _is _a novel invention, and the probability that it has an unidentified inherent deadly flaw is _not _astronomically low.
If you were to look at human inventions in general, even recent ones, it's pretty common for something with no immediate downside, and that seem to work really well, to still come back with nasty issues a few years or decades down the road. Something that was an unknown unknown. The probability that this happens to novel human invention in general is pretty far from 0. Glyphosate, phthalates, teflon, asbestos come to mind. Same for the hundreds of drug recalls that have happened in the past. It's not a "just as likely as aliens showing up" type of likelihood.

Does it happen in a majority of cases, no of course. But it can happen.

The counterargument that I used to buy into was that we can all see the progress we're making overall through decades after decades, and how our overall quality of life at the societal level is improving. So we must be doing something right. With our current safety protocols, our processes and precautions, with our thresholds for risk-benefits, we probably end up on the right side of the equation on average, otherwise we would not be improving like we are. The system is doing its job, and we can be confident that its failures remain exceptions and outliers. So _overall_, we're good.
Except that it now looks like we may have "peaked" in terms of quality of life with boomers. The current generations' life expectancy is already starting to decrease, and all sorts of ailments are on the rise. And that includes cancer and auto-immune diseases that are steadily increasing even in the younger portion of the population, even accounting for better diagnostics. Who knows, maybe that's just a blip, and the progress will be right back when we look back at stats ten years down the road. And btw, this is obviously a discussion way beyond Covid, but for me this means the "we must be doing something right" wholesale argument may reach its limits and some reevaluation of probabilities and risk-benefits might be warranted.
Of course, I know that's not going to happen. As long as the people making the decisions are benefitting from the system staying the way it is, there is no engine for change. But just like people agreeing to stay the F at home for one month, one time instead of struggling with that dumb pandemic for 2 years...one can dream right


----------



## bostjan

I literally had a friend tell me that he'd just get the vaccine if he got diagnosed with covid, and I had to explain to him how it would be too late.

I personally know maybe 2 or 3 flat out science deniers out of the thousands of people I interact with in my personal and professional life. And maybe a dozen who like to pick and choose. But there are a lot of people who fall under a broader umbrella of science disinterest. They trust science, but don't really care about it, because other people digest science for them and feed them a mushed up babyfood version of science. I think maybe (I have no evidence for this) a great deal of the people in that group maybe put too much trust in Fox News, which reiterates what Trump says as fact, and I get the hunch that this sort of information control bears the lion's share of blame for the situation we are currently in with covid.


----------



## nightflameauto

As an isolated data point it may not mean much, but my wife's family save her father, who essentially injects a steady stream of OAN and Fox News directly into his veins, have a complete disinterest in COVID and anything having to do with it. And have from the start. They simply avoid anything about it. I'm sure they aren't the only ones.

When asked if they would get the vaccine, the response is always a semi-non-committal, "probably not. Seems kinda pointless." Keep in mind these folks haven't changed any aspect of their lives not directly dictated to them by their jobs. They've been going out to eat the entire time, gathering with friends every week for parties and games, going to bars when they are open to watch football, etc. They don't have any wild conspiracy theories, they just don't have any interest in changing their own lies for a bit to save people.

People with that stance are something we don't hear discussed much. We seem to peg people into the vaccine worshippers and the conspiracy lunatics. The truth is there's an entire spectrum out there between those two extremes.


----------



## Randy

NYS vaccine mandate on hold after judge's order


----------



## spudmunkey

I heard a new one today. Negative health effects in children from vaping aren't actually from vaping specifically, but vape fluids and JUUL devices were used as a delivery method for COVID -19 from china, and that any restrictions on banning vaping are a waste of time, because any kids that got any sort of illness or have any sort of negative effects from vaping are actually because of the china virus.


----------



## mbardu

spudmunkey said:


> I heard a new one today. Negative health effects in children from vaping aren't actually from vaping specifically, but vape fluids and JUUL devices were used as a delivery method for COVID -19 from china, and that any restrictions on banning vaping are a waste of time, because any kids that got any sort of illness or have any sort of negative effects from vaping are actually because of the china virus.



Wait what? Are there actual human beings who believe that?
With that and the 5g-borne nonsense, I seriously wonder if there are _actual _real people believing this stuff - or if it's just craziness made up just to make _any _questions look dumb.


----------



## spudmunkey

mbardu said:


> Wait what? Are there actual human beings who believe that?
> With that and the 5g-borne nonsense, I seriously wonder if there are _actual _real people believing this stuff - or if it's just craziness made up just to make _any _questions look dumb.



"since it was lungs, never seen before, and very serious.
It was like covid, which WE did not know of until spring.... but the china virus WAS out there for sure in January and they say PROBABLY in THE FALL in 2019, as far back as August.....so that is what I THINK they had."


----------



## Bodes

A friend sent me this image, I think it came from instagram originally. Certainly sums up some of the previous posts.
Such an emotive piece which is as clever as it is a realisation of how some parts of the medical profession are struggling.
Massive props to everyone who is working in the medical field, including all ancillary staff (i.e. cleaners, admin), who are working under such horrible conditions and are doing their absolute best to try to keep people alive.
Sorry if the image comes up huge.


----------



## SpaceDock

Bodes said:


> View attachment 97678
> 
> A friend sent me this image, I think it came from instagram originally. Certainly sums up some of the previous posts.
> Such an emotive piece which is as clever as it is a realisation of how some parts of the medical profession are struggling.
> Massive props to everyone who is working in the medical field, including all ancillary staff (i.e. cleaners, admin), who are working under such horrible conditions and are doing their absolute best to try to keep people alive.
> Sorry if the image comes up huge.



Patient just needs a Maga hat.


----------



## mbardu

SpaceDock said:


> Patient just needs a Maga hat.





Randy said:


> View attachment 97672





fantom said:


> So they are afraid we'll have vacancies in the government? Where was that concern when Trump voluntarily refused to fill vacancies?



Not saying some of those don't have some correlation (as mentioned causation is different...), but somehow it's the imagined "other side" who's making things political?


----------



## SpaceDock

mbardu said:


> Not saying some of those don't have some correlation (as mentioned causation is different...), but somehow it's the imagined "other side" who's making things political?



I don’t see how the other side is imagined and if people want to die by their politics to “own the libs,” good for them.


----------



## mbardu

SpaceDock said:


> I don’t see how the other side is imagined and if people want to die by their politics to “own the libs,” good for them.



If you are thinking there is a homogenous "other side" that is made of stereotypical antivax MAGA trumpers who are "dying to own the libs", then yeah that's literally imagination on your end. And I know you don't "see" it, because it's apparent from your replies.
But reality is nuanced and the caricatures we see on TV and you jump on are just that: caricatures. Not as representative as you think they are.


----------



## IwantTacos

mbardu said:


> If you are thinking there is a homogenous "other side" that is made of stereotypical antivax MAGA trumpers who are "dying to own the libs", then yeah that's literally imagination on your end. And I know you don't "see" it, because it's apparent from your replies.
> But reality is nuanced and the caricatures we see on TV and you jump on are just that: caricatures. Not as representative as you think they are.



we’re laughing at a specific group of people that are owning themselves. 
If you have a different group that also needs to be laughed at. Please let me know. 

hell I’ll add one. Leftist Hollywood weirdos. Ostensibly liberal. But also crazy as fuck.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mbardu said:


> If you are thinking there is a homogenous "other side" that is made of stereotypical antivax MAGA trumpers who are "dying to own the libs", then yeah that's literally imagination on your end. And I know you don't "see" it, because it's apparent from your replies.
> But reality is nuanced and the caricatures we see on TV and you jump on are just that: caricatures. Not as representative as you think they are.



I work in a factory and live in the suburban/rural Midwest, there is most definitely a solid contingent of "die to own the libs" people. Tons of them.

You should see the signs I drive by out in the county. 

I'm sure larger cities to the coasts have the opposite, old hippies and people too into crystals are definitely not right wing, but they share a distrust for mainstream science.


----------



## IwantTacos

MaxOfMetal said:


> I work in a factory and live in the suburban/rural Midwest, there is most definitely a solid contingent of "die to own the libs" people. Tons of them.
> 
> You should see the signs I drive by out in the county.
> 
> I'm sure larger cities to the coasts have the opposite, old hippies and people too into crystals are definitely not right wing, but they share a distrust for mainstream science.



actually a surprising amount of overlap between the Christian conservative and essential oils crystal crowd for some reason.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

IwantTacos said:


> actually a surprising amount of overlap between the Christian conservative and essential oils crystal crowd for some reason.



It doesn't surprise me at all.


----------



## Randy

IwantTacos said:


> actually a surprising amount of overlap between the Christian conservative and essential oils crystal crowd for some reason.



I actually know quite a few crystal healing folks that also were (are?) Trump people. Right in town there's a tarot card reading place with an 'unmask our children now' sign in the window.


----------



## bostjan

MaxOfMetal said:


> I work in a factory and live in the suburban/rural Midwest, there is most definitely a solid contingent of "die to own the libs" people. Tons of them.
> 
> You should see the signs I drive by out in the county.
> 
> I'm sure larger cities to the coasts have the opposite, old hippies and people too into crystals are definitely not right wing, but they share a distrust for mainstream science.



Same, but I live in rural New England. I have colleagues in Texas and California who have told me the same.



Randy said:


> I actually know quite a few crystal healing folks that also were (are?) Trump people. Right in town there's a tarot card reading place with an 'unmask our children now' sign in the window.



We have a group of 2-4 protesters with sandwich signs out every morning in front of the school with "brains need oxygen" and "masks are unnecessary" signs. I have not spoken with any of them, but they certainly have that "I moved to Vermont to live off the land and be a hippy" "look" to them. Personally, I've been given a hard time for wearing a mask while running errands by all sorts of gruff-looking men, soccer moms, younger people with blue/pink hair, elderly men in business suits, etc. There seems to be no correlation between masking sentiment and subcultural appearance.


----------



## StevenC

I'm finally able to go back to swimming after my blood clot and nobody there wears a mask ever. This is really disheartening because when I was last there in May everyone was wearing a mask when not in the water.


----------



## Ralyks

Randy said:


> I actually know quite a few crystal healing folks that also were (are?) Trump people. Right in town there's a tarot card reading place with an 'unmask our children now' sign in the window.



I think ALL of the "crystal healing folks" I know are pro-Trump.


----------



## Xaios

mbardu said:


> Wait what? Are there actual human beings who believe that?


People believed that Covid vaccines contained Boss Metal Zones masquerading as tracking chips. At this point, new conspiracy theories are basically created the same way as Family Guy plotlines: by a group of manatees with random word balls.


----------



## nightflameauto

Xaios said:


> People believed that Covid vaccines contained Boss Metal Zones masquerading as tracking chips. At this point, new conspiracy theories are basically created the same way as Family Guy plotlines: by a group of manatees with random word balls.


When I was a kid, I created a system of writing stories using D&D dice. I long ago lost the paper I wrote that system on. I imagine somewhere there's a conspiracy theorist with those papers and a box of 20 siders slopping their way from theory to theory and thinking they've discovered magic, when really it was the ramblings of a twelve year old moron that hadn't quite figured out how the world works yet.


----------



## Randy

My uncle explicitly told my mother that he's not getting vaccine and he's telling everyone he knows not get it because it's a tracking chip. So yes, these are real people.


----------



## spudmunkey

nightflameauto said:


> When I was a kid, I created a system of writing stories using D&D dice. I long ago lost the paper I wrote that system on. I imagine somewhere there's a conspiracy theorist with those papers and a box of 20 siders slopping their way from theory to theory and thinking they've discovered magic, when really it was the ramblings of a twelve year old moron that hadn't quite figured out how the world works yet.



By the end of this year, someone with a podcast will use it to pin 17 serial murders on you after tracking down "clues" for the last 3 years.


----------



## nightflameauto

spudmunkey said:


> By the end of this year, someone with a podcast will use it to pin 17 serial murders on you after tracking down "clues" for the last 3 years.


Technically, pre-teen me may be responsible for Qanon.


----------



## SpaceDock

mbardu said:


> If you are thinking there is a homogenous "other side" that is made of stereotypical antivax MAGA trumpers who are "dying to own the libs", then yeah that's literally imagination on your end. And I know you don't "see" it, because it's apparent from your replies.
> But reality is nuanced and the caricatures we see on TV and you jump on are just that: caricatures. Not as representative as you think they are.



Of course no group is a monolith, but yes these people are real and far more prevalent than I know you want to believe. 

My proof plus far too many lolz: 
https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/


----------



## spudmunkey

What are we up to now, like, 6 conservative radio hosts have died in the past, like, 4-5 months?


----------



## SpaceDock

spudmunkey said:


> What are we up to now, like, 6 conservative radio hosts have died in the past, like, 4-5 months?



Not the way I would want to see the misinformation spreading put to an end, but it’s what they want apparently.


----------



## nightflameauto

spudmunkey said:


> What are we up to now, like, 6 conservative radio hosts have died in the past, like, 4-5 months?





SpaceDock said:


> Not the way I would want to see the misinformation spreading put to an end, but it’s what they want apparently.


Man, that's a whole lot of lib owning right there. I feel super owned. They really got us good.


----------



## mbardu




----------



## spudmunkey

While hilarious, I do remember seeing that this one is 'shopped...just to be clear. 

Edit:


----------



## Xaios

Indeed. All you have to do is look at the hands to see that it's a pretty obvious (and bad) 'shop job.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

I thought it'd be easier to have my vaccine QR code on my phone but it's proven more of a hassle to pull out and fumble with my phone and wallet while bar hopping. I should just take my physical card and whip that out instead.


----------



## Randy




----------



## MaxOfMetal

Randy said:


> View attachment 97755



Come on Randy, that person doesn't exist. They are a figment of the MSM's imagination that we're just using to be mean to non-liberals.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

I just read up on Loomer for as long as I could stomach. “Proud Islamaphobe” seems like another MJT. Well I hope she ends up beating it with no complications, but it seems like almost everyday there’s another anti vax conspiracy theory aligned person catching it. Than posting on social media when they want a go at some sympathy.


----------



## Drew

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> “Proud Islamaphobe” seems like another MJT.


Is this the opposite of Social Justice Warrior? Asking for a friend. 

I REALLY have to work to make stories like this not warm my heart, but as they say down in Philly, "fuck around and find out."


----------



## spudmunkey

CovertSovietBear said:


> I thought it'd be easier to have my vaccine QR code on my phone but it's proven more of a hassle to pull out and fumble with my phone and wallet while bar hopping. I should just take my physical card and whip that out instead.


I took a screenshot, made a contact called 5G, and used the screenshot as the contact's photo. That's a little easier for me, and if they don't accept the screenshot for fear that it was faked, then I can go the extra mile and open up the Google Pay app where it's saved, but that hasn't come up (granted, I've only ever used it to get free Krispy Kream doughnuts twice).


----------



## LordCashew

MaxOfMetal said:


> Come on Randy, that person doesn't exist. They are a figment of the MSM's imagination that we're just using to be mean to non-liberals.



Yeah those dumb liberals are masterful with their false flags and ability to create people with far-reaching fake identities at the drop of a hat. Seems like the most logical explanation.



spudmunkey said:


> made a contact called 5G




I mean, it _would _alphabetize conveniently...


----------



## Drew

spudmunkey said:


> I took a screenshot, made a contact called 5G, and used the screenshot as the contact's photo. That's a little easier for me, and if they don't accept the screenshot for fear that it was faked, then I can go the extra mile and open up the Google Pay app where it's saved, but that hasn't come up (granted, I've only ever used it to get free Krispy Kream doughnuts twice).


I just saved it as a favorite image, which since that's a feature I really don't use, takes me a matter of seconds to pull it up.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

spudmunkey said:


> I took a screenshot, made a contact called 5G, and used the screenshot as the contact's photo. That's a little easier for me, and if they don't accept the screenshot for fear that it was faked, then I can go the extra mile and open up the Google Pay app where it's saved, but that hasn't come up (granted, I've only ever used it to get free Krispy Kream doughnuts twice).





LordIronSpatula said:


> I mean, it _would _alphabetize conveniently...





Drew said:


> I just saved it as a favorite image, which since that's a feature I really don't use, takes me a matter of seconds to pull it up.


I'll just save my QR code as the screensaver, no need to pull it up


----------



## spudmunkey

Taken county by county, and breaking it up by the % of the 2020 vote Trump got, increasing from left to right in 10% increments, the bars represent deaths per every 100,000 average in those counties, in the last 2 months or so.


----------



## jaxadam




----------



## spudmunkey

jaxadam said:


>




I'm on board with most of his messaging.

A minor point: at the beginning, he says companies won't do the testing, because that costs money....but some companies are instead currently charging non-vaccinated employees more for their health insurance. Rapid tests in many other countries cost $1-3 per test, even free for businesses. But in the US we're at, like, $10-15. But that's still just a one-time cost per week per person, which I don't think is really a deal-breaker. If someone's putting in 40 hours, that's like giving them a $.375/hr raise.

From an NBC article:
"In Germany, grocery stores sell rapid tests for under $1 apiece. In India, they're about $3.50. The U.K. provides 14 tests per person free of charge. Canada is doling out free rapid tests to businesses."


----------



## MaxOfMetal

spudmunkey said:


> Taken county by county, and breaking it up by the % of the 2020 vote Trump got, increasing from left to right in 10% increments, the bars represent deaths per every 100,000 average in those counties, in the last 2 months or so.
> 
> View attachment 97767


----------



## IwantTacos

jaxadam said:


>




this seems pretty spot on. Dems bungling something on accident is pretty standard operating procedure.


----------



## mbardu

spudmunkey said:


> I'm on board with most of his messaging.
> 
> A minor point: at the beginning, he says companies won't do the testing, because that costs money....but some companies are instead currently charging non-vaccinated employees more for their health insurance. Rapid tests in many other countries cost $1-3 per test, even free for businesses. But in the US we're at, like, $10-15. But that's still just a one-time cost per week per person, which I don't think is really a deal-breaker. If someone's putting in 40 hours, that's like giving them a $.375/hr raise.
> 
> From an NBC article:
> "In Germany, grocery stores sell rapid tests for under $1 apiece. In India, they're about $3.50. The U.K. provides 14 tests per person free of charge. Canada is doling out free rapid tests to businesses."



He has some good points, but why end with the suggestion that vaccinated people should just forget about any precaution such as distancing or masks and do as they please?
That's part of the problem at the moment. Why the neverending problem with masks even from people with an otherwise reasonable messaging?


----------



## vilk

IwantTacos said:


> this seems pretty spot on. Dems bungling something on accident is pretty standard operating procedure.


I guess we could say the Dems have had some missteps in how to go about solving a problem that _was created from the ground up by Republicans_. The whole anti-science, anti-mask, anti-vax movement is perpetuated by Republican politicians, conservative news outlets, and conservative funded online misinformation campaigns.

And what exactly have Republicans done to correct this problem that they've caused? More anti-mask bullshit. If "Dems bungling something on accident is pretty standard operating procedure", then what is Republican SOP? Sabotaging the health and safety of Americans? Doing everything they can to maximize death and suffering?

I'm not saying dems are beyond reproach. I'm just saying lets all keep track of whose _bungle_ this really is.

And what alternate universe is this guy living in where he things that Republicans would cooperate with democrats on _anything_ let a lone town hall style meetings about health and safety?

I'm not directing any of this at you Tacos; these are all rhetorical questions.


----------



## StevenC

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58628491

OK folks, pitch me some holiday destinations! My interests include guitar shopping, basketball and not being shot for wearing a mask.


----------



## Drew

So, about that Ivermectin decision, where someone sued a hospital because their partner was in the ICU, after a different, unaffiliated doctor prescribed it, and won... 

this has happened enough since that it's tough to figure out, looking back at it, which was the original case. In at least one instance a lower ruling was overturned on appeal and the courts sided with the hospital, but I'm mostly posting because this happened locally, at the hospital my fiancee works at. 

Mostly sharing to highlight the stupidity - she was out of the office when it happened and saw a whole bunch of fairly cryptic internal emails referring to security measures "in light of recent events," but when she came back into work, she was told a woman had sued to be prescribed ivermectin, lost, and protesters had been camped out outside the hospital ever since, threatening doctors and nurses as they were driving in. 

"Health care heroes" 18 months ago, to threats of violence today. Thanks, Fox News!


----------



## IwantTacos

vilk said:


> I guess we could say the Dems have had some missteps in how to go about solving a problem that _was created from the ground up by Republicans_. The whole anti-science, anti-mask, anti-vax movement is perpetuated by Republican politicians, conservative news outlets, and conservative funded online misinformation campaigns.
> 
> And what exactly have Republicans done to correct this problem that they've caused? More anti-mask bullshit. If "Dems bungling something on accident is pretty standard operating procedure", then what is Republican SOP? Sabotaging the health and safety of Americans? Doing everything they can to maximize death and suffering?
> 
> I'm not saying dems are beyond reproach. I'm just saying lets all keep track of whose _bungle_ this really is.
> 
> And what alternate universe is this guy living in where he things that Republicans would cooperate with democrats on _anything_ let a lone town hall style meetings about health and safety?
> 
> I'm not directing any of this at you Tacos; these are all rhetorical questions.



the republicans and the crazy right are super effective at getting things done. getting shit done is their sop.


----------



## bostjan

vilk said:


> I guess we could say the Dems have had some missteps in how to go about solving a problem that _was created from the ground up by Republicans_. The whole anti-science, anti-mask, anti-vax movement is perpetuated by Republican politicians, conservative news outlets, and conservative funded online misinformation campaigns.
> 
> And what exactly have Republicans done to correct this problem that they've caused? More anti-mask bullshit. If "Dems bungling something on accident is pretty standard operating procedure", then what is Republican SOP? Sabotaging the health and safety of Americans? Doing everything they can to maximize death and suffering?
> 
> I'm not saying dems are beyond reproach. I'm just saying lets all keep track of whose _bungle_ this really is.
> 
> And what alternate universe is this guy living in where he things that Republicans would cooperate with democrats on _anything_ let a lone town hall style meetings about health and safety?
> 
> I'm not directing any of this at you Tacos; these are all rhetorical questions.



Anti-vax rhetoric predates the Republican party. Prior to the widespread understanding of germ theory, vaccines probably sounded like black magic to many folks - "if I poke you with this needle, you won't die of smallpox" sounded screwey, but, to be fair, people of the time thought that washing your hands was also an insane thing to do. 

The republicans of the Nixon-era probably wouldn't have batted an eye at the government strapping people down and administering vaccines without consent. This latest round of anti-vax is mostly "because Trump."

I've asked Republicans before "What could Biden do that would improve your opinion of his presidency," and the answers are either based on past actions "well, he shouldn't have done..." or were that they'd never ever accept him. Probably unsurprising, but I observed the same sorts of answers about Trump four years ago from democrats.



StevenC said:


> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58628491
> 
> OK folks, pitch me some holiday destinations! My interests include guitar shopping, basketball and not being shot for wearing a mask.



NYC? They have a basketball team and plenty of guitar stores. There are also some pretty strict gun control laws (not that people there won't shoot you, but at least they have to pass some sort of bar of minimum effort to do so, as opposed to most elsewhere in the USA).



Drew said:


> So, about that Ivermectin decision, where someone sued a hospital because their partner was in the ICU, after a different, unaffiliated doctor prescribed it, and won...
> 
> this has happened enough since that it's tough to figure out, looking back at it, which was the original case. In at least one instance a lower ruling was overturned on appeal and the courts sided with the hospital, but I'm mostly posting because this happened locally, at the hospital my fiancee works at.
> 
> Mostly sharing to highlight the stupidity - she was out of the office when it happened and saw a whole bunch of fairly cryptic internal emails referring to security measures "in light of recent events," but when she came back into work, she was told a woman had sued to be prescribed ivermectin, lost, and protesters had been camped out outside the hospital ever since, threatening doctors and nurses as they were driving in.
> 
> "Health care heroes" 18 months ago, to threats of violence today. Thanks, Fox News!



Protesters used to stalk the hospitals trying to prove covid was a hoax. The anti-science sentiments are coming to a head with this nutty business.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Anti-vax rhetoric predates the Republican party. Prior to the widespread understanding of germ theory, vaccines probably sounded like black magic to many folks - "if I poke you with this needle, you won't die of smallpox" sounded screwey, but, to be fair, people of the time thought that washing your hands was also an insane thing to do.


...though I think there's definitely an element of symbiosis here, with Trump-aligned republicans seizing on the existing anti-vax movement for ammo against "leftist" attempts to get the public vaccinated, and the anti-vax movement seeing this as a golden opportunity to go mainstream. It's been a mutually beneficial alliance, if you ignore, well, charts like @spudmunkey posted.


----------



## spudmunkey

*sigh*


----------



## nightflameauto

spudmunkey said:


> *sigh*
> 
> View attachment 97953


You know, it's kinda nice to see a little misogyny mixed in with the anti-vaxxer message every once in a while. It helps keep things in perspective. 

I hope they find the bastard and get his wife's permission to punch him in the face.


----------



## Randy




----------



## bostjan

A study out yesterday says that Ivermectin works as a prophylactic. However, if you look at the sources of the metadata, you might notice that there is a huge amount of variance in randomized control trials, which seems fishy to me, as it indicates that there is another variable with strong effect, aside from the variable tested. So, maybe Ivermectin could be used in early treatment, but it's obvious that there is still a lot we don't understand about SARS-CoV-2.



Did anybody hear about this big youtube sweep to get covid-related videos off of the platform? I'm sure that'll keep the conspiracy people from going crazy.


----------



## Adieu

spudmunkey said:


> Taken county by county, and breaking it up by the % of the 2020 vote Trump got, increasing from left to right in 10% increments, the bars represent deaths per every 100,000 average in those counties, in the last 2 months or so.
> 
> View attachment 97767



Natural Selection is weeding out those who don't believe in her


----------



## bostjan

Adieu said:


> Natural Selection is weeding out those who don't believe in her


In addition, though, the people who don't believe in covid (and incidentally don't believe Trump lost the election) also don't believe in Natural Selection.


----------



## Adieu

Drew said:


> So, about that Ivermectin decision, where someone sued a hospital because their partner was in the ICU, after a different, unaffiliated doctor prescribed it, and won...
> 
> this has happened enough since that it's tough to figure out, looking back at it, which was the original case. In at least one instance a lower ruling was overturned on appeal and the courts sided with the hospital, but I'm mostly posting because this happened locally, at the hospital my fiancee works at.
> 
> Mostly sharing to highlight the stupidity - she was out of the office when it happened and saw a whole bunch of fairly cryptic internal emails referring to security measures "in light of recent events," but when she came back into work, she was told a woman had sued to be prescribed ivermectin, lost, and protesters had been camped out outside the hospital ever since, threatening doctors and nurses as they were driving in.
> 
> "Health care heroes" 18 months ago, to threats of violence today. Thanks, Fox News!



What prescribed? You buy that stuff at the feed store for $5, made in USA or Europe by huge top name corps like Merck, enough for 1250 lbs of horse.

Why would anyone wish to go through the hassle of obtaining a crappy India-made human generic? Don't y'all know that veterinary meds are serious business and have better controls and safety than the crap they feed the plebs???


----------



## Randy

Always trust horse meds. You know, the animals that you shoot dead for any minor injury.


----------



## Adieu

Randy said:


> Always trust horse meds. You know, the animals that you shoot dead for any minor injury.



If they're ACTUALLY the right ingredient for your symptoms (big if!), why the hell not?

Horses cost big money. Brand name horse meds are safer than off-brand human crap.


----------



## Drew

Adieu said:


> What prescribed? You buy that stuff at the feed store for $5, made in USA or Europe by huge top name corps like Merck, enough for 1250 lbs of horse.
> 
> Why would anyone wish to go through the hassle of obtaining a crappy India-made human generic? Don't y'all know that veterinary meds are serious business and have better controls and safety than the crap they feed the plebs???


You USED to be able to buy it for $5 at the feed store. Pricing has tripled thanks to demand overwhelming available supply, and a number of chains have started requiering proof you actually own a horse before selling it to you. 



Adieu said:


> Horses cost big money. Brand name horse meds are safer than off-brand human crap.


Legal settlements for wrongful death of a human tend to be a wee bit bigger than wrongful death of a horse, though.


----------



## Adieu

Seriously?

How many humans have a proven price in the tens of millions of dollars?


----------



## bostjan

Adieu said:


> Seriously?
> 
> How many humans have a proven price in the tens of millions of dollars?


More than there are horses valued at such.

Is your location correct? First time I was in Moscow, I got really sick. I thought I was going to end up in the hospital, and I was scared to death that, as a foreigner in a hospital in Moscow, I might simply disappear. But then I went to talk to this guy in a little fruitstand-looking "Apteka" and the man gave me prescription-strength medicine. I felt much worse, and went back to him and he gave me a different prescription-strength medicine and I got better. Either I didn't die and was okay or else I'm in a Russian hospital years later in a coma dreaming all of this... hmm, sorry wrong thread.

Anyway, here in the gool ol' USA, I would have to make an appointment to see a doctor (usually at least two weeks, maybe four, maybe four plus two more when they reschedule), pay a $60-100 doctor bill for in-office visit, get a prescription for a test, make an appointment at the hospital (another 1-2 weeks), pay a $400+ hospital bill for the test, wait 1 week for results, make another appointment with my doctor (another 4+weeks), pay another $60 doctor fee, get the prescription for the medicine, go to the pharmacy (usually 2-3 days for them to fill the script these days), buy my pill(s) for $2-900, and probably not take them, because I'm either better by then or I already died from a) old age or b) being broke.


----------



## StevenC

Adieu said:


> Seriously?
> 
> How many humans have a proven price in the tens of millions of dollars?


Literally all of them.

Also, horse veterinary is expensive because they're very big, very dangerous animals that tend to have a lot of emotional value even when they aren't race pedigreed. I've had dog and horse vet bills for not "valuable" animals, and the horse was are disproportionately large.


----------



## Adieu

bostjan said:


> More than there are horses valued at such.
> 
> Is your location correct? First time I was in Moscow, I got really sick. I thought I was going to end up in the hospital, and I was scared to death that, as a foreigner in a hospital in Moscow, I might simply disappear. But then I went to talk to this guy in a little fruitstand-looking "Apteka" and the man gave me prescription-strength medicine. I felt much worse, and went back to him and he gave me a different prescription-strength medicine and I got better. Either I didn't die and was okay or else I'm in a Russian hospital years later in a coma dreaming all of this... hmm, sorry wrong thread.
> 
> Anyway, here in the gool ol' USA, I would have to make an appointment to see a doctor (usually at least two weeks, maybe four, maybe four plus two more when they reschedule), pay a $60-100 doctor bill for in-office visit, get a prescription for a test, make an appointment at the hospital (another 1-2 weeks), pay a $400+ hospital bill for the test, wait 1 week for results, make another appointment with my doctor (another 4+weeks), pay another $60 doctor fee, get the prescription for the medicine, go to the pharmacy (usually 2-3 days for them to fill the script these days), buy my pill(s) for $2-900, and probably not take them, because I'm either better by then or I already died from a) old age or b) being broke.



Is it still Moscow?

That was in the early 2000's. SoCal now....

But yeah, American medicine sucks for pedestrian everyday problems, Russian medicine sucks for "oh sh!t" type problems.

Getting stitches in Russia is a lot less harrowing or time consuming than in America, but if you need major surgery, you might be better off...elsewhere.


----------



## Drew

Adieu said:


> Seriously?
> 
> How many humans have a proven price in the tens of millions of dollars?


As a start: 

https://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/

I started googling "horse wrongful death settlement" and then thought better of it.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

Got tested because most of my coworkers are sick with COVID, and I was at work with someone feeling ill the other day.

One of them is a non-vaccinated joe rogan dork who was coming to work even though they couldn't smell or taste. I'm very thankful this individual works at another facility, I legitimately would not feel safe working around them. 

Anyway, I came back negative, so that's great. Hopefully my immediate coworkers are being as cautious, it would suck to go back on Monday just to get exposed.


----------



## profwoot

The new Covid antiviral Molnupiravir could be a game-changer, but it'll be interesting to see if the anti-reality faction goes for it.

It's a pill rather than a shot, so some people who've been hiding their fear of needles behind nonsense excuses will surely take it (e.g., it's produced by the biggest of Big Pharma but that's never been a real reason). Perhaps more importantly, it's a treatment rather than a prophylactic, so I bet they'll rush to take it once the only thing they care about, i.e., themselves, is at risk.

Unlike the mRNA vaccines, which have no chance of changing a person's DNA, the active ingredient of Molnupiravir is an RNA nucleotide, which actually can be converted by an endogenous enzyme into DNA. This is not expected to be a problem, but some of the bullshit anti-vax arguments do sort of apply here. Do the MAGA clerics actually rally their zombie hordes against this drug? I'm hopeful they won't, at least en masse, due to the even more direct harm it would cause to their already unvaccinated believers actively dying of covid. It'll be interesting to watch.


----------



## Adieu

2020 Pandemic
2021 maybe-zombies
2022 ...bring out the asteroids!


----------



## bostjan

profwoot said:


> The new Covid antiviral Molnupiravir could be a game-changer, but it'll be interesting to see if the anti-reality faction goes for it.
> 
> It's a pill rather than a shot, so some people who've been hiding their fear of needles behind nonsense excuses will surely take it (e.g., it's produced by the biggest of Big Pharma but that's never been a real reason). Perhaps more importantly, it's a treatment rather than a prophylactic, so I bet they'll rush to take it once the only thing they care about, i.e., themselves, is at risk.
> 
> Unlike the mRNA vaccines, which have no chance of changing a person's DNA, the active ingredient of Molnupiravir is an RNA nucleotide, which actually can be converted by an endogenous enzyme into DNA. This is not expected to be a problem, but some of the bullshit anti-vax arguments do sort of apply here. Do the MAGA clerics actually rally their zombie hordes against this drug? I'm hopeful they won't, at least en masse, due to the even more direct harm it would cause to their already unvaccinated believers actively dying of covid. It'll be interesting to watch.



Molnupiravir was tested in 2020 on animals, and seemed to cause birth defects.

It was one of a bunch of drugs that the Trump administration signed off to fast track, so it'll likely catch on with the Trump crowd. From some very recent news about it, though, it might be the best working treatment so far. Guess we'll find out about the birth defects a year or so from now. Which leads to...


Adieu said:


> 2020 Pandemic
> 2021 maybe-zombies
> 2022 ...bring out the asteroids!



2023 mutant uprising.


----------



## Adieu

bostjan said:


> Molnupiravir was tested in 2020 on animals, and seemed to cause birth defects.
> 
> It was one of a bunch of drugs that the Trump administration signed off to fast track, so it'll likely catch on with the Trump crowd. From some very recent news about it, though, it might be the best working treatment so far. Guess we'll find out about the birth defects a year or so from now. Which leads to...
> 
> 
> 2023 mutant uprising.




Yeah, I actually misread that.

The mutant uprising is tentatively scheduled for 2021.

I skimmed and didn't realize @profwoot meant genetically intact zombie hordes in his post.


----------



## profwoot

Adieu said:


> Yeah, I actually misread that.
> 
> The mutant uprising is tentatively scheduled for 2021.
> 
> I skimmed and didn't realize @profwoot meant genetically intact zombie hordes in his post.



Heh yeah I'm talking about the people spending their lives filling twitter with single-line replies gainsaying anything against their MAGA doctrines, or the ones constantly reposting anti-vax memes on facebook. You know, the ones filling up the ICUs and morgues.

They're all just zombie parrots spreading the gospel of Dan Bongino/Tucker Carlson/8chan pedos like good little boys.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

If any of you nerds want to read up on one study:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.17.21258639v1.full.pdf

"Molnupiravir, the prodrug of the ribonucleoside analog β-D-N4-hydroxycytidine (NHC), is rapidly converted in plasma to NHC and then to the active 5′-triphosphate form by host kinases. The active 5′-triphosphate serves as a *competitive substrate* for virally-encoded RNA-dependent
RNA polymerase (RdRp), and once incorporated into nascent viral RNA, induces an antiviral effect via accumulation of mutations that increase with each viral replication cycle."

Guess it's messing with the RNA polymerase.

Here's another paper that's easier to digest that was cited in the study above:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6880162/


----------



## Crungy

bostjan said:


> 2023 mutant uprising.



I feel like covid and the trump/post trump era is getting us closer to Fallout times. Hopefully the new covid meds don't have FEV in them, but if they do, remember to use your plasma rifle on those muties.


----------



## TheBlackBard

Crungy said:


> I feel like covid and the trump/post trump era is getting us closer to Fallout times. Hopefully the new covid meds don't have FEV in them, but if they do, remember to use your plasma rifle on those muties.



The correct vernacular is NOT muties, and you'd better hope Twitter never found out you said that. We refer to those people as "genetically unique."


----------



## bostjan

Sweden banned the use of Moderna on people born after 1991.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-vaccine-moderna-sweden-halts-use-in-under-30s/


----------



## Adieu

Cause that makes sense


----------



## Drew

"Ban" might be a little strong, but they're recommending a temporary halt due to an increased instance of inflammation side effects with young men.


----------



## spudmunkey




----------



## BlackMastodon

There's so much to unpack in that screenshot. What the fuck is wrong with people?


----------



## Bodes

Wow. Just wow.


----------



## vilk

Just got my first of my Pfizer, even though I already got J&J back in April. Japanese govt won't hook you up with a vaccine passport for shots you got in America, and I gotta travel to the USA in a few months so I'm hoping by then they'll have a system set up so that I can use my vaccine passport to not have to quarantine for 2 weeks without leaving the house when I get back. I'm gonna be totally invincible to COVID.


----------



## narad

vilk said:


> Just got my first of my Pfizer, even though I already got J&J back in April. Japanese govt won't hook you up with a vaccine passport for shots you got in America, and I gotta travel to the USA in a few months so I'm hoping by then they'll have a system set up so that I can use my vaccine passport to not have to quarantine for 2 weeks without leaving the house when I get back. I'm gonna be totally invincible to COVID.



Down to 10 days now.


----------



## StevenC

One upside of nearly dying is that my GP finally put me on the list to get the flu vaccine. Only problem is now I have to find out if that shot will also disagree with me.


----------



## Bodes

StevenC said:


> One upside of nearly dying is that my GP finally put me on the list to get the flu vaccine. Only problem is now I have to find out if that shot will also disagree with me.



List? Wow! We can just walk into any pharmacy or GP and get one for $15. The nurse at work used to give them to us for free. Covid put an end to that.

Anyways, good luck! That AZ really kicked your arse. Hope it all works out for you.


----------



## Hollowway

Here’s a question I’ve been wondering about: a lot of the right wing talking heads that are against the Covid vaccine have themselves been vaccinated. How are they able to convince their followers that the vaccine is not a good thing? Overall, I know the right is exceptionally good at convincing their followers to “do as I say, not as I do.” They get low-pay workers to vote against tax increases on billionaires and increases in minimum wage. They get people with illness to vote against improved healthcare. Etc, etc. But on this particular issue, how are they convincing their followers to NOT take the vaccine Trump pushed to get approved, and which he himself took?


----------



## bostjan

Hollowway said:


> Here’s a question I’ve been wondering about: a lot of the right wing talking heads that are against the Covid vaccine have themselves been vaccinated. How are they able to convince their followers that the vaccine is not a good thing? Overall, I know the right is exceptionally good at convincing their followers to “do as I say, not as I do.” They get low-pay workers to vote against tax increases on billionaires and increases in minimum wage. They get people with illness to vote against improved healthcare. Etc, etc. But on this particular issue, how are they convincing their followers to NOT take the vaccine Trump pushed to get approved, and which he himself took?


"Hey, I took the vaccine, and, look at me, I'm a raving lunatic" seems to work well on some people.


----------



## spudmunkey

Hollowway said:


> Here’s a question I’ve been wondering about: a lot of the right wing talking heads that are against the Covid vaccine have themselves been vaccinated. How are they able to convince their followers that the vaccine is not a good thing? Overall, I know the right is exceptionally good at convincing their followers to “do as I say, not as I do.” They get low-pay workers to vote against tax increases on billionaires and increases in minimum wage. They get people with illness to vote against improved healthcare. Etc, etc. But on this particular issue, how are they convincing their followers to NOT take the vaccine Trump pushed to get approved, and which he himself took?



They say they aren't saying "I got it, but don't get it", they say they are only against _forcing_ someone to get it, or wear a mask, or close/limit their business, etc.

Well...that's the people who aren't saying that the vaccines themselves are communist/nazi subjugation, sterylization, 5g mind control, etc.


----------



## StevenC

Bodes said:


> List? Wow! We can just walk into any pharmacy or GP and get one for $15. The nurse at work used to give them to us for free. Covid put an end to that.
> 
> Anyways, good luck! That AZ really kicked your arse. Hope it all works out for you.


Yeah, we can just buy them for £15 here, but that's like two packs of strings.


----------



## Drew

One quick point I want to raise here that came up on another board, that Igot some useful hard data from a Bloomberg brief this morning that I wanted to share here as well. 

tl;dr - people are bad at conditional probabiliy, and also that the covid vaccine offers you a LOT of protection from dying of covid mostly through stopping you from getting it in the first place. 

If you're vaccinated, you're EXTREMELY unlikely to die of covid, and most stats published about this are one of two forms - either the percentage of hospitalizations or deaths that are from vaccinated individuals, vs unvaccinated, or the percentage of people who are vaccinated who go on to get hospitalized, or die. 

To unpack the second one a bit, if it's deaths vs total population of vaccinated people, then there are two priors baked in there - that a vaccinated person gets exposed to covid in the first place (and, considering that even highly infected areas are still well short of having the entire populations getting sick, that's still a fairly small rate, probably well below 25% of getting exposed in the first place), and two, an exposed person not rejecting the virus and getting sick, which from clinical trials we know started north ofg 95%, but is still probably north of 80-85%. 

So, if you're vacccinated and have a breakthrough infection, you've already had two things happen to you that are extremely improbable. As it turns out, the combination explains most of the probability of you not dying of covid, compared to an unvaccinated person - this varies country by country, and countries who were supply constrained and had to delay second oses are actually seeing better outcomes here on average where the odds of dying of covid if you were vaccinated and get sick are 90% lower than if you were unvaccinated and got sick. But in the US and Japan, and prior to boosters Israel, countries that were able to give doses pretty much on time, if you're vaccinated and get sick, you're only looking at an improvement in the likelihood of not dying by about 50%, with a mortality rate dropping from 1%, 1-in-100, to 0.5%, 1-in-200, or five times higher than the common flu. 

So, if you're vaccinated, and come down with covid, you should be VERY concerned as your risk of dying is only about a coinflip better than someone who isn't vaccinated. And this is before we even consider the likelihood that you spread it to someone else, which is evidently about the same regardless of vaccination status. 

A coin flip. That's worth thinking about.


----------



## bostjan

Colin Powell died of covid-19.


----------



## Adieu

bostjan said:


> Colin Powell died of covid-19.



Glass half full moment?


----------



## thebeesknees22

bostjan said:


> Colin Powell died of covid-19.



*while undergoing cancer treatment.


----------



## SpaceDock

thebeesknees22 said:


> *while undergoing cancer treatment.



and fully vaccinated.


----------



## Bodes

SpaceDock said:


> and fully vaccinated.



*Whilst being prescribed medication that supresses the body's immune system


----------



## Bodes

A small celebration, still a long way to go.



In other news, we get out of lockdown on Friday in Melbourne! Mixed emotions are certainly happening.


----------



## /wrists

This age well haha. Being in the US really puts some of this shit in perspective. We get the most extreme anti-vaxxers, maskers, pro vaxxers. As per usual, one big controversy just existing in the uS>


----------



## Randy

thebeesknees22 said:


> *while undergoing cancer treatment.





Bodes said:


> *Whilst being prescribed medication that supresses the body's immune system



Whew, good thing cancer is super rare!


----------



## Bodes

Randy said:


> Whew, good thing cancer is super rare!



Which is why more people should be getting vaccinated to assist in reducing the chance of passing it on to those who are immunocomprimised or unable to have the vaccine.

Would higher vaccination rates have stopped Powell from catching COVID? Maybe. Maybe not. 

Surely we as a society should be doing all we can to help everyone? 

Cancer may not be rare, but we have a way to reduce the spread of a virus that reduces the chance of survival of cancer patients.


----------



## Bodes

I haven't read it, but have they said Powell died due to complications associated with COVID and his cancer or died with COVID.

Not sure if science can determine that. I am not that read up on that area of science.


----------



## spudmunkey

Bodes said:


> I haven't read it, but have they said Powell died due to complications associated with COVID and his cancer or died with COVID.
> 
> Not sure if science can determine that. I am not that read up on that area of science.



The very first article I read said that COVID exacerbated issues with his cancer, and that his death was effectively earlier than it would have been otherwise.


----------



## Randy

Bodes said:


> Which is why more people should be getting vaccinated to assist in reducing the chance of passing it on to those who are immunocomprimised or unable to have the vaccine.
> 
> Would higher vaccination rates have stopped Powell from catching COVID? Maybe. Maybe not.
> 
> Surely we as a society should be doing all we can to help everyone?
> 
> Cancer may not be rare, but we have a way to reduce the spread of a virus that reduces the chance of survival of cancer patients.



That was kind of my point. 

I deal every day with people who are vaccinated and do irresponsible shit, and when they hear someone is sick with Covid "oh well they were unvaccinated" yes they were "oh well it would have been worse if they weren't" they died "well they were sick with something else, the Covid probably had little to do with it" on and on because they're in this cycle of wanting to justify being guilt free irresponsible.

Which is ironic since that's the same kinda stuff conservatives were saying pre-vaccine. "Chances of dying are so low" "Didn't die from covid, died from COMPLICATIONS which could mean anything" so on.


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> I deal every day with people who are vaccinated and do irresponsible shit, and when they hear someone is sick with Covid "oh well they were unvaccinated" yes they were "oh well it would have been worse if they weren't" they died "well they were sick with something else, the Covid probably had little to do with it" on and on because they're in this cycle of wanting to justify being guilt free irresponsible.


I think my point here from a day or two ago is probably worth repeating in this context - there's a lot of talk about how being vaccinated makes it much less likely you'll die of Covid, and that's true to a point - it makes it much less likely if you get it in the first place. 

If you do get a breakthrough infection though, it only improves your odds of not dying by about a coin flip, which is something that I think a lot of vaccinated people might be a LOT more cautious about managing their potential exposures, avoiding crowds, wearing masks indoors, etc, if we talked more openly about that and instead didn't present mortality rates as normalized against the entire vaccinated population, rather than against the portion of that population that actually got sick despite being vaccinated. 

Of course, the right would jump on that, if that's how discussions were freamed, as proof vaccination "didn't work." It does - a 50% decline in mortality trisk is totally material, and as someone who, to paraphrase Trainspotting, chooses life, I absolutely want the better odds that come from being vaccinated. But, the probability of dying if you get sick is still uncomfortably high, so I also choose prudent life choices.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> I think my point here from a day or two ago is probably worth repeating in this context - there's a lot of talk about how being vaccinated makes it much less likely you'll die of Covid, and that's true to a point - it makes it much less likely if you get it in the first place.
> 
> If you do get a breakthrough infection though, it only improves your odds of not dying by about a coin flip, which is something that I think a lot of vaccinated people might be a LOT more cautious about managing their potential exposures, avoiding crowds, wearing masks indoors, etc, if we talked more openly about that and instead didn't present mortality rates as normalized against the entire vaccinated population, rather than against the portion of that population that actually got sick despite being vaccinated.
> 
> Of course, the right would jump on that, if that's how discussions were freamed, as proof vaccination "didn't work." It does - a 50% decline in mortality trisk is totally material, and as someone who, to paraphrase Trainspotting, chooses life, I absolutely want the better odds that come from being vaccinated. But, the probability of dying if you get sick is still uncomfortably high, so I also choose prudent life choices.



And even that "Coin flip" proportion is still not entirely clear as there might be other not-so-well-controlled-for factors or variables at play that vary between the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups. I wouldn't be surprised if the unvaccinated group had more severe comorbidities in the first place contributing to the worse survival rate.

But no, we have to treat everyone like a dumb dumb and come up with stupid headlines like "About 99.999% of fully vaccinated Americans have not had a deadly Covid-19 breakthrough case, CDC data shows" ... which only leads to _more_ irresponsible behavior and _more _spread at the end of the day.


----------



## bostjan

It's pretty simple, yet people don't understand it or refuse to understand it because of their beliefs...

The vaccine's effectiveness wears off over time, just like your DPT vaccine or MMR or Varicella, we had some preliminary data regarding that almost a year ago, and just bringing that data up in this thread led to some pretty heated stuff directed at the person who brought it up (me). People working in the development of the vaccine earlier on understood this. Then, the people responsible for administering the vaccines understood it even better. Yet the general population is still saying stuff like "I can't get covid, because I got the vaccine," or even stupider stuff like "I'll get the vaccine if I test positive, before I get really sick."

The trouble is, with how much human stupidity there is, even if we get a good vaccine-booster schedule, you'll have people who try to get 17 shots at once, so they'll assume that they're good for 15 years, or people who see the numbers finally start going down and prematurely forget about the whole thing, or people who get the vaccine and assume that there's no way they could possibly pass the virus on from one person to the next.

Knowing what we know now, and applying that to realistic scenarios of epidemiology, filling in the gaps with data-driven assumptions, it's looking very likely now that covid is never going to not be a widespread health concern. At least not until something major changes. Whether that's cultural or medical, I don't know. Tuberculosis was a huge widespread health issue the world over until people started pasteurizing their milk. Maybe someday we find out that some large percentage of covid transmission is due to people not washing their damned hands with soap and water and finally get people to be civilized human beings.

As for Colin Powell, I wasn't his biggest fan after the Iraq War thing, but I gradually lukewarmed to him after he was critical of Trump. I guess I shouldn't feel too bad anyway, since I'm sure he lived a higher quality of life than I ever will and certainly lived to an older age than I'll ever make it.

Cancer treatment totally wiped out your immune system. If you have a weakened immune system, vaccines won't work as well. Not for covid, and not for any other disease.


----------



## nightflameauto

bostjan said:


> Maybe someday we find out that some large percentage of covid transmission is due to people not washing their damned hands with soap and water and *finally get people to be civilized human beings*.


BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That's the best joke I've heard all week.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> The trouble is, with how much human stupidity there is, even if we get a good vaccine-booster schedule, you'll have people who try to get 17 shots at once, so they'll assume that they're good for 15 years, or* people who see the numbers finally start going down* and prematurely forget about the whole thing.



That's where you're wrong, man. The US numbers will _not _go down. But the US as a whole has collectively decided that they don't care- they're just bored now so will just do _as if_ Covid was no longer a thing _regardless _of the numbers. Ensuring ironically that it _does _remain a thing forever.

The most hilarious part is how the US maintains travel restrictions against people coming in from countries that are doing much better than here in terms of Covid management.
Like... hwat?



bostjan said:


> Maybe someday we find out that some large percentage of covid transmission is due to people not washing their damned hands with soap and water and finally get people to be civilized human beings.



What do you mean "Maybe" 
We already found out that washing hands/wearing masks/socially distancing/staying home could stop that thing...but like above, that's just too much to ask from our fellow human beings these days.


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> That's where you're wrong, man. The US numbers will _not _go down. But the US as a whole has collectively decided that they don't care- they're just bored now so will just do _as if_ Covid was no longer a thing _regardless _of the numbers. Ensuring ironically that it _does _remain a thing forever.
> 
> The most hilarious part is how the US maintains travel restrictions against people coming in from countries that are doing much better than here in terms of Covid management.
> Like... hwat?


It'll eventually ebb and flood in some sort of cyclical manner, probably.

People like to compare with influenza, because we know influenza. This is more like a cold than a flu, but, in contrast with flu, immunity fades two or more times as fast, the virus mutates two or more times as fast, and people remain contagious two or more times as long. Also, a larger number of people appear asymptomatic, which means less death, but more spread. So covid, like flu, might go through a big wave and little wave cycle, but the baseline level of infections will always be higher, and, instead of little waves with a period of 1-3 years, we might have more like ripples with a period of every 2-6 months, and, instead of pandemic years every 8-12 years, we might be looking at every 2-3 years. Maybe better, maybe worse.

What we have poor understanding of, though, is how repeat infections behave, especially with long spans between infections. So, if we're lucky, this thing could end up becoming like the common cold.


----------



## Bodes

Randy said:


> That was kind of my point.
> 
> + other stuff



Sorry, I think I misunderstood what you meant by your original reply. Some good points you made!


----------



## Bodes

bostjan said:


> The trouble is, with how much human stupidity there is, even if we get a good vaccine-booster schedule, you'll have people who try to get 17 shots at once, so they'll assume that they're good for 15 years, or people who see the numbers finally start going down and prematurely forget about the whole thing, or people who get the vaccine and assume that there's no way they could possibly pass the virus on from one person to the next.



How is the data of who has been vaccinated, etc. being handled in the USA?

In Australia, our vaccinations are placed on our Federal Medicare system, which any doctor can view and we can download our vaccination status to our Medicare app, our state-based check-in apps, obtain official printed copies, etc. This is to help stop that kind of madness and to (maybe?) stop people obtaining false documentation.

We have just, as of yesterday, got our official international travel COVID 'passport' system up and running, so that border agencies can scan a QR code and see our vaccination status.


----------



## bostjan

Bodes said:


> How is the data of who has been vaccinated, etc. being handled in the USA?
> 
> In Australia, our vaccinations are placed on our Federal Medicare system, which any doctor can view and we can download our vaccination status to our Medicare app, our state-based check-in apps, obtain official printed copies, etc. This is to help stop that kind of madness and to (maybe?) stop people obtaining false documentation.
> 
> We have just, as of yesterday, got our official international travel COVID 'passport' system up and running, so that border agencies can scan a QR code and see our vaccination status.


When I got vaccinated, I just got a card. I don't even think they told my PCP who set up the contact.


----------



## Bodes

bostjan said:


> When I got vaccinated, I just got a card. I don't even think they told my PCP who set up the contact.



Wow. Leaving it up to the public to safely keep a little card is kind of silly. What happens if you accidentally lost your little card? Can you go back to where you got vaccinated and ask for a new card?

But then again all of our vaccinations from about 2008 onwards have been placed on our Medicare system. I can download a pdf of all of them in about 2 minutes of turning on my computer. 
We need our kids to have certain vaccinations to be able to attend state run schools, so it isn't too much for our Gov to have to set up on top of what we already have got.


----------



## SpaceDock

Bodes said:


> Wow. Leaving it up to the public to safely keep a little card is kind of silly. What happens if you accidentally lost your little card? Can you go back to where you got vaccinated and ask for a new card?.



I got vaccinated in an event center dirt parking lot and filled out my card myself. The US health care system is a joke.


----------



## Adieu

Don't be so mean

What did you expect of a system whose primary role has been to distribute opiates, benzos, and amphetamines to white people?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Bodes said:


> How is the data of who has been vaccinated, etc. being handled in the USA?



There's no federal program, it's left to the states to track. 

Where I live, Wisconsin, they have a system that tracks covid vaccinations and can either verify your vaccination card or issue an official replacement.


----------



## Randy

In NY, I think your info is submitted to the state and most places that require vax (mostly in NYC from what I've seen) verify status with an app on your phone? But I think day to day stuff is basically honor system or maybe paper card at best.

Edit:

"What is Excelsior Pass?

Excelsior Pass is a free, voluntary platform that provides secure, digital proof of COVID-19 vaccination or negative test results.

Excelsior Pass can be accessed and stored through the NYS Excelsior Pass Wallet app, or through the Excelsior Pass Web Portal and printed. The NYS Excelsior Pass Wallet app can be downloaded at no cost from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store."


----------



## nightflameauto

Wife and I got vaccinated at the local Lewis Drug down the block. We got silly little cards for each of the two shots and we're supposed to keep both of them as our proof of vaccination. And now there's chatter that you may need to bring those in to get your booster. Though why makes zero sense since you can also just walk in and get your first dose whenever you want.

The US healthcare system is primarily devoted to increasing profits among insurers and drug companies. There's no money to waste on stupid shit like planning and building a sustainable infrastructure for tracking vaccinations.


----------



## MFB

nightflameauto said:


> We got silly little cards for each of the two shots and we're supposed to keep both of them as our proof of vaccination.



No one actually brings the card itself with them, everyone I know has taken a photo of it and it's always counted as proof of vaccination since you need to show that at the same time as your photo to verify name/SSN, etc


----------



## nightflameauto

MFB said:


> No one actually brings the card itself with them, everyone I know has taken a photo of it and it's always counted as proof of vaccination since you need to show that at the same time as your photo to verify name/SSN, etc


Where I'm at we've had zero times where anybody asked to see the card other than when we went to get our second shots. South Dakota don't give a fuck if you're vaccinated.


----------



## TedEH

We've been using tracking apps for our proof here. Anywhere you go inside, you have to present the QR card on your phone (or printed) and they can scan it, along with ID. Trick is though, I live right between two provinces that use similar but different systems, so when I go into Ontario, nobody can scan my proof, so they just have to sort of take my word for it (and the ID).

While it's better than nothing, it feels a bit flimsy.


----------



## StevenC

Here we just have 1 vaccine card with two sections to be filled out with each dose (I have 2 cards though because reasons). We don't have any vaccine passport system implemented really, but we do have to get a QR code for travelling to other countries which is on our government app.


----------



## CanserDYI

nightflameauto said:


> Where I'm at we've had zero times where anybody asked to see the card other than when we went to get our second shots. South Dakota don't give a fuck if you're vaccinated.


Same with Ohio. I've never had to bring mine anywhere, and honestly I'm the one who said something about my card being filled out on the second shot....


----------



## Drew

Bodes said:


> Wow. Leaving it up to the public to safely keep a little card is kind of silly. What happens if you accidentally lost your little card? Can you go back to where you got vaccinated and ask for a new card?


I was vaccinated at a CVS, and in their case, yes - they have records of my vaccination status, and if needed I could request a new card (I don't carry mine with me). 



Randy said:


> In NY, I think your info is submitted to the state and most places that require vax (mostly in NYC from what I've seen) verify status with an app on your phone? But I think day to day stuff is basically honor system or maybe paper card at best.


This is definitely a NY only program, but I'd love to see some version rolled out nationally. Considering there's already a black market for fake vaccination documents, something a little more robust referencing state records would go a long way here, and I don't think this is going to end until we start treating unvaccinated Americans like smokers - if you want to smoke that's absolutely your right, but you can't do it in indoor public spaces because of the risk your actions pose to others.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> This is definitely a NY only program, but I'd love to see some version rolled out nationally. Considering there's already a black market for fake vaccination documents, something a little more robust referencing state records would go a long way here, and I don't think this is going to end until we start treating unvaccinated Americans like smokers - if you want to smoke that's absolutely your right, but you can't do it in indoor public spaces because of *the risk your actions pose to others*.



The comparison with smokers is _extremely _daft, everyone can see it, right? First and foremost, smokers can go anywhere and everywhere they want as long as they're not _actively _smoking. They don't need to provide a permanent proof that they are non-smokers and can go to concerts, restaurants, university ... or even do basic things like go grocery shopping - as long as they don't actively smoke in other people's faces. How is that comparable _at all_ to the proposal here?

I mean - I should stop there, but if "objective risk to others" was truly the thinking, and we wanted to do it right - then why not use one of the many Covid-immunity tests?
Someone who recently recovered from an infection has most likely a very strong Covid-immunity and is arguably much less likely to catch and or infect others (for longer), yet they would be excluded in that scenario. While a guy vaccinated in February who took no other precaution could easily catch Covid and infect a bunch of people.

Besides, what of the day "fully vaccinated" is redefined as "having the first booster", then the second one, then one every 3 months? Adults, and with a one-off vaccine, there's probably very little issue in there (although we still lack long term data). But let's say kids 5 years and up having a novel shot every 3 months for the next decade(s)? We have no idea of the effects there.
And who's to say it stops at Covid once you set a precedent and the majority is not only accepting it, but actually applauding it? You have to get x many shots and/or medical procedures a year just to be allowed inside the mall to go grocery shopping? You miss one of the mandatory shots and then you are no longer allowed inside the DMV to get your driver's license? So now you can't drive and vote? Oh not to mention you can't have a job btw.
All that tracked in a national database of course. Interesting that it would have been too authoritarian to be a bit more forceful in getting actual lockdowns done, but that option however is perfectly fine if you're team "vaccine only and vaccine always and forever". Tracking people in central databases with a compliance score is seen as evil (something only the CCP would do) ... unless it kinda aligns with you on a particular issue then it's perfectly fine?

Now don't get me wrong, the vaccines can help the population a large and we can't do _nothing_.
It just sounds like there's very little discussion of the ends justifying the means.
I mean, it's not quite the "just let the unvaccinated people die" of earlier, but still very much the same line of thinking..


----------



## bostjan

Moderna and Johnson and Johnson boosters are coming... no one scheduling them yet, though.


----------



## mbardu

How common are "breakthrough" cases really?

Analysis of breakthrough cases from Medicare/Medicaid data: https://www.scribd.com/document/530082359/Salus-Humetrix-VE-Study-2021-09-28a-1
Is that stuff real? Salus, Humetrix and JAIC are all legit, but literally every site linking to that stuff is fishy AF. Plus their PPT template is very bad 

If it _is _real, then it's interesting to say the least.
Grains of salt first: it's by nature based on the dataset of an older population, so that will give you a bias towards generally worse outcomes. Also, their 5/6 months cohort is even older on average- which could in and of itself explain the difference in worse immunity and higher breakthrough rates.

For example, looking at below, I'd just average the rates and consider only one big "3>6 months since vaccination" category - for which breakthrough cases were ~80/100k late June, and ~300/100k in late August.




Averaged or not, the breakthrough case trend looks at least a bit proportional to _overall _cases if you put the time periods next to each other. So even without needing the contribution of "waning immunity" as a factor, some level of increase in breakthrough cases could already be explained just by general increase in all cases. Then you can tack waning immunity on top.




But even more interesting than proportions, the raw incidence rate of breakthrough cases is surprising to me.
300 per 100k per week doesn't sound huge on paper, but scale that directly to the US population and it would translate to *1 Million* cases per week.
Which is _more _than the number of _overall _cases actually tracked by the CDC at that same time.
Now, of course that's overestimating the number a good bunch and this older group is probably more "fragile". But the order of magnitude really nuances the "pandemic of the unvaccinated" narrative IMO.

Additional tidbits from the same source if you want to play devil's advocate:

Risk of ICU once hospitalized is the same between current "breakthrough" cases vs last year rate overall pre-vaccine
Overall risk of death has decreased significantly between current "breakthrough" cases vs last year rate overall pre-vaccine...but the risk has decreased for non vaccinated groups as well through better treatments
Risk of _any _type of hospitalization (before ICU) has decreased from 30% to 20% for "breakthrough" cases vs last year pre-vaccine...but I don't think I have data on what the risk is now for non vaccinated groups in order to compare vaccine benefit
I don't know...if it was "pandemic of the unvaccinated", I would expect breakthrough rates at least an order of magnitude lower, and probably more dramatic differences between vaccinated/unvaccinated in hospitalization/ICU/mortality.


----------



## spudmunkey

I wish I knew more about statistics to know how it differs, but I struggle with the nuance that can separate seemingly similar data. For example, Here's a chart from Minnesota, which shows unvaccinated people are 30x more likely to die from infection than vaccinated.



https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/stats/vbt.html


----------



## mbardu

spudmunkey said:


> I wish I knew more about statistics to know how it differs, but I struggle with the nuance that can separate seemingly similar data. For example, Here's a chart from Minnesota, which shows unvaccinated people are 30x more likely to die from infection than vaccinated.
> 
> View attachment 99119
> 
> https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/stats/vbt.html



Either the DoD/Humetrix doc is complete BS (and again- it very well might be, especially considering where it's linked from), or if not then it is blatantly at odds with (or not applicable to) the Minnesota data for one reason or another. In the former, breakthrough cases account for 71% of new Covid cases - whereas that proportion is almost exactly flipped in the latter- for a population with same age group and same vaccination rate.

One shows:



Weak effect of vaccination (about 20% of cases coming from unvaccinated people in a population where about 20% of people are unvaccinated - so pretty proportional).

The other shows:



Extremely positive expected effect of the vaccine; ie about 80% of new cases coming from <20% of unvaccinated people in the 65+ group (and there are still some breakthrough cases, but they are the minority in a population where vaccinated people are the majority).


----------



## Bodes

A few things I have been thinking about when I see these graphs (which I don't have the answer for):

Are a higher % of people who are, by choice, fully vaccinated more likely to be cautious about how they live and socialise?

Are a higher % of those who have yet to be fully vaccinated (for whatever reason) less likely to be cautious about how they live and socialise?

How much does these skew the statistics that are published?

Are my thoughts somewhat (completely???) driven by what I see in the media and are complete and utter doodoo?

These thoughts have mainly arisin due to tonight being the last night in lockdown and am unsure if I am ready to socialise. I am forced to go into work, but am a little uneasy about it.
I still walk around and get annoyed by lack of mask wearing, large gatherings, etc. When our cases are high, for my state, and we are opening up.

Edit: bad sentence fix up.


----------



## bostjan

Well, you know, I was harping about this almost a year ago. The vaccine shows that it offers some protection, but the extreme number of breakthrough cases kind of supports the waning immunity thing. I also now personally know (anecdote, I know) two people who had covid, recovered, then got it again months later. I personally know one guy right now who just tested positive, and he got his vaccine after I got mine. Locally, we had a huge success getting people vaccinated, however, just like I had warned, people went back to life as usual, and numbers here are higher than ever, in spite of the 75+% of people in my area being fully vaccinated.

The sad part of this is that the prize I get for being right is everyone getting sick with a potentially deadly disease.


----------



## spudmunkey

Bodes said:


> A few things I have been thinking about when I see these graphs (which I don't have the answer for):
> 
> Are a higher % of people who are, by choice, fully vaccinated more likely to be cautious about how they live and socialise?
> 
> Are a higher % of those who have yet to be fully vaccinated (for whatever reason) less likely to be cautious about how they live and socialise?
> 
> How much does these skew the statistics that are published?
> 
> Are my thoughts somewhat (completely???) driven by what I see in the media and are complete and utter doodoo?



Around here and in my own circle, I do see vaccinated people being less restrictive than they were a year ago, but are just barely starting to catch up with the people who are still unvaccinated (by choice), and how they've been acting basically the whole last year-and-a-half. Still masking up in most scenarios, and even sometimes keeping masks on if "everyone else is" just as a courtesy. Still, every single person in the grocery stores I've been to this week, 100% have been masked, but I realize this isn't the same everywhere. My girlfriend did a sidewalk pop-up sale, and nearly everyone slipped on their mask as they walked up to her table, even though it was outdoors.


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> Well, you know, I was harping about this almost a year ago. The vaccine shows that it offers some protection, but the extreme number of breakthrough cases kind of supports the waning immunity thing. I also now personally know (anecdote, I know) two people who had covid, recovered, then got it again months later. I personally know one guy right now who just tested positive, and he got his vaccine after I got mine. Locally, we had a huge success getting people vaccinated, however, just like I had warned, people went back to life as usual, and numbers here are higher than ever, in spite of the 75+% of people in my area being fully vaccinated.
> 
> The sad part of this is that the prize I get for being right is everyone getting sick with a potentially deadly disease.



Same thing here. I'd say almost 99% of the people I know are vaccinated, and they are popping positive left and right. Some actually getting pretty brutally sick and having a rough go of it.


----------



## wankerness

I personally know a guy who got properly double-vaccinated with Moderna, the vaccine that's been proven to have the least waning function, at the same time as me (in April or so) that got Covid TWICE, once about 3 months ago and again this week. Champion. He felt sickly last time and less sick this time but he still definitely confirmed he had it both times with multiple tests confirming it.


----------



## mbardu

spudmunkey said:


> Around here and in my own circle, I do see vaccinated people being less restrictive than they were a year ago, but are just barely starting to catch up with the people who are still unvaccinated (by choice), and how they've been acting basically the whole last year-and-a-half. Still masking up in most scenarios, and even sometimes keeping masks on if "everyone else is" just as a courtesy. Still, every single person in the grocery stores I've been to this week, 100% have been masked, but I realize this isn't the same everywhere. My girlfriend did a sidewalk pop-up sale, and nearly everyone slipped on their mask as they walked up to her table.



Also being from the Bay Area - I am also seeing pretty good use of masks in shops and even at the outdoor (but packed) market, which is at least reassuring to some extent and the region is doing pretty OK all things considered. We recently got a scare in the family after all coming down sick with _something_... but all tested negative for Covid.

However my experience is different with the handful of non-vaccinated people I do know; who are conscious and doing their best to be even more careful with distancing and precautions _because _they are not vaccinated. Super anecdotal, but conversely, there's a group of parents at my child's school who are systematically congregating every single morning, with no social distancing and no mask, against explicit school rules...and just using the "we got vaccinated as soon as it was available" as excuse to brush off any staff that tries to have them abide by the rules...


----------



## spudmunkey

Jesus...that sucks. It's been *months* since someone I know tested positive, outside of multiple family members (two cousins right now are in quarantine after their kids brought it to them from school) back home in rural-ish Wisconsin, who spend half their day sharing anti-mask/anti-vaccine/anti-Biden/pro-trump memes on facebook, and spent the last year and a half having family reunions, huge parties, going to every restaurant and bar that'll let them in.

[update: one of those two cousins (both young enough that I used to babysit them) just checked in on facebook from their hospital]


----------



## Adieu

The Deity of Evolution is culling extraverts!

Basement-dwelling wizards shall inherit the earth!


----------



## Xaios

Adieu said:


> The Deity of Evolution is culling extraverts!
> 
> Basement-dwelling wizards shall inherit the earth!


*MY TIME IS NOW!!*


----------



## Drew

Bodes said:


> A few things I have been thinking about when I see these graphs (which I don't have the answer for):
> 
> Are a higher % of people who are, by choice, fully vaccinated more likely to be cautious about how they live and socialise?
> 
> Are a higher % of those who have yet to be fully vaccinated (for whatever reason) less likely to be cautious about how they live and socialise?
> 
> How much does these skew the statistics that are published?
> 
> Are my thoughts somewhat (completely???) driven by what I see in the media and are complete and utter doodoo?
> 
> These thoughts have mainly arisin due to tonight being the last night in lockdown and am unsure if I am ready to socialise. I am forced to go into work, but am a little uneasy about it.
> I still walk around and get annoyed by lack of mask wearing, large gatherings, etc. When our cases are high, for my state, and we are opening up.
> 
> Edit: bad sentence fix up.


There are a couple factors beyond these that need to be considered though, when evaluating charts like @spudmonkey posted. 

All of this is in the basket of what I'd call "behavioral factors" - are there behaviors - mask wearing, social distancing, etc - that correlate strongly with desire to get vaccinated in the first place? We know the answer is yes. Are there ways in which getting vaccinated changes behaviors? Also yes. A lot of now-vaccinated people are doing things they'd never have done prior to getting vaccinated... but, also, people who are more likely to have gotten vaccinated, are also more likely to continue to wear masks indoors and distance. This second one is pretty complicated. 

The big difference here, I think, though, is that people who have been vaccinated are simply far less likely to get sick when exposed - even with some decay since initial innoculation, it looks like we're still seeing 85%+ immunity here in the US. That's huge. There's a bit of incremental protection once you DO get sick, you're maybe half as likely to die if sick and vaccinated than sick and unvaccinated, but the vaccines ARE doing a very good job of protecting people from Covid. Not perfect, but enough that they are likely saving hundreds of thousands of lives right now.


----------



## wankerness

The anti-vaxxers are now all pointing to the freak anomaly that is that allegedly vaccinated 21 year old athlete in GA who died from COVID as a huge reason no one should be vaccinated.


----------



## spudmunkey

wankerness said:


> The anti-vaxxers are now all pointing to the freak anomaly that is that allegedly vaccinated 21 year old athlete in GA who died from COVID as a huge reason no one should be vaccinated.



Do they also point to the college athlete who choked to death in a hot dog eating contest as a reason to not eat?


----------



## wankerness

spudmunkey said:


> Do they also point to the college athlete who choked to death in a hot dog eating contest as a reason to not eat?



Of course not, they only point to things that support whatever idiotic opinion they already intractably held. Very ironically, since the widespread politicization of science in the last few years, most conservative antivaxxers bitching about chemicals they don't understand going into their bodies are the same blobs that subsist primarily on hot dogs and mcdonalds. Some fear of hot dogs would be good for them.


----------



## spudmunkey

https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1450849899478765570


----------



## wankerness

Guess he just saw Alien: Covenant and misread the title as Alien: Covidvaccine while also thinking it was a documentary.


----------



## spudmunkey

wankerness said:


> Guess he just saw Alien: Covenant and misread the title as Alien: Covidvaccine while also thinking it was a documentary.



Also him while hospitalized with COVID in June:
_"I am not going to be vaccinated," Wiles said, according to Right Wing Watch. "I'm going to be one of the survivors. I'm going to survive the genocide... The only good thing that will come out of this is a lot of stupid people will be killed off. If the vaccine wipes out a lot of stupid people, well, we'll have a better world."_


----------



## wankerness

Ugh. I liked the way Bill Burr presented it. If the government was plotting genocide against its population with these vaccines, they'd obviously be giving working vaccines to the obedient sheep so they could release super-coronavirus and kill off everyone who doesn't do what the government says. If you truly think the government is out to get its citizens and trying to get you to obey, you should be the FIRST to get the vaccine if you want to avoid being killed by them!


----------



## mbardu

wankerness said:


> Of course not, they only point to things that support whatever idiotic opinion they already intractably held.



In fairness, the "side" that we most often agree with here _also _loves to pick and choose their own anecdotes, as long as it reinforces their own bias.
That's why I roll my eyes at _any and all_ anecdotes or headlines of the "X/Y person who was/wasn't vaccinated died of Covid" sort that try to push an agenda.

Same thing for dumb stats into sensationalized headlines. It was very dumb when conservatives were saying "you have less than 0.001% chance to have died from Covid, it's like it doesn't even exist"; and it's just as dumb now when CNN whips out their own 99.99% stats. 

But people _on all sides_ just eat it up as long as they are onboard with the particular implication of the particular stat that they _want _to hear.


----------



## bostjan

I mean, the vaccine kind of doesn't work as well as, like, most vaccines, but, what's the alternative at this point?

A year ago, if you proposed that maybe the vaccine's strength would wane over time, you were figuratively burnt at the stake as a heretic. Why, I ask? I think it's simply because people want so bad to get back to normal that they aren't behaving rationally.

Now we're at the point where you see screenshots like that^, and don't even consider that it might have been hyperbole, because, well, that's just how fucknuts people are behaving right now.

And whether you believe that this whole mess started because someone ate illegal bushmeat or it was somehow released from a lab or because a bat shat on a pangolin and then bit a random person at a seafood market who proceeded to sneeze on everyone else, this whole thing is because people are shitty.


----------



## mbardu

wankerness said:


> Ugh. I liked the way Bill Burr presented it. If the government was plotting genocide against its population with these vaccines, they'd obviously be giving working vaccines to the obedient sheep so they could release super-coronavirus and kill off everyone who doesn't do what the government says. If you truly think the government is out to get its citizens and trying to get you to obey, you should be the FIRST to get the vaccine if you want to avoid being killed by them!



Why would they even want genocide of the population?
If everyone's dead, who's going to work to make the billionaire donors richer?
Who's going to pay taxes that can then be fed to the military industrial complex if not straight up embezzled?


----------



## wankerness

bostjan said:


> I mean, the vaccine kind of doesn't work as well as, like, most vaccines, but, what's the alternative at this point?
> 
> A year ago, if you proposed that maybe the vaccine's strength would wane over time, you were figuratively burnt at the stake as a heretic. Why, I ask? I think it's simply because people want so bad to get back to normal that they aren't behaving rationally.
> 
> Now we're at the point where you see screenshots like that^, and don't even consider that it might have been hyperbole, because, well, that's just how fucknuts people are behaving right now.
> 
> And whether you believe that this whole mess started because someone ate illegal bushmeat or it was somehow released from a lab or because a bat shat on a pangolin and then bit a random person at a seafood market who proceeded to sneeze on everyone else, this whole thing is because people are shitty.



What vaccines have higher effectiveness? My understanding was that many of them have something more like 80% effectiveness, it's just since practically everyone's vaccinated the disease is generally unable to spread (ex measles, polio).


----------



## mbardu

wankerness said:


> What vaccines have higher effectiveness? My understanding was that many of them have something more like 80% effectiveness, it's just since practically everyone's vaccinated the disease is generally unable to spread (ex measles, polio).



Effectiveness even as high as 95+% for Covid novel vaccines in the very short term- which is what the trials were focused on. Extremely good.

In this case the issue is more so how it's very easy to still become infected with and be a spreader of Covid even a mere couple of months (weeks?) after injection. And that's for maybe a number of factors we don't really quantify as far as I'm aware. Waning immunity, differential effect of the vaccine on innate vs adaptive immune system, fast-mutating variants...
Those vaccines have comparatively been administered to a much wider population in a much shorter time than any others in history- absolute %age of the population is not really the issue.


----------



## bostjan

wankerness said:


> What vaccines have higher effectiveness? My understanding was that many of them have something more like 80% effectiveness, it's just since practically everyone's vaccinated the disease is generally unable to spread (ex measles, polio).


That's correct.

What I mean by "doesn't work as well" is that these new vaccines, at this point in time, wear off more rapidly than any other vaccine we've ever mass injected and that, only months after developing the vaccine, we have strains of the virus that seem largely vaccine-resistant (honestly this is the way it is because we've only had this virus around for 2 years or less).

If I got a flu vaccine, I'm protected from that particular strain of flu for at least three times longer, and the cross-immunity to other strains of flu are not great, but still better than the way the covid vax works against delta, seemingly. The fact that this new vaccine (the best one of the few that are out there, at least) is 95% effective after 2 weeks, versus other vaccines that are in the 80's of % is kind of a meaningless feature if it's only 40% effective (or maybe less) after 6 months.


----------



## wankerness

bostjan said:


> That's correct.
> 
> What I mean by "doesn't work as well" is that these new vaccines, at this point in time, wear off more rapidly than any other vaccine we've ever mass injected and that, only months after developing the vaccine, we have strains of the virus that seem largely vaccine-resistant (honestly this is the way it is because we've only had this virus around for 2 years or less).
> 
> If I got a flu vaccine, I'm protected from that particular strain of flu for at least three times longer, and the cross-immunity to other strains of flu are not great, but still better than the way the covid vax works against delta, seemingly. The fact that this new vaccine (the best one of the few that are out there, at least) is 95% effective after 2 weeks, versus other vaccines that are in the 80's of % is kind of a meaningless feature if *it's only 40% effective (or maybe less) after 6 months.*



Where are you getting these numbers? From what I've seen in various news articles, after 6 months, Moderna was still like 85% effective, including against the Delta variant.


----------



## mbardu

wankerness said:


> Where are you getting these numbers? From what I've seen in various news articles, after 6 months, Moderna was still like 85% effective, including against the Delta variant.



I'd take some of that with a grain of salt.
A lot of the long term 80%+ efficacy numbers about Moderna are coming _from Moderna_.
They're also now talking about protection against "symptomatic infections", not against infections - and it appears that asymptomatic vaccinated carriers spreading the virus are also a pretty big thing that's not being talked about.

A lot of the promises have also been scaled back progressively over time for most vaccines. From protection against infection and transmission with promises of "you won't have to wear a mask anymore and life will go back to normal" to protection against transmission to others but not infection for yourself, to protection - not against infection and transmission, but to protection against serious forms and hospitalizations, to now protection against ICU hospitalizations and risk of deaths - which are then about a coin flip.

A lot of people are acting like it's over and the vaccine solved everything...yet the simplest smell test - at least to me, is that we are at about 80% of adults vaccinated in the US, and yet we are in the middle of a *huge *third wave. A wave that is much bigger (4/5 times bigger) than the first wave in terms of number of infections, and that is just as deadly despite much better hospital health outcomes/treatments (and the sad fact that *a lot *of vulnerable people have already died from Covid early on).


----------



## Drew

wankerness said:


> Where are you getting these numbers? From what I've seen in various news articles, after 6 months, Moderna was still like 85% effective, including against the Delta variant.


Yeah, there's a LOT of data out there, and some of it is pretty bleak - data from Israel suggested a very rapid decline in immuity, for example - but quite a lot of it is less so - a decline to 85% efficacy is roughly what the UK was experiencing, for example. 

And, like, yeah, it's unfortunate that there's a drop-off... but when inflenza vaccination efficacy is in the 40-60% range and covid vaccination efficacy is declining to "only" 85% from 95% over a six month window, I think we need to keep things in perspective here. The Covid vaccine, even six months out, is still _unusually_ effective at preventing infection. 

Another point I've raised in the past that I think is worth reiterating is, it doesn't _need_ to be 100% effective to make a significant impact in fighting covid, or to allow us to reach herd immunity. If we needed an estimated 70% innoculation to reach it at 95% effective, a figure I saw getting thrown around at the time, then at 85% effective inoculating 78% of the population will give you the same percentage of people who when exposed reject the virus (0.7 x 0.95 / 0.85 = 0.7823). And of course that points to yhe reap problem - we're currently sitting at about 66% of the population with at least one dose, and 57% fully vaccinated. The reason covid is still widespread isn't "the vaccine doesn't work as well as it should," it's that roughly 1/3 of Americans brains don't work as well as they should.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> Yeah, there's a LOT of data out there, and some of it is pretty bleak - data from Israel suggested a very rapid decline in immuity, for example - but quite a lot of it is less so - a decline to 85% efficacy is roughly what the UK was experiencing, for example.
> 
> And, like, yeah, it's unfortunate that there's a drop-off... but when inflenza vaccination efficacy is in the 40-60% range and covid vaccination efficacy is declining to "only" 85% from 95% over a six month window, I think we need to keep things in perspective here. The Covid vaccine, even six months out, is still _unusually_ effective at preventing infection.
> 
> Another point I've raised in the past that I think is worth reiterating is, it doesn't _need_ to be 100% effective to make a significant impact in fighting covid, or to allow us to reach herd immunity. If we needed an estimated 70% innoculation to reach it at 95% effective, a figure I saw getting thrown around at the time, then at 85% effective inoculating 78% of the population will give you the same percentage of people who when exposed reject the virus (0.7 x 0.95 / 0.85 = 0.7823). And of course that points to yhe reap problem - we're currently sitting at about 66% of the population with at least one dose, and 57% fully vaccinated. The reason covid is still widespread isn't "the vaccine doesn't work as well as it should," it's that roughly 1/3 of Americans brains don't work as well as they should.



This would be all fine if the 85% figure was real. But since you single out the UK, it's easy to look and check that it's not the case.
The UK has had almost 90% of adults vaccinated for a few months now. It's going to be hard to get much higher than that pretty much anywhere.
Yet just look at infections in the UK:




It's at peak levels, and _remaining _at peak levels for way longer than any prior wave.
If the vaccines were 85% effective, would we be seeing that? With 90% of adults vaccinated? Peak infections now for months- is that what herd immunity looks like?
Note: the number of confirmed infections above is even based on a slightly _smaller _number of total tests compared to the beginning of the year.
Infections are also trending _up _in the UK...whereas they are now trending down in the US. With the US having a significantly lower proportion of full vaccination.




It's fun to jump to conclusions without checking and to blame people who have not had the vaccine because it gives an easy scapegoat to hate on. But the pAnDeMiC oF tHe uNvAcCiNaTeD is clearly not what we're seeing, despite how much we like to harp on it. A bit ironic as well to pretend intellectual superiority when the whole argument is easily disproven in literally 2 minutes but whatever.

You can tell nobody is bothering to check because a lot of people are foaming at the mouth at the mere thought of finding a scapegoat to pass their frustrations and hate on (prevent the unvaccinated from having jobs! Don't let them near public places and prevent them from going into shops! Stop accepting them in hospitals and let them die!).
Basest hateful instincts aside, it's also a bit counterproductive to do that if it detracts from trying to find other solutions to complement the vaccine. But I guess humans will be humans...


----------



## ArtDecade

mbardu said:


> But the pAnDeMiC oF tHe uNvAcCiNaTeD is clearly not what we're seeing, despite how much we like to harp on it. A bit ironic as well to pretend intellectual superiority when the whole argument is easily disproven in literally 2 minutes but whatever.



You are glossing over the data that the vast majority of hospitalized COVID cases are those that didn't get vaccinated.


----------



## mbardu

ArtDecade said:


> You are glossing over the data that the vast majority of hospitalized COVID cases are those that didn't get vaccinated.



Do we need to shift the goalposts?
Were we talking about hospitalizations?

The poster above was talking about herd immunity thanks to the vaccine, and quoting the UK as an example of that. In 2 minutes it's easy to see that at their very high rates of vaccination, they are clearly not done with infections, and clearly not at herd immunity. That was the only argument I was making.

If we want to talk about hospitalizations, that's fine.
First of all, IMO it's a prime example of shifting the goalposts in the narrative over the last few months (once it became clear the vaccines were not preventing infections and transmissions, the messaging was shifted to "it will prevent hospitalization" and "it will prevent serious cases"). But whatever - that's another debate, and there is definitely some truth to where the goalposts have moved now. In the last 6 months, we're lucky that vaccination has clearly prevented serious forms of Covid, and prevented a lot of hospitalizations and deaths.

Now, with waning immunity, that also is starting to change, and the protective effect of the vaccines is not what it used to be even for that. But let's even ignore that for a minute.

If the rationale is mainly to avoid serious cases/hospitalizations/deaths... in a world where transmission and infections are there regardless of vaccination status and vaccination coverage. Where all tests show that even vaccinated, you are just as contagious once infected.
Then why do we need to treat non vaccinated people like second class citizens? After all, the differential risk of not getting vaccinated now becomes a risk _to them_, not to the rest of the population. So why punish them specifically? After all, we don't punish other people putting their own health in danger. Smokers, people who don't exercise, people who eat like crap or drink too much booze, people who partake in dangerous sports. Are we taking away their jobs, their capacity to travel, to go shopping, or to get an education? No we are not. Yet they are putting themselves in danger and may very well end up in the hospital as a burden on the health system, aren't they? Are they not good scapegoats?


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

spudmunkey said:


> https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1450849899478765570
> 
> View attachment 99147


What a fucking idiot, and the fact that people believe it!!! Synthetic parasite delivered into the body via an egg, uhhhh if it’s a synthetic parasite than don’t waste your time with the egg, just inject that sucker right into me. I could use a new friend anyhow.


----------



## StevenC

mbardu said:


> This would be all fine if the 85% figure was real. But since you single out the UK, it's easy to look and check that it's not the case.
> The UK has had almost 90% of adults vaccinated for a few months now. It's going to be hard to get much higher than that pretty much anywhere.
> Yet just look at infections in the UK:
> 
> View attachment 99177
> 
> 
> It's at peak levels, and _remaining _at peak levels for way longer than any prior wave.
> If the vaccines were 85% effective, would we be seeing that? With 90% of adults vaccinated? Peak infections now for months- is that what herd immunity looks like?
> Note: the number of confirmed infections above is even based on a slightly _smaller _number of total tests compared to the beginning of the year.
> Infections are also trending _up _in the UK...whereas they are now trending down in the US. With the US having a significantly lower proportion of full vaccination.
> 
> View attachment 99178
> 
> 
> It's fun to jump to conclusions without checking and to blame people who have not had the vaccine because it gives an easy scapegoat to hate on. But the pAnDeMiC oF tHe uNvAcCiNaTeD is clearly not what we're seeing, despite how much we like to harp on it. A bit ironic as well to pretend intellectual superiority when the whole argument is easily disproven in literally 2 minutes but whatever.
> 
> You can tell nobody is bothering to check because a lot of people are foaming at the mouth at the mere thought of finding a scapegoat to pass their frustrations and hate on (prevent the unvaccinated from having jobs! Don't let them near public places and prevent them from going into shops! Stop accepting them in hospitals and let them die!).
> Basest hateful instincts aside, it's also a bit counterproductive to do that if it detracts from trying to find other solutions to complement the vaccine. But I guess humans will be humans...


This is the most surface level interpretation of information anyone has ever made. Under 30s only started getting vaccinated in the UK in May, then those same young people who had a lower uptake than the rest of the population started going to bars and nightclubs freely over the summer. Then mask wearing got super relaxed.

But also, 90% of adult population is irrelevant because the virus doesn't target adults. The UK is at 67% vaccinated, so less than needed at the higher efficacy level, with a lot of our older population starting to lose protection. And you see how the graph has gone up as children go back to school in August? It is weird that as policies loosen, lockdowns lift and people go back to school that there is a wide spread of virus among unvaccinated people.


----------



## Bodes

Some stats about the UK, all from official UK government sources.



Source: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-vaccinations/

Also(on phone, can't get a good screen shot of graph of positive cases but age for a few days ago) https://opendata.camden.gov.uk/Health/Coronavirus-COVID-19-Cases-By-Age/aw5w-uqhn

Looks like the younger adult-age group is both the least vaccinated, and represent the highest number of positive tests.

The first link also states that the number of school aged people who are testing positive is on a big rise. Especially in the age range of those who can't be vaccinated yet, <12 years of age.

A few months old, but:


Source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...nd/deathsoccurringbetween2januaryand2july2021

Here is a set of graphs that looks at infections and deaths, per 100,000 population, by age groups. 
Now the first one I find a little harder to draw conclusions from, as some age groups are presenting higher rates among the vaccinated, than non-vaccinated, first graph below, but every expert said vaccine won't stop you from catching COVID, just reduce the impact of the virus. 
But the 2nd and 3rd graphs show a more important story about death rates. This is what experts hoped to see, less proportion of deaths among those who are fully vaccinated. 


Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccine-surveillance-report

At the end of the day, aren't vaccines trying to reduce chances of worse symptoms and deaths?


----------



## mbardu

StevenC said:


> This is the most surface level interpretation of information anyone has ever made. Under 30s only started getting vaccinated in the UK in May, then those same young people who had a lower uptake than the rest of the population started going to bars and nightclubs freely over the summer. Then mask wearing got super relaxed.
> 
> But also, 90% of adult population is irrelevant because the virus doesn't target adults. The UK is at 67% vaccinated, so less than needed at the higher efficacy level, with a lot of our older population starting to lose protection. And you see how the graph has gone up as children go back to school in August? It is weird that as policies loosen, lockdowns lift and people go back to school that there is a wide spread of virus among unvaccinated people.



Your reply is the most surface reading possible of what i wrote.

1- 90% is relevant and it *is* about adults in the UK, because they are specifically recommending against vaccinating teenagers (let alone children)

2- my point is that this is not a "pandemic of the unvaccinated" as the narrative would have it. How does your "we have a lot of *vaccinated* people going out and not taking precautions" make it a pandemic of the unvaccinated lmao 

If you want more granular numbers, check @Bodes post. You'll see most age groups show _higher_ infections within the unvaccinated group compared to the vaccinated one. And before the "there are more vaccinated people so of course" arguments, the numbers are normalized as a "per 100k" unit, not absolute numbers.


----------



## mbardu

Bodes said:


> Some stats about the UK, all from official UK government sources.
> 
> View attachment 99209
> 
> Source: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-vaccinations/
> 
> Also(on phone, can't get a good screen shot of graph of positive cases but age for a few days ago) https://opendata.camden.gov.uk/Health/Coronavirus-COVID-19-Cases-By-Age/aw5w-uqhn
> 
> Looks like the younger adult-age group is both the least vaccinated, and represent the highest number of positive tests.
> 
> The first link also states that the number of school aged people who are testing positive is on a big rise. Especially in the age range of those who can't be vaccinated yet, <12 years of age.
> 
> A few months old, but:
> View attachment 99210
> 
> Source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...nd/deathsoccurringbetween2januaryand2july2021
> 
> Here is a set of graphs that looks at infections and deaths, per 100,000 population, by age groups.
> Now the first one I find a little harder to draw conclusions from, as some age groups are presenting higher rates among the vaccinated, than non-vaccinated, first graph below, but every expert said vaccine won't stop you from catching COVID, just reduce the impact of the virus.
> But the 2nd and 3rd graphs show a more important story about death rates. This is what experts hoped to see, less proportion of deaths among those who are fully vaccinated.
> View attachment 99211
> 
> Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccine-surveillance-report
> 
> At the end of the day, aren't vaccines trying to reduce chances of worse symptoms and deaths?



I'll just comment on two points:

You say "the first one I find a little harder to draw conclusions from" when you see that the vaccinated have higher infection rates than the unvaccinated. It is _not _hard to read, or not hard to draw conclusions from. It is pretty apparent that in a big number of age groups, there are now more infections in the vaccinated group than in the non vaccinated one. It's just difficult to reconcile it if you come at it believing that the vaccine is perfect. But the numbers themselves are fairly easy to read.

The overall "Only 700 deaths out of 50k were fully vaccinated people between January and July" is extremely disingenuous/sensationalist. There were not that many people even vaccinated in January in the first place. The % of population fully vaccinated only crossed the 50% threshold in the UK during the month of July itself...so you bet a large number of deaths were among the unvaccinated. Of course. How could it be otherwise. Presenting it like they do is very dishonest.
You say "At the end of the day, aren't vaccines trying to reduce chances of worse symptoms and deaths?", and that's the part I take issue with.

For a lot of people, in makes total sense to get the vaccine, and it will save tons of lives. But the vaccine has totally been presented as "it will stop transmissions and end the epidemic" since the beginning, and it is still often presented that way in order to find a scapegoat and punish the unvaccinated. People are so happy to find someone to rage against and punish. Just look at @Drew's post, he's quoting UK as an example, and then saying that without dumb unvaccinated people (whose liberties we should restrict) the pandemic would be over. Nobody bothers to check, but if you do, you see (like in _your _numbers) that the vaccinated are just as big spreaders of the pandemic as others (just as much in proportional terms, but actually way more in absolute terms since they're the majority).

If we're talking hospitalizations and serious cases, it's different. It's starting to affect vaccinated a lot more with waning immunity, but we can even leave that aside.
I am 100% OK with the argument that the vaccine saves lives, and that for many people it's dumb to not get it. But it's also very very dumb to punish the unvaccinated on false premises. They're the biggest victims of their own choices, so punishing them (no job, no shopping, no travel, no public places etc) is exactly the same as punishing smokers, or people who don't exercise, or people who drink too much, or who practice dangerous sports etc. So why do it and not do it for the other groups? Or why do it to the unvaccinated and not punish the vaccinated who take no other precautions. After all, they're spreading Covid like there's no tomorrow...
Simple. The unvaccinated are just an easy scapegoat to hate on. It's very apparent, even here.


----------



## StevenC

I must remember to stop feeding the troll no matter how starved it may seem.


----------



## IwantTacos

StevenC said:


> I must remember to stop feeding the troll no matter how starved it may seem.



My ISP always calls me when Mbardu has a day off from work due to excessive bandwidth usage.


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## mbardu

StevenC said:


> I must remember to stop feeding the troll no matter how starved it may seem.





IwantTacos said:


> My ISP always calls me when Mbardu has a day off from work due to excessive bandwidth usage.



It's funny how none of that is not even an _attempt_ at any factual or good faith reply but ok.

Quick note : it's not because someone has an argument that you have no reply to that it makes him a troll.... What is trollish in what i said exactly? Did i attack you personally? Did i come up with the UK example or make numbers up?

That's the thing i don't get with most replies. Jump it trying to get a quick "ha ha" moment but when proven wrong immediately, just cry "troll" and not even try to understand or discuss... Does that really look like a win to you? Nobody is forcing you to try and have a good faith discussion, sure. But then why jump in in the first place if the only "argument" is going to be "troll"?


----------



## bostjan

Maybe it has to do with the level of minutae being argued. Personally, I don't equate that with trolling behaviour, and, as you get into more technical fields, it's super common for differences in opinion at a high level to boil down to very fine differences in knowledge or opinions of little things. There's really no way to get to that level of detail without giant blocks of text.

But, most importantly, the average person doesn't come in here to join into an argument to nitpick the molecular level of details.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> Maybe it has to do with the level of minutae being argued. Personally, I don't equate that with trolling behaviour, and, as you get into more technical fields, it's super common for differences in opinion at a high level to boil down to very fine differences in knowledge or opinions of little things. There's really no way to get to that level of detail without giant blocks of text.
> 
> But, most importantly, the average person doesn't come in here to join into an argument to nitpick the molecular level of details.



That's fine and i don't want to force anyone into a granular discussion. I just don't get some people jumping into the discussion guns blazing trying to get a small rhetorical win, and then the minute there's a reply with actual data, not even try to reply and just shout "troll". What's the point?

After that you can call it minutia, but it's obviously a topic that I care about. I know people who can't get vaccinated, yet have done more than i bet 99% of the people here (myself included) to help throughout the pandemic, and without thinking we just want to vilify those people and that kinda grinds my gears...


----------



## IwantTacos

mbardu said:


> That's fine and i don't want to force anyone into a granular discussion. I just don't get some people jumping into the discussion guns blazing trying to get a small rhetorical win, and then the minute there's a reply with actual data, not even try to reply and just shout "troll". What's the point?
> 
> After that you can call it minutia, but it's obviously a topic that I care about. I know people who can't get vaccinated, yet have done more than i bet 99% of the people here (myself included) to help throughout the pandemic, and without thinking we just want to vilify those people and that kinda grinds my gears...



Yes that's what happening. This thread has just been all of us literally calling people that CAN'T GET VACCINATED dummies. that's what this is.


----------



## StevenC

IwantTacos said:


> Yes that's what happening. This thread has just been all of us literally calling people that CAN'T GET VACCINATED dummies. that's what this is.


Yeah, especially people who CAN'T GET VACCINATED calling themselves dummies.


----------



## profwoot

This thread has become very hard to follow so I assume mbardu is being an asshole again?


----------



## mbardu

IwantTacos said:


> Yes that's what happening. This thread has just been all of us literally calling people that CAN'T GET VACCINATED dummies. that's what this is.





StevenC said:


> Yeah, especially people who CAN'T GET VACCINATED calling themselves dummies.



You guys have no ideas of the people who can't or won't get vaccinated and are just putting them in a single homogeneous generalizing bucket.
Then some are calling for banning them from public spaces, applauding them losing their jobs, and some are happy to imagine scenarios where they're refused medical care and left to die.

The hate is there, as it is pretty much everywhere. Nobody reading the previous pages could think otherwise. And why? In all those replies that try to change the discussion, nobody has anything to say against the _actual _numbers that show the infections and spread from the _vaccinated_. Crickets. Because it would go against those feels and we prefer to scapegoat...

Nobody is forcing anyone to reply on anything of substance, sure. That would take an actual effort and maybe considering some preconceptions are not as right as we thought.... So instead going for personal attacks and deflections and moving the goalposts which ironically is very much the stuff of trolls. Providing an actual reply, numbers and sources and arguments however is not, so some people should really look in the mirror.

Anywhere else on the forum, you'd stalk someone or call someone an asshole and you'd get permabanned - while if you do it against someone daring to say "maybe don't scapegoat all unvaccinated, especially if numbers are showing it's dumb" - it's not only tolerated, but encouraged! I don't mind the attention, but that's extremely unbiased, right


----------



## Shoeless_jose

mbardu said:


> You guys have no ideas of the people who can't or won't get vaccinated and are just putting them in a single homogeneous generalizing bucket.
> Then some are calling for banning them from public spaces, applauding them losing their jobs, and some are happy to imagine scenarios where they're refused medical care and left to die.
> 
> The hate is there, as it is pretty much everywhere. Nobody reading the previous pages could think otherwise. And why? In all those replies that try to change the discussion, nobody has anything to say against the _actual _numbers that show the infections and spread from the _vaccinated_. Crickets. Because it would go against those feels and we prefer to scapegoat...
> 
> Nobody is forcing anyone to reply on anything of substance, sure. That would take an actual effort and maybe considering some preconceptions are not as right as we thought.... So instead going for personal attacks and deflections and moving the goalposts which ironically is very much the stuff of trolls. Providing an actual reply, numbers and sources and arguments however is not, so some people should really look in the mirror.
> 
> Anywhere else on the forum, you'd stalk someone or call someone an asshole and you'd get permabanned - while if you do it against someone daring to say "maybe don't scapegoat all unvaccinated, especially if numbers are showing it's dumb" - it's not only tolerated, but encouraged! I don't mind the attention, but that's extremely unbiased, right



I think there is so much negative feelings towards the anti vaccine people in general because they ask for it.

Any post or news release about vaccines there is without fail people commenting saying it's communism or tyranny calling people sheep linking dumb YouTube videos or random crap about becoming sterile. And they protest at hospitals ect.

Like if you don't want to get it because you are not fully trusting or don't think it's worth it fine. But if going to a restaurant is super important to you just get it then.

We have vaccine passports in Ontario now. I think it's a garbage policy due to still being able to spread when vaccinated so what's the point. But either way it is what it is. It's only the huge portion of ignorant loud anti vaxx people that is generating this vitriol towards them. And it also seems most of these people are also anto mask. And it's like hey if we all had just not been idiots about masks likely wouldn't have gotten so bad to begin with.

But any tiny inconvenience or sacrifice amounts to tyranny to these people.


----------



## StevenC

mbardu said:


> You guys have no ideas of the people who can't or won't get vaccinated and are just putting them in a single homogeneous generalizing bucket.
> Then some are calling for banning them from public spaces, applauding them losing their jobs, and some are happy to imagine scenarios where they're refused medical care and left to die.
> 
> The hate is there, as it is pretty much everywhere. Nobody reading the previous pages could think otherwise. And why? In all those replies that try to change the discussion, nobody has anything to say against the _actual _numbers that show the infections and spread from the _vaccinated_. Crickets. Because it would go against those feels and we prefer to scapegoat...
> 
> Nobody is forcing anyone to reply on anything of substance, sure. That would take an actual effort and maybe considering some preconceptions are not as right as we thought.... So instead going for personal attacks and deflections and moving the goalposts which ironically is very much the stuff of trolls. Providing an actual reply, numbers and sources and arguments however is not, so some people should really look in the mirror.
> 
> Anywhere else on the forum, you'd stalk someone or call someone an asshole and you'd get permabanned - while if you do it against someone daring to say "maybe don't scapegoat all unvaccinated, especially if numbers are showing it's dumb" - it's not only tolerated, but encouraged! I don't mind the attention, but that's extremely unbiased, right


I literally can't get certain vaccines. I'm not allowed because they could kill me. I want people who can get vaccinated to do so because I know far too well about people who can't.


----------



## mbardu

Dineley said:


> I think there is so much negative feelings towards the anti vaccine people in general because they ask for it.
> 
> Any post or news release about vaccines there is without fail people commenting saying it's communism or tyranny calling people sheep linking dumb YouTube videos or random crap about becoming sterile. And they protest at hospitals ect.
> 
> Like if you don't want to get it because you are not fully trusting or don't think it's worth it fine. But if going to a restaurant is super important to you just get it then.
> 
> We have vaccine passports in Ontario now. I think it's a garbage policy due to still being able to spread when vaccinated so what's the point. But either way it is what it is. It's only the huge portion of ignorant loud anti vaxx people that is generating this vitriol towards them. And it also seems most of these people are also anto mask. And it's like hey if we all had just not been idiots about masks likely wouldn't have gotten so bad to begin with.
> 
> But any tiny inconvenience or sacrifice amounts to tyranny to these people.



That's where the generalization is.
There are some loonies and crazy people for sure, but there are crazy people who are vaccinated too, it's not exclusive to one side of the discussion.
From my experience, it's not all unvaccinated people asking for vitriol and screaming dumb conspiracies fron the rooftops. Far from it. It is however the way it's presented in the media, either to get better ratings, or to find a scapegoat, or to try and pass _any and all_ vaccine debate as crazy.

I don't doubt that there is a good number of ignorant antivaxxers, but however I highly doubt they are a majority, and even if they were, i would still not believe it makes sense to punish the others because of them.

Agreed on vaccine passports. They do nothing to stop the spread and are very discriminatory, without any rational backing. We can say "it is what it is, doesn't affect me anyway", but that's always how things start. I'm not screaming "tyranny" from the rooftops but if some people had their way ("non vaccinated shouldn't have jobs or Healthcare"), i know a bunch of people, none of them crazy loonies, for whom that would seriously suck through no fault of their own. And I mean _seriously_ suck. No job, no Healthcare, no way to visit their family...that's not merely minor inconvenience.


----------



## mbardu

StevenC said:


> I literally can't get certain vaccines. I'm not allowed because they could kill me. I want people who can get vaccinated to do so because I know far too well about people who can't.



And if you had tried to read through what i posted, you would have seen I'm also encouraging those who can to get the vaccine. But some people cannot, and you should be well aware of that.

I wonder... if the second vaccine had had a contraindication for you if you would have been so happy to shit on the same people that you are shitting on now... Given that you would have been part of that group.

Anyway... No reason to move the discussion once more. You jumped in to try and disprove my UK example and how it's the vaccinated currently spreading the epidemic. If you have an actual argument against that, please knock yourself out. If not, then at least that part is clear.


----------



## StevenC

mbardu said:


> And if you had tried to read through what i posted, you would have seen I'm also encouraging those who can to get the vaccine. But some people cannot, and you should be well aware of that.
> 
> I wonder... if the second vaccine had had a contraindication for you if you would have been so happy to shit on the same people that you are shitting on now... Given that you would have been part of that group.
> 
> Anyway... No reason to move the discussion once more. You jumped in to try and disprove my UK example and how it's the vaccinated currently spreading the epidemic. If you have an actual argument against that, please knock yourself out. If not, then at least that part is clear.


I literally nearly died and am part of a genetic study over why these reactions are happening. Kindly go fuck yourself.


----------



## mbardu

StevenC said:


> I literally nearly died and am part of a genetic study over why these reactions are happening. Kindly go fuck yourself.



I read through your posts (hence why I said you should be _well aware_ that the vaccine can be problematic) , which is all the more surprising that 1-you believe that people with vaccine issues are somehow the problem and 2-that you are a-ok with scapegoating those who unlike you cannot or won't get the second shot.

Now, I don't see where I insulted you in any way (if I did please show me where) so i don't really understand the outburst... But knock yourself out. Again - easier than answering on substance, as usual. I really don't get the attitude of jumping into the discussion guns blazing, then facing an actual argument or real life numbers; and the only reaction is to play the holier-than-thou card, call the other a troll without argument, and finish with a glorious "fuck you" out of nowhere? How is that discourse ? What has been proven?

As far as I'm concerned, i only wish you the best. Like I only wish the best to the rest of the vaccinated population, as well as the rest of the unvaccinated population too. I'm sure there are crazies or people I disagree with on both sides, but those are complex groups of people and I don't wish harm on them just because CNN or FOX spouted a dumb headline. But to each their own.


----------



## StevenC

mbardu said:


> 1-you believe that people with vaccine issues are somehow the problem


Where did I once say I had a problem with people who can't be vaccinated?


----------



## Adieu

StevenC said:


> I literally nearly died and am part of a genetic study over why these reactions are happening.



Details please?

With all the proper terminology, not simplified layman explanations. I work for big pharma and can decypher it all.


----------



## narad

Adieu said:


> Details please?
> 
> With all the proper terminology, not simplified layman explanations. I work for big pharma and can decypher it all.



Blood got clumpy. Brain got cloggy.


----------



## StevenC

Adieu said:


> Details please?
> 
> With all the proper terminology, not simplified layman explanations. I work for big pharma and can decypher it all.


I received a dose of AstraZeneca in May which resulted in vaccine induced venous sinus thrombosis. Was in ICU for 9 days, had a brain surgery.

The currently understood mechanism is an immune response to the viral vector used in this vaccine. Namely, a chimpanzee cold adenovirus. A very small portion of the population will have this immune reaponse and my blood is currently part of 2 or 3 (I can't remember, I had a headache at the time) genetic studies into why this happens. I will also be part of at least two case studies for the treatment I received which was new at the time and has led to much improved outcomes for me compared to everyone else, these being the drugs and procedures.

I went into hospital on the 10th June and NI health policy on vaccines changed on the 14th as a result.

I don't have any more specifics on the studies, but am happy to answer any other questions you have as best I can.


----------



## mmr007

narad said:


> Blood got clumpy. Brain got cloggy.


Can you dumb it down a shade for me at least? I never asserted that I know the big terminology words


----------



## Adieu

AstraZeneca is 20th century tech, pretty much a Western Sputnik

Try an mRNA vaccine, no chimp viruses there


----------



## StevenC

Adieu said:


> AstraZeneca is 20th century tech, pretty much a Western Sputnik
> 
> Try an mRNA vaccine, no chimp viruses there


Yes, my second dose was Pfizer as that wouldn't kill me. Had that about two months ago, and while I was out for about a week I'm fine now.


----------



## mmr007

Ok my two cents has nothing to do with vaccines. Do it or don't (I believe people have a right to their own bodies whether its putting a vaccine in or taking a fetus out) but I am going to bitch about the masks. Get rid of them NOW!!! Or...or...just a thought....make it mandatory. Not pretend mandatory but for real like they do with seatbelts and seat belt citations issued for not wearing them. See there are many of us who work twelve hours a day dealing with customers and when we say "can you please wear a mask" what they hear is "I'm a liberal and I would like to start a political culture war with you right here and now" We know who is at fault for making this a political issue but here we are now and if you are going to state that masks are essential to turn the tide then do it for real. *Don't make me enforce a mask "mandate"*. Sorry government but if I have to do your job, I am entitled to some of your paycheck.


----------



## mmr007

StevenC said:


> I received a dose of AstraZeneca in May which resulted in vaccine induced venous sinus thrombosis. Was in ICU for 9 days, had a brain surgery.
> 
> The currently understood mechanism is an immune response to the viral vector used in this vaccine. Namely, a chimpanzee cold adenovirus. A very small portion of the population will have this immune reaponse and my blood is currently part of 2 or 3 (I can't remember, I had a headache at the time) genetic studies into why this happens. I will also be part of at least two case studies for the treatment I received which was new at the time and has led to much improved outcomes for me compared to everyone else, these being the drugs and procedures.
> 
> I went into hospital on the 10th June and NI health policy on vaccines changed on the 14th as a result.
> 
> I don't have any more specifics on the studies, but am happy to answer any other questions you have as best I can.


I am very sorry that happened to you. That is terrifying and I am glad you are apparently doing much better.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

mbardu said:


> That's where the generalization is.
> There are some loonies and crazy people for sure, but there are crazy people who are vaccinated too, it's not exclusive to one side of the discussion.
> From my experience, it's not all unvaccinated people asking for vitriol and screaming dumb conspiracies fron the rooftops. Far from it. It is however the way it's presented in the media, either to get better ratings, or to find a scapegoat, or to try and pass _any and all_ vaccine debate as crazy.
> 
> I don't doubt that there is a good number of ignorant antivaxxers, but however I highly doubt they are a majority, and even if they were, i would still not believe it makes sense to punish the others because of them.
> 
> Agreed on vaccine passports. They do nothing to stop the spread and are very discriminatory, without any rational backing. We can say "it is what it is, doesn't affect me anyway", but that's always how things start. I'm not screaming "tyranny" from the rooftops but if some people had their way ("non vaccinated shouldn't have jobs or Healthcare"), i know a bunch of people, none of them crazy loonies, for whom that would seriously suck through no fault of their own. And I mean _seriously_ suck. No job, no Healthcare, no way to visit their family...that's not merely minor inconvenience.



I literally said it's that the crazy ones are the loudest. I know it's nof the majority but the ones who are reasonable you don't hear about because they are just being normal. So all that people see are the nut bars.


----------



## mbardu

Dineley said:


> I literally said it's that the crazy ones are the loudest. I know it's nof the majority but the ones who are reasonable you don't hear about because they are just being normal. So all that people see are the nut bars.



Oh yeah i was agreeing with you on that.

Hence my point that only a _subset_ of those people are shaping the opinion (or the opinion is shaped by only showing _them_ in the media) that the unvaccinated are crazy and at fault. And as a result punishing _all_ of the unvaccinated (loud and crazy or not, unvaccinated by need or by choice), with the consent of the majority. In a situation where they're not even the ones spreading the epidemic at this point.


----------



## StevenC

mbardu said:


> Oh yeah i was agreeing with you on that.
> 
> Hence my point that only a _subset_ of those people are shaping the opinion (or the opinion is shaped by only showing _them_ in the media) that the unvaccinated are crazy and at fault. And as a result punishing _all_ of the unvaccinated (loud and crazy or not, unvaccinated by need or by choice), with the consent of the majority. In a situation where they're not even the ones spreading the epidemic at this point.


You're literally the only person in this thread that has even mentioned attacking people who have legitimate medical exemptions. Meanwhile the rest of us our out here getting vaccinated to protect people with legitimate medical exemptions.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

narad said:


> Blood got clumpy. Brain got cloggy.



I believe the proper term is claggy. If my understanding of GBBO is correct.


----------



## Randy

Adieu said:


> I work for big pharma



Literally terrifying.


----------



## narad

MaxOfMetal said:


> I believe the proper term is claggy. If my understanding of GBBO is correct.



As the kids would say, his brain was off fleek


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Randy said:


> Literally terrifying.



For a lot of reasons.


----------



## StevenC

narad said:


> As the kids would say, his brain was off fleek


The doctors yeeted me better


----------



## SpaceDock

I work for a Fortune 500 company and they told us Friday that everyone has to get vaccinated or will be terminated within the next couple months. Going to the HR meetings is a riot and after seeing how these people conduct themselves, I am looking forward to seeing lots of people get canned.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

SpaceDock said:


> I work for a Fortune 500 company and they told us Friday that everyone has to get vaccinated or will be terminated within the next couple months. Going to the HR meetings is a riot and after seeing how these people conduct themselves, I am looking forward to seeing lots of people get canned.



Same, at least for salaried non-union employees. 

I know someone in HR and the stories of folks freaking out or coming up with the most contrived "religious" exemption is both hilarious and terrifying.


----------



## Empryrean

Y'all hiring?


SpaceDock said:


> I work for a Fortune 500 company and they told us Friday that everyone has to get vaccinated or will be terminated within the next couple months. Going to the HR meetings is a riot and after seeing how these people conduct themselves, I am looking forward to seeing lots of people get canned.


----------



## nightflameauto

Sounds like COVID may take care of our "defund the police" policies. Lots of them are threatening to quit the force if they're given a vaccine mandate. As Jon Oliver said, "Fucking let them."


----------



## Adieu

They better not get any severance pay or early effin pensions

Also, here's a thought, do NOT let them quit, fire em first. Somebody so cowardly and anti-common sense that they can't sack up and bear with a tiny shot that literally BILLIONS of people have received (EVEN when the government tries to make them!) has no business running around with a publicly funded gun and enforcing other things the government makes other people do/not do.


----------



## nightflameauto

Adieu said:


> They better not get any severance pay or early effin pensions
> 
> Also, here's a thought, do NOT let them quit, fire em first. Somebody so cowardly and anti-common sense that they can't sack up and bear with a tiny shot that literally BILLIONS of people have received (EVEN when the government tries to make them!) has no business running around with a publicly funded gun and enforcing other things the government makes other people do/not do.


Nah. Firing leaves them options like unemployment. Quitting leaves them stuck having to scramble for another job. Let the fuckers flail.


----------



## Adieu

Oh yeah. That'll go sooo well.


----------



## bostjan

Got my booster shot scheduled for 9 Nov. Sticking with Moderna. Let's see if I develop a weird, perfectly square rash like last time. If that's the worst side effect, I'll be really happy.


----------



## Adieu

bostjan said:


> Got my booster shot scheduled for 9 Nov. Sticking with Moderna. Let's see if I develop a weird, perfectly square rash like last time. If that's the worst side effect, I'll be really happy.



At the injection spot?

You're allergic to their alcohol wipe and/or bandaid.


----------



## nightflameauto

Adieu said:


> At the injection spot?
> 
> You're allergic to their alcohol wipe and/or bandaid.


Or the glove. Lots of peeps with latex allergies.


----------



## Adieu

nightflameauto said:


> Or the glove. Lots of peeps with latex allergies.



Wouldn't be square


----------



## bostjan

I had talked to Moderna, and they said that it was a very uncommon, yet documented side-effect. I've never had such a reaction to anything ever before or since, and it was only shot #2 that did it. Maybe the shot sensitized the area to something else, but definitely the shot itself was part of the equation.


----------



## Adieu

Various eczema-psoriasis-type stuff can be caused by your mind.

Expectations of side effects stoked by everybody and their grandmother discussing vax SUSARs can literally make your mind create a rash.


----------



## bostjan

Adieu said:


> Various eczema-psoriasis-type stuff can be caused by your mind.
> 
> Expectations of side effects stoked by everybody and their grandmother discussing vax SUSARs can literally make your mind create a rash.


Does that work externally? There are a few people I wouldn't mind giving a mildly annoying rash.


----------



## nightflameauto

"May you break out with a mildly annoying rash," seems like the lamest curse ever.


----------



## Adieu

bostjan said:


> Does that work externally? There are a few people I wouldn't mind giving a mildly annoying rash.



Yes

Open any social network, find a few dozen posts about vaccines probably created by Putin's trolls, and forward them to your "friend" or family member of choice

Or just go with the 5G sh!t, then they can get side effects from something that probably isn't even there in their area, no shot needed.


----------



## Andromalia

Adieu said:


> Or just go with the 5G sh!t


But, I got vaccinated because I was told I'd have a 5G antenna growing out of my ass, which didn't happen. I feel cheated.


----------



## mbardu

Nobody is saying it's about 5G or Putin.



Main message at 2:50, make of that what you will.
Yet.


----------



## donniekak

Wow, bunch of authoritarians in here.

Getting something that'll almost guarantee you won't die from Covid is a good idea. Making that decision for others isnt.


----------



## profwoot

donniekak said:


> Wow, bunch of authoritarians in here.
> 
> Getting something that'll almost guarantee you won't die from Covid is a good idea. Making that decision for others isnt.



...he says from the grave having died of whooping cough and/or mumps years earlier.


----------



## mbardu

donniekak said:


> Wow, bunch of authoritarians in here.
> 
> Getting something that'll almost guarantee you won't die from Covid is a good idea. Making that decision for others isnt.



Don't bother...anything short of literal vaccine worship makes you a dumb rightwing antivax for the general audience here. Even if you actively recommend it to people it's not enough, you have to force everyone (including the ones who need it the least like recent mild infections and kids) to get it, otherwise you're human scum.

I still have gotten a grand total of *0* answer as to why getting the vaccine (which at this point has become almost entirely a personal health decision with no impact on transmission; with everyone acknowledging we won't get to any sort of herd immunity) *should *be enforced to the point of taking livelihood and healthcare from people... If so, then why not enforce other medications? Or lifestyle changes? Or ban all kinds of dangerous activities?
There is 0 argument...but the vaccine-only message has been so drilled into everyone's brain, the unvaccinated have been so vilified, that any discussion of the topic is attacked as heresy. Without arguing or justification. Just attacking.

Don't get me wrong...there are lots of people who are dumb for not getting the vaccine. But there are also a lot of people who are dumb for smoking and drinking too much. Should we take the jobs from the latter group just like we're taking from the unvaccinated? Should we prevent people who eat like shit and don't exercise from traveling and seeing their families?
Or get this, there are huge numbers of people who have been vaccinated months ago and have basically zero protection left against spreading Covid. Yet they are out and about congregating without masks, spreading Covid without any precaution since the vaccination. Should _they _be punished for being reckless?

Nope. It's really simple. Just give a large group of people a single reason to feel superior, drill into their heads for months that they're the better group for doing x or being y... and you can _easily _get a fanatical following a-OK-with-authoritarianism who won't question much. Especially if you provide an easy caricatured scapegoat that they can rage against. A bit scary TBH when you look at precedents.


----------



## mbardu

profwoot said:


> ...he says from the grave having died of whooping cough and/or mumps years earlier.



Yep. By the way I suggest we make _all _life-saving and life-enhancing health and lifestyle decisions mandatory while we're at it, I mean why not?
Alcohol is prohibited. Smokers are not allowed to travel. If you don't exercise 3 times a week, you are fired from your job. If you practice dangerous sports, you are no longer allowed to travel. If you don't take supplements and your mandatory daily schedule of pills, then you no longer are allowed to get health insurance. Sounds like utopia right?

In a world where vaccinated folks are spreading the epidemic, the above makes exactly as much sense as vaccine mandates taking livelihood (and in the US, as a result healthcare) from a pretty large group of people.


----------



## IwantTacos

mbardu said:


> Yep. By the way I suggest we make _all _life-saving and life-enhancing health and lifestyle decisions mandatory while we're at it, I mean why not?
> Alcohol is prohibited. Smokers are not allowed to travel. If you don't exercise 3 times a week, you are fired from your job. If you practice dangerous sports, you are no longer allowed to travel. If you don't take supplements and your mandatory daily schedule of pills, then you no longer are allowed to get health insurance. Sounds like utopia right?
> 
> In a world where vaccinated folks are spreading the epidemic, the above makes exactly as much sense as vaccine mandates taking livelihood (and in the US, as a result healthcare) from a pretty large group of people.



Go smoke and drink at your business office. 

Do it right now.


----------



## mbardu

IwantTacos said:


> Go smoke and drink at your business office.
> 
> Do it right now.



Has what essentially amounts to vaccine propaganda made you incapable to see how this argument makes absolutely 0 sense?

I'll spell it out for you. A smoker can smoke at home (yuck, but to each their own...). He can smoke outside. He can smoke on weekends. He can smoke on his lunch break.
Nobody would even think of starting to suggest to take his job and Healthcare away because sometimes he smokes.

A random dude who has not been vaccinated, but is not spreading the virus any more than his neighbor who got the jab 4 months ago? Let's not try to understand his reasons (he _must_ be a dumb right wing antivax right?) ... let's just straight up ruin _that_ guy's life for literally no societal benefit except satisfying the mob's rage. After all, he's not part of our group. 

Can you seriously not see the point?

Interestingly, the "hur dur look at smokers" "argument" is the one that keeps popping up as so i guess it's....the best argument? But even that one doesn't even _begin_ to make sense.


----------



## IwantTacos

mbardu said:


> Has what essentially amounts to vaccine propaganda made you incapable to see how this argument makes absolutely 0 sense?
> 
> I'll spell it out for you. A smoker can smoke at home (yuck, but to each their own...). He can smoke outside. He can smoke on weekends. He can smoke on his lunch break.
> Nobody would even think of starting to suggest to take his job and Healthcare away because sometimes he smokes.
> 
> A random dude who has not been vaccinated, but is not spreading the virus any more than his neighbor who got the jab 4 months ago? Let's not try to understand his reasons (he _must_ be a dumb right wing antivax right?) ... let's just straight up ruin _that_ guy's life for literally no societal benefit except satisfying the mob's rage. After all, he's not part of our group.
> 
> Can you seriously not see the point?
> 
> Interestingly, the "hur dur look at smokers" "argument" is the one that keeps popping up as so i guess it's....the best argument? But even that one doesn't even _begin_ to make sense.



dude you made the fucking example. 

you can’t smoke in the workplace. You can smoke at home. If you demand to smoke in the workplace. You can’t work no more.


----------



## mbardu

IwantTacos said:


> dude you made the fucking example.
> 
> you can’t smoke in the workplace. You can smoke at home. If you demand to smoke in the workplace. You can’t work no more.



I didn't make the example, it comes up all the time to justify the vaccine mandate and i pointed out how it makes 0 sense. I certainly never said smoking should br allowed in the workplace or in other people's faces. How is that even remotely related to the discussion? 

Did you try reading for real with any sort of good faith? The logic is not complex.

Smokers are putting their health in danger. Yet nobody is taking their job, or Healthcare, or capacity to travel as a result.

Unvaccinated people are putting their health in danger. And everybody is _celebrating_ taking their job, or Healthcare, or capacity to travel as a result. Why is that?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Folks acting like mandatory vaccination for employment is some new scary thing.


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> Folks acting like mandatory vaccination for employment is some new scary thing.



What vaccine has been required as a mandatory condition for employment in a couple hundred million jobs in the US before?
Because that's what's happening and it's new for sure.


----------



## spudmunkey

Honest question: is the testing loophole still included in this mandate proposal?


----------



## IwantTacos

mbardu said:


> I didn't make the example, it comes up all the time to justify the vaccine mandate and i pointed out how it makes 0 sense. I certainly never said smoking should br allowed in the workplace or in other people's faces. How is that even remotely related to the discussion?
> 
> Did you try reading for real with any sort of good faith? The logic is not complex.
> 
> Smokers are putting their health in danger. Yet nobody is taking their job, or Healthcare, or capacity to travel as a result.
> 
> Unvaccinated people are putting their health in danger. And everybody is _celebrating_ taking their job, or Healthcare, or capacity to travel as a result. Why is that?




Are you being obtuse on purpose? Go to work today and smoke a pack of cigs at your desk dude.


----------



## mbardu

IwantTacos said:


> Are you being obtuse on purpose? Go to work today and smoke a pack of cigs at your desk dude.



That's the strawmanest of strawman argument.
I don't smoke and if i did (again, yuck), i would not do it a work. Did i pretend that anybody could do that? No. If i did, show me where, but otherwise stop inventing a nonexistent debate. There's no debate. We all agree people shouldn't smoke in the workplace.

This has absolutely 0 (and i mean zero) connections with vaccine mandates, and nothing to do with how dumb it is to punish someone for a health decision that only impacts them.

Instead of changing the subject, enlighten me if you have a point. How do vaccine mandates help against the pandemic?


----------



## IwantTacos

mbardu said:


> That's the strawmanest of strawman argument.
> I don't smoke and if i did (again, yuck), i would not do it a work. Did i pretend that anybody could do that? No. If i did, show me where, but otherwise stop inventing a nonexistent debate. There's no debate. We all agree people shouldn't smoke in the workplace.
> 
> This has absolutely 0 (and i mean zero) connections with vaccine mandates, and nothing to do with how dumb it is to punish someone for a health decision that only impacts them.
> 
> Instead of changing the subject, enlighten me if you have a point. How do vaccine mandates help against the pandemic?




You get less sick. Less burden on hospitals.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mbardu said:


> What vaccine has been required as a mandatory condition for employment in a couple hundred million jobs in the US before?
> Because that's what's happening and it's new for sure.



Anyone who needs bloodborne pathogen cleanup (healthcare providers, first responders, professional cleaning, sanitation, etc.) is going to have to get the HepB. I know I did when I worked abatement and for EMT qualifications.

The military requires vaccination as well. 

Again, needing vaccination as a condition of employment is not new. The scale might be, but the concept isn't. 

It's just something the white collar workforce hasn't seen much of, even though the greater majority likely needed a host of vaccines to attend public school. 

The government already mandates all sorts of stuff to keep the general public alive. This is no different, aside the political animus.


----------



## mbardu

IwantTacos said:


> You get less sick. Less burden on hospitals.



Right, so absolutely no link with the made up argument of people being allowed to smoke in the office- at least we got that out of the way.

So indeed, until his immunity wanes, a particular individual is less likely to get _very _seriously ill with Covid if he's been vaccinated. Which is great. That's why I'm recommending the vaccine to most people who can benefit from that.

But you know what's actually causing the biggest systemic burden on hospitals always and forever? Heart disease, cancer and accidents. All of which could _significantly _be reduced by exercising/not smoking/eating less crap/wearing sunscreen/not consuming alcohol and tobacco/not taking part in dangerous activities. In fact I also recommend that people apply most _those _rules.
People who don't apply those rules, they are making a decision that is impacting their health negatively, and risking to put a burden on the health system. As a result, are they being deprived of their job? Of healthcare? Of ability to travel? Nope.
People not getting the vaccine are making a decision that is impacting their health negatively, and risking to put burden on the health system. Those people that we scapegoat are being deprived of their job, their healthcare, their ability to travel etc.
Why the difference?
It's certainly not a matter of magnitude. Cancer and heart disease still killed 6 times more people in the US than Covid in 2020, and are arguably chronic diseases with way heavier lifetime burden on the healthcare system. It's not a matter of who's impacted. Cancer and heart diseases disproportionately affect the fragile and elderly...but so does Covid. It's not a matter of capacity to change health outcomes with prevention. All the lifestyle changes above are shown to significantly save lives and reduce the burden on the healthcare system.

So why only punish the non vaccinated for that specific health choice?
Let's punish everyone not having a healthy lifestyle! Why not, if the argument is personal health choice impacting your health and the health system.


----------



## IwantTacos

mbardu said:


> Right, so absolutely no link with the made up argument of people being allowed to smoke in the office- at least we got that out of the way.
> 
> So indeed, until his immunity wanes, a particular individual is less likely to get _very _seriously ill with Covid if he's been vaccinated. Why is great. That's why I'm recommending the vaccine to most people who can benefit from that.
> 
> But you know what's actually causing the biggest systemic burden on hospitals always and forever? Heart disease, cancer and accidents. All of which could _significantly _be reduced by exercising/not smoking/eating less crap/wearing sunscreen/not consuming alcohol and tobacco/not taking part in dangerous activities. In fact I also recommend that people apply most _those _rules.
> People who don't apply those rules, they are making a decision that is impacting their health negatively, and risking to put a burden on the health system. As a result, are they being deprived of their job? Of healthcare? Of ability to travel? Nope.
> People not getting the vaccine are making a decision that is impacting their health negatively, and risking to put burden on the health system. Those people that we scapegoat are being deprived of their job, their healthcare, their ability to travel etc.
> Why the difference?
> It's certainly not a matter of magnitude. Cancer and heart disease still killed 6 times more people in the US than Covid in 2020, and are arguably chronic diseases with way heavier lifetime burden on the healthcare system. It's not a matter of who's impacted. Cancer and heart diseases disproportionately affect the fragile and elderly...but so does Covid. It's not a matter of capacity to change health outcomes with prevention. All the lifestyle changes above are shown to significantly save lives and reduce the burden on the healthcare system.
> 
> So why only punish the non vaccinated for that specific health choice?
> Let's punish everyone not having a healthy lifestyle! Why not, if the argument is personal health choice impacting your health and the health system.




dude you are literally the 

COVID vaccine why don’t they give cancer medication away for free meme right now.


----------



## mbardu

IwantTacos said:


> dude you are literally the
> 
> COVID vaccine why don’t they give cancer medication away for free meme right now.



Again, you missed 100% of the point; and if you insist on changing the discussion once more- in fact I'd 100% be onboard with free Cancer medication- or healthcare in general in the US.

This has nothing to do with the discussion though. The discussion is about forcing a personal preventative healthcare measure on people under threat of losing job/healthcare etc...
And applying that logic selectively only to unvaccinated whereas the exact same logic could apply to all the other lifestyle or health choices I listed.


----------



## IwantTacos

mbardu said:


> Again, you missed 100% of the point; and if you insist on changing the discussion once more- in fact I'd 100% be onboard with free Cancer medication- or healthcare in general in the US.
> 
> This has nothing to do with the discussion though. The discussion is about forcing a personal preventative healthcare measure on people under threat of losing job/healthcare etc...
> And applying that logic selectively only to unvaccinated whereas the exact same logic could apply to all the other lifestyle or health choices I listed.



Sure the government should do all that other stuff to. Where do I petition. Change.org ok?


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> Anyone who needs bloodborne pathogen cleanup (healthcare providers, first responders, professional cleaning, sanitation, etc.) is going to have to get the HepB. I know I did when I worked abatement and for EMT qualifications.
> 
> The military requires vaccination as well.
> 
> Again, needing vaccination as a condition of employment is not new. The scale might be, but the concept isn't.
> 
> It's just something the white collar workforce hasn't seen much of, even though the greater majority likely needed a host of vaccines to attend public school.
> 
> The government already mandates all sorts of stuff to keep the general public alive. This is no different, aside the political animus.



Sure, a subset of pretty specific jobs, in a subset of states, have been either demanding, or offering (which is very different) some vaccines such as Hep B vaccines to employees for a long time. But that's very _very _far from the current proposal. Add to that, those are jobs which have been known to require vaccination and people made those career decision with that information at hand. Nobody forced people to go into healthcare as far as I'm aware.

As of today, the proposal is to extend that to virtually *all jobs*, after the fact, with no exceptions - and with no career alternatives. So maybe we can say "similar things have kinda been done in the past" but at some point scale and consequences matter and this is _absolutely _unprecedented. Totally new. Like... "sure we were able to communicate instantly over long distances with the telegraph in the 1840s...but I'm not going to say that having smartphones on the internet in the 2000s is not a major difference  " kinda new.
Add to that that healthcare is linked to employment in the US, and maybe it's not scary for you and for me, but it is scary for many people.

And there is absolutely no need to bring politics for the sake of politics into the argument. This just has never been done before, politics or not.

What purpose does the mandate serve exactly? An ermit who works from home and hasn't got the vaccine will lose his job, while people working in healthcare or in food service who have been vaccinated 4 months ago are free to spread Covid to hundreds everyday because they're just as infectious?

Oh but the argument is to protect people from themselves and to help keep individuals in the general public alive?
Sure, but then also mandate healthy eating, stop alcohol and tobacco sales, force people to exercise etc. What's the difference?
Oh yeah of course- The only difference is that the unvaccinated is an easy scapegoat.


----------



## mbardu

IwantTacos said:


> Sure the government should do all that other stuff to. Where do I petition. Change.org ok?



OK that's fine then.

If you're OK for the government to monitor the citizens' eating habits, forbid alcohol and tobacco, make fitness and exercise mandatory, punish people for dangerous sports and hobbies, and make all new prophylactics mandatory, then at least you're consistent. If that's you're thinking, it makes sense to support vaccine mandates.

It's _definitely _authoritarian, as the other poster said - but if you have no issue with being authoritarian, then at least it's consistent.


----------



## IwantTacos

mbardu said:


> OK that's fine then.
> 
> If you're OK for the government to monitor the citizens' eating habits, forbid alcohol and tobacco, make fitness and exercise mandatory, punish people for dangerous sports and hobbies, and make all new prophylactics mandatory, then at least you're consistent. If that's you're thinking, it makes sense to support vaccine mandates.
> 
> It's _definitely _authoritarian, as the other poster said - but if you have no issue with being authoritarian, then at least it's consistent.



I mean the government already does a shitload of this stuff when it’s convenient and not blocked by corporate lobbyists. But sure what you said.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mbardu said:


> Sure, a subset of pretty specific jobs, in a subset of states, have been either demanding, or offering (which is very different) some vaccines such as Hep B vaccines to employees for a long time. But that's very _very _far from the current proposal. Add to that, those are jobs which have been known to require vaccination and people made those career decision with that information at hand. Nobody forced people to go into healthcare as far as I'm aware.
> 
> As of today, the proposal is to extend that to virtually *all jobs*, after the fact, with no exceptions - and with no career alternatives. So maybe we can say "similar things have kinda been done in the past" but at some point scale and consequences matter and this is _absolutely _unprecedented. Totally new. Add to that that healthcare is linked to employment in the US, and maybe it's not scary for you and for me, but it is scary for many people.
> 
> And there is absolutely no need to bring politics for the sake of politics into the argument. This just has never been done before.
> 
> What purpose does the mandate serve exactly? An ermit who works from home and hasn't got the vaccine will lose his job, while people working in healthcare or in food service who have been vaccinated 4 months ago are free to spread Covid to hundreds everyday because they're just as infectious?
> 
> Oh but the argument is to protect people from themselves and to help keep individuals in the general public alive?
> Sure, but then also mandate healthy eating, stop alcohol and tobacco sales, force people to exercise etc. What's the difference?
> Oh yeah of course- The only difference is that the unvaccinated is an easy scapegoat.



Qualifications of employment can shift. I used to not have to where HiViz, now I do.

Again, it's a long standing concept.


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> Qualifications of employment can shift. I used to not have to where HiViz, now I do.
> 
> Again, it's a long standing concept.



Are you arguing semantics or small examples for the heck of it? The criteria, scale and magnitude of impact is unprecedented, and criteria, scale and magnitude are what matters at the end of the day. It's going from "some exceptions" to "virtually every possible job". Which in the US means healthcare for whole families.

I don't get the "haha but there's something similar which is not new" argument as if that's changing how important of a change that is. Is that a logical defense?
Would "The death penalty has been around forever in the US" be an acceptable argument to justify "now all misdemeanors will be punishable by death on the spot" Dredd-style?

And again- for what purpose?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mbardu said:


> Are you arguing semantics or small examples for the heck of it? The criteria, scale and magnitude of impact is unprecedented, and criteria, scale and magnitude are what matters at the end of the day. It's going from "some exceptions" to "virtually every possible job". Which in the US means healthcare.
> 
> I don't get the "haha but there's something similar which is not new" argument as if that's changing how important of a change that is. Is that a logical defense?
> Would "The death penalty has been around forever in the US" be an acceptable argument to justify "now all misdemeanors will be punishable by death on the spot" Dredd-style?
> 
> And again- for what purpose?



Is it any dumber of a comparison to say that folks become office workers so they don't have to get vaccinated?

Again, millions of jobs and careers require vaccination, as do the millions of children attending public school. If most folks were so worried about "authoritarian forced vaccination", why nothing until Covid outside of fringe circles?

Additionally, millions of jobs shift their EHS requirements to keep up with the changing world, whether that means safety equipment, banning of certain chemicals, or a vaccination.

The US civilian labor force is 160M depending on who you ask. Give me some numbers. Who are "losing" here? How many are your theoretical hermit?


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> Is it any dumber of a comparison to say that folks become office workers so they don't have to get vaccinated?
> 
> Again, millions of jobs and careers require vaccination, as do the millions of children attending public school. If most folks were so worried about "authoritarian forced vaccination", why nothing until Covid outside of fringe circles?
> 
> Additionally, millions of jobs shift their EHS requirements to keep up with the changing world, whether that means safety equipment, banning of certain chemicals, or a vaccination.
> 
> The US civilian labor force is 160M depending on who you ask. Give me some numbers. Who are "losing" here? How many are your theoretical hermit?



You gave some numbers yourself. Labor force in the US at 160M. Healthcare worker + law enforcement (and associated) + military is probably under 30M, and out of those, vaccine rules hardly cover 100%. Even if we had 30M people requiring vaccines for their jobs, it would now be 4 times that, 120M+ overnight (companies > 100 employees, working with the federal government etc). And not only that, but they are also very specialized careers that don't have a lot of overlap with other parts of the workforce.
Yeah, requirements change over time, but that's usually gradual, over a long time, and not without rhyme or reason to go from minority to majority. And usually in a homogeneous way, not a one-size-fits all suddenly to virtually _all _jobs.

Let's say the pool of jobs you could work in is 10. If the ones accessible to you go down from 9 to 8, it's no big deal. If they go from 9 to 1 or 0.5, it's an entirely different story.
Scale and magnitude and criteria matter, it's not just a vague soup of "some similar things have been done at smaller scale in the past".

It's like your high-viz example. The actual _matter _of the mandate matters too. I've never heard people with fundamental concerns about hig vizs, but I know some people do care about what they put in their body. Also- I don't mind vaccines and I'm lucky to not have issue with side effects, but I know people who've had effects - just like Steve whatever here by the way, and I can't fault someone for being hesitant to get a second dose after the first one gave them a seizure or a month in the hospital. Especially since the only option some people are given to check if they'll have side effects the second time too is "just get the second dose and you'll see if you have side effects or not" 

And again- for what purpose?
Why are we forcing the vaccine through coercive mandate? It's not going to prevent the spread.
And there's no objective reason to punish the unvaccinated vs other people who take bad personal health decisions.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mbardu said:


> You gave some numbers yourself. Labor force in the US at 160M. Healthcare worker + law enforcement (and associated) + military is probably under 30M, and out of those, vaccine rules hardly cover 100%. Even if we had 30M people requiring vaccines for their jobs, it would now be 4 times that, 120M+ overnight (companies > 100 employees, working with the federal government etc). And not only that, but they are also very specialized careers that don't have a lot of overlap with other parts of the workforce.
> Yeah, requirements change over time, but that's usually gradual, over a long time, and not without rhyme or reason to go from minority to majority. And usually in a homogeneous way, not a one-size-fits all suddenly to virtually _all _jobs.
> 
> Let's say the pool of jobs you could work in is 10. If the ones accessible to you go down from 9 to 8, it's no big deal. If they go from 9 to 1 or 0.5, it's an entirely different story.
> Scale and magnitude and criteria matter, it's not just a vague soup of "some similar things have been done at smaller scale in the past".
> 
> It's like your high-viz example. The actual _matter _of the mandate matters too. I've never heard people with fundamental concerns about hig vizs, but I know some people do care about what they put in their body. I don't mind vaccines and I'm lucky to not have issue with side effects, but I know people who've had effects similar to Steve whatever here, and I can't fault them for being hesitant to get a second dose after the first one gave them a seizure. Especially since the only option they are given to check if they'll have side effects the second time too is "just get the second dose and you'll see if you have side effects or not"
> 
> And again- for what purpose?
> Why are we forcing the vaccine through coercive mandate? It's not going to prevent the spread.
> And there's no objective reason to punish the unvaccinated vs other people who take bad personal health decisions.



Do your numbers take into account the number of companies that already have vaccination mandates or the overall amount of the workforce already vaccinated? It seems like those are important points. 

Can you give me a couple articles that show the vaccine doesn't at all prevent spread, or that said spread's individual impact is lesser?


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> Do your numbers take into account the number of companies that already have vaccination mandates or the overall amount of the workforce already vaccinated? It seems like those are important points.
> 
> Can you give me a couple articles that show the vaccine doesn't at all prevent spread, or that said spread's individual impact is lesser?



I'm not trying to count the number of vaccinated people vs unvaccinated. Literally just looking at the _proportional _change in what jobs will now require a vaccine vs before - which is drastic. That plus essentially the lack of overlap with the jobs which _used _to require vaccination. So private vaccine mandates or percentage of the population covered is not really the point.

Not saying it will be a heavy burden on the labor force _as a whole_ as it's not my concern- just that it will be a very unfair measure to a good number of people, even if that number is not huge in absolute terms. And we don't do it to other groups who make less than optimal health and lifestyle choices. So it reeks of scapegoating.
I get it, with more people vaccinated, that's less and less people to worry about. And who cares - after all it's fun to imagine they're all only dumb antivax Trumpers and to find a scapegoat, right? They can just lose their jobs/lose their healthcare/drop dead for all we care, right? Well I'm not really onboard with that attitude as far as I'm concerned.

I'd say the push for useless mandates also reeks of "trying to _look _like you're doing something" (while the thing is far from being under control...) and/or of lobbyists trying to sell as many doses as possible (especially when you look at most other countries recommending against vaccinating kids or against mandates, or being way less heavy handed), but I'll be cautious with that one lest I'm again called a tinfoil-wearing conspiracist.

After all, we all know that big pharma is all bad, _except _when it comes to vaccines, that regulatory capture is terrible, _except _for the vaccines experts, that lobbyists are awful, _except _when they're lobbying for vaccines, and that the single-voiced media machine is very dumb, _except _when it's pushing vaccine-only-and-for-all.

There were numbers shared a couple of pages back of UK Covid showing infections were not relatively more caused by unvaccinated on a proportional basis (pretty even depending on age groups). Just before the video of BoJo saying the quiet part out loud ("two vaccine doses will _not _prevent you from getting and transmitting Covid"). But if you want more numbers there's a study on a lot of different vaccines with a pretty long time horizon that shows varying but sometimes drastic drop (to statistically 0 for some vaccines) in vaccine protection against infections.

Interesting wording for the "it prevents against severe forms" argument in that paper by the way: "_The effectiveness against severe illness seems to remain high through 9 months, although not for men, older frail individuals, and individuals with comorbidities_". Which as usual is a totally-not-weird, not-unbiased-at-all way to say "Most people will see their risk of severe illness rise, excepting only middle-aged women in good health without any comorbidity".
Considering the risk of comorbidities and age pyramid in developed countries, they make it sound like effectiveness remains high for a _majority _of individuals, while the category that _does _actually keep a good differential protection constitutes about 15-20% of the entire population.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mbardu said:


> I'm not trying to count the number of vaccinated people vs unvaccinated. Literally just looking at the _proportional _change in what jobs will now require a vaccine vs before - which is drastic. That plus essentially the lack of overlap with the jobs which _used _to require vaccination. So private vaccine mandates or percentage of the population covered is not really the point.
> 
> Not saying it will be a heavy burden on the labor force _as a whole_ as it's not my concern- just that it will be a very unfair measure to a good number of people, even if that number is not huge in absolute terms. And we don't do it to other groups who make less than optimal health and lifestyle choices. So it reeks of scapegoating.
> I get it, with more people vaccinated, that's less and less people to worry about. And who cares - after all it's fun to imagine they're all only dumb antivax Trumpers and to find a scapegoat, right? They can just lose their jobs/lose their healthcare/drop dead for all we care, right? Well I'm not really onboard with that attitude as far as I'm concerned.
> 
> I'd say the push for useless mandates also reeks of "trying to _look _like you're doing something" (while the thing is far from being under control...) and/or of lobbyists trying to sell as many doses as possible (especially when you look at most other countries recommending against vaccinating kids or against mandates, or being way less heavy handed), but I'll be cautious with that one lest I'm again called a tinfoil-wearing conspiracist.
> 
> After all, we all know that big pharma is all bad, _except _when it comes to vaccines, that regulatory capture is terrible, _except _for the vaccines experts, that lobbyists are awful, _except _when they're lobbying for vaccines, and that the single-voiced media machine is very dumb, _except _when it's pushing vaccine-only-and-for-all.
> 
> I've shared some numbers of UK Covid showing infections were not relatively more caused by unvaccinated on a proportional basis (pretty even depending on age groups) before the video of BoJo saying the part out loud ("two vaccine doses will not prevent you from getting and transmitting Covid"), but if you want more numbers there's a study on a lot of different vaccines with a pretty long time horizon that shows varying but sometimes drastic drop (to statistically 0) in vaccine protection against infections.
> 
> Interesting wording for the "it prevents against sever forms" argument in that paper by the way: "_The effectiveness against severe illness seems to remain high through 9 months, although not for men, older frail individuals, and individuals with comorbidities_". Which as usual is a totally-not-weird, not-unbiased-at-all way to say "Most people will see their risk of severe illness rise, excepting only middle-aged women in good health without any comorbidity".
> Considering the risk of comorbidities and age pyramid in developed countries, they make it sound like effectiveness remains high for a _majority _of individuals, while the category that _does _actually keeps a good differential protection constitutes about 15-20% of the entire population.



So if the impact isn't going to be disastrous, or even bad from the sounds of it, and there is some benefit you're saying we shouldn't do it because some folks may have an axe to grind?


----------



## Andromalia

mbardu said:


> Not saying it will be a heavy burden on the labor force _as a whole_ as it's not my concern- just that it will be a very unfair measure to a good number of people, even if that number is not huge in absolute terms. And we don't do it to other groups who make less than optimal health and lifestyle choices. So it reeks of scapegoating.



There are a shitton of other mandatory vaccines, it's just one more. The main issue being, a very small % of unvaccinated people force the rest to alter their lifestyle to suit their refusal of being vaccinated. 
Not being vaccinated is not a "less than optimal lifestyle choice", it's willingly accepting the risk of becoming a contamination vector for a sickness that has been known to kill.

It's the same as smoking: you're welcome to smoke, in your home, away from me. If you want to go into places with other people, you just don't smoke, and most civilised places enforce that nowadays. You're also welcome to stay non vaccinated if you stay on your own fucking desert island with nobody else to suffer for it.


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> So if the impact isn't going to be disastrous, or even bad from the sounds of it, and there is some benefit you're saying we shouldn't do it because some folks may have an axe to grind?



Nope, clearly I'm not saying that. We can't quantify the benefit. And after all, "vaccinated peopleare protected against serious forms" is now the message so there's probably not a lot to worrry about in the first place, right 
But anyway, even if we could quantify, I'm not big on the "They came for the few unvaccinated but I did not speak out because I was vaccinated" theme. To each his own though.


----------



## mbardu

Andromalia said:


> There are a shitton of other mandatory vaccines, it's just one more. The main issue being, a very small % of unvaccinated people force the rest to alter their lifestyle to suit their refusal of being vaccinated.
> Not being vaccinated is not a "less than optimal lifestyle choice", it's willingly accepting the risk of becoming a contamination vector for a sickness that has been known to kill.
> 
> It's the same as smoking: you're welcome to smoke, in your home, away from me. If you want to go into places with other people, you just don't smoke, and most civilised places enforce that nowadays. You're also welcome to stay non vaccinated if you stay on your own fucking desert island with nobody else to suffer for it.



You're a bit late on the narrative. The vaccinated are just as likely to get and transmit Covid just a few weeks after vaccination, so the message is no longer "get vaccinated to slow the spread" but instead has shifted to "get vaccinated to protect _yourself _against severe forms of the disease".

Vaccinated people who got their shots 6 months ago and now take no precautions (masking or distancing) are more likely to spread the virus than unvaccinated folks who stay at home and are very careful with other measures when they do go out.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mbardu said:


> Nope, clearly I'm not saying that. We can't quantify the benefit. And after all, "vaccinated peopleare protected against serious forms" is now the message so there's probably not a lot to worrry about in the first place, right
> But anyway, even if we could quantify, I'm not big on the "They came for the few unvaccinated but I did not speak out because I was vaccinated" theme. To each his own though.



So it's a branding problem?


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> So it's a branding problem?



I have no idea what you mean by branding, here.
The "problem" is a number of people are being punished through no fault of their own and under false pretenses, with consequences that are far from minor (losing livelihood and healthcare for a family in the US is not negligible).

It's fine if you want to go "there's not too many of them so who cares, plus some of them are dumb antivaxers".
As far as I'm concerned, I'll still think it's very unfair to the people unfortunate to be in that situation.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mbardu said:


> I have no idea what you mean by branding, here.
> The "problem" is a number of people are being punished through no fault of their own and under false pretenses, with consequences that are far from minor (losing livelihood and healthcare for a family in the US is not negligible).
> 
> It's fine if you want to go "there's not too many of them so who cares, plus some of them are dumb antivaxers".
> As far as I'm concerned, I'll still think it's very unfair to the people unfortunate to be in that situation.



Are they just being punished or are they being given a choice?

I just don't see the vaccine as a "punishment", which is probably the disconnect here.


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> Are they just being punished or are they being given a choice?



Let's say tomorrow alcohol and tobacco are forbidden. You must show proof of mandatory exercise 3 times a week and refrain for eating anything unhealthy. You must also take mandated antidepressants to enhance the overall mood of the population. You can refuse to comply, but you lose your livelihood and healthcare for your family.
Say you love burgers and whisky and cigars and don't exercise...
Say you're _a bit_ uncomfortable with taking the medicine...

Are you being punished or are you "given a choice"?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mbardu said:


> Let's say tomorrow it's alcohol and tobacco are forbidden. You must show proof of mandatory exercise 3 times a week and refrain for eating anything unhealthy. You must also take mandated antidepressants to enhance the overall mood of the population.
> You can refuse to comply, but you lose your livelihood and healthcare for your family.
> If you love burgers and whisky and cigars and don't exercise...are you being punished or are you given a choice?



I mean might as well include aliens and dragons in there somewhere because it's just as silly. 

And yeah, if you like your whiskey and cigars enough to choose them over your family, you probably have a problem.


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> I mean might as well include aliens and dragons in there somewhere because it's just as silly.
> 
> And yeah, if you like your whiskey and cigars enough to choose them over your family, you probably have a problem.



It's obviously a silly thought experiment. But it's the same question.
The part about forcing health choices on you for the "greater" good is also _pretty much_ what the mandate is about too, once the transmission benefits are minimal.
Now- of course you'd choose your family. But you'd be punished nonetheless.
That's what mandates are counting on. Coercion. If you think that's a good way to govern, again - to each their own.

Might seem dumb or foreign to you to consider the vaccine choice a punishment, but there are people with severe issues with vaccines.
Let's say you're like Steve whatever and have a very big issue with your first dose- or even a prior vaccination. And the only option you have is _still _to go through a second dose of vaccine. "Hoping" it won't be bad the second time around. I bet you'd be a _tad_ nervous about the second dose. All for a disease that may have been very mild or asymptomatic for you, whereas your side effects have been very real.
"Oh but it's a rare scenario". I personally know 3 people who've had severe vaccine reactions (granted- not all Covid). And if I'm not mistaken we've seen a number of vaccine side effects on this very forum, whereas we've seen no severe form of Covid. Anecdotes of course!
By the way, before knowing those 3 people, I would also never have imagined why someone would be opposed to or on the fence about a vaccine, or would have considered such a choice a punishment.

At the end of the day, it's just a matter of putting oneself into someone else's shoes and not just thinking "they must be dumb antivaxxers, so just let them die" which a number of people here tend to do.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mbardu said:


> It's obviously a silly thought experiment. But it's the same question.
> The part about forcing health choices on you for the "greater" good is also _pretty much_ what the mandate is about though, once the transmission benefits are minimal.
> Now- of course you'd choose your family. But you'd be punished nonetheless.
> That's what mandates are counting on. Coercion. If you think that's a good way to govern, again - to each their own.
> 
> Might seem dumb or foreign to you to consider the vaccine choice a punishment, but there are people with severe issues with vaccines.
> Let's say you're like Steve whatever and have a very big issue with your first dose- or even a prior vaccination. And the only option you have is _still _to go through a second dose of vaccine. "Hoping" it won't be bad the second time around. I bet you'd be a _tad_ nervous about the second dose. All for a disease that may have been very mild or asymptomatic for you, whereas your side effects have been very real.
> "Oh but it's a rare scenario". I personally know 3 people who've had severe vaccine reactions (granted- not all Covid), and if I'm not mistaken we've seen a number of vaccine side effects on this very forum, whereas we've seen no severe form of Covid. Anecdotes of course!
> 
> At the end of the day, it's just a matter of putting oneself into someone else's shoes and not just thinking "they must be dumb antivaxxers, so just let them die" which a number of people here tend to do.



I haven't seen a single large scale mandate that didn't allow for medical exceptions, have you? Most seem to offer religious exceptions and a test-out option too, but not all.


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> I haven't seen a single large scale mandate that didn't allow for medical exceptions, have you? Most seem to offer religious exceptions and a test-out option too, but not all.



It's really not that easy to get an exception. We have examples of people who nearly died from the vaccine, and yet still have to go through with a second dose. I know physicians in California who would want to, yet cannot give exemptions because doing so easily makes them persecuted by their board.

It's a spectrum too. Maybe based on your genetics and personal/family history your chance to go into a coma because of vaccination is "around 1%". Well if you're otherwise healthy, if protection against transmission only lasts a couple of weeks, and the disease you're vaccinating against is only 0.01% likely to affect you badly...then maybe it's not a great risk/reward choice? It's sometimes tricky and then you add shitty manufactured tradeoffs on top of that like "i have a 1% chance to end up in a coma, but I have to do it to keep my job i guess"... Yikes...
There's a whole continuum of cases, it's not all black or white as we think.


----------



## StevenC

I nearly died from the vaccine and was given the option to not get a second dose of a different vaccine, or get all the rights of a double vaccinated person through exemption.

I chose to get a second dose because I'm a responsible member of society.


----------



## donniekak

mbardu said:


> Yep. By the way I suggest we make _all _life-saving and life-enhancing health and lifestyle decisions mandatory while we're at it, I mean why not?
> Alcohol is prohibited. Smokers are not allowed to travel. If you don't exercise 3 times a week, you are fired from your job. If you practice dangerous sports, you are no longer allowed to travel. If you don't take supplements and your mandatory daily schedule of pills, then you no longer are allowed to get health insurance. Sounds like utopia right?
> 
> In a world where vaccinated folks are spreading the epidemic, the above makes exactly as much sense as vaccine mandates taking livelihood (and in the US, as a result healthcare) from a pretty large group of people.





IwantTacos said:


> Go smoke and drink at your business office.
> 
> Do it right now.





IwantTacos said:


> dude you made the fucking example.
> 
> you can’t smoke in the workplace. You can smoke at home. If you demand to smoke in the workplace. You can’t work no more.


False equivalence


----------



## donniekak

StevenC said:


> I nearly died from the vaccine and was given the option to not get a second dose of a different vaccine, or get all the rights of a double vaccinated person through exemption.
> 
> I chose to get a second dose because I'm a responsible member of society.


How does getting a shot that doesn't stop transmission make you a good boy?


----------



## donniekak

MaxOfMetal said:


> Folks acting like mandatory vaccination for employment is some new scary thing.


I've never needed a shot record for any job I've ever had.


----------



## donniekak

MaxOfMetal said:


> Qualifications of employment can shift. I used to not have to where HiViz, now I do.
> 
> Again, it's a long standing concept.


I own my own business, have already had Covid, and live in a rural area. How does me getting a vaccine help anyone? It's taking a dose from someone who actually needs it.


----------



## IwantTacos

donniekak said:


> I own my own business, have already had Covid, and live in a rural area. How does me getting a vaccine help anyone? It's taking a dose from someone who actually needs it.



Yup sounds about right to me.


----------



## IwantTacos

donniekak said:


> False equivalence



Listen here smooth brain you are at all times prohibited from doing a huge number of actions that can harm yourself or others in public places or private businesses.


----------



## StevenC

donniekak said:


> I own my own business, have already had Covid, and live in a rural area. How does me getting a vaccine help anyone? It's taking a dose from someone who actually needs it.


There are currently enough doses in the place you probably live that this is a bad faith argument.

Bring back the 50 post minimum for posting in here.


----------



## donniekak

MaxOfMetal said:


> Are they just being punished or are they being given a choice?
> 
> I just don't see the vaccine as a "punishment", which is probably the disconnect here.


One of my close friends almost lost his son in law. He was forced to get the vaccine by his university, and was later rushed to hospital with pericarditis.

Young males are the only group where the debate between side effects, and Covid effects seem to be a wash. So why force them to take an unneeded risk?


----------



## donniekak

StevenC said:


> There are currently enough doses in the place you probably live that this is a bad faith argument.
> 
> Bring back the 50 post minimum for posting in here.


Always the view of the left, "shut them up". Censorship lovers.


----------



## donniekak

IwantTacos said:


> Yup sounds about right to me.


What, successful?


----------



## StevenC

donniekak said:


> How does getting a shot that doesn't stop transmission make you a good boy?


It does reduce transmission. 


donniekak said:


> Always the view of the left, "shut them up". Censorship lovers.


I didn't say that. This is a guitar forum, being able to engage in other conversations is a privilege you gain by proving you can be a civil human being in other theatres.


----------



## nightflameauto

These last few pages are so scattered it's like somebody's deleting every second post or something. WTF guys? If I can't see my COVID rants and lunacy in total, what's the point?


----------



## StevenC

donniekak said:


> Young males are the only group where the debate between side effects, and Covid effects seem to be a wash. So why force them to take an unneeded risk?


You are bad at maths.


----------



## IwantTacos

nightflameauto said:


> These last few pages are so scattered it's like somebody's deleting every second post or something. WTF guys? If I can't see my COVID rants and lunacy in total, what's the point?



it's all there. it's not my fault mbardu likes to selectively respond to things.


----------



## bostjan

The world just keeps getting wackier and more polarized to the extremes.

Honestly, I have very mixed feelings about vaccine mandates, but, let's be objective. There are ways to avoid the mandate: get tested weekly, work from home, quit your job, etc.



donniekak said:


> I own my own business, have already had Covid, and live in a rural area. How does me getting a vaccine help anyone? It's taking a dose from someone who actually needs it.



Simple: if you get vaccinated you are #1 less likely to transmit the virus than if you don't get vaccinated, at least for a period of time, and #2 you are less likely to be hospitalized from a second covid infection, at least for a period of time.

There are plenty of vaccines available, because there are plenty of people like you who refuse to take it.




mbardu said:


> Let's say tomorrow alcohol and tobacco are forbidden. You must show proof of mandatory exercise 3 times a week and refrain for eating anything unhealthy. You must also take mandated antidepressants to enhance the overall mood of the population. You can refuse to comply, but you lose your livelihood and healthcare for your family.
> Say you love burgers and whisky and cigars and don't exercise...
> Say you're _a bit_ uncomfortable with taking the medicine...
> 
> Are you being punished or are you "given a choice"?



Sounds like life in the military, which, if you were male and of a certain age prior to the 1980's, was mandatory, meaning you don't have a choice.

And I'm not saying that we need to return to that, but it's a pretty strong point of defense for @MaxOfMetal 's point that this is not really anything new.

This whole argument about how mandatory vaccines is like/is nothing like banning smoking in the workplace is weird to me. In a lot of ways, it _is_ like banning smoking. Smokers in the work place can't smoke around their coworkers for the health and safety of those other coworkers. It's exactly the same argument for vaccines. If you want to smoke, you do it away from other workers. If you want to be unvaccinated, you can do that away from other coworkers, too, by working from home and getting tested before and face-to-face. The obvious difference is that you can smoke in the smoke shack and come into the office no longer actively smoking, but you can't be unvaccinated at home, then be vaccinated only when around others. I'm not sure what the point of the argument is, really, though, to be honest.

And, as far as other workplaces requiring vaccines, aside from the military, my current employer requires me to have a certain vaccine, and has for years. One of my previous jobs was with a governmental agency, and required a bit of international travel, and I was required to get a whole slew of vaccines. Aside from that, schools also require vaccines and schooling is mandatory, so I don't really get how that line of argument gets us anywhere further from the present state.

The SCotUS has already made rulings in the past about vaccine requirements, and has upheld the government's power to require under criminal penalty for people to take vaccines, so, technically, under current case law, Biden could have a squad of soldiers go door to door and vaccinate people under penalty of arrest under refusal to comply, but we are nowhere near that, even if people are acting like it. Presently, if you don't want to get the vaccine, all you have to do is either a) get tested regularly or b) work for a smaller company or c) retire and just stay home and never go anywhere. 

The vaccine does work, in that it reduces transmission by some amount (less than desirable, but it's something) and it does reduce the chance of infection (quite drastically at first, but seems to lose efficacy after what is considered to be about 6 months) and it also greatly reduces the chance of hospitalization and death. While it's not good enough to end the pandemic on its own, it's certainly the most powerful tool we have to date, until we have an effective treatment. If we never get an effective treatment (which is possible), then we will be stuck with covid forever, and the only way to transform the potentially deadly disease into something more like a severe common cold is for everyone to get vaccinated, even if you've already had covid before, and even if you've already been vaccinated, by getting the boosters as they are necessary. I do not condone holding anyone at gunpoint to do so, but to me at least, there is a substantial difference between arguing that people are dumb for not getting vaccinated and arguing that people should go to jail for not getting vaccinated, y'know?


----------



## mbardu

IwantTacos said:


> it's all there. it's not my fault mbardu likes to selectively respond to things.



Do you still feel I've only selectively responded to things? If so, please feel free to point me to anything I didn't respond to.

It looks like we've established that the vaccines give the vaccinated good temporary protection, but not much else. 
That the justification for mandates is BS as a result, and that imposing this type of mandate is basically a coercion for one's personal's health choices.
Which you are OK with, and would be OK if it were to be extended to healthy food only, no tobacco or alcohol, exercise mandates etc. At least you're consistent there.
But which then becomes just a discussion of what the gov should or shouldn't be about - separate from a vaccine discussion.

As for what you are replying to, it's not an actual point. It's just the usual "Oh look, if I pretend to ignore a poster, I can pretend his posts don't exist so I don't have to formulate an argument or consider there might be things I haven't considered. Yay, my cognitive dissonance is safe \o/ "


----------



## StevenC

mbardu said:


> Do you still feel I've only selectively responded to things? If so, please feel free to point me to anything I didn't respond to.
> 
> It looks like we've established that the vaccines give the vaccinated good temporary protection, but not much else.
> That the justification for mandates is BS as a result, and that imposing this type of mandate is basically a coercion for one's personal's health choices.
> Which you are OK with, and would be OK if it were to be extended to healthy food only, no tobacco or alcohol, exercise mandates etc. At least you're consistent there.
> But which then becomes just a discussion of what the gov should or shouldn't be about - separate from a vaccine discussion.
> 
> As for what you are replying to, it's not an actual point. It's just the usual "Oh look, if I pretend to ignore a poster, I can pretend his posts don't exist so I don't have to formulate an argument or consider there might be things I haven't considered. Yay, my cognitive dissonance is safe \o/ "


You haven't responded to me in days after I asked you to point out where I did a specific thing.


----------



## IwantTacos

mbardu said:


> Do you still feel I've only selectively responded to things? If so, please feel free to point me to anything I didn't respond to.
> 
> It looks like we've established that the vaccines give the vaccinated good temporary protection, but not much else.
> That the justification for mandates is BS as a result, and that imposing this type of mandate is basically a coercion for one's personal's health choices.
> Which you are OK with, and would be OK if it were to be extended to healthy food only, no tobacco or alcohol, exercise mandates etc. At least you're consistent there.
> But which then becomes just a discussion of what the gov should or shouldn't be about - separate from a vaccine discussion.
> 
> As for what you are replying to, it's not an actual point. It's just the usual "Oh look, if I pretend to ignore a poster, I can pretend his posts don't exist so I don't have to formulate an argument or consider there might be things I haven't considered. Yay, my cognitive dissonance is safe \o/ "



you literally ignored half of Max’s posts


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> The world just keeps getting wackier and more polarized to the extremes.
> 
> Honestly, I have very mixed feelings about vaccine mandates, but, let's be objective. There are ways to avoid the mandate: get tested weekly, work from home, quit your job, etc.
> 
> 
> 
> Simple: if you get vaccinated you are #1 less likely to transmit the virus than if you don't get vaccinated, at least for a period of time, and #2 you are less likely to be hospitalized from a second covid infection, at least for a period of time.
> 
> There are plenty of vaccines available, because there are plenty of people like you who refuse to take it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sounds like life in the military, which, if you were male and of a certain age prior to the 1980's, was mandatory, meaning you don't have a choice.
> 
> And I'm not saying that we need to return to that, but it's a pretty strong point of defense for @MaxOfMetal 's point that this is not really anything new.
> 
> This whole argument about how mandatory vaccines is like/is nothing like banning smoking in the workplace is weird to me. In a lot of ways, it _is_ like banning smoking. Smokers in the work place can't smoke around their coworkers for the health and safety of those other coworkers. It's exactly the same argument for vaccines. If you want to smoke, you do it away from other workers. If you want to be unvaccinated, you can do that away from other coworkers, too, by working from home and getting tested before and face-to-face. The obvious difference is that you can smoke in the smoke shack and come into the office no longer actively smoking, but you can't be unvaccinated at home, then be vaccinated only when around others. I'm not sure what the point of the argument is, really, though, to be honest.
> 
> And, as far as other workplaces requiring vaccines, aside from the military, my current employer requires me to have a certain vaccine, and has for years. One of my previous jobs was with a governmental agency, and required a bit of international travel, and I was required to get a whole slew of vaccines. Aside from that, schools also require vaccines and schooling is mandatory, so I don't really get how that line of argument gets us anywhere further from the present state.
> 
> The SCotUS has already made rulings in the past about vaccine requirements, and has upheld the government's power to require under criminal penalty for people to take vaccines, so, technically, under current case law, Biden could have a squad of soldiers go door to door and vaccinate people under penalty of arrest under refusal to comply, but we are nowhere near that, even if people are acting like it. Presently, if you don't want to get the vaccine, all you have to do is either a) get tested regularly or b) work for a smaller company or c) retire and just stay home and never go anywhere.
> 
> The vaccine does work, in that it reduces transmission by some amount (less than desirable, but it's something) and it does reduce the chance of infection (quite drastically at first, but seems to lose efficacy after what is considered to be about 6 months) and it also greatly reduces the chance of hospitalization and death. While it's not good enough to end the pandemic on its own, it's certainly the most powerful tool we have to date, until we have an effective treatment. If we never get an effective treatment (which is possible), then we will be stuck with covid forever, and the only way to transform the potentially deadly disease into something more like a severe common cold is for everyone to get vaccinated, even if you've already had covid before, and even if you've already been vaccinated, by getting the boosters as they are necessary. I do not condone holding anyone at gunpoint to do so, but to me at least, there is a substantial difference between arguing that people are dumb for not getting vaccinated and arguing that people should go to jail for not getting vaccinated, y'know?



You know as well as I do that "get tested weekly" will not be applicable in the real world. And working from home is _not _an option. If your company has more than 100 employees or works with the federal government, you have to be vaccinated even to work 100% from home. That should tell you everything you need to know about how much sense the vaccine mandates make. For some people with some career options, this leaves little to no possibility. The "smokers have been treated that way forever" is nothing but a cheap and very false equivalence. Like mentioned there's nothing preventing you from having a job and healthcare if you're a smoker - whereas we want to remove just that from unvaccinated folks.
Which again, for them leaves us with the "you have a choice, don't get the vaccine and just don't have a job", which is not a choice, especially in a country like the US where healthcare is conditioned on employment.

And yes, we have gone through your arguments before as well. Sure, you can stretch the definition of legality and the precedents to make it 100% legal, or at least too difficult to challenge legally. Doesn't mean the scale, magnitude, criteria and effects today are not absolutely unprecedented. And sure, you might even legally be allowed to send the military and force the jabs on people. But even if you make it legal, would it be right? Is that how you want the government to function?

I find the arguments pretty jarring overall. We rage on when the Trump admin does what it does and hides behind the facade of "it's technically legal....or even if it's not, you won't be able to prosecute it", but _the moment_ we agree with a measure, then the argument "it's technically legal" is perfectly fine if we're talking about vaccines. Just like we are usually raging against regulatory capture and the industry executives making up the studies and rules and mandates for the politics...but for vaccines it's a-OK? Where's the consistency?
I mean, we're in a group of, let's face-it, pretty clear leftists overall, yet we think back fondly to the wonderful time of (checks notes) _mandatory military service and conscription_  ? Where's the consistency? _Edit: I know you said you don't advocate for doing that again, I am just making a joke._
But overall, really looks like a Niemölleran case of "doesn't impact me, so whatever it's _their _problem" to me.

Yeah, vaccines do help, definitely. It's just clear they don't help for long and they don't help against the pandemic existing. There is also no way to tell if someone can transmit the virus - vaccinated or not. The vaccines mostly help the individuals getting them; like plenty of other health or lifestyle choices. So arbitrarily scapegoating a group of people for such a choice like we're doing is wrong in my opinion.
Which I guess at that point it's just that, an opinion. People like our colleague above think that's fine and we should be even _more _authoritarian on the other lifestyle and health choices as well, and they think being authoritarian is fine. Even though I don't agree, at least that part is consistent. For most people it's not that though, It's _just _unvaccinated who should be targeted for their health choices - which at that point is very much just to have a scapegoat.


----------



## mbardu

IwantTacos said:


> you literally ignored half of Max’s posts



I mean...Max ignored a good number of my points in the first place to come up with his new ones  ... Like moving the discussion to the "is it going to be a large problem overall on average?" whereas I was just talking of whether it's fair to the few who are being impacted through no fault of their own. But yet we were still having a decent exchange without him having to call people names, which is a nice change of pace from the usual fare here.

However I don't even mind. If you can actually point to a particular point I didn't address, I'm all ears. Short of that the "you ignored some stuff" without any detail is just more platitudes and no contents.


----------



## mbardu

StevenC said:


> You haven't responded to me in days after I asked you to point out where I did a specific thing.



OK so I've been told you're still talking to me. The reason I may have missed some of your messages is because despite me trying to answer your aggressive points (as you were jumping in a discussion guns blazing at the time) in a normal "civil" way, you basically ignored my answers and instead _literally_ told me to go fuck myself so I _kinda _put you on ignore.




Maybe at that point it looked a _little _bit like you were not interested in actually talking to me?
I don't know, I guess maybe the message was not clear 

Also- it's oh-so-funny to look at ignored messages in just _this one page here_ and see _you_ of all people complain about people not being able to discuss in a civil way 
Seriously? I bet anywhere else on this forum, for any reason, talking like that to any other member would get you rightfully banned.
All that while advocating for not letting people you don't agree with discuss, and having your colleagues call any opinion different from your own "smoothbrain" or "dumbass"
Do you....do you not see the irony? Is the "civil" side of the discussion really the side you think it is?

This:


StevenC said:


> being able to engage in other conversations is a privilege you gain by proving you can be a civil human being in other theatres.



is just too funny .

Anyway...no hard feelings.
Like I told you at the time you insulted me first, I sincerely wish you the best. I'm only here for conversation, not to attack people. If you're here to attack people instead of making a honest attempt at discussion, well there are other people to converse with. I'm sure you'll get plenty of the "likes"!


----------



## StevenC

mbardu said:


> OK so I've been told you're still talking to me. The reason I may have missed some of your messages is because despite me trying to answer your aggressive points (as you were jumping in a discussion guns blazing at the time) in a normal "civil" way, you basically ignored my answers and instead _literally_ told me to go fuck myself so I _kinda _put you on ignore.
> 
> View attachment 99430
> 
> 
> Maybe at that point it looked a _little _bit like you were not interested in actually talking to me?
> I don't know, I guess maybe the message was not clear
> 
> Also- it's oh-so-funny to look at ignored messages in just _this one page here_ and see _you_ of all people complain about people not being able to discuss in a civil way
> Seriously? I bet anywhere else on this forum, for any reason, talking like that to any other member would get you rightfully banned.
> All that while advocating for not letting people you don't agree with discuss, and having your colleagues call any opinion different from your own "smoothbrain" or "dumbass"
> Do you....do you not see the irony? Is the "civil" side of the discussion really the side you think it is?
> 
> This:
> 
> 
> is just too funny .
> 
> Anyway...no hard feelings.
> Like I told you at the time you insulted me first, I sincerely wish you the best. I'm only here for conversation, not to attack people. If you're here to attack people instead of making a honest attempt at discussion, well there are other people to converse with. I'm sure you'll get plenty of the "likes"!


The context for that post, which you've conveniently left out, is that your antivax crusade is entirely reasonable and all to protect the innocent medically exempt from vaccines. Which is me, so you can see how that touched a nerve. You know, using me as your scapegoat.

So please, answer the question. When did I say I had a problem with people who can't get vaccinated for a legitimate medical reason? When did anyone else say that? When did anyone say that "pandemic of the unvaccinated" meant those with medical exemptions were the problem, making specific reference to all the other times a provax person has said that one of the main reasons to get vaccinated for a disease that likely won't kill you is to protect people who can't be vaccinated themselves?

So, yeah. I'll take that. I wasn't being civil there because you didn't deserve it. You're not here for conversation, because you are imagining a position no one else is taking and attacking us for it.


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> You know as well as I do that "get tested weekly" will not be applicable in the real world. And working from home is _not _an option. If your company has more than 100 employees or works with the federal government, you have to be vaccinated even to work 100% from home. That should tell you everything you need to know about how much sense the vaccine mandates make. For some people with some career options, this leaves little to no possibility. The "smokers have been treated that way forever" is nothing but a cheap and very false equivalence. Like mentioned there's nothing preventing you from having a job and healthcare if you're a smoker - whereas we want to remove just that from unvaccinated folks.
> Which again, for them leaves us with the "you have a choice, don't get the vaccine and just don't have a job", which is not a choice, especially in a country like the US where healthcare is conditioned on employment.



We have a couple people where I work that have chosen the weekly testing route. Why is that not applicable to the real world?!

Your statement about working from home and still being mandated to be vaccinated is not accurate. The text of the law requires testing before workers "come to work." This has already been widely interpreted as excluding anyone who works from home.

It's not a false equivalence, though. If you work in healthcare, you aren't allowed to smoke near a patient. Similarly, you aren't allowed to be unvaccinated near a patient. You are given the choice to either a) not be near anyone else or b) get vaccinated or, c) get tested before you are around anyone else.

You keep ignoring the "or get tested" part by saying "it's not applicable. That's a cheap cop out.



mbardu said:


> And yes, we have gone through your arguments before as well. Sure, you can stretch the definition of legality and the precedents to make it 100% legal, or at least too difficult to challenge legally. Doesn't mean the scale, magnitude, criteria and effects today are not absolutely unprecedented. And sure, you might even legally be allowed to send the military and force the jabs on people. But even if you make it legal, would it be right? Is that how you want the government to function?



The scale is unprecedented, because the scale of this disease is unprecedented.

How is anything else unprecedented? The magnitude of "get vaccinated or you might need to find a new job" is certainly less than the magnitude of previous epidemics' vaccine mandates of "get vaccinated or go to prison."

I agree that it wouldn't be right, but which do you want to argue? Would it be legal or would it be right? Then, take what we are facing now and apply the same criteria.



mbardu said:


> I find the arguments pretty jarring overall. We rage on when the Trump admin does what it does and hides behind the facade of "it's technically legal....or even if it's not, you won't be able to prosecute it", but _the moment_ we agree with a measure, then the argument "it's technically legal" is perfectly fine if we're talking about vaccines. Just like we are usually raging against regulatory capture and the industry executives making up the studies and rules and mandates for the politics...but for vaccines it's a-OK? Where's the consistency?
> I mean, we're in a group of, let's face-it, pretty clear leftists overall, yet we think back fondly to the wonderful time of (checks notes) _mandatory military service and conscription_  ? Where's the consistency? _Edit: I know you said you don't advocate for doing that again, I am just making a joke._
> But overall, really looks like a Niemölleran case of "doesn't impact me, so whatever it's _their _problem" to me.



Like I said, I, personally, have very mixed feelings about the vaccine mandates. I don't fully agree nor disagree with them wholesale. I, personally, would have taken an entirely different approach, but that doesn't matter, because here we are.

I think there is a lot of span to cover when it comes to why people don't want to get vaccinated, but the most common reason I see seems to be based on ignorance. I mean that there is ignorance about the vaccine, and that's fair. The vaccine has been around less than a year, so how can we be anything other than ignorant about it? But if you want to argue against the vaccine mandate, I think you'll have to be focused on the stronger points of your argument if you are going to get anyone to change the way they think about their position, even a little bit.

So what is your reason against the vaccine mandate? Is it a standpoint of personal freedom? If so, wouldn't it be better to stick to that angle than to try to ague that the government doesn't have the legal precedent to do this, considering that they've done exactly this sort of thing in the past, it was challenged in the Supreme Court, and the government's position was upheld? Seems like an argument that is just going to get you into trouble, if you ask me.



mbardu said:


> Yeah, vaccines do help, definitely. It's just clear they don't help for long and they don't help against the pandemic existing. There is also no way to tell if someone can transmit the virus - vaccinated or not. The vaccines mostly help the individuals getting them; like plenty of other health or lifestyle choices. So arbitrarily scapegoating a group of people for such a choice like we're doing is wrong in my opinion.
> Which I guess at that point it's just that, an opinion. People like our colleague above think that's fine and we should be even _more _authoritarian on the other lifestyle and health choices as well, and they think being authoritarian is fine. Even though I don't agree, at least that part is consistent. For most people it's not that though, It's _just _unvaccinated who should be targeted for their health choices - which at that point is very much just to have a scapegoat.



If anyone tests positive, they can potentially transmit the virus, vaccinated or not. Period. If you want to know how likely, that boils down to their behaviour and the behaviour of others around them, and also the viral load. That viral load data, I believe, is captured when you test (maybe not in every case).

If you are vaccinated, and the antibodies are still in your system, your viral load is going to be several orders of magnitude lower. If you are vaccinated, and the antibodies are not in your system when you get exposed, the amount of time before your viral load drops is several days sooner, so either way, if you are vaccinated, you are less likely to expose others to the infection. It's pretty simple, really.

I mean, you say "arbitrarily scapegoating a group of people" - I'm not sure what you mean by that. If, by arbitrarily, you mean that there is no data to suggest that vaccinated people are just as likely to spread covid as unvaccinated people, you are patently wrong. If by scapegoating, you mean placing the blame for the constant rise in numbers on unvaccinated people without logical reason to do so, I think you are clearly wrong about that as well.

Where you might be onto something, though, is that there is a significantly large group of people who are unable to get the vaccine, either because their doctors have checked their medical history and advised them that it'd be dangerous, or because they are too young, or because they have another valid reason to not get vaccinated. You are also onto something if you point out that healthier behaviours, like wearing a mask and avoiding close contact with others who might be infected, as well as treating anyone like they might be infected, would be more effective, in theory, than the vaccine, at combating the spread of the virus.

You could go case-by-case, though, and you'd surprise literally no one if you reported back that the majority of superspreaders out there are the same ones spreading conspiracy theories about 5G, secret microchips, or whatever other complete weirdness.

So now, how do you combat that? Do you take an authoritarian stance that you point a gun at each individual's head and give them the ultimatum to take the shot from the syringe or from the gun, their choice? No. And who the hell is saying that?

Is it authoritarian to make an executive order to require large companies to require their employees to either get vaccinated, test weekly, work from home, or terminate their employment? Personally, I think it is. I think it is heavy handed and I also think it's going to be mostly ineffective. But on a scale of 1-10 on the scale of idiocy, it's maybe a 5, whereas telling people to maybe try injecting household cleaner or that shining light inside of their bodies will cure them is more like a 10. I'd much prefer a more educational approach. Show people how the vaccine helps, explain to people the reasons why wearing a mask and avoiding close contact with others is key, and help people understand why this disease is too dangerous to treat recklessly. But, unfortunately, that'd be a whole lot of work in a world where a third of the population gets most of their information from basically tabloid news channels.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> We have a couple people where I work that have chosen the weekly testing route. Why is that not applicable to the real world?!
> ....
> You keep ignoring the "or get tested" part by saying "it's not applicable. That's a cheap cop out.



I don't know what company you work for.
I know a number of Fortune 500s who are not accepting testing as an option. In fact I don't know of any who are. I also believe it's not an option _at all_ for companies working for the federal government in any capacity - which is way more than we think.
The "before workers come to work." is also vague and I've been in numerous actual company calls where it was explicitly confirmed that even employees working from home were required to get vaccinated. You know "just in case".

So I'm not making that up.

The article you quote is also from August, which was before Biden's announcement.
Most companies have since taken that announcement as a cue to now get everyone vaccinated, and the tone is _very _different compared to 3 months ago.

Oh yeah and smokers_ is 100% _a false equivalence. Why even bring up health worker by the way. Vaccine mandate is for everyone. You can be a smoker and keep your job, healthcare worker or not. Just don't actively smoke at your job and in people's face. You're also free to travel and go about your life. How is that remotely comparable to the treatment of unvaccinated people?



bostjan said:


> The scale is unprecedented, because the scale of this disease is unprecedented.
> ....
> I agree that it wouldn't be right, but which do you want to argue? Would it be legal or would it be right? Then, take what we are facing now and apply the same criteria.



I can argue....both things? The scale and magnitude are unprecedented, and also it wouldn't be right. How are those mutually exclusive? I also didn't say the mandate was illegal as far as I recall.



bostjan said:


> Like I said, I, personally, have very mixed feelings about the vaccine mandates. I don't fully agree nor disagree with them wholesale. I, personally, would have taken an entirely different approach, but that doesn't matter, because here we are.
> ...
> So what is your reason against the vaccine mandate? Is it a standpoint of personal freedom? If so, wouldn't it be better to stick to that angle than to try to ague that the government doesn't have the legal precedent to do this, considering that they've done exactly this sort of thing in the past, it was challenged in the Supreme Court, and the government's position was upheld? Seems like an argument that is just going to get you into trouble, if you ask me.



My point is that if even a single person was harmed by the vaccine mandate through no fault of their own (and losing livelihood and healthcare is significant harm), then it's unfair and shouldn't exist. And there are way more than a single person in that situation.
Also especially shameful if the everyday-changing justification behind the mandates is a sham.



bostjan said:


> If anyone tests positive, they can potentially transmit the virus, vaccinated or not. Period. If you want to know how likely, that boils down to their behaviour and the behaviour of others around them, and also the viral load. That viral load data, I believe, is captured when you test (maybe not in every case).
> 
> If you are vaccinated, and the antibodies are still in your system, your viral load is going to be several orders of magnitude lower. If you are vaccinated, and the antibodies are not in your system when you get exposed, the amount of time before your viral load drops is several days sooner, so either way, if you are vaccinated, you are less likely to expose others to the infection. It's pretty simple, really.



You are trying to reason in terms of the supposed understood effects of the vaccine on the immune system, and how we would _like _it to work. But we don't know for sure.
If however you look at a posteriori data instead (which is what it is), then there are countries (there were UK numbers a few pages ago) where the rate of infection and transmission are pretty much a wash between unvaccinated and vaccinated a few months ago. So no, it's not that clear cut.



bostjan said:


> I mean, you say "arbitrarily scapegoating a group of people" - I'm not sure what you mean by that. If, by arbitrarily, you mean that there is no data to suggest that vaccinated people are just as likely to spread covid as unvaccinated people, you are patently wrong. If by scapegoating, you mean placing the blame for the constant rise in numbers on unvaccinated people without logical reason to do so, I think you are clearly wrong about that as well.



Again, nuance. I always said there is _some _protective effect from vaccines, especially. but looking at the proposed measures, listening to the discourse here or elsewhere you'd think vaccines protect _a lot_ against transmission- like 90% or something. Like it was presented at first.
But the study you linked doesn't make a very strong case for that. I quote "The SAR in household contacts exposed to the delta variant was 25% (95% CI 18–33) for fully vaccinated individuals compared with 38% (24–53) in unvaccinated individuals". 25% vs 38%. Just check those confidence intervals too. For all we know the actual rate could be 30% for both groups and it would be in line with the pretty even infection rates seen in the UK like mentioned above.
The study also warns that we used to think the protection against transmission was durable, then that it would last 9 months, then 6, and they are currently noticing it severely impaired after 2/3 months only. Is that going to be revised down to 6 weeks by next month? 4 weeks?

Those are hardly clear cut overwhelming numbers and implications justifying coercive measures in my book. The scapegoating is real.



bostjan said:


> Where you might be onto something, though, is that there is a significantly large group of people who are unable to get the vaccine, either because their doctors have checked their medical history and advised them that it'd be dangerous, or because they are too young, or because they have another valid reason to not get vaccinated. You are also onto something if you point out that healthier behaviours, like wearing a mask and avoiding close contact with others who might be infected, as well as treating anyone like they might be infected, would be more effective, in theory, than the vaccine, at combating the spread of the virus.
> 
> You could go case-by-case, though, and you'd surprise literally no one if you reported back that the majority of superspreaders out there are the same ones spreading conspiracy theories about 5G, secret microchips, or whatever other complete weirdness.



It's easy to point fingers at the "5G microchip" crowd and laugh.
First of all, like a few conspiracy theories I'm still not convinced that this is not just an extremely dumb idea made up _just _to make it easy for people to dismiss any vaccine hesitancy.

But no matter, I don't deny there are probably a lot of dumb unvaccinated people spreading the virus. The thing is there are also a lot of dumb vaccinated people spreading the virus.
At the end of the day, you are not going to be able to do case-by-case.
So the truth will be in a posteriori overall numbers, and there are places like the UK where the unvaccinated population does not seem to be the one overwhelmingly responsible for surges in cases. Hospitalizations yeah, quite a bit. But overall cases, not really.



bostjan said:


> So now, how do you combat that? Do you take an authoritarian stance that you point a gun at each individual's head and give them the ultimatum to take the shot from the syringe or from the gun, their choice? No. And who the hell is saying that?
> 
> Is it authoritarian to make an executive order to require large companies to require their employees to either get vaccinated, test weekly, work from home, or terminate their employment? Personally, I think it is. I think it is heavy handed and I also think it's going to be mostly ineffective. But on a scale of 1-10 on the scale of idiocy, it's maybe a 5, whereas telling people to maybe try injecting household cleaner or that shining light inside of their bodies will cure them is more like a 10. I'd much prefer a more educational approach. Show people how the vaccine helps, explain to people the reasons why wearing a mask and avoiding close contact with others is key, and help people understand why this disease is too dangerous to treat recklessly. But, unfortunately, that'd be a whole lot of work in a world where a third of the population gets most of their information from basically tabloid news channels.



Not sure why you'd give it a 5 out of 10 if it's both authoritarian and ineffective. But OK. As far as I'm concerned I find it mostly dishonest and unjust.

Sure, idiocy is a scale. I agree that injecting household cleaner is dumb, but hey maybe UV light isn't _so_ dumb? Who'd have known!
Or at least UV light is not dumber than arguing that "not vaccinating _everyone _will kill 10 million people in the US this year." Or not dumber than going out without any precaution because you got the shot 6 months ago like many people are doing. But somehow vaccinated people's idiocy is not only allowed, but celebrated around here... go figure...


----------



## IwantTacos

What the hell is this false equivalent stuff. You can be non vaccinated at home just like you can smoke crack at home. You can’t be non vaccinated at work like you can’t smoke crack at work.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

StevenC said:


> You're not here for conversation, because you are imagining a position no one else is taking and attacking us for it.


Shocking, who would've known right?


----------



## mbardu

IwantTacos said:


> What the hell is this false equivalent stuff. You can be non vaccinated at home just like you can smoke crack at home. You can’t be non vaccinated at work like you can’t smoke crack at work.



You can decide to smoke (crack or otherwise, not for me, but you do you), and yet go to work and be allowed to travel and live your life as you wish.
No consequences in your life whatsoever for that dumb lifestyle choice. You're unvaccinated though, well you lose your job and your healthcare.
Oh, that's even if you work from home in the first place btw.

How are the two things even remotely comparable?

Here's more info about false equivalen*CE*, that might help.


----------



## IwantTacos

mbardu said:


> You can decide to smoke (crack or otherwise, not for me, but you do you), and yet go to work and be allowed to travel and live your life as you wish.
> No consequences in your life whatsoever for that dumb lifestyle choice. You're unvaccinated though, well you lose your job and your healthcare.
> Oh, that's even if you work from home in the first place btw.
> 
> How are the two things even remotely comparable?
> 
> Here's more info about false equivalence, that might help.



smoke crack and go to work man. Try it. See what happens.


----------



## mbardu

IwantTacos said:


> smoke crack and go to work man. Try it. See what happens.



As mentioned, no thanks but you do you.

Plus as you know if you stop the strawman charade for a minute, we were talking about tobacco smokers.
You're the only one having to move the goalposts here.


----------



## IwantTacos

mbardu said:


> As mentioned, no thanks but you do you.
> 
> Plus as you know if you stop the strawman charade for a minute, we were talking about tobacco smokers.
> You're the only one having to move the goalposts here.



smoke a pack of cigs at work man. right at your desk. do it.


----------



## mbardu

IwantTacos said:


> smoke a pack of cigs at work man. right at your desk. do it.



I don't smoke, don't intend to, and that would have nothing to do with the discussion.
Why do I need to repeat the same thing for the n-th time? Are you actively trying not to read?

Nobody argued that it should be allowed to smoke at your desk.
I'll be the first one to say I would rather not have someone actively smoking in my face or in the next cubicle or office.
It would be an inconvenience, a terrible experience, and a small but not negligible risk of second hand smoke effects.

Now compare that to me being in a meeting with 1-a vaccinated guy who goes to unmasked concerts every weekend, comes to the meeting unmasked and 2-an unvaccinated guy who works from home 99% of the time and is just in for that one meeting so he double-masked for the occasion. I'm way more likely to get Covid from guy #1 than from guy #2. In that particular meeting, and in all future days in the office when #2 guy is not even here.
Yet we punish guy #2 of course, because that makes sense...


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> So I'm not making that up.



Let's make this really simple. I posted the language of the law. We know that there are already state laws in place in Montana conflicting with the mandate. We know that the mandate has built-in exceptions for medical or religious reasons. I believe I've met the burden of proof. You can say "Nu'uh," but how about you post a link to a source describing where someone working from home was terminated or whatever. If it happened, it's because of workplace policies and not the federal mandate, but let's see what you come up with.



mbardu said:


> The article you quote is also from August, which was before Biden's announcement.
> Most companies have since taken that announcement as a cue to now get everyone vaccinated, and the tone is _very _different compared to 3 months ago.



Umm, right next to the original date is the statement that the information was updates October 20th. Didja miss that or are you trying to be tricky with me?



mbardu said:


> Oh yeah and smokers_ is 100% _a false equivalence. Why even bring up health worker by the way. Vaccine mandate is for everyone. You can be a smoker and keep your job, healthcare worker or not. Just don't actively smoke at your job and in people's face. You're also free to travel and go about your life. How is that remotely comparable to the treatment of unvaccinated people?



Because, from a mile high view, "just get the vaccine and go about your life" is the same argument. 



mbardu said:


> My point is that if even a single person was harmed by the vaccine mandate through no fault of their own (and losing livelihood and healthcare is significant harm), then it's unfair and shouldn't exist. And there are way more than a single person in that situation.
> Also especially shameful if the everyday-changing justification behind the mandates is a sham.



I think it's more grey than you are letting on. If you don't have a religious or medical reason not to get the vaccine, and your employer wants you to get the vaccine, then you need to get the vaccine or find another employer. In much of the USA it's exactly the same for virtually any other situation. Employers can fire employees for virtually any reason they see fit. If that's wrong in your eyes, then maybe try to change it.



mbardu said:


> the rate of infection and transmission are pretty much a wash between unvaccinated and vaccinated a few months ago. So no, it's not that clear cut.



Do you disagree with the link I posted? Because what it said directly supports what I said. 



mbardu said:


> listening to the discourse here or elsewhere you'd think vaccines protect _a lot_ against transmission- like 90% or something. Like it was presented at first.



I guess you missed the other discussions I've had here, then.



mbardu said:


> But the study you linked doesn't make a very strong case for that. I quote "The SAR in household contacts exposed to the delta variant was 25% (95% CI 18–33) for fully vaccinated individuals compared with 38% (24–53) in unvaccinated individuals". 25% vs 38%. Just check those confidence intervals too. For all we know the actual rate could be 30% for both groups and it would be in line with the pretty even infection rates seen in the UK like mentioned above.
> The study also warns that we used to think the protection against transmission was durable, then that it would last 9 months, then 6, and they are currently noticing it severely impaired after 2/3 months only. Is that going to be revised down to 6 weeks by next month? 4 weeks?
> 
> Those are hardly clear cut overwhelming numbers and implications justifying coercive measures in my book. The scapegoating is real.



There's a lot of weird misconception here.

As the vaccine was still in development, we were having the discussion here about how long it would last. As I'm sure you are aware, there is no magic time when a switch goes off and the vaccine no longer works. Realistically, it's efficacy fades in strength. The studies I quoted then seemed to indicate that a traditional vaccine (like Pfizer or AZ) would likely require boosters on a rotation of weeks rather than years.



mbardu said:


> But no matter, I don't deny there are probably a lot of dumb unvaccinated people spreading the virus. The thing is there are also a lot of dumb vaccinated people spreading the virus.
> At the end of the day, you are not going to be able to do case-by-case.
> So the truth will be in a posteriori overall numbers, and there are places like the UK where the unvaccinated population does not seem to be the one overwhelmingly responsible for surges in cases. Hospitalizations yeah, quite a bit. But overall cases, not really.



Ok, so assume a dumb unvaccinated person initially spreads the virus to three other people and a dumb vaccinated person spreads the virus to two other people, then say that the unvacinated person has to go to the hospital and potentially expose a handful of health care workers and the vaccinated person simply recovers. I think that's a pretty strong moral case for vaccines rather than against them. Do you see the evidence we have here another way?



mbardu said:


> Not sure why you'd give it a 5 out of 10 if it's both authoritarian and ineffective.



Because the government operates not in absolutes but on a spectral scale. A law that says "don't drink alcohol" is authoritarian; so is a law that says "don't do drugs," and so is a law that says "you have to get a vaccine." There are a lot of authoritarian laws, and most of them are ineffective at whatever they set out to do. Prohibition in the US saw just as much alcohol consumption as any other era. It was stupid and unjust and authoritarian, but still not as bad as, say, slavery or genocide or any of the really bad things the US has done in the past.



mbardu said:


> Sure, idiocy is a scale. I agree that injecting household cleaner is dumb, but hey maybe UV light isn't _so_ dumb? Who'd have known!
> Or at least UV light is not dumber than arguing that "not vaccinating _everyone _will kill 10 million people in the US this year." Or not dumber than going out without any precaution because you got the shot 6 months ago like many people are doing. But somehow vaccinated people's idiocy is not only allowed, but celebrated around here... go figure...



Again, different levels of dumb. That's an interesting UV light study, but I wish they actually published the results objectively. Like, how many people were involved in the study? Was there a control group? Did any of the treated patients get pneumonia or not? It reads more like a commercial than a medical study report. Maybe Trump was on to something, but I'll only believe it when I see evidence better than "All patients except one survived" (so it must be good treatment?!).

So, like, what are you even trying to suggest? Is it that the vaccine mandate is bad and wrong? Is it that people on a guitar forum are generally not a good source of medical advice? What?


----------



## Drew

donniekak said:


> One of my close friends almost lost his son in law. He was forced to get the vaccine by his university, and was later rushed to hospital with pericarditis.
> 
> Young males are the only group where the debate between side effects, and Covid effects seem to be a wash. So why force them to take an unneeded risk?


Because, quite simply, they're NOT a wash. First, it's myocarditis, not pericarditis, that has predominately impacted young men. Second, both are extremely rare. 

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2782900

JAMA is about as good a source as you'll find for anything related to American medical practices. In this particular study, out of slightly more than 2 million individuals, 20 cases of myocardisis were reported, mostly in young men, with no fatalities. Meanwhile, 37 cases of pericarditis were reported, slightly more commonly in men than in women, and with a median age of 59. Again, no deaths. Myocarditis in vaccinated patients has occured at a rate of about 10 per one million patients, pericarditis close to 20 per million. 

Meanwhile, more than 45 million Americans have had Covid (limiting ourselves to known reported cases - asymptomatic cases mean this is probably low) out of a population of about 330 million. A little more than 740,000 Americans have died of Covid. Souce: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html 

So, expressing that in comparable per-million terms, Covid has occurred at a rate of 45/330 * 1 million = 136,363 cases per million. Covid fatalities have occured at a rate of .74/330 *1 million = 2,242 per million. Put another way, you're 13,636x more likely to get covid than myocarditis, and around 242x more likely to _die _of covid than get myocarditis. 

Ten cases of myocarditis per million, vs one hundred and thirty six thousand cases of covid per million. That's not even _remotely_ a wash.


----------



## Drew

Also, here's a kind of interesting study: 

https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/...dy-reinforces-safety-of-covid-19-vaccinations

People who were vaccinated against Covid-19 had lower _non-covid_ mortality rates than unvaccinated people. Going out on a limb, willingness to get innoculated to protect yourself against a global pandemic probably correlates fairly strongly with _other_ anti-dying behaviors, would be my guess, but at a minimum it's fairly clear that vaccines aren't killing tens of thousands of Americans.


----------



## Drew

Also, is this mbardu you all are arguing with? I see a lot of posts with people pretty clearly replying to posts I can't see. He's a troll, just put him on ignore, he's not worth the effort.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> Also, here's a kind of interesting study:
> 
> https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/...dy-reinforces-safety-of-covid-19-vaccinations
> 
> People who were vaccinated against Covid-19 had lower _non-covid_ mortality rates than unvaccinated people. Going out on a limb, willingness to get innoculated to protect yourself against a global pandemic probably correlates fairly strongly with _other_ anti-dying behaviors, would be my guess, but at a minimum it's fairly clear that vaccines aren't killing tens of thousands of Americans.


What's also interesting is how the people who received Johnson and Johnson had twice the mortality rate as people who received either Moderna or Pfizer in the data. That might suggest something other than personal behaviour.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> Let's make this really simple. I posted the language of the law. We know that there are already state laws in place in Montana conflicting with the mandate. We know that the mandate has built-in exceptions for medical or religious reasons. I believe I've met the burden of proof. You can say "Nu'uh," but how about you post a link to a source describing where someone working from home was terminated or whatever. If it happened, it's because of workplace policies and not the federal mandate, but let's see what you come up with.
> 
> Umm, right next to the original date is the statement that the information was updates October 20th. Didja miss that or are you trying to be tricky with me?



Text of the "plan" that's desired by the White House.
But if you want to play the "it's the text of the law"  then there is no provision for not vaccinating people working from home. They are included in the full vaccination target.

Regarding the article, it is an old one, and although they may have updated it recently (not clear for which company/ies), it is still mostly not relevant to the discussion.
A lot of info do predate Biden's statement and the bulk of it relates to temporary provisions before what is considered "full return to the offices", for which we are currently asking employees voluntarily coming in to the offices to be vaccinated.
The current talk (again, at a number of F-500 companies) is for once that "full return to the offices" phase is in effect- mostly early 2022 at the earliest.
And there, the messaging is clear that testing is not an option, vaccine is mandatory, and that this includes people working from home.
At least for the company I work for and a couple I know about. Maybe it's not _all _companies, but I don't have particular reasons to think a lot of them would not proceed the same (large corporate risk and HR depts tend to align for the most part). Especially because the ones I know are white collar with very little B2C interaction so you'd expect them to be lenient. But OK, I'll give you that. Maybe it will be different for some companies.



bostjan said:


> Because, from a mile high view, "just get the vaccine and go about your life" is the same argument.



"Just get the vaccine and go about your life" is the same argument as what? Asking smokers to stop smoking forever to have a job?
Do we ask people to "stop smoking, eat healthy and exercise 3 times a week etc _and then go about their life_ under threat of losing their livelihood and healthcare"?
Because that's what we're saying to unvaccinated people.



bostjan said:


> I think it's more grey than you are letting on. If you don't have a religious or medical reason not to get the vaccine, and your employer wants you to get the vaccine, then you need to get the vaccine or find another employer. In much of the USA it's exactly the same for virtually any other situation. Employers can fire employees for virtually any reason they see fit. If that's wrong in your eyes, then maybe try to change it.



Nah I understand at-will employment.
But it would be naïve to think that companies live in a vacuum where they make up their own rules. They will go with whatever gives them the least liability and aligns the most with the federal requirements and their peers. So most companies will impose vaccine requirements if that's coming from the top, and what would have been an exception will become the rule, supported by the mandate.

Job shopping for another company to get a different job would not be a problem in a hypothetical world where everyone can find any work in an infinite number of companies. But in a finite world where all companies in your sector go with a vaccine mandate, it's not that easy.



bostjan said:


> I guess you missed the other discussions I've had here, then.
> 
> There's a lot of weird misconception here.
> 
> As the vaccine was still in development, we were having the discussion here about how long it would last. As I'm sure you are aware, there is no magic time when a switch goes off and the vaccine no longer works. Realistically, it's efficacy fades in strength. The studies I quoted then seemed to indicate that a traditional vaccine (like Pfizer or AZ) would likely require boosters on a rotation of weeks rather than years.



You picked the link to post not me.
It shows weak differential benefit of the vaccine against transmission (if that if you look at the CIs), whereas a lot of people act like it is an overwhelming case justifying a coercive mandate.

And no, I don't think I missed your other discussions and TBH, it's refreshing there to see someone who can see both sides of the discussion on a lot of points. When I say "most people", it's not necessarily referring to you.



bostjan said:


> Ok, so assume a dumb unvaccinated person initially spreads the virus to three other people and a dumb vaccinated person spreads the virus to two other people, then say that the unvacinated person has to go to the hospital and potentially expose a handful of health care workers and the vaccinated person simply recovers. I think that's a pretty strong moral case for vaccines rather than against them. Do you see the evidence we have here another way?



That's just hypothetical. You can't really know how contagious a particular individual is going to be, how well his immune system works, you don't know how well they respect other protective measures etc. So we don't know that one will infect 2 and the other 3.
Again, if there was overwhelming evidence of significant difference, there would be case...
But if the risk to re-infect someone is about 30% both unvaccinated or unvaccinated (taking that level out of the paper you linked), it's not a really strong case for punishing one group.

Plus what of a dumb vaccinated person infecting 2 people, and smart unvaccinated dude who infects 0? The latter one is still the one who's punished.

Again- that's infections. For hospitalization, it's a stronger benefit of the vaccine.
But still not a justification for the mandate considering any other type of lifestyle/health choice can impact one's personal health, and nobody mandates them.




bostjan said:


> So, like, what are you even trying to suggest? Is it that the vaccine mandate is bad and wrong? Is it that people on a guitar forum are generally not a good source of medical advice? What?



Like I've been saying for the last couple of pages. Yes, the mandates are bad, wrong, useless to maybe counterproductive, and overall unjust. Yeah, I know that's often the case for a lot of government decisions. Does that mean I am not allowed to think or say say it  ?

But also I am always concerned to see how we mark some people as easy scapegoats for public ire, even we the reason to do so are tedious at best. And how easily people jump on that hate-wagon.

At the end of the day, on most things there we agree, the differences are fairly small. You feel more strongly that the vaccinated are protecting others and you think the impact of mandates on unvaccinated is not that bad (they can just get another job). Add those together, and maybe you give it a 5/10 while I only give it a 1/10. At least 5/10 is more nuanced than the other people giving it a 10/10 for being perfect, or giving it a 3/10 because it doesn't hurt the unvaccinated _enough_.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> What's also interesting is how the people who received Johnson and Johnson had twice the mortality rate as people who received either Moderna or Pfizer in the data. That might suggest something other than personal behaviour.


...though still lower than the control group. That jumped out at me too, it's kind of odd, huh? 

I mean, by rights, getting the covid vaccine shouldn't make you less likely to be hit by a car. After controlling for both covid and demographics these groups should have statistically equivalent mortality rates - that the vaccinated group's is lower, yes, does make the case that the vaccine itself isn't a risk factor, nine months out... but it sure prompts some other questions.


----------



## donniekak

The largest power company in the state just caved. Their lineman said they'd quit before being forced.

Funny thing is, even the guys that got vaxxed are in to quit if they have to show proof.


Many people are pro vax/anti mandate.


----------



## StevenC

Drew said:


> Also, is this mbardu you all are arguing with? I see a lot of posts with people pretty clearly replying to posts I can't see. He's a troll, just put him on ignore, he's not worth the effort.


The trick is to get mbardu to block you.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> What's also interesting is how the people who received Johnson and Johnson had twice the mortality rate as people who received either Moderna or Pfizer in the data. That might suggest something other than personal behaviour.



They also say that their study might not be applicable to the whole US population, and indeed if you were to extrapolate based on their reported numbers for deaths, you'd be way _way _below the actual mortality rates experienced in the US - even in pre-Covid years. Even if you take the rate they share for non vaccinated folks.

I checked a couple of age ranges and it was only a 1/4 or a 1/5 of expected deaths. Looking at the actual VDC sites, they're in locations with typically good healthcare/life expectancy - but I don't know if it's enough to explain such a large mismatch. Like, at the non-Covid mortality rates shown here, adjusted for full-year, this would mean ~110k deaths a year for the 45-64 age group vs about 540k that happen in reality. _60k_ deaths a year vs 540k expected if everyone had an MRNA vaccine.

But maybe I'm just being a debbie downer. Perhaps the vaccine is just THAT good. Not only does it protect you against Covid, it then divides your risk of _non-covid_ death by 10 if you get it, and by 5 just by existing, even if don't even get the jab.


----------



## donniekak

IwantTacos said:


> smoke a pack of cigs at work man. right at your desk. do it.


People that don't work at desks smoke at work every day.


----------



## Andromalia

> It's easy to point fingers at the "5G microchip" crowd and laugh.
> First of all, like a few conspiracy theories I'm still not convinced that this is not just an extremely dumb idea made up _just _to make it easy for people to dismiss any vaccine hesitancy.



"Vaccine hesitancy" isn't an opinion, it's ignorance. I don't know how it works in the USA, but in France how vaccines work is taught to kids at like, seven or eight years old. (Which is when they get their first mandatory shots for tetanos etc). Being ignorant can be not your fault, some people don't get an education. It's fine, then, you learn. If you refuse to learn, then, you're going to get forced to follow without understanding, because we (the society) have other things to do than accomodate your snowflakery. (Snowflakedom ? Snowflakehood ?)

It's pretty simple: today, in France, 80% of the people in hospital being treated for COVID are unvaccinated people. It doesn't matter if you disagree with public health measures and numbers. It is unfortunate that as electors, antivaxxers get courted more or less openly and effective measures aren't taken against them. (Such as, mandatory vaccination: we now have enough vaccines for the entire french population)


----------



## StevenC

Andromalia said:


> "Vaccine hesitancy" isn't an opinion, it's ignorance. I don't know how it works in the USA, but in France how vaccines work is taught to kids at like, seven or eight years old. (Which is when they get their first mandatory shots for tetanos etc). Being ignorant can be not your fault, some people don't get an education. It's fine, then, you learn. If you refuse to learn, then, you're going to get forced to follow without understanding, because we (the society) have other things to do than accomodate your snowflakery. (Snowflakedom ? Snowflakehood ?)
> 
> It's pretty simple: today, in France, 80% of the people in hospital being treated for COVID are unvaccinated people. It doesn't matter if you disagree with public health measures and numbers. It is unfortunate that as electors, antivaxxers get courted more or less openly and effective measures aren't taken against them. (Such as, mandatory vaccination: we now have enough vaccines for the entire french population)


Snowflacity


----------



## bostjan

For as much as we Americans all agree George Washington was an all-around great feller, we tend to forget about how he required that his soldiers get vaccinated for smallpox, before the smallpox vaccine even existed (he actually injected soldiers hypodermically with pus from infected people - gross). Then, after the Continental Army recovered, and while the British soldiers were suffering from the disease spreading naturally, the tides of war shifted in Washington's favour, so, America's independence is partially a result of vaccine mandates!


----------



## Drew

donniekak said:


> People that don't work at desks smoke at work every day.


People who don't work at desk jobs... or in restauraunts, or in retail, or in other public-facing service and hospitality jobs, or in hospitals, or in airports, or schools, or on construction sites... sure, I suppose a long distance trucker can smoke while he drives, and I guess if you're a deep sea fisherman whether you can smoke while you work is a matter of discussion between you and the captain of your ship, but for pretty much every other profession, if you want to smoke while you're working, you're doing it during a work break, you're going outside or to a sealed-off area to do so, and you're definitely not doing it _while _working and interacting in close quarters with nonsmokers. 

But, yes, technically, we can't rule out those truckers, smoking alone in their cabins.


----------



## bostjan

The town where I live banned smoking in public. There's a (up to) $200 fine if the police catch you smoking within 25 feet of any public building, park, parking lot, or even a bench. Every employer here that I'm aware of has a tobacco use ban as well, although those are often not enforced, because a lot of the older guys here chew at work.

And, coming back to the covid topic - I find it interesting that, when covid numbers get high, our departments all go on lockdowns, so, for example, if I need to talk to a guy in engineer or get maintenance to fix the furnace, there's a strict no contact policy, yet, the people in the smoke shack all huddle together under that little 6'x8' roof several times a day to smoke.  IDK, just seems inconsistent to me. We all know that they are not going to let people smoke inside during covid, nor are they going to build dozens of little phone-booth-sized smoke shacks so smokers can safely(?) enjoy nicotine.


----------



## Drew

Very unexpected looking Covid hotspot map at the moment:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html

Cases have more or less stabilized nationally and are now holding steady rather than falling, but that's because the Northeast and, oddly, the South are doing a lot better, while the West is getting hammered. 

If you jump to the total per capita map though, the reasons why get a little clearer - a lot of the South is in the 1-in-6 to 1-in-4 range, and if something like 20% of the population (and, I don't think it's a stretch to say this is a subset more heavily weighted to people resisting vaccination, since they tend to be more likely to view other measures like wearing masks and social distancing as affronts to their liberties, making them more likely to get sick in the first place) having already had Covid, most of them fairly recently, and 40-50% of people are also vaccinated, then you're getting up to a point where it's penetrated to the degree that it probably is starting to burn out a bit. 

That's not a great way of getting here - a whole bunch of people died who otherwise might not have - but I guess it's encouraging...?


----------



## Adieu

Ugh

Don't post NYT links

Gmail unbans them from your spam filter if you visit the site.


----------



## jaxadam

"Immunized" but unvaccinated Aaron Rodgers tests positive for Covid-19, has to sit out for 10 days, giving Packers fans a more promising shot at the playoffs.

https://sports.yahoo.com/aaron-rodg...airs-of-the-woke-mob-right-now-173236045.html


----------



## Drew

Adieu said:


> Ugh
> 
> Don't post NYT links
> 
> Gmail unbans them from your spam filter if you visit the site.


You're getting spammed by the Times? Anyway, it's a handy Covid tracker, and a pretty robustly-sourced news source. You may believe they're left-leaning, or rather center-left establishment leaning, but they're reliably factually accurate in their reporting.


----------



## Drew

jaxadam said:


> "Immunized" but unvaccinated Aaron Rodgers tests positive for Covid-19, has to sit out for 10 days, giving Packers fans a more promising shot at the playoffs.
> 
> https://sports.yahoo.com/aaron-rodg...airs-of-the-woke-mob-right-now-173236045.html


Hand't been folloing this story at all, save that Rogers was somehow in hot water for lying about his vaccination status. What an asshole.


----------



## Adieu

Drew said:


> You're getting spammed by the Times? Anyway, it's a handy Covid tracker, and a pretty robustly-sourced news source. You may believe they're left-leaning, or rather center-left establishment leaning, but they're reliably factually accurate in their reporting.



Yes, I've set and reset spam filters countless times to block em. They're on a Quora level of bad.

No, I don't believe anything about their politics.

I just resent them for massive spam campaigns, constantly moaning for money, and very crappy writing from what I have seen.

The Economist - good, NYT - toilet paper


----------



## Drew

Adieu said:


> Yes, I've set and reset spam filters countless times to block em. They're on a Quora level of bad.
> 
> No, I don't believe anything about their politics.
> 
> I just resent them for massive spam campaigns, constantly moaning for money, and very crappy writing from what I have seen.
> 
> The Economist - good, NYT - toilet paper


Economist subscriber here, and I have no idea what you're talking about with the Times. Are you sure you're not confusing them with someone else?


----------



## bostjan

Got my Moderna booster Tuesday.

So far, no side effects at all.

I'm quite pleased, considering the first shot made me feel like I hadn't slept for a week and the second one gave me a funky rash.


----------



## Drew

Great news! I'm hoping to get mine next week, if I can find a spot.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> Great news! I'm hoping to get mine next week, if I can find a spot.


The shady abandoned optometrist office volunteer site was shut down, so I went to my pharmacy's website and booked it online, then I showed up, they jabbed me, told me to wait 10 minutes, and then I went back to work.

The pharmacist told me that the booster is just a half dose of the vaccine.  Amazing, though, how I have so much less than half the side effects.

My local neighbourhood has been hit pretty hard. We've had a bunch of positive cases at our school as well as lots of other cases I'm aware of at the moment - worse than last year at this time. I think we're, for whatever reason, doing worse than the rest of the US now. I'm hoping people reupping with boosters and maybe doing a little less in-person socializing over the winter will help knock the numbers back down, but from what I've been hearing, most people don't care about the boosters and want to get out and party right now. If numbers are high but hospitalizations stay manageably low, then I get the feeling that this is the way out of the spiral.


----------



## Adieu

I'd totally get it, but it seems Cali demands that I become a senior citizen, essentially menial laborer, and/or immunocompromised first???


----------



## bostjan

Adieu said:


> I'd totally get it, but it seems Cali demands that I become a senior citizen, essentially menial laborer, and/or immunocompromised first???


"any adults are eligible as long as two months have passed since they got a Johnson & Johnson shot, or at least six months have passed since they received a second dose of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna."
https://www.latimes.com/california/...turbo-charges-push-for-covid-19-booster-shots


----------



## spudmunkey

I'm on a new perscription, and the side effects now make me officially "immunocompromised", so I'm up for a booster (it's been 7 months, so I guess I'd qualify here anyway), flu shot, and pneumonia shot next week.


----------



## Xaios

bostjan said:


> The pharmacist told me that the booster is just a half dose of the vaccine.  Amazing, though, how I have so much less than half the side effects.


Maybe side-effects are logarithmic in severity.


----------



## bostjan

spudmunkey said:


> I'm on a new perscription, and the side effects now make me officially "immunocompromised", so I'm up for a booster (it's been 7 months, so I guess I'd qualify here anyway), flu shot, and pneumonia shot next week.


Sounds like a pain. I hope it all works out.


----------



## spudmunkey

Xaios said:


> Maybe side-effects are logarithmic in severity.



Yeah, they use audio taper syringes


bostjan said:


> Sounds like a pain. I hope it all works out.



Thanks. I've been battling a...er...."digestion" issue that's kept me from leaving the house for more than 20 minutes at a time, since April. At least this is the first thing that's seemed to help at all, so that's good.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

Two coworkers in my group got the booster so looks like I'm booking an appointment at Stanford this coming week for mine. No symptoms for either of the first two Pfizer shots and hoping the same for this third shot.


----------



## beerandbeards

Got boosted yesterday. Arm is still a little sore like someone punched me in the deltoid. I have had Moderna straight across the board.


----------



## Drew

I get my booster Wednesday after work. Mixing vaccines since that was just what was available.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> My local neighbourhood has been hit pretty hard. We've had a bunch of positive cases at our school as well as lots of other cases I'm aware of at the moment - worse than last year at this time. I think we're, for whatever reason, doing worse than the rest of the US now. I'm hoping people reupping with boosters and maybe doing a little less in-person socializing over the winter will help knock the numbers back down, but from what I've been hearing, most people don't care about the boosters and want to get out and party right now. If numbers are high but hospitalizations stay manageably low, then I get the feeling that this is the way out of the spiral.


Per the NY Times tracker, Vermont is now one of the national hotspots, though - as with fellow hotspot Alaska - that's low population and low case counts combining to a high per-100,000 case rate. Still, if we need another reminder that whether or not WE may be done with covid, covid isn't done with US... 

Oddly, the US South has extremely low per capita numbers now. Which, I think I posted here, may not be all that odd - between inoculation rates in the 50-60% or so range and one-in-four people having had covid, and with the worst of the wave after vaccines were widely available so you're disproportionately having the vaccine-hesitant getting hit there, you probably ARE looking at 75-85% of the population currently having fairly decent resistance to inflection, which is around the herd immunity threshold (noting that immunity may decay with time, we're at least over that threshold NOW). Covid literally burned itself out in Florida and Mississippi, which is one of those outcomes we were hoping to avoid but thank god at least vaccination stopped that from completely overwhelming the health care system.


----------



## bostjan

https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...ork-and-will-be-used/articleshow/87694353.cms

Is this the light at the end of the tunnel after almost two years?

As these treatments get approved, if they are as effective as they claim, this could finally turn this around on a global scale. But how long will it take?

IDK, but, with a two-pronged approach of vaccines and treatments (maybe optimistically with a third prong of people actually washing their damned hands and covering their mouths when they sneeze or cough), I finally feel some level of confidence that we could get back to "normal" within the near future.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Got boosted last week... almost no soreness whatsoever and absolutely no other side effects. 

So... maybe interesting/ maybe not but yesterday I went to the store and forgot my mask... thought I had some spares in the glove-box... nope/ whoops. But I decided to go into the store anyway... unmasked for the first time in public in almost two years... crazy how long it's been. Store was busy and most people aren't masking anymore. It was a quick trip but the longer that I was in there the more uncomfortable I felt. I got out of there and I swear... I'm not ready to stop wearing a mask yet.... even fully vaccinated and with a booster. I'm sure there's some psychological part to this but idk... I felt like a complete dick without one on and I also felt like I wasn't supporting those that were wearing theirs. I'm glad that at least some of us still wear masks so I guess I feel like I was letting down my teammates or something. Yeah I know that sounds weird but whatever. I'm not ready to go into a crowded place without a mask on... not yet.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

High Plains Drifter said:


> Got boosted last week... almost no soreness whatsoever and absolutely no other side effects.
> 
> So... maybe interesting/ maybe not but yesterday I went to the store and forgot my mask... thought I had some spares in the glove-box... nope/ whoops. But I decided to go into the store anyway... unmasked for the first time in public in almost two years... crazy how long it's been. Store was busy and most people aren't masking anymore. It was a quick trip but the longer that I was in there the more uncomfortable I felt. I got out of there and I swear... I'm not ready to stop wearing a mask yet.... even fully vaccinated and with a booster. I'm sure there's some psychological part to this but idk... I felt like a complete dick without one on and I also felt like I wasn't supporting those that were wearing theirs. I'm glad that at least some of us still wear masks so I guess I feel like I was letting down my teammates or something. Yeah I know that sounds weird but whatever. I'm not ready to go into a crowded place without a mask on... not yet.



I'm with you, bud. I feel like an asshole without it at this point.


----------



## bostjan

Once we all start taking our masks off, we'll probably all simultaneously get head colds from the bugs we've been blocking from our respiratory tracts for over a score of months. Then two or three other random commodities will suddenly either skyrocket in price and/or become unobtainable.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...ork-and-will-be-used/articleshow/87694353.cms
> 
> Is this the light at the end of the tunnel after almost two years?
> 
> As these treatments get approved, if they are as effective as they claim, this could finally turn this around on a global scale. But how long will it take?
> 
> IDK, but, with a two-pronged approach of vaccines and treatments (maybe optimistically with a third prong of people actually washing their damned hands and covering their mouths when they sneeze or cough), I finally feel some level of confidence that we could get back to "normal" within the near future.


I have unbroken faith in American stupidity's ability to find a way to make even THIS advance not enough to successfully beat back this pandemic.


----------



## Adieu

Trust the system to make it utterly inaccessible to anyone except those for whom it is far, far too late

And/or to create a swamped medical system and waiting room pandemic wave from people lining up to get scripts

And then maybe a behind-the-counter approach that'll see it sell for small car prices without a prescription

And, finally, 20 years later, Costco will be selling 2x 500 bottle packs by Kirkland for just under 7 bucks


----------



## bostjan

In India, the treatment costs about $2.50 USD, so, yeah, probably equivalent to about $1500/dose in the USA, the way drug prices go.


----------



## Xaios

I never stopped wearing my mask. Given that we're back into a state of emergency where I live, that means I haven't skipped a beat having to keep wearing one. We actually have a really high vaccination rate here, but we're basically at the point where the people who haven't gotten vaccinated won't, and that's the cause of most of the grief. About a week ago, I was in the grocery store parking lot when I heard the woman who was parked beside me telling her kids (who were at the very most 6 years old) that the government had no right to tell them they had to wear a seat belt. That's the kind of person who we're dealing with.

They've also started giving boosters to people over 50, waiting for that age limit to drop so that I can get mine.


----------



## zappatton2

Yeah, masking is still policy in Ontario, and honestly, aside from a few cranks doing the freedumb schtick, it's still overwhelmingly supported by the public up here. I think we'll be seeing it even after most of this subsides (assuming it does anytime in the next couple of years). Trumpism plays in some rural areas, but it's politically toxic overall, and no Canadian party wants to tie themselves to it, other than the "People's Party", with it's roughly 5% support from the True Believers.


----------



## Drew

Masks indoors are still the policy in Boston, but even before that it was voluntary but could be required at the discretion of the business, and most of the businesses I've been inside were still requiring them. So no change here. Mass has pretty good case numbers, but New Hampshire and Vermont are surging and pulling up New England totals, and I'd be naive to think that Covid is going to give a shit about state borders.


----------



## spudmunkey

There was about a 3-4 week period here (if I remember right...we don't go out often anyway, so I don't have a crystal clear picture) where masks for vaccinated were optional. I think we ended up going maskless at a store maybe 4-5 times...but these rules are based on a pretty structured system of metrics, and our county pretty quickly went back to the higher risk level where masks are required, and have basically been there ever since, because you have to dip below certain transmission levels for I think at least 3 weeks before you can move to the next lower level...but as soon as you go back over it, you're in the next higher tier again.


----------



## TedEH

I wonder how holidays are going to go, given that the general air seems to be that people have relaxed about the 'rona overall. To the point of maybe forgetting there are still restrictions on gatherings, etc.


----------



## Ralyks

How'd you guys feel after the booster? Wondering if I should wait for the next time I have a weekend off just in case.


----------



## Drew

TedEH said:


> I wonder how holidays are going to go, given that the general air seems to be that people have relaxed about the 'rona overall. To the point of maybe forgetting there are still restrictions on gatherings, etc.


General expectation is badly. Europe is currently surging and I've read a lot of commentary that this is probably a preview of the US, and while cases are down nationally, they're rising again and they're getting pretty _bad_ in parts of the country.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> I wonder how holidays are going to go, given that the general air seems to be that people have relaxed about the 'rona overall. To the point of maybe forgetting there are still restrictions on gatherings, etc.



No need to wonder. You can be pretty sure nobody will take any precaution and we'll have a huge wave.


----------



## Adieu

There's a reason we pronounce it "Twenty-twenty-TWO"

Well... it's really going to be more like 2020-three, but same difference. Brace yourselves and make sure to have a work-at-home source of income.

And probably expect your money to be worth 20-30% less than before.


----------



## Ralyks

Adieu said:


> There's a reason we pronounce it "Twenty-twenty-TWO"
> 
> Well... it's really going to be more like 2020-three, but same difference. Brace yourselves and make sure to have a work-at-home source of income.
> 
> And probably expect your money to be worth 20-30% less than before.



I've been calling this year 2020 New Game +.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

Ralyks said:


> How'd you guys feel after the booster? Wondering if I should wait for the next time I have a weekend off just in case.


Got mine yesterday, triple Pfizer boost but as with the first two no symptoms and just a slightly sore arm for an hour.


----------



## Ralyks

How are they going to call the new mutation Omicron, and not just go all the way with it and call it Omicron Persei 8?


----------



## Werecow

Ralyks said:


> How are they going to call the new mutation Omicron, and not just go all the way with it and call it Omicron Persei 8?


----------



## jaxadam

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bi...rs-without-a-mask-despite-sign-mandating-them


----------



## Adieu

Does the new SARS-CoV-2 variant cause vivid pseudohallucinations?

I just literally spent about an hour drafting a furious response to a silly business email... that turned out to have been a dream.

Like shaking mad f all-y'all furious.

No substances, haven't even had a beer.

Had some mad vivid dreams yesterday too.


----------



## nightflameauto

Adieu said:


> Does the new SARS-CoV-2 variant cause vivid pseudohallucinations?
> 
> I just literally spent about an hour drafting a furious response to a silly business email... that turned out to have been a dream.
> 
> Like shaking mad f all-y'all furious.
> 
> No substances, haven't even had a beer.
> 
> Had some mad vivid dreams yesterday too.


I've heard similar stories from those that have gotten any variant. Not all of them, but some get wicked dreams for a few days leading up to getting sick, and one other one had a similar story about day-dreaming so vividly they thought it was real.


----------



## Drew

Adieu said:


> Does the new SARS-CoV-2 variant cause vivid pseudohallucinations?
> 
> I just literally spent about an hour drafting a furious response to a silly business email... that turned out to have been a dream.
> 
> Like shaking mad f all-y'all furious.
> 
> No substances, haven't even had a beer.
> 
> Had some mad vivid dreams yesterday too.


No, but that's definitely a side effect of work burnout!


----------



## StevenC

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59418123

I actually knew some of this a while ago.


----------



## Adieu

StevenC said:


> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59418123
> 
> I actually knew some of this a while ago.



Well, duh

Now take 2 aspirin before the shot if concerned and be done with it. You're probably more likely to die in a vehicular accident on the way to the shot or going home anyway.


----------



## StevenC

Adieu said:


> Well, duh
> 
> Now take 2 aspirin before the shot if concerned and be done with it. You're probably more likely to die in a vehicular accident on the way to the shot or going home anyway.


I mean, _I'm _literally more likely to do die from the shot than the drive there.


----------



## bostjan

So now we're half way through the Greek alphabet. Once they run out, are they going to double up the greek letters? Get some fraternity-sounding strains? How long before we hear about the Alpha Phi Alpha strain hitting African Americans or Iota Eta Pi strain hitting overweight people? Or maybe they'll start just using the Roman alphabet, in which case, get ready for the C++ strain.

Here in VT, we are just now starting to come down (hopefully) from our worst surge yet, which looks like it peaked maybe over the weekend. More than three times the peak new daily cases than ever before. But it looks like the rate of death from the disease is no worse than last year, so, I guess the added immunity from previous exposures and vaccines, although it's not enough to stop the spread, it's enough to make a serious difference in severity. I don't see this going away ever, but, honestly, if the general population's immunity improves to the point where the deadliest strains die out, and the treatments that are showing the most promise end up working out, then people will slowly stop caring about it, and, in a couple years, life will be as close as it gets to "normal."


----------



## Adieu

Yay, another couple years

Anyone done a study on how long careful single virus-averse holdouts last in self-imposed antisocial isolation? Abstinence is starting frustrate


----------



## bostjan

Adieu said:


> Yay, another couple years
> 
> Anyone done a study on how long careful single virus-averse holdouts last in self-imposed antisocial isolation? Abstinence is starting frustrate


No. But, fun fact, no one has ever done a randomly controlled study on the effectiveness of parachutes, either.


----------



## Drew

Couple random notes. 

1) It's now been confirmed that Trump HAD received a positive Covid test three days before his debate with Biden. He did get a subsequent (false) negative test, though evidently decided not to take a third, and while one of his advisors claims he told everyone around him to treat him like he was positive just in case, a couple others have no recollection of that and the same day his positive test came back he was later that day talking up close with a bunch of reporters, one of whom (from the Times, who broke this story and for this reason had long been suspicious of the timeline) subsequently tested positive. This test came back after the Rose Garden ceremony for now-Justice Barrett, and I believe a few people tested positive after that as well. 

2) a second omicron case was detected in the States, in a Minnesota man who had just returned from an anime convention in New York City where 50,000 people had attended, from all over the country. I think it's safe to assume that if this variant is more contagious than Delta, the cat is absolutely out of the bag.


----------



## Xaios

bostjan said:


> So now we're half way through the Greek alphabet. Once they run out, are they going to double up the greek letters? Get some fraternity-sounding strains? How long before we hear about the Alpha Phi Alpha strain hitting African Americans or Iota Eta Pi strain hitting overweight people? Or maybe they'll start just using the Roman alphabet, in which case, get ready for the C++ strain.


Figure we'll be using an inversion of hurricane naming conventions. Hurricanes branch into the Greek alphabet if they run through the whole Latin alphabet's worth of names in a year. Soon we'll be seeing Covid variants Arlene and Bob.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> Couple random notes.
> 
> 1) It's now been confirmed that Trump HAD received a positive Covid test three days before his debate with Biden. He did get a subsequent (false) negative test, though evidently decided not to take a third, and while one of his advisors claims he told everyone around him to treat him like he was positive just in case, a couple others have no recollection of that and the same day his positive test came back he was later that day talking up close with a bunch of reporters, one of whom (from the Times, who broke this story and for this reason had long been suspicious of the timeline) subsequently tested positive. This test came back after the Rose Garden ceremony for now-Justice Barrett, and I believe a few people tested positive after that as well.
> 
> 2) a second omicron case was detected in the States, in a Minnesota man who had just returned from an anime convention in New York City where 50,000 people had attended, from all over the country. I think it's safe to assume that if this variant is more contagious than Delta, the cat is absolutely out of the bag.



1. So Trump might have been patient zero for the Washington elite. Is anyone really surprised, though?

2. There never really was a bag, if you ask me. People, by and large, have gone back to their lives as usual. And, at this point, I'm not sure I can blame them too much. The weird bright side of this might be that the more contagious and less deadly strains are likely the best way to keep the less contagious more deadly strains in check.



Xaios said:


> Figure we'll be using an inversion of hurricane naming conventions. Hurricanes branch into the Greek alphabet if they run through the whole Latin alphabet's worth of names in a year. Soon we'll be seeing Covid variants Arlene and Bob.



In light of the above, I'm expecting there to be a Donald strain.


----------



## Drew

My fiancee tells me that "patient zero" only refers to the initial point of transmission of a new virus, and after that, the initial point of transmission for each cluster is the "index patient." Otherwise, I agree - if he wasn't the index patient, he was certainly the honorable mention.  

And yeah, it was a matter of time that omicron was going to get anywhere, in some ways it's just, like, one less thing to worry about, now that we know it likely already _has. _We can just focus on mitigation.


----------



## bostjan

You've heard of typhoid Mary, now introducing the "coronadon." (Sounds like a dinosaur, maybe he'd like that)

I've ended up testing four times now, always negative. Maybe everyone else will be laughing when I finally get it and it kicks my ass, but I'll likely be getting the next booster 6-9 months from now and we'll see where it goes from there.


----------



## Drew

I only know "index patient" because my fiancee was ours, back in March 2020, so we've had 18 months to make Typhiod Mary style jokes about her.


----------



## BigViolin

Pfizer boosting tomorrow. Hoping for increased attack and clarity. Slight mid hump is cool too.

Fuck, so lame, I’m so sorry.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

BigViolin said:


> Pfizer boosting tomorrow. Hoping for increased attack and clarity. Slight mid hump is cool too.
> 
> Fuck, so lame, I’m so sorry.


 I thought it was funny.


----------



## donniekak

Adieu said:


> Well, duh
> 
> Now take 2 aspirin before the shot if concerned and be done with it. You're probably more likely to die in a vehicular accident on the way to the shot or going home anyway.


Here is the issue. An 80 year old is tens of thousands of times more likely to die of Covid than a 16 year old boy. The odds of a vaccine reaction are higher in the 16 year old boy than the 80 year old, yet were treating everyone the same.


----------



## bostjan

donniekak said:


> Here is the issue. An 80 year old is tens of thousands of times more likely to die of Covid than a 16 year old boy. The odds of a vaccine reaction are higher in the 16 year old boy than the 80 year old, yet were treating everyone the same.


You're right.

Initially, it was "everyone get vaccinated to stop the spread," but then shortly after "we just figured out that vaccines don't stop the spread, only limit the severity of the symptoms of the virus." So IDK. I guess the million dollar question is what is the difference between the rate of covid deaths per age group versus the rate of covax reactions per age group. Maybe there are a few age groups where it doesn't make sense.


----------



## donniekak

bostjan said:


> You're right.
> 
> Initially, it was "everyone get vaccinated to stop the spread," but then shortly after "we just figured out that vaccines don't stop the spread, only limit the severity of the symptoms of the virus." So IDK. I guess the million dollar question is what is the difference between the rate of covid deaths per age group versus the rate of covax reactions per age group. Maybe there are a few age groups where it doesn't make sense.


It's not really a vaccine. A working vaccine is capable of eradicating a pathogen from the world, just look at smallpox and polio.

For now all we have are prophylactic treatments. They seem to work well at preventing death, but they aren't going to eradicate a now endemic disease.


----------



## TedEH

I can't speak to any of the science behind it, but I can say that in Quebec and Ontario at least, since the vax came out, social freedoms/mobility have gone _way_ up, but the death rate has stayed pretty low. This sounds like a selling point for vaccines to me.


----------



## TedEH

donniekak said:


> It's not really a vaccine. A working vaccine is capable of eradicating a pathogen from the world, just look at smallpox and polio.


I don't think that's how anything works. "This isn't actually a tool because nobody is using it properly" doesn't make any sense to me. I suspect that if we had 100% buy in from the whole planet to cooperate on everything: the vaccines, the stay at home orders, etc., then we _could_ have eradicated this thing. But that was never going to happen.


----------



## donniekak

TedEH said:


> I don't think that's how anything works. "This isn't actually a tool because nobody is using it properly" doesn't make any sense to me. I suspect that if we had 100% buy in from the whole planet to cooperate on everything: the vaccines, the stay at home orders, etc., then we _could_ have eradicated this thing. But that was never going to happen.


This is a real vaccine.

"
*Two doses of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) are 90% effective or more against polio; three doses are 99% to 100% effective."*
*
Not against severe disease, against infection.*


----------



## TedEH

Something something no true Scotsman? Yeh, that's not what defines a vaccine.


----------



## bostjan

donniekak said:


> It's not really a vaccine. A working vaccine is capable of eradicating a pathogen from the world, just look at smallpox and polio.
> 
> For now all we have are prophylactic treatments. They seem to work well at preventing death, but they aren't going to eradicate a now endemic disease.


"*vaccine *(noun): a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases, prepared from the causative agent of a disease, its products, or a synthetic substitute, treated to act as an antigen without inducing the disease."

If you're going to try to split hairs, it's definitely a vaccine. It doesn't do what a lot of loud people with no science background were promising, but it does do what the science community expected it to do.


----------



## jaxadam

donniekak said:


> This is a real vaccine.
> 
> "
> *Two doses of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) are 90% effective or more against polio; three doses are 99% to 100% effective."*
> 
> *Not against severe disease, against infection.*



You wanna talk about something cool, check this out.

https://tischbraintumorcenter.duke.edu/news/duke’s-poliovirus-therapy-wins-“breakthrough”-status


----------



## bostjan

donniekak said:


> This is a real vaccine.
> 
> "
> *Two doses of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) are 90% effective or more against polio; three doses are 99% to 100% effective."*
> 
> *Not against severe disease, against infection.*



The difference is that polio immunity lasts for life. Same with tons of other viral diseases. Influenza immunity, for example, is much shorter, more like a couple of years, and, based on what we were extrapolating from what little we know about coronavirus immunity, we were expecting something that decayed in strength faster than influenza. The bright side, though, is that even if the infection sets in, the immune system after vaccination (or likewise exposure) is able to manage the spread of the virus much better, even long after the antibodies are gone.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> You're right.
> 
> Initially, it was "everyone get vaccinated to stop the spread," but then shortly after "we just figured out that vaccines don't stop the spread, only limit the severity of the symptoms of the virus." So IDK. I guess the million dollar question is what is the difference between the rate of covid deaths per age group versus the rate of covax reactions per age group. Maybe there are a few age groups where it doesn't make sense.


Splitting hairs, but when we're debating with someone who's questioning the value of a covid vaccine in the first place, I think this distinction matters. 

The Covid vaccine doesn't make it less likely that a breakthrough case will infect someone else. It doesn't stop transmission on a person-to-person level. However, it makes it something like 80-95% less likely that someone gets infected in the first place, and if you never get infected you're not going to transmit it. It stops transmission at the _population_ level, by slashing the likelihood of people becoming sick in the first place. 

That means that on a personal level you should absolutely quarantine and take precautions if you get sick... but on the population level if we get vaccination levels high enough, we can if not erradicate covid, at least massively stop the spread.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> Splitting hairs, but when we're debating with someone who's questioning the value of a covid vaccine in the first place, I think this distinction matters.
> 
> The Covid vaccine doesn't make it less likely that a breakthrough case will infect someone else. It doesn't stop transmission on a person-to-person level. However, it makes it something like 80-95% less likely that someone gets infected in the first place, and if you never get infected you're not going to transmit it. It stops transmission at the _population_ level, by slashing the likelihood of people becoming sick in the first place.
> 
> That means that on a personal level you should absolutely quarantine and take precautions if you get sick... but on the population level if we get vaccination levels high enough, we can if not erradicate covid, at least massively stop the spread.


I agree with everything you said.

However, this _is_ America. So the personal-level psychology or whatever of it matters just as much, if not more, than the societal-level of it, particularly if you are mandating stuff.

Good luck convincing the Jenny McCarthy's out there (meaning people who actually do a bunch of research, but then just cherry pick what they read and only apply the negative stuff) that they need to vaccinate their kids with a vaccine that has a bunch of pros and cons that could take a half hour to sift through and even longer to explain to someone who has no interest in understanding why their personal opinion might be wrong.


----------



## CanserDYI

So my vaxxed friends now have Covid somehow, we were around them the other day, my wife and I are both vaxxed but our 4 and 5 year olds are not yet. I gave both of them a covid test last night, and came up negative after the 10 minute thing and came back wayyyy later and now one of them has a faint line on the positive section....what do I make of this?


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> However, this _is_ America. So the personal-level psychology or whatever of it matters just as much, if not more, than the societal-level of it, particularly if you are mandating stuff.


I mean, I don't fully agree, but mostly because it's a spectrum - this carries more weight than it should, for sure, though. :/


----------



## Drew

CanserDYI said:


> So my vaxxed friends now have Covid somehow, we were around them the other day, my wife and I are both vaxxed but our 4 and 5 year olds are not yet. I gave both of them a covid test last night, and came up negative after the 10 minute thing and came back wayyyy later and now one of them has a faint line on the positive section....what do I make of this?


Get a PCR test. You're supposed to check between 15 and 30 minutes, so if by "wayyy later" you mean a half hour, it looks like the test may be reading positive. If it's longer than that, god only knows, as it's designed to be reliable for that fifteen minute window but after that I don't know what other factors could be at play.


----------



## bostjan

CanserDYI said:


> So my vaxxed friends now have Covid somehow, we were around them the other day, my wife and I are both vaxxed but our 4 and 5 year olds are not yet. I gave both of them a covid test last night, and came up negative after the 10 minute thing and came back wayyyy later and now one of them has a faint line on the positive section....what do I make of this?


Retest and proceed as if the inconclusive test is positive until you see a negative result. If you aren't sure about your kit, see if there is an in-person testing center near you.

False positive can occur, but are extremely rare. I hope everything is okay. Severe covid is also extremely extremely rare in kids that age, but you might want to notify your pediatrician just in case.


----------



## CanserDYI

Drew said:


> Get a PCR test. You're supposed to check between 15 and 30 minutes, so if by "wayyy later" you mean a half hour, it looks like the test may be reading positive. If it's longer than that, god only knows, as it's designed to be reliable for that fifteen minute window but after that I don't know what other factors could be at play.


it was overnight, thanks!


----------



## Drew

CanserDYI said:


> it was overnight, thanks!


Well, the good news is the testing kit isn't designed to give an accurte result 8+ hours later, so that's reason to cast serious doubt on the positive. 

The bad news is "serious doubt" isn't the same as "totally false," so you should definitely retest, and check inside that 15-30 minute window the instructions require. 

Good luck!


----------



## StevenC

donniekak said:


> It's not really a vaccine. A working vaccine is capable of eradicating a pathogen from the world, just look at smallpox and polio.


This definition means there has been literally one vaccine ever. Please either engage honestly in the conversation or go somewhere else.

EDIT: Also to the rest of your comment, vaccines are literally all prophylactic by definition.


----------



## donniekak

bostjan said:


> "*vaccine *(noun): a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases, prepared from the causative agent of a disease, its products, or a synthetic substitute, treated to act as an antigen without inducing the disease."
> 
> If you're going to try to split hairs, it's definitely a vaccine. It doesn't do what a lot of loud people with no science background were promising, but it does do what the science community expected it to do.


The cdc changed their definition of vaccine after the rollout of the jab so that it fit the definition.

I'm not some q idiot that thinks it's 5g nanobots. I'm just a realist that sees a fairly effective treatment rebranded as a vaccine.


----------



## donniekak

StevenC said:


> This definition means there has been literally one vaccine ever. Please either engage honestly in the conversation or go somewhere else.
> 
> EDIT: Also to the rest of your comment, vaccines are literally all prophylactic by definition.


Up until recently I was never told my vaccine would only mitigate symptoms, but still allow infection and transmission.

They prophylatically prevent infection, up until recently.


----------



## StevenC

donniekak said:


> Up until recently I was never told my vaccine would only mitigate symptoms, but still allow infection and transmission.
> 
> They prophylatically prevent infection, up until recently.


Then you didn't know anything about your previous vaccines. And also covid vaccines do prevent infections and reduce transmission there are several studies showing this. The reason it looks like delta, for example, is having breakthrough cases is because it is faster to produce a positive test than previous strains and can reproduce quickly enough to create a positive test in vaccinated people. These people are not getting any sicker than if they had been infected with an earlier strain because they are fighting it as effectively, it just replicates more efficiently.

My goodness, it's like you don't know how viruses work. Vaccines do not create a barrier around you, they train your immune system. The virus can still get into your body if you are vaccinated and any virus can still infect you if you are vaccinated. The reason this looks different to other vaccines is a) it's a damn pandemic so there is a huge amount of opportunities for breakthrough and b) we just came out of a very fast acting strain.

Again, the flu _vaccine_ which has been called a _vaccine_ for years is on average around 50% to 60% effective which is way less than these current _vaccines_ which you have arbitrarily decided are not "vaccines". You can still get the flu after being vaccinated for a variety of reasons including strain mutations, efficacy, and immune disorders. Herd immunity through vaccination is a concept we've known about for decades and included in those calculations is that vaccines are not perfectly effective.

Polio vaccines are so effective because we've been working with basically one strain for literally decades. This is two years old and mutates faster. If your issue is that these need boosters a) your example for polio literally included a booster and b) tonnes of vaccines have used boosters for decades and we called those vaccines.


----------



## donniekak

Then why change the definition?


----------



## StevenC

donniekak said:


> Then why change the definition?


Citation needed. I have literally never seen a different definition for vaccines. I have dictionaries and medical dictionaries beside me that have that definition, yet they were printed years ago.

You are either lying to us to troll, or lying to yourself because you've been brainwashed.

Feel free to respond to the contents of my post as well though instead of deflecting to imaginary talking points over words you don't understand, and read the heading of this forum.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Tell me you get your news from Facebook without telling me you get your news from Facebook.


----------



## donniekak

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article254111268.html


----------



## donniekak

MaxOfMetal said:


> Tell me you get your news from Facebook without telling me you get your news from Facebook.


I don't even have social media.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Context is important:

https://www.politifact.com/factchec...m-webster-didnt-remove-immunity-portion-its-/



donniekak said:


> I don't even have social media.



_This website is social media. _


----------



## StevenC

donniekak said:


> https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article254111268.html


So your argument is that you don't know the definition of immunity? Wow.


----------



## donniekak

StevenC said:


> So your argument is that you don't know the definition of immunity? Wow.


I'm not a government agency changing definitions during a pandemic. That's not really a way to instill confidence.


----------



## donniekak

Keep moving the goalpost though.


----------



## StevenC

donniekak said:


> I'm not a government agency changing definitions during a pandemic. That's not really a way to instill confidence.


No one is moving goalposts, but you won't engage in an intellectually honest way.

If you read the article and the links therein, you will see that the definition of immunity and immunization don't change, and moreover if you substitute the word immunity in the older website with the definition given consistently on both versions, you will get the "new" definition for vaccine/vaccination. That's how words work. This is literally for clarity so that people who think the word immunity is an absolute don't get tripped up. But, again, you're getting tripped up anyway for the reasons I stated above.


----------



## IwantTacos

I’m always flabbergasted by what world idiots even live in. 




You can also get breakthroughs of the flu. 

but the definitions. How are people this dumb.


----------



## Bodes

I know it seems fun to jump on people who are not of the same opinion as ourselves (I am 100% certain I have done this on ss.org at some stage(s)), but I think when it comes to health information, it would be better to inform, rather than judge them. Especially when it comes to this pandemic.

It does seem that @donniekak does not have the understanding around what a vaccine is/does, and asked a question. Yes it did read as though he wrote it in a troll-like fashion (including some of their replies), but it could be a genuine question of concern and wanted some clarification based on their readings. 
If we all jump on these people, then they are more likely to keep thinking we are all "lefty loons'' or whatever those in the USA call pro-vaccine people, and we may push them further away from wanting to be vaccinated.

*waits for the "yes mum" reply*


----------



## IwantTacos

Bodes said:


> I know it seems fun to jump on people who are not of the same opinion as ourselves (I am 100% certain I have done this on ss.org at some stage(s)), but I think when it comes to health information, it would be better to inform, rather than judge them. Especially when it comes to this pandemic.
> 
> It does seem that @donniekak does not have the understanding around what a vaccine is/does, and asked a question. Yes it did read as though he wrote it in a troll-like fashion (including some of their replies), but it could be a genuine question of concern and wanted some clarification based on their readings.
> If we all jump on these people, then they are more likely to keep thinking we are all "lefty loons'' or whatever those in the USA call pro-vaccine people, and we may push them further away from wanting to be vaccinated.
> 
> *waits for the "yes mum" reply*



they can Google. Same as I can.


----------



## StevenC

Bodes said:


> I know it seems fun to jump on people who are not of the same opinion as ourselves (I am 100% certain I have done this on ss.org at some stage(s)), but I think when it comes to health information, it would be better to inform, rather than judge them. Especially when it comes to this pandemic.
> 
> It does seem that @donniekak does not have the understanding around what a vaccine is/does, and asked a question. Yes it did read as though he wrote it in a troll-like fashion (including some of their replies), but it could be a genuine question of concern and wanted some clarification based on their readings.
> If we all jump on these people, then they are more likely to keep thinking we are all "lefty loons'' or whatever those in the USA call pro-vaccine people, and we may push them further away from wanting to be vaccinated.
> 
> *waits for the "yes mum" reply*


This isn't their first offence. And this isn't the first time we've had purple who jump into this subforum without much interest for guitar.


----------



## MrBouleDeBowling

Wanna know something funny?

My brutal death side project that I've been working on for the last two years is called Colony Omicron.

Litteraly 20 days after I finally released my first EP, the new variant was identified.

I am not a lucky person


----------



## MaxOfMetal

AlexCorriveau said:


> Wanna know something funny?
> 
> My brutal death side project that I've been working on for the last two years is called Colony Omicron.
> 
> Litteraly 20 days after I finally released my first EP, the new variant was identified.
> 
> I am not a lucky person



Hey, at least you're gonna pop up in more Google searches.


----------



## StevenC

AlexCorriveau said:


> Wanna know something funny?
> 
> My brutal death side project that I've been working on for the last two years is called Colony Omicron.
> 
> Litteraly 20 days after I finally released my first EP, the new variant was identified.
> 
> I am not a lucky person


Haken released an album called Virus last year purely out of coincidence too.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

StevenC said:


> Haken released an album called Virus last year purely out of coincidence too.



Cattle Decapitation wins. 

Not only was their 2019 album themed around a global pandemic, with the first single being "Bring Back The Plague", but their headlining European tour was called the "Europandemic Tour". All of this was arranged late 2018/early 2019.


----------



## donniekak

MaxOfMetal said:


> Context is important:
> 
> https://www.politifact.com/factchec...m-webster-didnt-remove-immunity-portion-its-/
> 
> 
> 
> _This website is social media. _


I guess it depends on what your definition of is is.


----------



## Xaios

MaxOfMetal said:


> Cattle Decapitation wins.
> 
> Not only was their 2019 album themed around a global pandemic, with the first single being "Bring Back The Plague", but their headlining European tour was called the "Europandemic Tour". All of this was arranged late 2018/early 2019.


I mean, it's not disease-related, but nothing will ever beat Dream Theater releasing "Live Scenes From New York", an album with the New York City skyline, Twin Towers and all, in flames... on September 11, 2001.


donniekak said:


> I guess it depends on what your definition of is is.


Then why care about the CDC's definition of a vaccine at all? After all, clearly people can just have their own definitions for things.


----------



## Randy

Xaios said:


> I mean, it's not disease-related, but nothing will ever beat Dream Theater releasing "Live Scenes From New York", an album with the New York City skyline, Twin Towers and all, in flames... on September 11, 2001.



Buddy of mine was waiting at FYE when the store opened to get a copy of it. I think they took the display down like an hour later.


----------



## MrBouleDeBowling

Xaios said:


> I mean, it's not disease-related, but nothing will ever beat Dream Theater releasing "Live Scenes From New York", an album with the New York City skyline, Twin Towers and all, in flames... on September 11 2001



Slayer also released God Hates Us All on that same date


----------



## donniekak

Xaios said:


> I mean, it's not disease-related, but nothing will ever beat Dream Theater releasing "Live Scenes From New York", an album with the New York City skyline, Twin Towers and all, in flames... on September 11, 2001.
> 
> Then why care about the CDC's definition of a vaccine at all? After all, clearly people can just have their own definitions for things.


----------



## donniekak

It's a joke.


----------



## TedEH

Nothing funnier than a deadly pandemic, amirite? It's just a prank bro.


----------



## donniekak

TedEH said:


> Nothing funnier than a deadly pandemic, amirite? It's just a prank bro.


The joke was nothing to do with Covid, just a joke about the wording of the discussion.

Not that it matters, there are thousands of Holocaust jokes and the like. There is humor everywhere, especially in horrible tragedies.


----------



## StevenC

donniekak said:


> The joke was nothing to do with Covid, just a joke about the wording of the discussion.
> 
> Not that it matters, there are thousands of Holocaust jokes and the like. There is humor everywhere, especially in horrible tragedies.


There is humour everywhere, but typically good jokes stand on their own and don't need three more posts explaining them.


----------



## Randy

I'm in the minority here but I'm not particularly offended by the guy. 

There was a giant misperception on the vaccine "returning us to everyday life", a good bit of it perpetrated by this administration looking for a political win. I don't think I'd get into a grand conspiracy about definitions of words changing but I also don't think saying the only people who implied the vaccine claimed to be magic immunity were anti-vaxxers either.


----------



## donniekak

Randy said:


> I'm in the minority here but I'm not particularly offended by the guy.
> 
> There was a giant misperception on the vaccine "returning us to everyday life", a good bit of it perpetrated by this administration looking for a political win. I don't think I'd get into a grand conspiracy about definitions of words changing but I also don't think saying the only people who implied the vaccine claimed to be magic immunity were anti-vaxxers either.


It's the same behavior as with the rest of the lefts current ideology. Anything other than 100% agreement with any of their views and you're considered to automatically hold all the views of their imagined foe.


----------



## StevenC

Randy said:


> I'm in the minority here but I'm not particularly offended by the guy.
> 
> There was a giant misperception on the vaccine "returning us to everyday life", a good bit of it perpetrated by this administration looking for a political win. I don't think I'd get into a grand conspiracy about definitions of words changing but I also don't think saying the only people who implied the vaccine claimed to be magic immunity were anti-vaxxers either.


Maybe, but this dude won't get the vaccine at all unless it's 100% effective like a "true vaccine", which no vaccine is. That along with making other bad faith arguments about them and misrepresenting the risks. I'm happy to have a conversation based in reality, but they aren't holding up their end.


----------



## donniekak

The big question is why do you care if someone gets a vaccine that doesn't stop infection or transmission at a rate high enough to have an effect on public health.

Countries with some of the highest vax rates are seeing a rise in cases. I don't know why they aren't focusing on the fact that with vaccines and treatments Covid isn't killing as high of a percentage of cases as when we started.

By focusing on cases it shows the failed Covid zero policy is still in place. Covid is now endemic like seasonal flu, albeit more deadly.


----------



## TedEH

donniekak said:


> why do you care if someone gets a vaccine that doesn't stop infection or transmission at a rate high enough to have an effect on public health.





donniekak said:


> the fact that with vaccines and treatments Covid isn't killing as high of a percentage of cases


I don't understand, did you just answer your own question....?

"Hey this thing is helping.... why do you care if people aren't doing the thing that's helping?"

Fewer people dying is a positive public health outcome, unless I've missed something.


----------



## bostjan

...but why do you care if fewer people are dying, @TedEH ?

It might seem like a universally good thing to save people from dying, to you, but other people just can't wait for WWIII or whatever to lay waste to the human population. Maybe you're on team "pro-human" and these other folks are on whatever the other team is.


----------



## IwantTacos

donniekak said:


> The big question is why do you care if someone gets a vaccine that doesn't stop infection or transmission at a rate high enough to have an effect on public health.
> 
> Countries with some of the highest vax rates are seeing a rise in cases. I don't know why they aren't focusing on the fact that with vaccines and treatments Covid isn't killing as high of a percentage of cases as when we started.
> 
> By focusing on cases it shows the failed Covid zero policy is still in place. Covid is now endemic like seasonal flu, albeit more deadly.



ya this one is a head scratcher. 
So we should vaccinate everyone every year right?


----------



## SpaceDock

donniekak said:


> The big question is why do you care if someone gets a vaccine that doesn't stop infection or transmission at a rate high enough to have an effect on public health.
> 
> Countries with some of the highest vax rates are seeing a rise in cases. I don't know why they aren't focusing on the fact that with vaccines and treatments Covid isn't killing as high of a percentage of cases as when we started.
> 
> By focusing on cases it shows the failed Covid zero policy is still in place. Covid is now endemic like seasonal flu, albeit more deadly.



The vaccine isn’t just about stopping transmission, it is about protecting people. 95% of those hospitalized with Covid are not vaccinated. Where I live we had to call in the Department of Defense to help run the hospitals since they have been at over 100% capacity for the last 6 months filled with jack asses that didn’t want to get faxed because of the non sense you are shilling.


----------



## SpaceDock

bostjan said:


> ...but why do you care if fewer people are dying, @TedEH ?
> 
> It might seem like a universally good thing to save people from dying, to you, but other people just can't wait for WWIII or whatever to lay waste to the human population. Maybe you're on team "pro-human" and these other folks are on whatever the other team is.



I wouldn’t care about people dying if they were just jumping in a ravine somewhere, but instead they reject any preemptive treatment then go run to the hospital when they realize their propaganda didn’t help them. Now they clog up the hospital so if you have a heart attack your SOL. Our sheriff made a statement telling people to go to Vet hospital if not Covid, yeah the animal hospital. Just wait for your insurance premiums to go through the roof for all these people next year as well.


----------



## TedEH

SpaceDock said:


> get faxed


Woah, hold on, I'm all on board for the _concept_ of sending messages, but can we trust such new technology?


----------



## donniekak

So force and coersion are legitimate means to force a person to be healthier?

By this reasoning McDonalds should not be allowed to serve obese people.


America was founded on individual liberty not "the greater good". Maybe I'll move to the new country of Florida.


----------



## donniekak

TedEH said:


> Woah, hold on, I'm all on board for the _concept_ of sending messages, but can we trust such new technology?


Anything other than 100% agreement and you're an enemy.


----------



## bostjan

TedEH said:


> Woah, hold on, I'm all on board for the _concept_ of sending messages, but can we trust such new technology?


New technology? Fax machine? Might as well send a carrier pterodacytl. 



SpaceDock said:


> I wouldn’t care about people dying if they were just jumping in a ravine somewhere, but instead they reject any preemptive treatment then go run to the hospital when they realize their propaganda didn’t help them. Now they clog up the hospital so if you have a heart attack your SOL. Our sheriff made a statement telling people to go to Vet hospital if not Covid, yeah the animal hospital. Just wait for your insurance premiums to go through the roof for all these people next year as well.



Well, I hope our new insurance overlords note that I got vaccinated as soon as it was possible and don't charge me more than I can afford for a service that I no longer can elect out of.



donniekak said:


> So force and coersion are legitimate means to force a person to be healthier?
> 
> By this reasoning McDonalds should not be allowed to serve obese people.
> 
> 
> America was founded on individual liberty not "the greater good". Maybe I'll move to the new country of Florida.



Who are you addressing and which statement?

Force is a legitimate means to force a person to do something. I guess that's not what you were going for, though. If you mean "should people be required to get vaccinated?" then there is already a legal precedent that yes, the government can legally force a person to get vaccinated. Washington even forced vaccines on his own army to keep them from getting sick at an inopportune time, then attacked the British as soon as everyone recovered. But so far, no one has been forcing anyone to get vaccinated, right? So what are you saying?


----------



## StevenC

donniekak said:


> America was founded on individual liberty


----------



## nightflameauto

SpaceDock said:


> I wouldn’t care about people dying if they were just jumping in a ravine somewhere, but instead they reject any preemptive treatment then go run to the hospital when they realize their propaganda didn’t help them. Now they clog up the hospital so if you have a heart attack your SOL. Our sheriff made a statement telling people to go to Vet hospital if not Covid, yeah the animal hospital. Just wait for your insurance premiums to go through the roof for all these people next year as well.


HEY! I'm in America, pal. I can't afford the insurance I'm legally required to pay for already. Good luck to the insurance industry trying to squeeze more imaginary money out of my already empty wallet.


----------



## TedEH

donniekak said:


> Anything other than 100% agreement and you're an enemy.


It's a joke.


----------



## Drew

donniekak said:


> Up until recently I was never told my vaccine would only mitigate symptoms, but still allow infection and transmission.
> 
> They prophylatically prevent infection, up until recently.


What are you going on about? A covid vaccination will limit your risk of infection somewhere in the ballpark of 75-95% compared to an unvaccinated person, possibly higher yet with a booster, which is significantly better than the seasonal flu which for some reason we've been using as a benchmark for the severity of Covid since day one. 



donniekak said:


> The big question is why do you care if someone gets a vaccine that doesn't stop infection or transmission at a rate high enough to have an effect on public health.
> 
> Countries with some of the highest vax rates are seeing a rise in cases. I don't know why they aren't focusing on the fact that with vaccines and treatments Covid isn't killing as high of a percentage of cases as when we started.
> 
> By focusing on cases it shows the failed Covid zero policy is still in place. Covid is now endemic like seasonal flu, albeit more deadly.


Again, I'm not sure what you're talking about here. Countries with some of the highest vaccination rates are seeing a rise in cases _amongst unvaccinated Americans_ which unfortunately are not entirely randomly distributed and tend to cluster a bit, facilitating spread. Infection rates amongst vaccinated rates are quite low - consistently close to 99% of new covid infections are unvaccinated, with less than 1% of cases as breakthrough infections, in a country where about 60% of the country is vaccinated and if vaccination was truly ineffective then you'd expect to see a similar proportion of vaccinated individuals in new cases. 

I mean, you're free to argue your case against vaccination if you want, I guess, but you can't ignore basic _facts_ just because you find them inconvenient.


----------



## ArtDecade

donniekak said:


> So force and coersion are legitimate means to force a person to be healthier?
> 
> By this reasoning McDonalds should not be allowed to serve obese people.



Remember when that guy was eating a hamburger on the train the other day and everyone in the cabin got fat? It is crazy how hamburgers suddenly became massively contagious. As a vegetarian, I am super offended as well.


----------



## spudmunkey

Cousin on facebook.
"Germany's locking people out of society who aren't vaccinated. Guess they didn't learn anything from 1934."


----------



## donniekak

spudmunkey said:


> Cousin on facebook.
> "Germany's locking people out of society who aren't vaccinated. Guess they didn't learn anything from 1934."


There is no acceptable reason for authoritarianism.


----------



## ArtDecade

donniekak said:


> There is no acceptable reason for authoritarianism.



Implementing a vaccine mandate in a democracy doesn't equal authoritarianism, drama queen.


----------



## Xaios

TedEH said:


> Woah, hold on, I'm all on board for the _concept_ of sending messages, but can we trust such new technology?


----------



## donniekak

ArtDecade said:


> Implementing a vaccine mandate in a democracy doesn't equal authoritarianism, drama queen.


So it's ok to violate bodily autonomy? I'm perfectly ok with women killing babies because even though it's another human life, women have the right to decide if they want them inside their bodies.

Real principals allow people to do things you don't agree with because you believe in the underlying principal.


----------



## profwoot

donniekak said:


> So it's ok to violate bodily autonomy? I'm perfectly ok with women killing babies because even though it's another human life, women have the right to decide if they want them inside their bodies.
> 
> Real principals allow people to do things you don't agree with because you believe in the underlying principal.



Is just the covid vaccine authoritarian, or are you including MMR, polio, et al.?


----------



## ArtDecade

donniekak said:


> So it's ok to violate bodily autonomy? I'm perfectly ok with women killing babies because even though it's another human life, women have the right to decide if they want them inside their bodies.
> 
> Real principals allow people to do things you don't agree with because you believe in the underlying principal.



Your principles are meaningless when they violate the common good of the society. You have a social contract with the rest of us. And before you start quoting the Constitution which you haven't actually read, here is the preamble:

_"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."_

Note how the union, justice, tranquility, common defense, and GENERAL WELFARE all come before individual liberty. That was not an accident. You as an individual do not mean more than the society.


----------



## donniekak

profwoot said:


> Is just the covid vaccine authoritarian, or are you including MMR, polio, et al.?


I never had to show proof of a medical procedure for a job or to shop at a store.

And being in America I never will.


----------



## donniekak

ArtDecade said:


> Your principles are meaningless when they violate the common good of the society. You have a social contract with the rest of us. And before you start quoting the Constitution which you haven't actually read, here is the preamble:
> 
> _"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."_
> 
> Note how the union, justice, tranquility, common defense, and GENERAL WELFARE all come before individual liberty. That was not an accident. You as an individual do not mean more than the society.


Do you hold any principal inviolate?


----------



## profwoot

donniekak said:


> I never had to show proof of a medical procedure for a job or to shop at a store.
> 
> And being in America I never will.



Presumably you did in order to go to school. Is that authoritarian?


----------



## SpaceDock

donniekak said:


> I never had to show proof of a medical procedure for a job or to shop at a store.
> 
> And being in America I never will.



I had to get Hep B vaccine for working in the municipal water industry, just because you haven’t experienced it doesn’t mean it isn’t more common than you believe.


----------



## ArtDecade

profwoot said:


> Presumably you did in order to go to school. Is that authoritarian?



He will argue making a certain level of schooling a requirement is authoritarianism.


----------



## jaxadam

profwoot said:


> Is just the covid vaccine authoritarian, or are you including MMR, polio, et al.?



It is strange to see the usage of “et al.” attached in this manner, as “et al.” is used when referring to people, namely authors when citing a work. Is this an attempt to not only personify MMR and polio, but additionally give them credit to literary works?


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> It's a joke.



Nothing funnier than a deadly pandemic, amirite? It's just a prank bro.


----------



## ArtDecade

jaxadam said:


> It is strange to see the usage of “et al.” attached in this manner, as “et al.” is used when referring to people, namely authors when citing a work. Is this an attempt to not only personify MMR and polio, but additionally give them credit to literary works?



To be fair, it is used in academic papers across every discipline when citing authors. Maybe he spends a lot of time reading dissertations.


----------



## jaxadam

ArtDecade said:


> when citing authors



Agreed. I’ve just never seen a paper, journal, or publication written by MMR or polio.


----------



## ArtDecade

Davesnothereman said:


> Shutting out the voice of opposition is why the left in America has failed. With no opposition bad ideas flourish. Have fun with your circle jerk boys.



No one is shutting you out. You are free to sit at the adult table when you stop acting like children.


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> Nothing funnier than a deadly pandemic, amirite? It's just a prank bro.


The joke was nothing to do with Covid, just a joke about the wording of the discussion.

Not that it matters, there are thousands of Holocaust jokes and the like. There is humor everywhere, especially in horrible tragedies.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> What are you going on about? A covid vaccination will limit your risk of infection somewhere in the ballpark of 75-95% compared to an unvaccinated person, possibly higher yet with a booster, which is significantly better than the seasonal flu which for some reason we've been using as a benchmark for the severity of Covid since day one.
> 
> 
> Again, I'm not sure what you're talking about here. Countries with some of the highest vaccination rates are seeing a rise in cases _amongst unvaccinated Americans_ which unfortunately are not entirely randomly distributed and tend to cluster a bit, facilitating spread. Infection rates amongst vaccinated rates are quite low - consistently close to 99% of new covid infections are unvaccinated, with less than 1% of cases as breakthrough infections, in a country where about 60% of the country is vaccinated and if vaccination was truly ineffective then you'd expect to see a similar proportion of vaccinated individuals in new cases.
> 
> I mean, you're free to argue your case against vaccination if you want, I guess, but you can't ignore basic _facts_ just because you find them inconvenient.



How can this guy pretend to talk about any position of authority when he is making up absolutely fake statistics and other lies all day long?
No source for the stuff of course, because no source would confirm any of it. But do you guys seriously believe this shit?

"Infection rates amongst vaccinated rates are quite low - consistently close to 99% of new covid infections are unvaccinated, with less than 1% of cases as breakthrough infections".
This is patently false, and the type of exaggeration that makes people not believe what you say. Or be pretty dumb if they do.

Vaccines do help prevent you from getting Covid early on after you get jabbed...for a few weeks to couple of months yeah. Even early on though, it's not 99%. But after that...

Just take a look at a country where most people are vaccinated, and where we have some of the best data: the UK.
By the logic above, there should be no more community spread anymore. Yet it's at its highs, and...surprise surprise, it's infecting vaccinated people just the same as unvaccinated people:





And you know what, those vaccinated people are also infecting _others _at similar rate:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00648-4/fulltext

Sure, it looks like reported community spread may be a whole shopping 13% lower for the vaccinated group...but if you look at confidence intervals, the actual rates could easily be the same. And even if it _was _13% more...that's far far from the ridiculous 99% figures thrown around here...or by people in power to coerce the vaccine.

Oh but I guess the Lancet and the UK dept of health are fake news? Or are Facebook? Or are where uneducated people go to get their news? The contempt is palpable in posters here when someone dares to have a different voice. Which is especially funny when the vast majority doesn't care for actual sourced information...and the few who do only like sources that prove the bias they already had, ignoring everything else. The irony...

You can be all in favor of the vaccine, and it does prevent severe cases, that much is clear. For a good number of people, it's dumb not to get it. But if you're talking about stopping the spread, then an unvaccinated dude staying home and not seeing anyone else would do a much better job of it than a vaccinated guy who's out partying mask less a couple of months after getting the jab... Noooo, that can't happen right? Except it's exactly what happens. And wonder who's being punished...

So like said before, if infection and transmission are out as justifications, then why force it? Why force if vs not forcing every other personal health choices such as food/exercise/all sorts of prophylactics that were just invented last year? It's also dumb for people to drink too much and you don't see the gov taking their jobs because they had 15 beers last weekend...

But no, some topics cannot be addressed apparently. Somehow because of a shared bias, instead of actual information, we believe the 0-source, "99% of infections are unvaccinated people" guy, just like when he was saying "10 milion Americans will die from Covid next year if everyone doesn't get vaccinated"... It boggles the mind.
Oh, and then pretend intellectual superiority and pile on to attack _the one_ guy who doesn't share _exactly _the same ideas. What an echo chamber. Nice.


----------



## Adieu

Why force it? Could you read that last graph please?

Unless you're at the age where you're about to keel over from a strong breeze anyway, mortality is hugely reduced.


----------



## ArtDecade

Hospitalizations are 5x higher in non-vaccinated people according to most studies here in the States. We use three different vaccines compared to the UK and our numbers are different as a result.

https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Do...-tables/421-010-CasesInNotFullyVaccinated.pdf


----------



## mbardu

Adieu said:


> Why force it? Could you read that last graph please?
> 
> Unless you're at the age where you're about to keel over from a strong breeze anyway, mortality is hugely reduced.



Good job not reading 80% of the stuff, but I'm not surprised considering the bias here.

Anyway..._any number_ of other health measures help reduce overall death rates from all causes everyday in our society.

Outlaw drinking/smoking/fast food and make exercise mandatory, and you see dramatic drops in all consistent top sources of death in the US (heart disease/cancer) for the last decades. Yet do we do it? Ban dangerous sports and recreations and put 50mph hard limiters on all cars and you also prevent the next highest source - accidents. Do we do that?
But somehow Covid has given a _selective _authoritarian boner to >50% of society and nobody seems to have a problem with that.


----------



## mbardu

ArtDecade said:


> Hospitalizations are 5x higher in non-vaccinated people according to most studies here in the States. We use three different vaccines compared to the UK and our numbers are different as a result.
> 
> https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Do...-tables/421-010-CasesInNotFullyVaccinated.pdf



Yes, rare cases and hospitalizations are higher for non vaccinated. So are deaths.
And for many people, it's dumb to not get the vaccine.

But there are tons of other things that can prevent _your _death or hospitalization (not drinking/smoking/eating junk, exercising, not doing dangerous activities)... It's also dumb to do not do those things if you care about your personal health. And yet you don't see the gov mandating any of this.

It's fine if you want to be authoritarian and mandate everything. Everyone has health checks monthly, control for mandatory exercise, fast food banned, no more alcohool, no more dangerous activities. Non compliers can't work and go out and travel.
But it makes 0 sense to enforce it just for that one Covid vaccine.


----------



## ArtDecade

mbardu said:


> Outlaw drinking/smoking/fast food and make exercise mandatory, and you see dramatic drops in all consistent top sources of death in the US (heart disease/cancer) for the last decades. Yet do we do it? Ban dangerous sports and recreations and put 50mph hard limiters on all cars and you also prevent the next highest source - accidents. Do we do that?
> But somehow Covid has given a selective authoritarian boner to >50% of society and nobody seems to have a problem with that.



We have bans on smoking in all public areas because it impacts people that do not smoke. We have programs in schools and cafeteria breakfast/lunches that reflect proper diets. We have laws that ban dangerous speeds and reckless driving. People have ample opportunity to absorb good practices before they are fined for smoking with kids in the car, before they get fat and pay premiums on their insurance, and before they crash into someone else and lose their license. 

Vaccine mandates are not new - and you still have the choice not to get it. You just have to pay the social and economic costs for not doing so.


----------



## mbardu

ArtDecade said:


> We have bans on smoking in all public areas because it impacts people that do not smoke. We have programs in schools and cafeteria breakfast/lunches that reflect proper diets. We have laws that ban dangerous speeds and reckless driving. People have ample opportunity to absorb good practices before they are fined for smoking with kids in the car, before they get fat and pay premiums on their insurance, and before they crash into someone else and lose their license.
> 
> Vaccine mandates are not new - and you still have the choice not to get it. You just have to pay the social and economic costs for not doing so.



Now you are just conflating a bunch of unrelated things. it's not because there's the word "smoke" or "driving" in your sentence that it addresses the point:

"bans on smoking in all public areas" > Addresses the "transmission" part of it. Which is fine. Do not allow smokers to transmit their smoke to others. The argument here however is on the "do something dumb for your health > you lose your job and right to travel", which we don't do anything against. Smokers can smoke and they're not losing their jobs. Unvaccinated people can stay home and not infect anyone,...they still lose their job.
"dangerous speed" argument > it's statistically proven that if all cars were stuck at not going over 50 we would see a dramatic drop in road fatalities. Yet people owning a car going over 50 are not losing their jobs or being prevented from travelling.
"We have programs in schools and cafeteria breakfast/lunches that reflect proper diets"... How is that related? That some people are trying to promote health? Does it mean we are forcing people to eat well or they lose their job?
We do have vaccine mandates in cases where we have years of no harm evidence and the vaccine is shown to reliably reduce the spread. Neither is true for the current case
Nothing is even close to the point of "get vaccinated, it will reduce your risk of death...or else no job or travel for you". Most things you mention are not even related actually.


----------



## ArtDecade

mbardu said:


> Now you are just conflating a bunch of unrelated things.



No - _you_ are. You want to compare smoking, exercise, diet, driving, etc to a health pandemic. I was responding to the very things _you_ posted that have nothing to do with COVID because _you_ wanted to bring them up. They have been addressed and your point is moot.


----------



## mbardu

ArtDecade said:


> No - you are. You want to compare smoking, exercise, diet, driving, etc to a health pandemic. I was responding to the very things that have nothing to do with COVID because you wanted to bring them up. They have been addressed and your point is moot.



The point is "there are no other things where we coerce you to take one personal health measure lest lose your livelihood and prevent you from traveling".
How has it been addressed at all?
Tangentially addressing vaguely related stuff does not an argument make.

If the goal is to be an authoritarian daddy state, there would be tons of things we could do to be consistent (hence the examples). But somehow we _only _have a collective _selective _boner for the vaccine ... as if it's the solutions to all problems somehow. i get it, it's frustrating, so we want a solution that works. And people in charge want to appear that they're doing something so "let's mandate stuff". Any real backing or reason for that though...? Not really.


----------



## StevenC

mbardu said:


> Oh but I guess the Lancet and the UK dept of health are fake news?


I don't know if you're familiar, but there is a big controversy surrounding the Lancet and vaccine articles.


----------



## ArtDecade

mbardu said:


> The point is "there are no other things where we coerce you to take one personal health measure lest lose your livelihood and prevent you from traveling".



It has been addressed and it is not true. You need vaccinations to go to school and there are loads of travel restrictions that require vaccination as well. There are many jobs that require you to be vaccinated. If you CHOOSE not to get vaccines, you can't do those things. That is your choice.


----------



## Adieu

Let's just strip them of their citizenship and deport them all to Antarctica.

Imagine all the jobs that can be "created" (vacated) overnight.


----------



## mbardu

ArtDecade said:


> It has been addressed and it is not true. You need vaccinations to go to school and there are loads of travel restrictions that require vaccination as well. There are many jobs that require you to be vaccinated. If you CHOOSE not to get vaccines, you can't do those things. That is your choice.



I'm not opposed to mandating vaccines or other requirement where you are demonstrably going to infect a bunch of other people. That's fair.
Everything in the category "you are going to harm others" is fair play to be honest, and we live in a society, so we have to work together. Ban smoking in _public places_, sure. hard sanctions for _speeding on the road_, definitely. Those are not related to the discussion though.

Mandating a Covid vaccine for a dude who works from home and never goes out, whereas his colleague who got the jab 6 months ago infected 200 people at a mask-less party last week...now that's just dumb. It's the same as taking away someone's job because they smoke in their own home or own a fast car that they drive fast on a track.

And on what justification? Well like above, mostly made-up stuff like "99% of infections are unvaccinated" or "not doing it will kill 10 million people in the US". Using made up stuff to motivate people to get vaccinated is bad enough...using the same lies to take away people's livelihoods etc is even worse.

Just look at the Omicron messaging: "We'll make vaccines even more mandatory (for travel and work) _because _of Omicron". While the first Omicron case in the US was fully vaccinated. And while the CEOs of the vaccine makers are saying vaccines are going to be materially less effective against Omicron. But let's do more vaccine mandates.
It's fine to be in favor of the vaccine (which is saving a ton of lives, and many people are dumb not to get) ... but the ends don't justify the means and you shouldn't have to lie and coerce based on lies.


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> Outlaw drinking/smoking/fast food and make exercise mandatory, and you see dramatic drops in all consistent top sources of death in the US (heart disease/cancer) for the last decades. Yet do we do it? Ban dangerous sports and recreations and put 50mph hard limiters on all cars and you also prevent the next highest source - accidents. Do we do that?
> But somehow Covid has given a _selective _authoritarian boner to >50% of society and nobody seems to have a problem with that.



Here is the deal. If you think public policy around vaccinations is about your freedoms and not about other peoples' safety, you are selfish.

If you want to compare how the government is targeting *you* to things like eating a proper diet or exercising, you seriously cannot comprehend that *other people* don't die because *you* like cheeseburgers and sitting on a couch with a beer.

This conversation would be a lot less hostile if you started to consider that it's been 2 years and we still have issues with the *aggregate case rate*. No one cares about you in particular, sorry to break it to you. You are arguing a case that isn't refuting the root issue: drop the case rates and stop spreading a deadly virus.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> Here is the deal. If you think public policy around vaccinations is about your freedoms and not about other peoples' safety, you are selfish.
> 
> If you want to compare how the government is targeting *you* to things like eating a proper diet or exercising, you seriously cannot comprehend that *other people* don't die because *you* like cheeseburgers and sitting on a couch with a beer.
> 
> This conversation would be a lot less hostile if you started to consider that it's been 2 years and we still have issues with the *aggregate case rate*. No one cares about you in particular, sorry to break it to you. You are arguing a case that isn't refuting the root issue: drop the case rates and stop spreading a deadly virus.



Tell me you read none of the above without telling me you read none of the above.

The vaccinated are currently getting and spreading Covid at similar rates as the non vaccinated. Especially a few months out. A careful unvaccinated person who stays home would 100% be less a risk to society than a vaccinated dude who got jabbed 6 months ago and is out partying maskless. Sorry to break it out to you, but what our colleague is saying above ("99% of cases are unvaccinated" etc) is patently demonstrably false. Figures, links, tables, examples above. The Omicron cases in the US are mostly in vaccinated people. Our colleague just here is vaccinated and may have got Covid from vaccinated people.

So it's not a public health or selfish/societal question. It _is _a personal health decision.

Plus it's not about *me*. I am vaccinated. I just know people who can't be (yet have helped way more than you and I have during the pandemic) and unlike most here, maybe I'm just open-minded enough to be capable of understanding other perspectives.


----------



## CanserDYI

And woke up this morning and cannot taste or smell anything. Absolutely gone. Been smelling candles, tried all sorts of foods, absolutely nothing. Waiting on results of a test now, but I'm pretty upset. Just ate some doritos and ramen, and they tasted like unsalted tortilla chips and bare noodles....

Oh btw, I'm vaccinated. And my two best friends who are vaxxed are also covidic. We are still spreading this shit.

EDIT: Just got the call, Positive. This is going to be fun.


----------



## ArtDecade

mbardu said:


> Tell me you read none of the above without telling me you read none of the above.
> The vaccinated are currently getting and spreading Covid at similar rates as the non vaccinated. A careful unvaccinated person who stays home would 100% be less a risk to society than a vaccinated dude who got jabbed 6 months ago and is out partying maskless. So it's not a public health or selfish/societal question. It is a personal health decision.
> 
> Plus it's not about *me*. I am vaccinated.
> I just know people who can't be and unlike maybe maybe I'm just open-minded enough to be capable of understanding other perspectives.



Vaccinated people are not putting vaccinated people in hospitals at the same rate as non-vaccinated - as demonstrated, it is 5x more likely to be hospitalized if you are not vaccinated. They are also not contributing to the the mass mutations caused by community spread in non-vaccinated populations. Sure, it is fun watching evolution as it happens, but I think I would rather exit a pandemic. 

@CanserDYI I hope you are feeling better soon. My brother-in-law had the same thing happen a few weeks ago. His wife and kids (also vaccinated) did not test positive in spite of living in the same household so there are always going to be break-thru cases.


----------



## mbardu

CanserDYI said:


> And woke up this morning and cannot taste or smell anything. Absolutely gone. Been smelling candles, tried all sorts of foods, absolutely nothing. Waiting on results of a test now, but I'm pretty upset. Just ate some doritos and ramen, and they tasted like unsalted tortilla chips and bare noodles....
> 
> Oh btw, I'm vaccinated. And my two best friends who are vaxxed are also covidic. We are still spreading this shit.



Wishing that the loss of taste is purely psychosomatic and that you turn out OK!

Edit: just saw that you confirmed a real positive and sorry to hear that. Hopefully it will be very mild.


----------



## mbardu

ArtDecade said:


> Vaccinated people are not putting vaccinated people in hospitals at the same rate as non-vaccinated - as demonstrated, it is 5x more likely to be hospitalized if you are not vaccinated. They are also not contributing to the the mass mutations caused by community spread in non-vaccinated populations. Sure, it is fun watching evolution as it happens, but I think I would rather exit a pandemic.
> .



And people eating healthy or exercising are not ending up in hospitals as much as people eating junk and drinking too much alcohol. Your point? Poor lifestyle choices have put a disproportionate burden on the health system for decades through cancers and strokes and heart disease and accidents...did people lose their jobs because they ate burgers?

Community spread...again you have read nothing, or choose to discard sources that don't match your bias. Vaccinated are getting Covid and spreading Covid. They may get less serious cases and hospitalizations and deaths thankfully, but that doesn't do anything to stop the spread of the pandemic. As for mutations, now that's just silly. Mass vaccinations with the _same few vaccines _will be the thing that mechanically select for new variants that specifically _resist those vaccines_, not the other way around. It's evolutionary 101.








It's truly mind boggling.
Anecdotal, but in this very forum we've had 0 serious case of Covid, yet from vaccines we've seen serious side effects, some staying for months, and some including almost death. We've also seen vaccinated people getting Covid. In fact the only people I personally know getting Covid were vaccinated people who then went out without much precautions and got infected..._by other vaccinated people_. Yet the echo chamber is so strong that nobody sees anything worth even pondering .

The vaccine is good, and will save lots of lives (like it's already done), but it is not stopping transmission of the pandemic, and you can still support it and yet not go full authoritarian. And use lies to support your point. There is such a thing as nuance, and the ends should not justify the means.


----------



## CanserDYI

Let it be known I was not criticizing the vaccine, I'm still a very big supporter of the vaccine, even if I'm a breakthrough case.


----------



## Drew

ArtDecade said:


> Vaccinated people are not putting vaccinated people in hospitals at the same rate as non-vaccinated - as demonstrated, it is 5x more likely to be hospitalized if you are not vaccinated. They are also not contributing to the the mass mutations caused by community spread in non-vaccinated populations. Sure, it is fun watching evolution as it happens, but I think I would rather exit a pandemic.


Not to split hairs unduly... but that 5x greater likelihood in being hospitalized if you're unvaccinated vs vaccinated is comparing hospitalization rates per 100,000 of the general population for unvaccinated vs vaccinated people. That's meaningful.... but it's _not_ the same as saying "if you get covid, you're 5x more likely to get hospitalized if you're vaccinated, than if you're not vaccinated, because (looking at pg. 8 of the study you shared earlier) you're comparing hospitalization rates for the _total_ population, rather than "per 100,000 people with active covid infections."

If you do some extrapolation based on the tables in that study, honing in on the 35-64 age demographic, your positive rate unvaccinated is 1,581.9 per 100k, and hospitalization rate is 179 per 100k, so 11.3% of cases lead to hospitalization. For vaccinated individuals, positive rate is 341.6 per 100k, and hospitalization rate is 10 per 100k, which means 2.9% of cases require hospitalization. That means the actual common size decline in likelihood of hospitalization given vaccination is about 25.6%, a 74% reduction in risk of hospitalization or a 3.9x greater chance in being hospitalized if you're unvaccinated than if you're vaccinated, _contingent upon being infected in the first place_. Simply looking at hospitalization rates per 100k is, well, it's useful if you're looking at this from a population standpoint, it's a great way to show that you'll have way fewer people in hospitalizations with widespread vaccination, but it's not a very good way of looking at individual probabilities of ending up in the hospital once you're sick, because getting covid at all is _highly_ correlated with vaccination status in the first place. Just some minutia worth keeing in mind here.

That said, I see the whole thread arguing with someone I can't see, so I have a pretty good idea what's going on here. 

EDIT - also, the last time I ran through this, the decrease in probability of hospitalization, conditional on getting covid while vaccinated, was more like 50%. Could be a quirk of Washington state, could be a quirk of the 35-65 contingent being more resistant and maybe the worst of the loss of protection was 65+, or it could have been just that a month or two ago the sample size was a lot smaller, and had a lot more pre-existing risk factors. A 75% decline in risk of hospitalization is a definite improvement.


----------



## Drew

CanserDYI said:


> And woke up this morning and cannot taste or smell anything. Absolutely gone. Been smelling candles, tried all sorts of foods, absolutely nothing. Waiting on results of a test now, but I'm pretty upset. Just ate some doritos and ramen, and they tasted like unsalted tortilla chips and bare noodles....
> 
> Oh btw, I'm vaccinated. And my two best friends who are vaxxed are also covidic. We are still spreading this shit.
> 
> EDIT: Just got the call, Positive. This is going to be fun.


Good luck man. I've found spice came through pretty well (saltiness as well, oddly, but not much else) so maybe reach for the hot sauce and see what happens.


----------



## ArtDecade

mbardu said:


> And people eating healthy or exercising are not ending up in hospitals as much as people eating junk and drinking too much alcohol. Your point? Poor lifestyle choices have put a disproportionate burden on the health system for decades through cancers and strokes and heart disease and accidents...did people lose their jobs because they ate burgers?



People eating burgers are not killing the people around them. Burgers are not contagious. Your point is stupid.



mbardu said:


> Community spread...again you have read nothing, or choose to discard sources that don't match your bias. Vaccinated are getting Covid and spreading Covid. They may get less serious cases and hospitalizations and deaths thankfully, but that doesn't do anything to stop the spread of the pandemic. As for mutations, now that's just silly. Mass vaccinations with the _same few vaccines _will be the thing that mechanically select for new variants that specifically _resist those vaccines_, not the other way around. It's evolutionary 101.



In all cases, the COVID variants came out of countries with low vaccination rates - India, Brazil, and South Africa. Your point is not only stupid, but wrong.



mbardu said:


>



That guy spends most of his time making fun of anti-vaxxers and Trump supporters on Twitter. I wouldn't use him as your spokesperson, because he would argue that you are stupid and wrong.


----------



## Drew

ArtDecade said:


> People eating burgers are not killing the people around them. Burgers are not contagious. Your point is stupid.


More's the pity, it'd do a number on world hunger. And presumably a burger obtained by person-to-person transmission would be far more environmentally friendly, emit less Co2, and be more humane than one obtained by butchering a cow, so it might do wonders in the fight against climate change. And veganism, come to think of it. 



(Don't feed the trolls, we have a mute user feature for a reason).


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> And people eating healthy or exercising are not ending up in hospitals as much as people eating junk and drinking too much alcohol. Your point? Poor lifestyle choices have put a disproportionate burden on the health system for decades through cancers and strokes and heart disease and accidents...did people lose their jobs because they ate burgers?



It is amazing to me that you cannot comprehend the difference between someone risking their own health vs. the health of others in the midst of a global pandemic. It shows exactly why our society is failing to handle the situation.


----------



## Drew

fantom said:


> It is amazing to me that you cannot comprehend the difference between someone risking their own health vs. the health of others in the midst of a global pandemic. It shows exactly why our society is failing to handle the situation.


The idea that people somehow have the "right" to go around and infect people with a potentially lethal virus is... something else.


----------



## tedtan

mbardu said:


> The vaccinated are currently getting and spreading Covid at similar rates as the non vaccinated. Especially a few months out.



I've missed much of this discussion recently, but looking over your comments in the last few pages it seems you're missing a few things.

One, all vaccines are not created equal. This is anecdotal, but my wife is a nurse here in Houston and in speaking with colleagues from the emergency and ICU/Covid departments, 85+ percent of Covid patients are unvaccinated. And of the remaining 15 percent that are vaccinated, they almost all had either the J&J shot, or the Pfizer shot a good while back. None that they have treated have had the Moderna vaccine. None. And the UK data posted above is almost certainly all based on the Astra Zeneca vaccine, which is different still to the others we have here in the US, but I don't have any data on it.

Two, almost all vaccinations require a booster at some point in the future. The way that this was rolled out in an attempt to prevent the spread of Covid, the second "booster" shot was given too early to allow for a "full" vaccination, so a third shot is necessary (and we may end up with annual shots similar to the flu shot). But now that we are receiving boosters a bit further out from our initial shot, these should, emphasis on should, yield a more robust immunity.

Three, the vaccines may not eliminate all contraction or transmission of Covid, but they greatly reduce the severity of the disease in almost all breakthrough cases. This not only benefits the vaccinated individual, but also others who need emergency medical assistance whether for Covid or other reasons such as heart attack, car crash, stroke, etc. by freeing up room in the hospital.

Four, also anecdotal, but so far I've had several family members get Covid as well as a few friends and friends of my wife. All were unvaccinated, including a couple who died from Covid (both were husbands of my wife's former sorority sisters). My niece and nephew, both middle schoolers, were unvaccinated and got Covid. My sister and her husband, both teachers, both vaccinated with J&J, did not get Covid from my niece and nephew even though they live in the same house and my niece insists on drinking from my sister's glass when my sister is not looking. So even J&J shows effectiveness 6+ months after receiving the vaccine.

Last, at this point point, if someone gets Covid, whether its from someone that was vaccinated or unvaccinated, the person getting Covid is at fault because vaccines have been available long enough now that everyone should be vaccinated at this point unless they have a legitimate medical reason that they can't get one of the vaccines.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> It is amazing to me that you cannot comprehend the difference between someone risking their own health vs. the health of others in the midst of a global pandemic. It shows exactly why our society is failing to handle the situation.





ArtDecade said:


> People eating burgers are not killing the people around them. Burgers are not contagious. Your point is stupid.



There's the fundamental misunderstanding. Is reading comprehension so hard?
Vaccinated people (especially those that are taking no precaution), are getting infected in droves, and they are infecting tons of other people.

If it was really a "pandemic of the unvaccinated", with only the unvaccinated spreading the disease, for sure it would be a discussion of putting one's right before the society. If infections and transmissions were 99% in unvaccinated like some people are blatantly lying about, then there would be 0 question on the topic. Get vaccinated to protect others.
But that's not the situation we're in, no matter how hard you guys want it to be, and no matter how hard we lie about it.

Unlike others, I have provided sources and examples, multiple times, showing that the vaccinated are contagious on the same order as the unvaccinated, only a few weeks to couple of months after they've had the vaccine. There are numerous examples of clusters of infections and transmissions solely within vaccinated populations. There are whole countries like the UK where a mostly vaccinated population has the biggest rates of infections and transmissions ever; with those rates being _higher for the vaccinated groups_ in some age groups.

So it is not a question of "muh liberties" at the cost of infecting others. *Everyone *is infecting others; and that includes careless unvaccinated, as much as careless vaccinated.
If you're not vaccinated and stay home for a couple of months, you're basically the same risk as someone who's vaccinated. If you're unvaccinated and stay at home a few months, then take a ton of precautions, you're _*less risky *_to society than the vaccinated who go around mask less without any precaution.

So with everyone being infectious and contagious, it's not a moreal question of "you're infecting others". If it was, we'd be in lockdowns. No, it's a question of your own health.
And there, the vaccine helps prevent serious cases for you, hospitalization risk for you, and risk of death for you. Which is great, and if you can, please get the vaccine.
But it's no different than another health choice at that point.


----------



## mbardu

tedtan said:


> I've missed much of this discussion recently, but looking over your comments in the last few pages it seems you're missing a few things.
> 
> One, all vaccines are not created equal. This is anecdotal, but my wife is a nurse here in Houston and in speaking with colleagues from the emergency and ICU/Covid departments, 85+ percent of Covid patients are unvaccinated. And of the remaining 15 percent that are vaccinated, they almost all had either the J&J shot, or the Pfizer shot a good while back. None that they have treated have had the Moderna vaccine. None. And the UK data posted above is almost certainly all based on the Astra Zeneca vaccine, which is different still to the others we have here in the US, but I don't have any data on it.



Yes, this is anecdotal. The poster before you was pretending that 99% of infections were in unvaccinated people and no one batted an eye at that, so I'm quite weary of general observations and feelings not backed by data. I'm all for looking at actual data if you have some though.

Anyway, here it's not even the metric we're looking at.
ICU admissions _*will *_show a majority of unvaccinated because they will get most of the serious cases. Which is why you should get the vaccine if you can, it will protect *you*. That's just logical- same as ICU admissions for heart attacks will show a large majority of overweight people.

It doesn't change the fact that vaccinated people are getting the disease in very large number, either asymptomatic or mild, and spreading the disease in large numbers.



tedtan said:


> Two, almost all vaccinations require a booster at some point in the future. The way that this was rolled out in an attempt to prevent the spread of Covid, the second "booster" shot was given too early to allow for a "full" vaccination, so a third shot is necessary (and we may end up with annual shots similar to the flu shot). But now that we are receiving boosters a bit further out from our initial shot, these should, emphasis on should, yield a more robust immunity.



Maybe with the third shot, protection and transmission will be better controlled.
Or maybe it will be with the fourth. Or fifth.
Regardless - all speculation at that point, whereas there is hard data of vaccinated infections and transmissions.



tedtan said:


> Three, the vaccines may not eliminate all contraction or transmission of Covid, but they greatly reduce the severity of the disease in almost all breakthrough cases. This not only benefits the vaccinated individual, but also others who need emergency medical assistance whether for Covid or other reasons such as heart attack, car crash, stroke, etc. by freeing up room in the hospital.



Not the discussion, but I agree - except Covid needn't be single out in that case.
If everyone ate healthy and exercised and stopped smoking and drinking alcohol, and stopped driving over 50mph the last couple of years - we'd lower the ICU as well as regular hospital intakes dramatically. Heart attacks, cancers, strokes, serious car crashes - all of those can be reduced dramatically with fairly small changes too. Cancer still kills more people and will have a heavier burden on the health system than a Covid case. Yet you don't see the government taking away the jobs of people who drive 80+mph, eat junk and don't exercise.



tedtan said:


> Four, also anecdotal, but so far I've had several family members get Covid as well as a few friends and friends of my wife. All were unvaccinated, including a couple who died from Covid (both were husbands of my wife's former sorority sisters). My niece and nephew, both middle schoolers, were unvaccinated and got Covid. My sister and her husband, both teachers, both vaccinated with J&J, did not get Covid from my niece and nephew even though they live in the same house and my niece insists on drinking from my sister's glass when my sister is not looking. So even J&J shows effectiveness 6+ months after receiving the vaccine.



Anecdotes for anecdotes, the only people I know who actually got Covid were vaccinated people who got it from vaccinated people.
Even on this forum, we've had a _bunch _of vaccinated people getting it from vaccinated people.

"Even J&J shows effectiveness 6+ months after receiving the vaccine"... if people actually bothered to read beyond their pre-conceptions (for instance the actual source I posted on the previous page) you'd see that your example is fairly unsurprising. Even in the unvaccinated population, the secondary attack rate is less than 40%, so most people who got Covid, even unvaccinated, did not transmit it to their families either.



tedtan said:


> Last, at this point point, if someone gets Covid, whether its from someone that was vaccinated or unvaccinated, the person getting Covid is at fault because vaccines have been available long enough now that everyone should be vaccinated at this point unless they have a legitimate medical reason that they can't get one of the vaccines.



And if someone who eats junk and doesn't exercise gets a heart attack, it's also his fault. Same for the guy with cancer because he smokes. Everyone should eat healthy and exercise because at this point, it's well known what effects this has on your health. Yet, none of that is mandated and will take away your job if you decide not to do it.
All personal consequences for personal choices.


----------



## mbardu

ArtDecade said:


> That guy spends most of his time making fun of anti-vaxxers and Trump supporters on Twitter. I wouldn't use him as your spokesperson, because he would argue that you are stupid and wrong.



Why do people have such a one-track mind? Is it so difficult to have more than one dimension in thinking?
Why bring it back to Trumpers and anti-vaxxers?

Believe it or not, it's possible to think the vaccine can do a lot of good, and yet believe at the same time that it would be better to not impose it on false pretenses with lies as justifications, and coercive measures for people who can't take it. That doesn't make you an antivaxxer or a Trump supporter.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> The idea that people somehow have the "right" to go around and infect people with a potentially lethal virus is... something else.



Luckily, nobody said that.

But yet, a ton of vaccinated people who got the shot months ago are actually _doing just that_.
Going around infecting people by taking no more precautions at all now.
On small scales such as the friends of our colleague above who just infected him, or on larger scales infecting entire towns.

But it feels so good to have a scapegoat in the unvaccinated, am I right? So nice to have a target for our hate after those 2 years of frustration... So good to feel superior just because we got the shot and we're superior and right and righteous and smart and not contagious  ... Well at least until you _actually _catch Covid and _actually _give it to a bunch of people because you're _actually _pretty likely to see both happen despite your two shots from 6 months ago...
Raging against a unifying simplistic imagined scapegoat is such a base and vile instinct of human groups, yet we keep doing it all the same, all the time...


----------



## mbardu

donniekak said:


> The cdc changed their definition of vaccine after the rollout of the jab so that it fit the definition.
> 
> I'm not some q idiot that thinks it's 5g nanobots. I'm just a realist that sees a fairly effective treatment rebranded as a vaccine.



I'm not saying it's necessarily nefarious or anything, but I found that pretty bad timing too.
Why go out and literally change the definition at the worst possible time?

Add to that, it's at about the same time that the CDC stopped publishing rates of _infections per vaccination status _for the US. Why?
They are only publishing rates of hospitalizations now, which conflates risk of infection/transmission with risk of serious cases. Why?

It's almost like they're trying their best to sow doubt.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

@CanserDYI Really hope that your symptoms remain minimal and that you'll make a full recovery asap. Take care, bud.


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> There's the fundamental misunderstanding. Is reading comprehension so hard?
> Vaccinated people (especially those that are taking no precaution), are getting infected in droves, and they are infecting tons of other people.
> 
> If it was really a "pandemic of the unvaccinated", with only the unvaccinated spreading the disease, for sure it would be a discussion of putting one's right before the society. If infections and transmissions were 99% in unvaccinated like some people are blatantly lying about, then there would be 0 question on the topic. Get vaccinated to protect others.
> But that's not the situation we're in, no matter how hard you guys want it to be, and no matter how hard we lie about it.
> 
> Unlike others, I have provided sources and examples, multiple times, showing that the vaccinated are contagious on the same order as the unvaccinated, only a few weeks to couple of months after they've had the vaccine. There are numerous examples of clusters of infections and transmissions solely within vaccinated populations. There are whole countries like the UK where a mostly vaccinated population has the biggest rates of infections and transmissions ever; with those rates being _higher for the vaccinated groups_ in some age groups.
> 
> So it is not a question of "muh liberties" at the cost of infecting others. *Everyone *is infecting others; and that includes careless unvaccinated, as much as careless vaccinated.
> If you're not vaccinated and stay home for a couple of months, you're basically the same risk as someone who's vaccinated. If you're unvaccinated and stay at home a few months, then take a ton of precautions, you're _*less risky *_to society than the vaccinated who go around mask less without any precaution.
> 
> So with everyone being infectious and contagious, it's not a moreal question of "you're infecting others". If it was, we'd be in lockdowns. No, it's a question of your own health.
> And there, the vaccine helps prevent serious cases for you, hospitalization risk for you, and risk of death for you. Which is great, and if you can, please get the vaccine.
> But it's no different than another health choice at that point.



You live in California. So let's use California data?
https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/

7.2x case rate for unvaccinated
12.5x hospitalization rate
14.8x death rate

I agree that vaccinated people being careless are just as risky as unvaccinated people. But I also argue that being unvaccinated is careless, even if you are being careful.

Remember, transmission multiplies case rates. If you had people in isolation, the infection rate is amplified. If 7.8x more people are infected directly, that means 51.8x more people are infected indirectly (from the direct infections). This keeps increasing with more degrees of separation until duplicates are encountered..in dense areas, this is a preventable outbreak.

Otherwise, I hear what you are saying. You are making valid points. But you are bias and cherry picking to support your narrative.


----------



## jaxadam

mbardu said:


> But yet, a ton of vaccinated people who got the shot months ago are actually _doing just that_.
> Going around infecting people by taking no more precautions at all now.
> On small scales such as the friends of our colleague above who just infected him, or on larger scales infecting entire towns.



Agreed, and this is the big one for me. There is no carte blanche in perpetuity for waning vaccine effectiveness, yet no one cares because they "did their part" and sure like to point the finger.


----------



## profwoot

jaxadam said:


> It is strange to see the usage of “et al.” attached in this manner, as “et al.” is used when referring to people, namely authors when citing a work. Is this an attempt to not only personify MMR and polio, but additionally give them credit to literary works?



et alia = "and others". No personification denoted.


----------



## jaxadam

profwoot said:


> et alia = "and others". No personification denoted.




*Et Al. vs. Etc.—What’s the Difference?*

What’s the difference between _et al. and etc._? Whereas _etc._ refers to a list of things, _et al._ refers to a list of people. Etc. is common in formal and informal writing. You will most often see et al. in bibliographic lists.

Etc. is short for “et cetera,” which is a Latin phrase that means “and the rest.” Use etc. when you’re writing a list of things:

I am going to bring several pies (pumpkin, pecan, chocolate, etc. ) to Thanksgiving dinner. When travelling, bring necessary items like a passport, proof of medical insurance, extra money, etc.


*Et Al. Examples*
When people cite the work of you and your friends, they would likely use et al., especially in formal writing such as term papers and on works cited pages. Here are two examples, one in-text mention of a publication and another from a works cited page:

These linkages were monitored by large-scale correlational survey research (e.g., Coleman et al., 1966) and subsequent reanalyses of that data set (Jencks et al., 1979 and Mosteller & Moynihan, 1972).

Holt, John. “How Teachers Make Children Hate Reading.” The Norton Reader, 13th Edition. Ed. Linda Peterson, et al. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. 195-203


----------



## profwoot

Yeah that ain't right. Its modern use has become mostly limited to academic contexts as you mentioned, but it's literally the latin words for "and" and "others" and can be used to refer to any _things_. Yes, we're largely beholden to tradition when it comes to language, but just because its common usage became limited over time doesn't mean I can't use the words in their broader sense, which is what I was doing. I use latin frequently in my job and perhaps should endeavor to avoid what might seem like malapropism lest I be goaded into dull explanations by always-fighty forum denizens.


----------



## jaxadam

You win. “Let it be known, that on this 7th day in December in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty One that the Honorable @profwoot has extended the definition of et al., which throughout the entirety of human existence has explicitly referred to citing authors, will now be extended to… communicable diseases.”


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> You win. “Let it be known, that on this 7th day in December in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty One that the Honorable @profwoot has extended the definition of et al., which throughout the entirety of human existence has explicitly referred to citing authors, will now be extended to… communicable diseases.”



Well, throughout the entirety of our personal existences, which seems equally valid.


----------



## jaxadam

profwoot said:


> Yeah that ain't right. Its modern use has become mostly limited to academic contexts as you mentioned, but it's literally the latin words for "and" and "others" and can be used to refer to any _things_. Yes, we're largely beholden to tradition when it comes to language, but just because its common usage became limited over time doesn't mean I can't use the words in their broader sense, which is what I was doing. I use latin frequently in my job and perhaps should endeavor to avoid what might seem like malapropism lest I be goaded into dull explanations by always-fighty forum denizens.



And, not surprisingly, there’s quite a bit grammatically incorrect with this post as well. “its” should be contracted with an apostrophe as it is possessive of “usage”. Malapropism is the incorrect description of the “et al.” usage in this instance as well, as you were not going for a mistake, generally humorous, with the _sounding _of a different word. So please, carry on.


----------



## spudmunkey

jaxadam said:


> And, not surprisingly, there’s quite a bit grammatically incorrect with this post as well. “its” should be contracted as it is possessive of “usage”. Malapropism is the incorrect description of the “et al.” usage in this instance as well, as you were not going for a mistake, generally humorous, with the _sounding _of a different word. So please, carry on.



That...doesn't seem right. I know it would be "Bob's" if we're talking about the usage attributed to Bob, but "it's" is only a contraction of "it is". In possessive form, it should be "its"...at least that's what I thought, and that's how it's described in all of the links I just checked over the last few minutes. Perhaps there's some "well, actually, originally..." or very technical reason I'm just not aware of, but this is one of the most common errors I make that gets caught by Grammarly.


----------



## jaxadam

spudmunkey said:


> That...doesn't seem right. I know it would be "Bob's" if we're talking about the usage attributed to Bob, but "it's" is only a contraction of "it is". In possessive form, it should be "its"...at least that's what I thought, and that's how it's described in all of the links I just checked over the last few minutes. Perhaps there's some "well, actually, originally..." or very technical reason I'm just not aware of, but this is one of the most common errors I make that gets caught by Grammarly.



Shit I think you’re right… 

I amend my position, and instead of giving him an F on that post, I give him a C+.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> You live in California. So let's use California data?
> https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/
> 
> 7.2x case rate for unvaccinated
> 12.5x hospitalization rate
> 14.8x death rate
> 
> I agree that vaccinated people being careless are just as risky as unvaccinated people. But I also argue that being unvaccinated is careless, even if you are being careful.
> 
> Remember, transmission multiplies case rates. If you had people in isolation, the infection rate is amplified. If 7.8x more people are infected directly, that means 51.8x more people are infected indirectly (from the direct infections). This keeps increasing with more degrees of separation until duplicates are encountered..in dense areas, this is a preventable outbreak.



I live mostly in the Bay Area yeah, but quite familiar with Western Europe (esp France/UK) and South East Asia too.

I did see that big "headline" summary figure out of CA. Not the 99% our colleague was touting, but looks pretty bad, right? But did you actually check how they get to that number?
If you want, check out their data:

https://data.chhs.ca.gov/dataset/e3...nload/covid19postvaxstatewidestats_111321.csv

https://data.chhs.ca.gov/dataset/e3...214/download/covid19postvaxstatewidestats.csv
Their numbers are extremely simple and their reporting even more so. They just take the total positive tests reported by vaccinated/unvaccinated and compare them.
That's it. They do not divide by total number of tests in each group. They do not account for different type of tests.
Right away, two factors make this _very _questionable:

Unvaccinated in California, you have to get tested way more often. For unvaccinated people, CA asks for a systematic test for indoor events. And for going to work, sometimes multiple times a week. And for education. Compare that to vaccinated who just have to show proof of vaccination. I wouldn't be surprised if out of all tests, there were easily 3/4x more tests from unvaccinated people vs vaccinated people (on a per-100k basis)... But we can't know for sure of course, because that number is no longer reported for some reason. That would just explain mechanically 3/4x more cases without any real world implication.
Even in cases where they ask for tests for someone vaccinated because of close contact... they ask to do a test 7 days later, whereas they ask for an immediate test for unvaccinated people. Yet I know a number of symptomatic people who tested positive by home test (while vaccinated) but already tested negative at that day 7 test... So if a good chunk of people are the same, but without symptoms, it's easy to be an asymptomatic carrier and to test negative after 7 days, while the unvaccinated guy will have been tested immediately and reported positive. 
They don't make any effort to account for any of that so it's a very _*very *_big stretch to just report that as "unvaccinated people were 7.2 times more likely to get COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people" just on this basis without the number of tests by category. I don't know if it's incompetence or on purpose... but the real description should read "we received 7.2 times more positive cases per 100k from unvaccinated vs vaccinated, but btw we also did way more tests in the first place for those unvaccinated".

No different than the people reporting "You only have 0.001% chance to die as a breakthrough vaccinated case" earlier in the pandemic, at a time when only a fraction of the population was vaccinated, and even that fraction wouldn't even have had time to get Covid, incubate it, and then go through the weeks of slowly dying from it. I mean...duh...you wouldn't even have had the time to be that person at the time.

In a country where they do report number of tests by vaccine status, not surprisingly, you do get some different views on the situation: https://drees.solidarites-sante.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/2021-12/Appariements sivic-sidep-vacsi Drees_0.pdf
You can see the unvaccinated are tested about twice as much as the unvaccinated groups. You can see that even though "recent" categories show good protection, the 6 months+ category has about half the total cases as the unvaccinated one...but again, that's starting from half the number of tests too 

The French piece matches the UK one btw. Pretty consistent with the sources a couple of pages ago. Matches the Israeli data as well... But yeah, it will differ from the CA one if you take just the big one number. Except that big number is basically useless. And what we'd need to actually make that number useful, for _some reason_ the CDC has also stopped reported on the number of test vs vaccination status. For some reason.



fantom said:


> Otherwise, I hear what you are saying. You are making valid points. But you are bias and cherry picking to support your narrative.



Talk about bias?
Posting the number 7.2x the way it's calculated above? Hiding the key data points (number of actual tests)? _That _is egregiously bad. Especially coming from agencies who are supposed to inform the public. Outside of agencies, talk about bias? People claiming absolutely ridiculous stuff like "99% of cases come from unvaccinated" and people just gulping it up without checking because it matches the narrative?

I'm not particularly biased one way or another. Again, the vaccine can be very, has saved lives and will save others. For a lot of people, it's dumb not to get it. The number of hospitalizations and deaths speak for themselves.

However, normalizing lies and misinformation to push an agenda is not OK, and it's weird to see how it's not only tolerated, but celebrated (because we feel superior being the vaccinated ones and have a group to hate on). All without checking on _anything _as long as it fits the bias.


----------



## IwantTacos

When you wake up in the morning and there's suddenly 5 new pages of a thread...a wild mbardu has appeared.

Guys...throughout this whole word salad he's only had one point...

which is that everyone should still be socially distanced and wear masks even after getting vaccinated. 

His other crap about is just the worst straw-man, slipperly slope bullshit and he knows and we all know it. 
All governments implement safety protocols all the time and in some instances does punish you for breaking them. 

We already hashed that all out the last time he got 30 minutes off of work to write a novel.


----------



## mbardu

IwantTacos said:


> When you wake up in the morning and there's suddenly 5 new pages of a thread...a wild mbardu has appeared.
> 
> Guys...throughout this whole word salad he's only had one point...
> 
> which is that everyone should still be socially distanced and wear masks even after getting vaccinated.



Social distancing and masks help a lot, but that's not my argument here at all.

Since reading comprehension is hard, the argument is twofold: #1-the idea that "the unvaccinated are the overwhelming source of the transmission and new surges in cases" with ridiculous figures like "99% of infections are from unvaccinated" is very dumb, and it's crazy to me how people believe it without even checking because it fits their bias; and then #2, using this stupid flawed false argument as a basis to be more and more coercive on people who don't get the vaccine is wrong on many levels.



IwantTacos said:


> His other crap about is just the worst straw-man, slipperly slope bullshit and he knows and we all know it.
> All governments implement safety protocols all the time and in some instances does punish you for breaking them.
> 
> We already hashed that all out the last time he got 30 minutes off of work to write a novel.



Do you know what a straw man is? A strawman argument is misrepresenting the original point someone is making in order to try to easily refute and get a win. Attacking on something the person or argument never said or implied.

If you need some references to help you get started:

It would be for example, or for example, or for example saying out of the blue "those guys thinks they have the right to go an infect others with a lethal virus" while I never said anything of the sort. That's not the point at all.
In a discussion about _transmission _and _infections_, it would be for example trying to get some sort of "win" with the usual unrelated "but vaccines lower _hospitalizations _and _individual mortality_ uR dumb". Like was done here, here, here. Again, not even related to the point.
Just a few off the top of my head. If you can find a strawman in what I said, then unlike any poster in any example above, I'll happily correct it - and I'll pay you a nice cup of coffee for your troubles  !

Except the strawman arguments, like the obvious bias, like the believing absolutely ridiculously exaggerated numbers while ignoring actual data....all that is really not on the side where you think it is.


----------



## narad

IwantTacos said:


> When you wake up in the morning and there's suddenly 5 new pages of a thread...a wild mbardu has appeared.
> 
> Guys...throughout this whole word salad he's only had one point...
> 
> which is that everyone should still be socially distanced and wear masks even after getting vaccinated.
> 
> His other crap about is just the worst straw-man, slipperly slope bullshit and he knows and we all know it.
> All governments implement safety protocols all the time and in some instances does punish you for breaking them.
> 
> We already hashed that all out the last time he got 30 minutes off of work to write a novel.



And that many of the US statistics are collected in a way that biases towards a higher association between covid positives and unvaccinated people. People should be aware of that, but it doesn't imply these groups are anywhere equal, either.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> #2, using this stupid flawed false argument as a basis to be more and more coercive on people who don't get the vaccine is wrong on many levels.


I've been mostly ignoring you for a while, but I keep seeing this, and I feel like it's pretty central to why you keep arguing all the time.
Why do you feel so strongly about defending people who refuse to vaccinate during a pandemic?

It's not like there has been zero tolerance for people who have legitimate reasons to be hesitant - be it auto-immune disorders or what have you - _as long as that's a legitimate concern and not just a talking point_. With the numbers of people who are refusing, I can't picture that many people have legitimate medical reasons to refuse, or even to be cautious. I mean, you're still at only something like 60% fully vax'd right now - there's no way 40% of people _can't_ get the jab. There's been plenty of time for those who were "waiting" to see that the rest of us haven't dropped dead or become sterile or whatever they thought would happen. If there was some condition that affected 40% of people that made the vaccines dangerous, I'm sure we'd have heard about that by now, but we haven't. And I'm sure these numbers aren't because of availability - I've not heard a single story about "I would have loved to get the jab, but I can't because there's a waitlist or we're just out of doses". What reason is good enough for some states to be under 50% vax'd?

If this is just a long winded way to say "personal / bodily autonomy wins regardless of anything else" without having to say it outright, then I only half agree with you. Yeh, sure, your body your choice, but I'd then reserve the right to think you're an asshole for exercising that right. Having a right and choosing to exercise that right to other people's detriment are two very different things. In the same way that I have every right to run around outside and swear at every old lady that goes by, but I'd be a dick for doing it. It's not illegal, there's no statistical nonsense you can argue either way about why I should or shouldn't do it, but it's still a dick move.

There's still lots of arguing to do and internet points to win without bolstering anti-vax sentiment in the process.


----------



## ArtDecade

mbardu said:


> Believe it or not, it's possible to think the vaccine can do a lot of good, and yet believe at the same time that it would be better to not impose it on false pretenses with lies as justifications, and coercive measures for people who can't take it.



You can only believe that if you want to play some logical gymnastics. 
The vaccine does a lot of good. That's it.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> I've been mostly ignoring you for a while, but I keep seeing this, and I feel like it's pretty central to why you keep arguing all the time.
> Why do you feel so strongly about defending people who refuse to vaccinate during a pandemic?
> 
> It's not like there has been zero tolerance for people who have legitimate reasons to be hesitant - be it auto-immune disorders or what have you - _as long as that's a legitimate concern and not just a talking point_. With the numbers of people who are refusing, I can't picture that many people have legitimate medical reasons to refuse, or even to be cautious. I mean, you're still at only something like 60% fully vax'd right now - there's no way 40% of people _can't_ get the jab. There's been plenty of time for those who were "waiting" to see that the rest of us haven't dropped dead or become sterile or whatever they thought would happen. If there was some condition that affected 40% of people that made the vaccines dangerous, I'm sure we'd have heard about that by now, but we haven't. And I'm sure these numbers aren't because of availability - I've not heard a single story about "I would have loved to get the jab, but I can't because there's a waitlist or we're just out of doses". What reason is good enough for some states to be under 50% vax'd?
> 
> If this is just a long winded way to say "personal / bodily autonomy wins regardless of anything else" without having to say it outright, then I only half agree with you. Yeh, sure, your body your choice, but I'd then reserve the right to think you're an asshole for exercising that right. Having a right and choosing to exercise that right to other people's detriment are two very different things. In the same way that I have every right to run around outside and swear at every old lady that goes by, but I'd be a dick for doing it. It's not illegal, there's no statistical nonsense you can argue either way about why I should or shouldn't do it, but it's still a dick move.
> 
> There's still lots of arguing to do and internet points to win without bolstering anti-vax sentiment in the process.



There are kind of two points to your post.
One is "why defend people who refuse to vaccinate?", and another is you replying to my "we shouldn't use lies as basis for the argument and measures".

On #1, the situation is not as black and white as people would like it to be. I am not "defending" all the unvaccinated wholesale. I have said multiple times that for many people it's dumb _not _to get the vaccine, considering it can reliably reduce your risk of serious case and death. Again, just the same as eating well, not drinking alcohol and exercising can add literal years of _good _quality of life to your life expectancy- with even more probability than the Covid vaccine. Yet you don't see me calling out for the drinkers/fast food eaters losing their jobs. If you don't get the vaccine because you think "Bill Gates 5G conspiracy", I don't know what to tell you.
But there is an entire universe of case here. On one extreme, the 5G guy, but on another extreme the guys with very severe adverse reaction. And we like to think that "oh if you legitimately can't take the vaccine, you're exempt", but most people do not realize what this is in practice. We have an example on this very forum of someone who literally almost died from the vaccine, and that wasn't contraindication enough. He was told to get another vaccine -which he did, and again had bad side effects. And you're asking that guy to roll the dice every three months in the future with a booster? Would you roll the dice if you had almost died the first time? Who are we to decide how badly you almost died before you can maybe skip the vaccine? And for what? It's not like you're a hero saving society for doing so. Peak protection against transmission doesn't even last. Just stay at home a bit longer and take extra precautions, and you're doing a better job than the vaccinated who no longer care.
I personally know people in same situations. Immediate seizure after a recent vaccine, and the answer they get when anxious about the next one is "well just try this other one then, maybe you won't have a seizure". It used to be more "accommodating" in many places, but in many states now, starting with CA, it's almost impossible to get an exemption. Physicians who used to give them are now punished, they have arbitrary quotas that they cannot exceed lest they go before disciplinary board, and it's all reported to the state and they could lose their license. Your doctor could very well be in a situation where he saw a patient with seizure yesterday, reluctantly gave him an exemption; and if he sees you today he'll have to choose between his career and your exemption.
And do you know the stigma? If you have legitimately had severe reactions, it doesn't matter. People still put you in the "5g nutjob" category.

As an aside, nobody would have to "defend" the unvaccinated if they were not constantly under vicious attack. I know people who can't get vaccinated, just as I know vaccinated people. The former group has continued to stay-at-home for the last 6 months, continues to take every precaution, while the other has slowly stopped taking much if any precaution with the confidence from the vaccine. In theory, the group of vaccinated people is now more dangerous than the group of unvaccinated. Yet who is being attacked? By the way it's not only theory, the latter group has since demonstrably caught and spread Covid despite the vaccine. Which I called months ago here, and was ridiculed for, yet is pretty much what is happening. Can you guess which group is seen as pariahs and losing their job, and which group is celebrated as heros? That's fucked up in my opinion.

If the situation was truly dire. If the unvaccinated were really creating 99% of the cases, and breeding killer mutants as some people think or claim without proof, yeah sure, we should be more drastic. Maybe not necessarily force the vaccine if the recipient is going to die, but more stay-at-home or whatever. After all, it works.

But how do you know make the determination of whether the situation is that extreme and dire? Well, that's where _actual _numbers and _actual _truth matters, and where dumb lies really rustle my jimmies. People claiming the 99% are just liars. People claiming the vaccinated are not spreading the disease are lying. And people believing them are being lied to. In highly vaccinated places where we actually know the numbers, it's not the case. In the UK, about 50/50. In France, maybe 40/60. In Israel, used to be about 50/50, but everyone got a booster, so we're back to the peak protection of a few weeks. Which may or may not last. In any case, we are certainly not at "99% of cases are unvaccinated" or "you're 10 times more likely to catch and spread it if you're unvaccinated".
And yet we are making drastic decisions based on lies and misrepresentations. And we're not even talking small consequences here. Losing your job, no more travel. In some countries, fines and even prison time? For me this is wrong. And even worse than the actual discussion, it is wrong in a "meta" sort of way. The numbers are out there for everyone to see, yet people see the "99%" figure and don't even bother to check as long as it fits their bias. So you can essentially lie and people will believe you and do as you say. Just make them feel superior because the shot, just make them absolutely HATE the unvaccinated (booooh, they're the ones spreading!) and they'll accept authoritarianism for the "others". Not even reluctantly, they will cheer. On this very forum, people asking for medical treatment refused to unvaccinated, basically lettings them die. WTF. Pretty chilling and reminiscent of bad stuff IMHO, but to each their own.


----------



## mbardu

mbardu said:


> Believe it or not, it's possible to think the vaccine can do a lot of good, and yet believe at the same time that it would be better to not impose it on false pretenses with lies as justifications, and coercive measures for people who can't take it.





ArtDecade said:


> You can only believe that if you want to play some logical gymnastics.
> The vaccine does a lot of good. That's it.



OK then. If a problem having more than one dimension is what you have to call "logical gymnastics", that explains why the discussion with you was in vain from the start.
At least that clarifies and concludes it then. Cheers.


----------



## StevenC

Wait it's controversial to still wear a mask after you're vaccinated? Damn, it's like there really are shades of dumb.


----------



## ArtDecade

mbardu said:


> OK then. If a problem having more than one dimension is called "logical gymnastics", that explains why the discussion with you was in vain from the start.
> At least that clarifies and concludes it then. Cheers.



I was just being polite and saying that you are lying to yourself - not that you are thinking on some nuanced, secondary level. Your arguments have been nothing short of regurgitated red-state memes.


----------



## TedEH

I feel like the whole "unvaccinated are under attack" narrative is entirely in your head. I only kinda skim this thread, but both here and in the real world, most people I've seen have been pretty level-headed about people's concerns or hesitations. I've got some friends who are afraid of the vax for various reasons, I and don't "attack" them. There's some exceptions, obviously - some people just get heated or argumentative by default (much like yourself), but that's not the majority.

You don't need to exaggerate how aggressive the conversation gets to make a point about trying to be specific about the points. You can be very specific and nuanced without crying "we're under attack" whenever someone disagrees with you on some detail.


----------



## ArtDecade

TedEH said:


> I feel like the whole "unvaccinated are under attack" narrative is entirely in your head. I only kinda skim this thread, but both here and in the real world, most people I've seen have been pretty level-headed about people's concerns or hesitations. I've got some friends who are afraid of the vax for various reasons, I and don't "attack" them. There's some exceptions, obviously - some people just get heated or argumentative by default (much like yourself), but that's not the majority.
> 
> You don't need to exaggerate how aggressive the conversation gets to make a point about trying to be specific about the points. You can be very specific and nuanced without crying "we're under attack" whenever someone disagrees with you on some detail.



The tactic here is to throw as much $hit as one can hoping that something sticks while shouting that you are being victimized when you are not.


----------



## Randy

Poof goes an entire page because I'm not going to go through it with a fine tooth comb to determine which posts included the shit that was over the line but everyone in here right now consider it a notice.

The personal attacks need to stop and also, if you don't want anything discussed in here, don't post it. It's an open forum, literally anyone on the internet can read what goes up in here so try to be mindful of that.


----------



## jaxadam

Randy said:


> I'm not going to go through it with a fine tooth comb to determine which posts included the shit that was over the line



If you need any help, I have it screenshotted.


----------



## mmr007




----------



## mbardu

jaxadam said:


> If you need any help, I have it screenshotted.



lmao the good old 4chan-like reflexes


----------



## Adieu

Randy said:


> Poof goes an entire page because I'm not going to go through it with a fine tooth comb to determine which posts included the shit that was over the line but everyone in here right now consider it a notice.
> 
> The personal attacks need to stop and also, if you don't want anything discussed in here, don't post it. It's an open forum, literally anyone on the internet can read what goes up in here so try to be mindful of that.



You missed a 3-screen-long rant about 5G and mutants or some such crap on the previous page


----------



## Randy

Adieu said:


> You missed a 3-screen-long rant about 5G and mutants or some such crap on the previous page



If it's not the one that includes personal information or the name calling, I'm not interested.


----------



## Drew

Personal information? That's a new one.


----------



## tedtan

Personal info? Like doxxing? Or someone posting their own info?


----------



## ArtDecade

tedtan said:


> Personal info? Like doxxing? Or someone posting their own info?



Without going too far down the rabbit hole, someone posted a personal experience here a while back and someone else took that story out of context in an attempt to prove an anti-vax point. The original poster was none to happy and let it be known.


----------



## Randy

*6 states account for more than half of the country’s recent Covid hospitalizations*

Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York and Illinois accounted for the majority of the increase in patients hospitalized with Covid.


----------



## ArtDecade

Randy said:


> *6 states account for more than half of the country’s recent Covid hospitalizations*.



_Unvaccinated people make up 87 percent of Covid patients who are in an intensive care unit in the state, she said, and 88 percent of Covid patients who are on a ventilator are unvaccinated. 
_
What?! Whodathunk?


----------



## Randy

Not that a virus has any level of intelligence but it's kinda like the smaller the concentration of unvaccinated people shrinks, the easier time is has ping-ponging around in that population with increased efficacy.


----------



## Randy

Poof, more disappearing posts. See how easy that was? Can easily be upgraded to disappearing threads and disappearing people, too.

Last time we're discussing this. Everyone involved with the argument early has been addressed. _Everyone_. The alternative were bans. Be glad that's not where we went with this. You'll notice literally all but one page of offending posts stays intact. Nobody is being censored because of their opinion, so you'd best drop that and move on.


----------



## mbardu

Randy said:


> Poof, more disappearing posts. See how easy that was? Can easily be upgraded to disappearing threads and disappearing people, too.
> 
> Last time we're discussing this. Everyone involved with the argument early has been addressed. _Everyone_. The alternative were bans. Be glad that's not where we went with this. You'll notice literally all but one page of offending posts stays intact. Nobody is being censored because of their opinion, so you'd best drop that and move on.



Clicking a "nuke" button is easy but actually I'd argue it's _not easy_ to moderate well when some tempers are high, and even harder to keep one's own ideas at bay while doing so.
So I was being cheeky earlier, but hats off to you, we know moderating can be pretty tiring and thankless job.
As long as the actual disrespectful aggressive or personal attack stuff goes while respectful and sourced arguments remains, it's all good .


----------



## mmr007




----------



## narad

Man, there goes my best joke of the week.


----------



## Randy

mbardu said:


> Clicking a "nuke" button is easy but actually I'd argue it's _not easy_ to moderate well when some tempers are high, and even harder to keep one's own ideas at bay while doing so.
> So I was being cheeky earlier, but hats off to you, we know moderating can be pretty tiring and thankless job.
> As long as the actual disrespectful aggressive or personal attack stuff goes while respectful and sourced arguments remains, it's all good .



The cliff notes is that this is still a guitar forum meant to be informational and cataloged over time so people can search this place and find this stuff years later. 

The P&CE (and all OT subs) are offered as a courtesy for the members but aren't the central purpose of this site. When things turn angry and personal, the derailing goes massively overboard and it becomes a shit flinging competition where everyone jumps in and now it's not one offender and then leaches into the actual* forums or things ramp up and now there's legal issues (yes, it's happened before).

So we try to nip personal spats in the bud before they get to that point. I've seen this thread and others get very testy and I let them go because I prefer to let people debate their ideas until they're resolved or let the reader decide. But there's a line, there has to be a line and considering it took 330 pages to cross it, I think we're doing pretty good and I don't think we can be accused of doing to much.

Anyway ding ding everyone go back to hating eachother.


----------



## TedEH

Randy said:


> Anyway ding ding everyone go back to hating eachother.


----------



## Drew

TedEH said:


> View attachment 100888


----------



## mbardu

So much for "yeah but this time _we know_ the booster will last longer"

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/08/omi...covid-vaccine-doses-sooner-than-expected.html

Just like people were mocking when some were suggesting we'd see coercive vaccine mandates, there was also a lot of mockery when people were saying we'd quickly need not 1 or 2 but 3, 4, 5 or however many doses...


----------



## IwantTacos

mbardu said:


> So much for "yeah but this time _we know_ the booster will last longer"
> 
> https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/08/omi...covid-vaccine-doses-sooner-than-expected.html
> 
> Just like people were mocking when some were suggesting we'd see coercive vaccine mandates, there was also a lot of mockery when people were saying we'd quickly need not 1 or 2 but 3, 4, 5 or however many doses...



so just keep getting vaccines?


----------



## Adieu

IwantTacos said:


> so just keep getting vaccines?



What, afraid of catching autism in your old age?

Pretty sure it don't work that way


----------



## mbardu

IwantTacos said:


> so just keep getting vaccines?



I....guess that's the plan, yeah.


----------



## TedEH

IwantTacos said:


> so just keep getting vaccines?


So just like we've always done with other vaccines?

Hasn't it been long established that you're _supposed_ to get the flu vaccine yearly? And lots of people do? And it's never been a big deal?

I'd gladly take a yearly jab if it means everything else can return to some semblance of normal. That's a pretty small ask, IMO.


----------



## ArtDecade

TedEH said:


> I'd gladly take a yearly jab if it means everything else can return to some semblance of normal. That's a pretty small ask, IMO.



You and your sensibilities. What next? You want a polite society as well?


----------



## bostjan

TedEH said:


> So just like we've always done with other vaccines?
> 
> Hasn't it been long established that you're _supposed_ to get the flu vaccine yearly? And lots of people do? And it's never been a big deal?
> 
> I'd gladly take a yearly jab if it means everything else can return to some semblance of normal. That's a pretty small ask, IMO.


A lot of work is being done to understand the risks or lack thereof in a combination vaccine for flu and covid. We already have combovaxes for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis; and measles, mumps, and rubella; so it's an obvious question to try to answer. It might end up being the case that a covid vaccine is recommended every six months and a combo corona/influenza vaccine every other six months. Maybe they can eventually combine with Zika (which was big in the news until corona and everyone simultaneously forgot it existed) and call it the ZIC vaccine. "Oh, I feel like crap today, I just got ZIC yesterday."

Or, if they can't combine covid with influenza, maybe combine it with other more serious disease vaccines in order to get people covered, like... smallpox, HIV, influenza, and tuberculosis... hmm what acronym would accurately describe that combination?


----------



## fantom

Welp, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Maine, New York, etc. looked pretty screwed the last few weeks. And as expected, hospitalizations and deaths are disproportionately unvaccinated people who are in denial. Pretty sure that won't stop people from traveling for the holidays.

I didn't realize the CDC is publishing the case rates by vaccination status now.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-status



bostjan said:


> can eventually combine with Zika (which was big in the news until corona and everyone simultaneously forgot it existed)



Zika never really made it out of South Florida, did it? It was hanging out in Miami for years without turning into a global issue.

Let's go look... https://www.cdc.gov/zika/reporting/2021-case-counts.html

There have been zero transmissions within the USA since 2017. There have been a total of 54 transmissions in the USA all between 2016-2017.

Pretty sure Zika was forgotten for good reason.


----------



## StevenC

fantom said:


> Welp, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Maine, New York, etc. looked pretty screwed the last few weeks. And as expected, hospitalizations and deaths are disproportionately unvaccinated people who are in denial. Pretty sure that won't stop people from traveling for the holidays.
> 
> I didn't realize the CDC is publishing the case rates by vaccination status now.
> 
> https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-status
> 
> 
> 
> Zika never really made it out of South Florida, did it? It was hanging out in Miami for years without turning into a global issue.
> 
> Let's go look... https://www.cdc.gov/zika/reporting/2021-case-counts.html
> 
> There have been zero transmissions within the USA since 2017. There have been a total of 54 transmissions in the USA all between 2016-2017.
> 
> Pretty sure Zika was forgotten for good reason.


Zika is not a good candidate for a global pandemic because it requires either mosquitos or very close proximity for transmission.


----------



## spudmunkey

fantom said:


> Welp, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Maine, New York, etc. looked pretty screwed the last few weeks. And as expected, hospitalizations and deaths are disproportionately unvaccinated people who are in denial. Pretty sure that won't stop people from traveling for the holidays.



Vermont's got the highest vaccination rate in the country, but the hospitals are being hit hard...and even though nearly 75% of the state's population is fully vaccinated, *still* unvaccinated are making up the vast majority of the hospitalized.


----------



## Ralyks

Mask mandate back in effect here in NY starting Monday until at least January 15th. Everyone I know is sick of it. I... Don't really care ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


----------



## bostjan

StevenC said:


> Zika is not a good candidate for a global pandemic because it requires either mosquitos or very close proximity for transmission.


Yeah, not like mosquitos are absolutely everywhere in the USA, right?



spudmunkey said:


> Vermont's got the highest vaccination rate in the country, but the hospitals are being hit hard...and even though nearly 75% of the state's population is fully vaccinated, *still* unvaccinated are making up the vast majority of the hospitalized.
> View attachment 100974


Yeah, my tiny town had 44 new cases yesterday, that's like nearly half a percent of the population in one day!


----------



## StevenC

bostjan said:


> Yeah, not like mosquitos are absolutely everywhere in the USA, right?


Can't say I know how popular mosquitos are across the USA, but where I live for example I've never seen a mosquito in my life. That's not to say zika isn't a serious concern that should be taken seriously, but in a lot of climates it doesn't have a transmission method.


----------



## ArtDecade

If I remember correctly, I think zika needs warmer weather to flourish. That might be more of a factor why it hasn't made it's way north of the Mason Dixon even though there are mozzies everywhere in the States.


----------



## SpaceDock

It’s a specific type of mosquito, not all species can carry zika.


----------



## CanserDYI

StevenC said:


> Can't say I know how popular mosquitos are across the USA, but where I live for example I've never seen a mosquito in my life. That's not to say zika isn't a serious concern that should be taken seriously, but in a lot of climates it doesn't have a transmission method.


Dude that is mind blowing to me, the fact that you've never seen mosquitos. What's insane is that I know people who have never seen snow before, and shit it sucks being in Ohio where every winter is a snowstorm worse than the last and every summer is mosquito fuckin central.


----------



## CanserDYI

By the way y'all, the vaccine made my family's covid symptoms almost non existent. I'm very happy to say we're all doing excellent, feeling great, my taste even kind of came back, but no cough or cold, no fevers, no issues breathing. 

Get vaxxed you filthy animals.


----------



## StevenC

CanserDYI said:


> Dude that is mind blowing to me, the fact that you've never seen mosquitos. What's insane is that I know people who have never seen snow before, and shit it sucks being in Ohio where every winter is a snowstorm worse than the last and every summer is mosquito fuckin central.


I've seen mosquitos because I've left my country. I think we do have them in Ireland actually, but I've definitely never seen one here. I totally know people that have never left the island though, that probably haven't seen mosquitos ever.


----------



## CanserDYI

StevenC said:


> I've seen mosquitos because I've left my country. I think we do have them in Ireland actually, but I've definitely never seen one here. I totally know people that have never left the island though, that probably haven't seen mosquitos ever.


According to the BBC, this is asked every year "Does Ireland have mosquitoes?" and apparently, yes. Ya'll have had them since the last ice age. 

Now shit, do you really not have snakes?? I don't feel like googling that one, I'd rather ask a real Irishman.


----------



## StevenC

CanserDYI said:


> According to the BBC, this is asked every year "Does Ireland have mosquitoes?" and apparently, yes. Ya'll have had them since the last ice age.
> 
> Now shit, do you really not have snakes?? I don't feel like googling that one, I'd rather ask a real Irishman.


Yep no snakes. St Patrick drove them out. My brother was really freaked out the first time he saw a wild snake when he moved to England. The only snakes I have ever seen have been either as pets or in zoos.


----------



## Randy

Ralyks said:


> Mask mandate back in effect here in NY starting Monday until at least January 15th. Everyone I know is sick of it. I... Don't really care ¯\_(ツ)_/¯



Guy my gf follows on Instagram is a loud proud, vocal Dem and when the mask mandate was announted he posted "Fuck that, I didn't get the shot to have to do this shit. Time for us to start voting red"


----------



## spudmunkey

Growing up in wisconsin around lots of ponds and lakes, mosquitoes are like the state's unofficial state bird. Going fishing in the mornings meant closing your eyes and holding your breath as you walked down to the pier, or else you'd get a mouthful of mosquitoes.

Then in California, I moved to a place deep in the woods, where there was a slow stream, and where the road wasn't even paved. You could leave your windows open all day, and the only thing that might try to come in were the dogs, a bird, or maybe a banana slug. No screens on any windows or doors. Same thing I noticed about Germany, which shares a lot of climate similarities with Wisconsin...no screens, no mosquitoes.


----------



## Ralyks

Randy said:


> Guy my gf follows on Instagram is a loud proud, vocal Dem and when the mask mandate was announted he posted "Fuck that, I didn't get the shot to have to do this shit. Time for us to start voting red"



Yeah, I have a few Dem friends that are annoyed. I was already masking up everywhere anyway, and I'm vaxxed + boostered. Maybe I'm just numb to it all at this point. Hell, at this point the reason I go out at all is work and I can't keep my 6 year old inside all day ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


----------



## Adieu

I'm surprised powered personal air filtration units haven't caught on

I don't mind masks much, but that's most likely because I haven't once spent more than an hour in one. Ever.

Ultimately it's a class thing. If you're pink/white collar enough to work remotely or rich enough to blow off work entirely, you're like why ain't these bozos masking?

If you're stocking shelves at 6 AM, your mileage may vary


----------



## Randy

Adieu said:


> If you're stocking shelves at 6 AM, your mileage may vary



Eh, idk. Where I live (rural NY), masks were mostly optional in the workplace and I still see a majority of workers wearing them and not half assing it (no nose hanging out or hovering over their face).

All the people I know who bitch don't need to wear one at work and they're annoyed having to wear them in stores, basically.


----------



## CanserDYI

Uhhh anyone else like wearing masks? I'd wear a mask in a store with my wife and kids every single time for the rest of my life.


----------



## Randy

CanserDYI said:


> Uhhh anyone else like wearing masks? I'd wear a mask in a store with my wife and kids every single time for the rest of my life.



I'm right there with you. Haven't caught so much as the common cold in two years, it's fantastic. I've gotta do some soul searching about other activities I've abstained from but the idea of wearing a mask around hoards of filthy, plague spreading philistines? Sign me up forever.

It's funny, now officially every person in my orbit that's had some kinda nuanced "I did my own research" take on the virus and opted either against the vaccine, or masks, or distancing, etc have gotten it at least once, some twice. And every person I'm close with that stuck with two basic principals: gets the vaccine, wear the mask at public gatherings, have gotten through the last two years without getting it. Fancy that.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

CanserDYI said:


> Uhhh anyone else like wearing masks? I'd wear a mask in a store with my wife and kids every single time for the rest of my life.



I absolutely do! I don't have to fake smile, don't have to worry about arrant nose hairs or an emerging booger, and I don't have to shave as cleanly or as often. And a mask hides my uggo face. Plus I'm able to conceal my conversations with myself, and mumble negative things about the other people around me. It's great!


----------



## StevenC

High Plains Drifter said:


> I absolutely do! I don't have to fake smile, don't have to worry about arrant nose hairs or an emerging booger, and I don't have to shave as cleanly or as often. And a mask hides my uggo face. Plus I'm able to conceal my conversations with myself, and mumble negative things about the other people around me. It's great!


I have the opposite problem. I keep making ridiculous smiles at people and it just looks like crazy eyes.


----------



## TedEH

CanserDYI said:


> Uhhh anyone else like wearing masks?


inb4 someone chimes in with some kind of "you're just telling yourselves that so you don't have to admit you're a sheep", something something.

I mean, uh, yeh I don't hate masks.
Best benefit is definitely:


Randy said:


> aven't caught so much as the common cold in two years



But I wear glasses, and the condensation drives me nuts. Also I have a beard right now and it makes my beard itch. Also I drink a lot of coffee when I go out, and you can't drink through the mask. Yeh, I know, there's solutions to all those things, but still. First world pandemic problems, I guess.


----------



## Adieu

Get contacts or lasik already


----------



## Randy

TedEH said:


> But I wear glasses, and the condensation drives me nuts. Also I have a beard right now and it makes my beard itch. Also I drink a lot of coffee when I go out, and you can't drink through the mask. Yeh, I know, there's solutions to all those things, but still. First world pandemic problems, I guess.



Yeah I mean, it's contextual. Outside or in an empty coffee shop 20 feet away from the nearest person is different than, say, shoulder to shoulder at Starbucks during morning rush, and standing there putting something to your mouth over and over again inside of everyone else's dewey hotbox.

I don't bother with my mask at work since it's a private office and meetings are by appointment, so I know well in advance if someone's coming in, who they are and I can control the seating arrangement. Occasionally I'll have to work on the road, usually I'll eat in the car but if I can't, I'll pick a place that's not especially busy and/or find a quiet corner if I'm gonna eat inside.

I guess to some people it's a hassle idk, but it keeps me and my loved ones healthy, and I still do all the same stuff I'd be doing otherwise so it doesn't seem much of an inconvenience.

I think I mentioned it way earlier in this thread, minimal mitigation would be necessary if people practiced any degree of self restraint but nope they can't do it. I remember when NYS rolled back their first mask mandate and you go to the grocery store, fine if you wanna flex that you don't have to wear your mask but it's like, groups of people practically shouting in each other's face. That something you were waiting to do? It's not true freedom if you don't inhale your friend's spit?


----------



## TedEH

Adieu said:


> Get contacts or lasik already


I've been considering the ol' lazer eyes. If I could pull a Superman and shave with it too, I'd be solving almost all my 'rona problems at once.


----------



## mmr007

Masks suck if you have a beard. My beard looks cool when its free. In a mask it looks like someone is trying to shove a racoon in a thong. And I hate masks in general. What I hate most is the use is so arbitrary as to render them nearly useless. I go into the gym for an hour and don't have to wear a mask and then I walk next door into Vons and I have to wear a mask or be mistaken for a Jan 6 rioter. Whatever.


----------



## TedEH

Pro tip: Just because there isn't a rule, doesn't mean you can't wear your mask in whatever places you think it would appropriate to have it on. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


----------



## Ralyks

As mentioned, I don’t mind wearing masks, and add me to the list of people who do like them. I don’t want to be recognized when I go out to stores. And honestly, I don’t remember the last time I’ve been truly sick.


----------



## TheBlackBard

Actually now that I think of it... I don't remember the last time I was sick either other than allergies.


----------



## StevenC

I haven't been sick at all in the last two years except for [redacted].


----------



## spudmunkey

TedEH said:


> Pro tip: Just because there isn't a rule, doesn't mean you can't wear your mask in whatever places you think it would appropriate to have it on. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯



Having worked within blocks from Chinatown for almost 5 years, the start of mask requirements didn't seem very strange, especially knowing that these people were already wearing masks to protect OTHERS which some people still don't get and it blows my mind.


----------



## CanserDYI

TedEH said:


> Pro tip: Just because there isn't a rule, doesn't mean you can't wear your mask in whatever places you think it would appropriate to have it on. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


I have a few shitty gas stations by my house that have a huge "NO MASKS ALLOWED" on their doors. 

I call them Covid Stations now, idiot booths. 

I wear my mask literally everywhere, and you bet they lost my business.


----------



## mmr007

spudmunkey said:


> Having worked within blocks from Chinatown for almost 5 years, the start of mask requirements didn't seem very strange, especially knowing that these people were already wearing masks to protect OTHERS which some people still don't get and it blows my mind.


I'm one of those people and to be honest I GET it....but the mask wearing was supposed to be a short term addition to a variety of measures meant to stem the initial tide of illnesses. But I don't feel obligated, as a vaccinated person (I know that doesn't mean immune) to keep wearing a mask in perpetuity to protect others who don't vaccinate, are obese, smoke, use drugs, use tanning salons or engage in tons of other activities that are not healthy. I get it. And I am tired of wearing a mask 14 hours a day for completely arbitrary reasons in mixed settings that assume the virus respects rules for mask wearing.


----------



## CanserDYI

I always liked the "pee on someone" strategy.

If someone walks up to you, neither of you are wearing pants, and he pees on your leg, you're getting soaked. 

If he walks up to you, and YOURE wearing pants, and he starts peeing, you'll get wet sure, but much less wet than if you weren't wearing pants. 

If he walks up to you and HES wearing pants AND you're wearing pants, he's getting soaked and you're dry, friend.


----------



## spudmunkey

I will say, the moment the general population around here stops wearing face covers, I'll definitely be switching from my reusable masks to N95 masks, which I've reserved for going to crowded places and hospitals. I'm on a medication which lowers my immune system's effectiveness. Fortunately (ha!) I've had 8 months of a digestion issue which means I don't go many places except short trips to the grocery store and the hospital. If I could go to movies, I'd probably wear N95 there, too. I did go on a flight back in June, and wore N95 on the plane, too.


----------



## Adieu

All set for 2022


----------



## mmr007

although.......







my inner asshole megalomaniac self could come to terms with it if I wore the right mask


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Adieu said:


> All set for 2022
> 
> View attachment 101016



At least those are meant to be worn all day, and comfortably at that, though I greatly prefer full face.


----------



## TedEH

mmr007 said:


> but the mask wearing was supposed to be a short term


Be that as it is, there's nothing anyone could have done to restrict the amount of time masks were needed if so many people were going to disregard any guidelines or cautions. Because you're phrasing it as if the masks are arbitrary, or just some kind of signalling:


mmr007 said:


> I am tired of wearing a mask 14 hours a day for completely arbitrary reasons


But it's not arbitrary. I feel like the detail so many people miss is that there's no one guideline that in itself is supposed to be some magical cure for a pandemic. Masks were never going to do that. Hand santizer was never going to do that. Even the vaccines were never meant to be a one-stop cure-all for the 'rona, even if a lot of people spoke naively about it every step of the way. None of those steps do _anything_ if you neglect everything else. Yeah, you're not going to stop the spread of anything if you got vaccinated but you still run around wiping your snot on everyone you come across. Hand sanitizer will do nothing if you sneeze on someone. They're supposed to be used _in concert, by everyone, to have the best chance of mitigation._

But can you imagine how much better a position we'd be in if everyone was willing to be mindful enough to take even the most basic precautions? And these are _very basic_ precautions. It shouldn't be rocket science that washing your hands and trying not to breathe on people would improve health outcomes. That's literally all it is. That's 100% what a mask is for. To keep people from breathing in eachothers faces. God forbid anyone be _mildly inconvenienced_.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

TedEH said:


> Be that as it is, there's nothing anyone could have done to restrict the amount of time masks were needed if so many people were going to disregard any guidelines or cautions. Because you're phrasing it as if the masks are arbitrary, or just some kind of signalling:
> 
> But it's not arbitrary. I feel like the detail so many people miss is that there's no one guideline that in itself is supposed to be some magical cure for a pandemic. Masks were never going to do that. Hand santizer was never going to do that. Even the vaccines were never meant to be a one-stop cure-all for the 'rona, even if a lot of people spoke naively about it every step of the way. None of those steps do _anything_ if you neglect everything else. Yeah, you're not going to stop the spread of anything if you got vaccinated but you still run around wiping your snot on everyone you come across. Hand sanitizer will do nothing if you sneeze on someone. They're supposed to be used _in concert, by everyone, to have the best chance of mitigation._
> 
> But can you imagine how much better a position we'd be in if everyone was willing to be mindful enough to take even the most basic precautions? And these are _very basic_ precautions. It shouldn't be rocket science that washing your hands and trying not to breathe on people would improve health outcomes. That's literally all it is. That's 100% what a mask is for. To keep people from breathing in eachothers faces. God forbid anyone be _mildly inconvenienced_.



If we could condense the last two years into a single concise post, this would be it. 

People have just decided that they rather deal with the pandemic, then just be a little inconvenienced.


----------



## mmr007

TedEH said:


> Be that as it is, there's nothing anyone could have done to restrict the amount of time masks were needed if so many people were going to disregard any guidelines or cautions. Because you're phrasing it as if the masks are arbitrary, or just some kind of signalling:
> 
> But it's not arbitrary. I feel like the detail so many people miss is that there's no one guideline that in itself is supposed to be some magical cure for a pandemic. Masks were never going to do that. Hand santizer was never going to do that. Even the vaccines were never meant to be a one-stop cure-all for the 'rona, even if a lot of people spoke naively about it every step of the way. None of those steps do _anything_ if you neglect everything else. Yeah, you're not going to stop the spread of anything if you got vaccinated but you still run around wiping your snot on everyone you come across. Hand sanitizer will do nothing if you sneeze on someone. They're supposed to be used _in concert, by everyone, to have the best chance of mitigation._
> 
> But can you imagine how much better a position we'd be in if everyone was willing to be mindful enough to take even the most basic precautions? And these are _very basic_ precautions. It shouldn't be rocket science that washing your hands and trying not to breathe on people would improve health outcomes. That's literally all it is. That's 100% what a mask is for. To keep people from breathing in eachothers faces. God forbid anyone be _mildly inconvenienced_.



Nothing you said addresses anything I said. Why do you assume that as an adult I go around wiping snot on everything? I never said there is one guideline that serves as a path to cure. Not assuming a cure. But I am tired of hearing we can mask our way out this. We can't. COVID is here FOREVER!!!! And every time there is a blip in variant or transmission hotspot we get an outsized unreasonable kneejerk reaction to cut it off at the knees. We have taken precautions but I am not alone because even liberal me is just like all my liberal Trump hating friends....ready for the masks to go away.

The masks ARE arbitrary because even here in California where masks are mandatory it is arbitrary in enforcement. And if it is really as critical as you suggest to preventing deaths then there would be enforcement of the mandate that backed by law against the person not wearing the mask and not the business that can't keep up with enforcement. All the places I have been I see some wearing masks, some not, some wearing it as a chinstrap, some wearing masks that, let's be honest, don't actually do anything.

Unfortunately it appears that according to you, and if I am mistaken my apologies, my duty to my fellow citizens should know no bounds when it comes to Covid, that so long as Covid exists and someone can get it and get sick from it I have to make accommodations in my personal life and my answer is no. I'm done. If you are allergic to peanuts I will not bring any to your house, I will remove them from my house if I invite you over and will warn you if I see a peanut in your path that you don't see. But I will not forgo peanuts in my life. You have a responsibility to do what is right for you, I don't have an obligation to do what's right for you.

You can argue all you want but I can guarantee I am right about one thing, if we don't get rid of the masks (excepts for those who need it and they can choose for themselves) you are gonna see dems get wiped out in every election and then a no mask mandate will be the least of your concerns. If you want to wear a mask, if you want to avoid outdoor or indoor gatherings, that is fine for you. No one one is dictating what precautions you need to take. I took precautions for my fellow man. I got vaccinnated for my fellow man. I lost my job and a year of income for my fellow man. And now I am done.

As an adult I have spent my life knowing how not to sneeze on people, or wipe snot on people or piss on people whether or not each of us is wearing pants. I am ready to take risks...if you are not (you in general not you specifically) then that is a you problem. Not my problem. When people stop being obese and stop smoking etc... (or is it et al?) because of their covid fear I'll take it more seriously


----------



## mmr007

MaxOfMetal said:


> If we could condense the last two years into a single concise post, this would be it.
> 
> People have just decided that they rather deal with the pandemic, then just be a little inconvenienced.


Honestly I don't think that is fair. I've spent a lifetime dealing with inconveniences as have many people I know who are done with the mask mandate. Because the way I see it, since Covid is here forever the masks are here forever. If not, then why not get rid of them now? Unless you are immune compromised. Again I see myself as a society person first and a global citizen first. But our current covid policy is window dressing. It looks like something but it isn't and I'm not big on doing something for appearance's sake.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mmr007 said:


> Honestly I don't think that is fair. I've spent a lifetime dealing with inconveniences as have many people I know who are done with the mask mandate. Because the way I see it, since Covid is here forever the masks are here forever. If not, then why not get rid of them now? Unless you are immune compromised. Again I see myself as a society person first and a global citizen first. But our current covid policy is window dressing. It looks like something but it isn't and I'm not big on doing something for appearance's sake.



Masks work. They're, at worst, a minor inconvenience. 

Since we're probably never going to convince almost half the population to get vaccinated, and we're certainly not going to support anything like a real lock down, it's pretty much the absolute least we can do. 

Don't want to wear it? Fine. Do what you want. You're definitely not alone there. But, let's at least call a spade a spade here: they're an effective, mild inconvenience that folks just don't want to deal with. It is what it is. 

I don't care about what's mandated or not, obviously those sorts of things are far more political than anything else. I care about not hurting anyone, especially those I care about and I'll wear my fucking PAPR 24/7 if that's what it takes. 

You know what's inconvenient? Being in an emergency room. Watching someone you care about dying. You yourself dying. Those are far more of a pain in the ass than wearing a thin little mask. 

Try wearing a FFR or SABA for 12 hours a day 7 days a week then get back to me about a cloth face mask being a bother. I still have scars from mine.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Well if there's one thing that I've learned about myself in the past two years, it's that I don't honestly give two shits about what people think of what I wear in public. Window dressing, appearing weak, appearing responsible, minimizing the germs that I ingest, or however others look at me, I'll keep wearing my face filter cause I feel more comfortable doing so than not. It IS an inconvenience but so is wearing my seat-belt and tying my shoes. At the least... I, like others... haven't had a cold or flu in over two years and that alone says something. 

There were never any 'enforced' mandates in the town where I live and I've yet to see any verbal or physical fights breaking out between anyone pro-mask/ anti-mask. We all go about our business and those of us that for whatever actual or perceived physical or mental reasons decide to wear them will likely continue wearing them until we're more comfortable going without. 

Getting complainant people off their asses to vote mid-term next year will do more than anything mask-related to show how people feel about the direction this country is headed.


----------



## mmr007

MaxOfMetal said:


> Masks work. They're, at worst, a minor inconvenience.
> 
> Since we're probably never going to convince almost half the population to get vaccinated, and we're certainly not going to support anything like a real lock down, it's pretty much the absolute least we can do.
> 
> Don't want to wear it? Fine. Do what you want. You're definitely not alone there. But, let's at least call a spade a spade here: they're an effective, mild inconvenience that folks just don't want to deal with. It is what it is.
> 
> I don't care about what's mandated or not, obviously those sorts of things are far more political than anything else. I care about not hurting anyone, especially those I care about and I'll wear my fucking PAPR 24/7 if that's what it takes.
> 
> You know what's inconvenient? Being in an emergency room. Watching someone you care about dying. You yourself dying. Those are far more of a pain in the ass than wearing a thin little mask.
> 
> Try wearing a FFR or SABA for 12 hours a day 7 days a week then get back to me about a cloth face mask being a bother. I still have scars from mine.




I've been in an emergency room. Still have the scars and permanent damage from what put me there. Should we get rid of bicycles or the car that ran over me? That was inconvenient. Not gonna lie. Also had a close friend get killed after getting run over by a city bus on her bicycle. Had another friend get killed (knocked off a cliff) by a drunk driver. Sorry but we accept a great level of risk from a variety of sources.

Now to be more on point, I think you'll find that I was ok with masks IF...IF they are required and enforced properly and their use made sense. But since I can walk through a crowd of 50 people on a patio, none wearing masks, but as soon as I cross the threshold I have to slide my mask on, except if I am drinking a coffee or eating then I think you can see my point. It is like demanding that people wear condoms to prevent AIDS unless you are chewing gum when you have sex or having sex outside and only with every third sexual partner. Do it right or don't do it. I've never wavered from that point.

And as I already stated the vast majority of deaths overwhelmingly came from those who refused to care for themselves when it came to obesity and smoking and showed that for the majority of their life they didn't take their health seriously. That's why I said, if you (in general not you specifically, that's just the way I talk) put down the cheeseburger and cigarette for breakfast, I'll wear the mask without bitching. I think that's fair no?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mmr007 said:


> I've been in an emergency room. Still have the scars and permanent damage from what put me there. Should we get rid of bicycles or the car that ran over me? That was inconvenient. Not gonna lie. Also had a close friend get killed after getting run over by a city bus on her bicycle. Had another friend get killed (knocked off a cliff) by a drunk driver. Sorry but we accept a great level of risk from a variety of sources.
> 
> Now to be more on point, I think you'll find that I was ok with masks IF...IF they are required and enforced properly and their use made sense. But since I can walk through a crowd of 50 people on a patio, none wearing masks, but as soon as I cross the threshold I have to slide my mask on, except if I am drinking a coffee or eating then I think you can see my point. It is like demanding that people wear condoms to prevent AIDS unless you are chewing gum when you have sex or having sex outside and only with every third sexual partner. Do it right or don't do it. I've never wavered from that point.
> 
> And as I already stated the vast majority of deaths overwhelmingly came from those who refused to care for themselves when it came to obesity and smoking and showed that for the majority of their life they didn't take their health seriously. That's why I said, if you (in general not you specifically, that's just the way I talk) put down the cheeseburger and cigarette for breakfast, I'll wear the mask without bitching. I think that's fair no?



The second cheeseburgers become contagious I'll agree. 

Fuck your (in general) inconvenience. I, and my wife, by no fault of our own, are immunodeficient. She had the gaul to get tumors in her brain, and I had to just go and be a dick and get a rare form of psoriasis that damages bone marrow. You wouldn't know by looking at us that we're not in the best of health. Just like you'll never know who else out there might not be able to handle covid. But it's not even just covid, if she throws a clot, she'll probably die because all the ICU beds are full. I'll probably die.

So, I'll wear a mask, because some people might need me to. I don't care what anyone thinks of it. I rather not be part of the problem.

You don't have to wear a mask, I just get to make fun of you for being whiny about it. Deal?


----------



## mmr007

MaxOfMetal said:


> The second cheeseburgers become contagious I'll agree.
> 
> Fuck your (in general) inconvenience. I, and my wife, by no fault of our own, are immunodeficient. She had the gaul to get tumors in her brain, and I had to just go and be a dick and get a rare form of psoriasis that damages bone marrow. You wouldn't know by looking at us that we're not in the best of health. Just like you'll never know who else out there might not be able to handle covid. But it's not even just covid, if she throws a clot, she'll probably die because all the ICU beds are full. I'll probably die.
> 
> So, I'll wear a mask, because some people might need me to. I don't care what anyone thinks of it. I rather not be part of the problem.
> 
> You don't have to wear a mask, I just get to make fun of you for being whiny about it. Deal?


No, cheeseburgers aren't contagious per se but since obesity is the predominant underlying health factor that contributes to Covid death I still think my assertion holds water that someone eating themselves to death doesn't deserve my obedience to wear masks around them...you know for their health. That is my point.

Also, I know you're joking (I think) but I am not being whiney. I don't like hearing people marginalize mask wearing say "Oh poor baby you have to wear a mask when you go to the grocery store." No. I have to wear a mask 12 hours a day minimum and have to force everyone I encounter to wear one except for all the exceptions that gives others license to argue and then suffer the culture war that ensues.

Now it is unfortunate that you and your wife have an immunodeficiency and I am very sorry to hear that. Lots of us have or had medical problems. It was not too long ago that my sugar intake through soda nearly destroyed my liver from NAFL so I quit soda and quit sugar. But my poor health at the time was MY choice. I chose to live an unhealthy lifestyle. What I would NOT have the right to do is demand everyone wear masks around me because I like soda and have no right to shift responsibility for my health from myself to those around me who don't even know me. 

Your situation is different and if I was to ever be around you (you would have to be desperate for miserable company) I would gladly wear a mask or take my shoes off at the door or whatever helps ensure I do not jeopardize your health. I am a compassionate person. I Like people. But...here comes the caveat, If I comply with your desire to act in a way that does not jeopardize your health out of compassion for you and your wife, or I comply because the mayor of your city demands it otherwise you get fined, if I see 20 other people in your house not complying I will get, as you call it....whiney. Deal?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mmr007 said:


> No, cheeseburgers aren't contagious per se but since obesity is the predominant underlying health factor that contributes to Covid death I still think my assertion holds water that someone eating themselves to death doesn't deserve my obedience to wear masks around them...you know for their health. That is my point.
> 
> Also, I know you're joking (I think) but I am not being whiney. I don't like hearing people marginalize mask wearing say "Oh poor baby you have to wear a mask when you go to the grocery store." No. I have to wear a mask 12 hours a day minimum and have to force everyone I encounter to wear one except for all the exceptions that gives others license to argue and then suffer the culture war that ensues.
> 
> Now it is unfortunate that you and your wife have an immunodeficiency and I am very sorry to hear that. Lots of us have or had medical problems. It was not too long ago that my sugar intake through soda nearly destroyed my liver from NAFL so I quit soda and quit sugar. But my poor health at the time was MY choice. I chose to live an unhealthy lifestyle. What I would NOT have the right to do is demand everyone wear masks around me because I like soda and have no right to shift responsibility for my health from myself to those around me who don't even know me.
> 
> Your situation is different and if I was to ever be around you (you would have to be desperate for miserable company) I would gladly wear a mask or take my shoes off at the door or whatever helps ensure I do not jeopardize your health. I am a compassionate person. I Like people. But...here comes the caveat, If I comply with your desire to act in a way that does not jeopardize your health out of compassion for you and your wife, or I comply because the mayor of your city demands it otherwise you get fined, if I see 20 other people in your house not complying I will get, as you call it....whiney. Deal?



All I hear (read) is "well, someone else isn't doing the right thing, so why should I". 

Hey, I get it. I understand that wearing a mask is inconvenient, and that seeing others flaunt not wearing it compounds how not-fun it all is.

I don't "like" wearing a mask. I just do it. Whether it's for a quick 10 minute run into the gas station, or if it's for waiting at the doctor's office for a couple hours, or a full 12hr shift at work, or for literally days as the case the last time I was in the hospital. 

I don't care if it's for some dude who lives a shitty unhealthy lifestyle, or for a little kid with cancer, because I can't control it like that. Masking up protects everyone from me. I rather keep my germs from a million 300lb NEETs and one little old granny. I don't put value on some life vs. others. I might not agree with someone's lifestyle, but it's not my job to pass real judgment. 

The older I get, the more I experience in life, the more I tend to care less about folks less like me and see folks as just people trying to live thier lives, and if wearing a thin piece of cloth can help, so be it.


----------



## mmr007

MaxOfMetal said:


> All I hear (read) is "well, someone else isn't doing the right thing, so why should I".








Basically.....now that you understand me ......my work here is done

But in all honesty as I said earlier. Masks are a political issue so our only safeguard against the fascist horde coming is to make them not an issue. There is only one way to do that. Cure covid or get rid of the issue around covid. Masks and threats of lockdowns. I remind you that our state had a recall election that Newsome survived but only happened in the first place because of mask mandates generating enough signatures to force a recall election


----------



## TedEH

That's officially the biggest stretch someone has taken from what I actually said - and this site has always been pro level at doing exactly that. 



mmr007 said:


> Should we get rid of bicycles or the car that ran over me?


Except what you're suggesting is not analogous to getting rid of bikes, it's analogous to getting rid of helmets. You're basically saying "people have still died while wearing bike helmets, so they must be useless - throw them all away, they look and feel ridiculous, and if you disagree, then your political party will be demolished in the next election for some reason".

Ooooooookay here we go..... *deeeep breath*
....




mmr007 said:


> Nothing you said addresses anything I said


You said arbitrary. That's entirely false. I addressed exactly that.



mmr007 said:


> Why do you assume that as an adult I go around wiping snot on everything?


Because human being are disgusting, secreting, inconsiderate meat bags who are mostly unaware of just how good they are at spreading their germs around.



mmr007 said:


> But I am tired of hearing we can mask our way out this. We can't.


Go back and re-read my post. Read it a couple of times. I AGREE that we can't mask our way out. The key takeaway was supposed to be that there is NO ONE THING anyone can do. But it's important that we do as many of the things that we can, and masks are very easy to do, and the THE SUM OF OUR EFFORTS is what's important, not any one guideline on it's own.



mmr007 said:


> even liberal me is just like all my liberal Trump hating friends....ready for the masks to go away.


Nobody WANTS to wear the masks. Maybe not literally nobody, but mostly nobody.



mmr007 said:


> The masks ARE arbitrary because even here in California where masks are mandatory it is arbitrary in enforcement.


If "what is legal in California" is your standard, I don't know what to tell you. I mean, if you're going to talk arbitrary, this feels like an arbitrary excuse. Enforcement all over the place has been varied - in large part because it's very difficult to enforce something that people feel very strongly about. The health recommendations (which are NOT arbitrary) are not based on laws. It's _supposed_ to work the other way around.



mmr007 said:


> if it is really as critical as you suggest to preventing deaths then there would be enforcement


There is! Lots of places enforce masks. There are tons of places I can't go without a mask or without proof of getting jabbed. I don't live in California - if I go into any enclosed public place with no mask on, I'm likely to be removed from that public place.



mmr007 said:


> Unfortunately it appears that according to you, and if I am mistaken my apologies, my duty to my fellow citizens should know no bounds


I gave you an inch and you took a fucking light-year. Your only "duty" here is to accept the most minor of inconveniences, and be mindful of what you're doing. Those are some pretty wide bounds.



mmr007 said:


> You can argue all you want but I can guarantee I am right about one thing, if we don't get rid of the masks (excepts for those who need it and they can choose for themselves) you are gonna see dems get wiped out in every election and then a no mask mandate will be the least of your concerns.


I'm not American, so I don't give two shits about your elections. Also, just . Also, also - the 'rona is not an American problem. It's an everywhere problem.



mmr007 said:


> Masks are a political issue


No, they really aren't. They're a medical issue. They're a "people don't give a shit about other people" issue. It only looks like a "political issue", because that seem to be how Americans get their way - by turning everything into a political issue. "It's political" half the time is America-speak for "I don't want to deal with this, so I'll get my team to back me up on it".

And all of this, once again, so that you can avoid _taking basic health precautions during a pendemic_.


----------



## mmr007

Ok....I know you are not american and unless you live in a cave in your country masks ARE a political problem. They are a problem that will allow fascist to take over our government and if the last four years has taught me (and hopefully you) anything its that who is in charge of the USA is kinda important. I care about lots of global issues and the masks are now little more than a symbolic amulet that risks taking a wrecking ball to this whole thing.

Now this is the only other issue where I think you and I will have issue and it is ok to disagree and my opinions ARE valid. WE will apparently exist in never ending pandemic. This isn't going away. It's not temporary. And I for one would rather lead a healthier life than live a lifetime in a mask. There are those you don't have a choice because of their immune system. But I'm not taking away their choice so don't take away mine.

Your counter is, again, I have an obligation to protect the rest of society and my response is again...to what end. Anyway speaking of ending it appears that's where I have come to.


----------



## TedEH

Well, we've gone off the deep end I guess. 



mmr007 said:


> They are a problem that will allow fascist to take over our government


So, where I live, the majority of people are on board with masks, and we have no correlated fascism problem. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. I mean, we have our anti-maskers, but they tend to be tied in with groups that fall for all kinds of nutjobbery - the Q-beleiving, 'rona is a hoax, vax causes autism, rich people eat babies kinds of nutjobs. We have the PPC over here, which is basically MAGA plus maple syrup. The situation here is hardly what I'd describe as fascism taking over our government. They're in much smaller numbers here than I imagine they would be in the 'states.



mmr007 said:


> And I for one would rather lead a healthier life than live a lifetime in a mask.


Alright, so lets back up - what's unhealthy about a mask? And if you say that it makes it difficult to breathe, I frankly don't believe you.


----------



## bostjan

mmr007 said:


> Ok....I know you are not american and unless you live in a cave in your country masks ARE a political problem. They are a problem that will allow fascist to take over our government and if the last four years has taught me (and hopefully you) anything its that who is in charge of the USA is kinda important. I care about lots of global issues and the masks are now little more than a symbolic amulet that risks taking a wrecking ball to this whole thing.
> 
> Now this is the only other issue where I think you and I will have issue and it is ok to disagree and my opinions ARE valid. WE will apparently exist in never ending pandemic. This isn't going away. It's not temporary. And I for one would rather lead a healthier life than live a lifetime in a mask. There are those you don't have a choice because of their immune system. But I'm not taking away their choice so don't take away mine.
> 
> Your counter is, again, I have an obligation to protect the rest of society and my response is again...to what end. Anyway speaking of ending it appears that's where I have come to.



I'm going to have one positive thing and one negative thing to say about this post.

Positive:

"This isn't going away." - I think you are correct 100% here, in the sense that this is an issue, currently. There will never again be a time where we are pre-covid. Those days are gone. And, as we get better at managing the covid that exists, we need to set our expectations about what the future is supposed to look like, and that is a huge source of disagreement. I think, though, that if both sides of the argument are willing to put sufficient weight on this argument that "this isn't going away" then the argument could at least be a lot more honest.

Maybe we are already at the end point where we need to start lifting restrictions. Evidence doesn't support that, but, evidence is all fucked up because so many people had been living like we never needed the restrictions in the first place, so everything is just sort of a mess right now. At some point, though, we need to buck up and get on with life. If that means wearing masks and carrying on with business as usual, fine, if that means ditching the masks, then, errm, well, my question would be "why?"

Negative:

"Masks are a political problem" - Why? You are making a claim that seems to be way out in left field, but maybe I'm missing something or misunderstanding. I don't believe there is a connection between the reasonable logic in determining whether to wear a mask or not during a pandemic and political opinion necessarily exists. Maybe you have some wise words to disprove that, but, honestly, I'm not expecting that, because every other time I've heard this sentiment expressed, it was followed by insane conspiracy nonsense. I hope you can both enlighten me and prove this stereotype wrong.


----------



## IwantTacos

show us where the masks hurt you.


----------



## nightflameauto

I have such a hard time wrapping my head around how mask wearing = fascism to some. It's a minor inconvenience at worst for those of us with glasses, and even that can be dealt with with proper fitting. How is that fascism?


----------



## Xaios

nightflameauto said:


> I have such a hard time wrapping my head around how mask wearing = fascism to some. It's a minor inconvenience at worst for those of us with glasses, and even that can be dealt with with proper fitting. How is that fascism?



Maybe he meant face-ism? Like, because the mask covers the face?


----------



## lurè

nightflameauto said:


> I have such a hard time wrapping my head around how mask wearing = fascism to some. It's a minor inconvenience at worst for those of us with glasses, and even that can be dealt with with proper fitting. How is that fascism?



I guess hospitals have been full of fascists surgeons before covid.


----------



## Adieu

Wait guys, I think I've figured it out

Social acceptance of masks is troubling for bigots. Even all by itself, but especially paired with a hoodie, ballcap, and/or sunglasses, it severly raises the difficulty of identifying targets for discrimination.

Just imagine, you could accidentally interact in a friendly manner with a non-white person (or maybe even a female!)


----------



## Drew

mmr007 said:


> No, cheeseburgers aren't contagious per se but since obesity is the predominant underlying health factor that contributes to Covid death I still think my assertion holds water that someone eating themselves to death doesn't deserve my obedience to wear masks around them...you know for their health. That is my point.


So, I think there's two ways to think about public health mandates, the individual level, and the population level. I think both are important, and that it's important to think about health mandates in terms of individual risks, for sure... but also, if you're not simultaneously thinking about population-level systemic risks, you're not getting a very clear picture.

Yes, someone throwing back three cheeseburgers, a large fries, and a 32-oz soda is not making good personal health choices. Yes, they're putting themselves at greater risk if they get covid. Yes, if you were to give them covid, their health outcomes would likely be a lot worse than if they took better care of themselves, so I get why - on a purely personal risk basis - it feels like an imposition to require you to wear a mask because they're at risk.

But, again, step back and look at this at a population level. We know breakthrough cases are happening, we know vaccines are good, probably better than we had any right to expect, but that even then you're probably running anywhere from a one-in-ten to one-in-four (based on what we're seeing with omicron) chance of getting sick if you're exposed to covid, even with a three shot regime, and you're going to very likely be contagious for several days before you display symptoms.

That, IMO, is a point worth dwelling on before we move on - it's entirely possible anyone reading this thread is currently covid positive, contagious, and just hasn't had time to develop symptoms yet. That's strongly worth considering when thinking about the public health aspects of this.

So, to continue, it's _very_ hard to know for sure right now that you're not covid-positive, when you're out in public. Rapid testing is still not yet widely available, there's still no reliable near-instant test, so when you go out in public, there's a bit of an act of faith, conscious or otherwise, that you're not contagious, that knowingly or unknowingly occurs.

Now again, we know that 60% of the country is fully vaccinated, and maybe another 10% have at least one shot. That leaves a lot of unvaccinated people some by choice, and it's very tempting to look at this as a risk they chose to take... but covid is very contageous. Every time it infects someone, that's one more chance for it to spread into a new host and mutate, and with a r* still comfortably above one, every time it spreads, it sets of a chain reaction of _other_ people getting sick and potentially allowing further mutation. And some of those people are going to end up in hospitals. Here in the northeast, our hospitals are at capacity. You talk about cycling - these days most of my outdoor riding is just to and from work, but if I got hit by a car on the commute home today, there wouldn't be a hospital bed for me, because hospitals are full of covid patients.

It's important to think about individual risk when weighing your situation and whether or not something is too risky to engage in, for sure... but it also really matters to take a step back and think about general systemic risk. I wear masks because even vaccinated there's maybe a 1-in-10 chance that if exposed to covid I'll get sick... but I also wear masks because they've been proven very effective at reducing transmission, the most effective tool we have short of total shutdown in fact, and wearing masks allows some semblance of normal daily life while still seriously curtting back on the population level spread of covid, reducing opportunities for further potentially devastating mutations in the virus and easing strain on our heath care systems.

You can choose to think about this as entirely transactional, and whether or not any one person _deserves_ to be protected from covid... but I think you also have to see this as the sum of all individual decisions, and the reality is that _all_ of us deserve to live in a world where we don't have to live with a deadly disease dictating our daily lives, and the best way to get to that point is simply to respect the odds and do whatever has the best probability of stopping transmission.

Because at the end of the day, it's not that you're wearing a mask to protect the health of someone who's morbidly obese and not doing anything about it. You're doing it because we as a society need to do whatever we can to eliminate as much transmission from individual to individual as we can, for ALL of our health, and if you're not willing to make the small sacrifice of wearing a mask to make that happen, then you also can't at the same time decry someone for not making the small sacrifice of eating that second cheeseburger they want, for _their _health.

We're all individuals... but we're also all participants in a large and complex society, and we need to recognize that when thinking about pandemic risk.


----------



## Jonathan20022

Masks are a net positive, the world is a little less disgusting as a result and it keeps mouthbreathers recycling their Co2 back into their system.

The government wasn't even mandating the masks nor the vaccine in the first place unless you were a federal employee. So the burger shop down the beach asking you to wear masks is no less "facist" as them asking to not walk in with your gross bare feet after soaking sea water into them.

Businesses were left to single handedly enforce their own rules, nothing was forced unless you worked in the public sector 

If there's anything I've learned in the last 5 years is that words lose meaning, and no one fucking knows what facism really even is.


----------



## Drew

Jonathan20022 said:


> Masks are a net positive, the world is a little less disgusting as a result and it keeps mouthbreathers recycling their Co2 back into their system.
> 
> The government wasn't even mandating the masks nor the vaccine in the first place unless you were a federal employee. So the burger shop down the beach asking you to wear masks is no less "facist" as them asking to not walk in with your gross bare feet after soaking sea water into them.
> 
> Businesses were left to single handedly enforce their own rules, nothing was forced unless you worked in the public sector
> 
> If there's anything I've learned in the last 5 years is that words lose meaning, and no one fucking knows what facism really even is.


The other thing worth mentioning here is there's no practical good way to have a mask mandate that exempts unvaccinated people, short of simply not allowing unvaccinated people into a space (which I suspect would trigger even more of a "but mah rights!" backlash). At a glance you can't look at someone and see they're vaccinated and look at someone else and see they're not - even some of those "Let's Go Brandon!" fuckwads are vaccinated these days. If you want an _enforcable_ mask mandate, you need to do it across the board. 

And, again, there are reasons you should anyway - without widespread rapid/instant testing there's no way to know for sure that you're not contagious, and wearing a mask is the single best way to stop transmission we have, short of sheltering in place.


----------



## Randy

Imagine a world where wearing a mask and still doing 100% of the same activities you've done for the rest of your life feels like "sheltering in place" or some kind of fascism.


----------



## nightflameauto

Randy said:


> Imagine a world where wearing a mask and still doing 100% of the same activities you've done for the rest of your life feels like "sheltering in place" or some kind of fascism.


That's what I don't get. The only thing I've cut myself off from during this whole thing is concerts, since I tend to be a pit goer and don't particularly think it a good idea while there's a pandemic going on. But everything else is either a mask if in close proximity, or avoiding crowds if I'm not masked up. 

I'm such a fascist. (<-can't wait for that to be quoted out of context at some point when somebody disagrees with me.)


----------



## Jonathan20022

Drew said:


> The other thing worth mentioning here is there's no practical good way to have a mask mandate that exempts unvaccinated people, short of simply not allowing unvaccinated people into a space (which I suspect would trigger even more of a "but mah rights!" backlash). At a glance you can't look at someone and see they're vaccinated and look at someone else and see they're not - even some of those "Let's Go Brandon!" fuckwads are vaccinated these days. If you want an _enforcable_ mask mandate, you need to do it across the board.
> 
> And, again, there are reasons you should anyway - without widespread rapid/instant testing there's no way to know for sure that you're not contagious, and wearing a mask is the single best way to stop transmission we have, short of sheltering in place.



Right, I just think it's silly to cry facism in the face of a mostly optional set of best practices that some people proudly defy.


----------



## bostjan

Welp...
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03667-0


----------



## Randy

Ended up stuck working from home today, so I wasn't out of the house at all really but today was the first day of the NYS mask mandate. 

My gf stopped at restaurant on the way home "mask mandate in effect, must wear mask or you won't be served" and nobody inside was wearing a mask  Tells me all I need to know about the effectiveness of it.


----------



## TedEH

I keep forgetting those mandates aren't universal. Masks being required in a lot of places here has been a thing for long enough that the odd time I _don't_ have a mask on while near people feels kinds uncomfortable now.


----------



## zappatton2

TedEH said:


> I keep forgetting those mandates aren't universal. Masks being required in a lot of places here has been a thing for long enough that the odd time I _don't_ have a mask on while near people feels kinds uncomfortable now.


Very much agreed! I recently stopped by the local Shoppers Drug Mart, and just completely spaced on the mask. Went up and down aisles without one, only to realize when I got to cash. It was literally (figuratively) like discovering I was still in my underwear in public. I was embarrassed beyond measure.

Fortunately, the staff knows me well enough to know I wouldn't do something like that on purpose, and didn't give me any grief, but I viscerally felt like such an asshole in the moment.


----------



## Randy

TedEH said:


> I keep forgetting those mandates aren't universal. Masks being required in a lot of places here has been a thing for long enough that the odd time I _don't_ have a mask on while near people feels kinds uncomfortable now.



Sounds like a whole lotta fascism to me. On a scale of 1 to 10 how oppressed do you feel?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

nightflameauto said:


> I have such a hard time wrapping my head around how mask wearing = fascism to some. It's a minor inconvenience at worst for those of us with glasses, and even that can be dealt with with proper fitting. How is that fascism?



All I could think of:


----------



## TedEH

Randy said:


> how oppressed do you feel?





MaxOfMetal said:


> All I could think of:


If it comes with a new truck, a boat, what could easily be a million dollar home in some places - I _wish_ I was that oppressed.


----------



## Adieu

TedEH said:


> If it comes with a new truck, a boat, what could easily be a million dollar home in some places - I _wish_ I was that oppressed.



F that, I'll superglue on a MAGA hat for all that loot

PS although I absolutely draw the line at wearing that hideous shirt. Also, that boy looks like a future Chad with a 2.3 Uber rating.


----------



## Randy

MaxOfMetal said:


> All I could think of:
> 
> View attachment 101079



Flagged for inaccuracy. That boat doesn't have pontoons on it.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Randy said:


> Flagged for inaccuracy. That boat doesn't have pontoons on it.



No white Oakleys either.


----------



## Drew

Update from South African doctors on omicron severity: 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...seen-masked-by-prior-72-case-rate-in-s-africa

tl;dr - the area where omicron is currently blowing up, and where we're getting almost all of our data from, is one where 72% of the population has had a prior-variant prior infection, which is seriously complicating our ability to figure out how hard it's hitting people with no prior infection, aka most of the rest of the world. For perspective, here in the US, where we've had 50.1mm cases and a population of 330mm, our known prior-infection rate is around 15%. That doesn't mean we're _necessarily_ going to have a lot more fatalities than South Africa has thus far, or that it's _definitely_ going to be a lot more severe once it fully takes hold here... but it's a very strong reason why we shouldn't _assume _that cases will be mild here as well. It's nowhere near a random sample we're drawing conclusions from.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> Update from South African doctors on omicron severity:
> 
> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...seen-masked-by-prior-72-case-rate-in-s-africa
> 
> tl;dr - the area where omicron is currently blowing up, and where we're getting almost all of our data from, is one where 72% of the population has had a prior-variant prior infection, which is seriously complicating our ability to figure out how hard it's hitting people with no prior infection, aka most of the rest of the world. For perspective, here in the US, where we've had 50.1mm cases and a population of 330mm, our known prior-infection rate is around 15%. That doesn't mean we're _necessarily_ going to have a lot more fatalities than South Africa has thus far, or that it's _definitely_ going to be a lot more severe once it fully takes hold here... but it's a very strong reason why we shouldn't _assume _that cases will be mild here as well. It's nowhere near a random sample we're drawing conclusions from.



As usual- the "15% prior-infection rate" and other US numbers are not correct if anyone is interested in actual data.
Total cases in the US are much higher than 50M - just that a large majority have been asymptomatic and untracked.

This is highlighted by the CDC themselves, and as usual, I'll be the one quoting sources: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html
This is reviewed and frequently updated, currently showing that infections have been anywhere between 125M and 175 (95% UI).
My opinion is that the numbers are probably even higher than that, being that in the US we are over-testing the unvaccinated and absolutely undertesting the vaccinated in a majority-vaccinated population.


----------



## ArtDecade

mbardu said:


> As usual- the "15% prior-infection rate" and other US numbers are not correct if anyone is interested in actual data.
> Total cases in the US are much higher than 50M - just that a large majority have been asymptomatic and untracked.
> 
> This is highlighted by the CDC themselves, and as usual, I'll be the one quoting sources: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html
> This is reviewed and frequently updated, currently showing that infections have been anywhere between 125M and 175 (95% UI).
> My opinion is that the numbers are probably even higher than that, being that in the US we are over-testing the unvaccinated and absolutely undertesting the vaccinated in a majority-vaccinated population.



He didn't pull 50m out of his ass. 

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6


----------



## tedtan

mbardu said:


> As usual- the "15% prior-infection rate" and other US numbers are not correct if anyone is interested in actual data.



The original was:



Drew said:


> *known* prior-infection rate is around 15%



Notice that word in red you missed. Leaving that out and then arguing based on *estimated* prior infection rate is the embodiment of a straw man argument even though you insist you’re above reproach.

Step up your game.


----------



## mbardu

tedtan said:


> The original was:
> 
> Notice that word in red you missed. Leaving that out and then arguing based on *estimated* prior infection rate is the embodiment of a straw man argument even though you insist you’re above reproach.
> 
> Step up your game.



Can you point me to an actual strawman or are you just out there throwing words around? You misread my post if that's what your takeaway is.

The poster above is saying "the _known reported _infection rate is 15%/50m" and we're all well aware of that. He's then using that number to speculate on this or that about Omicron.
To which I am replying: "sure that base _reported _number is 15%/50M, but the CDC _*themselves *_are very clear and the first to say that this number is basically useless because the actual infections are actually much _much _higher". That's why I said ""15% prior-infection rate" and other US numbers are not correct if anyone is interested in actual data".

The CDC says the number could be up to 4 times as high as that reported number. Could be _more _than 4x, especially if you believe like I do that the vaccinated have been grossly (and I mean _grossly_) under-tested in the US for the last year compared to the rest of the world- but you don't even have to believe that.
Just take the CDC's 150M+ best estimate, that's fine.

So both things can be true: "_actual _infections are 150M in the US" and "_reported _infections are 50M".
If you feel the latter is a useful stat, then you do you. As far as I'm concerned, it's just as useless a stat as the number of positive tests per category without knowing the number of tests. You and I aside though, as far as the people at the CDC are concerned - they are 100% transparent that 50M _does not_ reflect the reality of infection count in the US, and associated burden of the pandemic. That's why they build those studies. What number do you think actually matters for the purpose of virus transmission and dynamics of the pandemic- actual or reported (what the poster above calls "known")?
Should we just do like Trump was suggesting? After all if we stop testing all together, there will be 0 additional reported cases, in the US from now on - 0 known cases. And we've just fixed the pandemic, right  . After all that's one way to go about it if the small reported numbers are what matters. Or maybe, just _maybe _it's the actual numbers of infections that count, not the reported tests.

As a result, basing a whole argument on "we've _only had 50M infections in the US_ so Omicron will behave like this, or it will not behave like that" is absolutely asinine.
You're basing a wild speculation on a number that you can easily see if off by at least ~3x ratio.
And not just a 3x ratio as in "could be 2%, could be 6 or 7%, we don't know - but still a small minority". It's a 3 or 4x that means the difference between "small minority of population, under 20%" and "majority of population, over 60%". That is an absolutely *massive *difference.

Omicron spread will not care about a "reported" number that is at least 3x times smaller as part of a misleading statistic. It will care about actual infections  .
Omicron doesn't know how to read statistics anyway. But maybe if it did it'd be better equipped than some people here to know which numbers matter and which numbers don't SMH my head  ?


----------



## tedtan

mbardu said:


> Can you point me to an actual strawman or are you just out there throwing words around? You misread my post if that's what your takeaway is.
> 
> The poster above is saying "the _known reported _infection rate is 15%/50m" and we're all well aware of that. He's then using that number to speculate on this or that about Omicron.
> To which I am replying: "sure that base _reported _number is 15%/50M, but the CDC _*themselves *_are very clear and the first to say that this number is basically useless because the actual infections are actually much _much _higher". That's why I said ""15% prior-infection rate" and other US numbers are not correct if anyone is interested in actual data".



Had you phrased your comment this way to begin with I wouldn't have responded to you. But the way you responded with a bad faith shift to a completely different data set* without explaining your transition was effectively a straw man in practice, as you are arguing a different point than drew made. You need to transition to the new data in a way the reader can understand.




mbardu said:


> The CDC says the number could be up to 4 times as high as that reported number. Could be _more _than 4x, especially if you believe like I do that the vaccinated have been grossly (and I mean _grossly_) under-tested in the US for the last year compared to the rest of the world- but you don't even have to believe that.
> Just take the CDC's 150M+ best estimate, that's fine.
> 
> So both things can be true: "_actual _infections are 150M in the US" and "_reported _infections are 50M".



I don't think anyone in this thread has disagreed with this point. My point is that that confirmed cases and estimated cases are two different data sets and if you want to discuss them, they need to be discussed as separate data sets. I can't tell whether you are actually conflating the two yourself or if it just comes across that way in your writing, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. But you may want to make an effort to make cogent arguments phrased in a way the reader can easily understand because the way I've interpreted your past several posts, they come across as unnecessarily argumentative, arrogant, dismissive, and lacking in logical flow.




mbardu said:


> If you feel the latter is a useful stat, then you do you. As far as I'm concerned, it's just as useless a stat as the number of positive tests per category without knowing the number of tests. You and I aside though, as far as the people at the CDC are concerned - they are 100% transparent that 50M _does not_ reflect the reality of infection count in the US, and associated burden of the pandemic. That's why they build those studies. What number do you think actually matters for the purpose of virus transmission and dynamics of the pandemic- actual or reported (what the poster above calls "known")?
> 
> 
> Should we just do like Trump was suggesting? After all if we stop testing all together, there will be 0 additional reported cases, in the US from now on - 0 known cases. And we've just fixed the pandemic, right  . After all that's one way to go about it if the small reported numbers are what matters. Or maybe, just _maybe _it's the actual numbers of infections that count, not the reported tests.
> 
> As a result, basing a whole argument on "we've _only had 50M infections in the US_ so Omicron will behave like this, or it will not behave like that" is absolutely asinine.
> You're basing a wild speculation on a number that you can easily see if off by at least ~3x ratio.
> And not just a 3x ratio as in "could be 2%, could be 6 or 7%, we don't know - but still a small minority". It's a 3 or 4x that means the difference between "small minority of population, under 20%" and "majority of population, over 60%". That is an absolutely *massive *difference.
> 
> Omicron spread will not care about a "reported" number that is at least 3x times smaller as part of a misleading statistic. It will care about actual infections  .
> Omicron doesn't know how to read statistics anyway. But maybe if it did it'd be better equipped than some people here to know which numbers matter and which numbers don't SMH my head  ?



Confirmed cases are useful in that they are actually confirmed. We know the actual rate of infection is greater than the confirmed rate, but we don't know how much greater. At this point, especially with a new variant such as Omicron, the effective rate published by any source is still a SWAG** as there is not enough information available at this point to put forth an accurate estimate. As such, the confirmed rate is useful as a baseline, and the concept that the actual rate of infection is greater than the confirmed rate of infection is useful, but the published estimated effective rate is less so IMO because we don't have the data to say whether or not it is in the ballpark with any degree of certainty yet.


* The confirmed cases and estimated cases are not entirely unrelated, as the population of the estimated cases will include the population of confirmed cases, but they're different enough that they need to be treated as different.


** Scientific Wild Ass Guess


----------



## mbardu

tedtan said:


> Had you phrased your comment this way to begin with I wouldn't have responded to you. But the way you responded with a bad faith shift to a completely different data set* without explaining your transition was effectively a straw man in practice, as you are arguing a different point than drew made. You need to transition to the new data in a way the reader can understand.



And what do you mean by "phrased this way" exactly? What different point did I argue exactly? Again, where is the strawman? You're jumping guns blazing as if I'm saying anything different, but re-read my post, it's literally the same thing in post 1 and post 2, except now I've pointed out your bad faith.

I quote:
"As usual- the "15% prior-infection rate" and other US numbers are not correct if anyone is interested in actual data.
Total cases in the US are much higher than 50M - just that a large majority have been asymptomatic and untracked."

Guy says "look at this data supporting my made up argument", I reply "careful guys, if you want _actual _data, that piece here is not correct".

Where is the strawman in that?
Not in your biased perceptions of my post. In the actual things I wrote.

It's crazy to me how you guys have 0 problem with invalid info, ridiculously bad arguments, either numbers unrelated to the discussion (50M having absolutely 0 bearing on Omicron conclusions) or stuff that is plainly made up (same poster I was replying to argued earlier that 99% of new infections were from unvaccinated people for some reason), but someone comes in with the actual data, with a source - and it's ignore, attack, or nitpick to all hell 
Do you..._like _wrong information?



tedtan said:


> I don't think anyone in this thread has disagreed with this point. My point is that that confirmed cases and estimated cases are two different data sets and if you want to discuss them, they need to be discussed as separate data sets. I can't tell whether you are actually conflating the two yourself or if it just comes across that way in your writing, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. But you may want to make an effort to make cogent arguments phrased in a way the reader can easily understand because the way I've interpreted your past several posts, they come across as unnecessarily argumentative, arrogant, dismissive, and lacking in logical flow.



You are clearly not trying to read, as I've made it apparent that confirmed cases and actual ones are two very different things, and that while the latter matters for dynamics of transmission, the former does not. Where did I come even _close _to conflating the two - can you show me? My point is precisely that since they are very different, the whole argument above on Omicron makes 0 sense.

If we're going with personal forum advice, my arguments are there for you to read. So as far as I'm concerned I would advise maybe _you _try to actually read what I post if you have any level of good faith interest? Instead of thinking _a priori_ that I'm using some imaginary strawman? And then just attacking me based on your biased perception of that to just post a random "step up your game bruh" that's not adding anything to the discussion?

Don't you think coming to the discussion with an open mind could _maybe _allow you to read the posts instead of dismissing everything with a quick "step up your game bruh"?



tedtan said:


> Confirmed cases are useful in that they are actually confirmed. We know the actual rate of infection is greater than the confirmed rate, but we don't know how much greater. At this point, especially with a new variant such as Omicron, the effective rate published by any source is still a SWAG** as there is not enough information available at this point to put forth an accurate estimate. As such, the confirmed rate is useful as a baseline, and the concept that the actual rate of infection is greater than the confirmed rate of infection is useful, but the published estimated effective rate is less so IMO because we don't have the data to say whether or not it is in the ballpark with any degree of certainty yet.
> 
> * The confirmed cases and estimated cases are not entirely unrelated, as the population of the estimated cases will include the population of confirmed cases, but they're different enough that they need to be treated as different.
> 
> ** Scientific Wild Ass Guess



The actual effective rate published is not a "wild guess". It is a sourced analysis, like I linked, with a good chunk of research behind it. And even that is likely underestimating due to undertesting of the biggest group in the US. But do you only trust the CDC and their sources when it fits your bias- not otherwise?

Basing _anything _on assuming a 50M number of infection in the US (this particular discussion here, much like any discussion on natural immunity or herd immunity) is absolutely asinine considering how far it is from reality. Are you so far up the other poster's narrative that this is impossible to see?


----------



## bostjan

Typical bad argument
A: X
B: I think X is wrong
A: This data here (link) shows X
B: Well, that data is wrong
A: Do you have the correct data?
B: No, I just know, because I'm smart and everyone else is stupid.

Please don't engage in arguments like that.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> Typical bad argument
> A: X
> B: I think X is wrong
> A: This data here (link) shows X
> B: Well, that data is wrong
> A: Do you have the correct data?
> B: No, I just know, because I'm smart and everyone else is stupid.
> 
> Please don't engage in arguments like that.



"No, I just know, because I'm smart and everyone else is stupid" would be pretty stupid thing to say.
Luckily I don't think I've seen anyone say that. Or are you putting words in other people's mouths?

After all, we _do _have the correct data in this case - again : https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html
Unless we suddenly decide that we only believe CDC and actual studies with 95% confidence when it suits our bias, that is.
Unless we skim over actual data and prefer to believe made up stuff instead?

Now, _you're _building a strawman.
Please don't engage in arguments like that.


----------



## TedEH

This thread is the worst.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> This thread is the worst.



Agreed...

How can the majority of people here see stuff like "99% or new infections in the US are from unvaccinated hence argument X or Y" or "Only 15% of people have been infected in the US hence Omicron will do X or Y" and thinks that makes sense even for a second? And not only _accept _the nonsensical stuff as truth, but when pointed out, shown actual data, then _still _burry collective heads in sand to defend and double down on the nonsense.

Is the echo chamber _that _strong?

And then the _same _posters will go out of their ways in the other threads to make fun of Trumpers because_ those people_ will believe anything that matches their bias without checking...and defend their own to the very end, even if it means giving up facts and reasonable arguments as casualties.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> Is the echo chamber _that _strong?


I'd say it's about as strong as your urge to convince everyone of your takes on things.

I've no other comment on the subject.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> I'd say it's about as strong as your urge to convince everyone otherwise.
> 
> I've no other comment on the subject.



Considering I _do _have a very strong aversion to made up stuff and dumb arguments / and a corresponding urge to dispel any sort of BS as a result....I don't think the above is saying what you think it's saying regarding how bad of an echo chamber this place really is  .
But then again, if it's what the people want...


----------



## ArtDecade

mbardu said:


> Considering I _do _have a very strong aversion to made up stuff and dumb arguments


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> "No, I just know, because I'm smart and everyone else is stupid" would be pretty stupid thing to say.
> Luckily I don't think I've seen anyone say that. Or are you putting words in other people's mouths?
> 
> After all, we _do _have the correct data in this case - again : https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html
> Unless we suddenly decide that we only believe CDC and actual studies with 95% confidence when it suits our bias, that is.
> Unless we skim over actual data and prefer to believe made up stuff instead?
> 
> Now, _you're _building a strawman.
> Please don't engage in arguments like that.


Maybe it's the way you've been coming off this last page, but that's definitely the sort of tone your last few posts have had.

Quick recap, Drew said that it's difficult to predict based on the data that is available, and opined that omicron could be more severe once it takes hold here in the USA, where fewer people were infected than in South Africa where the data was collected. Let's take a look at your response:



mbardu said:


> As usual-



This phrase immediately puts a bad taste in my mouth. What did you mean by "as usual?" Let find out from context...



mbardu said:


> the "15% prior-infection rate" and other US numbers are not correct



I happen to agree.



mbardu said:


> if anyone is interested in actual data.



...and this is where you come off seemingly self-superior, which leads one to believe that the tone of this post is condescending. Did I misinterpret your tone? If so, why add these little snippy-sounding unnecessary phrases?



mbardu said:


> Total cases in the US are much higher than 50M - just that a large majority have been asymptomatic and untracked.
> 
> This is highlighted by the CDC themselves, and as usual, I'll be the one quoting sources: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html
> This is reviewed and frequently updated, currently showing that infections have been anywhere between 125M and 175 (95% UI).



This part would have been good to post by itself. I think if you would have just left it at this and maybe added that the 15% prior-infection rate should be reassessed higher, leave it at that, and it could have been a different kind of discussion.



mbardu said:


> My opinion is that the numbers are probably even higher than that, being that in the US we are over-testing the unvaccinated and absolutely undertesting the vaccinated in a majority-vaccinated population.



This is a bit odd to me. We have the reported number. We have the reasoning behind why the number may be under-reported based on data that does a pretty good job highlighting how high the large amount of uncertainty and giving wide range of estimated correction, and you still disagree with that, believing the correct number to be higher. Why?

The CDC extrapolated the data they reported from this paper: https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/72/12/e1010/6000389 Sure, maybe their extrapolation was wrong; there are several instances where it could have gone wrong, but there are just as many reasons it could be lower as could be higher.



mbardu said:


> As a result, basing a whole argument on "we've _only had 50M infections in the US_ so Omicron will behave like this, or it will not behave like that" is absolutely asinine.
> You're basing a wild speculation on a number that you can easily see if off by at least ~3x ratio.





mbardu said:


> It's crazy to me how you guys have 0 problem with invalid info, ridiculously bad arguments, either numbers unrelated to the discussion (50M having absolutely 0 bearing on Omicron conclusions) or stuff that is plainly made up (same poster I was replying to argued earlier that 99% of new infections were from unvaccinated people for some reason), but someone comes in with the actual data, with a source - and it's ignore, attack, or nitpick to all hell
> Do you..._like _wrong information?



I mean, look at your wording here. If you are _not_ trying to come off as believing you are smarter than the 3 other people you started arguing with, what are you doing when you call people "absolutely asinine," call their arguments "ridiculously bad," refer to yourself as the one with "actual data" when the original statement linked to an article that linked to actual data as well, or ask people if the "like wrong information?"

At the same time, you data estimates another data set to be off by a factor of about 3 (something like 2-4x) and you interpret that to be "at least ~3x," which itself is disingenuous.


----------



## Randy

Twitter rules


----------



## Drew

Oh, let me guess, mbardu is making another one of his "imma gonna let you finish, but I'm going to go nitpick this one totally unrelated thing and hope no one calls me out on it" arguments, based on the sheer number of you replying to someone I can't see?


----------



## mbardu

Well some good news and some bad news I guess.

Good: at least you have 0 factual things to say against my argument, so I guess we agree it's asinine to build an argument and logic around what Omicron would do or not do on the basis of that "50M/15%". Which was my _major _point above, really.

Bad: Like the other posters, for lack of factual counterpoint, you are instead attacking a subjective "way _(I)'ve_ been coming off".

I wonder, do you apply the same subjective scrutiny to the tone of people who jump in without any argument just to say stuff against me like "Step up your game"? Or do you apply the same level of scrutiny to people who invent made up situations, and imagine stuff like "No, I just know, because I'm smart and everyone else is stupid" to make others look bad without any basis in reality?



bostjan said:


> Maybe it's the way you've been coming off this last page, but that's definitely the sort of tone your last few posts have had.
> 
> Quick recap, Drew said that it's difficult to predict based on the data that is available, and opined that omicron could be more severe once it takes hold here in the USA, where fewer people were infected than in South Africa where the data was collected. Let's take a look at your response:
> 
> This phrase immediately puts a bad taste in my mouth. What did you mean by "as usual?" Let find out from context...
> 
> I happen to agree.
> 
> ...and this is where you come off seemingly self-superior, which leads one to believe that the tone of this post is condescending. Did I misinterpret your tone? If so, why add these little snippy-sounding unnecessary phrases?



"As usual" means literally "as usual". Like before. Like on stuff like "Covid will kill 10M people in the US next year if we don't get everyone vaccinated" or "99% of new infections are coming from the unvaccinated so we should do this or that". This particular poster and others have a tendency to start with unrelated or altogether false information and build imagined arguments on that basis with no sourcing. Building an argument on "rate is 72% in South Africa, rate is 15% in the US, hence we can say this or that about Omicron" is no different and that's what "as usual" means.



bostjan said:


> This part would have been good to post by itself. I think if you would have just left it at this and maybe added that the 15% prior-infection rate should be reassessed higher, leave it at that, and it could have been a different kind of discussion.



I mean, I guess thank you for your approval I guess...but i know my source is good, and I know the implications, otherwise I wouldn't have posted it.
The part about what I should have said differently is a bit weird. Saying "the number is likely 150M at least" is the same as saying "the actual prior infection rate is actually much higher".

The fact that it's not a different discussion....well more accurately we should say the fact that it's not a discussion _at all_, is because people jump in to attack the messenger instead of even trying to read the message.

Which I find all the more weird because _as usual_, the bad arguments or fake numbers are a-OK to everyone as long as they fit the bias.



bostjan said:


> This is a bit odd to me. We have the reported number. We have the reasoning behind why the number may be under-reported based on data that does a pretty good job highlighting how high the large amount of uncertainty and giving wide range of estimated correction, and you still disagree with that, believing the correct number to be higher. Why?
> 
> The CDC extrapolated the data they reported from this paper: https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/72/12/e1010/6000389 Sure, maybe their extrapolation was wrong; there are several instances where it could have gone wrong, but there are just as many reasons it could be lower as could be higher.
> 
> I mean, look at your wording here. If you are _not_ trying to come off as believing you are smarter than the 3 other people you started arguing with, what are you doing when you call people "absolutely asinine," call their arguments "ridiculously bad," refer to yourself as the one with "actual data" when the original statement linked to an article that linked to actual data as well, or ask people if the "like wrong information?"
> 
> At the same time, you data estimates another data set to be off by a factor of about 3 (something like 2-4x) and you interpret that to be "at least ~3x," which itself is disingenuous.



First things first: it's not my data, it's the CDC data. I don't make stuff up and I link my sources.

After that, it's not complex. We have reported numbers. Then, knowing that those numbers are wrong and undercounting by a lot, the CDC has built a methodology to assess _actual_ cases with the goal of better tracking the state of the pandemic, and the burden of the disease. For cases, their methodology is, take number of reported positive tests and scale that up one way or another based on how likely it is for actual cases to actually be reported.
Why I think it is most likely _higher_, is that in the US, we are grossly under-testing the vaccinated compared to a lot of other western nations. Since the vaccinated population is now the majority, we are grossly under-testing the population a a whole. Mechanically, if there were more positive tests pre-scaling in the methodology above, there would also be higher actual estimated infections.

But you don't even need to go there, since I literally said : "You don't even have to believe that. Just take the CDC's 150M+ best estimate, that's fine."
150M is the middle of the CDC estimate, and it is literally 3x.
I didn't tack another 3x to make it 9x like you might seem to imply. Hopefully that's not what you meant.

The 50M _*is*_ off by a factor of 3x with actual infections at 150M (even if you don't believe like I do that 4x/200M would be more realistic and more in line with other western countries). You want to be extremely picky and say "it's 3x, absolutely no way it's 4x", sure. I'm fine with that.
But 3x is still absolutely egregious to try and make any prediction on omicron if the 50M is your basis for analysis.

My remaining point was about bias.
If there's no bias, why be so picky about a 3x vs 4x, essentially +33% difference (that I even acknowledge nobody has to believe if they choose not to) while nobody bats an eye at the 50M number that is off by a whopping 200% in the first place?
Why does nobody bat an eye when someone says something ridiculous like "99% of infections are coming from the unvaccinated". That would mean only 1% of infections/new cases coming from the vaccinated, right? Well, the actual proportion is closer to 50% of new cases coming from the vaccinated. Why nitpick a number that's off by 33% when it suits your bias to do so, whereas nobody cares about a number that's off by a whopping 5000% ?!?
And finally, why be so biased about tone. Tell me, objectively, what is wrong with the tone of this. Is _this _more conducive to discussion?


----------



## mbardu

Randy said:


> Twitter rules
> View attachment 101145



The highlighted point is a trainwreck.

If it's meant to say "getting the _vaccine _will not on its own cause you to spread the _virus_", then of course.
You're not going to infect people with Covid just because you got the vaccine.

If it's going to be interpreted the way we know it's going to be interpreted though (as in "people who got the vaccine cannot get and transmit Covid") then this rule is going to have pretty nasty effects.


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> Twitter rules
> View attachment 101145


Poorly worded, but they _have_ to mean by that rule that receiving the _vaccine_ doesn't cause you to become contagious, transmitting either covid or immunity to covid, which no sane person or scientific study supports, and not if you've been vaccinated and have a breakthrough infection you can't transmit covid to someone else, which_ also_ no sane person or the current scientific consensus believes. Otherwise that talk about spreading immunity makes no sense.


----------



## bostjan

@mbardu , that's exactly the thing. I don't generally disagree with your conclusions, but I do disagree with your means getting there. 

I think it's also safe to say that I'm not alone in thinking that your choice of words makes you seem to come off strongly negative, considering the number of people who have muted you and the proportion of your arguments that get overly heated.

And if you make a great point, but do so in a way that is overly condescending, it's probably more likely to convince people to disbelieve you than anything. For people arguing counterpoints, it's frustrating, but for people who are arguing the same points as you, it's worse than that. 

At the end of the day, we are all part of a niche group of guitar enthusiasts into the same stuff and should find life to generally be much easier if we just behave amicably.


----------



## TedEH

Proposal to split this into two threads:
The "I want to argue about stats" thread, and the "I don't care about the stats, I just want to be sad about how the 'rona impacts me" thread.

Or... didn't we sort of have that at one point?


----------



## bostjan

TedEH said:


> Proposal to split this into two threads:
> The "I want to argue about stats" thread, and the "I don't care about the stats, I just want to be sad about how the 'rona impacts me" thread.
> 
> Or... didn't we sort of have that at one point?


https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-virus.340930/
?


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> @mbardu , that's exactly the thing. I don't generally disagree with your conclusions, but I do disagree with your means getting there.
> 
> I think it's also safe to say that I'm not alone in thinking that your choice of words makes you seem to come off strongly negative, considering the number of people who have muted you and the proportion of your arguments that get overly heated.
> 
> And if you make a great point, but do so in a way that is overly condescending, it's probably more likely to convince people to disbelieve you than anything. For people arguing counterpoints, it's frustrating, but for people who are arguing the same points as you, it's worse than that.



Thanks for the reply as always.
You know I'mma be cheeky sometimes right  .

At the end of the day, I am 100% for civility and acting amicably. You'll notice that unlike others here, I have not insulted anyone, nor put words in their mouths. I also take time to read and reply to people in good faith. As a result, never had to be banned or have my posts emergency-removed for personal attacks, insults, profanities or others either.

So I'll maintain that the post here had nothing uncivil about it, it was literally just pointing out the proper source for people who wanted to see the actual numbers that matter.
And you see what the reaction was to that? Just attack the messenger  . The message towards civilities should go both ways, but sadly the reason for "the proportion of (my) arguments that get overly heated" is 90% of the time people who don't want to _argue _and jump straight to _attack_..
So am I just supposed to not reply and let ridiculous lies, bad arguments or fake numbers be presented and then parroted? I mean, that's a rhetorical question considering it's _clear _that the majority here would prefer _just that_ for the sake of echo chamber.
But no matter, I'd rather still say it when I see BS. The people who'd rather only hear from the bubble have muted me anyway - just like I have muted the ones who just insult or reply in bad faith.



bostjan said:


> At the end of the day, we are all part of a niche group of guitar enthusiasts into the same stuff and should find life to generally be much easier if we just behave amicably.



Speaking of guitar enthusiasm, I've _literally _just received an update on a current build in progress, and I couldn't be more excited. Delayed delayed, like everything under COVID, but update regardless.




I know it's not a spruced up alkalyzed carbon fiber duracell magnetic multiscale 12-string  ... but I'm so, sooooo looking forward regardless


----------



## jaxadam

mbardu said:


> You're not going to infect people with Covid just because you got the vaccine.



The one thing we do know is the vaccine does give immunity… immunity to compassion for differing opinions.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> You know I'mma be cheeky sometimes right  .


I don't think you have any self-awareness of how your tone comes across - I read most of your posts as being waaaaaaaaay past cheeky and strait into "win this argument at all costs" aggressive. Sometimes, I'd be willing to bet you're entirely correct, but if you jump in with an antagonistic tone, people are going to push back no matter what you say. Take it from someone like me who's been guilty of doing the same thing.

Honestly - even something as subtle as tiny rephrasings make a difference. I get into a lot less arguments (not none, but fewer), by excluding the word "but". If you say "yes, but", people will ignore everything that came before the but and react as if you've dismissed them. If you say "yes, and also", all of the sudden nobody is mad at you even though you said exactly the same thing otherwise. It's dumb, but it works. Tone matters. Try it. In particular, don't say things like:


mbardu said:


> You'll notice that unlike others here


and expect it to be received warmly. Also, you've done lots of both of these things.



mbardu said:


> So am I just supposed to not reply and let ridiculous lies, bad arguments or fake numbers be presented and then parroted?


Honestly? Yes. Because that's a legitimate strategy to de-escalate, and the constant back-and-forth almost never leads to anyone changing their minds or understanding things better. It's ok to let people be wrong. Most people are wrong about some things. Let it go.


----------



## mbardu

jaxadam said:


> The one thing we do know is the vaccine does give immunity… immunity to compassion for differing opinions.



Interestingly _that _kind of immunity doesn't wane. It only gets stronger over time.


----------



## mbardu

That's just like, your _opinion_, maaaan....



TedEH said:


> I don't think you have any self-awareness of how your tone comes across - I read most of your posts as being waaaaaaaaay past cheeky and strait into "win this argument at all costs" aggressive. Sometimes, I'd be willing to bet you're entirely correct, but if you jump in with an antagonistic tone, people are going to push back no matter what you say. Take it from someone like me who's been guilty of doing the same thing.



I know full well that my tone is abrasive at times when attacked, but you'll notice I usually will not instigate stuff, and will de-escalate as soon as the dude attacking calms down.
Just check with our colleague @bostjan above. He's coming into the discussion misrepresenting what happened, so I'm not going to be happy with that- but it's 100% fine to discuss with him as soon as we bring things back to earth.



TedEH said:


> Honestly - even something as subtle as tiny rephrasings make a difference. I get into a lot less arguments (not none, but fewer), by excluding the word "but". If you say "yes, but", people will ignore everything that came before the but and react as if you've dismissed them. If you say "yes, and also", all of the sudden nobody is mad at you even though you said exactly the same thing otherwise. It's dumb, but it works. Tone matters. Try it. In particular, don't say things like:
> 
> and expect it to be received warmly.



You are nitpicking to the extreme, I'm sure you realize. And on top of that, absolutely ignoring the way any differing opinion is received around these parts. Just look for a few pages at how _those _are received and you'll see the misrepresentations, the "you're just a dumb antivax trumper" or the "go F* yourself" or other assorted insulted insults thrown around with no second thought. Just check and come back to tell me that a "yes but" is the problem with civility here after that  . The aggression and tone issues are not really on the side you think they are.



TedEH said:


> Also, you've done lots of both of these things.



_[citation needed]_
You won't find an example of me insulting anyone here. Go ahead, give it a try. You won't find it. If someone insults me beyond return, I won't respond- I'll just ignore then from that point on.
If I have misrepresented someone's point, I'll happily correct it. I'm not here to make stuff up, there's enough of that going on around here as it is.



TedEH said:


> Honestly? Yes. Because that's a legitimate strategy to de-escalate, and the constant back-and-forth almost never leads to anyone changing their minds or understanding things better. It's ok to let people be wrong. Most people are wrong about some things. Let it go.



What does that even mean? People are literally making stuff up, parroting lies, building whole arguments on dubious logic, but one person points out that they're incorrect and suddenly it's _that _person who needs to "de-escalate"? Is your definition of "de-escalate" to ignore reality because it feels good to stay in he bubble? We really _really _like that echo chamber, don't we?


----------



## jaxadam

mbardu said:


> Interestingly _that _kind of immunity doesn't wane. It only gets stronger over time.



I hear ya man. I figure by my 6th or 7th booster, I’m only gonna be interested in talking to myself, or maybe you too 

I’m very impressed you continue to engage users who only seem to have a problem with _how_ you post, but not _what _you post. You’re literally the only one in here posting charts, graphs, and tables and citing your sources. We used to call that something in intellectual debate, but now the standard is “go Google it yourself”.

Isn’t there a saying somewhere “If you’re never wrong you never learn”?


----------



## mbardu

jaxadam said:


> I hear ya man. I figure by my 6th or 7th booster, I’m only gonna be interested in talking to myself, or maybe you too
> 
> I’m very impressed you continue to engage users who only seem to have a problem with _how_ you post, but not _what _you post. You’re literally the only one in here posting charts, graphs, and tables and citing your sources. We used to call that something in intellectual debate, but now the standard is “go Google it yourself”.



Funniest thing is that the same users are here or in the politics thread making fun of the favorite scapegoat "those damn dumb antivax Trumpers", right? _Those _people, who will just about believe anything like sheep and attack any dissenting opinion... How _those people_ don't have any critical thinking and how they will stay in their bubble to ignore any inconvenient fact...

Yet someone in here builds them whole arguments based on _ridiculous _stuff like "_99% of infections are coming from the unvaccinated so we should do X and Y_" and as long as it fits the bias, nobody bats an eye and it gets all the likes  . Not only no critical thinking (no "99%?!? that doesn't sound quite right"...), but if someone dares to come in with "hey guys, that's _not _quite right - here are the actual numbers that matter", he'll be attacked for the next three pages . Oh and told that it's _his _fault because he didn't properly use "yes but" or "yes and" while people were insulting him . And he should have de-escalated by not saying anything outside of the bubble in the first place, despite egregious lies.

I dunno ... for me it's the exact same attitude and thought process as they attach to the "Trumper "scapegoats above...same system, just with the only difference being in the initial conditions that they came in with- as in a different set of opinions that they will not deviate from at any cost.


----------



## TedEH

¯\_(ツ)_/¯



mbardu said:


> [citation needed]


Didn't we just have a whole page deleted because you took someone's personal experience out of context and tried to spin it your own way?



mbardu said:


> What does that even mean?


It means exactly what it says. The point I'm trying to make here is that we're still having these long winded nit-picky arguments about who gets to interpret which data the "right way" mostly because nobody is willing to relent - and you're particularly relentless when you think you're right. (I mean, who doesn't think they're right most of the time, right?) The only reason I'd put any ownership on you to be the one de-escalating is because you're the most common person complaining that it's unfair that everyone disagrees with you - while dominating the thread declaring everyone stupid and wrong. The majority of people, when they say "nevermind, onto the ignore list you go" - that's exactly what they're doing: they're de-escalating. They're disengaging. They're relenting. They're making it not their problem anymore, deciding that it's not worth "winning". Other people here DO try to de-escalate, pretty regularly. And sometimes it works and we end up back in the realm of constructive conversation.

And how does it not register to you that calling people's thoughts asinine and saying we don't think critically _is an insult_?

I mean, you seem pretty annoyed with me, and the only thing I've suggested recently is that you might get more engagement with your ideas if you present them in a more constructive way.

I tried. It didn't work. That's fine. I'll follow through on my own suggestions and go right back to mostly ignoring this thread.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> Didn't we just have a whole page deleted because you took someone's personal experience out of context and tried to spin it your own way?



Interesting you asked, because that's absolutely not what happened - and that's instead a proof of your own bias.

There was a person who had a terrible experience, and my only point was that that person should not have had to take another vaccine considering that prior experience. And a similar person I know, much closer to me, also severe reaction to a first dose - should not have to take a second dose either.
That's it. The reason that page was deleted was not because I said that. Actually as I understand it, it was because that person went into another angry litany of "F*ck you"s against me, doxxing themselves in the process. All because I had the audacity of having read their account of their experience that they voluntarily posted.
To which the moderation reminded the person in question that posting something on a public forum does come by definition with the risk that it will be read...

But I don't care that much, it's just a shame really. Because fundamentally I only wish the best for that person- and have told them the same thing multiple times. They are IMO an example of people who should not have to take another vaccine if the first dose of one almost killed them. IMHO, this kinda flips the risk/benefit equation quite a bit in the "maybe it's worth it being extra careful" direction. You might disagree with my reasoning, but the intention behind it I can guarantee to you is one of genuine concern.
But for that, because of bias- I only got "F*ck you"s so I had to mute that person.

My posts are there if you want to see them, and I think there are even people like @jaxadam who have screen caps of the deleted stuff 



TedEH said:


> It means exactly what it says. The point I'm trying to make here is that we're still having these long winded nit-picky arguments about who gets to interpret which data the "right way" mostly because nobody is willing to relent - and you're particularly relentless when you think you're right. (I mean, who doesn't think they're right most of the time, right?) The only reason I'd put any ownership on you to be the one de-escalating is because you're the most common person complaining that it's unfair that everyone disagrees with you - while dominating the thread declaring everyone stupid and wrong. The majority of people, when they say "nevermind, onto the ignore list you go" - that's exactly what they're doing: they're de-escalating. They're disengaging. They're relenting. They're making it not their problem anymore, deciding that it's not worth "winning". Other people here DO try to de-escalate, pretty regularly. And sometimes it works and we end up back in the realm of constructive conversation.



I don't have particular interests in continuing arguments forever. However if I present the fact, with the source and the study to back it up, I'm not going to just shut up to please the mob so that you can call that de-escalation  .
It's not a small data point with debatable nit-picky interpretations either, we're talking about ridiculous levels of inaccuracy here. Things like 1% vs 50%; 50M vs 150M or 1 Million vs 10M. At scales that make the corresponding arguments meaningless. Some things are demonstrably wrong and I'm not going to just say "no actually they're right, let's forget the actual data" because the actual data goes against the echo chamber.

I'm not going to "relent" because the sourced things I'm sharing are not agreeing with the made up figures from some members here; what's that thinking? That we don't care about truth and only care about a tranquil echo chamber? And the most puzzling thing is that this is coming from the camp that pretends to care about scientific rigor. That's not how any of this works  . Show me an actual fact that disproves or re-frames something I'm seeing, and I won't "relent", I'll be _happy _to change my position, having learnt something new.
But burying heads in the sand to "relent" to the most popular opinion is a very weird concept...



TedEH said:


> And how does it not register to you that calling people's thoughts asinine and saying we don't think critically _is an insult_?



I didn't put the "critical thinking" part on anyone in particular, but did you take that as a personal insult? I was talking about hearing something like "99% of infections are coming from the unvaccinated" and saying "you would have to lack critical thinking skills in order to believe something like that". Do you think that's unfair?

As for asinine, maybe that's me not being a native English speaker, but as far as I'm concerned you have a sliding scale for logical arguments (and I'm talking arguments, not _people _to insult). Things like "rock solid" or "well thought out" or "debatable" or "fragile", and I put asinine at one end of that range in the "this argument can absolutely not make sense" category.
Which to me applied to trying to make population level predictions based on a number that's off by a factor of 3. Do you have another adjective you would suggest to describe that?

No matter though, if you call those insults, I'm glad you haven't seen what _*I*_'ve been called - you'd be pretty scared 



TedEH said:


> I mean, you seem pretty annoyed with me, and the only thing I've suggested recently is that you might get more engagement with your ideas if you present them in a more constructive way.
> 
> I tried. It didn't work. That's fine. I'll follow through on my own suggestions and go right back to mostly ignoring this thread.



No annoyance at all here.
You just keep replying to me, so I keep replying to you.

I personally feel you're not conscious of your own bias. For example, I'm sure if the situation was flipped, you wouldn't "relent" if a bunch of antivax were swarming the forum with made up facts and asinine arguments. You wouldn't think "relent" if someone refuting them with verifiable facts was shot down by their mob. I bet then you _wouldn't_ be saying "oh it's alright, those made up arguments and lies are OK...after all the guy with facts should have presented his ideas in a more constructive way  ".

But that's OK - I'm not annoyed at that, I've seen much worse


----------



## Drew

Against my better judgement, I hit "show ignored content."

@mbardu , this is another good example of being too focused on _proving your point_, and not at all focused on _whether that point matters_.

Yes, the focus on "known infections" is probably incomplete since we know we're having asymptomatic cases being missed. The _actual_ infection rate is an impossible-to-know number since we're talking about cases we're _not_ finding which by necessity has to be an estimation, and I recall you being pretty dismissive of the CDC's statistics when it suits your purpose, but if we take their 150mm cases as "a reasonable estimation of what the actual prevalance of COVID has been in the US" with all the necessary caution that needs to be taken when using such a broad estimation, that implies an "actual infection rate" of around 150/329.5 = 45%.

45% could be accurate. It could also be way too high, or even understating the prevalence by a material degree. But, let's assume you're right, this is the accurate number, and this is the one we should be using. And, certainly, when it's being used to compare to the number based on a seroprevalence survey to detect prior infection, identified or not, it makes sense to use at least some sort of estimation for the number of _actual_ infections rather than known proven ones. So, sure, so far I'm still with you.

But, here's the issue - say everything you just said was right. That means, using your own data, we have had roughly _half_ the number of prior cases as the South African study, which doesn't really change the conclusion here, that there are some major population differences that make comparisons with the data coming out of South Africa problematic for the US. Everything you're arguing here could be 100% accurate, and it _still_ would mean we should exercise a lot of caution looking at South Africa and saying, "oh, cool, this is mild, nothing to worry about. "

If you want to talk about, say, prior infections plus vaccination or something, then sure, maybe there's another argument to be made here... but that makes the last two pages of you complaining about the known infection rate kind of, well, a waste of time, if it's something you don't actually think matters, don't you think?

I don't expect you to actually care what I have to say here, but the next time you want to go on a tirade over a particular data point, maybe ask yourself, "if everyone changed their mind and suddenly agreed I was right, would that actually _change_ anything in this discussion? If it doesn't... then maybe it's not worth picking a fight with the entire thread, you know? I'm not planning on taking you off ignore nor am I planning on going through the trouble of showing ignored content to see if you have anything to say here, but at least think about it. You don't change too many minds by repulsing people and making them not want to listen to you.


----------



## nightflameauto

Drew said:


> I don't expect you to actually care what I have to say here, but the next time you want to go on a tirade over a particular data point, maybe ask yourself, "if everyone changed their mind and suddenly agreed I was right, would that actually _change_ anything in this discussion? If it doesn't... then maybe it's not worth picking a fight with the entire thread, you know? I'm not planning on taking you off ignore nor am I planning on going through the trouble of showing ignored content to see if you have anything to say here, but at least think about it. You don't change too many minds by repulsing people and making them not want to listen to you.


Based on what I remember of his posting style (haven't read one in months), I'm pretty sure the ultimate goal is to get everybody to ignore him so that he can wine about how closed minded everybody else is.


----------



## ArtDecade

*Everyone:* Yadda Yadda Yadda COVID Blah Blah Blah
*Mbardu:* Yes, but 99% of pandas can't read.
*Everyone:* Not really sure that is relevant.
*Mbardu:* I do all the work and you are so close-minded!
*Everyone:* ... k ...


----------



## Drew

nightflameauto said:


> Based on what I remember of his posting style (haven't read one in months), I'm pretty sure the ultimate goal is to get everybody to ignore him so that he can wine about how closed minded everybody else is.


Something about how we're obviously an echo chamber because we don't really care one way or the other about this one little nit-pick that doesn't actually change any conclusions?


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> Against my better judgement, I hit "show ignored content."
> 
> Yes, the focus on "known infections" is probably incomplete since we know we're having asymptomatic cases being missed. The _actual_ infection rate is an impossible-to-know number since we're talking about cases we're _not_ finding which by necessity has to be an estimation, and I recall you being pretty dismissive of the CDC's statistics when it suits your purpose, but if we take their 150mm cases as "a reasonable estimation of what the actual prevalance of COVID has been in the US" with all the necessary caution that needs to be taken when using such a broad estimation, that implies an "actual infection rate" of around 150/329.5 = 45%.
> 
> 45% could be accurate. It could also be way too high, or even understating the prevalence by a material degree. But, let's assume you're right, this is the accurate number, and this is the one we should be using. And, certainly, when it's being used to compare to the number based on a seroprevalence survey to detect prior infection, identified or not, it makes sense to use at least some sort of estimation for the number of _actual_ infections rather than known proven ones. So, sure, so far I'm still with you.
> 
> But, here's the issue - say everything you just said was right. That means, using your own data, we have had roughly _half_ the number of prior cases as the South African study, which doesn't really change the conclusion here, that there are some major population differences that make comparisons with the data coming out of South Africa problematic for the US. Everything you're arguing here could be 100% accurate, and it _still_ would mean we should exercise a lot of caution looking at South Africa and saying, "oh, cool, this is mild, nothing to worry about. "
> 
> If you want to talk about, say, prior infections plus vaccination or something, then sure, maybe there's another argument to be made here... but that makes the last two pages of you complaining about the known infection rate kind of, well, a waste of time, if it's something you don't actually think matters, don't you think?
> 
> I don't expect you to actually care what I have to say here, but the next time you want to go on a tirade over a particular data point, maybe ask yourself, "if everyone changed their mind and suddenly agreed I was right, would that actually _change_ anything in this discussion? If it doesn't... then maybe it's not worth picking a fight with the entire thread, you know? I'm not planning on taking you off ignore nor am I planning on going through the trouble of showing ignored content to see if you have anything to say here, but at least think about it. You don't change too many minds by repulsing people and making them not want to listen to you.



You really don't need to make it that complex and to try and shift the goalposts.

You build an argument that assumes there have been 50M infections in the US. I literally just point out an actual number showing that no such argument can be made because the number is off by at least 3x. That's it. There was nothing else before people started attacking my post.

So there's no need to discuss nitpicking, there's no making stuff up, there's no debate about tone and phrasing and intentions. There's no "yeah but it's only 3x more so it's only 45% maybe" debate (which is hilarious in and of itself considering you and others are always nitpicking about debatable +25% or +33% differences, while you don't see any issues with your own numbers being off by +200%...). There's no need to bring vaccination in the debate. There's no need to go off on 10 different tangents to try and shift the discussion.
I don't pretend to know how omicron is going to behave or not behave in the US, and I won't make an argument if I don't. I just know for sure, that any argument made on something that's 3x off will be wrong, so we should not do that.

Literally I _just _pointed that your argument cannot make sense if built on a number that's 3x off. That's it. If your assumption is off by 3x, you _cannot _make a valid point. But that's just too much for you to take and we have to move the goalposts to you lecturing me and going on an ackshually-esque tangent about :"OK, but even if I was wrong and it's not 15%, then I'm still right on something different even if it's 45%, plus you don't even know it's 45% because after all why should we trust the CDC".

Is it so, sooo hard to admit that your numbers made no sense in the context of the extrapolation you were trying to make about omicron?

PS: please show me where I doubted the CDC numbers pretty please? I used the CDC numbers all the time. I used them in the past to show you how there was no way we'd see 10M+ deaths in the US in 2021, even without a vaccine (what you were describing in your scenarios). Or I used the CDC numbers among others to show how ridiculous your claim of "99% of new infections are coming from the unvaccinated". I use that data all the time 



Drew said:


> Something about how we're obviously an echo chamber because we don't really care one way or the other about this one little nit-pick that doesn't actually change any conclusions?



Saying "50M is not the correct data to discuss pandemic dynamics because the real number is actually 150 (a whole _3x_ more )" is nitpicking?
Saying that "only 1% of new infection cases are coming from unvaccinated" is very wrong wrong because that's off by at last _*40x *_is nitpicking? For reference, that's being generous because in western countries that actually track well, infections count per 100k is similar between vax/unvax, while the vax population is higher...so they even contribute the _majority _of new infections if we want to be honest.

Jesus, at what level does it stop being nitpicking around these parts? How could these numbers and associated arguments be any more off  ?
If it was off by 10% or 25%, OK, maybe it would be nitpicking. But being off anywhere between 3x to 50x is not nitpicking, come on. Is that really what scientific rigor is now . "Oh my number is off by 3x...or by 10x...or by 50x, but whatever, I'm gonna make that argument and people are going to believe me anyway"  .

It's clear you don't believe in "mob" or echo chamber", but just compare how the group is quick to pile up and attack when I guesstimate something that's off by 25% (as an extrapolation based on sourced data), whereas crickets on made up numbers that are 3x off (based on the wrong metric) to 50x off (based on just made up number), as long as they fit the bias. How do you call that if not echo chamber


----------



## StevenC

ArtDecade said:


> *Everyone:* Yadda Yadda Yadda COVID Blah Blah Blah
> *Mbardu:* Yes, but 99% of pandas can't read.
> *Everyone:* Not really sure that is relevant.
> *Mbardu:* I do all the work and you are so close-minded!
> *Everyone:* ... k ...


You forgot moving the goalposts.


----------



## Drew

StevenC said:


> You forgot moving the goalposts.


 There's always something.


----------



## BigViolin

So. Many. Words.


----------



## IwantTacos

That’s a lot of words to say that everyone should get vaccinated and still wear masks.


----------



## Drew

IwantTacos said:


> That’s a lot of words to say that everyone should get vaccinated and still wear masks.


The irony is I don't think anyone has been denying this.


----------



## SpaceDock

BigViolin said:


> So. Many. Words.



srsly, I don’t even read this thread anymore because it’s walls of text


----------



## Andromalia

jaxadam said:


> The one thing we do know is the vaccine does give immunity… immunity to compassion for differing opinions.


Science isn't an opinion. It's perfectly understandable to discuss opinions, but facts are, well, facts. I do suppose you have some people still arguing about evolution on your side of the atlantic, which might not be the best bed for scientific thought, but when someone wants to deny science, they better have a damn good scientific explanation to prove it.

TLDR: knowledge trumps belief.


----------



## jaxadam

Andromalia said:


> Science isn't an opinion. It's perfectly understandable to discuss opinions, but facts are, well, facts. I do suppose you have some people still arguing about evolution on your side of the atlantic, which might not be the best bed for scientific thought, but when someone wants to deny science, they better have a damn good scientific explanation to prove it.
> 
> TLDR: knowledge trumps belief.



I was once a very staunch defender of mathematics and science (and still am for the most part), and as a former PhD student in Physics at an Ivy League school, I had quite a bit of a scientific background. That journey led me down paths that led me to believe that the more we know, the more we don't know. 

Take for example Godel's incompleteness theorems. In short, it suggests that we will never be able to mathematically know or prove everything.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-godels-incompleteness-theorems-work-20200714/



> His incompleteness theorems meant there can be no mathematical theory of everything, no unification of what’s provable and what’s true. What mathematicians can prove depends on their starting assumptions, not on any fundamental ground truth from which all answers spring.



In addition, the science behind the Pfizer mRNA vaccine did not agree with my wife. The Borland Groover clinic has urged her not to receive an additional booster of this version, so she has been suggested to wait for the Novavax. Therefore we have a slightly differing opinion on her options moving forward that is contradictory to the carelessly prevalent "vaccinate with Pfizer or Moderna at all costs".


----------



## Adieu

Former PhD student as in... expelled?


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> hat journey led me down paths that led me to believe that the more we know, the more we don't know.


Being aware of how much you don't know doesn't invalidate what you do know.... AND it puts you in a better position to not make poor decisions on the basis of thinking you know more than you do.

Or are you trying to say that learning things make us dumber....? Because that would be dumb.

Or are you aiming for some kind of "every time you learn a true thing, you learn two untrue things too"...?
I'm not sure what else anyone was meant to take from this....?

You're phrasing those things as if math and sciences are _sources of truth_, which is, itself, untrue. They're just processes.



jaxadam said:


> at all costs


I really hate that people keep claiming that _anyone_ is seriously saying this. Not a single person has said "at all costs". Nobody. Nada. If you know the vax is going to harm you or kill you, obviously don't take it. What people _have _been saying is that we shouldn't exaggerate the risks, since the more people that do safely get it, the better off everyone is, and there's already more than enough unwarranted hesitancy.


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> Or are you aiming for some kind of "every time you learn a true thing, you learn two untrue things too"...?
> I'm not sure what else anyone was meant to take from this....?



That's an unbearably negative way of looking at it. I'm sorry that's what you took from it.

How about "every time you learn a true thing, there may be two more true things lying in wait, yet to be discovered". I like to look at the world and think there's still a lot of truth and positivity yet to be discovered. In most hobbies/sports/passions, as you progress, you learn more, yet still realize there is a wonderful rabbit hole of undiscovered possibilities yet to uncover. Take guitar for example. A beginner may be stumped by even tuning a fixed bridge, then they move to a trem, then they may move to truss rod/fret level, then they move on to jaxadam's advanced guitar sweep technique instructionals, etc. 

I hope you also clicked the link I posted, and learned more about Godel's incompleteness theorem and how it relates to the fact that mathematically, we may never be able to know it all.


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> That's an unbearably negative way of looking at it.


It would be, if I thought it was true, but I don't.



jaxadam said:


> "every time you learn a true thing, there may be two more true things lying in wait, yet to be discovered"


I mean, I see what you're going for, but fail to see how this counts as a point _against_ math and science. Of course we can't know everything. What does that have to do with what we do know?

Also, even if you can't model literally everything with math, not all science is math.


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> I hope you also clicked the link I posted, and learned more about Godel's incompleteness theorem and how it relates to the fact that mathematically, we may never be able to know it all.



I find it hard to relate to the current topic since we are talking about empirical science, and thus the word "know" is doing some ambiguous stuff. We don't need to make any conjectures about truth and what is undeniably provable within some system to look at populations of people and make predictions about viral spread or mortality based on their behavior (whether they wear masks, whether they get vaccinated). If any policy turns out to be misguided in retrospect, it's not because we -could not- know, it's just because we weren't getting the right data into the hands of the right people fast enough.


----------



## spudmunkey

narad said:


> I find it hard to relate to the current topic since we are talking about empirical science, and thus the word "know" is doing some ambiguous stuff.



*pfsh* You still believe in "stuff"?


----------



## narad

spudmunkey said:


> *pfsh* You still believe in "stuff"?



Ah, well I mean, "stuff" in this context is doing some ambiguous... things.


----------



## Randy

narad said:


> Ah, well I mean, "stuff" in this context is doing some ambiguous... things.


----------



## Andromalia

jaxadam said:


> Take for example Godel's incompleteness theorems. In short, it suggests that we will never be able to mathematically know or prove everything.



That's the perfect solution fallacy.
You don't need the absolute truth to build, you just need to be close enough. We can make planes fly because our models are close enough to the real thing. You don't need to reach quantum scales to build working systems. Not even in medicine.
Being close enough means, however, that you know what the hypothetical perfect truth _isn't_. The sun isn't a cube. Pi is not equal to 4.234

Pi is a good exemple. We don't _know _what Pi is because it has infinite decimals. But we come close enough that the part we don't know is mostly irrelevant in applications.

This leads us to the virus and vaccination thing. Antivaxxers are outside of the phase space of the possible entirely. They don't express opinions, they are just making mistakes.


----------



## StevenC

Andromalia said:


> That's the perfect solution fallacy.
> You don't need the absolute truth to build, you just need to be close enough. We can make planes fly because our models are close enough to the real thing. You don't need to reach quantum scales to build working systems. Not even in medicine.
> Being close enough means, however, that you know what the hypothetical perfect truth _isn't_. The sun isn't a cube. Pi is not equal to 4.234
> 
> Pi is a good exemple. We don't _know _what Pi is because it has infinite decimals. But we come close enough that the part we don't know is mostly irrelevant in applications.
> 
> This leads us to the virus and vaccination thing. Antivaxxers are outside of the phase space of the possible entirely. They don't express opinions, they are just making mistakes.


It's so strange how many fluid dynamics sports there are on TV when we don't know how Navier-Stokes works.


----------



## jaxadam

Andromalia said:


> That's the perfect solution fallacy.
> You don't need the absolute truth to build, you just need to be close enough. We can make planes fly because our models are close enough to the real thing. You don't need to reach quantum scales to build working systems. Not even in medicine.
> Being close enough means, however, that you know what the hypothetical perfect truth _isn't_. The sun isn't a cube. Pi is not equal to 4.234
> 
> Pi is a good exemple. We don't _know _what Pi is because it has infinite decimals. But we come close enough that the part we don't know is mostly irrelevant in applications.
> 
> This leads us to the virus and vaccination thing. Antivaxxers are outside of the phase space of the possible entirely. They don't express opinions, they are just making mistakes.



I agree there are no perfect solutions. Should we therefore offer concessions and/or resources to individuals who are hesitant that there is no perfect solution and see some of the dangers, or should they be shunned/vilified/ostracized and have their livelihoods, benefits, and retirement removed from them?

These people were pretty hesitant:

https://twitter.com/Sophie59814821/status/1471718641280307201


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> I agree there are no perfect solutions. Should we therefore offer concessions and/or resources to individuals who are hesitant that there is no perfect solution and see some of the dangers, or should they be shunned/vilified/ostracized and have their livelihoods, benefits, and retirement removed from them?
> 
> These people were pretty hesitant:
> 
> https://twitter.com/Sophie59814821/status/1471718641280307201



Let's say we are living in a world of complete knowledge. We know that vaccinated people are less likely to "get" the virus, to have higher concentrations of the virus in them, and ultimately to spread the virus. So in some possible worlds interpretation, there are some cases where person A gets the vaccine and doesn't get the virus, and some other scenario where person A doesn't get the vaccine, gets the virus, spreads the virus to person B and they die from it. Should we give concessions and/or resources to people who are functioning like vectors and cost other people their lives?

If you don't want to get vaccinated I think that's generally your choice, but you better be doing all your work over a Zoom meeting from then on.


----------



## Andromalia

> Should we therefore


Where does your "therefore" come from lol, it's completely irrelevant.
Science has a current consensus, you think it is incorrect, fine, prove it. Consensus stays relevant until then, if ever.



> who are hesitant that there is no perfect solution and see some of the dangers


They don't see anything, since they refuse the best solution to begin with. The dangers of vaccination are statistically non-existent and faerie tales. That's the issue with twitter: the town idiots were given loudspeakers.


----------



## jaxadam

Andromalia said:


> Where does your "therefore" come from lol, it's completely irrelevant.
> Science has a current consensus, you think it is incorrect, fine, prove it. Consensus stays relevant until then, if ever.
> 
> 
> They don't see anything, since they refuse the best solution to begin with. The dangers of vaccination are statistically non-existent and faerie tales. That's the issue with twitter: the town idiots were given loudspeakers.



I'm not an antivaxxer, I'm all for it. Me and just about everyone I know are vaccinated. I know people on both sides of the fence that are not; that is their choice. I do not know one individual personally that has died, been hospitalized, or had major complications from Covid. My wife knows one lady through a friend who passed. That is the bubble I'm currently living in.

I do know this though. My wife had a very adverse reaction to the PEG (polyethylene glycol) in the Pfizer mRNA vaccination. To this day she has to take Zyrtec daily or she breaks out into severe hives. If she skips two days, she's in bad shape. One gentleman receiving care in her clinic was part of the initial vaccine trials here in Jacksonville last year, and he's in really bad shape. It's not a faerie (sic) tale. That is the bubble I'm currently living in, and it gives me compassion to not hang others out to dry, remove their means of living, or deny them medical care (another popular opinion that has been suggested even in this very thread). Call me crazy, but I guess I just don't hate people who have a different opinion.


----------



## Emperor Guillotine

I wonder if the introduction of other vaccines in the past (such as the vaccines for polio, smallpox, and chickenpox) were ever this hotly debated constantly? I'm sure you guys have addressed this already somewhere in this massive thread.

As someone who spent years immersed in the world of studying rhetoric and public speaking, the problems stemming around the vaccine within the USA specifically have an observable two-part cause.

First, social media allows the spread of disinformation (heck, you could even say that forums like this allow the same as well) because it has given everyone a megaphone: from the clueless morons, to the ideology-slingin' fear-mongerers, to the folks who legitimately have had adverse reactions to _something_ in the vaccine, to the actual scientific professionals, to the con artists and charlatans who provably engaged in and funded the "gain-of-function" research that caused this whole pandemic outbreak in the first place... Everyone now has the ability to speak and get eyes to some measure on what they say, whether or not people realize that just because they _can _speak doesn't mean that they _should _speak.

The second problem is the fact that the USA government began _really_ getting overly involved and enforcing the vaccine, which has caused the vaccine to become so extremely polarized in the country. No one (especially Americans with their _"FREEDOM, BABY! 'MURICA!" _propaganda) likes being forced to do something or feeling like they have no choice or say in the matter. That stripping away of freedom/choice/will is not effective persuasion and instead causes the inverse effect. Whenever you try to force someone to do something, that just further strengthens their initial resistance in their mind.

Now, you look at major metro cities in the USA such as New York City and Los Angeles where the city government (or state government too in some cases) is literally threatening to revoke a citizen's livelihood, ability to gain employment, ability to shop locally for goods (even groceries), ability to enter any establishment (such as a store or a gym or a restaurant), ability to utilize public transit, and soon enough, their ability to have somewhere to live (whether through renting or buying). All of this if they do *not* get vaccinated and provide proof of receiving the vaccine. Proof that we cannot even validate or track because that "vaccine database" idea immediately imploded. All they do is give you a little, wallet-sized paper card that anyone with access to a computer can print from online.

I do understand the intent of the excessive crackdown, especially now that we live in a time where people can fully work remotely, get groceries and food delivered via services, and essentially never have to leave so that they can remain isolated within the confines of their home. Maybe it's just me thinking aloud here, but that does not sound like a good, healthy way to live life. Confinement. Becoming a self-imposed hermit.

And yet, even in these hard left-leaning, ultra-progressive (or at least, wanna-be, pseudo-progressive) cities like New York City and Los Angeles where you would expect them to hit the highest vaccinated (and booster-ed) numbers ever quickly amidst their immensely large populations, there is still a substantial chunk of each population who are not vaccinated. And that's because they feel forced, which brings this full circle. Again, that stripping away of freedom/choice/will is not effective persuasion and instead causes the inverse effect.

Seems like more and more of the general populace of the USA is starting to feel this same way as the reception to the booster shots has been extremely, underwhelmingly low according to the government and the mainstream news media outlets. Folks who were rushing to get the vaccine are now reluctant about getting the booster shots; and folks who were reluctant about getting the vaccine in the first place absolutely don't want to get the booster shots (for now).

It is one thing to _be_ a human guinea pig; but it is another thing to legitimately _feel_ like a human guinea pig. And maybe that is how an increasing number of USA citizens are starting to feel at this point.

I'd be curious to hear how folks from other countries (especially countries who operate in a vastly different governmental philosophy than the USA) feel after having observed large swatches of their local populaces and if they too feel the same. Like guinea pigs, or like mass-numbered test subjects.

While we're on the topic, let's not forget to point to the fact that a vaccine is *not *the granting of immunity; and an incomplete, imperfect, "rushed out" vaccine provides a greater margin for a living virus to adapt, mutate, and grow, which is what we are seeing here with COVID-19 continually re-surging as a newly adapted variant.


----------



## Adieu

jaxadam said:


> I'm not an antivaxxer, I'm all for it. Me and just about everyone I know are vaccinated. I know people on both sides of the fence that are not; that is their choice. I do not know one individual personally that has died, been hospitalized, or had major complications from Covid. My wife knows one lady through a friend who passed. That is the bubble I'm currently living in.
> 
> I do know this though. My wife had a very adverse reaction to the PEG (polyethylene glycol) in the Pfizer mRNA vaccination. To this day she has to take Zyrtec daily or she breaks out into severe hives. If she skips two days, she's in bad shape. One gentleman receiving care in her clinic was part of the initial vaccine trials here in Jacksonville last year, and he's in really bad shape. It's not a faerie (sic) tale. That is the bubble I'm currently living in, and it gives me compassion to not hang others out to dry, remove their means of living, or deny them medical care (another popular opinion that has been suggested even in this very thread). Call me crazy, but I guess I just don't hate people who have a different opinion.



Hives are as often as not a psychiatric symptom

Convincing yourself that something has given you hives and something else grants relief and ACTUALLY routinely breaking out in hives without it is surprisingly common.

Really don't see how a fraction of a CC of PEG could possibly have an impact months later.

PS it's less outlandish and nowhere near as severe as it seems on account of hives being a pretty regular thing for panic-type issues... no hallucinations or anything radical necessary. Just the firm belief that you understand what gave you hives and driving yourself nervous and giving yourself hives by fretting that you're about to break out in nasty itchy and/or ugly hives very soon because of *insert reason*. Meds that patients believe in work both through placebo effect and by removing the expectation of more hives that was giving rise to them. And also sometimes on account of the actual antihistamine and/or sedative effect thereof too. Zyrtec isn't quite the full-on knockout drops that first gen antihistamines are, but does have a sedative effect nonetheless.

Vicious cycle.


----------



## nightflameauto

This thread gets so up its own ass with pedantry it makes me long for debates with my high school friends about stupid shit that has zero meaning.


----------



## jaxadam

nightflameauto said:


> This thread gets so up its own ass with pedantry it makes me long for debates with my high school friends about stupid shit that has zero meaning.



I miss those days too man. Ahh... the good ol' days of debating about stupid shit with buddies without someone suggesting your wife has psychological problems.


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> I'm not an antivaxxer, I'm all for it.


Then why do you argue so adamantly for hesitation? I see so much of this "we need to push back against the vax-or-else crowd" sentiment, but there IS NO vax-or-else crowd. At least here there isn't. Nobody in this thread has expressed any kind of "get vaxxed or get out even if it kills you". Nobody, at any point, has actively advocated for putting individuals in the path of harm as some kind of sacrifice to the 'rona. If you can't, then don't. Some people can't. That's fine. The vast majority can though. I can't speak for the US, but where I live, if you're not vax'd, there's lots you can't do, but you're not kicked out of your homes or cut off from any possible means of getting by. While it's reasonable to be in support of personal bodily autonomy just on principle, there's an equivalent side of it also being reasonable to draw that line in a place where mild personal discomfort doesn't override general public health.



Emperor Guillotine said:


> an incomplete, imperfect, "rushed out" vaccine


Hasn't this thread already gone in 100 circles about how this vaccine was not just a random, rushed out, untested experiment on people?

This thread continues to be the worst.


----------



## Adieu

Smallpox, yes

People killed each other over that. A lot.

There was some half-decent Korean Netflix drama about it, can't remember which one since they pretty much all recycle each other's casts.

PS although I guess back then there was a bit more reason to it. Cowpox vax was fairly reasonable, albeit also pretty likely to expose you to other people's blood borne pathogens because it took em a while to figure out sterile medical supplies... but some other early smallpox "solutions" were pretty wild



Emperor Guillotine said:


> I wonder if the introduction of other vaccines in the past (such as the vaccines for polio, smallpox, and chickenpox) were ever this hotly debated constantly? I'm sure you guys have addressed this already somewhere in this massive thread.
> 
> As someone who spent years immersed in the world of studying rhetoric and public speaking, the problems stemming around the vaccine within the USA specifically have an observable two-part cause.
> 
> First, social media allows the spread of disinformation (heck, you could even say that forums like this allow the same as well) because it has given everyone a megaphone: from the clueless morons, to the ideology-slingin' fear-mongerers, to the folks who legitimately have had adverse reactions to _something_ in the vaccine, to the actual scientific professionals, to the con artists and charlatans who provably engaged in and funded the "gain-of-function" research that caused this whole pandemic outbreak in the first place... Everyone now has the ability to speak and get eyes to some measure on what they say, whether or not people realize that just because they _can _speak doesn't mean that they _should _speak.
> 
> The second problem is the fact that the USA government began _really_ getting overly involved and enforcing the vaccine, which has caused the vaccine to become so extremely polarized in the country. No one (especially Americans with their _"FREEDOM, BABY! 'MURICA!" _propaganda) likes being forced to do something or feeling like they have no choice or say in the matter. That stripping away of freedom/choice/will is not effective persuasion and instead causes the inverse effect. Whenever you try to force someone to do something, that just further strengthens their initial resistance in their mind.
> 
> Now, you look at major metro cities in the USA such as New York City and Los Angeles where the city government (or state government too in some cases) is literally threatening to revoke a citizen's livelihood, ability to gain employment, ability to shop locally for goods (even groceries), ability to enter any establishment (such as a store or a gym or a restaurant), ability to utilize public transit, and soon enough, their ability to have somewhere to live (whether through renting or buying). All of this if they do *not* get vaccinated and provide proof of receiving the vaccine. Proof that we cannot even validate or track because that "vaccine database" idea immediately imploded. All they do is give you a little, wallet-sized paper card that anyone with access to a computer can print from online.
> 
> I do understand the intent of the excessive crackdown, especially now that we live in a time where people can fully work remotely, get groceries and food delivered via services, and essentially never have to leave so that they can remain isolated within the confines of their home. Maybe it's just me thinking aloud here, but that does not sound like a good, healthy way to live life. Confinement. Becoming a self-imposed hermit.
> 
> And yet, even in these hard left-leaning, ultra-progressive (or at least, wanna-be, pseudo-progressive) cities like New York City and Los Angeles where you would expect them to hit the highest vaccinated (and booster-ed) numbers ever quickly amidst their immensely large populations, there is still a substantial chunk of each population who are not vaccinated. And that's because they feel forced, which brings this full circle. Again, that stripping away of freedom/choice/will is not effective persuasion and instead causes the inverse effect.
> 
> Seems like more and more of the general populace of the USA is starting to feel this same way as the reception to the booster shots has been extremely, underwhelmingly low according to the government and the mainstream news media outlets. Folks who were rushing to get the vaccine are now reluctant about getting the booster shots; and folks who were reluctant about getting the vaccine in the first place absolutely don't want to get the booster shots (for now).
> 
> It is one thing to _be_ a human guinea pig; but it is another thing to legitimately _feel_ like a human guinea pig. And maybe that is how an increasing number of USA citizens are starting to feel at this point.
> 
> I'd be curious to hear how folks from other countries (especially countries who operate in a vastly different governmental philosophy than the USA) feel after having observed large swatches of their local populaces and if they too feel the same. Like guinea pigs, or like mass-numbered test subjects.
> 
> While we're on the topic, let's not forget to point to the fact that a vaccine is *not *the granting of immunity; and an incomplete, imperfect, "rushed out" vaccine provides a greater margin for a living virus to adapt, mutate, and grow, which is what we are seeing here with COVID-19 continually re-surging as a newly adapted variant.


----------



## Emperor Guillotine

TedEH said:


> Hasn't this thread already gone in 100 circles about how this vaccine was not just a random, rushed out, untested experiment on people? This thread continues to be the worst.


I did not use the words "random", "untested", or "experiment". Those words don't serve to convey the intent behind what I was saying in my comment. But compared to other vaccines that have been synthesized in our past and took years and years of development and testing, yes, the COVID-19 vaccine was "rushed out" in a mere matter of months by comparison, given the data/info that we knew and did not know at the time.

Also, sincere apologies as I elected to not read back through 100 circles presented on 340+ pages before posting my comment, @TedEH.



Adieu said:


> There was some half-decent Korean Netflix drama about it.


I guess I'll venture down the Google rabbit hole to find the name of this drama.



Adieu said:


> can't remember which one since they pretty much all recycle each other's casts.


----------



## Adieu

jaxadam said:


> I miss those days too man. Ahh... the good ol' days of debating about stupid shit with buddies without someone suggesting your wife has psychological problems.



Having stress hives is pretty normal.

Getting convinced by a massively popular belief that you know the cause of those is also pretty... ordinary.

No one's saying or implying any next stop padded room scenarios.


----------



## TedEH

Ok, so the words you used were "incomplete", "imperfect" and "rushed out". 

What else was I supposed to take from that?

My comment is the same. In what way was is the vaccine incomplete? What expectation do you have of how vaccines work that this one is considered "imperfect" compared to others when this one has been very effective so far? And yeah, there was tons of debate a long time ago about the timeline of the so-called "rushed out" vaccine.


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> Then why do you argue so adamantly for hesitation?



Because I believe there are cases for it that legitimately exist. @Andromalia likes to bring up science... Well, how do we feel about the science behind acquired immunity from natural infection? Should there be concessions/resources for individuals who present a positive covid test result, have fully recovered, and continue to practice safeguards such as social distancing, wearing masks, etc.? Or is the best option for those individuals a "hard no", terminate their employment, remove any earned benefits, and ostracize them from society?



TedEH said:


> I can't speak for the US, but where I live, if you're not vax'd, there's lots you can't do, but you're not kicked out of your homes or cut off from any possible means of getting by.



Well, I can speak for the US, and I can speak for my industry, and if you're not vax'd, you're terminated. So there is a vax-or-else crowd... vax, or else you don't have a job.


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> Because I believe there are cases for it that legitimately exist.


Nobody has denied this. You're still arguing against a sentiment that nobody has expressed.



jaxadam said:


> Well, how do we feel about the science behind acquired immunity from natural infection?


You don't need any hard science to see how badly we were doing before the vaccines came around.



jaxadam said:


> Should there be concessions/resources for individuals who present a positive covid test result, have fully recovered, and continue to practice safeguards such as social distancing, wearing masks, etc.?


What argument are you even trying to make here? I know people who had covid and recovered. What does that have to do with the vaccine? You can still take it after having been infected. What concessions are you asking for exactly, and for what reason? Getting covid doesn't make getting the vax any more risky than if you haven't had it, so this is all irrelevant.



jaxadam said:


> Or is the best option for those individuals a "hard no", terminate their employment, remove any earned benefits, and ostracize them from society?


I mean, generally, no, but again, you haven't presented a reason why an exception is being asked for. If it's entirely on the basis of "my body, my choice, and I don't want to", then my  is that it becomes entirely transactional: You can choose not to participate in society, and society can, in return, choose not to let you benefit from the society you chose not to participate in.

In term of being terminated, for example, if you have a job that _can't_ be done remotely, that _can't_ be done without putting you in constant contact with people, then I think it's perfectly reasonable to remove a person from that position if they're likely to spread covid around to people, assuming that any other compromise has been exhausted. You can work from home? Cool. You can get a desk job where you don't need to be in contact with customers? Great. But if you can't, at what point is it reasonable to put public health at risk for the sake of your employment? If you refuse to be vaccinated, I don't want you serving food to people, for example - and I have trouble imagining how that's unreasonable. If you have the freedom to live under a rock, then you do you.


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> You can work from home? Cool. You can get a desk job where you don't need to be in contact with customers? Great.



Again, and speaking for the US and in my industry, even a remote, work-at-home position, if you're not vaxxed, you're terminated. Who do you want serving your food, a person who has recovered with natural immunity and continues to possess robust antibodies (and can prove it), or a person who has been double vaxxed, but immunotherapy drugs have rendered their antibody count undetectable (and can prove it)? 

All I'm suggesting is that these are things we should be thinking about, but I guess it's just not tyrannical enough to allow everyone to get back to their self-serving interests fast enough.


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> Again, and speaking for the US and in my industry, even a remote, work-at-home position, if you're not vaxxed, you're terminated.


Well, that's very unfortunate, and I agree with you that it shouldn't be the case. That's certainly not the case here.



jaxadam said:


> Who do you want serving your food, a person who has recovered with natural immunity and continues to possess robust antibodies (and can prove it), or a person who has been double vaxxed, but immunotherapy drugs have rendered their antibody count undetectable (and can prove it)?


Given that you can't know who has or doesn't have any kind of natural immunity, I'd rather be safely able to assume people serving me food have been vaccinated, are still wearing masks, washing their hands, etc. Not even a question. I want the person handling my food to be the person who is actively doing their part to be careful not to spread diseases to people. I mean, consider that you could just as easily argue that the person who has their "natural immunity" only got it because they weren't being very careful in the first place - all the more reason I don't want them touching my food.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> Then why do you argue so adamantly for hesitation? I see so much of this "we need to push back against the vax-or-else crowd" sentiment, but there IS NO vax-or-else crowd. At least here there isn't. Nobody in this thread has expressed any kind of "get vaxxed or get out even if it kills you". Nobody, at any point, has actively advocated for putting individuals in the path of harm as some kind of sacrifice to the 'rona. If you can't, then don't. Some people can't. That's fine. The vast majority can though. I can't speak for the US, but where I live, if you're not vax'd, there's lots you can't do, but you're not kicked out of your homes or cut off from any possible means of getting by. While it's reasonable to be in support of personal bodily autonomy just on principle, there's an equivalent side of it also being reasonable to draw that line in a place where mild personal discomfort doesn't override general public health.
> 
> 
> Hasn't this thread already gone in 100 circles about how this vaccine was not just a random, rushed out, untested experiment on people?
> 
> This thread continues to be the worst.



The thing is everybody assumes that when allowing someone to get a vaccine exemption :
#1- " there is a simple unique and objective threshold as to what side-effect or adverse reaction or drawback "deserves" or is "bad enough" for an exemption "
#2- " there is a simple and neutral way to get that exemption when you meet that criteria "

So no harm done and all is good in the world. Which would be nice. But not so in practice.

#1 is not true, because _you _cannot really judge what is "bad enough" with 100% objectivity, especially when weighing against the potential effects of a disease that is not that systematically harmful to many categories of individuals. Maybe someone would prefer the 1 in 100 chance of mild Covid and 1 in 10,000 chance of severe Covid than the almost certainty of vaccine side effects that last for months in _their _case (if they've had issue with dose 1 already for instance). Might sound dumb, and TBH as it stands I wouldn't make that same call, but I won't judge because I'm lucky to not have had _any _side effects.
#2 is not true either. First look at the stigma you get. Like- even though PEG allergy _is _actually even documented officially, you still get people whose first reaction is "oh it must just be in her head". Just _cannot _imagine that adverse effects can even be a real thing. And it's the same everywhere and for any level of side effects. All the way to actually physicians being pressured to not give exemptions lest they see disciplinary action or they lose their license.

Add to that usually #3- " Even though it might inconvenience or harm some people a little or with a very small probability, then forced vaccination is worth it on a societal level because of transmission ".

But even that is shown to be not true. Someone unvaccinated staying home for 6 months with precautions will have contributed way less to transmission than someone vaccinated 6 months ago who's been out and about. Or like @jaxadam mentioned and you didn't understand, someone who got Covid and recovered recently, still has higher levels of protection than a 6-months old vaccine, is unlikely to transmit the virus- but that doesn't matter- that person will be ostracized too. So the last argument is not true either.

In order to be justified in imposing drastic measures on the unvaccinated, you would need all 3 things - or majority to be true. But _none _of those are true.
And of your own admission, you seem to not be really aware of what's happening, but we _are _going the drastic way in many places. From losing your job in the US (yes, that includes remote work) to fines and prison time in parts of Europe. Is that not drastic enough?

PS:


TedEH said:


> Nobody, at any point, has actively advocated for putting individuals in the path of harm as some kind of sacrifice to the 'rona.



re: advocating for putting some people in the path of harm in order to save others, this is _exactly _what we're currently doing with kids getting the vaccine.
No benefit from them, but we're still having them do it so that they can protect the elderly and otherwise fragile. So let's not pretend that this is not what's happening.


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> Given that you can't know who has or doesn't have any kind of natural immunity



But we can know who has or hasn't developed natural immunity. The individual can present a positive test result and take an antibody test.

https://news.mit.edu/2021/smart-develops-10-minute-test-detect-covid-immunity-1122



TedEH said:


> I'd rather be safely able to assume people serving me food have been vaccinated, are still wearing masks, washing their hands, etc. Not even a question. I want the person handling my food to be the person who is actively doing their part to be careful not to spread diseases to people. I mean, consider that you could just as easily argue that the person who has their "natural immunity" only got it because they weren't being very careful in the first place - all the more reason I don't want them touching my food.



So you're saying that the majority of vaccinated people are very safe and responsible, and would in no way engage in endangering behaviors with their newly acquired immunity superpowers like going into crowds/concerts/parties maskless? You're also saying people with "natural immunity" are reckless and engage in dangerous behaviors, and would in no way take any precautions or safeguards like wearing masks and social distancing? I guess I'll take the person who has natural immunity and is mostly staying to themselves and taking precautions over the person who is double vaxxed, but going to concerts, shows, and parties hotboxing blunts with their buddies.


----------



## narad

If natural immunity has comparable rates of reinfection/transmission, and people had proof of it, I don't know why to hold them to a different standard than people who are currently vaccinated. Quite a few ifs in there though.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> If natural immunity has comparable rates of reinfection/transmission, and people had proof of it, I don't know why to hold them to a different standard than people who are currently vaccinated. Quite a few ifs in there though.



The "why" we would be holding them to different standard is pretty obvious. 
The narrative is "all vaccine for everyone" and nothing else- that's it.

If you need evidence, you just need to know that vaccinated people have been known to be spreading the disease for months- yet it's kinda taboo to mention it and absolutely nothing has been done to address that...because getting the vaccine has got to be the one and only solution.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> The "why" we would be holding them to different standard is pretty obvious.
> The narrative is "all vaccine for everyone" and nothing else- that's it.
> 
> If you need evidence, you just need to know that vaccinated people have been known to be spreading the disease for months- yet it's kinda taboo to mention it and absolutely nothing has been done to address that...because getting the vaccine has got to be the one and only solution.



Well it is a better solution than intentionally getting it and spreading it around as if it were the chickenpox. The prescriptive advice is yes, obviously get vaccinated. But if you happened to get covid before getting vaccinated, I don't see any point in not giving those people the same freedoms (until some period of time after which a booster is required to keep a comparable immunity).


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> So you're saying that the majority of vaccinated people are very safe and responsible


No - I'm saying that you can't know either way. Having a vax requirement means there's at least _some standard_. How am I supposed to know that the person serving me has natural immunity? Requiring service people to have the jabs means there's at least some reasonable expectation involved.

Also, if you're reaaaaaally going to go there, yeah, I do expect that, on average, the group of more cautious people and vaccinated people are going to overlap significantly, compared to expecting everyone who's just yolo-ing it with supposed natural immunity to be very careful.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> The narrative is "all vaccine for everyone" and nothing else- that's it.


No it's not. I repeat 1000 times, nobody has said this.



mbardu said:


> it's kinda taboo


It's so taboo that you bring it up every chance you get - as do many others. And it's not generally contested. Yeah, jabbed people are still spreading things - but that also doesn't negate the good it has done. This is a case for educating people that they still need to be careful, not for justifying hesitancy to get it in the first place.


----------



## profwoot

It's also been firmly established that immunity from vaccines is greater than immunity from having had covid. 

But that's not really the point, since the people in this thread making that argument have already been provided links disproving their opinions earlier in this very thread. Some people just think defending their honor on the internet is a fun pastime and won't spend the time coming up with defensible opinions first.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> Well it is a better solution than intentionally getting it and spreading it around as if it were the chickenpox. The prescriptive advice is yes, obviously get vaccinated. But if you happened to get covid before getting vaccinated, I don't see any point in not giving those people the same freedoms (until some period of time after which a booster is required to keep a comparable immunity).



I agree with you on that.
Plus, the vaccine has been shown consistently to reduce your risk of severe cases and death -so all for it if you can.

We're just constantly mixing that with transmission to justify measures that shouldn't be justified.
It's not even that natural immunity gives you a _great_ protection against infection/transmission either...
But the protection you still have a few months down the road after getting the vaccine is also pretty bad so why treat _anyone _differently at that point...
I mean _maybe if you have to, _give vaccinated a 3-months pass where they can be a little bit less cautious, and the prior infections a 1.5 months pass... But after that, everyone should take the same precaution and be held to the same standards at the end of the day.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> No it's not. I repeat 1000 times, nobody has said this.



Just repeating the same thing doesn't make it true. Or maybe living where you're living in a place where it's not the situation (and seeing that perspective only colors you vision of things), but there are a number of places where it's vaccine or nothing.

I've shown how that's the case above, presented examples, but it's obviously easier to just single quote without any context and try to get that win...
To me- that just shows that you're not really trying to discuss or be open-minded- sorry.


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> No - I'm saying that you can't know either way.



But you can. Why do you keep ignoring this:



jaxadam said:


> But we can know who has or hasn't developed natural immunity. The individual can present a positive test result and take an antibody test.
> 
> https://news.mit.edu/2021/smart-develops-10-minute-test-detect-covid-immunity-1122





TedEH said:


> Also, if you're reaaaaaally going to go there, yeah, I do expect that, on average, the group of more cautious people and vaccinated people are going to overlap significantly, compared to expecting everyone who's just yolo-ing it with supposed natural immunity to be very careful.



This is a case for educating people that stereotyping vaxxers as more cautious and natural immunity as yolo'ers is a dangerous presumption.


----------



## mbardu

jaxadam said:


> This is a case for educating people that stereotyping vaxxers as more cautious and natural immunity as yolo'ers is a dangerous presumption.



shhhhh....stereotyping the unvaccinated is _goood_.
We need a scapegoat to hate on, don't you know


----------



## ArtDecade

mbardu said:


> Just repeating the same thing doesn't make it true.
> Or maybe living where you're living in a place where it's not the situation (and seeing that perspective only colors you vision of things), but there are a number of places where it's vaccine or nothing..



It is not the case in the country you live in either.


----------



## Emperor Guillotine

mbardu said:


> The narrative is "all vaccine for everyone" and nothing else- that's it.





TedEH said:


> No it's not. I repeat 1000 times, nobody has said this.


This is how we can tell that TedEH does not reside in the USA.

That is literally the exact narrative that the USA’s left-leaning mainstream news media outlets have been inundating the populace with nonstop every single day ever since the vaccine was first rolled out.

_“Get the miraculous vaccine or else you’re a piece of shit who needs to have everything stripped from you until you die and no longer pose a threat of spreading the COVID.”_

I’m saying this as someone who is fully vaccinated and who also worked for these very media outlets for a time.


----------



## _MonSTeR_

Changing the topic slightly...

I had my third shot this weekend. Massive props to the healthcare workers and volunteers running the vaccination centre.

I’m 2 doses of Pfizer and now one of Moderna. I felt fine on Saturday after the jab, and then like I was getting flu on Sunday. At work today but still chomping paracetamols like they’re Skittles 

I know a couple of people who have had family die, and as my parents are both old and infirm, the risks of the vaccine are outweighed by the benefits to my folks.

I did feint when I saw the needle though  lmao


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> But you can. Why do you keep ignoring this:


So I'm supposed to ask everyone I interact with for their test results? Does that not violate the same freedoms that are supposedly a big problem with vax passports etc? You're still requiring someone to provide some level of proof of protection. And how does that cover those who believe in that natural immunity approach, but haven't knowingly been infected yet?



jaxadam said:


> stereotyping vaxxers as more cautious and natural immunity as yolo'ers is a dangerous presumption


Dangerous in what way? If I see three people - one who has the jabs, one who can't get the jabs but is being cautious, and a third who refuses the jab on principle and claims they'll just be naturally immune eventually anyway - I have no problem with the second person, but I don't want that third person touching my food. I mean, I don't want the second person touching my food either, but arguably part of that "being cautious" is avoiding touching my food in the first place, in which case everyone is good.

It's not a question if IF someone is vax'd, it's a question of WHY.



Emperor Guillotine said:


> This is how we can tell that TedEH does not reside in the USA.


That, and that it says so under my name under every post. And that I frequently volunteer that info. And I tend to spell things the Canadian way. Yeah, I've got a Canadian slant on my point of view. If you have to frame my comments that way, then I'll walk back my point to say _nobody in this thread_ has expressed the sentiment that's being argued against.


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> So I'm supposed to ask everyone I interact with for their test results?



If that were a concession to accommodate more than a "one size fits all" approach, why not? Or better yet, why don't we just let the establishment do the legwork for you: how about the restaurant keep diligent records of vaccinated and unvaccinated employees with proof of antibodies. And let's make sure none of those workers have a fake vaccine passport!


----------



## ArtDecade

TedEH said:


> That, and that it says so under my name under every post. And that I frequently volunteer that info. And I tend to spell things the Canadian way. Yeah, I've got a Canadian slant on my point of view. If you have to frame my comments that way, then I'll walk back my point to say _nobody in this thread_ has expressed the sentiment that's being argued against.



If I can thank Canadians for one thing, it would be the Tea Party. If I could thank them for two things, it would be @TedEH.
That said, lacrosse is a silly game and has no place as your summer national sport.


----------



## nightflameauto

Emperor Guillotine said:


> This is how we can tell that TedEH does not reside in the USA.
> 
> That is literally the exact narrative that the USA’s left-leaning mainstream news media outlets have been inundating the populace with nonstop every single day ever since the vaccine was first rolled out.
> 
> _“Get the miraculous vaccine or else you’re a piece of shit who needs to have everything stripped from you until you die and no longer pose a threat of spreading the COVID.”_
> 
> I’m saying this as someone who is fully vaccinated and who also worked for these very media outlets for a time.



You say that like you think the whole COVID / vax situation is unique in that way. It simply isn't. The US media on ALL sides is filled with hyperbolic missiles of fucking horrible opinions followed by "or else you're a piece of shit and deserve to die." And it can be over the dumbest shit imaginable. I honestly heard a similar argument about people that don't like chocolate made on the morning news one day.

So, if this thread is going to break-down to the point where we have to throw protests against everything stupid that our media says? Well, I'll be checking out. Ain't got time to deal with that level of unecessary drama.


----------



## TedEH

ArtDecade said:


> If I could thank them for two things, it would be @TedEH.


My heart is warmed. It's a Christmas miracle. I can't bring myself to argue anymore.


----------



## Emperor Guillotine

nightflameauto said:


> You say that like you think the whole COVID / vax situation is unique in that way. It simply isn't. The US media on ALL sides is filled with hyperbolic missiles of fucking horrible opinions followed by "or else you're a piece of shit and deserve to die." And it can be over the dumbest shit imaginable.


Yes, but the media on *both* sides (actually, the media all over in the USA) is not shilling this _“get the vaccine or lose everything you build about your life, you piece of shit” _message. That has been the message exclusively of the left-leaning media outlets ever since the vaccine was rolled out. 

Now, of course, the right-leaning media and the center (“independent”, “centrist”, “libertarian”, whatever dumb label) media have their bogus downfalls, their hyperbolic messages, and their bullshit agendas, but none of them are threatening to revoke an individual citizen’s entire livelihood over a mere vaccination shot. And right now for this discussion, we are focusing on the vaccine message. That’s it. That’s all.


----------



## TedEH

Emperor Guillotine said:


> but none of them are threatening to revoke an individual citizen’s entire livelihood


In fairness, they could threaten all they want, the news doesn't have the power to revoke anything. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


----------



## mbardu

nightflameauto said:


> You say that like you think the whole COVID / vax situation is unique in that way. It simply isn't. The US media on ALL sides is filled with hyperbolic missiles of fucking horrible opinions followed by "or else you're a piece of shit and deserve to die." And it can be over the dumbest shit imaginable. I honestly heard a similar argument about people that don't like chocolate made on the morning news one day.
> 
> So, if this thread is going to break-down to the point where we have to throw protests against everything stupid that our media says? Well, I'll be checking out. Ain't got time to deal with that level of unecessary drama.



Nope.
He's not saying "this is unique to Covid". But for lack of argument some people really _need _to put words in other people's mouths and try to shift the discussion, right?

He is literally just saying this "vaccine for all and only vaccine" narrative is literally what a large chunk of the media has been pushing regarding Covid. That's it.

Which is true, and this is not without effect because as result of that, people have been desensitized and have no issues cheering for taking away some people's healthcare, liberties and livelihood on false pretenses. All because "those people" now make for a nice scapegoat for 2 years of pandemic frustrations.

Saying that "oh but the media says a lot of other dumb things" is not a great argument....not even an argument for that matter.
I mean, yeah the media is kinda dumb in many ways, does it make OK that some people are harmed disproportionately and based on lies?

Does media coverage matter more than real-life consequences? Just like people excuse hate and harmful active measures against the unvaccinated, would you also excuse Jan 6th rioters, who were brainwashed by _their _source of media? Would their actions also be OK just because some _other _media outlets did a news segment on chocolate haters? How are those things even related?


----------



## Emperor Guillotine

TedEH said:


> In fairness, they could threaten all they want, the news doesn't have the power to revoke anything. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


The city and state governments in the pseudo-progressive, hard left states in the USA are the ones making the threats.

Look, man, if you’re going to engage in a discussion or debate, then let’s *at least actually read* what we are debating against.

It’s already difficult enough trying to convince an American to read anything nowadays. Don’t tell me that you Canadians are the same way. Considering that this entire exchange is *text-based*.


----------



## TedEH

That's not what you said. You said:


Emperor Guillotine said:


> That has been the message exclusively of the left-leaning media outlets



If the same message is coming from government powers, that's a whole other thing.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> That's not what you said. You said:
> 
> If the same message is coming from government powers, that's a whole other thing.



Are you specifically trying to _not_ have a honest discussion?

Let's take an example. It's the federal government in the US taking the jobs away from unvaccinated people, even those working from home; not the media.
Yet the media is just normalizing and building consent for it, as we can see with people applauding and legitimizing those coercive measures. Some people even clamoring for more like "let's refuse them healthcare and let them die as well while we're at it!".
It's not complex as a concept is it?


----------



## jaxadam

Emperor Guillotine said:


> Look, man, if you’re going to engage in a discussion or debate, then let’s *at least actually read* what we are debating against.



A Christmas Miracle occurred, he can’t bring himself to argue anymo…. Oops, nevermind!


----------



## Emperor Guillotine

mbardu said:


> It's the federal government in the US taking the jobs away from unvaccinated people, even those working from home; not the media.
> 
> Yet the media is just normalizing and building consent for it, as we can see with people applauding and legitimizing those coercive measures.


NAILED IT.

Strip away the media’s message that has been inducing polarization through brainwashing, and suddenly, all of these extreme measures that some city and state governments in the USA have been threatening will no longer sound like good ideas.

I don’t even know how the media has been rallying support behind these extreme measures. But goddamn, if the past (nearly) two (full) years have shown us anything, it’s that the USA’s populace is becoming ever more so stupid and easily persuaded of almost anything.


----------



## TedEH

I really hate this thread.
You've ruined Christmas.


----------



## mbardu

Emperor Guillotine said:


> NAILED IT.
> 
> Strip away the media’s message that has been inducing polarization through brainwashing, and suddenly, all of these extreme measures that some city and state governments in the USA have been threatening will no longer sound like good ideas.
> 
> I don’t even know how the media has been rallying support behind these extreme measures. But *goddamn are the USA’s populace becoming ever more so stupid and easily persuaded of almost anything.*



I hate _hate_ to generalize like in your last highlighted sentence here, but in this _very _thread, just a few pages ago, there's some guy coming in with egregiously false stuff like "99% of new infections are coming from the unvaccinated", with no source, and no matter how wrong it is, everybody just buys it and agrees with the subsequent argument that follows. Without something as ridiculous as that "99%" raising so much as an alarm bell or a setting off some BS-detectors. Without people checking.

Nope, the argument gets all the likes . And all that, just because it matches the narrative that _supposedly doesn't exist_...


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> You've ruined Christmas.



Well, there's always Boxing Day!


----------



## ArtDecade

mbardu said:


> Are you specifically trying to _not_ have a honest discussion?
> 
> Let's take an example. It's the federal government in the US taking the jobs away from unvaccinated people, even those working from home; not the media.
> Yet the media is just normalizing and building consent for it, as we can see with people applauding and legitimizing those coercive measures. Some people even clamoring for more like "let's refuse them healthcare and let them die as well while we're at it!".
> It's not complex as a concept is it?



It is almost like choices have consequences.


----------



## Emperor Guillotine

mbardu said:


> And all that, just because it matches the narrative that _supposedly doesn't exist_...


Oh, the narrative absolutely exists. When I was working for one of the USA’s biggest media conglomerates (who shall remain unnamed), I sat in a room with executive decision-makers and news editors whose job it was to come up with narratives, including this particular one that we are discussing right now in this thread. These people’s whole job was to synthesize narratives to disseminate that matched the agenda handed down to them by the politicians whom their media companies were in bed with for the sake of lobbying, tax breaks, corporate interests, etc. Push the agenda and be rewarded. (And we already know that in the USA, politicians and media companies are tethered together, inseparable from one another.)

The problem is that the vast majority of both USA citizens and folks outside of the USA who live in other countries simply choose to believe whatever narrative they hear/see the most. So, whatever message is able to get the most ears and eyes through constant inundation, that is the message they choose to believe because everything else (no matter how true it may or may not be) gets flooded out.


----------



## mbardu

Emperor Guillotine said:


> Oh, the narrative absolutely exists. When I was working for one of the USA’s biggest media conglomerates (who shall remain unnamed), I sat in a room with folks whose job it was to come up with narratives, including this particular one that we are discussing right now in this thread. These people synthesized narratives to disseminate that matched the agenda handed down to them by the politicians whom their media companies were in bed with for the sake of lobbying, tax breaks, corporate interests, etc. Push the agenda and be rewarded. (And we already know that in the USA, politicians and media companies are tethered together, inseparable from one another.)
> 
> The problem is that the vast majority of both USA citizens and folks outside of the USA who live in other countries simply choose to believe whatever narrative they hear/see the most. So, whatever message is able to get the most ears and eyes through constant inundation, that is the message they choose to believe because everything else (no matter how true out may or may not be) gets flooded out.



Weirdest part to me is that the people who usually have the most sensible BS-detectors on _any _other issue have suddenly switched off.

On any other medical issue in the past (_especially _in the USA), they would have taken lobbyists' and big pharma's take with a _ton _of scrutiny. Not so with Covid, we can take Pfizer at their word, and the vaccine-lobbyists are now saints who would never misrepresent information.

On any government mandate in the past, they would have been very concerned about overreach and proper justifications. Not so with Covid. Vaccinated people still contagious...eh, no worries, we can still pretend that they're not in order to strip away rights from only those _other _people.

On the media being full of shit, like they'd be corporate shills or torpedoing actual political discussion in this country- yeah that was always the discussion. Not so with Covid, the fact they parrot Pfizer/Moderna and push blatantly biased pieces is a-OK for some reason.

It is absolutely jarring.


----------



## ArtDecade

mbardu said:


> Vaccinated people still contagious...eh, no worries, we can still pretend that they're not in order to strip away rights from only those _other _people.



100% of COVID patients on ventilators at Duke Health are unvaccinated.

https://www.cbs17.com/community/hea...-ventilators-at-duke-health-are-unvaccinated/



mbardu said:


> It is absolutely jarring.



Agreed.


----------



## Adieu

ArtDecade said:


> 100% of COVID patients on ventilators at Duke Health are unvaccinated.
> 
> https://www.cbs17.com/community/hea...-ventilators-at-duke-health-are-unvaccinated/
> 
> 
> 
> Agreed.



Well it IS in Carolina... they prolly think masks and vaccines are for Jesus deniers


----------



## Drew

Man, this thread is rapidly becoming worthless.


----------



## Drew

TedEH said:


> No it's not. I repeat 1000 times, nobody has said this.
> 
> 
> It's so taboo that you bring it up every chance you get - as do many others. And it's not generally contested. Yeah, jabbed people are still spreading things - but that also doesn't negate the good it has done. This is a case for educating people that they still need to be careful, not for justifying hesitancy to get it in the first place.


I have a pretty good idea who is spreading this argument. 

Vaccinated people CAN still spread covid, if they have a breakthrough infection. There's nothing unusual about this - in any other context, we wouldn't even be having this semantic debate about whether or not it's still possible to spred a disease if you get sick in a breakthrough infection after vaccination. It would be more remarkable if this WASN'T the case.

What you overlook when you make that argument, though, is that vaccinated individuals _can only spread covid if they get sick_, and while omicron appears likely to complicate matters for anyone who doesn't have a booster shot (and even then breakthrough infections are happening a little more frequently than with prior variants), vaccinated people are getting sick a _lot _less frequently than unvaccinated ones.

So, yes, if you're vaccinated, and come down with covid anyway, then you can still transmit covid.

But, if you're vaccinated, you're something like 5-10x less likely to get sick in the first place, and if you're exposed to covid and don't get sick, _you don't spread covid_. Arguing that vaccinated people can still transmit covid because of the former, without also acknowledging the latter, is intellectually dishonest and _extremely_ misleading. Covid is still primarily infecting and spreading through unvaccinated individuals, and checking a quick survey at any hospital, or just looking at the CDC's own data (below) will tell you the vast majority of covid hospitalizations or deaths are occurring in unvaccinated individuals.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/201...measure-effectiveness/breakthrough-cases.html
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-status
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#covidnet-hospitalizations-vaccination


----------



## TedEH

Alright fine - I'm not up-to-date on what every individual state is mandating - if any state is literally making it illegal to work without being vax'd, then I'll concede that this shouldn't be the case. If there's any actual law that says the jab is a requirement to be employed, even if you work from home and live under a rock, etc - I'm unaware of it. Feel free to correct me on that (as I'm sure you would anyway).

I don't think anyone should be losing their job for any unreasonable circumstances, or having healthcare taken away from them (is that even happening...?), but I also don't think vaccines are that big of an ask - and it's not coercive to ask people to make small concessions, or deal with some small amount of discomfort or risk, to help fight off a disease. Anyone who legitimately can't, you've got my sympathy, and the rest of us should make up that difference. Where in that exactly is this big lie that's screwed everyone?

Masks have been helpful: Not a lie.
The vaccine has been helpful: Not a lie.
The vast majority of people are unharmed by the vaccine: Not a lie.

Lets also make a distinction between a lie, and believing something that might not be true. I believe that vaccine hesitancy is going to prolong this whole pandemic situation. I believe that without the jabs, more people would have died by now despite how un-careful it's led people to being. I believe that the majority of people are doing the best they can to try to get us through a pandemic, and most disagreements in the details/implementation aren't coming from a malicious place. If I'm wrong, I didn't lie, I was just wrong.

Some actual non-truths (I hesitate to say lie now, for the sake of pedantry) that have been spread: The idea that it's all a hoax, that's it's some liberal plot to rid conservatives of their jobs, that the vax has nanobots in it or or will cause autism, that it's a big experiment, that it's all just a ploy to make the population submissive, that's it's all a money making scheme for hospitals, that masks somehow make you _more likely_ to get covid, or that they make it difficult for the average person to breathe etc.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> But, if you're vaccinated, you're something like 5-10x less likely to get sick in the first place



If you're vaccinated, you're something like 5x less likely to *test positive for Covid*. This is absolutely true, and is what your links are showing.
What you're not taking into account is that if you're vaccinated, you might also be 5x less likely _*to get tested for Covid*_ as well in the first place.

I am most familiar with places like France/UK and the USA...and this is apparent.
In UK, testing is pretty indiscriminate, and as a result new reported positive tests per 100k are about the same between vaccinated/unvaccinated.
In France, unvaccinated are tested about twice as much as vaccinated, and as a result new reported positive tests per 100k are about twice as big in the unvaccinated group.
In the US, I can't find figures on number of tests by vaccine status (I wonder why...), but I know for a fact that California figures (like their "you're 5 or 7x more likely to test positive for Covid while vaccinated) are absolutely BS the way they're pushed when you know the rules in the state _almost never _require testing for the vaccinated, while mandating them_ all the time _for the unvaccinated.



Drew said:


> , and if you're exposed to covid and don't get sick, you don't spread covid.



This is again a dangerous lie, as more than half the transmissions are asymptomatic.
And a vaccinated person would never know they've had and transmitted Covid, since we have basically stopped testing the asymptomatic unvaccinated in the US.



Drew said:


> Arguing that vaccinated people can still transmit covid because of the former, without also acknowledging the latter, is intellectually dishonest and extremely misleading. Covid is still primarily infecting and spreading through unvaccinated individuals



Arguing intellectual dishonesty from the guy who claimed without sources that 99% of new infections are coming from the unvaccinated is pretty rich, NGL...



Drew said:


> and checking a quick survey at any hospital, or just looking at the CDC's own data (below) will tell you the vast majority of covid hospitalizations or deaths are occurring in unvaccinated individuals.



Mixing, once again hospitalizations and rare cases with transmissions is unrelated to the discussion. The vaccine looks like it's very effective against severe cases and hospitalizations. Your point? Absolute nobody argued against that.
The discussion was about transmission, not about a personal health decision impacting your personal health.

What was that bit about intellectual dishonesty again?


----------



## Emperor Guillotine

Adieu said:


> Well it IS in Carolina... they prolly think masks and vaccines are for Jesus deniers


I just relocated to North Carolina. This is indeed a good summation of the populace’s thoughts here.


----------



## bostjan

It's getting murky because it's science mixed with politics.

There is, of course, a seed of truth in almost everything.

Are people more likely to spread covid if they are vaccinated? I guess that's the question. People who are vaccinated are contagious for a much shorter span of time, and it is believed that they might even be less contagious over that span, but, I suppose they are more likely to be asymptomatic, and therefore less likely to take as many precautions as someone who is unvaccinated and also infected, but a) I'm pretty certain that this in no way construes a productive argument for not getting vaccinated and b) since there is no possible way to study this in any controlled way, it's all at least somewhat speculative anyway.

As for the political debate of whether people should be forced to be vaccinated or not, I guess that's really where everyone's a little bitter.

I apologize to everyone who gags when they read this, but I have strong libertarian leanings, not in the Ayn Rand sort of way, but whatever. I value personal responsibility and persona freedom above government bureaucracy. That said, a) if the government gives you the freedom to be an asshole without legal penalties, it doesn't make it okay to be an asshole, and b) the job of the government is to protect it's people and their personal property. Policies that affect public health and deal with potentially deadly disease, believe it or not, fall under that umbrella. 

The government and the media are both notoriously bad a science, though, so, as much as it annoys many people, discussions like this are necessary for democracy. But in a democracy, ultimately, the side with the most supporters gets their way, not the side with the loudest and most obnoxious people, and likewise, not the side with the best scientific knowledge.

In the case of diseases and epidemiology, there never is really any data out there worthy of full canonization. Things are always in flux and we are always learning new things, and when you weave a disease with diverse genetics and mysterious behaviour into a very complex society of human beings with diverse genetics and even more diverse behaviours, and exactly non of those four things is ever static, any time you say something it is likely at least a little bit wrong. Getting high and mighty about it, no matter which side of the debate you are on, is really just silly, especially when it comes to a disease that we've only known about for two years.

Trying to throw government policy at a virus might also seem silly, but it's worked in the past, sometimes. ...and sometimes it hasn't. Hopefully humans will be around long enough to look back at 2020 and laugh at how stupid we were - "if we had only known..."

And as a closing thought, nothing decided here in a forum for fringe guitar players is likely to have one iota of an effect on public policy. Maybe Biden is reading this thread right now and has gone over every word @mbardu has said, but, either way, I doubt he cares what any of us think...


----------



## ArtDecade

bostjan said:


> But in a democracy, ultimately, the side with the most supporters gets their way, not the side with the loudest and most obnoxious people, and likewise, not the side with the best scientific knowledge.



[The Electoral College chuckles and leaves the chat.]


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> Alright fine - I'm not up-to-date on what every individual state is mandating - if any state is literally making it illegal to work without being vax'd, then I'll concede that this shouldn't be the case. If there's any actual law that says the jab is a requirement to be employed, even if you work from home and live under a rock, etc - I'm unaware of it. Feel free to correct me on that (as I'm sure you would anyway).
> 
> I don't think anyone should be losing their job for any unreasonable circumstances, or having healthcare taken away from them (is that even happening...?), but I also don't think vaccines are that big of an ask - and it's not coercive to ask people to make small concessions, or deal with some small amount of discomfort or risk, to help fight off a disease. Anyone who legitimately can't, you've got my sympathy, and the rest of us should make up that difference. Where in that exactly is this big lie that's screwed everyone?



So it just looks like you were missing some information then.
In the US, you will lose your job if unvaccinated, even if you work from home. That's in all states since it's OSHA federal mandate.
In this very thread, a few pages ago, people were arguing to also refuse hospital admission for the unvaccinated.
In countries in East Europe, it's fine and then prison time if you're not vaccinated.
There are plenty of places with punitive stuff against unvaccinated -it's not because you're not ware or that they're not a thing in Canada that they don't exist.



TedEH said:


> Masks have been helpful: Not a lie.
> The vaccine has been helpful: Not a lie.
> The vast majority of people are unharmed by the vaccine: Not a lie.



Nobody has argued against any of that so you don't need to make it look like this would have happened.



TedEH said:


> Some actual non-truths (I hesitate to say lie now, for the sake of pedantry) that have been spread: The idea that it's all a hoax, that's it's some liberal plot to rid conservatives of their jobs, that the vax has nanobots in it or or will cause autism, that it's a big experiment, that it's all just a ploy to make the population submissive, that's it's all a money making scheme for hospitals, that masks somehow make you _more likely_ to get covid, or that they make it difficult for the average person to breathe etc.



Nobody argued anything close to 5G hoax in this forum; and I'm yet to meet a real person that actually believes that stuff in real life, so as far as I'm concerned, this is still more an imagined argument to discredit others than an actual thing. Like you're doing here incidentally, since this is not related with the discussion _at all_.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> In the US, you will lose your job if unvaccinated, even if you work from home.





mbardu said:


> OSHA federal mandate


I don't know anything about this so I googled it. It's places with 100 employees or more _entering the workplace_. So work-from-home is fine. Small business is fine. This isn't "it's illegal to be unvax'd" this is "it's illegal to cram 100 unvaccinated people into a building" - which, to be fair would be a problem. It's a bit much maybe, maybe someone's political leanings would lead them to feel it's an overreach, but again - this being a big problem is predicated on the idea that the vaccination is a problem for a significant number of people.



mbardu said:


> this is still more an imagined argument to discredit others than an actual thing


Discredit what exactly? You claimed there was some kind of big lie happening that was the root of people's job loss. What's the lie? If the "lie" is that vaccines are helpful enough to warrant being mandated on some level, then I just disagree with you.

Edit:
More googling - Am I reading this right, or is it also allowed, under that same law, to go unvaccinated as long as you get tested weekly?
'Cause if I'm reading that right, this whole "vax or else" argument is a huge exaggeration, since this gives you an easy out if you're willing to get tested a whole lot.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> It's getting murky because it's science mixed with politics.
> 
> There is, of course, a seed of truth in almost everything.
> 
> Are people more likely to spread covid if they are vaccinated? I guess that's the question. People who are vaccinated are contagious for a much shorter span of time, and it is believed that they might even be less contagious over that span, but, I suppose they are more likely to be asymptomatic, and therefore less likely to take as many precautions as someone who is unvaccinated and also infected, but a) I'm pretty certain that this in no way construes a productive argument for not getting vaccinated and b) since there is no possible way to study this in any controlled way, it's all at least somewhat speculative anyway.



I don't think we even need to try and make the point that vaccinated people are _in general _more likely to spread Covid.
In this discussion you'd fall in the various assumptions and prejudice such as "if you're not getting the vaccine, you're a jerk, so you must not really be taking other precautions either".
And as a matter of fact, I do think that from what we've seen, vaccination does give you some good infection and transmission protection early on.

So I didn't even take the discussion there at first.
For me, it was more that before imposing drastic things and building that level of hate towards a whole population group, we would need some _serious _level of _indisputable _and _significant _evidence. And although some people would like to pretend that we're there with made up stuff like "99% of infections are coming from the unvaccinated", that's jut not the case. So we should not impose drastic measures.
And yeah, losing your job, being prevented from travel and education, fines and prison time... That is _drastic _stuff And who knows what in the future? After all, a year ago nobody believe in a vaccine mandate in the USA and yet here we are...


----------



## bostjan

Yeah, that's a total misrepresentation of what I said and I think you know that.

It's sad that you aren't willing to engage in an honest conversation about this. I think you have the aptitude to make the discussion be productive. Oh well. Have fun ruining the covid thread for everyone else.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> Yeah, that's a total misrepresentation of what I said and I think you know that.
> 
> It's sad that you aren't willing to engage in an honest conversation about this. I think you have the aptitude to make the discussion be productive. Oh well. Have fun ruining the covid thread for everyone else.



Wait what? You said "Are people _*more *_likely to spread covid if they are vaccinated?" and discussed on that... I just replied "we don't even have to try and prove that".
Is there a problem with that?

We don't _need _to prove they are "more likely to spread" and anyway, like you said we are unlikely to prove that in a real-life scenario.
But since we're actively trying to implement measures that harm a group, we would need to prove that _the opposite _is truly overwhelming, and as a result that the measures are justified beyond a reasonable doubt. And we have not done so.

Is there anything dishonest about that?


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> I don't know anything about this so I googled it. It's places with 100 employees or more _entering the workplace_. So work-from-home is fine. Small business is fine. This isn't "it's illegal to be unvax'd" this is "it's illegal to cram 100 unvaccinated people into a building" - which, to be fair would be a problem. It's a bit much maybe, maybe someone's political leanings would lead them to feel it's an overreach, but again - this being a big problem is predicated on the idea that the vaccination is a problem for a significant number of people.
> 
> Edit:
> More googling - Am I reading this right, or is it also allowed, under that same law, to go unvaccinated as long as you get tested weekly?
> 'Cause if I'm reading that right, this whole "vax or else" argument is a huge exaggeration, since this gives you an easy out if you're willing to get tested a whole lot.



OSHA has just removed remote workers temporarily in order to try and get challenged less in court. That's new.
The "get tested" part of it has also been shifted back and forth a couple of times.
At the end of the day, working off of a few Fortune 500 companies that I know, the outcome is very simple and the same across the board.
They hate risk and change, so by and large do the most monolithic interpretation to cover their butts, and only accept vaccination, even for remote workers - and with no testing option.



TedEH said:


> Discredit what exactly? You claimed there was some kind of big lie happening that was the root of people's job loss. What's the lie? If the "lie" is that vaccines are helpful enough to warrant being mandated on some level, then I just disagree with you.



The lie is that it's overwhelmingly the unvaccinated spreading the pandemic, like you seem to believe.
Like our colleague was pretending with his "99% of infections are coming from the unvaccinated" without a source, and that people buy in.
This is simply not the case.

We would need something that overwhelming in order to justify punitive/coercive measures of any kind. Yet we don't have those numbers, and are punishing regardless.

The vaccine is helpful as a personal health decision for sure. It will protect _you _a lot.
But so are a lot of other health decisions, and you don't see anyone mandating _those_.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> But since we're actively trying to implement measures that harm a group


Ok let's back up. What group? Who, explicitly, are we actively trying to harm? "The non vaccinated" is not a homogeneous group.



mbardu said:


> and as a result that the measures are justified beyond a reasonable doubt


I think it's very easy to justify a mandate for a vaccine that _doesn't hurt the vast majority of people_, given that we've seen it helps, and the counter argument basically amounts to "but some people just don't want to". If the entire unvaccinated group was your fallback demographic of those who _can't_ then I would agree with you. But I don't believe, at all, that most unvaccinated people _can't_ be vaccinated safely. Nor am I really convinced that the way you're looking at the numbers implies that the vaccine isn't helping enough, which seems to be what you're saying.

If you want to make an argument that we need better exemptions and workaround for those who can't - or even those who just won't - then I agree with you. But your phrasing implies malice, and I'm not convinced there is any.

Edit because your last post got in before I hit go:

I think the major disagreement here is in the standard for what's "enough" to warrant mandates. I don't think we need something as extreme as 99%, for the reasons I already stated. Also, you're the one pulling the 99% number up all the time. Maybe someone said it once, maybe it was an exaggeration, but you're the only one hyper-focused on that 99.

You are right though - so far I'd be more likely to believe that the unvaccinated are responsible for _more_ spread than the vaccinated. What the standard is for "overwhelming" I don't think matters here, since you'll extrapolate whatever I say to "it's 99% from the unvax".


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> Ok let's back up. What group? Who, explicitly, are we actively trying to harm? "The non vaccinated" is not a homogeneous group.
> 
> (.....)
> 
> But I don't believe, at all, that most unvaccinated people _can't_ be vaccinated safely.



It's more a matter of nuance. I touched about that more in depth in the post you decided to ignore that had most of those answers already.
But like you said, it's _not _a homogeneous group. And it's very hard to put a line in the middle of that group to define what is justified or not in terms of exemptions.
The majority opinion here, _your _opinion, is that people not getting the vaccine don't have a good reason. That it's just "they don't wanna". You don't _believe_, but you don't know. _We _don't know. The only unvaccinated people I know who are not vaccinated _can't_ be vaccinated, through no fault of their own - and are still being punished.
And I see people cheering measures for forced vaccination in order to stick it to those "5G conspirationist", yet I'm never met even a single such person in my life.



TedEH said:


> I think it's very easy to justify a mandate for a vaccine that _doesn't hurt the vast majority of people_, given that we've seen it helps



The vaccine does helps a lot. Why do you imply I said the opposite? At an individual level, it will prevent you from severe forms and hospitalizations.
Just like a lot of other personal health decision help a lot, but you don't see them being mandated.

It just doesn't help a lot in terms of _transmission_, which is the discussion here. A bit, especially early on, sure. A few months down the road, not really that much. Way less than other measures such as continued masking and distancing that's for sure. So you could have stayed home a few months instead of getting the vaccine, and due to waning immunity you'd have the same net effect on transmission as the person getting the vaccine and going out and about for the last 6 months.



TedEH said:


> If you want to make an argument that we need better exemptions and workaround for those who can't - or even those who just won't - then I agree with you. But your phrasing implies malice, and I'm not convinced there is any.



Yeah I'd be all for more flexibility and actual exemptions.
In the places I know, there is hardly _any _possibility for exemption - even punishing physicians who give exemptions.

I don't really care if there is malice or not.
If some people are harmed through no fault of their own, it's a problem IMHO.


----------



## TedEH

I had a whole thing typed up, but I'm exhausted from going in circles. I understand your point, even if I disagree with the conclusion it leads you to.
If anyone needs me, I'm going back to Christmas miracle mode.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> I had a whole thing typed up, but I'm exhausted from going in circles. I understand your point, even if I disagree with the conclusion it leads you to.
> If anyone needs me, I'm going back to Christmas miracle mode.



And a merry northern Christmas to you then, cheers!


----------



## CanserDYI

So finally out of quarantine, the outside is awesome.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> Edit because your last post got in before I hit go:
> 
> I think the major disagreement here is in the standard for what's "enough" to warrant mandates. I don't think we need something as extreme as 99%, for the reasons I already stated. Also, you're the one pulling the 99% number up all the time. Maybe someone said it once, maybe it was an exaggeration, but you're the only one hyper-focused on that 99.
> 
> You are right though - so far I'd be more likely to believe that the unvaccinated are responsible for _more_ spread than the vaccinated. What the standard is for "overwhelming" I don't think matters here, since you'll extrapolate whatever I say to "it's 99% from the unvax".



Since you added your edit...
The 99% is not something I came up with- it's based on this.
I like to point it out as an example of people believing anything even if blatantly false.

I don't even think we'd need a figure as high as 99% to call the justification overwhelming, but I don't think you realize just how far we are from that number either.

For reference, I posted the numbers many times already from countries which actually test unvaccinated _and _vaccinated (unlike the US which has stopped testing the unvaccinated).
And you see that the infection rate per 100k is hardly _any _higher for the unvaccinated group. Even if I'm being generous and I'm saying that those infections per 100k are _*twice *_as high for the unvaccinated group (which is _not _what we're seeing in France or UK etc), then considering the pool of vaccinated people is twice as big, then vaccinated would still be contributing half the new infections. Far _far _from the 1% implied above and used to say unvaccinated can be punished because the spread is their fault.


----------



## Drew

CanserDYI said:


> So finally out of quarantine, the outside is awesome.


Welcome back!


----------



## CanserDYI

And on the day I get out my sister gets put in. She thinks its omicron variant because she said it feels much different and her skin all over feels like it's on fire and blotchy everywhere, Jesus Christ covid.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Yeah, that's a total misrepresentation of what I said and I think you know that.
> 
> It's sad that you aren't willing to engage in an honest conversation about this. I think you have the aptitude to make the discussion be productive. Oh well. Have fun ruining the covid thread for everyone else.


If this is about who I think it is, and let's be honest... Honestly, he's still fucking up the thread because it's all a bunch of one sided arguments, but as it turns out it's way less annoying to have someone intentionally misrepresenting and nitpicking everything you have to say, when you don't actually see it happening. Seriously, try muting him, it helps.  Why waste your time arguing against someone who isn't at all interested in trying to have a good-faith discussion?


----------



## Drew

CanserDYI said:


> And on the day I get out my sister gets put in. She thinks its omicron variant because she said it feels much different and her skin all over feels like it's on fire and blotchy everywhere, Jesus Christ covid.


Shit, really, man? You guys can't win. Do you live together and does this mean you have to continue quarantining, or is it just one more stretch of bad luck for a family that's already had their share?


----------



## CanserDYI

Drew said:


> Shit, really, man? You guys can't win. Do you live together and does this mean you have to continue quarantining, or is it just one more stretch of bad luck for a family that's already had their share?


She's about 2k miles away in Colorado, her neighbor across the hall apparently wasn't feeling well and my sister is a saint so helped them out and now is feeling same symptoms. 

I have zero clue if she's vaxxed. My mother is not and is adamantly anti vaxx so I'm assuming she has gotten to my baby sister.


----------



## ArtDecade

CanserDYI said:


> I have zero clue if she's vaxxed. My mother is not and is adamantly anti vaxx so I'm assuming she has gotten to my baby sister.



i'm sorry to hear that. I hope they both get through this pandemic without too much collateral damage.


----------



## zappatton2

Just had my first brush with an anti-masker having a toddler-scale meltdown on the staff at the local burger joint. My only contribution was highlighting his historical and contextual misuse of the words "fascism" and "slavery", but man, those folks do NOT appreciate constructive feedback.


----------



## ArtDecade

zappatton2 said:


> Just had my first brush with an anti-masker having a toddler-scale meltdown on the staff at the local burger joint. My only contribution was highlighting his historical and contextual misuse of the words "fascism" and "slavery", but man, those folks do NOT appreciate constructive feedback.



Nope. They are utter morons.


----------



## zappatton2

ArtDecade said:


> Nope. They are utter morons.


The highlight of the exchange was when he pointed to the customers, most of whom were black, and stated (screamed) that after the big bad government takes away all _his _right, they're coming for "the blacks" next.


----------



## spudmunkey

CanserDYI said:


> So finally out of quarantine, the outside is awesome.


Graphics are OK, but the health meter seems shorter every time I boot it up. Also, the AI of every single NPC needs a LOT of work.


----------



## Randy




----------



## ArtDecade

^ Regarding "mildness", South Africa has been repeatedly hit by coronavirus waves wherein they have estimated that 80% of the pop has had the virus. This prior immune response will likely curb severity because the immune response will be able to blunt the severity of the infection if the person has seen virus before. So the mildness of disease might not be a function of the virus, but a function of the population having some prior immune response. The preliminary data from the UK are pointing to it NOT being more more mild.


----------



## Drew

zappatton2 said:


> ...but man, those folks do NOT appreciate constructive feedback.


 



CanserDYI said:


> She's about 2k miles away in Colorado, her neighbor across the hall apparently wasn't feeling well and my sister is a saint so helped them out and now is feeling same symptoms.
> 
> I have zero clue if she's vaxxed. My mother is not and is adamantly anti vaxx so I'm assuming she has gotten to my baby sister.


Fingers crossed for your family, man. :/


----------



## Drew

ArtDecade said:


> ^ Regarding "mildness", South Africa has been repeatedly hit by coronavirus waves wherein they have estimated that 80% of the pop has had the virus. This prior immune response will likely curb severity because the immune response will be able to blunt the severity of the infection if the person has seen virus before. So the mildness of disease might not be a function of the virus, but a function of the population having some prior immune response. The preliminary data from the UK are pointing to it NOT being more more mild.


Yeah, this is a potentially very big misconception - if a significantly higher prior-positive rate is behind the comparative mildness, and cases are mild mostly because they're disproportionately breakthrough infections, then, well, we've got problems. 

Someone was telling me they saw a meme recently which was basically "how many people have died from omicron" entered into google and the top response was zero, and while maybe at some point that was true, if you search for UK omicron deaths (the non-South-African epicenter at the moment but we''ll likely catch them fast) the top google result I saw was a day-old article putting the death count at 12, and considering dying of covid takes time and omicron didn't begin surging in the UK until the start of this month, that's not really a terribly encouraging sign.


----------



## StevenC

Have my booster booked for next Thursday. That'll give me AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna, so I've been looking for mixed vaccine studies to see if anyone else has gotten 3 different ones and haven't found much yet. 

Here's a relevant xkcd for the last few pages:


----------



## Drew

StevenC said:


> Have my booster booked for next Thursday. That'll give me AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna, so I've been looking for mixed vaccine studies to see if anyone else has gotten 3 different ones and haven't found much yet.
> 
> Here's a relevant xkcd for the last few pages:


Yeah, XKCD killed it there, haha. The mouse-over text is pretty on-point too.


----------



## fantom

Emperor Guillotine said:


> NAILED IT.
> 
> Strip away the media’s message that has been inducing polarization through brainwashing, and suddenly, all of these extreme measures that some city and state governments in the USA have been threatening will no longer sound like good ideas.
> 
> I don’t even know how the media has been rallying support behind these extreme measures. But goddamn, if the past (nearly) two (full) years have shown us anything, it’s that the USA’s populace is becoming ever more so stupid and easily persuaded of almost anything.




Totally!!!!



Stop the steal. Stop the steal.




Lock her up. Lock her up.









Oh wrong thread.


----------



## jco5055

Well I just tested positive, and honestly it’s the most mild cold I’ve ever had.

-mildly stuffy but no runny nose at all
-very mild scratchy throat
-cough once an hour
-mildly lethargic

get vaxxed and boosted everyone!


----------



## zappatton2

Get well soon!!


----------



## jco5055

zappatton2 said:


> Get well soon!!



Thanks! I really do credit the vaccine and booster shot for making this mega mild.


----------



## CanserDYI

jco5055 said:


> Thanks! I really do credit the vaccine and booster shot for making this mega mild.


Absolutely brother man. Wish you a speedy recovery, I just sat in my house for 2 weeks and played a bunch of video games, felt fine the entire time, completely convinced because I was vaxxed that it was so chill.


----------



## Randy

Say what?


----------



## spudmunkey

Randy said:


> Say what?




And Candice Owens is now saying that he's uninformed because he isn't reading the internet because he's old, and comes from a time when vaccines were trusted.


----------



## Bodes

Does his neck look like it has major camel toe or hungry bum?


----------



## bostjan

Bodes said:


> Does his neck look like it has major camel toe or hungry bum?


That's where the hand goes into the puppet.


----------



## SpaceDock

Randy said:


> Say what?




I watched the full interview and the most insane part to me, which is not being covered on the news, is that they talk about the Jan 6th pipe bomber. They postulate that since he hasn’t been caught he must in fact be an FBI agent planting bombs to make MAGA people look bad.


----------



## Drew

Mass hit a new all-time high single day case count, nearly 11,000, on christmas eve, and our 7-day average is now higher than the 2020/2021 holiday peak. Hospitalizations are still below, but are a lagging indicator, and oddly there isn't much of a delta between hospitalizations and deaths, per 100k, here in MA, though my first thought is that's a democraphic quirk of some sorts because that hasn't been the trend elsewhere. 

We as a nation seem to have just declared "Mission Accomplished," and moved on.  The next month or two look to be ugly.


----------



## Adieu

After Xmas and NYE, if this variant isn't somehow total easy mode, we should be seeing like 10-15x increase in death count starting early January


----------



## Randy

Currently pondering the possibility, once again, the dialogue on this is totally off and we're talking about Omicron as if the virus is on one linear path from where it started til now and it's "weakening" when it's mostly likely that there are several different mutations running parallel to eachother and our reaction to the one Infront of us right now has no bearing on how we'll be reacting to whatever's out there 6 months from now.


----------



## Randy

Also, short sighted assuming the only ways people will die from this is directly from getting sick from it or secondarily, from ERs being clogged and unable to treat other patients.

Look at what's happening with the airlines right now from all the staff getting sick right now, so people are stranded thousands of miles from home. Imagine if a natural disaster were to strike right now somewhere, anywhere without the resources and manpower to relocate people or handle the sick/injured in volume. Imagine of the tornados from a couple weeks ago or the freezing conditions in Texas last year happened right now and they don't have enough people to man utility vehicles to render aid.

The airline thing just a small example of how volatile this can be even if it's "just a cold"


----------



## bostjan

Just thinking out loud:

The government (USA) is considering vaccine passports for domestic travel.

But we also know that the vaccines have limited efficacy in stopping the spread of the disease, whether through waning immunity, the way the virus replicates before the immune system responds, or mutations, whatever the case, the vaccine passport is an idiotic idea based on our current knowledge.

You can't remain shut down forever; so I suppose the choice is either to go about business as usual and let everyone get sick or to shut things down as long as people can stomach it and hope that something comes along whilst we are shut down to prepare us better for dealing with the sick people.

Neither option is any good, so I guess the federal agencies are considering telling everyone that they will be fine, everything will be fine, we'll all be fine, and let the thing run its course and apologize later by saying that no one knew, which is exactly what the government has done for decades about virtually everything.

Maybe either from vaccine immunity or natural immunity, covid will mostly be like flu now, in that it's just endemic everywhere and every so often there will be a particularly nasty strain that goes around killing people. Kids being born three to eighteen years from now will probably someday face a resurgence of the OG strain kicking ass... My worry is that, since this virus is smaller and more quickly mutable, we could be facing nasty strains 5x more frequently than with flu, and that's going to have an effect something like knocking a few years off of life expectancy around the world. Maybe the bright side of that is something we'll never know, like this virus is keeping us from getting absolutely wiped out by SARS-CoV-3 or something.


----------



## Randy

The problem with "neither solution is perfect" is that a combination of both or neither is what we've done so far and it's been a goddamn disaster.

My current position is fuck the people that don't want help. Put your focus 100% on helping the people who are willing to cooperate, whether that's assistance for businesses or individuals that promote vaccine/mask mandate or occupancy limits, and focusing resources on vaccines/boosters, and treatments for people who are actually willing to use them and "play the game by the rules".

Let everyone else that wanted to Libertarian fight their way way through the pandemic "their way" twist in the wind until they either relent or die off (figuratively). No sense in fighting with them any longer.


----------



## bostjan

It's too late for any of that sort of posturing, though. There's a chance that this is just what it'll be like from now on. In that case, any draconian measures that might have helped a year ago, when no one wanted to hear it, would be virtually pointless now.

I'd give 1000:1 odds that there will be a new variant before long. At some point, they'll stop getting catchy names, because no one will care enough. If we've hit a point where 99% of people have either been infected or vaccinated or both, then IDK anymore what measures would be appropriate. If not, once we get near that mark, then what?

And between climate change and overpopulation, it's only a matter of time before someone who never washes their hands eats a duckbilled platypus that got too friendly with an armadillo and we get superleprosy or whatever and we do this all over, assuming we don't start a nuclear war or get conquered by ETs or fuck up the Earth so bad it's uninhabitable.

But as for covid... we've still got to come up with a worthy treatment, but that might take years if it ever even happens. Even if you staple masks on people's faces, commerce has to eventually go back to "normal" because there's no "until we have a vaccine" anymore. I've got coworkers and now family, healthy, fully vax'd and boosted that have covid right now. So, lisgening to the gov't or the media or whatever isn't doing enough good because nobody's taking the word of science over toxic optimism and crowd control.

So, at this point, everybody would do best to wear their masks and limit unneccesary exposure, but no one will listen and no one even really wants to bother telling people that, so...well, who cares?


----------



## nightflameauto

So, due to pressure from businesses that are short-staffed, the CDC changed their quarantine time from positive test to public activity from ten days to five.

Seems like even the CDC has given up. The whole country is just shrugging and going, "I'm done."


----------



## Bodes

nightflameauto said:


> So, due to pressure from businesses that are short-staffed, the CDC changed their quarantine time from positive test to public activity from ten days to five.
> 
> Seems like even the CDC has given up. The whole country is just shrugging and going, "I'm done."



Is that a test on day five, if negative then go back to living life, but if positive on day 5 test still quarantine?
Or
Self-quarantine for five days, then you're free?


----------



## nightflameauto

Bodes said:


> Is that a test on day five, if negative then go back to living life, but if positive on day 5 test still quarantine?
> Or
> Self-quarantine for five days, then you're free?


Sounded like the latter, though they do recommend wearing a mask after that five days is up yet.


----------



## spudmunkey

Bodes said:


> Is that a test on day five, if negative then go back to living life, but if positive on day 5 test still quarantine?
> Or
> Self-quarantine for five days, then you're free?



A 2nd test is recommended, but not a part of the "official" guideline.


----------



## Jonathan20022

I'm with Randy on this, I cared about the nation being shut down and isolated until we were given proper protection via vaccination to myself, my family, and my loved ones.

As far as I'm concerned, I did my part and if people want to brave the next few years without it then its on their own heads. At this point it can only get me as sick as any other flu or viral infection would and my chances of dying from it are massively reduced from taking those steps. 

On another note, had a bit of a scare. My roommate tested positive after 3 days of feeling under the weather and definitely coming down with something. We hard quarantined the house and made strict rules about who was where at any one time, sanitizing everything after use, trying to order out if possible instead of cooking.

Got tested this morning, 6am rise, sat in line from 7am - 11:45 outdoors before I got swabbed. Thankfully the 24 hour test came back negative so I can return to work, PCR pending. The testing shortage is not great, people showing up at the advertised opening time were told to leave because they had ran out of testing materials.


----------



## Drew

Jonathan20022 said:


> As far as I'm concerned, I did my part and if people want to brave the next few years without it then its on their own heads. At this point it can only get me as sick as any other flu or viral infection would and my chances of dying from it are massively reduced from taking those steps.


I REALLY want to believe that this is true, and that Randy's "fuck anyone who doesn't want to take this seriously, we can do this ourselves" approach is the answer here. And, at the margins, maybe turning the unvaccinated away at the hospitals is the way to go, and may become inevitable as we begin to strain hospital capacity. Maybe it'll get a few more people vaccinated at the margins.

But there are two problems. One, your risk of dying is reduced... but not eliminated, and is certainly still higher than "any other flu." Vaccines make you less likely to get sick in the first place, but only seem to cut risk of mortality by about half contingent on an infection the last time I ran the math. It could have changed since then, to be fair, but with vaccine efficacy waning with time and subsequent variants doing a better and better job breaking through vaccines (omicron seems to be at about 33% with two shots, a more respectable 70% with three but someone who does this stuff for a living flipped me a study recenrly providing some initial evidence that the benefit of a booster shot starts to fade after 5-7 weeks, which if true is going to be a big deal), over time even if you've "done all the right things," your chances of getting sick increase, and of ending up in the hospital, in absolute terms, begin to rise.

Two, large swathes of the population in a covid free-for-all are a breeding ground for new variants, and while we might get lucky and get an incredibly infectious, incredibly mild one that becomes the dominant strain, there's no guarantee of that. That's how we got omicron, and while the South Africa data is encouraging, the last couple studies coming out of covid-ravaged UK suggest that hospitalization rates are not materially different than they were under delta.

So, we kinda have to give a shit about the red state "you can't tell me what to do" types as well, because if we don't, they're just going to create more variants, and each successive variant is another opportunity for covid to evolve into something our vaccines can't handle, setting us back to square one. If we want to eradicate covid for people who ARE serious about beating it, we also have to eradicate covid from people who don't give a shit and won't make the necessary sacrifices of wearing a mask, getting a couple shots, and maybe refraining from large gatherings for a while.

It sucks, but we don't really have a choice here.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> I REALLY want to believe that this is true, and that Randy's "fuck anyone who doesn't want to take this seriously, we can do this ourselves" approach is the answer here. And, at the margins, maybe turning the unvaccinated away at the hospitals is the way to go, and may become inevitable as we begin to strain hospital capacity. Maybe it'll get a few more people vaccinated at the margins.



Oh look! After pretending for pages and pages that nobody would _dare _say that, we're right back to "let's just refuse medical treatment to the unvaccinated" without any hesitation.
How quaint 



Drew said:


> But there are two problems. One, your risk of dying is reduced... but not eliminated, and is certainly still higher than "any other flu." Vaccines make you less likely to get sick in the first place, but only seem to cut risk of mortality by about half contingent on an infection the last time I ran the math. It could have changed since then, to be fair, but with vaccine efficacy waning with time and subsequent variants doing a better and better job breaking through vaccines (omicron seems to be at about 33% with two shots, a more respectable 70% with three but someone who does this stuff for a living flipped me a study recenrly providing some initial evidence that the benefit of a booster shot starts to fade after 5-7 weeks, which if true is going to be a big deal), over time even if you've "done all the right things," your chances of getting sick increase, and of ending up in the hospital, in absolute terms, begin to rise.
> 
> Two, large swathes of the population in a covid free-for-all are a breeding ground for new variants, and while we might get lucky and get an incredibly infectious, incredibly mild one that becomes the dominant strain, there's no guarantee of that. That's how we got omicron, and while the South Africa data is encouraging, the last couple studies coming out of covid-ravaged UK suggest that hospitalization rates are not materially different than they were under delta.
> 
> So, we kinda have to give a shit about the red state "you can't tell me what to do" types as well, because if we don't, they're just going to create more variants, and each successive variant is another opportunity for covid to evolve into something our vaccines can't handle, setting us back to square one. If we want to eradicate covid for people who ARE serious about beating it, we also have to eradicate covid from people who don't give a shit and won't make the necessary sacrifices of wearing a mask, getting a couple shots, and maybe refraining from large gatherings for a while.
> 
> It sucks, but we don't really have a choice here.



_Everyone _is getting Covid nowadays, vaccinated or not. So who do we think will help generate the mutations that _specifically _resist existing vaccines? 
The vaccinated group that puts that _very specific _evolutionary pressure from the vaccine on the virus, or the unvaccinated group with random natural immunity? Geez, I wonder...


----------



## Adieu

China mostly has it handled

Why are we aiming to do worse?


----------



## Drew

Adieu said:


> China mostly has it handled
> 
> Why are we aiming to do worse?


They're about to mostly have it NOT handled, thanks to omicron, for better or for worse authoritarianism is great at clamping down on pandemics but shitty at most other things, and beyond that their record for transparency isn't exactly sterling, and even still we know they're struggling.


----------



## Bodes

nightflameauto said:


> Sounded like the latter, though they do recommend wearing a mask after that five days is up yet.





spudmunkey said:


> A 2nd test is recommended, but not a part of the "official" guideline.



Just recommended?!? I have stopped discussing my thoughts on a number of items in this thread for obvious reasons, but this one is the most stupid medical thing I have read. 

Do companies have a legal right to demand that their employees return a negative test before allowing them to return to work?

"Hi boss, I'm back"
Five days later: "Where did everybody go?" "Oh all are getting tested and isolated cause they have symptoms and/or returned positive tests and need to quarantine, don't worry, they'll all be back in five days"

Not implying that everyone in a workplace will catch COVID, but I'd certainly not feel comfortable working next to someone who returns to work before getting a negative test result.


----------



## Randy

mbardu said:


> Oh look! After pretending for pages and pages that nobody would _dare _say that, we're right back to "let's just refuse medical treatment to the unvaccinated" without any hesitation.
> How quaint



Just to clarify, I wasn't suggesting that. I just meant in the general sense stop wasting any resources (government, friends, family, biz, whatever) lobbying people to change their mind or devoting any resources there. Between vax, mask, or avoiding certain activities, two years in everyone has access and knowledge to mitigate this if they choose.

I don't think "let 'em die" is necessary or viable.


----------



## spudmunkey

A part of it is just last of testing availability.


Bodes said:


> Just recommended?!? I have stopped discussing my thoughts on a number of items in this thread for obvious reasons, but this one is the most stupid medical thing I have read.
> 
> Do companies have a legal right to demand that their employees return a negative test before allowing them to return to work?
> 
> "Hi boss, I'm back"
> Five days later: "Where did everybody go?" "Oh all are getting tested and isolated cause they have symptoms and/or returned positive tests and need to quarantine, don't worry, they'll all be back in five days"
> 
> Not implying that everyone in a workplace will catch COVID, but I'd certainly not feel comfortable working next to someone who returns to work before getting a negative test result.



At least part of the hesitants to mandate a test, is simply the availability of testing. Also, the PCR tests can show a positive result for 12 weeks after an infection.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

All this talk about how absolutely egregious even the idea of denying care to those who are not taking covid seriously, and by that I mean those who refuse to mask, vaccinate, and distance, all the while those folks are actually causing the denial of care for others. 

Local hospital just confirmed they will be turning away patients, including emergent cases of heart attack and stroke because they're overloaded with covid cases. 

You're right @mbardu, there are folks who are fine denying care to others. Bravo.


----------



## Randy

Shame on the hospitals for prioritizing cases that way tho tbh.


----------



## SpaceDock

Back a couple months ago the Covid hospital numbers got so bad in my area they brought in national guard to assist in the care. They started turning away non Covid cases to local animal hospitals! Now in the Denver area they have a few care facilities that are strictly no Covid patients allowed, which is a bit better. What gets me is that people won’t take any precautions then they demand care, if you thought you didn’t need the science wing it at home, buddy. Even worse are these jerks that attack hospital staff because they think the doctors should use conspiracy therapies or that the doctors are trying to kill the Covid patients for money. Really sick stuff out there.


----------



## Randy

NYS says they're burning through 22,000 covid tests a week just to handle the testing for state workers that refuse to get the vaccine. More endangering everyone else to satisfy the stupid requests of selfish people.


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> All this talk about how absolutely egregious even the idea of denying care to those who are not taking covid seriously, and by that I mean those who refuse to mask, vaccinate, and distance, all the while those folks are actually causing the denial of care for others.
> 
> Local hospital just confirmed they will be turning away patients, including emergent cases of heart attack and stroke because they're overloaded with covid cases.
> 
> You're right @mbardu, there are folks who are fine denying care to others. Bravo.



Nuance is really dead isn't it?
It's OK to triage patients and prioritize depending on resources and how critical the required care is vs odds- of course. And sometimes it means ugly decisions.

But now you're mixing vaccination status with mask wearing and distancing and everything else in a blob of...pandemic-serious-taking? Pretending like there's a single objective way to triage people on that basis. What does that mean? Supposedly how "virtuous" every person would have been in the pandemic and thus would be deserving of care?

How do you do that exactly? How do you decide between the vaccinated guy who got the shot 9 months ago and has been taking no precaution since, infecting hundreds of people in the process- and the guy who's not getting the vaccine because of adverse vaccine effects in the past and who infected a grand total of 0 people because he chose to isolate indoors in order to not put his community at risk? Can you come up with an objective criteria for that? Who's going to be the judge? Is it a black and white one-dimensional problem?

You ask most people here, and everyone will not only say that no matter what, a vaccinated one-man superspreader is _still _the uber-virtuous who should _always _get the care because of the heroism of his waned shots....but they will also celebrate preemptively denying care to unvaccinated just because.

Typical argument...the guy who didn't get the vaccine maybe didn't infect others sure, but he did put his _own _health at risk knowingly by not getting the vaccine, so it's on him, right?
But then why treat all those heart attacks which are documented consequences of poor lifestyle choices? I guess some people should just have made better lifestyle choices, no? Or car accidents of people going over the speed limit. They should have known better.

The level of polarization is ridiculous. Drunk or reckless drivers, murderers and rapists .... anyone in immediate life threatening condition will 100% jump ahead of the line in medical triage, and yet the guy who didn't get the vaccine should be treated a few levels of worse compared to those just because 

I mean, if you can come up with a criteria (say, net infections or deaths +/- caused or prevented by every individual) to judge, then it would still go against a lot of principles, but at least it would be objective. I wouldn't even mind- the people I know who can't get vaccinated have basically self isolated for the last year, all the while doing a bunch to help their community, so I'm pretty sure if there was an objective impact criteria, they'd be quite a few notches higher in priority than the folks who got the shot and decided that now they could stop caring and look down on others  .
And just judging by all the double vaccinated + boosted people who keep getting infected by other double vaccinated people + boosted people, I'm pretty sure a good number of people would be surprised where they fall on that priority list.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mbardu said:


> Nuance is really dead isn't it?
> It's OK to triage patients and prioritize depending on resources and how critical the required care is vs odds- of course. And sometimes it means ugly decisions.
> 
> But now you're mixing vaccination status with mask wearing and distancing and everything else in a blob of...pandemic-serious-taking? Pretending like there's a single objective way to triage people on that basis. What does that mean? Supposedly how "virtuous" every person would have been in the pandemic and thus would be deserving of care?
> 
> How do you do that exactly? How do you decide between the vaccinated guy who got the shot 9 months ago and has been taking no precaution since, infecting hundreds of people in the process- and the guy who's not getting the vaccine because of adverse vaccine effects in the past and who infected a grand total of 0 people because he chose to isolate indoors in order to not put his community at risk? Can you come up with an objective criteria for that? Who's going to be the judge? Is it a black and white one-dimensional problem?
> 
> You ask most people here, and everyone will not only say that no matter what, a vaccinated one-man superspreader is _still _the uber-virtuous who should _always _get the care because of his waned shots....but they will also celebrate preemptively denying care to unvaccinated just because.
> 
> Typical argument...the guy who didn't get the vaccine maybe didn't infect others sure, but he did put his _own _health at risk knowingly by not getting the vaccine, so it's on him, right?
> But then why treat all those heart attacks which are documented consequences of poor lifestyle choices? I guess some people should just have made better lifestyle choices, no? Or car accidents of people going over the speed limit. They should have known better.
> 
> The level of polarization is ridiculous. Drunk or reckless drivers, murderers and rapists .... anyone in immediate life threatening condition will 100% jump ahead of the line in medical triage, and yet the guy who didn't get the vaccine should be treated a few levels of worse compared to those just because
> 
> I mean, if you can come up with a criteria (say, net infections or deaths +/- caused or prevented by every individual) to judge, then it would still go against a lot of principles, but at least it would be objective. I wouldn't even mind- the people I know who can't get vaccinated have basically self isolated for the last year, all the while doing a bunch to help their community, so I'm pretty sure if there was an objective impact criteria, they'd be quite a few notches higher in priority than the folks who got the shot and decided that now they could stop caring and look down on others  .
> And just judging by all the double vaccinated + boosted people who keep getting infected by other double vaccinated people + boosted people, I'm pretty sure some people would be surprised where they fall on that priority list.



*This isn't a triage issue.* This is a capacity issue. In the near decade I've lived where I have I've never ever seen hospitals turn away patients for any condition. Now they are, and they are because covid, and covid is a problem because a lot of people don't take it seriously.

This virus doesn't spontaneously exist. You give and get it from those around you. If you do at least two of three things: wear appropriate masks, get vaccinated per your healthcare professional, or distance yourself from others you'll curtail the spread. It's not rocket science. Don't want to vaccinate? Sure, just wear a good clean mask and stay the fuck away from everyone else. Don't want to wear a mask? Fine, but still get vaccinated and fuck off away from others. Want to go out? Get vaccinated and wear a good mask and wash your damn hands. Better yet, do all three because it's the right thing to do.


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> *This isn't a triage issue.* This is a capacity issue. In the near decade I've lived where I have I've never ever seen hospitals turn away patients for any condition. Now they are, and they are because covid, and covid is a problem because a lot of people don't take it seriously.
> This virus doesn't spontaneously exist.



Triage or capacity is a continuum, not an orthogonal concept. If you had infinite capacity, there would be 0 triage because everyone would get all the treatment right away. Triage just gets worse and worse with less and less available capacity.

That said I agree, a lot of people don't take Covid seriously - which has brought us here, and I tend to put the large number of vaccinated careless people in that category of not taking things seriously.



MaxOfMetal said:


> You give and get it from those around you. If you do at least two of three things: wear appropriate masks, get vaccinated per your healthcare professional, or distance yourself from others you'll curtail the spread. It's not rocket science. Don't want to vaccinate? Sure, just wear a good clean mask and stay the fuck away from everyone else. Don't want to wear a mask? Fine, but still get vaccinated and fuck off away from others. Want to go out? Get vaccinated and wear a good mask and wash your damn hands. Better yet, do all three because it's the right thing to do.



Of course if you're unvaccinated, you'd better take precautions and try to not catch and infect others. Otherwise you're kind of a jerk.
But if you're vaccinated and asymptomatically spreading the disease to hundreds because you don't take any precaution, then you're kind of a jerk too - even though you got the shot.
If you're unvaccinated and take no precautions and go out, and don't distance...you're probably in the worse category of super spreaders.

But all the existing measures (vaccine mandates, job losses, travel restrictions etc) make little effort to have that nuance.
And the discourse you see here (which I was replying to before your comment) doesn't either.
It's just a single checkbox:

vaccinated => hero
unvaccinated => you can just go die
Which some people _love _to see because it gives an easy scapegoat to hate. But like most one-dimensional simplifications to complex problems...it's pretty dumb when you look at it for more than a second.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mbardu said:


> Triage or capacity is a continuum, not an orthogonal concept. If you had infinite capacity, there would be 0 triage because everyone would get all the treatment right away. Triage just gets worse and worse with less and less available capacity.
> 
> That said I agree, a lot of people don't take Covid seriously - which has brought us here, and I tend to put the large number of vaccinated careless people in that category of not taking things seriously.



Okay, maybe you're not understanding the situation:

*There is no triage because the hospital is closed to new patients regardless if it's an emergency like a stroke or heart attack. 
*
Let that sink in. They're diverting folks to Milwaukee (30 to 60 minutes away). That's a big deal.


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> Okay, maybe you're not understanding the situation:
> 
> *There is no triage because the hospital is closed to new patients regardless if it's an emergency like a stroke or heart attack.
> *
> Let that sink in. They're diverting folks to Milwaukee (30 to 60 minutes away). That's a big deal.



I get it and we're just debating the terminology. ICU is full because of Covid, so triage in this case means "go to the next hospital with capacity".
Which absolutely sucks. And which is due to people not taking Covid seriously. So I think on that we agree.

I was not replying on that earlier, but instead on what it _means _to take Covid seriously - which usually just gets you the usual "hur dur, it's only the unvaccinated's fault, let's punish them some more".


----------



## Jonathan20022

"Maybe the only viable solution is when bordering capacity, we should prioritize the vaccinated" interpreted as "let's just refuse medical treatment to the unvaccinated without any hesitation" 

You're not brave for having empathy for those who historically have none for their fellow neighbor in action and verbage dude.

You may not like it, but decisions need to be made at the end of the day. Doctors already prioritize based on need and severity of care, no one says it because everyone thinks their problems are the most important at any given time. And being told you're about to be relegated because someone else's life/needs is more valuable will always hurt. But that is what happens on the daily, fact of life even before COVID.

If you want to see it as "fuck the unvaccinated, go die" that's your own prerogative, there's logistics involved beyond that charged narrative. I'm not here making a morally charged argument, so if that's where this is headed then I'm not extending the conversation.

The objective purpose of any healthcare organization is patient cycle time, you want those who need care in as soon as possible, and out as soon as they recover in hopefully as little time as possible. The vaccinated are less likely to spread the virus, and will recover in less time than the unvaccinated especially with the new CDC requirement guidelines. The unvaccinated shouldn't be alienated, but if you logistically take more time to handle, and more time to recover when you *have an option*. Then yes, you should be alienated/singled out/disadvantaged when seeking care.

What does that literally translate to? In a shortage of care and literal space, you're in for a wait for availability. I don't think you should be turned away, but you are logistically low priority. More people will be cared for in the amount of time/resources used to aid in your treatment and recovery.  Hard to swallow pill, but even if 100% of the population were vaxxed, if a hospital were full the situation would be just as difficult. Less likely for hospitals to be at capacity, but certainly a possibility.


----------



## mbardu

Jonathan20022 said:


> "Maybe the only viable solution is when bordering capacity, we should prioritize the vaccinated" interpreted as "let's just refuse medical treatment to the unvaccinated without any hesitation"
> 
> You're not brave for having empathy for those who historically have none for their fellow neighbor in action and verbage dude.



I'm not pretending to be brave or anything.
Just pointing out how easily some people's logic and principles go out the window the moment there's a nice scapegoat for all frustrations.

You are- like your colleagues here, generalizing with no objective backing, and you are making it about morals whether you like it or not. You decide that the unvaccinated population as a whole somehow has no empathy for others? What are you basing this off of exactly?
I can assure you that I know a bunch of vaccinated jerks as well as a bunch of unvaccinated people with a ton of empathy for their community.
But people with a one-dimensional mind just cannot comprehend how that's possible for some reason. Only see the vaccinated as selfless heroes just for getting a shot...



Jonathan20022 said:


> You may not like it, but decisions need to be made at the end of the day. Doctors already prioritize based on need and severity of care, no one says it because everyone thinks their problems are the most important at any given time. And being told you're about to be relegated because someone else's life/needs is more valuable will always hurt. But that is what happens on the daily, fact of life even before COVID.
> 
> If you want to see it as "fuck the unvaccinated, go die" that's your own prerogative, there's logistics involved beyond that charged narrative. I'm not here making a morally charged argument, so if that's where this is headed then I'm not extending the conversation.



Maybe "fuck the unvaccinated" is not _exactly _what you are saying, but that's what some people are saying and celebrating. Just like rejoicing at the idea of taking away the unvaccinated people's job, capacity to travel etc. You must not be _that _far off if you are generalizing like the above and already have in your mind things like "those vaccinated people have no empathy so they deserve it" without even realizing it.



Jonathan20022 said:


> The objective purpose of any healthcare organization is patient cycle time, you want those who need care in as soon as possible, and out as soon as they recover in hopefully as little time as possible. The vaccinated are less likely to spread the virus, and will recover in less time than the unvaccinated especially with the new CDC requirement guidelines. The unvaccinated shouldn't be alienated, but if you logistically take more time to handle, and more time to recover when you *have an option*. Then yes, you should be alienated/singled out/disadvantaged when seeking care.



"The vaccinated are less likely to spread the virus" is not true. Especially in the scenario where we're talking people getting to the ICU. There's an argument to be made that the vaccinated are less likely to _get _the virus in the first place very early on after vaccination, sure (even if that wanes fairly quickly) ... but this is entirely irrelevant once we're talking about infected people already having and spreading the virus.

Your point about logistics is not how this works or has ever worked.
The reckless driver responsible for a crash _will _get priority care if he has life-threatening injuries after an accident he caused. Priority will not be given to the innocent people he crashed into with minor injuries because they are more deserving, or because they will require less logistics and will recover more quickly. If they have a good chance to save him, they will treat the guy about to die, even if it takes more logistics, and even if he takes longer to recover. Yet by your logic, we'd just get to him last once he's already dead...



Jonathan20022 said:


> What does that literally translate to? In a shortage of care and literal space, you're in for a wait for availability. I don't think you should be turned away, but you are logistically low priority. More people will be cared for in the amount of time/resources used to aid in your treatment and recovery.  Hard to swallow pill, but even if 100% of the population were vaxxed, if a hospital were full the situation would be just as difficult. Less likely for hospitals to be at capacity, but certainly a possibility.



Then your last remaining argument is a throughput one with "the unvaccinated will take more time to treat, so you could treat more people overall if you prioritize vaccinated first".
And yeah, there could be some small truth to that, because the vaccinated will fare a _bit _better in an ICU context.
But if you check the actual numbers, once you're at ICU level, the difference is no longer _that _dire vaccinated vs unvaccinated.
In fact, if you're thinking of it as a mechanistic way to maximize throughput, you would get a way way more efficient optimization by instead triaging and prioritizing based on underlying comorbidities instead. Treat smokers or people with obesity or lifestyle-induced type-2 diabetes last then, because they will _definitely _take longer to recover after all. Plus it's their fault due to lifestyle choices, right?

The whole situation sucks, and is far from simple. There's more than one dimension to the issue. 
Except no, people can only see the one "vaccinated" dimension and lose all nuance because that's the narrative.


----------



## StevenC

I spent some time in an ICU bed this summer and I definitely saw some people die there. I also got to see a lot of patients arrive in bad shape and within hours be moved a different ward because their care required ICU treatment but was fairly trivial once there. 

I was literally having my life saved and I felt bad about taking up a bed. Yet there's people out there doing less than the minimum they can.


----------



## Adieu

It's not exactly year one anymore, how is ICU bed shortage still a thing in countries with super expensive medical care and/or a well funded public system???


----------



## mbardu

Adieu said:


> It's not exactly year one anymore, how is ICU bed shortage still a thing in countries with super expensive medical care and/or a well funded public system???



Well the pandemic _is_ unprecedented in scale for modern times.
Also- at least in countries like France/the UK (a bunch of Western Europe actually), it's due to now decades of systematic dismantling of those historically great public healthcare systems by more and more right-aligned governments for more and more $$$.


----------



## StevenC

Adieu said:


> It's not exactly year one anymore, how is ICU bed shortage still a thing in countries with super expensive medical care and/or a well funded public system???


The NHS has been sabotaged by underfunding and is suffering from a nursing shortage due to underpaying them. I, for example, was in a brand new state of the art ICU department but that was only something like 30 beds; requiring 60 nurses, maybe 6 doctors and several HCAs a day, for close to 200 staff on the rota.

In an already understaffed system there weren't exactly a lot of opportunities to retrain to move to ICU. In my 9 days I had like 13 different nurses and there were still vacant spots on the rota being taken up by agency nurses.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> The reckless driver responsible for a crash _will _get priority care if he has life-threatening injuries after an accident he caused. Priority will not be given to the innocent people he crashed into with minor injuries because they are more deserving, or because they will require less logistics and will recover more quickly. If they have a good chance to save him, they will treat the guy about to die, even if it takes more logistics, and even if he takes longer to recover. Yet by your logic, we'd just get to him last once he's already dead...



But in this setting, everyone's in the same boat. And in in a scenario where everyone is in equally dire circumstances, I'd prefer they save the innocent people over the reckless driver who crashed into them. That's an easy trolley problem if I ever saw one.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> But in this setting, everyone's in the same boat. And in in a scenario where everyone is in equally dire circumstances, I'd prefer they save the innocent people over the reckless driver who crashed into them. That's an easy trolley problem if I ever saw one.



Oh I get it, don't get me wrong. All else being equal, you're talking about the moral choice essentially.
It feels more "fair" to have the innocent saved first if you had to choose.

So it's back to the question of how you make that "innocent" determination in the current situation, then.
Sure, if you want, treat first the vaccinated guy who _also _took a lot of precautions - and treat last the unvaccinated guy who also doesn't care, doesn't wear a mask and spits on people.
What about real life people in the middle though?
Treat the unvaccinated guy who took tons of precautions and infected 0 people- or treat the guy vaccinated 9 months ago and who stopped taking any precautions and infected hundreds? What if the latter guy has comorbidities that mean he's going to hold up a lot of hospital resources too?
Who gets to make that choice, and on what basis?

This is not theoretical question either. For example, I know unvaccinated people who are still self-isolating and I doubt very much have put anyone in danger, whereas I know _exactly _the group of vaccinated-careless parents (people who use vaccination as an excuse to huddle every morning and every afternoon with 0 precaution/distancing against all school protocols) who caused the outbreak at my kid's school. I find it pretty unfair to punish the former and celebrate the latter.

There are people who've been told _for years_ that their lifestyle choices (eating/drinking/smoking/lack-of-exercising habits) would be impacting their health and that they should take action, but just shrugged it off, and now are clogging the ICU for months no questions asked. Whereas someone who got adverse reactions to prior vaccines and is conscious about this one now gets denied care.

People like to imagine that there's one big group of caricatural enemies in those Trump-supporting antivax climate-change-denying non-mask-wearing rednecks that didn't get the vaccine and should be punished. And you can identify the "_bad_" people _just _by vaccination status- very convenient. Yet in real life, it's hardly the black or white situation that people make it out to be.

Like I said before, if someone was able to build an actually objective scale of how "good" you've been for the pandemic...how many people you positively or negatively impacted...then maybe, _maybe_ you could start thinking of that line of thinking as "fair".
But that's obviously impossible in practice. And even if it _was _possible, the morality of it would still be debatable. And even if it _was _feasible and even if it _was _deemed moral enough, that scale would _not _be synonymous with vaccination status. We know what the extremes would look like, sure, and vaccination can only be a plus- but I bet a good number of vaccinated people would be surprised to see themselves at the bottom of the list when they find out how they asymptomatically infected a ton of people, filling up a hospital in the process.


----------



## Drew

SpaceDock said:


> Back a couple months ago the Covid hospital numbers got so bad in my area they brought in national guard to assist in the care. They started turning away non Covid cases to local animal hospitals! Now in the Denver area they have a few care facilities that are strictly no Covid patients allowed, which is a bit better. What gets me is that people won’t take any precautions then they demand care, if you thought you didn’t need the science wing it at home, buddy. Even worse are these jerks that attack hospital staff because they think the doctors should use conspiracy therapies or that the doctors are trying to kill the Covid patients for money. Really sick stuff out there.


The NAtional Guard is being activated the start of January here too. 

My fiancee is a doctor so I get a bit of boots-on-the-ground perspective, and I think her take is worth thinking about. Having a dozen or two National Guard troops on hand isn't _exactly_ useless... like, they can move patients around the hospital, help with intake paperwork, move supplies where they're needed, that kind of stuff. But, the National Guard isn't a body of trained nurses. None of them have any medical training. They can't run a ventilator and adjust the flow of oxygen to a changing situation - that's a big enough ask even for a doctor who hasn't done it since their residency, since even something like that which you would _think_ would be easy takes a surprising amount of specialized knowledge. The National Guard, and I don't say this in any general sense, but from the perspective of fitness for employment in a hospital, is basically unskilled labor, and the labor shortages hospitals are dealing with are doctors and nurses. 

We're about to overrun our hospitals. @MaxOfMetal's situation in Wisconsin is starting to happen in hospitals all over the world. This isn't JUST the fault of the unvaccinated, though they're probably more at blame than any other group, but people who have gotten two shots and figure they've done their part so they're back to indoor dining, big social gatherings, and no masks while a new variant is sending cases to an all-time high while breaking through vaccines at an unprecedented rate need to stop and think about the bigger picture social consequences of their actions here too.


----------



## StevenC

Drew said:


> We're about to overrun our hospitals. @MaxOfMetal's situation in Wisconsin is starting to happen in hospitals all over the world. This isn't JUST the fault of the unvaccinated, though they're probably more at blame than any other group, but people who have gotten two shots and figure they've done their part so they're back to indoor dining, big social gatherings, and no masks while a new variant is sending cases to an all-time high while breaking through vaccines at an unprecedented rate need to stop and think about the bigger picture social consequences of their actions here too.


This right here.

It's mind blowing to me how many people think it's just over now. Like, I've got both of my shots but I'm still wearing a mask everywhere I can and take a LFT before visiting people and they do the same. But then I'm in the supermarket and people aren't wearing masks, or in the queue into the supermarket and people only put the mask on as they enter and don't leave any space.

Just so many things that just aren't a big deal for anyone involved but they won't do it.


----------



## Randy

> "We have seen relatively low rates of isolation for all of this pandemic. Some science has demonstrated less than a third of people are isolating when they need to. And so we really want to make sure that we had guidance in this moment where we were going to have a lot of disease that could be adhered to, that people were willing to adhere to," Walensky added.



https://thehill.com/policy/healthca...ce-about-what-we-thought-people-would-be-able

Super science-y


----------



## mbardu

Randy said:


> https://thehill.com/policy/healthca...ce-about-what-we-thought-people-would-be-able
> 
> Super science-y



I especially liked the part where they dropped the pretenses that vaccinations will help against infections and transmissions, yet will still maintain or strengthen vaccination mandates because of transmission reasons somehow.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> People like to imagine that there's one big group of caricatural enemies in those Trump-supporting antivax climate-change-denying non-mask-wearing rednecks that didn't get the vaccine and should be punished. And you can identify the "_bad_" people _just _by vaccination status- very convenient. Yet in real life, it's hardly the black or white situation that people make it out to be.



FWIW, pretty much all the Americans I know who aren't vaccinated are exactly this category (apart from one who is living in Tokyo where we get like double digit cases a day). Obviously there are people who have difficulty taking the vaccination for reasonable reasons, and obviously there are vaccinated people whose immunity has lapsed over time and wind up functionally spreading the disease, but a priori I can't see this as anything other than corner cases. When I was in upstate NY a couple months ago I'd say half the people out wore masks, and MAGA hats and antivax bumper stickers were plentiful. You're making it sound like that's a false characterization because there's nothing in theory preventing an unvaccinated person from living responsibly. That's not the type of argument I would want to base policy around in the middle of a pandemic.

And you're also painting a black-and-white picture for policy. Someone says they can't take the vaccine - on what grounds? Does it fit precedent for their behavior with previous vaccines? If policy allowed people to get waivers and then put them at no comparative disadvantage when it came to entry at an at-capacity hospital, could we lay that part of the argument to rest? If we put a 6 month post-shot limit on who we consider vaccinated, as it pertains to the same hospital admission scenario, could we lay that part of the argument to rest?


----------



## Randy

mbardu said:


> I especially liked the part where they dropped the pretenses that vaccinations will help against infections and transmissions, yet will still maintain or strengthen vaccination mandates because of transmission reasons somehow.



Not that they'll say this but vaccines are basically motorcycle helmets, but there are no rules on the road so you can go 200mph against traffic if you so choose BUT GOOD THING YOU WORE YOUR HELMET.


----------



## spudmunkey

Randy said:


> https://thehill.com/policy/healthca...ce-about-what-we-thought-people-would-be-able
> 
> Super science-y


I was listening to an interview on the radio with an official from ...I think it was Michigan, and she was basically throwing her hands up, "We're not ready for Omicron, we're still fighting a Delta wave that's never stopped. We're seen as a sort of bellwether for what will happen in surrounding states, and it's not because we're some sort of hub...it's just because we're a breeding ground. We have a significant portion of our citizenry who get a positive test, and then continue living their life like they didn't, and that there's no pandemic at all. Masking compliance is low, distancing and limiting gatherings is virtually non-existent in many communities...and these are some of the communities hit hardest."


----------



## Randy

spudmunkey said:


> I was listening to an interview on the radio with an official from ...I think it was Michigan, and she was basically throwing her hands up, "We're not ready for Omicron, we're still fighting a Delta wave that's never stopped. We're seen as a sort of bellwether for what will happen in surrounding states, and it's not because we're some sort of hub...it's just because we're a breeding ground. We have a significant portion of our citizenry who get a positive test, and then continue living their life that they didn't, and that there's no pandemic at all. Masking compliance is low, distancing and limiting gatherings is virtually non-existent in many communities...and these are some of the communities hit hardest."



Because the government actually took action to prevent people from doing those things in the early days but we all decided we didn't have the stomach for that (including supposed science minded liberal that decided they wanted their free shot and to go back to competitive French kissing tournaments), so regulations devolved into suggestions.


----------



## Adieu

Randy said:


> Not that they'll say this but vaccines are basically motorcycle helmets, but there are no rules on the road so you can go 200mph against traffic if you so choose BUT GOOD THING YOU WORE YOUR HELMET.



They're really not

For non-puking strangers, it really doesn't matter what part of you and how visibly is splattered in the intersection


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> FWIW, pretty much all the Americans I know who aren't vaccinated are exactly this category (apart from one who is living in Tokyo where we get like double digit cases a day). Obviously there are people who have difficulty taking the vaccination for reasonable reasons, and obviously there are vaccinated people whose immunity has lapsed over time and wind up functionally spreading the disease, but a priori I can't see this as anything other than corner cases.



On your first point, your experience differs from mine and that's OK.
I don't pretend that the "caricature" people don't exist in real life. I'm sure they do exist in very real numbers.
I just know those numbers are not the 99.9% of unvaccinated people that people think it is.

As for your second point, the "vaccinated people spreading the virus is a corner case"...this I take more issue with, because it is very wrong and it is a big problem in most western developed countries.
The vaccinated people have the certitude that they _cannot _be the ones spreading the virus (after all, it's been drilled into their heads how they're the faultless heroes for months now), so they let their guard down, and as a result today we are at basically record numbers of infections in most western nations - whereas the vaccination rates are close to an average of 80%. If the vaccinated were not heavily spreading the virus, how would the record numbers be possible with such a large majority of vaccinated people?
Like I posted a number of times, at the levels of waning we're seeing, the double-vaccinated are really not protected against infection and transmission anymore. The boosted are a little bit more, but even that is waning _fast _(Israel is pushing 4th doses already because the 3rd one has waned). This is supported by evidence of pretty comparable rates of infections per 100k between vaccinated and unvaccinated in countries where the vaccinated are actually tested.
At all levels, from those top down stats, to individual anecdotes (just check this very forum where a bunch of vaccinated people have been infected by other vaccinated people), it's very clear that the vaccinated are spreading the disease just the same. Far far from corner cases.
And yet people here close their eyes, block their ears and choose to believe preposterous made up stats like "99% of new infections are coming from unvaccinated people" just because it feels good to do so.



narad said:


> When I was in upstate NY a couple months ago I'd say half the people out wore masks, and MAGA hats and antivax bumper stickers were plentiful. You're making it sound like that's a false characterization because there's nothing in theory preventing an unvaccinated person from living responsibly. That's not the type of argument I would want to base policy around in the middle of a pandemic.
> 
> And you're also painting a black-and-white picture for policy. Someone says they can't take the vaccine - on what grounds? Does it fit precedent for their behavior with previous vaccines? If policy allowed people to get waivers and then put them at no comparative disadvantage when it came to entry at an at-capacity hospital, could we lay that part of the argument to rest? If we put a 6 month post-shot limit on who we consider vaccinated, as it pertains to the same hospital admission scenario, could we lay that part of the argument to rest?



If the policies were better to allow exemptions, that would certainly help. That would answer most of my beef. I wouldn't hold my breath though.
In many places (again, a good chunk of Western Europe, and in California for example...just the places I'm most familiar with), it's already very _very _difficult to get an exemption.
Not only that, but it is getting _more _difficult over time. Everyday, the polarization we're seeing and demonization of the unvaccinated is swaying public opinion even more (all too happy to have a scapegoat...) in making it more and more frowned upon and difficult.
Most of the time, you cannot even _start _to have that discussion. This is to levels where the arguments don't even _try _to make sense anymore (see article above: "vaccines don't really help against transmission, but we're still going to enforce more vaccines to help against transmission") but yet any question or deviation from the full-on "_vaccine for all and vaccine only_" messaging, and it's immediately seen as ignorant 5g-antivax.

Just like you have to bring it back to MAGA Trumpers stereotypes somehow, whereas it shouldn't be related at all. The theoretical (according to you) people with good reasons not to get the vaccine - those who supposedly wouldn't be good basis for policy...well they are not a theory, I know a bunch of people like that. For those people or those who know them, is the current policy good? Is Federal public policy that ignores them and instead is based on MAGA stereotypes or generalizations from a few select colorful places _better_?

I'm not painting a black and white picture of policy. I'd be thrilled if it was shades of gray. But today it's not.
Neither in the media, nor in practice. It's vaccinated or nothing. If you say something else, you're put in the "Trumper MAGAt" category. Good job with the nuance..


----------



## ramses

1) Everyone is either recovered from an infection or,
2) fully vaccinated.
3) Omicron infects many but outcomes are trivial.

Therefore, I must ask. Why is this thread still going? Why do people still care about a previous pandemic that is now another endemic virus?

(My questions are not rhetorical. I'm honestly confused.)


----------



## mbardu

ramses said:


> 1) Everyone is either recovered from an infection or,
> 2) fully vaccinated.
> 3) Omicron infects many but outcomes are trivial.
> 
> Therefore, I must ask. Why is this thread still going? Why do people still care about a previous pandemic that is now another endemic virus?
> 
> (My questions are not rhetorical. I'm honestly confused.)



1- Omicron is maybe less serious, but since _everyone _is going to catch it (not just the _bad _unvaccinated that people _love _to hate and _love _to wish harm upon), it will by sheer base number put a heavy burden on the health system and bring a lot of casualties.
2- Everyone is infected and infecting others, vaccinated or not, yet we're still ostracizing the unvaccinated because people like a good scapegoat
3- To fuel the hatred in #2, people are still coming up with made up numbers/arguments/theories on why the unvaccinated should be punished more and more - and as far as I'm concerned I keep calling those falsehoods when I see them, and people _really _don't like seeing that


----------



## Randy

1.) People are still dying from it. Like literally every day.
2.) Lots of people sick at the same time has a ripple effect on, well, everything
3.) It's overly rushed and optimistic to conclude that the virus has stopped mutating or that all subsequent mutations will be equally "trivial"
4.) Omicron at last estimate is only 1/2 to 2/3 of new cases, Delta and others are still out there.


----------



## Randy




----------



## mbardu

What I find funny is that if it were any other topic, this whole shebang (shifting public policy, dubious justifications, corporate interests dictating policies, selective use of biased science when it's not just making stuff up on the fly....) would be seen with a ton of scrutiny and denounced by most people.

But just tell those same people how they're the _good _ones because _they _got the shot, and suddenly, no more scrutiny.
Now we put a company as virtuous as _check notes_ *Pfizer *on a shiny can't-do-harm pedestal of selflessness, while we're letting utmost pandemic scientific authorities such as _double-take_ *Delta Air Lines* shape public policy on whether Omicron is going to be just real bad or instead _real _real bad.


----------



## Adieu

Randy said:


> View attachment 101529



Because Delta Airlines executives' paper pusher assistants are the go-to source for medical information...

Or, wait, are you posting this because you agree or to shame Delta?


----------



## Randy

mbardu said:


> Now we put a company as virtuous as



FWIW I was a person who said meh I don't love big pharma (is there a little pharma?) but this is a pandemic and we all gotta do our part and trust the science on this etc etc.

Vaccines were hard to come by (especially for my age group and no comorbidity), so when they put out the J&J vaccine and pushed stuff like "even though it's less effective against symptomatic illness, it's still 99.9% effective against hospitalization and death" and you were stupid if you questioned any of that, so of course I was gonna take the vaccine that was most readily available and was a single shot. The same herd mentality that drove the narrative on getting any vax was also driving the narrative on J&J.

Fast forward, when it came time for my booster, the two options were "essentially get the second dose of what you started" or the CDC literally saying "get one of whatever you want" which doesn't sound like especially science-y medical advice. With the lack of direction on this and not comfortable "picking whichever one I want" with VERY limited documentation on interactions, I essentially opted to "finish my regimen" of J&J and get the booster.

Fast forward to now and they basically say J&J is useless against Omicron. There's surprisingly little documentation about what J&J does after booster, and there's (to my knowledge) NO documentation on if you can get a dose of anything else after that, which one, just a booster or start a new course, when can you do it, etc.

Add to that, all the mandates are on having the vaccine but meanwhile I have a vaccine that's useless against the current strain, I'm nearly as susceptible to catching, getting sick from and spreading symptomatically, covid as much as an unvaccinated person yet according to NYS and the CDC, I've got my little card that says I can swim in the pool with all the "real vaxxed" people.

CDC went as far as recommending Pfizer/Moderna for the booster recently (mostly related to the clotting) but not explicitly tackling what a royal fucking it was the way they pitched J&J, and now refuse to fix what they fucked up. Confusion still abounds.

So yeah, I think it's totally appropriate at this point to question what they tell you regarding essentially a nonstop, unquestionable ad campaign for any of the pharma companies right now.

I'll tell you that masks work and staying the fuck away from people works. I'll have to get back to you on much else beyond that.


----------



## Randy

mbardu said:


> utmost pandemic scientific authorities such as _double-take_ *Delta Air Lines*



How about Southwest and American Airlines telling you that you don't need a mask either?

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/15/business/airline-ceos-question-masks-on-plane-rule/index.html



> "I think the case is very strong that masks don't add much, if anything, in the air cabin environment. It is very safe and very high quality compared to any other indoor setting," said Kelly.
> 
> "I concur. An aircraft is the safest place you can be," said Parker. "It's true of all of our aircraft — they all have the same HEPA filters and air flow."



Tell me that's not an infomercial/lobbying piece masquerading as news?


----------



## Adieu

Oh yeah, a HEPA filter in a ceiling somewhere is gonna be SOO helpful instead of masks when there's literally 8 people within a meter radius of you who can just cough/sneeze on you directly


----------



## IwantTacos

I now respond to book lengths posts with memes


----------



## StevenC

I feel like a 5150 today


----------



## Adieu

IwantTacos said:


> View attachment 101531
> 
> 
> I now respond to book lengths posts with memes



Why would anyone THANK an American medical practitioner for a disappointing outcome???

That's like thanking an expensive hooker that couldn't get you off.

Also, whoever prescribed oxycodone for pain to a critical patient with a respiratory virus deserves a bag of dicks and no severance pay. Even your illiterate neighborhood drug dealer can tell you that taking oxy while in respiratory distress WILL kill you.


----------



## Demiurge

Adieu said:


> Why would anyone THANK an American medical practitioner for a disappointing outcome???



People who work in healthcare risk their own health to help others. While I know this is the internet and everybody screeches fucking hyperbole all over the place, blaming the provider for a patient's death in the adult world in such a childish manner is ridiculous.


----------



## Adieu

Demiurge said:


> People who work in healthcare risk their own health to help others. While I know this is the internet and everybody screeches fucking hyperbole all over the place, blaming the provider for a patient's death in the adult world in such a childish manner is ridiculous.



Idk, the combination of oxy and oxygen makes me wonder if that angry family wasn't on to something there


----------



## Demiurge

^The line about oxy is in the family questions sections and not medications (and the writing is similar to the "dog shit nurses" line) so it's not clear if that was a request or the actual RX.


----------



## Adieu

Demiurge said:


> ^The line about oxy is in the family questions sections and not medications (and the writing is similar to the "dog shit nurses" line) so it's not clear if that was a request or the actual RX.



Next you'll say the handwriting is way too legible to possibly come from a medical professional

...hmm


----------



## Randy

6,700 hospitalized in NYS


----------



## nightflameauto

Randy said:


> Because the government actually took action to prevent people from doing those things in the early days but we all decided we didn't have the stomach for that (including supposed science minded liberal that decided they wanted their free shot and to go back to *competitive French kissing tournaments*), so regulations devolved into suggestions.


Shit. Nobody told me that was a thing. I've just been spitting on people.


----------



## MFB

Randy said:


> Fast forward to now and they basically say J&J is useless against Omicron. There's surprisingly little documentation about what J&J does after booster, and there's (to my knowledge) NO documentation on if you can get a dose of anything else after that, which one, just a booster or start a new course, when can you do it, etc..



I got a J&J shot back in May, and have not gotten a booster yet, and despite my co-worker who shits ~6' from me on a daily basis catching COVID - I remain unaffected. Parents also had an exposure and caught it at one point or another after vaccination, but I saw them while it was a possibly to transfer? Still fine.

I've had more close encounters and come out unscathed compared to anyone I know who's had the other shots and actually caught it


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> Fast forward, when it came time for my booster, the two options were "essentially get the second dose of what you started" or the CDC literally saying "get one of whatever you want" which doesn't sound like especially science-y medical advice. With the lack of direction on this and not comfortable "picking whichever one I want" with VERY limited documentation on interactions, I essentially opted to "finish my regimen" of J&J and get the booster.
> 
> Fast forward to now and they basically say J&J is useless against Omicron. There's surprisingly little documentation about what J&J does after booster, and there's (to my knowledge) NO documentation on if you can get a dose of anything else after that, which one, just a booster or start a new course, when can you do it, etc.


For whatever it's worth, the immunologists I know, and this is a couple weeks out of date so maybe it's changed, are of the mindset that mixing doses, including with J&J, is _probably_ more effective than a single regimine of three shots, though that hasn't gone through enough peer review to be definitive. And, I know this sounds an awful lot like the CDC advice you're taking issue with here, but enough people have gotten shots of J&J and then shots of Pfizer or Moderna that it's a reasonably safe assumption that the risks of mixing are pretty low, and almost certainly lower than having two shots vs having three. 

When the J&J vaccine was released, we didn't know omicron was coming so whether it would be effective against it wasn't on anyone's radar. The best we could say at the time was J&J was maybe not quite as good as the mRNA vaccines, but certainly better than no vaccine at all, and with supply scarce getting whatever you could get was the best risk mitigation strategy. I think this is another one of those situations, and I say that as someone you know thinks the CDC was dead wrong on their 5 day quarantine decision.


----------



## Drew

ramses said:


> 1) Everyone is either recovered from an infection or,
> 2) fully vaccinated.
> 3) Omicron infects many but outcomes are trivial.
> 
> Therefore, I must ask. Why is this thread still going? Why do people still care about a previous pandemic that is now another endemic virus?
> 
> (My questions are not rhetorical. I'm honestly confused.)


...beyond Randy's excellent response I'll add that it's too soon to assume that omicron infections are "trivial." Data from the UK suggests hospitalizations are 50-70% lower, but given high breakthrough rates it's been tough to detangle how much of that is because omicron is less virulent, and how much is because breakthrough infections tend to result in hospitalization less frequently. Initially attempts suggest it's more the latter than the former, but even if that weren't the case the prudent thing to do here is to assume it's no milder than Delta until we can prove otherwise.


----------



## bostjan

MFB said:


> I got a J&J shot back in May, and have not gotten a booster yet, and despite my co-worker who shits ~6' from me on a daily basis catching COVID - I remain unaffected. Parents also had an exposure and caught it at one point or another after vaccination, but I saw them while it was a possibly to transfer? Still fine.
> 
> I've had more close encounters and come out unscathed compared to anyone I know who's had the other shots and actually caught it


A majority of people who get infected are asymptomatic. You might have natural immunity and have no way of knowing. Or you might have badass white blood cells. There's really no way of knowing why this is.



Randy said:


> How about Southwest and American Airlines telling you that you don't need a mask either?
> 
> https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/15/business/airline-ceos-question-masks-on-plane-rule/index.html
> 
> 
> 
> Tell me that's not an infomercial/lobbying piece masquerading as news?


I have no polite way of saying what I think about that article, so instead I'll just say this:
The reason this virus spread so quickly early on was, with 100% certainty, caused by the airlines. So the reasoning they are using is 100% stupid and bad logic.


----------



## Randy

bostjan said:


> The reason this virus spread so quickly early on was, with 100% certainty, caused by the airlines. So the reasoning they are using is 100% stupid and bad logic.



Hey, what's wrong with picking up sick people in one place, packing them all into a small space for hours and then dropping them off on the other side of the country/world?


----------



## Randy

Worth noting on the Walensky article about picking the policy based on "what they think people will tolerate", she mentions the 5-day quarantine period is because the virus is most contagious three days after symptoms start and *two days before they start, *which is kind of a big deal when you're talking about something contagious as this.

The numbers have just exploded in a way that makes it impossible to contact trace, but lost somewhere in the discussion is... have we kinda abandoned close contact isolation as a thing? Because if you're VERY contagious two full days before you display symptoms, isn't that kinda too late?

I'm getting an increasing feeling like the new guidelines aren't science based at all, this is a full court press on trying to drive herd immunity through community spread like sending your kid to play with the one next door with chickenpox.


----------



## MFB

bostjan said:


> A majority of people who get infected are asymptomatic. You might have natural immunity and have no way of knowing. Or you might have badass white blood cells. There's really no way of knowing why this is.



So what you're saying is, I'm indestructible?


----------



## nightflameauto

Randy said:


> Worth noting on the Walensky article about picking the policy based on "what they think people will tolerate", she mentions the 5-day quarantine period is because the virus is most contagious three days after symptoms start and *two days before they start, *which is kind of a big deal when you're talking about something contagious as this.
> 
> The numbers have just exploded in a way that makes it impossible to contact trace, but lost somewhere in the discussion is... have we kinda abandoned close contact isolation as a thing? Because if you're VERY contagious two full days before you display symptoms, isn't that kinda too late?
> 
> I'm getting an increasing feeling like the new guidelines aren't science based at all, this is a full court press on trying to drive herd immunity through community spread like sending your kid to play with the one next door with chickenpox.


I think you're giving them too much credit. I really don't think they're trying to drive herd immunity, I think they're just tired of trying to fight the tide of stupid, so rather than continuing to fight it, they're giving ground to it inch by inch. Can't wait for the CDC to go full potato and start spouting off about ingesting bleach and irradiating your asshole with a UV light.


----------



## narad

nightflameauto said:


> I think you're giving them too much credit. I really don't think they're trying to drive herd immunity, I think they're just tired of trying to fight the tide of stupid, so rather than continuing to fight it, they're giving ground to it inch by inch. Can't wait for the CDC to go full potato and start spouting off about ingesting bleach and irradiating your asshole with a UV light.



Yea, you need policy that caters to the best outcomes given the expected behavior of the people, vs. the legit smartest and most sensible policy. If we could organize everyone to gather up food and water for a week, then live isolated in their rooms for the period of time, we could emerge with the pandemic completely thwarted. But you can't get people to organize or work out the logistics of that sort of thing, so here we are. As it relates to mbardu's point, incentivizing vaccines is what's good for the population. We can't have policy based around some "responsibly unvaccinated" minority if in introducing those concessions it costs us another 50 million unvaccinated and a huge swath of more infected, and consequential deaths from virus or others not being able to receive adequate care at overloaded hospitals.

It reminds me of when my dad had his triple bypass surgery, after decades of shitty diet, shitty lifestyle, and bad genetics on top of it. After the surgery I expressed that I hoped he would start exercising more, lose the weight, and maybe live a long life, to which he responded that the doctor says he has to walk 20 minutes a day. 20 minutes a day? I walk 20 minutes a day, to the station, as part of my commute, one way. It seemed outrageous to ask for such a meager demand, but when I had my mom speak to the doctor, the reason was that he felt there was no point in asking for more and having him not even try. But now I'm not even sure he really tries for the 20 minutes either. At any rate, it reminds me of that. You can't ask people for much, and you can't even expect them to do the backed-off complete concession of a reasonable demand that you do ask of them.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

You wouldn’t believe some of the crack pot theories I’ve heard first hand from people about how to not catch or how to get rid of the virus. It’s crazy the lengths some people will go to (and the cash they’ll drop) when you can get a free poke and go on your way. Where I live there’s a migration of Californian’s moving here, it’s fucked up real estate and rental costs real good. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to own my own home at this point with how things are going. Uhhh, anyways. Yeah. So with that I’m meeting all sorts of people who fit a stereotype of what I’ve come to understand as being ‘Cali’ style. Unfortunately many of them won’t wear mask’s either.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> For whatever it's worth, the immunologists I know, and this is a couple weeks out of date so maybe it's changed, are of the mindset that mixing doses, including with J&J, is _probably_ more effective than a single regimine of three shots, though that hasn't gone through enough peer review to be definitive. And, I know this sounds an awful lot like the CDC advice you're taking issue with here, but enough people have gotten shots of J&J and then shots of Pfizer or Moderna that it's a reasonably safe assumption that the risks of mixing are pretty low, and almost certainly lower than having two shots vs having three.



We have no way of really knowing whether it's safe or not, but eeeeh ... it's probably fine. 
Also, probably maybe perhaps it's useful to do it we guess...but we don't really need to back it up with any analysis. Or when there _are _analyses, they're often scary piles of garbage like the Pfizer ones, and/or showing the opposite of what they should be showing. But just get more shots though 

The state of science, and its use to justify policy and societal decisions nowadays, ladies and gentlemen.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> A majority of people who get infected are asymptomatic. You might have natural immunity and have no way of knowing. Or you might have badass white blood cells. There's really no way of knowing why this is.


Not trying to argue, just genuinely curious - do we KNOW the majority of people who get infected are asymptomatic? That seems like something that would require, well, more testing than we have, to know for sure. I'm just curious.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> Yea, you need policy that caters to the best outcomes given the expected behavior of the people, vs. the legit smartest and most sensible policy. If we could organize everyone to gather up food and water for a week, then live isolated in their rooms for the period of time, we could emerge with the pandemic completely thwarted.



Hey look, we agree on some stuff. I've been saying that for years now!
Use the national guard for that (give food to everyone and handle the absolute necessities) and give everyone free Netflix for a few weeks. Boom, no more pandemic 



narad said:


> As it relates to mbardu's point, incentivizing vaccines is what's good for the population. We can't have policy based around some "responsibly unvaccinated" minority if in introducing those concessions it costs us another 50 million unvaccinated and a huge swath of more infected, and consequential deaths from virus or others not being able to receive adequate care at overloaded hospitals.



Incentivizing vaccines based on what they actually do (instead of lies) is very good. I believe it's actually what Japan does- correct me if I'm wrong. No shitty pseudo-science, no vaccine mandate through false transmission reasons, no discrimination against the unvaccinated- and yet good vaccine coverage and good management of the pandemic. At the end of the day, the vaccines have saved and will continue to save a bunch of lives.
Not punishing people who can't get the vaccine through no fault of their own might sound like a dumb concession to you because it's not impacting you personally, but that might sound different if it was "real" to you instead of a theoretical possibility.
But even worse...yet again, you are presenting it as a huge risk of creating an even higher rates of infections, but this is not what's at stake here.
The unvaccinated are _not _the cause for the majority of infections and transmissions as of today in most Western countries. Even countries with the highest vaccination rates are at peak infection right now as we speak. The vaccinated are infecting the vaccinated just the same. How could it even be the _bad _unvaccinated people infecting the _righteous _vaccinated people anyway, considering that the latter group is avoiding the former one like the plague? While the vaccinated have no qualms going to parties with their righteous vaccinated friends where they end up catching Covid from other vaccinated friends anyway btw 

That's the disconnect. If you believe the made up stats from the other posters here with the hysterically false stuff like "99% of new cases are coming from the unvaccinated", then sure, it might lead you to think "oh no, we need to vaccinate everyone NOW". But that's simply not the case. From surveillance reports I keep sharing to anecdotes of vaccinated posters here who got Covid from vaccinated friends...it's simply not true. We could be a society of 100% vaccinated people, and we'd still be at peak infections.


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> I'm getting an increasing feeling like the new guidelines aren't science based at all, this is a full court press on trying to drive herd immunity through community spread like sending your kid to play with the one next door with chickenpox.


I'm not saying you're wrong... but this would be a short term play at best, since natural immunity doesn't seem to differ radically one way or another (one might be a bit better than the other, but they're at least playing on the same field) from that provided by vaccines, and it's likely it'll wave over time or be less effective against subsequent variants. 

Admittedly, I've LONG held that vaccines are a short-term tool to get community spread back down to levels where we can contact-trace and quarantine and eradicate the old fashioned way, and maybe six to twelve months of high natural immunity would allow us to do this and put the genie back in the bottle. But... given that we're already pushing hospital capacity and this wave is still growing at what seems to be an exponential rate since no one's doing a goddamn thing behaviorally to address this, it seems an awfully high risk for a short term solution with unclear benefit.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> an awfully high risk for a short term solution with unclear benefit.



Pandemic management so far summarized right there.


----------



## jaxadam

mbardu said:


> Pandemic management so far summarized right there.


----------



## nightflameauto

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> You wouldn’t believe some of the crack pot theories I’ve heard first hand from people about how to not catch or how to get rid of the virus. It’s crazy the lengths some people will go to (and the cash they’ll drop) when you can get a free poke and go on your way. Where I live there’s a migration of Californian’s moving here, it’s fucked up real estate and rental costs real good. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to own my own home at this point with how things are going. Uhhh, anyways. Yeah. So with that I’m meeting all sorts of people who fit a stereotype of what I’ve come to understand as being ‘Cali’ style. Unfortunately many of them won’t wear mask’s either.


I think my favorite "cure" so far involved eating twelve lemons, peel and all mind you, and then drinking soy sauce to follow it. Hey, if you survive that, at the very least you're gonna have some serious second thoughts next time somebody suggest a home remedy for something.


----------



## Adieu

nightflameauto said:


> I think my favorite "cure" so far involved eating twelve lemons, peel and all mind you, and then drinking soy sauce to follow it. Hey, if you survive that, at the very least you're gonna have some serious second thoughts next time somebody suggest a home remedy for something.



Wasn't it 12 lemons, 100 g of raw ginger, and a buncha garlic? What's this lemon only easy mode bullsh!t?


----------



## Empryrean

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> You wouldn’t believe some of the crack pot theories I’ve heard first hand from people about how to not catch or how to get rid of the virus. It’s crazy the lengths some people will go to (and the cash they’ll drop) when you can get a free poke and go on your way. Where I live there’s a migration of Californian’s moving here, it’s fucked up real estate and rental costs real good. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to own my own home at this point with how things are going. Uhhh, anyways. Yeah. So with that I’m meeting all sorts of people who fit a stereotype of what I’ve come to understand as being ‘Cali’ style. Unfortunately many of them won’t wear mask’s either.


As a Californian who hasn't left California id like to apologize and say that the Californians you're meeting are probably the least Californian people you'll meet. I've had a heavy dose of ex Californian people coming by and mouthing off how much better their new state is compared to Cali and there's something about that which tells me they only enjoyed being in California to act like a real hardass non-californian, if you get what I mean. Idk. Putting yourself in a socially difficult situation and acting like you're oppressed is just dumb to me.


----------



## mbardu

nightflameauto said:


> I think my favorite "cure" so far involved eating twelve lemons, peel and all mind you, and then drinking soy sauce to follow it. Hey, if you survive that, at the very least you're gonna have some serious second thoughts next time somebody suggest a home remedy for something.



I wonder who's more gullible at that point. The person who goes and eats 12 lemons whole, peel included...or the person who _believes_ that there actually _are _groups of people out there who'd be eating 12 lemons whole, peel included, as a cure for Covid. Also pretty funny considering it's coming from a group of people who will mock the "gullible", yet will see made up _stats _like "99% of infections are coming from unvaccinated people" and think to themselves "yeah that sounds OK, that number sounds right to me and it and must be true so I won't bother to check".


----------



## nightflameauto

Adieu said:


> Wasn't it 12 lemons, 100 g of raw ginger, and a buncha garlic? What's this lemon only easy mode bullsh!t?


I must have gotten a pussified newcomer version.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

Empryrean said:


> As a Californian who hasn't left California id like to apologize and say that the Californians you're meeting are probably the least Californian people you'll meet. I've had a heavy dose of ex Californian people coming by and mouthing off how much better their new state is compared to Cali and there's something about that which tells me they only enjoyed being in California to act like a real hardass non-californian, if you get what I mean. Idk. Putting yourself in a socially difficult situation and acting like you're oppressed is just dumb to me.


My rent was only 450$ three years ago, and then my jackass landlord (I have since moved) raised the rent by 100$ and tried to tell me that he could've done it by 200$ and to be thankful. I lived in a cool part of town, but it wasn't safe. Crime was getting worse (my apartment was broken into while I was home). So it's getting to the point where people who are lower income are having to either get a ton of roommates, or do like any self respecting 39 year old would do. And move back into my Father's home. People are moving here (mostly from Cali) and paying for homes with cash. So even locals who could afford a home are missing out aren't able to compete. But hey we got TWO Trader Joe's and legal recreational weed and some of the best craft beer available. It's also relatively safe here for those who can afford to live in the nice spots of town. So I understand the appeal, but still. I don't necessarily like it.


----------



## Adieu

mbardu said:


> I wonder who's more gullible at that point. The person who goes and eats 12 lemons whole, peel included...or the person who _believes_ that there actually _are _groups of people out there who'd be eating 12 lemons whole, peel included, as a cure for Covid. Also pretty funny considering it's coming from a group of people who will mock the "gullible", yet will see made up _stats _like "99% of infections are coming from unvaccinated people" and think to themselves "yeah that sounds OK, that number sounds right to me and it and must be true so I won't bother to check".



I think I know these gullible people

My dear mother tried to feed a 1 L jar of a similar shredded lemon-ginger-garlic mixture to my old man, implausibly claiming that it was for... hmm, I forget, either indigestion or allergies or cholesterol maybe?

Something about a very informative "12 organic cures for..." internet article may also have mentioned.

Then again, we've already been somewhat concerned about her since she started hanging dozens of dryer sheets (the little anti-static or whatever squares) on the fence and sprinkling cinnamon and paprika in the garden "because squirrels" earlier this year


----------



## nightflameauto

Adieu said:


> I think I know these gullible people
> 
> My dear mother tried to feed a 1 L jar of a similar shredded lemon-ginger-garlic mixture to my old man, implausibly claiming that it was for... hmm, I forget, either indigestion or allergies or cholesterol maybe?
> 
> Something about a very informative "12 organic cures for..." internet article may also have mentioned.
> 
> Then again, we've already been somewhat concerned about her since she started hanging dozens of dryer sheets (the little anti-static or whatever squares) on the fence and sprinkling cinnamon and paprika in the garden "because squirrels" earlier this year


Tell her about the baking soda and rabbits thing.

What's really sad to me about the lemon-ginger-garlic thing is that for every moron doing that, they're forgetting the vodka, hot sauce, salt and tomato juice. What a waste.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

Adieu said:


> I think I know these gullible people
> 
> My dear mother tried to feed a 1 L jar of a similar shredded lemon-ginger-garlic mixture to my old man, implausibly claiming that it was for... hmm, I forget, either indigestion or allergies or cholesterol maybe?
> 
> Something about a very informative "12 organic cures for..." internet article may also have mentioned.
> 
> Then again, we've already been somewhat concerned about her since she started hanging dozens of dryer sheets (the little anti-static or whatever squares) on the fence and sprinkling cinnamon and paprika in the garden "because squirrels" earlier this year


Okay so, the spices on the garden actually does work. I know it sounds whacky, but some animals hate certain smells. So there is some truth there. Garlic is a great addition you can use to help with cholesterol and blood pressure. But they aren't magic bullets. If a person's diet is trash otherwise. It probably wouldn't help much. The dryer sheets, that's a new one to me. I myself am a very healthy eater and have had success with fixing some of my issues by being more strict about what I eat. The problem is you have people who go full whacker doodle on this stuff and will turn their backs on modern medicine. I am not one of those people. For some reason there are many who feel like they have to pick one or the other, and that's a shame. I have both my vaccines with a booster scheduled for next week, but I also eat kelp to help my thyroid issues.


----------



## spudmunkey

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> Where I live there’s a migration of Californian’s moving here, it’s fucked up real estate and rental costs real good. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to own my own home at this point with how things are going.



For what it's worth, that's happening *IN* California, too. Since October, 4 houses on the same side of the street as ours, on our same block, all were "cash", 2 were international buyers, and one was sold even before it was officially listed, for more than what their asking was going to be. The agent went straight from the owners, to her potential client, and it was "sold" before any real paperwork was drawn up.



Dumple Stilzkin said:


> Uhhh, anyways. Yeah. So with that I’m meeting all sorts of people who fit a stereotype of what I’ve come to understand as being ‘Cali’ style. Unfortunately many of them won’t wear mask’s either.



It's worth noting that California is a big place, and Trump got about 35% of the popular vote, winning 23 out of the 58 counties.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> Not trying to argue, just genuinely curious - do we KNOW the majority of people who get infected are asymptomatic? That seems like something that would require, well, more testing than we have, to know for sure. I'm just curious.


https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/fo...tions-contribute-to-over-50-percent-of-spread
Maybe "know" is too strong a word, but if 50% of positive cases are asymptomatic at time of test, and asymptomatic people are less likely to test, it's a pretty safe assumption.


----------



## TedEH

Oh hey, the Quebec curfew is back - just in time to force everyone to cancel New Years, or to ignore the rule because it's New Years.


----------



## mbardu

Adieu said:


> I think I know these gullible people
> 
> My dear mother tried to feed a 1 L jar of a similar shredded lemon-ginger-garlic mixture to my old man, implausibly claiming that it was for... hmm, I forget, either indigestion or allergies or cholesterol maybe?
> 
> Something about a very informative "12 organic cures for..." internet article may also have mentioned.
> 
> Then again, we've already been somewhat concerned about her since she started hanging dozens of dryer sheets (the little anti-static or whatever squares) on the fence and sprinkling cinnamon and paprika in the garden "because squirrels" earlier this year



You're mixing a lot of things together.
You don't have to go all magnets and crystals about it, or try and heal your cancer with fruits, but there are tons of _simple _things that actually work that don't need to be demeaned_ just because_ they're simple. Granted I have no idea what dryer sheets are for, but spices _will _keep some animals at bay from your garden stuff. Just as vinegar will help you kill weeds, without giving you a nasty cancer in the process. Ginger-garlic is quite capable of helping some digestion issues; in a much more sustainable way than those shitty over the counter tablets that a lot of people are addicted to in the US.

Something doesn't have to say "Bayer Monsanto" or "Pfizer" on the tin, be manufactured for maximum profit, and with flashy TV commercials for it to actually be useful.



Dumple Stilzkin said:


> Okay so, the spices on the garden actually does work. I know it sounds whacky, but some animals hate certain smells. So there is some truth there. Garlic is a great addition you can use to help with cholesterol and blood pressure. But they aren't magic bullets. If a person's diet is trash otherwise. It probably wouldn't help much. The dryer sheets, that's a new one to me. I myself am a very healthy eater and have had success with fixing some of my issues by being more strict about what I eat. The problem is you have people who go full whacker doodle on this stuff and will turn their backs on modern medicine. I am not one of those people. For some reason there are many who feel like they have to pick one or the other, and that's a shame. I have both my vaccines with a booster scheduled for next week, but I also eat kelp to help my thyroid issues.



Pretty much this is the way to do it.


----------



## Adieu

TedEH said:


> Oh hey, the Quebec curfew is back - just in time to force everyone to cancel New Years, or to ignore the rule because it's New Years.



Wow, our Canadian neighbors again with the common sense... shocking


----------



## TedEH

I can understand the value of not having a big party right now, but the curfew is a HUGE pain in the ass, and it's not great that we were given no end date for it. If this was the route they were going to go, it should have been a preventative thing - announced before xmas so that _both of the giant days of gathering_ get curtailed - rather than waiting for everyone to gather at xmas, panic because this was a terrible idea, then spring a "faack New Years" on us.

I'm excited for another 6 months of people speeding home a 9:50, because _of course they went out anyway_.


----------



## thebeesknees22

TedEH said:


> I can understand the value of not having a big party right now, but the curfew is a HUGE pain in the ass, and it's not great that we were given no end date for it. If this was the route they were going to go, it should have been a preventative thing - announced before xmas so that _both of the giant days of gathering_ get curtailed - rather than waiting for everyone to gather at xmas, panic because this was a terrible idea, then spring a "faack New Years" on us.
> 
> I'm excited for another 6 months of people speeding home a 9:50, because _of course they went out anyway_.




I loathe the curfew. I hate it more than I can express. This will no doubt turn into another 5-7 months of this shit again, because Legault loves his power trips. 


...I'm tired. And as of tomorrow, we're back in prison for no telling how long. 

Bloody hell....


----------



## Adieu

Oh, it's an ACTUAL curfew, with an on/off cutoff time?

Yeah that's bull.

Sounds like the various bogus local laws Americans keep on the books for selective enforcement against undesirables, like misdemeanor spitting on pavement or for changing shirts in a parked vehicle, or not keeping $20 cash on your person being definitive proof of vagrancy that allows city police to eject you beyond city limits


----------



## thebeesknees22

Adieu said:


> Oh, it's an ACTUAL curfew, with an on/off cutoff time?
> 
> Yeah that's bull.



yeah this is like full on lockdown curfiew, you do not leave your home, you do not have anyone over, you do not even go outside. You are in prison curfew. It was around 7 months of it last time. ...that's a long time....long damn time for that shit. 

I don't even do anything here, but just the thought of it disgusts me.... and here we are... again... Locking people down forever is no solution.


----------



## Adieu

Seems to work well in China, why the hell not?


----------



## Randy




----------



## spudmunkey

Randy said:


> View attachment 101548


One of the reasons the Flight Attendants Union has come out against the changes...


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> Incentivizing vaccines based on what they actually do (instead of lies) is very good. I believe it's actually what Japan does- correct me if I'm wrong. No shitty pseudo-science, no vaccine mandate through false transmission reasons, no discrimination against the unvaccinated- and yet good vaccine coverage and good management of the pandemic. At the end of the day, the vaccines have saved and will continue to save a bunch of lives.
> ...
> But even worse...yet again, you are presenting it as a huge risk of creating an even higher rates of infections, but this is not what's at stake here.



Simply put, we don't know. We don't know what's at stake. It's not pseudo science to think that adding millions more infected to an otherwise heavily burdened medical system would cost a lot of lives. And I see no reason not to treat unvaccinated people as significantly more prone to infection than the comparable vaccinated person. And remember, whatever difference that is, it's the exponent. Yes, vaccinated people are spreading the virus. No, that doesn't give us any indication of what the situation would be like with significantly less vaccinated people.

The least scientific thing I think you can do (besides crystals) is cite small scale articles that support your position when realistically this is a hot fresh-out-of-the-oven strain and there is not sufficient data to answer even basic questions about its spread or seriousness. No amount of italicizing words is going to change that, only time. And if policy wants to take a cautious stance on that, I'm fine with it.


And as far as what Japan does, Japan doesn't know WTF they're doing:

https://twitter.com/rumireports/sta...onal/media-national/pen-coronavirus-theories/

We've magically been okay so far but if I had to guess it's because in general the populace follows mask wearing and distancing at high rates, and the strains here have just been a different kind. It seems to be the case with asian countries in general, and I mean, we made it so we should be better at dealing with it (/jk). Maybe the mandated quarantine upon entering the country helped. But if omicron has a mortality rate anywhere near delta, and we get a proper omicron foothold in the country, given the vaccination rates here and piss poor organization on booster shots, crazy difficulty in getting tested, we're gonna be fucked.


----------



## Adieu

I say we should just lock the borders for a month, ban all non-essential worker movement outside the home, and mandate full hazmat gear for all essential workers.

Oh and mobilize all spare military and national guard for free food delivery. In full hazmat gear.

Don't tell me there aren't a few dozen billion MREs gathering dust somewhere until they expire and get replaced due to military doctrine.

PS the right mix of "border on full lock", "national security", and authoritarian heavy-handedness can get Republicans on board, and social free sh!t and taking COVID seriously for a change should make the Democrats grudgingly accept it.


----------



## Andii

thebeesknees22 said:


> yeah this is like full on lockdown curfiew, you do not leave your home, you do not have anyone over, you do not even go outside. You are in prison curfew. It was around 7 months of it last time. ...that's a long time....long damn time for that shit.
> 
> I don't even do anything here, but just the thought of it disgusts me.... and here we are... again... Locking people down forever is no solution.


I find this so disturbing and fascinating. Beyond people doing something extremely conspicuous like hosting a party, is this actually enforced regularly?


----------



## thebeesknees22

Andii said:


> I find this so disturbing and fascinating. Beyond people doing something extremely conspicuous like hosting a party, is this actually enforced regularly?



So when they did it last time the police handed out quite a few hefty fines. They range from $1,000-$6,000 a pop I think.

I too find it disturbing. It's just wide open for abuse of power.


----------



## TedEH

Andii said:


> is this actually enforced regularly?


Last time this happened, I was regularly outside my place because I was assisting a friend of mine who had broken her leg. This meant if you lost track of time or the day just ran late you had to floor it back home - with everyone speeding because they were afraid of the fines, and the cops were definitely out enforcing it - otherwise you're basically stuck crashing wherever you happened to be at 10.

I've got a bit of a weird out, 'cause I'm right at the border of Ontario and the border is wide open, so I can arguably leave whenever I want, I just can't _come back into the province_, (aka can't go home) after 10.


----------



## Randy

Waste of energy. We didn't have curfews as much as set times the bars had to shutdown since there was a time of night it just turns into a party free-for-all. That kinda makes sense but a blanket curfew like you're spreading covid by driving on the road makes no sense.


----------



## narad

Randy said:


> Waste of energy. We didn't have curfews as much as set times the bars had to shutdown since there was a time of night it just turns into a party free-for-all. That kinda makes sense but a blanket curfew like you're spreading covid by driving on the road makes no sense.



No car-pooling (after 10PM)


----------



## Randy

Motorcycles only.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> Simply put, we don't know. We don't know what's at stake. It's not pseudo science to think that adding millions more infected to an otherwise heavily burdened medical system would cost a lot of lives. And I see no reason not to treat unvaccinated people as significantly more prone to infection than the comparable vaccinated person. And remember, whatever difference that is, it's the exponent. Yes, vaccinated people are spreading the virus. No, that doesn't give us any indication of what the situation would be like with significantly less vaccinated people.
> 
> The least scientific thing I think you can do (besides crystals) is cite small scale articles that support your position when realistically this is a hot fresh-out-of-the-oven strain and there is not sufficient data to answer even basic questions about its spread or seriousness. No amount of italicizing words is going to change that, only time. And if policy wants to take a cautious stance on that, I'm fine with it.



It's a bit of a weak attack to pretend like somehow I'd be the one doing anti-science stuff like...posting small scale articles somehow?
Where did I do that- can you show me? Take an objective look and you'll see that the ones posting made up numbers ("_99% of new infections are coming from the unvaccinated_" lmao, I still can't recover from that one ), unrelated anecdotes (for example to describe an imagined caricatural unvaccinated population) are not on the side you think they are.
Just in your post, you are speculating, using unfounded assumptions ("the unvaccinated _have _to be significantly more prone to infection") without any backing or proof. Earlier you were recommending health policy based off of your impressions of an area of the US where you saw Trump supporters and bumper stickers...
How is _that _scientific?

Take a look a couple of pages back at what I shared if you'd like to discuss in good faith because the only things I've posted are country-level official surveillance reports. Hardly small-scale dubious articles, and I didn't have to speculate much. Just pointed to hard facts.

It is clear that there is a heavy cognitive bias here and in most places, that the media and politics like to play on, where supposedly the vaccinated would not be contributing to new infections at the moment. This couldn't be farther from the truth. And I know it's difficult to think otherwise because it sounds like it should be true...but it's just not the case.

Don't want to go a few pages back, that's OK -I can add some more.
In California, the most vaccinated county is Marin. It is surrounded by heavily vaccinated counties too, with 12+ population almost at* 95%* vaccination coverage. Among the highest area in the country actually. Yet daily infections have almost never been higher:




If you want absolute numbers, this works out to about 55 infections per 100k for Marin county, despite the highest vaccination coverage, whereas Contra Costa county, which is just across the bay, is at "only" 35 infections per 100k, despite being 10% lower in vaccination coverage.

For practical purposes, Marin county is what a fully vaccinated society looks like (you're not going to get to 100% exactly), and yet it's at peak infections. How can this be the case if the cases are supposed to come from the unvaccinated? Everyone is already vaccinated and yet the cases are still at their peak .

Extend that nationwide. If we were 95% vaccinated, we'd still be at the same highs as the two previous peaks so...why stigmatize the unvaccinated?

It's also crazy because I bet most people living in the US now _personally _know at least a handful of vaccinated people who got Covid from other vaccinated people, and it _still _doesn't register that maybe it's not the unvaccinated's fault that everyone's getting infected  . How does this reconcile for people when both the actual data shows the most vaccinated areas are not faring any better as well as their own personal experience contradicting what they want to believe?


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> It's a bit of a weak attack to pretend like somehow I'd be the one doing anti-science stuff like...posting small scale articles somehow?
> Where did I do that- can you show me? Take an objective look and you'll see that the ones posting made up numbers ("_99% of new infections are coming from the unvaccinated_" lmao, I still can't recover from that one ), unrelated anecdotes (for example to describe an imagined caricatural unvaccinated population) are not on the side you think they are.
> Just in your post, you are speculating, using unfounded assumptions ("the unvaccinated _have _to be significantly more prone to infection") without any backing or proof. Earlier you were recommending health policy based off of your impressions of an area of the US where you saw Trump supporters and bumper stickers...
> How is _that _scientific?
> 
> Take a look a couple of pages back at what I shared if you'd like to discuss in good faith because the only things I've posted are country-level official surveillance reports. Hardly small-scale dubious articles, and I didn't have to speculate much. Just pointed to hard facts.
> 
> It is clear that there is a heavy cognitive bias here and in most places, that the media and politics like to play on, where supposedly the vaccinated would not be contributing to new infections at the moment. This couldn't be farther from the truth. And I know it's difficult to think otherwise because it sounds like it should be true...but it's just not the case.
> 
> Don't want to go a few pages back, that's OK -I can add some more.
> In California, the most vaccinated county is Marin. It is surrounded by heavily vaccinated counties too, with 12+ population almost at* 95%* vaccination coverage. Among the highest area in the country actually. Yet daily infections have almost never been higher:
> 
> View attachment 101555
> 
> 
> If you want absolute numbers, this works out to about 55 infections per 100k for Marin county, despite the highest vaccination coverage, whereas Contra Costa county, which is just across the bay, is at "only" 35 infections per 100k, despite being 10% lower in vaccination coverage.
> 
> For practical purposes, Marin county is what a fully vaccinated society looks like (you're not going to get to 100% exactly), and yet it's at peak infections. How can this be the case if the cases are supposed to come from the unvaccinated? Everyone is already vaccinated and yet the cases are still at their peak .
> 
> Extend that nationwide. If we were 95% vaccinated, we'd still be at the same highs as the two previous peaks so...why stigmatize the unvaccinated?
> 
> It's also crazy because I bet most people living in the US now _personally _know at least a handful of vaccinated people who got Covid from other vaccinated people, and it _still _doesn't register that maybe it's not the unvaccinated's fault that everyone's getting infected  . How does this reconcile for people when both the actual data shows the most vaccinated areas are not faring any better as well as their own personal experience contradicting what they want to believe?



I think you're just kind of on auto-repeat at this point so I don't really want to wade into it. I'll just let the previous points stand: we don't know enough about this strain yet to jump to any conclusions, like this notion that there is not any advantage to being vaccinated when it comes to transmission and hospitalization. When we have data showing this, I'll happily surrender any efforts to prioritize treatment or freedoms for vaccinated people. But you definitely can't go around picking counties here or there and throwing up plots for comparison, or keep talking about some guy like 20 pages back who threw out this 99% figure, like it's going to make a strong argument of these points. That's not how any of this works. 

Vaccinated people do get and spread the virus. I'm going to state that despite it being an obvious fact, because you seem to be arguing like we're all saying otherwise. What we need to understand are not general truths but credible statistics regarding the behavior of the virus. Omicron is definitely delta-on-crack as far as transmissibility is concerned, but that in itself is not any reason to act like the vaccines are now like just sugar water. It's a quantitative difference, not a qualitative one. If the logic of prioritizing vaccinated people during alpha/delta was sound, it is still sound. How does this translate into practical differences in viral spread in communities? We don't know.


----------



## narad

It's like I'm in a parking lot and some asshole drives some modified truck by me with giant black smoke stacks shooting out of his exhaust, and I say, "Hey man, WTF! You're dumping fumes everywhere" and he replies, "Yea man but actually most atmospheric pollution and smog comes from developing countries, and us guys that modify our trucks this way are not a statistically significant part of the problem." "Oh, you're right. Sorry, for a minute there I thought you were an asshole!"


----------



## SpaceDock

What he doesn’t seem to want to admit is that we know vaccinated people get Covid, but you know what? They don’t die from it without having bad preexisting conditions. These people in Marin are vaccinated and aware they can still get get/spread so they still get tested so they can make informed decisions, wow big surprise. I understand there are people with legit medical and religious reasons to not get vaccinated, I accept them. What I won’t accept is tons of wackos with political Facebook justifications for not helping their communities while they act like they are patriots. The reason why we all dislike the unvaccinated is that they are clogging up hospitals, driving up death numbers while the rest of us thought we would be able to move the fuck on by now. These people are a dredge on society and I will not spend any time reading wall o text bs. Help your community, get vaccinated, act with caution when you suspect positive, let’s get through this.


----------



## mbardu

SpaceDock said:


> What he doesn’t seem to want to admit is that we know vaccinated people get Covid, but you know what? They don’t die from it without having bad preexisting conditions. These people in Marin are vaccinated and aware they can still get get/spread so they still get tested so they can make informed decisions, wow big surprise. I understand there are people with legit medical and religious reasons to not get vaccinated, I accept them. What I won’t accept is tons of wackos with political Facebook justifications for not helping their communities while they act like they are patriots. The reason why we all dislike the unvaccinated is that they are clogging up hospitals, driving up death numbers while the rest of us thought we would be able to move the fuck on by now. These people are a dredge on society and I will not spend any time reading wall o text bs. Help your community, get vaccinated, act with caution when you suspect positive, let’s get through this.



Get the vaccine and help yourself, for sure. Get the vaccine to avoid hospitalization is a fine argument in and of itself, so no need to make it about community transmission or anything unrelated. Unless you want to say anything and everything personal health related becomes "helping the community" by making you less likely to end up in the hospital, in which case also mandate that people eat well and exercise 3 times a week so at least it will be consistent.

Help your community by not going out if you don't need to, properly masking and distancing, being a decently clean person, and you'll already do more than the average person out there.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

A woman my wife works with, fell today and injured her tailbone but she doesn't know how bad because she wasn't able to get into the ER due to the influx of walk-in's. She's going to go back tomorrow but will have to search elsewhere if she can't get in again. At my wife's job they're continually short-staffed because so many people are out with covid.. managers, associates, register operators, etc... now more than ever before. 

My wife and I are both vaxed/ boosted but we live in a town where very few people are masked and at least where she works, very few are vaccinated. I'll go out on a limb and suggest that if the people where I live were taking steps to get vaxed and wear masks, that this woman would've likely been able to have gotten seen for her injury. I don't have any stats to throw down but people around here aren't relying on science or stats.. They just don't fucking care... period.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mbardu said:


> Get the vaccine and help yourself, for sure. Get the vaccine to avoid hospitalization is a fine argument in and of itself, so no need to make it about community transmission or anything unrelated. Unless you want to say anything and everything personal health related becomes "helping the community" by making you less likely to end up in the hospital, in which case also mandate that people eat well and exercise 3 times a week so at least it will be consistent.



Prior to the pandemic, how many hospitals, entire hospitals, were closed due to type 2 diabetes cases overwhelming resources?


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> I think you're just kind of on auto-repeat at this point so I don't really want to wade into it. I'll just let the previous points stand: we don't know enough about this strain yet to jump to any conclusions, like this notion that there is not any advantage to being vaccinated when it comes to transmission and hospitalization. When we have data showing this, I'll happily surrender any efforts to prioritize treatment or freedoms for vaccinated people. But you definitely can't go around picking counties here or there and throwing up plots for comparison, or keep talking about some guy like 20 pages back who threw out this 99% figure, like it's going to make a strong argument of these points. That's not how any of this works.
> 
> Vaccinated people do get and spread the virus. I'm going to state that despite it being an obvious fact, because you seem to be arguing like we're all saying otherwise. What we need to understand are not general truths but credible statistics regarding the behavior of the virus. Omicron is definitely delta-on-crack as far as transmissibility is concerned, but that in itself is not any reason to act like the vaccines are now like just sugar water. It's a quantitative difference, not a qualitative one. If the logic of prioritizing vaccinated people during alpha/delta was sound, it is still sound. How does this translate into practical differences in viral spread in communities? We don't know.



>_Is shown data and plots_
=>"You can't just go showing data and comparisons that disprove my point man, I want data that agrees with me" 

I don't know what to tell you at this point.
It's not factual data you want, it's any talking point that feeds into your bias.

As for hospitalization, no matter how you want to take the discussion there, it is not related.
If you want to say "vaccines are good and will protect _you _against severe cases and hospitalization", that's a sound argument, and should be sufficient for most people.
It is the same argument as telling people to eat well and have a healthy lifestyle and be careful because they will reduce their risk of severe health issues and accidents.



narad said:


> It's like I'm in a parking lot and some asshole drives some modified truck by me with giant black smoke stacks shooting out of his exhaust, and I say, "Hey man, WTF! You're dumping fumes everywhere" and he replies, "Yea man but actually most atmospheric pollution and smog comes from developing countries, and us guys that modify our trucks this way are not a statistically significant part of the problem." "Oh, you're right. Sorry, for a minute there I thought you were an asshole!"



See, it's not like that at all. It _would _be like someone driving a Prius shaped truck that actually pollutes just as much as a modified truck- and _that _driver using pollution argument to ask for special privileges for himself and punishment for the guy with the truck.

But anyway, it's a bit rich to try and make a point through a weird wonky unrelated comparison after your tirade about "science". Is _that _comparison science?
Is ignoring and pivoting when you are shown data that doesn't agree with your preconceived notions what you call "science" as well?


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> Prior to the pandemic, how many hospitals, entire hospitals, were closed due to type 2 diabetes cases overwhelming resources?



I fail to see how that's related, but since you raise the point I'll bite.
Say there was no pandemic and hospitals were indeed full of type 2 diabetes or patients sick with preventable cancers or heart diseases.
I actually don't think it would regularly go into "redirect urgent patients to another hospital altogether" on the regular, but even today it's not unheard of to have months of wait for procedures in some specialties due to a clogged up system.
So, would you tell _those _people that they won't deserve healthcare because they chose not to have good enough lifestyles and have been putting themselves at risk knowingly (like non vaccinated patients have been putting themselves at risk)? Would you also tell them that they would be losing their job because of their health decisions?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mbardu said:


> I fail to see how that's related, but since you raise the point I'll bite.
> Say there was no pandemic and hospitals were indeed full of type 2 diabetes or patients sick with preventable cancers or heart diseases.
> I actually don't think it would regularly go into "redirect urgent patients to another hospital altogether" on the regular, but even today it's not unheard of to have months of wait for procedures in some specialties due to a clogged up system.
> So, would you tell _those _people that they won't deserve healthcare because they chose not to have good enough lifestyles and have been putting themselves at risk knowingly (like non vaccinated patients have been putting themselves at risk)? Would you also tell them that they would be losing their job because of their health decisions?



I'm not talking hypothetical world's that don't exist, but the world we're currently living in. 

Right now, in our world (which we'll call "World 1" moving forward), covid has caused hospitals to close. Not specialty care, but entire hospitals. ICUs. ERs. 

Has obesity done that at this scale? In World 1?


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> I'm not talking hypothetical world's that don't exist, but the world we're currently living in.
> 
> Right now, in our world (which we'll call "World 1" moving forward), covid has caused hospitals to close. Not specialty care, but entire hospitals. ICUs. ERs.
> 
> Has obesity done that at this scale? In World 1?



Even in today's world, heart conditions and cancers remain the top causes of deaths in the developed world. Accidents are not far behind. Covid _alone _is not causing hospitals to close, but Covid (that was not planned for in our infrastructure) *plus* all the other stuff is causing us to be over capacity.

Now, this whole pandemic situation is not new. It's been almost 2 years now, which is a long time. It is shown that you can significantly improve your cardiovascular health with just a few months of lifestyle changes, and same can be said for a good number of cancers and chronic conditions like liver diseases and diabetes. Even a lot of smoking-related lung cancer damage has been shown to be reversible. If you want to avoid accidents, it is also pretty easy to go the speed limit and not do dangerous activities. The risk of getting a severe case of Covid remains a fraction of a percent, and is smaller than the lifetime risk of heart disease or cancer with poor lifestyle choices.

Imagine a world where people took their health seriously, you halve the heart issues, cancers and accidents...and suddenly not only do you save 700k lives a year, but you take away a huge systemic burden on the system (some chronic diseases take years of care if they are even cured at all).

So in the two years that have passed, a huge number of people could have helped their community by being healthy, by not being a burden on the health system, by not having avoidable heart attacks and going to the ER, by driving the speed limit, by not drinking alcohol and by stopping any dangerous hobby. But did anyone change their lifestyle? Absolutely not. Did those people lose their jobs? I don't think so. Did people rejoice at the notion of stopping their healthcare? Not that I'm aware. Why not?
After all, they're in the _exact _same situation as the unvaccinated guy. That guy is making a decision that many would find dumb, that may give him a higher risk of severe health issues, and that is making him more likely to clog up the health system through his hospitalization. Sure. So are the people eating like shit, not exercising, driving like dumbasses, having dangerous hobbies etc.
Those people just don't have a constant barrage of media driven hate to fight, so it's a-OK for those folks to make dumb decisions that endanger their health and takes them to the hospital. Why?
Is it because "there's a vaccine so it's easy"? Some people who've had severe adverse effects in the past with prior vaccines don't find it easy to roll the dice on another one. on the other hand, a lot of people also find it easy to eat well, exercise and not drink. Why don't we force _that _on everyone else since it's easy.

Or are you saying that under Covid, because there's more overall load on the healthcare system, we should _selectively _punish only _some _health choice _specifically_, but not others? Talk about double standards.

"Funny" thing is that once infected with Covid and in the hospital, the risk of ICU and death becomes way less about vaccinated/unvaccinated, and way more about all those comorbidities, many of which could be addressed through lifestyle. So even if you wanted to be consistent there, you would _want _to punish poor lifestyle choices leading to comorbidities at least as much as non-vaccination.
But no, it has to be "vaccine for all and vaccine only", even without any logic to support it.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mbardu said:


> no



That's what I thought. 

Also, I'll give you a buffalo nickel if you can find where I said we should not give someone healthcare for any reason.


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> That's what I thought.
> 
> Also, I'll give you a buffalo nickel if you can find where I said we should not give someone healthcare for any reason.



Was there a yes/no question?
If you were not interested in the answers, I'm not really sure why you asked unrelated questions to start with- but that's your call at the end of the day.

As for your point, it's definitely _*not *_"Covid _alone _has caused hospitals to close" and it's at best disingenuous to say that. Covid _plus all the other stuff_, has caused the system to be over capacity; so now there are shitty consequences like redirections to other hospitals or the like because our system is not as solid as we thought.

But it is definitely "Covid plus other stuff", not just Covid.
There have been about 7 Million estimated Covid hospitalizations since the _start _of the pandemic (source). So say 3.5 million per year.
In a typical year, there are *130 *Million ER visits in the US (source), so it's not like Covid is now suddenly 90% of the emergencies...it's just that the system was stretched already almost at capacity before the pandemic - including because of a lot of _preventable _stuff.
Now that we're over capacity because "old preventable stuff + new preventable stuff", we are penalizing the "unvaccinated" preventable stuff, but for some reason, crickets about all the _other _preventable stuff, that is still a majority.

"If everyone was vaccinated, there would be less people in the ICU and it would suck less", well sure. But if everyone made good lifestyle choices, there would be _even less_ people in the ICU, including _even less_ people in the ICU _with Covid_ because of the significant impact of preventable comorbidities when you do catch it. But do you see people taking away the jobs of drinkers and unealthy eaters? Why not?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mbardu said:


> Was there a yes/no question?
> If you were not interested in the answers, I'm not really sure why you asked unrelated questions to start with- but that's your call at the end of the day.
> 
> Again, to your point, it's definitely _*not *_"Covid has caused hospitals to close" and it's at best disingenuous to say that. Covid _plus all the other stuff_, has caused the system to be over capacity; so now there are shitty consequences like redirections to other hospitals or the like because our system is not as solid as we thought.
> 
> But it is definitely "Covid plus other stuff", not just Covid.
> There have been about 7 Million estimated Covid hospitalizations since the _start _of the pandemic (source). So say 3.5 million per year.
> In a typical year, there are *130 *Million ER visits in the US (source), so it's not like Covid is now suddenly 90% of the emergencies...it's just that the system was already almost at capacity before the pandemic - including because of a lot of _preventable _stuff.
> Now that we're over capacity because "old preventable stuff + new preventable stuff", we are penalizing the "unvaccinated" preventable stuff, but for some reason, crickets about all the other preventable stuff, that is still a majority.
> Why?



The difference is the length of hospital stay. You can have many times the ER visits that are quick flips, in fact most large hospitals have entire bays of rooms meant to be flipped in under an hour or two, but covid hospitalizations aren't quick, often measured in weeks, and that's what's clogging the system.


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> The difference is the length of hospital stay. You can have many times the ER visits that are quick flips, in fact most large hospitals have entire bays of rooms meant to be flipped in under an hour or two, but covid hospitalizations aren't quick, often measured in weeks, and that's what's clogging the system.



There are very few short Covid visits. That much is true.
But there are also very few short term hospital stays for accidents with heavy trauma, or for heart accidents with multiple surgeries.
And to top it off, when Covid cases go into the weeks to months of care, vaccinated vs unvaccinated is not really the factor anymore.
It's mostly the comorbidities that will have an impact at this point, and there again a lot of things are _entirely preventable_.
So the unvaccinated talking point again falls flat.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mbardu said:


> There are very few short Covid visits. That much is true.
> But there are also very few short term hospital stays for accidents with heavy trauma, or for heart accidents with multiple surgeries.
> And to top it off, when Covid cases go into the weeks to months of care, vaccinated vs unvaccinated is not really the factor anymore.
> It's mostly the comorbidities that will have an impact at this point, and there again a lot of things are _entirely preventable_.
> So the unvaccinated talking point again falls flat.



But you're comparing significant lifestyle changes with various socioeconomic factors to getting a free shot (or two or three) with extremely minimal instance of life threatening side-effects, or wearing masks, or being a bit more careful about where you go and how close you get to people. 

Which one is the easier solve? Or, which one _should_ be?

Why can't we work on both/all?

Right now, in World 1, covid has caused hospitals to close. Was it just a case of the last small blade of straw to break the already overburdened camel's back? I'm not convinced. Maybe in some areas where resources were already thin, but the scale we're seeing it now is unprecedented.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> >_Is shown data and plots_
> =>"You can't just go showing data and comparisons that disprove my point man, I want data that agrees with me"
> 
> I don't know what to tell you at this point.
> It's not factual data you want, it's any talking point that feeds into your bias.
> 
> As for hospitalization, no matter how you want to take the discussion there, it is not related.
> If you want to say "vaccines are good and will protect _you _against severe cases and hospitalization", that's a sound argument, and should be sufficient for most people.
> It is the same argument as telling people to eat well and have a healthy lifestyle and be careful because they will reduce their risk of severe health issues and accidents.
> 
> 
> 
> See, it's not like that at all. It _would _be like someone driving a Prius shaped truck that actually pollutes just as much as a modified truck- and _that _driver using pollution argument to ask for special privileges for himself and punishment for the guy with the truck.
> 
> But anyway, it's a bit rich to try and make a point through a weird wonky unrelated comparison after your tirade about "science". Is _that _comparison science?
> Is ignoring and pivoting when you are shown data that doesn't agree with your preconceived notions what you call "science" as well?



This is why I don't talk about science to non-scientists. It's okay to do with a vast majority of this forum and obviously you don't need formal education to understand what data supports what arguments, but every once in a while it really backfires. In this case, to grab data from two counties in CA and try to make a claim about transmissibility of the virus between vaccinated and unvaccinated people is simply wrong. You would fail that test if you were being asked "do these plots support your claim"? We don't know about transmissibility between these two groups of people yet. You can't do science without data. We don't have the right data to evaluate those claims yet.

Honestly this whole notion that the world is out to get you in not believing that transmissibility is comparable between vaccinated/unvaccinated people, without any controlled study of this topic showing it to be, is in fact revealing your own bias. Obviously you are personally invested in the topic but you shouldn't let that lead you to unwarranted conclusions.


----------



## nightflameauto

The lockdown/curfew thing is fucked up, man. Here in sodak ever the heaviest of hands allows for individuals from the same household to go for walks and jogs and shit together without consequence. Granted, Minnesota next door is a little more heavy handed but I still haven't heard of anybody getting popped for a fine outside of really large gatherings and parties. That's just crazy shit to me.


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> But you're comparing significant lifestyle changes with various socioeconomic factors to getting a free shot (or two or three) with extremely minimal instance of life threatening side-effects, or wearing masks, or being a bit more careful about where you go and how close you get to people.
> 
> Which one is the easier solve? Or, which one _should_ be?
> 
> Why can't we work on both/all?
> 
> Right now, in World 1, covid has caused hospitals to close. Was it just a case of the last small blade of straw to break the already overburdened camel's back? I'm not convinced. Maybe in some areas where resources were already thin, but the scale we're seeing it now is unprecedented.



We can and should word on both/all.
We have not and are not. There has been plenty of time in the two years to easily make lifestyle changes. I touched upon that point as well, but _you subjectively_ feel a vaccine is easier, but there are plenty of people who feel not eating junk is easy too. And walking/exercising instead of just sitting on their ass is easy. There are people who had severe adverse reactions with vaccines before for whom the decision to take another one is more difficult than exercising 3 times a week.
We are not working on both/all, and certainly not with the enthusiasm we're showing to punish the Covid-unvaccinated.

I'll agree with you on masks at least- because I fail to see any downside. But again, you're bringing the discussion in an unrelated place.
Same for the scale of the pandemic- I won't debate that because I agree. Neither does _that _change the argument though. 
We're only looking at the "vaccinated" angle and that's it, even with 2 years of data showing comorbidities being the biggest factors in actual ICU deaths.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> This is why I don't talk about science to non-scientists. It's okay to do with a vast majority of this forum and obviously you don't need formal education to understand what data supports what arguments, but every once in a while it really backfires. In this case, to grab data from two counties in CA and try to make a claim about transmissibility of the virus between vaccinated and unvaccinated people is simply wrong. You would fail that test if you were being asked "do these plots support your claim"? We don't know about transmissibility between these two groups of people yet. You can't do science without data. We don't have the right data to evaluate those claims yet.
> 
> Honestly this whole notion that the world is out to get you in not believing that transmissibility is comparable between vaccinated/unvaccinated people, without any controlled study of this topic showing it to be, is in fact revealing your own bias. Obviously you are personally invested in the topic but you shouldn't let that lead you to unwarranted conclusions.



I still fail to see any source of data or counterclaim in your "replies", only personal attacks of "hur dur you're not a scientist".

There is hard data that I shared, including (and starting) with country-level surveillance numbers from some of the countries that are the best at tracking worldwide.
I only add California numbers to the pile as additional examples.

If you are saying a general "the vaccinated are not significantly contributing to infections whereas the unvaccinated are doing so" (_your _claim here), then a single counterexample should be enough to prove you that it's not true. Now luckily, we don't have a single counterexample, we have plenty. From top level UK or France data, to those county level data points.
What more would you need that comprehensive data that covers entire countries 

Would you care to show _your _data at population levels that shows where the vaccinated are protected significantly from infections? After all, that's your claim.
Because all you've done instead is move the goalposts and ignore things that don't fit your preconceived notions. I won't judge your scientific background wholesale and make that a personal attack, but if you do want to appear like a scientist, you probably would want to be open to new evidence that go counter to your intuition. Instead, rejecting everything en bloc and calling others "not a scientist" while plugging your ears is not it.
If that's not a sign of bias, I don't know what is.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> "_99% of new infections are coming from the unvaccinated_"


Another day, another "_99% of new infections" _quote from mbardu. 
I'm excited to continue seeing this quoted over and over in the new year.


----------



## narad

TedEH said:


> Another day, another "_99% of new infections" _quote from mbardu.
> I'm excited to continue seeing this quoted over and over in the new year.



It's about to become center square on SSO bingo.



mbardu said:


> Would you care to show _your _data at population levels that shows where the vaccinated are protected significantly from infections? After all, that's your claim.





narad said:


> You can't do science without data. We don't have the right data to evaluate those claims yet.



;-)


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/fo...tions-contribute-to-over-50-percent-of-spread
> Maybe "know" is too strong a word, but if 50% of positive cases are asymptomatic at time of test, and asymptomatic people are less likely to test, it's a pretty safe assumption.


That's interesting. Though they're saying 50% of transmission is caused by asymptomatic cases (at least early on, when this study's data was from, I absolutely believe it - pandemic fatigue is worsening a bit but early on i don't doubt that people who thought they were sick were quarantining, so asymptomatic cases or people who hadn't yet become symptomatic probably were the biggest risk factor), but their model is estimating 14-20% of cases were symptomatic. 

That seems... hard to accept, and especially as you'd assume confirmed cases are skewed heavily towards symptomatic ones since they're easier to identify and confirmed cases represent 15% of the country, I'm making some pretty sweeping generalizations here but that loosely implies everyone has had covid. But, I'm reading a summary of a study, and that hardly makes me an expert.  

Interesting read though, thanks for sharing!


----------



## Drew

These one-sided discussions where the entire thread is people arguing with someone who isn't actually there sure make for interesting reading.


----------



## Drew

TedEH said:


> Another day, another "_99% of new infections" _quote from mbardu.
> I'm excited to continue seeing this quoted over and over in the new year.


The best part of it too is, like, it's not like this is a static situation. 

Early on, breakthrough infections amongst the vaccinated WERE extremely rare. Pre-Delta, in the newly vaccinated, we were seeing efficacy in the 95% range for the mRNA vaccines. Couple that with an at the time somewhat smaller number of vaccinated Americans (~40% or so, pre-Delta?), some pretty significant non-random geographical sorting and behavioral differences making the vaccine-hesitant more likely to interact with each other and to engage in higher risk behaviors, and you DO have an environment where the vast majority of cases were amongst the unvaccinated.

Today, even against Delta we were seeing enough time decay and increase in breakthrough cases over time to require a booster shot, a two-shot regime has an estimated efficacy of around 33% against omicron, a third shot gets you up to about 70%, though a data scientist I know shared a preliminary study with me a few days ago that suggests that this effect wanes after 5-9 weeks and will only itself be temporary. But, of course, this is exactly the same environment as it was with 40% of the country freshly vaccinated against the OG strain, amirite? 

Dude's a troll. Just throw him on mute, it makes reading these threads a bit more surreal.


----------



## Drew

narad said:


> We don't know about transmissibility between these two groups of people yet. You can't do science without data. We don't have the right data to evaluate those claims yet.


With the caveat that I'm not privvy to one entire side of this argument, and that I ay be misinterpreting what you're saying...

We do have SOME data. Omicron got a head start in the UK and the data coming out of there suggests the efficacy stats I mentioned in a post above, roughly 33% for two shots and 70% for three (and, naturally, 0% for no shots), so we have some information on how likely you are to become infected in the first place. As far as transmissibility, well, you can't transmit covid if you don't become infected, so right off the bat transmission should be a third lower in 2-shot populations and two thirds lower in 3, even if there's no difference at all in how likely it is an infected individual could potentially transmit covid to another individual (and I've seen nothing on this but my prior would have to be no difference at all in ability to transmit once infected, with the benefit of vaccination being a significant difference in the likelihood of becoming infected in the first place, and if this is what mbardu has been going on and on about with respect to transmissibility, that the vaccine doesn't change the former even if it changes the latter, well, that's an _awfully_ weird hill to die upon.)


----------



## StevenC

Drew said:


> These one-sided discussions where the entire thread is people arguing with someone who isn't actually there sure make for interesting reading.


Thread needs to be renamed


----------



## narad

Drew said:


> With the caveat that I'm not privvy to one entire side of this argument, and that I ay be misinterpreting what you're saying...
> 
> We do have SOME data. Omicron got a head start in the UK and the data coming out of there suggests the efficacy stats I mentioned in a post above, roughly 33% for two shots and 70% for three (and, naturally, 0% for no shots), so we have some information on how likely you are to become infected in the first place. As far as transmissibility, well, you can't transmit covid if you don't become infected, so right off the bat transmission should be a third lower in 2-shot populations and two thirds lower in 3, even if there's no difference at all in how likely it is an infected individual could potentially transmit covid to another individual (and I've seen nothing on this but my prior would have to be no difference at all in ability to transmit once infected, with the benefit of vaccination being a significant difference in the likelihood of becoming infected in the first place, and if this is what mbardu has been going on and on about with respect to transmissibility, that the vaccine doesn't change the former even if it changes the latter, well, that's an _awfully_ weird hill to die upon.)



Indeed. His policy argument hinges on omicron transmissibility being comparable between unvaccinated and vaccinated people, which is not something you see reflected in the actual virus studies, so he's just pointing to places on earth where largely vaccinated communities have high rates of breakthrough infection (as to why unvaccinated people should have the same freedoms and treatment as vaccinated ones).



Drew said:


> These one-sided discussions where the entire thread is people arguing with someone who isn't actually there sure make for interesting reading.



https://garfieldminusgarfield.net/


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> Indeed. His policy argument hinges on omicron transmissibility being comparable between unvaccinated and vaccinated people, which is not something you see reflected in the actual virus studies, so he's just pointing to places on earth where largely vaccinated communities have high rates of breakthrough infection (as to why unvaccinated people should have the same freedoms and treatment as vaccinated ones).



You don't have to entirely misrepresent my argument to try and make it look like your replies make sense.
The only things I replied to (_replied to_, not came up with random stuff out of the blue) were numerous posts of "#1 - almost all infections are from unvaccinated" and "#2 - if everyone was vaccinated, we would have almost no new infections". Which are both things that are believed here without _any _source or proof.

First I showed country-wide surveillance reports for example from UK and France showing that rates of infection per 100k between vaccinated and unvaccinated are pretty comparable. In most modern countries, with similar rates per 100k , there _will_ be a majority of infections coming from the vaccinated because the vaccinated are the majority population. This mechanically disproves #1. Why do you need to lie and pretend that I'm making stuff up or using random small scale articles when it's exactly the opposite? It's there for all to see.
Then I showed examples of specific places where we are already functionally at full vaccination, and in this form of logic proof, this is enough to disprove #2. Those places are not few and far between either, it's pretty much across the board, and even places with the highest vaccination rates worldwide are at peak infection. I literally just added more data from counties local to me to avoid you having to go many pages back. If you are honest with yourself, you know that a single counterexample (where we actually have plenty) would be enough in and of itself to show that everyone being vaccinated would not prevent the current surges.
You have 0 counterargument to either of those and keep saying vague things like "the actual virus studies" or "it is likely that" or "I personally see no reason not to think that", which are entirely vague and lack _any _scientific backing. How can you play the "hur dur not a scientist" when you are making basically 0 effort?

On your end, compared to that- if I read your posts here and here etc for example:

you would somehow _know _that most cases are coming from the unvaccinated. You clearly feel that this _must _be the case. Despite not showing _any _source on your end to support that "feeling" - and _against _actual provided evidence to the _contrary_
you would somehow _know _that the unvaccinated are currently at significantly higher risk of infection. Despite you saying specifically that supposedly _nobody _should be able to know such a thing because you don't think we have data. Except you would know in your utmost uniqueness then? You would know but not be able to share your sources or data showing _how _you know?
Where is the intellectual honesty?


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> Another day, another "_99% of new infections" _quote from mbardu.
> I'm excited to continue seeing this quoted over and over in the new year.



I mean...I'm not the one making that stuff up. The owner of that stat keeps coming back and pretending with big fat "_ackchyually_"s that that number wasn't absolutely ridiculously wrong to say in the first place. And keeps still pretending that the number makes sense, to general collective applause 

The fact that it's _very _easy to verify how terribly wrong that number is, _very _easy to see how it's been pulled out of thin air....and the fact that it keeps being defended by all of SSO's might as the truth is truly belief perseverance incarnate.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> You don't have to entirely misrepresent my argument to try and make it look like your replies make sense.
> The only things I replied to (_replied to_, not came up with random stuff out of the blue) were numerous posts of "#1 - almost all infections are from unvaccinated" and "#2 - if everyone was vaccinated, we would have almost no new infections". Which are both things that are believed here without _any _source or proof.
> 
> First I showed country-wide surveillance reports for example from UK and France showing that rates of infection per 100k between vaccinated and unvaccinated are similar. in most modern countries, with similar rates per 100k , there _will_ be a majority of infections coming from the vaccinated because the vaccinated are the majority population. This mechanically disproves #1. Why do you need to lie and pretend that I'm making stuff up or using random small scale articles when it's exactly the opposite? It's there for all to see.
> Then I showed examples of specific places where we are already functionally at full vaccination, and in this form of logic proof, this is enough to disprove #2. Those places are not few and far between either, it's pretty much across the board. I literally just added more data from counties local to me to avoid you having to go many pages back. If you are honest with yourself, you know that a single counterexample (where we actually have plenty) would be enough in and of itself to show that everyone being vaccinated would not prevent the current surges.
> You have 0 counterargument to either of those and keep saying vague things like "the actual virus studies" or "it is likely that" or "I personally see no reason not to think that", which are entirely vague and lack _any _scientific backing. How can you play the "hur dur not a scientist" when you are making basically 0 effort?
> 
> On your end, compared to that- if I read your posts here and here etc for example:
> 
> you would somehow _know _that most cases are coming from the unvaccinated. You clearly feel that this _must _be the case. Despite any source from you to support that "feeling" - and against actual provided evidence to the _contrary_
> you would somehow _know _that the unvaccinated are currently at significantly higher risk of infection. Despite you saying specifically that supposedly _nobody _should be able to know such a thing because you don't think we have data. Except you....who _does _know somehow but are not able to share your sources or data proving it?
> Where is the intellectual honesty?



You "mechanically disproved" things I'm not claiming (i.e., #1 & #2), which seems to be the trend here. You want us not to look at unvaccinated people as deliberately putting their own choice in the matter over what's best for society, no? If so, the better have similar transmissibility stats as vaccinated people, because otherwise they are doing just that. If an unvaccinated person pulls up to the nearly full hospital at the same time as a vaccinated person, both in comparably serious distress from covid, send that unvaccinated person back home. Gotta triage somehow, might as well do it on an obvious failing to help greater good (and yourself, usually).


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> You "mechanically disproved" things I'm not claiming (i.e., #1 & #2), which seems to be the trend here.


I didn't say you claimed #1 and #2; but I'm glad you and I agree that they are both false.

What I did say though, is that posts _prior to yours _claimed those things. I then showed how those things couldn't possibly be true (with examples and hard data). Then you jumped in to say "no you're wrong" without any source, evidence - just contributing things like "it has to be true" or "I feel like" or "I don't know because I don't have the numbers".



narad said:


> You want us not to look at unvaccinated people as deliberately putting their own choice in the matter over what's best for society, no? If so, the better have similar transmissibility stats as vaccinated people, because otherwise they are doing just that. If an unvaccinated person pulls up to the nearly full hospital at the same time as a vaccinated person, both in comparably serious distress from covid, send that unvaccinated person back home. Gotta triage somehow, might as well do it on an obvious failing to help greater good (and yourself, usually).


You have things backwards. We have historically not discriminated things like healthcare like we are proposing to do for Covid-unvaccinated (not even getting into ridiculous stuff like taking away the jobs of unvaccinated people who work from home or the like...). We are now proposing to _change _that and to _start _actively discriminating. In order to _start _discriminating, we would need to have overwhelming evidence that that decision would be justified. So far, there is no such evidence, so any decision that would still proceed would be arbitrary and unfair. Arbitrary and unfair would hardly be new to this pandemic, but I'm still allowed to call it out.

Again- feel free to show me how it is justified if you have some stuff to share.
If your only answer is "I don't know because I don't have data", then you shouldn't be the one recommending this or that measure.
If you don't know and have no evidence to back your points, then what "you feel" must be the truth has no bearing on what's currently the actual reality of the pandemic.


narad said:


> Gotta triage somehow, might as well do it on an obvious failing to help greater good (and yourself, usually).


If you truly wanted to do something for the greater good, optimize use of healthcare resources, maximize throughput etc... you'd send the person _with the most comorbidities_ back home. Regardless of vaccine status. This is what is clogging up ICUs for weeks and often times for nothing. Not the vaccinated/unvaccinated status. And interestingly, a large numbers of those comorbidities are entirely preventable too, and yet nobody is suggesting to punish people with bad diets.
So it's clear we're not trying to help for the greater good, we're just trying to punish the unvaccinated.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> With the caveat that I'm not privvy to one entire side of this argument, and that I ay be misinterpreting what you're saying...
> 
> We do have SOME data. Omicron got a head start in the UK and the data coming out of there suggests the efficacy stats I mentioned in a post above, roughly 33% for two shots and 70% for three (and, naturally, 0% for no shots), so we have some information on how likely you are to become infected in the first place. As far as transmissibility, well, you can't transmit covid if you don't become infected, so right off the bat transmission should be a third lower in 2-shot populations and two thirds lower in 3, even if there's no difference at all in how likely it is an infected individual could potentially transmit covid to another individual (and I've seen nothing on this but my prior would have to be no difference at all in ability to transmit once infected, with the benefit of vaccination being a significant difference in the likelihood of becoming infected in the first place, and if this is what mbardu has been going on and on about with respect to transmissibility, that the vaccine doesn't change the former even if it changes the latter, well, that's an _awfully_ weird hill to die upon.)



Even with the _*most generous*_ interpretation of those numbers (say the unvaccinated are 3 times more likely to catch Covid), there are more than twice the number of vaccinated people in the UK, so the vaccinated would be causing about 45% of new infections.

_45%_, whereas we were pretending that the vaccinated were causing only _1%_ of the new infections. The numbers used are off by 45x (if using the most _generous _theoretical numbers), and this doesn't ring any alarm bell 

And this is actually being _extremely _generous.
Take the _actual _surveillance report from the UK, and at most, unvaccinated are 1.2x more likely to get infected compared to vaccinated in practice in real life.
With the _actual _figures, the vaccinated are contributing _at minimum_ 66% of new infections currently in the UK. 66x more than what the 1% we think it was.

We take some numbers at face value whereas they are 45 to 66+ times wrong (easily seen with just 2 minutes of checking), and you wonder why some people are shocked by the blind echo chamber...


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> Again- feel free to show me how it is justified if you have some stuff to share.
> If your only answer is "I don't know because I don't have data", then you shouldn't be the one recommending this or that measure.
> If you don't know and have no evidence to back your points, then what "you feel" must be the truth has no bearing on what's currently the actual reality of the pandemic.



It should be fairly obvious that a vaccine cuts down on your risk of contracting a virus, since otherwise it is not a vaccine. It is also known that vaccinated people who later have a delta strain breakthrough have a lower chance of infecting others. So if omicron did not exist, I would say there is ample evidence in support of treating the two populations differently based on their choice to get the vaccine, based on what the choice to get vaccinated will mean in terms of overall spread and impact of the virus.

Omicron is new, so I have not seen good estimates for these effects on this strain. It is however weird to say, okay, new strain, everything you know about delta is no longer relevant on any level. Probably vaccines reduce your risk of contracting omicron, and they probably reduce the chance of a breakthrough infecting others, only to a lesser extent, because omicron is still the same virus, but with greater transmissibility. As I said before, it is a quantitative difference, not a qualitative one. You don't go back to tabla rasa every time things change in the slightest, and I would say the burden of proof is on you to show that an unvaccinated person poses the same risk on these metrics when compared to a vaccinated person. Which, in case it was not clear, your data does not show.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> It should be fairly obvious that a vaccine cuts down on your risk of contracting a virus, since otherwise it is not a vaccine. It is also known that vaccinated people who later have a delta strain breakthrough have a lower chance of infecting others. So if omicron did not exist, I would say there is ample evidence in support of treating the two populations differently based on their choice to get the vaccine, based on what the choice to get vaccinated will mean in terms of overall spread and impact of the virus.



"It should be fairly obvious" means squat.
"There is ample evidence in support of treating the two populations differently"...sure, then show me at least one piece of evidence.
What will it "mean in terms of overall spread and impact"? And how has this been proven?
Absolutely 0 substance in what you are saying.

You keep harping on "oh it's not science" even when provided with hard data you don't like, yet just claim stuff out of thin air with still literally 0 resource to back it up.

Plus "if omicron did not exist" is pretty useless.
Omicron does exist so should we arbitrarily punish people based on a hypothetical world where it would not?



narad said:


> I would say the burden of proof is on you to show that an unvaccinated person poses the same risk on these metrics when compared to a vaccinated person. Which, in case it was not clear, your data does not show.



No, you have it backwards. That's not how any of this works. In order to _start _actively harming and stopping treatment of a category of people, you would need to have overwhelming evidence that the measure is justified.

No matter how much you want to, you can't go out and just decide that tomorrow suddenly all gingers shall now lose their job and their healthcare for having no soul, and they shall have the burden of proof to show that they indeed have a soul if they wish that decision overturned. You would need to actively prove that they have no souls and are harming society before you decide to punish them. Sorry ginger haters!

And again, if your goal is to reduce the current burden on hospitals and deaths (as discussed with Max, due in some good part to weeks of ICU for lots of Covid cases), then the unvaccinated _are not even the right target_. The people you should go after are the people with a lot of preventable comorbidities.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34449622/
"The risk of mortality associated with at least one comorbidity combined was *1113 *times higher than that with no comorbidity"
Those comorbidities focus on highly preventable things too, things like: type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension.

Oh no!! Someone who actually posts sources. Must be an anti-science guy!
Plus...oh look "The authors declare no conflict of interest."...how can this be a serious study if those guys don't even have conflicts of interest 

Doesn't @mbardu know that to be sciency around these parts, you must "feel that the vaccinated are more harmful" and "believe in your heart that the vaccinated are significantly more infected"? Doesn't he know that the only way to science good is to read a CNN headline cherry-picking one stat from an abysmal riddled-with-conflicts-of-interest Pzifer study  ? SMH my head.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> "It should be fairly obvious" means squat.
> "There is ample evidence in support of treating the two populations differently"...sure, then show me at least one piece of evidence.
> What will it "mean in terms of overall spread and impact"? And how has this been proven?
> Absolutely 0 substance in what you are saying.



"It should be fairly obvious that a vaccine reduces the risk of contracting a virus" means squat? So the vaccine doesn't reduce the risk of contracting the virus then, is that what you're claiming? You don't understand that people with a higher chance of contracting the virus, and a higher rate of transmitting the virus to other people, means bad things in terms of viral spread and impact?

Honestly dude, your arguments are structured so incredibly poorly that now you are questioning basic commonsense. Can we have an argument that assumes the world is a spheroid? Is bigfoot real?

Let me super summarize your whole post: nothing we know about vaccines is relevant now. Conveniently, nothing we learned about delta (that would point to a big difference in transmission rates between the populations) is relevant now. Regarding omicron (which we don't have the results of the studies we actually need to do) look at unrelated stats from UK. And because of this, we can't discriminate against unvaccinated people (regardless of if they pose a greater "per capita" risk than vaccinated people, something we will determine about omicron shortly). And if you disagree, you're part of an echo chamber.

It doesn't matter how much attitude you lace your posts with, it's just hot garbage inundating this thread at a rate that is impossible to keep up with. I don't personally want to be writing an essay every 5 minutes to explain how vaccines really do reduce the risk of contracting a virus. If you do care about whether your argument makes sense, you can spend your NYE on wikipedia learning about it.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> "It should be fairly obvious that a vaccine reduces the risk of contracting a virus" means squat? So the vaccine doesn't reduce the risk of contracting the virus then, is that what you're claiming? You don't understand that people with a higher chance of contracting the virus, and a higher rate of transmitting the virus to other people, means bad things in terms of viral spread and impact?
> 
> Honestly dude, your arguments are structured so incredibly poorly that now you are questioning basic commonsense. Can we have an argument that assumes the world is a spheroid? Is bigfoot real?



"Means squat" means that those empty statements are the opposite of science. Things that are obvious should be easily proven- yet you are still not able to do so on any single of your points and the best you have are still "it should be obvious" or "it would make sense that" or "I feel like" without any backing.
If I said "it should be fairly obvious that the MRNA vaccines are dangerous because they are new and untested", it would be the same level of argument as what you are providing ie 0. Squat.

After that, you have again misrepresented everything I wrote instead of providing even a single source to support _your _points.

One first note- "It should be fairly obvious that a vaccine reduces the risk of contracting a virus" is pretty funny in and of itself. You might not have noticed, but the entire public discourse has changed around Covid to sorta redefine what a vaccine means. Now it doesn't have to significantly prevent you from getting the virus, and we are literally changing the definition as we speak. It is not supposed to provide immunity anymore. It is not supposed to protect you from getting the disease. Stuff counts as a vaccine even if it may just protect you from some of the disease's effects. It counts as vaccine even if it just stimulates the immune system a bit. So your "obvious" definition doesn't even agree with the most basic new CDC definition it seems. Maybe agrees a bit with what the definition used to be before we realized the Covid vaccine didn't protect you from getting it. Which oddly happened just by accident, post-hoc, exactly how this was exactly what was happening with Covid. Pretty strange but I guess that's just a coincidence  .

But I don't even need to go there, as I have always acknowledged that vaccines _will _give you a short boost to protection early on (currently down to only a few weeks with the boosters as even @Drew acknowledged). That's fine and a plus, so yay, maybe get the unvaccinated to stay at home for those ~5 weeks or so where there is a benefit, and then everyone is equal! No? Why not?

Anyway, all those are individual wishful thinking bottom-up analyses based on a partial view of the data. They can be useful, but there are hundreds of reasons why they may not model well for what the real world will do. Need I remind you that the initial study for the vaccines were promising 95% efficacy, yet we now accept routine and generalized breakthrough infections as normal and so are shifting the narrative to "yeah...but it will protect you more against serious stuff though".
You know what doesn't lie and will not miss complexities of actual real life? Actual real life data. And if you look at the top down view of actual infections happening in the real world, it's pretty comparable between vaccinated and unvaccinated.
Might be for any number of reasons, like different demographics between the groups, like vaccinated people taking less precautions because they think (like you do) that they are uninfectable heroes. Could be any number of reasons. Doesn't matter at the end of the day, if the real world data tells you infection rates are comparable, then they are comparable.

Again, in order to take new punitive measures, you would have to have overwhelming and definite proof that the unvaccinated need to be punished. All we have right now are at best tepid extrapolations.


narad said:


> Let me super summarize your whole post: nothing we know about vaccines is relevant now. Conveniently, nothing we learned about delta (that would point to a big difference in transmission rates between the populations) is relevant now. Regarding omicron (which we don't have the results of the studies we actually need to do) look at unrelated stats from UK. And because of this, we can't discriminate against unvaccinated people (regardless of if they pose a greater "per capita" risk than vaccinated people, something we will determine about omicron shortly). And if you disagree, you're part of an echo chamber.
> 
> It doesn't matter how much attitude you lace your posts with, it's just hot garbage inundating this thread at a rate that is impossible to keep up with. I don't personally want to be writing an essay every 5 minutes to explain how vaccines really do reduce the risk of contracting a virus. If you do care about whether your argument makes sense, you can spend your NYE on wikipedia learning about it.



Again, we are literally changing the definition of what vaccines mean. It's not my fault, I'm not the one doing it .

But to your point, "Conveniently, nothing we learned about delta (that would point to a big difference in transmission rates between the populations) is relevant now" absolutely misses the point. All the surveillance report I have shown _*are *_based on "Delta" since Omicron is so new. And already with Delta the infection rates were comparable. Just try looking at the numbers for once in good faith, and you'll see that the overwhelming majority you're imaging from the unvaccinated just hasn't been there. Infections, yes early on- not so much anymore. Hospitalizations, yes still. ICU and deaths once hospitalized, not really, and certainly not more so than comorbidities.


PS: I really don't get your phrasing of "because of this, we can't discriminate against unvaccinated people (regardless of if they pose a greater "per capita" risk than vaccinated people, something we will determine about omicron shortly)" Do you mean you are a-OK to discriminate against a group of people, even while we don't have definitive proof yet that it would be justified?


----------



## StevenC

mbardu said:


> So your "obvious" definition doesn't even agree with the most basic new CDC definition it seems. Maybe agrees a bit with what the definition used to be before we realized the Covid vaccine didn't protect you from getting it.


This no reading comprehension antivax point has been disproven already in this thread, but only things you post here count here.

Apologies to everyone else, I clicked onto an empty page and morbid curiosity got the better of me.


----------



## SD83

mbardu said:


> [stuff] Need I remind you that the initial study for the vaccines were promising 95% efficacy, yet we now accept routine and generalized breakthrough infections as normal and so are shifting the narrative to "yeah...but it will protect you more against serious stuff though".
> [more stuff]Just try looking at the numbers for once in good faith, and you'll see that the overwhelming majority you're imaging from the unvaccinated just hasn't been there. Infections, yes early on- not so much anymore. Hospitalizations, yes still. ICU and deaths once hospitalized, not really, and certainly not more so than comorbidities.



As for the first point and the "changing the definition of what a vaccine is"... I have to kind of agree. I certainly used to think that being vaccinated means I literally can not get the disease. And I also used to think that those 95% meant that my overall risk of infection is only 5% of what it would be without vaccination. I did not take into consideration that this applies every single time I'm exposed to the virus. But to consider someone "fully vaccinated" after one or even two shots... why would anyone do that? Which vaccination gives you full protection after one single shot? Certainly not FSME, rabbies, hepatites or polio, to name some examples. All of which, at least where I live, require three or even four doses, sometimes over the space of one or three years, sometimes within a few weeks. Maybe we'll need four shots over the span of three years, maybe two years... but we're only twelve months into vaccination, there's no way of knowing that (and yes, maybe it just won't work as a permanent protection).
But, again, over here, we recently had 3 times the amount of people registered as "currently infected", and comparing the death toll two weeks after that point in time, half as many dead. So, with around 65% or so of the adult population vaccinated (and delta & omicron), the risk of dying is 6 times lower? Sounds pretty good for me. Certainly good enough to support those of my friends who work as doctors and nurses who are going through the worst time on the job ever for the last 1.5 years, and every single one of them are somewhat desperate for people to finally get their vaccination.


----------



## Randy

Somewhere lost in the shuffle of "what is a vaccine?", I think the functional definition is the same but breakthroughs of other stuff felt either rare enough or minor enough that it certainly felt like absolute immunity sans rare occasion, rather than little to no immunity and moderate illness depending, but frequent with covid.

I'd say the expectation of effectiveness was higher based on what most of us have experienced in "vaccines" over our lifetime, although this is a pandemic for a reason and I've heard coronaviruses are always historically tricky.


----------



## StevenC

Randy said:


> Somewhere lost in the shuffle of "what is a vaccine?", I think the functional definition is the same but breakthroughs of other stuff felt either rare enough or minor enough that it certainly felt like absolute immunity sans rare occasion, rather than little to no immunity and moderate illness depending, but frequent with covid.
> 
> I'd say the expectation of effectiveness was higher based on what most of us have experienced in "vaccines" over our lifetime, although this is a pandemic for a reason and I've heard coronaviruses are always historically tricky.


I think it's more to do with the number of cases. Like the number of breakthrough flu cases is relatively high for those vaccinated, but just isn't publicised because it's not super important. Whereas covid is currently a consideration for the whole planet and even at the highest quoted efficacy rates, it will have a high real number of breakthroughs because there are so many opportunities.


----------



## Randy

StevenC said:


> I think it's more to do with the number of cases. Like the number of breakthrough flu cases is relatively high for those vaccinated, but just isn't publicised because it's not super important. Whereas covid is currently a consideration for the whole planet and even at the highest quoted efficacy rates, it will have a high real number of breakthroughs because there are so many opportunities.



Valid point but, like, I've never gotten the flu any given year I got the flu vax and obviously living my pre-2020 life (going to bars, clubs, festivals, parties, etc) without wearing a mask or distancing. I gotta imagine there's a stat indicating breakthrough cases as a % of total infections 1 vs 1.


----------



## StevenC

Randy said:


> Valid point but, like, I've never gotten the flu any given year I got the flu vax and obviously living my pre-2020 life (going to bars, clubs, festivals, parties, etc) without wearing a mask or distancing. I gotta imagine there's a stat indicating breakthrough cases as a % of total infections 1 vs 1.


Yeah, I've only started getting the flu vaccine this year, but even then I think I've only really had the flu a handful of times. But the flu vaccine always has a really low efficacy rate.


----------



## spudmunkey

Randy said:


> Valid point but, like, I've never gotten the flu any given year I got the flu vax and obviously living my pre-2020 life (going to bars, clubs, festivals, parties, etc) without wearing a mask or distancing. I gotta imagine there's a stat indicating breakthrough cases as a % of total infections 1 vs 1.



The whole reason I never bothered with a flu shot before in my first 23 years of adulthood, was because of all of the people around me who said, "I felt like shit after the shot, and then later in the year I got the flu anyway," year after year, after year. Because of a medication I'm on this year, I did get one (and a pneumonia vaccine).


----------



## Randy

spudmunkey said:


> The whole reason I never bothered with a flu shot before in my first 23 years of adulthood, was because of all of the people around me who said, "I felt like shit after the shot, and then later in the year I got the flu anyway," year after year, after year. Because of a medication I'm on this year, I did get one (and a pneumonia vaccine).



I'd always heard that too but I dunno how accurate that is. Especially the "I got the flu anyway" part considering the dozens of other scenarios where you may feel ill and if you bitched about getting the vaccine in the first place, you would probably be quick to say that.

Ever since I started getting the flu vaccine, I haven't gotten it and all my acquaintances that say "you get it anyway" do and that includes people I work right next to or car pool with. The flu vaccine is legit as anything.


----------



## StevenC

Randy said:


> I'd always heard that too but I dunno how accurate that is. Especially the "I got the flu anyway" part considering the dozens of other scenarios where you may feel ill and if you bitched about getting the vaccine in the first place, you would probably be quick to say that.
> 
> Ever since I started getting the flu vaccine, I haven't gotten it and all my acquaintances that say "you get it anyway" do and that includes people I work right next to or car pool with. The flu vaccine is legit as anything.


Totally, I would urge everyone to get the flu vaccine. I would also agree that the flu is massively over self diagnosed. Anyone with a halfway notable child says it's the flu. The last time I had the flu was February 2019 (2 wisdom teeth removed, week long flu, and 2 spine operations in less than 2 months was a bad run) and I was in a bad way and could hardly stand.

Lots of people have a rough couple of days after a flu shot and think the shot gave them the flu, others will have a rough cold later on and claim the flu. Even still more will get the flu, it being a different strain than predicted or they have an waiter time because of the vaccine. 

60% efficacy is a good year for flu shots.


----------



## mbardu

Randy said:


> Somewhere lost in the shuffle of "what is a vaccine?", I think the functional definition is the same but breakthroughs of other stuff felt either rare enough or minor enough that it certainly felt like absolute immunity sans rare occasion, rather than little to no immunity and moderate illness depending, but frequent with covid.
> 
> I'd say the expectation of effectiveness was higher based on what most of us have experienced in "vaccines" over our lifetime, although this is a pandemic for a reason and I've heard coronaviruses are always historically tricky.



I don't really care about the minute definition at the end of the day, as long as we have agreed upon standards upfront rather than shifting ones that we can just change for post hoc justifications. 
I was however pointing out that what some people think is supposedly "obvious" and don't even think twice about is not even supported by what the authorities themselves on the topic are _now _saying on the matter. People have short memories it seems, but it should be very obvious to anyone paying attention that the Covid vaccines were _absolutely _sold as giving you almost perfect (95%+) protection from catching/spreading the virus. "You'll be able to no longer wear a mask" or "you'll be able to go see Grandma without giving her the virus". And yet this has slowly and slowly been walked back to shift the discussion to "severe cases and hospitalizations" instead. So it's a bit rich to say "vaccine giving you protection from infection is stuff that is well know and obvious, and I don't need to provide sources" when the very people pushing the vaccine have been revising their messaging non stop on that very matter.

At the top, it's very clear that the people making the decisions are making stuff up as they go ("the second dose will give you immunity" except it's gone after a couple of months, then "the third shot/booster will protect you even more" except that protection lasts a few weeks, if that...). Which is not _entirely _surprising since this stuff is new. But usually when we don't know, we don't necessarily want to try to apply the unknown stuff to billions of people at a time (including children with no benefit), or attack the few people who can't get vaccinated.

Even if you support "vaccine for all and vaccine only", don't believe in any side effect, there _is also still _such a thing as giving too much of the vaccine too quickly- since it can result in a sub-optimal immune response. One of the reasons why some vaccines _are _indeed spaced by literal years. We have strong reason to believe that the MRNA shots being so close to each other is part of the reason they fade so quickly....and yet what do we do? Despite any scientific recommendation to the contrary (initially aiming for at least 6 months wait), we are now administering boosters as early as 2/3 months after second shot because the politics want it. And we predictably see even faster waning immunity. There is vey little reasoned science in the whole process.



SD83 said:


> But, again, over here, we recently had 3 times the amount of people registered as "currently infected", and comparing the death toll two weeks after that point in time, half as many dead. So, with around 65% or so of the adult population vaccinated (and delta & omicron), the risk of dying is 6 times lower? Sounds pretty good for me.



This is the real "hope" and scenario that many people had been waiting for since the first surge of the pandemic...that an Omicron-like strain or the next one will be mild enough and widespread enough that the pandemic becomes way less serious overall after that last peak. Fingers crossed. Let's wish for that as we wish everyone a good start to 2022, with hopefully less suffering and less blind hatred.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> I don't really care about the minute definition at the end of the day, as long as we have agreed upon standards upfront rather than shifting ones that we can just change for post hoc justifications.
> I was however pointing out that what some people think is supposedly "obvious" and don't even think twice about is not even supported by what the authorities themselves on the topic are _now _saying on the matter. People have short memories it seems, but it should be very obvious to anyone paying attention that the Covid vaccines were _absolutely _sold as giving you almost perfect (95%+) protection from catching/spreading the virus. "You'll be able to no longer wear a mask" or "you'll be able to go see Grandma without giving her the virus". And yet this has slowly and slowly been walked back to shift the discussion to "severe cases and hospitalizations" instead. So it's a bit rich to say "vaccine giving you protection from infection is stuff that is well know and obvious, and I don't need to provide sources" when the very people pushing the vaccine have been revising their messaging non stop on that very matter.



It is obvious that vaccines provide protection against contracting the viruses they are developed for. That has not changed. If you/people had the wrong expectations, or if you thought that a vaccine developed on a way older strain would magically be comparably effective against all future mutations, that's on you. What's weird is pitching it like the media changing the definitions of things - you always had a chance to contract something you were vaccinated for.


----------



## StevenC

narad said:


> It is obvious that vaccines provide protection against contracting the viruses they are developed for. That has not changed. If you/people had the wrong expectations, or if you thought that a vaccine developed on a way older strain would magically be comparably effective against all future mutations, that's on you. What's weird is pitching it like the media changing the definitions of things - you always had a chance to contract something you were vaccinated for.


You're presumably arguing with someone who can't read. Why bother?


----------



## narad

StevenC said:


> You're presumably arguing with someone who can't read. Why bother?



First they tell you that the vaccine is going to prevent 95% of infections. But what they didn't tell you is that you can still get the virus, or that over time your immunity fades, or that it doesn't work for all future variants of the virus. They didn't tell you that the vaccine wouldn't give you super strength, or make you better at solving differentiable equations. The "experts" just expected you to know these things.


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## wheresthefbomb

*comes to this thread to get some idea of wtf is going on in the world*

*reads three pages of minutiae and semantics, leaves more confused than before*


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> It is obvious that vaccines provide protection against contracting the viruses they are developed for. That has not changed. If you/people had the wrong expectations, or if you thought that a vaccine developed on a way older strain would magically be comparably effective against all future mutations, that's on you. What's weird is pitching it like the media changing the definitions of things - you always had a chance to contract something you were vaccinated for.



Are you really going to put 0 effort in any level of good faith?

If by "It is obvious that vaccines provide protection against contracting the viruses they are developed for", you mean that in the past there have been a lot of vaccines with long term history that shows they have long term protection, yeah that's for sure. Many of them. If you mean "of course something that's built to fix something will fix that thing", then I'm sorry to tell you that sometimes things don't work as intended.

How is any of that relevant though? We have an entirely new technology, with an entirely new delivery mechanism, that we somehow _still _call a vaccine despite having very little in common with prior vaccines, and just by sharing the same name, it should inherit some "obvious" properties? How so? It's the same argument as saying "vaccines never have long term side effects so this one won't have long term side effects". Absolutely 0 rigor or attempt at science because you are applying old conclusions relevant to entirely different tech to something that was up to now untested.
Sure- we have decided to call it the same, despite those differences. And after realizing that the Covid vaccine does _not _provide long term protection, we prefer to slowly change the definition of what a vaccine should do instead of acknowledging anything that might impact the narrative. Doesn't mean there's any science backing it.

Side-note: we may think things like "oh it's obvious it'll work like before" are just fine, sure. But there have been plenty of cases where that backfired _bad_. Like for example putting a new benign NSAID on the market (NSAID being one of the most well known category of meds, with _a lot_ of use and history) ... only to realize a few years down the road that what looked obvious actually wasn't and the benign drug actually caused liver failures and deaths. But that's OK I guess, after all it was only _*Pfizer *_developing the drugs and having to pay billions as a result after having botched and potentially lied in the safety trials.

Anyway, I have provided hard data showing that after a few months, there is absolutely comparable (lack of) protection and comparable infection rate between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations. in the real world. And you keep claiming the contrary _without any proof at all_. The Covid vaccine absolutely does not behave like expected in terms of long term protection. "It should be obvious" (when it's not) and things like "I feel like" are not proofs- they are the absolute opposite of science.

It is not particularly weird to say the media (and the CDC, and the dictionaries etc  ...) are changing the definition of what a vaccine means either.
It's just stating literal facts that are out there for all to see. It was _something _before mid-2021. And now it's _something else_ after "silent updates", coincidentally at the time the quickly waning immunity of Covid vaccines became obvious. You might not think it's nefarious, you might not think it's such a big difference (after all...we used to say vaccines gave immunity, we don't anymore, what's the big deal ), you might think it's just a big coincidence... but they _are _literally changing their messaging and definitions.
You might also say it's _good _that they're changing the definitions and the attributes to reflect new findings because the new "vaccines" don't behave and work like the old ones. I can see that argument. But if the new tech doesn't behave like the old one, then any "it's obvious because it was like that in the past" argument is 100% invalid.

Early on, the Covid vaccine was presented as a "vaccine" that will prevent you from catching the virus at 95%, that you would be safe, no longer have to wear masks, and that would allow you to go see grandma again. That it would end the pandemic. Whether you like it or not, that's how it was presented. This has changed _dramatically_. Breakthrough cases were first presented as impossible. Then extremely rare. We're now at "to be expected, but probably not too bad". Now the vaccine is presented as a prophylactic that may protect you against the most severe side effects. And in a lot of western countries, the vaccinated are keeping the pandemic alive with a majority of cases and infections/transmissions.
Maybe you're not concerned that it has changed- or again, maybe you don't see any bad intention behind it. But saying that this didn't happen is a bald faced lie.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> How is any of that relevant though? We have an entirely new technology, with an entirely new delivery mechanism, that we somehow _still _call a vaccine despite having very little in common with prior vaccines, and just by sharing the same name, it should inherit some "obvious" properties? How so?



We still call it a vaccine because it accomplishes exactly the same goal as a traditional vaccine, which is to stimulate the production of antibodies to protect against future infections. It is really weird to argue that it's somehow not a vaccine just because the delivery mechanism for that protection is different. And in the context of the argument and my post, the only thing that matters is that it does protect against future infections, which it does. Which is why we call it a vaccine. At this point I don't even know whether you're trying to discuss policy or create your own dictionary.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> We still call it a vaccine because it accomplishes exactly the same goal as a traditional vaccine, which is to stimulate the production of antibodies to protect against future infections. It is really weird to argue that it's somehow not a vaccine just because the delivery mechanism for that protection is different. And in the context of the argument and my post, the only thing that matters is that it does protect against future infections, which it does. Which is why we call it a vaccine. At this point I don't even know whether you're trying to discuss policy or create your own dictionary.



I can't help but notice still not counterargument on any real world data but I guess that just won't happen.

Anyway- to your point, that again misses the entire argument...I'll just continue my example.
Since I was talking about anti-inflammatory drugs; well those are all drugs, they all target inflammatory responses, yet we have a huge variety of such drugs- some of them are very different from each other. They don't have the same principles, they don't have the same dosages, they don't work for the same lengths of time, ellicit the same allergies etc etc. They will be called different names and be placed in different sub categories.

Something that is "obvious" for one category (be it efficacy or safety or anything) needn't be obvious for the other categories.
In fact, in many cases, it is _not _and the behavior can be quite different. If it's different enough, it's going to be called something else.
With your logic, one could come up with a new type of drug and just say "it's supposed to be an anti-inflammatory so it's obvious that it will behave this way or that way".
Would that be science in your book? Enough argument for public health safety?

But (like I said and you ignored), it doesn't even _matter _what it's called. I'm not the one who decided to change definitions instead of calling it something else, I was just remarking it as a funny coincidence.

The sole point is, and why we even spoke of definitions, is that you keep harping about how "it's obvious" this or that about the new vaccines because some old tech was behaving a certain way. Clearly, you are stuck on "it's obvious" (the absolute _least _scientific argument you could come up with). But unfortunately it is _not _obvious. The new vaccines being entirely different, reference to the history of older vaccines has pretty much 0 bearing on what is "obvious" or not for the new ones. Or you continue with the "we know" or "I feel" without any _actual _proof or source; and yet people who thought they knew were quite wrong. We thought the MRNA vaccines would provide long term immunity- and they clearly don't. The actual top down data (that you still refuse to even _look _at) just doesn't lie, and current infections/transmissions are _not _majorly due to unvaccinated. Vaccinated are spreading the epidemic all the same.

If something was that obvious, it should be trivial to show even a simple source to back it up. And if it was that obvious, it shouldn't be instantly shown wrong by real world data.


narad said:


> The only thing that matters is that it does protect against future infections, which it does


It does protect, sure- for a few weeks to months depending on what shot you're talking about. Which I've acknowledged multiple times. But then at some point it doesn't really.
In practical terms with the population being what it is, a majority of vaccinated folks now have comparable infection and transmission risks compared to the unvaccinated.
Maybe they'll get boosted and get a few more weeks of protection, OK. But past those few weeks, back to comparable.

And yet you're still arguing to punish the unvaccinated for no reason whatsoever.
Why? The unvaccinated guy could just have stayed home a few weeks and the net effect on the risk of him infecting anyone would have been the same  .
Or even a lower effect compared to the vaccinated guy if that person was out there infecting without any precaution because of the confidence in his shot.

We don't have a bottom-up model for _any _of that behavioral stuff- and it's so volatile and subjective it would be an impossible debate to settle (after all, the vaccinated people can't even imagine an unvaccinated person who's not the literal devil incarnate out there recklessly infecting people).

However we do have _*data*_, and in real world data, the vaccinated are currently being infected and transmitting in comparable way as the unvaccinated. So any policy or argument based on "the transmissions and surges are the fault of the unvaccinated, so they should be punished" is entirely asinine. The entire premise is false. You don't need to discuss definitions, or what's obvious or not. There is top down real world data that shows it for everyone to see.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> we were pretending that the vaccinated were causing only _1%_ of the new infections


Not even an hour into the new year and you've already posted it again. Flipping it to say 1% instead of 99% is a great twist.



mbardu said:


> in a lot of western countries, the vaccinated are keeping the pandemic alive with a majority of cases and infections/transmissions.


I won't speak for the US, but as I understand it, the official word from Ontario is that this is entirely untrue here. Maybe more importantly (to me, at least), while we've hit record numbers of cases again, the number of deaths is massively lower than it was around this same time last year. I count that as a win for the vax, regardless of who is right about the spreading. I'm not an expert in statistics nor epidemiology or whatever, so it's hard for me to take the word of an argumentative forum user over the word of the official public health people.

I go by the Ontario information a lot of times because the area I'm in is practically an extension of Ottawa that happens to cross the border, so we have more in common with Ontario here than with the rest of Quebec. Also it means no translating from French. 

https://www.publichealthontario.ca/...pi-confirmed-cases-post-vaccination.pdf?la=en

^ While reading this, keep in mind our vaccination rates are higher than in the 'states. Fully vax'd (at least two doses) in Ontario is currently around 76%, and Quebec is at 78%. The unvax'd cases are consistently higher than the vax'd, and sometimes much higher. Almost 4x more in the last month or so, keeping in mind this is holiday/shopping season. I'm too lazy to read back through the past few pages, but doesn't that seem consistent with what people have been saying? You'd think that if the vaccinated are the real big spreaders, that our higher vax rate here would mean we'd have a higher ratio of breakthrough to non-vax cases, wouldn't it? That's assuming we have all the same biases about the vax'd getting tested less often, etc.

So what does that say? To me it says the overall numbers aren't about vax'd vs. unvax'd, it's entirely about general behaviour, even if the vax is helping. I can't think of a reason to "blame" the vaccinated other than to be defensive about the non-vaccinated. Obviously lots of people have gotten less careful in the past year or so - and I think that's partly because of the vaccine, and the hope that it would have done more than it did, but also because we've just collectively exhausted our capacity for restrictions and have been trying to find ways to adapt to "new normals". I just don't buy the idea that this is unique to the vaccinated, not by a long shot.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> Anyway- to your point, that again misses the entire argument...I'll just continue my example.
> Since I was talking about anti-inflammatory drugs; well those are all drugs, they all target inflammatory responses, yet we have a huge variety of such drugs- some of them are very different from each other. They don't have the same principles, they don't have the same dosages, they don't work for the same lengths of time, ellicit the same allergies etc etc. They will be called different names and be placed in different sub categories.



And we refer to them as anti-inflammatory drugs. You can walk into a drug store and say you need an anti-inflammatory, and they know what you're talking about. Because you want to reduce inflammation. In the same way you'd ask for a vaccine if you wanted to prime your immune system to develop anti-bodies in response to a virus. You can talk about sub categories of anti-inflammatories, and you can talk about sub categories for vaccines, but for the purpose of this conversation, no one had to!


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> And we refer to them as anti-inflammatory drugs. You can walk into a drug store and say you need an anti-inflammatory, and they know what you're talking about. Because you want to reduce inflammation. In the same way you'd ask for a vaccine if you wanted to prime your immune system to develop anti-bodies in response to a virus. You can talk about sub categories of anti-inflammatories, and you can talk about sub categories for vaccines, but for the purpose of this conversation, no one had to!



You have clearly given 0 effort to reading comprehension.

The name doesn't have to matter. It only came up because you said "It's obvious that it's going to behave this way or this way because it's also called a vaccine". Facts don't care about how it's called though. I found it _interesting _that they are changing the definition instead of the name at a coincidental time, but regardless- the fact it's called a vaccine has no bearing on what is obvious or not because it's an entirely different technology.
Even if it's _meant to_ produce a similar effect on the immune response (so you want to keep calling it the same), you can't draw conclusions on how well it's going to do its job based on what's been the case in the past. Because it's an entirely different and new animal. Even if it's called the same, it won't behave the same way.

Just like the anti-inflammatory example. Even if they belong in the same named category, you cannot make "obvious" conclusions on one vs the other, and you certainly wouldn't create a whole new drug with a different tech and pretend you know it'll be behaving in such or such way - just because you're also calling it anti-inflammatory. I mean, Pfizer _tried_, and lost billions because of it, but a reasonable person probably wouldn't.

Unfortunately for you, you _do _need to _prove _stuff in science...not just say "it's obvious". If it's not _trivially _the same thing, then you have to prove the new thing you are bringing to the table. Not just say it's obvious because you called it the same as the old stuff.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> You have clearly given 0 effort to reading comprehension.
> 
> The name doesn't have to matter. It only came up because you said "It's obvious that it's going to behave this way or this way because it's also called a vaccine". Facts don't care about how it's called though. I found it _interesting _that they are changing the definition instead of the name at a coincidental time, but regardless- the fact it's called a vaccine has no bearing on what is obvious or not because it's an entirely different technology.
> Even if it's _meant to_ produce a similar effect on the immune response (so you want to keep calling it the same), you can't draw conclusions on how well it's going to do its job based on what's been the case in the past. Because it's an entirely different and new animal. Even if it's called the same, it won't behave the same way.
> 
> Just like the anti-inflammatory example. Even if they belong in the same named category, you cannot make "obvious" conclusions on one vs the other, and you certainly wouldn't create a whole new drug with a different tech and pretend you know it'll be behaving in such or such way - just because you're also calling it anti-inflammatory. I mean, Pfizer _tried_, and lost billions because of it, but a reasonable person probably wouldn't.
> 
> Unfortunately for you, you _do _need to _prove _stuff in science...not just say "it's obvious". If it's not _trivially _the same thing, then you have to prove the new thing you are bringing to the table. Not just say it's obvious because you called it the same as the old stuff.



They already proved the new vaccine is a vaccine. They already proved that it triggers an immune response and that your body is better equipped at fighting off covid infections. Is that not fact? (*it is, but it would be a good point to clarify what is going on in your head). Hence, it is a vaccine. It is called a vaccine, and it is one, and it accomplishes the goal of a vaccine.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> They already proved the new vaccine is a vaccine. They already proved that it triggers an immune response and that your body is better equipped at fighting off covid infections. Is that not fact? (*it is, but it would be a good point to clarify what is going on in your head). Hence, it is a vaccine. It is called a vaccine, and it is one, and it accomplishes the goal of a vaccine.



Why are you even asking that question? I mentioned that it is shown to have an impact on immune response and definitely produce short term protection. 
I've mentioned it in multiple places like here so you are being disingenuous on purpose. 

It's not the point though. Just like all the discussions about hospitalizations are not the point. The point is that this protection doesn't last and is mis-used. Someone unvaccinated staying home for a bit has a better net effect at helping the epidemic compared to someone who's vaccinated but out and about without precaution. That someone vaccinated who's out and about would actively cause the spread of the epidemic after a few short weeks to months at best. 
I know people who'd rather stay home a few months or more vs getting a shot that may be dangerous to them. 
You'd happily refuse medical treatment to them, while putting the vaccinated guy who infected hundreds to the front of the line- and I see no reason for doing so.

The definition of vaccine only came up because you keep saying "It's obvious that infections are coming from the unvaccinated so they should be punished because we have a vaccine" - which is a huge unscientific shortcut. And this is asinine because in the real world, the large majority of vaccine shots are old and have now waned, and a lot of vaccinated people are spreading the disease by no longer taking precautions. How many/what proportion, I don't know a priori, and couldn't pretend to know. So we have to look at actual top down level data for the information on actual cases. There, we would need to see overwhelming majority of cases coming from the unvaccinated in order to fairly justify punishments against them. Yet we do not, and we still want to punish regardless.

PS: and whether you like it or not, the definition of vaccine has changed. It used to include a component of long term immunity or protection against infection/spread, and no longer does. Again, you may think that's fine and there's nothing nefarious. I'm not on either side of that discussion. But saying "it's obvious because it used to be that way in the past with different definitions" is even _less _of an argument when talking about something new, different, and for which the definitions had to be adapted.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> Why are you even asking that question? I mentioned that it is shown to have an impact on immune response and definitely produce short term protection.
> I've mentioned it in multiple places like here so you are being disingenuous on purpose.
> 
> It's not the point though. Just like all the discussions about hospitalizations are not the point. The point is that this protection doesn't last and is mis-used. Someone unvaccinated staying home for a bit has a better net effect at helping the epidemic compared to someone who's vaccinated but out and about without precaution. That someone vaccinated who's out and about would actively cause the spread of the epidemic after a few short weeks to months at best.
> I know people who'd rather stay home a few months or more vs getting a shot that may be dangerous to them.
> You'd happily refuse medical treatment to them, while putting the vaccinated guy who infected hundreds to the front of the line- and I see no reason for doing so.
> 
> The definition of vaccine only came up because you keep saying "It's obvious that infections are coming from the unvaccinated so they should be punished because we have a vaccine" - which is a huge unscientific shortcut. And this is asinine because in the real world, the large majority of vaccine shots are old and have now waned, and a lot of vaccinated people are spreading the disease by no longer taking precautions. How many/what proportion, I don't know a priori, and couldn't pretend to know. So we have to look at actual top down level data for the information on actual cases. There, we would need to see overwhelming majority of cases coming from the unvaccinated in order to fairly justify punishments against them. Yet we do not, and we still want to punish regardless.
> 
> PS: and whether you like it or not, the definition of vaccine has changed. It used to include a component of long term immunity or protection against infection/spread, and no longer does. Again, you may think that's fine and there's nothing nefarious. I'm not on either side of that discussion. But saying "it's obvious because it used to be that way in the past with different definitions" is even _less _of an argument when talking about something new, different, and for which the definitions had to be adapted.



"Why are you even asking that question? I mentioned that it is shown to have an impact on immune response and definitely produce short term protection."

"PS: and whether you like it or not, the definition of vaccine has changed. It used to include a component of long term immunity or protection against infection/spread, and no longer does."

So something that produces an immune response and provides protection isn't a vaccine, because it doesn't last long enough for you? In the old definition, what was the threshold on when it becomes a vaccine and when it's just ... some non-vaccine form of producing an immune response to provide protection against contracting the virus?


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> Not even an hour into the new year and you've already posted it again. Flipping it to say 1% instead of 99% is a great twist.



Hey, you keep talking about it, so I'm clearly not the only one 
I flipped to 1% because the message is "there's almost no new cases (_that 1%_) coming from the vaccinated" and it's shocking to me how nobody bats an eye at how egregious this is, and yet gangs up on attacking anything I post the moment I'm off by 2% or something  . Maybe seeing it as "x times wrong" would raise some eyebrows? Not holding my breath though.



TedEH said:


> I won't speak for the US, but as I understand it, the official word from Ontario is that this is entirely untrue here. Maybe more importantly (to me, at least), while we've hit record numbers of cases again, the number of deaths is massively lower than it was around this same time last year. I count that as a win for the vax, regardless of who is right about the spreading. I'm not an expert in statistics nor epidemiology or whatever, so it's hard for me to take the word of an argumentative forum user over the word of the official public health people.
> 
> I go by the Ontario information a lot of times because the area I'm in is practically an extension of Ottawa that happens to cross the border, so we have more in common with Ontario here than with the rest of Quebec. Also it means no translating from French.
> 
> https://www.publichealthontario.ca/...pi-confirmed-cases-post-vaccination.pdf?la=en
> 
> ^ While reading this, keep in mind our vaccination rates are higher than in the 'states. Fully vax'd (at least two doses) in Ontario is currently around 76%, and Quebec is at 78%. The unvax'd cases are consistently higher than the vax'd, and sometimes much higher. Almost 4x more in the last month or so, keeping in mind this is holiday/shopping season. I'm too lazy to read back through the past few pages, but doesn't that seem consistent with what people have been saying? You'd think that if the vaccinated are the real big spreaders, that our higher vax rate here would mean we'd have a higher ratio of breakthrough to non-vax cases, wouldn't it? That's assuming we have all the same biases about the vax'd getting tested less often, etc.



I gotta say I'm not familiar at all with the numbers up in Canada.
If it's as you are saying, 4x more numbers sounds consistent with numbers from places like California and the like.
The biggest issue I take with those numbers for those I'm more familiar with is that they report on "number of positive tests- vaccinated vs unvaccinted".
Which sounds OK on the surface, until you realize that in places like California, the unvaccinated are tested many times more in the first place (even when asymptomatic), so will mechanically have many more the number of _positive _tests too.
If we still believe the majority of cases are asymptomatic, and the asymptomatic vaccinated are tested way less, that's a non-insignificant bias in the results.

Do you know if there are numbers showing the number of _tests_ (not cases) per category (vaccinated/unvaccinated) in Ontario?
In Western Europe for instance, although still asymmetric - testing is a _bit _more systematic than in CA regardless of vaccination status, and you can find out the number of tests per category.



TedEH said:


> So what does that say? To me it says the overall numbers aren't about vax'd vs. unvax'd, it's entirely about general behaviour, even if the vax is helping. I can't think of a reason to "blame" the vaccinated other than to be defensive about the non-vaccinated. Obviously lots of people have gotten less careful in the past year or so - and I think that's partly because of the vaccine, and the hope that it would have done more than it did, but also because we've just collectively exhausted our capacity for restrictions and have been trying to find ways to adapt to "new normals". I just don't buy the idea that this is unique to the vaccinated, not by a long shot.



I would definitely not go out and pretend that the vaccinated are being less careful as a whole. I do know some who definitely are, but wouldn't generalize at all. Plus, that would definitely open a whole other can of worms. Transmission-wise, I'm sure the vaccine does help early on. But that's like the ideal scenario for a few weeks to months- and I know people who wouldn't mind self-isolating for that amount of time instead of getting a shot that they feel would be dangerous to them if offered the tradeoff. And still taking precautions when going out afterwards of course (unlike some...). Would sound like a fair tradeoff to me considering some of the vaccinated careless people stopping precaution from day 1 of the shot.
And like you said, a large large contributor to the current surges is in behavior; so the above would definitely sound _more_ fair than refusing healthcare to some "virtuous" unvaccinated while prioritizing the reckless vaccinated people.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> "Why are you even asking that question? I mentioned that it is shown to have an impact on immune response and definitely produce short term protection."
> 
> "PS: and whether you like it or not, the definition of vaccine has changed. It used to include a component of long term immunity or protection against infection/spread, and no longer does."
> 
> So something that produces an immune response and provides protection isn't a vaccine, because it doesn't last long enough for you? In the old definition, what was the threshold on when it becomes a vaccine and when it's just ... some non-vaccine form of producing an immune response to provide protection against contracting the virus?



I like how you avoid anything of substance to just focus on minutiae.
Plus I already linked the old definition if you had any good faith in you.
There was no threshold of time in the definition.
Just that it gives you immunity to that disease from that point on.

But for the last time, this doesn't even matter 
The only thing that matters is you using, over and over, without any substance or source, and as your only argument - a form of "it's obvious it does this or that because it's called a vaccine" ... which is the most empty form of non-argument you could come up with. Nothing is "obvious" with the new vaccines because they are very different from what we called vaccines in the past. They do work very differently, so may have very different characteristics - we have no idea a priori.

We used to ride horses to get to places, and came up with cars. They both are called individual modes of transportation. They both take you from point A to B. The car goes fast and looks cool. And maybe it's better in the long run. But you can't make "obvious" conclusions on how much maintenance the car will require based on how much hay you used to feed your horse . You can't say either "it's obvious that the car won't pollute the atmosphere because we know individual modes of transportation don't do that". What is even that type of reasoning 

Specifically in our case, nothing it's obvious "just because it's called a vaccine". Even more specifically, it is not obvious that the protection lasts, and as a result it is not obvious that a vaccinated individual whose vaccines are more than a few weeks old (ie most people) wouldn't have had a worse impact on the pandemic than a careful unvaccinated individual. So building any punitive measure on that basis without justification is simply unfair. And doing it on the basis of "I feel like" or unsupported "it's obvious that" is absolutely an arbitrary punishment. You need proof, not just "I feel like it"s.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> I like how you avoid anything of substance to just focus on minutiae.
> Plus I already linked the old definition if you had any good faith in you.
> There was no threshold of time in the definition.
> Just that it gives you immunity to that disease from that point on.
> 
> But for the last time, this doesn't even matter
> The only thing that matters is you using, over and over, without any substance or source, and as your only argument - a form of "it's obvious it does this or that because it's called a vaccine" ... which is the most empty form of non-argument you could come up with. Nothing is "obvious" with the new vaccines because they are very different from what we called vaccines in the past. They do work very differently, so may have very different characteristics - we have no idea a priori.
> 
> Specifically in our case, it is not obvious that the protection lasts, and as a result it is not obvious that a vaccinated individual whose vaccines are more than a few weeks old (ie most people) wouldn't have had a worse impact on the pandemic than a careful unvaccinated individual. So building any punitive measure on that basis without justification is simply unfair. And doing it on the basis of "I feel like" or unsupported "it's obvious that" is absolutely an arbitrary punishment. You need proof, not just "I feel like it"s.



You walked us down this path of bullshit so we might as well start shoveling at the bottom to see how well your basic assertions hold up. One of your current huge assertions is that the media is trying to redefine what a vaccine is. You seem to have made up your own definition, since other definitions do not have a specific time window on how long protection must persist for something to be considered a vaccine. Therefore it's actually you who is attempting to retroactively define vaccine as something that lasts for (again, some definition of) "long term" that is conveniently not a precise number, but is definitely longer than the covid vaccine's effective duration? It's great if the protection from a vaccine lasts the rest of your life, but that is not a necessary condition for something to be a vaccine.

I think you realize that this dumb hill you wanted to die on is now plainly visible to everyone, and now you start trying to pivot away from it with it "doesn't even matter" as fast as possible. How many frikkin' times have you posted about the media trying to redefine what a vaccine is. I'm pretty sure it's currently the runner-up to the 99% quote in frequency. Own it.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> You walked us down this path of bullshit so we might as well start shoveling at the bottom to see how well your basic assertions hold up. One of your current huge assertions is that the media is trying to redefine what a vaccine is. You seem to have made up your own definition, since other definitions do not have a specific time window on how long protection must persist for something to be considered a vaccine. Therefore it's actually you who is attempting to retroactively define vaccine as something that lasts for (again, some definition of) "long term" that is conveniently not a precise number, but is definitely longer than the covid vaccine's effective duration? It's great if the protection from a vaccine lasts the rest of your life, but that is not a necessary condition for something to be a vaccine.
> 
> I think you realize that this dumb hill you wanted to die on is now plainly visible to everyone, and now you start trying to pivot away from it with it "doesn't even matter" as fast as possible. How many frikkin' times have you posted about the media trying to redefine what a vaccine is. I'm pretty sure it's currently the runner-up to the 99% quote in frequency. Own it.



Nope, I didn't walk you anywhere- especially not on any hill to die on. Read again. I literally said _there and then_ that this was just an extra quip and not the main point. And I quote : "_But I don't even need to go there, as I have always acknowledged that vaccines will give you a short boost to protection early on_".
Every reply since, I've humored you on the definition (since it's the only thing you're able to read apparently) and _also_ re-explained the essential point that you ignore.

Yet since you obviously don't have any argument of your own or actual data to share, you are now holding on to that _one specific thing_ for dear life in order to avoid replying on anything (and I mean _anything_) else of substance instead- because you're pretty empty-handed.

Suit yourself. I guess we can just use your syllogistic transitive property of "we have those old things" > "maybe this new thing also achieves some similar results so we'll call it the same" > "thus since it's called the same the new things automatically inherits all properties of those old things" to prove that like horses, gas-powered cars are 100% clean and definitely don't contribute to atmospheric pollution. Thanks for helping the climate crisis I guess 

I guess you _could _look at actual real life data and see that cars actually contribute pollution? But no, let's not do that. Since we can also call them "personal modes of transportation" due to them taking us from A to B, they also _definitely _have to be pollution-free... After all, such are the rules and that's obvious


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> Suit yourself. I guess we can just use your syllogistic transitive property of "we have those old things" > "maybe this new thing also achieves some similar results so we'll call it the same" > "thus since it's called the same the new things automatically inherits all properties of those old things" to prove that actually gas-powered cars are 100% clean and definitely don't contribute to atmospheric pollution. Thanks for helping the climate crisis I guess



It is a failing if you think that is anything similar to what I'm saying. I don't know where you got started talking about "automatically inherits all the properties of the old things". It automatically inherits the only property that is required by definition, i.e., that it... triggers an immune response to provide protection against contracting the virus. The definition has not changed. I mean, I can understand if you incorrectly thought there was some established duration for which a vaccine has to last to be considered a vaccine, but that's you who misunderstood, not... the rest of the world. The > 1yr effective duration or whatever "mbardu criteria" was never part of what makes a vaccine a vaccine.


----------



## StevenC

Somewhere out there some small corner of a datacentre could be better used for literally anything else.


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## TedEH

mbardu said:


> the unvaccinated are tested many times more in the first place


In this area, the vaccinated do get tested pretty frequently in some cases - including anytime anyone has to do something associated with health care - be it a need to go into a hospital for other things, or anyone going to work there, etc - but otherwise everyone is given _the same guideline_ of only getting tested if you have reason to suspect you have it - meaning you have symptoms, or have been in contact with it, etc. That's not a vax vs. unvax thing. The same standard applies to both populations here. If anything - I'd imagine that since we're majority vaccinated here pretty much everywhere, that our vax'd tests probably are either close to equal or outnumber non-vax'd tests. Yes, that's an assumption - but to me it sounds like a reasonable one, and I can't find any real "evidence" in either direction as to who is getting tested more.



mbardu said:


> If we still believe the majority of cases are asymptomatic, and the asymptomatic vaccinated are tested way less, that's a non-insignificant bias in the results.


I have trouble believing that's enough of a bias to flip the 4x case rate on it's head. That's a huuuuuuge stretch. You're baking a huge assumption into this that asymptomatic vaccinated populations are _so uncareful_ that they're some secret _actual_ root cause for the 4x more cases happening in the minority population, and that the asymptomatic non-vaccinated are _sooo_ careful that they couldn't possibly be just spreading it themselves. Just letting non-vaccinated people off the line because...... you don't like that people wish they'd get vaccinated?

How can you account for the fact that when the vax rate is < 50% vs. when the rate is ~80%, you _still_ have the same consistent 4x rate in non-vaccinated people. If the real spreaders are those dumb uncareful vaxxers, shouldn't your case rates be lower?

Some quick googling for fun:
Population of California is about 4.5x that of Quebec - but according to worldometer you have 2.5 million active cases, while we have about 4k. Your single-dose rate actually isn't far behind us, but fully vax'd rate IS pretty far behind. So what do we gather from this - should we just instead say that regardless of the vaccine, the problem is actually uncareful Californians? That works out to almost 140x the case rate normalized to the same number of people, and we certainly don't have 140x the vaccinations.

I maintain that there is no problem with vaccinated vs. unvaccinated - it's entirely about behaviour and mitigation strategy - which, vaccination is a large part of that strategy. You can keep beating the "but someone said 99% once" drum, but it's that 4x case rate I think you're really up against in terms of convincing anyone that we're being unfair to the unvaccinated.


----------



## TedEH

StevenC said:


> Somewhere out there some small corner of a datacentre could be better used for literally anything else.


Have you seen the rest of the internet? Most corners of data centers could be much better used.


----------



## Adieu

Yup

99% of it is porn, cat pictures, unboxing videos, scams, and aggro or racist memes and propaganda


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## narad

Adieu said:


> Yup
> 
> 99% of it is porn, cat pictures, unboxing videos, scams, and aggro or racist memes and propaganda



Sounds like an improvement


----------



## profwoot

Maybe mbardu has a humiliation fetish. Why else would he spend so much of his time getting owned on a forum?

(I look forward to the inevitable flailing about how you haven't been humiliated, you don't spend much time on here, you've never once been owned, you have no fetishes, and how all such accusations prove something something echo chamber. I won't see it, but I look forward to it anyway)


----------



## Adieu

Maybe it's a Kremlin troll collecting bonuses for foreign language posts in a highly hostile environment?


----------



## StevenC

Adieu said:


> Maybe it's a Kremlin troll collecting bonuses for foreign language posts in a highly hostile environment?


But why is the Kremlin troll so defensive of Jeff Kiesel?


----------



## Adieu

StevenC said:


> But why is the Kremlin troll so defensive of Jeff Kiesel?



It's probably on the character notes sheet? To fill out some personality?


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> In this area, the vaccinated do get tested pretty frequently in some cases - including anytime anyone has to do something associated with health care - be it a need to go into a hospital for other things, or anyone going to work there, etc - but otherwise everyone is given _the same guideline_ of only getting tested if you have reason to suspect you have it - meaning you have symptoms, or have been in contact with it, etc. That's not a vax vs. unvax thing. The same standard applies to both populations here. If anything - I'd imagine that since we're majority vaccinated here pretty much everywhere, that our vax'd tests probably are either close to equal or outnumber non-vax'd tests. Yes, that's an assumption - but to me it sounds like a reasonable one, and I can't find any real "evidence" in either direction as to who is getting tested more.
> 
> 
> I have trouble believing that's enough of a bias to flip the 4x case rate on it's head. That's a huuuuuuge stretch. You're baking a huge assumption into this that asymptomatic vaccinated populations are _so uncareful_ that they're some secret _actual_ root cause for the 4x more cases happening in the minority population, and that the asymptomatic non-vaccinated are _sooo_ careful that they couldn't possibly be just spreading it themselves. Just letting non-vaccinated people off the line because...... you don't like that people wish they'd get vaccinated?
> 
> How can you account for the fact that when the vax rate is < 50% vs. when the rate is ~80%, you _still_ have the same consistent 4x rate in non-vaccinated people. If the real spreaders are those dumb uncareful vaxxers, shouldn't your case rates be lower?
> 
> Some quick googling for fun:
> Population of California is about 4.5x that of Quebec - but according to worldometer you have 2.5 million active cases, while we have about 4k. Your single-dose rate actually isn't far behind us, but fully vax'd rate IS pretty far behind. So what do we gather from this - should we just instead say that regardless of the vaccine, the problem is actually uncareful Californians? That works out to almost 140x the case rate normalized to the same number of people, and we certainly don't have 140x the vaccinations.
> 
> I maintain that there is no problem with vaccinated vs. unvaccinated - it's entirely about behaviour and mitigation strategy - which, vaccination is a large part of that strategy. You can keep beating the "but someone said 99% once" drum, but it's that 4x case rate I think you're really up against in terms of convincing anyone that we're being unfair to the unvaccinated.



Maye I didn't make that clear about the 4x rate, but I didn't really bake in _any _assumption that "vaccinated populations are _so uncareful_". In fact I said this is not something you could ever prove. It's not likely something you should generalize either, as there are probably a lot of unvaccinated people who are at least as bad with not taking precautions.

The only argument was a reporting one. That in places I'm familiar with, the only reported numbers are number of positive tests vs population. Not number of positive tests vs total number of tests. I am not seeing positivity rate broken down between vaccinated/unvaccinated.
So you could easily have a lot more unreported cases in the vaccinated population just because of lack of testing of asymptomatic vaccinated.

I don't know, based on what you're saying maybe in Ontario it's all comparable and not the case because the vaccinated get tested as frequently as the unvaccinated -I'm not familiar. But for instance, in France, you get about twice the number of positives tests per 100k in the "unvaccinated" group compared to the "6 months+ double vaccinated group", which looks like a big difference, until you see that the unvaccinated group has also about twice the number of tests per 100k which is back to giving you a comparable rate.

Your comparison with California is tough. There's so much difference in there (testing, demographics, geography, population...) that I don't know that we could compare.
If we could though, I would agree with you. The vaccination rates not being _that _different, it would probably be something else than "just the vaccine" explaining it.
And in fact that's true worldwide, there are wild discrepancies worldwide between regions which have similar vaccination rates and very different infections/hospitalization rates and trends.
Portugal is the most vaccinated country in the world, yet they are seeing the same relative surge in cases than most of their less vaccinated neighbors. Countries like Japan and Singapore are not quite as vaccinated, and yet are not seeing similar trends.

Vaccination is part of the strategy, but we shouldn't pretend that it's the _only _thing in the strategy- thus judging how "virtuous" people are when taking life and death decisions, _just _based on the sole vaccination dimension.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> It is a failing if you think that is anything similar to what I'm saying. I don't know where you got started talking about "automatically inherits all the properties of the old things". It automatically inherits the only property that is required by definition, i.e., that it... triggers an immune response to provide protection against contracting the virus. The definition has not changed. I mean, I can understand if you incorrectly thought there was some established duration for which a vaccine has to last to be considered a vaccine, but that's you who misunderstood, not... the rest of the world. The > 1yr effective duration or whatever "mbardu criteria" was never part of what makes a vaccine a vaccine.



I don't need a specific duration to be there for the argument. The only thing that matters is what situation we are in today.

You are saying that it is somehow _obvious _that as of today, the vaccinated (including those 9+ months old doses) _must _still be significantly less susceptible to infection and less contagious than the unvaccinated public. Beyond any reasonable doubt. And you say that without any proof, in a context where Omicron is there... despite acknowledging yourself that you don't have the data on Omicron in order to prove your argument. And you are saying that this is _obvious _that this is the case, because we proved that the vaccine had high _early _efficacy- and for some reason that should justify the vaccine forever and in eternity.

This is exactly the same syllogism as in my example- sorry to break it out to you.
Your first premise is "MRNA/Pfizer can be called valid vaccines just like old-school vaccines because they have shown efficacy against infections weeks after injection".
Your second premise is "For past vaccines, we have seen that the people without injection will generally be significantly more susceptible to infection in the long run".
Which gives you the conclusion "Thus it's obvious that as of today, the Covid-vaccinated are less susceptible to infection and the unvaccinated deserved to be punished". But that's textbook fallacious logic.

The inherited property that is problematic in your "reasoning" is the "obvious" (according to you) fact that there is still significant protection left for all those people who got the vaccine all those months ago. And this is absolutely not guaranteed just because of one thing in common with the typical vaccines (initial protection early on).
In fact, it's quite the opposite- as literally _*all*_ studies that have tried to quantify efficacy over time with rigorous standards have shown significant waning in weeks and months.

If your goal is to punish some people and selectively not let them have healthcare because they didn't do their part during the pandemic, that's pretty questionable in and of itself (it's typically the kind of things you don't do and it's hard to say who should be the judge of that sort of things...). But on top of it, if you did want to do that (and it sounds like we _really _want to punish some people), then strictly the vaccination status would not even be the right metric to make that determination.

I mentioned it before, but you're going to have a hard time building an objective scale of how "virtuous" someone has been with regards to the pandemic. For example based on how many people you have harmed or helped. Sure, vaccination will _generally _help your "score" (sounds CCP-ish enough?), but so would self isolating at home for a few weeks. And a number of people who took no precautions after the vaccine and ended up infecting hundreds _should _find themselves at the bottom of the scale because of their recklessness if you wanted to be fair.
Except obviously we don't want to be fair. Just find a good and easy scapegoat in the unvaccinated.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> Your comparison with California is tough


It's only a tough comparison if you're starting from a conclusion and trying to work your way back from it - say for example trying to demonstrate that "the vaccinated are just virtue signalling jerks that want to punish the rest". I'd be willing to bet that in California, and most places, just as here, the vaccinated are tested often enough to reasonably maintain the 4x rate - following a similar premise that the root cause of being tested is getting sick, not being non-vaccinated.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> I don't need a specific duration to be there for the argument. The only thing that matters is what situation we are in today.
> 
> You are saying that it is somehow _obvious _that as of today, the vaccinated (including those 9+ months old doses) _must _still be significantly less susceptible to infection and less contagious than the unvaccinated public.



I'm not saying that. How long the vaccine is effective for is not an important part of my argument. If a vaccine is significantly more effective for 3 months, then vaccinated people should get preferential treatment for 3 months. If after 9 months it is not providing measurable protection, then those people are out in the world functionally the same as unvaccinated and should not be given any special consideration in triage situations. 

Especially if an unvaccinated person walks in to the hospital with a case of covid, fuck 'em. Guess they weren't one of these mythical self-isolated unvaccinated guys. Fuck the vaccinated people that go out to a rave too, but in terms of policy, no one's going to know who that is. We don't make policy under the assumption of full knowledge of everyone's day-to-day decisions.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> It's only a tough comparison if you're starting from a conclusion and trying to work your way back from it - say for example trying to demonstrate that "the vaccinated are just virtue signalling jerks that want to punish the rest". I'd be willing to bet that in California, and most places, just as here, the vaccinated are tested often enough to reasonably maintain the 4x rate - following a similar premise that the root cause of being tested is getting sick, not being non-vaccinated.



I'm not starting from a conclusion and working backwards from there. I'd be interested to know for sure actually, so if someone can show me actual numbers of _tests _per vaccinated/unvaccinated, or positivity % by those categories, that should settle it.

I'm not trying to say California should be different because X or Y to match any sort of a prior idea. There is one thing that is clear. Maybe testing _is _similar vax/unvax in Ontario (again I won't pretend to know)- But I do know for a fact that in California, we test the vaccinated way _way _less than the unvaccinated. Unvaccinated have to test on a regular basis for education and for work (multiple times per week sometimes). In case of contact, the unvaccinated have to test earlier and twice as much as the vaccinated. And for the vaccinated that's really only theory because it's not really enforced anyway. I have had to get a grand total of _*zero *_Covid tests in the last 2 years and yet I know unvaccinated people for whom it's basically become a habit at that point. The number of tests vax vs unvax are really not comparable.

I don't know other reasons for the California numbers besides that one so I'm not commenting or speculating on anything else. But no matter how I look at it, there _are _inconsistencies between what you see from countries that _do _test broadly- and report number of tests per category (the UK, France), and a country like the USA which does not. Either depending on which side of the Atlantic you look, there is actually a hugely significant 4x difference in vaccinated vs unvaccinated infection cases -and not on the other side. Or else there is a difference in a way the numbers are collected and reported.

Considering that unlike in the USA (or Canada- as I told you I am less familiar there) you _can _get the number of tests per vaccinated/unvaccinated for a country like France - and it _does _show how the number of tests does introduce precisely the bias I'm talking about; I'd be tempted to trust the granular numbers with full data. I know that it may sound like minutiae, but if we are testing way way less in the rest of the US or Ontariao - just like we are in California, then it can definitely introduce this large bias. But again, that's an "if" and I'd happily be proven wrong if we can get the same granularity for the US data for example. Maybe the vaccines just work different in the USA and Canada compared to Western Europe for example...


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> I'm not saying that. How long the vaccine is effective for is not an important part of my argument. If a vaccine is significantly more effective for 3 months, then vaccinated people should get preferential treatment for 3 months. If after 9 months it is not providing measurable protection, then those people are out in the world functionally the same as unvaccinated and should not be given any special consideration in triage situations.



Wow OK so all that drama, so that the end of the day you end up agreeing with what I was saying all along . If the unvaccinated person stays home for a while as a tradeoff, doesn't infect anyone - then they _should not _be arbitrarily punished more compared to someone with an old 9-months vaccine (which doesn't give any real protection anymore) being reckless. So the triage should not be done solely on the binary basis of vaccination status. Great! And so despite all your unfounded mockeries, the length of vaccine protection _does _matter (you literally contrast 3 months vs 9 months) for preferential treatment. Great!
You'll notice however that no measure today agree with us on that. Like Randy or others have shown, there is no logic behind current vaccination-based privileges or discrimination, and some people who know they don't _really _have protection _do _still get the magical vaccine card while unvaccinated people who have been self isolating are still being stigmatized and losing their jobs (and apparently healthcare if people had their way) based on that one criteria.
And I'm not sure you realize it, but the distinction you are making that _now _agrees with my point means that under the proposed "let's prioritize treatment" approach, _*a lot*_ of double vaccinated people would currently be deprioritized for treatment due to the age of their vaccines.



narad said:


> Especially if an unvaccinated person walks in to the hospital with a case of covid, fuck 'em. Guess they weren't one of these mythical self-isolated unvaccinated guys. Fuck the vaccinated people that go out to a rave too, but in terms of policy, no one's going to know who that is. We don't make policy under the assumption of full knowledge of everyone's day-to-day decisions.



Oh but wait, there it is we're right back to "fuck the unvaccinated" _right _in the next paragraph . Neither empathy nor logic could last for long it seems 

I find it interesting that your angle coming into the discussion was "we should de-prioritize the unvaccinated for treatment because of _moral _reasons- because of _doing what's right_", but however after _actually _going through the arguments, it's actually "we _can't_ _actually _do it right because we don't know people's day-to-day decisions- so let's do it _wrong _even if it's not moral to do so". So it was never a moral argument in the end. Just a "we can't understand their situation, but the unvaccinated can just go die for all we care". After all, you say "fuck the vaccinated who goes out to raves", but under the policies you guys are supporting, this guy is still the selfless hero who gets priority care, even if he actually infected hundreds of people. Good job on the morals and doing the right thing I guess!


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> Wow OK so all that drama, so that the end of the day you end up agreeing with what I was saying all along .



Well, no.



mbardu said:


> If the unvaccinated person stays home for a while as a tradeoff, doesn't infect anyone - then they _should not _be arbitrarily punished more compared to someone with an old 9-months vaccine (which doesn't give any real protection anymore) being reckless. So the triage should not be done solely on the binary basis of vaccination status.



There are many people with < 9-months old vaccines, and then in those cases, for sure prioritize them over the unvaccinated. We're in year 1 of vaccines. They're going to get better, they're going to last longer, and any duration-based argument is just going to get weaker and weaker. More data is going to come in to provide us with a better picture of how time relates to vaccine effectiveness in newer strains. I'm all in support of working that into policy.

And if an unvaccinated person winds up at the hospital with covid, then their own attempts at isolating themselves from the infection have obviously failed. That they behaved irresponsibly is evident from their situation. 

If we were omniscient beings, we could triage on a whole set of other criteria, not just for covid but for any instance when hospital resources are limited. But we don't. If you want a liver transplant and you've had a drink, you're disqualified. There are other things we could consider when determining who gets a transplant, but you don't need to be super slim or reduce your salt intake. This is no different. If we knew someone's day-to-day behavior, we could triage in different ways, but we don't. It's not unethical to say that we only have partial information about a person, and if the only partial information we know about a person that relates to covid transmissions is whether they are vaccinated or not, then when push comes to shove, ya know, fuck the unvaccinated.


----------



## Randy

Idk, I'm sure there are self isolating people who choose not to get the vaccine for... errr idk some kind of reason but that's elevating a really minute group of people to legitimize an argument that applies to so few. Like, literally I know two people personally that are in that situation and even then I question their motives/methods (they still travel and attend some social gatherings, are extremely far right conservative). But you know, anecdotes are anecdotes.

I'm just still firmly in the position that people who ARE willing to do the right thing (whether that's vaccine, mask, isolating, etc) are underserved and inconvenienced or endangered no matter what level of mitigation they choose.

The CDC etc still focused on messaging and enforcement as "carrot and the stick" to get people to take vaccines, despite that approach failing miserably. The single worst thing to happen with this pandemic, worse than anything Trump said/did was the rolling back of mask and distancing guidelines in tandem with the vaccine rollout and the "summer of freedom" bullshit to get people to take the vax. It was inaccurate and even if in earnest, based on very limited observation of vaccinated people over an even more limited period of time. Everyone felt like they were being rewarded for doing like the smallest fucking thing and when things got bad/worse, now refuse to go back because they feel entitled.

The 5 day isolations as a handout to the airline lobby masquerading as science and the now muddled messaging on masks, seemingly also a gift to the airlines (and others) are an extension of the same bullshit. "Do what we say and you'll be safe" and it turns out they're knowingly wrong or overselling the safety of what they're recommending.

If you stripped the pandemic measures of stuff that's just feel good political messaging or handjobs for special interests, the whole thing would look different and the results would be different. Not that anyone in particular has gotten this pandemic 100% right but it's remarkable how WRONG we've gotten it in the US.


----------



## Randy

I used the analogy before of the vaccine like seat belts in a car.

They're not a guarantee you won't get in an accident, you won't be injured and you won't die but they mitigate some of the most common injuries that occur *if* you happen to get in an accident that your chances of survival are now better on average.

The pandemic handling feels like 100% focusing on messaging to get people to wear the seatbelt, forcing people to wear the seatbelt, rewarding people for wearing the seatbelt, lying to people to get them to wear the seatbelt, engineering the car so it's impossible of to not wear the seatbelt, etc etc.

And to some extent you get some mitigation there, but aside from this you could be making the seatbelt itself better, making the vehicle safer, configure the roads to make accidents less common and less deadly, on and on.

There's options available that likely save more lives, and help outcomes for people who CHOOSE to take the help you're offering, but you chose to focus on only one method instead (the seatbelts or vaccines ONLY). And you focus on that one thing, so the returns you get drilling away at that one thing become less and less for every ounce of effort you put into it because the holdouts shrink and less inclined to give in to your methods. Blood from a stone.

Meanwhile the people who chose to wear the seatbelt get that one minor level of added safety and then nothing else. You take the one minor step and it's "you're on your own now".


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> Well, no.
> 
> There are many people with < 9-months old vaccines, and then in those cases, for sure prioritize them over the unvaccinated. We're in year 1 of vaccines. They're going to get better, they're going to last longer, and any duration-based argument is just going to get weaker and weaker. More data is going to come in to provide us with a better picture of how time relates to vaccine effectiveness in newer strains. I'm all in support of working that into policy.



Well, yes 

If you are OK to take an objective look at infection and transmission risk as the criteria for prioritization, then whether you like it or not, we're saying the same thing on that part.
That's new! The argument used to be "only use vaccination status" as the criteria, because supposedly the rest is "obvious" based on that, so saying "use actual protective effect - which may or may no longer be there" is definitely progress.
It'd be easy to point out how you're _now finally _adding that in order to wiggle yourself out of the initial "only use vaccination status as a criteria" , but progress is progress 

After that- Again, you're stating a bunch of stuff regarding what's getting better without any proof- just because you "feel" like it. The boosters are showing that the additional protection so far is getting _worse_, not better. The booster might give you a few _weeks _of re-enhanced protection instead of months at this point.

The 9 months was just an example, and in some countries I'm well familiar with, the category of "6+ months old vaccine" is very large, and has comparable infection risks with the unvaccinated at this point. That's where the current measures are dumb IMO. And would be dumb by your "new" own criteria too. Going by your new logic, those "6+ months old vaccines" should now be punished and de-prioritized too, just like the unvaccinated.



narad said:


> And if an unvaccinated person winds up at the hospital with covid, then their own attempts at isolating themselves from the infection have obviously failed. That they behaved irresponsibly is evident from their situation.



Well, no.

Anyone can get infected with Covid, whether you're cautious or not.
Just like the vaccine is not 100%, staying home is not 100%. Oh no, you actually got the Covid from your neighbor through your building's AC - too bad! Whoops, the delivery guy sneezed in your face - too bad, now you caught Covid!

It's funny how you would cut any slack in the world to someone partying maskless a month after his vaccine, but there is no possible salvation for someone unvaccinated. The fact you and others so eagerly keep coming back to stuff like "fuck them, they can just die at the end of the queue" is pretty telling about the state of mind.
We pretend "of course there's no arbitrary hate", but under the surface it's just _all _rage 



narad said:


> If we were omniscient beings, we could triage on a whole set of other criteria, not just for covid but for any instance when hospital resources are limited. But we don't. If you want a liver transplant and you've had a drink, you're disqualified. There are other things we could consider when determining who gets a transplant, but you don't need to be super slim or reduce your salt intake. This is no different. If we knew someone's day-to-day behavior, we could triage in different ways, but we don't. It's not unethical to say that we only have partial information about a person, and if the only partial information we know about a person that relates to covid transmissions is whether they are vaccinated or not, then when push comes to shove, ya know, fuck the unvaccinated.



How is the transplant example transmission-related at all? No- the example of transplant is showing that- like all others before you, you are now shifting the goalposts from "transmission" to "individual health responsibility". Which is _just _fine and dandy to me. But since you apply that logic to what would be emergency care of someone unvaccinated who got Covid, then why stop there?

Someone who smoked all his life should not be treated for lung cancer. Someone obese should not be treated for heart attacks or stroke. Someone who got in a climbing accident should not be treated for his fall. After all, those people all endangered their own health, just like no-vaccine guy or liver-transplant guy. They continued to endanger their health, even in a world where it's well known that the healthcare resources are stretched. And we have objective information on _all _of those to prove it. No need to be omniscient. Like, even if we say the vaccine were to give you 4x protection against catching the virus, that's still less than the 100% guaranteed protection against climbing accident of staying on your couch  .

After all, healthcare resources are always limited, no? And we're complaining that in a Covid world, all those _other _preventable emergencies are _also_ seeing longer wait times and triage because of capacity, right? So congratulations, you just solved the problem of healthcare resources once and for all by just deciding to no longer treat based on need, but to only treat those you deem worthy. Except it's not how any of this works. Otherwise, no need to check vaccine cards. Just start turning away Covid emergencies with preventable comorbidities, because _those _will the the ones taking the heaviest toll on your ICU resources.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> Well, yes
> 
> If you are OK to take an objective look at infection and transmission risk as the criteria for prioritization, then whether you like it or not, we're saying the same thing on that part.
> That's new! The argument used to be "only use vaccination status" as the criteria, because supposedly the rest is "obvious" based on that, so saying "use actual protective effect - which may or may no longer be there" is definitely progress.
> It'd be easy to point out how you're _now finally _adding that in order to wiggle yourself out of the initial "only use vaccination status as a criteria" , but progress is progress



Well it's not new, it's from like 4 pages ago:



narad said:


> we don't know enough about this strain yet to jump to any conclusions, like this notion that there is not any advantage to being vaccinated when it comes to transmission and hospitalization. When we have data showing this, I'll happily surrender any efforts to prioritize treatment or freedoms for vaccinated people.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> Well it's not new, it's from like 4 pages ago:



Cool!
Correction: your post should actually read "when I am willing to look at data that goes against my bias" rather than "when we have data", because we do have some data.
But again, I'm always happy to see progress regardless.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> Cool!
> Correction: your post should actually read "when I am willing to look at data that goes against my bias" rather than "when we have data", because we have some data.
> But again, I'm always happy to see progress regardless.



Feel free to show the data you think shows that there is no advantage to being vaccinated when it comes to transmission and hospitalization.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> Feel free to show the data you think shows that there is no advantage to being vaccinated when it comes to transmission and hospitalization.



Why are you mixing hospitalization again? Do we need to shift the goalposts again? Just like the examples of comparable infection rates, the hospitalization discussion (and correspondingly individual health consequences) has been answered. Like _in the prior post on this very page_ above re: hospitalizations.

I mean- you don't _have _to read everything if it's too much for you- and you don't _have _to answer on things (clearly you're not trying) when it's apparent you don't have a counterargument. But then acting coy like it's not been answered already is a bit weird.


----------



## TedEH

Randy said:


> There's options available that likely save more lives


What options are those exactly? If, at the end of the day, our big goal is preventing deaths, nothing has done this better than the vaccines so far. Last holiday season, at it's worst, before we had vaccine coverage, we were losing 100-200 people per day to the 'rona in Canada, not counting whatever other damage is done by overloading healthcare. Post vaccine, we've easily exceeded the case count by miles, but deaths are a tenth of what they were last year. What else has that kind of impact? And we can't just say "well if everyone just stayed home and..." because people don't take to restrictions like that. Whatever mitigation strategy gets discussed has to consider that people are inevitably going to push back against it, no matter what it is. We've demonstrated it already with the jabs, with the masks, with the staying inside, etc etc. It's worthless to discuss any option as if we expect 100% adoption.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> Why are you mixing hospitalization again? Do we need to shift the goalposts again? Just like the examples of comparable infection rates, the hospitalization discussion (and correspondingly individual health consequences) has been answered. Like _in the prior post on this very page_ above re: hospitalizations.
> 
> I mean- you don't _have _to read everything if it's too much for you- and you don't _have _to answer on things (clearly you're not trying) when it's apparent you don't have a counterargument. But then acting coy like it's not been answered already is a bit weird.



Because it was literally the text in my post that you quoted three posts back, the one that you said the data supported.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> What options are those exactly? If, at the end of the day, our big goal is preventing deaths, nothing has done this better than the vaccines so far. Last holiday season, at it's worst, before we had vaccine coverage, we were losing 100-200 people per day to the 'rona in Canada, not counting whatever other damage is done by overloading healthcare. Post vaccine, we've easily exceeded the case count by miles, but deaths are a tenth of what they were last year. What else has that kind of impact? And we can't just say "well if everyone just stayed home and..." because people don't take to restrictions like that. Whatever mitigation strategy gets discussed has to consider that people are inevitably going to push back against it, no matter what it is. We've demonstrated it already with the jabs, with the masks, with the staying inside, etc etc. It's worthless to discuss any option as if we expect 100% adoption.



Options include isolation/quarantine, contact tracing, _actual _mask wearing, remote work, therapeutics and care.... I'm probably missing some. There are other avenues.

Also, like _you _were saying a few posts above, you shouldn't come into the discussion, looking at the data- already knowing the conclusion that you _want _to get to.

Deaths are much lower than a year ago, that much is true.
We also have a population that's largely vaccinated - also true.

However this correlation is not enough tot say that vaccines are the only reason behind the smaller death count ("What _else _has that kind of impact?").
For example, we have gotten much better at treating Covid in hospital/ICU. Doesn't help as much with heavy comorbidities cases, but actual tested protocols and stuff like monoclonal antibodies have seen better survival outcomes overall. Additionally, thanks to terrible pandemic management, the most fragile population has unfortunately already died from Covid. Precisely in those prior waves. Finally- the elephant in the room. Which is that we're looking at variants which are understood to be less serious (less deaths) and more transmissible (more cases) than what we had last year.
Any of those effects could explain as much as the vaccine - we shouldn't assume causation just because we want to.

The vaccine has helped, and will continue to help - but focusing _only _on it may give diminishing returns or some counterproductive effects.


----------



## StevenC

TedEH said:


> What options are those exactly?


Using the ignore button.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> Because it was literally the text in my post that you quoted three posts back, the one that you said the data supported.



I have no idea what you're on about. Do you _need _to make stuff up at this point?
I have never said the unvaccinated _hospitalization _rates are comparable - and would not do that because there is evidence _that they are not_.
Hospitalization rates for unvaccinated _are _higher.
You _are _protecting yourself against hospitalization by getting the vaccine if you can.
Just like you are protecting yourself from any number of ailments (and Covid comorbidities) by not drinking/by eating well/by exercising etc...yet you don't see obese people being refused care through your logic.

It doesn't mean however that by getting the vaccine you are protecting yourself against _infection _and _transmission_ to others forever.
Why is it so difficult to understand that the two notions can be separate?

If you're going to ignore absolutely everything I write, and instead reply on made up stuff I never said...what's the point of you jumping into the discussion in the first place?
If it's just for the opportunity to say "fuck the unvaccinated" a few more times...well we know _already _that's what you think. We knew all along . The way you equate all of them to dumb antivax Trump-tards, it doesn't leave much doubt. And feel free to just vent and say it a few more times... there's no need to try so hard to make it look like an argumented point if all you want to say is "I don't like those people, they should be left to die". Not one to judge, but that does looks like a lot of hate to unpack there though.

Anyway- at least I guess you saw that when having the effect of your vaccine (or booster for that matter) against transmission waned to almost nothingness, having a binary check on "vaccine/no vaccine" to get the _privilege _to be treated is not necessarily the way to go. Unless you're happy to tell all those people with 6 months old vaccines (or 6 _weeks _old booster) that they can also get wrecked instead of getting treated...but in that case I don't think you'll make too many friends with that line of thinking


----------



## Drew

Good lord, this mess is still going on? 

No one has "changed the definition of a vaccine." Vaccines were pretty damned effective up through Delta. Omicron, however, has something like 35 separate mutations on the spike protein vaccines targeted (because it was the one used to infect host cells). It's as much the same virus as the alpha strain as a Ford Mustang is a Taurus. We're just lucky that vaccines still provide _some_ protection against omicron, and still do seem to mitigate some of the worst outcomes (even if it's unclear if omicron really is any more "mild" than Delta, as the proportion of breakthrough cases is quite a bit higher and those have always tended to be mild even when they were rare). 

We had a pretty good opportunity to clamp down on this pandemic, put the genie back in the bottle, and go back to individual contract tracing and isolation to try to eradicate the remaining cases, rather than have to fight broad community spread. Instead, due to a combination of anti-vaxers more concerned with "their rights" than public health, and our inability to produce enough vaccines quickly enough to get the developing world vaccinated, we squandered that opportunity. Better luck with the omicron vaccine, I guess. 

Meanwhile, since it looks like this is still under debate, in order to transmit the virus, you first have to be infected by the virus, symptomatically or otherwise, and vaccines still provide a material reduction in likelihood of becoming infected if exposed, especially with a booster shot. This is pretty basic science, barring some _slight_ possibility for surface transfer of a viral sample that doesn't infect you, and surface transfer has been found to not be a significant source of viral spread. 

I miss when this thread used to be a good source of _useful_ information, and of informed - if at times heated - debate.


----------



## Randy

TedEH said:


> What options are those exactly? If, at the end of the day, our big goal is preventing deaths, nothing has done this better than the vaccines so far. Last holiday season, at it's worst, before we had vaccine coverage, we were losing 100-200 people per day to the 'rona in Canada, not counting whatever other damage is done by overloading healthcare. Post vaccine, we've easily exceeded the case count by miles, but deaths are a tenth of what they were last year. What else has that kind of impact? And we can't just say "well if everyone just stayed home and..." because people don't take to restrictions like that. Whatever mitigation strategy gets discussed has to consider that people are inevitably going to push back against it, no matter what it is. We've demonstrated it already with the jabs, with the masks, with the staying inside, etc etc. It's worthless to discuss any option as if we expect 100% adoption.



100% correct. The point is that chiseling away at the small group of still living anti-vax, anti-mask is a task long past diminishing returns. As I cited, the more burrowed in these guys are, the more resource you spend helping less people.

Off the top of my head, maybe increased focus on the anti-viral pill/treatment rollout? Increased education of vaxxed people on the options for booster combinations/timelines... maybe even REACHING OUT to people to offer them their booster rather than waiting for them to find themselves in the system? Home delivery of N95 masks? Home delivery of tests?

I'm talking about step #2 thinking. As I've said for a while now, stop fixating on trying to fight the last remaining holdouts or giving gold stars to people for getting vaccinated by gaslighting irresponsible behavior that increases the spread. Spend your resources protecting the people who are willing to take the help.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> We had a pretty good opportunity to clamp down on this pandemic, put the genie back in the bottle, and go back to individual contract tracing and isolation to try to eradicate the remaining cases, rather than have to fight broad community spread. Instead, due to a combination of anti-vaxers more concerned with "their rights" than public health, and our inability to produce enough vaccines quickly enough to get the developing world vaccinated, we squandered that opportunity. Better luck with the omicron vaccine, I guess.



Missing from that list (which I'm not surprised, because we have hate on _only _the unvaccinated, right) is the vaccinated people continuing to spread the pandemic non stop in 2021.
The first half of 2021, the messaging was that breakthrough infections were impossible. That the vaccinated could not catch and transmit the virus. That they could go out maskless. That they did not need to get tested in case of contact case or in order to travel. That they did not need to isolate. That even if they caught the virus, they would not be able to transmit it. All things that, even before talking about more significant waning, have been proven wrong and/or terrible advice.

And it's not like this is entirely over either, this is still the thinking in many people's heads that "I got the vaccine so there's no way I could catch or spread the virus".
After all, can you blame them? Maybe when they checked the CDC website, this is exactly what the authorities were saying:
https://web.archive.org/web/2021041...irus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html
Choice extracts from under "If you’ve been fully vaccinated:"

You can gather indoors with fully vaccinated people without wearing a mask or staying 6 feet apart

You can gather indoors with unvaccinated people of any age from one other household (for example, visiting with relatives who all live together) without masks or staying 6 feet apart

If you travel in the United States, you do not need to get tested before or after travel or self-quarantine after travel

If you’ve been around someone who has COVID-19, you do not need to stay away from others or get tested
Geez, how incredibly prudent . The genie would never have gone back into the bottle with that attitude. What do we see all over the place? Vaccinated people who gather indoors with other vaccinated people and give Covid to other vaccinated people. Over and over. Even in this forum that's the majority of anecdotes.

The vaccinated have been spreading the pandemic the entire time.
It just _looked _like this wasn't the case, because authorities literally just decided to stop testing the vaccinated for months and months. Still having impacts today.
The good old "Trump" approach of "if we stop testing, there won't be any new cases" is exactly what we've proudly done to the vaccinated population and nobody has any issue with that 



Drew said:


> I miss when this thread used to be a good source of _useful_ information, and of informed - if at times heated - debate.



I know right...the good old times of useful accurate information such as "10 Million people will die in the US next year unless everyone is vaccinated" or "99% of cases are coming from the unvaccinated" or "only 50M people have been exposed to Covid in the US, so Omicron wil not behave like this"....


----------



## TedEH

Randy said:


> the anti-viral pill/treatment rollout


Whatever happened to that? I remember hearing about something like that being produced or worked on, then nothing.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> Choice extracts


Choosing of course to extract around the important context that you're supposed to still be watching for symptoms, following mask mandates, keeping away from people in public, etc. The bits you selected are perfectly reasonable as long as you're not throwing all caution to the wind. Generalizing that everyone has done precisely that (losing all sense of caution) is just as bad as generalizing that anyone who isn't vax'd isn't being careful either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Getting vax'd _has_ allowed a lot of normalcy to come back to a lot of places, as long as you're not being a dumbass about it.

For bonus points: you picked a wayback machine article that acknowledged that the provided information wasn't perfect and that we're still learning.

From your own link:


> Until we know more about those questions, everyone—even people who’ve had their vaccines—should continue taking steps to protect themselves and others


----------



## Randy

TedEH said:


> Whatever happened to that? I remember hearing about something like that being produced or worked on, then nothing.



A lot, actually.

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/pre...rizes-first-oral-antiviral-treatment-covid-19


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> Choosing of course to extract around the important context that you're supposed to still be watching for symptoms, following mask mandates, keeping away from people in public, etc. The bits you selected are perfectly reasonable as long as you're not throwing all caution to the wind. Generalizing that everyone has done precisely that (losing all sense of caution) is just as bad as generalizing that anyone who isn't vax'd isn't being careful either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Getting vax'd _has_ allowed a lot of normalcy to come back to a lot of places, as long as you're not being a dumbass about it.



Are you actually ignoring how poor the advice was to focus only on the one _exception _in there where it says do what you want "unless close to people with an increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19.". The one exception that literally has no impact on the transmission to the majority of the population who don't fall in that category? While ignoring everything else?
It specifically says multiple times "without mask"- what are you inventing regarding mask mandates? What about "keeping away from people in public"? The text literally says that vaccinated people no longer have to keep 6 feet distance. Did we read the same thing?

How are those recommendations reasonable now that we know you can absolutely spread Covid while vaccinated?
This would have _*literally *_told you that you did not need to get tested after being in contact with confirmed Covid cases, and that you should then have met other vaccinated people indoors without mask, and without distancing. It's no surprise that vaccinated people met and infected other vaccinated people based on what we know now.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> I have no idea what you're on about. Do you _need _to make stuff up at this point?
> I have never said the unvaccinated _hospitalization _rates are comparable - and would not do that because there is evidence _that they are not_.
> Hospitalization rates for unvaccinated _are _higher.
> You _are _protecting yourself against hospitalization by getting the vaccine if you can.
> Just like you are protecting yourself from any number of ailments (and Covid comorbidities) by not drinking/by eating well/by exercising etc...yet you don't see obese people being refused care through your logic.
> 
> It doesn't mean however that by getting the vaccine you are protecting yourself against _infection _and _transmission_ to others forever.
> Why is it so difficult to understand that the two notions can be separate?
> 
> If you're going to ignore absolutely everything I write, and instead reply on made up stuff I never said...what's the point of you jumping into the discussion in the first place?
> If it's just for the opportunity to say "fuck the unvaccinated" a few more times...well we know _already _that's what you think. We knew all along . The way you equate all of them to dumb antivax Trump-tards, it doesn't leave much doubt. And feel free to just vent and say it a few more times... there's no need to try so hard to make it look like an argumented point if all you want to say is "I don't like those people, they should be left to die". Not one to judge, but that does looks like a lot of hate to unpack there though.
> 
> Anyway- at least I guess you saw that when having the effect of your vaccine (or booster for that matter) against transmission waned to almost nothingness, having a binary check on "vaccine/no vaccine" to get the _privilege _to be treated is not necessarily the way to go. Unless you're happy to tell all those people with 6 months old vaccines (or 6 _weeks _old booster) that they can also get wrecked instead of getting treated...but in that case I don't think you'll make too many friends with that line of thinking



I don't have all day to write essays. I'm replying between rounds of Demon's Souls, so I'd prefer to just get to the point. Though it is literally less futile to throw my beaten body up against the Tower Knight for the fucking 40th time tonight than it would be to actually engage in some sort of conversation with you in the hopes of making a point / having made points acknowledged.

Let's focus just on what you said about hospitalization there. You just said hospitalization rates for unvaccinated people are higher. So if a vaccinated person and an unvaccinated person show up with covid to a hospital with one spot, I'm going to give the spot to the guy who didn't choose to not do the thing that would lower his rate of being there. You can quit trying to act like there is a moral argument to be made that has a right or wrong - it's a trolley problem. In my trolley problem, fuck the irresponsible person who opted out of the vaccine only to wind up, through whatever failing to protect themselves, at that hospital. I'm glad to see so many doctors coming out to express similar statements of frustration with anti-vaxxers needlessly (at least some proportion of them) clogging up their hospitals.

And it's also funny that you're calling me out for treating the unvaccinated as being all right-wing / MAGA / antivax as some anecdotal mischaracterization. Where are the stats? Seems like it's my word vs yours, and in my experience, a lot of stubbornly unvaccinated people are like that. I'm not saying *all* people are. Just a really noticeable amount.

Anyway, neither of us makes the policies, so if the pressure on the hospitals increases, fingers-crossed we enact some of these policies. As I said before regarding transplants, there is precedents for people allocated limited resources according to a set (non-exhaustive) criteria which includes obvious measurable things, and which in this case would obviously include vaccination. Unvaccinated people entering the hospital take more resources, and have worse outcomes, so I could easily see policy rolling out in this manner if things get worse. So yea, nothing against unvaccinated people (the world needs makeup salespeople and forklift operators) but if they show up to a hospital with covid, fuck 'em.

... even this reply has probably cost me 2,500 souls...


----------



## Drew

narad said:


> ... even this reply has probably cost me 2,500 souls...


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> it says do what you want


It doesn't say do whatever you want unless you're interpreting it like a dumbass. Maybe lots of people are ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I can't speak for the US, but at least here people are taking recommendations as recommendations and not as gospel. People are still careful even if the wording of the official recommendation is sketchy. If you take that same site and fast forward, they revised it to instead say:


> If you’ve had close contact with someone who has COVID-19, you should get tested 3-5 days after your exposure, even if you don’t have symptoms.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> I don't have all day to write essays. I'm replying between rounds of Demon's Souls, so I'd prefer to just get to the point. Though it is literally less futile to throw my beaten body up against the Tower Knight for the fucking 40th time tonight than it would be to actually engage in some sort of conversation with you in the hopes of making a point / having made points acknowledged.


No worries, I just find it funny that in all your replies taken from all your valuable gaming time, not once did you try to reply on any actual data point or matter of substance, but instead systematically chose to make up new stuff I didn't say in order to try and get...some sort of win. The right to say "fuck the unvaccinated" some more I guess, since that seems to be your thing.



narad said:


> Let's focus just on what you said about hospitalization there. You just said hospitalization rates for unvaccinated people are higher. So if a vaccinated person and an unvaccinated person show up with covid to a hospital with one spot, I'm going to give the spot to the guy who didn't choose to not do the thing that would lower his rate of being there. You can quit trying to act like there is a moral argument to be made that has a right or wrong - it's a trolley problem. In my trolley problem, fuck the irresponsible person who opted out of the vaccine only to wind up, through whatever failing to protect themselves, at that hospital.


You literally have read nothing I typed, right 
I'll repeat for the 100th time then ... that's OK.

Maybe you think we should not treat people who caught something because they were not careful enough. For example, people who didn't get the vaccine- yet caught Covid and have to go to the hospital. it's their fault after all, right? I would not share that line of thinking, but I do understand where it's coming from; and it's a pretty common knee-jerk reaction.

However, if that's your thinking, you will then also be refusing emergency care to, smokers, to obese people, to drinkers, to people who don't exercise, to people who go mountain climbing or whatever dangerous hobby. All of those are exactly like the unvaccinated guy in terms of their all-cause hospitalization risk. They made lifestyle choices that demonstrably increased their risk of getting to the hospital. Exact same trolley problem. So by your logic, they should be refused care.
I mean I don't mind in that case. I personally wouldn't go around and tell the obese "fuck you, you can die from your heart attack" or the mountain climber "haha sucks for you, should have been more careful", but to each their own. And besides, on top of being vaccinated, I don't drink, don't smoke, I do exercise, and I don't do dangerous stuff anymore...so I feel pretty safe 

But at least be consistent in your own argument. If not, considering you already have not been able to share any source or proof on anything- there's really not much left anymore if even internal consistency is gone.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> It doesn't say do whatever you want unless you're interpreting it like a dumbass. Maybe lots of people are ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I can't speak for the US, but at least here people are taking recommendations as recommendations and not as gospel. People are still careful even if the wording of the official recommendation is sketchy. If you take that same site and fast forward, they revised it pretty quickly to instead say:



Jeez, you can't be serious. Just look at the guidelines.

Let's say you've been in contact with not only suspected, but even _*confirmed*_ Covid cases. It literally tells you: "If you’ve been around someone who has COVID-19, you do not need to stay away from others or get tested unless you have symptoms."
Asymptomatic infections remain the majority of cases as far as we know.

So you go and meet your friends, and guidelines literally tell you:
"You can gather indoors with fully vaccinated people without wearing a mask or staying 6 feet apart."

So if you're asymptomatic carrier, you will likely infect those people too. Who will go and infect others.
How is this reasonable advice


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> No worries, I just find it funny that in all your replies taken from all your valuable gaming time, not once did you try to reply on any actual data point or matter of substance, but instead systematically chose to make up new stuff I didn't say in order to try and get...some sort of win. The right to say "fuck the unvaccinated" some more I guess, since that seems to be your thing.
> 
> 
> You literally have read nothing I typed, right
> I'll repeat for the 100th time then ... that's OK.
> 
> Maybe you think we should not treat people who caught something because they were not careful enough. For example, people who didn't get the vaccine- yet caught Covid and have to go to the hospital. it's their fault after all, right? I would not share that line of thinking, but I do understand where it's coming from; and it's a pretty common knee-jerk reaction.
> 
> However, if that's your thinking, you will then also be refusing emergency care to, smokers, to obese people, to drinkers, to people who don't exercise, to people who go mountain climbing or whatever dangerous hobby. All of those are exactly like the unvaccinated guy in terms of their all-cause hospitalization risk. They made lifestyle choices that demonstrably increased their risk of getting to the hospital. Exact same trolley problem. So by your logic, they should be refused care.
> I mean I don't mind in that case. I personally wouldn't go around and tell the obese "fuck you, you can die from your heart attack" or the mountain climber "haha sucks for you, should have been more careful", but to each their own. And besides, on top of being vaccinated, I don't drink, don't smoke, I do exercise, and I don't do dangerous stuff anymore...so I feel pretty safe
> 
> But at least be consistent in your own argument. If not, considering you already have not been able to share any source or proof on anything- there's really not much left anymore if even internal consistency is gone.



^^ does anyone besides mbardu think this makes sense?


----------



## TedEH

@mbardu, here's a thought:

Lets say you have two people. The careful unvax'd, and the uncareful vax'd. If the unvax'd is being so careful, how are they ending up in a situation where they're getting the virus from the vax'd person to begin with? Are they not wearing their masks, washing their hands, etc? Are they gathering with these people? Are they frequenting stores or other places that aren't themselves being careful and clean? And if so, why didn't they vet these places before-hand knowing that they don't have the protection the vaccine would have given them? Any person who gets infected must have _some amount_ of ownership in that infection, right?

If the people who are unvax'd are the ones taking the better and more effective precautions, how are they still getting infected?



mbardu said:


> How is this reasonable advice


I didn't say the whole document was reasonable advice, I said that the part you quoted from it was reasonable _in context_ of still being careful, and that the document itself warns that it's not perfect information.


----------



## jaxadam

mbardu said:


> I know right...the good old times of useful accurate information such as "10 Million people will die in the US next year unless everyone is vaccinated" or "99% of cases are coming from the unvaccinated" or "only 50M people have been exposed to Covid in the US, so Omicron wil not behave like this"....



Don't bother... he doesn't read 99% of your posts!


----------



## TedEH

narad said:


> ^^ does anyone besides mbardu think this makes sense?


It makes perfect sense if you're starting from a place of thinking that it's reasonable to generalize 50-80% of the population as being irresponsible because the vaccine gave you license to pretend a pandemic isn't still happening. It makes sense if you're under the impression that the majority of unvaccinated people are well informed, reasonable, and principled folks who are being _the most _cautious and unfairly "punished" for their very reasonable choices.

I'll give you that it's possible that first one is happening in some places, but it's far from universally true. The second one just feels like it's defensive, and I can't tell for what reason other than it's a vaguely "conservative" angle - some kind of "how dare you think you're so righteous for taking preventative steps that others refuse to take for.... reasons?"


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> @mbardu, here's a thought:
> 
> Lets say you have two people. The careful unvax'd, and the uncareful vax'd. If the unvax'd is being so careful, how are they ending up in a situation where they're getting the virus from the vax'd person to begin with? Are they not wearing their masks, washing their hands, etc? Are they gathering with these people? Are they frequenting stores or other places that aren't themselves being careful and clean? And if so, why didn't they vet these places before-hand knowing that they don't have the protection the vaccine would have given them? Any person who gets infected must have _some amount_ of ownership in that infection, right?
> 
> If the people who are unvax'd are the ones taking the better and more effective precautions, how are they still getting infected?



That's where you didn't read what I said.
I never pretended all unvaccinated people were more careful than all vaccinated people.

I said, even being careful you could get infected. Applied to anyone by the way, vaccinated or not.
You could isolate at home for months and get Covid from your neighbors the day the AC in your building has an issue- like happened to many New-Yorkians.
The delivery guy bringing you stuff (since you prefer not to shop in person) could sneeze in your face accidentally one day.
Maybe you _have _to go to the DMV or whatever in person and on that one day, by chance is when you get infected.

Even being careful, those things can happen. Obviously way less likelihood than the guy who has stopped any and all precautions and goes to parties unmasked. But shit happens.

But again, I'll repeat because you have it backwards. I never pretended that all unvaccinated people were more careful than all vaccinated people.
I didn't make _any_ generalization.

I actually take issue precisely with the generalizations. With the _opposite_ point of view from people like our colleague above, which is that _*all *_unvaccinated people should be refused or deprioritized for care. Other things too, in prior discussions, like losing their jobs, ability to travel etc- but specifically the last few pages have been about medical care.



TedEH said:


> I didn't say the whole document was reasonable advice, I said that the part you quoted from it was reasonable _in context_ of still being careful, and that the document itself warns that it's not perfect information.



I linked the whole thing, and then quoted all the points, except for the one particular exception about "people with an increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19". Add that exception if you want, doesn't change much. Everything else is bad advice, and exactly how asymptomatic infections got to continue majority of the year.
It literally tells you not to get tested even after knowing confirmed Covid contacts, and it tells you to go see your friends maskless without distancing.

Sure it has changed since...but it was that way for months, it was that way at the time many people got their initial vaccine and checked to see what they were now allowed to do, and it's the type of thing that you will typically have a hard time taking back from people once you have given them this initial piece of advice.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> It makes perfect sense



Thanks 



TedEH said:


> if you're starting from a place of thinking that it's reasonable to generalize 50-80% of the population as being irresponsible because the vaccine gave you license to pretend a pandemic isn't still happening. It makes sense if you're under the impression that the majority of unvaccinated people are well informed, reasonable, and principled folks who are being _the most _cautious and unfairly "punished" for their very reasonable choices.
> 
> I'll give you that it's possible that first one is happening in some places, but it's far from universally true. The second one just feels like it's defensive, and I can't tell for what reason other than it's a vaguely "conservative" angle - some kind of "how dare you think you're so righteous for taking preventative steps that others refuse to take for.... reasons?"



But I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding where I'm coming from. Never pretended that the unvaccinated as a group are the virtuous ones that should be defended at all costs. Never pretended that none of them were dumb Trump antivaxers. I never pretended that 80% of the vaccinated population was irresponsible either. Where?

I hate generalizations on either side. Both groups are complex and there are jerks anc careless people on both sides. I'd even be OK to say that maybe statistically speaking there might be a bigger proportion of jerks on the unvaccinated side. Doesn't change the discussion.

In fact, while we're at it- the vaccinated _should _have to take more precautions because of being unvaccinated.

But however:

it doesn't mean that the vaccinated should have to take 0 precautions. Which was the message for months and months in 2021- and still is in some people's minds. Notice I didn't generalize that "some" or say it was 50/80% or anything of the sort. I don't have a number. But this was encouraged for months. This was the carrot that you gave and the Pandora's box that was opened. And this in and of itself is harmful to _everyone_. The vaccinated are spreading the pandemic. It's not because we used the Trump method of stopping the testing that it did not happen.
it doesn't mean that the unvaccinated should be refused care if they end up being infected despite precautions. This is what a lot of people keep recommending as a way to punish those people they visibly hate. It's not right
it doesn't mean that the unvaccinated should be arbitrarily punished some more just because every time we feel like it (without rationale or objective reason)


----------



## Drew

Wait, I'm confused, is mbardu trying to argue that becauce breakthrough cases have become a meaningful source of spread _now_, with the evolution of the vaccine-resistant omicron variant, that they have _always _been a meaningful source of transmission? 

I'm trying to make out WTF you all are going on about, and please tell me he's making a case at least _marginally_ more sophisticated than this.


----------



## Adieu

mbardu said:


> the unvaccinated should be arbitrarily punished some more just because every time we feel like it (without proof)



Lots and lots of people should be punished

It's fun, builds a sense of community, and relieves stress


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> could sneeze in your face


I really hope this isn't happening regularly, even without a pandemic. What kind of delivery person just up and sneezes in your face?


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> I really hope this isn't happening regularly, even without a pandemic. What kind of delivery person just up and sneezes in your face?



I'm sure you catch my point and understand that this was a joke.
Shit happens and even being careful you could get infected- that's all.


----------



## TedEH

TedEH said:


> What kind of delivery person just up and sneezes in your face?


Actually - I'll go farther than this - if the delivery guy has cold symptoms, he shouldn't be working in the first place. Yeah, I know, a lot of people are going to work anyway. Coulda, woulda, shoulda, we're all dumbasses and we're never gonna see the end of this.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> Shit happens and even being careful you could get infected- that's all.


I'll grant you that this part of what you're saying is reasonable. No argument there. I don't think anyone has denied it though.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> Wait, I'm confused, is mbardu trying to argue that becauce breakthrough cases have become a meaningful source of spread _now_, with the evolution of the vaccine-resistant omicron variant, that they have _always _been a meaningful source of transmission?






Infection rates per 100k - from official UK surveillance report from *September*, when Omicron didn't even exist.

Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccine-surveillance-report

But yeah sure...vaccinated breakthrough infections are new, just to Omicron. How can people seriously believe that stuff...



Drew said:


> I miss when this thread used to be a good source of _useful_ information, and of informed - if at times heated - debate.



Right...


----------



## Jonathan20022

These scenarios are such a waste of time, no one is saying unvaxxed should be denied healthcare.

Hospitals are nuanced environments, the existence of an ER should be enough evidence of that. If you got impaled by some PVC pipe and you walk in asking for it to be removed from your body, you will get priority over others. Wether the impaled person is vaxxed or not doesn't make a difference, their lives are in *immediate *danger. Everyone else gets de-prioritized at that moment, but on an ordinary night. Two folks who tested positive and show mild symptoms, I argue the vaccinated person should get the room first. Neither person is in immediate danger, but logistically the person who is vaxxed will be in and out faster.

It was called a "mechanistic" way of viewing it, but if a hospital is just housing people without any sense of thought or organized system to reduce patient cycle time, then that hospital has failed it's basic duty of treating and saving as many lives as humanly possible.

The problem is people are thinking of this shit in absolutes, and this isn't happening. All hospitals/care centers are not turning away unvaccinated, some may be and if you feel like you want to take them to court over it you have every right to do so.

In terms of discourse, people say shit all the time that isn't applicable in a society, IE:

Punch Nazis
Castrate Pedos
Eat the Rich
Don't treat the unvaxxed
etc

These are sentiments, if you punched a Nazi they could sue you in court and technically win. Although punching a nazi is a general good, you'd still lose a case on the grounds that you technically assaulted a nazi.

In the same way if a doctor refuses treatment to an unvaccinated person and they were legally entitled to the care, they have every right to sue and win the case against the doctor and hospital they went to.

So at the end of the day, people are speaking their minds on subject matter that personally also affects them. They'll feel strongly about it, and you're not going to really get much ground asking people to empathize with people who willingly refuse to protect themselves and those around them in any way.


----------



## mbardu

Jonathan20022 said:


> These scenarios are such a waste of time, no one is saying unvaxxed should be denied healthcare.
> 
> Hospitals are nuanced environments, the existence of an ER should be enough evidence of that. If you got impaled by some PVC pipe and you walk in asking for it to be removed from your body, you will get priority over others. Wether the impaled person is vaxxed or not doesn't make a difference, their lives are in *immediate *danger. Everyone else gets de-prioritized at that moment, but on an ordinary night. Two folks who tested positive and show mild symptoms, I argue the vaccinated person should get the room first. Neither person is in immediate danger, but logistically the person who is vaxxed will be in and out faster.
> 
> It was called a "mechanistic" way of viewing it, but if a hospital is just housing people without any sense of thought or organized system to reduce patient cycle time, then that hospital has failed it's basic duty of treating and saving as many lives as humanly possible.
> 
> The problem is people are thinking of this shit in absolutes, and this isn't happening. All hospitals/care centers are not turning away unvaccinated, some may be and if you feel like you want to take them to court over it you have every right to do so.
> 
> In terms of discourse, people say shit all the time that isn't applicable in a society, IE:
> 
> Punch Nazis
> Castrate Pedos
> Eat the Rich
> Don't treat the unvaxxed
> etc
> 
> These are sentiments, if you punched a Nazi they could sue you in court and technically win. Although punching a nazi is a general good, you'd still lose a case on the grounds that you technically assaulted a nazi.
> 
> In the same way if a doctor refuses treatment to an unvaccinated person and they were legally entitled to the care, they have every right to sue and win the case against the doctor and hospital they went to.
> 
> So at the end of the day, people are speaking their minds on subject matter that personally also affects them. They'll feel strongly about it, and you're not going to really get much ground asking people to empathize with people who willingly refuse to protect themselves and those around them in any way.



That I do understand of course.
And if people need to vent and want to repeat "fuck those people who are different form me" for the 20th time after 2 years of pandemic frustration, sure.
In fact before meeting some people with valid reasons for not getting the vaccine, who knows ... maybe I would have been less tolerant too, and more annoyed and prone to generalizing that entire group as jerks. Probably not to the level of blind hateful bigotry than some people have here (they see others as just _some makeup salespeople and forklift operators_ who can get fucked and die instead of getting care...seriously the level of dehumanizing hate from some people)... but maybe I wouldn't understand their reasons for not getting the vaccine.

"Mechanistic" is not an issue in and of itself. Of course hospitals have to prioritize. But choosing not to treat unvaccinated people just because they didn't take the vaccine would be akin to not treating the obese/smokers/drinkers and the like- which would be pretty unprecedented ("I'm not going to treat you for that thing...because you could have reduced your chances of that thing in the first place").

If someone comes in saying "all the unvaccinated are evil, and they should be refused care in the hospital because I think we have good objective reasons to do so", it's not just venting. It's trying to justify the hypothetical policy that their hate wants- and on that I just jump in to show that no, we don't have objective reason.

In real life, I am not aware of that scenario actually happening and unvaccinated people being left to die, but that's what's being advocated for. And it might sound like just harmless theory, but I know people who have literally lost their (remote/not health related) job for not being vaccinated, so the normalization of that type of thinking already has real consequences for real people. Including some good people that I know who have certainly infected less people than the vaccinated jerks at my school who caused a huge cluster


----------



## Drew

Jonathan20022 said:


> In the same way if a doctor refuses treatment to an unvaccinated person and they were legally entitled to the care, they have every right to sue and win the case against the doctor and hospital they went to.


The Hippocratic Oath DOES bind doctors to provide care to unvaccinated covid patients if they're at all able to, even if they'd really, really, really prefer they didn't. 

At the same time, if the hospital in question has no capacity because it's 100% full of covid patients and only 85% staffed thanks to staff covid infections, if you show up with covid, there WILL come a point where you're going to be turned away, regardless of vaccine status, because they physically can't help you. No one likes to talk about health care as a, in the strictly economics-defined sense of the term, scarce resource, in America, but there ARE limits to how many patients our health care infrastructure can accommodate at any given time, and those limits are being artificially lowered by breakthrough cases amongst the staff, as well as by providers simply quitting out of frustration or exhaustion.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> In fact before meeting some people with valid reasons for not getting the vaccine, who knows


Then why not share these stories instead of arguing? There's been plenty of asks for "what exactly are all these good reasons that people are vaccinating?"

I mean, there's the obvious cases where someone is known to be at a heightened risk for some kind of severe side-effect, we're all aware of that.
There's also the flip side of this that people use that same fear as an excuse when they aren't _actually_ at a heightened risk.
I assume that leaves two cases: fear, and principles.
Fear, as in people are who are under the impression that the risks are higher than they actually are - be it because they're just misinformed, or think the government is trying to poison them or something.
And principles as in people who aren't concerned with risk, they're mostly concerned with their autonomy over anything else.

I've mentioned a friend of mine a few times who is unvax'd and we've spoken about it again pretty recently. She didn't describe before _why_ she was afraid of it, but has now - and it basically comes down to a fear of doctors in general. She has some pretty severe mental illness (hallucinations, etc), lives in pretty terrible conditions, doesn't have much of a social support structure, etc., and doesn't have the capacity to differentiate between malice and uncomfortable experiences - so any time a doctor as failed to help her exactly as she expected that becomes a "lie" and the "the doctor tried to kill her" etc. She says she's had some kind of adverse effect from _something_ she was given before, and to her, this means _all medication_ is high risk, even though the vaccine has nothing to do with whatever her previous experience was and she came to this conclusion without the consult of a doctor (because doctors can't be trusted, remember?).

If I thought I could push her in the right direction, I would, but I don't expect I would be able to. I know she has a regular support worker who has likely already tried, and which would have been the more appropriate route anyway, so that didn't work. Outside of that, we're talking about someone who is more-or-less a socially isolated ("outcast" if you want to go that far) type who wasn't interacting with people even before the pandemic. I count that as a fair exception - if someone literally doesn't have the capacity to take care of themselves, I'm not going to burden them with societies problems too - they become the people we're protecting by getting the vax ourselves.

What cases am I missing?
If you have the capacity to understand the situation,
if you have no medical precedent/history to suggest you're at a heightened risk of serious side effects,
If the vaccine is accessible, available, free, etc.,
If it's been demonstrated the it does much more help than harm,
If it's been long enough to see that the majority of people have not been meaningfully impacted by it,
What other reasonable excuse is there that makes it unfair for people to judge a person who has actively declined the vaccines?


----------



## Drew

mbardu said:


> View attachment 101653
> 
> 
> Infection rates per 100k - from official UK surveillance report from *September*, when Omicron didn't even exist.
> 
> Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccine-surveillance-report
> 
> But yeah sure...vaccinated breakthrough infections are new, just to Omicron. How can people seriously believe that stuff...
> 
> 
> 
> Right...


Ok, against my better judgement, I hit "show ignored content." 

Stop cherry picking data. 

From that report: 



> Vaccine effectiveness
> 
> Large clinical trials have been undertaken for each of the COVID-19 vaccines approved in the UK which found that they are highly efficacious at preventing symptomatic disease in the populations that were studied. The clinical trials have been designed to be able to assess the efficacy of the vaccine against laboratory confirmed symptomatic disease with a relatively short follow up period so that effective vaccines can be introduced as rapidly as possible. Nevertheless, understanding the effectiveness against different outcomes (such as severe disease and onwards transmission), effectiveness in different subgroups of the population and understanding the duration of protection are equally important in decision making around which vaccines should be implemented as the programme evolves, who they should be offered to and whether booster doses are required. Vaccine effectiveness is estimated by comparing rates of disease in vaccinated individuals to rates in unvaccinated individuals. Below we outline the latest real-world evidence on vaccine effectiveness from studies in UK populations. We focus on data related to the Delta variant which is currently dominant in the UK. The findings are also summarised in Table 1.
> 
> Effectiveness against symptomatic disease
> 
> Vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic COVID-19 has been assessed in England based on community testing data linked to vaccination data from the National Immunisation Management System (NIMS), cohort studies such as the COVID Infection Survey and GP electronic health record data. After 2 doses, observed vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease with the Delta variant reaches approximately 65 to 70% with AstraZeneca Vaxzevria and 80 to 95% with Pfizer-BioNTech Comirnaty and Moderna Spikevax (3, 4) Vaccine effectiveness is generally slightly higher in younger compared to older age groups. With both Vaxzevria and and Comirnaty, there is evidence of waning of protection over time, most notably among older adults. There is not yet enough follow-up with Spikevax to assess waning (3). Data (based primarily on the Alpha variant) suggest that in most clinical risk groups, immune response to vaccination is maintained and high levels of VE are seen with both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines. Reduced antibody response and vaccine effectiveness were seen after 1 dose of vaccine among the immunosuppressed group, however, after a second dose the reduction in vaccine effectiveness is smaller (5). Analyses by dosing interval suggest that immune response to vaccination and vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease improves with a longer (greater than 6 week interval) compared to a shorter interval of 3 to 4 weeks (6, 3)


Couple things to note here: 

1) the paper you're using as a source flatly denies your conclusion, and concludes the exact reverse
2) AstraZeneca is not approved for use in the US, in part because it WAS found to be less effective than Pfizer and Moderna, which this study found to be 80-95% effective, in the same range as other posters have cited it. And, even then, let me reiterate that even with a less-effective vaccine, the paper _still came to the exact opposite conclusion as what you're arguing._

Also, there's this awkward little passage: 



> Effectiveness against transmission
> 
> As described above, several studies have provided evidence that vaccines are effective at preventing infection. Uninfected individuals cannot transmit; therefore, the vaccines are also effective at preventing transmission. Data from Scotland has also shown that household contacts of vaccinated healthcare workers are at reduced risk of becoming a case, which is in line with the studies on infection (16). There may be additional benefit, beyond that due to prevention of infection, if some of those individuals who become infected despite vaccination are also at a reduced risk of transmitting (for example, because of reduced duration or level of viral shedding). A household transmission study in England found that household contacts of cases vaccinated with a single dose had approximately 35 to 50% reduced risk of becoming a confirmed case of COVID-19. This study used routine testing data so would only include household contacts that developed symptoms and went on to request a test via pillar 2. It cannot exclude asymptomatic secondary cases or mildly symptomatic cases who chose not to request a COVID-19 test (17). Both of these studies relate to a period when the Alpha variant dominated.



...which flatly contradicts both the point you're trying to make, that vaccinated individuals are a major source of transmission, and actually provides some evidence for something that I wasn't even prepared to argue because I _hadn't_ seen evidence, that a vaccinated individual who does become infected actually appears to be less likely to infect someone, than an unvaccinated individual who becomes infected. 

You're also making a straw man here that no one's claiming - that there were _no_ breakthrough infections before omicron. I don't know anyone saying that, as everyone in this thread, myself included, has been unanimous in saying that breakthrough infections were uncommon, especially early on, and that subsequent mutations, most notably omicron, have changed that. 

So, I have to ask, did you even _read_ this chart, or do a google image source for something that out of context seems to support your previously-held beliefs?


----------



## _MonSTeR_

Drew said:


> ...but there ARE limits to how many patients our health care infrastructure can accommodate at any given time, and those limits are being artificially lowered by breakthrough cases amongst the staff, as well as by providers simply quitting out of frustration or exhaustion.



At one point the whole focus of efforts in the UK was simply to slow the spread of the virus so that our health service could cope better. It wasn’t about stopping infection, just about making sure that hospital beds were available for those who did get it on the one in one out principle.


----------



## Drew

_MonSTeR_ said:


> At one point the whole focus of efforts in the UK was simply to slow the spread of the virus so that our health service could cope better. It wasn’t about stopping infection, just about making sure that hospital beds were available for those who did get it on the one in one out principle.


Yeah, that was the focus for the longest time in the US, once we hit the point of community transmission - acceptance that we probably could't beat covid back entirely anytime soon, so we could at least do what we could to reduce the _rate_ of spread, extending the duration but lowering the peak of waves, to ensure we had adequate treatment capacity.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> Ok, against my better judgement, I hit "show ignored content."
> 
> Stop cherry picking data.
> 
> From that report:
> 
> 
> Couple things to note here:
> 
> 1) the paper you're using as a source flatly denies your conclusion, and concludes the exact reverse
> 2) AstraZeneca is not approved for use in the US, in part because it WAS found to be less effective than Pfizer and Moderna, which this study found to be 80-95% effective, in the same range as other posters have cited it. And, even then, let me reiterate that even with a less-effective vaccine, the paper _still came to the exact opposite conclusion as what you're arguing._
> 
> Also, there's this awkward little passage:
> 
> 
> 
> ...which flatly contradicts both the point you're trying to make, that vaccinated individuals are a major source of transmission, and actually provides some evidence for something that I wasn't even prepared to argue because I _hadn't_ seen evidence, that a vaccinated individual who does become infected actually appears to be less likely to infect someone, than an unvaccinated individual who becomes infected.
> 
> You're also making a straw man here that no one's claiming - that there were _no_ breakthrough infections before omicron. I don't know anyone saying that, as everyone in this thread, myself included, has been unanimous in saying that breakthrough infections were uncommon, especially early on, and that subsequent mutations, most notably omicron, have changed that.
> 
> So, I have to ask, did you even _read_ this chart, or do a google image source for something that out of context seems to support your previously-held beliefs?



You don't need to make it so complex, there's no strawman there  . You come into the discussion implying that breakthrough have never been a source of significant spread before (literally that's what you are doing here). I show an example among many of significant vaccinated spread _way _before omicron (higher than vaccinated in some categories), and that's it.

So the infections/breaktrhoughs/spread were absolutely a thing before Omicron.

I have hardly talked about Omicron at all in fact, because it's so new, only you and Narad are making it about Omicron.

------

Butyou want to muddy the waters...

The "Vaccine Effectiveness" section you quote is not claiming that this _particular _paper confirms vaccine effectiveness (how could it? it's a surveillance report)- it just says that prior studies _have shown_ in theory vaccine effectiveness. Like I acknowledged many times. The additional quotes and sources are well known and I am aware. The problem is that this fades fast. And it has faded by now for many many people. Hence the comparable rates of infections now. And already for quite a few months with Delta, that's not specific to Omicron.
What the current paper does is look, not at the theory of those papers, but at the real-life numbers next to the theoretical ones. And the real life numbers have been showing comparable infection rates for months now.

The "effectiveness against symptomatic disease", I don't know what you want to argue. The vaccines do protect more against symptomatic disease, yes. Like they do against hospitalizations. And especially early on. What's new? But in fact the problem with vaccinated spread is not really symptomatic disease- it's asymptomatic spread.

Finally if you want to talk about the studies from the Lancet comparing transmission between vaccinated/unvaccinated (which I believe is what is referred to in your quote), they are not the slam dunk you think they are. Certainly didn't show the overwhelming case (as in 99% or 90% of spread coming from unvaccinated) that you are trying to make. The most "generous" interpretation there is that the risk could be at most 2x for unvaccinated, and that would be on a fresh/new vaccine. This is the most generous interpretation possible, because if you look at the confidence interval - it could actually be much closer. They also mention specifically how this fades over time.
And most importantly, this does not particularly affect the actual surveillance numbers, which all things considered, in the real world, do show comparable rates.

Or are you saying the surveillance reports are fake news? For example ~1200/100k vaccinated vs "only" 800/100k in the 40-49 category, that's not true somehow? The UK gov is pushing antivax numbers?

Anyway- pretty consistent with what I've been saying. Vaccines do help early on, sure. But after a relatively short time, really not so much- which you can tell by top down level infections being comparable. No need for hypotheses or extrapolations or assumptions about one group or the other. No need to say that it's because one group is more virtuous than the other. No matter the reasons, the number of infections is comparable at the end of the day.

-------

Why do we even need to shift the goalposts so much? You come in with "vaccinated spread wasn't a significant thing before Omicron", I share literally a proof of significant infection numbers (higher than vaccinated for some age groups) from a period Omicron didn't exist, and best you can do is try to "ackchyually" your way out of it.
Whether you like it or not, and no matter how much you "ackchyually" it, vaccinated spread has been a thing for a long time.
And sure, it's the UK, but it's not just because the US has taken the Trump way instead (_let's not test the vaccinated so there won't be vaccinated cases_) that those vaccinated cases are not there. We used to laugh at that approach I thought, but now happy to use it to help with marginalizing the scapegoats. What gives  ?


----------



## mbardu

jaxadam said:


> Don't bother... he doesn't read 99% of your posts!



Actually like proven above, he does 

You can usually tell: the prouder you are about broadcasting you "ignores" (and @Drew is certainly proud to broadcast his ) the more likely that you're actually reading in secret . They just want the validation of saying they're ignoring stuff so they _must _be right. That's why they're begging others to do the same constantly.


----------



## TedEH

I mean, I've got you on ignore too, but that "show ignored content" button works really well. Also this thread makes zero sense when it's dominated by people talking to an invisible poster.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> Then why not share these stories instead of arguing? There's been plenty of asks for "what exactly are all these good reasons that people are vaccinating?"
> 
> I mean, there's the obvious cases where someone is known to be at a heightened risk for some kind of severe side-effect, we're all aware of that.
> There's also the flip side of this that people use that same fear as an excuse when they aren't _actually_ at a heightened risk.
> I assume that leaves two cases: fear, and principles.
> Fear, as in people are who are under the impression that the risks are higher than they actually are - be it because they're just misinformed, or think the government is trying to poison them or something.
> And principles as in people who aren't concerned with risk, they're mostly concerned with their autonomy over anything else.
> 
> I've mentioned a friend of mine a few times who is unvax'd and we've spoken about it again pretty recently. She didn't describe before _why_ she was afraid of it, but has now - and it basically comes down to a fear of doctors in general. She has some pretty severe mental illness (hallucinations, etc), lives in pretty terrible conditions, doesn't have much of a social support structure, etc., and doesn't have the capacity to differentiate between malice and uncomfortable experiences - so any time a doctor as failed to help her exactly as she expected that becomes a "lie" and the "the doctor tried to kill her" etc. She says she's had some kind of adverse effect from _something_ she was given before, and to her, this means _all medication_ is high risk, even though the vaccine has nothing to do with whatever her previous experience was and she came to this conclusion without the consult of a doctor (because doctors can't be trusted, remember?).
> 
> If I thought I could push her in the right direction, I would, but I don't expect I would be able to. I know she has a regular support worker who has likely already tried, and which would have been the more appropriate route anyway, so that didn't work. Outside of that, we're talking about someone who is more-or-less a socially isolated ("outcast" if you want to go that far) type who wasn't interacting with people even before the pandemic. I count that as a fair exception - if someone literally doesn't have the capacity to take care of themselves, I'm not going to burden them with societies problems too - they become the people we're protecting by getting the vax ourselves.
> 
> What cases am I missing?
> If you have the capacity to understand the situation,
> if you have no medical precedent/history to suggest you're at a heightened risk of serious side effects,
> If the vaccine is accessible, available, free, etc.,
> If it's been demonstrated the it does much more help than harm,
> If it's been long enough to see that the majority of people have not been meaningfully impacted by it,
> What other reasonable excuse is there that makes it unfair for people to judge a person who has actively declined the vaccines?



I think I've already presented some anecdotes before. Cases that I know that are absent in your fairly narrow categorizations are people who themselves had, or who've had a child have a severe allergic reaction to a prior vaccine (or _more _than one in the past). Severe as in seizure and ICU or debilitating effects of varying degree for some time.
Where I live, they cannot (easily, or sometimes at all) get a medical exemption based on those adverse reactions.
Anyway, some physicians do not even want to give exemptions anymore, because there are now arbitrary rules of disciplinary reviews (and risk to careers) for doctors who _do _give exemptions.
The answer is "try this other vaccine, it's a different one". And the more the public opinion is swayed in the general "there are no reasons not to get the vaccine if you're not a trumptard antivaxx", the more restrictions there are in that direction. All obviously supported by the majority, because vaccine reactions are obviously not happening to a majority of people, so they don't think it's a thing.

So for the people impacted, the decision is roll the dice: get in line and hopefully this other vaccine will not give severe effects again (for them or their child)... or skip the vaccine. But the benefit you give them for that risk is a temporarily lower risk of infection to a disease that has 0.01% chance of being severe for their demographic group. Not very enticing.

I'm lucky I have not had that happen to my child, but if it had, it wouldn't be an easy decision to roll the dice for no potential upside to them.
Or if it were me directly, and my previous shots sent me to the hospital- it would also be a pretty big risk to take as I have to be there for my child.
It's nice and easy to be able to take the vaccine without second thought when you're _not _in the unlucky few. If so, especially if you are in a Covid-risky category, you also get a great upside with the provided protection. But the fact it's easy _for me _to make that determination doesn't mean I'm going to go and demean people less lucky than me who face that conundrum.

Not only is this a shitty decision if it were _only_ for health reasons, but now you gotta balance that with also keeping your job and feeding your family? If you were to put yourself in someone else's shoes, wouldn't this feel a bit like being taken hostage? 

That said, I usually prefer not to share anecdotes in general - that's not really the best form of argument.
Plus they convince absolutely nobody to change their minds once you are set on something.
And more often than not you'll have some people who don't believe you - or say it's all in your head.

Especially in the context of this this forum. There have been 0 cases of severe Covid cases as far as I'm aware, but there have been severe side effects, some lasting months after. And despite this, the general consensus is that serious side effects of the vaccine are not a thing.
There have been many vaccinated people infected by and infecting other vaccinated people- yet everyone somehow is saying that at the same time, infections are currently solely the fault of the unvaccinated.
So what good are anonymous anecdotes going to do to that discussion. They just don't help.

Whereas someone says "breakthrough infections were not significant before omicron", I can literally just show the official government report showing significant breakthrough infections (even higher rate than unvaccinated in some age groups) before omicron, and that's it. Case closed, no discussion of the facts.

Oh wait no, even when you do share hard data, there's going to be never-ending discussion or "ackchyually"s as to why the data says one thing, but we should know better than trusting such silly things as pesky actual real life data. Instead we should just_ all know_ that unvaccinated people are bad and should die - because that's obvious after all. Sigh...


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> I mean, I've got you on ignore too, but that "show ignored content" button works really well. Also this thread makes zero sense when it's dominated by people talking to an invisible poster.



That's ... OK I guess?

Not sure I get the point of ignoring in order to still read and actively reply.
Just out of spite? Did I personally wrong you in any way or something?
Anyway- you do you 

I think I've only ever ignored people actively insulting or stalking me...so hopefully you didn't get that impression from me.
Cheers!


----------



## TedEH

I had a whole thing typed up but I got as far as "no cases of severe covid", and now and I'm just done. Maybe you're right, and I should use the ignore feature as it was intended.


----------



## nightflameauto

I can not believe people are still beating their heads against the brick wall of obstinate text spewing out of the black hole that's mbardu. It'd be more productive to smash your head into a literal brick wall. At least that would eventually give you a result. Blood or concussion or both.


----------



## narad

On the plus side, I did eventually beat the tower knight in demon's souls


----------



## _MonSTeR_

nightflameauto said:


> ... Blood or concussion or both.



Don’t sell SSO short 

Blood or concussion or *open plan living room*!!!!


----------



## jaxadam

_MonSTeR_ said:


> Don’t sell SSO short
> 
> Blood or concussion or *open plan living room*!!!!



:fistbump:


----------



## Jonathan20022

Just a pro-tip, defining things leads to shorter discussions.

If you disagree on the premise and basic definitions like what defines a "severe" case of COVID, the discussion will likely be an unproductive waste of time. If you disagree on basic definitions, you will literally never reach consensus.


----------



## narad

Jonathan20022 said:


> Just a pro-tip, defining things leads to shorter discussions.
> 
> If you disagree on the premise and basic definitions like what defines a "severe" case of COVID, the discussion will likely be an unproductive waste of time. If you disagree on basic definitions, you will literally never reach consensus.



Good luck doing that here when the other guy is operating under their own definition of the word "vaccine"


----------



## bostjan

Well, the US broke over a million new cases yesterday, smashing previous records.

I guess we're still far from beating Covid like so many talking heads were promising for 2021. So many people on other forums were telling me that I was insane for suggesting that the infection would likely have a significant impact on daily life for a couple years. Here we are 2022, two years after that and it's still getting bigger and bigger in terms of spread, although maybe it's not nearly as deadly as it started out being, it's nothing to sneeze at, either.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> Good luck doing that here when the other guy is operating under their own definition of the word "vaccine"



I know you're a bit salty for having no actual counterpoint, so you have to rely on cheap attack... But you're not making yourself any favor going back _again _to _that _point when instead of even trying to have a good faith discussion earlier on _anything I mentioned_, you instead decided to ramble on for pages (over and over..._and over_ even here) on something I literally said, in the _very first_ post was not the point, but _just a funny coincidence_.

If talking definitions, I'd recommend you look up those for "science", "logic", "obvious" or "proof", because that's a big gap on your end (spoiler alert: it doesn't mean "_I feel like it_"); but at the end of the day I feel like that's not much use. The thing is, an _even more_ critical component for a discussion to happen is _at least_ a bit of honesty and good faith, and that's clearly not something you're interested in.

Like I mentioned, if all you want to do is scream "fuck the unvaccinated" and dehumanize those according-to-you sub-humans you're happy to see die, just go ahead. I _hope _it'll at least help your anger. And considering where you're posting - you don't _have _to half-assedly try and make it look like the sentiment would somehow be supported by any objective argument - clearly you'll get all the likes anyway


----------



## nightflameauto

Jonathan20022 said:


> Just a pro-tip, defining things leads to shorter discussions.
> 
> If you disagree on the premise and basic definitions like what defines a "severe" case of COVID, the discussion will likely be an unproductive waste of time. If you disagree on basic definitions, you will literally never reach consensus.


Which, when it comes down to it, seems to be a tactic that some people are employing purposefully to derail meaningful discussion. And not just here. You see that garbage everywhere online now.


----------



## TedEH

Alternatively, trying to define every little thing can just lead down more long roads of debating meaningless semantics back and forth, while long forgetting what any point anyone was trying to get across was. I can't think of a good definition for "severe" to get around that something like 5 million people died. Death sounds pretty severe to me. Messing with semantics is a great tool to dominate the narrative of a conversation and win arguments, but at the end of the day, the 'rona still killed tons of people.



bostjan said:


> I guess we're still far from beating Covid


I think at this point I've resigned to the idea that I may not ever return to an office. I'm not broken up about the idea though. My ex's job called everyone back into the office a couple of months ago for... reasons...? They tried to push back, and their HR just said no, no exceptions. Just to have the recommendations change. As far as I'm aware, they're still working from the office. Plot twist: They work (indirectly) for Health Canada. Insert your favourite jpeg of someone slapping their forehead.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Well, the US broke over a million new cases yesterday, smashing previous records.
> 
> I guess we're still far from beating Covid like so many talking heads were promising for 2021. So many people on other forums were telling me that I was insane for suggesting that the infection would likely have a significant impact on daily life for a couple years. Here we are 2022, two years after that and it's still getting bigger and bigger in terms of spread, although maybe it's not nearly as deadly as it started out being, it's nothing to sneeze at, either.


I was hopeful vaccines would buy us at least a window of time to get on top of this the old fashioned way, contact trace, isolate, and eliminate case by case. In theory, they might even have done it, is the sad thing. Covid-19 is just evolving extremely fast, and we have whole swathes of the country who thinks simple containment measures are a violation of some imagined right or other. I can't apologize for underestimating the rate of mutation since that was an unknown and not even part of the conversation at the time, but I suppose with hindsight it WAS wildly naive of me to think all of America could unite under a desire to actually try to beat Covid, and in hindsight I should have known wearing masks and getting vaccines becoming a political issue meant we were fucked.



narad said:


> Good luck doing that here when the other guy is operating under their own definition of the word "vaccine"


Standard operating procedure for mbardu. Corner him on one thing, and he'll shift to some other nitpicking about something unrelated that isn't actually meaningful in the grander scheme of things, just to have something to argue about. I don't know if it's self-validation or something, but it's certainly a waste of time.


----------



## TedEH

Drew said:


> to think all of America could unite


But United is America's middle name! Er... first name?


----------



## SpaceDock

mbardu said:


> I know you're a bit salty for having no actual counterpoint, so you have to rely on cheap attack... But you're not making yourself any favor going back _again _to _that _point when instead of even trying to have a good faith discussion earlier on _anything I mentioned_, you instead decided to ramble on for pages (over and over..._and over_ even here) on something I literally said, in the _very first_ post was not the point, but _just a funny coincidence_.
> 
> If talking definitions, I'd recommend you look up those for "science", "logic", "obvious" or "proof", because that's a big gap on your end (spoiler alert: it doesn't mean "_I feel like it_"); but at the end of the day I feel like that's not much use. The thing is, an _even more_ critical component for a discussion to happen is _at least_ a bit of honesty and good faith, and that's clearly not something you're interested in.
> 
> Like I mentioned, if all you want to do is scream "fuck the unvaccinated" and dehumanize those according-to-you sub-humans you're happy to see die, just go ahead. I _hope _it'll at least help your anger. And considering where you're posting - you don't _have _to half-assedly try and make it look like the sentiment would somehow be supported by any objective argument - clearly you'll get all the likes anyway



 Fuck the unvaccinated


----------



## mbardu

SpaceDock said:


> Fuck the unvaccinated



There you go, that's the way to do it. Honest and straight to the point 

Don't try to wrap it up into a supposed "argument" and pretend like it's supposed to make sense despite what real world data says. There's no point in pretending. It's a feeling in your gut, and Drew says it's true so it doesn't need to make sense or be justified further.

Just let the raw hate for the fellow human being speak and just say "fuck the unvaccinated", or "people not like me can all die for all I care".
That'll clearly not help the situation, but a bit of blind rage _must _feel good to soothe those 2 years of frustration. So why fight it


----------



## SpaceDock

mbardu said:


> There you go, that's the way to do it. Honest and straight to the point
> 
> Don't try to wrap it up into a supposed "argument" and pretend like it's supposed to make sense despite what real world data says. There's no point in pretending. It's a feeling in your gut, and Drew says it's true so it doesn't need to make sense or be justified further.
> 
> Just let the raw hate for the fellow human being speak and just say "fuck the unvaccinated", or "people not like me can all die for all I care".
> That'll clearly not help the situation, but a bit of blind rage _must _feel good to soothe those 2 years of frustration. So why fight it



Yes, let the hate flow through you! 

Srsly, I do resent those who are not vaccinated for pseudo political or Facebook meme reasons. I know plenty that are opposed to mandates, I can debate that. I fully accept those with religious or legit medical reasons for not getting vaccinated.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> Standard operating procedure for mbardu. Corner him on one thing, and he'll shift to some other nitpicking about something unrelated that isn't actually meaningful in the grander scheme of things, just to have something to argue about. I don't know if it's self-validation or something, but it's certainly a waste of time.



This lesson on changing the subject brought to you by the author of countless hits such as "_10 Million people in the US will die in a year unless everyone gets vaccinated_" or "_only 50M people have been exposed to Covid here_" or "_99% of infections today are coming from the unvaccinated_". Or the all time favorite "_being off by a factor of 5 or 10 or 50 is no big deal, such a little nit-pick wouldn't actually change any of my conclusions_".


----------



## mbardu

SpaceDock said:


> Srsly, I do resent those who are not vaccinated for pseudo political or Facebook meme reasons. I know plenty that are opposed to mandates, I can debate that. I fully accept those with religious or legit medical reasons for not getting vaccinated.



Then that shows more empathy on your part than the majority here.

For sure there are a _lot _of people who have the _worst _reasons not to get vaccinated. Many who are making a conscious choice not to help society, _and _negatively influencing others.
Even though what remains of the modern-Jesuit teachings in me would probably not get _quite _there, it'd be very tempting to say "fuck them" to those guys.

There are also a lot of people who are being plain lied to, and without ill intent do not have the means to know any better. Not always easy to leave a cycle of propaganda or echo chamber when you don't look elsewhere after all. Just check here: a bunch of people are being lied to with made up statistics and conclusions _by a certain 4-letter-named poster_ to build up a certain type of rage. Some of those stats are very _very _obviously _plain _wrong. And yet they don't care to actually check what they're told. Just go with what fits the bias, always and forever. Happens all the time. Doesn't make them evil or lesser humans.

Then you have the people with legit medical concerns for themselves or their family and who don't have the means to get exemptions because their jurisdictions are _preventing _exemptions of any kind. After all, the reaction in society nowadays if you're saying you've had severe reactions is "ha, you're just an antivax" or "must be all in your head" or "risk to your life or that of your child doesn't matter; don't you know you're going to single-handedly kill millions of people, even if you isolate at home?"...
So _of course_ punitive measures (instead of exemptions) are more and more popular with the majority.
And sure, those people are probably _not _the large majority, but they're there and there are many virtuous people among them.

There's a ton of variety and no objective threshold there.
So taking a single binary dimension to hate and punish (up to refusal of life-saving care) a whole category of people...yeah that's kind of a little bit iffy.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> Standard operating procedure for mbardu. Corner him on one thing, and he'll shift to some other nitpicking about something unrelated that isn't actually meaningful in the grander scheme of things, just to have something to argue about. I don't know if it's self-validation or something, but it's certainly a waste of time.



BTW if people are legitimately interested in seeing what I mean about pot calling the kettle black (and why "shift to some other nitpicking" is particularly funny), no need to look further than last page.

Drew implies that vaccinated cases didn't contribute significantly before Omicron: https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-357#post-5358857 . That's obviously not true, and is made up on his part.
I show literal, explicit, official data showing that this is BS because vaccinated cases were in fact very significant before Omicron: https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-358#post-5358864 . No additional hypothesis from me there. No biased extrapolation or additional interpretation. Just literal top down real-world data literally just showing a comparable infection rate per 100k regardless of vaccination status.
To which he spends _paragraphs _trying to argue how 1-how real life data actually does not matter / 2-how it must be a matter of different geographies and different vaccines so it shouldn't be relevant / 3-how the linked data is somehow wrong because the paper mentions the separate initial high-efficacy vaccine studies and other small scale clinical trials (although the point of the surveillance report is _specifically _to _compare _the theoretical rates from those studies with real-life data) and 4-how the real life data _must _be wrong because somehow one cherrypicked transmission study may show more transmission from the unvaccinated vs brand spanking new vaccinations.
All of that. Because even in the face of objective evidence, it's too hard to even acknowledge something as clear as "ah actually it's true, significant numbers of breakthrough vaccinated infections may have been a thing before Omicron". Because it would go against preconceived notions. Wouldn't it be useful instead to try and understand why the data would be that way? Or maybe revise the arguments or conclusions that were based on "breakthrough infections were not significant before Omicron" in the face of new evidence?
Nope. And I didn't even pretend that it somehow made the vaccinated people "bad" or anything. Didn't add my interpretation or contribute qualitative speculation. Didn't even try to continue any argument at that point. How could you even argue in those conditions when objective hard numbers are brushed aside "just because"?

And then come complain about intellectual honesty and nitpicking to shift to other things...


----------



## IwantTacos

You guys still have Covid?


----------



## Randy

IwantTacos said:


> You guys still have Covid?



A million new cases in one day, yesterday.


----------



## narad

bostjan said:


> Well, the US broke over a million new cases yesterday, smashing previous records.
> 
> I guess we're still far from beating Covid like so many talking heads were promising for 2021. So many people on other forums were telling me that I was insane for suggesting that the infection would likely have a significant impact on daily life for a couple years. Here we are 2022, two years after that and it's still getting bigger and bigger in terms of spread, although maybe it's not nearly as deadly as it started out being, it's nothing to sneeze at, either.



Yea, I was thinking about that the other day. There was definitely a guy on here harping on about "the new normal" and how there was no way we'd have vaccines for years. I was giving him shit since I was reasonably confident we'd have vaccines soon and we'd put it behind us. Yet, here we are, and I find myself using that phrase in my thoughts.


----------



## IwantTacos

narad said:


> Yea, I was thinking about that the other day. There was definitely a guy on here harping on about "the new normal" and how there was no way we'd have vaccines for years. I was giving him shit since I was reasonably confident we'd have vaccines soon and we'd put it behind us. Yet, here we are, and I find myself using that phrase in my thoughts.




What’s the situation in Japan. 

my friend tells me that the av industry is minimally impacted.


----------



## narad

IwantTacos said:


> What’s the situation in Japan.
> 
> my friend tells me that the av industry is minimally impacted.



It's "fine" in Japan but I don't have high hopes going forward. Japan benefits from pretty good compliance in terms of social distance, mask wearing, etc., though I definitely see more people doing drunken social gatherings lately. But there's really not been ever the kind of widespread infection of US/euro countries.

Japan suffers from total incompetence in governmental planning, distributing vaccines and boosters, minimal testing and data collection. Japan also suffers from racist hocus-pocus like the idea that English transmits covid more than Japanese, and that Japanese have special genetics that fights covid. And this is exacerbated by the news - daily doubling omicron cases in Okinawa from US military guys, bound to make it mainland (of course, it already is mainland, but this isn't helping and it's probably going to be the narrative).

So in a few weeks/months, we might have an omicron explosion in Japan blowing through swaths of functionally unvaccinated people who have been largely spared from any major outbreaks so far, into a medical system that probably hasn't learned hands-on many of the effective techniques to treat severe infections :-/ Here's hoping this omicron thing is as weak as random people are saying.


----------



## spudmunkey

Found out my godmother's husband* died from it last night. 65, otherwise healthy. Spent 2 weeks thinking he was just fighting a cold, then flu, then his wife (who works in a nursing home) came home one day and he could hardly breathe, and made him go in to the hospital. Tested positive, had double pneumonia, and died 5 days later.

She's fine (as far as COVID goes). She was vaccinated, he wasn't.

*(I know that sounds like an odd connection...when my parents picked her as my godmother when I was born, she hadn't met him yet. Eventually became a close family friend, but someone else was already my godfather, so....)


----------



## narad

spudmunkey said:


> Found out my godmother's husband* died from it last night. 65, otherwise healthy. Spent 2 weeks thinking he was just fighting a cold, then flu, then his wife (who works in a nursing home) came home one day and he could hardly breathe, and made him go in to the hospital. Tested positive, had double pneumonia, and died 5 days later.
> 
> She's fine (as far as COVID goes). She was vaccinated, he wasn't.
> 
> *(I know that sounds like an odd connection...when my parents picked her as my godmother when I was born, she hadn't met him yet. Eventually became a close family friend, but someone else was already my godfather, so....)



Sorry to hear that. Did they say what strain it was?

Forum really needs a sad reaction option.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

spudmunkey said:


> Found out my godmother's husband* died from it last night. 65, otherwise healthy. Spent 2 weeks thinking he was just fighting a cold, then flu, then his wife (who works in a nursing home) came home one day and he could hardly breathe, and made him go in to the hospital. Tested positive, had double pneumonia, and died 5 days later.
> 
> She's fine (as far as COVID goes). She was vaccinated, he wasn't.
> 
> *(I know that sounds like an odd connection...when my parents picked her as my godmother when I was born, she hadn't met him yet. Eventually became a close family friend, but someone else was already my godfather, so....)



Really really sorry, dude.


----------



## spudmunkey

High Plains Drifter said:


> Really really sorry, dude.



Thanks.

To dive a little deeper, she was vaccinated because of her job. No jab, no job, when it came to the nursing home. He ran his own commercial architectural engineering company, was a ride-or-die (so to speak) Trumper (had a "Fuck Biden" bumper sticker in his work pickup truck's rear window), and not vaccinated.



narad said:


> Sorry to hear that. Did they say what strain it was?
> 
> Forum really needs a sad reaction option.



Thanks. If it was sequenced we weren't privy to that info.

And I agree.


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> A million new cases in one day, yesterday.


Yesterday's total included at least a few multi-day reports from various states, mine being one... but with 885k today that was all single-day reporting, that's an absolute moot point and we'll be taking out 1mm single day in no time 

@spudmunkey - man, I'm so sorry to hear that. :/


----------



## spudmunkey

Thanks, Drew. The 1,000,000 may have been multi-day for some states, but also doesn't include any "home" tests


----------



## TedEH

So my point about Ontario backfired a bit - some new info coming from Ontario shows the vax'd case numbers outpacing the unvax'd numbers for the first time, but only during the holiday spike.



I can concede that this looks to me like a good sign that the jabs gave people some undue confidence in what they could do for the holidays - which isn't that big of a surprise when you're talking about holidays. I read this as pretty much everyone (regardless of vax status) got really excited about the prospect of "normal Christmas". The good news, if you can call it good, is that hospitalizations haven't risen proportionally - they certainly spiked, but not any higher than they did last year while everyone was locked inside.

In other news, I should be able to book for the booster within the next couple of weeks, so that's a thing.


----------



## bostjan

TedEH said:


> Alternatively, trying to define every little thing can just lead down more long roads of debating meaningless semantics back and forth, while long forgetting what any point anyone was trying to get across was. I can't think of a good definition for "severe" to get around that something like 5 million people died. Death sounds pretty severe to me. Messing with semantics is a great tool to dominate the narrative of a conversation and win arguments, but at the end of the day, the 'rona still killed tons of people.
> 
> 
> I think at this point I've resigned to the idea that I may not ever return to an office. I'm not broken up about the idea though. My ex's job called everyone back into the office a couple of months ago for... reasons...? They tried to push back, and their HR just said no, no exceptions. Just to have the recommendations change. As far as I'm aware, they're still working from the office. Plot twist: They work (indirectly) for Health Canada. Insert your favourite jpeg of someone slapping their forehead.



Well, there's death, then there's brutal death and also tech death, not to mention deathgrind, deathcore, ... oh wait, wrong thread...

Last year around this time we were heading into the worst yet (at that point) surge, and following that, we saw the worst spike in deaths around the end of January. If we get to February without seeing an all-time high in daily fatalities, then that's some sort of light at the end of the tunnel, I think. But, first, we have to get there and see.

From a perspective of evolutionary biology, a deadly virus has no advantage, but a highly spreadable virus has a huge advantage. Our most realistic hope is that the less deadly mutations spread around and give everyone's immune systems a nice little fire drill, such that the deadlier strains are out-competed and die out. That's kind of what happened with the flu over a hundred years ago.

Knowing now that the vaccine is super useful, but not the magic bullet people were hoping for, and now that we have a booster schedule.

Which brings me to your latest post:



TedEH said:


> So my point about Ontario backfired a bit - some new info coming from Ontario shows the vax'd case numbers outpacing the unvax'd numbers for the first time, but only during the holiday spike.
> View attachment 101736
> 
> 
> I can concede that this looks to me like a good sign that the jabs gave people some undue confidence in what they could do for the holidays - which isn't that big of a surprise when you're talking about holidays. I read this as pretty much everyone (regardless of vax status) got really excited about the prospect of "normal Christmas". The good news, if you can call it good, is that hospitalizations haven't risen proportionally - they certainly spiked, but not any higher than they did last year while everyone was locked inside.
> 
> In other news, I should be able to book for the booster within the next couple of weeks, so that's a thing.



It'd be interesting to know how many of those have been boosted or vaccinated within the past 6 months.

Also, it won't be long before people who were boosted back in August might be due for another booster, potentially. Maybe I can synch up my boosters with my car insurance ID cards or something so I can just make a day of it.


----------



## TedEH

bostjan said:


> It'd be interesting to know how many of those have been boosted or vaccinated within the past 6 months.


Anecdotally, I don't think it's very many people yet, but I expect that'll change soon. I thiiiiiiiiink we're in "only priority people" mode right now, but within two or three weeks, we should have a good chunk of people eligible, at least.


----------



## bostjan

TedEH said:


> Anecdotally, I don't think it's very many people yet, but I expect that'll change soon. I thiiiiiiiiink we're in "only priority people" mode right now, but within two or three weeks, we should have a good chunk of people eligible, at least.



At the risk of ticking off another debate (although this thread is basically just one giant string of debates, so whatever, I guess...), here's a recent paper about how breakthrough cases are going: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(21)00306-2/fulltext

At a mile-high glance, the efficacy of the vaccine does, it appears (from pretty good data now) decrease significantly with time, and, although part of that has to do with new variants, the issue is not isolated to that driving factor, but a combination of vaccines gradually wearing off, new variants, and people getting sick of modifying their behaviours to be safer.

But, even a year-old vaccination provides a person with _something_ and something is better than nothing for protection.

While politicians and people who think that they are being altruistic are pushing to get more vaccines out rather than "waste resources" getting people boosted, we are quickly approaching time number two for people to get boosted or else these numbers are simply going to keep blowing up. I was in here yelling at the wall (well, out in the real world pushing for the same thing, too) a year ago, saying that we were going to need to figure out this booster thing, and here I am now doing the same thing, because people are getting really pushy about not wanting to get jabbed with a needle. I get it, and maybe I'm wrong - if the vaccines basically make you immune for 3-6 months, and then, after that, you won't get a severe reaction... however, reference the paper above and it looks like my hope (which I always acknowledged was not a likely outcome) that having any immunity would be enough to cull hospitalizations, is fading.

I know everyone will want me tarred and feathered for saying this, but we ought to go ahead and recommend covid boosters every 3-4 months instead of every 6-12 months, since immunity fades faster than those "best-case" scenario sources stated and more in line with what the "average-case" scenario sources had said, plus, people are so stubborn about putting it off or not getting the extra jabs that it'll all average out in the end, probably. If we can't make enough vaccines to do the boosters, then we probably won't be super successful distributing the vaccines to people who might not want them anyway, plus, if the effectiveness fades enough over time and we don't do the boosters, that will only convince people who are on the fence not to bother with them because, then, what would be the point, if it just buys you a couple years and then you die of covid anyway, or quicker, if you are unlucky.


----------



## Randy

GOP vibes. Let's change the definition of what "hospitalized" means.


----------



## Randy

People overflowing from the hospitals because they're randomly showing up for other things in unprecedented volume but they also have covid, sounds legit.


----------



## spudmunkey

Randy said:


> People overflowing from the hospitals because they're randomly showing up for other things in unprecedented volume but they also have covid, sounds legit.



It reminds me of the "COVID is just the flu, and people die from the flu every year" argument.

Right...but...there were 360,000 *extra* deaths, even compared to a rough flu year, and that was WITH all sorts of precautionary measures and restrictions.


----------



## Adieu

This is reminding me of news out of Russia last year when somebody clearly "locked" COVID death rates to 800 max (numbers looked like 799 798 797 799 etc for weeks and weeks)...and SUDDENLY, there was a spike of deaths 3x that number with the diagnosis "atypical pneumonia" or something

Btw, I have a free gift for the naysayers and deniers: why not blame illegal immigrants with fake IDs taking multiple COVID tests under different names? Why? Well, why the hell not, at this point?

It's not COVID/well it's COVID but they're not sick/stop testing so much it's wrecking our statistics/etc. is getting old. We need new trickery!


----------



## AngstRiddenDreams

Tested positive 3 weeks after my booster. Mild fever, cough, runny nose, serious fatigue, soreness. Hooray.


----------



## Randy

Sucks, but glad you're alive. Hope you feel better soon.


----------



## mbardu

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> Tested positive 3 weeks after my booster. Mild fever, cough, runny nose, serious fatigue, soreness. Hooray.



Get better soon!


----------



## nightflameauto

My boss just came around for the morning greeting and happily chattered away about how people in his house are testing positive. Thanks for not wearing your mask, dipshit. Fuck me.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> At a mile-high glance, the efficacy of the vaccine does, it appears (from pretty good data now) decrease significantly with time, and, although part of that has to do with new variants, the issue is not isolated to that driving factor, but a combination of vaccines gradually wearing off, new variants, and people getting sick of modifying their behaviours to be safer.


Yeah, it gets increasingly hard to distangle these things from each other. Omicron is clearly a very big deal - efficacy is around 30% with two shots, 70% with three, so it's breaking through a LOT faster than previous variants - Delta was somewhat worse than alpha in that respect I understand but I haven't seen good data on how much worse it was. There's also very clearly a time decay. And, behavioral factors matter - I had a colleague who was down in Florida over New Years and was saying covid is basically over there, almost no one in masks, restaurants are all packed, a couple big sports games going on in town, etc. People are out there living their lives as if efficacy was still 95%+, which it isn't, which is just creating more opportunities for breakthrough infections. All in, the observed rate is going to spike significantly, though for a whole slew of compounding reasons rather than any single cause. 

No immediate plans to have you tarred and feathered for ANY reasons, though I'd say microtonal music will probably come before booster shots.  I kid, I kid...


----------



## Randy

Florida people always flexing even when the facts don't back it up.


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> Florida people always flexing even when the facts don't back it up.
> 
> View attachment 101787


I would LOVE more color about where these cases are coming from - is this year round residents, or are they having an influx of new cases from snowbirds?

Florida got annihilated in the Delta wave - at the time, somewhere between 1-in-3 to 1-in-6 residents had a confirmed covid case, and while the rest of the nation has now caught up, their experience was they had SO many more cases than anyone else, it seemed to have kind of burnt out for a while. They're now being hit as hard as anywhere else outside of maybe NYC, and I'm curious if this is because they have a whole bunch of new part time residents, because prior immunity has largely faded since August, or because omicron is causing a huge number of breakthrough cases regardless of prior immunity status. What exactly is causing it has pretty major public health repercussions.


----------



## JSanta

Drew said:


> I would LOVE more color about where these cases are coming from - is this year round residents, or are they having an influx of new cases from snowbirds?
> 
> Florida got annihilated in the Delta wave - at the time, somewhere between 1-in-3 to 1-in-6 residents had a confirmed covid case, and while the rest of the nation has now caught up, their experience was they had SO many more cases than anyone else, it seemed to have kind of burnt out for a while. They're now being hit as hard as anywhere else outside of maybe NYC, and I'm curious if this is because they have a whole bunch of new part time residents, because prior immunity has largely faded since August, or because omicron is causing a huge number of breakthrough cases regardless of prior immunity status. What exactly is causing it has pretty major public health repercussions.



Not FL specifically, but I have several colleagues currently sick with Covid. All of them are vaccinated, and all but one have been boosted. It seems pretty evident that this variant isn't being stopped by the vaccines. The vaccines may be reducing the likelihood of hospitalization, but that's just a guess. The hospital my wife works for sent out an email earlier this week basically saying that they were at critical mass. Not looking particularly good.


----------



## SexHaver420

I have gotten 17 covid vaccines so far. I'm getting my 3rd booster tomorrow. I am unstoppable.


----------



## Drew

JSanta said:


> Not FL specifically, but I have several colleagues currently sick with Covid. All of them are vaccinated, and all but one have been boosted. It seems pretty evident that this variant isn't being stopped by the vaccines. The vaccines may be reducing the likelihood of hospitalization, but that's just a guess. The hospital my wife works for sent out an email earlier this week basically saying that they were at critical mass. Not looking particularly good.


Yeah, what data I've seen suggests that efficacy is about 30% for two shots, 70% for three... but even the benefit of that booster shot may fade over 5-7 weeks. Evolution is a bitch. What I _haven't_ seen is if there's any difference between prior infections and vaccinations, but prior to omicron it doesn't seem like there was much fundamental difference between the two, so I can't see how that should change now - and, at a minimum, I definitely know a number of people who had covid, got vaccinated, got their booster, and still got omicron, so while that's anecdotal it does seem to suggest prior infections aren't behaving any differently.


----------



## StevenC

SexHaver420 said:


> I have gotten 17 covid vaccines so far. I'm getting my 3rd booster tomorrow. I am unstoppable.


----------



## jaxadam

SexHaver420 said:


> I have gotten 17 covid vaccines so far. I'm getting my 3rd booster tomorrow. I am unstoppable.



I’ve been making my own mRNA boosters (melatonin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Antacid).


----------



## Randy




----------



## Bodes

Randy said:


> View attachment 101835



Bit of a strange set of statistics there.

I wonder how many were admitted with covid-like symptoms, but had not been tested (maybe in denial of having covid-like symptoms or couldn't link what they had to covid), hence not putting covid down on the admission form 
vs 
how many were admitted for a non-covid related reason (eg broken leg), were asymptomatic, thus didn't put it down on admission form?

Need some more thorough statistics to paint a better picture for me.


----------



## Adieu

Randy said:


> View attachment 101835



...yet 61-80% everywhere else. That's the real oddity.

Unless of course it is is just NYC crime rate and substance abuse issues = half the people being brought in with ODs or busted heads


----------



## Ralyks

Randy said:


> View attachment 101835



I'm in the Mid-Hudson region, and, uhh, that sucks.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

Closing urgent care facilities now since they're moving all resources to the also closed hospitals.


----------



## narad

@StevenC has Covid! @StevenC has Covid!


----------



## StevenC

narad said:


> @StevenC has Covid! @StevenC has Covid!


I would like to apologise to mbardu because evidently the vaccinated idiots in my life going out like normal have spread this to me.


----------



## Drew

Bodes said:


> Bit of a strange set of statistics there.
> 
> I wonder how many were admitted with covid-like symptoms, but had not been tested (maybe in denial of having covid-like symptoms or couldn't link what they had to covid), hence not putting covid down on the admission form
> vs
> how many were admitted for a non-covid related reason (eg broken leg), were asymptomatic, thus didn't put it down on admission form?
> 
> Need some more thorough statistics to paint a better picture for me.


Going to go out on a limb, and I freely admit this involves a couple assumptions, but ones IMO that are pretty reasonable. 

Hospitals are, the the greatest extent possible, testing EVERYONE they admit for covid, if they have the capacity. This is as much for protection of providers, as it is for the patient. And, if you show up at the ER with no PCR test but "flu like symptoms" causing you to have trouble breathing, I can't think of a single conceivable situation where you _wouldn't_ be tested for covid, considering treatment strategies are fairly different between covid and, say, run-of-the-mill pneumonia (the use of antivirals, for example). Doctors want to know if you have covid to keep themselves safe, but they also sure as shit want to know if you have covid, if you're admitted for covid like symptoms and they need to figure out how to treat you. 

In these scenarios, where a patient is hositalized for flu-like symptoms that turn out to be covid, hospitals (particularly those with their own testing capacity - my fiancee has been swabbing every other day or so and usually knows same-day) will quickly figure out that it's covid they need to treat, and while there might be a several-hour lag in the record keeping while awaiting results, would quickly update their diagnosis from "admitted with flu like symptoms" to "admitted with covid." I suspect these stats are _fairly_ reliable, and furthermore a lot of those "admitted where Covid was not one of the reasons for hospitalizations" probably had no idea they WERE covid positive until they were tested at the hospital (I had a buddy admitted briefly on New Year's for an operation who swabbed negative on a raid test prior to going under but woke up to find his PCR had come back positive - dude hasn't had the greatest start to 2020, though thankfully he and his two kids who also tested positive (his wife so far is still negative) have been almost entirely asymptomatic).


----------



## StevenC

Drew said:


> Going to go out on a limb, and I freely admit this involves a couple assumptions, but ones IMO that are pretty reasonable.
> 
> Hospitals are, the the greatest extent possible, testing EVERYONE they admit for covid, if they have the capacity. This is as much for protection of providers, as it is for the patient. And, if you show up at the ER with no PCR test but "flu like symptoms" causing you to have trouble breathing, I can't think of a single conceivable situation where you _wouldn't_ be tested for covid, considering treatment strategies are fairly different between covid and, say, run-of-the-mill pneumonia (the use of antivirals, for example). Doctors want to know if you have covid to keep themselves safe, but they also sure as shit want to know if you have covid, if you're admitted for covid like symptoms and they need to figure out how to treat you.
> 
> In these scenarios, where a patient is hositalized for flu-like symptoms that turn out to be covid, hospitals (particularly those with their own testing capacity - my fiancee has been swabbing every other day or so and usually knows same-day) will quickly figure out that it's covid they need to treat, and while there might be a several-hour lag in the record keeping while awaiting results, would quickly update their diagnosis from "admitted with flu like symptoms" to "admitted with covid." I suspect these stats are _fairly_ reliable, and furthermore a lot of those "admitted where Covid was not one of the reasons for hospitalizations" probably had no idea they WERE covid positive until they were tested at the hospital (I had a buddy admitted briefly on New Year's for an operation who swabbed negative on a raid test prior to going under but woke up to find his PCR had come back positive - dude hasn't had the greatest start to 2020, though thankfully he and his two kids who also tested positive (his wife so far is still negative) have been almost entirely asymptomatic).


When I was in hospital last year I got tested 3 times on the first day: once on admission to A&E; once on admission to ICU; and once when I was transferred to a different hospital. The next morning I had a chest x-ray for covid. Then after that tested every other day. This was all with no symptoms for the entire stay.


----------



## lurè

Got my booster shot last week. 
Felt like shit during the night and the day after (shivers, mild fever, aching) but now is all good.
The first 2 doses have been a breeze but the last Moderna half dose knocks you out like crazy.


----------



## Adieu

Finally managed to sign up for a booster

Damn it sure feels like California is trying its damndest to make you NOT do it

Site has some 5 minute auto-logout thing... ok... so you choose a slot and start booking and it makes you fill in a bunch of personal info and previous vax dates etc. You'd think it's for that, but NOPE, your slot ISN'T held for the 5 minutes, and by the time you're done it's like "nah, sorry dude, try again".

So you try again... and it's re-fill the entire forms. And the slot is gone again.

And again.

And again.

I must have filled that site out 10 times.


....and then I get an email that I need to PRINT and fill in a paper ICF and bring it to the appointment.


What the actual eff????


----------



## BigViolin

That's a shit deal. In my county both jabs and the booster each took 17 minutes of my time including the 15 min wait after the jab.


----------



## Drew

BigViolin said:


> That's a shit deal. In my county both jabs and the booster each took 17 minutes of my time including the 15 min wait after the jab.


In Mass, in the Boston area, it was a nightmare to get an appointment for a first shot - there was kind of a black market of info for tips and tricks on how to find an appointment, back in... April? But after that, they automatically booked me for my second at the first, and when I signed up for a booster, I didn't _exactly_ have my pick of date and time and location, but I was able to get a shot within walking distance of my house on the date I wanted it. It's just that first wave there was way more demand than there was available supply, less of shots than of medical professionals to jab them into arms.


----------



## StevenC

Drew said:


> In Mass, in the Boston area, it was a nightmare to get an appointment for a first shot - there was kind of a black market of info for tips and tricks on how to find an appointment, back in... April? But after that, they automatically booked me for my second at the first, and when I signed up for a booster, I didn't _exactly_ have my pick of date and time and location, but I was able to get a shot within walking distance of my house on the date I wanted it. It's just that first wave there was way more demand than there was available supply, less of shots than of medical professionals to jab them into arms.


Same, it took me 4 or 5 days of reloading the page and trying different options to finally get my first vaccine booked.


----------



## Empryrean

:/ so I just found out my mom and little sisters all got covid from one of our relatives who VERY unsurprisingly had it without telling them. Not sure how to feel cause I wanna wish this will be a wakeup call and cripple them for life (the relative, not my mom and sisters) but that's a little morbid anyways stay safe everyone.


----------



## TedEH

Hey remember when we were all like "pfff, we're not _puuuuunishing _people who are unvaccinated"?

https://globalnews.ca/news/8503151/...on-people-who-are-unvaccinated-from-covid-19/

For anyone too lazy to click the link:
Quebec is talking about imposing a tax to anyone who refuses the vaccine and doesn't have a medical exemption.

I'm putting my money on vax rates staying about the same, but people who think the government is trying to dupe/control them getting more riled up.


----------



## SpaceDock

One of the guys I work with and his eight year old daughter are both on ventilators. Get vaccinated people.


----------



## Xaios

TedEH said:


> Hey remember when we were all like "pfff, we're not _puuuuunishing _people who are unvaccinated"?
> 
> https://globalnews.ca/news/8503151/...on-people-who-are-unvaccinated-from-covid-19/
> 
> For anyone too lazy to click the link:
> Quebec is talking about imposing a tax to anyone who refuses the vaccine and doesn't have a medical exemption.
> 
> I'm putting my money on vax rates staying about the same, but people who think the government is trying to dupe/control them getting more riled up.


As much as I am anti-anti-vaxxer, this is the wrong way to go about it. The lack of access to social settings should be enough dissuasion, so long as it's actually enforced, because that will also have an effect on the virus's ability to spread. Taxing them additionally has the potential to set a very bad precedent.


----------



## Mathemagician

SpaceDock said:


> One of the guys I work with and his eight year old daughter are both on ventilators. Get vaccinated people.



Fucking Christ that is sad.


----------



## TedEH

Xaios said:


> As much as I am anti-anti-vaxxer, this is the wrong way to go about it. The lack of access to social settings should be enough dissuasion, so long as it's actually enforced, because that will also have an effect on the virus's ability to spread. Taxing them additionally has the potential to set a very bad precedent.


Agreed entirely. I'm pretty confident this will backfire spectacularly. Sometimes I wonder if people lack the self-awareness of how they're feeding into exactly the sentiments they're trying to combat. Hey, you know what will totally convince someone who doesn't trust government? Flexing your governmental powers of course!


----------



## narad

It's tough that it has to be enacted as a tax since it's government healthcare. In the US it could just be a higher fee from the hospital if you're an unvaxxed person taking up extra hospital resources for x amount of time, and it wouldn't need to feel like government overreach.


----------



## Adieu

TedEH said:


> Hey remember when we were all like "pfff, we're not _puuuuunishing _people who are unvaccinated"?
> 
> https://globalnews.ca/news/8503151/...on-people-who-are-unvaccinated-from-covid-19/
> 
> For anyone too lazy to click the link:
> Quebec is talking about imposing a tax to anyone who refuses the vaccine and doesn't have a medical exemption.
> 
> I'm putting my money on vax rates staying about the same, but people who think the government is trying to dupe/control them getting more riled up.



I love it

Let's ONLY tax the unvaccinated.

Just project last year's tax haul onto this year, multiply the unvaxxed's tax bill times whatever number to reach the same ballpark figure, and multiply the vaccinated's tax bill x0


----------



## mbardu

Xaios said:


> As much as I am anti-anti-vaxxer, this is the wrong way to go about it. The lack of access to social settings should be enough dissuasion, so long as it's actually enforced, because that will also have an effect on the virus's ability to spread. Taxing them additionally has the potential to set a very bad precedent.



Yep



TedEH said:


> Agreed entirely. I'm pretty confident this will backfire spectacularly. Sometimes I wonder if people lack the self-awareness of how they're feeding into exactly the sentiments they're trying to combat. Hey, you know what will totally convince someone who doesn't trust government? Flexing your governmental powers of course!



Also yes



narad said:


> It's tough that it has to be enacted as a tax since it's government healthcare. In the US it could just be a higher fee from the hospital if you're an unvaxxed person taking up extra hospital resources for x amount of time, and it wouldn't need to feel like government overreach.



Why not, if you _absolutely _want to try and find ways to punish some people rather than help others.

As long as you also make sure that you do it based on actual amount of time and resources, and that you don't discriminate.
You're not vaccinated but in pretty good health and out of the hospital in 1 day? Good for you!
You're vaccinated, yet got a ton of comorbidities after years of eating like shit and smoking your lungs to death- so you are in the ICU for 3 weeks? Get your 2M bill!

Wait...so it's _exactly _like the US system is actually working already as it is in fact ?
Better than outright refusing care to the unvaccinated like it was proposed then. 
I mean...I'm not defending the system itself which is pretty shitty, but if we're going to look at objective use of resources, it makes much more sense than making the access to care arbitrarily vaccination-based. Glad to see you agree  .


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> Yep
> 
> 
> 
> Also yes
> 
> 
> 
> Why not, if you _absolutely _want to try and find ways to punish some people rather than help others.
> 
> As long as you also make sure that you do it based on actual amount of time and resources, and that you don't discriminate.
> You're not vaccinated but in pretty good health and out of the hospital in 1 day? Good for you!
> You're vaccinated, yet got a ton of comorbidities after years of eating like shit and smoking your lungs to death- so you are in the ICU for 3 weeks? Get your 2M bill!
> 
> Wait...so it's _exactly _like the US system is actually working already as it is in fact ?
> Better than outright refusing care to the unvaccinated like it was proposed then.
> I mean...I'm not defending the system itself which is pretty shitty, but if we're going to look at objective use of resources, it makes much more sense than making the access to care arbitrarily vaccination-based. Glad to see you agree  .



Nah, I mean, we're in a pandemic. Our healthcare system is not suddenly inundated with fat people or smokers, and there are plenty of other co-morbidities that are less within the realm of what someone can easily change. Vs. a vaccine that is generally readily available, and takes a couple hours out of your day, vs. a lifestyle change that would need to be enacted over years or decades. I can't compare these things because the difficulty inherent to them is on absolute opposite sides of the scale. 

If you're unvaccinated and pop in and out of the hospital in average time, fine. But you take up a hospital bed for a week because you didn't take a couple hours out of your day to do the bare minimum thing to improve your outcome by like 5-10x if you're infected, then you should pay a price for the carelessness IMO.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> Nah, I mean, we're in a pandemic. Our healthcare system is not suddenly inundated with fat people or smokers, and there are plenty of other co-morbidities that are less within the realm of what someone can easily change. Vs. a vaccine that is generally readily available, and takes a couple hours out of your day, vs. a lifestyle change that would need to be enacted over years or decades. I can't compare these things because the difficulty inherent to them is on absolute opposite sides of the scale.
> 
> If you're unvaccinated and pop in and out of the hospital in average time, fine. But you take up a hospital bed for a week because you didn't take a couple hours out of your day to do the bare minimum thing to improve your outcome by like 5-10x if you're infected, then you should pay a price for the carelessness IMO.



It's subjective to you that eating well is "harder" than getting a vaccine.
If you step outside of your subjective point of view for _one minute_, maybe you'd understand that some people maybe think otherwise.
After all, plenty of people think it's easy or even enjoyable to have a healthy lifestyle- so that's basically a negative cost.

Also- nobody talked about unrelated stuff by the way- this is _very much _in the context of the pandemic.
Things like obesity, hypertension, or severe type-2 diabetes, or history of heart conditions are all very significant predictors of Covid-19 severity, Covid-19-related ICU stay length and associated mortality. I already shared a number of sources on the topic.
And in the one year that people have had to get the vaccine, some people could also have _*easily *_put their weight, hypertension or blood sugar levels under control. Usually through the same simple means. In the process significantly improving, not only their Covid-19 risk, but also their overall health. Easy!

After all, we get to decide what's easy for others, right? It's like you said after all. If you take up a hospital bed for a week because you didn't take a couple hours out of your day for exercise and eating well (the bare minimum thing to improve your outcome by like 5-10x if you're infected), then you should pay a price for the carelessness


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> It's subjective to you that eating well is "harder" than getting a vaccine.
> If you step outside of your subjective point of view for _one minute_, maybe you'd understand that some people maybe think otherwise.
> After all, plenty of people think it's easy or even enjoyable to have a healthy lifestyle- so that's basically a negative cost.
> 
> Also- nobody talked about unrelated stuff by the way- this is _very much _in the context of the pandemic.
> Things like obesity, hypertension, or severe type-2 diabetes, or history of heart conditions are all very significant predictors of Covid-19 severity, Covid-19-related ICU stay length and associated mortality. I already shared a number of sources on the topic.
> And in the one year that people have had to get the vaccine, some people could also have _*easily *_put their weight, hypertension or blood sugar levels under control. Usually through the same simple means. In the process significantly improving, not only their Covid-19 risk, but also their overall health. Easy!
> 
> After all, we get to decide what's easy for others, right? It's like you said after all. If you take up a hospital bed for a week because you didn't take a couple hours out of your day for exercise and eating well (the bare minimum thing to improve your outcome by like 5-10x if you're infected), then you should pay a price for the carelessness



Yea, let me know when you can swing by the hospital with obesity and walk out a couple hours later a fit person, and then I'll consider taxing overweight people for their burden on the health system. There's a very big difference between a couple hours out of your day, and a couple of ours out of your day, everyday, but of course you were aware of that but chose to write around it anyway.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> Yea, let me know when you can swing by the hospital with obesity and walk out a couple hours later a fit person, and then I'll consider taxing overweight people for their burden on the health system. There's a very big difference between a couple hours out of your day, and a couple of ours out of your day, everyday, but of course you were aware of that but chose to write around it anyway.



You are really not capable of much thinking outside of your own perspective, are you?
It's not a matter of "hard" as in literal number of hours.

Just picture a parent whose 12 year old has had severe vaccine reactions a couple of times in the past. Whom they saw suffer because of it. Giving another shot to their kid and rolling the dice for a negligible protective effect is HARD. I'd like to see you tell that person that the anguish will be easy because it's only a couple of hours...in comparison, yeah, exercising and eating one less burger once a week for a year sounds MUCH MUCH easier than that decision... I don't know a single parent who would think otherwise, yet it's @narad who gets to be the arbiter of what's easy and what's hard under his own subjective criteria? 

Is it impossible to understand that other people can have other experiences that don't match yours? Who knew theory of mind in practice could be so hard....


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> You are really not capable of much thinking outside of your own perspective, are you?
> It's not a matter of "hard" as in literal number of hours.
> 
> Just picture a parent whose 12 year old has had severe vaccine reactions a couple of times in the past. Whom they saw suffer because of it. Giving another shot to their kid and rolling the dice for a negligible protective effect is HARD. I'd like to see you tell that person that the anguish will be easy because it's only a couple of hours...in comparison, yeah, exercising and eating one less burger once a week for a year sounds MUCH MUCH easier than that decision... I don't know a single parent who would think otherwise, yet it's @narad who gets to be the arbiter of what's easy and what's hard under his own subjective criteria?
> 
> Is it impossible to understand that other people can have other experiences that don't match yours? Who knew theory of mind in practice could be so hard....



We already discussed many pages back the notion of medical waivers for the vaccines for people who truly have difficulty taking the vaccine. If you are only wound up about that tiny percent of the population, you can drop it, because I'm obviously not referring to that group. As long as that decision comes from a medical professional and not the mom who believes in wholistic healing, I'm fine with excluding these sorts of people from any policy that seeks to attach the harm of an overworked medical system directly to those who needlessly burden it.

Is that group representative of the 15% of the US population that isn't vaccinated? No, I don't think so. I don't think there's any point in pretending that the unvaccinated population of the US right now is composed largely of people who had severe adverse effects from previous vaccines or a medical history that would indicate significant risk of a vaccine. So if that's the argument... eek.


----------



## StevenC

I suppose the argument for vaccine taxes is that plenty of places have taxes on sugary drinks and cigarettes. How is this any different?


----------



## narad

StevenC said:


> I suppose the argument for vaccine taxes is that plenty of places have taxes on sugary drinks and cigarettes. How is this any different?



I'm also just inclined to tax idiots for being idiots.


----------



## zappatton2

TedEH said:


> Hey remember when we were all like "pfff, we're not _puuuuunishing _people who are unvaccinated"?
> 
> https://globalnews.ca/news/8503151/...on-people-who-are-unvaccinated-from-covid-19/
> 
> For anyone too lazy to click the link:
> Quebec is talking about imposing a tax to anyone who refuses the vaccine and doesn't have a medical exemption.
> 
> I'm putting my money on vax rates staying about the same, but people who think the government is trying to dupe/control them getting more riled up.


I am opposed to this strategy in principle. I still muster zero sympathy for anti-vaxxers, and I suspect it will be a popular move by the Quebec government (and could see other Provinces following suit).

Outside of the States, anti-vaxxers are becoming persona non grata across the Western world, as people are seeing their health care systems overwhelmed and having to delay important, and in many cases, life-saving procedures to make room for the intransigent getting seriously ill. 

But again, barriers that limit any citizen's access to public institutions are concerning, and as much as this one finds general favour across Canada, Quebec's "secular" rules that force Provincial civil servants to remove hijabs or any form of personal faith-based clothing is also very popular (specifically in Quebec), and is frankly an unambiguous attack on people's Charter rights.


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> It's subjective to you that eating well is "harder" than getting a vaccine.


No, that's pretty objective - and I say this as someone who has succeeded both at getting a vaccine (which took 10 minutes of online booking and a 20 minute walk down the street), vs. loosing 150lbs - which has taken years of my life to figure out what certain foods and activities will do to my health and I've still not worked it out. Nutrition and lifestyle are fking minefields of confusing information, wrong information, missing information, trial and error, and grappling with schedules and willpower and social pressures and family who insist you have more cake lest you be insulting them since they went out of their way to make it for you, and having to justify _every fking time_ you walk instead of drive somewhere, and any time you have a meal in public some idiot insists on calling your meal "rabbit food", and family doctors who (while being fat themselves) insisting that you're just lazy but offering no actual help, and the fact that once you're in that shape, exercise can be excruciating to do for any length of time.

And I'm not even bothering with the whole argument for "eating poorly is cheaper" (which I don't know I believe), or the fact that, like so many other things, "healthy" and "healthy eating" are defined differently by basically every second person you ask.

No, getting a vaccine is objectively easy. The difficult part is all the effort expended trying not to.



mbardu said:


> very significant predictors of Covid-19 severity


I could have sworn you said there were zero severe cases......?



mbardu said:


> _*easily *_put their weight, hypertension or blood sugar levels under control


As someone who _did, _calling that easy is a dick move.



mbardu said:


> After all, we get to decide what's easy for others, right?


Says the guy who spent a whole paragraph doing exactly that for everything _except_ getting a free jab that takes 10 minutes.



mbardu said:


> Just picture a parent whose 12 year old has had severe vaccine reactions a couple of times in the past.


The Quebec tax that started this line of conversation has exemptions for people who have medical reasons that they can't take the vax. Also, this group of people with allergies is still a minority within a minority. This group you're so obsessed with doesn't apply to this conversation. Even if they did, out of the people I've encountered or spoke to who have some amount of fear of bad reactions, exactly 0 of them have any actual evidence of allergies to anything in the vaccine and haven't consulted a doctor on the matter - but they got bad advice from a doctor once, or a reaction to any random unrelated medication, so of course "all medications are bad".

I still think the tax is a bad idea that will backfire. I think it's a bad idea on principle, on the idea that it's going to be taken as "punishment" and that people don't react well to being told what to do. I don't, however, disagree with its intentions.


----------



## StevenC

As someone who's had a severe reaction to vaccines in the past and been given vaccine exemptions, I would like you all to remember that when mbardu makes that point it is in incredibly bad faith.


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> I could have sworn you said there were zero severe cases......?



Where did I say that exactly? Or even remotely close to that?



TedEH said:


> As someone who _did, _calling that easy is a dick move.



So _now _you catch my point.
Calling _anything _"easy" on behalf of someone else is a dick move. Hence the sarcasm.
Did the various italics and quotes not make that obvious?

So saying "the vaccine is objectively easy" without knowing the experience of others is a dick move.
_Of course_ it's easy _for you and me. _Of course it's easy for me because I'm young, with no complications, with no history of severe reactions etc.
But calling _anything _objectively "easy" on behalf of someone else based just only on your experience and point of view is precisely what we should _avoid_.

I was just calling out what you guys have been doing all along so it's nice to see you catching up. That was the only thing I was trying to show really


----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> Where did I say that exactly? Or even remotely close to that?


Right here:


mbardu said:


> There have been 0 cases of severe Covid cases as far as I'm aware





mbardu said:


> So saying "the vaccine is objectively easy" without knowing the experience of others is a dick move.


No it's not. Because I'm not speaking from someone else's experience - I'm speaking from the experience of the 80-90% of people who just went out and did it, including myself. Because it's easy.



mbardu said:


> except exemptions are impossible to get in practice


How do you know this in the context of a tax you just heard of and hasn't been implemented yet in a province you've admitted you know nothing about?

Here's a thought: Is it possible that exemptions are hard to get because _legitimate reasons_ to get exemptions are very rare, and non-legit exemptions might prolong a pandemic? I don't know if that's the real challenge or not. And neither do you. Seems to me like getting an exemption _should_ be a bit of a challenge. Not impossible. But it's not_ supposed_ to be easy to opt out of doing your part.

Narad's already said anything else I'd have to add, better than I could say it.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

mbardu said:


> You shouldn't make assumptions and put words in other people's mouths.


----------



## mbardu

MaxOfMetal said:


> View attachment 101937



I was waiting for a funny....clearly didn't have to wait long 
Still waiting for a person showing me a single time I ever did that- or didn't correct it if I did.

And yet just on this page I can point to a few that were made against me. Like, absolutely egregious shameful stuff as cutting half the sentence I wrote and transform it to get a different meaning entirely. But I guess that's OK to do as long as it's in line with the echo chamber?

Anyone can check that the attacks, literal insults, bad faith arguments and misrepresentations are not on the side that we think they are...


----------



## ArtDecade




----------



## TedEH

mbardu said:


> Dude, what's even the point of discussing if you're going to be that dishonest.


I love how you jump on the tangent of something I might have misunderstood from your intent from pages and weeks ago to avoid addressing the meat of my comment.

I repeat:
How does anything you're saying make sense or have any relevance in the context of a tax you just heard of and hasn't been implemented yet in a province you've admitted you know nothing about?


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> I love how you jump on the tangent of something I might have misunderstood from your intent from pages and weeks ago to avoid addressing the meat of my comment.
> 
> I repeat:
> How does anything you're saying make sense or have any relevance in the context of a tax you just heard of and hasn't been implemented yet in a province you've admitted you know nothing about?



I'm not jumping on anything else lmao . The only part of the discussion about the tax was one where we said exactly the same thing (as in: it is not useful and it will backfire). Are you mad that I agreed with what you said? That part is done I thought.

The rest for the last two pages is _not related to that_.
It is about @narad suggestion to make people pay the price of care based on the actual resources that they use and the factors in their health that they control- and how I pointed out that at least that would be somewhat _more _fair than arbitrarily restricting care for the unvaccinated. And then somehow how him and you would have the right to decide what is easy or not easy for other people because somehow your personal experience is worth more than theirs.

So again, something you misunderstood because you didn't pay attention reading, and yet are going to attack me on it? Were the first times not enough? Swear to god, if I did a _tenth_ of the bad faith, attack or insults that I'm getting, I'd have been banned long ago, yet flip it to go with the echo chamber and suddenly that behavior is not only accepted no issue, but actually encouraged by the moderation now


----------



## bostjan

This thread is somehow worse with everyone arguing semantics than it was when everyone was arguing speculative alternate pasts.

Anyway, things are getting confusing with some higher-ups at workplaces requiring cloth masks and others at the same workplaces discouraging them. The darn CDC is causing a mess again by telling people N95 or bust, citing research that N95's > cloth masks > nothing and confusingly ignoring the last inequality part of that relation.


----------



## Drew

Whether or not you support a tax, I've seen some talk of health insurance companies considering charging higher premiums for those who _choose_ not to get vaccinated, in recognition of the higher risk of hospitalization and in turn higher estimated lifetime cost of providing coverage. I believe this is not related to legit medical exemptions, as they would presumably have access to that (and if you have a medical reason that prevents you from getting a vaccine, you likely have higher cost of coverage _anyway_ due to preexisting conditions), but people simply choosing not to vaccinate. 

At first pass, I'm ok with this - it's a pretty sound reason for expecting a patient to be more expensive to provide coverage to, and higher rates due to risk factors is pretty well established.


----------



## Xaios

Drew said:


> At first pass, I'm ok with this - it's a pretty sound reason for expecting a patient to be more expensive to provide coverage to, and higher rates due to risk factors is pretty well established.


My initial take was similar, but that's only because I briefly forgot that the American private health care industry is an ignominious money sucking slug which shouldn't exist in a civilized country and will take advantage of any excuse to bleed its policyholders dry while providing nothing of value in return, so...

...yeah. If I have a problem with a government-imposed tax, I can't in good conscience turn around and say that a premium surcharge on healthcare, something that's basically analagous to a tax, is suddenly okay just because supposedly it's private industry (even though it's really a cartel at this point).


----------



## tedtan

Drew said:


> Whether or not you support a tax, I've seen some talk of health insurance companies considering charging higher premiums for those who _choose_ not to get vaccinated, in recognition of the higher risk of hospitalization and in turn higher estimated lifetime cost of providing coverage. I believe this is not related to legit medical exemptions, as they would presumably have access to that (and if you have a medical reason that prevents you from getting a vaccine, you likely have higher cost of coverage _anyway_ due to preexisting conditions), but people simply choosing not to vaccinate.
> 
> At first pass, I'm ok with this - it's a pretty sound reason for expecting a patient to be more expensive to provide coverage to, and higher rates due to risk factors is pretty well established.



That’s in line with current practice in the US, too, as smokers have higher premiums than non-smokers.


----------



## Drew

Xaios said:


> My initial take was similar, but that's only because I briefly forgot that the American private health care industry is an ignominious money sucking slug which shouldn't exist in a civilized country and will take advantage of any excuse to bleed its policyholders dry while providing nothing of value in return, so...
> 
> ...yeah. If I have a problem with a government-imposed tax, I can't in good conscience turn around and say that a premium surcharge on healthcare, something that's basically analagous to a tax, is suddenly okay just because supposedly it's private industry (even though it's really a cartel at this point).


I don't know if I can say i agree with your view here... but I certainly _understand_ it, and respect it. There are a ton of problems with healthcare int he US, one of the biggest (IMO) being everyone treats it like it's a free market when it's anything BUT, but the basic premise of charging by risk factor is one of the more market-like factors here and it's something frankly I'd feel better if we went further down that road, providing economic incentives in cost of coverage to encourage behavior consistent with healthy outcomes. 

This is not much different, but the inverse of, things like insurers providing reimbursements for gym memberships, beyond @tedtan's smoker example.


----------



## jaxadam

Fauci announces today “horse paste” seriously being considered by CDC as treatment for the ‘Rona.

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/s2cs6z/fauci_announced_today_that_ivermectin_is_being/


----------



## mbardu

tedtan said:


> That’s in line with current practice in the US, too, as smokers have higher premiums than non-smokers.



Just add to that the surcharges for other people who knowingly and voluntarily endanger their own health (obese people, excessive drinkers, dangerous hobbies and the like etc), and it won't be _good _(the US is still a terrible and heartless system at its core), but at least it'll be more fair than just arbitrarily restricting care based on vaccination status.


----------



## Drew

mbardu said:


> Just add to that the surcharges for other people who knowingly and voluntarily endanger their own health (obese people, excessive drinkers, dangerous hobbies and the like etc), and it won't be _good _(the US is still a terrible and heartless system at its core), but at least it'll be more fair than just arbitrarily restricting care based on vaccination status.


For some inconceivable reason, this post wasn't hidden when I opened this thread. 

Those are called "pre-existing conditions" in insurance parlance, and yes, those are abso-_lutely_ risk factors that can impact your cost of coverage, you sheltered knob.  Stop imagining the whole damned world is out to get you.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> For some inconceivable reason, this post wasn't hidden when I opened this thread.
> 
> Those are called "pre-existing conditions" in insurance parlance, and yes, those are abso-_lutely_ risk factors that can impact your cost of coverage, you sheltered knob.  Stop imagining the whole damned world is out to get you.



"This post wasn't hidden when I opened the thread" .
Last _few _times it was "I clicked show hidden posts by mistake" .
Before that "Someone told me to read" .
And so on and so on...
How many more excuses do you need to just say you read my posts the very minute I post them lmao 

Anyway to your "point", yes pre-existing conditions were a thing, of course. Not sure that obesity was ever included in what "pre-existing condition" used to mean considering it's half the US population, so that would be a bit moot. But anyway pre-existing conditions have specifically and broadly not been applicable since Obamacare, because they were deemed too unfair.
But glad to see that everyone is wishing for their comeback  . Didn't know we were in the "repeal Obamacare" crowd here, but hey, apparently if it means hating on the unvaccinated, apparently we're willing to accept anything it seems! Losing our principles, siding with the Republicans against making the healthcare system more fair, pretty much anything, right? Nice!

Again, it's a shitty idea, and a shitty way to think about healthcare for others, but at least as long as you keep it consistent then at least there's that.

PS: once again, based on the above I'll let everyone be the judge of who's lobbing various random insults at others vs who's having a polite discussion

PPS: Oh and @Drew , I think you forgot to tell everyone for the 100th time now how you looOOoooOOOve to ignore my posts before still reading them anyway. Just a friendly reminder so that you remember to do so the next time  !


----------



## tedtan

mbardu said:


> Just add to that the surcharges for other people who knowingly and voluntarily endanger their own health (obese people, excessive drinkers, dangerous hobbies and the like etc), and it won't be _good _(the US is still a terrible and heartless system at its core), but at least it'll be more fair than just arbitrarily restricting care based on vaccination status.



Care is already somewhat restricted on those bases, though. As an example, if someone needs a liver transplant in the US they can go on the donor list once diagnosed unless their liver issue is due to drinking, in which case they have to first stop drinking and then wait six months without drinking before being eligible to go on the donor list. If they die within that six month wait period, so be it; they won’t be moved further up the list based on need. One can bypass the wait period if they can find a living donor willing to donate half of their liver, but that’s not part of the donor list that’s a private person willing to do notate to a specific person.

So we’re already triaging these situations with an eye towards whether the patient contributed to their health issue, so the question is whether or not triaging people who can safely receive covid vaccinations based on their choice to receive the vaccine or not is consistent with current practice. If it is not, then we need to reconsider how we approach triaging these patients. If it is, then the question is whether or not the current system works as is or needs to be improved. Or, since needing improvement is a given, what specific improvements are needed.


----------



## tedtan

mbardu said:


> Anyway, to your "point", yes pre-existing conditions were a thing, of course. Not sure that obesity was ever included in what "pre-existing condition" used to mean considering it's half the US population, so that would be a bit moot. But anyway pre-existing conditions have specifically and broadly not been applicable since Obamacare, because they were deemed too unfair.



Obamacare prevented insurers from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions, but not from charging different rates based on those preexisting conditions. The thing is that while insurers cannot charge an individual more based on preexisting conditions, we don’t have a single group (e.g., the entire US population) like we would through single payer system, so we have individual groups through each of our employers. And the insurers can and do charge everyone within a given group more if there are preexisting conditions within that group.


----------



## Drew

Evidently, mbardu learned something about US healthcare today, after trying to lecture us all about it for the past 40 pages, eh?


----------



## ArtDecade

Drew said:


> Evidently, mbardu learned something about US healthcare today, after trying to lecture us all about it for the past 40 pages, eh?



Come on. You really think he learned something?
Also, I really miss when your Avatar used to move.


----------



## mbardu

tedtan said:


> Care is already somewhat restricted on those bases, though. As an example, if someone needs a liver transplant in the US they can go on the donor list once diagnosed unless their liver issue is due to drinking, in which case they have to first stop drinking and then wait six months without drinking before being eligible to go on the donor list. If they die within that six month wait period, so be it; they won’t be moved further up the list based on need. One can bypass the wait period if they can find a living donor willing to donate half of their liver, but that’s not part of the donor list that’s a private person willing to do notate to a specific person.
> 
> So we’re already triaging these situations with an eye towards whether the patient contributed to their health issue, so the question is whether or not triaging people who can safely receive covid vaccinations based on their choice to receive the vaccine or not is consistent with current practice. If it is not, then we need to reconsider how we approach triaging these patients. If it is, then the question is whether or not the current system works as is or needs to be improved. Or, since needing improvement is a given, what specific improvements are needed.



I think it's fair to have that line of questioning in the real world where resources are obviously finite.
But if that's what we're doing then because of the heavy effect of _preventable _pre-existing conditions on severity of Covid and ICU stays, there will be cases where an otherwise healthy unvaccinated guy (likely to recover quickly) would be prioritized over someone vaccinated but with multiple preventable comorbidities. Of course the unvaccinated guy with same comorbidities and poor lifestyle choices would be prioritized last.


----------



## Drew

ArtDecade said:


> Come on. You really think he learned something?
> Also, I really miss when your Avatar used to move.


 You're right, he'll just nitpick something about my sentence structure, or tell us that what we call "insurance" actually _isn't_ insurance but it's, like, idunno, health outcome liability hedging, or something, and now this will be a 20 page diversion on insurance pricing. 

And shit, me too! When did that stop? I guess if you click on it it's still animated, but...


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> Evidently, mbardu learned something about US healthcare today, after trying to lecture us all about it for the past 40 pages, eh?



I don't think the topic of health insurance has come in the last 40 pages, has it? The prior discussion was about refusal of care, not payment and cost. But if it has, please free to point it out instead of again making up something unsubstantiated (as usual).

But anyway, the fact is I have never encountered insurance that checks if you're obese.
In no company I've worked for or worked with.
But maybe it's just me, and if that's something widespread, then I've definitely learnt something new!

See, the thing with being open minded is- you _shouldn't_ mind learning new things.
You shouldn't have to shift the goalposts ad vitam eternam because you're unable to reconcile with what you're saying - like on the countless things you've now tried to wiggle away from by now..

I just don't see what the fuss is about then. If there are already cost impacts for things that people are responsible for (poor lifestyle, dangerous hobbies, and yes, that includes people who decline the vaccine "just because"), then fair enough! That's definitely more fair than an arbitrary "just stop treating the unvaccianted, or if you must, then treat them last".


----------



## jaxadam

mbardu said:


> But maybe it's just me, and if that's something widespread, then I've definitely learnt something new!
> 
> See, the thing with being open minded is- you _shouldn't_ mind learning new things.
> You shouldn't have to shift the goalposts ad vitam eternam because you're unable to reconcile with what you're saying - like on the countless things you've now tried to wiggle away from by now.



If you haven't changed your mind lately, how can you be sure you still have one!


----------



## SpaceDock

mbardu said:


> See, the thing with being open minded is- you _shouldn't_ mind learning new things.



I am not sure if this is modern phenomena or has always been around, but it seems like most people would rather double down on the dumbest shit than learn something new and admit they weren’t informed. I have a job where I only know about 10% of any situation I am in and often will say I don’t know but would like to learn, it’s liberating. Viewing others as weak because their opinion changed over time is even worse. We can never evolve as individuals or a group until we admit the limitations of our knowledge and that it is not a failing to learn or be wrong. Just be wrong with grace.


----------



## narad

In this thread (somewhere):
Mbardu: This new thing isn't even a vaccine in the traditional sense. And the media is trying to totally redefine the word. It's so different we don't know what it's going to do, so it's reasonable for people to not be vaccinated.

Also in this thread (more recently):
Mbardu: All the people who have had bad reactions to previous vaccines have a good reason to be cautious about this one, and should be eligible for exemptions, since there's no reason to think that this vaccine is any different.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

Shit these Mbardu arguments are just unreal. It's like quotations without actual quotes goal posts moved from post to post and then argue definitions/semantics if all else fails 

It's like watching somebody box a glacier. Ffs.

Also in theory the increased tax thing seems logical but it's definitely just not the right move even if the underlying reasoning makes sense. Imho.


----------



## jaxadam

jaxadam said:


> Fauci announces today “horse paste” seriously being considered by CDC as treatment for the ‘Rona.
> 
> https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/s2cs6z/fauci_announced_today_that_ivermectin_is_being/



Heres a little more “horse paste” info for you sciency types:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7539925/


----------



## TedEH

That same link is cited in a bunch of places, including this one, which says that while it's great that we're studying this properly, the evidence we have so far is of low quality:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8470309/

If these studies go somewhere, then that's fantastic. It great that it's being studied, but you have to wait until conclusions, consensus, and proper application of what we learn from it, before you can go "hah, take that doubters". Also.... isn't it kinda counter-intuitive that people are willing to shout that the vaccines are some kind of big experiment on people, but they're equally willing to jump on ivermectin before we've proved it's effective and formulated it the right way?


----------



## bostjan

jaxadam said:


> Heres a little more “horse paste” info for you sciency types:
> 
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7539925/


That paper is from October 2020 and has been posted in here at least once or twice before. If you read it through, you'll see that it's a proposal rather than a study with any data outcome.

A lot of studies are coming up past due right now, so we should see updated results very soon that ought to be much more definitive. A lot of publications from throughout 2021 were cautiously optimistic about the drug, and small-scale studies all showed some promise, but oddly not in consistent ways, so, likely, the drug has different positive effects on different people under different circumstances, either as prophylactic or as a therapeutic. At the absolute worst case, small doses of it aid in fighting off other infections so that the immune system can focus more on fighting SARS-CoV-2. Best case, it reduces the virus's ability to replicate so that the body can recover more quickly. If we look at the most recent papers about it, the drug might not be too effective in lung tissue for whatever reason, but, as covid is more a disease of the blood than of the lungs in all but late stages, the drug likely may be the best weapon we have at the moment to fight the disease, and might be especially valuable for younger covid patients.

Whatever the case ends up being, we shouldn't write anything off hastily, because an effective therapeutic treatment is desperately needed right now.

That said, everybody, don't self-medicate. Like almost every drug, this stuff is literally poison in quantities larger than necessary.


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> That same link is cited in a bunch of places, including this one, which says that while it's great that we're studying this properly, the evidence we have so far is of low quality:
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8470309/
> 
> If these studies go somewhere, then that's fantastic. It great that it's being studied, but you have to wait until conclusions, consensus, and proper application of what we learn from it, before you can go "hah, take that doubters". Also.... isn't it kinda counter-intuitive that people are willing to shout that the vaccines are some kind of big experiment on people, but they're equally willing to jump on ivermectin before we've proved it's effective and formulated it the right way?



Wouldn't it be wild if some people were persecuted for not taking one thing, and others persecuted for taking something else?


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> Wouldn't it be wild if some people were persecuted for not taking one thing, and others persecuted for taking something else?


So let me get this strait - you think that recommending against self-medicating with drugs formulated for horses because you can find a paper from years ago saying it might have maybe helped on monkey kidney cells is persecution?

Wouldn't it be wild if people stopped denying that the vaccines have demonstrated themselves to be safe and one of the best tools we have right now? And that push back to it's adoption has a high potential cost?
Wouldn't it be wild if people participated based on the actual information in front of them instead of their feelings about "persecution" and "virtue signalling" and all this nonsense?

And that's really the bit that gets me - all this arguing - even the long mbardu rants - they border on being reasonable right up until it becomes this "woe is me, you're bullying me" bs. I can buy that ivermectin might be a valid path to investigate - but we should _do that investigation instead of buying up and eating horse drugs_. I can buy that there are legitimate fears of reactions to vaccines -_ so we should investigate those to grant fair exemptions, or educate people to help them feel comfortable with it, instead of blanketly letting people off the hook for being anti-vax._ I can buy that there are some populations who have let the jabs grant them unwarranted confidence to drop their guard and that this influences our case rates - _so we should make sure people are informed of the reality of the situation and go back to being careful instead of using it as an argument to dismiss vaccination._

We're never going to make any progress with the pandemic when every new piece of information gets turned into this dumb emotional pissing contest by the general public.


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> Wouldn't it be wild if people stopped denying that the vaccines have demonstrated themselves to be safe and one of the best tools we have right now? And that push back to it's adoption has a high potential cost?



Who here has been saying that?



TedEH said:


> I can buy that ivermectin might be a valid path to investigate - but we should _do that investigation instead of buying up and eating horse drugs_. I can buy that there are legitimate fears of reactions to vaccines -_ so we should investigate those to grant fair exemptions, or educate people to help them feel comfortable with it, instead of blanketly letting people off the hook for being anti-vax._ I can buy that there are some populations who have let the jabs grant them unwarranted confidence to drop their guard and that this influences our case rates - _so we should make sure people are informed of the reality of the situation and go back to being careful instead of using it as an argument to dismiss vaccination._



I agree 100%


----------



## mbardu

TedEH said:


> So let me get this strait - you think that recommending against self-medicating with drugs formulated for horses because you can find a paper from years ago saying it might have maybe helped on monkey kidney cells is persecution?
> 
> Wouldn't it be wild if people stopped denying that the vaccines have demonstrated themselves to be safe and one of the best tools we have right now? And that push back to it's adoption has a high potential cost?
> Wouldn't it be wild if people participated based on the actual information in front of them instead of their feelings about "persecution" and "virtue signalling" and all this nonsense?
> 
> And that's really the bit that gets me - all this arguing - even the long mbardu rants - they border on being reasonable right up until it becomes this "woe is me, you're bullying me" bs. I can buy that ivermectin might be a valid path to investigate - but we should _do that investigation instead of buying up and eating horse drugs_. I can buy that there are legitimate fears of reactions to vaccines -_ so we should investigate those to grant fair exemptions, or educate people to help them feel comfortable with it, instead of blanketly letting people off the hook for being anti-vax._ I can buy that there are some populations who have let the jabs grant them unwarranted confidence to drop their guard and that this influences our case rates - _so we should make sure people are informed of the reality of the situation and go back to being careful instead of using it as an argument to dismiss vaccination._
> 
> We're never going to make any progress with the pandemic when every new piece of information gets turned into this dumb emotional pissing contest by the general public.



If there were fair exemptions for vaccines, I'd be way more OK with that. But as it is today, in at least two of the places I'm most familiar with (France/California), this is already not the case, and even doctors I know _cannot_ give exemptions that they think would be justified.

And the more there is blind rejection of _any _dissenting discourse, the worse it's going to get. If you drill it into people's heads that side effects are not a real thing, and that all unvaccinated people are dumb trumptards, then they'll support measures reducing or preventing exemptions. They are doing that already, like they are supporting punitive measures against the unvaccinated. Again, very concretely in a number of places already.

You might think that's OK because the ends justify the means, or you might think that's OK because it only impacts a minority of people (and despite what you were trying to put in my mouth, I never pretended this was impacting a _majority _of people) ... and that's just the part I don't agree with.

As for


TedEH said:


> "woe is me, you're bullying me"



Well you must be kinda blind if you don't see it, but that's the case. Between Narad dropping all pretenses of discussion to just attack me at any unrelated opportunity, _you _misquoting me blatantly to change the meaning of my sentences and arguments, drew insulting me willy nilly, StevenC literally telling me to go f*ck myself, even the moderation _ignoring all that_, but instead jumping in to add some mockery and support their favorite side ... it's fairly one-sided.

And the funniest part is that snowflakes keep trying to report _me _just because I'm talking against the echo chamber, whereas I _never _insulted anyone. Yet all the above ... nobody bats an eye  .

I don't mind, and I'll always discuss respectfully, be happy to correct anything I misrepresent if that happens, and support my arguments with sources. That's more than I can say of the majority. Most of what you get in lieu of arguments is "I don't feel like" or "it's obvious that..." or altogether made up numbers that someone pulled out of their butt...
And you know what? I don't even mind changing my mind if someone comes up with sources that make me learn new things.

After all, this whole thing is coming from changing one's mind in the first place.
Just a couple of years ago, I would have just had the exact same line of thinking as most people here. Vaccines are very safe, and that's shown by the history behind them and the studies backing them up. By and large, a lot of them have done tons of good. If some very rare people have adverse effects, that sucks, but they can easily get exemptions.
And that's the "mainstream" thinking there, nothing uniquely "genius big brain" about it- unlike what most people seem to think.

But in practice, there are more people with adverse effects than you think, it's harder to report than you think, harder to get exemptions- and all of that is getting exponentially harder with Covid. At the same time, we're pushing vaccines with increasingly concerning risk/benefit ratios, but since we have demonized any dissenting discourse, it goes through no concern.


----------



## bostjan

TedEH said:


> And that's really the bit that gets me - all this arguing - even the long mbardu rants - they border on being reasonable right up until it becomes this "woe is me, you're bullying me" bs. I can buy that ivermectin might be a valid path to investigate - but we should _do that investigation instead of buying up and eating horse drugs_. I can buy that there are legitimate fears of reactions to vaccines -_ so we should investigate those to grant fair exemptions, or educate people to help them feel comfortable with it, instead of blanketly letting people off the hook for being anti-vax._ I can buy that there are some populations who have let the jabs grant them unwarranted confidence to drop their guard and that this influences our case rates - _so we should make sure people are informed of the reality of the situation and go back to being careful instead of using it as an argument to dismiss vaccination._
> 
> We're never going to make any progress with the pandemic when every new piece of information gets turned into this dumb emotional pissing contest by the general public.



Yes, but, to be fair, this entire thread, and especially the deleted thread that preceded it were all sorts of speculation being argued ad nauseum back and forth and generally both sides ended up ultimately incorrect anyway.

Whether it was people saying that this whole entire thing would be fought back and put under wraps in a couple weeks versus the people saying it was going to infect everyone and kill us all, or a bunch of people arguing with me about the vaccines being the end of this entire thing versus me saying that it looked like immunity was going to wear off quite quickly, or people arguing with @mbardu saying that vaccines at least controlled the spread of the disease versus him saying, well, I'm not quite sure I have time to even summarize the tip of the iceberg of anything he said. We were all wrong. The truth tended to be closer to the pessimistic interpretation but was never that bad.

And that's where we need to take a minute to think about things and make sure that we are not going to extreme places mentally. It's the same with politics, and maybe that's why politics seems to be wrapped up in all of this. Everyone wants this to change, and it seems like just about everyone is pushing their agenda pretty hard. But this virus only existed in the human population for just over two years. There are a ton of things we have yet to learn about it.

The thing that gets me is all of the people whining about "oh it's been two years, why can't this be over?!" Look, nobody likes this. But, we're all in it together. It's not like anyone arguing in this thread anymore is outside of the sphere of influence of this disease. I'd be surprised if anyone on the forum doesn't know anyone who has been infected at this point in time. Maybe two years from now, we'll see tons of people whining about it being four years and how it's time to move on or whatever. Every time I open my fat mouth and say something about how it looks like we might be nearing a turning point, some new variant starts brewing and dashes all of my hopes.

The reality of it is that 1. not everyone will get vaccinated, 2. not everyone will be responsible, 3. new variants are a given, and, most of all, 4. at some point, this is going to reach a point where risk assessment leads us to believe it's going to be okay - and we won't know until _after_ we hit that point that we got there. How we achieve the point I referenced in "4," I have no idea. Maybe we find a good accessible therapy, maybe the nasty strains die out and leave only weaker strains no one cares about (which might _will_ mutate back into nasty strains at some point), or maybe Hell overflows with the dead and no one during the zombie-demon invasion of 2024 cares about covid-19 anymore...


----------



## TedEH

I don't care enough at this moment to start quoting things back and forth, but just feel like dropping a "disagreement is not an attack". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


----------



## Drew

jaxadam said:


> Heres a little more “horse paste” info for you sciency types:
> 
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7539925/


I can't share a link as a source because this was shared on The Economist's Instagram Page, but they shared some graphics from a peice they did on a recent study a few months back that I mentioned in this thread. 

tl;dr - ivermectin DOES have, in some countries, a statistically significant improvement in Covid-19 hospitalization outcomes. Those countries are not random, though, and are the countries where the sort of parasites ivermectin is used to treat are the most common, and the belief is that ivermectin improves covid outcomes by treating risk factors that can worsen outcomes (i.e - having a parasitic infection while fighting covid), rather than by treating covid itself.  



Dineley said:


> Shit these Mbardu arguments are just unreal. It's like quotations without actual quotes goal posts moved from post to post and then argue definitions/semantics if all else fails
> 
> It's like watching somebody box a glacier. Ffs.


Great description.


----------



## StevenC

I literally got offered a covid vaccine exemption, but mbardu has me on ignore so he's going to continue to ignore that fact because it doesn't suit him.


----------



## Randy

Drew said:


> I can't share a link as a source because this was shared on The Economist's Instagram Page, but they shared some graphics from a peice they did on a recent study a few months back that I mentioned in this thread.
> 
> tl;dr - ivermectin DOES have, in some countries, a statistically significant improvement in Covid-19 hospitalization outcomes. Those countries are not random, though, and are the countries where the sort of parasites ivermectin is used to treat are the most common, and the belief is that ivermectin improves covid outcomes by treating risk factors that can worsen outcomes (i.e - having a parasitic infection while fighting covid), rather than by treating covid itself.



This might be what you're after.


----------



## Ralyks

https://madamenoire.com/1305755/cannabis-could-block-covid-19/

No wonder I haven't gotten covid yet


----------



## mbardu

Ralyks said:


> https://madamenoire.com/1305755/cannabis-could-block-covid-19/
> 
> No wonder I haven't gotten covid yet



OK we found what the government must send to every American household instead of N95 masks.


----------



## fantom

Drew said:


> I can't share a link as a source because this was shared on The Economist's Instagram Page, but they shared some graphics from a peice they did on a recent study a few months back that I mentioned in this thread.
> 
> tl;dr - ivermectin DOES have, in some countries, a statistically significant improvement in Covid-19 hospitalization outcomes. Those countries are not random, though, and are the countries where the sort of parasites ivermectin is used to treat are the most common, and the belief is that ivermectin improves covid outcomes by treating risk factors that can worsen outcomes (i.e - having a parasitic infection while fighting covid), rather than by treating covid itself.
> 
> 
> Great description.





Randy said:


> This might be what you're after.
> 
> View attachment 101969



Maybe I'm missing something... But isn't this just correlation is not causation?

Is it possible that in a population with parasitic worms, either the worm itself or the immune system primed to fight the worm lowers the death rate? Do any of these studies actually show the use of ivermectin on people without parasites as a basis?


----------



## narad

StevenC said:


> I literally got offered a covid vaccine exemption, but mbardu has me on ignore so he's going to continue to ignore that fact because it doesn't suit him.



You did almost have to die though, which makes your case considerably legitimate. We don't know what other cases where people "can't" get an exception actually are. I imagine a bunch of "karen" parents who think they know better than the doctors.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> You did almost have to die though, which makes your case considerably legitimate.



What do you mean "you have to almost die"?
I hope the threshold is a bit less than almost certain death, because in the risk/benefit calculation covid is bad, but still far from almost certain death.

Especially in categories like kids where the risk of covid is almost negligible.



narad said:


> We don't know what other cases where people "can't" get an exception actually are.



The thing is, there _have_ been examples presented here but the answers to them are "i don't believe you" or "it's only in your head" or just plain ignored like the numerous sources that don't fit the narrative, so what good are more examples?

Just look at last few months. There are tons of examples of vaccinated people getting and passing on the disease, talking about it here, yet the discourse next to that was still "only the unvaccinated are responsible for spreading the pandemic". So people don't even try to think through the examples that don't fit their bias.



narad said:


> I imagine a bunch of "karen" parents who think they know better than the doctors.



Imagine? And it's based on _imagined_ stuff that you want to argue for this or that policy to punish the unvaccinated? 

It's like you are _on purpose_ trying to show that your only possible line of thinking is based 0% on sources and 100% on clichés and prejudice... I'm sure you can do better than that.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> The thing is, there _have_ been examples presented here but the answers to them are "i don't believe you" or "it's only in your head" or just plain ignored like the numerous sources that don't fit the narrative, so what good are more examples?



No one here can objectively assess those examples. You're not giving enough info, and I'm not a doctor, so sounds like a pretty bad place from which to assess whether people who should get exceptions, by some medical board standard pov, aren't. In matters of healthcare, I do generally default to "doctor knows best" -- I've certainly seen a huge number of opposite cases where idiot parents spent some time on some FB groups and think they know better or should get some special care. How am I supposed to know in this case whether the parent actually has a reasonable standing for an exception? That's also a subjective matter, but one I'm going to side with doctors on.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> No one here can objectively assess those examples. You're not giving enough info, and I'm not a doctor, so sounds like a pretty bad place from which to assess whether people who should get exceptions, by some medical board standard pov, aren't. In matters of healthcare, I do generally default to "doctor knows best" -- I've certainly seen a huge number of opposite cases where idiot parents spent some time on some FB groups and think they know better or should get some special care. How am I supposed to know in this case whether the parent actually has a reasonable standing for an exception? That's also a subjective matter, but one I'm going to side with doctors on.



You keep not reading what i write but I know doctors who'd want to be able to give what they think are justified exemptions, but can't.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> You keep not reading what i write but I know doctors who'd want to be able to give what they think are justified exemptions, but can't.



Aren't we playing a make believe game of policy? Currently some doctors possibly feel pressure to not give exemptions for cases they feel justified for, and currently unvaccinated are not being turned away from hospitals in triage situations purely on that metric. Flip those, and that's the policy I would enact. Of course, I would expect the number of exceptions to be extremely limited.

For instance:
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-...l-exemptions-from-covid-19-vaccines-1.5572833

_Reacting to a component of the vaccine is “a very, very rare thing.”_

Very clear conditions for exemption. And of course,

_On Wednesday, the College of Physicians and Surgeons Ontario sent an internal memo saying the organization is seeing an uptick in requests for “unfounded” medical exemptions. _


----------



## StevenC

narad said:


> You did almost have to die though, which makes your case considerably legitimate. We don't know what other cases where people "can't" get an exception actually are. I imagine a bunch of "karen" parents who think they know better than the doctors.


Agreed, but until your interlocutor gives anything verging towards specific it sounds like they're defending Movak Djokovic and Kyrie Irving's right to a medical exemption, not people with actual medical needs.

In fact they've attacked people with legitimate medical needs.


----------



## jaxadam

StevenC said:


> I literally got offered a covid vaccine exemption, but mbardu has me on ignore so he's going to continue to ignore that fact because it doesn't suit him.



I mean, you did tell him to go fuck himself multiple times, and constantly brag about having him on ignore, so what did you expect?



StevenC said:


> Agreed, but until your interlocutor gives anything verging towards specific it sounds like they're defending Movak Djokovic and Kyrie Irving's right to a medical exemption, not people with actual medical needs.
> 
> In fact they've attacked people with legitimate medical needs.



*Novak


----------



## StevenC

jaxadam said:


> I mean, you did tell him to go fuck himself multiple times, and constantly brag about having him on ignore, so what did you expect?
> 
> 
> 
> *Novak


I stand by what I said to him twice and have said before I stand by it. If dude wants to lie about me to prop up his alternate reality I'm going to tell him where to go. Do you have a problem with that?

Apologies for my spelling, I had a brain thing last year that messed me up and my concentration and dexterity is still improving.


----------



## jaxadam

StevenC said:


> I stand by what I said to him twice and have said before I stand by it. If dude wants to lie about me to prop up his alternate reality I'm going to tell him where to go. Do you have a problem with that?
> 
> Apologies for my spelling, I had a brain thing last year that messed me up and my concentration and dexterity is still improving.



I don’t have a problem with it; I find it funny you have a problem understanding why he won’t engage you after your multiple bannable offenses and him now doing to you what you constantly brag about doing to him.


----------



## StevenC

jaxadam said:


> I don’t have a problem with it; I find it funny you have a problem understanding why he won’t engage you after your multiple bannable offenses and him now doing to you what you constantly brag about doing to him.


I don't see how what I said is bannable, but if you want to report me then go for it. It's not a personal attack to say mbardu lied in his posts about what i said, and since expletives aren't a bannable offense I don't see how expressing my displeasure at his misrepresenting my trauma is against the rules.

Care to enlighten me so I can adjust my behaviour?


----------



## jaxadam

StevenC said:


> I don't see how what I said is bannable, but if you want to report me then go for it. It's not a personal attack to say mbardu lied in his posts about what i said, and since expletives aren't a bannable offense I don't see how expressing my displeasure at his misrepresenting my trauma is against the rules.
> 
> Care to enlighten me so I can adjust my behaviour?



No thanks. Some people just never change, and I doubt you’d take my advice on anything anyway! I don’t blame you…


----------



## narad

Guys, guys, chill, we're not enemies here.







...the unvaccinated are


----------



## jaxadam

narad said:


> Guys, guys, chill, we're not enemies here.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ...the unvaccinated are



What about the medically marijuana’d?


----------



## TedEH

I'm surprised how long it took Mary Jane to be suggested as a covid treatment, since it's already a magical cure for most other ailments, including cancer, depending on who you ask.


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> What about the medically marijuana’d?



I'm not one to judge -- super illegal here.


----------



## fantom

mbardu said:


> I don't think the topic of health insurance has come in the last 40 pages, has it? The prior discussion was about refusal of care, not payment and cost. But if it has, please free to point it out instead of again making up something unsubstantiated (as usual).
> 
> But anyway, the fact is I have never encountered insurance that checks if you're obese.
> In no company I've worked for or worked with.
> But maybe it's just me, and if that's something widespread, then I've definitely learnt something new!



You keep repeating that obese, smokers, drinkers, etc. don't have any negative health treatment. You fail to acknowledge that people who require organ transplants literally get ruled out and die because their historical lifestyle decisions. So yes, when there is precedent where hospitals deny a treatment option and let people die because they are obese or a former alcoholic. When the resources are slim, it is completely reasonable to make decisions like this.


And can you please stop playing the victim role. You dish out far more shit than you are receiving. You are whining to like 5+ people that they are treating you unfairly when you are constantly acting entitled and berating them.


----------



## StevenC

Do we know why mbardu won't get vaccinated?


----------



## ArtDecade

StevenC said:


> Do we know why mbardu won't get vaccinated?



Fear of becoming a 5G tower.


----------



## Xaios

TedEH said:


> I'm surprised how long it took Mary Jane to be suggested as a covid treatment, since it's already a magical cure for most other ailments, including cancer, depending on who you ask.


"I have night blindness."


----------



## narad

StevenC said:


> Do we know why mbardu won't get vaccinated?



Bone spurs.


----------



## ArtDecade

StevenC said:


> Do we know why mbardu won't get vaccinated?





ArtDecade said:


> Fear of becoming a 5G tower.





narad said:


> Bone spurs.



5G Bone Spurs.


----------



## jaxadam




----------



## TedEH

Edit: I misinterpreted "Halifax" from the image to mean that was Canadian info.


----------



## fantom

jaxadam said:


>


How to manipulate statistics 101, give raw data that isn't comparable.

Volusia county has a vaccine rate of 66%. These numbers need to be normalized by the proportion of the population in that category.

37/.66=56 vaccinated
33/.34=97 unvaccinated

7/.66=11 vaccinated
6/.34=18 unvaccinated

3/.66=5 vaccinated
2/.34=6 unvaccinated

So in all cases, vaccinated people are fairing better. The hospitalization rate is almost 2x higher for unvaccinated people using those numbers.

Take from what you want about efficacy.


----------



## ArtDecade

^ Halifax Health opposes vaccine mandates and have the lowest rating of any hospital - in Florida. That's saying something.


----------



## jaxadam

fantom said:


> How to manipulate statistics 101, give raw data that isn't comparable.
> 
> Volusia county has a vaccine rate of 66%. These numbers need to be normalized by the proportion of the population in that category.
> 
> 37/.66=56 vaccinated
> 33/.34=97 unvaccinated
> 
> 7/.66=11 vaccinated
> 6/.34=18 unvaccinated
> 
> 3/.66=5 vaccinated
> 2/.34=6 unvaccinated
> 
> So in all cases, vaccinated people are fairing better. The hospitalization rate is almost 2x higher for unvaccinated people using those numbers.
> 
> Take from what you want about efficacy.



I though you had everyone in here you responded to today on ignore bro. Better get that button fixed again! Where did you get your 66%. As of today I’m showing 60%.








ArtDecade said:


> ^ Halifax Health opposes vaccine mandates and have the lowest rating of any hospital - in Florida. That's saying something.



What’s it saying?


----------



## ArtDecade

jaxadam said:


> I though you had everyone in here you responded to today on ignore bro. Better get that button fixed again!
> 
> 
> 
> What’s it saying?



You took stats from a shite hospital system that is anti-vaccine to prop up your politics. Was that hard to follow?


----------



## jaxadam

ArtDecade said:


> You took stats from a shite hospital system that is anti-vaccine to prop up your politics. Was that hard to follow?



What are my politics? I’m just sharing info. I guess it’s just hard to follow your version of a friendly and constructive conversation.


----------



## ArtDecade

jaxadam said:


> What are my politics? I’m just sharing info. I guess it’s just hard to follow your version of a friendly and constructive conversation.



You are sharing bogus info.


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> I’m just sharing info


If you're just sharing data, and people are just sharing their observations of that data, you gatta step back and wonder why anyone would get defensive about that. If it's really_ "just data"_, then scrutinizing it shouldn't bother you, right? Since that's what everyone does with whatever "data" gets dropped in this thread.


----------



## jaxadam

ArtDecade said:


> You are sharing bogus info.



I am? So a “bad hospital”, in your opinion, has somehow manipulated patient intake? Is there a guy at the door overwhelmingly admitting only vaccinated patients to skew data?


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> So a “bad hospital”, in your opinion, has somehow manipulated patient intake? Is there a guy at the door overwhelmingly admitting only vaccinated patients to skew data?


I mean, lots of people claim that hospitals and whatever other parts of the medical system are doing exactly those things when it suits their point. Lots of vaccine hesitation is based on a mistrust of those institutions. But if the data looks the way they want it "they couldn't _poooooossibly_ be pushing a narrative".
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I mean, I've got no basis for claiming those numbers are wrong, but at the same time I could easily find comparable charts from places with higher vaccine adoption that would appear to tell a very different story - like the Ontario ones I shared a while back.


----------



## fantom

jaxadam said:


> Where did you get your 66%. As of today I’m showing 60%.



I just typed "Volusia County vaccination rate" into one of the many databases trying to track this crap. 60% or 66%, sure. Just do the math with 60% instead of 66% and post it. You are fixating on the wrong part here.



jaxadam said:


> I am? So a “bad hospital”, in your opinion, has somehow manipulated patient intake? Is there a guy at the door overwhelmingly admitting only vaccinated patients to skew data?



I never said they manipulated patient intake data.

What I said is that the data, number of vaccinated hospitalizations vs number of unvaccinated hospitalizations, is not directly comparable.

Why? Let's say I give you a bag with hundreds of thousand of marbles. And that bag is totally randomized. I tell you that 65% of the marbles are green and the rest are red. Then I tell you to take out 100 marbles.

What should happen? You should take out about 65 green marbles and 35 red marbles. Maybe off by a few, but not 10.

So if you pull out 52 green marbles and 48 red marbles, then there is something not random about how you pulled out the marbles. Something caused you to find more red marbles than you should have.

In this case, people are marbles. Vaccinated people are green, unvaccinated are red. If the hospital is getting a disproportionate number of red marbles, it means the red marbles have a higher likelihood of being chosen from the bag. The data that you posted supports that the unvaccinated people are more likely to be hospitalized.

Another way to interpret this text...

Vaccinated hospitalizations / total hospitalizations should be the vaccination rate.

37/(37+33)=52%

Note that 52% is no where near the expected 60-66% range we discussed. Even for 60% vaccination rate, vaccinated people are still doing better than unvaccinated.


----------



## mbardu

fantom said:


> You keep repeating that obese, smokers, drinkers, etc. don't have any negative health treatment.



Nope, never done that. Stop making stuff up.
The discussion was literally _only _about Covid-19 treatment, and who should get care or be prioritized. Nothing related to transplant priorities or the like, so that's irrelevant.

It all started with the transmission argument of "the unvaccinated are the only ones responsible so they should be prioritized last because it's their fault". Then because that argument failed in light of actual data, the discussion shifted instead to "the unvaccinated are going to take up more hospital resources, so actually _that's_ why they should be prioritized last in the hospital". Nevermind the moving goal posts as usual. But even that second part is not quite true either. Although everything else being 100% equal, yes there is some truth to the unvaccinated faring a bit worse in the hospital, it's still smaller of an impact than things like obesity or hypertension.
So sure, consider vaccination status together with preventable comorbidities, sure I am entirely fine with that (and said so already). But making it the _sole _criteria and before the others is not objective or rational, it's just hating on the unvaccinated.



fantom said:


> And can you please stop playing the victim role. You dish out far more shit than you are receiving. You are whining to like 5+ people that they are treating you unfairly when you are constantly acting entitled and berating them.



On every other page, there's routinely a 2 or 3-poster group back and forth trying to band against me (_just for lulz _mind you, no argument or discussion or anything of the sort), with the moderation joining in to support their side more often than not...and I'm the one supposedly dishing out shit? It's alternative facts central around here lmao  .
I don't mind, it's funny more than anything else; and unlike some around here I don't feel the need to report every single thing to the moderation because my feelings are easily hurt. But let's not flip things around.

Although I guess if things like pointing out BS, having an actual argument instead of cheap jabs, and showing actual sourced data that goes against the narrative are what's considered attacks...then I guess guilty as charged 



narad said:


> Bone spurs.



So....did you guys somehow get the idea that I am _not _vaccinated?

Is reading comprehension really that hard? I did mention multiple times that I specifically don't have that problem and am vaccinated without any side effect.

In the blind hate of "the others", is it so incomprehensible for you that someone could be concerned with what is fair to some _other _people, even if they're not part of their specific group? I guess in _your _case specifically I shouldn't be surprised given how you have made it clear how proudly prejudiced and intolerant you are towards those others based on what you just "imagine". But it's a bit scary nonetheless.


----------



## jaxadam

fantom said:


> I never said they manipulated patient intake data.



I never said you did.



fantom said:


> What I said is that the data, number of vaccinated hospitalizations vs number of unvaccinated hospitalizations, is not directly comparable.



I agree, and it's not directly comparble, but that's the fatal flaw of your following thought experiment, which I'll get in to below.



fantom said:


> Why? Let's say I give you a bag with hundreds of thousand of marbles. And that bag is totally randomized. I tell you that 65% of the marbles are green and the rest are red. Then I tell you to take out 100 marbles.
> 
> What should happen? You should take out about 65 green marbles and 35 red marbles. Maybe off by a few, but not 10.
> 
> So if you pull out 52 green marbles and 48 red marbles, then there is something not random about how you pulled out the marbles. Something caused you to find more red marbles than you should have.
> 
> In this case, people are marbles. Vaccinated people are green, unvaccinated are red. If the hospital is getting a disproportionate number of red marbles, it means the red marbles have a higher likelihood of being chosen from the bag. The data that you posted supports that the unvaccinated people are more likely to be hospitalized.
> 
> Another way to interpret this text...
> 
> Vaccinated hospitalizations / total hospitalizations should be the vaccination rate.
> 
> 37/(37+33)=52%
> 
> Note that 52% is no where near the expected 60-66% range we discussed. Even for 60% vaccination rate, vaccinated people are still doing better than unvaccinated.



Thank you for attempting to actually have a discussion, and not being disrespectful or condescending. I appreciate that. Let's attempt to extend your marble thought experiment.

The inherent flaw in this logic is that it is disregarding the one thing the vaccine is supposed to do: prevent serious illness, hospitalization, and death. Therefore, drawing the green (vaccinated) and red (unvaccinated) marbles out of the bag (going to the hospital) do not have the same buffer rate. The vaccine touts a 95% effective rate, so 95% of those 60% (57% effective buffer rate) should not be coming out of the bag at all (going to the hospital).

So if we pull our 60/40 distribution of marbles out of the bag (going to the hospital), only a very few green (vaccinated) ones should be coming out, with the others staying in the bag (staying home) and a larger portion of the red (unvaccinated) have a disproportional effective rate (40% if we assume parity in unvaccinated and hospitalizations).

In conclusion, if we have a 60/40 split, take a 95% vaccine effective rate, and we pull a random sample of 100 out of the bag (go to the hospital) we would assume 40 red (unvaccinated) marbles go to the hospital, 57 [95% of 60] green (vaccinated) come out, but instead go to concerts, dinner parties, football games, supercross races and other superspreader events, and 3 [5% of 60] green (vaccinated) go to the hospital.

This post is in no way written sarcastically or in ill intent, but only to continue the discussion as you seem to have a respectful willingness to do so.


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> Nope, never done that. Stop making stuff up.
> The discussion was literally _only _about Covid-19 treatment, and who should get care or be prioritized. Nothing related to transplant priorities or the like, so that's irrelevant.



You keep saying that. I don't think it's crazy to draw relationships between medical treatment for covid, and medical treatment other issues, when trying to talk about how similar behavior-based triage decisions are made elsewhere in the medical field.

And sorry, to clarify by "I don't think", I mean, it's not.


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> I never said you did.
> 
> 
> 
> I agree, and it's not directly comparble, but that's the fatal flaw of your following thought experiment, which I'll get in to below.
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you for attempting to actually have a discussion, and not being disrespectful or condescending. I appreciate that. Let's attempt to extend your marble thought experiment.
> 
> The inherent flaw in this logic is that it is disregarding the one thing the vaccine is supposed to do: prevent serious illness, hospitalization, and death. Therefore, drawing the green (vaccinated) and red (unvaccinated) marbles out of the bag (going to the hospital) do not have the same buffer rate. The vaccine touts a 95% effective rate, so 95% of those 60% (57% effective buffer rate) should not be coming out of the bag at all (going to the hospital).
> 
> So if we pull our 60/40 distribution of marbles out of the bag (going to the hospital), only a very few green (vaccinated) ones should be coming out, with the others staying in the bag (staying home) and a larger portion of the red (unvaccinated) have a disproportional effective rate (40% if we assume parity in unvaccinated and hospitalizations).
> 
> In conclusion, if we have a 60/40 split, take a 95% vaccine effective rate, and we pull a random sample of 100 out of the bag (go to the hospital) we would assume 40 red (unvaccinated) marbles go to the hospital, 57 [95% of 60] green (vaccinated) come out, but instead go to concerts, dinner parties, football games, supercross races and other superspreader events, and 3 [5% of 60] green (vaccinated) go to the hospital.
> 
> This post is in no way written sarcastically or in ill intent, but only to continue the discussion as you seem to have a respectful willingness to do so.



The vaccine does not tout a 95% effective rate at stopping transmission/infection with these strains at all. I'm not sure who's saying that in this thread (no one? mbardu as a strawman tactic?) but those numbers came out pre-Delta, so they're long expired by now.


----------



## jaxadam

narad said:


> The vaccine does not tout a 95% effective rate at stopping transmission/infection with these strains at all. I'm not sure who's saying that in this thread (no one? mbardu as a strawman tactic?) but those numbers came out pre-Delta, so they're long expired by now.



I never said transmission. I said prevent serious illness, hospitalization, and death. We’ve really gotta get you some new glasses! 

But you’re right, I was a little off. According to the FDA the Pfizer cocktail is still 95.3% effective at preventing serious disease. Yes there are other studies on variants that lower this to 88% against symptomatic disease and 96% against hospitalization, but those have yet to be peer reviewed (and you of all people know how important that is.)


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> I never said transmission. I said prevent serious illness, hospitalization, and death. We’ve really gotta get you some new glasses!



Well I mean, "take a 95% vaccine effective rate" -- a vaccine effective rate sounds a lot more like a transmission/infection stat. It definitely wouldn't mean illness/hospitalization/death if we you asked me what the seasonal flu vaccine effective rate is, I think.



jaxadam said:


> But you’re right, I was a little off. According to the FDA the Pfizer cocktail is still 95.3% effective at preventing serious disease. Yes there are other studies on variants that lower this to 88% against symptomatic disease and 96% against hospitalization, but those have yet to be peer reviewed (and you of all people know how important that is.)



I'm not so sure:

_How well it works: Experts continue to learn about Pfizer’s efficacy both in the laboratory and in the real world. Pfizer’s initial Phase 3 clinical data presented in December showed its vaccine to have 95% efficacy. In April, the company announced the vaccine had 91.3% efficacy against COVID-19, based on measuring how well it prevented symptomatic COVID-19 infection seven days through up to six months after the second dose. It also found it to be 100% effective in preventing severe disease as defined by the CDC, and 95.3% effective in preventing severe disease as defined by the FDA. Another study, not yet peer-reviewed, provided more new data that brought the efficacy number down to 84% after 6 months, although efficacy against severe disease was 97%._

I read the "_It also found"_ implying it is a continuation of findings from the April study, making it a very old statistic. Further supported by separating it with the final statistics with "_Another study,". _So that's my take. Those numbers definitely made more sense then, right as delta was starting to creep around IIRC, but before the predicted summer high points.[/QUOTE]


----------



## jaxadam

narad said:


> Well I mean, "take a 95% vaccine effective rate" -- a vaccine effective rate sounds a lot more like a transmission/infection stat. It definitely wouldn't mean illness/hospitalization/death if we you asked me what the seasonal flu vaccine effective rate is, I think.



That's the one thing you keep latching on to, the one thing I never said?

But here's what is contained in your quote:



narad said:


> _and 95.3% effective in preventing severe disease_



Here's what I wrote previously.
_


jaxadam said:



still 95.3% effective at preventing serious disease.

Click to expand...

_
So at this point I don't know what to tell you.


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> That's the one thing you keep latching on to, the one thing I never said?



I didn't make up the quoted text. You said it in the post above:

https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-366#post-5363642

As far as I was aware, no one was talking about that number (or anything in the 90% range of effectiveness) here.




jaxadam said:


> But here's what is contained in your quote:
> 
> Here's what I wrote previously.
> 
> So at this point I don't know what to tell you.



Your quote has 3 studies discussed in it. For it to be current, the still 95.3% part has to be associate with the 1st study which just recently wrapped up, and not the second study, which is a 9+ months old pre-Delta / pre-Omicron study. But anyway, I'm not saying the vaccine is 95% effective at stopping transmission, infection, hospitalization, or death. I would look at more recent studies for that stat.


----------



## jaxadam

narad said:


> I didn't make up the quoted text. You said it in the post above:
> 
> https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/covid-19-coronavirus.340629/page-366#post-5363642



I never said transmission. You injected it. I literally posted a chart about hospitalizations. I’ve only been discussing hospitalizations. The data I’ve been discussing with others before you jumped in was normalized hospital statistics. I’ve never mentioned transmission at all. There seems to be a recurring theme with you blaming arguing points on things others never say ad infinitum, so feel free to continue injecting other things I didn’t say and argue with yourself.


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> I never said transmission. You injected it. I literally posted a chart about hospitalizations. I’ve only been discussing hospitalizations. The data I’ve been discussing with others before you jumped in was normalized hospital statistics. I’ve never mentioned transmission at all. There seems to be a recurring theme with you blaming arguing points on things others never say ad infinitum, so feel free to continue injecting other things I didn’t say and argue with yourself.



-I know-
I'm saying the phrase you used ("vaccine effective rate", this is you, these are the words in your post) is one that probably makes more sense as talking about transmissions than hospitalizations, which is why it would be MISLEADING in an argument which is trying -not- not to talk about transmissions, but hospitalizations.

Besides being a very outdated stat that has really no point in discussing covid today.


----------



## TedEH

In entirely different news - someone shared with me recently that in an attempt to clear the 'rona-caused backlogs for on-road driving tests in Ontario, they're just going to make the tests easier and exclude a bunch of manoeuvres, including parallel parking, 3 point turns, etc. so that they can just riffle through them in 15 minutes each.


----------



## StevenC

TedEH said:


> In entirely different news - someone shared with me recently that in an attempt to clear the 'rona-caused backlogs for on-road driving tests in Ontario, they're just going to make the tests easier and exclude a bunch of manoeuvres, including parallel parking, 3 point turns, etc. so that they can just riffle through them in 15 minutes each.
> View attachment 102022


Decades ago Ireland was so backed up with driving test applications that they eventually just gave everyone who'd been waiting long enough a license without a test.


----------



## TedEH

StevenC said:


> Decades ago Ireland was so backed up with driving test applications that they eventually just gave everyone who'd been waiting long enough a license without a test.


Did this end up noticeably impacting the quality/skill of drivers on the road? 'Cause the gut reaction to making tests easier is that this is how you get worse drivers. And we already have pretty bad drivers.


----------



## IwantTacos

how can drivers be any worse. they are already all the way the worst.


----------



## StevenC

TedEH said:


> Did this end up noticeably impacting the quality/skill of drivers on the road? 'Cause the gut reaction to making tests easier is that this is how you get worse drivers. And we already have pretty bad drivers.


This was in the 70s, so an old person like @Lorcan Ward might be better equipped to answer that question. Another thing to mention is that Ireland didn't have any driving test until 1964 so it's hard to say if standards changed notably over the 10 or so years between.

Personally my opinion is that people who don't care about driving well will pass their test quickly if they really want to. If you want to improve driving standards you have to be much harsher in the test and make cultural changes. Most of those people were going to lapse on what they learned anyway.


----------



## Lorcan Ward

^

Drivers here have got so bad. Not indicating, driving in the wrong lanes on roundabouts, not understanding right of way. People stop driving for a few months and they forget the rules of the road. Pedestrians are even worse, with reduced cars on the road they often step straight off a foot path without looking. A few ad campaigns could sort out the majority of road problems but they are obsessed lately with “don’t drive while high” ads the last few years. 

We have lots of small roads here and it’s nerve wrecking trying to bring heavy machinery around with drivers getting steadily worse the last 2 years.


----------



## StevenC

Lorcan Ward said:


> ^
> 
> Drivers here have got so bad. Not indicating, driving in the wrong lanes on roundabouts, not understanding right of way. People stop driving for a few months and they forget the rules of the road. Pedestrians are even worse, with reduced cars on the road they often step straight off a foot path without looking. A few ad campaigns could sort out the majority of road problems but they are obsessed lately with “don’t drive while high” ads the last few years.
> 
> We have lots of small roads here and it’s nerve wrecking trying to bring heavy machinery around with drivers getting steadily worse the last 2 years.


I live off a tiny tiny road that is mostly used for agricultural access. Its always blindingly obvious when the main road is closed because there are so many people who refuse to drive near the verge or pull in at passing spots.


----------



## fantom

jaxadam said:


> I never said you did.
> 
> My mistake.
> 
> 
> I agree, and it's not directly comparble, but that's the fatal flaw of your following thought experiment, which I'll get in to below.
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you for attempting to actually have a discussion, and not being disrespectful or condescending. I appreciate that. Let's attempt to extend your marble thought experiment.
> 
> The inherent flaw in this logic is that it is disregarding the one thing the vaccine is supposed to do: prevent serious illness, hospitalization, and death. Therefore, drawing the green (vaccinated) and red (unvaccinated) marbles out of the bag (going to the hospital) do not have the same buffer rate. The vaccine touts a 95% effective rate, so 95% of those 60% (57% effective buffer rate) should not be coming out of the bag at all (going to the hospital).
> 
> So if we pull our 60/40 distribution of marbles out of the bag (going to the hospital), only a very few green (vaccinated) ones should be coming out, with the others staying in the bag (staying home) and a larger portion of the red (unvaccinated) have a disproportional effective rate (40% if we assume parity in unvaccinated and hospitalizations).
> 
> In conclusion, if we have a 60/40 split, take a 95% vaccine effective rate, and we pull a random sample of 100 out of the bag (go to the hospital) we would assume 40 red (unvaccinated) marbles go to the hospital, 57 [95% of 60] green (vaccinated) come out, but instead go to concerts, dinner parties, football games, supercross races and other superspreader events, and 3 [5% of 60] green (vaccinated) go to the hospital.
> 
> This post is in no way written sarcastically or in ill intent, but only to continue the discussion as you seem to have a respectful willingness to do so.



I'm not sure who is saying the vaccine is 95% effective against omicron. I haven't seen any CDC or health officer post information like this. Also, people who aren't boosted are known to have worse outcomes. The CDC and vaccine companies were saying for most of last year that they expected a booster shot would be needed before December... so there is no lying or anything going on regarding efficacy before November and after.

Let's try something. I have no idea where this will go as I type it...

Let's pull the latest data from the state. http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_p..._archive/covid19-data/covid19_data_latest.pdf

The Volusia vaccination rate is 65%. They don't have a breakdown of boosted by county, so I'm going to use the state number and say about 22% of the total population is boosted and this can roughly be used to guess Volusia's number (which I suspect is lower in that county).

If we assume that boosted people aren't hospitalized as a hypothesis, we would expect that these 22% aren't contributing to the case rate. That leaves 35% with no vaccine, 10% with 1 shot, 33% with 2 shots (but unclear how recently the 2 shots were, so another unknown). In the hospital reporting, they are probably counting 1 shot as "vaccinated". If we assume that 1 shot or non boosted people had their shots wear off, we have...

The expected rate, sans boosted people, is 43/78=55%. That is pretty damned close to the 52% rate that is being seen, especially since the data could be off from the state average.

That doesn't surprise me (though I wasn't sure this would be the outcome as I typed it). I admit it is handwaving some important details. But the correlation gives some confidence that the vaccines wore off, as expected, and boosted people are fairing better.

So ya, I can tend to believe that people were protected by 2 shots and that wore off, and anyone who didn't get boosted is nearly the same as never getting vaccinated in the first place. But that doesn't mean the vaccine isn't working. It means, like a flu shot, you need to get a refresh periodically.

I'd love if Florida would post raw data here to confirm the boosted vs. unboosted hospitalizations. I'm curious to look if other regions post hospitalization rates by vaccine status including booster shot information.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

TedEH said:


> In entirely different news - someone shared with me recently that in an attempt to clear the 'rona-caused backlogs for on-road driving tests in Ontario, they're just going to make the tests easier and exclude a bunch of manoeuvres, including parallel parking, 3 point turns, etc. so that they can just riffle through them in 15 minutes each.
> View attachment 102022



It's only on the final G though so you have do all that stuff to get G2 License G test is supposed to be mostly for highway merging. Like so what if you don't get tested on parallel parks or 3 point turns a second time.

Also not replying to the quote anymore but we all know vaccine efficacy drops off hard over time so like posting these stats of vaccinated people in hospitals is like not some earth shattering nefarious situation that they are there. So stop quoting the pre delta stats and act like you are onto something.


----------



## jaxadam

World #1 Movak Djokovic is deported, denied opportunity to make history at run at 21st grand slam and 10th Australian Open title.

https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/novak-djokovic-australia-visa-news-01-16-22-intl-hnk/index.html


----------



## bostjan

jaxadam said:


> World #1 Movak Djokovic is deported, denied opportunity to make history at run at 21st grand slam and 10th Australian Open title.
> 
> https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/novak-djokovic-australia-visa-news-01-16-22-intl-hnk/index.html


So they issues a visa under exception, as long as he got a negative PCR, but the PCR was positive, he subsequently PCR'd negative and requested an exception on quarantine to make up for lost time, it was rushed through by an immigration agent but overturned by the immigration minister, then a local court overturned the minister's decision, and the a higher court upheld the minister overturning the lower court.
Sounds as exciting as tennis I guess.

None of this seems unusual, though, except that the disease is new. If you replaced covid in this story with polio or any other older disease requiring a vaccine, would anyone be up in arms?


----------



## Adieu

Makes sense, if I were a walking illicit pharmaceutical experiment that I couldn't openly admit to like most top athletes, I might be afraid of side effects from adding vax to the mix too


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> Sounds as exciting as tennis I guess.



You don't think tennis is exciting?


----------



## TedEH

Dineley said:


> Like so what if you don't get tested on parallel parks or 3 point turns a second time.


I agree in principle, but in practice most people need more training and practice on those kinds of moves. Sweet jeebus are people bad at things like parking manoeuvres and reversing, etc.



jaxadam said:


> denied opportunity to make history


"Make history", lol. It's _tennis_. I think we've made more than enough history for the last couple of years. I'd love some time to pass where we aren't setting some kind of historical precedent.


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> "Make history", lol. It's _tennis_.



Yes, make history. He was a favorite to win the Australian Open, which is a grand slam event, and with that win would hold 21 grand slam titles, or the most grand slam titles of any man ever.


----------



## TedEH

None of those sports words mean anything to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The majority of the world has had to put a whole ton of their hobbies, their passions, their careers, their relationships, etc. on hold for the last two years. Sports shouldn't get a pass as far as I care.

And to clarify - when I say "get a pass" I mean, skirt around the precautions being taken to mitigate a pandemic. Sports definitely have their cultural and economic place - I get that, I'm not saying cancel all sports arbitrarily - but the rules exist for a reason.

Or how about this -> what good does it do anyone to argue back and forth about who is "at fault" for spreading covid around, when we're turning a blind eye to athletes to carry it across borders?


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> None of those sports words mean anything to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> The majority of the world has had to put a whole ton of their hobbies, their passions, their careers, their relationships, etc. on hold for the last two years. Sports shouldn't get a pass as far as I care.



It hasn't been on hold, they've been playing the whole time. Tournaments have been held consistently, at first without spectators, then with limited in-person crowds, and now with full in-person viewership. He has played every major tournament up until now with his current status. Why do you argue constantly about things you later self-admittedly don't know anything about?


----------



## TedEH

By "current status", do you mean "supposed to be in quarantine because he got a positive test?" Legit question, cause the only real info I have is from this thread, 'cause otherwise I really don't care about tennis enough to follow.


----------



## IwantTacos

jaxadam said:


> World #1 Movak Djokovic is deported, denied opportunity to make history at run at 21st grand slam and 10th Australian Open title.
> 
> https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/novak-djokovic-australia-visa-news-01-16-22-intl-hnk/index.html




Good. It sucks that there wasn’t an easy way for him to prevent this from happening.


----------



## narad

Sucks to be him, and work so hard, only to fail to follow basic country policy when it mattered and expect special treatment. You know how I feel about it: fuck the unvaccinated. I sure as hell can't get into Japan without proof of vaccination and a negative PCR test, so no sympathies to those who expect otherwise.


----------



## StevenC

I have no sympathy for the guy who thinks staring at water can clean it


----------



## jaxadam

Yeowch.



> A deportation order also usually includes a three-year ban on returning to Australia.


----------



## jaxadam

StevenC said:


> I have no sympathy for the guy who thinks staring at water can clean it



Do you have a citation for this? Because if not you are spreading misinformation. He said _positive thought_ could cleanse polluted water.

https://www.eurosport.com/tennis/no...-purify-polluted-water_sto7744129/story.shtml


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> Do you have a citation for this? Because if not you are spreading misinformation. He said _positive thought_ could cleanse polluted water.
> 
> https://www.eurosport.com/tennis/no...-purify-polluted-water_sto7744129/story.shtml



lol, are you being facetious? Is that clarification helping him out at all?

_"I've seen people and I know some people that, through that energetical transformation, through the power of prayer, through the power of gratitude, they manage to turn the most toxic food or most polluted water, into the most healing water.

"Because water reacts and scientists have proven that, that molecules in the water react to our emotions, to what is being said.

"I truly believe that we should continuously, every single day that when we sit, we sit without cameras, without phones … or even worse having nervous discussions and conflictual (sic) discussions at the table with your close ones during your meal."_

I actually dated a girl who believed in this stuff -- it's kind of famous in Japan, as one of the biggest proponents of this theory was Japanese:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaru_Emoto

Though props on wiki for accurately title "was a Japanese businessman, author and *pseudo-scientist *who claimed that human consciousness could affect the molecular structure of water."


----------



## jaxadam

narad said:


> lol, are you being facetious? Is that clarification helping him out at all?
> 
> _"I've seen people and I know some people that, through that energetical transformation, through the power of prayer, through the power of gratitude, they manage to turn the most toxic food or most polluted water, into the most healing water.
> 
> "Because water reacts and scientists have proven that, that molecules in the water react to our emotions, to what is being said.
> 
> "I truly believe that we should continuously, every single day that when we sit, we sit without cameras, without phones … or even worse having nervous discussions and conflictual (sic) discussions at the table with your close ones during your meal."_
> 
> I actually dated a girl who believed in this stuff -- it's kind of famous in Japan, as one of the biggest proponents of this theory was Japanese:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaru_Emoto
> 
> Though props on wiki for accurately title "was a Japanese businessman, author and *pseudo-scientist *who claimed that human consciousness could affect the molecular structure of water."



Sounds like you have good taste in women!

But you know how these things go…. It’s like the game of telephone. First it’s positive thoughts cleanse polluted water. Now it’s staring at water cleans it. Next thing you know it’ll be filtering water purifies it, and we don’t want our buddy StevenC responsible for that one getting out if the bag!


----------



## IwantTacos

ooh I like this. Just pure comedy when faced with an actual indefensible fuckwit.


----------



## StevenC

jaxadam said:


> Do you have a citation for this? Because if not you are spreading misinformation. He said _positive thought_ could cleanse polluted water.
> 
> https://www.eurosport.com/tennis/no...-purify-polluted-water_sto7744129/story.shtml




Here's Djokovic and his buddy. I don't have to tell you that "thinking positive thoughts" at water isn't a thing that is any different than staring. But OK, I concede I misspoke.

He also cried for 3 days because he had to undergo surgery for an injury he couldn't positive think his way out of.

The guy's a loon.


----------



## jaxadam

IwantTacos said:


> ooh I like this. Just pure comedy when faced with an actual indefensible fuckwit.



Well, laughter _is _the best medicine, but you guys sure are a tough crowd!



StevenC said:


> I don't have to tell you that "thinking positive thoughts" at water isn't a thing that is any different than staring. But OK, I concede I misspoke.



You don't have to tell me, because I don't think that "thinking positive thoughts" is the same thing as "staring". I'm surprised you're still holding on to that one, but that's okay, let's use some examples to illustrate:

"I heard your wife is sick, I'm thinking positive thoughts about her".

"I heard your wife is sick, I'm staring at her".

Hope that helps!


----------



## Bodes

Glad he got kicked out. If everyday people lost their jobs, couldn't participate in many things, can't go to restaurants, etc. for not being vaxxed, then non-citizens should not be allowed to either.

Just the way everything went down was a complete joke. Our politicians are morons. In October, our PM said unvaccinated players are welcome, then back-flipped once he remembered that an election is coming up this year and people weren't happy about the super rich and famous being given better treatment than citizens. 

The same PM who said RATs would form no part of our testing, then told his rich mates he was going to change the rules around RATs, so they could buy up and sell them at inflated prices.

I could go full nutter rant, but I'll refrain from doing so.


----------



## StevenC

jaxadam said:


> Well, laughter _is _the best medicine, but you guys sure are a tough crowd!
> 
> 
> 
> You don't have to tell me, because I don't think that "thinking positive thoughts" is the same thing as "staring". I'm surprised you're still holding on to that one, but that's okay, let's use some examples to illustrate:
> 
> "I heard your wife is sick, I'm thinking positive thoughts about her".
> 
> "I heard your wife is sick, I'm staring at her".


Man, grow up and get your head out of your ass.


----------



## jaxadam

StevenC said:


> Man, grow up and get your head out of your ass.



ooh I like this. Right on cue. When all else fails, straight to the platitudes.


----------



## StevenC

jaxadam said:


> ooh I like this. Right on cue. When all else fails, straight to the platitudes.


I mean, you don't want to have an actual conversation. You want to go round in circles and pick holes and not ever have a stance on anything.


----------



## TedEH

Well, the record is officially broken for how many brain cells I can kill by reading a single page on SSO. C'mon guys, we can do better than this.


----------



## jaxadam

Other unvaccinated players will be at Australian Open.



> “There are two medical panels that assess any application, and they assess it in a blind way. They don’t know who the applicant is.
> 
> “Against the guidelines, an exemption gets granted or not. The reason for granting the exemption remains private, between the panel and the applicant.
> 
> “We know of athletes that have applied for an exemption and in cases, it’s been granted.
> 
> “Some of those (players) have indicated that they’re here, but that’s up to the athlete, to disclose and [decide] whether they want to share that information.”



Rumor has it the 5 other unvaccinated players were granted medical exemptions to play the tournament.

Djokovic medical exemption:






https://theprint.in/sport/after-djo...o-got-in-using-same-medical-exemption/797807/



> Tennis Australia confirmed Thursday that other Australian Open participants had been allowed into the country after getting the infection in the past six months, and had used the same exemption which Djokovic applied for.



And the drama causes refunds to outstrip ticket sales.


----------



## BigViolin

This conversation makes me uncomfortable. Suddenly for some reason I can't tell anymore which ones of you are pure batshit crazy or just musicians.


----------



## StevenC

BigViolin said:


> This conversation makes me uncomfortable. Suddenly for some reason I can't tell anymore which ones of you are pure batshit crazy or just musicians.


Same


----------



## Adieu

That is some weak sauce

The last days of the Soviet Union / early Russian Federation, we had a guy that enchanted jars of water... THROUGH THE TV.

You were supposed to turn on his show and place your pickle jars of boiled water in front of the screen. Like, seriously.

And people totally did it. Including respectable city folk with prestigious academic diplomas in the sciences.

I was like 4-5 years old the first time that guy opened my eyes to the fact that I was surrounded by idgits.



jaxadam said:


> Sounds like you have good taste in women!
> 
> But you know how these things go…. It’s like the game of telephone. First it’s positive thoughts cleanse polluted water. Now it’s staring at water cleans it. Next thing you know it’ll be filtering water purifies it, and we don’t want our buddy StevenC responsible for that one getting out if the bag!


----------



## jaxadam

BigViolin said:


> This conversation makes me uncomfortable. Suddenly for some reason I can't tell anymore which ones of you are pure batshit crazy or just musicians.



I have yet to see any videos or hear any clips from @StevenC so the jury’s still out on that one!


----------



## StevenC

jaxadam said:


> I have yet to see any videos or hear any clips from @StevenC so the jury’s still out on that one!


Follow my instagram account for evidence of both


----------



## jaxadam

StevenC said:


> Follow my instagram account for evidence of both



Hook me up doggy!


----------



## narad

BigViolin said:


> This conversation makes me uncomfortable. Suddenly for some reason I can't tell anymore which ones of you are pure batshit crazy or just musicians.



Those are the only options?


----------



## SpaceDock

I didn’t think this thread could get any worse.


----------



## bostjan

Adieu said:


> That is some weak sauce
> 
> The last days of the Soviet Union / early Russian Federation, we had a guy that enchanted jars of water... THROUGH THE TV.
> 
> You were supposed to turn on his show and place your pickle jars of boiled water in front of the screen. Like, seriously.
> 
> And people totally did it. Including respectable city folk with prestigious academic diplomas in the sciences.
> 
> I was like 4-5 years old the first time that guy opened my eyes to the fact that I was surrounded by idgits.


The smart people went along with it, because they were aware that, in former Soviet Union, television watches _you_!



jaxadam said:


> Other unvaccinated players will be at Australian Open.
> 
> 
> 
> Rumor has it the 5 other unvaccinated players were granted medical exemptions to play the tournament.
> 
> Djokovic medical exemption:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> https://theprint.in/sport/after-djo...o-got-in-using-same-medical-exemption/797807/
> 
> 
> 
> And the drama causes refunds to outstrip ticket sales.


So... the medical exemption was issued by a doctor from a Tennis club? Is that not a little odd? I'm sure the medical qualifications are probably okay, but what governmental authority does that person have? If I was trying to get out of prison, would a doctor's note from my local chess club have sufficient authority?! This story just keeps getting weirder.


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> So... the medical exemption was issued by a doctor from a Tennis club?



Where did you see that?

But it does keep getting weirder.

Apparently 26 medical exemptions were applied for, and some were granted. Word on the street is that number is 5.

So right now it seems strange that the top seed, world #1, and favorite to hold the record of 21 major titles (a lot of history is on the line if he wins) was deported, but potentially 5 unvaccinated will still be playing due to their anonymity.

In addition, he will be banned from Australia for 3 years, so that really creates a problem for him winning the Calendar Grand Slam (all four majors in one year [Australian, French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open]), a feat he was one match away from last year (US Open final against Medvedev), and a feat that hasn’t been done in over 50 years since Rod Laver.

And just for fun, I've actually hit with Novak's racquet. It is very heavy (high swingweight) and cumbersome to use.






This denotes a Friday match strung at 27 kilograms.






Here's where things get interesting... He endorsed the Head Speed Pro, but really uses the older Radical Flexpoint mold and layup. You can see the orange "Power in Control" under the Head Speed Pro paintjob.






And this is where it is really telling. On the far right is his racquet, next to that is Sasha Zverev's racquet which is a Speed MP paintjob over an older ig Youtek Speed MP, then a Head PT57B pro stock racquet in Speed Pro pj, and finally on the far left a retail Head Speed Pro.






So really, tennis racquet pedantry isn't very much different than guitars!


----------



## bostjan

jaxadam said:


> Where did you see that?


It's on the attachment you posted. The exemption certificate was issued by doctors hired by Tennis Australia and is signed by a lady whose job title is as an employee of Tennis Australia. The other two doctors on the panel list Tennis Australia in their job titles of their signature lines as well. If it's not clear whether the letter is a notification of the certificate or the certificate itself, read the body of the letter. Also, his lawyer said in court:


Djiokovic's lawyer said:


> [Djokovic] had received certification of a medical exemption from vaccination *from the tournament organizer*



I think that's the part that's not getting covered in the media.

So, any doctor can issue a medical exemption, as long as the follow the guidelines from the Ministry of Health or whatever it's called in Australia. But the fact that this exemption is issued by Australian doctors who happen to be employees of Tennis Australia puts greatly into question their objectivity. What is getting a lot of coverage is how so many less-well-known players did not get exemptions. But think about it. You are in Serbia. You are the #1 tennis player with a huge crowd appeal. You want to play in a huge tournament in Australia. Three "independent" doctors who have very likely never seen you in person are hired by the club putting the tournament together sign your exemption, citing the fact that you just had covid (when, according to the guidelines themselves, previous covid infection is explicitly stated to not be a reason for exemption). It's painfully obvious what this is all about. Tennis Australia wants to get Djokovic in the tournament to increase viewership and attract sponsors, and there is zero regard on their part for the legality or the medical science involved unless it's a problem they can make go away through some form of handwaving.


----------



## jaxadam

@bostjan Tennis Australia is not a “club”, they are the governing body owned by the state responsible for overseeing all tournaments in Australia, not just the Open. They’re not a local ball club with courts. Here in the US, we have the USTA, and it would be the governing body that would make the same determinations with their consulting doctors based on the information they were given. They were told in the summer what the exemptions would be, and disseminated that info to the players.






Djokovic, along with 25 other players, did what they were told. Others were granted exemptions to play.

It seems the Immigration Minister Hawke decided Djokovic was too much a person of influence to allow.

https://www.express.co.uk/sport/ten...yers-ATP-top-100-unvaccinated-tennis-news/amp



> “I consider that Mr Djokovic’s ongoing presence in Australia may lead to an increase in anti-vaccination sentiment generated in the Australian community, potentially leading to an increase in civil unrest of the kind previously experienced in Australia with rallies and protests which may themselves be a source of community transmission.
> 
> “Mr Djokovic is … a person of influence and status.



So that’s fine, but it’s not fair to allow other anonymous unvaccinated players to participate just because they’re not a person of influence. So indeed it does look like his stature is in fact not giving him special attention, but working against him.


----------



## nightflameauto

nightflameauto said:


> My boss just came around for the morning greeting and happily chattered away about how people in his house are testing positive. Thanks for not wearing your mask, dipshit. Fuck me.


And a week and some change later I finally made it back to the office. Thanks again, boss. Idjit.


----------



## bostjan

jaxadam said:


> @bostjan Tennis Australia is not a “club”, they are the governing body owned by the state responsible for overseeing all tournaments in Australia, not just the Open. They’re not a local ball club with courts. Here in the US, we have the USTA, and it would be the governing body that would make the same determinations with their consulting doctors based on the information they were given. They were told in the summer what the exemptions would be, and disseminated that info to the players.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Djokovic, along with 25 other players, did what they were told. Others were granted exemptions to play.
> 
> It seems the Immigration Minister Hawke decided Djokovic was too much a person of influence to allow.
> 
> https://www.express.co.uk/sport/ten...yers-ATP-top-100-unvaccinated-tennis-news/amp
> 
> 
> 
> So that’s fine, but it’s not fair to allow other anonymous unvaccinated players to participate just because they’re not a person of influence. So indeed it does look like his stature is in fact not giving him special attention, but working against him.



You say that as if being a club and being a governing body of sporting events are mutually exclusive?

Any way you slice the semantics of it, an "independent board" is a big stretch when you are referring to three doctors all employed by the organization that profits from the decision.

The authority on immigration protocols is the immigration ministry, not whomever organizes tennis games. If the three doctors who wrote the exception for Djokovic cited the sole reason for the exception being that he just recovered from covid, and the government guidelines explicitly state that having just recovered from covid is not a valid reason to take into account for an exception, then the decision to deport Djokovic seems pretty cut and dried.

Like, if Hunter S Thompson provided a police officer with a note from Dr. Gonzo prescribing LSD, despite it being a Schedule I (most severely illegal with _no_ accepted uses) listed substance, I'm pretty sure a court would say "okay, so you go to jail now and this doctor's license is revoked." So, why would a doctor employed by a tennis club association issuing an explicitly illegal exemption for a tennis player to gain entry to a country _not_ be overturned by a court once they read the laws from the actual government and see that the exemption certificate violates the written law? I'm not sure what reason anyone has to be the least bit surprised that Djokovic is on his way back to Serbia under the known circumstances.


----------



## StevenC

So did Djokovic get granted an exemption from the tournament's rules or the country's rules?

Because if it was only the former, then it seems like he should have been deported.

All I can find is that he got an exemption for the tournament and from the state of Victoria, but don't see any mention of a national level exemption.


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> You say that as if being a club and being a governing body of sporting events are mutually exclusive?



As I stated earlier, yes they are. Tennis Australia’s counterpart in the US is the USTA. They are not a “club” they are the organizing body of leagues and events. Local and even national clubs will sponsor USTA and UTR events. The independent board was commissioned by Tennis Australia reviewed and endorsed by another medical exemptions review panel of the Victoria State government. I have been playing tennis for over 30 years, I have played in many USTA tournaments, leagues, and events, and no one in the tennis world would consider them a “club”. On the contrary, they are actually a real pain in the ass!



> Any way you slice the semantics of it, an "independent board" is a big stretch when you are referring to three doctors all employed by the organization that profits from the decision.
> 
> The authority on immigration protocols is the immigration ministry, not whomever organizes tennis games. If the three doctors who wrote the exception for Djokovic cited the sole reason for the exception being that he just recovered from covid, and the government guidelines explicitly state that having just recovered from covid is not a valid reason to take into account for an exception, then the decision to deport Djokovic seems pretty cut and dried.



Somewhat agreed. So should the others that were granted the same exemptions be allowed to play on condition of anonymity?


----------



## StevenC

jaxadam said:


> As I stated earlier, yes they are. Tennis Australia’s counterpart in the US is the USTA. They are not a “club” they are the organizing body of leagues and events.
> 
> 
> 
> Somewhat agreed. So should the others that were granted the same exemptions be allowed to play on condition of anonymity?


They shouldn't be allowed to play on the condition of anonymity, but they should be allowed to play if they got an exemption from Tennis Australia, the state of Victoria, and a visa exemption from Australia.

As best I can tell, Djokovic didn't have the last one and that was the authority on which he was denied entry into the country, at a customs gate.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

It’s odd, I got a booster a week ago on Friday, and I had longer side effects than any of my other shots. I’m still pretty lethargic and foggy. Part of me wonders if I didn’t catch Covid right around the time I got my shot. The symptoms all line up. Took a home test which we know aren’t reliable, came up negative. But I’m having a real hard time motivating myself to do much of anything, including studying for school.


----------



## jaxadam

StevenC said:


> They shouldn't be allowed to play on the condition of anonymity, but they should be allowed to play if they got an exemption from Tennis Australia, the state of Victoria, and a visa exemption from Australia.
> 
> As best I can tell, Djokovic didn't have the last one and that was the authority on which he was denied entry into the country, at a customs gate.



The quote I posted from Hawke seems politically motivated.

Although speculation is there could be native Australian players that would have the tennis exemptions and not need the visa exemption requirement.


----------



## BigViolin

narad said:


> Those are the only options?



Did I leave AI wizard off the table? Oops!


----------



## bostjan

jaxadam said:


> As I stated earlier, yes they are. Tennis Australia’s counterpart in the US is the USTA. They are not a “club” they are the organizing body of leagues and events.
> 
> 
> 
> Somewhat agreed. So should the others that were granted the same exemptions be allowed to play on condition of anonymity?


*club* (noun) 1. an association dedicated to a particular interest or activity.

I mean, it's always boring to argue over semantics, but you've got me scratching my head here.

I assume not all exemptions were equal. The issue with Djokovic, though, isn't that he's disallowed to play because he isn't vaccinated, directly. It's the case that he is disallowed to play because he's disallowed to be in Australia, which, in turn is because he's unvaccinated (which is required for a visa) and the medical exception he received from the people organizing the tournament didn't hold legal water in court (the law kind, not the tennis kind). For that matter, if a famous whatever-sport player was deported from whatever-country for breaking whatever-law, I'd honestly be scratching my head if the organization that put together the tournament wrote that player an exception for breaking the law that directly violated written law around how exceptions are written, and it somehow was held up in court.  Right?


----------



## StevenC

jaxadam said:


> The quote I posted from Hawke seems politically motivated.
> 
> Although speculation is there could be native Australian players that would have the tennis exemptions and not need the visa exemption requirement.


https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/immunisation-medical-exemptions?context=22436#a1

This seems to be the relevant thing. Djokovic doesn't fall into these categories as he is avoiding vaccination through choice not medical necessity.

Australia has a vaccination requirement for entry unless you have a reason to be exempt from vaccination. Since Djokovic could only say he had Covid recently, which doesn't make him exempt, he was not able to legally enter Australia. His doctor's note didn't say he had a bad reaction to a previous vaccine, which may have allowed him entry.


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> *club* (noun) 1. an association dedicated to a particular interest or activity.
> 
> I mean, it's always boring to argue over semantics, but you've got me scratching my head here.
> 
> I assume not all exemptions were equal. The issue with Djokovic, though, isn't that he's disallowed to play because he isn't vaccinated, directly. It's the case that he is disallowed to play because he's disallowed to be in Australia, which, in turn is because he's unvaccinated (which is required for a visa) and the medical exception he received from the people organizing the tournament didn't hold legal water in court (the law kind, not the tennis kind). For that matter, if a famous whatever-sport player was deported from whatever-country for breaking whatever-law, I'd honestly be scratching my head if the organization that put together the tournament wrote that player an exception for breaking the law that directly violated written law around how exceptions are written, and it somehow was held up in court.  Right?



In the tennis world, a tennis “club” is a facility you join that has the infrastructure (courts) to play. Let’s just agree to disagree on that one for now because for 30 years I have been a member of various tennis “clubs” that hold sanctioned USTA, Juniors, UTR tournaments, and ATP Futures. I am actually a ranked USTA 4.5C (which will mean nothing to anyone here), actively play in a USTA league (association) at my local club (facility), and that’s just the way things work in the tennis world. The ATP is another organization that holds events and is not a “club”. Tennis Australia is an organizing and regulatory body, not a “club”. Head on over to the Talk Tennis forums, post your definition, and ask over there. I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here that you are not involved in the tennis world. But you sure got me with Merriam-Webster!

https://giammalva.com/uncategorized/3-remarkable-reasons-join-tennis-club/

One more time, should other unvaccinated players be allowed to play on condition of anonymity?


----------



## bostjan

The way I see it:

Everyone who wants to travel to Australia needs to be vaccinated ( https://covid19.homeaffairs.gov.au/vaccinated-travellers ) unless:

"If you are coming to Australia and have a medical contraindication recorded in the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) you can show an Australian COVID-19 digital certificate to airline staff. You can otherwise show your immunisation history statement.
"The Australian Department of Health advises that _previous infection with COVID-19 is not considered a medical contraindication for COVID-19 vaccination."
_
Djokovic stated he was exempt because he had just recovered from covid. He got a note from Tennis Australia signed by three doctors paid by Tennis Australia, which you posted, based on a reason not recorded in the AIR. He was let into Australia, then the health ministries became aware of it, being a super-high profile news event, and told him to leave.

This is super cut and dried.

If I want to travel to the UK to do a gun show held by the NRA, but the government says "don't bring a gun with you or you'll be deported," yet, I show up in the UK with a gun and a note from the NRA saying "it's cool, bro." Should I expect to not be immediately deported and banned from entering the UK?!



jaxadam said:


> One more time, should other unvaccinated players be allowed to play on condition of anonymity?



As I said above, every case is different. It ought to depend on the case and the application of the law, not on whether or not they are unvaccinated.

If a player is Australian, and TA says it's okay, why not?! It's not an issue of whether or not they can play, it's an issue of whether or not they can enter Australia legally, right?


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> The way I see it:
> 
> Everyone who wants to travel to Australia needs to be vaccinated ( https://covid19.homeaffairs.gov.au/vaccinated-travellers ) unless:
> 
> "If you are coming to Australia and have a medical contraindication recorded in the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) you can show an Australian COVID-19 digital certificate to airline staff. You can otherwise show your immunisation history statement.
> "The Australian Department of Health advises that _previous infection with COVID-19 is not considered a medical contraindication for COVID-19 vaccination."
> _
> Djokovic stated he was exempt because he had just recovered from covid. He got a note from Tennis Australia signed by three doctors paid by Tennis Australia, which you posted, based on a reason not recorded in the AIR. He was let into Australia, then the health ministries became aware of it, being a super-high profile news event, and told him to leave.
> 
> This is super cut and dried.
> 
> If I want to travel to the UK to do a gun show held by the NRA, but the government says "don't bring a gun with you or you'll be deported," yet, I show up in the UK with a gun and a note from the NRA saying "it's cool, bro." Should I expect to not be immediately deported and banned from entering the UK?!
> 
> 
> 
> As I said above, every case is different. It ought to depend on the case and the application of the law, not on whether or not they are unvaccinated.
> 
> If a player is Australian, and TA says it's okay, why not?! It's not an issue of whether or not they can play, it's an issue of whether or not they can enter Australia legally, right?



Is the NRA a club, or an organization?


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> Is the NRA a club, or an organization?


It could be either of those things, and it still doesn't have the authority to skirt the law. Just like the tennis people.


----------



## jaxadam

Should other unvaccinated players who were granted the same medical exemption as Djokovic be allowed to play under condition of anonymity?


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> It could be either of those things, and it still doesn't have the authority to skirt the law. Just like the tennis people.



But it’s not either of those things. It’s an organization that hosts affiliated clubs.

Hiw did Tennis Australia skirt the law?


----------



## TedEH

Am I missing something? Didn't they try to bring someone into the country who didn't qualify to be there? Is that not an attempt to skirt the law? What does anonymity have to do with anything?
Either I'm missing some major detail about this, or you're being deliberately obtuse. I don't discount that it could be both.


----------



## tedtan

jaxadam said:


> One more time, should other unvaccinated players be allowed to play on condition of anonymity?



I get the concern over status, but I think that is more a case of bad optics.

I’m with Bostjan here. Did these other five players follow the rules and get legit exemptions? If so, then yes, they should be allowed to play; if not, then they should be deported, too. Status shouldn’t be relevant, application of the laws should.


----------



## bostjan

jaxadam said:


> Is the NRA a club, or an organization?





jaxadam said:


> Should other unvaccinated players who were granted the same medical exemption as Djokovic be allowed to play under condition of anonymity?


I feel like these both apply the same sort of false dichotomy.

It's not like TA is telling anyone "no, you cannot play, because covid blah blah blah."

TA is trying to get these players through immigration so that they can play, and they got caught bending the rules to get Djokovic into the country, so Djokovic got deported. If the objection is that Djokovic is the one being punished and not TA, then I'm 100% on board. But that's not the objection I'm hearing from you.

The same thing has happened in sports plenty of times before. Someone enters some country without the proper paperwork, and they have to leave, so they miss the tournament that they might have won. The difference in this case is that covid is tangentially involved. If Djokovic had entered with a visa that said he was there to visit his friends and not to play tennis, legally, it'd be the same exact situation, but people wouldn't be defending him on social media in that case, right?


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> Am I missing something? Didn't they try to bring someone into the country who didn't qualify to be there? Is that not an attempt to skirt the law? What does anonymity have to do with anything?
> Either I'm missing some major detail about this, or you're being deliberately obtuse. I don't discount that it could be both.



Ah yes, another member of the platitudes club.







So yes, to answer your questions, Tennis Australia (Tiley) was given information by the government over the summer. That info was the basis of letting in the players. Djokovic got his exemption AND his visa, so I’d say he was allowed to be there. The immigration minister revoked the visa because he felt the presence of an unvaccinated athlete sends a bad message (and it does) yet other unvaccinated anonymous players with the same exemption granted Djokovic are still entered into the tournament.

This sounds like political bias: “Alex Hawke used his powers to cancel his visa, arguing his presence in the country risked fanning anti-vaccine sentiment.”


----------



## bostjan

jaxadam said:


> Ah yes, another member of the platitudes club.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So yes, to answer your questions, Tennis Australia (Tiley) was given information by the government over the summer. That info was the basis of letting in the players. Djokovic got his exemption AND his visa, so I’d say he was allowed to be there. The immigration minister revoked the visa because he felt the presence of an unvaccinated athlete sends a bad message (and it does) yet other unvaccinated anonymous players with the same exemption granted Djokovic are still entered into the tournament.
> 
> This sounds like political bias: “Alex Hawke used his powers to cancel his visa, arguing his presence in the country risked fanning anti-vaccine sentiment.”



Yet, the official reason his visa was revoked was because his certificate of medical exemption was exactly the one explicitly stated reason in the law that a medical exemption _could not_ be granted. Do you argue the validity of that?


----------



## StevenC

jaxadam said:


> Ah yes, another member of the platitudes club.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So yes, to answer your questions, Tennis Australia (Tiley) was given information by the government over the summer. That info was the basis of letting in the players. Djokovic got his exemption AND his visa, so I’d say he was allowed to be there. The immigration minister revoked the visa because he felt the presence of an unvaccinated athlete sends a bad message (and it does) yet other unvaccinated anonymous players with the same exemption granted Djokovic are still entered into the tournament.
> 
> This sounds like political bias: “Alex Hawke used his powers to cancel his visa, arguing his presence in the country risked fanning anti-vaccine sentiment.”


Except we don't know anything that you're arguing. We know he had a visa, but we know you can have a visa and still break an entry requirement.

Australia said, while he was on the plane, that he would be turned around unless he had a legitimate vaccine exemption. He did not have that.

If your question is why was he granted a visa, that would be a reasonable question. Maybe it was granted on the condition that he meet entry requirements.

But your question is should the other people, who we have 0 details about other than some of them got some unspecified exemptions and some didn't, be allowed into the country/tournament. The answer is we have insufficient evidence to say whether they are playing fully within the the legal framework.

What we can say for sure is that Djokovic didn't meet the vaccination requirements to enter Australia and he didn't have the appropriate exemptions to those requirements to enter Australia.


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> Yet, the official reason his visa was revoked was because his certificate of medical exemption was exactly the one explicitly stated reason in the law that a medical exemption _could not_ be granted. Do you argue the validity of that?



I don’t argue the validity of that, what I said earlier and posted the infograph of what Tiley and Tennis Australia were told would be the exemptions at the time and Djokovic qualified, got the exemption, got the visa, and the visa was overturned because Hawke thinks it would look bad (and it does). Wouldn’t want an unvaccinated player winning and setting the records!

I don’t agree that there could be potential cases that mirror Djokovic that are allowed to stay/play because they are not a person of influence so they were waved on through.


----------



## bostjan

jaxadam said:


> I don’t argue the validity of that, what I said earlier and posted the infograph of what Tiley and Tennis Australia were told would be the exemptions at the time and Djokovic qualified, got the exemption, got the visa, and the visa was overturned because Hawke thinks it would look bad (and it does). Wouldn’t want an unvaccinated player winning and setting the records!
> 
> I don’t agree that there could be potential cases that mirror Djokovic that are allowed to stay/play because they are not a person of influence so they were waved on through.


Maybe different sources have different reasons listed?

https://abc7chicago.com/novak-djokovic-australian-open-2022-tennis/11475170/#:~:text=The federal government argued that,valid reason for an exemption.&text=Djokovic's visa was revoked for,before his case had concluded.

The reasons argued in court are not the same reasons argued in the media.

https://news.sky.com/story/novak-dj...nis-stars-shock-at-visa-cancellation-12512884

Djokovic was denied entry because he lacked the covid vaccine paperwork and his medical exception was from TA and not from the Australian government. My guess is that the media is trying to sell ads. I mean, I'm a native English speaker, so it's easy for me to search the Australian immigration laws and it took me seconds to find that law I quoted earlier that said you have to be vaccinated to enter Australia. Maybe it's a lot more difficult for a Serb to find that stuff, but Djokovic must have people that help him with stuff like that.

If the immigration minister said that his presence in Australia could invigorate anti-vax sentiment, it's not exactly the same thing as him saying that he is denied entry due to the fact that his presence in Australia could invigorate anti-vax sentiment. I don't think that it's nitpicky to try not to conflate those two things. Like, maybe I like to play guitar, and maybe I like to put salt on watermelon. It doesn't mean that I put salt on watermelon because I play guitar, right? I guess either way we can agree that putting salt on watermelon is kind of weird and silly. So, yeah, in that respect, I think the minister should have kept his mouth shut, but ultimately, he's probably not wrong.


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> Maybe different sources have different reasons listed?
> 
> https://abc7chicago.com/novak-djokovic-australian-open-2022-tennis/11475170/#:~:text=The federal government argued that,valid reason for an exemption.&text=Djokovic's visa was revoked for,before his case had concluded.
> 
> The reasons argued in court are not the same reasons argued in the media.
> 
> https://news.sky.com/story/novak-dj...nis-stars-shock-at-visa-cancellation-12512884
> 
> Djokovic was denied entry because he lacked the covid vaccine paperwork and his medical exception was from TA and not from the Australian government. My guess is that the media is trying to sell ads. I mean, I'm a native English speaker, so it's easy for me to search the Australian immigration laws and it took me seconds to find that law I quoted earlier that said you have to be vaccinated to enter Australia. Maybe it's a lot more difficult for a Serb to find that stuff, but Djokovic must have people that help him with stuff like that.
> 
> If the immigration minister said that his presence in Australia could invigorate anti-vax sentiment, it's not exactly the same thing as him saying that he is denied entry due to the fact that his presence in Australia could invigorate anti-vax sentiment. I don't think that it's nitpicky to try not to conflate those two things. Like, maybe I like to play guitar, and maybe I like to put salt on watermelon. It doesn't mean that I put salt on watermelon because I play guitar, right? I guess either way we can agree that putting salt on watermelon is kind of weird and silly. So, yeah, in that respect, I think the minister should have kept his mouth shut, but ultimately, he's probably not wrong.



Salt is okay, but _seasoned _salt is where I draw the line.


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> https://news.sky.com/story/novak-dj...nis-stars-shock-at-visa-cancellation-12512884



I like how in this they tell him at 3:55 AM they are going to read him the notice of intent to consider cancellation of his visa, but they will give him 20 minutes to provide his counter evidence.  That sounds fair!


----------



## bostjan

jaxadam said:


> I like how in this like they tell him at 3:55 AM they are going to read him the notice of intent to consider cancellation of his visa, but they will give him 20 minutes to provide his counter evidence.  That sounds fair!


I agree it's inconvenient. I've been in somewhat similar situations before with international travel and the visa my workplace had given me had a typo on it or whatever, and it's definitely not unusual for them to give you a matter of minutes to show some progress being made in fixing it.

Also consider that 4 AM in Australia is like 6 PM in Serbia, and that the problem had been pointed out something like three hours prior to that point. High profile people like Djokovic, I'm certain, would have people to help them through such a process. I am nobody, and I've had people on call to help me with similar processes. It's not like they kicked down his door at 4 AM and demanded to see his papers in 20 minutes or else he'd be detained or anything like that.

But I agree that, from the transcript, the immigration agent looked like he was being a little bit of a dick to Djokovic. Granted, there could be a lot going on that we can't interpret from the transcript excerpts alone. But it does establish the reasoning why he was initially denied entry, and it has nothing to do with anti-vaccine-mandate protests or whatever, and everything to do with the paperwork not being up to the standard that the Australian government trained their immigration officers was sufficient (which would be consistent with the written law on the Australian government's website makes clear).


----------



## IwantTacos

jaxadam said:


> Should other unvaccinated players who were granted the same medical exemption as Djokovic be allowed to play under condition of anonymity?



No.


----------



## jaxadam

IwantTacos said:


> No.


----------



## TedEH

^ Wait, so you agree? I thought you were arguing that he should have stayed, 'cause tennis is some kind of big deal and records and whatever else. If they _all_ entered in violation of the legal rule, then they should have all dealt with the same consequences. That's reasonable. Anonymity shouldn't be a factor. I'm not sure what exactly you're trying to-



jaxadam said:


> Wouldn’t want an unvaccinated player winning and setting the records!


Aaaaaaaah nevermind, I get it now. We're playing a dumb "you're all persecuting us" game again aren't we.


----------



## TedEH

In other news, booked for shot #3.
Soon you'll be able to bask in my virtuousness, for my heroic sacrifice of having a mildly sore arm for 10 minutes will save us all. I'll save us all personally with my healing thoughts boosted to 5G.


----------



## jaxadam

TedEH said:


> ^ Wait, so you agree? I thought you were arguing that he should have stayed, 'cause tennis is some kind of big deal and records and whatever else. If they _all_ entered in violation of the legal rule, then they should have all dealt with the same consequences. That's reasonable. Anonymity shouldn't be a factor. I'm not sure what exactly you're trying to-
> 
> 
> Aaaaaaaah nevermind, I get it now. We're playing a dumb "you're all persecuting us" game again aren't we.



 Teddy, it’s not working out. I think we should start seeing other people.


----------



## TedEH

I dunno, splitting up is a tough decision. Let me




about it for a while.


----------



## Xaios

jaxadam said:


> He said _positive thought_ could cleanse polluted water.


So _that's_ how Bear Grylls does it.



Adieu said:


> The last days of the Soviet Union / early Russian Federation, we had a guy that enchanted jars of water... THROUGH THE TV.


----------



## narad

IwantTacos said:


> No.



Which probably everyone in this thread agrees on. Didn't see a whole lot of "We want more rights for the unvaccinated, so long as they stay quiet about their unvaccinated status."


----------



## jaxadam

Here are the goods. 

https://www.fedcourt.gov.au/services/access-to-files-and-transcripts/online-files/djokovic

It looks like Djokovic had an approved medical exemption and was judicially granted a visa. The immigration minister, acting under 133C(3) has sole discretion to cancel the visa without litigation recourse (no checks and balances). The minister’s sole line of reasoning is not the health or risk of infection posed by the individual, but is the anti-vaccination attitude Djokovic has previously held (even if his current position has changed). As a person of influence this could drive anti-vaccination sentiment which in turn would “endanger the health and well-being” of the country.


----------



## IwantTacos

Goddamn if there was only something he could do.


----------



## Adieu

Hey, anyone been hearing about what's either a major flu wave or possibly a new COVID variant that evades testing? 

Seems like everyone is suddenly sick with something but testing negative


----------



## bostjan

jaxadam said:


> Here are the goods.
> 
> https://www.fedcourt.gov.au/services/access-to-files-and-transcripts/online-files/djokovic
> 
> It looks like Djokovic had an approved medical exemption and was judicially granted a visa. The immigration minister, acting under 133C(3) has sole discretion to cancel the visa without litigation recourse (no checks and balances). The minister’s sole line of reasoning is not the health or risk of infection posed by the individual, but is the anti-vaccination attitude Djokovic has previously held (even if his current position has changed). As a person of influence this could drive anti-vaccination sentiment which in turn would “endanger the health and well-being” of the country.



Wow, did you read all of that evidence?

First off, yes, the minister did officially state that Djokovic was a risk as an anti-vax'er, but also included evidence of incidents where he purposely exposed other people to his covid after he was already aware he had tested positive. Also reading through the documents Djokovic's people submitted to the immigration minister and to the court carry an air of threat (when he says that if they cancel his visa, it would jeopardize Australia's ability to host the Australian Open in the future) and also some ridiculousness (when he quotes the minister's statement that "no one is above the rules" as evidence that his deportation was purely political).

The more I read of this, the worse everyone looks in this. But ultimately, his visa was cancelled because his medical exemption was not valid under the written law. A court overturned the decision by immigration under the official reasoning that he was no threat to public health, and then the health minister overrode that with a bunch of Djokovic's public statements, including his anti-vaccine stance and how that could potentially affect Australia, but also including his brazen disregard for lawfully required quarantine by doing in-person interviews during past travels, and also including his disregard for the safety of others in Serbia and Croatia while he went around in public unmasked and not-socially distancing after he was aware that he had tested positive. All of that is sort of overkill, but I guess when the courts read the law that explicitly states that past covid infection is not a valid medical exemption and rules that he has a legally valid medical exemption due to his past infection with covid, without even attempting to get into the science of it, it might be understandable to pull out all of the stops.

Anyway, though, the court decided to deport him, and he's back in Serbia now, so that's that for now.

As for the tournament, whoever wins will get to enjoy a somewhat empty victory, which sucks, but maybe TA should have read the laws and not issued a certificate of medical exemption from their own payrolled doctors that stated the sole reason for medical exemption as the one and only reason called out in the original written law for not being valid. That's frankly some stupid shit, from a legal standpoint.

From a medical standpoint, is Djokovic a covid risk, having been unvaccinated yet recently recovered? It's a moot point, as far as I'm concerned. If there's anything we've learned about covid transmission, it's that vax'd or unvax'd, previously infected or never-been infected, anyone can transmit covid. There some slight decline in risk from vax'd vs unvax'd and maybe, but less clear, the same from previous infection. Maybe the pandemic is already becoming endemic, or maybe not, we don't know yet. But people are now acting like this is over when worldwide numbers are higher than ever before with 2.5 million new cases per day, nearly 5x higher than the last surge. Deaths seem to not be spiking, but that's the thing, we don't know yet- it could be another two weeks before we can know for sure. All of these risks are unnecessary and, possibly dangerous, at the moment...


----------



## ArtDecade

France also told him to kiss the French Open goodbye. He is a selfish asshat.


----------



## IwantTacos

ArtDecade said:


> France also told him to kiss the French Open goodbye. He is a selfish asshat.



France just told all the unvaccinated people to kiss going outside goodbye. 

Mbardu is having a seizure.


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> Wow, did you read all of that evidence?



I did read a bulk of it, and you hit the nail on the head. What I find interesting, and what my takeaway was is this: regardless of his _current _position or thoughts on the vax, the minister's decision was based on past attitudes and actions. So if Djokovic were to have gotten off the airplane in Australia and say "hey everybody, I love the vax, get the vax, I'm gonna get it at soon as I win this motherfucker and become the leading men's grand slam title holder of all time" the minister still would have revoked his visa. I also did see where it didn't seem Djokovic were given much of a chance to provide any information or context to the past actions, so that somewhat works against him. But like you said, it's over for him. 

I mean this is what I’d tell him: go home, think about it, then forget about it, forget about any lawsuit(s), get the vaccine, stare at some water, then go destroy everyone on the court. After the last tournament he was defaulted from, he went to the finals of the next five majors, winning three.


----------



## Randy

Xaios said:


> So _that's_ how Bear Grylls does it.



You've gotta have very very positive thoughts to drink piss. Or something else.


----------



## bostjan

jaxadam said:


> I did read a bulk of it, and you hit the nail on the head. What I find interesting, and what my takeaway was is this: regardless of his _current _position or thoughts on the vax, the minister's decision was based on past attitudes and actions. So if Djokovic were to have gotten off the airplane in Australia and say "hey everybody, I love the vax, get the vax, I'm gonna get it at soon as I win this motherfucker and become the leading men's grand slam title holder of all time" the minister still would have revoked his visa. I also did see where it didn't seem Djokovic were given much of a chance to provide any information or context to the past actions, so that somewhat works against him. But like you said, it's over for him.
> 
> I mean this is what I’d tell him: go home, think about it, then forget about it, forget about any lawsuit(s), get the vaccine, stare at some water, then go destroy everyone on the court. After the last tournament he was defaulted from, he went to the finals of the next five majors, winning three.


Right.

I'm sure this argument can take different perspectives, but, from a legal perspective:
1. You have to be vaccinated to legally enter Australia.
2. Djokovic is not vaccinated.


----------



## fantom

https://www.acluarkansas.org/en/pre...alf-incarcerated-individuals-given-ivermectin

Figures the lawsuit that comes from a conservative state about people unknowingly receiving covid preventative treatment without consent is about Ivermectin and not one of the vaccines.

Can't make this shit up.


----------



## narad

IwantTacos said:


> France just told all the unvaccinated people to kiss going outside goodbye.
> 
> Mbardu is having a seizure.



I feel like the countdown has begun to where I spend 2 pages arguing with Mbardu that it's still relevant even though the French use the word "vaccin" and not "vaccine".


----------



## Randy

Fauci (or his handlers) warming up more and more to "just go get Omicron and get it over with" concept. I saw him using the term "live virus vaccination" in a non-dismissive way. Prepare for all of us to be the kids sent to the pool party to catch chickenpox any day now.


----------



## SpaceDock

As far as I’m concerned no one would are about Covid if it was only like getting the flu for a few days….. and it is if you are vaccinated


----------



## narad

Randy said:


> Fauci (or his handlers) warming up more and more to "just go get Omicron and get it over with" concept. I saw him using the term "live virus vaccination" in a non-dismissive way. Prepare for all of us to be the kids sent to the pool party to catch chickenpox any day now.



Yea, and there's all this rumor about omicron being a less dangerous strain, but I was just curious if there were any studies to show this? vs. Delta, you have a large amount of people with various existing levels of exposure, so I'm not sure to what extent that might be giving the impression that the strain itself is not so bad.


----------



## spudmunkey

Just today:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...rately-catching-Covid-obtain-health-pass.html


----------



## Adieu

Randy said:


> Fauci (or his handlers) warming up more and more to "just go get Omicron and get it over with" concept. I saw him using the term "live virus vaccination" in a non-dismissive way. Prepare for all of us to be the kids sent to the pool party to catch chickenpox any day now.



Live virus or live-attenuated virus? Cause that's an actual thing


----------



## IwantTacos

Randy said:


> Fauci (or his handlers) warming up more and more to "just go get Omicron and get it over with" concept. I saw him using the term "live virus vaccination" in a non-dismissive way. Prepare for all of us to be the kids sent to the pool party to catch chickenpox any day now.



if catching omicron protects you against future strains this seems super fine.


----------



## _MonSTeR_

Rumour is that, barring another more deadly variant emerging, England will be looking to have ended *all* restrictions in April. Rishi Sunak is alleged to basically think that the damage to the economy from "precautions" now outweighs the damage to health from the virus. "_Cash is king_" 'n' all that...


----------



## Randy

Adieu said:


> Live virus or live-attenuated virus? Cause that's an actual thing



How do you interpret this?




Edit: Gist of the article is that Omicron being less severe and spreading so fast may be the end of pandemic, beginning of endemic and Fauci said as long as there's not another variant that eludes that maybe. But quote is specifically referring to the idea of catching the virus out in the wild as a form of vaccination, yes.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/18/health/us-coronavirus-tuesday/index.html


----------



## Randy

_MonSTeR_ said:


> Rumour is that, barring another more deadly variant emerging, England will be looking to have ended *all* restrictions in April. Rishi Sunak is alleged to basically think that the damage to the economy from "precautions" now outweighs the damage to health from the virus. "_Cash is king_" 'n' all that...



This is what we've been operating under for the last year tbh (with maybe the sole exception of an unenforced mask mandate occasionally).

They can consider it lucky timing if Omicron is Omicold and the end of the pandemic because otherwise, I can tell you it doesn't work. Sick people don't go to work, and people worried about getting sick don't go to restaurants/bars or they do and get sick.

We've had no lockdowns, shutdowns, curfews or restrictions and the bars/restaurants/venues are all crying the blues between 3/4 empty nights, cancelled events (band sick, promotor didn't wanna chance nobody showing up) and employees not coming to work or quitting. So hopefully Omicron is the end game, because ignoring the virus didn't heal his economy it may have been the back breaker


----------



## narad

Reposting from FB:


----------



## spudmunkey

From Imgur: "Is her username "Cutie With IQ 1" ?

She's since died, if I remember correctly.

[edit: I misread. She's only just a A Herman Cain Award nominee, no confirmation if she's "won"]

Some supplemental reading:

















[edit 2: This is what I read, but it's not confirmed elsewhere, and this account no longer exists]


----------



## bostjan

_MonSTeR_ said:


> Rumour is that, barring another more deadly variant emerging, England will be looking to have ended *all* restrictions in April. Rishi Sunak is alleged to basically think that the damage to the economy from "precautions" now outweighs the damage to health from the virus. "_Cash is king_" 'n' all that...


If it hadn't been for the variants, the pandemic would have been over already, probably 6 months ago. So, "barring another variant" might as well be "as soon as we discover the key to immortality," right?

But this is sort of the damned problem. Everyone is like "When will this be over?!" and is unwilling to accept the correct answer of "No one knows yet, just be patient." As a global society, we just keep asking for this. We even had a dress rehearsal with SARS. "Ok, everyone, someone ate a bat they bought from a filthy black bushmeat market and now SARS exists. Please stop eating bushmeat you bought from filthy markets." Well, I guess people gonna eat their bushmeat. "Oh, damn, hey, Chinese government, there is a new type of SARS that is ripping through this hospital, please notify everyone and keep this isolated!" If you guessed that the Chinese government responded to that hero of a doctor by telling everyone he was making up lies to harm the government, and then throwing him in prison and letting him die of the very disease he discovered and warned everyone about, you'd be correct. "Ok, this is getting bad, we need people to stop all international travel, especially completely unnecessary shit like cruise ships." Wanna guess how that went? "Alright, it's looking like this is everywhere. Everyone needs to stay home as much as possible." "Hey Mr. Science guy?" "Yes, Mr. Government guy?" "Should we recommend people wear masks?" "Yes, masks might or might not stop the spread of covid, but it sure wouldn't hurt." "Hey everyone, Mr. Science guy said masks don't help, so don't bother wearing a mask." Next thing you know, police are trying to break up spring break parties at the beach and kids are assaulting the officers and playing international spin the bottle every day. "Hey, any day now we will have a vaccine and then everything will immediately go back to normal. What? Oh no, I'm not going to bother getting one, but if one exists, the virus will get scared and hide somewhere, right?"

Individual humans are pretty smart, but for fuck's sake, are we ever stupid in large groups! I'm not saying anything in particular would have stopped this from happening, but we just keep doing everything possible to make sure that it keeps going and going.

How long before someone travels from some remote jungle to London, Paris, or New York, carrying the Pi variant, or SARS-CoV-3, or EbolAIDScancerflu? It's almost like humankind wants to wipe itself out. When (not if) the next worldwide disaster happens, I have 100% confidence that we will idiotically lean into it rather than preventing it from getting worse, either because it's inconvenient for us to stop and put out the fire or because we are too prideful to respect something that can kill us or maybe just because "mah freedum..."


----------



## TedEH

bostjan said:


> It's almost like humankind wants to wipe itself out


You say that like there isn't likely some group out there that believes that the 'rona is part of some divine plan to correct for overpopulation or something.


----------



## bostjan

TedEH said:


> You say that like there isn't likely some group out there that believes that the 'rona is part of some divine plan to correct for overpopulation or something.



I don't believe in any sort of divine plan, but here you have a virus that came from one of the most densely human-populated areas in history, and swept across the planet, literally because of excess resource consumption by humans. You can't possibly convince me that overpopulation had nothing to do with the situation we are in.

What's more frightening, perhaps, is that we have Wahhabism, which is a substantially large sect of the world's second-largest religion that teaches absolute destruction of competing philosophies, even if it means mutually assured destruction of Wahhabis. All it's going to take is for one of those people to get ahold of a nuke or two or three, and we're going to be looking at some serious changes in the way we live from day to day.

Also, the more oil we use, the less there is underground, and the less there is underground, the more oil we have to use to get it out. At some point, probably in the next 20-40 years, the amount of energy we will be able to extract from underground oil wells will be less than the energy required to obtain it. That's going to absolutely have an impact on how we live our lives day-to-day.

Also, the more people there are, not only do we face more disease, but all it'll take is one particularly wide-reaching famine, and it could destabilize the world's economy. If the world's economy gets too unstable, food resources won't be able to move as far, which will exacerbate the effects of the problem. With the global climate becoming more and more precarious, something like this is actually fairly likely to happen within our lifetimes.

If all four things coincide, which could be extremely likely as the weather is connected with our energy production, political unrest is connected to our economies, and our economies are dependent on all three other things directly, we could be in for a really rough time. 

But hey, we are all living on a rock spinning around a giant scorching ball of superhot plasma while millions of other rocks simultaneously fling every which way and a large portion of the other life forms here would end us just as soon as they'd smell us, yet we made it this far.


----------



## TedEH

bostjan said:


> we have Wahhabism, which is a substantially large sect of the world's second-largest religion that teaches absolute destruction of competing philosophies


You could just as easily be describing a large sect of most "social" websites.


----------



## nightflameauto

TedEH said:


> You say that like there isn't likely some group out there that believes that the 'rona is part of some divine plan to correct for overpopulation or something.


You want some entertainment with the freak-brigade, hunt down the population control conspiracies. There are people that believe this entire situation was orchestrated by the illuminati to get us down to a "manageable" lower and middle class population that will be easier to control. I wish those fuckers would take the time to write real fictional novels rather than scrawl stupidity on the web. There's some genuine creativity there being channeled through the nuttier parts of the intertubes instead of being used for positive purposes.


----------



## Randy

Gonna stick with my same position on this, despite whatever shifting method/messaging is coming from CDC/whoever.

Get the vaccine, forget whatever messaging you're hearing about the severity of the virus (whatever that virus is) you do NOT want to roll the dice on catching it in the wild, period.

I've seen zero evidence people who had any reaction or possible reaction to the vaccine would've been any better off if they caught the virus raw. All the people saying they're "allergic" to ingredients in the vaccine (assuming they're not lying) know this becuse they've come in contact with them _and survived_. You can't promise the same from getting Covid.


----------



## thebeesknees22

I got my booster yesterday. It was the first time I've talked to people in real life in like a year due to lockdowns and working from home. 

It was extra weird because I don't speak french, and I'm in Quebec so it was all like "uaaaahhhhhuuuuuuhhh.....I have no idea what anyone is saying." lol 

Then I had to feel dumb and ask them to repeat it in english. .... I really need to just be able to download french into my brain since I have zero time to study and learn it. 

I feel fine though. The other shots never really affected me either though.


----------



## ArtDecade

thebeesknees22 said:


> I got my booster yesterday. It was the first time I've talked to people in real life in like a year due to lockdowns and working from home.
> 
> It was extra weird because I don't speak french, and I'm in Quebec so it was all like "uaaaahhhhhuuuuuuhhh.....I have no idea what anyone is saying." lol
> 
> Then I had to feel dumb and ask them to repeat it in english. .... I really need to just be able to download french into my brain since I have zero time to study and learn it.
> 
> I feel fine though. The other shots never really affected me either though.



Don't worry about speaking French. They all speak English. When they act like you are an idiot because they switch to English, you are actually allowing them to warm their French cockles and satisfy their egos. You've made them happy - in a strange way.


----------



## TedEH

I was under the impression you were in Montreal - isn't there a reasonable amount of English there?


----------



## thebeesknees22

TedEH said:


> I was under the impression you were in Montreal - isn't there a reasonable amount of English there?



lol i am in montreal, but i've been trying to learn french. It's just been slow going especially with all heavy overtime I've been working. I gave it an honest go to see if I could understand anything and nope. lol, not a word. It probably didn't help that it was 8:30am and I've been doing 15hr days for the past...2...months.. almost every day. (minus christmas week)




ArtDecade said:


> Don't worry about speaking French. They all speak English. When they act like you are an idiot because they switch to English, you are actually allowing them to warm their French cockles and satisfy their egos. You've made them happy - in a strange way.



haha, at least I have bon journee and merci down. I think they appreciate that at least. I just need to remember all those other words.


----------



## spudmunkey

spudmunkey said:


> From Imgur: "Is her username "Cutie With IQ 1" ?
> 
> She's since died, if I remember correctly.
> 
> [edit: I misread. She's only just a A Herman Cain Award nominee, no confirmation if she's "won"]
> 
> Some supplemental reading:
> 
> View attachment 102142
> 
> 
> View attachment 102144
> 
> 
> View attachment 102141
> 
> 
> View attachment 102140
> 
> 
> View attachment 102143
> 
> 
> 
> [edit 2: This is what I read, but it's not confirmed elsewhere, and this account no longer exists]



Another one from her. Barely 2 weeks later she was put on a ventillator, and hasn't been heard from in 5 days.


----------



## Dave Death

I've had two Astrazeneca vaccine shots and a Pfizer booster.

A sore arm for a day each time. That's it.

As an asthmatic and diabetic I ran in and got vaccinated as soon as I was eligible. No plans to die in some hospital with a giant tube down my throat


----------



## narad

spudmunkey said:


> Another one from her. Barely 2 weeks later she was put on a ventillator, and hasn't been heard from in 5 days.
> View attachment 102157



Clearly one of Mbardu's responsible unvaxxed that had totally legit reasons not to get vaxxed, aren't clogging up hospitals, and shouldn't be punished in any way for their reckless behavior.


----------



## fantom

bostjan said:


> I don't believe in any sort of divine plan, but here you have a virus that came from one of the most densely human-populated areas in history, and swept across the planet, literally because of excess resource consumption by humans. You can't possibly convince me that overpopulation had nothing to do with the situation we are in.
> 
> What's more frightening, perhaps, is that we have Wahhabism, which is a substantially large sect of the world's second-largest religion that teaches absolute destruction of competing philosophies, even if it means mutually assured destruction of Wahhabis. All it's going to take is for one of those people to get ahold of a nuke or two or three, and we're going to be looking at some serious changes in the way we live from day to day.
> 
> Also, the more oil we use, the less there is underground, and the less there is underground, the more oil we have to use to get it out. At some point, probably in the next 20-40 years, the amount of energy we will be able to extract from underground oil wells will be less than the energy required to obtain it. That's going to absolutely have an impact on how we live our lives day-to-day.
> 
> Also, the more people there are, not only do we face more disease, but all it'll take is one particularly wide-reaching famine, and it could destabilize the world's economy. If the world's economy gets too unstable, food resources won't be able to move as far, which will exacerbate the effects of the problem. With the global climate becoming more and more precarious, something like this is actually fairly likely to happen within our lifetimes.
> 
> If all four things coincide, which could be extremely likely as the weather is connected with our energy production, political unrest is connected to our economies, and our economies are dependent on all three other things directly, we could be in for a really rough time.
> 
> But hey, we are all living on a rock spinning around a giant scorching ball of superhot plasma while millions of other rocks simultaneously fling every which way and a large portion of the other life forms here would end us just as soon as they'd smell us, yet we made it this far.


As the great George Carlin once said....

"Save the planet? There is nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine! The people are #[email protected]&Ed."


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> Clearly one of Mbardu's responsible unvaxxed that had totally legit reasons not to get vaxxed, aren't clogging up hospitals, and shouldn't be punished in any way for their reckless behavior.



The thing is... I literally said _multiple times_ that the responsible unvaccinated people - those who have a good reason, are probably a minority. But you are just incapable of even trying to be honest from the get go. Not that it's news, it's your modus operandi, but it's proven once again.

Now- not even getting into how it's always dubious to pick a couple of anecdotes to try and make a point (there are tons of vaccinated people dead as well but obviously those anecdotes are less popular...), so I'll just point out how it's _quite _disgusting to see the level of amused glee in literally the death of another human being.

Whether you agreed with that person, whether she was dumb or not, some would say that's a _weee _bit of celebration for someone's death. But as usual, you do you!


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> Now- not even getting into how it's always dubious to pick a couple of anecdotes to try and make a point (there are tons of vaccinated people dead as well but obviously those anecdotes are less popular...), so I'll just point out how it's _quite _disgusting to see the level of amused glee in literally the death of another human being.
> 
> Whether you agreed with that person, whether she was dumb or not, some would say that's a _weee _bit of celebration for someone's death. But as usual, you do you!



https://darwinawards.com/


----------



## IwantTacos

I mean they died. I didn’t kill them. They killed themselves.


----------



## jaxadam

Whew, this thread was the worst, but man I sure am glad it got back to posting Facebook memes making fun of people almost dead and dying.


----------



## IwantTacos

jaxadam said:


> Whew, this thread was the worst, but man I sure am glad it got back to posting Facebook memes making fun of people almost dead and dying.



i mean fuck all the people preventing me from flying to America and getting tacos.


----------



## ArtDecade

I spent the last two years not seeing friends and family while waiting for vaccines and masking up everywhere I went. I did my part to be a responsible member of society - doing my part not to kill your grandma. The thing is - I don't even like people. In fact, I probably think your grandma is an asshole. If you decided not to get vaccinated because of politics, I won't spare you a passing moment of sympathy. That ship sailed a long time ago. No one wants anyone to get sick and die. Full stop. Get vaccinated so we can get back to not liking each other for better reasons than stupidity.


----------



## TedEH

jaxadam said:


> Whew, this thread was the worst, but man I sure am glad it got back to posting Facebook memes expressing their frustrations about people who are making this whole process more difficult than it needs to be for everyone.


FTFY maybe?


----------



## bostjan

This surge looks like it is coming with a corresponding peak in deaths, but it's not as sharp a spike as previous waves. About 10x the daily positive tests in the USA versus the latest trough (at peak), and about 2x the deaths (so far; we may be wrong about the shorter recovery time with omicron once we see some numbers on the tail end of the curve). While that might sound like bad news or great news, I think it's more like kind-of-good news. It is a signal we are nearing the end of the pandemic phase of covid, but it's also a signal that covid continues to be a nasty disease.

Also, I fully expect that the moment any halfway prominent news outlet starts reporting that we are nearing the end, idiots will be running out into the streets to snot all over each other in jubilation, and we'll likely get another variant as a result.


----------



## LostTheTone

Meanwhile in Britain... *The pandemic has officially been cancelled. *

No more compulsory masks anywhere as of next week. Civil servants being told to get back to work as of today. Compulsory isolation for symptomless cases is scheduled to end literally the same week that I am scheduled to start a tour in March. Perfect 

Now, a difficult ethical question... As some may know my band is called Spreading The Disease. If I encourage that first audience to cough directly into each others faces, is that too soon? Or is that the kind of bad taste that people would expect from us? 

Truely Covid has forced us all to re-evaluate things


----------



## Xaios

thebeesknees22 said:


> I gave it an honest go to see if I could understand anything and nope. lol, not a word.


If it makes you feel any better, I grew up in French Immersion through my entire grade 1-12 schooling, getting good grades throughout, and my French is practically non-existent now, not nearly good enough to understand Francophones.


----------



## thebeesknees22

Xaios said:


> If it makes you feel any better, I grew up in French Immersion through my entire grade 1-12 schooling, getting good grades throughout, and my French is practically non-existent now, not nearly good enough to understand Francophones.




hah yeah it's hard if you're not around it all the time. (and i'm not) Almost everyone I talk to is outside of QC in or out of work. We just speak english at work here too since everything is driven by the west coast. Legault would probably have a heart attack if he knew that. lol


----------



## LostTheTone

Isn't Quebecois French incomprehensible to normal French speakers anyway?


----------



## ArtDecade

LostTheTone said:


> Isn't Quebecois French incomprehensible to normal French speakers anyway?



That is just French people giving French people a hard time. I will allow it.


----------



## TedEH

For a long time I thought I couldn't understand one of my neighbours- I figured she's old and French and just doesn't have enough English, and the accent differences etc meant we had too much of a language barrier. Turns out she used to be fluent in both, but had a stroke. Does this add anything to this thread? No, not really. But it's... a story?


----------



## ArtDecade

TedEH said:


> For a long time I thought I couldn't understand one of my neighbours- I figured she's old and French and just doesn't have enough English, and the accent differences etc meant we had too much of a language barrier. Turns out she used to be fluent in both, but had a stroke. Does this add anything to this thread? No, not really. But it's... a story?



I dunno. Stretch that out over 90 minutes and you basically have a French New Wave film. François Truffaut would have made it into _Jules et Jim et un accident vasculaire cérébral._


----------



## thebeesknees22

TedEH said:


> For a long time I thought I couldn't understand one of my neighbours- I figured she's old and French and just doesn't have enough English, and the accent differences etc meant we had too much of a language barrier. Turns out she used to be fluent in both, but had a stroke. Does this add anything to this thread? No, not really. But it's... a story?



oh that's sad


----------



## LostTheTone

TedEH said:


> For a long time I thought I couldn't understand one of my neighbours- I figured she's old and French and just doesn't have enough English, and the accent differences etc meant we had too much of a language barrier. Turns out she used to be fluent in both, but had a stroke. Does this add anything to this thread? No, not really. But it's... a story?



I had the opposite thing dude - I thought maybe my Swedish mother in law had something wrong with her, turns out she just flatly refuses to speak English. She understands it fine, she just doesn't talk to me. 

Which is a mixed blessing, honestly.


----------



## Adieu

LostTheTone said:


> I had the opposite thing dude - I thought maybe my Swedish mother in law had something wrong with her, turns out she just flatly refuses to speak English. She understands it fine, she just doesn't talk to me.
> 
> Which is a mixed blessing, honestly.



Sounds like she thinks you need a haircut, a shave, a job, and to get the hell away from her daughter?


----------



## LostTheTone

Adieu said:


> Sounds like she thinks you need a haircut, a shave, a job, and to get the hell away from her daughter?



I genuinely have no idea; its hard to ask her as you can imagine. But my father in law is kinda a dude, hes into power metal and such, so I dont think his wife can be totally opposed to the idea. 

But as long as I dont have to hear the complaining I'm none too bothered. There's like a thousand miles and a language barrier between us and I'm comfortable with that.


----------



## narad

LostTheTone said:


> I had the opposite thing dude - I thought maybe my Swedish mother in law had something wrong with her, turns out she just flatly refuses to speak English. She understands it fine, she just doesn't talk to me.
> 
> Which is a mixed blessing, honestly.



I thought the opposite thing was gonna be you having a stroke and suddenly understanding french.


----------



## Adieu

That can actually happen.

My late grandfather suddenly switched to speaking pure Ukrainian at the very end. Probably 60+ years since he had last spoken it.


----------



## bostjan

narad said:


> I thought the opposite thing was gonna be you having a stroke and suddenly understanding french.


O tabarnak, mon cerveau!

It's not really funny, but, well, I'm warped and going to hell. I heard a story about a Canadian lady who had a stroke and suddenly developed a really thick Newfoundland accent, even though she was never from Newfoundland. So, it's almost plausible.


----------



## LostTheTone

bostjan said:


> O tabarnak, mon cerveau!
> 
> It's not really funny, but, well, I'm warped and going to hell. I heard a story about a Canadian lady who had a stroke and suddenly developed a really thick Newfoundland accent, even though she was never from Newfoundland. So, it's almost plausible.



Am I the only one who thinks Noofie accents are adorable?


----------



## bostjan

LostTheTone said:


> Am I the only one who thinks Noofie accents are adorable?


G'wan b'y!


----------



## TedEH

LostTheTone said:


> Am I the only one who thinks Noofie accents are adorable?


You might be. 



thebeesknees22 said:


> oh that's sad


It is, but at the same time, she tries, is always pleasant/friendly, seems to be in good spirits as far as I can tell most of the time.


----------



## TedEH

Just got back from the booster. I know it's supposed to take a week or two to kick in, but I feel pretty heroic already.


----------



## Xaios

LostTheTone said:


> Am I the only one who thinks Noofie accents are adorable?





TedEH said:


> You might be.


I've come around on it. Mainly from watching many episodes of "Still Standing" on CBC.


----------



## LostTheTone

Xaios said:


> I've come around on it. Mainly from watching many episodes of "Still Standing" on CBC.



I got it from Republic Of Doyle on Netflix.


----------



## Randy




----------



## spudmunkey

My afternoon, in two acts.

Act 1:
I stopped at a hardware store, and while waiting my turn in line, I could overhear the conversation between the customer in front of me and the cashier.

The customer is moving to Texas, and moved their kids ahead of time so they could start the semester at the new school. While there, they lived with the grandparents in TX while the parents finished up everything with the sale of the old house in California, moving the rest of their stuff into the new home, and getting the new house ready. The kids were in Texas for 1 week. Both kids got COVID in school (one got sick, but it was only mild), and then both grandparents tested positive. Grandma's going in to the hospital this evening because she's feeling a little unwell, and they want to get ahead of it. He said, "How do I tell my kids that they didn't hurt grandma? Of course, nobody wears a mask out there..." [I'll note that there is a mask mandate in California, and was preemptively put in place in this city and county even when the state didn't have one]

Act II:
On my way home, I drive past a small gun store that's right at a corner where I make a turn into my neighborhood. While waiting at the light, I see the line of people outside the store (there's been a line all day, every day, since the start of the pandemic). Everyone's wearing a mask on the sidewalk. A police officer walks up the locked expended-metal door, lowers his mask to talk to someone on the other side of this open door. The person on the other side opens the door, and isn't wearing a mask. The police officer walks in, takes off his mask, and through the doorway, you can see 3 other people in the tiny store not wearing masks.

*sigh*


----------



## thebeesknees22

My mom's school in Missouri shut down for the week due to 25 out of 113 teachers being out with Covid.

Sounds like schools in springfield, MO are going to virtual learning again. It's probably a matter of time before the surrounding areas go too.


----------



## TedEH

So I was browsing used ads for music junk and video game junk, as I do, and got baited into a dumb conversation by an ad for a gamecube game that would have been underpriced for it's value if the ad had been real-
Instead, when I asked about it, the guy immediately dove into full-on plandemic infowars mode. He played the hits: hoax, plandemic, sheeple, stockholm syndrome. "Don't tell me you're afraid of air?" was a new one.

But the best was his threat of fungal bioweapons:


----------



## narad

TedEH said:


> So I was browsing used ads for music junk and video game junk, as I do, and got baited into a dumb conversation by an ad for a gamecube game that would have been underpriced for it's value if the ad had been real-
> Instead, when I asked about it, the guy immediately dove into full-on plandemic infowars mode. He played the hits: hoax, plandemic, sheeple, stockholm syndrome. "Don't tell me you're afraid of air?" was a new one.
> 
> But the best was his threat of fungal bioweapons:
> View attachment 102287



Sounds like every new SSO account that comes directly to Off Topic.


----------



## MaxOfMetal

narad said:


> Sounds like every new SSO account that comes directly to Off Topic.



Or the Abasi/Larada thread.


----------



## narad

MaxOfMetal said:


> Or the Abasi/Larada thread.



OMW


----------



## Adieu

Dammit Texas, get your sh!t together

Or don't... maybe it'll help keep the house prices low.

Not like I'm ever going to be able to afford decent California real estate working for a living anyway.



spudmunkey said:


> My afternoon, in two acts.
> 
> Act 1:
> I stopped at a hardware store, and while waiting my turn in line, I could overhear the conversation between the customer in front of me and the cashier.
> 
> The customer is moving to Texas, and moved their kids ahead of time so they could start the semester at the new school. While there, they lived with the grandparents in TX while the parents finished up everything with the sale of the old house in California, moving the rest of their stuff into the new home, and getting the new house ready. The kids were in Texas for 1 week. Both kids got COVID in school (one got sick, but it was only mild), and then both grandparents tested positive. Grandma's going in to the hospital this evening because she's feeling a little unwell, and they want to get ahead of it. He said, "How do I tell my kids that they didn't hurt grandma? Of course, nobody wears a mask out there..." [I'll note that there is a mask mandate in California, and was preemptively put in place in this city and county even when the state didn't have one]
> 
> Act II:
> On my way home, I drive past a small gun store that's right at a corner where I make a turn into my neighborhood. While waiting at the light, I see the line of people outside the store (there's been a line all day, every day, since the start of the pandemic). Everyone's wearing a mask on the sidewalk. A police officer walks up the locked expended-metal door, lowers his mask to talk to someone on the other side of this open door. The person on the other side opens the door, and isn't wearing a mask. The police officer walks in, takes off his mask, and through the doorway, you can see 3 other people in the tiny store not wearing masks.
> 
> *sigh*


----------



## LostTheTone

TedEH said:


> So I was browsing used ads for music junk and video game junk, as I do, and got baited into a dumb conversation by an ad for a gamecube game that would have been underpriced for it's value if the ad had been real-
> Instead, when I asked about it, the guy immediately dove into full-on plandemic infowars mode. He played the hits: hoax, plandemic, sheeple, stockholm syndrome. "Don't tell me you're afraid of air?" was a new one.
> 
> But the best was his threat of fungal bioweapons:
> View attachment 102287



Yeah but... How can you PROVE something you can't even SEE. Oh how convenient Mr Scientist, it's all caused by something so small you that you need to be a scientist to detect it with your special science equipment, funded no doubt by the Rothschilds and George Soros. It's like magnets dude, how do they even work? They're lying to us all! 



Adieu said:


> Dammit Texas, get your sh!t together



It's more complicated than that though man. Sweden's attitude to the whole thing has been "What fucking pandemic?" and they are doing fine. My in-laws only just got their boosters, two months behind me and my wife in the UK, so clearly there isnt a lot of urgency felt regarding that over there. When we were in Malmö for our honeymoon, people could tell we were tourists because we wore masks. 

California, which has taken a very strict approach, is pretty much tied with Sweden in terms of deaths per capita, where they have done almost nothing. People were driving to Sweden from Denmark and Holland to get a haircut, because all their hairdressers were shut. Texas is pretty much tied with the UK, even though Texas has had fewer measures than we have here. And Texas is still a little under the US average. Oh and in the UK, the parts with the strictest measures, in Wales and Scotland, have had the highest rates for ages. 

Point being, no-one fucking knows what to do. Each government just has to do whatever they think is best, and in the end I strongly suspect that it will all end up being a total wash. 

Like I said above, here in Britain we have cancelled everything this week. All the measures will be gone utterly by March. Ireland has also announced they are doing the same.

In mainland Europe though, where measures have been genuinely authoritarian, their winter wave is still going and is still four times over our peak. Forced vaccination just passed in Austria, and the Germans seem ready to follow suit. These are both countries with near identical rates of vaccination to the UK, by the way. Germany has a lower death rate than California too, but wants to be harsher anyway.

When it comes to imposing such measures, a critical question is "How much difference will it make?". And the answer two years in seems to be "We have no idea". 

Quite aside from anything else; kids in California can still give grandparents Covid. Vaccines make you less likely to die, but if you are old you are still at a significant risk anyway. It's not like Texan grandparents don't know what Covid is. They chose to take the kids in, right? And it sucks if they die, but if they knew the risks and agreed to do it... Are you really going to say that the cops need to come and force old people to live alone for several more years?


----------



## MaxOfMetal

LostTheTone said:


> It's not like Texan grandparents don't know what Covid is. They chose to take the kids in, right? And it sucks if they die, but if they knew the risks and agreed to do it... Are you really going to say that the cops need to come and force old people to live alone for several more years?



If Grandma and Grandpa Texas want to die to see the grand kids that's fine, they can make that choice, but they're also going to clog the healthcare system to make that happen, and that's going to prevent others from receiving care, be it for covid, a heart attack, stroke, cancer treatment, etc. 

Why do they get to condemn others to die? 

This isn't a hypothetical. The largest hospital in my county is closed due to shortages of beds, equipment, and staffing. Same for more than one network of urgent care. So if I have a stroke or a heart attack it's no longer a 10 minute ambulance ride, but 40 minutes to the nearest cath-lab or ER that's open. They seem to close more and more with each passing week or month.


----------



## Randy

Liberal Boomers: Getting the vaccine is no big deal, idiot Trumpies.

Also Liberal Boomers: I shouldn't have to wear a mask anymore, I went through the trouble of getting the vaccine!


----------



## SpaceDock

SpaceDock said:


> One of the guys I work with and his eight year old daughter are both on ventilators. Get vaccinated people.



Well my coworker died after a couple weeks on the vent. Leaves behind his wife and two children both under ten. Really owning the libs. Get vaccinated!! Tell those you care about to get vaccinated!!


----------



## narad

SpaceDock said:


> Well my coworker died after a couple weeks on the vent. Leaves behind his wife and two children both under ten. Really owning the libs. Get vaccinated!! Tell those you care about to get vaccinated!!



Damn, how old was he?

I'm a little worried since cases in Tokyo are starting to skyrocket. It's not nearly as bad as you would think for a dense city compared to like USA city numbers, but we have very little exposure and quite low vacc rates, and I can't managed a booster for another 3-4 month. Feel like I have a reasonable chance at getting it within that timeframe.


----------



## TedEH

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-...ses-of-covid-19-vaccine-in-one-shot-1.5750028

tl;dr: They forgot to dilute the vaccine they were given, so something like 20+ people got a 6x concentrated version accidentally.


----------



## nightflameauto

In a surprise twist that I never expected in a million years in this state, the wars between the maskers and anti-maskers hit a new milestone. While several stores and restaurants in the local area have signs up saying they will remove you forcibly if you are wearing a mask (because apparently someone else doing something to protect themselves and others is horribly off-putting to some folks), two stores over the last week put up signs saying 15-25% off all items if you wear a mask.

Holy shit, the heads exploding when people see those signs! Epic battles are sure to come. The first one to put up the sign already has protesters lining up. This should lead to plenty of moments of stupid in the coming days. Especially if the weather warms up enough the protesters don't need to take cover every once in a while.


----------



## Crungy

Will they remove you if try to wash your hands or use hand sanitizer too? Unfuckingbelievable. 

What store is doing that?


----------



## Adieu

nightflameauto said:


> In a surprise twist that I never expected in a million years in this state, the wars between the maskers and anti-maskers hit a new milestone. While several stores and restaurants in the local area have signs up saying they will remove you forcibly if you are wearing a mask (because apparently someone else doing something to protect themselves and others is horribly off-putting to some folks), two stores over the last week put up signs saying 15-25% off all items if you wear a mask.
> 
> Holy shit, the heads exploding when people see those signs! Epic battles are sure to come. The first one to put up the sign already has protesters lining up. This should lead to plenty of moments of stupid in the coming days. Especially if the weather warms up enough the protesters don't need to take cover every once in a while.



Sioux Falls, seriously?

Seemed like a nice laid-back place just a few years ago


----------



## nightflameauto

Adieu said:


> Sioux Falls, seriously?
> 
> Seemed like a nice laid-back place just a few years ago


It's mostly laid-back, but the current political climate really got the reds fired the fuck up.

There's several restaurants with signs up about no masks being allowed. Also a few of the mechanic's shops have them up.

Some of my coworkers are absolutely mental. Deep into the far-right conspiracy theory lunacy. And they seemed like reasonable people right up to the 2020 election. Then they just dove off the deep end, hard. The number of meetings I've left because two or more of them get to trading Q level bullshit back and forth instead of focusing on the meeting is sorta ridiculous at this point. A couple of them have gotten pulled aside by HR and the CEO for a private talk about boundaries, and one even got a few days off to think about what he was doing after sending a company-wide email with a "Today's the day when Trump storms the white house and kicks out Biden and blah blah blah" message.

I'm sometimes shocked by how stupid some people can be, though it's sadly a lot less shocking today than it was a few months ago.


----------



## SpaceDock

Guy I knew was 41, overweight. Thought vaccine was for the weak and those without faith.


----------



## Adieu

Shoulda fired him for misinformation. On the very next day.

Not for something debatable, but because Biden clearly didn't get kicked out yesterday.


----------



## Xaios

TedEH said:


> https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-...ses-of-covid-19-vaccine-in-one-shot-1.5750028
> 
> tl;dr: They forgot to dilute the vaccine they were given, so something like 20+ people got a 6x concentrated version accidentally.


Okay, NOW it's time for this.


----------



## Drew

Been slammed at work lately, and I'm just on for a couple minutes before my next meeting. Have I missed anything important here?


----------



## TedEH

Well, Quebec is now requiring vaccine passports in all box stores, so that's a thing. No jabs, no groceries. Either get it delivered or send someone who is allowed in.


----------



## Drew

fantom said:


> Maybe I'm missing something... But isn't this just correlation is not causation?
> 
> Is it possible that in a population with parasitic worms, either the worm itself or the immune system primed to fight the worm lowers the death rate? Do any of these studies actually show the use of ivermectin on people without parasites as a basis?


I can't say for sure whether they monitored parasitic infection, I only say the summary data. 

It absolutely could be correlation being mistaken for causation. But, I'm less inclined to think it's unrelated for two reasons: 

1) the relationship was quite strong - countries with no widespread prevalence of parasitic infection saw a negligible impact on outcomes from treatment with ivermectin, countries with high prevalence saw a fairly significant effect. 
2) there's a plausible_ reason_ for the relationship to exist - paraitic infection is a comorbidity that would weaken the body's ability to fight back against something else. 

When you have a strong relationship that makes logical sense, it still falls short of proving in any formal sense that the relationship is causality and not mere correlation (or some secoond order effect with both variables being related to a third), but it becomes quite a bit more plausible to be causally related.


----------



## LordCashew

thebeesknees22 said:


> I got my booster yesterday...




Hey, I'm just curious what happened with the tinnitus you were experiencing after your original vaccination. I had something similar happen, although mine was in both ears intermittently at different frequencies. Not something I'd ever experienced before, but I didn't suspect the vaccine until after I read your post. Just found out a few days ago my boss had something very similar happen in the same timeframe. 

Hopefully this doesn't add to any controversy here. I was going to DM you but apparently your profile settings don't allow it. For the record I am not anti-vax.


----------



## thebeesknees22

LordIronSpatula said:


> Hey, I'm just curious what happened with the tinnitus you were experiencing after your original vaccination. I had something similar happen, although mine was in both ears intermittently at different frequencies. Not something I'd ever experienced before, but I didn't suspect the vaccine until after I read your post. Just found out a few days ago my boss had something very similar happen in the same timeframe.
> 
> Hopefully this doesn't add to any controversy here. I was going to DM you but apparently your profile settings don't allow it. For the record I am not anti-vax.




oh yeah fair question. That tinnitus I had went away after 2-3 months. 

I haven't had any issues at all with the booster. No extra fatigue or anything (well I say no fatigue, but I've been working 85-90+ hr weeks so I mean... I'm just dead tired period from that ha)

I can't say 100% sure what caused it last time, but it did eventually go away. Thankfully it hasn't returned with the booster. *got pfizer all 3 times


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> I can't say for sure whether they monitored parasitic infection, I only say the summary data.
> 
> It absolutely could be correlation being mistaken for causation. But, I'm less inclined to think it's unrelated for two reasons:
> 
> 1) the relationship was quite strong - countries with no widespread prevalence of parasitic infection saw a negligible impact on outcomes from treatment with ivermectin, countries with high prevalence saw a fairly significant effect.
> 2) there's a plausible_ reason_ for the relationship to exist - paraitic infection is a comorbidity that would weaken the body's ability to fight back against something else.
> 
> When you have a strong relationship that makes logical sense, it still falls short of proving in any formal sense that the relationship is causality and not mere correlation (or some secoond order effect with both variables being related to a third), but it becomes quite a bit more plausible to be causally related.


The trouble is that in order to directly test causation rather than correlation through experiment, you'd have to take a bunch of people and then give some of them covid, give others worms, and give some of whatever is left both covid and worms. Sometimes in medicine (often times, perhaps), strong correlation is the best data you can realistically hope to see.


----------



## LordCashew

thebeesknees22 said:


> oh yeah fair question. That tinnitus I had went away after 2-3 months.
> 
> I haven't had any issues at all with the booster. No extra fatigue or anything (well I say no fatigue, but I've been working 85-90+ hr weeks so I mean... I'm just dead tired period from that ha)
> 
> I can't say 100% sure what caused it last time, but it did eventually go away. Thankfully it hasn't returned with the booster. *got pfizer all 3 times


Thanks, that's good to hear. 

For me, the intermittent stuff has become much less frequent but I'm still noticing an increased level of "noise floor" in my hearing about 5 months from my second dose (also Pfizer).

Reports of tinnitus following Covid vaccination are something like 1 in 40,000 in the US and 1 in 8,000 in the UK. Given those odds I find it strange that I know of 3 people (myself included) who have experienced it. I guess it's possible that as musicians we're more likely to notice discrepancies in our auditory experience of the world. 

Of course it's possible it's all coincidental too...


----------



## bostjan

I've had a pretty constant tinnitus since I was in my 20's. But I remember when I just started noticing it, it would start up any time I was under more stress than usual. Maybe that has something to do with it, but probably not.

Anyway, there are medical studies about it, but mostly they don't really reach a conclusion.


----------



## Adieu

Stacked a Moderna booster an hour ago over 2 Pfizers from last April and May

...damn. Either I currently have coronavirus and didn't know this or these side effects are something else.

Feels like a mild concussion. Can't quite follow conversation, noticeable confusion, short-term memory is unreliable (shopping groceries on my way back was VERY confusing), dropping stuff, possibly not walking entirely straight, I think I may have had mild auditory hallucinations, and it's a good thing I didn't hit that pedestrian (exaggerating a bit, but very glad I only had to drive 1.5 mi).


----------



## bostjan

Adieu said:


> Stacked a Moderna booster an hour ago over 2 Pfizers from last April and May
> 
> ...damn. Either I currently have coronavirus and didn't know this or these side effects are something else.
> 
> Feels like a mild concussion. Can't quite follow conversation, noticeable confusion, short-term memory is unreliable (shopping groceries on my way back was VERY confusing), dropping stuff, possibly not walking entirely straight, I think I may have had mild auditory hallucinations, and it's a good thing I didn't hit that pedestrian (exaggerating a bit, but very glad I only had to drive 1.5 mi).


My mom had the Pfizer and then she said switching to the Moderna booster messed her up, too. It makes me wonder if there's an efficacy issue going on there.


----------



## thebeesknees22

LordIronSpatula said:


> Thanks, that's good to hear.
> 
> For me, the intermittent stuff has become much less frequent but I'm still noticing an increased level of "noise floor" in my hearing about 5 months from my second dose (also Pfizer).
> 
> Reports of tinnitus following Covid vaccination are something like 1 in 40,000 in the US and 1 in 8,000 in the UK. Given those odds I find it strange that I know of 3 people (myself included) who have experienced it. I guess it's possible that as musicians we're more likely to notice discrepancies in our auditory experience of the world.
> 
> Of course it's possible it's all coincidental too...




yeah no one else in my social circle experienced it. But for a while last summer when I had it, maaaan, was it obnoxious. It wasn't mild at all. 

Thankfully nothing on this go.


----------



## spudmunkey

The reporting of a couple of European studies i saw said that the most-effecrive cocktail was starting with Pfizer, with a Moderna booster.


----------



## Crungy

Interesting to hear the tinnitus side effects, I had not heard of that happening. I've also had tinnitus most of my life so if it changed anything there I did not notice. The only thing I noticed was some slight tingling in my left hand after the first shot, nothing for the second and booster (all Pfizer).

I did get tested today and will hopefully have results in 2-3 days at most. It's been a weekend of homemade soup and Stardew Valley when I'm awake. Also thankful it's been only one day of fever vs days of it like my brother had.


----------



## TedEH

I could imagine tinnitus being a side effect if it's affecting blood pressure maybe? Is that a thing? I've got nothing to back that up.


----------



## Randy

Can confirm I've known two people who experienced tinnitus after getting the vax.


----------



## ArtDecade

My armpits got swollen from the booster. I already have tinnitus because Marshall amps are loud and clubs are small - it was the 80s/90s.


----------



## TedEH

I think I got really lucky as far as side-effects go. One and two felt like a strong bunch to the arm, but number three was like a really weak punch to the arm that I mostly forgot about a day later.


----------



## Bodes

Got my booster 2 weeks ago.
1st dose, AZ: kicked my arse from here to Timbuktu.
2nd dose, AZ: slightly tender arm when bumped only.
3rd dose: Pfizer: slightly worse tender arm than 2nd dose.

Not looking forward to heading back to work on Monday. Hope all meetings can be done via video link.


----------



## Randy

"I’m done with COVID” is the equivalent of offering “thoughts and prayers” after a mass shooting. It’s a bromide, not a remedy.


----------



## profwoot

ArtDecade said:


> My armpits got swollen from the booster. I already have tinnitus because Marshall amps are loud and clubs are small - it was the 80s/90s.



FYI, this is a desired response. The armpits have a bunch of lymph nodes so if they get swollen post-injection it means the appropriate immune response is happening.

I did Moderna x3 and had no issues other than pain at the injection site and swollen lymph nodes, although it was important that I be functional after the 2nd one so I could have masked something with all the ibuprofen I took.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> The trouble is that in order to directly test causation rather than correlation through experiment, you'd have to take a bunch of people and then give some of them covid, give others worms, and give some of whatever is left both covid and worms. Sometimes in medicine (often times, perhaps), strong correlation is the best data you can realistically hope to see.


Agreed, and there are statistical tests to measure the probability that a relationship is coincidence and correlation, or actual causation. By the time you're talking p-values of like 0.05% or so, general practice is to reject the null hypothesis that what you're seeing is mere correlation. I'm like 99% sure you know this, but just mentioning it in passing for the rest of the room.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> Agreed, and there are statistical tests to measure the probability that a relationship is coincidence and correlation, or actual causation. By the time you're talking p-values of like 0.05% or so, general practice is to reject the null hypothesis that what you're seeing is mere correlation. I'm like 99% sure you know this, but just mentioning it in passing for the rest of the room.


Well, even at that, you could get p=1.00 between x and y and it doesn't mean x is a function of y any more than it means y is a function of x. That has to be determined by control of variables, or, in cases like this, context. And since it's 2022 and no one understands the context of anything anymore...


----------



## narad

It happened:

*Unvaccinated man denied heart transplant by Boston hospital*

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60132765


----------



## Demiurge

I feel like if you're willing to undergo an organ transplant, a couple pokey-pokes isn't really a whole big deal.


----------



## Randy




----------



## bostjan

Always love the logic-pretzel that is "get the virus so you have immunity, because having immunity means you don't get the virus."


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

Adieu said:


> Stacked a Moderna booster an hour ago over 2 Pfizers from last April and May
> 
> ...damn. Either I currently have coronavirus and didn't know this or these side effects are something else.
> 
> Feels like a mild concussion. Can't quite follow conversation, noticeable confusion, short-term memory is unreliable (shopping groceries on my way back was VERY confusing), dropping stuff, possibly not walking entirely straight, I think I may have had mild auditory hallucinations, and it's a good thing I didn't hit that pedestrian (exaggerating a bit, but very glad I only had to drive 1.5 mi).


Feeling any better? I got a Moderna booster and it affected me more than any of the other shots I got. She molar effects to what you described, and lasted about a week. I felt like I had the flu, and it affected my school work. I gave up on studying for two days.


----------



## LordCashew

bostjan said:


> Always love the logic-pretzel that is "get the virus so you have immunity, because having immunity means you don't get the virus."


Yeah...

I got Covid and gave it to my wife despite both of us being fully vaccinated and not yet due for a boost. Maybe this is the silver lining, and we have "super immunity" now. 

If true, I wonder what the point of a booster would be for people in our situation. I both got Covid and transmitted it despite being current on vaccinations. Then I recovered. I could see there being a logical argument that perhaps being vaccinated made the situation less dangerous for me. But now that I've both been vaccinated and survived the disease, why get another dose of a current vaccine if I already know that not only can I still catch and transmit Covid, but also can easily recover from the disease? The argument that I "might be keeping a hospital bed open for someone else" seems pretty weak in this situation. Barring a new, more dangerous strain, it seems super unlikely that round one of Covid is a two-day head cold, and round two puts me in the hospital.

Also, I don't want to roll the dice on more tinnitus...


----------



## bostjan

LordIronSpatula said:


> Yeah...
> 
> I got Covid and gave it to my wife despite both of us being fully vaccinated and not yet due for a boost. Maybe this is the silver lining, and we have "super immunity" now.
> 
> If true, I wonder what the point of a booster would be for people in our situation. I both got Covid and transmitted it despite being current on vaccinations. Then I recovered. I could see there being a logical argument that perhaps being vaccinated made the situation less dangerous for me. But now that I've both been vaccinated and survived the disease, why get another dose of a current vaccine if I already know that not only can I still catch and transmit Covid, but also can easily recover from the disease? The argument that I "might be keeping a hospital bed open for someone else" seems pretty weak in this situation. Barring a new, more dangerous strain, it seems super unlikely that round one of Covid is a two-day head cold, and round two puts me in the hospital.
> 
> Also, I don't want to roll the dice on more tinnitus...



Well, I hate to sound like a broken record too much, but immunity fades over time and there is quite a bit of evidence that the six month timeframe between shots may be optimistic.

I hope this leads to a new era of scientific literacy of the general public so that they understand that immunity is not a binary operation like a plate of armor over your immune system, it's more like a fire drill for your body, and if the plan is complex or the time between drills is too long, they are less effective, but even some level of efficacy is measurably different than none.

Also, vaccinated people tend to spend less time shedding as much of the virus, so, even if you and unvaccinated person X are equally contagious at peak, if you integrate that contagiousness over time, person X has a much larger cross section of spacetime within which they could successfully infect someone else. I know it sounds like a consolation prize, but it's a pretty big deal when you're dealing with the epidemiological variables on a large scale.

The tool that's missing from the kit to fight covid right now is an effective treatment.

Anyway, I hope you stay healthy.

Sidetrack: The media is now reporting stuff about "stealth omicron," which sounds intriguing, but it's just a covid strain that behaves (we think, but aren't sure) like omicron, but is genetically different (so, frankly, it's not really omicron). This could be good news or bad news - maybe it's a sign that the gamut of variety of mutations becoming endemic are going to be less severe, or maybe it's just another sign that there are going to be a lot more mutations entering the wild.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Well, even at that, you could get p=1.00 between x and y and it doesn't mean x is a function of y any more than it means y is a function of x. That has to be determined by control of variables, or, in cases like this, context. And since it's 2022 and no one understands the context of anything anymore...


 Yes, but you know what I mean. Taken far enough, NOTHING is knowable as objective fact because all we have is our subjective abilities to observe data and draw conclusions from it, and as the old joke goes, just because the sun has risen in the east and set in the west for all of recorded human history, doesn't mean we KNOW it will do the same tomorrow. It's just a bet I'd happily take if anyone gave me odds.


----------



## Drew

narad said:


> It happened:
> 
> *Unvaccinated man denied heart transplant by Boston hospital*
> 
> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60132765


This is actually probably less controversial than it sounds. 

It is VERY hard to get a heart transplant - the list of people waiting for one is a LOT longer than the list of donors. So, hospitals want to be pretty sure that if they give someone a heart transplant, it' going somewhere it's likely to extend someone's life to the greatest degree possible. Elderly recipients have the same problem - if you're 88 years old and want a heart transplant, you might get a couple extra years of life from it, whereas someone who's 55 and needs a transplant is likely to get at least 20. You direct a scarce resource to where it would do the most good. 

Meanwhile, an organ transplant FUCKS your immune system, in part because ANY major surgery is a blow to it, but also because intentionally suppressing the immune system is part of the process to allow your body to not reject the new organ and attack it. Even a cold can be extremely dangerous, and the flu, while recovering from an organ donor, is a matter of life and death. 

So, an unvaccinated individual in line for a heart replacement is going to be severely immunocompromised after surgery (in the middle of a covid surge here in Boston where hospitals are struggling with staffing levels due to the prevalence of breakthrough cases, no less), and with no protection against covid, an infection will very likely be fatal. This is simple resource optimization. 

My guess is this hasn't come up before now simply because we haven't had someone eligible for a major organ donor surgery like this who was choosing not to be vaccinated until now.


----------



## bostjan

Drew said:


> Yes, but you know what I mean. Taken far enough, NOTHING is knowable as objective fact because all we have is our subjective abilities to observe data and draw conclusions from it, and as the old joke goes, just because the sun has risen in the east and set in the west for all of recorded human history, doesn't mean we KNOW it will do the same tomorrow. It's just a bet I'd happily take if anyone gave me odds.


I agree.

Also, my point was that the correlation between two data sets doesn't tell you which thing is the cause of which other thing. X might cause Y, Y might cause X, or X and Y might be mutually caused by some other thing Z that wasn't measured. You have to use rational thought at some point or another, and although I'm confident that you've got that skill down quite well, I'm really not at all certain how well the US media can follow along with the program.


----------



## nightflameauto

bostjan said:


> I hope this leads to a new era of scientific literacy of the general public


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!


> so that they understand that immunity is not a binary operation like a plate of armor over your immune system


You should know that there's probably entire "think tanks" relegated to creating fictions about that involving fairies, leprechauns and garden gnomes that all answer to the pizza basement of liberal child molesting cannibals.


----------



## bostjan

nightflameauto said:


> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
> 
> You should know that there's probably entire "think tanks" relegated to creating fictions about that involving fairies, leprechauns and garden gnomes that all answer to the pizza basement of liberal child molesting cannibals.


Yeah, I suppose I was being overly optimistic. There's no way people will gain a better understanding of vaccines if they think that they are powered by 5G microchips


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> I agree.
> 
> Also, my point was that the correlation between two data sets doesn't tell you which thing is the cause of which other thing. X might cause Y, Y might cause X, or X and Y might be mutually caused by some other thing Z that wasn't measured. You have to use rational thought at some point or another, and although I'm confident that you've got that skill down quite well, I'm really not at all certain how well the US media can follow along with the program.


Yeah, and that's kind of what I was getting at in my original post on this side-thread, if you will - if there's a reasonable _explanation_ for why X might cause Y, then I'm more likely to accept causality with a correlation between X and Y then when I have no fucking clue what's happening, but they sure correlate awfully tightly.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Yeah, I suppose I was being overly optimistic. There's no way people will gain a better understanding of vaccines if they think that they are powered by 5G microchips


You are.  I admire you for it, but you are. 

(It's also worth mentioning that as the coronavirus causing covid-19 is a novel virus, not one that has historically infected humanity, our immune response is very different from one where we have a long evolutionary history of being exposed to it and fighting it off, where immunity tends to be a LOT more long-term. But, like, we're already making distinctions your average Fox News or MSNBC viewer will probably miss).


----------



## CovertSovietBear

bostjan said:


> Sidetrack: The media is now reporting stuff about "stealth omicron," which sounds intriguing, but it's just a covid strain that behaves (we think, but aren't sure) like omicron, but is genetically different (so, frankly, it's not really omicron).



- Son of Omicron - 

RNA polymerase go brrr

On a related side note I had a 1 on 1 meeting with another collaborator in a small office and they tested positive on Monday. We were masked (California) and boosted and my test came back negative. 
Going to watch out for an itchy throat or loss of taste but the collaborator didn't have any symptoms this week or last. 
We'll see how it goes


----------



## narad

Drew said:


> This is actually probably less controversial than it sounds.
> 
> It is VERY hard to get a heart transplant - the list of people waiting for one is a LOT longer than the list of donors. So, hospitals want to be pretty sure that if they give someone a heart transplant, it' going somewhere it's likely to extend someone's life to the greatest degree possible. Elderly recipients have the same problem - if you're 88 years old and want a heart transplant, you might get a couple extra years of life from it, whereas someone who's 55 and needs a transplant is likely to get at least 20. You direct a scarce resource to where it would do the most good.
> 
> Meanwhile, an organ transplant FUCKS your immune system, in part because ANY major surgery is a blow to it, but also because intentionally suppressing the immune system is part of the process to allow your body to not reject the new organ and attack it. Even a cold can be extremely dangerous, and the flu, while recovering from an organ donor, is a matter of life and death.
> 
> So, an unvaccinated individual in line for a heart replacement is going to be severely immunocompromised after surgery (in the middle of a covid surge here in Boston where hospitals are struggling with staffing levels due to the prevalence of breakthrough cases, no less), and with no protection against covid, an infection will very likely be fatal. This is simple resource optimization.
> 
> My guess is this hasn't come up before now simply because we haven't had someone eligible for a major organ donor surgery like this who was choosing not to be vaccinated until now.



Yea, it seems reasonable, but before when I was trying to make this comparison with @mbardu he was dismissing it. But yea, I'm not surprised.

I feel bad for the guy but you have to be crazy to rather not get a heart transplant than take a vaccine. If I was in that condition you could give me all sorts of crazy rituals to do, and regardless of whether they align closely with my preferences, I'm going to do them. At least it's some sort of natural selection process against those who are fatally stubborn.


----------



## bostjan

There might be a lot of assumptions involved in how we perceive that story.

I've actually personally known four people who got organ transplants and none of them made it five years afterward. There may be cases where a person is perfectly healthy other than a bad kidney or something, but I bet those are pretty rare. Also, the technology _is_ getting better every year, but, generally, if a person needs an organ transplant to survive, that person's health is generally not so good. As @Drew mentioned, after a transplant, your immune system will never be as strong as it was before.


----------



## bostjan

Superspreader Palin: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...ant-two-days-testing-positive-covid-rcna13790


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

bostjan said:


> Superspreader Palin: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...ant-two-days-testing-positive-covid-rcna13790


Dumber than a sack of wet mice.


----------



## vilk

Question for you science guys:

*Does keeping windows open really make any difference?
*
My understanding of how this virus spreads is that when an uncovered mouth speaks, coughs, sneezes, etc. little tiny invisible droplets of liquid fly out, and if you get these on your face (or on your hands and then touch your face) it will get inside you. 

So how does having windows open help with that? I mean, these droplets can fly through the air, but they aren't like a floating cloud that fills the room... Right? Or am I mistaken on this?

In Japan everyone is very strict about keeping the windows open even though it's freezing out and there's no central heating. Everyone wears masks here, which I believe is primarily the reason that numbers are so much lower here compared to anti-mask countries. Do you really think the window thing factors in? Just curious.


----------



## bostjan

If there's a breeze, the droplets that fall on surfaces will get spread out more, making infection less likely, but it's a little stretch.


----------



## Randy

Not a science guy but I've heard stagnant unfiltered air allows the gross infected air to just waft around in the space with you, open window (especially in a moving vehicle) seemingly cycling air out and fresh air in so you're not in the space with high volume of gross air.

I assume this based on how fast a fart or bad breath leave the car when you crack a window. Or I guess also pot or cigarette smoke.

Bigger question would be if open window and I guess accelerating air movement blasts infected air into your face before it exits, that idk. Reminds me of the myth busters test to see if you get wetter in rain walking or running, because even though you're in the rain less time, you're covering the same amount of ground and also moving horizontally through water as it's falling infront of you at a higher rate, possibly. I forgot the outcome.


----------



## narad

vilk said:


> Question for you science guys:
> 
> *Does keeping windows open really make any difference?
> *
> My understanding of how this virus spreads is that when an uncovered mouth speaks, coughs, sneezes, etc. little tiny invisible droplets of liquid fly out, and if you get these on your face (or on your hands and then touch your face) it will get inside you.
> 
> So how does having windows open help with that? I mean, these droplets can fly through the air, but they aren't like a floating cloud that fills the room... Right? Or am I mistaken on this?
> 
> In Japan everyone is very strict about keeping the windows open even though it's freezing out and there's no central heating. Everyone wears masks here, which I believe is primarily the reason that numbers are so much lower here compared to anti-mask countries. Do you really think the window thing factors in? Just curious.



C'mon man, it's the 3 Cs!

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/opinion/japan-covid.html

And also that Japanese genetics are superior:

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/12/11/national/riken-research-covid-19/

And also because Japanese is a superior language:

https://blog.gaijinpot.com/tbs-news...id-19-cases-thanks-to-japanese-pronunciation/

(Just to be clear, that's some heavy sarcasm)


----------



## thebeesknees22

the guy who took over my previous position got covid along with his whole family, and it's caused him to have a bad case of bells palsy :/ Can't move half of his face, and can't fully close his left eye.

the good news is people tend to usually make a full recovery, but that's still scary stuff.


----------



## bostjan

thebeesknees22 said:


> the guy who took over my previous position got covid along with his whole family, and it's caused him to have a bad case of bells palsy :/ Can't move half of his face, and can't fully close his left eye.
> 
> the good news is people tend to usually make a full recovery, but that's still scary stuff.


Bell's Palsy is surprisingly common. Probably everyone knows at least one person who's had it. It's definitely not something I'd wish upon anyone. I'm not sure what that "full recovery" means. I worked with a singer who got it and even though he made a "full recovery" it noticeably affected his singing even years afterward.  I hope that guy has a much better recovery.


----------



## thebeesknees22

bostjan said:


> Bell's Palsy is surprisingly common. Probably everyone knows at least one person who's had it. It's definitely not something I'd wish upon anyone. I'm not sure what that "full recovery" means. I worked with a singer who got it and even though he made a "full recovery" it noticeably affected his singing even years afterward.  I hope that guy has a much better recovery.



damn

This is the first person I've known in real life that's had it.


----------



## TedEH

My sister got it too - for the record, it was before any of the rona/vaccines or anything like that.


----------



## Randy

Ivermectin shows ‘antiviral effect’ against COVID, Japanese company says


----------



## ramses

vilk said:


> *Does keeping windows open really make any difference?*



It does.

The most important thing, indoors, is good ventilation. Renewing the air frequently.

*
*


vilk said:


> My understanding of how this virus spreads is that when an uncovered mouth speaks, coughs, sneezes, etc.



You spread the virus simply by breathing normally. Even while wearing a non-M95 mask.

The examples you gave do spread it more.
*
*


vilk said:


> ... but they aren't like a floating cloud that fills the room...



That's exactly what it is.

That's why when you are indoors you have to worry about the people that were there before (and have already left), even in an empty room. Not so much about the people that walked in at the same time with you — unless you plan to have a long conversation with them 

Back in 2020 we already knew that the "spitting on each-other's faces" hypothesis was not really the main mechanism to spread it. Alas, for whatever reason most authorities did not update their guidelines and continued with the silly 6-feet nonsense.


The good news is that most places are not dungeons, and have varying quality of air conditioning and air circulation.


----------



## TedEH

Honestly, the anti-vax protesting going on here is really wearing down my tolerance for the unreasonably unvaccinated, and all the crap that they're attracting along the way. I can handle a few outliers that shelter themselves off in the middle of the woods because somehow that's more reasonable to them than scary medicine, but when you block off our bridges, occupy our downtown, attract a bunch of Nazis and trolls, stir up drama, piss on our monuments, literally dance on graves, and keep the city up all night, and all so you can cry about being afraid of needles - y'all can fuck right off with this nonsense.


----------



## nightflameauto

TedEH said:


> Honestly, the anti-vax protesting going on here is really wearing down my tolerance for the unreasonably unvaccinated, and all the crap that they're attracting along the way. I can handle a few outliers that shelter themselves off in the middle of the woods because somehow that's more reasonable to them than scary medicine, but when you block off our bridges, occupy our downtown, attract a bunch of Nazis and trolls, stir up drama, piss on our monuments, literally dance on graves, and keep the city up all night, and all so you can cry about being afraid of needles - y'all can fuck right off with this nonsense.


What kills me, and I don't know if it's the same up nort', but down here at least the people that will do this sort of shit are the same people constantly screaming about freedom and how we're taking away their freedom by asking them to be reasonable. Never a thought wasted on how their impacting everyone else's freedom by blocking up a city and causing chaos. Nope. Other people's freedom doesn't matter at all to them. It's freedom to be stupid that matters. Not freedom from stupid.


----------



## TedEH

Oh the word freedom is being thrown around a whooooole lot. Every nutjob who uses the word "freedom" to justify doing whatever horrible nonsense they want is out in full force. There's no cohesion to _why_ anyone is out there. Some are there because of the mandates (which is the "official" reason), some are out there because they don't like Trudeau, some are out there just because there's suddenly no consequences for openly being a shitty person while this goes down, some are out there fighting against the "leftist agenda" or whatever, some are out there trying to bolster and swindle money for groups like the PPC and Maverick party. It's a nutjob free-for-all out there.


----------



## Adieu

Great... Trump broke Canada.

To add insult to injury, he probably doesn't even know where that is.


----------



## bostjan

The original libertarian philosophy (pre-20th century) basically boils down to:

I can swing my arms around like an asshole as much as I want, until I end up smacking into someone, then I'm responsible for being an asshole swinging my arms around near other people.

The trouble, though, is that now we are in the 21st century, and we know about all sorts of invisible things that can kill us. The fact that this deadly disease is essentially half-"the sniffles" and half-AIDS, we've got morons all over the map about this thing. But here are some observations from someone who's repeatedly called insane for stating such things:


Covid might be super mild for some people, but it's 100% deadly to others. Over 5.5 M people have died as a result of it. Therefore, it is not just a deadly disease, but the *fifth deadliest infectious disease of recorded history* by raw numbers.
Wearing a mask over your nose and mouth when you are within 2-3 m of another person is a pretty small ask.
Coughing in someone's face on accident is like hitting them with your car on accident. Coughing in someone's face deliberately is like running them over with your car deliberately. In either case, you are civilly responsible for damages, but in one case you would be criminally liable. Since no one can ever know if they are infected, and it's widely known that such is the case, the defense of "it shouldn't be assault because I didn't think I had covid" is equivalent to deliberately shooting someone with a gun in the chest and then saying "it shouldn't be assault because I didn't know the guy wasn't wearing a bullet-proof vest."
During a temporary event that affects everyone, it is acceptable to reserve your freedoms whilst still playing along with society in order to fight a lethal enemy. For example, I'm free to shout as much as I want during daylight hours. But if I was hiding behind a rock with a bunch of preschoolers being stalked by a hungry tiger, choosing that moment to exercise my right to shout "here kitty kitty" as loud as possible should get me killed. Likewise, if there is a deadly disease going around that is believed to be transmitted by droplets from the nose and mouth, choosing to breath on other people without wearing a widely-available mask should be socially unacceptable.
Getting vaccinated might not be the end-all to this crap, but it helps, and it's also a pretty small ask for most people. Some people might die if they get vaccinated, and, to not be assholes to those people, everyone who is not those people should do their part. It's like being on a rowboat that's taking water, and there's a guy on the boat with no arms (representing people who have medical exemption to vaccination), and a bunch of assholes are pointing at the guy with no arms and saying "if he doesn't have to either row or bail out water, why should we?!". If the entire boat sinks and everyone except the disabled guy swims to shore, whose fault is the guy's drowning?


----------



## TedEH

Adieu said:


> Trump broke Canada.


Meh. It was broken in it's own ways even before Trump. But I did learn that at least some people only recently figured out that Canada is a country and not a company owned by the US government, so that's a thing.


----------



## TedEH

I feel like I'm learning a lot about my own country because of this.... but none of it is good.


----------



## LordCashew

TedEH said:


> But I did learn that at least some people only recently figured out that Canada is a country and not a company owned by the US government, so that's a thing.


Unbelievable!


----------



## nightflameauto

TedEH said:


> Meh. It was broken in it's own ways even before Trump. But I did learn that at least some people only recently figured out that Canada is a country and not a company owned by the US government, so that's a thing.


I'm not convinced. *CROSSES ARMS AND GLARES*

And because we're on the internet, I'll ruin it by saying I'm joking. Mostly.

Mostly.


----------



## TedEH

I'm not 100% convinced either, honestly, but I'm also not 0% convinced, if you get what I mean.


----------



## Crungy

TedEH said:


> I did learn that at least some people only recently figured out that Canada is a country and not a company owned by the US government, so that's a thing



Holy shit people think that? Fuck me. Not that I should be surprised but still... Ugh.

@nightflameauto I think all the geniuses going on about their freedom in regard to vaccines and the current state of the pandemic are taking thr "Jesus take the wheel" thing way too seriously.


----------



## bostjan

TedEH said:


> But I did learn that at least some people only recently figured out that Canada is a country and not a company owned by the US government, so that's a thing.



Homer Brain: Canada is a company owned by the US government.
Normal Brain: Canada is an independent country.
Galaxy Brain: Canada is a company owned by the US government.


----------



## narad

https://www.wjcl.com/article/propos...-childhood-vaccination-requirements/38977250#

If only this was affecting parents more than the kids I'd be all for it. Let someone get polio because they're so anti-vax brainwashed.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

narad said:


> https://www.wjcl.com/article/propos...-childhood-vaccination-requirements/38977250#
> 
> If only this was affecting parents more than the kids I'd be all for it. Let someone get polio because they're so anti-vax brainwashed.


Right, everyone just magically forgets that these diseases aren't real because they haven't experienced them. What idiocy. Their ignorance is bliss. 

Few pages back I believe we discussed the congressman who argued that "since the melting ice in my cup doesn't overflow when it's full, then climate change doesn't exist" - Ohio? Don't remember, but sure, your water cup is a suitable model...I guess

All models are wrong, but some are useful, but frankly your cup of water is none of those things.


----------



## nightflameauto

narad said:


> https://www.wjcl.com/article/propos...-childhood-vaccination-requirements/38977250#
> 
> If only this was affecting parents more than the kids I'd be all for it. Let someone get polio because they're so anti-vax brainwashed.


I love how even the parents they talked to basically thought the proposed bill is pure idiocy. WTF is going on in our government? Can't pave a fucking road or fix a bridge, but we can sure build up some multiple levels of stupid.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

narad said:


> https://www.wjcl.com/article/propos...-childhood-vaccination-requirements/38977250#
> 
> If only this was affecting parents more than the kids I'd be all for it. Let someone get polio because they're so anti-vax brainwashed.


Idiocracy coming in nicely.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

nightflameauto said:


> I love how even the parents they talked to basically thought the proposed bill is pure idiocy. WTF is going on in our government? Can't pave a fucking road or fix a bridge, but we can sure build up some multiple levels of stupid.


Before they pave a new road I think we should ask them to fill in all the pot holes on the highway first


Dumple Stilzkin said:


> Idiocracy coming in nicely.


As foretold by Prophet Sandler


----------



## Randy

> *The CDC changed its definition of vaccination to increase transparency, fact-checkers say
> *
> The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told the Associated Press that the agency changed its definition of vaccination to add more detail and increase transparency. “The latest CDC definition is absent the word ‘immunity’ and just focuses on the stimulation of the body’s immune response,” Verify reports. A spokesperson for the CDC told AP and Verify that the overall definition of both “vaccine” and “vaccination” has remained the same. “‘The previous definition…could be interpreted to mean that vaccines were 100% effective, which has never been the case for any vaccine, so the current definition is more transparent,’” the spokesperson said. Vaccines for COVID-19 continue to be safe and effective, according to public health and medical experts.
> Photo via @Reuters





https://mobile.twitter.com/i/events/1491544401335570432?s=10


----------



## StevenC

Randy said:


> https://mobile.twitter.com/i/events/1491544401335570432?s=10


I would like to reiterate that the definition wasn't changed. They just substituted words for the definitions that were listed on the same page.


----------



## Randy

I've got no dog in that fight, but fwiw it's February 2022 and Twitter let them post that without flagging it for disinfo.


----------



## narad

Anyone who thought a vaccine gave complete immunity is living in some sort of fairy tale world where biology is some discrete thing, like your body received an immunity passport and it just shows it to the virus from there-on out. If the CDC wants to emphasize the reality of the situation, which was always a factor going back throughout the history of vaccines, then I'm fine with that.

It's not like every year a ton of people get the flu vaccine and 0% of them ever get the flu.


----------



## StevenC

Some people genuinely think vaccines create a bubble around them that stops a virus getting in.


----------



## Adieu

It seems the surprising effectiveness of the smallpox campaign made us believe that vaccines are only called vaccines when they actually work pretty much 100% of the way, 100% of the time.

PS although with the way things are going, who knows? Maybe 2023 will be a poxy year.


----------



## TedEH

narad said:


> Anyone who thought a vaccine gave complete immunity is living in some sort of fairy tale world where biology is some discrete thing


But but but they keep changing the messaging maaaaan. How are we supposed to keeeeep uuuuuuuuuuup? /s


----------



## bostjan

narad said:


> Anyone who thought a vaccine gave complete immunity is living in some sort of fairy tale world where biology is some discrete thing, like your body received an immunity passport and it just shows it to the virus from there-on out. If the CDC wants to emphasize the reality of the situation, which was always a factor going back throughout the history of vaccines, then I'm fine with that.
> 
> It's not like every year a ton of people get the flu vaccine and 0% of them ever get the flu.





bostjan said:


> Immunity is not a boolean value. Reinfection is possible. Subtler perspectives are necessary to discuss in detail.


 This was stated one page away from a couple of posts celebrating how the vaccine was going to end the pandemic.

I think there was just a lot of optimism. I think there still is a lot of optimism. Every day I hear people IRL asking when the pandemic will be over, and I don't think they know what that means. It's not like one day the pandemic officially ends and no one gets covid anymore.

And I'm not saying life will be garbage from now on, either, before anyone gets too excited.

We just have to learn how to address this in the way that has the minimum impact on our quality of life in general, and on average.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> Anyone who thought a vaccine gave complete immunity is living in some sort of fairy tale world where biology is some discrete thing, like your body received an immunity passport and it just shows it to the virus from there-on out. If the CDC wants to emphasize the reality of the situation, which was always a factor going back throughout the history of vaccines, then I'm fine with that.
> 
> It's not like every year a ton of people get the flu vaccine and 0% of them ever get the flu.



It's not a matter of every and all vaccines giving complete immunity. Bringing that point is a strawman.
The people pointing out the change of definition are just doing so in order to show one more example of how the goalposts are constantly shifted.
And not in a "OMG overnight it now means the opposite of what is used to", but rather in the how-to-slowly-boil-a-frog way. So that when you change things slow enough, then people don't mind.
The vaccine was 100% sold as giving immunity when it first came out. People were promised "you won't have to wear masks anymore" and all sorts of things. People everywhere (here included) were pushing this message, but now a year later people forgot that. Just acting like "no _ackchyually _we always knew they were not that effective" or "of course we knew they wouldn't really catch variants" or "of course they only give protection against serious cases". Weasel-out city.

And of course none of that is discrete. But then if you agree with that- this is precisely why this "vaccine for all and vaccine only" logic is pretty dumb. This mindset _is _the very definition of discrete/black and white.
Discriminating and punishing _only _on the basis of vaccination is a dumb discrete thing to do.
Blindly forcing the vaccine on groups like 2 year-olds (just because we just give it to everyone else, and whereas the benefit/risk is at best neutral for children) is a dumb discrete thing to do.
Allowing vaccinated people to drop all precautions on masks/gathering just because they got the shot who-knows-when is a dumb discrete thing to do.
But funny how people are happy with discrete generalizations and monolithic simplifications when it suits _their _bias...
Apparently being 100% "vaccine for all and vaccine only" is the _one _place where it should be black and white and nuance is not allowed, go figure \o/


----------



## TedEH

Edit: *sigh* You know what, never mind. I don't have the capacity for this argument right now.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

narad said:


> Anyone who thought a vaccine gave complete immunity is living in some sort of fairy tale world where biology is some discrete thing, like your body received an immunity passport and it just shows it to the virus from there-on out. If the CDC wants to emphasize the reality of the situation, which was always a factor going back throughout the history of vaccines, then I'm fine with that.
> 
> It's not like every year a ton of people get the flu vaccine and 0% of them ever get the flu.



Cue "I never get the flu vaccine and I'm never sick a day in my life!"/"My cousin/sister-in-law/dog-sitter/personal chef got the vaccine and _they got the flu!"_

Every single one of those people at my last two jobs got Covid. Correlation ain't causation but that's a hell of a correlation there, Bob.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

The CDC along with every other major decision making body in the world ultimately bows at the altar of capital. When they said we wouldn't have to wear masks it was because the gods of economy demanded it, and by "it" I mean blood. You know, for the blood gods. 

The gods have never settled for a half-assed sacrifice. They know the difference. You have to offer up the good stuff, that's the whole point, otherwise it's not a sacrifice. The only thing that remains to be seen is whether ours measures up.


----------



## SpaceDock

wheresthefbomb said:


> Cue "I never get the flu vaccine and I'm never sick a day in my life!"



This was me prior to Covid. I haven’t taken a sick day since 2008 and never got the flu shot. I never catch colds or flu but I got my vaccine the first day it was available to me. Why? It’s not just about me.


----------



## mbardu

wheresthefbomb said:


> Cue "I never get the flu vaccine and I'm never sick a day in my life!"/"My cousin/sister-in-law/dog-sitter/personal chef got the vaccine and _they got the flu!"_
> 
> Every single one of those people at my last two jobs got Covid. Correlation ain't causation but that's a hell of a correlation there, Bob.



Sure, all those anecdotes and "I'm never sick" tirades are dumb...but _maybe _don't make the exact same mistake that you're trying to make fun of?
I mean, everyone at my job got Covid recently, and we're all boosted...yet I'm not here parading about _that _meaningless opposite correlation.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

mbardu said:


> Sure, all those anecdotes and "I'm never sick" tirades are dumb...but _maybe _don't make the exact same mistake that you're trying to make fun of?
> I mean, everyone at my job got Covid recently, and we're all boosted...yet I'm not here parading about _that _meaningless opposite correlation.



Always down for some antics I see. 

The _exact same mistake_ would be if I stated outright that they all got Covid _because_ they weren't vaccinated, so it's a good thing that's not what I said. I certainly implied that I believe there was a correlation, but that's my completely unqualified opinion, and just like my asshole, I wouldn't hold it up in a debate, much less suggest policy be built around it. 

Next time I post my unqualified opinion I'll make sure to put a little disclaimer on it so you don't get distracted from Ben Shapiro'ing the rest of this thread.


----------



## mbardu

wheresthefbomb said:


> The _exact same mistake_ would be if I stated outright that they all got Covid _because_ they weren't vaccinated, so it's a good thing that's not what I said. I certainly implied that I believe there was a correlation, but that's my completely unqualified opinion, and just like my asshole, I wouldn't hold it up in a debate, much less suggest policy be built around it.



The mistake is implying a correlation or proof from anecdote and then use that to form an opinion or steer the discussion.

But like a bunch of stuff here, 0 scrutiny given and anything goes as long as it fits what we want to hear.
I guess that's just an observed correlation though. Nobody is implying any causation


----------



## narad

mbardu said:


> It's not a matter of every and all vaccines giving complete immunity. Bringing that point is a strawman.
> The people pointing out the change of definition are just doing so in order to show one more example of how the goalposts are constantly shifted.
> And not in a "OMG overnight it now means the opposite of what is used to", but rather in the how-to-slowly-boil-a-frog way. So that when you change things slow enough, then people don't mind.
> The vaccine was 100% sold as giving immunity when it first came out. People were promised "you won't have to wear masks anymore" and all sorts of things. People everywhere (here included) were pushing this message, but now a year later people forgot that. Just acting like "no _ackchyually _we always knew they were not that effective" or "of course we knew they wouldn't really catch variants" or "of course they only give protection against serious cases". Weasel-out city.
> 
> And of course none of that is discrete. But then if you agree with that- this is precisely why this "vaccine for all and vaccine only" logic is pretty dumb. This mindset _is _the very definition of discrete/black and white.
> Discriminating and punishing _only _on the basis of vaccination is a dumb discrete thing to do.
> Blindly forcing the vaccine on groups like 2 year-olds (just because we just give it to everyone else, and whereas the benefit/risk is at best neutral for children) is a dumb discrete thing to do.
> Allowing vaccinated people to drop all precautions on masks/gathering just because they got the shot who-knows-when is a dumb discrete thing to do.
> But funny how people are happy with discrete generalizations and monolithic simplifications when it suits _their _bias...
> Apparently being 100% "vaccine for all and vaccine only" is the _one _place where it should be black and white and nuance is not allowed, go figure \o/


They added the Like/Haha/Sad/Angry reactions, but unfortunately not a Rolling-Eyes one yet.


----------



## IwantTacos

I’ll be honest I thought vaccines were supposed to prevent transmission. 

But then I actually read up on it and it’s like never been that way. 

Then I changed my mind. It was that simple.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

For me I'm not in best shape fitness wise. I'm working on it though but I ain't going to risk leaving my kid fatherless over some weird personal liberties fight. 

Like yeah the percentages are low but like how stupid would you feel dying of it when you just didn't take the precautions because of some weird nonsense theory about the vaccine.

Let alone protecting others around you.

Either way it's all become a giant clusterfuck now. And most anti vax people seem to also be anti mask so it's clearly just some weird statement of politics for them.

Like if you don't want a shot you should be all for all other forms of mitigation.


----------



## StevenC

The best thing about the new forum update is that it tells you a post is responding to something you've ignored, so you don't need to scroll to the bottom of the page to realise you're not having a stroke.


----------



## TedEH

Another positive I've noticed is that quotes seem to be nested now, which is potentially far less confusing than what it did before.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> This was stated one page away from a couple of posts celebrating how the vaccine was going to end the pandemic.
> 
> I think there was just a lot of optimism. I think there still is a lot of optimism. Every day I hear people IRL asking when the pandemic will be over, and I don't think they know what that means. It's not like one day the pandemic officially ends and no one gets covid anymore.


I think this is an incredibly complex topic, and still do, to be fair. 

There's definitely some, let's cal it "pop culture" confision about vaccines - most vaccines throughout history are not 100% effective, with the typical 60-70% efficacy of the flu vaccine being a great example. Some, hopefully rare, breakthrough cases were always going to happen even with an unbelievably good vaccine, which early on is what it looked like we might get, before we had virus mutations and time decay of efficacy to deal with. Anyone who thought they were 100% immune after getting vaccinated was at least slightly mistaken, even early on. 

And that gets at the second big issue - even putting time decay aside, virus mutation is an issue with any vaccine, and doubly so with one targeting a virus that spreads so fast and infected so many people. Judging a virus developed to combat the alpha strain, against the delta or omicron, comes with a little bit of a square peg, round hole problem. 

But, Ithink the point I kept trying to make early on, was even if we knew in advance that a vaccine would decay from 95% effective to 50% effective in 9 months, that doesn't make it worthless. Rather, it gives us a _huge_ opportunity to use that nine month period to try to contain the virus again, and has huge implications for how we can tailor our strategy in the fight against a virus. We just, unfortunately, squandered that opportunity, because we turned it into a political issue. 

As far as when it'll be over, I think we need a giant "Mission Accomplished" banner on an aircraft carrier somewhere. I hear those are quite effective...


----------



## IwantTacos

Eli5. How come some vaccinations are super effective. 

Chicken pox. Smallpox. Polio.


----------



## Adieu

IwantTacos said:


> Eli5. How come some vaccinations are super effective.
> 
> Chicken pox. Smallpox. Polio.



Huh?

There ain't no particularly effective chickenpox vaccine, people still get it all the frickin time in rich and sanitary places too

Polio, yes, smallpox, very much yes and eradicated in the wild, but chickenpox? Still kickin


----------



## Drew

Adieu said:


> Huh?
> 
> There ain't no particularly effective chickenpox vaccine, people still get it all the frickin time in rich and sanitary places too
> 
> Polio, yes, smallpox, very much yes and eradicated in the wild, but chickenpox? Still kickin


I may be making this up, but I think I remember someone telling me quite recently that we'd just developed a chickenpox vaccine and that we now give it to children. 

But, to the broader point - it's a two pronged approach. Even quite good vaccines aren't 100% perfect. So, they work in two ways - making it much less likely you'll be infected if you get exposed, yes, but also - by drastically cutting the number of people walking around infectious, and allowing those who _are_ infectious to be treated on a one off basis and contained, rather than accepting widespread exposure through community transmission - also making it very unlikely you'll get exposed in the first place. Hit both of those - use vaccines to offer direct protection against the virus and indirect protection by making it way less likely you'll even need that protection - and you can eradicate a disease. 

We might even have been able to do that with covid, too, if we could have gotten a large enough portion of the world fast enough, to get on top of it before it had time to mutate as far as it has, where protection against getting infected in the first place has waned fairly significantly.


----------



## bostjan

The chickenpox vaccine started widespread use in children in 1995. It had been approved 11 years prior to that.


----------



## Adieu

bostjan said:


> The chickenpox vaccine started widespread use in children in 1995. It had been approved 11 years prior to that.



Well idfk but I did manage to catch chickenpox in like ~2015. In developed sanitary California.

No idea how.


----------



## ElRay

Drew said:


> I may be making this up, but I think I remember someone telling me quite recently that we'd just developed a chickenpox vaccine and that we now give it to children.


The "chicken pox" vaccine goes by it's scientific name: Varicella. If you've received the "Varicella-Zooster Vaccine (VZV)", you've been inoculated against "chicken pox". It also comes is two NON-INTERCHANGEABLE formulations. The first is targeted at "kids" to prevent Chicken Pox. The second is targeted at Adults that MAY have previously had Chicken Pox to prevent Shingles.

It's a weird interaction between one virus and immature vs mature immune systems. Chicken-pox (predominately) affects children and is infectious. Shingles (predominately) affects Audlts, that previously had Chicken Pox and is not infectious (See below). The chicken pox vaccine is a live virus, and the Shingles vaccine is a bit of protein from an active Varicella-Zooster virus. It works great for shingles, but not for chicken pox.

The wrinkle with Chicken Pox is that Adult Px that have never had Chicken Pox as a child run the risk of becoming sterile if they catch Chicken Pox (which is possible from a shingles Px) and they can catch "chicken pox" from both children with the disease and adults with shingles. So, if you receive the "Chicken Pox" vaccine as an adult (predominately if you did not have chicken pox or the vaccine as a kid and are likely to be exposed), you get two doses about a month apart instead of the usual pediatric 2-1/2 to 5 years.


----------



## ElRay

Adieu said:


> Well idfk but I did manage to catch chickenpox in like ~2015. In developed sanitary California.
> 
> No idea how.


How old were you? You might be in that gray area where you "aged-out" before in was widely administered to kids (12 and under), but never matched any group that should get it as an adult (pregnancy, parents, healthcare, childcare, teacher, law enforcement, military, etc.).

Cleanliness isn't an issue. You could have been exposed to:

Kid that had been recently inoculated
Adult w/ Shingles
Asymptomatic kid that was carrying the virus
Asymptomatic adolescent who was carrying the virus
Etc.


----------



## IwantTacos

Adieu said:


> Well idfk but I did manage to catch chickenpox in like ~2015. In developed sanitary California.
> 
> No idea how.



you caught chicken pox as an adult?
are you dead?


----------



## Riff the Road Dog

Got chi-pox in 1990 when I was 24. My roommate, who had it as a child, got shingles same time. Yeah, it was bad. Dangerously high fever for two weeks, lots of scars, etc. Have never been tested but I have no kids and probably should have.

Got my shingles vaxxes as soon as I was old enough and it became available. Those shots made the Covid series mosquito bites by comparison. Strong juju. Haven't even had a cold or minor illness since, and this was well before the pandemic stay at home orders, masking and all.

Shingles is no joke. Very painful and if you get it later in life you'll deal with it until you die.


----------



## SpaceDock

IwantTacos said:


> Eli5. How come some vaccinations are super effective.
> 
> Chicken pox. Smallpox. Polio.



I ended up reading about this a year ago when a Republican co worker was spreading false info about vaccines. In fact small pox and polio vaccination is not lifetime nor 100%. The reason why people in the USA don’t need boosters is because there is no spread of these diseases in our population. The issue with Covid is that it is freakin everywhere so until we can wipe it out we will need recurring vaccination unless new strains continue to weaken. If you are traveling to a country with small pox transmission the booster is recommended, you only get 3-5 years of 95% protection.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

When I was living in a van with my old band our drummer got shingles. The rest of us managed to avoid it, I slept outside at night. Not sure how the bassist got out of that one.


----------



## Adieu

IwantTacos said:


> you caught chicken pox as an adult?
> are you dead?



Late 20s back then, no not dead, should I be?


----------



## LordCashew

Riff the Road Dog said:


> Shingles is no joke. Very painful and if you get it later in life you'll deal with it until you die.


Had it during my undergrad after a few semesters of 80 hour school+work weeks wiped out my immune system. The campus doctor I saw told me he also had It when he was in school.

I was shocked when I found out the medication I needed was less than $10. Apparently it's more commonly used to treat herpes, maybe consistent demand helps keep the cost down...


----------



## p0ke

Drew said:


> chickenpox vaccine



The vaccine's relatively recent, or at least they started administering it quite recently. My step son, who's now 11, didn't receive it as part of the kids vaccination program, but my 5 yo daughter did (when she was 2-3, don't remember exactly). Then my wife specifically asked for her son to also be given the vaccine and he got it a few weeks later. 

I'm glad the kids don't have to go through that these days. I had chicken pox when I was like 5-6 or something and it was terrible - I wasn't sick otherwise, but that goddamned itch. Good thing I had it as a kid though.


----------



## Drew

Yeah, I had it as a kid, well before the vaccine was rolled out widely. That was long enough ago that I don't remember it well, save that I think my case was relatively mild.


----------



## bostjan

I have a scar on my forehead from chicken pox. I got it during puberty and thought my skin was just breaking out with acne. I remember being locked in my room and being bored for a week or so and everyone wondering how the heck I managed to get it, but a friend of mine had just been vaccinated and actually got sick from it around the same time. I wasn't around him at the time, but his dad worked with my dad, and they had both had chicken pox before, so maybe it somehow got transmitted from the live vaccine to my friend to my friend's dad to my dad to me. No one else I knew at the time had it. Or maybe I got it just randomly.


----------



## ArtDecade

bostjan said:


> I have a scar on my forehead from chicken pox. I got it during puberty and thought my skin was just breaking out with acne. I remember being locked in my room and being bored for a week or so and everyone wondering how the heck I managed to get it, but a friend of mine had just been vaccinated and actually got sick from it around the same time. I wasn't around him at the time, but his dad worked with my dad, and they had both had chicken pox before, so maybe it somehow got transmitted from the live vaccine to my friend to my friend's dad to my dad to me. No one else I knew at the time had it. Or maybe I got it just randomly.



Did you visit a KFC? Or maybe attend a footy match with Ronaldo?


----------



## CovertSovietBear

LordIronSpatula said:


> used to treat herpes, maybe consistent demand helps keep the cost down...


Chickenpox IS a herpes virus though! So yes, you're treating herpes with herpes medicine. Most herpes viruses reside within humans transiently and usually life long. The scariest herpes has to be any that reside in your face and one day it might decide it likes your brain as a home instead.

Edit:

Looks like most chickenpox medications are an antiviral guanosine analog that incorporates itself into new viruses, rendering them useless. Simple mechanism but unknown how/why specifically targets herpes viruses.


----------



## spudmunkey

My mom got chicken pox while she car carrying me. I've been told that means I had immunity...I wonder if that's worn off, and/or if that means I an still likely to get shingles...

In other news, so what do we think? Will the US hit 1 Megadeath by month's end?


----------



## tedtan

Meanwhile, we just hit 6,000,000 worldwide deaths from covid.


----------



## Thorsday7

Meanwhile... I have 3M, DuPont, Amazon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman shares. Silver, too. Lots of silver bars. COVID-19 as a world event induced a proverbial wealth transfer, which subsequently cemented the financial landscape, as geopolitical affairs were...

To all those that died from the permutation of the flu, collateral damage, vaccine injury, etc.... My heart goes out to them and their loved ones. 

Let's all just try to be good to one another. Keep in mind, it's a big club, and we ain't in it.


----------



## bostjan

tedtan said:


> Meanwhile, we just hit 6,000,000 worldwide deaths from covid.


This is a grim milestone.

But the peak deaths by day was back in January of 2021. The last peak in the last wave was a little over half as deadly as that. So, at least for the moment, covid as a deadly disease is slowing down. However, if you look at new cases, the last peak is 4x as bad as Jan 2021, so it's definitely still out there. Even though we are over that hump, the number of new cases daily is a) still way higher than it was in Jan 2021 and b) appears to be ticking up rather than down, the past couple of days, possible due to everyone relaxing covid restrictions and hygiene practices whilst worrying instead about being on the cusp of potential WW III.


----------



## thebeesknees22

bostjan said:


> This is a grim milestone.
> 
> But the peak deaths by day was back in January of 2021. The last peak in the last wave was a little over half as deadly as that. So, at least for the moment, covid as a deadly disease is slowing down. However, if you look at new cases, the last peak is 4x as bad as Jan 2021, so it's definitely still out there. Even though we are over that hump, the number of new cases daily is a) still way higher than it was in Jan 2021 and b) appears to be ticking up rather than down, the past couple of days, possible due to everyone relaxing covid restrictions and hygiene practices whilst worrying instead about being on the cusp of potential WW III.



That's just what's on record too from testing. The real number is most likely much much higher.


----------



## bostjan

And also as we move more and more to at-home tests, mild cases are certainly less reported than they were a year ago, since I highly doubt a significant number of at-home positive tests are being tracked.


----------



## tedtan

I’m not as concerned with Omicron as I was with earlier versions, but let’s all hope we don’t end up with a more deadly variant Going forward.


----------



## p0ke

My daughter's got covid right now. I'm not actually worried that it'll get bad, but it's kinda heartbreaking to see her sick since it's basically her first time being sick (not counting a few really short fever spikes).

Also, hopefully it won't infect the rest of the family, our newborn in particular. Though I guess covid has been pretty mild on babies anyway...


----------



## zappatton2

p0ke said:


> My daughter's got covid right now. I'm not actually worried that it'll get bad, but it's kinda heartbreaking to see her sick since it's basically her first time being sick (not counting a few really short fever spikes).
> 
> Also, hopefully it won't infect the rest of the family, our newborn in particular. Though I guess covid has been pretty mild on babies anyway...


That really sucks!! Hope she gets well quickly, and it doesn't spread!


----------



## p0ke

zappatton2 said:


> That really sucks!! Hope she gets well quickly, and it doesn't spread!


Yeah, hope so. You'd think it's quite likely to spread, but then again it didn't infect the rest of us in 2020 when my stepson had it. So fingers crossed, but then again in a sense I'd rather take it just to get it over with...


----------



## Randy

p0ke said:


> Yeah, hope so. You'd think it's quite likely to spread, but then again it didn't infect the rest of us in 2020 when my stepson had it. So fingers crossed, but then again in a sense I'd rather take it just to get it over with...


My sister had a kid get it at daycare and was worried about it getting to the rest of the family including their newborn but nobody else in the house ended up getting it


----------



## Flappydoodle

At this point literally EVERY person I know has had Covid. Some of them have had it twice.

It's certainly very different now. I know two people who died back in early 2021 so I'm not misguided about how serious and deadly Covid can be. But now the people getting it are recording extremely mild symptoms. Some wouldn't know they're positive unless testing for other reasons, and even those with symptoms it's more like a cold or allergies (stuffy nose, mild headache etc).

Of course my friends skew younger, but to me at least, with two vaccines offering robust and long-term protection from serious outcomes (AZ then Moderna), I count this pandemic as effectively over and I really haven't given it any thought for a while.

I am also genuinely concerned about the "hidden" outcomes of this pandemic. It isn't to downplay deaths from Covid or anything like that, but there have been a LOT of disruptions to other areas of life which barely get a mention. In the UK, millions of mammograms, colonoscopies and smear tests have been delayed. Waiting lists for non-essential surgeries (hips, knees etc) are huge. That's presumably going to mean more cancer and more disability in the future (unless it turns out that all the screening was a waste of time. Studies will find out in the future). 

Kids have missed a lot of education due to teachers isolating, parents isolating, kids isolating etc. Absence days have been high for almost two years now. Online school is shit, let's be honest. This one really baffles me because it was clear from late 2020 that children aren't at risk themselves, and by early 2021 we knew that schools aren't even a major vector. Yet some schools still have insane policies where one case means the whole class stays at home. Even at universities they're still doing online classes in some places which seems bonkers to me. Healthy 21 year olds have basically nothing to fear from Covid, and they're paying a price of their social lives and personal development, and getting worse education on top.

I've also read papers (not my field of expertise though) that make the case of masks damaging children's development. Babies rely on faces, and they watch lips as part of speech development. Anybody who has kids intuitively knows this. And around 2 years old they start to really understand facial expression of happiness, sadness, anger, but also much more subtle things like when someone is lying to you, trying to hide emotions etc. As I said, it's outside my area and I'm not sure how robust this evidence is, but it sounds plausible to me that peoples faces is going to impact how childrens' brains are developing.

It's so frustrating to see this huge amount of energy and money put into fighting Covid when it could be spent on so many other things now. As a young person, my demographic is 10x more likely to die of suicide than Covid. Imagine spending this much effort on improving mental health and life satisfaction of youths. Or how about improving road safety, or pre-natal care? Hell, put this many resources into anti-smoking, anti-obesity and anti-alcohol efforts. Instead we spend money spraying hands and cleaning elevator buttons when this isn't a surface transmissible virus, or we're obsessively testing otherwise healthy people and putting up stupid perspex sheets everywhere.

The whole thing is crazy and unfortunately I see real reluctance by many people to let go and move on. The evidence is clear now that we have a milder virus, effective vaccines, effective prophylaxis, effective treatment options, hospital stays are shorter etc etc. It's time to get back to normal life and stop living in fear.


----------



## Flappydoodle

Drew said:


> I think this is an incredibly complex topic, and still do, to be fair.
> 
> There's definitely some, let's cal it "pop culture" confision about vaccines - most vaccines throughout history are not 100% effective, with the typical 60-70% efficacy of the flu vaccine being a great example. Some, hopefully rare, breakthrough cases were always going to happen even with an unbelievably good vaccine, which early on is what it looked like we might get, before we had virus mutations and time decay of efficacy to deal with. Anyone who thought they were 100% immune after getting vaccinated was at least slightly mistaken, even early on.
> 
> And that gets at the second big issue - even putting time decay aside, virus mutation is an issue with any vaccine, and doubly so with one targeting a virus that spreads so fast and infected so many people. Judging a virus developed to combat the alpha strain, against the delta or omicron, comes with a little bit of a square peg, round hole problem.
> 
> But, Ithink the point I kept trying to make early on, was even if we knew in advance that a vaccine would decay from 95% effective to 50% effective in 9 months, that doesn't make it worthless. Rather, it gives us a _huge_ opportunity to use that nine month period to try to contain the virus again, and has huge implications for how we can tailor our strategy in the fight against a virus. We just, unfortunately, squandered that opportunity, because we turned it into a political issue.
> 
> As far as when it'll be over, I think we need a giant "Mission Accomplished" banner on an aircraft carrier somewhere. I hear those are quite effective...


One major difference is that almost nobody lived through a time when we rolled out a vaccine DURING a pandemic. Flu etc never really hit this level of transmission, so most people getting flu vaccines will probably never get flu simply due to not being exposed. Covid is different in that you WILL get exposed and likely will get infected.

Another major issue is that when that first Pfizer data came out we had "95% effective" splashed around absolutely everywhere. I bet most lay people couldn't tell you what 95% effective actually meant or how that was calculated. But the message was there - the vaccine is here and it's almost perfect. Pfizer is also fucking smart and they designed that trial and achieved that extremely high number not by any sort of accident. It's good in a way that it encouraged people to take it, but it was also misleading.

Now people feel goalposts are being changed because "suddenly" you're told that you need 3 or 4 doses. What you're saying makes total sense, none of this was ever spelled out clearly by leaders to the lay public, even though scientists knew that this was a possibility because of waning antibodies and virus mutations. If there's anything which has truly fucked up during this pandemic, it's the messaging tot he public. It's been absolute garbage, full of dishonesty, lack of humility, flip-flopping and constantly undermining themselves. A bit of honesty, humility about what we don't know, some sort of long-term strategic vision etc would have seriously helped IMO.


----------



## spudmunkey

spudmunkey said:


> In other news, so what do we think? Will the US hit 1 Megadeath by month's end?


THat was March 7th. Today, the 22nd, we're here, so it'll be very close:



Fuck, man...I just want to cry.


----------



## Drew

Flappydoodle said:


> Another major issue is that when that first Pfizer data came out we had "95% effective" splashed around absolutely everywhere. I bet most lay people couldn't tell you what 95% effective actually meant or how that was calculated. But the message was there - the vaccine is here and it's almost perfect. Pfizer is also fucking smart and they designed that trial and achieved that extremely high number not by any sort of accident. It's good in a way that it encouraged people to take it, but it was also misleading.


Only thing I'd say here, is that the covid vaccine trial data was all publicly available - I've read it - and when vaccines were _first_ rolled out, real-world data painted a pretty similar story, where looking at positivity rates in vaccinated vs unvaccinated populations, we initially were seeing about the same distributions as were predicted by Pfizer and Moderna studies. If they tailored their study to maximize the liklihood of positive outcomes, then the effects were pretty minimal - the British were pretty good about reporting early live data, and their estimation of the initial efficacy for over-80 Brits with two doses was about 89%, 95% confidence interval 85% to 93%. That's not meaningly differrent from Pfizer's claimed 95%.









Effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines on covid-19 related symptoms, hospital admissions, and mortality in older adults in England: test negative case-control study


Objective To estimate the real world effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 and Oxford-AstraZeneca ChAdOx1-S vaccines against confirmed covid-19 symptoms (including the UK variant of concern B.1.1.7), admissions to hospital, and deaths. Design Test negative case-control study. Setting...




www.bmj.com





The over 70 group coming in lower here is interesting but reading between the lines they make no reference to a second dose and the efficacy they're claiming is in line with my recollections of the roughly 65% or so I remember excpecting after a single dose here. I know at some point the UK switched from a second dose after 3-4 weeks, to a second dose after 12 - could someone in the UK confirm if that occured after the 80+ cohort was vaccinated but before many 70+ adults were? That would explain the text of the study neatly. 

But, I think it's important to keep some of this stuff in its historical context - the "in the wild" data DID show a gradual deterioration of efficacy over time... but from a base pretty consistent with what the trials had predicted. A lot of the reason we started talking about, and initially giving, boosters wasn't because we found out the vaccines "didn't work," so much as we found out they "didn't last" as well as we had hoped. 

I think much the same could be said for messaging. Some of it was plain awful and intentionally bad. Some of it, however, was scientists sharing the best available data, and as that data changed, so too did their guidance. Consistency itself isn't a virtue.


----------



## profwoot

Has there been any indication whether long covid is as prevalent among those who were vaccinated and boosted prior to infection? Or indications that anyone eventually recovers from long covid?

Between that risk and the new study about increased future risk of various vascular diseases, I don't love some of the in-person meetings I'm having to attend at work.


----------



## Flappydoodle

Drew said:


> Only thing I'd say here, is that the covid vaccine trial data was all publicly available - I've read it - and when vaccines were _first_ rolled out, real-world data painted a pretty similar story, where looking at positivity rates in vaccinated vs unvaccinated populations, we initially were seeing about the same distributions as were predicted by Pfizer and Moderna studies. If they tailored their study to maximize the liklihood of positive outcomes, then the effects were pretty minimal - the British were pretty good about reporting early live data, and their estimation of the initial efficacy for over-80 Brits with two doses was about 89%, 95% confidence interval 85% to 93%. That's not meaningly differrent from Pfizer's claimed 95%.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines on covid-19 related symptoms, hospital admissions, and mortality in older adults in England: test negative case-control study
> 
> 
> Objective To estimate the real world effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 and Oxford-AstraZeneca ChAdOx1-S vaccines against confirmed covid-19 symptoms (including the UK variant of concern B.1.1.7), admissions to hospital, and deaths. Design Test negative case-control study. Setting...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.bmj.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The over 70 group coming in lower here is interesting but reading between the lines they make no reference to a second dose and the efficacy they're claiming is in line with my recollections of the roughly 65% or so I remember excpecting after a single dose here. I know at some point the UK switched from a second dose after 3-4 weeks, to a second dose after 12 - could someone in the UK confirm if that occured after the 80+ cohort was vaccinated but before many 70+ adults were? That would explain the text of the study neatly.
> 
> But, I think it's important to keep some of this stuff in its historical context - the "in the wild" data DID show a gradual deterioration of efficacy over time... but from a base pretty consistent with what the trials had predicted. A lot of the reason we started talking about, and initially giving, boosters wasn't because we found out the vaccines "didn't work," so much as we found out they "didn't last" as well as we had hoped.
> 
> I think much the same could be said for messaging. Some of it was plain awful and intentionally bad. Some of it, however, was scientists sharing the best available data, and as that data changed, so too did their guidance. Consistency itself isn't a virtue.



You’re totally correct. But these numbers all depends how you count ‘effectiveness’. Each trial by Pfizer, Moderna, AZ and poor JJ defined things slightly differently. Was it 2x positive PCR regardless of symptoms, or symptomatic infection, or infection with mild or moderate symptoms? And definitions of mild/moderate varied. JJ picked worse criteria for themselves, came out with a low % effectiveness, and it essentially killed their great vaccine. 

I’m not saying they the drug companies did anything wrong or pulled any shenanigans. Just that the message of ‘95%’ didn’t translate to the public in the scientific meaning. I believe most people believed that 95% meant they had almost perfect immunity. 

(And yes, to my recollection, they started delaying second doses after the most vulnerable were vaccinated)

More than anything it was another public messaging and Science communication fail. The real key IMO is that two doses still massively lowers your chance of needing hospital. I believe that’s what most rational people care about.


----------



## Flappydoodle

profwoot said:


> Has there been any indication whether long covid is as prevalent among those who were vaccinated and boosted prior to infection? Or indications that anyone eventually recovers from long covid?
> 
> Between that risk and the new study about increased future risk of various vascular diseases, I don't love some of the in-person meetings I'm having to attend at work.


Seems to be less in those vaccinated 

But nobody really knows what long Covid is. There was a decent study showing that maybe it triggers autoimmunity: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03631-y

However, there is also absolutely some sort of psychosomatic, anxiety-related component. Something like 30% of people suffering long Covid have never tested positive and don’t show evidence of prior infection. Reported symptoms are also an absolute clusterfuck and usually there’s nothing wrong with any diagnostic tests, which could mean a very complex pathogenesis, or again points to something psychological. So in a way it makes sense that vaccination would be preventative since it takes away a lot of anxiety for some people. 

IMO, if you’re healthy, young (less than 65) and have at least vaccine doses, you have nothing to worry about attending in-person meetings.


----------



## LordCashew

profwoot said:


> Has there been any indication whether long covid is as prevalent among those who were vaccinated and boosted prior to infection? Or indications that anyone eventually recovers from long covid?
> 
> Between that risk and the new study about increased future risk of various vascular diseases, I don't love some of the in-person meetings I'm having to attend at work.


I know one guy who is dealing with long-term covid complications. He was fully vaccinated, not boosted, but also not due for a boost. He had an asymptomatic infection but tested positive when his wife was symptomatic; in the weeks following his infection he developed heart palpitations, confusion, and extreme fatigue. His doctors told him he's dealing with nervous system inflammation as a side-effect of his covid infection. Middle-aged guy in great physical shape.

He's been seeking out and talking to people who have/had long covid and it sounds like most of them have been slowly recovering over weeks to months.

So yeah, I think there is still a risk worth taking into account if you're vaccinated. Anecdotally, almost everyone I know has had it now, and whether they were vaccinated or not seems not to have made much of a difference in the severity of their symptoms other than the vaccinated people keeping their sense of smell most of the time. Also I'm up to FIVE people I know personally who have had heart complications from a vaccine or booster dose. None of them fit into the "young male" category that's supposed to be at greatest risk. Plus I personally along with another guy I know have developed tinnitus after getting the vaccine. But then again, my wife got tinnitus following covid, not the vaccine.

Sometimes it seems we're screwed no matter what we choose at this point. I was ready for social distancing to be over, but it seems like the danger has not really passed, nor does the vaccine give the kind of protection we hoped for. Again, speaking from my anecdotal perspective...


----------



## Randy

LordIronSpatula said:


> whether they were vaccinated or not seems not to have made much of a difference in the severity of their symptoms



I don't think I'd put that fine a point on it but I do think one thing lost in this "just get the vax" pushback against anti-science Alex Jones-types is our usual (healthy) skepticism of the medical industry.

My friend works in the medical field and something he pointed out was the extreme conditions the mRNA vaccine needed to be stored in, and how we were hearing all kinds of stories of batches being thrown out from contamination or going to places to be distributed, being stored at wrong temp and getting tossed or administered by accident. That was in the first like, month or so and then the vaccine roll-out scaled up to 1000x and we're to assume handling of the vaccines suffered less incidents?

I'm not 100% sure how much I trust that the vax I got in the ghetto Ride Aid in my neighborhood with the leaking refrigerators was maintained at the required temperature and conditions. I've also heard there was some issue with the vaccine actually being administered incorrectly between untrained staff and high volume of doses.

I think all of that is in the mix, before you get into physiology of the individual and all that.

Also anecdotal... I haven't had the virus, nobody in my house, nobody in my immediate family (besides my niece) and nobody in my brother-in-law's immediate family, also nobody in my office. That group of myself and people I have usual contact with is about 25+ people? 

In my case, all the people I know that have had it got it multiple times and they were the ones pulling their hair out of their head and doing mental gymnastics to explain why they were protected and why they needed to go to max capacity concert, bar/club on busiest night, the gym, etc etc. I've done most or all of those things but with some degree of mitigation like concert outdoors (mask if passing in close quarters), bar/restaurant on off hours where I can stay with my closed group, I don't go to the gym but I've stayed healthy by being active outdoors and at home.

Some degree of that is luck (good vs bad) but having any situational concern or awareness absolutely plays a role. I'm sure your overall environment makes a difference. I know somebody in NYC during full lockdown living at him with just his wife and they got it between either grocery store or pharmacy because those were the only two places they went within the time they ended up getting sick


----------



## p0ke

Tested again yesterday, rest of the family is still negative. Stepson apparently has various matching symptoms, but it's impossible tell whether it's for real or if he just doesn't wanna go to school. So I guess we'll just keep testing until it's positive or all the symptoms go away. The good thing is that no-one's properly sick after my daughter's fever went away, but everyone being at home all the time is starting to wear on us. The kids are super bored, but at least they're a bit bigger now than last time, so they don't go around painting the TV with glitter glue and stuff like that... And yes, my daughter actually did that - luckily it's only visible when the TV's turned off and the sun's shining at it...


----------



## TedEH

I'm pretty surprised that I've made it this far without getting the 'rona. Not like I've been going out and partying for the last two years, but since I live alone anyway, there's clearly holes in the precautions I have or haven't taken. I wash my hands, I wear a mask, I got three jabs, but outside of that I just go about my life as "normally" as anyone else does. Pretty much all my family got it at some point - both of my siblings and all their kids, my parent, etc. In one instance, my sister's household caught it and we had gone to see a movie within what I think would have been the right time frame (the _singular_ "big crowd" I'd been in this whole time, since things have been reopening) - but the tests I took all came back negative. I've had the odd time here or there where I've felt the tiniest bit under the weather (seasonal allergies maybe? time change messing with me?) but I keep taking the rapid tests and coming out negative. Some band members got it. Only people I know of that haven't got it yet are myself, and that friend of mine whose leg broke at the beginning of the pandemic and has been house-bound anyway.

So I guess the key is to live alone and have very little social life. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


----------



## _MonSTeR_

I’ve got it but I think I'm just about there now and although it’s a been mild case, I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. 

I wouldn't want to face it without having had the three jabs i've had, (assuming that I'm _still_ protected) because even with them it's been like the flu (not a cold, the actual flu where your bones ache) but with an added cough. Frankly, I can see how and why it was flooring people at the start.


----------



## Flappydoodle

LordIronSpatula said:


> I know one guy who is dealing with long-term covid complications. He was fully vaccinated, not boosted, but also not due for a boost. He had an asymptomatic infection but tested positive when his wife was symptomatic; in the weeks following his infection he developed heart palpitations, confusion, and extreme fatigue. His doctors told him he's dealing with nervous system inflammation as a side-effect of his covid infection. Middle-aged guy in great physical shape.
> 
> He's been seeking out and talking to people who have/had long covid and it sounds like most of them have been slowly recovering over weeks to months.
> 
> So yeah, I think there is still a risk worth taking into account if you're vaccinated. Anecdotally, almost everyone I know has had it now, and whether they were vaccinated or not seems not to have made much of a difference in the severity of their symptoms other than the vaccinated people keeping their sense of smell most of the time. Also I'm up to FIVE people I know personally who have had heart complications from a vaccine or booster dose. None of them fit into the "young male" category that's supposed to be at greatest risk. Plus I personally along with another guy I know have developed tinnitus after getting the vaccine. But then again, my wife got tinnitus following covid, not the vaccine.
> 
> Sometimes it seems we're screwed no matter what we choose at this point. I was ready for social distancing to be over, but it seems like the danger has not really passed, nor does the vaccine give the kind of protection we hoped for. Again, speaking from my anecdotal perspective...


I also know one person who has long-term effects from Covid. But he was a severe case and spent more than a month on a ventilator. That was back in summer 2020.

I also agree with your anecdote that nowadays it doesn't seem to matter much whether vaccinated or not, for younger people at least. The vaccines barely dent your rate of infection from Omicron. And Omicron seems very mild for most people, regardless of vaccination state. I know people who were totally unvaccinated, got Covid recently and were mildly sick for a couple of days. There's just such heterogeneity in the responses people have. Hell, there was a UK trial where they gave people Covid to study immune responses and they found that some people literally cannot be infected even when you squirt high doses of virus up their nose.

I also agree with your anecdote about the cardiac side effects. I know two people who I believe had side effects from vaccines: both from 3rd doses. Both had palpitations, rapid heart rate etc for a few weeks after. It must be far more common than the studies are reporting, or there's some sort of huge placebo effects.



Randy said:


> I don't think I'd put that fine a point on it but I do think one thing lost in this "just get the vax" pushback against anti-science Alex Jones-types is our usual (healthy) skepticism of the medical industry.
> 
> My friend works in the medical field and something he pointed out was the extreme conditions the mRNA vaccine needed to be stored in, and how we were hearing all kinds of stories of batches being thrown out from contamination or going to places to be distributed, being stored at wrong temp and getting tossed or administered by accident. That was in the first like, month or so and then the vaccine roll-out scaled up to 1000x and we're to assume handling of the vaccines suffered less incidents?
> 
> I'm not 100% sure how much I trust that the vax I got in the ghetto Ride Aid in my neighborhood with the leaking refrigerators was maintained at the required temperature and conditions. I've also heard there was some issue with the vaccine actually being administered incorrectly between untrained staff and high volume of doses.
> 
> I think all of that is in the mix, before you get into physiology of the individual and all that.
> 
> Also anecdotal... I haven't had the virus, nobody in my house, nobody in my immediate family (besides my niece) and nobody in my brother-in-law's immediate family, also nobody in my office. That group of myself and people I have usual contact with is about 25+ people?
> 
> In my case, all the people I know that have had it got it multiple times and they were the ones pulling their hair out of their head and doing mental gymnastics to explain why they were protected and why they needed to go to max capacity concert, bar/club on busiest night, the gym, etc etc. I've done most or all of those things but with some degree of mitigation like concert outdoors (mask if passing in close quarters), bar/restaurant on off hours where I can stay with my closed group, I don't go to the gym but I've stayed healthy by being active outdoors and at home.
> 
> Some degree of that is luck (good vs bad) but having any situational concern or awareness absolutely plays a role. I'm sure your overall environment makes a difference. I know somebody in NYC during full lockdown living at him with just his wife and they got it between either grocery store or pharmacy because those were the only two places they went within the time they ended up getting sick



I think that's a good point about the roll-out, storage and shipping conditions etc.

But I think the point about individual variation is key. There are some people who get absolutely slammed by Covid. I know two people who died that I honestly wouldn't have predicted would die. I also know a 95 year old who had it (before vaccines) and was fine, and I know a morbidly obese, diabetic 65 year old woman with hypertension who got it back in 2020 and was pretty much fine (supplemental oxygen for a few hours). I also know a 35 year old who spent a month on a ventilator and still can't climb stairs properly. So there's some huge genetic component and you don't really know what will happen until you get infected.

There was a UK study doing a "challenge trial" where they deliberately infect you with a specific viral load and then study the exact timeline of various incubation times, immune responses, what date you test positive etc. They found that some people simply cannot be infected even when you squirt live virus up their nose multiple times. So you really have all sorts of extreme people out there in the wild, haha.

I should also point out that there are literally millions of people who are functionally unvaccinated. They might have had 3 jabs, but it doesn't guarantee they have immunity. Cancer patients, autoimmune patients etc are often on drugs which are wiping out their immune system, or suppressing it. So they might tick a box as being vaccinated, but in reality they are not and they're just as capable of catching, spreading and being seriously ill from it as an unvaccinated person. That seems to be totally ignored by all messaging.

It's really surprising that nobody you know has had Covid though, especially if you're in NYC. That said, in 2022, and you're double or triple vaccinated, I personally don't see much to fear from gyms, crowded bars etc. If you do get Covid, so what? I don't wear a mask at all now unless it's specifically requested. If the evidence changes, there's a scary new variant, or something else to change the status quo, then I'm willing to change my mind. But as of right now, I'm pretty much over modifying my life for this pandemic.


----------



## JSanta

I had Covid about 4 weeks after my booster. The symptoms themselves weren't awful, but the fatigue lingered for weeks. 12 hours of sleep was like nothing and my daily practice routine felt almost like a waste because I couldn't retain anything I was working on. 

I was mostly WFH, and where I teach, masks and vaccines were and still are required. I was one of the people that felt like I took the precautions, wore my mask, got my shots, and still got sick. My story is not unique and a number of friends and colleagues all ended up with Covid, most of them within a month or so of the booster. One guy ended up in the hospital with pretty severe symptoms, again just a few weeks after his booster.

I want to be clear that I believe in the foundational science behind our initial approaches probably up until the last 6 months, but after getting sick and seeing so many others like me get sick, I kind of wonder to what extent protections are based on sound science or control. I am going to live my life and take precautions where it makes sense, and still advocate that people do the same, to include getting the shots. But I am not going to pretend that all of those things will actually protect people with the kind of hope we had when the vaccines first rolled out.


----------



## IwantTacos

Shanghai is getting completely wrecked by omicron. 

That being said I only know 1 person in China that has it..one person in my sister's office.

The masks impacting child development is stupendous bullshit. Asian cultures have been wearing masks for the better part of a decade. 

It's not like kids are masked up at home. 

Homeschooling probably wrecks more kids then having to wear a mask at school ever will.


----------



## JSanta

IwantTacos said:


> Shanghai is getting completely wrecked by omicron.
> 
> That being said I only know 1 person in China that has it..one person in my sister's office.
> 
> The masks impacting child development is stupendous bullshit. Asian cultures have been wearing masks for the better part of a decade.
> 
> It's not like kids are masked up at home.
> 
> Homeschooling probably wrecks more kids then having to wear a mask at school ever will.



I think that may be true for a population of kids that are what we consider the average kid. I work with a lot of deaf students. The masks have absolutely had an impact on their ability to understand content, even with an interpreter in the room. I also think at least in the West, we are very conditioned to learn from expressions and the micro facial expression changes that happen during ordinary reactions. Some of that is certainly lost with masking.


----------



## Randy

Flappydoodle said:


> It's really surprising that nobody you know has had Covid though, especially if you're in NYC. That said, in 2022, and you're double or triple vaccinated, I personally don't see much to fear from gyms, crowded bars etc. If you do get Covid, so what? I don't wear a mask at all now unless it's specifically requested. If the evidence changes, there's a scary new variant, or something else to change the status quo, then I'm willing to change my mind. But as of right now, I'm pretty much over modifying my life for this pandemic.


I'm upstate which is a lot more rural. I know people that have had it but they're kind of peripheral friends of mine who I knew were high risk before this even happened. Bachelors mostly.

I'm not worried about myself, still concerned about the people I could pass it to. Like most people were doing mid-pandemic, I've got my bubble group that I spend more time with less mitigation than others (like my parents, siblings) and I wouldn't want it on my conscience if it got to them. My girlfriend in particular has bad asthma but there's others.

I'm not missing out on anything at least in my perception. I was furloughed for like a year and yeah, kind of a hermit but I've been back to work for about a year where I have an office open to the public and I have to meet with people every day, along with obviously the stuff that comes with it like eating out or going to the store, etc. As of today I think my day to day is about 99.9% the same as it was in 2019 minus the fact I still wear a mask in mixed company.


----------



## Randy

JSanta said:


> I want to be clear that I believe in the foundational science behind our initial approaches probably up until the last 6 months, but after getting sick and seeing so many others like me get sick, I kind of wonder to what extent protections are based on sound science or control.


Or money. Especially when the drug companies are leading the charge in the research on the virus, they get to make the recommendations and they say "get ready for shot number four!".

When the government is paying for them by the tens of millions for 100 cents on the dollar no questions asked, I mean, I think it's safe to ask where the CURRENT science is on this. NYS currently pushing "covid treatments" and they bought a few hundred thousand doses of the anti-viral, which I believe is also produced by Pfizer.


----------



## jaxadam

JSanta said:


> I had Covid about 4 weeks after my booster. The symptoms themselves weren't awful, but the fatigue lingered for weeks. 12 hours of sleep was like nothing and my daily practice routine felt almost like a waste because I couldn't retain anything I was working on.
> 
> I was mostly WFH, and where I teach, masks and vaccines were and still are required. I was one of the people that felt like I took the precautions, wore my mask, got my shots, and still got sick. My story is not unique and a number of friends and colleagues all ended up with Covid, most of them within a month or so of the booster. One guy ended up in the hospital with pretty severe symptoms, again just a few weeks after his booster.
> 
> I want to be clear that I believe in the foundational science behind our initial approaches probably up until the last 6 months, but after getting sick and seeing so many others like me get sick, I kind of wonder to what extent protections are based on sound science or control. I am going to live my life and take precautions where it makes sense, and still advocate that people do the same, to include getting the shots. But I am not going to pretend that all of those things will actually protect people with the kind of hope we had when the vaccines first rolled out.



Didn’t you asymptomatically test positive way back in the beginning?


----------



## wheresthefbomb

Flappydoodle said:


> Kids have missed a lot of education due to teachers isolating, parents isolating, kids isolating etc. Absence days have been high for almost two years now. Online school is shit, let's be honest. This one really baffles me because it was clear from late 2020 that children aren't at risk themselves, and by early 2021 we knew that schools aren't even a major vector. Yet some schools still have insane policies where one case means the whole class stays at home. Even at universities they're still doing online classes in some places which seems bonkers to me. Healthy 21 year olds have basically nothing to fear from Covid, and they're paying a price of their social lives and personal development, and getting worse education on top.
> 
> I've also read papers (not my field of expertise though) that make the case of masks damaging children's development. Babies rely on faces, and they watch lips as part of speech development. Anybody who has kids intuitively knows this. And around 2 years old they start to really understand facial expression of happiness, sadness, anger, but also much more subtle things like when someone is lying to you, trying to hide emotions etc. As I said, it's outside my area and I'm not sure how robust this evidence is, but it sounds plausible to me that peoples faces is going to impact how childrens' brains are developing.
> 
> It's so frustrating to see this huge amount of energy and money put into fighting Covid when it could be spent on so many other things now. As a young person, my demographic is 10x more likely to die of suicide than Covid. Imagine spending this much effort on improving mental health and life satisfaction of youths. Or how about improving road safety, or pre-natal care? Hell, put this many resources into anti-smoking, anti-obesity and anti-alcohol efforts. Instead we spend money spraying hands and cleaning elevator buttons when this isn't a surface transmissible virus, or we're obsessively testing otherwise healthy people and putting up stupid perspex sheets everywhere.
> 
> The whole thing is crazy and unfortunately I see real reluctance by many people to let go and move on. The evidence is clear now that we have a milder virus, effective vaccines, effective prophylaxis, effective treatment options, hospital stays are shorter etc etc. It's time to get back to normal life and stop living in fear.



The education thing is real. I have been subbing since January and I have been teaching a _lot _of neurotypical, gen ed 4th/5th graders who _cannot read _or can barely read. Math skills have suffered visibly as well but the number of kids this age who flat out tell me they can't read the directions on their assignments is staggering. Many classrooms are still just using Google Classroom and a lot of my time now is spent watching a roomful of kids on laptops all day just making sure they're not looking at youtube or whatever (and of course, I cannot guarantee this anyway, these kids are savvy enough to minimize whenever I get up to do my rounds). The whole environment is pretty disheartening, it feels like a lot of teachers are at a loss and just doing damage control at this point, and the kids can absolutely sense it.

Hugely agree with the direction of resources toward mental health as well. This whole situation has laid bare the woeful unpreparedness of any kind of safety net in this country. My mental health issues certainly haven't been improved by pandemic times.


----------



## Drew

Flappydoodle said:


> You’re totally correct. But these numbers all depends how you count ‘effectiveness’. Each trial by Pfizer, Moderna, AZ and poor JJ defined things slightly differently. Was it 2x positive PCR regardless of symptoms, or symptomatic infection, or infection with mild or moderate symptoms? And definitions of mild/moderate varied. JJ picked worse criteria for themselves, came out with a low % effectiveness, and it essentially killed their great vaccine.
> 
> I’m not saying they the drug companies did anything wrong or pulled any shenanigans. Just that the message of ‘95%’ didn’t translate to the public in the scientific meaning. I believe most people believed that 95% meant they had almost perfect immunity.
> 
> (And yes, to my recollection, they started delaying second doses after the most vulnerable were vaccinated)
> 
> More than anything it was another public messaging and Science communication fail. The real key IMO is that two doses still massively lowers your chance of needing hospital. I believe that’s what most rational people care about.


But, my point here was, based on consistent definitions as were in place from the very start, when we first rolled out vaccines, they WERE within spitting distance of being as effective as advertised - I don't have the 95% confidence interval of that initial efficacy trial claim handy, but I'd say the odds are very good it overlaps with the 85-93% real world results they saw right off the bat in the UK. This isn't a matter of dishonesty, nor is it a matter of the general public not understanding the data at the time - this is 100% a matter of the efficacy waned over time, which early on we didn't know because, well, it hadn't happened yet.


----------



## JSanta

jaxadam said:


> Didn’t you asymptomatically test positive way back in the beginning?



You have a tremendous memory! I did test positive in January of 2021, but never presented symptoms, and neither did anyone in my bubble (which was just my wife and her parents, and I honestly believe one of my in-laws would have gotten sick if I really had Covid at that time.) I didn't do a titer to check for antibodies to verify, but my own belief based on no one else getting sick was that it was a false-positive. 


Randy said:


> Or money. Especially when the drug companies are leading the charge in the research on the virus, they get to make the recommendations and they say "get ready for shot number four!".
> 
> When the government is paying for them by the tens of millions for 100 cents on the dollar no questions asked, I mean, I think it's safe to ask where the CURRENT science is on this. NYS currently pushing "covid treatments" and they bought a few hundred thousand doses of the anti-viral, which I believe is also produced by Pfizer.



I think that is also an absolutely fair way of looking at the current situation as well.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

Randy said:


> My girlfriend in particular has bad asthma but there's others.


Did she, or at least others you know with asthma, stock up on inhalers and medication prior? My siblings are all asthmatic and that's what I advised, not sure if it even mattered.

I'm wondering if a 3 dose asthmatic patient that gets COVID will have as mild illness as others have experienced.


----------



## profwoot

While I am still wearing a mask everywhere, I too acknowledge that there are some real issues. Most of my teaching occurs in the lab, where I'm constantly telling stories and coming up with metaphors to explain the material, and it's rough when I can't look at the students' faces and tell whether this is the best example ever that I should definitely use whenever I teach this topic or if I'm off on my own having lost them a while back. I instead have to interrupt myself often to get them talking, but it's still often difficult to know where they're at when I can't see _how_ they're saying it. The last cohort really struggled, although obviously the masks were one factor among many. I'm sure the last couple years have been especially bad for deaf students.

The mental health of people generally seems to have deteriorated significantly, and I hope there's a wave of concern and awareness to follow. 

And just to keep the thread grounded, vaxed folks are still 20-40x less likely to die of covid. Yes, even now.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

profwoot said:


> While I am still wearing a mask everywhere, I too acknowledge that there are some real issues. Most of my teaching occurs in the lab, where I'm constantly telling stories and coming up with metaphors to explain the material, and it's rough when I can't look at the students' faces and tell whether this is the best example ever that I should definitely use whenever I teach this topic or if I'm off on my own having lost them a while back. I instead have to interrupt myself often to get them talking, but it's still often difficult to know where they're at when I can't see _how_ they're saying it. The last cohort really struggled, although obviously the masks were one factor among many. I'm sure the last couple years have been especially bad for deaf students.
> 
> The mental health of people generally seems to have deteriorated significantly, and I hope there's a wave of concern and awareness to follow.
> 
> And just to keep the thread grounded, vaxed folks are still 20-40x less likely to die of covid. Yes, even now.



I have heard the other end of this too, my brother had an awful time in labs this year as a student. 

It's also obvious that kids recognize that adults don't actually know wtf is going on. Widespread inconsistency/arbitrary decisions with mask usage, not to mention whatever messages they're getting at home. It's a shitshow and unfortunately a disproportionate amount of the burden was laid on childrens'/students' shoulders. Even at the university level, I don't know how it was elsewhere but the local campus has had the strictest and longest-running mask/quarantine/social distancing policies of any public institution around here. Not that that was a wrong decision necessarily, but it's shitty to have such a substantial burden on students, including in many cases being kicked out of the dorms entirely, when it was being taken much less seriously in many other areas. 

As other users have mentioned, we have not seen the end of the fallout from the pandemic and our response to it.


----------



## Flappydoodle

IwantTacos said:


> Shanghai is getting completely wrecked by omicron.
> 
> That being said I only know 1 person in China that has it..one person in my sister's office.
> 
> The masks impacting child development is stupendous bullshit. Asian cultures have been wearing masks for the better part of a decade.
> 
> It's not like kids are masked up at home.
> 
> Homeschooling probably wrecks more kids then having to wear a mask at school ever will.


Because the Chinese vaccines simply do not work. They’re using deactivated virus vaccines. And they’re shit because the spike protein ends up fixed in a configuration that isn’t representative of a real infection. So the antibodies you make are not very useful to actually stopping infection. The trials China put out were dodgy, and no reliable western country ever corroborated their vaccine efficacy. They did a study in South America too, but still entirely run by Chinese. So that’s one main reason for their problems, combined with a lack of natural immunity. 

Due to nationalism and pride, they won’t be buying AZ, Moderna etc which actually work. 

And no, children in ‘Asia’ (if we’re gonna generalise) didn’t used to all routinely wear masks all the time. If you were sick, adults might wear one on public transport or at the office. But it certainly wasn’t standard or common. Before the pandemic, it would be comfortably less than 10% wearing masks in any public place, based on my experience in Tokyo, Taipei and Seoul. And children definitely weren’t wearing masks in schools either. (And looking at the sorry state of a lot of kids in those places, I wouldn’t want my kids to turn out like that anyway!)

I don’t see how you can rule out negative effects so confidently when the science about children looking at faces etc is pretty solid. It’s much harder to believe that widespread masking would have no effect. Sure, their parents at home won’t be wearing masks, but teachers and other students and all the random people they meet (waitresses, cashiers etc) are all masked.


----------



## Flappydoodle

Randy said:


> Or money. Especially when the drug companies are leading the charge in the research on the virus, they get to make the recommendations and they say "get ready for shot number four!".
> 
> When the government is paying for them by the tens of millions for 100 cents on the dollar no questions asked, I mean, I think it's safe to ask where the CURRENT science is on this. NYS currently pushing "covid treatments" and they bought a few hundred thousand doses of the anti-viral, which I believe is also produced by Pfizer.



Yes, absolutely 

And for Pfizer specifically, this vaccine is the single most profitable product they have ever made. It’s an amazing accomplishment that they did it in such a short time. But operation warp speed had the government/taxpayer absorbing all of the risk, and now Pfizer is creating record shattering revenues. 

It’s also questionable why the government is still funding their research and trials of treatments and vaccines, when the companies clearly have enough commercial incentive to do it themselves now.


----------



## IwantTacos

Flappydoodle said:


> Because the Chinese vaccines simply do not work. They’re using deactivated virus vaccines. And they’re shit because the spike protein ends up fixed in a configuration that isn’t representative of a real infection. So the antibodies you make are not very useful to actually stopping infection. The trials China put out were dodgy, and no reliable western country ever corroborated their vaccine efficacy. They did a study in South America too, but still entirely run by Chinese. So that’s one main reason for their problems, combined with a lack of natural immunity.
> 
> Due to nationalism and pride, they won’t be buying AZ, Moderna etc which actually work.
> 
> And no, children in ‘Asia’ (if we’re gonna generalise) didn’t used to all routinely wear masks all the time. If you were sick, adults might wear one on public transport or at the office. But it certainly wasn’t standard or common. Before the pandemic, it would be comfortably less than 10% wearing masks in any public place, based on my experience in Tokyo, Taipei and Seoul. And children definitely weren’t wearing masks in schools either. (And looking at the sorry state of a lot of kids in those places, I wouldn’t want my kids to turn out like that anyway!)
> 
> I don’t see how you can rule out negative effects so confidently when the science about children looking at faces etc is pretty solid. It’s much harder to believe that widespread masking would have no effect. Sure, their parents at home won’t be wearing masks, but teachers and other students and all the random people they meet (waitresses, cashiers etc) are all masked.



Actually my kids have never masked at school

They do mask when they walk around in malls and lots of kids have done that all around Asia. But go ahead tell me how you know better

We also know no vaccines actually prevent transmission so whether or not the Chinese vaccine works or not doesn’t matttttttter.

Things will be back to normal in 2 weeks. 

A hundred cases and no deaths is hardly a problem.


----------



## Drew

Flappydoodle said:


> Yes, absolutely
> 
> And for Pfizer specifically, this vaccine is the single most profitable product they have ever made. It’s an amazing accomplishment that they did it in such a short time. But operation warp speed had the government/taxpayer absorbing all of the risk, and now Pfizer is creating record shattering revenues.
> 
> It’s also questionable why the government is still funding their research and trials of treatments and vaccines, when the companies clearly have enough commercial incentive to do it themselves now.


Slight nitpick - Pfizer didn't receive federal research funding as part of Operation Warp Speed. They self-funded their research. This is why they're able to sell their vaccine at a market rate, whereas other participants are not, as this was a stipulation of OWS R&D funding. 

They DID receive a government advance order for vaccine doses after it had been developed and while it was in trial, contingent upon FDA approval. So, it's not entirely true to say they didn't participate at all in Operation Warp Speed. However, saying that the government/taxpayer took all the risk, and it's questionable why the government is funding this when companies clearly have the means and commercial incentive to do it themselves... well, yeah. That's what Pfizer did. And they've shown that taking the economic risk, and in turn the profit opportunity, can be a VERY lucrative alternative to emergency government funding.


----------



## CovertSovietBear

Flappydoodle said:


> Because the Chinese vaccines simply do not work. They’re using deactivated virus vaccines. And they’re shit because the spike protein ends up fixed in a configuration that isn’t representative of a real infection. So the antibodies you make are not very useful to actually stopping infection. The trials China put out were dodgy, and no reliable western country ever corroborated their vaccine efficacy. They did a study in South America too, but still entirely run by Chinese. So that’s one main reason for their problems, combined with a lack of natural immunity.
> 
> Due to nationalism and pride, they won’t be buying AZ, Moderna etc which actually work.
> 
> And no, children in ‘Asia’ (if we’re gonna generalise) didn’t used to all routinely wear masks all the time. If you were sick, adults might wear one on public transport or at the office. But it certainly wasn’t standard or common. Before the pandemic, it would be comfortably less than 10% wearing masks in any public place, based on my experience in Tokyo, Taipei and Seoul. And children definitely weren’t wearing masks in schools either. (And looking at the sorry state of a lot of kids in those places, I wouldn’t want my kids to turn out like that anyway!)
> 
> I don’t see how you can rule out negative effects so confidently when the science about children looking at faces etc is pretty solid. It’s much harder to believe that widespread masking would have no effect. Sure, their parents at home won’t be wearing masks, but teachers and other students and all the random people they meet (waitresses, cashiers etc) are all masked.


I read some publications wayyy back last year regarding some of the Chinese vaccines. Do you have any current publications you've been reading regarding their process?


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

wheresthefbomb said:


> I have heard the other end of this too, my brother had an awful time in labs this year as a student.
> 
> It's also obvious that kids recognize that adults don't actually know wtf is going on. Widespread inconsistency/arbitrary decisions with mask usage, not to mention whatever messages they're getting at home. It's a shitshow and unfortunately a disproportionate amount of the burden was laid on childrens'/students' shoulders. Even at the university level, I don't know how it was elsewhere but the local campus has had the strictest and longest-running mask/quarantine/social distancing policies of any public institution around here. Not that that was a wrong decision necessarily, but it's shitty to have such a substantial burden on students, including in many cases being kicked out of the dorms entirely, when it was being taken much less seriously in many other areas.
> 
> As other users have mentioned, we have not seen the end of the fallout from the pandemic and our response to it.


My final in English was on barriers to education, so naturally many of my classmates presentations touched on how the pandemic has negatively affected whatever their subject was. Fucking everything is in the shitter since the pandemic, mental health issues (amongst many others) through the roof.


----------



## p0ke

Me and my wife both tested positive this morning. Woohoo...


----------



## tedtan

Sounds like you were fortunate not getting it sooner.


----------



## Flappydoodle

IwantTacos said:


> Actually my kids have never masked at school
> 
> They do mask when they walk around in malls and lots of kids have done that all around Asia. But go ahead tell me how you know better
> 
> We also know no vaccines actually prevent transmission so whether or not the Chinese vaccine works or not doesn’t matttttttter.
> 
> Things will be back to normal in 2 weeks.
> 
> A hundred cases and no deaths is hardly a problem.



I don't know what they're doing in mainland China. I will never ever go there.

But before the pandemic, no masks absolutely were not routine for everybody in all public places in Japan, Korea or Taiwan - all places where I have spent good amounts of time.

And it's correct that the Chinese vaccines are very low effectiveness. If they have a true explosion of cases, we'll see what happens with death rates. (I'd also hardly call all the QR codes, tracking etc "normal", lol)



CovertSovietBear said:


> I read some publications wayyy back last year regarding some of the Chinese vaccines. Do you have any current publications you've been reading regarding their process?


Latest study that I properly read in full was from Chile

There's a more recent commentary here: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2111165

Problem is, I simply don't trust the data coming from China. I know very well how academia works there, and basically you're not going to be able to say anything negative or which makes the government, Chinese companies or national efforts look bad. Unless Sinovac is tested in a reliable country by non-Chinese project PIs, I'm not trusting it.


----------



## p0ke

tedtan said:


> Sounds like you were fortunate not getting it sooner.


I assume you were replying to me - in which case yes, definitely. 

All I was hoping for was that we wouldn't get infected before our baby was born since that would've caused some extra measures. 
Also - I'm assuming thanks to this being omicron + us being fully vaccinated - our symptoms have been really mild. My wife had a pretty bad headache when this started, but painkillers and a nap took care of that and our 5yo had fever when it started, but apart from that it's just some couching and runny noses... Oh and our baby has been sleeping more than normal, which I'm assuming to be her symptom  

Like I said before though we're all really worn out from everyone being at home all the time, but thankfully it's almost over unless it suddenly takes a turn for the worse... My stepson (who didn't even test positive at any point, I'm assuming immunity thanks to his infection in 2020) already returned to school today, and our daughter will be going to daycare as soon as me or my wife are allowed to take her. The official rule here is to stay isolated for at least 5 days after the symptoms start, and my wife says hers started on the night between Wednesday and Thursday, so according to that she's off the hook tomorrow. My symptoms started a bit later, but I'll be "free" on Wednesday as well.


----------



## tedtan

^ Hang in there and get well soon.


----------



## Flappydoodle

So China is going full retard and locking down 25 million people. I really have no idea what their intention is here. Even if they squash this outbreak, are they going to stay closed forever? Snap back into lockdown every time this happens?

China is rarely crazy or irrational, so I am curious why they’re adamantly sticking to this zero Covid policy. I know their vaccines don’t work well, but I still doing think they’d see mass deaths happening.


----------



## mbardu

Flappydoodle said:


> So China is going full retard and locking down 25 million people. I really have no idea what their intention is here. Even if they squash this outbreak, are they going to stay closed forever? Snap back into lockdown every time this happens?
> 
> China is rarely crazy or irrational, so I am curious why they’re adamantly sticking to this zero Covid policy. I know their vaccines don’t work well, but I still doing think they’d see mass deaths happening.



To be fair, 25 million people is not that many for China.


----------



## bostjan

Flappydoodle said:


> China is rarely crazy or irrational


Uighur genocide. Two words that 100% nullify the statement above.

If you want to say that China is less crazy or less irrational than, say the US government, then there might be room for an argument, although I'd strongly disagree with that as well, but any government actively and presently involved in genocide cannot be rhetorically defended.


----------



## AMOS

Flappydoodle said:


> So China is going full retard and locking down 25 million people. I really have no idea what their intention is here. Even if they squash this outbreak, are they going to stay closed forever? Snap back into lockdown every time this happens?
> 
> China is rarely crazy or irrational, so I am curious why they’re adamantly sticking to this zero Covid policy. I know their vaccines don’t work well, but I still doing think they’d see mass deaths happening.


This is a prime example of what happens when a country doesn't have the right to keep and bear arms.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> Uighur genocide. Two words that 100% nullify the statement above.
> 
> If you want to say that China is less crazy or less irrational than, say the US government, then there might be room for an argument, although I'd strongly disagree with that as well, but any government actively and presently involved in genocide cannot be rhetorically defended.



It's not necessarily a defense, at least not a moral one.
They can be "rational" and absolutely immoral at the same time.
That's what kinda makes it worse... They could be a fine-tuned uber-efficient machine of a regime and still be genocidal maniacs....not like we have not seen that before


----------



## mbardu

AMOS said:


> This is a prime example of what happens when a country doesn't have the right to keep and bear arms.



This has absolutely nothing to do with US-centric 2A discussions.


----------



## StevenC

AMOS said:


> This is a prime example of what happens when a country doesn't have the right to keep and bear arms.


No it isn't.


----------



## Drew

Flappydoodle said:


> So China is going full retard and locking down 25 million people. I really have no idea what their intention is here. Even if they squash this outbreak, are they going to stay closed forever? Snap back into lockdown every time this happens?
> 
> China is rarely crazy or irrational, so I am curious why they’re adamantly sticking to this zero Covid policy. I know their vaccines don’t work well, but I still doing think they’d see mass deaths happening.


They're doing rolling lockdowns, and not locking down all of Shanghai, thanks in part to backlash when they tried to do a full lockdown. 

This is what happens when you have an authoritarian government that's staked it's reputation on something that's subsequently become untenable. They were able to keep China covid-free for a while by locking down locally at the first sight of an outbreak, but omicron is too contageous and the Sinovax is too ineffective, and they're losing control. 

The one sliver of hope here is the fact they backtracked to a rolling lockdown at least suggests that there is SOME situational awareness and willingness to adapt on the part of the Chinese, but my personal thoughts are that between the supply shocks from the Russian invasion of Ukraine (oil/gas/coal, wheat, aluminum, various other commodities) and supply shocks from lockdowns in China (technology goods), there's a very real and growing risk of recession in the next 12-18 months (and the inverted yield curve is further evidence that the market is just now starting to tune into these risks) in the US.


----------



## Drew

StevenC said:


> No it isn't.


Yeah, I'd go one-party rule, no free press, and a government that gives essentially total control to the head of state, and beyond that I don't know if the US response to omicron is really one that gives us much credibility here to criticize.


----------



## StevenC

Drew said:


> Yeah, I'd go one-party rule, no free press, and a government that gives essentially total control to the head of state, and beyond that I don't know if the US response to omicron is really one that gives us much credibility here to criticize.


Though, let's turn it on it's head.

"If the government weren't so afraid of our God given right to bear arms, we'd be stuck with universal healthcare by now!"


----------



## Drew

StevenC said:


> Though, let's turn it on it's head.
> 
> "If the government weren't so afraid of our God given right to bear arms, we'd be stuck with universal healthcare by now!"


----------



## AMOS

mbardu said:


> This has absolutely nothing to do with US-centric 2A discussions.





StevenC said:


> No it isn't.


Absolutely no human rights? You bet your ass it is.


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> It's not necessarily a defense, at least not a moral one.
> They can be "rational" and absolutely immoral at the same time.
> That's what kinda makes it worse... They could be a fine-tuned uber-efficient machine of a regime and still be genocidal maniacs....not like we have not seen that before



I could offer you a semantic reason why genocide is irrational, but, maybe instead, I'll just make a list:

Operation Smash Sparrow. Sparrows eat seeds. Grains are seeds. People eat grains. People are hungry. Therefore, make sparrows go extinct.

Except the Eurasian sparrow eats mostly bugs - bugs that eat crops. The end result of operation smash sparrow was a whole lot of dead songbirds and then three years of great famine that caused the starvation of millions of people as locusts devastated crops.

If that's not enough for you, what about Mao's declaration that every Chinese citizen smelt steel in their backyard wood stove, despite the fact that it's physically impossible to do so?

If that's too far back in history for you, what about Xi's 2012 anti-corruption campaign? Installing a bureau of anti-corruption that can circumvent due process in order to purge corruption and bureaucracy from the Chinese government. Yeah, do I need to explain to anyone why that's a bad idea? Also, if you don't care about spoilers, the program only managed to increase the amount of corruption in the government, surprise surprise!

I mean, I could go on and on. I'm sure some will disagree for whatever reason, but come on, we all know that the Chinese government is bonkers. It's less bonkers than it used to be, but when the nation fought a war against songbirds less than a lifetime ago and not only lost, but ended up directly resulting in up to 55 million human deaths, it's hardly a comparison worth bothering to mention.


....


And now we have tons of videos of the Chinese government quarantine camps. People brawling over bottles of water and bags of food that are just literally dumped into the dirt within the confines of the camp. Regular folks being stomped by government workers for failing to obey orders quickly enough. Babies being separated from their mothers and just thrown into the camp with everyone else, when the baby tests positive and the mother tests negative. This is disgusting and disturbing stuff. Fuck the Chinese government. Between this thread and the Russia one, so many people standing up for the Chinese government when the Chinese government has no qualms fucking everyone else over, torturing their own citizens for circumstances outside of anyone's control, pushing the blame for anything under their own control that goes wrong onto their own people and then punishing those people, and last but certainly not least genocide. Stop defending the Chinese government as being smart, rational, calculated, or anything that it is clearly not!


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> I could offer you a semantic reason why genocide is irrational, but, maybe instead, I'll just make a list:
> 
> Operation Smash Sparrow. Sparrows eat seeds. Grains are seeds. People eat grains. People are hungry. Therefore, make sparrows go extinct.
> 
> Except the Eurasian sparrow eats mostly bugs - bugs that eat crops. The end result of operation smash sparrow was a whole lot of dead songbirds and then three years of great famine that caused the starvation of millions of people as locusts devastated crops.
> 
> If that's not enough for you, what about Mao's declaration that every Chinese citizen smelt steel in their backyard wood stove, despite the fact that it's physically impossible to do so?
> 
> If that's too far back in history for you, what about Xi's 2012 anti-corruption campaign? Installing a bureau of anti-corruption that can circumvent due process in order to purge corruption and bureaucracy from the Chinese government. Yeah, do I need to explain to anyone why that's a bad idea? Also, if you don't care about spoilers, the program only managed to increase the amount of corruption in the government, surprise surprise!
> 
> I mean, I could go on and on. I'm sure some will disagree for whatever reason, but come on, we all know that the Chinese government is bonkers. It's less bonkers than it used to be, but when the nation fought a war against songbirds less than a lifetime ago and not only lost, but ended up directly resulting in up to 55 million human deaths, it's hardly a comparison worth bothering to mention.



Oh I know they've done absolutely dumb stuff, don't get me wrong. Whether they have done dumb_*er*_ stuff than others, I'm not entirely convinced, but that's besides the point almost.
In general I'm just scared of authoritarian govs with unyielding ideals, long term planning and no morals to stand in their way.

Thankfully it usually doesn't work out in their favor, usually due to sheer incompetence...but the few examples of those ending up competent has always been scary.



bostjan said:


> And now we have tons of videos of the Chinese government quarantine camps. People brawling over bottles of water and bags of food that are just literally dumped into the dirt within the confines of the camp. Regular folks being stomped by government workers for failing to obey orders quickly enough. Babies being separated from their mothers and just thrown into the camp with everyone else, when the baby tests positive and the mother tests negative. This is disgusting and disturbing stuff. Fuck the Chinese government. Between this thread and the Russia one, so many people standing up for the Chinese government when the Chinese government has no qualms fucking everyone else over, torturing their own citizens for circumstances outside of anyone's control, pushing the blame for anything under their own control that goes wrong onto their own people and then punishing those people, and last but certainly not least genocide. Stop defending the Chinese government as being smart, rational, calculated, or anything that it is clearly not!



"Fuck the Chinese government"...I mean, yes 100%.
We shouldn't be complacent and think that they're inept though. 
That's something else entirely and we should be vigilant instead.


----------



## StevenC

"I'm not saying they aren't crazy, just offering the opinion that genocide can be rational."

Glad to see the covid thread is back on course.


----------



## bostjan

mbardu said:


> Oh I know they've done absolutely dumb stuff, don't get me wrong. Whether they have done worse than others, I'm not entirely convinced, but that's besides the point almost.
> In general I'm just scared of authoritarian govs with unyielding ideals, long term planning and no morals to stand in their way.
> 
> Thankfully it usually doesn't work out in their favor, usually due to sheer incompetence...but the few examples of those ending up competent has always been scary.
> 
> 
> 
> "Fuck the Chinese government"...I mean, yes 100%.
> We shouldn't be complacent that they're inept though. That's something else entirely and we should be vigilant instead.


The way I see it- the Chinese government's #1 priority is to look good. It's not their only priority, but it's certainly extremely important to them. We know covid started in China, which was a bad look. China then sews the seeds of doubt that maybe it started somewhere else and China just happened to become the earliest epicenter of the extremely contagious disease, and it just happened to have started there three months before it really got going elsewhere. Anyway, I think everyone knows with a wink and a nod that the vaccines available in China are of dubious quality, at best. We know that, a couple weeks ago, the Chinese government publicly stated that it was not going to have lock downs in Shanghai. Then, we see not only lockdowns in Shanghai, but this crazy lockdown of half the city and then plans to lockdown the other half once things are better, which makes no logical sense. And then, when that very quickly becomes apparent that it's a stupid plan, they start doing the lockdown camps for people who test positive, and now we're seeing how that idea was equally not-followed-through, logically. So now there are tens of thousands of people in these camps with no actual medical care and the camps are quickly become free-for-alls.

So, putting a bunch of infected people in a camp together (which could be an idea worth entertaining if there was enough further thought put into it, but this is obviously not the case) and then basically just locking the gate on the fence and walking away, is really just going to ultimately result in mass deaths, not due to covid itself, but due to the fact that these people are living now in unhygienic conditions, probably dehydrated, possibly starving, and having their survival options reduced to the point at which they behave like wild animals. If the vaccines worked, none of this would be necessary. But it would look bad for China to admit that the vaccines don't work properly. So China will not pull in any of the operations making the vaccines that actually have been working, and the reason why boils very simply and neatly down into the Chinese government's own ego.

Now, I'm not going to even hint at a suggestion that my home country of the USA did a good job handling covid, because we didn't. We still aren't. It's a mess here. But we are not ripping babies out of their mother's arms and throwing them into camps to fend for themselves, and China, by several accounts, is. Fuck China.


----------



## bostjan

A fourth dose of the covid vaccine might result in only a couple weeks of immunity. But people who are vaccinated are still highly unlikely to die from serious illness due to infection from SARS-CoV-2.

So, maybe we've reached the point where we're just all going to have to live with the virus pinging around in the general population. The vaccine is extremely effective at keeping people from dying but highly ineffective at preventing people from spreading the virus. There's still no treatment.  Ivermectin studies have suggested that the treatment is basically worthless, much as many of us suspected. We might not have an effective treatment for years still. That leaves unvaccinated people at a very high risk moving forward.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> We might not have an effective treatment for years still. That leaves unvaccinated people at a very high risk moving forward.


I have to confess I haven't stayed THAT on top of news here, but I understand some of our antiviral treatments have been pretty effective, and monoclonal antibody treatments, while still limited, are very effective as well...?

They're not "cures," and I'd rather chance a vaccine AND monoclonal antibodies than just antibodies, but we have a number of tools at our disposal now.


----------



## Flappydoodle

bostjan said:


> Uighur genocide. Two words that 100% nullify the statement above.
> 
> If you want to say that China is less crazy or less irrational than, say the US government, then there might be room for an argument, although I'd strongly disagree with that as well, but any government actively and presently involved in genocide cannot be rhetorically defended.



Huh? It doesn't nullify it whatsoever. Nor am I providing any sort of defence.

What they're doing is totally rational and totally in line with their goals.

China wants total national unity. This is vitally important for their national security. They want you to be "Chinese" and nothing else. Not "Uighur". Not "Chinese Muslim". They don't want you speaking any language other than Mandarin. They don't want you valuing religion, family, money or anything else more than the country. Once people start having identities that's when they start to get ideas about freedom, independence etc. That's why they're stamping hard on Hong Kong. That's why Taiwan is such a sore point for them, even though it's a tiny island with a total population of less than one Chinese city.

So to that end, when you have a naughty population who is daring to have their own identity, religion, culture and language, it's absolutely rational to deport them all over the country, limit their children, sterilise their women, ban their language and put them away for re-education. It's also not crazy when the government fundamentally doesn't believe in individual human rights or democracy.

It's obviously terrible behaviour by our western standards, but it's hardly irrational or crazy behaviour. I'm not saying they're geniuses who always get everything right, but usually their actions are in line with their goals. If they're staying quiet on Ukraine, for example, it's deliberate. If they're actually locking down Shanghai, there must be a reason. If they're actually getting caught with their pants around their ankles, I'll be the first celebrating, trust me!



Drew said:


> They're doing rolling lockdowns, and not locking down all of Shanghai, thanks in part to backlash when they tried to do a full lockdown.
> 
> This is what happens when you have an authoritarian government that's staked it's reputation on something that's subsequently become untenable. They were able to keep China covid-free for a while by locking down locally at the first sight of an outbreak, but omicron is too contageous and the Sinovax is too ineffective, and they're losing control.
> 
> The one sliver of hope here is the fact they backtracked to a rolling lockdown at least suggests that there is SOME situational awareness and willingness to adapt on the part of the Chinese, but my personal thoughts are that between the supply shocks from the Russian invasion of Ukraine (oil/gas/coal, wheat, aluminum, various other commodities) and supply shocks from lockdowns in China (technology goods), there's a very real and growing risk of recession in the next 12-18 months (and the inverted yield curve is further evidence that the market is just now starting to tune into these risks) in the US.



I totally agree. They kinda staked their "image" on keeping Covid out and being superior to the rest of the world. They were laughing at the US and European disunited responses and lauding it as an example of their superior autocratic government. But now, nature is going to wreck them and they're going to have to lose face. (Honestly, I'm not unhappy about it.)

One other quick thing: they're also going to start using Pfizer vaccines. But they're doing it quietly through BNT Shanghai because of course you can't be using a FOREIGN vaccine. As you said, the fact their national vaccines all failed is a sore point.



bostjan said:


> The way I see it- the Chinese government's #1 priority is to look good. It's not their only priority, but it's certainly extremely important to them. We know covid started in China, which was a bad look. China then sews the seeds of doubt that maybe it started somewhere else and China just happened to become the earliest epicenter of the extremely contagious disease, and it just happened to have started there three months before it really got going elsewhere. Anyway, I think everyone knows with a wink and a nod that the vaccines available in China are of dubious quality, at best. We know that, a couple weeks ago, the Chinese government publicly stated that it was not going to have lock downs in Shanghai. Then, we see not only lockdowns in Shanghai, but this crazy lockdown of half the city and then plans to lockdown the other half once things are better, which makes no logical sense. And then, when that very quickly becomes apparent that it's a stupid plan, they start doing the lockdown camps for people who test positive, and now we're seeing how that idea was equally not-followed-through, logically. So now there are tens of thousands of people in these camps with no actual medical care and the camps are quickly become free-for-alls.
> 
> So, putting a bunch of infected people in a camp together (which could be an idea worth entertaining if there was enough further thought put into it, but this is obviously not the case) and then basically just locking the gate on the fence and walking away, is really just going to ultimately result in mass deaths, not due to covid itself, but due to the fact that these people are living now in unhygienic conditions, probably dehydrated, possibly starving, and having their survival options reduced to the point at which they behave like wild animals. If the vaccines worked, none of this would be necessary. But it would look bad for China to admit that the vaccines don't work properly. So China will not pull in any of the operations making the vaccines that actually have been working, and the reason why boils very simply and neatly down into the Chinese government's own ego.
> 
> Now, I'm not going to even hint at a suggestion that my home country of the USA did a good job handling covid, because we didn't. We still aren't. It's a mess here. But we are not ripping babies out of their mother's arms and throwing them into camps to fend for themselves, and China, by several accounts, is. Fuck China.



I agree with you. That's why I am wondering what on earth they're trying to accomplish. You can't take anything China says seriously because it's all lies. You can only look at what they actually do. Hence my confusion over whether they're actually going into lockdown and what the motivation is.

I suspect it's probably just a tactic admittance that their vaccine sucks and that you can't beat Mother Nature, even with the Almighty dictatorship government! And you're right - it's an ego thing and 

And fwiw, the US response really wasn't horrible as a whole. What do you expect from a country designed from the ground up NOT to have a powerful government and to keep people independent. A president can say or wish whatever he likes, but you have rules at federal, state, city and even county levels. You can't control the media because of 1st amendment. And at the best of times, you've got probably 20% of the country who absolutely won't believe what the "other side" says. Couple that with a notoriously unhealthy, stubborn and non-compliant population... anybody who thinks the US would have had some sort of amazing unified response to Covid was being super unrealistic.



Drew said:


> I have to confess I haven't stayed THAT on top of news here, but I understand some of our antiviral treatments have been pretty effective, and monoclonal antibody treatments, while still limited, are very effective as well...?
> 
> They're not "cures," and I'd rather chance a vaccine AND monoclonal antibodies than just antibodies, but we have a number of tools at our disposal now.



Yeah, some of the antiviral drugs are seemingly amazing. But they're still in fairly short supply. They're also supposed to be given early into infection, to prevent severe outcomes.

That said, even just two vaccine doses pretty much guarantees to stop you from dying, assuming you are not immunocompromised and you actually made an immune response to the vaccine. So the number of people NEEDING those antivirals really isn't that large.

As for preventing infection, I personally doubt we will see any way of accomplishing that. Best hope is that the virus continues to become milder. That, plus "herd resistance" from a good level of artificially (and eventually naturally)-acquired immune responses and memory cells means that it won't be an issue in the future. Arguably the best vaccination you could get is 2 doses of different vaccines, then an Omicron infection as your booster. You make a very wide-ranging immune response when that happens. 

I've never given a shit about any of the sniffle Rhinoviruses I've had in the past, and I think SARS-CoV-2 will end up being like one of those.


----------



## bostjan

I think that you are giving them way too much credit and I'm not sure why you are trying to argue that genocide is a rational behaviour, but you have some good points.

China is a huge country. As such, they cannot exist as a homogeneous block of land 100% controlled by the Han population along the coastline. There are tons of unique places there: Hong Kong, Macau, Fujian, Urumqi, Tibet, the Gobi dessert, inner Mongolia, etc. etc. There is absolutely no reason to believe that those unique subcultures need to be eradicated. There would be much more to gain by being violently inclusive than by being violently exclusive of those different ways of life, i.e. unite everyone under different sub-identities as one unified meta-identity. That philosophy has worked great in the past at uniting Italy, uniting Germany, uniting Spain, holding the 20th century USA together, etc. Fractures in those examples didn't come from different geographical identity politics, but rather from differences in values among spread-out populations. Where imperialism has most often failed was when it tried to enforce active erasure of localized identities, like in the USSR or later British Empire. Yugoslavia is a great example of both: the country united under the meta-identity of people with different languages, cultures, and religion but sharing political ideals and ultimately sharing one greater identity as southern slavs, but then, after a generation, the larger Serbian political sector wanted to start stripping away the identities of the smaller regions. Serbian nationalism overtook Yugoslavian nationalism, so the republics that were not Serbian started breaking away. You never heard Tito talk about Serbians, but Milosevic, who was quickly gaining power after Tito's death, was a totally different story. Sure there were underlying economic problems that hastened the departures of Slovenia and Croatia, but that was just gas on the fire already started by the shift toward a monolithic national identity.

Maybe if it was 1890, I could buy that the decision to commit genocide, although morally reprehensible, might be arrived at through some sort of logic, but it's the 21st century and we've seen the outcome of genocide so many times that this just isn't defensible from any mindset except one that is both stupid *and* depraved.

And we're not talking about shutting a group up and taking away their representation, we're talking about full blown concentration camps and murder. The only conclusions of that are either a) those people and/or their allies fight you or b) you succeed and clear out the entire group and then your greater national populace is no longer able to access that subculture's skills nor manpower.

And I honestly can't believe that I'm on here arguing with someone about why genocide isn't a good idea!

Back to the USA: We did a great job coming up with a novel vaccine that was more effective than we could have asked, but the development of said vaccines were no thanks to the US government, although the distribution of those vaccines was thanks to the government and they scored at least a base hit with how that was handled. But, meanwhile, the CDC was often contradicting themselves, half or more of our states were staying open during key times of viral spread, and our president was going from telling everyone the pandemic was a democratic conspiracy to vaguely suggesting that people drink fish bowl cleaner and inject sunlight. Maybe ultimately none of it mattered in the long run. Maybe the president getting infected was the best thing that could have happened for treatment research. But I don't think anyone is convincing anyone else that any of that was going to plan.


----------



## jaxadam

This is good stuff.


----------



## mbardu

jaxadam said:


> This is good stuff.




On the one hand, it sucks to try and get a gotcha because the president was close to the speaker.
On the other hand, it sucks to split hair and beat around the bush with technicalities.
Why does everybody suck?


----------



## jaxadam

mbardu said:


> On the one hand, it sucks to try and get a gotcha because the president was close to the speaker.
> On the other hand, it sucks to split hair and beat around the bush with technicalities.
> Why does everybody suck?



I’m just glad close contact doesn’t count until 15 minute of kissing. If my wife ever catches me at one of those upside down pineapple parties I can just be like “honey, it doesn’t count! It wasn’t even CLOSE to 15 minutes!”


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> I’m just glad close contact doesn’t count until 15 minute of kissing. If my wife ever catches me at one of those upside down pineapple parties I can just be like “honey, it doesn’t count! It wasn’t even CLOSE to 15 minutes!”



If your wife doesn't allow you to be in the same room as other women for 15 minutes without her present, ya might be a republican. You might even be a vice president!


----------



## Flappydoodle

narad said:


> If your wife doesn't allow you to be in the same room as other women for 15 minutes without her present, ya might be a republican. You might even be a vice president!


In fairness, corporations, schools and universities are also implementing variations of this policy now. As a boss, teacher or politician, the power dynamic is there and it’s best to be careful. Mike Pence was a trend-setter!


----------



## Flappydoodle

bostjan said:


> And we're not talking about shutting a group up and taking away their representation, we're talking about full blown concentration camps and murder. The only conclusions of that are either a) those people and/or their allies fight you or b) you succeed and clear out the entire group and then your greater national populace is no longer able to access that subculture's skills nor manpower.



I suspect it’s the latter and China gives zero fucks. IMO they set their goals and they’ll stick to it. It’s likely they’ve done the calculus and the risk of seeming weak, giving into certain demographics, allowing autonomy etc is believed to be too dangerous. If the Uighurs get their special recognition then other groups are going to get funny ideas. The Xinjiang region is also a total shithole, so China probably doesn’t feel they’re missing out on much. Not to mention their fundamental racism probably comes into the story too. They probably don’t believe any group of non-Han is worth anything to the country anyway. 

I guess it’s a similar story for Covid. They chose their policy, lauded superiority over everybody else with cases and deaths, and now they’re going to stick to it. The risk of admitting they were wrong is simply too high. I’m sure they KNOW better. They have plenty of good scientists and doctors. Many of the higher ups have western education. But when you value power and you don’t care about lives and only care about yourself, the math changes. Just my $0.02 anyway


----------



## John

Schadenfreude.


----------



## thebeesknees22

John said:


> Schadenfreude.


Color me shocked.

shocked I say!

They rolled out 2nd booster shots here in Quebec so I went ahead and got mine last friday. In and out easy peasy.


----------



## Drew

John said:


> Schadenfreude.


Clapton isn't a young man, either. Mortality rates in the unvaccinated get fairly high in your 70s - he's a dumbass for not getting a vaccine, and he's said some really questionable and shady shit over the course of his career that maybe still doesn't get as much attention as it should... but I hope he's ok.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

thebeesknees22 said:


> Color me shocked.
> 
> shocked I say!
> 
> They rolled out 2nd booster shots here in Quebec so I went ahead and got mine last friday. In and out easy peasy.


I actually just got my 2nd booster this morning. I was over 5 mo out from my first boost and although I've been less concerned recently about covid, my wife ( who had been on vacation for the last week) went back to work yesterday and was telling me that her boss apparently is just getting over covid. She said that her boss looked like complete shit and was still showing lingering symptoms. Boss said that she felt like she was going to die... mainly breathing problems. So we did a walk-up this morning. We'd intended to get my wife jabbed with her 2nd boost as well but unfortunately she wasn't eligible due to her age. Anyway... just like my first booster... no issues thus far and I'm not expecting any.


----------



## thebeesknees22

High Plains Drifter said:


> I actually just got my 2nd booster this morning. I was over 5 mo out from my first boost and although I've been less concerned recently about covid, my wife ( who had been on vacation for the last week) went back to work yesterday and was telling me that her boss apparently is just getting over covid. She said that her boss looked like complete shit and was still showing lingering symptoms. Boss said that she felt like she was going to die... mainly breathing problems. So we did a walk-up this morning. We'd intended to get my wife jabbed with her 2nd boost as well but unfortunately she wasn't eligible due to her age. Anyway... just like my first booster... no issues thus far and I'm not expecting any.


yeah they made no official announcement for the 2nd booster here. I just happened to google out of curiosity and found it was available for all ages here starting that week.

I didn't really feel anything from it, but I never really had any symptoms from the previous ones either outside of some tinnitus, but that went away after a couple of months each time. So far not much tinnitus this time.


----------



## TedEH

Wait, there's another booster?


----------



## thebeesknees22

TedEH said:


> Wait, there's another booster?


haha yeah

I'm not sure why they kept it on the DL. I guess because the CDC in the US hasn't yet recommended it yet for everyone. 

I figure might as well get it if it's out there.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

TedEH said:


> Wait, there's another booster?



There's always another booster.


----------



## spudmunkey




----------



## Xaios

thebeesknees22 said:


> Color me shocked.
> 
> shocked I say!


Heavens to Betsy, _what are *the odds!!!*_


----------



## Drew

thebeesknees22 said:


> haha yeah
> 
> I'm not sure why they kept it on the DL. I guess because the CDC in the US hasn't yet recommended it yet for everyone.
> 
> I figure might as well get it if it's out there.


They're recommending it for people over 50, but not below. 

There's also increasing talk about how Americans should think about omicron as a "natural booster," which is... not encouraging.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

At least here where I live, any talk of second boosters ( media generated or otherwise) is seemingly nonexistent. I feel like talk of covid in the news including vaccinations/ boosters, has fallen way down the ratings priority list with all the other hot topics currently circulating. 

I'd also venture a guess that we are now into a phase of 'very little long-term statistical data' regarding efficacy of the second booster. Not sure if that's actually correct but at least it appears to me that the CDC just doesn't have too much confidence to be pushing the #2 boost too hard right now.


----------



## StevenC

Just FYI, Clapton did get his first dose. He became antivax because he felt sick for a few days from AstraZeneca. So he may have some protection, but that was over a year ago.

Not that I wish him any good will.


----------



## Bodes

I caught COVID just over a month ago now (16th April) and only just returned to work this week.
While positive, it was like having an annoying cold. Like one of those where you think 'maybe I should take a day or two off work' kinda level.

The day after my 7 days isolation, went downhill. Could barely breathe some days. Bad heart palpitations - 160bpm + after taking the 20 steps to the toilet and coughing my lungs up.

Had the ambulance over twice, once for barely being able to breathe, the other time I thought I was having a heart attack - they took me to hospital for the heart, but they diagnosed that as a strained muscle behind the rib cage, right in front if the heart, which was pulling on the heart. F'n scary.

Now back at work, I'm a teacher, I actually do not remember any of my students' names or even their faces, apart from if I have taught them in previous years. I work at good school, so the students have been really kind to me, and can see that I still know the content, so are cutting me some slack for not knowing their names.

Every time I try to think of a student's name or remember if I did something last term gives me stinging headaches.

I'm knackered. Have massive brain fogs. Haven't walked the dogs for a month, wife has been bloody awesome and changed her morning workouts/running schedule to take the dogs out everyday.

My arms look like I am a druggie, have had so many blood tests to see if they could find anything. Everything comes back negative and all tests have my blood chemical levels come back well within normal ranges.

Let's just say I am so happy I have such a great wife and family. They certainly make going through this crap easier. I have them to help me out.

Stay safe out there everyone. Long covid can take a long walk off a short pier.


----------



## narad

Bodes said:


> I caught COVID just over a month ago now (16th April) and only just returned to work this week.
> While positive, it was like having an annoying cold. Like one of those where you think 'maybe I should take a day or two off work' kinda level.
> 
> The day after my 7 days isolation, went downhill. Could barely breathe some days. Bad heart palpitations - 160bpm + after taking the 20 steps to the toilet and coughing my lungs up.
> 
> Had the ambulance over twice, once for barely being able to breathe, the other time I thought I was having a heart attack - they took me to hospital for the heart, but they diagnosed that as a strained muscle behind the rib cage, right in front if the heart, which was pulling on the heart. F'n scary.
> 
> Now back at work, I'm a teacher, I actually do not remember any of my students' names or even their faces, apart from if I have taught them in previous years. I work at good school, so the students have been really kind to me, and can see that I still know the content, so are cutting me some slack for not knowing their names.
> 
> Every time I try to think of a student's name or remember if I did something last term gives me stinging headaches.
> 
> I'm knackered. Have massive brain fogs. Haven't walked the dogs for a month, wife has been bloody awesome and changed her morning workouts/running schedule to take the dogs out everyday.
> 
> My arms look like I am a druggie, have had so many blood tests to see if they could find anything. Everything comes back negative and all tests have my blood chemical levels come back well within normal ranges.
> 
> Let's just say I am so happy I have such a great wife and family. They certainly make going through this crap easier. I have them to help me out.
> 
> Stay safe out there everyone. Long covid can take a long walk off a short pier.



Damn dude, I just have randomly this week had a bit of a dry cough / windedness / heart palpitations thing going on (I started a walk challenge thing this week too so maybe I'm just adjusting), so I'm a little concerned. But definitely hoping it doesn't spiral out that hardcore. I'm not sure that sounds like covid or just general body trauma (though caused by covid and some stronger than usual conditions it seems). When was your last booster?


----------



## Bodes

narad said:


> Damn dude, I just have randomly this week had a bit of a dry cough / windedness / heart palpitations thing going on (I started a walk challenge thing this week too so maybe I'm just adjusting), so I'm a little concerned. But definitely hoping it doesn't spiral out that hardcore. I'm not sure that sounds like covid or just general body trauma (though caused by covid and some stronger than usual conditions it seems). When was your last booster?



Maybe just test to be certain. If it comes back negative, maybe see your GP to make sure all is good. Doesn't sound like something you should ignore.

First dose - AZ - June 2021 felt like absolute poo and went to hospital
Second dose - AZ - September 2021, absolutely nothing, bare slight sore at injection site. 
Booster - Pfiser - January 2022 zero reactions at all. Just under 3 months before contracting covid.


----------



## narad

Bodes said:


> Maybe just test to be certain. If it comes back negative, maybe see your GP to make sure all is good. Doesn't sound like something you should ignore.
> 
> First dose - AZ - June 2021 felt like absolute poo and went to hospital
> Second dose - AZ - September 2021, absolutely nothing, bare slight sore at injection site.
> Booster - Pfiser - January 2022 zero reactions at all. Just under 3 months before contracting covid.


In Japan it's pretty hard to get tested actually. None of the infrastructure most of the world has - it was like mindblowing to visit the US again and have this walk in tests at like 3 places in my tiny town of 10k people.

But damn, you're way more up-to-date than I am at this point. Crazy to get a reaction that hard with a booster so recent.


----------



## Bodes

narad said:


> In Japan it's pretty hard to get tested actually. None of the infrastructure most of the world has - it was like mindblowing to visit the US again and have this walk in tests at like 3 places in my tiny town of 10k people.
> 
> But damn, you're way more up-to-date than I am at this point. Crazy to get a reaction that hard with a booster so recent.



I get 5 rapid tests free from the government every fortnight and test twice a week. We have so many students away with covid so need to make sure I was ok. Caught covid at an outdoor sporting event, along with about 30 other people.

Weird to think about the vaccinations. Did they stop me from dying? Did they do nothing and this is just how my body reacts? Some really scary days I had.

It is difficult to get PCR tests here. Most of the time you line up and they just give you a free rapid test and tell you to go home and test. Pretty much have to have a doctor tell you to get a PCR if you return a negative rapid test but have typical symptoms for covid.


----------



## TedEH

It kinda feels like people around here have gone full "it's over now" mode. Mostly because I went to get some groceries, saw a guy with no mask in the store, was ready to be mad at that guy, then noticed I was the only one who still had one. Apparently the requirement went away on the weekend and I hadn't noticed. And of course everyone threw the masks out as soon as possible.

Feels like a pretty dramatic difference - in Ontario I got the impression that everyone was unsure if they should ditch the masks, and lots of people still wear them inside. In Quebec though? Day one - they're right out the window. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


----------



## thraxil

TedEH said:


> It kinda feels like people around here have gone full "it's over now" mode. Mostly because I went to get some groceries, saw a guy with no mask in the store, was ready to be mad at that guy, then noticed I was the only one who still had one.



I had an almost identical experience today and was just coming here to post it. In my case, it was just that I was at the grocery store and noticed that I was literally the only person in there wearing a mask. The mandate was removed here quite a while ago, but there remained at least a sizable minority of people still wearing masks in stores. I think the nice weather that we've had in the last week just triggered something in people and they collectively decided they were done.


----------



## LordCashew

Bodes said:


> I caught COVID just over a month ago now (16th April) and only just returned to work this week.
> While positive, it was like having an annoying cold. Like one of those where you think 'maybe I should take a day or two off work' kinda level.
> 
> The day after my 7 days isolation, went downhill. Could barely breathe some days. Bad heart palpitations - 160bpm + after taking the 20 steps to the toilet and coughing my lungs up.
> 
> Had the ambulance over twice, once for barely being able to breathe, the other time I thought I was having a heart attack - they took me to hospital for the heart, but they diagnosed that as a strained muscle behind the rib cage, right in front if the heart, which was pulling on the heart. F'n scary.
> 
> Now back at work, I'm a teacher, I actually do not remember any of my students' names or even their faces, apart from if I have taught them in previous years. I work at good school, so the students have been really kind to me, and can see that I still know the content, so are cutting me some slack for not knowing their names.
> 
> Every time I try to think of a student's name or remember if I did something last term gives me stinging headaches.
> 
> I'm knackered. Have massive brain fogs. Haven't walked the dogs for a month, wife has been bloody awesome and changed her morning workouts/running schedule to take the dogs out everyday.
> 
> My arms look like I am a druggie, have had so many blood tests to see if they could find anything. Everything comes back negative and all tests have my blood chemical levels come back well within normal ranges.
> 
> Let's just say I am so happy I have such a great wife and family. They certainly make going through this crap easier. I have them to help me out.
> 
> Stay safe out there everyone. Long covid can take a long walk off a short pier.


This sounds a lot like what's happening to a friend of mine. He was up-to-date on his vaccines when he caught Covid in January. He had an almost asymptomatic case that spiraled into heart palpitations and anxiety, then later brain fog, fatigue and insomnia. The heart stuff went away after a few weeks but he still has to avoid overextending himself or he'll relapse on the other stuff. It has been a painfully slow, long, and uneven recovery but he is at least recovering. The main thing that's helped has been rest and just moving everything he can off his plate. 

Hope you're able to get some good rest. Summer break is coming, right?


----------



## mbardu

LordIronSpatula said:


> Hope you're able to get some good rest. Summer break is coming, right?



Being born in the southern Hemisphere, I can't say this didn't give me a little chuckle


----------



## LordCashew

mbardu said:


> Being born in the southern Hemisphere, I can't say this didn't give me a little chuckle


Ah my bad! Misremembered Bodes Guitars as being located in North America for some reason...


----------



## Drew

LordIronSpatula said:


> Ah my bad! Misremembered Bodes Guitars as being located in North America for some reason...


Bowes, maybe?


----------



## Bodes

LordIronSpatula said:


> This sounds a lot like what's happening to a friend of mine. He was up-to-date on his vaccines when he caught Covid in January. He had an almost asymptomatic case that spiraled into heart palpitations and anxiety, then later brain fog, fatigue and insomnia. The heart stuff went away after a few weeks but he still has to avoid overextending himself or he'll relapse on the other stuff. It has been a painfully slow, long, and uneven recovery but he is at least recovering. The main thing that's helped has been rest and just moving everything he can off his plate.
> 
> Hope you're able to get some good rest. Summer break is coming, right?



Good luck to your friend, it really does suck.
I wish for a long holiday. I'm Australian. So our 2 week winter break starts the end of June, so 5 and a bit weeks away.
I am now sleeping ok. No such thing as much down time with a 2 year old, but wife is doing more than her fair share to let me sit down when I need to.


----------



## Thorsday7

I'm drawing a pattern of people who have gotten really sick are people who got vaccinated. 

I never got vaccinated - after having an exemption approved from my employer - and I never got sick. Same with many friends and family members. 

I will say this definitely isn't over. The whole pandemic thing. Anybody following what Bill Gates has been up to this entire time? I swear our reality is stranger and much more infuriating than any fiction.


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday7 said:


> I'm drawing a pattern of people who have gotten really sick are people who got vaccinated.
> 
> I never got vaccinated - after having an exemption approved from my employer - and I never got sick. Same with many friends and family members.


----------



## Thorsday7

@StevenC I am indifferent to the fact such conjecture brings you and people like you satisfaction. 

I, on the other hand, am not satisfied with being obedient for the sake of billionaires' bottom line and a false sense of security.


----------



## jaxadam

Thorsday7 said:


> I never got vaccinated



What made you decide not to get it? It's interesting... at this point I've seen people get the vaccine and not get it. I've seen people get the vaccine, get it, and be fine. I've seen people get the vaccine and get pretty sick. I've seen unvaccinated people not get it. I've seen unvaccinated people get it and be fine. I've seen unvaccinated people get it and get sick. I've seen plenty of responsible precautions taken by both vaccinated and unvaccinated people. Even more interesting is I had my annual with my primary care physician last week and see advised against me getting the booster. Maybe it's all those Monsters and trenbologna sandwiches.


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday7 said:


> @StevenC I am indifferent to the fact such conjecture brings you and people like you satisfaction.
> 
> I, on the other hand, am not satisfied with being obedient for the sake of billionaires' bottom line and a false sense of security.


r/iamverysmart


----------



## Thorsday7

@jaxadam Personal choice. Why do vaccinated people care about others' personal choices?

@StevenC If this is a political and current events subforum, why make others' personal character the focal point of the argument.

Let's talk about Fauci and Gates.


----------



## jaxadam

Thorsday7 said:


> @jaxadam Personal choice. Why do vaccinated people care about others' personal choices?
> 
> @StevenC If this is a political and current events subforum, why make others' personal character the focal point of the argument.
> 
> Let's talk about Fauci and Gates.



It’s all good with me brother, you can do whatever you want for all I care. I know plenty of unvaccinated people and they all have their varying reasons, just curious what yours was.


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday7 said:


> @jaxadam Personal choice. Why do vaccinated people care about others' personal choices?
> 
> @StevenC If this is a political and current events subforum, why make others' personal character the focal point of the argument.
> 
> Let's talk about Fauci and Gates.


This is a politics and current events subforum, not an insane conspiracy theory subforum.

As for why vaccinated people care about others status, it is because vaccination is more effective as more people are vaccinated. This is the basic principle of how vaccines work.


----------



## Thorsday7

So, no one wants to talk about the people who benefited on a global scale while peasants squabbled amongst eachother over seemingly important but moreso divisive topics. 

@StevenC you want to peghole me as an insane conspiracy theorist for wanting to discuss how Bill Gates and the media he pays to portray him in a positive light continue to gaslight the populace... Cool.


----------



## narad

Thorsday7 said:


> @jaxadam Personal choice. Why do vaccinated people care about others' personal choices?
> 
> @StevenC If this is a political and current events subforum, why make others' personal character the focal point of the argument.
> 
> Let's talk about Fauci and Gates.



Bill Gates is an american software engineer, most notable as the founder of Microsoft. He famously dropped out of Harvard University to start the company.

You're right. This feels like what the thread should be about.


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday7 said:


> So, no one wants to talk about the people who benefited on a global scale while peasants squabbled amongst eachother over seemingly important but moreso divisive topics.


We've all been talking about that. It's 386 page thread. You want to talk about conspiracy theories.


----------



## Thorsday7

The comments section of a real switched on British thespian and modern philosopher is more enlightening than this thread. 

Anybody been listening to Russel Brand lately? He's pretty wary of people panning his discussions as conspiracy theory.


----------



## Thorsday7

narad said:


> Bill Gates is an american software engineer, most notable as the founder of Microsoft. He famously dropped out of Harvard University to start the company.
> 
> You're right. This feels like what the thread should be about.



I asked if anybody is up to date on what he has been up to, lately. Nice try. It's like you're AI, or something less intelligent.


----------



## narad

Thorsday7 said:


> I asked if anybody is up to date on what he has been up to, lately. Nice try. It's like you're AI, or something less intelligent.


If you're trying to insult my intelligence, you shouldn't do it immediately after admitting that you view Russel Brand as a modern philosopher. Or a thespian.


----------



## TedEH

Thorsday7 said:


> peghole


The word you're looking for is pigeonhole.



Thorsday7 said:


> Anybody been listening to Russel Brand lately?


No, because it's quackery.

*a pandemic ravages the planet
"Hey, maybe we should be prepared for-"
"NO IT"S A GLOBALIST AGENDA THEY'RE GOING TO OVERRIDE THE GOVERNMENTS AND ENSLAVE US ALL DEMOCRACY IS DEAD FREEEEEEEEEDOM"


----------



## spudmunkey

In over 7,700 posts in 2+ years, the topics've come up once or twice.


TedEH said:


> The word you're looking for is pigeonhole.
> 
> 
> No, because it's quackery.
> 
> *a pandemic ravages the planet
> "Hey, maybe we should be prepared for-"
> "NO IT"S A GLOBALIST AGENDA THEY'RE GOING TO OVERRIDE THE GOVERNMENTS AND ENSLAVE US ALL DEMOCRACY IS DEAD FREEEEEEEEEDOM"


Ah, ah,, but how did they KNOW a pandemic was inevitable if they weren't planning it!


----------



## TedEH

You know what I don't understand? If the globalists are all baby-blood drinking lizard people - how come we don't have any non-elite lizard people? Where's the lizard-peasants?


----------



## Thorsday7

This is what I come here for. I need a good political bukkake.


----------



## Thorsday7

narad said:


> If you're trying to insult my intelligence, you shouldn't do it immediately after admitting that you view Russel Brand as a modern philosopher. Or a thespian.



I didn't try. I did.

Why everybody here rattles off dismissively is the reason I brought up Brand's YouTube channel. The channel's followers partake in actual discourse. 

My qualm is unelected people shaping policy in our fake democracies.


----------



## SnowfaLL

man.. how do people like Russel Brand still exist on youtube?


----------



## Thorsday7

SnowfaLL said:


> man.. how do people like Russel Brand still exist on youtube?



Raw talent, desire and intention.


----------



## narad

SnowfaLL said:


> man.. how do people like Russel Brand still exist on youtube?



When your career descends into a decade of voiceovers for animated characters and your much-more-famous spouse leaves you, you suddenly have a lot of time on your hands for making videos.



Thorsday7 said:


> Raw talent, desire and intention.



Lol, Russel Brand, is this you?


----------



## Thorsday7

narad said:


> When your career descends into a decade of voiceovers for animated characters and your much-more-famous spouse leaves you, you suddenly have a lot of time on your hands for making videos.



You do it again with that feeble attempt at character assassination. Ya self righteous so and so.


----------



## TedEH

SnowfaLL said:


> how do people like Russel Brand still exist on youtube?


Success on Youtube is about being charismatic, which Russel Brand is. If there's anything I know, it's that you don't need to be correct to be on the internet.


----------



## Thorsday7

TedEH said:


> Success on Youtube is about being charismatic, which Russel Brand is. If there's anything I know, it's that you don't need to be correct to be on the internet.



Hate him or not, Brand's channel is not charisma alone. He presents erudite commentary with comedic timing on modern events. The opposite brand of, let's call it, armchair virtue signalling and groupthink, with anti-social tendencies.


----------



## narad

Russel Brand: for when you want your QAnon drops read with a british accent. The most apt thing I ever about Brand was from a reddit user describing him as:

_Sleazy, slimy, greasy. Or in Russell's language: unprepossessing, obsequious, and oleaginous._


----------



## fantom

StevenC said:


> This is a politics and current events subforum, not an insane conspiracy theory subforum


Are the two really that different in modern times?


----------



## Thorsday7

narad said:


> Russel Brand: for when you want your QAnon drops read with a british accent. The most apt thing I ever about Brand was from a reddit user describing him as:
> 
> _Sleazy, slimy, greasy. Or in Russell's language: unprepossessing, obsequious, and oleaginous._



Obsequious? What?

Is Russel Brand pandering to the Ultra MAGA crowd? Maybe. I didn't refer to him as Jesus Christ, or anything like that. I just said he's far better than you when it comes to an attempt at discussing current events.


----------



## narad

Thorsday7 said:


> Obsequious? What?
> 
> Is Russel Brand pandering to the Ultra MAGA crowd? Maybe. I didn't refer to him as Jesus Christ, or anything like that. I just said he's far better than you when it comes to an attempt at discussing current events.


Is a flat-earther "better" at discussing contemporary geography than someone who doesn't care to hear that bullshit? Regardless, being a loudmouth conspiracy peddler is definitely not one of my aspirations, so he can have that throne all to himself. Well, apart from like, all the other similar guys on youtube and podcasts.


----------



## Thorsday7

Okay, so what is with the government's interest in our bodies? World Health Organization is pro-Lockdown for whenever they see fit, and, with their track record of controlling governments and how that affects overly taxed, concerned citizens is what I am trying to get across as a point of discussion, if that's alright with you, Lord Narad.


----------



## Bodes

@Thorsday7 not trying to sound like I am telling you to get vaccinated, it is none of my business, but hopefully if you catch COVID, you are safe.

The same thing can be said to everybody, whether vaccinated or unvaccinated.

Your body, your choice.

In saying that, out of a general curiosity, are you taking precautions to not catch covid? Or are you of the opinion that if you happen to catch it, so be what comes?


----------



## narad

Thorsday7 said:


> Okay, so what is with the government's interest in our bodies? World Health Organization is pro-Lockdown for whenever they see fit, and, with their track record of controlling governments and how that affects overly taxed, concerned citizens is what I am trying to get across as a point of discussion, if that's alright with you, Lord Narad.



Go for it. Sounds like it will be a really enlightening discussion full of facts and sensible conclusions!


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday7 said:


> With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and leaving the singular issue of late term abortion up to the respective State(s), this hints at a direction of more sovereign State powers... I wish States would secede from this union. The prospect of not having to pay Federal Income Tax has me swollen. Nearly fully engorged.


This dude on "personal choices" that don't relate to him.


----------



## narad

StevenC said:


> This dude on "personal choices" that don't relate to him.



Yea, best not pay too much attention to someone who gets excited at the overturning of basic human rights so that maybe he can pay less tax.


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday7 said:


> a real switched on British thespian ... Russell Brand


Have you seen that guy's filmography?


----------



## LordCashew

Drew said:


> Bowes, maybe?


Ah yes... I'll show myself out. 

At least the thread has already moved on...


----------



## Xaios

"I notice how most people that get really sick are the vaccinated."

Funny. I noticed the same thing, about how most of the people that flat-out _die_ are the unvaccinated. How very curious.


----------



## bostjan

When I want to research medical topics, I know I don't consult journals nor doctors nor scientists, but rather flip on youtube and see what actors have to say. The people who spend a decade or more of their lives studying these topics full time are obviously less qualified than the guy who played Dr. Nefarious in _Dispicable Me_, right?


----------



## MFB

StevenC said:


> Have you seen that guy's filmography?



Are you insinuating that the spilt wine shirt monologue in _Forgetting Sarah Marshall _is not on the same level as King Lear?


----------



## nightflameauto

MFB said:


> Are you insinuating that the spilt wine shirt monologue in _Forgetting Sarah Marshall _is not on the same level as King Lear?


Hey, man! Dude made out with Alec Baldwin for fuck sake. He's paid his dues!


----------



## spudmunkey

Xaios said:


> "I notice how most people that get really sick are the vaccinated."
> 
> Funny. I noticed the same thing, about how most of the people that flat-out _die_ are the unvaccinated. How very curious.


Since we're throwing around anecdotes...

So far, I've met (previously, duh) 3 people who have died from COVID.
1. My godmother's husband (basically my godfather) (in his low 60s), Septermber of 2021.
2. A high school classmate and former bandmate of my best friend, with whom I've hung out dozens of times (44), December of 2021
3. My co-worker's mother (at least 90, because I met her at a birthday lunch and it was her 90th), 3rd quarter of 2020

The first two did the "they declined not to disclose their vaccination status but, with some of their last words, urged everyone to get vaccinated" thing. The third. Was 90 years old and living at home because they didn't like the hospice, so she was on her way out anyway, and died before vaccines were available.

Despite nearly everyone I know being vaccinated, I don't believe I know anyone who's died, outside of two car crashes which *gasp* didn't list COVID on the death certificate so the hospital can make more money!?!? /s


----------



## StevenC

MFB said:


> Are you insinuating that the spilt wine shirt monologue in _Forgetting Sarah Marshall _is not on the same level as King Lear?


The bit about Brand saying mobile phones killing people is a ridiculous premise comes to mind


----------



## Thorsday7

narad said:


> Yea, best not pay too much attention to someone who gets excited at the overturning of basic human rights so that maybe he can pay less tax.



You think Roe v. Wade is a basic human right? You, like many others, don't know the overturning is only stopping birthing persons from committing late term abortion. Late Term. Which is murder. Do you get off on aborting a six to nine month old human?


----------



## bostjan

spudmunkey said:


> Since we're throwing around anecdotes...
> 
> So far, I've met (previously, duh) 3 people who have died from COVID.
> 1. My godmother's husband (basically my godfather) (in his low 60s), Septermber of 2021.
> 2. A high school classmate and former bandmate of my best friend, with whom I've hung out dozens of times (44), December of 2021
> 3. My co-worker's mother (at least 90, because I met her at a birthday lunch and it was her 90th), 3rd quarter of 2020
> 
> The first two did the "they declined not to disclose their vaccination status but, with some of their last words, urged everyone to get vaccinated" thing. The third. Was 90 years old and living at home because they didn't like the hospice, so she was on her way out anyway, and died before vaccines were available.
> 
> Despite nearly everyone I know being vaccinated, I don't believe I know anyone who's died, outside of two car crashes which *gasp* didn't list COVID on the death certificate so the hospital can make more money!?!? /s


Sorry you've had to go through so much.

I've had more friends die of suicide since the start of the pandemic than from covid. It seems like our collective physical and mental health is paying the toll for everything.

But I'm in Vermont. Nearly everybody here is at least partially vaccinated by now. I know a few people who are deep into covid conspiracies and they have had at least one shot. The closest person to me who died of covid was in Michigan and we had just talked him into getting vaccinated, but in between scheduling the appointment and actually going in to the clinic, he became ill.

Now there's some rather hot contention between family members over the entire ordeal. I can't help but think that it's got to have something to do with mental and emotional health. I mean, I don't believe in ghosts, yet, if I had a family member who was reportedly killed by a ghost, I wouldn't choose their funeral to pick arguments with people about the existence of ghosts, yet, replace me with an older family member and replace ghosts with covid, and well, that's what happened, and it only sort-of surprised everyone else.

I'm not at all a conservative guy, but I'm probably less liberal leaning than the vast majority of people posting in PCE here. But the science denial amongst conservatives at large is so embarrassing that, even if I did agree with their politics, I would be way too embarrassed to ever admit it. And I know that Trump didn't exactly say that covid was a democratic conspiracy, but what he _did_ say _sounded_ like that to people all over the political spectrum, and there's no denying that his followers _did _say that.

In the 80's, there was a bump in crime and general mayhem that we all blamed on the lack of operational mental health facilities. While I still believe that's a root cause, we now have some data linking the craziness to lead poisoning from lead in the drinking water and leaded gas and lead paint and lead pretty much everywhere. Well, now it's 40 years later and the lead should be pretty much all gone from all of those products, yet things seem more insane than ever. Is covid literally making people crazy, or is there something predating it?

IDK, maybe it doesn't matter. Certainly, I'm not the most sane person. I'm a musician after all, and that more or less precludes me having good mental health. I just wish there was a way to improve this for our kids at least.


----------



## bostjan

Thorsday7 said:


> You think Roe v. Wade is a basic human right? You, like many others, don't know the overturning is only stopping birthing persons from committing late term abortion. Late Term. Which is murder. Do you get off on aborting a six to nine month old human?


Holy fuck. No one was legally aborting a nine month old baby? I'm not even sure where you got that from. Read the damned decision or at least a wikipedia article or something.


----------



## Thorsday7

Pharmaceutical corporations have quadrupled annual revenue since 2019. Pfizer in particular is crushing it. 

Imagine being in the business of selling something that you couldn't be legally held accountable for, and the media you sponsored urged everybody to buy said product... What a life. 

COVID-19 was and is a money and civil liberties grab. If you're a real peasant, go along with it.


----------



## Thorsday7

bostjan said:


> No one was legally aborting a nine month old baby? I'm not even sure where you got that from. Read the damned decision or at least a wikipedia article or something.



Shows how much you know. Radical Feminists everywhere scoff at you, bostjan.


----------



## Adieu

Thorsday7 said:


> Pharmaceutical corporations have quadrupled annual revenue since 2019. Pfizer in particular is crushing it.
> 
> Imagine being in the business of selling something that you couldn't be legally held accountable for, and the media you sponsored urged everybody to buy said product... What a life.
> 
> COVID-19 was and is a money and civil liberties grab. If you're a real peasant, go along with it.



1 problem... COVID vaccines are dirt cheap

About 15 bucks last year. And falling.

Believe you me, Pfizer has better and higher-paid things to do than turn the world upside down to embezzle a mere billion dollars a year from the US government and/or insurance companies


----------



## bostjan

Thorsday7 said:


> Shows how much you know. Radical Feminists everywhere scoff at you, bostjan.


Dude, seriously, read _Roe v Wade_. It clearly sets the limit at 12 weeks of pregnancy.



> (3) (b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.



I don't care what radical feminists think- I'm talking about written case law as you brought it up.


----------



## mbardu

Adieu said:


> 1 problem... COVID vaccines are dirt cheap
> 
> About 15 bucks last year. And falling.
> 
> Believe you me, Pfizer has better and higher-paid things to do than turn the world upside down to embezzle a mere billion dollars a year from the US government and/or insurance companies



You don't have to believe the conspiracy angle of it, but Pfizer and others are benefiting like crazy from the pandemic and vaccine.
Pretending like they are not is not serving your point.

Edit: and don't take my word for it, just look at their earnings report - https://s28.q4cdn.com/781576035/files/doc_financials/2021/q2/Q2-2021-PFE-Earnings-Release.pdf
_Doubling _their revenue compared to what would have been successful quarters in the past, and COVID revenue as a line item is 3 times as a big as even the second largest item in their portfolio of products.


----------



## mbardu

Thorsday7 said:


> Shows how much you know. Radical Feminists everywhere scoff at you, bostjan.



People who think a woman would _enjoy _aborting a 9 months old baby must not have met a lot of women.


----------



## Thorsday7

Adieu said:


> 1 problem... COVID vaccines are dirt cheap
> 
> About 15 bucks last year. And falling.
> 
> Believe you me, Pfizer has better and higher-paid things to do than turn the world upside down to embezzle a mere billion dollars a year from the US government and/or insurance companies


----------



## mbardu

I also always appreciate the "but muh states' rights" argument to trying and undo any progressive win at the federal level.

Like the OG:


----------



## Thorsday7

mbardu said:


> People who think a woman would _enjoy _aborting a 9 months old baby must not have met a lot of women.



Nice try. I'm a realist.

And my wife is smoking hot as she is emotionally and conventionally intelligent.


----------



## mbardu

Thorsday7 said:


> Nice try. I'm a realist.
> 
> And my wife is smoking hot as she is emotionally and conventionally intelligent.



Is this a copypasta?


----------



## Thorsday7

mbardu said:


> I also always appreciate the "but muh states' rights" argument to trying and undo any progressive win at the federal level.
> 
> Like the OG:


You're funny because real Americans who want sovereignty are all racist, ableist, bigots?


----------



## Thorsday7

mbardu said:


> Is this a copypasta?


Is that a racial slur against Italians using computers?


----------



## mbardu

Thorsday7 said:


> You're funny because real Americans who want sovereignty are all racist, ableist, bigots?



I mean, as a *real *American you are free to interpret it and identify as you wish.
As far as I'm concerned, just like the dude in the pic just asked a question, I just posted a funny picture


----------



## Drew

Thorsday7 said:


> View attachment 107982


So, two things here.

One, "revenue" isn't profit. Most pharma companies who were working on a vaccine received significant goverment assistance in the production of covid vaccines, but in return agreed to sell their vaccine at cost in return for that assistance. So, if Pfizer was actually an appropriate example here (they're not, see point 2), they might see a _revenue_ boost of $36.8B from selling covid vaccines in 2021... but that would have been exactly in line with an increase in expenses of $36.8B from producing the vaccines in the first place, so the actual contribution to net income would be $0.

Two... Pfizer is actually one of the very few pharma companies to be profiting off of the Covid vaccine, so they're actually not really a good indicative measure for the rest of the market. Pfizer opted out of Operation Light Speed. Other covid vaccine producers, notably Moderna, participated... but in return, as above, had to sell at cost. So, you're looking at revenue and not EBITDA or net income, which is the wrong metric to begin with... but even if it was the rtight one, Pfizer was I believe the only pharma company able to sell their vaccine at a profit. As it standfs, it actually isn't MUCH of a profit, because they have to compete against companies selling their vaccines at cost, which leaves them with very little pricing power. But, they're an anomaly here.

But, if there's one thing I can get across here, it seems like whenever anyone talks about a company's earnings, they always go straight to revenue. That's wrong. That's just the total value of all sales. Profit is what's left after you deduct all the costs of developing, producing, or otherwise obtaining all of the goods you've just sold, and they absolutely do NOT always go hand in hand. 

EDIT - also, trying to find a breakdown of either net income, or cost of goods sold, attributed to Pfizer's covid vaccines in their most recent 10-Q with thus far no success, but one of the other things we're not accounting for here is that the figures above are the _total_ revenue associated with Pfizer's vaccine, but half of that is payable to BioNTech under the terms of their joint partnership, so right off the bat we're doubling the amount of sales attributable to Pfizer, before we even get into how much of that is actually profit.
EDIT #2 - yeah, they provide revenue breakouts by drug/program, but not expense breakouts (which, to be fair, would be extremely hard to do). But, not for nothing, in Q1 Pfizer had revenue of $25,661mm resulting in net income of $7,864, for a net income margin of about 30%. Even if that could be linerally extrapolated to their covid drugs, and there are good reasons to think the margins should be a lot tighter here than for a lot of the rest of their portfolio, with $36.8b in 2021 revenue, half or 18.4B going to BioNTech, and the remainder having about 30% flow into net income, you'd imply about $5.5B in actual profit to the firm. In reality I suspect it's quite a bit lower than that, maybe in the $2B ballpark. That's a far cry from the sort of profits you have in mind... and, again, the fact they're able to profit at all here makes them an outlier.


----------



## jaxadam

Thorsday7 said:


> And my wife is smoking hot as she is emotionally and conventionally intelligent.



Those three cannot coexist. Trust me, I've been with many combinations of *pick two from above*.


----------



## Thorsday7

Drew said:


> So, two things here.
> 
> One, "revenue" isn't profit. Most pharma companies who were working on a vaccine received significant goverment assistance in the production of covid vaccines, but in return agreed to sell their vaccine at cost in return for that assistance. So, if Pfizer was actually an appropriate example here (they're not, see point 2), they might see a _revenue_ boost of $36.8B from selling covid vaccines in 2021... but that would have been exactly in line with an increase in expenses of $36.8B from producing the vaccines in the first place, so the actual contribution to net income would be $0.
> 
> Two... Pfizer is actually one of the very few pharma companies to be profiting off of the Covid vaccine, so they're actually not really a good indicative measure for the rest of the market. Pfizer opted out of Operation Light Speed. Other covid vaccine producers, notably Moderna, participated... but in return, as above, had to sell at cost. So, you're looking at revenue and not EBITDA or net income, which is the wrong metric to begin with... but even if it was the rtight one, Pfizer was I believe the only pharma company able to sell their vaccine at a profit. As it standfs, it actually isn't MUCH of a profit, because they have to compete against companies selling their vaccines at cost, which leaves them with very little pricing power. But, they're an anomaly here.
> 
> But, if there's one thing I can get across here, it seems like whenever anyone talks about a company's earnings, they always go straight to revenue. That's wrong. That's just the total value of all sales. Profit is what's left after you deduct all the costs of developing, producing, or otherwise obtaining all of the goods you've just sold, and they absolutely do NOT always go hand in hand.



"The U.S. pharmaceutical giant reported $21.98 billion in net profit on revenue of $81.29 billion for 2021, mainly thanks to its Covid-19 vaccine. BNT162b2 or Comirnaty, as the drug is officially called, accounted for 45 percent of Pfizer’s revenue last year, dwarfing any other drug in the company's vast portfolio."

Link: https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/25434/pfizer-annual-revenue/

Pfizer came up, bigly, peasants!


----------



## Thorsday7

mbardu said:


> I mean, as a *real *American you are free to interpret it and identify as you wish.
> As far as I'm concerned, just like the dude in the pic just asked a question, I just posted a funny picture


 
As a real American, I concur that it is your right to post and gloat about posting that meme portraying MAGA people as proponents for slavery. 

This video is just as gross:


----------



## Drew

Thorsday7 said:


> "The U.S. pharmaceutical giant reported $21.98 billion in net profit on revenue of $81.29 billion for 2021, mainly thanks to its Covid-19 vaccine. BNT162b2 or Comirnaty, as the drug is officially called, accounted for 45 percent of Pfizer’s revenue last year, dwarfing any other drug in the company's vast portfolio."
> 
> Link: https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/25434/pfizer-annual-revenue/
> 
> Pfizer came up, bigly, peasants!


See my edits, where I get into the math a bit. Again, you're confusing revenue and profit. Extrapolating their firm-wide net income margin to their share of vaccine revenue, which is an approach I'd bet heavily yields an inflated value, gets you in the $5.5B ballpark for contribution to net income. 

And, Pfizer still isn't a good proxy for the rest of the vaccine program here, because they actually CAN sell their vaccine at a profit.


----------



## StevenC

Pfizer is definitely making a lot more money from my anticoagulants than the one shot I got.

Also probably worth noting that I, like most people, didn't pay for the 3 shots I got.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

It is unfortunate that it ends up being fodder for kooky conspiracy nonsense, but Bill Gates is legitimately involved in some pretty shady imperialist shit. You can read about it right on Wikipedia. There is also evidence the B&MGF viewed the Ebola pandemic of last decade as an opportunity to solidify Gate's vision of imperialist, world-police philanthropy, and likewise that the B&MGF urged Oxford to sell their Covid vaccine to AstraZeneca on an exclusive basis rather than releasing it to anyone and everyone. (Re: Why are we discussing Bill Gates in this thread? That's why)

While the various claims of human rights violations by the B&MGF have failed to stick, using indigenous or third world populations as medical tests grounds is far from unusual in our history. Here in Alaska, many indigenous people were subjected to Iodine 131 testing, which sometimes involved invasive surgical implants as well, during the Cold War without any sort of informed consent, and many people in these areas reported substantial chronic health issues and radiation accumulation later. I have heard more than a few firsthand accounts from people who lived through it, and as many more from people whose friends and family didn't. These people thought they were receiving necessary medical care.

I got the vaccines. I believe in vaccines. Vaccine science is sound.

However, people's motivations are not sound, and it's not exactly radical to say that Pfizer made an assload of money off this pandemic, especially given the kind of behavior by B&MGF above regarding Oxford's vax. To then extrapolate from that that the pandemic was engineered is a _*MAJOR*_ leap, but let's not be blinded to the fact that we live in a capitalist society, and the organizations that already have power will do basically anything within that power to retain and grow it.



Unfortunately, conspiracy theories tend to be really polarizing, and leave very little room for nuanced discussion of whatever the subject may be. In this case, it makes it incredibly difficult for me to be critical of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation without looking like I am taking the side of the conspiracy theorist that everyone is currently dog piling.

TL;DR If I were Bill Gates, these last few pages are exactly the kind of discussion that I would hope everyone was having about me. As I often say of InfoWars: If it's not a psyop, someone did a lot of good work for free.


----------



## bostjan

Thorsday7 said:


> Nice try. I'm a realist.
> 
> And my wife is smoking hot as she is emotionally and conventionally intelligent.


A realist who believes that aborting a baby 9 months post-natal was legal under _Roe v Wade_?

Or who believes that Bill Gates profited unscrupulously from the covid pandemic by doing _something something Pfizer vaccine_?

Or who gets his science facts from someone whose academic credentials stop at _expelled from university for doing acid and skipping class_.

Yeah, I have no idea if your wife is even real. Not that I care, I'm just saying that you've so far only proven that you have a less-than-even-questionable grip on reality.


----------



## mbardu

Drew said:


> So, two things here.
> 
> One, "revenue" isn't profit. Most pharma companies who were working on a vaccine received significant goverment assistance in the production of covid vaccines, but in return agreed to sell their vaccine at cost in return for that assistance. So, if Pfizer was actually an appropriate example here (they're not, see point 2), they might see a _revenue_ boost of $36.8B from selling covid vaccines in 2021... but that would have been exactly in line with an increase in expenses of $36.8B from producing the vaccines in the first place, so the actual contribution to net income would be $0.
> 
> Two... Pfizer is actually one of the very few pharma companies to be profiting off of the Covid vaccine, so they're actually not really a good indicative measure for the rest of the market. Pfizer opted out of Operation Light Speed. Other covid vaccine producers, notably Moderna, participated... but in return, as above, had to sell at cost. So, you're looking at revenue and not EBITDA or net income, which is the wrong metric to begin with... but even if it was the rtight one, Pfizer was I believe the only pharma company able to sell their vaccine at a profit. As it standfs, it actually isn't MUCH of a profit, because they have to compete against companies selling their vaccines at cost, which leaves them with very little pricing power. But, they're an anomaly here.
> 
> But, if there's one thing I can get across here, it seems like whenever anyone talks about a company's earnings, they always go straight to revenue. That's wrong. That's just the total value of all sales. Profit is what's left after you deduct all the costs of developing, producing, or otherwise obtaining all of the goods you've just sold, and they absolutely do NOT always go hand in hand.



1- It's not because Pfizer revenue was high that somehow their profit ....wasn't _also _high. Their net income and profit was _also _at record levels recently
2- Pfizer is definitely not the only one benefiting from the pandemic. MRNA wasn't even a thing before the pandemic, and is huge now, having made a few billionaires in the process
3- Pfizer is not selling "at cost", except in PR operations. Read the same reports above and overall they have ~20% margin on Covid vaccine, so they're hardly doing it out of the kindness of their heart. 20% is not _that _high for the sector (although in some industries that would be huge)...but no matter, when you're selling billions of products, I think you're doing just fine.
4- Yes, BioNTech is also benefitting from the Pfizer sales. How does that serve your point though, I thought nobody was making $$$

I don't get the need to compulsively defend the big corporates all of a sudden.
Again, it's fine to not be onboard with any conspiracy theory (I don't think Pfizer created Covid, just like I don't believe W flew planes into WTC), but some people _for sure_ benefitted from it. Funny how the American "left" (if you can usually call it that considering how far right it is) is usually so angry against the medico-insurance establishment, but when it comes to some things like the vaccine, they're 100% the good guys who are doing the right thing while not even profiting from it (except oh wait, they definitely are  ). Any other big American corporate and we rightfully see through the shameless corporate PR BS and obvious tricks....except for Pfizer because they're selfless saints apparently


----------



## Thorsday7

bostjan said:


> A realist who believes that aborting a baby 9 months post-natal was legal under _Roe v Wade_?
> 
> Or who believes that Bill Gates profited unscrupulously from the covid pandemic by doing _something something Pfizer vaccine_?
> 
> Or who gets his science facts from someone whose academic credentials stop at _expelled from university for doing acid and skipping class_.
> 
> Yeah, I have no idea if your wife is even real. Not that I care, I'm just saying that you've so far only proven that you have a less-than-even-questionable grip on reality.



Tell me I'm wrong and that world governments truly and unconditionally care for your well being. Shove your strawman arguments somewhere else suitable.


----------



## mbardu

wheresthefbomb said:


> It is unfortunate that it ends up being fodder for kooky conspiracy nonsense, but Bill Gates is legitimately involved in some pretty shady imperialist shit. You can read about it right on Wikipedia. There is also evidence the B&MGF viewed the Ebola pandemic of last decade as an opportunity to solidify Gate's vision of imperialist, world-police philanthropy, and likewise that the B&MGF urged Oxford to sell their Covid vaccine to AstraZeneca on an exclusive basis rather than releasing it to anyone and everyone. (Re: Why are we discussing Bill Gates in this thread? That's why)
> 
> While the various claims of human rights violations by the B&MGF have failed to stick, using indigenous or third world populations as medical tests grounds is far from unusual in our history. Here in Alaska, many indigenous people were subjected to Iodine 131 testing, which sometimes involved invasive surgical implants as well, during the Cold War without any sort of informed consent, and many people in these areas reported substantial chronic health issues and radiation accumulation later. I have heard more than a few firsthand accounts from people who lived through it, and as many more from people whose friends and family didn't. These people thought they were receiving necessary medical care.
> 
> I got the vaccines. I believe in vaccines. Vaccine science is sound.
> 
> However, people's motivations are not sound, and it's not exactly radical to say that Pfizer made an assload of money off this pandemic, especially given the kind of behavior by B&MGF above regarding Oxford's vax. To then extrapolate from that that the pandemic was engineered is a _*MAJOR*_ leap, but let's not be blinded to the fact that we live in a capitalist society, and the organizations that already have power will do basically anything within that power to retain and grow it.



Thank you for some nuance.
The vaccine has been very good to so many people and saved a ton of lives.
Doesn't mean there aren't profiteers or shady people out there.

Although that's where I would fit the most in terms of principles, the "left" side of the discussion is hardly any better than the right one at this point in its objectivity and the honesty of its discourse... Can't even admit that the people selling vaccines are making money because _that _would make the vaccine look less good somehow and that's unacceptable...


----------



## mbardu

wheresthefbomb said:


> Unfortunately, conspiracy theories tend to be really polarizing, and leave very little room for nuanced discussion of whatever the subject may be. In this case, it makes it incredibly difficult for me to be critical of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation without looking like I am taking the side of the conspiracy theorist that everyone is currently dog piling.
> 
> TL;DR If I were Bill Gates, these last few pages are exactly the kind of discussion that I would hope everyone was having about me. As I often say of InfoWars: If it's not a psyop, someone did a lot of good work for free.



Bill Gates being quite savvy, I wouldn't be surprised if he had people hired to do precisely just that.
Just like post-Microsoft he hired PR firms to hype him up as a new modern-day messiah, it would cost him almost nothing to get a bunch of people to push the "extra-crazy" conspiracy angle so that any criticism of him is then mixed up in it and brushed aside. So easy...

Oh wait, I bet the above makes me a conspiracy theorist now


----------



## wheresthefbomb

The P&CE sub forum consistently reminds me of the time I went to testify before city Council about why we shouldn't spend $250,000 of the Borough's money convincing some retired air Force General "consultants" that we should have F-35s here.

Me and all the crusty old peacenicks basically took over the whole meeting, but the only people on city council who agreed with anything I said where the two kooky free-market libertarians. It hurt them as much as me I'm sure.  As far as anybody else was concerned, it was a bipartisan jobs bill, and opting _not _to suckle at the teat of the military-industrial complex was just as insane to them as if I'd come in saying we should build a waterpark on the moon.

I wish I'd kept the map they passed out, it was straight up Dr. Strangelove shit with red arrows showing how they could use the F-35s to nuke Moscow and North Korea from here.



mbardu said:


> Although that's where I would fit the most in terms of principles, the "left" side of the discussion is hardly any better than the right one at this point in its objectivity and the honesty of its discourse...



Let's just say that what most of mainstream discourse terms "radical leftism" looks like centrist wheedling to me.



mbardu said:


> Bill Gates being quite savvy, I wouldn't be surprised if he had people hired to do precisely just that.
> Just like post-Microsoft he hired PR firms to hype him up as a new modern-day messiah, it would cost him almost nothing to get a bunch of people to push the "extra-crazy" conspiracy angle so that any criticism of him is brushed aside. So easy...
> 
> Oh wait, I bet the above makes me a conspiracy theorist now



Everything I need to know about conspiracy theories, I learned from Eris by way of Robert Anton Wilson.

"To this day, neither Ho Chi Zen himself nor any other Discordian apostle knows for sure who is or is not involved in any phase of Operation Mindfuck or what activities they are or are not involved in as part of that project. Thus, the outsider is immediately trapped in a double-bind: the only safe assumption is that anything a Discordian does is somehow related to OM, but, since this leads directly to paranoia, this is not a "safe" assumption after all, and the "risky" hypothesis that whatever the Discordians are doing is harmless may be "safer" in the long run, perhaps. Every aspect of OM follows, or accentuates, this double-bind."


----------



## tedtan

Thorsday7 said:


> Pharmaceutical corporations have quadrupled annual revenue since 2019. Pfizer in particular is crushing it.
> 
> Imagine being in the business of selling something that you couldn't be legally held accountable for, and the media you sponsored urged everybody to buy said product... What a life.


You mean opiates like Oxycodone?


----------



## bostjan

Thorsday7 said:


> Tell me I'm wrong and that world governments truly and unconditionally care for your well being. Shove your strawman arguments somewhere else suitable.


What strawman? You telling me that you didn't say those things? Or do you literally believe you are a character from the Wizard of Oz?

Because:


Thorsday7 said:


> You think Roe v. Wade is a basic human right? You, like many others, don't know the overturning is only stopping birthing persons from committing late term abortion. Late Term. Which is murder. Do you get off on aborting a six to *nine month old *human?





Thorsday7 said:


> I'm drawing a pattern of people who have gotten really sick are people who got vaccinated.
> 
> I never got vaccinated - after having an exemption approved from my employer - and I never got sick. Same with many friends and family members.
> 
> I will say this definitely isn't over. The whole pandemic thing. Anybody following what Bill Gates has been up to this entire time? I swear our reality is stranger and much more infuriating than any fiction.





Thorsday7 said:


> Hate him or not, Brand's channel is not charisma alone. He presents erudite commentary with comedic timing on modern events. The opposite brand of, let's call it, armchair virtue signalling and groupthink, with anti-social tendencies.



Yeah, no, you said those things above.

As for anyone unconditionally caring for anyone else's well being, there is no such universal idea. I guess, though, if my government doesn't love me, it's definitely proof that people are murdering 9 month old babies, proof that the covid vaccine is full of poison, and proof that Russell Brand is an expert in biomedical science, because reasons, right?

Sorry if this is coming off too aggressive, but, after seeing your tone with everyone else here, coupled with the total disregard for logic or common sense, there's no room for small talk. Just about every word you've written here is either patently incorrect or, at best, just baseless.


----------



## Thorsday7

@bostjan You're not aggressive enough, you're sorry, and your government doesn't love you. Because, avarice.


----------



## Thorsday7

tedtan said:


> You mean opiates like Oxycodone?



Sort of, but not really.

Have there been class-action lawsuits paid out?


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday7 said:


> @bostjan You're not aggressive enough, you're sorry, and your government doesn't love you. Because, avarice.


This is the strawman though, because no one is arguing this point.

[pointing out logical fallacies is such OG P&CE, love it]


----------



## mbardu

Thorsday7 said:


> @bostjan You're not aggressive enough, you're sorry, and your government doesn't love you. Because, avarice.



Absolutely _nobody _is naïve enough to think the governments loves us, so I don't know why you keep coming back to that.
Do _you _love the government and are sad that it's unrequited or what  ?

Thinking about it more, you'd also think _nobody _could be naïve enough to believe the far right outlets when they claim there's an epidemic of people enjoying killing perfectly healthy 9 months old babies... But apparently there are people who believe _just _that. And shockingly, that's quite prevalent, even among people whose wife is *both *smoking hot and emotionally intelligent. So I guess anything is possible, really...


----------



## Thorsday7

@mbardu is on the Ultra MAGA Train.


----------



## Thorsday7

@mbardu Stop throwing around the 'e' word.

Why are there so many people who disagree this was a Plandemic. It seems as if we are facing a vocal minority which has agency.


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday7 said:


> Why are there so many people who disagree this was a Plandemic. It's almost like this is a vocal minority with agency.


Probably because there's literally no reason to believe that conspiracy theory. I don't know anyone in real life that believes that nonsense.


----------



## mbardu

Thorsday7 said:


> @mbardu is on the Ultra MAGA Train.







Thorsday7 said:


> @mbardu Stop throwing around the 'e' word.







Thorsday7 said:


> It's almost like this is a vocal minority with agency.






@Thorsday7, Are you having a stroke? Is your CO detector beeping?
Do you have someone, perhaps someone smoking hot and emotionally intelligent nearby to assist you, or do we need to send some help?


----------



## Thorsday7

@mbardu Is that your face? You look pleasantly dumbfounded. 

I would like help. Help me help you and StevenC understand that you're not alone. 

We're gonna get through this.


----------



## mbardu

Thorsday7 said:


> @mbardu Is that your face? You look pleasantly dumbfounded.



Yes that's me! Very observant of you.
I can sometimes look dumbfounded upon encountering things that make absolutely no effing sense; but as you see, I prefer to take it with a smile 



Thorsday7 said:


> I would like help. Help me help you and StevenC understand that you're not alone.
> 
> We're gonna get through this.



I appreciate the kind words. For a moment I felt alone there thinking about how my government didn't personally love me.
Checkout how sad I looked- I even took another picture for you


----------



## Thorsday7

Now that we got that out of the way, what are we to do about having to pay considerable amounts of income to entities that should be acting on behalf of us in return for paying said sums? 

It's a bad deal, right now.


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday7 said:


> Now that we got that out of the way, what are we to do about having to pay considerable amounts of income to entities that should be acting on behalf of us in return for paying said sums?
> 
> It's a bad deal, right now.


This is the covid thread, not the "why doesn't the US have a social safety net" thread. But you're right, you should definitely have better roads, schools, and healthcare.


----------



## mbardu

Thorsday7 said:


> Now that we got that out of the way, what are we to do about having to pay considerable amounts of income to entities that should be acting on behalf of us in return for paying said sums?
> 
> It's a bad deal, right now.



100% a bad deal right now in the US. For a pretty high tax rate, we just get senseless military programs and PPP money buying lambos for D-bags whereas we could easily get education and healthcare.

Is the solution less government? As demonstrated in the US southern states that are _constantly _being rescued or bailed out by the Federal government; and yet are _still _quickly regressing to uneducated thirld world theocratic authoritarianism... I'd be tempted to say _probably not_.

A good model would be to look at the Western democracies in Europe where a strong government was able to sustain growth, education, healthcare, social security etc over the second half of the XXth century. That was a pretty good return on the taxes, and the population by and large benefited _waaay more_ than they put in by pooling their resources. A pretty good deal!

Sadly, even in those places, the XXIst century is quickly showing that this model no longer gives people what they deserve because those places are now _almost _as corrupt and bought out by the rich as the US (and that's saying something).

So I'd say we start with "eat the rich" and once well fed we stop this dumb overconsumption to focus on education instead.
But who cares anyway since we'll be burnt to a crisp within the next few decades 


Anyway, what does any of that have to do with the topic at hand?
I thought we were talking hot wives, aborting 9 months old babies and _maaaaaybe _a little bit of Covid.


----------



## Thorsday7

@mbardu a bad deal in the US? You say that like other governments aren't openly shafting their citizens.

COVID-19 ties into seemingly everything in the current landscape. I see how it made smaller businesses lose market share, falling behind Bill Gates' maneuvering, as he is poised to monopolize various crucial industries. The plandemic is so obvious if you're paying attention.


----------



## narad

Thorsday7 said:


> Nice try. I'm a realist.
> 
> And my wife is smoking hot as she is emotionally and conventionally intelligent.



And we shouldn't talk shit because you're 6'5" with a black belt in karate and you get all the video games early because your uncle works for Nintendo.


----------



## mbardu

narad said:


> And we shouldn't talk shit because you're 6'5" with a black belt in karate and you get all the video games early because your uncle works for Nintendo.


_Not to mention he graduated top of his class in the Navy Seals, and has been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, with over 300 confirmed kills. Not only extensively trained in unarmed combat, but also with access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps._


----------



## Thorsday7

@narad @mbardu 
Is what you're doing right here ^ 

...How learned adults discuss the topic at hand? 

I know I'm fascinating, but I put my pants on one leg at a time, as mere mortals do, so, no need for the fanfare.


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday7 said:


> @narad @mbardu
> Is what you're doing right here ^
> 
> ...How learned adults discuss the topic at hand?
> 
> I know I'm fascinating, but I put my pants on one leg at a time, as mere mortals do, so, no need for the fanfare.


This might be going over your head, but they're making fun of you. Because your topic and everything you say is so stupid.


----------



## jaxadam

Thorsday7 said:


> but I put my pants on one leg at a time, as mere mortals do, so, no need for the fanfare.



See that's where you and I differ.


----------



## mbardu

Thorsday7 said:


> @narad @mbardu
> Is what you're doing right here ^
> 
> ...How learned adults discuss the topic at hand?
> 
> I know I'm fascinating, but I put my pants on one leg at a time, as mere mortals do, so, no need for the fanfare.



There is no real discussion possible, let's face it- so we have to laugh about it.

You believe there is a nefarious conspiracy in _creating _Covid, but have no source to back it up.
You believe there is a wave of people out there killing 9 months old healthy babies for fun, but have no source to back it up.
Everytime someone engages you about it, you act like_ they're _dumb for not seeing "the obvious" while being categorically unable to even begin to demonstrate your point in the face of facts.
I mean, if you have some stuff to share that's not just 4-chan or OANN generalities and platitudes, know yourself out and do share by all means.
Maybe we'll learn something, or maybe you'll learn something yourself trying to explain.

But since that's not happening...we laugh about it instead


----------



## Thorsday7

StevenC said:


> This might be going over your head, but they're making fun of you. Because your topic and everything you say is so stupid.



So what are you, Klaus Schwabe's gimp, now? I know Bill Gates likes to watch.


----------



## narad

StevenC said:


> This might be going over your head, but they're making fun of you. Because your topic and everything you say is so stupid.



And then wrapping it up in a "this is what adults do". (Smart) adults don't misunderstand the basic premises of what they argue about. @Thorsday7 thought (or maybe think, because you're so resistant to actual information that's not delivered to you from a comedian or together with a #redpill hashtag) that Roe v. Wade applied only to late term abortions. You said that:



Thorsday7 said:


> You think Roe v. Wade is a basic human right? You, like many others, don't know the overturning is only stopping birthing persons from committing late term abortion. Late Term. Which is murder. Do you get off on aborting a six to nine month old human?


It's funny to watch you flail around in here regurgitating conspiracy bullet points, but damn dude, get educated.


----------



## Thorsday7

mbardu said:


> You believe there is a nefarious conspiracy in creating Covid, but have no source to back it up.
> You believe there is a wave of people out there killing 9 months old healthy babies for fun, but have no source to back it up.
> Everytime someone engages you about it, you act like_ they're _dumb for not seeing "the obvious" while being categorically unable to even begin to demonstrate your point.



You're off the proverbial mark. You are embellishing some of my talking points.


----------



## Thorsday7

narad said:


> It's funny to watch you flail around in here regurgitating conspiracy bullet points, but damn dude, get educated.



How does educated differ from informed?

I'm missing a white lab coat and a certificate, aren't I?


----------



## StevenC

Thorsday7 said:


> So what are you, Klaus Schwabe's gimp, now? I know Bill Gates likes to watch.


Gotta get in the WEF for the conspiracy trifacta. Show us on the doll where the "(((globalist)))" touched you.


----------



## mbardu

Thorsday7 said:


> You're off the proverbial mark. You are embellishing some of my talking points.



"Getting off on aborting 9-month old humans" and "plandemic orchestrated by Gill Gates" are _literally _your points, no?
Not sure where the embellishing is here, but feel free to rephrase if that was not accurate.

I'm actually pretty disgusted by a lot of billionaires including Bill Gates myself, as well as quite critical of the recklessness and profiteering of companies like Pfizer.
You'll find most people are also upset about things like how small businesses are suffering or how the general population and current generation are getting robbed.

But knee-jerking to extremes and questionable sources is hardly the answer though.
They'll just hype up made up stuff like "those awful liberal FEDs are killing babies" _precisely _to distract you from the fact that you're being fleeced in broad daylight.


----------



## narad

Thorsday7 said:


> How does educated differ from informed?
> 
> I'm missing a white lab coat and a certificate, aren't I?



You're missing a sensical argument. You're not informed. You seriously think that Roe v. Wade is targetted at late-term abortion. That's why it's obvious you're not informed. 

There's a South Park episode mocking scientologists and all it does is restate core scientologist beliefs while text at the bottom of the screen reads: ~"This is what scientologists actually believe".



Thorsday7 said:


> You think Roe v. Wade is a basic human right? You, like many others, don't know the overturning is only stopping birthing persons from committing late term abortion. Late Term. Which is murder. Do you get off on aborting a six to nine month old human?



This is what Thorsday actually believes.


----------



## spudmunkey

Thorsday7 said:


> You think Roe v. Wade is a basic human right? You, like many others, don't know the overturning is only stopping birthing persons from committing late term abortion. Late Term. Which is murder. Do you get off on aborting a six to nine month old human?












Oklahoma passes bill banning most abortions after conception


The state's ban, its third in recent months, has been called the strictest in the US.



www.bbc.com


----------



## mbardu

spudmunkey said:


> Oklahoma passes bill banning most abortions after conception
> 
> 
> The state's ban, its third in recent months, has been called the strictest in the US.
> 
> 
> 
> www.bbc.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> View attachment 107997
> 
> View attachment 107998



Same in Tennessee


----------



## mastapimp

Thorsday7 said:


> How does educated differ from informed?
> 
> I'm missing a white lab coat and a certificate, aren't I?


I could inform you that you're making complete sense, which you're likely to believe, but everyone here that's educated knows that's not the case.


----------



## SCJR

Though I may not be specifically interesting in Russell Brand's perspective...

What are the perspectives of those in this thread about this new WHO pandemic treaty?


----------



## bostjan

SCJR said:


> Though I may not be specifically interesting in Russell Brand's perspective...
> 
> What are the perspectives of those in this thread about this new WHO pandemic treaty?


Interesting concept, but as long as the most populous country on Earth has no intention on following the treaty, I'm not sure how much overall good it can do.


----------



## Shoeless_jose

narad said:


> And we shouldn't talk shit because you're 6'5" with a black belt in karate and you get all the video games early because your uncle works for Nintendo.




And his hot wife is blowing him while he replies to your post


----------



## narad

Dineley said:


> And his hot wife is blowing him while he replies to your post



One of the more generally appreciable theories as to why it seemed like his brain wasn't receiving adequate bloodflow while posting.


----------



## Bodes

So the Year 12s had a formal last Wednesday. 60% of them absent today, (200+ students absent) 10+ teachers as well.
A lot of staff are asking for all year 12s to go to remote learning for the week, as we know many of them are not testing with their free RATs the government give them.
Going to be an interesting week at work.


----------



## Drew

tedtan said:


> You mean opiates like Oxycodone?


Don't take the bait. Revenue =/= profit. If you sell a thousand widgets at a cost of $100 each, you have revenue of $100,000, but if they cost you $120 each and you have selling and general administrative expenses that come out at a further $5 a widget, then you're $25,000 poorer than you were at the start of the year, and anyone who says you "made $100k" is just really bad at math.

You'll notice how he pivoted and dropped it when I pointed out he didn't actually understand the numbers he was pointing to.


----------



## StevenC

Drew said:


> You'll notice how he pivoted and dropped it when I pointed out he didn't actually understand the numbers he was pointing to.


I'm not disagreeing, but Thorsday pivoting, dropping and disappearing isn't proof of anything. That's just the nature of being erratic.


----------



## jaxadam

Pretty sure Thorsday is just another victim of the ham banner.


----------



## Drew

StevenC said:


> I'm not disagreeing, but Thorsday pivoting, dropping and disappearing isn't proof of anything. That's just the nature of being erratic.


That's a reasonable point.


----------



## Demiurge

Well, my wife & I just tested positive. We had a pretty good run, but apparently we pressed our luck going to a couple shows last weekend. The symptoms aren't bad or anything but we have to cancel travel plans to quarantine.


----------



## Bodes

Demiurge said:


> Well, my wife & I just tested positive. We had a pretty good run, but apparently we pressed our luck going to a couple shows last weekend. The symptoms aren't bad or anything but we have to cancel travel plans to quarantine.



Good luck and hope you both get through it with minimal issues.


----------



## beerandbeards

Damn it guys. After over two years of dodge covid like Neo in the matrix, I have got it. Vaxxed and boosted as you know, stayed diligent up until recently feeling like I can be more relaxed…. Nope.

Feel like I’ve had a bad flu since Friday. Woke up with a sore throat which evolved throughout the day to body aches, sinus congestion, chills and fever. It’s gotten less severe each day but man I hate being sick.


----------



## MetalheadMC

beerandbeards said:


> Damn it guys. After over two years of dodge covid like Neo in the matrix, I have got it. Vaxxed and boosted as you know, stayed diligent up until recently feeling like I can be more relaxed…. Nope.
> 
> Feel like I’ve had a bad flu since Friday. Woke up with a sore throat which evolved throughout the day to body aches, sinus congestion, chills and fever. It’s gotten less severe each day but man I hate being sick.


Almost same situation here too, except mine started Sunday evening, and no fever. Felt like complete shit yesterday. So, my wife and I took the at home covid test, and my came back positive. 

On top of that, we've had VIP tickets to go watch Wage War and Gideon tonight since January.


----------



## narad

jaxadam said:


> Pretty sure Thorsday is just another victim of the ham banner.



We can all look forward to the same crazy comments coming from a new account in the coming weeks.


----------



## Drew

The number of friends of mine who right now either have covid themselves, or are quarantining because their wives or kids do... I mean, 25% is probably an exaggeration, but not all that much. It's pretty crazy how fast this is building.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

Drew said:


> The number of friends of mine who right now either have covid themselves, or are quarantining because their wives or kids do... I mean, 25% is probably an exaggeration, but not all that much. It's pretty crazy how fast this is building.


Yeah, there’s been a real rise in it where I live too. My Dad has it. I tested negative but have quite a few of the symptoms though it’s not very intense.


----------



## tedtan

Drew said:


> Don't take the bait. Revenue =/= profit. If you sell a thousand widgets at a cost of $100 each, you have revenue of $100,000, but if they cost you $120 each and you have selling and general administrative expenses that come out at a further $5 a widget, then you're $25,000 poorer than you were at the start of the year, and anyone who says you "made $100k" is just really bad at math.
> 
> You'll notice how he pivoted and dropped it when I pointed out he didn't actually understand the numbers he was pointing to.


I was going after his “Imagine being in the business of selling something that you couldn't be legally held accountable for” by pointing out that the companies responsible for oxycodone have agreed to pay $26B in damages as a result of lawsuits, just got busy and didn’t follow up on it.


----------



## AMOS

beerandbeards said:


> Damn it guys. After over two years of dodge covid like Neo in the matrix, I have got it. Vaxxed and boosted as you know, stayed diligent up until recently feeling like I can be more relaxed…. Nope.
> 
> Feel like I’ve had a bad flu since Friday. Woke up with a sore throat which evolved throughout the day to body aches, sinus congestion, chills and fever. It’s gotten less severe each day but man I hate being sick.


Vaxxed and boosted and it feels like the bad flu? I've been relying on my own immune system and I've been fine. get well.


----------



## Drew

tedtan said:


> I was going after his “Imagine being in the business of selling something that you couldn't be legally held accountable for” by pointing out that the companies responsible for oxycodone have agreed to pay $26B in damages as a result of lawsuits, just got busy and didn’t follow up on it.


It's cool, it's just a pet peeve of mine. Everyone talks about corproate revenue when they mean corporate profit.


----------



## beerandbeards

AMOS said:


> Vaxxed and boosted and it feels like the bad flu? I've been relying on my own immune system and I've been fine. get well.


Yeah dude sucks. I’ve kind of let myself go recently as well. Haven’t been eating healthy and taking my vitamins. At least three other family members not including my wife have tested positive and we’ve been in contact with each other within the week. I seem to have had the worst of it.


----------



## TedEH

So here's a fun story:
Last weekend, it was my aunts birthday, and I haven't seen members of that side of the family in 2+ years, so I ended up attending their small outdoor bbq thing. As family things tend to go, they of course dove into the usual "it's all been mismanaged and everyone's been lying and you're all overreacting" types of dumb family conversations, which spoke to a number of members of that side of the family playing very loose with covid guidelines etc. It seemed not to bother them that the 'rona was thiiiiiiiiiis close to killing my dad two Holiday seasons ago.

Hey surprise, I started feeling sick on Thursday and tested positive this morning. Between all the jabs and being in generally decent health, it's not the end of the world - I've had worse colds than this (so far) but it's still frustrating in principle.


----------



## SnowfaLL

It sure seems like the pandemic is "over" to the minds of people around north america, but more and more people are getting it. From the start of this thing until January this year, I didnt know any friends or family who got it, maybe 1 or 2 somewhat acquantances.. but since January, ive known like 10-15 friends/family who got it, so Omichron is definitely much more contagious than Delta/etc. Thankfully, it seems less deadly too, so hopefully thats a sign that the pandemic is nearing the actual end, where everyone gets a weaker version of the virus. It's still going to kill a ton of old/immuno-compromised people along the way, which really sucks. Thats the part that bugs me, to the idiots who are like "its a hoax", people dying daily is nothing, but thats someones father or mother or brother or sister out there, dying cause billy didnt want to wear a mask at costco for 20 minutes. Fucking selfish assholes.


----------



## Randy

Tested positive yesterday (got it from careless family members) and it's kicking my ass. Fever, chills, chest congestion, pain in my limbs and in my back/chest, cough that feels like my lungs are going to invert, etc. Would've preferred to not have this happen.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

People look at me seemingly in disgust that I'm still sporting a mask but I seriously don't care at all. I don't live in fear and even last week my wife and I decided to go to a new restaurant cause we hadn't done that in like two years. And I told her on the way there that if they had a patio that I'd rather eat outside. They didn't but fortunately it was a big place and because it was on a Sunday, the place was almost completely deserted. We sat away from the other tables and had a fantastic meal and a really nice time out. 

If people wanna scoff or laugh at me, I'm so totally okay with it. If I don't catch covid then that would be awesome, but if I do... at least I tried and it cost me literally nothing to do what I could do.


----------



## Demiurge

I've been symptomatic since last Weds/Thurs last week. It's not the most sick I've been but it's the longest I've been sick in recent memory. It just kind of hangs-around, like this nuisance-level of chest & nasal congestion plus a "you only slept 4 hours" lethargy for the past few days. What a pain in the ass.


----------



## Randy

High Plains Drifter said:


> People look at me seemingly in disgust that I'm still sporting a mask but I seriously don't care at all. I don't live in fear and even last week my wife and I decided to go to a new restaurant cause we hadn't done that in like two years. And I told her on the way there that if they had a patio that I'd rather eat outside. They didn't but fortunately it was a big place and because it was on a Sunday, the place was almost completely deserted. We sat away from the other tables and had a fantastic meal and a really nice time out.
> 
> If people wanna scoff or laugh at me, I'm so totally okay with it. If I don't catch covid then that would be awesome, but if I do... at least I tried and it cost me literally nothing to do what I could do.


You're doing the right thing. It's a healthy habit to have. This "the pandemic is over" stuff is a crock of shit. I think it will be over (ish) eventually but the race to "old normal" (what happened to accepting "new normal"?) is massively premature.

First thing I heard from everyone is "wow and you've been so careful this whole time". Yeah, except literally the 4 or 5 people I don't wear my mask around (family) that don't wear their masks anywhere and were sick, denied it and refused to test themselves. 

This sucks. Fuck everyone that says it's a cold or it's gotten less lethal or whatever. I'm vaxxed and boosted. I'm in my early 30s and very healthy with zero pre-existing conditions or co-morbidities. My pulse ox dropped about 10 points from the day before to the day I did test positive. I'm gonna be alright but 1.) Don't chance it 2.) Don't be an irresponsible ass and pass it to someone else not knowing what it'll do to them


----------



## Randy

Demiurge said:


> I've been symptomatic since last Weds/Thurs last week. It's not the most sick I've been but it's the longest I've been sick in recent memory. It just kind of hangs-around, like this nuisance-level of chest & nasal congestion plus a "you only slept 4 hours" lethargy for the past few days. What a pain in the ass.


My co worker's wife had it three weeks ago, it was like season allergies but the lethargy has continued now a couple weeks after she stopped testing positive.


----------



## TedEH

The bit that frustrates me in particular is that I had been doing so well - 2+ years of not getting even so much as sniffly, I got the jabs, I'm still wearing masks most places despite the obligation being gone, I generally only hang around people who are careful - then the _one_ time I see that side of the family, they out themselves as being right on the border of denying it was ever a big deal, and it's most likely they're where I caught it from. I have no proof, and probably will never get any since I'm not in contact with that side of the family usually. But I mean...... ugh.


----------



## Bodes

On the bright side @Randy , most I know who had it bad during their +ve stage have felt good after about a week. Hope you are the same.


----------



## StevenC

High Plains Drifter said:


> People look at me seemingly in disgust that I'm still sporting a mask but I seriously don't care at all. I don't live in fear and even last week my wife and I decided to go to a new restaurant cause we hadn't done that in like two years. And I told her on the way there that if they had a patio that I'd rather eat outside. They didn't but fortunately it was a big place and because it was on a Sunday, the place was almost completely deserted. We sat away from the other tables and had a fantastic meal and a really nice time out.
> 
> If people wanna scoff or laugh at me, I'm so totally okay with it. If I don't catch covid then that would be awesome, but if I do... at least I tried and it cost me literally nothing to do what I could do.


I still wear a mask everywhere, but i constantly have dreams of going places, forgetting my mask and feeling like an idiot for it, despite no one else wearing a mask.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

@Randy rest up man, it get's better. I too caught it from a family member who was being careless. Tested positive on Wednesday and felt like death for three days. I've got my booster and two rounds, and am recovering quickly. But the damn sinus congestion and body aches were intense. I basically laid around and played guitar a little, taking naps seemed to help.


----------



## Randy

Thanks folks.

Feels like I'm on the mend. Last night without the chills, today congestion and respiratory stuff all feel 1/3rd of what they were previous days. Pulse ox back up to 95% to 97%.

Stuff I still have: headaches, lethargy (less than before though), the random ass pains in limbs, etc. 

Stuff I didn't have but now do: lightheadedness when I do anything remotely physically demanding (like carrying dishes into the kitchen)

Worth noting I am on a drug cocktail of steroids, codeine, antibiotics, with tylenol and ibuprofen sprinkled in as I need it. So I'm not 100% what I can attribute to the drugs and the virus breaking but it feels less like death today, so that's good.


----------



## Drew

Randy said:


> Worth noting I am on a drug cocktail of steroids, codeine, antibiotics, with tylenol and ibuprofen sprinkled in as I need it. So I'm not 100% what I can attribute to the drugs and the virus breaking but it feels less like death today, so that's good.


Any day that you feel less like death than the last is a good day.  

We seem to have crested a peak ad are trending back down here in MA - I'm no longer wearing a mask in the office, though I do any other time I'm out in public and if it picks back up I'll begin masking up here again.


----------



## Randy

Update here:

Recovery has been slow. The "scary" stuff are all stable thankfully, like pulse ox are all steady high (98%, 99%) and bad coughs/congestion are several days gone.

Really hard to judge, though. Had the best night of sleep in my entire life last night, woke up this morning and felt like a brand new person. As I acclimated to being awake, the same limb, chest and neck pains I had days before my positive test all started up. Did they start again? Were they there the whole time but they were lost in the white noise of all the other symptoms I was experiencing? Idk.

There was also crippling brain fog yesterday which happened again today but much milder and for shorter periods of time, thankfully. Spend most of the day totally lucid, albeit with some discomfort.

Finishing the last of my meds, so will re-assess what's coming from what when I'm off of everything this weekend.


----------



## Bodes

Almost 7 weeks since I caught COVID.

Chest feels like it was in a feather -weight boxing match with against a heavy-weight opponent.

Brain fogs and forgetfulness is still going strong. Took me 40 minutes to mark a class set of 10 multiple-choice questions, which was answered on a grid. Usually I can see a pattern in the grids and the class is marked within 10 minutes. I honestly couldn't see a pattern. When ever a student got an incorrect answer, I would forget what the next answer was, and had to look at the answer sheet again.
Still am struggling with a number of my students' names.

Get very tired and very frustrated, because I am very tired, which gets me frustrated....

Heart is alllllllll over the shop. My students know I can't walk around too much so I sit down for most of the day. they come up to me and I write my notes using a digital pen, so I don't even stand to write on the whiteboard.
I mean, look at this:



I'm not even remotely stressed at work...

Going to my GP this evening to see what if anything can be done.


----------



## Dumple Stilzkin

Bodes said:


> Almost 7 weeks since I caught COVID.
> 
> Chest feels like it was in a feather -weight boxing match with against a heavy-weight opponent.
> 
> Brain fogs and forgetfulness is still going strong. Took me 40 minutes to mark a class set of 10 multiple-choice questions, which was answered on a grid. Usually I can see a pattern in the grids and the class is marked within 10 minutes. I honestly couldn't see a pattern. When ever a student got an incorrect answer, I would forget what the next answer was, and had to look at the answer sheet again.
> Still am struggling with a number of my students' names.
> 
> Get very tired and very frustrated, because I am very tired, which gets me frustrated....
> 
> Heart is alllllllll over the shop. My students know I can't walk around too much so I sit down for most of the day. they come up to me and I write my notes using a digital pen, so I don't even stand to write on the whiteboard.
> I mean, look at this:
> View attachment 108564
> 
> 
> I'm not even remotely stressed at work...
> 
> Going to my GP this evening to see what if anything can be done.


That is weird, have you tried going for brisk walks or anything that works the cardiovascular system?


----------



## Bodes

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> That is weird, have you tried going for brisk walks or anything that works the cardiovascular system?



No. Sometimes struggle to get up a set of stairs without needing a short breather. Plus when I deep breathe, I am an agony with my chest. Dr said the chest is either muscular skeletal or maybe a little pericarditis. The steroids I was on didn't really help.

Hope my GP can suggest something, or refer me to someone.


----------



## Bodes

So just got back from my GP. They want me to go for an echocardiogram. GP has a few post-covid patients who have similar issues. GP looked at my heart rate graphs from my watch, was surprised it was that bad, considering my age.
Pity it is Friday night. Only a few places open on a Saturday and was told by GP it'll be difficult to get an echo. Just start ringing every place from their opening times and keep trying.
Shit is starting to get scary.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

Applying for my "dream job" at the school district, reading a bunch of hellish accounts of where schools have been heading post-covid in the states. Has me seriously considering whether a ~45% pay increase is worth the massive increase in responsibility and the very real likelihood that I will end up playing substitute for a large portion of the time anyway due to staffing shortages.

There seems to be no relief for public schools in sight. It seems like we are approaching a critical mass of policy makers on all levels who are too happy to just watch the public school system implode so they can go "welp that didn't work time for charter schools also let's privatize the fucking library."


----------



## Randy

The reason why charter schools and a lot of privatized stuff "works" is because the participation level is low enough that you're serving one homogenous group, which makes it easier to provide the service.

It's very different than a public school where you have to take kids of every societal background, every level of (dis)ability, every income bracket, etc. and try to teach all of them in the same room with eachother, same curriculum, same grading system. And then you have kids that need extra help but it's like an assembly line where you have no time to give them the extra attention they need, before you need to send them out the door and refill the room again and start over. So outcomes are all over the place, and you get LESS help or you get funding for the wrong things. It's Hellworld.


----------



## StevenC

One year clot-free!

Still nowhere near where I was, but I think I'm improving slowly. One thing is for certain, it's made my migraines both much worse and much scarier (which makes them worse too). And given me more triggers. Like for example last night I went to see Sungazer in London, and man, the lights were just too much. It was incredible but I was not fit for it in that small of a room, compared to Meshuggah the week before, equally intense but in the Royal Albert Hall.

But we persevere.


----------



## Bodes

StevenC said:


> One year clot-free!
> 
> Still nowhere near where I was, but I think I'm improving slowly. One thing is for certain, it's made my migraines both much worse and much scarier (which makes them worse too). And given me more triggers. Like for example last night I went to see Sungazer in London, and man, the lights were just too much. It was incredible but I was not fit for it in that small of a room, compared to Meshuggah the week before, equally intense but in the Royal Albert Hall.
> 
> But we persevere.



Wow, a year already! Great news!

Sucks to hear you are still experiencing bad headaches. Hope you keep improving and those pesky ongoing headaches F right off soon.

Have the Drs said anything about ways to reduce the severity?


----------



## StevenC

Bodes said:


> Wow, a year already! Great news!
> 
> Sucks to hear you are still experiencing bad headaches. Hope you keep improving and those pesky ongoing headaches F right off soon.
> 
> Have the Drs said anything about ways to reduce the severity?


The neurologists have started me on beta-blockers for the migraines. The headaches got a bit lighter when I got off the anticonvulsants in February, but not much. Working with a psychologist to deal with other things that can be causing headaches, and get a bit of my mental plate. And I'm getting started with a neuropsychologist soon to bring it all together.

Also been referred to physiotherapy to get my spine recovery back on track (I had a very thorough spinal fusion in 2019 and I spending a few weeks in bed and without the awareness to work on posture screwed that a lot). And referred to neuro specific physiotherapy specifically for the headaches. Though I haven't started either of those yet.

They (for the most part) are taking very good care of me. It's been a struggle getting dealing with neurology be it appointments or treatment, that whole part of the service here seems to be poorly run for some reason regardless of trust. But the last (2nd appointment in a year, 5th (!!!!!!) consultant that treated me) appointment actually made some progress on the treatment front even if it was 8 months late, with a different doctor, in a different hospital, and I had to book it because they didn't know what medication I was on/had finished.

I really appreciate the support!


----------



## Bodes

@StevenC that's quite a lot to deal with. Glad to hear you are progressing in the right direction. 

Gotta love seeing different specialists, the left foot doesn't seem to know what the right foot is doing. 

Good luck with it all.


----------



## narad

StevenC said:


> The neurologists have started me on beta-blockers for the migraines. The headaches got a bit lighter when I got off the anticonvulsants in February, but not much. Working with a psychologist to deal with other things that can be causing headaches, and get a bit of my mental plate. And I'm getting started with a neuropsychologist soon to bring it all together.
> 
> Also been referred to physiotherapy to get my spine recovery back on track (I had a very thorough spinal fusion in 2019 and I spending a few weeks in bed and without the awareness to work on posture screwed that a lot). And referred to neuro specific physiotherapy specifically for the headaches. Though I haven't started either of those yet.
> 
> They (for the most part) are taking very good care of me. It's been a struggle getting dealing with neurology be it appointments or treatment, that whole part of the service here seems to be poorly run for some reason regardless of trust. But the last (2nd appointment in a year, 5th (!!!!!!) consultant that treated me) appointment actually made some progress on the treatment front even if it was 8 months late, with a different doctor, in a different hospital, and I had to book it because they didn't know what medication I was on/had finished.
> 
> I really appreciate the support!



Have you tried buying a new guitar?


----------



## StevenC

narad said:


> Have you tried buying a new guitar?


Yeah, but LTD isn't making it until next year at least.


----------



## narad

StevenC said:


> Yeah, but LTD isn't making it until next year at least.



These symptoms don't call for an LTD. ESP Custom Shop is making it_ right now._


----------



## StevenC

narad said:


> These symptoms don't call for an LTD. ESP Custom Shop is making it_ right now._


So is Schecter


----------



## wheresthefbomb

Felt really funky last night toward the end of my shift, brain fog and mild vertigo. Still feeling it today, don't really feel safe to drive. I'm getting a rapid test tomorrow, hope it's not covid but I've been lucky enough to avoid it thus far.

I just started working at two high volume bars, one in a hotel, so.... really not a surprise.


----------



## Bodes

Update: no signs of issue with heart on the echocardiogram scan. Win.
Dr started me on weekly B-12 injections for three weeks. If not seeing a big improvement, will send me to a cardiologist, who will run tests that GPs can't request, without me being charged $1k. If I see the cardiologist first, then I am only charged a few hundred for the consult.

Heart palpitations aren't as bad, mostly hitting 120-125 bpm and now don't get the tight and sore chest. Win.

Exam time at work last week, so Dr gave me the week off to make sure I don't go backwards. WIN!!!

Went for my first walk in... way too long. Heart went up to 150 bpm after about 2 km and didn't feel exhausted. Heart beats are not as heavy. Semi-win.

Raked the backyard and didn't really have heart palpitations above 125 bpm. Win.

Took my son swimming this morning. Only felt heavy chested when we went fully submerged. Heart palpitations not felt, but watch said had some. Semi-win.

Whenever have the Heart palpitations, I no longer need to sit down for 10-15 minutes to bring it back down to normal. A few minutes, max. Win.

Still exhausted as F at the end of the day, even when not doing too much. No-win. 

Fingers are crossed I am on the mend. I have had enough. Now 9 weeks since caught covid.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

@Bodes - I've been patiently waiting for the progress reports. Definitely sounds like you're on the road to recovery and I very much hope that you'll be back to 100% very soon. Really sorry to hear how bad covid has been for some like you and @StevenC . Thank you for keeping the community updated and I have to say that your positivity is encouraging for those of us that haven't dealt with covid yet and may wind up with more substantial side effects. Take care.


----------



## Bodes

High Plains Drifter said:


> @Bodes - I've been patiently waiting for the progress reports. Definitely sounds like you're on the road to recovery and I very much hope that you'll be back to 100% very soon. Really sorry to hear how bad covid has been for some like you and @StevenC . Thank you for keeping the community updated and I have to say that your positivity is encouraging for those of us that haven't dealt with covid yet and may wind up with more substantial side effects. Take care.



Cheers HPD. I have been quite a negative person my whole life, and have really been beating down on myself. Trying to think positively through this. Any small win is so good atm. Any day off work is even better! 

It is kind of cathartic typing it up here. Sometimes it has been to just get things off my chest, sometimes just updating things to remind myself that things are getting better (even when the next day things went downhill). 

Thanks to those who have read, liked and commented so far. Makes them good feels flow.

Ummm Positive Rep for you all. Hehehe.


----------



## Bodes

wheresthefbomb said:


> Felt really funky last night toward the end of my shift, brain fog and mild vertigo. Still feeling it today, don't really feel safe to drive. I'm getting a rapid test tomorrow, hope it's not covid but I've been lucky enough to avoid it thus far.
> 
> I just started working at two high volume bars, one in a hotel, so.... really not a surprise.



Not sure where the F bomb is, but if I find it, I'll smash that one for you. If it is covid, hopefully in 7-10 days time you'll be right as rain.


----------



## Steo

Got it on Friday gone. Had been very careful in work, and around people, buy one of my colleagues went out with it last Tuesday, ran negative tests, on Wed and Thurs. Friday morning, and I'm just exhausted in work. Finished up. Then Friday afternoon the test came back positive as expected. Only really hitting like a bad sinus infection/cold, but being vaxxed/ boosted and generally health are for the most part responsible for that. Do feel guilty that I'll probably end up giving it to my wife.


----------



## StevenC

Steo said:


> Got it on Friday gone. Had been very careful in work, and around people, buy one of my colleagues went out with it last Tuesday, ran negative tests, on Wed and Thurs. Friday morning, and I'm just exhausted in work. Finished up. Then Friday afternoon the test came back positive as expected. Only really hitting like a bad sinus infection/cold, but being vaxxed/ boosted and generally health are for the most part responsible for that. Do feel guilty that I'll probably end up giving it to my wife.


Get well soon!


----------



## AMOS

StevenC said:


> The neurologists have started me on beta-blockers for the migraines. The headaches got a bit lighter when I got off the anticonvulsants in February, but not much. Working with a psychologist to deal with other things that can be causing headaches, and get a bit of my mental plate. And I'm getting started with a neuropsychologist soon to bring it all together.
> 
> Also been referred to physiotherapy to get my spine recovery back on track (I had a very thorough spinal fusion in 2019 and I spending a few weeks in bed and without the awareness to work on posture screwed that a lot). And referred to neuro specific physiotherapy specifically for the headaches. Though I haven't started either of those yet.
> 
> They (for the most part) are taking very good care of me. It's been a struggle getting dealing with neurology be it appointments or treatment, that whole part of the service here seems to be poorly run for some reason regardless of trust. But the last (2nd appointment in a year, 5th (!!!!!!) consultant that treated me) appointment actually made some progress on the treatment front even if it was 8 months late, with a different doctor, in a different hospital, and I had to book it because they didn't know what medication I was on/had finished.
> 
> I really appreciate the support!


Best of luck!


----------



## wheresthefbomb

wheresthefbomb said:


> Felt really funky last night toward the end of my shift, brain fog and mild vertigo. Still feeling it today, don't really feel safe to drive. I'm getting a rapid test tomorrow, hope it's not covid but I've been lucky enough to avoid it thus far.
> 
> I just started working at two high volume bars, one in a hotel, so.... really not a surprise.



aaaaaaand I got the Rona. I am allowed back at work on Wednesday, assuming I have no symptoms.

Glad to say I already feel better than I did yesterday. Mostly just really sleepy and achy. Yesterday I pretty much just ate pot brownies and slept all day. 

I have two pfizer vaccinations and one moderna booster, and I usually have a pretty strong immune system and recover quickly from illness. Then of course there's raw, dumb luck.

I wish the rest of you currently dealing with this a speedy recovery.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Well god dammit.. You suck @wheresthefbomb 

Not sure that good vibes will help but sent anyway. Your situation at least sounds encouraging. get better, dude.


----------



## Flappydoodle

Randy said:


> Thanks folks.
> 
> Feels like I'm on the mend. Last night without the chills, today congestion and respiratory stuff all feel 1/3rd of what they were previous days. Pulse ox back up to 95% to 97%.
> 
> Stuff I still have: headaches, lethargy (less than before though), the random ass pains in limbs, etc.
> 
> Stuff I didn't have but now do: lightheadedness when I do anything remotely physically demanding (like carrying dishes into the kitchen)
> 
> Worth noting I am on a drug cocktail of steroids, codeine, antibiotics, with tylenol and ibuprofen sprinkled in as I need it. So I'm not 100% what I can attribute to the drugs and the virus breaking but it feels less like death today, so that's good.



It's just wild how different the experience is for people. This time around my parents have had it for a second time, with just a mild sore throat and tiredness for ~48 hours. People my age having 1-2 days of a runny nose. But one of my best friends who had Covid (OG strain), 2x AZ, then got Covid again (Omicron) got his ass kicked by it and was in bed for a week. So yeah, it seems you basically don't know how you'll respond, until you do.

Hope you're doing ok.


----------



## Randy

Flappydoodle said:


> It's just wild how different the experience is for people. This time around my parents have had it for a second time, with just a mild sore throat and tiredness for ~48 hours. People my age having 1-2 days of a runny nose. But one of my best friends who had Covid (OG strain), 2x AZ, then got Covid again (Omicron) got his ass kicked by it and was in bed for a week. So yeah, it seems you basically don't know how you'll respond, until you do.
> 
> Hope you're doing ok.


Appreciate that, hope your friend is feeling better too.

I've got lingering effects. Haven't checked the calendar but I think I'm a month out from my original positive test and two weeks since I took the last of my meds. 

There's stuff that was explicitly virus symptoms like you'd expect, fever, cough, chills, aches etc. That stuff came and went mostly in a like three or four day span. Like a really really bad flu but came and went fast. 

The other "stuff" I got in the maybe three or so days before I tested positive, and came back hard as the other stuff tapered off, and haven't really gone away. I first had numbness in my jaw and that turned into intense pain, that radiated into a headache and pain traveling around the side of my head. That alternated with pressure that surges to to a burning pain that travels around my body; I can go several hours or a day without it happening, then it'll set in and it start in one place (say, my left shoulder), then jump to somewhere else (like my right knee), then jump somewhere else (like my chest). This can go on for a few minutes to an hour. I also have a persistent twitch in one eyelid that actually flares up in concert with those other things. They're not at all subtle and are all things I did not experience even once in my life prior to the week I got COVID. 

I had a couple brain fog episodes that were very intense while I still had the virus bad. I've only had one since I'd say I was "over" the virus it was minor but notable. I also had/have random intense moments of tiredness that happen at seeming random. They were common when I was still positive, and I assumed they were normal for what I was going through. But it's a month since and today for example I had one of those where it's like a snap of the fingers and feels like it's 3am and I'm totally wrecked, need to take a nap. If I fight through it I get all my energy back in an hour or two. Again, very abnormal for me and only started then.

Last thing is a sensation like a need to cough or can't get a breath to get words out sometimes. That was happening a LOT in the days/week after I got sick. I have a day or days strung together i won't get it, then I'll get it a couple times or maybe even all day. It's like a stutter and it's especially frustrating because I'll be in conversation and I have to pause and the person either thinks I forgot what I was trying to say, or they'll think I need to cough and I'm "still sick" or something, so I'm now rushing to get the words out which makes it worse.

That's what I can remember off the top of my head. I don't know what to attribute my experience to. People in my family got it and it was a cold for a couple days. People I know (including family members) had J&J, and they got mild symptoms, or normal symptoms that last a couple days and went away 100% or didn't get sick at all and potentially had it but were entirely asymptomatic. 

So I'm not sure if there's a common thread on outcomes or if it's total random.


----------



## Bodes

@Randy Yep, the randomness to some of my bouts of tiredness was crazy.

I'd be feeling great talking to someone, then BAM, felt like I haven't slept in 48 hours and have been in a smoky pub that entire time.
I had to walk outside, or stick my head out of the window for fresh air.

Meds did sweet f-all for me. That is until I had my B12 last week. Feeling like 3/4 of a million bucks! Hoping my next injection on Wednesday pushes me towards closer to the whole million!

Best of luck, mate.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

It is helpful to hear other peoples accounts of symptoms. Honestly I was feeling really guilty my first day home, because my symptoms were subtle and not definitive. I am glad I trusted myself though, I was very close to making myself go to work on Saturday morning. 

In addition to the random fatigue, when I am not feeling tired and foggy I get a very intense, uncomfortable-nearing-physical-distress feeling of restlessness that reminds me of amphetamines in a very unwelcome way. That is why I am currently awake reading SS.org at 3 AM.



Is anyone here familiar with that smell training? My friend told me about it, she was sick for a while and lost her smell for many weeks. I guess the basic idea is you pick a few very strong, very familiar smells and smell them regularly. It is supposed to help with the anosmia later.

Anyway I'm using ground coffee, tea tree, and my homemade kraut. Strong and unmistakeable. It seems like my sense of taste is slightly diminishing, but I have been stuffed up with allergies for weeks so there's not much of a baseline there.


My wish for all of you is adequate hydration and a rapid recovery.


----------



## StevenC

Bodes said:


> @Randy Yep, the randomness to some of my bouts of tiredness was crazy.
> 
> I'd be feeling great talking to someone, then BAM, felt like I haven't slept in 48 hours and have been in a smoky pub that entire time.
> I had to walk outside, or stick my head out of the window for fresh air.
> 
> Meds did sweet f-all for me. That is until I had my B12 last week. Feeling like 3/4 of a million bucks! Hoping my next injection on Wednesday pushes me towards closer to the whole million!
> 
> Best of luck, mate.


I am on B12 since my clot and those injections are not funny. I've had more needles in my life than I can count and those are the only ones I dread. It's so thick compared to other shots that you feel every drop of it going in.

Also the first month or two of getting them, they gave me headaches so bad I couldn't do anything else for the rest of the day.

I'm glad you're getting a benefit from them though.


----------



## Randy

wheresthefbomb said:


> Is anyone here familiar with that smell training?


My gf had the smell and loss of taste. Didn't do a training thing per se, but had a couple meals/snacks we eat pretty regularly and she'd work them in every day or two and analyze it to see what familiar tastes/smells of it came back. Having relatable benchmarks for what it's supposed to be like versus what it _is_ like seemed to help, or at least made the process feel smoother and less helpless.


----------



## Bodes

StevenC said:


> I am on B12 since my clot and those injections are not funny. I've had more needles in my life than I can count and those are the only ones I dread. It's so thick compared to other shots that you feel every drop of it going in.
> 
> Also the first month or two of getting them, they gave me headaches so bad I couldn't do anything else for the rest of the day.
> 
> I'm glad you're getting a benefit from them though.



Not sure what B12 injections you are getting, but I barely felt it. Apart from it was a bit too cold for my liking. Maybe your dosage is a lot higher? I'm on 1 mg / 1 mL.

I do feel like my throat is quite dry, problem is that I can't keep sipping water when I need to as I can't just duck out of class to pee.
Don't feel any other side effects so far.

@wheresthefbomb Agreed. It is something reassuring and calming about reading other people's issues and symptoms. Maybe that is why psychologists use group therapy with their patients?


----------



## StevenC

Bodes said:


> Not sure what B12 injections you are getting, but I barely felt it. Apart from it was a bit too cold for my liking. Maybe your dosage is a lot higher? I'm on 1 mg / 1 mL.
> 
> I do feel like my throat is quite dry, problem is that I can't keep sipping water when I need to as I can't just duck out of class to pee.
> Don't feel any other side effects so far.
> 
> @wheresthefbomb Agreed. It is something reassuring and calming about reading other people's issues and symptoms. Maybe that is why psychologists use group therapy with their patients?


Yeah, I'm on the same 1mg/ml. Kinda surprised and jealous because most nurses I've talked to have said they're a very complained about shot. I only have to get them every 3 months now, so it's no big deal.


----------



## TonyFlyingSquirrel

Tested positive yesterday.
Resting, but his sore throat is no joke, feels like I’ve been gargling razor blades.


----------



## zappatton2

Whelp, I finally got it myself. Probably should have worn a mask at the RATM show, though I don't know how much that would help, being packed in like a sardine with 30,000 people around me. Plus, I went to a house party the next day, so today is the full apology tour.

Fortunately, though I feel pretty crummy and definitely have a fever, I'm not as bad as some, not yet anyway.


----------



## Bodes

Sorry to hear all the new +ve cases in here. Hopefully you are all lucky enough to have the 5-10 days of crappy feeling, then back at it at ~100%. Good luck!

Update from me.

Had a 24 Hour heart rate monitor Monday-Tuesday this week to see if my elevated heart rate had normal heart beats, or if there is any irregularities going on as well. 
Not sure what the next step will be, once the results are back sometime mid-next week.

Walking around and playing with son can still hit the 160 bpm+, although normally doesn't go above 125 bpm. I am starting to get tired and short-of-breath more easily again, as well as the weird chest soreness, which they initially attributed to (maybe) intercostal muscle issues from too much coughing, although I haven't had a cough for 6-8 weeks now....Yay! Not! 

Hopefully once the heart monitor results come in, there can be a visible path to take next.

Once again, F**K COVID.


----------



## thraxil

My brother-in-law's got it now. He's unvaccinated (not a weirdo conspiracy nut but just stubbornly refuses to deal with anything medical in his life short of an emergency; he hasn't been to the dentist in decades either). He's not in the hospital yet, but is pretty sick so he may end up there soon. Meanwhile my sister and neice (both vaccinated) are fine.


----------



## ShredmasterD




----------



## Randy

One of my in-laws got it. Got one shot JJ, refused a booster or anything else. Been pushing vax doesn't work, virus isn't that bad, etc etc for the last two years.

Day he tested positive, said he felt fine. [This one I love, the people that say they didn't even feel sick, yet they decided to test themselves for covid?] Said he's glad he got it so he can get "real" immunity. Applauded his son who never got the vaccine and said he wished he did the same.

Three days later, called to bring him cough medicine. "What cough medicine do you want?" "Idk, but make sure it's maximum strength"

Yeah my guy, it's a big nothing.


----------



## ShredmasterD

ShredmasterD said:


> View attachment 111125


just to be clear with those who may miss my twisted humor. the figure above is a bizarre creature thinking they are not affected after being genetically modifed . this humor is directed at those who say covid is nothing. its not. covid really messes some people up or worse and we know several . when some say its just a cold , or they had it and its no big deal they do disservice to those who are affected by it in serious ways. right now a family member has it. this is my way of telling nay sayers and deniers to fk off.


----------



## Bodes

Randy said:


> One of my in-laws got it. Got one shot JJ, refused a booster or anything else. Been pushing vax doesn't work, virus isn't that bad, etc etc for the last two years.
> 
> Day he tested positive, said he felt fine. [This one I love, the people that say they didn't even feel sick, yet they decided to test themselves for covid?] Said he's glad he got it so he can get "real" immunity. Applauded his son who never got the vaccine and said he wished he did the same.
> 
> Three days later, called to bring him cough medicine. "What cough medicine do you want?" "Idk, but make sure it's maximum strength"
> 
> Yeah my guy, it's a big nothing.



To be fair to your in-law, I can see the logic behind people thinking this way about covid/vaccinations.
How many people were not vaccinated at the time of their infection, had a few days of feeling bleh (or had even milder symptoms) and that was it, after 2 weeks it was like they didn't even catch covid at all?
I certainly know a few. Only reason they knew they had covid was we have to test ourselves twice a week as teachers.

In saying that, best medical advice was that the vaccinations give you a better chance of contracting milder symptoms and staying out of hospitals. I knew which way I wanted to go with my vaccination status. Even though I knew that I would be forced to get vaccinated for my job.

I am just one of those unlucky people who no matter what, covid kicked my butt and have ongoing issues.

I would hate to think how bad I would have been if I wasn't triple vaccinated.

We will never know:
1. how badly I could have ended up
2. if the vaccines actually did anything at all for my immune response.


We have to remember that most men think they're invincible. 'My mate said it was nothing, so I'll be fine.' I always thought I'd be ok if I caught it. Didn't stop me from masking up almost everywhere.


----------



## zappatton2

Man alive, I really thought I was on the mend this morning, temp was down to 36.5, throat still sore but not nearly as bad, but that fever came roaring back with a vengeance. This thing really has staying power, eh?


----------



## Randy

zappatton2 said:


> Man alive, I really thought I was on the mend this morning, temp was down to 36.5, throat still sore but not nearly as bad, but that fever came roaring back with a vengeance. This thing really has staying power, eh?



My girlfriend and I both got a little bit of a bounce-back about two weeks after our initial infection wrapped up. Very stubborn virus.

Hope you feel better soon.


----------



## zappatton2

Thanks! The thing I don't get, why did that RATM concert hurt me so? It's not like I'm part of The Machine. I'm just a civil servant, working directly for The System to collect... uggg... never mind.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

zappatton2 said:


> Man alive, I really thought I was on the mend this morning, temp was down to 36.5, throat still sore but not nearly as bad, but that fever came roaring back with a vengeance. This thing really has staying power, eh?


Woman that my wife works with started showing mild symptoms so they sent her home. She then tested positive the following day. At that point she was required to take minimum five days off and not return before testing negative. She tested negative within that five days and came back to work. First day back and she thought she was fine. Wound up having to go home after only a few hours there. Not sure what exact symptoms she was having at that point but it was enough for her to have to leave again for another couple days. And in fact, I'm not sure if she's back yet or not. I'd have to ask my wife. I don't believe that she ever had major symptoms... she was never admitted to hospital but bad enough for her to have to be out for at least eight or more days. And my wife says that she's one of their better employees... team player and didn't want to miss work. So it wasn't like she was milking it or anything.

But yeah... even after testing neg, people are still experiencing symptoms sometimes long after. I'm really sorry, man and I hope so much that you're better soon.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

$250 for a fucking covid test. welcome to america...


----------



## Drew

High Plains Drifter said:


> $250 for a fucking covid test. welcome to america...


Really? Where? You can still order a bunch for free directly from the government, I see them all over the place at the $20-30 for two test kits price, and in Mass at least we have state and local level free testing programs if you need a PCR, though you usually have to book an appointment for those and have to plan a bit in advance. I've seen some for-profit places offering walk-in PCRs in that range if you need one ASAP or on a specific date you can't get through your state or city programs, and while I suppose I could also have my doctor order me one if you're symptomatic, I haven't needed to yet since every time I was concerned I had flu like symptoms I was able to get one of the free local PCR spots.


----------



## bostjan

Yeah, that's shocking to me, as well. I think I still have at least one test from the last time someone at work threw a bunch of boxes at me last time one of my coworkers got sick. I was under the impression that the test kits were still free/low cost.


----------



## Drew

I mean, it might be a PCR test vs an at-home swab... but again the only time I've seen places advertising those was a fast-turn-around for profit alternative to city or state testing during periods of high demand. If I needed a PCR and didn't care too much about the timing, I'm confident I could get a free one within the next 3-5 days. 

Then again, High Plains is in Texas, and, well, look at their power grid. I suppose they could only have for-profit providers.


----------



## Randy

I believe I've heard those for-profit clinics like WellNow charge something in that neighborhood.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

So that was at Walgreens drive-thru as well as at two of the local urgent-care places ( wasn't Urgent Care, but whatever equivalent). Cost ranged from $140-$170. Then we were told of a mobile facility that does saliva as well as nasal/ throat. It was a bit of a drive to get there but yeah, without insurance, we don't have many choices. 

So.. my wife just got back from the mobile testing place and they texted her as she was pulling into the driveway. "Detected" so she's positive ( at least for the nasal/ throat test). We tried.. we tried so hard and she's really besides herself atm, feeling defeated. She has been so proactive over the past couple years.. .even when others were laughing at her for her wearing a mask all the time. I feel bad for her and I'm a little scared for myself atm but we'll just see how it goes over the next few days.

The timeline or whatever is that she came home from work yesterday and felt fine. Then last last night she complained of a sore throat and very slight congestion. Her temp at that time was 99. 0. I slept in a spare bedroom and when she woke up this morning, she said that her throat felt worse and that she had developed an on/ off headache overnight. She also was feeling pretty tired... partly due to her not getting very good sleep but also from the virus I assume. This morning when we checked her temp again it was up to 100.1.

She's already gone thru protocol for her job... receiving instructions of what she needs to do before returning and all that. She's taking ibuprofen and drinking lots of water. Appetite seems fine and although she's a bit achy and exhausted now, she's trying to remain in good spirits. She also picked up a test kit ( two tests for $25) at CVS on her way home just for added assurance and they both read positive. As for the saliva test, she'll get that result back tomorrow but that's almost not here nor there at this point. One nasal test and two at home tests are all reading positive.

We're both wearing masks at home now and I'm disinfecting door knobs, light switches, countertops, etc while she takes it easy and rests. We're also trying to distance ourselves from each other which is tough cause that woman needs a hug big time lol. On Monday we'll see where we're both at and go from there.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

and @Drew . Yeah, ordering wasn't really an option. It was but we needed to know very quickly her status so that she could immediately verify with her job, what was going on regarding approval for her absence, scheduling changes, and all of that. Plus the fact that with her running a high temp this morning and feeling worse, we wanted to know immediately what was up.


----------



## Drew

I'm really sorry to hear about your wife, man.  

Probably not what you want to hear, but that sounds like "welcome to Texas" and not "welcome to America." I haven't paid a dime for a PCR here in Mass, and half of my rapids have been free as well. :/


----------



## wheresthefbomb

Damn that sucks, I haven't had to pay for any testing either. I hope she feels better soon.


----------



## mastapimp

Drew said:


> I'm really sorry to hear about your wife, man.
> 
> Probably not what you want to hear, but that sounds like "welcome to Texas" and not "welcome to America." I haven't paid a dime for a PCR here in Mass, and half of my rapids have been free as well. :/


Yes, I've had to deal with a lot of testing recently due to 2 of our nannie's catching it in the last month (luckily, they didn't bring it into the house). The PCRs range from $80-$100 where I'm at if you don't use insurance. $250 is the highest I've heard...especially at a Walgreens or CVS. 

@High Plains Drifter, if you think your wife picked it up during a workplace exposure, is it possible you can ask for reimbursement for testing? I was exposed about a year ago to one of my interns that got sick. After testing, I submitted an expense report to my boss w/ a receipt of the covid test and was reimbursed, as was everyone else that tested.


----------



## Drew

Also, again, hate to point out the political overtones here, but... TX and FL were at the forefront of the "this is a matter of personal freedom, reopen at all costs!" movement, and Florida in particular is still one of the highest total cases per capita states. And both of you have to pay hundreds of dollars to get a PCR test. Mass was much more cautious and kept mask mandates in place MUCH longer than FL and TX, and I don't pay a dime for a PCR. 

Kind of makes you think a bit. Both states are telling you it's a matter of personal choice if you want to get Covid, but you'd better be rich if you want to find out if you have it.


----------



## tedtan

I can’t speak for Florida, but there are plenty of places that offer free PCR testing in Texas. It sounds like the turnaround time was too long for what HPD’s wife needed, though (I don’t know what typical turnaround time is in Travis County, but in Harris County it can be up to 72 hours, which is the downside).


----------



## High Plains Drifter

Drew said:


> I'm really sorry to hear about your wife, man.
> 
> Probably not what you want to hear, but that sounds like "welcome to Texas" and not "welcome to America." I haven't paid a dime for a PCR here in Mass, and half of my rapids have been free as well. :/


Thanks much... the support does help. That's partly why I stick around sso. It's surely not for the "what band sucks worse than this other band?" threads. 

I still feel as if the federal government had orchestrated a pandemic game-plan that was inclusive nationwide as opposed to forcing state-by-state protocols, mandates, etc that we all would've fared much better throughout this mess. Fortunately we were able to find that mobile testing site as it was the only one even remotely close to us.



wheresthefbomb said:


> Damn that sucks, I haven't had to pay for any testing either. I hope she feels better soon.


Fortunately we were indeed able to get her tested for free but it was out in the middle of nowhere and we really had to dig to even find out it existed. A friend of my wife told her about it thankfully, or we might've wound up out of pocket. 

Thank you, bud.


mastapimp said:


> Yes, I've had to deal with a lot of testing recently due to 2 of our nannie's catching it in the last month (luckily, they didn't bring it into the house). The PCRs range from $80-$100 where I'm at if you don't use insurance. $250 is the highest I've heard...especially at a Walgreens or CVS.
> 
> @High Plains Drifter, if you think your wife picked it up during a workplace exposure, is it possible you can ask for reimbursement for testing? I was exposed about a year ago to one of my interns that got sick. After testing, I submitted an expense report to my boss w/ a receipt of the covid test and was reimbursed, as was everyone else that tested.


Yep... $240 and $270 were the going rates at the two places that she was going to go to for the PCR test before luckily finding a free mobile testing facility. 

Sadly, her employer pays absolutely nothing to it's employees for any testing. We did wind up buying two at-home tests for $25 but that's on us as she had already gotten the free test prior to that. We just wanted a little more assurance that she really was positive ... like a second opinion kind of thing. 

You've got a great employer in their willingness/ assumed responsibility to reimburse employees for testing.


Drew said:


> Also, again, hate to point out the political overtones here, but... TX and FL were at the forefront of the "this is a matter of personal freedom, reopen at all costs!" movement, and Florida in particular is still one of the highest total cases per capita states. And both of you have to pay hundreds of dollars to get a PCR test. Mass was much more cautious and kept mask mandates in place MUCH longer than FL and TX, and I don't pay a dime for a PCR.
> 
> Kind of makes you think a bit. Both states are telling you it's a matter of personal choice if you want to get Covid, but you'd better be rich if you want to find out if you have it.


That's it.. Yep! And don't kid yourself... Mandates were never really a thing here in Texas. Guidelines were always very loosely defined and left up to individual counties and businesses as to how they thought "best" to proceed with safety/ hygiene measures throughout every step of the pandemic. 

Update on her- As of right now, she's chugging along... No more sore throat, slight headache on/ off, still congested.... a little more today than yesterday. And she's experiencing some body aches... not severe although she's regularly popping ibuprofen so that's obviously helping. This a.m. her temperature was down to 98.7 but throughout the course of the day it's now back up to 100.3. Kinda weird that it's up and down like this. Most colds/ flues that I've dealt with have generally shown a gradual rise/ peak/ fall. She's in good spirits though and was able to sleep undisturbed last night for about 10 hours. 

And I'm playing 'Coco, The Plump Loving House Boy'... waiting on her hand and foot so that she doesn't have to do a thing. Gonna get a French Maids Uniform... Gonna rock that shit.


----------



## High Plains Drifter

tedtan said:


> I can’t speak for Florida, but there are plenty of places that offer free PCR testing in Texas. It sounds like the turnaround time was too long for what HPD’s wife needed, though (I don’t know what typical turnaround time is in Travis County, but in Harris County it can be up to 72 hours, which is the downside).


We did eventually find a mobile testing facility. Only one and it wasn't close by, but yeah.

EDIT- Also we're outside of Travis county.


----------



## Drew

High Plains Drifter said:


> I still feel as if the federal government had orchestrated a pandemic game-plan that was inclusive nationwide as opposed to forcing state-by-state protocols, mandates, etc that we all would've fared much better throughout this mess. Fortunately we were able to find that mobile testing site as it was the only one even remotely close to us.


I mean, I STRONGLY agree with this. Pretty much from Day 1 Trump kicked the can down to the states, and by the time Biden was in office it was so politicized that even if he'd tried a strong federal response, which he didn't have the balls to risk, I doubt it would have mattered. 

There are a lot of things you can fault the Trump administration for, but his total abdication of leadership in the early days of Covid, even going so far as to squabble whether covid cases of Americans on cruise ships off the cost of San Francisco should "count" in US caseloads, was pretty damned mind-numbing.


----------



## jaxadam

Hot damn, again?!?









Biden Tests Positive for Covid Again in ‘Rebound’ Case


The president tested positive on Saturday morning and will once again isolate, though his symptoms have not come back, the White House physician said.




www.nytimes.com


----------



## StevenC

Intermittent health update:

I just drove a car on a public road for the first time since June 6th 2021. I was nearly in tears with excitement but it gave me a headache. I don't know if it's because it was the middle of the night, the excitement, or that it's a bit too much for me at the moment.

Did I mention I absolutely love driving still?


----------



## Adieu

StevenC said:


> Intermittent health update:
> 
> I just drove a car on a public road for the first time since June 6th 2021. I was nearly in tears with excitement but it gave me a headache. I don't know if it's because it was the middle of the night, the excitement, or that it's a bit too much for me at the moment.
> 
> Did I mention I absolutely love driving still?



You hadn't driven in over a year? What happened?


----------



## StevenC

Adieu said:


> You hadn't driven in over a year? What happened?


AZ vaccine gave me a blood clot and caused a seizure, etc.


----------



## Drew

StevenC said:


> Intermittent health update:
> 
> I just drove a car on a public road for the first time since June 6th 2021. I was nearly in tears with excitement but it gave me a headache. I don't know if it's because it was the middle of the night, the excitement, or that it's a bit too much for me at the moment.
> 
> Did I mention I absolutely love driving still?


VERY different story, veeeery different situation, very different root causes even if the situational ones were a bit more comparable, but I've been off my road bike for about five weeks now after developing a DVT/bilateral PE on the flight back from my honeymoon, and while I'll still be on blood thinners for another two months, my wife and I did a VERY easy spin on a gravel rail trail near here last night. IT was on one hand the most pathetic ride ever, 8 miles at about 9mph where my HR was barely above resting (not because I can't elevate it, I've been doing trainer workouts, but because my wife just can't ride fast enough to make me work on a bike, and because at the end of the day I WAS supposed to be being careful), and it was still fucking heavenly. 

Hope the recovery still continues to go well, man!


----------



## StevenC

Drew said:


> VERY different story, veeeery different situation, very different root causes even if the situational ones were a bit more comparable, but I've been off my road bike for about five weeks now after developing a DVT/bilateral PE on the flight back from my honeymoon, and while I'll still be on blood thinners for another two months, my wife and I did a VERY easy spin on a gravel rail trail near here last night. IT was on one hand the most pathetic ride ever, 8 miles at about 9mph where my HR was barely above resting (not because I can't elevate it, I've been doing trainer workouts, but because my wife just can't ride fast enough to make me work on a bike, and because at the end of the day I WAS supposed to be being careful), and it was still fucking heavenly.
> 
> Hope the recovery still continues to go well, man!


Thanks Drew! Congrats on getting married! Feel like the last post I saw they were your fiancée.

It's so liberating! The best part for me is I can finally go swimming again whenever I want. Pool is far enough away that by the time I walk there I'll be too gassed to swim, and it's not worth getting a lift or taxi. There's so many things I still can't do, and the driving headaches are definitely just a reality of where I am right now. Taking gradually longer car journeys and experimenting with different levels of music and conversation to figure out what minimises them. 

I've not been cycling since my clot and I should probably buy a helmet first. Glad you're getting back to it and recovering.

Also, what happened to the price of diesel? Feels like it was 60p cheaper the last time I bought fuel.


----------



## Drew

StevenC said:


> Thanks Drew! Congrats on getting married! Feel like the last post I saw they were your fiancée.
> 
> It's so liberating! The best part for me is I can finally go swimming again whenever I want. Pool is far enough away that by the time I walk there I'll be too gassed to swim, and it's not worth getting a lift or taxi. There's so many things I still can't do, and the driving headaches are definitely just a reality of where I am right now. Taking gradually longer car journeys and experimenting with different levels of music and conversation to figure out what minimises them.
> 
> I've not been cycling since my clot and I should probably buy a helmet first. Glad you're getting back to it and recovering.
> 
> Also, what happened to the price of diesel? Feels like it was 60p cheaper the last time I bought fuel.


War in Russia happened.  

Definitely get a helmet, I don't ride without one anyway, even in the best of time. That's awesome you can get back into the pool though, and that the headaches are fading gradually. Slow progress, I'm sure, and frustrating, but you're getting there. 

Yeah, she and I got engaged at the end of last June, and married mid-June this year. She's awesome.


----------



## Glades

StevenC said:


> AZ vaccine gave me a blood clot and caused a seizure, etc.


That is terrible!! I'm glad you are ok. I read somewhere that the mortality rate for bloodclots off that vaccine is really high.

I know some people that got vaccinated, but none seamed to have very bad reactions.
I never got Covid, but my wife did and she got over it in 2 days without the vaccine.


----------



## Drew

Glades said:


> That is terrible!! I'm glad you are ok. I read somewhere that the mortality rate for bloodclots off that vaccine is really high.
> 
> I know some people that got vaccinated, but none seamed to have very bad reactions.
> I never got Covid, but my wife did and she got over it in 2 days without the vaccine.


Replying to this because, well, your political biases are VERY clear, and I don't want you to jump to any conclusions. 

I also don't want to minimize Steven's situation, which is really shitty, but he himself has also been very clear that his story is an extreme anomaly and not a reason to oppose vaccination. 

Astrazeneca, and AstraZeneca ONLY, has shown a slight elevation in formation of blood clots after vaccination, to the tune of perhaps 1-in-10,000 to 1-in-50,000. This is an extremely low rate of "excess" clots, is _well _below the baseline prevalence in the population (here in the US, prevalence is about 1-in-1,000 to 1-in-2,000 on any given year). This compares to a Covid mortality rate in the ballpark of maybe 1-in-100, where vaccination slashes the liklihood of mortality.v

By the numbers, even the AZ vaccine (with its slightly increased prevalence of clotting) will improve your odds of not dying, even if you assume blood clots are fatal in 100% of circumstances (which they are not - a pulmonary embolism is fatal at a rate of roughly 1-in-3 to 1-in-4, which is something I'm rather glad I only learned after the fact). Vaccines save lives. Full stop. 

That said, I'm glad to see empathy and compassion here.


----------



## Glades

Drew said:


> Replying to this because, well, your political biases are VERY clear, and I don't want you to jump to any conclusions.
> 
> I also don't want to minimize Steven's situation, which is really shitty, but he himself has also been very clear that his story is an extreme anomaly and not a reason to oppose vaccination.
> 
> Astrazeneca, and AstraZeneca ONLY, has shown a slight elevation in formation of blood clots after vaccination, to the tune of perhaps 1-in-10,000 to 1-in-50,000. This is an extremely low rate of "excess" clots, is _well _below the baseline prevalence in the population (here in the US, prevalence is about 1-in-1,000 to 1-in-2,000 on any given year). This compares to a Covid mortality rate in the ballpark of maybe 1-in-100, where vaccination slashes the liklihood of mortality.v
> 
> By the numbers, even the AZ vaccine (with its slightly increased prevalence of clotting) will improve your odds of not dying, even if you assume blood clots are fatal in 100% of circumstances (which they are not - a pulmonary embolism is fatal at a rate of roughly 1-in-3 to 1-in-4, which is something I'm rather glad I only learned after the fact). Vaccines save lives. Full stop.
> 
> That said, I'm glad to see empathy and compassion here.



My political biases are very clear? I am PRO vaccine!
Can you please stop making assumptions about people that you don't know?


----------



## SpaceDock

I know I had told you guys about my friend who died a few months ago leaving his wife with two young girls under ten behind. 

I have to tell another story hoping it helps someone. One of my best friends fathers just died of Covid complications. He was in his early 50s. His wife and most members of their immediate family had it before so he assumed he had it already but no symptoms. He knew he had a heart problem from being a bit overweight, drank regularly, and had your typical shit American fast food/too much meat diet. He didn’t get vaccinated because he read too much online garbage that told him the vaccine was going to give him heart problems, hyocardicis sp?? So he got Covid, two days later in the ICU for chest pains, dead by end of the weekend. 

Get vaccinated friends.


----------



## StevenC

Glades said:


> That is terrible!! I'm glad you are ok. I read somewhere that the mortality rate for bloodclots off that vaccine is really high.
> 
> I know some people that got vaccinated, but none seamed to have very bad reactions.
> I never got Covid, but my wife did and she got over it in 2 days without the vaccine.


Thanks for the concern man! It's been a long year, but all the positive vibes here have really helped. 

As Drew said, what happened to me was suuuuuuuuuper rare, fortunately, and as you say the mortality rates were not good. The doctor who told me I had it also told me bluntly that there's a good chance I will die. I know some people who've been left profoundly disabled from the same clot, and honestly I seem to be one of the best cases. Which says a lot about the advancement in treatment between the first cases in March and me as one of the last cases in June. 

Still though, I got my 2nd dose and booster (they were Pfizer and Moderna) and I'd urge everyone to get vaccinated if they haven't already. 

I had covid in January after 3 shots and only noticed because my mum had symptoms and we both tested positive, but I didn't really feel much different. Some people get lucky, some people don't, and others stack the deck in their favour.


----------



## Glades

StevenC said:


> Thanks for the concern man! It's been a long year, but all the positive vibes here have really helped.
> 
> As Drew said, what happened to me was suuuuuuuuuper rare, fortunately, and as you say the mortality rates were not good. The doctor who told me I had it also told me bluntly that there's a good chance I will die. I know some people who've been left profoundly disabled from the same clot, and honestly I seem to be one of the best cases. Which says a lot about the advancement in treatment between the first cases in March and me as one of the last cases in June.
> 
> Still though, I got my 2nd dose and booster (they were Pfizer and Moderna) and I'd urge everyone to get vaccinated if they haven't already.
> 
> I had covid in January after 3 shots and only noticed because my mum had symptoms and we both tested positive, but I didn't really feel much different. Some people get lucky, some people don't, and others stack the deck in their favour.



I am glad to hear that you are feeling better now my man. If you are still dealing with the aftermath of the clots, I wish you all the best and a speedy recovery. I am sure it has been a brutal challenge to get over this.

Covid was truly a scourge that ripped through the world with no mercy. Hopefully those awful times are almost over, and we can move forward with normal life.


----------



## narad

SpaceDock said:


> I know I had told you guys about my friend who died a few months ago leaving his wife with two young girls under ten behind.
> 
> I have to tell another story hoping it helps someone. One of my best friends fathers just died of Covid complications. He was in his early 50s. His wife and most members of their immediate family had it before so he assumed he had it already but no symptoms. He knew he had a heart problem from being a bit overweight, drank regularly, and had your typical shit American fast food/too much meat diet. He didn’t get vaccinated because he read too much online garbage that told him the vaccine was going to give him heart problems, hyocardicis sp?? So he got Covid, two days later in the ICU for chest pains, dead by end of the weekend.
> 
> Get vaccinated friends.



Ah, my dad just got it, and he hasn't had a booster since like spring 2021, and has had heart bypass surgery and stuff. Also a Trump supporter. This is worrying. I'm just hoping we can get him on whatever treatments are available and not just have him stubbornly sit at home .


----------



## Drew

Glades said:


> My political biases are very clear? I am PRO vaccine!
> Can you please stop making assumptions about people that you don't know?


Pro vaccine but your wife, at least, is unvaccinated? And spending most of your time here trolling with right-wing talking points? It's hardly a leap.


----------



## Glades

Drew said:


> Pro vaccine but your wife, at least, is unvaccinated? And spending most of your time here trolling with right-wing talking points? It's hardly a leap.


People can have diverse views on a multitude of issues. It's not binary. I can be pro-vaccine and conservative.


----------



## Drew

Glades said:


> People can have diverse views on a multitude of issues. It's not binary. I can be pro-vaccine and conservative.


Then, by all means, please convince as many of your conservative vax-hesitant peers as you possibly can not to be selfish and to go out and get the shot.


----------



## Glades

Drew said:


> Then, by all means, please convince as many of your conservative vax-hesitant peers as you possibly can not to be selfish and to go out and get the shot.


Again, you are generalizing. The people that you hear about on media that are hard-line anti-vaxxers, or those that are pro-vaxx nomatterwhat are at the extremes. There is extremists on both sides.
Rational thinkers take each issue/topic at a time, and dissect the logic and fallacies and makes a decision based on rational thinking. Those people living in the binary extremes want none of that.


----------



## Drew

Glades said:


> Again, you are generalizing. The people that you hear about on media that are hard-line anti-vaxxers, or those that are pro-vaxx nomatterwhat are at the extremes. There is extremists on both sides.
> Rational thinkers take each issue/topic at a time, and dissect the logic and fallacies and makes a decision based on rational thinking. Those people living in the binary extremes want none of that.


I'm generalizing, but in ways the data supports: 









For COVID-19 vaccinations, party affiliation matters more than race and ethnicity


There's no reason to believe that these gaps in vaccination rates will disappear anytime soon.




www.brookings.edu







> Of Americans surveyed from Sept. 13-22, 72% of adults 18 and older had been vaccinated, including 71% of white Americans, 70% of Black Americans, and 73% of Hispanics. Contrast these converging figures with disparities based on politics: 90% of Democrats had been vaccinated, compared with 68% of Independents and just 58% of Republicans.



I haven't run into any anti-vax democrats, or at least none who were morally opposed (a coworker of my wife's was unable to get the vaccine due to an allergy to a component, but desperately wanted to be vaccinated - I don't really feel like that counts here), but if I will, I'd absolutely try to convince them to get a shot. Just asking you to try to do the same for your party.


----------



## Glades

My party? The republican party is not MY party. I don't agree with everything they stand for, and I don't agree with everything democrats stand for. I am a centralist, with some views that are conservative and some that are liberal. I look at candidates and their agendas pretty in depth before I cast a vote. I have voted for Trump because the alternative was much worse. But if say a moderate democrat i can agree with runs against Trump in 2024, I might not vote republican. Take a step back and realize that all democrats are not antifa, and all republicans are not boogaloos.


----------



## jaxadam

Glades said:


> My party? The republican party is not MY party. I don't agree with everything they stand for, and I don't agree with everything democrats stand for. I am a centralist, with some views that are conservative and some that are liberal. I look at candidates and their agendas pretty in depth before I cast a vote. I have voted for Trump because the alternative was much worse. But if say a moderate democrat i can agree with runs against Trump in 2024, I might not vote republican. Take a step back and realize that all democrats are not antifa, and all republicans are not boogaloos.



I guess I'm a centralist, too, based on this graph. I shit you not I just answered the questions normally and this is what I got. Makes complete sense to me.


----------



## Glades

jaxadam said:


> I guess I'm a centralist, too, based on this graph. I shit you not I just answered the questions normally and this is what I got. Makes complete sense to me.


You win lol


----------



## nightflameauto

jaxadam said:


> I guess I'm a centralist, too, based on this graph. I shit you not I just answered the questions normally and this is what I got. Makes complete sense to me.


Man, are you fucked. Literally EVERYONE will want you dead.


----------



## jaxadam

nightflameauto said:


> Man, are you fucked. Literally EVERYONE will want you dead.



Trust me, that’s exactly how I feel!


----------



## Glades

jaxadam said:


> Trust me, that’s exactly how I feel!



Hahah. You are 2 clicks more authoritarian than me, so you must want ME dead!


----------



## tedtan

Glades said:


> Rational thinkers take each issue/topic at a time


Unfortunately, most people don’t think rationally, but rather react emotionally.


----------



## philkilla

CDC Eases Guidance in Line with NCLA’s Lawsuits About Natural Immunity


Press release content from Globe Newswire. The AP news staff was not involved in its creation.




apnews.com





“Covid-19 prevention recommendations no longer differentiate based on a person’s vaccination status.”


Hmmmmm, how strange 


/s


----------



## StevenC

philkilla said:


> CDC Eases Guidance in Line with NCLA’s Lawsuits About Natural Immunity
> 
> 
> Press release content from Globe Newswire. The AP news staff was not involved in its creation.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> apnews.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> “Covid-19 prevention recommendations no longer differentiate based on a person’s vaccination status.”
> 
> 
> Hmmmmm, how strange
> 
> 
> /s


FYI, that's not an AP article but an article from an antivax mandate source.


----------



## philkilla

StevenC said:


> FYI, that's not an AP article but an article from an antivax mandate source.












The CDC is finally recognizing ‘natural immunity’ — legislators should follow suit


Now that CDC recognizes the protective effect of prior infection, it is time to update vaccination policies and school or work-entry requirements across federal and state or county governments.




thehill.com














CDC eases Covid guidance as U.S. has more tools to fight the virus and keep people out of the hospital


The public health agency said the virus now poses a significantly lower risk due to high levels of immunity from vaccines and infections.




www.cnbc.com














CDC ends recommendations for social distancing and quarantine for Covid-19 control, no longer recommends test-to-stay in schools | CNN


The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the nation should move away from restrictive measures such as quarantines and social distancing and focus on reducing severe disease from Covid-19.




www.cnn.com


----------



## Glades

@StevenC out of curiosity, can’t you sue AZ for what happened to you?

I mean, If you buy a new car and it explodes while you are driving down the road, you get to sue the company for your injuries, for selling a defective product that caused you harm, as rare an occurrence that it might be.


----------



## mastapimp

Glades said:


> @StevenC out of curiosity, can’t you sue AZ for what happened to you?
> 
> I mean, If you buy a new car and it explodes while you are driving down the road, you get to sue the company for your injuries, for selling a defective product that caused you harm, as rare an occurrence that it might be.


Lots of drugs, especially the ones that advertise on network television, have a long list of side effects that they rattle off before the commercial is over. Normally your doctor will go over these with you before you are prescribed the medicine/therapy. If you do not receive such warning, it's possible to bring up a lawsuit. As the patient, you assume these risks involved should you elect to receive treatment and waive the ability cry foul should one of the listed side effects come up. To successfully sue the company or doctor, you must prove that the medicine came from a defective batch or you were not properly warned of the possible outcomes.


----------



## Glades

mastapimp said:


> Lots of drugs, especially the ones that advertise on network television, have a long list of side effects that they rattle off before the commercial is over. Normally your doctor will go over these with you before you are prescribed the medicine/therapy. If you do not receive such warning, it's possible to bring up a lawsuit. As the patient, you assume these risks involved should you elect to receive treatment and waive the ability cry foul should one of the listed side effects come up. To successfully sue the company or doctor, you must prove that the medicine came from a defective batch or you were not properly warned of the possible outcomes.


When AZ and JJ came out, nobody knew the side effects. I’m pretty sure the clotting was witnessed first on patients, not clinical trials. I might be wrong.


----------



## Bodes

Glades said:


> @StevenC out of curiosity, can’t you sue AZ for what happened to you?
> 
> I mean, If you buy a new car and it explodes while you are driving down the road, you get to sue the company for your injuries, for selling a defective product that caused you harm, as rare an occurrence that it might be.



Most governments bought from the vaccine companies with a no blame clause to entice companies to actively invest their time and money into developing the vaccines.
I believe the UK is one of them. Australia also had these clauses.


----------



## StevenC

philkilla said:


> The CDC is finally recognizing ‘natural immunity’ — legislators should follow suit
> 
> 
> Now that CDC recognizes the protective effect of prior infection, it is time to update vaccination policies and school or work-entry requirements across federal and state or county governments.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> thehill.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> CDC eases Covid guidance as U.S. has more tools to fight the virus and keep people out of the hospital
> 
> 
> The public health agency said the virus now poses a significantly lower risk due to high levels of immunity from vaccines and infections.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.cnbc.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> CDC ends recommendations for social distancing and quarantine for Covid-19 control, no longer recommends test-to-stay in schools | CNN
> 
> 
> The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the nation should move away from restrictive measures such as quarantines and social distancing and focus on reducing severe disease from Covid-19.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.cnn.com


First one is an opinion piece too. I don't think you understand what I was protesting. 


Glades said:


> @StevenC out of curiosity, can’t you sue AZ for what happened to you?
> 
> I mean, If you buy a new car and it explodes while you are driving down the road, you get to sue the company for your injuries, for selling a defective product that caused you harm, as rare an occurrence that it might be.


No, as bodes said, the UK made a no blame deal to get AZ ASAP. There is a bit of a legal grey area as to whether this means the government assumed liability. 

There is a Vaccine Injury Payment Scheme that I've applied to. 

My best bet is probably to sue my local health authority for not following the guidance to stop giving AZ to under-30s.


----------



## jaxadam

StevenC said:


> The best part for me is I can finally go swimming again whenever I want. Pool is far enough away that by the time I walk there I'll be too gassed to swim, and it's not worth getting a lift or taxi.



Bro you just need to get a pool in your backyard!


----------



## StevenC

jaxadam said:


> Bro you just need to get a pool in your backyard!


Houses around here with decent pools are somewhere in the £4M range. Hopefully any claims I make will be in that range too.


----------



## jaxadam

StevenC said:


> Houses around here with decent pools are somewhere in the £4M range. Hopefully any claims I make will be in that range too.



Get the scented bubbles for the hot tub!


----------



## Glades

StevenC said:


> Houses around here with decent pools are somewhere in the £4M range. Hopefully any claims I make will be in that range too.


Wow. So either people in your area make much more money than we make, or your property prices are insane. A nice 3 bedroom house with a nice lot and pool where I live is around $400k. Property prices are high now so maybe more.


----------



## jaxadam

Glades said:


> Wow. So either people in your area make much more money than we make, or your property prices are insane. A nice 3 bedroom house with a nice lot and pool where I live is around $400k. Property prices are high now so maybe more.



I’ll take two!


----------



## narad

Glades said:


> Wow. So either people in your area make much more money than we make, or your property prices are insane.


They go together.


----------



## Glades

narad said:


> They go together.


Really? Families in my neighborhood have pretty standard middle-class incomes (I would guess $150k-$250k combined household income), and houses here are in the $400k-500k range. So if a decent single family home with a pool in Northern Ireland costs 4 million pounds, is their income x8 (1.2M-2.0M) for a middle class family?

But not to derail the argument. A buddy of mine and HIS ENTIRE OFFICE got Covid. An entire business pretty much shut down for 1-2 weeks. That will cost their company millions. Be careful out there, the rona virus is still alive and kicking.


----------



## jaxadam

Glades said:


> Really? Families in my neighborhood have pretty standard middle-class incomes (I would guess $150k-$250k combined household income), and houses here are in the $400k-500k range. So if a decent single family home with a pool in Northern Ireland costs 4 million pounds, is their income x8 (1.2M-2.0M) for a middle class family?
> 
> But not to derail the argument. A buddy of mine and HIS ENTIRE OFFICE got Covid. An entire business pretty much shut down for 1-2 weeks. That will cost their company millions. Be careful out there, the rona virus is still alive and kicking.



Man, I need to move down there. 

In all seriousness, sounds like you have smart neighbors. I feel like everyone around here either makes 30k a year and lives in a 2 mil house or they make 1 mil a year and live in a 500k house.


----------



## narad

Glades said:


> Really? Families in my neighborhood have pretty standard middle-class incomes (I would guess $150k-$250k combined household income), and houses here are in the $400k-500k range. So if a decent single family home with a pool in Northern Ireland costs 4 million pounds, is their income x8 (1.2M-2.0M) for a middle class family?


Kinda a weird thing to take from that. Expensive homes are in expensive places with higher salaries. It doesn't mean there is a constant ratio between income and house price, nor where house is defined as single family home with a pool even in places where pools are reserved for the uber rich.


----------



## jaxadam

narad said:


> It doesn't mean there is a constant ratio between income and house price



No doubt… one of my neighbors doesn’t even have a job!


----------



## StevenC

Glades said:


> Wow. So either people in your area make much more money than we make, or your property prices are insane. A nice 3 bedroom house with a nice lot and pool where I live is around $400k. Property prices are high now so maybe more.


It's more that pools aren't a thing here. They need to be indoors because it's cold here most of the year. The only local listing to me with a pool of any significance is a hideous McMansion.

And the McMansion beside that has a go kart track.


----------



## Drew

jaxadam said:


> No doubt… one of my neighbors doesn’t even have a job!


"What's trashy if you're poor but classy if you're rich?" 

(hint: basically everything)



Glades said:


> Really? Families in my neighborhood have pretty standard middle-class incomes (I would guess $150k-$250k combined household income), and houses here are in the $400k-500k range. So if a decent single family home with a pool in Northern Ireland costs 4 million pounds, is their income x8 (1.2M-2.0M) for a middle class family?
> 
> But not to derail the argument. A buddy of mine and HIS ENTIRE OFFICE got Covid. An entire business pretty much shut down for 1-2 weeks. That will cost their company millions. Be careful out there, the rona virus is still alive and kicking.


So, property valuation is REALLY tough, and I know enough to know I'm not an expert, but high level, well, like anything it's supply and demand, and on the demand side of the euquation there are two basic things in play. First, it's income, leveraged by borrowing costs/rates, to a "what can I afford" number, and as income goes up or borrowing costs go down, that rises (and vice versa). The second though is just how badly people want to live in an area, and is driven by things like schools, cultural amenities, in places like mine public transportation access, etc etc etc. Supply is easier, it's just how much available housing there is. Things like zoning restrictions and population density have a lot to do with this. 

Speaking personally, I live in a shoebox in a now-trendy part of the greater Boston area that would likely sell for double the median single family price you're looking at, thanks to a combination of supply factors (my city isn't great about approving large multifamily housing so most available real estate is single family or 2-3 unit condo conversions) and demand factors (employment in the greater Boston area is heavily driven by biochem, tech, finance, and higher ed, all of which have done very well in the last decade so lots of people are trying to move here). Our single family "starter house" price is a bit below what @StevenC is seeing, though it certainly gets up there, and in the more established, less gentrifying city next door I wouldn't be surprised to see those prices. I'd imagine he's dealing with similar factors as us - probably fairly good median family income and a couple strong anchor industries in his area, coupled with very limited housing availability pushing prices up. 

And yeah, Covid is definitely still very much with us. I've been forced back on public transportation for the next month or two, and I'm not happy about it. I'm masking up, but if we start to show signs of another surge I'm going back to full remote work. I'd rather anyway, as due to a temporary line closures my usual 15-20 minute bike ride commute is now up to more than an hour on a shuttle bus.


----------



## StevenC

Drew said:


> "What's trashy if you're poor but classy if you're rich?"
> 
> (hint: basically everything)
> 
> 
> So, property valuation is REALLY tough, and I know enough to know I'm not an expert, but high level, well, like anything it's supply and demand, and on the demand side of the euquation there are two basic things in play. First, it's income, leveraged by borrowing costs/rates, to a "what can I afford" number, and as income goes up or borrowing costs go down, that rises (and vice versa). The second though is just how badly people want to live in an area, and is driven by things like schools, cultural amenities, in places like mine public transportation access, etc etc etc. Supply is easier, it's just how much available housing there is. Things like zoning restrictions and population density have a lot to do with this.
> 
> Speaking personally, I live in a shoebox in a now-trendy part of the greater Boston area that would likely sell for double the median single family price you're looking at, thanks to a combination of supply factors (my city isn't great about approving large multifamily housing so most available real estate is single family or 2-3 unit condo conversions) and demand factors (employment in the greater Boston area is heavily driven by biochem, tech, finance, and higher ed, all of which have done very well in the last decade so lots of people are trying to move here). Our single family "starter house" price is a bit below what @StevenC is seeing, though it certainly gets up there, and in the more established, less gentrifying city next door I wouldn't be surprised to see those prices. I'd imagine he's dealing with similar factors as us - probably fairly good median family income and a couple strong anchor industries in his area, coupled with very limited housing availability pushing prices up.
> 
> And yeah, Covid is definitely still very much with us. I've been forced back on public transportation for the next month or two, and I'm not happy about it. I'm masking up, but if we start to show signs of another surge I'm going back to full remote work. I'd rather anyway, as due to a temporary line closures my usual 15-20 minute bike ride commute is now up to more than an hour on a shuttle bus.


In 2017 my cousin moved from Austin to Boston, from a 3 bed waste of space McMansion to a 3 bed 2 storey house in Forest Hills which was about a third the size and twice the price. Boston housing is just nuts.

That said, Boston is a far nicer place to be 99% of the time except food and sports is worse.


----------



## MFB

StevenC said:


> In 2017 my cousin moved from Austin to Boston, from a 3 bed waste of space McMansion to a 3 bed 2 storey house in Forest Hills which was about a third the size and twice the price. Boston housing is just nuts.
> 
> That said, Boston is a far nicer place to be 99% of the time except food and sports is worse.



Boston is one of the best sport cities in the US, between Red Sox, Celtics, Patriots, and Bruins. You're out of your mind.


----------



## ArtDecade

StevenC said:


> In 2017 my cousin moved from Austin to Boston, from a 3 bed waste of space McMansion to a 3 bed 2 storey house in Forest Hills which was about a third the size and twice the price. Boston housing is just nuts.
> 
> That said, Boston is a far nicer place to be 99% of the time except food and sports is worse.



Boston sucks. Love, Philly


----------



## jaxadam

Austin Massachusetts


----------



## Drew

StevenC said:


> In 2017 my cousin moved from Austin to Boston, from a 3 bed waste of space McMansion to a 3 bed 2 storey house in Forest Hills which was about a third the size and twice the price. Boston housing is just nuts.
> 
> That said, Boston is a far nicer place to be 99% of the time except food and sports is worse.


Them's fighting words.

Our Mexican food scene still lags, but HAS gotten better, at least. :/ It's a gap for me though.


----------



## MFB

ArtDecade said:


> Boston sucks. Love, Philly



Philly can go pound sand.



Drew said:


> Them's fighting words.
> 
> Our Mexican food scene still lags, but HAS gotten better, at least. :/ It's a gap for me though.



La Posada, empanadas + chips + macaroni and a slice of chocolate cake. Thank me later.


----------



## Demiurge

MFB said:


> Boston is one of the best sport cities in the US, between Red Sox, Celtics, Patriots, and Bruins. You're out of your mind.


Yeah, but Boston sports is like extreme metal: while beloved by its own fans, it is disturbing and odious to people on the outside.


----------



## ArtDecade

MFB said:


> Philly can go pound sand.
> 
> 
> 
> La Posada, empanadas + chips + macaroni and a slice of chocolate cake. Thank me later.


Don't make me ship up to Boston and toss your wooden leg into the harbor.


----------



## Drew

MFB said:


> La Posada, empanadas + chips + macaroni and a slice of chocolate cake. Thank me later.


Happy to give it a try, but I thought we had decent mexican food out here until I spent some time in California and Arizona and pretty much anywhere near the border. The fact you list "macaroni" as a recommended dish is not a great sign though. 

It's hardly authentic, but I like Lone Star Taco Bar for tex mex, and bar tacos or tortas at Ole are pretty good. Barra captures a lot of the feel of a hole-in-the-wall Mexico City bar, and they just revamped their menu so I've been meaning to check them out again too.


----------



## Drew

Demiurge said:


> Yeah, but Boston sports is like extreme metal: while beloved by its own fans, it is disturbing and odious to people on the outside.


Eh, it's part of the culture. You either love Boston, or you love to hate Boston. but it's hard to think of many cities where the sports culture is objectively "worse" than Boston's.  It's a huge part of what's in the city's blood.


----------



## jaxadam

Demiurge said:


> Yeah, but Boston sports is like extreme metal: while beloved by its own fans, it is disturbing and odious to people on the outside.


----------



## bostjan

MFB said:


> Boston is one of the best sport cities in the US, between Red Sox, Celtics, Patriots, and Bruins. You're out of your mind.


As opposed to where else, I guess?

I grew up in Detroit, which had a couple good teams but also the Lions. I then moved to Indianapolis, which only had football and basketball, and virtually no one ever even thought about baseball as being a sport for some reason, and now I live in a tiny town in Vermont, where the biggest sporting event within 100 miles is a high school football game.

But everything about Boston is expen$ive. Food is more expensive, housing is crazy expensive, taxes are some of the highest in the nation, utilities are all way higher than average.

If you know what's good in the region, you can always get great food. Austin is the place for tex-mex BBQ. I would not recommend going there to try New England Clam Chowder nor Lobster Rolls, and probably wouldn't expect even the basic Italian dishes in Austin to stand up to the quality I'd expect in Boston. Every major city in the USA has its "thing," so it's great to ask locals what's good and maybe also ask what's not so good. Imagine ordering Alaskan Snow Crab in Billings Montana or an avocado panini in Fairbanks Alaska. Probably not going to be the freshest ingredients.

I'm slow to post, so there's a lot of chatter about this...



Drew said:


> Happy to give it a try, but I thought we had decent mexican food out here until I spent some time in California and Arizona and pretty much anywhere near the border. The fact you list "macaroni" as a recommended dish is not a great sign though.
> 
> It's hardly authentic, but I like Lone Star Taco Bar for tex mex, and bar tacos or tortas at Ole are pretty good. Barra captures a lot of the feel of a hole-in-the-wall Mexico City bar, and they just revamped their menu so I've been meaning to check them out again too.



Don't you put everything in macaroni down there, though? 



Drew said:


> Eh, it's part of the culture. You either love Boston, or you love to hate Boston. but it's hard to think of many cities where the sports culture is objectively "worse" than Boston's.  It's a huge part of what's in the city's blood.



Even way up here, technically closer to Montreal than Boston, geographically, the love for the Boston teams is assumed by all parties. Nearly every person I know here has at least one piece of apparel with a Boston team logo on it that gets worn regularly.

But the rivalry with the Yankees is something else. I think that probably the most controversial item to wear in public would be a Yankees hat. You'd be safer wearing a MAGA hat to a Bernie Sander's rally.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> But the rivalry with the Yankees is something else. I think that probably the most controversial item to wear in public would be a Yankees hat. You'd be safer wearing a MAGA hat to a Bernie Sander's rally.


...though, I'm not sure about vice versa.


----------



## budda

Drew said:


> ...though, I'm not sure about vice versa.


 Wore my habs hat on tour to the Bruins pro shop, no one noticed


----------



## StevenC

MFB said:


> Boston is one of the best sport cities in the US, between Red Sox, Celtics, Patriots, and Bruins. You're out of your mind.


----------



## Drew

You UKers have the oddest idea of what's a sport. It's so quaint.


----------



## jaxadam

There were more Steelers fans and the Jags game Saturday night than there were Jags fans.


----------



## bostjan

budda said:


> Wore my habs hat on tour to the Bruins pro shop, no one noticed


Probably figured their record was already enough punishment.


----------



## budda

bostjan said:


> Probably figured their record was already enough punishment.




We talking total number of cups, or…?


----------



## Glades

budda said:


> We talking total number of cups, or…?


I can't criticize anybody from Montreal. Anybody that figured out to put gravy on cheese curds and fries is a more advanced human than me.


----------



## StevenC

Drew said:


> You UKers have the oddest idea of what's a sport. It's so quaint.


I'm Irish and not even I like the Celtics


----------



## bostjan

budda said:


> We talking total number of cups, or…?


How many Bruins fans do you think paid attention to the Canadiens' record prior to 1980?


----------



## crankyrayhanky

MFB said:


> Philly can go pound sand.


This guy ^ has Sylvester Stallone, Mr. Philadelphia, as his avatar....I think has had it for like a decade?! lol


----------



## Bodes

Update:

Visited a cardologist yesterday. Got some good news, meh news and some more info.

The good:
- He is a mad Aussie Rules fan and our teams are playing each other in the first round of the finals next week (ok, weird way to start, but let's get back on track)
- He has seen / is seeing a number of patients who have similar issues to me and appears that those who are at the 9 month stage of this crap are not showing any signs of physical heart deterioration *phew*
- He wants me to start walking for exercise daily , it may mean I push too hard and have to take a day or two to recover, but this doesnt seem to distress the heart much 'long term' *fingers crossed*


The meh:
- Looks like people in similar situations have this crap going on for 9-12 months. I am only 4 months into this. *cries a little*
- I got to be careful to not keep an elevated heart rate for too long, this may cause irrepairable damage
- There is curently no treatment. It appears my body needs a hard reset, but they don't know where the reset button is.


Some info about what long COVID, granted this is what the experts are thinking due to these issues being so new:
- There seems to be a link between people who had a reaction to a vaccine and having long-term afftects due to catching covid. Sounds pretty obvious as the vaccines are trying to work the same part of your immune system that the virus attacks.
- There are various studies looking into this form of long-covid. However, Australia is doing nothing.
- For every one person in my situation, there are 1000+ people whohave little to no symptoms at all


I had an awful sleep last night, quite daunting to think I may have these issues for another year or more.
I know there are people who had/have it much worse than I do, but I am a negative person by nature, so have taken that news a little hard. I just want to play with my son and not have to rest within a few minutes.
Maybe in a couple of days, once I properly digest what I have been told, I will start to look more positively at it all. Maybe after a few days of getting back to walking and getting the blood flowing?

Anyways, stay healthy everyone. Good luck to those who are experiencing long-covid, or having a crap time during your isolation period.


----------



## Drew

Hang in there, @Bodes, and don't let it get to you - if you're 4 months into something with a typical 9-12 month recovery, you don't have a year left, you're anywhere from halfway to a third of the way through. 

And gnerally, stressing the heart and cardio system a little in the short run makes it a lot stronger in the long run. Just build into any workout plan you do.


----------



## LordCashew

Bodes said:


> Update:
> 
> Visited a cardologist yesterday. Got some good news, meh news and some more info.
> 
> The good:
> - He is a mad Aussie Rules fan and our teams are playing each other in the first round of the finals next week (ok, weird way to start, but let's get back on track)
> - He has seen / is seeing a number of patients who have similar issues to me and appears that those who are at the 9 month stage of this crap are not showing any signs of physical heart deterioration *phew*
> - He wants me to start walking for exercise daily , it may mean I push too hard and have to take a day or two to recover, but this doesnt seem to distress the heart much 'long term' *fingers crossed*
> 
> 
> The meh:
> - Looks like people in similar situations have this crap going on for 9-12 months. I am only 4 months into this. *cries a little*
> - I got to be careful to not keep an elevated heart rate for too long, this may cause irrepairable damage
> - There is curently no treatment. It appears my body needs a hard reset, but they don't know where the reset button is.
> 
> 
> Some info about what long COVID, granted this is what the experts are thinking due to these issues being so new:
> - There seems to be a link between people who had a reaction to a vaccine and having long-term afftects due to catching covid. Sounds pretty obvious as the vaccines are trying to work the same part of your immune system that the virus attacks.
> - There are various studies looking into this form of long-covid. However, Australia is doing nothing.
> - For every one person in my situation, there are 1000+ people whohave little to no symptoms at all
> 
> 
> I had an awful sleep last night, quite daunting to think I may have these issues for another year or more.
> I know there are people who had/have it much worse than I do, but I am a negative person by nature, so have taken that news a little hard. I just want to play with my son and not have to rest within a few minutes.
> Maybe in a couple of days, once I properly digest what I have been told, I will start to look more positively at it all. Maybe after a few days of getting back to walking and getting the blood flowing?
> 
> Anyways, stay healthy everyone. Good luck to those who are experiencing long-covid, or having a crap time during your isolation period.


My friend who I mentioned earlier in this thread is experiencing significant relief from his long Covid symptoms after being put on an SSRI and niacin supplementation. Something to do with the immune system cannibalizing serotonin and related compounds in its response to the virus. I have no idea if that's helpful to you, but it seems to have made a significant difference to him so I thought I'd mention it.


----------



## ArtDecade

Bodes said:


> Update:
> 
> Visited a cardologist yesterday. Got some good news, meh news and some more info.
> 
> The good:
> - He is a mad Aussie Rules fan and our teams are playing each other in the first round of the finals next week (ok, weird way to start, but let's get back on track)
> - He has seen / is seeing a number of patients who have similar issues to me and appears that those who are at the 9 month stage of this crap are not showing any signs of physical heart deterioration *phew*
> - He wants me to start walking for exercise daily , it may mean I push too hard and have to take a day or two to recover, but this doesnt seem to distress the heart much 'long term' *fingers crossed*
> 
> 
> The meh:
> - Looks like people in similar situations have this crap going on for 9-12 months. I am only 4 months into this. *cries a little*
> - I got to be careful to not keep an elevated heart rate for too long, this may cause irrepairable damage
> - There is curently no treatment. It appears my body needs a hard reset, but they don't know where the reset button is.
> 
> 
> Some info about what long COVID, granted this is what the experts are thinking due to these issues being so new:
> - There seems to be a link between people who had a reaction to a vaccine and having long-term afftects due to catching covid. Sounds pretty obvious as the vaccines are trying to work the same part of your immune system that the virus attacks.
> - There are various studies looking into this form of long-covid. However, Australia is doing nothing.
> - For every one person in my situation, there are 1000+ people whohave little to no symptoms at all
> 
> 
> I had an awful sleep last night, quite daunting to think I may have these issues for another year or more.
> I know there are people who had/have it much worse than I do, but I am a negative person by nature, so have taken that news a little hard. I just want to play with my son and not have to rest within a few minutes.
> Maybe in a couple of days, once I properly digest what I have been told, I will start to look more positively at it all. Maybe after a few days of getting back to walking and getting the blood flowing?
> 
> Anyways, stay healthy everyone. Good luck to those who are experiencing long-covid, or having a crap time during your isolation period.


Freo Heave Ho. Good luck, mate!


----------



## Lorcan Ward

After 2 1/2 years Covid finally got me. I never get sick and when I do it’s usually only for a day but it knocked me out for a week. I don’t know what variant I got but I had a chest infection, sinus headaches, fever, insomnia, blurry vision, sore throat, sensitive hearing and a ton of other stuff. 

Took about a week to feel better and another week to get back to normal. I can see how this would be dangerous to anyone high risk and how some of these symptoms could persist long after recovery.


----------



## Flappydoodle

Lorcan Ward said:


> After 2 1/2 years Covid finally got me. I never get sick and when I do it’s usually only for a day but it knocked me out for a week. I don’t know what variant I got but I had a chest infection, sinus headaches, fever, insomnia, blurry vision, sore throat, sensitive hearing and a ton of other stuff.
> 
> Took about a week to feel better and another week to get back to normal. I can see how this would be dangerous to anyone high risk and how some of these symptoms could persist long after recovery.


That sounds like a fairly bad experience for a younger guy. Were you vaccinated? Glad you're feeling better now.

I also just got it recently. Just 1 night of fever, and the next day was like a head cold with congestion and a runny nose. By the 3rd day, totally normal. That's with 2x AZ, and the latest being Moderna in April. So around 5 months since the last vaccine, but with the benefit of mixing types. The kids have been all around us all week and one got a bit of runny nose, and the other had zero signs at all. No way they weren't infected. My wife very similar to me except she did have some nausea.

But yeah, it's crazy how variable it is. I know two people less than 40 who got slammed by the Wuhan or Delta variants and ended up in hospitals.


----------



## Glades

Flappydoodle said:


> That sounds like a fairly bad experience for a younger guy. Were you vaccinated? Glad you're feeling better now.
> 
> I also just got it recently. Just 1 night of fever, and the next day was like a head cold with congestion and a runny nose. By the 3rd day, totally normal. That's with 2x AZ, and the latest being Moderna in April. So around 5 months since the last vaccine, but with the benefit of mixing types. The kids have been all around us all week and one got a bit of runny nose, and the other had zero signs at all. No way they weren't infected. My wife very similar to me except she did have some nausea.
> 
> But yeah, it's crazy how variable it is. I know two people less than 40 who got slammed by the Wuhan or Delta variants and ended up in hospitals.


The vaccine was specific to the original variant. Data is pretty clear that the vaccine is marginally effective against newer variants like Omicron. Nobody is getting the original COVID now, mostly delta and omicron. That is why they are introducing an Omicron-specific vaccine now. I don’t know if the test studies for the new shot are available or not. It will be interesting to see if the new shot is even worth it.


----------



## Flappydoodle

Glades said:


> The vaccine was specific to the original variant. Data is pretty clear that the vaccine is marginally effective against newer variants like Omicron. Nobody is getting the original COVID now, mostly delta and omicron. That is why they are introducing an Omicron-specific vaccine now. I don’t know if the test studies for the new shot are available or not. It will be interesting to see if the new shot is even worth it.


They're marginally effective at preventing Omicron infections, and hopeless at preventing transmission. But to my knowledge they're still pretty good at keeping you out of hospitals or the morgue. Admittedly I haven't been keeping up with the latest research any more. I sort of stopped caring about a year ago, lol


----------



## IwantTacos

All companies should just wear their thoughts on their sleeves. Makes purchasing things so much easier.


----------



## Bodes

IwantTacos said:


> All companies should just wear their thoughts on their sleeves. Makes purchasing things so much easier.



Not sure what you mean by your statement, but does it say that Ivermectin is "being evaluated" as a treatment, not that it is an effective treatment? Tis a little blurry when I zoom in to try and read.

Fun giggles: I tried to type ivermectin and it auto corrected to "I erection" hahaha! Glad I read my response.


----------



## IwantTacos

Bodes said:


> Not sure what you mean by your statement, but does it say that Ivermectin is "being evaluated" as a treatment, not that it is an effective treatment? Tis a little blurry when I zoom in to try and read.
> 
> Fun giggles: I tried to type ivermectin and it auto corrected to "I erection" hahaha! Glad I read my response.



Builder or brands post this stuff with headline like I told you so fucking liberals. 

Chef kiss.


----------



## spudmunkey

IwantTacos said:


> All companies should just wear their thoughts on their sleeves. Makes purchasing things so much easier.


For anyone who was curious about the contents of that chart:








Ivermectin is Dead and Buried Despite NIH Website Misstep and Twitter Buzz - Medika Life


Ivermectin is mistakenly promoted by NIH as a possible treatment for Covid. It's simply under study. We don't know if it works. Does NIH have communication support?




medika.life


----------



## IwantTacos

spudmunkey said:


> For anyone who was curious about the contents of that chart:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ivermectin is Dead and Buried Despite NIH Website Misstep and Twitter Buzz - Medika Life
> 
> 
> Ivermectin is mistakenly promoted by NIH as a possible treatment for Covid. It's simply under study. We don't know if it works. Does NIH have communication support?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> medika.life



Brand proudly reposts garbage in their moments. Is it irony? Is it performance art?


----------



## narad

IwantTacos said:


> All companies should just wear their thoughts on their sleeves. Makes purchasing things so much easier.



Oh, that guy's the head of that mother plucker guitar company?


----------



## Glades

COVID pandemic is over!! 

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/19/1123767437/joe-biden-covid-19-pandemic-over


----------



## jaxadam

Glades said:


> COVID pandemic is over!!
> 
> https://www.npr.org/2022/09/19/1123767437/joe-biden-covid-19-pandemic-over



What!? From a guy who owns more deaths than the previous administration? No way...


----------



## CanserDYI

Glades said:


> COVID pandemic is over!!
> 
> https://www.npr.org/2022/09/19/1123767437/joe-biden-covid-19-pandemic-over


So....you'll just listen to Biden now?


----------



## bostjan

I'm sure he was being ironic. I'm not sure why Biden is declaring the pandemic over. By definition, a pandemic is over when the new infection rate drops back to the same level it was pre-pandemic. Obviously, this cannot apply to a new disease anyway, so, all anyone can say to anyone who declares the pandemic "over" is "uueeagh?" (Home Improvement grunt of confusion).

Covid-19 is going to be with us forever now. We've been quick to declare ourselves "post peak" since around this time in 2020, but, as long as there is a significant amount of transmission across the globe, I'm not sure how any overly optimistic statements are going to age, seeing as how no one can predict the future, and it'll be totally random if a new variant just happens to hit the recipe for a new wave or not.

I know Biden is parroting what CDC and WHO people are saying, but he's bad at paraphrasing things, and those two organizations have a piss poor record of saying anything accurate about covid anyway.


----------



## TedEH

I can understand how it sort of "feels" over sometimes though. Concerts and events are opened back up, masks are being forgotten about in a lot of places, people have moved on to obsessing over other things, etc. I think for a lot of people, the idea of accepting that this is now just the state of things forever isn't meaningfully different from declaring it "over".


----------



## bostjan

TedEH said:


> I can understand how it sort of "feels" over sometimes though. Concerts and events are opened back up, masks are being forgotten about in a lot of places, people have moved on to obsessing over other things, etc. I think for a lot of people, the idea of accepting that this is now just the state of things forever isn't meaningfully different from declaring it "over".


If this was Joe Schmoe saying the pandemic was over, I'd 100% agree; however, when someone in a position of authority declares something technically out of their control to be a certain way, they need to use more careful wording and rely on the actual meanings of words and not "feel facts."

I would agree that the "crisis" phase of the pandemic was over around April or May of 2021.

And I know I've said this for years now, but we won't be able to officially say that the pandemic itself is over until we see covid settle into a steady seasonal pattern, which will take at least years if not decades to firmly establish. So, maybe in 2027, we can look at the trend of the data over the past five years and say, "it looks like the pandemic ended in 2022." And, if anyone thinks about that hard enough, the sooner the "pandemic" actually ends, the worse the case is for the future. What I mean is that, if this is the "steady state" of the virus as it interacts with the global population, where, currently, at least four people I know and interact with regularly are infected with covid, then things are going to look pretty bleak. On the other hand, if this is the post peak "tail" of the pandemic, then the rate of new infections will still fall off before reaching a steady state, which would be overall good news.

But, of course, Joe Biden is just parroting the CDC and WHO spokespeople, who, seemingly, have no clue what they are actually talking about, since they have given no accurate information about covid since 2020. So, probably, no one really cares if Biden says the pandemic is "over," at least not enough to stop and think of what that actually means.

Also, maybe it is over. I'm not saying that it's not over, just that there is no evidence that it's over. Like, we could say that inflation is over, and we might be correct, because, there is no evidence right now about what the inflation rate is right now - the only way to accurately describe these things is by looking at trends in data both before and after the time frame you are depicting, which we obviously never have bracketing the present moment, since no one knows the future.

Hell, for all we know, we could be out of the initial covid pandemic and entering into a new covid pandemic as we speak. I have no reason to believe that, but there is no way of proving otherwise until maybe a week or so into the future. 

Culturally, I don't even think that's accurate, though. People are leaving behind their masks and going out to play spin-the-bottle with strangers, sure, but if anyone at work gets the sniffles, they are taking vacation time to stay home or else getting in trouble by coming in sick. Likewise with social engagements. The cultural shift has not shifted back to its pre-pandemic state. It might never do so. Maybe one might argue that these ideas no longer "feel" new to people, but I'd like to see polls to back that up. Not that I disbelieve that people feel that way, but I *do* disbelieve that anyone talking this way has any sort of actual knowledge of what the hell they are talking about to the point of making definitive statements.


----------



## TedEH

bostjan said:


> The cultural shift has not shifted back to its pre-pandemic state. It might never do so


I don't think it will. A lot of these changes strike me as things we _should_ have been doing already - like not going into work if you're sick. There's an unfortunate bit to that though, where I've heard of lots of places that _did_ shift back to just showing up to work every day unless you're literally incapable or dead, and of course that's going to be the entry level, the poorly paid, the overworked, etc. crowd that bears the brunt of that. I've been legitimately annoyed with public spaces that have stopped putting up sanitizer at entrances - like 'rona or not, it was just a good and considerate idea.


bostjan said:


> Joe Schmoe


I kinda wish his name was actually Schmoe. President Schmoe.


----------



## bostjan

TedEH said:


> I don't think it will. A lot of these changes strike me as things we _should_ have been doing already - like not going into work if you're sick. There's an unfortunate bit to that though, where I've heard of lots of places that _did_ shift back to just showing up to work every day unless you're literally incapable or dead, and of course that's going to be the entry level, the poorly paid, the overworked, etc. crowd that bears the brunt of that. I've been legitimately annoyed with public spaces that have stopped putting up sanitizer at entrances - like 'rona or not, it was just a good and considerate idea.
> 
> I kinda wish his name was actually Schmoe. President Schmoe.


Yeah, on paper, it sounds great. Until you have the minimum crew manning the nuclear reactor and one of them has the sniffles. Then your choice is between increasing the risk of getting everyone sick, and then there being a meltdown, or trying to run with less crew than necessary, and there being a meltdown. Neither option ends up looking good for you if things go the wrong way.

Maybe that's what we learned during lockdown. "Only strictly necessary employees" generally meant just about everyone. Whether you were responsible for keeping the water running or keeping the power on, or responsible for stocking the vending machines at the power plant so the employees keeping the power on could have snacks, or whatever, it all eventually seemed to distill out to everyone's job being necessary at some level.

After seeing how heavily Bush Jr. leaned into the identity of being just a regular average dude, and how well it worked out for him, despite being one of the most wealthy and privileged businessmen, I'd tend to think anyone with a legal name of Joe Schmoe would automatically get +5 bonus points running for US president.


----------



## TedEH

bostjan said:


> manning the nuclear reactor and one of them has the sniffles


I hoping to be reasonably clear in my post that I'm talking about people like retail or service workers. Like if you sell wedding dresses on weekends, pick up shifts pumping gas, make overpriced coffess, or you're the guy who stares down the self-checkout-machine-users at walmart so that nobody steals things, then you shouldn't be forced to work when you're going to risk your customers and coworkers health.

Plenty of call centers have shifted back away from WFH despite now having the infrastructure for it, and it makes no sense to force that crowd into a building full of small cubicles. I've worked in centers like that, they're a great place to be if you actively want to get sick from other people.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

TedEH said:


> I hoping to be reasonably clear in my post that I'm talking about people like retail or service workers. Like if you sell wedding dresses on weekends, pick up shifts pumping gas, make overpriced coffess, or you're the guy who stares down the self-checkout-machine-users at walmart so that nobody steals things, then you shouldn't be forced to work when you're going to risk your customers and coworkers health.



Some of the management at the hotel I worked at this summer was actively engaged in guilting people to come to work if they weren't "too sick." If you dropped the "rona symptoms" line they'd back off but they were happy to try and make you come in with rona symptoms so long as they could pretend not to know. A lot of the employees were seasonal, living in the hotel, and they told me about managers coming and knocking on their doors when they were sick to hassle them. 

I totally caught covid working there.

It's the norm in those industries as you say, and if we're "back to normal" that's part of it. One of many reasons I'm trying to claw my way out of the service industry.


----------



## mbardu

bostjan said:


> Yeah, on paper, it sounds great. Until you have the minimum crew manning the nuclear reactor and one of them has the sniffles. Then your choice is between increasing the risk of getting everyone sick, and then there being a meltdown, or trying to run with less crew than necessary, and there being a meltdown. Neither option ends up looking good for you if things go the wrong way.
> 
> Maybe that's what we learned during lockdown. "Only strictly necessary employees" generally meant just about everyone. Whether you were responsible for keeping the water running or keeping the power on, or responsible for stocking the vending machines at the power plant so the employees keeping the power on could have snacks, or whatever, it all eventually seemed to distill out to everyone's job being necessary at some level.
> 
> After seeing how heavily Bush Jr. leaned into the identity of being just a regular average dude, and how well it worked out for him, despite being one of the most wealthy and privileged businessmen, I'd tend to think anyone with a legal name of Joe Schmoe would automatically get +5 bonus points running for US president.



Well maybe we should have contingencies or some buffers in place so that one crew being sick does not automatically leads to the meltdown of a reactor.
Otherwise, one bad fish at the power plant cafeteria and we're in a bit of a pickle


----------



## jaxadam

Did a Famous Doctor’s COVID Shot Make His Cancer Worse?


A lifelong promoter of vaccines suspects he might be the rare, unfortunate exception.




www.theatlantic.com


----------



## narad

Sucks when you think you're going to get 5G and you just get cancer.


----------



## Flappydoodle

bostjan said:


> I'm sure he was being ironic. I'm not sure why Biden is declaring the pandemic over. By definition, a pandemic is over when the new infection rate drops back to the same level it was pre-pandemic. Obviously, this cannot apply to a new disease anyway, so, all anyone can say to anyone who declares the pandemic "over" is "uueeagh?" (Home Improvement grunt of confusion).
> 
> Covid-19 is going to be with us forever now. We've been quick to declare ourselves "post peak" since around this time in 2020, but, as long as there is a significant amount of transmission across the globe, I'm not sure how any overly optimistic statements are going to age, seeing as how no one can predict the future, and it'll be totally random if a new variant just happens to hit the recipe for a new wave or not.
> 
> I know Biden is parroting what CDC and WHO people are saying, but he's bad at paraphrasing things, and those two organizations have a piss poor record of saying anything accurate about covid anyway.


I think there's the scientific definition, and there's the common understanding of the word in the general public. This has been a problem in general throughout the whole Covid situation.

I think "pandemic" to the general public basically means it is an emergency which is currently disrupting your way of life and/or endangering you.

For example, there are other pandemics and epidemics happening but people generally don't care. For example, HIV is still considered as a pandemic, but it basically doesn't affect your life on a daily basis.


----------



## Flappydoodle

TedEH said:


> There's an unfortunate bit to that though, where I've heard of lots of places that _did_ shift back to just showing up to work every day unless you're literally incapable or dead, and of course that's going to be the entry level, the poorly paid, the overworked, etc. crowd that bears the brunt of that. I've been legitimately annoyed with public spaces that have stopped putting up sanitizer at entrances - like 'rona or not, it was just a good and considerate idea.


I am very curious whether there will be longer-lasting effects from this pandemic. Obviously, in general, disease prevention is a good thing. Having separate pipes for our poop and drinking water is massively beneficial. 

However - constantly sterilising ourselves, hand washing, wearing masks, avoiding colds and flu etc... I am honestly curious how that will affect people longer term. Maybe nothing will happen, but I do also see possible ways in which dramatically altering our exposure to bacteria and viruses (which are mostly harmless) and even allergens (like pollen, dust, hair etc) could have long-term consequences.

As an extreme example, if you take a litter of mice and you birth them by C-section, then raise them with filtered air, irradiated food etc, they will be "germ free" mice. Their immune system goes without "training" by exposure to common pathogens and other harmless microorganisms. Those mice have terrible immune systems, can't fight off pathogens, recover worse from surgery and injuries, and are even much more prone to allergies. You can do the same with other animals, such as chickens, to the same effect. So clearly our childhood exposure to basic germs is super important.

For example, the mysterious cases of hepatitis and liver failure of children was found to be adenovirus. Turns out that it's a very normal and boring adenovirus 41 which basically all of us have. Normally we're exposed to it and your body is like "ok, this is fine, I'll just kinda bank this one in the memory for later". However, due to lockdowns/masks/etc millions of children didn't get exposure to this pathogen, and when lockdowns ended and they did get exposed, they had a very different immune response. Luckily it's very, very rare, but it's just one example which has come to light.


----------



## spudmunkey

According to Mayo Clinic:

*Epidemic*
An increase — often sudden — in the number of cases of a disease above what is normally expected in that population in a specific area.


*Pandemic*
An epidemic that has spread over several countries or continents and affects many people.


*Endemic*
The amount of a particular disease that is usually present in a community. It's also called a baseline.



> Over the past two years, COVID-19 has been classified as a pandemic due to its widespread effects. So what would moving to a stage where COVID-19 is endemic mean? Dr. O'Horo says that when COVID-19 becomes endemic, it will be present at a certain level in a population at certain times of the year or year-round.
> 
> "You expect a certain level of background activity. One of the best examples I can give of an endemic … is our seasonal flu activity, where, as the activity increases during the winter, there's a certain expected level of increase that we see — that we accept as just part of normal variation."



So the "the *pandemic *is over" lauguege is because we know we couldn't possibly eliminate it fully at this point, so now we're assuming it'll be with us forever in some form as it's become "*endemic*". We've been averaging about 3,000 per week since for about 5 months now, the longest plateau. So multiply that by 52 weeks, and we're about 150k deaths for the year, while a really bad flu season is about 50k. To many, the costs to society as a whole to reduce it lower than that would be too high. Not just financial, but mental health of children, suicide, drug deaths went up 30% in 2020, suicides went up 10%, etc,

But...that 3,000 deaths/week has been over the summer. When this sort of disease isn't particularly potent. It's not until the fall/winter where we see the up-tick in flu cases/deaths. Right now, we're running double the daily COVID deaths of the same time last year, and then we started hitting nearly 4,000 deaths per *day* in January/Feb. 

Currently, I'm undergoing a medical treatment that is often given to leukemia patients (no, my specific condition isn't cancer, but this drug has multiple uses), and one of the side effects is that it destroys your immune system. And another one of my medications means that I also can't get the flu or COVID booster shot. So a bit of a double-whammy. So, my girlfriend (who I live with) is now flu-vax'd for the first time, and now COVID boosted (again), and will be taking over some more of the shopping trips, so I can avoid being around people so much since a cold could send me to the ICU.


----------



## StevenC

jaxadam said:


> Did a Famous Doctor’s COVID Shot Make His Cancer Worse?
> 
> 
> A lifelong promoter of vaccines suspects he might be the rare, unfortunate exception.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.theatlantic.com


As a lifelong promoter of vaccines who is the rare, unfortunate exception, articles like this are broadly fearmongering.

As a side note, this article is incredibly badly researched because it mentions my rare, unfortunate exception and gets the numbers badly wrong. Imagine using an 18 month old article as your source for deaths on a 19 month old disease.


----------



## TedEH

Flappydoodle said:


> I am very curious whether there will be longer-lasting effects from this pandemic.


I know it's not what you meant, but there very much have been already - in terms of people's lives and attitudes etc.



Flappydoodle said:


> constantly sterilising ourselves, hand washing, wearing masks, avoiding colds and flu etc... I am honestly curious how that will affect people longer term.


I really doubt it. It's not like the general public has become the very image of sterility and cleanliness - but I'm talking things that are _basic hygiene, _or just covers some very common public/shared/gross spaces. Putting hand sanitizer in public places will neither stop people from being gross in other places, nor suddenly make us weak and fragile.

I tried to quickly google the story about kids suddenly getting hepatitis, and the best I can find is under 200 cases reported (worldwide), and no mention of it being linked to lockdowns. There was one alarmist headline that looked like it might have drawn some link, but it was behind a paywall. And this is keeping in mind that over the last two years, people have been deliberately scrounging for ways to nitpick the worlds handling of covid. That's such an insanely minuscule fluke of a side-effect to conclude that it means _washing your hands might be bad_ for public health outcomes.


----------



## spudmunkey

Flappydoodle said:


> I am very curious whether there will be longer-lasting effects from this pandemic. Obviously, in general, disease prevention is a good thing. Having separate pipes for our poop and drinking water is massively beneficial.


I know it's not what you mean, but...



And also:





COVID-19 can destroy placenta, lead to stillbirth, study finds


Among pregnant women, the coronavirus can severely damage the placenta, leading to fetal asphyxiation and stillbirth, according to research published Feb. 10 in the Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine.




www.beckershospitalreview.com






and...








UF Health study suggests association between COVID-19 and erectile dysfunction


If the threat of death or severe disability isn’t enough to convince someone to get a COVID-19 vaccination, men can add this possible consequence of coronavirus infection — erectile dysfunction.




ufhealth.org


----------



## Adieu

TedEH said:


> I tried to quickly google the story about kids suddenly getting hepatitis, and the best I can find is under 200 cases reported (worldwide), and no mention of it being linked to lockdowns. There was one alarmist headline that looked like it might have drawn some link, but it was behind a paywall. And this is keeping in mind that over the last two years, people have been deliberately scrounging for ways to nitpick the worlds handling of covid. That's such an insanely minuscule fluke of a side-effect to conclude that it means _washing your hands might be bad_ for public health outcomes.



I'm sorry, but 200 kids worldwide with hepatitis during a lockdown is INCEST.

Go check daddy/stepdaddy.

End of story.


----------



## StevenC

TedEH said:


> I really doubt it. It's not like the general public has become the very image of sterility and cleanliness - but I'm talking things that are _basic hygiene, _or just covers some very common public/shared/gross spaces. Putting hand sanitizer in public places will neither stop people from being gross in other places, nor suddenly make us weak and fragile.


I got an alarming number of compliments about my hygiene practices throughout the pandemic, but only because people noticed my prepandemic practices. One friend said I was "right all along" because I wash my hands when I get home from being out.


----------



## Flappydoodle

StevenC said:


> As a lifelong promoter of vaccines who is the rare, unfortunate exception, articles like this are broadly fearmongering.
> 
> As a side note, this article is incredibly badly researched because it mentions my rare, unfortunate exception and gets the numbers badly wrong. Imagine using an 18 month old article as your source for deaths on a 19 month old disease.



I don't think there's fearmongering. It's an article of general interest, and the Atlantic readership is mostly the educated, academic (and yes liberal elitist types). It says:

"Michel still has to watch out for a recurrence. And as a longtime immunologist and medical innovator, he’s still considering the question of whether a vaccine that is saving tens of millions of lives each year might have put his own in jeopardy. He remains adamant that COVID-19 vaccines are necessary and useful for the vast majority of people. But he wants the discussion about vaccines to be transparent."

That's a very fair statement, isn't it? The vaccines have overall done an amazing job at preventing deaths throughout the pandemic - especially in the elderly. Death rates absolutely plummeted, and that's undeniable. It's estimated that Covid vaccines saved 20 million lives so far. 

But - they sure as hell aren't perfect. They aren't even "good" vaccines really, in the grand scheme of things. They only last a few months. They barely prevent infections or transmissions. They're also relatively expensive and the shipping/logistics is far from optimal. If we weren't in a pandemic, a new treatment with that sort of effectiveness probably wouldn't have been approved. And the risks *were* glossed over, if we're honest. Myocarditis was downplayed, yet AZ blood clots were demonised. That was 100% political.

A major problem is that, even in the scientific research world, any sort of "criticism" of the vaccines gets you labelled as anti-vax and everything you say is discounted. So I think Michel publishing a case study and just opening up that discussion is a very fair and valid thing to do. He is still 100% pro vaccine. He even supports the same Covid vaccine which maybe made his cancer relapse.


TedEH said:


> I tried to quickly google the story about kids suddenly getting hepatitis, and the best I can find is under 200 cases reported (worldwide), and no mention of it being linked to lockdowns. There was one alarmist headline that looked like it might have drawn some link, but it was behind a paywall. And this is keeping in mind that over the last two years, people have been deliberately scrounging for ways to nitpick the worlds handling of covid. That's such an insanely minuscule fluke of a side-effect to conclude that it means _washing your hands might be bad_ for public health outcomes.



Really? You're not very good at Google then  Or google is actively removing things from your search results? I got a bunch of legit medical journals and reputable news (like Nature, Science, etc)

WHO made an announcement about it: https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2022-DON376

More than 500 worldwide in May https://www.science.org/content/art...tals-hepatitis-coronavirus-adenovirus-or-both Across UK, USA, Israel and many others.




TedEH said:


> Putting hand sanitizer in public places will neither stop people from being gross in other places, nor suddenly make us weak and fragile.


Then it's largely just theater and doesn't actually do anything. Plastic covers over the buttons on elevators - its there *any* evidence it works or prevents anything? It sure as hell does nothing much for Covid since it's an airborne pathogen. *Maybe* at a stretch those things would help with fecal-oral transmission and you'd get less tummy bugs from touching things and putting your fingers in your mouth.



spudmunkey said:


> I know it's not what you mean, but...
> 
> 
> 
> And also:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> COVID-19 can destroy placenta, lead to stillbirth, study finds
> 
> 
> Among pregnant women, the coronavirus can severely damage the placenta, leading to fetal asphyxiation and stillbirth, according to research published Feb. 10 in the Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.beckershospitalreview.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> and...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> UF Health study suggests association between COVID-19 and erectile dysfunction
> 
> 
> If the threat of death or severe disability isn’t enough to convince someone to get a COVID-19 vaccination, men can add this possible consequence of coronavirus infection — erectile dysfunction.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ufhealth.org




I'm not sure your purpose of this post. You interpreted my post as somehow downplaying the pandemic? I don't get it.


----------



## TedEH

Flappydoodle said:


> Or google is actively removing things from your search results?


It's well known at this point that google doesn't return the same results for everyone, but yes, I did see the WHO one - which both points at < 200 cases, and admits that theories behind the cause aren't well supported right now. Same with the second article. My point stands that it's a small number of cases on the grand scale, and that the link isn't well supported.



Flappydoodle said:


> Then it's largely just theater and doesn't actually do anything.


Dude, just wash your hands. You don't need to be a rocket surgeon to know that washing your hands is a good idea. It's as simple as that.



Flappydoodle said:


> Plastic covers over the buttons on elevators


I've never seen or heard of anyone doing this. I'll re-iterate: I was talking about _it being a good idea to have sanitizer available at the entrance to public spaces like cafes or box stores._ That's it. Maybe 200-500 worldwide will have some weird knock-on effect that they don't pick up some very specific immunities, but that needs to be compared against how many things people _didn't _get sick with as a result of having some basic hygiene. Or you could compare it to, I dunno, the tons of people who died during the pandemic. Just because some people have decided that the "pandemic is over" or we've reached some new equilibrium / normal, doesn't mean the goal isn't still to not get sick. I mean, I went for two years barely getting a cold - it was fantastic - and I'm sure a lot of people's general health outcomes improved. Where's the data on how many sicknesses people have successfully avoided? I'm sure more than 500 cases of _anything_ have been prevented as a result of really basic measures like _hand sanitizer at store entrances_.


----------



## MFB

TedEH said:


> Dude, just wash your hands. You don't need to be a rocket surgeon to know that washing your hands is a good idea. It's as simple as that.



Didn't realize our very own Ted here was in the pocket of Big Soap!


----------



## TedEH

If I'm going to be in any pocket, I'd rather it be a clean one.


----------



## StevenC

Flappydoodle said:


> I don't think there's fearmongering. It's an article of general interest, and the Atlantic readership is mostly the educated, academic (and yes liberal elitist types). It says:
> 
> "Michel still has to watch out for a recurrence. And as a longtime immunologist and medical innovator, he’s still considering the question of whether a vaccine that is saving tens of millions of lives each year might have put his own in jeopardy. He remains adamant that COVID-19 vaccines are necessary and useful for the vast majority of people. But he wants the discussion about vaccines to be transparent."
> 
> That's a very fair statement, isn't it? The vaccines have overall done an amazing job at preventing deaths throughout the pandemic - especially in the elderly. Death rates absolutely plummeted, and that's undeniable. It's estimated that Covid vaccines saved 20 million lives so far.
> 
> But - they sure as hell aren't perfect. They aren't even "good" vaccines really, in the grand scheme of things. They only last a few months. They barely prevent infections or transmissions. They're also relatively expensive and the shipping/logistics is far from optimal. If we weren't in a pandemic, a new treatment with that sort of effectiveness probably wouldn't have been approved. And the risks *were* glossed over, if we're honest. Myocarditis was downplayed, yet AZ blood clots were demonised. That was 100% political.
> 
> A major problem is that, even in the scientific research world, any sort of "criticism" of the vaccines gets you labelled as anti-vax and everything you say is discounted. So I think Michel publishing a case study and just opening up that discussion is a very fair and valid thing to do. He is still 100% pro vaccine. He even supports the same Covid vaccine which maybe made his cancer relapse.
> 
> 
> Really? You're not very good at Google then  Or google is actively removing things from your search results? I got a bunch of legit medical journals and reputable news (like Nature, Science, etc)
> 
> WHO made an announcement about it: https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2022-DON376
> 
> More than 500 worldwide in May https://www.science.org/content/art...tals-hepatitis-coronavirus-adenovirus-or-both Across UK, USA, Israel and many others.
> 
> 
> 
> Then it's largely just theater and doesn't actually do anything. Plastic covers over the buttons on elevators - its there *any* evidence it works or prevents anything? It sure as hell does nothing much for Covid since it's an airborne pathogen. *Maybe* at a stretch those things would help with fecal-oral transmission and you'd get less tummy bugs from touching things and putting your fingers in your mouth.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not sure your purpose of this post. You interpreted my post as somehow downplaying the pandemic? I don't get it.


Any publication is susceptible to clickbait opeds. 

"Man Speculates Baselessly About Vaccine Side Effect" doesn't generate clicks and is a much more honest title.


----------



## TedEH

MFB said:


> Ted here was in the pocket


Ok, I missed some low hanging fruit. What I should have said was:

As a bassist, I'm always in the pocket.


----------



## spudmunkey

Flappydoodle said:


> I'm not sure your purpose of this post. You interpreted my post as somehow downplaying the pandemic? I don't get it.


I can see how my post seemed that way. I meant to delete everything after your first sentence to add to the long-term effects of COVID to the conversation about the future of co-existence with it.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

Disease transmission aside, this is a guitar forum, you should all be washing your damn hands before you touch your guitar at the very least.


----------



## jaxadam




----------



## StevenC

jaxadam said:


>











Fact Check-Biden urged those in hurricane-prone states to get COVID-19 shots in case of evacuation


Social media users are sharing a video of U.S. President Joe Biden saying to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to prepare for hurricane season and claiming he thinks that being inoculated will protect against the hurricanes.




www.reuters.com







> Discussion on political views, the war and world events here. Strictly moderated forum, so use your better judgement when posting.



Maybe try not posting dishonest memes about people dying?


----------



## spudmunkey

Right? I never even saw the context of the video clip when I saw the clip, but my first assumption he that was probably talking about people having to evacuate to crowded shelters...only later, when still-red-hat-wearing cousins re-shared the video, did I learn some people thought otherwise. Went back and watched the whole speech, and...yeah. Turns out my hunch was right, and the "meme" is dishonesty-by-omission.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

@jaxadam are you being willfully obtuse or do you just think it's cool/funny to repost blatant attempts at misinformation with no disclaimer? Legitimately curious.


----------



## Flappydoodle

wheresthefbomb said:


> Disease transmission aside, this is a guitar forum, you should all be washing your damn hands before you touch your guitar at the very least.


That's not very metal though!


----------



## wheresthefbomb

Flappydoodle said:


> That's not very metal though!



dang I should've thought of that, guess I'll hand in my card


----------



## Drew

Got my second covid diagnosis on Monday - I was at a wedding Friday night, and an idiot friend of mine (normally a very bright guy, but come on) misread the CDC guidance and thought he didn't have to quarantine and only needed to wear a mask for five days, and that the night of the fifth was close enough. This didn't come out until we'd been talking for like ten minutes, that he wasn't on day 10, he was on day 5. I felt fine Monday morning, aside from a bad night's sleep, went into work, and was having what seemed like mild seasonal allergy symptoms by the afternoon. Went to bed early, woke up feeling like crap on Tuesday, swabbed, and had a bright purple line with eight minutes still left on the fifteen minute clock. 

I feel like crap but so far it's manageable. I'll be starting paxlovid tonight, though - I had a bilateral pulmonary embolism just over two months ago, so they think I'm pretty high risk (and I do have some chest discomfort, so far). Hope that takes some of the bad options off the table here. 

Meanwhile, I was one of two people who subsequently tested positive on Monday in the office, and I hope to god my company is currently rethinking their "stay home if you don't feel good... but, no, really, we want you in the office at least three days a week, and we want you indicating which days you're working from home on your calendar so your colleagues know when you're in the office but really so we can track you and hold you accountable if you're not in at least three days a week" policy.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

Drew said:


> Got my second covid diagnosis on Monday - I was at a wedding Friday night, and an idiot friend of mine (normally a very bright guy, but come on) misread the CDC guidance and thought he didn't have to quarantine and only needed to wear a mask for five days, and that the night of the fifth was close enough. This didn't come out until we'd been talking for like ten minutes, that he wasn't on day 10, he was on day 5. I felt fine Monday morning, aside from a bad night's sleep, went into work, and was having what seemed like mild seasonal allergy symptoms by the afternoon. Went to bed early, woke up feeling like crap on Tuesday, swabbed, and had a bright purple line with eight minutes still left on the fifteen minute clock.
> 
> I feel like crap but so far it's manageable. I'll be starting paxlovid tonight, though - I had a bilateral pulmonary embolism just over two months ago, so they think I'm pretty high risk (and I do have some chest discomfort, so far). Hope that takes some of the bad options off the table here.
> 
> Meanwhile, I was one of two people who subsequently tested positive on Monday in the office, and I hope to god my company is currently rethinking their "stay home if you don't feel good... but, no, really, we want you in the office at least three days a week, and we want you indicating which days you're working from home on your calendar so your colleagues know when you're in the office but really so we can track you and hold you accountable if you're not in at least three days a week" policy.



Damn man, hope you feel better soon with no major complications. Also sending thoughts and prayers to your friend that he might make better choices  

Unfortunately the standard business practice seems to have mostly shifted back to the norm of guilting employees into coming to work unless they're dying.


----------



## nightflameauto

wheresthefbomb said:


> Damn man, hope you feel better soon with no major complications. Also sending thoughts and prayers to your friend that he might make better choices
> 
> Unfortunately the standard business practice seems to have mostly shifted back to the norm of guilting employees into coming to work unless they're dying.


Our boss "jokes" about how if we expire at our desks they'll just call the maintenance crew to haul us out and clean up the mess. Mostly I don't think he's joking.


----------



## Drew

My wife got a positive PCR result back a couple hours after I posted that, to neither of our real surprise, so I guess the silver lining is that's making quarantining in a condo in Boston a little easier, since we don't have to wear masks around each other, eat outdoors, and sleep separately anymore. We both feel pretty lousy, but we'll get through this. Means I'm starting paxlovid a day later though, since she couldn't pick it up for me.  We have a friend who'll grab it for us though.


----------



## thebeesknees22

Drew said:


> My wife got a positive PCR result back a couple hours after I posted that, to neither of our real surprise, so I guess the silver lining is that's making quarantining in a condo in Boston a little easier, since we don't have to wear masks around each other, eat outdoors, and sleep separately anymore. We both feel pretty lousy, but we'll get through this. Means I'm starting paxlovid a day later though, since she couldn't pick it up for me.  We have a friend who'll grab it for us though.


feel better dude! 


when my mom got it not long ago she was feeling puny for about 5 days but after that she was pretty much fine. Hopefully it doesn't last long for ya'll


----------



## Drew

thebeesknees22 said:


> feel better dude!
> 
> 
> when my mom got it not long ago she was feeling puny for about 5 days but after that she was pretty much fine. Hopefully it doesn't last long for ya'll


Second time here, first was in mid-March 2020, though I didn't talk about it much - my now-wife is a doctor, contracted it at work before they were swabbing patients before procedures because they just dind't have any testing capacity (as it was it took her 9 days to get a positive result back when she became symptomatic and swabbed). In hindsight it's tough to tell how long I felt like shit because I was also working insane hours while the bond markets melted down, hunched over my kitchen table on a laptop, but needless to say it wasn't fun.


----------



## thebeesknees22

Drew said:


> Second time here, first was in mid-March 2020, though I didn't talk about it much - my now-wife is a doctor, contracted it at work before they were swabbing patients before procedures because they just dind't have any testing capacity (as it was it took her 9 days to get a positive result back when she became symptomatic and swabbed). In hindsight it's tough to tell how long I felt like shit because I was also working insane hours while the bond markets melted down, hunched over my kitchen table on a laptop, but needless to say it wasn't fun.


mmm mmm... markets melting down the first time you had it. 

/me checks stocks. 

The markets are melting down again...... yes...yes.... 

Clearly you getting covid causes the markets to tank. Please sir, stop getting covid haha


----------



## Drew

thebeesknees22 said:


> mmm mmm... markets melting down the first time you had it.
> 
> /me checks stocks.
> 
> The markets are melting down again...... yes...yes....
> 
> Clearly you getting covid causes the markets to tank. Please sir, stop getting covid haha


Oh dude, first time I got covid was just before the week when the bond markets basically seized up, right before the Fed stepped in with their support programs. It was fucking _wild_, I didn't even have time to realize how sick I was. 

This time, the UK bond/currency market was starting to look like an emerging markets country's until the morning after I was diagnosed the BOE stepped in with their _own_ bond buying program, which was also pretty wild to watch. 

I certainly don't WANT to get covid again, but at least if I do some central bank somewhere will probably do something equally massive.


----------



## AMOS

Now they're discharging Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers that aren't vaxxed, Tyranny at it's finest. Risk your lives to save others then get the jackhammer up the ass.


----------



## CanserDYI

AMOS said:


> Now they're discharging Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers that aren't vaxxed, Tyranny at it's finest. Risk your lives to save others then get the jackhammer up the ass.


You're also from the party that thinks not being able to say the N word or call someone a fa**ot is also tyranny, so maybe you should sit this one out, pal.


----------



## TedEH

Does rescuing people count the same way as carbon offsets?
Like - oops, I killed your grandma with a preventable disease, but I stopped someone from drowning once, so it's a wash.


----------



## Flappydoodle

CanserDYI said:


> thinks not being able to say the N word or call someone a fa**ot is also tyranny,


Well that depends WHO is telling you that you can't say those things.

If it's your employer, no issue. If you break the rules, you can get fired.

If it's the government, and there are legal punishments, then yeah, that actually is tyranny and an infringement of freedom of speech... no?


----------



## CanserDYI

Flappydoodle said:


> Well that depends WHO is telling you that you can't say those things.
> 
> If it's your employer, no issue. If you break the rules, you can get fired.
> 
> If it's the government, and there are legal punishments, then yeah, that actually is tyranny and an infringement of freedom of speech... no?


....You're smart enough to know that no legal punishments are being enforced on saying those words, but doesn't stop right wing crayon eaters from calling it tyranny when people ask them to refrain from doing so.

I'm saying he's from the party that you hear this from all the freaking time. He's maybe not the right person to use the word "tyranny" as it might not mean what he thinks it means.


----------



## TedEH

Flappydoodle said:


> infringement of freedom of speech... no?


I guess the catch is that the expressions "freedom of speech" and "tyranny" are both misunderstood or deliberately misused all the time. Sure, like you're implying - the gov't can't legally punish you for expressing something (assuming that you're not breaking some other law in the process), but being called out for a word offensive enough we shorted it to just "N word" is no more an infringement on freedom of speech than the fact that consequences for your choices is an example of "tyranny".

But hey, look at all this great progress we've made in the race to "who is the most victimized by the other political team".


----------



## wheresthefbomb

somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the entire point of the military that you do what you're told or they kick you out?


----------



## AMOS

TedEH said:


> Does rescuing people count the same way as carbon offsets?
> Like - oops, I killed your grandma with a preventable disease, but I stopped someone from drowning once, so it's a wash.


You make it sound like all Coast Guard rescue swimmers are infected with covid. Some Navy SEALs were also discharged. Were they worried they were going to infect the bad guys?


----------



## AMOS

wheresthefbomb said:


> somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the entire point of the military that you do what you're told or they kick you out?


Yes, unless you are woke, gay or transgender, then you are catered to as if there was a constitution in the military LOL. But those are the only examples of where people have rights no one else does


----------



## wheresthefbomb

AMOS said:


> Yes, unless you are woke, gay or transgender, then you are catered to as if there was a constitution in the military LOL. But those are the only examples of where people have rights no one else does



could you be more specific? do you think we should kick gay and trans people out of the military?

for the record, I'm in favor of kicking _everyone_ out of the military


----------



## CanserDYI

AMOS said:


> You make it sound like all Coast Guard rescue swimmers are infected with covid. Some Navy SEALs were also discharged. Were they worried they were going to infect the bad guys?


Seriously, were you fucking dropped on your head as a child?


----------



## tedtan

AMOS said:


> Yes, unless you are woke, gay or transgender, then you are catered to as if there was a constitution in the military LOL. But those are the only examples of where people have rights no one else does


I hear right wingers use the term “woke” quite a bit, but they never explain what, exactly, that means. Can you enlighten us to help further the conversation?


----------



## jaxadam

Is AMOS a right winger?


----------



## CanserDYI

tedtan said:


> I hear right wingers use the term “woke” quite a bit, but they never explain what, exactly, that means. Can you enlighten us to help further the conversation?


Anyone who isn't white and has a cloak in their closet.


----------



## thebeesknees22

AMOS said:


> You make it sound like all Coast Guard rescue swimmers are infected with covid. Some Navy SEALs were also discharged. Were they worried they were going to infect the bad guys?


Not all of the seals weren't discharged. There were about 20 or so of them that refused to get vaccinated from what I remember. 

When the lawsuit was filed after, it was ruled they couldn't be discharged for it so they're still there unless I guess they served their time limit or maybe some took the honorable discharge they were offered at the time. ...But they didn't HAVE to leave. 

The issue seemed to be more that they were disobeying a direct order.... Which I mean.... duh. They own you when you're in. Plus there's the whole needing to maintain physical fitness of a team when they're deployed etc... or whatever.

I have a family member that was one of those 20 or so dumbasses. He's still in. Last I heard he was going to get a promotion too so ..... whatever. I dunno. I don't talk to him anymore since he went off the deep end with the right wing shit. He used to be a cool dude, but after he got married he really went off the deep end and became a totally different person. lol ..but I digress...


----------



## TedEH

AMOS said:


> You make it sound like all Coast Guard rescue swimmers are infected with covid.


You make it sound like I was trying to make a serious argument and not just a dumb joke.

But given that basically everyone has been in contact with the infection in some way or another at this point, you could re-phrase that as:
All Coast Guard rescue swimmers are *potentially infected with covid (and it would therefore be reasonable for them to take precautions like anyone else), then we'd be getting somewhere.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

tedtan said:


> I hear right wingers use the term “woke” quite a bit, but they never explain what, exactly, that means. Can you enlighten us to help further the conversation?



I'm woke every weekday, and sometimes on weekends, by my alarm at 5am

must be a millennial thing


----------



## bostjan

Do you know of a famous general who forced his army recruits to vaccinate against their personal will? I do. His name was George Washington.


----------



## jaxadam

bostjan said:


> Do you know of a famous general who forced his army recruits to vaccinate against their personal will? I do. His name was George Washington.



Yeah but let’s take a quick look at his legacy… he only made it to the one dollar bill. He ain’t got shit on ol’ Benji.


----------



## bostjan

jaxadam said:


> Yeah but let’s take a quick look at his legacy… he only made it to the one dollar bill. He ain’t got shit on ol’ Benji.


Don't forget about the quarter. Salmon Chase gets the $10 000 bill. I guess he takes the title as the Mack Daddy of historical US politicians, even though I doubt 9/10 high school students know who the hell he was.


----------



## tedtan

Military personnel are vaccinated against all manner of diseases and have no say so in the matter. Why would a Covid vaccine be any different?


----------



## jaxadam

tedtan said:


> Military personnel are vaccinated against all manner of diseases and have no say so in the matter. Why would a Covid vaccine be any different?



Not only that, but they are also unvaccinated against a whole host of yet to be discovered diseases and illnesses.


----------



## Drew

AMOS said:


> Now they're discharging Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers that aren't vaxxed, Tyranny at it's finest. Risk your lives to save others then get the jackhammer up the ass.


I'm trying to understand your objection here. 

The courts decided that the US government couldn't issue a vaccine mandate requiring corporations over 50 to require vaccination, buyt did rule that the President had the authority to mandate vaccination for federal employees. 

And, last I checked, both the Coast Guard and Navy Seals are federal employees. 

No one said they _had_ to be vaccinated, just that if they wanted to not be vaccinated, they had to work for someone other than the federal government. So... where's the tyranny, exactly?


----------



## JSanta

Let's be real here: anyone that served knows that while we protect the constitution, we don't have the same levels of freedom because of the decision we made to serve. You get to basic and during intake they line you up for jabs. It's a matter of course for the military to ENSURE readiness of all troops. The difference between ordinary civilians and the military is that the military is inherently group-oriented and readiness of the whole effectively disregards many aspects of individual liberty. 

If you don't like mandates, don't join the military (or the Coast Guard, which is DHS).


----------



## AMOS

tedtan said:


> Military personnel are vaccinated against all manner of diseases and have no say so in the matter. Why would a Covid vaccine be any different?


Because it was rushed


----------



## AMOS

tedtan said:


> I hear right wingers use the term “woke” quite a bit, but they never explain what, exactly, that means. Can you enlighten us to help further the conversation?


That's the term they are using for the people that are sensitive to others feelings. So if you are sensitive to others feelings that means you are woke. You know all those pronouns they are pushing military personnel to use these days? When I served under Reagan they didn't give a rat's ass about our feelings but it made sense.


----------



## CanserDYI

EDIT: Eh fuck it, I think he's got me muted anyways, I'm just yelling to the wind.


----------



## TedEH

Wait - if caring about individuals feelings about things is bad, then why do we care about individuals feelings about vaccines? Feels a little double-standard-y, no?

I could have sworn we've been over the "it's been rushed" / "it's not been rushed" thing ages ago. IMO (a very un-scientific take), at this point, it's been long enough and enough people have been given the jabs that either a) we've got enough evidence that it's fine, or b) we're all screwed if it's problematic anyway, so the odd person not taking it here or there isn't going to diminish whatever impact the supposed mistake would make.


----------



## bostjan

AMOS said:


> Because it was rushed


Washington injected his troops with pus extracted from actual cowpox sores. Your point isn't as profound as you think it is.



AMOS said:


> That's the term they are using for the people that are sensitive to others feelings. So if you are sensitive to others feelings that means you are woke. You know all those pronouns they are pushing military personnel to use these days? When I served under Reagan they didn't give a rat's ass about our feelings but it made sense.


So you are offended at people trying not to offend other people. Stop and think about the irony in that for a minute. Not seeing it? How am I unsurprised?

What pronouns are being forced? So, you're telling me that, if a shooting range instructor in 2022 insists that the young soldiers in basic training refer to the instructor with a special pronoun, that's offensive to you, but in 1969, if the drill instructor wanted recruits to refer to themselves as maggots, that's perfectly fine? IDK, life is weird, and life in the military is weirder. If you don't want to be injected with experimental stuff and you don't want to have to deal with people in positions of authority demanding you to do things that you don't fully understand, then, I guess, don't join the military.


----------



## Drew

bostjan said:


> Washington injected his troops with pus extracted from actual cowpox sores. Your point isn't as profound as you think it is.


It's also less accurate than he thinks it is, too.

mRNA vaccines weren't created out of thin air in the summer of 2020 - they'd been studied, and vaccines had been in development since the 1980s and the first mRNA vaccination clinical trial was in 2015. the Covid-19 vaccine just happened to be the first to get regulatory approval, and while it might have felt "rushed," it's worth keeping in mind that the reason human trials usually take so long is you normally need an awfully long time to pass to get a statistically significant number of infections in your control group, to demonstrate that the vaccine really IS protecting the test group. The silver lining, if you will, of a global health crisis like the covid-19 pandemic is you got a whole shitload of infections in the control group within the first 90-120 days, and after the first 7 days essentially none in the test group, so it was actually, paradoxically, very _fast_ to demonstrate efficacy precicely because of how infectious covid was.

tl;dr - it's only "rushed" compared to the experience testing much rarer illnesses than Covid-19 in the middle of a pandemic. We got the same data in less than half a year that normally would have taken years to compile.


----------



## AMOS

bostjan said:


> Washington injected his troops with pus extracted from actual cowpox sores. Your point isn't as profound as you think it is.
> 
> 
> So you are offended at people trying not to offend other people. Stop and think about the irony in that for a minute. Not seeing it? How am I unsurprised?
> 
> What pronouns are being forced? So, you're telling me that, if a shooting range instructor in 2022 insists that the young soldiers in basic training refer to the instructor with a special pronoun, that's offensive to you, but in 1969, if the drill instructor wanted recruits to refer to themselves as maggots, that's perfectly fine? IDK, life is weird, and life in the military is weirder. If you don't want to be injected with experimental stuff and you don't want to have to deal with people in positions of authority demanding you to do things that you don't fully understand, then, I guess, don't join the military.


Where did I say I was offended by others defending others? It's a weird thing for the Military because enlistees are not protected by the Constitution. They fall under the UCMJ. But here they are catering to all these Social Justice issues. Racism wasn't tolerated when I was in during the 80's, but I can't say the same for the Vietnam era and before that. There's always been issues, but the woke movement is nothing but a distraction that's taking everyone's eye off the ball. China would probably trounce us right now because all they do is train to kill us and then train some more, while our Generals are making sure everyone feels safe and cozy in the work place. There were no blacks, whites, gays or straights when I was in Lebanon, just a big brotherhood and that's what we needed after the barracks bombing. This fluffernutter shit in todays military is a circus. European countries are more progressive than us but their militaries are more hard core, that's because their focus is in all the right areas.


----------



## TedEH

If you say so. Why are we even talking about this in the 'rona thread?
Something about it being very important that the military is too woke, therefore something something they shouldn't have to take vaccines?

Wait wait wait - are vaccines woke? 'Cause I got like three jabs, so I might never sleep again.


----------



## jaxadam

AMOS said:


> train to sweep pick and then train some more



This has been my approach since 1994.


----------



## AMOS

jaxadam said:


> This has been my approach since 1994.


I prefer Marty Friedman's approach


----------



## profwoot

AMOS said:


> Where did I say I was offended by others defending others? It's a weird thing for the Military because enlistees are not protected by the Constitution. They fall under the UCMJ. But here they are catering to all these Social Justice issues. Racism wasn't tolerated when I was in during the 80's, but I can't say the same for the Vietnam era and before that. There's always been issues, but the woke movement is nothing but a distraction that's taking everyone's eye off the ball. China would probably trounce us right now because all they do is train to kill us and then train some more, while our Generals are making sure everyone feels safe and cozy in the work place. There were no blacks, whites, gays or straights when I was in Lebanon, just a big brotherhood and that's what we needed after the barracks bombing. This fluffernutter shit in todays military is a circus. European countries are more progressive than us but their militaries are more hard core, that's because their focus is in all the right areas.


Has it ever crossed your mind that soldiers who feel respected and supported _by the country they're fighting for_ might be more effective? Is there any chance that you don't understand all the factors predictive of troop efficacy, and unthinkingly assume the old ways were superior just because it's what you were exposed to in your early life? 

This is like when Ted Cruz argued that wokeness was making our military inferior to Russia's. Then we learned that Russia's troops are extremely ineffective. You might consider recalibrating your position accordingly.


----------



## tedtan

AMOS said:


> That's the term they are using for the people that are sensitive to others feelings. So if you are sensitive to others feelings that means you are woke. You know all those pronouns they are pushing military personnel to use these days? When I served under Reagan they didn't give a rat's ass about our feelings but it made sense.


So are we talking just the pronouns and safe rooms and shit like that? Because sometimes when I hear people complaining about “wokeness” it comes off as if they have an issue with people saying simply “don’t be an asshole”.


----------



## CanserDYI

Isn't your people's motto "don't tread on me"? And you get mad when people ask for some fucking standard respect then they get ridiculed for asking to not be fucking tread on?

Do you realize how fucking stupid that sounds?


----------



## Flappydoodle

CanserDYI said:


> ....You're smart enough to know that no legal punishments are being enforced on saying those words, but doesn't stop right wing crayon eaters from calling it tyranny when people ask them to refrain from doing so.
> 
> I'm saying he's from the party that you hear this from all the freaking time. He's maybe not the right person to use the word "tyranny" as it might not mean what he thinks it means.



In the US maybe not. In some countries, you absolutely can be arrested, charged, found guilty, and punished for insulting somebody or using "hate speech"

Maybe there's some background here which I'm unaware of. (I.e. I don't know who got in trouble for saying the N word). But my point is that being forbidden from saying something *can* be tyranny, depending on who is forbidding it. 



TedEH said:


> I guess the catch is that the expressions "freedom of speech" and "tyranny" are both misunderstood or deliberately misused all the time. Sure, like you're implying - the gov't can't legally punish you for expressing something (assuming that you're not breaking some other law in the process), but being called out for a word offensive enough we shorted it to just "N word" is no more an infringement on freedom of speech than the fact that consequences for your choices is an example of "tyranny".
> 
> But hey, look at all this great progress we've made in the race to "who is the most victimized by the other political team".



You can (and should) absolutely be "called out on it". And of course that's not an infringement of your rights. Nobody (at least not me) says you should have speech without consequences. If tossing around the N word gets you fired by your boss, or ostracised from your friends, then that's the consequence of your actions.

Point is about *government* being arbitrators of dis/allowed speech. Once they forbid you from saying something, that is definitely a form of tyranny. Germany forbids Nazi salutes or Swastikas. In the UK you can get arrested for simply offending people, or the N word will get you arrested for hate speech. In other words, the government has decided that some things are not allowed to be said, and it will use the power of the state against you. That *is* a (mild) form of tyranny. Perhaps with good intentions, but it's still an infringement on freedom of speech, right?

China, Iran etc take it to the extreme where simple political ideas are punishable. That's a much more blatant form of tyranny.

That's all my point is. Hope it makes sense.


----------



## AMOS

profwoot said:


> Has it ever crossed your mind that soldiers who feel respected and supported _by the country they're fighting for_ might be more effective? Is there any chance that you don't understand all the factors predictive of troop efficacy, and unthinkingly assume the old ways were superior just because it's what you were exposed to in your early life?
> 
> This is like when Ted Cruz argued that wokeness was making our military inferior to Russia's. Then we learned that Russia's troops are extremely ineffective. You might consider recalibrating your position accordingly.


Have we fought a war in the woke era? How about against a formidable enemy? The moral isn't as good as it used to be, how good is it when you see team mates forced to retire 2 years before retirement? I'm not recalibrating shit.


----------



## TedEH

Flappydoodle said:


> Point is about *government* being arbitrators of dis/allowed speech.


And the point before that was there's no tyranny happening when someone gets booted from the military for being anti-vax - the speech part was just an analogy connected to that, and somehow that spun into dumb tangents about woke-ness. Speaking of....



AMOS said:


> Have we fought a war in the woke era?




When is "the woke era" exactly? You mean right now? 'Cause I'm pretty sure the US is involved in at least a couple of wars / armed conflicts as we speak. How about the Iraq war, did that count?


----------



## Flappydoodle

TedEH said:


> And the point before that was there's no tyranny happening when someone gets booted from the military for being anti-vax - the speech part was just an analogy connected to that, and somehow that spun into dumb tangents about woke-ness. Speaking of....



Got it. Well, if being in the military is voluntary, then the jab is voluntary, so I don't see any tyranny present


----------



## CanserDYI

AMOS said:


> Have we fought a war in the woke era? How about against a formidable enemy? The moral isn't as good as it used to be, how good is it when you see team mates forced to retire 2 years before retirement? I'm not recalibrating shit.


I think its funny that you people use this word "woke" as an insult, you know what it means right? We woke the fuck up and realized people like you and your policies are toxic and damaging and we finally found the root problem.

And Its funny, all this and the stuff you spew, coming from a fucking self proclaimed ANARCHIST.


----------



## nightflameauto

tedtan said:


> So are we talking just the pronouns and safe rooms and shit like that? Because sometimes when I hear people complaining about “wokeness” it comes off as if they have an issue with people saying simply “don’t be an asshole”.


Hey! We're Americans. Being an asshole has been bred into us since before the Boston Tea Party.

But there's being an asshole and being an ASSHOLE. Some people have lost their ability to discern the difference, and they tend to be the one prancing around like a peacock shouting the word "WOKE" angrily at anyone telling them to take their foot off the gas long enough to look at where they're goin'.


----------



## AMOS

TedEH said:


> And the point before that was there's no tyranny happening when someone gets booted from the military for being anti-vax - the speech part was just an analogy connected to that, and somehow that spun into dumb tangents about woke-ness. Speaking of....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> When is "the woke era" exactly? You mean right now? 'Cause I'm pretty sure the US is involved in at least a couple of wars / armed conflicts as we speak. How about the Iraq war, did that count?


No


----------



## TedEH

AMOS said:


> No


No what?

No, we're not in the woke era? No, the Iraq war doesn't count? No, you don't think the US is currently at war with anyone?

Or we could go with my headcanon of "No, you were right, this whole wokeness tangent was nonsense, we can move along now".


----------



## AMOS

Flappydoodle said:


> Got it. Well, if being in the military is voluntary, then the jab is voluntary, so I don't see any tyranny present


Once you sign on that line nothing is voluntary, they view not getting the jab as insubordination. Before shipping out of Boston to boot camp we got jabbed all day long. But there was nothing like the J&J vaccine which wasn't thoroughly tested before giving it the okay for humans, then they pulled it because it wasn't safe. Yeah that's the shot I got, and it was my last.


----------



## AMOS

The 


TedEH said:


> No what?
> 
> No, we're not in the woke era? No, the Iraq war doesn't count? No, you don't think the US is currently at war with anyone?
> 
> Or we could go with my headcanon of "No, you were right, this whole wokeness tangent was nonsense, we can move along now".


Iraq war was started under a supposedly conservative President and ended under a liberal President, some policies changed but nothing like we, I see today. If you don't know what's going on in the military you're min-informed. Join and find out.


----------



## TedEH

I don't think I qualify to join the US military as a Canadian, but the question wasn't who started and ended the war, it was what time period counts as "the woke era". I'm excited to finally have a solid definition of when that takes places.


----------



## TedEH

While we're here havin' a good laugh anyway, someone shared this gold with me, so I share it with you:


----------



## narad

TedEH said:


> While we're here havin' a good laugh anyway, someone shared this gold with me, so I share it with you:
> View attachment 115519


Ouch, you want to shoot that forecast a little further into the future so you can gain/use some clout before looking like an ass. Is he going to say there was a mistake and it's actually October 10th 2023?

Love it when conspiracy loons get concrete though. It was fun times over on rigtalk when the election wasn't overturned on predicted date after predicted date.


----------



## tedtan

narad said:


> Ouch, you want to shoot that forecast a little further into the future so you can gain/use some clout before looking like an ass. Is he going to say there was a mistake and it's actually October 10th 2023?
> 
> Love it when conspiracy loons get concrete though. It was fun times over on rigtalk when the election wasn't overturned on predicted date after predicted date.


The Jehovah’s Witnesses have been predicting that Jesus would gather his flock and take them to heaven since 1878, but each time they’re wrong, they just change the date. Maybe this guy will follow suit.


----------



## StevenC

AMOS said:


> Once you sign on that line nothing is voluntary, they view not getting the jab as insubordination. Before shipping out of Boston to boot camp we got jabbed all day long. But there was nothing like the J&J vaccine which wasn't thoroughly tested before giving it the okay for humans, then they pulled it because it wasn't safe. Yeah that's the shot I got, and it was my last.


You are a complete idiot.


----------



## wheresthefbomb

AMOS said:


> Join and find out.



No.


----------



## StevenC

AMOS said:


> Join and find out.


There's something suspicious about a self-proclaimed anarchist telling people to join the military, but I can't put my finger on it.


----------



## AMOS

wheresthefbomb said:


> No.


Let others spill blood for your right to spew nonsense, yeah I get it..


----------



## TedEH

narad said:


> Ouch, you want to shoot that forecast a little further into the future so you can gain/use some clout before looking like an ass.


To steal one of the comments I saw along with that one: Just wait for "it's because the prayer worked, you're welcome".


----------



## narad

AMOS said:


> Let others spill blood for your right to spew nonsense, yeah I get it..



Pretty sure all the major American wars were fought for reasons other than shitposting.


----------



## mmr007

I only clicked on this thread to see why the fuck people were still talking about Covid in October 2022 and I was not disappointed in my decision to investigate further


----------



## TedEH

mmr007 said:


> why the fuck people were still talking about Covid in October 2022


I mean, it's not gone. It's still a very present and relevant world-impacting topic.


----------



## mmr007

TedEH said:


> I mean, it's not gone. It's still a very present and relevant world-impacting topic.


Never said it was gone...was just curious why there was so much activity in a thread about it on a guitar forum given that there isn't any "new" news about it to generate debate.


----------



## TedEH

mmr007 said:


> was just curious why there was so much activity in a thread about it on a guitar forum given that there isn't any "new" news


Oh, I think it's because the military is too woke.... or something.
I dunno, I got nothin.


----------



## mmr007

Exactly. Some of the most delectable threads are ones I long ignore because I have zero interest in the core topic and yet I repeatedly forget the ability of SSO's to inject tasty tangential topics (my 8th grade english teacher would give me an F for the way overused alliteration to end that sentence but....fuck her)


----------



## wheresthefbomb

AMOS said:


> Let others spill blood for your right to spew nonsense, yeah I get it..



Military service doesn't make you special. You're not a hero. I also do a job that is necessary to the functioning of society in its current form, nobody sucks my dick about it and I don't ask them to.


----------



## StevenC

AMOS said:


> Let others spill blood for your right to spew nonsense, yeah I get it..


When was the last time an American soldier died protecting American people's rights?


----------



## thebeesknees22

StevenC said:


> When was the last time an American soldier died protecting American people's rights?


1865

Otherwise people serving are usually called to teargas college students or protesters like in front a church so some spray tanned dude can wave a bible he's never read upside down and spout off some nonsense..


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## mmr007

I must say the assertion that others (in the military) spill blood for us to spew nonsense is, in itself nonsense. The sad truth is even a porn provocateur like Larry Flynt did more to protect my free speech than any soldier. I would also like to say as a former army enlisted and officer myself, the military is not special. It is filled with very unique and talented people just like all professions. The acts of selflessness and bravery found in the military are also found in other professions. Do soldiers risk their lives and even sacrifice their lives? Yes. So do people from all walks of life as it is a natural instinct to immediately prevent death or suffering if you can in that instant when it happens. That's why people rush into burning buildings to save someone from fire, rush into the surf to save someone from a shark, rush into a school to stop an active shooter (ok well maybe not so much that).

And the other thing about soldiers and this is not military bashing as I respect the military and was very proud to be in it. It is NOT selfless. The benefits you get, the awards, medals and ranks you wear on your cap, sleeve, collar and chest are unmatched in any other part of society. Did you jump out of a plane? You get to wear a badge for life. Did you shoot well at the range? You get a big badge on your chest for that. Sorry but there is no profession more about advertising individual accomplishment and bringing attention to oneself (did I mention parades? Military flyovers at unrelated events? Not yet? ok) than the military. And that's ok. We just shouldn't pretend that it is anything other than that.

The military paid for my first college degree. The military prepared me for adulthood and success. The military is not where one goes to sacrifice for nameless others. That's a fiction. Yes, you may die or get maimed. The same could be said about going to school anywhere in the US, a movie theater in Colorado, or a gay night club in Florida or a concert outside a Vegas casino or....


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## wheresthefbomb

Got exposed over the weekend. No symptoms yet, but after careful consideration I will be staying home tomorrow. If no symptoms or positive test manifest, will most likely return to work Tuesday and mask up for the rest of the week.

I have 3 shots total, haven't gotten the second booster yet. I had Covid, unsure which variant, earlier in the summer with very mild symptoms. My exposure was brief, I gave my friend a ride from work to an appointment and she was in the car for less than 10min, hoping I missed it. 

By the time my friend tested positive and informed me, my girlfriend had already been over for a few hours so she's potentially exposed too, bummer. She can work from home at least. I was planning a party today which I obviously cancelled.


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## Bodes

Small update on me.

A few days short of 6 months since I caught COVID.
Last week I started feeling bloody good. Have been walking quite a lot, a few km of the teadmill every morning during the week. Short walk at lunch time and actually playing with my son after work. Walking the dogs on the weekend and not falling into a heap at 5pm.

Heart rate is still whacked, although most of the time it sits about where is should be, with random spikes which don't last anywhere near as long as previously. 
When I went to have my second 24 hour heart monitor fitted last week, they didn't have my appointment, despite me showing my appointment card.
They couldn't get me fittted until after my next cardiologist appointment, so I politely told the to just cancel everything. They had no idea what they were doing. Considering this cardiologist is the head of the cardiac team for the south-eastern health system, he should be pretty annoyed they stuffed up. Not a good look for his clinic.

Guess I can say I feel somewhere about the 85-90% back to normal. Yay!


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## CanserDYI

wheresthefbomb said:


> Military service doesn't make you special. You're not a hero. I also do a job that is necessary to the functioning of society in its current form, nobody sucks my dick about it and I don't ask them to.


Your job is arguably more important to society.


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## Drew

Bodes said:


> Small update on me.
> 
> A few days short of 6 months since I caught COVID.
> Last week I started feeling bloody good. Have been walking quite a lot, a few km of the teadmill every morning during the week. Short walk at lunch time and actually playing with my son after work. Walking the dogs on the weekend and not falling into a heap at 5pm.
> 
> Heart rate is still whacked, although most of the time it sits about where is should be, with random spikes which don't last anywhere near as long as previously.
> When I went to have my second 24 hour heart monitor fitted last week, they didn't have my appointment, despite me showing my appointment card.
> They couldn't get me fittted until after my next cardiologist appointment, so I politely told the to just cancel everything. They had no idea what they were doing. Considering this cardiologist is the head of the cardiac team for the south-eastern health system, he should be pretty annoyed they stuffed up. Not a good look for his clinic.
> 
> Guess I can say I feel somewhere about the 85-90% back to normal. Yay!


Stories like these always scare the shit out of me. 

I've had covid twice now, and knock on wood have made a full recovery twice. I have some lost fitness to rebuild, between this and the arlier pulmonary embolism, and the fact that after a hard ramp-up period I was taking a rest week and an easy week before resuming training when I got covid did NOT help... but I don't seem to have had any lingering effects. I was thinking this last night on the trainer, doing an easy 50% of FTP recovery workout that I also did a couple times while in quarantine just to keep my legs moving. Right after my PE when I started doing this again as a way to just get my legs moving, my HR was averaging 115-120 or so. During covid, it had jumped up to about the same. Last night, my _max_ was 114, and my average was 108, and going back to the first half of this year, that's about what I was putting up on a "normal" recovery day, with the only times my heart rate would get close to that would be after a hard race (two days after Rasputtisa I was averaging 111 on this workout), or while sick (later that week I'd developed a nasty head cold and was up at 114). It's actually kind of wild how this can really benchmark your health, in some ways. 

Anyway I'm glad you're slowly recovering!


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## DrewH

On day 7 of covid here. I have it pretty well beaten at this point. Didn't have a good time of it, though. Couple of nights of 102 fever with ungodly aces, pains, chills, etc. Then transitioned to the lung issue phase where I was coughing up stuff I didn't think was possible. Easy to see why people can end up on a ventilator when the mucous you are expelling could be used as an industrial glue. I am probably in the 95th percentile of cardio fitness for men my age so I credit that with avoiding any real problems. But, damn, sickest I've been in 20 years.


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## jaxadam

DrewH said:


> I am probably in the 95th percentile of cardio fitness for men my age



That is unbelievably impressive. What do you do to maintain such peak performance?


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## DrewH

jaxadam said:


> That is unbelievably impressive. What do you do to maintain such peak performance?


Nice sarcasm but it's not difficult at 46 to be in better shape than most other men in my age group. I've been a long time runner, having done everything from 5k's to 200 mile team relays. Then there is cycling and mountaineering on top of that. Just never settled for a sit on the couch lifestyle.


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## MFB

DrewH said:


> Nice sarcasm but it's not difficult at 46 to be in better shape than most other men in my age group. I've been a long time runner, having done everything from 5k's to 200 mile team relays. Then there is cycling and mountaineering on top of that. Just never settled for a sit on the couch lifestyle.



Adam is the last guy who needs fitness advice on this forum, dude can hang with the bros on Venice Beach if he wanted to


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## DrewH

MFB said:


> Adam is the last guy who needs fitness advice on this forum, dude can hang with the bros on Venice Beach if he wanted to



Where did I give advice? lol. And good for him? I always encourage fitness. Too many lazy asses on this planet.


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## zappatton2

Speaking as a lazy ass, I take offence at that!!


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## wheresthefbomb

I straddle the divide between fit and lazyass. Exercise allows me to maintain my waifish artfag figure while still eating healthily.


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## nightflameauto

I flip back and forth on laziness. Some years I'm out on the bike every chance I get and get to the point where fifty mile bicycle rides are common enough to scare people that know me into wondering about my sanity. I never had that at any rate, so, ya know. Whatevs. Other years I'm too mentally exhausted to even think about extra physical activity once the work day is done. Having one of those years at the moment.


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## bostjan

DrewH said:


> Where did I give advice? lol. And good for him? I always encourage fitness. Too many lazy asses on this planet.


I agree, we need more lazy asses in space!


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## DrewH

nightflameauto said:


> I flip back and forth on laziness. Some years I'm out on the bike every chance I get and get to the point where fifty mile bicycle rides are common enough to scare people that know me into wondering about my sanity. I never had that at any rate, so, ya know. Whatevs. Other years I'm too mentally exhausted to even think about extra physical activity once the work day is done. Having one of those years at the moment.



My mother dropped to the floor dead of a massive heart attack 2 years ago at age 71. That motivated me to not fall into "off" periods with my fitness like I used to at times.


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## CanserDYI

I'm skinny fat, and I hate it, I'm and just stepped on the scale last night at 213 pounds, the most I've weighed in my entire life. I'm rather tall, 6'1" so I "hide it well", but man, it shows me I really need to eat better. I'm in my early 30's and have two children that need their papa to be strong and healthy for them, so I can play with their kids if they have any, as my dad smoked himself and ate himself into a body that can't play with small children. It breaks my heart.


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## jaxadam

DrewH said:


> Nice sarcasm but it's not difficult at 46 to be in better shape than most other men in my age group. I've been a long time runner, having done everything from 5k's to 200 mile team relays. Then there is cycling and mountaineering on top of that. Just never settled for a sit on the couch lifestyle.



Excellent answer to a legitimate question, most people that take offense to the “sarcasm” have an underlying reason for being offended. Top 95% is peak. The good thing about when I did CrossFit is there’s basically a national tracking database, and you can find out very quickly how bad you really are. I held the record for “Diane” in our gym for years, and was consistently in the top of the daily leaderboard for Rx workouts, but was prob in the bottom 20% for everything nationally in my age group. And before we get to the hate on CrossFit, I think it can be great for previous competitive athletes, but I think it’s the worst possible thing for beginners, people wanting to get in shape, or people wanting to lose weight.



MFB said:


> Adam is the last guy who needs fitness advice on this forum, dude can hang with the bros on Venice Beach if he wanted to



I think you’re referring to my wife…. It’s hard to keep up with an Instagram fitness personality!


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## MFB

jaxadam said:


> I think you’re referring to my wife…. It’s hard to keep up with an Instagram fitness personality!



Not to derail the thread further but LOL

Don't get me wrong, you've said she's stronger/more fit than you so I'll take your word, but from my memory on here and MG - you and Lopez were the two dudes who were the most gym disciplined of the entire boards. Quigs/Drew might get out there and shred to burn a metric fuckton of calories but they're not lifting like you guys were.


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## Drew

MFB said:


> Not to derail the thread further but LOL
> 
> Don't get me wrong, you've said she's stronger/more fit than you so I'll take your word, but from my memory on here and MG - you and Lopez were the two dudes who were the most gym disciplined of the entire boards. Quigs/Drew might get out there and shred to burn a metric fuckton of calories but they're not lifting like you guys were.


 This is absolutely true. I don't know if any of you watched Girls 5eva, but my wife is a big Sara Baraelis fan, and, well, the cycling jokes on that show are on point. Cyclist arms are a thing.  

1) I'm happy to see another Drew on the boards is also a cyclist, @DrewH 

2) To continue to take a lighter comment more seriously... as an American, being in the top 5% of cardio health is... kinda a low bar. Better cardio than the other 19 in a random group of 20 people your age. I get all sorts of fun stats on this stuff, and while I'm actually in a bit of a de-training period now which has been incredibly frustrating (DVT/bilateral PE followed by covid), Garmin still estimates I'm in the top 10% of their users in my age and gender for VO2Max, and estimates my "fitness health" as that of an excellent 20 year old. I don't think it would be much of a stretch at all to say I'm in the top 5% of Americans grouped by age and gender for cardio health, because I think that that's not all that impressive a claim to make if you do cardio with any degree of intensity at _all_. 

I'm way more concerned with how I stack up against serious cyclists, to be honest.  Based on Strava leaderboards from Zwift (which puts me up against a HUGE number of cyclists worldwide on a fairly equal footing basis) or relative comparisons based on power-to-weight for other intervals.icu users, I think I can fairly argue that I'm in the top 5% or so of cyclists worldwide serious enough to at least occasionally ride on an indoor trainer hooked up to a simulation program, and maybe 10-15% depending on interval length (my power curve leans a little towards sprint/VO2Max) of riders serious enough to be running power analysis tools on the output of a power meter. Probably top 1-2% worldwide of people who ride seriously enough to call themselves a cyclist. That's good enough to rack up a bunch of Strava KOMs or put up some respectable finishes in a Cat 4, maybe Cat 3 pack, but the difference between top 2%, and the top 0.005% or whatever it takes to go pro, is probably a fair degree bigger than between 10% and 2%.  And even then, I'm reminded of Phil Gaimon's quip that he was one of the top 50 people in the world when it came to riding bikes uphill when he was a pro, and even that wasn't enough to really make a career out of it.  

Fitness is a weird thing. I frequently feel frustrated or unhappy with my level of fitness, and that I'm not progressing as fast as I want to, or like during the last five or six weeks feel like I've really lost ground, my power output has slipped and I'm up 4-5lbs... and I have to just keep reminding myself that the difference between where I am now and where I was even five years ago is staggering, and the average cyclist probably couldn't hang with me on a two hour recovery/endurance pace ride. And the fact half of you are doing a "does not compute" for the fact that I just referenced riding a bike two hours in the same sentence as "recovery" and not with an "I will need to" before it.


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