Covid-19 miscellany

[Loren Pechtel]

How many people can afford to pay for a nursing home though, for any sustained period of time?

There are a number of insurance programs available, plus you sell off the house you won't be using, the car it's not safe to drive, etc. The kids don't inherit the estate, but they also don't inherit as much debt.

You don't inherit debt, period. It eats the estate but if the estate is gone before the debt is the creditor eats the loss.

 

[lpetrich]

Republicans risk becoming face of delta surge as key GOP governors oppose anti-covid measures - The Washington Post

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has banned local governments from implementing mask requirements even as he pleads for emergency medical help in combating a surge in coronavirus cases from the delta variant. In South Dakota, Gov. Kristi L. Noem welcomed hundreds of thousands of revelers to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally that last year bore characteristics of a superspreader event for the virus.

And in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis is waging war on school districts seeking to defy his executive order prohibiting mask mandates for students — while the state sees its rates of hospitalization from covid surge past the worst levels of 2020.

All three of these governors are often mentioned as potential Republican Presidential candidates in 2024, especially Ron DeSantis.

They and other national and local GOP officials cast their opposition to such measures as an effort to protect personal choice. But some fear the party is on track to make itself the face of the delta variant — endangering fellow Americans while also risking severe political damage in the long term.

...
In recent days, however, other Republicans, such as Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and pollster Frank Luntz have urged their party’s governors to let schools and localities decide for themselves whether to mandate face masks or vaccines.

“Whenever politicians mess with public health, usually it doesn’t work out well for public health. And ultimately, it doesn’t work out for the politician, because public health suffers, and the American people want public health,” Cassidy, who is also a physician, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

 

[bilby]

Vitamin D deficiency seems to be associated with worse outcomes from Covid. His question was reasonable.

No, it wasn't. It was yet more unfounded hint and innuendo, with nothing said explicitly in some kind of dumb effort at plausible deniability for the claims not quite being made.

It's a common disinformation strategy in recent years, and I am heartily sick of it.

Even if Vitamin D were indicated, who the fuck would think supplying supplemental cholecalciferol to the entire world population was a good strategy?

But fuck that question, where's the evidence that vitamin D is even helpful AT ALL?

Ignoring the entire question, as though it were so clearly settled that everyone already understands and agrees with the premise that it is effective, is a fucking weasel way of trying to prevent scrutiny of a half-baked position.

And it's coming from the same poster who uses the same underhand tactics to imply that Jews are behind all the world's financial and political woes, and that Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin are sensible mass treatments.

It's a shit question, that is intended to manipulate people into a position the asker cannot reasonably argue openly for, and I am not going to play along with that evil strategy.

Vitamin D isn't a treatment. If you have normal levels of D taking more isn't going to do squat against Covid. Vitamin D deficiency does appear to be a risk factor for worse outcomes.

However, a lot of people are deficient.

Not around here, they're not. We are the Sunshine State, and the skin cancer capital of the world. Vitamin D deficiency is basically unheard of in Queensland.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Republicans risk becoming face of delta surge as key GOP governors oppose anti-covid measures - The Washington Post

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has banned local governments from implementing mask requirements even as he pleads for emergency medical help in combating a surge in coronavirus cases from the delta variant. In South Dakota, Gov. Kristi L. Noem welcomed hundreds of thousands of revelers to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally that last year bore characteristics of a superspreader event for the virus.

And in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis is waging war on school districts seeking to defy his executive order prohibiting mask mandates for students — while the state sees its rates of hospitalization from covid surge past the worst levels of 2020.

All three of these governors are often mentioned as potential Republican Presidential candidates in 2024, especially Ron DeSantis.

They and other national and local GOP officials cast their opposition to such measures as an effort to protect personal choice. But some fear the party is on track to make itself the face of the delta variant — endangering fellow Americans while also risking severe political damage in the long term.

...
In recent days, however, other Republicans, such as Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and pollster Frank Luntz have urged their party’s governors to let schools and localities decide for themselves whether to mandate face masks or vaccines.

“Whenever politicians mess with public health, usually it doesn’t work out well for public health. And ultimately, it doesn’t work out for the politician, because public health suffers, and the American people want public health,” Cassidy, who is also a physician, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Well, they apparently squeezed out of being the face of all the other surges, so why would this matter?

 

[repoman]

Christ on a Christ, I just found out about the CIA using a fake vaccination program to locate Osama bin Laden.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-cia-fake-vaccination-campaign-endangers-us-all/

Not long after midnight on May 2, 2011, U.S. Navy SEALs attacked a three-story compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, raced to the main building's top floor and killed Osama bin Laden. Few mourn the man responsible for the slaughter of many thousands of innocent people worldwide over the years. But the operation that led to his death may yet kill hundreds of thousands more. In its zeal to identify bin Laden or his family, the CIA used a sham hepatitis B vaccination project to collect DNA in the neighborhood where he was hiding. The effort apparently failed, but the violation of trust threatens to set back global public health efforts by decades.

It is hard enough to distribute, for example, polio vaccines to children in desperately poor, politically unstable regions that are rife with 10-year-old rumors that the medicine is a Western plot to sterilize girls—false assertions that have long since been repudiated by the Nigerian religious leaders who first promoted them. Now along come numerous credible reports of a vaccination campaign that is part of a CIA plot—one the U.S. has not denied.

The deadly consequences have already begun. Villagers along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border chased off legitimate vaccine workers, accusing them of being spies. Taliban commanders banned polio vaccinations in parts of Pakistan, specifically citing the bin Laden ruse as justification. Then, last December, nine vaccine workers were murdered in Pakistan, eventually prompting the United Nations to withdraw its vaccination teams. Two months later gunmen killed 10 polio workers in Nigeria—a sign that the violence against vaccinators may be spreading.

I will repeat, I am not antivaxxer and have been vaccinated myself and encourage it - but I am not an "only vaxxer" we need to keep looking for treatment options especially with cheap old drugs with billions of governmental and not pharmaceutical cash going into well designed, high powered studies, not wimpy doses late into the course of infection.

Anyway, this was just a terrible decision by the CIA.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Israel hospital stats definitely pointing to a booster being absolutely necessary, clearly the widespread via the unvaccinated has magnified the problem by orders of magnitudes.

“As of 15 August, 514 Israelis were hospitalized with severe or critical COVID-19 … Of the 514, 59% were fully vaccinated,” Science found, adding that among those vaccinated the majority (87 percent) were aged 60 or older.

Had 85% got vaccinated, Delta might have had a problem spreading a lot from vaccinated to vaccinated. But hey... freedom right.

 

[repoman]

Israel hospital stats definitely pointing to a booster being absolutely necessary, clearly the widespread via the unvaccinated has magnified the problem by orders of magnitudes.

“As of 15 August, 514 Israelis were hospitalized with severe or critical COVID-19 … Of the 514, 59% were fully vaccinated,” Science found, adding that among those vaccinated the majority (87 percent) were aged 60 or older.

Had 85% got vaccinated, Delta might have had a problem spreading a lot from vaccinated to vaccinated. But hey... freedom right.

Damnit, intranasal vaccines can't come soon enough

from the same article

Still, studies suggest boosters might have broader value. Researchers have shown that boosting induces a prompt surge in antibodies, which are needed in the nose and throat as a crucial first line of defense against infection.

except....



Do the previously infected have a good response in their nose and throat? Will people here be honest brokers about looking into news reports about this? I don't think many of you here are capable of it at this point.

ALSO, at this point there should be a hyper expedited study of putting in delta and other strains into these vaccines. Something on the order of it coming out in October.

The only problem might be that there may slightly different antibodies produced that will have their own very slight risk of having an autoimmune response.


Are you claiming that Delta is NOT spreading from vaxxed to vaxxed in appreciable amounts? I am not trying to have a gotcha on this, I am just looking for facts.

Your looking for a fight and blame is not helpful.

At any rate, this is not all bad since there should be some nose and throat immunity built up from exposure to delta with the vaccines acting as a safety backstop in the lungs where it counts for serious illness.

 

[marc]

Meanwhile in conspiracy land...

People who are desperate for some medicine to protect them from COVID, but for some reason won't get the vaccine, are now getting sold on using Ivermectin, a drug used to de-worm horses.

An EMS worker in Tennessee recommended it to firefighters there. And someone in Mississippi tried it and ended up in the hospital.

What? Did Fox, OAN, and Newsmax think people weren't dying fast enough from the virus so they are trying to kill more off this way?

 

[Elixir]

Meanwhile in conspiracy land...

People who are desperate for some medicine to protect them from COVID, but for some reason won't get the vaccine, are now getting sold on using Ivermectin, a drug used to de-worm horses.

An EMS worker in Tennessee recommended it to firefighters there. And someone in Mississippi tried it and ended up in the hospital.

What? Did Fox, OAN, and Newsmax think people weren't dying fast enough from the virus so they are trying to kill more off this way?

Irony:



Monoclonal antibodies are the up-and-comer though.

 

[repoman]

Penicillin has humble origins as well.

 

[Elixir]

View attachment 34914

Penicillin has humble origins as well.

I'm allergic to penicillin, so fuck that shit.

OTOH, LSD has similar origins...

 

[marc]

Meanwhile in conspiracy land...

People who are desperate for some medicine to protect them from COVID, but for some reason won't get the vaccine, are now getting sold on using Ivermectin, a drug used to de-worm horses.

An EMS worker in Tennessee recommended it to firefighters there. And someone in Mississippi tried it and ended up in the hospital.

What? Did Fox, OAN, and Newsmax think people weren't dying fast enough from the virus so they are trying to kill more off this way?

Irony:

Monoclonal antibodies are the up-and-comer though.

So should warning labels be updated to "Keep out of reach of children and republicans"?

 

[Elixir]

Meanwhile in conspiracy land...

People who are desperate for some medicine to protect them from COVID, but for some reason won't get the vaccine, are now getting sold on using Ivermectin, a drug used to de-worm horses.

An EMS worker in Tennessee recommended it to firefighters there. And someone in Mississippi tried it and ended up in the hospital.

What? Did Fox, OAN, and Newsmax think people weren't dying fast enough from the virus so they are trying to kill more off this way?

Irony:

Monoclonal antibodies are the up-and-comer though.

So should warning labels be updated to "Keep out of reach of children and republicans"?

You outa yore mind? No, let them drink sheep dip and shoot up Chlorox to their hearts' content.
They're not called "morons" because we need more of them! (the opposite of moron, is lesson).

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Meanwhile in conspiracy land...

People who are desperate for some medicine to protect them from COVID, but for some reason won't get the vaccine, are now getting sold on using Ivermectin, a drug used to de-worm horses.

An EMS worker in Tennessee recommended it to firefighters there. And someone in Mississippi tried it and ended up in the hospital.

What? Did Fox, OAN, and Newsmax think people weren't dying fast enough from the virus so they are trying to kill more off this way?

If you want ivermectin call Mike and let him know. We will need you weight so Dr. Coleman will know how much to give you for the loading dose.

.Surprised he didn't say weight to the nearest 250 pounds.

Yes, mass matters for medicine, but generally you do adult and child (small children even less). When someone who isn't a doctor asks you what your weight is so they can give you "medicine", might be time to move on.

To me, this has a feel of Tide Pod challenge, an Internet joke that was taken as being serious by some adults that apparently like watching teens on YouTube... not judging. But this joke isn't funny. And it doesn't seem to be a joke. Somebody read something, somewhere.... and then they'll believe whatever they want to.

 

[bilby]

Damnit, intranasal vaccines can't come soon enough

from the same article

Still, studies suggest boosters might have broader value. Researchers have shown that boosting induces a prompt surge in antibodies, which are needed in the nose and throat as a crucial first line of defense against infection.

except....

View attachment 34912

Do the previously infected have a good response in their nose and throat? Will people here be honest brokers about looking into news reports about this? I don't think many of you here are capable of it at this point.

ALSO, at this point there should be a hyper expedited study of putting in delta and other strains into these vaccines. Something on the order of it coming out in October.

The only problem might be that there may slightly different antibodies produced that will have their own very slight risk of having an autoimmune response.


Are you claiming that Delta is NOT spreading from vaxxed to vaxxed in appreciable amounts? I am not trying to have a gotcha on this, I am just looking for facts.

Your looking for a fight and blame is not helpful.

At any rate, this is not all bad since there should be some nose and throat immunity built up from exposure to delta with the vaccines acting as a safety backstop in the lungs where it counts for serious illness.

For fucks sake, will you just stop this pseudoscientific claptrap?

News fucking reports. You think news reports are where people can get an "honest" understanding of this hugely complex and rapidly developing situation. Fuck that.

The ONLY way to have a useful input to the debate beyond "respect the consensus of the actual virologists, immunologists and epidemiologists", is to have devoted at least a decade of your life to the study of one of those fields; AND to have kept up with the literature that is being produced about this pandemic, which is in itself practically a full time job.

No journalist is qualified to do this. Most journalists stopped learning any science in their teens, in favour of Eng. Lit. classes. If you're looking for a detailed critique of the use of metaphor in Moby Dick, ask a journalist.

If you want an honest understanding of what actions you, or your state, nation, health authority, or family should best take to defend us against Covid, the only news reports you should listen to are those that directly quote the experts who have devoted their lives to understanding this disease.

You cannot, even if you are a great genius, catch up with these guys. And nor could your favourite journalists or talking heads.

This subject is beyond your ability or mine to competently assess, and you need to step away from the Dunning-Kruger, and accept that you missed your chance to have a useful self-generated opinion twenty years ago. The only valuable opinion anyone not already directly engaged in a relevant scientific discipline can have on this subject is "We need to listen ONLY to the people who are directly engaged in, and who conform to the consensus of, a relevant scientific discipline".



This is what you are doing.

You need to sit down, and shut up.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

View attachment 34915

This is what you are doing.

You need to sit down, and shut up.

But his image is intriguing. The intranasal vaccine has more dog bones in it and fewer moths. So that has to be better.

 

[TomC]

View attachment 34915

This is what you are doing.

You need to sit down, and shut up.

But his image is intriguing. The intranasal vaccine has more dog bones in it and fewer moths. So that has to be better.

No, it isn't better!
Dog bones rot and moths fly. Everybody knows that.

Moths are way better than dog bones. Didn't your momma teach you anything?
To

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

https://www.rawstory.com/texas-hospitals/

Hospitals in North Texas have "quietly developed" a plan to allow doctors to take vaccination status into account when deciding how to triage intensive-care beds if the coronavirus pandemic overwhelms ICUs, The Dallas Morning News reports..
...
The change will only occur during a Level 3 alert, which could happen within two weeks.
...

Refused to get a vaccination because "Freedumb!"? Tough luck when Covid-19 strikes you down in North Texas.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Is that ethical? I’m down with it, but is it medically ethical?

 

[ZiprHead]

Is that ethical? I’m down with it, but is it medically ethical?

Like a liver transplant patient that refuses to quit drinking? They're not going to get that new liver.