Covid-19 miscellany

[TomC]

The virus's origin is not really a question best suited for intelligence agencies to answer, it's mostly a scientific question, barring any smoking gun evidence of shenanigans. And a paper came out a couple of weeks ago that yet again explains that the virus most likely had a natural zoonotic origin.

The Origins of SARS-CoV-2: A Critical Review

So there was no known virus that could have served as the backbone for this one. The closest one they had was only as sequences not live virus, and it was too genetically different anyway.

Then why Chinese refuse to cooperate with investigation?

Same reason the USA government lies and dissembles when they find it advantageous.

Tom

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The virus's origin is not really a question best suited for intelligence agencies to answer, it's mostly a scientific question, barring any smoking gun evidence of shenanigans. And a paper came out a couple of weeks ago that yet again explains that the virus most likely had a natural zoonotic origin.

The Origins of SARS-CoV-2: A Critical Review

So there was no known virus that could have served as the backbone for this one. The closest one they had was only as sequences not live virus, and it was too genetically different anyway.

Then why Chinese refuse to cooperate with investigation?

They are basically being asked to prove a negative. They know they can't, thus there's nothing to be gained from allowing an investigation. The only possible change is negative if someone fabricates evidence.

No they are not. Sometimes, Loren, I think you've gone off the deep end.

It's a scientific question and they are being asked to share the scientific information they have about the outbreak. The reason they are not doing that probably has no scientific rationale. They're playing a political game. If they had nothing to hide they'd fess up but who knows. This is government that runs over protestors with tanks, it's a police state of the first order.

 

[lpetrich]

The virus's origin is not really a question best suited for intelligence agencies to answer, it's mostly a scientific question, barring any smoking gun evidence of shenanigans. ...

But where such agencies come in is finding the early history of this virus, and the Chinese authorities are very secretive about that. That may be why much of the report is classified -- the spooks who wrote it don't want to give away how they learned what they did.

So they overlap with epidemiologists, because their work is tracing the spread of disease outbreaks.

The genetics of this virus is another story entirely, and it may be difficult to trace that down, since viruses tend to evolve very fast.

Viral Mutation Rates | Journal of Virology

Accurate estimates of virus mutation rates are important to understand the evolution of the viruses and to combat them. However, methods of estimation are varied and often complex. Here, we critically review over 40 original studies and establish criteria to facilitate comparative analyses. The mutation rates of 23 viruses are presented as substitutions per nucleotide per cell infection (s/n/c) and corrected for selection bias where necessary, using a new statistical method. The resulting rates range from 10^(−8) to10^(−6) s/n/c for DNA viruses and from 10^(−6) to 10^(−4) s/n/c for RNA viruses. Similar to what has been shown previously for DNA viruses, there appears to be a negative correlation between mutation rate and genome size among RNA viruses, but this result requires further experimental testing. Contrary to some suggestions, the mutation rate of retroviruses is not lower than that of other RNA viruses. We also show that nucleotide substitutions are on average four times more common than insertions/deletions (indels). Finally, we provide estimates of the mutation rate per nucleotide per strand copying, which tends to be lower than that per cell infection because some viruses undergo several rounds of copying per cell, particularly double-stranded DNA viruses. A regularly updated virus mutation rate data set will be available at www.uv.es/rsanjuan/virmut.

SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) by the numbers
This virus is a single-stranded RNA virus with a genome size of 30 kilobases. Its sequence is about 96% identical to some bat coronaviruses, 91% to some pangolin ones, 80% to an earlier SARS virus, 55% to a similar-disease virus, MERS, and 50% to common-cold viruses.

 

[TomC]

But where such agencies come in is finding the early history of this virus, and the Chinese authorities are very secretive about that. That may be why much of the report is classified -- the spooks who wrote it don't want to give away how they learned what they did.

So they overlap with epidemiologists, because their work is tracing the spread of disease outbreaks.

This is the problem.

Authoritarian governments, from China to USA, are not willing to be transparent. Surprise!
Tom

 

[bilby]

Gunshot Victims Left Waiting as Horse Dewormer Overdoses Overwhelm Oklahoma Hospitals, Doctor Says

I love that the existence of multiple gunshot victims is casually implied as a given.

It would be unusual to see one such case per month at my local hospital (which treats over 90,000 patents in their Emergency dept per annum), and that case would almost certainly be either an accident or a suicide attempt. Gunshot wounds simply aren't a common occurrence in the developed world.

 

[TomC]

Gunshot Victims Left Waiting as Horse Dewormer Overdoses Overwhelm Oklahoma Hospitals, Doctor Says

I love that the existence of multiple gunshot victims is casually implied as a given.

It would be unusual to see one such case per month at my local hospital (which treats over 90,000 patents in their Emergency dept per annum), and that case would almost certainly be either an accident or a suicide attempt. Gunshot wounds simply aren't a common occurrence in the developed world.

You must live in paradise.
I live in a staunchly Christian southern Indiana. Crime is crazy low, by American standards. The local hospital, serving around 100,000 people, only has a couple of gunshot wounds a week.
Tom

 

[bilby]

Gunshot Victims Left Waiting as Horse Dewormer Overdoses Overwhelm Oklahoma Hospitals, Doctor Says

I love that the existence of multiple gunshot victims is casually implied as a given.

It would be unusual to see one such case per month at my local hospital (which treats over 90,000 patents in their Emergency dept per annum), and that case would almost certainly be either an accident or a suicide attempt. Gunshot wounds simply aren't a common occurrence in the developed world.

You must live in paradise.
I live in a staunchly Christian southern Indiana. Crime is crazy low, by American standards. The local hospital, serving around 100,000 people, only has a couple of gunshot wounds a week.
Tom

I live in Logan City. It's up there with Inala and Caboolture as one of the roughest areas in the state.

But we have sensibly regulated gun ownership, and even knives are quite tightly controlled, so people largely settle their disputes with fists.

It's not paradise, it's just not crazy. Well, not VERY crazy.

There’s a reason Logan rhymes with ‘bogan’. Fittingly it also rhymes with ‘grogan’, ‘Paul Hogan’ and ‘crime-infested warzone’. Logan’s reputation as a bogan nest is so prevalent that the local council spent millions of dollars on a campaign to change the city’s image - unfortunately, they spent it all on Ugg boots and a container load of XXXX Bitter.

Appropriately named after one of Australia’s most reviled colonial commanders, Logan is wedged between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, making it ideally placed to catch the human dregs of both cities. Its population comprises a motley crew of yobbos, drongos, housos, dole bludgers, crims, and immigrants who thought they were moving to Brisbane. Logan is one of Australia’s most diverse cities - in fact, it has more STD strains than the entire cast of ‘Goldie Shore’ combined.

Common hobbies in Logan include getting shitfaced and hitting someone with a bit of wood, committing ram raids in hotwired Holden Colorados, and intergenerational welfare dependency. A popular venue is the Logan Hyperdome, where flannel-clad rednecks fight to the death over Centrelink payments.

Logan’s standout suburbs are Slacks Creek and Woodridge, twin sprawling slums that host all the panelbeaters, payday lenders, pawn shops and pokies you can menacingly shake a stick at. These suburban hellscapes are also ideal locations for the procurement of illicit substances, with more shoes on powerlines than on feet.

Logan truly is Australia’s city of the future, assuming the future is a post-apocalyptic Mad Max-style nightmare.

https://www.facebook.com/shittownsofaustralia/posts/567237213711418

 

[Shadowy Man]

Gunshot Victims Left Waiting as Horse Dewormer Overdoses Overwhelm Oklahoma Hospitals, Doctor Says

Any covid-related treatment of a vaccine-eligible unvaccinated adult should be considered elective and deprioritized by hospitals.

You don't understand "elective" in doctor-speak. It's simply something that isn't so urgent that scheduling isn't possible.

I do agree that if you're in hospital from covidiot behavior you should be lower priority than the other patients, but that is a form of triage.

I wasn’t trying to use the word in a technical sense.

They “elected” to eschew the very treatment that would have prevented their hospital stay so I think the hospital should “elect” to not treat them instead of other important conditions like gunshot wounds or even hip replacements. Maybe they can be fit in before the cosmetic plastic surgery, but they should be almost that low on the waiting list.

 

[TomC]

But we have sensibly regulated gun ownership, and even knives are quite tightly controlled, so people largely settle their disputes with fists.

That's what I said.
Paradise.

Apparently, you don't understand what things are like here in Jesus's sole remaining nuclear superpower.
Tom

 

[bilby]

But we have sensibly regulated gun ownership, and even knives are quite tightly controlled, so people largely settle their disputes with fists.

That's what I said.
Paradise.

Apparently, you don't understand what things are like here in Jesus's sole remaining nuclear superpower.
Tom

 

[WAB]

You must live in paradise.
I live in a staunchly Christian southern Indiana. Crime is crazy low, by American standards. The local hospital, serving around 100,000 people, only has a couple of gunshot wounds a week.
Tom

I live in Logan City. It's up there with Inala and Caboolture as one of the roughest areas in the state.

But we have sensibly regulated gun ownership, and even knives are quite tightly controlled, so people largely settle their disputes with fists.

It's not paradise, it's just not crazy. Well, not VERY crazy.

There’s a reason Logan rhymes with ‘bogan’. Fittingly it also rhymes with ‘grogan’, ‘Paul Hogan’ and ‘crime-infested warzone’. Logan’s reputation as a bogan nest is so prevalent that the local council spent millions of dollars on a campaign to change the city’s image - unfortunately, they spent it all on Ugg boots and a container load of XXXX Bitter.

Appropriately named after one of Australia’s most reviled colonial commanders, Logan is wedged between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, making it ideally placed to catch the human dregs of both cities. Its population comprises a motley crew of yobbos, drongos, housos, dole bludgers, crims, and immigrants who thought they were moving to Brisbane. Logan is one of Australia’s most diverse cities - in fact, it has more STD strains than the entire cast of ‘Goldie Shore’ combined.

Common hobbies in Logan include getting shitfaced and hitting someone with a bit of wood, committing ram raids in hotwired Holden Colorados, and intergenerational welfare dependency. A popular venue is the Logan Hyperdome, where flannel-clad rednecks fight to the death over Centrelink payments.

Logan’s standout suburbs are Slacks Creek and Woodridge, twin sprawling slums that host all the panelbeaters, payday lenders, pawn shops and pokies you can menacingly shake a stick at. These suburban hellscapes are also ideal locations for the procurement of illicit substances, with more shoes on powerlines than on feet.

Logan truly is Australia’s city of the future, assuming the future is a post-apocalyptic Mad Max-style nightmare.

https://www.facebook.com/shittownsofaustralia/posts/567237213711418

Yeah, well, okay, but...

I live in the backwater state of Arizona, home to the only all-female chain gang in the U.S:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/americas-only-all-female-chain-gang-toils-phoenix-heat-flna850918

***




By the way, Joe Arpaio, you can suck it.

 

[Trausti]

Gunshot Victims Left Waiting as Horse Dewormer Overdoses Overwhelm Oklahoma Hospitals, Doctor Says

It's a lie; yet many here were so willing to believe it.

 

[Elixir]

Gunshot Victims Left Waiting as Horse Dewormer Overdoses Overwhelm Oklahoma Hospitals, Doctor Says

I love that the existence of multiple gunshot victims is casually implied as a given.

It would be unusual to see one such case per month at my local hospital (which treats over 90,000 patents in their Emergency dept per annum), and that case would almost certainly be either an accident or a suicide attempt. Gunshot wounds simply aren't a common occurrence in the developed world.

OK, so you upside down people haven't discovered the joys of gun ownership yet. The time will come though. It's just a matter of making a few of your most malevolent citizens into billionaires who can afford to buy out your government.

 

[TomC]

So, which is more accurate? [MENTION=130]ZiprHead[/MENTION]; post? Or [MENTION=230]Trausti[/MENTION]; post.

I'm not saying that both can't have an element of truthiness. But one is far more accurate than the other.
Tom

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Gunshot Victims Left Waiting as Horse Dewormer Overdoses Overwhelm Oklahoma Hospitals, Doctor Says

It's a lie; yet many here were so willing to believe it.

Believe it? The right-wing, libertarians, alt-right have made anything possible.

https://www.today.com/today/amp/tdna229806?__twitter_impression=true

I’m personally burning out fact checking all of the crazy bullshit coming from the right-wing.

 

[TomC]

Gunshot Victims Left Waiting as Horse Dewormer Overdoses Overwhelm Oklahoma Hospitals, Doctor Says

It's a lie; yet many here were so willing to believe it.

Believe it? The right-wing, libertarians, alt-right have made anything possible.

https://www.today.com/today/amp/tdna229806?__twitter_impression=true

I’m personally burning out fact checking all of the crazy bullshit coming from the right-wing.

So, you're saying [MENTION=130]ZiprHead[/MENTION]; posted some fake news because of the right wingers?
Tom

 

[blastula]

That's not fake news. Fake news is intentionally false reporting. He posted from a legitimate news site who got fooled by a source. And they have posted a correction. Fake news doesn't make corrections.

If he had posted this based solely on some facebook rando, then that would be on him.

 

[blastula]

Voting Republican is bad for your health.

 

[TomC]

That's not fake news. Fake news is intentionally false reporting. He posted from a legitimate news site who got fooled by a source. And they have posted a correction. Fake news doesn't make corrections.

If he had posted this based solely on some facebook rando, then that would be on him.

@Ziprhead posted fake news. I didn't say he created the fake news.

Here, in the internet world, it's hard to avoid. Takes constant vigilance.
Tom


ETA ~How did the idea that Ivermectrin was a good treatment for C19 ever get out there in the first place? Perhaps it was people posting things that weren't true, but fit their biases?~

 

[blastula]

No, that's not fake news. Rolling Stone made the mistake of not vetting their source, not Zip, this time.