Covid-19 miscellany

[Trausti]

Eating processed foods and carbs throughout the day and neglecting exercise is a choice. Don’t make that choice.

Empty posturing. I know what right-wingers thought about Michelle Obama and school-lunch contents. I remember Sarah Palin's defense of junk food. That is because that seems to me to be agreeing with Michelle Obama and the granolas and the health-food nuts.

Eh, granola and “health food” are not necessarily good for you. Read the label. If it’s ultra processed, high carb, has seed oils or soy, put it down. Or you’ll get the gut of metabolic syndrome. Which the corona just loves.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Eating processed foods and carbs throughout the day and neglecting exercise is a choice. Don’t make that choice.

Empty posturing. I know what right-wingers thought about Michelle Obama and school-lunch contents. I remember Sarah Palin's defense of junk food. That is because that seems to me to be agreeing with Michelle Obama and the granolas and the health-food nuts.

Eh, granola and “health food” are not necessarily good for you. Read the label. If it’s ultra processed, high carb, has seed oils or soy, put it down. Or you’ll get the gut of metabolic syndrome. Which the corona just loves.

Lol. Human bodies are more sophisticated than that. Humans can get by on a variety of foods. The problem of the Chinese peasants and solders were that they ONLY ate wheat bread and wheat gruel. Occasionally they got other food. But as a rule all they ever got to eat was wheat. Completely lacking the aminoacid Lysine and vitamins like C. If they'd eaten beans with their wheat and some occasional carrots, they'd have been fine. They just didn't. Or didn't do it often enough. Ancient Egypt had chronic and widespread problems with scurvy. Which is ridiculous considering that they had no practical barriers to fixing this. They just never connected the dots.

An extreme high protein diet has it's own set of problems.

Humans can't win. Whatever extreme diet you eat you will get problems. Whatever diet you eat you will get problems. The best we can do is eat a varied diet. High protein diets gives you high blood pressure and puts a lot of strain on the heart and kidneys. AS long as you live you will be healthy. But you will NOT live as long.

When it comes to strengthening the immune system. We can't really do much. We can fuck it up in various ways, ie eating extreme diets. But if we manage to refrain from that, then we're good.

 

[ZiprHead]

Ivermectin is the new hydroxychloroquine, take 6: More fraud?
Ivermectin has been hyped without good evidence as a highly effective treatment for COVID-19. One major “positive” ivermectin study was shown to be likely fraudulent. Now others are looking dicey.

When last I discussed fraud and ivermectin, it was in the context of Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz’s reanalysis of a certain meta-analysis by the ivermectin-promoting BIRD Group in the UK and how it turned out that when Meyerowitz-Katz’s reanalyzed the BIRD meta-analysis (which had concluded that ivermectin reduces death from COVID-19 by a seemingly impressive 60%) excluding one widely cited study from Egypt (Elgazzar 2020) that had some very serious methodological problems and dicey numbers, the once seemingly mighty and positive meta-analysis turns into a negative meta-analysis that demonstrates zero benefit from ivermectin. I also pointed out elsewhere that a better meta-analysis that did exclude Elgazzar 2020 was a negative meta-analysis. None of this stopped the conspiracy theories about “them” (or should I say “Them”?) “suppressing” all the wonderful evidence proving that ivermectin crushes COVID-19 from flowing.

In any event, it was no surprise to learn that—surprise! surprise!—there are other “positive” ivermectin studies that reek of fraud! Last week, before the holiday, I had been meaning to write about this, but better late than never, I say, as the intrepid Meyerowitz-Katz discussed nearly a week ago in the context of claims that ivermectin prevents 100% of COVID-19 infections (and therefore vaccines aren’t necessary). Yes, the claim and the study upon which it was based on reek of fraud:

[TWEET]<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">BIG NEWS - the 100% benefit people have been claiming for ivermectin as a prophylactic for COVID-19 is built on dodgy data and very questionable research<a href="https://t.co/XATAuCfs3F">https://t.co/XATAuCfs3F</a></p>— Health Nerd (@GidMK) <a href="https://twitter.com/GidMK/status/1433555208211079171?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 2, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>[/TWEET]

 

[Keith&Co.]

I read somewhere that Betadyne is the new Ivermectin?

If real, this can't be good....

 

[crazyfingers]

I read somewhere that Betadyne is the new Ivermectin?

If real, this can't be good....

Great! An iodine solution for cuts. What could be better in large quantities? Who remembers in the days before antibiotic ointments you put a dab of iodine on a cut?

ETA: The manufacturer has even had to put up a warning page DON"T USE THIS FOR COVID!
https://betadine.com/covid-19/#1596710159395-1cf8cac7-1b26

 

[untermensche]

I read somewhere that Betadyne is the new Ivermectin?

If real, this can't be good....

This is Trumpists ingesting antiseptic as he suggested.

I'm all for it as long as they ingest lethal dosages.

 

[repoman]

Eh, granola and “health food” are not necessarily good for you. Read the label. If it’s ultra processed, high carb, has seed oils or soy, put it down. Or you’ll get the gut of metabolic syndrome. Which the corona just loves.

Lol. Human bodies are more sophisticated than that. Humans can get by on a variety of foods. The problem of the Chinese peasants and solders were that they ONLY ate wheat bread and wheat gruel. Occasionally they got other food. But as a rule all they ever got to eat was wheat. Completely lacking the aminoacid Lysine and vitamins like C. If they'd eaten beans with their wheat and some occasional carrots, they'd have been fine. They just didn't. Or didn't do it often enough. Ancient Egypt had chronic and widespread problems with scurvy. Which is ridiculous considering that they had no practical barriers to fixing this. They just never connected the dots.

An extreme high protein diet has it's own set of problems.

Humans can't win. Whatever extreme diet you eat you will get problems. Whatever diet you eat you will get problems. The best we can do is eat a varied diet. High protein diets gives you high blood pressure and puts a lot of strain on the heart and kidneys. AS long as you live you will be healthy. But you will NOT live as long.

When it comes to strengthening the immune system. We can't really do much. We can fuck it up in various ways, ie eating extreme diets. But if we manage to refrain from that, then we're good.

I am sure that the Mongols ate as much of the very healthy and truly grass fed animal fat as possible. And probably all the organ meats.

 

[jab]

Quite a reasoned comeback.

We take these little children and make getting the vaccine in their interest because they are too stupid to do it for themselves.

We protect society from these deluded children at the same time.

Let us assume that your analogy holds.

In your relationship with other adults, you see yourself as the adult and them as children who desperately need you to protect them from themselves.

That is the viewpoint of a dictator.

agreed, it is a sign of dictatorial leanings--however it is not the only possible viewpoint that a (would-be) dictator has towards adult members of the populace.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I read somewhere that Betadyne is the new Ivermectin?

If real, this can't be good....

Great! An iodine solution for cuts. What could be better in large quantities? Who remembers in the days before antibiotic ointments you put a dab of iodine on a cut?

ETA: The manufacturer has even had to put up a warning page DON"T USE THIS FOR COVID!
https://betadine.com/covid-19/#1596710159395-1cf8cac7-1b26

When I first heard about this one I was hoping it was a joke. But the company that makes it has a notice on it about NOT using it for Covid-19. The anti-vaxxers won't take stuff that is safe and effective, but will consider all other kinds of things, some which isn't safe, forget about being remotely effective.

 

[jab]

Quite a reasoned comeback.

We take these little children and make getting the vaccine in their interest because they are too stupid to do it for themselves.

We protect society from these deluded children at the same time.

Let us assume that your analogy holds.

In your relationship with other adults, you see yourself as the adult and them as children who desperately need you to protect them from themselves.

That is the viewpoint of a dictator.

Yes.

You see helping some blind old man cross the road safely as being a dictator.

You are not rational.

Schools have mandated vaccines for a long time.

It is only in the crazy age of Trumpism where doing everything to protect society from insane overgrown and dangerous children is seen as a problem.

I prefer to regard adults who are not of clearly diminished mental capacity as beings who should be held responsible for their actions and their choices, and be sanctioned for offering harm towards others.

 

[jab]

I went to Harbor Freight yesterday to pick up some tools needed to fix my car. I wore my mask. I was the only one except for the cashier.

Ya I was pretty annoyed Sunday when I went to the supermarket. The town it's in has an indoor mask mandate. (Massachusetts currently leaving it to localities on mask mandates.)

About 20% of shoppers are unmasked despite the mask mandate and I saw quite a few employees with the mask down below the nose or even below the mouth.

I confronted the store manager and he said he would not do anything about the customers. Not even hand them a mask. I complained to the Town Board of Health that issues these mandates.

good for you

 

[repoman]

I read somewhere that Betadyne is the new Ivermectin?

If real, this can't be good....

Great! An iodine solution for cuts. What could be better in large quantities? Who remembers in the days before antibiotic ointments you put a dab of iodine on a cut?

ETA: The manufacturer has even had to put up a warning page DON"T USE THIS FOR COVID!
https://betadine.com/covid-19/#1596710159395-1cf8cac7-1b26

I think that this is lay people looking online and seeing REAL articles showing in some very limited ways that povidone-iodine can kill covid, which obviously it would be able to meet that very low bar.

What context to frame these papers is what is important.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=povidone+iodine+covid

Should dentists employ it, maybe it is a good idea for a short procedure. But that is NOT related to the general public using it all day long. What kind of damage would that lead to?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32859459/

 

[jab]

A California couple died of Covid-19 weeks apart, orphaning 5 young children including a newborn

Davy Macias, a Southern California labor and delivery nurse, was seven months pregnant with her fifth child in early August when she was hospitalized with Covid-19. Daniel Macias also contracted the virus.

Doctors helped Davy Macias, 37, deliver the newborn early by Cesarean section while she was intubated, but she died before she could meet her baby.

Daniel Macias, 38, was being treated in the same hospital when he learned about the birth of his daughter. Nurses showed him photos of the baby, before he too died from complications of the virus less than two weeks later, leaving the newborn girl without parents or a name.

...

The couple was unvaccinated and died on August 26 and September 9, respectively, leaving behind children ranging in age from 3 weeks to 8 years old, Macias told CNN on Monday.

"It wasn't that they didn't want to be vaccinated -- they planned on it," she said. She was adamant that this was a personal choice and each wanted to learn more about its safety prior to being inoculated.

...

Wow. Sad. These people were tricked by propaganda and misinformation so they were skeptics and lost their lives.

Judging from the photo that accompanies the article, he was fat, but she wasn't. Apparently they hadn't learned enough about the dangers of the disease.

 

[jab]

Yes, I noticed that a lot of the hospitalized anti-vaxxers were fat, which makes their resistance to getting vaccinated all the more puzzling. So yeah, the fat mature unvaccinated should be put at the end of the line for ICU care. Of course some co-morbidities, like type 1 diabetes or many forms of cancer are not at all the responsibility of the individual.

WEIGHT is often not the responsibility of the individual, unless you include genetics.

I am fat, and I know that if I exercised more and ate less I would be less fat. My parents, especially my mother whose family seemed to have a propensity to weight, gained weight in middle age but took it off and kept it off in early old age, by carefully watching their diet and by exercising regularly. Of my three biological siblings, the only one who didn't ever have weight problems was the one who was always into sports and who ate abstemiously. My adopted sister is very fat and diabetic and takes after her biological father, but she began to pack on weight after a car wreck damaged her spine and hip and limited her mobility. I and all my living siblings got vaccinated as soon as we were able.

 

[jab]

Eating processed foods and carbs throughout the day and neglecting exercise is a choice. Don’t make that choice.

Empty posturing. I know what right-wingers thought about Michelle Obama and school-lunch contents. I remember Sarah Palin's defense of junk food. That is because that seems to me to be agreeing with Michelle Obama and the granolas and the health-food nuts.

Eh, granola and “health food” are not necessarily good for you. Read the label. If it’s ultra processed, high carb, has seed oils or soy, put it down. Or you’ll get the gut of metabolic syndrome. Which the corona just loves.

granola seems to have sugar added, so I avoid it.

 

[jab]

Starting this thread for more general covid posts, especially as an alternative to the "The Virus - Are You Affected?" thread to hopefully keep that one more about our personal impacts.

I'll start with this surreal video, where I learned that masks are for child molesters.

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/tommyxtopher/status/1305164232346959873?s=20[/TWEET]

Blastula, thank you for starting this thread. It's been several years since a discussion on this forum has been so interesting and meaningful to me.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

A California couple died of Covid-19 weeks apart, orphaning 5 young children including a newborn

Davy Macias, a Southern California labor and delivery nurse, was seven months pregnant with her fifth child in early August when she was hospitalized with Covid-19. Daniel Macias also contracted the virus.

Doctors helped Davy Macias, 37, deliver the newborn early by Cesarean section while she was intubated, but she died before she could meet her baby.

Daniel Macias, 38, was being treated in the same hospital when he learned about the birth of his daughter. Nurses showed him photos of the baby, before he too died from complications of the virus less than two weeks later, leaving the newborn girl without parents or a name.

...

The couple was unvaccinated and died on August 26 and September 9, respectively, leaving behind children ranging in age from 3 weeks to 8 years old, Macias told CNN on Monday.

"It wasn't that they didn't want to be vaccinated -- they planned on it," she said. She was adamant that this was a personal choice and each wanted to learn more about its safety prior to being inoculated.

...

Wow. Sad. These people were tricked by propaganda and misinformation so they were skeptics and lost their lives.

Judging from the photo that accompanies the article, he was fat, but she wasn't. Apparently they hadn't learned enough about the dangers of the disease.

They surely knew about the dangers as it has been publicized enough with hundreds of thousands dying well over a year and a half in my country. So they knew about the danger. They also must have heard about the benefits of vaccination because that is publicized enough. But since they were on-the-fence, it means they were hearing other stories as well, misinformation about the vaccines... at least that is what I am reckoning here. My country has a serious problem of two spheres of information on every public policy issue. Can't get away from it and every day people just trying to make a living and make it in the world are impacted by the propaganda. It's deadly.

 

[ZiprHead]

granola seems to have sugar added, so I avoid it.

Used to top my yogurt with granola. Switched to All Bran cereal, much less sugar.

 

[Elixir]

Yes, I noticed that a lot of the hospitalized anti-vaxxers were fat, which makes their resistance to getting vaccinated all the more puzzling. So yeah, the fat mature unvaccinated should be put at the end of the line for ICU care. Of course some co-morbidities, like type 1 diabetes or many forms of cancer are not at all the responsibility of the individual.

WEIGHT is often not the responsibility of the individual, unless you include genetics.

I am fat, and I know that if I exercised more and ate less I would be less fat. My parents, especially my mother whose family seemed to have a propensity to weight, gained weight in middle age but took it off and kept it off in early old age, by carefully watching their diet and by exercising regularly. Of my three biological siblings, the only one who didn't ever have weight problems was the one who was always into sports and who ate abstemiously. My adopted sister is very fat and diabetic and takes after her biological father, but she began to pack on weight after a car wreck damaged her spine and hip and limited her mobility. I and all my living siblings got vaccinated as soon as we were able.

I am skinny, and always have been. The only way I gain weight is through exercise. My main exercise lately is swimming. At the pool where I swim laps most people are overweight, if not downright fat. (Competitive and pro swimmers mostly excepted) Some of the very "overweight" people are able to swim longer, faster and more consistently than I can, despite carrying a BMI that would appall the federal weight guideline police. I guess only time will tell who will live longer, or enjoy decent health and mobility late into life. I don't get the sense that those people would be more vulnerable to COVID sickness than I would be, given the same exposure. OTOH, there are some people who just hang out in the hot spring soaking pool who look very frail - thick or thin.
Bottom line - I'd rather be fat and fit than skinny and weak.

 

[ZiprHead]

I am fat, and I know that if I exercised more and ate less I would be less fat. My parents, especially my mother whose family seemed to have a propensity to weight, gained weight in middle age but took it off and kept it off in early old age, by carefully watching their diet and by exercising regularly. Of my three biological siblings, the only one who didn't ever have weight problems was the one who was always into sports and who ate abstemiously. My adopted sister is very fat and diabetic and takes after her biological father, but she began to pack on weight after a car wreck damaged her spine and hip and limited her mobility. I and all my living siblings got vaccinated as soon as we were able.

I am skinny, and always have been. The only way I gain weight is through exercise. My main exercise lately is swimming. At the pool where I swim laps most people are overweight, if not downright fat. (Competitive and pro swimmers mostly excepted) Some of the very "overweight" people are able to swim longer, faster and more consistently than I can, despite carrying a BMI that would appall the federal weight guideline police. I guess only time will tell who will live longer, or enjoy decent health and mobility late into life. I don't get the sense that those people would be more vulnerable to COVID sickness than I would be, given the same exposure. OTOH, there are some people who just hang out in the hot spring soaking pool who look very frail - thick or thin.
Bottom line - I'd rather be fat and fit than skinny and weak.

I tried swimming for exercise. I have two fractured vertebrae in my back. Swimming was too painful for me.