Covid-19 miscellany

[repoman]

Here is another one, that should only be seen as humorous and ironic. But idiotic people are seeing it as "real" in that Queen Elizabeth is getting the stromectol version of ivermectin. This is just stock video that happened to have this included. Perhaps from mid 2020 when ivermectin had some level of mass awareness as a possible treatment to study and was not politicized as an angel or devil. The ivermectin touters are saying it is unfairly maligned with cheap pharma tactics. But this is a cheap tactic using this coincidence.

 

[repoman]

This is an old interesting video by a guy who is a toxicologist, expert in all sorts of overdoses and infections.

Towards the end goes into the original HCQ study and tears it apart.

 

[Metaphor]

7-day averages:

New cases peaked on 25 January (at 3.4m) and was 1.8m on 21 February. US cases peaked on 14 January (807,000) and have dropped to 86,000 by 21 February.

In the most recent wave, worldwide average deaths peaked on 10 February (at 10,910 deaths) and have been falling slowly since (9,106 on 21 February). In the US, deaths peaked on 1 February (2,670) and have fallen to 1,958 (21 February).

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Not taking the obvious implication that it is VIRAL genomic sequencing is either from total scientific ignorance (not a value judgment) or malicious intent (maximum negative value judgment). It was so obviously "viral" that the poster didn't think it needed to be added, in hindsight it would have been better if it was.

The CDC has problems, but bad faith actions to unfairly discredit them make it harder to look at them objectively concerning actual actions and decisions they have made.

View attachment 37332

Yeah, nothing evil here. Some positive swabs are sent to labs to figure out which variant it was as the standard tests can't tell. That's also how new variants are detected. Of course some will portray innocent acts as evil.

 

[Jarhyn]

Not taking the obvious implication that it is VIRAL genomic sequencing is either from total scientific ignorance (not a value judgment) or malicious intent (maximum negative value judgment). It was so obviously "viral" that the poster didn't think it needed to be added, in hindsight it would have been better if it was.

The CDC has problems, but bad faith actions to unfairly discredit them make it harder to look at them objectively concerning actual actions and decisions they have made.

View attachment 37332

Yeah, nothing evil here. Some positive swabs are sent to labs to figure out which variant it was as the standard tests can't tell. That's also how new variants are detected. Of course some will portray innocent acts as evil.

The $64000 question, though, is why?

 

[repoman]

WOW

NIH Sent The Intercept 292 Fully Redacted Pages Related to Virus Research in Wuhan

 

[repoman]

Finally, Vincent Racaniello on This Week in Virology is covering a potential nasal/lung vaccine for covid and other respiratory viruses:

Starting at 14:11



This is an quick layman article about it

Is the Next Great COVID Vaccine an Inhaled One?

 

[TSwizzle]

Covid cases in the U.S. are continuing to fizzle out as the peak of the Omicron variant-fueled winter surge falls further into the rearview. The nation is averaging 87,060 new infections every day, the lowest figure since the Omicron variant first took off on December 1. It is also a 36 percent drop over the past seven days, and the second consecutive day the daily case average fell below 100,000. Cases are down 89 percent since the peak of the Omicron surge on January 15 at around 800,000 cases per day. The nation's daily infection average has decreased daily for the last 29 days.

Daily Mail

Los Angeles the board of supervisors are removing indoor mask mandate for vaccinated people. And laughably, they are dropping the requirement for outdoor masks for LAUSD schools. Yeah, they made the kids wear masks outdoors.

Had a nice trip to a Target and Lowe's the other evening. No mask. Still most people are wearing them but nobody ever says anything about me not wearing a mask.

 

[southernhybrid]

We've never had a mask mandate here in Georgia. What I've found is that if you visit a store in an area that is close to being rural, most people don't wear masks. If you visit a store where people tend to be more educated, most people do wear masks. Most older adults tend to wear masks. Almost all Black folks wear masks, even sometimes when they are outside walking. While I don't think that's necessary, I'm not going to judge anyone, if wearing a mask makes a person feel more comfortable, that's no sweat off of me. Wearing a mask in the grocery store is no burden. In fact, it's kind of fun looking a bit anonymous. Sometimes I can't tell who's behind the mask in the senior center. It's a game. Masks aren't perfect, especially if they aren't worn correctly, but they do seem to bring comfort to a lot of people, and I'm sure that they often prevent the spread. Only an asshole would criticize someone for trying to be overly cautious. It harms nobody and it probably relieves some stress and anxiety.

The only people I know in my town who became infected are those who refused the vaccine and refused to wear a mask. I've mentioned before my Republican friend who refused the vaccine, and ended up spending two weeks in the hospital, and is still suffering from horrible long haul symptoms. Her fiancé' died from COVID. She told me before she became infected, that she had stopped wearing a mask. It's very sad to see people manipulated by misinformation.

My neighbor has a distant relative who was vaccinated and got COVID, but she has cancer. Despite that, she has made a recovery. I've also read that long haul symptoms can impact anyone at any age, regardless of how sick they are. That's another reason to take this virus seriously and to take extra precautions when in a group.

But, the good thing about my city is that nobody has started a fight or been nasty about the mask or maskless. I'm just careful when I'm near someone who is maskless. I do take off my mask while I exercise, but we are at least 10 feet apart from each other, and the room is sprayed down with an antiviral chemical in between each activity. So far, so good. Like the rest of you, I'm hoping this will be over and behind us in the near future. I just don't understand those who act like wearing a mask is something oppressive. To me, it simply shows that you support and respect the people in your community.

 

[ZiprHead]

Had a nice trip to a Target and Lowe's the other evening. No mask. Still most people are wearing them but nobody ever says anything about me not wearing a mask.

You're a hero in your own mind.

 

[ZiprHead]

Uh-oh;

Fresh suspicion that Covid may have been tinkered with in a lab emerged today after scientists found genetic material owned by Moderna in the virus's spike protein. They identified a tiny snippet of code that is identical to part of a gene patented by the vaccine maker three years before the pandemic.

It was discovered in SARS-CoV-2's unique furin cleavage site, the part that makes it so good at infecting people and separates it from other coronaviruses. The structure has been one of the focal points of debate about the virus's origin, with some scientists claiming it could not have been acquired naturally. The international team of researchers suggest the virus may have mutated to have a furin cleavage site during experiments on human cells in a lab. They claim there is a one-in-three-trillion chance Moderna's sequence randomly appeared through natural evolution. But there is some debate about whether the match is as rare as the study claims, with other experts describing it as a 'quirky' coincidence rather than a 'smoking gun'.

Daily Mail

Didn't really read your own link, did you.

Twelve of the shared letters make up the structure of Covid's furin cleavage site, with the rest being a match with nucleotides on a nearby part of the genome.

Writing in the paper, led by Dr Balamurali Ambati, from the University of Oregon, the researchers said the matching code may have originally been introduced to the Covid genome through infected human cells expressing the MSH3 gene.

Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University, admitted the latest finding was interesting but claimed it was not significant enough to suggest lab manipulation.

He told MailOnline: 'We're talking about a very, very, very small piece made up of 19 nucleotides.

'So it doesn't mean very much to be frank, if you do these types of searches you can always find matches.

Here's a link to the original research article.

You've been taken in by a bullshit headline. That's why you shouldn't link to the Daily Mail.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Uh-oh;

Fresh suspicion that Covid may have been tinkered with in a lab emerged today after scientists found genetic material owned by Moderna in the virus's spike protein. They identified a tiny snippet of code that is identical to part of a gene patented by the vaccine maker three years before the pandemic.

It was discovered in SARS-CoV-2's unique furin cleavage site, the part that makes it so good at infecting people and separates it from other coronaviruses. The structure has been one of the focal points of debate about the virus's origin, with some scientists claiming it could not have been acquired naturally. The international team of researchers suggest the virus may have mutated to have a furin cleavage site during experiments on human cells in a lab. They claim there is a one-in-three-trillion chance Moderna's sequence randomly appeared through natural evolution. But there is some debate about whether the match is as rare as the study claims, with other experts describing it as a 'quirky' coincidence rather than a 'smoking gun'.

Daily Mail

Didn't really read your own link, did you.

Twelve of the shared letters make up the structure of Covid's furin cleavage site, with the rest being a match with nucleotides on a nearby part of the genome.

Writing in the paper, led by Dr Balamurali Ambati, from the University of Oregon, the researchers said the matching code may have originally been introduced to the Covid genome through infected human cells expressing the MSH3 gene.

Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University, admitted the latest finding was interesting but claimed it was not significant enough to suggest lab manipulation.

He told MailOnline: 'We're talking about a very, very, very small piece made up of 19 nucleotides.

'So it doesn't mean very much to be frank, if you do these types of searches you can always find matches.

Here's a link to the original research article.

You've been taken in by a bullshit headline. That's why you shouldn't link to the Daily Mail.

And 12 shared letters mean nothing anyway. It's not a 1 in 4 ^ 12 probability because evolution selects what works. Who knows how many other mutations there were that didn't work and thus didn't reproduce?

 

[repoman]

Was Moderna involved with WIV at all?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Uh-oh;

Fresh suspicion that Covid may have been tinkered with in a lab emerged today after scientists found genetic material owned by Moderna in the virus's spike protein. They identified a tiny snippet of code that is identical to part of a gene patented by the vaccine maker three years before the pandemic.

It was discovered in SARS-CoV-2's unique furin cleavage site, the part that makes it so good at infecting people and separates it from other coronaviruses. The structure has been one of the focal points of debate about the virus's origin, with some scientists claiming it could not have been acquired naturally. The international team of researchers suggest the virus may have mutated to have a furin cleavage site during experiments on human cells in a lab. They claim there is a one-in-three-trillion chance Moderna's sequence randomly appeared through natural evolution. But there is some debate about whether the match is as rare as the study claims, with other experts describing it as a 'quirky' coincidence rather than a 'smoking gun'.

Daily Mail

Didn't really read your own link, did you.

Twelve of the shared letters make up the structure of Covid's furin cleavage site, with the rest being a match with nucleotides on a nearby part of the genome.

Writing in the paper, led by Dr Balamurali Ambati, from the University of Oregon, the researchers said the matching code may have originally been introduced to the Covid genome through infected human cells expressing the MSH3 gene.

Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University, admitted the latest finding was interesting but claimed it was not significant enough to suggest lab manipulation.

He told MailOnline: 'We're talking about a very, very, very small piece made up of 19 nucleotides.

'So it doesn't mean very much to be frank, if you do these types of searches you can always find matches.

Here's a link to the original research article.

You've been taken in by a bullshit headline. That's why you shouldn't link to the Daily Mail.

And 12 shared letters mean nothing anyway. It's not a 1 in 4 ^ 12 probability because evolution selects what works. Who knows how many other mutations there were that didn't work and thus didn't reproduce?

Not certain why TSwizzle is making this argument, but not out arguing for the Fine Tuned Universe argument to support God.

 

[Swammerdami]

Uh-oh;

Fresh suspicion that Covid may have been tinkered with in a lab emerged today after scientists found genetic material owned by Moderna in the virus's spike protein. They identified a tiny snippet of code that is identical to part of a gene patented by the vaccine maker three years before the pandemic.

It was discovered in SARS-CoV-2's unique furin cleavage site, the part that makes it so good at infecting people and separates it from other coronaviruses. The structure has been one of the focal points of debate about the virus's origin, with some scientists claiming it could not have been acquired naturally. The international team of researchers suggest the virus may have mutated to have a furin cleavage site during experiments on human cells in a lab. They claim there is a one-in-three-trillion chance Moderna's sequence randomly appeared through natural evolution. But there is some debate about whether the match is as rare as the study claims, with other experts describing it as a 'quirky' coincidence rather than a 'smoking gun'.

Daily Mail

I was interested enough to click the link, and then click to the research article they link to. I was especially interested in how they derived the "one-in-three-trillion chance."

I noticed right away that the Daily Mail had mutated a "three in one trillion" chance to the 9 times rarer number, but this was the least of problems in their calculation.

I was afraid that the calculation would involve a lot of genetics particulars I'd be unable to understand or check, but in fact it was a trivial combinatorial calculation. I've attached their Figure 2. Here's a rough transcription in case that image breaks:

P1 = Prob(19-nt seq appears in 30,000-nt genome)
= (30000-18)*1/4^19
= 1.09 * 10^-7

P2 = Prob(19-nt seq appears in 3300-nt seq)
= (3300-18)*1/4^19
- 1.19 * 10^-8

P2c = Prob(19-nt seq appears in one of 24712 seq of 3300 each)
(24712*P2*(1-P2)^24711 = 0.00029 [the reddened part is irrelevant, but particularly silly]

P3 = Prob (id seq appears in each
= P1 * P2c = 3.21 * 10^-11

We have others adept at simple probability calculations. Check my work please! I think they committed the fallacy

"What is the probability that Lady Lucille Morningstar is in BOTH databases A and B?" without noting that Morningstar's membership in database A was the only reason she got involved in the question!​

When I do the calculation my way, instead of 3-in-a-trillion I get a chance much closer to unity!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Uh-oh;

Fresh suspicion that Covid may have been tinkered with in a lab emerged today after scientists found genetic material owned by Moderna in the virus's spike protein. They identified a tiny snippet of code that is identical to part of a gene patented by the vaccine maker three years before the pandemic.

It was discovered in SARS-CoV-2's unique furin cleavage site, the part that makes it so good at infecting people and separates it from other coronaviruses. The structure has been one of the focal points of debate about the virus's origin, with some scientists claiming it could not have been acquired naturally. The international team of researchers suggest the virus may have mutated to have a furin cleavage site during experiments on human cells in a lab. They claim there is a one-in-three-trillion chance Moderna's sequence randomly appeared through natural evolution. But there is some debate about whether the match is as rare as the study claims, with other experts describing it as a 'quirky' coincidence rather than a 'smoking gun'.

Daily Mail

I was interested enough to click the link, and then click to the research article they link to. I was especially interested in how they derived the "one-in-three-trillion chance."

I noticed right away that the Daily Mail had mutated a "three in one trillion" chance to the 9 times rarer number, but this was the least of problems in their calculation.

I was afraid that the calculation would involve a lot of genetics particulars I'd be unable to understand or check, but in fact it was a trivial combinatorial calculation. I've attached their Figure 2. Here's a rough transcription in case that image breaks:

P1 = Prob(19-nt seq appears in 30,000-nt genome)
= (30000-18)*1/4^19
= 1.09 * 10^-7

P2 = Prob(19-nt seq appears in 3300-nt seq)
= (3300-18)*1/4^19
- 1.19 * 10^-8

P2c = Prob(19-nt seq appears in one of 24712 seq of 3300 each)
(24712*P2*(1-P2)^24711 = 0.00029 [the reddened part is irrelevant, but particularly silly]

P3 = Prob (id seq appears in each
= P1 * P2c = 3.21 * 10^-11

We have others adept at simple probability calculations. Check my work please! I think they committed the fallacy

"What is the probability that Lady Lucille Morningstar is in BOTH databases A and B?" without noting that Morningstar's membership in database A was the only reason she got involved in the question!​

When I do the calculation my way, instead of 3-in-a-trillion I get a chance much closer to unity!

My last statistics class was more than 30 years ago but I think you're right.

 

[Elixir]

7-day averages:

New cases peaked on 25 January (at 3.4m) and was 1.8m on 21 February. US cases peaked on 14 January (807,000) and have dropped to 86,000 by 21 February.

In the most recent wave, worldwide average deaths peaked on 10 February (at 10,910 deaths) and have been falling slowly since (9,106 on 21 February). In the US, deaths peaked on 1 February (2,670) and have fallen to 1,958 (21 February).

Oh, that’s so horrible! We’re losing our BLESSING!!! It only killed 2445 Americans yesterday! What if we don’t get another deadly variant before COVID becomes fully endemic? Oooooh NOooooes!

 

[repoman]

There are two separate things here with lab leak and the articles that TSwizzle often links.

Sure, it makes sense to shoot down articles that are sensationalistic.

But, this has ZERO bearing on the real question of whether this leaked from a lab.

 

[Metaphor]

7-day averages:

New cases peaked on 25 January (at 3.4m) and was 1.8m on 21 February. US cases peaked on 14 January (807,000) and have dropped to 86,000 by 21 February.

In the most recent wave, worldwide average deaths peaked on 10 February (at 10,910 deaths) and have been falling slowly since (9,106 on 21 February). In the US, deaths peaked on 1 February (2,670) and have fallen to 1,958 (21 February).

Oh, that’s so horrible! We’re losing our BLESSING!!! It only killed 2445 Americans yesterday! What if we don’t get another deadly variant before COVID becomes fully endemic? Oooooh NOooooes!

What an idiotic response.

 

[bilby]

There are two separate things here with lab leak and the articles that TSwizzle often links.

Sure, it makes sense to shoot down articles that are sensationalistic.

But, this has ZERO bearing on the real question of whether this leaked from a lab.

Which was really answered, long ago.

The answer is "no".

Now, could you please stop JAQing off about this non-controversy?