Covid-19 miscellany

[blastula]

Cognitively impaired sociopath of the day.

 

[ZiprHead]

What an asshole...

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It is my freedom. Much like people pooping in the pool usurping my ability to go into the pool.

Alright,

Glad you agree.

 

[barbos]

Went to a grocery store, check out line cashier was coughing almost non-stop.
I was thinking, good thing I am wearing n95 mask and just recently recovered from covid-19 but what about other people some of which don't wear masks?

 

[marc]

Seven Anti-vax doctors come down with Covid after anti-vax conference.

but one of the organizers is sure they must have picked it up somewhere else

 

[repoman]

Is King County kicking the can down the road for covid positivity because it is fairly low?

It was supposed to be updated October 31st, now November 30th, will it be December 31st next?

 

[bilby]

It is my freedom. Much like people pooping in the pool usurping my ability to go into the pool.

Alright, so would the same apply to people not wearing masks/not getting vaccines against the flu?
If so, do you think the government should impose a lockdown on them as well?
If not, why would it not be your freedom?

There's a significant difference in severity and scale here.

Arguing for the government to prohibit drunk driving isn't the same as arguing for the government to prohibit alcohol consumption.

In exactly the same way, arguing for the government to mandate measures to prevent a disease that has killed over five million people in two years, and which has widespread long term debilitating consequences for those who survive it, is not the same as arguing for similar measures against a disease that kills around one tenth of that number worldwide, and has few consequences for its survivors beyond one or two weeks of incapacity.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

It is my freedom. Much like people pooping in the pool usurping my ability to go into the pool.

Alright,

Glad you agree.

Why do you do that?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Went to a grocery store, check out line cashier was coughing almost non-stop.
I was thinking, good thing I am wearing n95 mask and just recently recovered from covid-19 but what about other people some of which don't wear masks?

Yeah, that's pretty bad - though the other people should also wear masks and be vaccinated.
And I've seen that in grocery stores too. And a pharmacy! It's weird that the bosses allow it. When that happens, I just leave and go somewhere else, unless they start coughing right when I'm already paying because there is nothing I can do then, but that only happened once to me.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

There's a significant difference in severity and scale here.

But my question was to Jimmy Higgins because he said it was his freedom; that would apply to the flu as well, even if to a lesser extent. That said, COVID is far less severe than it used to be overall, due to vaccination.

Arguing for the government to prohibit drunk driving isn't the same as arguing for the government to prohibit alcohol consumption.

Yes, though your posts also didn't make that distinction, which is why I was replying.

In exactly the same way, arguing for the government to mandate measures to prevent a disease that has killed over five million people in two years, and which has widespread long term debilitating consequences for those who survive it, is not the same as arguing for similar measures against a disease that kills around one tenth of that number worldwide, and has few consequences for its survivors beyond one or two weeks of incapacity.

Yes, that is true. It's the distinction you and Jimmy Higgins were not making with your previous arguments. Even so, going by the standard you bring up now - i.e., severity -, one has to take into consideration the freedoms of others - including those who do not want to get vaccinated - in order to calibrate the measures, since there is no reasonable way of jumping from 'no restrictions on the unvaccinated/not recovered' to 'very big restrictions' when you increase gradually the severity.

For example, here we are talking about a disease that has killed over five million people in two years, and which has widespread long term debilitating consequences for some of those who survive it, but for which you and nearly all who want to get vaccinated are fully vaccinated, and also who wear masks. Under such conditions, COVID is much less dangerous now than it used to be. Mandatory vaccination is a lot bigger a restriction on freedom than mandatory masks, as it requires that you put something in your body, not just on it. So, maybe one alternative is not to mandate vaccination, but only masks - good masks, and properly used. I am not against imposing some restriction on freedoms in cases like this, but I think there is a balance between freedom and the health of others, and mandatory vaccination strikes me as too much of a restriction given the alternatives and given that those who want to be vaccinated are vaccinated.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

1) Flu is not a serious threat to a healthy person. They conduct medical studies in which (young, healthy) people are deliberately infected with flu. That is considered acceptable medical practice because it poses basically zero risk of serious consequences to the test subjects.

However, flu viruses kill a lot of people every year. For example, in the US here is some data frome the CDC:

Burden of Influenza

Learn about how CDC estimates the burden of seasonal influenza in the U.S.

www.cdc.gov

Vaccination would very probably cut transmission rates - so would, by the way, the proper use of good face masks. As a result, it would save lives. I'm not sure how many, but there would definitely be fewer fatalities. Whether that happens in healthy people or not is not my point. bilby's arguments do not seem to take into consideration the fatality rate, and seem applicable to other cases as well, like the flu.

Flu usually only kills those already severely weakened. If the flu didn't get them chances are something else soon would.

2) We have already learned that getting infected doesn't produce immunity--you're immune to that version but it very well might not protect you from variants. The vaccine (other than the Chinese crap that's a killed-virus vaccine, provides about the same protection as prior infection--bad) provides better protection than prior infection.

No, we have not learned that. At least, I have not learned that, so I will ask you to provide good evidence of that. Here's a study supporting the opposite conclusion, comparing Pfizer's vaccine vs. prior infection.

No. Prior infection provides stronger immunity than the vaccine. The vaccine provides broader immunity. They are different things. If you get the virus your resistance to that strain is very high--but you don't have very good protection against other strains and thus reinfection is likely. This is why we have never had a coronavirus vaccine before--they're too good at evading. Only the vaccines based on targeting a reasonably stable part of the virus have worked.

Comparing SARS-CoV-2 natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity: reinfections versus breakthrough infections

Background Reports of waning vaccine-induced immunity against COVID-19 have begun to surface. With that, the comparable long-term protection conferred by previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 remains unclear. Methods We conducted a retrospective observational study comparing three groups...

www.medrxiv.org

Study: COVID recovery gave Israelis longer-lasting Delta defense than vaccines

The variant was 27 times more likely to break through Pfizer protection from January-February and cause symptoms than it was to penetrate natural immunity from the same period

www.timesofisrael.com

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1.full.pdf

Be very wary of anything on medrxiv. That's a pre-print server, there is no verification of what's posted. The death cultists have been publishing all sorts of crap on there recently, elementary math errors, outright fabrication and the like, then they point to the articles as if they have scientific merit.

Your other source says what we already know--infection provides good protection against that strain. Nothing has replaced Delta yet, thus prior infection with Delta provides very good protection for now.

Sure, you can find studies in the other direction. Jury seems to be still out on that one.

The jury came back long ago, it's just the death cultists are trying to pull a 1/6.

As for the "Chinese crap" , Sinopharm's vaccine is the most widely used vaccine over here, closely followed by AZ and then Sputnik. Combined they probably make up well over 90% of the vaccinations over here. And despite the government's serious negligence that resulted in many more fatalities than otherwise would have occurred, eventually things have improved a lot, the ICUs have plenty of room available, the number of daily covid fatalities has fallen sharply now is gradually falling still, with 234 fatalities in the past 14 days (out of a population of about 46 million). This is despite the fact that nearly all restrictions have been lifted - even mask wearing outdoors, though it's still mandatory indoors - and the fact that most people do not respect the remaining ones anyway. In short, the Chinese crap seems to work okay in the long run, even if it's less effective than AZ or Sputnik. But infection should work better than the dead virus vaccines, as it is with the current variant of the virus.

IIRC it's about 50%. Useful at a population level, not much protection at the individual level.

Incidentally, vaccination with Chinese crap is accepted by European governments and by the US government, even though the US government does not seem to count prior infection at all and demands vaccination. That does not make sense to me: Why consider people vaccinated with dead-virus vaccines immunized, but reject the same for people who recovered from the virus? I can't make sense of that one.

Politics.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If people would only get vaccinated and mask up it could be over. But they won't so it isn't.

It's not going to be "over", the disease has spread into enough wildlife that it's going to be endemic. We can keep it at the nuisance level, though.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If people would only get vaccinated and mask up it could be over. But they won't so it isn't.

It's not going to be "over", the disease has spread into enough wildlife that it's going to be endemic. We can keep it at the nuisance level, though.

Can we? I'm a bit nervous that the coalition of anti-science left wingers and hyper-partisan alt-right idiots could push this further and work on weakening our developed herd immunity to a number of diseases.

The good ole American motto, "We can always make things worse."

 

[crazyfingers]

Can we? I'm a bit nervous that the coalition of anti-science left wingers and hyper-partisan alt-right idiots could push this further and work on weakening our developed herd immunity to a number of diseases.

The good ole American motto, "We can always make things worse."

I believe that it was a member of the Florida legislature who said that it's time to reexamine ALL of the vaccines kids need to have to attend public school. Time to bring back Small pox, Polio, Mumps, etc.. Freedum you know...

 

[blastula]

Yeah, they're against any vaccine now, all in on the stupid, because of cult mind.

 

[TSwizzle]

Wait, how is this possible?

As of Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had recorded 386,233 deaths involving Covid-19 in 2021, compared with 385,343 in 2020. The final number for this year will be higher, not only because there is more than a month left but because it takes time for local agencies to report deaths to the C.D.C. Covid-19 has also accounted for a higher percentage of U.S. deaths this year than it did last year: about 13 percent compared with 11 percent.

NYT

Biden needs to be held to account if this is true.

 

[blastula]

Sure thing, a guy making it easy for you to protect yourself from a deadly disease is to blame instead of the plague rats.

 

[crazyfingers]

I got my booster yesterday. I chose Moderna instead of the Pfizer I got earlier. With my first 2 shots I never had anything much by way of side effects other than a sore arm like the flu shot. This time I'm feeling some of the whole body side effects and a slight fever.

Maybe it will get me out of some of the thanksgiving cooking??? I think I need to milk this for what I can get.

 

[crazyfingers]

Wait, how is this possible?

As of Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had recorded 386,233 deaths involving Covid-19 in 2021, compared with 385,343 in 2020. The final number for this year will be higher, not only because there is more than a month left but because it takes time for local agencies to report deaths to the C.D.C. Covid-19 has also accounted for a higher percentage of U.S. deaths this year than it did last year: about 13 percent compared with 11 percent.

NYT

Biden needs to be held to account if this is true.

Glad to see that you've finally come around to agreeing that mask and vaccine mandates are appropriate and necessary.

 

[TSwizzle]

Sure thing, a guy making it easy for you to protect yourself from a deadly disease is to blame instead of the plague rats.

And yet Florida has the one of the lowest case and death rates in the nation.