Covid-19 miscellany

[Metaphor]

In the case of COVID19, the virus has mutated in those who are not vaccinated, so we have multiple strains active, some of which are less controlled by current vaccine.

The Omicron mutation is a blessing, given it has displaced Delta, gives protection against Delta for people who get Omicron, has a much, much, much lower rate of causing severe disease and death, and will result in the end of the pandemic.

The data out of South Africa is misleading. Omicron has about half the lethality of Delta. However, it kills slower, causing misleading measurements.

Incorrect. Omicron has 10% of the lethality of delta.

How the omicron variant differs from delta

The extremely transmissible omicron variant continues to cause record numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths, despite causing less severe disease than delta.

www.cnet.com

 

[Toni]

May I remind everyone; omicron is not omega

The virus doesn't speak Greek.

As Toni points out, Omicron happened because Delta remained unchecked.

Omicron is not descended from Delta.

I wasn't talking to the virus. Which works out well because Omicron can't read.

As more variants emerge, it does not mean that previous variants have disappeared. But uncontained strains of COVID does lead to new mutations/variants

 

[Metaphor]

Omicron patients are less likely to be hospitalised than delta patients

Idiocy. If they are a quarter as likely to be hospitalized and there are fifteen times as many cases... figure it out, dude.

FYI that trough in late October was around 50k cases, while the latest omicron peak was over 880,000. So 15x is close to the factor you'd have to overcome. And it's NOT happening. Omicron is killing more people than would have died if it had not appeared. Some directly, some indirectly. But one thing is for sure -
IT'S NO GOD DAMNED "BLESSING"!


View attachment 37100

I don't give a shit about your opinion on omicron. I have working senses and a brain and I can read.

You can masturbate yourself into apoplexy over your feelpinions. I'm not interested.

 

[TSwizzle]

He’s taking the piss now;

Los Angeles Mayor — and Biden Administration ambassadorial nominee — Eric Garcetti today defended his actions after maskless photos surfaced of him and Lakers great Magic Johnson, along with San Francisco Mayor London Breed, at SoFi Stadium last weekend for the NFC Championship game. Today, at an afternoon press conference to go over safety and security for next week’s Super Bowl, which is also to be held at SoFi, Garcetti said he held his breath to take the photo.

News

He actually said this out loud.

 

[Elixir]

I have working senses and a brain and I can read.

It's easy to tell what you read.
Pitiful.
The only reason I give a shit about your ill-informed opinions about omicron is that they are dangerous.
That they are stupid is your own problem.

 

[Jarhyn]

Omicron patients are less likely to be hospitalised than delta patients

Idiocy. If they are a quarter as likely to be hospitalized and there are fifteen times as many cases... figure it out, dude.

FYI that trough in late October was around 50k cases, while the latest omicron peak was over 880,000. So 15x is close to the factor you'd have to overcome. And it's NOT happening. Omicron is killing more people than would have died if it had not appeared. Some directly, some indirectly. But one thing is for sure -
IT'S NO GOD DAMNED "BLESSING"!


View attachment 37100

I don't give a shit about your opinion on omicron. I have working senses and a brain and I can read.

You can masturbate yourself into apoplexy over your feelpinions. I'm not interested.

So I can think of a lot of different reasons people would think 15x the cases amid anything less than 1/15th the number of severe symptoms is a blessing, and most of them amount to "delights in evil and destructive chaos".

I might remind that 10% > 1/15.

Like, 5th grade math here folks.

The rest amount to "has a hard time constructing and stringing together coherent ideas."

Now excuse me while I go back to planning my tats.

I'm thinking something that visually describes the axioms of set theory...

 

[Metaphor]

Omicron patients are less likely to be hospitalised than delta patients

Idiocy. If they are a quarter as likely to be hospitalized and there are fifteen times as many cases... figure it out, dude.

FYI that trough in late October was around 50k cases, while the latest omicron peak was over 880,000. So 15x is close to the factor you'd have to overcome. And it's NOT happening. Omicron is killing more people than would have died if it had not appeared. Some directly, some indirectly. But one thing is for sure -
IT'S NO GOD DAMNED "BLESSING"!


View attachment 37100

I don't give a shit about your opinion on omicron. I have working senses and a brain and I can read.

You can masturbate yourself into apoplexy over your feelpinions. I'm not interested.

So I can think of a lot of different reasons people would think 15x the cases amid anything less than 1/15th the number of severe symptoms is a blessing, and most of them amount to "delights in evil and destructive chaos".

The rest amount to "has a hard time constructing and stringing together coherent ideas."

The fact that you and Elixir have a sclerotic poverty of imagination and a limited understanding of counterfactuals is not my problem. The fact that you both appear to believe that the last delta wave would have been the last of COVID all together is an aggressively stupid thing to believe.

 

[TSwizzle]

Republicans are saying a controversial new report finding that coronavirus lockdowns had 'little to no effects' on pandemic death tolls proves that Dr. Anthony Fauci and his claim that pandemic restrictions saved 'millions' are not to be trusted. 'Bad judgment and poor leadership from our nation's health agencies have caused most Americans to live with an unhealthy fear of COVID-19. There is no doubt, we need a new approach to COVID as we must learn to live with it,' Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, told DailyMail.com upon review of the new Johns Hopkins research.

Daily Mail

Agreed. Stop living in fear.

 

[Jarhyn]

Omicron patients are less likely to be hospitalised than delta patients

Idiocy. If they are a quarter as likely to be hospitalized and there are fifteen times as many cases... figure it out, dude.

FYI that trough in late October was around 50k cases, while the latest omicron peak was over 880,000. So 15x is close to the factor you'd have to overcome. And it's NOT happening. Omicron is killing more people than would have died if it had not appeared. Some directly, some indirectly. But one thing is for sure -
IT'S NO GOD DAMNED "BLESSING"!


View attachment 37100

I don't give a shit about your opinion on omicron. I have working senses and a brain and I can read.

You can masturbate yourself into apoplexy over your feelpinions. I'm not interested.

So I can think of a lot of different reasons people would think 15x the cases amid anything less than 1/15th the number of severe symptoms is a blessing, and most of them amount to "delights in evil and destructive chaos".

The rest amount to "has a hard time constructing and stringing together coherent ideas."

The fact that you and Elixir have a sclerotic poverty of imagination and a limited understanding of counterfactuals is not my problem. The fact that you both appear to believe that the last delta wave would have been the last of COVID all together is an aggressively stupid thing to believe.

Only on account of evil people via -- not even necessarily alongside -- their stupid victims not wearing masks or taking vaccines that they were not legally required to wear or take to the extent that it got worse and then they rebelled against the legal requirements even then.

We are talking about "ought". You're still living in "is".

 

[Metaphor]

Omicron patients are less likely to be hospitalised than delta patients

Idiocy. If they are a quarter as likely to be hospitalized and there are fifteen times as many cases... figure it out, dude.

FYI that trough in late October was around 50k cases, while the latest omicron peak was over 880,000. So 15x is close to the factor you'd have to overcome. And it's NOT happening. Omicron is killing more people than would have died if it had not appeared. Some directly, some indirectly. But one thing is for sure -
IT'S NO GOD DAMNED "BLESSING"!


View attachment 37100

I don't give a shit about your opinion on omicron. I have working senses and a brain and I can read.

You can masturbate yourself into apoplexy over your feelpinions. I'm not interested.

So I can think of a lot of different reasons people would think 15x the cases amid anything less than 1/15th the number of severe symptoms is a blessing, and most of them amount to "delights in evil and destructive chaos".

The rest amount to "has a hard time constructing and stringing together coherent ideas."

The fact that you and Elixir have a sclerotic poverty of imagination and a limited understanding of counterfactuals is not my problem. The fact that you both appear to believe that the last delta wave would have been the last of COVID all together is an aggressively stupid thing to believe.

Only on account of evil people via -- not even necessarily alongside -- their stupid victims not wearing masks or taking vaccines that they were not legally required to wear or take to the extent that it got worse and then they rebelled against the legal requirements even then.

We are talking about "ought". You're still living in "is".

I am living in reality. Elixir seems to compare omicron with 'well, it would have been better if covid had just stopped after the last wave'.

Well, no fucking shit it would have been better. No fucking shit. It would have been better if covid had never existed at all. It would have been better if there were no disease any time any where.

COVID was not over after the last delta wave. COVID will never be over. It is a blessing that the current wave is omicron and not delta or an even more deadly variant. Omicron has displaced delta and it is unlikely that a variant that is more contagious and more deadly than omicron can displace omicron. Pretending that the last delta wave was as bad as it could have gotten is achingly naive. Omicron will bring about the end of COVID as pandemic, and will usher in COVID as endemic disease. This is not something I conjured because I am evil and/or a moron, as you seem to think. I listened to multiple informed opinions about it.

I am tired of talking about this and I have no interest in dissuading you or Elixir of anything. I believe and hope I am right and that by the end of this year we talk about covid about as much as we talk about the seasonal flu.

 

[Jarhyn]

I am living in reality.

Yes, apparently the reality where you couldn't figure out 10% > 1/15.

Well, no fucking shit it would have been better.

Then don't oppose the things that make it better.

COVID was not over after the last delta wave

Because evil people and/via their stupid victims.

It is a blessing that the current wave is omicron and not delta or an even more deadly variant. Omicron has displaced delta

... No, it isn't. 10% > 1/15. Omicron displaced Delta with a more deadly variant that accomplishes it's deadliness by being 15x as likely to mutate. I'm living in reality where I recognize the only reason that has not happened is entirely accidental and NOTHING is preventing a more deadly variant that escapes vaccines again.

The only thing we are at all protected from is the "long term success" of that variant.... And in this situation it would only lack long term success because of how many people it would kill.

We need to do everything in our power to prevent it from mutating again, as much as is within our power.

I am tired of talking about this

About fucking time.

I believe and hope I am right and that by the end of this year we talk about covid about as much as we talk about the seasonal flu.

We will never talk about it like that.

COVID will forever be the disease that reminds us that when a pandemic happens like this, we can't rely on the good nature of people to just do the right thing because it is right because evil people and their stupid victims made this result happen instead.

It's a painful signpost in the road that pandemics brook no half-measures.

 

[Elixir]

Ya sure Meta. Math challenged and proud, right wing COVID crusaders thank their Orange god that we are only killing 10,000 to 12,000 people a day, instead of 100,000 a day or a million a day. At the moment. Such a blessing, thanks to the blessed plague rats
But they are spinning the cylinder of the revolver and the next variant it spits out might be aimed at them.

Prostate yourself before your craven idol Metaphor, while the rational people of the world plead in vain with your ilk to stop enabling this plague.

I’m not interested in helping you, Swizzle, RVonse or any other RW crusader to understand anything; it’s an exercise in futility.
But rest assured that children of the future will wonder at the abject stupidity of their right wing forebears.

 

[ZiprHead]

Desperate communities tap police, National Guard and parents amid teacher shortage

This diminishes the role of educators and undermines safety, critics say.

abcnews.go.com

As the surge in COVID-19 cases spurred by the omicron variant has upended staffing at school districts across the country, desperate state and local officials have sought to fill those gaps by calling in police officers, National Guard members and even parents to help educate the nation's youth.

These latest measures come two years into a health crisis that's put untold pressure on the education sector. Parents and child advocates have been sounding the alarm about the pandemic's impact as school districts keep pivoting from in-person learning to remote -- with both teachers and parents nearing a breaking point.

Oklahoma Got.(sic) Kevin Stitt earlier this week issued an executive order to address the teacher shortage in his state, allowing all state employees to substitute teach without losing employment, pay or benefits.

"I've said from the beginning that our students deserve an in-person education and our schools need to stay open," Stitt said in a statement. "The state has a responsibility to do what we can to help make that happen, which is why I have signed this executive order to help schools suffering from staffing shortages."

Shortly after the Oklahoma executive order, images shared on Facebook by the City of Moore Police Department showed law enforcement officers in uniform serving as elementary school substitutes.

"This week, several on-duty officers are serving in the classroom as schools continue to face teacher and staff shortages," the police department's post stated, adding that two officers were covering sixth grade classes at a local school.

"It diminishes teachers’ contributions and expertise in the field of education, undermines the safety of our classrooms and ignores the complexity involved in educating a child."

The Facebook post garnered more than 5,000 comments, many from community members concerned about having these officers in the classroom -- especially amid heightened tensions nationally between law enforcement and the community. The most-supported comment on the post, with nearly 3,000 likes, questioned why the substitute teachers are "in uniform and armed?"

 

[Jarhyn]

Ya sure Meta. Math challenged and proud, right wing COVID crusaders thank their Orange god that we are only killing 10,000 to 12,000 people a day, instead of 100,000 a day or a million a day. At the moment. Such a blessing, thanks to the blessed plague rats
But they are spinning the cylinder of the revolver and the next variant it spits out might be aimed at them.

Prostate yourself before your craven idol Metaphor, while the rational people of the world plead in vain with your ilk to stop enabling this plague.

I’m not interested in helping you, Swizzle, RVonse or any other RW crusader to understand anything; it’s an exercise in futility.
But rest assured that children of the future will wonder at the abject stupidity of their right wing forebears.

When the reality is that they are thanking their orange god that they are only killing the .1% of the victims instead of the 1% of the victims when there are 15x more victims, and then killing a bunch more in "opportunity costs" besides from filling the hospitals and letting the disease reproduce so fast that it gets enough opportunities to mutate that it does before a new vaccine which could be as partially effective against new variants as the original was for early variants...

 

[Jarhyn]

Ya sure Meta. Math challenged and proud, right wing COVID crusaders thank their Orange god that we are only killing 10,000 to 12,000 people a day, instead of 100,000 a day or a million a day. At the moment. Such a blessing, thanks to the blessed plague rats
But they are spinning the cylinder of the revolver and the next variant it spits out might be aimed at them.

Prostate yourself before your craven idol Metaphor, while the rational people of the world plead in vain with your ilk to stop enabling this plague.

I’m not interested in helping you, Swizzle, RVonse or any other RW crusader to understand anything; it’s an exercise in futility.
But rest assured that children of the future will wonder at the abject stupidity of their right wing forebears.

When the reality is that they are thanking their orange god that they are only killing the .1% of the victims instead of the 1% of the victims when there are 15x more victims, and then killing a bunch more in "opportunity costs" besides from filling the hospitals and letting the disease reproduce so fast that it gets enough opportunities to mutate that it does before a new vaccine which could be as partially effective against new variants as the original was for early variants...

You know, there's a statistical truth that most gamers learn early on: the key to being a powerhouse<T> is not to roll a dice with more sides. Rather, the key to being a consistent powerhouse<T> is to roll more dice.

It's so powerful most people call strategies around this "cheesing" and leaning on it is disabled or punished by modern game engines

<T> can be "killer virus". It makes no difference really.

 

[TomC]

It's a painful signpost in the road that pandemics brook no half-measures.

There's another, even bigger issue here. One I rarely hear discussed.

The modern world is hugely different from the world humanity "grew up" in. Modern moral and ethical concerns are so different from the issues from even a few decades ago that it's hard to keep up. The morality and ethics I grew up with aren't really adequate nowadays. I'm an educated, middle class, American from a solid family. I'm lucky. I've got a comparably broad world view and access to information. But getting people to update their opinions and understanding is extremely tough. Especially when it interferes with their personal preferences.

The real cause of the C19 problems is jet travel. C19 is usually mild and resembles other ordinary viral infections. By the time it was recognized, it was already on jets headed for crowded airports. Airports in Rome and New York and Rio and Johannesburg and everywhere else. It was a global epidemic, a novel viral infection, before anyone even knew it exists, much less how to deal with it. Not just deal with it medically, deal with it on a government policy level.
For all of human history, such infections would rarely spread beyond a tiny area. Because transportation was slow and rare. Since intercontinental jet travel probably isn't going anywhere, who knows what other infectious disasters are out there? Imagine a disease like AIDS, only more contagious. Very slow to incubate, but deadly and transmissible by air and touch.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Modern moral issues resulting from a combination of our hugely increased population and sophisticated technology. Issues that just aren't addressed by ordinary ethical codes.
Tom

 

[Jarhyn]

The morality and ethics I grew up with aren't really adequate nowadays. I'm an educated, middle class, American from a solid family. I'm lucky. I've got a comparably broad world view and access to information.

I see in this "a mirror where someone else's face stares back at me."

This is entirely why I threw myself at the realization that it was my obligation to myself to build the skills to question and refine my morality and ethics as the case may be, and to make every attempt to use the current moral sensibilities of today as "targets to reverse engineer understanding of".

It was exactly available to me because of my education and some formative experiences in the application of doubt, sprinkled liberally with a freakish process of forcing myself to operate, as best a thing made of meat may, by what turned out to be "the axioms of set theory" in the organization of my ideas.

This is what I have been pursuing all my life, so as to get a better version of the question and thus better resolution on the answer through the study of game theory.

I don't like to answer the question "what else is out there" though because answering that question takes you beyond what else currently exists into "what may exist" and when you're asking what kind of viral genotypes and phenotypes can be constructed, your answers will be used to make weapons by the wanton.

 

[TSwizzle]

Legacy media still mute on John Hopkins study that found lockdowns etc to cause more harm than good;

A Johns Hopkins professor slammed his university and the mainstream media for downplaying a study conducted by economists at the university that found that COVID-19 lockdowns only reduced virus deaths by 0.2 percent. Dr. Martin Makary warned that 'people may already have their own narrative written' about the effectiveness of lockdowns in an interview with Tucker Carlson Wednesday night. 'Johns Hopkins itself did not even put out a press release about this study, and if you look at the media coverage, it's one of the biggest stories in the world today, and yet certain media outlets have not even covered it,' Makary told the Fox News host. Economists at the college carried out a meta-analysis and found that restrictions imposed in the spring of 2020 - including stay-at-home orders, compulsory masks and social distancing - only reduced COVID mortality by 0.2 percent. They warned that lockdowns caused 'enormous economic and social costs' and concluded that they were 'ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument' going forward.

Daily Mail

 

[blastula]

Legacy media still mute on John Hopkins study that found lockdowns etc to cause more harm than good;

You mean the study by this guy?

 

[lpetrich]

From the previous post:

Jamen, så tag da Biden og bed ham straks ophæve alle de der socialistiske totalitærstatsmetoder. Der er ingen tid at spilde! Go, Jonas!

(Google Translate from Danish)
Well, then take Biden and ask him to immediately abolish all those socialist totalitarian state methods. There is no time to waste! Go, Jonas!