Just curious, anyone have a plan, or preps for global pandemic?

[Saul]

 

Llama nanobodies may be an effective cure -- and even vaccine -- against covid 19.   Although not nearly enough studies have been made yet for human testing, my intuition is that this may prove to be superior to current vaccines and current treatment options for covid victims.  These nanobodies can be taken in a nasal spray (as a vaccine or a treatment).  And they can potentially be produced by genetically engineered bacteria.

https://www.biospace.com/article/u-k-research-team-sees-success-in-llama-nanobody-animal-studies-against-covid-19

Edited September 22, 2021 by Saul

[BrianA]

BTW, that news a while back that PhDs are the most vaccine resistant was just bogus data:

 

https://coronavirus.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-PhDs-are-the-most-vaccine-resistant-group-https-www-nationalreview-com-corner-the-most-vaccine-hesita-1

[BrianA]

Here's more on brain damage from even mild infection cases. Matched MRI scans of people before/after infection.

 

https://theconversation.com/preliminary-research-finds-that-even-mild-cases-of-covid-19-leave-a-mark-on-the-brain-but-its-not-yet-clear-how-long-it-lasts-166145

 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.11.21258690v3.full-text

[Saul]

The takeaway :  if you haven't already, get vaccinated.

I can imagine someone extremely healthy, such as Khurram, contracting a very mild case of Covid-19, but losing a fraction of their mental ability.

I suspect that the hippocampus is the region of brain where our consciousness resides (just my intuition -- could be totally wrong).  And the hippocampus is one of the regions that this preliminary study pinpoints as apparently being effected by Covid-19.

Khurram, get vaccinated!

  --  Saul

 

[BrianA]

As Florida punishes schools, study finds masks cut school COVID outbreaks 3.5X

 

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/09/as-florida-punishes-schools-study-finds-masks-cut-school-covid-outbreaks-3-5x/

[Saul]

Hi Brian!

Sure -- it's probably best for the UNVACCINATED -- which unfortunately still includes kids -- to wear masks.  Hopefully, vaccines will be approved soon, for teens, and then children; until then, of course masks, social distancing, etc., is unfortunately necessary -- particularly bad for children, who may be psychologically damaged by social distancing.  (My grandkids fall into that category.)

As to the political aspect of your post:  I think that it's important to ignore political biases in scientific matters (specially one as important as this one).

As far as those of us (and others) who have had their two jabs of the Pfizer vaccine, the second injection over 6 months ago (I fit into that category), IMO we should get our Pfizer booster as soon as it is available.

  --  Saul

[BrianA]

I don't understand so far the extremely lackadaisical attitude organizations of all types seem to be taking towards the concept of air filtration. Why aren't schools, businesses, government buildings, etc retrofitting UV air sterilization and improved filtering into their ventilation?

 

Here's a recent study showing on how much incredible improvement in air safety can be achieved via relatively simple and straightforward means.

 

" Airborne SARS-CoV-2 was detected in the ward on all five days before activation of air/UV
filtration, but on none of the five days when the air/UV filter was operational; SARS-CoV-2 was
again detected on four out of five days when the filter was off. Airborne SARS-CoV-2 was
infrequently detected in the ICU. Filtration significantly reduced the burden of other microbial
bioaerosols in both the ward (48 pathogens detected before filtration, two after, p=0.05) and the ICU
(45 pathogens detected before filtration, five after p=0.05). "

 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.16.21263684v1.full.pdf

[Ron Put]

On 9/17/2021 at 1:33 PM, Mike41 said:

And below is a MUCH DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE!

I just listened to the whole 2+ hours of it and must say it's a pretty partisan presentation of "the science" aimed at aligning it with the prevailing narrative and advocating for vaccine mandates and masks. One can easily pick apart many of the inconsistencies and the straw arguments, from the claim that even if Ivermectin is shown to speed up the reduction of viral load, it should not be used, but later extolling the virtue of vaccine mandates, because vaccines seem to speed up the reduction of the viral load. Or that clear PCR tests are irrelevant in the case of Ivermectin because they are just measuring "dead" viral bits, but we based our counting of Covid deaths based on just such PCR tests, but with higher cycle values. Patrick even repeated the false story about the epidemic of the Trumper country bumkins overdosing on horse Ivermectin (subsequently denied by the hospital).

Seheult is the darling of NPR, regaling listeners with scary stories about the unvaccinated and non-masked stupids, which is why he gets air time, and Patrick is trying to do the same. So they will toe the line, if they want the fame. Personally, I have stopped paying attention to either, since I see them as supplement pushers serving their supplement business ventures.

The bottom line is, vaccinating the elderly those with comorbidities, including the obese, is a good idea. But forcing vaccinations, especially with vaccines based on technology without a long enough test run is an assault on civil rights by the Left. Notice that Biden announced it just in time to deflect the news cycle from Afghanistan, and the media was quick to oblige.

 

On 9/17/2021 at 4:26 PM, Saul said:

I just got my flu shot -- the fluzone quadrivalent, recommended for people over 65 (same flu vaccine that I got last year).

Good on you, Saul! Everyone should. But even though I think so, I am not for mandating it.

[Saul]

17 hours ago, BrianA said:

Airborne SARS-CoV-2 was detected in the ward on all five days before activation of air/UV
filtration, but on none of the five days when the air/UV filter was operational; SARS-CoV-2 was
again detected on four out of five days when the filter was off. Airborne SARS-CoV-2 was
infrequently detected in the ICU. Filtration significantly reduced the burden of other microbial
bioaerosols in both the ward (48 pathogens detected before filtration, two after, p=0.05) and the ICU
(45 pathogens detected before filtration, five after p=0.05). "

 

Sure; you're right.

For example, at the University of Rochester, where I teach mathematics IN PERSON, most, if not al, of the classrooms are equipped with such air/filtration devices.

I agree that this should be done at all universities, and hopefully all high schools, middle schools and elementary schools.

Unfortunately, this costs $$.  And not every educational institution can afford this.

And just as no federal, state or local government can be mandate vaccination, they also cannot mandate air filtration devices.

We live in a federal democracy, not in Communist China.

  --  Saul

[corybroo]

I’ve read a number of references to a 1905 Supreme Court ruling about mandatory vaccination.  To learn more about it, I found The Surprisingly Strong Supreme Court Precedent Supporting Vaccine Mandates

Here are some highlights from an article about that decision.

 

So when the Cambridge board of health decided that all adults must be vaccinated for smallpox, Jacobson [50 yr old pastor of the Swedish Lutheran Church in Cambridge] sought refuge in the Constitution’s promise that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”

The year was 1904, and when his politically charged legal challenge to the $5 fine for failing to get vaccinated made its way to the Supreme Court

One man’s liberty, they declared in a 7-2 ruling handed down the following February, cannot deprive his neighbors of their own liberty — in this case by allowing the spread of disease.

“There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good,” read the majority opinion.

The question of whether those freedoms include refusing a legally mandated Covid-19 vaccine, should any government implement such a requirement today, has yet to come before the Supreme Court — or any court. But in the event that it does, the 116-year-old case brought by Henning Jacobson would be the standing legal precedent. In deciding whether the rules that the Jacobson decision rendered for smallpox would apply to Covid-19, today’s court would need to reckon with a different medical landscape, as well as the freighted politics of the moment.

[Justice] Harlan in this case wrote for a clear majority of the court. He concluded: “Real liberty for all could not exist under the operation of a principle which recognizes the right of each individual person to use his own, whether in respect of his person or his property, regardless of the injury that may be done to others.”

[Harlan] offers a powerful rebuttal to those who feel that personal liberty is only in play when someone is compelled to be vaccinated: The Jacobson holding suggests that other people, from co-workers to classmates to neighbors, have a corresponding liberty interest in being free from infectious disease. Like those who inhale passive smoke, they, too, are affected by a decision that others deem a matter of personal choice.

 

[Mike41]

11 minutes ago, corybroo said:

I’ve read a number of references to a 1905 Supreme Court ruling about mandatory vaccination.  To learn more about it, I found The Surprisingly Strong Supreme Court Precedent Supporting Vaccine Mandates

Here are some highlights from an article about that decision.

 

So when the Cambridge board of health decided that all adults must be vaccinated for smallpox, Jacobson [50 yr old pastor of the Swedish Lutheran Church in Cambridge] sought refuge in the Constitution’s promise that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”

The year was 1904, and when his politically charged legal challenge to the $5 fine for failing to get vaccinated made its way to the Supreme Court

One man’s liberty, they declared in a 7-2 ruling handed down the following February, cannot deprive his neighbors of their own liberty — in this case by allowing the spread of disease.

“There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good,” read the majority opinion.

The question of whether those freedoms include refusing a legally mandated Covid-19 vaccine, should any government implement such a requirement today, has yet to come before the Supreme Court — or any court. But in the event that it does, the 116-year-old case brought by Henning Jacobson would be the standing legal precedent. In deciding whether the rules that the Jacobson decision rendered for smallpox would apply to Covid-19, today’s court would need to reckon with a different medical landscape, as well as the freighted politics of the moment.

[Justice] Harlan in this case wrote for a clear majority of the court. He concluded: “Real liberty for all could not exist under the operation of a principle which recognizes the right of each individual person to use his own, whether in respect of his person or his property, regardless of the injury that may be done to others.”

[Harlan] offers a powerful rebuttal to those who feel that personal liberty is only in play when someone is compelled to be vaccinated: The Jacobson holding suggests that other people, from co-workers to classmates to neighbors, have a corresponding liberty interest in being free from infectious disease. Like those who inhale passive smoke, they, too, are affected by a decision that others deem a matter of personal choice.

 

The vaccine mandates have a very loooooooooong history here in the USA!
 

thttps://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/573043-why-george-washington-mandated-vaccines

“George Washington believed one’s freedom does not mean others should suffer as a consequence.” 

 

Edited September 26, 2021 by Mike41

[corybroo]

Has anyone else read about the 2018 proposal to modify some corona viruses?  Up until now, I'd believed it was "proven" not to be lab based but I just saw this LEAKED GRANT PROPOSAL DETAILS HIGH-RISK CORONAVIRUS RESEARCH about a proposal to DARPA in 2018 to insert human-specific cleavage sites into corona viruses.  This is not a smoking gun but it identifies a creditable (not proven) path from the lab..

The proposal by EcoHealth Alliance was submitted to DARPA in 2018.

One of the specific tasks in the proposal was the insertion of a proteolytic cleavage (Proteolytic cleavage is basically the process of breaking the peptide bonds between amino acids in proteins.) site able to interact with furin (an enzyme expressed in human cells). 

[The furin cleavage site] feature on the spike protein of the virus had never been seen in SARS-related betacoronaviruses, the class to which SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the respiratory illness Covid-19, belongs.

The furin cleavage site enables the virus to more efficiently bind to and release its genetic material into a human cell and is one of the reasons that the virus is so easily transmissible and harmful.

[Arguing against lab engineering] “There is no logical reason why an engineered virus would utilize such a suboptimal furin cleavage site, which would entail such an unusual and needlessly complex feat of genetic engineering,” 23 scientists wrote earlier this month in an article in the journal Cell.

But the proposal describes the process of looking for novel furin cleavage sites in bat coronaviruses the scientists had sampled and inserting them into the spikes of SARS-related viruses in the laboratory.  “We will introduce appropriate human-specific cleavage sites and evaluate growth potential in [a type of mammalian cell commonly used in microbiology] and HAE cultures,” referring to cells found in the lining of the human airway, the proposal states.

“Given that the work wasn’t funded and wasn’t proposed to take place in Wuhan anyway it’s hard to assess any bearing on the origin of SARS-CoV-2,” Stephen Goldstein, a scientist who studies the evolution of viral genes at the University of Utah, and an author of the recent Cell article

[BrianA]

twitter thread reviewing recent evidence that vaccination beats natural immunity due to prior infection, in regards to breakthrough reinfection risk:

 

 

[Gordo]

1 hour ago, BrianA said:

twitter thread reviewing recent evidence that vaccination beats natural immunity due to prior infection, in regards to breakthrough reinfection risk

 

There's some good data points there.  Also:

[Gordo]

Also impressive data points favoring booster shots (from Israel):

"...data from Israel clearly shows boosters have very high efficacy — 91% lower risk of infection compared to 2 doses after 6 months (not even compared to unvaccinated). That’s 10x further improvement in lowering risk!"

 

[AlanPater]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/merck-covid19-pill-us-fda-deaths-1.6196007

[mccoy]

3 hours ago, DHL said:

t would be messed up in 5 or 10 years from now these vaccines do something negative to health that wasn’t foreseen.

How can we be so sure about the negative outcome? Given the present state of knowledge (maximum entropy), we have 50% probability that it causes effects ranging in the bad, 50% of probabilities that it causes effects ranging in the good. It may even be neutral. For all we know, in the long term it may provide longevity. Not to mention the high probability of protection it offers and the low probability of serious harm it provides. If we reason according to optimization principles, according to present data, vaccination still seems to be the right choice.

I totally respect an antivax choice, I myself am no fan of vaccines, but the motives usually provided in this pandemic context appear to be illogical.

To be honest, people should underline that's just a personal choice, without trying to justify it with missing scientific evidence.

[Saul]

Hi McCoy!

I completely agree.

  --  Saul

[Sibiriak]

Russia’s ‘strongest man’ famed for incredible weight-lifting feats while performing splits dies of Covid

[mccoy]

I'm sorry for Sineglazov. His splits-while-lifting were incredible.

[Todd Allen]

 

[Gordo]

On 10/2/2021 at 2:44 AM, mccoy said:

If we reason according to optimization principles, according to present data, vaccination still seems to be the right choice.

There is no evidence of long term harm from the vaccine, but growing evidence of long term harm from covid-19 infection.  The way I view it, pretty much every human on the planet, if you live long enough, is going to be exposed to covid-19.   I'm still kind of leaning toward the idea that it's probably best to get exposed while you are younger and healthy vs. when you are older and possibly immune compromised.  But therapeutics continue to be tested/announced like the new Merck one that seems very promising, so perhaps at least the more vulnerable should still do their best to avoid exposure until that next generation of treatment options becomes available.

We've been seeing a lot of these:

 

[Todd S]

Todd Allen,

While acknowledging the attempt at humor, the analogy is poor. Unvaccinated people likely increase the risk to others, whereas not wearing a lifejacket primarily affects risk to one's self (and secondarily to potential rescuers).

[Todd Allen]

18 hours ago, Todd S said:

Unvaccinated people likely increase the risk to others

That's your belief.  If I was placing a bet on this my money would be on the opposite side that it is the vaccinated increasing the risk to others.  Which is why I'm not vaccinated.  I won't in good conscience do something trivial for myself that I believe would likely contribute to the deaths of others.  There are two main  mechanisms for this.  First, when someone vaccinated becomes infected their symptoms are reduced increasing the possibility of being unaware of the infection and carelessly spreading it.  Second when a vaccinated person spreads the infection they are more likely to spread vaccine resistant strains.

 

[Todd Allen]

Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States

Quote

At the country-level, there appears to be no discernable relationship between percentage of population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases in the last 7 days (Fig. 1). In fact, the trend line suggests a marginally positive association such that countries with higher percentage of population fully vaccinated have higher COVID-19 cases per 1 million people.

...

Across the US counties too, the median new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people in the last 7 days is largely similar across the categories of percent population fully vaccinated (Fig. 2). Notably there is also substantial county variation in new COVID-19 cases within categories of percentage population fully vaccinated. There also appears to be no significant signaling of COVID-19 cases decreasing with higher percentages of population fully vaccinated (Fig. 3).

Of the top 5 counties that have the highest percentage of population fully vaccinated (99.9–84.3%), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identifies 4 of them as “High” Transmission counties. Chattahoochee (Georgia), McKinley (New Mexico), and Arecibo (Puerto Rico) counties have above 90% of their population fully vaccinated with all three being classified as “High” transmission. Conversely, of the 57 counties that have been classified as “low” transmission counties by the CDC, 26.3% (15) have percentage of population fully vaccinated below 20%.