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

[mccoy]

20 hours ago, Saul said:

think that you're two harsh on your countrymen.

Saul, my harshness is obviously driven by my annoyance, which has reached a pretty high level.

I like your ordered list of dictatorships, I would put Stalin first in order of revulsion! 

[BrianA]

This is very interesting, it seems SARS-CoV-2 can spread quite well via an additional direct cell-to-cell mechanism, which can help keep it hidden from the immune system and antibodies in the blood. I'm quite curious if this may be part of what's behind the "long covid" phenomenon, as the scientists here note that this mechanism also allows the virus to invade cells that don't even have the much-discussed ACE2 receptor.

 

SARS-CoV-2 goes 'underground' to spread from cell to cell

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211223113127.htm

[Todd Allen]

5 hours ago, mccoy said:

Todd, that has been the rule in Italy for months now. I was only partly joking when comparing the Italian government to the Chinese.

As far as I know in other places there was at least a pretense the measures were for public health.  Here are quotes from the mayor of Chicago:

“To put it simply, if you have been living vaccine-free, your time is up. If you wish to live life with the ease to do the things you love, you must be vax’d,”

“This health order may pose an inconvenience to the unvaccinated, and in fact it is inconvenient by design”

 

 

[Cloud]

20 hours ago, mccoy said:

Todd, that has been the rule in Italy for months now. I was only partly joking when comparing the Italian government to the Chinese.

I live in Italy. until now, unvaccinated people could take a quick swab and have access to gyms and other events (with the exception of school teacher now). Italy has anticipated some restrictions compared to other European countries. I must say that the situation is not exactly like China; on TV and journals people against vaccines are often interviewed; weekly there have been people protesting in various cities, mostly without masks... in China all this would not have been possible 🙂

[Saul]

21 hours ago, mccoy said:

Saul, my harshness is obviously driven by my annoyance, which has reached a pretty high level.

I like your ordered list of dictatorships, I would put Stalin first in order of revulsion! 

Hitler has him beat!

(Stalin actually did some good things in Russia before going rogue.)

  --  Saul

 

[mccoy]

Saul, I beg to differ, Stalin killed enemies and friends alike, a tiny suspect was enough to be fatal to everyone His ministers used to live in terror because they didn't know who would have been next to be sent to prison. It is rumored that he was poisoned by the chief of police, Berjia, who felt in danger as the next victim. 

Hitler used to treat his friends well. Ha and Stalin were two demons, but Stalin was a more sinister one.

[mccoy]

On 12/24/2021 at 5:58 PM, Cloud said:

I must say that the situation is not exactly like China; on TV and journals people against vaccines are often interviewed; weekly there have been people protesting in various cities, mostly without masks... in China all this would not have been possible 🙂

Cloud, yes, it remains the fact that if I refuse to get the third dose I'm without a job, that's not very different from being imprisoned. The level of enforcement is the same. It is only apparently more benign, hence the hypocrisy of the western so-called democracies...

[mccoy]

On 12/24/2021 at 2:57 AM, Todd Allen said:

“This health order may pose an inconvenience to the unvaccinated, and in fact it is inconvenient by design”

Absolutely no offense to anyone, but I must say that there appears to be a dystopic situation now in America, once it was the cradle of freedom and democracy, a nation I admired unreservedly, now it seems it has turned into a cradle of craziness and divisiveness. Something has gone way, way wrong...

[BrianA]

Well there was that little "blip" of a Civil War 150 years back... but yes, I expect the next civil war would be fought over memes this time around. Thanks Facebook

[Todd Allen]

6 hours ago, mccoy said:

Absolutely no offense to anyone, but I must say that there appears to be a dystopic situation now in America, once it was the cradle of freedom and democracy, a nation I admired unreservedly, now it seems it has turned into a cradle of craziness and divisiveness. Something has gone way, way wrong...

No offense here.  I think one can find examples of craziness and divisiveness throughout US history but success and wealth kept it in check and made the worst of it easier to overlook.  The US has massive assets but deficits are growing so fast a US melt down seems increasingly possible and the craziness could escalate a lot.  I would gladly relocate to a healthier destination but probably won't until it is certain this ship is sunk.  My talent for languages is lacking and it appears most if not all English speaking countries are getting crazier too.  The most sane and inviting places for me are smaller and vulnerable to external forces and their futures can also quickly change from bright to ugly.

[mccoy]

I keep listening to the independent virologists of the TWIV podcast.

An interesting issue they go on speaking about si that the SARSCOV2 vaccines have not been designed to prevent infection rather to prevent serious symptoms, that's why, according to them the number of cases is devoid of any relevancy. Also, they criticize the purported use of the booster to prevent new infections, since this would be like 'desiring a car to fly'.

On the other side, the 3rd booster should provide some cross-immunity, against other variants and even other viruses. 

The 4th booster is considered something useless though, without comments.

At the end of the game, these virologists all had the booster shot, maybe be because universities mandated them.

One of them (prof., Racaniello) explained that he had it to make up for suboptimal time interval between the first and second shot (no further explanations given).

After hours of listening, I realize that, as usual, the truth is far more complex than it looks like. Also, these professors are pretty rigorous in examining evidence, dismissing most observational considerations.

It remains the fact that a mandatory booster for everyone is probably a waste of public money, whose main result will be to give the governments the impression they are doing something efficacious against the spread of the virus. 

[Gordo]

Took a look at the latest stats from Worldometers today, both global and US new covid infections have surged to an ALL TIME high, however people are starting to call it "omicold" and for the first time ever, at least in the global graphs, the huge wave of infections is happening with a simultaneous DECLINE in deaths (of course deaths lag, but still, previous pattern so far looks to have broken down).  Sadly though, in the US this is not the case, deaths are going up with the surge in infections.  We have a lot of obese people in the U.S. which could explain the divergence.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Genius Marketing: Common Cold Rebrands As 'Omicron' To Generate More Hype

Edited December 29, 2021 by Gordo

[Saul]

🙂

[Todd Allen]

5 hours ago, Gordo said:

Sadly though, in the US this is not the case, deaths are going up with the surge in infections.

The death statistics collected in the US as reported by Worldometer are for people who died with covid not for those who died from covid.  So it is possible for the number of people being killed by covid to be declining despite a surging US covid death rate.  It strikes me as ridiculous that at this stage in the pandemic we are still lacking meaningful data.

[Gordo]

Hmmmm, apparently cdc estimates of Omicron prevalence were wildly inaccurate:

https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2021/12/28/cdc-drops-omicron-prevalence-estimate-526210

This may better explain why US deaths rates are rising while globally they are falling. Our huge surge in new infections is not majority Omicron (allegedly). 

Edited December 29, 2021 by Gordo

[Sibiriak]

FWIW:

Uncounted: Inaccurate death certificates across the country hide the true toll of COVID-19

 

[corybroo]

From the NYT

You Tested Positive for Covid. Now What?

 

Here’s why it’s risky to rely on testing alone.

Fauci warns some at-home tests may not detect Omicron variant as Covid cases spike across US

 

Edited December 29, 2021 by corybroo

[AlanPater]

NYC ER Doc Breaks Down How Omicron Affects the Boosted, Vaxxed and Unvaccinated

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/coronavirus/nyc-er-doc-breaks-down-how-omicron-affects-the-boosted-vaxxed-and-unvaccinated/3468742/

[Gordo]

14 hours ago, corybroo said:

Here’s why it’s risky to rely on testing alone.

Fauci warns some at-home tests may not detect Omicron variant as Covid cases spike across US

Based on current evidence we probably don't want at home tests to detect Omicron as covid positive (if you are still unvaccinated at this point you're too dumb to be helped). 

 

Edited December 30, 2021 by Gordo

[AlanPater]

COVID-19 hospitalization surge among U.S. children spurs new Omicron concerns

By Carl O'donnell and Ahmed Aboulenein

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/covid-19-hospitalization-surge-among-us-children-spurs-new-omicron-concerns-2021-12-30/

 

The seven-day-average number of daily hospitalizations for children between Dec. 21 and Dec. 27 is up more than 58% nationwide in the past week to 334, compared to around 19% for all age groups, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.

Edited December 30, 2021 by AlanPater

[mccoy]

The less-than expected increase in hospitalization in the UK has been explained as an effect of the milder symptoms, hence less days spent in hospitals, an aspect which has been ignored in the forecasts (which made the simplification of calculating a ratio of hospitalizations/cases equal to the one seen in previous variants). If the same will apply to Europe, then the omicron surge will be substantially less serious than expected.

 

Edited December 30, 2021 by mccoy

[Todd Allen]

13 hours ago, Gordo said:

if you are still unvaccinated at this point you're too dumb to be helped

I am unvaccinated and I don't need help.  I am very glad to have avoided vaccination because I did not want to participate in hurrying the loss of effectiveness for those in need of protection.  Now that it is clear their effectiveness is diminishing I am glad to not be riding the booster train.  There were significant early indications that I was at minimal risk from this virus and it never felt like a personal emergency.  At this point it would seem exceptionally foolish to take a risky, poorly tested experimental emergency use vaccine with unknown long term effects offering faltering protection against a fading threat.

 

[Ron Put]

13 hours ago, AlanPater said:

... The seven-day-average number of daily hospitalizations for children between Dec. 21 and Dec. 27 is up more than 58% nationwide in the past week to 334, compared to around 19% for all age groups, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.

This is fearmongering and just plain silly. Far more children are hospitalized due to the flu every year (between 30 and 50 per 100,000 in the US) and far more die of the flu. The flu has 40%, and sometimes 50% attack rates in schools, and we have generally been keeping schools open, and not instilling terror in kids, and masking them during their waking hours. It is the madness of the crowd, and I think it's criminal.

Opportunists using fear on stupid people, and apparently making more of them:

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Early Child Cognitive Development: Initial Findings in a Longitudinal Observational Study of Child Health

The fact that the US imposes idiotic restrictions on those with natural immunity is criminal, too. Quo Vadis, America?

 

[mccoy]

I agree that the western world is falling down the abyss of insanity.

Here in Italy, a new decree is in vigour. It imposes new restrictions to those without a booster dose and attributes many benefits, including elimination of quarantine to those with a booster dose. 

So what, most people are resigned to comply anyway only issue being that vaccination hubs are fully booked and people, even if willing or reluctanly, will have to wait for weeks or months.

So, the state mandates me to take a booster with heavy penalties if I don't comply, but at the same time it's not possible to take that booster in the short term, so the state is inflicting penalties to the citizens who could not book in time, regardless.

Kafkian is the adjective which just comes to my mind.

 

Edited December 31, 2021 by mccoy

[mccoy]

Again, the TWIV podcast., with independent virology professor Vince Racaniello and assitant professor Amy rosenfeld of Columbia University. Their credentials are visible in the public domain, especially those of dr. Racaniello.

I've been listening to their podcasts for hours, AMAs are especially useful since they repeat things so often that even dumb people like me will grasp something eventually. 

Again, about the booster dose, there was a very intersting question at time 1 hour, that's what I grasped of theanswer.

1. A third dose is useful to get the fully matured response of antibodies which is not obtained with the traditional time lag of 3-4 weeks between first and second dose; this will allow protection against many variants.
2. COvid vaccines were not designed to prevent infection, only the papilloma virus vaccien ia able to do so. To achieve this result, public health officials are bending the rules, that is imposing boosters every 6-12 months, this will increase the antibodies levels high up and prevent infections. This is going to be the strategy in Israel.
3. The above strategy is not necessary. If a cold is acceptable, which is not life-threatening, regular boosters are redundant
4. The reason we have a yearly influenza booster is that the virus undergoes small antigenic changes which will result in increase of severe symptoms. This is unlike the SARSCOV2 virus.

The above would underline the fact that the booster dose is not totally useless after all, but further boosters would constitute attempts to have the vaccine do something it has not been designed to do (protect against infections). This in the face of a very low probability of hospitalization and severe symptoms after a triple vaccination.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 31, 2021 by mccoy