covid-19

[SkyDekker 1,465]

1 hour ago, winsor said:

ANYONE who criticizes vaccine orthodoxy is an ANTIVAXXER, and should canceled.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02243-1/fulltext

Claims that treatment of unvaccinated is similar to treatment of visible minorities and that we should be kind to those who decide not to get vaccinated.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

27 minutes ago, winsor said:

My concern is people whose focus is vaccination to the exclusion of all else.

Yes you continue to bring up that strawman.

[nwt 131]

3 hours ago, winsor said:

ANYONE who criticizes vaccine orthodoxy is an ANTIVAXXER, and should canceled.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02243-1/fulltext

Just to be clear, this is one person's opinion and not a peer-reviewed journal article.

Quote

People who are vaccinated have a lower risk of severe disease but are still a relevant part of the pandemic.

I don't think anyone would dispute that. Seems like a strawman.

Quote

 It is therefore wrong and dangerous to speak of a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

This does not follow. Calling this a pandemic of the unvaccinated does not imply zero involvement of the vaccinated.

Quote

Historically, both the USA and Germany have engendered negative experiences by stigmatising parts of the population for their skin colour or religion.

Lol what? This comes completely out of nowhere, with no logical connection to any of the statements surrounding it, and no apparent meaning. It's almost like he meant to remove an entire argument in revision but one sentence slipped through.

[billvon 2,989]

8 minutes ago, nwt said:

Lol what? This comes completely out of nowhere, with no logical connection to any of the statements surrounding it, and no apparent meaning. It's almost like he meant to remove an entire argument in revision but one sentence slipped through.

Yep.  Godwin's Law makes its regular appearance.

[DougH 270]

On 12/14/2021 at 12:43 PM, winsor said:

My concern is people whose focus is vaccination to the exclusion of all else.  There's an awful lot to this pathogen, and vaccines are useful in slowing it down.

Your concern should be allowing the world to get back to a somewhat normal way of life, which is what would happen if a larger percentage of people were vaccinated. ICU admissions would be down massively, deaths would be down massively, and the rest of us would benefit from no longer being held hostage by fucktards who are either misinformed or disingenuous. 

For the general population at large the available vaccines have a major impact on reducing deaths and serious outcomes from covid, that is the whole point. There is a viable way to largely eliminate most of the death and serious illness, and people are refusing it, and they are fucking over the whole of society with the consequences of their actions.

We care about transmission and lethality, do you think we would have had to live the last two years if this was less harmful than the common cold?

 

Edited December 15, 2021 by DougH

[gowlerk 2,190]

1 hour ago, DougH said:

There is a viable way to largely eliminate most of the death and serious illness, and people are refusing it, and they are fucking over the whole of society with the consequences of their actions.

This is the bottom line. And it is going to become even more so very soon. The Omicron wave is going to be the worse we have seen by a large margin.

[kallend 2,026]

[JerryBaumchen 1,354]

Hi folks,

Kroger takes a hard stand:  Fred Meyer, QFC parent Kroger ending some COVID-19 benefits for unvaccinated staff - oregonlive.com

The company said it will also begin charging a $50 monthly fee to unvaccinated salaried workers and managers who are enrolled in a company health care plan.

Jerry Baumchen

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

3 hours ago, DougH said:

Your concern should be allowing the world to get back to a somewhat normal way of life, which is what would happen if a larger percentage of people were vaccinated. ICU admissions would be down massively, deaths would be down massively, and the rest of us would benefit from no longer being held hostage by fucktards who are either misinformed or disingenuous. 

For the general population at large the available vaccines have a major impact on reducing deaths and serious outcomes from covid, that is the whole point. There is a viable way to largely eliminate most of the death and serious illness, and people are refusing it, and they are fucking over the whole of society with the consequences of their actions.

We care about transmission and lethality, do you think we would have had to live the last two years if this was less harmful than the common cold?

 

^This.

Vaccines aren't perfect. None ever have been. 

Smallpox was completely eradicated through vaccination.

Polio has been nearly eradicated. Measles, Mumps and a host of other diseases that have plagued mankind (sorry, couldn't resist) throughout history have been greatly reduced (at least until the current antivax idiocy took hold).

I never got a smallpox vax as a kid. I didn't learn until fairly recently that they stopped vaxing kids once the chance of catching it went below the chance of serious effects from the vax (the chances are higher and the effects more serious than the current Covid vaxes).

 

The idea of not vaxing kids for Covid because they don't get seriously sick is pretty stupid. 
The chances of a kid suffering a serious case of Covid is low. But not zero. Certainly higher than the chances of suffering serious side effects from the vax.
And none of that changes the fact that a sick kid will be contagious before becoming symptomatic. 

So Junior catches Covid, and spreads it to Grandma & Grandpa before anyone knows he's sick. 

Being older, G&G have a much greater chance of getting seriously sick. 

Since we have, as an overall population, shown a complete inability to mask up, social distance, contact trace infections, or ANY of the measures that could help mitigate this, our only choice left is vaccination.

And we're doing a pretty poor job of that.

 

Wisconsin DHS released the November numbers for vaxed vs unvaxed.

Unvaxed are:

3x more likely to catch it.
11x more likely to be hospitalized.

12x more likely to die.

[billvon 2,989]

13 minutes ago, wolfriverjoe said:

Polio has been nearly eradicated.

And yet (and I've mentioned this before) - the vaccine sucked.  It only reduced your odds of getting polio by a factor of 4.  The COVID vaccine is better than that.  The polio vaccine killed 10 kids and paralyzed 200 when a bad batch got out - again, far worse than the COVID vaccine.  And it took TEN YEARS of vaccinations to get new polio infections into the noise.

And today kids get four polio vaccines - for a disease that has been 99.9% eradicated.  And yet anti-vaxxers are screaming bloody murder that some vaccine schedules now require THREE separate COVID vaccines.  For a disease that is causing an active pandemic.

No one is claiming that the COVID vaccine is the only way to fight this pandemic.  But it is our best and most useful weapon - and giving up on it, while getting your kids vaccinated four times for polio because your pediatrician recommends it, is the height of politically motivated ignorance.  Your pediatrician actually knows what they are talking about, despite what Alex Jones, FOX News and Rand Paul says.

[JoeWeber 2,720]

3 hours ago, kallend said:

That's hilarious. Thanks.

[ryoder 1,590]

Some humor for the technically-oriented. If you don't get it, just google "log4shell".

 

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

23 hours ago, wolfriverjoe said:

Wisconsin DHS released the November numbers for vaxed vs unvaxed.

Unvaxed are:

3x more likely to catch it.
11x more likely to be hospitalized.

12x more likely to die.

Not sure what the whole deal was, but they adjusted the numbers a bit.

Unvaxed are 5x more likely to catch it, not 3x.

 

DHS site with corrected data:

https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/covid-19/vaccine-status.htm?fbclid=IwAR3Ik5Ci8h4lYrL9RubdtQBMHCahnhTK8A3gAvgEjzgkTZ8JdHEJvF_UDtM

[billeisele 130]

An interesting perspective - 

Pandemic Could Be Solved Quickly If Politics Thrown Out: Dr. Ben Carson

BY HARRY LEE AND JAN JEKIELEK 

December 16, 2021 Updated: December 16, 2021gersmaller 

 

“We’ve been having tunnel vision” dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Ben Carson told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program.

“Let’s throw the politics out. We could solve this problem pretty quickly,” he stated in an interview that will premiere on Dec. 18 at 7 p.m. New York time.

“Let’s open this thing up to all the different mechanisms,” said Carson, a renowned neurosurgeon who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the highest civilian award in the nation—in 2008 for his work. He retired in 2013 and ran for the presidency in 2016, before serving as the secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the Trump administration.

“Let’s look around the world at things that work. Let’s look at the fact that on the western coast of Africa, there’s almost no COVID. And let’s ask ourselves, why is that? And then you see, it’s because they take antimalarials, particularly hydroxychloroquine. Let’s study that. Let’s see what’s going on there.

“Let’s listen to these physician groups who’ve had incredible success with ivermectin. Let’s look at the results with monoclonal antibodies. Let’s look at all of these things. Let’s put them all in our armamentarium so that we don’t have a one-size-fits-all system.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) at one time had authorized hydroxychloroquine for treating certain COVID-19 patients but quickly revoked the emergency use authorization (EUA) in June 2020, claiming no data showed its effectiveness.

The FDA hasn’t approved or issued an EUA for ivermectin to treat COVID-19, citing the same reasons.

Using hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin to treat COVID-19 patients has been highly controversial. Some studies show, and some doctors claim, that hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin can effectively treat COVID-19 patients. A vaccine confidence insight report (pdf) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) labeled such claims as misinformation or disinformation.

“COVID is a virus. Viruses mutate. That’s what they do. And they will continue to mutate,” Carson said.

Carson pointed out that fortunately, most of the time, viruses become a little weaker with each mutation.

“We can admit that and deal with it, or we can take every little mutation and every little change and try to make it into a crisis so we can frighten people and control their lives more,” Carson said.

The latest variant has been named Omicron. During a White House COVID-19 Task Force briefing on Dec. 15, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said that she expected Omicron cases to increase in the coming weeks, urging people to take preventive measures such as being vaccinated and getting booster doses.

Carson said he has some concerns with how COVID-19 is being utilized to “manipulate and frighten people.”

“We should be using every tool available to us to fight the pandemic. There’s no question about that,” Carson said. “But that means, you know, therapeutics, which had been poo-pooed. And I understand why. Because in order to get an EUA—an emergency use authorization—to pursue the vaccines, you can’t have anything that’s effective as an alternative. So, that’s a defect in our system, we need to get rid of that.

“I think a lot of people died unnecessarily because we had that attitude,” Carson added. He shared that when he contracted COVID and was severely ill, monoclonal antibodies saved his life. He said monoclonal antibodies weren’t really utilized the way they should have been early on.

The FDA issued its first EUA for monoclonal antibodies to treat COVID-19 patients in November 2020.

“There are many things that have been very effective that we have not pursued, including natural immunity,” Carson said.

“Well, why wouldn’t you collect that information? Why wouldn’t you want to know that? The only reason you wouldn’t do that is because you didn’t want to know the answer,” he said. “Because it didn’t fit very neatly into what you’re trying to do, which is get everybody to be vaccinated.”

That’s one of the reasons people are losing confidence in federal health agencies, he suggested.

Last month, the CDC said it had no record of naturally immune people transmitting the CCP virus.

“A lot of people who probably should be vaccinated are not doing it because they see these inconsistencies, these things that make absolutely no sense,” Carson said. “This demand that everybody get a vaccination, except if you’re coming across the southern border illegally, then it’s not all that important.”

Carson also opposes forcing children to be vaccinated.

“We have a situation where you have the government advocating that children be vaccinated, even though the risk for death for a child with COVID is 0.025 percent, essentially the same as it is for seasonal flu. You don’t see us doing all this every year for seasonal flu,” Carson stated.

“The risk of mortality for a healthy child is approaching zero, and yet we’re saying do this without knowing what the long-term risks are?” he said. “And why would you subject an innocent child to a lifetime of unknown risk? It just makes absolutely no sense.

“We need to have faith in our government. We need to have faith in our health care systems. And by injecting politics into it, I think we have put ourselves behind the eight ball. It’s going to take a while to reestablish that trust,” he said.

“Why not learn how to look at what’s logical and what makes sense? And why not encourage discussion of those things, rather than everybody getting their respective corners and shooting hand grenades at each other?”

The way out is real leadership, he said.

“The only path is strong leadership. We don’t have that.”

[wmw999 2,439]

The problem is the assumptions in that piece. It’s inaccurate to say there is no COVID in Western Africa. For one thing there is, and for another, they have less because they’re not testing and not reporting, according to Wikipedia at least. 
Something to consider with the use of ivermectin is the previously-considered theory that it may be that by fixing the worms, the person is strong enough to fight off COVID. Another is that intestinal parasites are for some reason protective against COVID. The protection of some disorder against another, more serious one, is very real. It’s why people with sickle cell disorder and hemochromatosis exist (among other ones). 
We just don’t know. It’s a new disease. 

Do we want to learn by jumping in headfirst, or by dipping our toes into the water. 
In areas where you are knowledgeable and the stakes are high, do you approach the situation with caution and planning, or just start in? Do you want the doctor treating you to read all the material before operating, or just what sounds good?
Wendy P. 

[kallend 2,026]

“Just since this summer, 150,000 unvaccinated Americans have needlessly lost their lives despite the widespread availability of vaccines,” Dr. Peter Hotez of the Baylor College of Medicine, in Houston, said yesterday.

 

"Good riddance"; me.

[kallend 2,026]

1 hour ago, billeisele said:

An interesting perspective - 

Pandemic Could Be Solved Quickly If Politics Thrown Out: Dr. Ben Carson

BY HARRY LEE AND JAN JEKIELEK 

December 16, 2021 Updated: December 16, 2021gersmaller 

 

“We’ve been having tunnel vision” dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Ben Carson told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program.

“Let’s throw the politics out. We could solve this problem pretty quickly,” he stated in an interview that will premiere on Dec. 18 at 7 p.m. New York time.

. . .  rubbish . . . etc . . . .

.

At least he didn't mention injecting Clorox.

[winsor 236]

40 minutes ago, wmw999 said:

The problem is the assumptions in that piece. It’s inaccurate to say there is no COVID in Western Africa. For one thing there is, and for another, they have less because they’re not testing and not reporting, according to Wikipedia at least. 
Something to consider with the use of ivermectin is the previously-considered theory that it may be that by fixing the worms, the person is strong enough to fight off COVID. Another is that intestinal parasites are for some reason protective against COVID. The protection of some disorder against another, more serious one, is very real. It’s why people with sickle cell disorder and hemochromatosis exist (among other ones). 
We just don’t know. It’s a new disease. 

Do we want to learn by jumping in headfirst, or by dipping our toes into the water. 
In areas where you are knowledgeable and the stakes are high, do you approach the situation with caution and planning, or just start in? Do you want the doctor treating you to read all the material before operating, or just what sounds good?
Wendy P. 

While I agree that the data support only limited efficacy for either Hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin, the fact is that they are over the counter medications in much of the world.  Taken in nontoxic doses, they are no big deal.  Bourbon or cigarettes are much more of a threat, and you can get them pretty much anywhere.

The bottom line is that, like chicken soup for the recently deceased, it can't hurt.

It concerns me that the guy who ran the show during the AIDS crisis is pushing vaccines as a 'solution' to the present pandemic.  While the rapid development of vaccines is admirable, there is little to suggest that sufficient vaccination will lead to herd immunity or otherwise end the pandemic.

Yes, I have some familiarity with the differences between HIV and SARS-CoV-2, but their commonality may provide a key to addressing some of the nasty effects of COVID-19.  Early HIV treatments were every bit as fun as chemotherapy, some (e.g., DDC) causing crippling headaches, projectile vomiting, ballistic diarrhea, permanent nerve damage and the like, but the approach that is now the norm involves protease inhibitors.

Pfizer's new 3CL protease inhibitor looks promising.  Ivermectin is capable of achieving the same level of effectiveness as a 3CL protease inhibitor, but only using toxic doses (at therapeutic doses it works by other mechanisms to some extent, when used in conjunction with other meds).

I do not suggest that there is anything out there that will put this whole thing to rest in short order, but am dismayed that people are blinded to anything but the orthodox.

If people want to categorize me as an antivaxxer, fine.  I go with vaccines as a matter of course, even though I am one of the people who had a breakthrough case of Polio (not fun) after receiving an early vaccine, as well as an active case of Smallpox after inoculation (I have Smallpox scars on my face).

None of this makes me an expert, but does support a certain level of healthy skepticism.

 

BSBD,

Winsor

[nwt 131]

2 hours ago, billeisele said:

“There are many things that have been very effective that we have not pursued, including natural immunity,” Carson said.

What’s this supposed to mean? If we were immune to this naturally, it never would have become a pandemic. 

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

16 minutes ago, nwt said:

What’s this supposed to mean? If we were immune to this naturally, it never would have become a pandemic. 

This is the same person who thinks the Egyptian pyramids were used as grain silos.

[gowlerk 2,190]

2 hours ago, billeisele said:

An interesting perspective - 

It is nothing but a whole lot of wishful thinking with nothing at all backing it up. It is so meaningless that I am not sure why I even read it. Just what are you trying to promote with this post?

[gowlerk 2,190]

1 hour ago, winsor said:

While I agree that the data support only limited efficacy for either Hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin, the fact is that they are over the counter medications in much of the world. 

The harm comes from making people think that they can rely on these instead of the proven vaccines.

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

Just now, gowlerk said:

It is nothing but a whole lot of wishful thinking with nothing at all backing it up. It is so meaningless that I am not sure why I even read it. Just what are you trying to promote with this post?

The same stuff he's been posting for the past couple weeks.

The same stuff the anti-science, anti-establishment folks have been pushing since the beginning.

 

As was noted, the places Ivermectin has shown to be effective are places where parasites are common.
So the reality that the Ivermectin is treating the parasites (duh) and that makes the person more healthy and robust, giving them a better chance of fighting off Covid doesn't seem to be registering.
Add in a bunch of 'wishful thinking' and projection.

That's why people are dying by the thousands.

[DougH 270]

1 hour ago, winsor said:

While I agree that the data support only limited efficacy for either Hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin, the fact is that they are over the counter medications in much of the world.  Taken in nontoxic doses, they are no big deal.  Bourbon or cigarettes are much more of a threat, and you can get them pretty much anywhere.

The bottom line is that, like chicken soup for the recently deceased, it can't hurt.

That is horseshit, a big pile of it too.

The problem is that these ineffective cures are being supported by fucktards to the exclusion of actual effective medical treatments that limit severe sickness and death. It does hurt when you support quack cures and refuse legit ones.

I personal believe scotch and cigars treats covid, because I like them, but that can't hurt anyone else in an acute sense because I also advocate for vaccines, and I am fully vaccinated and recently boosted.

Edited December 17, 2021 by DougH

[billvon 2,989]

4 hours ago, winsor said:

While I agree that the data support only limited efficacy for either Hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin, the fact is that they are over the counter medications in much of the world. 

If someone really feels the need to take something that doesn't work to make them feel like clever rebels fighting the orthodoxy, I suggest a mixture of ascorbic acid, ergocalciferol and cholecalciferol.  It sounds complex and intelligent, and it will do more good more often than ivermectin for COVID.  Unless, of course, you have worms - in which case ivermectin is a much better choice.

Quote

 I go with vaccines as a matter of course, even though I am one of the people who had a breakthrough case of Polio (not fun) after receiving an early vaccine

Heck, that's nothing.  One early polio vaccine killed 10 kids and paralyzed 200.  And they weren't very effective, as you discovered.

How odd that a vaccine that's not as effective as the current COVID vaccines, and that was far more dangerous, actually ended polio in the US.  And even odder that this vaccine, which is much more effective against a much more deadly disease, is so reviled by the right wing (not talking about you here.)