It started with a hack on Tuesday, then a runny nose, by Friday it turned into nausea, diarrhea, puke with the hack so bad my mid section muscles started getting strained and hurting terribly when I coughed. Saturday was all nausea and hacking and blowing my nose, Sunday I felt better, some nausea, some hacking and I took a home covid test, it was negative.
Went to CVS minute clinic today as the nausea and hacking will not stop. Covid and flu test negative there. Nurse said it was a random virus/.

My goodness, if random viruses are getting this bad, we are in a world of hurt.

It has nothing to do with Rogan being qualified though. If you just dismiss Rogan because he isn't qualified then it doesn't matter what he says about any vaccine. It matters because he has an impact, without that there would never be any point in making this type of comparison/video/etc.

I'm just saying that the different technologies used by 2 of the Covid vaccines doesn't justify Rogan's current vaccine stance. It has nothing to do with the vaccines themselves and everything to do with conspiratorial thinking and faux-intellectualism.

:(

I've been popping the 1-a-day multi-vitamin. The vitamin D is 125% of daily recommended. Like to think this has helped me.

Study Identifies Link Between Vitamin D Levels and COVID-19 Severity
Not conclusive but no harm in taking it.

Was just about to post that. Seems like a good habit to get into for those shut inside because of the cold.

I take a multi-vitamin and my wife gives me D3 so I'm probably overloaded on D. Maybe part of the reason I haven't gotten Covid yet (though will die from some D-related thing in the next decade...).

​
So, funny moment here (Funny ha-ha and Funny Uh-Oh)

As fo9lks know, my brother has been living in a hotel suite for the last week, because of his COVID diagnosis. He originally booked until today (the 9th), but needed to know if he was still contagious. (if he was barely contagious he could just hide in his room for a day after he checked out). So, he came home, and took one of the rapid COVID tests that the government provides. I'll let him describe.

"If you're still contagious, it's supposed to show red within 20 minutes or so. Within a minute, it was deep BRIGHT Red."

*So, he promptly had to turn around (after spraying everything down that he might have touched) and extend his stay at the suite for a couple more days at least. It was this in real life.

Grandpa Simpson walking in and out. - YouTube
*



​

you know what a rabbit hole is? The Herman Cain awards. they are everywhere!

Got an email that my Covid tests will be delivered by Monday.

I also got my email for delivery by Monday today

Just checked and no emails yet on delivery date. I signed up on the first day available.

It is understandable, but people seem to have this sense that ending COVID restrictions means that we will end COVID.

The reason things don't feel "back to normal" is because there is still a very serious virus out there disrupting things by making people sick.

Having governments go from "You don't have to wear a mask at Arby's, but it'd be cool if you did" to "We formally don't care if you wear a mask at Arby's" isn't going to normalize things as much as people subconsciously expect.

Restaurants, fast food, grocery chains, retail etc. is one thing. But going back into work vs remote will be a big thing. Right now my company is all remote but they will be asking folks to come back in with a modified schedule.

Also international travel. I've been monitoring travel restrictions. Western Europe has pretty much opened up to vaccinated just as long as you can show negative test before boarding. Asia is also doing this. The world is definitely opening up.

IMO, we are at the beginning of the new normal where masks are voluntary, acceptance of incremental deaths due to the virus etc. I do think the Biden admin is behind the curve here. Not going to ding them for being conservative now ... but they should lay the ground work for easing mask mandates in next month or two.

But all of this can come crumbling down again if there is a new variant that is deadlier.

I think governments, federal and state, are simply trying to manage tolerance levels at this point.

We told everyone "get vaccinated so we can get back to normal," and a bunch of people did - plus got a booster - and then we went back to masking when Omicron hit, but Omicron was different in that it spread easier but didn't hit as hard. Now, that wave has clearly crested and is on the downslope and there's just no more patience/tolerance for keeping the old restrictions up when so many people are vaccinated against a current strain that isn't as serious.

As that wave continues to recede, we will be in the new normal - until the next strain. But I think there's going to have to be some heavy evidence that "the next big one" is deadlier before most people will be OK with going back to Delta restrictions. We'll be farther down the path to vaccinations for children (although some of what I've seen suggests people aren't as willing to jump on that, so I think numbers will be low) and there's just going to be an acceptance that the largest portion of the people bearing the brunt of the virus are the unvaccinated, and that's their choice to be free from living. And yes, there will be collateral loss of life of vaccinated or those who can't be vaccinated for whatever reason, but that's unavoidable and we've done as much as we can to minimize that risk.

My big problem with both the imposition of mandates and the removal of mandates is the lack of metrics. Set a range of cases or hospitalizations or deaths or something measurable and then when those lines are met discuss with advisors what to do. Right now it looks like decisions at every level, pro and con, are made just because the right people are making a stink.

That's the other aspect of this. The people agitating are focusing on governments. But there was never a ton of government restrictions in this country. And what little there were pretty much went away after Spring 2020.

Most of what's out there that hasn't gotten back to "normal" is private businesses allowing remote work, etc. And they will do what is best for their customers/employees/bottom lines. And that may or may not be pretending that it is 2018 again.

My company has definitely loosened up on remote work. I was the only employee in the company allowed to work remote before Covid, and now we are implementing a "work from home" policy and considering it on a case-by-case basis. But honestly, I hope there is some measure of in-office attendance, even if not 100%. Downtown Louisville sucks right now - restaurants closed, none of the food trucks are here anymore, the place is semi-deserted. Having Humana employees back, for instance, would stimulate some activity and make things around here better.

The human psychology element of this is really complicated.

I manage a staff of traditionally in-office workers, who for the most part were capable of doing their jobs remotely, we learned in 2020. We did the full shutdown, then were back in the office for a while. Following our December 21 conference, I agreed we'd wait until a negative COVID test for everyone before bringing staff back in. During that week-after, Omicron swelled, and we have been working from home ever since.

The management challenge of calling employees back to their office is really hard. I miss the personal interaction, and my organization is way less of a "team" while we're on these Zoom room islands, etc. We are losing something, but it's hard to translate that to "you must be here every day" and I don't really even want to do that.

Clear safety is relatively easy. Clear productivity is relatively easy. Where we seem to be approaching, and may be some some time ahead, is some gray area where the arguments in either direction are rather diffuse and far less easy.

100% right there with you.

The head of our office has twice now planned to re-open. Once was right before Delta. And once was right before Omicron. So both plans were scrapped before they were implemented. We are now on a you-can-come-in-but-you-don't-have-to plan.

There is a real divide that we have noticed. The newer employees want to come in more, and the more experienced do not. That makes sense, I think, because a lot of what happens in person is informal mentoring, etc. There's a fair amount of learning/growth that happens with hallway conversations that just cannot be replicated over zoom.

And when some more experienced employees say that they are more productive at home, I think that they are 100% telling the truth. But we also have to consider that part of that increased productivity comes from not having those conversations where they are helping others in the office. So it might be more productive for them personally inasmuch as they can just focus on their stuff. But is it more productive for the office overall if means that newer employees are getting less support? Very hard questions to answer.

The management studies we have looked at have said that part-time teleworking maximizes value at either 1 or 2 days remote per week. Less than that, and people treat it as a day "off." More than that, and you lose the value of being in the office and/or people really resent their days in the office.

So, long term, I think that that is what we will shoot for. Allowing formal part-time telework at ~1-2 days per week.

But there's a lot of speculation in how this is all going to work out going forward.

This is exactly where I sit. I switched jobs about 6 months ago and no one on my team comes into the office. We have an incredibly large code base that is incredibly poorly documented, and due to the remote nature of things and the weird hours people are working (I suspect some are working multiple jobs), I have no one to ask about things. I'm frustrated enough that I'm about to re-open my job search.

This is exactly where I've come to find myself lately. Especially that 2nd paragraph and the overall feeling in the 3rd. Instead of a measurable "we must have this met, before we do that" metric, we need a much more top down view of it. I don't think it's measurable anymore. My job is quite unique in all this, but it's gotten much, much more complicated with Covid. There's no telecommuting, people are on edge, flight attendants are having a much harder time just doing their jobs with everyone's faces covered, communication in the airport is a problem, then there's the angry contingent who both want to ignore the rules, and flaunt that they are.

Top down means overall, big picture, and at some point we do need to stop testing, stop fussing and understand that the new reality is here. I'm ready to be done with Covid. Omicron is the variant that we've been waiting for. It's communicable enough that it will be very hard to tamp down, and it's so much less dangerous than Ver 1.0, that to me, it's reached a level where it's time to start pulling back on some of this stuff, like full time masking, testing and the such. I'm not sure if it's all just my exhaustion with it, or living in a very red state with fairly minimal restrictions, or the traveling, or just the larger understanding that we were always looking at a transition from pandemic to endemic. But I think we're there now. At least to start pulling the covers back and loosening things up. But the issue then becomes the group of people who want keep masking and such until it's gone, and that, to me, just isn't a responsible option. People can get vaxxed, they can get boosted, they have plenty of opportunities to protect themselves (unless they can't, but again, there's a limit to what society can do there) but if you choose not to do those things, there's not much in the way to stop you, and I just don't particularly care if you get sick at this point.

This should have been done from the start: Here are tangible metrics, here is what you have to do if test positivity rate/case levels/hospitalizations are here. Level 1 restrictions are this, level 2 restrictions are this, level 3 are this, etc. Once we get back below X%, restrictions ease to lower level. It even incentivizes people to take collective actions as they feel like they can contribute to going back to more normalcy. But we had the orange man-baby in charge and he wanted to deny it away so there was no competent strategy like this.

SI

I'm seeing this pop up a bit more recently, and I'm ashamed that it didn't occur to me earlier. Like at all.

The number of people who don't see any connection between the COVID "vaccine" and all the various kids' "shots" that have been effectively required for years and years is... well, embarrassingly high.

Didn't occur to me this would be a thing, but it's kinda a thing. As in the language used left a lot of people very open to persuasion that this whole "vaccine" concept was completely new. And nothing like the "shots" that they used to fully support, and eagerly got for their kids to safely avoid rubella and whatnot.


But now that they have embraced anti-vax conspiracy-laden mindsets, we are going to see red states move dangerously in the direction of abandoning basic and universal notions of prophylactic public health, and will start banning any kind of mandate or encouragement to vaccinate for all the things that we've been doing for decades.

Holy cow(pox).

I'd be a white hot ball of rage right now if I had a kid < 5 at home.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/11/healt...ing/index.html

This has been a thing for a few months. I believe TN and FL legislators, at least, have made noise about introducing legislation to eliminate all vaccine mandates. It appears to be solely due to the fact that their logic was called into question for being so anti-Covid vaccine given the routine vaccine requirements we've all had for decades, so the Trumpy thing to do is double-down and not admit the logical error, but make it go away by taking the consistent position that all vaccine mandates should be eliminated.

What mandates are they even talking about? Everything is open, the federal mandate was shot down by the courts, they control the states they are passing laws in.

School immunization requirements, like HPV, tetanus, hepatitis, etc. They want them abolished because, you know, they look silly arguing against Covid vaccine requirements when they and their kids have been getting immunized for decades.

Initial findings on how well boosters do between 2 to 4 months with small sample size. Hospitalization is a good gauge but would also like to know mortality rate. I really hope we can keep this to 1 booster a year.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/11/covi...udy-shows.html

The is just disheartening. I know a number of parents of kids this age and I know I've told anyone who had a kid at least 4 that I'd just lie if we were in that same situation and say the kid was 5.

SI

If you take out the crazies who want all school vaccines gone for a moment...

We're talking about a vaccine that:
- Is still very, very new in comparison to current required school vaccines .(I'm actually curious as I write this, what's the most "recently" developed vaccine that's the norm for schools? Need to dig.)
- Was understandably pushed through at breakneck speeds, so long term effects, particularly in children, are unknown.
- Was just recently even approved for children at all.
- Combats a virus that children overwhelmingly have mild symptoms from.
- Seems to have an ever-increasing number of boosters needed.

Yeah. I entirely get why there's gonna be major pushback against any attempt to require it in schools next fall.

Probably HPV, but it's only mandated in 3 states & DC, so doesn't 100% fit your criteria.

It's important to remember this. As tempting as it is to reduce people we don't agree with to trembling little masses of tin foil and conspiracy ranting, it is reasonable to expect officials to justify these actions.

Vaccination has always been about accepting a certain risk to obtain a certain benefit - the constant being the health of the child getting the shot.

So, when the risk of adverse effects caused by a disease exceeds the risk of side-effects from the vaccine, you pull the plunger.

With measles and some other contagious diseases, there's the added societal benefit, but the above equation still works out in favor of the children getting the shot.

With the COVID vaccines, maybe it doesn't. So maybe you're asking parents to accept an equation that may not work in favor of the children for an uncertain societal benefit (which may not exist since COVID mutates and people who are at risk can still get the virus from vaccinated people who are only mildly ill).

I think these parents have a good point, and ridiculing them will not work the way the media seems to think it will work. More importantly, ridicule seems to be the cover for burying your head in the sand and refusing to ask reasonable questions.

So now we get ridiculous responses like trying to keep masks on five-year-olds and blocking bridges, which seem to delight the politicians and delight the media on both sides, but isn't helping us come together as a people and address serious issues.

If every adult who could was vaccinated I doubt we'd even need to worry about vaccines for children.

Even if Covid has long term effects on children, is the incidence rate greater than other childhood illnesses or risks?

It's time to let those who wish to be exposed be exposed and live with their consequences. The rest of us have held up our end of the societal responsibility, we're done and our patience has run out.

And they have arrived :)

Is that true, though? If the virus didn't mutate, maybe. But lots of vaccinated people are getting COVID.

The key, though... they survive at a much, much greater rate.

I look at it differently. I don't want to die from COVID or get seriously ill. I know I will be exposed to it because it mutates and it's extremely contagious, like the common cold.

Therefore, I stop worrying about who might be carrying it and I focus on myself. I'm vaccinated and I really don't give a damn whether you are.

The problem with that is still there are many people who can't get vaccinated or can't build up immunity via the vaccination. People undergoing cancer treatment, people immunocompromised, the elderly etc...

Maybe that's just a reflection of society, fuck you I've got mine and I'm not going to die. But I would like to think that we'd think of the weaker members of society and when doctors and scientists tell us to get vaccinated and socially distance to protect ourselves lessen the spread and lessen the burden on hospitals, we'd be willing to do it for others sake.

why are people mad about this?

If vaccinated people were unable to catch or transmit COVID, different ballgame. Those percentages seemed vastly different before Omicron took over, now, not so much.

We know that there's natural immunity from having had it, but there are indications that natural immunity plus a shot is better. But how much better? And how does Omicron figure into this.

The answer is increasingly looking like an annual shot tailored to the strain or strains that are currently out there.

Those who are "burdening" hospitals by becoming severely ill because they didn't get vaccinated - that's a lesson they've learned that came at a greater cost to themselves than to the rest of us.

The only point I'm trying to make, and it's one you'll rarely find emanating from a politician or a journalist, is that this is still new and our scientists' knowledge of it changes daily and is often contradictory.

Time will help solve this, but absolutes and ridicule and general asshattery is unquestionably a bad approach. It's a nasty virus. We're all in this together. Only politicians benefit when we start hating each other.

Again, that's not really true though is it. It's certainly true for you, and maybe your family - but tell that to people who have had their surgery or even life saving cancer treatment put off. Hell, I got incredibly lucky I was able to get transferred to a specialist cancer hospital and even they were a couple of wards down because they'd had to convert them to deal with COVID.

The other thing I'll say is you say Omnicron changed everything, like there wasn't a giant swathe of society that wasn't willing to get vaccinated even when we were being told that being vaccinated could stop the spread and lead to the end of the pandemic. Yes, science is changing and the message is changing every day, but let's not be dishonest and say at any point the advice hasn't been getting this is the best thing for you, your family and others or isn't likely to be the advice in the future. Anything else is just intellectually dishonest.

Plenty of reasons. Here's a good one that has nothing to do with your stance on the vaccine:



Remains to be seen. We know COVID substantially increases risk of heart disease, impacts cognitive ability, and makes more likely a wide range of negative health effects, including Type 1 diabetes in children and, on the lighter side, hair loss.

Do you feel all of this will have no effect on society?


Meanwhile there are 3 vaccines with over 10 billion doses administered and a still pristine safety record. Someone not getting vaccinated by now is simply prioritizing their own personal belief system over both society as a whole and those who will be directly impacted by their likely utilization of the health care system. There's a word for this, and it's "selfish".

It's not just selfish, it's stupid. There's no logical reason not to get vaccinated..

We have a mountain of evidence that says it does. Do you have any evidence to support your stance?

You are correct. They don't care about your health. They don't care about the health of vulnerable people. Heck, they often don't care about their own family and friends.

But it goes beyond health. Think of the billions in tax dollars we have to continue to devote to unnecessary health care costs. Or the businesses (restaurants, entertainment, events) that have been decimated by this pandemic continuing. The psychological toll of missed weddings, school dances, funerals, and other social gatherings.

A generation of sociopaths who are getting precisely what they want out of the world.

This is specifically geared to the discussion of mandating the vaccine for children.

There's very little evidence the vaccine does much, if anything, to slow transmission of Covid, particularly for omicron. There is plenty of evidence vaccine DOES lessen symptoms for those infected. There is also plenty of evidence that children are by far the least impacted by Covid. Cases in children tend towards mild, much more than any other age group.

So if we're talking about a vaccine that mitigates symptoms, but does not prevent transmission, what's the point of mandating it on the least vulnerable age group?

For adults, the risk vs benefit has far more positives. For children, there's a lot more room for debate.

Vaccine effectiveness was 91% in children 5-11 years of age. In a study of children who were hospitalized, every single one who went on life support was unvaccinated. That alone should be enough to have a child vaccinated if you care about their health (which I understand is asking a lot in this country).

Every major study has shown transmission rates are lower among vaccinated. Not surprising as vaccinated people are shown to be infectious for shorter periods of time.

You said open for debate. If you'd like to post studies that show a risk in childhood vaccinations compared to remaining unvaccinated, please post them so that we can have that debate you are talking about.

This is not true. Not at all.

Good News: Full Vaccination Protects Against Omicron Hospitalization And Death
From the UK data set, triple vaccinated (i.e.vaccine + booster) gives 50% protection from omicron and 25% from unboosted.

Why are so few people in the Bay Area getting COVID booster shots?
In Cali, it is 95.6/100K (boosted) vs 229.5/100K (vaccinated) vs 712.7/100K (unvaccinated). So boosted cuts your rate of infection by 86%. Even vaccination cuts it by 2/3rds.

Vaccines are still more than 50% effective so that could be half or more of the population not transmitting omicron /at all/.

SARS-CoV-2 Omicron VOC Transmission in Danish Households | medRxiv
And, in a study of Danish households, when a family member did catch omicron, they were half as likely to transmit it to other family members if vaccinated.

This isn't some "it gives you a little protection". I feel like I've started hearing over the past month" "omicron makes vaccines worthless for transmission but it's for hospitalizations" which seems paired with this subtle subtext of "so make your personal decision about the vaccine because you have no societal responsibility here". I mean, look, we've seen massive failings on a societal level throughout this pandemic, but, well, it's often espoused by those who have been most vaccine, lets say, hesitant, throughout this whole thing - so it feels a bit disingenuous.

However, more importantly, in this case - it's just factually flat out wrong. Yes, it's not the 90-95% infection protection of the initial vaccine vs the initial variant. Though, of course, it is that for serious infection/hospitalization, but that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about transmissibility, right? It's still more than a 50% improvement on transmissibility, and even greater when you take a lower infection rate of those infected into account. On both an individual and societal level, those are huge numbers. So let's dispense with this narrative that vaccines are not a public health decision and only some fake personal responsibility thing. It's simply not true.

SI

I have been told about a rather deep dark rabbit hole called The Herman Cain awards...it is endless!

I have tried checking it out but Reddit just hurts my brain, it is too busy

there are groups on facebook

Woo hoo. We got our 2 test kits today.

Hopefully they'll stay unused in the medicine drawer.

Got my tests a couple weeks ago. Came in handy. My Dad mentioned he had a mild cold before our family went over for the Super Bowl. I got there early and tested him. Positive test! Got the hell out of there.

He's doing pretty well. Describes it as a cold and didn't even consider it could be Covid due to how mild it was. But without the test, about 5 people would have probably spent 4-5 hours in a room with him watching football.

Article with some nice stats and saying we need to do more for 65+.

(Atlantic article link messing up)


Proposing getting healthcare providers & insurers to do more.

I'm not sure I get why nursing homes vaccination rates are not closer to 100%. Possibly risk of lawsuits?


Bottom-line to me. At this stage with less deadlier omicron and most everyone that wants to get vaccinated & boosted are ... if there are 65+ who voluntarily choose not to get vaccinated & boosted, then I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. There will be some exceptions such as pre-existing conditions etc. and nursing home patients may not be able to make their own decisions though.

Don't remember us discussing it here but is another option for us to push the more traditional J&J vaccine?

There's many unvaccinated that say mRNA is new and cautious about long term effects. So maybe, at this current day with less deadlier omicron and more total population vaccinated, create a campaign to say "okay, don't like mRNA, take J&J. Not as effective but better than nothing".

J&J booster 85% effective against Omicron hospitalisation, South Africa says | Reuters

The people who are against mRNA are just anti-vax. They aren't taking the J&J either.

Does anyone know how long you have to quarantine for after a positive test once you feel better?

Yeah, that is the takeaway after talking to my non-vaxed brother. He was against the mRNA vaccines "for ethical reasons" but was "in favor" of the non-mRNA Novavax vaccine that hadn't been approved for use in Australia until just recently. When I told him that he could now get vaccinated since it was available here, he sidestepped the issue and went off on another tangent.

He isn't a strident anti-vaxxer per se but he sprouts a lot of sh!t that he gets from various sources. The most surprising part is that he has a doctorate in pharmacology but still subscribes to some of the lesser held views out there.

Didn't know about this. Going to try get one setup for me.

Access Denied
I guess Biden is not endorsing it is because he's worried about the political backlash. But he won't get the anti-vax vote anyway so why not?

I did not know this. It can't be a technology limitation, easy enough to consolidate individual state's database. Maybe not real time but batch it up every night. I don't understand why there is not a national database.




EDIT: well crap. It doesn't seem that Publix or State of GA use the SMART Health Card. I can understand GA but disappointed in Publix.

At some point last month the world passed the 10 billion vaccine shots threshold.

I fucking love my Excelsior pass in NY. It's so easy to have my vaccine info on my phone and available any time I need it.

I've never once used my vaccine card. I've taken it out of my wallet twice, once for #2 and once for the booster.

There are a lot of times I have had to use my pass when I'm in NYC.

This is Texas - I can't think of a single thing that I have used my card for.

SI

"The crazies" (by your definition) is not an insignificant percentage of the American public.

Pretty striking: Support for mandatory vaccines in K-12 schools — not specifically on covid-19, just in general — is underwater by 9 points. 37% in favor and 46% opposed pic.twitter.com/2CE8DHktLo

— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) February 16, 2022

Here's another variant on the watch list ...

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/17/healt...ity/index.html
It's here now.

But there is some good news ...

A side note from above article. Below made me think it must really suck to be a lab rat/hamster.

Some interesting stats from polls

COVID-19 Isn’t Going Anywhere — And Americans Know It | FiveThirtyEight
The wording is tricky. Prefer if it was worded as "no or greatly reduced". I would in the 29%, at least for next 3-4 months.

Vaccination to get on a plane is probably in the top 2 restrictions I lift last. The other being in a crowded indoor environment.

BA.2 is concerning for sure. Thank goodness I do not mean being away from people and wear a mask everywhere I go.

It's shocking to everyone here I'm sure, but Ivermectin doesn't work as a covid treatment.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...rticle/2789362

I know these stories are everywhere, each one still hurts.

My wife’s family is about to lose a loved one. In her late 80s, had been in a care facility due to a heart condition. Advised by her South Carolinian daughter and caretaker to NOT get vaccinated, and didn’t. Now she’s in late stage COVID and will die painfully from it soon.

It’s not malice by the daughter, it’s propaganda and she’s a victim/mark. I don’t even know how to feel. We weren’t too close but my wife has strong old memories of her great aunt, and is deeply saddened by the situation. Another life lost where the deniers will glibly point to an actuarial table and say her life lost this way for no reason meant nothing because she was 88.

Eat shit, you damned monsters.

:(

A mile or so from here, today, there was a troupe of political hangers-on - including Roger Stone, Eric Trump, Michael Flynn, the My Pillow guy, that doctor who claims she has cured thousands with hydroxychloroquine, something about devils... it's basically a greatest hits tour from the band of right-wing conpiracy theorists. Stone is quoted as saying the White House has become a "demonic portal." Sigh.

I don't know what to say... for someone to advise an elderly relative not to get vaccinated... that's bigger than politics. This has to stop. Both the conspiracy stuff and the cheering for the death count (whoever came up with the Herman Cain awards - that's truly low).

It seems like Ivermectin isn't what some hoped it was. The study in question mentions a specific trial of those sick who have comorbidities. But that's exactly the group we should be most interested in helping - the thought was Ivermectin could be a treatment for the sick, not a substitute for the vaccine - a concept most people seem to ignore. But now that we have a few more mature studies coming out, not looking like much of anything. Joe Rogan survived, as do most. But probably not because of anything he took.

FWIW, I'll assume the Duke study is more robust and all encompassing (different dosage levels, much larger population, and it's Duke). Odds are low IMO but I'm willing to wait another month for the study. Regardless, not much will come of it either way.

https://www.cbs17.com/community/heal...eworming-drug/

Great news for Africa. Do wonder about financial agreement with Pfizer/Moderna?

Six African countries to begin making mRNA vaccines as part of WHO scheme | Vaccines and immunisation | The Guardian
I've not read much about outbreaks in Africa. Unsure if it's MSM not reporting or if Covid doesn't have as big of an impact (relatively speaking).

and the horrible thing is her family will blame it on old age, the hospital, etc...and not get vaccinated.

We are such a society of "it can't happen to me."

Sorry, Q. That 100% fucking sucks.

Some people are misleading others into making horrible health decisions. Other people are warning about the consequences of making those horrible health decisions. Both sides are so bad I can't tell the difference!

Except they aren't just doing that. They're often overtly celebrating those consequences, and it's also quite common to see said consequences exaggerated as is reflected in the level of knowledge (or lack thereof) among the public.

I don't understand this part - what does this mean?

Yes, some people are mean on the internet. I spent like 2 minutes doing a search and found these posts.

Thanks for saving my daddy! He’d had covid then a heart attack from it but THIS sub convinced him with my harrassment. : HermanCainAward

I was on the fence about the vaccine until I found this sub, got my second shot today. You guys probably saved my life : HermanCainAward

Thank you for showing me the way, subreddit. I was opposed for a long time but you guys kicked some common sense in. : HermanCainAward

My extended family is all in the running based on their social media. This subreddit was what fully convinced me, after waffling back and forth. Officially out of the running. And so relieved, honestly. : HermanCainAward

The idea that ivermectin, an anti-parasitical medication, could achieve any anti-viral efficacy was a long shot at the start. Back before we had vaccines, I could understand the desire to try it out of desperation, and let's be honest, it's probably safer than injecting or drinking bleach.

But we now live in a world with 3 exceptionally safe & efficacious vaccines, one effective COVID-targeted anti-viral, and one very effective COVID-targeted anti-viral.

At this point, anyone advising anyone to do anything other than utilize these scientifically proven remedies for COVID is literally advising someone to take their very real chances with serious near and long-term health detrioration, up to and including an incredibly scary & painful death.

If we want to draw an equivalency between people doing this and the Herman Cain Awards, then fine, but I'll point out that that subreddit is not going out and advising people to take life-threatening risks.


Years ago I took my car in for routine maintenance. A couple of hours later my mechanic called to let me know that the sway bar on the vehicle had rusted through. He said it should be replaced, and if I didn't replace it, I should stay off highways or other high speed roads. Because I'm not a mechanic, I listened to him and replaced the sway bar. A few months later, on the interstate between Minneapolis & Madison, the semi in front of me blew a tire and started swerving all over the road. Several emergency maneuvers later, I managed to bring the car under control while avoiding the trailer (where the tire blew) and all the debris caused by the tire explosion.

"How about we stop all the bullshit and listen to the scientists" is, apparently, a radical notion for the 21st century.

To be clear, you think the Herman Cain awards are pushing the general public to get over-vaccinated & put too much trust in medicine, and you think that is a comparable threat to anti-vax misinformation?

No on both counts.

Then what reflections of the consequences of the Herman Cain awards are you talking about?

First off, we can all agree there are assholes on the internet. That aside my perception is people aren't celebrating the deaths on unvaxed, they are celebrating the deaths of the people pushing ant vax propaganda, usually for profit. To that I say fair game. Fuck those people, karma is a bitch and it came for them, and maybe their deaths will save some lives. IMO they got what they deserved.

It's always tricky when someone says "my perception is..." and connects it to a specific evil that may or may not have anything to do with the person in question.

It's a lot like the argument earlier that since Aaron Rodgers has some ill-informed beliefs that it's OK to accuse him of being in QAnon or having ties to white supremacist organizations. To be clear, I'm not saying you did that. I'm saying that's the level of public discussion these days. Just pick an extreme nearly everyone agrees is outside the lines of reasonable action and connect whatever it is you're arguing against to that extreme. When people do that, it's not OK. And it's not OK to say Herman Cain got what he deserved.

Let's try to quantify this, since it seems like some equivalence is being drawn here. If 20 is "high", 10 is "neutral", and 0 is "low":

Spreading conspiracy theory stuff = what number?
Posting a Herman Cain award = what number?

Because it sounds an awful lot like "spreading conspiracy theory" = low (5?), "Herman Cain Award" = truly low (0).

Whereas, I'd be like
"posting someone and 'celebrating' Herman Cain Award" = 5, in poor taste
"spreading disinformation that can actually kill a person" = 0 or 1, I mean, you could actively /kill people/

SI

Well, maybe your post is a 15 and mine is a 37. Or vice versa. With today's social media, the scores you assign are whatever makes you feel good.

And speaking of disinformation. What's with all the masking? Still, people are forced to wear masks - cloth is just fine - when cloth masks don't help. Doesn't that kill people, in that they think they can't catch or spread COVID because they're wearing a mask?

It's great to assign scores. There are real scores somewhere - levels of disinformation, intent, harm. But how do we honestly and fairly determine them?

As you say, it sounds an awful lot like you are a good person and I'm clearly not.

Saying cloth masks don't help with the spread of the virus is like saying that trees in the fairway won't keep the ball from going in the cup when I hit it.

Just because you can still catch and transmit the virus with masks on doesn't mean that it's not an effective part of an overall plan to help limit transmission.

I'm not masking now unless I'm required to, and I think it's time to roll things back and transition to the next stage, but there's a difference between saying masks don't help and recognizing why they were encouraged and mandated. There's a lot of in between in the understanding between "they don't help" and "wearing them makes me bulletproof from it".

I think recognizing and understanding all that, by everyone regardless of your opinions, helps us all get to the end faster.

I guess I'll quote you quoting me: it sounds an awful lot like you made a ridiculous false equivalence trying to "both sides" this and haven't liked it being pointed out by a number of different people. But, hey, it makes those other people aloof assholes for pointing it out and you a reasonable impartial observer victim.

SI

I agree (trying to put a number on it) maybe 50%. Nuance is absent in at least 98.5% of social media postings. What I'm getting at with the masks is exactly that the mandates give people the impression that cloth masks offer a protection that can trump other common sense behavior (like don't go out when you're sick). Which can cause far more harm in the long run. Obviously, the ball won't go in the cup when you stay home and miss your tee time.

You can also make yourself quite sick worrying about other people's mask behavior (some prefer under the nose, some prefer them dangling from one ear, some think they get protection by carrying a mask in their purses or wallets).

I wonder if the mask skeptics cover their mouth when they cough generally, or wash their hands after they use the bathroom.

There's no guarantees, but certain circumstances call for hygienic practices.

Every time one of those people die, I feel the world getting a little healthier, a little smarter.

They've taken so much from us.

And they're the ones that have chosen to suffocate to death at a hospital to own the libs. I wanted then to get a vaccine and be healthy. I wanted them to happily live decades longer, and protect those around them, and not clog up the hospitals. If someone chooses death just to spite people who wish them well, they don't deserve our grief, they deserve our mockery

It sounds an awful lot like you simply didn't like how I feel about celebrating Herman Cain's death. I made no equivalences - I only added it to the narrative of things that divide rather than unite.

You are constructing the ridiculous straw man of equivalence for burning.

You are the one who divined that I meant that the two somehow cancel each other out. I don't know why you made that assumption, but hey, might as well turn that into a cry of righteousness.

Both behaviors are wrong, for different reasons and by differing degrees of harm and intent.

You literally said


Then I asked if you wanted to try to clarify/quantify that and offered my own perspective to show where I was coming from. And you were like "lolz, internet points".

SI

The mandating of seat belts did not stop some people from driving in a way not consistent with common sense behavior, but still led to an overall decline in traffic fatalities.

In the sense, the Herman Cain Awards are on par with something like this: Public Service Announcement for Seatbelts - YouTube

What I said was "It's great to assign scores. There are real scores somewhere - levels of disinformation, intent, harm. But how do we honestly and fairly determine them?"

I'm sorry that didn't count as a serious response to your question. I'll take that as another example of how divided we are as a country. Even people who generally agree on a subject, but want to add nuance to the discussion, are quickly added to the pyre.

This is a load of steaming horse dung.

What is dividing us is people spreading misinformation about the vaccine, treatments, mask wearing, etc...a minority of anti science morons keeping this pandemic alive while also yelling "lets go Brandon" because he hasn't ended Covid. People yelling at kids outside schools wearing masks. Idiot truckers clogging up major arteries between nations. Joe Rogan giving credibility to quacks, lawmakers profiting from promoting unproven or flat out rejected treatments.

Pointing out someone who spread all these myths at the detriment to themselves and others, usually for profit, is only divisive if you're one of these idiots. For everyone else it is a public service that may save lives.

Come on Jim, you must know by now not to argue with the uber-enlightened is not the done thing

I don't think the Herman Cain stuff is unique. Society has celebrated the death of those who cause death or intend to cause death on others. There's a thread here celebrating the death of Bin Laden. When a suicide bomber blows themself up, we laugh at them and call it karmic justice.

Cain is unique in that he was someone with serious health issues. He gave up his life to show fealty to a man who would not piss on him if he was on fire. By all accounts he had a large family who loved him dearly. How do you describe a man who put some Twitter likes ahead of his own family's mental anguish?

There was also the weird aspect where his team was tweeting under his name about how Covid was hoax while he was hooked up to a ventilator slowly dying. Those actions made him the perfect symbol for the spiraling death cult.

I can see how it comes across as cruel. I feel for his family and wish he had cared more about them. But I don't think it is unnatural for people to point out the absurdity of it all.

I had managed to forget that part. Absurd.

I don't really give a flip about "people pushing anti vax propaganda, (deleted) for profit" (e.g. politicians, talk show hosts). However, there are plenty deaths made fun of in reddit r/hermancainaward that are just regular folks that are ignorant, deceived etc. Those IMO are in bad taste.