COVID-19: People on the internet are judging me for going outside. It used to be the reverse.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > COVID-19: People on the internet are judging me for going outside. It used to be the reverse.

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Which horse film is your favorite? This poll is closed.
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Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

Sub Rosa posted:

We should ban sugar water and candy though

nomad2020 posted:

Unironically agree, also require cardio.

# ? May 5, 2023 17:41

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# ? May 23, 2024 06:01

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

Kidding aside though if somebody took away my candy and cigarettes I'd actually die a lot faster, by my own hand

# ? May 5, 2023 17:42

spankmeister: Jun 15, 2008

Might as well ban alcohol too then.

# ? May 5, 2023 17:44

Edward Mass: Sep 14, 2011; 𝅘𝅥𝅮 I wanna go home with the armadillo
Good country music from Amarillo and Abilene
Friendliest people and the prettiest women you've ever seen𝅘𝅥𝅮

Riptor posted:

To be clear, no they did not:

Here's the thing, though:

Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO�s Health Emergencies Programme posted:

In most cases, pandemics truly end when the next pandemic begins. I know that�s a terrible thought but that is the history of pandemics.

At SOME point, we'll reach Zero COVID. By that time, though, something else will probably cause us to mask up.

Edward Mass fucked around with this message at 20:47 on May 5, 2023

# ? May 5, 2023 20:42

spankmeister: Jun 15, 2008

Edward Mass posted:

Here's the thing, though:

At SOME point, we'll reach Zero COVID. By that time, though, something else will probably cause us to mask up.

Why? Why would we ever reach zero covid? And how do you define zero covid? Zero infections or zero cases of disease?

# ? May 5, 2023 20:47

Oracle: Oct 9, 2004

spankmeister posted:

Why? Why would we ever reach zero covid? And how do you define zero covid? Zero infections or zero cases of disease?

Zero acknowledgement with accompanying zero testing or wastewater monitoring or any other way of proving its circulating.

# ? May 5, 2023 20:50

Phlag: Nov 2, 2000; We make a special trip just for you, same low price.

Mellow Seas posted:

We are never, ever, ever going back to 2020-21 death rates. Maybe from something else in the future but not from Covid-19.

quote:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/05/05/covid-forecast-next-two-years/:
The White House recently received a sobering warning about the potential for the coronavirus to come roaring back, with experts reaching a consensus that there�s a roughly 20 percent chance during the next two years of an outbreak rivaling the onslaught of illness inflicted by the omicron variant.

A forecast from one widely regarded scientist pegged the risk at a more alarming level, suggesting a 40 percent chance of an omicron-like wave.

White House officials spoke with about a dozen leading experts in virology, immunobiology and other fields about the prospect that the virus would again develop mutations that allow it to evade protections from vaccines and treatments. Those discussions, not previously reported, came as the administration planned for the May 11 end of the public health emergency that was declared at the dawn of the pandemic.

Some experts based their conclusions on existing research and at least one, computational biologist Trevor Bedford of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, conducted new statistical analysis about the potential for a covid wave.

�No one�s saying it�s zero. No one�s saying it�s 80 percent,� said Dan Barouch, an immunologist and virologist at Harvard Medical School, who spoke with the White House. �It�s more than an infinitesimal chance � and it is by no means a certainty.�

The experts� analysis was shared in a report among Biden administration leaders this spring, as they weighed how to wind down their coronavirus response team and set up initiatives intended to provide longer-term pandemic protections. Several of those initiatives � including a next-generation vaccine program and a program to cover coronavirus vaccines and covid treatments for the uninsured � are at risk as Republicans seek to claw back unspent coronavirus funds as part of ongoing debt ceiling talks in Congress.

The White House declined to comment about the experts� analysis.

�The Administration has conversations with a broad range of experts, both inside and outside of government, on a number of issues,� a White House spokesperson said in an email.

Senior officials have publicly emphasized the need to implement more public health protections to guard against the next viral threat, even as political will and funding fades along with the threat from the coronavirus.

�One of my biggest worries is that we are losing time in preparing for the next pandemic,� Dawn O�Connell, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services, told a Senate committee Thursday.

Rochelle Walensky, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director who announced Friday that she was stepping down, also warned the Senate panel that her agency still faces challenges such as limitations on collecting data from hospitals and local health departments about potential outbreaks.

�We can�t act swiftly, nimbly, robustly if we can�t see what is happening from a data standpoint,� Walensky said.

The World Health Organization on Friday declared the pandemic is no longer a global health emergency, but WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus cautioned that the announcement �does not mean that covid-19 is over as a global health threat.�

Confirmed covid cases and deaths have plunged in recent months, with public health experts crediting the immunity conferred by vaccines and prior infections for curbing the virus�s risks.

Fewer than 80,000 confirmed coronavirus cases were reported across the United States last week � the lowest figure since March 2020. But the true rate of infections is almost certainly far higher than the reported numbers, with many Americans testing at home, if at all, and opting not to report their results.

The potential for large indoor gatherings to fuel coronavirus infections remains high, as illustrated by about three dozen cases linked to a CDC conference last week. The virus remains on pace to be one of the top 10 causes of death this year, with fatalities concentrated among older and immunocompromised individuals.

�What most people don�t understand � this virus isn�t going away,� said Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, who also spoke with the White House about its covid projections.

Most of the infections in the United States since December 2021 have been caused by omicron and its subvariants, raising the prospect that a new strain of the virus � with a set of novel mutations � could surprise immune systems conditioned to fight omicron.

�This could happen if one immunocompromised person� incubates the virus, accelerates its evolution and spreads the new variant to others, Topol said. �Whether it would be more pathogenic, more virulent � [or] cause more serious disease remains to be seen. But it could just lead to more transmission.�

Bedford said he believes there is about a �40% chance of an Omicron-like event between today and May 2025,� he wrote in an email to The Washington Post this week, citing the analysis he shared with the White House and the logic that there had been one omicron-level event so far during the pandemic, which began in early 2020.

While that projection may seem high, Bedford added, �I don�t see an obvious reason� for why an omicron-like event is much less likely now than in the first two years of the pandemic. Like Topol, he pointed to what is known as the emergence of a cryptic lineage. That happens when a person harbors variants of the virus that diverge from what is widely circulating. If those new variants are transmitted, they can ignite a broader wave of illness.

�We have continued detection of �cryptic lineages� in wastewater surveillance, suggesting that it�s not uncommon to have run-away evolution of a persistent infection within a single individual,� Bedford wrote, cautioning that much is unknown about these variants, including the identities of the individuals harboring the viruses, their symptoms and whether the variants are transmissible. But the existence of these cryptic lineages raises concerns, Bedford added. �This single-individual scenario is still my best explanation for the emergence of Omicron in late 2021.�

Barouch said even if a variant emerges that evades protections intended to counter omicron, it could still be stymied by the immune system�s T-cells � white blood cells that help fight infections, and which Barouch credited as �the unsung heroes of the pandemic.�

�While the variants escaped antibody responses, so far none of the variants � escaped T-cell response,� Barouch said. �If a new variant emerges and also escapes from T-cell responses, then we will be more back at square one.�

In the short-term, the White House coronavirus response is facing a bigger threat than a theoretical virus variant: Washington budget talks.

The GOP-led House last week passed debt ceiling legislation that would rescind unspent funding set aside for the coronavirus response � a total that some estimate is more than $50 billion.

�Billions of dollars sitting out there [for] covid, never spent, just sitting there. We claw that back so the American taxpayer can save the money,� House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said on Fox News last week.

House Democrats counter that the remaining coronavirus funds are necessary to prepare for future pandemics and to fortify the nation�s public health system.

For instance, rescinding the $5 billion set aside for the next-generation vaccine program �would eliminate advanced research and development of vaccines and therapeutics to combat future Covid variants, including intranasal vaccines that could prevent new respiratory infections and �universal� vaccines that could provide protection against all coronaviruses,� Democrats warned in a fact sheet last month.

Marc Goldwein, senior vice president at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog, said he supported efforts to reclaim some of that money for other purposes.

�If there is any money the Administration actually needs but hasn�t obligated � for example to make sure we have good COVID vaccines � the burden is on them at this point to explain why that money shouldn�t be rescinded,� Goldwein wrote in an email.

The Biden administration, through a health agency known as the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, has begun seeking industry partners for its next-generation coronavirus vaccines and treatments initiative. Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and former coronavirus testing coordinator for the Biden administration, argued that longer-lasting, more protective vaccines are needed to blunt future virus surges.

�Rescinding money for COVID response would be a mistake,� Inglesby wrote in a text message. �The country is in such a different, better place now on COVID, but this disease is not gone � there are still 150 Americans dying of COVID every day.�

Bedford, the computational biologist, said he understood why the WHO and the United States were ending their public health emergencies but added that the world is entering a stage of the covid response that will pose new challenges.

�Even if the pandemic is over, endemic covid is still going to be a major public health concern,� he said.

# ? May 5, 2023 20:52

Edward Mass: Sep 14, 2011; 𝅘𝅥𝅮 I wanna go home with the armadillo
Good country music from Amarillo and Abilene
Friendliest people and the prettiest women you've ever seen𝅘𝅥𝅮

spankmeister posted:

Why? Why would we ever reach zero covid? And how do you define zero covid? Zero infections or zero cases of disease?

In this case, I define Zero COVID as zero cases of COVID-19 that result in hospitalization. I guess I should've specified that I do not expect Zero COVID to happen any time soon, given the behavior of SARS-CoV-2, and that my remark was an attempt at gallows humor.

# ? May 5, 2023 20:55

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

Phlag posted:

quote:
The White House recently received a sobering warning about the potential for the coronavirus to come roaring back, with experts reaching a consensus that there�s a roughly 20 percent chance during the next two years of an outbreak rivaling the onslaught of illness inflicted by the omicron variant.

That's certainly sobering, but it doesn't really contradict what I said because the deaths from the Omicron wave were in the winter of 2022 and were significantly lower than deaths the winter before (and barely higher than the pre-vaccine Delta summer '21 wave that preceded it).

I'm not exactly sure what they mean by "omicron-like event," anyway. I assume they mean "near-ubiquitous infection of the entire population in a matter of weeks," and that's bad, but if (like the first Omicron wave) it doesn't increase (or decreases) CFR, it's something we can handle. During the Omicron wave infections went up >10x, but deaths only went up 2x.

So yeah, sticking by what I said. But it's certainly a worrying possibility anyway. Things don't have to be "a million dead in two years" bad to be "really bad."

# ? May 5, 2023 21:13

Phlag: Nov 2, 2000; We make a special trip just for you, same low price.

edit: Eh, forget it. I don't feel like arguing on the Internet today

Phlag fucked around with this message at 22:09 on May 5, 2023

# ? May 5, 2023 22:04

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

e: you know yeah nah it's cool have a good weekend Phlag

Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 22:14 on May 5, 2023

# ? May 5, 2023 22:10

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy

Phlag posted:

edit: Eh, forget it. I don't feel like arguing on the Internet today

Mellow Seas posted:

e: you know yeah nah it's cool have a good weekend Phlag

Pathetic, both of you. No one wants to debate anymore!

# ? May 6, 2023 00:50

cant cook creole bream: Aug 15, 2011; I think Fahrenheit is better for weather

Thorn Wishes Talon posted:

Pathetic, both of you. No one wants to debate anymore!

I wont argue against that.

# ? May 6, 2023 01:33

Charlz Guybon: Nov 16, 2010

Doesn't look finished to me

https://twitter.com/fibke/status/1654819772305899523?t=Fmsa_aby1lHJzEGDKUGPog&s=19

# ? May 6, 2023 14:17

spankmeister: Jun 15, 2008

WHO isn't saying the pandemic is over though?

# ? May 6, 2023 15:49

Precambrian Video Games: Aug 19, 2002

spankmeister posted:

WHO isn't saying the pandemic is over though?

... and yet:

https://twitter.com/AP/status/1654479375926976515

# ? May 6, 2023 16:33

spankmeister: Jun 15, 2008

eXXon posted:

... and yet:

https://twitter.com/AP/status/1654479375926976515

Ok so the media is saying the pandemic is over.

# ? May 6, 2023 16:54

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

Well, it�s an emergency in some places. Right now South Asia and Africa. But I think it�s reasonable to say it�s not a global emergency.

I mean �over,� �emergency,� these are just words, it�s the WHO�s actions that matter, and I don�t know what actually changes with the semantic shift.

E: from the linked article:

AP posted:

More than three years later, the virus has caused an estimated 764 million cases globally and about 5 billion people have received at least one dose of vaccine.

5 billion people. No, it has not been fully regionally equitable, and it�s too bad that it only really protects against severe illness and not infection - so we can�t eradicate the disease - but still, what an accomplishment. Despite all its stupidity, our civilization can accomplish some amazing things when people give a poo poo about people besides themselves.

Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 17:05 on May 6, 2023

# ? May 6, 2023 16:55

Thorn Wishes Talon: Oct 18, 2014; by Fluffdaddy

In terms of the USA, what the WHO says and doesn't say matter very little (if at all). Hell, it's doubtful that any single organization or agency, domestic or otherwise, is still capable of resulting in significant shifts in behaviors and attitudes.

Once vaccines became widely available, Americans by and large stopped treating the pandemic as an emergency, and once it became milder and less deadly, they stopped taking it seriously. Covid deaths today are regarded as a normal occurrence just like deaths from most other causes. We can argue all day and all night about whether that is justified, and what types of individual behaviors and government policies are rational, but let's face it: it won't change a thing.

# ? May 6, 2023 18:33

Charles 2 of Spain: Nov 7, 2017

Mellow Seas posted:

No, it has not been fully regionally equitable

Bit of an understatement here.

# ? May 7, 2023 01:55

Electric Wrigglies: Feb 6, 2015

Charles 2 of Spain posted:

Bit of an understatement here.

Sure but at the same time, I was able to get Astra Zeneca about a month or so after the UK in regional Burkina Faso, from a clinic with WHO doses. I thought was well remarkable.

The most inequitable thing was how much Africa was locked down from travelling relative to other nations with much worse outbreaks (looking at you the US). You could fly to EU from the US without too many hoops with a case rate multiples of Cote D'Iovire for instance but it was Cote D'Ivoire that was locked out, not the US.

Same thing happened with Ebola though. Ol' fear driving policy rather than cold analysis.

# ? May 8, 2023 13:13

I AM GRANDO: Aug 20, 2006

This isn�t covid-related, but should I be concerned about this?

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-reports-case-atypical-mad-cow-disease-2023-05-19/

quote:

CHICAGO, May 19 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced on Friday an atypical case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), commonly called mad cow disease, in an older beef cow at a slaughter plant in South Carolina.

USDA said the animal never entered slaughter channels and the agency did not expect any trade impacts as a result.

It was the seventh detection of BSE in the United States since 2003 and all but one have been atypical.

"This finding of an atypical case will not change the negligible risk status of the United States and should not lead to any trade issues," USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said in a statement.

I�m not particularly comforted by the usda�s confidence in safety procedure, given the rough operation of our supposedly robust public health apparatus in 2019-2020 and beyond. Does anyone in this thread have the expertise to weigh in on the notability of this incident?

I remember when I was a kid the UK had a mad cow outbreak and I don�t remember any humans coming down with spongiform encephalopathy.

# ? May 22, 2023 02:55

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

I AM GRANDO posted:

This isn�t covid-related, but should I be concerned about this?

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-reports-case-atypical-mad-cow-disease-2023-05-19/

I�m not particularly comforted by the usda�s confidence in safety procedure, given the rough operation of our supposedly robust public health apparatus in 2019-2020 and beyond. Does anyone in this thread have the expertise to weigh in on the notability of this incident?

I remember when I was a kid the UK had a mad cow outbreak and I don�t remember any humans coming down with spongiform encephalopathy.

It's not a specific point of concern. iirc the practices that allow for widespread contagion (feeding dead cows to other cows) are already banned.

# ? May 22, 2023 03:29

Platystemon: Feb 13, 2012; BREADS

I AM GRANDO posted:

This isn�t covid-related, but should I be concerned about this?

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-reports-case-atypical-mad-cow-disease-2023-05-19/

I�m not particularly comforted by the usda�s confidence in safety procedure, given the rough operation of our supposedly robust public health apparatus in 2019-2020 and beyond. Does anyone in this thread have the expertise to weigh in on the notability of this incident?

I remember when I was a kid the UK had a mad cow outbreak and I don�t remember any humans coming down with spongiform encephalopathy.

We shouldn�t take cows unable to stand and slaughter them and put the meat on the market and feed the scraps to other cows, but even though Britain did do that, Variant Creutzfeldt�Jakob disease has only killed like two hundred and fifty people worldwide to date.

It is extremely far down my list of concerns.

# ? May 22, 2023 21:04

Platystemon: Feb 13, 2012; BREADS

In-N-Out bans employees from wearing masks

This is bad policy, and it ought to be opposed by elected and appointed officials.

Laws in California and Oregon already prohibit the practice (with sunset provisions), which is why those states are not included in the memorandum.

# ? Jul 18, 2023 11:48

enki42: Jun 11, 2001; #ATMLIVESMATTER

Put this Nazi-lover on ignore immediately!

It's just a baffingly bad move. Maybe things are different in the US, but up here things have settled into a equilibrium where some people (a very, very small group of people) wear masks, everyone else doesn't, but no one really says anything to anyone one way or another - mask wearing is no longer viewed as a political statement and people probably assume that someone with a mask is immunocompromised or has COVID or something like that, and doesn't really bother them.

Why would you want to poke the bee's nest by making a rule like this when odds are the vast majority of customers don't care one way or another if the person handing them a hamburger has a mask on? It's like a press release saying "Remember how irrationally angry you got about COVID stuff? Let's try that again!"

# ? Jul 18, 2023 13:50

DeathChicken: Jul 9, 2012; Nonsense. I have not yet begun to defile myself.

It's definitely different in the US. In our two party political system, one side has no policy besides Irrational Anger and flooding their constituents with culture war bullshit, especially regarding wearing masks

DeathChicken fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Jul 18, 2023

# ? Jul 18, 2023 14:32

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

enki42 posted:

It's just a baffingly bad move. Maybe things are different in the US, but up here things have settled into a equilibrium where some people (a very, very small group of people) wear masks, everyone else doesn't, but no one really says anything to anyone one way or another - mask wearing is no longer viewed as a political statement and people probably assume that someone with a mask is immunocompromised or has COVID or something like that, and doesn't really bother them.

Why would you want to poke the bee's nest by making a rule like this when odds are the vast majority of customers don't care one way or another if the person handing them a hamburger has a mask on? It's like a press release saying "Remember how irrationally angry you got about COVID stuff? Let's try that again!"

A lot of executives overseeing customer service businesses feel that the customer does care whether they can see the employee's corporate-mandated smiling face, even if the customer thinks they don't care. A lot of effort goes into carefully curating the general appearance of chain restaurants - including the appearance of staff - to provide an atmosphere and impression they believe will appeal to customers. Masking can also impact clarity of communication, which is important both behind the counter and across the counter.

# ? Jul 18, 2023 14:55

I AM GRANDO: Aug 20, 2006

Will there be boosters this fall? It�s been almost a year since my last one.

# ? Jul 18, 2023 15:16

Oracle: Oct 9, 2004

I AM GRANDO posted:

Will there be boosters this fall? It�s been almost a year since my last one.

Yes they�re doing XBB only boosters instead of bivalent but likely not for you if Offitt gets his way (or you�re in Britain)

CNN

quote:

Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine scientist and professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Children�s Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the advisory committee, emphasized before the meeting that it�s important to discuss who needs an updated vaccine this fall.

�What�s the goal of the vaccine?� he asked. �If the goal of the vaccine is the stated goal, which is protection against severe disease, do you really need a yearly vaccine for otherwise healthy people less than 75? I mean, is this the flu model? Because I would argue it shouldn�t be.�

# ? Jul 18, 2023 15:40

killer_robot: Aug 26, 2006; Grimey Drawer

Main Paineframe posted:

A lot of executives overseeing customer service businesses feel that the customer does care whether they can see the employee's corporate-mandated smiling face, even if the customer thinks they don't care. A lot of effort goes into carefully curating the general appearance of chain restaurants - including the appearance of staff - to provide an atmosphere and impression they believe will appeal to customers. Masking can also impact clarity of communication, which is important both behind the counter and across the counter.

LOL. I worked at the Kalahari Resorts. A singular guest complained that they thought a front desk agent was mouthing off to them behind the mask the first week we opened after our 3 month closure in 2020. Masks where forever banned at the front desk from that point forward. If you insisted on wearing a mask, they provided some flimsy transparent plastic contraption that did absolutely nothing to prevent air transfer - no fit to the face at all and it had ventilation holes.

# ? Jul 18, 2023 21:17

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

This month we reached zero excess deaths over what would be expected without the pandemic.

NYT posted:

Excess deaths, as this number is known, has been an important measure of Covid�s true toll because it does not depend on the murky attribution of deaths to a specific cause. Even if Covid is being underdiagnosed, the excess-deaths statistic can capture its effects. The statistic also captures Covid�s indirect effects, like the surge of vehicle crashes, gun deaths and deaths from missed medical treatments during the pandemic.

During Covid�s worst phases, the total number of Americans dying each day was more than 30 percent higher than normal, a shocking increase. For long stretches of the past three years, the excess was above 10 percent. But during the past few months, excess deaths have fallen almost to zero, according to three different measures.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/17/briefing/covid.html

Deaths have been under 200/day since the spring and are currently well under 100 per day. It seems that vaccines, natural immunity, and better treatments (and the million plus vulnerable already dead) has put us in a prolonged period of low death counts.

We have touched down at zero excess deaths before, in the springs of 2021 and 2022, so things can always get worse, but this is the longest stretch of good numbers we�ve had since the start of the pandemic.

# ? Jul 18, 2023 21:47

Platystemon: Feb 13, 2012; BREADS

Oracle posted:

not for you if Offitt gets his way

Offit has tried this bullshit before, repeatedly, and it�s not even the first time that he�s said some variation of �all the other panelists are just out of frame, nodding along with me�.

I don�t think that he�ll get his way, but we�ll have to wait and see.

Oracle posted:

(or you�re in Britain)

Yeah as we discussed in January, British vaccine policy is deeply unwell.

My personal favorite example is that the shingles vaccine is only offered to people older than seventy years of age, because below that ostensibly the cost:benefit just isn�t there, but it�s also not offered to people over eighty years of age, because their immune systems are alleged to be so feeble that it wouldn�t do them any good anyway.

Oh, and they don�t vaccinate children against chickenpox.

:britain:

# ? Jul 18, 2023 21:48

Platystemon: Feb 13, 2012; BREADS

Mellow Seas posted:

This month we reached zero excess deaths over what would be expected without the pandemic.

Leonhardt makes this claim based on a model from The Economist, which warns against the exact conclusion he has drawn.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/05/23/our-model-suggests-that-global-deaths-remain-5-above-pre-covid-forecasts posted:

Because data on total mortality is scant outside the rich world, our model�s estimates have become less precise over time. Its confidence interval for the world�s current excess-death rate stretches from near zero all the way up to the estimated levels of mid-2020.

There�s also the small wrinkle that it has had no new COVID death input since May.

As they say in data science: garbage in, garbage out.

# ? Jul 18, 2023 21:51

Electric Wrigglies: Feb 6, 2015

eh, at least for me, Malaria has killed more of my workmates than Covid both this year and last, 2021 not. On the positive, now that the covid fear has relented, they are getting back to work on the vaccine for Malaria (a disease killing a few hundred thousand children under five every year for a very long time). Predicting >60% efficacy so hopefully that bares out.

# ? Jul 18, 2023 23:17

Goatse James Bond: Mar 28, 2010; If you see me posting please remind me that I have Charlie Work in the reports forum to do instead

whoops didn't realize that post was so old my bad

Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Jul 19, 2023

# ? Jul 19, 2023 00:58

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Would there be interest in my returning to the antivaxx bookshelf concept for, perhaps, something from our next President of the United States, Robert F Kennedy Jr?

# ? Jul 19, 2023 01:10

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Discendo Vox posted:

Would there be interest in my returning to the antivaxx bookshelf concept for, perhaps, something from our next President of the United States, Robert F Kennedy Jr?

Consider me interested if no one else, those were some great write-ups.

# ? Jul 19, 2023 01:19

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

I'll head things up by reposting an article from last year about RFK Jr.:

NYT has a profile of Robert Kennedy Jr (one of the US antivaxx movement leaders) up today. Some major bulletpoints:

He's also into 5G conspiracy theories and believes his father's assassination was some sort of coverup.
He's banned from Instragram, but has >300,000 Facebook followers and >405,000 Twitter followers.
He told NYT that he was drawn into this issue when the mother of a child with autism brought stacks of studies purporting to show a link between vaccines and the condition to his Cape Cod home and stayed there until he reviewed them.
This may be true; it's not uncommon for predatory/fringe movements to actively and directly target celebrities.
For those not aware, Kennedy used to have a stellar reputation as a zealous environmental attorney, focusing on mercury contamination. You can tell the personality traits and background that make him an appealing target: the combination of the self-certain motivated reasoning of legal work, plus a mercury contamination focus.
There's a Trump admin anecdote that needs full quotation:

quote:
Dr. Fauci said that at the instruction of the Trump White House, he spent an hour listening to Mr. Kennedy give a briefing on childhood vaccines at the National Institutes of Health. �As soon as the first slide went up, I raised my hand � I said, �Bobby, there�s no data,�� Dr. Fauci said in an interview. �He said, �I never get a chance to offer the facts, so I want to make a presentation, but I don�t want to be interrupted until I�m finished.�� When it was over, Dr. Fauci walked Mr. Kennedy out of the conference room. �I said, �Bobby, I�m sorry we didn�t come to any agreement here,�� he said. ��Although I disagree factually with everything you are saying, I do understand and I respect that deep down you are really concerned about the safety of children.� I said that in a very sincere way.�
Kennedy Jr. is largely seen as the most charismatic and politically talented in the family, which is a factor in his success as an advocate for antivaxx.
He's selling a coauthored book with Mercola and is profiting from his attachment to the movement.
This is significant, because a common theme across all forms of antivaxx is that there's a profit motive attached to it. Kennedy likely believes what he's saying, but it gets a lot easier to believe in something that pays.

# ? Jul 19, 2023 03:18

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# ? May 23, 2024 06:01

Facebook Aunt: Oct 4, 2008; wiggle wiggle

I AM GRANDO posted:

This isn�t covid-related, but should I be concerned about this?

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-reports-case-atypical-mad-cow-disease-2023-05-19/

I�m not particularly comforted by the usda�s confidence in safety procedure, given the rough operation of our supposedly robust public health apparatus in 2019-2020 and beyond. Does anyone in this thread have the expertise to weigh in on the notability of this incident?

I remember when I was a kid the UK had a mad cow outbreak and I don�t remember any humans coming down with spongiform encephalopathy.

Wasn't the deal with mad cow that it could take decades for symptoms to show up in humans? So they had a mad cow outbreak but there was no way to tell how many ticking timebombs resulted from it. When I gave blood a few years ago in Canada the questionnaire still asked if you had been in the UK during the mad cow risk years, apparently they thought the risk from that outbreak still wasn't over?

# ? Jul 19, 2023 08:35

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > COVID-19: People on the internet are judging me for going outside. It used to be the reverse.

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