Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[LeeLau]

Good article for everyone to read:

Why the Coronavirus Is So Confusing - a guide to making sense of a problem that is now too big for any one person to fully comprehend

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/a...c9NccpHS6F8H8Y

"Prasad’s concern is that COVID-19 has developed a clinical mystique—a perception that it is so unusual, it demands radically new approaches. “Human beings are notorious for our desire to see patterns,” he says. “Put that in a situation of fear, uncertainty, and hype, and it’s not surprising that there’s almost a folk medicine emerging.” Already, there are intense debates about giving patients blood thinners because so many seem to experience blood clots, or whether ventilators might do more harm than good. These issues may be important, and when facing new diseases, doctors must be responsive and creative. But they must also be rigorous. “Clinicians are under tremendous stress, which affects our ability to process information,” McLaren says. “‘Is this actually working, or does it seem to be working because I want it to work and I feel powerless?’”

Consider hydroxychloroquine—the antimalarial drug that’s been repeatedly touted by the White House and conservative pundits as a COVID-19 “game changer.” The French studies that first suggested that the drug could treat COVID-19 were severely flawed, abandoning standard elements of solid science like randomly assigning patients to receive treatments or placebos, or including a control group to confirm if the drug offers benefits above normal medical care. The lead scientist behind those studies has railed against the “dictatorship of the methodologists,” as if randomization or controls were inconveniences that one should rebel against, rather than the backbone of effective medicine."

That was an awesome comprehensive read

[DougW]

Simple question:

Can you say that immunity gained from a vaccine will be equal to or at most slightly less than the immunity gained from having the actual infection?

So if the immunity gained from infection is on the lower end time wise , lets say like the corona viruses that cause the common cold ~12 months , then the vaccine will be about the same. But the advantage of the vaccine would be no mortality chance.

[Casey E]

Could we enforce SD with the pee? ‘Cept us old guys can’t pee six feet like the young bucks. And there is this

[Casey E]

Trump just took another page from the totalitarians book: rewrite history

Trump and Kushner Engage in Revisionist History in Boasting of Success Over Virus
“We did all the right moves,” the president said Wednesday. “The federal government rose to the challenge, and this is a great success story,” said his son-in-law.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/29/u...e=articleShare

Get your commemorative coins today, they are going to be collectors items!!

[My Pet Powder Goat]

Attachment 326880

please tell me this is fake - like someone hacked the gift shop

https://globalnews.ca/news/6883905/c...-donald-trump/

https://www.tmz.com/2020/04/29/white...ovid-19-trump/

To be fair the fake whitehouse gift shop appears to take this more seriously than the real Whitehouse

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[snapt]

For those who believe they had it in January...


https://www.aspentimes.com/news/loca...sting-results/

Thanks for this link, jives with some preliminary antibody testing in the Bay Area as well. It doesn't bode well for a second wave as at this point it doesn't look like its run rampant through populations as some folks think.

[bodywhomper]

Simple question:

Can you say that immunity gained from a vaccine will be equal to or at most slightly less than the immunity gained from having the actual infection?

So if the immunity gained from infection is on the lower end time wise , lets say like the corona viruses that cause the common cold ~12 months , then the vaccine will be about the same. But the advantage of the vaccine would be no mortality chance.

Also no extended hospitalization and no potential for lifelong physical disability.

[CarlMega]

The Connection Between Coronavirus and Obesity

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/med...gjg?li=BBnba9O

^might need to be renamed the 'Fat Americans Rat Flu'

[Core Shot]

I almost tl/dr skipped over that.

Well played

“WHO’S LAUGHING NOW, ASSHOLES?” A LETTER FROM HENRY DAVID THOREAU TO LITERATURE FACULTIES AT CUSHY LIBERAL ARTS SCHOOLS


by RON FEIN

Dear Professors —
It’s been a minute, right? A few months ago, you were talking smack about my year in a cabin. Now you’re trapped in your condo in Yonkers or the backside of Amherst or wherever, and you’d trade it in a heartbeat for 150 square feet and a whole forest full of owls and frogs and shit.

Don’t play dumb, bruh. You’ve spent most of your short career trash talking me. Every damn fall, you tell your first-year Am Lit seminar that I’m completely full of shit. You stand there in your goddamned tweed jacket with the suede elbow patches, and tell the kids how my experiment in self-reliance was all just a sham. Then you angle your head just so, and say something snarky about “performative solitude” or “cabin porn.” And for the coup de grâce, you proclaim that I was never really alone at Walden Pond, because I had regular visitors.
Bitch, I disclosed my visitors — I wrote a whole damned chapter called “Visitors.” Can’t blame me if some debutante from Darien didn’t read it. And who’s entertaining visitors now? Not your quarantined ass.
So sue me if my social distancing included regular visits from a Canadian woodchopper and multiple half-witted men from the almshouse. You, my friend, are leading a life of quiet desperation, where your only contact outside of Zoom is a fast-food delivery guy who you pay by app.
And yes, I did walk into Concord from time to time. Sometimes a man’s got to take care of bidness. And sometimes a man’s got to bring his dirty laundry home to his mother. Your students found that real funny. But they’re not laughing now that they’re back home in Bergen County.

Hey, I get it. Life has changed! Before the coronavirus, you were busy with this and that and the other, plus faculty meetings. Back in 1840s Concord, it was the same shit, but worse. Imagine that instead of that prissy early modernist who just lateraled over from Colgate, your local competition was Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa May Alcott, and Nate Hawthorne. Jesus, the pressure was unbearable.
That’s why I said to myself, “H-Dog, this ain’t life. You’ve got to live deliberately, front only the essential facts of life, and see if you can’t learn what it has to teach. Ditch all the bullshit!” So I built my crib in the woods. The material only cost me 28 bucks and twelve-and-a-half cents, and that included considerably more hair than I actually needed.
Now you’re stuck in your 1BR/1BA with Corian countertops. True, it’s bigger than my cabin. But here’s the thing, Einstein: I didn’t spend the entire two years indoors. Mostly, I was by myself, just vibing. But whenever I wanted, I could check out Flint’s Pond or the Baker Farm or whatever. Hell, I even planted a bean field.
And let’s talk about On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. You don’t really like this essay, and you wish those jackasses over at Poli Sci — or even the beardos in Philosophy — would cover it instead. But you know that Gandhi and King dug it. And you want your students to think you’re cool. So you assign it and then open up class with that one time Bernie got arrested at a civil rights protest back in ’63. Here’s the thing, though: you yourself would no sooner spend a night in jail than spend a summer hoeing beans. (And you were secretly for Warren.)

Look, I know you’re stressed about this pandemic. But I’ve been there, too. Worried about getting sick? I died of consumption, aggravated by a cold that I got from that douchebag Bronson Alcott — who, I shit you not, caught it at a teacher’s conference. Worried about falling behind on your work? I kept Homer’s Iliad on my table for an entire summer, but I barely had time to read two pages, what with all the bean-hoeing. Worried what you’ll do if your tenure app is denied? My Plan B was making pencils.
So cut the crap. If there’s anything I learned on Walden Pond, it’s that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. In other words, nut up and build your castles in the air! And don’t ever fucking diss me again.
— Ya boi H

[The AD]

Thanks for this link, jives...

I believe "jibes" is the word you're looking for here.

[Deebased]

The Connection Between Coronavirus and Obesity

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/med...gjg?li=BBnba9O

^might need to be renamed the 'Fat Americans Rat Flu'

#fatboomerflu has a nice ring to it.

[Buster Highmen]

How about we just don’t pee on each other. No pants necessary then.

No problem for me as I have no peers.

[Adolf Allerbush]

Simple question:

Can you say that immunity gained from a vaccine will be equal to or at most slightly less than the immunity gained from having the actual infection?

So if the immunity gained from infection is on the lower end time wise , lets say like the corona viruses that cause the common cold ~12 months , then the vaccine will be about the same. But the advantage of the vaccine would be no mortality chance.

and another advantage is to not overwhelm the medical facilities potentially, which would result in more indirect deaths.

[AK47bp]

How about we just don’t pee on each other. No pants necessary then.


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Easier said than done.


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[Rideski]

Lulz from the musk thread

[DougW]

and another advantage is to not overwhelm the medical facilities potentially, which would result in more indirect deaths.

true if the health care facilities do become overwhelmed but also the other side of lockdown is that lots of others conditions are not being treated, cancer not caught etc. In my town there have been no cases requiring hospitalizations so whole medical system is working at 1/2 or less real productivity. That will eventually be reflected in health numbers though right now its reflected in doctors bank accounts. Not a criticism of lockdown or SD or anything else , just an observation.

[Adolf Allerbush]

true if the health care facilities do become overwhelmed but also the other side of lockdown is that lots of others conditions are not being treated, cancer not caught etc. In my town there have been no cases requiring hospitalizations so whole medical system is working at 1/2 or less real productivity. That will eventually be reflected in health numbers though right now its reflected in doctors bank accounts. Not a criticism of lockdown or SD or anything else , just an observation.

Also true. Good point.

[dunfree]

true if the health care facilities do become overwhelmed but also the other side of lockdown is that lots of others conditions are not being treated, cancer not caught etc. In my town there have been no cases requiring hospitalizations so whole medical system is working at 1/2 or less real productivity. That will eventually be reflected in health numbers though right now its reflected in doctors bank accounts. Not a criticism of lockdown or SD or anything else , just an observation.

that’s a consequence of covid, not “lockdown”. All of these alternate scenarios require it not to exist, or perfect predictions of its existence.

[skaredshtles]

No problem for me as I have no peers.

[happytimefunbox]

real talk

wife started showing symptoms of either 1-allergies 2-covid on tuesday. Wednesday wakes up and cant taste the coffee. Calls our doc who does conference call with covid hotline. Come get tested. She mentions to our doc that I had a headache and sinus issues last week. I have a RP test ran on me every monday at work and haven't popped hot for any of the 27 pathogens (not including covid) and was clean. Yeah lets test him too and team htfb quarenteened until results come back. I got to do the driveup testing at Altaview Hospital. Those nurses are fucking heroes and should be paid 1000 an hour to do those tests. That fucking sinus swab is no goddamned joke and Im coughing and spewing right in their papr'd face and onto their 3 levels of PPE. It was insane.

Nuked the house and cars with a decon protocol that would make CDC proud. Im the only one that leaves the house and travels into hotzones like grocery or bank so I had to be the vector Fuck. Drank too goddamned much last night worried for my kid with asthma my friends who I may not have socially distanced properly from and the potential for my wife to die. I slept downstairs and woke up to the wife sitting in my bed with the laptop on the myhealth wedsite and we are both negative.

Be well my friends

[Deebased]

real talk

wife started showing symptoms of either 1-allergies 2-covid on tuesday. Wednesday wakes up and cant taste the coffee. Calls our doc who does conference call with covid hotline. Come get tested. She mentions to our doc that I had a headache and sinus issues last week. I have a RP test ran on me every monday at work and haven't popped hot for any of the 27 pathogens (not including covid) and was clean. Yeah lets test him too and team htfb quarenteened until results come back. I got to do the driveup testing at Altaview Hospital. Those nurses are fucking heroes and should be paid 1000 an hour to do those tests. That fucking sinus swab is no goddamned joke and Im coughing and spewing right in their papr'd face and onto their 3 levels of PPE. It was insane.

Nuked the house and cars with a decon protocol that would make CDC proud. Im the only one that leaves the house and travels into hotzones like grocery or bank so I had to be the vector Fuck. Drank too goddamned much last night worried for my kid with asthma my friends who I may not have socially distanced properly from and the potential for my wife to die. I slept downstairs and woke up to the wife sitting in my bed with the laptop on the myhealth wedsite and we are both negative.

Be well my friends

Glad to hear you're safe.

If she can't taste the coffee, maybe get some better beans :-)

[DougW]

that’s a consequence of covid, not “lockdown”. All of these alternate scenarios require it not to exist, or perfect predictions of its existence.

not really , they are a consequence of the type of actions/policy taken once you have covid. Assuming there is some sort of reaction as no country is going along like nothing happened. The policy can range from only treating non covid emergency cases and virtual doc visits to the Swedish model where elective surgeries are still going ahead. Even the architect of the British response says that once the case load is down that the medical system have to open up to reduce the deaths from non treatment . see at about 18:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...ature=emb_logo

again not saying which policy is right have watched both interviews here

https://unherd.com/2020/04/which-epi...x98jb9mY6wmqzI

and I learned something, I don't have enough knowledge now or will ever to decide which is the right approach.

interesting quotes "It’s also quite possible that one of them could end up being right in spirit while wrong on the numbers."

"What they are not, despite the attempts of some social media voices to make it so, are good and evil. Clearly, both experts are highly accomplished scientists doing their best to understand a complex threat. Likewise, the wider debate around lockdown is not a contest between rational, good people who value life on the one hand and the cavalier and cynical who care only about economics or themselves on the other. If the do-gooder class try to push that narrative, they will simply lose the argument."

[bennymac]

posted this article yesterday - but reposting again because it's great and a must read

"False positives are a problem, too. Many companies and countries have pinned their hopes on antibody tests, which purportedly show whether someone has been infected by the coronavirus. One such test claims to correctly identify people with those antibodies 93.8 percent of the time. By contrast, it identifies phantom antibodies in 4.4 percent of people who don’t have them. That false-positive rate sounds acceptably low. It’s not. Let’s assume 5 percent of the U.S. has been infected so far. Among 1,000 people, the test would correctly identify antibodies in 47 of the 50 people who had them. But it would also wrongly spot antibodies in 42 of the 950 people without them. The number of true positives and false positives would be almost equal. In this scenario, if you were told you had coronavirus antibodies, your odds of actually having them would be little better than a coin toss."

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/a...c9NccpHS6F8H8Y

Why the Coronavirus Is So Confusing - a guide to making sense of a problem that is now too big for any one person to fully comprehend

[riser4]

real talk

wife started showing symptoms of either 1-allergies 2-covid on tuesday. Wednesday wakes up and cant taste the coffee. Calls our doc who does conference call with covid hotline. Come get tested. She mentions to our doc that I had a headache and sinus issues last week. I have a RP test ran on me every monday at work and haven't popped hot for any of the 27 pathogens (not including covid) and was clean. Yeah lets test him too and team htfb quarenteened until results come back. I got to do the driveup testing at Altaview Hospital. Those nurses are fucking heroes and should be paid 1000 an hour to do those tests. That fucking sinus swab is no goddamned joke and Im coughing and spewing right in their papr'd face and onto their 3 levels of PPE. It was insane.

Nuked the house and cars with a decon protocol that would make CDC proud. Im the only one that leaves the house and travels into hotzones like grocery or bank so I had to be the vector Fuck. Drank too goddamned much last night worried for my kid with asthma my friends who I may not have socially distanced properly from and the potential for my wife to die. I slept downstairs and woke up to the wife sitting in my bed with the laptop on the myhealth wedsite and we are both negative.

Be well my friends

Vibes. Keep an eye on her though. I mentioned earlier that we have a friend who had unmistakable symptoms, tested negative, then developed the blood clotting, and they won't retest him. Either his case is one heckuva coincidence or it was a false negative result.

[Buster Highmen]

posted this article yesterday - but reposting again because it's great and a must read

"False positives are a problem, too. Many companies and countries have pinned their hopes on antibody tests, which purportedly show whether someone has been infected by the coronavirus. One such test claims to correctly identify people with those antibodies 93.8 percent of the time. By contrast, it identifies phantom antibodies in 4.4 percent of people who don’t have them. That false-positive rate sounds acceptably low. It’s not. Let’s assume 5 percent of the U.S. has been infected so far. Among 1,000 people, the test would correctly identify antibodies in 47 of the 50 people who had them. But it would also wrongly spot antibodies in 42 of the 950 people without them. The number of true positives and false positives would be almost equal. In this scenario, if you were told you had coronavirus antibodies, your odds of actually having them would be little better than a coin toss."

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/a...c9NccpHS6F8H8Y

Why the Coronavirus Is So Confusing - a guide to making sense of a problem that is now too big for any one person to fully comprehend

Props to bmac for posting that. It's what I keep coming across: the tests are effectively invalid. But people are dying of this thing in significantly large numbers, not to mention the weird side effects and long term damage.