Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[LongShortLong]

Regarding the second tweet from Walensky you linked, it was in the context of allowing unvaccinated people to fly from China to the US with a negative preflight test. She was echoing what almost every scientist has said -- that Covid will not be eradicated, that it will remain in the community and that people will continue to contract it. Admittedly I have not read statements from every scientst but I have not yet come across anyone saying that they think the virus can be eradicated. The policy re travel from China seems reasonable given that a) Chinese vaccines suck so it wouldn't do much good to require them b) our vaccines don't seem to stop transmission of the current variants, and c) the virus and its various strains are already here; the experience with this virus has shown that you can't stop it from going from place to place and it's already here by the time you try ,

I can see why she got slammed for that. As phrased it appears to be racist (or political) singling out Chinese travelers, but only if they aren't citizens or immigrants (same as the original Trump admin nonsense). And maybe travelers from China should have been singled out due to China's sudden decision at that time to let it rip, all travelers. However, when I click through to the actual order, there's no change from 8 months earlier, and the requirement is for a negative test prior to boarding, which I believe is the standard everyone has to meet for international travel.

There's also some bullshit concern in there about new variants from China. Since we don't have a zero-Covid policy, rigorous travel quarantines, etc, that's straight racism. Those variants were gonna get here regardless of our China travel policies.

And farking hell, some twits in the comments are sexist shitheads.

[SumJongGuy]

The expert/authority figures can't win. Whatever recs they issue will be vehemently opposed by a lot of people as too strict or not strict enough. I just wish everyone would test if the suspect they were exposed or feel symptoms .. AND wear a mask wherever they go out of their own house for 10 days if they come back positive. I'd prefer they stay home but agree we can't "make" them without paying them.. Now that the hospitals are keeping up it's hard to justify forcing people to stay home..

Bigger question, should it be a crime to KNOWINGLY expose other people?? i.e.. you know you are positive but go out and about unmasked anyway?? Isn't a crime to have unprotected sex without telling your partner when you know you have a STD??

[Lvovsky]

…and had to take 3 weeks off work, as if every American has that luxury. ….

Most are not interested in fighting to obtain such luxuries. Because freedumb.

[MontuckyFried]

So everybody here's cool with Moderna spiking the vaccine price by 400%? Nothing to say about that?

Repost from yesterday, but here it is again for those who missed this egregious crap:
Moderna CEO brazenly defends 400% COVID shot price hike, downplays NIH’s role
https://arstechnica.com/science/2023...00-price-hike/

Moderna's tryna give Martin Shkreli a run for his money.

[Cisco Kid]

No dumbass. Everyone here is not cool with Morderna. Why the fuck would you think that. I demand you answer that question.

[MontuckyFried]

No dumbass. Everyone here is not cool with Morderna. Why the fuck would you think that. I demand you answer that question.

Because nobody in here seems to want to talk about the news of the recently announced price spikes. At least Bernie Sanders went hard on them. Too bad nobody else seems to care.



I may not agree with Sanders on everything, but I've always appreciated his efforts to call out the pharmaceutical industry. Bunch of scumbags.

[riser4]

You go girl!

[old goat]

There was a 2 hoour documentary about Fauci n PBS the other night. They follwed him around for 2 years. He comes across as an irascible, not particularly humble old guy (like me but with skilz) . A workaholic (not like me.) He's particlarly proud of the global AIDS initiative he did with GWB. And he was pretty hit and miss about wearing his mask around the offce. I suspect that everybody around was getting tested a lot.

[Cisco Kid]

Because nobody in here seems to want to talk about the news of the recently announced price spikes. At least Bernie Sanders went hard on them. Too bad nobody else seems to care.



I may not agree with Sanders on everything, but I've always appreciated his efforts to call out the pharmaceutical industry. Bunch of scumbags.

You watch too much Faux. "WHY IS THE MEDIA NOT COVERING THIS!!?? says the Faux Media.

[MontuckyFried]

You watch too much Faux. "WHY IS THE MEDIA NOT COVERING THIS!!?? says the Faux Media.

Are you daft, old man? I LITERALLY posted the video from Bernie's own YT channel. Heard about the issue first from The Young Turks, ie NOT Fox News. Besides, Fox execs LOOOOOOOVE big pharma. It's like 90% of their ad revenue.

[Cisco Kid]

I use "Faux" as a way to describe how they have made you, yes you personally, feel butt hurt and unheard about... Every. Fucking Thing. . BTW, who won the war on Christmas. That's when this brain meld began. And you ate the whole enchilada.

So here' honey boy . I think a 400% hike is obscene, how about you?

[bennymac]

Because nobody in here seems to want to talk about the news of the recently announced price spikes. At least Bernie Sanders went hard on them. Too bad nobody else seems to care.



I may not agree with Sanders on everything, but I've always appreciated his efforts to call out the pharmaceutical industry. Bunch of scumbags.

Question for the padded room: why do dumb fucks jump to the outraged conclusion that, if a topic isn’t covered in here, that everybody must be ok and on board with it and a proponent of it?

[MontuckyFried]

I use "Faux" as a way to describe how they have made you, yes you personally, feel butt hurt and unheard about... Every. Fucking Thing. . BTW, who won the war on Christmas. That's when this brain meld began. And you ate the whole enchilada.

So here' honey boy . I think a 400% hike is obscene, how about you?

This, folks, is precisely what is wrong with the internet and what it's done to our culture. Here, we have an issue that SHOULD be uniting and pretty bipartisan. It's something I'm pretty sure we can all agree on. Yet, people like Wooley go straight on the attack, even if they agree with the opinion. WTF, man? Can't you be chill, like ever? Like "Hey, I may not agree with you all the time, but perhaps we can find some common ground on this one." Would it even be possible for you conduct yourself in a civil manner like that? Like ONCE?

[bodywhomper]

Mentioning hand hygiene as a means to not get infected and not mentioning mask wearing appears to illustrate a lack of recognition of how the disease is spread. Recognizing the uptick in severity of other diseases and not publicly recognizing and linking the possibility to the (hopefully temporary) immune dysfunction experienced by many after a covid infection is not good. It also led to accusations of harm from the vax. Same argument goes along with the increases in heart attacks and other vascular-related diseases.

Here’s the head of the us’s disease prevention agency’s 2 bullet list of how to prevent the spread of respiratory viruses. https://twitter.com/cdcdirector/stat...Mbjk5ElmdWLRnQ

Improving indoor air quality would do a lot to mitigate spread, acute illness, and long covid, even in places like restaurants and conference centers. This has been demonstrated and cdc has started conveying this info to the public.

But in a country where development of a home in a floodplain with a 1% chance of annually flooding is heavily restricted by the government and the insurance industry, the poor extent of information being shared and communicated by our government about the % chance of developing long covid after each infection sucks. People that want to “do the right thing” and follow the “gold standard” cdc guidance have very little awareness.

[Cisco Kid]

Would it even be possible for you conduct yourself in a civil manner like that? Like ONCE?

Probably not you insufferable dupka. When you start the conversation with your Fauxish bullshit boo hoo hoo, I lose what little patience I have left for you Honey Boo cry babies. So suck it up buttercup.

[MontuckyFried]

^^
So Wooley now lumps in Bernie Sanders & Young Turks along with Fox News. Got it.

[riser4]

Whenever I see wooley I think Beastie Boys.

She chased me out of class, she was strapped with a ruler
Went to the bathroom, rolled myself a wooler
With bottle in hand at the microphone stand
Ay, yo, homeboy, what you drinkin', man?

[bodywhomper]

I don't envy the CDC. They have to balance politics and science. I agree it would be nice if they'd tell us the science, but also see the difficulty they face.

One of the issues in my mind is that the cdc’s mission is not to account for politics: https://www.cdc.gov/about/organization/mission.htm

Cdc has fairly good mask guidance, but their consistent sharing of this guidance is poor (page updated 3/21/23): https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...isolation.html

[LongShortLong]

Maybe do something useful like find the context for the price increase. Maybe their expenses increased for some reason. Maybe they have investors who want to do the capitalism thing. Maybe the CEO deserves a yacht bonus. My bet's on capitalism.

[Cisco Kid]

^^
So Wooley now lumps in Bernie Sanders & Young Turks along with Fox News. Got it.

You got nothing. I lump you in with the Three Stooges. Based on your posts. Honey Boo

[old goat]

I can see why she got slammed for that. As phrased it appears to be racist (or political) singling out Chinese travelers, but only if they aren't citizens or immigrants (same as the original Trump admin nonsense). And maybe travelers from China should have been singled out due to China's sudden decision at that time to let it rip, all travelers. However, when I click through to the actual order, there's no change from 8 months earlier, and the requirement is for a negative test prior to boarding, which I believe is the standard everyone has to meet for international travel.

There's also some bullshit concern in there about new variants from China. Since we don't have a zero-Covid policy, rigorous travel quarantines, etc, that's straight racism. Those variants were gonna get here regardless of our China travel policies.

And farking hell, some twits in the comments are sexist shitheads.

Her tweet was in the context of China blowing up after they suddenly drpped restrictions, and it was a response to the many people who don't want to let Chinese people in period. So her tweet seems antiracist to me. The testing requirement was recently dropped for China. I checked a handful f countries and none of them, including the US requires pre entry testing, although must be some that still do. The US does require proof of vaccination for non-citiizen non-immigrant visitors, so if China was getting a pass that seems non-racist to me.

Mentioning hand hygiene as a means to not get infected and not mentioning mask wearing appears to illustrate a lack of recognition of how the disease is spread. Recognizing the uptick in severity of other diseases and not publicly recognizing and linking the possibility to the (hopefully temporary) immune dysfunction experienced by many after a covid infection is not good. It also led to accusations of harm from the vax. Same argument goes along with the increases in heart attacks and other vascular-related diseases.

Here’s the head of the us’s disease prevention agency’s 2 bullet list of how to prevent the spread of respiratory viruses. https://twitter.com/cdcdirector/stat...Mbjk5ElmdWLRnQ

Improving indoor air quality would do a lot to mitigate spread, acute illness, and long covid, even in places like restaurants and conference centers. This has been demonstrated and cdc has started conveying this info to the public.

But in a country where development of a home in a floodplain with a 1% chance of annually flooding is heavily restricted by the government and the insurance industry, the poor extent of information being shared and communicated by our government about the % chance of developing long covid after each infection sucks. People that want to “do the right thing” and follow the “gold standard” cdc guidance have very little awareness.

I think I see the problem--you're getting all your info from twitter. For heaven's sake man, there is plenty on the cdc site about masking. Leaving it out of a tweet does not make her anti-mask. And how did floods get in here?

[bodywhomper]

I think I see the problem--you're getting all your info from twitter. For heaven's sake man, there is plenty on the cdc site about masking. Leaving it out of a tweet does not make her anti-mask. And how did floods get in here?

Nah. I’m seeing the cdc director using Twitter as their means of press release and direct public communication. I also linked the cdc’s page describing the agency mission, the cdc webpage describing long covid, and the cdc’s page that describes wearing a mask.

I discussed flooding as a comparison of the government (and insurance industry) attention and regulation of a low probability/high consequence event compared to their apparent lack of attention and clear communication of risk regarding getting long covid, a higher probability and potentially higher consequence event.

[Rideski]

Whenever I see wooley I think Beastie Boys.

She chased me out of class, she was strapped with a ruler
Went to the bathroom, rolled myself a wooler
With bottle in hand at the microphone stand
Ay, yo, homeboy, what you drinkin', man?

[bodywhomper]

Small sample size. Post spring break and Easter weekend. Wife is part time therapist in public schools for little kids. Therapy is usually both with a kid and a parent. Half of her families had covid this week. All are apparently vaxed and previously infected. And of course she had a direct exposure (family tested positive that afternoon).

She has to follow cal osha requirements for direct exposure, which includes testing and requires mask wearing for 10 days after exposure if you test negative.

Our closest sewershed is in Sacramento. Looking earlier this week, the current rolling average baseline is equal to the peak of the delta wave.

[PB]

Recovery complete after breaking 3 weeks ago, returning from Europe via Houston (yeah, I blame Texas). Paxlovid kept it pretty minimal, but did get the post-Pax rebound, adding an extra 5 days. Only one bad night with fever and muscle ache. No lingering fatigue.