Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[KQ]

It’s funny, the small businesses around here in rural central WA did fine during lockdowns if they had good common sense and adapted to the changes accordingly. The ones that suffered or closed were usually unable or unwilling to adapt and had a poor business to begin with.

I’m not celebrating the closure of bad businesses but the whole idea of small business ownership is to have good business sense and adaptability. You know, free markets and the survival of the fittest.

Whitehouse Crawford, a resturant here in W2, closed their doors for good within a week of the first shutdown which took place over Spring Release weekend. I was sad about them closing but something tells me they must have been teetering on the edge to begin with to have closed so fast. None of our other resturants have had to close their doors. *knock on wood*




In other news..... just saw an idiot speaking at a local community meeting on Covid in one of the Dakotas say "since when has the goverment be able to tell us what to wear?"

[Casey E]

Got the Janssen jab today. No reaction so far, but 2 decades of flu jabs haven’t done so either. Guess I will know if it was the vaccine in a month or two, and then get the real thing if it was the placebo. My friend is getting the Oxford one.

J&J is applying for approval in Canada and Europe.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/joh...oval-1.5823173

[Deebased]

Deeb may be onto something. Stores are indoor spaces, visited by many people. We tend to spend 30+ minutes once or twice a week. It's like a continuously operated church, without singing. This is not "safe" during a pandemic. Typical masks provide some protection. Additionally, everyone there including employees is performing "essential" tasks, meaning they are likely to be there even if sick.

Seems reasonable Covid would spread in stores. And masks should reduce that. However, the recent case acceleration is likely from some other source, as I don't think shopping increased much. Unmasked indoor gatherings seem a reasonable suspect. As it got colder, more folks moved parties indoors. Also, the big summer peaks were in hot areas, likely also due to indoor gatherings.

Sure would be nice if we did a better job of data gathering and analyzing and publishing where people are getting sick, or which activities. E.g. look at cell phone tracks to see what changed when cases increase or decrease. Look at mask use differences across similar regions, etc.

With the change in weather big box stores are recycling more air to keep energy costs low.

The exact wrong response to a pandemic thats transmissible as an aerosol is to increase traffic flow into enclosed spaces.

[Deebased]

Whitehouse Crawford, a resturant here in W2, closed their doors for good within a week of the first shutdown which took place over Spring Release weekend. I was sad about them closing but something tells me they must have been teetering on the edge to begin with to have closed so fast. None of our other resturants have had to close their doors. *knock on wood*




In other news..... just saw an idiot speaking at a local community meeting on Covid in one of the Dakotas say "since when has the goverment be able to tell us what to wear?"

I'm sure we'll find out the Whitehouse Crawford were the smart ones.

There's 0 sense in reopening until the lockdowns are over in March/April.

[LongShortLong]

With the change in weather big box stores are recycling more air to keep energy costs low.

The exact wrong response to a pandemic thats transmissible as an aerosol is to increase traffic flow into enclosed spaces.

Good point. Less air exchange -> more covid cases.

[KQ]

I'm sure we'll find out the Whitehouse Crawford were the smart ones.

There's 0 sense in reopening until the lockdowns are over in March/April.

No.. I think you misread.... they went out of business within a week of the first lockdown. They will not be reopening.

[schuss]

That, and the microchips in vaccines.

Man, normally I'd be onboard for the sarcastic shitposting of conspiracy stuff, but one of the other active threads is all about conspiracies on COVID vaccines and others have the regular suspects spouting fountains of paranoid delusions.

[Deebased]

No.. I think you misread.... they went out of business within a week of the first lockdown. They will not be reopening.

I didn't misread.

Those guys are/were very pragmatic thinkers. The writing was on the wall for small restaurants as soon as the WA phased reopening plan was released.

Very few if any restaurants returned to profitability after the lockdown (sort of) ended and the small businesses that continue to operate are burning through capital, profits and owner savings in a valiant but misguided effort that they'll be able to recoup that if/when things get back to normal.

[AK47bp]

Man, normally I'd be onboard for the sarcastic shitposting of conspiracy stuff, but one of the other active threads is all about conspiracies on COVID vaccines and others have the regular suspects spouting fountains of paranoid delusions.

That’s how they got Bin Laden


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[Meadow Skipper]

Man, normally I'd be onboard for the sarcastic shitposting of conspiracy stuff, but one of the other active threads is all about conspiracies on COVID vaccines and others have the regular suspects spouting fountains of paranoid delusions.

Yeah, but...wait, am I a regular suspect?

[KQ]

I didn't misread.

Those guys are/were very pragmatic thinkers. The writing was on the wall for small restaurants as soon as the WA phased reopening plan was released.

Very few if any restaurants returned to profitability after the lockdown (sort of) ended and the small businesses that continue to operate are burning through capital, profits and owner savings in a valiant but misguided effort that they'll be able to recoup that if/when things get back to normal.

Eh... I disagree. Maybe it's different elsewhere but our community has been working hard to support local resturants, plus we actually had a pretty active tourist season despite the pandemic not to mention the CARES act assistance they have been receiving. I for one am glad that our restaurateurs are working to weather the hard times.

And BTW - I don't think ANYONE saw the writing on the wall in those early days.

[KQ]

Man, normally I'd be onboard for the sarcastic shitposting of conspiracy stuff, but one of the other active threads is all about conspiracies on COVID vaccines and others have the regular suspects spouting fountains of paranoid delusions.

Local news showed people hanging signs on overpasses warning people about the vaccine.

[ill-advised strategy]

In other news..... just saw an idiot speaking at a local community meeting on Covid in one of the Dakotas say "since when has the goverment be able to tell us what to wear?"

cue breakaway pants!

[old goat]

There are plenty of health care workers who don't work in hospitals or who don't have direct contact with patients and whose contact with at risk workers is brief and distant. There are radiologists and pathologists. Lots of managers. These are not people who have no risk, but their risk at work is similar or even less than a grocery store clerk, for example and they are no more important. I would certainly vaccinate all the people you talk about--the office staff helping out in ICU, EVS who might be more willing to clean up Covid rooms if they were vaccinated. Since I doubt any hospital will receive enough vaccine for every employee in the first go round, it is inevitable that some HCW's will be in the second tier. When that happens I hope the doctors--at least the ones who are caring for hospitalized patients--confine their cutting to the head of the line to the cafeteria.

I'd rather not wait until people can't get food or the electric grid crashes with no one to fix it to start prioritizing essential workers. I think we're closer to that scenario than you do--we'll see what the expected post T'giving surge brings. I certainly woudn't put essential workers ahead of front line hcw's, but I'm ambivalent about them vs nursing home residents. And of course there are far too many essential workers to vaccinate in the first round. The problem with highly complex technological societies is that they consist of a lot of interdependent moving parts and if one part stops moving they all stop moving.

In order to distribute and administer hundreds of millions of vaccine doses in a few months it is going to require all aspects of society to be fully functioning.

On an unrelated note--can't we spare some N95's for Joe Biden?

[pureantigravity]

...
I'd rather not wait until people can't get food or the electric grid crashes with no one to fix it to start prioritizing essential workers. I think we're closer to that scenario than you do--we'll see what the expected post T'giving surge brings. I certainly woudn't put essential workers ahead of front line hcw's, but I'm ambivalent about them vs nursing home residents. And of course there are far too many essential workers to vaccinate in the first round. The problem with highly complex technological societies is that they consist of a lot of interdependent moving parts and if one part stops moving they all stop moving.

In order to distribute and administer hundreds of millions of vaccine doses in a few months it is going to require all aspects of society to be fully functioning.
...

Well, let's not go all apocalyptic or promote zombie preparedness now. The vid isn't lethal enough to 'people can't get food or the electric grid crashes'.
It just isn't.

And the under 40's crowd is clearly almost unaffected by it with exception to some media-darlings that they use to warn others.
40-50 so so. 50-60 not great but not bad. 60+ ok that's a real concern.
So no, the world will manage fine with or without a vaccine.

I hate to break the news but there are oodles of people, young, old, educated and/or not that simply will not take 'the vaccine'. I suspect that only 20% of Americans and 30% of Canadians will get vaccinated.

Met a dude the other day on the lift, senior male, sounds educated, won't take it because it 'changes your DNA'. Was talking to a nurse on the lift and she said she won't take it either because its made from 14 month aborted fetuses'.**

Stuff I'd never heard before and seems rather bizarre and outlandish to me. That being said, we also can't just assume it is safe until there are some longer term studies. Are babies born normally, does it cause autism ( I just had to mention that!) ???????? That's going to take years.

Even hospital workers will refuse to take it. There were court cases in BC where nurses refuse to take the flu shot. Society has other means, lockdowns/quarantines/masks/cleaning are all alternatives.

Let's face it: (1) If this vaccine is botched, big pharma will never be forgiven, and (2) we haven't seen the end of 'other measures' aimed at segregating society into the uninfected/infected/recovered camps. Rural towns and vulnerable steads will continue to be off-limits, and or limit exposure to the outside world.

On the other hand, looking at the curves, the number of infected, the number presumed infected in the USA today (100 Million??), we may just see the end of this pathogenic conflagration by early next year.

I'm betting on 5G chips implanted along with every dose, enabling remote sensing of vaccination passport status and limiting access to the necessities of life.
The **number** has arrived. I'm going to get out my Iron Maiden LPs.

Oh wow ... now I'm prophesying the unveiling of the end times. I wonder is Greta knows that the whole climate thing is moot?


===================
** edit: OMG. No kidding! The wormhole of ethics and medicine gets more convoluted with every 'breakthrough':

"At least five of the candidate COVID-19 vaccines use one of two human fetal cell lines: HEK-293, a kidney cell line widely used in research and industry that comes from a fetus aborted in about 1972; and PER.C6, a proprietary cell line owned by Janssen, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, developed from retinal cells from an 18-week-old fetus aborted in 1985. Both cell lines were developed in the lab of molecular biologist Alex van der Eb at Leiden University.
...
The Trump administration has restricted the use of human fetal tissue from elective abortions in biomedical research. One year ago, it adopted a policy that forbids researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from using fetal tissue from elective abortions in their studies. And it imposed an extra layer of review on non-NIH scientists seeking agency funding to do research using such tissue. But the policy did not stop either group from using decades-old fetal cell lines like HEK-293 and PER.C6."

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020...se-fetal-cells


more reading
-------------------

Use of Aborted Fetal Tissue in Vaccines and Medical Research Obscures the Value of All Human Life
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6027112/

Trump’s Covid Treatments Were Tested in Cells Derived From Fetal Tissue
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/h...al-tissue.html

[MTT]

got a smart phone with any apps?

Your overthinking it. For the past 12 years google has been listening. And when solid state memory got big they started storing it.

[LongShortLong]

I'd rather not wait until people can't get food or the electric grid crashes with no one to fix it to start prioritizing essential workers. I think we're closer to that scenario than you do--we'll see what the expected post T'giving surge brings. I certainly woudn't put essential workers ahead of front line hcw's, but I'm ambivalent about them vs nursing home residents. And of course there are far too many essential workers to vaccinate in the first round. The problem with highly complex technological societies is that they consist of a lot of interdependent moving parts and if one part stops moving they all stop moving.

There's some good news about our highly complex technological societies. Stuff breaks continuously and we fix it. On top of that, we're always inventing and installing new stuff, disrupting the old stuff as we go. Our highly complex technological societies are very resilient.

Though some hate the Trump administration, the admin did use the pandemic to temporarily suspend a lot of regulations. This in addition to their general deregulatory nature. So there's more flexibility than usual. AFAIK, we produced plenty of food this year and storage is full. Our hype-focused media would have told us otherwise.

A small percent of people dying won't stop industry. A larger percent being sick for awhile won't either. Just like doctors and nurses, other essential workers will be allowed to skip quarantine as needed. People dying alone sucks, getting sick sucks, long-covid sucks. Covidiots suck. However, I don't see any of that breaking the system.

Also, most of the country has turned the corner on new infections. Maybe they cooked the books, but it looks legit. Flat or falling in most states. Looks like people got the message. Well, a message.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/new-cases-50-states
Too early to say it's a certain pattern, but so far every time a state ramped up their cases, they've reversed it.

[schuss]

Yeah, but...wait, am I a regular suspect?

No. Montucky, puregravity etc.

[bigdude2468]

Does it not make sense to prioritize the 70+ age group? Just did a check in our state and 77% of deaths have been in the 70+ age group. I would venture that the majority of hospitalization are also in the same group. My guess is these patients require an inordinate amount of care while hospitalized thus straining resources. If you could get the older most vulnerable and the most likely to require hospitalization vaccinated then this would have the quickest impact on the hospitals. Not saying front line health care workers in covid wards, nursing homes should not get it but giving to the MA's and nurses that work in your typical clinic are not at high enough risk, probably no more than a Costco employee walking the floor.

[Benny Profane]

Washington vs Idaho.

https://www.propublica.org/article/s...-their-borders

[jono]

Washington vs Idaho.

https://www.propublica.org/article/s...-their-borders

The study in bias there is interesting. The real point can be made succinctly: people travel to places with less restrictions. Many from places with more restrictions and more spread. By having less restrictions (even if that seems justified by lower local spread) a region attracts the virus.

Anyone familiar with the timeline knows that's what happened: Idaho caught corona from Washington, by and large, early on. Sun Valley first and border areas a little later. Now Washington is catching it from Idaho because it spreads faster with less mitigation. Not rocket science.

It's unfortunate that they wrote so many words and still buried that between half-truths and implications. It left me assuming that the author's knowledge of the other areas mentioned was probably cursory, too.

[MultiVerse]

UK approves the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. The rollout begins next week.

Health care workers will receive it first then the following age groups:

older adults’ resident in a care home and care home workers
all those 80 years of age and over and health and social care workers
all those 75 years of age and over
all those 70 years of age and over
all those 65 years of age and over
high-risk adults under 65 years of age
moderate-risk adults under 65 years of age
all those 60 years of age and over
all those 55 years of age and over
all those 50 years of age and over
rest of the population (priority to be determined)

https://www.gov.uk/government/public...interim-advice

[Meadow Skipper]

No. Montucky, puregravity etc.

Yeah, I just saw. Fuckin’ idiots.

Lo siento.

I’m thinking about making puregravity my first, and only, resident on my ignore list.

[Name Redacted]

UK approves the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. The rollout begins next week.

Health care workers will receive it first then the following age groups:

older adults’ resident in a care home and care home workers
all those 80 years of age and over and health and social care workers
all those 75 years of age and over
all those 70 years of age and over
all those 65 years of age and over
high-risk adults under 65 years of age
moderate-risk adults under 65 years of age
all those 60 years of age and over
all those 55 years of age and over
all those 50 years of age and over
rest of the population (priority to be determined)

https://www.gov.uk/government/public...interim-advice

Oh, you mean they actually have a plan? Like already in place? Holy shit. It's almost like they knew they'd need some sort of way of rolling out this vaccine that everyone has been waiting on for the last 10 months. Man, those crafty Brits are just so smart.

I look forward to the oncoming shitshow of distribution that takes place in the US.

[MontuckyFried]

Man, normally I'd be onboard for the sarcastic shitposting of conspiracy stuff, but one of the other active threads is all about conspiracies on COVID vaccines and others have the regular suspects spouting fountains of paranoid delusions.

Yeah, but...wait, am I a regular suspect?

No. Montucky, puregravity etc.

Uhh, excuse me? Where have I been "spouting fountains of paranoid delusions?" I haven't said anything about microchipping or any of that nonsense. Bitch, please. I know I often have views to the contrary of the sacred opinions held here or have fun talking shit about your holy deities like Newsom, Garcetti, Cuomo, de Blasio, and Biden, but find some quotes of me actually being a paranoid conspiracy theorist before throwing me under the bus. No need to lump me in with the conspiracy 5G Bill Gates pizzagate microchipping guys. I've never said anything like that. FFS.