Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[Ted Striker]

Teeth don't fix themselves!

[ncskier]

So while most threads devolve into Biden will save us and trump is an idiot, what is there to make of this which is Europe blowing up now? We are all fucked unless you can stay away from humans masks or no masks.



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[XXX-er]

Here's the question Gallup asked: Compare your situation today with what it was four years ago. Are you better off or not? The calls were conducted from September 14 to 28, 2020. Incredibly, 56% answered that they were, and that's quite a bit higher than previous results.

What to make of that? Your guess is as good as mine.

maybe for some older people were making more money maybe the plans they made kicked in ?

I got older, got early CCP, inherited money

prehaps the rich got richer and the poor got poorer

[Iowagriz]

Missoula soccer club just posted that they are trying to organize a Thanksgiving alumni game or tourney or something similar.

Brilliant! Bring the college kids back to comingle on the pitch.

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[old goat]

Death rates down.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-...19-death-rates

One explanation for decreased death rates would be that as infections subsided in the initially hard hit areas the ICU's were no longer overwhelmed and the quality of care improved. If that is the case death rates could go back up, at least in places with ICU's at capacity, and especially in the more rural areas now spiking, which have much less experience and capacity for treating critical illness.
No doubt an improvement in protocols and treatments is a very important factor; I wonder how much of the hard-gained knowledge has filtered down to small rural hospitals. Interview I saw last night with a doc from the boonies said the big city hospital was no longer accepting referrals due to being at capacity. One of the most important factors in carrying for the seriously ill is the ability of nurses and doctors to sense when a patient is about to go bad before they do, and that only comes with experience.
Let's hope the trend continues, despite all that.

[garyfromterrace]

The EU just banned Canada from non-essential travel because of rising Covid rates. They review their lists every couple of weeks and we didn't make the cut. Thanks all you fucking wackjobs in Quebec, Ontario and Alberta.

[mfcf13]

You have a weakness now too. Your weakness (if nothing else) is the bad karma of this schadenfreude.

I think you misunderstand. I feel immensely bad for the people in those states who are impacted by failed leadership. With shitty economic prospects in rural areas of these regions, bad health outcomes like obesity follow. And in the rare instances when politicians (like Governor Whitmer) in those states do try to adhere to a science based approach to Covid, what do they get in return? In Whitmer's case: policies overturned by partisan elected judges and a kidnapping attempt by some guys who lived in the basement of a vacuum supply store (and were stoked on by politicians and lack of any hope for positive financial future).

[The AD]

So while most threads devolve into Biden will save us and trump is an idiot, what is there to make of this which is Europe blowing up now? We are all fucked unless you can stay away from humans masks or no masks.

Same problems as we're having here: easing of restrictions and people spending more time indoors has led to cases spiking. Just keep in mind the giant area between the two curves since April represents a gulf between cases in the U.S. and Europe that is now history and represents lots of people who have been seriously ill and perhaps even died who didn't need to. That's part of Trump's record now.

[bennymac]

You could deal with facts rather than ad hominins. It may be timely to refresh folks that this visualization exists with a pretty striking message ...
https://dangoodspeed.com/covid/total-cases-since-june

Thank you for posting that. Very cool. And telling.

Yeah there are exceptions to every rule but saying “stop it - there are good people in every state” is just illogical and it distracts from the big problem that is currently happening.

There shouldn’t exist a feeling of schadenfreude - more it should be a how the hell do we fix whatever is leading to this trend?

[schuss]

So while most threads devolve into Biden will save us and trump is an idiot, what is there to make of this which is Europe blowing up now? We are all fucked unless you can stay away from humans masks or no masks.



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Same as it's always been - duck and cover until we have some vaccine or better way to fight it. Nothing will kill it other than avoiding each other in the meantime. That's why all of us are dumbfounded on why Trump made it political - he could have just listened to the CDC and stepped back then reaped an easy re-election as a "wartime" president.

[bigdude2468]

Death rates down.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-...19-death-rates

I was going to post something I heard today about death rates that is very similar to this. Pulmonologist from NYU said that at the height of last springs outbreak about 50% of their hospitalized patients were not surviving, she said it is now 7%.

Wonder how much of that was due to a high number of elderly patients being infected and are the patients they are seeing today younger and healthier to the degree that they still get very sick but survive? She also said that the virus is slightly different and not as virulent.

Also today an NYU Pediatric immunologist said that they are seeing kids with positive PCR tests that upon further testing they are spreading very little to no virus. Some kids for unknown reason do shed it but he said not very many. Also kids with asthma and cystic fibrosis are not having more serious illness than kids without those conditions. As bad as Cystic Fibrosis is I would have thought that any respiratory virus would be really serious

[old goat]

So while most threads devolve into Biden will save us and trump is an idiot, what is there to make of this which is Europe blowing up now? We are all fucked unless you can stay away from humans masks or no masks.



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I would hope that people who support Biden understand that electing him won't make things significantly better. The partisan divide on Covid (or BLM or global warming) is not going away and any federal mandates will be ignored by the usual 40%. Maybe we'll get better PPE but at this point, with a vaccine "just around the corner" I would expect reluctance to invest in N95 tooling. Given that a vaccine is expected to be 50% effective at most (if we're lucky) there will still be plenty of Covid cases in hospitals but people tend to forget that.

Re aerosols--I suspect that at least part of the initial resistance to aerosol theory was that some of the early, high profile cases involved HCW's who were obviously exposed to droplets from their patients' coughs.

[Casey E]

More analysis of excess deaths indicating probable undercounting and a high ethnic component. What is surprising is the increase in adults ages 25 to 44.

“While the number of deaths among adults ages 45 to 64 increased by 15 percent, and by 24 percent among those ages 65 to 74, deaths increased 26.5 percent among those in their mid-20s to mid-40s”

“People of color also had large percentage increases in excess deaths, compared with previous years. Hispanics experienced a 54 percent increase, while Black people saw a 33 percent rise. Deaths were 29 percent above average for American Indians or Alaska Native people, and 37 percent above average for those of Asian descent.

By comparison, the figure for white Americans was 12 percent, according to the analysis.

The report reviewed deaths from Jan. 26 to Oct. 3 of 2020, and used modeling to compare the weekly tallies with those of corresponding weeks in 2015 through 2019.

The researchers estimated that 299,028 more people than expected died in the United States during that period, with 198,081 deaths attributable to Covid-19 and the rest to other causes.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/h...=articleShare]

The CDC study

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm

[gravitylover]

I'm getting so tired of walking into businesses (with must wear a mask signs on the door) and nobody that works there is wearing one.

[garyfromterrace]

You could deal with facts rather than ad hominins. It may be timely to refresh folks that this visualization exists with a pretty striking message ...
https://dangoodspeed.com/covid/total-cases-since-june

Thanks for posting that and confirming my suspicions.

[Toadman]

I'm getting so tired of walking into businesses (with must wear a mask signs on the door) and nobody that works there is wearing one.

I haven't seen this in Oregon. All employees are wearing them IME.

[evdog]

Trump may not be spared, he might not have any immunity because of the early and aggressive treatment. His immune system wasn’t allowed to really respond. The Monoclonal antibodies and dex would suppress his normal immune response.

Wouldn't it be ironic if he came out of this with a suppressed immune system from all the drugs and then later died from a common cold or the regular flu. Thus proving that Covid is no worse!

Isn’t travel to Mexico from the US closed? Someone I know has been posting pics from Mexico surfing and I’m wondering if I missed something.

I thought it was closed, but have talked to a few people who have been going down to Baja regularly to surf or fish.

[Toadman]

Gee, I wonder why?

According to a new Yahoo Finance-Harris Poll, nearly two-thirds of Americans have concerns about the fast-tracked COVID-19 vaccine, the product of “Operation Warp Speed.”

In response to the survey prompt, “I feel more concerned about receiving a COVID-19 vaccine than I do about other vaccines (e.g., flu, measles, chickenpox),” 63% of respondents agreed, with 35% agreeing with the statement “somewhat” and 28% agreeing “strongly.” (Because of the comparison to other vaccines, this is a distinct issue from the anti-vaccine movement — which medical professionals and evidence strongly rejects — and is a product of the unique circumstances.)

[old goat]

Donald Trump may be mouthing off about a vaccine but the scientists who are actually working on it are for the most part trustworthy people. I think we will be able to rely on people like Fauci to examine the evidence, including hopefully the raw data, to tell us if the vaccines are safe and effective. I think there is little chance that a fundamentally dangerous vaccine will be released--there is a strong financial incentive for a drug company to not release a vaccine that will kill people and the market. Effectiveness is far less certain and it wouldn't surprise me if a vaccine was approved that showed a trend towards effectiveness without reaching statistical significance. That's not necessarily a bad thing. When you're on the 50 with 3 seconds on the clock a hail mary is your only option.

Hopefully the early release of a vaccine will not stop further vaccine studies. Once a vaccine is on the market it will be hard to test other vaccines against placebo controls but it will certainly be possible to study them against the already-marketed vaccine.

Whatever, people shouldn't let their feelings about Trump influence their decision about getting a shot. Listen to the smart people.

[Mazderati]

Has this been posted? Lyrics NSFW.

[Casey E]

Chilean trees to the rescue?

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/...accine/616792/

“The Tree That Could Help Stop the Pandemic”

“The rare Chilean soapbark tree produces compounds that can boost the body’s reaction to vaccines.”

“ it happens to be the raw material for one of the world’s most coveted vaccine adjuvants: QS-21. Adjuvants are compounds that boost the body’s immune reaction to a vaccine. Owing to their potential risks to human health, however, only a handful of adjuvants have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and QS-21 is one of the newest.”

So the Novavax $1.6 billion commitment from Operation Warp Speed depends on the humble Quillay tree for its adjuvant, Matrix-M. This is a tree that is under severe stress from the mega drought in Chile. I estimate 40% of the forests that harbor the tree are already dead, and the drought is likely to only worsen with the arrival of La Niña. Environmentalists will be all over this.

Perhaps if the chickens and root beer no longer have the saponins they need, there will be enough, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

[The SnowShow]

Congrats to Texas for taking the all time lead for total CV cases today.

[Lone Star]

Take that California!! Everything is bigger in Texas, bitches!!

[Mofro261]

Chilean trees to the rescue?

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/...accine/616792/

“The Tree That Could Help Stop the Pandemic”

“The rare Chilean soapbark tree produces compounds that can boost the body’s reaction to vaccines.”

“ it happens to be the raw material for one of the world’s most coveted vaccine adjuvants: QS-21. Adjuvants are compounds that boost the body’s immune reaction to a vaccine. Owing to their potential risks to human health, however, only a handful of adjuvants have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and QS-21 is one of the newest.”

So the Novavax $1.6 billion commitment from Operation Warp Speed depends on the humble Quillay tree for its adjuvant, Matrix-M. This is a tree that is under severe stress from the mega drought in Chile. I estimate 40% of the forests that harbor the tree are already dead, and the drought is likely to only worsen with the arrival of La Niña. Environmentalists will be all over this.

Perhaps if the chickens and root beer no longer have the saponins they need, there will be enough, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Qs21 and all saponins are toxic as fuck

[old goat]

Qs21 and all saponins are toxic as fuck

For the sake of the survival of the (tree) species, lets hope so.