covid-19

[winsor 186]

37 minutes ago, nwt said:

 

If you actually have anything, have at it.  Snark I can get anywhere.

[Coreece 189]

Ok, so to sum it all up:

Winsor is overstating the side effects and scaring the shit out of those whom did have to go to highschool, and nwt + the canadians are overreacting?

[winsor 186]

I've probably linked this article before:

https://www.covidviruslifecycle.com/

but it touches on the susceptibility of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to 3CL protease inhibitors.

Since protease inhibitors successfully resolve difficult infections such as Hepatitis C genotype 1A and limit the expression of HIV to undetectable levels (unfortunately HIV remains in T cells, which have a 17 year lifespan IIRC), early use of 3CL protease inhibitors can serve to limit long term damage and to greatly limit infectiousness.

For all their utility, while vaccines limit damage they reduce but do not eliminate infection, and the level and duration of viral shedding is effectively identical between vaccinated and unvaccinated patients - whether symptomatic or not.

Since we've been working on vaccines for HIV for the better part of 40 years without success, it is impressive that we have achieved the limited success with SARS-CoV-2 as we have to date. However, to conclude that vaccination is the be-all end-all treatment is unrealistic.  Hitting it from all angles, to include vaccines of course, is about the only realistic approach.

 

BSBD,

Winsor

[winsor 186]

6 hours ago, Coreece said:

Ok, so to sum it all up:

Winsor is overstating the side effects and scaring the shit out of those whom did have to go to highschool, and nwt + the canadians are overreacting?

I know better than to bank on anecdotal evidence, but two long term friends had their hearts stop after mRNA vaccines, one of which was revived and is among the undead; he and another person have been crippled by the side effects.  Going from tennis players to getting around with a wheel chair or walker gets my attention.

People with whom I have had to cancel appointments of late due to active COVID-19 infection were all 'fully vaccinated' with either Pfizer or Moderna.  Even though we are talking 'mild' infection, I still don't trust the long term effects of a clotting disorder - diffuse scar tissue resulting from blocked capillaries tends to remain scar tissue permanently.

In large organizations the scum rises to the top.  I've seen organizations where, when someone was needed to do the administrative dreck, they picked the least competent member of the team to shuffle paper and 'administrate.'  Everyone else was too valuable implementing effective solutions to critical problems.

Thus, if you have a discussion with the people from middle management on down, you tend to get a clear and detailed view of the problems being addressed, the game plan for doing so, and the status of the effort.

If you talk to people in the corner office, the picture is often distorted by organizational and economic, rather than technical, realities.  You begin to hear all too may buzzwords.

The point here is that Hanlon's Razor, rather than 'conspiracy,' holds sway.

H. L. Mencken's observation is thus prescient, whereby "for every complex problem there exists a solution that is simple, elegant - and wrong."  COVID-19 is a case in point.

 

BSBD,

Winsor

[Stumpy 256]

1 hour ago, winsor said:

 

Since we've been working on vaccines for HIV for the better part of 40 years without success, it is impressive that we have achieved the limited success with SARS-CoV-2 as we have to date. 

Aside from anything else, you cannot compare the two. There are very specific reasons why HIV is extremely hard to create a vaccine for.

Covid is (comparatively) easy. 

[Stumpy 256]

1 hour ago, winsor said:

I know better than to bank on anecdotal evidence, but two long term friends had their hearts stop after mRNA vaccines, one of which was revived and is among the undead; he and another person have been crippled by the side effects.  Going from tennis players to getting around with a wheel chair or walker gets my attention.

Yet that's exactly what you have just done.

Even if that's true (which I doubt), the chance of any unvaccinated person dying of covid is orders of magnitude higher than the chance of them having an adverse affect from the vaccine.

[wmw999 2,117]

2 hours ago, winsor said:

However, to conclude that vaccination is the be-all end-all treatment is unrealistic.  Hitting it from all angles, to include vaccines of course, is about the only realistic approach.

That’s a strawman, and you know it. There was talk in the early days of the vaccine, but it didn’t pan out as magic. Ergo the recommendations to continue masking and distancing. Covid is still a relatively unknown disease entity, with the proven capacity to impact citywide, nationwide, and worldwide systems — because part of the impact is people’s response to COVID, and entities are made of people. 
Individuals and families can make jumps into metaphorical shark-infested waters. Most of our ancestors did when they immigrated to various l countries.

Some other people making the same trips didn’t survive, sometimes messily.
It’s one thing to take a risk for yourself; a bigger one to take it for your family. Until we stop having breakouts that strain or break health systems on a regular basis, this is an unknown quantity. And long covid seems to exist, so it’s part of the works. 
Finding different approaches is wonderful, however failing to acknowledge the reality of COVID’s impact on people is stupid. 
And yes, I’m including the impact of the isolation on lots of people, particularly elders in congregate conditions, who probably won’t recover from the isolation. There is no win win situation here  

Wendy P. 

[lippy 766]

2 hours ago, winsor said:

but two long term friends had their hearts stop after mRNA vaccines, one of which was revived and is among the undead; he and another person have been crippled by the side effects.  Going from tennis players to getting around with a wheel chair or walker gets my attention.

....and did you hear what happened to Nicki Minaj's cousin's friend in Trinidad?!?!?!?!

[gowlerk 1,903]

27 minutes ago, wmw999 said:

Until we stop having breakouts that strain or break health systems on a regular basis, this is an unknown quantity.

In our tiny little province with 1.38 million people we only have about 150 new cases and average 2 or so deaths per day. But because vaccine refusers when they do get sick and end up in ICU and they are there for a relatively long time the only way to provide enough staff to care for them is to shut down about 50% of our elective surgery slates. 

How much suffering and extra death does that cause? It is hard to measure. How many people are sick in the hospital or dead from vaccine side effects? That one is easy. None. 

Winsor hangs onto to anecdotes, even though he claims he knows better from all appearances out of a deep seated distrust of ......well, I'm not sure exactly what, but deep seated it is. Yet he is triple vaccinated himself. 

Pandemics usually burn themselves out in something around 2 years. This one will likely more or less follow that pattern. And we will have a new endemic disease to add to the long list of things we cope with all the time. Between infections and vaccines it is no longer "novel", except for within the the refuser group. And as we move away from the precautions that we are tired of it will soon enough get to all of us just as the flu does. Those who made the foolish choice will each pay the price. But it won't be the same price for all of them. Society as a whole will also pay a price financially. I wish there was a way to make the irresponsible people pay that as well, but mostly they will be insulated from that.

[winsor 186]

16 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

In our tiny little province with 1.38 million people we only have about 150 new cases and average 2 or so deaths per day. But because vaccine refusers when they do get sick and end up in ICU and they are there for a relatively long time the only way to provide enough staff to care for them is to shut down about 50% of our elective surgery slates. 

How much suffering and extra death does that cause? It is hard to measure. How many people are sick in the hospital or dead from vaccine side effects? That one is easy. None. 

Winsor hangs onto to anecdotes, even though he claims he knows better from all appearances out of a deep seated distrust of ......well, I'm not sure exactly what, but deep seated it is. Yet he is triple vaccinated himself. 

Pandemics usually burn themselves out in something around 2 years. This one will likely more or less follow that pattern. And we will have a new endemic disease to add to the long list of things we cope with all the time. Between infections and vaccines it is no longer "novel", except for within the the refuser group. And as we move away from the precautions that we are tired of it will soon enough get to all of us just as the flu does. Those who made the foolish choice will each pay the price. But it won't be the same price for all of them. Society as a whole will also pay a price financially. I wish there was a way to make the irresponsible people pay that as well, but mostly they will be insulated from that.

I'm unsure of what you think is my stance, but you're tilting at windmills.

Optimizing any system involves minimizing a 'cost function.'  Parameters may include time, money, personnel, military advantage, political capital or whatever is appropriate.

I wholeheartedly agree with doing everything possible to avoid becoming 'symptomatic,' since the overall effects of the symptoms are outright ghastly.  The pneumonia-like symptoms of COVID-19 make run of the mill pneumonia look like a gift from god by comparison, since they result not from generic fluid in the lungs but alveoli filled with hyaluronic acid and blood clots.  Scarred tissue tends to have lifelong effects.

My point regarding the adverse reactions to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines is not that the risk outweighs the benefits, but that they are hardly without risk.  Someone of advanced years would do well to get vaccinated, though we are sure to lose the odd patient as a result.  Life is fatal, deal with it.

When you get to vaccinating babies and very young children, a more careful risk/benefit analysis might be advisable.  On the one hand, permanent damage to a toddler from symptomatic COVID-19 will have decades of consequences.  OTOH, it appears that vanishingly small numbers of VOCID-19 infected youngsters require medical intervention.

I don't have sufficiently granular data to perform a valid analysis, and our focus is on end-stage infection, but would be interested in a detailed evaluation from an unbiased source (as if there is such a thing).

When you get people who push vaccines on the previously infected (there may be benefit) or little kids as a matter of policy, I'd like to see some trustworthy numbers before getting on that bandwagon.

 

BSBD,

Winsor

[billvon 2,384]

5 hours ago, winsor said:

I know better than to bank on anecdotal evidence, but two long term friends had their hearts stop after mRNA vaccines, one of which was revived and is among the undead; he and another person have been crippled by the side effects.  Going from tennis players to getting around with a wheel chair or walker gets my attention.

Old friend of mine - Art Bori - died from COVID-19 about a year and a half ago.  Generally healthy guy, SCUBA diver, skydiver.  When healthy people die from a pandemic it gets my attention.

[winsor 186]

47 minutes ago, billvon said:

Old friend of mine - Art Bori - died from COVID-19 about a year and a half ago.  Generally healthy guy, SCUBA diver, skydiver.  When healthy people die from a pandemic it gets my attention.

Rather a given.  The trade off is where the cure becomes worse than the disease, and there are SOME instances  where that is the case.

[nwt 131]

28 minutes ago, winsor said:

there are SOME instances  where that is the case.

So we should throw statistical analysis out the window and instead make decisions based on SOME anecdotes?

[gowlerk 1,903]

1 hour ago, winsor said:

Rather a given.  The trade off is where the cure becomes worse than the disease, and there are SOME instances  where that is the case.

Yes, as in Ivermectin, Remdesivir, Listerine, and Clorox. 

[winsor 186]

1 hour ago, nwt said:

So we should throw statistical analysis out the window and instead make decisions based on SOME anecdotes?

Depends on the anecdote and the statistics.

[nwt 131]

5 minutes ago, winsor said:

Depends on the anecdote and the statistics.

The context is COVID-19 in case you forgot.

[winsor 186]

15 minutes ago, nwt said:

The context is COVID-19 in case you forgot.

Are you sure?

[billvon 2,384]

1 hour ago, gowlerk said:

Yes, as in Ivermectin, Remdesivir, Listerine, and Clorox. 

And UV light.  I heard of a guy who got COVID, and walked around outside in the sun for days with his mouth open - and he survived!  And everyone called Trump stupid for suggesting that.  Who looks stupid now?

[Phil1111 908]

7 minutes ago, billvon said:

And UV light.  I heard of a guy who got COVID, and walked around outside in the sun for days with his mouth open - and he survived!  And everyone called Trump stupid for suggesting that.  Who looks stupid now?

So....Winsor.....is right

[Bigfalls 110]

16 minutes ago, billvon said:

And UV light.  I heard of a guy who got COVID, and walked around outside in the sun for days with his mouth open - and he survived!  And everyone called Trump stupid for suggesting that.  Who looks stupid now?

Would mooning the sun also work?

[gowlerk 1,903]

6 minutes ago, Bigfalls said:

Would mooning the sun also work?

There's a meme for that.

[winsor 186]

Various reports indicate that there was some existing immunity in the population before COVID-19 hit, and this has been attributed to previous bouts of other Corona viruses, some of the 'common cold' viruses amongst them.

In the same sense that Cowpox protected milkmaids from Smallpox, a variant of SARS-CoV-2 that has spike proteins for all the key receptors, but does not result in severe illness or long term effects (such as death), might confer broad immunity to those so infected.

The Omicron variant could well turn out to be a blessing in disguise if it fits those criteria.  Reports from South Africa indicate that it is infectious as hell, but requires medical intervention at about as often as does the Pfizer vaccine.

Of course, if Omicron is either asymptomatic or results in a mild case, but results in people dropping dead six weeks later, this may not be ideal.

 

BSBD,

Winsor 

 

[Coreece 189]

2 hours ago, Phil1111 said:

So....Winsor.....is right

Who cares, show how he's wrong, if you can.  Address the content rather than instinctively attacking the shiny objects.

[gowlerk 1,903]

Here we go. At least one world leader is pretty much ready to push the panic button.

“It has become increasingly clear that omicron is growing much faster than the previous delta variant and is spreading rapidly all around the world,” he said in a press conference. “Most worryingly, there is evidence that the doubling time of omicron could currently be between two and three days.”

https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-business-lifestyle-health-boris-johnson-7164aeee5e2a098ad5cf813fcef388c6

Even if it is somewhat milder there may very well be a lot of people sick at the same time. If he is right nations with high numbers of refusers are going to be hammered hard.

Have a very Merry Christmas everybody.

Edited December 9, 2021 by gowlerk

[lippy 766]

1 hour ago, winsor said:

Reports from South Africa indicate that it is infectious as hell, but requires medical intervention at about as often as does the Pfizer vaccine.

You have any links to reputable reports that make that comparison?  How often do recipients of the Pfizer vaccine require medical intervention?  Are you making things up again?