covid-19

[wmw999 2,116]

I'm told DuckDuckGo is the "new Google" by my Off to Parler folks. They might be surprised -- I don't think DuckDuckGo shades your results according to what you click on as much. At least a very quick and dirty search for "election cheating" showed extremely similar results. My husband normally uses Google on Chrome, I use DDG on Firefox normally, so DDG shouldn't be as seeded with pre-clicked data. But the search brought up all right-wing sites first, even on my mostly-click-left site.

So it's still all about asking the right questions.

Wendy P.

[lippy 765]

17 hours ago, Westerly said:

They help the situation, but you absolutely can still die even if you wear a cloth mask. A vaccine goes far, far beyond that. A vaccine will drastically reduce your chances of death well beyond what even legit PPE can offer.

I don't mean this as a dig on you too badly, but when I was driving in this morning it struck me as a quintessentially American response to say "You mean I should go through the minor inconvenience of wearing a mask, washing my hands and paying attention to my surroundings!?!?!?  Fuck that, just give me an unproven injection!"

[billvon 2,381]

18 minutes ago, lippy said:

I don't mean this as a dig on you too badly, but when I was driving in this morning it struck me as a quintessentially American response to say "You mean I should go through the minor inconvenience of wearing a mask, washing my hands and paying attention to my surroundings!?!?!?  Fuck that, just give me an unproven injection!"

Of course.  People see the vaccine as "give it to me and I don't have to be bothered with the mask and the handwashing any more!  I am IMMUNE!  I can go out drinking with my friends and laugh at the dupes with the masks on!"

(It should be noted that the 90% number is the data they have so far - that covers about a month and a half.  Three months?  Six months?  They have no idea what the effectiveness will be then.)

[gowlerk 1,903]

7 minutes ago, billvon said:

(It should be noted that the 90% number is the data they have so far - that covers about a month and a half.  Three months?  Six months?  They have no idea what the effectiveness will be then.)

There are quite a few caveats with that number. 90% efficacy in vaccines is almost unheard of. The current rate of infections has made the preliminary results come faster than they thought. But questions about what subgroups got the most protection and how sick those who did get the virus in spite of the vaccination are unknown. I have heard that the main reason they felt they had to release the results they have so far was that there was a danger of insider trading due to the number of people who had the info. By the end of the month there will be much more detailed results.

[billvon 2,381]

5 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

By the end of the month there will be much more detailed results.

Yep.  By early or mid-Dec the FDA should have all the data, and they can then make a determination on its safety/effectiveness.  Best case is that we'd see some publicly available vaccines early 2021 (which, not surprisingly, is what the medical community's best guess was for the soonest we'd see one.) 

It's also a given that the first vaccines will go to the most at-risk people - the elderly, the compromised.  It should ALSO be noted that there will be immunocompromised people who cannot get the vaccine.  For them, masking/distancing etc will be their only protection until enough people are vaccinated that Re is well below 1.

One thing that worries me is that this is an mRNA vaccine.  The mRNA invades human cells, starts producing proteins that look like SARS-CoV-2, and the adaptive immune system reacts by producing antibodies to destroy those proteins (and any viral plasmids/cells that express those proteins.)

There's an obvious problem here.  What if the mRNA invades a significant number of human cells in an important area?  Your immune system is stimulated and then begins attacking your own cells.  That's a recipe for an autoimmune disease.  Autoimmune diseases currently cause diseases like Hashimoto's, diabetes, lupus and MS.  Will we see something like that in people who receive the vaccine after a year or so, as their immune system gets better and better at fighting its own cells?

 

[ryoder 1,381]

And Corey Lewandowski is the latest to test positive.

[Westerly 61]

1 hour ago, lippy said:

I don't mean this as a dig on you too badly, but when I was driving in this morning it struck me as a quintessentially American response to say "You mean I should go through the minor inconvenience of wearing a mask, washing my hands and paying attention to my surroundings!?!?!?  Fuck that, just give me an unproven injection!"

The problem with masks is they do very little to protect YOU. They are for protecting others. So really the protection for you comes in the form of other people, not you, wearing a mask. The obvious problem there is that other people dont give a shit about you, thus they dont wear a mask and you get infected even if you are wearing a mask. It's not a very good plan. So a plan that relies on the generosity and care of other humans to ensure your safety is a plan guaranteed to fail (as it has been in the USA). I prefer actions that I take that protect me directly, which a vaccine is one of those.

Edited November 12, 2020 by Westerly

[gowlerk 1,903]

1 hour ago, billvon said:

One thing that worries me is that this is an mRNA vaccine.

Moderna has been trying for a decade to develop other types of drugs based on this. Not one has ever been approved mostly because of serious side effects. But this is a different application than any of the others. The past problematic ones have been based on modifying stem cells. They switched to vaccine development in 2016 and still have not had a successful product. They have been accused in the past of being an investment fund in search of a drug.

This is bleeding edge biological tech. I do not know if your concern about induced immunological disease is a factor or not. But it is an interesting thought.

Edited November 12, 2020 by gowlerk

[Westerly 61]

12 hours ago, billvon said:

PPE is personal protection equipment.  A mask is PPE.  A face shield is PPE. They protect you and others, in this case from infection.  You may not like it; that matters not at all.

?? Of course.  And if you showed up at a DZ with an out of date reserve, you'd be thrown off as well.  It's still a reserve - it's just not legal to use at that DZ unless it gets repacked.

But if you somehow found yourself in the air with that out-of-date reserve, and you had a mal, it is still going to do its job and save your life.  Even if some US government agency disagrees that it meets the legal definition of a good reserve.

 

 

lol that's not even remotely in the same neighborhood as a relevant example. A reserve will function perfectly fine regardless if it was packed 180 days ago or 190. A cloth mask made from a T shirt DOES NOT and will not ever provide the same level of protection as a NIOSH certified N-95 or above mask. They are not the same thing. That's the equivalent of having your buddy wrap some twine he bought at Home Depot around you to tie you into the seat of car and saying 'that's basically the same thing as wearing a seatbelt'. No it's not. It's ghetto rigging which is crap. Cloth masks are the PPE version of ghetto rigging and they do not and will not ever afford anywhere near the same level of protection as certified PPE designed for reducing transmission of infectious diseases. If everyone swapped out their cloth masks for properly fitted N-95 masks, we would save lots of lives because real PPE works better than fake PPE. Why I need to explain the importance of quality and using genuine product is beyond me. I'd think that would be obvious.
 

[JoeWeber 2,294]

11 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

Moderna has been trying for a decade to develop other types of drugs based on this. Not one has ever been approved mostly because of serious side effects. But this is a different application than any of the others. The past problematic ones have been based on modifying stem cells. They switched to vaccine development in 2016 and still have not had a successful product. They have been accused in the past of being an investment fund in search of a drug.

This is bleeding edge biological tech. I do not know if your concern about induce immunological disease is a factor or not. But it is an interesting thought.

It has me thinking and reading. Autoimmune disease is near the top of the list of horribles. 

[gowlerk 1,903]

2 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

Autoimmune disease is near the top of the list of horribles. 

The term covers a lot of things. Dying of C-19 itself can be though of as dying from an immune system over reaction. The "covid long haulers" are thought to be suffering an auto immune condition.

[billvon 2,381]

4 minutes ago, Westerly said:

lol that's not even remotely in the same neighborhood as a relevant example. A reserve will function perfectly fine regardless if it was packed 180 days ago or 190.

Exactly.  And an unapproved KN-95 mask will work as well as that approved respirator - even if the KN-95 mask is not on the list and gets you booted off the jobsite.  And as tests have shown, cloth masks also work almost as well as that KN-95 mask.

Quote

That's the equivalent of having your buddy wrap some twine he bought at Home Depot around you to tie you into the seat of car and saying 'that's basically the same thing as wearing a seatbelt'.

Another good example.  But if your car doesn't have a seatbelt and a rigger takes some type-8 and makes you one, it's going to be almost as good as a real one.  It still won't pass an inspection - but is quite likely to save your life if you are in a serious collision.

To your point, mesh masks don't work.  Two layer fabric ones do.  This isn't because "anything goes" - this is because several organizations have tested various cloth masks and they do indeed work quite well at stopping aerosols.

Quote

 If everyone swapped out their cloth masks for properly fitted N-95 masks, we would save lots of lives because real PPE works better than fake PPE.

Again, if someone uses a cloth mask properly they are going to be way better off than someone who uses a KN-95 mask improperly.

[billvon 2,381]

21 minutes ago, Westerly said:

The problem with masks is they do very little to protect YOU. They are for protecting others.

They are both.  From the CDC:

Masks are primarily intended to reduce the emission of virus-laden droplets (“source control”), which is especially relevant for asymptomatic or presymptomatic infected wearers who feel well and may be unaware of their infectiousness to others, and who are estimated to account for more than 50% of transmissions.  Masks also help reduce inhalation of these droplets by the wearer (“filtration for personal protection”).

[JoeWeber 2,294]

1 minute ago, gowlerk said:

The term covers a lot of things. Dying of C-19 itself can be though of as dying from an immune system over reaction. The "covid long haulers" are thought to be suffering an auto immune condition.

At this point my position is simple: if BillVon is scared then I'm scared, too. 2020, the year of credulity.

[gowlerk 1,903]

2 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

At this point my position is simple: if BillVon is scared then I'm scared, too. 2020, the year of credulity.

Who are you going to trust, the seasoned experienced senior engineer, or a 40 year truck driver with a grade 8 education?

[JoeWeber 2,294]

1 minute ago, gowlerk said:

Who are you going to trust, the seasoned experienced senior engineer, or a 40 year truck driver with a grade 8 education?

I need more data. Did you get thrown out or quit.

[gowlerk 1,903]

8 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

I need more data. Did you get thrown out or quit.

After 1.5 years of pretending to attend grade 9 a principal took my aside and asked "why are you doing this, why don't you just quit". So I did. I was almost 16 at the time.

[JoeWeber 2,294]

2 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

After 1.5 years of pretending to attend grade 9 a principal took my aside and asked "why are you doing this, why don't you just quit". So I did. I was almost 16 at the time.

That shows real initiative in my view. That's it then, I'm going with you.

[gowlerk 1,903]

1 minute ago, JoeWeber said:

That shows real initiative in my view. That's it then, I'm going with you.

Okay, but don't blame me if it doesn't work out and you get sick.

 

[nwt 131]

19 hours ago, Westerly said:

A cloth mask is not PPE. OSHA decides what is and what is not PPE, and an uncertified made at home mask does not meet the legal definition of PPE. If you showed up to a construction worksite which required a respirator and all you brought was a cloth mask made from a bandanna, you'd be thrown off the site.

The R not rate is not going to drop long-term below 1 as long as people are infectible. Right now the projections show that at our current track by March 450,000 people will be dead. If we had 100% compliance with mask wearing 100% of the time, we would have 340,000 deaths. Put another way, even with everyone wearing masks, 340k people would still be dead. That's a reduction of like 30% over what we have with our currently mixed usage. That's good, but not exactly a god send. If masks were truly that effective and legitimately really PPE, then there would be few additional deaths. I bet if everyone wore full, legit PPE including N-99 masks properly fitted, a face shield and a full body chemical suit, deaths would probably drop 100k even lower--just proving that cloth masks are not real PPE. They are band aid in a desperate situation. They help the situation, but you absolutely can still die even if you wear a cloth mask. A vaccine goes far, far beyond that. A vaccine will drastically reduce your chances of death well beyond what even legit PPE can offer.

So what exactly are you advocating for? We've been working on vaccines, but we don't have one ready yet. Are you advocating we take no precautions instead of wearing cloth masks? Because cloth masks are less effective than respirators and vaccines? That doesn't make much sense to me.

[ryoder 1,381]

Another positive: Don Young (R-AK), who is 87yo.

[kallend 1,621]

The nation passed another grim milestone in the pandemic Thursday with more than 152,000 new cases and more than 66,000 hospitalizations, also a record. 

[Westerly 61]

6 hours ago, nwt said:

So what exactly are you advocating for? We've been working on vaccines, but we don't have one ready yet. Are you advocating we take no precautions instead of wearing cloth masks? Because cloth masks are less effective than respirators and vaccines? That doesn't make much sense to me.

I'm advocating we release the vaccine now to anyone who wants it. Yes it will take time to make and I get that, but for everyday we screw around with more testing is another day that thousands will die. In the end the vaccine will get approved eventually anyway and all this waiting will have accomplished is hundreds of thousands that will be dead that otherwise wouldent have been if they were able to get the vaccine out sooner. It will be a case of 'oh, I guess the vaccine WAS safe and effective after all, good thing we made everyone wait for no reason". There is a good reason to test drugs, but sometimes there is a good reason cut corners as well. This is a case where quantity matters more than quality.

Edited November 13, 2020 by Westerly

[billvon 2,381]

5 minutes ago, Westerly said:

It will be a case of 'oh, I guess the vaccine WAS safe and effective after all, good thing we made everyone wait for no reason". There is a good reason to test drugs, but sometimes there is a good reason cut corners as well. This is a case where quantity matters more than quality.

Or it will be a case of "thank God we didn't release a vaccine that causes fatal autoimmune disorders in 2% of patients."

Which is more likely?  That's what the current testing is trying to determine.

Until then we have some very effective NPI's that work to reduce infection rates (and turn symptomatic infections into variolation.)

[Westerly 61]

7 hours ago, billvon said:

They are both.  From the CDC:

Masks are primarily intended to reduce the emission of virus-laden droplets (“source control”), which is especially relevant for asymptomatic or presymptomatic infected wearers who feel well and may be unaware of their infectiousness to others, and who are estimated to account for more than 50% of transmissions.  Masks also help reduce inhalation of these droplets by the wearer (“filtration for personal protection”).

You mean the same CDC who originally said that masks were not effective for anything and they recommended not wearing one at all? Also the same CDC who last month said you dont need to self isolate or get a COVID test if you were in close contact with someone who tested positive? The size of a Covid virus is about 1.3 nm. A cloth mask has gaps in it that are so large comparatively it's like an ant walking through an airplane hanger door. The reason why N-95 masks work are becasue they are electrically charged so small particles 'stick' to the fibers. Without that feature, they would be substantially less effective. Cloth masks dont have that feature at all.