I'll be Mmbopping in multiple cities, mask and vax free, no doubt!

13 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

Vaccines Will Not Produce Worse Variants

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/vaccines-will-not-produce-worse-variants

So one key way to cut down on the odds of a nasty mutant popping up is to just keep the virus from reproducing so much. Cut down on the number of people it infects. When it does infect people, cut down on the amount of time it spends reproducing inside the body. These countermeasures are exactly what a mass vaccination program does. Fewer people get infected in the first place, and when they do get infected, their disease course tends in the great majority of cases to be shorter and milder. A nasty variant is almost certainly going to come up by accident, so let's not have so many accidents going on constantly around the clock, around the world.

But back to the earlier discussion: what if the vaccines are still putting direct pressure on the virus? Aren't we selecting for exactly the things we fear the most? The answer to that is counterintuitive. Take a look, for example, at this preprint from July. The authors looked over 1.8 million coronavirus genomes from infections around the world, and compared that background data set to specific breakthrough infection sequences in vaccinated patients. What they find is that the genomic sequences from the breakthrough infection patients are significantly less diverse than what's seen in the wild. The authors believe that this shows that "COVID-19 vaccines are fundamentally restricting the evolutionary and antigenic escape pathways accessible to SARS-CoV-2", and that's the flip side of the above argument. You are putting pressure on the virus to escape the immune attack, but at the same time you are cutting sharply back on the pathways it can use to get there.

Oh wow

Spoiler

wow, wow, wow, wow

 

Good times for maskless Dems at the NYC 9/11 ceremony

https://www.usasupreme.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/democrats-9-11.mp4?_=1

 

Sidebar: I don't know what happened to Nate Silver, but it's disappointing...

For someone who's usually good at understanding the differences in criteria and metrics, it's weird that he'd conflate rates of deaths/hospitalizations with rates of transmission, and also completely ignore the mounting evidence of the protective gap between pfizer and moderna dosages/intervals.

So another heart patient was denied admittance because there were no available beds. It's time to stop admitting unvaccinated Covid patients. Another victim caused by the Unvaccinated.

 

After 43 hospitals turn away Alabama man who needed ICU bed, obituary urges COVID vaccines

The family of a Cullman man who died of heart issues in Mississippi is asking people to get vaccinated for COVID after 43 hospitals across three states were unable to accept him because of full cardiac ICUs. 

Ray Martin DeMonia died on Sept. 1 in Meridian, Mississippi. He was three days shy of his 74th birthday and a well-known Cullman native, his family said.  

https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/local/2021/09/10/cullman-al-man-dies-hospitals-full-icus-turn-away-covid/8272754002/

1 hour ago, we_gotta_believe said:

Vaccines Will Not Produce Worse Variants

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/vaccines-will-not-produce-worse-variants

So one key way to cut down on the odds of a nasty mutant popping up is to just keep the virus from reproducing so much. Cut down on the number of people it infects. When it does infect people, cut down on the amount of time it spends reproducing inside the body. These countermeasures are exactly what a mass vaccination program does. Fewer people get infected in the first place, and when they do get infected, their disease course tends in the great majority of cases to be shorter and milder. A nasty variant is almost certainly going to come up by accident, so let's not have so many accidents going on constantly around the clock, around the world.

But back to the earlier discussion: what if the vaccines are still putting direct pressure on the virus? Aren't we selecting for exactly the things we fear the most? The answer to that is counterintuitive. Take a look, for example, at this preprint from July. The authors looked over 1.8 million coronavirus genomes from infections around the world, and compared that background data set to specific breakthrough infection sequences in vaccinated patients. What they find is that the genomic sequences from the breakthrough infection patients are significantly less diverse than what's seen in the wild. The authors believe that this shows that "COVID-19 vaccines are fundamentally restricting the evolutionary and antigenic escape pathways accessible to SARS-CoV-2", and that's the flip side of the above argument. You are putting pressure on the virus to escape the immune attack, but at the same time you are cutting sharply back on the pathways it can use to get there.

They won't produce more variants, but they will make me magnetic, alter my DNA and allow Biden to track my movements.

U.S. Army Veteran dies because there were no available beds. Another victim claimed by the Unvaccinated.

 

When U.S. Army veteran Daniel Wilkinson started feeling sick last week, he went to the hospital in Bellville, Texas, outside Houston. His health problem wasn't related to COVID-19, but Wilkinson needed advanced care, and with the coronavirus filling up intensive care beds, he couldn't get it in time to save his life.

"He loved his country," his mother, Michelle Puget, told "CBS This Morning" lead national correspondent David Begnaud. "He served two deployments in Afghanistan, came home with a Purple Heart, and it was a gallstone that took him out."

Last Saturday, Wilkinson's mother rushed him to Bellville Medical Center, just three doors down from their home.

But for Wilkinson, help was still too far away.

Army veteran Daniel Wilkinson.CBS NEWS

Belville emergency room physician Dr. Hasan Kakli treated Wilkinson, and discovered that he had gallstone pancreatitis, something the Belville hospital wasn't equipped to treat.

"I do labs on him, I get labs, and the labs come back, and I'm at the computer, and I have one of those 'Oh, crap' moments. If that stone doesn't spontaneously come out and doesn't resolve itself, that fluid just builds up, backs up into the liver, backs up into the pancreas, and starts to shut down those organs. His bloodwork even showed that his kidneys were shutting down."

Kakli told Begnaud that his patient was dying right in front of him. Wilkinson needed a higher level of care, but with hospitals across Texas and much of the South overwhelmed with COVID patients, there was no place for him.

Kakli recalled making multiple phone calls to other facilities, only to get a lot of, "sorry … sorry … sorry," in reply. Places had the specialists to do the procedure, but because of how sick he was Wilkinson needed intensive care, and they didn't have an ICU bed to put him in. 

"Then I'm at my computer and, I'm just like, scratching my head, and I get this thought in my head: I'm like, 'What if I put this on Facebook or something, maybe somebody can help out?' One doctor messaged me: 'Hey, I'm in Missouri. Last time I checked, we have ICU beds. We can do this, call this number.' The next guy messages me, he's a GI specialist, he goes, 'I'm in Austin. I can do his procedure, get him over.' I said, 'Okay great, let's go.' He texts me back five minutes later: 'I'm sorry. I can't get administrative approval to accept him, we're full.'"

 

Roughly 24 hours after he walked into the emergency room, Daniel Wilkinson died at the age of 46.

Part of the reason why I scoff whenever someone says being unvaccinated doesn’t effect other people

That's horrible.  I had some gallstone issues and it wasn't pretty.  Nothing over the last 15 months though, knock on wood.

3 hours ago, Kz! said:

 

Instead of companies myocarditis to hospitalization, maybe you could, I don’t know, compare myocarditis to… myocarditis. 

 

What a divisive issue.  The degree of enmity among Americans against each other is probably the biggest casualty in all of this. 

4 minutes ago, Procus said:

What a divisive issue.  The degree of enmity among Americans against each other is probably the biggest casualty in all of this. 

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say the people that have died are the biggest casualty. 

6 minutes ago, Procus said:

What a divisive issue.  The degree of enmity among Americans against each other is probably the biggest casualty in all of this. 

it's almost like one recent president went out of his way to divide the nation and frame non-supporters as enemies of the state. weird. 

Exactly my point.  One group of people will start attacking another group because of differing viewpoints, or whatever.  It gets to the point where it becomes less about a health matter and much more about being right and somebody else being wrong.

3 minutes ago, Procus said:

Exactly my point.  One group of people will start attacking another group because of differing viewpoints, or whatever.  It gets to the point where it becomes less about a health matter and much more about being right and somebody else being wrong.

"One group of people will tell another group of people to stop driving drunk. It gets to the point where it become less about a health matter and much more about being right and somebody else being wrong."

55 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

 

Uneducated people not doing the smart thing. Young people not doing the safe thing. 
 

COVID plays into more stereotypes than a Mel Brooks movie. 

 

Jeebus, the comments.

33 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

it's almost like one recent president went out of his way to divide the nation and frame non-supporters as enemies of the state. weird. 

But enough about Biden.

13 minutes ago, Bill said:

Uneducated people not doing the smart thing. Young people not doing the safe thing. 
 

COVID plays into more stereotypes than a Mel Brooks movie. 

My first year in college, I met a guy in my psych class that was a pilot in training. The first week of class he offered for me to tag along with his gf and her friend while he was logging hours and I jumped at the chance (semi-blind-date aspect was a motivating factor but girl turned out to be meh.) We flew out of a local airport and he even let me take over the controls for a couple minutes while we were up there so I could do a couple turns and dives while the girls were freaking out. Was a blast and I'm glad I did it, but looking back, the fact that the late teens me had no reservations whatsoever about going up in a single engine cessna with a guy I just met and never asked how long he'd been flying is funny to the late thirties me.

14 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

My first year in college, I met a guy in my psych class that was a pilot in training. The first week of class he offered for me to tag along with his gf and her friend while he was logging hours and I jumped at the chance (semi-blind-date aspect was a motivating factor but girl turned out to be meh.) We flew out of a local airport and he even let me take over the controls for a couple minutes while we were up there so I could do a couple turns and dives while the girls were freaking out. Was a blast and I'm glad I did it, but looking back, the fact that the late teens me had no reservations whatsoever about going up in a single engine cessna with a guy I just met and never asked how long he'd been flying is funny to the late thirties me.

Taller than you?  Yeah that's a tough one

BTW - pretty cool you got to fly a plane with Albert 

2 minutes ago, mikemack8 said:

Taller than you?  Yeah that's a tough one

No, just a mediocre looking asian chick that was basically shrieking non-stop from takeoff until landing. I thought no way am I gonna ever be into a girl that's this much of a pussbag. Ironically, my wife is terrified of roller coasters. Go figure.

7 minutes ago, mikemack8 said:

BTW - pretty cool you got to fly a plane with Albert 

 I bumped into him years later at a bar on the night before thanksgiving. He had just been hired by Delta and was out celebrating. Got pretty drunk at one point, stood up on the bar and started "USA!" chants before the bartender put an end to it. Seemed like a good guy. Never saw him again after that.

In all seriousness - imagine having that many lives in your hands every single day.  Crazy.  I know the planes practically fly themselves but that one time something goes wrong - damn