16 minutes ago, 4for4EaglesNest said:

OH JFC......again with the medical experts?

You need to come up with some new material , the *JFC*  lead off to all your post , has become redundant , almost as bad as your little  smiley faces .

16 minutes ago, greend said:

How does a fully insured "moron" cost the rest of us money if hospitalized? 

You really don’t understand how insurance works. (Don’t worry, most people don’t which is why jurors justify awarding damages in situations that don’t warrant them.) The law of large numbers. That means if you insure a group of 100 people (health insurance tends to be groups, ACA basically bundles those purchasing policies into groups much like your employer does) the actuarial data for a normal 100 people group is considered for a base premium   Actuarial data may show, for example, that if a group has 100 people .x% develops cancer and the costs of such are incorporated into the group. But there is also experience rating on top of base rating  that looks at your experience as a group.  They also look at the findings from wellness reviews.  That can impact the cost as well.  If my group of 100 is 100% vaccinated and yours is 40% vaccinated, then the premium for your group would be higher than my group. So even though you are vaccinated, you share the cost of the unvaccinated members of your group by what you pay in premium.

Then, of course, there are taxpayer funded costs of Medicaid or Medicare. More spent on Covid treatment depletes the available Medicaid funds or Medicare trust.  

14 minutes ago, dawkdaballhawk said:

That's still not a true statement. Protection from symptomatic disease declines over time. The CDC is hiding the data by not collecting it, which is why they had to go to the VA to get data. TheJ&J vaccine is basically useless against symptomatic disease after a few months. I urge everyone to read this latest data from the VA.

  

The decline was greatest for the Janssen  (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine, with protection against infection declining from 86.4% in March to 13%.1 in September

Declines for PfizerBioNTech were from 86.9% to 43.3%

Declines for Moderna were 89.2% to 58%.

https://www.phi.org/press/breakthrough-infection-study-compares-decline-in-vaccine-effectiveness-and-consequences-for-mortality/

It's not that the CDC won't collect the data, it's that the data isn't available, we don't have a national health system where hospitals are required to report all their data, each state has its own system, many of which are woefully inadequate.

https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abm0620

"The debate over boosters in the U.S. (24) has laid bare the limitations of its public health infrastructure: national data on vaccine breakthrough are inadequate. The CDC transitioned in May 2021 from monitoring all breakthrough infections to focus on identifying and investigating only hospitalized or fatal cases due to any cause, including causes not related to COVID-19 (25). Some data on vaccinations, infections, and deaths are collected through a patchwork of local health departments (10), but these data are frequently out of date and difficult to aggregate at the national level. "

"An important strength of our study is the use of large-scale, national VA data, covering 2.7% of the U.S. population and collected in real time. After transitioning to focus on breakthrough hospitalizations and deaths, the CDC now reports COVID-19 cases, associated hospitalizations, and deaths by vaccination status and age group (available at: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker) as weekly rates per 100,000 persons; these data are derived from a network of acute-care hospitals in 14 states and 16 health departments linking case surveillance to immunization systems. Although informative, data lag behind by about two months, and they do not illustrate risk of hospitalization or death after a breakthrough infection."

The VA system can do this b/c they're federally funded and can circumvent state agencies.

Problem is the VA is obviously skewed toward older and sicker patients.

"The specific setting or reason for testing is not known, and it is also possible that persons with asymptomatic infections may not have been tested and therefore not included in the analysis."

Oh yeah:

" Importantly, vaccination still provided protection against death in infected persons, and this benefit was observed for the Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, and Janssen vaccines during the Delta surge, although the benefit was greater for Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech compared to Janssen vaccines. Our findings support the conclusion that COVID-19 vaccines remain the most important tool to prevent infection and death. Vaccines should be accompanied by additional measures for both vaccinated and unvaccinated persons, including masking, hand washing, and physical distancing. It is essential to implement public health interventions, such as strategic testing for control of outbreaks, vaccine passports, employment-based vaccine mandates, vaccination campaigns for eligible children as well as adults, and consistent messaging from public health leadership in the face of increased risk of infection due to the Delta and other emerging variants."

 

 

2 minutes ago, Bacarty2 said:

OBJ watch..

Patriots, Packers, Raiders, Chiefs. 

my dark horse, the Falcons 

Bucs, Raiders, Chiefs or Cards

26 minutes ago, dawkdaballhawk said:

That's still not a true statement. Protection from symptomatic disease declines over time. The CDC is hiding the data by not collecting it, which is why they had to go to the VA to get data. TheJ&J vaccine is basically useless against symptomatic disease after a few months. I urge everyone to read this latest data from the VA.

  

The decline was greatest for the Janssen  (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine, with protection against infection declining from 86.4% in March to 13%.1 in September

Declines for PfizerBioNTech were from 86.9% to 43.3%

Declines for Moderna were 89.2% to 58%.

https://www.phi.org/press/breakthrough-infection-study-compares-decline-in-vaccine-effectiveness-and-consequences-for-mortality/

Got my Pfizer booster appointment for later this week. 

19 minutes ago, dawkdaballhawk said:

That's still not a true statement. Protection from symptomatic disease declines over time. The CDC is hiding the data by not collecting it, which is why they had to go to the VA to get data. TheJ&J vaccine is basically useless against symptomatic disease after a few months. I urge everyone to read this latest data from the VA.

  

The decline was greatest for the Janssen  (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine, with protection against infection declining from 86.4% in March to 13%.1 in September

Declines for PfizerBioNTech were from 86.9% to 43.3%

Declines for Moderna were 89.2% to 58%.

https://www.phi.org/press/breakthrough-infection-study-compares-decline-in-vaccine-effectiveness-and-consequences-for-mortality/

It's a misconception to say the CDC isn't collecting information.  The problem is that the CDC is a Federal agency reliant on data from many states and medical facilities that often do not have the They are requesting ongoing information about hospitalization which means severe infections.  I mean tracking infections is nearly impossible anyway because many people just don't get tested.  They made a decision to only track hospitalization rates.  I think you're missing the larger picture of that study.   

Importantly, vaccination of any type was protective against death among individuals who did become infected. The relative benefit of vaccination for protection against death was greater for persons under 65 but was also very strong for persons over 65.

 

Saying they should pull the Johnson and Johnson because it's less effective over time, is silly.  It's highly effective initially and over longer terms is still good at preventing people from dying from the disease.  So you're missing the forest for the trees on the study.  

No discredit to Dr. Fauci and his accomplishments over his career but he's been caught in quite a bit of lying/covering up of the research being done and funding for the Wuhan Lab.  There's enough smoke around it to make you at the very least question his involvement.  He did lie under oath, it's just not talked about.  People only got upset when they found out they used puppies in some of their testing.

The media has made him in to this untouchable celebrity now.  If you question something he says, you must be a conspiracy theorist or some backwoods redneck.  I'd LOVE to see how much money he's made for appearances now and whatnot.  The Guardian has him as their "Sexiest Man Alive" for goodness sake.  He's a saint in many people's eyes but IMO, he's a borderline politician now, none of who we should trust on either side.

 

26 minutes ago, NCiggles said:

Maybe I am cynical but I believe the driving force for vaccine mandates is avoidance of liability and cost for businesses.  I am sure many employers will have a surcharge next year on health insurance for unvaccinated employees.  Employers that self-fund health insurance are concerned about the cost of hospitalization.  

Absolutely.  Under the ADA, I could easily claim that even though I am vaccinated, at my age I am at risk from unvaccinated co-employees. That means as an employer, you must accommodate me in making the workplace safe.  Given test costs and accuracy and enforcement of masking, the easiest way to meet that burden is to require employees be vaccinated or that they test and mask, which isn’t at the employer’s cost under the proposed rules. But now the manager has the added burden of tracking those tests and enforces masking.  100% vaccinated doesn’t add those burdens. 

Add to that the burden if the business has in person interaction with outsiders, including the vendors and suppliers, customers, working with other companies etc.  There may be risk from unvaccinated employees interacting with those outside the organization potentially infecting those outsiders. 100% vaccinated probably meets the reasonable and prudent test.

10 minutes ago, Bacarty2 said:

At the end of the day, 

If you're a normal person the risk of even feeling covid is EXTREMELY LOW. 

The chance of dying for a normal person is less than .1 %

The fact that the entire government has been back and forth about everything, along with lying to us constantly makes me say this..

Want the vaccine get it(I got it so I could travel)

But there should be no mandates. 

Tin foil hat time. When the virus first appeared, there was a great deal of uncertainty, so you got mixed messages. Then you had a POTUS who said crazy things, putting the "Deep State" (i.e. career bureaucrats who actually had some expertise) in an awkward position (how to say your boss is wrong without saying your boss is loony tunes). There was also the "panic problem," i.e. how to keep people from hoarding the N-95 masks needed by medical personnel.

There was no "conspiracy" to mislead, for one thing, there was no motivation to do so - but there were some mixed messages at first. After a few months, once more data came in the messaging has been very consistent, wear masks around other people, especially inside, get vaccinated. Cloth masks aren't perfect, but reducing spread by 50% has a huge impact on the rate of infection.

Vaccine mandates make perfect sense, it's not robbing people of their freedom, other than the freedom to be stupid - failure to get vaccinated puts other people at increased risk. All freedoms have limits, you can't yell fire in a crowded theater and expect 1st amendment "free speech" protection. Same way the government has the right to protect citizens from bad behavior from other citizens, this applies to "law and order," and to spread of disease.

The chance of dying immediately is less than 0.1% for persons under 50, but the chance of dying early is unknown but almost certainly greater than 0.1%, we know that many infected persons, even those who weren't sick enough to be hospitalized, incurred damage that may reduce long-term mortality. We just don't know how severe that effect will be, and may not know for another decade or two. There is lung scarring, possible neurological effects, damage to major organs, etc. I posted a number of links last night, go read them. Or go to Google Scholar and search for COVID long-term and similar terms.

12 minutes ago, Bacarty2 said:

Yep, still the same guy who told me masks and VACCINES shouldnt be mandated. 

The same guy whos been caught in public NUMEROUS times with no masks. 

The same guy who called  people conspiracy  theorists to think vaccines would be mandated. 

ALL THE SAME GUY 

I know the internet has told you not to like Dr. Fauci. 

Vaccines are not mandatory.  People are getting a choice about keeping a job or getting a vaccine.  Biden's proposed OSHA rule is a choice between vaccine and regular testing.  It's like saying car insurance is mandatory, it's not mandatory unless you want to drive a car.  Even employers that are requiring vaccination are allowing for religious and health exemptions.  

 

 

37 minutes ago, BigEFly said:

Didn’t realize that Ruggs was Smith’s roommate at Alabama.  This week did impact Smith per Wulf’s Athletic report. Also this tidbit.  Smith took some of the blame for Hurts’ miscue throw in the end zone:

"I stumbled a little bit on my route,” he said. "If I wouldn’t have stumbled, I would have been where I was supposed to be.”

I suspect that’s just Smith taking some heat away from Hurts. Stumbled or not, the ball placement looked like garbage on the tv. Hurts was back peddling while throwing, and the ball was super low.

4 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

I suspect that’s just Smith taking some heat away from Hurts. Stumbled or not, the ball placement looked like garbage on the tv. Hurts was back peddling while throwing, and the ball was super low.

That's how I saw it.

Sheil's article on ranking offenses going forward:

20. Philadelphia Eagles

The fact that they’re 11th in EPA per drive is probably stunning to Eagles fans. Even if we account for garbage time, they still rank 14th. Would you believe that they’ve had as many great games (three) statistically as the Cardinals, Ravens, and Chiefs?

The Eagles’ run game has been very good. Their 37 runs of 10-plus yards are second to only the Browns. And their offensive line has played well, despite injuries. It’s an offense whose identity has become running the ball, play-action, and Jalen Hurts scrambles. Hurts has the highest EPA on scrambles of any quarterback. And the Eagles have done a good job of protecting the ball. Just 7.7 percent of their drives have ended in turnovers, which is third-best.

The passing game is all over the place. Hurts’ expected completion percentage is 61.9, which ranks 36th out of 37 quarterbacks. Part of the blame falls on the coaching/scheme, but Hurts has not seen the field well and has failed to cut it loose when he’s had guys open.

This group has a low ceiling and could take a dip in the second half of the season with worse turnover luck.

5 minutes ago, bpac55 said:

No discredit to Dr. Fauci and his accomplishments over his career but he's been caught in quite a bit of lying/covering up of the research being done and funding for the Wuhan Lab.  There's enough smoke around it to make you at the very least question his involvement.  He did lie under oath, it's just not talked about.  People only got upset when they found out they used puppies in some of their testing.

The media has made him in to this untouchable celebrity now.  If you question something he says, you must be a conspiracy theorist or some backwoods redneck.  I'd LOVE to see how much money he's made for appearances now and whatnot.  The Guardian has him as their "Sexiest Man Alive" for goodness sake.  He's a saint in many people's eyes but IMO, he's a borderline politician now, none of who we should trust on either side.

 

It's somewhat ironic that you believe the claims of politicians about Fauci to assert he lied in his testimony to Congress about NIH funding to the Wuhan lab because Fauci is a politician.  Maybe you should  further examine the claims that he lied.  

 

5 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

I suspect that’s just Smith taking some heat away from Hurts. Stumbled or not, the ball placement looked like garbage on the tv. Hurts was back peddling while throwing, and the ball was super low.

Or both.  Hurts backpedaling contributed to the miss as did Smith’s stumble.  

11 minutes ago, BigEFly said:

Absolutely.  Under the ADA, I could easily claim that even though I am vaccinated, at my age I am at risk from unvaccinated co-employees. That means as an employer, you must accommodate me in making the workplace safe.  Given test costs and accuracy and enforcement of masking, the easiest way to meet that burden is to require employees be vaccinated or that they test and mask, which isn’t at the employer’s cost under the proposed rules. But now the manager has the added burden of tracking those tests and enforces masking.  100% vaccinated doesn’t add those burdens. 

Add to that the burden if the business has in person interaction with outsiders, including the vendors and suppliers, customers, working with other companies etc.  There may be risk from unvaccinated employees interacting with those outside the organization potentially infecting those outsiders. 100% vaccinated probably meets the reasonable and prudent test.

I can tell you the last thing my firm wants is for a client to contract Covid from an unvaccinated employee of the firm. 

18 minutes ago, NCiggles said:

It's a misconception to say the CDC isn't collecting information.  The problem is that the CDC is a Federal agency reliant on data from many states and medical facilities that often do not have the They are requesting ongoing information about hospitalization which means severe infections.  I mean tracking infections is nearly impossible anyway because many people just don't get tested.  They made a decision to only track hospitalization rates.  I think you're missing the larger picture of that study.   

Importantly, vaccination of any type was protective against death among individuals who did become infected. The relative benefit of vaccination for protection against death was greater for persons under 65 but was also very strong for persons over 65.

 

Saying they should pull the Johnson and Johnson because it's less effective over time, is silly.  It's highly effective initially and over longer terms is still good at preventing people from dying from the disease.  So you're missing the forest for the trees on the study.  

For those 65 and over, overall vaccine effectiveness against death overall vaccine effectiveness against death - Jansen was 52.2% effective. Older adults shouldn't be offered J&J, and it's not even needed in the US. Kind of odd it's even still offered considering that the others are around 70% effective in older adults.

And my point still stand about people getting sick. It will happen and the administration needs to get people ready. Look at all the people screaming for un-needed boosters.

@LeanMeanGM

Broncos 23, Eagles 16

Broncos are 2nd in the NFL in points against; I think the Eagles offense will struggle in this one.  

Bonus -- Bridgewater over 80% completions, but DEN at least 4 punts.

5 minutes ago, bpac55 said:

No discredit to Dr. Fauci and his accomplishments over his career but he's been caught in quite a bit of lying/covering up of the research being done and funding for the Wuhan Lab.  There's enough smoke around it to make you at the very least question his involvement.  He did lie under oath, it's just not talked about.  People only got upset when they found out they used puppies in some of their testing.

The media has made him in to this untouchable celebrity now.  If you question something he says, you must be a conspiracy theorist or some backwoods redneck.  I'd LOVE to see how much money he's made for appearances now and whatnot.  The Guardian has him as their "Sexiest Man Alive" for goodness sake.  He's a saint in many people's eyes but IMO, he's a borderline politician now, none of who we should trust on either side.

We'll never know what happened with the Wuhan lab (don't assume the Chinese are covering up some nefarious conspiracy, more likely, they're covering up bureaucratic ineptitude, Xi has cracked down on any criticism of the Chinese government, including many minor incidents), but the latest intelligence report doesn't provide a lot of support for the conspiracy theory.

https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Declassified-Assessment-on-COVID-19-Origins.pdf

Even if it was a lab leak, most likely it merely accelerated the inevitable, that is, they were studying samples of coronaviruses gathered from wild animals, which would have jumped to humans at some point.

One problem around the world is the standards for laboratories studying viruses and other pathogens tend to vary, and many countries have lax safety controls.

However, the real problem is as human populations increase, people go deeper into areas where there are wild animals with viruses and other pathogens that our species has little or no immunity, and eventually there will be transfer, especially in the case of animals used for food, but also through feces, fleas, etc. And of course, the existence of billions of malnourished humans provide walking petri dishes for the cultivation of mutations in known pathogens.

But it's not like plagues are new, the Roman Empire was probably brought down by bubonic plague, and of course the "Black Death" of the 13th century. Along with numerous other diseases - once population density got to a certain critical level, diseases that might have wiped out an isolated village and then burned out could now spread around a large portion of the world.

34 minutes ago, Desertbirds said:

No, this guy:

Sorry if this was already posted, but everyone in the world should read this article:

https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/the-mysterious-case-of-the-covid-19-lab-leak-theory

This is one of the few attempts at actual journalism I’ve seen in about a decade. No overt bias. Just the facts as they were gathered.

5 minutes ago, Bacarty2 said:

I dont give 2 Flying F***'s about Fauci, but I will call out his hypocrisies(all the hypocrisies in this matter) every day of the week 

 

EDIT* You're right it's not "mandatory" lol. I just hope that all the cities that require you to have the vaxx starts burning and crumbling because a lack of resources(firemen, police, etc etc)  Like literally hope they burn to the ground

Maury just did one of his paternity test shows, and look, he found your father, confirmed by DNA!

8 minutes ago, Bacarty2 said:

I dont give 2 Flying F***'s about Fauci, but I will call out his hypocrisies(all the hypocrisies in this matter) every day of the week 

 

EDIT* You're right it's not "mandatory" lol. I just hope that all the cities that require you to have the vaxx starts burning and crumbling because a lack of resources(firemen, police, etc etc)  Like literally hope they burn to the ground

I don’t give two flying Fs about you but I will call out your hypocrisies… Steeler fan 

25 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

I suspect that’s just Smith taking some heat away from Hurts. Stumbled or not, the ball placement looked like garbage on the tv. Hurts was back peddling while throwing, and the ball was super low.

You could see Smith complaining about it after the throw too. He’s definitely just trying to take heat off Hurts. 

12 minutes ago, SB52 said:

Sorry if this was already posted, but everyone in the world should read this article:

https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/the-mysterious-case-of-the-covid-19-lab-leak-theory

This is one of the few attempts at actual journalism I’ve seen in about a decade. No overt bias. Just the facts as they were gathered.

While the New Yorker is a libertard publication, it has some of the best reporting out there (advantage of journalistic standards, WSJ used to have great reporting, but Murdoch slashed that to the bone).

This is probably the best analysis of what drives Chinese behavior toward disclosure:

"The stakes are high on all sides. From one perspective, proving the virus has a natural origin is even worse for China. If wildlife farms were responsible for the pandemic, that would implicate the policies of President Xi Jinping. If there was a lab leak, just one, or a few, scientists are culpable of an accident. Either way, it is likely that the Chinese government prefers a storm of swirling theories, within which they can continue to push their own: that U.S. soldiers brought the virus to Wuhan in October, 2019, during the World Military Games, or that the American government manufactured the virus in Fort Detrick, Maryland. Or they can blame imported frozen food. The conspiracy theories branch out from there, in their own kind of evolutionary tree."

5 minutes ago, Bacarty2 said:

so i give you facts and you call me names?

No wonder why we cant have a conversation about this. 

Facui has factually flip flopped and talked out both sides of his mouth and "changed his mind" numerous times. 

There is no ifs, ands or buts about it.

So when people say they dont trust him, nor the government(also flip flopped a ton) I truly dont blame them.

Side note, What is this week 94 of the 2 week to flatten the curve? 

Who gives an F about Fauci. Or politicians and flip flopping. Why would you even look to politicians for medical advice?

Here's a newsflash, vaccines are insanely safe and effective. As a functioning member of society, just take the stupid thing so we can move on in our lives. 

You don't wanna take the jab? Cool, then don't go to restaurants, sporting events, travel, etc. That's the social contract we all signed up for. It's that simple. It's incredibly tiresome that such a small minority of people can keep propagating their stupid opinions about vaccines. There's no room for debate. If you have a legitimate medical issue that prevents you getting it, go talk to your doctor about options. The amount of people that would have those conditions is incredibly small. And, the rest of US can protect them by all getting jabbed. It's such a simple, grade 3 concept that it's mind boggling it's still even an issue.

But, of course, "nObOdY cAn TeLl Me WhAt To Do!!" 

Idiots.