If iv*rmectin was so ineffective, they wouldn't be so against it. Nobody cares about cranks who talk about how the earth is flat or if the moon landing wasn't real, or who advocate taking horse painkillers like ketamine to treat mental health issues - yet they're very concerned with shutting this topic down. Why?
If iv*rmectin was so ineffective, they wouldn't be so against it. Nobody cares about cranks who talk about how the earth is flat or if the moon landing wasn't real, or who advocate taking horse painkillers like ketamine to treat mental health issues - yet they're very concerned with shutting this topic down. Why?
Or how about "vaccine is ineffective". Two Pfizer shots Apr 15 and May 2; caught COVID with a positive test on 8/19. MIL had her J&J shot in late June, caught COVID with a positive test date of 8/24.
Outcomes for the two of us were totally similar with my wife's, who took no vaccine but IS taking ivermectin. Positive test on 8/24, asymptomatic now.
Try this one on: current policies dictate that after a positive COVID test, you're considered infectious and _no one can visit you_. My wife broke her leg last weekend and my MIL had some heart palpitations caused by overly thin blood as a result of the cold medications she was taking for COVID interacting with the warfarin she takes. In both cases I couldn't even visit them or act as an advocate in the hospital because I was going to catch the COVID I probably brought home to them in the first place and was definitely immune to.
I know public health policy is hard, but this is exceedingly dumb at this point.
Amen. I wouldn't say I've been ignoring policy, for example, I wear masks because they are easy and I dont want to cause a fuss, the people at my grocer don't get paid enough to deal with it, but at some point, ignoring the authorities becomes the only viable way of dealing with them.
I live in a lake community south of Charlotte, NC, so I am in SC but on the border with NC. NC has a mask mandate and SC doesn't. I simply refuse to go over the border for anything anymore, despite my typical errands being in both states. I just... can't. No more masking. I've switched my favorite grocery store from one that was in NC to one here and we are avoiding some of our NC restaurants and gym due to this.
My state (WV) has no mandate. I like this. That said, I wear a mask because of my scrape with COVID. I'm technically not contagious and haven't been for a week or so now, but I can wear it a while longer and use a lot of hand sanitizer and not touch things I am not taking with me.
Even though i'm going to wear a mask, I avoid MD and VA with their mandates. I live in the eastern panhandle near DC, so going to either of the above is about as convenient as going within WV, but not going to support that.
I have seen very little evidence that masks reduce transmission. It seems mostly to be used as means of preventing social contact between people, thereby delaying cases. I think the Delta thing may have taught us a thing or two about delaying cases. Or not.
To be clear, I am saying we might have done better to let this burn through the population last year rather than delaying until a much more virulent strain showed up.
They'd have a hard time justifying taking down the proceedings of the Michigan House. They (the online giants) all realize just how close to the edge of being winked out of existence they are.
I was not impressed with her claims, far too absolutist and just plain wrong on the main count: the vaccinated are not reeling from the Delta variant, the unvaccinated are.
Here claim that receiving the flu vaccine over several years sets the person up for more extreme symptomology makes no sense; it is as if prior vaccinations - a stronger immune system - is deleterious in the face of a new mutation.
In the case of COVID, the initial form or mutant is just as effectively countered by the vaccinations as are the subsequent mutations. There is not that much difference.
It is also absurd to claim that vaccinated persons are transmitting the virus. What is the action of the vaccination? catch and release? No, viral pathogens that enter a vaccinated person are destroyed by the immune system. A vaccinated person is neither symptomatic nor transmitting the virus: canтАЩt get it canтАЩt give it.
Exceptions like long COVID or people testing pos after vax should be examined more carefully for other diseases. Flu symptoms can arise from many other causes, e.g. allergies!
Bottom line: ERтАЩs are flooded by the unvaccinated!
Really? Have you looked at Israel, UK, Seychelles? Their rates of infection mirror the rates of vax vs unvaxxed almost perfectly.
тАЬ 95% of the severe patients are vaccinated.тАЭ Furthermore, тАЬ85-90% of the hospitalizations are in fully vaccinated peopleтАЭ and the hospital is тАЬopening more and more COVID wards.тАЭ
Where's the data to back up your claims? Seems we can't get real data...CDC isn't counting breakthrough cases any more? Any contact tracing of those people? How do we know. The point is the narrative (as is your go-to) that only the unvaccinated are the problem and thus they MUST get vaccinated, is always the only argument!
ItтАЩs already been revealed that the тАЬpAndemIc of tHe unVaccinAtedтАЭ press release relied on pre delta data from March, to the shock of a number of scientists. Iverson had a little piece on it but I donтАЩt think she talked in much detail. The cultists simultaneously claim the pandemic is spreading only among the unvaccinated AND the vaccines were never designed to limit spread to begin with. What?
Being one of the vaxxed who got COVID, I call bullshit on the whole thing.
That said, that King County data, if you dig into it, shows the average COVID positive person to be black or Hispanic or native and somewhere between 20 and 29. Demographically, they'll be located south of SeaTac in a bunch of not very attractive neigborhoods (in comparison to say Redmond or Bellevue).
Wow, we've discovered that the relatively (and I say relatively because the Seattle area is pretty well to do compared to most of the rest of the country) disadvantaged neighborhoods filled with young minorities both don't get vaccinated _and_ transmit COVID like crazy compared to more staid places. Shocking.
I'm waiting to see how the Trumpsters are somehow responsible for this.
Yeah, until the next strain comes around! I can't figure out if my immune system is awesome (mild cases) or awful (keep getting it). At this rate, I'll get the next varient but will probably not even notice. "Wait, I thought I had a sniffle there for a moment.. nah, I'm fine."
Right? I've been taking Vit C, Vit D, zinc and elderberry for the last 18 months. What to do to boost one's immunity was also dropped from social media in the early months. That will also confound and anger me!
I heard about a guy who was wearing a seatbelt and Still got injured in a car crash. Worse than somebody else who crashed who wasnтАЩt wearing a seatbelt.
So your hur hur hur response citing anecdotal evidence is pointless. The vaccine wasn't supposed to stop people from getting infected in the first place, it was only designed to lessen symptoms in the original COVID-19 virus. Its effect on Delta is spotty at best.
This lie to the American public, at least by omission, is further harming government credibility, as if it could get much worse. No one wants a booster shot that is not effective against Delta. No one wants a vaccine that doesn't stop you from getting the disease. Even if it is effective in that manner against the original COVID-19, that is not what is floating around now, and certainly not what will be floating around in 6 months if the medical professionals I talk to have any credibility.
It took getting the disease and then researching this to find out the answer, which is that we were all sold a bill of goods.
And follow the egos. Fauci has been beating the vaccine drum for decades. He was instrumental in spending gobs of money on a failed HIV vaccine and steering money away from therapeutics.
I wonder what he thinks the endgame is for him. If nothing else, the historians will get him. A big mea culpa now would probably have a better result long term.
And if it was supposedly to gain all these insights into bat-origin coronaviruses, as Peter Daszak told Fauci in his email, why do these people never seem to have a clue? What did we ACTUALLY get for the money we spent?
Precisely the same way that Gates built Microsoft. Wine and dine people with great developments, tempt them with partnership in Microsoft, "roll them" for their product following disclosure, and claim for Microsoft as "pioneering" software.
Rephrase the question: If the research was conducted to help us prepare for a global bat-origin coronavirus pandemic, why was the program shut down the moment just such a bat-origin coronavirus began?
You're choosing the wrong dots to connect. Sometimes things are much simpler than imagined byzantine storylines. Sometimes really simple, but astoundingly stupid, stuff happens, then complex storylines are developed to support the idea of a wildly serpentine series of events.
My storyline is very simple: Stupid people committed stupid acts. Someone goofed. The stupid people stopped what they were doing and circled the wagons to cover up the mess.
I'm not claiming there was any nefarious scheme to unleash a global pandemic. In fact, my usual answer to "conspiracy theories" is just that: no one is conspiring, they are too stupid for that. They are simply powerful people permitted through their power to allow their daily fuckwittery to have far-reaching, devastating consequences for many, many other people (unlike the daily fuckwittery of you or I).
Where is seem to wander into "conspiracy" territory is I don't think their positions should protect them from scrutiny. Apparently in 2021 that makes me some kind of Alex Jones grade nut.
Well, if you remember, Trump started China bashing. Our side put the kibosh on funding that because, "Jabber-jabber squawk - China!" China got paranoid, which was sensible of them.
Speaking as one of those who downloaded that database to look for linkages to COVID-19, um, THAT is what we got. We got that data. You know, all those sequences that tell us: A. No evidence it came from Wuhan lab. B. That it is fairly closely related to some bat sequences in China and Vietnam.
The Arpanet was a DoD funded research project. So was CPOF - it's the main C2 tool used in the Army for something like 15 of the last 20 years. So sometimes the research dollars produce results. But the DoD also invests in stupid things, as you cite above. Its location in China wasn't necessarily dumb from a national security perspective as long as nothing classified was transmitted, i.e. the data flow was all one way. The research itself probably was stupid.
The research itself was not stupid. Wildly dangerous, many will argue for and against the research from innumerable viewpoints, but it was not stupid, if one is interested in developing effective medicines.
I mean, you DO know that the viruses are still there whether or not you stick your head in the sand and refuse to look? You DO know that people go to collect bats for the market whether or not you stick your head in the sand?
Stupid? Not that research project. No. That isn't stupid.
No it is not. It is very intelligent. Wildlife, and bats in particular, are the primary reservoir of coronaviruses. SARS-1 came from bats. So, it is smart to support (cheap) research on bat coronaviruses. If we had not done this, we WOULD NOT HAVE ANY data on bat coronaviruses in China.
Hydroxy cloroquin and ivermectin are old drugs that are very safe and very cheap. Big pharma would rather have us using drugs like Remdesavir that cost $3,000 per treatment.
From same comment mentioned above (IM Doc on Naked Capitalism...)
"Remdesevir is loaded with all kinds of safety problems that I have seen with my own eyes. And it has the extra benefit of obviously not working тАУ it literally does not do a god damned thing. Multiple studies have hinted at this."
It was my understanding that remdasivir was given early on with mixed results. At that time no one knew WHAT worked and so doctors were trying all sorts of things.
"The agency added that the NIH has also determined there are currently insufficient data to recommend ivermectin for the treatment of COVID.
Not actually correct тАУ the NIH current status on ivermectin is there is not enough data to recommend OR to discourage its use. The NIH changed this recommendation in December of 2020 as previously the NIH status on ivermectin usage was to discourage its use. Usually the status in which ivermectin is now placed would be accompanied with all kinds of funds to study the true efficacy of the drug, to see if it is successful. That of course is not being done at this time.
Interestingly, 2 of our other COVID modalities have exactly the same recommend/discourage status. That would be remdesevir and outpatient monoclonal antibodies. EXACTLY the same status on both of these as ivermectin currently. The NIH states there is not enough evidence to recommend or to discourage the use of either of these.
And yet we continue right on with both the others without a blink of an eye.
A little math тАУ
Ivermectin course for COVID is less than twenty dollars.
A course of REMDESEVIR is currently right at 8800 dollars.
An outpatient treatment with monoclonal antibodies is right at 23000 тАУ 25000 dollars with all the infusion costs added."
Hat tip to IM Doc (commentariat on Naked Capitalism....best source for info on Covid I've found...)
major, controlled studies of efficacy going on, two in the US and one in Britain. So the FDA, or somebody with money, thinks it's worth a try - not at all what they're telling us. It would be unethical to trial a drug with no reason to think it might work.
Dude, I KNOW that you are fully aware that Big Pharma, and "unethical" are *not mutually exclusive concepts ! The "somebody with money" of your *own statement really was NOT, as you note, the FDA ! The FDA could even be the one to "initiate the action", but they are *not the motive power behind this SARS Co V 2 racket.
This idea that "they're censoring it so it must work" is stupid. I don't agree with the censorship and I don't know if ivermectin works or not (though I lean towards thinking it doesn't based on the principle of something sounding too good to be true probably being so). It makes perfect sense to me why someone who believes censorship is justified to save lives would want to stop what they see as a quack bullshit treatment being recommended online. If people think they're being protected by the ivermectin they took when they aren't, it could lead to people to avoid taking any other protective measures against Covid, thus spreading the disease to people who are at risk, or dying from it themselves.
My wife refused to get vaccinated but took ivermectin when she got Delta. I don't know what to say about it, the holistic treehugger types she works with are dead set against what they call 'unnecessary' vaccination. Their belief structures seem to be that the immune system is zero sum and if you attenuate it for one disease, you're making it less effective against others.
I don't feel confident enough to argue too hard against this, but I don't personally believe it. I got vaccinated and I probably have more vaccines in me than most - 2 heps, anthrax, probably one of the rare people that has had a smallpox booster in this century, a few others courtesy of Uncle Sam. Come to me with a needle with a vaccine in it and i'll offer up an arm.
It's just wrong. The immune system eventually wears out, if you live that long. By the time you are 112, you may be down to one or 2 clone lineages of B and T cells. So you won't mount a great response. But, the design of living organisms is that they are self-renewing colonies of trillions of cells that work together. The immune system can keep fielding new challenges just fine. In fact, allergies are an instance of immune systems not having enough to work on. So, kind of like a bored kid, those cells find SOMETHING to do. (Like the time when I, at the age of 7 got a saw for Christmas from my father. It was supposed to saw through steel and wood, anything. Bored me, I tried it out on my dad's rolltop desk... :-D It's funny now. It wasn't then. Anyway, an immune system without enough to do is something like that.)
There are people that inject snake venoms to the point that they are hyper-immune and can take a mortal dose of venom without serious harm. It still hurts terribly, but they recover in a day or so. The only indications I have on those people is that they have better health for longer lives.
If the Immune System eventually "wears out", then I am damned glad that no one seems to have Polio anymore ! I also had Chicken Pox, Mumps, and Measles the "old fashioned" way. With the exception of Shingles as a "gift" from Chicken Pox, Mumps, and Measles do not "come back" either ! This I have proven by taking care of children who also had Mumps and Measles in *spite of having also been injected with today's "foolproof" vaccines for BOTH !
As to "if you live long enough", that condition also applies to ALL males dying of prostate cancer. In my Seventies, I don't have a trace of it, but IF I LIVE LONG ENOUGH ...... what does *that mean ? When Methuselah becomes *MY little brother ? Sheeee-*IT ! ;-D ;-D
Indeed, they DO, but all that tells us is that "eventually *Somethin' gonna kill yuh ! I do not regard that as particularly "new" news.
Most old timers who are taken out by virus, usually go via flu going into pleuresy/pneumonia. But, there is *still falling down stairs ....etc. You get the drift ! ;-D
The commenter, previously billing himself on this queue as "Brian The Scientist", rarely bothers impeding himself with actual facts, altho he will *claim the knowledge of the gawds on most all subject of science. Brian finally "trimmed" his original self-chosen online handle when sufficient numbers of commenters proved him *wrong on the bulk of his "scientific" claims. So, consider this an "unofficial", and definitely "unsolicited" bit of background trivia. ;-D ;-D I would go with trusting your OWN experience, as I see that you usually do.
And, yes. Troops going to Vietnam were subjected to 21 Overseas shots, administered by *air gun as the troops were slow marched by the medics. Frequently "off target", the air guns could either administer the shot, OR rip a long divot in your skin due to the movement of the march.
They still used air guns at Benning but they had us stand still for them, thank goodness. Still a lot of shots in rapid fire fashion. All our upper arms were aching that night.
It was kinda funny in one respect. The soldier wielding the air gun on my left arm complained about how hard it was to get a shot in on my arm. I didn't tell him it was one of my prime insulin injection sites and had seen a LOT of needles. Since insulin dependent people aren't supposed to deploy and my G6 (the guy in that picture) went the extra mile to get me signed off by the divisional doctor AND tossed a little fridge into one of the ISU-90s (half a Conex, air transport container) to keep the insulin cold over where we were going.
I like to get all kinds of opinions. Some people I disagree with even when i'm soliciting same, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
By all *means, do all of your own research ! Yes ! I guessed that you probably *did remember Brian from the days of the longer title. I just posted under the principle of: "Better to *have redundant info and not *need it, than the obverse !" ;-D
Someone got a Presidential medal for refusing to approve it in its initial form for morning sickness, unlike in say Germany or Canada where lots of deformed babies were born. It only got approved in the US later for treatment of particular cancers with all kinds of safeguards against pregnancy or even semen going from man to partner, it can apparently be carried in there too. Even with all that, there are affected births every year. Because compliance.
It's got a side effect list that is quite long even if you ignore the teratogenic qualities. Causes circulatory issues, etc.
Public health is a funny thing. That adage about the freedom of your fist ends at my nose seems apropos. On the other hand, if you are going to use authoritarian measures like quarantines, you need to make a good faith argument that the solutions actually solve something.
That's been the thing missing here. Not even being able to discuss it (generally) is hardly helping.
That's the rub, isn't it? If the public health "authorities" have been shown to be absolutely incompetent, let alone lying and wrong, then the "your decisions affect other people..." arguments tend to lose validity because NOBODY SEEMS TO KNOW WHAT IS BEST FOR PUBLIC HEALTH. Fauci told the country that masks were not necessary...and then admitted he lied to preserve supplies for health care workers. A noble lie but a lie none the less. Credibility cost was/is huge. Ivermectin is just the latest example...
As I think Taibbi is arguing (acknowledging his focus on censorship and the exchange of ideas), if we lived in a society that respected its members as free and capable, we could discuss these issues and find solutions.
We don't live in a society that respects its members.
A "society" is an organized collection of "its members." We live in a "nation" where the majority of its "members," accurately observed, might as well be chained to the basement radiator when their "freedom" is on the table for discussion.
These "members" are governed by an "elite" who act as benevolent but suspicious overseers, who believe this state of affairs is more than satisfactory. For these very same elites not only hold minimal respect for these "societal members," it's ever increasingly difficult for them to mask their contempt for the whole lot of'em.
Indeed, the "members," along with their "freedom," are easily and casually dismissed, and the "members" are assumed by the "elites" to be little more than a rabble of ignorant, superstitious, inflammatory dolts. More often than not, these elites are correct in this assumption.
It's too bad our wonderful 2-Party BOTH cut the hell out of public health (or anything public) in the name of "neoliberalism". So, the rich get richer and the rest of us get sick.
I'll remind you that the government kept vilifying people like Typhoid Mary rather than curing the disease until the science caught up. The vaccines for Typhoid were not particularly effective and only the onset of common antibiotics around WWII caused it to recede into memory.
Two conclusions: first, public health is always about PR rather than results. Second, the things we are seeing during COVID have a long, long history.
What if you can't have it? Typical American: "lotta want," not a lotta "need." Why not relocate to Bougainville Island? There you'll encounter few state-directed medical strictures. In fact, you're unlikely to encounter very little organized medical treatment there. Maximal freedom, minimal governance. You're occupying the wrong outpost...
If iv*rmectin was so ineffective, they wouldn't be so against it. Nobody cares about cranks who talk about how the earth is flat or if the moon landing wasn't real, or who advocate taking horse painkillers like ketamine to treat mental health issues - yet they're very concerned with shutting this topic down. Why?
Three words: Emergency Use Authorization
Or how about "vaccine is ineffective". Two Pfizer shots Apr 15 and May 2; caught COVID with a positive test on 8/19. MIL had her J&J shot in late June, caught COVID with a positive test date of 8/24.
Outcomes for the two of us were totally similar with my wife's, who took no vaccine but IS taking ivermectin. Positive test on 8/24, asymptomatic now.
Shhh. Natural immunity is not to be discussed. It doesn't exist.
Try this one on: current policies dictate that after a positive COVID test, you're considered infectious and _no one can visit you_. My wife broke her leg last weekend and my MIL had some heart palpitations caused by overly thin blood as a result of the cold medications she was taking for COVID interacting with the warfarin she takes. In both cases I couldn't even visit them or act as an advocate in the hospital because I was going to catch the COVID I probably brought home to them in the first place and was definitely immune to.
I know public health policy is hard, but this is exceedingly dumb at this point.
Amen. I wouldn't say I've been ignoring policy, for example, I wear masks because they are easy and I dont want to cause a fuss, the people at my grocer don't get paid enough to deal with it, but at some point, ignoring the authorities becomes the only viable way of dealing with them.
I live in a lake community south of Charlotte, NC, so I am in SC but on the border with NC. NC has a mask mandate and SC doesn't. I simply refuse to go over the border for anything anymore, despite my typical errands being in both states. I just... can't. No more masking. I've switched my favorite grocery store from one that was in NC to one here and we are avoiding some of our NC restaurants and gym due to this.
My state (WV) has no mandate. I like this. That said, I wear a mask because of my scrape with COVID. I'm technically not contagious and haven't been for a week or so now, but I can wear it a while longer and use a lot of hand sanitizer and not touch things I am not taking with me.
Even though i'm going to wear a mask, I avoid MD and VA with their mandates. I live in the eastern panhandle near DC, so going to either of the above is about as convenient as going within WV, but not going to support that.
I have seen very little evidence that masks reduce transmission. It seems mostly to be used as means of preventing social contact between people, thereby delaying cases. I think the Delta thing may have taught us a thing or two about delaying cases. Or not.
To be clear, I am saying we might have done better to let this burn through the population last year rather than delaying until a much more virulent strain showed up.
I donтАЩt think there is much doubt about that but there were elections to win.
I'm vaxxed as of mid June but saw this yesterday and it makes a lot of sense to me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DOOZpGA_VI
SHOCKED YouTube hasn't taken it down!
They'd have a hard time justifying taking down the proceedings of the Michigan House. They (the online giants) all realize just how close to the edge of being winked out of existence they are.
They took this one down. https://news.yahoo.com/youtube-removes-video-desantis-medical-123609052.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall
We need to cite the censorship when the time comes to destroy the online behemoths.
I admire her ability to throw woketard language right back at them.
So refreshing!
I was not impressed with her claims, far too absolutist and just plain wrong on the main count: the vaccinated are not reeling from the Delta variant, the unvaccinated are.
Here claim that receiving the flu vaccine over several years sets the person up for more extreme symptomology makes no sense; it is as if prior vaccinations - a stronger immune system - is deleterious in the face of a new mutation.
In the case of COVID, the initial form or mutant is just as effectively countered by the vaccinations as are the subsequent mutations. There is not that much difference.
It is also absurd to claim that vaccinated persons are transmitting the virus. What is the action of the vaccination? catch and release? No, viral pathogens that enter a vaccinated person are destroyed by the immune system. A vaccinated person is neither symptomatic nor transmitting the virus: canтАЩt get it canтАЩt give it.
Exceptions like long COVID or people testing pos after vax should be examined more carefully for other diseases. Flu symptoms can arise from many other causes, e.g. allergies!
Bottom line: ERтАЩs are flooded by the unvaccinated!
YouтАЩre unusually low IQ. Even for someone with an тАЬI believeтАЭ sign on his lawn.
Really? Have you looked at Israel, UK, Seychelles? Their rates of infection mirror the rates of vax vs unvaxxed almost perfectly.
тАЬ 95% of the severe patients are vaccinated.тАЭ Furthermore, тАЬ85-90% of the hospitalizations are in fully vaccinated peopleтАЭ and the hospital is тАЬopening more and more COVID wards.тАЭ
https://www.visiontimes.com/2021/08/08/israel-hospital-vaccinated.html
Israel's 20% Unvaccinated Now Account for Half of All Serious COVID-19 Cases
Looks like a fact-check issue, when the figure is 72 cases, it does seem relevant.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-covid-unvaccinated-half-serious-cases-delta-pfizer-1.10146662
Where's the data to back up your claims? Seems we can't get real data...CDC isn't counting breakthrough cases any more? Any contact tracing of those people? How do we know. The point is the narrative (as is your go-to) that only the unvaccinated are the problem and thus they MUST get vaccinated, is always the only argument!
ItтАЩs already been revealed that the тАЬpAndemIc of tHe unVaccinAtedтАЭ press release relied on pre delta data from March, to the shock of a number of scientists. Iverson had a little piece on it but I donтАЩt think she talked in much detail. The cultists simultaneously claim the pandemic is spreading only among the unvaccinated AND the vaccines were never designed to limit spread to begin with. What?
Being one of the vaxxed who got COVID, I call bullshit on the whole thing.
That said, that King County data, if you dig into it, shows the average COVID positive person to be black or Hispanic or native and somewhere between 20 and 29. Demographically, they'll be located south of SeaTac in a bunch of not very attractive neigborhoods (in comparison to say Redmond or Bellevue).
Wow, we've discovered that the relatively (and I say relatively because the Seattle area is pretty well to do compared to most of the rest of the country) disadvantaged neighborhoods filled with young minorities both don't get vaccinated _and_ transmit COVID like crazy compared to more staid places. Shocking.
I'm waiting to see how the Trumpsters are somehow responsible for this.
https://publichealthinsider.com/2021/09/03/new-data-dashboard-tracks-covid-19-risk-for-unvaccinated-people-compared-to-vaccinated-people/
King County? You gotta do better than that!
Yep. Got COVID the first time before vax was available, in May of 2020. Mild case.
Got the double vax this year and just recovered from the Delta varient. Mild case as well. Not getting the booster.
Wow! You should be anti-bodied to the max by now!
Yeah, until the next strain comes around! I can't figure out if my immune system is awesome (mild cases) or awful (keep getting it). At this rate, I'll get the next varient but will probably not even notice. "Wait, I thought I had a sniffle there for a moment.. nah, I'm fine."
Right? I've been taking Vit C, Vit D, zinc and elderberry for the last 18 months. What to do to boost one's immunity was also dropped from social media in the early months. That will also confound and anger me!
I heard about a guy who was wearing a seatbelt and Still got injured in a car crash. Worse than somebody else who crashed who wasnтАЩt wearing a seatbelt.
So your hur hur hur response citing anecdotal evidence is pointless. The vaccine wasn't supposed to stop people from getting infected in the first place, it was only designed to lessen symptoms in the original COVID-19 virus. Its effect on Delta is spotty at best.
This lie to the American public, at least by omission, is further harming government credibility, as if it could get much worse. No one wants a booster shot that is not effective against Delta. No one wants a vaccine that doesn't stop you from getting the disease. Even if it is effective in that manner against the original COVID-19, that is not what is floating around now, and certainly not what will be floating around in 6 months if the medical professionals I talk to have any credibility.
It took getting the disease and then researching this to find out the answer, which is that we were all sold a bill of goods.
You, you wife, and your mother in law? CanтАЩt argue with that sampling of the population!
Lets talk about the control groups that were intentionally destroyed for the mRNA vaccines. You know, "Real Science".
Well yeah, nothing but what you think is true is true if you can discredit everything as anecdotal except sanctified data.
Exactly. Follow the money.
And follow the egos. Fauci has been beating the vaccine drum for decades. He was instrumental in spending gobs of money on a failed HIV vaccine and steering money away from therapeutics.
He was instrumental in funding the research that caused the current pandemic.
OH SHIT DID I SAY THAT OUT LOUD?
I wonder what he thinks the endgame is for him. If nothing else, the historians will get him. A big mea culpa now would probably have a better result long term.
As was Collins and the DOD.
The idea that the DOD was funding viral research in China is rather mind-boggling in its stupidity.
And if it was supposedly to gain all these insights into bat-origin coronaviruses, as Peter Daszak told Fauci in his email, why do these people never seem to have a clue? What did we ACTUALLY get for the money we spent?
We got Fauci, a well intentioned bureaucratic bumbler, who's found his perfect environment.
He's a thief - he stole the discovery of HIV from Montagnier, who had sent it to him. Court case required him to split the proceeds with Montagnier.
@Charles
Precisely the same way that Gates built Microsoft. Wine and dine people with great developments, tempt them with partnership in Microsoft, "roll them" for their product following disclosure, and claim for Microsoft as "pioneering" software.
Rephrase the question: If the research was conducted to help us prepare for a global bat-origin coronavirus pandemic, why was the program shut down the moment just such a bat-origin coronavirus began?
You're choosing the wrong dots to connect. Sometimes things are much simpler than imagined byzantine storylines. Sometimes really simple, but astoundingly stupid, stuff happens, then complex storylines are developed to support the idea of a wildly serpentine series of events.
My storyline is very simple: Stupid people committed stupid acts. Someone goofed. The stupid people stopped what they were doing and circled the wagons to cover up the mess.
I'm not claiming there was any nefarious scheme to unleash a global pandemic. In fact, my usual answer to "conspiracy theories" is just that: no one is conspiring, they are too stupid for that. They are simply powerful people permitted through their power to allow their daily fuckwittery to have far-reaching, devastating consequences for many, many other people (unlike the daily fuckwittery of you or I).
Where is seem to wander into "conspiracy" territory is I don't think their positions should protect them from scrutiny. Apparently in 2021 that makes me some kind of Alex Jones grade nut.
I'm just here to thank you for introducing me to the term "fuckwittery". Cheers!
Well, if you remember, Trump started China bashing. Our side put the kibosh on funding that because, "Jabber-jabber squawk - China!" China got paranoid, which was sensible of them.
False. Trump shut down the funding - AFTER China closed the database.
Trump isn't ALWAYS wrong, just frequently.
Speaking as one of those who downloaded that database to look for linkages to COVID-19, um, THAT is what we got. We got that data. You know, all those sequences that tell us: A. No evidence it came from Wuhan lab. B. That it is fairly closely related to some bat sequences in China and Vietnam.
You mean they didn't write down the incriminating ones? I sure wouldn't. They locked up their database just as the first cases appeared.
The Arpanet was a DoD funded research project. So was CPOF - it's the main C2 tool used in the Army for something like 15 of the last 20 years. So sometimes the research dollars produce results. But the DoD also invests in stupid things, as you cite above. Its location in China wasn't necessarily dumb from a national security perspective as long as nothing classified was transmitted, i.e. the data flow was all one way. The research itself probably was stupid.
The research itself was not stupid. Wildly dangerous, many will argue for and against the research from innumerable viewpoints, but it was not stupid, if one is interested in developing effective medicines.
@Kurtocracy
yeah ..... OR effective bioweapons !
Everything turns into weapons or sex eventually. Humans seem built for both.
No, it was not "wildly dangerous" to collect such viruses. Get a grip.
So why did they (usually) wear full protective gear?
Oh, and: how did a Yunnan bat virus get to Wuhan, 1,000 miles away, with no trail of infections?
There is exactly one known vector.
OK. I don't know jack about that, I just know about military R&D. ;-)
I mean, you DO know that the viruses are still there whether or not you stick your head in the sand and refuse to look? You DO know that people go to collect bats for the market whether or not you stick your head in the sand?
Stupid? Not that research project. No. That isn't stupid.
You kinda lost me on those last couple postsтАж
I imagine so...
No it is not. It is very intelligent. Wildlife, and bats in particular, are the primary reservoir of coronaviruses. SARS-1 came from bats. So, it is smart to support (cheap) research on bat coronaviruses. If we had not done this, we WOULD NOT HAVE ANY data on bat coronaviruses in China.
So, youтАЩre the тАЬcrystal clearтАЭ explainer?
I think that eua thing has been debunked. The eua did not depend on suppressing information about other viable prophylactics
An EUA require non existent treatment alternatives.
Hydroxy cloroquin and ivermectin are old drugs that are very safe and very cheap. Big pharma would rather have us using drugs like Remdesavir that cost $3,000 per treatment.
Working in pharma, this is true. Remdesavir should not have been approved in my opinion. It's a lousy drug that barely works.
From same comment mentioned above (IM Doc on Naked Capitalism...)
"Remdesevir is loaded with all kinds of safety problems that I have seen with my own eyes. And it has the extra benefit of obviously not working тАУ it literally does not do a god damned thing. Multiple studies have hinted at this."
Seems to agree with you.
Yeah. I looked at the data. It sucked.
It was my understanding that remdasivir was given early on with mixed results. At that time no one knew WHAT worked and so doctors were trying all sorts of things.
"The agency added that the NIH has also determined there are currently insufficient data to recommend ivermectin for the treatment of COVID.
Not actually correct тАУ the NIH current status on ivermectin is there is not enough data to recommend OR to discourage its use. The NIH changed this recommendation in December of 2020 as previously the NIH status on ivermectin usage was to discourage its use. Usually the status in which ivermectin is now placed would be accompanied with all kinds of funds to study the true efficacy of the drug, to see if it is successful. That of course is not being done at this time.
Interestingly, 2 of our other COVID modalities have exactly the same recommend/discourage status. That would be remdesevir and outpatient monoclonal antibodies. EXACTLY the same status on both of these as ivermectin currently. The NIH states there is not enough evidence to recommend or to discourage the use of either of these.
And yet we continue right on with both the others without a blink of an eye.
A little math тАУ
Ivermectin course for COVID is less than twenty dollars.
A course of REMDESEVIR is currently right at 8800 dollars.
An outpatient treatment with monoclonal antibodies is right at 23000 тАУ 25000 dollars with all the infusion costs added."
Hat tip to IM Doc (commentariat on Naked Capitalism....best source for info on Covid I've found...)
I don't have a link to hand, but apparently there are THREE
major, controlled studies of efficacy going on, two in the US and one in Britain. So the FDA, or somebody with money, thinks it's worth a try - not at all what they're telling us. It would be unethical to trial a drug with no reason to think it might work.
@Charles
Dude, I KNOW that you are fully aware that Big Pharma, and "unethical" are *not mutually exclusive concepts ! The "somebody with money" of your *own statement really was NOT, as you note, the FDA ! The FDA could even be the one to "initiate the action", but they are *not the motive power behind this SARS Co V 2 racket.
This idea that "they're censoring it so it must work" is stupid. I don't agree with the censorship and I don't know if ivermectin works or not (though I lean towards thinking it doesn't based on the principle of something sounding too good to be true probably being so). It makes perfect sense to me why someone who believes censorship is justified to save lives would want to stop what they see as a quack bullshit treatment being recommended online. If people think they're being protected by the ivermectin they took when they aren't, it could lead to people to avoid taking any other protective measures against Covid, thus spreading the disease to people who are at risk, or dying from it themselves.
Yes. Ivermectin is a drug that if you get COVID, I would say to use. But get vaccinated FFS. It's not perfect, but Ivermectin is far less effective.
My wife refused to get vaccinated but took ivermectin when she got Delta. I don't know what to say about it, the holistic treehugger types she works with are dead set against what they call 'unnecessary' vaccination. Their belief structures seem to be that the immune system is zero sum and if you attenuate it for one disease, you're making it less effective against others.
I don't feel confident enough to argue too hard against this, but I don't personally believe it. I got vaccinated and I probably have more vaccines in me than most - 2 heps, anthrax, probably one of the rare people that has had a smallpox booster in this century, a few others courtesy of Uncle Sam. Come to me with a needle with a vaccine in it and i'll offer up an arm.
It's just wrong. The immune system eventually wears out, if you live that long. By the time you are 112, you may be down to one or 2 clone lineages of B and T cells. So you won't mount a great response. But, the design of living organisms is that they are self-renewing colonies of trillions of cells that work together. The immune system can keep fielding new challenges just fine. In fact, allergies are an instance of immune systems not having enough to work on. So, kind of like a bored kid, those cells find SOMETHING to do. (Like the time when I, at the age of 7 got a saw for Christmas from my father. It was supposed to saw through steel and wood, anything. Bored me, I tried it out on my dad's rolltop desk... :-D It's funny now. It wasn't then. Anyway, an immune system without enough to do is something like that.)
There are people that inject snake venoms to the point that they are hyper-immune and can take a mortal dose of venom without serious harm. It still hurts terribly, but they recover in a day or so. The only indications I have on those people is that they have better health for longer lives.
@Brian
If the Immune System eventually "wears out", then I am damned glad that no one seems to have Polio anymore ! I also had Chicken Pox, Mumps, and Measles the "old fashioned" way. With the exception of Shingles as a "gift" from Chicken Pox, Mumps, and Measles do not "come back" either ! This I have proven by taking care of children who also had Mumps and Measles in *spite of having also been injected with today's "foolproof" vaccines for BOTH !
As to "if you live long enough", that condition also applies to ALL males dying of prostate cancer. In my Seventies, I don't have a trace of it, but IF I LIVE LONG ENOUGH ...... what does *that mean ? When Methuselah becomes *MY little brother ? Sheeee-*IT ! ;-D ;-D
Thanks for putting this out there. Immune systems age like all the other body parts.
@Waiting
Indeed, they DO, but all that tells us is that "eventually *Somethin' gonna kill yuh ! I do not regard that as particularly "new" news.
Most old timers who are taken out by virus, usually go via flu going into pleuresy/pneumonia. But, there is *still falling down stairs ....etc. You get the drift ! ;-D
@HBI
The commenter, previously billing himself on this queue as "Brian The Scientist", rarely bothers impeding himself with actual facts, altho he will *claim the knowledge of the gawds on most all subject of science. Brian finally "trimmed" his original self-chosen online handle when sufficient numbers of commenters proved him *wrong on the bulk of his "scientific" claims. So, consider this an "unofficial", and definitely "unsolicited" bit of background trivia. ;-D ;-D I would go with trusting your OWN experience, as I see that you usually do.
And, yes. Troops going to Vietnam were subjected to 21 Overseas shots, administered by *air gun as the troops were slow marched by the medics. Frequently "off target", the air guns could either administer the shot, OR rip a long divot in your skin due to the movement of the march.
They still used air guns at Benning but they had us stand still for them, thank goodness. Still a lot of shots in rapid fire fashion. All our upper arms were aching that night.
It was kinda funny in one respect. The soldier wielding the air gun on my left arm complained about how hard it was to get a shot in on my arm. I didn't tell him it was one of my prime insulin injection sites and had seen a LOT of needles. Since insulin dependent people aren't supposed to deploy and my G6 (the guy in that picture) went the extra mile to get me signed off by the divisional doctor AND tossed a little fridge into one of the ISU-90s (half a Conex, air transport container) to keep the insulin cold over where we were going.
I like to get all kinds of opinions. Some people I disagree with even when i'm soliciting same, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
@HBI
By all *means, do all of your own research ! Yes ! I guessed that you probably *did remember Brian from the days of the longer title. I just posted under the principle of: "Better to *have redundant info and not *need it, than the obverse !" ;-D
She should have take Thalidomide. More effective than ivermectin.
Dale Carnegie would suggest you're an asshole. I agree.
Thalidomide was completely OKd by the FDA and CDC.
Someone got a Presidential medal for refusing to approve it in its initial form for morning sickness, unlike in say Germany or Canada where lots of deformed babies were born. It only got approved in the US later for treatment of particular cancers with all kinds of safeguards against pregnancy or even semen going from man to partner, it can apparently be carried in there too. Even with all that, there are affected births every year. Because compliance.
It's got a side effect list that is quite long even if you ignore the teratogenic qualities. Causes circulatory issues, etc.
Only if she is pregnant though тАж or if she is drowning in an ocean of stupidity
Great point. We have a lot more to learn about this virus and itтАЩs treatments
((($$$$)))
They protest too much.
Interesting discussion by the two prime movers behind ivermectin and Bret Weinstein. https://odysee.com/@FrontlineCovid19CriticalCareAlliance:c/Weekly_Update_SupressionofGoodScience:3
How about letting us make our own decisions and deal with the consequences. AKA freedom
Your decisions effect people besides you.
And just how far do you want to take that line of reasoning? I want maximal freedom and minimal governance/state.
Public health is a funny thing. That adage about the freedom of your fist ends at my nose seems apropos. On the other hand, if you are going to use authoritarian measures like quarantines, you need to make a good faith argument that the solutions actually solve something.
That's been the thing missing here. Not even being able to discuss it (generally) is hardly helping.
That's the rub, isn't it? If the public health "authorities" have been shown to be absolutely incompetent, let alone lying and wrong, then the "your decisions affect other people..." arguments tend to lose validity because NOBODY SEEMS TO KNOW WHAT IS BEST FOR PUBLIC HEALTH. Fauci told the country that masks were not necessary...and then admitted he lied to preserve supplies for health care workers. A noble lie but a lie none the less. Credibility cost was/is huge. Ivermectin is just the latest example...
As I think Taibbi is arguing (acknowledging his focus on censorship and the exchange of ideas), if we lived in a society that respected its members as free and capable, we could discuss these issues and find solutions.
We don't live in a society that respects its members.
A "society" is an organized collection of "its members." We live in a "nation" where the majority of its "members," accurately observed, might as well be chained to the basement radiator when their "freedom" is on the table for discussion.
These "members" are governed by an "elite" who act as benevolent but suspicious overseers, who believe this state of affairs is more than satisfactory. For these very same elites not only hold minimal respect for these "societal members," it's ever increasingly difficult for them to mask their contempt for the whole lot of'em.
Indeed, the "members," along with their "freedom," are easily and casually dismissed, and the "members" are assumed by the "elites" to be little more than a rabble of ignorant, superstitious, inflammatory dolts. More often than not, these elites are correct in this assumption.
Yeah - but the PTB might not like those solutions.
It's too bad our wonderful 2-Party BOTH cut the hell out of public health (or anything public) in the name of "neoliberalism". So, the rich get richer and the rest of us get sick.
I'll remind you that the government kept vilifying people like Typhoid Mary rather than curing the disease until the science caught up. The vaccines for Typhoid were not particularly effective and only the onset of common antibiotics around WWII caused it to recede into memory.
Two conclusions: first, public health is always about PR rather than results. Second, the things we are seeing during COVID have a long, long history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon#/media/File:Mallon-Mary_01.jpg
Yea, the problem is obviously not spending MORE money on insert issue hereтАж ЁЯСМ
What if you can't have it? Typical American: "lotta want," not a lotta "need." Why not relocate to Bougainville Island? There you'll encounter few state-directed medical strictures. In fact, you're unlikely to encounter very little organized medical treatment there. Maximal freedom, minimal governance. You're occupying the wrong outpost...
That sounds nice. Maybe IтАЩll retire there.
No shit, Sherlock.
Who decides what I decide, if it isn't me?